The Yankee Widow Read online

  More losses followed; her grandfather had died recently, and she’d mourned at the gravesides of two of her dearest friends in as many months, both of whom had died in childbirth, along with their infants.

  And then, before their precious Rachel, there had been the lost babies, his and Caroline’s, the first midway through her pregnancy, a wizened little creature, bloody and blue, carried away in a basin to be buried, the second, a boy, carried to term but stillborn.

  It had been Enoch, God bless him, who had seen to those impossibly small bodies, laid both little ones to rest in the small family cemetery, said words over them, and wept as if they’d been of his own flesh. Later, he’d carved markers for them, sturdy wooden crosses, less than a foot high, with no names or dates.

  Now, with his own death so close, Jacob wished Caroline hadn’t tried to be so strong or worked so hard to hide her grief from him, from everyone, holding it close and guarding it like the darkest of secrets. If only he’d sought her out and taken her into his arms and held her fast, held her until they could both let go and weep out their sorrows together.

  Alas, Jacob’s own grief had been a sharp and frozen thing, locked inside him.

  There was no going back now, and regret would only sap what little strength that remained to him.

  He took sanctuary in the remembrance of happier things, finding brief shelter from the gathering storm of fresh pain. In his mind’s eye, he saw little Rachel running to meet him when he came in from the fields at the end of the day, dirty and sweat-soaked and exhausted himself, while his daughter was as fresh as the wildflowers flourishing alongside the creek in summer. Clad in one of her tiny calico dresses, face and hands scrubbed, she raced toward him, laughing, her arms open wide, her fair pigtails flying, her bright blue eyes shining with delighted welcome.

  Dear God, Jacob thought, what he wouldn’t give to be back there, sweeping that precious child up into his arms, setting her on his shoulder or swinging her around and around until they were both dizzy.

  It was then that the longing for his wife and daughter grew too great, and Jacob turned his memory to sun-splashed fields, flourishing and green, to sparkling streams thick with fish. In his imagination, he stood beside his steadfast friend Enoch, once more, both of them as close as brothers gratified by the sight of a heavy crop, by the knowledge that, this year anyway, their hard work would bring a reward.

  “God has blessed our efforts,” Jacob would say, quietly and with awe, for he had believed the world to be an essentially good place then. War and all its brutalities were merely tales told in books, or passed down the generations by old men.

  He saw Enoch as clearly as if he’d been right there on the battlefield with him, instead of miles and miles away. He stood vivid in Jacob’s recollection, the black man his father had bought, freed, then hired in his own right to work on the family farm years back, grinning as he replied, “Well, I don’t see how the Good Lord ought to get all the credit. He might send the sunshine and the rain, but far as I can reckon, He ain’t much for plowing.”

  Jacob invariably laughed, no matter how threadbare the joke, would have laughed now, too, if he’d had the breath for it.

  He barely noticed that the terrible din of battle had faded to the feeble moans and low cries of other men, Rebels and Union men alike, fallen and left behind in the acrid urgency of combat.

  He dreamed—or at least, he thought he was dreaming—of the heaven he’d heard about all his life, for he came from a long line of churchgoing folk. He saw the towering gates, studded with pearls and precious gems, standing open before him.

  He caught a glimpse of the fabled streets of gold, too, and although he saw no angels and no long-departed loved ones waiting to welcome him into whatever celestial realm they now occupied, he heard music, almost too beautiful to be endured. He looked up, saw a dazzling sky, not merely blue, but somehow woven, a shimmering tapestry of innumerable colors, each one brilliant, some familiar and some beyond his powers of description.

  He hesitated, not from fear, for surely there could be no danger here, but because he knew that once he passed through this particular gateway, there would be no turning back.

  Perhaps it was blasphemy, but Jacob’s heart swelled with a poignant longing for a lesser heaven, another, humbler paradise, where the gates and fences were made of hand-hewn wood or plain stones gathered in fields, and the roads were winding trails of dust and dirt, rutted by wagon wheels, deep, glittering snows and heavy rain.

  Had it been in his power, and he knew it wasn’t, he would have traded eternity in that place of ineffable peace and beauty for a single, blessedly ordinary day at home, waking up beside Caroline in their feather bed, teasing her until she blushed, or watching, stricken by the love of her, as she made breakfast in the kitchen house on an ordinary morning.

  Suddenly, the sweet visions were gone.

  Jacob heard sounds, muffled but distinct. Men, horses, a few wagons.

  Then nothing.

  Perhaps he was imagining things. Suffering hallucinations.

  He waited, listening, his eyes unblinking, dry and rigid in their sockets, stinging with sweat and grit and congealed blood.

  Fear burned in his veins as those first minutes after he was wounded came back. He recalled the shock of his flesh tearing, as though it were happening all over again, a waking nightmare of friend and foe alike streaming past, shouting, shooting, bleeding, stepping over him and on him. He recalled the hooves of horses, churning up patches on the ground within inches of where he lay.

  Jacob forced himself to concentrate. Although he couldn’t see the sky, he knew by the light that the day was waning.

  Was he alone?

  The noises came again, but they were more distant now. Perhaps the party of men and horses had passed him by.

  The prospect was a bleak one, filling Jacob with quiet despair. Even a band of Rebs would’ve been preferable to lying helplessly in his own gore, wondering when the rats and crows would come to feast on him.

  An enemy bullet or the swift mercy of a bayonet would be infinitely better.

  Hope stirred briefly when a Federal soldier appeared in his line of vision, as though emerging from a void. At first, Jacob wasn’t sure the other man was real.

  He tried to speak, or make the slightest move, indicating that he was alive and in need of help, but he could do neither.

  The soldier approached, crouching beside him, and one glimpse of his filthy, beard-stubbled face, hard with cruelty, put an end to Jacob’s illusions. The man rolled him roughly onto his back, with no effort to search for a pulse or any other sign of life. Instead, he began rifling through Jacob’s pockets, muttering under his breath, helping himself to his watch and what little money he carried, since most of his pay went to Caroline.

  Jacob felt outrage, but he was still helpless. All he could do was watch as the other man grabbed his rucksack, fumbled to lift the canvas flap and reach inside.

  Finally, the bummer, as thieves and stragglers and deserters were called, gave in to frustration and dumped Jacob’s belongings onto the ground, pawing through them.

  Look at me, Jacob thought. I am alive. I wear the same uniform as you do.

  The scavenger did not respond, of course. Did not allow his gaze to rest upon Jacob’s face, where he might have seen awareness.

  The voices, the trampling hooves, the springless wagons drew closer.

  The man cursed, frantic now. He found Jacob’s battered Bible and flung it aside in disgusted haste, its thin pages fluttering as it fell, like a bird with a broken wing. The standard-issue tin cup, plate and utensils soon followed, but the thieving bastard stilled when he found the packet of letters, all from Caroline. Perhaps believing he might find something of value in one or more of them, he shoved them into his own rucksack.

  Jacob grieved for those letters, but there was nothing he could do.
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  Except listen.

  Yes, he decided. Someone was coming, a small company of riders.

  The thief grew more agitated, looked over one shoulder, and then turned back to his plundering, feverish now, but too greedy to flee.

  At last he settled on the one object Jacob cherished as much as Caroline’s letters—a small leather case with tarnished brass hinges and a delicate clasp.

  He saw wicked interest flash in the man’s eyes, as he fumbled open the case and saw the tintypes inside, one of Caroline and Jacob, taken on their wedding day, looking traditionally somber in their finest garb, the other of Caroline, with an infant Rachel in her arms, the child resplendent in a tiny, lace-trimmed christening gown and matching bonnet.

  No, Jacob cried inwardly, hating his helplessness.

  “Well, now,” the man murmured. “Ain’t this a pretty little family? Maybe I’ll just look them up sometime, offer my condolences.”

  Had he been able, Jacob would have killed the bummer in that moment, throttled the life out of him with his bare hands, and never regretted the act. Although he struggled with all his might, trying to gather the last shreds of his strength, the effort proved useless.

  It was the worst kind of agony, imagining this man reading the letters, noting the return address on each and every envelope, seeking Caroline and Rachel out, offering a pretense of sympathy.

  Taking advantage.

  And Jacob could do nothing to stop him, nothing to protect his wife and daughter from this monster or others like him, the renegades, the enemies of decency and innocence in all their forms.

  The bummer snapped the case closed, put it and the letters inside the rucksack and grabbed it, ready to flee.

  It was then that a figure loomed behind him, a gray shadow of a man, who planted the sole of one boot squarely in the center of the thief’s back, and sent him sprawling across Jacob’s inert frame.

  The pain was instant, throbbing in every bone and muscle of Jacob’s body.

  “Stealing from a dead man,” the shadow said, standing tall, his buttery-smooth drawl laced with contempt. “That’s low, even for a Yank.”

  The bummer scrambled to his feet, groped for something, probably his rifle, and paled when he came up empty. Most likely, he’d dropped the weapon in his eagerness to rob one of his own men.

  “I ought to run you through with this fine steel sword of mine, Billy,” the other man mused idly. He must have ridden ahead of his detachment, dismounted nearby and moved silently through the scattered bodies. “After all, this is a war, now, isn’t it? And you are my foe, as surely as I’m yours.”

  Jacob’s vision, unclear to begin with, blurred further, and there was a pounding in his ears, but he could make out the contours of the two men, now standing on either side of him, and he caught the faint murmur of their words.

  “You don’t want to kill me, Johnny,” the thief reasoned, with a note of anxious congeniality in his voice, raising both palms as if in surrender. “It wouldn’t be honorable, with us Union boys at a plain disadvantage.” He drew in a strange, swift whistle of a breath. “Anyhow, I wasn’t hurtin’ nobody. Just makin’ good use of things this poor fella has no need of, bein’ dead and all.”

  By now, Jacob was aware of men and horses all around, although there was no cannon fire, no shouting, no sharp report of rifles.

  “You want these men to see you murder an unarmed man?” wheedled the man addressed as Billy. “Where I come from, you’d be hanged for that. It’s a war crime, ain’t it?”

  “We’re not ‘where you come from,’” answered Johnny coolly. The bayonet affixed to the barrel of his carbine glinted in the lingering smoke and the dust raised by the horses. “This is Virginia,” he went on, with a note of fierce reverence. “And you are an intruder here, sir.”

  Billy—the universal name for all Union soldiers, as Johnny was for their Confederate counterparts—spat, foolhardy in his fear. “I reckon the rules are about the same, though, whether North or South,” he ventured. Even Jacob, from his limited vantage point, saw the terror behind all that bluster. “Fancy man like you—an officer, at that—must know how it is. Even if you don’t hang for killin’ with no cause, you’ll be court-martialed for sure, once your superiors catch wind of what you done. And that’s bound to leave a stain on your high and mighty reputation as a Southern gentleman, ain’t it? Just you think, sir, of the shame all those well-mannered folks back home on the old plantation will have to contend with, and it’ll be on your account.”

  A slow, untroubled grin took shape on the Confederate captain’s soot-smudged face. His gray uniform was torn and soiled, the brass of his buttons and insignia dull, and his boots were scuffed, but even Jacob, with his sight impaired, could see that his dignity was inborn, as much a part of him as the color of his eyes.

  “It might be worth hanging for,” he replied, almost cordially, like a man debating some minor point of military ethics at an elegant dinner party far removed from the sound and fury of war. “The pleasure of killing a latrine rat such as yourself, that is. As for these men, most of them are under my command, as it happens. Well, they’ve seen their friends and cousins and brothers skewered by Yankee bayonets and blown to fragments by their cannon. Just yesterday, in fact, they saw General Jackson...relieved of an arm.” At this, the captain paused, swallowed once. “Most likely, they’d raise a cheer as you fell.”

  Dimly, Jacob sensed Billy Yank’s nervous bravado. Under any other circumstances, he might have been amused by the fellow’s demeanor, but he could feel himself retreating further and further into the darkness of approaching death, and there was no room in him for frivolous emotions.

  “Now, that just ain’t Christian,” protested Billy, conveniently overlooking his own moral lapse.

  The captain gave a raspy laugh, painful to hear, and shook his head. “A fine sentiment, coming from the likes of you.” In the next moment, his face hardened, aristocratic even beneath its layers of dried sweat and dirt. He turned slightly, keeping one eye on his prisoner, and shouted a summons into the rapidly narrowing nothingness surrounding the three of them.

  Several men hurried over, although they were invisible to Jacob, and the sounds they made were faint.

  “Get this piece of dung out of my sight before I pierce his worthless flesh with my sword for the pure pleasure of watching him bleed,” the officer ordered. “He is a disgrace, even to that uniform.”

  There were words of reply, though Jacob couldn’t make them out, and Jacob sensed a scuffle as the thief resisted capture, a modern-day Judas, bleating a traitor’s promises, willing to betray men who’d fought alongside him.

  Jacob waited, expecting the gentleman officer to follow his men, go on about his business of overseeing the capture of wounded bluecoats, the recovery of his own troops, alive and dead.

  Instead, the captain crouched, as the thief had done earlier. He took up Jacob’s rucksack that Billy had been forced to leave behind, rummaged within it, produced the packet of letters and the leather case containing the likenesses of Jacob’s beloved wife and daughter. He opened it, examined the images inside, smiled sadly.

  Then he tucked the items inside Jacob’s bloody coat, paused as though startled, and looked directly into his eyes.

  “My God,” he said, under his breath. “You’re alive.”

  Jacob could not acknowledge the remark verbally, but he felt a tear trickle over his left temple, into his hair, and that, apparently, was confirmation enough for the Confederate captain.

  Now, Jacob thought, he would be shot, put out of his misery like an injured horse. And he would welcome the release.

  Instead, very quietly, the captain said. “Hold on, Yank. You’ll be found soon.” He paused, looking serious. “And if you should happen to encounter a certain Union quartermaster by the name of Rogan McBride, somewhere along your journey, I would be obliged if yo
u’d tell him Bridger Winslow sends his best regards.”

  Jacob doubted he’d live long enough to get the chance to do as Winslow asked, but he marked the names carefully in his mind, just the same.

  Another voice spoke then. “This somebody you know, Captain?” a soldier asked, with concern and a measure of sympathy. It wasn’t uncommon on either side, after all, to find a friend or a relative among enemy casualties, since the battle lines often cut across towns, churches and supper tables.

  “No,” the captain replied gruffly. “Just another dead Federal.” A pause. “Get on with your business, Simms. We might have the bluecoats under our heel for the moment, but you can be sure they’ll be back to bury what remains they can’t gather up and haul away now. Better if we don’t risk a skirmish after a day of hard fighting.”

  “Yes, sir,” Simms replied sadly. “The men are low in spirit, now that General Jackson has been struck down.”

  “Yes,” the captain answered. Angry sorrow flashed in his eyes. “By his own troops,” he added bitterly, speaking so quietly that Jacob wondered if Simms had even heard.

  Jacob sensed the other man’s departure. The captain lingered, taking his canteen from his belt, loosening the cap a little with a deft motion of one hand, leaving the container within Jacob’s reach. The gesture was most likely a futile one, since Jacob couldn’t use his hands, but it was an act of kindness, all the same. An affirmation of the possibility, however remote, that Jacob might somehow survive.

  Winslow rose to his full height, regarded Jacob solemnly, then slowly walked away.

  Jacob soon lost consciousness again, waking briefly now and then, surprised to find himself not only still among the living, but unmolested by vermin. When alert, he lay looking up at the night sky, steeped in the profound silence of the dead, one more body among dozens, if not hundreds, scattered across the blood-soaked grass.

  Sometime the next morning, or perhaps the morning after that, wagons came again, and grim-faced Union soldiers stacked the bodies like cordwood, one on top of another. They were fretful, these battle-weary men, anxious to complete their dismal mission and get back behind the Union lines, where there was at least a semblance of safety.