Daughter of the Regiment

by Stephanie Grace Whitson

  “We decided he was the best choice. Blue’s faster than the bay Jack was riding, so I could get back here faster. And Jack knows the people in town. I doubt there’s anyone still there who’d remember me. They’ll be more likely to trust Jack with information.” He touched her arm. “I’ll carry Hero back to Fish’s wagon for you, if you’ll lead Blue for me.” He didn’t wait for Maggie to respond, just handed her the reins, and reached for the dog.

  Maggie walked beside him, wondering what painful truths lay behind Colt’s reluctance to speak of his uncle—or to even mention his own mother. When they got to Fish’s wagon, Maggie pulled the burlap bed out from beneath the wagon seat and settled it just beneath the wagon. As Colt bent to set the dog down, she said, “So you discovered troops at Wildwood Grove, after all.”

  Colt made a show of smoothing Hero’s bed before standing up. Still, he took a moment to answer. “Why would you think such a thing?”

  She patted Blue’s neck as she said, “Well, something inspired a fast ride back here to report, while Jack stayed behind. And now we’ve been ordered to hold our position in the middle of nowhere, while the command considers what’s to be done. The most obvious reason would be that you found an unexpected number of Confederates in or around Littleton ‘fixin’ to fight,’ ” as our Southern neighbors would put it.”

  Colt was quiet for a moment. Finally, he gave a low laugh. “That’s some powerful deducing, Miss Maggie.”

  Maggie looked up at him, studying his grim expression, trying to read it. Colt took Blue’s reins back in hand. And yet, he lingered.

  She made another mental leap. “Captain Quinn doesn’t need to worry about me. You can tell him—” She broke off. “Never mind. I’ll tell him myself, next time I see him. It was thoughtful of him to send you to tell me why Jack wasn’t with you. It was a kindness I won’t forget.”

  Colt took his hat off, held it in the same hand as Blue’s reins, and raked his fingers through his long, blond hair. “Well, actually… it was my idea to come looking for you—although if I’d given him a minute, I’m sure Captain Quinn would have thought of it. He likes you. Apart from what you’ve done for Hero, I mean. He says you’ve been good for morale.”

  Maggie allowed a little smile. “That’s very nice to hear. I hope he knows that if there’s to be a fight before I can find my way home, he doesn’t have to worry about me. I’ll do what I’m told, and afterwards, I’ll help. I’ll carry water, wrap bandages.” She touched the sleeve that covered the place where he’d been wounded. “You know I can manage it.”

  Again, that smile. And something in those blue eyes that made her feel—strange. “I suspect, Miss Maggie, that you could manage anything you put your mind to. And I’m fairly certain that not only Captain Quinn but also every man in this brigade knows it.”

  He’d called her Miss Maggie twice now. Did he realize how it made her feel to hear her given name spoken with such—well, not tenderness, of course. But something more than courtesy. At least it seemed that way to her. Then again, what did she know of such things? She sputtered disbelief. “There’s no need to flatter me, John Coulter.”

  “It isn’t flattery. Both the colonel and the captain have heard half a dozen versions of what happened in that skirmish when I brought those Henrys into camp. Every single version has one thing in common—an extraordinary woman who kept her head and did the very thing that was most needed at the exact moment it was needed—at great risk to her own life.”

  Blue shook his head. When Colt put his hand on the horse’s neck, Blue whickered and stamped his foot. Colt chuckled. “All right, old man. You’ve been patient, and now I’ll give you the attention you deserve.” He smiled at Maggie. “May I call on you this evening, Miss Maggie?” He leaned close. “Noah tells me he’s come into some honest-to-goodness coffee instead of that roasted barley we’ve had lately, and there’s another rumor in camp that you make the best coffee in the state.”

  Maggie smiled. “If Noah really does have coffee, you’re welcome to share it—as long as he approves, of course.”

  “I’ll convince him,” Colt said.

  “I can’t imagine where he would have found coffee. We’re miles from the nearest town.”

  Colt chuckled as he mounted Blue. Once in the saddle, he said, “I think that when it comes to young Noah, it’s probably best not to ask too many questions.” Before he rode away, though, he asked, “Is it all right, then, my calling you Miss Maggie?”

  “That’s my name.”

  He nodded. “All right, then.” He put his hat on. “And I’m John,” he said. “Or Colt, if you prefer.” When Maggie didn’t respond, he chuckled. “Just think about it, Miss Maggie. Please. And I’ll be around for coffee later.”

  As soon as Maggie had gathered wood and started a campfire, Noah walked up, talking about how much he was looking forward to “a nice cup of coffee and a good cigar.”

  Maggie thought he was joking about the cigar until the boy pulled one out of the inside pocket of his stained vest. “Give me that,” Maggie ordered, and held out her hand.

  “Why should I?”

  “Because some things are not meant for boys of a certain age.”

  “What age is that?”

  “Whatever age you are,” Maggie said.

  “What if I don’t know—exactly?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Maggie said. “You’re exactly too young to be smoking cigars.”

  Noah handed the cigar over. “You’ll keep it for me—until I can sell it?”

  “I won’t destroy it.”

  A slow smile spread across the boy’s face. The missing-tooth smile that never failed to weaken Maggie’s resolve to be strict with the boy. “You could buy it,” he said, “and give it to Sergeant Coulter when he comes for coffee later.”

  “I don’t even know if he smokes,” Maggie said. Why would the boy think she’d have any interest in giving John Coulter a gift? Not something she would ask aloud, for fear of the answer.

  “Well, of course he smokes. Every self-respecting officer smokes. Or chews. Or takes snuff. Or something.” He paused, twisting his mouth up as if it hurt him to think. “Could be he’d prefer a pipe, though.”

  Maggie changed the subject. “Where’s this amazing coffee you’ve been boasting about?”

  Noah made a show of walking over to Fish’s wagon, reaching over the side, and pulling out a small brown bag, which he rattled. “Just waiting for your magic touch, Miss Maggie.” He took a deep breath. “Can I ply my wares while you roast the beans?”

  “Can you what?”

  “Sell the cigar. Or at least try.”

  “Look at me, Noah.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Look me in the eye.” Finally, Noah met her gaze. “Promise me that you will not smoke this cigar.”

  “Why would I? I can prob’ly get a dime for it. I’m saving up.”

  “For what?”

  Noah shrugged. He looked away. “Something good.”

  With a sigh, Maggie handed him the cigar. “Keep your promise.”

  “Didn’t promise, exactly. But I ain’t gonna smoke it. Smoking makes me sick.” He grinned. “Be back for coffee.”

  Maggie didn’t want to know how the boy had learned that smoking didn’t agree with him. For the next few minutes, she busied herself roasting coffee beans over a campfire. She’d just taken the whole beans off the fire when Colt walked up, coffee grinder in hand.

  “Courtesy of Captain Quinn,” he said. “With one caveat. We have to save him a cup. He’ll be along directly.” He settled comfortably by the campfire, and patted the ground beside him. “Come sit here, Miss Maggie. I’ve permission to tell you everything Jack and I discovered. With the understanding, of course, that you won’t encourage any of the gossip flying through the camp.” He held the coffee grinder out to her. “I assured him that you are about the farthest thing from a gossip I’ve ever seen in the female contingent.”

  “Thank you. I think.” Maggie p
oured beans into the grinder, braced it against her hipbone, and began to turn the crank.

  Colt closed his eyes and inhaled. “I’d say we’re in for some great coffee.” He waited until Maggie had settled the coffeepot over the coals and sat down beside him before proceeding. “We counted at least three hundred camped at the plantation. We didn’t see any artillery, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t at this very minute rolling a couple of 12-pounders up from that levee. Based on some things Miss Blair said, we’re suspecting—”

  Maggie interrupted him. “Miss Blair?”

  Colt nodded, and told her a fantastical story about how he and Jack had been hidden at an overhang near a spring when Miss Blair found them.

  “And she didn’t raise the alarm?”

  Colt shook his head. “Quite the opposite. She actually suggested we kidnap her.” He described how Jack had lifted her into the saddle and then he’d taken the horse’s reins and led them all away from Wildwood Grove, with Miss Blair and her horse between him and Jack.

  “She said there’d been plenty of steamboat landings in recent days. More than usual. She hadn’t really paid all that much attention to the numbers or the details, so for all we know, more than one shipment has gotten through since we intercepted the Henrys on the McDowell. There could even be artillery hidden somewhere, just waiting to be rolled into place.”

  “And you trust what she said?” Maggie didn’t recognize the emotion that flared up at the idea of John Coulter leading Miss Blair’s horse along through the woods at first. When she did, she scolded herself. Jealousy was not only a sin but, in this case, patently ridiculous.

  “We didn’t have to trust her,” Colt was saying. “It made sense that she wouldn’t know about the arms. She said her brother has never wanted her to know his business.” He frowned. “She had… bruising. A swollen eye.” Colt brushed a hand across his left brow. “Jack thinks her brother did it.”

  “No!” Maggie said the word before she thought. After all, she might not like Walker Blair, but she didn’t want to think he was that sort of man. She thought back to that day in the mercantile. Something between Miss Blair and her brother had made her uncomfortable, but she’d been too distracted by how Serena Ellerbe and the others had been laughing at her from behind their fans to pay much attention to it.

  Colt was watching her. He tilted his head. “No,” he said, “but… maybe?”

  Maggie told him about that day in the mercantile. “It was barely a flicker of something. I told myself I was imagining things.”

  “She didn’t admit it, so perhaps we all are.”

  “But you don’t think so.”

  He shook his head. “She told us the officers of the Wildwood Guard have been staying at the plantation house, but that her brother has kept her very close to home. In fact, she claimed she hadn’t realized they were digging earthworks until the day we saw her.”

  Maggie looked about them at the camp teeming with soldiers cleaning rifles, writing letters, drinking coffee, playing cards. What would it be like to be responsible for feeding a few hundred of them? She couldn’t imagine. If Miss Blair could do that, there had to be more to her than a tiny waist and pretty gowns.

  “It was actually her idea to ride with us,” Colt said. “She suggested we keep her long enough that even if she did tell someone about us, they wouldn’t be able to catch us.”

  Maggie didn’t hide her surprise. “Is she a secret Yankee, or something?”

  Colt chuckled. “I don’t think so. I think she’s like a lot of people who didn’t see the war coming and then found themselves caught up in it.”

  Maggie could certainly understand that. “So you did trust her, after all.”

  Colt shrugged. “Maybe a little. We certainly weren’t about to gag her. If she’d been inclined to raise the alarm, she would have done that right away. Still, Jack waited to head for Littleton until she was well out of sight and on her way back home—and he took… shall we say… an indirect route.”

  “I suspect I know the one,” Maggie said. She sighed. “He’ll come over the hill behind our place and get a panoramic view of the farm—what’s left of it.”

  Colt looked over at her. “That bad?”

  His sympathy made her throat constrict. She shrugged and stood up abruptly, but she told him about the scorched floor and the ruined garden—and everything else—as she made a show of checking on the coffee. She took up a rag to use as a hot pad, lifted the coffeepot off the fire, and leaning over, inhaled the aroma of the coffee. Finished talking, she concentrated on pouring it into the two waiting tin mugs, careful not to waste a drop. And as she returned the coffeepot to the coals to keep the contents warm, Colt bent down to take up the two coffee mugs. When he handed hers over, he held on to it until she’d looked up at him.

  “I am so sorry, Maggie. So sorry you had to endure that—alone.”

  She didn’t dare trust her voice, and so she merely nodded and held on to the mug until he let go. She swiped at the tear that had escaped. “Well, that’s enough of that. Uncle Paddy is on the mend, and we’ll deal with the farm when we must. Right now, all I have to deal with is whether or not this coffee passes muster.” She waited for Colt to taste it.

  He blew across the surface before taking a sip. “Jack wished we’d taken you along. He thought you’d have made the perfect spy to send into Littleton.”

  Maggie shook her head. “I’ve never been any good at pretending. I say what I mean and I mean what I say.”

  “That’s exactly what I told him,” Colt said. “In fact, now that I think about it, if you’d been in Miss Blair’s place, I don’t think you’d have offered to let us kidnap you.”

  “It was a fairly smart thing to do—if she wasn’t inclined to scream or faint.”

  Colt considered. “I don’t think she’s the fainting kind.”

  Again, the little bit of jealousy raised its ugly head.

  “You aren’t, either, of course,” he said.

  “So what do you think I’d have done?”

  He laughed. “I think you would have pulled that pistol out of your pocket and made a run for it.”

  He was likely right. Maggie wondered if he thought that a good thing… or a manly thing. But she didn’t ask. Instead, she sat down next to him, content to sip coffee and think about the Wildwood Guard and Littleton, steamboats and smuggled arms—all of it keeping the Irish in camp. Out of battle. Safe, at least for a few more days.

  “Good coffee, Miss Maggie,” Colt muttered.

  Maggie nodded. “Thank you, Sergeant Coulter.”

  “Still Sergeant? Not… Colt, at least?”

  They were treading far too close to a line that Maggie was wary of crossing. “Did the captain really say that I’m good for morale?”

  “He did.”

  “That means a great deal, coming from a man who ordered you to haul me off to town that first day. I won’t be inclined to do or say anything that would tempt him to change his mind.” She cleared her throat. “Such as… behaving in a way that’s a little too…”

  “All right. I understand.” He grinned. “I suppose I even respect it, Miss Malone.”

  “The boys call me Miss Maggie. No reason you shouldn’t.” She grinned at him. “They don’t call you ‘Colt.’ ”

  He nodded. “Will you at least think ‘Colt’?”

  “I’ll not be sharing my thoughts with you, Sergeant Coulter.”

  “And here I thought I was making progress.” He settled back to drink his coffee.

  Strangely enough, the silence that ensued didn’t feel strained. Maggie and Colt—for she did think of him that way—sat in comfortable silence for a while, sipping coffee, wondering aloud at what was keeping Noah so long and hoping that Jack would bring useful information back from Littleton. Maggie said she was looking forward to hearing news from Paddy.

  “See, now?” Colt teased. “You did share a thought, after all.”

  Maggie teased back. “Turnabout is fair play,
Sergeant Coulter.”

  He considered for a moment, and then grew serious. “After my grandparents died and my uncle sold their house, I never thought I’d want to see Littleton again. I thought it would only remind me of everything I’d held dear and lost.” His blue eyes held something that made Maggie go still when he said, “I don’t feel that way anymore.” He gestured around them. “After this is over, I think I’d like to go back.”

  Maggie took a gulp of coffee. “Will you—what did you—I mean—you said you didn’t care for steamboating. I’ve always thought it would be a romantic life, standing in that house of glass and ruling over everything beneath your feet.”

  Colt grunted. Shook his head. “It’s the river that rules, not the pilot.” He took a deep breath. “I suppose it does seem romantic from a distance. But there’s a very ugly side to it—just beneath the veneer of the ‘floating palace’ advertisements.” He paused. “Now that I think about it, it’s not unlike the genteel portrait of life on a plantation.”

  “You mean the slaves,” Maggie said.

  “Not just the slaves. At least not if Jack was right about where Miss Blair got those bruises we saw.” He shook his head. “Is anything as it seems in this world?” He turned to look at her. “When I first saw Miss Blair, for example, I made certain assumptions.” He went on to tell Maggie about the woman’s concern for the twenty-odd slaves on her plantation. “That surprised me. I mean—I didn’t expect her to care.” He shook his head. “She knows she’s looking into the face of a battle, and she’s worried about her servants. Who would have expected that?”

  She’s looking into the face of battle? Suddenly, everything fell into place, like dominoes set up to amuse a child and then falling according to a preordained pattern. Maggie swallowed and took a deep breath. “Once Jack comes back with more information, we’re going to be ordered to move back north, aren’t we? It isn’t really a matter of where we’ll be going—it’s a matter of how many companies it will take to defeat the Wildwood Guard. They have to be stopped so they can’t move south to join up with the rest of the Confederates—and so they can’t trap us between the Guard and Price’s army to the south.” Almost without knowing what she was doing, she put her hand into her pocket and grasped Da’s pistol.