I was a child, when we had a farm there. My father worked in Washington then, but we would steal away to the countryside whenever he was free.”
She heard someone snort. Green. “Her father was a traitor,” the lieutenant said. “He went out West and was murdered. Indians, I heard. Good riddance.”
She stiffened at that. “My father was no traitor. He loved the West and chose to move us there to avoid a war he thought unjust. He went looking for a home where everyone was equal. He didn’t care about a man’s birth or color. He was a brilliant man,” she said passionately. “He worked for the government, for the people.”
“It’s all right, I know of him, Miss Gordon,” the newcomer said softly, soothingly. “And I was deeply sorry to hear about his death. Now, tell me, what did you see?”
“I saw the hollow in the woods. I heard the horses coming, and I saw movement in the trees. And then the men stepped out, thin, haggard, like starving dogs. And starving dogs can be desperate. When the horses came, the men were ready to attack. And then … it was as if a fog suddenly settled over the daylight, but the mist was red, the color of the blood being spilled…. I saw … I saw them die. Some were shot, others skewered through by bayonets. Then I saw the riderless horses cantering away, and I saw the ground, strewn with the dead, one atop another, as if in death enemies had at last made amends.”
“Do you dream often?” he asked.
She longed to see the face of the man who had come to speak so kindly to her. “No.”
“But you have done so before?”
“Yes.”
“And when you have these dreams, what you see comes true?”
“Unless it is somehow stopped,” she said. “I tried so hard … but no one would listen.”
She was startled, but not frightened, when he took her hands.
His hands were very large, callused and clumsy, but warm, and offering great strength.
“She’s a Confederate spy,” someone muttered venomously.
“Gentleman, a spy does not warn the enemy in an attempt to prevent death,” he said. “A spy would let the enemy march to their doom. Tell me,” he said to her, “do you wish to bring us down?”
“No. I am not a spy. I came home to marry—”
“A Reb,” the inquisitor interrupted.
“And instead I watched my fiancé and what was left here of my family die. But I do not pray for either side. I pray for an end to war. I teach—”
“Sedition,” the lieutenant stated.
“Piano,” she corrected dryly. “And I run a library and bookshop. My father was a great teacher, and I’m proud to say I learned everything I know from him.”
The gentle man spoke to her again. “Do you consort with the enemy?”
“If I do, I have nothing to tell them. And I consort with those who are not your enemy, as well,” she said, an edge to her tone.
“I believe you,” he said. “But now I would like to return to the subject of your dreams.”
“I believe that dreams come to warn us, but that if we learn to heed them, we can change the course of events.”
She heard the other man sniggering. “Did your dreams warn you about your father’s death, Miss Gordon?” the lieutenant asked, mocking her.
“Dreams do not always tell us what we might most wish to know,” she said.
“Tell me, Miss Gordon, have you ever changed the outcome of events after you dreamed them?”
“Yes. I … stopped a young man who was wounded from rejoining his unit. I had seen him lying on the battlefield, staring up at the sky with sightless eyes on the battlefield. He has since been reassigned to communications work.”
“Spying!” Lieutenant Green said.
She laughed. “He was a Union soldier, so …”
The quiet man spoke again. “What if we are not intended to change fate,” the soft-spoken man said.
“We are creatures of free will,” she said. “I believe that God helps those who help themselves. We read books. Perhaps we can learn to read our dreams, as well,” she said.
“Perhaps.” She heard him move his chair back. “It’s my belief, Lieutenant Green, that we are violating the rights of this young woman,” he said.
She didn’t know what she had said, but she had somehow satisfied him.
“What are your plans, Miss Gordon?” he asked, surprising her.
“I’ve been planning—to head west, to Texas. I want to find out what happened to my father,” she said.
“I think you’d do better to stay here,” the man said. “Safer.”
“I have to go,” she said simply.
“Have you received guidance on that matter in your dreams?” he asked.
“No. But I know in my heart that I must search out the truth,” she said.
“I understand. At any rate … Lieutenant Green, get that ridiculous hood off the young lady’s head.”
“I can manage, sir,” she said, shuddering at the thought of Green touching her. She quickly pulled the canvas sack from her head.
She looked up and found herself rising. She had never suspected … She had seen President Lincoln many times, and she had heard that he was haunted by dreams and sometimes driven to distraction by his wife’s obsession with the occult. But then, the poor man had lost two sons, and the challenge of keeping a nation together did not lessen a father’s grief or a mother’s desperation.
He stretched out a hand. She accepted it. “You will be in my prayers, young lady.”
“And you, sir, will be in mine.”
“That is something for which I will be eternally grateful.”
“Sir!” Green protested.
“Please see to it that Miss Gordon is escorted home. And if she needs help in any way, I know that you will be kind enough to see that she receives it. Right, Lieutenant?”
Green looked as if he were about to explode.
“Right, Lieutenant?” Lincoln repeated softly.
“Right, sir,” Green said.
Lincoln tipped his hat to her. “I wish you could meet Mary. She might be greatly encouraged by knowing you.”
“I am here for another fortnight, sir, and it would be my great pleasure to help you in any way.”
