The Union Belle Read online

  “I think that’s right,” Victor nodded. “Could be a blizzard building up.” He shook his head, urging Lola, “Better you stay here and let it blow itself out.”

  “We’ve got to go, Victor,” Lola said, and she smiled, putting out her hand. “You’ve been a friend.”

  She turned and climbed into the wagon, and Felipe said quickly, “Señor, you watch careful. If it hits, pull in at any ranch—they will take you in.” He thought carefully and said, “You have the map I make for you last night?”

  “Right here, Felipe.”

  Felipe took it and found a stub of a pencil in his pocket. Making a series of X’s on the map, he identified several buildings and old line shacks that would give shelter. Mark listened carefully, studied the map, then took it and put it back in his pocket. “Thanks, Felipe—and you too, Victor.”

  Mark got into the wagon and spoke to the team. Victor called, “Vaya con Dios, Señorita Lola!” and then they were clear of the small house and on their way down the narrow road.

  Lola sat upright in the seat beside him, and when Felipe’s ranch was out of sight, she said, “I’m glad we’re on our way, Mark.”

  “Long way to go.” He glanced at her and saw that her dark blue eyes were alive with excitement. “You must have had a bad time, Lola, to be so glad to risk your life this way.”

  She dropped her eyes, then said softly, “I’m glad to be going someplace else.” She said no more, and they settled down to the long journey.

  They made good time, seeing few wagons or travelers on the road. Mark studied the clouds all morning with a searching attention. He kept the horses at a fast clip, and often pulled out the map Felipe had made to study it.

  They stopped to rest the horses every hour, and about noon they pulled off the road and ate a lunch that Felipe’s wife had packed. He made a small fire so quickly and efficiently that she remarked on it. Mark grinned and said, “I learned to do that when I was a kid, hunting in Virginia. Learned it again in the army. One of my few accomplishments.”

  She listened, storing up the small items about him that he let drop, then looked up and said, “The sky looks different, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes—and it’s getting colder. We’ll find a place to stay the night pretty soon. Wouldn’t want to get caught out in an ice storm.” Then he paused and said, “But that might not be so good—staying with people.”

  “Why not, Mark?”

  “Well, this dye in my hair is beginning to run, for one thing. And for another, you don’t look enough like a boy to satisfy me.”

  She flushed and then nodded. “I guess that’s so. Isn’t there an old barn someplace on that map?”

  With Felipe’s map, they found the dilapidated old barn quite easily. One end of the structure had collapsed years ago, providing them with wood to build a fire. The wind was beginning to rise, but Lola cooked a good meal of bacon and beans, and they had plenty of fresh bread. When they were finished, they sat close to the fire and drank strong black coffee.

  “I like this,” Lola murmured, staring into the fire. She looked across at Mark and the firelight glowed in her eyes. “I know it’s crazy to say this when we could get caught tomorrow—but it seems so—safe!”

  He picked up a chunk of wood and tossed it on the fire. “Know what you mean. Out there it’s cold and hard and dangerous—but for right now we’re warm and full and the world can’t get at us.” His broad lips turned up in a smile. “I remember a night like this when I was in the army. It was the night before the fight at Gettysburg. Most of us knew we were going to be in a terrible battle. Reckon most of us were sort of thinking that we’d get killed.”

  He picked up a sliver of pine, held it in the fire until it ignited, then studied it carefully, as if it had some vital significance. Finally, he looked up and went on softly. “But that night somebody liberated a pig and we cooked it and had a great meal. Somebody else had some whiskey, so we had a toast to General Lee and the Southern Confederacy. It was one of the best evenings I had in the army.” Then he tossed the stick into the fire where it caught at once, and added, “But the next day we marched up a hill, along with General Pickett—and most of those fellows who shared that meal didn’t come back.”

  There was, she saw, a sadness in him, and she asked in a small voice, “Do you think something like that will happen to us, Mark?”

  “It could. Most happy endings take place in story books, Lola.”

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t want to think that way. I want to think that we’ll get up in the morning and head for Galveston—and all the way to New Orleans. I want to think that you’ll help build that railroad.”

  “And what about you, Lola?” Mark inquired suddenly. “What’s the end of all this for you?”

  She lowered her head and stared into the fire for a long moment, then took a deep breath. “Oh, I honestly don’t know.” The wind rose suddenly, penetrating the darkness like a dangerous beast. Lola sighed and stared out the open end of the barn before saying, “I’m going to try to sleep.”

  All night she lay there, and his question came to her over and over: What’s the end of all this for you? It made her feel insecure, for she realized that unlike Mark, who had a job to go to, she had nothing. The lonely sound of the wind and the ebony darkness that enveloped the old barn brought a chill to her shivering body, but finally she fell into a fitful sleep.

  When she sat up and opened her eyes the next morning, the first thing she noticed was that he was not in the barn. Fear raced through her, and she threw the blanket back, jumped up and cried out, “Mark!” as she made for the opening. He appeared at once, and asked sharply, “What’s wrong, Lola?”

  “Oh—I just didn’t know where you were.”

  Mark gave her a strange look. “We better have a good breakfast. I don’t think we’ll have a chance to cook on the road.”

  They cooked a quick meal, and she loaded the blankets and food while he hitched the team. When she got into the wagon and looked at him, she said with concern, “You don’t feel well, do you?”

  He shook his head, not answering. When they drove away from the shelter of the barn, the cold hit her with a force that took her breath. She got a blanket out and wrapped it around herself, then huddled down in it, staring at the sky. Up north the heighth and breadth of jagged clouds was evidence of a tremendous wind—and behind the clouds was a darkness such as she’d never seen during daylight hours. They said almost nothing that morning, instead keeping their eyes on the clouds to their north as if they were some sort of fierce animal that might leap on them at any moment. At noon they paused and made a cold lunch, and at two o’clock Mark pointed far ahead. “I think that’s the old line shack that Felipe marked on the map.”

  Ten minutes later the house was not to be seen. Day drained out of the sky, and like the echo of a waterfall the distant reverberation of wind ended the stillness. In another ten minutes, Mark pulled the team down to a slow walk, saying quietly, “Here’s that snow we’ve been looking for.”

  It came much quicker than they had guessed. First large flakes swirled in the wind, then in half an hour, thick clouds of snow hit them and closed around them until they could not see the horses in front of them. The temperature dropped faster than Mark thought possible.

  After a few minutes of struggling through the white mass, Mark said through frozen lips, “I’ll have to lead the horses. They won’t go through this without help. Take this rope and hold on to it.”

  Mark climbed down slowly. Moving like a drunken man, he chose each step carefully, until he disappeared into the haze of the snow. The high-pitched wind assaulted them like a physical presence, and time after time Lola had to reach up with a handkerchief and wipe the ice crystals from her eyes.

  After two hours the snow was deep enough that the wagon could barely move. The horses stopped, and Lola sat there peering into the darkness—finally catching a glimpse of a dim form to her left. Mark appeared and came close enough to say, “We
found the cabin!” His voice was barely a whisper above the screaming wind, and she could tell that he was almost ready to fall, but he felt his way to the front of the horses once again and led them to the left.

  They moved slowly, and then suddenly the horses stopped. She thought she saw Mark move, and realized that they were right at the cabin. He struggled to it, then came back and said, “Get inside!”

  Lola climbed down from the wagon and fell to her knees, for her feet had no feeling in them. He reached down and pulled her up. They staggered across the snow, and she became aware of a darkness that formed an open door. He pulled her inside and shut the door. The sound of the wind was muted so abruptly that it seemed almost quiet in the cabin. She heard the scratch of a match, and a blue spurt of flame illuminated his pale, ice-crusted face. He walked woodenly across the floor and picked up a candle stub, lit it, and a flickering light spread over the interior of the shack. The one room was cluttered with broken furniture, but Lola was relieved to see a battered iron stove with some wood at one end.

  “Guess God hasn’t forgotten us,” Mark said, his voice thin and raspy. “Can you get a fire going while I get the horses into the shed?”

  “Yes.” She took the matches and he left the room at once. Some old newspaper lay around and she broke up an old packing box to make kindling. Her hands were trembling so violently she could hardly hold them steady enough to light the paper, but it caught, and she carefully fed the small flame with pieces of wood. By the time the larger chunks of wood had caught, Mark had come in stamping his feet.

  “Come and get warm,” she urged.

  “Don’t want . . . too much heat . . . too fast,” he said, stumbling over his words in sheer exhaustion. There was a cot on the far side of the room, and he moved toward it, collapsing with a finality that frightened her.

  “Mark!” She sprang to his side, but when he didn’t answer she knew he was unconscious. Fear overtook her, and she knelt there helplessly. It was almost as if he had been shot in the heart, and she knew that the sickness and fever had so weakened him that the herculean effort of leading the horses through the storm had been too much. His breathing was so shallow that for one frightening instant she thought he was dead, but when she put her ear on his chest, she could hear his heart beating.

  The storm howled outside and made the tiny candle flame seem precariously fragile to Lola, a glimmer of light that threatened to go out at any moment. The tiny fire crackled, but the tongues of yellow flame hadn’t yet touched the paralyzing cold. The feeling of security that had come to her the previous night had disappeared with the blizzard. She was alone now—Mark had reached the end of his strength.

  An urge to give way to fear, to scream and cry and beat her fists against the cold wall rose up in her—but she fought it down. Slowly she got up and went to the fire. She put two larger pieces of firewood inside the stove, shut the door, then stepped back. She was still cold, but it was not the paralyzing, killing cold she had known on the road. She whispered through tight lips, “It’s up to me now. Mark is sick—and I got him into this.”

  She paced the floor, waiting for the room to warm up. Gradually the feeling returned to her feet, and she began to think more calmly. Just when her feet and hands were beginning to tingle, she pulled on her coat and gloves and went outside. The force of the wind and the iron grip of the cold lashed at her body, but she moved around the cabin holding on to the wall until she came to where the horses were sheltered by the shed roof. Three sides of the shed were walled, offering some protection. She found a bucket and fed them, holding the bucket as they ate one at a time. Then she hauled the supplies into the cabin, making several trips, and filled a bucket up with snow and put it on the stove. It took her a long time to melt enough snow to water the horses, and by the time she had done all this, her legs were trembling with fatigue.

  She moved across to where Mark lay and began to remove his coat. He was heavy, but she managed to get it off and put a blanket over him. It was still cold in the cabin, but she knew the wood had to last, so she kept the fire small. Mark lay on the only cot, so she made a pallet in front of the stove and lay down.

  She had worked herself hard, but before letting herself fall into an exhausted sleep, Lola whispered urgently, “Oh, God! Don’t let us die in this place! Please, God! Don’t let us die!”

  But her only answer was the wind scratching at the cabin door and beating against the flimsy boards of the shack with ghostly fists.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Friends and Enemies

  For two days the storm raged, prowling around the cabin like a wild beast. At times the wind screamed like a lost soul in pain; at other times the sound changed to a mournful mutter. Lola slept fitfully, awakening with a start as the cold fingers of the wind groped at the flimsy boards of the shack, rattling the windows in a sinister fashion.

  Not knowing how long they would be trapped, Lola rationed the firewood like a miser, keeping a precarious balance between bone-aching cold and mere discomfort. The horses would have died, she knew, if she had not propped up old boards—too damp to burn—over the open end of the shed to cut off the cold wind that sliced like a knife. Melting snow to water the horses was a never-ending chore, and since she had few vessels, it was necessary for her to make many trips.

  But it was not the terrible cold or the howling wind that frightened her so much as Mark. A raging fever had taken him, and for two days she battled to keep it down with every resource at her command. She knew that if the fever went too high, he would die, and that fear paralyzed her at times.

  Sometimes he was so hot his flesh seemed to burn her hand. The first time that happened, she knew she had to bring his temperature down. She had stripped his shirt off and applied snow-water to his face and upper body until after what seemed like an eternity, the crimson color left his face. She had lain down beside the bunk, only to be awakened some time later by his chattering teeth. The entire bed shook from the chill racking his body. She piled blankets over him, careful to make sure he didn’t throw them off in his delirium.

  On the second day his face was almost skull-like in the flickering light of the candle—the cheeks hollow and his eyes sunk back into his head. “You’ve got to eat!” she said determinedly, and she would ladle a thick broth down his throat a spoonful at a time. He resisted her, and in his efforts to avoid the food, he flung up an arm, his hand striking her across the mouth. She tasted warm blood where her lips had been cut by her teeth, but blinking back the tears, she picked up the spoon and forced him to swallow more of the broth.

  By the end of that day Lola was exhausted. Life had become a cycle—feed and water the horses, keep the fire going, melt snow for water, keep Mark’s temperature from going too high, feed him small portions whenever he seemed awake, keep the covers on him when the chills shook him, try to sleep on the cold floor whenever she could find a few minutes. The cold sapped her strength and drew her down, so that she grew to dread the task of caring for the horses. She was weak, both physically and mentally, and the strain of isolation sucked at her emotions so that she had to consciously struggle against fear, and this became harder with every hour.

  The third morning she awoke shaking from the heavy blanket of cold that filled the small shack. She had let the fire go down so low that barely a glimmer of light shown from the charred wood. It took all the will she had to roll out of her blankets and force herself to feed the tiny stove until the fresh wood caught. Her whole body trembled violently from the cold. She built up a good fire and fried four pieces of thick bacon, made a sandwich, then washed it down with black coffee.

  When she finished she saw that Mark was having another chill, so she moved the chair close to his bed and sat down, holding his arms down as he tried to throw the covers off. He was too weak to resist, so she relaxed her grip. The food and the warmth of the room soon brought a drowsiness that pulled her eyelids down. She fought against it, but finally leaned forward and rested on his chest, pinning his arms dow
n to keep him from throwing the covers off, thinking she would rest only until his chill passed away. After struggling to stay awake, she closed her eyes and was asleep at once.

  “Lola?”

  The sound of his voice startled her, and she came up from where she lay against him, disoriented and frightened. The sudden move made her dizzy and she put her hands up before her in a defensive gesture, unable to focus on anything.

  “Easy, now!”

  She gasped when she felt his hands on her wrists, then her vision cleared and she saw his face by the dim yellow light from the stove. He looked haggard and worn, but his eyes were clear, and when he spoke with a husky voice, she opened her eyes wider, exclaiming, “The fever’s broken!”

  “I reckon so.” He released his grip and pulled himself up to a sitting position, but the effort made him so dizzy that he swayed and closed his eyes. She reached out and steadied him, pulling his sweat-soaked pillow up so that he could lean against it. He tried to speak, then paused to lick his cracked lips. She jumped up and got him a much-needed cup of water.

  “How do you feel, Mark?”

  He looked up at her after thirstily drinking the cool water, noting the lines of exhaustion on her face, and mumbled, “Hungry.”

  She laughed and the sound seemed to lighten the heaviness in the air. “That’s just like a man—thinking of his stomach first.” Feeling his forehead, she said with a relieved smile, “Fever’s all gone.” After pulling the covers up around him, she turned to busy herself fixing him a meal.

  The smell of food soon wafted through the air, arousing his hunger pangs. Mark began to struggle to get out of bed, but Lola wouldn’t hear of it. “Mark Winslow—if you put one foot on the floor, I’ll hit you over the head with this skillet!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he grinned weakly, and lay there watching her as she prepared the food. Running his hand over his face, he felt the bristles and asked, “How long have I been sick?”