Love and War: The Coltrane Saga, Book 1 (71 page)

The sun began to sink in a blood-red sky. Bodies were scattered everywhere. Slowly, very slowly, the Confederates began to move from the thick forest to gather their dead and bury them. And Kitty made her move. A soldier in a tattered gray uniform, with gaunt, lost eyes, limped along within a few feet of the clump of foliage where she crouched.

“Please,” she whispered. He whipped around, rifle ready, saw her, and jumped in shock.

“Please, take me to the hospital units. I’m Kitty Wright and I’m on your side, soldier.”

He all but yanked her to her feet. “Girl, you crazy? I coulda shot you deader’n hell. What do you mean, hidin’ like that? You ain’t got no business out here. I’m gonna take you to the Colonel and he’s gonna be madder’n hell. All we need is a damned woman!”

He jerked her along in the gathering darkness, and from out of nowhere came a burly, grizzly faced officer who viewed her suspiciously. She poured out her story, and he scratched at his beard for only a moment before barking, “All right, git her over to the General’s medical wagons. We ain’t got time to stand here gawkin’. If she wants to get killed, let her!”

He wasn’t a Colonel, Kitty thought spitefully. He was merely a Sergeant. A Colonel wouldn’t have been so rude. But what did it matter? She was safe, with her side, and soon, God willing, she would find Nathan.

The doctors put her right to work, and Kitty retched again and again at the sight of the horror about her. She had thought that her resistance to the nightmare of war had become hardened, cold; that she was able to withstand anything. But so many hundreds of bleeding, mangled bodies screaming in pain, emaciated with hunger and disease, fighting a battle that seemed useless in an equally futile war—why? Why did it have to happen? There were no supplies. No chloroform. Men screamed in agony, cursed their country and their God. Hell. It was a living, breathing hell, from which there would never be a return for any of them.

Why am I here?
She asked herself that question over and over during the night. So she had made it through the swamps without running into the Yankees. The Yankees were everywhere, anywhere, and soon they would swarm down upon the whole Southland. Why hide from them at all?

A soldier handed her hardtack and coffee, and she took a moment to eat and rest. He watched her silently for a moment, then said, “Lady, what you doin’ here?”

“I…I had to come,” she answered, watching, struck with horror, as they carried a soldier, his body in two pieces, to his grave. “I had to do what I could…try to find my fiancé.”

“Who might that be?”

“Collins… Nathan Collins.” Her gaze followed the men carrying the body halves. She gagged on the hardtack, then blinked and whipped around to the soldier. “What did you just say?”

“I said Major Collins is over there in the tent with some of the other officers.”

She looked in the direction he pointed to. Her cup went clattering to the ground. With wooden legs, she tried to move, stumbled, fell. The soldier lifted her up. She shoved him aside, forced her legs to move. She reached the tent, bent, stepped inside, and all eyes turned to stare.

“Nathan…”

“Katherine…”

For a moment they stood there, eyes locked in disbelief, and then Nathan moved first, blinking back tears as he wrapped her in his arms, held her tightly against his chest, murmuring, “Oh, God, Katherine, it is you. But why are you here? I don’t want you here in this.”

“What difference does it make where I am?” she asked in a voice thick with bitterness. “Sherman marches to Goldsboro. The Yankees surround our homeland. What difference does it make where any of us are?”

Apologizing to the others in the tent, Nathan led her outside. “You didn’t write,” she babbled. “I never heard a word.”

She felt his arms about her stiffen, and his voice was tense as he said, “Nancy wrote me that you deserted my mother and let her die, Katherine.”

“That’s a lie!” She pulled back to stare at him incredulously. “I left that house because I couldn’t stand to be around your people another moment, especially after that night in the pecan grove. I suppose Nancy wrote a pack of lies about
that
, too.”

“She …” he hesitated a moment, “she said it wasn’t pleasant.”

“One day, I’ll tell you all about that night, how Nancy lied to turn those foragers on
me
.”

He sighed impatiently. “Katherine, Katherine, darling, I don’t want to hear about it. I do wish I could lock you away somewhere, as you seem to look for trouble. When this war is over, and you and I can solve our differences and be married, I’m going to chain you to the bed, I swear.”

He was attempting humor, Kitty knew, but she noted the strain in his voice.

“Why are you here? Even in Goldsboro you are safer….”

They passed a group of bedraggled soldiers so young looking that Kitty paused to ask about their youth. “The North Carolina Junior Reserves,” Nathan said quietly, “the seed corn of the Confederacy. See how desperate we are? We muster
children
. But I want to know about you, how you got here.”

“I know the countryside, remember? I crawled through the swamps on my hands and knees to find the Confederate lines. I came because I knew you were here—and they say Sherman is marching to Goldsboro, and Poppa fights with him.”

His arms dropped away from her, and in the glow of an exploding shell in the sky above, she saw that his eyes were narrowed, grim. “John Wright is with Sherman?”

“Yes. Nathan, why do you look like that?”

“Damned traitor! I look around me and see my people dying right and left, and I think how your daddy turned his back on them to help kill them!” He slammed his fist into his open palm. “How can he live with himself? How…”

“Nathan, he’s my poppa.” She grabbed at his arm. Now was not the time to talk about such things. “Please, let’s talk of other things. Does it look so terribly bad for us here now?”

“Hell, yes,” he said through gritted teeth. “I never thought we’d wind it up right here. We were in Smithfield when General Johnston got the dispatch from Wade Hampton, the Commander of the Confederate cavalry. He was encamped here and sent word he’d just encountered a portion of General Sherman’s army that was pushing toward Goldsboro, so the General knew we had to block Sherman’s sweep northward. Damn, our troops were so dislocated, we didn’t have enough men to counteract Sherman’s move.”

They reached a ditch, stepped over a body, and Kitty winced painfully. Nathan called out to a burial detail nearby, “Get this soldier buried quick. He’s blown to bits.” He led Kitty farther back to some bushes where they sat down.

“Johnston didn’t know which way Sherman was headed for sure,” he went on. “We were trying to concentrate our army at Smithfield, where we felt we could threaten the flank of any advance in the direction of either Raleigh or Goldsboro.

“Then, Sherman’s left wing turned east at Averasboro, and Hampton, who had his cavalry reporting every move, realized they were advancing in two columns toward Goldsboro. When Johnston heard this, you can bet he didn’t hesitate moving us here.

“Hampton moved his cavalry out to meet Sherman’s advance, and they held them off till sunset on the 18th, that was two days ago, on Saturday. We got here that night. It’s hard to say who’s winning, Katherine. We’re killing them. They’re killing us.”

“That’s the way it’s been for four years,” she reflected sadly.

And his next words washed over her in waves of shock. “I wish we would surrender!”

“Surrender? Nathan, you can’t mean that.”

“I do!” he said fiercely. “Katherine, we’re beaten. We have no uniforms, food, ammunition, supplies. It’s gone. All of the Southern cause is gone. It’s time to give up and go home and rebuild and try to forget four years of hell.”

“No, you can’t mean that, Nathan!”

“I do, and it’s going to happen sooner or later. I say let it happen now, while
I’m
still alive, while
you’re
still alive, before any more good men die! God, I’ve seen so much killing and bloodshed, I can’t stand it.” He shook his head from side to side, pressing his hands against his temples.

It was as though she had never really seen him before. Surely, when the war ended, it would take many months, perhaps longer, for her ever to really know him again. But then, she had changed, too. Everyone had. Four years of hell, many more years of the tension and strain of wondering when war would finally come—they had taken their toll on every American, North and South. It would take much longer for the wounds to heal.

Finally, Nathan took her back to the hospital area. “I have to go back to the tent, Katherine. The battle will begin just before dawn. Please take care of yourself. If we retreat, I’ll come for you and keep you by my side.”

He kissed her long and hard. She wondered if it would be the last kiss he ever gave her, if they would ever meet again, for surely death was raining down.

The drums began beating just before dawn, the trumpets blew, and the color bearers, sweat pouring from every pore in their bodies, stood with chins held high, ready to march forth and meet the enemy. An air of tension hung as heavy as the sulphur clouds. Kitty stood inside the hospital tent, peering out at the gray mist rising from the ground. Garish. Haunting. A scene that would forever be branded in her mind, never to be forgotten.

And then the firing began. In the tents, the hospital staff worked frantically, doing what they could to ease the suffering of the wounded; but without proper supplies and facilities, it was all but hopeless. The bodies began to stack up outside. Someone screamed for burial.

“I can’t stand all those bodies stackin’ up like firewood out there. Somebody dig.”

“You dig, goddamn it! You think I’m gettin’ out there and get kilt myself buryin’ the dead? You’re full of shit, if you think I am.”

“That’s right. Bury ‘em yourself.”

“You want to lie out there and turn black and bloat like a dead mule if you die? You think they like it?”

“You think right now I give a damn? You think I’ll give a damn once I’m dead? Go to hell, soldier, and dig them graves yourself!”

The day wore on. Kitty could see blue-clad soldiers falling in the distance, and she wondered if one of them were her father…or Travis. And the gray fell, too, and she wondered if Nathan had met his end. But, guiltily, she had to rationalize the fact that Nathan was avoiding open combat. He was staying to the rear. She had spotted him a few times during the day, riding back and forth, searching for deserters, she supposed. She did not like to think he was actually seeking an excuse to stay out of the line of fire.

The sun began to sink. The word came down through the lines, reaching the staff at the hospital. General Johnston was going to wait long enough to pick up the dead and the wounded, and then he was going to fall back across Mill Creek and withdraw. He lacked the number of men necessary for a decisive victory. No substantial reinforcements were expected. To remain meant defeat, and Johnston was entrusted with one of the few Confederate armies still intact.

The movement was quiet but frenzied. The wagons were filled with wounded men, burial details silently dug large trenches and dragged in the dead. Nathan hovered nearby, wanting Kitty to go ahead and leave with him. “Let’s get out of here,” he urged. “We’ll go to Richmond.”

“Richmond?” She paused as she wrapped a bandage around an unconscious soldier’s head to try to stop the bleeding from the gouging wound. “But General Johnston is withdrawing, not heading for Richmond.”

“I tell you, Katherine, I don’t give a damn what the Confederacy does now. I’m going to save my life—and
yours
.”

She whirled around to face him, eyes glassy with cold fury in the dim glow of the lantern overhead. “Nathan Collins, you
are
a coward! I don’t think I ever realized it before now, or maybe I didn’t want to accept the fact. But you are a coward! And…I think you make me sick!”

She turned back to the wounded soldier, but Nathan was grabbing her shoulder, spinning her around roughly, his hand cracking across her face. “Don’t ever say that to me again, you hear? Now you’re coming with me, right now. I waited years for you, Katherine, and I’ve fought a war for you, and the time has come for us to leave together!”

He’s gone mad
, she thought wildly as he jerked her from the tent.
He’s insane.
“Nathan, stop, please,” she pleaded, but he jerked her along, reaching two horses and throwing her up on a saddle. When he had mounted, he reached over, snatched her reins, and began to pull her along behind him.

“Nathan, you have to listen to me,” she pleaded, but he kept on riding through the trees, past the bodies, the wounded, the soldiers frantically working to bury the dead, preparing to withdraw. In desperation, she called out to the soldiers to help her, but they paid no heed—everyone was hurrying so they, too, could pull back.

Nathan was heading for the swamps he knew so well. Soon, dawn would again streak the sky. The withdrawal would be complete—and Nathan would be a deserter! Kitty slumped in the saddle in defeat.
Nathan, Nathan, did I ever really know you?
she wondered frantically.
Did I ever really love you? Did you ever exist except in my dreams?
The boy beneath the weeping willow tree, so kind, so gentle—had it been a myth? A fairy tale? The grim, gaunt-eyed stranger pulling her horse along was the
real
Nathan Collins, and in that moment she hated him as she had never hated another human being!

Suddenly, John stepped out of the swamps, gun pointed straight at Nathan. “Where you takin’ my girl, Collins?” John Wright snarled.

Nathan yanked the reins, bringing both horses to a halt. “John!” he gasped in disbelief as Kitty’s heart thundered like the guns beginning to explode in the distance. “John, what the hell are you doing here?”

“Scoutin’. I reckon you’re runnin’ away like the coward you are.”

“Retreating is more like it,” he said smiling, regaining some of his confidence. “You can go back to your bastard General and tell him General Johnston has withdrawn.”

“Kind of figured he would. Now answer my question. Where you takin’ my girl?”