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

on the other soldier like I should have done fifteen minutes ago.” She studied Joe, then Beth. “Talk to him. Get his mind off what he’s hearing.”
    Beth reached to touch Joe’s arm, feeling his need. Though his eyes were closed, his breathing said he was awake and tryingto staunch his fears. Joe needed to be safe. “We should move him, Grandmama.”
    Gerta pursed her lips and glanced over her shoulder. Emma had crept away from their huddle and was now using a broom to sweep the glass from the edges of the shattered window. “You’re right. We’ll take him to the cellar. The noise will be less there. Emma?”
    With Emma’s strong shoulder on one side and Beth’s on the other, Joe sat up. She could feel the bones beneath her hands, and the heat from his body radiated. If his fever became worse, she might lose him. His body could not take much more abuse in its weakened state. His knees buckled after a few steps. Beth slipped her arm around his waist, meeting Emma’s arm as she did the same. The extra support steadied him as they inched along toward the door and outside.
    “Take it slow, now,” Emma said.
    His legs, Beth saw, matched the emaciation of the rest of his body and she doubted the man capable of more than a few steps.
    “Be careful of that wound,” Gerta said. “I didn’t patch him up for you all to drop him and have him bleeding again.”
    “Maybe,” Emma grunted, “we shoulda rolled him in a blanket and—”
    Heat curled around them, the sun hot and forceful adding to the discomfort of working so closely with the feverish man. Beth’s arms were tingling from the burden as they stumped down the step from the porch, stopped to gain their breath, and gave Joe a chance to rest. His eyes were half-closed, sweat dripping down his face, which was red with the exertion.
    “Joe?”
    She could see him swallow, felt him try to take his own weight, but he was too weak and the effort too much.
    “We best get him down there before we lose him.” Emma redistributed his weight, and they moved forward. The cellar steps provided the biggest challenge. Gerta appeared with a long board that she placed over the stairs, and they laid Joe down, bracketing him on both sides and letting his weight and gravity pull him downward.
    Gerta made a corner for him with blankets, and they pulled the half-conscious man to the pallet. She left to check on the other man, bidding Beth to remove the old bandage.
    With gentle motions Beth unwound the strips. Joe stared, unseeing, still. She opened her mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. By the time Gerta returned, Joe’s eyes had sagged closed and the wound was revealed.
    “Emma, if you’ll bring me some water and soap,” Gerta said, removing her soiled apron, “I’ll clean him up again. Beth, a clean apron and another light would help.”
    As Beth and Emma rose from the cellar into the smoggy heat, acrid with the scent of powder, Beth dabbed the perspiration from her face and rested on the top step. She stretched her leg in front of her, rubbing at the thigh and the knee, flexing her foot and relaxing it. Emma hurried by her. “You rest, Miss Bumgartner, I can fetch that apron and a lantern as easy as you.”
    Another shell screamed through the air, farther away, the crash causing Beth to cringe, her heart to plummet. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She had left her parents’ home to fetch her new dream, not to be cornered by Lee’s army like a rat in the corncrib. Across the Pipers’ field she could see the mountains, and the haze that lay like the fog that had burned away early in the morning. This mist was a harbinger of destruction. A threat that already held the little town in its clutches, and the residents were the innocent victims.
    “A wagon’s coming. Gonna be full of wounded, you watch and see if I’m not right.”
    Within an hour Gerta’s front parlor held five men. The low moans were harsh against Beth’s ears. Emma moved with quiet