Clockwiser (19 page)

Nate cranked the stereo up, and I stared out the passenger window. My cheeks burned with anger, and I bit my lip to keep the tears at bay. When we finally pulled into Nate’s driveway, I almost ran to his front door. Anything to not have to look at him and talk.

Lucinda pulled away from where she was sitting up close to Willie when she heard the door open.

“Oh, hi, Casey,” she said.

“Hey.”

“Willie and I were just watching
Days of our Lives
. You should see him blush!”

“Trash TV?” I snapped. “That’s the best you can do? What’s wrong with PBS?”

“Hey, what’s gotten into you?”

Nate finally entered in time to hear that. I tried not to scowl when I said, “Nothing.”

Lucinda’s lips puckered like she didn’t believe that in a million years.

Nate stayed silent and left us in the living room. I settled in a chair across from Willie and Lucinda, tucking my feet in under my rear end.

“Is everything okay?” Willie asked gently.

“Yeah.”

“Casey?” Lucinda said in a way that told me she knew I was lying.

“Fine. Nate and I had a fight.”

Lucinda’s eyes popped wide. “A fight? But you guys never fight. Oh, my goodness. What are you fighting about?”

“Chase Miller. He gave me flowers.”

Lucinda gasped. “Holy, love triangle, Batman.”

“Batman?” Willie said.

“He’s a cartoon.” I rolled my eyes. “Nate’s being dumb. It’s not like I’d go out with the guy.”

Lucinda latched on. “Did he ask you?”

I played dumb. “Who?”

She gave me a knowing look. “Chase?”

I shifted in my chair. “Yeah, he asked me out.”

Lucinda’s face widened with shock. “Does he know that Nate’s your boyfriend?”

“Yes, he knows.”

“And he
still
asked you out?”

I nodded and bit my cheek. For some reason, I felt like grinning. It’s not every day a girl is sought out by two guys.

“Hmm,” Lucinda said. “Chase is pretty hot. I can see why Nate’s worried.”

“Lucinda!” Geez, way to take my side.

Chapter Twenty-Five

CASEY

The Turner museum was in the vicinity of the Watson farm, or rather where the Watson farm was in 1862. Now the farm was a strip mall along a busy four lane highway.

The museum portion was in the old farm house, which had been restored to its stately nineteenth century manor condition. It was actually better, since electricity and running water had been added.

The wood and brick structure had two stories, with a broad porch and a prominent oak door. There were two white-trimmed gables in the upper floor with lace curtains hanging in the windows.

Willie let out a small gasp. “I was just here, maybe a week ago, when the Turners lived here.” He pointed to the nearby fifteen-floor apartment condo building. “There used to be a barn there. We had a send-off dance before we left for the infantry. It’s where Timothy enlisted.”

It was kind of eerie hearing him talk about Tim like that.

We entered the foyer, which had dark wood floors and opened to a wide staircase with a red carpet runner.

There were a few pieces of antique furniture, chairs, sofas, lamps, but mostly there were large, black-and-white photographs hanging on the walls or propped up on easels. A number of glass cases contained artifacts from the era.

“That’s Mrs. Turner’s broach.” Willie pointed to a gold-plated leaf with a missing back pin. “She was wearing it at the dance.” He shook his head. “And now she’s dead.”

Long dead.

“Do you need to sit down for a bit?” I motioned to one of the high backed chairs. I could only imagine how overwhelming the last couple days must’ve been for him.

“No, I’m fine.”

I asked the curator where we could find information about the Watson family that resided nearby. She directed us to the former dining room, where the local family records were kept.

Willie had lost color, and I almost insisted he sit. Instead, Lucinda grasped one of his hands. He gripped back tightly.

The dining room was unfurnished, but the elaborate chandelier still hung overhead. A closed up brick fireplace remained in the corner, and over by the window a huge leather ledger sat opened on a flat-topped pedestal. I started thumbing through it until I got to the
W
s.

Nate stepped in beside me. We hadn’t said a word to each other since our fight that morning. He’d kept the stereo up loud on the drive over, so it wouldn’t have been possible to speak even if we’d wanted to.

I didn’t know how this was going to play out. Nate and I’d never fought before, and the thing we were fighting about was so stupid.

Still, we had to put our petty argument aside for Willie, who had far bigger issues.

“Thomas and Anna Watson, of 20561 Farmers Street,” I read aloud. “Mr. Watson, born 1814, died...” My eyes shot to Willie. “Not important.”

I read off the list of children. “Sara, William, Duncan, Josephine, Michael, Jonathon, Abigail, Maryann, Susan, Daniel...” All had the dates of their births and deaths. I was glad Willie wasn’t reading this. In fact his eyes hadn’t opened since I’d started.

“Sara Watson married Henry Abernathy.” I smiled to myself, remembering how excited she was about her new beau. I was glad to know things worked out for her.

“They had six children.” Five lived and one didn’t. I kept that info to myself.

I came to Willie’s name, which listed his date of birth and death. May 4, 1863. I glanced at Nate whose eyes encouraged me to skip ahead.

“Josephine married a fellow named John Longhorn.” Oh good, so my stupid brother didn’t ruin her reputation.

“I don’t know that name,” Willie said. “They must’ve met, after...”

Were we doing the right thing? How was this supposed to help?

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “They had four children.”

“Duncan married Alice Clarkson.”

“Nice girl,” Willie said.

“Do you want me to keep going?”

“I’ve missed out on it all already. I want to know.”

Right. And if he goes back, he’ll still miss out on it. Because he dies.

“There’s more information beside each name,” I said. “Duncan moved into Boston after the war to study law and became a prominent lawyer.”

“Abigail won the strawberry pie contest at the summer fair seven years in a row.”

I skipped back up the list to read more about Sara. “Henry and Sara Abernathy were married for thirty-five years, farming the family homestead long after the elder Watsons were gone.”

“Wow, thirty-five years is a good run,” Lucinda said.

Then my eyes landed on the paragraph beside Willie’s name, and I froze.

Nate noticed my hesitation. “What is it?”

“Willie, it says here that you are a hero. You gave your life to save another.”

His eyes opened and bore into mine.

“You saved Henry Abernathy’s life in the war.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

TIM

Finally, it was happening.

We were lined up in a place called Bull’s Run. Row upon row upon row, all of us overheating in our crazy blue jackets, loaded down with ammunition, sweat lines dripping down our dirty faces. I spit out the fine Virginia dust that I breathed in through my mouth.

Canons were lined up to our left and right. The Cavalry was spread out between us. We numbered in the thousands, like a small city.

My heart raced as the general rode his horse along the front row, yelling who knew what. I totally understood the need for guys like Joseph now, and I pictured him somewhere near the back crapping his pants as he prepared to blow the signal to fire.

My rifle was ready, and I held it up to my shoulder with slippery hands. The Confederate Army was lined up in a similar fashion, maybe a half-mile away, waiting like we were. Everyone was so polite in this war. I wondered who’d be the first to call it.

“This is
déjà vu
,” the guy beside me said. “I fought in the first battle of Bull’s Run last year. We lost that one. I hope we do better this time.”

The
rat-a-tat-tat
of the snare drums reverberated across the meadow and my nerves shot off. The bugle sounded and some poor guy who had the unfortunate job of flag runner sprinted towards the enemy line with nothing but the Union flag in his hand. He was yelling his head off as he went, and I wondered how long it would take for him to be shot dead.

It went from zero to sixty in two seconds flat.

I fired off my musket, and the adrenaline rush almost flattened me. It took so long between shots to reload, I was certain to be hit before I could get off another. The air filled with gunpowder haze, and it burned my nostrils. My heart beat faster than the marching drums. Plumes of smoke rose up in indiscriminate places, and cannon balls landed and exploded, shaking the ground beneath our feet.

Men were yelling and screaming everywhere on both sides--pure chaos. If someone was in charge of this mess, you’d be hard pressed to tell who. Guys were falling to the ground, crying and bloodied. Those who were too close to be shot at were stabbed with bayonets.

I hurried to prep my rifle for another shot, my hand shaking as I poured gun powder into the barrel, along with the wrapper and musket. I couldn’t beat it down with the ramrod fast enough. Right beside me the guy who’d had the
déjà vu
took a bullet to the head. Red drops of blood splattered outward, and his body crumbled to the ground like a heap of dirty laundry.

I shot off another plug, before I could puke, hitting someone who yelled out in agony before falling to the ground. I couldn’t be sure it was a Confederate man. The uniforms were too similar in color to tell, and the smoke and gun powder blast made it hard to see.

James raced by me and I was tempted to grab his arm and pull him back, but his zeal to fight was stronger than my desire to save him.

Everywhere there were bodies on the ground. I pressed forward with the rest of them when another piece of Civil War trivia came to mind.

We lost this one, too.

I stepped over guys on the ground, not wanting to trample on anyone, dead or alive. But especially dead. Casey had been right, this wasn’t a game.

I got off another shot just as a man stormed at me, his bayonet aimed at my chest. I dodged him impulsively, the urge to live suddenly loud and strong, but I lost my footing.

Henry came out of nowhere, bursting through the smoke, and impaled my attacker just in time.

“Thanks, man,” I said, but he’d already disappeared into the fray again.

I tried to load my gun, but my hands shook too violently. I had to get a grip, or I’d be shot. And there was one thing I was sure of now: I didn’t want to die here.

I spotted a familiar form lying in front of me with a leg twisted unnaturally and a red blotch growing on his chest.

James.

I dropped to the ground and crawled to his side to see if he was alive. Just minutes ago he passed me full of passion and drive. Now he lay dead in the mud his grey eyes wide open, staring at nothing.

I turned around to vomit.

I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and then got to work reloading my rifle. I pulled myself to my feet, but my legs felt like rubber. My tongue was like a thick cotton ball in my mouth and I knew I was dehydrated. I couldn’t even tell what direction to shoot. Before I could regain my bearings, immense pain exploded in my leg, and I fell to the ground.

I yelled out as I pulled off my belt. I was smart enough to know that I needed to stop the flow of blood if I didn’t want to bleed to death and that it had to be done before I passed out.

I pulled it tight above the wound, crying openly. For the first time I considered that defying Casey back at Camp Cameron was the stupidest thing I’d ever done and that maybe her theory was wrong. I might actually die here.

The thought terrified me.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

CASEY

We were back at Nate’s with our newfound information, which he took to his room to help in the search online. I sat in the living room with Willie and Lucinda feeling like the third wheel. Things were still weird between Nate and me, but I didn’t have the emotional energy to get into it with him right now.

The front door creaked open, and Mrs. Mackenzie walked in.

“Hi there,” she said with her mouth, but her eyes said. “Why are there so many kids in my house?”

“Hi, Mrs. Mackenzie.” I moved my feet out from under my butt. “We’re just waiting for Nate.”

She nodded and set her purse and briefcase on the table before going to the kitchen. Nate’s mom wore a suit jacket over a pencil skirt that ended at her knees and stilettos. Her dark hair was salon-styled around her heart-shaped face and she had trendy glasses perched on her nose. You could see where Nate got his good looks from.