Author note: I have been blown away by all of your wonderful reviews. Thank you so much. I love hearing what you think about Bella's journey, and your words mean so much to me. Due to the amazing response (and because this chapter is so short), I decided to treat you to two chapters in quick succession. After this, it will be back to weekly Wednesday updates.
Previously:
"So you think this spot will work for a home?"
"I think it will be wonderful." It made me so happy to see Jasper look so . . . delighted. It was an expression I didn't even think his face could make before today.
After stowing the remainder of the things he had brought, he reached to take my hand to help me up. As his hand grasped my ungloved hand for the first time, I gasped.
Chapter 10:
When Jasper's bare hand touched mine, I felt a tingle run up my arm. It wasn't the somewhat dizzying electric current I felt whenever I touched Edward or the all-encompassing heat of Jacob's grasp. The magic in Jasper's touch came from all the things that were right with it, not all the things that were wrong; there was nothing supernatural or otherworldly about it. While my nerve endings were humming from the contact, it felt comfortable and wonderfully human.
I realized I had never had that sort of contact with a human boy before, though it hardly seemed appropriate to label Jasper a boy. I had never dated before Edward, and except for him and Jake, the only male hand I had ever held before was Charlie's. I was probably seven the last time that happened, and I certainly didn't remember it feeling quite like that. Quite so nice.
Before it became awkward, I dropped Jasper's hand and thanked him for helping me up.
I reminded myself that no matter how much I enjoyed the simplicity and ease of being around Jasper, I should probably avoid skin-to-skin contact in the future. The slight smile on his face made me think he had enjoyed the moment as much as I had, and I didn't want to go down a path that would confuse either one of us.
Human or not, Jasper was Alice's . . . whatever, and I still hadn't made a decision about my future with Edward and whether we would continue to be together or not. After experiencing a little taste of freedom and autonomy during my day with Jasper, I was definitely starting to lean toward one choice over the other.
As I sat astride Sidda after a small boost from Jasper, I wanted to mentally distance myself from whatever I felt at our touch.
"Jasper, do you mind telling me why you joined the army?" I asked as he mounted Grace.
"It isn't the most interesting story, but I surely don't mind telling you."
Just then, I remembered that Millie had wanted Jasper to spend the day with me so he could enjoy his time not focusing on the army. I had unwittingly made him do exactly the opposite.
"I'm sorry. You don't have to explain. I shouldn't pry, and you should have a day where you don't have to think about being a soldier," I backpedaled, worried that Jasper was just trying to be nice by offering his story.
"It truly isn't a problem—as long as you don't mind being bored. And, Bella, I am a soldier; there isn't a day that goes by when I don't think of that, no matter how far away from the front I am."
Jasper gently tapped Grace's flanks with his heels and headed in the opposite direction from where we came.
"Are we not going back to the house?" I asked as Sidda started to follow.
"Well, I thought I would give you time to hear my story and the opportunity to see more of the property. We'll loop back around toward the house by way of the woods and the cotton fields. Is that okay? If you still aren't comfortable on Sidda, we can take the direct way home, or you're welcome to ride along with me," he offered with a wry grin.
"Hey now, I'm the one who said we could take it a little faster on the way home—perhaps not while there are trees I could hit, though. I would say that I've adjusted to riding pretty quickly for someone from 'in town,' as you put it," I countered, hoping Jasper wouldn't find my banter too forward or rude.
"My apologies, Miss. I would say that you have adjusted nicely, especially as I was a little worried you wouldn't make it out of the barn this morning," he teased right back.
"All right, Major, enough with mocking my initial lack of horse finesse; I do believe you said you were going to bore me. While I don't think that will be the case, I'm eager to hear about why you would lie about your age to join the army when you could have just stayed safe at home."
"How did you know I lied about my age?" Jasper asked, the smile suddenly gone from his face.
Crap. Things were going so well, and I finally messed them up.
Rational thought suddenly flew from my brain. There was no way I could tell him the truth: "In my reality, you're actually a vampire—but a vegetarian vampire—and your buoyant pixie of a pseudo-mate told me you lied about your age. Oh, and in my world it's 2006, and, I hate to break it to you, the South loses the war."
Did they have straitjackets in 1862?
"I suppose Millie let that one slip?" he asked.
I nodded and was blushing furiously, feeling foolish that I hadn't thought of Millie as an excuse.
"That's alright; I would've told you anyway. Last year, shortly after the surrender of Fort Sumter, Texas began recruiting mounted riflemen for the Confederate cause. I've always been a good shot, so I enlisted in May."
"And you weren't scared at all?" I asked.
No matter how good I was at something, I couldn't imagine joining the army because of it.
"Scared?" Jasper scoffed. "No. People 'round here didn't think the war would last very long—not with the Northern need for cotton—so I thought it would be a fun, brief adventure. Honestly, I didn't even think the war would come west of Tennessee."
I felt a little sorry for Jasper. I couldn't remember exactly when the Civil War ended, but I knew that in October 1862, we were still a while from that date.
"That doesn't explain why you would need to change your age, though," I quickly added.
"Even if I told them I was only eighteen, I still would have been allowed to join; now, I would be required to join at eighteen. However, I felt I would be taken more seriously if they thought I was twenty. Now that I'm a major, I can't help but think my falsified age had something to do with me rising through the ranks," he said with a shy smile.
"How did your parents react to you joining?"
I couldn't imagine any mother being happy that her son had joined the military, no matter how short people thought the war would be.
"They were as proud of me as a private as they are of me now," Jasper said just as we passed through the woods into what must have been one of the cotton fields.
We were surrounded by a sea of amber-colored twigs with the occasional dot of white fluff left behind during the harvest.
"It isn't much to look at now," Jasper said, gesturing to the field, "but it is quite the sight when all of the blossoms are on. When I was younger, I used to love to come out here with a blanket and read, pretending I was in the middle of a snow storm."
I tried to imagine the whole field covered in white. Having grown up without snow, as well, I could understand how fun it must have been to pretend.
"What a magical memory," I told him.
Jasper looked embarrassed to have shared that much with me. I was touched he felt comfortable enough around me to tell me something about his childhood.
"What sort of things do you like to read?" I asked.
"I obviously don't get a lot of time to read now, except for letters from my family," Jasper answered as we continued through the field.
"I used to love going through the books in my father's library; for a farmer, he's got quite the collection. A few years ago, a friend of his who moved east sent him a copy of a book called Leaves of Grass. That was my favorite."
"I've always liked Walt Whitman," I said, glad that Jasper mentioned a work with which I was familiar.
Suddenly, Jasper pulled Grace to a halt and Sidda quickly stopped as well, making me catch myself on the saddle horn.
"You've read Whitman's work?" he asked, seeming to choke on the words.
"Of course," I said, completely perplexed by how serious Jasper was acting.
Didn't women read in the 1860s? I felt myself growing a little offended that he would be so shocked.
"I can read, Jasper. I may not know that much about life in Texas, but I do know that the women around here do more than just cook, knit, and sew."
I didn't care what year it was, I wasn't going to listen to an argument about the supposed intellectual inferiority of women.
"Whoa," Jasper said, with his hands up as if he was offering to surrender. "Bella, I certainly didn't mean to offend you. I'm just . . . shocked. First, I know there weren't that many copies of the book published, and I used to have to sneak that book out of my father's office. I read it in the field because I couldn't risk reading it in the house."
"Oh. Why?" I asked, feeling contrite.
"Why?" Jasper looked even more surprised than before. "Little Rock must be a lot more liberal than Houston. The day my mother first found the book in my father's desk was the last day it lived in the house. Thank goodness neither of them knew I had ever read it. It was . . . um . . . scandalous to read."
Jasper looked uncomfortable. Apparently, either people were much more sensitive in the nineteenth century, or I wasn't properly remembering Leaves of Grass. I had studied part of it in English class in Phoenix, so if we read it in high school, it couldn't be all that bad.
As we neared the house, I concluded that I would simply have to find a way to refresh my memory.
Author note: Thank you so much for all of the fabulous reviews and recommendations. I answer all of my reviews with a teaser for the next chapter. In addition to letting me know what else you're reading, please feel free to pimp your own fics and let me know what you're writing.
Historical vs. Canon note: Jasper's backstory in this chapter is different from SM's. She states that he was almost 17 when he joined in 1861 (so his birthday is after April when the war started) and was 20 in 1863 when turned after the Battle of Galveston (January 1863) or the Battle of Galveston Harbor (October 1862). I like the idea of Jasper's immortal age being 20, so because I can do math, Jasper would have been 18, almost 19, when he joined the army in May 1861. The age Jasper told the recruiters was never mentioned in the books, so I decided to make that age 20 as well.
The first publication of Leaves of Grass was in 1855, and that first printing was only of about 800 copies. Shortly after its release, Whitman was fired from his position in the Department of the Interior because of his writings. To say that his poems were met with moral outrage would be putting it mildly.