by Tammy Barley
“Believe it,” he said, his gaze firm beneath his brows, “because I intend to.”
She tightened her grip until it pained her. “Then we don’t say good-bye?”
He hesitated, then shook his head to assure her. “We don’t say good-bye.”
Suddenly, Jess recalled what she had wanted to do. With a quick tug, she untied the green satin ribbon of the pendant necklace she wore, slipped the ribbon free, and pressed it into his hand. “I’ll want that back one day,” she said. “Until then, keep the best memories of us all close to your heart.”
Ambrose smiled and tucked the ribbon into his shirt pocket with a little pat. “I can’t think of a better place to put them.”
Another movement drew her gaze. The coach driver climbed into his seat.
“Ambrose?”
“Pray for me, Jess. I’ll write to you as often as I can, I promise.”
Ambrose hurried toward the stage, Jess’s hand tucked in his. At the door, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her warmly.
“Will you write to me?”
Jess buried her face into the gray cloth of his coat. “Just try to stop me.”
He kissed the top of her head, briefly hugged her tighter, and then stepped away.
After Ambrose had swung aboard the coach, he turned and leaned out the window. His blue eyes shone. “The Lord has a plan, Jess!” he called. “Remember that!”
The driver cracked the reins and the six-in-hand pulled the stage away from Carson City, away from her. Jess watched until the coach disappeared through a pass in the mountains.
Keep him safe, Lord, she prayed. Whatever lies ahead, please keep him safe.
It was all she could do not to run for her horse and go after him.
***
Near Perryville, Kentucky
October 1862
His boots firm in the stirrups, Ambrose leaned over the heaving neck of the mare as he charged into the sunlit field. Well-muscled and dappled gray, the mare tore up stones with her thrashing hooves while Ambrose’s cotton shirt ballooned behind him and snapped in the blowing heat. His fear for General Bragg’s paltry command of sixteen thousand burned like liquid fire in his belly, and with heartrending despair, he recalled Mr. Lincoln’s reputed strong conviction that “to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game.”
His colonel’s rapidly scrawled reconnaissance report was secured in a leather pouch tucked into his waistband. It was the only warning Bragg would have that the Yankee advance at Frankfort was merely a diversion, and that the whole of General Buell’s Union army was, in fact, moving toward Bragg’s position. Buell meant to take Kentucky.
The enemy was fifty-five thousand strong.
Sixteen thousand up against fifty-five. Ambrose whipped a sleeve across his forehead to blot the sweat seeping from underneath his hat. If he didn’t reach Bragg in time for the general to pull back and regroup, Kentucky would fall to the Federals—and to their torches. Ambrose tilted his head to hear the distant pum, pum of cannon fire.
Fields dotted with white and blue wildflowers blurred by. This was his home, his land, and now, Greenbriar was his, too. Ambrose frowned as he recalled the letter written by his stiff-necked, outraged father—the sole one he’d sent—in which he had given him Greenbriar. His father intended the house as an accusatory monument to the heritage he believed his son had betrayed by ultimately fighting for the South. But to Ambrose, if Greenbriar survived the war, it would again become his home, his livelihood, and the place his old bones would be laid. He yearned to fall in love there, to marry there, to raise children amid all its gurgling streams and grassy paddocks. Children who would love it as he always had, and as Jess had.
Memories intruded—memories of the day Jess was born and the moment he first held her. He had been seven, and the tiny, warm bundle that stared up at him with curious green eyes had captivated his heart. As she grew, it was to him that she had come for comfort and advice; with him, she shared her inmost thoughts. He had taught her more about the person she could become than their parents ever had, and she had matched his strength and dedication toward those whom she loved.
Now Jess was his proponent and confidante. She wrote to him as often as he wrote to her, discreetly hiding his letters from their father. He knew many of their letters never made it through enemy lines since, in letters he did receive, Jess frequently referred to events he was unaware of, as well as to war news he had previously penned. Even so, they both persisted in sending them. As promised, she patiently worked to sway their father’s heart toward his son.
And she remained firm in her belief that her brother would survive the war.
His mind turned to the letter he had written to her only a few hours ago. He imagined her reading it at night by candlelight, the flame’s glow illuminating her casually knotted hair, highlighting the loose strands she rarely bothered with. He could almost hear the smooth flow of her Southern voice as if she were reading it aloud.
My dearest Jessica,
Like others here, I often look ahead to the end of the war and dream of what I will do after.
For me, it has never been a question. The day I muster out, I will come without hesitation to all of you there, to make up lost years of brothering for you and baby Emma, and to find a way to repair the damage between Father and me. I will remain until Mother’s worries for me have gone, and she sees her family healed. Until then, Jessica, you must continue to convey to her news of my well-being, and tell her of my unflagging determination to return
to you all.
Then, as Grandfather would have wished for me to do, I will come back home to Greenbriar and rebuild what the war has ruined. I’ll fill its paddocks again with the prized horseflesh that has always graced its lands.
I yearn to walk again the brick path leading to the porch, to step into the downstairs hall and feel it welcome
me home…
Startled, Ambrose entered a town huddled beneath a haze of smoke. Perryville! The mare was slick with sweat and foam, but she had a bold heart, the likes of which he’d rarely seen in an animal. Spying a cluster of saddled mounts, Ambrose halted before a red brick house. The gray tugged at the reins while he listened to a soldier’s instructions on how to find General Bragg.
Ambrose immediately headed northwest on the river road. The roar of battle grew deafening. Yankee wounded and dead lay scattered over the hills.
He topped a rise. Below, gray-clad soldiers swarmed through thick smoke into the enemy, several falling beside their comrades. All around, cannon shells burst in sprays of jagged metal and earth.
“Lord in heaven,” Ambrose murmured, “help us all.”
Urging the mare along a path behind the lines, Ambrose ducked the whizzing cannon fire. He pulled out his leather pouch and withdrew the message.
…to throw open the nursery doors where we played, and step into the sunshine flowing through the window glass. Do you remember how we watched from that high window the newborn foals bounding about? And the way you were ever leaning over the sill for a better look, knowing that I would hold you safe? After the war I must find myself a young lady, and convince her that we should fill the room anew with children’s laughter.…
A cannon shell exploded, and a terrible pressure struck his chest. The mare screamed. Groaning through his teeth, Ambrose clung to her neck. To the west, rifles barked flashes of orange as men in blue and gray surged into their enemies.
Ambrose pressed forward, searching the high ridges for the familiar starred collar and white-streaked beard of General Bragg.
…Lastly, I admit to looking ahead to sharing my life with someone who, like you, will write to me when I must be away, who will hold warm thoughts of me in my absence. I pray she may ever keep hope alive for our children that I will return to them, just as you, my sister, have done for our family. You have kept me alive through this war, Jess, for I know one by whom I will always be loved, always be remembered fondly, and always be welcomed home.�
�
Ambrose kicked the gray forward with all the strength he had. Fortunately, she lunged in response, not wavering at the unsteady weight on her back. Ambrose fought through the thickening fog in his mind and gripped the dispatch tighter.
A sudden burning burst along his thigh, and the smoky daylight and soldiers’ movements began to dim. Beneath him, the mare pulled ahead, pitching like a rocking chair. He imagined the stern face of General Bragg turning in surprise as he approached.
…I keep your ribbon in my pocket and frequently feel it there. When I think of you, as I often do, the single thought that comes is this: I cannot wait to see you again.…
He felt himself reaching out to her, to Jess. Wanting to see her one more time, to tell her how dear she was to him, had always been. He was fading. The message. He couldn’t feel it. Did the general receive the message?
Ambrose no longer knew what direction the mare took but threaded his fingers through her mane, imagining he was weaving hands with Jess.
…Your ever loving brother,…
No sky fell under his eyes; he saw only a lone field of dappled gray, oddly crossed with streams of red.
“Jess…,” he rasped.
Ambrose.
Chapter One
Carson City, Nevada Territory
February 1863
Jessica moved another impatient step forward in the slow line, her frustration mounting. Near the corner stove, opinionated miners in wrinkled, unwashed clothes passed around the first bottle of the day and growled about the dry winter, Indian attacks, and war news as it came in over the wire. A dapper man at the front of the line relayed his message to the telegraph operator, and the two began to argue over the phrasing of the telegram.
Jess withheld a scathing suggestion and glanced around the room. An attendant shoveled more coal into the stove and raised the wicks of the oil lamps against the predawn darkness. Inwardly, she was growing annoyed with her plan to send a telegram to the States. With the clear pro-Union sympathies among the patrons, she didn’t expect the clerk would much care what happened to her brother.
Her brother.
Jess’s head dropped back restlessly, her temples throbbing with pains of worry. Ambrose had written frequently over the past three years, and though an occasional letter had been lost, she’d received word from him nearly every month since he had left for the war.
The last letter he’d sent was dated almost four
months ago.
Jess stared angrily at the coattails of the man in front of her. She hated herself for waiting this long, for hoping for word. Something had happened to Ambrose. She knew it had. She knew it right down to her boots.
When his letters had stopped, she had written to his commanding officer, but her letter was neither responded to nor returned. For weeks, she had pored over newspapers and casualty lists until long into the night, but she never saw his name. Now few options remained. This telegram had to work. She had to know what had happened to Ambrose. She had to know what to tell their mother.
Three or four of the miners chuckled over another man’s jest, and the line moved slowly forward. Jess pulled her cloak tighter around her. Ambrose, were he nearby, would remind her that the Lord was with her, even in this place. Jess tried to believe that He was, and she took another step closer to the chatter of clicks and beeps coming in over the wire.
***
Jake Bennett lifted the saddle from his horse and laid it over the top rail of the corral fence beside him. The winter morning was still dark, the corral and barn wall dimly discernible in the starlight, and the livery stable had yet to open for business that day. No matter. During the previous day’s ride from the ranch, his men, seldom known to interrupt a good silence with talk, hadn’t passed a mile without one of them commenting on a new hat or saddle he wanted to see in Carson City. All four had been content to break camp before sunrise, and, when they’d arrived, to look through shop windows until proprietors unlocked their doors.
Resting a gloved hand on his stallion’s back, Jake leaned over to swipe the road dust from its flank. Almost four years had come and gone since he had built his ranch up near Honey Lake in ’59, and he and his men now supplied horses and fresh beef to settlers in gold and silver mining towns that hadn’t existed then. Even Carson City, though a fledgling compared to long-established urban areas, looked closer to being cosmopolitan than the open stretch of wilderness it had been only a few years ago. Board buildings and adobes stood in the valley where the easternmost Sierras parted. When Jake had ridden in a short while earlier, they had seemed to rise out of the desert, the silhouette of a growing town beneath star-rimmed mountains.
With a hearty pat on his horse’s neck, Jake straightened. Hurried citizens bustled past, bundled in coats and scarves. A small man scuttled along the storefront toward him, head bowed low against the wind. He stepped off the boardwalk, glanced up in surprise at the huge black horse he had nearly collided with, and lifted his eyes higher to Jake’s. The man blinked, murmured an apology, and eased around the stallion, gasping when it flicked its tail warily. Jake watched the fellow’s hat pass beneath him as he slipped by, then shifted his regard to the telegraph office across the road, where he had seen a young woman enter a few minutes earlier. Even by lantern light, the woman had appeared agitated about some matter, yet she’d held her head high as she strode through the door with unmistakable boldness, like a cat he had once watched tree a bear. He hadn’t seen such beauty and fortitude in a townswoman in quite some time. It was a refreshing sight.
Jake returned his attention to his horse. He reached into his pocket for a comb, which he used to pull tiny burrs off its flank.
***
Jess stepped up to the counter. The thin man in shirtsleeves standing behind it grabbed a blank form, barely giving her a glance. “What’s your message?”
She steadied herself with a long, deep breath. “To Dr. J. S. Newberry, Secretary for the Western Department of the Sanitary Commission, Louisville, Kentucky.”
At the sound of her voice, the man’s pencil stopped. Conversations in the room tapered off. The telegrapher’s eyes flicked over her in disgust. “Kentucky?”
Jess bristled at his subtle insult. “Yes,” she said evenly. “Kentucky.”
Gradually, the other men in the room resumed their discussions. The telegrapher rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Sanitary Commission, huh? All right, go ahead.”
Jess waited until he had completed the address. “Dear Sir: I must ask your assistance in locating my brother, as I have no one else to turn to. His last known location was Versailles on October eighth of last year.”
The pencil scratched across the page. “Go on.”
“He is Lieutenant Ambrose Hale, Second Kentucky Cavalry, Company A”—Jess hesitated only briefly—“Army of the Mississippi.”
The discussion behind her ceased abruptly.
Jess felt several pairs of eyes turn toward her.
***
Jake looked up as the door of the telegraph office burst open. A mob of angry men was dragging someone, thrashing and bucking, down the steps and into the street.
That someone was wearing a skirt.
Jake jerked the lead free of the fence rail. Grasping a handful of mane, he swung himself onto his horse and whistled sharply to the already moving animal.
***
Jess stared into a sea of snarling faces and rage-reddened eyes. She shrieked as a burly, pockmarked man grabbed a fistful of her hair.
“Confederate trash gets hung in Federal territory,” he roared into her face. He was nearly ripping the hair from her head. Jess swatted desperately at his hands. “I lost two cousins at Shiloh,” he spat. “Two cousins!”
“You can hardly accuse me—” Jess gasped as she was shoved into the arms of one of his companions, arms that held tight against her ribs, though she fought to wriggle loose. All around, faces leered at her, moving closer: a skeletal, balding man with sunken cheeks. Another with long, white-b
lond hair. Tobacco-stained teeth. A twisted, broken nose. Others, pressing against her skirt. Rough fingers clamped onto her throat.
Jess was finally flung free as a huge black stallion reared up beside her, massive hooves thrashing. Her attackers stumbled back to a more respectful distance. The horse came down, and the big man astride it speared her attackers with a glare.
“Start walking,” he said.
Swiftly recovering their wits, her aggressors glanced around at one another, silently assessing this intruder’s ability to hold his own against a large group. Then their eyes shifted to four other men who had stepped into the street and were lining up behind Jess and the horseman.
Jess’s heart hammered in her chest. The threat from both sides hung in the air. The four who had joined them— friends of her rescuer, judging by their dress—looked more than ready to take on two times their number, along with anything else that might get in their way. In the lightening gray of the sky, their faces were little more than shadows and gleaming eyes beneath their hat brims. Yet, menacing as they were, none of their scowls could match that of their leader.
A cold blast of wintry air pelted her. The men drew back their heavy coats, hands hovering near the guns at their hips. Jess’s breath came in intermittent puffs of vapor. A small crowd had gathered on the boardwalk, and their suspense was mounting tangibly.
Finally, Jess saw the burly man’s eyes narrow and his stance relax; it seemed he had decided to let the matter be. With a jerk of his hand, he signaled his companions, who started to back away.
Jess watched them retreat until they disappeared from sight, the last man piercing her with a hate-filled glare. She counted. There had been nine of them. Her stomach felt as if a mule had kicked it. Twice. In the window of the telegraph office, the thin man in shirtsleeves pointedly flipped the Open sign to Closed.
