Jeb had been visiting relatives in north Virginia when he was summoned to the war department. Jeb had invented a new way to attach a saber to a belt. He was interested in selling his patent, and the government was interested in buying it. He’d been waiting when all of a sudden things had started to happen, was sent out to Arlington House to bring back Lee.
Jesse had already been sent the night before. The old general, Winfield Scott, had heard something about the goings-on, and while things had still been rumor at that time—and Brown had only identified himself with the alias of “Smith”—the old war horse had known that real trouble was afoot. Daniel, on the other hand, had been with Jeb. Stuart had volunteered to come with Lee as an aide, and Daniel had volunteered to come with Stuart as an aide.
Now, the two brothers rode to the Wager Hotel for their drink. Since neither of them was officially attached to the troops, they were at their liberty to choose their own accommodations, and they chose the hotel. They were due to meet up with Lee and Jeb by six the next morning.
When they reached the Wager, the situation was being boisterously discussed in the hotel’s barroom. “Let’s have that drink upstairs, shall we?” Jesse demanded of his brother.
“Sounds like a good place! to me.”
They left their horses to be stabled, and Jesse retired straight to their room. Daniel bought a bottle of good Kentucky bourbon and brought it up. They shared a drink while Daniel brought Jesse up to date on what was happening at Cameron Hall.
The Tidewater plantation home itself was actually Jesse’s, since he was the oldest son. But the family’s land holdings were vast, and there were a number of other fine structures built on the Cameron land, so they shared the responsibility for it. It was unspoken but understood to their family of three—Jesse, Daniel, and Christa—that whenever one of them married, he or she was welcome to make their home on the family estate.
In fact, Jesse thought, Daniel knew the land a lot better than he himself did. Daniel was closer to it. Jesse loved Cameron Hall, and he loved his family history. But he wondered if he loved it as much as Daniel did.
And then again, he wondered if he could ever give it up. No one had asked him to, not yet.
After a while, he and Daniel fell silent. It was a comfortable silence. Then Daniel yawned.
“I still don’t get it, Jess.”
“What don’t you get?”
“You and Kiernan. Why don’t you just sweep her up on that steed of yours and carry her away?”
He’d done that, Jesse mused, he’d done that very thing just that afternoon. He could have ridden on forever with her. He could have kissed her, and he could have let the kiss become more. If he ever kissed her again, he thought, it would become more. He wasn’t Anthony Miller, he wasn’t the gentleman he should be, and he was suddenly certain that none of the standard rules could come into play between Kiernan and himself.
“I want her to make a choice,” Jesse said.
Daniel snorted. “Between you and Anthony Miller?”
“There’s nothing wrong with Anthony Miller,” Jesse heard himself saying. He almost grinned in the pale moonlight that settled over the room.
“I like Anthony just fine,” Daniel said. “But I repeat—what’s the choice?”
Jesse grinned broadly. He took a long swig on the bourbon and handed the bottle back to Daniel. “Thanks, brother.” He inhaled deeply. “Hell, there may be lots of choices soon. Let’s get some sleep. Morning’s going to come soon enough.”
Morning did come soon enough.
By seven thirty, the storming troops lined up in position in front of the firehouse. Lee, following both diplomacy and procedure, offered the militia units first crack at storming John Brown’s position. The militia commanders declined. Too many of the militia were family men. Federal troops were paid to risk their lives.
The manne commander, Israel Green, told Lee with ceremony and honor that his marines would be proud to enter the fray. John Brown was to be offered one last chance to surrender. Jeb Stuart brought Lee’s terms to Brown.
Jesse accompanied Jeb Stuart when he brought the terms to Brown. Jeb read Lee’s order, which first identified Lee and his command under President Buchanan of the United States. Then it demanded the release of the hostages and went on to advise Brown that he couldn’t possibly escape. If he would surrender himself and restore the armory property, Colonel Lee would keep them safe until he was given further orders from the president. If Brown did not surrender, Lee could not vouch for his safety.
Old John Brown opened the firehouse door a four-inch crack. He told Jeb that he wanted his freedom to take his followers back across the river to Maryland.
There was an uproar from the hostages inside. “Have Lee amend his terms!” someone cried out.
Then there was another call, from the prisoners. “Never mind us! Fire!”
Jesse grinned. He recognized the voice—it was Colonel Lewis Washington. The spirit of revolution did live on, Jesse thought.
Jesse couldn’t hear what happened next, but Stuart and Brown spoke for some time. Then Brown shouted out, “Lieutenant, I see we can’t agree. You have the numbers on me, but you know we soldiers aren’t afraid of death. I would as lief die by a bullet as on the gallows.”
“Is that your final answer, Captain?” Jeb demanded.
There was a silence for just a moment. The sun was rising, beautiful in the morning sky. Jesse could hear the chirps and cries of birds.
He glanced around. His old West Point teacher, the gentlemanly and indomitable Robert Lee, stood at some distance by a pillar of one of the buildings.
He wasn’t armed. He looked upon the situation as one of little consequence, one that the marines would handle quickly and efficiently.
That was all it was, Jesse told himself. Lee was right. Why did Jesse himself insist on making more of it?
“Yes,” Brown announced flatly.
Stuart stood back and waved his hat. It was the signal to Israel Green to bring in his troops, with bayonets only to reduce the risk of injuring the hostages.
The marines began to pound on the heavy doors with sledgehammers. The wood shuddered and groaned and splintered, but did not give. A halt was called, and a battering ram was formed. A ragged hole was dug into the doors, and the men burst through. Jesse followed.
It was over quickly. The marines stepped in with their silver bayonets flashing. After Colonel Washington greeted them all and identified Brown, Green struck Brown, who fell.
The raiders swept the firehouse with gunfire. A marine clutched his stomach near the doorway and fell. Smoke began to fill the firehouse. A few more marines rushed the place, and one of the raiders was instantly killed. Another, wounded, was dragged outside.
Colonel Washington pulled on his gloves before leaving the firehouse. Jesse was behind him, helping one of the hostages out, when Washington was greeted by a friend. “Lewis, old fellow, how do you feel?”
“Hungry as a hound and dry as a powder horn!” Jesse heard the disheveled Washington say, and he grinned again, touched by the man’s spirit and pride.
That’s it, he thought to himself, that is the grandeur we’ve created here in Virginia. We have bred such men!
It was, he realized, part of what he was afraid of losing.
More went on, but Jesse could no longer heed any man who was walking and well. His duty was first to the civilians and then to the marines—and then to the raiders.
Jesse learned later from Jeb Stuart that John Brown had been taken to a room at the Wager. Assembled to question him were Lee, Stuart, Senator Mason, Virginia’s governor Henry Wise, an Ohio congressman, Colonel Washington, and Congressman Faulkner of Virginia.
They quizzed him for hours, Jeb said. John Brown wouldn’t incriminate others, but he was damned forthright about himself and his determination. He said that he had only meant to free the slaves, that he’d meant no harm to others. When he was reminded that innocents had died, he had assured them that
no man or woman of any innocent nature had been harmed to his knowledge. Jeb admitted that Brown was an extraordinary man. A fanatic, a doomed man, but also much more.
While Brown was being quizzed, Jesse did what he could for the wounded. Another of John Brown’s sons, a boy named Watson, lay dying during the long afternoon. There was nothing that any man could do, but Watson, too, was grilled endlessly for his part in the affair.
A boy named Anderson lay on the grass, waiting to die. As the boy continued to breathe, a man walked by him and callously remarked that it was taking him a long time to die. But eventually, his death silenced the voices of his tormenters.
At last a pit was dug, and the dead were buried, except for Anderson’s body. He was claimed by doctors from Winchester. Jesse gritted his teeth when he learned that the boy had been stuffed headfirst into a barrel, then rammed and packed down so hard that blood and bone and sinew all seemed to crack alike.
It wasn’t so bad that the body of a boy who hadn’t understood that he was involved in treason was going to medical science. It just seemed horrible that any human being could be so abused, so stripped of his dignity in death.
For Jesse, it was the final straw. He’d done what he could do. He’d seen to the wounded, he’d stormed in with the troopers, and he’d tended the wounded again.
He didn’t want to see any more at Harpers Ferry. A place that had always been beautiful and peaceful to him would never be the same again. Something about the misuse of Anderson’s body had been the final straw. When they had rolled that barrel away and he had come too late to do a damned thing about it, something inside of him had seemed to snap. A tempest raged in him like something he hadn’t begun to imagine.
He mounted his horse. He probably should have looked for Daniel, but he didn’t know where his brother was. He was angry, but had no outlet to vent the anger.
And he felt curiously as if he had been hurt, and he didn’t know why he felt that way.
All in all, he was like a tempest brewing.
It was the best time in the world for him to stay away, far away, from Kiernan.
But he didn’t. He discovered himself riding for Lacey’s house.
Kiernan hadn’t expected to see Jesse that early in the day. She had ventured out that afternoon when she had heard that it was all over, that the firehouse had been stormed, that John Brown was now a captive. But she hadn’t gone far. She’d seen what people had done to the wounded and slain raiders the day before. Although she was appalled and horrified by the innocent lives that had been lost at Harpers Ferry because of the raiders, she couldn’t help being disturbed by some of the things done to them in retaliation.
She was a Virginia lady, she had told herself, gazing at her reflection in the glass that morning. She was delicate and protected and tender, and she wasn’t supposed to be exposed to anything evil.
But she knew that she was anything but delicate, and she had never allowed herself to be overprotected. What had happened was simply horrible, and she didn’t want to see more.
She was sitting in the parlor, reading a newspaper from a nearby Maryland press, when she heard a tumultuous pounding on the rear door. She started, alert and wary for a moment. The attempt to kidnap her and take her hostage remained with her, and she wasn’t immune to a sense of unease if anything resembling danger threatened.
But kidnappers did not knock at a door, certainly not so violently. Lacey had ventured out, when all was well, to hear the latest on what was happening at the hotel.
Kiernan rose and hurried to the door, throwing it open quickly since the pounding threatened to tear it from its hinges.
Jesse stood before her. His plumed hat was pulled at a rakish angle over his forehead. He was in uniform, a shoulder-skirted regulation cape around his shoulders.
“Jesse!” she murmured, and stepped back. She could barely see his eyes, shadowed as they were by the brim of his hat. She sensed a deep tension about him, an energy even greater than that which he usually exuded. “I wasn’t expecting you or Daniel yet. I’ve nothing ready. Oh, but come in—I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m sure there’s something to drink, and—”
He moved through the doorway, his presence powerful. He swept his plumed hat from his head, and she saw his eyes at last. They were dark and seemed filled with a whirlwind emotion.
“I don’t need anything to drink,” he told her.
“Then—”
“Ride with me,” he said briefly.
Kiernan stared at him. He was in a dangerous mood, she sensed. She shook her head uncertainly. “Jesse, Lacey isn’t here. She’s gone down—”
“Leave her a note,” he commanded.
She should have told him right where to go for so commanding her. No lady would ever do such a thing, but she had never pretended to be the perfect lady around Jesse.
“Jesse, I should tell you to go straight to hell!” she whispered softly to him.
He set a hand against the doorframe and moved closer against her. His face was just inches away. “But you’re not going to, are you?”
Despite his arrogance, there was something almost desperate about his words.
For the first time, she realized, Jesse needed her, really needed her, as an adult.
As a woman.
She lifted her chin. “I’ll come with you, Jesse,” she said. “This time.”
He didn’t smile, didn’t even seem to note her taunt. He took it fully for granted that she would come with him. But she realized that, equally, she needed to be with him.
“I’ll be right with you,” she murmured. In the kitchen she wrote Lacey a note, saying only that she was with Jesse. She ran up to her room for a cape and hurried back down.
Jesse was still by the rear door, pacing the small area of the rear entry like a caged lion. Kiernan felt a fierce shiver seize hold of her. He ceased moving at last, not realizing that she had returned, and stared out into the small rear yard at the golds and grays of the autumn afternoon. A lowering sun cast its gentle rays upon the rock and shale of the mountain cliffs. He stared, she thought, but he didn’t see.
“Jesse,” she said softly.
His dark blue gaze shot quickly to her. He opened the door for her, and his eyes followed her as she left the house. He didn’t speak.
His sleek roan stood waiting in the yard. Jesse lifted her up onto the horse, then mounted behind her with smooth agility. She thought that in his present mood they would race again, but he walked the horse from the yard, then reined in.
“What is it, Jesse?” she asked him.
“I don’t know where to go,” he admitted, an edge of raw frustration to his voice.
Kiernan should remain silent, she knew, absolutely silent. Jesse’s present state of mind couldn’t be good for either of them.
But something of his wild, reckless, and even tormented mood was entering into her heart and, like the dark winds of a storm, into her soul and body. “Head west along the river,” she told him.
They passed quietly out of town and headed down the pike that lined the water. They passed the old mill and kept riding until they were several miles out of town. They could hear the rush of the white water passing over the rapids, but they couldn’t see it through the abundance of foliage and trees growing on the strip of land between the road and the river.
“Turn here,” Kiernan advised him.
Jesse might have missed the narrow, overgrown trail heading toward the water if Kiernan hadn’t pointed it out. But he didn’t question her wisdom in taking it. He knew they were near Montemarte, the Millers’ estate.
A small wooden fishing shack sat almost on the water with a dock that stretched out; over the rocks. In the dim twilight, the shack was almost invisible.
Kiernan felt Jesse hesitate, felt a greater heat building inside him. “Anthony’s?” he inquired dryly.
“His father’s,” she replied flatly. He’d come to her for a place to go, and she had been generous enough to offer th
is quiet haven.
He nudged the horse forward. At the shack he dismounted and reached up to her. She slipped down into his arms, but he released her quickly and walked down to the water by the shack. The water was low. He set one shiny black boot upon a rock and stared out at the ever-moving water.
Kiernan ignored him and hurried into the shack. There wasn’t much there. It was rebuilt every summer after the waters of the river rose and receded. There was a fireplace and a pot for making coffee and a skillet for frying whatever fish might be caught. There was a rough-hewn table and four chairs, and one sleigh bed shoved into the far corner of the room. There was a ledge with a handy supply of whiskey and tobacco and a few glasses.
She and Anthony had last been there, Kiernan thought, at the end of summer, not long ago. In a pleasant twilight, the other men had debated politics, but Anthony had dropped out to teach her the proper way to fish.
It had been nice. Not exciting, just a pleasant twilight to while away …
She dragged a chair over to stand upon to reach up for the whiskey. Jesse might well want a drink once he came into the shack.
But as she stood upon the chair, the door burst open.
Jesse stood in the doorway. The dying orange glow of the afternoon framed him with his low-brimmed plumed hat and his shoulder-skirted navy cape.
In the coming twilight, with the hectic rush of the water tearing over the rapids behind him, she felt his recklessness, his energy, his tempest, more certainly than she had ever felt it before.
She stopped reaching for the glasses and rubbed her palms over her skirt, watching him, sensing the passion and heat and need within him. Her mouth was dry. Her heart pounded. Her blood seemed to race through her system as swiftly and wildly as the water rushed over and around the ancient rocks.