It was almost dusk, and they were also preparing wounded soldiers for the long, rough ride back to D.C. when a man on horseback arrived, anxious for a word with McManus. There had been riders coming and going all day. Julian ignored the man, since he knew he would hear whatever information had come eventually.
But McManus came to him and addressed him with the rider at his heels. “Captain McKenzie, you’re needed at Magee’s surgery. Seems there’s a patient there with a wound in the shoulder that could prove quite treacherous.”
“And he wants a Rebel surgeon?” Julian asked skeptically.
“Apparently, he’s a relative.”
Julian eyebrows shot up. “You told me my brother—”
“It’s not your brother. It’s a fellow named Jesse Halston. Captain Jesse Halston, U.S. Cavalry.”
“I don’t have a relative named Halston—”
“Yes, apparently you do. Your wife wrote his request. She knows the fellow, if you don’t. Says he recently married a cousin of yours, Sydney.”
“Sydney married a Union cavalry officer?” Julian said incredulously.
“Recently. You McKenzies are prone to hasty marriages, so it seems, sir.”
Julian felt a strange sensation of his blood boiling. Sydney had married a Union cavalry officer. When? Why?
“Well?”
He lifted his hands, feeling a strange bitterness. The world had gone soaring completely out of control. All of their lives, they had all watched out for one another—all McKenzie males protective of the girls, Jennifer, Tia, the new baby—Sydney. And now ...
He lowered his head. There was a story that went around that General Robert E. Lee, who had sons fighting as well, had not recognized one of his boys while reviewing troops in the middle of an action. He was never able to see his own family.
He lifted his hands. “Of course.”
“I’ll accompany you. I want to see this procedure.”
The ride from field hospital to field hospital was grim. All across the hills and valleys, men were sorting through the fallen. The rain had turned much of the battlefield to filthy mush. Soldiers had handkerchiefs tied over their mouths. Between the rain and the sun and natural decomposition, the ground was beginning to smell of rot. God, how he pitied the living! In the midst of the dead, wondering if help would ever come.
Magee’s field hospital was set up far from the scenes of the worst fighting, just as McManus had told Julian. His surgery was in an old farmhouse, and Julian was glad to see it. The rain didn’t seep into the ground underfoot here, and when he was brought in, he found that his patient was in a real bed in a real bedroom.
Surgeon Reginald Flowers was in command of the hospital, and he greeted Julian politely, telling him that he’d planned to take the arm from the shoulder, since the bullet was wedged against blood vessels, but that his civilian nurse, whom he had come to trust, had insisted that Julian McKenzie could operate without taking the arm.
“It’s a risk ...” Flowers said, then hesitated. “But she’s been right about many things many times ... and she says that Captain Halston is a relative now, your cousin-in-law, and that you can do this. Frankly, if it weren’t for the fact that Captain Halston is one of our heroes ... And then there’s also the fact that Rhiannon claims she has done similar surgery with you before.”
“She has.”
“And the man is married to your cousin?”
“So I’ve been told.”
Flowers lifted his hand. “Your patient, Doctor, if you wish to examine him and tell me if you think you can save the limb. Dr. McManus, if you would join me for a moment for a look at a few other patients ...”
The two left him.
Julian approached the bed. The man who lay there was a young, handsome fellow with curling dark hair and strong features. Now he was pale, his skin grayish white. He’d lost a great deal of blood already. His eyes were open, though. They were hazel, steady on his. He even offered up a half smile that must have pained him. “So you’re the younger brother, the doctor. If they’d given me a drink, I’d think you were Ian playing at a hospital game.”
“I’m not Ian, I am Julian, and I am a doctor. Hurt much?” he asked. Halston was shirtless, but there was a bandage on his shoulder and arm that was already becoming bloodied. Julian gently removed the cotton wadding.
The bullet had smashed against bone and wedged next to a blood vessel. The arm was broken, but the break was clean. The injury was almost exactly the same as that which Jerome had received. Rhiannon did know what she was talking about. The location of the wound made amputation dangerous, just as the position of the bullet made its removal dangerous as well.
“Hurt? Hell, yes. Like a son of a gun,” Halston said, wincing.
“You married my cousin?” Julian asked as he studied the texture of the skin around the wound.
“Yes.”
“How did that come about?” Julian asked.
Halston was staring at him steadily. “Should I answer you now, or after that bullet comes out?”
Julian smiled grimly. “Now.”
Halston shrugged. “She was carrying military information. She was picked up and put in Old Capitol. She was afraid that one of you reckless McKenzies would risk life and limb to come and get her out. Maybe she was afraid of her father’s reaction, I’m not sure. But she wanted out.”
Julian was impressed by the man’s honesty. “So she married you?” he queried.
Halston inclined his head slightly. “Rhiannon came to me. She’d promised Sydney that she would help her. She couldn’t find Ian—he was already out with the army. Magee couldn’t do anything under the circumstances ... I had been with Pinkerton in the city for a while, and I admit, I was instrumental in Sydney being where she was.”
“My wife was involved?”
“Well, she wasn’t your wife then, was she? She came to Old Capitol to see a man with an infected foot.”
“But Sydney married you—and she was set free?”
“She also swore to cease her activities.”
“And you intend to keep my cousin in Washington?”
Halston smiled slowly. “Doc, I think I’m bleeding enough without that pressure.”
“Sorry.” Julian said, lifting his fingers from the wound.
“I hope to keep her in Washington,” Halston told him. “Well, I hope to survive to be able to be with her anywhere. But you should know this. I love her. I think she loves me. She’s just so tied up in being a Rebel that she won’t admit it.”
“But you really married her.”
“Yes.” Halston was staring at him steadily. He asked softly, “So you tell me—what are you planning to do?”
Julian smiled ruefully, carefully removing all the bandages. “I’m going to try to save your arm, and your life.”
“I’m counting on it,” Halston said.
Julian looked up as he saw a shadow come across the door.
Rhiannon. Tired, drawn, and still straight and tall and regal and ever-beautiful in her widow’s black. But she was no longer a widow. She was his wife.
His heart started beating too hard; he couldn’t allow his hands to tremble. He wanted to grab her, shake her, demand to know why she betrayed him.
He straightened. “What are you doing here?” he demanded sharply.
Her shoulders squared. “This is where I’ve been working. Thankfully, since Jesse came in here. I’m going to assist you—”
“No.”
She seemed puzzled. “But, Julian—”
“I don’t want to work with you.”
“A marital spat already!” Jesse said from his bed. “If the two of you don’t mind ... Doc, this really hurts. I mean, it really hurts.”
“Get out, I mean it,” Julian told Rhiannon.
“Julian, dammit it—”
“Yes, dammit, I’m a prisoner of war. But that doesn’t mean I have to work with you.”
“Julian, I’m not going anywhere, I—”
&nb
sp; “Well, I’m not working with you.”
“Julian, you don’t understand—”
“Yes, I do. You’re a treacherous witch. I was warned about you the first time I laid eyes on you.”
“Julian, please!”
Julian gritted his teeth. Halston needed help—now. He had already lost too much blood. And dammit, but it was true. He needed Rhiannon for this. No one else had her touch.
“Get two orderlies. Ether. I’m assuming the Union army has ether here?”
“Everything is ready; the men are just outside,” Rhiannon said. “There are surgical instruments laid out on the table there.”
“Fine.”
“I don’t need anesthesia—” Jesse Halston began.
“Trust me, sir, you do,” Julian told him.
Rhiannon was quick and efficient. There were bandages, his neatly laid out instruments. Two burly orderlies came in to brace the patient. Both Doctors McManus and Flowers came in to watch the proceedings; McManus administered the ether with a skin bag. Julian asked Rhiannon for the instruments he needed, telling her where and when to apply pressure, when to use her delicate touch to hold blood vessels. It wasn’t a lengthy procedure; the Minié ball came out of Halston’s arm in so smashed a state that Julian was amazed more damage hadn’t been done to the bone.
All through the surgery, she anticipated his every need. It felt far too comfortable to be working with her again. His fingers brushed hers; he breathed her scent. The bleeding was stopped, the wound was sewn, the broken bone was splinted. With the delicate surgery nearly completed, he felt his own shabbiness. His uniform was threadbare. His hair was overgrown, his cheeks remained unshaven. He didn’t want these other people around. He wanted to be alone with her, make her realize that she might have tricked him, but that, by God, she had married him, and it wasn’t a trick she could get out of ...
But he couldn’t be alone with his wife. He was surrounded by Yanks.
When it was over, Jesse still slept. He’d been given an ample dosage of ether.
“Interesting procedure, but it can’t be done unless the blood vessels are properly held and tied,” McManus said to Julian.
“That’s true,” Julian said, his eyes on Rhiannon.
“You asked for a new sponge.”
“I’m convinced that infections travel with the supplies we use.”
“But you manage to keep enough fresh supplies—”
“I really believe that it saves lives.”
“Will you have a drink, sir?” Flowers asked, indicating the hallway beyond the bedroom.
He shook his head, his eyes on Rhiannon. “No, I’d like to leave Dr. Flowers to his surgery and return to Dr. McManus’s field hospital. I’d like to keep working there. There are still wounded on the fields. And I can hardly blame the Yanks if they choose to bring in the Rebels last.”
Flowers nodded. “As you wish, sir. I understand your concern.”
Julian met his wife’s eyes. He turned to exit the room.
“Julian!”
She called him, following him to the door, her voice very tight.
He paused, willing himself to exercise every bit of self-control he could manage. The temptation to reach out and grab her, shake her, hold her, scream, yell, make love right there on the floor, seemed so strong that it was like a current of lightning ripping through him.
“Julian, you’re being extremely pigheaded, even for a pigheaded person—”
“Pigheaded prisoner of war, if you don’t mind.”
“Damn you, Julian. I had to do it!” God, she was something. So vibrantly alive. Her eyes were like an emerald fire. He wanted just to touch the contours of her face. There was so much passion in her words, so much grace in her most subtle movement. If he stepped closer, he could breathe in the scent of her flesh.
Not here, not here, not now. Both Flowers and McManus were giving them a moment’s privacy. But they were there.
“Julian, I had no choice!”
“So you say. Well, do you intend to share my prison?”
“I have work to do here.”
“What were the words? Love, honor, and obey? I forbid you to remain here. Do you intend to obey?”
“I have work here. But you could remain with Dr. Flowers—”
“And we could work together. And at night they could drag me back off in chains. Or were you intending on setting up housekeeping? Maybe a little cannon-shelled farmhouse on the outskirts of town. The doctor and his loving wife could retire together every evening?”
“Julian, this is a war—”
“Yes, I’ve noticed that.” He studied her for a long moment, then asked, “So is there, or isn’t there, a child?”
She stiffened, rich lashes falling over her ever so green eyes. “I’m well aware, sir, that I’m not your image of the ideal wife. I said what I knew would appeal to your sense of Southern honor.”
“Ah. What a pity, you’ve trapped yourself for nothing.”
“I’m not trapped—”
“But you are. I’m a prisoner. So are you.”
“Julian, this is a ridiculous argument. You are a doctor. You save lives. And we do work exceptionally well together, which has—”
“No.”
“Julian—”
“I don’t claim to be able to see the future, but I can see nothing good in it. So ... if you don’t mind ...”
He turned away from her, wondering if he had done the sensible thing, or if he would damn himself a thousand times over for not taking any possible chance to be with her.
No. He couldn’t work with her. Not here.
He left the farmhouse. She didn’t try to stop him again.
For the next two days, he—along with Yank soldiers busy at the same task—walked through the battlefield. At first they found a number of men living. They were treated as best as Julian could treat them at the scene, then brought to field hospitals. Toward the end of the second day of searching, they began to find nothing but dead men. While they picked their way through the bodies, ascertaining death for a certainty, Julian saw the men with the cameras.
“What’s going on?” he asked Robert Roser, who had been assigned to watch him. Roser was a good man, and Julian couldn’t help but like him. He was also well over six feet tall and big as a grizzly.
“Oh. Those men are from Harpers. You know, the paper.”
Julian stopped, watching. They were taking pictures of the dead. Mostly Rebel dead.
“Doc,” Roser said behind him. “It’s a victory. We haven’t had that many. Folks back home are going to want to see it.”
Yes, the Northern papers would want pictures of Gettysburg. But did they really want women and children seeing scenes that were so horrible?
He started to turn away, then halted. The photographer was telling an assistant to move the bodies. To put them in more grotesque positions.
He stopped, turning as the man began to drag the dead around.
“They should be stopped,” Julian said.
One of the men with them, a New Englander named Jim Brandt, spit into the dirt. “They should be stopped. But hell, they’re from Harpers, we’re just supposed to let them go.”
“They’re desecrating the dead.”
Suddenly, they heard a groan.
“Dammit, someone is alive there!” Julian snapped. Followed closely by Roser, he strode over to where the photographers were working. The photographer, a man of perhaps thirty with muttonchops and a sleazy smile, ignored the groaning. He lifted the drape and looked through his lens, giving his assistant directions to move one of the men a little farther right.
“No, no, no!” the photographer snapped, coming around his camera. “I can’t see his eyes, I can’t catch the expression.”
The dead couldn’t defend themselves. Neither, at this point, could the injured man—wherever he might be. The photographer didn’t seem to hear the groaning.
Julian placed himself directly in front of the man and his cam
era.
The photographer arched a brow, looking at Julian, his gaze sweeping over his worn and muddied Rebel uniform. “Get out of the way,” he told Julian.
“There’s an injured man in here somewhere. You get the hell out of the way.”
The photographer laughed, looking at the men surrounding Julian. “You letting Rebs give the orders here, fellows?”
“Get out of the way. There’s a living man here somewhere, and we’re going to find him.”
The groan came again. Julian spun around, realizing it was coming from one of the “dead” men that the photographer and his assistant were moving around for their perfect shot.
“There, that man’s alive,” Julian said, looking at Robert Roser.
“Leave him be. He’s the enemy, and he’ll be dead in another hour!”
Julian felt a torrent of pure anger, as red as the blood that stained the fields where so many had died. He strode forward with a menace that turned the photographer white, back-stepping quickly.
Not quickly enough.
Julian was before him, tight as a drum. The photographer took a wild swing at Julian. Julian ducked and came up swinging himself, catching the man hard in the jaw. The photographer’s assistant came running, throwing himself on Julian. While Julian grappled with him, the photographer rose and once again tried to land a punch. Julian swung around—the photographer slugged his own assistant.
He swung around again, dropping the assistant on the muddy ground. The photographer took another swing at him. Julian retaliated, and the man went down. Once again, the assistant came up. They both tried to jump him, like children, attacking from both sides. A balled fist caught Julian’s face, but he barely noticed it. He hooked the photographer’s assistant with another right that made him squeal.
“I’m going to make you eat dirt!” the photographer shouted, hopping on Julian’s back.
Julian fell to the ground with him and rolled. He pinned him with a wrestling hold that could have cut the air from the man’s windpipe. He’d never felt such a tremendous temptation to kill in raw fury. It was as if a blanket of rage had fallen over him.