to absorb the texture into memory.
At the kitchen doorway, the power punched like a fist....
Stew cooking. The distant pop of gunfire...
Weak, she leaned against the wall as the door opened.
She knew it was Shane. The rational part of her mind recognized the shape of him, the stance, even the smell. But with some inner eye she saw a man carrying a bleeding boy….
My God, my God, John. Is he dead?
Not yet.
Put him on the table. I need towels. Oh, so much blood. Hurry. He's so young. He's just a boy.
Like Johnnie.
So like Johnnie. Young, bleeding, dying. The uniform was filthy and wet with blood. The new stripe of his rank was still bright on the shoulder of the tattered jacket. There was a rustle of worn paper from a letter in the inside pocket as she peeled the uniform away to see the horror of his wounds.
Just a boy. Too many dying boys...
Rebecca saw it, could see the scene in the kitchen perfectly. The blood, the boy, those who tried to help him. There, the letter in Sarah's hands, the paper worn where it had been creased and recreased, read and reread. The words seemed to leap out at her….
Dear Cameron...
'They couldn't save him,' Shane said carefully. 'They tried.'
'Yes.' After the breath she'd been holding was expelled, Rebecca pressed her lips together. 'They tried so hard.'
'At first, he only saw the uniform. The enemy. He was glad that a Yankee had died there. Then he saw the face, and he saw his son in it. So he brought him home. It was all he could do.' 'It was the right thing to do, the human thing.' 'They wanted that boy to live, Rebecca.' 'I know.' Her breath shuddered out, shuddered in. 'They fought as hard as they could. All the rest of that day, through the night, sitting with him. Praying. Listening to him, when he could speak. Shane, there was too much love in this house for them not to try, not to fight for that one young boy's life.'
'But they lost him.' Eyes grim, Shane stepped forward. 'And it was like losing their son again.' 'He didn't die alone, or forgotten.' 'But they buried him in an unmarked grave.' 'She was afraid.' Tears trembled out, rolling down Rebecca's cheeks. 'She was afraid for her husband, for her family. Nothing meant more to her. If anyone found out that boy had died here, and John a Rebel sympathizer who'd lost a son to the Yankees, they might have taken John from her. She couldn't have stood it. She begged him not to tell, to dig the grave at night so no one would ever know. Oh, she grieved for that boy, for the mother who would never know where or when or how he died. She read the letter.'
'Yeah, then they buried the letter from his mother with him.'
'There was no envelope, Shane. No address. Nothing to tell them where he had come from, or who was waiting for him to come home. Just the two pages, the writing close and crowded as if she'd wanted to jam every thought, every feeling into them.' A breath shuddered out. 'I saw it. I could read it, just as Sarah did... Dear Cameron.'
Shane's eyes went dark, his stomach muscles tightened, twisted. 'That's my middle name. Cameron was my grandfather's name. Cameron James Mac-Kade, John and Sarah's second son. He was born six months after the Battle of Antietam.' Shane took a steadying breath. 'The name's come down through the MacKades ever since. Every generation has a Cameron.'
'They named their child after the boy they couldn't save.' Helplessly Rebecca rubbed the tears from her cheeks with the flats of her hands. 'They didn't forget him, Shane. They did everything they could.'
'And then they buried him in an unmarked grave.'
'Don't hate her for it. She loved her husband, and was afraid for him.'
'I don't hate her for it.' Suddenly weary, Shane scrubbed his hands over his face. 'But it's my life now, Rebecca, my land. I can't change what happened, and I'm sick of being haunted by it.'
She offered a hand. 'Do you know where he's buried?'
'No, I've always shut that part out.' As he'd tried, most of his life, to shut it all out. All those wavering memories, those misty dreams. 'I never wanted any part of this.'
'Why did you come in now, tell me now?'
'I don't know, exactly.' Resigned, he dropped his hands. 'I saw him, beside the smokehouse. Bleeding, asking me to help him.' He drew a long breath. 'It's not the first time. I couldn't not come in, not tell you anymore. You're part of it. You knew that all along.'
'He's buried in the meadow,' she murmured. 'Wildflowers grow there.' She reached for his hand again, tightened her fingers on his. 'Come with me.'
They walked out toward the meadow, through the bright wash of sun. The mountains were alive with color, and the flowers underfoot were going to seed. There was the smell of grass and growing things. When she stopped, the tears still fell quietly.
For a moment, she could say nothing, could only stare down at the ground where she had once dropped her first clutch of wildflowers.
'They did their best for him. Not far from here, another man killed a boy simply because of the color of his uniform. These people tried to save one, despite it.' She leaned into Shane when he circled her shoulders with his arm. 'They cared.'
'Yeah, they cared. They still can't leave him here alone.'
'We make parks out of our battlefields to remember,' she said quietly. 'It's important to remember. He needs a marker, Shane. They would have given him one, if they could have.'
Could it be as simple as that? he wondered. And as human? 'All right.' He stopped questioning and nodded. 'We'll give him one. And maybe we'll all have some peace.'
'There's more love than grief here,' she murmured. 'And it is yours, Shane—your home, your land, your heritage. Whatever lives on through it, through you is admirable. You should be very proud of what you have, and what you are.''
'I always felt as though they were pushing at me. I resented it.' Yet it had eased now, standing there with her in the sun, on his land. 'I didn't see why I should be the one to be weighed down with their problems, their emotions.' He looked over the fields, the hills, and felt most of his weariness pass. 'Maybe I do now. It's always been more mine than any of my brothers'. More even than it was my father's, my mother's. We all loved it, we all worked it, but—'
'But you stayed, because you loved it more.' She rose on her toes and kissed him gently. 'And you understand it more. You're a good man, Shane. And a good farmer. I won't forget you.'
Before he realized what she was doing, she'd turned away. 'What are you talking about? Where are you going?'
'I thought you might like some time alone here.' She smiled, brushing at the tears drying on her cheeks. 'It seems a personal moment to me, and I really have to finish getting my things together.'
'What things?'
'My things.' She backed away as she spoke. 'Now that we've settled this, I'm going to stay with Regan for a few days before I go back to New York. I haven't had as much time to visit with her as I'd planned.'
She might as well have hit him over the head with a hammer. The quiet relief he'd begun to feel at facing what had haunted him was rudely, nastily swallowed up by total panic.
'You're leaving? Just like that? Experiment's over, see you around?'
'I'm only going to Regan's, for a few days. I've already stayed here longer than I originally intended, and I'm sure you'd like your house back. I'm very grateful for everything.'
'You're grateful,' he repeated. 'For everything?'
'Yes, very.' She was terrified her smile would waver. Quick, was all she could think, get away quick. 'I'd like to stay in touch, if you don't mind. See how things are going with you.'
'We can exchange cards at Christmas.'
'I think we can do better.' Through sheer grit, she kept that easy smile on her face. 'Farm boy, it's been an experience.'
