Matthew shut themselves up in the library together. Kristin finally had to force her way in.
'You're discussing me, I know it, and I will know what is going on!' she insisted.
'Cole has to leave,' Matthew told her. 'Right away. Tonight.'
'Why?'
Matthew looked unhappily at Cole. Cole shrugged and gave her the explanation. 'Matthew is putting the ranch under the protection of a Federal troop.'
'But —'
'I can't be here, Kristin. And Quantrill's group has split up.'
'What?'
'During the spring,' Matthew explained, 'Quantrill and his men got into some heavy feuding in Texas. Bill Anderson has some men under him, and George Todd has a group, too. Quantrill still has his followers. Bill attacked some Federals during the summer, and Archie Clements scalped the men he murdered. The situation is frightening, and no one knows where Zeke Moreau is, or who he's with. So you see, Kristin, Cole has to get out of here. And you have to be protected.'
Tears stung her eyes, and she gritted her teeth to keep from spilling them. She turned away from the men.
'I fixed the tear in your frock coat, Cole. And Delilah has been washing everything. The two of you, sometimes your clothes smell as if you'd been sleeping with skunks for a year. I'll see that you're packed up and have Shannon wrap up a supply of jerky.'
She stumbled into the hallway. Cole found her there and swept her into his arms and took her upstairs to their room. She cried the whole time they made love, her tears spilling over his shoulders and his chest and dampening his cheeks.
Then he kissed her and held the baby tightly. She insisted on coming down with him, and when he was mounted he leaned down to kiss her again. Holding their child close to her breast,
Kristin waved as he left.
That night some Union soldiers moved into the bunkhouse. Kristin supposed it was necessary. But it was still hard.
The bushwhacker situation grew much worse. On the thirtieth of September Kristin was surprised when she came out on the porch to see that Major Emery was riding toward her. She stood and smiled, ready to greet him, but her smile died when she saw his face. She went pale herself, and the world spun, and she was afraid that she was going to faint.
'Oh, my God, it's Cole —'
'No, no, Mrs. Slater,' he assured her hastily, taking Gabe from her. 'He's a fine boy, ma'am. A fine boy.' He looked around uncomfortably. 'I don't think your sister should know the whole of this, ma'am, but… Captain Ellsworth is dead.'
'Oh, no!'
'That damned Bill Anderson! Since his sister died they say he froths at the mouth every time he fights. Fights — bah!' He spat into the dirt. 'He tore up Centralia. He made twenty-five unarmed soldiers strip, and then he shot twenty-three of them dead. The troops that went out after him fared worse. It was a massacre. At least a hundred killed. Stripped, scalped, dismembered, their bodies mutilated as they died —'
'Oh, God! Oh, God!'
They both heard the scream. Kristin turned around to see that Shannon was standing in the doorway. She had heard every word. She knew.
'Oh, God! No!' she shrieked. Major Emery took a step toward her, barely managing to catch her as she pitched forward in a dead faint.
'Could you take her to her room for me, please?' Kristin whispered.
Major Emery nodded and carried Shannon upstairs. 'We've a company surgeon out in your bunkhouse. I'll send him over and see that he gives her something.'
The doctor didn't come soon enough. Shannon awoke, and she started to cry. She cried so hard that Kristin was afraid she would hurt herself. Then she was silent, and the silence was even worse. Kristin stayed with her, holding her hand, but she knew that she hadn't reached her sister, and she wondered if anyone ever would again.
Fall came, and with it more tragedy for the South. General Sherman was marching to the sea through Georgia and the Carolinas, and the reports of his scorched-earth policy were chilling. In the west, the Union bottleneck was almost complete.
On the twenty-first of October George Todd died when a sniper caught him in the neck. Five days later Bill Anderson was killed in the northwestern corner of Missouri.
Kristin was alarmed to see how eagerly Shannon received the news of their deaths.
Thanksgiving came and went. It was a very quiet affair. Kristin was Matthew McCahy's sister, but she was also Cole Slater's wife, and so it didn't seem right to invite any of the Union men in for a fancy supper.
Matthew made it back for Christmas Day, and Kristin was delighted to see him. She asked if he had heard anything, and he told her that the last he had heard, Cole Slater was still at large. John Hunt Morgan, the dashing cavalry commander, had been killed late in the year, and Matthew hadn't heard anything about where Cole or Malachi or Jamie had been assigned.
She cried that night, cried because no news was good news. It seemed so long since she had lost her father, and she could hardly remember Adam's face. She didn't want to lose anyone else. She could hardly stand to see Shannon's pale face anymore. She hadn't seen her sister smile since Captain Ellsworth had been killed. Not once.
After Christmas dinner, Kristin sat before the fire in the parlor with her brother and her sister. She began to play a Christmas carol on the spinet, but Shannon broke down and ran upstairs to her room. Kristin sat staring silently at her hands for a long time.
Finally Matthew spoke.
'Kristin, nothing's going to get better, not for a long, long time, you know.'
'They say it's almost over. They say the war is almost over.'
'The war, but not the hatred. I doubt they'll fix that for a hundred years, Kristin. It isn't going to be easy. The healing will be slow and hard.'
'I know,' Kristin whispered.
'You just make sure, Kristin, that if Cole comes around you get him out of here fast. He isn't going to be safe anywhere near this place, not until some kind of a peace is made, and then only if amnesty is given.'
Kristin's fingers trembled. She nodded. 'He won't come back. Not until… not until it's over.'
Matthew kissed her and went upstairs. Kristin stared at the fire until it had burned very low in the grate.
In February Gabriel had his first birthday. The news that month was good for the Union, grim for the Confederacy. Sherman had devastated the South. Robert E. Lee was struggling in Virginia, and Jefferson Davis and the Confederate cabinet had abandoned Richmond half a dozen times.
By March, everyone was talking about the campaign for Petersburg. Grant had been pounding away at the Virginia city since the previous summer, and the fighting had been fierce. The Union had tried to dig a tunnel under the Confederate lines. Mines had exploded, and many Confederates had been killed, but then they had rallied and shot down the Union soldiers who had filled in the crater. The soldiers shuddered when they spoke of it.
Kristin had become accustomed to the men who had made their headquarters on her land. They were mostly farmers and ranchers, and more and more she heard them speak wistfully of the time when the war would be over, when they could go home. The Confederate general Kirby-Smith was still raising hell in the West, and the Southern forces were still fighting valiantly in the East, but the death throes had already set in for a nation that had never had a chance to truly breathe the air of independence. Major Emery came one day and sat with them on the porch while the first warmth of spring touched them. Morosely he told Kristin that the death estimates for the country were nearing the half-million mark. 'Bullet, sword and disease!' He shook his head. 'So many mothers' sons!'
When he left her that afternoon, Kristin had no idea that she would never see him again alive.
April came. General Lee's forces were gathering around Richmond for a desperate defense of the capital. Gabe was learning to walk, and Kristin had agreed with Samson and Pete that he might be allowed to try sitting on top of a horse.
