The Long Way Home

by Lauraine Snelling

  ‘‘Thanks for the food—and the information.’’ He had no idea what he’d do with that information, but he now knew what a horse felt like with a burr under the saddle. The burr was named Jesselynn Highwood, and in spite of all his efforts, she clung closer than his skin. What a fool he’d been to let her go.

  He dropped his dishes off at the window and exited to the captain’s office. He didn’t need to ask directions, although what the captain was doing in his office instead of being home with his family only brought up more questions. Was there more going on here than it had seemed when he had brought the wagon train through?

  The orderly passed him on through, and Wolf shook hands with the blue-coated officer behind the desk. Obediah Jensen had a reputation as a spit-and-polish man, and his appearance this late in the day bore that up. He also had a reputation as a fair man who believed keeping the peace between Indian and white was his primary job. And supplying wagon trains, so they kept moving on through Indian territory, was only part of that.

  ‘‘Have a seat,’’ Captain Jensen said, indicating the chair with a sweep of his hand. ‘‘Thought you were going on home—to Red Cloud’s tribe, wasn’t it?’’

  ‘‘I was and am.’’

  The captain reached for the humidor that reigned on a corner of his desk and held it out to Wolf. Then, at Wolf ’s gesture of refusal, he extracted a cigar, bit the tip off, and lighted it. After two puffs he leaned back and blew the smoke at the ceiling. ‘‘How long since you been up there?’’

  ‘‘Too long.’’

  ‘‘Kept in touch?’’

  Wolf gave him a level stare. The captain knew the Oglala did not read or write. Those were two things Wolf hoped to change.

  ‘‘I see.’’ Captain Jensen appeared to be in deep thought.

  Wolf sat as still as if he were hunting, his quarry in sight but too far for an arrow to hit. He never had cared for cigar smoke. Nor the chewing of tobacco. Nor the white man’s firewater. His rifle, however, was another matter.

  The captain leaned forward, forearms on the desk. ‘‘I have a proposition for you.’’

  Wolf quirked an eyebrow.

  ‘‘I need to know what Red Cloud’s band is planning.’’

  So do I, if I am going to help keep them alive.

  ‘‘They have got to quit attacking wagon trains—not that it’s been his band raiding the trains, but the Sioux in general.’’

  ‘‘Red Cloud can’t speak for all the Sioux.’’

  ‘‘I know that, but he is gaining in leadership. I hoped you could be an influence on him.’’

  ‘‘And come running to you if he chooses to wage war on the whites?’’

  ‘‘I wouldn’t put it quite thataway.’’

  Again the raised eyebrow. ‘‘The tribes have been warring on each other since time began.’’

  ‘‘I know, and I have no trouble with that. Just leave the white men alone.’’

  ‘‘But when white men settle on tribal lands—’’

  ‘‘Or kill off the buffalo—I know all the arguments, Torstead.’’ The captain tapped off his ash in the pewter tray on the side of the desk. ‘‘Let me reiterate. I want to keep everyone alive. If the Indians steal horses or oxen from the wagon trains, the settlers won’t get through to Oregon. They might choose to stay here instead. Can you understand me?’’

  The look Wolf sent him said he understood all too well and didn’t much care for the tone the captain was taking.

  ‘‘Well, you think on it. In the meantime, I wondered if you would take a couple of men out hunting. Our meat supply is running out, and I know you can locate elk far more swiftly than my men ever could. A couple days shouldn’t make a big difference in your journey north.’’

  When he could see Wolf was about to decline, he added, ‘‘I’ll pay you in blankets, grain, whatever you want from the stores. Anything but rifles and whiskey.’’

  ‘‘Done.’’ Wolf extended his hand as he rose. ‘‘We leave at first light. Tell your men to bring packhorses.’’

  But when he rolled up in his bedroll in the livery, visions of Jesselynn Highwood kept Wolf awake. Maybe after he got things going in the direction he knew was necessary for his tribe, he would make a trip to Oregon. And maybe the mountains would fall flat.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Richmond, Virginia

  July 1863

  Louisa Highwood heard them crying in her sleep.

  ‘‘Dear, dear, Louisa, what is it?’’ Aunt Sylvania, mobcap askew, leaned over Louisa’s bed. She laid a gentle hand along Louisa’s cheek and patted softly.

  ‘‘Wh . . . what’s wrong?’’ Louisa shook her head and half sat up. She stared around the room into the corners that missed the light from the candle Sylvania held. Louisa flopped back on her pillows. ‘‘There’s no one here. Oh, thank God.’’ She turned to look at her aunt. ‘‘They wouldn’t stop crying, the groaning . . . ah, there was nothing I could do.’’ She rolled her head from side to side. ‘‘They’re dying, Aunt. All the men are dying.’’

  ‘‘There now. You’ve been having bad dreams is all. Go on back to sleep. You are doing all you can.’’

  A groan floated up the stairs from one of the soldiers recuperating from war wounds, who were now sleeping on pallets in Sylvania’s dining room and parlor. Many houses in the city of Richmond and across the South were being used for nursing homes for the soldiers, overflow from the heinously overcrowded hospitals.

  Louisa started to throw back her sheet, but Sylvania laid a hand on hers. ‘‘Reuben will take care of them. You sleep.’’

  Louisa knew Reuben was as exhausted as she, but that thought would not enter Sylvania’s head. Kind as she was to her people, and though they were no longer slaves, she expected them to do all the heavy labor and the cooking and washing, just because that was the way it had always been. The blacks took care of the whites, and the whites provided homes and necessities for their people.

  ‘‘Thank you, Aunt, I will. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’’ Tired didn’t begin to describe how Louisa felt. And it wasn’t just muscle tired. Weariness of body and mind had crept into her soul, and no matter how diligently she read her Bible, soul weariness took more than a night’s sleep to restore. During the day she covered her inner turmoil with a smile and a sprightly step, but at night, when she was asleep, they would come to her. Her boys, her friends, her fiancé—all gone on to their heavenly home.

  She’d begun to think that if the war kept on much longer, there would be no one left to bar the doors against the conquering bluebellies. ‘‘Oh, Lord, how long?’’ Her whisper seemed trapped within the mosquito netting, unable to ascend to the throne above.

  While the Union troops had yet to enter Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy bore her battle scars from the repelled attack proudly. As Louisa well knew, pride was never lacking in the South. But the war that they’d thought to win in weeks had been raging for months and into years. Perhaps Christ would come again before it was over.

  ‘‘Anytime, Lord, anytime.’’ Her mother and father would be waiting to welcome her and the rest of them home. Home, where there’d be no sorrow, no tears, and no more war. Instead of going back to sleep, Louisa rose and crossed to the white-curtained window. The elm trees in the front yard whispered to one another, a nightingale warbled, the crickets sawed. A dog barked somewhere down the street. Night sounds, emissaries of comfort and peace. At least they no longer heard the rattle of rifles and the terrible cannonading of the heavy artillery.

  The breeze cooled her skin. She laid her cheek on her hands crossed on the windowsill and fell immediately back to sleep until she slipped sideways and jolted awake. Crawling back in bed, she hugged her pillow. ‘‘And, Lord, please take care of Jesselynn and all the others.’’

  Perhaps Gilbert will come today. Always her first thought on waking was of her first suitor and almost fiancé. She turned her face into the pillow. Gilbert Lessling would never come. He’d perished in a train wre
ck. Lord God, you said you would gird me up with the strength of your right hand. Jesus, Savior, I need that strength—to even get out of bed.

  Staring in the mirror a few minutes later, she shook her head. Zachary, her brother, would take one look at the smudges beneath her eyes and send her up for a nap. In spite of losing a foot, a hand, and an eye in battle, he figured she shouldn’t be working so hard. ‘‘Ha.’’ She combed her hair back from her face and let the curls hang down her back. Two ivory combs held the masses back and out of her way. She should be wearing her hair bound in a snood, but the men appreciated her looking young like their little sisters back home.

  She pinched some color into her cheeks, dusted powder under her eyes, and brushed any loose hairs off the shoulders of her day gown, which was so badly faded one could hardly see the tiny yellow and white daisies that graced a sky-blue background. Tying her apron, she realized the bow was bigger because her waist no longer needed a corset, even if there were such to be had. She’d used all the bone stays for wrist and finger and arm supports for her boys.

  Louisa did not consider a lack of corsets a terrible deprivation of war, even though her baby sister, now nearly eight months pregnant, could hardly wait to be laced up again. But then Carrie Mae always did put fashion ahead of fact, even when they were girls growing up at Twin Oaks.

  Ordering herself to let the past be just that, the past, she pasted a smile on her face and tripped gaily down the stairs. ‘‘Good morning, brother dear.’’ She peeked into his study to find him already at his desk working on improving his handwriting, since he’d been forced to learn to write with his left hand. His right lay buried somewhere on a battlefield along with myriad amputated limbs.

  Zachary, dark hair falling over his broad brow, nodded and continued to dip the quill in the ink and form legible letters.

  ‘‘Can I get you anything?’’

  ‘‘Coffee?’’

  ‘‘I wish. Roasted oats with chicory will have to do.’’

  ‘‘Just so it is hot.’’ The frown pulled at the scar on the right side of his face, a scar that ended under the black patch he wore to cover the eyeless socket.

  She almost crossed to rub his shoulders but knew that he would grumble until he got his coffee. ‘‘Did you sleep well?’’

  Why are you dallying here? Get going before he growls at you for something else.

  ‘‘Need you ask?’’

  ‘‘I’ll get your coffee. Breakfast should be ready soon.’’

  After they’d fed the five guests, those who could feed themselves helping those who couldn’t, Louisa cleared the table and then set out the wool pieces that were slowly forming into a uniform coat. Those with two good hands learned to sew and knit. Those who had legs and at least one hand worked in the garden. She’d learned that the men recovered much faster if they could be busy and felt like they were doing something useful. The army always needed uniforms and wool stockings. The household always needed food.

  Aunt Sylvania alternately read from either the Bible or Shakespeare and corrected their sewing before they would have to rip out their painful stitches.

  Louisa took up a basket and escaped out the back door to the garden. While picking feverfew and other herbs to hang to dry, she encouraged her two garden helpers.

  ‘‘Ned, if you will cut the potatoes so that each piece has an eye, we can replant that section over there.’’ She pointed to the bare spot they’d dug the day before.

  ‘‘Yes, Miss Louisa, be glad to.’’

  ‘‘You want I should clean out the chicken house and turn it into the compost pile?’’ Due to a throat injury, her other young man sounded more like a rasping file than a man, but he made himself understood.

  ‘‘Yes, that would be wonderful. Take the eggs in to Abby, if you please. Perhaps she’ll make us lemon cookies for afternoon tea.’’

  He nodded. ‘‘That be good.’’ As he turned to go, Louisa felt a clenching around her heart. He’d be sent back to his unit, or some other, any day now. No matter that his wound had been near mortal, he was well enough to carry a rifle again and willing to do his duty.

  Duty. How she was coming to hate that word.

  About midmorning she heard a carriage stop in front of the house. Dusting off her hands, she smoothed her apron, just in case it was someone for her. She glanced down. She needed a clean apron.

  ‘‘Is Louisa here?’’ Carrie Mae’s voice tinkled through the open doors.

  ‘‘I most surely am,’’ Louisa called back. ‘‘Come out here and sit in the shade.’’ She met her sister at the door. ‘‘How ever did you get away in your condition?’’ she murmured in her ear while giving her a loving hug. ‘‘Mama would take a switch to you for being out in public like that.’’

  ‘‘I’m not in public. I’m here visiting my sister who never takes time to come to me so that I don’t have to go out.’’ Carrie Mae lowered herself carefully onto the lounge. ‘‘It will take three men and a pulley to get me up again, but ah . . .’’ She slumped into the comfort of the cushions. The shade from the ancient magnolia tree dappled her face as she removed her wide-brimmed straw hat. The strip of pink gauze bound round its crown hung over the edge of the settee.

  ‘‘Is that new?’’ Louisa’s voice squeaked on the final word.

  ‘‘Yes, Jefferson insisted that I needed something new to perk me up.’’ She fanned her face with the hat. ‘‘He heard that doldrums aren’t good for the baby.’’

  ‘‘And you have been in the doldrums?’’ Louisa eyed her sister’s ankles, or rather where her ankles should have been.

  ‘‘This heat. Our house is still not ready, and the flat gets no breeze at all.’’ She pulled her dimity dress away from her bosom. ‘‘Do you have any lemonade?’’

  Louisa patted her sister’s shoulder. ‘‘I’ll be right back. I’ll bring some cold cloths too.’’ While on one hand she could tell Carrie Mae was indeed in distress, on the other, her lack of concern for the suffering soldiers went so far against their mother’s teachings that Louisa wanted to shake her younger sister. She’d married an attorney, Jefferson Steadly, who’d lost an arm in the war, so one could not say he had not done his part. He was now an assistant to one of the local senators, and he and his young wife had become members of the congress with all the society obligations his position entailed. Balls, soirées, dinners, and teas kept Carrie Mae busy until lately, when one in her condition stayed home to knit booties or some such thing.

  Carrie Mae never had been one for knitting. She painted lovely watercolors, played both piano and harp with wonderful skill, entertained ranking officers and politicians, and believed she was doing her best for the war.

  Once in the kitchen, Louisa set the glasses on the tray with a bit more force than necessary, causing Abby, Aunt Sylvania’s maid, to raise an eyebrow. ‘‘Have we any cookies left?’’

  ‘‘I’se got dem right here.’’ Abby set a plate of molasses drops on the tray.

  ‘‘The boys need them worse than we do.’’ Louisa huffed one more time and lifted the tray. ‘‘Oh! Could you please bring a basin of cold water and a couple of cloths? Carrie Mae’s ankles don’t look good to me. But then what do I know about having babies?’’ And at the rate I’m going, I might never get the opportunity to find out.

  Louisa used her hip to push open the screen door and set the tray down on a low table by the lounge. Carrie Mae lay fast asleep, her eyelashes feathered over purple shadows under her eyes. Perspiration gathered on her upper lip, and her body seemed dwarfed by the huge mound under her thin dress.

  ‘‘Look like she have two in dere.’’ Abby knelt beside the young woman and, wringing out the cloths, applied one to each swollen ankle.

  Louisa brought out a collar to sew on while her sister slept.

  Oh, Mother, if only I had listened more when you were trying to train us to be good wives and mothers and to care for all the people at Twin Oaks. I was so young, so terribly young.

  When Zac
hary came out some time later, he took a chair next to his youngest sister and picked up a fan, waving it gently. ‘‘She looks tired.’’ His whisper made Louisa nod. ‘‘You think the baby is all right?’’ Another nod.

  ‘‘Are you two talking about me?’’ Carrie Mae stretched and smiled up at her brother. ‘‘Doze off for a minute, and you get all worried.’’

  ‘‘A minute?’’ Louisa smiled and shook her head. ‘‘You’ve been asleep for nigh unto two hours. I reckon you needed a good nap.’’

  ‘‘It’s the shade and the breeze and . . .’’ Carrie Mae inhaled deep. ‘‘And honeysuckle. I declare, that smells so fine.’’ She reached for one of the glasses of lemonade and took a sip. ‘‘And this tastes even better.’’ Her smile never quite reached her eyes. ‘‘I wish Mama were here.’’

  Louisa gathered her close, knowing that tears were pooling in her own eyes just as they were in Carrie Mae’s. ‘‘Me too, darlin’, me too.’’ She knelt by the lounger, holding her sister while she cried, and let her own tears flow unchecked.

  Zachary cleared his throat when the shower started to abate. ‘‘I take it this is usual behavior for a young woman in her . . . in her . . .’’ He waved in the general direction of the mound.

  ‘‘Oh, for mercy’s sake, say the word, pregnant. As if having a baby was an embarrassment instead of a joy.’’

  ‘‘Yes, well, I have some more correspondence to answer, so I shall leave you two to discuss female things.’’ He beat such a hasty retreat for a man with one leg that both his sisters suffered an attack of the giggles in spite of their tears.