Then there was the battlefield. In all that he had seen, in all that he had witnessed, Daniel had never known a sensation like standing on Seminary Ridge and looking down over the fields of devastation. Men moved among the fields of bodies. Sad bodies, twisted bodies, destroyed bodies. Young bodies, old bodies, enemies embraced again in death.
Now the medics moved among them, and again, Daniel thought of his brother, and he knew that Jesse must be out there, that he must be up to his elbows in blood. He wished that he could be with him, that he could help him. It didn’t matter to him that night whether the injured were Reb or Yank. War was horrible. And it would not end.
He looked down and saw one of their own regimental physicians moving about the wounded. He started down toward him, walking first, then running. The doctor, a Captain Greeley, looked at him, startled.
“Colonel!”
“Tell me what to do. I’m a fairly decent assistant in a surgery.”
“But Colonel—”
“I am at my leisure, sir, at the moment, if such a thing can exist on such a night. I am not a doctor, but I know something of medicine. God knows what lives I have taken. I wish to help save those that I might tonight.”
Greeley still seemed unnerved that a cavalry colonel was offering assistance in such a way. But he shrugged, and he asked Daniel to pick up a young man he had found still breathing by a tree stump. “We’ve not enough stretchers. We’ve not enough doctors. We’ve not enough anything,” he finished lamely.
“Then any hands will help,” Daniel said, and he scooped up the private with the blood-spattered uniform.
For the next hour, he served by searching out the living. There weren’t enough stretchers. He found a few of his men to help, and he knew that they had made a difference while the hours wore on. Greeley stopped him before he could make a return trip, asking him then to help in the surgery.
He had done it before. Yet nothing made it easy.
He helped hold down the men while Greeley removed limbs. He tried to talk to them; there was nothing to stem the cries. All that could help a limb so shattered was its removal.
He didn’t know how many men he had assisted with when an orderly brought in a figure he knew well.
It was Billy Boudain.
“Colonel!”
Billy’s handsome face was pinched and gray. He smiled nonetheless. “They let you ride in to surgery, eh?”
Daniel didn’t like the look of Billy. He was too gray. He smiled in turn anyway, knowing how important the will to live could be.
“Hell, you know I have some acquaintance with what I’m doing, right, Billy?”
“That I do, sir. That I do.”
“What did you do, Billy? Get too close to one of those Yankees?”
“Hell, sir, I wasn’t close at all. Something exploded by me, and I just woke up a few minutes ago, it seems.”
“It’s going to be right as rain, won’t it, Doctor Greeley?”
Greeley had peeled back Billy’s cavalry shirt. His face lifted to Daniel’s, and Daniel instantly saw in his eyes that there was no way at all. Daniel glanced down to Billy’s chest. Bone and blood were shattered and mingled.
He almost cried out. He felt tears welling behind his eyes, stinging his lids, and he fought them, furious with himself. Officers could not cry, and Camerons never gave way, and by God, he would not be weak, especially not now, not now when Billy needed him so much.
He curled his fingers around Billy’s hand. “Just hold tight and breath easy, Billy.”
“I’m going to die, Colonel.”
“No, Billy—”
“Don’t tell me that I’m not, sir. I can feel death. It’s cold. It—it doesn’t hurt.”
Daniel choked, then knelt down by Billy. “Billy, you can’t die on me. I’m going to take you home with me to Cameron Hall Billy, you’ve never seen anything quite like it. The grass is as green as emeralds and it rolls and slopes down to the river. The trees are tall and very thick, and there’s always a breeze, so they sway there. And there’s a porch, Billy, a broad, wide porch, and you can just sit there and feel the breeze—”
“And sip on a whiskey, eh, sir?”
“Whiskey, brandy, julep, whatever you’ve a mind for, Billy. We’ll get back there.”
Billy’s fingers tightened around his. “The grass is like emeralds?”
“Just like.”
Billy coughed. Blood spilled from his lips. “Pray for me, Colonel. Someday, we’ll meet again. In an Eden, just like Cameron Hall.”
“Billy—”
Billy’s hand tightened, and then went limp. Daniel’s fingers curled around him. He grated his teeth hard.
“He’s gone, Colonel,” Greeley said softly.
Daniel nodded.
“We need the table.”
“Yes.”
Daniel lifted Billy in his arms, and walked out of the surgery with him. He walked into the night, and found a tree, and sat down beneath it, still cradling Billy in his arms.
He sat so for a long time. Tall cavalry boots appeared at his side.
“A friend, Daniel?”
Stuart, worn, haggard, and weary, sat down beside him. He didn’t seem to notice that his friend cradled a corpse.
“You’ve got to let him go, Daniel.”
Daniel nodded. “He wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me. I brought him out of Old Capitol.”
“God decides what happens to all of us, Daniel. And God knows, I failed Lee these last days!”
“We’ve lost a big one,” Daniel agreed.
“Armistead is dead; Pickett has sworn that he will never forgive Lee. And what can any of that matter to all the boys, Union and Confederates, who have gone on from here. Hell, Daniel, any of us can die at any time. But it’s God’s will, not mine, not yours.”
They were both silent for a minute.
“We begin a retreat, you know.” Stuart motioned to someone. A soldier walked over and saluted Daniel sharply. He reached for Billy’s body.
Daniel gave it up.
“Yes,” he said to Stuart.
“We’re going south, through Maryland once again. We’ll be a long time regrouping from this one. I’ll give you your time now, if Meade doesn’t follow us. If Meade does follow us, God alone knows what will happen. But if the Union does not attack, you may have the time I promised you. Do whatever it is that you’re so desperate to do in Maryland. I’ll give you until the end of the month. Then report back to me.”
Daniel looked at Stuart.
Maryland.
Yes …
It was time to see her again.
Callie could see the movement of part of the armies as they headed north.
They didn’t travel a path that led directly by her farm. They remained at quite a distance, and it was only with her brother Josiah’s glass that she was able to see them clearly at all, and that from her bedroom window.
From the first moment she saw a gray uniform and the straggle of poorly clad men around it, she knew that the Rebels were advancing again.
Her heart seemed to leap to her throat. Rebels. Coming here, coming after her.
No. There was only one Rebel who might be coming after her, and he could not possibly be doing so. She was so grateful. She’d heard about the huge cavalry battle in Virginia, and she’d had to sit down and hug her knees to her chest, grateful that Daniel could not have been part of it, that his name could not have appeared on the list of the dead.
Now the Rebels were heading north again. She closed her eyes, and prayed. Prayed that the battlefield would not be her front lawn again, that she wouldn’t have to see the awful horror of war.
Her eyes flew open and she prayed simply that they would not come her way at all.
There were more and more deserters these days. From both armies. Some of these men could be dangerous. She hadn’t only herself to worry about anymore.
She had Jared.
Fear drove her to the room she had set up as a nurse
ry for her son. He was sleeping, but she slipped him up into her arms anyway and held him close. She’d die before she’d let anyone harm him in any way.
She squeezed him so tight that he awoke and let out a cry of protest.
“My love, my little love, I’m so sorry!” she said softly. He quieted, studying her with his wide blue eyes. He let out a little cooing sound and pursed his lips, and she laughed. Well, she had woken him up. He thought it was time to eat.
She carried him to the old rocker in his room and sat with him, rocking while he nursed. She ran her fingers over his silky ink-black hair, and when she closed her eyes, she couldn’t help but think of Daniel again, and her thoughts were torn. Thank God he could not reach her. Dear God, but she had to reach him. One day.
He’d merely want to throttle her. Perhaps he wouldn’t want anything to do with the baby.
Perhaps he would want the baby and nothing at all to do with her.
Her pulse beat too quickly with just the thought. Guiltily she realized she had been thinking once again it was a good thing the war raged on.
No, no, Lord, I did not mean that!
The war was horrible. Jeremy and Josiah were outside of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Jeremy had written to her about the awful battles they had fought, and how they were trying to starve out the population of Mississippi. There were those who managed to get in and out of the city, and Jeremy’s letters were full of pity for the citizens who were living in caves in the hills—and dining upon rats when they were lucky enough to catch them.
No, no, God, let the war end! she prayed fervently.
She heard the sound of a wagon. A sizzle of fear ripped through her, and she jumped up, holding Jared tightly to her.
She looked down from the window and breathed a sigh of relief as she saw that the wagon below carried Rudy and Helga Weiss.
“Callie!” Rudy called to her, standing up in the wagon.
She looked out of the window. “Hello! I’m here.”
“Thank the Lord!” Helga muttered.
Curiously, Callie watched as Rudy helped his wife from the wagon. She hurried down the stairs, the baby still in her arms.
She met the two of them at the back door. Helga burst in, sweeping the baby from her arms, and murmuring to him in soft German. Callie looked at Rudy, her brows lifted.
“You are all right? You haven’t been disturbed?”
She shook her head. “I’m fine.”
Rudy sighed and sank into a kitchen chair, mopping his brow.
“They came through our place, they did.”
“Who?”
Rudy grimaced. “First a Confederate major. He left us a wad of his Confederate money, and took almost everything that moved on the property, goats, chicken, cows. Then, not long after, another soldier comes by. This one is all dressed up in a blue uniform. He lays another wad of money on the table, and cleans us out of everything that the Rebels forgot to take!”
“Oh, Rudy!” Callie murmured. She sat down across from him. “Did they take your grain and everything else too?”
“Everything.”
“Well, then, you must help yourselves to what I have here.”
“Nein, nein! We did not come to take from you—we came to be certain that you were all right. Our people need very little, and we look after one another.”
“But I don’t need all that I have. You would help me if you took some of the animals.”
“Perhaps the armies will still stumble upon you,” Rudy said wearily.
“Then they might as well stumble upon me with half of what I have, right?” she said cheerfully.
Rudy argued, Helga argued. But before she would allow them to leave, she had a goat tied to their wagon and a dozen chickens within it, along with several sacks of grain and numerous jars of her preserves and pickled vegetables.
A few days later, Rudy was back.
“Callie, you must be careful. Come home with me.”
“Why?”
“The battle has been fought. A big, horrible battle. They say that between both sides, near fifty thousand men were killed or injured.”
“Oh, my God!” Callie gasped.
“They are coming home. The Rebs are coming home. They will come limping and worn and hurt. And many will pass by here. Come home with me.”
Callie shook her head. She felt an awful dread, and an awful anticipation.
Her heart was beating too hard once again.
He couldn’t be among them. He was in prison. Thank God, she had really done something good. She had kept him from the horror, from the death, from the blood.
He would never see it that way.
“Callie, come with me!”
She shook her head, feeling an awful fascination. Pity filled her heart, and the startling certainty that she had to stay. She had to offer them water on their long journey homeward, if nothing more.
Perhaps there would be someone who knew him.
Someone who could tell her that he was still in Washington, that he lived, that he was well.
She shook off the awful shivers that seized her. “Rudy, I cannot come. I must stay here.”
“Callie.”
She didn’t understand it herself. “I must stay, Rudy. I—I simply must. Maybe I can help. Maybe I can do something.”
Rudy shook his head. “These men … these men are the enemy.”
“A beaten enemy.”
“This war is not over.”
“I will be all right, Rudy. I need to see these men. I need to hear what has happened.”
He argued with her, but she would not be budged. She simply could not fight the compulsion to stay.
Eventually, as Rudy had said, the men began to come back. Slowly. Beaten, ragged, weary.
And Callie found herself down by the well.
And it was there that she stood when Daniel Cameron rode into her life once again.
Rode in worn, weary, ragged.
And furious still!
“Angel … ”
———— Interlude ————
DANIEL
July 4, 1863
Near Sharpsburg
Maryland
Perhaps, after the long months of waiting, of dreaming, of seeing her in his sleep, of hearing her voice even in the midst of shells, he had not believed that she could be as beautiful as he had remembered.
But she was.
Daniel watched as she offered his officer water. Watched her move, listened to the musical flow of her voice. Even as he did so, he felt his fingers curling into fists, felt a sizzling heat of fury and bitterness come sweeping through him. He had to hate her. She had used her beauty, used the softness of her voice, the fiery flow of her hair against him.
And still, she enchanted. Enchanted every man who passed her way. The word came to the lips of these men as easily as it had once come to his. Angel. God alone could have sculpted such a face. Created the color of her hair, the pools of her eyes.
This sweet creature from heaven!
And seductress born of Hell, he reminded himself, swallowing hard. Looking at her a man could forget that she had so sweetly coerced and lured him, forget the irons about his wrists, the days in prison, the cold dampness of Old Capitol, the misery, the humiliation.
By the gate, he dismounted from his horse and watched her.
Damn her. Was betrayal perhaps her business? Had other soldiers stumbled her way, had she seduced them, and seen them turned in, just as she had done with him?
God, he was weary! But no weariness could take away his fury at this moment! Had she but turned old and haggard, had she not been so unbelievably beautiful still! But there she stood. His angel. Their angel. Her dress so simple that it enhanced the perfection and loveliness of her womanhood.
Did she remember him?
Ah, but she would, he swore.
As the last of his cavalry soldiers passed by, Daniel came in to greet her by the well.
“Angel of mercy indeed. Is there, perhaps, a
large quantity of arsenic in that well?”
She didn’t move, but just stood there. The slight breeze lifted her hair, and in the coming night it seemed to burn with a dark fire. She seemed to gaze about him, and then her eyes fell on his, wide, gray. Did they dilate, perhaps? He felt the grinding of his teeth, the tearing emotion sweep through him. If she was afraid in the least of his revenge, she showed no sign of it. She stood like crystal, no, porcelain, still and perfect, the perfect heart of her face an ivory softly tinted rose at the cheeks, her beautiful lips as red as any long forgotten rose, her eyes, as always, silver orbs that shimmered and taunted the soul.
He smiled suddenly. She certainly wasn’t going to cower. She was, as ever, ready for battle.
“Hello, angel!” he said softly.
Still she was silent, proud and silent. Yet at last he could see the rise and fall of her breasts with the uneven whisper of her breath; he could see a pulse at her throat, beating there in fury. Why? he wondered. Was it fear at last? Did his angel realize that a man cast into hell came back by far the worse for wear?
The heat was ripping through him, tearing through his limbs, spiraling around his chest, and tightening low in his groin. Well, here he was at last. Standing before her as he had dreamed so often, as he sometimes felt he had survived to do. His fingers itched. Yes, he wanted to strangle her.
He wanted her. He wanted her with a blind fury, with a desperate desire. He wanted to hold her tightly and shake her, and he wanted to feel the softness of her flesh. He wanted to hear her cry, out his name, and he didn’t give a damn if it was with anger or despair or love Or hatred. He wanted revenge, but most of all he wanted to cool the heat that imprisoned and embraced him, slake the thirst that lived with him day and night, through days of battle and days in the saddle, through rare moments of quiet, and even in the midst of the shrill shrieks of guns and cannons and men.
“Cat got your tongue?” he asked. Damn, it was hard to talk when his teeth were grating so. A slow, bitter smile curved his lip. “How very unusual. Weren’t you expecting me?”
He didn’t dare touch her. Not yet. He took the dipper from her fingers, lowered it into the bucket, and raised the water from her well to his lips. It was cool and sweet. It did nothing to ease the fire burning ever more brightly throughout his limbs.