Authors: Patricia Hagan
He raised up on his knees and stuck two fingers in his mouth to give an ear-splitting whistle. In seconds, Virtus came crashing across the clearing, heading straight for them. “Good boy,” he whispered, patting him absently as he held him steady, checking to make sure the great horse was not wounded. Then he reached down and lifted Clark to place him belly-down across the animal’s back. When he was in position, he swung himself up, clutching the long mane of hair on Virtus’s back as he jerked him around.
Beneath him, Clark moaned. “We’re going to make it, my friend. Hold on,” Rance said tensely. “Just hang on for a little while longer.”
The smell of sulfur and smoke stung his eyes as he guided the horse over the corpses of Yankees and Rebels. The smell of blood was an overpowering stench, battling with sulfur to make a nauseating wave.
Ahead, behind, all around him
echoed gunfire and the screams of the wounded. Rance moved the horse as fast as he dared while alert for the enemy.
“Here!”
He jerked his head up, tears of relief sparking his eyes as he saw the men in gray waving to him from where they had taken refuge behind a picket line.
He gripped Clark’s body with one hand, Virtus’s mane with the other, and kneed the horse forward, leaping the last remaining yards to safety. Landing solidly, he lurched to a halt, hanging on to Clark.
“It’s bad,” one of the soldiers told him as they pulled Clark from the horse. “It’s a head-on attack, but we’ve got ’em outnumbered. Lee got just outside Gettysburg, and Meade hit him there this morning.”
Rance slid down and directed that someone see to help for Clark. “The ball passed through his arm. But we were playing dead, and a goddamn Yankee rode his horse over both of us. I feel like my back is broken, but it’s just bruised. He’s the one I’m worried about. The damned horse mangled the arm that was already wounded.”
He turned to the soldier who had been telling him of the attack and asked, “What happened to Stuart? Why weren’t we warned that Meade was moving to meet Lee head-on?”
The soldier, hardly more than a boy, shrugged. “All anybody can figure is that Hooker’s army was bigger than we thought, and it’s taking Stuart longer to get around him. It don’t matter now, does it? The battle is on.”
A terrible wave of foreboding moving through him, Rance nodded in solemn agreement.
On the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1, 1863, the Federals were greatly outnumbered and the Confederates were victorious. General Lee was attacking at both flanks and in the center of the federal lines, using everything he had in an attempt to crush the Army of the Potomac once and for all.
It was not until late that night that Rance was able to get to the hospital tent to ask about Edward. He had gone out to join in the fighting and lost count of the number of Yankees who died by his hand. Exhausted, he walked toward the medical area. He tensed at the anguished shrieks of the wounded and dying. He had to pick his way through the men lying side by side on the ground. Some were on stretchers, some lay on blankets. Others, waiting for treatment, were lying on the bare ground.
Some were already dead and lay with unseeing eyes. It would be a while, he knew, before the dead were discovered and carried away.
A fire flickered to his left, and he grimaced at the sight of corpses stacked like cordwood, nearly eight feet high. Barebacked soldiers worked wearily nearby with shovels, digging a large pit for a common grave.
The sight to his right sickened him even more. Here was the disposal area from the surgical tents. Arms and legs…hands and feet…when there was time, they would be buried. For now, they were food for flies in the hot July evening.
The scene inside the tents was grisly. Surgeons in bloodied aprons worked frantically over wounded men placed on wooden operating tables. Some held their big knives between their teeth as they used their hands to feel wounds. If a bone were smashed, if the wound was gouged and arteries ripped open, then there would be a quick swipe of the knife, the chilling grind of saw against bone, and another human limb was tossed outside.
They had run out of anesthetic. Now there was nothing left but whiskey. It was not enough to deaden the excruciating pain of surgery. Soldiers stood around the tables holding down the screaming, frantically fighting men who swore they would rather die than be dismembered. Some were restrained with ropes.
Rance paused to watch, and respect grew in him at the sight of the surgeons, their pain over the task mingling with determination. Now and then one of the assistants would turn away, retching. Twice Rance saw strong men pass out at the gory sight.
The yellowish glow from lanterns hanging overhead cast an eerie halo over the scene. Rance moved on to where patients already treated lay on the ground. The smell of hot tar and seared flesh touched his nostrils. He had seen the black substance slapped on freshly cut stumps to stop the bleeding.
Some of the men lay moaning softly in anguish. Others had passed out from their ordeal on the table. And, as always, the sightless eyes of the dead stared past him.
“What are you doing here, soldier?”
Rance jerked around at the sound of the belligerent voice. A man much larger than he, heavy, with square-set hulking shoulders, glared at him. The pressures of the day and his present surroundings had taken their toll.
“I’m looking for a friend of mine who was hit this morning. Lieutenant Edward Clark,” Rance explained.
The soldier sneered. “Well, it ain’t visitin’ hours, soldier, and it ain’t tea time, neither. So why in the fuck don’t you get outta here? I got enough to do without—”
Rance’s hand shot out to wrap around the big man’s throat and slam him backward, pinning him against a tree trunk.
“It’s ‘Captain’ to you, Private,” he said between clenched teeth, “and I’m in no mood to take your guff. This goddamn war wasn’t my idea. So back off.”
The man’s eyes bulged as Rance exerted pressure on his throat.
“Do you understand me?” Rance leaned forward and stared straight into his eyes. “Or do you want the two of us to fight our own battle?”
The private tried to nod but could not. Rance released him, and he clutched his throat with both hands and coughed several times before whispering hoarsely, “Hell, I didn’t mean nothin’, sir. It’s been a hard day, and—”
“And you aren’t taking it out on me. Now who around here can tell me where to find my friend?”
The soldier took a few steps in retreat before saying, “I’m sorry. I wish I could help you. But there’s maybe a thousand men lying around here, and I don’t know how you’re going to find him.”
“
We’re
going to find him,” Rance said quietly. “Just walk around and call his name—Edward Clark. It’ll give you something to do, besides get yourself into trouble. Now move.”
The private moved quickly away, calling out Edward Clark’s name, as he went. Rance went in the opposite direction. He had gone only a few paces when a wounded soldier lying nearby called out, “Hey. You sure got guts.”
“How’s that?” Rance paused to look down at the man.
“That’s Hugo Pauley you just slammed. He’s a bad one. You coulda got killed.”
Rance smiled. “I didn’t though, did I?” He started to move on, then turned to say, “And he’s not bad, soldier. Just big.”
“An hour later, Hugo Pauley came rushing up to Rance to tell him he had found Clark. He led Rance to where Clark lay, on a blanket near the edge of the field.
“I’m lucky,” Edward told him with a crooked smile. “At first, this dumb-ass surgeon wanted to take my arm off, because it would’ve been the easy thing for him to do. But I raised hell and said it was my arm and if I got gangrene, it was my business. So they bandaged me up, and here I am.”
Rance knelt beside him. “You could die from gangrene, you know,” he said anxiously. “I know you don’t want to lose your arm, old buddy, but you don’t want to lose your life either.”
Edward grinned wryly, a little drunk, Rance knew, from whiskey. “Hurry up and whip those Yankee asses out there, and then get me to Richmond. Between Chimborazo hospital and Trella’s tender, loving care, I’ll be just fine.”
“I’ll do my best, buddy. Just hang on.”
Rance told him about the day’s battle, wanting to get his mind off his injury, but he had not been there long when a soldier rushed over and said, “Are you Captain Taggart? Private Pauley told me I’d find you over here. There’s some men looking for you, wanting to know about those horses you all stole from the Yankees this morning. They want to know what to do with them.”
“They’re for Jeb Stuart,” Rance told him.
The soldier looked puzzled. “But nobody’s seen Stuart. Everybody’s pissed because he ain’t showed up. So they want to know what they’re supposed to do with the horses.”
Rance was becoming angry. “Keep them for Stuart. He’ll be here. Believe it.”
Edward touched his arm. “Go along and do what you’ve got to do. I’m not going anywhere.”
Rance got to his feet reluctantly. “Maybe I’d better. Things are in a pretty bad state of confusion around here.”
Edward managed another wan smile. “I’m gonna make it. Just don’t leave me behind. I want to be there when it happens.”
Rance raised an eyebrow and looked down at him, puzzled. “You’re going to have to explain that.”
“I want to be there when you find her. You won’t admit it, you stubborn bastard, but you’re in love with her.”
“Me?” Rance laughed. “No way, my friend. I want her because she’s my property…just like my horse. As for loving her—or any woman—I think you know me better than that. I’m not going to settle down.”
“I didn’t say anything about settling down. I just said you’re in love. That’s why you want to find her. All this talk about her being your property is bullshit and you know it. You just won’t admit it.”
Rance shook his head. “I think you’ve had enough whiskey for one night, Lieutenant. Why don’t you just go to sleep? You’ll be thinking more clearly in the morning.”
He turned on his heel and walked away, not looking back even when Edward chuckled.
In love, indeed, he scoffed silently. She was property. Like his horse. His gun. His saber. He had a claim on her. She had an obligation to him. They had made promises—her loyalty to him for the remainder of the war in exchange for his help with Pinehurst afterward.
But there was no denying that he yearned for the feel of her firm body…the touch of her lips upon his.
Despite the horrors about him…the screams…the stench of the wounded and dying…he felt desire welling.
But that had nothing to do with love.
He laughed, walking through the night. Clark was crazy. Love had nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Rance maneuvered the wagon carefully over the rutted road, trying to avoid the deep holes, as the jolt would cause the wounded men in the back to cry out in agony. It was rough going. This was a section that had not been corduroyed—lined with logs—and while corduroy strips were bumpier, wagons moved faster on them, and there were no great, dropping jolts.
He turned in his seat to look back at the six men lying in the wagon bed. He had been given special permission to take them into Richmond, to the big hospital there. These were but a few of those wounded in Gettysburg who had refused amputation. Their wounds were not healing. Green pus oozed from their bandages, which had to be changed constantly. Still, they refused amputation. As a last resort, the doctors agreed to send them to Chimborazo. Rance figured the field doctors were just glad to get them off their hands.
One of the soldiers Rance carried was Edward Clark, and he frowned to see how pale and gaunt he looked in the midday sun. His arm was in bad shape. Rance had changed his bandage the last time they had stopped, roughly an hour before, and already the yellowish green discharge was oozing through.
There were closer hospitals, but he had especially asked to take the men to Chimborazo, and not strictly for personal reasons. He had heard that the best facilities were there, and that’s what he wanted for his companions. But he could not deny that he wanted to see Trella.
Edward moaned. Rance called to him and asked if he wanted water. “Just keep moving,” came the feeble reply. “Get me out of Pennsylvania and further south—”
“We’ll be there by sundown,” Rance reassured him. “Just hold on.”
He popped the reins and picked up the horses’ gait as they came upon a smoother stretch of road. Virtus, in harness on the left, flipped his tail insolently, angry, Rance thought with a smile, over being relegated to the indignity of wagon pulling.
Rance reflected painfully on the terrible three-day battle of Gettysburg. It had been hell. There was no way of knowing exactly how many had been killed, but everyone acknowledged that losses were enormous. Some said that there might be as many as twenty thousand on both sides. If that were true, then Lee had lost nearly a third of the whole Confederate Army.
Jeb Stuart’s absence had proved costly. He had finally reached Lee on the evening of that second day of battle, but Lee had been forced to fight before he was ready. And he had not been free to maneuver because, due to Stuart’s absence, he had no way of knowing the Yankees’ exact position.