Wil tipped his cap. His short brown hair was lush and full. More like a woman’s than a man’s.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
The first soldier pushed himself to his knees and rubbed his jaw as if it ached.
“I have to get him back to camp,” Wil said, snapping to attention, “but may I ask you a question before I go?”
“Of course.”
Wil flashed a shy grin.
“What’s your name?”
Chapter Eleven
“You’ve been grinning from ear-to-ear since you returned from that farm you found,” Erwin said, picking his teeth with a matchstick.
He, Billy, and Wilhelmina had eaten like kings after she returned to camp. The food the cooks served up in the mess tent was enough to keep the men on their feet, but the small portions weren’t enough to keep them satisfied. Especially when the supply trains were slow to arrive or only half-filled when they finally did show up. Groups of men often slipped out of camp at night in search of whiskey, cigarettes, fresh meat, or a little female companionship. Tonight, Wilhelmina had followed their example. Now very little of the bounty she had received from Clara and her brother remained. Just a few links of sausage and a couple of slices of ham she planned to fry up for breakfast before tomorrow’s scheduled assault began.
“What did you find in that smokehouse besides a deserter and the best ham I’ve ever tasted?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Come on, son. It’s just the three of us talking. You can be straight with us. You met a girl, didn’t you?”
Billy rolled his eyes and quietly tapped out a cadence on his drum.
“Girls. Who needs them?”
“You’ll change your tune in a year or two.” Erwin rubbed his full belly as he leaned toward Wilhelmina. “I told you another young lady would come along, didn’t I? Now go on, son. Tell me about your lady friend.”
“When I got to the farm, I heard a commotion in the yard and saw Maynard holding a woman and a boy I thought was her son at gunpoint. The boy turned out to be her brother. One of them, anyway. The other one was hiding out in the house.”
“What’s the woman’s name?”
“Clara.”
The name was like honey in Wilhelmina’s mouth. Warm, soft, and oh-so-sweet.
“Is she pretty?”
Wilhelmina smiled just thinking about Clara’s warm, friendly face.
“She’s the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. She’s got red hair, green eyes, and skin as fair as cream.”
“She does sound comely. Are you going to see her again?”
Wilhelmina wanted nothing more, but she didn’t know what, if anything, could come of it. Would Clara break her heart like Libby had, or would she even let her get close enough to try?
“I don’t see how I can. I took an awful big chance tonight going out there on my own. I don’t dare take the risk again unless I’m part of one of the patrols.”
“Don’t you think she’s worth the risk?”
Wilhelmina remembered the smile that had stolen across Clara’s face when she’d asked Clara her name. A smile that had made it seem like the answer was a secret to be held between only the two of them. For a moment, she had forgotten about the war. She had forgotten about everything. Everything except Clara.
“Yes, sir, I think she is, but I don’t want any of the men in our regiment to mistake me for a deserter if they catch me sneaking out of camp on my own.”
Outside, a firing squad was being assembled to execute Maynard and the other deserters that had been rounded up and forcibly returned to camp. Wilhelmina had helped dig the graves. The men’s bodies would be buried on a separate plot of land from the men who had fallen in battle today so their presence wouldn’t tarnish the other soldiers’ memories.
Executions were normally performed at dawn, but the officers in charge had decided to adjust the timetable this time to boost the morale of the men who had performed their duties, and to serve as a deterrent for the ones who might be thinking of running when the next round of fighting began.
“No chance of that,” Erwin said. “Not after the valiant way you performed today. When I heard the drummers beating the call to action, I nearly soiled myself. With so many of them drumming in unison, the sound was like a thunderbolt from on high. Most of the sounds that followed were like something that had escaped the gates of hell. I can still hear all those men pleading for water, for help, or their mothers. No wonder so many of the able-bodied ones decided to run.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I want to be able to look my children in the eye when I see them again.” He fished the tintype of his family from his haversack and kissed the images of his wife and daughters. “Why did you stay?” he asked, replacing the picture.
Wilhelmina wished her answer could be as high-minded as Erwin’s. She settled for honesty instead of nobility.
“I stayed because I didn’t have anything to run to.”
“Ready,” a hoarse voice called out in the distance. “Aim. Fire.”
Wilhelmina flinched as the firing squad performed its duty. She heard the muffled thuds as the deserters’ bodies hit the ground.
“I heard some of the men say they think General Grant was drunk during the battle, and that’s why he performed so poorly,” she said. “Do you think there’s any truth to the matter?”
“I think men will say anything after they’ve lost a fight they expected to win,” Erwin said solemnly. “We were unprepared, undermanned, and outfought. Plain and simple. How much whiskey General Grant did or didn’t have last night didn’t alter today’s outcome.”
He turned onto his side with a grunt of effort.
“Now let’s get some sleep. Tomorrow’s bound to be another long day, though I can’t say I would blame you if I woke up and discovered you had decided not to face it with me.”
Though Wilhelmina was still committed to the cause and was willing to do whatever she could to guarantee a Union victory, she wasn’t eager to pick up her rifle again after today’s crushing defeat.
The Rebs had clearly won today’s battle. Their victory would have been even more decisive if they had pressed their advantage, but they had chosen to retreat, giving the Union troops time to reorganize and regroup. She hoped General Grant and his men were busy crafting a winning strategy to see them through tomorrow’s conflict rather than drowning their sorrows.
She lay on her bedroll and listened to a thunderstorm rumble overhead. Rain pounded down, driving the men in camp inside their tents. Lightning lit up the sky, ensuring they would remain there for the duration.
Wilhelmina had never experienced such a miserable night, but she suspected there would be many more to come.
*
“You like that Yankee, don’t you?” Abram asked as he cleaned his rifle. “That Wil fella.”
Clara didn’t turn around as she washed the dishes from breakfast. If she did, she knew Abram would see the true answer on her face rather than the one she sought to provide with her words. “He saved both our hides. That’s reason enough to like him, isn’t it?”
“That’s not reason enough to make eyes at him, though, is it?”
“I did no such thing.”
“Oh, Wil, you’re so big and strong,” Abram said in a falsetto voice that made Percy double over with laughter. “Take all the meat you want. Let my brothers go hungry. I’m sure they won’t mind.”
Clara threw her dish towel at Abram after she turned to face him.
“Is that what you think? That I was favoring him over you?”
“No.” Abram put down his cleaning cloth. “I don’t know what would have happened to us if Wil hadn’t shown up when he did last night, but what would Jedediah say if he knew we willingly gave some of our food to a Yankee? What would Solomon say, for that matter? You know he hates all of them for what they did to him and Papa.”
“Jedediah’s opinion doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. He’s not part of th
is family and never will be. As for Solomon…”
Clara paused to listen to the sounds of battle. The fighting had begun around half past five, but the gunshots seemed to be coming from farther away than the day before, meaning that the tide had apparently been reversed. Whoever had ended the day with the upper hand was now struggling to retain it. Did that mean good news or bad?
“Solomon wants to see us safe. Last night, Wil kept us that way. How could Solomon find fault with that?”
“Because the Yankees are the reason Papa’s dead,” Percy said.
“Did the Yankees give Papa pneumonia? Did the Yankees cause his lungs to fail?”
“No,” Abram said, taking up the cause. “But they captured him and Solomon and tried to send both of them to prison. Solomon won’t rest until the three men responsible are dead. They’re our enemies, Clara. That means we’re supposed to hate them, doesn’t it?”
Clara dried her hands and sat across from Abram and Percy. “Last night, when he prevented that man from doing God knows what to us, did Wil feel like your enemy?”
“No,” Abram said as if the admission came at a cost, “he felt like my friend.”
To Clara, Wil had seemed like he could be much more. She told herself she shouldn’t allow herself to be attracted to someone who wasn’t much older than a boy, but she couldn’t stop thinking about him. The chivalrous way he had acted. The shy way he had looked at her. The curious way he had said her name after she had told him what it was.
“Clara,” he had said as if he had never heard anything more beautiful. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Wil.”
“I know. I heard that man call out your name right before you socked him in the jaw.”
“Of course.”
Wil had shifted his weight from foot to foot as if he wanted to ask if he could call on her sometime. Clara had found herself receptive to the idea. She had imagined Wil presenting her with a bouquet of flowers, offering his arm as they walked along the river, kissing her as they stood under the moonlight.
She had never felt that way about any other man. How could she feel that way about one she had just met?
“I don’t understand.” Percy rested his chin on his hands. “How can we be at war with someone who was so good to us?”
“I don’t know, Percy. I don’t understand it either.”
She felt like she was at war, too. Except the battle she was waging was with herself. How long was she supposed to put her family’s needs ahead of her own desires? And how could she want to be with someone so badly when she didn’t even know his last name?
“I hope your Yankee doesn’t come back,” Abram said.
“Why not?”
“Between Jedediah sniffing around and Solomon wanting to kill every Yankee he sees, I fear something bad will happen to Wil if he does show up here again.”
Clara shared Abram’s fear, but the thought that the first time she had laid eyes on Wil was also the last time wasn’t one she was sure she was willing to accept.
“Hello, the house,” a familiar voice called from outside.
“It’s Jed,” Abram said.
The door rattled as Jedediah tried to open it but couldn’t get in. “Clara, are you in there?”
“Where else would we be?” Clara asked without opening the door. “There’s a war going on outside in case you didn’t know.”
“That’s why I’m here. Let me in.”
“You’re not welcome here, Jedediah. Mr. Stallings told me what you said about not giving us credit at the store.”
“That was a misunderstanding. I was only looking out for our business owners’ best interests. I didn’t want the women in town running up a bunch of debts their men might not be able to pay when they return.”
Clara’s temper flared, and she snatched the door open so she could look Jedediah in the eye when she told him exactly how she felt about him.
“So what did you expect us to do, come to you for help? I would rather die first.”
A corner of Jedediah’s mouth twitched into a semblance of a smile.
“No need for anything quite so drastic. I would miss you too much.” He looked past her and regarded the full cache of supplies in the kitchen. “Besides, you seem to have managed just fine on your own. I always knew you were a clever one.”
“Is that what brings you by today? You came to sing my praises? If so, I would appreciate it if you would change your tune.”
Jedediah began walking through the house.
“Lots of people around these parts have reported having trouble last night,” he said, peeking into cupboards and under beds. “Several of them found a couple of Yankees and a few Rebs raiding their smokehouses and chicken coops. Enid Bragg even spotted one trying to chase down a pig in the middle of her hog pen. Men from both sides are deserting left and right. My boys and I are going house to house to make sure no one’s harboring any deserters, whether intentionally or against their will.”
Clara gritted her teeth as he riffled through her things.
“I doubt you’ll find any Yankees hiding out in my underwear drawer.”
“You can’t be too careful. Especially considering the size of that hole.”
He pointed to the bullet hole in her bedroom window. The glass hadn’t shattered, but spidery cracks were spreading through the pane.
“You’d better get that fixed pretty soon. Before you know it, all manner of varmints will come crawling in trying to get at you.”
Clara saw the threat in his eyes long before she heard it in his voice. This time, he didn’t even try to use one of his insincere smiles to cover it up. When his searching hands brushed against something solid, she knew he had found the pistol Wil had given her for protection.
“What’s this?”
“Don’t you recognize a pistol when you see one?” Abram asked.
Abram’s question—and Percy’s accompanying laughter—prompted a glare from Jedediah.
“Where did you get it? Mr. Stallings doesn’t sell pistols this fancy down at the general store.”
“We didn’t buy it from Mr. Stallings,” Abram said angrily. “We got it from—”
Clara stepped in before Abram could reveal the secret of Wil’s visit.
“We took it off a dead Yankee. There are plenty of them lying just up the road. The burial detail wasn’t able to move all the bodies before the fighting started up again.”
Abram and Percy had ventured out early that morning to see the grisly sight. They had reported that most of the bodies had been picked over, robbed of boots, jewelry, and other “souvenirs” soldiers and citizens alike had felt compelled to claim. She had told the boys not to sink to the same depths, but Jedediah didn’t need to know that.
“Finders keepers. Isn’t that how the saying goes?” Clara asked.
Jedediah’s fingers were slack from shock, making it easy for her to reclaim her property. She didn’t intend to let it out of her sight again.
Jedediah poked his head in the boys’ bedroom but didn’t go inside. In fact, he seemed anxious to leave. Had she finally managed to convince him that her family didn’t need his for anything?
“Don’t you want to check the outbuildings to see if we’re hiding Yankee soldiers in the barn or corn crib?” she asked as he headed for the door. “What about the smokehouse? Have you looked in it?”
He glanced at the gun in her hand.
“Any man would be crazy to try to steal from you.”
She tapped the barrel of the pistol against her leg.
“Make sure you pass the message along to your father.”
“If you’re of a mind, you can tell him yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
Jedediah held his hat in his hands.
“We could use your help,” he said with uncharacteristic humility. “One of the Confederate generals dropped by our farm a few days ago and decided our place would make a good field hospital. He didn’t give us any say-so in the matter. Now we’ve got wound
ed and dying soldiers everywhere, not enough people to tend to them, and no idea when any of them will be well enough to leave. Would you and the Braggs mind lending a hand? Most of the men don’t want the slaves touching them, and the women in town are too delicate to do what needs to be done. We need someone like you.”
“To do what? Enid, Mary, and I might end up doing more harm than good. We ain’t nurses, Jedediah.”
“And most of the surgeons wielding scalpels ain’t real doctors. That’s not stopping them from fulfilling their duty to their country, is it? What’s stopping you? You don’t need to be educated to hold a dying man’s hand or fetch water for the living.”
Abram tugged at Clara’s arm.
“We’ve got to do it. For Solomon and for Papa. They would want us to help, wouldn’t they?”
“Yes, Abram, I suspect they would.”
Papa had given the war his all before he died and Solomon was still fighting it in his own way. Now it was time for Clara, Abram, and Percy to do their parts, too.
“Hitch the wagon, boys. Let’s take a ride.”
Chapter Twelve
On Sunday, the Confederate troops had dished out a surprise attack. The next day, aided by the arrivals of General Buell’s and Major General Lew Wallace’s men, Union forces responded by returning the favor.
Wallace’s men brought the fight first, meeting little resistance as they crossed Tilghman Branch and continued to move forward. The Confederates were driven back, their units falling into disarray.
Wilhelmina listened to the updates filter into camp as she fried the last of the meat.
“Good morning,” she said after Erwin poked his head out of their tent.
“Talk about a pleasant surprise,” he said. “When I woke and saw your bedroll was empty, I didn’t think I would find you in camp.”
“Just making a little breakfast.” She handed one plate of food to Billy and another to Erwin. “It’s bound to be a long day, remember?”
“Yes, son, I remember.” Erwin rested his hand on her shoulder. “And I’m glad you’re still with us.”
Divided Nation, United Hearts Page 13
