There was silence for a moment.
“I killed her, Rob.”
“You what?!”
“If I’d not gotten her with child, she’d still be alive; ergo, I killed her.”
“That’s about the most illogical line of reasoning I’ve ever heard. You didn’t kill her any more than I did.”
Stung, Travis threw back, “Illogical? Of course it’s illogical. Grief and guilt aren’t terribly logical emotions, brother dear, which you’d know if you were human like the rest of us—”
“Oh, cram it,” Rob interrupted rudely. “I don’t give a damn if your guilt and grief are logical or not. Use your head for once, instead of letting your emotions ride you. Getting yourself killed isn’t going to bring her back, and you know it. Now, are you going to take control of yourself, or do I get you discharged for mental instability and sent home?”
Travis had a sudden flash of memory, of another grim visaged captain telling him to get control of himself or else. He closed his eyes. He’s right, you know. You didn’t kill her, nor did you fail her. There’s no way you could have known, could have done a single thing.
I know, he answered himself. But I still have no desire to face life again. Then a new thought hit him, striking as hard as Rob’s hand had.
She had lost almost everyone she had ever cared for, and yet still found the strength, the passion to keep on living. She’d even been willing to risk loving again: “I would not trade this for anything,” she had said that night in the stable.
And now look at me. Am I such a coward that I’m afraid to live? Or so weak that I can’t go on without her? Do I regret having loved her? No. No regrets. I too would not have traded those times with her for anything, though the memories now bring pain….
What was that verse she had quoted to him that same night? Tennyson. “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
A wry, internal laugh. Yes, a chroi, you would’ve smacked me too, had you caught me acting like this. Very well. I will no longer be a coward. I will live. Then, God give me strength to go on without you.
He opened his eyes and looked up at his brother, seeing the worry behind the stern face.
“I surrender,” he said with a small smile that pulled painfully. “You’re right, as usual. I haven’t been thinking so clearly. Hell, I’ve been trying not to think at all. But I think … I think I’m all here now.” He added plaintively, “Did you have to use violence to get your point across?”
Rob put out a hand to help him to his feet. “Words didn’t seem to be working. Takes a bit of force to get things through your thick skull when you’re in a passion. Always has, you know.”
“Rob, I promise I will be more careful. But in case something does happen….”
“I hereby take full responsibility for Danica Anderson’s welfare. You have my word as an officer, a gentleman, and your brother. Does that ease your conscience?”
“Yes.”
They stood there, eye to eye, hands gripped tight. Travis swallowed hard, then squared his shoulders and dusted the dirt from his uniform.
“Lieutenant Black, reporting back for duty, sir,” he said, voice steady once more.
Outside, caring for their horses, Rob glanced over at his brother. “Not to bring up a tender subject, but are you sure that postscript was real? I mean, from what she told us, I wouldn’t put anything past the Bancrofts.”
Travis picked up Ginny’s hoof, pried a stone out, thinking. His words stumbled out. “I wouldn’t either. But it doesn’t make sense. Why lie? What would it gain them to tell me such a thing? It wouldn’t get them Woodhaven. Thinking logically, it’s probably true.” He was quiet for a moment. “I just wish I could have some sort of resolution.” His voice trickled into nothing once more, and Rob let the subject drop.
Star lay in the cold dark of her room, listening to Danica’s rasping breath and the sound of rain hitting the window. She was mentally composing a letter, trying to keep her thoughts off the hungry rumble of her belly, and the emptiness she still felt there.
My Dearest Travis,
This was not at all how I planned to spend Christmas Eve. I fully expected that by now Dani and I would be safe and snug at Black Forest. My illness and slow recovery are mostly to blame, and now Dani is sick again, though only with a slight cold, not the fever as before. But I am far too weak to do anything to help her.
It is raining here, which seems faintly blasphemous, as if any precipitation other than snow on this day were wrong. We had a quiet evening—nothing very special….
Even in her own mind she could not continue, could not tell him what their Christmas Eve had really been like. Cornbread, pickled beets—oh, how she hated those beets, but hunger had driven her to eat them anyway—and the very last of the salt pork. The Bancroft’s Sally, their only remaining servant, had presented them with a small miracle, a sweet potato pie, and had later disappeared into the wet night. Starla did not think they would see her again, nor did she blame the old Negress: why stay and starve with a family that treated her more as a handy possession than as a human being?
Jake had found a half full bottle of corn squeezings hidden in a corner of the attic, and proceeded to drink himself into what he considered a fine holiday spirit. Star had stayed only a short while before taking herself and her sister from the semi warmth of the parlor to the frigid, but safe, confines of their own room.
There they had exchanged gifts. Star too had spent time in the attic, had dragged her still weak body through the dust and cobwebs, and had been rewarded with an overlooked trunk of moth eaten clothing. But from the whole pieces she had made Dani a warm, if motley, cloak. From Dani she received a crazy quilt of a scarf, knitted from scraps of yarn saved over the past few years. Neither sister even considered gifts for their cousins, though they had collaborated in making a bottle of ink from rusty nails and in cutting sheets of old wallpaper down to letter size so that their aunt could continue the journal she had written in for as long as the girls had known her.
As a result, Star had no paper to write on herself. She did not begrudge her aunt’s gift. Heaven knew Eliza Bancroft had few enough pleasures in life, and her diary was one of them. Starla had sent out a couple of letters in the weeks before Christmas, but suspected they never left the house. No messages of any sort had found their way into the house either.
Where are you, cariad? Are you nearby?
She knew there were Yankees in the area, had seen them riding by almost daily. But neither she nor Dani had the strength to go out to them, especially since Jake was always there on the veranda, pistol in hand. Star wasn’t sure if he was protecting his home, or keeping her from leaving it. Perhaps it was a little of both.
Jake’s behavior confused her. He kept a physical distance from her, and from Danica, which greatly relived both of them. Yet she knew that he would do just about anything to keep her from leaving. And he continued to fire comments at her like a sniper.
“You know, Estella, perhaps your Yankee hasn’t written back because he’s finally come to senses, regretted his brief infatuation with the enemy. Maybe he’s already gotten a quiet little divorce and found a much more suitable Northern girl.”
A year ago such talk would have been a solid hit. She would have had no difficulty believing that any male would prefer the lovely Katherine Scott to herself. Now she merely found the remark irritating. She had no doubt whatsoever of Travis’ love. She had seen the look in his eyes, felt the gentleness of his touch. No, she did not fear abandonment.
Far worse was her cousin’s suggestion that there were no letters because Travis was dead. “He is on the frontlines, my dear Estella. You more than anyone know how dangerous that life is. You may have to face the fact that you could be a widow right now, and not even know.”
She pretended to ignore him, but his words wore steadily at her spirit.
That last dream….
What if her efforts, the sacrifice, what if they ha
d not been enough after all? That fear she tried to keep buried deep, lest she begin to believe it and despair. There had been no other dreams since then, but whether that was good or bad she did not know.
Lying there in the dark, huddled beneath her worn blankets, the thought of losing him too wrapped itself about her heart, colder even than the room around her. Starla spent the rest of Christmas Eve fighting back tears.
20. “When You Walk Through The Fire…”
March 29, 1865
Robert Black sat motionless on an old, fallen tree, Starla’s letter pale against the blue of his trousers.
“I just wish I could have some sort of resolution.” He heard his brother’s voice in the back of his mind, the grief held under a tight rein.
Resolution. The only logical resolution was finding this Stonewood place and paying a visit. But after five months of trying they still hadn’t located the Lewis farm. Finally Rob resigned himself to the inescapable, and snuck the letter from Travis’ shirt pocket one night while his brother slept.
Placing one hand on the letter, he closed his eyes. In the darkness the letter burned sapphire bright. He let his mind roam. There. A faint blue spark, fairly nearby. Like to like, he thought and opened his eyes. Something of his sister in law was to their southwest, pulling him like a lodestone. Most likely the Lewis place. One way to find out.
The next squad to head out had Captain Black with them.
Three short hours later Rob went looking for his brother and found him talking to Ginny. He stood there, fingering the letter in his pocket and feeling terribly awkward.
“Trav, I think I’ve found it.”
Travis looked up from examining Ginny’s saddle. “Found what?”
“Stonewood.”
Travis said nothing, but his hand on the stirrup clenched white.
Rob continued, “We’re heading that way now. Rebs are forming up not too far from there. I’ll try to give you a few minutes….” He broke off. What else was there to say?
Danica winced and dropped another stitch as the guns boomed again, closer this time.
“Blast,” she murmured under her breath as she attempted to work the stitch back on her needles. The parlor was usually the brightest room in the house, but the half light of a gray March afternoon made it almost too dim to see her knitting.
Beside her, Leah stabbed at her piecework with sightless eyes. This was far from the first fight they’d heard since moving to Stonewood, but neither girl had become used to the screaming, the thundering, the rattling of guns and windows. Unlike Starla, who was upstairs, able to sleep through the cacophony. Dani’s mouth twisted at the thought of her sister. Poor Star. I wonder if she’ll ever completely recover. Certainly not as long as she remained in this starving household.
It fell silent at last. Eliza got up and walked around the room, glancing through each window. Dani watched her; Aunt Eliza moved slowly, as if half asleep. It was a common state of being in the family, this numbness of mind and body.
Suddenly her aunt froze at the front window, peering outside into the gathering darkness.
Dani barely had time to ask, “What is it?” when there came a pounding on the front door.
“Yankees,” Eliza whispered.
Yankees. Perhaps, if she were quick enough, she could get a message out for Star. Perhaps get help.
Danica pulled herself upright—ignoring the usual pain—grabbed her crutch, and limped heavily to the door. She wrestled it open to find herself looking up at a very tall, dark haired captain. Behind him stood another Yankee, hat in hand, head bowed.
The captain spoke first. “Ma’am, would this be the Lewis farm?”
Dani nodded, confused. “Yes, sir. Sir, could you plea—”
Heavy footsteps thundered on the stairs. Jake. He yanked the door from Dani’s grasp, sending her sprawling to the floor. She saw the captain step forward angrily, but Jake was glaring past him at the other man.
“You,” Jake snarled, shaking his fist at him. “I was hoping you’d show up here sooner or later.”
He threw open his hand and a ball of fire streaked towards the hatless Yankee, only to stop as if the air were solid, dissipating almost instantly.
The Yankee’s smile was grim. “This time I’m not a prisoner, you son of a bitch, and there’s no army here to protect you,” he said, raising his own hand with a peculiar twisting motion.
Jake gasped, clawing at his throat. Fireballs formed and vanished all around him, and beneath him the floorboards glowed, then kindled.
The Yankee took a step closer. “Now you’re going to pay, Jacob Bancroft, for what you did to—”
“Leave him alone, you brute!” Leah screamed from the parlor, rushing to her brother’s defense and throwing the nearest weapon at hand.
The Yankee staggered as a heavy pewter candlestick hit him, breaking his concentration long enough for Jake to tear free and escape out the kitchen door, cursing loudly. Still screaming, Leah grabbed her mother by the hand and followed him.
On the floor, Dani watched in mesmerized terror as the flames crept closer. Her body tensed, remembering the pain, the weight crushing her into the floor of the train; blackness crept around the edges of her vision. Then strong hands were around her, carrying her out the front door and onto the porch.
“I take it this is the right place, then?” the captain commented as they backed away from the entrance.
“Yes, and I’ve a score to settle with that bastard,” the other man answered, rubbing his bruised shoulder. Then he blinked, seemed to notice Danica for the first time. “Are you hurt, miss?”
Before she could respond, the ancient wallpaper in the parlor caught, shooting flames up to the ceiling. She let out an involuntary cry, echoed by a shriek from inside the house.
The Yankee spun about, staring through the open door. “Someone’s still in there?”
“My sister,” Dani said, trembling, struggling to retain some of her sanity. “Upstairs, the south corner room. She’s been ill….”
The captain put out a hand. “Trav…?”
A mirthless smile. “Don’t worry. I’m not suicidal this time. Just more expendable.”
The captain looked unconvinced.
“Captain, the men need you a hell of lot more than they need me. That makes me the logical one to go. So would you kindly let go of my sleeve and get that girl out of here?” Then he vanished into the house.
A muttered oath, and Dani was picked up like a rag doll, carried out into the yard, and dumped unceremoniously in the damp grass. The captain took a step back towards the house, as if he too would go in.
She struggled to her knees and knelt there swaying, not quite daring to ask the Yankee for assistance. “Hold on, dearest,” she urged. “Help is coming.” Above the crackling she thought she could hear more screams. She clenched her fists in helpless horror. “Oh, Star!”
“Are you quite certain she’s still in there?” the man beside her demanded, voice cold. “So help me, if he’s gone in after nothing—” He broke off, a startled expression on his tanned face. “What did you just call your sister?”
“Star,” she said softly, unable to take her eyes from the flames.
He grabbed her shoulders hard, lifting her to her feet and forcing her to look up at him. “Say again?”
She tried to pull away; his eyes were so fierce, lips a pale line below his dark moustache. “Her name is Starla.”
“There couldn’t be two…. Are you Danica Anderson?”
Eyes wide, she gasped out, “How’d you know that?”
He didn’t answer, just stared past her at the house.
“Dear God in Heaven,” he said in a low voice. “Hurry, Trav. Hurry.”
Travis paused just inside the threshold, trying to get his bearing amid the inferno. The hallway was ablaze, flames already kindling the edges of the stairs. This is madness, he thought wildly. Comes from reading too many novels. But the girl said upstairs, so upstairs I go. Plunging into th
e smoke, he let loose a swift curse as he stepped wrong, pain shooting up his leg, and then called out, “Is there anyone in here?”
He barely heard the wailing response as the second flight of stairs dissolved in a roar. Through the haze he could see a figure on the upper landing, hunched over, hands hiding her face from approaching death.
“Ma’am? Ma’am!”
She raised her head, and Travis thought his heart had stopped beating.
“Starla?”
Her blue eyes widened in recognition. Then another section of flooring disappeared with a crash. She stood, coughing, saying something he couldn’t hear.
Oh Lord, she’s alive. She’s alive, and I can’t get to her. His fists clenched in frustration and fear. He couldn’t reach her—the air in here was far too unstable for him to use. But she could reach him.
“You’re going to have to jump,” he shouted up at her. “I’ll catch you!”
She shook her head frantically, hands fluttering like ashes in the smoke. Nevertheless, she inched towards the edge. The floor creaked ominously under her weight, little tongues of fire licking closer to where she stood. She screamed again, shrinking back from the tendrils of flame that tried to wind their way up her skirt.
“Dammit, Starla! Trust me for once! Jump!”
Time seemed to slow as she launched herself through the smoke and fire with a cry. He caught her, held her tight for a moment, her body frail, but real and alive and safe in his arms.
The stench of burning fabric brought him back to the too real present. He beat at her smoldering dress, then, without a word, picked her up and fled for the door. From behind them he could hear the splintering thunder of the upper floor crashing down. Flames burst from the windows and doors, the heat and rush of air almost knocking him over.
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