Triumph

  “Why, she’s Jesse’s wife, is she?” a cavalryman asked. “Why, then, here’s to you, ma’am. Jesse saw fit to marry the lady, and she seems like a fine, fierce beauty to me. To Jesse’s wife!” he declared.

  The rest of the soldiers let out encouraging calls, clapped, and saluted her, appearing to be well entertained—and pleased with her show of courage. Flushing, she was tempted to bow, while at the same time, she wanted to run away. She’d been attacked for being a Southerner, then for trying to help blacks into the city—and then for her own Indian blood!

  “Sergeant Walker!” one of the men, an artillery colonel who had been leaning against an old oak, called out sharply, approaching the guard on duty. “Let the lady pass!”

  “Lady! But, sir—”

  “Sergeant, let the lady pass!”

  “But—”

  “Now!”

  Sydney met the colonel’s eyes. He looked fifty—like the darkees, he was probably twenty years younger. His hair was stone gray. His eyes were as old as the hills. She managed a small smile to him in acknowledgment.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  He bowed low to her. “Mrs. Halston, my pleasure.”

  She hurried swiftly back to her wagon, crawling up to take the reins.

  She felt incredibly weary—and confused. It didn’t help that Sissy was staring at her with pride. “My, my!” Sissy said softly. “It’s a Rebel Yank!”

  “I’m not a Rebel Yank!” Sydney lashed out. “Honestly, I wish you were my darkee! I’d skin your hide!” she threatened.

  Sissy broke into peals of laughter.

  “You made me a conspirator in stealing contraband!” Sydney charged her.

  Sissy shook her head. “No, Mrs. Halston, you just helped two human beings gain their freedom and their lives. I thank you with all my heart, and I know that God himself thanks you as well. Sydney, you were magnificent!”

  Sydney shook her head. “Sissy, I didn’t want to be magnificent! What I did was wrong, your tricking me was wrong—”

  “The end defends the means, Sydney—Machiavelli.”

  “What is a slave doing reading Machiavelli?” Sydney asked.

  “I was educated, Miss Sydney. Don’t you see—it’s all in the education.”

  Sydney shook her head, staring at Sissy. “Hundreds of people, thousands of people, have no education. Plantation slaves surely aren’t all like you, Sissy! What will they do, how will they manage? This war will leave a world destroyed. Farms will be ruined, people will be homeless, and when this fighting is over, new fighting will begin. Life will be horrible.”

  “But freedom is the first step!”

  “What is freedom if people starve?”

  “Freedom is not feeling the crack of a whip on your back, Miss Sydney. It’s knowing that your sons and daughters aren’t going to be sold off to a master in another state who may or may not be a good man. Freedom, Sydney, think about it. You knew prison. Isn’t freedom worth any cost?”

  Sissy pleaded so eloquently.

  Sydney shook her head slowly. “My God, Sissy, I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  Sissy smiled. “I still say thank you! And when Jesse hears about this—”

  “Oh, my God, don’t you dare tell Jesse!”

  “But—”

  “No! I mean it. I swore I wouldn’t be involved in any kind of espionage.”

  “But you just helped—”

  “Sissy, you must understand! We were behind Rebel lines. We could have been arrested, killed!”

  “You were determined and brave.”

  “Don’t you dare tell Jesse! You promise me!”

  Sissy reached out suddenly, touching a strand of Sydney’s deep auburn hair. “Soldiers watch you and waylay you, Miss Sydney, because you are beautiful.”

  “For a quarter-breed,” Sydney breathed through half-clenched teeth, and she was startled to realize the bitterness she had felt at the soldier’s remark. She had seldom felt the stigma of prejudice; her grandmother might have been a Seminole, but her grandfather had been a McKenzie, and though her parents had chosen to live deep in the unsettled south of the state, she had attended dinners and balls at her uncle’s house in Tampa, as well as those she’d been invited to throughout the state, and in her mother’s native South Carolina as well. She was a child of privilege—very rich, no matter what her bloodlines. No man had ever dared taunt her, not with her brothers and cousins. And yet, sometimes, she had heard whispers when she entered a room. Heads turned toward her ... men and women watched her, and sometimes they thought that it was such a pity that she should be “tainted” with Indian blood. She had never felt tainted—she had known nothing but love and pride from her grandmother’s people. Before this war between the states, she had determined that she would never play a marriage game—she would far rather become a reclusive, but educated and intriguing, old maid. If and when she married, she would marry for love, and love alone, and if society happened to be against that love—and she had foolishly fallen for a man too weak to defy society—then she would surely fall out of love as quickly as she had fallen into it.

  But then she had met Jesse, and he had found her background interesting, not tainted. He had fascinated, he had charmed ... but he had been the enemy, and he had betrayed.

  And still ...

  He had married her, and asked nothing of her. What came between them had nothing to do with color, race, or creed. It had simply been North and South.

  “Miss Sydney, you silly mostly white child. It’s because of all that you are that you’re as stunning as you are!” Sissy said, shaking her head. “And yet ...”

  “And yet what?”

  Sissy shrugged; but kept her eyes level on Sydney’s. “Well, there are whites, you know, who consider a man or woman black, no matter how pale that black may be. Great-grandmother, great-great-grandfather ... and you know, in your heart, you know, that there are lots and lots of slaves with the white blood of their masters running in their veins. But did you know, Miss Sydney, just how many whites consider an Indjun just as color tainted as a black man, and any amount of color tainting makes you just as colored.”

  “Sissy, you’re not going to get beneath my skin and change me into a rabble-rousing fool like Harriet Beecher Stowe because I have Indian blood!”

  Sissy shook her head again. “Sydney, I don’t want to change you into anything. I just want you to realize that the world can be a hard, wicked place.”

  “I know that.”

  Sissy turned toward the road and the night. “Jesse is a real cavalier. He sees people.” She turned to Sydney. “And he loves you.”

  “That’s why he prefers the battlefield to coming home,” Sydney murmured.

  “I fell in love with a white man once,” Sissy said quietly.

  She was being baited, Sydney knew. But she couldn’t help herself. “All right, Sissy. What happened.”

  “He lied and insisted he owned me, then he raped me, and we had a child.”

  “Sissy! I didn’t know you had a baby—”

  “I don’t have a baby anymore. It was a healthy boy, but before he was born, my white ‘owner’ fell out of lust with me. He sold the baby.”

  “Sissy, I’m so sorry—”

  “Don’t be. You see, that’s the world. He could lust for a Negroid woman, but certainly never, never marry her. Can you imagine, he sold his own child!”

  “No, I cannot imagine,” she said. “And yet, such things are true.”

  “Jesse married you. Just to help you, to keep your family safe, for God’s sake!”

  “I know that Sissy—”

  “He’d be very, very proud of you tonight.”

  “Sissy, don’t you even think about saying anything to Jesse. You don’t understand the promise I made. You must swear not to say anything to him.”

  “But—”

  “Swear!”

  Sissy sighed. “I promise, Mrs. Halston. I promise.”

  “Good!” Sydney said f
irmly. She cracked the whip over the backs of the mules once again. They were close to home.

  No, home was far, far away. Where it was warm. Where winter’s frost never seeped into the bones ...

  And yet, she was suddenly anxious for her home away from home.

  She wanted to crawl into darkness, away from everyone, and try to understand just what she was fighting for herself.

  Chapter 6

  HOME. TIA OPENED HER eyes, not quite sure what had awakened her.

  Sleeping was pure luxury. Her bed in her father’s house was imported, her pillows were of goose down, her sheets were soft cotton, and in the coolness of the night, the quilt that covered her was warm and encompassing. Far different from the thin camp bed she had made her own at her brother’s now constantly moving field hospital.

  She knew that what they saw of the war was nowhere like what occurred in other places; the skirmishes they saw couldn’t begin to be as severe as the fighting in the other areas. Casualty figures from battles fought across the South—and into Maryland and Pennsylvania—were staggering. Fifty thousand killed, wounded, missing, in a single day. Even seeing a battlefield so strewn could probably not even sink into the soul. Yet, no matter what the numbers, death was an individual thing, and she had watched men die, and each individual death had been a terrible thing. But others had lived, and that made the camp beds, the horrible food, the mosquitoes in summer and the damp cold in winter all bearable. She loved her brother; Julian was one of the best surgeons in the world, she was convinced. And from the beginning, she had wanted to come with him to his surgery. Her parents had never suggested that nursing in the wilds was not a suitable occupation for a lady—as had been the case with innumerable young women when the war had begun—but everyone in the household had teased her about the luxuries she would be leaving behind. She smiled, holding her pillow close to her chest. She had, indeed, shown them all. She might be an ivory-skinned “delicate little thing” to all appearances, but she had found her own inner strength serving in the field. She had gone from her down pillows to straw without a blink; she had bathed in cold springs—to tremendous ill effect, she might add!—she had stood by while wounded men had screamed in anguish, and she had never faltered or turned away when Julian had given his orders for help. She had stitched wounds, soaked up blood, cleaned out infected injuries—the stench of which had scarcely been bearable. She had done it all—forgoing all luxury, and maybe even proven something to herself. She had to admit, though, that at the beginning, it had been terrible. Far more terrible than she had ever imagined—and she had been sorely tempted to run home. She had never let it show.

  It was so good to be home—there was nowhere in the world like Cimarron. The plantation sat upon the river coming in from Tampa Bay. Winter could become chilly, but never deadly cold, and on mornings such as this, the breeze just touched the chintz curtains by the latticed door to the balcony that surrounded the house. The rear of the house faced the river; to the front was the grand entrance; to the east lay the sloping lawn and, down from it, a thick pine forest filled with lush hammocks and fresh water springs. It was as if life went on forever here as it had before. And yet ...

  There were changes, of course. Most of her father’s best horses were gone. Last night, though there was coffee in the house, they’d saved it and had a chicory brew after dinner. Candles were more carefully doled out; slivers of soap were collected to be molded again. Lying in bed, feeling the cool breeze slip through the latticed door, Tia felt her heart beat a little faster. Cimarron was strong. A little citadel unto itself. The house stood, the servants and workers remained, all was as it had been, except ... the war was slowly coming here, too. There was no deprivation yet as there had been elsewhere. All across the South, people had lost their homes to the invading armies, they’d been robbed, their possessions “confiscated.” Refugees roamed the larger cities; invading armies sometimes stripped properties of all available food and supplies, then burned homes and barns to the ground. Some officers, North and South, tried to stop the pillaging of their troops. Sometimes they were desperate to feed their men. No matter what the intent, with hungry armies to be fed, the land was stripped. And it was the women left behind, with the old and feeble, with little children, who often paid the price of war. Tia had heard it said that the war might have been over now if it weren’t for the patriotism of the women of the South, of their determination to accept any hardship. She wasn’t so certain. It was one thing to be full and warm and in good health and be patriotic; quite another to be starving and homeless, with a dream left in the ashes.

  It was especially good to come home now. Assisting Julian, when their hospital had remained in one place, had been one thing. She had felt strong, secure, and confident in what she was doing. She had even felt very mature—old!—as of late, with so many so very young new recruits joining the militia. But with the renewed interest recently shown the state by Yankee forces, situations were becoming very perilous. Julian had moved the surgery. And she had taken the injured and eventually—after being so rudely delayed—met up with Dixie’s troops. That wretched no-name man!

  Dixie’s men had delivered her safely home the previous afternoon. They’d been polite, courteous, and a pleasure to ride with. They were, she thought, the true backbone of the state, especially when so many regular troops were so constantly stripped from the state to go north. After Christmas, she was determined, she would join up with Julian again, wherever he was. His newly acquired wife, Rhiannon, was an excellent assistant, but she was expecting their first child any day now, and besides, any field hospital always needed whatever competent help could be had. But for now, home was good. A place to repair the wounds done to her confidence, convictions, and sense of security by that awful man.

  Tia clenched her teeth at the thought of him. While he hadn’t brought the full force of the Yankees down on Dixie, he had seen to it that the Yankee troops and supply wagon Dixie had intended to take had been reinforced. The Rebels were forced not only to forgo their plans to confiscate desperately needed supplies, but to run as well, since the Yankee forces guarding the supplies were so many, and so well armed.

  A twinge of uneasiness and guilt assailed her.

  It might have been worse. Much worse. Except that ...

  According to rumor, some of the Yankee troops had been led astray. Led down the wrong path by a vision suddenly appearing in the woods. All of Dixie’s troops had escaped and survived.

  The vision in the woods had disappeared, so it seemed. They had told her all about it late in the night when they had rejoined her and the injured men at their rendezvous point fifteen miles westward, on the old Indian trail leading to Tampa.

  There was a brief tapping at her door, then it swung open. “Good morning, dear!”

  Her mother, Tara, came sweeping into the room. She was tall and elegant and very blond; in her mid-forties now, her hair was still her crowning glory, without a strand of gray among the gold. Her smile could still light up a room, Tia thought, grinning herself while burrowing more deeply into the covers. Her mother looked fragile, but she was all steel inside. No matter what her thoughts on a subject, she could temper her words. Jarrett McKenzie’s determination to remain as neutral as he could in the war had been a difficult stand among his neighbors, but his wife supported him with total passion—and diplomacy. Each time one of her sons came home, she managed to keep the politics out of the matter of family love—quite a feat, since, throughout the country, some fathers and sons had sworn never to speak again for the stand taken by the other. Her nephews and nieces, ardent Rebels all, remained welcome in her home at any time. Injured soldiers, from either side, received the greatest care possible. Representatives from both armies came to Cimarron at times to negotiate various matters—prisoner exchanges, evacuations of newly occupied areas, surrenders, temporary truces.

  Tara pulled open the draperies, allowing the sun to flood into the room.

  “Mother, that’s cruel,” T
ia groaned, sinking more deeply beneath the covers and casting an arm over her eyes to shade them from the sudden light.

  “You’ve been sleeping nearly ten hours.”

  “But I’m home for Christmas!”

  “And you chose to go to war with your brother,” Tara reminded her. “You have no rank, no commission. No one pays you, and no one forces you to stay.”

  Tia sat up in the bed, staring at her mother, who had gone to throw open the latticed doors. The air that rushed in was cool. Tara seemed reflective, as if, looking out the window, she saw the past, and not the coolness of the winter’s day.

  “You didn’t stop me from going!” Tia reminded her, curious that her mother seemed so strange about the situation.

  But Tara turned to her then and smiled. “You made a choice, and I admire the choice you made. You’ve helped your brother tremendously; God knows how many lives you may have helped to save. But I’m still glad you’re home. Every time one of you leaves this house ... well, I am afraid I’ll never see you again. I hear the lists of the wounded and the dead, and ...”

  Tia jumped out of bed, running over to her mother, throwing her arms around her. “I’m certainly safe, Mother. And Julian is a surgeon—”

  “A reckless one! Your father and I are neither deaf—nor stupid. We hear what goes on. And even when Julian does remain in his field hospitals, Ian is out there ...”

  Out there on the wrong side, Tia thought. But she didn’t say anything. This was her father’s house. And she adored her brother, no matter what his personal ethics decreed he must do.

  “Oh, Mother, you mustn’t worry.”

  “And the sun shouldn’t rise,” Tara murmured, pulling away slightly, studying her daughter’s face. “You’re too thin.”

  “Which is good, since I’m short.”

  “Not short, darling, petite.”