***
While Katherine paused from her story and walked into the garden for a bit, I stayed curled up in my chair and imagined what his ride back to his quarters must have been like on that tenebrous night. Knowing Warren, I’ve often imagined that he was looking up into the clear night.
‘Dust motes with souls’ is how he described humanity, ‘floating through vastly cold stretches of space. Beings capable of lighting up our forms through feelings, emotions, and through our passions.’ Our passions.
When she returned I had to tell her.
“Kate, I was just thinking about this. Once Warren described what he thought passion was. He said that it was the place in each one of us that can drive away loneliness and fear. It’s the place where we connect with each other in reverence for life, expressed in joy; A place where we connect with our Selves as well. I like that. What do you think?”
“Sounds like your man,” she said. “He was a thinker, that one. I’ve known passion, but never thought about it like that. Yes sir, a thinker and a good man, indeed.”
Settling back into her chair, I poured her a bit more wine and she continued. “Clearly, he couldn’t risk visiting you. Yet his time to get you out of prison was dissolving. A private war continued to rage within him. He described it to me as ‘cannon fire pounding beneath his ribs’. Here’s why: he had to move out within the week and he knew that several days of preparation would consume him. He had to locate the meager rations that the southern troops needed to just survive, to endure. He had to find food from whatever farmers were still around to farm. You see Annie, his orders were to follow Antietam Creek, cross the Potomac, and resupply near the village of Sharpsburg. Yet, to leave Marsh Station and proximity to you at the prison meant that all could be lost. He felt that he might never see you again.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR