In the house the woman at the sink continued with her task of preparing the vegetables for the evening meal. She could hear the rain hitting the roof and rushing down the drain pipe into the perpetually overflowing barrel. And she could hear the intermittent crack of thunder as the windows gleamed with blue fire. But no other sounds could pierce this barrage.
"Mother!" Grace called again, louder but once more failing to attract the attention of the woman in the house. She probed with her fingers through the mud on the man's throat and for a moment thought he was dead. She came erect, turned and ran through the mire of the yard towards the house.
"Grace, you'll catch your death," her mother rebuked as she heard the door open. "You didn't even know whoever's buried in that grave. Don't see why you have to tend it so regular, and in all weathers, too."
"There's a man in the yard," Grace blurted out as she caught her breath.
Her mother turned then, and saw the fear inscribed upon her daughter's pretty features. The older woman had been brought up in the wilderness on lonely farmsteads and learned from bitter experience that fast action was often the only way to survive. Thus she strode across the room to where a fully-loaded Spencer rifle was hung over the mantelshelf and was reaching up for the gun before her daughter caught her breath to explain further.
"He's sick, mother. He's out there lying in the mud and burning up with fever."
Margaret Hope stayed her hands for a moment, then continued, lifting the rifle down from its resting place and cocking it as she turned. "No sense in being careless," she said, heading for the door. "My father and yours always told me never to trust a man alone. Just 'cause he's sick don't mean he ain't up to no good. Come on, girl."
As if fearing that her mother might act hastily with the rifle, Grace hurried to be first outside and then ran again through the mud with a warning to take care ringing in her ears. Edge had not moved from the position in which he had fallen, prone with his head on one side. But the washing action of the rain had run the mud from his back .now and the two women could see his black shirt and pants and the gun belt with a holster tied down to the right thigh and a knife pouch at the back, both empty.
"Big feller, ain't he?" Margaret Hope pronounced.
"Please, mother," Grace pleaded. "Let's get him in the house. He's on fire with the fever."
Her mother nodded. "You're right, gir1. He ain't likely to cause no trouble in his condition."
She rested the Spencer against the trunk of the oak, then spotted Edge's muddy Winchester and placed it beside her own gun. "He carries a lot of weight as well," she opined as she rolled Edge over on to his back and lifted his shoulders while Grace took hold of his ankles. "And not an ounce of fat, either." They started to struggle through the mud with their burden. "Sickness hits a man like this harder than it does the runts. Ain't used to feeling puny, see."
Grace didn't answer. The shock of the man's appearance from under the tree, the rush to and from the house and now the exertion of carrying the dead weight had drained her and she began to pant before the journey was half completed. Margaret, too, began to feel the strain and fell silent. It was a blessed relief when they had struggled through the doorway into the dry of the house and were able to set the man down on the rug in front of the hearth.
"Shouldn't we put him in bed?" Grace asked breathlessly.
"Not before he's cleaned up some and we get those wet clothes off him," her mother said, picking up two logs from an alcove and tossing them on to the embers in the fireplace. "Fill three kettles, girl."
As Grace went to comply, her mother lit the two kerosene lamps which supplied light for the room. When Grace returned to set the kettles on the hob she saw that her mother had already removed the stranger's shirt and was beginning to unbuckle his gunbelt.
She drew in her breath sharply. "It doesn't seem decent," she said.
"When somebody's sick, it ain't a matter of decency," Margaret Hope snapped. "Seems they taught you to talk and act like a lady at that Eastern school you went to, but your education was lacking in other things. When a man's hurting he don't care much who looks at him, as long, as they're helping him." She smiled suddenly. "And you're twenty-three years old now, Grace. 'Bout time you learned a man ain't only different from a woman 'cause he shaves. Holy Mother of God, look at that?"
Edge had groaned and rolled his head to one side, so that the light from one of the lamps shone directly on to the ugly, pus-filled swelling at the back of his neck. The girl's mouth fell open in horror.
"What is it?" she shrieked.
"He's been cut with a knife, or shot," her mother answered with a grimace. "He ain't just sick, girl. He's dying. He needs a doctor. A good one."
"I'll go for Doctor Patterson," Grace, said, turning towards the door.
"No!" her mother snapped, "You ain't riding no ten miles to town, in weather like this. Stranger landed himself on us and he'll have to take his chances with us. Maybe if there ain't no bullet in the wound, he might make it. Can't tell until we drain off the poison. Put some more logs on the fire, girl. We need hot water fast, and a lot of it."
Edge heard voices and cracked open his eyes. He saw a woman bending over him, perhaps middle-aged but looking old because the hard life of frontier farming quickly sapped the juices of youth. But behind the lined, shell-like texture of her time and weather-worn features he could see traces of a former beauty. And there was, also, visible in steady gray eyes and set of the finely sculptured mouth, an intrinsic kindliness about the woman which would survive long after the mere physical beauty had been lost without trace. As he looked at her, the woman unaware of his study, she raised a hand, back of it to her forehead and brushed a strand of gray hair from her eyes. It was a gesture that flooded Edge's mind with memories, for this had been a frequent, unconscious action by his mother. But the hair which fell into her eyes was golden, the color of ripened wheat shining with morning dew. Then, as if by command of his imagination, his eyes fastened upon such hair, wet and plastered to the head of Grace Hope. He knew this was not his mother, for the face was too young and the eyes were brown. And the face was pretty rather than beautiful. But he had seen her somewhere before, her expression showing fear instead of the tender concern it now depicted. His mind, verging on delirium, struggled to recall the circumstances, but failed. It was too much effort to pin down one fragment of memory when a thousand others were crowding in on him, scrambling to be acknowledged and savored.
Then, as he closed his eyes, blotting out the faces of two women without knowing whether or not they were real or figments of his tormented imagination; he saw the smile of Jeannie and he fastened upon this. Because Jeannie had been real and it seemed very important to cling to reality as the yawning cavern of darkness opened again. But this time he did not fall into it alone. Jeannie took his hand in hers and went with him, the smile becoming a laugh as they tumbled together, down into space and backwards through time.
CHAPTER TWO
LIEUTENANT JOE HEDGES was uncomfortable in his uniform as he endeavored to walk in a straight line down the main street of Parkersburg just across the Ohio Stateline in West Virginia. The weather in that June of eighteen sixty-one was warm, even though it was late at night, but it was not only the early summer heat that caused him to unfasten the top three buttons of the blue tunic of his Union cavalryman's uniform. He had lost count of the number of drinks he had taken and he could, not even remember how many saloons he had taken them in. He only knew, as he staggered towards the edge of town, that there had been too many saloons and too many drinks. For the hard liquor was swilling against the inner wall of his taut stomach and the alcohol was coursing through his bloodstream, making him sweat more with each step he took and attacking his brain to play havoc with his co-ordination.