To Whisper Her Name by Tamera Alexander Page B

alone. “I’d hardly call the time I spent at Andersonville ‘God keeping me safe.’”
    Green regarded him, his features going solemn, and Ridley gathered he’d heard of the place.
    “How long was you there, sir?”
    “Fourteen months. They held me at Richmond first, then moved me down to Georgia when the prison opened come spring.”
    “How’d they get you?”
    “Ambushed me the morning I left you. On my way down the mountain.”
    The lines wreathing Green’s eyes and mouth deepened. “Andersonville,” he whispered, looking away. “The general don’t speak much to me ‘bout the war. But sometimes, when men he served with are here, like today, there’s talk among ‘em. So I heard things ‘bout that place.” He looked back at Ridley, his gaze unflinching. “I’m sorry you was there, sir, and that they got you like they did. Sorry as I can be.”
    Ridley appreciated the honesty in Green’s response, yet it made him uncomfortable, eager to change the subject. “What happened to you? After that night?”
    “I kept the general’s favorite thoroughbreds hidden ‘til the end of the war. I still had to move ‘em ‘round from time to time, but them horses — the ones you let me keep — they’s the reason Belle Meade’s doin’ so good right now, sir. Cuz the general had somethin’ to start with after the war, thanks to you.”
    Ridley shook his head. “Belle Meade’s success right now is due to you, Mr. Green. Not only because of what you did for the general, but because of your gift with horses. I saw it that night in the way you handled the thoroughbreds. I have to admit, though …” Ridley smiled. “It sorta spooked me at first, seeing how they just came to you like that. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
    Green bowed his head. “Thank you, sir. That’s mighty kind of you, but … it ain’t me. I’s just doin’ what God put me here to do, that’s all.”
    The statement struck a chord inside Ridley, and he remembered what Green had told him about his mother finding him in the barn sleeping with the horses when he was just a boy. Ridley also knew, without a doubt, this was where he was supposed to be — for now, at least. Learning from Robert Green.
    He only hoped Mr. Green would agree.
    A horse whinnied in the stall beside them and poked its head through the opening. Ridley thought he recognized the black stallion. “Olympus?” he asked.
    “Good memory, Lieutenant.” Green walked over and gave the animal’s neck a good scratching. He looked back at Ridley. “I’s sure glad to see you again, but what brought you all this way? Didn’t you say you was from South Carolina?”
    Ridley told him about returning home, about learning his younger brothers had been killed and about his father. “He was a skeleton of the man I’d left four years earlier, his body all eaten up with tuberculosis. And he —” The words caught in Ridley’s throat. “He was still just as bitter toward me, even in the end.”
    “For the choice you made,” Green said quietly.
    Ridley nodded, able to see, even now, how his father had looked up at him from his deathbed. That same old ache began to throb again. “I think he blamed me for my brothers’ deaths too. Putting myself in his place, I might have felt the same.”
    Seconds passed in silence, bits of indistinct laughter and conversation drifting in through the open entry.
    “What about your mama?”
    “She died a few years back, giving birth to a little girl. They both went together. Preacher said it kind of seemed fitting to him, but … I didn’t much believe that. Still don’t.” Ridley shifted his weight, again eager to get onto another topic. “A little over two months ago, my father died. I buried him, sold the house and what little was left of the farm, and set out.”
    “Where you headed?”
    “West, eventually. Colorado Territory. But I need something first — from you, Mr. Green. If you’re willing.”
    Green’s brow