Daughter of Twin Oaks (22 page)

“Dat way.” Benjamin pointed south.

“And we’re going west.” She looked up at the man beside her. “Stay or go?”

“We go, but dere’s rain in dose clouds. Rain soon.”

The man could be a prophet
. Jesselynn hunkered under her canvas, the pouring rain splattering on the rumps of the team. They were climbing again, the horses straining against their collars. Wet leaves plastered their hides, yellowed by an earlier frost now that they were climbing higher. She braced her feet against the floor of the wagon and tried to keep the tent over her head from slipping.

They breached the crest and let the horses stop under a tree to catch their breath. Jesselynn rubbed her wet hands together and studied the sodden world. Nothing looked drearier than oak trees losing their leaves to a pounding rain and horses hanging their heads, rivulets running down their manes.

After a short rest Meshach waved, signaling it was time to move forward.

Jesselynn slapped the reins and clucked to the team. They leaned into their collars, and the wagon groaned but began to move. The sound of a galloping horse could be heard above the rain.

“Hey, I found us a cave.” Benjamin pulled the mare to a stop. “Right near.”

Jesselynn didn’t wait for her heart to stop pounding, she just turned the horses in the direction he pointed. Within minutes she saw the hole in the limestone cliff face. While it wasn’t big enough to drive the wagon in, the horses would make it. And they could build a fire.

“Get inside,” she ordered the passengers in her wagon as she leaped to the ground to unharness the team. “Take what you can with you.”

Benjamin came out of the cave, his hands raised to stop them. “Someone in dere.”

“Someone who?” Meshach strode into the opening.

Jesselynn finished unhooking the traces and hooked the ends up on the rump pad. She was already soaked from the driving rain. Who cared if there was someone else there? Surely there was room for all. Unless of course that somebody didn’t want to share or would steal some of their precious supplies.

Meshach waved her in. “Leave de horses for now.”

Jesselynn knotted a tie rope around a tree trunk and entered the cave. A man lay on the cave floor; another was propped against the wall. Dressed in the butternut uniform of the Confederacy, both wore the bloodstains of terrible wounds.

“Dey alive?” Benjamin squatted down to check.

“They won’t be arguing over the cave, the condition they’re in.” Jesselynn couldn’t believe she’d said anything so uncaring. Whatever happened to her mother’s training? She froze. Was that a gun cocking she heard?

Chapter Twenty-Six

Richmond, Virginia

“Miz Highwood? What kind of game are you playin’?” the lieutenant asked.

Louisa shot her sister a look that should have fried the flowers on her bonnet.
Please, Carrie Mae, don’t say anything more
.

“Oh, did I say somethin’ I shouldn’t?”

If she’d been closer, she would have stamped on her blabbermouth sister’s foot. Instead Louisa made the mistake of looking up at the lieutenant. If he’d looked sober before, he did so no longer. Thunderclouds now rode his brow like a cavalry unit set to charge.

Jefferson Steadly gave Louisa a pitying look, took his betrothed’s hand, and tucked it back under his arm. “Come, my dear, let us go in and speak with your aunt as we had planned.” The wink he sent Louisa as he passed her made her face flame anew.

“Would you like to tell me what is going on?” The lieutenant’s tone had softened but only enough that an ear tuned to his voice would pick it up.

Louisa had learned it well, even with the few words he spoke so seldom. Could she brazen it out? She felt her shoulders sag. Now, if it had been Jesselynn caught in a lie of this magnitude, she might have breezed right through it, but not Louisa. Living this lie had been one of the hardest things she had ever done in her life.

“Would you like to sit down?” She motioned toward the chairs on the portico. “This will take a bit of time.”

“Seems I have all the time in the world at this point.” The lieutenant put both crutches under one arm and, using the handrail to pull on, hopped one-legged up the three steps. When he took the chair she indicated, he sat down with a sigh.

Louisa sat in the other chair. “Does your leg still hurt awfully?”

“Not always. But I banged it in the move, and now I’ll pay for that for a time.”

Louisa leaned forward and pushed the hassock next to him. “Put it up on that.”

“Thank you.” The lieutenant settled his leg and tried to cover the sigh. He leaned his head against the high back of the rocker and closed his eyes.

Louisa studied his profile in the dimming light. Surely the bones in his face were no longer so prominent, and his color had most definitely improved. The scar on his forehead had receded until now it only made him look more interesting. When he went home, the girls would comment that it made him look more dashing.

Why did that thought not make her chuckle as she’d hoped?

A whippoorwill called, his song gentle on the ears, almost melancholy in tone.

The lieutenant would be going home—soon. All he needed was a mode of travel.

“So, Miz Highwood.” His accent on the
Miz
told her what he thought about the whole thing. “Maybe you’d like to explain now.”

“No, I would not
like
to explain, but if you can keep from informing the surgeon general, I might
choose
to explain. You see, I am not one of your men to be ordered around, and …” Her words came faster as she got up a head of steam, much like a locomotive leaving the station.

“I’m aware of that. Let me rephrase my question. Would you
please
explain? And I cannot promise not to tell the surgeon general. I will have to do what I believe best.”

Louisa nodded. And sighed. This seemed to be an evening for sighing. “I have to go back a ways.”

It was his turn to nod.

“When my sister Jesselynn decided it was no longer safe for us at Twin Oaks, she took it upon herself to send her two younger sisters here to Aunt Sylvania’s. Since her fiancé had been killed in battle, I think she was hoping we would find—” Louisa clapped a hand over her mouth.
Oh, Lord, what am I saying?
She took in a deep breath and began again. “Safety. Yes, she hoped we would find safety here in Richmond. Right from the first we attended the meetings with Aunt Sylvania where the women knitted, sewed uniforms, and wound bandages for our men in the war. But I wanted to do something more. It was like … like all our fine men were without faces, and while I stitched the best and fastest that I could, I … I wanted to be where it mattered.”

“You think socks and uniforms and bandages don’t matter?” One eyebrow arched.

“No. No, that isn’t what I meant at all.” Louisa stopped her hands from wringing together. What kind of a ninny was she becoming? Sighing, hand wringing? She let out a huff of air and gritted her teeth.

“You are deliberately misunderstanding me, sir, and I resent that. You asked for my explanation, and I am doing the very best that I can.”

“Yes, forgive me. I’m sorry.”

Her eyes flew wide open, and she closed her mouth before it gapped. He, Lieutenant Lessling, had asked for her forgiveness.

“You’re forgiven.” She clasped her hands primly in her lap, but even so, one forefinger insisted on smoothing the one beneath. “One day I heard one of the women talking about volunteering at the hospital. She said they needed widows to come in and help on the wards, but that young unmarried women would not do since we, since … ah …”

She knew they would need no lamp on the veranda. Her face would light them better than ten lamps—with reflectors.

“So I appropriated my mother’s ring and introduced myself as Widow Highwood, telling everyone my husband Zachary had died in battle. We were so afraid he had, you see.”

“And no one questioned you?”

“Some.” She remembered how she had feigned tears when they did, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief she kept in her sleeve. The interrogator then had gotten flustered and withdrew. Worked every time.
That
she would not tell the lieutenant.

“And?”

“And so I began working in the ward, bringing water, reading, writing letters. I’ve never done any nursing chores. I’m not trained for that.” When she thought about it, that was not entirely true. Her mother had trained all three of her daughters in the healing arts, how to use herbs and unguents she’d created, how to apply poultices, dress wounds, even set broken bones. All manner of accidents happened on a plantation like Twin Oaks.

She sighed. Lying was so difficult. Why had they forced her into it?

“I know I have been a help.” The silence lay between them, soft like the air that kissed one’s skin like a lover. “You’ll keep my secret, won’t you?”

It was the lieutenant’s turn to sigh. “You put me in a difficult position.”

“But isn’t your job to look out for the good of your men? And I have been part of that good. I know their lives in the hospital are easier when I am there.”

“Granted, but there are rules.”

“I’m not hurting anyone.”

“Does your brother have anything to say on this?” The question came after another companionable silence.

Oh, cotton bolls
. She straightened and lifted her chin a fraction. “He said he doesn’t want me going back there.”

“And you would defy him?”

“He is being well cared for. Why would he deny that care to others? If I were not his sister …”

“Ah, but you are.”

“I can run faster than he can.”

For a minute she thought he was choking, then realized he was laughing, a rusty sound as if it hadn’t been used in far too long. She’d actually made the dour lieutenant laugh.

“Could when we were younger too, but don’t you dare tell him that. Then he’d have to tell a lie.”

The man beside her snorted again.

“Won’t you have enough to do caring for the men at your aunt’s house?”

“Her servants can do most of the work here, and I will read to them as I do at the hospital, unless Aunt wants to do that. I plan to set Private Rumford to work in the garden with Reuben overseeing him.” She grabbed her audacity with both hands. “You could help if you’d like.”

“I will if you are there.”

Oh, cotton and tarnation tripled
. He had her there. How could she be in both places at once?

“Is it a bargain?” He extended his hand, obviously expecting her to shake on an agreement.

“For the mornings.” She put her hand in his. Heat shot up her arm and suffused her neck, flaming up her face. “I … I think I hear someone calling me.” She leaped to her feet and disappeared into the house as if an entire cavalry unit were charging behind her.

“Oh, Lord, help!”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

A Missouri cave

“How bad is he?”

“Alive, but not for long ’less we help ’im.” Meshach looked up at her from his kneeling position by the wounded soldier. As he spoke he removed his handkerchief and tied it above the man’s knee, then examined the wound in his side. “He in bad shape.”

“Put the horses back there.” Jesselynn pointed to the rear of the cave before it shrank down to a small tunnel. “Get wood and let’s get a fire going. Get him warmed up and us dried out. Thaddeus, you and Sammy sit over there and don’t you move. Jane Ellen, keep your brother close beside you.”

“I kin git wood.”

“I know you can. Thank you, but I think your brother needs you more right now.”

John Mark shuddered and coughed, a deep, gagging cough that made Jesselynn shiver. She’d heard that kind of coughing before, and a damp cave with wet clothes was not a place to start coughing like that.

“Don’ worry, Marse, John Mark cough like that alla time.” Jane Ellen patted her brother’s shoulder, clutching him close in front of her. “He been puny since the day he was borned.” Her declaration seemed a banner of pride. “I allus takes keer of ’im.”

Jesselynn nodded and headed back out in the rain to help find wood. Wet as she was already, what could a few drips more matter? Finding dry wood in the downpour was no easy task. She broke dead branches off the underside of pine trees and, carrying an armload, dragged a larger branch behind her. She hoped the men would fare better. How far away was water? They needed plenty of hot water to clean the soldier up. What could they use for a poultice? If those wounds were infected … She shook her head.
Mother, what would you do?

No sense in waiting for an answer. If there were to be any answers, they would have to come from her, and right now she felt cold, wet, and long out of answers. She stumbled over a rock just inside the cave entrance and tossed the wood into a pile before stopping to rub her toe. Felt like a horse just stepped on it. No, stood on it.

She headed back out to the wagon for an ax to chop the bigger pieces. Where were the men?

By the time she returned, Ophelia had shaved off curls of wood to lay over the smoldering coals they kept in a lidded pan for fire starter. Within moments tendrils of smoke arose and then flames as soon as she blew on it. Thaddeus squatted beside her, breaking twigs into smaller pieces to add a bit at a time. Sammy sat in the dirt behind them, picking up handfuls of sand and watching them drizzle back to the floor.

“Jane Ellen, take one of those quilts and wrap it around your brother. Then you can help with the fire while Ophelia and I get a pallet made for the wounded man.” Talking was difficult with your teeth chattering.

Benjamin and Daniel dragged in a tree trunk that would burn for long hours, but no one had seen Meshach.

Once a canvas had been folded into a pallet, they each took a limb and hoisted the still-unconscious man into place next to the fire. As soon as a bucket of water from their barrel on the wagon was hot, she knelt down to inspect the wounds. The hole in his side had both an entrance and an exit, so she knew there was no bullet to dig out. Dirt mixed with blood crusted the wound, setting her to shaking her head. How could she clean it?

She rocked back on her heels, wishing she were anywhere but in a cave—in Missouri—tending an injured man she’d never before laid eyes on. She glanced up and caught sight of the dead man propped against the cave wall. If she dragged him outside, the wild animals would get the body during the night. There was no way she was sending her people out in the pouring rain to bury a man. So he had to stay, gruesome or not.

Where was Meshach?

She shifted her inspection to the leg. Cutting away the remains of the man’s pant leg, she kept herself from gagging only with the greatest effort. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths to calm the need to faint. If there was to be any chance for the man to live, the leg would have to go. With all the dirt and shredded flesh and bone, the wound would putrefy before morning.

Whatever had kept this man alive this long?

“Well, sir, if you want to live this bad, we’ll sure do all we can to help you.” She got to her feet. “Benjamin, bring in our saw. Ophelia, get your sewing kit. We got work to do.”

“My ma allus said, you cut off a limb, you gotta burn it with a knife or somethin’.” Jane Ellen had the three boys huddled under a quilt with her, so only their faces showed in the flickering firelight. “Might help that hole in his side too.”

“Thank you. My daddy said pouring enough whisky over any wound would clean it right up, but we don’t have any whisky, and we do have a big knife or two.” Jesselynn dug into her box of simples that was becoming sadly in need of replenishing. What could she use to help keep away the poison? If only she had some onions, or mustard, or even bread and milk—all things they had taken for granted at Twin Oaks. And whisky … there had been plenty of that too.

Where was Meshach? Good thing the soldier had yet to regain consciousness, but even so, she wanted Meshach there not only to help hold him down but to saw off the leg. Should they try to save the knee?

She took soap and water and started scrubbing, then rinsed and went back to studying the wound. Looked like good bone below the knee for a couple of inches anyway. Unless the infection had already set in and traveled upward. She sniffed the wound. Nope, it didn’t smell like the one that killed her daddy. Putridity had a stench all its own.

“Any of you know where Meshach went?”

Benjamin and Daniel shook their heads.

Ophelia said, “He took the rifle.”

So that was the rifle cocking she heard. He must have gone hunting, whether for man or beast she wasn’t sure.

One of the horses stamped and snorted. Firelight flickered on the walls, setting shadows to moving in a macabre dance that sent shivers up and down Jesselynn’s back. She glanced over at the children and saw they were all asleep, piled like puppies in a heap.

Dumping the bloody water, she poured more from the kettle and went back to work, not even bothering to clean the lower leg. His foot was cold to the touch, as if it had already died. The wound in his side started to bleed again as she cleaned out bits of shirt fabric and removed the handkerchief he must have packed in the wound to staunch the bleeding.

She listened to his breathing. Sounded pretty strong for a man in his condition. Could she touch the hot knife to his flesh and hold it there long enough to do its job? She eyed the broad-bladed knife that Ophelia had set in the flames. Meshach could do this better than she, but since he wasn’t here, she’d better do it.

She called Benjamin and Daniel to help. “All right, hold him down,” she ordered. The eyes of the two men and Ophelia glistened in the firelight, but they took their places and leaned on the still form. Jesselynn closed her eyes for a moment, then taking the bone handle of the knife, she applied the blade to the front of the wound.

The man bucked and groaned. The stench of burning flesh made Jesselynn gag. None of her helpers watched the knife, but Benjamin threw his body across the man’s upper legs to hold him down.

Jesselynn put the knife back in the fire. “We got the back to do too. Roll him over real careful-like, so the bleeding doesn’t commence again.”

By the time they were finished, sweat ran down their faces, but the wounds were clean. The leg would have to wait for Meshach. Jesselynn could hardly grip the handle of the knife she was shaking so. Sammy and Thaddeus now whimpered from under their quilt, but Jane Ellen held her ground, her arms securely around all three boys, murmuring a soft singsong, trying to calm them.

“What do we have for bandages?” Jesselynn asked.

“I gits dem.” Ophelia dug in her box and came up with several rolls of old sheeting. “Lucinda packed dis. Thought we might need ’em.”

“Looks like we do.” Jesselynn took the rolls and folded some into pads to apply back and front, then wound more around the man’s midsection to hold the pads in place. They’d just have to wash the bandages in between. There were not enough to throw away. “We’ll let him sleep now. Ophelia, we need to make a tea of this willow bark. Get him to drink it soon as he wakes up. If only we had some meat to make a broth. Mother always said to give a wounded man beef broth to build the blood back up.”

“Will venison do?” Meshach and the deer he had tied over his shoulders filled the mouth of the cave.

No need to ask where he’d been. He laid the carcass down on the other side of the fire and untied three rabbits from his belt to hand to Ophelia. “We can skin dese de quickest and get dem to boilin’. I spotted some wild onion and Jerusalem artichoke for diggin’. I gits dem next.” He stepped around the fire and knelt down by their patient. Nodding, he smiled up at Jesselynn.

“You done fine, Marse Jesse.”

“I thought to wait a bit on the leg, let him gain some strength.”
Liar. You just couldn’t bring yourself to do it
.

“No, poison get ’im. We do it now. Got to come off?”

Jesselynn nodded. “All I can see. Good flesh and bone just below the knee, so maybe we can save that.”

“We try.”

Within minutes, they were ready. Even with four of them holding the man down, he bucked at the first bite of the saw. Jesselynn nearly screamed herself. Instead she hummed a song under her breath, anything to blot out the horrible noise.

“Done. Hand me de knife.” Again the stench of burning flesh filled the cave.

Jesselynn sewed the flap of flesh over the stump and applied the bandages. Very carefully, she released the knot on the tourniquet above the knee and watched to see if blood would soak the white cloth. When it didn’t, she finally let out the breath she’d been holding, surged to her feet, and dashed outside. After throwing up in the bushes, she tilted her face to the sky to let the rain wash her clean again.

She looked heavenward and raised her fist in the air. “God, if you are indeed God, how can you let this war go on? I don’t want any part of you ever again. You hear me?” Tears and rain flowed over her cheeks and down her neck.

Shuddering both from cold and wet, she strode back into the cave to find the soldier covered, the dead man gone, and the rest of the group eating warmed-up beans and biscuits. One rabbit simmered in the cooking pot, and cut-up pieces of another sizzled in the frying pan. The stench of blood and burnt flesh had been replaced by supper cooking, and the cave now seemed more like a home than a hospital.

“Jesse, sit here.” Thaddeus patted the empty space on the log beside him.

Ophelia handed her a steaming bowl and, while Jesselynn had thought it would be a long while before she could force food down, she shoveled the beans and biscuits in, grateful for the warmth and the flavor.

“I’ll be gettin’ the onion and chokes,” Meshah said. “Benjamin, you rope up de horses, and I show you a clearin’ I found. Wet or not, dey need grazin’. We can skin de deer after dark, dry some of it all night. Ophelia, you kin scrape de hide.”

“I knows how to do that,” Jane Ellen volunteered.

“When de sun come out, de hide kin dry on de wagon.”

“My ma used de brains, lye from fire ashes, and water fer tannin’ de hide.”

“Good. That be your job den, girl.”

“No rush, we won’t be leavin’ here anytime soon,” Jesselynn said, shaking her head. “Can’t leave him and can’t take him with us yet, so looks like here we stay.” She glanced over at John Mark, who was doubled over with coughing. Another reason they wouldn’t be going anywhere fast. Her mother always made cough syrup out of honey, whisky, and lemon juice in hot water. What could she use instead?

By the time they settled into their quilts that night, thin strips of deer meat draped on racks of green sticks hung over a low fire. They’d gotten some broth down the wounded man, and the deer hide was scraped and ready for tanning in the morning. Best of all, Daniel had found a bee tree, so they had honey on the biscuits that went along with fried rabbit, boiled artichoke roots with wild onion, and carrots. Quite a feast, and to top that off, they were warm and dry.

Stars shone overhead when Jesselynn made her final trip outside. Snuggling down in her quilt later, she listened for their patient’s steady breathing. The odor of fresh horse manure overlaid the sizzle of drying deer meat. Things seemed as right as possible, but she’d closed her ears when Meshach read the nightly Scripture. While she wasn’t about to tell him to quit reading, she knew she’d been living a lie. No longer did she believe there was a God, let alone a good one.

Somewhere in the wee hours, she got the soldier to take some more broth, and while his mumbling didn’t make sense, the fever seemed only mild, so far.

She fell back asleep without waking anyone else. They needed their rest as much as she.

Screams brought her straight up and out of sleep. Tiny furry feet crawling all over her made her scream too. She flung one of the creatures off and saw an arched tail in the dim firelight.

Only one critter looked like that! Scorpions!