Faith (21 page)

She asked the photographer’s assistant whether she might see some of the hospital photographs, and as he dug them out, Faith looked down at the table again, where she spied a photograph of Colonel Knight and his officers. She hesitated, but when Honoree glanced away, she claimed that image too.

When she showed them to the photographer’s assistant, he looked a bit surprised at her second choice but said nothing of it, merely charged her. He gave her thin paper sleeves for the photographs and told her to keep them out of the sun.

After Honoree had also paid for hers, they walked away and almost immediately met the colonel. Faith’s hand that
held the paper bag tingled as if caught in wrongdoing. “Hello, Colonel,” she said, feeling strangely guilty and hoping she wasn’t blushing. And very aware that she wished she could have donned a clean apron before meeting him.

“Miss Faith,” he replied. “So glad to see you out of quarantine. Where are you headed?”

“Back to our tent.”

He tilted his head. “I’m here to purchase a photograph too. I thought my mother would appreciate a current picture of me. So she could see I am not wasting away.” With a self-deprecating grin, he bowed and then moved toward the photographer’s table.

Not a word about her going to New Orleans. He might have been speaking to a mere acquaintance. Did he think she would forget or had accepted it as impossible? The measles outbreak had dominated her mind, but she was free of it now.

More than ever determined to find a way downriver, Faith walked away with Honoree. She felt the distance the colonel had once more set between them. That shouldn’t have bothered her, but it did.

SEPTEMBER 1, 1863

Honoree stood at Faith’s elbow outside their tent after supper. “I’ll go with you to the general,” she offered.

Brushing away an insistent mosquito, Faith glanced at her. “No, I think I had better go alone.”

“Why?”

“I can’t put it into words. I just think it would be best if I went by myself.” She couldn’t shake the colonel’s disapproval of her going to New Orleans. It had cast a pall over her, made her indecisive, not like herself.

“Well, I’m going with you whether you want me to or not.”

“Very well.” Faith sighed long and loud and then nearly slapped herself. If she didn’t stop, this downhearted sighing could develop into an annoying habit.

With determination, she lifted her plain white bonnet
into place and tied its frayed ribbons; Honoree did the same and they set off.

Over the past weeks, the joy of the ended siege had declined into the boredom of camp life between battles. Men gambled for pennies in small groups in the shade of the few remaining trees. A fiddler nearby was playing a lazy tune for his own entertainment. A few men sat in front of their tents, mending shirts and patching pants.

As Faith overheard snatches of conversation, her agitation stood in stark contrast to the pervasive boredom. She knew that she feared the general would deny her request for a military pass south to New Orleans. If he did, she wasn’t sure what other recourse she could take.

And she didn’t want to think of how the colonel would react when he found out she’d applied to the general for this favor. She’d allowed Devlin Knight to become important to her. Thinking of him stirred her and stressed her at the same time. But she must let nothing and no one deter her from her goal.

With each step forward, she worked to bring herself into focus, ready to plead her case before the general. “I hate to bother General Grant,” Faith murmured to Honoree. “He’s got a whole army to think about.”

“He won’t be rude, if that’s what you’re worried about. He knows us, owes us after we nursed his son to health.”

Yes, but is that enough to lead him to grant us what we want, need? A second time, after Annerdale?

When she and Honoree reached his tent, the general was just coming out. As usual, he was wearing a dusty and wrinkled uniform. Except for the gold braid on the shoulders
and hat, no one would know he was the Union commander of the Western Campaign.

“General,” Faith said, “may we have a moment with thee?”

He looked surprised, doffing his hat. “Ladies, what can I do to help you?”

General Grant’s son Fred, still too thin, had emerged behind his father, and he bowed his head shyly to the women.

Faith tried to think of a way to open the conversation.

“General Grant,” Honoree said, “we are coming to ask a favor.”

Honoree’s forthrightness only heightened Faith’s tongue-tied state.

“Fred, bring out some camp stools for the ladies.” When this was done, the general waved for them to be seated. “What is it? You know I am in your debt.”

Again Honoree took the lead. “Not long ago you let Faith go to that plantation to ask about my sister, who was kidnapped from her employer’s home in Cincinnati. Well, she found out . . .” Honoree paused, looking to Faith.

“That Honoree’s sister Shiloh had been there,” Faith said, able to speak now that the subject had been broached. “At Annerdale, a slave said she’d seen Shiloh and that the slavers who had her in their possession intended to take her to the auction in New Orleans.”

Grant had given her his full attention. “Probably traveled down the Ohio to the Mississippi, the quickest way to get far from Cincinnati.”

“Yes, General,” Faith agreed. “At home, Shiloh’s employer had gone away to attend a meeting, so no one realized what had happened until the next morning.” Faith didn’t mention
that she’d been visiting Shiloh to keep her company and take her mind off her own sister’s recent death.

“Plenty of time for them to get far away with her,” he commented. “And indeed they would take her to New Orleans. The slave auction there was an important one. The slavers could get a better price for her, and so far from your home, no one would identify her as a free woman of color.”

Faith drew in a sharp breath. “Admirably summarized, sir.”

“So you want to go to New Orleans, but you need a military pass and transportation.”

“That’s exactly it, General,” Faith replied, grateful he’d said it for them.

“I must give this some consideration,” General Grant said. “Come back tomorrow. If I’m not here, I will leave word with my secretary.”

Faith rose. “We’re sorry to bother thee in the midst of all thy duties, but this was only the second lead we’ve had toward finding her. It’s been nearly five years now.”

“Do you really think you can find her?” Fred spoke up.

“We will find her,” Faith said, “if God wills.”

They both curtsied and left the general and his son behind. Honoree claimed Faith’s hand, and they clung to each other. As they walked side by side, Faith prayed. Surely God would help them find Shiloh.

After over two months of being in camp since Vicksburg fell, Dev had been glad to mount up with one of his best companies in the very early, cooler morning and head out
on patrol. Though Vicksburg had surrendered, the Rebels outside the city had not given up. Union outposts scattered around enemy territory were still being raided. The Union cavalry needed to push back or be overrun by Rebs.

So he was ready to be about his business, yet his conversation with General Grant last evening had left him unsettled, disgruntled, and without a choice.

Miles passed under his horse’s hooves as the sun rose higher. The memory of Faith’s challenge to him as he’d pumped water for her plagued him even now. Dev tried not to rehearse rebuttals to the Quakeress’s Scriptures about two masters and a house divided. He shouldn’t care what she thought. He knew his own mind, didn’t he? Why did this woman’s words vex him so?

Gunfire in the distance. Dev stood tall in his stirrups. “Forward! Engage at will!”

They swooped over a dried-up cotton field toward the gunfire and smoke. A Reb raiding party was attacking an outpost that guarded a supply line along the Yazoo River.

Dev’s cavalrymen dashed forward, firing.

Outnumbered, the raiding party turned their horses and raced away north.

“After them!” He spurred his horse and pelted after the retreating Confederates.

One Reb turned in his saddle and fired.

Dev felt the impact in his shoulder but kept his seat and didn’t rein in his horse. When another soldier near him fell from his saddle, Dev slowed his mount. “Let them go!” he shouted.

His orders were to harass the raiders but not to bring in
any prisoners. The army would be moving soon and couldn’t afford to have prisoners slowing them down. They’d routed the raiders, and that was their job today. If they continued the pursuit, this might turn out to be a feint that would lead them into an ambush.

The Rebs disappeared over the horizon. Dev slid from his saddle to see to the injured man who had fallen near him. Kneeling, he bound up the man’s arm.

“Who’s going to see to your wound?” the man asked, pointing to Dev.

Dev followed the man’s gaze and saw blood on his uniform sleeve. He shrugged out of his fatigue jacket and noted that his upper arm had been deeply grazed. “Nothing serious.” Now that he was aware of it, the graze began to throb.

“Colonel,” one of his men said, drawing near him while still mounted. “One of the Rebs tossed this over his shoulder.”

Dev accepted the folded piece of paper tied to a stone. On the outside, the paper said,
To Col D Knight
.

Dev untied and unfolded it, reading:
Catch me if you can. JC
. He flamed within at the affront, one so reminiscent of their boyhood together. He shoved the paper into his inner pocket. “Just Rebel rudeness. Let’s get this man back to camp!”

He helped the wounded man onto his horse, which another soldier had retrieved. The company headed south, back toward Vicksburg. Dev’s arm burned from the graze, and his stomach burned with indignation at his cousin.

Leave it to Jack to taunt him. Had he actually been with the raiding party? Dev hadn’t seen Jack’s cockaded hat. So
had Jack given the note to another Confederate to drop near any Union cavalry company?

Back in camp and entering the hospital tent, Dev was grateful to note that Faith and Honoree were not on duty there. He couldn’t face another conversation with Faith about this war, Armstrong, and everything else. He especially did not want to see those women after being summoned to the general last night. He might be tempted to argue with them, no doubt fruitlessly.

After a surgeon’s cursory examination, he allowed a night nurse to clean and bandage his wound. Then he headed to his own tent. Inside, he sat on his cot and opened the note from the battlefield once more. One would think that a man who’d dishonored his name by breaking his word would not call attention to himself like this.

“Colonel?”

It was Faith’s voice. Dev rose and went outside.

“Someone told me that thee had been treated in the hospital.”

This was not good news. Though he craved her company, he didn’t want people linking him and the Quakeress. “Just a scratch.”

“Did thee want me to look at it?”

“No, the nurse on duty took care of me after the surgeon looked at the wound. No stitches needed. I’m fine.”

She seemed to struggle with herself. “Very well. Expect to be a bit feverish tonight. Send someone for me if it swells or if thy fever rises to more than moderate.”

“Of course.”
I won’t.
“I’m going to rest now.”

“Certainly, but be sure to drink something before thee turns in for the night.”

“I will.”
Please leave.

Though she glanced over her shoulder at him a few times, she walked away. He was sorry he couldn’t completely hide his irritation at the new orders he’d received last night, but he’d done the best he could.

Dev knew he’d have to face her tomorrow. He hoped she hadn’t been the one who’d prompted the general’s request that he be the man for this job. Regardless, he’d quell any attempts on her part to draw him into discussions of slavery or the aftermath of this war. That was all too far ahead to contemplate, especially since he probably wouldn’t be alive to see it anyway.