The Sapphire Brooch (The Celtic Brooch Trilogy Book 2) (6 page)

Whatever she’d expected to hear, this wasn’t it. Chimborazo sat on top of a hill in Richmond. She couldn’t march up there and steal a patient. “Do you have a plan for how it might be accomplished?”

Stanton tapped his cigar against the edge of an overflowing ashtray. “No. You’ll have to devise a plan once you’ve made an assessment of the major’s condition. It’s to your advantage, though, that he’s not in a prison hospital.”

Lincoln’s keen eyes challenged her. “Once you get him out, other people will take him to safety.”

She sat back in her chair, not at all sure if what they asked of her was even possible. “If I facilitate a Union spy’s escape, what happens to me?”

“You’ll be free to return to your unit.”

“None of this makes sense.” Frustration throbbed in her every word. “I’ll be considered a traitor.”

Stanton puffed, filling the room with a cloud of smoke. “We’re confident you can find a way without compromising yourself.”

“
You’re confident
.” Maybe it was time to yank off her wig and beard, confess, and throw herself on the mercy of the President, but it might get her thrown into prison instead. She waved away the smoke blowing in her direction. “If I don’t do this, Sheridan has threatened to burn my family home to the ground. If I’m found to be a traitor, my neighbors will do it for him.” She made a low sound, like someone absorbing a body blow.

They sat in silence as the noise level in the hallway increased in sharp contrast to the present-day White House. How did the President work in this environment with dozens of people waiting outside the door to see him? No appointment needed. All you need do is show up and wait.

“How serious are your agent’s wounds? Is he able to walk?” she asked.

“We don’t know his condition, but we have to get him out. He has valuable information Jefferson Davis wants, which could compromise a dozen or more northern sympathizers,” Stanton said.

Something in his expression told her he wasn’t telling the truth…or he wasn’t telling
all
of the truth. “Will his information shorten the war?” she asked.

Stanton tapped his cigar against the edge of an ashtray already filled with a day’s worth of ashes. “The information we get from the sympathizers is invaluable. If we lose even one, we lose a link which took us months to establish.”

“Do you want the war to end?” Lincoln asked.

“I never wanted the war to start,” Charlotte said. “But what’s to stop me from assisting Jefferson Davis?”

“I’m a firm believer in people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet the crisis. You want the war to end. This will bring the end closer.” He picked up a pen and placed a sheet of writing paper in front of him. The scratchy nib didn’t glide effortlessly across the surface of the paper, but it didn’t seem to bother the President, who scratched away with a flourish.

“A ship will take you to City Point, where you’ll be met by an escort who will introduce you to General Grant. Then he’ll see you through the lines,” Stanton said.

“Will I be on my own in Richmond?”

Stanton puffed more smoke in her direction. “You’ll be met by a member of the underground.”

Lincoln put down his pen, folded the note, and handed it to her. Then he sat back and swung his legs over the chair arm.

As she held the paper, still warm from the President’s touch, her fingers quivered. “I need food, sleep, and a bath.” Her voice was hoarse with emotion.

“It can be arranged on board ship,” Stanton said.

She cleared her throat. “I have one more question. If your Richmond contact can get me in, why can’t he get your agent out?”

Stanton’s face tightened. “He’s a railroad President, not a doctor.”

“And one of the northern sympathizers you can’t afford to lose.” She looked first to Stanton, then to the President.

Lincoln reached out with his long arms and drew his knees up almost to his face. “He’s one of them, yes.”

“Does your agent have a name?”

Lincoln and Stanton shared a quick glance then Stanton said, “Major McCabe.”

Charlotte rolled the name around her tongue. “A Scotsman.”

“A lawyer,” Stanton said.

“And a damn good friend,” Lincoln said. “Bring him home.”

6

City Point, Headquarters of General Ulysses S. Grant, 1864

A
fter a long
day, Charlotte trudged aboard the sidewheel steamer
River Queen
, Grant’s private dispatch boat. She could barely stand, but her mind wouldn’t shut down. If she did sleep, she’d probably have fitful dreams about wounded soldiers and a magical sapphire brooch.

Charlotte’s Virginia Civil War knowledge was legendary among her peers. She could be a winner on Jeopardy if all the questions related to the Commonwealth’s history between 1861 and 1865, or medical history during the same time period. When Stanton told her she would travel by riverboat to City Point, she knew exactly where she was going and why. Since June, the small port town at the confluence of the James and Appomattox Rivers had been Grant’s headquarters and the base for the forces fighting in Petersburg. Her meeting with Grant would take place at his command tent on the east lawn of Dr. Richard Eppes’s plantation known as Appomattox.

Once on board the steamer, while she took a sponge bath and ate, she analyzed her predicament. There had been no flashbulb moment of enlightenment in the past forty-eight hours. It would be nice to open the brooch and disappear, but if she did, Sheridan would act on his threat. She still didn’t understand why the brooch had carried her to the nineteenth century. Until she could figure out an alternative, she had to continue to play the cards as dealt, because folding gave her no hope of winning a return trip to her time with the home place intact.

When she finally climbed into her berth, she dropped off immediately into a much-needed, surprisingly dreamless sleep.

Now, as a new day dawned, she prepared for what was to come in much the same way as she prepared for surgery. She sucked in long, lung-filling breaths while thinking ahead to her meeting with General Grant. Visualizing Chimborazo was easy. From previous visits to the historical site and visitors’ center, she was familiar with the Confederate hospital’s layout, but she had no workable plan. Her only advantage was knowing the hospital guards would be more concerned with keeping the enemy out than keeping patients in.

A successful rescue depended on the extent of Major McCabe’s injuries.
If
he could hobble, and
if
she could get him out of the hospital, her next challenge would be handing him off to a member of the underground. If he couldn’t walk, she had few options.

She leaned her elbows on the deck railing of the
River Queen
, sipping coffee while watching the sun rise over the James River. The sight was as breathtaking as always. Workers were already unloading supplies from the hundreds of steamboats, sailing vessels, and barges berthed along the mile-long wharf. Even with the bustle and clanging, the busy port seemed more like a quiet resort town to Charlotte’s twenty-first century sensibilities.

While she was in City Point maybe Grant would let her tour the six separate hospitals of the Depot Field Hospital, which was only about a mile from the wharf. The facility reportedly treated as many as ten thousand patients on an average day, which seemed impossible.

What was she thinking? A wounded, possibly dying man was waiting for her. She didn’t have
any
extra time.

“
Doctor Mallory
.
Doctor Mallory
.”

She jerked her head in the direction of the voice, scanning the crowded wharf. A short, stocky, weatherworn man with shaggy black hair waved at her with one hand while holding the reins of a pair of bay Morgans with the other.

Since she was back in her Confederate gray uniform, dockworkers turned and glared at her, their scowls lining their faces in the morning sun. Waves crashing against the pilings seemed to echo the men’s obvious dislike of the enemy in their midst. The air was damp, and the uniform in question stuck to her. She’d gladly remove the darn thing if she had anything else to wear. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to ignore the thunder of her heart, and listened instead to the rustle and grunts of the men unloading the ship’s cargo. She’d much rather listen to their swearing than to the clamor of her own fears.

After the gangplank was lowered, she tromped down the ramp to the wharf, trading in the shelter and safety of the ship for unknown dangers. The man approached her, leading the horses, his lips set in a thin, resolute line.

His eyes probed hers, black and hard and scalpel-sharp. “I’m Gaylord. General Grant’s expecting you. Let’s go.” The thin lips became even thinner. “Best to take off the coat. No need to advertise you’re the enemy. Makes my job harder and might get you killed.”

She bristled, counted to a quick ten, and then snapped back in a sarcastic tone. “What about my trousers? They’re gray, too.”

He shrugged. “Don’t matter. Soldiers wear what they can strip off dead Johnny Rebs.”

She doubted he’d do much to protect her if those same Union soldiers decided they wanted her pants, too.

She removed her jacket, folded it carefully, and then packed it in the saddlebag. If the jacket had been made of linen it would be one big wrinkle by the time they reached Richmond. But as a true and proper daughter of the South, she wouldn’t be caught dead, even in hot, muggy weather, in white linen or white shoes after Labor Day.
Why was she thinking of linen and shoes when she was living in some kind of alternate universe?
Because time travel was impossible, or should be, but the dangers she faced were both real and deadly.

They found General Grant sitting outside his command tent under the golden-bronze fall foliage of a beech tree. Several officers relaxed nearby, studying maps. The general was gazing out in Charlotte’s direction, cigar in hand, as if waiting expectantly. She dismounted and tied the reins to a high line strung between two trees.

Charlotte knew horses, and recognized Cincinnati, Grant’s striking black thoroughbred and son of Lexington, the most successful sire in the second half of the nineteenth century. The general was probably the greatest equestrian in U.S. history.

The general approached, puffing on his cigar. For a split second, she considered advising him to stop smoking before it killed him, which it would in 1885.

“Doctor Mallory.” The soft-spoken, rounded-shouldered general extended a delicate hand. They studied each other, blue eye to blue eye. His wavy brown hair, untrimmed beard, mustache, and ill-fitting uniform gave him a rather scruffy look.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she responded.

“I don’t want to keep you,” he said. “You have a hard ride ahead. I only wanted to express my appreciation and wish you good luck. I’m rather fond of Major McCabe.”

“I look forward to meeting him. He has an impressive fan club,” she said.

Grant’s brow crinkled in a puzzled frown.

“Lincoln and Stanton said the very same thing,” she added.

“Gaylord will get you to Richmond. Once there, he’ll hand you over to a member of the underground who will get you inside Chimborazo. The rest is up to you.”

“What if McCabe is too injured to move?” she asked.

He pointed at her with his stogie. Pungent smoke spiraled up in her direction, but she didn’t dare move or wave it away from her face.

“Unless he’s dead, you must get him out. Do you understand?” He might be a soft-spoken man, but his tone made his point clear. Very clear.

“Yes, sir.”

He tipped his hat and walked back toward his tent.

“Let’s ride,” Gaylord said.

For someone used to giving orders, taking them was a nasty-tasting pill.

She swung her leg over the saddle, wishing she had a twelve-hour Aleve to ease the stiffness in her joints. The well-trained mount took off at a trot, and as they neared a bend in the road, Charlotte glanced back for one last look at Grant. He was poised outside his tent, following their progress and puffing. She put her hand to her hat and tipped it ever so slightly.

7