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“He’s fine. He’s on his way to the rail lines, where the train’ll pick him up and run him to Fort Chattanooga. We had to make him go, but he went. I told him I’d come looking for you. ”
“That’s good. ” He closed his eyes a moment, as if concentrating on some distant pain or noise. “I think I’m going to be just fine, too. ”
“I think you might be,” she told him, helping him sit up. “Did you just crash here, or roll here? Is anything broken?”
“My foot hurts,” he said. “But it always hurts. My head does, too, but I reckon I’ll live. ”
She said, “You’d better. Come on, let me get you up. ”
“I remember there was a big snapping sound, and everything came apart. And I was flying. I remember flying, but I don’t recall anything else,” he elaborated while the Mercy and Ernie pulled him upright and to his feet. His cane was long gone, but he waved away their attempts to assist him further. “I can do it. I’ll limp like a three-?legged dog, but I can do it. ”
“I don’t suppose you’ve seen the captain, or the copilot, have you?” asked Ernie.
“No, I haven’t. Like I said, I went flying. That’s all. ”
“You’re a lucky son of a gun,” Mercy told him.
“I don’t feel real lucky. And what’s that noise?”
“It’s the line. It’s caught up to us. Come on, now. Other side of the road. Get down low, and make a dash for it—as much as you’re able. You landed on the Yankee side, so don’t go thanking your lucky stars quite yet. ”
But soon they were ducking and shuffling, flinging themselves across the road and back to gray territory, and not a moment too soon. The barricade-?makers were shouting orders back and forth at one another, extending the line, setting up the markers along the road. They ordered Mercy and the men to “Clear the area! Now!”
Larsen yelled back, “We’re civilians!”
“You’re going to be dead civilians if you don’t get away from this road!” Then the speaker stopped himself, getting a good look at Mercy. “Wait a minute. You a nurse?”
“That’s right. ”
“You any good?”
“I’ve saved more men than I’ve killed, if that’s what you want to know. ” She helped hoist Larsen down over the drop-?off at the road’s edge, leaving herself closer to the dangerous front line. She stared down the asker, daring him to propose one more stupid question before she kicked him into Kansas.
“We got a colonel with a busted-?up arm and chest. Our doctor took a bullet up the nose and now we’ve got nobody. The colonel’s a good leader, ma’am. Hell, he’s just a good man, and we’re losing him. Can you help?”
She took a deep breath and sighed it out. “I’ll give it a try. Ernie, you and Larsen—”
“We’ll make for the rails. I’ll help him walk. Good luck to you, ma’am. ”
“And to the pair of you, too. You—” She indicated the Reb who’d asked her help. “—take me to this colonel of yours. Let me get a look at him. ”
“My name’s Jensen,” he told her on the way between the trees. I hope you can help him. It’s worse for us if we lose him. You, uh . . . you one of ours?”
“One of yours? Sweetheart, I’ve spent the war working at the Robertson Hospital. ”
“The Robertson?” Hope pinked his cheeks. Mercy could see the flush rise up, even under the trees, in the dark, with only a sliver of moonlight to tell about it. “That’s a damn fine joint, if you’ll pardon my language. ”
“Damn fine indeed, and I don’t give a fistful of horseshit about your language. ”
She looked back once to see if Larsen and Ernie were making good progress away from the fighting, but the woods wouldn’t let her see much, and soon the cannon smoke and barricades swallowed the rest of her view.
Jensen towed her through the lines, guiding her around wheeled artillery carts and the amazing crawling transporters. She gave them as wide a berth as she could, since he told her, “Don’t touch them! They’re hot as hell. They’ll take your skin off if you graze them. ”
Past both good and poorly regimented lines of soldiers coming, going, and lining up alongside the road they dashed, always back—to the back of the line—following the same path as the wounded, who were either lumbering toward help or being hauled that way on tight cotton stretchers.
Back on the other side of the road, on the other side of the line, she heard a mechanical wail that blasted like a steam whistle for twenty full seconds. It shook the leaves at the top of the trees and gusted through the camp like a storm. Soldiers and officers froze, and shuddered; and then the wail was answered by a returning call from someplace farther away. The second scream was less preternatural, though it made Mercy’s throat cinch up tight.
“It’s only a train, out there,” she breathed.
