In The Face Of Death (32 page)

He cast a dubious look in her direction, but made his way unsteadily toward the door.

“The pantry is straight ahead of you. Let me give you broth first, before you go upstairs to find a bed. Some nourishment will help you to husband your strength.” She was keenly aware that he stood in need of a bath, as well, but knew it would accomplish nothing to mention it.

He looked about the dark, cool chamber and sighed. “It’s been a long walk,” he admitted.

“And why did you come here? It
is
a long walk, and there are other places where you can get help.” She went to the pantry and took down the large crock of rabbit broth and ladled out a generous portion into a white bowl. “Here. There are spoons on the table.”

“Thank you, Ma’am,” said the sergeant, sagging onto the bench at the table and propping himself there with his elbows. “Silas Wainwright, Forty-fifth Alabama, at your service, Ma’am,” he remembered to tell her before he reached for a spoon and all but plunged bodily into the thick broth.

Madelaine introduced herself, and, as she had before, explained she was French, which satisfied Sergeant Wainwright in regard to her practice of taking in wounded soldiers of whatever army.

“You can’t be expected to know how things are here, I guess, you being French and all. Just remember that the Yankees can’t be trusted, not any of ’em,” he said, trying not to yawn. “Sorry, Ma’am, I can’t keep going. Point me to a place to sleep, will you?”

“Up those stairs. There are cots. Choose one that is empty,” she said, taking his bowl and setting it with others in a pan of cooling water.

“My thanks again,” he said, and began his climb.

As she watched him go, Madelaine again thought she had done well to put willow bark and pansy in the broth she made; a slight lessening of pain could bring annealing rest for those not requiring immediate attention. She would make a poultice for his wound while he slept, and prepare to stitch the gash closed when he wakened. She had other patients to worry about; Private Dillon was not improving, and Private Hall would need a new binding on the splint holding his broken leg in place. And there was young Lieutenant Cameron, who was in need of the same tincture for asthma she had given Tecumseh almost a decade ago.

Thinking of him reawakened her memories of him, and her awareness of his advance along the Western & Atlantic Railroad. It was hard not to want to seek him out, to discover at last if he wanted her as more than a memory of loneliness and passion, more than two thousand miles to the west, and nearly a decade ago. But in the middle of a campaign, it would be foolish to make such an attempt, for the chance of reaching him unscathed was ridiculously low. And he would never receive her in front of all his officers and men. She sighed once, and ordered herself to return to the barn to finish her work with herbs and poultices and bandages.

The old mill, near Dallas, Georgia, 26 May, 1864

The battle has been raging less than a mile from here. I can hear the sound of it, like constant thunder, and from time to time soldiers pour through this mill-yard, most of them cavalry, though a small contingent of infantry riflemen came this way not an hour since, and left two of their number here for treatment.

I have almost no food left now, and little hope of getting any with the fighting around me. Most of my bandages have been taken, as well, and the wood I’ve used for splints. . . . Any game in these hills has long since fled or ended up on a spit over a fire. . . . I will have to arrange something for the twenty-five wounded I now have in my care, so that they will not starve while they mend their wounds.

These are Tecumseh’s men, these soldiers who take our supplies and leave the wounded behind.

The horse coming had a steady, fast walk. Madelaine could hear it over the low conversation and the occasional moans of the men she tended, and with it came another sensation, one she had anticipated for more than a year. She paused in changing the improvised dressing of rags on Corporal Snow’s scalp wound, listening intently.

“Just the one horse, Ma’am,” said Private Wainwright, who had appointed himself her orderly. “Nothing to worry about.”

Madelaine shook her head, and handed the soiled tattered cloth to Wainwright. “I had better go down.”

Wainwright shrugged. “I can do it, if you like,” he volunteered.

“And if the man is Union, what then?” Madelaine asked, indicating the last remnants of Wainwright’s Confederate uniform.

He pursed his lips. “You’re right; and he won’t be expecting a woman, will he? You can deal with him proper.”

“I suppose I might.” Realizing her hands were shaking, Madelaine moved back from Corporal Snow. The air felt alive around her, crackling. “You know how to fix the dressing.” She was feeling distracted now, and as she heard the hoofbeats slow, she made herself hurry down the stairs, rushing toward the door so eagerly that it took all her self-control to keep from flinging through it. She forced herself to stop, to gather her thoughts and her whirling emotions.

“French Mill!” The voice was a bit rougher and just now husky with fatigue, but she would have recognized it in the fury of battle.

She stood deliberately in the shadow as she swung the door open. “I understand that’s what they’re calling it now,” she said, and saw him bring his head around sharply, then make a swift gesture of dismissal.

“May I come in?” He paused again, as if testing the air. “I’m not holding a gun. I understand you have some of my men here; I’d like to see them. Steady, Sam”—this to his horse—“And I suppose you could use more supplies,” he said as he swung out of the saddle, his single spur ringing as his shoe touched the earth.

“Please,” she said, hardly trusting herself to speak; she was grateful for the concealment the shadows provided her so that she could absorb the shock of seeing him before he saw her. A jolt of longing, painful in its intensity, went through her as she stared at him.

Something of her feeling must have reached him, for he narrowed his steel-colored eyes, frowning with concentration. Then he coughed twice, and secured Sam’s rein to the low rail at the front of the mill; squaring his shoulders he strode through the door, tall, whip-lean, all bone and sinew, more grey in his short beard and red hair than she remembered, and his face more wrinkled in that hard, paper-like way those with fine, tough skin sometimes acquire with age. His tunic was too short in the sleeve so that the bony knob of his wrist showed plainly as he removed his hat. “General William T. Sher—”

“I know who you are,” she said, stepping out of the shadows at last, her hands extended to him.

He stood absolutely still, as if he could not believe the evidence of his eyes, or feared a single motion on his part would deprive him of a treasured illusion. “No,” he muttered, and then could not go on; he made an attempt to speak, but no other words came.

She marshaled her courage and went up to him, daring to smile. “Hello, Tecumseh.” It took all her strength of will to look directly into his well-remembered face. “I knew you were coming. I have felt you coming from hundreds of miles away. And you’re here at last.”

He found his voice.
“You!
In this place! You are the French Angel?” His outburst bordered on accusation, and his expression was daunting.

Fighting off rising panic, Madelaine managed to keep her smile in place. “I’ve missed you, Tecumseh.”

“You? Here?” He dropped his hat and took both her hands, bending toward her with the intensity of his concentration. There was little friendliness in his demeanor. “I must have run mad. Tell me.”

“Yes, I am here. I don’t know about the French Angel part, but it is Madelaine.” She wanted more than anything to be drawn into his arms with the kind of desperate tenderness he had shown her so long ago, but all she felt was a tightening of his long, lean fingers.

“How?” he demanded.

She realized he would require an account of her presence. “I had thought to leave America before war broke out, but I waited too long. So I have done my best to wait it through.”

“Not a very wise choice of locale, if you ask me,” he said bluntly. “And you so clever.”

“How was I to know that when we came here?” She saw the quick compressing of his lips and added, “The others have gone. I remained.”

“To care for the wounded, no doubt, as you did for Missus Thomas.” His eyes hardened. “You have better sense than that.”

“No, not to tend the wounded; I started out with lost children and had no thought of the toll of battle,” she agreed readily enough. “Though it has to be done.” She decided to tell him the truth, the truth she had not fully admitted to herself until now, when she was with him once again. “I thought I made it plain: I was waiting for you.”

He attempted to scoff at her revelation, but the sound caught in his throat, and the glint in his eyes turned liquid; he glowered to conceal his emotion, unwilling to risk ridicule or condemnation. He shook his head sharply once. “You are in the Confederacy—”

“Not precisely,” she corrected him.

“Oh? How could you be in Georgia and not—” He broke off, remembering her studies. “You’ve been with Indians, I suppose,” he said sharply.

“Choctaw,” she confirmed, and attempted to interject their old familiarity into this reunion. “They were as divided on the issues of this war as most of your countrymen seem to be.”

He nodded, and then the rough timbre of his voice changed, and he touched her face with the tips of his fingers; it was a tentative caress, given to assure himself that he had not been deluded. “You,” he said again, and stared at her, his demeanor softening. “You haven’t changed.”

Her expression became somber. “No. I said I would not—”

“No,” he interrupted, amazement dawning in his eyes. “You haven’t changed at all. Most people, when they say ‘you haven’t changed’ mean you have aged no more swiftly than they. But you.” He took a step back from her. “You are unchanged. Truly unchanged.”

“And will be until the True Death,” she said quietly.

“So you said, in San Francisco. When you loved me.” His voice was hardly more than a whisper.

“I love you now, Tecumseh,” she said with a calmness that was at odds with her inner turmoil.

He sensed the latter, for he gave a quick, fierce smile. “Do you.” He glanced swiftly over his shoulders in both directions, and, satisfied they were alone, abruptly embraced her, his mouth hard on hers.

Now it was Madelaine who was startled; as much as she had longed for this, his sudden ardor took her aback. She steadied herself against him, and held him to return his kiss, which passed from a kind of fury to all-enveloping urgency that staggered them both.

Sherman was the first to move, but only far enough to be able to look down at her. “Good Lord, Madelaine,” he murmured, smoothing a few wisps of dark hair back from her brow. “I had forgotten.”

“I haven’t,” she responded, looking up at him.

Suddenly self-conscious, he moved back from her. “How many men are you treating here?” he asked, attempting to establish a distance between them.

“At the moment, there are twenty-seven men here, eleven Confederates, the rest Union soldiers,” she answered, smoothing her skirt, hoping that this simple action would restore her sense of reality. “I despair of saving three of them, but the others should survive, if we can get food.”

He was brushing the front of his tunic, having bent to retrieve his fallen hat. “I will arrange for some to be sent,” he said, trying to be remote, and all the while his eyes ached at her.

“Thank you,” she said, doing her best to accommodate his shift in mood. “Would you like to see the men? Most of them are on the floor above, though I have two in the barn. I’m running out of room.” She did her best to look apologetic, and succeeded only in gaining a kind of primness that made him chuckle.

“You will never persuade me that way,” he said, managing to smile quickly.

“I wasn’t trying to persuade you,” she countered, and indicated the stairs. “My assistant is a Confederate. Don’t be put off by his uniform.”

“I won’t be, as long as he makes no move against me, or to take advantage of you,” he assured her, then added crisply as he started upward. “I suppose it is foolish to ask if you have a surgeon here.”

“Thus far we have managed without one,” she said as she went after him.

“How like you,” he said to her, and then gave his attention to the wounded soldiers.

French Mill, near Dallas, Georgia, 18 June, 1864

We now have thirty-five men to care for, and though Tecumseh has ordered supplies sent to us, our need outstrips our available medicines and bandages. . . . I have used Saint-Germain’s recipe for a cleaning solution because we have no carbolic acid and are not likely to get any soon. I have asked for ether, but I despair of being provided any. . . . Food is also, and continually, in short supply, as much because of the cold spring and late planting as what the war has done. How am I going to keep these men alive if they have nothing to eat? Not that I have any time to cook. . . .

Tecumseh has been back here twice, but has not been able to remain for more than half an hour. I can see his need in his eyes, but he has done little more than steal long kisses from me when he dares. He has promised to return again in three days. I hope he will be able to keep that promise, for I have spent the last several months yearning for him, and it is torment to see him and feel his need as strong as my own and yet be able to do nothing. . . .

Wainwright is proving an apt pupil, and as he recovers he has shown himself to be a cheerful and tireless assistant. In another time, with different circumstances, I might find him of abiding interest. But in another time, with different circumstances, we would probably have no reason to meet, and so the question is moot at best. . . .

It was just after midnight that Madelaine at last saw Sherman coming up the narrow road on Sam. He rode straight in the saddle as if impervious to fatigue, and he fixed his eyes on the dim path without the aid of a lantern. When he dismounted, he led Sam down to the millpond to drink, taking care to walk softly as he stripped off his gauntlets and tucked them into his belt.