Love and War: The Coltrane Saga, Book 1 (64 page)

He sounded less than convinced that Lena was still alive, much less that she would ever change. Kitty had had to tell him the truth about her, each word, she knew, stabbing into his heart painfully.

He scratched at his beard thoughtfully. “You’ve been asking an awful lot of questions about me, girl, and what I’ve got planned for the future—if the good Lord gives me one. But I’ve got a few questions for you, questions you haven’t answered these past few weeks we’ve been together. What do you plan to do? Not only in the future but right now. We’re going to move out of camp soon, and I told you, you can go with us and work with the hospital units or you can be sent home—or you can cross the river to Richmond and join the Confederates. It’s your decision, but it’s one that has to be made soon. Things are going to start jumpin’ around here before long.”

“I know.” She stared down at the camp. Each day, more and more men arrived as the Army of the Potomac built its strength for invasion of the South. She could not be a part of it. No matter how much she loved her father—and even felt in her heart that slavery was very wrong—she could not turn against her homeland. An image of honeysuckle and sweet gardenia came into focus…lying in Nathan’s arms beneath the cloak of the weeping willow tree alongside the gurgling creek. Hopes…dreams…promises…a young boy and a young girl, falling in love, untouched by war and the madness that went with it. Could the sweet overshadow the bitter? She did not know. Even if the South were to win the war, could anything be the same again, especially where Nathan was concerned? Was he out of her heart and mind forever?

A lone figure emerged from the fringes of the camp to stare up at the man and woman on the hillside looking down.

Spotting them, he began trudging upward. “That’s Travis,” John said tonelessly. “I’ve got a feelin’ he’s been with General Grant, and now he’s got news. I ain’t so sure I’m going to like that news.”

Kitty stared at the approaching figure, hating the way her heart began to pound. He had that effect. No matter how much she hated him, the sight of him could always start her pulses racing. He was handsome—there was no denying that—and when he looked at her with those steel-gray eyes through thick, half-lowered lashes, she always felt a warm glow spreading throughout her body. Since arriving at the winter camp, he had trimmed his hair till it just touched his collar and he had shaved his beard and trimmed his mustache neatly. He was a fine figure of a man, and as he walked up the hill, Kitty watched the muscles ripple along his thighs. He walked like—she tried to think of a fitting description—like a cat, lean, sinewy, deliberate, as though nothing would dare to get in his way. He was dangerous. He was brutal and cold. And she hated him. But more, she hated the way he made her feel.

“He’s not all that bad.”

She glanced sharply at her father, who was staring with his one eye down the hill at Travis.

Chuckling, he added, “I know right now you’re thinking about how mean he is, how much you hate him ‘cause he’s cold, hard. I used to think the same thing when I first met him. I guess I hated him, too. It wasn’t hard to figure out why he kept you with him instead of sending you back home.”

She blushed, feeling humiliated.

But he went on, not dwelling on Travis’s reasons. “But I fought beside him and got to know him. And that wall he’s got bricked up around him—the one you can’t see but you know it’s there just the same—that was brought on by what happened to him a long time ago. It made him hard on the surface, but underneath it all, he’s a good man.”

“I saw him shoot one of his own soldiers once,” Kitty pointed out. “He was wounded and there was no time to help him and he would probably have died anyway, but Travis took his side arm out and killed him.”

“I’ve done that,” he said simply, as though it were of no major significance. “I’ve killed men I knew well because they were dying. I put them out of their misery. It hurts to do it—God knows, it does—but a man does what he has to do.”

She was finding it hard to believe her father had done such a thing. But Kitty was also realizing that she had not known the real man, either.

“I saw Coltrane stop beside a wounded Confederate once and give him a drink of water. The boy died in his arms. I saw him help stop another from bleeding to death. I’ve also seen him go without rations to give his portion to the sick and wounded ‘cause he figured they needed it worse than he did, No, girl, Travis ain’t as bad as you think he is. He’s just got that wall around him to keep from gettin’ hurt again like he once was. Every man has his own kind of armor but he’s just been hurt more than most.”

“I’m not arguing your point. But I know him in a way you don’t, I know what he did to me, my life, and the two of us hate each other. There’s this…feeling between us something I can’t quite define, and we just hate each other. I have no respect or admiration for the man and I live for the time when I’ll never have to see him again.”

He chuckled. “You know, if two mules fry to pull a wagon in the opposite direction, they ain’t going no place. But if they pull together, it’s a pretty good ride. I’d say you and that man walkin’ up this hill are both about as stubborn as two mules trying to go in opposite directions. I think you’ve met your match, girl. You’re a damned pretty woman and all your life men have all but laid down and died over you. That one didn’t. You couldn’t twist him around your little finger and make him do just like you wanted him to. That’s when you locked horns.”

“That’s not fair!” she exploded then. “I told you about my problems with Nathan, how he insists I do nothing but be a wife and mother and not think about a life of my own.
He
didn’t give in to me.”

“That’s different. He’s raised to believe a woman ain’t fit for anything ‘cept havin’ babies and bein’ a wife. He was fightin’ to protect the way he thinks, too. But when it came to other things, he gave in, I imagine. Most men give in to the little whims of a woman. Not Coltrane. He’s a constant master of any situation, and you just can’t stand up to that, girl, and you’d never be able to.”

“I don’t want to!” she screeched, “I told you, Poppa, I hate him. He hates me. We hate each other. It’s that simple!”

“Oh, nothing in life is simple, Kitty. But you manage to make the easy things hard. Me and Sam talked it over…”

“I’ll thank everyone to mind his own business.” She leaped to her feet, tears stinging her eyes furiously. It wasn’t fair that Travis was causing them to argue this way. He was putting a wedge between them and the closeness they’d always shared. So much had happened since last they met and they had so much to make up for without him casting a shadow over their lives.

John continued to chuckle as Travis approached. There was no time for further discussion. He didn’t even nod in Kitty’s direction but sat down beside John and said in a grim voice, his eyes serious: “I just talked with General Grant and I have our orders.”

John nodded. “I figured as much. Well, let’s hear it.”

Travis turned his gaze on Kitty then, cold and accusing. “This is confidential. She may be your daughter, John, but she still has her allegiance to the enemy. I can’t tell our strategy plans in her presence.”

Kitty stamped her foot. “Oh, damn your strategy, Travis Coltrane, and damn you, too!”

“Kitty!” John admonished her.

“I’m sick of all of this. I’m going to ask to be taken to Richmond and I’m going back to help my people. You stay here and do what you have to do, but there’s no point in
my
staying. Can’t you see what he’s doing to us, Poppa? He’s trying to put a wall between, us, drive us apart. I’m leaving because I can’t bear to watch it happen.”

She turned and started walking down the hill, then turned, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I’ll say my goodbyes to you later, Poppa, privately!” And casting one final icy glare in Travis’s direction, she hurried on down the hill toward the camp.

“I’m sorry,” Travis said finally. “It’s been a bad situation for you, I know.”

John nodded thoughtfully. “She’s doing the right thing. Her heart is in the South and always will be. It ain’t right for her to be here with us. And I take it from the look on your face that you have news that’s going to end the calm days of weeks past.”

“Right. We’re heading south with Sherman toward Atlanta. He’s taking an army of over a hundred thousand men and he wants experienced cavalrymen for scouts. He personally asked for the three of us. Sam says he’s ready to go. General Grant requests that we go also.”

John picked up a small stone, sent it skipping down the hill. Kitty, hearing the noise, turned in annoyance. He waved. Travis gave her a mock salute. With a swish of her skirt, she quickened her pace, stumbled, righted herself with as much dignity as she could muster, and continued on her way.

“Travis,” John spoke in a voice evidencing his pessimism. “Just what do you think is goin’ to happen? You think Grant’s plan will work? Do you think the South is ready to buckle under pressure now? You think the time is right?”

“Yes, to every question. We’re going against the Confederate General Joseph Johnston. Our spies tell us he’s reorganized the Army of Tennessee. We can’t be sure of how many men he’s got, but we suspect his strength is nowhere near ours. You and me and Sam will leave soon to do some scouting and try to find out just what kind of strength Johnston’s got. I think this is it, one way or the other. The war can’t go on much longer.”

“I keep asking myself and everyone around me what happens when it does end. Maybe I’m trying to convince myself I’ll be around when it’s over. A lot have died and more will fall. I could well be one of them. So could you. We don’t like to talk about death, but it’s the only certainty we’ve got in life. You ready to die, Coltrane?”

He shook his head firmly. “Nobody is. You can talk about your God and heaven and hell, but when it comes right down to it, no man is sure of what happens when his time comes and he’s scared to face it.”

“Believin’ in a hereafter makes it different. You got to believe in something, Travis, else why make the effort to even get through life?”

“Because we’re put here and we’ve got to live the best we can. We don’t have any choice about living or about dying. If you want to know the truth, I don’t think we’ve got any say-so about how we do either. It just happens. I didn’t ask for this war, but I sure didn’t run from it. And when it’s over, I won’t see how my life has changed too much.”

“And what will you do when it’s over? Do you think about it much?”

Travis shrugged and watched Kitty retreat in the distance, entering a cabin. “Sam will go back to the bayou, I guess. Me, I’m heading for California.”

“That’s a long way off. Why California?”

He grinned. “Because it’s there. But enough about me, old man. What about you and that farm of yours back in North Carolina? You think if we win you can go back there without getting lynched?”

“Oh, I’d try, I reckon. It’s good land. I’ve no place else to go. The war will leave a lot of wounds, true, but I’m hoping everyone will be so grateful to see it end that they’ll want to live in peace from now on.”

They were silent for a moment, then Travis asked the question that was burning in his brain: “What about Kitty, John? What will become of her?”

Sadly, he shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m afraid I goaded her into making a decision to cross the Rapidan and go back to the Confederates. I was afraid she would want to stay with us because of me. We’re going to be on the move and it’s no place for a woman, no matter how strong she is. Kitty’s been through hell but I want her out of it. I figure she’ll run into Nathan, and maybe she’ll be so hurt and disappointed with me—and with you—that she’ll listen to him and do what he tells her. He ain’t much of a man in my opinion. I never did care much for him or his snotty family but I think he’s got balls enough to look after my girl. If he don’t, then when this war is over, if I’m still around, you can believe he’ll answer to me. But I am worried. I’ve got to be honest with you. Wherever she goes, she’s sure to be in the way of the army on either side. No one is going to be safe, I’m afraid, the way things are looking.”

“What makes you think this Nathan will look after her? Andy told me his men under him were starting to think he’s a bit on the cowardly side.”

“For one thing, he’s a gentleman, something he prides himself in being. He’ll look after her. And he wants her. That makes a lot of difference, too, Travis. He’s always wanted her not because she’s so damned pretty but because she was the one thing his daddy’s money couldn’t buy. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

He nodded.

John squinted his one eye and looked at him. “You love her, don’t you?” he asked bluntly.

Travis forced a laugh. “Why, John, I don’t think I’ve ever truly loved any woman. I’ve had bad experiences…”

“I ain’t talking about your past. I’m talkin’ about you and Kitty. How do you really and truly feel about her? And I want you to give it to me straight. I’m not so old that I can’t remember how it was when I fancied a woman. I can see it in your eyes. And you can’t tell me you braved all those Cherokee Indians because an old one-eyed man asked you to. You had to have cared.”

Sighing, Travis nodded his head. “Yeah, John, I do care. But it’s something I have to get over. It would never work out. Maybe at another time or place, under different circumstances, Kitty and I would have fallen in love in the right way and been happy together. But we got off to a bad start and everything has worked against us. It’s best she cross that river and we never meet again.”

“I disagree.”

Travis looked at him sharply.

“I have to disagree with you,” John repeated himself. “I know my girl and I know Kitty cares about you, too. I don’t like seeing it end this way.”

“You just got through saying you forced her into making the decision to go back to the South.”

“For her own damn good, Coltrane! You think I want her with
us
? Let her go back to the South but the least you can do is send her back with some kind of understanding between you two. You can let her know you care.”

“Well, why in the hell are you so concerned?” Travis felt anger starting to course through his veins. “She can go back to her Reb officer and probably live a damn sight better life than she’d ever have with me.”