Chapter 16

Tillie cowered in a corner of the basement, squeezed into a tight ball, her head tucked into her knees, arms over her head. She wanted to marry, have children, but instead, someone would find her body among the broken bricks and plaster.

A shell exploded so close, the house gave a violent shudder. She pressed the side of her body against the wall and cringed. Upstairs, something crashed to the floor.

Mr. Weikert and his son flew into the basement as another missile whistled through the air. “They mean business now.” Dan both laughed and shouted, terror and exhilaration fighting for control of his voice as he slammed the door behind him.

The windows rattled from the percussion of hundreds of cannon firing simultaneously.

Outside, artillery shells rained down with unrelenting ferocity. Another shell crashed so close, the wall at her back swayed from the impact. Pots, pans, and dishes smashed on the floor. She didn’t want to die huddled in a corner of the Weikerts’ basement kitchen. I want to go home. I want to go home. Tillie rocked back and forth to the rhythm of the words, too terrified to scream.

Mr. Weikert and Dan paced near the stairs. Another crash upstairs sent Dan’s father running upstairs. He halted halfway up, seemed to change his mind, turned around, and came back down.

Mrs. Schriver crawled beneath the table with the girls, holding them and using her body and the table as a shield from falling objects.

Beckie ran to her father and cowered in his arms. She cried on his shoulder, her hands flat to her ears. He cradled her, one hand over her head in a protective gesture.

Mrs. Weikert continued kneading bread as if nothing happened. As she worked, tears coursed down her lined face.

After what felt like hours, the cannonading stopped. Tillie lifted her head and listened, her face awash with tears.

“Is it over?” Sadie peeked out from her mother’s arms.

Everyone began to stir. “I think so.” Mrs. Schriver climbed out from underneath the table and pushed to her feet.

Tillie rose and gazed about, dazed and confused. She only thought of the bread she put in the oven seconds before the cannonading started. She lurched across the room on rubber legs. Her hand shook as she opened the door. The loaf continued to bake and brown as though nothing happened. She estimated another ten minutes and shut the stove door. “The bread should be ready—”

The kitchen door flew open and crashed against the wall. The women jumped and screamed. A lieutenant burst into the house. “Get out, all of you!” He made frantic gestures with his arms. “You must leave at once. Enemy artillery has moved into the peach orchard. We expect the shelling to start over at any minute. The shells will land on this house.”

Mr. Weikert pushed Beckie off to her brother, who put his arm around her shoulder.

“No.” He advanced a step toward the lieutenant. “We will not leave here.”

“Sir, you must.” The officer also stepped forward. “If only for the sake of those poor little girls.” He gestured toward Mollie and Sadie still clinging to each other underneath the table.

Mr. Weikert turned to face his granddaughters. The hard lines on his face smoothed out. His piercing blue eyes softened, and he appeared to waver.

Tillie stared at the lieutenant, jaw agape. Did he mean for them to go out there? Did he want them to die? A smug smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, but he pressed his lips together until his features smoothed out. He again waved his arms in frantic haste. “Sir, this is not a request.” He took another step forward when Mr. Weikert still made no move.

The farmer reddened, and the muscle in his cheek twitched. The vein rose in his forehead. “I’ve had it with your orders.” His words hissed through gritted teeth. “You people demand the use of my barn and yard. Your wagons and artillery chewed up my land and destroyed my crops. You tore down all my fences, despite my best efforts to stop you. My pigs escaped. My cow is gone. My spring and well are dry. Your doctors want my house for a hospital, which I absolutely forbid. Now you tell me we must leave?” He pounded his fist the table.

Tillie jumped. Mollie started to cry.

“No!” Mr. Weikert’s shout reverberated through the basement.

The men glared at each other in a standoff.

The lieutenant spoke first. He lowered his voice and used a calm, authoritative tone, as if giving orders to his command. “This is not a request. You are hereby ordered to depart this house—now.” He started for the door. As if to emphasize his words, a shell crashed behind the barn. Planks disintegrated as hay and body parts flew through the air.

Mr. Weikert blanched. He collected his family and herded them upstairs to the main level, and out the front door.

“Papa.” Mrs. Schriver cried over the noise of the exploding shells, the crackle of gunfire, and men shouting and screaming. Her father didn’t respond. She tapped him on the shoulder. He leaned in, and she said something Tillie didn’t hear.

He nodded, and taking his wife by the hand, shouted something.

Tillie thought his mouth formed the words follow me.

He sprinted east across his fields. The rest followed as shells crashed and exploded around the house and barn, as if to chase them away.

They ran about a quarter of a mile when Mrs. Weikert stopped short. Her hand slipped from Mr. Weikert’s as his forward momentum carried him on.

He turned back, a horrified, frightened expression contorting his face. Horror changed to stunned disbelief.

She stood stock-still. Everyone came to a halt. The crashing roar of battle subsided with the distance, easing their need to shout.

“What’s the matter?” Mr. Weikert shouted anyway.

“Jacob, you need to go back. You must. I can’t leave it.”

“Go back? Are you mad? Go back for what?”

“My quilted petticoat!” Tears coursed down her face. “It’s brand new. For winter. I haven’t even worn it yet. You must go back before they tear it into bandages.”

Mr. Weikert’s breath came in short, hard gasps. He stared at his wife as the twitch began in his cheek muscle again.

Tillie gaped at Mrs. Weikert. How could she muster the nerve to send him back into danger for an article of clothing? Yet she stood in a field of wheat, demanding he do so. Would Mother require this of Father? Mother had sense enough to realize one could replace a petticoat, didn’t she?

Mr. Weikert took a deep breath and exhaled. “Keep going and get to the Bushmans’.” He pushed them in the direction of the Bushman farm. “I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.” He took off running back toward home.

A bullet to the head couldn’t shock Tillie more.

As he ran back, a half-smile of triumph twisted Mrs. Weikert’s lips.

What a terrible thing to do, you horrible woman. She turned away and started toward the Bushmans’.

Cutting across fields of ripening, undamaged wheat, they came upon a corps of Union soldiers in formation. The men relaxed in the summer sun as the battle raged three-quarters of a mile in their front. They did not impede the family as they moved between. Many opened a corridor for the women and Dan to run through, which they did, amid calls of “Hurry up,” and “What the devil are you doing out here?” The rest ignored them.

As Tillie ran, a flash of light caught the corner of her eye. Toward town unusual lights glinted back and forth like fire in the sky arcing over the rooftops. She stopped and pointed. “What is that?”

“Oh, that.” A soldier grinned at her, a glint of mischief in his eyes. “Why, that’s the rebels burning the town to the ground with all the people.”

Tillie screamed, pummeling his chest with her small fists while his companions laughed and cheered her on.

The man stepped back and grasped her wrists, keeping her at arm’s length. “Whoa there, little lady. I was kidding.” He held her tight with one hand while laughing. He dusted at his coat front as though she’d left fist prints.

“That was a stupid, terrible joke,” she shrieked. Crying, she wriggled free a wrist and took another swing at him. She missed. “And you’re a stupid, terrible man!”

The soldiers laughed.

“Shame on you.” Beckie glared at them as she grabbed Tillie by the elbows and took off running, dragging her with her.

Tillie cried the whole way, convinced the battle made her an orphan. She still sobbed when they reached the Bushmans’ farm.

“For heaven’s sake, your family is safe, stop being such a ninny,” Beckie barked.

Tillie yanked her arm out of Beckie’s grasp. “That’s easy for you to say. You know what’s happening with your family. I don’t, so don’t call me a ninny.” Tillie’s hands curled into fists. She clenched her teeth, her body stiff with fury, resisting the urge to hit Beckie.

She almost felt Maggie’s hands, holding her back. Mrs. Weikert knocked on the farmhouse door, lower lip quivering.

A Union sergeant answered. “Yes. What do you want?”

Mrs. Weikert’s eyes bulged with fear, and her mouth worked in spasms. She shook her head and licked her lips. “They told us to come here.” Her words came in short gasps as she tried to catch her breath. She wiped her upper lip with the back of her hand then gestured over her shoulder. “We live about a mile away. They told us to leave and come here.”

“Who ordered you to come here?”

“The soldiers at our farm. They said to come here.”

“I don’t know why they told you that. Go back to where you came from, lady.”

The soldier made to close the door. Mrs. Schriver put out her hand. The wood smacked against her palm. “Where are Mr. and Mrs. Bushman?”

“Who?”

“The people who live here. The Bushmans. Where are they?”

“I don’t know, lady.” The man adopted a bored tone, again, tried to shut the door.

Fingers curled around the edge of the door, which opened wider to reveal an officer. He stared at the sergeant until the man shrugged and walked away. He faced Tillie and the others. “Can I assist you?”

“Where is the family who lives on this farm?” Mrs. Schriver pointed back the way they came. “We live a mile across that field. The soldiers told us to leave and come here.” She talked fast, using the same demanding tone as when they wanted to cross the cemetery.

“Now he says,” she indicated the one who answered the door, “to go back the way we came. Why should we? Why can’t we stay here?”

The soldier considered her questions. Regret shone in his eyes. He crossed his arms, almost in a defensive gesture. When his eyes fell on Tillie and her tear-streaked face, he stepped outside and closed the door. “Oh, my sweet, why the tears?”

Wiping her face, she told him what the soldiers said about the strange fires in the sky. She couldn’t help letting out a sob of anguish. “My family lives there. What shall I do if the Rebs burn my house down?”

“I’m sorry they told you that.” He put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Those are signal flares, and they’re ours. Besides, we have rules of war, the Rebs and us, and the first rule is to leave the civilians alone as much as we can.”

Tillie stared at him. Did he speak true? “Thank you.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve.

“You’re quite welcome.” He straightened and got back to business as his expression grew grim. He faced Mrs. Weikert. “However, madam, I am sorry. Sergeant Harris is right. You can’t stay here.”

“Why not?” She sounded as though she might dissolve into tears herself. “Don’t you realize we’ve run a mile to get here because they told us to leave our house? Where are we to go?”

The officer pursed his lips. “You have to go back.”

“I’m not going back.” Beckie stamped her foot. “I refuse.”

“Well, you must, and you must go now. We’ve received reports the Reb artillery has advanced out of some peach orchard and into a wheat field. Why even now, the First Minnesota is in a desperate situation trying to hold the Rebs. The fighting is close enough to your farm so the shells will miss you and land here.”

An artillery shell whistled overhead and landed in the nearby field, exploding a tree on impact. The soldier flinched. The rest acted as though nothing happened.

“We must go back?” Mrs. Weikert sounded almost petulant.

“I’m quite sorry. Yes.” He reached behind him for the doorknob. “You must.”

She sighed. “Very well.” Her eyes flashed pure fury and hatred. Without a word, she gathered her skirts and ran as fast as her corseted, portly body would allow, back the way they came.

“Thank you ever so much.” Mrs. Schriver sneered, grabbed her daughter’s hands, and followed her mother with Beckie and Dan right behind her.

Tillie lingered. “Thank you for explaining about the signal flares.”

“You’re quite welcome, miss, and safe journey back.”