Gwyneth Atlee Read online

  Beating wings. Remembering, he shuddered. That was what had just awakened him, a dream of flapping, bone-hard wings striking at his chest and face. A legion of gaunt soldiers, attacking, all at her command.

  He could see her still, Yvette Augeron at the forefront, as wild-eyed as Joan of Arc on her mad assault. A maiden warrior, insane or inspired, depending on one’s view.

  “Mon Dieu has charged me to destroy you,” the nightmare woman had informed him, and he saw flames wheeling around the dark hub of her pupils. Bright flames, shooting off hot embers, like the fire aboard the Sultana. And with one wave of her sparking fingertips, her army of winged men flew at him, laughing as their bony appendages beat an agonizing rhythm against his living flesh.

  Their wings beat out her question: “Did she tell you she was carrying your child?

  ” Christ, no wonder he’d awakened cold and sweaty, his pulse roaring in his ear like the endless boom of artillery or the deafening concussion of the Sultana when she blew.

  Darien shuddered and pulled on his shoes, unwilling to lie down once more, to risk another dream. Another man might have brushed it aside, dismissed it. He decided instead to heed it as a warning that he’d rested long enough, that if he didn’t get up out of this room and enlist the colonel’s help to locate her, Yvette would find a way to destroy him, just as she had threatened.

  He could not afford to remain here one more minute, idly hoping that she’d drowned.

  As Darien came downstairs, he glimpsed Col. Isaiah Patterson in what once had been a parlor. Apparently the room had been hastily refashioned into an office.

  Patterson sat behind a scarred oak desk that looked as if it had been dragged into the home from who knew where. He appeared deep in discussion with one of the lieutenants that assisted him.

  Darien decided not to interrupt, but the colonel called out, “Get some coffee and come in here. This may concern you, too.”

  Recalling the kitchen’s location from the night before, Darien poured himself a cup of hot black liquid, then returned to the parlor. He sat on a mahogany armchair the narrow-face lieutenant pulled up for him with his one remaining hand. His empty left sleeve had been neatly pinned, a sight that had become increasingly common as the war progressed.

  As Darien took his seat, he glanced around the room, his eyes lingering a moment on the piano someone had shoved into one corner. It reminded him uncomfortably of the Augerons’ piano and the songs Yvette had sung. A relic of the former owners, an expensive-looking porcelain figure, lay broken on its dust-filmed top, and this time, Darien felt satisfied to think of the wealthy secessionists who had been banished from their home.

  A plump gray-and-white cat sauntered into the parlor as if it owned the place. Arching its back, it rubbed against Darien’s lower leg. Russell winced, noticing the white hairs it left on the fabric. He might have kicked the creature away, but he hesitated, unsure as to whether it was the colonel’s pet.

  The colonel lit a pipe, then glanced down at the cat. “The owners left her. We toss her out a dozen times a day, but somehow she always manages to slip inside again. Especially since the lieutenant here often leaves out a saucer full of milk.”

  The lieutenant appeared to be wrestling to suppress a sheepish smile. None too successfully.

  “Wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t gone and given birth to half a dozen kittens in a corner of the pantry,” the colonel said. “I should have had them drowned, but—”

  Patterson shrugged, as if to excuse a moment of weakness. But despite the admission and his snow-white hair, his face looked youthful and his gaze sharp. He adjusted the pipe and took several puffs. The air filled with fragrant smoke before he grunted satisfaction, and his voice turned serious. “My staff and I have been asked to help investigate this calamity. Frankly, this has all the hallmarks of some sort of boiler explosion, but since the assassination, we must be especially vigilant. Not all these secessionists are ready to give up and go home.”

  Darien sipped his coffee thoughtfully. Colonel Patterson, for all his kindness, seemed a shrewd man, far too astute to lie to lightly. And far too clever to allow him the opportunity to interview Yvette once she was apprehended.

  Patterson continued. “You said yesterday that you were following a Rebel conspirator, a murderess. Do you have any information to make you believe that she might be involved? Could she have had collaborators aboard the Sultana?”

  “I don’t believe she came aboard with any other Rebels, but she quickly befriended one of the Andersonville prisoners. He deliberately impeded my investigation and assisted her in escaping. And I know just where he is now.”

  Patterson nodded. “I’ll put as many men as you need at your disposal, Captain Russell. I want to question that young man, but first—alive or dead—let’s find that girl.”

  * * *

  Gabriel’s mind played over one rescue, then another, a third, and then a fourth, so that all of them survived this. So that both Yvette, his future, and the three friends that summed up all the good that came out of his past could be alive still. If only for a little while more, until he was forced to face a harder truth.

  No, he couldn’t do that to himself now, couldn’t allow himself to face that possibility. Not now, while the moans of those worse injured intruded on his dreams. If hopes could qualify as dreams, as he floated on this haze somewhere between wakefulness and sleep, somewhere he could lie, indifferent to his pain.

  His thoughts began to seep down where the pain dwelt, mostly in his hands, and he thought he could feel the reddened swaths of blisters that had formed on both their tops. They were dressed now in some sort of ointment that was supposed to soothe them and prevent infection.

  Recalling Andersonville, he roused enough to shudder at the idea of surgeons and attendants touching him while he remained as motionless as death.

  “Never let them work on you,” Jacob had advised him with a nod toward the hospital, a poorly constructed shelter inside the stockade. “That hellhole’s filthier than anyplace in camp.”

  Rumor had it that men the Confederate surgeons vaccinated to prevent disease had died after the arms in which they’d received the shots grew putrid with infection. Opinions varied on whether the Rebel goal had been to help or kill as many Yanks as possible, but almost to a man, the prisoners avoided medical treatment until they were too sick for it to matter either way.

  Although the Memphis Soldiers’ Home was run by Union personnel, the habit of distrust died hard, as did the suspicion that staying here might do more to make him sick than heal him.

  No use worrying, he thought. He was still too weak to do a thing about it right now, anyway.

  Instead, he set himself to planning how he’d search for his friends once he felt better, how he’d embrace Yvette once he found her. The images meandered, pleasant but disjointed, until they beguiled him into a deep sleep.

  * * *

  Darien Russell ran down leads half the day, checking every rumor of a female survivor. And rumors were what most proved to be. He’d heard early on of a possibility from a rescuer working at the Soldiers’ Home. No one, however, could remember where the woman had been taken. Finally, after Darien had interrupted every worker he could find, he encountered one attendant who thought he recalled a woman being taken to Gayoso Hospital.

  Darien traveled there in a carriage driven by an agent of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, who was working to identify both the survivors and the victims of the steamboat explosion.

  “There are, ah, a number of females among the, ah, deceased,” the agent explained. Avoiding Darien’s gaze, he fiddled with the reins, causing the chestnut horse in harness to toss its head in irritation. “I know you’re looking for your young lady in the hospitals, but have you considered, ah, other possibilities?”

  Russell hesitated. Instinct had prompted him to circulate the story that he was seeking his fiancée and not a fugitive in an attempt to garner sympathy. With so many seeking lost friends and r
elations, his request seemed ordinary. As he listened to the agent’s embarrassed question, the same instinct told him his dream had been true. Yvette Augeron yet lived and still sought to destroy him.

  He was a man who had learned to rely upon his instincts—or dreams, or destiny, or whatever it was he chose to call that voice that had so often whispered a warning. It had proven true too often to ignore.

  At length, he answered the somber-looking agent with the nervous hands. “If she is dead, it scarcely matters when I locate her . . . remains. But if she still lives, I must find her swiftly.”

  “God bless you in your search, then. I’m sure that seeing the face of a loved one will do her spirits the greatest good,” the agent told him.

  He was certain that it would. Darien suppressed a smile and wondered what effect his face would have.

  * * *

  Yvette decided to begin with the women she had met. Gayoso was close enough to reach on foot, and the nurses there could tell her where the dead of the Sultana had been taken.

  The day had dawned a fair one, lit by the mildest of spring sunshine. Yet Yvette’s feet barely lifted as she walked. For each step took her closer to finding Gabriel’s dead body—if it had been recovered for her to find at all.

  * * *

  Inside a corridor in Gayoso Hospital, Darien Russell stopped a gangly redhead trapped somewhere between youth and manhood. His tousled hair and bleary brown eyes made it appear he’d had no sleep since news of the disaster had first reached Memphis.

  “I saw a woman here. Nice-looking lady, and she did have dark hair, like you say. Can’t remember the name, though. Poor thing.”

  Darien disguised a smile with a sweep of his hand to straighten the whiskers of his beard. “She’s badly injured?”

  “Oh, no sir. Mainly just exhausted. But you see, she saw her husband drown, and he was holding on to the baby.”

  Once again, Darien marveled at Yvette’s resourcefulness. To invent such a tale would ignite a great deal of sympathy and help.

  He thanked his luck that he had not yet told his “lost fiancée” story, for it clearly wouldn’t hold up in the wake of Yvette’s lie.

  “She may be the family friend I’m seeking,” Darien told the redhead. “I’d consider it a kindness if you told me where she is.”

  The attendant bobbed a nod. A warm smile lifted the corners of his clean-shaven mouth, making him appear even younger than Russell’s earlier guess. “Nice to spread some good news for a change. Wait here and I’ll ask somebody . . . What did you say your name was?”

  Darien shrugged, attempting for all that he was worth to appeal to the attendant’s obvious good nature. “Couldn’t I just surprise her? Upset as she must be, she might not wish to see anyone, but I’m certain it will do her a world of good to encounter someone from home.”

  The redhead brightened. “I suppose it would at that. Wait here for just a minute. I see just the person who might know.”

  The attendant turned and walked away while Darien worked hard to ignore the moans coming from an open doorway, which made him think about the man pinned beneath debris aboard the Sultana. How must it have been to lie there, burning, to watch and feel death closing in? Oddly, he felt nearly as much remorse for having left that man than he had at having struck the woman for the lengths of wood. But there was no reason to feel bad, was there? In both cases, hadn’t circumstance demanded that he do what was needful to survive?

  He heard Grandfather’s voice, deep and reassuring “. . . the finest Russell ever . . . destined for great things.” But the memory twisted deep inside him—a wormlike thread of doubt steeped in the old solace.

  When he turned his back to the moaning, he saw Yvette—there to avenge the murdered. Yvette with fire swirling in those tigress eyes. His first instinct was to raise his arms to ward off the blows of bony wings.

  But reality carried away the last faint traces of the nightmare. He saw her arm lying limp inside a sling, and her dress hung like a castoff. Not even anger smoldered in her eyes, only defeat and desolation.

  Until she noticed him staring in her direction. Then anger sparked in her expression, followed rapidly by fear. Before he could either move toward her or shout, she spun on her heel and ran through the same door she’d just entered.

  He started after her, but a firm hand gripped his arm.

  “Mrs. Annis’s room is this way,” the orderly told him.

  Darien stammered at the interruption, “Wh-what?”

  “Mrs. Annis. The lady that you asked about. She’s still awfully distraught about her family, but—”

  “What? That isn’t her. Not Mrs. Annis. My friend is someone else. I have to go.” Darien knew the words were rushed and blunt, even rude. But he had neither the time nor the desire to invent elaborate excuses for this dolt.

  Jerking free his arm, he followed Yvette out of the hospital’s front door. He had to catch her before she managed to escape again.

  * * *

  Only moments after Yvette bolted through Gayoso Hospital’s front doors, exhaustion struck a thunderous blow. It hammered at her head and elbow; it loosened both her knees. Walking along the avenue, she’d felt only slightly tired, but the jolt of anger and fear, prompted by the sight of Russell, had burned away what strength she had recovered since her ordeal on the dark river.

  Still, she staggered forward, fearing at every moment the pounding of his feet on the pavement, the rasp of his breath as he drew near, the sharp jerk of her body, stopped by his restraining hands.

  His hands. Those same hands that had choked Marie. She could not outrun him. Not even terror could give her the heels of a racehorse or the wings of a swift falcon.

  Turning her head, she saw he hadn’t followed yet, but she knew beyond question that she had only seconds left to find some other avenue of safety: a friendly man to beg for protection, a doorway near enough to dart inside. Instead, she saw a hedge, one that ran alongside the building. Without pausing to consider, she hurried to it and hid herself as best she could behind its scratchy evergreen branches. Through the fragrant needles, she saw a plump young woman holding the hands of two young children. The older of the pair, a round little boy whose pudgy calves peeked out beneath his knee-length trousers, jabbered excitedly and gestured toward Yvette. When the mother tried to control her child, his flaxen-haired sister tottered on unsteady legs before sitting far too hard and suddenly. She gave a yowl of indignation more fitting for a steamboat whistle than a two-year-old.

  Yvette felt the blood drain from her face. Mon Dieu! This noise would give her away for certain!

  Before Yvette had the chance to reconsider her hiding place, she spied Darien Russell trotting toward the avenue. He stopped, looking this way and that, until his dark eyes came to rest upon the pointing child.

  * * *

  Why couldn’t that woman keep her two whelps quiet? The towheaded toddler’s shriek bored into his skull like nails raked across a slate board. Darien scowled disapproval at the mother, a woman whose dark brown sausage ringlets swung to and fro as she turned to tend first one child, then the other.

  She chanced to look up into Russell’s face, and her plump cheeks colored crimson. Darien watched the quick play of emotion transform her expression from embarrassment to irritation to outand-out anger— apparently at him, for some reason. As she scooped the squalling girl-child into her arms, he hurried past, unwilling to waste time in instructing this obviously unfit mother on managing her children.

  A brief search of the area yielded no trace of Yvette. Darien cursed her uncanny ability to elude him. But he saw no reason to keep looking. He had only to go back and watch the hospital, where he’d been told that her friend had been taken, and wait for her to come.

  * * *

  “Your hands,” the surgeon told him. “My God, we’ll have to take your hands.”

  Gabe could barely understand the man, for his voice was muffled by the folded handkerchief he kept pressed to his nose. A stench like
rotted meat explained the surgeon’s reasons. Gabriel had thought that Andersonville had nearly inured him to foul odors, but this one made him want to gag.

  He tried to pull the sheet up to cover his nose and mouth. But nothing happened. He couldn’t move his hands or even feel them. Peering down, Gabe saw them lying atop the white sheet, hideously black and swollen, the cracked and peeling skin oozing green.

  “We’ll amputate them both immediately,” the surgeon told him.

  Gabe opened his mouth to scream, but his voice was as dead as his ruined hands. The only thing that passed his lips was the reek of putrefaction, and he knew in that moment that the rot had taken hold inside as well, that no amount of cutting would be enough to save his life.

  “How are you feeling?”

  Gabe jerked awake at the voice, still shaking from the nightmare. He ought to thank the speaker for freeing him from the dream, but the man’s voice hung heavy with menace.

  Gabe opened his eyes wide, suddenly convinced this was the surgeon coming with a saw to amputate. Fresh pain rushed in at him, and he knew in an instant that his burned hands had not died. His vision blurred, he stared at the man’s face for half a minute before it swam into focus.

  It was not the surgeon who had come to inquire about his health. Instead, Capt. Darien Russell stood beside his cot, his expression hawklike, hopeful.

  He’s hoping that I’ll die.

  Shaking off the nightmare, Gabe took in a deep breath. “What do you want with me?” he asked.

  “Only information,” Russell told him. “I haven’t forgotten your earlier crimes, Mr. Gabriel Davis.”

  He must have looked surprised, for Captain Russell’s countenance turned smug.

  “You told the ward master your name. Did you forget that? Now I’ll know just whom to charge. Abetting a fugitive, assaulting an officer. But I’m not terribly interested in you, Private Davis. I want Yvette instead. Tell me where she is now, and you can live— or die— in peace.”