Love and War: The Coltrane Saga, Book 1 (68 page)

Nathan raised his head, still holding her close. “I love you, Katherine, and I always will. Let me take you home tomorrow and I want you to wait for me there. And every time the past comes back to hurt you, I want you to think only of the future and this…” And once more he kissed her.

And Kitty closed her eyes and once again saw the smile, the gray eyes—like a whispering ghost gliding softly through the swaying leaves above. She felt a warm shudder—and knew the power still held her in its clutches.

Chapter Forty-Two

A half-moon peered through the gray clouds, casting an eery sheen on the bare, gaunt fields that surrounded the Collins mansion. Only memories remained of the wealth that once surrounded the plantation. Kitty could remember the gala parties on the lawns, the field hands singing as they brought in the cotton from the fields. Gone. All of it. The slaves had long since run away and there had been no menfolk about to stop them. The silver and crystal had been sold for whatever heirlooms would bring, the proceeds sent to the starving Confederate army. No semblance remained of the prosperity that was once overwhelming.

Behind her, at the center o the wide veranda, a creaking door slammed.

“Kitty, are you out here? You know Mother Collins said to stay inside. There are foragers about. Kitty? Do you hear me?”

She turned her gaze in the direction of the whining voice. “I’m over here, Nancy, and I don’t need you to tell me when to come inside.”

Nancy Warren Stoner padded across the floor. “I do declare, Kitty, but you are a stubborn one. Everybody knows the foragers are about and General Sherman doesn’t care what they do. If Mother Collins weren’t stubborn, we could evacuate to the mountains. I can’t see staying here, just waiting for those horrid Yankees to come marching up the road.”

Kitty looked at the young woman leaning on the railing and tried to remember the time when she had been a social queen in Wayne County. Now she wore ragged dresses like the others housed in the mansion, her hair hung limply about her shoulders. Dresses had been ripped to shreds and sent off to the hospitals to use for bandages. There was no time, nor need, for curling irons and other frivolities. Food was scarce and so was time, and they had to do a bit of foraging themselves to exist.

“Lavinia isn’t being altogether stubborn, Nancy,” Kitty said patiently, as though speaking to a child. “She happens to be sick…too sick to be moved.”

“Oh, I forgot,” Nancy whined sarcastically.
“You
know so much about doctoring, don’t you? You’re the one folks talk about, the one who went off to the war and doctored the Confederates
and
the Yankees. Too good to sit home with the womenfolk and quilt and sew and make bandages, weren’t you? And now you sit around all puffed up because Nathan won’t let you go to that nasty hospital in town…”

The girl had hit a sensitive spot. “Shut up, Nancy. I’ve listened to your bitching mouth for almost six months and I’m sick of it. The only reason you harp at me is because you know it’s me Nathan is coming home to and not you. Where’s your pride? And by the way, where’s your husband? He chose to stay with strangers rather than come back to you because he couldn’t stand your nagging.”

“How dare you?” Nancy took a few steps forward, sneering. “Everyone knows what you did when you went away, how you slept with all those Yankees. When Nathan realizes how foolish he is, he’ll be sorry he ever asked you to live here! Just wait and see. I wish you’d never come. It’s embarrassing to the family to have you here.”

Kitty laughed. It might he embarrassing but they had certainly made use of her. None of the high-bred women who had gathered at the house knew anything at all about cooking. She’d had that chore to do, for they were helpless once the slaves ran away. She was aware of how Nathan’s aunts and cousins felt about her, but that was the least concern. She had made him a promise and she would keep it. And where else was there to go, anyway? She had learned upon returning that her mother was dead and even though the news hurt, it did not come as a surprise. Kitty had never expected to see Lena again after Luke Tate forced her away that night when her mother lay so deathly ill. With her father still away fighting for the North and their homeplace a pile of burned-out rubble, there was nowhere to go—and she had promised Nathan she would remain at his home till the war ended. Aching to go to Goldsboro and work at the hospital there, it was all she could do to stay out in the country away from everyone and all the war news. And most of all, she wanted to be back with the hospital staff.

“I’m going to tell Mother Collins you refuse to come in.”

“Nancy, I don’t care what you do. I wish you’d just go away and leave me alone, You’re so childish, so hateful. I can’t communicate with you and I don’t see that we have anything to talk about, anyway. Now please, just go away.”

Kitty knew what she wanted—an argument. Nancy loved to goad and needle, but she was determined not to let her succeed in getting her riled. She had noticed how it infuriated the conceited girl if she just brushed her aside like a pesky mosquito.

“Just you wait!” Nancy swished around and stomped down the rickety porch steps. “Just you wait till Nathan comes back and I tell him how you’ve behaved here, in his home—the way you’ve treated his relatives. A fine hostess you’d make for the Collins mansion, fine hostess, indeed! You haven’t got as much polish as a stinking nigra field hand!”

Kitty hadn’t been paying much attention to Nancy’s ravings—she usually repeated herself every day, at least twice. But suddenly she sat up and saw the girl walking toward the road in the moonlight, head up, feet stomping her on her way.

“Nancy, you come back here,” Kitty called apprehensively. “If there are foragers around, you have no business out there. You know the rules Lavinia gave us—no women out of the house after dark…”

“Well, look at you,” she screamed into the night. “You sit out there brooding over all your Yankee lovers! Don’t tell me what to do!”

Leaning back in her chair, Kitty said to hell with her. Let her wander around out there in the dark. If an owl hoots, she’ll run all the way back to the house, terrified. Maybe she deserved a good scare, anyway, to take her off her high horse.

The days since Nathan left had dragged endlessly, slowly becoming weeks filled with terrible war news. Sherman had finally attacked and taken the city of Atlanta, leaving it in flames. Marching south to Savannah, Georgia, it had been said, the fierce General had telegraphed President Lincoln that he was giving him the city with one hundred and fifty guns and twenty-five thousand bales of cotton-for a Christmas present!

Kitty shuddered. What of Nathan? Where was he? The last letter they had received arrived weeks ago, just before the occupation of Savannah. He had said they were fleeing Sherman, trying to regroup and gain strength before attacking. He hoped to be home soon. The letter was hurried, difficult to read. But where was he now? He could have been killed and in the confusion, his identity lost. They might never hear what happened to him.

I’ve got to stop thinking this way
, Kitty chided herself. The war would soon be over, and even if the South lost, somehow they would rebuild, unify; and Nathan would come home and they would marry and one day the searing memories would fade to a cold gray ash.

The door squeaked. “Kitty, are you out there?”

Recognizing the voice of Nathan’s Aunt Sue, Kitty acknowledged her presence. “Lord, child,” the woman hurried over. “You know Lavinia don’t want you outside like this. It isn’t safe. At least inside we do have a few guns, and we could barricade the doors and try to defend ourselves. If you sit here alone like this, some Yankee forager could come along and snatch you right off the porch, and…”

“I’ll be fine, Aunt Sue. You go inside and see to Lavinia. Tomorrow I’m going to go to the hospital in town and get the medicine she needs. She’s very weak and frankly, I’m afraid she won’t live much longer.”

The woman gasped, hand flying to her throat as the moonlight spilled out from behind a cloud bank. “Oh, Lordy, don’t say that about my blessed sister. She lives to see this war end. Don’t let her die…”

Kitty spread her hands helplessly. “I’ve done all I can do. She was too weak and feeble before the fever ever set in. She hasn’t eaten properly, has let herself go…”

“We all have.” Her voice cracked. “When my Lymon died at Gettysburg, all life ended for me. And when Lavinia lost Aaron, she just gave up. Sometimes I think we’d all be better off if we died—before the Yankees get to us first.”

“We can’t give up hope.” Kitty tried to comfort the crying woman. “We have to have faith that all well be well one day.”

But her words were of no comfort. The woman turned and fled back into the house. Kitty looked in the direction where Nancy had gone—toward the wooden farmhouse that stood just beyond the pecan grove. Sighing, she got up, went down the steps, and crossed the bare yard. The girl was so immature, so selfish and self-centered: she would have everyone worried half to death if they discovered her missing. And Nancy was certainly no outdoors person. She might have been raised in the country, but she knew nothing about the woods and scrublands about. She could get lost quite easily.

The pecan trees were bare, their branches swaying slightly in the chilly night. Underneath, green hulls crunched beneath her feet as she scurried along, trying to watch where she stepped. And she cursed herself for vowing to Nathan that she would stay with his mother until he returned. This was not the place for her. She belonged in the hospital wards, helping the wounded, doing her part. What good was she doing here? Cooking, trying to find food. Certainly if hard-pressed, Nancy and the other pampered women would have the courage to get out and do for themselves.

She saw the figures scuffling in the shadows before she could make out Nancy’s muffled screams. Heart thudding, Kitty plunged ahead toward the struggles, crying out, “What are you doing to her? Stop it, I say. Stop it.”

And then they turned and she could make out the angry, chiseled features of three men dressed in mismatched Yankee uniforms. Foragers! Damned Yankee foragers who would steal, burn, plunder—and rape, at will!

Nancy was trying to scramble away, but one of the men stepped down on her long hair, pinning it to the ground as she screamed with pain. Too late, Kitty realized she should have returned to the house for a gun. Perhaps she could outrun them. Turning, she started running across the grove, but the men were right behind her, grabbing her and slinging her to the ground—hard.

One of them fell on top. “Well, well, I do believe we’ve got us some real treasure, boys. Best I can tell, this Rebel wench has a body to behold.”

Ugly, nasty-sounding laughs ringed the air.

“Let’s get the other one, too. We can have us a little party.”

“Let’s take our pleasure and then move to the house and see what these Rebs have hidden.”

“Yeah, maybe they have some liquor.”

“Let’s go ahead and get some lovin’ right now. I ain’t had a woman since I screwed the eyeballs out of that nigger wench down in Georgia.”

“These look prime…”

Kitty was trying to scream against the nubby fingers pressed tightly over her mouth. She could make out the dim figure bringing Nancy forward. Nancy had stopped struggling and was crying instead, deep, racking sobs shook her whole body.

“Get ‘em naked. Build a fire. I want to see this stuff.”

“Can’t have no fire. Might be some yokels around who’d come running with a musket. We’ll make a fire later, though, when we burn that goddamned house down.”

“Please, no,” Nancy whispered hoarsely. “Don’t take
me
. I…I just had a baby. I…I still have a…”

Her words were barely audible. “…bleeding…”

“Oh, shit.” One of the foragers gave her a shove away. Then he turned to Kitty. “This right? This woman got a new baby? That means you got to please all of us.”

“Oh, she can pleasure all of you,” Nancy was babbling, still backing away. “She used to be held prisoner by some Confederate deserters and I know they raped her over and over. She…knows what it’s all about. Spare me, please.”

Kitty’s body was shaking with white-hot fury. How could Nancy do this to her? How could she lie to protect her own body, knowing full well the Yankee bastards would ravish her over and over again. How traitorous could that girl be?

“You put up a fight and we’ll cut your throat, you hear?” A burly, sweat-stinking man was straddling Kitty, his uniform damp with perspiration. “Now, let’s get these clothes off…”

He held a knife and picked at her bodice, then with one quick slash, tore it open. Her breasts spilled forward and he gasped, “Boys, come look at these. Oh, Lordy!”

They gathered around. Kitty struggled, opened her lips to scream, but a dirty cloth was stuffed down into her mouth. She was helpless.

“Oh, Bart, you hurry up and do it. I want some so bad.”

“Yeah, Bart, you always get it first and don’t leave much for anybody else, the way you fuck your women…”

The man above her was ripping at her skirt. “I’ll leave some of this, boys. It looks too good not to share. And I got a feelin’ from what I’m lookin’ at that she can take a whole hell of a lot of good, hard fuckin’.”

“Hey!” someone shouted. “Get that other one. She’s running away.”

Kitty twisted her head to see Nancy being thrown to the ground. “Tie her up,” the one on top of her ordered. “We don’t need no sick woman, but we don’t want nobody to come running outta that house with no gun. We can take care of what’s inside that place later. Right now, I got other business to take care of.”

She was naked, her arms pinned painfully behind her back. The man called Bart moved his free hand up and down her body—pinching, squeezing, probing roughly. He was up on his knees, pants down around his ankles. “Leamon, come here and hold her arms above her head, I want to be free to really get goin’ here in a minute.”

Someone stepped forward, yanked her arms up. Bart reached down, grabbed a handful of pubic hair, and squeezed, laughing with delight as Kitty gagged trying to scream out in pain. “Now I’ll make it good for you,” he hissed, blowing foul breath into her face. “I’ll make you feel good…real good.”