The Dixie Widow by Gilbert Morris

Author:Gilbert Morris [Gilbert Morris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780764229534
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2012-01-22T18:48:39+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

BACK TO THE WORLD

Day arrived with piercing light and the noise of movements about Davis. Hands touched him, and sometimes when his leg was handled, great fiery shards of pain seemed to devour him. The light hurt his eyes, and he would try to slip back into the warm darkness—but the hands would not leave him alone. He grew angry, thrashing his head from side to side as they put food into his mouth, but they kept on relentlessly until he swallowed it. The hands were soothing, sometimes applying cool cloths to sponge his fever-hot body. This was the best part of his day.

The nights were long tunnels of blackness, a warm hiding place to slip into and be oblivious to everything until the light returned to disturb him. He dreamed often, but could not distinguish between the visions that fluttered through his mind and the times he knew he was lying on a real bed in a body that cried out with every movement.

One face appeared in both his dreams and his infrequent moments of consciousness. More than once a vision of a woman with dark hair and eyes like ebony pools would flicker through his mind—then he would open his eyes to find himself looking into that face. And he was always disturbed when he saw her, either in a dream or when conscious, her face so close he could see the tiny flecks of light in her dark eyes. During those times, he would stare at her, wondering why her face confused him. He wanted her to tell him something, but didn’t know what it was. Sometimes she spoke, urging him to eat; other times she would sit silently beside him, and he would lie there studying her face until finally sleep would overtake him and he’d drift off into a dream of some time in the dim past—and she would be there, too.

One day he awoke—suddenly. One moment he was in the dark tunnel; the next, lying on a bed staring at a man and a woman who were standing beside him.

The man was tall and thin, and had a shock of snow-white hair and a pair of steady hazel eyes. “Well, now,” he said in a rumbling bass voice, “he’s decided to come back to the real world, Miss Belle.”

Davis glanced at the woman, and memory flooded back. He remembered some of the escape from Libby, and Thad warning him to be quiet, that he was here under the guise of a Confederate officer. What was the name? He couldn’t remember, but Belle furnished it.

“Well, Lieutenant Morgan, how do you feel?”

Davis licked his lips, considered the question, and replied, “Hungry.”

The doctor chuckled deep in his chest. “Well, he’s going to make it, I reckon.” He picked up a black bag from the bed. “Get some real food down him, keep the dressings changed.”

“Yes, Dr. Stevens.”

He started walking to the next patient, then swung back. “Lieutenant, you behave yourself! I’ve invested too much time and

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