Sisters of Shiloh (28 page)

Josephine left the spoon in the teacup and stepped into the backyard, careful not to spill a drop as she approached her sister.

“Don’t burn yourself. It’s hot.”

Libby’s hands were steady when she took the cup. “Thank you,” she said. Over the past few weeks, the register of her voice had risen incrementally, and now she only sounded like Arden on her saddest days.

“Can I get you anything else?”

Libby set the cup and saucer down in her lap and fixated on something in the middle distance. There was every chance the cup would be full of cold tea when Josephine returned to her. She stroked Libby’s hair and caught her fingers on a tangle. “See? You’re hair’s getting longer.”

She was walking back to the house when she heard Libby’s voice.

“You’re a good sister.”

Josephine passed the stables on the way to the woods, carrying a basket filled with bread, apples, and a jar of honey. Her lazy brother, Stephen, had left his horse half-curried to whittle on a stick. He looked up as she approached.

“Where you going?” he asked.

“None of your business.”

She cut across the back lot and began the long walk, happy for a chance to think of Wesley and remember some incident shared between them. Nothing too significant. Just the way his neck looked after a haircut or the way his fingers moved on the strings of his guitar. Anything would bring him back, his face in sharp relief, and she would have to stop what she was doing because the love for him played havoc on her chores, causing her to spill the water in mop buckets and mismanage the fluted edges of dough.

When she reached the snake fence, she ducked under it and found herself in the gloom of the forest. She followed a familiar path down a bluff and continued her descent until she reached her destination. Before she ducked into the cave, she looked around to make sure she hadn’t been followed. A red-tailed hawk watched her from the branch of a nearby tree. But there were no other witnesses.

The air inside the cave was cool. She followed a streak of lantern light.

Wesley rose to meet her.

“No one saw me,” she said.

They kissed.

Libby blew on the surface of the tea, watched it move, and then poured the tea onto the lawn. A dog came up to investigate, and then walked away with a snort. Stephen ambled in from the stables, still whittling on a stick. Somewhere, she knew, was a horse half-fed or a wall half-painted. She appreciated that quality in him now, that open-ended sense of time that defied attempts to rush it.

He found a chair and sat next to her. He folded his pocketknife, put it away, and tapped his knee with the stick.

“Where did Josephine go?” she asked.

“That way,” he said, pointing. “She ran off with a jar of honey and a basket of bread, and wouldn’t say where she was going.”

Libby nodded but held fast to Josephine’s secret. Stephen tried to talk some more, gave up, and left the conversation half-finished. He dragged his chair away and left her alone. She held the near-empty cup to her lips, tilted back her head, and caught a warm drop of tea, sparking a tiny remembrance, which led to a bigger one, then a bigger one, and then she had to drop the cup and break her concentration. Slowly she was coming back to herself. Filling in with her own thoughts and longings and beliefs and dreams. She didn’t remember much of the war, but it still came back in fragments. Out of nowhere, a decapitated hand, a man’s screaming face. And she would have to stop and feel herself in her own yard, and in her own skin. Repeat her name, Libby. Smell or see something familiar, like brewing coffee or a bird turning its head in that quick, impatient way that birds do. The nightmares, at least, had stopped. When Arden came to her in dreams now, he was sweet again, and talked no more of flies and Yankees, and insisted no more that Josephine had murdered him in cold blood on that battlefield. No, these dreams of Arden were small dreams, ordinary dreams. He reached high for something in the cabinet. He petted a dog. He came through the front door. He said things like “We need more bailing wire.” She woke up in tears most days. Good tears. Normal tears. The tears of so many women across this land as the dead piled up. Brandy Station, Upperville, Gettysburg, Manassas Gap, Chickamauga. So many women were dreaming now of their men back at home, ordinary, alive.

Separating from Arden allowed her to mourn him, the husband he was and was not. The man who could sometimes be tender but also critical and short-tempered. Not a devil. Not a saint. Simply a man who had loved her in his own way, too hard, too much, too all-encompassing. He’d breathed her up inside him like a summer breath and refused to exhale, and she’d been lost.

Arden would disappear now for days, and that was all right with her, because he was always with her, a presence growing lighter, as memories do, puffed up by the passing hours and made into something comforting again.

There were times when she imagined he was angry and still blamed her for leaving the quest, but he would reassure her, calling to her from the orchard in the voice of a boy.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

Libby, say my name.

From Becky

My sister Kathy is the most generous person I have ever known and has supported and inspired me my entire life. She taught me some of my first words and has been encouraging me to find my voice ever since. “Beck, I want to write a book with you” were some of the most empowering words I’ve ever heard. She is the epitome of dedication and perseverance, and without her unshakable faith, this labor of love would never have been created or ultimately published. Kath, not only do I love you, but I love to be with you, too. I am honored to be your partner in this endeavor, and I hope there are many more to come. And, Michael, welcome to the family—I’m so thrilled to have you for a brother.

We began this book in the fall of 2002, and along the way we’ve met many people who helped shape it. Much thanks belongs to Dr. Stephen Potter of the National Park Service—we so appreciate your insight and expertise, and fondly remember our evenings together at the Piper Farm. We are also grateful for our time spent with Jerry Holsworth, local historian of Winchester, Virginia. Our deepest thanks go to the rangers and staff at the Chatham Manor Archives, the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, Antietam National Battlefield Park, and to the staff at the Handley Regional Library and Archives in Winchester, Virginia.

Thank you to the amazing team championing this book: Jenna Johnson, Nina Barnett, Stephanie Kim, Ayesha Mirza, Chelsea Newbould, Michaela Sullivan, and Erin DeWitt at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Thank you, Henry Dunow, agent extraordinaire and lover of baseball. Ro and Cory, thanks for making a mom of four feel like a supermodel for a day. Thank you to Dr. Donald C. Elder, Mrs. LaNelle Allee, and Mr. Randy Tumlinson for nurturing my love of history. Randy, Margie, and Sher—thanks for always letting me tag along and for putting up with my brattiness!

Finally, I must thank my fun and loving family. Jesse—thank you for our many adventures, and for indulging your history geek of a wife. I’m never happier than when we’re traipsing across some battlefield or climbing in a ruin. I love you very much—and not just because you’ve got a smoking pair of legs. Abbey, Wesley, Katey, and Travis—you bring the sunshine to my life, and every day is a new crazy adventure. You all make me happy and so proud. And to my sweet Mommie, Polly Hepinstall—thank you for always believing in me. People tell me I’m just like you, and there could be no greater compliment.

From Kathy

Thanks first to Jenna Johnson, wonderful editor and faithful advocate of our book. Also thanks to Ayesha Mirza, Nina Barnett, Stephanie Kim, Michaela Sullivan, Chelsea Newbould, Erin DeWitt, Lisa Glover, and all the kind and supportive people of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Henry “so good I hired him twice” Dunow took on the challenge of a second Hepinstall as a client, and for that he deserves many thanks and a new grill cleaner.

Polly “Sergeant Saintly” Hepinstall was, as usual, invaluable in correcting our grammar and logic mistakes, just like when we were kids.

And my blue-eyed unicorn of a husband, Michael Parks, mentioned one day that we should give the
Sisters of Shiloh
manuscript one more try after all these years and see what happened. I love you, Michael.

Thank you, Tom Gilmartin, for the advice and knowledge; and, Rob Schwartz, for giving me that short furlough to do research in Virginia all those years ago.

Thank you, Cousin Sheri Peddy, for cheering us on and always supporting our work. And J.D., Jack, Linki, Mark . . . and all our other cousins and second cousins, too numerous to name, who have always stood behind us.

Thank you, Cory and Ro, for making us look good and for being so darn lovable.

Thank you, Dawn and Randall, for the early interest.

And, Juan—remember when you had to leave because the Civil War research was taking all the space? I wish I could take that back. There will always be room for you.

Finally, thank you, Becky Hepinstall Hilliker. You’re an amazing writer and collaborator, and I’m so happy we’ve finally realized that inspirational idea you had—was it twelve years ago? You know I’m bad at math. Thanks for never giving up and for your humor, good sportsmanship, and whip-sharp intelligence. The South may have lost, but having you as a sister is a daily win. I love you so much.

1

WHEN IRIS DREAMED
of that morning, the taste of blood was gone, and so was the odor of gun smoke, but her other senses stayed alive. The voices around her distinct. The heel of a bare foot between her ribs. The pressure of the pile of bodies on her chest. Was this what the others had felt too, as they died around her? Her dream followed the reality so well that when the bodies were yanked away from her, one by one, the weight released and the darkness cleared, and she jerked upright, gasping, on the floor of a jail cell in Fort Lane. She’d been given a blanket and nothing else, not even a pillow, for she had been judged insane even before the trial began, and her jailers followed the logic that the mad shunned the comforts of the rational. When she awoke on the floor, on that cold blanket, she thought first of the man who had murdered those innocent people by the barely crawling light of dawn, but her rage held down something deeper, something that searched for oxygen to speak.

Her trial lasted less than an hour. The judge didn’t want to hear her story. None of it mattered: The wayward turkeys that ran into the woods. The porcelain tub full of bloody water. The pale, blue-eyed baby. The two small graves. Her fate had already been decided. She was convicted and sentenced and put on a train to Savannah with an armed guard, from there sent on a series of trains going west, and when the tracks ran out she was taken by open-air coach to the port at Punta Rassa.

On the last leg of her journey, she set sail for Sanibel Island on the
Scottish Chief,
which also carried a hundred head of cattle. She had been allowed to bathe and put on a traveling dress with ornamental braids and her best spoon bonnet. She had even been allowed to bring her best clothes with her in a steamer trunk. But she had not been allowed to tell the story that would have excused or at least explained her actions.

The ship was stifling hot. The scent of the cattle rose up from the hull below her, their excrement and fear. She smoothed her hair and tried to steady her breathing. She looked out to the calm flat sea and tried to be just as calm and flat herself, so that others could see there had been a mistake.

This feeling of hatred for her husband, Robert Dunleavy, had to be contained. The judge had seen it, and it had influenced him. Frightened him, even. Wives were not supposed to hate their husbands. It was not in the proper order of things. And so she worked on this too, buried the hatred, for now, in an area of Virginia swampland where the groundwater was red.

The lows of restless cattle came up through the floorboards. They would go on to Havana, where they would be slaughtered.

“How much longer?” she asked the guard.

“Not long.”

The ship churned slowly through the water. A large bird dived at the surface and came back up with a struggling fish. She nodded, her lids closing, and took refuge in a gray-blue sleep.

She awakened as the ship was docking.

“We’re here,” said the guard.

She stood and he bound her hands in front of her with a silk scarf.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Regulations.”

He took her wrist gently and led her out to the gangplank, where she paused, amazed at the sight. Beautiful white sand beaches stretched into the distance. Palmettos grew on the vegetation line, and a sprawl of morning glories lay, still open, on the dunes. Coconut palms flanked the perimeter of the building itself, a huge two-story revival with Doric columns and tiered wings that jutted out on either side. A courtyard had been landscaped with straight columns of Spanish dagger. On the building, a sign: