A Heart Divided, page 7
Have I mentioned I hate Virginia?
It took a good, hard yank to pull his foot free from the murky water. The jerk sent him flailing to the ground. He hadn’t seen the marshy sinkhole, covered with a lacy veil of sticks and leaves. Now his foot was wet, his sock, his pants leg, ugh.
Rolling onto his back, Andy tore off his boot and sock, wringing them in his hands. The water that dripped from his sock smelled like sludge and snails and nasty green things he didn’t want to think about. Why couldn’t I have been walking two inches to the left? he mused, pulling the damp sock back over his foot. His skin had already grown clammy and cold. Two inches, and I wouldn’t have fallen in this shit, is that too much to ask?
You’re lucky you didn’t break your damn leg, his mind whispered.
He shuddered at the thought. A broken leg or twisted ankle, and who would look after Sam then? How would Andy get back to the camp? Soldiers would come looking for him and they’d find the two of them together…then what?
I didn’t break it, Andy assured himself, stubborn, as he pushed up off the ground. I can handle a little water. I can live with the cold. I didn’t—
The cabin.
As he stood, he saw dark wood through the trees…the charred remains of a dwelling. Sam’s cabin, the one he had been so sure existed. Andy forgot about his ankle as he stumbled out of the bushes for a closer look. The cabin was real, thank God.
Sam’s description was right. The roof was gone, the door lost somewhere along the way, and one wall lay crumbled into a pile of deadwood that whistled dangerously when the wind blew. But when Andy stepped onto the porch, his boot heels clicked with a solid sound that echoed off the dusky interior. Inside, the wooden floor was mostly bare. A dark campfire pit in one corner suggested that others had used the cabin as a way station in the past, but the ashes were gray and cold like the dawn, the fire long since extinguished. Fallen limbs littered the floor atop a thick carpet of decaying leaves, but the corner by the gutted campfire was clear.
It would be the perfect place for Sam to rest. Just to be sure, Andy made his way around the cabin, searching for signs of other human life. But the grounds were bare, and Andy could see no regiments through the trees, neither Confederate nor Union camped nearby. With a wild whoop! Andy raced back to where he had left Sam, careful to leap over the sinkhole where he’d fallen in earlier.
“I found it,” he cried, breathless.
Sam sat where Andy had left him. His head drooped to his chest, and the rifle rested in his lap like a forgotten toy.
Skidding to a stop beside him, Andy fell to his knees and shook his lover gently. “Sam, I found it—your cabin, you’re right, it’s not far at all. I found it.”
Sam roused himself. “The cabin?” he asked, his voice thick.
It was the morphine doing that to him. Andy stood and hauled Sam to his feet, draping both his lover’s arms around his shoulders as he gripped him about the waist. “Come on, Sammy.” He clenched his teeth against the dull pain that tore across his back as he tried to lift Sam’s weight. “It’s not far at all. You can make it.”
“I can’t,” Sam said, but the protest was weak and half-hearted. When Andy bent for the rifle and lantern, Sam held onto his shirt, bunching the fabric in his fists to keep from falling. “Andy, I don’t think I can do this.”
“I know you can,” Andy replied, swinging the rifle over his shoulder where it bumped against his haversack. “Not much farther. Come on.”
Sam sighed, a weary sound that tore at Andy’s heart, and he wondered if he had it in him to carry his lover to the cabin. But he hadn’t slept all night, and his stomach rumbled because he hadn’t eaten dinner. He wasn’t at his best—right now his shoulders ached, his body hurt, his ankle throbbed…he knew he couldn’t lift Sam. “Come on,” he whispered, rubbing the small of Sam’s back as they started into the woods again. “When we get there, you can lie down, and I’ll make you a nice fire, what do you say? You can sleep, and I’ll go back to the camp and get us something to eat, and I’ll give you a little more medicine, okay? How’s that sound?”
Sam sighed again. “I can sleep?”
“You can,” Andy said with a nod. “I won’t wake you.”
“Except to eat.” Sam hopped once, almost stumbling, but Andy held onto him tightly and didn’t let him fall. “Wake me up to eat.”
Laughing, Andy watched the ground as they took another shuffling step. “Except to eat,” he agreed.
With Sam in tow, it took Andy twice as long to return to the cabin. By the time they reached it, the sun had risen a little higher above the horizon and he could see the marshy sinkhole in the ground well before he accidentally stepped in it again. That was the last thing he needed—to pitch to his knees with Sam beside him, falling on his bad leg and tearing open the wound.
Avoiding the sinkhole, Andy led Sam around the bushes until they could see the hollowed husk of the cabin through the fog that was already beginning to burn away. “See? there it is.”
Sam rolled his head back against Andy’s shoulder to look up at the cabin.
Andy ran a hand through his lover’s hair, pushing it back from his face. “You were right, it’s there. See? Not far at all.”
“I see.” Sam’s voice sounded dry and empty, each word as strained as the stitches in his thigh.
Somehow they made it up the few steps to the porch, and by the time they reached the darkened corner with the campfire remains, Andy had both arms around Sam, practically dragging him across the hardwood floor. With a sigh of relief, he lowered his lover to the ground, easing off Sam’s heavy blue coat and folding it beneath his head for a makeshift pillow. The gauze around his thigh was bloodier than it had been before, and Andy knelt beside him, unwrapping the bandage carefully. He hated the bruised swelling around the stitches, and he wondered if he should somehow cut a little below the wound, just enough to bleed the pressure away. But I don’t know how to do that, he reasoned, touching the tender skin experimentally. Sam hissed in pain, even though Andy’s finger barely brushed along the wound. Blood’s pooling here and it’ll infect, I know that much. Maybe I can prop his leg up to drain it a bit.
Looking around the cabin, he spotted a thick tree limb, fallen some time during the past winter and rotting into dry wood on the cabin floor. Stripping the small branches from its length, Andy dragged the limb over to where Sam lay and positioned it beneath his lover’s knee so his foot rested at one end. The limb raised his leg a little, and Andy hoped it might be enough to alleviate the swelling.
“The medicine,” Sam sighed. His hands twisted in his shirt as he looked at Andy with half-lidded eyes, shiny with pain.
Andy wrapped the wound again, not as tightly as before, and retrieved the bottle of morphine from his haversack. “Here,” he said, helping Sam sit up enough to sip from the bottle. As soon as his lips touched the cool glass, though, Andy pulled it away. “Not too much,” he cautioned.
“I didn’t get any,” Sam replied, but the dark syrup spotted his lips and when his tongue licked out, it was coated with the drug. With pleading eyes he looked up at Andy. “Please?”
“No.” Andy capped the bottle as Sam fell back to the ground, his head landing heavily on his coat.
“Fuck you,” Sam muttered. Then his eyes went wide and he turned toward him, terrified. “I didn’t mean that. Oh Jesus, Andy, I didn’t mean it, I’m so sorry, I didn’t. It’s the pain.”
Biting his lower lip, Andy nodded. “I know.” The words still stung. “I’d give you another dose but it’ll just make you want more, you know that.”
“I do,” Sam agreed with a weary sigh. He tapped a spot right over his heart. “Sometimes I wish the bullet had caught me here.”
Andy closed his eyes against sudden tears. Don’t say that. Please, Sam, don’t even think that. Don’t wish it—I don’t want to lose you.
With a sad little laugh, Sam added, “Then I remember you’re here with me and it’s not so bad. I can live through this because I know you’re going to be right here with me until the end.”
Chapter 11
Andy took the haversack and lantern with him as he hurried back to his encampment. Despite the morning sun, thick fog still draped the woods, and he heard men from his regiment somewhere up ahead as he approached the battlefield. As silently as possible, he skirted the clearing, keeping to the trees and bushes to avoid discovery. He thought he heard McNair’s reedy voice among the soldiers, and at one point Wiley called out for the men to stay together. The sound of digging filled the air, ringing off the trees and fog until it seemed to be coming from everywhere at once, a hundred shovels crunching through dirt and rocky soil as the men buried the dead. At least they were burying them, Andy thought as he edged away from the sounds. That small measure of respect almost made up for the fact the men robbed the corpses where they lay.
As he neared the camp, he heard the pickets talking softly to themselves. The low voices were distorted by the fog, making it hard for Andy to judge their position. But they couldn’t see him, either, and he managed to stumble past them by mere feet without being caught. Once inside the perimeter of the camp, the fog didn’t get much better, but almost all the men were out in the battlefield this morning and he didn’t run into anyone on the way to his tent.
In front of the closed canvas flaps, a tray of cold slapjacks awaited him, most likely left by his aide at dawn’s light. A quick glance inside the tent assured him his personals were still on his bed, undiscovered. Crouching down, Andy wrapped the thin pancakes in the cloth napkins on his tray, then tucked them carefully into his haversack, along with the small tin of coffee that comprised his breakfast. After refilling his canteen with water from the regiment supply barrel, he headed for Mendenhall’s tent.
This time, the tent’s flaps were closed against visitors, but Andy rapped on the canvas, a hollow sound in the early light. “Doc?” he called out.
No answer.
Taking the medical supplies from his haversack—the needle and what remained of the thread, the bullet probe, the thin vial of ether—he shoved them beneath the tent. He kept the morphine and the gauze, but the rest of it he didn’t need any longer, and Mendenhall was short on supplies, that much was true. He thought of the ugly swelling around Sam’s wound and wondered if the surgeon kept any bleeders or quinine in that apothecary chest of his.
The thought of ducking inside to check was tempting, but to be honest, Andy didn’t know what to look for, and he didn’t want to ask for more medication when the army was so low on supplies as it was. He’d save his money for food—that was all Sam needed, a few hot meals, some tender care, someone to watch over him and clean the wound and tell him he was loved, and he’d get better. Andy knew he would.
So he left Mendenhall’s tent undisturbed and headed across camp to the sutler’s, who sold additional rations and supplies to the soldiers. There Andy splurged. The sutler, an unkempt man twice his own age, watched as Andy picked over his goods, selecting dried meats and desiccated vegetables, bread and cookies and sugar, anything portable he could find. When he finally turned to the sutler, hands full, the man’s eyes shone with greed. “That comes out of your pay direct,” he said, as if Andy weren’t aware of the way he plied his trade.
“I know.” Andy had never used the sutler’s goods before, preferring to hold onto his money, but he’d heard the soldiers talk. Though they loathed the sutler himself for his crooked ways and inflated prices, they praised his supplies. Everything was outrageously priced, but Sam was worth it. Hell, he was more than worth it, and half a month’s pay was little compared to his getting better. “I can pay you now, if you want.”
But the sutler shook his head, the motion barely disturbing the shock of white hair that floated like a nimbus around his face. “It’s just as easy the other way.”
Andy began to tuck the items into his haversack, which was soon overflowing. The sutler held out another. “Just a dollar more, if you want it. Ain’t bad for a big spender like yourself.”
“I’m fine,” Andy told him. He’d make it fit.
When it didn’t, Andy gathered the remaining supplies in his arms. The sutler gave him a harsh frown, as if upset he hadn’t taken the second bag. “You sure you got that? The sack’s cheap.”
“I’ll manage.” Andy turned to go, but something hanging from the frame of the sutler’s tent caught his eye. Two long tapers of wax, held together with one braided, uncut wick, dangled before him like temptation. Nodding at them, Andy asked, “How many candles you got?”
“How many you need?” the sutler countered.
Andy took two pairs, which the sutler hung from his outstretched hand. Back at his own tent, he dropped the supplies on his bed and folded his blanket into a sack around them. He glanced at the rifle propped against the post of the tent—should he take it with him? How much ammunition did Sam’s gun hold? Was it even worth the hassle to carry along his own?
No, Andy decided. It was an awkward gun, unwieldy in battle and damn heavy to carry. Andy didn’t relish the thought of hauling it back to the cabin. After a moment’s debate, he settled for slipping his revolver barrel-first into the makeshift sack. Then he slung the blanket over one shoulder. As he headed for the tent’s opening, he remembered the letter he’d started to his sister and tucked beneath the cot. Retrieving it, he folded it carefully into his over-stuffed haversack and left his tent. He didn’t know when he’d be back.
He went looking for his aide, but a short walk around camp proved the place was empty. Everyone must have been out in the battlefield on their scavenge and burial detail. For a moment he thought about leaving the boy a note but decided against it. He didn’t know who else would read it. He wanted to explain his absence, in as broad terms as he could, but he knew he couldn’t stay with Sam all evening. He’d have to return when the men got back from the field, if only for appearances. He didn’t want anyone to think he was deserting the army, not now, not when he needed the supplies and the money and he only had a few months left before he could be honorably discharged.
Back in the woods, the fog had lifted somewhat and Andy kept low to the ground, afraid of running into anyone from his regiment. What’s in your haversack? they’d want to know. Half the damn camp, by the looks of it. He could almost hear his compatriots’ questions now. What’s in the blanket on your back? Why a lantern in the daylight? Where are you going?
He didn’t need such trivialities bogging him down. So he made his way around the battlefield, keeping back among the trees, and each shout that echoed around him brought him to his knees. He’d hunch over, waiting, holding his breath as if afraid someone might hear it in the silence of the woods. Only when the voices drifted away would he start up again, slower this time, more careful than before.
By the time he reached the cabin, the sun had begun to reflect off the fog, and bright sparkles like stars winked through the trees. Andy caught the refraction from the corner of his eye and whirled, reaching for his revolver, but it was only sunlight dancing across the fog. Andy shook his head to clear it as his heartbeat slowed to normal. Nothing but the sun. No men following me, not Wiley or Mendenhall or, hell, even a Yank wandered off from Sam’s company and trailing after me. You’re on edge, Lieutenant. You’re this close to losing it.
He knew. When had he slept last? His eyes itched with a grainy burn he couldn’t rub away, his stomach rumbled hungrily, and he just wanted to lie down on the floor of the cabin beside Sam, pull the boy into his embrace, and fall asleep with him in his arms.
At the cabin, he found Sam where he had left him, dozing fitfully. Already the morning was warming up, and in a few more hours, the heat of the day would become almost unbearable. Andy could already feel the humidity in the air. But he gathered a few dry sticks and built a small fire in the empty pit dug into the floor of the cabin, then set the tin of coffee into the sputtering flames. When the drink was hot, he warmed up the slapjacks and sat down beside Sam. Rolling up one of the flat pancakes into a crepe, he pressed it to his lover’s lips. “Breakfast is served.”
Sam opened his eyes and stretched. “You’re back,” he said, surprised. “And I’m starving.”
His mouth opened in a yawn that ended with his biting into the pancake Andy held for him. He chewed slowly, watching Andy. Despite his own hunger, Andy wanted Sam to eat his fill first. He needed the nourishment.
Swallowing the first bite, Sam whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Andy pressed the pancake to Sam’s lips again, and when he opened his mouth to speak, Andy slipped the rest of the pancake inside.
Sam grinned around Andy’s fingers. His eyes closed as he sucked gently, and Andy smoothed his thumb along the scruff on Sam’s chin. He remembered the last time they had been together and the delicious feel of Sam in him, above him, his thumb between Andy’s lips to keep him from crying out in lust and desire as they made love. Sam had had teeth marks on the pad of his thumb that hadn’t disappeared for days. When Andy’s father had asked about them, Sam mumbled something about catching his hand between a cribbing horse and the stile.
Gently, Andy eased his fingers from Sam’s mouth and curved a wet trail down the thin growth of hair on his jaw. “No need to be sorry, love.”
“I was mean,” Sam whispered. “Hateful. I let the pain get to me, and I’m sorry for lashing out at you about it. You’re only trying to help me—”
Andy stroked his cheek. “I know.”
“I’m sorry I got shot,” Sam continued, leaning into Andy’s palm. “And I’m sorry for being a burden to you.”
“You’re not,” Andy assured him. “None of that’s your fault and you know it. You can’t be sorry for what you can’t control.”
Sam frowned as he picked at the buttons on his shirt and didn’t reply.
In a softer voice, Andy added, “You’re not a burden to me, Sam. God, you don’t know how many nights I’ve lain awake wanting you. My pickets thought you were a ghost last night, and for the past three years you have been a ghost, to me. Haunting my dreams, invading my sleep. I’ve never stopped thinking about you, ever. I used to close my eyes and feel you touching me, your hands, your lips…like phantoms on my skin.”
