Gwyneth Atlee (24 page)

Gabe ate several of the sweet rolls and drank another cup of the cool
tea. If his brain hadn’t been so fogged with sleep, he would have
insisted upon going with Yvette.

How long had she been gone? The small room held no clock, and in
this unfamiliar place, the shift of shadows offered him few clues. He
peered out once more through a spotless window and glanced up
toward the sun. Noon, he reckoned, or not long after. But that didn’t
help him, since he wasn’t sure when she had left.

If only he hadn’t dozed once she had gone. Then he’d have a better
idea of the time. But his physical condition and contentment had conspired to chase him back to sleep, beyond the worries that now
gnawed at his conscience.

As soon as she returned, he would have to go out looking for his
three friends. Though he’d searched his copy of the newspaper again
and again, none of their names had been listed among the known
survivors in the
Argus.

But he had seen names he knew. He was relieved to read of several
men he knew from Andersonville who had been taken to various
area hospitals. Several men from his Ohio unit were also listed, and
though they’d turned their backs on him, Gabe was glad to think
they would be going home, at least if they survived whatever
injuries they’d sustained.

But Silas Deming’s name appeared on the roster of men sent to
Overton Hospital. It seemed painfully unfair—incomprehensible—
that such a worthless bastard would come through this when Gabe’s
best friends were missing. Even Reuben Miller, his boyhood friend,
had not yet been found.

Gabe’s mind returned to the grim rows of shrouded bodies lined
up along the river. Rows that would only lengthen as more corpses
floated to the surface or jammed into the blades of paddle wheels.
Dear God.

He mustn’t think of that. Must think instead of Yvette and what had
passed between them. Must put aside the guilt that he had lived to
experience such joy, while Jacob, Zeke, and Seth—

No!
His friends could not be dead! He pictured them, one face after
the other. He heard their voices, thought of the times they’d taken turns
huddling two by two in the shebang during a cold rain because all four
of them could not fit inside the crude, homemade shelter at one time.

A shelter made out of three sticks and a single rubber Union army
blanket, a treasure Captain Seth had been fortunate enough to smuggle inside the stockade.

Gabe stood, suddenly all nervous energy, and began to pace the
little room. He noticed the corner of a paper sticking out from
beneath a blotter on the desk. Curious, he pulled it out and scanned
the first few lines.

He stopped reading, conscious only of the sharpness of his shock
and of the many things he didn’t really know about the woman he had
promised he would wed. If her sister, Marie, were really dead, why
would Yvette be writing her a letter? And worse yet, what did she
mean by “. . . to repay in part the lives that I destroyed?”

Nausea churned deep in his belly, and cold chills sped along his
spine. Dropping the letter facedown on the desk, he turned away.
Yvette.
He could almost feel her, taste her tenderness. But when
he heard her voice whisper his name, it echoed with the South. The
South that he had fought against. The South his friends detested.
And all at once the love he felt for her welled as bitter as betrayal
in his heart.
“Your loyalty is misplaced,”
Darien Russell had told him this morning.
“. . . she’s a criminal. A murderess, in fact. There’s even talk she might have
been part of a conspiracy that caused the explosion.”
Stupid to listen to anything that arrogant bastard said, but despite
the thought, a memory crept back into Gabe’s consciousness. Yvette
had met him on the main deck near the boilers, though her stateroom
was located on the cabin deck above.
Near the boilers, which had exploded just a few days later.
He thought, too, of Yvette’s desperation to leave the
Sultana
when
she’d docked in Memphis. If not for Russell’s vigilance, she surely
would have gone. Leaving him behind, abandoning all who were
aboard the doomed vessel.
Gabe thought about what she had said to him today. Why didn’t
she want him to come along with her?
Please, Gabriel, just trust me.
He could almost hear her words. And
he wondered, Was it possible he’d trusted her too far?

Despite his appreciation for the bay mare’s exuberance, she
nearly caused Darien Russell to miss the very reason he had come.
Only fifty yards from the telegraph office, their path was blocked
by a wagon with a broken axle and a pair of lowing oxen. For
whatever reason, the mare had taken exception to the scene and
shied, rearing on her hind legs in fright. Darien only regained control in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of the back of Yvette
Augeron as she entered a neat, white-painted building. He swore
after reading the sign above the door: Memphis Telegraph Office.
God damn it. Who the hell could she be contacting?

The thought sent a shudder through him, and the mare danced
within her traces as if his apprehension were contagious. He settled
the horse and then tied her to a hitching post a few doors down, in
front of a general store.

He’d prefer to take Yvette before she sent her message but decided
it would be preferable to avoid a public scene. People remembered
such things all too clearly, and with what he had in mind, witnesses
would cause unpleasant complications.

Instead, he decided to wait until she finished and began walking
through an area less crowded. He stepped inside the general store and
hurriedly looked around for the one item he would need to put an end
to all his troubles.

Gabriel walked along the shaded avenue, as miserable as he’d ever
been inside Andersonville prison, as uncertain as he’d been his entire
life. Had he betrayed his country by helping Yvette? Had he betrayed
his friends by loving her as well?

Once again memories assailed him. Seth Harris told him once more,
“Think logically. Or if you can’t do that, think about that beefsteak you keep
dreaming on and not some girl with every reason in the world to hate you.”

Zeke had laughed,
“I hear you’re courtin’ trouble.”
But the words that kept coming back to him were Jacob Fuller’s:
“Do you realize you’re taking this Southern girl’s word against a Union officer’s? She’s a goddamned Rebel, Gabe. The whole idea stinks of treason. How
can you be sure of anything she said?”
And now all three of them were missing, as well as others beyond
counting. Could it have anything to do with the fact that he’d
helped her?
Maybe Silas Deming and his friends had been wrong about him all
along, Gabe thought. Maybe what he’d been guilty of had not been
cowardice but something worse instead.
Disloyalty. To his friends, to his country, and to everything he’d
fought for. To everything held dear enough to take another’s life.
There was no undoing what he’d done to help Yvette, and there was
nothing in the world he could do to set things right. Except to see to it
that she was punished if he truly believed she’d lied to him.
At the thought of Yvette, his mind leapt to the soft expression in her
eyes as he had loved her, to the streak of red she’d left upon the sheets.
She had trusted him enough to let him be the first, trusted him with
her most precious gift outside the bonds of marriage.
Why? Why would she do such a thing if she were no more than a spy, if
she were guilty of complicity in an act that had killed well over a thousand?
His mind flashed once again to Yvette down on the main deck,
challenging a group of Yankee prisoners because she thought it wrong
to throw a helpless man to his death in the water. For the first time, he
realized the enormity of the risk that she had taken, the simple moral
courage required for such an act.
And in that moment his doubts vanished, because he knew who she
was. Not a murderess, not a spy, just the scared and lonely young
woman that he knew her to be. One who loved him with all her heart.
As he truly loved her.
Gabe smiled, feeling energized by the conviction and by the realization
that his heart was loyal, after all.

Yvette glanced up and down the street as she left the telegraph
office. Seeing no familiar faces, she began walking in the same
direction she had come, her mind on anything but danger.

She felt relieved now that the telegram was on its way to Uncle
André. Surely he’d reply soon, perhaps in as little as half a day, with
instructions on what she should do next. He might even travel here to
meet her. Then she, Uncle André, and Gabriel would soon figure out
how to unknot this tangled skein of troubles. Darien would be
punished, and she could marry Gabriel.

Thinking of her lover, Yvette turned her face toward the sunshine.
She shivered delicately in the warm spring air as she remembered
all they’d shared. And would share, from this day forth. Echoes of
their kisses and forbidden touches, of their whispered words of
love, lightened her steps until she felt buoyant as cork upon the
water, carried toward him on a welcome tide.

So complete was her distraction that the first thing that she heard
was the gun’s click at her back. Something small and very hard poked
painfully beneath her shoulder blade.
“Move a muscle and I’ll shoot you through the heart.”
She froze, not needing to turn her head to recognize the voice of the

man who had used and then murdered her sister. Darien Russell’s
voice had so long hissed threats in her nightmares that she prayed
desperately that this might number among those frightening dreams.

Around her, however, she heard the everyday sounds of voices,
none very close or sounding of alarm. She smelled the ordinary odors
of horse manure and damp earth laid over the familiar scent of river.
Though the sun shone brightly, a cooler breeze stole through the
alleyway that she was crossing and raised the fine hairs of her arms
and nape. This was all too real, she reasoned, the reckoning that she
had dreaded for so long.

“You found me,” she whispered, resenting that it had to come at
such a happy moment, when the future looked so promising.
“Simple enough,” Darien told her flatly, “once your lover told me
where you’d gone.”
She flinched as if he’d struck her, then managed to steel herself
with indignation. “Liar! Gabriel would never tell you anything!”
she hissed.
He prodded her back with what must surely be a gun barrel. “Now
get inside the shay, and don’t think for a moment that anyone will care
if I shoot a Southern spy and murderess.”
Slowly, Yvette turned and began walking in the direction that he
indicated.
Darien chuckled, clearly relishing this opportunity to cause her
pain. “After all was said and done, Mr. Davis realized he hadn’t
fought and suffered only to betray the Union for a tryst. I dare say, he
seemed relieved to wash his hands of the whole, sordid affair.”
She wasn’t going to cry, Yvette swore. Surely Russell was lying to
be cruel.
But she couldn’t let him think that she believed him. “I don’t
believe a word of it,” she protested. “He—”
“Loves
you? Is
that
what he told you? Oh, dear, Yvette. I’m shocked
that with your upbringing and intelligence, you couldn’t guess that
he was only talking his way between your legs. After all, the man
spent months in a prison camp and years before that in the field. God
knows how long he’s been without a woman. One can hardly blame
him for—”
“Stop it!” she demanded, even as he helped her up into the shay.
She noticed he’d put up the folding hood for privacy.
Despite her resolve, tears swam in her vision, then began to
spill. Hating the show of weakness, she angrily swiped at them
with a sleeve.
As Darien climbed inside and took up the reins, the horse started,
and he had to struggle to control it. Yvette thought of running, but her
limbs were shaking too hard, and the moment was too brief. Her mind
spun with other explanations for Darien Russell’s presence. He might
have followed her or posted guards to watch the telegraphs and stations.
Or perhaps he’d discerned her false identity, then tracked down
Mrs. Beacon.
But the older woman hadn’t known where she was going. She’d
told no one else but Gabriel that bit of information. Still, she clung
desperately to the conviction that he wouldn’t do this, not after—
All
Maman
’s and her
grandmère
’s harshest warnings came roaring
into consciousness, thundering in horrible, discordant crescendos.
“A
woman dishonored can never be a wife or mother, only a debased, pathetic
creature of the streets.”
And,
“No matter what he promises, you must not
give in, for a man’s youthful ardor is only a test of your true virtue.”
A test that she had failed, along with so many others. From the
moment that she’d tried to save her sister, she’d forgotten every single
thing she had been taught. Why hadn’t she taken her suspicions to her
father or her brothers and allowed the men to handle these matters, as
any decent Creole woman would have?
Even as she thought it, she remembered how she’d tried with Papa,
how he’d forbidden her to speak of it to anyone. Still, convinced of her
own rightness and the danger to her sister, she had disobeyed.
And it had ended in disaster. Marie had been disgraced and murdered,
and now, for all her struggles, she would suffer the same fate.
All that she had left to hope for was that she might somehow lash
out at Darien Russell in these final moments that must certainly lead
up to her death.