The other man had suffered a head wound, but it had been a clean one. A bullet had whizzed by, ripping hair and skin but miraculously leaving bone and brain intact. He, too, was doing well.
But not as well as he might have been doing if medical attention had been more readily available to him.
Jesse didn’t like being in Washington. He wanted a hospital closer to the action. By the time the injured were reaching him here, many had received haphazard attention that only complicated the injury. He disagreed with many a man on his own side about the proper way to attend to wounds. A doctor in the West with whom he had worked had proved to his satisfaction that using the same sponges on different men hastened the onset of infection. Most physicians scoffed at the idea, but Jesse had watched his patients carefully. Clean sponges saved lives—just as a good shot of alcohol could sometimes help, inside and out, when nothing else was available.
Something suddenly told Jesse that Quinn hadn’t come to talk about his wounded. An uneasy feeling crept over him. He’d known Quinn a long time, and Quinn knew a lot about his life.
“Jess.”
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Jesse asked tensely. “Have you heard something about my brother?”
Quinn, who was Jesse’s own age, was probably destined to rise far in the military. He shrugged. “No, Jesse, I haven’t heard anything about Daniel. I’m not even certain that anything is wrong at all. Well, it’s going to be wrong, I guess.”
By then Jesse was on his feet, his pen clutched tight in his hand. “Then tell me what might be wrong, or what it is that’s going to be wrong.”
“Lots of skirmishing going on.”
“Yes, I know that. Allan, will you tell me what—”
“Jesse, there was a battle near Harpers Ferry yesterday, up on Bolivar Heights.”
Jesse’s fingers curled tightly around the pen he still held.
Kiernan. Kiernan would have been very near the battle.
He broke out in a cold sweat. “Any civilians caught up in it?” he asked hoarsely.
“No, Jesse, it’s not that. She—er, Mrs. Miller wasn’t caught by a ball or anything like that.”
Jesse dropped the pen and clenched his hands together tightly behind his back as a sensation of relief flooded over him. She was all right.
Kiernan. Damn her!
Damn, but he’d tried hard not to think of her! It had been over between them, over before it had ever begun.
She had told him that she’d hate him, that she’d be his worst enemy. And she’d married Anthony, who was now dead.
Kiernan was out at Montemarte. Jesse knew it because Christa still wrote him. Christa was as ardent a Confederate as any, but she had never ceased to write him. She didn’t write about the war, she didn’t condemn him, and she didn’t try to sway him. She just wrote about people, places, and events. She had told him that Kiernan went out to take care of her sister- and brother-in-law at Montemarte, near Harpers Ferry.
He had thought of writing Kiernan and telling her that it was a damned fool place to be, but she wouldn’t have wanted to hear it from him. She probably wouldn’t have even opened a letter from him.
She would be so much better off back home. Harpers Ferry was destined to be in a tug-of-war, and that tug-of-war would affect the nearby countryside.
It already had. And his heart was beating too damned hard.
And Quinn was in the same position that he was. Quinn was a Virginian too. Sometimes it was damned confusing. A number of states had regiments fighting on both sides of the line. Quinn had moved in the same social circles as Jesse, and Quinn knew that Kiernan Mackay was important to him. Hell, Jesse thought wearily, half of the world has probably heard about that insane duel between him and Anthony.
He looked across at his friend. “Quinn, what are you trying to tell me?” he demanded. “There was a battle, but it’s over. And Kiernan Miller is all right, no civilians were hurt. Then—?”
“Have you ever met up with Captain Hugh Norris?”
Jesse frowned. Norris—yes, he had met the man at Manassas. He was from Maryland, and he was very bitter about the numerous “traitors” from his own state. He seemed to have a mean streak in him a mile long.
“I’ve met him.”
“His brother was killed at Bull Run, and he’s convinced that the Millers were responsible.”
Jesse’s brows shot up. “The Millers were responsible for the battle at Manassas?” Anthony and Andrew would have enjoyed hearing about their own importance in that one, Jesse reflected wryly.
“No,” Allan said. “This Norris thinks that a Miller firearm might have killed his brother because his brother died near the left flank, and the southern troops there were mostly from the western counties of Virginia.”
“You can blame it on whoever you want, I guess,” Jesse said. Tension began to ripple along his spine. Norris was out there, Kiernan was out there. It was a little more than an hour’s journey by train—when the trains were running. Otherwise, it was a very long ride.
Quinn continued. “I heard talk from some fellows who just rode in that Norris has a command there and that he has received some sort of blessing to burn down the Miller estate, Montemarte. I know that you and Anthony had some differences before he died, but—well, I know, too, that you were neighbors with the Mackay plantation. The way I see it, Anthony and his father are dead. There’s just his widow and those children out there now, and for the life of me, I can’t see how God can be on our side if we burn widows and children out of their homes. I can’t interfere—I’ve got my assignment here, guarding the capital. But Jesse, you’ve got a lot of freedom, and General Banks is out there, and Banks thinks highly of you. Maybe you can do something.”
Jesse’s mouth was dry. They’d be burning down lots of houses before the war ended, he thought. Both sides were already well versed in destruction, determined to keep important supplies and resources out of each other’s hands.
But Quinn was right. At this stage, there was little reason to burn a widow out of her house.
Even if that widow did have some control over the Miller Firearms Factories.
He had to convince someone of that.
“Thanks, Quinn,” he said briefly, then lifted his hat from his desk, and hurried along the corridor. Colonel Sebring was his immediate superior, and Sebring was a reasonable man.
Jesse burst into his office. “Sir, I need to take some operations closer to the field. Now. And I know right where I want to take them.”
Sebring looked up from his desk, startled. He leaned back, a bushy brow arching. “Now?”
“Now, sir. I’m requesting permission to leave within the hour. We’ve discussed this—”
“Oh,” Sebring said. “You’ve heard about the incident at Bolivar Heights. It was a skirmish, Jesse. Nothing major. You’re one of the best physicians we’ve got—no one stands up to battle conditions like you do, and no one works as well in the horrid conditions—”
“That’s exactly why I shouldn’t be in Washington, sir!”
Sebring leaned back. “I gather, son, that you want to take over the Miller estate—what’s it called, Montemarte?”
It was Jesse’s turn to be startled. Sebring was definitely a wise old coot. Montemarte was well known, and the Millers were well known. But Jesse had never imagined that Sebring might know about his involvement with either.
“Captain Norris is out there now, determined to burn the place down. I can see no reason for it. The factories are deep in the valley. And it wouldn’t be good politics either. A number of the counties in western Virginia are unhappy about being in the Confederacy. They’re holding a referendum on it next week. They may eventually secede from the state, form their own state, and move back into the Union. If we go around burning down their homes, it will never happen, sir.”
Sebring watched Jesse and twirled the curl on his snow-white mustache.
“I need you here, Jesse. But maybe that’s selfish on my part. I’v
e got civilian doctors by the score here.”
“Colonel,” Jesse reminded him, his teeth on edge, “I could ride regular cavalry, it would be my right—”
“Oh, hold your pants, young man!”
“I can’t, sir. Norris is in or near Harpers Ferry. I’m all the way out here.”
Colonel Sebring grinned. “You’ve got a point, you’ve got a point.” He was quiet for a moment, then reached for his pen to write out orders. “I’ll be sending you the most shot-up and torn of the men in the vicinity. And I’ll also be sending you a few who just need a little convalescence but can fight. And”—he paused, wagging a finger at him—“when it’s necessary to pull out, we pull out. You understand?”
“Yes, sir, I understand.”
Jesse took the orders Sebring handed to him and started to leave.
“Oh, Jesse,” Sebring said. He turned back.
“Don’t let your personal life interfere any more with your military life.”
Jesse paused. “If I’d allowed it to interfere, sir, I’d be on the other side.”
Sebring shrugged. “You’ve got me there, son.”
Jesse started moving again, but one more time, Sebring stopped him.
“Captain!”
Jesse turned back.
“You watch out for that girl too. There’s some who think she might be watching us mighty keenly—and passing on everything that she knows.”
“What?” Jesse demanded, startled.
“You heard me right, Jesse. You keep an eye on her. We haven’t shot any women yet that I know of, but who knows what this war might come to?”
Jesse nodded and hurried out before Sebring could stop him again.
He wondered how Sebring knew so much about events in Harpers Ferry.
Kiernan might well be watching the Union—it would be just like her. But it seemed that the Union was watching her too.
Damn, she’d be better off, much better off, if she’d just go home, back to Tidewater Virginia.
But she wasn’t going to go home—he knew that. There were no guarantees that any part of Virginia was going to be particularly safe now anyway. Virginia, after all, bordered the capital.
With raw anxiety, Jesse was determined to get out there quickly.
He felt as if he owed Anthony something too. He wasn’t sure why—or maybe he was.
He’d had Anthony’s wife.
But maybe he could save Anthony’s house for his family.
And Kiernan, the little fool. He didn’t know what the Union would do with women either. He did know that one Washington socialite, the very beautiful widow, Rose Greenhow, was imprisoned. She was suspected of having used her charm and contacts to procure information for General Beauregard that had brought about the rout at Bull Run.
There was talk that she would be brought up on charges of treason. There was only one penalty for treason—death.
“Oh, damn her!” Jesse said the words aloud. With long strides he returned to his desk to issue orders about his current patients to his clerk and, within minutes, he was out of the hospital.
He hitched a train ride for himself and Pegasus for a good part of the way out of Union Station. Once he was seated, he leaned back.
He was going to see Kiernan again. His heart raced, and a wildfire surged through him. It seemed so long ago that he’d seen her last. The chasm between them had never been greater. She had sworn to be his enemy, and she would not let him touch her in any way.
All he could do was watch out for her.
He gritted his teeth tightly together. He might not make it in time. By the time he arrived, the house might be nothing but ashes. And Kiernan might be on her way into the Shenandoah Valley, far from his reach. She could head for Richmond, she could head for home. Or she could choose to remain.
Was she spying?
I’m going to stop you if you are, he thought. I’m going to stop you for your own good.
Hell, the South didn’t need her—not now. The South was doing damned well.
At Manassas Junction, the Union had learned what Jesse had known all along—that the South would not be easy to beat.
Through the long hot nights of the summer, while he had tended to the men and boys wounded here, he had remembered the sight of that battlefield. There was nothing like war. Men who had been healthy and whole had been shot, torn, ripped, ragged and bleeding, lying atop one another in fields of dirt and blood—maimed, crying, dying.
No, there was nothing at all like war.
Manassas had been the true test. Since then, both sides had been learning warfare, learning in life those tactics that they had read about in books at the military academies. When to attack, and when to fall back. How to flank your enemy, how to encircle him. How to fight an army that outnumbered your own. How to win.
The common soldier didn’t need to know how to do any of these things. He had only to follow orders and to march without blinking into the thunderous volley of fire from his enemy. And when the volley was over, the soldier had to know when to thrust his bayonet so that his enemy might die, and he might stay alive.
The art of warfare was for the generals and the colonels. The South was filled with brilliant military men. Colonel Lee was a general now—recently put in charge of all of the men in western Virginia, Jesse had heard. And Stuart, his old friend, was General Jeb now. Jackson, that fine gentleman from the Virginia Military Institute, had been called “General Stonewall” ever since Manassas. The South was indeed in a strong position.
Manassas had been a fine test, and the test was still going on. The war was young, and men were still mastering the arts of it. In August, in the rolling hill country southwest of Springfield, Missouri, the battle of Wilson’s Creek had been fought. Like Manassas, it had been a clear victory for the Confederacy. The Union leader had been killed, and his troops had withdrawn. They had not just retreated—they had left most of the state to the Rebs.
In Virginia, men were skirmishing and battling in various pockets. The South had yet to invade the North, but Washington remained ringed by forces. There had been confrontations in a number of places. Union forces had moved against Confederates at Big Bethel, and there had been skirmishing at Piggot’s Mill, Wayne Court House, and Blue’s House, among others. The action had kept the hospitals filled.
The Rebs were doing all right. They didn’t need any help from Kiernan.
Jesse left the train in Maryland and rode until he reached General Banks with his orders from Colonel Sebring.
Banks frowned, wondering what Jesse was talking about at first. Then he remembered that he had given his captain permission to burn the house. “The Millers are hard-core Rebels, Captain Cameron. I’ve done my best to deal justly and properly with the civilian populations around here, but Captain, the Millers are an exception.”
“But the Miller men are dead, sir. The adults, that is. There’s a boy living there, a widow, and a little girl. The house would be absolutely perfect for a hospital. Sir, dammit, I can save more of your troops!”
Banks stared at Jesse, startled. Jesse wondered for a minute if he was going to be court martialed, but then Banks smiled. “Go on. Convince me.”
Jesse reminded him that western Virginia might come back to the Union fold and that kind treatment of the people—even Rebs like the Millers—might have an influence next week, when it came time for people to vote. Banks’s grin kept growing. At the end, Banks nodded, reaching for his pen. “You’ve sold me, Captain. The place is yours.” He frowned for a minute. “Just keep your eye on—”
“I know, sir. Keep my eye on Mrs. Miller. I’ve been warned.” And I know her, he added in silence. I know her very well.
Banks assigned him two orderlies and a small company of guards for his operations. But before the men could be assembled, Jesse was on the road again, very aware of the desperate need to hurry. When he reached the soldiers on the outskirts of Harpers Ferry, he learned that Norris and his men were already on their way to Montemarte
.
It was then that Jesse started to race up the cliffs and ragged terrain, anxious to beat Norris.
There was no scent of fire on the air. That was a good sign.
At last he burst upon Montemarte. He saw the ring of soldiers in blue surrounding the place. He saw Norris, mounted, shouting orders.
And he saw the lit torches, ready to be set to the kindling planted about the porch.
Even as he raced onward, he saw Kiernan.
She stood upon the porch, tall, slim, and regal, the very essence of everything beautiful and graceful and charming in the world, her world, their world, the world that they had both known. The sunlight from the dying day caught the tendrils of her hair, and it seemed ablaze itself, a color deeper, richer, more alive than even the true fires that threatened her existence.
She was dressed beautifully, elegantly, as if she had just stepped away from tea. White lace lay over a gown of silver blue, a gown with full, sweeping skirts, its bodice cut to reveal the elegant length of her throat and just a hint of the fullness and roundness of her breasts. Her eyes were magnificent—burning, blazing emerald. With every inch of flesh and bone and beauty, she was defiant. As she stood there, the men began to move toward the house with their burning torches.
“Halt!” Jesse roared. He leaned closer to Pegasus and raced harder to reach the house. “Norris, halt!” he thundered.
Norris saw him at last. He pulled his horse around and came toward Jesse, but by then, Jesse had nearly reached the house. He reined in hard, meeting up with Norris upon his bay.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Norris demanded furiously. “I’ve got permission to—”
“Not anymore. Read, Norris,” Jesse told him, producing his orders.
“A hospital!” Norris bit out heatedly.
“The place is mine. Do you understand?” Jesse demanded.