Chapter 34

Dear Gabriel,

Are you well? After reading the reports concerning the Battle of Front Royal, I fear the worst but trust the Almighty has kept you safe thus far. Were there truly so many Union soldiers captured as the papers reported?

My own recovery is going well, though I find it much more of a trial to recover from pneumonia at four score than it was only a few years ago. Ah, there is no denying it—I’m getting old.

Esther is smothering me, baking pastries and bread constantly, bargaining with the butcher for the cheapest meat prices. She seems to believe my health rests solely in her hands. The woman needs to be in control at all times. In many ways, she reminds me of you. Always trying to fix things so everyone is taken care of. But such perfection is not attainable this side of glory, is it? My life is in the Almighty’s hands, though I would be hesitant to decline one of Esther’s cinnamon pastries either way.

Write again when the opportunity affords.

Your friend,

Jacob

Gabe expelled a tight breath. Jacob had made no mention of the funds he’d sent from the profit of Cassie’s photograph. Had they reached him? Why hadn’t he reported his financial standing with hospital? Gabe had requested information, but Jacob remained silent on the thing he most needed to know. Stubborn man.

Sweat rolled between Gabe’s shoulder blades as he sat in the sweltering darkroom. Working in the small, windowless confine was like being slowly smothered. His shirt was glued to his skin. He wiped his forehead as his mind whirled back to the past grueling weeks. Even worse than the humiliation of Front Royal was the bloody slaughter of the Battle of Fair Oaks Station. The Union had claimed victory, but at a high cost. The shells shrieked so ferociously and continually, the cannon thundered with such force, Gabe feared the wagon would break apart. And the aftermath . . .

Men on both sides had fallen so deeply, there was not even enough room to walk between the bloated bodies. As he readied the Harrison lens to capture the sickening scenes, his eyes had landed on Cassie loading bodies as heavy and limp as sandbags onto litters, her arms coated in blood up to her elbows.

She had straightened, her gaze burrowing into his across the distance of the blood-soaked field, and then she glanced away.

His stomach had cinched as tight as a tourniquet.

He missed her. Desperately.

There was no one to blame but himself. He should have sought her permission before sending the photograph. He’d hoped she would come around after she’d had a few days to cool off, but it was not to be. She had studiously avoided him at all costs. Even had Briggs deliver his mail so she wouldn’t be forced to see him.

He understood her hurt, but did she really believe he’d planned on having her identity exposed through a newspaper? The accusations had stung far more than he cared to admit.

He leaned back in his chair and brushed away a drop of sweat from his cheek with a shrug of his shoulder. The cotton scoured his skin and snagged on the bristle peppering his jaw. It had been days since he’d shaved. Days since he’d even cared.

Food had no taste, and his dreams were nothing but hazy nightmares.

Life without Cassie had become a gray, meaningless jumble.

And he had no idea how to fix it.

JUNE 2, 1862

NEW BRIDGE, VIRGINIA

“Wasn’t that a bully speech by Little Mac?” Jonah sat next to Cassie on a wide log, whittling a piece of wood.

She took a swig of water from her canteen and prayed for a cool breeze to cut through. The heat was suffocating. “I suppose so.”

Jonah frowned. “You suppose so?” He shook his head, his kepi wobbling. “It gave me a thrill!” He lowered his voice, imitating the husky timbre of the general’s. “‘We are now face-to-face with the Rebels, who are held at bay in front of their capital. The final and decisive battle is at hand. Let us meet them there and crush them.’” Jonah’s eyes shone. “I was ready to point a gun and start firing.”

She offered a smile, but her heart wasn’t in it. She was sick of it all. Sick of constantly performing. Sick of trying to be faultless in her pretense. Sick of mangled corpses. Sick of death.

“I only hope it will be finished soon.” She pulled out the pocket watch Captain Johnston had given her and rubbed the engraving with the pad of her thumb.

Jonah spit into the grass and shooed away a fly buzzing near his ear. “What will you do, Turner? When the war is over?”

She swallowed. “I don’t know.” Truthfully, she tried not to think about it.

“Me either. Tommy wants to finish school, then go to the university.” He scoffed. “Not me. I never want to step foot in another school as long as I live.”

She emitted a light laugh. “Not every teacher is like Schoolmaster Howe, you know.”

He looked as if he’d bitten into a pickle that turned. “I know. But reading and calculating figures . . .” He shrugged. “Seems like a waste of time.”

She stared off into the distance, studying a canopy of thick trees on the outskirts of Richmond. How many would still be standing once the soldiers started firing?

“I always wanted a better education.” She sighed and plucked a blade of grass near her feet. “I wish for it still. Knowledge is opportunity. It’s adventure.”

Jonah grunted and dropped a curl of wood near his flapping boots. “Don’t see how adventure can be found between the pages of a dusty old book.”

Stricken at his tainted view of life, she reached for his grubby hands and gently tugged the pocketknife and block of wood free. In their place, she dropped the pocket watch and chain.

Jonah’s eyes rounded as he looked up at her. “What are you doing?”

“Giving you my watch.”

His face went slack as he studied the engraved flourishes running through the shiny metal. “But it was a present for you.”

“Presents are meant to be given away. Now I’m giving it to you.” She closed her hands around his and squeezed. “This watch represents time. Time that is ticking away second by second. I want you to take it. Use it to remember you have only one life to live. Seek God, and a thousand adventures and dreams will pursue you.”

His face lit up as she released his hands. “Thanks, Turner!” Jonah bounded to his feet and raced away, no doubt eager to tell his friends. She chuckled and glanced at the discarded wood and knife resting in the grass.

“Seek God, and a thousand adventures and dreams will pursue you. . . .”

Her mind knew the adage was true, but her heart was having trouble grasping it.

She longed for peace. For freedom to live without pretense or constantly hiding from Father’s fury. She yearned for joy. For Gabe.

Perhaps her own dreams were unfulfilled because she hadn’t sought God as she should have.

Perhaps.

“What are you doing?”

Gabe looked up from the camera box to judge whether the light was adequate to capture the scene before him. Confederate and Union pickets were only a meadow apart. Both of them on the cusp of Richmond, waiting in eerie silence for word. Hours had passed without any change.

Gabe glanced at Jonah’s upturned face. “Getting ready to photograph the pickets.”

“Ain’t got nothing better to capture than a bunch of cranky old soldiers glaring at each other?”

He chuckled. “At the moment? No.”

Jonah rocked back on his heels and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Good to see you smile. Ain’t seen you do much of that lately.”

Gabe narrowed his eyes. “You’re a mite too observant.”

“Missing Turner?”

Gabe ground his teeth and busied himself with adjusting the lens. Yes, he missed her. When she wasn’t away on some escapade for Pinkerton, she was delivering mail for the regiment.

“She—er, he’s been busy lately, you know,” Jonah said. “Running mail all over a sixty-mile stretch.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

Jonah finally fell silent. A mercy for which he was most grateful.

“Look what I got.”

Pulling his head out from under the black curtain, Gabe glanced down at the boy’s open palm. A gold pocket watch lay in the center, winking as it caught a shimmer of sunlight. He sucked in a pull of air. “Where’d you get that?”

Jonah smiled smugly. “Turner.”

He frowned. “The one he received from Captain Johnston?”

“Yep.” Jonah buffed the piece against the tattered fabric of his uniform. “Gave it to me yesterday. Said it was a reminder that each minute is a gift.”

Gabe looked away. A gift indeed. Then why was Cassie so determined to squander hers?

“Turner has been almost as grumpy as you lately. You two fight or something?”

He grunted. “Don’t want to talk about it.”

Jonah sighed. “You fighting ’bout how stubborn you are?”

“I am not!”

“O’ course you are.” Jonah plopped down on the marshy ground and squinted as he examined the watch’s engravings with a critical eye. “Always trying to control everything. You want everyone to be happy.”

“Is there something so wrong with that?”

The boy shrugged. “No, not really. Except some people’s definition of happy might not be the same as yours.” Rubbing the piece against his sleeve once more, he studied it with one eye and his tongue tucked between his teeth before smiling. Satisfaction with a polishing job well done. “Just like when you take pictures with your fancy camera box.” He snickered. “You get all mad when the light isn’t the way you want, or if you can’t get the angle just so. Say—” his face lit up—“maybe that’s why you like taking your photographs. It’s something you can mostly control.”

Thunderstruck, Gabe stood and stared at Jonah, his frozen lips unable to form words.

“Anyway, I gotta get going. Will you show me your photographs later?”

Gabe blinked. “I—uh, yes. I should have them done tonight.”

With a nod, Jonah scampered away as Gabe’s mind raced.

Unbidden, Jacob’s last penned words floated back to taunt him.

“Always trying to fix things so everyone is taken care of. But such perfection is not attainable this side of glory, is it?”

He wasn’t the one with the stubborn pride. Cassie refused to be reasonable. Refused to see things from his point of view. It wasn’t him driving the wedge between them.

Steeling his muddled tangle of emotions, Gabe clamped his jaw. He didn’t have to be in control. Jonah had just misinterpreted things. He was only a kid, after all.

The lie sat cold in his chest.