Daughter of Twin Oaks (23 page)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Richmond, Virginia

The dour look returned with the lieutenant in the morning.

“I’m happy to see you decided to join us.” Louisa, resolving to ignore the dark cloud on his countenance, gave him the same smile she gave the others. Last night was as though it had never been. She hid the sigh behind a flurry of pointing, assigning jobs, and identifying plants for Corporal Shaddock so he would know which were weeds and which were perennials gone dormant. She hoped to divide the irises today and the butter lilies.

“If we dig up the clumps, do you suppose you could stand at the bench, or sit if you prefer, and divide them?” She motioned toward the potting bench along the brick wall, glancing up at the lieutenant at the same time.

“I reckon.”

So much for conversation.

“Have you ever divided irises before?”

“No, can’t say that I have.”

“Fine, I’ll be right with you, then.” She trotted over to where one of the other men was digging with a fork. “Sergeant Andrews, over here, please.” Within moments she had several washtub-sized clumps of iris covering the potting bench and Andrews back to digging up the iris bed. “We need to dig in manure and compost. That’s behind the shed.”

While Sergeant Andrews had only one eye and still wore a bandage around one thigh, the smile he gave her lacked for nothing in the male-appeal department. “I’ll get right to it, ma’am.”

Louisa could feel her face heat up in spite of the broad-brimmed straw hat she wore. Maybe it was more important to get these men back out in society than to improve their attitudes through digging in the dirt. If only she could discuss such things with the lieutenant.

She checked on Private Rumford and, laying a hand on his shoulder to get his attention, smiled and nodded. “Very good. It looks so much better.” Was that life she saw in his eyes or a trick of the shadow? But when she smiled again, the corner of his mouth lifted ever so little. He had responded. Her heart sent joy spiraling upward and blooming on her face, such joy she could scarcely contain it. If she ran and danced as she ached to, all the men would be appalled. One just didn’t do such things. “Thank you, Private. Thank you so very much.”

He returned to his digging and she to the lieutenant.

“Did you see?” she whispered.

“See what?” The man stared from the knife in his hands to the tangle of rhizomes, roots, soil, and long slender leaves.

“Private Rumford started to smile, barely, but it’s a step in the right direction. Now.” She rolled the clump over so the leaves and rhizomes were on top. Pointing as she talked, she identified the old wood for him, the new growth, and where to cut. “Now, iris are really hardy, so you needn’t be too careful, but keep the new plants from each clump together and separate from the others, as they are of different colors.” She glanced up to see that he was following her instructions but caught him staring at her instead.

“What? Do I have dirt on my nose or something?”

He shook his head and transferred his attention to the iris. “I cut here and here and—”

She leaned forward and her shoulder accidentally bumped his. They both leaped back as if they’d been burnt.

“Sorry.” Their apologies even came at the same instant.

Why had she never noticed how long and fine his eyelashes were? And the gold that flecked his eyes.
Louisa Marie Highwood, quit acting like a…like a—

“Miz Highwood, this somethin’ you want dug out or left?” Andrews called out, breaking the spell of the moment.

“I … ah … I’ll be right there.” She drew back, wishing she had a fan. A big fan that would create a big breeze and hide her face.

Lord, I feel like I can drown in his eyes. I want to smooth that frown from his forehead, and…and…I’ve never felt like this. Do you think he feels the same way? Is this the beginning of love? And if so, what do I do next?
She hustled over to Andrews and bent down to study the clump of leaves. “No, that stays, but you can dig around it. I forget what Aunt called it, though.”

On her way to fetch the wheelbarrow, the thought hit her.
What if he doesn’t feel the same way?
Trundling the wheelbarrow back, she let the posts down with a thunk. Tonight she’d ask Carrie Mae about it. Surely she would know.

By the time Abby came out with glasses of lemonade and fresh lemon cookies, the iris were all replanted in the re-dug bed with a thick layer of compost on top, the peonies were weeded, and another bed was prepared for winter vegetables. The men were wiping sweat from their brows in the full heat of the sun, and Louisa’s nose felt pink, since she’d given up trying to keep her hat on hours ago.

“Dinner be ready ’bout an hour.” The slender woman with skin like creamed coffee handed ’round the glasses. “Looks like you been diggin’ up a storm.”

“Miz Highwood here, she keeps us right busy.” Corporal Shaddock grinned up at the serving woman from his seat on the grass. “But we make her pay back by readin’ to us. Out here would be a fine place to lay back and be read to. Right after dinner.”

“But I …” One look from the lieutenant and she clamped her lips shut. “What about the others?”

“We bring ’em out too. Be better out here in the sun and breeze than inside.”

Louisa stared at the young man in astonishment. He’d never said so much at one time since she handed him his first drink of water three weeks earlier.

“Bring ’em out here to eat, right, Lieutenant?”

Louisa looked at the man leaning back in the recliner with his eyes closed.

“Now, how you goin’ to bring them out? Gettin’ ’em here yesterday was hard enough.” He brushed at a fly that insisted on buzzing around him.

Abby had the answer to that. “Reuben fix dat last night. He make up a two-wheel chair. We bring dem out.”

Abby was as good as her word. Zachary came out first and settled onto the lounger the lieutenant vacated. The two young men from the parlor followed.

“Now if we could fashion a gate through that wall.” Louisa stared at the brick wall, daring it to form a gate so the men in the other house could join them.

“Gettin’ over here will be a good incentive for those two to walk again,” the lieutenant said from beside her.

“Gardens have a way like that.”

“It’s not the garden, Miz Highwood, it’s you.” He spoke so only she could hear, but she jumped anyway.

“What a thing to say,” she hissed. “I never—”

“Dinner is served.”

She spent her time helping the men eat, cutting meat for those missing a hand and adjusting pillows so they could sit straight enough. When she sat down to her own meal, she found herself between Zachary and the lieutenant. Her brother started the storytelling, and soon the others took part, stories of home and growing up and families that wrote more often now that they knew where their boys were.

Surely she could go over to the hospital while everyone napped in the afternoon.

As soon as silence fell, she left her place and sneaked back in the house. Aunt Sylvania had returned from her morning with the sewing group, and now she too was taking a lie-down.

“I’ll be back in an hour or two,” she whispered to Reuben as she packed some leftover biscuits and honey in her basket. She added cookies and contemplated the jug of lemonade.

“I carries dat for you.” Reuben hoisted the gallon jug, sweating in the warm kitchen.

“Surgeon general wants to see you,” the orderly said when she walked into the ward a few minutes later.

“Oh.” Her heart set to triple timing. Had the lieutenant broken his word, then? The thought made her stand two inches taller and march out of the room and down the hall to his office. The subaltern showed her in.

“Why, Miz Highwood, I’m surprised to see you here.” The surgeon general rose from behind his desk and motioned her to the chair.

“And why is that, sir? I am sorry to be late, but—”

“But you have men to care for over home, and your husband sent me a message saying you would no longer be helping us here.”

“He … he what?” She felt like scrubbing at her ears. Surely she had heard wrong.

“So I want to thank you for all you’ve done for our men and for taking soldiers into your home.”

“General, sir, more wounded coming in.” The young officer made the announcement from the doorway.

“I’ll be right there.” The surgeon general came around the desk and extended his hand. “Thank you, indeed, Miz Highwood.”

Rising, she placed hers in his and nodded. “I will go back home then and care for my own men.” She fought to keep a smile on her face when all she wanted to do was scream.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

A Missouri cave

October 10, 1862

“Get ’em off! Get outside.”

“Oh, Lawdy, save us!”

“Come on, run!”

“It’s in my hair!”

Screams echoed around the cave. The horses snorted and shifted restlessly. People ran for the cave mouth, brushing at the crawling things and screaming all the while.

“Thaddy, are you stung?” Jesselynn scooped her baby brother up in her arms, checking for the telltale red spot of a bite.

“No.” He reached up and brushed one off her hair. “Gone now.”

Ophelia shook out her clothes, her eyes rolling white, gibbering and crying all the while, screaming again when she saw one of the black bugs on Meshach’s shoulder.

“Stop!” Meshach caught one of the bugs that was trying to burrow under the leaves. He knelt down and studied the insect, then began to chuckle. His great belly laugh grew while the others stared at him. Surely the big black man had lost his senses.

“Dey’s no scorpions. Dey’s vinegaroons. Lookee here, dey no hurt no one. De fire musta brung ’em out.”

Ophelia shuddered, and it was all Jesselynn could do to keep from it. Jane Ellen tittered, the first smile to decorate her face since her arrival.

Benjamin slapped his knee and joined in the guffaws.

“Hey?” The voice came from the cave, and if Jesselynn hadn’t been leaning against the entrance wall, she’d not have heard it. She returned and crossed to the sick man’s pallet. Kneeling, she studied his gray face.

“Good mornin’. I reckon you might be thirsty about now.”

“I didn’t die, then?” His voice rasped like a file on wood.

“Not yet, and if we can help it, you won’t.” She didn’t add,
You might wish you had
, but she thought it awful hard. “I’ll get you some water. Broth’ll be hot as soon as we get the fire goin’ again.” She brushed a vinegaroon off his shoulder. “Don’t worry ’bout these bugs bein’ scorpions. They aren’t. Meshach says they’re vinegaroons.”

“Oh.” His eyes drifted shut. She laid a hand on his forehead. Hot but not blazing. He might not be minding the cold like the rest of them. But then she wouldn’t ask for a fever to keep warm by.

The others wandered back in the cave, and while Jesselynn and Ophelia started the fire, the men took the horses out to water and graze.

“You want I should git some wood?” Jane Ellen offered.

“Would be a right good help. Thanks.” Jesselynn blew again on the curls of wood and small twigs she had laid over the coals left from the night. They had almost let it go out. Whose watch had it been? Daniel, that’s who. She’d have to have a talk with him when he came back. Just because they were relatively safe in the cave, they still needed a lookout, at least to keep the fire going.

Sure, and a good fire will bring out our marauding insects again
. The thought made her chuckle. What a sight they must have been running around and screaming like that. Scare any self-respecting critter back into its hiding place. No wonder the poor things were scurrying so fast under leaves and whatever they could find for cover. One crawled out from under the wood stack when she took off a larger piece for the fire, then scuttled away, tail raised, mimicking the dangerous scorpion. All their patient needed was a few scorpion bites to push him right over the edge.

She glanced over at the man on the pallet. Between the now flickering flames and the fever, he had some color in his face, what you could see above the beard.

Meshach came back into the cave and retrieved his Bible. “Buried de other man. Got to read over ’im.”

Jesselynn set the stew kettle over the flames. “If you want.” She could feel the look he gave her but kept her attention on the fixings. He wanted to believe in the God that wasn’t, fine, but no more for her. Not until she heard him leave did she look up to find Ophelia giving her a quizzical stare. Thaddeus came and leaned against her shoulder.

“Hungry, Jesse.”

“I know. This will be hot pretty soon.” She put her arm around him and hugged him close. So much to endure for such a little guy. He should be home safe in the kitchen of Twin Oaks, chewing a piece of bacon and giggling with the slave children. They would be chasing each other around the room and out the door and back in until Lucinda would shake her spoon at them and threaten their eternal banishment if they didn’t stay out of her way. There would be corn bread hot from the oven, eggs splattering in the frying pan, and redeye gravy set off to the side.

She could almost smell the ham slices and the rich aroma of good coffee, along with the corn bread.

Instead, she stirred the rabbit stew, making certain it was heated through and didn’t burn. If it hadn’t been for the lid on the threelegged pot, they’d most likely been having stewed vinegaroons for breakfast.

Ophelia set the biscuits to baking in the frying pan, the tight lid almost making an oven. After they ate, they’d bake up a bunch more and let them dry hard. That way they would travel well.

As if they needed to worry about that for the next few days. Moving this man would kill him for sure. When he woke, she planned to ask him his name. Going through his pockets hadn’t been even a thought yesterday. Just keeping him alive was enough.

Jesselynn checked the strips of venison. They needed longer for drying too. That lazy Daniel. She’d tear a strip off his hide if he didn’t watch out.

Jane Ellen, along with the help of Thaddeus and her brother, dragged in more branches and began breaking up the ones small enough. With the cracking of the branches and the ensuing giggles, the cave took on an even cozier feeling.

Only Daniel didn’t come in to eat with the rest of them.

“He with de horses,” Meshach said. He nodded to the again-drying venison. “He let de fire go out.”

Jesselynn breathed a small sigh of relief. Thanks to Meshach, she wouldn’t have to get after the boy, for that’s what he was at sixteen, no matter how hard he tried to be a man.

In wartime, we all grow up fast
. Jesselynn’s mind flicked back to Twin Oaks, back to the games she played with her sisters and brothers on the lawn. Croquet had been their favorite even after the boys thought they were men and went away to school at Transylvania College in Lexington. How often she’d made Carrie Mae angry for whacking her ball off into the rose garden, and once into the pond. Now
that
had brought a shout of laughter from the boys and reprimands from their mother.

Had the letters she’d written gotten to them, so they knew where she was? If only she could hear from home or from Richmond, this journey might not seem so … so arduous. How long it had been since she’d learned a new word and found ways to use it that day. It seemed like centuries, like another lifetime that happened to someone else.

“Water.” Their patient was awake.

Jesselynn spooned broth into a cup and, lifting his head with one hand, held the cup to his lips with the other. After only a few swallows, he gagged and shook his head, his groan rising to a near shriek. “God, it hurts.”

“Would a spoon work better?” At his nod, she spooned the liquid to his mouth and watched him swallow. By the time the cup was empty, he’d drifted off again, but even in sleep, his moans persisted.

He has nice eyes, gray, I think, but it’s hard to tell in here
. If only they had more bandages. She glanced around the cave. What could they tear up? Short of Ophelia’s spare skirt, nothing had the length. She studied the bandages around the stump of his leg. No blood had seeped through there. Perhaps the stitching was enough to hold it as long as he didn’t move around, then she could wash those and change the ones around his belly. How the bullet had gone clean through like that and not hit any organs was nothing short of a miracle.

But it had seemed only a flesh wound. She felt his forehead again. Cooling. Maybe they’d be able to travel sooner than she thought.

Meshach stopped right behind her, studying the sleeping man. “He lookin’ better.”

“I know. Yesterday I wouldn’t have given two bits for his chances, but today …” She paused and looked up. “He might just make it.”

Meshach nodded. “We been prayin’ for him too.”

Jesselynn had no answer to that.

Jane Ellen stumbled into the cave carrying her brother. “He coughed so bad, blood came.” The terror in her eyes told Jesselynn that had never happened before.

“Quick, put him down.” Jesselynn saw the trickle of blood from John Mark’s mouth streaking down his chin. His skin looked clear enough to see right through.

Jane Ellen mopped at the trickle of blood. “What we gonna do?” Jesselynn tried to think back to what her mother had taught her. Coughing like that meant lung sickness. And most people didn’t get better from it, especially those who’d gone without good food and lived in the cold and damp. She chafed his cold hands and watched his chest rise so slightly that each breath could be his last.

“Did he fall or anything, hurt himself?”

“No, just coughed till I thought his insides come out.” Jane Ellen stroked the stringy hair back from his forehead. “Come on, John Mark, wake up. Please wake up.”

His eyelids fluttered. Jane Ellen pulled him close and rocked him in her arms, crooning a song only she knew.

Jesselynn stood up and walked to the front of the cave, her eyes burning and her nose running, but not from any smoke coming from the fire.

The coughing sounded more like a retch.

Jane Ellen squeaked like a mouse caught by a cat, then resumed her crooning and rocking.

Jesselynn returned to see a froth of pink bubbling from the side of the boy’s mouth.

“Here, chile.” Meshach knelt and tried to take the boy, but Jane Ellen hung on with a fierceness stoked by terror.

“I takes keer o’ him.”

“Let us help you.” Jesselynn took one of the quilts and laid it in front of the log for a pallet. “You sit here where you can hold him more easily, and the quilt will help keep him warm.” Together Meshach and Jesselynn moved the two and added another quilt to cover John Mark.

Jesselynn and Ophelia cut more strips of the venison and hung it in places where the others had dried. They rubbed salt into a haunch and hung it above the fire to absorb the smoke. Thaddy and Sammy eventually quit playing in the dirt and fell asleep. Benjamin took one of the horses and went off scouting while Meshach chopped the deer brains, mixing them with ashes and water and working them into the inside of the stretched-out hide.

The afternoon passed to the rhythm of breathing, coughing, and moaning from the man and the boy. And while the man accepted the offers of water and broth, the boy refused everything.

“Help him, Marse Jesse.” Jane Ellen raised eyes so darkened by fear they looked black.

“Here, see if you can spoon some of this into him.” She took Jane Ellen a cup of broth and held it for the girl to dip from. Every drop drained out the side of his mouth. “Stroke his throat while I try.”

Jane Ellen stroked her brother’s throat with fingers of pure love, her eyes never leaving his face.

Jesselynn tipped a spoonful of broth between the boy’s lips, and this time they watched as, with a convulsive swallow, the liquid went down.

“Oh, another.” Jane Ellen resumed the stroking, and Jesselynn tipped the spoon again.

A swallow, a gag, a retching cough, and blood drenched the front of his shirt.

“Oh, John Mark. John Mark. Please, please.” The girl rocked and hugged, her hands gripping the skinny child as though someone were pulling him away.

“He’s bad, isn’t he?”

Jesselynn looked over her shoulder to see their soldier gazing at her with eyes clear and as full of sadness as she knew her own must be. All she could do was nod.

“If you could … find my pack.” He paused to catch a breath. “I had some … laudanum in it.”

“Any idea where it might be?”

“Find where we were … ambushed. Could be … there. Black leather.”

“You know how you got here?”

“Partner … carried me. How is he?”

“Gone. Meshach buried him this morning. He was sittin’ against that wall there, with you lyin’ on the floor.”

The man closed his eyes. “How come … I’m alive and he’s dead?” A pause stretched. “Makes no sense.”

“I know.” Jesselynn glanced at the girl still rocking her brother. “Makes no sense a’tall.”

She added more wood to the fire, keeping it low so the strips of venison wouldn’t burn.

“How bad is my leg? Hurts like fire.”

How to tell him. “Ah, we …” Jesselynn sighed. No sense beating around the tree. “We had to take it off below your knee. Wasn’t much left of it, and the gangrene would’ve set in and killed you for sure.”

He closed his eyes tighter and swallowed hard enough for her to see the reflex in the firelight.

“I’m sorry.” Such a meager word for such a loss as his. But at least he was getting stronger. Her gaze strayed back to Jane Ellen. While she kept wiping her tears away, sometimes she had to wipe them from her brother’s face too.

Her brother was all she had. She said so. She hugged him as if her very strength could heal his chest, could stop the trickle of blood from every cough. Coughs that had grown weaker.

“I’ll send Meshach lookin’ for your pack.” Jesselynn got to her feet, her knees creaking, stiff from sitting so long. She stepped outside the cave into sunshine a mite watery but still offering heat and light. From inside the cave, it had seemed dark outside, as if it still must be pouring rain like the day before.

When she told Meshach, he nodded. “Me an’ de boys all go look.” He got to his feet, laying a hand on Ophelia’s shoulder and squeezing gently. “You go on in der. I be back.”

Dusk dimmed the trees by the time the horsemen rode back to the cave. Daniel swung the pack down into Jesselynn’s arms.

“I found it.”

Jesselynn nodded. “Thank you.” She knew he’d offered the pack as penance for letting the fire go out. She also knew he’d be more alert the next time he stood watch—Meshach would make sure of it. Now if only the laudanum could help relieve the pain for
both
of the sick ones.