Triumph (42 page)

“Rhiannon! I’m not so sure that this idea of yours is possible at all. Tia can’t go just anywhere anymore,” Risa said. “She is married to Taylor.”

“I know that—you told me that she married him,” Rhiannon said with an exasperated sigh. “I’m not suggesting she do anything at all wrong, dangerous—or even pertaining to the war!” Rhiannon said.

“It does pertain to the war—” Risa argued.

“No, it pertains to a child!”

Tia threw up her hands. “What are you two talking about? I’m going to need whiskey instead of tea if someone doesn’t start making some kind of sense soon.”

“I had a dream,” Rhiannon said.

“Oh, God, no! What about—my cousin Brent?” Tia asked, horrified. “Is he in danger? Can’t we write to him? No, we’ll have to send him a telegraph.”

“It’s not Brent,” Rhiannon said.

“She keeps dreaming about a little boy in a big white house—falling from a balcony.”

“A little boy we know?” Tia asked.

“Alaina says she knows the house I described. And Risa agrees. It is the White House of the Confederacy. And the child belongs to President Davis.”

“Oh, but ... are you sure?” Tia asked.

Rhiannon shook her head, distressed. She walked about the small room. “No, of course I’m not sure, I’m not sure at all. I’ve already written a letter ... your father has assured me that he has given it to an officer who will get it through to Varina Davis. But what will she think when she gets a letter from a woman she doesn’t even know? She may never read it. If she does, she’ll think I’m mad, and ignore it. Then ...”

“What?” Tia asked.

“It’s the strangest set of dreams I’ve ever had. Once, I thought I’d go mad with the dreams, that they would simply torture me with visions I could not prevent. Then your brother showed me that sometimes I could avert tragedy with my sight. Sometimes ... but this dream came several times. Then, the last time, while I struggled to wake up, I saw a man’s face, such a sad face ... and it was as if he was speaking directly to me ...”

“And?” Tia persisted. “Please, Rhiannon!”

She shrugged. “He said that some things were fate, maybe not meant to be prevented.”

“Rhiannon, who was the man?”

“I think it was the child’s father. President Davis, perhaps.”

“So you think you’re dreaming about the death of a child—that can’t be averted?”

“I don’t know! But a child died, and I can’t bear the thought!” Rhiannon cried.

“So many people die,” Risa said softly. “That’s part of life, Rhiannon. Death is a part of life.”

“But too many are dying now. Saving what we can seems to be the only way to get through this war. I feel that I still must do what I can!” Rhiannon said.

Tia stared at her. “Someone should go to Varina Davis.”

“You know her,” Risa said. “President Davis was Secretary of War before this madness started. Your father and brothers were friends with him; you visited their home before the war.”

“Yes, I visited them with my family before the war. But you’ve visited them at the White House of the Confederacy, where they’re living now. You were there with Jerome at the beginning of the war. You’re the wife of a great Southern hero—”

“And the daughter of a Union general. And ... and I’m not sure I could make the trip right now,” Risa said apologetically.

Tia felt a chill snake along her spine. No, she couldn’t ask Risa to go. Not if she was expecting another child. And Rhiannon’s little Conar was barely a few months old. “Alaina ...” she murmured softly.

“Alaina is sick,” Rhiannon said.

“Sick?”

Rhiannon shrugged. “Alaina is expecting another child as well.”

“Another babe? Are we McKenzies trying to repopulate the South all on our own?” she murmured bitterly.

“Tia!” Risa said.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m delighted for you all. I just ...”

“Are you afraid that Taylor will be angry?” Rhiannon asked.

“She should be,” Risa said, staring at her sternly.

Tia suddenly felt defensive—and like a child who had been ordered to behave. “No, of course not. I mean, he is off to war, with no explanations for me, there is no reason I shouldn’t travel to see Brent ... but ...”

“Ian will probably not let her go,” Rhiannon said with a shrug.

“Ian will most probably not be here long,” Risa said. “They are pulling officers and all the able-bodied men they can back out of Florida, preparing for a new offensive. General Grant has said that war must be hell, and that he intends to make it so.”

“As if we were not in hell already,” Tia murmured.

“Ian will be preoccupied. With Alaina. If we have to slip you out before he leaves, we can surely do so.”

“Well, tonight,” Rhiannon said, appearing very nervous and upset, “you should get some sleep. You can decide in the morning. That will be time enough.”

Time enough ...

As it happened, Tia didn’t need the morning to come in order to make up her mind. She had barely crawled into bed when there was a pounding at her door. There had been a buggy accident that night. A man’s leg had been crushed, his son had an injured arm, and his seven-year-old daughter had been seriously hurt.

The doctor, Jon Beauvais, was a skilled young surgeon. Tia worked with him throughout the night. The man’s leg had to be amputated. The little boy’s arm was broken, but they set it, and the doctor believed he would be all right. The fight to save the little girl lasted until morning. Tia tried to soothe her. She was very brave.

“Does it hurt badly?” Tia asked her. “The doctor will make it better. The medicine helps, doesn’t it?”

The little girl offered her a tremulous smile. “Doesn’t hurt too bad! It’s all right, I know. If I die, the angels will come for me. They came for my brother, Daniel. He died at Gettysburg, and so he is in heaven, and if I die, he won’t be so alone.”

“You’re not going to die. You’re going to live. Listen, hear that? Your mommy is out there, and she’s crying. You have to live so that she won’t cry.”

But no matter how hard the doctor worked with her, and despite the healing touch of Rhiannon’s hands, the little girl died. Tia was at her side when, just before dawn, she struggled to draw in one last breath. She was a beautiful child with strawberry ringlets and cherry-red lips. In death, she seemed to sleep. Tia drew her into her arms and cried, unable to believe that the little girl was gone. She still held her tightly, crying, when the doctor came and said the mother needed to be with her child. Tia sat numbly in the doctor’s surgery, listening as a photographer was called. It was common practice, she knew, for photographers to take pictures of dead children so that their parents could remember them. The mother sobbed, holding her baby for the photographer. The child did, indeed, look at peace, as if asleep, and yet it all seemed so horrible to Tia that she could scarcely bear it.

Both of her sisters-in-law went back to cradle their own babies. Risa as well went to her Jamie.

Tia sat outside the surgery, feeling ill. She could still hear the mother’s sobs. They would haunt her all her life.

When dawn broke, she told Rhiannon she was ready to go to Richmond.

As it happened, things worked out very well. Ian’s traveling papers had awaited his return to St. Augustine.

He’d be leaving by a Yankee ship in the harbor.

Tia would be leaving soon after, slipping out of the city and down river to board a blockade runner.

Taylor arrived late, having not received the documents he needed until late that morning. Then, though the weather was excellent and he had moved along at a fair clip, it was still nearly two hundred miles southwest from James McKenzie’s home to the Union naval base at Key West. With the captain of the small vessel eternally nervous that he would meet a heavily gunned blockade runner along the sandbars and shoals that haunted the coastline around the islands, it seemed slow going.

Taylor came into the lagoon by dinghy, and though it was late, again he was being watched. He rowed in alone, planning on rowing back out to meet the ship that night.

As he stepped from the dinghy onto the wet sand of the beach, he almost expected another ambush, but this time, as he dragged the dinghy high up on the sand, it was Jennifer who came running out to throw her arms around him. “Taylor! Taylor, what happened? Please tell me, quickly! Will it be okay, did they believe you, did—”

“Jennifer, Jennifer, whoa!” James McKenzie was right behind his daughter, slipping an arm around her, ready to draw her from Taylor before she could drag them both down into the sand.

Teela was there as well. “Let him get out of the water and into the house!” she chastised. “The night is cool; let’s get inside.”

But Taylor could see Jennifer’s tortured eyes, and he felt a strange pain in his throat, in his gut. She loved the Yankee she had fished from the sea. He had never expected to see it; her first husband had been killed at Manassas. And she had mourned deeply, and recklessly. But seeing her eyes, hearing her voice, the passion, the care, the concern ...

“Jennifer, they accepted the despatches, and my statement that he was far too ill to be moved.”

“Oh, Taylor!” Escaping her father’s hold, she threw her arms around him again. She kissed his cheek, hugged him. “Oh, Taylor!”

“Jen, Jen!” James warned quietly. “He’ll eventually have to go back—”

“No, sir,” Taylor interrupted quietly. “That’s part of what has taken me so long. I have an honorable discharge with me. I took the liberty of suggesting that he’d never be much use to the Yankee Cause again. Of course, I swore in turn that he’d never take arms against the Union, as well.”

“Oh, my God, I have to tell Michael!” Jennifer kissed his cheek again. “Taylor! Thank you so very, very much!”

She sped off.

Teela and James remained, staring at Taylor. He could hear the lash of the waves against the shore. The moon was dimming, but it still cast a gentle glow down upon them. Palms rustled gently in the breeze, a whisper against the night sky.

“For my daughter’s sake, I thank you sincerely,” James told him.

Taylor grinned. “Well, I admit, I’d thought about reporting him dead. I had that suggestion made to me a few times, and it did sound like a good idea. But one day, the war will end. And I don’t want any of us to be haunted by this in later years. I was afraid ... it was a gamble, and Jen might have wound up hating me, but the gamble has paid off.”

“Come, let’s go on into the house,” Teela said, stepping forward and taking his arm. “It’s a cool night. You need some hot food, and a good night’s rest—”

“Teela, I would deeply appreciate sharing a meal with you and James. Afterward, however, I must return to the ship. I am going to be ordered back to Virginia, and I want what time I may have in St. Augustine with Tia.”

Teela seemed to pale suddenly. “Um ... well, let’s have something to eat first, shall we?”

She turned and headed quickly for the house. Taylor looked at James, frowning.

“What’s going on?”

“We received another letter from Risa. Tia has headed toward Virginia herself, to spend time with Brent at the hospital outside Richmond.”

“She ... what?”

“Perhaps she thought you’d be gone much longer. There was a ship on the river—”

“A Rebel ship?” Taylor asked tightly.

“Yes,” James admitted. “Not Jerome’s,” he added quickly. “Under the circumstances, he might have refused her passage. I don’t really know much; all I have is the information in my daughter-in-law’s letter.”

Taylor felt as if a band were tightening around his insides. Fear and fury combined to make him feel sick.

Damn her. He’d trusted her.

He pulled the papers he carried—correspondence and Michael Long’s honorable discharge—from the inner pocket of his frockcoat and handed them to James.

“Sir, I beg your forgiveness, but I must forgo dinner.”

“What is your intent?”

“I’m going after my wife.”

“She will be in Rebel territory.”

“I am accustomed to seizing her from Rebel territory.”

“Take care, Taylor. Take the gravest care.”

“Aye, sir, that I will.”

He pushed the dinghy from the shore, hopped into the small boat, and picked up the oar, rowing with a vengeance.

What in God’s name was she doing? What reckless game did she play? Was she torturing different troops now, leading them into an ambush? No matter how good she was, no matter how swift, how careful, how cunning, she would eventually be caught.

He felt a tightness clamp around his throat. He couldn’t lose her ...

He paused in his furious rowing, staring into the dark velvet of the night, listening to the water lap against the small boat. His heart slammed bitterly against his chest.

Prison. A Yankee prison camp. It seemed the only answer.

G
OING NORTH WAS PRECARIOUS,
at best. War was to be hell, the Yanks had determined, and they were practicing a scorched earth policy throughout the South. Train tracks had been destroyed, and travel by rail was very uncertain. The Yanks had constantly been bombarding the forts protecting Charleston, making travel by ship equally dangerous.

But throughout the journey, Tia cared little. She couldn’t shake the vision of the beautiful little girl who had died. She couldn’t forget the way that the photographer had posed the dead child to take her picture. Memories. Memories that would haunt her a lifetime, she thought.

She’d had little to do with her own travel arrangements, leaving all the details to Risa and Alaina, who argued over her route and just how and when she should travel. In a way, however, there was little choice—she would have to travel by the whim of the war, with little help otherwise. Her sisters-in-law and Risa were rather like a threesome of maternal hens, leaving St. Augustine with her and braving whatever dangers might face them to accompany her south down the river to the blockade runner. They made certain the captain was a respectable man, and obtained his assurances that he would see to Tia’s welfare above all else.

The captain, a man named Larson, was a kindly, gnarled little fellow, a man dedicated to the south. Tia took her meals in his cabin, where he talked fondly about his two little girls, the wife he had lost in childbirth, and how he despised the men who claimed to be Rebels but ran the blockade purely for the profit they could make. They were bleeding the South worse than the Yankees.