Read Online Faith by Lyn Cote - Free Book Online

goaded Dev into action overriding his exhaustion. “I can’t stay. I’ve got to go find Jack if I can.” And make him sorry for betraying my trust. But he felt himself staggering with fatigue. Armstrong gripped his arm, holding him up, guiding him to a three-legged stool. Dev sat down, too tired to move.

    Deep in the night Faith lifted a soldier’s head and dribbled onto his lips the last of the water from the last of her canteens.She tried to speak but her dry throat scratched. Finally she managed to whisper, “It’s empty.” And so was she.
    The man nodded in the waning lantern light and closed his eyes in resignation.
    Rising higher on her knees, she glanced around. No one moaned anymore. The wounded had fallen asleep for the night. Or for good.
    She tried to see where the Sanitary Commission wagon was, but in the dim moonlight she did not find it. The lantern oil gave out and the light winked off. Utterly depleted, she could not go on. She reached into her pocket and brought out a peppermint drop, unwrapped it, and slipped it onto her tongue. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast. A bit of sugar often steadied her.
    Her stomach rumbling, she lay down on her back on the already-dew-wet grass and stared up at the starry sky, sleep coming for her wrapped in waves of fatigue. When Vicksburg fell, as it must, then they might be able to continue searching for Shiloh. Her last thought was a prayer for Honoree. And Shiloh, wherever she was.

    Dev woke in the very early hours of the new day and realized he was lying on the ground in his tent, a blanket covering him. About to try sitting up, he heard voices nearby. Squinting, he could see the shadow of Armstrong in the low lantern light, moving toward Dev’s cot.
    “Miss, you’re safe,” Armstrong said quietly.
    Dev saw the black girl raise her hand and touch his servant as if making sure he was substantial, real. “Mr. Armstrong?”
    “Just Armstrong, miss. May I offer you some cold coffee and hardtack?”
    “If that’s what you have, that’s what I’ll take,” she murmured with a touch of humor.
    “I wish I had better to give you.” He turned to pour the coffee, which splashed against the bottom of the tin mug. “I was worried about you, miss. You’ve been unconscious for many hours.” He helped her sit up on the side of the cot.
    “I was not completely unconscious,” she admitted, taking the cup and holding it in both hands, which still trembled. “My head hurt, so I couldn’t open my eyes. And my mind . . . was scattered like scraps of paper on the wind.” She shook her head, moaned, and then pressed a hand to the back of her skull. “Must have been part of an exploding shell that hit me.”
    “You’re lucky it didn’t shatter and the shrapnel kill you,” Armstrong said, sitting down on a camp stool close to her.
    The girl sipped her coffee. “Where’s Faith?”
    “She is still on the battlefield, I believe.”
    Dev knew he should make his wakefulness known, but lethargy muzzled him.
    The girl rested her head in one hand. “I should be with her.”
    “You couldn’t help being struck unconscious and dazed.”
    Looking around, the girl suddenly stiffened. “Where’s the Reb?”
    “He ran off yesterday while I was out.”
    “The dog,” she snapped. “I suspected that’s how it would end.”
    Dev cringed at her comment.
    “Mr. Jack was never one to trust,” Armstrong said.
    Dev held his breath. The judgment was just.
    “Then why did the colonel trust him?” the girl asked with asperity in her voice. Her scathing tone cut Dev to the quick.
    “My master always hopes for the best, especially from his family.”
    She started to shake her head again and then stopped, wincing with obvious pain. “After the Emancipation Proclamation, why do you stay a slave?”
    “The proclamation came in January. I will be forty on June 9 this year. The colonel has always promised to free me on my fortieth birthday.”
    “You believe him?” she