Surrender the Wind (33 page)

He had kidnapped her, taken her against her will, worked her like a common slave, and subjected her to humiliation in front of his men. How could one beautiful girl bear the weight of such cruelty without hating him?

“I have a lot of making up to do,” John sighed.

“Now tell me from the start about Mallory and how was Lucas helping you?” He listened, asking questions, going back to where they had left off that terrible day in Pleasant Valley. He listened to her talk about her home, her brother, her parents, her uncle and Jimmy O’Hara. The floodgates opened.

On into the hours of darkness they talked of a myriad of topics. She drew circles on his chest and he was already hard for wanting her again. “I’m sorry, Catherine.” His last words were smothered on her lips as she buried her hands into his hair.

Her hand moved from his cheek to his jaw. “Will you make love to me?”

John swallowed the poignancy of her words, a trusting caress across his soul. They shared an intense physical awareness of each other. John vowed he’d make her forget the misery he caused her. With a growl, he rolled her on her back and made delicious sweet love to her. Time passed slowly, for he made love to her again and again, and then held her while she slept. John exhaled and glanced at the pink light that slipped between the canvas flaps. He was overwhelmed by what had happened and never had he felt so content. That this beautiful woman had risked much, to taunt him, to suffer his wrath and to relieve him of his torments was more than he deserved. Without fear, she had reached into his soul and ripped out years of latent festering wounds, the liberation like a meteor exploding through the sky. That she did so proved without a doubt that she was far braver and wiser than any woman he had ever known.

That she loved him slammed into his chest.

John had ordered his adjutant that they were not to be disturbed, even if it were General Lee. For just once Rourke disregarded his responsibilities that included many points of consideration. The fact that there were four thousand men camped around them, his men, waiting for his command. The fact that a terrible war brewed like a tempest out there with a powerful enemy waiting to attack with hammer-like blows…and the fact that he had less than ninety hours to pull out and head wherever Lee decided. For once…for this one moment in time…he wanted freedom from strife and warfare.

All day they had made love and now Catherine took a lock of her hair and tickled his nose. He opened his eyes. He was already hard. “Wife, when will I satisfy your needs?”

She shrugged her tousled hair and, as far as he was concerned, he’d keep her in his bed looking just like that for the rest of his life.

“I’m the sole initiator?”

“You leave me thirsting and insatiable. If I had my way, I’d lock you in a tower and keep you hidden away so no man may feast his eyes upon you.”

“That’s an awful, overbearing, imperious thing to say, my husband.” She pinched his chest and he grabbed her hand.

“I’m an awful, overbearing, imperious man.”

“Tell me John, do husbands ever feel less than invincible?”

“No.”

“But John if…”

He didn’t let her finish her argument. His mouth covered hers hungrily—demanding the end of all conversation and with a low growl rolled her over and made swift, wonderful love.

They found a bottomless peace and satisfaction in the laziness of the day. They slept and made love over and over again. She dropped her cheek on his chest, snuggling as close as she possibly could. She sighed, caressing his neck and with an impish smile on her face, she asked, “Does your love include my embroidery talents?”

He laughed and nuzzled her hair. “Especially your embroidery talents. You are the most mulish, rebellious woman I have ever met. Big Samuel in red hearts?”

She giggled and moved slightly. John brought her back, holding her as if he let her go one inch she would vanish. “Hold still, my love,” he commanded. “I want to see to the conception of our first child.”

* * *

In the afternoon, Catherine went to the hospital to assist Dr. Parks. A jumble of leaden-billowing cloudlets tumbled against the rounded peaks of the Shenandoah. Across the hills they rumbled, lining up in parallel bands, deadly beasts against a dark lilac sky. The air hung heavy and the wind blew gusty swirls of fine dust in miniature tornadoes. The canvas tents strained against their moorings while soldiers eyed the angry firmament, preparing for the tempest to come.

Indifferent to the approaching storm, Catherine guarded a deepening peace growing inside of her. Since her parents’ death and brother’s disappearance, she had been detached and alone. Rourke made her feel connected, and happy, and part of something. She laid a hand over her heart feeling the profoundness of it all. As she wandered through the camp, the men nodded warmly. These were her men—men of the Northern Virginian Army and she loved them. How she hated war.

She had not seen her husband for an hour. She yawned, sapped from the night and day of passion they had shared together. John told her he did not want her to work anymore, in fact, he forbid it, wanting her rested and promising new activities at night. She had told him of the gratification she received from her tasks and he relented. To her disappointment, he had relieved Danny Boy as her guard, sending him off to needed picket duty.

She stooped to pick a bouquet of wildflowers to brighten the hospital and felt the heat of John’s gaze upon her. Across the camp and underneath a knot of oaks, he watched her over the shoulders of two of his officers, but it was the intimate unguarded message his eyes conveyed. She swallowed. Her breasts prickled and loins throbbed.
How could he do this to her?
Her gut clenched and a distinct warmth flooded the area between her legs as if he were making love to her right there, his mouth, his callused hands gliding over her body. There was a dreamy intimacy to their shared awareness, flames burning within both of them, and his officers pivoted to see the cause of John’s distraction. Swooning with mortification, she picked up her skirts and fled.

By the time she reached the hospital, the rain was spitting across the hilltops working its way down into the valley. Pattering hard against the muffled sound of canvas, streams of water channeled into rivulets where the water’s weight grouped and poured into a large funnel. The wood smoke drifted about the camp as it searched for a way out of the beating rain. Rain hurled in through the tent flap, causing the candles to flicker. The camp would be difficult to traverse for the earth would be mired in mud.

Far off in the storm-shaken afternoon, there came the sound of thunder or was it a gunshot? Catherine looked to Dr. Parks but he seemed unaffected, used to the sounds of war.

“One shot means nothing.” He allayed her fears. “A rain of shot would indicate a whole division marching down on us. Do not fear. Your husband keeps his camp well-guarded.”

She wiped her damp hands on her apron. Something was wrong. She could sense it. She read to a wounded soldier and wrote letters for another. The rain did not stop. Nerves danced in her stomach with the increasing deluge.

Fidgety, Catherine opened the tent flap, receiving a wave of rain, and soaking her skirts. In the distance, John and Lieutenant Johnson carried a bundle through the cloudburst, coming straight toward her. Rourke shouldered his way into the tent.

“Dr. Parks.” John commanded and laid a man on the table.

“Danny Boy?” She looked to John. “What happened?”

“Gut shot. His gun backfired. He’d seen movement, shot at it, but it was just a rabbit.”

“Dr. Parks, can you help him?” Catherine begged. Tears rolled down her cheeks. The boy was as pale as a sun-bleached boulder.

Dr. Parks cut the boy’s clothes off. Bile rose to her throat. She didn’t need to ask.

Dr. Parks shook his head “I can make him more comfortable.”

There was so much blood.

“Do what you can,” John said.

Danny Boy’s eyes fluttered open.

“How are you, Danny Boy?” John tried to smile.

“Intolerable, Sir.”

“Everything’s fine Danny. We have a real doctor this time,” John encouraged.

Catherine’s throat ached, moved by the depth of John’s feelings, his love for this boy, and hatred for his useless death.

“Is Mrs. Rourke here?”

“I’m here Danny.” She sat next to him, holding his cold hand while Dr. Parks did his best. The reality hit Catherine like a ton of bricks. He was bleeding to death and there was nothing anyone could humanly do.

Danny Boy started to cry. “Don’t think me a coward for crying. The pains are terrible.”

“Nonsense.” Catherine smoothed his hair back from his forehead.

“I know I’m dying. Can I talk to you alone?”

Catherine looked to John. He nodded and everyone left.

“I was scared only once in my life, and I’m ashamed to tell of it,” he choked out, his breathing rattling.

It was a confession. There was no priest, to empty his soul. “Go ahead. No one but me will ever hear what you tell.”

“The screams were terrible. I can still smell the smoke. Feel the heat from the fire. My mother and sisters inside. I tried to get them out, but men sent by the landowners kept laughing at me. I burned my hands but the door wouldn’t budge.” He grew silent for a moment as his life ebbed away from him. His blood pooled to the ground.

“When did this happen?” she asked and stood, cradling his head in her arms.

“I was six. In Ireland. The landowners wanted the back rent and come to make an example to others that didn’t pay. They nailed the windows and doors shut.”

The famine was terrible. Thousands had flooded New York and Boston from Ireland.

“I tried to open the door. I cried. I was a coward. That’s my sin.”

“No it is not.” she shouted from the injustice but before she could banish his guilt, his head fell sideways. He was dead. She cried for the darling Rebel boy in her arms. She hugged him and rocked him. What a horrible burden he carried. All the horrors of this war were nothing that matched the helplessness of a six-year-old’s world. Catherine cried for a very long time. She resisted when John pried her arms from Danny Boy’s body. Her dress was soaked in his blood. Her husband picked her up, cradled her head against his neck. Like soothing a young child, he whispered assurances to her. She put her arms around his neck and sobbed.

“Catherine you have an unaccountable need to save somebody. But it can’t be everybody. Only God holds such power.”

As John carried her across the camp, his men gathered in the slanting rain, a tribute to Danny boy who they mourned, and parted for them to pass. “Poor lass,” they said. They had all lost their hearts to the general’s wife.

John had risen early, reluctant to leave the warm arms of his wife, but was compelled to do reconnaissance work. He urged his horse ahead of his pickets, moving farther up the valley to scout the enemy. Although many farms had been stripped and torched by Yankees, many others escaped ruin. The land in the rich Shenandoah was heavy, like a woman ponderous with her approaching maternity. Peaches grew in groves waiting to ripen, hay was cut and laid in rows to dry, the wheat rose golden, ripening amber in the sun, and the corn was silking, growing so fast in the hot humid heat you could almost hear its thrust. Wooly lambs dotted the fields like so many clouds in the sky and up against the barns, weathered umbra red from lack of care, were snorting pigs, squawking fowl and cattle grazing in their yards. The mountains climbed high on either side, ancient sentinels, linearly endless in their protection of the Valley.

John missed home. Fairhaven. He missed the days of hard work, hams smoking in the sheds, baling hay high in the barns, training foals, and planting crops. He dreaded the continuation of the war. He was a farmer and destiny had made him a general.

Would Catherine like the life of a farmer’s wife? She was far more suited for the tea and opera houses and other accompaniments New York society offered. Would she be content to raise a brood of children far from the glittering circles of New York? Would she be content to live in the isolation of a lone country farm?

John left the road, riding down an embankment, leading to a stream. He allowed his horse to drink, his other men following suit. The hackles rose on his neck, the war hyper-trained his senses to a well-honed edge. He was being watched, movement in front of him—in the shadows of the forest. He caught the barest glimpse of a man. Hand signaling to his men, they dismounted, taking defensive positions. How many? He waited for a round of gunfire. A lone man? When no volley took place, John concluded that the fellow had something to hide. A spy?

“Who goes there?” demanded John. “What company?”

“Third Division Calvary Corps, Army of the Potomac,” said the man. “What Company are you?”

“Army of Northern Virginia.”

“You’re not Union Cavalry?”

“Nope.” Big Samuel spit a tobacco stream.

“Come on out, slowly if you please,” John commanded. Was this a ruse? Union Cavalry over the hill? A trap? He would have heard if Sheridan or Hunter were this far down in the Valley. Then again, communications didn’t always get through.

The man trudged across the creek, his arms raised and not at all happy. “I am unarmed.”

To John, he looked recognizable, but he had seen so many men during this damn war that everyone looked familiar. Still a nagging feeling gave him pause…the green of his eyes, color of his hair, and his defiant stance. John took an immediate dislike.

“You are now a guest of General Robert E. Lee.” John informed him. “Where is your horse and where is the rest of your Calvary unit?”

“I have no idea,” said the soldier which John doubted very much and his concern rose from the idiocy of the Yank’s remark.

“You cannot take me prisoner,” the Yank demanded. “I have to get home to New York. My sister is in great danger.”

John’s men laughed at the Yank. “Is she missing her parasol?”

“This is war, soldier, and your sister’s perilous condition will have to wait. Big Sam, hold him here,” John ordered. “The rest of us are going to take a little ride and circle the area to ferret out his comrades.