Ruth stretched lazily and then saw that the sun was already up. She'd slept right through breakfast from the look of the sun's position.

As she threw on her clothes, she thought about last night. She'd almost fallen asleep on the ladder. About halfway up, she'd laid her head on one of the rungs, thinking only to take a few seconds to collect her strength, but not all the men had been asleep and the next thing she knew, Kid Cole was calling her name. She'd been embarrassed for dozing for those few seconds and also because from his spot on the floor, he'd probably had a good view of her ankles. She'd laughed it off though and joked how she was going to sleep in tomorrow. Apparently, it hadn't been as much of a joke as she'd thought.

She was surprised to find most of the men working on their breakfast, the ones that could feed themselves. She soon saw why. Kid Cole was up on his feet handing out bowls of mush.

"Why are you standing up?" she demanded, marching over to him. She was taken aback for a moment because he was taller than she'd expected, but she soon recovered her voice. "Who said you were well enough to be up and about?"

"I did. That tea fixed me right up, and you said you wanted me to help, didn't you?"

She knew that was the plan, but she couldn't help think he'd been pushed into it prematurely by witnessing how tired she'd been last night. "Well, yeah. I reckon I did. How you feel?"

"I told you. Just fine." A smile tugged at his lips. "Now you ready to start bossing me around? I know that's just what you're dying to do."

She smiled back. She supposed she was a little bossy, but a lot of those men needed it, and she wasn't often afforded the time for politeness lately. She couldn't deny needing his help, and he did have his color back. "Alright, but the minute you start feeling poorly or get the slightest twinge, you're going to go lay down."

"Yes, Momma."

She looked at him, worry brimming up. Was the fever back? Did he think she was his mother again, but his dark eyes were laughing at her. He was only teasing. She chuckled. "Well, get busy then, Son. We got hungry men to feed."

sss

Sister Ruth had brought the promised flower. He was no artist, but she'd been right about having a model. His drawing looked 10 times better than it had before. Something about the beauty of the bloom soothed him. Nature was so much kinder than men were. He was actually finding a little joy from what had only begun as a way to pass the time away.

"Not bad," said a deep and unfamiliar voice.

He was wearing his gray uniform, a Confederate soldier. Had Sister Ruth let him in here? What was she thinking? What if he asked questions he couldn't answer like where he was from? Which regiment was he in?

He'd brought him a bowl of mush. "I'm Kid Cole. I'm helping Sister Ruth for the time being. Though I suppose I'll be joining my regiment again soon. You need help sitting up?"

He nodded, embarrassed about his need. He expected to be roughly propped up, but Kid was surprisingly gentle for a man. He couldn't help remember Fannie saying how some Southern men only wanted to defend their home. Before she'd told him that, he would've thought Kid was serving to keep the blacks in bondage, but now he wasn't so sure, so he asked, "Why did you sign up?"

If he was surprised that he was writing instead of talking, he didn't say. "My nephew was conscripted. He's only in his 20s with a wife and child. I'm unattached. Why should he go and die when I could take his place, so I did."

He never would've guessed that a Rebel could have had a noble reason for serving, but that didn't change the fact that it all boiled down to one side was fighting to keep slaves and one side was fighting to emancipate them. He was taking a huge risk, but he wrote, "Do you ever wonder why we're fighting to keep blacks in chains?"

"No. That ain't why I'm fighting. I think it's a shame our economy's so dependent on them. So many women and children are suffering because men, politicians, have decided to take up arms. I wish the Yankees would just surrender and go home. Let us work out our own problems. Sounds kind of strange coming from a gunslinger turned soldier, I imagine, but I guess I'm just sick of living by the gun."

"They won't surrender. Not until they've won. Do you have slaves?"

"Nope. Do you?"

He shook his head.

Kid appeared to hesitate before saying the next bit but seemed to judge him as someone he could trust with the information he was about to reveal. "Do you know a black man saved my life at Manassas? I'd be in worse shape than I was if he hadn't pushed me out of the way and then got me to safety."

"A slave?"

"No. A soldier and a good man."

"His master made him serve," he wrote with confidence. He was appalled with the idea that slave owners were forcing their slaves to serve in the Confederate army to keep themselves and their families slaves. He'd read an article stating as much in Fredrick Douglass' anti-slavery newspaper. He wished the federal government would allow colored folks to join the Union side. This war might be won a lot faster.

"He was free. His sister was raped by a group of Union soldiers. That didn't create no love for the North in him. I ain't saying they're all here to rape and pillage; I'm sure some got real high ideals, but it's not an army of abolitionists we're fighting. Not that our boys are paragons of virtue either. And I've met some bad blacks. Both sides does things they maybe ought to hang for. Things that wartime sometimes lets them get by with. Let's just hope there's a quick end to it all."

"There's good and evil everywhere," he wrote, recalling Fannie's words again. His idealism had painted the way he saw the world. The south was the enemy. The slaves were good people longing to be free, who only would look at him, at Unionists, as rescuers. And he'd saw all his brothers in blue as heroes. But things were only ever that simple in storybooks. Real life, people, were much more complicated. Things weren't looking quite as black and white to him anymore. They were starting to look...well, a little gray.

Kid crumpled the paper he'd been writing on and threw it into the fireplace. He stoked the dying embers back to life from the fire that had been created by Sister Ruth last night. "Sorry about your drawing. But your words could look like treason to some."

He supposed they could. Truth was, he was beginning to feel a little treasonous for even entertaining the southerners' viewpoint. Was that being disloyal to the Union? To the black race? He would still lay down his life for the cause. He would defend the United States with his dying breath. But the enemy was starting to look a lot less like the enemy.

sss

Sister Ruth took breakfast to the guest no one but her family knew about while Kid was busy taking it to the soldiers. She wondered how he'd react if he knew she was a participant in the Underground Railroad and then she wondered why she cared how he'd react, but she did.

It was probably because she worried about his soul. She'd gotten the impression that he didn't know the Lord from their conversations, a problem she intended to remedy now that he was feeling better.

Winny was in no state for breakfast. She could see that much in the dim lighting. She'd been right about the her time being near. The groans, the labored breathing, and the dark spot on the earthen floor made it pretty plain the young woman was going to have a babe in her arms sometime today.

"Mind if I have a look?" Sister Ruth asked and then lifted the hem of her dress when she gave a nod. "I think the baby's coming."

"I think you're right," she replied in a thin voice.

Ruth tried not to let her anxiety show. That was a lot more blood than a woman was supposed to have. Not that she'd ever personally given birth, but she'd set in on enough to know. And was that the placenta she saw? Something definitely was not right. If the woman had been a calf, she could have reached in and felt what exactly was going on, but with a person and not knowing what she was doing, she would probably cause more harm than good.

"Oh, Lord God, my sister needs You and Your healing touch. Her sweet baby needs You. Please, be with them both." Looking at the young woman struggling in pain, she asked "Do you believe in Him, sister?"

"Yes'm, I couldn't have come this far without Him."

"Keep trusting Him and I'll be back with help. With a doctor. Just keep praying and I'll keep praying too. He won't abandon you."

Panic rose on top of the pain. "No, I don't want no doctor. They'll turn me in. They'll make me go back."

"The doctor I get won't. Child, you need help. Relax and believe that it will work out according to His plan. Things always do. You have to be brave for your little one if not for yourself. I won't be gone long."

She'd spoken confidently, she knew as the sun blinded her while emerging, but she wasn't as sure she'd be back with a doctor as she'd said. Doc Anderson had never been an option. David wasn't moving from the bed without help and that would raise too much suspicion. She could think of only one she could go to for help with this crisis, the lady doctor, and she didn't know her well enough to know if she was sympathetic to the plight of slaves or if she would be willing to go anywhere with a southerner given her earlier statements. She'd just have to hope and pray that she would.

A/N: Black Confederate soldier based on real historical figures and events that can be found in Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia.