Beaudry's Ghost Page 7

  “That’s right, son. You’d better watch your back,” Troy warned as his disheveled image faded from view. “He’s coming after you and trust me, he is seriously pissed off.”

  *

  “Damn it.” she sat up and rubbed her eyes, as if trying to scrub away a bad dream.

  Jared pulled himself along his tie rope to within a scant three feet of where the toes of her shoes hung over the edge of the wagon’s tailgate.

  “Are you all right?” he rasped, just as his toe caught in the sand and his knees unexpectedly buckled.

  “I’m all right, but you aren’t,” she muttered, lunging for the rope. Only her quick tug kept him from going down to be dragged through the sand like the day’s fresh catch.

  “Come on, help me out here. I’m not as strong as I look.” Her tone was dry as she laid her musket aside and reached for him. For a second she drew back, as if regretting the offer, but then she set her jaw and grabbed his arm.

  With minimal help, Jared managed to lever himself up onto the back of the wagon beside her. For a split second their hands brushed, and a peculiar sensation traveled up his arms, relaxing his sore muscles and soothing away the residual burning in his hand. Savoring the feeling, he leaned back and stared at the sky.

  He’d done it. He’d come through hell and been spit out the other side. Spit back to the same starting point…except this time one thing was different.

  He looked at the woman beside him and found her studying him. She quickly looked away, propped her foot on the edge of the wagon and untied her shoelaces, pushing up her too-long coat sleeves every few seconds as she worked.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked quietly, reaching out to still her busy hands. Instantly she froze, and Jared felt a wall of tension go up between them. He frowned and withdrew. A moment later, she relaxed and returned to work on her shoes.

  “I know who you are,” she murmured. “I don’t know why or how you are, but I know who.”

  Oh, lady, if you only knew, he thought grimly.

  “Whatever you are,” she continued, “you’ve got to know that I’m really not in the mood to be anyone’s tour guide to the twenty-first century. And while you’re at it, better back off from Stephen…er, Harris. He’s got you marked, thanks to that big mouth of yours.”

  Jared looked sidelong at Taylor, but she carefully avoided eyes. She might wish herself far away, but still she remained.

  He shrugged and let a smile stretch his mouth in spite of his sliced lip. “Just reminding him of his rightful place in the total scheme of things.”

  Taylor snorted and picked at a stubborn knot in the shoelace.

  “Anyway,” she tossed one shoe to the wagon bed beside her, “poking that particular monkey is probably not such a good idea. He’s already on the edge, and then you show up and harass him all the more.” She paused, swayed and whispered a soft “oh, God” before resuming her work on her shoelaces. She inhaled a calming breath. “Something happened when you showed up, Beaudry, and now all hell’s broken loose.”

  She sounded angry now, the kind of angry a woman gets when she’s really scared to death.

  Jared watched her fingers at work, wondering at her sudden frenzy to remove her footgear. “I am who I said. First Sergeant Jared Beaudry. When I’m not—when I wasn’t chasing Rebs back to where they came from, I practiced law in Marietta.” He looked for and got the surprised expression from Taylor. “That’s in Ohio.”

  “I know where it is,” she snapped. The second shoe landed beside the first. Jared looked doubtfully from her slender feet to the shoes, obviously several sizes too large. He looked up to find her eyeing him hard. Then her face relaxed into a patient smile, except for the barely restrained fright glimmering in her eyes.

  He knew before she opened her mouth that she would give denial one last try.

  “You must have been listening in on Gulley’s ghost story, too. If you’re Jared Beaudry, then I’m Mary Chesnut.”

  Jared raised an eyebrow and nodded. “At least you got the female part right, Private Taylor.”

  His gaze fell to her chest, and he realized too late that he had been imagining what she looked like under the too-large uniform. Damn, Beaudry, it’s been far too long if you’re forgetting your manners. He tore his eyes away and breathed to cool the sudden burning at the tips of his ears and at the back of his neck. He hadn’t blushed since he’d finally grown tall enough to kiss Mary Jane McBride.

  Taylor crossed her arms in a sweetly unconscious gesture that tugged at his heart while at the same time heightened his interest. Clearly, the women in this century could still be embarrassed about some things, too.

  “How did you know?” No one else around here seems to know who they are, much less who I am.”

  Jared opened his mouth and snapped it shut, belatedly remembering it was Troy who had told him. He shrugged and tried to sound off-hand. “How could I not? You look like some child who stole your big brother’s uniform.”

  She flinched, and he ground his teeth, wishing Harris had gone for his wayward tongue instead of his hand. He lifted his hands to touch her jaw, wincing when the ropes scraped over his raw skin. He hadn’t made a conscious decision to touch her. Something inside him, starved of any human contact for over a century, had made it for him. Sand coated her skin, but beneath the grit she was creamy soft.

  Taylor stiffened, but didn’t move away as his fingers moved to the other side of her face. Her spectacles sat lopsided on her nose, and her hair, stiff with salt spray, stuck out at odd angles under her hat. The muscles under her skin clenched, as if she steadied herself against some assault. The wagon jolted through a pothole in the beach, and his hands dropped away.

  She returned her attention to her shoes, pulling out several wads of cloth she’d used to make them fit her feet.

  “Take your boots off, Sergeant,” she ordered.

  Jared had to work hard to suppress a laugh. “Excuse me?” Her tone reminded him of his big sister Sarah when she thought she was right. Only Sarah’s voice had never wobbled like that, not for anyone, not for any reason.

  “Your boots,” she said, steadier now. “Unless Lt. Harris suddenly decides not to be insane, it looks like you’re walking the whole way to Roanoke Island. In those cavalry boots you’ll never make it.”

  Reason outweighed chivalry, and he lifted one leg to pull awkwardly at his boot. “And you will?” The boot came free unexpectedly and he had to catch his backward momentum. A cramp threatened his calf, and he quickly dropped the boot beside him and dug his fingers into the muscle to ward it off.

  He froze when her hands came out of the dark, her fingers slipping between his own to knead the muscle into relaxation. Warmth spread through his left leg and pooled in his groin, and he suppressed a soft groan. Just as quickly, her hands were gone, taking her soothing touch with them. He opened his eyes, only now remembering that he’d closed them.

  “I’m riding,” she went on matter-of-factly, as if she failed to notice anything amiss. “You’re walking. Besides, even if I have to walk, I’m a woman. We’re used to uncomfortable shoes. Plus I have all this stuffing to cushion them. I’ll be fine.” She held the shoes out to him. “You won’t.”

  Jared swallowed and freed his other boot, his right one, and cautiously examined his right leg. Intact. He tried not to think about what that meant for the other man who had taken his place. Somewhere out in the dark, the man undoubtedly would take inventory of the incomplete, pain-wracked body forced upon him, consider himself on the raw end of the deal. Jared shook his head and exchanged footwear with Taylor, holding up his new shoes and examining them in the moonlight. A couple holes, but otherwise in good condition.

  “These your big brother’s, too?” he said, dangling them by their laces. Her expression darkened, and he quickly set one of the shoes down and pulled the other one on. Watch your mouth, Beaudry.

  “That brings me to another question, Sergeant,” she said tightly. “How you knew his name.”


  Jared carefully avoided her eyes and attempted to tie his shoelaces. A neat trick, since his hands were bound.

  He held his silence too long, and Taylor let out a breath. “My brother’s name, Beaudry.” Her demand was low pitched and intense.

  Still Jared hesitated. Troy had been clear; he did not want his sister to know of his presence. Far be it for Jared to give him away, not after the risks the man had taken for him. Using her brother’s name to keep her at his side had been a mistake, one he’d surely pay for down the line.

  Taylor ducked her chin, holding tight to her patience. “When you were doubled over complaining about your hand. Which, I might add, has nothing wrong with it that I can see. You looked right through me and said my brother’s name. It’s not very a very common one, so it can’t be a coincidence.”

  Jared finished tying the shoes and used his fingers to comb his hair back off his forehead, noticing for the first time he didn’t have his hat anymore. Must have lost it in the scuffle. “I don’t remember saying anyone’s name,” he lied quietly. He had been nearly blind with pain and the ripping sensation that told him she was leaving, but his memory was crystal clear. He had used the only means he could think of to make her stay. “I seem to have lost a few minutes.” Make that an entire century… “What is his name?”

  Taylor looked away as she jammed her foot into the first boot. “Was. His name was Troy. And I…” Her heel caught and she jerked unseeingly at the straps, “…lost him about a year ago. In a battle. A stupid, senseless…” The boot gave up first and her foot slid the rest of the way in, “…battle. And I want to know why you…” She stuttered to a halt and studied him with a piercing stare. “You’re lying. And I want to know why.”

  Jared met her gaze and couldn’t bring himself to tell another lie into her beautiful eyes. He sighed and hoped Troy would forgive him.

  “You can’t see him. He won’t allow it.”

  Taylor clenched her jaw against the emotion that boiled up through her throat, and turned her face away so Beaudry wouldn’t witness it.

  Angrily she blinked, her heart thudding with defeat, as she looked for and found the lights of beach houses just visible above the towering dunes. Just a few tens of yards away. She could be off this wagon, over the dunes and out of this nightmare…

  Was it like this for you, Troy? When you were under fire, did you wish you could just turn tail and run? She drew a shaky breath and pulled the other boot on. But you wouldn’t, even if you could. And neither will I. Not when I’m the only sane one left in this unit, the only one who can save these men from whatever evil has trapped them in this time bubble.

  The Yankee’s touch on her shoulder startled her into staring at him. Mistake. She almost believed the regret in his eyes.

  “You must trust me when I tell you it’s better this way,” Beaudry said.

  Taylor jerked away. “The war is over, Sergeant,” she said firmly. “Hasn’t anyone told you yet? This isn’t a real battle. This is a re-en-act-ment.” She said the word slowly, to be sure he would understand. To remind herself. “We’re not here to relive old hatreds. We’re here to remember our ancestors and to honor the…the…” She couldn’t say the word.

  “The dead,” Beaudry finished for her, and she swallowed a hard, dry lump in her throat.

  He leaned wearily against the pile of tent canvas. He turned and looked out to sea, making it impossible to read his expression.

  “If it was not real before, it is now, at least for this unit,” he said quietly. He shook his head and looked at her again. “I’m afraid this war isn’t quite over for me, and until it is, it won’t be over for the rest of these men.”

  Taylor laughed right out to keep her teeth from clacking together. Instantly Lije Gulley’s voice, surprisingly close in the darkness, called out, “Everything all right, boy?”

  She looked at Beaudry, then down at the shoes that fit his feet perfectly.

  “It’s all right, Lije. This Bluebelly here just told me a whopper about how the Yankees whupped us at the first Manassas.”

  A moment of silence.

  “You mean there’s more than one?”

  Taylor took off her spectacles and ground the heel of one hand into her eye socket. “This is worse than I thought.”

  The Yankee looked at her, his dangerous mouth curved with what could have been a smile, had it reached his eyes. “Oh, yes, Private Taylor. And if memory serves, it’s going to get much, much worse. And that’s why you have to get out of here. Now.”

  Taylor’s heart thumped in the same rhythm it had when she’d dreamed the horseman apparition on the beach. Please, God, let this be a bad dream. She gripped the edge of the wagon gate and closed her eyes against a buzzing in her ears that had been growing steadily louder since suffering Lije’s blow.

  The boot on her right leg tightened, threatening to cut off the blood flow to her foot. She gasped softly, trying to disconnect herself from the unwanted phenomenon. Tried and failed. A vision of the horseman flashed in front of her eyes.

  The right boot…the missing right leg…

  “Tell me one more time,” she whispered. “Who—or what—are you?”

  Beaudry studied his hands for a moment, flexing his left one, the skin pale in the moonlight. The wind shifted, and the subdued crash and fizz of waves grew louder. The tide had turned. It would soon rise.

  “I am First Sergeant Jared Allan Beaudry, 10th Ohio Cavalry. Col. Richard Hardin commands my unit. I was born along the Little Hocking River, educated at Charles Town College…”

  “When?” Taylor’s voice was soft, holding on tight.

  “I was born…born January 29, 1831. And I…I died…”

  “Oh, God.”

  “…died around February 11, 1862, at Cape Hatteras. If I’m not mistaken, that’s about forty miles south of here.”

  Taylor couldn’t tear her eyes from his face, intent and radiant with determination and something else she couldn’t name.

  “Look.” Beaudry managed to shove his hands inside his coat, and withdrew a folded piece of paper. He stared at it for a moment, and Taylor thought he looked surprised as hell to have found it. Then he held it out to her, and she took it gingerly, as if plucking a hot coal from a fire.

  In the dim light, Taylor unfolded the paper and squinted at it, her non-prescription lenses fogged over with salt mist and no help at all. 1834. She looked back at Beaudry.

  “This looks like your birth record,” she said. Then she caught herself and tried desperately to find some explanation. “But you could have—Don’t you have some other form of ID on you?”

  “It’s mine. And no, this is all I had with me at the time of my death,” he said, cutting her off with the force of his conviction. He tugged at her pant leg, urging her to prop the boot she now wore onto the seat, and made her fingers trace the two crudely carved initials scarred into the leather near the top. His breath stopped.

  “Unbelievable,” she thought he heard him mutter, but she couldn’t be sure over the roar of the surf. She leaned down and squinted along with him at the boot.

  “J.B.” she whispered.

  Taylor’s head buzzed anew as the truth settled in her mind. She tried to shut off this vision like she’d always been able to before. She had learned to simply imagine she held a remote control, and needed only to punch a button to change the cosmic channel. She tried it now, tried with all her might, hoping her effort would make this whole nightmare situation go away and return her friends to normal.

  It didn’t work. The time bubble held unshakably in place, the ghosts within firmly in possession of her friends’ bodies, its power bringing the ghost of Jared Beaudry back to life.

  The need to escape nearly overwhelmed her, and she tried to move away from him.

  Beaudry reached out and grasped her hand, the one holding the paper. She looked into his face and saw the storms in his eyes calm as their skin touched. At the same time, her own emotional waters were stirred in a
way that was at once awakening and terrifying.

  “Listen to me. Please.” He bowed his head and briefly pressed his forehead against her hand, drawing a deep breath as he did so. Then he drew back and held her in place with the moon-bright intensity in his eyes.

  “I didn’t just die in 1862. I was murdered. I was relieved of my hand, my leg, and then my honor and my life at the hands of Bloody Zach Harris of the 2nd North Carolina. And if everything happens now the same way it did then, he means to have them all again. I cannot let that happen. Do you understand?”

  Taylor swallowed, wondering why her fingers tightened around his when she should have been exerting pressure to disengage them. With every word he spoke a force rose, traveling from his hands to hers. There was no sense of conflict within him this time. The soul she sensed through her fingers belonged exactly where it was.

  “Then you’re…you really are…”

  “A ghost.”

  *

  He came to awareness on the back of a galloping horse.

  A moment later, pain doubled him over in the saddle, and he reached to grasp the horse’s mane for support.

  Only one hand connected. He held up his left arm, and his stomach rolled at the sight of the blood-soaked rags that bound the handless stump.

  What the hell!

  The horse shied to the left, and despite the automatic tightening of thigh muscles, he nearly lost his seat. Glancing down at his right leg, he was treated to the same sight as his left arm. Below the knee, only a bloody stump remained, throbbing with pain.

  He tried to scream, but only a sickening gurgle emerged from his throat. He hadn’t the courage to raise his remaining hand to examine the wound that he knew must be there.

  He remembered…a man dressed in black and using moves he’d never seen in any of his karate classes, had ripped him from his own body. And now he rode a black horse who ran so fast, the beach was a blur beneath his feet.

  Razor-sharp pain sliced through the remains of his arm, and before he blacked out again, he saw the outline of his right hand re-appearing.