Christmas at Harmony Hill (15 page)

B
y the time the fog began to lift, Gideon’s company was in position. The men crouched down behind whatever cover they could find and waited for those in command to give the signal. It was the time Gideon hated the most. That time before the battle began when a man could do nothing but wait. And think about running into enemy fire.

Jake would tell him to stop thinking and start praying. Down the line from him, that would be what Jake was doing. He grabbed onto the Lord any chance he got. Gideon hoped he was praying for him too, because prayer words didn’t come easy for Gideon. He was better at coasting along on the prayers of others.

Not that he didn’t believe. He did. What man could deny God while standing at the bottom of a hill, knowing men at the top were ready to shoot him? A man like that might be stepping over into eternity at the next sound of gunfire.

As if he’d summoned it, a cannon boom pounded against his ears. Not too close. On another flank of the attack. But a signal of what was to come.

Heather’s face rose up in front of his eyes. Back at her home, she was waiting too. For the baby. For him.

The pains grabbed Heather and shook her like a cat grabbing a mouse, squeezing life out of the poor creature, but then when the mouse could bear no more, turning loose to allow it to breathe again. The pains took her into another world. A place where nothing was real except the pain. A wave washing over her and then receding and letting those beside her bed come back into focus.

Dear Sophrena kept dabbing Heather’s face with a damp cloth. She looked so frightened that Heather did her best to force a smile out onto her face each time the grip of the pains left her. Brother Kenton was there too. He’d come after the morning meal just as she’d told Sophrena he would. He measured the time between the contractions and smiled with great cheer as he told her everything was as it should be.

He went to see to his other patients even though Sophrena argued against him leaving. He did his best to reassure her. “Babies, especially first babies, are often slow to make their way into the world. I will be back in plenty of time.”

“But I won’t know what to do.” Sophrena’s voice had an edge of panic that Heather never thought to hear from her. She always seemed calm and in control, but now she was grasping at the doctor’s sleeve to keep him from going.

“Calm yourself, Sister Sophrena. The baby and the mother do all the work. We that are with her simply watch and wait.” He patted her hand and bent down to smile directly into Sophrena’s face. “I will bring you a calming brew. An herbal tea for the both of you.”

He had brought the tea, but whether it calmed Sophrena, Heather couldn’t say. It had done nothing for her. But she wasn’t nervous, simply becoming very tired. The pains mashed her down into the bed until at times she thought she might be pushed through it to the floor.

Float with the pain. She remembered Mrs. Saunders telling her mother that during her struggle birthing Jimmy. Breathe steady in and out and accept the pain. Don’t fight it. Heather tried, but the pain stole her breath until she had to gasp as black closed in around her.

Breathe. She kept hearing that word and she wasn’t sure if it was in her mind or if Sophrena was whispering it to her. Breathe. Brother Kenton’s voice was there too. Breathe. She could no longer see him smile. She thought others came and went, but she couldn’t be sure if she’d really seen them or only imagined them there. All telling her to breathe. Had Joseph told Mary that in the stable that Christmas night or perhaps angels had gathered round her to whisper encouraging words into her ears as the baby Jesus was born?

Heather thought she heard her mother’s voice and felt her work-roughened hand grasping hers. She slipped into a gray world of nothing but pain and the need to draw breath. Voices circled in the air above her. Her mother calling her in to supper. Her father reading the Bible on Sundays, his deep voice adding power to the words. Gideon’s laugh and whispered words of love. Simon daring her to climb higher. Lucas asking for a Christmas baby. A soldier screaming in the night after a battle. Or maybe that was her screaming while Sophrena and Brother Kenton told her to breathe.

Sophrena didn’t know when she’d been more frightened, but she was doing her best to hide it from Heather as she whispered soothing words to her. Words she wasn’t sure the girl even heard. Her suffering was worse than anything Sophrena could have imagined.

Brother Kenton said first babies sometimes came hard, but as the hours ticked past, the smile disappeared from his face. He too began to mouth silent prayers as he gently felt Heather’s abdomen.

“The baby is turned wrong,” he said. “A difficult way to bring a child into the world.”

“Can’t you do anything?” Sophrena asked.

“Nay,” he said, his face grim. “No more than you. Naught but pray.”

So they knelt together and prayed. They didn’t touch, not as he had touched her in such a natural way earlier as he tried to comfort her distress. Now their distress united them, and their prayers touched and mingled in the air as silently they begged for the Lord’s mercy on this mother and child.

At last the order came to charge the Rebel’s positions. Gideon scurried from cover to cover and then, when the cover was gone, followed the rest of the troops on toward the Confederate position. A man in front of him fell. Gideon kept going. There was no choice. Not now. Not once the battle commenced. A soldier fired his gun and reloaded. A soldier attacked where the generals pointed. And some soldiers fell.

The Rebels broke and began retreating toward the Granny Smith Turnpike. Gideon and the men around him chased after them. But a retreat didn’t always mean the other side was giving up, just falling back to better ground. Bullets kept flying. Cannons continued to belch out their brand of death, with the noise deafening the soldiers to the screams of the injured. Maybe it was better that way. A man couldn’t stop to help a friend in the midst of the fighting. He could only promise in his heart to come back after the battle was over—if no bullet found him first.

The sun was sinking. Darkness would end the day’s fighting. The captain was motioning the men back. The Confederates had made it to the other side of the pike where they’d be digging in for the battle to commence the next day.

Gideon blew out a long breath of air. He’d made it through another battle. He looked around to see if Jake was still standing too and was relieved to see the big man not far from his side. He smiled, thinking how Jake would tell him he’d loaned him the luck of the Irish or even better, prayed him through yet again.

But the day hadn’t ended. Jake let out a yell and ran toward Gideon. Not ten feet away, one of the Rebels was getting to his feet. With the terrible Rebel cry, he fired his gun directly at Gideon, but Jake got there first, his cry as spine chilling as the Rebel’s. Gideon crashed to the ground, Jake on top of him. More shots fired, taking down the Rebel, but it was too late for Jake. The bullet had found its mark.

The captain and Gideon carried Jake back to where the company threw up a quick camp. Jake was still breathing, but they feared he wouldn’t be for long.

A doctor came, gave him something to dull the pain, and said if he was still alive at daybreak to bring him to the field hospital.

Gideon sat beside him. Drawing breath because of this man, his friend.
No greater love hath any man than to lay down his life for his brother.
Would he have done the same for Jake?

They built a little fire to keep Jake warm. Gideon wet his handkerchief and kept sponging off his friend’s face as the man drifted in and out of consciousness. But in the darkest hours of the night, Jake’s eyes opened and he stared straight up at Gideon.

“I told you I’d make sure you got home to see that baby.”

“You did.” Gideon choked back tears and managed a smile. There was no need telling Jake the battle would start up again at daylight. What would he do without Jake?

“Who’d a thought a Johnny Reb would have wanted you dead that bad? He could have waited and crawled off to fight another day. Now we’re both dead.”

“You’re not dead,” Gideon said.

“The same as, but don’t you worry for me, lad. I’ve done glimpsed what’s ahead and seen my sweet Irene there waiting for me. And she looked to be holding that wee one I lost along with her.” A smile slipped across Jake’s face before the pain made him wince again.

“Hang in here, Jake. The morning’s coming.”

“That it is, lad. That it is.” A peaceful smile spread across Jake’s face. “Love that sweet babe of yours when he comes.”

“I’ll name him Jacob. After you.” Gideon gripped Jake’s hand and willed him to keep breathing.

“What if your pretty washerwoman has a girl?” Jake’s smile got wider.

“Even then,” Gideon promised.

“A girl named Jake.” He laughed a little as he closed his eyes. “That would be something. Best say a prayer for a boy.”

Jake passed as the first fingers of dawn began to lighten the eastern sky. Gideon covered him with his army blanket and got ready to follow the captain back out to attack the Confederate line. It was what soldiers did.

Sophrena prayed through the night. Brother Kenton stayed with them, doing his best to ease Heather’s pain with potions he dribbled down her throat. The girl hardly seemed aware of anything around her and often cried out for her mother.