Ella Wood Novellas: Boxed Set Page 10

  September 14, 1861

  I heard from home today. Mother and Emily have arrived in Charleston. No one seems to suspect anything out of the ordinary. In fact, Emily has swallowed my story in its entirety and is quite incensed. It makes me wonder just what thoughts are playing in her head. What motivates her anger? Do I dare test her confidence? There is so much she needs to know…

  Jovie emerged from the tent chuckling to himself. “What did you do now, Jack?”

  Jack looked up from the page he was writing on.

  “Your sister alluded three times to what she was going to do to you the next time she sees you.”

  Jack smirked. “She wrote to you about it, too? She must really be riled.”

  “So what’d you do to her this time?”

  Jack discreetly closed his journal and slipped it back in his pocket. He exchanged a questioning glance with Jeremiah. Eventually Jovie would learn the real reason he’d brought the colored man with him. Perhaps it would be easier if he knew some partial truth now. “I didn’t do anything. She found out I sold Jeremiah.”

  Jovie’s brow wrinkled. “But you didn’t sell Jeremiah.”

  “I know. But I told everyone I did.”

  Jovie frowned. “Why the deceit, Jack? If you had asked, your father probably would have given him to you.”

  “Most likely. But I figured I could eliminate the chance of Jeremiah ever being sold if my parents believed he already had been.”

  Jovie’s glance skipped between the two men. Clearly, he still didn’t understand.

  “I’ll probably be in loads of trouble when I get home, but I had to move Jeremiah beyond their reach. My father may not claim him, but I do.” Jack smiled and flung an arm around the black man’s shoulders. “Jovie, Jeremiah’s my half-brother.”

  3

  “Jackson Preston, step forward!” Captain Webb ordered following reveille several weeks later.

  Jack took a step and stiffened to attention.

  “You have been elected by your peers to serve as sergeant of Company K in place of Sergeant Wayne, God rest his soul. As your first order of business, you and Sergeant O’Neil are to each choose four men to report with you for forage duty in one hour.”

  Jack snapped a salute. “Yes, sir.”

  “Company dismissed for morning mess.”

  As the men disbanded, Dawes, Reggie, and Jovie descended on him with whoops of congratulations. “Didn’t I say you’d get it?” Dawes hollered, slapping him on the shoulder.

  “You’ll do us proud,” Reggie added.

  Jack answered them both with a wide grin. It was Jovie’s response that he felt the deepest, however. “I’m proud of you, Jack,” he said, clapping him on the shoulder. “You’ve done well.”

  Jack had accomplished little that Jovie could commend him for in recent years. His best friend’s approval made him set his hat a little straighter.

  Dawes grimaced. “I still say the flux is an inglorious end for a man who spent thirty years in the service.”

  Jack agreed wholeheartedly. Polluted water had wreaked havoc with the men’s bowels, decimating the ranks and prompting a move back to Centreville. There was hardly a man among them who made the march under full strength. Even Jack had to stop frequently at the side of the road. Others like Sergeant Wayne helplessly drained their lives away in the sick wagons.

  Jack deeply regretted the old warhorse’s passing.

  As the company dispersed to their tents, several of Jack’s comrades came forward to congratulate him. Then Will Tyler approached. “Need another man for forage duty?”

  “One, two, three,” Jack said, counting off his messmates. “You can be number four if you pay me the dollar you owe me from last night’s game.”

  “Done.” Tyler grinned. “And well worth it to get out of morning drill.”

  An hour later, the ten men mounted and departed camp. O’Neil agreed to head southwest while Jack took his men northwest. The longer the army lingered in the same area, the farther they had to range to find new sources of food.

  Jack and his men rode about seven miles before they began requisitioning supplies. Jack had mixed feelings about the task. In any other sense, “foraging” would be considered stealing, but the army did deserve its bread. They were putting their lives on the line to serve the people of Virginia. Still, it was difficult to face a family of wide-eyed children and collect what they had worked so hard to earn. He made sure to never take more than the family could do without.

  After gathering a dozen sacks of fresh vegetables as well as a mule to carry the bounty, Jack waved his detachment toward a tidy farm with a snug clapboard house and a white horse in a corral outside the barn. “Let’s try one more, then we’ll head back.”

  As they rode into the yard, the door to the house opened and a young woman stepped outside brandishing a coal shovel. A rangy mixed-breed dog slipped out behind her, hackles raised, to stand guard on the top porch step. “You’re not welcome here,” the woman called, a look of undisguised loathing on her face.

  As Tyler dismounted, the dog slunk down the stairs and stopped a few feet away, snarling threateningly. “Call off your dog,” Tyler warned, pulling out his pistol and taking aim.

  Jack held out a hand to stop him. “I’m sorry, miss. We won’t stay long. We’re collecting donations for the army.”

  “Donations.” She snorted. “What if I don’t want to donate to your Cause?”

  “I’m afraid it’s compulsory, miss.” The woman was young, perhaps twenty, with keen blue eyes and a long blond braid. She certainly had spunk. “If you don’t control your dog, we’ll be forced to shoot him.”

  “Ranger,” she snapped.

  The dog backed off but kept a wary eye on Tyler.

  Jack swung down from the saddle. “Jovie, you and Dawes take the house. Don’t touch anything except food. Tyler, Reggie, we’ll see about that horse.”

  “You’re not taking our animal,” the woman insisted. She trotted down the steps and crossed the yard ahead of them to plant herself in the barn’s doorway. “It’s the only workhorse we have left, thanks to you and your thieving friends.”

  Jack regarded her with some surprise and a good deal of admiration. He hadn’t run across any other individuals—men or women—who had shown this kind of determination. But he had to verify her claim and make sure she wasn’t hiding other livestock in the barn. “Step aside, miss.”

  She brandished the coal shovel like a weapon. “I won’t.”

  Jack exchanged a glance with Tyler, who smirked in amusement. The woman was five and a half feet of fierce, wild beauty, and Jack wasn’t sure how to proceed. The army hadn’t trained him for any situations quite like this one. “Miss, I don’t want to have to physically restrain you.”

  “If you want to enter this barn, that’s exactly what you’ll have to do. Ranger!” she called.

  The dog slinked around their flank and joined her. She shifted from foot to foot, eyes flashing, shovel at the ready.

  Jack looked helplessly at Tyler again and took a regretful breath. “I’m sorry, miss. I warned you…”

  He stepped forward. At the same moment, the farmer appeared around the side of the barn, took in the situation at a glance, and shouted a reprimand. “Amelia!”

  Jack’s attention wavered only a fraction of a second, but it was long enough. He recovered just in time to see the flat of the shovel collide with his forehead. The last thing he recalled as he sank to his knees and the day turned to black was the sound of frantic barking.

  ***

  Jack awoke on a strange bed in a room partially dimmed against a setting sun.

  A chair creaked, and a voice breathed, “Thank heavens you’ve come to. I was starting to worry.”

  Jack turned in the direction of the voice. “Who are you?” he asked hoarsely, attempting to focus on the man’s face. His head pounded like the bass drum in the company band.

  “Hezekiah Franklin. I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Preston, th
ough I wish it could have been under more favorable circumstances.” Hezekiah turned toward an open doorway. “Amelia, fetch a glass of water.”

  Jack reached up a hand up to gingerly touch his forehead. His fingers encountered a lump the size of a ripe plum. Memory returned as the contact sent pain streaking into his skull.

  “I’m sorry about that.” Hezekiah stepped directly into Jack’s field of vision. He was a few years over forty, dark-haired, with grizzled stubble dusting his chin. “I pray you’ll forgive Amelia. The close proximity of the battlefield has set her on edge. We’re just simple, peaceful folk who don’t hold to violence.”

  “Yes, I can see that,” Jack commented wryly, wincing against the pain.

  “I’m not sure what got into that girl, setting in on you the way she did. I’m afraid I’ve had a rough go of it with that one since her mother died.” He turned to the doorway. “Amelia!” he called again just as the young woman stepped through the door with a glass of water in her hand. “Ah, there you are.”

  Hezekiah helped Jack sit up and held the glass to his lips. “Better?” he asked when Jack lay back.

  It wasn’t, at least not much, but Jack nodded anyway. Very carefully.

  “Do you feel like some supper?”

  Jack realized his middle felt empty. “Yes, please. How long have I been out?”

  “A few hours. That was quite a wallop you took.” Hezekiah turned to his daughter. “Amelia, fetch a plate for our guest.”

  Sullenly, the young woman complied.

  “Where are the others?” Jack asked. “The men who were with me?”

  “Three of them headed back to your camp with their provender. The last one insisted on staying here with you. He’s in the kitchen partaking of his own meal.”

  That would be Jovie.

  “Let me stuff some pillows behind your back, then I’ll let Amelia attend you. It’s the least she can do for putting that knot on your forehead. And I’ll see to a bed for your friend. I’m afraid you’re not going anywhere until morning, Mr. Preston.”

  Hezekiah exited the room, and Amelia soon returned. Wordlessly, she set a tray containing bacon, fried eggs, and buttered bread with jam on his lap and plunked herself in the seat her father had vacated, resentment in every line of her posture.

  “Thank you.” Jack eyed her more carefully, intrigued by a girl with the courage to take on five soldiers. The fire in her eyes had subsided, and an upturned nose, a smattering of freckles, and the ringlets that escaped her braid gave her an earthy beauty. “I wouldn’t have taken your last animal,” he told her.

  She cut her eyes to him. “I wasn’t taking any chances.” She slumped down a little further in the chair.

  Despite her obvious disdain—and the knock on his head—Jack was eager to engage her in conversation. A person with that kind of determination was bound to hold some solid opinions. He just had to figure out what would start her talking.

  “Has the army been here before?” he tried.

  “Twice.”

  “Union or Confederate?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  Her offensive maneuver caught him off guard. “You don’t hold Confederate loyalties?”

  “My loyalties are to Virginia.”

  “Is Virginia not part of the Confederacy?”

  Her cheeks darkened. This time his question scored the point. “Perhaps,” she answered, “but I don’t hold with what you represent.”

  “And just what do I represent?”

  Her eyes narrowed, hinting at some of the strength he’d witnessed that morning. “My father and I work hard to keep this farm running. We’ve never owned slaves, and I don’t think we should sacrifice for those who have taken up arms in slavery’s defense.”

  “You’re pro-Union then.”

  “No.”

  “No? You must be one or the other.”

  “Must I?” Her eyes flashed. “‘There are few die well that die in a battle,’” she quoted. “War is waste, Mr. Preston. I choose not to choose a side at all.”

  Jack bit into a strip of bacon. “Henry V,” he stated, glad now for the hours his tutor had made him spend reading the works of the famous playwright. “You know Shakespeare?”

  She smiled wryly. “You seem surprised.”

  “No, I—” He stopped. He was surprised.

  “Mr. Preston, just because I live in the countryside doesn’t mean I am illiterate.”

  Touché. Jack took another bite of bacon. He’d try a different tactic. “What’s your favorite Shakespeare play?”

  She opened her mouth a fraction of a second before speaking, the tiniest of falters. “Macbeth.”

  “Truly?” It was a grisly tale of murder and intrigue. “I much prefer the confliction of Julius Caesar. And I’ve always been partial to Roman history.”

  “But Julius Caesar lacks the grandeur of Macbeth’s imagery. Nor does the metamorphosis of Brutus begin to compare to that of Macbeth.”

  “You think so?” he prodded.

  “It is so.” She rallied to her subject. “Macbeth’s decline is so brutal, so all-encompassing, so…visceral. Not to mention the lesson in pursuing ambition for ambition’s sake. Then there’s the theme of fate. Are we bound to a predetermined course, or do we choose our own destiny?”

  As her defense of the play lengthened, Jack couldn’t hold back a smug smile. He had found a chink in her defenses.

  She broke off when she noted his amusement and clamped her mouth shut.

  Match point.

  Jack finished the rest of his meal with a little bubble of laughter taking the edge off his pain. It was several minutes before he spoke again. “Miss Franklin, I apologize for causing you concern this morning. Had I known you’d been visited twice before, I would have passed by your house. But I would like you to know that not every Confederate grounds his honor in the defense of slavery.”

  Her eyes regarded him coolly. “And you would consider yourself one of these peculiar Confederates?”

  “I would.”

  She smiled at him with false sweetness. “Mr. Preston, my mother hailed from the Georgia lowlands. I am quite familiar with the speech and manners and deportment of the planter class. You meet these to perfection. Can you deny that you are a slave owner?”

  Of its own will, his hand reached up to trace the outline of the journal in the inside pocket of his uniform. “No, miss. I’m afraid I cannot.”

  “Then I will assume your remark was merely an attempt to insert yourself into my good graces.” She stood and snatched up his empty plate. “I assure you, it was not successful.”

  “Thank you for supper,” he called as she swept stiffly from the room, “and for the stimulating conversation.” He chuckled softly. The evening’s entertainment just may have been worth a knock on the head.

  Jovie came in soon after, undisguised amusement sparkling in his eyes. “How are you feeling?”

  Jack gingerly touched his forehead. “I’ve been better.”

  “Rough first day on the job?” Jovie’s lip twitched.

  Jack sighed. “Go ahead. Get it over with.”

  Jovie’s grin burst across his face. “Sorry, Jack. But when Tyler told us what happened, Dawes and I had a pretty good laugh at your expense—after we found out Miss Franklin didn’t actually kill you, that is.”

  Jack rolled his eyes. “I’m never going to live this down, am I?”

  “Sergeant taken down by a hundred-pound girl just hours after his promotion?” Jovie smirked. “Probably not. And I’m pretty sure the entire regiment has heard the story by now—most likely with a good deal of embellishment.”

  Jack closed his eyes and groaned.

  ***

  They set out the next morning, riding slowly to accommodate the dull ache in Jack’s head. Tyler, Reggie, and Dawes had taken the mule and all the forage back with them the day before, so time wasn’t urgent. It took them two hours to reach camp.

  They didn’t speak much during the ride, an
d Jack found his thoughts returning to Amelia again and again. He kept seeing her standing in the barn door, shovel raised, beautiful and defiant. She was intriguing, to say the least. Far different than any girl he’d met in Charleston. Intelligent as well. And she didn’t hold with slavery. The temptation had been strong to reveal to her who he really was, to correct her misinterpretation.

  Jack could smell the camp before he could see it. The odors of smoke, cooking food, and horses rode pickaback on the breeze, but they were all overpowered by the stench of the latrines. When the ditches serviced so many thousands of men, it didn’t seem to matter if they were dug downwind or not. Within days, they became the singular identifying odor of an army camp, superseding even the close-up smells of unwashed men and wet wool.

  Jack reported to Captain Webb while Jovie returned the horses.

  “Privates Tyler and Dawes explained what happened.” Webb clapped Jack on the shoulder with the ghost of a smile. “A spot of bad luck, I’d say. Report to medical and have that goose egg checked out.”

  Jack saluted gingerly. “Yes, sir.”

  When he reached the hospital tent, he was surprised to find Reggie there also awaiting treatment. The tall redhead’s face was even ruddier than usual.

  “You made it back,” Reggie observed.

  “In one piece, for the most part. What are you doing here?”

  Reggie shook his head. “I’ve been feeling poorly ever since we got back. Sweats and chills. Dawes made me come in.” His eyes shifted to Jack’s forehead. “I’d ask what you’re here for, but it’s pretty obvious.”

  “Yeah.” Jack sighed.

  Reggie smiled sympathetically. “It could have happened to any of us. I thought you handled the situation honorably.”

  Jack clapped his knee. “Thanks, Reg.”

  They fell silent, watching the orderlies at their work. It seemed the longer the army camped in one place, the busier the hospitals became.

  Reggie shifted position, stretching his long legs out in front of him. “Think they’ll be granting us leave anytime soon?”