Ellen Crosby - The Riesling Retribution

He pushed his glasses up his nose. “I like him. He’s a cool guy. And he’s nice to me.”

Though he didn’t say it, I understood the implicit message. Unlike Quinn.

Chance and Bruja were waiting when Tyler and I pulled into the gravel parking lot at Ball’s Bluff Battlefield Regional Park in Leesburg half an hour later. Although two other cars were parked next to the vineyard’s blue pickup, there was no sign of anyone except the three of us and the dog. I had just driven through a subdivision and passed a sprawling outlet shopping mall, but we could have been in the middle of nowhere it seemed so quiet and deserted.

“They’ve got leash laws in the park,” Tyler said to Chance.

Chance opened the passenger door to the truck and got Bruja’s leash, clipping it to the dog’s collar.

“Does Quinn know you’re here?” I asked him.

He gave me a roguish smile and winked at Tyler like a coconspirator.

“I’m with the boss. Figured it would be okay for just a little while.”

“You need to call him,” I said.

“It’s a dead zone for phone service.” Tyler held up his cell phone. “I never get anything here.”

I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “I don’t have anything, either.”

“Same here,” Chance said. “We won’t be long, Lucie. Besides, I had an errand in Leesburg, anyway. This is just a little detour.”

I didn’t like being an unwilling accomplice in deceiving Quinn about Chance playing hooky for part of an afternoon, but right now it seemed I had no choice in the matter.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s go.”

We walked down a gravel path that cut through a heavily wooded area. The trees made a cathedral-like canopy above us, though enough sunlight filtered through in bright pockets to keep it from being gloomy. Still, it wasn’t difficult to imagine why anyone who came here at dusk or at nighttime might believe this place was haunted. I’d never claimed to see Mosby’s ghost near our ruins, but here, where so much blood had been spilled, something unsettling pervaded the air. Blue jays cawed from the trees and Chance had to restrain Bruja from chasing after the squirrels scurrying across tree limbs or diving into the vegetation. In the brooding silence, the rise and fall of the cicadas’ metallic symphony seemed amplified.

“Which way?” Chance asked as we reached a fork in the path.

“The path on the left was made by the Corps of Engineers, which is why it’s wider,” Tyler said. “The one on the right is the old cart trail where the Union pulled a cannon and two howitzers up from the river. What you’re looking at down there is where the Federals were.” He waved at an expanse of woods at the bottom of a gently sloping hill. “Behind us in the parking lot is where the Confederates waited for them.”

“I thought the battle took place in a field,” I said.

“It did,” he said. “In 1861 this place was a field. All these trees have grown up here since then.”

“Let’s go right.” Chance pulled Bruja away from the stinging nettles that grew dense on either side of the path. “The way the troops came.”

“You going to be okay, Lucie?” Tyler eyed my cane.

“I’ll be fine.”

The cart path was narrow but we still managed to walk three abreast with me in the middle. Chance’s arm kept brushing against mine and once he looked over and gave me that heart-catching smile.

As we hiked downhill, the path meandered off to the right, deeper into the woods. There was no sign of whoever owned the other cars in the parking lot. It felt like we were all alone, and I was annoyed that it bothered me.

“Why did they pick this place to fight?” Chance asked. “The edge of a cliff with the Potomac below. There’s no way to escape except the river.”

“It was an important river crossing between Maryland and Virginia because it was so narrow,” Tyler said. “Don’t forget, all the bridges between Harpers Ferry and Washington had been burned. Neither army picked Ball’s Bluff as a battle site. Both sides screwed up some things and they ended up fighting each other.”

“Screwed up what things?” he asked.

Tyler took off his baseball cap and scratched his head. His hair had been flattened by the cap except where the reddish curls stuck out around his ears. He reminded me of a clown.

“The area above and below Leesburg was important strategically because of the ferry crossings. Both armies were keeping an eye on it and placed troops in the region. But one of the Confederate commanders, Colonel Evans, got worried that his soldiers might be picked off by the Union troops. So without telling anyone, he decided to pull out of town and regroup somewhere else.” We stopped walking as he bent down and picked up a stick.

“Here’s Leesburg and here’s the river with the two ferry crossings.” He knelt and drew a map in the dirt with the point of his stick. “Evans pulls out of Leesburg and the Union troops over here watch him leave, figuring the town had been abandoned. What the Union didn’t know was that Evans’s commanders ordered him to return. Leesburg was too important to lose.” He tapped the ground, indicating the Union soldiers. “These guys never saw Evans come back.”

“Then what?” Chance asked, pulling Bruja’s leash as she lunged for Tyler’s stick. “No, girl. Leave it.”

The dog obeyed and Tyler scratched behind her ears.

“After Evans left, a group of Union scouts crossed the Potomac from Harrison Island and climbed Ball’s Bluff, figuring Leesburg had been evacuated. It was dark when they got here so they had to look around by moonlight. Unfortunately they saw a grove of trees”—Tyler paused to draw two stick trees—“and thought it was an abandoned Confederate camp, which is what they reported to their commander. The next day they came back with reinforcements to clear it out.” He shrugged. “Evans’s troops were waiting for them.”

“It must have been a slaughter,” Chance said.

“Not exactly. There were several skirmishes. Took all day. But in the end, the Confederates backed the Union soldiers up against the cliff. Over two hundred Federals died trying to escape or else drowned in the river.”

He stood up and flung the stick into the woods as we continued down the path. Through a break in the trees I could see a chest-high stone wall and behind it an American flag hanging on a flagpole. The cemetery.

“You said only fifty were buried in that cemetery,” I said.

“Fifty-four,” he said. “Most of the others were lost and presumed drowned.”

“I’d like to see that river crossing,” Chance said. “How do we get to it?”

“There’s another path.” Tyler’s gaze strayed to my cane. “It’s pretty steep and it can be sort of treacherous.”

“How did the Union soldiers get up here?” I asked.

“Same path,” he said. “We could skip it and just check out the cemetery, if you want. Unfortunately there’s no place to really see the river from up here because it’s so overgrown with trees and bushes.”

“I’d like to see the river, too,” I said. “Let’s take the path.”

My shirt was already sticking to me and drops of perspiration trickled down my cheeks. Chance and Tyler mopped their faces with their shirts. Maybe we’d catch a stray breeze off the water to cool us off.

“If you guys are game,” Tyler said. “We follow that sign over there.”

“I’ll spot Lucie in case it gets too difficult,” Chance said. “Tyler, take Bruja’s leash.”

We weren’t talking about bungee jumping off the bluffs, just walking down a hill. The first time I let my disability become more of an impediment than it already was, I knew it was the beginning of not fighting back and letting it dictate my life.