The Last, Long Night (#5 in the Bregdan Chronicles Historical Fiction Romance Series) Read Free

stayed focused on the future by having something to pull him forward through the hard times.
    Jimmy shrugged, smiled slightly, and looked down for a moment before he raised his eyes.  “I want to go back and start my own livery.  I reckon I love horses more than anything.  I’ve always dreamed of having my own place.”
    “There’s nothing like a good horse,” Robert agreed readily.
    “Yeah.  Like that gray thoroughbred you ride!  I think that might just be the finest animal I’ve ever seen.  Where’d you get him?”
    “Granite belongs to my wife,” Robert said, already wishing the beautiful horse was far from the battlefield, safe in his stall on Cromwell Plantation. 
    “He’s really something!”
    “That he is,” Robert said fervently.  He looked more closely at Jimmy’s shining eyes.  “Would you like to take care of him tonight?”  He was used to doing it himself, but he could tell the boy needed something to distract him.
    “You bet!”
    Robert was silent for a moment before he continued.  “Hey, Jimmy, if something happens to me, will you take care of Granite?  Make sure he gets back to Richmond?”  He hated to diminish the boy’s confidence, but he didn’t want Carrie to lose her husband and her horse.
    Jimmy’s eyes widened as his shoulders straightened.  “Yes, sir!  I would consider it an honor, sir!”
    Robert smiled.  “Thank you.  Now go join the men and have something to eat.”  He didn’t bother to acknowledge that the meager food the men had was far from sufficient.  The odd mixture of wheat bran and beef closely resembled glue when it was cooked, and it did little to satisfy the men’s hunger.
    Hunger was as much a part of army life as fighting was.  Everyone knew that it wasn’t possible to get enough food to the army.   Only one railway line still operated, and it wasn’t enough to get food to the men, or fodder to the animals.  Robert spent time every day gathering fresh spring grass for Granite.  The horse was still thin, but he looked better than most of them did.  That, at least, he could do for Carrie.
    Jimmy rose to leave but then turned back with one final question.  “Hey, Captain, are there are more men coming up to help us?”
    Robert knew his men had been waiting for reinforcements, hoping for help.  He shook his head but didn’t want to go into the truth that the South was out of men – all the available men had been killed, wounded, or  had deserted.  “We’re not going to need them,” he said confidently.  “Lee has them off fighting in other areas because he knows his army can handle anything the Yankees throw at us!”
    Jimmy gazed at him for a moment and then seemed to draw strength from what he saw in his captain’s eyes.  Once more he straightened his shoulders.  “You got that right!  We’re just going to send them Yanks running again!  One day they’ll get tired of losing, and they just won’t come back!”
    Robert watched as Jimmy crawled back to his group, and then he went in search of Granite.  He closed his eyes again as the sun faded and darkness fell on the woods; he knew that even if it did not happen tomorrow, the battle would happen soon.
     

     
    Carrie leaned back in the wagon seat and looked around at Richmond.  It never ceased to amaze her how much the city had changed - worsened - since the war had begun.  Gone was the genteel elegance.  Gone was the prosperity.  Gone was the confidence.
    Richmond’s privilege of being the capital of the Confederacy brought the harsh reality of overcrowding, poverty, crime, prostitution, hunger, and the ever-present fear that Union troops would capture the city.
    Carrie had learned to block most of it out by focusing on caring for her patients.  She had done everything she could do at Chimborazo.  Now she was on her way down to the hospital in the black part of town.
    “I don’t reckon there will be any trouble today,” Hobbs said.  “With a  battle