Angry, Francois twisted in his pain and pointed the gun at Richard.
Shocked, Ada cried, “Francois, don’t!”
But the gun fired, along with two others. Smoked filled the air and she froze. It took a moment but reality rang in her head, so she struggled to see and found Hillsdale’s gun smoking as it fell loose of his grip as he fell off his saddle, his leg bleeding through the powder blue wool trousers. One of the soldiers was on the ground, his eyes opened and vacant of seeing ever again. The other soldier was so caught in the vines that littered the ground that he fell to his knees.
Richard was reeling, trying to clear the gunsmoke to make it to the fallen officer. Ada had to blink hard, her ears still ringing from the gunfire, when she saw Edward, standing to the side, tucking his long-nosed revolver into his belt to hold it. The slave had shot a white man, a Federal soldier, her mind stuttered. The side that fought for his freedom! Befuddled, she slowly became cognizant of the moans and they came from more than the Federals. She heard Francois and ran to him.
His side had a red stain from blood, the clothing torn by a bullet. She raced to untie her medical bag.
“Can you move? I need you off that horse,” she told him, freeing her supplies.
“No, no, Ada,” he muttered low. “We got to go.”
“Ada, don’t! I need help here!” Richard begged.
“Give me my gun!” Hillsdale bellowed. “You shot me, you worthless bag of Southern shit!” He bent, trying to reach the fallen piece.
“Perhaps, sir, I oughta just shoot you.”
Silence fell except for the sound of Richard ripping material. The rest looked up at the black man.
Hillsdale glared. “To think the fight is to free your black asses! Why the hell did you shoot me?!”
“Ain’t right, firing at a wounded man and involving a lady in your fight.”
Hillsdale swung back to Francois. “I’ll see you hanged for this!”
Francois sat on the horse, patting her neck in an attempt to calm her while he worked hard to breathe. The pain in his side was smart, like a slice went through him. He recalled his aim at the bastard Ada was so enamored with. How he longed for her to realize that man wasn’t worth the spit it’d take to shine a shoe! But Rose moved, moving his aim off the doctor and more on her, so he managed to shift and he guessed, from his position, he downed the soldier on the side. From all the looks of it, Edward shot the Federal officer. He counted in his head the circumstances and realized, firing and killing at this close range, when all were on a ‘mercy mission’, being brought in as prisoners wouldn’t go well. He doubted they’d make it to the Federal camp. Silently, he swore.
“Ada,” he called. “Come with me.”
“You’re not going anywhere!” Hillsdale barked, even as he flinched at the doctor’s ministrations. “I’ll have you hanged!”
She looked at him, her eyes wide and wild. He could see the battle in them—to come with him or stay with that Yankee braggart? His shifted. “They will hang us, since Edward shot them too. We can’t stay.”
He could see her breathing hard, indecision plain as day.
“Ada, I need you to stay!”
Francois glared at the Yankee doctor. “I know you, sir, and I know your type.”
“Oh, and what type is that?” Richard snapped as he tore the linen wrap and started to make it a tourniquet on his patient in an attempt to stop the bleeding.
“Heard about you through my sister, who was the last lady you tried to favor. You might recall her. Cerisa Fontaine.”
Richard stopped for a second in twisting the lever that tightened the wrap. “I recall a lady by that name, though I didn’t recall her last name being such.”
“No, because she was wed. But that didn’t stop you from trying to seduce her, did it? Or the fact that you have a wife.”
He heard Ada gasp. The color drained from her face. He hadn’t meant to tell her the truth of the man this way, but they needed to go and her indecision required he either shoot the man or tell her. He might just shoot him anyway…
“Wife?” Ada piped.
“Ada,” Richard started.
Ada felt her heart rip. In the back of her head, she remembered Will constantly saying Richard Peregoy was no good, yet he never told her why. Did he know of this? That there was a Mrs. Richard Peregoy? Her breathing became hard.
In the far distance, gunfire rang and then an artillery piece boomed.
Still trying to take it in, she stared at him. His mercurial smile was gone, the warm brown eyes more begging than seductive. Somehow, she knew he had lied to her. The vacancy, the sporadic letters, the long courtship that was sparse, and no marriage even hinted at. And then to discover he had tried to dally with another woman? The pain was like a knife jabbed into her heart. She was going to be sick.
“So that’s why you never mentioned marriage. Nor made yourself available to take me to meet your family or anything else.”
“Ada, please, now is not the time to discuss our future,” he pleaded a bit sternly.
She shook her head, unable to believe him.
“Doc, we gotta finish to go. The battle has started,” Hillsdale stated, trying to right himself.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Francois pull up onto the saddle, shifting till he was secure. “Ada, we need
