Glory (38 page)

“Yes, of course. Mary, I’ve asked for a coffin. We’ll have him laid out so that mourners can pay their respects, but we’ll keep it a closed coffin. We’ll have a service for him tomorrow.”

“Thank you.”

“The men here admired him. I heard nothing but good things about him.”

“He was a good man. A wonderful man. Kind and giving. Loyal, generous, dependable. His sin was loneliness.”

“That’s not a sin, Mary.”

He moved, opening the door for her. She started out, then turned back to him. “By the way, Dr. McKenzie, I never slept with Captain Henderson.”

She smiled, and began to leave again, intending, he realized, to leave him doubtful and puzzled. But she was the one who had brought it up. He caught her arm, pulling her back. “What?”

“I never slept with him,” she said, and he was surprised by her sudden anger as she added sharply, “You ass! He was my father.”

He gritted his teeth and forced a smile. She had set out to make a fool of him. She had carefully kept that information from him for weeks. She had allowed him to spout off time and time again.

She had just lost a man she had loved, he reminded himself. Ah, but she had started this! He could feel entirely justified in responding. “All the better, my dear. I won’t feel half so tainted when you pay your debts.”

She went white, staring at him. Then she turned and started running down the hall.

“Mary!” he called after her.

But too late.

She was gone.

And he was left alone with the dead man she had rightly loved.

“It seems that we’re insistent on having someone here by the name of McKenzie.”

Julian stood by the window in his small room, and looked out on the late afternoon where the citizens of Washington moved along the sidewalks and streets as they went about their daily business. It was an interesting prison. From here, he knew, the Confederate spy Rose Greenhow had received messages and sent them along.

He turned, smiling at the sound of his cousin’s voice. Sydney moved across the room, coming into his arms for a long, tight hug. At last he released her. Sydney was still stunning, perhaps more so with the maturity gained through years of the war. Her Indian heritage gave her a slightly exotic appearance that was mysterious and compelling. Her eyes were her mother’s green; her hair was incredibly rich, thick, heavy, and dark, her father’s gift from his Seminole blood.

“I understand I have your room,” he told her.

“Yes, same room. They must reserve it for McKenzies. We’re privileged, you know. Not everyone is deserving of such private space.”

“Umm.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “And I understand that you managed your release by marrying a Yankee?”

She looked right back at him. “Well, at least I managed my
release.
It’s my understanding that you managed your
capture
by marrying a Yankee.”

“Touché, cousin,” he murmured.

But the smile she had given him quickly faded. “I heard that Jesse was injured again. That it was a serious injury. And that you operated on him.”

“He’s going to be all right, I believe.”

“So you did do the surgery?”

“Yes.” He hesitated a moment. “Sydney, you didn’t want him to die, did you?”

“God, no!” she gasped. Then her cheeks flooded with color and she shook her head. “He was a friend ... more than a friend. He was injured before. I was his nurse when he was brought to Richmond. He’s known Ian.”

“Yes, they’re both regular cavalry.”

“It was an important prisoner for the Rebs, so he was to be exchanged for Jerome when the Federals were holding him here. Only someone changed things at the last minute, and Jesse was exchanged for someone else. But Jerome had no intention of staying, as you know, and during the escape, Jesse caught hold of me and warned that if I tried to leave with Jerome, he’d call out an alarm. Because ... because he thought I’d be in danger running with Jerome. But I was furious, he went back to war. And then ... well, I had gotten familiar with the prison here, and they’d brought in some new people—much more decent than some of the wretches holding Jerome! So I started coming to see to the Reb prisoners. And naturally, I began to find out all kinds of information regarding the war ...”

“And passed it on?” Julian asked.

“It seemed the right thing to do with information,” Sydney said.

“After Jennifer was nearly hanged? After everything that went wrong with Alaina?”

She stared at him. “Well, men are shot daily, and still more and more of them go to war!”

“There’s not a lot of choice for a man,” he told her.

“Not true. There’s not a lot of choice for a woman.”

“Sydney—”

“Well, there’s the whole point. You, Ian, Jerome, Brent, my father, your father—well, you would all think it your sacred duty to protect me from the trouble I had gotten myself into. I told Rhiannon that when she was here. And I asked for her help.”

“So she went to Captain Jesse Halston.”

Sydney nodded. “Well, it seems that General Magee still believes that we’re all better off being in prison. But, though I hate to admit it, since Jesse is the one who escorted me here as a prisoner, he was decent about getting me out. He didn’t have much choice. He came here, we were married, he warned me not to become involved in espionage in any way, and then he rode off to join the army. And he did so in time to reach the fighting at Gettysburg.” Her voice, at the last, was bitter. “Julian, I heard that he was hit in the shoulder, that it was a serious wound.”

“He came through the surgery fine.”

Sydney bit her lower lip. “Was Rhiannon with you when you operated on him?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, maybe he does have a chance.”

Julian lowered his eyes, wondering whether or not to be resentful that his own flesh and blood could find faith in his ability only once she had learned that his wife had been with him.

“Well, I’m curious. How did you come to meet Rhiannon and discover her special talents?”

“She didn’t tell you?” Sydney asked.

“We really never had much time to talk.”

“Well, of course not, knowing the male McKenzie temper—”

“Excuse me. The
male
McKenzie temper?”

“I didn’t sock a photographer from
Harpers.”

“You weren’t there. You would have torn his hair until he was bald if you had been,” Julian assured her.

Sydney smiled. “There’s a young private here who had a serious foot injury. I thought that he would have to have it amputated. But Sergeant Granger, the fellow on the desk, suggested that we see her ... and she was like magic. She has an ability, a talent ... her hands heal.”

“Umm, she has talents, all right,” Julian murmured.

“Risa had sent her up here. If my sister-in-law thought enough of her to send her to work with her father ... well, she worked magic on Private Lawton. I know your abilities. So I know that if Jesse had any chance at all ... well, he had that chance with the two of you. Now, as to getting you out of here—”

“Sydney, wait!” he said softly.

“What?” she asked, beautiful eyes wide.

“Sydney, you can’t be involved in getting me out of here.”

“But—”

“You swore to this man that you wouldn’t become involved in espionage.”

“Well, of course, but this is different.”

He took both her hands. “No, Sydney. It’s not.” He shook his head. “Sydney, they won’t keep me that long. I’ll be exchanged.”

Sydney looked at him, frowning, then shook her head. “Julian. They’ve lots of injured Rebel prisoners. They’re on a high! They believe that the battle so recently fought at Gettysburg was the turning point of the war, that they’ve found out how to beat us, that the Rebs haven’t the strength to be a real threat to the North. And Vicksburg has fallen. The Yanks can choke us freely now on the Mississippi. Julian-”

“Sydney, I will not have you involved.”

“If Jesse becomes angry—” she began with a toss of her head.

“It has little to do with his anger,” Julian warned her. “He is probably responsible for you. And if you betray him, he is probably the one who will pay the price.”

“He shouldn’t have arrested me.”

“What choice did he have? He’s a Yankee. You were exchanging information that was hurting the Northern war effort.”

“But if he had lo—”

“If he had what?”

She flushed. “If he had cared for me, he wouldn’t have arrested me.”

Julian threw up his hands. “Sydney! It’s a war. He is a Northerner.” He shook his head. “You’ve seen what war does to families. You can’t expect a man to go against his beliefs.”

“I want to go home, Julian.”

“But you married him.”

“I said that I wouldn’t spy. I never said that I wouldn’t go home. And if I helped you escape, I could go home with you—”

“Sydney, that would be the same as when Jerome escaped.”

She shook her head stubbornly. “Jerome is a blockade runner. The Yanks hate him; he’s made a fool of them time and time again. The Yanks don’t hate you—you’ve saved body parts for far too many of them!”

“I assure you, there are Yanks who hate me. But Sydney, Ian knows I’m here.”

“Oh? And what is Ian going to do? Say, ‘My brother is with the medical department, you should let him go’?”

Julian shrugged. “Maybe. You never know.”

“Well, I do have a plan, you know.”

“Oh?”

“One that has worked before.”

“You want me to dress up like one of the singing Irish ladies as Jerome did?”

Sydney arched a brow indignantly. “Don’t be silly, they would recognize that ruse immediately.”

“Then—”

“A coffin,” she said somberly.

“A coffin?”

“When the dead are being brought out ... you crawl in with them. It’s worked well on many occasions. And God knows, there will be plenty of dead men with all the injured from the battle at Gettysburg.”

He opened his mouth to protest.

But he paused.

Sydney had a point. There were so many men who were dead ... and dying.

Coffins were abundant. Ian would do what he could, yes. But how long would it take?

As they stared at one another, church bells began to toll. They had been tolling frequently since he had arrived for all the prominent Yankee officers who had made it from the battlefield only to die in the hospitals.

Here, in the Yankee capital, the Rebs were not so mourned. All that awaited them was ...

Coffins.

And transport home.

South.

In the days that followed the great clash at Gettysburg, the Union army began making some movements toward stopping the Southerners. Rhiannon knew what went on—and what didn’t go on—because of General Magee.

The long, exhausting, endless hours—in which day turned into night turned into day again—immediately after the battle at last began to come under control; injured men were treated, then sent on to hospitals or sent home for convalescence.

The Rebs were treated, and sent on to hospitals, or prisons.

Many were buried in hastily dug graves not far from the field hospitals where they had perished from their wounds.

But finally, many of those who could be moved were moved. The numbers of men to care for became manageable as the injured were dispersed. Some would stay on at Gettysburg for a long time, under the care of patriotic Yanks. Some went on to Harrisburg. And like the Rebs, some of them died, and were hastily buried. Organized graves would have to come later. At times, Yanks embraced their Rebel brothers in death and into the ground, for the numbers were so terrible to deal with, and the threat of disease from the tens of thousands of bodies was so great to the living that such small indignities had to be done to the dead.

The hospital at the farmstead where she worked began to function under more normal hours. General Magee began to return for set meals and to have a few precious hours at night where he could put his feet up, rest, correspond—or talk to her. And since he had very firm opinions about what was going on, he kept her well informed. They should have moved—immediately. Lee must be shaking his head over the Union army. No wonder the Rebs were convinced they could win the war despite the numerical and technical superiority of the North. The Yanks couldn’t get a single man in charge with the capacity to fight.

Lincoln was delighted with the victory—and beside himself with frustration over what had happened since. The Rebs were slipping away. Meade believed that his troops were just too exhausted to risk another encounter with Lee.

But then, Meade planned an attack and took it to a “council” of generals. A few of the generals vetoed his plan.

Lincoln’s response was swift and angry. Meade wasn’t to have a council with his generals, he was to give orders, and they were to go after the defeated and retreating Confederates. There had been some fighting, at Boonsborough, Maryland, at Williamsport, Maryland, but Meade never gave the order that would send the army in force after the Rebs.

By mid-July, Meade finally moved large forces after Lee. Word had come by then of draft riots in New York. At least a hundred people had been killed or wounded. Churches had been burned, there had been massive destruction. Despite the success of Gettysburg and what might be a real turning point, there were those Northerners who wanted nothing more of war.

Toward the end of July, Rhiannon found herself on the move again with General Magee’s forces. They moved southward into Virginia. Magee’s cavalry became involved with skirmishes as bands of Union and Confederate soldiers met, clashed, and withdrew.

Most often at night, she lay awake, afraid to sleep—afraid to dream.

She had parted ways with Jesse Halston at Gettysburg. He would be convalescing at Harrisburg before returning to a quieter duty in Washington or to his cavalry troops. She had written to Sydney, though, of his condition, and asked about Julian. There had been no reply. To the best of her knowledge, Julian remained at Old Capitol, safe. There were many prisoners for him to treat. Ian had come to see her, telling her that it would be late summer or early fall before he could arrange for an official transfer. She needn’t worry; Julian knew he was only biding his time. He wouldn’t do anything reckless.