Ashes in the Wind Read online

  Alaina stared in mute surprise as Cole rolled and with a growl came to his feet. Spitting chafe, the captain recognized his assailant and flung out a hand to catch the thin arm as Alaina attempted an escape.

  “You bumbling little roughneck!” he barked. “What are you trying to do?”

  His fingers bit painfully into her arm, and Alaina’s fear came back full force as she realized that in her haste she had left on her corset and feminine undergarments. The soft chemise held her bosom to a full roundness while the corset tightly cinched her small waist. If he touched her, there was no way she could explain it away. Her arm ached under his tight grip, and this manhandling was more than Alaina had ever taken from anyone. Her own orneriness came to her defense.

  “Get your hands off me, Yankee!” she shrieked. “You got no right to lay a finger on me!”

  Hotly irate, Alaina snatched her arm away and was immediately afraid she had left some skin behind. Some meager sense returning, she hunched her shoulders in the outsized shirt and crossed her arms to rub the offended member. She moved away from him slightly, into a deeper shadow of the barn.

  Cole was somewhat chagrined at his own quick temper. “I’m sorry.” He began to dust himself off. “I’m sure it was an accident and—” A sudden thought struck and he looked up sharply. “It was an accident, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Alaina relented a bit. “I didn’t see ya in the dark.”

  “What were you running away from, anyway?” Then Cole chuckled. “I’ll bet you saw me and were afraid I’d come to fetch you for extra work.”

  “I ain’t afraid o’ work,” Alaina snapped testily.

  “I guess you’re not, at that,” Cole conceded. He unbuttoned his blouse halfway down, folded the collar under, and rinsed his face and hands under the pump. “I brought my horse around for a drink before I headed back. Actually, I just have a few hours off and thought I’d pay my respects to your cousin.” He missed Alaina’s expression of disgust as he splashed water onto the back of his neck, then wiped it dry with a handkerchief. He retrieved his gauntlets and glanced about for his hat. He found it in the dust just outside the stable door. Brushing it off, he came back to Alaina.

  “Since no one else seems to be home, I’ll be going back. You can inform Roberta of my visit.” He watched as the lad moved away, the slim shoulders oddly hunched. “What’s the matter?”

  “You hurt my arm,” Alaina snapped, her clear gray eyes narrowed and accusing.

  “I’ll apologize for that—if you will apologize for knocking me down.” He waited, his bright blue eyes gleaming with amusement.

  “I guess,” was the most Alaina would relent. She was considering how well she might enjoy swinging a heavy boot against the bluebelly’s rear.

  Suddenly a perplexed frown came upon Cole’s face. His brow raised wonderingly as he bent toward Alaina and sniffed. “What in the world? Have you taken to a lady’s way?”

  Alaina’s heart gave a frantic leap and lodged in her throat until he continued. “You smell as if you bathed in a tubful of perfume.”

  “Oh! Well!” Alaina stumbled in search of an explanation, then gave a small, reluctant shrug. “It’s Roberta’s. She said I stunk too much and dumped some of her rosewater on me.”

  Cole began to chuckle. “I begin to understand why you ran away from me.” He gathered his horses reins, set his Hardee hat jauntily upon his head, and rebuttoned his blouse. “Rest assured, Al, your secret is safe with me. But all the same, I wouldn’t come to the hospital smelling like that if I were you.”

  Alaina bestowed upon him an unappreciative glare. She followed him to the front of the house but only because she wanted to make sure that he left. They were rounding the corner of the house when the Craighughs’ carriage halted before the stoop.

  “Why, Captain Latimer,” Roberta called gaily and waved. “What brings you way out here today?” Her smile froze into a fixed grin as she saw Alaina bringing up the rear. “Don’t tell me you came out here to see little bitty Al.”

  Cole gallantly offered a hand to assist her to the ground. “I had a few hours free and thought I might find you at home.”

  “Ahem!” Angus cleared his throat loudly and descended to help his wife down. “I’m afraid our daughter is committed to joining us this afternoon, Captain.”

  “But, Daddy!” Roberta moaned and was bent to argue, but her father’s angry look silenced her. She dared not continue for fear of creating a scene that would discourage the captain from coming again.

  “We plan to visit friends, and they asked especially that Roberta join us.” It was an outright lie, but he was not of a mind to bend to his daughter’s whims again and allow this man to eventually become his son-in-law. He granted his daughter almost everything she asked of him, but her hand in marriage to a Yankee was something else entirely.

  “I hope you have not been waiting overlong, Captain.” Roberta managed to smile dazzlingly. She had gotten around her father before; this presented no mean challenge. Only time was needed.

  “Al entertained me quite fairly,” Cole chuckled, “until I vow I could bear no more of his attention.”

  “Al?” Roberta hurled a glare in the lad’s direction, immediately suspicicus. “What has he been—ah—telling you?”

  “I’m sure he will relate the tale with relish, thus I leave the telling to him.” Cole paused and glanced at Angus’s stiff back. The elder Craighugh’s hospitality appeared very limited, and not caring to start a family quarrel over his presence, he spoke rather ruefully. “I’m afraid, however, that I must be going. I have overstayed as it is.”

  Regretfully Roberta watched him to the saddle and smiled demurely as he touched the brim of his hat. “I bid you good-day, Miss Craighugh.” He glanced at Al. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  With a clatter of hooves he was gone. Roberta waited until her parents had entered the house, then turned on Alaina in a fury. She managed to keep her voice low but it was sharp and demanding.

  “Just how well did you entertain Captain Latimer? You little bitch, if you’ve told him about me—”

  “My goodness! I don’t know what got into me.” Alaina feigned the innocence of a simpleton. She was well aware of what her cousin feared and if, for a brief moment, she delayed her answer for the sake of revenge, it was understandable.

  “Alaina MacGaren! I’ll tear that ragged mop out of your head by the roots!”

  The younger girl shrugged. “It’s not what I said but what I did.”

  Roberta’s eyebrows raised sharply, her thoughts running rampant.

  “We had a tussle in the carriage house.” Alaina licked her lips as if savoring the torment she was putting her cousin through. “He even liked my perfume.”

  “Lainie!” Roberta nearly screeched. “You’re teasing me again! I just know it! And if you don’t tell me just exactly what happened, you’ll be sorry.”

  “Oh, calm yourself,” Alaina chided. “You look as if you’re about to explode. I only knocked him flat on his face.”

  “That better be all!” threatened the woman. “That just better be all!”

  Chapter 9

  IT was cooler now; the awful heat of late autumn had fled. Alaina’s hair had grown to a length that brought stares of disapproval from Cole Latimer, and reluctantly she lent herself to Aunt Leala’s talents at trimming hair. The short, neat style proved very becoming to her small face, accentuating the beauty of the large gray eyes, the slim fragile features, and high delicate cheekbones. With the improved diet, her slight, willowy frame began to ripen beneath her baggy garments but she continued as before, uncomfortable in her disguise as boy, yet unable to discard it.

  The day was Monday, and as was their custom, the surgeons gathered early in the morning to tour the wards. This was, in part, a time meant for the men to air their complaints and indispositions. However, as was his custom, Major Magruder stationed himself close at the general’s elbow with a readied pen and a warning glance for those who would cr
iticize the staff overmuch. It was also the time when the doctors made their decisions on which soldiers were well enough to yield their beds and return to the limited-duty units.

  Alaina had barely begun her labors when a brief column of gray-clad soldiers, once more in irons, came shuffling down the stairs. Doctor Brooks fought a running battle to keep these men until they were fully recovered, realizing that if they were sent to the prisons in a weakened state, it was tantamount to a sentence of death. As she watched, Alaina felt an ache within her chest. For most of them, the war was over. Unless they managed an escape from the well-guarded Yankee prisons, they would see no more of battle, but would spend their days fighting the privation of brutal confinement. As the prisoners passed, a few of them grinned or spoke to her. The burly sergeant, whose leg she had threatened, raised his clenched fist.

  “Buck up, lad.” He smiled at the dirty-faced chore boy. “The war ain’t over yet.” His words rang hollow and flat, and it was more as if he tried to cheer himself.

  Alaina struggled to find some worthy retort, but then they were gone, and the hall was empty, though the rhythmic jangle of linked iron continued to echo down its length. Such high hopes had gone to war with these men only a swift year or two past. Her throat felt tight, and tears threatened to course down her cheeks. Quickly she brushed at her eyes, then glanced up to find Cole watching her. The glare she tossed him hardly did justice to the bitterness that raged within her. At the moment her hatred of Yankees was supreme. Watching the prisoners file past had been like seeing her own brother being taken away in chains. She hated this war! She hated the enemy! She hated Cole Latimer most of all!

  Cole wisely turned his back and continued with his duties. He would let time be the balm for this ragamuffin boy. Whatever he said now would only serve to deepen the rancor of the lad.

  Much to Alaina’s consternation, the morning also brought an influx of prisoners to fill the emptied beds. Several were brought in on litters and taken into surgery. Among them was a young Confederate cavalryman who had taken a minié ball in his leg and was left with a jagged, gaping wound that formed a gruesome marker leading from mid thigh to knee. General Mitchell had departed the hospital after the morning inspection, leaving Major Magruder in charge. It was the latter’s decision, along with Major Forbes, to amputate the leg near the hip since they were unable to extract the lead shot that had lodged in the vital joint. Cole learned of it from a casual comment made by an orderly and made haste to join his superiors.

  “It’s got to come off!” Magruder declared angrily after the younger man had offered his opinion.

  “Dammit, Major!” Cole struggled a moment with his own rising ire and managed to continue more calmly. “It’s a man’s leg, not the hindquarters of a mule! There’s no infection.”

  “The shot’s in there deep, and it’s only a matter of time before lead poisoning sets in. There is no way we can get it. Major Forbes and I have already tried.”

  “Then try again,” Cole urged. “At least that much you can do.”

  “We’ve got other wounded to attend to,” Magruder responded sharply. “Some of our own men are waiting. We can’t waste the time.”

  Cole became incensed. “There are none who can’t wait. A minor wound here and there, that is all. Gentlemen, this man may very well need his leg after the war. Are you butchers to be so callous about it?”

  “Butchers!” Magruder’s reddened face betrayed his outrage. He had never cared for this upstart who seemed to consider his own opinion higher than those of more rank and experience. The man was obviously unaware of the many matters even now pressing; the sheer weight of administration alone was awesome. This only roused his hatred of the captain until it coiled like a savage viper within his belly. He would not stand for this interference and questioning his judgment.

  “Captain, if you do not desist, I’ll put you on report for insubordination,” he threatened. “Your sympathies for the enemy will be the end of your career. Now, I order you to get out of here. We have work to do.”

  Abruptly Cole left the room, nearly overturning Alaina who had been scrubbing the hall floor nearby. The argument had been impossible to ignore, and she gave no excuse as she glared at the captain for a second time that day.

  “You’re jes’ gonna stand there and let ’em do it, ain’tcha?”

  “Go fetch Doctor Brooks,” Cole snapped sharply. “And quickly!”

  Alaina needed no other urging. Despite the heavy boots, she sprinted across the hall and flew up the stairs to return in a brief moment with the puffing, wheezing doctor. Snatching the old man’s arm, Cole drew him into the room where Magruder stood ready to start the amputation.

  “Gentlemen, if you proceed further,” Cole interrupted curtly, “I believe you will have to answer to Doctor Brooks and be held accountable for the inhumane treatmeat of a prisoner.”

  Major Magruder threw down the scalpel and incredulously demanded, “Do you threaten me, Captain Latimer?”

  “No, Major,” Cole replied almost gently. “But neither do I believe that the surgeon general will tolerate such treatment of a prisoner-of-war.”

  “You take too much upon yourself, Captain,” Major Forbes warned.

  Cole calmly folded his hands behind his back. “Perhaps I do, sir, but I can only hope that if a similar decision ever has to be made on my behalf, someone will take into consideration that I greatly value my legs.”

  Magruder snarled, “If you have so much love for this Johnny Reb, Captain, then you and your good Southern friend can try to save his damn leg, though it can well mean the man will lose his life for it.”

  Cole Latimer did not refuse the challenge. With Doctor Brooks’s assistance, he set to work. Alaina kept reappearing at the door where the captain worked, anxious to know if the young soldier would survive. When Cole finally emerged from the room, he found the ragged lad close by. The clear gray eyes anxiously questioned, and it was a long, thoughtful moment before Cole replied, “He’ll live.”

  “And the leg?” Alaina asked, fearing the worst.

  Slowly Cole smiled. “He has that, too.”

  Cole saw a quick flash of white teeth in a happy grin and was sure the lad moved toward him a step, then the usual scowl returned to mask it all. Al gave a short, embarrassed nod and hastened back to her duties, leaving Cole much bemused. The boy was obviously reluctant to show any softer emotion such as gratitude and seemed to find ease in an almost perverse belligerence.

  Bobby Johnson’s condition had improved somewhat. The dosages of morphine were being continually eased. But whenever Alaina paused beside his bed and tried a comment or two, the young soldier only rolled his head away and refused to answer her.

  It was early on a storm-drenched morning when Alaina found him struggling with pen and paper, trying to write a letter. As she dusted, she worked herself around to where she could see what his efforts had produced. Dark splotches of ink marked the sheet of paper and the lines of writing ran together uphill and downhill.

  “They ain’t gonna be able to read that,” she offered.

  The writing stopped abruptly, then slowly his hand crumpled the paper. With a sudden sob, Bobby threw the wad, bouncing it off the wall.

  “Hey, Yankee! You’re making a mess fer me to clean up.”

  The retort came sharp and bitter. “You Johnny Rebs made a mess of me that nobody can clean up.”

  Alaina snorted. “The graveyards are full of worse messes ‘an you, and it ain’t jes’ bluecoats neither.”

  The soldier rocked his head listlessly on the pillow. “I’d rather be dead. I’ll go home now for my wife to bring me meals all my life. I can’t ask that of Jeannie! What woman wants a blindman for a husband?”

  “Seems to me, Yankee, she’d be mighty happy jes’ to have ya home.”

  “My name isn’t Yankee!” he barked.

  “Yeah, I know. It’s Bobby Johnson. We met outside the surgery ward.”

  A long, quiet pause intervened. “Are you
Al?”

  “Yup.”

  Bobby Johnson heaved a sigh. “I guess I’ve had too much time to feel sorry for myself.”

  Alaina stared down at the young man, yearning to console him but afraid to get involved. Still, she was led to do the kinder thing. “I ain’t much fer reading, but sometimes I gots nothing better to do. Would ya like me to read to ya sometimes?”

  “That would be nice.”

  In the next several days Alaina rushed about to finish her work so she could sit beside the young soldier to read to him. He began to respond to her quick humor and even conceded dictating a letter to his mother and another to his wife. It was not until she had read the last page of a short novel and folded the book that Alaina glanced up and saw a troubled look on Bobby Johnson’s face.

  “What’s the matter? You didn’t like it?” she asked, somewhat disheartened.

  “I liked it,” Bobby replied slowly. “But I noticed as you read that your voice softened. I would guess that you’ve been well schooled despite your attempts to hide it.”

  Alaina knew a sudden cold chill and held her breath, realizing she had blundered badly.

  “I also know that you are no Al.” He reached out a groping hand to take her wrist. “You are small—a small woman. Yes! Yes! You are a girl! Where did you come by the name of Al?”