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  “I’ve never seen anything like this, sir. In all our battles out west against the Apache, the Comanche, the Cheyenne—none of it can compare to this slaughter. I’ve seen men walking around still alive with their guts hanging out, bodies on the ground with no heads, an arm with no body nearby. It will be a long time before I can go to sleep without the cries of those boys ringing in my ears. I’d rather be back out west.”

  Dawson rubbed his eyes. “Well, we’ve got to go where they send us, Sergeant Bridger. That’s what happens when you’re dumb enough to join the army in the first place.”

  Bridger chuckled. “I do wonder sometimes why I got myself into this mess.”

  Dawson shifted to relieve a sore hip caused from a horse falling on him earlier in the day. “I know why I did. It was because I had nothing else to do with my life—no home, no family, no goals—”

  And because I’d left a man behind me to die. For one quick moment a flash of memory from the day he’d run away actually made him wince.

  “I was thirteen when I joined,” he continued. “I was big for my age so they believed me when I said I was sixteen. I fought in the Mexican War at fourteen years old, saved a major’s life and that major’s family had money. He sent me to Philadelphia to get a decent education and then made sure I was gradually promoted to where I am now. He was killed by Indians, and I still think about him. He did a lot for me, probably the only person in my life who ever cared if I succeeded at anything.”

  Bridger frowned. “Sir, why are you telling me all this?”

  Dawson shrugged. “Maybe because I know I might be dead in a couple of hours. Such thoughts make a man do and say things he never would normally.”

  The sergeant grinned. “Maybe so.” He reached inside his Union blue jacket and pulled out a piece of paper. “Which prompts me to give this to you.”

  Curious, Dawson took the paper. “What’s this?”

  “It’s my will.”

  “Your will?”

  The sergeant nodded. “For what it’s worth.”

  “Why are you giving this to me?”

  Bridger moved closer to the dwindling fire, the hot coals having a hard time keeping up with the rain. “Because earlier today you bayoneted a Graycoat who was about to shoot my head off. We were so busy fighting I never had a chance to thank you, sir, but I am grateful. I want you to know that. I have some money in a bank in St. Louis, and I’ve got no family left, so in case I’m the one who ends up with his face in the mud later today, I want somebody worthy to have my money. It’s not a whole lot, but enough for a man to get a pretty good start in life. I hope you can put it to good use.”

  Dawson put the note into his own pocket without reading it.

  “Don’t you want to know how much I’ve got?”

  “No, because it won’t matter,” Dawson said. “You’re going to be just fine, Sergeant Bridger. You’ll end up back out west with me once this war ends.” He leaned against a wheel of the cannon cart. “Tell me, how did a man on sergeant’s pay manage to save up any money at all?”

  A patient inside a nearby hospital tent let out a gut-wrenching scream that quieted both of them and sent shivers to Dawson’s very bone marrow. He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Another man has lost a limb, most likely.”

  More screams came from the tent, and in the distance the continued groans and sobbing of other wounded men pierced the dark night. Dawson’s face burned from black powder that seemed to eat into his skin, and his eyes stung from it washing into them because of the rain, which the wind drove into his face in spite of the brimmed hat and the poncho he wore.

  “Well, sir, to take your mind off that poor fellow in there, I’ll tell you how I came to have that money. It came from my grandma.”

  “I thought you said you had no family.”

  Bridger chuckled. “I didn’t know I did. My ma was good to me, but she was…well, let’s just say she never knew who my pa even was. Funny how we’ve fought together out west and now here, but we never knew all this about each other. Anyway, I grew up helping out in a saloon where Ma worked, and when she died I joined the army—kind of like the reason you joined, I guess. Anyways, low and behold I got this letter about six months back from a woman who claims to have been my grandmother. I don’t know how she found me, but she did. Come to find out, she lived in the same town where I grew up, St. Louis, Missouri. She wrote that her and my ma never got along, so I was never told about who she was or where she lived. The letter said she was soon to die of cancer and she wanted me to have some money she’d saved from working two jobs in her old age. Said it helped her passing to know somebody carrying her blood would go on in this life and maybe be a better person than she or my ma ever were.”

  Dawson nodded in understanding, thinking how young Bridger was for being a sergeant; but then this war seemed to spur promotions that would never normally be given. Men were badly needed, and those with the slightest bit of army knowledge and any kind of schooling rapidly became in charge of the others. He was himself just twenty-nine, but before this war ended he could end up a general. He’d seen other colonels and generals who were barely any older.

  “Anyway,” Bridger went on, “I couldn’t think of one other person than you who ought to have the money in case I die. It’s in the Federal Bank of St. Louis. So, if something does happen to me, it’s yours. Just make sure there’s a grave site someplace in St. Louis with my name on it, even if my body isn’t there. Just something that shows I once existed. My name and birth date are on that piece of paper.”

  Dawson reached out and touched his arm. “I’ll do that, Sergeant, but like I said, you’re going to be just fine.”

  Bridger sighed. “I sure hope so, sir. I just—do you believe in God, sir?”

  The question caught Dawson off guard, and it brought back painful memories. He could still see Preacher Carter’s face plain as day, his scowl, his piercing dark eyes and sharp nose, his face red from giving Dawson another beating with his wide, black belt, screaming that he needed to “beat the devil” out of him again.

  “Sure I do,” he answered Bridger, only because he knew that was what the man wanted to hear. “Why?”

  “Well, I mean, do you really think a man goes to heaven when he dies, where everything is beautiful and peaceful and all that?”

  Dawson decided this was not the time to tell a man there was also a hell, where some men, including himself, were bound to go no matter what. The worst part was that Preacher Carter would probably be there, too.

  “Of course there’s a heaven,” he answered, forcing himself to sound positive, “but you’ll be an old man before you get there.”

  “Lieutenant Clements!” A young private ran up to salute Dawson, interrupting the conversation. “I was told by a Major Coldwell to tell you to prepare the men and artillery for attack. We’re going to sweep this whole area clean of Rebels forthwith! General Grant is mustering all troops as well as the new arrivals, sir.”

  “They’re here then?”

  The private grinned broadly. “Yes, sir! All seventy-five hundred of them! They’re coming off the steamboat right now at the landing!”

  Dawson saluted in return. “Thank you, Private. Tell the major we’ll have our cannon and rifles ready.”

  “Yes, sir!” The private hurried away, excited now that it looked like enough help had come to turn this battle around. Dawson heard a man crying bitterly inside the hospital tent, and he supposed it was the same man who minutes ago had screamed in agony. For all he knew, after the next few hours of fighting he’d be missing a limb himself, or worse.

  He stood and nodded to Sergeant Bridger. “Thank you for thinking of me, Sergeant. Go and prepare your men.”

  The young man stood up with a tired groan, and the two men saluted one another. “Yes, sir.”

  Their gazes held a moment. “God be with you, Sergeant,” Dawson told him, sure he detected a trace of tears in Bridger’s eyes.

  “And with you, sir. Once t
his is over we’ll—”

  A shot rang out before Bridger finished the sentence. His body lurched forward and fell, just missing landing in the campfire. In his back was a bloody, gaping hole.

  Startled, Dawson watched a wounded and badly bleeding young Confederate soldier crawl toward him, a smoking pistol in his hand. It took Dawson a moment to realize what had just occurred.

  While the wounded soldier fumbled with his pistol, Dawson quickly grabbed his musket, bayonet attached, from where it rested against a nearby log. Swiftly he jammed the tip of the bayonet against the Confederate man’s forehead. “Don’t bother reloading, mister!” he warned.

  The young Rebel looked up at Dawson and grinned. “At least I got one more of you yellow-bellied Yanks before I meet my Maker.”

  “And meet your Maker you will!” an enraged Dawson answered. He pulled the trigger of his loaded musket, wiping away not just the man’s grin, but nearly his entire face. Never in his life had he considered committing such a heinous act, but in this moment of pain and disbelief, he didn’t care.

  Grief washed over him with the cold rain when he managed to turn his gaze to the young man who’d just willed him what little money he had in the whole world, and all because he’d saved his life earlier today. This time he’d failed him. He’d promised that boy that he’d be all right, but then such promises were only for God to make.

  He knelt and gently he turned Bridger’s body over, hoping beyond hope that he might still be alive.

  “Sergeant,” he spoke, a sob engulfing him at the same time. He felt at the man’s neck for a pulse, but there was none. He struggled to keep from breaking into all-out tears over the man’s shockingly sudden death, as several men gathered to see what had happened.

  “Sir, are you all right?” someone asked.

  Dawson nodded. “Go away—all of you,” he told them gruffly. “Get ready for the advance.”

  “Yes, sir. What about Sergeant Bridger? We can’t bury him right now, sir. Grant is ordering—”

  “I know what we have to do!” Dawson barked. “I’ll be along!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dawson sensed the men leaving. Dawn was barely breaking, and men who’d lain wounded all night still cried and groaned throughout the surrounding woods and orchards. How strange that he should feel so sad over the death of a young man he’d known only as a fellow soldier for the past year and a half. Preacher Carter had been right. Maybe he was evil and deserved this constant punishment.

  He removed his rubber cape and laid it over the sergeant to keep his body dry and respectfully covered until he could return and bury the man. Feeling numb and strangely removed from reality, he headed for duty. There was a little church situated somewhere south of them, and their goal was to reach it before the sun set again.

  The cold rain began soaking his blue greatcoat and running down his neck under his shirt. He thought it only fitting and proper that he should suffer from its chilling wetness. The discomfort would help shroud his inner pain for the next few hours.

  When I was in trouble, I called to the Lord,

  And He answered me.

  Save me, Lord, from liars and deceivers.

  —Psalms 120:1-2

  Chapter Three

  April 20, 1863

  Breathing deeply to calm her nerves, Clarissa glanced around the land agent’s office, studying the marble floors, the mahogany furniture and glass bookcases, the high windows with fancy drapery. As she appreciated the beauty of St. Louis’s grand courthouse and its magnificently painted central rotunda in the main hall, she had to wonder how long it would be before she saw such civilized grandeur again after leaving this city where she’d grown up.

  It was almost impossible to calm the butterflies in her stomach at the thought of what she was doing. If not for Carolyn and Michael Harvey she would never have had this chance to finally leave St. Louis and start a new life.

  After her embarrassing divorce, a kind and understanding Carolyn continued watching Sophie so that Clarissa could go back to her nursing job at City Hospital to support herself and Sophie. Chad had indeed sold the store and all the inventory without her knowledge. Thank goodness the house they’d shared had been her father’s and willed to her. When she married Chad the house was never put into his name.

  Apparently Chad had only cared about the store because it was paid for free and clear but the house wasn’t. Clarissa was left with that debt, but she’d worked hard to keep up the payments on the two-bedroom frame home she’d now miss dearly. She’d sold the house and most of the furniture in order to have the necessary money to leave St. Louis.

  Michael Harvey planned to settle in Montana under the new Homestead Act. The cotton wholesaler for whom Michael worked had gone out of business because of the war, and being deeply religious, Michael refused to join the fighting for either side. St. Louis was in chaos, and danger lurked everywhere. For the sake of their little girl, Michael intended to head west with his family, and Clarissa and Sophie would go with them. Clarissa’s latest embarrassing ordeal made her more determined, because she’d been fired from her nursing job just for being divorced! Ordered to take care of only the female patients, she was let go when she dared to help a poor, wounded soldier that no one else seemed to have time for. The firing was partly because that soldier was a Confederate, and Confederate soldiers always got helped last; but it seemed obvious to her that helping the man was also the hospital’s excuse to get rid of a woman about whom other nurses, and even some patients’ wives, had complained should not be around any of the “lonely, vulnerable male patients.”

  Her embarrassment had turned to anger at such foolishness. One thing the hospital needed now more than ever was doctors and nurses, with so many hundreds of wounded soldiers coming in almost daily. It seemed incredible that her divorced status should cause so much havoc in her life.

  Even Carolyn and Michael had suffered. Michael, a deacon at the Light of Christ Church, where Clarissa had attended so faithfully until Chad left her, had grown disgusted over the insinuations from other men in the church, even the deacons and the minister, that he should not be known to associate so closely with a divorced woman, or he could be asked to leave the church. Michael refused to let such ugliness destroy his and Carolyn’s happiness. And because he wanted a place where Clarissa could also feel free to worship, he left the church and started his own ministry at his house. Now he hoped to take that ministry to Montana and start his own church there for the hundreds, perhaps thousands of people who would settle there under the Homestead Act. Thousands more had gone before because of a fabulous silver strike at what some said was now the thriving town of Virginia City, Montana.

  It was time to move on and start over. Surely a place like Montana needed nurses, and the more she thought about leaving behind all the bad memories here in St. Louis, the more excited Clarissa became over her decision.

  “Mommy, I want to go home,” Sophie complained, turning from a big window where she’d been watching the street traffic outside.

  “We’ll leave soon, honey,” Clarissa answered. She picked the girl up and set her on her lap, pushing some of the child’s red curls behind one ear. “You’ve been very good.”

  Thank goodness she’d received enough money for the house after paying off the bank to be able to pay for her own supplies and even her own wagon. Michael would buy all the oxen, and Clarissa could hardly bear the wait. The sooner she got out of St. Louis, the better.

  “Here you are!” The land agent, Eric Fastow, interrupted her thoughts when he finally returned to his desk. “Your official Homestead Certificate. I made sure your section would be located adjacent to Mr. and Mrs. Harvey so you could all be together. Everything is signed. Mr. and Mrs. Harvey each signed up for one-hundred-sixty acres, so between all three of you, you’ll have four-hundred-eighty acres to build a fine ranch! And it’s all located just five miles south of Virginia City! You’ll be close enough to go there for supplies whenever necessary, as
long as mountain snows don’t hold you up.”

  Clarissa took the paper, studying it a moment. There was her name as owner: Clarissa Lynn Seaforth Graham. “Oh, my!” she exclaimed, showing it to Sophie. “See, Sophie? We’ll have land that’s all our own! We’re going on a long trip to live there.”

  “Can Lena go?”

  “Oh, yes. Lena and Carolyn and Michael are all going!”

  Sophie clapped her hands and smiled. This child was another reason to leave St. Louis. Away from here Sophie never had to suffer from gossip and teasing. Clarissa folded the deed and placed it into an envelope Fastow handed her. “Thank you so much, Mr. Fastow.”

  “My pleasure!” The thin, bespectacled man put out his hand, and Clarissa set Sophie on her feet and got up from her chair, shaking the man’s hand. “I wish you good luck, Mrs. Graham. I’d be worried about you if you were doing this alone, but as long as you are traveling with the Harveys, you should make it just fine.”

  Clarissa squeezed his hand and then let go, appreciating the few people who treated her like a respectable person in spite of her being divorced. She put the deed into her handbag. “Thank you again, Mr. Fastow,” she said before taking Sophie’s hand and leading her back out into the lobby.

  Immediately Sophie again pointed to the spectacular rotunda and stared upward. “Look, Mommy, it’s high!” The child spoke loudly, obviously enjoying the way her voice echoed in the large hall. “Can we go up there?”

  “No, we certainly cannot. I’m not climbing all those steps just so you can get up there and fall and hurt yourself. Besides, I have to get you home. We have to meet Carolyn and Michael there to get some shopping done. We have so many preparations to make for our long trip. It takes a lot of planning.”