Blood Moon (13 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Mercy sat thinking about Isaac and his mystified expression when she had refused to give him an answer. She wasn’t surprised at his confusion. She should have told him she’d be honoured to help at the fort instead of giving him cause to doubt her. She wasn’t very good at lying.

She looked at herself in the mirror. She cringed at the ill-fitting dress that hung loose on her body. The woman who had washed her hair and helped to bathe her had donated it, and she had been grateful for it, but still, she looked like the poor orphan she was.

She jumped at a heavy knock on the door. It would be Isaac with coffee and more questions, she thought with dread. “Come in,” she called out.

Her eyes widened with pleasure at the sight of Nelson, until she saw his surly expression. He carried a tray with bread, butter, and a pot of coffee. He was certainly in a bad mood about something, she thought, giving him her brightest smile.

“Good morning, Nelson. Who’s upset you this morning? You look as though you’re about ready to hit someone.”

“Now, why you wanna do that to Mr Isaac? You ain’t got no one waitin’ for you outside these walls, so you best be staying right here with Mr Isaac and me,” Nelson told her angrily.

Mercy fumbled for a reply. Nelson had obviously been told by Isaac that she didn’t want to stay. At least she knew what was bothering him. “I don’t want to talk about it,” Mercy told him.

“Mr Isaac done told me he’s real happy you be here. He sure is fond of you, Miss Mercy, and he’s a fine man.” Nelson carried on. “I don’t reckon you find no one finer than Mr Isaac, so why you wanna leave when you got him and me to take care of you? You ain’t lost your stubbornness. No, you always was as stubborn as an old mule.”

Mercy was elated at being reunited with Nelson. He had grown stronger and more confident, and he had lost that gaunt, frightened expression, as though the world held nothing but peril for him. They had come together the morning after Mercy arrived unexpectedly at the fort, and they had spent an hour reacquainting with each other. She told him about Lina’s death, and they had both cried. He’d wanted to know where she had been since April, and he had not been happy to learn that she had put her life in danger again. Her head had spun with his questions and her attempts to keep up with all her lies.

Mercy learned that after leaving him in Chester, Pennsylvania, Nelson had managed to secure passage on a steam ferry going to New York. He had worked hard, he told her. He had scrubbed decks and, at the end of the journey, had received half a dollar. From New York, he had found himself in all kinds of trouble, as he put it, but though she had nagged him to tell her about his experience, all he would say was that he had eventually shared a wagon with a white man who peddled medicines for a living up and down the East Coast.

Nelson had eventually entered the city of Boston two weeks after leaving her and had found the hospital and Isaac, who, he told her, had been more than happy to help him.

Mercy thought it best to say as little as possible this morning. She was sure it wouldn’t matter what she said to justify her desire to go back to Norfolk, for he was just as determined that she remain here as Isaac was.

There was so much she wanted to say to Nelson. She had opened her heart to him, and he had listened to her talk about Jacob for hours at a time on their fateful journey. Did he believe that she wanted nothing to do with Jacob? She didn’t really know, but she was sure he was at the very least sceptical about her denials.

Nelson was not as polite as Isaac. He was determined, goading her and demanding answers, and she believed he wouldn’t stop today until he got them. “I’ll go mad if I spend another day looking at these walls, Nelson. Mr Isaac said I could take a short walk,” she said, trying to steer the subject in a different direction.

“There ain’t nothing to see round here but soldiers and guns, Miss Mercy. We got more soldiers than we know what to do with – and we got niggers sleeping outside the walls. I don’t know for sure, but I reckon we’ll soon have a whole camp full of runaways before long. Them niggers need feedin’ and lookin’ after. You could stay here and put your mind to that instead of runnin’ away. Why you always runnin’? Runnin’ here, runnin’ there, and always hidin’ from somethin’ and someone?”

“So you’ve been sent here to convince me to stay?” Mercy finally said. “Tell me, if you know me as well as you say you do, why would you want to keep me here against my will? Even if you do think you’re doing what’s best for me.” Mercy smiled at his forlorn expression. “Blimey, Nelson, it’s hard to believe you were a scared, skinny slave not that long ago. Now look at you. Anyone would think you were my father, the way you talk to me!”

“Aw, hush now, Miss Mercy. Old Nelson here ain’t never gonna be no father.”

Mercy laughed. How she loved Nelson. If she had her way, she would take him with her when she left.

She watched him cut a slice of bread and smear honey on it. He handed it to her, but he was clearly pensive and distracted.

“Tell me about Bethel,” Mercy said.

“Oh, that was real nasty, Miss Mercy. I ain’t seen nothin’ like that. Now, I ain’t sayin’ it was a big battle, but men died and I saw some cut up real bad. I reckon them soldiers here killed more of their own kind than they did the enemy that night. They all started hollerin’ and shootin’ at each other before we even got to the Confederate camp. I don’t know who said we should march in the dark, but I know it ain’t the best time to see who you’re shootin’ at. I don’t reckon I want to see that again – all that smoke and blood and men yellin’. Mr Isaac was real brave. He sewed those poor men up like he was darning socks – he’s a fine doctor – but I ain’t got no hankering for marchin’ and soldierin’.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that, but you know you will probably have to march again, don’t you?”

“I guess so. I got to look after Mr Isaac.”

“You like Isaac very much, don’t you?”

“He’s a good man – and he be real good to you. You mind my words.”

Mercy chewed the bread and then wiped a dribble of honey from the side of her mouth with a napkin. “Nelson, are you matchmaking?”

“Nope, I ain’t doin’ no such thing, but if I was, I reckon I would match you up with Mr Isaac. You sure will break his heart if you leave him.”

In a rare display of affection, Nelson reached out and held her hand. He squeezed it and gave her an assuring smile. “Don’t you pay me no heed. When the time is right, I’ll help you, you knows I will. Just promise me you’ll give Mr Isaac a chance to make you happy. That’s all I want, ’cause the good Lord knows you sure do know how to get yourself in a whole lot of trouble when no one’s lookin’ …”

Chapter Twenty

Yorktown was brimming with southern states’ militias. It was late September, and the summer’s oppressive heat had turned to mild and sultry days with cooler nights. The town was now home to the army of North Virginia. It was the Confederate stronghold, ringed by defensive positions and thousands of men. West to the river, east to the wetlands, and south and south-east were manned, barricading Yorktown behind what the Confederacy hoped was an impenetrable line.

Brigadier General John Bankhead Magruder was in charge. He was a man fond of saying, “There will be no soft-bellied soldiers under my command.” He was a hardened army veteran who had fought well in the Mexican wars and had insisted on his arrival that his troops be battle ready at all times. He drove the men hard each day with military and weapons drills, leaving no soldier under his command mentally or physically feeble.

General Magruder’s army friends called him Prince John. The soldiers under his command knew him to be a good leader but with a liking for the finer things in life. Some joked that they would desert should he force his avocation for dramatics and music on them. He could often been heard singing around the camp in smooth tenor tones, and this was the only time he did not suffer from his annoying lisp.

General Magruder had set up a secondary defence line on the Yorktown Road, just outside Newport News. The Portsmouth Ninth Calvary Brigade was camped out just to the south of Yorktown, in and around a schoolhouse. The brigade’s officers lay their heads on makeshift canvas beds inside the classrooms, and the ranks slept inside or outside white canvas tents dotted around the schoolyard and surrounding fields.

              There were no signs of Federal advances out of Fort Monroe to threaten the Confederate Army, which had gathered in Yorktown in strength, nor was there any talk of marching or digging in anywhere else in the state. Since Bethel, Virginia had remained calm and, for most soldiers, exceedingly dull. The war was a reality, yet with every passing day, it became but a distant menace to come sometime in the future.

The men were getting itchy feet and becoming bad-tempered while waiting for a battle or the promise of one. Some of them wandered home, if they lived closed by, ate a home-cooked meal, made love to their wives, and kissed their children. Some soldiers left and were never seen again. The Yorktown taverns were doing a roaring trade. The men had been told that such places were off limits, but even the officers had been spotted in them, drinking their fill and having sex with prostitutes. Officers ordered the men not to use the taverns, but they did nothing to enforce the order, nor did they plan to spoil what little fun their soldiers had in this dreary war.

Jacob’s jaded enthusiasm for army life was coupled by his unceasing worries about his family and Stone Plantation. Hendry was at sea with the
Carrabelle
. He had not said much about what exactly he was up to, but Jacob had read between the lines and was convinced that Hendry was protecting blockade runners, trying to get through the federal net on the Atlantic coast. This work would suit the
Carrabelle
, he thought, for she was fast, with great manoeuvring abilities.

In his last letter, Hendry had also spoken about Belle. His wife was unhappy living at Stone Plantation, he’d written. It seemed that after three months, she no longer wished to live so far away from the navy yard in Portsmouth. Hendry had also informed him that her parents did not find plantation life to their liking and that they desired a return to Portsmouth’s city routines. Jacob understood Belle’s yearning to live in close proximity to Hendry’s base. He could also imagine her parents struggling to adapt to plantation life, but this news could not have come at a worse time.

He sat beneath a tree and sighed with dark thoughts. He had wondered of late about the validity of his enlistment. What was the point, he thought, of being miles from home when home and everything it stood for was on the brink of destruction? Here he was, in a place where days rolled into one another, with sleep in between them the only activity to separate the mind-dulling hours of drilling, target shooting, cleaning weapons, and sitting under a tree’s leafy branches. There were cannons, heavy artillery, horses, supplies, wagons, and more men than Yorktown knew what to do with, yet he couldn’t help but think that the Confederate cause was nothing more than a basis to mourn the South’s glorious past.

Every decision he had made had been for the good of Stone Plantation and his Southern way of life. But if home no longer existed, what the hell was he fighting for? He pictured in his mind’s eye a crumbling house, overgrown grassy lawns, fields brown with rotting soil, and cotton plants shrivelling up and dying where they once stood proudly in the sunlight. The war had not yet begun, but he was already seeing ruination in his mind’s eye.

“Jacob, there’s somethin’ George and I want to say to you,” Nathan Coulter said curtly, rousing Jacob from his bleak thoughts. Nathan looked down at Jacob, blocking the sun and displaying his usual disapproving expression. “It’s about Elizabeth. Do you have a minute?”

Jacob laughed to himself. That was a damn stupid question, he thought. Time was the only thing he had in abundance. “I have a minute. What’s on your mind, Nathan? These conversations with you about your sister are becoming tiresome, and I’m in no mood to listen to you today.”

“Well, that might be so, but as much as you want to forget your maltreatment of her, she will always be my sister. I will always look out for her,” Nathan answered with thinly veiled contempt. 

“George and I were talking about your trip to Richmond tomorrow, and while we have no desire to go to the ball with the general, we would have liked to have seen Elizabeth. We’ve written lengthy letters to her, asking that she return to our ma and pa. I’m hoping there’s still a thread of decency left in you and that you will see her tomorrow on our behalf.”

“We would appreciate it, Jacob,” George said with a friendliness that was in sharp contrast to his brother’s surly words. “I don’t believe she should be with that Mallory woman. I know you don’t say much, but I reckon you don’t approve of her either.”

Jacob nodded. “I reckon you’re right, George. I don’t approve. I tried to warn Elizabeth not to go with Margaret Mallory. I asked her not to believe the poisonous lies coming out of that woman’s filthy mouth, but I’m afraid Elizabeth didn’t listen to me then, and I don’t believe she’ll listen to me now.”

“Will you take these letters and at least try to persuade Elizabeth to go home?” George said hopefully.

“George, Jacob will do whatever is best for him,” Nathan said. “He proved to all of us that he doesn’t give a damn about our sister.”

“If you want to talk, you talk directly to me, Nathan,” Jacob said tersely. He was tired of Nathan’s goading. The man was a hypocrite, Jacob thought, giving Nathan a cold stare. Nathan didn’t give a damn about Elizabeth. He was angry because his parents didn’t receive the settlement that Nathan advised they ask for.

Jacob flicked his eyes back to George and nodded. “I’ll see to the letters, George. I have no intention of disrespecting Elizabeth. I plan to visit her the moment I arrive in Richmond, but as I said, I can’t promise she’ll listen to me …”

“And why should she listen to anything that comes out of your mouth?” Nathan interrupted.

“Indeed, Nathan, why should she? So if you don’t think she’ll entertain me, why are you intent on my going to her?”

“I reckon I want you to feel the shame you deserve. I’m hoping she’s at the ball you’re going to so that your ass is disgraced in front of the general. That’s what I’d like to see.”

“Are we done here?” Jacob asked. He stared at Nathan, willing him to say another word. He would like nothing more than to smack that arrogant, self-serving smirk off Coulter’s face.

“We’re done.” Nathan threw two sealed envelopes at Jacob’s feet and turned to walk away.

“Good – but before you walk away, I have something to say to you,” Jacob said in a raised voice.

“What’s that?” Nathan asked. He swung round and gave Jacob an impatient toss of his head.

“Well, for starters, I’ve come to think that maybe you have a problem serving under me. If I’m right, tell me right now and I’ll get transfer papers whipped up for you – maybe you’d prefer to walk some more in the infantry division, ’cause I sure as hell don’t have time for your temperamental outbursts every five minutes here in the cavalry.”

“No, it ain’t gonna be a problem,” Nathan mumbled.

“What ain’t goin’ to be a problem?” Jacob asked.

“What you said – serving with you.”

“That’s good, ’cause there’s going to be some changes around here. From now on, you address me as captain or sir. You don’t need to like me, but you will give my rank the respect it deserves. I reckon that’s fair, but if you don’t, we can have it out right here, right now. No rank involved, just two men beating the crap out of each other. Then you can get your ass to another militia.” Jacob stared at him again. He wouldn’t have another conversation like this with Nathan. He was sick and tired of wondering if the Coulter boy was going to stick a knife in his back. “So what do you say?”

“Like I said – I don’t have a problem serving with you.”

“Then you’re dismissed, after you pick up those letters and make sure you clean the dirt off them before you put them in my hands.”

Nathan bent down, picked up the envelopes, and stood for a second with them in his hand. He stared at the ground. Then he wiped both envelopes against his trouser leg and handed them to Jacob. He gave a derisive smile and said, “Sir, as ordered.”

“Very good – then I guess I’ll see you when I get back from Richmond. Dismissed, Corporate Coulter.”

Jacob lay on his bunk half dressed, his hat pulled down over his face to block out the sun’s rays streaming through the open windows. What he wouldn’t do to feel Mercy’s arms around his neck, he thought. The little minx had not replied to his last two letters. Her childlike writing and funny stories were a constant form of amusement to him. He could read her letters a hundred times and laugh at her words repeatedly. Every time he read her words, an overwhelming desire for her grew. He wondered where she was right now. What mischief was she getting into? Being separated from her was a constant worry. Never had he met such a wild, obstinate woman. She would drive him crazy one of these days with her shenanigans, he thought, smiling to himself.

Thank God he’d been given permission to visit Norfolk after the ball. He would have three days to convince Mercy to uproot herself again and join him in Yorktown. There were plenty of women here, and wives often came to visit their husbands. He would find a room or a house for her. His life would a lot simpler with her close by. He needed the peace of mind that would come if he was able to keep his eye on her.