“Three times?”
“He was a Yankee abolitionist soldier, Ma’am.” She said it with finality as if that explained everything.
“And you still want to find him?”
“I think I must. Like I said, I can’t stop thinking about him. And we may be married. So there is that.”
Elizabeth refreshed Mary’s tea, then her own and settled back into her chair, a smile starting to show. No wonder, after all, that Genevieve had sent her on. This would be a delicious distraction. It promised to be most amusing.
“I believe you’ll have to tell me the whole story.”
*****
3rd of AUGUST 1861
Cripple Creek Road near Sutton, Virginia
Mary smoothed her blue Sunday dress — it was the finest she owned, and, while she hated the color, she felt the finery and the color made her a less tempting target for abuse by the hated Yankee cavalry that patrolled the roads. She’d heard horrible stories of girls kidnapped and abused by the blue-coated devils. Nobody she knew, fortunately.
Her little pony cart had already been searched twice by Union soldiers, but they’d stopped their searches after idly glancing in the bags of clothing she was taking with her to stay at her cousins’. It’d taken every bit of restraint she could muster to stay silent during the intrusions. She’d made this trip three times over the last two weeks already. Two more miles and she’d be home free.
Damn the blue jackets and their intrusion into her State. She was glad the war came, it was finally time to teach the Yankees a lesson. She’d have thought the victory by the brave Southern men at Manassas would have had the cowards tucking their tails and running for the hills by now. Perhaps they were too stupid to understand their position. It wouldn’t matter in the end. A real Southern man was worth ten Yankee dogs any day.
And she would help any way she could.
*****
Lieutenant Jeremiah Lodge saw the simple two-wheel farm cart on the road ahead. A slender dark-haired girl in a blue dress guided the pony down the dirt road with an easy familiarity. It wasn’t as unusual as it should have been — many of the local boys had gone South to join the nascent rebel armies at Richmond, leaving women and children to run the errands that they would have normally done.
Jeremiah planned to simply lead his ten-trooper patrol on by; as he came even with her, he touched his hat brim. She nodded stiffly in return — about as much as he could ever expect from one of the local girls in this part of the state.
He’d have passed on, but for a sound caused by the morning breeze. It was a simple sound. The sound of paper moving. It certainly wasn’t the sound of cotton nor crinoline, but the sound of paper.
“Halt”
He turned in his saddle and caught the reins from the girl’s hands.
She glared at him intensely for a fraction of a second, then struggled to bury her hatred under icy disdain. But the icy coolness only lasted until she spoke.
“What do you want, Lincoln pup?”
Jeremiah smiled, as disarmingly as possible.
“Lieutenant Jeremiah Lodge, attached to the Provosts Office station in Sutton, at your service, Ma’am. I’m afraid I am going to have to ask you to come with us to Headquarters.”