Chapter 2

April 1862

Leesburg, VA

Lou

"Come on, Lou. We don't want to miss it!"

Kid squeezed her hand tighter and pulled her hurriedly through the tall grass that followed alongside the winding river. The light from the setting sun reflected playfully off his rumpled hair and he laughed from sheer amusement at her attempts to keep up. She had already tripped on the hem of the blue dress she wore several times.

"I'm coming, Kid," she laughed, trying to focus on the position of her feet in relation to the bottom of her skirt. "But we won't get there any faster if I end up falling on my face, you know."

Kid flashed a smile at her but didn't slow his pace. "I'm kind of surprised. Always figured you could outrun me."

She laughed again and tugged at the simple fabric with her free hand, willing it to stay as far off the ground as decently possible. "On a horse I could," she replied. "But not running over rocks and sticks wearing this thing."

She wasn't prepared for Kid's abrupt halt and crashed hard into his shoulder when he suddenly stopped running, nearly toppling over from the impact.

"What in the world?," she exclaimed, reclaiming her hand from his and rubbing the spot on her cheek where they had collided. "That really hurt! Is there some…" She stopped mid- sentence when she caught sight of the look in his eyes.

Kid was looking intently at the front of her dress, as if he had just noticed what she was wearing. And something in his expression betrayed his disapproval.

"When did you put that on?" he asked in a tone of utter bewilderment.

Lou was confused. "What are you talking about? When did I put what on?"

"This." He reached out and touched her sleeve. "It isn't appropriate, Lou."

Lou's eyes traveled to the place on her arm where Kid still had his hand and felt the heat rise in her cheeks. She was covered from neck to toe. Why he hadn't noticed what she was wearing until she made a passing comment about it, and why he suddenly deemed inappropriate a dress that he had complimented several times before, was beyond her.

"Kid," she began, the irritation evident in her voice, "I don't know why…"

"It just isn't the right color, Lou," he interrupted, as if it were obvious. "Everyone else will be in black."

"Black? What are you talking about? Where…" The words died on her lips as she suddenly noticed the silence that seemed to engulf them. She looked around anxiously. There was no longer any sound from the river. Only a deafening quiet. Where had it gone? She took note of Kid's sandy hair. The sunlight that had been bouncing off it only a moment before had become a darkening shadow that seemed to obscure her view of him. She glanced up. The golden hues of sunset had turned into a stormy twilight.

She shivered.

"Kid, where are you taking me?"

But Kid was no longer looking at her. He wasn't even near her. She could just make out his shadow standing at the edge of a clearing, and she stumbled after him, more afraid of being left behind than going wherever it was he was taking her.

She caught up to where he stood and touched the back of his sleeve tentatively. Something was wrong. She had expected to feel the warmth of Kid's flesh beneath her fingertips but felt the loose folds of fabric only. The arm that should have been there was gone.

She knew who it was before he whirled about and grabbed her with the only hand he had, but she was powerless to run.

Hopkins.

She tried to scream, but the sound caught in her throat and, noiselessly, he dragged her to the outskirts of a small town that seemed to appear as suddenly as he had. What had been a vast emptiness only a second earlier was now a bustling street with people shoving their way in an almost violent processional toward the center of town. Hopkins' steel grip on her arm only tightened as the bodies pressed closer, a crushing and pulsing mass that seemed more symbiotic than individual.

There was something familiar about the town, but Lou couldn't remember the name of the place or when she had been there. Maybe she never really had. There were lanterns hung along the sides of buildings that only served to lengthen the shadows of the phantom-like crowd and the smell of something that turned her stomach, a chemical smell. It made her dizzy. She thought she might be sick.

She wanted to yell for Kid, to cry out for him to come, but she knew he wouldn't. She was trapped in Hopkins' merciless hold and Kid was gone, lost somewhere on the other side of the crowd, held in the silence that had preceded his disappearance.

The rhythmic movement of the crowd began to slow as they reached the destination they sought. Lou strained her neck above the surrounding bodies to see what it was that held their attention. In the center of town she saw a small wooden platform. It looked rough, like it had been erected hastily and used frequently. A set of stairs led from one of the side buildings to the top of the makeshift stage and two men huddled near the building's door, appearing from this distance to be stationed there as guards.

She could see that one of the men, the shorter one, held a rifle close to his body, twitching his fingers in a way that made Lou think he was eager to pull the trigger. She couldn't see his face, but something in his stance suggested he was young, not much older than her. The other man was taller, broad through the shoulders with a thick mustache that gave his face the appearance of a perpetual scowl. There was something in his features she recognized, but her eyes were drawn instead to the thing in his arms. Where she would have expected a gun or weapon of some sort, he appeared to carry a bundle of blankets. He cradled it delicately and she squinted to get a clearer picture. She didn't need to. The next second she saw a tiny fist emerge from the top of the blanket and heard the shrill cry of a newborn. He held a baby.

Something in her wanted to snatch the child out of the man's arms, though he didn't appear to be intent on harming the little one.

She must have made a movement in the man's direction because she felt Hopkins' fingers tighten around her upper arm and for the first time he spoke.

"Do you ever think you'll make something so beautiful?"

Lou's breath caught in her throat at the words he uttered. The very words she herself had once spoken sitting on a corral fence with Jimmy. Her eyes flew to Hopkins' face. His stare was cold, but penetrating, like he could see through her fear to the memories she had tried long ago to lock away. He seemed to know something about her.

She bent her head quickly, unable to bear the vulnerability his gaze had elicited and noticed she no longer wore the same dress. The delicate blue had changed into a midnight black, and with sudden clarity she remembered where she was. But why would Hopkins be here? He hadn't been there that day.

She lifted her head slowly and turned to the man with the baby. It was him.

Elias Mills.

He was looking directly at her, his gaze as penetrating as Hopkins' had been, but without the cruelty. He would know this place too. It was here he had died.

With one fluid motion she wrenched her arm free from Hopkins' grasp. He must have been done with her because he opened his fingers without resistance and made no move for her as she pushed her way through the throng to the place where Elias stood.

"Do you remember me?" she asked when she had reached him, her voice heavy with an emotion she didn't quite understand.

He turned at the sound of her voice and gave a smile of recognition. The creases around his eyes contracted when he did.

"Did you decide?" he asked simply.

She wrinkled her brow in confusion. "Decide what?"

He tone was kind, but his smile faded. "You had a choice to make."

She shook her head. "Nobody's ever given me a choice," she disagreed.

"You have one now."

She opened her mouth to reply when the baby he still held in his arms let out another cry.

"Who's baby is that?" she asked, forgetting for a moment what she had been about to say.

"You can't hold her," he stated flatly.

"Why not?"

"Because you'd kill her."

He said it matter-of-factly, with no hint of accusation in his tone, but the words cut her like a blade. She wanted to argue, to assure him she would be careful with the child, but the acrid taste of guilt was heavy on her tongue and no words could form around it. Besides, she knew that if anyone could see through the thin veneer of feigned innocence, it was Elias.

She wrapped her arms around herself in a vain attempt to hide, as well as gain some measure of composure, and waited for him to speak. But he was silent, watching her intently, as if they were actors in a play and the next line belonged to her.

She took her eyes off him and the squirming baby in his arms and glanced around at the crowd. They seemed to be growing in their excitement as they kept their ghostly faces toward the platform she had noticed earlier. Their voices had become softer but more urgent. The thing they were expecting was imminent.

"What are we waiting for?" she asked Elias, fixing her gaze in any direction but his.

"The show."

"Show?"

Before Elias could reply, Lou saw a door open in one of the buildings that lay at the bottom of the steps. The scarlet light that shone from the doorway flickered manically, as if the room were on fire, but the man who emerged into the shadowy street seemed not to notice or care what was behind him.

He was not an overly large man, but something about his walk made Lou believe he was the kind of person who could fill a room simply by being present. He had a narrow face and dark eyes with a closely cropped reddish beard. He was dressed in all black with a small bowler perched atop his head. A long scar ran along his left cheek, from just under his piercing eye to the top of his jawbone.

He swaggered to the center of the street and the audience began to cheer loudly when they saw him.

He raised his arms above his head and the crowd fell silent.

"Dearly beloved," he bellowed. "We are gathered here this evening to witness that which is beautiful in its valor, glorious in its sacrifice, and sacred in its atonement. There are those in this life called to pay for the sins, the blood, of others. They are the ones who have bent their knees to the iron will of destiny, bowed their heads to the fate they must endure, and risen boldly to the foreordained conclusion of their lives. They do it not for themselves, but for those they hold most dear."

Lou looked around and tried to gauge the crowd's reaction to the man's words. She didn't comprehend exactly what he was promising they would witness, but a knot of foreboding had settled beneath her ribs. Something about him spoke of duplicity and destruction.

The man, whose face had become half hidden in the shadowy fire that still raged in the door from which he had emerged, began to walk with purpose and determination toward the spot where Lou stood. She was both fascinated and repulsed.

"And who are those for whom they face the madman unarmed?" he asked the crowd. "Is it not the weak? The foolish? The cowardly? The Judas in their midst whose kiss is merely a betrayal of a loyalty that no longer exists?"

The man stopped directly in front of Lou and she could feel the eyes of everyone upon her, their collective gaze a cloak of guilt descending thickly over her shoulders. She instinctively reached out her hand for Elias, as if he could offer some sort of solace, but he was gone, and with him the baby whose identity she'd never learned.

The man reached for her wrist and pulled her easily into the center of the street. She didn't struggle but let him lead her wherever it was he intended she should go. He stopped when they were directly below the platform and she was surprised to see that a large object had appeared upon it. Somewhere deep inside she realized she'd been expecting gallows where a long rectangular black box now stood.

The man, whom Lou now recognized as being some sort of magician, turned her to face the crowd. She knew they were all looking directly at her, but their faces had become mere outlines framed in a sort of crimson obscurity. "And this, Ladies and Gentlemen," he continued, as he nudged her forward, "is your Judas."

Lou's heart beat wildly as the realization of what the man was saying began to take shape. He was calling her a traitor. But whose blood was on her hands? If she was the betrayer, who was the betrayed?

Suddenly the crowd erupted in another frenzy of applause. From the same building in which the magician had materialized, another figure took shape.

Jimmy.

Lou felt the blood leave her face. How many times had she longed to see him? To make things right between them? She had often wondered what she would do if she ever faced him again. Now she knew.

Nothing.

He looked the same as he had the last time she had seen him. Determined. Fearless. Uncompromising.

His brown eyes bore into hers as he edged closer and she could see something in them she hadn't noticed back in Rock Creek. It wasn't anger or bitterness, things she'd thought she'd find there.

It was regret.

He stopped within inches of her.

She fumbled around in her mind for something to say, but she couldn't put into language what she was feeling. "I'm sorry" seemed laughable.

Slowly he began to remove the navy colts fastened at his waist. He tossed them carelessly toward the crowd, who seemed to be inching closer and closer to where they stood. The fervor of their yelling only seemed to be increasing and Lou feared that the sheer volume would drown out any words she might have attempted.

It felt to Lou like she and Jimmy had been standing there, looking at one another for days, or weeks, maybe forever, but she knew it had really only been seconds. She could hear her ragged breaths and feel the trembling of her hands.

It was Jimmy who finally spoke and, despite the noise around them, she still heard.

"It doesn't matter what others think," he whispered. "It matters what you think."

Her heart seemed to stop at his words. Once again she'd been confronted with an echo of something she herself had once spoken, these words on a night when Jimmy had battled his demons, and both of them, their desires.

It was what she needed to find her voice.

"But it matters to me," she argued. "What you think matters."

Jimmy reached out and put his hand under her chin, lifting her eyes to his. She felt exposed.

"You don't know?" he asked simply.

She shook her head. "I don't know anything anymore," she answered weakly, painfully aware that she sounded defeated, hopeless.

But he didn't reply. He drew back the hand that still held her in that tender, yet confrontational stare and backed away slowly, presenting himself to the magician as if in surrender.

"Jimmy," she called to his retreating back. "What are you doing? What is happening?" She was too scared of what he was doing to feel any embarrassment over the panic she knew reverberated in her every word. She remembered the last time he had thrown down a gun. But this time she knew he concealed no other.

He didn't answer her. He simply lowered his head before the magician.

"I'll volunteer," he said.

"Jimmy, wha…"

The magician smiled and addressed the audience once more.

"Ah-hah!" he howled. "We have a volunteer!"

The crowd roared and Jimmy started up the steps that led to the platform.

The black box.

The disappearing act.

"No!" she screamed, suddenly understanding. "Jimmy! Don't go in there!"

She was frantic now. She tried to run, to follow him up the steps and stop him, but the crowd had descended to the foot of the platform and she couldn't push her way through.

She watched in horror as Jimmy gave her a small smile and stepped into the box.

"Jimmy!"

The magician swung the door on the box shut. She heard a popping noise. The crowd finally fell silent as the magician opened the box once again.

It was empty.

And Lou woke up.

She was covered in sweat, her heart pounding furiously. It was the same dream she'd been having for weeks.

How many times had she fallen asleep and immediately into the arms of Kid? He was always there, holding onto her, time,distance, and war no wall between them. For just a moment sleep was a respite, a place where memories offered solace and comfort.

But it never lasted. The light always disappeared, and with it, Kid. And then she was surrounded by the faces of those who haunted her. Different memories emerged, ones laced with guilt and overwhelming loss.

Lou swung her feet gingerly over the side of the too-big bed, careful to avoid the pain that still plagued her tired body, and reached for the blanket she had obviously discarded in the nightmare. Wrapping it tightly around herself, she tiptoed quietly to the door of the bedroom and down the narrow staircase, careful to avoid the steps whose moaning would betray her exit.

When she reached the front door of the tiny house she and Kid were renting, she twisted the knob gently and welcomed the cool Virginia air that bathed her face with something like relief.

She sat down on the top step of the old porch and tucked her feet under the warmth of the blanket. She tilted her head back and peered through the tops of the thick trees at the meager display of stars the obstructed view offered her. She wondered if she would ever get used to the smallness of the sky here. The trees in Virginia carried their own beauty, but they also served to hide the thousand stars she had been used to. She couldn't help but long for the openness of a western sky, where the blackness of night was merely a canvas for the light beyond. The stars back home were like hope in the darkness. Here, that hope was crowded out by the confines of her surroundings.

Hope.

She hadn't meant to let her mind go there, and she quickly wiped the tear away with the corner of the blanket she held around her like a shield.

She was done with crying.

She took a deep breath and glanced again at the sky, careful to avoid looking at the spot by the edge of the treeline where she had spent more hours giving in to her grief than she cared to admit.

She noticed her heart was once again beating its usual steady rhythm, as the immediate effects of her nightmare had subsided, but the emotions it had stirred seemed her constant companions. Every time she'd awoken from the nightmare the feelings of horror, sorrow, and shame had stormed in uninvited and settled into a more permanent home within.

Some things she thought she could grasp, but there was still so much in those dreams she didn't quite understand. Why Hopkins was there. And Elias. But of one thing she was certain. Both were tangled up in her memories of Jimmy.

Jimmy.

She rubbed her eyes vigorously, as if she could keep herself from seeing the image of him stepping into that hideous box, disappearing from her. For her. But isn't that what he had done? Offered himself to Hopkins in exchange for her life. He would have died for her that day and a hundred times besides. And she for him.

And what about the presence of Elias? Lou felt the warmth in her cheeks despite the coolness of the night air. That trip had never made sense to her. Not only the death of a man like Elias, but the heat of Jimmy's kiss followed by the coldness of his dismissal. It had left her confused, and in moments when she was honest with herself, hurt.

They had never spoken of that kiss again, but they'd moved on, regaining a friendship that was somehow cautious and unguarded at the same time.

But then the war came. And they had ended up on opposite sides, Jimmy because of his beliefs. She because of Kid's.

Because of you, she reasoned. You betrayed everything he believed in and everything he believed you to be.

She loved Kid more than life itself, but she'd underestimated the cost of her choice. Home. Family. Jimmy. Even her own felt as divided as this country. She wanted truth. She didn't know what it was. She wanted answers. She didn't know where to look. She longed for Kid. She ached for Jimmy. She mourned alone.

She pulled the blanket even tighter, as if keeping the chill at bay could also chase away the confusion that plagued her almost as much as the loss.

She was startled by the sound of the front door as the rusty hinges seemed to resist the movement as much as she did the company, but she turned slightly and forced a smile, understanding that Clarissa's appearance was born of compassion.

The light from the candle the woman held was sufficient enough that Lou could see the worry etched in the older woman's face.

"Miss Louise," she whispered. "You need to come inside and get some shouldn't be out here in this cold."

Lou made sure her bare feet were hidden beneath the folds of the blanket and shook her head slightly.

"I'm okay, Clarissa," she assured her. "I just needed some air."

Clarissa looked as though she wanted to push her point, but Lou guessed she had figured out quickly that arguing for something Lou was set against was a waste of both energy and time.

Clarissa sighed in resignation and stepped into the night, standing beside Lou and looking quietly at what little of the sky she could see, the candlelight giving her an almost ethereal glow.

She was a beautiful woman with soft ebony skin and delicate features that belied the strength beneath. Lou guessed she was probably close to fifty, but there was a youthfulness to her that made Lou feel as if she was a woman whose spirit was not easily broken.

"I'm sorry if I woke you," Lou offered. "I just...I couldn't sleep."

Clarissa bent her head in Lou's direction. "Another nightmare?" she asked.

"The same one actually."

"Was it about…" Clarissa left the words unsaid, but Lou didn't miss the way her gaze shifted to the tree line.

"Partly," Lou admitted. "Not all of it."

Clarissa studied Lou. "Do you mind if I sit down, Miss Louise?"

"No," Lou lied. She admired Clarissa, believed her to be trustworthy, even to virtual strangers like herself, but opening up to others wasn't something that came easily to her.

Clarissa placed the candle on the bottom step and sat down beside Lou. She pulled her shawl closer and shivered.

"You know, my husband used to have nightmares something terrible. He'd toss and turn in the bed, calling out gibberish, and wake up in a terrible sweat."

Lou glanced at Clarissa, inviting her to continue.

"I asked him what they were about, but he wouldn't talk. Refused to tell me. They finally got so bad I told him if he didn't tell me what he was dreamin' about, I'd put a whole family of spiders in the bed." Clarissa laughed softly, "That fool was terrified of spiders."

Lou smiled. "Did he tell you?"

"No. Still wouldn't tell me."

"So, what did you do?"

"Hmmph," snorted Clarissa. "Exactly what I said I would. I waited till he went to sleep and put some spiders on his pillow. Big ones"

Lou looked at Clarissa in bewilderment. "You really did it?"

Clarissa nodded emphatically. "Yes Ma'am, I did. He woke up screaming so loud, near woke everybody up all the way to the big house," she chuckled. "But guess what? He never had another nightmare that wasn't about spiders."

Lou laughed softly. It felt foreign.

"Clarissa, you're not going to put spiders in my bed, are you?"

Clarissa grinned. "Not tonight, honey."

The two women sat in silence, the alien bells of laughter still ringing in Lou's ears, beckoning her to a place she used to know. A place she didn't think she'd ever see again. The days when laughter had come easily and often, never encumbered by a sorrow that far outweighed it, were a cruel memory, too bittersweet to bring any kind of joy in her present.

She heard the call of an owl and wondered what time it was. The night seemed to last forever.

"What happened to your husband?" She asked after several minutes, pushing aside her own misery and looking at Clarissa.

Clarissa carefully brushed a stray curl from her eyes. "Miss Elizabeth's parents sold him off to a distant relative," she answered, no hint of malice in her voice.

Lou looked at her wide-eyed, shock and horror undoubtedly evident on her face. She didn't think she'd ever grow accustomed to this way of life. She didn't think she wanted to.

"I heard a couple years later that he died. Drowned in a river while heading north."

Lou swallowed hard and stared furiously at the place where her blanket pooled like blood on the wooden porch. "I'm so sorry, Clarissa."

Clarissa patted her arm. "That was over thirty years ago now." She paused and looked directly into Lou's brown eyes. Something in her expression reminded Lou of Rachel.

"I know it's hard to see right now, but the pain will fade, honey, and one night you'll be surprised to look up and notice the stars again."

Lou shook her head and fought back the tears.

"I don't think so," she replied, when she'd finally gained enough control to speak. "Not here, anyway."

Jimmy's face flashed before her eyes. "And not back home either."

Clarissa clicked her tongue, as if Lou had confirmed something she'd known all along.

"Somebody back there broke your heart before you even got here, didn't they?"she asked sympathetically.

Lou dared not look at Clarissa. She feared the compassion she'd find there.

"That's what that letter was about you asked me to send?" she inquired.

Lou bit her lip and nodded, studying the way the folds of the blanket looked like armor. "I shouldn't have sent it. I think not getting an answer might break my heart all over again," she confessed, barely able to conceal the tremor in her voice.

Clarissa sighed. "Broken hearts can mend, Miss Louise."

Lou folded her arms inside the blanket and put her head between her knees.

"I used to think so," she choked. "I was wrong, Clarissa. I think some people do die from a broken heart."

Clarissa didn't respond. She sat beside Lou while the faint orange glow of sunrise crept stealthily through the treetops announcing the coming dawn. But Lou had folded herself inside the despair and didn't see the promise of morning.