Kary, Elizabeth (29 page)

If
the men were only wounded, they might well be very dangerous, but Hayes was not
used to thinking in terms of survival. Slowly he approached the leader of the
patrol. The man was where he had fallen, with Nathan's bullet through his
chest. Moving to examine the three men he had shot himself was difficult but
necessary. The first still hung in the saddle, though he was clearly dead. The
second lay sprawled in the bloodstained dust, his head half blown away. Hayes
swallowed hard and approached the remaining man. He lay on his side, and Hayes
pulled gingerly at his shoulder.

The
last Confederate rolled onto his back, and as he did, his hand came up filled
with a cocked pistol that he coolly leveled at Banister. For an instant a
century long, Hayes watched the hatred and pain in the other man's face, seeing
his desire to avenge the death of his comrades. This trooper was hardly more
than a boy, yet his murderous intensity was ancient and deadly. His finger
tightened around the trigger, and Hayes's chest contracted in anticipation of
the bullet tearing through it. But though the Rebel pulled his trigger, the gun
did not fire, and it was Hayes's shot instead that echoed in the clearing.

As
the sound faded, so did the light in the young man's eyes: surprise giving way
to confusion, then to a penetrating introspection that slowly dimmed to
nothingness. As Hayes watched the Confederate's passage from life to death, the
realization of his own part in the process washed over him in a debilitating
tide. The sunlit clearing spun dizzily around him, and he fought an almost
overwhelming urge to be sick.

It
was Nathan Travis's need for care and the danger they were facing that forced
Hayes into action. Using techniques he had learned after the battle at Fort
Donelson, he bandaged Nathan's wound. The ball had passed completely through
his shoulder, and Hayes hurried Travis onto his horse as soon as the bleeding
was under control.

With
the skirmish in the clearing, their welfare had suddenly become Hayes's
responsibility, and he did not welcome the new role he was expected to play.
Travis had a natural instinct for survival that Hayes did not, but he used the
things the other man had taught him to set a course back toward the Union
lines. They had finished their work for Pincheon, and there was little more
required to them but to turn their information over to their contact on General
Grant's staff.

Their
mission had been successful, and Hayes was certain that their information would
do a great deal to augment Grant's intelligence. There were indeed Confederates
gathering at Corinth: an army of nearly forty thousand men under Albert Sidney
Johnston. With him were Beauregard, the hero of Fort Sumter and Bull Run,
Generals Braxton Bragg, Leonidas Polk, William Hardee, and their massed armies.
The Confederates were preparing to defend with all their strength the vital
railway that ran through the sleepy Southern town. But would they fortify
Corinth and wait for the inevitable Federal attack, or would they launch an
offensive of their own before Carlos Buell's army from Nashville could
rendezvous with Grant? Already the Union forces were threatening Corinth,
bivouacked in the woods only twenty-two miles away. Might it not be better for
the men under the Confederate command to take advantage of Grant's limited
strength and attack before Buell arrived?

They
were questions Hayes was not prepared to answer. He was no military tactician,
nor was he cut out to be a spy, regardless of what Pincheon thought. He was an
engineer, more at home with a steamship's plans and construction than the
offensives in a war. And with a single-minded desperation he longed for the
familiarity and safety of his office in St. Louis.

For
most of the afternoon Nathan Travis was weak but lucid, clinging to his horse
with singular tenacity, but by nightfall a fever had come upon him. As they
moved stealthily through the dark, he muttered incoherently, his eyes glassy
and vacant. Though Hayes knew Travis needed rest, he pressed on, wanting to put
as many miles between them and the Confederates as possible before they were
forced to stop.

As
Hayes picked their way through the forest and across roughened farmer's fields,
he let himself think for the first time about what had happened in the
clearing. His perceptions of the incident were astonishingly clear: the shock
of being under fire, the moment of paralyzing fear, and then the spark of
ruthless anger running through him, urging him to action. Caught up in those
fierce, uncontrolled emotions he had killed three men. He had taken human life!
With what realization, nausea clawed at his throat,
but he
stubbornly fought it down. He accepted the spontaneity of the deed, the need to
kill or be killed, but he also sought to understand the scope and effect of his
mindless actions. Hayes considered himself a supremely rational man, yet it had
taken no conscious thought or consideration to deprive another man of life. He
had done it swiftly, casually, callously, and he was appalled by what he'd
done. It was as if someone else had pulled the trigger, some ruthless, violent
stranger had aimed and fired his gun. The act had been sudden, cold-blooded,
irrevocable, and Hayes was stunned that danger could have unleashed this
unsuspected facet of his personality.

Yet,
at the same time, he was discovering a raw, unquenchable will to survive
stirring inside him. It was a will that made him feel strong, resilient, and
vitally alive. It negated all his feelings of horror or responsibility. His
actions this afternoon had freed him from any doubts about his courage, but
they had also bound him with the understanding of the terrible power for life
or death he held within his hands.

Travis
began to murmur vague requests for water, and Hayes realized that he must stop
to see to Nathan's needs. Food and a chance to rest would do them both good, he
reasoned, so Hayes followed the sound of rippling water through the forest and
made camp beside a stream. He dared not light a fire for fear that there were
enemy nearby, but he took a bit of the johnnycake they had made at breakfast
and forced Travis to eat, washing the coarse bread down with water. Before
rolling the other man in both their blankets, he checked the wound for further
bleeding and sponged Nathan's burning face and chest. By tomorrow they would
reach the Union lines, and Travis would get the kind of medical attention Hayes
could not provide, but for now he had made the other man comfortable.

Nathan
drifted into an uneasy sleep, and Hayes propped himself up against a tree to
watch over him. In the loneliness of the seemingly endless night, when the man
beside him muttered in delirium and his own thoughts were hardly less confused,
Hayes's mind was filled with visions of Leigh: Leigh with holly woven through
her mahogany hair, dancing in his arms; Leigh teasing and laughing as they
stood together waiting for the horsecar; Leigh flushed and willing beneath him
the single time he had made love to her. During the past month, he had missed
Leigh desperately, but she had cut herself off from him completely by refusing
involvement in the hospital-ship project.

In
the cold, wet, lonely night, Hayes readily acknowledged his need for her. He
wanted her beside him always, and he once more searched his mind for a way to
make her his wife. Somehow just the sight of her and the sound of her voice had
the power to soothe him. And, dear God, how desperately he wanted and needed to
be soothed!

He
could not tell her what had happened today. She would understand neither the
events that led him to take a life, nor his feelings about what had happened.
But Leigh did have the power to give him comfort and succor; Leigh alone could
offer rest to his weary soul. In the darkness, the tension of the past days
overwhelmed Hayes, and in the somnolent world of wishes granted Leigh came to
comfort him.

***

April 4, 1862—St. Louis, Missouri

Althea
Pennington stabbed her needle into the rough cotton fabric, letting the shirt
she was sewing absorb the brunt of her frustrations. She was known for her
ability with a needle, for her intricate embroidery and the delicate tatted
lace that spilled from her busy fingers like strings of gossamer snowflakes.
She wasn't at her best on such mundane things, but hundreds of these wretched
muslin shirts were needed for the sick and wounded in the hospitals and
convalescent camps that surrounded the city. At least it was a chance to be
useful, she rationalized as she adjusted her thimble, though she was at a loss
to explain why she was doing anything at all to support a war she could not
condone. She hated every aspect of this conflict and resented the changes it
had wrought in her life.

She
supposed she resented the change in her marriage most: that Horace no longer
had time or patience for her, that during the few precious hours he was in St.
Louis he was busy with political meetings or preoccupied with business
concerns. She also despised the part he had elected to play in the war. It was
bad enough that he believed in Lincoln and in preserving the Union, but to
actually involve himself in procuring supplies for an army that was moving
deeper and deeper into the heart of her homeland was truly intolerable. Nor was
she pleased that his job entailed prolonged visits to central Missouri, where
hostilities between the North and South raged unresolved. Conditions in the
city were bad enough without venturing into the lawless no-man's-land that the
western counties had become. His was a foolish and dangerous occupation, in
addition to being one of which she heartily disapproved.

Of
course, animosity was rife within the city, too. Northern and Southern
supporters no longer spoke when they passed in the streets, and the town was
filled to overflowing with refugees from the West. The influx of Federal
supporters driven from their homes by Rebel marauders had grown so large that
General Halleck had ordered a levy paid by the most vocal Confederate families
to help support the homeless. Of course, the people involved had refused to pay
such an unfair tax, so their household goods were confiscated and sold at
public auction to pay what they owed. Because of Horace's support of the Union,
the Penningtons had not been affected, but the tax and confiscation had given
Althea and her husband one more thing to argue about when they were together.

How
things had come to this, Althea could not say, and the estrangement from Horace
made her sick at heart. Their marriage had always been a volatile one, but
before, the differences had been fleeting: loudly argued, then swiftly
forgotten. This time, it was well over a year since they had spoken a civil
word to each other or shared a bed. It was no wonder that when Horace was home,
hostility hung in the air with the silent menace of an approaching storm.
Sighing, Althea set her sewing aside. She still loved her husband deeply, but
it had been a very long time since he had made her happy. And she was beginning
to realize that her discontent ran far deeper than the war.

Listlessly
she rose and took a turn around the parlor, pausing at the window to look up
and down the street. The house was quiet at this hour in the afternoon with
Horace downtown seeing to his business, Leigh away on a trip with Dr. Phillips
for the Sanitary Commission, and the servants going on about their business at
the other end of the house. It was quiet and far too conducive to reflecting on
things that Althea preferred to ignore. Still dark, oppressive thoughts
assailed her.

She
was worried about Leigh. Her daughter had changed dramatically since the tragic
news of Lucas Hale's death had reached them, and she was working far too hard
at the hospital. Leigh had even begun to put in some time at the Western
Sanitary Commission's busy offices. Though Althea could not help but envy her
sense of accomplishment, there was no respite from the duty that seemed to
drive her. Leigh was submerging her grief over Lucas in the grueling hours she
worked. But in spite of her feelings for her fiancé, this was no way for a
beautiful girl of twenty-three to behave.

Althea
would not have been so concerned about her daughter if Leigh had at least taken
an interest in the parties and galas that were being given to raise money for
both Union and Confederate causes. Though both Althea and Aaron Crawford had
tried to convince her to attend, Leigh would not stir. It was as if she were
trying to cut herself off from anything that would take her into public life,
anything that would bring her into contact with eligible men. She had even
refused to become involved with the Sanitary Commission's efforts to outfit a
hospital ship, though any other time Leigh would have been wild to work on such
a venture. Althea could not imagine what ailed her daughter. Was Leigh
condemned to be a spinster because of Lucas's death? Other women were widows
and then brides again in shockingly short times. Why wouldn't Leigh even
entertain the thought of seeing men beyond her work at the hospital? Even a
marriage like the one Althea was enduring with Horace was better than being
alone.

Frowning,
she drifted back to her chair and reluctantly picked up her sewing. She only
needed three more of these miserable shirts to complete the even dozen she had promised
to have ready by Saturday. But, good heavens, how she hated the job!

It
was late afternoon when Althea heard someone come to the front door. She
listened carefully to the voices in the corridor, thankful for the diversion.
Through the heavy double panels that separated the parlor from the hallway, she
could just barely discern the deepness of a man's voice, and she wondered who
it was. Moments later a maid appeared to appease Althea's curiosity. Putting
down her needle, she glanced at the calling card on the silver card tray. In beautifully
embellished script was a name she had not heard for several months. "Mr.
Hayes Banister."