Swan's Way (22 page)

“Now, don’t jump to conclusions, Ginna. There’s nothing to worry about. He should be on the mend by tomorrow.”

“On the mend?”
Ginna’s voice went up an octave. “You mean, he’s hurt?”

With a sigh of resignation, Kirkwood realized he couldn’t keep this from her. The woman was too sharp for her own good. “Listen, Ginna, I’m going to tell you what happened. But I want you to promise me you will not get overwrought. I assure you, Neal will be fine in a day or two.”

“For heaven’s sake, just
tell me!”

“Neal’s been shot, but it isn’t serious. The bullet lodged in his right forearm. I removed it, and now he’s resting quietly. He’ll have a scar, nothing else to remind him of the episode.”

“Shot?
By whom?”

“We don’t know.”

“Wasn’t Neal able to tell you anything?”

“Only what he imagined happened.”

“What did he say?”

“That he came upon a Confederate cavalry unit. He claims one of the soldiers fired at him.”

“You don’t believe that?”

Kirkwood gave a grim chuckle. “Of course, I don’t believe that.”

Ginna’s mind was in chaos, but one thought stood out from the others. “You said you removed the bullet. What kind was it?”

Another deep sigh on the other end of the line. “A Minie ball,” he said, quickly and quietly.

“Then that proves Neal is telling the truth.”

“It doesn’t prove anything. How could such a fantastic story be true? There has to be another explanation.”

“I believe him.”

“Ginna, just let it go for now. Don’t worry about him. You get some rest. By the time next Monday rolls around, Neal will be as good as new.”

“I’m not waiting till next Monday. Tell Neal for me that I’ll see him tomorrow.”

Dr. Kirkwood was still pleading when Ginna hung up the phone.

She leaned back in her chair and took a deep breath. She was trembling all over.

“Neal, shot,”
she repeated, trying to make herself believe it. There was no doubt in her mind
which
cavalry unit he had stumbled upon. “Colonel Jedediah Swan’s men,” she assured herself. “Virginia’s father and brothers.”

In that instant she vowed to herself that she would go back in the past again. She had no choice. Tonight was proof that if she didn’t go back and set things right the ghosts of that other time would give them no peace. Not even in this time.

She closed her eyes, trying to relax, trying to tell herself that everything would be all right—eventually. All she had to do was correct the mistakes in that earlier time. Then, and only then, could she and Neal marry and have a happy life together.

Even as Neal lay dreaming of the war, Ginna joined him, slipping into sleep and back to the past without even realizing she had dozed off.

“Hell, yeah, I shot him!” Virginia’s brother Hollis proclaimed proudly. “I reckon I didn’t kill him, but I sure put a good hurtin’ on that damnyankee spy.”

“I heard the shot” Melora Swan said calmly. “I got my pistol out of the blanket chest and kept it next to me in bed all night.”

“I’m sorry we distressed you, my dear,” said Colonel Swan, contritely.

His wife patted his arm and smiled up at him.

Melora, Virginia, and Agnes, who was now great with child, had been delighted when their men rode in unexpectedly, only moments before. Now the women stood close, touching, patting, hugging their soldiers, trying to reassure themselves that they were not only alive, but well and uninjured.

“You’re all soaked to the skin. Why on earth did you camp out all night in the rain?” Melora demanded of her husband.

He chuckled and kissed her hand. “I figured, as dirty as we were after our long ride from Richmond, you’d be happier to see us if we spent a night getting washed down.”

“Besides, Ma,” Rodney added, beaming at his heavily pregnant wife, “we knew that blue-belly was out there sneaking around. We had to take care of him first, to protect you ladies.”

“I don’t see how one lone man could have been much of a threat to us,” Virginia argued. “We could have handled him without you all lifting a finger.”

All eyes turned to Virginia. They had hardly noticed her, in the excitement of their reunion. Rodney looked his sister up and down with more than a hint of disapproval in his gaze.

“How come you’re dressed like that, girl?”

Virginia hadn’t meant to let her father and brothers catch her this way. However, they had given the ladies at Swan’s Quarter no hint of their approach. She hadn’t had time to change.

“I decided it would be a good idea to let anyone passing by think that there’s a man on the premises.”

“Those
my
britches?” Rodney demanded.

Virginia blushed. “No. Yours were too big for me. These belong to Hampton.”

“Here now!” Her younger brother, one of the twins, stepped forward, looking both angry and embarrassed. “I don’t let no women wear my pants.”

“It was my idea, son,” Melora Swan interjected. “Your sister is dressed this way as much for her own protection as for ours. She is young, beautiful, and unmarried. A temptation to any soldier who happens by—Union or Confederate.”

Colonel Swan frowned down at his delicate-looking wife. “You’ve had many come this way?”

She nodded, primly, recalling the terror she had felt on some of those occasions, but successfully hiding it from her husband. “More than I can count. But you needn’t worry. Most of them are quite gentlemanly, no matter which side they’re fighting for. Still, there is always a chance of deserters accosting us. I won’t have Virginia put in such danger. She will dress as a man until this war is over.”

“Well, she makes a mighty handsome fellow,” Colonel Swan said, with a wink at his only daughter.

Rodney tightened his arms around Agnes’s slender shoulders. “Just so long as you don’t go putting my wife in trousers.”

Agnes giggled, embarrassed, as all eyes turned on her enormous belly. “Don’t be silly, Rod darlin’.
No
man would find me attractive, the way I look now.”

Rodney leaned down and whispered for her ears alone, “I do.
Mighty
attractive, honey bunch.”

Agnes giggled again and blushed all over. The others tried to ignore the sexual tension between Rodney and his bride. Virginia, however, found it impossible to suppress her envy. But for her father and brothers, she would be married to Channing now, perhaps carrying his child. The thought hurt down to her very soul.

Colonel Swan had brought a larder of confiscated victuals with him. Polly’s eyes grew big as melons to see so much food, after their meager rations of the past few months. Other troops from both sides had confiscated the contents of their smokehouse and decimated their chicken yard and pig stye.

“It’s been mighty lean pickings around here, of late. But, Colonel, sir, we gone eat tonight, shore enough,” the cook crowed, with glee.

And they did. They ate for hours, as Polly brought out dish after delicious dish of steaming food. Fried chicken, plump smoked ham, crisp cracklings, sweet potatoes bubbling in buttery caramel sauce, feather-light biscuits, and real coffee. Apple pie with a flaky crust topped off the feast.

As delicious as the meal was, Virginia could only pick at her food. Something was gnawing at her mind, something she desperately needed to talk about. A dream early that morning, just before she awoke, had convinced her that the time for action had come. It was late that night before Virginia had a chance to approach her father with her urgent request. Her mother had gone to their bedroom to prepare for her husband. Virginia found the colonel alone in the library, enjoying a brandy before bedtime.

“May I come in?” she asked from the door.

“By all means, my dear. And I must say, I like you better in that lovely gown than in Hampton’s britches. You truly are a beauty, Virginia.”

“Thank you, Father, but I didn’t come to coax compliments from you. There’s something else that I want, much more.”

“Name it, Virginia. If it is within my power, it will be yours.”

She sat primly on the very edge of the chair nearest her father’s, her back ramrod straight, her eyes locked on his face.

“I need a pass.”

The colonel frowned, not taking her meaning.

“A pass to get through the Confederate lines,” she explained. He started to speak, but she held up her hand for his silence. “Please, Father, hear me out.”

He nodded, but the pleasure in his countenance had changed to something quite different, much darker.

“I have waited and waited, but there has been no word from Channing all these months. I know that his troop has been involved in several major battles. I
must
reassure myself that he is well. My plan is to ride to Washington City. I’ve heard his company is encamped there. A Union officer, who passed this way last week, told me. I have to go to him, Father.”

“The hell, you say!” Jedediah Swan came half out of his chair and, in the process, tipped over his brandy. “I’ll have no daughter of mine riding about the countryside like a common camp follower.”

Virginia held her anger in check. How could he refuse her? Didn’t he understand about love and need and the pain of separation? Silently, she counted to ten before she allowed herself to reply.

“I have a feeling something has happened to Channing. I had a dream. I think he’s been shot.”

“A dream
. You women!” Colonel Swan scoffed. “If I had a Yankee greenback for every dream your mother has ever had, I’d be as rich as Midas. Dreams mean nothing!”

“This one was different, Father. It was strange. I saw Channing in the woods outside the house, but somehow he wasn’t the Channing I know. He was dressed differently. He wasn’t in uniform, but was wearing the oddest clothes I’ve ever seen. Suddenly, he came upon a group of soldiers. I heard a shot, saw a flash, then Channing called out to me. He was in pain, Father. He needs me. I know it! I
must
go to him.”

“Daughter, you’re just overwrought. Do you think Channing would want you putting yourself in such danger for his sake? I don’t believe so. Not if he truly loves you.”

“Do you think Mother would stay here, only to be safe, if she knew that you needed her?”

The colonel sighed deeply. His gaze focused on the dark brandy stain shining damply on the Turkish carpet at his feet. “Your mother, God bless her, is the bravest, most stubborn woman to ever walk the face of the earth.”

“And I am her daughter,” Virginia reminded him.

“Nevertheless, I won’t permit this.” He paused and shifted his gaze to Virginia’s face, staring deeply into her beautiful, innocent eyes. “This war is not the glorious adventure your brothers had imagined it would be. It’s mean and ugly and terrible, Virginia. The things I’ve seen …” His voice trailed off, as his mind seemed to wander back to distant battlefields. “I may never sleep nights again. I can’t let you see all that, daughter. Even if you got through to Washington and found Channing and returned home without incident, you would come back a changed person.”

“I’m willing to take that chance,” she said, quietly.

Just as softly, he answered, “But, you see, I am not. No, Virginia! I will
not
give you a pass, and I
forbid
you to leave Swan’s Quarter!”

The discussion was clearly at an end. Virginia rose, went dutifully to kiss her father’s cheek, then left the library, without speaking another word. She didn’t trust her voice. If she said so much as “good night” to her father, he would surely hear the defiance in her tone. A pass signed by Colonel Jedediah Swan would have eased her journey. But she could manage without it, and she would if she had to.

Virginia went straight to her room from the library, her mission clear in her mind. She couldn’t make her move as long as her father and brothers remained at Swan’s Quarter. But the minute they left, she would be ready to go, too.

Alone in her room, she devised a knapsack from a large bandanna, and stuffed it with the bare essentials. She would have to travel light, on horseback, and there was no telling how long she would be gone. Long after midnight, Virginia finally went to bed. She was trembling with fatigue, aching with anxiety. She only hoped she wouldn’t be too late. As much as she loved her father and brothers, she prayed that duty would call, and they would have to leave Swan’s Quarter shortly.

Her last waking thought was of Channing. With her eyes closed, she could see him lying somewhere far away, a bandage wrapped about his right arm.

“I’m coming, darling,” she whispered. “I won’t let you down. I love you with all my heart, Channing.”

One floor below and over a century into the future, Neal Frazier heard his beloved’s words. He moved on his bed and strained, trying to reach out to her. “Virginia, my dearest,” he moaned.

Big George, roused from sleep by Neal’s mumbled words, got up and tucked the covers around him. He stared down at Neal’s frowning face and twitching eyelids.

“You keep this up, buddy, and I’m gonna have to ask the doc to shoot you again with another sedative. You lay easy now, you hear?”

Far off, Channing McNeal heard a snatch of Big George’s words—spoken to him by a Rebel guard, he assumed. The phrase “shoot you again” came through, loud and clear. Channing forced himself to lie very still. He concentrated all his thoughts on Virginia—visualizing her lovely face, recalling the sweet softness of her lips, telling her silently, over and over again, how much he loved her and missed her and needed her.

Channing McNeal’s words reached Ginna Jones, who was drowsing on the sofa at the old parsonage and dreaming of him. She knew that he was wounded and that she must go to him. But, even in sleep, she realized she dared not make her move until Virginia Swan’s father and brothers rode back to the war.

“Channing,” she murmured in her dreamlike state, “I’m coming. Don’t worry, Neal, I love you and I always will. I’ll find you. We’ll be married. Everything will be all right. You’ll see. This war can’t last forever.”

Ginna woke up, just as she spoke the final sentence aloud. She knew immediately where she was—the parsonage. But it wasn’t the parsonage any longer.
Was it?
And she knew who she was—Virginia Swan. But she wasn’t Virginia any longer.
Was she?
Well, one thing at least was clear in her mind: She loved Neal Frazier as never before!