Читать книгу Weathering Rock - Mae Clair - Страница 14

Chapter 9

Arianna didn’t see Caleb again for another week. She kept busy by helping Lauren with party preparations, and squeezed in a lunch date with Daphne. Her sister talked of little except Seth Reilly, and how well connected he was. It made Arianna realize that although Caleb was given to moments of male ego, he was far from pretentious. She decided Gettysburg was her safest bet for seeing him again, and invited him on the field trip.

When the day arrived, she met him at the school parking lot, the same rendezvous point for parents who were dropping off their children. The group was small, three girls and five boys. She’d made arrangements for a school-sized van and had lined up her regular driver. Caleb was already there when she arrived, waiting with Wyn, chatting with a handful of parents and students.

“Good morning.” She hoped her voice masked the tingle she felt. It was difficult remaining neutral when her last memory of Caleb involved being held in his arms, his lips crushed to hers. Recalling how easily she’d melted into his embrace brought a heated flush to her cheeks, but thankfully, no one noticed.

Caleb met her eyes, then glanced down, fixating on her outfit. She’d dressed in belted white shorts, a turquoise tank top and sneakers. The temperature was predicted to climb into the low eighties and she intended to be comfortable. There was nothing out of place with her attire, but the heat in his gaze made her feel like she’d chosen something risque.

“I thought I’d play chauffeur,” Wyn explained, breaking the awkward moment. “I was headed this way, and–”

“Caleb doesn’t drive,” Arianna finished, remembering his preference for horses. It was hard to overlook, considering she’d almost run him down on Ranger the night they’d met.

Wyn hedged and cleared his throat, uncertain if she was teasing or being sarcastic. Deciding to put him out of his misery, she smiled. She couldn’t continue to fault him for what he’d done to her tire, when she’d made amends with Caleb.

Some of the boys had broken off, chasing each other through the parking lot, anxious to be on their way. Arianna exchanged a few pleasantries with several of the parents, and then with Caleb’s aid, ushered everyone into the van.

Caleb hesitated, unsure where he should sit, then took the seat behind her. Arianna wasn’t certain if she was grateful or disappointed he hadn’t chosen to sit with her. After a quick visual check to ensure all of her charges were settled in their seats, she gave her driver the green light to go.

At first there was plenty of excitement, the kids wound up, chattering back and forth across the aisle. Eventually, they settled down, talking in quieter groups as the drive progressed. Caleb had turned sideways, his back to the window so he could view the children. One or two had already grown attached to him. Lisa Gaines and Trudy Walker, caught at that awkward stage of tween-to-teen, alternated between asking him questions and giggling behind their hands, caught up in a harmless crush. Arianna eventually saved him from constant attention by suggesting the girls “give Mr. DeCardian a break.”

She turned in her seat, facing the window to converse with him. “I’m sorry,” she said as afterthought. “You’re probably used to being addressed as Colonel DeCardian.”

“I haven’t been ‘Colonel’ for several years. I’m retired.”

“Yes.” She was struck again by his young age in comparison to his rank. “You must have joined the Army right out of high school.”

“College. I attended West Point.”

The prestige struck her silent. Behind her, she could hear Danny Tusoni complaining to Scott Albright about the awful taste of the new Monster drink at the Quik Mart. The lament droned into a din and became white noise in the background, snarled with the hum of the van’s fat tires. Caleb was watching her in that manner that made her uncomfortable. She realized there was something magnetic between them, that–God help her–he was magnetic.

“I make you uncomfortable,” he said, and then changed the subject in an effort to ease the tension. “How long have you been doing these trips to Gettysburg?”

After that, they talked easily. She told him about her interest in the Civil War and he listened politely. Sometimes it was hard explaining her connection to a war that had happened over a century before her birth, how she admired the strength and fortitude of the men and women who had lived through such madness, suffering dreadful loss and hardship, emerging to put a nation back together. Self-conscious, she laughed, only then realizing she’d been monopolizing the conversation. It was easy to get carried away discussing something that inspired her.

“I’m sorry. You must think I’m silly.”

“Not at all. You view history with passion.”

“Don’t you do the same?”

He gave a bitter snort. “I have a more fatalistic viewpoint.”

“I’m not romanticizing tragedy,” she protested.

“I know that. That’s why I admire your passion. It’s easy to forget people like Lee, Longstreet and Chamberlain.” His voice grew soft and distant. “Or Hipplewhite.”

“Who?”

He shook his head. “No one.” He glanced around the bus. “I wonder how much they know of history?” He nodded toward the children.

Most did fine in other subjects, but struggled with history. “I think they enjoy running around the battlefield more than listening to facts about dead men.”

Caleb grinned, an amused gleam in his eye. “Then we need to make it interesting for them.”

She’d never had the benefit of a co-tour guide, which was how she came to think of Caleb throughout the day. He added interesting facts and anecdotes about various parts of the battlefield, the men who’d fought there and the Civil War in general. He brought a fresh perspective that kept even her students intrigued, his view of the conflict unlike any she’d encountered. After a while she abandoned her preset curriculum in favor of spontaneity.

Caleb talked about things she’d never stopped to consider: how the temperature had climbed to nearly ninety degrees on July third, the last day of battle, the sweltering intensity of the sun bronzing the sky like brass. The leaves on the trees had crumbled into ash, scorched by the belching black smoke of cannon and musket fire.

Danny Tusoni, who Arianna had expected to be restless and bored, listened raptly as Caleb pointed out the infamous Wheatfield, relaying how a man could walk across the twenty-three-acre plot by stepping on the bodies of the dead at the end of the day, his feet never touching the earth. He spoke of such things as if he’d seen them, lived them. The faint melancholy in his voice left Arianna unbalanced.

“You’ve obviously done a lot of research on Gettysburg.”

Caleb shrugged. “Like you said, it was a tumultuous time.”

In history, she mentally added, disturbed it seemed so real for him. Ten minutes later, the girls were getting hungry as the clock inched closer to noon.

“Ms. Hart, when are we going to stop for lunch?” Beth Regal asked, joined in a chorus of whiney fidgeting by Lisa and Trudy.

“Soon,” Arianna promised. There was a picnic area a short distance down the road. After that, she could let everyone burn off excess energy by hiking up Little Round Top. “I hope everyone packed a good lunch. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m hungry.”

“I brought a sandwich, soda and chips,” Beth piped up. “And I have oatmeal cookies for desert.”

“What about Slim Jims?” Danny wanted to know. “Lunch ain’t squat without a Slim Jim.”

“Don’t say ain’t, Danny,” Arianna corrected. “And I think you need more than a Slim Jim for lunch.”

Caleb looked puzzled. “It’s got to be better than hardtack.”

“What’s that?” Scott Albright asked.

“A type of food soldiers ate during the Civil War. It was made of flour, water and salt. Sort of like a hard cracker. Not very appetizing, especially when weevils laid their larvae inside. Most of the men took to calling them ‘worm castles.’”

“Ewww!” Trudy proclaimed.

Caleb chuckled. “If you think that’s bad…” And he went on to relay how as the war progressed and times grew worse–especially in the South where hardships were more severe–people were sometimes reduced to eating things like snakes, rats, locusts, cats and dogs. The girls shrilled their revulsion while the boys found this new information worthy of intense examination.

“You mean like real rats?” Danny was incredulous.

“You could buy a dressed one in a butcher shop in some cities for about two dollars and fifty cents,” Caleb confirmed.

Arianna shook her head. “Caleb. You could have picked a better topic before lunch.” But she couldn’t stop smiling at how animated the group had become, the boys exuberantly discussing rats hanging in shop windows, the girls indignant that anyone would consider eating a cat or a dog. Somehow, despite the subject matter, everyone managed to down a sandwich when they stopped at a shaded picnic area.

Several times Arianna caught Caleb staring at her bare legs when he thought she wasn’t aware. It brought back the memory of his kiss and the tantalizing heat she’d felt wrapped in his arms. Each time, he averted his eyes, wisely downplaying his attraction with the children so near.

A few hours later, they made their last stop of the day at the Pennsylvania Monument, the largest memorial on the battlefield. For once Caleb was quiet and introspective, lingering at the base where bronze statues of Meade and other Federal commanders flanked the entrance. Arianna strayed to the interior while her students raced up a set of stairs to an upper level balcony with a view of the battlefield. The interior bore massive engraved plaques listing troops from her home state–regiment commanders, company commanders, officers and soldiers.

She wandered from one to the next, pausing now and again to absorb a name. Each represented a singular life. Husband, father, brother, uncle, friend–men with dreams and aspirations who’d fought for a cause they believed in.

“Arianna.” Caleb’s voice was flat, breaking her reverie. She gave a guilty start to find him standing a step away, scowling in her direction. “We should go upstairs and see what the children are doing.”

Children. He’d never once said ‘kids’ throughout the long course of the day. “They’re fine, Caleb.”

“I think we should go.” There was no disguising the tension in his voice.

She hedged, unable to understand why the monument didn’t enthrall him the way it did her. There was something in his eyes that hinted of sadness. He seemed uneasy, anxious that she be away.

“Don’t you realize these are the names of the men who fought for the Union while representing Pennsylvania? How can you not be affected, given all you know of the war?”

“I never said I wasn’t affected, I said we should go.” He stepped closer, towering over her, his gaze touched by the unnatural silver sheen that claimed it from time to time.

“You go check on the kids if you want. I’ll be along in a minute.” Her instinct was silly, but she was certain he didn’t want her to see something. Something among the many plaques in the monument. Her gaze strayed to the nearest.

“Annie.”

The name sent a tiny thrill through her. His voice was softer now, quiet. She was starting to enjoy the way he shortened her name in a manner no one else did. There was always intimacy in his voice when he called her Annie.

“Ms. Hart,” Lisa called from the doorway to the stairs. “Come quick! Danny and Scott are spitting off the balcony, betting on who can hit someone below.”

Arianna rolled her eyes. She should have known that sooner or later Danny Tusoni and Scott Albright would show their true colors. They’d behaved all day, but the allure of the open two-story monument was too much for them.

Caleb raised a brow. “Want some help?” He grinned, once again at ease.

“What do you think?” Arianna beckoned him to follow, leaving the bronze tablets and their list of names behind.

* * * *

Caleb lingered after she left, tension flowing from his body. All day he’d been anticipating their arrival at the monument, uncertain how he would navigate Arianna’s interest in the memorial. He’d known she was too impassioned about the men who fought in the war to give the shrine only a passing glance. To her, the names on the plaques meant more than forgotten lives. They’d been husbands, fathers and sons, all with dreams and ambitions.

Men like Private Stan Hipplewhite, who’d never had the chance to wed his childhood sweetheart. The nineteen-year-old bugler should have grown old with the girl he’d planned to marry, children scampering at his feet. Instead he’d coughed his lungs out, bleeding to death in Caleb’s arms on a smoke-choked battlefield, the roar of cannons booming in their ears. There’d been no wife for Stan, no freckle-faced farm girl to welcome him home with outstretched arms and a loving smile.

“Her name’s Molly, Sir,” the boy had told him as he lay dying. “Know’d her all my life, since we was young’uns. Promised I’d come back after the war and make her my wife. Her pap’s got a farm in Hanover…promised us land…”

Caleb had seen other men die, but the bugler haunted him.

If he hadn’t come on the trip, Arianna might have stumbled across the discovery he’d protected for the last three years. A few more steps to the rear of the monument and she would have seen the names of soldiers belonging to the Fiftieth Regiment–many he could recite by memory, their faces crowded in his mind. He wasn’t sure if it was morbid curiosity or fatalistic reality that made him turn the corner. His mouth flattened in a tight line as he beheld the name of the commander emblazoned at the top of several regimental plaques:

Fiftieth Regiment Infantry, Col. Caleb R. DeCardian.

It was an odd feeling, seeing his name immortalized in brass. He’d survived Gettysburg only to be listed as missing in action a month later. Wyn had tracked down the information on something he called the web by delving into historical archives.

“Mr. DeCardian?”

Caleb jerked, surprised to find Trudy Walker gazing up at him. Lanky for her height, she was all arms and legs with enormous blue eyes and a straight fall of corn-gold hair.

“What are you looking at?” the girl asked innocently, her eyes straying to the nearest tablet.

“Nothing.” Caleb gave her shoulder a gentle push, ushering her to the center of the monument. She craned her neck to glance over her shoulder, but he diffused her interest with a breezy smile.

“How about showing me the upper level? I could use a guide.”

Trudy beamed. “Sure. This way.” She waved him toward the stairs, preening to be chosen as his personal tour guide.

Caleb sent one last glance behind him, the past and its many ghosts fading from memory as the present eclipsed his former life.