A Heartbeat Away: Quilts of Love Series

by S. Dionne Moore

  His eyes popped open, a mirror for the fear that must have been spilling from hers. She scooted closer to the head of the bed and lowered her face to his side. His arm brushed against her back and settled there, his hand a solid comfort on her shoulder.

  “You never get used to it. Not if you think too hard.”

  She didn’t know if the words were meant to comfort or were just an observation. Footsteps alerted her. Gerta appeared in the wide doorway, tying on a clean apron. “You stay here. I’ll see if the soldier made it through the night.”

  “No, Grandmama.” Beth lunged to her feet and checked the woman’s momentum with a hand to her arm, a protective feeling toward the older woman trumping her own fear. Another shell struck. The floor rattled beneath their feet. Beth gathered her grandmother close as dust swirled around them. Gerta remained quiet, though her fingers gripped Beth tight until the vibrations settled.

  Beth glanced at Joe, his hand gripped hard on the edge of the cot, knuckles white. “Stay with Joe, I’ll check on the other.”

  “No.” Gerta sprang away from Beth’s grasp. “I have to check the wound. It’s easier if I go.” Gerta hesitated, hand on the doorknob. “Heat water. I’ll have to change the bandage on Joe’s shoulder next, and we don’t know what or who else we’ll see before the end of this.” She glanced at the window, which was still covered with a quilt.

  “At least I’ll be able to see you from the kitchen.”

  Gerta nodded and stretched up to yank the quilt down. Light spilled through the panes, slashing her grandmother’s face, revealing a wistful expression etched within the wrinkles and weathered skin. “It is good to feel the sunshine, it chases back the fears.” Despite the words, Gerta shuddered as if chilled by the rays of heat streaming through the glass. Beth joined her at the window, relishing the moment when her grandmother faced her and stroked Beth’s hair back from her face. A gesture so like her mother would make. A longing rose in her to retreat to her room and hold the quilt blocks against her cheek. Through their delicate, even stitches, she could absorb her mother’s love and concern for her.

  A knock on the door behind them pushed Beth’s heart into her throat. She turned, half expecting to see Confederates, begging for more food, or demanding it. She relaxed upon seeing the dark face of Jim’s oldest daughter, Emma.

  “Daddy sent me to you, Miz Bumgartner. Said he thought you could use the help, seeing as you gonna stay and all and the Pipers is leavin’ and don’t need me no more.”

  As her father was free, so was Emma. Gerta welcomed the woman, offering her food and reminding her: “You’ll be called on to work with the Rebs while you’re here.”

  “I’m not afraid. No use bein’ so, since I’m free. They’s nothing they can do to hurt me.”

  “Have the Pipers left already?”

  “It’s a mess over there. Rebs been tramping over ever’ inch of the house and orchard. General Longstreet had his supper there last night and told the family they should go.”

  “He took over the house?”

  Emma snorted. “The house, the barn. They’s everywhere.”

  “Where are they going?” Beth asked.

  “To Killiansburg Cave. Ramey done hollered out as they was leaving, begging for them to take her with them because she was so afraid to be left behind with them varmints taking hold of the house.”

  Ramey—Beth made the connection—the Pipers’ housemaid. She would have reason to be jittery about being left behind with Graybacks, what with the rumor of them not treating slaves with kindness. “What about your pa?”

  “He’s stayin’ at the house with Mr. Nisewander. He’s a stubborn one, that man. Said he wasn’t leaving his house no matter how close them Rebs is. Told Pa he could leave if’n he wanted.”

  Jim wouldn’t leave the man no matter what, Beth knew. “We’d welcome your help. There’s a wounded man—”

  Another shell whizzed through the air, the sound louder, closer. An explosion rocked the ground, a grinding sound ripped through the house. Emma screamed and covered her head with her apron. The front door blew open, slammed against the wall, and quaked on its hinges. Dust and debris streamed through the air, and grit burned across Beth’s cheeks as she huddled next to Emma.

  Deafened by the sound, it didn’t occur to Beth that the sounds of screaming weren’t of another shell until she saw her grandmother rise and run toward Joe. Beth joined Gerta on the opposite side of the cot as she talked softly to the terrified man. His gaze caught hers, and she white-knuckled the edge of the cot as she lowered herself to her knees beside him. His hand fumbled for hers. Gerta stroked the man’s forehead, motioning for her to say something. But words would not come. She lowered her face to their clasped hands and let the tears flow.

  She heard the rustle of skirts and knew Emma must have joined them as well.

  “Spooked by it all,” Gerta’s voice was a whisper. “Must stir his memories, poor boy.”

  “Spooks me and I’m not even a soldier.” Emma’s voice trembled.

  Shame crept up Beth’s spine. She dried her eyes and sat back, aware of Joe’s stare. He did not release her hand, and she didn’t let go either until Gerta’s movement caught her eye. Her grandmother had lifted her apron against her head and when she released the white fabric it was smeared with blood.

  “You’re hurt,” Beth said.

  “The door caught me.”

  Beth was on her feet, ripping a piece from her apron. Beneath her hands, Gerta’s skin felt papery soft, fragile. The bloody scrape was nothing more than superficial, but it offered something to focus on besides the noise and crashing around them.

  Gerta patted her arm. “I’ll be fine. Stop fussing.”

  Beth retreated a step. “The bleeding has stopped.”

  “Then I’ll check on the other soldier like I should have done fifteen minutes ago.” She studied Joe, then Beth. “Talk to him. Get his mind off what he’s hearing.”

  Beth reached to touch Joe’s arm, feeling his need. Though his eyes were closed, his breathing said he was awake and trying to staunch his fears. Joe needed to be safe. “We should move him, Grandmama.”

  Gerta pursed her lips and glanced over her shoulder. Emma had crept away from their huddle and was now using a broom to sweep the glass from the edges of the shattered window. “You’re right. We’ll take him to the cellar. The noise will be less there. Emma?”

  With Emma’s strong shoulder on one side and Beth’s on the other, Joe sat up. She could feel the bones beneath her hands, and the heat from his body radiated. If his fever became worse, she might lose him. His body could not take much more abuse in its weakened state. His knees buckled after a few steps. Beth slipped her arm around his waist, meeting Emma’s arm as she did the same. The extra support steadied him as they inched along toward the door and outside.

  “Take it slow, now,” Emma said.

  His legs, Beth saw, matched the emaciation of the rest of his body and she doubted the man capable of more than a few steps.

  “Be careful of that wound,” Gerta said. “I didn’t patch him up for you all to drop him and have him bleeding again.”

  “Maybe,” Emma grunted, “we shoulda rolled him in a blanket and—”

  Heat curled around them, the sun hot and forceful adding to the discomfort of working so closely with the feverish man. Beth’s arms were tingling from the burden as they stumped down the step from the porch, stopped to gain their breath, and gave Joe a chance to rest. His eyes were half-closed, sweat dripping down his face, which was red with the exertion.

  “Joe?”

  She could see him swallow, felt him try to take his own weight, but he was too weak and the effort too much.

  “We best get him down there before we lose him.” Emma redistributed his weight, and they moved forward. The cellar steps provided the biggest challenge. Gerta appeared with a long board that she placed over the stairs, and they laid Joe down, bracketing him on both sides and letting his weight and gravity pu
ll him downward.

  Gerta made a corner for him with blankets, and they pulled the half-conscious man to the pallet. She left to check on the other man, bidding Beth to remove the old bandage.

  With gentle motions Beth unwound the strips. Joe stared, unseeing, still. She opened her mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. By the time Gerta returned, Joe’s eyes had sagged closed and the wound was revealed.

  “Emma, if you’ll bring me some water and soap,” Gerta said, removing her soiled apron, “I’ll clean him up again. Beth, a clean apron and another light would help.”

  As Beth and Emma rose from the cellar into the smoggy heat, acrid with the scent of powder, Beth dabbed the perspiration from her face and rested on the top step. She stretched her leg in front of her, rubbing at the thigh and the knee, flexing her foot and relaxing it. Emma hurried by her. “You rest, Miss Bumgartner, I can fetch that apron and a lantern as easy as you.”

  Another shell screamed through the air, farther away, the crash causing Beth to cringe, her heart to plummet. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She had left her parents’ home to fetch her new dream, not to be cornered by Lee’s army like a rat in the corncrib. Across the Pipers’ field she could see the mountains, and the haze that lay like the fog that had burned away early in the morning. This mist was a harbinger of destruction. A threat that already held the little town in its clutches, and the residents were the innocent victims.

  “A wagon’s coming. Gonna be full of wounded, you watch and see if I’m not right.”

  Within an hour Gerta’s front parlor held five men. The low moans were harsh against Beth’s ears. Emma moved with quiet efficiency among the men, offering water to those able to drink. Beth knelt at the side of one soldier, his head bandaged with cornhusks still retaining their green coloring. With cold fingers, she dared to lift away the husk, and her stomach knotted at the gore.

  “He won’t make it,” Emma whispered against her ear. Yet the phrase took on a life of its own, roaring in her ears and mixing with the smell of blood and summer heat, unwashed bodies and . . . Beth pulled air into her lungs, and Emma’s palm rubbed the area between her shoulder blades. “Done nursed a sight of things in my life. You want, I can work on this.”

  She raised her face to the woman, her tongue poised to deny the weakness she felt. “I—”

  Emma took her arm and eased her onto a chair, fanning her face with an apron already smeared with blood.

  Emma rushed down the steps of the cellar clutching a basket of old clothes. Beth didn’t want to talk, she only wanted to finish ripping the linens and petticoats into strips and ignore the sounds and dust and fear gnawing at her backbone. She had to be strong.

  Emma sat beside her. “North road is full of ’em.” The tremor in Emma’s voice could not be masked.

  “I know. They’re everywhere.”

  It was the reason Beth had sought the cellar and Joe’s still form. He grew restless during the worst of it, but stilled when she spoke to him. The parlor now held ten men, toe to head in the cramped space. A surgeon had arrived hours before, working over them, oblivious to the blood smeared on his clothes or running onto the floor. Beth wished it would all go away. The men. The sound of their moaning.

  “That boy about killed me,” Emma said. “Sad to see the young ones who suffer.”

  The youngest, looking not more than fourteen, had been one of the first brought in, his frantic screeches vacillated between calling for his mother and writhing in pain from the hole in his abdomen. Beth shuddered at the memory and forced herself to pick up a petticoat. She began ripping the cloth into strips. Bandages to stop the blood of those men yet to come.

  “Your grandmother works like she’s young.”

  Beth nodded. “She’s strong.”

  “Stronger than me.”

  Beth’s gaze darted to the woman’s face. Emma seemed strong. She was a big woman, beautiful and hard-working. “I guess that makes two of us. I wanted so badly for Grandmama to leave, but she was adamant about staying, and I couldn’t leave her alone. Now,” the shame of the words she was about to speak reduced her voice to a whisper, “now I wish I had.”

  “We’ll ask the good Lord to be here with us.”

  Beth could only wonder how many times others had asked the same thing and now lay dying in the field, their blood staining the soil beneath them. She stood, the scraps falling to the ground, the petticoat gripped in her hand. No matter where she went, she could not escape God’s failure. Her failure to save Leo. But as the ground swelled with another nearby hit from a shell, and the urge to run burgeoned inside her, she realized there was nowhere she could hide. Emma’s voice lifted in fervent pleas to her God.

  8

  Beth leaned forward to raise the wick of the lamp. Shadows rolled back from Joe’s cheeks, showing the haze of a beard. She wondered if he wore a beard normally or kept his jaw and cheeks clean shaven. Pressing the back of her hand against his cheek, the heat seared her cool palm. Was it her imagination? Her heart raced. Surely he would not die. She went down on her knees, the cold of the earthen floor permeating her skirts, and released the stopper on her anxieties.

  Lifting Joe’s hand, she uncurled his fingers and pressed her palm flat against his. If she closed her eyes, she could still see Leo’s flushed face in the moments before the boy died. She could hear his rapid wheezes, see the skin falling away, charred, and feel the heat radiating from his little body.

  For all she had done, the prayers she had prayed, still he had died in the inferno that had trapped her as well. She ghosted through the days of her recovery, unable to do anything but the most menial tasks, afraid to look at her leg and ankle and see the truth that shadowed the doctor’s eyes, then her mother’s and father’s. And the cycle had begun again. The endless prayers for mercy, the fear of never being able to walk again.

  Beth stuffed her fist against her lips, pressing, pushing back the wall of emotion that threatened to crush her. The sight of Emma’s sleeping form stretched out beside her helped Beth gain control.

  A soft flutter against her fingers pulled her attention down. Joe’s fingers touched hers like the fragile beat of a baby bird’s wings. His eyes remained closed, but his breathing had changed, grown shallower.

  “Joe?”

  His eyes slitted open. “Can’t feel . . .”

  She pressed a finger into the palm of his hand and his fingers curled inward, wrapping around her finger like a newborn.

  “Can’t feel what?”

  “Arm.”

  The wound on his right side was high up on the shoulder. She stretched across him, touching his upper arm.

  His nod brushed whiskers against the blanket, making a scratching sound. “It hurts.”

  She skimmed her hand down the length of his arm. “Your arm or the pressure?”

  “Like needles.”

  “Can you move it?”

  He tried. She could feel the muscles flex, but with a kitten’s strength. His eyes opened fully, canvassing the interior. “What is this?”

  “We moved you to the cellar. You were having nightmares or memories.”

  “Another battle.”

  The words rang hollow, awakening Beth’s inner turmoil. “Yes. Close. Very close.”

  “And you’re my refuge.”

  She sat back on her heels, confused by his choice of words. “My grandmother has done much more than I. She cleaned your wound and put a poultice on it to draw out infection.”

  “But it’s you I remember.”

  “Me?”

  “Your voice, talking to me.”

  “I—well, yes. I’ve tried to help where I can.” Her throat closed. “It’s all we can do.”

  His eyes closed and his tongue darted out over dry lips as another hit rattled the house above and sent down a geyser of dirt and dust to cloud the air. Emma moaned and sat up. The black woman scooted close, a piece of linen pressed to her mouth. Joe’s cry came from low in his throat, and his fingers tightened
on Beth’s as she stroked his forehead, his jaw. Her heart squeezed at his helplessness.

  “Am I dying?”

  For an instant she hung suspended, afraid to make such an answer. The fever. His extreme thinness and the already exhausted state in which he’d arrived. The fever would further reduce his strength. She bit her lip to keep from crying, for surely he would recognize her distress and assume the worst. She’d never considered the other side of death’s equation—the fear of dying. Only the side that feared being left alone.

  His eyes were more focused, drilling into hers as he waited for her answer. “You are stronger. If you eat more . . . And we need to get this fever to break.”

  “Is there any bread? Soft bread.” His tongue darted out to lick his cracked lips. “Haven’t tasted soft bread in months.”

  “I’ll get you some. A whole loaf to yourself, if you’d like.” Beth rose, giving her legs a chance to recover from the cramped position. She did not want to consider why it was suddenly so important to her that he live. “More salve for your lips, water . . .”

  “Come back?”

  She turned at those two words, feeling both the desperation and the longing weighing on each syllable. It pulled at the vulnerable place buried deep within her heart, where she used to dream of being loved and needed. If she could not have love, she could cherish need.

  “Miss Bumgartner?”

  The deep rumbling voice came from the opening of the cellar doors. Jim.

  “Your grandmama wanted me to bring this frame on down for that man before them Rebels claim it for one of the other men. Another wagon full of men came in. Almost full up there now.”

  She peered around until she saw Jim’s large form, the cot stuck beneath his arm. “Yes, that would be wonderful.”

  When Jim was eye level with her, his dark face offered a wan smile. “Got Mr. Nisewander to agree to get out. He’s coming here, gonna bunk in the cellar while I help.”