Triumph

  That was not all they were running out of. Toward the late afternoon, a man brought in with a broken arm told him that they’d run out of ammunition. His arm had been broken by the strike of a Yankee bayonet—he and the enemy had tried to beat one another to death. The arrival of a friend who had crushed the Yank’s skull had saved his own life.

  She listened, feeling very sick.

  Orderlies were drawn from the hospital to help as officers, and anyone available rode back and forth at utmost speed with supplies from a railcar held far to the rear of the line. Cartridges were carried back in hats, pockets, haversacks, and even the skirts of some of the other women assisting.

  New ammunition, and the last of the Southern troops held back at the line, arrived at the front nearly simultaneously.

  There was a mighty advance against the Federal line.

  Soon after, with night almost upon them, Federal wounded began to be brought in. The Yanks had been forced to leave them behind during their retreat.

  “We won! We won!”

  Across the field, the shout went up. Among the standing, there was a feeling of victory so great that it seemed like a cry upon the very wind. “We won, Florida won, the Yanks will not be taking Tallahassee, they’ll not be taking our state!”

  Bugles could be heard.

  Shots that signaled victory.

  “The battle has been won,” Julian said quietly. “Our night has just begun.”

  The battle could definitely be called a victory, but the fight wasn’t over. The Rebs were pressing the Union forces back, back. God knew how far they would follow; what territory they would gain.

  The night was horrible. With the fighting over; it was time to search the battlefield. While Julian remained in the surgery, Tia rode out with his orderlies, trying to find the living among the dead.

  “Miss Tia?”

  Liam, who had learned to ride with his one leg, was with her, ready to summon orderlies with stretchers and litters when they found men who could be saved.

  A remnant of the sun remained, as red as the blood that covered the ground.

  They dismounted and studied the uniforms on the corpses.

  “Mostly Yanks here,” Liam said.

  “Yes.” She turned to him. “I’m so afraid, Liam. Of who I will find.”

  “Your brother Ian isn’t here,” he said gently. “He was ordered to Virginia after Christmas.”

  “You’re sure? How do you know?”

  “We brought in a cavalryman Julian knew. He told us.”

  Tia suddenly saw a cavalry officer, lying facedown. He wore a navy frockcoat, and his hair was dark as pitch, straight, long ...

  “Oh, God!” She fell to her knees at his side.

  “Tia, I told you, Ian isn’t here.”

  Yes, but Taylor Douglas is! she screamed inwardly.

  She touched the man, carefully drawing him back toward her. He moaned. He lived. He had a bullet through his shoulder.

  He wasn’t Taylor.

  “We’ve got one to bring back!” she called to Liam. He nodded, and whistled for the men with the litters and stretchers. Tia moved on.

  And on.

  During the night, she still thought that she heard the sounds of moans and cries from the battlefield.

  She thought that she would hear them forever, for the rest of her life.

  During the next six days, the Confederate forces pushed the Union soldiers back to within twelve miles of Jacksonville. The battle had been a disaster for the Union.

  Yet the Confederate victory at Olustee Station did little to lighten the mood of the South.

  Supplies grew ever scarcer during the spring of 1864. Throughout the South, battles were being waged, and mostly lost. The Union grip was tightening; the Northern generals were considering new ways to tame their Southern counterparts. A “scorched earth” policy became popular—where Yankee armies went, nothing was left for the surviving civilians.

  In the weeks that followed the battle of Olustee, Tia could afford little concern for the rest of the Confederacy. Julian was left with the seriously injured to be tended.

  During the first few days after the battle, they moved their surgery to an old house at Lake City. Local matrons came to read to the soldiers, to bring whatever food treats they could improvise, and to write letters.

  A week after the battle, she and Julian were invited to dinner at the home of General Victor Roper, a septuagenarian who had served during the Mexican War, and a passionate secessionist. A number of officers still in the vicinity had been invited, militia and regular army. The local men brought their wives and daughters. To fill in for those men from other Southern regions, a number of young ladies from the nearby towns were present as well.

  It was the closest thing to an old-time Southern party that Tia had attended since the war began. She had been too tired at first to want to come, but Julian had convinced her.

  Raymond Weir was there.

  At first, she avoided him, but she was glad—after all she had seen on the battlefield—that he was alive. He and his militia troops had been involved at Olustee. His troops had been too far south to be called in for the battle, but he was there because he had ridden quickly northward in anticipation of trouble to follow.

  He was persistent, following her until she would listen to him. He apologized for the trouble at Christmas, telling her he was sorry to have ruined her Christmas.

  She accepted the apology on the surface.

  He did not say that he was sorry for threatening her father, or challenging Taylor Douglas. But to her, he was so earnest and sincere that she couldn’t help but forgive him, he seemed so desperate that she understand.

  There were musicians from the 2nd Corps of Engineers. Tia danced with her brother, with enlisted men and officers—and with Ray. She was touched again by his affection for her, but equally determined that this was not the right time for her own involvement. To her annoyance, she continued to wonder about Taylor Douglas, and pray that his had not been among the bodies at Olustee that she had not seen.

  “Marry me, Tia,” Raymond Weir said, looking at her gravely as they danced.

  “Raymond, do you think that my father would let me marry you right now?” she asked innocently.

  “You’re over twenty-one, Tia. You don’t share your father’s beliefs.”

  “I share his love,” she said softly.

  “If he understood what I felt for you, he might readily agree.”

  “I can’t marry until the war is over,” she said. “I have to work.”

  They came to a halt by a table laden with a punch bowl. He poured them both a glass, and looked at her gravely.

  “You shouldn’t be involved in such work, Tia. It isn’t fitting for a proper young woman.”

  Their hostess, Amelia Roper, a resplendent woman with a huge bosom and assumed dignity to match, stood by the table chatting with a young soldier—until she heard the comment. She tapped hex glasses on Tia’s arm and joined in, uninvited. “The colonel is quite right, my dear. The work you do is better managed by the orderlies—and by the injured. In Washington, they use the convalescing men to work in the hospitals. The amputees make useful nurses.”

  “There are never enough nurses. Especially here in Florida,” Tia said. “You know that our men are constantly drawn from the state to serve elsewhere. Even Julian, who has dedicated himself to his fellow Floridians, was ordered north last year. I believe I can be helpful.”

  “What are our men fighting for if not our Southern honor—and that of our Southern womanhood, Tia McKenzie?” Amelia demanded indignantly.

  “They are fighting—for us all,” Tia said, surprised by the attack on her effort. “And if they fight, then I feel that I must help as I may.”

  “If you were to marry me, Tia,” Ray said, “I would see to it that you were removed from the ugliness and indecency you endure for this passion to work with the wounded.”

  “Ray, I have said many times: it’s work I fee
l I must do. My father, mother, and brothers know what I do, and they are not appalled. They are proud of my commitment to life.”

  “Even your father and your oldest brother, dear?” Mrs. Roper said tartly. “I imagine they might be happier were you to cease work, and allow for more Confederate dead!”

  “No one wants men to die, Mrs. Roper.”

  “No? Well, it’s quite bad enough in the state as it is. Your father and brother aren’t the only traitors among us.”

  “Quite a number of people in the state were against secession, Mrs. Roper,” Tia reminded her.

  “Oh, I know! And some of our brightest military stars failed to see the error of their ways!” She shook her head, glancing at Raymond, and speaking bitterly. “My husband—a brilliant leader when he was on the field!—has studied the battle at Olustee carefully. Do you know who was one of the first cavalry officers on the field for the Yankees? Taylor Douglas! My God, but I remember when that man was a guest in my house. They say he moves like the devil, faster than the wind. He is a traitor to us now—a thorn in our side when he should have been a hero for the state.”

  Tia didn’t want to appear overly interested in Taylor, but she felt as if she were dying within herself, and needed what information she could gather.

  “I met Colonel Douglas just before Christmas, Mrs. Roper. He is actually kin to my uncle, my father’s brother. I hadn’t heard that he was at Olustee.”

  “Dead center of the battle, dear, leading troops out to the very first of the skirmishing and beyond. It’s a wonder he wasn’t killed.”

  Thank God.

  She almost said the words aloud, but realized that Ray Weir was watching her closely.

  “He led troops out—and wasn’t injured?”

  “Not by our men—or his own!” Mrs. Roper said with a sniff, then smiled. “Though I have heard the Yankees killed nearly as many of their own as they did Rebs! Young lady, don’t you go getting it into your head to tend to Yankee men! You will assuredly die with no proper husband!” With another sniff, she shook her head. “This war! It is amazing. The things going on ... have you heard of the new heroine being hailed by the soldiers? A woman dashing through the woods, leading the Yanks astray. In the buff, completely in the buff. The little slut! Godiva! They call her—Lady Godiva. Now, there’s a girl who will have no husband! There is war, and there is total indecency!”

  “Isn’t the greatest indecency of war seeing a young human body totally broken and bloodied and maimed? Isn’t the greatest horror the destruction of human lives, of dreams, families ... isn’t death the indecent tragedy of it all?” Tia queried, amazed at the tumult suddenly inside her.

  “A lack of honor is the greatest indecency! Honor is everything! What is life without honor, without society, without rules of what is proper and what is not? What do men fight for, if not their quality of life—and the honor and chastity and virtue of their womankind?” Amelia Roper demanded, and she waved her reading glasses in the air. “You remember that, young lady!”

  “Perhaps we can have honor—and compassion!” Tia said.

  Mrs. Roper let out another of her sniffs and turned her back on them.

  Ray shrugged to Tia. “Many, many people don’t approve of your activities.”

  For a moment, she froze. To which activities was he referring? Did he know about Godiva?

  No, Godiva was a story to them here, nothing more. She let go of the breath she had scarcely realized she had held, and answered.

  “I thank God, then, that it is only the approval of my own family that matters to me, for as I have said, they are proud of my work with my brother.”

  “Ah, Tia!” Ray took her hands. “I know that you care for me ... I feel it when we touch, I see it in your eyes. I wish I could make you see that wrong is just that—wrong. Your work is wrong, and Mrs. Roper is quite accurate in her assessment—many men would refuse to marry you, considering what you have seen and done entirely indecent. And you must realize ...” His voice tightened suddenly. “You must realize that your father is wrong. Very wrong.”

  She drew her hands from his. He spoke to her so earnestly. Her feelings for him were very confused. They had been different before the war. She had liked him ... she had been tempted. He had liked horses, riding, agriculture, good brandy, and even books. Something had changed with the war; she did care for him, but with a strange reserve. It was still hard to hurt him.

  It was made a bit easier, however, by some of the things that he said to her. She was defensive against any criticism of her father.

  “If you find my father a fool and me indecent, it’s amazing that you would marry me.”

  “Ah!” he said softly. “But I love you. All men might not. And,” he admitted grudgingly, “I know that there are other women working with the wounded. Few of them, though, hold your place in society.”

  “My father is a man who taught me to respect other men and women for what they do, and how they behave—not how much money or property they possess. Perhaps that’s because he was raised by a Seminole woman, my half-breed uncle’s mother,” she said, the words far too pleasant to convey the reproach and anger she was feeling.

  “Your uncle managed to overcome his birth—”

  “My uncle is proud of his birth.”

  “Tia! The Seminole Wars are over, and I don’t care to fight them again with you here and now; there are other matters at hand—”

  “Just think! Marry me, and you’ll be cousin-in-law to redmen yourself!”

  “Tia, I will tolerate many things for you.”

  “Tolerate,” she mused.

  “I believe you have feelings for me as well. There is no need for you to die an old maid. Perhaps what you do is not quite decent, but at least you are not a whore such as that woman the men are all cheering as such a great Rebel—that—that Godiva creature Mrs. Roper was talking about. She has been everywhere, so it is said, leading dozens and dozens of Yankees to their doom.”

  A gross exaggeration! Tia thought.

  She longed to slap Ray—then her anger faded. The things he said were things that he had been taught! And there was nowhere in him where he might open his heart and mind to new thoughts, or to understanding ...

  “If I do not marry, I will not consider my life a dismal waste. And I would be loathe to marry a man who did not love me under any circumstances. I appreciate your kindness, that you would love me enough to marry me despite my tarnished character. But you have your beliefs, Ray, I have mine—”

  “Do they really matter between a man and a woman? Think about it! Marry me.”

  “I must refuse you. The war does matter. You can see that, surely.”

  “Perhaps. Yet still, I must ask each time I see you! And if ever you need me, want me ... you only need to come to me.”

  “Thank you. But ... you must excuse me—I see my brother waving to me.”

  She fled from him, hurrying to Julian—who had not been summoning her. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I have been hearing about my indecency.”

  Julian grinned. “The old biddies! What you do is good work, Tia. You save lives. Don’t let anyone ever tell you differently.”

  “Thank you, Julian.”

  “My pleasure. Are you tiring of life here in this bed of good and decent society?”

  “Tonight, yes.”

  “Good. I’m ready to start back for our old grounds outside of St. Augustine. I want to take some of the wounded to convalesce in better circumstances. There are too many wounded here, and not too many admirable men and women to look after them.”

  “I’m definitely ready!”

  God, yes, she was ready.

  Chapter 12

  SHE COULD SEE THE child, a small child, with a quick, mischievous grin, charming, delightful. A handsome little fellow, dark-haired, with a will of his own, and a way of behaving badly in so sweet a manner that he managed to get away with quite a lot. He was playing, as children were wont to do.


  The dream was murky, as if there were a fog in the bedroom where the child played. There was an open doorway, leading out to the balcony. There were other children, but she couldn’t really see them ... there was the fog, of course, but more. The little boy was the focus of the dream, and so she could see him clearly. He had a dimple ...

  There was a balcony. He crawled upon the railing ...

  “No! No!”

  She tossed in her sleep, trying to tell him, trying to stop him. “No, don’t do it, oh, God, please, no, no ...”

  And then he was falling, falling, falling ...

  “Rhiannon! Rhiannon! Wake up!” She felt gentle hands on her shoulders, and looked into the concerned, beautiful blue eyes of her mother-in-law.

  She jerked up, petrified, terrified. Where was she?

  Julian’s house, safe in the haven of Cimarron, though Julian was far away. Despatches had already crossed the state; she knew that her husband was safe, that Tia was safe. In his personal letter to her, Julian had sounded very weary, not certain if he cared whether the South won the war anymore. The flow of injured at Olustee Station had seemed endless, almost as bad as when he had been serving with the Army of Northern Virginia, and by sheer numbers of combatants, the battles had been horror-filled from the start. But it was over, Julian was well, her sister-in-law was fine as well, and she was here, recovering as she must, away from Julian, because of their infant son, a Christmas present unlike any she might have imagined. A gift of life in the midst of so much death!

  “Conar!” Rhiannon shrieked, leaping from her husband’s bed. Heedless of her concerned mother-in-law, she flew to the wicker bassinet where the baby slept. Too panicked to leave him at peace, she swept him into her arms. So brusquely awakened, he started to cry.

  “Rhiannon, you’re shaking. Let me take him from you,” Tara McKenzie said softly.

  Rhiannon looked from the baby in her arms to Tara, then handed the baby over and buried her face in her hands.

  “It was a dream ...”

  “About the baby?”

  “Yes ...” she said, then hesitated. She sat on the bed, and Tara sat beside her, soothing the baby and still managing to show her concern for Rhiannon.