Chapter 17

NOVEMBER 15, 1861

EN ROUTE TO HOWELL, MICHIGAN

The shriek of the whistle fought against the soothing lull of the swaying train car as they chugged along the winding stretch of northbound tracks. The compartment was stuffy, filled with stale air and grim, weary passengers. Older men wearing black coats and expensive vests were scattered throughout the train, mingled among stout matrons and exhausted mothers attempting to keep their young children quiet through the never-ending trip.

Gabe smiled dryly to himself. Every time he grew sleepy enough to nod off, a bloodcurdling scream from a cantankerous child snapped his drowsy senses back to life. Apparently he wasn’t the only one bothered by the whining boy. The entire carful of people spent long moments searching their belongings and pockets for candy, trinkets, or anything to soothe the fussy little tyke. After sucking on a peppermint stick, the cranky toddler finally drifted off to sleep on his mother’s shoulder.

Unfortunately, the cross child had already awakened him one too many times. Sleep eluded him.

Looking across the seat, he noticed Cassie had nodded off as well, her dark head resting against the rumbling wall of the car. Dressed in her uniform and kepi, no one had realized she was anything other than a war-weary soldier on furlough.

He took a moment to study her as he’d wished to do since she’d revealed her identity. She had perfected the stance and walk of a man, wearing the identity like a second skin. The large uniform coat hid her feminine curves. But watching her now—the pucker of her full lips, her delicate bone structure, her smooth skin and thick lashes—he wondered how he had never seen through her disguise. She had become adept at hiding her face in the shadow of her kepi, but he knew from experience the wide brim shrouded eyes so brilliantly blue, they would be stunning if she dressed as herself . . . a young woman far too independent for her own good.

He looked away, still muddled and confused over the whole situation. Since he’d apologized, they had struck up a tentative friendship—one more delicate than before. They chatted and laughed over trivial things but had avoided deeper conversations. It was as if they were tiptoeing around each other, afraid the thin strand of camaraderie would fray with one misspoken word or look.

He didn’t like it.

Glancing out the grimy, soot-streaked window, he watched the countryside pass by in a mud-colored blur. He longed for the amiability they had shared before. The ease, the laughter and soul-stirring conversations. Everything had changed, and yet nothing had changed. He was still Gabe. She was still the same friend he’d admired since they met. Why the odd feelings?

He turned to his left, noting the portly fellow across the aisle was also slumbering, his head bobbing forward against his massive belly. The buttons of his vest strained with the girth. His jowls were slack, aquiver with the motion of the train. A low snore burst from the back of his throat.

A petite woman with delicate wrinkles around her eyes was knitting furiously, working the soft-pink tangle of yarn through her clacking needles with a speed that matched the chugging train. Noticing Gabe’s perusal, she shot him a sideways smile but never ceased the fluttering of her fingers. “Louis is through with the newspaper if you’d like to read it.”

Gabe nodded his appreciation. “Thank you. I can’t rest for some reason. Reading the paper would be a welcome diversion.”

She paused only long enough to pass it over, her mouth twitching into a smile. “If my husband keeps snoring, no one else in this car will be able to rest either.”

He chuckled and grabbed the oily paper, quietly snapping it open to scour the headlines. The task was difficult because of the seat’s continual sway beneath him. Back and forth, back and forth.

War on every page. Troop movements. Casualties. Strategic cities and conjectures on what each general might do next. Orders from Washington. Orders from Richmond. Gabe pursed his lips. The war was smothering . . . snuffing out life and hope in every direction, leaving abysmal shadows in its wake.

He had almost discarded the bleak news when a headline caught his eye.

Congress to Establish Congressional Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War after Disaster at Ball’s Bluff

A flicker of curiosity flared to life.

The skirmish at Ball’s Bluff near Leesburg, Virginia, is another black mark on the Union’s already-marred record. Between General McClellan’s hesitancy to move the largest mass of troops away from the capital and his inability to crush the Confederacy as Congress had hoped, the spirits of our blessed Union are flailing, though not in despair. President Lincoln has pleaded for patience, even in the face of many Republicans’ outspoken criticism of McClellan’s tactics. These critics claim he has done nothing more than stage his grand reviews and parades of our valiant men up and down Pennsylvania Avenue, though we note the latest parade of 65,000 men was a brilliant spectacle.

Patience may indeed be a virtue, but after the humiliating fiasco at Ball’s Bluff, the long-suffering of our great nation is growing thin.

The skirmish, which ended with the deaths and drownings of over two hundred soldiers, as well as the death of United States Senator and Colonel Edward Baker, has caused Congress to take note of ineffectiveness within the ranks and among their leadership.

Reports of how the clash began are varied. Early information declared the burden of guilt lay with deficient scouts who informed General Stone that moving a small contingent across the river would catch a band of Confederates unawares. Other reports lay the blame at the feet of Captain Chase Philbrick, who, it is said, mistook a line of trees for a cluster of Confederate tents in the dark of night. As information is sorted through the perplexed hands of Congress, however, it is clear that the majority of the blame lies with General McClellan, who initially ordered the scouting party to gauge the position of Confederate General Evans’s soldiers across the Potomac, as well as an unknown photographer who inadvertently announced the Union’s position to an isolated band of Rebels.

Gabe’s breath thinned. An unknown photographer? His pulse hammered as he gripped the wrinkled pages tighter and scanned the condemning words that cut into his soul like shards of glass.

One soldier recuperating from the disaster insists he saw a flash from a photographer’s camera just before Rebel guns began firing. Private Jonathan Ayers declared the sun was quite brilliant by midmorning and the camera lens reflected beams that alarmed the enemy.

He couldn’t breathe. The tremors from his hands rattled the paper in his grip. The only photographer he knew who had traversed the impossible terrain was him. Please, God, no. . . .

Whatever the reason for the debacle, Congress is establishing the Congressional Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. The minds of Washington are concerned McClellan is ineffective and believe the inner workings of the Union forces must be examined more thoroughly.

Nausea curdled his stomach as he slowly lowered the paper. He racked his brain, trying to remember what exactly had happened. Setting up his equipment on the hill overlooking the river valley. The sunlight was finally sufficient. He’d removed the lens cover, and then bullets began whistling all around him.

His heart gave an odd lurch. It was him. He was the one who had caused George and Weeks to be captured and dragged to a Confederate prison. It was his fault the Rebels had fired. And it was his fault Selby and Johnson had drowned trying to escape enemy fire.

Dear God, no.

He glanced at Cassie sleeping against the unforgiving wall of the train car. What would she think if she learned the truth?

Swallowing, he resisted the urge to cast up his accounts. He had endangered her life as well. She’d fought the tide of retreating soldiers to go back . . . for him. She’d dragged his lifeless body down the mountain and had saved him. He didn’t deserve it.

He dropped his head in his hands and bunched fistfuls of his hair, watching the floor beneath him shift as the train sped onward.

God, forgive me. It was all my fault.

Something was wrong with Gabe.

Ever since Cassie had awakened, he’d seemed distracted. Pale. She’d caught him several times studying her as if he wanted to say something, but then he clamped his lips shut and looked away. And he was so quiet.

Gabe was never quiet.

He hadn’t said a word when they disembarked from the train, nor when she had plunked down coinage to rent a horse and small wagon from the town livery. Here they were, bobbing up and down in a rickety wagon dragged by a decrepit mare, and the only sound was the plodding of hooves through wet leaves and mud.

Had she done something wrong?

Their renewed friendship was tenuous, she knew, yet he wasn’t acting upset with her. More like he had turned inward on himself, wallowing in some dark place she could not see or hear.

A frigid gust of wind rattled the wagon, causing her to burrow deeper into her woolen coat. She’d forgotten how much colder it was in Michigan than in Virginia. Had she really been gone only six months? It seemed a lifetime ago.

Clenching the reins in his red-tipped fingers, Gabe angled his head. “So tell me about this. About your home.”

She cleared her throat, shivering. The metallic scent of snow filled the air, although the pewter sky was dry. “What do you want to know?”

The whisper of a smile tugged his mouth. “For starters, what is your grandmother like?”

“Wise. Kind. Funny. And probably the only person on this earth who has truly loved me for who I am.”

He gave her a long look before swinging his gaze back to the road. The gray horse noisily clomped ahead, flinging up flecks of mud. “You two are close, then?”

“Yes. Extremely. She taught me about God, about life, and everything in between.”

“Is she expecting you?”

She shook her head. “No. She has no idea what happened to me. I ran away many months ago.”

He frowned, his brows pulling low. “You just up and left without a word?”

Guilt pricked her conscience, and she turned away from the faint accusation lacing his tone. “I had to.”

Silence, aside from the creaking wagon and the squelch of mud and rocks under the nag’s hooves.

“So are you going to tell me about the man who was so terrible you’d rather run than marry him?”

“Someday.”

Emitting a soft chuckle, he shook his head and offered the first real smile she’d seen on his face since leaving the train.

“And you?” She pursed her lips. “Are you going to tell me what has put you in such a solemn, dark mood?”

His smile siphoned away into a straight line. “Someday.”