The Longest Day(Book 2 of the Arledge Hall Trilogy)

A War Fought on Two Fronts

As the Civil War rages in The Longest Day, Richard and Neil are thrust into the horrors of the battlefield, while Eden fights her own war on the home front. Thomas is sent to join Richard, plunging him into the chaos of war, even as his deepening connection with Ruth faces the shadows of her troubled past. At Arledge Hall, buried secrets come to light, threatening to destroy the family from within. With old and new enemies closing in, the families of Arledge Hall must confront the evils that haunt them. Will their faith and love survive the trials ahead? The Longest Day is the gripping second installment of Fayla Ott’s Arledge Hall Trilogy, where loyalty, faith, and family are tested like never before.

Prologue

Lavinia collapsed into the wall of the cave, ignoring the discomfort in her back as her spine pressed into the protruding tree root that stretched in a twist behind her. The boy snored in quiet intervals on the ground nearby, his tears shining on his cheek beneath the moonlight that peered through the small hole in the dirt ceiling of their hiding place. Two days of crying and hunger had pushed him into a deep slumber. She wished she could join him, but fear drove her adrenaline high, preventing sleep from taking over her mind and body. Lavinia knew it wouldn’t be long until she heard the horses’ hooves beating over them like drums pounding at the hanging of a thief. The patrollers themselves weren’t cause for concern, though. No one could know this cave existed. She found it purely by accident last summer when she had fallen after sneaking out to see that no-good lying overseer, and she didn’t bother telling him what she had discovered that night. She enjoyed having something to herself; the idea provided her with a sense of ownership for once, rather than being owned.
Lavinia feared the dogs they’d bring to sniff her out. She couldn’t be positive that the cave could hide their body odor from those hounds. Shivering, she rubbed her chilled arms. Verdie once said that if you rub mint leaves all over your body, you could rid yourself of a stench in between cloth baths. In the morning, she’d get some mint somehow. She knew what it looked like since she’d had to gather it before. The leaves also worked wonders on a cough, and Lavinia remembered the missus giving it to Hattie in a tea when she couldn’t stop retching while expecting her babe. She’d give anything for some tea right now to soothe her empty stomach. She shouldn’t have taken the boy. What possessed her mind at that moment? She knew Clarence had been determined to take Cissy, and he didn’t plan on taking the boy with them. He needed a mama, and she had always wanted a son. She’d never get to birth one of her own, since they stole that gift from her before she had grown old enough to know anything about birthing babies. She hadn’t really been thinking at all, except she saw something about the boy’s tender eyes, and how they reminded her of what she couldn’t have, and that longing replaced her common sense. It was too late to change it now, so she and the boy had a new life ahead if they could make it up north.
Her eyes finally drooped and fluttered, despite the gnawing pain in her stomach. Tomorrow she’d have to find food for them, and somehow, she must locate some mint leaves. They’d stay in the cave until the drama passed, then Lavinia would take him with her and escape to the north. She’d heard about folks in the north and how they helped runaway slaves, but she’d also heard about those who turned them back over to their masters. She must be careful.
He stirred, and she moved from her spot on the dirt wall to lie down next to him on the equally dirty floor.
“Mama…,” he whimpered, his eyes still closed, and his lips scrunched in a frown.
“Shhhh…” She snuggled his chubby frame and kissed his soft cheek. His face relaxed again, while his soft snore continued. “Mama’s here, child. We gonna be alright, you and me. I’m gonna take care of you.” Lavinia closed her eyes and slept as the crickets chirped a lullaby above them.
She filled the buckets with water from the creek, jerking her head around as she heard a twig snap. She didn’t like the woods that surrounded the creek, but mama had sent her to fill the buckets for the washing, and she’d better not delay. Mama enjoyed overseeing the washing at the Dry Creek farm. Lavinia didn’t know why they called it that. The creek had never been dry. Mama told her some ideas stuck once they took hold, no matter how things changed afterwards. Lavinia didn’t think it fair that the creek had to be called dry forever just because it had been dry before. So, she secretly called it Wet Creek instead. The twig snapped again, but this time she turned to face Massa’s brother. She had seen him once or twice at holiday parties when the Missus had all the family over. Dry Creek was a small farm, so all the slaves, which were about twelve total, had to help whenever she had one of her parties.
The man smiled at her. “Let me help ya there, girl. A little mite like you shouldn’t be carrying such a heavy load around.”
“I’m fine, sir. My mama’s expecting me to get back to help her.” She didn’t know why, but she didn’t like him.
“Your mama’s busy now. She ain’t gonna miss you none, seeing how she’s entertaining my brother.” He laughed, but Lavinia didn’t know what he meant, so she didn’t laugh with him.
He stepped closer to her, and she stepped around him, with a fragile grip on the bucket handles. Water sloshed on her bare feet as she started for the path to the wash house. He grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him, and she gasped as her grips loosened on the handles, dropping the buckets, the water spilling out over a barren patch of dirt, leaving mud in its wake.
“I told you your mama’s busy, girl. Now you’re gonna stay here and entertain me.”
She bit her lower lip. “What’s ‘entertain’?” The way he said that word made her want to dart into the dark woods that had frightened her minutes earlier.
He laughed and shook his head. “You really are ignorant, ain’t ya?”
She stood up straight and lifted her chin. “No, sir. I ain’t ignorant.”
He crossed his arms and stared back at her with hard eyes. “Of course, you are. Anyway, it don’t matter if you know what ‘entertain’ means or not. You’ll soon find out what you’re made for.”
His tone scared her, so she moved away from him, but he pulled her back, laughing.
“Mama!”
She woke to hear the boy echoing the cries of her past just as the sunlight replaced the glow of the moon through the top of the cave.

Chapter One

Manassas, Virginia, July 1861

He didn’t sign up to fight in this war, just to retreat in the first battle. As part of the seventeenth infantry regiment of Mississippi, Richard and Neil had joined the Third Brigade in Virginia, hoping that this battle would be over in minutes. They were supposed to guard the stone bridge at Bull Run creek, but word got out that he and Neil were outstanding sharpshooters, so the 2nd Mississippi recruited them to join their ranks, along with the other regiments at Henry Hill, where they’d been driven back by the Yankee soldiers until they retreated into the tree line on the south side. They arrived as the troops were regrouping from the recent chaos of the Yankee artillery advance.
Once in position, Richard spotted glimpses of a regiment flanking them from the right just as he heard some soldiers humming the familiar rebel song in rhythm with their march. Before he could see their faces as they emerged through the trees, a shot rang out a few feet from his position.
He lunged, grabbing the private’s muzzleloader just in time to aim it straight up as the private fired. “Wait, you fool! You’re attacking your own troops!”
“What are you doing? I just reloaded, and you wasted my ammunition. Besides, them there’s Yankees.” He shoved Richard away from him and reloaded. Chaos ensued after those two shots, and Richard dropped to the ground behind a tree to avoid being hit by the crossfire. He didn’t know why they hadn’t drawn distinctions in uniforms at the start, but he knew they’d better see to it after today’s battle, if you could call it that.
“Richard!” He lifted his head at the familiar voice. Neil rushed over to him and dropped to the ground. “We’ve got Yankees marching at us from the north, and now we’re getting flanked on the side in these woods.”
“Neil, those aren’t Yankees flanking us. Those are our own men.”
“What? Why in the devil are they shooting at us?”
“Because that fool of a private shot at them first. They probably think we’re Yankees, too.”
“If our lives weren’t at risk, I might laugh at this situation.”
“I’ll never laugh at this situation,” Richard said. He wiped the sweat from his sticky forehead.
“Well, there’s no time to laugh, anyway. We need to drive those Yanks back across that ridge.”
“We can’t do anything until we stop this confusion. We don’t want to win this battle for the Yankees by killing each other,” Richard said.
“How do you propose we do that? The way they’re shooting, we’ll never make it out of here if we try to intervene.”
“Neil, if we don’t intervene, we won’t make it out of here, anyway. We’ve got to take the Yankees artillery before it takes us.”
“With everyone wearing uniforms that look alike, how are we going to let them know who we are? With all this shooting, they can’t even hear us talk like southerners.”
Richard cocked his head at his friend, then laughed aloud and slapped him on the shoulder. “Neil, you’re a genius.”
Before Neil could ask what he meant, Richard jumped up, shielding himself behind the tree, while cupping his mouth to project his voice across the woods. He sang the familiar tune he’d heard moments ago.
“We are a band of brothersAnd native to the soil,Fighting for the propertyWe gained by honest toil;And when our rights were threatened,The cry rose near and far–
“Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue FlagThat bears a single star!”
Neil gaped at him in surprise, then his eyes dawned with understanding. He smiled and stood behind the tree with Richard as he bellowed the lyrics in his deep baritone. Nearby, some of the shooting silenced, then singing bellowed out across the woods.
Hurrah! Hurrah!For Southern rights hurrah!Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue FlagThat bears a single star.
The shooting against their own ceased, but Richard and Neil had no time to celebrate the minor victory as they joined the regiments in their defense against the union lines of attack on Henry Hill. All around him, Richard heard the drums, shouts, and rifle pops, which only added to the adrenaline as they advanced toward the other men, who faced them with equally earnest faces. Richard halted his march when he spotted some boys who couldn’t be much older than fourteen or fifteen. They still had baby soft cheeks with smooth skin and a jawline free from the whiskers of a grown man.
“Richard!” Neil grabbed his arm and dragged him forward, and Richard barely dodged musket fire from one soldier just as another aimed at him, forcing Richard to raise his own and fire with precision, hitting the young man in the chest right before he fell. The boy’s eyes fluttered in pain as he neared death, but Richard couldn’t dwell on what he’d done because the enemy forced him to keep firing. He couldn’t think about how he snuffed out the lives of those boys because he had to fight to protect his own life and the young men in his own brigade. Just as he steeled himself to keep marching and shooting, a rebel soldier dropped in his path. His eyes froze in a stare straight at Richard, as if he warned him he could be next. Richard pulled his eyes away and fired at another Yankee a few yards ahead and watched as he fell in the same way. After much bloodshed on both sides, the south took the victory for the first battle, but as the Rebel troops whooped and threw their hats to the sky, Richard felt no cause to celebrate since the faces of those young fallen soldiers who would no doubt haunt his dreams that night. He had killed his own countrymen, and he didn’t know how he could ever sleep well again when he felt like both a traitor and a murderer. He had always heard his father quote the “All is fair in love and war” line from the old poem by John Lyly. His father liked to use it in friendly competitions, such as a chess game or horseshoes, or for beating out another local planter regarding trading opportunities. Richard had always smiled when he heard it; yet, thinking of that quote in the aftermath of what he’d just done in the name of war, he dropped to his knees and vomited on the bloody battlefield. There was nothing fair about war.

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