Die Once Live Twice (6 page)

“Yes it is, Katherine. When I started today, I was doing this for the athletic competition. By the time I won, I was doing it for you.”

That week, Patrick worked every day in the office with his father, but his mind was on the coming Saturday. He and Katherine enjoyed several lunches together, both of them now more comfortable with each other, though anticipation about Saturday shadowed their conversation on Thursday and Friday.

On Saturday Patrick arrived at the Donovan Estate in a red fox hunt jacket and riding breeches, boots, and a top hat. Katherine wore a tailor-made black jacket over a bodice with plain cuffs, black riding breeches, and black boots. Her hair hung free below her shoulders, accented by a broad-brimmed magenta hat with flowers adorning it. “You continue to shock me, Miss Katherine. When I first saw you at the ball I had never seen a gown like yours. Now you appear exquisitely dressed for riding.”

“Did you think I spent all my time wearing a green eyeshade?”

“I am sure that you would look good in one. But I must ask you: Are you wearing black to mourn Edward?” Both laughed heartily.

As Katherine mounted her horse, Patrick looked surprised. “Do you not ride side-saddle?”

“Patrick. My father had a farm in Lancaster and I rode every night to bring in the mares and cows. I like to be able to gallop!”

Patrick shook his head. In the field he showed off, jumping brooks with his horse and galloping after rabbits, firing his pistol at them. Katherine kept up with him. “You are quite a horseman,” Patrick said with admiration.

“Patrick, I am a horsewoman, fortunately, or I doubt you would be out here with me. I have ridden since I was able to mount a horse by myself. Are you hungry? I brought a picnic.”

“You did? Capital. Let’s stop here by the brook. I’ll ladle some water into our cups.” He swung one leg over his saddle and jumped to the ground, then opened his saddlebag. Katherine tethered her horse and lifted the picnic bag from behind her saddle. From it she drew cheese and bread, pickles, and sliced apples, which she set on a rock they used as a table. The sun made Katherine’s newly washed hair glisten.

“This is delightful!” Patrick gushed as he bit into some cheese. Then swallowing, he said quietly, “I am going to miss you, Katherine. Will you write me?”

Katherine fixed her bright blue eyes on his Irish green ones and said, “I will. I will keep you informed on all the events in the company—and our families, of course.”

“Katherine, I really don’t care so much about the company right now. You can make all the decisions. I may not even want to run it after the war. I might stay in the Army and become a general.”

“Patrick!” Katherine said with concern in her voice. “You must return. You know I will not be accepted as Chairman of the Board. A woman is bad enough, a young woman has no chance. You must be the titular head.”

Patrick stared at Katherine. Then a smile turned his mouth upwards. “I’ll make a business deal with you.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, confused by this suggestion.

“I said I’ll make you a deal so we can work together.”

“And that is...?”

“That you’ll marry me!”

“Oh! What—can’t—is that a proposal?” she finally blurted.

“Yes, Katherine Lovington. I just asked you to marry me.”

Katherine sat, her mouth agape. She had dreamed of him at night and fantasized about them as man and wife, but she still felt sure he was a scoundrel, a playboy only interested in adding her to his conquests. This proposal did not seem like reality.

Patrick stood and she looked up at him quizzically. He took her hands and lifted her to her feet, slid one hand around her waist and the other behind her neck and pulled her tightly to him as her lips parted to meet his. The kiss was reality. They dropped to their knees, still embracing. Patrick lowered her to the ground and rolled on top of her. She felt his erection against her pelvis.
So that’s what it feels like
. Her married friend’s stories flitted through her brain. She moaned out loud. Patrick began to loosen her bodice.

No. I’ve got to stop or we never will
. She pushed him up. “Patrick. Patrick. It is too soon. I can’t say for sure I will marry you. And I will save myself for my husband. It is cruel to say, but you might die at war. Where am I then?”

“I will never die. I promise you.” He was flummoxed by his emotions. His passion had dissipated, but his longing had grown. He had a strange lack of control of his feelings. “I love you,” he blurted, with as much surprise as intention.

She lifted her head, put both her hands behind his ears and kissed him sweetly, holding the embrace until she needed air. “Enough,” she said. Then she gathered the picnic remains while he collected the horses, and they rode back to the Donovan estate in silence, each thinking about what they wished had happened and each wondering about the days to come.

Chapter Five

P
atrick Sullivan lay in the damp weeds listening for the sounds of rebels. He and eight of his men had settled in the wet, fragrant ravine so he could watch the sloping hill that led east to Chancellorsville. The marshy grass offered good cover, but the conditions were muddy, wet and cold for May. “They’ll send out a reconnaissance team to scout our positions on the high ground,” he had explained to his men. “Tether your horses. And no fires.” Each man wore a dark blue waist-length coat and sky-blue wool pants over black boots. Their forage caps were tilted forward and buckled under their chins. No one expected to get any sleep. Patrick stared into the black void, listening for sounds of men on horseback.

So far, Patrick’s war had not held glory—only blood, disease, and death. Crowded, filthy camps. Fits of diarrhea. Sheer terror when musket balls flew by him. Sadness when one of his men died. His men followed him faithfully. His instinct for danger and where to take the fight astonished even veteran soldiers. But he was beginning to think his fame could be better sought in Philadelphia, where there was love, too. His embrace with Katherine by the brook had been the beginning of a two-year love affair that consumed him. Each letter from her swelled his desire. She wrote that she wanted to be more than business partners and spoke of her love.

Patrick’s ears still rang from the cacophony of battle, a fierce fourhour firefight near the town of Chancellorsville in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. Union General Joe Hooker had been ordered by President Lincoln to take the fight to enemy General Robert E. Lee and push him back to Richmond. But even though Hooker had twice Lee’s troops, Hooker had pulled back the day before. Now, May 2, General Oliver Howard’s division was protecting the right flank for the Army of the Potomac.

Patrick was worried. “It isn’t safe here,” he’d said to his men when they tethered their horses. “We’re not on high ground and there’s no embankment to shield us.” To their backs was the thick underbrush known as the Wilderness.

So he was not surprised when at 5:30 in the evening, rebels came running out of the brush with their chilling cutthroat yell. “It’s that bastard Jackson,” Patrick yelled to his men. “He was on the left flank yesterday. He marched his men through the trees to surprise us!”

Patrick’s men released their horses and leaped into their saddles. “Stand and fight!” Patrick yelled at retreating men, his sword forward. He fired his pistol with his left hand and swung his sword at rebels with his right. “Fight! Kill these bastards!” Patrick yelled. Men fell around him, but his courage seemed to be a shield for him. By late evening the Union Army had retreated more than one mile to the outskirts of Chancellorsville, but the momentum of the fight was over and both sides settled in for the night. All but Patrick.

“Horses. I hear horses,” Patrick called to his men in a low voice. Leaping to his feet, Patrick signaled his men to mount their horses in anticipation of battle. In an instant, the regiment’s Colt revolvers were cocked and ready. Once the Confederate scout troops were visible in the moonlight, Patrick motioned with his gun and yelled, “Go!” The startled rebels pulled up and both sides fired their sidearms, to no effect. The rebel leader raised his hand and motioned his troops sharply back toward the Confederate lines.

“My God, it’s Stonewall Jackson,” Patrick called out. The bearded Confederate leader in the gold-braided forage cap was riding off into the distance, but the face of Stonewall Jackson was well known to soldiers on both sides. This, Patrick suddenly felt, was his chance to be a hero. He would dispatch Jackson and everyone would celebrate his bravery and skill.

Patrick did not realize that a Confederate scout had remained behind, his mission to cover the retreat. The rebel scout quickly spotted Patrick and rode directly toward the Union officer from behind, drawing his pistol. Patrick heard the horse galloping up on his left side and a musket ball grazed his horse’s neck. He turned to see a long-barreled revolver pointed at him. He leveled his own in return. Just as the rebel fired again, Patrick’s gelding, blood running down its neck, reared up on his hind legs. The Confederate’s ball pierced Patrick’s thigh, hitting the bone. Paused high above the rebel, Patrick fired directly at the man’s left ear. He was dead in an instant.

Patrick tried to push down on his stirrups to keep his balance, but his leg gave way. He and his horse slammed to the ground, his wounded leg trapped under the horse’s belly, leaving him unable to move. As his horse struggled, Patrick realized it had broken its leg in the fall. Patrick let out a deep-throated scream that pierced the blackness of the night. The sharp pain dragged his consciousness from him.

Patrick’s men rode up several long minutes later. The sound of their horses’ hooves and the shaking of the ground jolted Patrick back to wakefulness. “Get this horse off me! My leg is broken,” Patrick screamed. One of his troops shot the horse in the head so they could lift it without the animal flailing and further hurting their captain.

Two men lifted the horse’s shoulder and two lifted the hindquarters to free Patrick. Blood was pooled on the ground around his twisted left leg. The young captain was unable to move.

“We chased them near to the rebels’ line,” announced one soldier. “They got fired on by their own men! I saw Stonewall Jackson slide off his saddle!”

“Are you sure?” Patrick asked, listening despite his pain.

“Yes, sir. It had to be him.”

“I’ll be damned. Let’s get out of here before they come back after us.”

As his men loaded him across the saddle of a horse, spots of light flashed in Patrick’s eyes and shots of pain made him lightheaded. He fought to stay alert until he reached a doctor, but he lost his struggle. With his battered leg bouncing against the side of the horse, Patrick would briefly awaken and then pass out again from the pain of broken bones grinding against flesh. It took more than half an hour for the eight men to reach the tent marked by a yellow flag with a green H. Medics in dirty, bloodstained uniforms jerked Patrick off the horse, laid him on a stretcher and carried him to a cot in the tent. Surrounded by agony and chaos from the daylong battle, he was ignored until morning.

Soaked in blood and sweat, Patrick survived the longest night of his life. His broken leg flopped this way and that when he moved it an inch and it lacerated him with pain. There was no chance to sleep, surrounded by the shrill sounds in the tent and from the yard, both filled with wounded. Some soldiers suffered in silent fortitude while others cried out or groaned pitifully. “Let me die!” one man shouted in agony. “Momma, Momma, Momma,” was repeated until a medic gagged the soldier. Nurses went from bed to bed offering shots of whiskey, but it wasn’t enough.
Where are the doctors?
Patrick fumed. He lay on his cot staring into the darkness, certain this was what living in Hell must be like. Helpless.
Not a leg to stand on
was the only humor that pierced his cocoon of suffering.

Sometime after dawn, Patrick was approached by a nurse, who said only, “The doctor is coming.” The field surgeon arrived soon after, triaging the wounded. Those with gunshot wounds to the abdomen or chest were left to die. A fractured hip was always fatal. With a fractured femur, Patrick’s odds of dying were three to one. If the bullet and wadding from the shot remained in the wound, it increased the infection risk. Amputation was the operation for all soldiers with this injury.

“I am dying of thirst and I hurt like hell. All I have had all night is a sip from a whiskey bottle,” Patrick complained while the doctor inspected his left leg, which bent out at an awkward angle.

The doctor ignored his complaint and stood up straight. “Captain, we will transport you to a hospital across the Rappahannock toward Warrentown to amputate your leg.”

“I don’t want it cut off,” Patrick roared. “I have a war to fight. I have a life to make.”

“It is your leg or your life, Captain. We have no treatment for the infection that usually develops.”

Patrick’s anger was impotent in his helpless condition. His leg was splinted and he was transported in a horse-drawn covered ambulance wagon designed to carry as many as ten men at a time. The opiate given him after boarding the ambulance was especially effective because he had lost so much blood. His mind was rambling.
Damn, if my horse hadn’t reared up the ball would have hit my chest. I wonder if Jackson really was shot? I’m glad Katherine can’t see me helpless.
Patrick fell into a drug-induced, fitful sleep.

A sudden halt of the ambulance threw Patrick forward, so his piercing yell announced his arrival at Warrentown. When he came to he was staring at the ceiling of a farmhouse-turned-hospital instead of the roof of the ambulance. A plump, middle-aged woman appeared and quickly looked over Patrick’s leg. “Here’s whiskey,” she said curtly as she held up a large amber bottle. She pulled out the cork stopper, brought the bottle to Patrick’s lips, and tilted it up. As soon as the biting alcohol entered his mouth, Patrick’s throat closed and he spewed it right back out, certain he was about to vomit. “Don’t be wasteful, Captain. We haven’t much to spare. Try again.” Patrick swallowed the next two mouthfuls, and before he could say a word she was gone. He lay back and gratefully let the whiskey soothe him.