A Heart Divided
By J.M. Snyder
Published by JMS Books LLC at Smashwords
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Copyright 2009 J.M. Snyder
ISBN 978-1-61152-155-9
For more titles by J.M. Snyder at Smashwords visit https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/jmsnyder
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Cover Credits: Tad Denson, Matt Trommer
Used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.
Cover Design: J.M. Snyder
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This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
NOTE: This book was previously published by Amber Allure Press.
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A Heart Divided
By J.M. Snyder
Chapter 1
March, 1865
The candle cast an unsteady light through the tent, pushing shadows back into dark corners and flickering across the makeshift table where Lieutenant Anderson Blanks sat, hunched over as he wrote another letter home. This one began Dearest Mary, and he couldn’t think of much more to say that hadn’t already been said before.
I am alive, he mused, dipping the quill into the pot of ink nearby, but she would know that by the fact he wrote to her, wouldn’t she? And who could say that would still be true whenever she received the letter? It took days for the courier to run the mail into town, and with enemy activity so close by, those days might turn into weeks and he very likely would be dead by then. How many men had he already lost under his command? He couldn’t remember.
It is evening, he wrote. He could picture his younger sister sitting on the verandah of their Southern home as she read the letter, her long hair spun into soft curls that cascaded down her shoulders and back. She’d be sipping tea in the afternoon sun, his letter in one gloved hand, a delicate fan in the other stirring up a faint breeze around her. The heady scent of magnolias would permeate the air. Mississippi was hot in April, and he didn’t think she would receive the letter before then.
I am well as I write this, but who knows what tomorrow will bring? Or next week, or next month, even? Your brother Andy may yet be counted among the dead, but I hope not. I pray for an end to this war, as I have fervently prayed every night since Sumter fell, but as of yet my prayers have not been answered. I am beginning to doubt they ever will be. The good Lord has turned His back on our battle, and Mr. Lincoln wishes to kill all of our boys, I fear. That will be the only end to this war.
Beyond the thick canvas tent Andy could hear cicadas, their high pitched screech like violins in the night. With the sleeve of his shirt he wiped the sweat from his brow. I hate Virginia, he thought as he fanned himself with a blank scrap of parchment. At least back home the evenings ended cool and refreshing like peaches kept on ice, but here the heat of the day seemed to linger after the sun set, and Andy longed to be home.
In the quiet of his tent he could close his eyes and recall the memory of soft breezes blowing in off the small river that wound through his father’s farmland. Crystal clear water bubbling over rocks and churning up white-capped spray after a heavy summer storm. How cold it felt on bare feet, sending shivers up Andy’s spine whenever he dipped his toes into the tumult. Thick grass on the bank like velvet when he lay back upon it to stare up through the branches of the old white oak, in whose shade he’d hidden many a hot summer day…
Thinking of the river brought back memories of a simpler time, before this present conflict. When all he’d had to worry about were the horses in the barn, or the crops in the fields. No men under his command, no bullets whizzing by, no turmoil in his life.
Which brought to mind Samuel Talley, the scrappy young man his father had hired to tend the horses. Sam, who’d become much more than a friend to Andy in the five years he’d worked on the farm. His green eyes had matched the grass on the riverbank, a fact Andy had noticed when he pressed Sam back against the ground to claim their first kiss. The thick crop of reddish-blond hair that had grown bushy and unkempt while he worked at their farm always reminded Andy of the old fairytale where they spun straw into gold.
The thought of Sam made him ache, as it did whenever memories of the young man resurfaced. Andy wondered where he was now.
West somewhere. He bent over his letter again, but now that he’d thought of Sam, he couldn’t get the boy out of his head. His wasn’t the type of personality satisfied with being relegated to the past. Before the war had begun, Andy had known the pleasure of Sam’s touch, the softness of his lips. He still recalled the feel of firm hands on his body, the tongue licking hidden skin, the weight of Sam above him and in him when they’d made love.
It all ended the day Andy’s father had caught the two of them in the hay. They’d been in various stages of undress—Sam’s hands thrust beneath Andy’s shirt, Andy’s fingers working loose the ties at the front of Sam’s breeches. Sam had just tweaked Andy’s nipple, sending a wave of pleasure shooting through him; he leaned his head back and gasped in delight. When he sat up again, his gaze drifted past his lover to his father, glowering in the shadows of the barn.
That was all the excuse Daddy Blanks had needed to fire the boy, despite Andy’s protests. Chased from the farm, what little money Andy had convinced him to take tucked into his pocket, Sam bought a railroad ticket out west. Though Andy had been forbidden to see him again, he couldn’t bear to let Sam leave alone; they’d stood pressed together behind the depot, holding each other close, as they waited for the train that would take him away. “I’ll send for you,” Sam had promised between kisses. “As soon as I scrape a few dollars together, and get us a place to stay. I’ll not forget you.”
“Nor I you,” Andy had sworn.
Three years later, here in his tent, alone, on the edge of a battlefield somewhere in the backwoods of Virginia, Andy could still taste those tender lips on his. Three long, lonely years…did Sam still wait for him? Had a letter arrived at his father’s home, a train ticket inside, asking if he were interested in traveling west? Would his sister tell him if it had? Or would his father recognize Sam’s name and toss the missive into the hearth unopened? Would Andy ever know if Sam still thought of him?
“I’ll send for you,” he’d said. Then the war had begun, and Andy hadn’t heard from him again. I don’t know where he is or what he’s doing now, but God, please keep him safe. And if it’s not too much to ask, please keep me safe as well, so I can be ready when he sends for me. But what use were prayers, when he’d been praying for the war to end and this was now the fourth year of conflict?
Dipping the quill into the ink again, he wondered if he should ask Mary for news of Sam, but her letters always ended the same way. Nothing from the west. She left it ambiguous because their father was apt to find the letter before she mailed it, and if he knew Andy still held out hope that he and Sam would be together…well, Andy didn’t want to think about that. Better to let his father believe he had saved his son from sin, and hold out the hope that when this war ended, Andy would return to the farm.
It wouldn’t happen. He wouldn’t re-enlist, and if there were no word from Sam by then, he would sell his part of the homestead back to his father and head west. To make his fortune, he’d say, but Mary knew better.
His heart knew better. He’d find his boy.
He pressed the tip of the quill to the paper and sighed as he continued his letter.
In my mind I still hear the cannons that boom in the daylight, faint and faraway but constant reminders that there is a war being fought, and I’ve forgotten what it was we hoped to get from it. The dead are all we have left. I only hope they forgive us when this is finished. I am weary of the sounds of rifles and the stench of gunpowder! I know the fields back home are green now, the cotton coming in, the trees full of fruit. I remember…
Andy paused, frowning. He remembered Sam above him in the field of cotton, the two of them shirtless and out of breath because they had raced from the stables hand in hand to collapse in a tumble to the ground. He remembered strong arms and sweet kisses, the momentary discomfort as Sam entered him, and the way Sam always whispered he loved him when they were both spent.
He wasn’t going to write that in the letter.
With the quill against the paper, the ink began to bleed through the parchment, a thick black stain that ran into the other words. “Shit,” Andy muttered, dusting powder along the ink to dry it out. Now he’d have to begin again, and he didn’t have much ink left, and only one last sheet of paper.
Carefully he brushed the powder off the table and blew on the paper to dry the ink. Maybe he could still salvage it… I hate this, everything about this. I’m stuck here in the woods of Virginia, in a damn rebel camp fighting a war that’s already lost, when I should be on the prairie somewhere, riding to find my boy. Sam would be in his early twenties by now, three years older than he was in Andy’s mind. He had sent one letter, just one—postmarked St. Louis and dated almost a year and a half after he’d left the Blanks plantation. When it arrived addressed to him, Andy had climbed into the loft of the stable and lay on his stomach in the scented hay while he read the cramped words. I still love you, the letter started, and it ended with, Soon, Andy. I promise you, soon. That was the only thing that kept Andy going some days, that faded, worn letter he saved hidden among his personals.
A soft rap interrupted his thoughts. Shaking his sister’s letter to dry the ink, he called out, “Yes?”
It was too late for any news from the front—battles were difficult to fight in these woods during the day, and impossible by night. And his aide had already delivered his supper of cold soup and hard biscuits, which sat on the ground by his feet mostly uneaten. He couldn’t imagine who wanted to speak with him now.
The tent flaps parted and someone ducked inside. Andy recognized the blonde, bowl-shaped haircut but waited until the candlelight illuminated his visitor’s face before he smiled. “Wiley,” he said, setting his letter down as he turned toward the lieutenant. “It’s late.”
Lieutenant Wiley Bucknell nodded, his blue eyes as dark as the ink staining Andy’s letter. “I know, but the pickets are spooked.”
“Spooked?”
Aren’t we all? Andy wanted to say, but a glance at Wiley’s pursed lips kept the thought in check. “This isn’t about the mosquitoes again, is it?”
When their unit first marched into Virginia, the men were terrified of mosquitoes, having heard horrible tales of the diseases the bugs carried, and it took all Andy had to keep them from shooting at the damn insects with their scant ammunition. With a sigh, he smoothed out the edges of his sister’s letter. “I haven’t the time for such trivialities—”
“I know,” Wiley said again. “But you know how the men are. They’re miles from home and it’s been days since the mail ran. They’re dispirited and hot and afraid that they aren’t going to make it through the night alive. They can hear the Yanks in the woods, they say, and I know it’s just talk but it’s scaring the shit out of them. They say they hear screams of the dying, a soldier killed and gone to ghost, shooting for them. They say—”
“I say they’re grown men,” Andy replied, a little upset. Of the three lieutenants stationed in their camp, why was it Wiley always passed these matters onto him? “Take it to McNair,” he told his friend. “It’s not my job to quell the gossip.”
But Wiley grinned at that. “McNair said take it to you.”
Andy sighed. Damn you for doing this to me, Wiley.
Wiley continued. “He said you’re good with the men. Just calm them down for the night and we’ll send out a search party in the morning.”
“For ghosts?” Andy asked, frowning.
Wiley laughed. “Just to prove there’s nothing out there. You know the routine, poke the bodies, make sure they’re dead. McNair likes this location, and he’s got orders from General Lee himself to stay here as long as we can hold it. But if the men are scared…” He let the sentence trail off, the thought left unsaid.
Andy knew what he meant. If the men are scared, they’re apt to run, he thought as Wiley watched him, waiting. Like rats deserting a sinking ship. Damn. He sighed again. “I’ll go have a word with them.”
“I’ll let McNair know,” Wiley replied as he left the tent.
Andy folded his sister’s letter and left it on the table. He’d finish it when he came back from the camp’s perimeter. Just calm them down. He twisted his mouth into a wry grin. As if it were that easy.
* * * *
Chapter 2
Removing a wooden lantern from its iron holder near his cot, Andy stuck what was left of his candle in the lantern. They were running short on supplies as it was, the whole camp on rations, the soldiers in shoes bound with twine and clothes held together with dirt and grime. That’s why I have just one piece of paper left. Grant will starve our men and we’ll come begging to surrender, anything for a meal that consists of something more than tepid soup and stony bread. Here you go, General, the heart of the South for another sheet of parchment, what do you say? Just to pen a note back home.
He rolled the few matches he had left into a strip of cloth and shoved them beneath the thin cot where he slept. Though he trusted his men, times were hard, and he didn’t want to leave the lucifers out where someone might be tempted to filch them. Mary’s letter went beneath the cot, as well, with the remaining sheet of paper. The ink pot he capped and shoved into his haversack at the end of the bed, and with one foot he eased the plate of food under the table. He didn’t think he’d eat it, but he didn’t want it to go to waste, not when so many other regiments were starving. Maybe I’ll pack it away in the morning and keep it just in case.
Outside his tent the night was sultry and warm, the humidity this early in the year like a wet rag flung against him as he stepped out into the camp. Around him a few fires flickered in low pits, illuminating ragged soldiers hunched over the flames not so much for warmth but for light. A couple of the men glanced at Andy as he passed—they eyed the lantern he carried, envious, before turning back to their Bibles or dice or whatever else it was they used to make the war bearable.
Andy moved through the camp easily, a ghost among his own men, his gray shirt and pants bleached white in the glow from his lantern. When he reached the edge of the camp, he considered returning to his tent for his coat and rifle. His rank was spelled out on the coat in patches, and the rifle would give him some semblance of protection against the night. But he was only going to talk with the men on picket duty. They knew who he was by sight, and what use was a rifle against imagined voices and disembodied ghosts?
With quiet steps, he moved through the underbrush that ringed their encampment. The pickets were lonely men, bored with their duty, nothing else—young men jumping at shadows. Andy hadn’t the patience for that, not tonight. His mind wanted to retreat to the past, and nothing sounded better than a solitary evening spent beneath the thin blankets on his cot, reminiscing about a boy he once knew. Three years was too long. Too damn long.
As he neared the outskirts of their encampment, he halted and called out, “It’s me.” He heard the pickets shift uneasily in the darkness ahead of him. “Lieutenant Blanks.”
“Show yourself,” came the stiff reply.
Andy raised the lantern to reveal his face. For a few blinding moments he blinked in the bright light, not surprised to see it reflect off the dull metal of a bayonet pointed at his chest. Then he heard a sigh of relief and the bayonet disappeared.
“Sir,” the picket said, snapping to salute.
Andy held out the lantern to see who was on duty. Williams and Lovelace. He knew them by sight but couldn’t recall their given names. They were just two more men in a company of hundreds. Williams stood tall and lanky, his hair shaved to a thin buzz cut to fight off a particularly bad infestation of lice that plagued the enlisted men. He had small, narrow eyes that glistened darkly in the glow of Andy’s lantern, and though he held his gun at his side, his gaunt cheeks and distrustful squint still made him look dangerous.
Beside him stood Lovelace, a short, stocky man, with thick arms and a bulging stare that always unnerved Andy. The way his gaze darted nervously from Andy to the woods and back again belied his fear of whatever might be out among the trees. His salute was sloppy, and he shifted from foot to foot as if he had a touch of dysentery and wanted to slip away to relieve himself in the sink.
Both men were younger than Andy, who at twenty-five felt ancient. Three years in battle did that to a man. He felt old before his time, and in the haunted eyes of these two soldiers, he didn’t see men staring back at him but mere boys, pawns in a game that threatened to claim their souls. They should be at home, with their families, with sweethearts who pined for their return. Not here in the dark and the dirt. Not here.
Williams’ Southern accent betrayed his Kentucky roots. “Just being cautious, sir.”
“Understood.” Andy lowered the lamp and sighed. “Lieutenant Bucknell says there’s talk of a ghost.”
Williams laughed, a shaky sound Andy thought was only a cover for the picket’s superstitious fear. “Ghosts, sir?” he asked, nudging Lovelace. “I don’t—”
Suddenly Andy heard it, a faint cry in the distance that sounded ghostly in the darkness of the night.
All bravado drained from the pickets’ faces. “See?” Lovelace whispered. He shoved Williams hard, almost knocking the older man down. “You laugh and it starts up again. Do you want to die tonight? Do you want it to get us?”
“Ghosts don’t get you,” Williams replied. “Tell him, sir. Tell him that’s just—”
“It’s not a ghost,” Andy said. When Lovelace started to speak, he raised one hand to silence him. “Shh.”
The pickets fell quiet, and together the three men listened, straining to hear the cry again. It flowed like a tide, and just when Andy thought it would crest into actual words, it retreated again until it was nothing more than a windy whisper. But it was a human voice, he was sure of that much. Just another soldier left for dead, he mused, suddenly sad. War was a gentleman’s pastime, played in boardrooms and around conference tables with no regard for the reality of combat. The men who began this strife knew nothing of the horrors that befell those fighting at their command. Left for dead in the night, dying on a battlefield. Forgotten, alone. Another casualty in the game.
“It’s no ghost,” he said again, his voice softer.
Beside him Lovelace’s eyes widened in disbelief and Williams shifted from one foot to the other, watching Andy closely. “It’s a dying man,” Lovelace whispered. With sweaty hands, he grasped Andy’s wrist. “Might as well be a ghost. Who’s to say he isn’t already dead?”
“You’re spooking yourselves,” Andy admonished, frowning at the men. “You don’t need this fear. He’ll be dead by morning.”
“So we have to listen to him die?” Williams asked, his face twisted in disgust.
The voice rose again and Andy wished he could hear the words. A man’s last breath screamed into the night, and no one knows what he says. Andy could only picture too well the same fate befalling himself, a sad, lonely death. Who would tell his sister? She’d wait anxiously for his next letter but there’d be no more missives. His last words would be lost to the wind because no one heard them. No one would know…
And what of Sam? He’d send for me and think I hadn’t waited as I’d promised. How long would he wait for me? Who would tell him I’d gone?
That thought was salt on the raw wound of his heart. It cut him deep, etching compassion and sadness into his soul. Holding out a hand to Williams, he said, “Give me your rifle.”
“Mine?” he asked, incredulous. But at the stern look on his commander’s face, he handed the gun over reluctantly. He frowned as Andy strapped the rifle across his back. “What if it’s a Yank out there?”
“I don’t care.” Without asking, Andy took Lovelace’s canteen. “This is inhumane. There’s a dying man out in those woods, and you two scare each other with ghost stories while he shouts himself hoarse. A little water, is that too much to ask?”
“He’s already dying,” Lovelace pointed out. “And we can’t leave our posts.”
Andy picked up the lantern and started out into the darkness. “Then I’ll find him myself.”
“Sir, you can’t.” Williams caught Andy’s arm, stopping him. “You don’t know what’s out there. You can’t just leave the camp.”
Andy stared at the hand on his elbow until the picket let go, then leveled his gaze at the two men. In the light tossed from the lantern, his eyes flashed like gunpowder and he clenched his jaw, angry. “I’ll do as I will,” he replied. “I’m your commander. You’d do well to remember that.”
“Yes, sir,” Williams mumbled, stepping back. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“If it were you,” Andy continued as if the soldier hadn’t spoken, “you’d want someone to come for you, no? You’d want a little company at the end, just a warm hand and a smile, someone to tell you it would be all right and it was okay to let go, wouldn’t you?”
The pickets dropped their gazes before his and shuffled their feet, chastised.
Andy held up the canteen and shook it until he heard the water slosh around inside. “A little water to wet your throat, a hand in yours, someone who promises to tell your ma you died a soldier’s death. It’s what we all want, isn’t it? Yank or Reb, it’s what we all want.”
“Yeah,” Lovelace agreed. He sighed as he ducked his head.
Thinking of his own ma, Andy suspected. He remembered what he knew of the boy, and he had heard the Lovelaces were a wealthy family, full of children and no doubt proud of their oldest off to war. Thinking it might be you out there, just like it might be me. And how you’d want someone to come say goodbye, even if his coat was blue. It wouldn’t matter, not in the end.
Andy wondered if it mattered much at all anyway, the color of their coats, but this wasn’t his war. He only fought because he had to—it was the right thing to do, it was noble…and he feared that would be lost somewhere along the way, too, once the war was over. What he fought for, what all the men out here fought for, it would be mangled by time and fate and only the dead would know for sure.
Lovelace cleared his throat. “You want one of us to come with you?” he asked, his voice low, as if he thought he should ask out of obligation now but was afraid Andy might take him up on the offer.
Andy shook his head. “I’ll be fine,” he said, shouldering the rifle into a more comfortable position. “Give me a half hour. If I’m not back, tell Lieutenant Bucknell.”
Tell him I’m out chasing ghosts. See what he says to that. He smiled at the thought.
“Be careful out there, sir,” Williams cautioned as Andy stepped into the woods.
Andy nodded and held the lantern out in front of him, illuminating dense trees that glowed gray like his uniform, their limbs twisted and gnarled and bare. Above their leafy branches, gray clouds raced across the face of the moon. They reminded him of the crop back home, and he remembered sitting in the barn with Sam, laughing as they rubbed the raw cotton between wooden brushes to get the seeds out. The memory bolstered him, giving him the courage he needed to push through the spectral trees and brambly bushes that tugged at his clothes.
If that were me out there, I’d want someone by my side, he told himself, turning toward the voice. It strengthened as he approached, but it was still far off and he hoped he reached the soldier before he died. Someone to mail a letter to Mary, let her know I love her, and she’d tell Sam. Andy thought his last word would be his lover’s name, and he definitely wanted someone to know that, to tell Sammy he’d been the last thing on Andy’s mind when the final darkness closed over him and there were no more clouds in his sky.
* * * *
Chapter 3
Another thing I hate about this place. Too many damn trees.
Andy shoved aside the low branches that caught in his hair as he walked through the woods. Back home they had flat land filled with cotton and tobacco, and the only trees were well-planned orchards of peach and apple and pear, laid out in straight rows the length of the farm, filling the air with heady scents of ripe fruit, sweet like perfume in the summer heat. There were a few trees down by the river, nothing much, and some bushy undergrowth, but Mississippi didn’t seem besieged with such wilderness, not like this stretch of Virginia. Should’ve conceded this state to the Union, Andy thought bitterly. Let it go when Grant crossed the border. Let him deal with this wilderness.
Around him the night was quiet, filled with only the scant wind that carried to him the ghost soldier’s distant voice in waves, the scrape of the tree limbs above him, the noise he made as he walked through the woods. He didn’t try to hide his presence—what was the use? The man was dying anyway, Andy was sure of it. Dead leaves crinkled beneath his boots, and bushes rustled as they snapped back into place behind him, cutting him off from the camp. He reminded himself the enemy wasn’t nearby—scouts had assured them that much the day before when the Yanks retreated after a heated skirmish, and at any rate, anyone who heard Andy would probably mistake him for another noisy ghost left dying on the battlefield. Soldiers were apt to believe anything. His lantern flickered dangerously low as he walked, despite the glass shielding that protected the flame.
The voice grew louder, taking on words, lyrics Andy recognized as a gospel song he’d last heard at his mother’s funeral years ago. A popular song of comfort…of course the soldier would sing it now, in the dark, alone. Like water, the song trickled through the trees, leading Andy onward into the night. It was a comforting sound, full of sadness and regret, and it tore at his heart to think his men had wanted to leave the soldier to die by himself an ignoble, lonely death. Please God, he prayed as the voice grew stronger the closer he approached. Please don’t let me die like that. Remember this, if you would, when my time draws near. Remember I came for him, and let someone hear me when I go.
The trees pushed back around him, opening into a small clearing where his men had clashed with the enemy earlier. Though he had cursed the trees’ closeness, Andy hated the open field more. The trees seemed like sentinels now, holding back to let him break through their ranks and venture forth alone. He felt exposed, with his lantern in hand, and suddenly the rifle across his back felt paltry and useless.
Another couple steps and he stumbled against something soft. Not a branch or bush. Something human. He stopped and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath to steady himself, then lowered the lantern to the ground.
The light shone over a dead man lying at his feet, sightless eyes staring into the night sky as if to watch the clouds scurry away above the trees. In the darkness Andy couldn’t discern the color of his uniform, whether it was blue or gray, but did it really matter at this point?
He didn’t think so.
Bending down, he twisted off two buttons from the man’s coat. With gentle hands, he closed the man’s eyes, placing a button on each lid to keep them shut. He didn’t know how many dead there were in the clearing, and he couldn’t possibly hope to do the same for all of them, but it was the least he could do for this one. “Go with God,” he murmured. He didn’t know if the quick prayer would help or not, but at least it couldn’t hurt now.
Carefully, Andy stepped around the corpse, keeping his arm straight down at his side to cast the light from his lamp onto the ground. He didn’t need to step on another soldier. He knew not all of them out here were dead.
He walked a little farther across the field—the trees were shadowy shapes hemming him in, the wind through their leaves like traitorous mutterings. The ghost’s song rose and fell on the breeze. Andy followed the sound, crossing the field, watching his feet move around lifeless limbs. Flesh shone pale in the light of his lantern, coat sleeves and pant legs dark with blood. He thought he might be nearing the opposite side of the clearing when the song cut off abruptly.
Andy hesitated, unsure if he should speak. Where was this man, who had drawn him out here? Did he lay at Andy’s feet, waiting? Or had he dragged himself into the woods a bit, away from death? When Andy took another cautious step, he heard the unmistakable click of a rifle hammer drawn back.
“Closer and you die,” a soft male voice said. “I’ll shoot you dead.”
“Then we’ll both go home to Glory.” Andy stopped, setting the lantern at his feet.
The stranger in the darkness laughed, an easy sound, one that sounded familiar to Andy for some reason. A Confederate, he reasoned, because he heard a hint of the South in the voice from the darkness. It reminds you of home, that’s all.
“I’m not dying,” the soldier said, his voice stubborn.
“Bullshit,” Andy murmured.
For a moment he didn’t think the soldier would answer, and he wondered if he could chance another step. He imagined the man somewhere ahead of him, propped up against the body of a fallen comrade maybe, the last of his strength used to level the rifle where Andy stood. He heard me approach and loaded the gun while he sang, enticing me on like a siren singing a sailor to his death. Andy felt a surge of pride at the soldier’s presence of mind despite his circumstances. In another world, he thought maybe they might have been friends.
Finally there was a sigh and the stranger laughed, a weary sound. “You thought me dying,” he said, “and you came for my rations, is that it? You’d take the clothes from my back and the shoes from my feet, and help yourself to any money you find, any food I have, my ammunition and weapon, maybe. Anything on me.”
There was a familiarity to the voice; Andy knew it. A soft Southern twang when he’d been expecting something more Northern, to be sure, but it wasn’t simply that. The words tugged at his memory, that laugh seeped into his brain, and he wished he could raise the lantern to get a good look at the man. Did Andy know him from somewhere? “I want nothing from you,” he said, his voice low.
The soldier laughed again. “You lie. But I’ve sad news for you. I finished the last of my rations this morning, and there are only a handful of minié balls left in my bag. I’ll let you have one in the stomach if you take another step.”
“I brought you water,” Andy offered. Despite the stranger’s harsh words, he felt a sudden kinship with this man, unseen beyond the circle of light cast by his lamp. They were just two soldiers, without rank, two souls somehow alive on a battlefield littered with dead.
“Water?” the soldier asked, as if he had never heard the word before. The surprise turned to suspicion. “Why?”
“I thought you were dying.” Even though the stranger couldn’t see him, Andy shrugged. “I don’t know. My men heard you singing and thought you were a ghost out here, come to steal their souls for the devil.” The stranger laughed again, and Andy smiled at the sound. “I came because if it were me, I’d want you to come. I’d want someone to find me and sit with me a bit, ‘til I go.”
“I ain’t going nowhere,” the soldier said softly, and Andy heard the faint clatter of metal as the rifle was set aside. “Water?”
Andy unshouldered his own rifle and set it down on the ground beside the lamp to show the soldier he was unarmed, as well. Then he shook the canteen, more than half full. The water sounded like a promise as it sloshed around inside the container. “Water,” he affirmed. “I can toss it to you—”
“You can bring it,” the soldier replied. “I’m…there’s a bullet in my thigh. I don’t cotton the thought of dragging through the dead to find the canteen if you miss.”
With slow, deliberate movements, Andy picked up the lamp again and stepped closer. In the flickering glow he saw the soldier appear like a ghost, a faint outline propped against a fallen log, taking shape and definition as Andy approached. He saw pants dark with blood from a ragged hole high on one leg, and he held the canteen out as an offering of peace.
When he wasn’t shot as he approached, he came closer, and knelt by the man’s side.
The soldier took the offered canteen with a sigh. “I’m so damn thirsty,” he whispered, uncorking the container.
Andy frowned as the stranger gulped down the water. The lamplight fell short of the man’s face, but Andy could see the dark coat he wore, marking him as a Union soldier. Hardly more than a boy, he corrected, taking in the smooth hands and thin wrists that held the canteen tight. “I thought you a rebel,” he said as the soldier drank. “You sound Southern.”
The soldier laughed. “Most men I know would kill you for that comment alone, water or not.”
“Then I’m glad you’re not most men.” Andy sank to his knees beside the soldier, the damp ground seeping through his weathered breeches. “You say you aren’t dying?”
“Who are you?” the soldier asked abruptly, ignoring his question. “I can’t see your face.”
“Lieutenant Anderson Blanks, of the Fifth Regiment out of Biloxi.” He felt a cold hand grip his as the soldier caught his breath. “What is it? What—”
“Andy.”
The word was nothing more than a sigh, barely heard over the breeze, but it rang through Andy like the peal of a church bell, echoing through his heart and his blood. My God, it can’t be. It’s the night and the weariness and the memories haunting me, nothing more. Sweet Lord Jesus above, don’t do this to me, don’t You dare…
But his name in that voice, one he’d heard in dreams every night for the past three years, since the day he had watched the train carrying his lover disappear into the west. “Sam?” he breathed. “Sam Talley? Christ above, is it really you?”
The hand in his tightened. He didn’t dare hope, didn’t dare believe…he raised his lantern between them and the flames leapt high, throwing back the night into shadows that danced at the edges of the light. Now he could see the copper hair, mussed and unkempt, those eyes that shone like emeralds, that thin face he’d once held between his hands and kissed until those lips had looked pinked and bee-stung from his own. It was Sam, here, with him. Bloodied and bruised but alive. It was him.
Andy sighed. “My God.”
He leaned down as Sam pulled him near. In all his memories, all his dreams, these kisses had never felt as wondrous as they did tonight by the unsteady light of his lantern.
* * * *
Chapter 4
The words tumbled from Andy in a rush. Relief and fear twisted in his heart, making him sick. “What are you doing here? In a Federal uniform, no less? Your last letter said St. Louis…”
“That was years ago,” Sam said with a breathless laugh. His hands clenched in Andy’s gray shirt, holding him close.
Andy caught those hands in his. They were cold, so cold, and he tried to rub warmth back into the strong fingers. “How the hell did you get caught up in this damn war, too? And for the North? Sam.” The questions tumbled out in a rush and Sam laughed again, a sound that still managed to make Andy grin foolishly after all this time. “I’ve prayed for you and now you’re here. Here! Lord God. Maybe my men were right, maybe you are a ghost and you aren’t really here at all—”
Sam cut off Andy’s words with another kiss. “Do you think I’m a ghost?” He held Andy’s hands in both of his and stared up into Andy’s face, his eyes bright in the lamplight.
Andy flushed. “No,” he replied. “God, no. I’ve dreamed of your kisses for so long. I know all too well the ache they leave behind in the morning when I wake and you’re not there by my side.”
“You’ll not ache again,” Sam murmured, his lips soft against Andy’s own.
For long moments it seemed as if they could never be satisfied with the trembling kisses and gentle caresses, the forgotten feel of skin against skin, and Andy wondered if he could possibly find words to fill the three year void that had separated them. But words were unnecessary; their bodies remembered each other’s touch. There was no awkwardness between them, no anxious pauses, no nervous chatter. Nothing needed to be said that their hands and lips couldn’t convey. The years they’d known each other created a balm over the time they’d been apart—the romance they’d shared had blossomed into a tender love through absence. The hunger in Sam’s kisses told Andy he wasn’t the only one who had longed for his lover in the night.
Finally Sam rested his head against Andy’s chest and sighed, content. Andy eased an arm around Sam’s shoulders, cheeks cooling in the night air, lips swollen from Sam’s own. “The water’s gone,” Sam whispered, turning the empty container upside down to prove his point. “You didn’t happen to bring food as well, did you?”
Andy thought of his uneaten supper, still on the ground in his tent. “When did you last eat?” he asked, his voice low.
“Morning,” Sam said with a sigh. “I wasn’t lying when I told you I have nothing. They left me for dead.”
“Let me see your wound.” Andy sat up and repositioned the lamp so he could look at the torn place in his lover’s leg, where skin and cloth fused together in a thick patch of dried blood that looked black in the light. “Is the bullet lodged inside?”
“Don’t know.” Sam winced when Andy tried to pick the fabric out of the wound. “We were retreating when I took the shot. I fell like a brick to the ground and must’ve hit my head, I’m not sure. Next thing I know, I’m facedown in the mud and my leg’s on fire.”
“They left you.” Andy couldn’t believe it was that simple, just turn around and run, leave behind those who fall. But I’ve done it myself, he thought, trying to see the extent of damage to his lover’s thigh, though when Sam drew in a sharp breath, he stopped prodding at the wound. “How long ago was that?”
“Two days?” Sam asked, unsure. “Maybe one. Maybe more, I don’t know.”
Andy grimaced at the wound. “You need a surgeon.” He thought of Mendenhall, the regiment sawbones, likely in bed at this hour but surely Andy could rouse him. “There’s one back at the camp. Can you walk?”
Sam frowned. “I think not, but for you, I’d try.”
“No,” Andy said with a sigh. “Of course not. But I can bring him back here. He can take a look at it, maybe give you something for the pain, stitch you up—”
But Sam shook his head. “Look at me.” When Andy did, Sam reached out and stroked one hand down the curve of his jaw. “I’m dressed in blue, Andy. Do you think any surgeon in the Confederate Army will take this bullet out of me? Even if you order it, pull rank over him, do you think he’ll do all he could to keep me alive?”
“You’re from Tennessee,” Andy reasoned. “I don’t know what you’re doing fighting for the Union, but you’re a Southerner by birth.”
“He’ll see the color of my coat and shoot me on sight,” Sam told him, “like a lame horse. It doesn’t matter where I’m from.” When Andy shook his head, Sam nodded. “Yes, Andy. In this land, I’m the enemy. You know that.”
“I’ll tell them you’re not,” Andy persisted. He held Sam’s hands and kissed the battered knuckles. “I’ll tell them you’re mine. I’ll say…”
But Sam simply laughed. “Yours.” Andy didn’t like the bitterness he heard in his lover’s voice. “Like you told your father? Remember what happened then? I was chased from the farm with no more dignity than a slave.”
Remember? How could Andy forget?
Sam’s eyes softened as he saw the effect his harsh words had on Andy, and he cradled Andy’s face in his hands. “I love you, Andy. God, these past few years have been hell, you know that. And I can see in your eyes that you love me still. But that means nothing to anyone else. It’s a hard truth, I know, but it’s the truth nonetheless.”
“I do love you,” Andy murmured, kissing Sam’s palm. God, please, he prayed, folding his fingers around Sam’s as he held his lover’s hand to his face. Don’t give him back to me just so I must lose him now. I won’t let You do that. I won’t let him go. He thought about the other men lying around them in the darkness, bodies of the dead from both sides, and in a quiet voice he suggested, “You can switch uniforms. There are plenty to choose from, no? We’ll redress you as a rebel and…”
“That won’t work,” Sam told him. “I steal a coat from one of these men—what if I get a general’s stripes? In the dark, they all look the same, and if I make that kind of mistake, your sawbones will know I’m lying.” When Andy started to protest, he shook his head again. “No, really. I don’t even think I could get out of these pants if I tried. My leg’s swollen and it hurts too damn much. The bleeding has stopped but I think it’s just clotted, no place to go, you know? It hasn’t healed.”
Andy sighed. “I’ll not let you die,” he promised. “If I have to, I’ll suture the wound myself.”
In the quiet darkness, that thought took hold. He could do it—he knew he could. Mary had taught him how to thread a needle, a small skill that had become invaluable in the field, where he’d been forced to stitch his uniform whenever it tore because there simply weren’t enough new clothes to go around.
He raised his head to meet Sam’s gaze, the idea taking root in his mind. “I can do it, I’m sure I can. I’ve seen Mendenhall work. It’s nothing but sewing, right? Just a little mend like in a shirt. It can’t be hard.”
Sam’s eyes widened. “You have a kit with you?”
“No,” Andy admitted, “but I can go back to the camp. It won’t take long. I’ll go back and get some food, then ask Mendenhall to give me what I need to stitch the wound.” He held his breath, waiting while Sam thought it over.
“What if someone asks?” he started, but Andy brushed the question away.
“No one will ask,” he assured Sam. “You said yourself I could pull rank. I’ll tell them to mind their own damn business and leave me to mine. It’ll work, I know it will.”
Sam frowned, unconvinced.
“You’re wounded,” Andy said, squeezing Sam’s hand in his. “You can’t walk and if you don’t get medical attention soon, you’ll die. You will. Infection will set in and they’ll have to amputate and God, Sam, I couldn’t bear that.”
Sam swallowed, his throat clicking with a dry sound that made Andy wince. “I couldn’t, either,” he whispered.
Though they fought on opposite sides of the war, Andy knew his lover had surely witnessed men suffer through amputations, just as he himself had seen after the heat of battle—strong men brought to tears under the surgeon’s saw, nothing but a piece of wood like a horse’s bit between their teeth to keep them from screaming out as the ether wore off. The memory was haunting by the light of the day; here in a battlefield strewn with the dead, with nothing but the dim glow of a lantern and the moon peeking from behind lacy clouds, it was the stuff of nightmares.
In a tiny voice, Sam asked, “Do you think it’s that far gone?”
I don’t know, Andy started to say. But one look in Sam’s troubled eyes and he forced a smile. “Not yet,” he replied, though he couldn’t see the wound clearly in the lamplight. He didn’t even know if it were salvageable at this point.
He couldn’t say that, not out loud, not when Sam’s eyes begged him for reassurance. “Let me go back to the camp.” Andy nodded at his own idea until Sam nodded as well. “The remnants of my dinner are still in my tent—I’ll bring them for you. And a kit, too, and more water. You can get some food in your belly and then I’ll clean your leg, stitch it back up again. By morning you should be good enough to walk, don’t you think?”
Sam sighed. “Maybe,” he conceded, but he didn’t let go of Andy’s hand and Andy made no move to stand. With his thumb, Sam rubbed a soft spot along Andy’s palm, smoothing the skin between his forefinger and thumb with a ticklish touch. Suddenly he laughed. “Remember the first time we kissed? The first time ever?”
Andy smiled. “By the river, wasn’t it?”
Surprisingly, Sam shook his head. “No, that…” His laughter lit up the light, and a wicked gleam crept into his eyes. “That was a first, all right, but I got more than just a kiss from you that day.”
Andy could feel his face heat up. “True.” The kiss on the riverbank had led to much more, and by the time the sun fell from the sky, the two had become more than friends—they’d become lovers. As they had walked back to the main house, holding hands until they reached the edge of the cornfield, a dull ache had settled between Andy’s buttocks, a sweet stretch, a lingering burn, that with each step reminded him of the feel of Sam within him.
But their first kiss, before that…Andy mulled over his memories, each kiss standing out in his mind. He counted back through them, through hugs and touches and more, until he found it. No one had spoken of secession then, and the nation had still been whole. How old had he been?
Seventeen, and Sam a few months younger. It’d been years ago, but the time spent seemed as inconsequential now as dust in the wind. When Sam had hired on at the Blanks’ farm, there had been something about him that made Andy’s heart quicken whenever he was around. Boyish friendship and innocent flirting made them inseparable, and they spent every waking hour together if possible. Andy loved him, he knew he did, but he kept it to himself because this was Sam, his father’s stable hand and his own best friend. The feelings growing within him as the boys matured were the devil’s doing, the preacher told him so, and it was anathema to dwell on things he shouldn’t, like the way it’d feel to touch and hold and taste his friend.
Sam was hired to care for the horses and, while he worked at the farm, Andy trailed along after him, in the barn or in the field, pitching hay, riding the steeds. One day while they were out in the lower field, trying to break in a couple new ponies, Andy’s mount spooked, tossing him to the ground. In seconds Sam was at his side, hands rubbing away the pain, the fear and love in his eyes so great Andy almost cried. “I’m fine,” he said, slapping away Sam’s hands as he struggled to stand. Each touch was a brand on his skin, burning him. It hurt to have to push those hands away. “Sammy, really. I’m fine.”