A Heartbeat Away: Quilts of Love Series

by S. Dionne Moore

  “She’s home with the children.”

  “Children.” This time the bitterness saturated her word.

  He took up the reins, and the wagon lurched forward. “Where would you like to go?”

  As if they were out for a Sunday picnic. She pressed her lips together. She could not blame the man. He was trying to help her. “My grandmother’s.”

  They rode in silence. Two wagons rattled down the road toward them, each driver grim of face. “Gerta didn’t leave?”

  Her chin shot up. “We are nursing . . .” The wagon hit a stone, and a murmur of groans and moans saturated the air. Riley glanced over his shoulder, eyes sad. When she caught his look, he grimaced.

  “They commissioned me to carry their wounded. It’s all we can do.”

  A caisson lay shattered in the middle of the road, and Riley was forced to wait for another wagon to clear the path before passing the wreckage. It’s all we can do . . . Hadn’t she already settled that? All she could do was help. Nursing was all that was left to her.

  From soldier to soldier, one bruised and bloodied man at a time, Joe moved, Jim at his side. He recognized face after face of men from his regiment. Jim helped shift men on their beds, picking up those who had fallen off the tables or cots, carrying those who had died out to the wagon parked outside the door. And always when Jim left to assist one of the surgeons or their assistants, he made sure Joe was settled and secure. “Miss Beth wouldn’t like it if I let anything happen to you.”

  The observation seemed personal. Joe didn’t dwell on it. Jim had fashioned a crutch for him to lean on when weakness would have sent him to the floor. That was when the surgeon’s assistant asked the black man to make more.

  There wasn’t a spot anywhere not occupied by the injured, dying, or dead. The cellar had been filled long ago, Joe’s cot commandeered by a captain whose leg had been amputated. He hated to think of the men down there, all but forgotten, the hope of life diminished by a quick assessment by a surgeon, assistant, or sometimes just an ambulance driver.

  In every face, he searched for Ben, knowing he would not find him.

  They moved farther out into the yard, Jim’s strong arm helping him along. “There won’t be anywhere for us to lie down tonight,” Joe said as he surveyed the chaos. He let his head fall back, the sky tinged a familiar shade of red. Where had he seen that color? Surely not the bloodied body of the men . . . No. With satisfaction, he realized he had seen that shade in the blocks Beth had been sewing together.

  His moment of levity was snatched away on the scream of a man and the dull, hollow sound of a saw working against flesh and bone. He grasped his right arm. The muscles in his shoulders tensed as he stood, mesmerized by the tormented victim’s cries, terrified by the knowledge that it could be him. Try as he might, he could not make a fist, but his flesh was warm and he could control his arm’s movements, though they were jerky and difficult.

  Jim appeared at Joe’s side. “Sit down. Wagon’s coming and I got to help unload the men.” Jim eased him to the ground. The motion broke the hold of Joe’s private fear just as the surgeon finished the amputation and called for the next patient.

  On either side of him, men lay in repose, eyes open, staring at nothing, some talking, while still the gaze of others grazed over him with something akin to suspicion. With a jolt he realized they would not recognize him. He wore no uniform, only the clothes of a civilian.

  Jim moved away from him, and Joe relaxed against the tree as a wagon stopped. A man sprang down and hurried around to the other side. Beth. She seemed pale. Shaken. Glancing around, Joe knew the woman had seen more of the same horror. Perhaps worse if the smoke in the air were any indication of the damage the town had sustained. The man spoke to her and she nodded. A surge of men came forward and began unloading the wounded from the wagon, placing them on stretchers made of fence rails and tent canvas.

  Joe stabbed the end of the crutch into the ground with as much strength as he could muster. He rallied, sucked in a deep breath, and tried to pull himself up. The world rocked and swayed before him, but he took long, slow pulls of air and everything settled. Beth was coming toward him, her expression drawn.

  When he caught her gaze, she moved in his direction. Slow movements that revealed a limp.

  Her hand on his arm felt warm. “What are you doing out here?”

  “No room for me in the inn.”

  “Riley can take you somewhere else.” She turned away and lifted her head. “Riley!”

  The man, deep in conversation, must not have heard. Joe reached out to Beth before she could call out again. “I’ll get along fine.”

  “You’re not strong enough.”

  He jerked his head toward the others. “Neither are they. And you’re limping.”

  Beth’s eyes went wide. Dismay flashed across her face and she glanced away. “It’s an old injury.” She faced him. “But you . . .”

  Looking into Beth’s eyes, seeing her concern, he wanted to believe it was something else entirely. Her dark hair was mussed. Strands clung to her neck, and the image stirred the memory of another. Her eyes had been different from Beth’s. Darker. For an instant, he lost himself in what his mind conjured.

  “You need to rest.”

  He let the memory go and leaned toward her, hoping to quell her worry. “I’m not in uniform. I’ll be just another injured man.”

  She caught on to his way of thinking and finally nodded. “Where’s my grandmother?”

  “Reading to some of the men in the parlor.”

  “Elizabeth . . .” The man who had driven the wagon stepped up beside Beth. He paused, glanced at Joe, then cleared his throat, a silent question in his eyes. Only when she faced him did he continue. “I’ll come back for you and your grandmother tonight. You can’t stay here.”

  14

  No answer came to Beth. Riley waited, yet she couldn’t put voice to the words. Leaving meant . . . everything. The house, the farm, was all Gerta had known for more years than Beth could count. Leaving meant no defense against the whims of the Rebels. Mr. Nisewander had understood that, though it had been a fight he had no strength for. Gerta would not either.

  For the first time, she realized the bright whitewash of the house’s exterior had been sheared off. Windows were shattered, or cracked. The porch sagged at an unnatural angle, though she could see no cause for it. Holes marred the wood slats. And the blood . . . What had been a bad dream of men stretched along the parlor floor had become a nightmare during the day’s battle. Wounded would continue to fill up the rooms. Her room.

  Rebels dragged a sack of grain from the barn and Beth knew the devastation had begun in earnest. Gerta would be left with nothing, her house and lands raped in spite of the help she so graciously offered to the very men who were pillaging. Anger rose, then cooled when she took in those around her. How many times had she seen their desperation? Sensed their weakness? They, too, were caught in the middle of life and death and their pain could not be ignored.

  God would take care of Gerta. At least she’d had the good sense to send the animals away. She would not be destitute.

  It was what Gerta would say. What she would believe and live by.

  “It is a good idea, Beth.”

  She turned and searched Joe’s face, saw the way Riley was watching them. She nodded and knew she had to get Gerta away if for no other reason than for rest and sleep.

  “I’m not sure where we’d go.”

  “Your parents would welcome you.” Riley climbed into the wagon. “You’ll let me know when I come back.”

  “Yes.”

  She lifted her eyes to the men stretched out all around her on the lush September grasses that were now trampled. She hurried into the house, forgetting about Joe and Jim, up the stairs to her bedroom. Those fields, strewn with the injured and dying, meant she had little time to secure her belongings before the entire house was filled with more Rebels. She ducked into her grandmother’s room and stripped it of pers
onal belongings, making a similar pile in the center of her grandmother’s bed on an old quilt. She picked up the bundle and returned to her room. Nothing was left except furniture. The rug had even disappeared. Only the sheet remained. She knew the mattress would soon be used by a man, maybe two or three, squeezed together on the bed. She bent to gather the four corners.

  Jim shoved something at her when she reached the porch, careful of the new angle and her footing. The brown paper package of quilt blocks.

  “Thought you’d want these,” Jim murmured.

  She pressed her lips together and nodded, hoping the man would see how much his rescue of the package and Joe’s haversack meant to her. How she longed for the opportunity of quietness to take the quilt blocks out and work on adding yet another one or two to the pattern.

  “Is there somewhere you can put these things?”

  Jim’s face creased into a smile. “Can do that quick enough. Know just the spot.”

  She shifted the bundle and the package into his waiting arms. Booted feet hit the porch and she retreated against the wall to make room for the stretcher bearers and their hapless burden. The men gave no apology, no acknowledgment of her presence, and the message became clear in her mind. Gerta’s house had become Confederate property. She was no longer welcome.

  “You know something about wood work?” Jim asked.

  Joe wiped the moisture from his upper lip, aware of the cries that clawed at his heart and mind. He’d heard the battlefield wounded many times, more than he wanted to remember, but this time, being caught in the middle of it instead of marched away to the next battle brought it home in stark clarity. He lifted the stick of wood, set to be a crosspiece on a crutch and tried to push back the light-headed feeling and focus on the black man. What was it he’d just asked? He stared at the wood in his hands.

  “Joe?”

  Jim was in front of him, saying something he couldn’t quite catch. He felt cold where once he’d felt warm. Bile rose in his throat and he lifted on his good arm to release his stomach from the grip of nausea. Even as he lay back, eyes on the sky, weakness consumed him entirely.

  “You’ve pushed too hard,” Jim was saying. “You rest.” The big man’s hand cradled and lifted his head, then slipped something beneath it. “Miss Beth is calling for me.”

  Joe shut his eyes and let the sounds invade. His body relaxed into the folds of slumber, his imagination immediately rocked by the sounds of exploding shells.

  The pain in his side burst open, then numbness. Ben was there, hovering over him, his lips moving, but Joe couldn’t hear his words. Couldn’t hear anything.

  The world tilted again and they were in camp. Ben was gone and Joe moved from campfire to campfire trying to find his brother. Where was he?

  Bright sunlight winked out the fires and Ben was there again, rolling his blanket, moving away as the rest of Hill’s column formed up for the March. Joe looked over his shoulder, expecting to see Ben at any moment. Spotting him in the meadow they’d just left, kneeling, then up and running toward them. His smile was wide. Satisfied. There was a new cockiness in his step that Joe didn’t understand.

  When he next opened his eyes, his head throbbed and darkness greeted him. He was being lifted like a baby and he wanted to protest. He could walk, couldn’t he?

  “Ben?”

  “Sh.”

  Jim. His name escaped him and he fell back into unconsciousness to a time when another man carried him. Hushed him.

  “We take care of you but you gotta be quiet.”

  The voice was familiar and the words were too, but not for him. They were for the black man, the elderly man with the white hair. He’d start up yelling for no reason until the black woman with him was forced to put a gag on his mouth.

  All the images bundled together in his head until sleep pulled him down farther and the dreams stopped.

  15

  You’ll be safe here for now,” Jim assured Beth and Gerta. He helped Gerta down and shouldered the bundles. Beth settled her weight onto her aching leg with care and held onto the wagon for support. She had nothing to say to Riley. He had made his decision long ago and so had she. It was water under the bridge, even if his abandonment felt more like betrayal. The wagon shifted beneath Jim’s weight as he jumped into the wagon and gathered the unconscious Joe into his arms. She felt Riley’s eyes shift from her, to the departing back of Jim, and back to her.

  “He’s one of them,” Riley said.

  Not Jim. Dark skin didn’t bother Riley. It was Joe’s presence Riley was questioning. She met his gaze head on. “He’s a friend.”

  Even the darkness of the woods couldn’t hide Riley’s frown. He merely picked up the reins and started the wagon forward, down the unmarked trail.

  The small log cabin deep in the woods gave a modicum of solitude from the horrors so prevalent in Sharpsburg. Gerta’s reaction to leaving had been laced with relief, and Beth had known then that she had made the right decision for her grandmother.

  “Why don’t you lie down? I’ll untie your bundle and you can use your wedding quilt.” She said the words in hopes they would bring a measure of reassurance to the unusually quiet woman.

  “I think I will.”

  Beth didn’t press for answers to her worry. Gerta found a corner of the cabin and stretched out on the crude cot built into the wall. Jim had placed Joe against the wall opposite Gerta’s cot before leaving to retrieve something more from the wagon. Seeing Joe’s flushed face ratcheted up Beth’s worries. Jim hovered at her elbow and set both her package and Joe’s haversack nearby.

  “He too weak to be doing all the moving he did. Couldn’t tell him no though.”

  “You did as much as anyone could, Jim.”

  “If’n I know anything, it’s he’s got the fever.”

  Gerta joined them, kneeling beside the soldier. “I have nothing to offer him.”

  “There’s that willow tree down a ways,” Jim offered. “Mama brewed us tea from the bark when we was sick.”

  “Is there a lantern?” Beth asked.

  Jim produced an old glass lantern. “Needs oil and cleaning.”

  “Set it here, Jim,” Gerta motioned to a low stool. “Use my quilt to cover that window first.”

  Beth knelt beside Joe and pressed her fingertips to his forehead. He was burning up.

  “Would you mind fetching that bark?” Gerta asked. “I know you’re just as exhausted as we are.”

  “Yes, ma’am. It’s not far.”

  Gerta sat back on her heels. “I learned much about herbs from your mama.”

  The knowledge drew a huge grin from the black man before he ducked through the doorway and into the night.

  Gerta’s fingers worked the shirt from Joe’s chest as Beth got to her feet. “I’ll collect wood.” They had nothing except the sheet to use for fresh bandages for Joe’s wound. She chided herself for not thinking more about their physical needs instead of their comfort. Especially Joe’s. She nibbled the inside of her lip and wondered why it meant so much to her to have Joe with them. Because he was their first patient? The way in which he arrived? That they had already compromised him by being forced to burn the lice-infested uniform?

  Joe had seemed so full of energy that afternoon, but Jim was right, he had overdone himself. Besides they needed the extra room at the house and, unless she missed her guess when looking at the bloody, rutted fields that used to be farms but now were littered with the bodies of wounded and dead, both armies would require every inch of room that could be spared.

  In the quiet of darkness, she thought she could still hear the moaning of the men, but they were too far northwest of town to be close to the battlefields. Tomorrow she would return and continue to help. If only she had flour and water, the sourdough starter. Apples and carrots, the onions . . . She pushed the memory of plenty away. No use tormenting herself with what they’d had only hours ago. It was all gone now, and if not all gone, it would soon be eaten by the Rebs.

 
She searched the ground for sticks, kindling. Her hands hovered until her eyes adjusted enough to see the small dead branches. She returned with her treasure in tow, surprised to find Gerta wrapping a length of bandage around Joe’s chest.

  “Where . . . ?”

  Gerta’s eyes crinkled at the corners as she stood and pointed downward. A clean rip at the hem of her dress showed where Joe’s new bandage had come from. Beth’s throat swelled at the magnitude and extent of her grandmother’s sacrifice.

  Joe woke long enough to take but a few sips of the tea. His eyelids grew heavy and he grimaced and rubbed his right side with his left hand. The new bandage must have stirred discomfort. She needed sleep, but knew it would not come easy, not with the terrible events of the day to be processed and considered.

  “You were limping.”

  She started and met Joe’s gaze, his hazy focus on her sharpened. Covering her reaction, she tried to downplay the injury. “It’s nothing.” What would he think if he knew she was crippled and it was permanent?

  His quiet stare penetrated the wall she’d created after Riley’s reaction, and the knowledge that Joe’s acceptance meant more than it should. “If it hurts, then it’s not ‘nothing.’ ”

  “The men need me. Need Gerta. And someone has to keep an eye on her.”

  The spark of a smile lifted his lips. “Is that her I hear?”

  Though not overly loud, Gerta’s soft snores nevertheless filled the room. Beth didn’t mind. For her it was evidence that her grandmother was getting the rest she so needed. She’d been worried to see her energy waning and the paleness of her complexion growing ever more obvious.

  She filled a mug with the little bit of fresh water Jim had brought in at some point. Joe lifted himself, her hand on his neck to support his head. Heat radiated from him and the effort to drink leached away the little strength he mustered.

  “Will you read to me?”

  Joe’s quiet request seemed a perfect remedy. “I made sure to hide your haversack with our things. Jim put them up on a crossbeam in the cellar, out of sight.” She grinned. “No one bothered them at all.”