“I need to stay busy and needed,” she confided, hoping that was enough to quiet him. “Here, I have no say, have minor chores to do and am prohibited from truly helping. At least at the warfront, men like Waxler are too busy with the numbers and commanders drive to win despite the sacrifices, that I have more freedom.”
Will touched her shoulder, his palm resting there with a slight squeeze. “I understand.” He straightened, tugging his frock coat to even the crease lines from wear. “I, too, am reporting back. Apparently, there’s been a few skirmishes on the Rapidan, so we are needed.” He smiled. “Cheer up. Perhaps that secesh will end up in our ward again.”
She started. How had he known her thoughts had strayed to that sinner?
Chapter 33
“I am almost wild. I do not think that I will ever be fit again to associate with respectable people. I have not spoken to a lady for two years [for] I have been in the woods since I left home.”
—Soldier, Louisiana Tigers
Winter 1863-64, Virginia
March 1864
Clark Mountain, Virginia
Francois flexed his foot, finding it remark-able how well it had healed. He could stand now, for longer periods, and no longer needed the makeshift cane. Just as the trees had blossomed and the birds chirped, he found himself reborn.
“What’s got you grinning like a loon? Thinking of that doc again?” Wiggins prodded.
“Hardly, outside of gratitude. Just thinking how my ankle isn’t in pain anymore.”
“Good!” Wiggins punched him in the arm. “But you can’t run too good no more. That’s a problem, I’d say.”
Francois growled. “Doc Murphy said it was a good thing I found a good surgeon, because most would’ve chopped it off. I’ll walk fast and make it. Can’t think I made it this far only to be killed cause I can’t run.”
Wiggins laughed. “Yep, that’s how them Yankees fight. Just walking right up to the battleline, waiting. Guess when we turn their asses back to the North, they’ll walk, too.”
“And tell me again, how’d you get out of that jail?”
Wiggins stopped his laughing and gave him a stern look. “They exchanged us. Just too important to have locked up, that’s all.”
“And you didn’t take that oath?”
Wiggins spat on the ground. “Only oath I took was one to get the hell back here, so I could beat their asses, drive ‘em off our lands!”
They both laughed, but Francois’s was cut short when he turned his foot the other way without thinking and hit a sore spot that still echoed pain. He inhaled deeply. Doc Murphy had given him a good prognosis, after that attempt of running during the snowball fight.
Most of the boys hadn’t seen snow, so when it fell on the Virginia countryside last month, the tedium of winter camp cracked. They ran outside, laughing and tried to lap up the falling snow or fell into the minor accumulation, reveling in it. Soon, a snowball zoomed through the air, and before they knew it, the group had split to two sides waging a war with snowballs as bullets and cannonballs.
Francois jumped in as a participant, ignoring the first signs he was in trouble. A minor ache, a twinge that shot upward was nothing and he continued to play until he arched his back to avoid being hit and tried to run away. At that moment, his ankle finally gave. It took Wiggins and another soldier to haul him to the hospital tent, by then wrapped in pain.
“Son, you can’t be pushing yourself so,” the doctor scolded him. He put Francois’s foot into a pan of snow, so cold he virtually jumped off the hospital bed, with Murphy pushing him back down. “It will bring the swelling down. Wait.”
Steeling his shoulders, he did, trying to accustom himself to the icy pain. “Will it need to come off?” It was a fear he couldn’t ignore.
Murphy frowned. “No, I think you’re still manageable. But I think your days of running are through. I’ll inform your commander you need to be sent home.”
Home? No! Vague images of Emma with Jack invaded his once cleared mind and he struggled to fight it back. He’d come here to fight and forget her, and almost had when he was with Ada, but even that, too, had ended. Alone, he was in trouble, unless he remained with the Tigers.
“No, sir. I beg of you no. I’ll find a way to fight. I am a Tiger,” he insisted.
Murphy stared hard at him, as if deciding, only to break the hardness with a gentle, “Son, while I might regret it, I see it’ll do no good to tell you Tiger boys to not fight. I’ll have your duties changed, so no more damage, all right?”
It was that decision that changed his rank to Company First Sergeant and mounted on the very horse he purchased. He still shook his head over it, because now he was with the commanders and issuing orders down the line.
Wiggins laughed. “Think you can ride and issue orders?”
He shot his buddy a glare but the smile Wiggins had made him join him with a chuckle.
“Here, think I got something of yours.” Wiggins handed him his fist and dropped into Francois palm a small object. With a frown and curiosity, he stared at the object. It was his small painting of Emma. His heart skipped a beat, making breathing harder. He clutched it tightly.
“Where did you get this? I thought I had lost it.”
“You did,” Wiggins replied. “When those Yanks whipped us off to prison. Remember how that guard kicked your hand? You dropped it but I snagged it. Kept it as you were too fevered and then, you disappeared.” He shrugged. “Now, I get to give it back to you.”
He stared at the image. She was so pretty and he fondly recalled how he loved her. He
