Crossing (35 page)

It was about an hour before Captain Hillyard came out, pausing at the tent opening to pull on his gloves and replace his hat.

Boldly Yancy came to stand next to him. Yancy stopped, came to attention, gave him a snappy salute, and stared straight ahead without saying a word.

Languidly Captain Hillyard returned his salute. “You’re one of his couriers, aren’t you?” he asked, speaking in low tones so that, inside the tent, General Jackson couldn’t hear.

“Yes, sir,” Yancy answered in the same quiet voice.

“Thought I recognized you.” Captain Hillyard finished pulling on his fine white leather gauntlets, pulled his wide-brimmed hat from under his arm, flicked an imaginary speck off of it, and settled it firmly on his head. Taking a firm grasp on the scabbard of his sword, he murmured, “Major General.” Then he walked briskly to his horse, took the reins from Jim with a nod of thanks, and galloped briskly off.

Yancy kept his stance until the man was out of sight, watched curiously by Chuckins and Jim, who came to stand close to him. Then Yancy, with Jim following, ran over to Chuckins, gave him a friendly punch to the shoulder that almost knocked him down, and whispered to them, “Major General.”

“Yep,” Jim said with satisfaction, crossing his arms over his broad chest.

Incautiously Chuckins began to whoop, but he quickly clasped his hand over his mouth and stifled himself. Without another word, he turned and lumbered off for the nearest tent.

Yancy opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment the tent flap whipped open and Jackson leaned out. “Sergeant! Jim! What about this infernal stove?” But now he sounded almost jaunty instead of testy. As they hurried into the tent, Jackson asked, “Where did Satterfield go?”

Yancy started then stuttered, “Well, sir, he—he—I think there was something—maybe he forgot—” Then he swallowed and pointed. “He went that way.”

Jackson looked at him, his bright blue eyes fired with intelligence. “He did, did he? If he’s not back in fifteen minutes, he’s going to work all night tonight and all day tomorrow and maybe tomorrow night, too, if I’m of a mind.”

“Yes, sir,” Yancy said.

It was an hour before Chuckins came back. But Major General Stonewall Jackson said nothing.

After the enforced inactivity of the previous two months, the month of October took on feverish activity. Jackson ordered full and complete rolls of each company of each regiment, with status of wounded included. Complete inventories of arms and material were taken and retaken; every week new orders went to Richmond.

Yancy and Peyton took turns on the Richmond run, for often Jackson had new dispatches as soon as one of them returned from a run. On these trips Yancy did pay very short visits to the Haydens. Often Jackson’s orders required no reply, but still Yancy and Midnight required some rest before beginning the trip back.

The Haydens knew better than to urge him to stay, so they fell into a comfortable routine. Elijah tended to Midnight and Missy would fix Yancy a meal and usually some food to take back with him. Lorena would put clean linens on the guest room bed while Yancy visited with Leslie for a few minutes. Then he would nap for two hours, when Lorena would quietly awaken him. He and Midnight would ride hard back to the camp.

In the middle of the month, Yancy was, to his surprise, given dispatches to Winchester, the town in the northern Shenandoah Valley that was only lightly invested. As usual, none of General Jackson’s staff or even officers knew anything about Jackson’s plans, no matter how hard they tried to discern them. Jackson made no comment whatsoever about the contents of the courier’s bag.

Yancy arrived in Winchester two days later, and it took three days for the aged, rheumatic colonel in command to prepare his answering dispatches. Finally Yancy returned to Manassas and delivered them to Jackson, who took them without a word.

It was the last week of October before Yancy learned that General Jackson had been assigned to command the army in western Virginia. He would be returning to the Shenandoah Valley that he so deeply loved.

Monday, October 28, was a fine, crisp, biting day. At noon a pale white sun glowed faintly in the sky. To the north was a bank of faint gray clouds, moving slowly south, and Yancy thought they may have an early first snow in them. He knocked on the now-familiar door of the Hayden home.

Light footsteps sounded, and Lorena threw open the door, her face alight. “Yancy! Mother and I were just talking about you. Come in, please.”

Yancy came in and companionably she threaded her arm through his as she led him into the parlor. Lily was there, sewing, and Yancy saw Lorena’s sewing basket beside her familiar wing chair next to the fireplace. After greeting Lily, he took what was now considered his chair, next to Lorena.

“We’ve missed you, Yancy dear,” Lily said, for now he was on such familiar terms with Dr. and Mrs. Hayden. “It’s so difficult because we never know when we are to see you again. Of course, there are thousands and thousands of families all over the States that are in the same predicament.”

Her words warmed him, both because she included him as if he were family and because she so tactfully said “States” instead of “United States.” The family was always careful not to draw any lines between them and him.

“I surely never know when I’m going to be here, either,” he said good-naturedly, “which, as you say, is exactly the same predicament of everyone in my command.”

After the Battle of Falling Waters, Yancy had come to trust the Haydens enough to tell them that he was in the Stonewall Brigade. Of course he had not told them his capacity, but they weren’t fools, and he was sure they knew exactly why he popped up in Richmond so often, considering the different camps the Stonewall Brigade had occupied. He also knew that they would never question him about it and would never say anything to anyone about him.

“How’s Leslie?” Yancy asked.

“He’s doing very well indeed,” Lily answered. “As a matter of fact, he’s out marching around the garden. He’s grown so weary of being inside that he spends hours, sometimes, walking in circles. But the exercise and fresh air have done him a world of good. Lorena? Why don’t you go tell Missy to make coffee for Yancy and go tell Leslie that he’s here. I know he’ll want to come in to visit with him.” The Haydens’ back garden was a generous square of almost a quarter of an acre, and it was walled in, so prying eyes couldn’t see the Haydens’ Union soldier son.

“Yes, he will,” Lorena agreed, already on her way out.

Lily rose to pull the drapes at the front windows and continued, “Jesse is at Chimborazo, although, thank the Lord, there are only a few men left. His duties are very light now. They closed the emergency field hospital at the old Shockoe railroad station, you know.”

“Yes, ma’am, I heard that.”

They talked desultorily about the lack of wartime activity for the last three months until Lorena and Leslie returned.

Yancy stood to shake his hand. “You look better every time I’m here. That’s good. And barely a limp, I see.”

“Only now when I’m very tired. Of course, it’s hard to get tired out there trotting around the garden like some demented fairy,” Leslie grumbled. “I’ll be so glad to get back on a horse, to ride, to be of use, to work again.”

“I know you feel better because you’re so ill-tempered,” Lorena said, taking up her sewing. “You were much sweeter when you were weak and in pain.”

“Didn’t have the energy to complain, Rena,” Leslie said good-naturedly. He turned to Yancy. “So how long can you stay? Can you stay the night?”

“Yes, I have to leave early in the morning, but I can stay the night.”

“Good,” Lorena said happily then tempered it with, “Father said he may be late, and he would hate to miss you.”

“Oh, yes,
Father
really wants to see you, Yancy.
Father
really misses you a lot,” Leslie teased, winking broadly at Lorena, who made a face at him.

But these niceties were lost on Yancy. When he was younger he had always been very aware of feminine attentions and had been sensitive to the signals they sent him. Now he had grown to be a man so handsome, so striking, that women he met or even passed in the street would stare wide-eyed at him until they caught themselves and, blushing, dropped their gazes.

He was now six feet, three inches tall. His shoulders were broad, his arms and legs muscular from his eternal horseback riding. His thick night black hair had grown somewhat, brushing his collar, the errant lock always falling rakishly over his forehead. In the outdoors his skin had deepened to a rich burnished bronze. As he had grown into a man, he had lost all traces of childhood in his face. His forehead was broad and fine, and with his dark, slightly slanted eyes and his high chiseled cheekbones, he looked exotic and mysterious.

But for the last two years he had been at VMI and then in the army and had been much bereft of female company. He had lost that instinctive insight into women that he had formerly had. Now he was slightly puzzled at Leslie’s sally but shrugged it off. Lorena and Leslie often had exchanges he didn’t understand, and he assumed it usually was some private family joke.

Missy came in with coffee then, and they talked and laughed, the lively conversation never wavering. Yancy amused them with Chuckins’s antics and with stories of odd, often funny things that happened in camp. Leslie had stories, too. Both of them kept the details of when and where very vague, and the characters were unnamed but always vivid.

At about four o’clock, the late editions of the newspapers came out, and the Haydens had every newspaper within a thirty-mile radius of Richmond delivered to them. Yancy, Lily, Lorena, and Leslie all spent a companionable two hours reading in silence, sipping more tea and coffee. Occasionally Elijah came in with more firewood and stoked the fire. The room was warm and comfortable and inviting, and Yancy reflected that he felt more at home here than anywhere, except at Grandmother’s.

Dr. Hayden came home about six o’clock, and at seven Missy served them a wonderful meal, as usual.

When they finished, they were all getting ready to go back to the parlor and their newspapers, but Yancy stood, handed Lorena out of her chair, and asked very formally, “Miss Hayden, would you care to come sit in the garden with me for a while? I need some fresh air, and I would appreciate the company.”

Hesitantly Lorena glanced at her father, who smiled and nodded slightly. “I’ll go get my cloak,” she said.

Yancy pulled on his caped greatcoat and Lorena returned with a beautiful dark blue wool mantle trimmed with black piping. She pulled up the hood, and the color made her eyes look like the deepest midnight. They went out the kitchen door to the back garden.

The Haydens’ garden was not so manicured as some, for Lily Hayden preferred a more natural woodland look. Cobbled paths wandered here and there, screened by large shrubs and small sculpted pear and dogwood trees. In the center was an enormous live oak tree, and underneath it was a stone garden bench that had been put there in Jesse Hayden’s father’s time.

Arm in arm, Yancy and Lorena strolled slowly and sat down there. Most of the leaves had fallen, but occasionally, carried on the lightest air, a leaf fluttered down, dancing its final dance in the cold moonlight.

They sat in silence for a while, looking up at the hard, brilliant stars. In a restless movement, Yancy took Lorena’s hand in his. He rarely touched her, although they had lately come to give each other very brief, tightly controlled hugs when he left. Now he felt Lorena stiffen slightly, but she left her hand in his.

He turned to her. “I—I may not be seeing you for a while. I can’t tell how long it may be, but I expect it will be some time.”

“You’re leaving Manassas, aren’t you?” she asked slowly, looking up as if she were speaking to the uncaring moon. It was common knowledge that the army was in the north. “General Jackson is moving, and you can’t tell me where.”

“I’ll miss you so much, Lorena,” he said in a low tone. “I know we haven’t known each other for very long, but somehow that doesn’t matter to me. I think about you all the time, and the more time that goes by between my visits, the harder it is to be away from you.”

She turned to him. Her white, perfectly shaped face and the great pools of dark eyes made her look unworldly, like a creature of secret streams and soft mists. “I have to tell you something. It’s—very difficult for me, a cruel memory of a bitter time in my life. But perhaps you may understand me a little better …”

To Yancy’s surprise she took both of his hands in hers and turned so that she was very close to him. In an even voice she said, “When I was seventeen, I met a man, a gentleman from a good Richmond family. I was so much in love with him, and I thought he was the most wonderful man in the world. We decided to marry when I turned eighteen. My birthday is in January, so we decided to marry that very month. I ordered my dress. My mother and father and I planned a wonderful wedding in that very Episcopal church right over there. I was so happy. I thought that my life was, and always would be, perfect.” She stopped and dropped her gaze, and her hands grew unrestful.