Free My Vicksburg by Ann Rinaldi

smiled. "My mother often has that problem with Pa," I told him. "They always decide it doesn't matter as long as the patient gets well."
    He then asked me to tell him about Pa, so I did. He
listened carefully, then told me about his pa, a plantation owner, now under the Yankees, since Jackson, Mississippi, was captured a while back. He told me about his own little sister, Cassie Lea, who could ride better than he could, and about his brother, Billy, who had been in a military academy before the war and now, at only seventeen, had joined up with the army and had a thirst for Yankee blood. He told me how he longed for some of his mammy's biscuits and ham and chocolate cake.
    "My pa hates the Yankees with a passion," he told me. "Wait'll I tell him that my new friend is a Yankee and how he saved me."
    I went solemn.
    "What's wrong, Claire Louise? Did I offend you in any way?"
    I shook my head. He really did think Landon was going to save him.
    The realization came down on me like a mortar shell, exploding in shards and lights all around me. The noise made me unable to focus. Robert was mouthing some more of his truths.
    "Did Andy give you any money?" I asked him outright.
    He looked startled at first, then he understood. "Yes. He hired himself out and worked for it and gave it to me. How did you know?"
    "I was there when he asked my brother if he could. He said it was for your trip home."
    "Yes, I have enough, thank you."
    "You'll need some food to take along. And someone to accompany you on the way out of town. To show you the best way, where you won't be hit by shells and bothered by people. Eight o'clock at night is the best time. Everyone is out then and one more person seen 'round and about won't be noticeable."
    "You sound as if you discussed this with your brother. Did you?"
    I picked up his lunch tray from the bed. The book
Great Expectations
lay there next to it. I admired the gold title on the cover. We hadn't even opened it.
    "No, we haven't discussed it," I said. I took a deep breath. It might as well be now, I told myself. And so I told him.
    "You won't like this, Robert. And you won't believe it. But it's true. Your friend, Landon, isn't going to help you escape. He's going to turn you in to Pemberton before he reports to Milliken's Bend hospital. I heard him tell Mama. He doesn't want to. But he can't do anything else in his position as a doctor and a captain in the Yankee army. You see, you're his prisoner, technically. He told me that if he helps you escape, he's an accessory to your running away and could be court-martialed."
    He just stared at me. His eyes were so blue, and into the blueness now came tears, but he kept them in check, he wouldn't let them overflow.
    "Claire Louise Corbet, are you funnin' me?" he asked.
    "No, sir. No. I'm not. I wish I were. I've been thinking about it, you see, and I decided I want to help you
escape. I want to help you get home. To your own mama and pa and Cassie Lea and those biscuits and ham and that chocolate cake. Even if the Yankees there make you a prisoner. Because it'll all end soon, and if you're a prisoner of Pemberton's it won't end, ever."
    The silence stretched between us like we were pulling taffy. He was taking it all in. I could tell by his eyes, by the way he was slowly nodding his head.
    And then he said something that summed it all up. "You love that brother of yours, but you're making your own decision, because you know it's the right thing to do," he said gravely. "I hope someday my sister, Cassie Lea, will have the sense you have."
    "So you'll let me help you then?"
    "Have at it, Claire Louise. What would you have me do?"
    "You've only to be dressed and ready. I'll give you a sack of food and a Colt Navy revolver that was Pa's from the house. I'll walk you as far down as the spring where we met, where I was picking blackberries. I'll draw a map that will take you east from there."
    "When?"
    I paused only a moment. "In two nights," I said. "At the eight