Words Heard in Silence (100 page)

"Home? Home. Becca. Sweet Becca. Miss you so." He smiled and closed his eyes.

Rebecca leaned over, allowing tears to fall for the first time, as she realized that he did not understand she was there with him. "It is all right, Charlie. I am not leaving. I will be right here with you, until I can take you home. Rest now my darling. Just rest."

"Rest. Yes. Rest." He turned his head into the hand stroking his hair, closed his eyes and lay still. The only sound in the room was the slight rumble of his breathing and the soft sound of Rebecca’s tears.

D
usk had dimmed the light in the tent to soft shadows when Elizabeth came in, followed by a trooper carrying a tray with two steaming bowls and a pot of tea.

"I thought you might need some food, dear. You have had a long day. I know I am starving. How is Charlie doing?"

"He was talking awhile ago. I thought he was talking to me and then I realized that he did not know who he was talking to." She reached for the bowl. "Thank you." She took a bite and watched as Elizabeth settled down with her. "Is it true? Is President Lincoln dead?"

"Evidently, yes. The telegraph said that he was shot in the head last night by some actor while he was at the theater and died today."

"How horrible. It would seem his dream was prophetic after all. I feel terribly sorry for Mrs. Lincoln."

"I feel more concerned for us, dear. Already, there is a great deal of anger at the South for his death."

"I am sure. What do they know about the man who shot him?"

"Evidently it was one of the Booth boys. John Wilkes, I believe. Ironic, since his father was on stage at that theater not four months ago."

"Oh, Lord, it was his father Charlie and I saw while we were in Washington. We attended a performance at Ford's Theater."

"Well, of the children, Wilkes was the least talented. I always thought he was trying to outdo his brother Edwin –– and usually failed. Perhaps this is his way of being famous. Pretty poor solution, in my opinion."

"Did they catch him? Do you know?"

"I believe they are still looking for him. Personally, I hope they catch him and he burns in hell. They will surely execute him for what he has done."

"I do not doubt that. Hopefully, that will be the last of the killing from this awful mess." Rebecca looked to Charlie and replaced the cloth on his forehead. "It has cost us all too much."

Elizabeth finished the last bit of stew in her bowl. "Well, this is just the beginning. What will it take to put this land back to work? To repair the damage? I have seen fields that were so soaked with blood and torn up with canister shot, I doubt anything will ever grow there again."

"To be honest, Elizabeth, I have little care about that. The South brought these problems on itself. I just want to make Charlie better and take him home. I have little sympathy for these fools who did not know when all was lost, who did not have the brains God gave a nanny goat, to know when to stop. They should have stopped months ago and because they did not, look at what they did to Charlie."

Elizabeth was a bit startled. She had seen Rebecca angry, offended, annoyed, lost, depressed, and downright ready to kill Mrs. Williams. She had never seen this deep, despairing bitterness before. "My dear, it has been a long and very difficult day. You have a long, hard road ahead of you nursing Charlie back to health. Can I give you something to help you sleep? Jocko and Samuelson will take turns watching over Charlie tonight."

"No. No, I want to be able to come if he needs me." She gestured to the other side of the tent, where a blanket had been strung. "Jocko has provided me with a place to sleep when I get tired, but I do not want to leave Charlie."

"I did not mean for you to leave him, dear. I just thought you would need some sleep sometime, and the men will be happy to watch and call you if he wakes."

Rebecca looked at Charlie, whose face twitched with pain. "He does not know I am here. I want him to know I am here."

Elizabeth’s heart almost broke at how forlorn Rebecca looked as she said those words. "My dear, he is delirious. Now that we have dug out all the debris from his wounds, he should start to improve. At some level, I think he does know you are here. He is trying more, trying to cooperate, to stay still when we work on him. His hand must hurt as much or more than his leg, but he held it still while you worked on it today. He has been trying to pull it away from me."

Rebecca nodded and could no longer be strong. The tears began to fall.

A
fter letting her cry herself out, Elizabeth convinced Rebecca that Charlie would probably sleep through the night. Reluctantly, she accepted a mild sedative from the concerned physician, and settled onto the cot Jocko had made up for her.

She slept late the next morning after a restless night broken by needing to get up repeatedly and check on Charlie. Jocko, having taken over from Samuelson sometime in the middle of the night, let her sleep.

The first thing she heard that morning was Charlie’s voice, talking to Jocko.

"I dreamed of her yesterday, Jocko."

"Dreamed, Charlie?"

"I dreamed of Rebecca."

Slowly, she stepped out from behind the blanket and approached his bed. "It was not a dream, my love." She took his hand and smiled at him.

Charlie looked up at her smiling face, floating above him and nearly passed out. "Rebecca?"

"Yes, my dear. I came as soon as I could." She ran her fingers over his forehead and through his hair, relieved beyond measure that his fever seemed to be going down.

Charlie closed his eyes and just savored her touch for a moment. Then his eyes popped open. "How bad is it?"

"You have been wounded, you know that, but it is nothing we cannot deal with. All that matters is that you are alive." She smiled and kissed his cheek. "And the war is over, Charlie. When you are well, we can go home."

"The war is over?" A look of vast relief came over his face.

"Yes Charlie, it is over. Lee surrendered."

"Thank God. Oh, Rebecca, if you had seen those men?"

"I know darling, but it is over now. All we have to worry about is making you well enough to go home. You have a little girl who is desperate to have her Papa home and you have two fine healthy sons waiting for you."

"How is Em? I miss the little imp."

"She is growing like a weed. She talks of you constantly and she is waiting for us to come home. She misses her Papa."

"And the boys? Charles and Andrew?"

"Beautiful and healthy, waiting for you to come home so they can be properly christened."

"Who is taking care of them?"

Rebecca chuckled. "Well in reality, Tess and Ginny, but Miss Emily thinks she is in charge."

"Ginny?" Charlie was tiring; as much as he wanted to know how the children were doing, he could feel the energy draining from him.

"The wet nurse." She leaned over and kissed his cheek. "Rest, dear heart. We can talk later."

He closed his eyes for a few minutes, and then opened them to look directly into Rebecca’s eyes. "Tell me. How bad is it?"

"You are going to be fine, my love. We will get you through."

His hand closed around her wrist. "Tell me. I need to know."

She took her seat next to him. "It is bad, Charlie. You have lost a lot of mass in your thigh and buttock. You were wounded in the shoulder and you lost two fingers on your right hand. You have been fighting infection for ten days. But it does not matter. What matters is that you are alive."

Charlie laid there, eyes closed, trying to absorb the implications of her stark statement. A few fingers he could live without, but what about the shoulder and how much mass was gone from his leg? Finally, bleakly, he asked, "Will I be able to walk?"

"Yes. Yes, you will be able to walk. Elizabeth did everything she could, Charlie. You asked her not to take your leg and she did not, though she thought she might have to. You will be able to get up and about again."

"Will I be a cripple?"

She sighed. "Charlie, it does depend on your definition of cripple. Will you be able to run your circuit at the farm? No, probably not. Will you be able to run the farm? Yes. Will you be able to be a father to the children? Yes, without question."

Charlie was quiet for a long time. Finally, he spoke again. "You know, I thought I had died. I remember calling your name. I remember dreaming of you."

"You called and I came. I will be here with you until it is time to take you home. Then I shall do just that and we will begin the life we have planned."

Charlie murmured, "Love you," then closed his eyes and slept again.

E
lizabeth had slipped a small amount of laudanum into Rebecca’s tea that morning, hoping the exhausted woman would go to sleep. Over the last few days, Rebecca had sat, quietly washing Charlie’s wounds with alternating washes of warm honey and salt water every hour, and bathing his fevered forehead with cool water in the interim. The doctor was concerned at her friend’s refusal to leave Charlie and finally decided to take matters into her own hands. She slipped into the tent in the early afternoon to find Charlie’s fever down for the first time in days.

She sat down on her stool and took Charlie's injured hand into her own to check on the condition of the bandages.

Charlie groaned and his eyelids fluttered open. He laid there, a grimace on his face, watching Elizabeth for some sign of his condition.

"Welcome back dear friend. I am not going to bother to ask how you feel. I am sure I know." She smiled at him and then went back to inspecting the bandage, quite pleased to see that the wound had stopped seeping and the bandage was still clean.

Charlie, his throat dry and raw from days of fever and slow force-feeding, croaked, "Hurts. How bad?"

"It is not pretty, Charlie. I will not lie to you. You have been severally severely injured, but we did manage to save your leg."

Charlie groaned involuntarily as Elizabeth adjusted the splints and bandages on his hand. "Fingers?"

"You lost two fingers on your right hand and I suspect there will be limited use of the ones that remain, but you also managed to keep your hand. How much do you remember?"

"Most of it. Shoulder, leg, hand. All bad?"

"Charlie, the wounds are substantial, but you are alive, and after time to recover, I believe you will find you are still going to live a long, happy life. Granted you will have limitations, but nothing you cannot overcome."

"Still ride?"

"I think so. You may have to have a special saddle made to accommodate your leg for a while. You are going to find your knee is somewhat stiff. With proper care, I do not foresee any severe problems."

"Walk? Dance? Run?"

She chuckled. "Yes, you will walk. I am sure you and Rebecca will find a way to dance; I have no doubt about that. As for running, I doubt you will ever run again, Charlie."

Charlie lay there and thought about that for a bit. Then gathered himself through the pain and asked one more question. "Scars. How bad?"

Elizabeth chewed her lip for a moment. Then decided the truth was the best, "The scars are going to be severe."

Charlie closed his eyes. Something went out of him in that moment. "Hurts. Bad. Real bad."

"I know." She scratched her neck. "Would you like something for the pain? I can place you on a schedule that will keep you unaware of the pain, until your body has had time to heal a little more."

The idea of being disconnected from the world was very appealing. What would Rebecca think of a scarred, disabled, fraudulent man? It was bad enough that they would have to maintain the fiction of man and woman, but now, how repulsive would Charlie’s scarred and mutilated body be to her? "Yes. Out. No pain, please." No thoughts either.

"All right." She patted his arm. "I will prepare the medication and be right back." She left the tent to fetch her bag and the supplies she would need to take care of her friend's pain.

Charlie lay in his bed and carefully examined each area of pain in his body. His shoulder felt like a falling tree had crushed it. His flank felt like it had been flayed by a butcher, chopped for sausage, and cooked over a hot fire. He knew that he was missing fingers on his right hand, but he could feel them all and they all felt like someone had attached red-hot daggers to each one. He could not imagine what he must look like. But whatever it was, he knew it was ugly. No longer would he be Rebecca’s ‘‘Greek goddess.’ Rebecca had said that the beauty of Charlie’s body took her breath away. Any beauty Charlie may have had was gone, torn away in a blast of hot metal and rock.
Now
, Charlie’s little voice taunted,
Your body will do what it should have done in the first place –– repulse her.

When Elizabeth returned, Charlie eagerly swallowed the slightly bitter brew she offered him. Oblivion was welcome for many reasons.

R
ebecca sat, holding Charlie's hand, wishing he would come to and not too happy that he was being kept sedated. Elizabeth entered the tent with a pot of tea in one hand and a small kettle of soup in the other.

"Elizabeth, I really would prefer if we could let Charlie come out of sedation. He seems half dead like this."

"I do understand, dear, but he was in so much pain. Having that much muscle exposed is agony, and the hand is not much better. Also, if we are to get him home, the only way to do it is to sedate him. Heavily."

Rebecca sighed, nodding and wiping away tears at the same time. "When do you think I will be able to take him home?"