Love's Rescue (40 page)

Jake moved his horse alongside Jess’s. “I’ll be watching you closely, Jess. Dressed like one of us, the soldiers will be aiming at you just as much as at anyone else here. If things turn bad, I want your promise you’ll get yourself on a horse and get out of there as fast as you can.”

Jess was already shaking her head.

Jake grabbed her horse’s headstall suddenly. “You don’t promise, you don’t go.”

Jess snapped her mouth shut. She had never seen him so adamant—so determined. Still, she bristled at his threat. “You think you’re going to stop me?”

He nodded sharply. “I’ll tie you so tight you’ll wish Diaz had done it, and I’ll leave you to spend the night on the
barn floor.”

Looking at him, Jess knew that he meant what he said. Yet she grudgingly acknowledged to herself that, whether she went along or was left behind, he only intended to keep her safe. “I promise to get away if things turn bad.”

Some of the steeliness left his eyes. “Good.” Though his horse snorted and pulled, Jake held it beside Jess’s. “Reese goes in?”

After a silent, fervent prayer for the young man, Jess finally agreed. “Reese goes in.”

Huge clouds rolled in from the west as the five sped south toward Camp Douglas prison. Jess looked up to see pinprick stars disappear and then reemerge above, the clouds alternately plunging them into inky blackness and moving aside to cast the land in a hazy gray.

Jake was no more than a shadow ahead of her, and when she glanced around, the men behind practically vanished like bats in the night.

Despite the coolness of the late hour, droplets of sweat broke out on Jess’s forehead. Her heart thrummed unsteadily as she pushed her horse to keep up with Jake. She knew the intermittent cloud cover would help shield them from the eyes of the Union sharpshooters. The danger was that it would equally frustrate their own attempts to distinguish the movements of the guards.

Within minutes, the smattering of houses became familiar, then the dark shapes of the prison walls emerged. Without a word, they slowed their horses to a quiet walk so they wouldn’t wake any civilians. They moved off the road to further muffle the sound of the hooves with the prairie earth.

Though no lamplight shone from the homes, Jake led them in a wide circle around the residences to avoid being seen in the event that someone stepped outdoors en route to an outhouse.

As they came within view of the sentries, they dismounted and began to use the moments of greater darkness to their advantage. They waited patiently behind clusters of trees or lone carriage houses, stealthily slipping closer to the western wall each time a cloud cover fell.

When they were perhaps four hundred yards from the stockade, they entered a small grove of oak trees. There, they split up. Diaz and Taggart wended their way south, pulling their horses after them.

Leaving their own horses tied to a tree in the grove, Jake, Jess, and Reese took their rifles and continued on foot, then on their hands and knees, and finally on their stomachs, keeping as low as possible.

When they reached the last cluster of bushes large enough to conceal them, they stopped to study the perimeter of the stockade and the sentry box high atop it. Here and there, soldiers looked down, silhouetted starkly against the night sky, with rifles gleaming against their shoulders. Below them, other guards patrolled the fence line, several hundred feet separating one man from the next. All was quiet inside the camp.

Ten minutes of tense silence passed. Then they heard the distant hoot of an owl.

Diaz and Taggart had taken their position.

It was time.

Jake unrolled a tattered gray coat he’d purchased in town and handed it to Reese. It would be his only disguise. Reese gave Jess his hat for safekeeping and shrugged into the coat. Then he unbuckled his gun belt and passed his weapons to Jake. At this, Jess nearly protested out loud, but Jake silenced her with a solid hand on her wrist. She suddenly realized that if Reese were found by the guards, he might be able to talk his way out of trouble; if they found him armed, however, they could shoot him as the enemy.

The two men inched forward on their elbows through knee-high prairie grass. Jess deeply wished she had never agreed to let Reese go in to get Ambrose.

While Jake and Reese kept watch on a passing guard, Jess slowly crept up to Jake’s side. She placed a hand on his arm, and he turned his face to look at her. “Can you see any of the openings in the stockade?” she whispered.

By way of an answer, he pointed to three stacks of lumber she hadn’t noticed—two just to the south and another much further down, nearer where Diaz and Taggart were waiting. A cloud drifted overhead, draping the camp in black. When it passed, Jess realized that the lumber lay where the wall had yet to be finished. She figured that the gap the men had found that afternoon must be behind the stacks. The shifting shadows made the openings nearly impossible to see.

A guard rounded the corner of the stockade and headed away from them. Jake and Reese inched toward the lumber, crawling like cats on the prowl.

Jess followed until she was within range of the first sentry box. A half-buried wooden stake was protruding from the ground before her. She was one hundred feet from the wall, no more than fifty from the roaming guards. The dead zone.

If she moved suddenly, the sentry in the box would see her.

Without a sound, she laid her rifle on the ground in front of her. She lifted the brim of her hat slightly and wiped the sweat trickling from her hairline with her sleeve.

Ambrose, she thought, only a little while longer. Only a little while and you’ll be out of there for good. Oh, please don’t let anything happen to you now.

The instant the words lighted in her mind, she knew she was sending her wishes in the wrong direction. Almighty Father, she prayed, I don’t know of anything in Your Word that tells me whether freeing Ambrose is right or wrong. Perhaps, during a war, there are no answers to that. I only know that while David hid from King Saul in a cave, he prayed, ‘Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name.’ Over the past months, You’ve blessed me with countless reasons to praise Your name. Above all, You’ve given me hope of a future with Jake, and You’ve brought Ambrose back to me. You’ve given me the faith to praise Your name, no matter what comes. Now I ask that in Your mercy and in Your love, You would enable us to free Ambrose tonight and You would grant that none of us is harmed.

Jess pressed her cheek to the ground as another guard strolled by. Then when he had passed, she carefully looked about for Jake and Reese. She saw nothing but the tops of the grasses blowing in the breeze.

Her gut wrenched with the realization of just how deeply she loved Jake. What if he were discovered? A picture flashed through her mind of him lying, shot, in a circle of Federals, his eyes staring dully at the stars. Jess had to fight the urge to go to him. She wanted to know what it was to be his wife. She wanted Jake to hold her close on long winter nights. She wanted to swim with him in the creek on balmy summer evenings. She wanted to continue working the ranch together and to give him children to fill the emptiness left by Sadie’s absence. Jake Bennett brightened her life and brought her joy, and he loved her. Jess sent one more prayer heavenward, asking the Lord to protect them for one reason more: she wanted to be with Jake, and she wanted forever.

Silently letting out her breath, she searched again for signs of Jake and Reese. Another guard passed. There was a movement in the grass about twenty feet away. She gasped when Reese’s head emerged. He and Jake were too near the opening—they might be seen! Yet Reese looked first to one side and then to the other, noting the positions and distances of the guards. Jake leaned close to the boy and whispered something as Reese nodded, listening. Then, flat on his belly, Reese moved forward.

Jess was breathing hard now, trying to stifle her gasps.

It had all come down to this.

She watched him go. Forward, forward. Another hoot sounded—Jake signaling to Diaz and Taggart that Reese was going in.

A shadow spread over the land. She saw Reese crouch down, hidden by darkness. When the clouds slid by, the place where Reese had been was empty. He was in.

Jess breathed a tentative sigh of relief. The first goal had been achieved.

Keeping her eyes level with the grass, Jess reached back, pulled open her holster, and slid the revolver free. Bringing it up in front of her, she waited, heart pounding against the ground.

Minutes passed, turning into a half hour. Then another half hour. Two of the guards stopped to chat directly in front of the opening. Her nerves stretched as tight as banjo strings.

The six of them would need to be well away from here by daybreak, her mind screamed, or the guards would be able to see them—and follow them. They were running out of time.

In the next instant, Jess watched in horror as the two guards readied their rifles and swung the stocks to their shoulders.

They were moving in Jake’s direction.

Jess nearly cried out. She stifled her panic and forced herself to think.

Diaz and Taggart were positioned hundreds of yards away near the second break in the wall. They were nowhere near enough to help Jake. She was much closer and fully able to help him.

The two Yankee guards began to sweep the grass with their rifle barrels as they moved along. Using her elbows, Jess turned herself until she faced them head-on. Carefully, she drew back the hammer, grimacing when it clicked loudly in place.

The guards didn’t appear to have heard.

Jess laid her finger along the trigger guard, bracing her gun hand firmly on the palm of her other hand.

One of the soldiers called up to the sentry above, who moved to the outside edge of his box and looked down where the other man was pointing. While he scanned the field from his vantage point, the two on the ground moved further apart.

Jess sighted along her barrel. One of the guards motioned to the other. Suddenly, both rifles swung into position to fire.

Jess took aim at the gun hand of the soldier nearest her. She curled her finger over the trigger.

One of the Federals shouted and kicked at something with his boot. He stared down at the grass, but the other muttered something and then burst out laughing, apparently teasing his alarmed partner. Both of them moved away. The laughing one shouldered his rifle in unconcern, but the other persisted in searching the ground until he had almost reached the wall. After they exchanged a few more words, they waved up to the sentry and resumed their rounds.

Jess lowered her revolver with a sigh far shakier than the last. Jake had been no more than a body’s length from those guards, she knew. That they hadn’t seen him was nothing short of a miracle.

Jess uncocked the revolver and rested her head on her arm.

The air felt cooler now, and damp, as if a storm were rolling in. She raised her head, then nearly jumped out of her skin to see Jake beside her.

“Shh, it’s me.”

Unable to stop herself, she grasped his shirt and leaned over, embracing him as best she could from a horizontal position. “I thought they’d found you! I thought that was the end of it!”

He hugged her close. “We’re not out of this yet,” he reminded her.

Steeling her nerves, she let him go and moved slightly away. “The guards found something,” she said. “I saw one of them kicking at the ground. What was it?”

Jake looked around. “A few pages of newsprint the wind had blown in. I found them in the grass and took them with me, thinking they might come in handy. The pages fluttered just enough to keep the guards’ attention away from me.”

Jess nodded, still battling her fright. The newspaper might not have worked, she thought. The soldiers might have captured him.

“I have to get back now. I just wanted to be sure you were all right.”

All right? Jess searched his face, noting the steadiness in his eyes. Jake Bennett was a man calm of purpose. He was undaunted by fears, even now, and he was watching out for her. How, she wondered, could she ever be afraid with this man by her side?

“I’m fine, Bennett,” she said, her tone confident again.

Jake leaned forward and kissed her. Then he looked toward the opening where Reese had entered the camp. “They’re ready.”

Jess turned her head to see two shadows emerge through the fence—the slender form of Reese and the taller silhouette of her brother. Hope collided with tension inside her as she resumed her place.

Jake was already moving away.

Jess scanned the dead zone for the enemy. Unexpectedly, a single guard rounded the corner, patrolling in the direction opposite of that in which the other guards had been walking all night. Stranger still, Jess thought she recognized something familiar in the way he moved. Her eyes flew to the guard box. It was empty. The sentry!

Desperate to call to Jake, she maintained silence and clamped her jaw shut. With the rifle in one hand and the revolver in the other, she began pushing herself away from the man.

He was coming straight for her.

Jess shook her head, denying what was happening. Obviously, he had seen her from the sentry box. Why hadn’t he simply alerted the guards on the ground? Why had he come after her himself? Earning points toward a higher rank? Going for his big chance to be promoted to paper shuffler?

Not at her expense.

He was less than ten feet away. Eight feet. Six.

Jess dropped her rifle. She rose up on one knee, pulling up her revolver.

His rifle was aimed at her heart.

In the next second, she envisioned Jake, her brother, and the other three men whose lives would be affected forever by the choice she would make in the next moment. She recalled Jake saying, “We’ll go in slow and quiet,” and she remembered Reese going in without his guns.

Jess took a deep breath.

And threw her revolver away.

The man lifted his boot to her stomach and forced her back down in the grass.

Jess avoided glancing toward her rifle. She hoped he didn’t see it—hoped he no longer saw her as a threat.