Chapter OneApril, 1867
Mrs. Bailey,
I have read your letter with some interest. A marriage such as you seek is not out of the realm of possibilities. Your conditions are acceptable. I myself have one condition for this union.
Mathew Knight grit his teeth as he wrote the last word. He forced himself to continue writing.
I require that we be married by proxy before I arrive. Any man who has reached his majority and is of legal age may stand in my stead as a proxy if you trust this gentleman to attest to the same. If you require the like of me, I will endeavor to find a woman of good standing who may stand as your proxy.
I await your response and remain your humble servant, Mathew Knight.
He folded the letter and slid it into an envelope, then addressed it. He placed the letter in his old haversack. He would post it in the morning, when he went into Hawkinsville to try to find work.
His gaze wandered to the child sleeping on a pile of old hay, wrapped in his frock coat. There was nothing left for him here. General Sherman had guaranteed that. Living in a partially burned barn on what was left of his former in-laws’ property, trying to protect his son and himself from roving bands of thieves and outlaws and the growing threat from disgruntled whites taking the law into their own hands was no way to raise a child. Attempting to keep body and soul together was proving to be a task as monumental as surviving Camp Douglas. The odd jobs he found that paid in cold, hard cash were few and far between. More often than not, he was paid in food stuffs, from larders and pantries already frighteningly bare.
His ability to practice medicine was severely hampered by the crippling injury to his left arm—not that he ever intended to practice medicine again. The thought of losing another life…Mathew shook himself. He couldn’t dwell on those lives he hadn’t been able to save.
A sharp snap of a breaking branch outside in the darkness made him freeze, straining to hear, and cursing his deafness in one ear.
A voice he recognized as belonging to one of the unreconstructed Confederates in the area drifted into him. “He ain’t got a choice. He’s either with us or he’s against us. If he ain’t with us, we’ll just burn him out, like we done with them down in the bottoms.”
Damn. Mathew leaped up from his makeshift writing table, grabbed his old haversack, and spent a precious moment to wrap his son more securely in his frock coat before scooping the boy into his arms. Ethan woke instantly.
“Not a sound,” Mathew cautioned him in a whisper, wasting another several seconds to be sure the child understood him.
Ethan nodded, though his eyes were wide with terror.
He slipped through a space created by three missing barn boards and into the darkness. An angry shout followed him into the night.
“He ain’t far. This lamp’s still lit. Find him.”
Mathew wove through the heavy pine forest, grateful for the thick carpet of spent needles which could muffle the sound of any twigs or sticks breaking that he stepped on and also helped to disguise his tracks. He made his way as quickly as he could to a small hollowed out recess in a limestone outcrop. Few knew of the recess, though his deceased wife’s family had used it as a fruit and vegetable larder in better times.
He set Ethan down and pointed at the recess. “Hurry.”
Ethan scrambled into the small shelter and Mathew followed. Though he couldn’t see in the near pitch blackness, Ethan’s small hand grabbed onto his, pulling him deeper into the hollow. Mathew put himself between the boy and the opening, then covered himself as best he could with his frock coat. If any of the pursuers thrust a torch or lantern into the recess, he prayed his coat would hide the white of his shirt.
Pounding feet raced past the small hiding place. Ethan pressed against his back, his little frame shuddering. Mathew didn’t dare move to even try to reassure his son they were safe. They weren’t safe. Not until those men left. Even then, he admitted bitterly, they weren’t safe. Until he agreed to join their despicable movement, neither he nor Ethan was safe.
Flickering light spilled partially into the recess. Mathew held his breath.
“I’m telling you, Fred, he ain’t out here.”
“He has to be. The only way he could have gone is out here.”
“We ain’t gonna find him out here in the dark and in all this pine. Let’s go back and leave him a message he’ll understand.”
When Mathew finally deemed it safe enough to leave the little alcove, the first sleepy twitters of a few birds greeting the faint lightening of the horizon rippled through the pines. He crawled out of the cave and stood. His heart sank.
Four mounted men, all wearing hoods, waited in a semi-circle around the opening. Their mounts had rags wrapped about the bits to keep even that sound quieted. Shrouded in a twisting, writhing fog, the image was nightmarish. The same thick carpet of fallen pine needles that had helped him evade their pursuit had muffled their approach. He hadn’t evaded anything. They’d just been more patient than he bargained for.
Mathew’s spine stiffened with Ethan’s terrified whimper.
“Mornin’, Doc. Don’t mean to be scarin’ the boy.”
The patently false concern for Ethan’s state grated. Mathew levelly met Fred Gregory’s partially hidden gaze. “Take your hood off, Fred. He won’t be so scared, then.”
“You know I can’t do that, Doc. None of us want to be scarin’ the boy or makin’ threats to you.” Gregory leaned forward in the saddle, which quickly became apparent was a signal for the other three to dismount.
Panic tightened his throat down as the three walked with deliberation closer to him and Ethan. He had nowhere to run and no manner to protect Ethan.
“Doc, nobody wants to hurt you. Or the boy.”
The threat hung in the predawn fog. He tried to keep Ethan behind him and as close to the opening of the small cave as he could. He also knew Ethan would never escape if anything happened to him.
“You’d think, after what them Yanks did to you, what they did to your wife, addled your boy’s head, and the way they’re lettin’ them ni—”
“Don’t ever say that word around my son.” Mathew couldn’t keep the disgust from his voice.
“Fair enough, Doc. The way the Yanks and carpetbaggers is lettin’ them darkies think they’s as good as us, you shouldn’t have any second thoughts about joinin’ our movement.”
“How is intimidation, burning people out of their homes, and murder going to change a thing?” If he kept Fred talking, he might be able to find a way out of this. If he pushed Ethan back into the small limestone shelter, he might be able to protect his son. “They fought a war of attrition. How much more of the South needs to be razed, how many more have to be killed before you admit it’s not worth continuing a losing war and spilling another drop of blood?”
One of the men closing in on Mathew and Ethan laughed, an ugly, dark sound. “It’s not murder. It’s defending our homes, our womenfolk, our children, their future and our very way of life. They are not and never will be equal to a white man.”
In horrified shock, Mathew twisted his head to the speaker. Jeff Whitmore, pastor at the local church, slowly pulled his hood off. “It’s our Christian duty, Mathew, to defend those things.”
He backed half a step, praying Ethan would scramble into the small cave again. There wasn’t a way out of this. “I took an oath, given before God and man when I became a physician, to do no harm. That oath is sacred to me. My duty, as a Christian and as a physician, is to do no harm.”
A sharp tug on his leg combined with Ethan’s terrified, high-pitched scream diverted his attention from Whitmore. Damn. His momentary lapse of attention on all of them put Ethan and himself in a more precarious position than ever. One of the other men dragged Ethan’s kicking and flailing form away.
“Leave my son alone.” Mathew spun to the man holding Ethan. “He’s no threat at all to you.”
The moment his back turned to Whitmore, something struck him across the back of his head. Stars rained over his vision and he pitched forward a single, unsteady step. Before he fully recovered his balance, Whitmore and the third man had his arms pinned behind his back. Gregory slowly swung out of the saddle and untied a long rope lashed to the saddle.
“Now that we’ve got your full attention, Doc, maybe you’ll listen to us.”
He bit his tongue to keep the angry, futile curses and threats he longed to hurl tightly contained. He forced himself to stop struggling to get free as Gregory fashioned a noose at one end of the rope. “If you’re going to kill me, have the decency to take my son away so he doesn’t see it.”
Gregory didn’t respond, just continued to form the noose.
“Take him away from here.” He forced the words out, trying not to sound as if he was begging for his son’s life. “He’s no threat to you. He can barely talk.”
Gregory paused. “He can still talk. You first, Doc, or the boy?”
Mathew twisted against the restraint, unable to break the punishing hold on his arms. Whitmore twisted his damaged arm painfully up into his shoulder blades. The pressure and pain bent him double and then to his knees. Ethan’s terrified screams turned into moaning sobs.
“Doctor Knight! You out here?” A distant voice shattered the bravado of the would-be killers.
Reacting before either of the men holding him captive could muffle him, Mathew shouted, “Ezra!”
The man holding Ethan dropped him and the two restraining Mathew released him, but not before one of the two hit him across the back of the head, again. Barely holding onto consciousness, he managed to grab onto Ethan when the child crashed into him. The boy’s thin arms wrapped around his neck. He saw the blur of an upraised cudgel. He tucked Ethan more fully into him and covered the boy with his body.
The club smashed into Mathew’s shoulder while a fierce kick to his ribs knocked the wind from him. He curled more fully around Ethan, praying help wouldn’t be too long in arriving.
The pounding of both retreating and advancing horses’ hooves vibrated into him. He didn’t move, didn’t stop keeping Ethan sheltered under him until a firm hand grabbed his shoulder.
He came off the ground with a wild swing at whoever had a hand on him. Captain Ezra Josephson backed away. “Easy, Knight. They’re gone.”
Mathew looked around with a frantic gaze, then pulled Ethan up into his arms, holding the shuddering boy tightly to his chest.
A private picked up the discarded noose. “Captain?”
“I saw it.” Josephson put his hand on Mathew’s shoulder again. This time, Mathew accepted the gesture, understanding it was as much support as it was to steady him. “Major Taylor heard there was going to be some trouble last night and you had a fire out here. Glad he sent me out to check on things when he did.”
Mathew could only nod. If he focused too long on the rope Gregory discarded when they fled, he would be vomiting. He was already shaking. He pivoted away from the private coiling up the length of rope.
“Who were they? Anyone you know?”
“I…” Give up the two men he knew, and it was certain death. He wouldn’t be able to get out of Hawkinsville fast enough. “I don’t know who they were.”
“They almost killed you. If we’d been a little bit later…” Josephson settled a hard stare on him. If the Captain expected him to squirm, Mathew intended to disappoint him. The Yankee finally huffed out a short breath. “I don’t understand it.”
“You don’t have to understand it. Just understand I do not know who they were.”
Ethan lifted his head off his shoulder and a renewed shudder rippled through the boy. “Bad man, bad man, bad man,” he whispered in a chanting cadence. Mathew clutched the child more tightly to his chest, trying to calm him. Ethan might have been terrified a few moments before, but it was nothing compared to the near hysterical panic the child exhibited at the sight of Federal blue uniforms.
“Private Marlowe.” Josephson gestured to the private who had coiled the noose. “Mount up and ride back to Hawkinsville. Report in with Major Taylor and inform him I will be requisitioning another mount for tomorrow’s detail.”
The private saluted, pulled himself into the saddle, and rode off. Josephson picked up his horse’s reins and began leading the animal. “I’m commanding a small detail that will be leaving at first light. You can’t stay here.”
“That has become more than abundantly clear.” Mathew shifted Ethan’s shaking form onto his hip and bent to pick up his frock coat and haversack.
“I’ll walk with you to Hawkinsville and my detail can accompany you as far as Camp Hope. You can catch a train there into Macon or Atlanta. That should be far enough away.”
“Why are you doin’ this?” Mathew heard the slight shudder in his voice, a lingering effect of the full-bodied shaking both he and Ethan shared at the moment.
“Until we start looking at each other as countrymen and brothers again, this war is never going to be over.” Josephson paused long enough to settle a pointed look at Mathew’s left shoulder. “And, maybe because I’m trying, in my own way, to prove that most of us who wear this uniform are nothing like the bastards who did that to you at Camp Douglas.”
Mrs. Bailey,
I have read your letter with some interest. A marriage such as you seek is not out of the realm of possibilities. Your conditions are acceptable. I myself have one condition for this union.
Mathew Knight grit his teeth as he wrote the last word. He forced himself to continue writing.
I require that we be married by proxy before I arrive. Any man who has reached his majority and is of legal age may stand in my stead as a proxy if you trust this gentleman to attest to the same. If you require the like of me, I will endeavor to find a woman of good standing who may stand as your proxy.
I await your response and remain your humble servant, Mathew Knight.
He folded the letter and slid it into an envelope, then addressed it. He placed the letter in his old haversack. He would post it in the morning, when he went into Hawkinsville to try to find work.
His gaze wandered to the child sleeping on a pile of old hay, wrapped in his frock coat. There was nothing left for him here. General Sherman had guaranteed that. Living in a partially burned barn on what was left of his former in-laws’ property, trying to protect his son and himself from roving bands of thieves and outlaws and the growing threat from disgruntled whites taking the law into their own hands was no way to raise a child. Attempting to keep body and soul together was proving to be a task as monumental as surviving Camp Douglas. The odd jobs he found that paid in cold, hard cash were few and far between. More often than not, he was paid in food stuffs, from larders and pantries already frighteningly bare.
His ability to practice medicine was severely hampered by the crippling injury to his left arm—not that he ever intended to practice medicine again. The thought of losing another life…Mathew shook himself. He couldn’t dwell on those lives he hadn’t been able to save.
A sharp snap of a breaking branch outside in the darkness made him freeze, straining to hear, and cursing his deafness in one ear.
A voice he recognized as belonging to one of the unreconstructed Confederates in the area drifted into him. “He ain’t got a choice. He’s either with us or he’s against us. If he ain’t with us, we’ll just burn him out, like we done with them down in the bottoms.”
Damn. Mathew leaped up from his makeshift writing table, grabbed his old haversack, and spent a precious moment to wrap his son more securely in his frock coat before scooping the boy into his arms. Ethan woke instantly.
“Not a sound,” Mathew cautioned him in a whisper, wasting another several seconds to be sure the child understood him.
Ethan nodded, though his eyes were wide with terror.
He slipped through a space created by three missing barn boards and into the darkness. An angry shout followed him into the night.
“He ain’t far. This lamp’s still lit. Find him.”
Mathew wove through the heavy pine forest, grateful for the thick carpet of spent needles which could muffle the sound of any twigs or sticks breaking that he stepped on and also helped to disguise his tracks. He made his way as quickly as he could to a small hollowed out recess in a limestone outcrop. Few knew of the recess, though his deceased wife’s family had used it as a fruit and vegetable larder in better times.
He set Ethan down and pointed at the recess. “Hurry.”
Ethan scrambled into the small shelter and Mathew followed. Though he couldn’t see in the near pitch blackness, Ethan’s small hand grabbed onto his, pulling him deeper into the hollow. Mathew put himself between the boy and the opening, then covered himself as best he could with his frock coat. If any of the pursuers thrust a torch or lantern into the recess, he prayed his coat would hide the white of his shirt.
Pounding feet raced past the small hiding place. Ethan pressed against his back, his little frame shuddering. Mathew didn’t dare move to even try to reassure his son they were safe. They weren’t safe. Not until those men left. Even then, he admitted bitterly, they weren’t safe. Until he agreed to join their despicable movement, neither he nor Ethan was safe.
Flickering light spilled partially into the recess. Mathew held his breath.
“I’m telling you, Fred, he ain’t out here.”
“He has to be. The only way he could have gone is out here.”
“We ain’t gonna find him out here in the dark and in all this pine. Let’s go back and leave him a message he’ll understand.”
When Mathew finally deemed it safe enough to leave the little alcove, the first sleepy twitters of a few birds greeting the faint lightening of the horizon rippled through the pines. He crawled out of the cave and stood. His heart sank.
Four mounted men, all wearing hoods, waited in a semi-circle around the opening. Their mounts had rags wrapped about the bits to keep even that sound quieted. Shrouded in a twisting, writhing fog, the image was nightmarish. The same thick carpet of fallen pine needles that had helped him evade their pursuit had muffled their approach. He hadn’t evaded anything. They’d just been more patient than he bargained for.
Mathew’s spine stiffened with Ethan’s terrified whimper.
“Mornin’, Doc. Don’t mean to be scarin’ the boy.”
The patently false concern for Ethan’s state grated. Mathew levelly met Fred Gregory’s partially hidden gaze. “Take your hood off, Fred. He won’t be so scared, then.”
“You know I can’t do that, Doc. None of us want to be scarin’ the boy or makin’ threats to you.” Gregory leaned forward in the saddle, which quickly became apparent was a signal for the other three to dismount.
Panic tightened his throat down as the three walked with deliberation closer to him and Ethan. He had nowhere to run and no manner to protect Ethan.
“Doc, nobody wants to hurt you. Or the boy.”
The threat hung in the predawn fog. He tried to keep Ethan behind him and as close to the opening of the small cave as he could. He also knew Ethan would never escape if anything happened to him.
“You’d think, after what them Yanks did to you, what they did to your wife, addled your boy’s head, and the way they’re lettin’ them ni—”
“Don’t ever say that word around my son.” Mathew couldn’t keep the disgust from his voice.
“Fair enough, Doc. The way the Yanks and carpetbaggers is lettin’ them darkies think they’s as good as us, you shouldn’t have any second thoughts about joinin’ our movement.”
“How is intimidation, burning people out of their homes, and murder going to change a thing?” If he kept Fred talking, he might be able to find a way out of this. If he pushed Ethan back into the small limestone shelter, he might be able to protect his son. “They fought a war of attrition. How much more of the South needs to be razed, how many more have to be killed before you admit it’s not worth continuing a losing war and spilling another drop of blood?”
One of the men closing in on Mathew and Ethan laughed, an ugly, dark sound. “It’s not murder. It’s defending our homes, our womenfolk, our children, their future and our very way of life. They are not and never will be equal to a white man.”
In horrified shock, Mathew twisted his head to the speaker. Jeff Whitmore, pastor at the local church, slowly pulled his hood off. “It’s our Christian duty, Mathew, to defend those things.”
He backed half a step, praying Ethan would scramble into the small cave again. There wasn’t a way out of this. “I took an oath, given before God and man when I became a physician, to do no harm. That oath is sacred to me. My duty, as a Christian and as a physician, is to do no harm.”
A sharp tug on his leg combined with Ethan’s terrified, high-pitched scream diverted his attention from Whitmore. Damn. His momentary lapse of attention on all of them put Ethan and himself in a more precarious position than ever. One of the other men dragged Ethan’s kicking and flailing form away.
“Leave my son alone.” Mathew spun to the man holding Ethan. “He’s no threat at all to you.”
The moment his back turned to Whitmore, something struck him across the back of his head. Stars rained over his vision and he pitched forward a single, unsteady step. Before he fully recovered his balance, Whitmore and the third man had his arms pinned behind his back. Gregory slowly swung out of the saddle and untied a long rope lashed to the saddle.
“Now that we’ve got your full attention, Doc, maybe you’ll listen to us.”
He bit his tongue to keep the angry, futile curses and threats he longed to hurl tightly contained. He forced himself to stop struggling to get free as Gregory fashioned a noose at one end of the rope. “If you’re going to kill me, have the decency to take my son away so he doesn’t see it.”
Gregory didn’t respond, just continued to form the noose.
“Take him away from here.” He forced the words out, trying not to sound as if he was begging for his son’s life. “He’s no threat to you. He can barely talk.”
Gregory paused. “He can still talk. You first, Doc, or the boy?”
Mathew twisted against the restraint, unable to break the punishing hold on his arms. Whitmore twisted his damaged arm painfully up into his shoulder blades. The pressure and pain bent him double and then to his knees. Ethan’s terrified screams turned into moaning sobs.
“Doctor Knight! You out here?” A distant voice shattered the bravado of the would-be killers.
Reacting before either of the men holding him captive could muffle him, Mathew shouted, “Ezra!”
The man holding Ethan dropped him and the two restraining Mathew released him, but not before one of the two hit him across the back of the head, again. Barely holding onto consciousness, he managed to grab onto Ethan when the child crashed into him. The boy’s thin arms wrapped around his neck. He saw the blur of an upraised cudgel. He tucked Ethan more fully into him and covered the boy with his body.
The club smashed into Mathew’s shoulder while a fierce kick to his ribs knocked the wind from him. He curled more fully around Ethan, praying help wouldn’t be too long in arriving.
The pounding of both retreating and advancing horses’ hooves vibrated into him. He didn’t move, didn’t stop keeping Ethan sheltered under him until a firm hand grabbed his shoulder.
He came off the ground with a wild swing at whoever had a hand on him. Captain Ezra Josephson backed away. “Easy, Knight. They’re gone.”
Mathew looked around with a frantic gaze, then pulled Ethan up into his arms, holding the shuddering boy tightly to his chest.
A private picked up the discarded noose. “Captain?”
“I saw it.” Josephson put his hand on Mathew’s shoulder again. This time, Mathew accepted the gesture, understanding it was as much support as it was to steady him. “Major Taylor heard there was going to be some trouble last night and you had a fire out here. Glad he sent me out to check on things when he did.”
Mathew could only nod. If he focused too long on the rope Gregory discarded when they fled, he would be vomiting. He was already shaking. He pivoted away from the private coiling up the length of rope.
“Who were they? Anyone you know?”
“I…” Give up the two men he knew, and it was certain death. He wouldn’t be able to get out of Hawkinsville fast enough. “I don’t know who they were.”
“They almost killed you. If we’d been a little bit later…” Josephson settled a hard stare on him. If the Captain expected him to squirm, Mathew intended to disappoint him. The Yankee finally huffed out a short breath. “I don’t understand it.”
“You don’t have to understand it. Just understand I do not know who they were.”
Ethan lifted his head off his shoulder and a renewed shudder rippled through the boy. “Bad man, bad man, bad man,” he whispered in a chanting cadence. Mathew clutched the child more tightly to his chest, trying to calm him. Ethan might have been terrified a few moments before, but it was nothing compared to the near hysterical panic the child exhibited at the sight of Federal blue uniforms.
“Private Marlowe.” Josephson gestured to the private who had coiled the noose. “Mount up and ride back to Hawkinsville. Report in with Major Taylor and inform him I will be requisitioning another mount for tomorrow’s detail.”
The private saluted, pulled himself into the saddle, and rode off. Josephson picked up his horse’s reins and began leading the animal. “I’m commanding a small detail that will be leaving at first light. You can’t stay here.”
“That has become more than abundantly clear.” Mathew shifted Ethan’s shaking form onto his hip and bent to pick up his frock coat and haversack.
“I’ll walk with you to Hawkinsville and my detail can accompany you as far as Camp Hope. You can catch a train there into Macon or Atlanta. That should be far enough away.”
“Why are you doin’ this?” Mathew heard the slight shudder in his voice, a lingering effect of the full-bodied shaking both he and Ethan shared at the moment.
“Until we start looking at each other as countrymen and brothers again, this war is never going to be over.” Josephson paused long enough to settle a pointed look at Mathew’s left shoulder. “And, maybe because I’m trying, in my own way, to prove that most of us who wear this uniform are nothing like the bastards who did that to you at Camp Douglas.”