A Heartbeat Away: Quilts of Love Series by S. Dionne Moore Page B

picnic. She pressed her lips together. She could not blame the man. He was trying to help her. “My grandmother’s.”
    They rode in silence. Two wagons rattled down the road toward them, each driver grim of face. “Gerta didn’t leave?”
    Her chin shot up. “We are nursing . . .” The wagon hit a stone, and a murmur of groans and moans saturated the air. Riley glanced over his shoulder, eyes sad. When she caught his look, he grimaced.
    “They commissioned me to carry their wounded. It’s all we can do.”
    A caisson lay shattered in the middle of the road, and Riley was forced to wait for another wagon to clear the path before passing the wreckage.
It’s all we can do
 . . . Hadn’t she already settled that? All she could do was help. Nursing was all that was left to her.

    From soldier to soldier, one bruised and bloodied man at a time, Joe moved, Jim at his side. He recognized face after face of men from his regiment. Jim helped shift men on their beds, picking up those who had fallen off the tables or cots, carrying those who had died out to the wagon parked outside the door. And always when Jim left to assist one of the surgeons or their assistants, he made sure Joe was settled and secure. “Miss Beth wouldn’t like it if I let anything happen to you.”
    The observation seemed personal. Joe didn’t dwell on it. Jim had fashioned a crutch for him to lean on when weakness would have sent him to the floor. That was when the surgeon’s assistant asked the black man to make more.
    There wasn’t a spot anywhere not occupied by the injured, dying, or dead. The cellar had been filled long ago, Joe’s cot commandeered by a captain whose leg had been amputated. He hated to think of the men down there, all but forgotten, the hope of life diminished by a quick assessment by a surgeon, assistant, or sometimes just an ambulance driver.
    In every face, he searched for Ben, knowing he would not find him.
    They moved farther out into the yard, Jim’s strong arm helping him along. “There won’t be anywhere for us to lie down tonight,” Joe said as he surveyed the chaos. He let his head fall back, the sky tinged a familiar shade of red. Where had he seen that color? Surely not the bloodied body of the men . . . No. With satisfaction, he realized he had seen that shade in the blocks Beth had been sewing together.
    His moment of levity was snatched away on the scream of a man and the dull, hollow sound of a saw working against flesh and bone. He grasped his right arm. The muscles in his shoulders tensed as he stood, mesmerized by the tormented victim’s cries, terrified by the knowledge that it could be him. Try as he might, he could not make a fist, but his flesh was warm and he could control his arm’s movements, though they were jerky and difficult.
    Jim appeared at Joe’s side. “Sit down. Wagon’s coming and I got to help unload the men.” Jim eased him to the ground. The motion broke the hold of Joe’s private fear just as the surgeon finished the amputation and called for the next patient.
    On either side of him, men lay in repose, eyes open, staring at nothing, some talking, while still the gaze of others grazed over him with something akin to suspicion. With a jolt he realized they would not recognize him. He wore no uniform, only the clothes of a civilian.
    Jim moved away from him, and Joe relaxed against the tree as a wagon stopped. A man sprang down and hurried around to the other side. Beth. She seemed pale. Shaken. Glancing around, Joe knew the woman had seen more of the same horror. Perhaps worse if the smoke in the air were any indication of the damage the town had sustained. The manspoke to her and she nodded. A surge of men came forward and began unloading the wounded from the wagon, placing them on stretchers made of fence rails and tent canvas.
    Joe stabbed the end of the crutch into the ground with as much strength as he could muster. He rallied, sucked in a deep breath, and tried