Faith (26 page)

“Yes,” Faith whispered.

The surgeon shook his head at her. “Still believe in microscopic disease carriers?”

Dev didn’t know what Bryant was talking about, but he realized the doctor was trying to lighten the mood.

“Exactly,” Faith whispered.

“Very well. I’ll clean my hands, and Honoree is
 
—” he turned toward the opening
 
—“soaking my instruments in alcohol as I speak. And we’ll move you into the sun so I can see better what I’m doing. Two orderlies are bringing an operating table. But first I think you need a stiff dose of morphine.” The doctor opened his bag and soon was helping Faith to sip the dark, nasty-smelling liquid.

Once Faith fell asleep, Dev and the doctor carried the cot out into the sun. Dr. Bryant donned a clean surgical apron, and scrubbed his hands in a basin.

Honoree stood beside him with his surgical tools.

The sun beating down on his shoulders, Dev stood nearby while still giving the doctor and Honoree room to work. He watched the surgeon as he carefully unbandaged and then slowly stitched up Faith’s cheek. Dev felt the needle each time it pierced Faith. Finally the ordeal ended.

“That does it,” Dr. Bryant said. “Honoree, you did an
admirable job of nursing. And I’m glad you let me perform the surgery. I’ve done my best, but I’m afraid your friend will bear the scar of this attack for the rest of her life. It’s a pity for such a beautiful young woman.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Honoree said. “Faith trusted you to do the best surgery she could hope for.”

“That is high praise from a lady I respect. Honoree, the army is going to be marching again soon. I am going to recommend that you be allowed to travel home by riverboat. Nurse Cathwell will need careful tending and complete rest. She’ll do better at home.”

“Well, I’ll try to persuade her, but I doubt she’ll go,” Honoree replied. “And even by riverboat, Cincinnati is a far way from here. If you can let her travel lying in one of the hospital wagons, she would do just as well as getting shuttled from one riverboat to another.”

Dr. Bryant shed his surgical apron and put on his frock coat. “I take your meaning. And I assume you’re still looking for your sister.”

“We are.” Honoree had washed the man’s tools in the basin and was drying each and returning it to the leather holder near his bag.

“Did you find out anything in New Orleans?” The doctor was shooting his cuffs and straightening his collar.

“Yes.” Honoree proceeded to tell what had happened. She turned to Dev. “Have you remembered the man’s commander?”

Dev felt himself flush. “It will come to me.” He and the doctor carried Faith back inside the tent.

“Sometimes a crisis causes a memory to elude us.” Dr.
Bryant accepted his medical bag from Honoree. “I know I don’t need to tell you what to do, Honoree. But call me if she takes a turn for the worse. Watch for blood poisoning.”

“I will, Doctor, and thank you again.”

“When the army moves, I’ll make sure there’s room for Nurse Cathwell on one of the wagons.” The man nodded in acknowledgment and departed.

This news finally hit Dev. The army would be moving east. “I’ll check back later,” he told Honoree. “I have to report to my immediate superior.” He hurried away, unhappy that Honoree wasn’t even going to try to persuade Faith to go home, where she belonged.

F
AITH WOKE AND GASPED,
the searing and throbbing pain in her cheek overwhelming everything else.

“Faith,” Honoree said, “I’m here.” She gripped Faith’s hand. “Is it very painful?”

Faith started to nod and halted. Any movement sent shocks of agony through her very teeth. “Surgery?” she asked in a dry whisper.

“Dr. Bryant did just as you wanted. Everything clean. And he did his very best stitching.”

“Thank . . . him?”

“I did. I’m so sorry, Faith. I didn’t imagine anyone would attack you like this,” Honoree lamented once again.

“Didn’t either. Colonel?”

“He’ll come back. Faith, the colonel told me you found where Shiloh had been. And that her master took her with him
to the army.” Honoree began to weep. “I’m sorry.” She wiped her wet cheeks with the back of one hand. “I’m glad to know she’s alive, but when I think of how she’s been treated, I want to . . . hurt someone.” Honoree’s hand fisted around Faith’s.

“Understand.” Faith panted with the exertion of speaking.

Honoree’s voice became quicker, stronger. “The army’s moving soon. Dr. Bryant wanted me to take you home via steamboat.”

“No.”

“Don’t worry. I said no. You shouldn’t be traveling at all, but the army
 
—or part of it
 
—will be on the move again eastward any day now.” Honoree visibly struggled with herself. “Perhaps we should stay here. There will be a few troops left to guard Vicksburg.”

Faith read the concern for her in Honoree’s expression. “No. Shiloh . . . east. We . . . must go. Otherwise . . .”

Honoree gripped her hand again. “I know. If we don’t stay with the army, it will be just like trying to get permission to go to New Orleans all over again. And we want to go east. That’s where the bulk of the Confederate Army is.”

“Yes.” They had no choice. Faith felt as flat and flimsy as a sheet of foolscap.

“I think I better foment your wound. I need to keep it from infection.” Honoree patted her shoulder.

Even her friend’s touch was anguish to Faith. Too exhausted by this conversation, Faith merely blinked in reply.

Honoree left the tent and returned with a small kettle of water. Soon she was spooning a scant dose of laudanum to Faith. Then Honoree prepared a poultice and set it on Faith’s cheek.

Faith let out a muffled shriek. And lay panting. The pain . . . the pain . . .

Honoree murmured comforting apologies and Scripture verses and then began singing, “‘Hold on. Keep your hand on the plow; just hold on.’”

Faith felt herself drifting away.

Duties delayed Dev and it was nearly nightfall before he was able to go see how Faith was faring. He found the young wife from Tennessee sitting with Faith, who lay on a pallet just outside her tent.

“I’m Ella, sir,” the girl reminded him when he asked.

“Miss Ella.” He acknowledged her, removing his hat. “Miss Faith.” Faith’s large green eyes were pools of anguish. He wished he could do something for her.

“Honoree is helping Dr. Bryant now,” Ella explained, “so I’m watching Miss Faith. I was thinking, sir. She needs to be sat up for a while. She must be aching from lying so long.”

Dev moved closer to the pallet. “Miss Faith, would you like me to lift you and prop you up for a bit?”

“Please.” Faith’s voice was a thin thread.

Ella rose. “Maybe you could let her lean against you?”

Not looking directly at Faith’s bandaged face, Dev lifted and moved Faith gently to a camp stool. He sat down beside Faith, allowing her to lean on him, under his arm. “Is this all right, Miss Faith?”

“Better,” she whispered.

Again he wished Honoree were here so he could ask her how Faith was doing. She seemed so weak.

Ella supplied information without his needing to inquire. “Honoree says her infection is steady, not gettin’ worse. Will you stay with her now, sir, till Honoree comes back? I need to go to my husband.”

“Of course.”

The young woman moved away quickly, wishing them good night.

Dev looked to Faith. “I suppose you are still refusing to go home by riverboat?” he asked.

“Yes. Remember?”

He knew what she was referring to. “No, I can’t recall LeFevre’s commanding officer’s name. It’s still just out of my reach.”

Maybe he truly didn’t want to remember, to lead her further on this quest that had proved to be so dangerous. If he hadn’t helped her go to Annerdale, they would never have ended up in New Orleans. . . . He stopped that line of thought. What was, was.

“I can’t . . . remember either.”

The anguish in those few words tightened around his throat. He couldn’t think of anything to say. Finally he told her the latest information going through the camp. “General Grant has been promoted to the rank of major general of the regular Union Army, not just of the volunteers. Sherman was also promoted to brigadier general of the regular army.”

“Good.”

In light of his guilt, he tried to rein in the pleasure of sitting so close and feeling her next to him. He failed. He supported her, reveling in her nearness.

“Need to lie down.”

He quickly laid her back down onto the pallet.

“I’m glad you’ve come, Colonel,” Honoree said, approaching the tent. “I need help moving the cot back inside the tent for the night.”

“Of course.” Dev helped Honoree make this adjustment.

“Night.” Faith closed her eyes.

And he watched her fall asleep. “How is she?” he asked Honoree in a low voice.

“She’s holding her own. She won’t let this beat her. But it’s going to take a while for her to come back to herself.”

He nodded, bade Honoree a polite good night, and left. As he walked through the deepening twilight, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking of what lay under Faith’s bandages. The thought of it twisted inside him like a red-hot wire. To him, she remained as beautiful as ever, even more so. Nevertheless, how would such a lovely woman deal with a scarred face?

SEPTEMBER 16, 1863

The order to move out came sooner than expected. Two mornings later, Honoree, with Ella’s help, fashioned a pallet for Faith on top of boxes of medical supplies in the rear of a Sanitary Commission wagon. Two of the orderlies climbed up and lifted Faith through the rear circular opening in the wagon’s cloth covering, and the wagon jerked forward over a rut.

Faith’s whole body ached with fever, and her cheek flamed and throbbed with each beat of her heart. Every move was agony. She kept her lower lip tucked under her front teeth as the wagon bounced beneath her.

Ella, weeping, and Honoree, frowning, walked behind the wagon, watching her through the opening. As the miles passed, often Honoree recited Scripture to her.

“‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.’

“‘The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength.’

“‘The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God.’

“‘The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?’”

Faith listened, jolted, wrenched, falling in and out of consciousness. When would this torturous day end?

The order to halt for the day finally came, long after Dev began wishing for it. Being in the saddle again felt good, but his worries over the effects of this troop movement on Faith’s health left him uncertain, ill at ease. He wanted to seek her out immediately, but he had duties to attend to. And he needed to eat his evening meal
 
—he had to stay strong.

Under the darkening sky, a molten-red sun on the horizon, he finally heated a can of beans over the fire outside his tent. And thought of Armstrong. It was lonely eating by oneself. He and Armstrong had always satisfied the prohibition against whites and blacks eating together by having Armstrong eat half-turned away from the fire.

Now that Dev recalled it, the practice seemed foolish, just plain foolish. He remembered Faith’s pointing out his
inconsistencies in regard to slavery, but he brushed them aside for the time being. He didn’t need any more to deal with. He was already weighed down with worry and guilt over her. She could die. He blanched, iced with that fear.

After breaking up some hardtack
 
—remnants of what he’d gnawed on for lunch
 
—he shoveled the mixture of hardtack and beans into his mouth just to fill his empty stomach. Even if good food had been offered him, he would have had no appetite. Then he drank some badly brewed coffee, wishing Armstrong had taught him how to brew something worth drinking before he’d left.

Dev had thought of trying to hire another valet but had not wanted a stranger around him. And manservants did not appear in contraband camps very often. So many of them had been taken to the war with their masters.

Generally dismal, Dev chugged two more mugs of the dreadful coffee. Then he rose and headed for the hospital wagon area to find Faith and Honoree. They might need something, and he had to face once more what his negligence had allowed.

He threaded his way through circles of men around campfires, all eating their meals from cans and brewing coffee. He envied their camaraderie. But he was an officer and had to hold himself apart. Armstrong’s voice spoke in his mind, snippets of conversations they’d had. Nothing special, just words with someone he’d known all his life. He finally saw Honoree standing beside a wagon.

The back of the cloth wagon cover had been loosed, and as he neared, he heard Honoree speaking to someone in the wagon bed.

“Honoree,” Dev said, “how is she doing?”

“Colonel,” Faith quavered.

“I’m here.” He hurried forward.

Faith was lying on a pallet inside the hospital wagon. She offered him her hand.

He took it gently. He almost asked how she felt but quelled the urge. “You’re awake,” he said a bit lamely. He turned to Honoree. “Have you eaten? I can stay with her
 
—”

“I’ve brought their meals from the hospital cook,” Armstrong said from behind Dev.

Dev stiffened. He hadn’t expected to meet Armstrong here, but he probably should have. The connection between Armstrong and Honoree had become more than apparent.