Cheryl Reavis (16 page)

Or perhaps she was. She didn’t recognize herself anymore. She didn’t know where those feelings had come from. How could she have behaved so wantonly, when he had made it painfully clear from the very first that he had no interest in her beyond her caring for his daughters?

“—the wicked!” Johann said loudly, and she tried again to listen to whatever he was saying. But her eyes and her attention went immediately to Frederich. He had been right about her coming to church, regardless of the fact that he now obviously wished that she hadn’t. When she came downstairs to leave for church with the rest of the family, she’d thought for a brief moment he was going to tell her that she couldn’t go.

But she wouldn’t have missed Beata’s dismay for the world. What a liar Caroline Holt’s appearance in church must have made of Beata Graeber. Caroline was behaving so well, too—on the surface at least. It was only in the barn with Frederich that her craziness unloosed itself and she lost all sense of propriety and decorum. She had learned nothing from her experience with Kader Gerhardt. She still mistook complete indifference for high regard.

Mary Louise was tugging at her sleeve. “Pee-pee,” she whispered loudly enough to draw smiles from Leah Steigermann and the rest of the people around them.

Caroline took Mary Louise by the hand, putting her finger to her lips to show her that no further discussion regarding nature’s call was necessary, and she guided her as unobtrusively as she could down the aisle to the side door, opening it just wide enough for them both to slip through. An armed soldier—an officer—stood outside on the steps.

“Morning, ma’am” he said, touching the brim of his hat. “Captain Elijah Brady, at your service. Church over?”

“No,” Caroline said, looking down as he took her firmly by the arm. “What—?”

“I need you to come over here now, ma’am,” he said, pulling her along.

“Sir, what are—you don’t understand—I have to take this child to the privy.”

“She’ll have to wait.”

“She can’t
wait—
she’s just a little girl.” She looked around at the group of soldiers that seemed to have encircled the front of the church. “Are you foraging again? There’s nothing to forage
here—”

“As a matter of fact, ma’am, there is—Sergeant Alexander!" he snapped, making a red-bearded man off to his left jump.

“Are you ready, Alexander?” he asked as the man rapidly approached.

“Yes, sir, Cap.”

“Keep this woman out of the way—you got all the doors covered?”

“Ah, yes, sir. Come on, ma’am,” the sergeant said to Caroline, pushing her along. “You best get on over that way.”

Mary Louise was clinging to her skirts and she nearly stumbled.

“I don’t—wait—what is happening!”

“Conscription detail, ma’am. Sometimes a gun or two will go off, so you’re going to want to keep yourself and your little girl out of the way.”

Caroline tried to look over her shoulder. The captain and three other men were about to enter the church. They flung both doors wide, letting them bang against the opposite walls as they strode inside; she could hear the congregation abruptly stop singing.

She tried to sidestep the sergeant, who still wouldn’t let her by.

“I’m telling you, ma’am, I got a captain here who loves his work. You ain’t wanting to get in his way—”

“I have to hear what he’s saying!” she cried. She jerked free of the man’s grasp, meaning to fight him off if she had to. “My brothers are in there!”

And my husband.

He shrugged and let her go. Mary Louise was wailing now, but Caroline managed to half carry her close enough to see down the center church aisle. The captain was standing in front of the pulpit, talking loudly. He hadn’t bothered to remove his hat.

“—you people to know I have government authority and I don’t want any trouble—because you will sure as hell get more than you can give if you try to interfere with me. Now, here it is! All men of good health between the ages of eighteen and forty-six are hereby conscripted into the army of
the Confederate States of America!” He paused, waiting for the clamor of voices to subside. “There are no exceptions! Do you all hear that?
None.
So I don’t want anybody crying to me about planting or harvesting or pregnant wives.

“Reverend, I’m sure you have some birth records around here. Go get the book so we can start weeding them out. All you new soldiers will be leaving for camp as soon as that’s done, and
no,
none of you are going to run on home to get something first. Whatever you think you have to have can be sent to you at Garysburg.

“Let’s get at it, Reverend! I don’t have all day! All of you women go outside and wait—now, ladies! You can farewell these new soldiers when we’re done here.”

The women began coming out, hurried along by a young soldier who tipped his hat courteously to each one but who kept them moving. Caroline could hear Avery’s raised voice announcing his farmer’s exemption and the answer he got.

“You are exempt if you pay the government to let somebody else get shot in your place—
for which,
I can assure you, it is too late now! You are in the army, son!”

Lise came out. An obviously frightened Beata fluttered along after her, trying to hang on to her hand. A woman behind them suddenly swooned when she reached the bottom step and Caroline dragged Mary Louise out of the rush to loosen the woman’s stays and find someone refined enough to be carrying smelling salts.

When had it come to this?
she thought in a panic. When had it become all right to
steal
soldiers for an army? No. She knew when. She had read the notice in the newspaper for John Steigermann. And she’d been too involved in her own troubles to note its import. She looked around her at the women who cried openly and the dry-eyed women who refused to believe they were about to lose their husbands and brothers and sons.
How naive we all were,
she thought,
to
think that the most that would be required of us was knitting socks.

The old men were filing out—and several underage boys. Leah Steigermann ran to her father. Caroline tried to see inside the church again, but the gathering of people trying to revive the woman on the steps blocked her view.

She reached down and picked up Mary Louise, because the child still had to heed the call of nature. She staggered a bit under Mary Louise’s weight because she was not yet strong.

“Where are you going?” Beata cried, grabbing at her arm. “You have to be the one! You have to tell them they cannot take Frederich! He
is your
husband!”

Caroline pulled her arm free. “You forget, Beata, even if I could do something, he wants nothing from the likes of me.” She tried to walk on, but Mary Louise was too heavy for her. She faltered and finally had to set her down, causing her to protest loudly and renew her crying.

Leah immediately stepped forward. “Let me take her,” she said. “Let me take you, pumpkin,” she said to Mary Louise, easing her grasp free of Caroline’s skirts. “Come with me, Lise,” she said around Beata. “Come walk with me and tell me about your birthday. Have you opened your presents yet?”

“Aunt Caroline?” Lise said, close to tears herself. “What’s going to happen to Papa?”

“I don’t know, Lise. Go with Leah now,” Caroline said. “So Mary Louise won’t cry so hard.”

Leah’s eyes met Caroline’s over the top of Lise’s head. “Sit down someplace,” she said quietly. “You look terrible.”

For once, Caroline felt no resentment at needing Leah Steigermann’s help, but there was no place to sit down, regardless of how terrible she might look. She could only stand and wait—and hope that she didn’t keel over and add
another fainting woman to the pile. She couldn’t tell what was happening inside the church now. The big two-over-two windows were open, but she couldn’t get near to them because of the ring of soldiers. The front doors had been closed. She could hear only a raised voice she thought was Avery’s from time to time.

Leah returned almost immediately with the girls. Mary Louise was no longer crying, but she was no less upset. And Lise. Her birthdays would never be the same again. They would always be the anniversary of
this.
Caroline gave her a small smile, one which Lise managed to return. But her smile abruptly faded and Caroline put her arms around her. She could feel the child trembling.

There was some kind of commotion from inside the church. Caroline kept looking at the double doors, but they remained closed. She realized suddenly that the men were coming out the door on the other side, the one she and Mary Louise had exited during the church service. She realized, too, that perhaps Captain Elijah Brady had lied about letting the women “farewell” their men. In a maneuver that must have come of practice, the new conscripts were immediately surrounded and ready to be marched away down the dirt road that eventually led into town.

“Hurry,” Caroline said, taking both children by the hand, her eyes searching the line of men for Frederich. “Do you see him?” she said to Lise.

Avery was coming out of the church, a soldier at each elbow.

“You keep an eye on that one,” Sergeant Alexander said to one of the men.

“I’m not doing anything!” Avery said.

“Not yet you ain’t,” Alexander said. “You boys watch that farmer and I mean it!”

“Papa!” Lise suddenly cried, and Caroline saw Frederich at the same moment. He was trying to get closer but a
soldier immediately blocked his way, prodding him back into the group.

“You keep this up, Fritz, and you and me is going to ‘tangle,” the soldier warned him.

Caroline tried to get abreast of him, pulling Lise and Mary Louise along with her.

“Caroline, will you take care of my children?” he said around the soldier. “Caroline—will you!”

“Yes, Frederich,” she said, distressed because he was.

“You give me your word?”

“Yes!” Of course she would take care of Mary Louise and Lise. What other plans did he think she had?

“Where is Johann?” he said, sidestepping the soldier again. “Find him, Caroline!”

But Johann Rial was coming out of the church.

“Johann!” Frederich called to him. “Bring Beata here!" Johann immediately took a protesting Beata by the arm and escorted her in Frederich’s direction.

“Beata, you listen to this,” Frederich said when they were close enough to hear. “Caroline is to take care of my children. I don’t want any misunderstanding about her authority. I don’t want you trying to take over while I’m gone. Johann, do you hear?” he said around the soldier, who was determined to keep him in the ranks. “Caroline is to take care of my children!”

“Yes—of course—” Johann said.

“Are you listening, Beata?” Frederich said. “I don’t want you telling people I left you to say what is best for my daughters—or anything else. Caroline will do as she sees fit.”

Beata clamped her mouth into a tight line, her eyes bitter, but she said nothing. Johann glanced at her nervously.

“Frederich—” Caroline began but he wasn’t listening. He had no time to listen.

“Caroline, take this…” he said, trying to give her the money from his pockets. “If you need advice, you ask Johann. Beata has—no say. None—do you understand?”

She didn’t answer him, because part of the money he’d handed her slipped through her fingers. The other women were swarming around her, trying to get closer to their men.

“Do you understand!” he cried.

“Yes!” she answered, holding on to Mary Louise to keep her from getting stepped on while Lise tried to gather up the coins.

“Caroline!” Avery interrupted from Frederich’s other side. “You get my livestock fed, you hear! Get John Steigermann to help you!”

But she had no interest in taking orders from Avery. “Where is William, Avery? Are they taking him?”

“He’s up at the front of the line—grinning like a damn fool,” Avery said. “He’s going for a soldier, Caroline—and that suits him just fine. You’re going to have to send us what we need—put the things in a box or something and let Johann bring it. You go see Aaron Goodman’s boy—the one that came home with his leg missing—he’ll tell you what we need. And you tell Leah to write to me—Caroline! Did you hear me?”

“You!” Sergeant Alexander suddenly bellowed.

“I’m not doing anything!” Avery bellowed in return.

“Not you, farmer—him!” he said, pointing at Frederich. “When were you in the army? How long ago?”

Frederich didn’t answer him. There was absolutely nothing showing on his face.

“Don’t you start off on the wrong foot with me, Fritz! These boys are going to need all the help they can get and you got the look about you. Now you answer me. Were you in the army—yes or no?”

“Yes,” Frederich said finally, taking Caroline completely by surprise.

“What are you grinning at, cabbage head?” the sergeant yelled at Avery after all.

“Who me? Not a damn thing,” Avery assured the sergeant, but he didn’t stop grinning. “Frederich, you are just chock-full of startling declarations, you know that? I didn’t think you could top the one where you said you were going to marry Caroline anyway, but I’ll be
damned
if you ain’t—”

“Quiet in the ranks! Where the hell do you think you’re going?” the sergeant yelled, because Frederich stepped forward to embrace his children. He picked up Mary Louise and stroked her hair, and he managed to kiss them both before he was forced back into line. Caroline walked a few steps closer to get the girls, and his eyes locked with hers for a brief moment.

“Don’t let—” he said, but he didn’t go on.

She pursed her lips to tell him that she didn’t understand, but he was looking past her, and she turned around to see. Kader Gerhardt stood a few feet behind her.

“I want you to go now,” Frederich said. “Now, Caroline. Take my children.
Bitte!”
he said when she hesitated. “I don’t want them to watch this—”

“You get these boys ready to march, Fritz!” the sergeant yelled.

Frederich ignored him, reaching out as if he was going to try to touch her.

But then he abruptly turned and walked away without a backward glance.

I
t took Caroline weeks to realize that she would have to take charge of more than the children if they were all going to survive. At first, she found herself paralyzed by indecision—something she had suffered not at all when Frederich and Avery were still here. How easy it had been to give unsolicited advice on crops and sales and purchases when one didn’t have to take responsibility for the consequences. More and more problems arose—sick animals and debris-filled wells, unpaid debts and
Beata
—until she awakened one morning with the certain knowledge that the time for behaving as if Frederich would return any minute had ended. He wasn’t here and she had no realistic expectation when he might come home—if he ever came home at all.

Her first proprietary act had been to move as many of Avery’s cows as she could find into the Graeber herd, because it was suddenly obvious to her that her most sensible course was to consolidate everything. Her second proprietary act had been to delegate the care of Mary Louise and Lise to Beata. Beata’s already hostile nature had hardly been improved by Frederich’s publicly assigning Caroline Holt his authority—legal wife or not—and the new arrangement did nothing to lessen her ire. Beata didn’t seem to understand that everything had changed, and the truth was that Caroline simply couldn’t manage all the outside chores and
the girls’ schooling and meals alone—a shortcoming that Beata never ceased belaboring.

They had no word from Frederich, no letters and no messages sent via the German neighbors as they returned from their hurried visits to the army camp near the Virginia line. Caroline decided after a time that it was better this way, better that she should make her own decisions and her own mistakes, better that she not think of him at all.

Except that the memory of that last Sunday returned again and again, regardless of her resolve. She couldn’t keep from remembering. Frederich. The warmth of his body. The touch of his mouth and hands. The sound he had made when her arms slid around him—

And the humiliation.

His words still hurt.
Stay away from me—for both our sakes—as
if she had deliberately enticed him into the barn. As if she were a woman with some low and unscrupulous design. She certainly had no difficulty staying away from him now—except that it should have been out of sight, out of mind, and it wasn’t. She had been up since before dawn, dragging buckets of water to fill the huge wash pot and getting the fire started under it so she could set about boiling and scrubbing the clothes that should have been done a week ago. The sun was hardly above the trees and already she was exhausted. She was cold in spite of the physical effort it took to get the clothes clean, in spite of the fire that still smoldered under the iron pot, and she was still remembering.

She looked across the field toward the Holt farm. The cornstalks were cut and the stubble ready to be plowed under. A mist rose from the bottom land as the sun pierced the long shadows, and a flock of crows roosted noisily in the tall pines. Frederich should have been out walking the furrows behind the Belgians. She should have been hearing the sound of jangling tack and harness. She should have been hearing blowing horses and Frederich’s chirping whistles and low commands. Sometimes he sang in a rich baritone
voice as he worked—some unidentifiable German song she had been too superior to ask him about.

Frederich Graeber played the fiddle for his daughter and he sang in the fields. It was as if this Frederich and the stern man who had been Ann’s husband were two different people.

Frederich—

She looked sharply at the sound of an approaching horse, afraid that the army had come foraging again, but it was Johann Rial making his rounds already this morning. He waved to her briefly as he dismounted and stepped up on the porch to speak to Beata. She let herself relax. Nothing bad then. If something had happened to William or Avery or Frederich, he wouldn’t tell Beata first.

Poor Johann,
she thought. He was much too tender-hearted to have to be a messenger of death. How many times had he brought the news that another soldier had died of mishap or disease since that Sunday the men were taken? Three? Four? And they hadn’t even faced the real enemy yet.

Johann stood on the porch talking to Beata for a moment, then he came in her direction. In spite of her logic, her sense of dread immediately returned.

“Caroline,” he said cheerfully. “Hard at work, I see.”

She made no reply, her hands clutching the wet dress she was about to hang.

“I have had a letter from your husband,” he went on. “Frederich wants you to come to Garysburg.”

She stood there, amazed at the sudden rise of anger, amazed that Frederich, even so far away, had been able to do this to her again. She closed her eyes for a moment. She would never understand him. Never.

Kiss me, Caroline. Stay away from me, Caroline. No, drop everything and come to Garysburg, Caroline.

She flopped the dress over the top rail of the fence to dry, and she kept hanging wet clothes, sidestepping Johann Rial because he was in the way.

“He wants me to bring the children?” she asked finally. For their sake and their sake only would she comply.

“No. He said to leave them with Beata or the Steigermanns.”

“Then no,” she answered.

“Caroline,” Johann said with his minister’s patience, as if she’d somehow misunderstood and it fell to him to explain. “You are his wife. He wants you to come to Garysburg. He has made arrangements for me to take you there before the company is sent into Virginia—you
are
his wife?" he asked pointedly.

“You yourself performed the lovely ceremony, Johann.”

“That is
not
what I meant. I want to know if this marriage has been—”

“Johann, I can’t go to Garysburg,” she interrupted, ignoring his heavy-handed prying. “I don’t
want
to go to Garysburg, and even if I did, I’m trying to keep two farms going—how can I go to Garysburg? And how do you know he’s even there still?”

“Because I’ve had no word otherwise. Caroline, he expected you to come with me when I took the men their supplies—”

“Why in heaven’s name would he expect that?”

“I can’t say—you would know better than I. I can only say that he was most disappointed.”

She gave him a doubtful look, but she said nothing.

“Are you writing to him at least?” Johann persisted.

“Yes, Johann, I am writing to him. Lise copies down all the receipts and expenditures I’ve had since he left, and I add a note at the end if there is anything else important enough to report. I suspect he knows far more about his assets and liabilities than he did when he was still here. Do you
want to read the next one? I see no use for you to take me to task over letter writing. I can assure you that Beata is keeping him apprised of my every move.” She snapped one of Lise’s pinafores sharply and draped it over the top rail.

“I wish you would reconsider—”

“Johann, I can’t go!”

“He’s in grave peril, Caroline—you know that. All of them are. If you won’t consider your husband, perhaps you might consider that your brothers—”

“Oh, certainly Avery is pining for me to come for a visit,” she interrupted.

Johann ignored her sarcasm. “I am going to be blunt. I think something must have happened between you and Frederich to make him so anxious to see you, and I think you might regret it sorely if you leave anything… unfinished.”

She stopped fussing with the wet clothes and looked at him. It wasn’t what had happened between her and Frederich. It was what hadn’t happened. There was nothing “unfinished” between them. Their marriage had never begun.

“Winter is coming,” she said. “There is too much to be done here.”

He sighed heavily. “And that’s another thing. Beata says you are staying every night at your brother’s place.”

“I am,” she said, throwing clothes over the rail again.

“Do you think that…wise?”

“Wise or not, it’s the only way I can manage. I work here with Beata until sundown. Then I put the girls to bed, and I go to Avery’s so I can feed the stock that is still there. I stay the night because I’m too tired to do anything else and because I’m on hand in the morning when the animals need to be fed again. Then I come back here and work all day. It’s the only thing I can do until Mr. Steigermann can help me move the rest of the livestock to pasture here. Or would you
have me running back and forth and never getting any sleep—so it will be more acceptable to Beata?”

He made no reply to that, but he hadn’t given up. “I don’t know what Frederich will think about it.”

“He will think the worst, Johann—just as Beata does. And you. All the men are gone, Johann. What mischief can a wanton like myself possibly get into?”

“I have made no accusations, Caroline, and that
is
not what I meant. It’s dangerous for you to stay there alone-there are soldiers about nearly all the time now. There are men escaping from the prison in town—”

“I don’t think they come this way.”

“These are desperate men on the run—how do they know which way is safe for them to go? You need to let me take you to Garysburg. You need to speak to Frederich about this situation. It will worry him, Caroline—”

“Johann, please!”

“I haven’t done wrong, have I? In allowing your marriage to Frederich to take place? I did have my misgivings. I did think that perhaps he shouldn’t have honored the marriage pledge, feeling the way he did—but you understand that it was for the child’s sake.”

“It’s too late to worry about any of that now, isn’t it?" she said quietly, forcing herself to meet his earnest gaze.

“All right,” he said after a moment. “You must forgive my tenaciousness. It is a pastor’s duty to be so.”

“You are like an old mud tortoise,” she said, not unkindly. “Latch on and never turn loose until it thunders— that’s you, Herr Rial.”

He smiled broadly. “Think about what I’ve said. Whenever you decide, I will take you to see your husband—but it will have to be soon. From what I could tell, the company is nearly ready to be sent off.”

She stood for a moment after Johann had gone. How simple it would be if she didn’t
want
to go to Frederich, she
thought. How simple it would be if she didn’t miss him, if she didn’t worry about him night and day. She had no idea why Frederich wanted her to come to Garysburg, except that there was no baby now, no reason for the Graeber-Holt alliance to continue and no reason why he shouldn’t be free of her if he wanted. Perhaps he even had a lawyer waiting. Her locked door would give him ample grounds for an annulment—Beata would surely support his claim.

And she couldn’t very well say that to Johann Rial.

“Stop it,” she said out loud, hanging the clothes with renewed vigor.

She had no time for any of this. She had to make plans for harder times. The army was still foraging. She had to find places to hide enough food to get them through the winter. She had to find a way to get Avery’s remaining livestock here and alive, and God only knew what she and the girls would do in the spring.

She reached for the last article of wet clothing—a homespun blue-plaid shirt she’d managed to find the time to make for Frederich, bartering for the cloth with some dried cherries Beata didn’t know she had and getting up early to sew it before she fed Avery’s stock. She had wanted the shirt clean and soft and ready when Johann took the next box of supplies to Garysburg. It had seemed the least she could do.

You see?
she thought as she draped it over the rail.
Your wife
does
sew.

But she doesn’t go to Garysburg.

What do you want from me, Frederich?
she thought, feeling close to tears when she hadn’t let herself cry in weeks now.

“Aunt Caroline?” Lise said behind her. “Mr. Rial says he forgot to give you the letter from Uncle William.”

Caroline took a deep breath and reached out to take the envelope Lise presented, immediately recognizing William’s undisciplined scrawl. Her beloved younger brother
was no scholar, but he was a faithful correspondent. She couldn’t keep from smiling in anticipation, because William was nothing if not candid. No one would give her a better indication of how he and the others fared.

I take pen in hand to say I hope you are well, Caroline. Your little brother is behaving—no whiskey and nothing else that wuld make you worry for him. I think he is turning into a good soljer. Frederich says so and I have drilled enough to be a general. Avery will be a good soljer, too, if he can learn to keep his mouth shut. Dont nobody here know nothing about soljering but your husband, Frederich. Did you know he was in the army in Germany? He says he werent no older than me when his daddy sent him in. He says he had to go because he wasnt the oldest son and he kept getting into trouble—that don’t sound like our Frederich, does it? I am staying close to him when the shooting comes. He says just don’t step on his feet.

She smiled again.

We all think you shud tell Mr. Rial or John S. if you need anything. Avery says dont go selling any of his animals without he says so. Did Lise like the birthday present from me? She dont say in her letter, and I didnt like to ask. Everybody is thinking we will get into the fight soon. The regement missed the shooting at Malvern Hill. They got put watching prisoners before they even got to where the fighting was. But there werent no shame in it to my way of thinking. A soljer has to do as he is told. Frederich says dont worry about being skared. He says a man what says he aint afraid of a battle is a liar or a fool, and anyway it goes away when
the shooting starts.

Avery wants to know did you tell Leeah S. to write to him. He aint got a letter yet and he thinks maybe she’s writting to Mr. Gerheart instead of him. He goes on all the time about how maybe Mr. Gerheart is trying to take his place with Leeah and he’s come close to pounding Mr. Gerheart a couple of times. Frederich had to make them quit. We are all tired of hearing about it so if you could get Leeah to write to him maybe Frederich and me cud get some rest. Its time to go eat so tell everybody hello from William or Uncle William if its Mary Louise and Lise. Tell Beata I surely do miss her pies.

Respectfully, from your brother at Camp Long in Garysburg, William T. Holt.