style="font-size:15px;"> “Abiah!” he called loudly, no longer caring who else might be here. “Abby—!”
“It’s me, Cap,” someone said from the hallway. Sergeant La Broie stepped abruptly into the doorway.
“I could have shot you, man! What the hell are you doing here?”
“Well, sir, I’m thinking maybe that’s something neither one of us ought to go inquiring into.”
Thomas looked at him. La Broie was regular army, a man of undeniable military expertise, who had been dragged back—kicking and screaming most likely—from one of the cavalry outposts on the western frontier. He had then been plunked down horseless in a company of infantry in one of Burnside’s Grand Divisions, thereby adding at least one person who knew what the hell he was doing—usually.
“I asked you a question, Sergeant,” Thomas said.
“I am trying to make it look like you ain’t deserted, sir,” the man said patiently. “The major got to wondering where you was. I said the colonel sent you someplace, so he sent me to fetch you. You might say I’m the one here officially.”
“How did you find me?”
“Weren’t hard, Cap. You been asking the refugees out of Fredericksburg if they knew anything about the Calder family ever since we crossed the river. And then this very fine Reb cavalry mount surrendered itself to me—a prisoner of war, you might say—and somebody pointed me in this direction to get to the Calder farm. She dead?” the man asked, jerking his head in the direction of the bed.
“Yes,” Thomas said.
“Then we got a grave to dig, I reckon. I’ll see what I can find to do it with—unless you want help checking the house.”
“No,” Thomas said. “There’s a door to the cellar at the end of the hall. There should be a shovel down there.”
“Ground’s froze hard, Cap. Going to take more than a shovel.”
La Broie walked away, and Thomas gave Miss Emma one last look before he followed him down the hall.
“Mind how you go, son,” La Broie said as Thomas started up the stairs. Under less-pressing circumstances, they might have had yet another one of their discussions about familiarity and La Broie’s penchant for always having the last word, but there was no time for that now. Thomas could say with certainty that La Broie was no hypocrite. He thought his duly elected captain was about as useful as a teat on a bull, and he took no pains to hide it.
Thomas made the search of the second floor quickly, room by room, trying to convince himself as he went that Abiah wasn’t here, that she must have gone with the other women and children and the elderly who had had to flee the army’s advance into the town by taking refuge in the surrounding woods. But he found her in the last room he looked. She was lying facedown on the floor, half in a patch of sunlight. She, too, was wrapped in a quilt.
“Abiah?” he said, kneeling down by her and expecting the worst. “Abby?” He gently turned her over.
Incredibly, she opened her eyes. They were bright with fever.
“Abby, it’s me,” he said, when she closed them again. “It’s me—Thomas. Look at me. It’s Thomas—”
“Thomas?” she said weakly, trying to lift her head. “Thomas, I…couldn’t get…the fire to…burn…”
“I’ll take care of it,” he said, moving to grab another quilt off the bed and covering her.
She closed her eyes, and he moved her slightly so that she was in the warmth of sunlight again.
“Everybody’s…gone, Thomas. Mother is…is…”
“I know, honey,” he said.
“I got sick…first. Mother was…looking after…me. But then…” Tears ran out of the corners of her eyes and down her face.
“Don’t talk. It’s going to be all right.”
He moved away from her to try to get a fire going in the fireplace. There were still some embers burning beneath the ashes, and it took him only a moment to coax them into flames. “Let’s get you back to bed,” he said.
“No, just leave me here. I hurt so…”
“Come on now,” he said, rolling her to him so he could lift her. She made a small sound when he stood up.
“I’m sorry about Miss Emma,” he said as he carried her to the bed. Abiah was so pale and thin. He had always thought her a pretty little thing, but now he hardly recognized her. And it wasn’t just the illness. It had been nearly two years to the day since he’d seen her last. During that time she seemed to have made a remarkable transformation from a gangly girl to a young woman.
“You shouldn’t be here, Thomas,” she said as he laid her on the high feather bed, but she clutched the front of his coat when he tried to straighten up again. “You’re…in the wrong army.”
“Well, that’s a matter of opinion,” he said.
She tried to smile. “You’ll have to…forgive me…if I don’t care to discuss that right now.”
He gently removed her hand from his coat front and covered it with the quilt.
“I could…hear the guns,” she whispered. “It was a…terrible battle, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Guire’s dead,” she said. “Did you…know that?”
“No. No, I didn’t know. When—?” He stopped because he didn’t trust his voice.
“It was at Malvern Hill. He…” She began to shiver. “I’m so…cold…”
He waited, but she didn’t say anything else.
“Abby?” he said after a moment. He needed to get more wood. He needed to see if he could find something in the house to feed her. And then he needed to decide what he was going to do with her. He couldn’t leave her here. She’d die here alone in the cold if he did.
“Are you…married, Thomas?” she asked abruptly.
“What?” he said, because the question caught him completely off guard.
“Guire wrote us you were engaged. Did you marry her?”
“No, I didn’t marry her,” he said, surprised that the letter he had written to Guire advising him of his matrimonial intent must have actually reached him.
“Good,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to die…coveting someone else’s husband.”
He frowned, thinking that he had misunderstood, and she suddenly smiled. “Poor Thomas. I’ve scandalized you…haven’t I? I know you always thought…I was a child. Do you…mind very much?”
“Mind?”
“That
