Chapter Two

W est Virginia

March 1870

Bradley Kemble halted his chestnut stallion and slid off its back, nearly slipping as his boots hit the swampy muddy road. Brad had never seen a storm as bad as this, nor one coming up so fast. When he'd left his brother's farm it was a cool, spring evening with the sun high enough to give plenty of light for him to make the fifteen-minute ride to his farm. Brad enjoyed the West Virginia evening, with its hint of apple blossoms scenting the air, listening to the tree frogs sing and birds chirping.

Before he knew it, gusts of wind tossed branches from the trees lining either side of the road. Newly sprouted leaves whipped through the air and landed on the road around Brad's feet. A bolt of lightning struck behind him making both Captain and him jump. His horse reared and tried to bolt. A loud crack made the ground shake. Where was the nearest hidey-hole when you needed one? Ever since the War he jumped at any loud sound. Lightning and thunder topped the list. He looked behind him into the dark. A massive oak had fallen across the road.

Brad grabbed the reins. "Easy, boy." Brad pulled on the reins to lead Captain through the muck. "Looks as if there's no going back to Caleb's. C'mon. We can't stay out here. Let's get home to Whispering Pines."

Brad tried to hold on to his broad-brimmed hat when a gust of wind whipped it off his head. Through the slits in the hood he wore over his face, he watched it roll down the road into the dark. Instantly rain ran down the hood and into the high collar of his topcoat. He shivered as the icy water ran between his shirt and topcoat.

"Oh, hell." Brad reached into his redingote and pulled out a pocket watch from his vest. He sheltered the watch with his hand and tried to make out the time. "Been on this blasted road for twenty minutes and only halfway home." He gripped the reins and urged Captain forward. "We're not going back, ol' boy. This is going to take all night at this rate!"

Brad's rain-drenched clothes clung to him as he plodded on. "Damn this mask." He pulled off his gloves, and with cold fingers untied the strings around his neck holding the hood in place. He whipped it off his head and shoved it into his coat pocket. Immediately the cold, slicing rain cut into his face, as if someone were stabbing pins into his skin. He closed his eyes against the onslaught and wiped his hair from his face. Brad pulled the mask back over his face.

"At least I can open my eyes with this thing on," he muttered. Above the whining of the wind, the sucking sounds of his boots and Captain's hooves moving in and out of the mud were barely audible. Their progress was slow, but there was no shelter between his place and Caleb's. He would have to tough it out. He bent his head into the wind and dragged Captain on.

After what seemed like hours, Captain snorted and skittered sideways. Brad rubbed Captain's muzzle to calm him.

"Whoa, boy! What's wrong?" Brad looked in the direction of Captain's stare while holding a tight rein on his horse. A black shape lay across the road partially blocking it. "Damn, not another downed tree. That's all I need." He squinted through the rain. Not a tree, but a buggy. He ran forward yanking on Captain's reins as the horse yanked and pulled the other way. Brad finally tied him to a tree and left him whinnying and rearing.

Brad slogged through the mud toward the buggy and the screams of another horse. A black, covered buggy leaned on its side against a tree, its wheels spinning. A horse, attached to the buggy, lay on its side, its cries piercing through Brad's brain. Other than the horse's shaking legs, Brad couldn't detect any other movements. Giving the horse a wide berth so he wouldn't get kicked, he walked to the horse's head. Its pain was reflected in the whites of his eyes as he tried to get up. Brad knelt in the mud and rubbed the horse's head, trying to calm it. The horse screamed and brought its head up. Brad ran his hands down the horse's front legs. Its left foreleg was broken. He would have to destroy it. Before doing the awful deed, he needed to see if anyone else was hurt.

Brad climbed onto the running board of the buggy. By using his weight and rocking back and forth, he righted it. A moan came from the inside. He yanked open the door. A young woman, lying on the floor, peered up at him. Her arms were wrapped around a small boy. Was he sleeping, or injured? Rain seeped in through a loose canvas window flapping in the wind. The woman's hair was plastered to her face. Scared, green eyes stared at him.

"Please, help my husband," she whispered before passing out.

Brad looked around the interior of the buggy. Where was her husband? There was no one inside but the boy and the woman. He slammed the door shut. He had to find the man. Brad covered his ears at the horse's screams. He would have to destroy it before he could do anything else. He trudged over to Captain and pulled a pistol from one of his saddlebags.

He stood over the injured chestnut horse. "Damn, I hate this. I'm sorry, boy." Pointing the pistol at the horse's head, he closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger. The screams stopped but echoes of the shot rang through Brad's brain as he resumed his search for the missing husband.

He walked around the still horse, tripped on an object protruding from beneath it, and landed face down in the mud. Cursing, Brad rolled over and sat up, ready to toss the offending object into the trees. He wiped mud and leaves from his hood and crawled back to the horse. Brad's hand came in contact with a man's head. He jerked back and sat with his legs bent beneath him, his hands resting on his knees.

His eyes stared sightlessly at the sky, while rain ran in rivulets down the man's turned-up face. The horse covered the man's lower body, his left arm twisted under his back. Brad closed the man's eyes and mouth. Brad leaned forward into the mud and hung his head between his shoulders.

"Shit, now what do I do? The man's cold as a wagon wheel." He stood and sloshed to the buggy hoping to find something to cover the body with. Finding only the woman and the boy inside, he shut the door, went back to his horse, and removed a blanket he kept in his saddlebags for emergencies. After covering up the body, Brad unhitched the dead horse from the buggy. As he tried to decide how he was going to move the horse, a moan came from inside the buggy.

Brad yanked the buggy door open. The woman was awake again and holding her belly.

"Oh, God, you're with child!" he shouted. He climbed into the buggy and knelt on the floor next to the woman. "You can't have your child here. There's no one to help you."

****

I f she weren't so scared , she'd laugh at the man's obvious comment. The mask he wore completely hid his face. His voice reminded her of a horror movie. Was he going to kill them? She scooted as far into the corner of the vehicle as she could and wrapped Charlie in her arms.

"Don't hurt us," she whispered.

"I'm not here to hurt you."

Even though his voice sounded reassuring, everyone knew killers could be kind one moment, and murderous the next.

"Please don't be afraid. I only want to help." He leaned a bit more into the...whatever they were in. "Are you hurt anywhere? Is the boy hurt?"

Libby tried to sit. Her head pounded and spun enough to make her stomach queasy. Maybe if she threw up on the man, he'd leave them alone. She lay back down. Perspiration broke out on her brow. "Except for a bump on my head and the baby kicking like crazy, I'm okay." The woman looked down at her son. "Charlie seems to be okay, too." She stared at the man. "Did you find my husband? Is he all right?"

He touched her arm. "I'm sorry, Ma'am, he was crushed by your horse. He's dead."

Tears welled up in her eyes. "Oh, God, I told him to wear his seat belt." She rested her chin on her son's head and closed her eyes, tears running down her cheeks. Wait. Did he say horse? "We don't have a horse."

"Ma'am, I think you're confused from the accident. Your buggy tipped over. Your husband was thrown. It looks like your horse broke its left foreleg and fell on him."

Dead? Ben couldn't be dead. A tremor passed through her body. This was a dream. A nightmare. Maybe if she closed her eyes, she'd wake up back in Wisconsin.

The man shook her shoulder. "Ma'am, what is your name?"

"Libby," she murmured. The spinning in her head grew stronger. "Ben," she whispered before everything went black.

****

B efore leaving the calm of the buggy, Brad took in the strange clothes the woman was wearing. It seemed she had on... pants? Pants on a woman? He stared at them. They were pants all right, made of a soft material. On her feet she wore a type of footwear Brad had never seen before. They were all white with strings wrapped up the front. The thick soles were like the material in his mackintosh—soft and rubbery. Her son had on the same type, but his went up past his ankles and were black.

"Must be foreigners." He backed out of the buggy. He needed to get the woman to his farm before the baby decided to enter the world in a buggy. He ran back to the dead horse and trapped man. Was he the Ben whose name she whispered before passing out? He couldn't leave him out here. By daybreak he would be unrecognizable by wild animals in the area looking for an easy meal.

Brad leaned down and pulled out the man's pinned arm, then grabbed him under his armpits. Grunting and swearing, he tugged and pulled to remove the body from under the horse. His cold, wet hands slipped sending him backward into the mud.

He shook his fists at the sky. "Will you please stop raining?" Libby's moan came for the carriage again. "Shit!"

Brad rose from the mud and, after getting his hunting knife from his saddlebags, cut the reins from the dead horse's halter and tied them to its front and back legs. Then he ran over to Captain and untied him from the tree. Captain refused to move any closer to the bodies. He reared and kicked while Brad pulled him toward the buggy.

"C'mon, Captain. I don't like this any better than you do." Brad finally pulled the hood from his head and slipped it over Captain's. The horse calmed down long enough for Brad to knot each of Captain's reins to those attached to the horse. Brad jumped over the horse's body and grabbed the man under the arms again.

"Back, Captain!" Brad shouted through the wind. "C'mon, boy, back up."

Captain pulled back on the reins as Brad tugged the man the other way. "Back! Back." Brad grunted. Captain pulled harder, fighting the straps, trying to break loose. Brad struggled, tugging, yanking, his boots slipping in the mud. At this rate, his arms were going to be yanked from their sockets. Finally, with one loud snort from Captain, the dead horse eased away, and Brad dragged Ben free.

Brad sank into the mud, resting his arms on his bent legs, trying to catch his breath. His hair hung in his eyes. Not one part of his once-white shirt was clean. His once-white breeches were covered with mud. The strap of his left pant leg had broken and was halfway up his shin, his high boots caked with muck. Mud oozed into his boot, down his stockings. Cora was going to have a fit.

Using his knife, Brad cut the reins from the dead horse. He picked up Captain's reins and led the reluctant horse toward the buggy, fighting him all the way until Brad finally gave up.

"All right, you old piece of buzzard's meat." He tied Captain to a tree. "Guess I'll have to move the damn buggy myself."

"Ma'am, Ma'am?" Brad called out as he approached the buggy. Better let her know what I'm going to do . Don't want to scare her and have her go into labor . Before he opened the door, he remembered his hood. He took the hood from Captain, yanked it over his face, and opened the door of the buggy. "Ma'am? Miss Libby?" If so much time hadn't passed, he would have felt more relieved she was still passed out, her son resting peacefully in her arms.

His heart skipped a beat. Wait. Maybe the youngster wasn't asleep. Maybe he was dead, too. Brad entered the buggy and leaned toward the boy. What was his name? Damn. He couldn't remember.

"Boy? Boy?" Brad whispered. He put his ear to the boy's nose. The steady, warm breath wisped across his ear. He briefly closed his eyes. The boy was alive.

"Ben, is that you? Are you okay?" Libby whispered as she struggled to sit. She flinched, grabbed her stomach, and stopped moving. A large purple bruise marred her forehead.

Brad ignored her questions. Obviously, she had forgotten about her husband. "Now listen, Ma'am." Brad needed to explain what he wanted to do. "I'm going to move the buggy so I can hook my horse up to it. Don't be alarmed when you feel movement. I need to get you to my home."

She bit her bottom lip and frowned. He'd be confused, too, if he'd been in an accident. At least this time she didn't shrink away from him. Most people thought he was a monster because of the hood he wore. If they only knew.

Brad went back into the downpour. Grabbing the tongues of the buggy, he pushed it backward. His muscles stretched, pulled, and burned as he strained to move it through the mud. How far would he have to move the buggy away from the dead horse to satisfy Captain? He figured the farther, the better.

After moving the buggy to what he thought was a good distance, he went back to her husband. Was he wearing a Union uniform? It was hard to tell with all the mud, but after the war, the one thing he recognized was a Union uniform. He had one of his own crammed into a trunk in the attic. But why would this man be wearing one now? After all, the war had been over for nearly five years.

A roll of thunder brought a roar of cannons through his system. He closed his eyes. His body seized like it had the first time he was in battle. Now was not the time to be reliving the horrible images of blood, maimed bodies, and death. He shook his head. Would these nightmares ever go away? A gust of wind brought him back to the present.

It didn't matter what Ben was wearing, he needed to be taken to his home. Brad wrapped him in the blanket he'd taken from his saddle bag and struggled to lift him.

For a seemingly slight man, the weight of sodden clothes, the blanket, and lifeless body must have added pounds. Either that, or he was exhausted from handling Captain and the buggy. He was too heavy to lift, so Brad put his hands beneath Ben's arms and dragged him. The body's boot heels left deep grooves in the mud which quickly filled up with rain. Like a log, he rolled Ben up the end of the buggy and into the boot. The body thudded to the floor and rocked the buggy. Hopefully, Libby hadn't heard.

Brad untied Captain and hooked him up to the buggy. The horse had never pulled anything before, but Brad was banking on Captain's wanting to get back to his warm, dry stable. Come hell or high water, and there was plenty of both, the horse would pull the buggy. He wasn't about to pull it himself! Much to his relief, Captain didn't rebel and, after climbing onto the driver's seat and flicking the reins against Captain's rump, they set off for home.