A Corner of Heaven

by Raine Cantrell

  He could hardly focus his mind on the day he had left Elizabeth, fully intending to return once he reported to the War Office. But the orders waiting left him without the chance to see her again. Andre and Brice were already in position by the time he joined them at Longstreet’s headquarters on the left wing of General Lee’s command on Marye’s Hill.

  All of the information they had gathered nearly six weeks before had proven true. Brice had filled him in on the positions of the Mississippi riflemen who had been posted in cellars, behind stone walls and at every point where a man could be sheltered on the south bank to pick off the Yankees that tried to lay the bridges that Burnside needed to make his crossing. As General Lee predicted, they hadn’t been able to hold them off long, but it was noon before the bridges were completed. Burnside then bombarded the town of Fredericksburg, but the sharpshooters clung to their hiding places and when the Yankee engineers tried to resume their work on another set of bridges they were destroyed by their murderous fire.

  The battle, as Brice retold it, saw wave after wave of Yankees shot down until the fields were littered with their bodies.

  The cost totaled a little more than two Yankees for every Confederate soldier killed. But information was needed concerning what the Yankees intended to do next. The three donned Yankee uniforms and went across the river to gather what intelligence they could. A truce was declared to allow the Yankees to bury their dead, but the night was bitterly cold.

  Tension ran high throughout the ranks, for the sky was lit with a stunning display of northern lights. Andre repeated to Colter and Brice what he had overheard the Confederate soldiers saying. They believed the skies were setting off fireworks to help them celebrate their victory, but then another claimed it couldn’t be; they were northern lights, after all. Brice managed a laugh, but Colter could not. The sounds of dying soldiers seemed to rise up from woods and field and flay him with their moans. The useless slaughter of men sickened him.

  He recalled General Lee’s words when told of the Union losses along with his own. “It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.”

  They made their way stealthily into the streets of Fredericksburg, and they listened as small groups of men milled about, paying no attention to the three Yankee infantrymen.

  “It was the constant rattle of musketry that unsettled our troops.”

  “The Thirteenth New Hampshire regiment showed their mettle to those rebels. They crossed that railroad into a swamp down to Hazel Run—”

  “Yes,” another interrupted, “and the damn rebels opened fire when we came up out of the ravine till we could smell the powder from their muskets and had to fall back.”

  “Be thankful you lived to do so,” Brice muttered to himself as they were safely past them.

  Colter led them down to Caroline Street in the center of the city. Most of the houses lining the street were filled with wounded, for the residents had flown toward the Confederate forces for safety.

  From a doorway, several Union officers appeared and Colter ducked into an alley with Brice and Andre close behind.

  “I’d like to take one of them back with us,” Colter murmured softly as they watched the five men.

  “Any special rank, mon ami?”

  “Don’t joke, Andre.”

  “Never. Brice, guard our colonel,” he whispered, and silently disappeared down the alley.

  “Go after him,” Colter ordered Brice, wishing that Hugh had not been sent to aid General Bragg in Kentucky. Andre was reckless, Hugh a sobering force who could sometimes control him.

  Colter managed to make out the ranks of five men as they drew abreast of the alley where he hid. Colter thought the captain of an artillery regiment would serve his purpose.

  As they walked past he flattened his body against the wall so that the shadows sheltered him. He had used the ploy of messenger with success before and had no reason to think it would fail him this time. Colter began to count, allowing the others time to get a ways up the street from him before he ran after them. He used the soot from the building brick to blacken his face and hands a bit, pulled the peak of his cap forward to shield his face and started to make his move.

  Andre called out drunkenly from an opposite alley and charged into the group of men.

  A few good-natured curses rose and then Brice, seemingly coming to rescue his drunken friend, who was offering a maudlin song, managed to isolate the very officer that Colter wanted. Praying for the few seconds’ grace they needed to succeed, Colter slid free his knife and slipped up behind them.

  He never knew what gave them away.

  The captain shouted, “Rebels!” Shots were fired. Brice shoved the artillery captain at Colter, yelling for him to run, they would hold them off.

  With his knife at the captain’s throat, Colter jammed his knee in the man’s back and got him moving. He had to force himself not to look back. He had to remember his mission took precedence over friendship. But another volley of shots rang out as he headed for the picket line stationed at the pontoon bridge farthest from the city.

  Colter’s luck held. He brought his prisoner back to the Confederate lines, but he didn’t wait around to hear praise from Longstreet or Lee since the captain was carrying an order for the renewal of battle the next day. Colter went back for Brice and Andre in the captured captain’s uniform.

  He spent most of the night hearing varied recountings of the escapade. They had escaped. How, the Yankees didn’t know, but he himself had been commandeered to help in a house-by-house search for the rebels. Dawn was about to break the night sky when Colter decided he had to get back or risk capture. Taking the opposite route of his earlier escape, he stumbled upon an ice house. If his senses had not been trained to detect the slightest sound, he would have missed finding Andre and Brice.

  They were nearly frozen from an attempt to swim the river. Andre had the more serious wounds—a gash in his thigh and a miniball lodged in his shoulder. With a flesh wound in his side, Brice had managed to drag his friend to the ice house.

  On the outskirts of Richmond, Colter stumbled along, yanking the reins of his horse when he almost fell. He tried not to think about the hours that had followed his finding Brice and Andre. All day they had remained hidden in the ice house, until details of Yankees came, trying to pry the frozen bodies of their fallen comrades for burial. By mingling with them, the three of them made good their escape.

  But in the days that followed, Andre turned feverish, begging for Naomi, and Colter, securing permission from General Longstreet, had sent Brice to fetch her, since his wound was not serious. Colter almost envied him the chance to go to Richmond, but he had his own orders to carry dispatches to General Bragg in Kentucky.

  And now he was finally able to bring Andre home and satisfy his own longing to see Elizabeth and his daughter. He rubbed the scraggly length of beard that covered his cheeks and chin, dragging forth a smile, thinking of what Elizabeth would say, wondering if she wore his Christmas gift.

  At that moment, Elizabeth was hushing Nicole and thinking of Colter. She had accepted a ride on a dray wagon when carrying her daughter became impossible. As she glanced at the tall spires of the churches sharply etched against the ever-lightening sky, prayers for Colter’s safety, wherever he was, formed in her mind.

  The wagon turned toward the riverfront, and she sighed, longing to see the rail station. A water wagon carrying barrels rumbled alongside and the drivers exchanged greetings. She shivered to hear the water was going to Mr. Libby’s warehouse, where most of the Yankee officers taken prisoner were housed. Others were held on Belle Isle in the river below.

  If fate was cruel and Colter was ever taken prisoner by the Yankees, she hoped he would have more humane treatment than the men imprisoned within the walls of the Southern prisons.

  “Fearsome sight, ain’t it, ma’am,” the driver stated as they rode passed the warehouse.

  “Yes, yes, it is,” she answered, shielding Nicole’s eyes.r />
  “Hear tell them Yankees don’t dare go near the window. Sentries got a right to shoot them if they do. Fella was bragging a ways back that he got hisself a month’s furlough for shooting one of them.”

  Elizabeth couldn’t argue. She had heard similar stories. But she wanted him to stop talking about it and didn’t know how to shut him up. She certainly didn’t want to recall the well-known cruelty of Commissary-General Northrop, who told the captain in charge of supplying the prisoners’ needs that he could throw them all into the James River.

  Stacks of boxes were piled up outside the prison now, and Elizabeth turned away from the sight of Richmond’s poor rifling through them while the sentries stood by and watched. She thought of herself as a loyal Southerner, but this sight disturbed her.

  “Pity, ain’t it. An’ them warehouses down here are full up with flour an’ no one can get to it, ma’am. Gonna be trouble over it for sure.”

  Elizabeth murmured, not really paying attention. Nicole was squirming, becoming restless, and she began to dread the coming train ride. Silently she urged the plodding horse to go faster.

  At last they reached the train station, and Elizabeth thanked the man for the ride. She hurried to purchase her ticket, daunted by the crowd. So many soldiers milled about, many of them wounded, helped by their fellow soldiers or hovering family members.

  She was thankful they didn’t have to wait too long, for Nicole, eyes wide, was asking questions that embarrassed Elizabeth.

  “Where’s his leg, Mama?” she asked as one soldier hobbled by on a pair of crutches.

  “Yeah, Johnny-reb,” someone good-naturedly teased, “tell us where it is.”

  Mortified, Elizabeth watched as the man stopped and began to maneuver himself around so that he faced them. She didn’t even realize that she had pulled Nicole close and placed a protective arm around her shoulders until the soldier spoke to her.

  “Ain’t no need, ma’am. As for you, little darlin’, I lost it to a Yankee.”

  “That’s silly. He can’t use three legs,” Nicole answered, smiling up at him.

  Guffaws and softer laughter from the women greeted this remark, and several of the soldiers burst into a song as several harmonicas played “Dixie’s Land.” Elizabeth always found it strange that a minstrel song written by a Northerner was the South’s anthem of choice.

  The Richmond & Petersburg engine pulled in, giving off great white clouds of steam due to the cold. Several of the soldiers helped Elizabeth up the steps the conductor lowered, and then made sure she and Nicole had seats.

  Excited by her first train ride, Nicole was bouncing up and down. Elizabeth tried to calm her but gave up until two dour-faced matrons sat opposite them.

  Fumbling from nerves, Elizabeth withdrew a small piece of corn bread and a napkin, giving them to Nicole, hoping that after she ate she would nap. The stench of the train crowded with soldiers made her stomach churn. The men tramped up and down the aisles, shouting, drinking and spitting on the floors. Officers looked the other way.

  As the train picked up speed, she closed her eyes, for she had never been at ease travelling by rail. They seemed to rush across the countryside, threading the miles over a shaky timber trestle past land where no life could be seen.

  The closer the train came to Petersburg, the more her nerves felt frayed. Was she doing the right thing? What if Alma wasn’t at Twin Pines? No, she chided herself a moment later, she would be there. Until her last breath, Alma Waring would remain on her precious land and in her home. She would be there, as always. Waiting.

  Nearly twenty-two miles away in Richmond, Colter’s thoughts almost echoed those same words. Elizabeth would be waiting for him. But within minutes of gaining access to the house she had shared with Naomi, he knew she was not there. The rooms held a strange emptiness, and once he had settled Andre in bed, he searched the house until he found her note.

  His vague feeling of unease vanished. He told Naomi that Elizabeth had had to return to Emily’s. “As soon as I purchase whatever you need, I’ll ride out to see her.”

  “Rest first,” Naomi urged. “Stay here with Andre, and I will go out.”

  Colter caught a glimpse of himself in the bureau mirror. He looked as though he had been indulging himself in a drunken revel for more than a few days. He smelled like it, too. With a rueful grin, he nodded. “All right, you go, Naomi.”

  Once she left, he started fires in all the rooms, for the house was cold. Certain that Andre rested, he crossed the yard to the kitchen and began a fire there. Drawing water from the well, he filled the kettle and paced as he waited for it to come to a boil. The pantry yielded little to tempt him, and he once again trekked back to the house to check on Andre. When he returned and found the water still had not heated, he wondered how a woman ever got anything done having to wait like this. His solution was to add more wood to the fire.

  It was on his third trip back to the kitchen that he saw Josh opening the back gate. He called out, startling the old man.

  “That you, Colonel?” Josh asked, not recognizing him.

  Colter met him halfway across the barren yard. “What are you doing back here? I just arrived and found Elizabeth’s note that she had returned to Miss Emily.”

  “She did?” Josh stared at him with a puzzled look.

  “You did come to fetch her, didn’t you?” Colter felt the unease return and grow.

  “Yes, suh. See, the captain, he took—”

  “What captain?”

  “Captain…uh…Halleck. That’s it. He come by jus’ when I was fixin’ to come an’ fetch Miz Elizabeth. Says he needs the wagon ’cause he’s got wounded men. An’ Miz Emily, well she says give him the wagon an’ mules.”

  “Then where is Elizabeth?”

  “If she ain’t here, Colonel, don’t reckon I know.”

  Angry, Colter plowed his fingers through his hair. He was about to vent that anger on Josh when he stopped himself. The old man was shivering and had obviously walked all this way.

  “Come into the kitchen, Josh. There’s a fire and sure to be something else to warm you.”

  “But Miz Elizabeth—”

  “We’ll talk inside.”

  Once Josh recounted what had happened, Colter was at a loss to understand where she and Nicole could be. He knew she would never attempt to walk with the child all the way to Emily’s. With Dobie gone, she had no one to leave Nicole with, and he was certain she did not take the child to work with her.

  “Josh, Lieutenant Colonel Laurent is in the house. He’s been wounded and needs someone to stay with him until his…” What the devil was he going to call Naomi? His mistress? Lady? “There is a woman who will be here to care for him, but I can’t wait. I must search for Elizabeth.”

  Colter did not attempt to take his hunter. The poor beast rested in a three-legged doze, and he could not demand more than the horse had already given him. He set out on foot, realizing his unkempt appearance was garnering stares. If Elizabeth was at work, he couldn’t very well go barging in there, demanding to see her, looking like a madman.

  Going a few blocks out of his way, he headed for his hotel.

  Finding a duplicate of Elizabeth’s note under his door made unease dissipate and fear replace it. The disordered contents of his desk caught his attention, and at first, he merely thought the bait he left had finally been taken. He almost didn’t notice the two glasses and decanter as a knock on the door distracted him. Colter took the hot water he had ordered in the lobby, but set it aside.

  He started to unbutton his tunic, when he stared at the glasses. In spite of his urge to hurry, Colter was drawn to the desk. He began to look at the papers scattered across the top, noticing the dates.

  These were mostly letters pertaining to business that should have been waiting for him in his box at the hotel counter.

  It made no sense that someone would have gone to the trouble to remove his post, bring it up here to his room, obviously read it and then make no attempt t
o cover up what they had done.

  Unless this had been left in so deliberate a manner for him to find it, and draw the conclusion that was now fighting its way into his mind.

  Had Elizabeth stumbled into his room while his desk was being searched? And if she did, what had happened to her?

  Filled with a chilling rage, Colter forced himself to be calm and think this through. The other scene he envisioned was that Elizabeth gained entry to his room, left her note, but no, he stopped himself. Elizabeth would never read his mail. No, she would never do that.

  Grabbing his hat, Colter ran for the door. He knew exactly who had been in his room. And the Union army couldn’t save that hide if Elizabeth was hurt.

  Elizabeth offered a prayer that no one would recognize her as the train began to slow before pulling into the station.

  She shook off her sudden misgivings, woke Nicole and waited until the soldiers and the two matrons had departed before she carried her daughter off the train.

  Carriages and wagons that had come to meet passengers were soon filled with baggage, and she sought out a public conveyance to take them from Pocahontas to the beginning of the Jerusalem Plank Road. Twin Pines lay fifteen miles southeast of Petersburg, between the Norfolk and Petersburg railroad and the Petersburg and Weldon rail line. The idea of walking all that way brought home to her how reckless her journey was.

  The air held the warning of snow. She murmured comforting reassurances to Nicole that she would soon be warm, and knew she had to find them transportation.

  In the end, Elizabeth decided to approach an elderly Negro couple with a farm cart. They didn’t question her, for which she was grateful, nor did they think her strange for asking to be dropped off a ways from Twin Pines. She was afraid and wished she could blame the couple’s telling her about the Yankee bands foraging in the area, stealing whatever they wanted, but she knew her fear came from her own growing dread to see that house again, with all its horrid memories.