Heather Graham's Haunted Treasures

by Heather Graham

  Her heart seemed to leap as she saw them. No, they weren't being hurt, they would probably eat, and maybe they would even survive prison camp to tell their grandchildren about the war. But watching them, she felt a terrible guilt again. She should run, she should hide, she should get as far away from this place as she could...

  She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling a sensation of dizziness. She couldn't escape; she had barely moved before and Jenner had been right on her, watching her every movement.

  Even as she thought this, Jenner's voice startled her back to reality.

  "The colonel will be back soon, ma'am. Perhaps you'd like to get a little sleep, or rest, or perhaps I could bring you more coffee...?"

  She shook her head wildly; she could still see the tattered prisoners being walked by the campfires.

  She started to turn, then felt her heart freeze. She spun back, staring at the prisoners again, seeking desperately, searching...

  Bruce. She had seen Bruce.

  But they were already disappearing into a tent.

  She couldn't have seen Bruce. He was dead. He'd been killed over a year ago...

  But she could have sworn...

  "Ma'am?" Sergeant Jenner said. "Are you all right?"

  She nodded, but she wasn't all right at all. She was dizzy.

  Bruce... it had looked like Bruce, but not like Bruce. No, it had looked almost exactly like Bruce, but something had been wrong, something about the eyes, about the face...

  Something about the way she was feeling right now...

  "Ma'am?" Jenner said gently again.

  She shook her head blindly, turning swiftly back into the tent. She walked to the desk, her fingers gripping the chair behind it.

  Bruce could be alive; she should feel elated...

  No! She had to be seeing things. He had been fighting beside Jay Laughlin, and Jay had come to see her himself. He had apologized so earnestly about the body, but lest she spend her days in endless, fruitless prayer, he assured her that Bruce had died. He'd been struck three times—in the head, the heart, and the gut. There was no way that he could have lived.

  But she had seen him!

  No, not him, someone who looked like him!

  She covered her face with her hands. She started to shake again, determined that she had to know the truth.

  "What?" she heard suddenly, harshly. "What is it?"

  Her hands flew from her face, her lashes rose, and her eyes went wide.

  She hadn't heard him, hadn't heard him come at all. But Nathaniel was back, staring at her with his sharp blue eyes, his demanding gaze.

  He looked very tired, very worn and weary. Yet he stood there, just inside the tent, staring at her so intently, hands on his hips, his stare relentless.

  She felt a shivering sweep over her again. She couldn't forget that he was a colonel in the Union Army, one very distressed at the awful loss of life around him.

  One who had accused her of being a part of it...

  One who had known her husband very, very well. One who had gone to West Point with him, one who had been in the military with him a long time, long ago, when it had all been one military, and the enemy hadn't been composed of friends and brothers.

  One who would recognize Bruce instantly if he were to see him.

  She shook her head, moistening her lips.

  "What is it?" he demanded again roughly. In a minute, she thought, he would stride across the room, take hold of her shoulders, shake her. Shake her and shake her until...

  "You-you have Confederate prisoners," she told him, discovering that she had very little voice.

  He nodded. "Yes."

  "You've-you've seen them all?" she demanded in a hoarse whisper.

  He cocked his head at an angle, mystified.

  "Yes," he said, then it seemed that a slow dawning came to him, and he did cross the room, his hands falling upon her shoulders, his blue eyes very intense. "I see," he murmured, and she tried to pull away from him, but he held her tight, staring at her.

  "You thought you saw Bruce," he said simply.

  "Yes... no..."

  "Listen to me, Lenore," he told her, his voice tense with emotion, "it-it isn't Bruce."

  "But he's so much like Bruce—"

  "He isn't Bruce!" Nathaniel assured her. "He was captured a few nights ago, and when I first saw him, I thought I had taken a ghost for a captive. But I came closer to him, and I knew instantly that he wasn't Bruce. You would understand if you came closer to him. He isn't Bruce, he is nothing like Bruce was, nothing at all! He's eluded us a few times, but we always manage to get him back, and each time we do, I think of Bruce, but... Lenore, it isn't he!"

  She lowered her head quickly, believing him. As startled as she had been, as taken by the resemblance, she herself hadn't been able to believe it had been Bruce. Something inside her had simply felt so...

  So cold.

  Her hands were shaking, her lips were still trembling. She had to forget the man she had seen, had to forget all the Confederates who were prisoners here.

  They, at least, would eat.

  And her petticoats were still loaded down with the vials of medicine that Nathaniel had still let her keep after he discovered she had them.

  She lifted her chin. "What are you intending to do with me?" she asked him coolly.

  He was silent for what seemed to be forever. She should have wrenched away from him, hard, but she didn't; she just stood there, stiff, trembling.

  And wondering why she wished so desperately that she could forget the war and lean against his chest, and feel his arms come around her and hold her very tight. She was achingly aware of the man, of the strength of his arms, of his scent...

  She gritted her teeth and stared at him hard, determined to betray nothing of her emotions. Surely, it would all be over soon. He had never made any pretense of his heart, his mind, his loyalties, even if he had left with her the medicines she carried.

  "What do you intend to do with me?" she demanded.

  "Take you home," he said.

  Her heart slammed within the wall of her chest, then took flight.

  "Take me home?"

  "Well, I can't actually see you to your door, but I'm bringing you as far as the river, at least."

  "But—"

  "The woods are full of Yankees and Rebels. And worse."

  "You're not going to—arrest me?" she whispered.

  "If you'd had a single bullet on you..." he said, his voice trailing away with the unspoken threat. "But you didn't," he said very softly.

  "Why?" she asked him.

  "Maybe for old times' sake!" he said softly. Then his hands fell from her, and he turned away, striding across the tent to pause behind his desk, his shoulders very broad and strong, his back very straight. Then he swung on her again suddenly. "And then again, maybe just because it's you. Maybe I just don't know why I'm doing what anymore. But I've got leave for twenty-four hours. Enough to get you back." His voice had seemed to grow angrier and angrier as he spoke. He stopped suddenly, his fingers wound into fists at his side. "Get some sleep!" he commanded abruptly, harshly. "We leave at first light!" he ordered.

  Then he spun again, with military crispness, and exited the tent.

  And, shaking, she sank down to the foot of his bunk. Sleep. Dear God.

  On such a night, she would never, never sleep.

  Chapter 3

  It seemed a very strange circumstance to be leaving a Yankee camp with Yankee protection instead of a Yankee guard.

  Strange circumstance, indeed, but then the whole night had been very strange.

  By the first pale streaks of dawn, she found herself faced with something else very strange—a well-fed horse. Nathaniel had acquired her a fine mount, a Union cavalry gelding, and it was far healthier-looking than most of the people she had left behind in Petersburg.

  She was leaving the Union camp with her petticoats still laden with countless vials of essential medications. Not enough, never enou
gh, but the morphine she was carrying would ease some of the agony for the men who were shot down in the trenches, caught by mortar fire, or victims of the steel of countless bayonets.

  She was still leaving with the very precious morphine for pain, the ether for surgery, and the laudanum, and so much more!

  And she was leaving with Nathaniel by her side.

  How very, very strange it all was.

  As she sat there on horseback, waiting for Nathaniel to mount his own fine cavalry horse, Lenore could still see the last faint glows of the Union campfires. Someone played softly and sadly upon a harmonica, a song she recognized about a boy returning home and his father coming to pick him up at the telegraph station. He was told to go to the depot, but the old man shook his head and said, "You do not understand, he is coming back to us dead."

  She stared down at her hands. The song, so soft upon the crisp air of dawn, was haunting. It was a Union song, for the boy had joined "the boys in blue," but at this point in the war, maybe it didn't matter so terribly anymore.

  When she glanced over at Nathaniel, now mounted, she saw that the night had certainly left its mark upon him. His handsome face was deeply creased with lines of exhaustion and care. He was not just losing his men to cannon balls and shot.

  They were being murdered...

  But not by daylight, so it seemed. And so he was willing to escort her safely back to Rebel lines.

  "Ready?" he asked her.

  She nodded, then waved a hand to the men, the enemies, who had been so very kind to her, and it suddenly seemed unbearable that it could come to a point where one of these men might have to shoot her brother—or be shot by him in turn.

  If they were to make the battlefield again, that was. Someone, something sympathetic to the Rebel cause was decimating them before they could reach the field...

  She gritted her teeth. Damn. She should be glad; what difference did it make how the enemy died, as long as the enemy went away?

  But there was a difference! She was at a loss to explain exactly why—dying from a gunshot was certainly one of the most horrible ways to go—but there was just something about this...

  The Union harmonica player had been joined by a fiddler now, and they were singing a startlingly rousing chorus of "Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys."

  Another day was breaking.

  She glanced over at Nathaniel to discover that he was studying her intently. He still had that weary look about him—she supposed it would take a long, long time for that look to go away—but he rode with his back and broad shoulders very straight, and she thought that he would go to any length of exhaustion, as long as he felt he was doing all that he could for his men.

  Or, perhaps, all that he could under the circumstances.

  And she was one of the circumstances of war, at the moment.

  "Let's go, Mrs. Latham," he commanded, his deep blue gaze an enigma as he studied her. He nudged his bay. She didn't make the smallest movement, but her well-fed Union cavalry horse fell right into step with his. In a matter of minutes, they were passing out of the camp. Men stepped back, saluting Nathaniel, nodding to her. Their faces were drawn.

  They were men with a bond that was tighter than that of men sharing a common cause in a war.

  They were fighting a different battle now as well, and they all seemed to know it.

  They passed by Lieutenant Green and a company of mounted men. Sergeant Jenner was with him. Lenore found herself lifting a hand to wave to him. She bit her lip, realizing she had been befriending the enemy. Jenner didn't seem to notice her sudden hesitance. He raised a hand and offered her an encouraging smile. "God go with you, ma'am!" he called out suddenly.

  "God go with you, too!" she cried fervently. She meant the words.

  Nathaniel was looking back at her. She still couldn't read his eyes, but there seemed to be a ray of warmth within them. He reined in, waiting for her to draw to his side.

  "Stay with me," he warned her. "We're leaving the camp behind now, and—"

  "The woods may be full of Rebels?" she asked quietly.

  "If it were only Rebels, Lenore, I'd be tempted to throw you headfirst into the lot of them!" The words were spoken low, but with a startling intensity. She looked at him again, swallowing hard, but still could read nothing from the steady appraisal of his eyes. She remembered that once there had been a moment, back when they had first met when she had read clearly the longing in his eyes when he looked at her.

  Once upon a time, she had actually had some flesh on her bones. Her face hadn't been drawn and haggard. Her hair hadn't been worn in absolute abandon with strands escaping all over the place. Once...

  Once was so, so long ago!

  They rode in silence for several long moments. Then she was startled again when he spoke softly, his previous anger seeming to have faded. "I was very sorry to hear about Bruce, Lenore. I wrote to you. Did you ever receive my letter?"

  "Yes," she said quietly. "I did." It had been the perfect note of condolence, entirely proper. She had dropped it immediately, finding herself in tears again when she had just managed to stop the flow.

  She fought a new rise of them right now, blinking quickly and furiously as she stared at him. "Were you in the battle when he was killed?"

  Nathaniel stared over at her. "Yes."

  "Then... did you know... did you see...?"

  "Lenore, there were tens of thousands of men there! No, I didn't see Bruce. There were men everywhere, downed men, dead men, injured men. You can't begin to imagine—"

  "You forget where I live," she reminded him with quiet dignity. "Every day, I watch while they bring the men in. The downed men, the injured men, the dead men."

  "I haven't forgotten where you live," he said, a note of bitterness in his voice. "I've never forgotten where you live." He reined in for a moment, pausing, a frown tugging upon his brow. Lenore did likewise, silent as he listened. She couldn't hear anything amiss. They were traveling land she knew very well, holding close to the trail that wound through the trees in the dense forest area rather than taking any chances on the broader, open road, or even using any of the shortcuts across what had once been fields rich with grain, tobacco, and cotton.

  They had come quite a way from the Union camp. Lenore could see one large red farmhouse on a slope in the distance. She could see the trampled fields, a little outcrop of rocks dumped at the far corner of one of them. She could see or hear nothing else.

  "What is it?" she asked him at last.

  He shook his head. "Maybe nothing." He nudged his bay, and they started moving again.

  She shivered suddenly, feeling as if someone had drawn an icy nail down the length of her back.

  "That man..." she murmured, following behind Nathaniel again. "That man last night—"

  He reined in again, twisting in his saddle, a mustard-gauntleted hand riding upon the ridge of it, his blue eyes grave now as he looked at her. "That man is not Bruce," he told her again. "There is a strong resemblance. But if you were to come near him..." He paused, shrugging. "You would know," he said simply. "Lenore, I told you, I'm sorry, very, very sorry about Bruce. But don't grasp at straws. I know that you loved him—"

  "I did love him!" she cried huskily. "Very much."

  "But he's dead. He isn't my prisoner," he assured her. He turned back, nudging the bay, starting once again down the trail through the dense thicket of trees.

  But he had barely gone another twenty feet before he reined in again. Lenore's bay nearly blundered right into his, but she pulled the horse in swiftly, maintaining her seat while the animal swung around.

  "Shhh!" Nathaniel warned her.

  "I wasn't trying—" she began with exasperation.

  "Shhh!" he warned her again, and this time, she thought she heard a distant rustling sound.

  Then there was no need to wonder if they were hearing things. There was the sudden, near-deafening boom of a cannon, followed by a cacophony of sound—yells, shrieks, cries, bugles—not too far dist
ant down the trail from them.

  Men were going to war.

  Nathaniel swore suddenly and loudly, offering no apology when he stared at her with new consternation. "Stay behind me and follow me fast!" he commanded her.

  Her horse started to rear up. Nathaniel swiftly swung his own mount around, grabbing her reins at the horse's bit. "I can ride—" she started to protest.

  "But we need to move fast!" he snapped back. "Else I'll be returning you and your precious cargo pierced with bullet holes from both armies!"

  He was suddenly moving them along so quickly that a rush of wind brought tears to her eyes. Branches slapped her shoulders and face, and she ducked low, gripping the pommel of her saddle, unable to do anything but accept the plummet of the wild ride. Through it all, she could hear the horrible sounds of the fighting going on around them. Was it a skirmish, or a full-scale battle? That much she couldn't tell, only that the cries seemed to be everywhere, cries of challenge, Rebel cries, shouts, commands, orders. Then there were shrieks of pain, there was the horrible sound made by horses when they, too, screamed...

  They broke through the foliage, coming to a small stream surrounded by oak trees and shielded by a low stone fence. Nathaniel leaped down from his horse, smacking its rump to send it into the safety of the trees. Then he reached for her, drawing her down. His arm still around her, he forced her downward until they came to the shield of the stone wall, and there he hunched down himself, pressing her shoulders until she sat, her back to the low wall. She closed her eyes, trying not to hear the battle.

  She felt Nathaniel slump down beside her, his back to the wall as well.

  A second later, she felt his fingers entwining with hers, and her eyes flew open to meet his. His piercing blue gaze was steady now. She looked down at their hands, laced together, his large and covered in the mustard-colored cavalry gloves, hers suddenly seeming so very small. Rough hands which had once felt like silk, she thought ruefully. But her hands were such a very trifling matter now. She wondered if she would ever again care what they looked like.