“Prettiest thing I ever seen,” Ora Lee said as Libbie took out one of the crystal jars.
“I squealed with delight when I first saw it. I can still hear Mama’s voice sayin’, ‘Every lady needs a proper traveling case, dear.’ She’d been to Nashville, meaning to bring it home and give it to me when I’d finished at Miss Robeson’s School. But then she couldn’t wait to give it to me.” Two center trays lifted out, and the bottom one revealed a set of ivory-handled sewing tools nestled in a rose-colored silk-lined tray. The thimble was gold, its border engraved with the initials ECB. Elizabeth Chestnut Blair. Mama had been a Chestnut, a member of a proud Alabama family.
Libbie put the thimble on the middle finger of her right hand, wondering for the first time about Mama’s cousins in Mobile and how they would fare if the war didn’t end quickly… if the battle came to them. None of the Chestnuts had stepped forward to offer to take Libbie in when the cholera left her alone. Given a choice, Libbie would have probably gone to them rather than coming to Missouri, if nothing else but for the fact that their manner of life would have been more like what she’d always known. Folks in Alabama would be standing together against the Yankees right now. They probably didn’t give a moment’s thought to what Walker called “that viper’s nest of abolitionists that meet at Turner Hall” or “that traitor of a newspaper editor.” She didn’t imagine anyone in Alabama had neighbors like the Malones who’d openly taken the side of the Union.
“How come you never use it when you sew?” Ora Lee asked, nodding at the thimble.
Why had she left it to be stored away? At first, it had been too painful to remember everything she’d lost. Libbie sighed. “I’ll use it now,” she said. “I suppose I’ll have all kinds of time for fancy stitching once we’re in Omaha.” The idea filled her with dread. Hours in some hotel room in a foreign land… wondering. Worrying. Waiting for word.
“You do make a fine stitch, Miss Libbie,” Ora Lee mumbled.
And who cared about gold thimbles and fine stitching in the face of war? Willing her bleak thoughts away, Libbie looked over to the bed, where Ora Lee had laid out four simple day dresses and the related undergarments needed to create the proper silhouette for each one.
“You want the ball gowns? We’ll need another trunk if you do.”
Another peal of thunder and a crack of lightning made Libbie jump. She began to think about traveling into a storm and leaving Wildwood Grove and what would happen to Annabelle and Malachi and the others if she was gone… and tears welled up.
“We gonna be all right,” Ora Lee said. “Mastah Blair, he say we gonna be fine.”
Libbie didn’t answer. Instead, she reached for the metal box, took the key out of the lock, and put it on the chain. “Walker says I should wear it around my neck,” she said, and sat down on the dressing table bench, waiting while Ora Lee undid the clasp, lowered it over her head, then fastened it. Libbie felt it fall into place beneath her chemise as she rose and crossed the room to close the door. When she turned back around, she blurted out a question.
“Do you want to go to Omaha, Ora Lee?”
The girl didn’t answer for a moment. “Mastah Blair sending us, ain’t he?” She clasped her hands before her and looked down at the floor, unmoving.
“But do you want to go?”
Ora Lee’s expression was instantly unreadable. She actually took a step back. “I don’t understand, Miss Libbie. Ain’t I been takin’ good care of you? I thought you was pleased with me.” She glanced up then, just for a second. “You sayin’ you leavin’ me here? They all wonderin’ what’s gonna happen. I don’t want you to leave me behind.”
“That’s not—no. That’s not what I mean.” Her voice wavered. She thought back to that day when she’d come upon Jack Malone and the sergeant at the spring. She’d asked them what would happen to the slaves. They didn’t have an answer. Of course, she couldn’t tell Ora Lee about that. She took a deep breath and tried to compose herself. Tried to look as kind as possible as she lowered her voice. “I’ve thought about what’s to happen, Ora Lee. I’ve thought and thought about it, and all that happens is the mountain of things I don’t understand keeps growing.” Finally, she blurted out the question. “But of all the things I don’t understand, the one I think about the most is this: Why don’t you run?” She’d said it quietly, and yet it felt like the words were hanging in the air, a visible banner between them.
Ora Lee stood so still for so long that Libbie wasn’t certain she was going to say anything at all. Finally, though, in a very quiet voice, the girl asked, “Where to, Miss Libbie?”
Libbie gazed out the window at the rain that had once again begun to fall. “Anywhere.” She nodded toward the river. “We’re surrounded by states that have outlawed slavery.”
Ora Lee shrugged. She studied the carpet. She rubbed her nose with the back of one hand. Looked out the window. Rubbed her forehead. And remained silent. Finally, she glanced up at Libbie. “But I don’t know those places.”
“You could learn about them. You’re a very smart girl. You could learn and take responsibility for yourself. Make your own decisions about where you want to live. What you want to do. Think how quickly you learned all of Betty’s recipes for starch and—all sorts of things. You came up from the quarters, and it wasn’t even a week and it was as if you’d grown up in this house.”
A door slammed down on the first floor, and Ora Lee started. “I’m grateful you brung me up, Miss Libbie. You been kind and I thank you.”
Libbie sighed. “I wasn’t trying to get you to thank me. I just—I’m worried.”
“Yes’m.” Ora Lee glanced up at her. When Libbie met her gaze, the girl looked away, but still she asked, “You scared about goin’ to that Omaha?”
“A little,” Libbie admitted. “I don’t know anyone there. Littleton is the farthest west I’ve ever been.”
Ora Lee nodded. “That’s how it be for me if I was to think on going anyplace else.” She looked away and out the window. “Suppose I was to go to one of them free places. What happen when I get thirsty? What I gonna do when I get hungry—I mean at first, before I learn my way. Here, I just go out to the garden and help myself. Long as I don’t take too much, Mastah Blair don’t mind one bit. But if I in one of them free places and I take something out a white man’s garden, they likely to kill me.” She visibly shuddered. “Mastah Blair is a hard man, but if we do what he say, we know things be mostly all right. Men is men wherever they lives, Miss Libbie. Here, I knows who is safe and who isn’t.” The girl shook her head. “Wandering around, afraid all the time. Hungry. Thirsty. That ain’t no kind of freedom I want.”
Libbie knew that Ora Lee was giving her an amazing gift, and it was not one that she was likely ever to receive again. To have a Negro trust her with such truths… Mastah Blair a hard man, but if we do what he say, we know things be mostly all right… Men is men wherever they live… That ain’t no kind of freedom I want. The full meaning behind the words made Libbie ashamed. Compared to Ora Lee, she knew nothing of the world. Nothing of life. She gazed about her at the gowns lying on the bed—purchased by Walker. At the traveling case—a gift from Mama. At the fine furniture—provided by Walker. Walker, who had promised a generous budget once the war was over so that she could redecorate the house. Walker, who would put cash in the black metal box before they left and provide a safe haven for her and even include letters of introduction to people in Omaha and bring her home when the war was over.
As the gray light faded toward sundown and the lamps flickered, shame swept over her. Elizabeth Chestnut Blair. Who did she think she was, talking to Ora Lee about freedom and “taking responsibility for herself”? As if she knew anything about it. Anything at all.
Waiting. From what Maggie had experienced the past couple of days, the men in the army weren’t any better at it than she’d been after Jack and Seamus left her at home. Fish said that over the course of a long conflict, boredom could be as much an enemy as the ene
my. Even with camp life regulated by the bugle announcing roll call and drill, sick call and fatigue call, inspection and meals, the men still had enough free time on their hands for troublemakers to cause trouble. A weapon could only be cleaned so many times before a man felt foolish doing it again—before his tent mates started to think he might be nervous about the coming fight—and no one would admit to that if they could help it. It would just invite more troublemakers to make trouble.
On the evening before Independence Day, the holiday itself was reason enough for the men’s spirits to lag, and the fact that storm clouds were gathering in the west didn’t help their moods, as they reminisced about past celebrations and apple pie and parades and fireworks displays. There would be no apple pie on the morrow, no parades with beautiful women waving their kerchiefs to cheer them on, no fireworks displays, no flag-waving, no fancy speeches. Oh, the chaplain could be counted on to try, but he was given to stammering even on his best days. It wouldn’t be the same.
As clouds began to gather and obscure the blue sky, Maggie tried to think what she might do to cheer the boys up. Finally, she decided that music might serve as a remedy, and so she made her way across camp to where Seamus and his tent mates—minus Jack, who still hadn’t returned from his foray into Littleton—had pitched their tent beneath an ancient pine tree.
“Let’s have us a song,” she said. Seamus played a couple of old Irish tunes, but no one seemed particularly interested in joining in until Maggie talked Private Ashby into singing along. When the quiet, unassuming boy turned out to have much more than a serviceable singing voice, his tent mates appeared to be just as surprised as Maggie.
“Yer a pure nightingale,” one of them said. Ashby tried to wave the compliment away, but his tent mate was serious. “I mean it, man,” he said. “It’s good to hear it.”
The nods around the campfire encouraged Ashby, and before long Maggie had stopped singing, content to listen to a voice that was better than any she’d ever heard. As it happened, Private Ashby really was a “pure nightingale.” When someone requested an old hymn that Seamus didn’t know, Ashby launched into it on his own. By the second verse, Seamus had picked it up and was playing along. More men gathered about to listen. Some joined in, harmonizing.
When Maggie noticed that Hero had gotten to his feet and was watching the proceedings with interest, she retreated to Fish’s wagon, collected him, and carried him over. He squirmed, wanting to be put down, and when Maggie set him down at her feet, he limped away—intending to greet Colt, as it turned out.
Colt crouched down to pet the dog before saying, “The captain sent me to see if his dog might be up to paying a visit while we’re camped.”
“He’s nearly well,” Maggie said. “The cut’s entirely healed, and he’s begun taking it upon himself to limp about the campfire these warm summer evenings. He’s not ready to march yet, but he’s nearly mended.”
Colt picked the dog up. “Walk with me?” he asked, and Maggie did. Gladly.
At the captain’s tent, Hero limped over to his usual place just beneath the captain’s cot and lay down with a sigh that made Maggie chuckle. “There’s no place like home, eh?” She smiled up at Colt. “He wants to stay. I’ll fetch his water bowl.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“There’s no need.”
“I know,” Colt said. “I’ll come with you.”
Well. She could not deny that it gave her pleasure to walk beside him as the day died away and the sun broke through a bank of clouds in the west. When she retrieved the chipped enamelware bowl she’d been using for Hero and reached for a canteen, Colt took it up.
“If we’re going to beat the rain, we’d better hurry,” he said, and without waiting for a reply, he led the way to the swift-running creek at the bottom of a cleft in the surface of the earth.
Maggie peered over the edge, content to wait while Colt picked his way down the steep bank. When he climbed back up, he was red-faced and panting. “I’m surprised you allowed me to do it for you,” he said, “but I’m grateful. Carrying you back up would have been difficult. Enjoyable… but difficult.”
Was he flirting with her? Are you out of your mind? Feeling awkward and unsettled, Maggie said nothing, just followed Colt back to the captain’s tent, with a stop along the way to retrieve a clean bandage roll from her satchel. Hero came out from his old haunt beneath the captain’s cot with great reluctance, but once Maggie sank to the earth and patted her lap, he finally limped over and allowed her to re-dress his injured paw. The captain walked up just as she’d finished.
He crouched down beside her to pet his dog. “How long before he can hold his own without being carried about?”
“I can’t say. It’s really up to him.”
The captain spoke to the dog. “What say you, Hero, are you ready to soldier again—or would you rather remain in the company of the lady?”
Maggie laughed and shook her head. “The lady already has more dog than she sometimes knows how to handle back at home. Hero’ll be fit as a fiddle soon enough.”
The captain smiled. “I wish there were some way to thank you for all you’ve done for him.”
Maggie looked off toward home and then back at the captain. “You can tell me what more I can do to help the boys. There’s something… different in the air since we’ve camped here. I know the date on the calendar is part of it, but there’s more to it. They’re going through the same motions, and yet… it isn’t the same. Or am I just a foolish woman imagining things?”
The captain shook his head. “You aren’t imagining—and from what I know of you, Miss Malone, there’s no foolishness in you. You’ve been with the brigade long enough to know the boys and to sense their moods. Waiting is sometimes the hardest part of being a soldier. They’ve signed on willing to do their duty, but while they wait to do it, they have time to think—and worry. Oh, they’ll pretend it’s just another night like all the others, but they know it isn’t. This time next week they’ll have fought another battle. There’s not a man among them who isn’t wondering if he’ll still be here… still be whole.” He broke off. “I apologize if I’ve frightened you.”
“I’m not frightened. Not in the way you mean. I just—I wish I could help them. Somehow.”
“You help them by smiling.”
“It isn’t enough.”
The captain nodded. “You’re a good woman, Miss Maggie Malone. I am proud to have met you. You’ll be missed when you’re gone.”
Then don’t send me away. She almost wanted to raise the idea of the women Fish had talked about in other armies. Women who carried water to their boys in the aftermath of a battle; who helped the wounded until they could be carried from the field; who sometimes even wore uniforms designed to match their regiment. Fish said they were welcomed; treated like daughters and sisters. It was of course a ridiculous notion, and yet she’d begun to think about it. She hadn’t been tested in battle, of course—except for the skirmish, which was probably nothing to compare to a real battle. And yet, as she thought back on that event, she hadn’t been afraid. She’d been too busy doing what was needed. She couldn’t imagine going back to the farm now, staying there with Paddy and waiting for news. She didn’t think she could do it.
All of this raced through her mind as Captain Quinn petted his dog and the sun made a last effort at pouring splashes of gold onto the earth through the trees. Finally, though, the clouds took over the sky and thunder sounded in the distance. The captain picked the dog up and said, “As much as I’d like to keep you here, you’ll be safer with Miss Maggie until you can run like your old self.”
Colt offered to take Hero, but Quinn shook his head and smiled at Maggie. “May we both have the honor of seeing you home, Miss Maggie?”
Maggie forced a smile, and the three of them walked back to the quartermaster’s part of the camp in silence. When the captain went to set Hero in the wagon box, Maggie asked him to put the dog down by the campfire instead. “The boys l
ike having him about.” She smiled. Shrugged. “It’s another way to pretend it’s just another night in camp.”
Captain Quinn nodded and set Hero down. The dog limped over to a grassy spot beside Fish’s wagon, circled a few times, and then lay down. Before he left, the captain said, “Sergeant Coulter tells me you’ve mentioned wanting a better weapon.”
Maggie glanced at Colt, then back to the captain. “As my Da used to say, ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained.’ ”
“I thought your father came over from Ireland.”
“We all did, sir, me brothers and Da and our Uncle Paddy. In 1847, aboard the Arabia. From Dublin to New Orleans and up the river to St. Louis.”
“But he quoted Benjamin Franklin?”
Maggie grinned. “Well, to hear Da tell it, Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard was Irish.”
The captain laughed. Bending down to give Hero a last pat on the head, he said good night and took his leave. Colt, on the other hand, settled beside Hero, as if he belonged by her campfire. Which, Maggie thought, he most certainly could for as long as he desired it.
The men gathered near Seamus’s tent were still singing, and Maggie and Colt talked about Ashby’s fine voice and Seamus’s fife playing, and before she realized what she was doing, Maggie was telling Colt about growing up in a man’s world and how much she loved working alongside the boys and Paddy and how God had blessed them with such a fine home, and Colt was listening as if every word she said was of great importance. As if he wanted to know the details of her life.
She was feeling dangerously close to falling into something approaching love with John Coulter when Noah turned up and, thankfully, saved her from making a fool of herself over a man. The bag slung over Noah’s shoulder proved to contain a small ham, a pile of fresh green beans, and half a dozen huge turnips. He spilled it all on the ground beside her with all the pride of a contestant who’d won a ribbon at the county fair.
Daughter of the Regiment Page 18
