Passion's Fury (54 page)

They came together, and only then did he lie against her breasts, the love sweat of both their bodies mingling as they reveled in the wonder of their union.

That afternoon, Rance left with half his men, leaving the other half to finish the cabins. It was his intent to go for supplies, for he had no way of knowing how long they would be away.

He returned two days later, bringing a stranger, a tall thin man with kind eyes.

“This is the Reverend Mister Fowler. He was good enough to ride up here with me. He’s going to marry us, April.” His voice was deep with emotion as he smiled at her and whispered huskily, “If I must leave you now, I want to leave you as my wife.”

April clung to him, smiling through tears of joy, as the others gathered around to cheer their approval.

They were married at sunrise the next morning, the sky turning from pale gray to watermelon red as dawn erupted on the mountaintop. The birds sang, the winds danced through the treetops, and it was as though God, Himself, blessed the scene.

There was no time for lovemaking…no time to reaffirm that which had already been vowed long ago. The men hastily prepared to leave, and Rance explained, “The South is being choked to death.” His misery and worry were obvious. “Sherman is proving what he was trying to prove all along, that if the war is carried to the Southern people themselves, then the Confederacy stands a good chance of collapsing. He’s slashing through the very heart of us, April.”

“And what do you plan to do?” she asked. “What
can
you do?”

“I’m going to run horses, and I’m going to get supplies to the Confederate troops. I may not be able to do much, but I can do something.

“I’m depending on you to keep things going here. We’ve brought hogs and chickens and flour and salt and a few other things to see you through the winter. I’ll come back when I can. I’ll send messages to you when I can. I’m leaving a dozen men here to guard you and the other women.”

He pulled her into his arms, almost roughly. “And I make this one vow to you, blue eyes.” He sounded almost angry. “If there’s any way possible, our baby will be born at Pinehurst. I can’t promise you it will happen. I can only promise you I’ll try to make it happen.”

The proud Stars and Bars of the Confederate flag were soon held aloft, snapping in the cool fall winds, as the men marched away down the mountain. And she was left with the memory of his kiss, tasting, as always, of warm, sweet wine.

Fall quickly became winter. There were weeks without any news at all, and then one of the men guarding the women would sneak down the mountain and bring back whatever information he could.

Sherman, they were told, had left Atlanta in flames in mid-November and marched for the Georgia coast. For Christmas, it was said that he had telegraphed President Lincoln,

I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with 150 heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about 25,000 bales of cotton.

April had never met the man but wished him dead…wished all Yankees dead.

And she prayed each night and each morning, and sometimes several times each day, that Rance was alive and would return soon. She felt their baby move beneath her heart and wondered if it would be born at home. Then she chided herself for worrying about that. There were much more important things to be considered.

April wept when they were told about Sherman’s march to the sea. Nowhere in Georgia was there any force to give Sherman serious opposition. He and his men had laid the land to waste as they moved, making good Sherman’s prediction that a crow would starve in the path behind him.

It was even worse to hear about the lawless stragglers, some of whom were deserters. They were on the fringe of the army, and among them were soldiers temporarily absent without leave who returned to duty later. These were marauding just for the fun of it. These hoodlums, called “bummers,” were far more dangerous than Sherman. They robbed, burned, and pillaged from Atlanta to the sea, not because they particularly hated the South, but because they had no morals.

Anything that lay in Sherman’s path was destroyed either by him or by looters—bridges, railroads, warehouses. Barns were burned. Animals and food were taken.

Lee’s army was starving, eating dead, rotten horses, rats, roaches, anything to battle the starvation that was taking more lives than the war itself.

Despite the constant fears over the war, April found peace on the mountain. She walked alone in the woods, reveling in the fragrant, colorful wild flowers, the sweet song of the birds. She would stand for hours gazing at the magnificent view from the mountain peaks, her eyes scanning the sprawling Alabama countryside. Was Rance down there somewhere? Or was he in Georgia, or Virginia? Or was he even alive?

She could not believe that he would not return. And it was this belief and the beautiful world about her, that gave her more peace than she had known in years. She began to regain her strength after the several ordeals of the last few years.

The older women in their little hideaway camp calculated that her baby would be born sometime in late May. A beautiful time for birth, April thought happily, placing her hand often upon her swelling abdomen. A new season, a new life.

In February, they heard that General Sherman was moving northward to strike through the Carolinas. There was no word from Rance. Was he alive? Then, on a Sunday morning in early April, the lookout below gave his special whippoorwill call to signal that someone was coming. April ran with the others, as fast as her heavy body would carry her. Peering down the scrub-lined narrow path, she could see them—men in tattered gray uniforms, some of them being supported, half-carried, half-dragged, by their comrades. And above them, hanging in shreds but still there, was the remnant of the Confederate flag.

Wives and sweethearts screamed with hysterical joy as they recognized the anguished, war-weary faces of their loved ones. April’s hope dimmed. She did not see Rance. Finally, unable to see through her tears, and too frightened to ask any of the men about him, she crept away from the others, toward the woods. She sat down in the field, drinking in the sweet fragrance of the earth. The air smelled so sweet, and she drank of it, then hung her head and wept.

“No one cries among flowers, blue eyes.”

She could not move. This was a dream. It was not happening.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. And just then, a dirty, shaggy dog bounded forward to cover her face with eager licks.

“No,” he murmured, kneeling beside her, staring down at her with warm eyes. “No one cries among the flowers.”

They clung together, laughing and clutching each other as though to reassure themselves that this was real. They were together at long last.

“For me, the war is over,” he told her, gesturing to his heavily bandaged leg. She gasped in fear, but he said, “It will heal in time. I caught a Yankee ball, and the doctors were afraid to remove it. Said it was too deep, and they might wind up having to take the leg off. I’m as stubborn as Clark was.

“It’s going to be over in just a few days, honey,” he said tightly, stroking her long golden hair, pausing now and then to brush his lips against hers. Then he moved his hand to her swollen belly, eyebrows raising in wonder. “He’s going to be here soon, isn’t he?”

She nodded, smiling. “A month, maybe. According to the other women.”

“Then we’re going home.” He got to his feet and pulled her up and into his arms. Together, they walked to the edge of the mountain and stared down. “It may be a while in coming, but this land will know peace one day. We’ll be a part of it. So will our child.

“Are you ready?” he asked her then, gazing down at her with so much love that she trembled, feeling it penetrate to her soul. “Are you ready to go home and have our baby?”

“Anywhere,” she murmured tremulously, as his lips came closer. “Anywhere, my darling, with you.”

They stood there, among the flowers, smiling at one another. And the white shaggy dog chased a butterfly through the forest, sensing his master and mistress needed time alone.

No one, the wind seemed to whisper, cries among the flowers.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Rance would not urge the horses pulling the buckboard to move any faster, despite April’s anxious prodding.

“It will take days to get home moving this slowly,” she complained, wriggling impatiently on the splintered wooden plank seat.

He glanced at her in amusement. “You want the baby born at Pinehurst, don’t you? If I bounce you around any more I’ll be delivering the baby myself. And I don’t think I’d be any good at
that.
”

His bandaged leg was propped up, and now and then pain crossed his face. “It’s bad, isn’t it?” she asked quietly. “Your leg. It hurts, doesn’t it?”

“I told you it will heal in time. There’s no gangrene. I’m thankful for that. Someday maybe a surgeon will come along who’s smart enough to dig the bullet out without shattering the bone. Till then, I guess you’re just going to have to put up with a husband who walks a bit stiff-legged.”

She leaned over to kiss his cheek, laughing as her bonnet slipped and she quickly reached for it. The sun was scorching and she was tired, but she would not complain. They were going home! After the hell they had both endured in the past four years, nothing would mar this journey.

Familiar fields and forests were green and still, and an unearthly quiet hung over the land. Death was in the air—the death of the Confederacy—death of the South as they had known it. “Is there no hope?”

He shook his head grimly. “We will hear one day soon that Lee has surrendered. It’s over, April.”

“We aren’t surrendering,” she said with a stubborn tilt to her head, folding her hands across her swollen abdomen. “I will never admit defeat. I will never let my children or my grandchildren say that the South was defeated by the damn Yankees.”

Chuckling, he turned to look at her. He loved the expression on her face when her mind was set and nothing could change it. “And what, my darling, will you tell them?”

“That we just got tired of killing Yankees and quit fighting.”

He roared with laughter, but she glared at him so angrily that he forced himself to stop. She meant it, by God, he realized in wonder. Like thousands of other Southerners, she would never be able to accept the fact that the Confederacy had been soundly whipped.

And he wondered about that, himself. Had there been enough food, enough ammunition, then the story would have been quite different. What would future generations have to say about the war? A hundred years from now, what would be the impact of the North’s victory upon America? He would long be in his grave, but perhaps, there might be a way of knowing. Who could say what happened after death? Was there awareness? Whenever such thoughts found their way into his mind, he pushed them aside, for the attempt to comprehend was overwhelming.

They occasionally passed a house still standing, then passed a smoke-blackened ruin. No cattle lowed and no birds sang here.

“I liked it better on the mountain,” she said, whispering, for the grim scene seemed to demand silence.

“We’re going to see evidence of plundering Yankees, April. Let’s just hope they didn’t reach Pinehurst.”

“And what of Vanessa?”

“When we reach Montgomery, I’m going to go to whatever government is there and ask what’s the proper thing to do. You will have the family ring to prove your ownership. I have money buried back on the mountain to pay any taxes due. I hear that’s how the Yankees will take our land, if we can’t pay the taxes. And you can bet there will be plenty of Southerners who won’t be able to come up with anything. The Yankees will be swarming down here like vultures after bodies on the battlefields.”

“I wish you had brought the money with you. I know I won’t feel like riding back, and I don’t want to be alone.”

“You won’t be. I’m going to find a midwife to stay with you. And I couldn’t bring the money. It’s pure gold, and I am not riding into Montgomery with pure gold. Right now I just want to get you home. Then I’ll worry about other things.”

He was silent for a moment, tugging at his beard. Finally, he looked at her somberly and said, “If Vanessa is there, I’ll deal with her. She’s insane, and I don’t trust her around you.”

“You mean if she’s still living at Pinehurst, you’ll ask her to leave?” She shook her head. “Oh, Rance, I can’t do that to my sister. Where would she go?”

“Damnit, woman, why do you care?” he yelled, unable to control his temper. “What has that bitch got to do to you for you to realize just how goddamn mean she is? She’d kill you and never bat an eye. I don’t want to hear one word out of you about how I handle her if she’s there. Do you understand me?”

She nodded, aware that no amount of pleading could sway him when he was riled. His strength of character was admirable, but she often found it annoying to have it directed at her so forcibly.

In midafternoon, Rance turned from the main road onto a deeply corrugated clay road. The horses were barely moving, for the way was rough. In the distance was an old cabin of rotten logs, several having fallen out, giving the structure a precarious lurch to one side.

“We’re going to have to ask for shelter,” he explained to her. “You need the rest. Let’s pray there’s food to be shared.”