Daughter of Twin Oaks (14 page)

Chapter Fourteen

Richmond, Virginia

“I’m comin’!” Louisa picked up her skirts and dashed back inside.

“No need to fret yourself.” The old black man shook his grizzled head. “I gets de water.”

“Sorry, no …” Louisa checked her rush up the stairs.

“You go on.” He chuckled this time, still shaking his head. “Young ladies don’ go runnin’ like dat. Just not proper.” But he made shooing motions with his hands, sending her on up the second set of stairs.

Louisa didn’t need another invitation. She could hear laughter from
her
floor, laughter like she hadn’t heard since she started volunteering over a month ago. Whatever could be so hilarious?

But when she burst through the arched doorway, silence fell with laughter choked off so quick it sent one patient into a fit of coughing. A snicker came from the region of the unknown soldier.

What in heaven’s name is going on?
She glanced over to the window where the lieutenant stood looking out as if he’d never ordered her to come back in with such urgency. Several others refused to look her in the eye, feigning sleep instead.

The low drone of Corporal Shaddock reading to the comatose man picked up again.

“All right, children, fess up. There’s something going on here.”

A snicker from the corner. She whirled to see who it was, but no one looked guilty even.

A moan came from a new man just returned from surgery. Lopping off limbs seemed the answer to most injuries, but a quick glance at two beds down on her right showed all four appendages in place.

“No more cookies until someone tells me what is goin’ on.”

Still no response other than a groan, this one forced enough to tell her it wasn’t due to pain.

What could have happened? She hadn’t been gone more than fifteen minutes, if that. Who could she intimidate the most?

Stopping at Corporal Shaddock’s side, she cleared her throat. He stopped reading and sent a quick look her way, then glanced at the man whom she’d been calling the unknown soldier.

Shivers chased up and down her spine. The doc had changed the dressings, so one eye now showed. The dark brow above it arched in an oh-so-familiar way. The man was definitely conscious.

Her heart felt as though it had stopped. The whole world stopped only for an instant. She took four steps forward and sank to her knees, grasping the hand that lay on top of the sheet.

“Zachary?”

“None other.” The hand squeezed hers back, weak but no weaker than the voice.

He’s alive, my brother is alive. Oh, God, thank you, my brother is alive
.

“At least what’s left of me.” The tinge of bitterness that underlay his words sounded so familiar that she laid her cheek on the back of his hand.

“But you’re alive. That’s all that matters. You’re alive.”
My brother who we feared was dead is alive
.

Hand clapping from those able and a cheer from others brought her back to the current place and time.

“How … how long have I been unconscious?”

“A week or so. You were muttering when they brought you in, but then we heard nothing more from you.” She swiped away the tears that refused to stop. “We’ve been praying for you so long, never knowing if you were in prison, alive, or dead.” She shuddered on the last words.
I can’t tell him about Daddy yet. And Jesselynn. Or how they are at home
.

“Where … where am I?” He cleared his throat.

“Richmond. I’m visitin’ Aunt Sylvania. Carrie Mae too.”

“Why?”

“Jesselynn made us come here.” She knew that wasn’t altogether true. Carrie Mae had pleaded to go when the invitation arrived. And since Jesselynn wouldn’t allow the younger sister to travel alone, they had both been sent off. Sometimes she still smarted under the injustice of it all. She thought a moment. “How did they all figure out—?” She stopped, not certain how much he knew.

“When I gave my name and rank, the lieutenant put two and two together.”

“Really?” She kept herself from looking at the man still staring out the window.

“And figured out you are my wife. Mrs. Zachary Highwood, right?” At least he had the sense to whisper.

Chapter Fifteen

Gordonsville, Kentucky

September 30, 1862

Where was Benjamin, and why hadn’t he warned them?

“Speak or I’ll shoot!”

“Jus’ some weary travelers, suh.” She deepened her voice, masking the fear.

A man stepped out of the shadows, his uniform light in the moonlight, a rifle held across his chest.

She shot Meshach a look meant to keep him quiet and kept her hands in front of her. Not that she had anything to hide. The rifle lay safe behind the wagon seat. And of no use at all.

“Where y’all goin’?”

“Not far up yondah.” She nodded toward the west, keeping her hat low over her face. The urge to tell him more caused her to bite her tongue. Benjamin had reminded them just before starting out tonight that the less said, the better.

“What are ya carrying?” The soldier stepped closer to the wagon, his rifle at the ready.

“Nothin’ much.”
What do I say?
“Jus’ tryin’ to gits home.” She could tell by his accent he was southern, but a rifle pointed was still a rifle, no matter whose side held it.

“Where’s home?” This time he looked at her directly.

She squared her shoulders and sucked in a deep breath trying to conceal the frenzy of her thoughts. Why hadn’t she figured for this in advance? What town lay ahead? Where had they been?

The black baby let out a wail that made her spine tingle, it sounded so like a wounded animal.

The soldier stepped back.

An idea sizzled into her frozen mind. “Ah, you might not want to get too close, suh. That baby real sick. You might catch what he got.”

“Sick?” The man stepped back again.

“Can you tell the smallpox?”

“S-smallpox?” He took three more steps back, moonlight glistening on the whites of his eyes.

“Well, we ain’t sure what it is, but the baby be right sick. You know how to cure the pox, if that be it?”

“No. No, I don’t.” He waved his rifle. “You git on outa here now.”

The baby wailed again.

“Right now, you hear me?”

“Yes, suh. Thankee, suh.” Jesselynn put her heels to Ahab’s ribs as Meshach clucked the team forward. They trotted down the road without looking back, even though for Jesse the temptation was nigh unbearable.

They caught up with Benjamin about a mile or so up the road when he whistled his presence.

“He din’t stop me,” the young man answered when questioned. “I din’t know he was even dere.”

“Most likely sleepin’ at de post till we come by. Horses and wagon make more noise.”

With the wagon moving again, the baby settled back down and fell asleep.

“How are they?” Jesselynn rode up next to Ophelia.

“Both sleepin’.” She glanced over her shoulder to the two children in the wagon bed, then up at Jesselynn. “You really think him got de pox?” Her voice carried the same fear heard in the soldier’s.

“No, not at all. I’ve never seen smallpox, but Mother told me what to watch for. You’d most likely be sick too if you spent the night in the rain like he did, naked, hungry. Poor baby.”

Daniel rode up beside Jesselynn. “I ’bout wet my britches when dat sojer hollered.”

Ophelia snickered. Meshach chuckled. And Jesselynn gave an undeniably feminine giggle before correcting herself with a deeper voice.

“ ‘Might be smallpox.’ “ Meshach imitated her comment, even to the hint of fear in her voice. Only the soldier didn’t know that the fear had nothing to do with smallpox.

Their laughter rang through the night as they kept the horses at a trot to cover the ground they’d missed because of the sick boys.

But as they trotted on through the night, following the moon on its westward descent, thoughts continued to plague Jesselynn. What
was
wrong with the black baby? Had Thaddeus caught something from him so quickly, or was it the rain and traveling that gave him the grippe? By the time they could see individual trees instead of just a dark bank, she’d decided that she was going herself into the next town they came to. They needed supplies, and she needed information. Maybe there’d even be a newspaper to tell her what was going on with the war in general and Kentucky in particular.

As always, she would check the posted list of dead and missing. Never seeing the name of Zachary Highwood helped keep hope alive. Not much but enough.

When Benjamin whistled them off the road and into a clearing, she could finally give up the feeling that she needed to keep looking behind her in case the soldier changed his mind.

“All I seen is a couple of small farms,” Benjamin said in answer to her question. “Man always up settin’ out to milkin’ him cows. You want I should go dere?”

Jesselynn nodded. That was another reason she needed to get to a town. They were about out of small coins. What farmer would be able to change a gold piece? And a young black man carrying a gold piece would be sure to create all kinds of suspicion.

While the others set up camp, Jesselynn took her little brother out behind the bushes and then down to the creek, still swollen from the rains, to wash. When she laid her cheek against his, no longer did the heat meet her. While his nose never ceased to run, and he coughed at times, she could tell he was on the mend.

“Stay here!” He pointed to the side of the creek when she tried to take him back to camp.

Yes, he was definitely feeling better.

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“Want hot cakes and syrup.”

She groaned inside. “Come, Thaddy. Jesse needs to eat and get some sleep.” When his lower lip came out, she swung him up in her arms and tickled his ribs. With giggles floating behind them, they marched back to the fire.

“We need a name for that boy,” she said after they’d finished eating and Ophelia went back to walking the baby. While he’d take milk from a spoon, drinking from a cup was not tolerable. And a sugar-tit took too long to make him content either. While she hated to give up one of the leather gloves, they might just have to do that. The leather would hold the milk and a hole in the end of a finger would make a nipple. If he would even suck on that.

“Call him ornery.” Meshach dumped another armload of broken branches on the ground by the fire.

Ophelia sat on a log and commenced to spoon milk into the baby’s mouth again. “Sho’ wish him mama learned him better.”

Jesselynn shuddered at the memory of the dead mother. All alone like that and having a baby. Often she’d assisted her mother in caring for a newborn baby and the proud mother down in the slave quarters. Birthing babies was a natural part of life, even to losing some, but to die alone like that, knowing there was nothing to be done for the older child must have terrified the woman.

She snagged Thaddeus, who was digging in the dirt at her feet, and gave him a loud kiss on the cheek.

He pushed back against her shoulder with both hands. “Down, Jesse. Me down.”

She set him back on his feet, and he immediately plunked down to dig under the log again. When he had his mind on something, changing it was harder than stopping up a flooding creek.

The sun was well past the center point and the camp eerily quiet when Jesselynn woke again.
Where’s everyone? Surely they didn’t go off and leave me
. The nicker of a horse nearby made her shake her head at her crazy thoughts. She sat up and looked around, brushing away a persistent fly while straining to hear a voice, any voice, or rather any of the voices that belonged to her people. She scrubbed her face with her fingertips and brushed her hair back. Only two weeks on the road, and already it was falling in her eyes. No wonder men had to have their hair cut so often. Braiding it back would be a dead giveaway.

She smashed her hat onto her head, effectively solving the flopping hair problem, and stood, stretching out her body as she did so. She wasn’t sure which was worse, riding all night, sitting on the wagon seat, or sleeping on the hard ground. Glancing around the camp, she saw Daniel sleeping soundly and left him to it.

Following the sound of another nicker, she found the horses hobbled in a small clearing, Ophelia lying asleep under a tree with the two boys curled against her like sleeping puppies, and Benjamin sleeping not far from her. As usual, Meshach was checking the horses’ hooves. Still yawning, she wandered over to him and leaned against the mare’s shoulder.

“Meshach, don’t you
ever
sleep?”

“Sho’nuff. I slept myself plenty right after breakfast. Benjamin, he watch den.” He picked up another of the filly’s hooves and dug out the packed dirt and rocks. A rock caught between the frog and the inner part of the hoof could lame a horse faster than anything. “Ahab got him a loose shoe. I ’specs I better reset dem before we leave.”

“You need the forge?”

“No, I just reset dem. Got plenty wear left.”

They had the small hand-cranked forge with them that used to go to the track. While they had plenty of horseshoes, they didn’t have much charcoal. One more thing that needed doing.

“What about the mule?”

“He fine.”

“Did Benjamin find out if there was a town near here?”

“ ’Bout five miles. Not much more den a store or two.”

“No train station?”

“Didn’t ask dat.” He moved on to Domino, the younger stallion. “Stand still, you. I gots no time for you actin’ up.”

“How’s Chess doin’?”

“Good. Him chest healin’ good. I’s thinkin’ we might sell him soon as he’s able.”

Jesselynn nodded. “Good idea.” She took hold of Domino’s halter. “You just want extra attention, don’t you?” She rubbed his ears and let him snuffle her neck. She inhaled the scent of horse. While her sister Carrie Mae might bewail the lack of Paris perfumes, she’d take honest horse aroma any day. That thought brought on another. How were her sisters managing with Aunt Sylvania? Jesselynn had visited Richmond and her aunt once and thought it enough to last for a lifetime—or two.

So then why did you send them back there?
The voice in her ear sounded vaguely familiar, like a cross between her mother and Lucinda with a dash of Jesselynn thrown in for reality’s sake.

Instead of arguing with herself, she went to saddle up the mule.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can. Y’all go on and eat without me if I’m not here.”

“You sho’ might need one of us.”

Jesselynn hesitated. It most likely would be a good idea to have one of them along, but the thought of being alone for a couple of hours was tempting beyond measure. Surely she’d be back before dark. And who would bother a rough-looking boy on an old mule?

Anyone needing a mule, that’s who!
The thought made her shake her head. “I’ll take the pistol. It’s not fair waking up one of the boys. And, besides, the horses need rest and time to graze too.” She touched two fingers to the brim of her hat. “I’ll be fine.” She swung aboard the bareback mule and kicked him into a joint-cracking canter.

His trot was worse. By the time they rode the five miles to town, even her teeth hurt from the pounding.

“Grind you up for sausage,” she muttered as she slung the reins over his long ears and tied them to the hitching post in front of the store. Several other places of business lined the street, empty but for a brown-and-white dog sniffing horse droppings. She walked around him, more to get her legs moving than to check out her mount, and took the four steps to the shed-roofed front porch in two. Two men, who looked older than the gnarly oak that shaded the west side of the building, nodded to her.
If they have three teeth between them, that would be sayin’ some
, she thought.

“Hey, boy, you a stranger here?”

She kept herself from looking over her shoulder to see who the
boy
was they were talking to and nodded. “Yes, suh. Goin’ west.”

“Where ya from?”

She nodded over her shoulder. “Off thata way.” She bobbed her head again. “Good day.”

She knew she’d been rude, but the sun was racing for the horizon, and she had to get back so Meshach wouldn’t worry. After telling the man behind the counter what she would need, she studied the jars of candy. Perhaps some horehound drops would help Thaddy’s cough.

Her grandmother used to keep a jarful for that very purpose. She added that to her list.

“They post a newspaper anywheres around here?”

The man nodded. “Only a day late too. Comes in on the train.”

“Mind if I go read the casualty list while you get things together?”

“Not a’tall.” But he paused, studying her through slightly squinted eyes.

“Don’t worry, I kin pay.” She pulled the gold piece from her pocket and held it up for him to see.

“Can’t be too careful these days. Confederate dollars drop faster’n a pound of lead. Now is there anything else you might be needin’?”

“I’ll be back.” She strolled out the door like she had a month of Sundays to spend as she wished, greeted the two holding down the rockers and headed for the train station. Strains of “Dixieland” floated out the saloon door as she passed, and the smell of frying chicken from the hotel made her lick her lips and wish for some. The news had to be old already according to the folks around Gordonsville, since no one else was standing on the dock reading the paper. The name of the town could be found on either end of the station in fading white letters on an equally faded black sign.