Triumph (44 page)

They had reached the house. Tia looked at her cousin, reflecting on the actions he had just told her about. It was no wonder there was so much hatred in the war. Both sides could be horribly ugly. She wondered if the bitterness would ever be lived down.

Not in my lifetime!
she thought.

And suddenly, she just wanted to run away. From it all. She had dreamed of visiting the pyramids in Egypt, seeing London, Madrid, Rome. What a pity she hadn’t gone! Before she had seen the dead, dying, and maimed soldiers, before she had come to all but bathe in blood. Before she had seen so many people die, the children as well.

“Here we are. Perhaps my message has been received.”

They entered the foyer, and Brent gave his name to a servant, saying that they were friends and that he had written ahead to tell Mrs. Davis they were coming. They needed to see her as soon as possible, on a matter of urgency.

They were asked to wait.

Seconds passed, then minutes. The morning waned. Tia knew that Brent was anxious. He had left his patients to the care of others.

They stood outside, waiting. Brent talked more about Richmond, about the war, telling her that he had seen Sydney shortly before Christmas. Tia was glad to hear it, musing on the fact that Sydney remained in Washington.

“Well, she has married a Yank, you know.”

“Of course, but ...”

“No one made her return. She wanted to be in Washington, just in case he made it home for Christmas. There was some fighting then, of course, but the weather was wretched, halting the armies when God and mercy could not. She hoped that, due to the fact that the armies were most frequently up to their necks in snow, he might be spared—especially considering the fact that he had been injured at Gettysburg.”

“I knew that he’d been wounded. Julian told me,” Tia said.

“Yes, of course, Julian was there to perform the surgery.” He tapped his hat against his leg, growing impatient. “I am a colonel,” he told her ruefully. “But apparently, there are generals ahead of me.”

“Brent, go back to the hospital,” Tia suggested. “You don’t need to wait for me.”

“I had thought we might be more impressive together. Especially as kin to my brother. Jerome is quite the celebrated hero, you know.”

“Of course. But you have patients who may be dying.”

“There are many other doctors on duty.”

“None so good as you.”

He grinned. “That’s true, of course, but they will manage without me for an afternoon.”

She smiled, glad that he was with her.

Yet even as he spoke, they started to hear shouts coming from inside the house. Then, pandemonium. People were running everywhere; cries could be heard. Brent stared at Tia, then tried to regain entrance. They were stopped by a heavyset man.

“No one will enter now!”

“What has happened, man? I’m a doctor!” Brent declared indignantly.

The man shook his head. “It’s too late now. There’s been an accident. Young Joseph Emory has fallen.”

Brent stared at Tia. She felt as if a river of ice suddenly filled her veins rather than blood.

“Excuse me, I will see the child!” Brent snapped forcefully, and pushed his way past the man. Tia followed.

But the boy and his family were on the ground level. There was too much confusion in the house for anyone to stop them as they saw the scene from above, then rushed back out of the entry and around to the ground level in the rear of the residence. As they came around the house, the sounds of sobbing seemed to be everywhere. Servants and children flocked about. They could hear the comments of the crowd that had formed.

“The President has been working so hard ...”

“Mrs. Davis brought him lunch every day.”

“She had just left the children, just left them to bring him his lunch.”

“The boy fell.”

“He was his father’s favorite, so they say.”

“He died right in his father’s arms.”

“Drew his last breath ...”

“The poor babe!”

And there, beneath the deadly veranda, was Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, down on his knees. The grown man with worn, harried features held the lifeless body of his child in his arms. Silent sobs wracked his body. His wife was at his side, tears streaking down her face. She cried horribly. Tia bit down on her lower lip, noting that the first lady of the South was noticeably pregnant.

And in such a condition, she must endure this agony ...

Soldiers stood by awkwardly.

“Sir ...” A messenger had come with a despatch, Tia saw.

“Not mine, oh Lord, but thine!” Davis cried out. “Not mine, oh Lord, but thine! Not mine, oh Lord, but thine!”

Varina, tall, regal—and broken—stumbled to her feet. She said nothing, but looked at the soldier. The man turned away, his head lowered. The hardest heart would have felt a split. The beautiful child, five-year-old Joe, lay in his father’s arms. No human enemy could have done the damage to him that God had wrought that day.

Whatever urgent business challenged the Confederacy would have to wait. Varina went back down to her knees by her husband and her dead son.

Brent gripped Tia’s arm. She couldn’t move. She could only stare at the little boy, so beautiful, so sweet in death.
How could they bear it? There was so much that was so very awful, she had seen young men cut down in their prime, and yet, this loss of a child seemed so unjust, so cruel, that she wondered if there could be a God at all. If there was, He must have been laughing at all of them, perhaps punishing them for the death they practiced so cruelly upon one another ...

Brent pulled Tia back, away from the growing crowd of servants and soldiers, onlookers and friends.

“Brent, is there nothing—” she whispered in anguish.

“He’s dead, Tia,” Brent said softly. “There is nothing I can do for a dead child.”

There was nothing he could do for the child, but he and Tia stayed for a while, waiting in the parlor with Mary Chestnut, Varina’s very dear friend, and others close to the Davises. Many people had come to help, yet few knew what to say or do—there was so little to say or do when a child was lost. As more and more messengers came and went, sent on to the president’s military advisor, Brent and Tia found themselves waiting in Varina’s little office on the ground floor. He was startled to see a pile of unopened mail lying on the footstool by her sewing basket. The top letter had a return address upon it:
Rhiannon McKenzie, Cimarron, Tampa Bay, Florida.

His heart seemed to catch in his throat. Her letter had made it, just as they had made it. Too late. Perhaps destiny remained in God’s hands, and He allowed his people only to think that they could change it.

Tia seemed drained, unaware of anything. Her beautiful fair skin was almost snow-white against the ebony of her hair and eyes, she was so pale. She hadn’t seen the letter. When she turned away at last in response to something Mrs. Chestnut said, Brent unobtrusively picked up the letter and slid it into his jacket pocket.

It could do nothing now but cause the family further pain.

Taylor arrived in Washington aboard the ten-gunned steamer
Majesty
, a ship he’d boarded in St. Augustine. Coming ashore, he heard a newsboy hawking out the information that God had smitten the President of the Confederacy—little Joseph Emory Davis was dead.

Disembarking and leading Friar from his confinement in the ship, Taylor bought a newspaper, anxiously looking for word of Brent or Tia in the story. There was none. The anger which had begun a slow burn inside him when he’d heard of Tia’s journey had cooled once he’d returned to the base at St. Augustine—and he’d spent an evening with the McKenzies, especially Rhiannon, who had seemed more distraught than ever.

Yet, he still felt a churning turmoil within. A feeling of
helplessness
. Yes, he damned well meant to get down to Rebel territory and find her. But what then? What power did he have over her while the war raged? He wanted her safe.

Out of the range of fire.

She was in Richmond—and he wanted her back. That simple. He damned well meant to find a way to do it.

Reading the dire news regarding Davis, he discovered that the reporter was not nearly so judgmental as the newsboy hawking the papers. There was sorrow in the article for the loss of a child. The writer didn’t believe that Davis had lost his child because he had sinned before God—President and Mrs. Lincoln had lost a child during the war as well. The President’s beloved little Tad had died of sickness rather than a fall, but the pain endured by the parents had been the same.

Having reached Washington, Taylor reported to Magee’s offices, only to discover that the general was in the field. His presence in Washington, however, had immediately been reported to higher places. He was summoned from Magee’s base headquarters straight to the White House, where he found that Lincoln himself had decided to see him.

Though it must have been difficult enough just to keep up with the movements of his generals, Lincoln was aware that Colonel Taylor Douglas had been sent back to duty in Florida. Though other losses were far greater, he knew about Olustee, and he knew, as well, about Naval Lieutenant Long who had been lost with important despatches regarding navy movements. Taylor was able to report that his business in the south of the Florida peninsula with Long had been successfully concluded. “The despatches are returned, and he has been discharged, sir. He is in no state of health to continue pursuing this war.”

“We have lost him to the other side?”

Taylor shook his head. “We have lost him to the concept of war; he is weary and broken.”

“We are all weary and broken.”

Indeed, the President had aged greatly since the war had begun. The battles showed on his face, as if the loss of life lay in his heart at all times.

“No, sir, you do not break,” Taylor countered, and grinning ruefully, he meant his every word. “I am surprised that you can be so aware of such small events within the magnitude of this war.”

Lincoln shrugged, lifting his large, long-fingered hands. “Little things win a war, in the end. The Europeans helped us more than a dozen victorious battles when they refused to recognize the government of the Confederacy. As to Olustee ... well, I had hoped for Florida to return to the fold.”

“I am afraid she will not be so easy, sir.”

“But so many of her citizens are Unionists.”

“That is true, but my state is divided. And our best military minds have decided that the vast effort needed to win the state is not worth it—not when they have decided that Richmond must be taken and the deep South slashed in half.”

“I’m afraid that our greatest military minds are fighting for our enemy!” Lincoln murmured.

“Are you referring to General Lee, sir?”

“And others. But I think I have a man who will fight now.”

“General Grant?”

“You know him?”

“No, sir. He was fighting in the western theater; I was in the eastern campaigns until I was ordered to assess strengths when we undertook the Florida campaign.”

“You’ll know him soon enough. However, if we had Lee ... I understand he was your good friend.”

“A friend to many of us, sir. He was my teacher at West Point. A fine instructor, and a better man.”

“It’s been said he could be heard pacing a mile away the night I offered to make him head of the Union armies. He had such a beautiful, gracious home—now we bury our dead in his lawn. It is a bitter, bitter war, sparing no one. Old Jeff Davis apparently paced away the night his boy died. God knows, I can sympathize with the poor man, and he is, indeed, in my prayers. It’s far too easy to love our enemies and feel their pain—but much harder to know they must be beaten. I’m sorry to see the destruction and death we reap, but God help us, if we can just end it ... then we will reach out the hand of friendship, we will take our brothers back into our fold, and we will weep for our dead and our lost together.”

“I pray it will be so, sir.”

“Many men will feel the need for revenge when this is ended. Tell me, Colonel Douglas, will it be so for you? The war has made many widows—you are one of the few men standing to have lost a wife in this sad conflict.”

“I did bear a grudge, sir. A bitter grudge indeed.”

“Time has healed the wound?”

“Most wounds scar, sir. But like you, I am eager for the conflict to end.” He was quiet for a moment. “I have remarried. A woman with Southern sympathies. You know her brother, Colonel Ian McKenzie.”

“Indeed, so I had heard. You have married young Miss Tia McKenzie, the belle of your home state, daughter of Cimarron, renowned for its gracious hospitality, far and near. As your new wife is reputed to be a rare beauty, wild-spirited and entirely charming, I am happy for you, Colonel. It is rare to find moments of peace in this war.”

“Very rare,” Taylor said wryly. Moments of
peace
? “You are remarkable, sir. You not only know your officers, but are able to keep up on their marital affairs!”

“A house such as Cimarron is known far and wide. As are Jarrett McKenzie’s services not in the name of North or South, but in the name of humanity.”

“The family is divided in loyalties, you know. Passionately divided.”

Lincoln smiled. “You know, most of my wife’s family fought for the South. So many are now dead! She has been accused of Southern sympathies herself. Poor Mary—her brother was killed, but because I am who I am, she didn’t mourn him. Rather, she announced publicly that he should not have fought against our Union. When this all ends, the wounds will be terrible. And as you say, even with time, there will be terrible scars. Make peace with your Southern wife, Colonel Douglas. God knows, you have fought the war with faith and vigor, and are deserving of peace.” He turned from Taylor, writing on his desk. “There will be fierce action soon, Colonel Douglas, and your expertise will be needed. Tomorrow you must head out and find General Grant himself to give assistance in the coming conflict, but this order which I am now writing will give you three weeks’ leave. The order is undated, sir, and you may take the time when you feel that duty will allow it and circumstance demands it. There will be another attempt to sway Florida—she is a giant breadbasket, and though it saddens me, there seems no recourse other than to starve the South. God go with you, sir. I promise, once you find General Grant, you will no longer deal with the frustration of running from the Rebs!”