Glory (32 page)

She shook her head, angry at the way he held her—and that she hadn’t the power to escape his arms. “You persist in being a foolish Rebel. I’m not your wife, and you will not make me sorry! That priest was no more real than my story.”

So she had lied. But she was mistaken.

He laughed softly. “I beg to differ, my dear. That was Father Vickery, out of Atlanta, devoted to his Georgian boys. Georgians, being Florida’s neighbors, try to help us out, and the good Father Vickery just happened to be the closest clergyman when I was getting ready to ride out. You may not be expecting my child. But I’m afraid that you are my wife.”

Disbelief touched her eyes.

The door to the church burst open. “Captain McKenzie! Julian!”

He knew the voice, and he wasn’t surprised, other than the fact that a general could be spared at this hour to take part in a capture. He had saved General Angus Magee’s foot when only amputation would have saved his life.

“General Magee, sir!” he returned pleasantly, still looking at Rhiannon.

“Julian, step away from Mrs. Tremaine and drop your weapon, sir!”

He stepped away, his eyes pinned upon hers. He smiled slowly, reached for the Colt, tossed it down. His stare didn’t alter as he heard the men rushing into the room to take him. Yet as they reached him, they didn’t touch him; they hovered awkwardly around him.

At last he drew his gaze from her stricken green eyes. “Good evening, gentlemen. No, I’m afraid it’s morning. Where does the time go? It seems to fly when so many are about to die, doesn’t it?”

One of the men cleared his throat and started toward him. Julian shook his head, smiling. “There’s no need for force, my good fellow. Point me where I am to go, and I shall proceed.”

“Just come along, Julian,” General Magee said. His still striking—if aging—face, lined with pride and character, seemed to sag. He stood just in the entry of the small church. He was bone tired.

“Aye, sir, as you wish,” Julian said politely. “Tell me, since we have this happenstance to meet, sir, do you know if my brother is well?”

“Yes, Julian. Ian is well. But he isn’t a part of this; he knows nothing about it—”

“No, sir. My brother wouldn’t be a part of such naked treachery.”

“You died in the dream!”

Magee stiffened. “Mrs. Tremaine?” he said softly.

Julian had reached the general at the door, but he knew she came behind him. He stepped past Magee, into the clearing before the church. Yankee horsemen were aligned thirty feet from him. He turned back. Magee had exited the church, Rhiannon close behind him.

He smiled, addressing them both. “By the way, your pardon, General Magee, but she is Mrs. McKenzie now. I’m afraid you and your men were a little late,” he said, his tone apologetic.

Magee stared at Rhiannon.

“My dear girl, is it true?”

“No!” she said, her whispered word alarmed.

“General, I swear to you that it is. Father Vickery will tell you so, before God. The lady is over twenty-one. So am I. The marriage is legal and binding. With witnesses. Ah! And in private, sir!” he said, lowering his voice so that only the general and Rhiannon could hear his words. “As I did the right, proper, and most gentlemanly thing, coming here at the lady’s summons—and since I have become your prisoner—I ask you to do me a service. As an officer, and a gentleman. Rhiannon is in your medical service,” he said softly, “be kind enough to keep an eye on her. She has a tendency to believe herself dreaming of her dear departed Richard—then turning to the nearest living, breathing body—”

She stepped forward and slapped him. It was a hard, stinging strike. Hard enough to make him feel the blow straight to his jaw.

He lifted his hand to his face, then bowed deeply to her. He turned around and started for the horse that the Yankees apparently held for his use. He swung atop the animal. It was sleek, well fed. He mounted the horse, then saw the opportunity he’d been waiting for. A gap in the Yankee line before him. Lying flat against the horse’s neck, he moved his heels against its flanks, and the sleek bay leapt to life, bolting straight for the gap.

“Stop him!” Magee commanded.

Two cavalrymen managed to fill the gap, but it didn’t matter. Julian needed only spin his mount and ride hard straight back, and to the left.

But when he swung his mount around and started pell-mell back,
she
was there.

She stood in his path, eyes on his. Tall, straight, as still as a statue, challenging him ...

Not much of a challenge. She knew he would stop.

He reined in his mount. Instantly, the soldiers were on him, dragging him from the horse. He struggled to free himself, but the Yanks were having none of it. One of the men swung at him with the butt of his rifle. A good, solid blow. Julian’s head clamored and rung. The whack had been strong enough to cause a fracture, pray God no ...

He started to fall, the world going black. But he saw her. Saw her beautiful green eyes upon his.

He reached out. She screamed, but he had caught her hand. And with what strength he had left, he pulled her to him.

And she came down with him. The world was fading. No matter. He smiled at her. Tried to mouth words. “I swear, dear
wife,
you will be sorry.”

Indeed. Brave, bold words, especially when the world was fading to a total black.

“He’s unconscious ma’am, if you’ll take my hand ...” one of the young horsemen offered.

Rhiannon nodded. Then she looked down at Julian again, eyes closed, a long lock of dark hair fallen over his forehead. She wanted to trace the lines of his face. Touch him, stay with him until he had come to, make sure that he was all right. She bit into her lip, dismayed by the admission she was making then, if only to herself.

“You’ll just never know, never believe, that I did this ... because I love you,” she whispered, knowing that neither he, nor anyone else, could hear her.

Cannon fire suddenly exploded, far too close to them. “Get the prisoner up and to the field hospital!” Magee commanded. “The day’s work has commenced, and gentlemen, may I remind you! The fate of the nation rests on your shoulders today!”

The fate of the nation. The fate of thousands of men who would die. She couldn’t stop the death and destruction, no one could stop it. Yet she wondered ...

Had she
changed
fate, did she have that power? She’d been willing to risk anything to change her dream. But just what had she done? She had deceived Julian, betrayed him. She’d wanted to save him, as he’d saved her, then run ...

She’d tricked him.

He’d tricked her. And now, if he’d told the truth, they were evermore entangled in a hopeless tempest.

Especially because there was one truth she had told.

Fate. Had it all been fated, from that first night when he had ridden through the foliage to the isolation of her house, and into her life?

T
HERE WAS NOTHING AS
awful as the sound of battle.

Kept with other prisoners, mostly infantry and artillery men taken during the fighting, Julian sat tensely on a log behind one of the Yankee field hospitals, listening to the thunder of cannon fire that seemed to boom forever, coming first from one direction, then the other.

The first day’s fighting had left the Confederates at an advantage, taking the town, forcing the Yanks back. The second day had brought savage fighting, leaving no clear victory. July the third, the armies battled again, despite the fact that the dead lay everywhere, that the number of wounded was staggering, that blood drenched the field.

He was tired, but more than tired, he was wretched. He couldn’t endure feeling so useless when he knew how many were being injured, how many would die for lack of attention. Listening to the sounds of gunfire, the screams of men and horses, he damned himself a thousand times over. Not so much for himself. But for what he had done to the men. Every surgeon was needed. And here he was ... listening.

The battlefield was enormous, stretching across hills, fields, orchards, roads, a cemetery. He didn’t know where his own troops were, and worse, he didn’t know where Rhiannon was. In the midst of the action somewhere. And he was powerless. He felt a certain victory in having tricked her in what might be a more binding way than she had him, but it was a hollow triumph. She was legally married. Little good it did him. He was a prisoner, under guard.

Screams, closer at hand, caught his attention. He rose, seeing that an ambulance was coming in. The conveyance stopped just outside the Yankee tents. The man at the driver’s side hopped down, shouting. “Help, we need help out here, Dr. McManus—”

A doctor, clad in a blood-soaked uniform, stepped from the canvas field hospital. “They’ll have to take their turns.”

The doctor disappeared. The soldier looked over the twenty or so Reb prisoners and the two men guarding them. “G’d Amighty, I’ve got fellows dying here ... some fellows may not make it for as much as a drop of water ... Sweet Jesus, someone help me!”

Prisoners and guards alike stared at the soldier for a moment.

“We’ve got the Rebs to watch,” one of the guards said awkwardly.

“Damn it!” Julian swore, striding over to the conveyance with impatience. “We may be Rebs, but by God, we’re all human beings! Someone give me a hand, let’s get these out of the ambulance, see what we can do ...”

“I’m with you, Doc!” one of the Rebs said, jumping down to join him.

A big fellow in a fraying infantry uniform stood up to block Julian’s way. “If they live, they’ll come back and kill us!”

“Maybe. And maybe not,” Julian said, hands on his hips, staring at the fellow. “Let me tell you the way things work. I’m a Reb, because I’m a Floridian first. And before that, soldier, I’m a God-fearing human being, not to mention the fact that I’m a doctor who swore an oath to preserve life! So you can either try to stop me or you can get out of my way!”

The fellow frowned, then stepped back. “Ah, hell!” he swore. “I can’t just sit here with them Yanks screamin’ either. Tell me what you want me to do, Doc.”

Julian looked at the Yankee soldier who had brought the wounded in. “May we, son?”

“Doc, please!”

Julian began giving orders, carefully pulling the men from the ambulance wagon. He found three dead men in with the wounded, along with three Rebs. He did his best to get the twenty odd men shaded from the merciless summer sun beneath a patch of oaks. The field hospital had been set up by a small creek, so there was no problem getting them water. Julian had nothing with which to operate, but with even the Yanks listening to directions, he managed several splints, stanched wounds that were hemorrhaging, and made comfortable those who were going to die.

He was involved in tying off a makeshift tourniquet when the Yankee doctor, McManus, came out of the tent. He viewed the scene before him with a moment’s surprise, then seemed to take it all in his stride.

“You’re a doctor—” he began, eyeing Julian. Then he broke off, frowning. “You’re a McKenzie. Damned if you don’t look like Colonel Ian. You his twin?”

“Younger brother,” Julian said.

“The surgeon ... yes.” He studied him for a moment. “Well, I can’t say as how we couldn’t use your help. Would you work a Yank field hospital, sir?”

Julian didn’t hesitate. “I would.” He looked around him at the Rebs who had helped him with the Yanks. “No man here is a monster. We’re just fighting opposite sides.”

Dr. McManus looked around at the Rebs. “Thank you, boys. I’m grateful for your help. Dr. McKenzie, follow me.”

Julian did so. In the tent there were five tables. Each held a man and awaited another. Three doctors were moving from table to table.

A man on the one nearest their point of entry began to stir. “Jesus, Doc, you’re bringing the Rebs in here on us?”

“Another surgeon, soldier—”

“Ain’t no enemy operating on me!” the man protested.

“He’d like to kill us all!” another man agreed.

“Yeah, Doc, get him out of here!” one of the orderlies protested.

“Julian!”

Startled to hear his name called, Julian walked to the far table. He frowned at first, then recognized a Yankee cavalryman who had been in St. Augustine at the time he’d been brought in to operate on Magee’s foot. He’d assisted, getting Julian from and back to the river.

“George Hill?”

“Julian ... it’s my leg. Shot through the calf. Can’t feel anything, but I don’t think the bone is shattered. Can you ...”

“I don’t know. I’ve got to see the wound.”

“You letting him operate on you, Captain Hill?” Another man called.

“Damned right,” Hill said, leaning back with a subtle smile. “Hell, this man operated on General Magee!”

Julian lifted his hands. “I have no instruments.”

One of the orderlies came over to him with a black bag. “Belonged to Captain Naismith, Forty-fourth Maine. He died yesterday morning.”

Julian looked at the bag for a moment. “Dr. Naismith wouldn’t begrudge you using his things, sir. He never did cotton to this war. He said time and again, all we were doing was killing out a whole generation of Americans, the flower of our youth. You use these, sir. He’d be mighty proud you were saving men.”

Julian nodded and accepted the medical bag. The orderly’s name was Robert Roser. He appointed himself Julian’s assistant.

To his vast relief, Julian discovered that he could save Captain Hill’s leg. The bullet had gone clean through. Next, however, was a shattered elbow, and the arm had to come off. He removed a bullet from the next man’s lower abdomen, then it was a foot wound, a bayonet wound to a shoulder, a bullet in the back, shrapnel, broken jaw ...

The day began to pass.

He moved with all the speed that he could manage. Later, he began to discover that more and more Rebs were brought to his table. He was startled when he came across a lieutenant with Pickett’s troops; Pickett rode with Longstreet, and he had just treated the lieutenant recently for a case of chicken pox.

“Why, Captain McKenzie, sir. What are you doing here?”

“I was captured. But I’m still a doctor,” Julian said, frowning as he studied the man’s wounds. A bullet in the arm, one in the leg ...