Now the officer turned his horse, walking it up the farm lane in an almost leisurely way; he slouched in the saddle as he stared at the fallow field where the tobacco and cotton had once grown.
“Damn it!” Sarah dropped her hoe, running full tilt to the house, calling, “Maw! Riders coming! Reb cavalry!”
She dashed up onto the porch, hurrying to remove the warning bucket from the corner where Billy couldn’t help but notice.
Not that he’d come stumbling into the house with a couple dozen strange horses tethered in the yard.
Sarah turned as Maw stepped out the door, wiping her hands in her apron. They were thick with acorn dough, made after leaching the nuts and then mashing them. What little flour and meal they had been able to find was now augmented by the natural produce of the forest: acorns, hickory nuts, walnuts, and hazelnuts. On racks out back wild plums were drying along with persimmon, mulberries, and chinquapins.
Again, that had been Billy’s work, wild foods he’d learned from John Gritts.
The officer dallied until his small command caught up, then stepped up his approach. He seemed unusually interested in the buildings, glanced curiously at the wagon where it was propped on a timber, the splintered wheel weathering next to it.
He wouldn’t see any sign of the horses, of course. They stayed hidden up in the hills. And the real wheel—good and true—was stashed back in the wild rosebushes. The broken one had been picked up on the battlefield and was prominently displayed as a ruse that the wagon was immobile, and therefore not worth requisitioning.
Then the officer turned his eyes on Sarah and Maw. A slow smile spread beneath a ragged dark-blond beard. A glittering in the eyes where they squinted out from either side of a straight and patrician nose. Something about him …
Maw gasped. “Dear God!”
“Butler!” Sarah cried, dashing down off the porch.
He stepped down from the saddle, ground-reining his sorrell mare. Throwing his arms wide, he gathered her into a great hug, drawing her to his breast.
“Sarah! Sarah!” he cried. “By the sun, moon, and stars, I’ve missed you.” He pushed her back, his gray eyes intense as he studied her. Reaching out, he pushed a couple of sun-bleached blond locks from her tanned forehead, saying, “I don’t think any man alive has such a beautiful sister. Helen herself would slink from the halls of Troy at the mere mention of your name.”
“You look thin,” she told him. Then wrinkled her nose. “And you smell like—”
“Don’t.” He put fingers to her lips. “Such words should never cross a lady’s lips.”
Then he pushed her aside and grabbed Maw up in his bear hug, crying, “And how are you, most lovely of fine ladies?”
“I’m happy!” Maw was crying. “So happy to see you.”
She held him at arm’s length, looking him up and down. “You’ve been traveling far?”
“From Fort Smith. I have a dispatch from General Hindman for General Rains. My men and I need to rest the horses and be off in the morning.”
He turned, ordering, “Corporal. Bivouac the men in the field down by the river and see to my horse, please.”
“Yes, Lieutenant,” the corporal, a dust-covered and weary-looking young man with a Texas drawl, replied. Stepping his horse forward, he gave Sarah a dashing and devil-may-care grin, doffing his ill-shaped felt hat in the process and bowing deeply from the saddle.
She demurely responded with a slight curtsy, and lowered her eyes. Blessed be, he was a charmer with his wild honeyed locks, full-lipped smile, and dancing brown eyes.
Butler chuckled, whispering under his breath, “Don’t even think it, sis. Corporal Baldy Taylor may draw women like stink draws flies, but the last thing on his mind is a fancy brick house in the city.”
As the corporal led Butler’s mare away, throwing appreciative glances over his shoulder the whole way, Sarah grabbed Butler’s arm, saying, “Just as well. Billy’d beat the tar out of him for just looking.”
Butler lifted an eyebrow. “If he’s going to take on Baldy, he’d better wear his working clothes and pack a lunch.”
“Working clothes is all we’ve got left,” Maw said sourly. “And they’re starting to get threadbare. But enough of this, how have you been, son? We got the one letter.”
“Then you know about Paw?” he asked, as they walked inside.
“Yes. You’ve heard nothing more?” Maw pulled a chair out for him.
“Not a word.” Butler stood, hat in hand, as he eyed the chair. “My rear is sore enough, Mother. Let me get my land legs back. Got anything to drink?”
“Horsemint tea or spring water. What we call coffee is made from chicory root and dark-roasted corn. Can’t get real coffee anymore.”
Butler was staring around the house. A slow look of confusion supplanted his apparent delight at being home. “Water’s fine. Where are the rugs? The divan? And half the books are missing.”
“Burned after being blood-soaked,” Sarah told him, walking over to slice acorn bread and dig out the tin of lard Billy had rendered from a black bear he’d killed. With the milk cow dry they had no butter. “We were used as a hospital after the big battle. Took weeks after the last of the wounded was carted off to get the blood out of the floor. Wasn’t till later that Billy figured out we could have staked some of the rugs in the river and left them to clean in the current. By then it was too late.”
“Didn’t want ’em in here after that,” Maw told Butler as she handed him a cup of water. “Just seeing the patterns again would remind me of them poor boys.” Her sharp eyes fixed on Butler. “But you’d know better than we would after Shiloh.”
Sarah saw the paling of Butler’s face, saw his mouth quiver, the slight shake of his right hand. He dropped his gaze to the water, clasping the cup in both hands to steady it. Maw
