The Raging Hearts: The Coltrane Saga, Book 2 (6 page)

He cupped her chin in his hand, raising her face upward. “Kitty, I’ll be close by should you need me, and I will try to get by and see you. I want you to promise me that you will consider going with me when I leave. You saw how these people feel about you. There is no life, no future for you here. Come with me, and we’ll make a future together. You know you have my whole heart.”

“And you have mine,” her voice cracked. She fought to hold back the tears. She had to find words. “Please understand me, Travis. I would marry you any time you wish, but I cannot leave my father’s land.”

“I ask only that you think about leaving with me.”

“And I ask that you think about staying with me.”

They embraced once more, then Kitty tore herself from his arms and ran up the path to the hospital. She did not look back.

Chapter Four

Dr. W. A. Holt, medical officer for the way hospital in Goldsboro, had just finished amputating the right leg of a Union soldier when someone stopped to tell him that Kitty Wright had returned to the hospital. Wiping bloodied hands on his already stained apron, he moved out to the crowded hallway, maneuvering about the stretchers.

Kitty was already kneeling beside a soldier, trying to comfort him. “Thank God you are back,” Dr. Holt greeted her, and she glanced up, then rose. He took hold of her arm and steered her on down the hallway to a corner where there were no stretchers. Compassion in his eyes, he said in a soft voice, “Kitty, I heard about your father. I know he was fighting for the North, but I also know how much he meant to you. I’m very sorry.”

“What else did you hear, Dr. Holt?”

He looked away momentarily, then quickly said, “I am glad you’re back, Kitty. We really have our hands full now, what with wounded coming in from both sides, and—”

“Dr. Holt,” Kitty interrupted him without apology. “I have to know what you heard about my father’s death. Do you see this mud upon my cheek? There was a near riot when I rode into town, thanks to Nancy Warren’s inciting a mob, screaming about Nathan being killed by my ‘Yankee lover’.”

He sighed. “I suppose you do have the right to know what has already spread like wildfire. I don’t have to tell you that Major Collins was revered by the people around here. The word came back from two Confederate soldiers who slipped into town rather than retreat with Johnston, and who had witnessed the whole incident from behind scrub brush. They said that Major Collins killed your father in self-defense in an argument over you, and then a Yankee came along and murdered Collins in cold blood. They gathered that you condoned the killing, that you knew the Yankee soldier well, that the two of you were apparently—”

“Lovers,” she finished. “The truth is, Dr. Holt, that Nathan Collins was deserting. My father happened along, and to divert an argument between him and Nathan, I lied to my father and said I wanted to go with Nathan. I could tell by the anguish in that one eye those bastards had left him that he believed me when I said I wanted to go with Nathan. He turned his back to walk away, and that’s when Nathan shot him…in the back. Travis Coltrane came along, and his temper got the best of him. He stomped Nathan to death.
That
is how it happened.”

She brushed at tears with the back of her hand, and Dr. Holt patted her gently. “I believe you, Kitty, but you must understand that the townspeople will believe the other story because it is what they want to believe. I am afraid you have much grief ahead, for they won’t forget soon.”

She jutted her chin up, angry and defiant. “You said you needed help, and that’s why I’m here. I don’t intend to let lies make me turn tail and run.”

“Good girl,” he said with a smile, clapping her on the back like a comrade. “Now, here is the situation. General Schofield just marched right into town with no opposition at all. Every available soldier in eastern Carolina was ordered to Bentonville. In no time at all, the Yankees covered the entire town with a circle of breast-works, and they camped inside because Schofield knew General Johnston was close by. Well, things calmed down a bit. Schofield moved into the Borden house and made it his headquarters. Then we heard about Bentonville and Johnston retreating, and how Sherman was heading this way. Folks panicked.”

“Justifiably so,” Kitty said bitterly. “General Sherman allows his men to do as they please, burning and stealing.”

“There is quite a contrast between the two armies. General Schofield has his men under complete military control and allows no disobedience. He knew folks would get upset when they heard Sherman was marching into town with his army of cutthroats, so he issued an order that anyone who wanted a guard to protect their homes could have one by applying to the provost marshal’s office, which they set up in Dr. John Davis’s home. Provost marshal’s name is Glavis, I think. He came by here yesterday to see if we needed anything. I tell you, girl, we can thank our heavenly Father that Schofield got here first. That saved our town from being plundered and burned by Sherman.”

“And what about the hospital? I suppose the Yankees have taken over.”

“Oh, yes, of course. General Schofield’s medical officer has taken over the command, and the first thing he did was to order that Union soldiers be given preference over Confederates. ‘Treat our men first,’ he said. And you know what I told him? That he might as well go ahead and shoot me because I was treating a man according to the seriousness of his wounds, that it didn’t matter a tinker’s damn to me what color uniform he wore. The other doctors told him the same thing, so he didn’t have much choice. There aren’t that many doctors, you know. What galls the hell out of me, though, is those Yankee doctors. They’ll step right over a dying Confederate to treat a whining Yankee with a minor wound. The damn bastards.”

“Dr. Holt!” They whirled about to see a bearded, heavyset man in a bloodstained coat glowering angrily. “Men are dying and you find time to chitchat with women. No wonder the South is losing the war.”

“You wait a minute, Doctor. This is Miss Kitty Wright, and she probably knows as much if not more about medicine and doctoring than some of your pumpkin-head Yankee doctors. And as for me ‘chit-chatting’, as you call it, I haven’t stopped working in twelve hours, not even to eat.”

The Union medical officer raised a bushy eyebrow. “They are calling for you in surgery. As for you, Miss Wright”—he turned those cold eyes upon Kitty—“you are hereby impounded to work at this hospital since you have some knowledge of medicine. If you will see one of the nurses and properly attire yourself—”

“What I am wearing is fine,” Kitty snapped. “And you do not have to ‘impound’ me, sir. I came here to work, and it is my intention to do so—not to stand around listening to some damn pompous Yankee try to browbeat me.”

She whipped around and stomped down the crowded hallway, and Dr. Holt chuckled, ignoring the glare of the other doctor. Kitty Wright had been through hell and back and had not lost one bit of her spirit.

Kitty moved among the wounded men, not caring whether she ministered to Yankees or Rebels. Her heart went out to all of them. There was more she would have liked to do for them, but the Union medical officer did not trust a female Southern nurse, and he limited her responsibilities to giving drinks of water, changing bandages and cleaning up.

She lost all track of time, pausing only when ordered to eat. Once in a while she would curl up in a corner for a few hours of sleep.

Since reporting to the hospital, Kitty had lost all sense of time. She was dimly aware, however, that occasionally townspeople came to visit their relatives or to claim the body of a loved one. One day, as she bent over the form of a wounded Union soldier, she heard a familiar voice.

“How can you minister to these Yankees?” It was Mrs. Harriet Dewey. The old woman twisted a lacy handkerchief in her hands as she surveyed the sea of bodies lining the hallway. “I know of several ladies in my church who came here to offer their help to the Confederate wounded, and that nasty Yankee who took over said that if they were not willing to help with his men, then they could not help at all. Isn’t that terrible?”

“No,” Kitty said bluntly, not deterred by the cold flash that instantly appeared in Mrs. Dewey’s eyes. “If those good women were Christians, they would care for all. The ladies of your church could take a few lessons from our own soldiers. They feel no hatred, only a deep fierce yearning to recover and go home again, to see all the suffering and anguish ended. I have seen Confederates on the mend go to the bedsides of Yankees when the staff was busy elsewhere. The time for bitterness and hatred is over, Mrs. Dewey. We would all do well to realize that and think about rebuilding our country.”

“That’s easy for
you
to say, Katherine Wright!” A plump woman who had been kneeling beside her wounded husband spoke. Her face was twisted with rage. “You would like mighty well for folks to forget the past, wouldn’t you? You’d like for them to forget that it was by the hand of your Yankee lover that one of Wayne County’s finest officers was brutally slain.”

“After that same, so-called fine officer shot my father in the back,” Kitty flared instantly.

“You’re a fine one to talk, you little snit. You should be stoned right out of town. Everyone knows your father was a turn-coat traitor. He deserved what Nathan Collins gave him,” the woman went on, unmindful of the scene she was creating.

Kitty felt as though the blood were boiling in her veins. Her arm that still held a water bucket shot up involuntarily. Just as she was about to send it flying straight into the shrieking woman’s face, she felt a hand clamp down on her wrist while another encircled her waist tightly.

“Just calm down, Kitty. You might get some of your patients wet.” Her heart skipped a beat at the sound of Travis’s voice in her ear. She all but collapsed against him. “Forget her,” Travis continued as he lead Kitty down the hall, stepping around the wounded, moving out the front door into the cool air of the spring evening.

For a moment they just stood embracing in the shadows at the porch’s edge. Travis tilted her face up to meet his tender gaze. “Have you had enough, Kitty? Have you realized that this can never be your home again?”

“Travis…” She shook her head slowly, tears filling her eyes. God, how she loved this man, but how could she make him understand how she felt?

“Miss Wright, are you out here?” Dr. Preston, the Union medical officer, stepped out onto the porch. Travis immediately clicked to attention and saluted. The doctor recognized him and smiled. “Oh, Captain Coltrane. I had heard Miss Wright was fortunate enough to have a Union officer courting her, but I did not know it was you.”

“Sir, I request permission to take Miss Wright for a ride.”

“Unchaperoned?” the doctor laughed, a nasty sound in Kitty’s ear. “Of course. Try to be back by morning.”

“Damn Yankee bastard,” Kitty spat out as Travis steered her down the steps.

“You’re talking like a trollop again, Kitty,” he said, sounding amused. “What would the dear ladies of Goldsboro say if they could hear you now?”

She snapped, “Must we spend what little time we have together discussing my shortcomings?”

He mounted his stallion, then swung her up to position her in front of him, his arms about her as he held the reins. “You are turning into skin and bones,” he said critically. “I could lift you with one hand. I know food is scarce, but I thought they would at least feed the hospital staff.”

“I seldom have time to eat, and when I do, I have no appetite. Who wants to eat, surrounded by death and its smell all day and all night?”

He reminded her that it had been her decision to work at the hospital. “I offered to get a room for you at the hotel. We could have been together these past nights. My bed has been cold and lonely.”

“That is easy for you to say. I have no way of knowing whether or not you found a woman to take my place.”

“I told you that you are the only woman for me, Kitty. Until you betray me.” He spoke between gritted teeth. “So don’t hint that I have been unfaithful. I have never liked being called a liar.”

“Oh, Travis, I’m sorry,” she whispered, burrowing her face in his shoulder. They rode through the night. She didn’t care where they were going as long as they were together. He bent to plant a light kiss on her forehead. He was no longer angry, and their world was right again. She prayed this night would never end. As she felt his heart beating rapidly, Kitty knew what would take place between them before the black skies turned to gold.

And she felt the beating of her own heart quicken in passionate anticipation.

Chapter Five

Travis found a place on the banks of the Neuse River where they could isolate themselves. Honeysuckle vines had already begun to entwine their foliage skyward, bursting into early sweet fragrance. A tall weeping willow tree bowed forward gracefully to enshroud them in its protective arms.

Travis took a blanket roll from the back of his saddle and lay down on it, rolling on his side to prop his head upon his hand, smiling at her through the thick, dusty lashes she adored. “Take your clothes off, Kitty. I want to see you naked.”

She complied unabashedly, aware that his eyes took in every inch of her body. As her breasts spilled forward, he whispered, “I will never forget the first time I saw your breasts, Kitty. I thought they were the most beautiful objects I had ever seen—ripe, succulent, and just waiting to be devoured.”