Part 9

Over the next two days, Adam recovered much of his strength. Although the woman still wouldn't have a conversation with him, just asked him necessary questions, she fed him and allowed him to continue to sleep on her floor. And she continued to read to him in the evenings-the one thing he came to desire more than even food or drink. And Adam began to itch. She had remarked that he must be feeling better since he was now aware of his lice bites and the mosquito welts.

That morning, after she had given him his breakfast of grits, she knelt beside Adam and tended his wound. He would watch her face as she cleaned and bandaged him and she always looked so intent. She had just finished tying off the muslin strip after he had struggled to raise himself so that she could wrap it around him, when she picked a louse off his chest and crushed it with her thumbnail.

"You now have my blood on your hands," he quietly said.

"What?" She seemed startled.

"It was a joke," Adam said. "You crushed the louse that had bitten me so you have my blood on your hand. It was just meant as a joke." Adam watched her but she wouldn't look at him, just finished with him, stood up and walked out of the room. He didn't know that she had gone through the house and out the back door where she sat down on the top step and wrapped her arms around herself, rocking back and forth. Adam didn't know that she had earlier thought of letting him die, that she wanted him to die and then would have had his "blood on her hands" for certain.

Adam slowly sat up. His head swum; he had lain prone for so many days that when he raised himself, the room seemed to tilt. Adam lay back down and then, after the dizziness had passed, he sat up again. For the first time, he really looked around him. He noticed the yellow sulphur powder bordering his blanket and couldn't help but smile. He also noticed that there were dead lice on the blanket beneath him but there were more live ones on him; his groin itched and he could only imagine how the body lice must be crawling around. He raised himself up and grabbing the fireplace mantel, stood recovering his balance. He felt the need to void and so he worked his way to the front door and out onto the porch where he held onto the railing to steady himself. Taking a deep breath, he unbuttoned all but the top button of his trousers and relieved himself off the front porch. Then he sat down on the top step, hoping to recover after his small exertions. Adam hadn't realized how weak he was—or how thin he was. He looked down at his thighs and for the first time he realized how he must look to others—and for the first time in a long time, he cared.

The vista from the porch was commanding. He hadn't realized how beautiful the Georgia countryside could be having only really seen the inside of the prison other than the few times he went out to dump waste or on burial duty. But the land was rich and beautiful and the pines that were slowly creeping onto the property were majestic. He looked at the vibrant colors of the woman's rose garden, the mingling of the red and pink roses that reminded him of the damasked sofa that an old love had had in her parlor. And on the other side of the porch was a climbing vine with white flowers that had wound itself around the porch railing.

But along with the beauty, Adam also saw that there were needed repairs to the property. The chicken coop needed painting and the wire fence, repaired. The house cried for whitewashing and the seedling pines that were encroaching needed to be removed. Adam considered that once he felt stronger but before he was too strong to leave to get back to his regiment, he could show the woman how appreciative he was for her help and fix up the property for her. And he wondered about her man.

Adam had noticed the thin gold band on her left ring finger as she had tended to him and it explained her aloofness. Adam assumed that her husband had gone off to fight for the South and Adam realized that he had been lucky she hadn't blown his head off that first night on sheer principal and not just because he had stolen her eggs and upset her chickens. No wonder she had spat in his water.

He smiled to himself. He would have drunk the water no matter what she had done to it—as long as it was her; he wanted to show her that he was so thankful to her, that even that small bit of hate from her couldn't undermine how he felt about her. Every time she came near him, his heart rose despite the look of disdain she always gave him and the cold way she spoke to him. He would have crawled on his belly just to get a kind word from her or a pat on the head like a biscuit-eating dog. Adam realized how much he needed contact with another person and not as soldier to enemy or one soldier to another. He wanted someone to talk to on a cool night, someone to laugh with and a beautiful woman to look at. Adam sighed deeply, thinking of her beauty, her gentle face and round arms and white neck. He shuddered a bit thinking of her rounded breasts beneath her clothing and he wanted to cry with longing.

"Damn fool. You start to feel better and what's the first thing you think of? What's between a woman's legs."

Adam, hearing the swishing of skirts and her light footsteps, turned around. The front door was open and she stood there.

"Did you think I'd left?" he asked with a smile.

"I had hoped so."

"Sorry that I disappointed you, then." Adam looked back out to the garden. "I was admiring your flowers; your roses are beautiful but what's this blooming vine? I'm not familiar with it."

"Confederate jasmine."

Adam laughed. "So out here even the plants take sides."

She said nothing, just turned to go back inside. "Ma'am," Adam called, "if it wouldn't be too much of an inconvenience, might I have a bath? And my shirt, if I could have a needle and thread, I could maybe stitch it together again. I can't go running around shirtless in front of a lady." Adam attempted a smile.

"I burned your shirt—it was nothing more than a rag. I'll get you one of my…husband's—you can wear it after you've had a bath. You'll have to take the bath out back. There's a large wash tub you can stand in, kneel in, drown yourself in for all I care. I'll boil your blankets on the stove-and those trousers."

"Thank you, ma'am, for your good, helpful bathing suggestions." The woman turned at his sarcasm and lifted her chin.

"Do you have scissors so I can cut my hair? I'd like to get rid of these lice." He scratched his head.

"Go out back and sit on the stairs; I'll cut your hair but don't expect me to scrub your back. I'll go boil some water now." She left him to go into the house and Adam grinned; a woman like her he could love. A woman like her he would gladly and eagerly bed.

Adam walked through the house, taking the way he thought she had gone. She was in the kitchen when he entered and seemed surprised to see him there.

"The stairs out here?" he asked, pointing to the open back door.

"Yes."

Adam nodded and sat on the top step. The barn was in the back with a large paddock that had a grazing horse and cow. There was a pump and a horse trough and a buggy stood under a covered port. He also noticed the vegetable garden and to the right were fields where it was obvious that nothing had been planted in a long while.

Adam turned and the woman stood behind him with a pair of scissors; she wielded them as if they were a weapon. He looked up at her, grinning. "Tempted?" She just glared at him.

So as Adam sat on the step, the only sound was the shearing of his hair and the dropping of it by handfuls to the ground beside the stairs.

"What about your beard?" she asked.

"Did your husband leave any shaving supplies?"

"Yes." She seemed to be considering something and then said, "I'll get them. I have a mirror you can use."

Zelphia went back into the house and gathered the shaving equipment her husband had left behind; a straight razor, a razor strop and a small cake of soap and mug and brush, as well as a hand mirror from her vanity set. She stared at her husband's belongings. The china mug had a small chip on the lip. So many times she had looked at it and told herself that one day, she would buy him another one. And she smiled at how her husband would go a day or two without shaving and then he would want her and she would insist he shave first. And he would mumble and complain to himself but would quickly shave. And then she would welcome him with open arms back into their bed.

Zelphia took the shaving materials out to Adam who still sat, now shorn of his locks, on the back steps. He turned to receive them, pushing himself to a standing position.

"Thank you, ma'am. I was thinking that I could make some repairs around here to thank you for your kindness to me. "

"If you want to thank me, while you're shaving, cut your throat." Zelphia turned and went back into the house.

Adam gave a snort of derision. "Hard as nails," he said to himself. He looked at the razor that was folded shut and sitting in the mug. She could have come up behind him, simply reached down and slit his throat from ear to ear. Adam wondered if she had considered it.

TBC