Christmas Reclaimed
Part Three

HATTON WILLOWS, DECEMBER 1863

Colonel Francis Clay Mosby painfully slipped his left foot out of the stirrup and clutched the saddle horn, his knuckles turning white with the excruciating effort, as he swung his right leg over his patient horse and prepared to dismount.

"Hold on there, let me help you." Captain Robert Shelby quickly jumped off his own tired bay and rushed to his friend, just managing to catch him as Clay slid awkwardly down the chestnut's side and hopped onto his right foot. Robert braced him against the animal and held him straight as Clay struggled to maintain his balance. "You should have stayed in the hospital."

"I'm fine, " Clay muttered through clenched teeth, wincing as he tenderly straightened his left leg and tested his weight on it, then turned to his companion. "What are you, my dancin' partner? The Christmas Eve Ball isn't 'till tomorrow. Let go o' me."

Robert raised his hands in a gesture of mock fear and backed away a step, then shook his head in an unsympathetic manner. "You can't hide your injuries from Mary."

"I don't intend to." He cradled his bruised ribs after taking in a deep breath. "But I don't want her to think it's any worse than it is."

"You've got more holes in your left side than a sieve! You're not only hurt, you're crazy, to ride all this way."

Clay grinned mawkishly. "If you had Mary waitin', wouldn't you?" He lifted his left arm for Robert to brace over his shoulder and limped slowly towards a paddock fence, leaning against it cautiously.

"If Mary was waitin', you'd rise from your own grave."

"She wouldn't deserve any less of me." As Robert propped him between fence posts, he smoothed down his coat and wiggled his left boot experimentally, inhaling sharply at the discomfort. "You'd better see to the horses. And we need to get that pack mule unloaded before the supplies we brought spoil from his bad temper."

"Where is everybody? Where's Thibalt Jones?"

"Left with the slaves after the Proclamation. Yankees took most of the horses last summer, anyway. Mother wrote they put the remainin' stable hands into the tobacco fields."

"I'll take care of it, then." Robert raised a warning finger. "Don't move."

After nearly three straight days in the saddle, Clay was more than willing to follow his subordinate's order. He stared at the barren, leafless trees surrounding the empty stables. An acrid chill whipped through the branches and they swayed silently in a mournful bow. Only the plaintive requiem of the winter's bullheaded southern birds interrupted the silence.

He let out several icy sighs, watching the fog of warm breath in front of his mouth dissipate like the smoke of their hard-fought battles. Once again he had managed to persuade his commander to allow him the luxury of visiting his family for the holiday, this time utilizing his recent injuries with eloquent persuasiveness. He cackled quietly at his duplicity. Not wounded enough to stay for care in the over-crowded hospital, he had convinced them, but impaired just enough to elicit a pass to effect a better recovery on home ground. There had been other, more credible circumstances earlier in the year which would have allowed him the chance to return home for a spell, but it was always at Christmastime he felt the strongest pull to be in the arms of his family and so had shamelessly campaigned for a temporary reward from service. And, as always, it was imperative to have his indispensable Captain by his side, to aid him during his convalescence.

"Penny for your thoughts," Robert interrupted, hefting a ten- pound bag of salt off his shoulder.

"Federal or Confederate?

"Well, if I want to make money of any value on the deal, I'd have to say Federal." He held out the bag tentatively. "Can you carry this?"

"Slowly."

"Then do so. I'm goin' to bring in the coffee first. Then I'll find some servants and come back for the rest."

Clay buttressed the sack cloth of salt in the crook of his right elbow and started shuffling towards the house, concealing his gasps of pain better with each measured effort.

Robert shook his head again, flinching with every agonizing step his best friend took.

Clay was met at the door by an astonished Jasper, the elderly, devoted Negro whom he recalled was his mother-in-law's long-favorite house servant and Permilla's grandfather. Mary had written that Laurel Russell had effectively moved in with them since the Russell house had been plundered and ruined to an unlivable condition by Yankee raiders. The Mosby household numbered only five now, his sister-in-law Venetia having returned to the Worthey home to be cared for by her own family. Mary had taken over the daily running of the plantation, since his mother's time was engaged completely with providing help to her crippled husband, and his sister Elisabeth had dedicated herself to the care of their bed-bound former governess.

"Miz Mosby! Miz Mosby, come and look who's here!" Chuckling, Jasper grabbed the heavy bag from Clay's hands with seemingly no effort and taking his mistress's son-in-law by the elbow, helped him into the warm entrance hall.

"We've no more blankets to give out, Jasper," Clay heard his wife respond from upstairs. "Please let them know we are now also at the mercy of this cold winter's will."

"Then I will cover myself with the sweetness of your embrace," he called out, "which warms better than any June day's sunshine."

"Clay!" Mary shrieked as she ran down the winding staircase, her hoopless workshift and face smudged with fireplace soot. Tendrils of cinnamon hair escaped from the scarf that held her curls back as she leapt the last few steps. It was all Clay could do to stand upright as she tumbled into his arms and hugged him tightly. "Dearest! We haven't heard word from you in such a long time!"

"Mary...Mary, let go." He dislodged her from him gently, biting his lip at the pain surging through his body.

"My God, Clay! You're hurt!" Carefully she helped him to the hallway's cushioned settee, motioning Jasper away. "Go get his mother, please. And set up some hot water." Her eyes scanned her ashen-faced husband anxiously as she waited for him to recover his composure.

"What happened? What is wrong?"

Clay sunk into the soft velvet bench and shook his head at his concerned wife. "I'm more stiff from the ride here than in pain from any injury," he said soothingly. "Just for bein' here, I am healed."

"Don't lie to me, dear heart, or I will cause you more agony than any wound ever could." She jabbed a finger into his shoulder, eliciting a stunned gasp from him at her action.

"Mary! Truly, I'm goin' to be all right. My leg's just a little scratched up."

"Be careful when you give him somethin' to drink, he might just leak out of his left knee." Robert smirked as he set down a large sack of corn meal in the hallway.

"Francis! Oh my Lord!" Katherine Mosby hurried to her son, clasping his face in her trembling hands.

"Mother, I'm fine. Really." Over her shoulder, he spied Elisabeth helping his father into the quickly narrowing entrance way, followed closely by his mother-in-law and Permilla. Managing a weak smile, he pulled himself higher on the seat. "But if we don't move to a larger room, I will surely suffocate from all your gracious concern."

Later in the day, when the family's fuss had ended and they returned to their own concerns, Clay cautiously lowered himself into the steaming water of a soothing bath, gripping the sides of the copper tub for support . He winced as the heat penetrated the gashes and punctures that marked his left side like a tattered crochet, then let out a groan of relief as he settled in and stretched out, resting his head against the rim. Mary watched his movements with apprehension, clutching a soft washing cloth in her hands.

He held out a hand but she shook her head. "In sickness and in health, Clay. Let me help you."

"Then carefully, dearest. The doctors used the finest Chinese silk to sew me up and I'd be loathe to disturb their peerless mendin'." He winked and smiled up at her.

"Bull," Mary replied in a sharp tone, starting her scrupulous ablution on his right side. "What passes for Confederate surgical thread we wouldn't use to tie up our coarsest bundles of tobacco." She skimmed the cloth over his skin gently as Clay relaxed under her restoring ministrations. "And by the looks of this already black bath water, I'm sure they never once cleaned you at the hospital."

"Don't be ridiculous, my dear. The nurses had a daily fracas over who would be the one to give me a sponge bath. Got so bad, we finally had to work out a system, based on tenure of service, geographical background..."

"...Height and weight?"

"Yes, color of eyes, elements of that sort. I think you would have been assigned to a Tuesday."

Mary responded by splashing some water at him. "There are older scars here, too."

Sitting up clumsily, he examined his scored body. "Marks of honor, I assure you." He shrugged at the damage.

Mary traced a long-healed line along his shoulder-blade and widened her eyes questioningly.

"Mmm. Bayonet scratch. Seven Pines."

Lowering her hand, she set her index and middle fingers into two depressions that lay above the right side of his ribcage.

"Scattered cannon shot. Suffolk Campaign."

Turning him towards her, she placed her hand onto a discoloration across the side of his neck.

"Artillery burn. Chickamauga."

Sighing, Mary waved her hand back and forth over his entire body, incredulous at the notches and channels that were unfamiliar to her.

"Anythin' I can't remember specifically is probably from Gettysburg." He grasped her soapy hand in his and brought it to his chest. "They will all fade away in time."

"But for now, when the historians want to map an atlas of the war's battles, they need only to turn to Francis Clay Mosby for reference."

"Then I will have served my country in more ways than most."

Mary wrenched her hand away. "Clay! This isn't funny."

"Nothin' really has been impaired," he parried, with a nodding glance towards his midsection. "You should be content that I am, relatively, intact. Robert lost two toes in Pickett's Charge." He wiggled his own feet, sloshing water over the side of the tub, then reached up and stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "External scars are easy to bear. I am more worried about the internal healin'. Of us all."

Gingerly, he grasped the rim of the tub and stood, hopping on his right foot. Placing his hands on Mary's shoulders for support he stepped onto the floor and, grabbing a large towel from the washroom's hearth, wrapped it snugly around his waist.

Mary knelt and prepared to re-bandage her husband's leg, as he spread another towel over the warm bricks for comfort and sat down. Laying out strips of clean muslin beside him, she dipped them into a chamomile solution, then painstakingly circled his wounds with the moistened fabric. Her strokes were delicate, her touch whisper-soft.

Clay watched her through heavy-lidded eyes, lulled into a state of tranquil bliss by the warmth of the fire behind him and the beauty of the woman before him. He leaned forward slowly and began unfastening the small buttons of her dress's bodice. As if annoyed by a gnat, she waved his hand away but he persisted, trailing his fingertips between the valley of her breasts, slickening them with the dewy sweat that glistened in their hollow.

Mary looked up at him, perturbed, and removed his hand from its wanderings, settling it back into his lap. "You should not be undressin' me, while I am dressin' you."

"Just seekin' an alternative treatment," he murmured, scooping her hair back and tilting his head to catch the lobe of her shell- shaped ear in his teeth.

Nonplussed, she wrapped the ribbons of cloth around his calf and knee as he continued to nibble on her ear, his breath hot and spicy as his tongue explored its contours, swirling around its velvety crescent. Finally, she could take no more and laughing, pushed him away from her.

"Dearest! Don't you want me to take care of you?"

Nodding his head in amazed frustration, he once again traced a line down her breastbone, undoing more buttons on her dress. "Yes!"

"Clay!" She stayed his hand and stood up, giggling at his impassioned reply. Lovingly, she moved her husband's long hair from around his ears and reciprocated his earlier actions, sucking and nibbling energetically. Suddenly she inhaled, sending a surge of heat through his chest. Clay moaned in pleasure and forcing her bodice aside, pressed his lips to her lush breasts, savoring their satiny sweetness. Fervently, his fingers slipped inside her shirtwaist, skimming over her ribs to wrap around her torso, arching her closer to him as his tongue continued its sensitive exploration. Impatient hands finally tugged away the entangling garment and dropped it to the floor.

Mary writhed in ecstasy at his fiery touch upon her skin, her nerve-endings exploding at the sensations his mouth awoke in her. Her fingers raked through his black curls and down his broad back, circumnavigating rounded biceps and squared shoulders. When he lifted his lips from her breasts she shivered, momentarily missing his mouth's warm moisture, only to have it replaced by the gentle caress of his fingertips.

Dipping her mouth to his, she kissed him deeply, their tongues swirling in an ambrosial nectar.

Lightly she propelled him backwards, laying him down against the covered brick hearth. Eyes closed, he smiled as her lips traveled up and down his chest, pinching, nipping, finding purchase over his warm skin. Passionately, Mary rained drops of kisses over his deep breastbone and across his well-developed pectoral muscles, trailing lower to saturate the undulating planes that splayed over his ribcage like the ripples of desert sand dunes. Spiraling around his navel, she traced a path over the fine dark hairs that tapered down to his groin.

"Dearest...you'll need to remove that towel so I can treat the wound on your thigh."

He raised up on his elbows, his eyes saucer-wide in teasing innocence. "In sickness and health, Mary. You must help me."

As she slowly unknotted the material, Clay lay back, then jerked up again when a piercing shriek reverberated through the house. They looked at each other in confusion.

"What...?"

Holding the recovered bodice to her breasts, Mary ran to the window, looking for the source of the scream. Clay grabbed a robe and stumbled through the door, cursing that he didn't keep his gun with him at all times.

"What's goin' on?" A quiet eerieness pervaded the hallway, disturbed by the sounds of scurrying feet and several loud thumps.

Then a single word echoed shrilly up the stairs. "Yankees!"

Cursing harder, Clay hurriedly limped back into the washroom and pulled on his pants. Grabbing his shirt, he awkwardly managed to pull it on while guiding Mary to their bedroom, where he picked up his gun and gestured for her to stay put.

"Clay..."

"Mary, that's an order. Stay here until I say so."

She saluted him angrily. "Yes, sir, Colonel, sir!" Turning her back to him, she strode determinedly to the window and crossed her arms. Clay sighed wearily.

"And stay away from the window."

She twisted to face him again, eyes flashing sparks, incredulous at his commands.

"Mary...," he spat out furiously, "I'm an officer in the Army of the Confederacy! I've survived Manassas and Gettysburg, among other battles. Do you think I'm doin' this to annoy you? I'm tryin' to protect you!"

"And you're the only one who's been dealin' with Yankees since the war started? I'll remind you that this is one of the few houses still standin' in the county! because you're such an important soldier and because you've been here to preserve it!"

Exasperated at the argument, Clay glowered back, unable to respond politely.

"Would you please go find out what's happened? I'll be fine." She sat down at the room's small desk and picked up a letter opener. "See? I'm armed."

Grimacing, he exited.

Pistol held aloft, Clay tiptoed down the hallway, wincing with every creak of old wood beneath his feet and every creak of his swollen left knee. Passing the schoolroom, he heard the muffled sounds of several voices coming from the lawn outside and hobbled painfully to the window, where he saw his mother and Shelby exchanging a furtive conversation with Mary's personal maid as she pointed to the copse of trees at the end of the garden. Quietly, he stepped through the French doors onto the second floor balcony.

"Ho, there, Captain. What's goin' on?"

Robert squinted up at him, shifting his rifle back and forth laconically. "It's all right, Colonel. Permilla thought she saw some blues in the woods behind their quarters."

"How many?"

"Just a handful, if at all. Says she's seen them on and off for days."

Clay sagged against the railing, grasping it in frustrated hands.

"Get the women in the house and we'll have a search."

"No, Francis, I'm sure it won't be necessary." Katherine Mosby gestured for Permilla to leave them and called up lightly to her son.

"You know how she exaggerates. Besides, if there were any Yankees here, they would not delay in stormin' the house for provisions. Subtlety has not been their strong suit."

Her son shook his head. "Just as well, I want you inside with the others. Robert and I will set up a watch."

Now his adjutant shook his own head. "I think she's right, Clay. Ain't nothin' goin' to stop Yankees from knockin' at the door. If they were here, we'd know it."

"Because no Yankee could ever be as capable in reconnaissance as us?"

Robert crossed his arms in a patronizing defiance, siding his eyes towards his best friend's mother. A simpering smile played on his lips. "Whatever the Colonel asks, Ma'am, I am duty bound to comply with his order. Please secure yourself within the domicile and I will send out a scoutin' company as directed."

Katherine Mosby laughed and raised her hand in a soft salute. "My compliments to the Colonel." Then, after curtseying deeply to the man by her side, she walked gracefully into the house, holding a handkerchief aloft as if it were a brigade flag flying before battle.

"And you are that company, Robert?"

"The best Virginia has to offer, sir! Company numberin' one, sir!" He saluted and goose-stepped through the garden, towards the woods behind the slave quarters, rifle held high at the ready.

Narrowing his eyes, Clay sighed and walked stiffly back inside. As far as he was concerned, they should all be sent to the monkey- house.

Adjusting his vision to the dimly-lit room, he realized Mary was leaning against the doorjamb and he stopped, bowing his head. "I'm sorry I reacted so...passionately."

"No. You had every right too. But, Clay...," She walked to his side and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, supporting him as they headed back to the bedroom. "It was not the passionate reaction I was hopin' for."

"Really?" He lightly kissed the top of her chestnut curls. "You will have to show me just what that was."

Clasping his hand, she brought it to her lips. "I intend to do just that."

After supper, the family gathered in his father's former study to visit with Clay's beloved childhood governess. Lydia Mathers still retained her sharp, shining eyes though she now lay curled and twisted in her daybed, her body braided with the agony of debilitating rheumatism. Sitting beside her, Elisabeth combed her hair as they talked quietly, informing her of all the day's visitors and events. Clay smiled to himself when he noticed his mother not only filled brandy snifters for the men in the room, but poured a not-so-modest amount of the liquor into the coffee cups for the women as well. Raising his glass, Lawrence Mosby offered a solemn toast thanking the Lord that Clay and Robert could join them and that hopefully soon he wouldn't need to make toasts like that anymore. Mary squeezed her husband's hand and took a deep pull from her glass, her cheeks turning apple red from the warming alcohol.

Laurel Russell threaded a needle, then picked up Clay's tattered regiment coat for mending as Katherine Mosby did the same with Robert's, closing up the holes and rips of continuous wear. Mary worked on taking in the waistbands of Clay's "inexpressibles", those worn trousers previously held up during battle with a vicarious mix of frayed rope and dented buckles, as his clothes were now hanging on him. His mother had saved some of John's shirts and pants, which fit Robert better than her remaining son, and she cried lightly when she passed them to him. But nothing could go to waste now, they knew, and sentimentality was inadequate cover on a chilly night's watch duty.

Scanning round the room, Clay observed his best friend and his father play an ill-matched game of chess by the fireplace. Robert had never been able to grasp the pastime's intricacies as well as his own sons, but Lawrence Mosby enjoyed the humorous commentary the young man provided to mask his inadequacy and frequently over the years allowed a win based on amusement alone. Now Robert was pretending the board's pieces were the war's officers and made up moves based on their idiosyncrasies. On his side, the bishop represented Corps Commander James Longstreet, who only moved when kicked by one of the horses and the tower was General Richard Ewell, who refused to move at all. The knight depicted General George Pickett and only went in the direction of the queen, who was required to move one space away upon any approach. The kings were Lee and Meade, the Lee king being placed on an empty brandy snifter to achieve their great difference in height. The senior Mosby laughed heartily at his antics, his face crinkling with joy, and Clay's heart skipped a beat when he realized he hadn't seen his family as informal and relaxed as they were now since the war began.

"Those in coats of gray aren't the only ones showin' southern ingenuity..." Clay's reverie was interrupted by Laurel Russell, who addressed him pointedly.

"Beggin' your pardon?"

"I was sayin', that our beloved girl should get a medal for valor on the home field."

"Mother, please." Mary bit off a strand of knotted thread from a finished seam and picked up another pair of pants for altering.

"My Mary, a warrior true?" Clay settled his hands across his lap and stretched out his wounded leg. "Tell me of her victory."

Mary clucked her tongue and ducked her head to her sewing as her mother related her tale proudly. "Two... was it really only two?...months ago, a company of dreadful Yank soldiers came lookin' for food to steal, and since we had hidden all the stores in the dried-up well beyond the smokehouse, all they found was our best can of lard."

"Our =only= can of lard." Katherine Mosby rolled her eyes at her son as the overly dramatic woman continued, unruffled by her friend's opprobrious tone.

"They decided to appropriate it, as it was the only item those thievin' miscreants could find to take. Then our Mary cries out, heartsick, 'Oh, what will we make the soap with if that is taken?', flutterin' her hand 'oer her brow."

"I didn't =flutter 'oer my brow=."

"You did," Elisabeth stated firmly. "If I recall correctly, you also unbuttoned the top of your shirtwaist."

"Did you really?" Teasingly aghast, Clay regarded his wife and fluttered his own hand 'oer his brow until Mary slapped it away.

His mother-in-law continued, nonplused. "Now confused and curious, the soldiers asked her why she would be usin' what appeared to be a good can of lard to make soap. And she responded that when the hog had died of cholera, we had cut up its inedible meat and dried it down for lard to make the soap!" Laurel Russell slapped her knee, laughing as Mary shook her head in disgraced embarrassment.

Elisabeth blandly stated the obvious. "Of course, the hog never had cholera."

"The hog never =had= cholera!" His mother-in-law was now convulsed in delight at her daughter's wherewithal. She fluttered her hand over her brow again in another re-enactment of the incident.

"And this was not placed on the Roll of Honor?" Clay's jaw dropped in astonishment and he reached out a hand to tickle his wife behind the ear. She flicked it away in annoyance.

"It worked, didn't it?"

"My compliments on your quick thinkin'."

"It was our =only= can of lard!"

"Perhaps the Booth family should consider addin' this to their roster of patriotic dramatic renderings."

"That's enough, Clay!" Mary stood up in ire, throwing the mended trousers to the floor. Crossing her arms over her chest, she regarded her husband angrily. "Perhaps you will remember this subterfuge the next time you call on a northern family and =appropriate= their hard- kept goods."

Katherine Mosby stopped her own mending and looked up at her son.

"What is she talkin' about?"

"You're not aware of Clay's function in the army now, are you, Mother Mosby?"

Clay glanced sharply at Robert, then lowered his head. "Mary...I asked you not to say anythin'."

Her hoopskirt bouncing around her ankles, Mary whirled in rage to face him. "I will not face these fears alone, =husband=. Tell them. Tell them what you told me earlier about your company's new assignment."

"Calm down, everyone." Lawrence Mosby rose and smoothed down his vest. Biding for time, he took out his silver cigar case and removed a smoke, lighting it with deliberate slowness. "Tell us, Francis."

Rising to his own feet with a similar leisure, Clay bowed gently towards the ladies, then began to speak. "After Longstreet's...indecisiveness...at Gettysburg, the remains of our corps were sent south to Georgia and Tennessee, as I wrote, participatin' in battles there. We were successful at Chickamauga but not so at Chattanooga. Summarily to that defeat, most of Longstreet's troops were sent further south to Knoxville. We were not. The divisions in Steuart's Brigade...ours bein' one...were reassessed."

"You always dragged out your assignments so lugubriously, Francis," Lydia Mathers interrupted. "Do get to the point."

"We're partisans," Robert stated, shrugging his shoulders matter- of-factly.

Elisabeth's hand went to her mouth as Katherine Mosby gasped. "What?"

Clay tried to place his hand on Mary's shoulder but she pulled away, seeking shelter beside her mother.

Robert continued, relieving his friend from their onerous explanation. "Clay isn't commandin' a fightin' brigade anymore, Ma'am, but is Colonel of a special partisan company. We seem to have an uncanny ability for discoverin' supplies in the most barren of places or findin' out plans before the Yanks even seem to, so higher powers thought we should put this expertise to use, gatherin' information, foragin' for ammunition, horses..."

"You did not receive those injuries in battle then, Francis," his mother intoned gently.

"No." His face turned red at being caught deceiving his family. "It was durin' a foray beyond the Maryland border."

"We've gotten a lot better since then," Robert chirped in brightly. "Old Clay took five shots in the side before fallin' off his horse into a ravine. Bounced on the rocks like a rubber ball. Only reason he got the brunt of it was he forced the rest of the men ahead of him when he went back to check on a defective explosive."

Mary sagged against the corner wall.

"But we got all the Yanks who were followin' us and managed to hold onto the supplies. Helped a lot of desperate soldiers with only two hours work."

Clay turned to his father. "I apologize for the deception, but I didn't want to cause worry."

"It causes worry indeed, but also pride."

His remaining son nodded. Weak from the effort physically and mentally, he sat back down onto the velvet-cushioned chair. "I'd be lyin' if I said I missed the fightin'. And I honestly feel glad that I can help the men that are, providin' them with food and medicine and information that might help them live another day." He ran a trembling hand through his hair. "I was gettin' very frustrated with the poor lack of supplies. Now, at least, I have no one to blame but myself."

Mary crossed her arms again. "I understand the desperate need of our people to maintain their standard of existence but really Clay, stealin' and swindlin'? How can you live with yourself?"

Stunned at her contention, Clay opened his mouth, then closed it quickly to weight his reply with deliberation. Locking his eyes with hers, he stood again, painfully, and responded to her allegation with an unnerving calm. "The standard of existence for some now is just to have a crust of bread to eat, or a coat to warm themselves as they are homeless. Sometimes the urgency of a situation calls for an action no less noble though it is unbecomin' or distasteful. Dearest Mary, your good and decent heart prevents you from acceptin' that not all the ways of man are virtuous or fair. But many of those most desperate people are alive due solely to these unseemly actions. Knowin' that, I can live with myself."

Mary picked up the cold coffee pot and shook it at him. "That's how you got the supplies you did. This coffee. The sugar in it. Our good fortune deprives someone else."

"Someone else?...Someone from the North!" He bit his thumb, frustrated at not being able to pace. "Someone who's got sacks of coffee just sittin' on a seaport dock because the trains are too full of goods to haul it into town just yet. Someone who isn't missin' a grinder or kettle to make that coffee in because it hasn't been melted down for cannon shot. Someone who's still got a church bell to ring them into mornin' service before they drink that damn coffee because they're not wantin' for iron for ammunition to shoot us down! Someone who isn't starvin' or cold or displaced..." His voice broke with bitter grief. "Someone who isn't from the South."

Elisabeth stood and placed a hand on her brother's shoulder. "Well I, for one, am glad of the work you're doin'. It's bold and necessary and I hope you destroy their homes the way they are destroyin' ours."

Distracted, Clay recovered his shaken composure. "I'm pleased you feel that way, because your Cory Herrick is one of our best men."

His sister's eyes brightened at the praise Clay bestowed upon her fiancée, proud to have him considered of merit to her revered brother.

"You're right, of course," Mary responded meekly. "I despair more from the danger, not the act. We must help those less fortunate than us, but..." Her eyes scrutinized his, a plea for common ground in their gaze. "But it is...a hard road to travel?"

"It is, yes."

They turned to face Robert when a burst of laughter came from his lips.

"What have I said?"

"I'm sorry, Mary." He stood and bowed deeply for forgiveness. "I was just tickled by the irony that one of our most difficult of quests is to find shoes."

"And if you're captured?" His mother's voice came softly out of the shadows.

Lawrence Mosby took his wife's hand in his. "We will pray that does not happen."

After the others had retired to their rooms, Clay stayed behind for a final word with his former governess. Sitting carefully on the bed beside her, he poured out a glass of brandy and held it to her lips.

"Dangerous work for dangerous times," she cackled quietly after a long swallow. "You and Robert always were the devil's children."

"And you an angel of patience and mercy."

"Ha! Not an angel to you when I rapped your knuckles. Or tortured you with frivolous grammar assignments on sunny days when I knew you were aching to be outside with your friends and your horses."

She motioned for him to help her with another sip of the warming liqueur. "But I knew you. I knew you needed discipline. Responsibility. Accountability." Her limbs twitched beneath the woolen covers. "You were being groomed. So I had to be the most effectual curry-comb in the stable."

He smiled at her analogy. Prickly and pointed described her to completion.

"You were to be a man of power. A leader. I had an obligation to your parents to see you learned more than geometry and Latin. And, I see, you did." She lay back into the thick, feathery pillows arranged for comfort and support and her eyes softened. "I am very proud of you."

Pouring another brandy for himself, Clay paused before asking the one question no book could answer. "Miss Mathers...why have stayed with us? I mean here, in Virginia," he took a deep drink, shaking his head.

"Because I'm a Yankee?"

He sighed, nodding assent, afraid he had offended her.

"I remember the first time I saw you, Francis. You were a fat rolling ball of black curls and awe-filled eyes, grabbing at anything within reach, running into bureaus and tables, jumping and squirming and never sitting still. Two years old you were, and John was eight, Elisabeth, five. I thought to myself, what have I done! Traveling all the way from Massachusetts Bay to a countryside where every meal was drenched in gravy and every day was hotter than the next. I kept my bags packed for the first month, just knowing I'd be taking the train back to Boston any given morning."

"But you stayed."

"I stayed. In spite of skin-soaking springs and stifling winters and your ridiculous way of speaking, I stayed."

"For the grits?" Winking, he offered her another drink but she shook her head and he put the glass down.

"For you. John. Elisabeth. And for your parents. Twenty years I've been here. Twenty birthdays and twenty Christmases. Three broken arms, one broken leg and bruises more numerous than Legion. Whooping cough, measles and croup. And worse than all that, your interminable piano lessons! Two glorious weddings. And two heart-breaking funerals." Painfully, she pulled herself closer to her youngest charge. "But don't think for a moment that I embrace your 'cause'. I am sickened by the thought of all the young men, students of others like me, who are dying alone in tattered pieces. I find no reason in battle, no honor in death."

Clay narrowed his eyes and repeated dryly, "But you stayed."

"I lost my blood family many years ago in an epidemic. For whatever mysterious reason, God smiled on me and, though undeserving, He allowed me to join another one." She stroked a hand gnarled as a knob of burled wood over his cheek. "Don't be blinded by a last name on a birth certificate. That isn't what makes kith nor kin. Understanding does. Unconditional acceptance. It doesn't matter if you're connected by blood or circumstance, if your need is true enough, you can be blessed with that wonderful love again in a new home." She looked up at him through blurred, moist eyes. "You ask me why I stay here in this God-forsaken swampland? I stay because I am with my family. And though they're currently mistaken and misguided, no ridiculous 'cause' can part me from them."

Swallowing heavily, he recalled what Mary had said only one year earlier about their neighbors and friends being as family. What he had said to Robert that time as well, being as a brother.

"Now I'm tired, of bone and of company. Go back to your wife and make some fat rolling babies." "Yes, Ma'am." Kissing Miss Mathers' crippled hand, he placed it down softly, then tucked the covers close around her twisted body. "You are no longer standin' in the classroom," he whispered. "But you are still teachin' me."

Clay said his good-byes early the next morning and galloped away to join with the remains of his division who were entrenched in the iron gray hills above the silvery Rappahannock River preparing for battle and soon enough Yankees came streaming over the ridge and the horizonless blue sky became steely with the dingy fog of artillery smoke and with haze scourged vision Clay fired his rifle over and over until it was empty and then he picked up another rifle and fired over and over and again and again until he was the last one firing on the field streaked by a blood red sunset and all his division were sprawled on the crimson drenched grass thick with incarnadine dun and butternut clad arms and legs entangled with the slate blue clad arms and legs of the enemy who were also all dead and Clay was the only one left standing in the center of a scarlet stained patchwork quilt of mutilated bodies.

Then appearing in the still soundless air encircling him hanging unsupported in the shadows surrounding him shimmering gold lights bobbled and danced through the dissipating mist of battle held by unseen hands moving and stopping moving and stopping over each sprawled body in a macabre reel dipping up and down through the suffocating drizzle of smoldering ash turning over the faces to identify the dead and when Clay turned over the face of the crumpled body laying over his blood soaked boots it was Mary

"NOOOOOOOO!"

"Clay? Clay! Dearest, wake up!"

He jerked upright, eyes staring but sightless, body heaving with fright. Cold beads of sweat dotted his brow and he wiped them away with trembling hands. Choking for breath, he tore at the sweat-stained sheets wrapped around his naked body like a burial shroud and stumbled out of the bed.

Mary hurriedly slipped from the tangled bed linens and, grabbing their robes, came to him as he stood shivering in the darkness. He jumped as she draped the garment over his shoulders and she drew back for safety. "My God, Clay, it was just a nightmare."

Mouth tight, he nodded, afraid to speak. Shudders wracked through him, his head pounded with confusion, his throat gagged with bile. Tying the robe around himself, he watched distractedly as Mary lit the bureau's oil lamp, and a soft light diffused the room, replacing the shadows with a golden comfort.

Suddenly several loud bangs sounded on their door and Clay snapped backwards, retreating into a crouching position beside the bed.

"What's goin' on there? Is everythin' all right?" Recognizing the sleep-gruff voice of Robert Shelby, who was staying in his brother's old room nearby, Clay stood up shakily.

"Clay, answer us!" Elisabeth's pleading tones joined those of his friend.

"I'm...we're all right." He gestured for Mary to open the door, allowing them to see for themselves the truth of his words. Colonel and Captain locked eyes after Robert made a quick scan of the room and lowered his revolver.

Mary clasped Elisabeth's hands. "It was just a nightmare."

Shelby raised his eyebrows in question to his old friend and touched his cheek in a signal only they understood.

Clay nodded and subtly gestured back. "I 'pologize for the disturbance. It was an unnecessary fright."

Elisabeth gave her brother a quick hug and pulled on his curls. "I'm sure a visit from the red-horned moon men that plagued your childhood would have been a more welcome sight than anythin' I could imagine your dreamin' of now."

"As if you didn't do your part nightly to insure their scarin' the snot out of me when I went to bed." He kissed her cheek with brotherly sweetness and pushed her towards the door. "Good night, Elisabeth. Do please give my compliments to the one-armed brakeman."

He laughed as the thought of the return of her own adolescence- tormenting monster blanched her face white.

"Thank you, brother dear." She sighed and turned to Robert. "Perhaps a few hundred hands of whist before retirin'?"

"That might prove helpful," he responded, casting a teasing glare in Clay's direction. "As I am now havin' visions of an ax- wieldin' executioner who'd been delightfully long away from my slumbers until now." He closed the door after a final gesture of silent communication between them to reassure himself of his friend's well- being.

Clay smiled with false bravado as Mary regarded him diplomatically. "Nice to see your ever faithful watchdog is at the ready."

"Shelby? Yes." He splashed away all remaining demons with icy water from the bureau's wash basin, then turned back, puzzled by her vexed expression as he toweled his face dry. "What is it?"

Mary came over and pinched his shoulder. "I'm jealous."

"Jealous? Of what? Of Robert?"

"Uh huh."

Bewildered, he sat down in the rocking chair by the window and pulled Mary carefully onto his lap. Burying his face in her lavender- scented hair, Clay entwined his fingers with hers.

"How sad to see your sweet dreams taken away from you. You've obviously had this nightmare before." She released one hand and traced his cheekbone with her fingers. "I'm jealous he's there to comfort you now when I am not."

"I assure you, his comfort carries much less satisfaction than yours." He tugged lightly on an errant tendril of her chocolate-brown hair and brought her face to his, kissing her eyelids and forehead with a lingering touch. Mary tssked an indulgent response and he wrapped his arms tighter around her waist, cradling his head into her swan-like neck.

"Was it about Gettysburg? We heard terrible stories..."

"Gettysburg...Chickamauga...Suffolk...they're all as one," he said in a frail, faint voice. "The fields may be flat or rollin' but they are always dyed red. The wailin' is loud or soft but it is always the same two words. 'Water'. And 'Mother'. Did you know, there are three smells to every battle?"

"Three?"

"Mmm." He sighed and smiled sadly. "Tobacco, before it starts. While we're waitin'. Then, sulfur, from the gun powder." He wrinkled his nose at the memory. "Smells like rotten eggs." He stroked the inside of her palm, circling up and around her fingertips. "Then the smell of the dead. That stays in your nose for days. 'Cept after Gettysburg, there was a new fragrance." Lost in this thought, he turned her garnet and diamond ring over and over on her finger. His mind flooded with spectral images of fallen comrades, mutilated by cannon shot or surgery, their unseeing eyes black and soulless. Mary placed her hand on his, bringing him back to the present. Looking up at her, he released the ring and smiled. "Wintergreen. The townspeople had to soak cloths in it and wrap them over their faces to distract them from the stench. The dead were piled like cordwood..."

His voice dropped off and his thoughts glazed over again, blinded by ghostly shadows, deafened by unheard screams.

"Clay?"

"They'll have to plow the fields next season, plant the seeds," he said dreamily. "I know our own farmhands have used powdered bone in the fertilizer, it yields a richer harvest. But the metal and leather, that will never do. I don't envy the farmers." Absorbed in abusive self-torment, he acted out a grisly dialogue. "Why, Sam, how did you reap such a bountiful crop?" "Oh, it was nothin', Zeke. I just mixed a little 4th Tennessee with a few sacks of 51st New Hampshire and got the best results I've had in years. You ought to try it."

"Clay, stop it."

"What I've seen, what I've done...I...I don't think I will ever be able to remedy the poison of war." He looked directly at her with a despairing entreaty. "And you must forgive me, because this corruption was without my consent."

"I love you, there is nothin' to forgive." She struggled not to cry, fearing it would drag him deeper into the dark despondency that cast a shadow over his soul. She kissed his brow and whispered tenderly. "I love you, Clay. I cannot imagine how you endure this hell."

Drawing back, he touched her lips, his hazel eyes glistening wide as he regarded her sweet, heart-shaped face. "Because I have you, dearest. You sustain me." He dragged his mouth over her silken cheek and up to her temple, splaying his hand under her jawline. "One thought of you and all the devils are chased away."

Tilting her head to his, a moan escaped her throat as he brushed whispery kisses tenderly back and forth over her honeyed lips. The fan of his long lashes brushed over her skin and she began to weep when he kissed her, without guile, without quarter.

"Don't cry, dearest." His lips traced the path of her tears, tasting their saltiness. "I could not continue at all but for your love."

Christmas Eve dawned with a sugary snow that coated the landscape like cake icing. Borrowing a cane from his father, Clay spent the day idly walking around the plantation house, noting the many dark and empty guest rooms that just a few years past would have been crowded with relatives and friends visiting over the holiday season. The celebrations would last almost a week, with riding parties and races, afternoon teas and sunset hayrides, tree-trimming and gift-guessing, interspersed with quiet moments of affection and grace. There would be nonstop hands of poker and billiards in the gaming room for the gentlemen and roundtable discussions clouded in the smoke of cigars and brandy. The women would catch-up on the year's gossip while quilting coverlets for the newest babies or when having their hems adjusted by the visiting servants at the final fittings for their ball gowns. Children would be heard shrieking underfoot as they played with their new toys, or moaning from too much candy stuffed into eager mouths from the endless bounty of food set out in the parlors and dining rooms. And there would be music through all the days and nights. Carols and hymns and popular songs, hummed and sung and shouted in a rapturous cacophony that would ring in hallways and hearts. Waltzes and jigs resounded in the air, polkas and polonaises, reels and tarantellas would keep the guests breathless and laughing as they wove together in a tapestry of warmth and friendship and cheer.

Now, all was quiet.

Neighbors stopped by during the day, but their faces were somber and grim and they didn't stay long. Clay found it hard to be with them anyway and was grateful for the brevity of their visits. He brought no good news to uplift their hearts and felt guilty that he returned year after year when many of their sons - his dearest friends - did not. He knew he was a reminder of the dire turn the war had taken after their surprising defeat at Gettysburg. What started out as a spirited quest for honor and adventure had become a harsh and unmerciful task; the hope for a quick rout in the first year was now blotted out by a bleak, encroaching darkness that saw no calming dawn in sight. Their conversations were stilted and painful and thankfully no one asked for details of his experiences. He could not think of soft words or phrases to describe the horrors he had endured and didn't want to depress their spirits any more than necessary.

Clay watched with clenched teeth as Mary distributed some of their precious stores to them - coffee, salt and sugar, molasses, bacon and cornmeal. The very supplies that he brought for her.

"We can do as well with less," she responded tactfully when, at first, he protested her actions.

They were still making a profit on tobacco, she reminded him, and with the horribly inflated prices for the most basic staples, they were duty-bound as prominent citizens in the community to share what they could. Clay couldn't fault her, he accepted her feelings about their procurement and so remained silent. And it wasn't as if their neighbors came empty-handed. In fact, he was surprised at the generous gifts they brought to thank the Mosbys for their munificence during these desolate times. Hand-made blankets and shawls piled up on the parlor tables, pies and puddings supplemented the simple but elegant fare Katherine Mosby had set out for the day. He even recognized bric-a-brac from their own homes, some of them precious items he remembered adorning the hallways and salons of the once-great houses he visited as a child.

To the distress of his parents and wife, Clay begged off attending an early Christmas Eve church service, using his injury as an excuse. There would be no Gala that night, of course, as there was no Musicale the night before, and sitting alone in the solarium he was entertained only by the dark memories of battles that ceaselessly overwhelmed his thoughts. His wounded leg rested on an empty, upturned planter as he puffed away mechanically on a cigar, running his free hand back and forth over the barrel of the army Colt he now doggedly carried on him since the previous day's excitement.

He thought about his few remaining friends back with his brigade, probably posturing with nonchalant casualness, dampening their hopes against receiving a letter or package from home in time for the holiday. Besides Robert, who had chastised Clay for refusing to accompany his family to church, Cory Herrick, Phillip Layton and Mary's brother Jamey Russell were the only ones left in his company from the tight-knit group of neighbors and schoolmates that had enlisted three years earlier.

Quiet, solid Benj Worthey, Venetia's brother, had been killed at Gettysburg, cut down as were so many others in the unwinnable stand of Pickett's Charge on the last day of battle, advancing in a mile-long line over the field, advancing straight towards an endless line of Blue musketry that waited...waited...waited...until the line of approaching Grays wavered only in their final realization that they had been sent like lambs to a slaughter and then it was too late.

Stephan Edgar, ascetic in demeanor but the bravest of the lot, Clay thought, had died in one of their most recent forays deep behind Yankee lines for supplies, the last to be shot by a Delaware sniper who clipped them down with such a taunting preciseness that Clay lost all integrity of command, forcing the sniper's family to watch as they executed him after a difficult capture. If any moment had marked the downturn of his heart, it had been that one and he knew he must bury the memory so deep it could never resurface to remind him of the regrettable actions a man takes in war.

He thought about the Christmas just before his marriage to Mary, the threat of war still an inconceivable notion and the promise in her eyes more wondrous that any gift he could have asked for. He thought about the Christmas after that, when the war had just begun and hope for a quick and resolute peace was still possible. And the difficult Christmas after that one, with the loss of his brother and the discovery of the loss of his son. He thought about his first Christmas with Robert Shelby and Christmases spent with cousins in Atlanta and New Orleans and Christmases that had no snow or too much snow and Christmases when he didn't receive the present he desired and Christmases when he did and then he thought he never wanted to think of Christmas again.

The dying cigar slipped from his fingers onto the stone tile floor as his eyes closed wearily, exhausted at the toll his morose journey through tormenting memories had taken from him.

His family let him doze off and on for the remainder of the day. He would wake occasionally to find one family member or another in a chair nearby, reading, mending clothes or just staring out the windows, turning to him with a comforting smile before he lay his head back and closed his eyes again. As dusk approached, he was woken by the unlikely sound of Mary cursing. Opening bleary eyes, he saw her sucking on her index finger, a thick needle and string of popcorn in her lap.

"Oh, dearest. I'm sorry to wake you." She blinked her eyes in innocence, like a crumb-encrusted child caught beside an empty plate of sweets, and smiled for forgiveness. "I was afraid my crunchin' the kernels would raise you first."

"For a tree?"

"Christmas is tomorrow."

"So?"

Mary gasped. "So we've not even taken out the red and gold bows nor the tin ornaments for decoration yet. No one's cut the spruce to lay on the mantle!" She poked him in the arm. "Or gathered the mistletoe."

"Don't be ridiculous. No one is in the mood to celebrate." He sat up slowly, testing joints stiff from cold and injury. "You think anyone is worryin' about presents or carols or such?"

"Unlike certain others, who equate the celebratin' with selfishness, =dearest=, by expectin' gifts, I believe the original observance at this time was the birth of our Lord." Her large eyes blazed at him pointedly. "Had you attended the church service this day, =husband=, you might have been reminded of that."

"We don't honor the Lord with a garland of popcorn, Mary."

"We don't honor Him with defeat or hopelessness, neither." throwing the decorations into a basket, she stood and paced, crossing her arms. "It's Christmastime, Clay. We can't let this war take away our faith."

Bracing himself with the cane, Clay rose and smiled. Stopping her with a hand on her waist, he shook his head indulgently. "No one has lost their faith in the Lord."

"Not the Lord." Untwining her arms, she clasped both his hands in hers, drawing them to her heart. "Faith in love and family." Her hands pressed tighter, burning his palms against her warm flesh. "We're together, all that =can= be together, and that's what we celebrate. a tree with bells and tinsel and a brightly wrapped present. We celebrate that no dire circumstance is goin' to stop us from showin' we care for each other. This war might have lessened our feast and it has sadly lessened our number, but it has not lessened our love."

Mary released his hands and wagged an index finger in Clay's face. "And that's the biggest fight those accursed Yanks are never goin' to win." She grasped her ceaselessly reconstructed skirts and flailed them in despair. "They might have taken my hoops and calico but they are not goin' to take Christmas away from me. Nor you. You can't let them. Not if you want it bad enough!"

Grabbing her hands off her bouncing hoopskirt, he embraced her and smiled for the first time that day. "Oh, Mary," he laughed, "it's a good thing you didn't give the service today. We would have been up all night stringin' popcorn for the crowds that would be comin' just to bask in your blessed..."

A shout interrupted him, coming from the second floor. "Help us, Mister Mosby! Missus! Missus, Yankees!"

Clay looked to Mary with concern but she tssked off the shout. "Permilla's been soundin' off about Yankees all day. Mother's ready to wring her neck and send her back to..."

Suddenly Robert entered the solarium, gun in hand. "Sorry, Colonel, but you'd better come quickly." He lowered the gun but not his caution. "Mary, maybe you'd better stay here."

Grasping her hand firmly, Clay shook his head. "Mary stays with me." Just before exiting the room, he hid the borrowed cane behind the door and smoothed down his vest.

In the house's front parlor, Clay and Mary joined his parents, who were unsuccessfully trying to calm Mary's agitated servant.

"How many?" Clay asked.

"So far only one, makin' his way up the path to the house, but she's convinced there's a whole battalion hidden behind the stables."

"I seen two others yesterday out near the well. And this mornin' there was two different ones, lurkin' around the hen house!" Permilla wiped scared tears from her cheeks as she choked back her fears. "I'm not lyin' this time!"

The young soldier peered through the parlor window, holding his gun at the ready, struggling to see movement in the obscuring twilight.

Turning back, he nodded to his father, who grasped his own Army Colt firmly. "So at best three against five."

"Four...against five."

Elisabeth appeared in the doorway, brandishing the pistol normally kept in the safe under the floor of their father's study.

Clay couldn't help but grin at her dauntless stance of courage. "Why, Elisabeth. You have gone for a soldier."

Their father cackled. "I wouldn't scorn her ability, Colonel. She's gotten supper on the table more often than Jasper for months now."

Nodding, Clay indicated for her to join them. "Then I'd be proud to see what you could do with a Yankee, sister dear, after enjoyin' the tender venison we had just last night." Accustomed to being in charge, he quickly formulated a battle plan. "Mother, go to the study and stay with Miss Mathers and Mother Russell. Keep the doors unlocked though, you may need to escape through the porch if necessary. Permilla, go tell Jasper to get out the huntin' rifles and meet Father in the front hall. And have him bring plenty of shells. We don't really know how many are out there. Elisabeth, you stay here and cover the parlor windows. Mary..."

Mary glared at him. "I'm not leavin' you."

Raising his eyebrows, he pursed his lip into a smirk. "Not at all, dearest. You're goin' to answer the door."

 

 

 
 

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