Love and War: The Coltrane Saga, Book 1

by Patricia Hagan

  “How dare you?” Nancy took a few steps forward, sneering. “Everyone knows what you did when you went away, how you slept with all those Yankees. When Nathan realizes how foolish he is, he’ll be sorry he ever asked you to live here! Just wait and see. I wish you’d never come. It’s embarrassing to the family to have you here.”

  Kitty laughed. It might he embarrassing but they had certainly made use of her. None of the high-bred women who had gathered at the house knew anything at all about cooking. She’d had that chore to do, for they were helpless once the slaves ran away. She was aware of how Nathan’s aunts and cousins felt about her, but that was the least concern. She had made him a promise and she would keep it. And where else was there to go, anyway? She had learned upon returning that her mother was dead and even though the news hurt, it did not come as a surprise. Kitty had never expected to see Lena again after Luke Tate forced her away that night when her mother lay so deathly ill. With her father still away fighting for the North and their homeplace a pile of burned-out rubble, there was nowhere to go—and she had promised Nathan she would remain at his home till the war ended. Aching to go to Goldsboro and work at the hospital there, it was all she could do to stay out in the country away from everyone and all the war news. And most of all, she wanted to be back with the hospital staff.

  “I’m going to tell Mother Collins you refuse to come in.”

  “Nancy, I don’t care what you do. I wish you’d just go away and leave me alone, You’re so childish, so hateful. I can’t communicate with you and I don’t see that we have anything to talk about, anyway. Now please, just go away.”

  Kitty knew what she wanted—an argument. Nancy loved to goad and needle, but she was determined not to let her succeed in getting her riled. She had noticed how it infuriated the conceited girl if she just brushed her aside like a pesky mosquito.

  “Just you wait!” Nancy swished around and stomped down the rickety porch steps. “Just you wait till Nathan comes back and I tell him how you’ve behaved here, in his home—the way you’ve treated his relatives. A fine hostess you’d make for the Collins mansion, fine hostess, indeed! You haven’t got as much polish as a stinking nigra field hand!”

  Kitty hadn’t been paying much attention to Nancy’s ravings—she usually repeated herself every day, at least twice. But suddenly she sat up and saw the girl walking toward the road in the moonlight, head up, feet stomping her on her way.

  “Nancy, you come back here,” Kitty called apprehensively. “If there are foragers around, you have no business out there. You know the rules Lavinia gave us—no women out of the house after dark…”

  “Well, look at you,” she screamed into the night. “You sit out there brooding over all your Yankee lovers! Don’t tell me what to do!”

  Leaning back in her chair, Kitty said to hell with her. Let her wander around out there in the dark. If an owl hoots, she’ll run all the way back to the house, terrified. Maybe she deserved a good scare, anyway, to take her off her high horse.

  The days since Nathan left had dragged endlessly, slowly becoming weeks filled with terrible war news. Sherman had finally attacked and taken the city of Atlanta, leaving it in flames. Marching south to Savannah, Georgia, it had been said, the fierce General had telegraphed President Lincoln that he was giving him the city with one hundred and fifty guns and twenty-five thousand bales of cotton-for a Christmas present!

  Kitty shuddered. What of Nathan? Where was he? The last letter they had received arrived weeks ago, just before the occupation of Savannah. He had said they were fleeing Sherman, trying to regroup and gain strength before attacking. He hoped to be home soon. The letter was hurried, difficult to read. But where was he now? He could have been killed and in the confusion, his identity lost. They might never hear what happened to him.

  I’ve got to stop thinking this way, Kitty chided herself. The war would soon be over, and even if the South lost, somehow they would rebuild, unify; and Nathan would come home and they would marry and one day the searing memories would fade to a cold gray ash.

  The door squeaked. “Kitty, are you out there?”

  Recognizing the voice of Nathan’s Aunt Sue, Kitty acknowledged her presence. “Lord, child,” the woman hurried over. “You know Lavinia don’t want you outside like this. It isn’t safe. At least inside we do have a few guns, and we could barricade the doors and try to defend ourselves. If you sit here alone like this, some Yankee forager could come along and snatch you right off the porch, and…”

  “I’ll be fine, Aunt Sue. You go inside and see to Lavinia. Tomorrow I’m going to go to the hospital in town and get the medicine she needs. She’s very weak and frankly, I’m afraid she won’t live much longer.”

  The woman gasped, hand flying to her throat as the moonlight spilled out from behind a cloud bank. “Oh, Lordy, don’t say that about my blessed sister. She lives to see this war end. Don’t let her die…”

  Kitty spread her hands helplessly. “I’ve done all I can do. She was too weak and feeble before the fever ever set in. She hasn’t eaten properly, has let herself go…”

  “We all have.” Her voice cracked. “When my Lymon died at Gettysburg, all life ended for me. And when Lavinia lost Aaron, she just gave up. Sometimes I think we’d all be better off if we died—before the Yankees get to us first.”

  “We can’t give up hope.” Kitty tried to comfort the crying woman. “We have to have faith that all well be well one day.”

  But her words were of no comfort. The woman turned and fled back into the house. Kitty looked in the direction where Nancy had gone—toward the wooden farmhouse that stood just beyond the pecan grove. Sighing, she got up, went down the steps, and crossed the bare yard. The girl was so immature, so selfish and self-centered: she would have everyone worried half to death if they discovered her missing. And Nancy was certainly no outdoors person. She might have been raised in the country, but she knew nothing about the woods and scrublands about. She could get lost quite easily.

  The pecan trees were bare, their branches swaying slightly in the chilly night. Underneath, green hulls crunched beneath her feet as she scurried along, trying to watch where she stepped. And she cursed herself for vowing to Nathan that she would stay with his mother until he returned. This was not the place for her. She belonged in the hospital wards, helping the wounded, doing her part. What good was she doing here? Cooking, trying to find food. Certainly if hard-pressed, Nancy and the other pampered women would have the courage to get out and do for themselves.

  She saw the figures scuffling in the shadows before she could make out Nancy’s muffled screams. Heart thudding, Kitty plunged ahead toward the struggles, crying out, “What are you doing to her? Stop it, I say. Stop it.”

  And then they turned and she could make out the angry, chiseled features of three men dressed in mismatched Yankee uniforms. Foragers! Damned Yankee foragers who would steal, burn, plunder—and rape, at will!

  Nancy was trying to scramble away, but one of the men stepped down on her long hair, pinning it to the ground as she screamed with pain. Too late, Kitty realized she should have returned to the house for a gun. Perhaps she could outrun them. Turning, she started running across the grove, but the men were right behind her, grabbing her and slinging her to the ground—hard.

  One of them fell on top. “Well, well, I do believe we’ve got us some real treasure, boys. Best I can tell, this Rebel wench has a body to behold.”

  Ugly, nasty-sounding laughs ringed the air.

  “Let’s get the other one, too. We can have us a little party.”

  “Let’s take our pleasure and then move to the house and see what these Rebs have hidden.”

  “Yeah, maybe they have some liquor.”

  “Let’s go ahead and get some lovin’ right now. I ain’t had a woman since I screwed the eyeballs out of that nigger wench down in Georgia.”

  “These look prime…”

  Kitty was trying to scream against the nubby fingers pressed tigh
tly over her mouth. She could make out the dim figure bringing Nancy forward. Nancy had stopped struggling and was crying instead, deep, racking sobs shook her whole body.

  “Get ‘em naked. Build a fire. I want to see this stuff.”

  “Can’t have no fire. Might be some yokels around who’d come running with a musket. We’ll make a fire later, though, when we burn that goddamned house down.”

  “Please, no,” Nancy whispered hoarsely. “Don’t take me. I…I just had a baby. I…I still have a…”

  Her words were barely audible. “…bleeding…”

  “Oh, shit.” One of the foragers gave her a shove away. Then he turned to Kitty. “This right? This woman got a new baby? That means you got to please all of us.”

  “Oh, she can pleasure all of you,” Nancy was babbling, still backing away. “She used to be held prisoner by some Confederate deserters and I know they raped her over and over. She…knows what it’s all about. Spare me, please.”

  Kitty’s body was shaking with white-hot fury. How could Nancy do this to her? How could she lie to protect her own body, knowing full well the Yankee bastards would ravish her over and over again. How traitorous could that girl be?

  “You put up a fight and we’ll cut your throat, you hear?” A burly, sweat-stinking man was straddling Kitty, his uniform damp with perspiration. “Now, let’s get these clothes off…”

  He held a knife and picked at her bodice, then with one quick slash, tore it open. Her breasts spilled forward and he gasped, “Boys, come look at these. Oh, Lordy!”

  They gathered around. Kitty struggled, opened her lips to scream, but a dirty cloth was stuffed down into her mouth. She was helpless.

  “Oh, Bart, you hurry up and do it. I want some so bad.”

  “Yeah, Bart, you always get it first and don’t leave much for anybody else, the way you fuck your women…”

  The man above her was ripping at her skirt. “I’ll leave some of this, boys. It looks too good not to share. And I got a feelin’ from what I’m lookin’ at that she can take a whole hell of a lot of good, hard fuckin’.”

  “Hey!” someone shouted. “Get that other one. She’s running away.”

  Kitty twisted her head to see Nancy being thrown to the ground. “Tie her up,” the one on top of her ordered. “We don’t need no sick woman, but we don’t want nobody to come running outta that house with no gun. We can take care of what’s inside that place later. Right now, I got other business to take care of.”

  She was naked, her arms pinned painfully behind her back. The man called Bart moved his free hand up and down her body—pinching, squeezing, probing roughly. He was up on his knees, pants down around his ankles. “Leamon, come here and hold her arms above her head, I want to be free to really get goin’ here in a minute.”

  Someone stepped forward, yanked her arms up. Bart reached down, grabbed a handful of pubic hair, and squeezed, laughing with delight as Kitty gagged trying to scream out in pain. “Now I’ll make it good for you,” he hissed, blowing foul breath into her face. “I’ll make you feel good…real good.”

  He began to caress her, and in spite of her terror and loathing for him, a sweet-hot fire began to spread through her body. Against her will, she felt herself yielding. No, she told herself over and over, don’t react this way, don’t yield to his filth…no…don’t.

  She went limp. The man above her released his hold, moved back. Bart was entering her roughly, starting his thrust. A wave of panic went through Kitty. She could not stand it—his violation of her body—nor the way she had been so weak. Damn it to hell, she had vowed never to give in to the weakness that plagued womanhood.

  Her fingers groped in the dirt as he rammed into her. She felt the knife handle. In his excitement, in his lust, he had dropped his knife. Slowly, she wrapped her hand around it and before she could think about the moment at hand, Kitty brought the blade up and plunged it under his chin, felt the warm gush of blood splashing into her face at the same time as his scream of surprise and pain melted away in the gentle gurgling of his life’s blood as it oozed away.

  “What the hell…” one of the men cried, springing forward. But Kitty was in control of herself. She shoved the dying man to one side, then leaped to her feet, still naked, knife held ominously. He stepped forward, bent over his comrade, and Kitty brought the blade down into his back. He had seen his friend slump forward, heard his melting scream, but had not seen Kitty with a knife. It was a fatal mistake.

  Kitty whipped around, ready for the third savage to step forward. When he did, stunned by what was going on, he saw the knife, glinting in spite of the blood upon the blade, and he began backing away. Kitty pulled her arm back, swung, and sent the knife slashing through the air. It caught in his left shoulder and stuck there. Screaming, he kept on running, disappearing into the thick woods beyond.

  She stared down at the two bodies—a ghastly sight in the silver moonlight. The blood sparkled like red stars in the night, glistening, gleaming. Blood. The blood of the enemy. The blood of those who would dare to violate her body because she was born a woman. No more. No more would they violate either body or soul—and God pity anyone who tried to defile or control her spirit, her will.

  She had been obedient to her vow. Kitty had honestly tried, she felt, to do as Nathan had asked. And what had it gotten her—hiding away in a rotting house with equally decaying people. This was not the place for her. Perhaps one day…but not now. Nathan would have to understand. He would have to if they were to love each other.

  And they would love each other. Nathan was gentle, kind, so different from the vicious animals she had known in the past few years. Travis would become a distant memory. She would bury him in her mind. When Nathan returned, all would work out. It had to. But for the present, kitty could not cope with the life he had inflicted upon her.

  Her torn clothes fell to the ground as Kitty started walking through the pecan grove, heading back to the house. Her body gleamed like that of a naked goddess come to life as she took firm, sure steps. It was over. All the indecision, the regrets—they were gone. She had tried. Now it had come to light.

  The sound of sobbing made Kitty jerk her head around. Beneath a pecan tree, perhaps only twenty feet away, Nancy Warren Stoner crouched, head in hands and sobbing convulsively. Turning, Kitty walked to her.

  The girl lifted her face. “I’m sorry, Kitty. I just had to lie. I couldn’t let them do that to me. I…I’m not used to such things.”

  “Are you saying I am?” Kitty screamed indignantly.

  “You…you’ve been through it,” Nancy spoke cautiously. “I…I felt you could withstand it better.”

  Kitty’s hand lashed out like a striking snake, cracking the girl soundly across her face. Then her hand swept down again, as Nancy gasped, stunned. Again and again, the sound of flesh striking flesh, over and over, till Nancy fell to her knees, covering her head, begging not to be hit again.

  “You wanted them to rape me,” Kitty whispered raggedly. “Perhaps in the end it would have happened anyway, but damn you, Nancy, you wanted it to happen so you could make up some vicious lie to tell Nathan. How could you? How could you hate anyone that much?”

  She spun around, head held high, walking naked through the pecan grove. Nancy’s hysterical sobs caught in the wind and drifted to her ears, but Kitty did not look back. She had no intention of taking a second glance at that hateful, traitorous girl nor the bloodied bodies of the two men she had just killed.

  “I’m going to keep right on walking,” she whispered out loud to the swaying tree limbs, the drifting clouds. “I’m going to keep walking straight ahead and never look back again.” And it was so easy, she realized, to keep on putting one foot in front of the other…and move away from the unpleasantness behind. All those years…all those tears and agonies and heartache. Walk away…keep going…don’t look back.

  Ahead, Nathan would await her. The war would end. Peace would come. Happiness. Joy. It was all in the future; as sur
ely as the sun would rise again, so it would set, and what transpired in between was gone forever. If it meant heartache, let the memories set with the sun, never to rise again on the same day. But if the time had been joyful, then raise the reflections of all the golden moments with the rising sun. That would be the way she would have to live.

  Walking up the steps, Kitty met the astonished eyes of Aunt Sue, who swayed dizzily at the sight and caught the railing to steady herself.

  Kitty nodded matter-of-factly, as though it were nothing out of the ordinary for her to walk in the house completely nude. “Don’t faint, Aunt Sue,” she said calmly. “Someone has to go out there and drag Nancy back here. New mothers should get their rest, you know.”

  Aunt Sue blinked. “New mothers? I don’t think I understand, dear. Are you sure you’re all right? I mean…” she turned her head away, embarrassed.

  “Oh, I’m quite fine. By the way, get one of the other women to go with you and take a shovel. I hope you’re strong enough to dig a hole big enough to throw two dead Yankees in. I just killed them.”

  With a soft moan, Aunt Sue slumped to the floor in a faint.

  Kitty kept on walking.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  In the light flickering from the lantern hanging overhead, the room took on a lonely glow. Kitty stood beside the wounded soldier, holding his hand as he lay prone upon the bloody table. Outside the cold February rain drizzled steadily downward, turning the ground into rivulets and pockets of mud and slush. Roads were impassable. Every available man in Goldsboro was out working to corduroy the road to Smithfield in an effort to get supplies to General Johnston’s army. Was Nathan there? She did not know. She had written to tell him of his mother’s death weeks ago, and had received no reply. Perhaps he, too, had gone to his grave. Blinking away the tears, she murmured a silent prayer that his life had been spared. God, they had both suffered too hard, for too long, to have death interrupt their future now.