Crossing (32 page)

Grinning like an idiot, Yancy stood and held up his hand. “Here, sir! Dispatches from the—the Stonewall Brigade!”

Men gathered around him, clapping him on the back and shaking his hand, until he was almost dizzy. “There he stood, like a stone wall!” they kept repeating. Yancy duly delivered his dispatches, and the secretary told him to wait. He was besieged by the men who demanded detailed accounts not only of the action, but of every gesture, every word, every expression of Brigadier General “Stonewall” Jackson’s. Yancy talked until he was hoarse.

But eventually the men got back to their own peculiar business, and Yancy was left to sit on the hard bench again, waiting. It was a long, grueling day, sitting on a hard bench. Yancy once went out to water Midnight and retrieve his own canteen, but he was worried he might miss his summons so he hurried back inside. From time to time he dozed, even though he was uncomfortable. He was exhausted.

At about seven o’clock that night a report circulated from the war office. In the Battle of Manassas, the Federals had 3,000 dead and wounded, and they lost more than 1,400 as prisoners. These were paraded through the streets of Richmond where crowds yelled, “Live Yankees! Live Yankees!” The Confederates had lost 2,000 men of which 1,500 were wounded; only a scant dozen had been taken prisoner. Yancy did learn that General Beauregard had taken treasures also, including six thousand small arms, fifty-four field guns and five hundred rounds of ammunition.

Poignantly Yancy thought,
And one supply cart that brought a wounded Yankee home.
He had been thinking a lot about Leslie Hayden. He didn’t regret his actions. Even though some might regard his sheltering the enemy as traitorous, Yancy knew, without a doubt, that the Lord had told him to be a good Samaritan to the wounded man who had so mercifully spared his life.

Eventually the secretary returned and told Yancy, “Sir, we will have messages to return with you, but they won’t be ready until tomorrow. Do you have a place to stay? I’m certain we can find room for one of Stonewall’s boys!”

Yancy stood and shook his hand for the third time. “Thank you, sir, but I have some friends in town. I’ll go visit them.”

Yancy was glad to leave behind the roiling and boiling at the capitol. He rode slowly on Midnight, savoring the quiet after he got out of the center of town. It was a mild night, for July, with a light breeze that sometimes, as he came into the residential sections, carried on it the sweet, fresh scent of jasmine. After the stench of blood and guns and death, it was like a sweet shower to Yancy. His clothes and hair still stank of gunpowder.

He reached the Hayden home and was glad to see that there were still warm lights on both upstairs and downstairs. Although it was only about eight o’clock, he had realized that Dr. Hayden seemed frail, and he had been afraid that the household regularly retired early. Gently he tapped the front door knocker twice. He saw the curtains move in the parlor, and then Lorena Hayden opened the door.

“Hello, Sergeant Tremayne,” she said. “Won’t you come in?” She turned and led him into the sitting room. Although she was polite, Lorena’s tone had a chilly quality about it, and her entire demeanor was distant.

Yancy wondered what had hardened this woman so, or if she simply still didn’t trust him. He supposed if that was it, it would just take time to gain her trust, and Yancy was vaguely surprised at how important that suddenly seemed to be to him.

Dr. Hayden rose to greet him. Beside him was a small woman with chestnut hair who was modestly pretty, watching him with warm brown eyes.

“This is Sergeant Yancy Tremayne. He brought Leslie home, my dear. Sergeant, this is my wife, Lily.”

The woman came forward at once and held out both her hands. Yancy was surprised, but he took them in his, noticing that her bones were almost birdlike in their fragility. Suddenly her kind eyes filled with tears and she said softly, “We can never thank you enough, Sergeant Tremayne, for bringing our son home.”

“I—I had to do it, ma’am. It was the right—the only thing to do.”

She nodded with complete understanding. “Please, sit down. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go have Missy make tea. Or perhaps you prefer coffee, Sergeant?”

“Actually I do, if it’s not too much trouble, ma’am,” Yancy answered, taking his seat in a wing chair across from the sofa where Dr. and Mrs. Hayden had been seated. “Especially Missy’s coffee. It was very good.”

She nodded and left the room. Lorena sat in a matching chair next to him, her back perfectly straight, her hands folded in her lap. He saw that she was wearing a blue dress with a white lace collar. She would have looked beautiful if she were more poised, but the set of her head was so defiant and her posture so stiff that it detracted from her china doll looks.

“So how is Lieutenant Hayden?” Yancy asked Dr. Hayden.

“He’s doing fairly well,” he answered. “Thankfully neither bullet hit any vital organs, though he did lose a lot of blood. Actually, the wound in his leg may give him the most trouble. It tore some muscles and ligaments, and it’s possible he may have a slight limp, or at least may have to walk with a cane. But he’s resting comfortably, and Leslie is strong. I believe he’ll recover quickly.”

“Thank the Lord,” Lily said, coming back in and sitting down by her husband.

“Amen,” Yancy said quietly. “And that is, by the way, the message that Leslie wanted me to give you, in case … in case. He said he wanted you to know that he was trusting in the Lord, and that he wasn’t afraid.”

“The Lord has mightily blessed us, Sergeant Tremayne,” Lily said, “by sparing Leslie and sending you to him.”

Dr. Hayden said gravely, “We understand, Sergeant Tremayne, the position you so willingly put yourself in, and because of that I would like to explain something about our family. We—Lily, Lorena, and I—are actually what might be called neutrals in this war, although that is somewhat unrealistic under the circumstances. We love Virginia. Richmond is our home. But we could not bring ourselves to agree with secession, and we think this war is tragically, utterly wrong on both sides. I will let Leslie explain his decision to join the Union army, if he chooses to. But I wish you to know that, as a doctor, I am attending injured soldiers from the North and the South, without discrimination, and I pray every day for the end of this war and blessings and peace for all of the men who are in it.”

Yancy sighed. “Thank you, sir. That does help me to understand a little. You’ve been caught between two forces that seem to be inescapable, just as Leslie and I were in the battle. I assume you’ve heard the news?” he asked hesitantly.

“Yes, we understand that the Confederate forces had a great victory,” Dr. Hayden answered. “There were many, many wounded.”

“Chimborazo Hospital is filled to overflowing,” Lorena said sadly. “Father has worked very hard to help.”

“As you said, Sergeant Tremayne, I have to. It’s the right thing to do,” Dr. Hayden said with a small smile.

Missy came in then with tea and coffee service, and they took a few minutes in the homey, comfortable ritual of taking refreshment.

After Missy left, Dr. Hayden continued, “And so, now that we have given you some idea of our views on the war, I hope you will see that we would never ask you to betray any confidential or sensitive information to us. But we would very much like to hear how it happened that you found Leslie and brought him home to us.”

Yancy told them the story, although he didn’t say what his mission was, and he downplayed the horribly tense moments when Leslie was pointing his pistol at him and Yancy was sure he was going to kill him.

“So there I was, looking down the barrel of a Yankee lieutenant’s pistol, and at the time all I remember thinking is,
I don’t know the Lord. I may be facing Him in the next few minutes, and I don’t know Him.
So I asked God to forgive me, and I waited. But Leslie laid the pistol down in his lap and just sort of sighed. And then I prayed, hard, and asked the Lord to save me and lead me, and then I knew. I had to help Leslie,” he finished.

Lily smiled and her voice was soft and glad. “I’m so glad you found the Lord, Sergeant Tremayne. Even when we are facing death, to know Him is to know life.”

“My grandmother has told me that and many other things about the Lord,” Yancy said. “And they’re only just now starting to make sense.” He smiled. “And I can tell you that I think I have a pretty good understanding of the situation you are in, about the war and struggling to stay neutral. You see, my people are Amish.”

“Are they?” Lorena asked with an abrupt interest that surprised Yancy.

“Yes, they are. At least, my father and stepmother and grandmother are. My mother, my father’s first wife, was half Cheyenne Indian. She died, and we came back here, to my father’s family.”

“Cheyenne Indian,” Lorena repeated in a half whisper, her eyes wide and dark as she looked at him. “So that’s it…. They must be handsome people….”

“I beg your pardon?” Yancy said blankly. He thought he had misunderstood her.

A quick, amused smile came over Lily Hayden’s gentle features, and she said, “Your countenance shows your heritage, Sergeant Tremayne, and you should be proud.”

“Yes, I learned their ways and I know them,” he said simply. “My mother was a wonderful woman, and I am proud of her. So my father and I returned to Lexington, to his home, and he rejoined the Amish community. He married a fine woman. She’s been as good to me as my own mother. They have two children now, and my grandmother lives with them.”

With some difficulty Lorena asked, “So—so you, you obviously aren’t—don’t completely agree with their beliefs.”

“Not all of them,” he said. “They are fine Christian people, but they’re extremely strict, you know.”

“I admire their willingness to pay a high price for their beliefs,” Dr. Hayden said. “But I understand that living that way of life is just not possible for everyone.”

Missy came back in and said, “Dr. Hayden? Leslie’s awake now, and I told him the sergeant was here. He’d like to see him.”

“Please, by all means, Sergeant Tremayne, let Missy take you up to his room,” Dr. Hayden said. “I know he has been wanting to see you and talk to you.”

Missy led him upstairs to Leslie’s bedroom, a rather spartan room with a big four-poster bed and armoire. With something of a start, Yancy saw that the armoire was partially open, and he saw four blue uniforms with gold braid hanging inside.

Leslie Hayden was slightly propped up, his face still almost as pale as the white bed linens. But his voice was much stronger and steady. He held out his hand, and Yancy shook it. “I’m glad you came back, Sergeant Tremayne.”

“Good to see you looking so well, Lieutenant Hayden,” Yancy answered. “You sure look much better than the last time I saw you.”

“Since I was near dead, I hope I do look some better,” Leslie said drily. “And that’s thanks to you.”

Yancy grinned. “And thanks to you that I’m not all the way dead.”

Suddenly Leslie grew grave. “You took an enormous chance, bringing me here. I still don’t understand how you expected to get by with it.”

Yancy met his gaze soberly. “I’ve told your parents, and I want you to know, too. There are three things that happened on that bloody field that I’m sure of. I found the Lord because I thought I was going to die, and because of that my soul has been saved. Another is that I believe the Lord directed you to spare me. And lastly and most certainly, I know that the Lord told me to bring you here. I may not have heard a voice, but I knew then and I know now that it was His will that we met at that moment and in that way.”

Leslie nodded thoughtfully. “I was in pain, and the battle—you know how you kind of go crazy in battle? How it’s awful and horrible but all you can think of is to keep going, never to stop, to keep fighting?”

“I know that,” Yancy said. “I’ve felt it.”

“That’s still how my mind was fixed when I saw you. But then—but then, after a few minutes, it’s like my vision cleared, and my mind grew quiet. I knew the Lord had given me peace, and that no matter what happened, I could not and would not shoot you.”

“And so it seems that this isn’t a one-sided deal,” Yancy said quietly. “You spared my life, and I thank you.”

“And you saved mine, and I thank you,” Leslie said. “And may God deliver us from ever facing each other over a battlefield again.”

Yancy shifted. “About that. I’m afraid I have some fairly bad news, Lieutenant Hayden, about your outfit. I found out that those men of your company that were with you in that last little skirmish were taken prisoner. There were nine of them, right? Part of Walcott Company of the 8
^th
Battalion?”

“How did you know that?” Leslie demanded. Then his face fell. “No, no, don’t answer that. Of course I know you can’t tell me. If the roles were reversed, I wouldn’t tell you.”

Uncomfortably Yancy shifted again. He had seen the detailed lists of the dead, wounded, missing, and those taken prisoner. “But I do have to tell you this. You’re listed as missing.”

Leslie lifted his head. “Missing. Guess I’d better lay low.”

“I don’t know how you’ll be able to rejoin your unit, Lieutenant Hayden,” Yancy said.