Triumph (25 page)

She stood by an old oak and waited in the growing darkness of twilight. A few moments later, she saw Taylor ride out from the stables.

As she had suspected, he came her way. His horse cantered at a brisk pace across the lawn, slowed as it neared the trees.

She stepped from her place by the tree.

“Colonel Douglas!”

He reined in, seeing her. He frowned at the sight of her. “You’re at just about the limits of the property, Tia.”

“I know; I’m going back.”

“Good. Because I did warn you, I will not just give you away if you risk your games anymore. I’ll see to it that your father is aware of your actions, and that the authorities—”

“You don’t need to threaten me again! I didn’t come here to argue. I just—”

She broke off.

“Yes?”

He inched Friar closer to her. Despite his Union frockcoat and plumed cavalry hat, he suddenly seemed ...

Threatening. The strength of his Seminole blood seemed evident in his features, in the way he watched her. He could move too quickly. Too quietly. Like a savage. Or
half
-savage, as she had called him. And as he had certainly heard. She could see only the stark planes of his face, the dark length of his hair, and the powerful breadth of his shoulders.

She was afraid, she realized. And yet, she was not afraid of any violence. Force, perhaps, yes, the force of his touch ...

“I’m sorry.”

He inclined his head, his chin tilting, a dark brow lifting, his curious eyes glittering in the half-light. “You’re sorry? About ... ah, calling me savage. A slur on your own relations?” he queried dryly. “I’d no intention of mentioning the matter to our mutual relations, who might have taken offense.”

“No! I’m not sorry about calling you savage, and it has nothing to do with my relations! You can be savage and very rude and—”

“Then?” he queried softly.

“I’m really sorry, terribly, terribly sorry about your wife. I didn’t know. I thought that, well I thought that ...”

“Yes, I know what you thought.”

“You let me think that ...”

“Yes, I suppose I did.” He was silent for a moment, studying her. “And, I’m sorry for what I let you think. Tell me, then, is it less horrible to be seduced by a widowed enemy than a married one?”

“Oh, what arrogance. I was never seduced by you!”

“Hm,” he murmured. “You would have been.”

“I beg your pardon!” she said regally, bringing another wry smile to his lips.

“You do know me better than you know Weir, Tia. And you may not believe this, but you want to know me better than you know him.”

“You are sadly, sadly arrogant, sir! As are most of your kind!”

“My kind being savage Indians—or Yankees?”

“Unionists! Enemies of a people who seek only their freedom!”

He shook his head. “You don’t really believe that.”

“I do!”

“Tia, I don’t believe that I’m the enemy you want me to be. In fact, I think that I could have had you in the woods. Before you even knew my name.”

“Never!” she cried indignantly. “What a wretched, conceited—indecent!—thing to say. Never—”

“What a violent protest!” he interrupted, laughing.

“Look,” Tia snapped, trying quite hard to control her temper—and the strange tremors that were suddenly rippling through her limbs. “I came here to say I was sorry, truly sorry about anything rude or cruel I said about your wife—she was very, very beautiful, and apparently kind and compassionate as well.” She hesitated. “You must have loved her very much.”

“I did,” he said simply. His laughter had faded.

The breeze rustled around them. She didn’t know what to say then.

She felt him looking down at her, silent for a while. Then, he dismounted, and she backed away—sorry she had come.

But she couldn’t back away fast enough. He touched her cheek, lifting her chin, studying her in the red-gold darkness of the dying day. She held very still, oddly paralyzed by this touch.

She couldn’t pull away. She felt the gold fire of his eyes. Looking for something within her own.

Finding it, perhaps.

“Thank you,” he said after a moment. She felt the bark of the tree at her back. And the heat and form of his powerful stance before her. She didn’t think that she had ever been so aware of another human being. His fingertips ran over her cheek. “Take care of yourself, Tia,” he said softly.

Then he was gone.

He leapt up on Friar and looked down at her again. “Remember, if I catch you in the woods again, Godiva, you will truly regret the day. I promise you. You will pay for it dearly.”

He nudged Friar, and in seconds, he had disappeared into the twilight.

J
ULIAN ARRIVED AT CIMARRON
toward the end of January, with his wife and newborn son—a very
McKenzie
-looking little fellow with bright blue eyes and a head full of thick dark hair. Rhiannon and the baby, Conar, would spend at least the next several months there, out of the range of danger and fire.

The prisoner exchange took place the day Julian arrived, with different officers, North and South, in charge. Tia was glad that it occurred—the men were a sad-looking group, both Yanks and Rebs. Several were wire thin, suffering from dysentery, and probably too weak to have survived a number of the prison camps. She knew that Andersonville, where most of the Union soldiers would have been taken, had a reputation for being a death camp. Watching the official exchange take place, she slipped an arm through her father’s, very proud of him. He played a much bigger role in the war than she had ever realized.

Ian had departed soon after Christmas. Alaina and the children had remained at the house as well for the time being. Tia was glad that her sister-in-laws and nephews and niece were at the house; she knew that made it easier for her parents when the day came for her to ride away with Julian.

Though it was always painful to part from the rest of her family, Tia was glad that Julian needed her. She knew, however, that the battle they were heading for this time would be different from the skirmishes and fights they had faced before—this was a direct assault with the intent to split the state.

It was especially difficult to leave her parents, just as it had been difficult for her to say goodbye to Ian. She was always afraid that she would be seeing him for the last time. She was glad that he sailed away—she didn’t want to think of him fighting in Florida. Too many people grew bitter about the war. It seemed especially dangerous to be a military man many considered to be a traitor.

She hoped that Ian had been ordered to the North. Very far away.

She felt an uneasy certainty, though, that Taylor Douglas was heavily involved in the assault. He had been ordered back to Florida when the Yankee powers had determined that the state must be given far more aggressive attention. As a cavalry officer, he had asked not to fight in his native state, and it seemed that his superiors had heeded his request for years yet ignored it now. Ian had often been sent home because of his knowledge of the terrain; she was sure they expected the same expertise from Taylor Douglas. He could move quickly about the state; he probably knew every small Indian trail and cracker pass in the entire peninsula. He could ride circles around troops unsure of the often marshy and swampy landscape, assess the number of the enemy, and give information on positions and strengths as few other men would be able to do.

The closer she and Julian drew to the gathering of troops, the more she began to realize that a good-sized battle would indeed be staged. General Joe Finegan was in charge of the Confederate forces. When the Federal forces arrived in the state, he had only about twelve hundred fighting men, scattered throughout East Florida. He quickly sent out a call for reinforcements, however, and men began moving north from middle Florida and Georgia. Since the battle was taking place near the Georgia border, many of the troops were Georgian. By February thirteenth Finegan had selected a position near Olustee Station, a place that offered the best nature protection in a land that was flat and riddled with pine forests.

On the fifteenth, Julian and Tia had reached the chosen position, and began setting up their field hospital.

By the day of the battle, the Yankees had already done serious damage. They had taken Baldwin, where the railroad met from Fernandina to Cedar Keys, and from Jacksonville to Tallahassee. They had also seized Confederate supplies valued around half a million dollars.

But the Rebel troops had dug in, ready to fight. Their defensive works formed a line from Ocean Pond on the left to a small pond just south of the railroad station.

February twentieth dawned as a beautiful day. Clear, crisp, slightly cool, with rays of sunlight streaming through the pines. The troops raised a cloud of dust, and they became motes in the sunlit air. The battle commenced with the Union sending out a skirmishing party.

General Finegan had ordered forth his own men, convinced that the Union general, Truman Seymour, would be too careful to attack so well defended a Confederate position. As it happened, they came to meet one another on a fairly even playing field. The Federal forces had one cavalry and three infantry brigades, and sixteen big guns. The Confederate had one cavalry and two infantry brigades, and three batteries. The Federals numbered about five thousand five hundred; the Rebs about five thousand two hundred.

Right before twelve, the first cavalry skirmishers met. After twelve, General Finegan made his decision to send his men out to meet the Yanks on the open field, determining that they couldn’t be coaxed to his line.

Soon after, the surgeons were busy.

At her brother’s side, Tia quickly felt as if she had been bathed in blood. Word coming in with the orderlies kept them informed about the battle.

The Rebel line had been formed with cavalry on each flank, infantry in the center. Information quickly came that General Seymour had wanted to put his artillery in the center of his line, with infantry on each side.

The deployment of his troops was proving to be his downfall.

A soldier, his left leg riddled with shrapnel, came into the surgery with a smile upon his face despite his pain. “Oh, ma’am, you should see it out there!” he told Tia.

“I’m seeing enough in here, I’m afraid,” she told him, busily cutting his trouser leg so that they could see the damage to the limb. A cannon exploded in the pines, far too near. She braced herself, but didn’t duck.

“No, ma’am, it’s just that ... well, you know, we’re fighting for a victory here! Why, those Yanks are so confused ... they’re hitting their own troops with their fire.”

“We’re winning the battle?” Tia asked. She flushed, dismayed to realize that she found the thought of a Confederate victory here surprising.

The soldier nodded. “The Georgians and us, ma’am. There’s so much bad and sad news coming from Virginia and Tennessee way ... we’re running out of goods and men. But here we are, winning. They aren’t going to take our capital ma’am. They will not take Tallahassee!”

“I hope not, soldier!” His pant’s leg split, she could see the shrapnel in the leg. One piece was very large, lodged, she feared, against an artery. “This man next!” she called to an orderly, wiping her hands on her apron. She looked beneath the canvas tenting, where Julian was conducting surgery.

They were just removing a young man from the operating table. Her brother was known for his ability to save limbs.

This time, he had not been able to do so. Nor had he been able to many times throughout the day. Sometimes, the screams of those coming under the knife had been deafening. There were several doctors here today. They all worked without pause. There were more women working as well. Officers’ wives, some of the privates’ wives. There was one woman who Tia had been certain was among the camp followers, but she moved with precision and no thought of hesitation in helping the wounded. Tia had met her eyes once. “I’m good at what I’m doing. I belong here,” she had told Tia somewhat defiantly.

“You’re very good, and apparently you do belong here,” Tia replied.

The woman smiled. She might not have intended to do so, but she had made a friend.

The look on her brother’s face was hardened, sad, and grim. He watched his last patient leave the table. With the bottom half of his left leg missing, the young man was singing as the orderlies carried him from the tent to the mule-drawn ambulance conveyance which would bring him south to Confederate-held land and better facilities.

“We’ve enough morphine?” Tia asked her brother. He had spent part of the last year with the Army of Northern Virginia, and he had grown accustomed to the horrible pace of a real battlefield surgery. She realized she was just beginning to see what he had lived through for months. He had tried once to describe the battle at Gettysburg to her, but words had failed him.

“God knows,” he said, waiting for his next patient. There were other surgeons at work. While the soldier with the shrapnel in his leg was set down for the scalpel, another doctor called for help quickly. Tia raced to his side. A lieutenant with a scruffy beard that gave away his youth was spurting blood from a severed artery. She caught the vessel at the doctor’s command, using all her strength to exert the needed pressure while the doctor fixed a forceps at the proper point.

“Tia, here.”

She hurried back to Julian. Again, her small fingers were needed. “I’m trying to save his limb. I may not be able to. Catch the blood vessel. Hold tight, and be prepared to hold for at least a half a minute.” Her brother’s eyes touched hers, making sure she understood. She nodded. Once again, she deftly reached through a sudden rain of blood to capture the necessary vessel. The blood was slippery; she nearly lost her hold.

This man was singing as well.

Singing “Dixie.”

She didn’t know why the sound of the song made her stomach plummet.

“Ease off now ...” Julian said. “You’ve got it, fine. Can you stitch up the opening here, Tia?”

“Yes, I’ve got it.”

Their next patient was engulfed in mud; a cannon ball had exploded directly in front of him. Tia busily began cutting off clothes while orderlies soaked cotton cloths in cold water and soothing plant extracts—he was badly burned as well. It was hard to tell what was dirt and what was charred flesh. She talked while she worked on him, cutting cloth while Julian supervised the two orderlies who delivered morphine through a small canvas bag set over the man’s mouth and nose. “It’s all right, soldier, take it easy, take it easy!” He twitched in his pain, then slowly went still. “Hold on, young man, please hold on ...” she whispered.