The Last, Long Night (#5 in the Bregdan Chronicles Historical Fiction Romance Series) (13 page)

Carrie looked up as May headed up the stairs with a pitcher of fresh water.  “Has there been any change?”

“Not a sound outta that woman today,” May said soberly.  “I been dripping water in her mouth like ya tole me to, but….”

“We’re doing all we can,” Janie said soothingly.  “Sleep is probably the very best thing for her.  The infection has disappeared from her arm, and she seems to be resting better.  She’ll wake up when she’s ready.”

Carrie couldn’t help thinking of Robert.  It had taken him two months to come out of his coma after he had been wounded.  Georgia had been unconscious for only a week.  She knew Georgia wasn’t that sick; Carrie just had to wonder whether the girl had the will to live - whether she had anything to wake up for.

“The other day she be mutterin’ in her sleep,” May said.  “Kept sayin’ the name Jimmy ober and ober, tossing around like de James in a storm.”

Carrie and Janie exchanged looks.  They were sure Georgia had a story to tell.  Only time would reveal it.

May turned and trudged up the stairs. 

“Miss Carrie!”  May appeared at the top of the stairs just moments later, her eyes wide with excitement. “Dat Georgia woman be awake.  She be askin’ fer you!”

Chapter Seven

Carrie and Janie pushed away from the table and ran up the stairs, then walked more slowly to the room so they wouldn’t alarm Georgia.  May was standing next to the bed with a wide grin on her face.

Georgia stared up at Carrie when she walked into the room.  “I didn’t dream you up,” she said weakly, her blue eyes staring up at her from beneath short red hair.

“No, you didn’t,” Carrie agreed with a smile as she placed her hand on Georgia’s forehead, glad to see she was completely fever free.

Georgia gazed around in confusion.  “Where am I?” she murmured.

“In my father’s home,” Carrie said gently.  “I thought it was better that I bring you here rather than leave you in the hospital.”

“How long have I been out of it?”

“A week.  Your body needed rest and time to get rid of the infection.  Your fever is gone.”

Georgia nodded and then frowned.  “They know…?”

“No, they don’t,” Carrie told her quickly.  Georgia gasped with relief and then looked down at her arm.  “We were able to save it.  I don’t know how well you’ll be able to use it, but it’s still there. It will take some time for it to heal.  Then we’ll know more.”

Georgia nodded.  “Thank you,” she said simply. 

Carrie nodded at May, who slipped from the room to fix the sick girl some soup, and then she introduced Georgia to Janie.  “You can trust her,” she said firmly.

“It’s so strange to be called Georgia,” she said, her voice still weak.  “I’ve been George for almost three years.”

Carrie was bursting with questions, but she knew Georgia needed to get her strength.  “Try not to talk right now.  May went down to get some soup.  We’ll have to feed you little bits at first, but your strength will come back sooner than you think.”

“You ain’t going to ask?”

“Well,” Carrie admitted with a grin, “I certainly can’t say I’m not curious, but now is not the time.  You just need to build your strength back up.”

Janie stepped forward.  “I’m dying to hear your story,” she said cheerfully, “but Carrie is right, I suppose.  I imagine it won’t kill me to wait.”

Georgia managed a weak laugh.  “I reckon I got real lucky when I ended up in your hospital ward.”  She gazed up at Carrie.  “Are you really a doctor?”

Carrie shook her head.  “Not yet.  But there is such a dire need for people with medical experience that I’m allowed to act as one.  Officially, I am Dr. Wild’s assistant, and even that is strange for a woman.”

“You’re filling a need,” Georgia said faintly.  “That’s what I did.”

Carrie and Janie stared at her but didn’t have time to ask anything before May rushed into the room with soup.

Just the small bowl Carrie fed Georgia worked wonders.  Color started to seep back into her cheeks, and her eyes lost some of their dullness.  Carrie was sure, given time, Georgia would recover fully.  “We’ll give you some more soup in a little while.  Pretty soon you’ll be as bored with beans and cornbread as we are.”

“I reckon it will take me a while to get bored.  Sure sounds a heap better than what I’ve been eating, especially for the last year or so.”

Carrie knew how poorly the troops had been eating.  It was almost impossible to get supplies to them.  Georgia’s thin, pinched face was not all due to her illness.   She kept trying to block images of Robert, exhausted and hungry, out of her mind.  Her sleep would be filled with him, but for right now she needed to focus on Georgia.

Carrie and Janie were sitting on the windowsill talking softly when Georgia woke up again. 

Carrie fed her some more soup and was satisfied with the life she saw flowing back into the woman’s face.  “How old are you?” she asked suddenly. 

“Twenty.  I started fighting when I was seventeen.  I know I look younger.”  She paused, and a deep sadness engulfed her face.  “I enlisted with my brother, Jimmy.”

Carrie and Janie exchanged a look; that’s who she had been calling for in her sleep.  “What happened to Jimmy?” Carrie asked gently.

Georgia’s eyes filled with tears that she tried to blink back.  “He’s dead,” she said woodenly.  “I saw him shoot himself right before the flames reached him back in The Wilderness.  He’d been wounded.  I figured I could go back for him when the fighting started, but I never got the chance.”  Her voice cracked.  “The fire got him first. He didn’t want to die that way, so he shot himself.”

Carrie shuddered with horror and locked eyes with Janie.  No wonder she had slept for a week. 

“How?” Janie asked bluntly

Georgia interpreted Janie’s question.  “How did I end up in the army?”  She shrugged.  “Jimmy had to fight, and I didn’t want to get left alone.  He was all I had.  Me and Jimmy were orphans.  It’d been just the two of us since I was ten years old.  We didn’t have any family.  We just took care of each other.”  She paused, remembering.  “Jimmy was a year older than me.  He made a big deal out of being the big brother,” she said with a small smile.

“But how did you get past the recruiters?” Carrie asked.  “They’re supposed to check every man who enlists.”

“Supposed to,” Georgia agreed.  “What they actually do is a different story.  Can’t say as how I blame them.  The South has been desperate for soldiers almost from the start - ever since those fancy boys figured out this would be a real war that wouldn’t end in a few weeks.”  She made no effort to hide her disdain.  “Anyway, all I did was show up dressed like a fella, tell them my name and age, show them my hands – which were pretty rough from working the farm – and they let me in.”

“Hasn’t it been horrible?”  Janie asked in amazement.

Georgia thought about it and then shook her head.  “Can’t really say it has been horrible.  At least not any worse than what my life would have been like if I’d stayed behind.  I couldn’t have worked the farm on my own without Jimmy.  There ain’t no opportunity for women to make any real money, especially women like me.  Why, I’ve been making more money as a soldier than I ever could have made as a maid or whatever other pitiful job I could have found.  The best I can tell, women left behind on the farms are starving, right along with their kids.  I reckon that would be worse than soldiering.”

“Didn’t anyone guess?” Carrie asked.  Now that she knew Georgia was a woman, she couldn’t believe others hadn’t seen her delicate features and known right away.  Her hands may have been calloused, but she certainly didn’t look like a man.

“They saw what they expected to see,” she said simply.  “Wasn’t nobody looking that hard anyway.  I held my own, fought when I needed to fight, and didn’t complain.  I was just another soldier.”

“Are you glad to be a woman again?” Janie asked. “At least with us?”

Georgia thought about it briefly and shook her head.  “No.  I reckon I’ll go back to being a man once I get out of here - even once the war is over, if I can get away with it.”

“Why?” Janie gasped.

“It’s easier.”  She gazed at Carrie for a minute.  “I don’t know anything about doctoring, but I know you’re the first woman I’ve ever seen doing it.  That means you’re going against a lot of people who figure you shouldn’t be able to.  That ain’t easy.  If you were a man, they would just accept you - you would go to school, and you would be a doctor.  Ain’t that right?”

Carrie nodded wordlessly.

“Well, I like being treated with respect.  I ain’t got to fight people’s stupidity over my being a woman, and men thinking I can’t do the same things they can.  I figure it will be a real long time before women have it easier.  Why not live life as a man?”

Not at all sure what to say, Carrie just looked at her.

Georgia laughed suddenly.  “I wish you two could see your faces.  I ain’t the only one, you know.  There ain’t a lot of us, but I wasn’t alone.  I fought right along with other women, all hiding just like I am.  We just know how to see past the secret.”  She smiled slyly.  “We see a whole lot more than them men we fight with!”

Carrie laughed, realizing she liked her unexpected roommate. 

Janie was still struggling to understand Georgia.  “But what about marriage?  Children?”

Georgia shrugged.  “Ain’t seen many women who had much of a life once they made that choice.  It just seems like they become somebody else’s property.  I don’t remember my folks much.  What I do remember ain’t good.  My mama got beat up pretty good, and my daddy drank all the money away.”

“Not every man is like that,” Carrie protested.

“That’s probably true,” Georgia agreed easily.  “And I can always change my mind at any time and decide to have all that.  It wouldn’t be any big deal to go somewhere and live as a woman again.”  Her face puckered in thought.  “I don’t see it happening, though.”

Georgia gazed down at her arm.  “This arm gonna work again?”

Carrie almost wished she could say no so that she could keep Georgia off the battlefield, but time would reveal the truth.  “It may not ever be the same, but it will work again.”

Georgia nodded.  “I’ll head back to General Lee when I’m well enough,” she said forcefully.  “In the meantime,” she added, gazing around the room, “I reckon I’m in a pretty good place.”  She looked at Carrie.  “I’m real grateful to you, but you can take me back up to the hospital any time you want to.”

Carrie stared at her while she searched for words.  “We don’t need to make any decisions tonight,” she finally said. 

Georgia nodded and a moment later was sound asleep.

Carrie knew she and Janie should be asleep as well, but neither one of them could get the astounding conversation out of their minds.  The two sat on the windowsill talking quietly.

“I can’t imagine carrying that kind of secret around,” Carrie whispered, not wanting to wake their patient and be overheard.

Janie nodded and then seemed to grope for words. 

Carrie looked at her more closely.  “You’re carrying your own secret,” she said suddenly.  “I’ve seen something in your eyes the past few days, but we haven’t had time to talk.”

Janie smiled.  “I promise you my secret is not that I’m a man.”

Carrie chuckled, then reached out, and grabbed her hand.  “What is it?”

“I think I’m in love,” Janie admitted softly.

“What?” Carrie’s voice rose before she remembered their patient, and lowered her voice to an excited whisper.  “In love?  With who?  When?  How did I miss this?”

“Do you remember the patient I had over the winter who was from my hometown of Raleigh?”

“The lawyer from North Carolina who caught a bullet in his chest?  Clifford Saunders?  The two of you talked about home for hours.”  Carrie nodded.  “Of course, I remember.”

“He showed back up in my ward the first day of fighting last week,” Janie said.  “The minute I saw him I felt my heart swell.”