A Place of Peace (9 page)

chapter
ten

S
he had never felt
the heat of such a fierce fire before, and she kept trying to turn away from the sight, but Blocker’s hands kept holding her, forcing her to look at the destruction of her house.

The main column of the army had moved on, and now the only ones who remained were the mounted cavalry.  Most of them were back on their horses, gathered to watch the burning of the house, their faces dancing with the shadows caused by the flames. 

Across the field, another bright column of flame was roaring as the last of the barn collapsed in a shower of dust and sparks.  It had burned quickly, fueled by dry hay and seasoned wood.  It had taken her father three months to build that barn, and now it was gone in a matter of minutes.

Melinda screamed and struggled as the torch was applied to the house.  She searched the soldiers for a sympathetic face, but they were stone
, watching the fire as if they had been gathered around on of their own campfires.

“Look!” shouted Blocker, holding Melinda still.  “Here is the payment for your loyalty for the traitor’s cause.”

She tasted smoke, and it seared her lungs.  “Please, don’t,” was all she could manage to say as the wood began to creak and the crackle of the flames popped in her ears.  The house would be gone, too, in a matter of minutes, and her farm would be gone as well.

“Why are you doing this?” she cried.  Blocker did not answer.  Instead, he gripped her face and wrenched her head to look at the flames consuming her home.

“Now you are homeless,” he said.   “Now you are a refugee.  A casualty of war.  A displaced person.  You will ride with us, and we will take you to a post.”

Ride with us
.  At his comment, some of the mounted soldiers exchanged knowing looks.  Even Blocker was grinning at the thought.

Melinda thought of her father’s shotgun.  She should have pulled the trigger when she had the chance.  She would have died, but it would have been better than witnessing this.  She pulled against Blocker, but he was too strong and the heat from the house dried any tears she might have cried.

The men grew restless, wanting to ride on, bored with the fire and wanting to pursue other interests.  Melinda saw their looks, how they twitched in their saddles, waiting like wolves circling a lamb.

The last of the
dismounted men mounted their horses and made ready to ride out in their standard column of two.  Melinda’s wrists were being rubbed raw as she twisted against the rope binding her hands.  Blocker dragged her away from the house, and she was glad to be away from the fire that scorched her face and left her feeling burnt.  The coolness of the air felt pleasant.  She was led over to the horses, and thrown up on one.  She nearly slid off the other side, but managed to grab the saddle and balance herself.  Blocker was going to ride with her in front of him, and he seemed excited by the prospect.

There was nowhere to go.  She watched as the last of her house fizzled and collapsed in a smoldering ruin, and she felt Blocker swing himself up behind her on the horse, his arms immediately locking around her waist just beneath her breasts.  She couldn’t breathe, and she felt him pushing against her.

With a jolt, the column started riding, and Melinda clutched the saddle horn as best she could with her bound hands.  Behind her, the glow of her home said farewell and she strained for one last look.  The last of the flames lit up the dark sky like a warning.

“Sir,” a more gentle voice came from beside her, and she saw it was Corporal Sims who had ridden up beside the
colonel.  “Skirmishers ahead. Looks like some local boys got themselves some guns.”

Before the
colonel could reply, the faint pop of a rifle sounded from the darkness ahead.  The road was deserted, but Melinda could hear the rustle of figures moving through the underbrush on either side.  Another crack of a rifle, followed by another.  The horses flinched at the sound, but kept going ahead.  Some of the cavalry had drawn their own guns, and were now scattering shots blindly through the trees.  Blocker stopped his horse.

“Take the girl, Corporal,” he said, shoving Melinda off his horse and almost making her fall into the road.  Sims reached over and caught her arm, pulling her over to sit in front of him on his horse before she could fall.  Blocker had his pistol drawn.

Melinda slid against Sims, immediately feeling better.  She didn’t think Sims was going to hurt her, and his grip on her was softer, kinder. 

“Let’s flush out these Rebs from their cover,” ordered Blocker.  “Get off the road and blow them out of their holes.”

The column split, and Melinda found herself riding off to the right, away from Blocker.  Sims drove his horse off the road and into the field.  Melinda could see the flashes of the rifles sparking like fireflies through the trees.  Sims stopped his horse, out of sight from the others.  Before Melinda could speak, a knife glittered suddenly and her hands were free.  They tingled as the blood poured through her wrists, and she rubbed them gingerly.

“Run,” whispered Sims.  “Go on, get out of here.”

“What?”

Sims half-pushed her off his horse, and she slid down to the ground to land in the waist-high grass of the pasture.  She looked up, but Sims had his pistol drawn and his horse was pawing the ground, eager to be away.

“Go on!” he whispered again.  “Run!  Get away from here!”

“But…” 

He fired the pistol over her head.  Startled, she took off, plunging blindly through the field and half-hoping she wasn’t going to twist her ankle in a hole.  When she dared to look back, Sims was gone, his horse already off to join the others.  She kept running, reaching the trees and ignoring the scratches of the branches as they raked across her face.

She knew these woods and the entire countryside around her farm.  Melinda needed no daylight to show her the way.  She went instinctively, as if she had an internal compass.  From a distance, she could still hear the bursts of rifle fire, and the distinct sound of several shotguns roaring in response. 

The edge of the Johnsons’ tobacco patch was beneath her, and she collided with the plants, tearing some of them out of the ground in her panic.  The soft dust of the field was a welcome change to her feet, and she ran through the patch, heading for the distant lights of the farmhouse.

Voices drifted through the night.  Melinda slowed her pace, breathing hard and trying to calm down.  More sounds, louder.  The column of Union soldiers had decided to stop at the Johnson’s farm.  She crept to the edge of the field, crouching behind the plants.  Joan was standing on the porch holding a lamp.  Three soldiers were looking up at her, one of them had his rifle pointed at her.

“We don’t have anything,” Joan was saying, and Melinda could hear her voice, loud and strong even from the distance she was at. 

A hand came down on her shoulder, and Melinda felt her heart stop.  The grip was hard, but not tight, as if to steady her instead of hold her.  They had found her.  They had followed her through the woods and caught her. 

But a voice was close to her ear, and it was a familiar one.  “Relax, girl.”

Melinda remembered to breathe as she turned to see Frank Johnson standing beside her.  His hunting rifle was in his hand, and she could tell it was ready to fire.

“Frank!”

“Shhh!”  Frank clamped his hand over her mouth.  “I was out with the others, but we saw those Yanks coming this way.  Be quiet for a minute.  Joan’s a capable woman, and she’ll buy us some time.”

“What are you going to do?” she whispered.   Frank brought his rifle up to his shoulder and aimed.

“Get down,” he said. “If something happens, then you run.  Make your way up to
Gallatin if you have to.  Don’t look back and don’t come back down here.  It will be too dangerous for you.”

Melinda nodded.  She noticed the pistol Frank had tucked in his belt as she crouched down further into the dirt. 

“There are three next to the porch.  Five more behind the house,” Frank was muttering.  “The rest have moved on.  Some went back when they heard the gunshots down the road.  Eight.”

He looked down at her as she waited with wide eyes.  He lowered his rifle and handed it to her.  It felt heavy in her hands, like a dead thing.

“I know your father taught you to shoot,” Frank said as he pulled out his pistol.  “I’m going to have to get closer to hit them with this,” he waved his pistol.  “You will cover for me.”

Melinda felt the rifle in her hands, the smoothness of the wood stock and the oiliness of the barrel.  It was warm to the touch, having recently been fired.

“I don’t know,” she started to say.

“Hush up,” said Frank.  “You’ve got no choice.  We’re going to have to move fast so quit thinking about it and do what you have to do.”  For a moment, she pictured her father there, saying those words to her, and she felt the rifle grow lighter in her hands.

“Here,” he handed her a leather pouch.  “There’s powder and shells in there.  Probably six shots.  You’ll have to fire and reload quick.”

A wave of panic clutched her.  Reload in the dark?  How fast could she do it?  When her father taught her, she was lucky if she could get one cartridge in, now Frank was asking her to load as fast as some soldiers could, and her hands started to shake.

“Are you ready?” asked Frank, easing forward as he went to the edge of the field. 

Melinda looked through the leaves of the tobacco.  Joan was growing angry, her loud voice becoming even louder, as two more soldiers came around the side of the house.  Now there were five in front of them, which left three more in the back.

“I’ve got six shots,” said Frank.  “You’ll have to take the other two.”

“I can’t do it,” she said in a very small voice.  “I’ll miss.”

Frank turned and looked at her, and suddenly her father was there.  “You are defending your home,” he said.  “And there is nothing wrong about that.  I saw the fire up the road.  I know what they did to your house.  Now are you going to just let it happen, or are you going to do something about it?”

Anger swept through her.  Of course, she was going to do something about it.  These were the men who had destroyed her home and deprived her of her father.  She raised the rifle and took aim at the soldier who had his gun pointed at Joan.  He would be the first for holding an old woman at gunpoint, even though she posed no serious threat.

“Okay,” she said, the new strength in her voice surprising her.  “I’m ready.”

“I’ll go as soon as you shoot.  It will distract them long enough until I can close the distance.  The only one who’s ready to fire is that one with the gun already out.  It will take some time for the others to prime their guns.”

Melinda nodded.  Her arms were already growing tired from holding the gun, and the barrel began to waver slightly.  The thumping in her ears was the drumbeat of her heart.  She would do it for her father and her home, and for all the other homes destroyed by these locusts who had swept through their fields.  She pulled the trigger, immediately feeling the kick of the gun jabbing into her shoulder.

But then she was on the ground, scrabbling at the pouch and trying to fish out the powder to pour it into the barrel.  When she tilted the horn, some of it went into the barrel, but most of it spilled over her hands and onto the ground.  She found the wad with the round in it and shoved it in the muzzle, ramming it down with the rod.

She had heard gunshots in the back of her mind as she raced to reload the gun, and she could still hear Joan’s voice, shrieking, but all of those sounds were far away.  She focused on the gun, and then she was on her feet, pointing the rifle through the leaves.

Frank was lying on the ground, motionless.  She lowered the gun a bit and squinted.  Joan was crying, hysterically shrieking on the porch.  The soldier still had his gun pointed at her, while the others held their rifles, still smoking, in Frank’s general direction.  One Union soldier lay dying against the steps of the porch, clutching his stomach. 

Oh, no…
She had missed, and the troops had shot Frank.  A large section of one of the pillars on the front porch had been splintered, and Melinda assumed that was what she had hit instead of the soldier.

She wanted to fire again, but the rifle was suddenly too heavy, and it sagged as she stayed frozen amid the tobacco leaves.  The soldiers were moving toward Frank, two of them reloading as they walked.  Joan had collapsed, the light from her lamp seeming very dim and far away now.

chapter eleven

“You look like one
just returned from the land of the dead,” Lilly laughed as Colby sat up in his bed.  He lay propped up on a pile of pillows stacked beneath him, while Lilly sat beside him, a bowl of steaming broth in her hand.  She dipped the spoon in and gave him another taste.

It was morning, but Colby wasn’t sure how long he had been out.  His leg was not hurting anymore, and he supposed he had Lilly to thank for that.  Now she fed him with the skill and care of a mother feeding a child, and the broth was good and hot.

The first thing she had noticed was that his color had returned.  It was not the feverish redness that marked a high temperature, but a warmer pink hue that told her his fever had broken and he was on the road to recovery.

There was a brief knock, and Holcomb poked his head in.  “How’s everything today?” he asked.  Colby nodded, glad to see his friend, but Lilly frowned, looking as if something important had just been disrupted.

“He’s better,” she said.  “Open up, now.”  Another spoon of broth vanished in Colby’s mouth.  “See?  His appetite has returned.”

“Good,” said Holcomb, standing awkwardly in the door.  “I’m glad to see it.”

Lilly put the bowl and spoon down and turned to glare at Holcomb.  “Did you need something?”

“I need to speak with Colby, if that’s okay,” said Holcomb, a little taken by her attitude.  “But I can wait until he’s finished eating.”

“Good,” said Lilly, picking up the bowl again.  Colby raised a hand and stopped her before the next spoonful reached him.

“Please, Lilly.  Can you give us a moment?”

Lilly looked hurt for a brief moment, then put the bowl down and stood, brushing the drops off her skirt.  “Very well,” she said, giving Holcomb a fierce look as she passed.  “If you need me, just holler.”

“Thanks, Lilly,” Colby called after her as she slammed the door behind her.  Holcomb wanted to laugh, and he was still shaking his head as he came over to the bed and sat down.

“Nice woman,” said Colby.

“Crazy, is what she is,” said Holcomb.  “But she’s got her eye on you.  She’s taken quite a liking to you, I can tell.”  Colby blushed and closed his eyes.  Holcomb kept speaking.  “However, when you’re ready, we need to go.  I don’t mean to push you, but we can’t stay here forever.”

“How long have we been here?” asked Colby, opening his eyes.

“Three days,” said Holcomb.  “You’ve been out most of that time.  I, however, have had the extreme pleasure of keeping Lilly company.  She let me sleep in one of the storage rooms.  Not bad, really.  I had a nice blanket and a pillow.  The whole time she’s been hovering over you like a mother circling her babes.  She gave you quite a lot of morphine.  That’s probably why you don’t feel any pain.”

“She had morphine?”

“Doctor’s daughter.  She hid a bottle from the Yanks.”

In fact, Colby could still feel the drowsiness calling him back to sleep. 

“Don’t get used to it,” warned Holcomb.  “I’ve heard a lot of stories about soldiers and morphine.  I wouldn’t let her give me any more, if I could help it.  Just a little to take the edge off the pain, but you don’t need to overdo the stuff.”

“Really?  And how many legs have you had chopped off?”

“Not funny, son.  She’s got your little picture.  The one you’ve been carrying around.  Found it in your pocket.”

Colby’s drowsiness fell off of him, leaving him cold.  “What did she do with it?”  There was a sudden alarm in his voice, and Holcomb thought for a moment, he was going to leap out of bed and go after it.

“Relax,” Holcomb said.  “I assume she’s still got it.  Why don’t you ask her when she comes back in?  I sure she could give it back to you.”

“Yeah,” said Colby.  “You’re probably right.”

The door opened and Lilly came in smiling.  Holcomb didn’t trust that smile.  It held the look of a woman who was dangerous.  She beamed around the room and put a delicate hand on Holcomb’s shoulder.

“I need to finish here,” she told him.  “If you don’t mind.”

“Colby?”

Colby nodded.  “It’s okay, John.  I’m sure Lilly will take good care of me.”  Lilly reddened at the remark.  Holcomb glanced from the woman to the boy in the bed back to the woman.  She had the look of utter infatuation, and it was obvious that Colby was not going anywhere anytime soon if Lilly had anything to say about it.

“I’m going,” Holcomb said.  “Colby, I’ll come check on you later.”

“Thanks, John.”  Holcomb nodded at Lilly as he left.

“John told me you are from
Gallatin.  Is that right?” Lilly asked as she began feeding Colby.

“Not quite.  South of
Gallatin.  Closer to Nashville.”

Lilly nodded and held up another spoonful of broth, waiting for the drips to subside.

“Uh, Lilly,” he said.  “I’ve been wanting to ask you something.”

“Yes?”  The spoon vanished into his mouth and it was a minute before he could speak again after the hot broth burned down his throat.

“There was a pendant,” he said at last.  “With a picture in it of a girl.  Do you know what’s happened to it?”

Lilly held the spoon frozen for a long moment.  She seemed to Colby to be taking a long time to think of a response.  “Was it important?” she finally asked.

“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t.”

“There’s no need to get rude about it,” she said and promptly put the spoon in the bowl, not picking  it up again.  “I have it, if you must know.  I was keeping it safe for you when you woke up.”

“Can I have it?” he asked, not liking the way she held the bowl.  Her grip on it had tightened, and Colby was afraid she was going to throw it at him, scalding him with broth in the process.

“I don’t have it with me,” she said, putting the bowl down on the little table near the bed.  She folded her hands in her lap, looking like a schoolgirl waiting for a question to be asked.  “Who’s the girl in the picture?  John told me you weren’t married.”

She tried to sound casual, and Colby could sense she was digging deeper for information, but her voice betrayed her, coming out in a higher pitch. 

“Her name is Melinda.” he told her.

“Melinda.  Oh, what a pretty name.” she said, and her voice was shaky.  “Melinda.  Melinda.”  She repeated the name as if trying to memorize it.  “Is she your lover?” the last word was bitten off, as if the sound of it tasted bitter. 

Colby tried to raise himself higher on the pillows, but Lilly held out a hand and stopped him.  “You’ll tire yourself out,” she told him.  “You need your rest.”

“I’ve been resting for three days,” Colby said.  “I need to get up.”

“Are you leaving?” she asked.  “Are you and your friend leaving?  That’s fine, if you think you’re able, but what will you do when the morphine wears off?  Who will ease your pain then?”

He could sense she was upset, and he put his hand over hers.  His touch made an immediate difference, and he could feel her heartbeat through her hand, pounding rapidly, but now it slowed as he held her hand.  She didn’t pull away.  Instead, she curled her fingers around his hand, gripping it tighter.

“Lilly,” he started to say, but she shook her head.

“I’m sorry,” she said.  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.  I mean, I don’t even know you.  I shouldn’t care if you have someone you care for at home.”  She looked up, and the glitter of tears was threatening to spill out of her eyes.  Colby felt sorry for her.

“Hey,” he said, trying to cheer her up.  “You’ve been a great help to me, and you’ve probably saved my life.  I can’t repay you for that, but I will always hold a deep gratitude in my heart.”

She sniffed.  “You’re sweet,” she said.  “If you go to that girl Melinda, she would be the lucky one.  Not me.  Not here.”  She looked around the little room.  Colby reached out with his free hand and touched her face, caressing down her cheek to touch the scar on her neck.  She flinched, but didn’t stop him.

“The man who did this to me is dead,” she said as he traced the line across her throat.  “A damn Yank.  I think he would have raped me if he had the chance.  Before I put both barrels of my shotgun through his belly.  He shot my father, as well.  Lucky for me, that Yank was too stupid to know how to actually kill someone.  He didn’t know the first thing about anatomy, which is why I’m still alive.”

When she spoke about the man she shot, Colby could feel the tightening of her fingers around his hand.  She was a remarkable beauty, fierce and proud.  She chose not to cover her scar, which Colby admired.  He figured she enjoyed telling the story whenever someone asked.  For as she spoke, her voice grew stronger and colder, and he knew she would not hesitate to do it again.

“I’m sorry,” he said, bringing his hand back up to her cheek.  She closed her eyes and nuzzled the palm of his hand.  The softness of her skin was like silk, and when she had her eyes closed, she looked truly celestial.

She opened her eyes, the steel gray color changing to a softer, misty silver.  She placed her hand over his and brought it down from her face.  “Tell me about your family,” she asked.

Colby thought for a moment then spoke in a quiet voice.  “My parents are dead.  My father died of pneumonia, and my mother probably died of grief.  I had an older brother, and we were left on the farm to keep it going, but we couldn’t raise the tobacco by ourselves, and we couldn’t afford to hire any extra help.  We cut and sold what we could and used to money to start raising pigs.  But then the war happened, and we both enlisted, mostly for the money, I suppose.  I mean, it was more than we could have gotten by raising hogs, but they killed my brother at
Fort Henry, and I was sent south to Mississippi.”

“Poor thing,” Lilly whispered, still holding his hand.  “We’ve both suffered in this war, haven’t we?  Our families gone, our homes overrun.  I think we’re kindred spirits, in a way.”

Colby felt the heat from her hand burning through his skin.  He wanted to pull away, but she held him even tighter.  “What about Melinda?” she asked.  “Do you love her?  You seem eager to go see her.”

“I just want to go home,” he said with a longing in his voice.  “That’s all.  But I made a promise to her father.”

Lilly let go of his hand, and a sudden coolness filled the gap between them.  She leaned closer to the bed, her eyes wide and hopeful.

“Take me with you,” she whispered.  “I can help you.  I can help you find her, maybe.  Or tend to your wound.”

There was a desperation in her voice, as if she was saying Colby was her only chance to escape the little town she was trapped in with all its ghosts and empty stores, including the one they were in now.

“I don’t know, Lilly,” said Colby, feeling her expectations weigh down on him.  Her silver eyes began to waver into a sharp gray as she sensed his hesitation. 

“Don’t say anything else,” she said, her voice beginning to crack. “Please don’t.  I would get in the way, and there’s Melinda to think about, isn’t there?”

“You have to understand,” Colby began, but Lilly cut him off.

“I understand everything,” she said.  “No, really.  Now finish your soup.  We need to get your strength up.”  She started feeding Colby again, but the light had been snuffed out in her eyes, and her enthusiasm was dead.  It was now the act of feeding someone out of necessity, not out of caring, and Colby sensed it as she mechanically scooped the broth into the spoon and dumped it into his mouth.  When it was gone, she did not offer anything else.  Instead, she took the bowl and left the room, not saying another word to him. 

***

Holcomb fed the horses
the last of the hay he found in one of the upper bins of the store.  He wanted to ask Lilly if there was a place he could turn the horses out for a few hours, but the look on her face as she emerged from the store told him all had not gone well with Colby.

“Pack up,” she said.  “Hitch that horse back up to your wagon.  You’re leaving tomorrow morning, first thing.”

“What about Colby?”

“What about him?  I told him he had to leave.  There’s no reason for you all to stay here and drain the last of my supplies.”  Her voice was stern, and Holcomb had the image of her pulling the trigger of the shotgun into the belly of the Union soldier.  She had probably laughed when she did it.

“Did he say something to you?  You look upset.”

This time a small smile crept over her face, and she narrowed her eyes at Holcomb.  “He told me about Melinda.  It’s because of her that I’m saying goodbye to you two.”

Holcomb shook his head and patted down the horse before beginning to hitch him back to the wagon. “Green-eyed monster,” he murmured as he worked.  He could feel Lilly’s glare on him, and it felt like a physical presence pushing against him, making him move faster.

Lilly stood, arms crossed.  “I can’t really give you much to help you out,” she told him.  “I need to keep what I can here.”

Holcomb stopped in the middle of fastening a buckle on the harness.  “Can we have the morphine?” he asked, already knowing what the answer would be.  “It would really help Colby out, you know.”  He was playing on her sympathy, but she wasn’t having any of it.