Chapter 28

“YOU WANT ME TO GIVE YOU WHAT?” Gabe’s jaw went slack.

“Some clothes.”

His eyes narrowed. “You all but tell me you want nothing to do with me and then waltz back here requesting I give you my clothes?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

His words stung like a lash, but she could offer no rebuttal. They were altogether too true.

His shoulders sagged as if he was conceding. “Why do you need them?”

“I—I can’t say.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Can’t or won’t?”

“Both.”

“I see.”

He stood staring at the walls of the darkroom, his arms folded. The way his eyes flickered back and forth between some unseen worlds told her he was wrestling over the request. When his jaw clenched, she knew he had decided to refuse her. Her heart shriveled.

She’d turned to leave when his soft voice stopped her.

“What will happen if you don’t acquire them? Will it increase the likelihood you’ll be caught?”

He knew it was for her spying assignment. Fearing his wrath, she was tempted to lie but pushed the temptation away. “Yes. I’ll have to steal them, which will make things a tad more complicated.”

“Why doesn’t Pinkerton provide you the clothing you need?”

“I’m to be seen with him as little as possible. The dispatches for assignment come, and I’m expected to use what I can to fulfill the request. I could send a missive asking for the items I need, but by the time they receive it . . .”

“It will be too late.”

“Yes. The generals need the information now.”

With a deep breath, he moved to his bag and opened it, yanking a shirt and pair of trousers free before thrusting them toward her. “Here.”

She grasped the clothes, warmth tingling up her arm when his fingers brushed hers. “Thank you.”

He said nothing, only nodded and turned away. She grasped the door latch.

“Cass?”

His hoarse plea snagged her, forcing her to look back at the tight lines around his eyes.

“Be safe.”

A knot lodged in her throat. “I will.”

When the latch shut with a nerve-strangling click, Gabe dropped into the chair, rubbing the palm of his hand into the socket of his eye.

Why had he given her the clothes? Was he really so smitten that he’d hand over whatever she wanted without a complaint, no matter what it was for?

He sighed. If the garments would help her stay safe, he’d gladly give her all he had. But it was more than that. Unease gnawed at him.

The gesture had been penance on his part. If she ever learned he’d submitted her photograph to Brady without her consent, he would lose her forever.

If he hadn’t already.

Every time he tried to dig himself out of the mess he made, he only sank deeper into the mire.

His carefully laid plans were unraveling faster than he could repair them.

Cassie waited, motionless, as she watched the bugler’s silhouette melt into the evening’s darkness. The shrill blast signaling lights-out had just sounded, shrouding the camp in repose.

She tugged the belt tighter around her middle and slipped between the tents, darting through the rows of identical canvas shelters. She kept her step light, fearing one misplaced footfall would alert the soldiers to her departure. Although Captain Johnston knew of her mission, he’d argued she should tell no one else of her plans. The fewer men who knew, the more likely the mission would succeed.

The loamy scent of damp earth filled her nostrils as she scurried through the woods beyond the perimeter of camp. Her lumpy trouser pockets bumped against each hip. One pocket was crammed full of hard crackers; the other held her revolver. The forged papers she’d tucked into her shoes scraped the bottoms of her feet.

Her skin tingled. At least her costume was baggy and gave her body room to breathe. Her knapsack was filled with goods she’d managed to pilfer from camp—apples, a couple oranges, sets of pasteboards, dominoes, and soap—so her disguise as an Irish peddler would be plausible. She’d even managed to swipe a flat cap from Private O’Connor, who had often bragged about the treasure he kept stowed in his knapsack. She pushed down the twinge of guilt. She would return it. That is, if she survived the ordeal.

A breeze ruffled leaves overhead, causing her to pause and listen. She was past the Union pickets. How far until she reached Confederate lines? A mile? Two?

As she pressed closer to Yorktown, her nerves grew strained, more taut than the strings of a fiddle. Every noise was a gunshot. Every sound of brush and creature stole her breath.

She mentally rehearsed all the Scriptures about fear that she could recall until her trembling eased. A sudden motion to her right snapped her senses like a whip.

A man shifted not more than fifty feet away, moving between the trees with a slow gait. The faint moonlight glinted off the rifle he rested against his shoulder. Although the silver glow made it hard to tell the exact color, this man wore a uniform and kepi.

A Confederate picket. She’d found them.

Easing behind a tree, she watched and waited. Pinkerton had assured her the troops in Yorktown were known to allow peddlers in their midst. If she could somehow manage to gain entrance, she would be able to acquire the information the Union so desperately needed. Pinkerton had been specific. They needed the numbers of Confederate troops in Yorktown, artillery strength, and how many reinforcements Lee would be sending to secure the stronghold. She’d thought, after so many months of playing Thomas Turner, taking on another role wouldn’t be so nerve-racking. She was wrong. This trepidation was far worse.

She crept back the way she had come, using the trees for cover. If she’d thought herself tense before, nothing prepared her for the angst of willingly prowling around enemy territory. Once she stepped foot over the proverbial line in the morning, she would be trapped until God provided an escape.

Spying a cluster of tents in the distance, she decided to remain sheltered in the trees to wait for morning’s light. She stretched out on the cold ground and listened. The sound of her breathing melted into the cadence of nature, and she gazed up at the stars scattered across the wide expanse of sky.

“He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.”

The psalm rolled around her brain. If God knew and named every single star in creation, surely he saw her too. Saw her and knew her. Not just Thomas Turner or any other mask she might wear, but her.

“When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him?”

She exhaled slowly and squinted at the winking bodies of light. Indeed, why would the Creator be mindful of someone like her? She was nothing. Only a girl trying to escape a future of gloom and heartache. A life each of her sisters had submitted to, a future that encircled her like an ever-tightening noose.

Her throat convulsed.

Did you see, God? Did you see the way my father hurt Mother over and over again? Did you really see every time he took delight in tearing her heart to shreds? Why did you turn away when he struck me and cursed my existence? Why were you silent when he corrupted everything and everyone in his path? Why didn’t you stop him?

Though a vast expanse of heaven loomed overhead, her pleas felt trapped, held captive by some unseen hand that echoed them back unheard.

She listened. Waiting. But God was silent.

It seemed to her, he grew quieter with every passing day.