Alias Dragonfly (8 page)

The horse stumbled over a rock, nearly tipping us over again.

I pulled out my gun. “I know how to use this, even if you don’t.”

“Sure I do,” he answered in a wobbling voice, turning the color of ash. Did I mention that Jake Whitestone had really pale skin?

A man with red, tangled hair, wearing a jacket striped green and yellow, galloped past, his revolver pointed straight at us.

I aimed at the man. My God, could I shoot him if I had to?

“Go, go!” Jake yelled at the horse.

The man lowered his weapon and spat into the air. “Not worth it!” the man laughed. “Itty bitty pea fowl in that buggy. I got bigger to catch. I got to kill me some Yanks!” Cursing and laughing, he sped past us.

I slumped back into the seat, my back sore, and my body weak with hunger.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Of course,” he answered, his voice a bit shaky. “Are you?”

“Of course.” I wasn’t really okay at all, but darned if I was going to tell him.

I kept dozing off, and jerking back awake as we passed through miles of beautiful farmlands. Horses and cows grazed in the green, tall grasses. Spring flowers dotted hillsides. Far back from the road sat wide-porched houses, with low-slung ramshackle buildings—shanties—scattered behind them. Negro men, women, and children, lines of them, trudged through the fields. The men were pushing plows. Even women with babies in slings were carrying heavy bags on their backs. Now and again a white man on a horse would appear wielding a whip. I saw a young Negro man down on the ground, his shirt in tatters, his back bloodied.

“Welcome to Virginia,” Jake said.

I was too stunned to answer. Sure I’d seen so many different, unsettling things in Washington City, but the sights, the truth of what people did to one another, made a deep furrow of pain in my heart. I will never forget those moments as long as I live.

From afar, Centreville was a town of low-lying wooden buildings, clusters of soldiers milling about, some mounted, some not. Jake Whitestone veered off the road into a grove of tall oaks. We pushed further into a glade where the air dipped to coolness, and there was nary a sound except for the bubble and rush of a stream.

“We’ll camp here and follow the regiment as soon as they move,” Jake said, unhitching the horse.

“Thanks for the ride,” I answered, heading away. He really muddled me. I was really muddled myself. But I had to get to my father. So I just ran. I was so tired and clumsy in the stupid old boots, I stumbled as I scrambled over some rocks and fallen tree limbs.

He caught up to me.

“Let me go!” I pushed him away. “Unless you want a fight.”

“Go then, you damn fool! They’re in camp now, not moving. If you even spot your father, he’ll send you back! Is that what you want? Or are you really crazy enough to think you can pass as a soldier?”

“Yes!”

“How?”

“I don’t know, yet. I’ll figure it out!”

“Crazy, and dangerous, and . . . forget it.” He wheeled around and limped off.

I sat down on a tree stump. Okay, I thought, what the heck do I do now? He’s got the horse and buggy. I’d keep my distance from him and then make a decision. Right. I’d steal the horse.

I crept close to the buggy. No good. Jake was there, hoisting a feedbag. I’d have to wait until nightfall. “I’ll feed the horse,” I said.

Giving me a wary look, he handed me the feedbag. I slipped it over the animal’s neck. The poor horse looked as weary as I felt. At least someone was eating.

Jake Whitestone handed me down a wrinkled, homespun dress and a heavy blanket. “Mrs. Salome’s laundry pile does come in handy,” he said. “Wash up, for all our sakes, and change back to your true self, I might add.”

Rudely, I yanked the dress from him. He turned his back to me.

“Your true self is not so bad,” he said, walking away. “Call me when you’re done.” I think I must have turned fifty shades of red when I heard that.

I kept walking, following the sound of water on rocks. Just ahead was a stream. I stood there for a moment. Should I run off? Find my father’s camp? What if he wasn’t there? Oh, but the water looked so inviting, and I was so weary. I plunged my hands into the stream and splashed my face. Coolness, blessed coolness. I lowered my head and drank like a parched animal.

My filthy clothes felt like they were plastered on me. I glanced around. No, Jake Whitestone wasn’t limping through the brush. I would have heard him approaching anyway, right?

Slowly I removed the jacket. I waited, listening.

Next, the ragged pants. And oh, those killing boots! Off they went. I held the revolver over my head with one hand, and waded waist-high into the stream in just my bodice and pantaloons.

With one hand, I splashed water on my face and hair again. My curls ran with dirt into long, wet tendrils. Oh, how good it felt. My aching body slowly relaxed, my face and eyes washed clean of grit.

“If you’re through, help me make camp,” Jake called out.

I cleared out of that stream in an instant, grabbed up the blanket and dried myself. I threw on the dress. With no corset at hand, and no petticoats, the dress felt soft and giving against my skin.

“Come on!” he called again.

When I returned to our camp, Jake was scooping pine needles into his hands, sitting flat on the ground, his bad leg stretched out, looking wan and tired.

“You look better clean,” he said.

Without saying anything to him—and believe me, I did want to sass him good—I broke a three-forked branch off a tree and used it as a rake. In minutes I had a large, soft pile of pine needles topped with leaves. He’d be better off on something soft than lying on the ground. Oh boy, why did I care?

I backed away and motioned to the pile. He lay down on it, and sighed.

“Have you got food?” I asked. “And don’t tell me just hardtack.”

He was rubbing his leg as though to put strength back in it. “In the rig, in a tin box.” His voice was weary. “Please, can you fetch it?”

Why didn’t I answer? Why was I being so rude? Wasn’t he trying to help me? You know how sometimes you get all the words ready to say, and nothing comes out? Yes, that was me.

I climbed into the rig, rummaged around until I found the tin box. Inside were apples and walnuts and a bit of cheese.

Should I flee? No. Food first.

I cracked the nuts with a rock with nary a break in them, as I’d seen Mama do.

We gobbled the food.

I’d never been alone with any man other than my father, and yet I felt no fear. Strange, it was, and new and . . . okay, it was exciting.

How would I get away? And then it hit me. Did I really want to?

Jake Whitestone stared at me as though he was reading my thoughts. I knew he couldn’t, but it made me feel warm, jittery, and anxious, all at once.

I found a place for myself a good distance from him under a willow tree. Jake Whitestone lay down, his eyes closed.

I sat there watching him, the way his young face relaxed, the rise and fall of his chest, and—

A hawk screeched overhead. Night birds were descending. A bat flew out of a tree, seesawing into the sky. Things, live things chirred and chittered in the bushes. Late day was fading, night loomed.

While I was focusing on every little sound, I noticed Jake was awake, staring at me.

“Why don’t you get some rest,” he said, moving his leg and wincing from pain. I felt sorry for him right then.

“My mother would make a plaster of nettles and mustard grass, to take the ache out of that leg of yours,” I said. “But I can’t scout out those things with so little light.”

Darkness was closing over the canopy of trees. In the distance, horses whinnied, and I could hear the low voices of soldiers, the clanking of cook pots, and smell the sharp, acrid tang of fire smoke. I leaned back against the trunk of a sturdy oak, listening, ever listening for the smallest sounds of hoof beats, the calls of moving soldiers. Why were they staying put? I wondered. What were they waiting for?

Jake’s voice was quiet, and very sad. “I wish I could turn back time, to stop the omnibus from crushing my leg when I was four years old. And killing my mother when she jumped out to help me.”

“My mother died six months ago,” I said. I felt a sharp pain where my heart was. I hadn’t spoken about her until that moment.

“I’m really sorry, Miss Bradford.”

He moved a bit closer to me, slowly, like he was approaching a deer that was about to bolt away.

I didn’t bolt, but I was ready. I’d never been in a situation anything like this before. I was uneasy and curious at the same time.

“I hardly remember my mother,” he said. “We lived in Georgia. My father was a cotton merchant. He decided to move to New York, where his business was headquartered. He was making piles of money off the backs of slaves. I’d seen plenty of their suffering, and it never seemed right to me, but then I heard Mr. Lincoln speak at Cooper Union about how no man should ever be in chains. Oh, how I agreed! I was in school in New York and after classes, working at a job . . . well, it was something I’d always wanted to do.”

“What job was that?” I asked

“It was . . . teaching, teaching children. I love children.” He was rambling a bit. Maybe he was just tired. “I hardly saw my father,” Jake said. “When the war started, he declared his allegiance to the Confederate cause. He said now that South. I refused to go. He hit me hard and told me to get out. I stayed in a sad old rooming house full of poor people and women, who, well, were not seemly, and then I was sent, I mean, I came to Washington City.

“To join the fighting?” Right away I felt guilty. That was nasty of me to say. I could see his leg was really bad. “Wait here,” I said, heading for the stream. I scooped up a bit of wet mud.

I went over to Jake. “Rub this on your leg,” I said stiffly.

He did just that. “It’s warm, then cooling, then, oh, God, that feels better. Thank you.”

His face relaxed. He moved his leg back and forth. I started away.

“Please stay,” he said. “I want to tell you something.”

“Okay.” I have to admit, I wanted to stay.

“I’m ashamed that I cannot be a soldier,” he said, closing his eyes. “I’m nearly eighteen, old enough to serve in that way.”

“Why did you follow me?” I asked. And what should I do? I wondered. I stood up and moved a bit closer, my hands on my hips. “Why did you follow me?” I asked again when he didn’t answer. “Why?”

“I need to be here too,” he said, avoiding my eyes.

“Why?”

“None of your business,” he said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude, Miss Bradford. I’m . . . I’m trying to help, okay?”

“I don’t need your help!” My face was close to his.

“It’s not a holiday for me either!” He was steaming mad. So was I. Mad at myself, really. Why didn’t I just leave him? When you feel things and can’t say what you feel, it really is hard, isn’t it?

“I don’t need you to watch over me. Do you get that, Jake Whitestone? If anything, you’re the one who needs help, what with your leg, and all the rocks we’ve climbed and—” I backed away, feeling bad about what I’d said. “I’m sorry, it’s not your fault your leg was hurt and you can’t fight in this war,” I said, throwing Jake Whitestone a blanket.

I guess I was staying there with him after all. Worse, I didn’t mind.

To quiet the quivers in my heart, I moved even further away.

I curled up the way Papa showed me to be safe in a forest, or anywhere: my body rounded in a ball, one arm covering my head just above the eyes, the other holding the revolver.

I could hear Jake snoring lightly. Just as I nodded somewhere near a doze, I heard footfalls. Maybe an animal padding though the trees. Two footfalls, then. Closer. I gripped my gun. Tightly.