Love and War: The Coltrane Saga, Book 1 (69 page)

He began to caress her, and in spite of her terror and loathing for him, a sweet-hot fire began to spread through her body. Against her will, she felt herself yielding.
No,
she told herself over and over,
don’t react this way
,
don’t yield to his filth…no…don’t.

She went limp. The man above her released his hold, moved back. Bart was entering her roughly, starting his thrust. A wave of panic went through Kitty. She could not stand it—his violation of her body—nor the way she had been so weak. Damn it to hell, she had vowed never to give in to the weakness that plagued womanhood.

Her fingers groped in the dirt as he rammed into her. She felt the knife handle. In his excitement, in his lust, he had dropped his knife. Slowly, she wrapped her hand around it and before she could think about the moment at hand, Kitty brought the blade up and plunged it under his chin, felt the warm gush of blood splashing into her face at the same time as his scream of surprise and pain melted away in the gentle gurgling of his life’s blood as it oozed away.

“What the hell…” one of the men cried, springing forward. But Kitty was in control of herself. She shoved the dying man to one side, then leaped to her feet, still naked, knife held ominously. He stepped forward, bent over his comrade, and Kitty brought the blade down into his back. He had seen his friend slump forward, heard his melting scream, but had not seen Kitty with a knife. It was a fatal mistake.

Kitty whipped around, ready for the third savage to step forward. When he did, stunned by what was going on, he saw the knife, glinting in spite of the blood upon the blade, and he began backing away. Kitty pulled her arm back, swung, and sent the knife slashing through the air. It caught in his left shoulder and stuck there. Screaming, he kept on running, disappearing into the thick woods beyond.

She stared down at the two bodies—a ghastly sight in the silver moonlight. The blood sparkled like red stars in the night, glistening, gleaming. Blood. The blood of the enemy. The blood of those who would dare to violate her body because she was born a woman. No more. No more would they violate either body or soul—and God pity anyone who tried to defile or control her spirit, her will.

She had been obedient to her vow. Kitty had honestly tried, she felt, to do as Nathan had asked. And what had it gotten her—hiding away in a rotting house with equally decaying people. This was not the place for her. Perhaps one day…but not now. Nathan would have to understand. He would have to if they were to love each other.

And they
would
love each other. Nathan was gentle, kind, so different from the vicious animals she had known in the past few years. Travis would become a distant memory. She would bury him in her mind. When Nathan returned, all would work out. It had to. But for the present, kitty could not cope with the life he had inflicted upon her.

Her torn clothes fell to the ground as Kitty started walking through the pecan grove, heading back to the house. Her body gleamed like that of a naked goddess come to life as she took firm, sure steps. It was over. All the indecision, the regrets—they were gone. She had tried. Now it had come to light.

The sound of sobbing made Kitty jerk her head around. Beneath a pecan tree, perhaps only twenty feet away, Nancy Warren Stoner crouched, head in hands and sobbing convulsively. Turning, Kitty walked to her.

The girl lifted her face. “I’m sorry, Kitty. I just had to lie. I couldn’t let them do
that
to me. I…I’m not used to such things.”

“Are you saying I am?” Kitty screamed indignantly.

“You…you’ve been through it,” Nancy spoke cautiously. “I…I felt you could withstand it better.”

Kitty’s hand lashed out like a striking snake, cracking the girl soundly across her face. Then her hand swept down again, as Nancy gasped, stunned. Again and again, the sound of flesh striking flesh, over and over, till Nancy fell to her knees, covering her head, begging not to be hit again.

“You
wanted
them to rape me,” Kitty whispered raggedly. “Perhaps in the end it would have happened anyway, but damn you, Nancy, you wanted it to happen so you could make up some vicious lie to tell Nathan. How could you? How could you hate anyone that much?”

She spun around, head held high, walking naked through the pecan grove. Nancy’s hysterical sobs caught in the wind and drifted to her ears, but Kitty did not look back. She had no intention of taking a second glance at that hateful, traitorous girl nor the bloodied bodies of the two men she had just killed.

“I’m going to keep right on walking,” she whispered out loud to the swaying tree limbs, the drifting clouds. “I’m going to keep walking straight ahead and never look back again.” And it was so easy, she realized, to keep on putting one foot in front of the other…and move away from the unpleasantness behind. All those years…all those tears and agonies and heartache. Walk away…keep going…don’t look back.

Ahead, Nathan would await her. The war would end. Peace would come. Happiness. Joy. It was all in the future; as surely as the sun would rise again, so it would set, and what transpired in between was gone forever. If it meant heartache, let the memories set with the sun, never to rise again on the same day. But if the time had been joyful, then raise the reflections of all the golden moments with the rising sun. That would be the way she would have to live.

Walking up the steps, Kitty met the astonished eyes of Aunt Sue, who swayed dizzily at the sight and caught the railing to steady herself.

Kitty nodded matter-of-factly, as though it were nothing out of the ordinary for her to walk in the house completely nude. “Don’t faint, Aunt Sue,” she said calmly. “Someone has to go out there and drag Nancy back here. New mothers should get their rest, you know.”

Aunt Sue blinked. “New mothers? I don’t think I understand, dear. Are you sure you’re all right? I mean…” she turned her head away, embarrassed.

“Oh, I’m quite fine. By the way, get one of the other women to go with you and take a shovel. I hope you’re strong enough to dig a hole big enough to throw two dead Yankees in. I just killed them.”

With a soft moan, Aunt Sue slumped to the floor in a faint.

Kitty kept on walking.

Chapter Forty-Three

In the light flickering from the lantern hanging overhead, the room took on a lonely glow. Kitty stood beside the wounded soldier, holding his hand as he lay prone upon the bloody table. Outside the cold February rain drizzled steadily downward, turning the ground into rivulets and pockets of mud and slush. Roads were impassable. Every available man in Goldsboro was out working to corduroy the road to Smithfield in an effort to get supplies to General Johnston’s army. Was Nathan there? She did not know. She had written to tell him of his mother’s death weeks ago, and had received no reply. Perhaps he, too, had gone to his grave. Blinking away the tears, she murmured a silent prayer that his life had been spared. God, they had both suffered too hard, for too long, to have death interrupt their future now.

The soldier stirred. Kitty squeezed his hand, hoping, somehow, to reassure him that someone was near, that someone cared. She was tired. Oh, she was so tired her knees ached to buckle. But the wounded kept coming in, and there were not enough doctors and assistants and helpers to staff the hospital. So they were all ready to collapse—and some did—but each tried to carry on, knowing the desperate need to remain and do everything possible to save lives and ease the suffering of these wretched souls who had tasted the battlefields of hell.

The door opened and Doctor Malcolm Jordan stepped inside, moving with great effort. His coat was blood-splotched, his hands dry and chapped from so much scrubbing to rid the skin of blood, tissue, and dirt from the war. He looked at her from beneath bushy brows, nodded, and stepped to the table. He made a quick examination of the soldier’s wound, then cursed softly and said, “There’s nothing to do but amputate. Can you stand another one tonight, Kitty?”

“If there’s no other way, Doctor Jordan, then I’m ready.” God, she hated to see limbs taken away.

“I hear you do some of this once in a while when there’s a shortage of doctors.”

“I do. But I hate each one. I’m afraid I don’t have the necessary strength to saw through a bone and I take longer than necessary, prolonging the suffering of the poor soldier I’m attending. I think I can still hear the screams of each and every one when I try to sleep at night.”

“I won’t say you get used to it because you never do. But remember you probably saved a life.”

“Most of them said they would rather have died.”

“A usual reaction.” He reached for his instrument case. “But let them see a wound turn green with gangrene and they realize they’re going to die and they’ll beg you to cut that limb off. It isn’t pleasant, I know. Have you looked out back lately?”

She shook her head. She had not been out of the hospital in over two weeks.

“There’s a pile of arms and legs out there about seven or eight feet high. If it weren’t so cold, the smell would run us out of here. We’re just so shorthanded we haven’t had anyone to dig a hole and bury them. It’s a gruesome sight.” He shuddered. “I think I’m going to find the time, and strength, somehow, to get out there in the morning, myself, and dig a ditch.”

He wielded his scalpel, then the forceps crunched as they gripped the arterial wall. Kitty watched him set the ratchet carefully before he cut the vessel beyond and whipped a ligature in place. “I have the femoral artery tied off now,” he said, making a final knot, “The bleeding has stopped. Let’s hope he stays asleep. Chloroform is so scarce. We need every drop.”

“I imagine the pain will awaken him.”

“Then prepare the chloroform. We don’t want him to suffer. God, I know this must be the agony of the damned.”

The doctor took the surgical saw in his hand and began setting steel to bone, whipping down with a low, vicious rasp. The soldier stirred, opened his eyes wildly, at the point of screaming, and Kitty was ready to put him to sleep. He struggled momentarily, then, mercifully, he was out of the horror.

The leg clumped to the floor and Kitty stared at it, in a trancelike state. A leg that had walked, run, kicked a horse into a full run, danced, jumped…a living thing, a part of a human being, and now it lay on the floor in a pool of thickening blood—gone forever, severed from the body. Useless. Dead.

When she continued to stare, transfixed, Doctor Jordan, moving quickly, lifted the leg, walked to the window, and pitched it outside. Then he returned to the table, yelling for hot tar a swab. “And send in the next one…”

The next soldier breathed his last as he was placed on the table. Kitty looked at the doctor and snapped sarcastically: “Do we throw him out the window, too?”

He frowned. “Look, Kitty, I think you are due for a rest. You obviously are cracking. Now go to your room and lie down for a few hours. We don’t need a hysterical woman around.”

“Hysterical?” she cried indignantly. “You call me hysterical because I care? Because it sickens me to see a man’s leg tossed out the window so callously, as though it were a bone for a dog? Forgive me, Doctor, but I’m not void of human compassion, and if you are, then I feel only pity.”

“Please, just go lie down,” he passed a weary hand in front of his face. “I have no time for this.”

The door opened and Judith Gibson’s dark curly hair bobbed up and down as she looked about before whispering to Kitty, “Can you come with me for a moment, Kitty? It’s terribly important.”

“No, I can’t…there’s a patient.”

“Go!” Doctor Jordan’s voice boomed. “Please, Kitty. Go for a little while. You’ll feel better and so will I.”

Annoyed, she brushed by him, stepping outside into the hall. In the dim glow of the lantern hanging on the wall she saw that Judith was terribly excited about something.

“You won’t believe it, Kitty, but he’s here. I know it’s him, from the way you described the way he looks now.”

“Him? Who?” She felt icy fingers moving up and down her spine. Nathan? Here?

And Judith’s next words made her sway in shock.

“It’s your father, Kitty, John Wright. He’s outside and he says he has to see you right away.”

She stumbled down the hall, past the open doorways of rooms with soldiers stacked almost on top of each other, past the rooms filled with the dead waiting for their graves to be dug when the rains stopped. Judith pointed to a closed door that led outside the building, then smiled, patted her shoulder, and discreetly disappeared.

Kitty stepped into the cold, rainy night. Immediately his arms were around her, his voice cracking as he said, “Kitty, Kitty, my girl, my girl…”

“Poppa, it is you.” She returned his caress, tears streaming down her face. “How…did you know where to come to find me? Isn’t it dangerous?”

“Come with me to the end of the porch, quickly. I haven’t much time.” He led the way. She noticed he wore an ordinary pair of trousers, shirt, and poncho. With a patch over his eye, he looked like an old retired soldier who had served his country and paid the price. And oh, how she drank in the sight of him!

He told her that he was actually a scout for General Sherman. “I got so close to home, I had to take a chance on findin’ you, girl. I figured you’d be here. Leastways, I prayed you would. I wanted to see you one more time.”

Forcing a laugh, she echoed, “One more time? Poppa, you talk like this is the last time we’ll ever meet. The war will be over soon and you can come home and we’ll start a new life, both of us…”

He touched her lips with his forefinger, bringing her to silence. “Hush, girl. You’re smarter’n that. You know the war news. The South is crumbling fast. They’re starving and they’re whipped, and it’s just a matter of time. Soldiers are so hungry they’re eating meat so rotten off of dead mules that it shreds in their fingers before they can even pick it off the bone. Men are without shoes or coats, and they’re freezin’ to death if they don’t starve to death. It’s coming to an end, girl, and soon, and General Sherman is headed straight for Goldsboro. I found out what I need to know and I have to go back, but I wanted to see you, tell you how I hope everything works out for the best for you if we don’t meet again. I want you to know that I love you…I always did.”