He rose. “You’re all set up to get some sleep next to Rachel.”
She nodded, but then suddenly lurched away from him, stumbling against a tree. She reached out a hand, steadying herself; she leaned over and was sick.
“Rhiannon—”
“Stay away from me,” she cried, trying to move more deeply into the foliage.
“Rhiannon, let me help you—”
“No!”
But he followed her, and when she doubled over again, retching in dry heaves, he put an arm around her for support. She pulled away and stumbled back toward the water. She fell to her knees and drenched her face, throat, and hands. She remained on her knees, not moving but shaking violently.
“I’ll be right back,” he told her hoarsely.
He strode to the chickee where he’d lain their blankets, hiked himself up. Rachel was asleep already. He took Rhiannon’s blanket and strode back to the water. He swept it around her and lifted her up and into his arms. She didn’t have the strength to stop him. He had carried her a few feet from the stream, toward the chickee, when her hand fell against his chest.
“No!”
“I’m just taking you to the chickee—”
“No, please, don’t go near Rachel.”
He paused, standing very still. She didn’t want Rachel to see the seriousness of her addiction. He turned and walked back toward a clearing blanketed with pine needles that was but a few feet from the stream. Using a tree for leverage, he sank down with her in his arms, keeping the blanket wrapped tightly around her. It was a beautiful night, warm, not hot, the air touched with a pleasant, caressing breeze.
Her teeth were chattering, but she looked up at him, making a feeble effort to free herself from the bonds of his arms. “You need to ... let me go,” she whispered miserably.
“I’m trying to warm you.”
“I’m ... all right.”
“The hell you are.”
“I may be sick again.”
“You may.”
“I don’t want you to see me ... like this.”
“I’m a doctor; your condition isn’t something I haven’t seen before.”
“My condition—”
“Withdrawal, Rhiannon. From your opiates.”
“I’m not withdrawing from anything—”
“You are. And you know it.”
“Then ...” she began, then hesitated, clenching her teeth for a moment. “Let me have something, please, just a touch of laudanum.”
“No.”
“I can’t stand this.”
“You’re going to have to.”
“My stomach keeps knotting. You don’t have to feel responsible for me. I knew ... I know what I’m doing.”
“Oh, yeah, you know.”
“Please ... I’ll wind up throwing up all over you.”
“It’s happened to me before.”
She shivered violently. “This is awful—”
“Yes, it is. And you’re going to suffer tonight. I warned you that you would. But I told you as well, I’ve been through it.”
“Not with me!” she whispered. Her eyes touched his desperately. Such startlingly beautiful eyes. So brilliant, so vividly colored, against her ghostly pale features. She wanted so badly to escape him, but hadn’t the strength of a kitten at the moment. She closed her eyes again, and he tightened his hold on her, cradling her shaking body against his.
“I can’t bear this!” she whispered.
“You can.”
“I’m so cold.”
“I’ll keep you warm.”
“No, you’re the enemy, please ...”
“You’re damned right. What an enemy! I’m—”
“Something, give me something, let me withdraw slowly, surely—”
“Rhiannon, one night will be bad. You’ll have bad times after as well, but this will be the worst of it. I can get you through this.”
Her eyes closed. “I’m going to die.”
“No, you’re not. I won’t let you.”
“Please ...”
He wasn’t quite sure as to what her please referred to—if she wanted to die, or if she wanted him to stop the pain. He couldn’t do that; he could only do his best to help her make it through the night.
She started shaking with greater violence. He held her more tightly. He cradled her head against his chest and kept telling her that she would make it. She could make it, she could bear it, and she would ...
Sometime during the night she drifted to sleep. She woke in another spasm of shudders and he cradled her to his chest, talking her down again.
She lay quiet. He brushed her cheek with his knuckles. It looked as if she was regaining a bit of color. She moved in his arms. For the moment her violent shivering had ceased.
She opened her eyes and stared up at him. “Why ... why are you doing this ... to me?” she whispered.
“To you?”
She hesitated a long time, staring at him. “For me,” she said then.
He smiled slowly, wondering why himself. She was an enemy. But she was different; a witch, with a talent. A talent that needed to be used, he thought.
And yet it was more.
He arched a brow, starting to speak, then hesitated, a slight smile curving his lips. He might have told her that she was simply too beautiful to let die, that he knew her too intimately to let her go. But he refrained. She was really suffering. It would have been too cruel at the moment.
“Why?” she whispered softly again.
He refrained from any biting comment.
“I’m a doctor,” he told her. “I can’t let anyone, man or woman, soldier or civilian, throw his or her life away.”
“I wasn’t dying—”
“Yes, you were.”
Her eyes closed again. “I still hate all Rebels, you know,” she said softly.
“Well, that’s a sentiment shared by many, I imagine,” he said, “though, frankly, at this moment ...”
“What?”
“I just hate the war,” he said.
She clenched her teeth. “It’s starting again,” she whispered miserably. “The shaking, the cold ...”
“It’s all right. I promise you, I’ll hold you through the night. I’ll keep you warm.”
She closed her eyes. Tears trickled from beneath them. “I can’t stand that you’re seeing me so ... I can’t stand anyone seeing me so. If you could just let me have a bit of laudanum ...”
“No.”
“I can’t do this.”
“You have to do this.”
He cradled her more closely against him. “It will be all right,” he told her. “It will be all right.”
When it was very late, she slept at last. At first she continued to shiver and shake in her sleep. And finally, toward the morning, she began to breathe evenly.
A touch of pink came to her cheeks.
She slept peacefully, her head against his shoulder, her fingers resting on his chest.
It wasn’t over. She would have more bad episodes. But she had weathered the worst.
“Is Rhiannon all right?” a soft voice asked.
Julian awoke with a start, unnerved, feeling a spike of panic. He’d never been forced to run as his uncle had, nor was he part Seminole like his cousins, but he’d spent enough summers with them to have learned that the man on guard never allowed himself to fall into a deep sleep. He was usually good, damned good. And hell, he’d been in this war long enough to learn to awaken at the first rustle of leaves, a shift in the air. He should have been able to awake instantly at the sound of footsteps approaching them.
He hadn’t. He’d been sleeping soundly, like a dead man, in a way he hadn’t slept in years.
Rachel, wide-eyed with concern, was staring down at him. He straightened, feeling Rhiannon stirring in his arms. She awoke, her eyes touched his, huge and vividly green, as she too awoke in disorientation.
“Rhiannon?” Rachel said.
“She’s fine,” Julian sai
d curtly, rising, drawing Rhiannon to her feet as well. “Rhiannon had a touch of fever,” he lied to Rachel. “She had a rough night. It’s not all over, but the going is much easier from here on out.”
She stared back at him, not disputing him, but neither did it seem she much appreciated his covering for her.
“Thank God that we’re traveling with a doctor!” Rachel said lightly. “Especially since we’re all used to Rhiannon curing everything ... it’s tough when she’s the sick one. But are you really all right? Rhiannon, you do still look very pale.”
“Yes, thank God we’re traveling with a doctor,” Rhiannon murmured dryly. “I’m fine, or I will be,” she assured Rachel, trying to smooth back a lock of straying hair. “I need some water and ... Rachel, we brought coffee, right? Mammy Nor sent coffee along, didn’t she?”
Rachel nodded, looking at Julian and smiling happily. “Real coffee,” she told him.
Coffee was getting harder and harder to come by in the South. People were brewing blackberry leaves most of the time for tea, and coffee usually meant a brew of burnt chicory.
“Real coffee. That sounds wonderful. I’ll see to the horses and leave you ladies to your privacy,” Julian told them.
“And breakfast!” Rachel called after him. “We’ll get some breakfast made for you, too.”
“Good. Thanks,” he said.
“We’ll get you stronger looking, just like your brother,” Rachel added.
He’d been striding toward the horses; he stopped and turned back. “My brother looks stronger?” he inquired, his indignity only somewhat feigned.
Rachel covered her mouth with a hand, holding back a laugh. “I’m sorry ... not stronger, I mean ... he’s just ... healthier looking!”
He wagged a finger at her. “Don’t be fooled, young lady. Appearances can be very deceiving!”
“That’s right, Rachel,” Rhiannon said quietly. “Rebs tend to be lean, hungry—and very dangerous. You seem to be forgetting that fact far too easily.”
Julian met her cool gaze. “Danger comes in many guises, doesn’t it?” he asked softly. Then he added to Rachel, “Whatever you’ve brought for breakfast, I will heartily enjoy. Real coffee is always a treat these days. Thank you.”
He turned determinedly and strode out of the copse area to the spot where he’d tethered the horses. He found himself grateful for the lush grasses around them. The horses would need sustenance today.
To give the women time alone, he walked the horses some distance down a trail before turning in toward the stream again. There, standing in water that rose midway along his boots, he allowed the horses to drink their fill. As he did so, he was surprised to realize that although he was downstream, he could hear Rhiannon and Rachel talking. He should move, he thought, but then he smiled, curious despite the fact that he had been raised to have better manners.
“Don’t dawdle, Rachel,” Rhiannon said. “Let’s get moving, let’s get breakfast on—”
“My goodness!” Rachel said cheerfully. “It sounds as if you’re eager to reach the Rebel camp!”
“Don’t be absurd, I just don’t want ... to stay here. I’m restless, I suppose.”
“You don’t look well at all.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not, you’re pale, trembling, fragile—”
“Trust me, Rachel,” Rhiannon said impatiently, “I am not fragile.”
“It’s so good that we’re with a doctor.”
“A Rebel doctor.”
“I don’t care. He’s wonderful.”
Julian patted the bay, grinning slightly. He’d known he’d like Rachel from the start.
“He’s a Rebel, Rachel.” Julian’s smile faded, hearing the hard edge in her voice. “He is part of the army that killed my husband—your cousin—and thousands upon thousands of other good men.”
“He has to be a decent man. Look how he has cared for us. I am sincerely glad that he wasn’t captured or injured when you summoned the Yanks to slaughter them all.”
“Rachel! I didn’t want anyone slaughtered! I wanted them captured—”
“He’s been good to you. He took care of you last night when you were sick.”
There was a long silence. “He’s a doctor. He’s sworn to take care of people who are sick.”
“He took care of you,” Rachel repeated stubbornly.
“He’s the enemy.”
“Everyone around us is the enemy! They consider us traitors around here, remember?”
“Just because so many others are wrong or misguided does not mean that we should be wrong as well. Slavery is wrong, owning people is wrong—”
“And many Southerners don’t own slaves. I heard that General Lee had already made plans to free all of his slaves before the war began.”
“To secede from the Union is wrong—”
“It will only be wrong if the South loses,” Rachel countered. “Some people thought it was wrong when the Colonies broke away from Great Britain! And then, it was all a big headache for our founding fathers—thirteen clocks had to chime as one, thirteen states. Each different, each wanting the right to make its own laws, what was right for the people of that state—”
“Rachel!”
“Well, that’s history—”
“And history is usually written by the winner. And in this, trust me, eventually, the Union will prevail.”
“Rhiannon, you have to see things from both sides. You usually do, you’re usually compassionate—”
“I’m sorry. Maybe, since Richard was killed, I’m simply out of compassion.”
“Thank God, then, that your doctor isn’t.”
“He is a Rebel,” Rhiannon said heatedly, “and if the opportunity arises again, I will summon Yanks to try to take him—dead or alive.”
Julian heard a splashing sound. Rhiannon had turned away, dousing herself in more water, he thought.
“I think you’re being awful and hateful!”
More splashing. Rachel had followed her.
“Rachel—”
“There’s something you can’t see, you won’t see. He isn’t horrible, he’s helping you—I think you’re afraid of him because he’s a Rebel and you can’t quite hate him. Or maybe you actually do see something in the future between you two, maybe you’re so afraid that—”
“Rachel, I see nothing! Nothing at all except ...”
“Except what?”
“Blood. More and more bloodshed,” Rhiannon said wearily. “Now leave me alone, please. Is your coffee ready? I would dearly love a cup. And the bacon smells wonderful.” She hesitated, her voice softened. “Your Reb colonel will be pleased. What a lovely meal you’ve made.”
Julian could smell the bacon then. And it was good, causing a tightening in his stomach that was almost painful. Bacon. Of course. Delicious cooked food ...
It wasn’t the bacon. It had been the coldness in Rhiannon’s tone. The promise that this was war, and it never ended.
How strange. He was a good distance away, hearing them only. But he felt as if he had seen her face as she spoke. As if he could see the ice in her beautiful eyes. What a difference day could bring. He could remember her anguish last night. The tortured look in her eyes then. The delicate, yes fragile, beauty of her face. Even the vulnerability, the trust, if only for a matter of minutes. And her voice then, so soft ... I don’t want you to see me like this ...
But that had been the night. And day had come.
So she’d turn him in if given the chance.
He’d damned well see to it that she never got that chance.
Chapter 7
“CAPTAIN MCKENZIE?”
Brent McKenzie, field surgeon with Longstreet’s division of the Army of Northern Virginia, had been bent over his camp desk, examining his records of sick and injured men treated on the field, returned to duty, sent to local hospitals—or buried on site or returned in pine boxes to their families.
He looked up as his name was called.
br /> Colonel Samuel Wager, an adjutant to Surgeon L. Guild, medical director in the field of the same troops, was standing at the A-line entrance to Brent’s field canvas office and quarters. Brent started to rise, but Wager waved a hand. He entered the tent and took a seat in the folding camp chair in front of Brent’s desk.
“Record keeping?” Wager asked.
“It’s required,” Brent said.
“As if there isn’t enough to do. I read a paper you wrote recently, by the way. It was excellent.”
Brent politely smiled. He couldn’t remember writing any papers lately. Letters, yes. He wrote letters continuously.
The greatest cause of death in the army was not from bullets. Sometimes he wondered if they could even blame the Yanks. The majority of deaths stemmed from diseases. He frequently wrote to the authorities, to Congress, to Jeff Davis, the surgeon general, to anyone who might listen. They could save lives if they could just improve their rations and their water. He frequently exchanged letters with his cousin Julian, who also believed the death rate could be cut dramatically with sanitary conditions in the army camps. Julian had remained Florida militia while Brent, in Charleston when South Carolina had originally seceded from the Union, had joined on as a surgeon with the Confederate Army.
Though cousins rather than brothers, he and Brent had been close all their lives, sharing a love for medicine from their early childhoods. Julian and he had both spent time with Seminole shamans, learning what native swamp plants made a difference in treating such diseases as malaria and dysentery, easily acquired in the swamps. Julian had never mocked or made light of a different way of treating illnesses; he hadn’t thought of the Indians as savage or lacking in intelligence in any way. When something worked, he tried to learn the reason why. When he couldn’t learn the reason, he still believed in results. And so, no matter how tired he often was—or how difficult it was to get mail through—Brent spent many an evening writing to his cousin, answering letters, sharing results. They’d both agreed that the appalling rations given the soldiers often caused the terrible onslaughts of diarrhea that had eventually killed so many men. They both fought to keep human and animal waste from the camps, and to urge the military leaders to stress the importance of finding clean drinking water for the men. Julian had written him about a training camp in southern Georgia where the soldiers had complained about “creatures in the water big enough so that no microscope was needed to see the varmints,” and it had been after their forced reliance on such drinking water that almost half of the troops had died from dehydration caused by severe diarrhea.