Gwyneth Atlee (20 page)

Yvette was beginning to regret that she’d refused the morphine
she’d been offered at the hospital. Longingly, she thought back to
yesterday and the way the drug had dulled both the pain and her
senses and hummed a melody of consolation in her ear.

But the notes that carried hope rang hollow. The only truth she
heard in the song of Morpheus throbbed a dismal rhythm that
marched on and on, grim as a funereal procession. And she realized
that if she allowed it to bear her toward a place of comfort, that place
might well prove to be a grave.

She forced herself to picture Darien Russell laughing, finding her in
a drug-induced stupor, choking her to death, the way he had her
sister. She would be unable to defend herself, let alone force him to
pay for the crimes he had committed.

Thinking on that possibility, Yvette climbed from the narrow bed.
As one of a scant handful of female survivors, she’d been given far
more attention than had the myriad wounded soldiers. Several of the
nurses at Gayoso Hospital, where she’d been taken, had helped
arrange for her to have use of this room in a nearby boardinghouse.
They’d collected enough clothing so she could be decently, if not
stylishly, clad. And not one of them had seemed to care a whit that she
was Southern. They were more concerned with practicalities.

“With so many men in need, you couldn’t be provided with proper
privacy in here,” a plain-looking woman in her early forties explained,
gesturing to the rows of soldiers lying in cots along the hall. “And as
the doctor told you, you’ll need nothing more than rest and a few
weeks in a sling to set that arm right.”
Yvette had admired the way the women bustled about, competently assisting the doctors with tasks that seemed ill suited for ladies.
Maman
and Marie had been aghast when they heard that Yankee
women often worked in gruesome surgeries and wards. But these
women seemed natural and confident in their role, and their steady
presence had calmed Yvette’s fears during her examination.

Dressing was a challenge with her painful arm. But she’d have to
ignore the ache and manage on her own. She had too many things to
do to allow discomfort to stop her. Her mind skirted around the edge
of the hardest of those tasks, then dredged up what the surgeon at the
hospital had told her.

Amid the severely scalded soldiers, she must have truly seemed
so. And yet when Yvette had heard those words, she’d laughed—a
joyless sound that made heads turn and the man shuffle his feet
uncomfortably.

Fortunate indeed, she thought, her sore eyes welling with moisture.
Gabriel’s handsome face flashed through her mind, his touch upon
her cool hand over the back of the dead mule, his soothing words
amid the darkness of the river before dawn.

Fortunate indeed.
To try to make sense of what had happened, she took out the pencil and paper she had found in the desk drawer. She wanted nothing
quite so badly as to speak to her lost sister. And if this was the only
method that remained, so be it.

I can write no more this evening lest my tears follow to wash away each
line. Just as the Mississippi washed the ink from that most important letter, the one I needed to set all to rights once more.

Such sad written words seemed even more real than the thoughts
trapped in her mind. So the tears spilled over, and Yvette brushed
them away.

What she should do today was try to find another way to reach St.
Louis, to get to Uncle André so she could seek a new way to settle with
Darien Russell and clear herself of charges. But all of that would have
to wait.

After his night’s sleep, Darien Russell awoke, his mouth dry and his
heart thudding painfully against his ribs. But whatever dream provoked his discomfort quickly slipped away as consciousness
reclaimed him and he remembered where he was.

As wagonload after wagonload of survivors arrived at the Soldiers’
Home in the wake of the explosion, Darien realized that the best he
could expect there was a cot in a common ward overflowing with
naked and near-naked soldiers. His efforts to convince the staff that he
deserved better had been met with disbelief and then ignored.

He’d felt a rush of gratitude at the appearance of Colonel Patterson,
who had brought men to assist the overburdened staff.
Though the regular workers could scarcely be troubled to provide
Darien with a decent uniform, Patterson, who hailed from Rhode
Island, immediately proved himself to be a man sensible to the necessity of seeing to the comfort of a fellow officer.
The white-haired colonel had gone far beyond mere decency.
Indeed, he had invited Darien, along with another stranded captain
and a young lieutenant, to stay as his guest in a fine Memphis home
“requisitioned” from a pair of unrepentant secessionists.
Now that he felt rested enough to take note of his surroundings,
Darien saw the delicate floral wallpaper pattern and the lace-trimmed
yellow quilt. As he swung his legs out of bed and reached for the shoes
the colonel had found for him, his hand grazed the worn face of a
bedraggled doll. Picking up the item by a fold in its soft blue skirt, he
noticed that it had been constructed of some fine material before a
child’s fingers had rubbed the luster from it. Apparently, this had been
a little girl’s room. And still would be, had not her father smuggled
contraband to the Confederacy long after Memphis had been
captured. What a fool he’d been to lay down all he had for pride.
If he became a father, he would damned well see to it his child lived
in comfort. An unpleasant twinge made him rub at one temple.
With more force than necessary, Russell tossed the doll back to its
resting place beneath the bed. If he wanted to feel pity for anyone, it
ought to be those men he’d seen before he’d left the Soldiers’ Home.
When he had first arrived there, Darien had closed his eyes against
both his exhaustion and the discomfort of looking at the damaged
bodies of those men. Beneath bruise-mottled skin, ribs slashed across
the half-starved former prisoners’ midsections and other bones took
on unnatural prominence. Pelvises jutted, vertebrae bulged, and
shoulder blades looked more like stunted wings than parts of anything quite human.
Beating wings.
Remembering, he shuddered. That was what had
just awakened him, a dream of flapping, bone-hard wings striking
at his chest and face. A legion of gaunt soldiers, attacking, all at
her command.
He could see her still, Yvette Augeron at the forefront, as wild-eyed
as Joan of Arc on her mad assault. A maiden warrior, insane or
inspired, depending on one’s view.
“Mon Dieu has charged me to destroy you,”
the nightmare woman had
informed him, and he saw flames wheeling around the dark hub of
her pupils. Bright flames, shooting off hot embers, like the fire aboard
the
Sultana.
And with one wave of her sparking fingertips, her army
of winged men flew at him, laughing as their bony appendages beat
an agonizing rhythm against his living flesh.
Their wings beat out her question:
“Did she tell you she was carrying
your child?
”
Christ, no wonder he’d awakened cold and sweaty, his
pulse roaring in his ear like the endless boom of artillery or the
deafening concussion of the
Sultana
when she blew.
Darien shuddered and pulled on his shoes, unwilling to lie down
once more, to risk another dream. Another man might have brushed it
aside, dismissed it. He decided instead to heed it as a warning that
he’d rested long enough, that if he didn’t get up out of this room and
enlist the colonel’s help to locate her, Yvette would find a way to
destroy him, just as she had threatened.
He could not afford to remain here one more minute, idly hoping
that she’d drowned.
As Darien came downstairs, he glimpsed Col. Isaiah Patterson in
what once had been a parlor. Apparently the room had been hastily
refashioned into an office.
Patterson sat behind a scarred oak desk that looked as if it had been
dragged into the home from who knew where. He appeared deep in
discussion with one of the lieutenants that assisted him.
Darien decided not to interrupt, but the colonel called out, “Get
some coffee and come in here. This may concern you, too.”
Recalling the kitchen’s location from the night before, Darien
poured himself a cup of hot black liquid, then returned to the parlor.
He sat on a mahogany armchair the narrow-face lieutenant pulled up
for him with his one remaining hand. His empty left sleeve had been
neatly pinned, a sight that had become increasingly common as the
war progressed.
As Darien took his seat, he glanced around the room, his eyes
lingering a moment on the piano someone had shoved into one corner.
It reminded him uncomfortably of the Augerons’ piano and the songs
Yvette had sung. A relic of the former owners, an expensive-looking
porcelain figure, lay broken on its dust-filmed top, and this time,
Darien felt satisfied to think of the wealthy secessionists who had been
banished from their home.
A plump gray-and-white cat sauntered into the parlor as if it owned
the place. Arching its back, it rubbed against Darien’s lower leg.
Russell winced, noticing the white hairs it left on the fabric. He might
have kicked the creature away, but he hesitated, unsure as to whether
it was the colonel’s pet.
The colonel lit a pipe, then glanced down at the cat. “The owners
left her. We toss her out a dozen times a day, but somehow she always
manages to slip inside again. Especially since the lieutenant here often
leaves out a saucer full of milk.”
The lieutenant appeared to be wrestling to suppress a sheepish
smile. None too successfully.
“Wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t gone and given birth to
half a dozen kittens in a corner of the pantry,” the colonel said. “I
should have had them drowned, but—”
Patterson shrugged, as if to excuse a moment of weakness. But
despite the admission and his snow-white hair, his face looked youthful
and his gaze sharp. He adjusted the pipe and took several puffs. The air
filled with fragrant smoke before he grunted satisfaction, and his voice
turned serious. “My staff and I have been asked to help investigate this
calamity. Frankly, this has all the hallmarks of some sort of boiler
explosion, but since the assassination, we must be especially vigilant.
Not all these secessionists are ready to give up and go home.”
Darien sipped his coffee thoughtfully. Colonel Patterson, for all his
kindness, seemed a shrewd man, far too astute to lie to lightly. And far
too clever to allow him the opportunity to interview Yvette once she
was apprehended.
Patterson continued. “You said yesterday that you were following
a Rebel conspirator, a murderess. Do you have any information to
make you believe that she might be involved? Could she have had
collaborators aboard the
Sultana?”
“I don’t believe she came aboard with any other Rebels, but she
quickly befriended one of the Andersonville prisoners. He deliberately
impeded my investigation and assisted her in escaping. And I know
just where he is now.”
Patterson nodded. “I’ll put as many men as you need at your
disposal, Captain Russell. I want to question that young man, but
first—alive or dead—let’s find that girl.”

Gabriel’s mind played over one rescue, then another, a third, and
then a fourth, so that all of them survived this. So that both Yvette, his
future, and the three friends that summed up all the good that came
out of his past could be alive still. If only for a little while more, until
he was forced to face a harder truth.

No, he couldn’t do that to himself now, couldn’t allow himself to
face that possibility. Not now, while the moans of those worse
injured intruded on his dreams. If hopes could qualify as dreams, as
he floated on this haze somewhere between wakefulness and sleep,
somewhere he could lie, indifferent to his pain.

His thoughts began to seep down where the pain dwelt, mostly in his
hands, and he thought he could feel the reddened swaths of blisters
that had formed on both their tops. They were dressed now in some sort
of ointment that was supposed to soothe them and prevent infection.

Recalling Andersonville, he roused enough to shudder at the idea
of surgeons and attendants touching him while he remained as
motionless as death.

“Never let them work on you,” Jacob had advised him with a nod
toward the hospital, a poorly constructed shelter inside the stockade.
“That hellhole’s filthier than anyplace in camp.”

Rumor had it that men the Confederate surgeons vaccinated to
prevent disease had died after the arms in which they’d received the
shots grew putrid with infection. Opinions varied on whether the
Rebel goal had been to help or kill as many Yanks as possible, but
almost to a man, the prisoners avoided medical treatment until they
were too sick for it to matter either way.

Although the Memphis Soldiers’ Home was run by Union personnel, the habit of distrust died hard, as did the suspicion that staying
here might do more to make him sick than heal him.

No use worrying, he thought. He was still too weak to do a thing
about it right now, anyway.
Instead, he set himself to planning how he’d search for his friends
once he felt better, how he’d embrace Yvette once he found her. The
images meandered, pleasant but disjointed, until they beguiled him
into a deep sleep.

Darien Russell ran down leads half the day, checking every rumor
of a female survivor. And rumors were what most proved to be. He’d
heard early on of a possibility from a rescuer working at the Soldiers’
Home. No one, however, could remember where the woman had been
taken. Finally, after Darien had interrupted every worker he could
find, he encountered one attendant who thought he recalled a woman
being taken to Gayoso Hospital.

Darien traveled there in a carriage driven by an agent of the U.S.
Sanitary Commission, who was working to identify both the survivors
and the victims of the steamboat explosion.

“There are, ah, a number of females among the, ah, deceased,” the
agent explained. Avoiding Darien’s gaze, he fiddled with the reins,
causing the chestnut horse in harness to toss its head in irritation. “I
know you’re looking for your young lady in the hospitals, but have
you considered, ah, other possibilities?”

Russell hesitated. Instinct had prompted him to circulate the
story that he was seeking his fiancée and not a fugitive in an
attempt to garner sympathy. With so many seeking lost friends
and relations, his request seemed ordinary. As he listened to the
agent’s embarrassed question, the same instinct told him his
dream had been true. Yvette Augeron yet lived and still sought to
destroy him.

He was a man who had learned to rely upon his instincts—or
dreams, or destiny, or whatever it was he chose to call that voice
that had so often whispered a warning. It had proven true too often
to ignore.

At length, he answered the somber-looking agent with the nervous
hands. “If she is dead, it scarcely matters when I locate her . . . remains.
But if she still lives, I must find her swiftly.”

“God bless you in your search, then. I’m sure that seeing the face of
a loved one will do her spirits the greatest good,” the agent told him.
He was certain that it would. Darien suppressed a smile and wondered what effect
his
face would have.

Yvette decided to begin with the women she had met. Gayoso was
close enough to reach on foot, and the nurses there could tell her
where the dead of the
Sultana
had been taken.

The day had dawned a fair one, lit by the mildest of spring sunshine. Yet Yvette’s feet barely lifted as she walked. For each step took
her closer to finding Gabriel’s dead body—if it had been recovered for
her to find at all.

Inside a corridor in Gayoso Hospital, Darien Russell stopped a
gangly redhead trapped somewhere between youth and manhood.
His tousled hair and bleary brown eyes made it appear he’d had no
sleep since news of the disaster had first reached Memphis.

“I saw a woman here. Nice-looking lady, and she did have dark
hair, like you say. Can’t remember the name, though. Poor thing.”
Darien disguised a smile with a sweep of his hand to straighten the
whiskers of his beard. “She’s badly injured?”
“Oh, no sir. Mainly just exhausted. But you see, she saw her husband
drown, and he was holding on to the baby.”
Once again, Darien marveled at Yvette’s resourcefulness. To invent
such a tale would ignite a great deal of sympathy and help.
He thanked his luck that he had not yet told his “lost fiancée” story,
for it clearly wouldn’t hold up in the wake of Yvette’s lie.
“She may be the family friend I’m seeking,” Darien told the
redhead. “I’d consider it a kindness if you told me where she is.”
The attendant bobbed a nod. A warm smile lifted the corners of
his clean-shaven mouth, making him appear even younger than
Russell’s earlier guess. “Nice to spread some good news for a
change. Wait here and I’ll ask somebody . . . What did you say your
name was?”
Darien shrugged, attempting for all that he was worth to appeal to
the attendant’s obvious good nature. “Couldn’t I just surprise her?
Upset as she must be, she might not wish to see anyone, but I’m certain
it will do her a world of good to encounter someone from home.”
The redhead brightened. “I suppose it would at that. Wait here for
just a minute. I see just the person who might know.”
The attendant turned and walked away while Darien worked hard
to ignore the moans coming from an open doorway, which made him
think about the man pinned beneath debris aboard the
Sultana.
How
must it have been to lie there, burning, to watch and feel death closing
in? Oddly, he felt nearly as much remorse for having left that man
than he had at having struck the woman for the lengths of wood. But
there was no reason to feel bad, was there? In both cases, hadn’t
circumstance demanded that he do what was needful to survive?
He heard Grandfather’s voice, deep and reassuring
“. . . the finest
Russell ever . . . destined for great things.”
But the memory twisted deep
inside him—a wormlike thread of doubt steeped in the old solace.
When he turned his back to the moaning, he saw Yvette—there
to avenge the murdered. Yvette with fire swirling in those tigress
eyes. His first instinct was to raise his arms to ward off the blows
of bony wings.
But reality carried away the last faint traces of the nightmare.
He saw her arm lying limp inside a sling, and her dress hung like
a castoff. Not even anger smoldered in her eyes, only defeat and
desolation.
Until she noticed him staring in her direction. Then anger sparked
in her expression, followed rapidly by fear. Before he could either
move toward her or shout, she spun on her heel and ran through the
same door she’d just entered.
He started after her, but a firm hand gripped his arm.
“Mrs. Annis’s room is this way,” the orderly told him.
Darien stammered at the interruption, “Wh-what?”
“Mrs. Annis. The lady that you asked about. She’s still awfully
distraught about her family, but—”
“What? That isn’t
her
. Not Mrs. Annis. My friend is someone else. I
have to go.” Darien knew the words were rushed and blunt, even
rude. But he had neither the time nor the desire to invent elaborate
excuses for this dolt.
Jerking free his arm, he followed Yvette out of the hospital’s front
door. He had to catch her before she managed to escape again.