“And you knew all this when you went to work for him?”
“Not all of it. Once I became associated with him, I listened more carefully to everybody’s tales about his actions in the war. But I was never tempted to quit on account of his moral shortcomings. I figured that a qualified colored attorney was the least that Dr. Rucker owed the world, and I resolved to become a good one.”
Boozer shrugged. “All right. I hope the old scoundrel suffered for selling those folks down the river, that’s all. How many of them were there?”
“Not more than half a dozen that I know of. And his wife took a few more with her when she and the children went to Ohio under a Federal escort. She had to free those she took with her, of course, which is why they sold the rest of them, but that was the price she paid for safe passage. There were people in Greenbrier County—former slaves themselves—that remembered them, which is how I heard about it.”
“All right. So Rucker sat out the war in a Richmond prison, did he?”
“Not quite. As I said, his captors kept moving him, while the other side fired many rounds of legal documents at the Confederate government, attempting to argue the matter. It seemed to boil down to a difference of opinion. The United States considered Dr. Rucker to be a physician—and both sides seemed good about exchanging doctors—but the Confederates claimed he had committed crimes that were not authorized by the Federals, and that he wasn’t acting as a military doctor anyhow. The paperwork flew back and forth for a good while, I understand. And they still had not given him a trial. Finally he broke the diplomatic impasse himself in the most expedient way. In October 1863, he escaped.”
“Did he really? How?”
“They had shipped him to Danville by then, and although prisoners weren’t supposed to have reading materials or writing paper, I gather that Dr. Rucker’s captors were somewhat in awe of him. Maybe he did a little doctoring to impress them. Lord knows there ought to have been plenty of maladies in need of treatment in a military prison. He always claimed that he was well-informed on the news of the day, and that he carried on a wide and varied correspondence during his confinement. Anyhow, he never really said who helped him escape, although someone must have. Maybe he managed to bribe a guard. All he said was that he slipped out of the prison in the dead of night, wearing a Rebel uniform, and that a friend—name withheld, but believed to be a woman—was waiting for him outside in a buggy to spirit him away. Apparently they left Danville at a fast clip and headed for Lynchburg, Dr. Rucker’s hometown.”
Boozer grinned and hummed a snatch of a tune. “How does that go now? It’s a mighty rough road from Lynchburg to Danville . . .”
“They weren’t traveling by train, Doctor, so the ‘Wreck of the Old 97’ has little to do with the matter. I’m surprised you know that song, being a New Yorker. I’d have pegged you for a jazz man myself.”
“Yes, but I’m trapped here in the Back of Beyond, West Virginia, same as you, and if I want to listen to the radio in my off-duty hours, I’m limited to whatever stations we can get out here, which is mostly the ones that play hillbilly music.”
“Well, you seem to have become infected. Physician, heal thyself.”
“Why, Mr. Gardner, I believe you made a joke just then.”
“Only a small one. Especially compared to that prank of Dr. Rucker’s, when he managed to hoodwink the entire Confederacy. I imagine he had quite a number of friends orchestrating the escape.”
“Wherever did he find them? I thought he was generally hated in the area.”
“He was a man of contradictions, Doctor.”
“I don’t suppose he switched sides once he escaped from the Danville jail?”
“No, indeed, but he didn’t rusticate in the country somewhere and wait for the hostilities to cease, either. He went right back to looking for trouble.”
“It couldn’t have been hard to find in those days. What did he do?”
“Well, he spent a couple of weeks skulking around Greenbrier and Pocahontas Counties, dodging the Rebel troops who were bent on his recapture, but friends always managed to warn him when any soldiers were near, and he would leave one bolt-hole and find himself another before they caught up with him. He finally made it to Union lines, and was presently whisked off to Washington because the secretary of war wanted information from him in order to correct the maps the military was using. In early 1864 he fell in with his old friend Crook again—by now Crook had been made a brigadier general, which Rucker took the credit for. Dr. Rucker said that Crook’s promotion came on account of the blowing up of the Cowpasture bridge, which he claimed to have planned and carried out. Apparently, both of them thought it would be a good idea to blow up some more bridges.”
“Sure. Why mess with success. Any bridge in particular?”
“One in southwest Virginia. The New River bridge. He managed to get himself commissioned as a major in the Union army in the spring of ’64 on the strength of the local knowledge he claimed to have about the western part of Virginia—which until the war had included West Virginia. So there they were, based near Charleston, when Grant sent word, wanting to know if General Crook thought he could mount an expedition down to Dublin Depot—that’s close to two hundred miles away—and destroy a Confederate base at Dublin and burn the big railroad bridge nearby. There was more salt involved, by the way. Saltville, Virginia, was a major salt works for the Rebels, and they intended to destroy that as well as the means of transporting it.”
Boozer stifled a yawn. “Really?”
Mr. Gardner stood up. “Well, it’s getting late, just as it was late in the war by the time all that transpired. Rucker was around for the Battle of Cloyd’s Mountain, which probably didn’t make your history books, either. Anyhow, the Union would have won the war just as easily without him. But I’m tired, and you have to go to work in the morning, so let’s leave it at that. Next time we meet, I’ll tell you about the sequel to the Nancy Hart story, and perhaps I’ll have more news soon from my influential friends in Bluefield. Or I could follow Dr. Rucker’s example and plan an escape on my own. Good night, Dr. Boozer.”
fifteen
GREENBRIER COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA
1897
EVER SINCE ZONA DIED I had wanted to go back to Livesay’s Mill, but winter is a hard time to travel in. I was already beholden to my brother-in-law for taking me to see the prosecutor in Lewisburg, because I had no other choice, but people here don’t ask for favors lightly, not even from family. I didn’t want to impose on him again for something that wasn’t strictly necessary. Walking would cost me nothing except a wearisome day and some shoe leather, but I had to wait for clement weather before I set out. Finally, about three weeks after they took Zona up out of her grave, the March rains stopped and there was a string of warm sunny days. It wouldn’t last, of course. April snows are not uncommon here. When the third straight day dawned clear and mild, I made up my mind to go.
“You need to take the boys into the field with you today,” I told Jacob as I dished up breakfast. “I’m fixing to go over to Livesay’s Mill. I’ll be back around suppertime.”
Jacob shrugged and turned his face to the wall. He didn’t even ask how I was getting there or why I was going. He would never say a word about Zona. Maybe he thought about her, but her name never passed his lips. Of course, he never had much to say, anyhow. I put on my coat, and stuffed a scarf and wool gloves in one pocket in case the wind picked up. In the other pocket I had stuffed a couple of ham biscuits from breakfast, for I knew I’d be walking most of the day.
As I set off down the road toward the pike that wound east to Lewisburg, I thought about Jacob and all the years we had been together. When had the silence between us taken root? Or had it always been there, but in my younger days I hadn’t noticed it, because when we were young and loving, there hadn’t been so much need for words? Now and then, though, I missed my own family. There were six of us: my two older brothers, William and Thomas; then me and my sister Joanna,
two years younger than me; and the littlest ones, George and Martha. Daddy was a coal miner, same as he’d been back in England, and then he turned to farming, so we were no better off in material ways than Jacob’s family, but we laughed and sang, and on winter evenings, we’d all sit close to the fireplace while Daddy told us stories he remembered from his boyhood—tales about kings and outlaws, ghost stories and fairy tales. Even though I never left Greenbrier County, I felt as if I had traveled far and wide on the wings of those stories. But the Heasters seemed too ground down by toil to be fanciful, or maybe they thought the Lord wouldn’t approve. So as the years passed, Jacob and I talked mostly about chores and the weather, while the spaces between conversations grew longer and longer. I had almost forgotten how to be sociable.
This visit to Livesay’s Mill was no social call, either. I wanted to see what else I could find out about Zona’s death. Maybe Mr. Preston had enough evidence to convict Edward Shue of the murder, but if I could find anything else to put a nail in his coffin, I would.
It took a good four hours to get all the way down to Livesay’s Mill, but I was enjoying the warm sunshine and I passed the time looking for the beginnings of spring in the fields and woods. I ate a ham biscuit as I got close to my destination because I could tell by the sun that it was right on dinnertime. I went to the house first. I knew it was empty now, with Edward Shue in jail and Zona in the churchyard, but I thought I could look around on my own, and maybe talk to some of the neighbors.
The house didn’t look deserted yet. It was still too early in the year for the weeds to overtake the yard. Mr. Livesay would probably rent it out again before summer. Everybody knew that Zona had died there, but there’s hardly a house anywhere that hasn’t seen a death sometime or other, so that wouldn’t matter to the new tenants.
I went up on the porch and peeked in the windows, but all I could see were plank floors and a narrow staircase. Dust motes floated in a ray of sunshine.
“Did you come to see where the lady died? Ain’t nothing there to look at anymore.”
I turned from the window. Just beyond the fence a colored woman stood looking up at me with a look of stern disapproval. I was glad to see it. She didn’t know who I was, of course, but I was grateful to her for trying to keep people from making a sideshow of my daughter’s death.
I hurried down the steps, thinking that this woman might also be an answer to prayer. “I am Mrs. Heaster—Zona Shue’s mother,” I told her. “Thank you for looking out for her, even now. You were one of her neighbors, weren’t you?”
She looked at me for a few moments—confirming the resemblance, I thought—and then she nodded. “I’m Mrs. Reuben Jones, but folks mostly call me Aunt Martha. We live over the way.” She nodded toward a small frame house in the distance.
“Were you acquainted with my Zona?”
A careful nod this time. She was wondering what I’d come about. “Can’t say I knew her well. They hadn’t lived here long, and they kept to themselves. But I talked to her a time or two, when she was ailing.”
“Thank you for your kindness to my daughter. I’m glad she had someone to turn to.”
“You never came to visit her yourself, though?”
“No. He wouldn’t allow it. Kept telling us to wait until they got the place fixed up.”
Aunt Martha’s eyes flashed, and I could tell from her expression what she thought of Edward’s excuse for barring visitors. For the hundredth time I wished we had come anyhow.
“He was a hard man, that husband of hers. It was my son that found her. I reckon Mr. Shue meant for that to happen. He still has nightmares over it.”
“Edward Shue never cared who he hurt. And I mean to see that he gets what’s coming to him.”
“Reckon I’d feel the same if it was one of my girls. But I don’t know what help you’ll find here. Once they put Mr. Shue in jail, Mr. Livesay ordered some of his men over to clean out the whole place and lock it up. Nothing left to see.”
“I walked all the way here from Meadow Bluff. I can’t give up now.” I thought for a moment. “Is there some kind of shed anywhere on the property? A place to store provisions? She said it was down by the fence. In a rocky place.”
Aunt Martha’s eyes narrowed. “She said? Who?”
I sighed. Come the trial everybody would know, so I might as well get used to talking about it. “My daughter came to me—after she died. She told me her husband had killed her.”
I could see the astonishment in her dark eyes, and she blinked a few times, trying to think of something civil to say, I supposed.
“That’s how we knew to open the grave and let the doctors examine her. Zona told me he had broken her neck.”
“And the law believed you?”
“They did. They ordered the examination, and that’s how they found the proof to arrest Mr. Shue.”
Aunt Martha Jones let out a long breath, shaking her head in wonder. “Well, if the fancy lawyers up in Lewisburg believed you, who am I to doubt it? Anyhow, you’re right. There is a little shed down by the fence, and since you ain’t been here before today, I don’t see how else you could know that.”
Thank you, Zona, I thought. “I need to see it. Can you take me there?”
We walked around to the back of the house, past bare trees and through the high brown weeds to where the ground sloped downward toward a weathered fence. There, jutting out of the rocky hillside, was the front part of a shed—just a few feet of boards and a door under a tin roof. We made our way to the door, and just as she put her hand on the doorknob, Aunt Martha turned to look at me. “You really saw your daughter’s ghost, ma’am? For sure?”
I nodded. “Just as plain as I can see you. Four times she came to me. Told me what her husband did to her. And she told me to look here.”
“Did she tell you what heaven was like?”
“I forgot to ask her.” I edged past her and pushed open the door.
Steps led down into a small hollowed-out room lined with shelves. A few glass jars of preserved vegetables stood on the shelf next to the door. It might not have been enough to last out the winter, but it did outlast their need for it. I looked at all those jars of tomatoes, pickled cucumbers, apple butter, beans . . . and I thought about those hot days in the kitchen last summer . . . not even a year ago . . . when I’d corralled Zona, who’d have rather been elsewhere, and made her help me with the canning. I remembered how impatient she’d been, and I wondered what would have happened when she was expected to do it on her own. Probably just what did happen, I thought. Edward Shue was a brute, and it wouldn’t have taken much to spark his rage.
“What’s that on the floor yonder?” Aunt Martha, who had been behind me in the doorway moved aside to let in more light, and then I saw what she was pointing to: a dark stain on the floor next to an empty shelf.
I knelt down and ran my finger over the dark patch, but it had dried long ago. “Is it blood?”
Aunt Martha bent close to the stain and sniffed. She shook her head. “No telling now. It’s been here a long time, from the look of it. Maybe it is blood. Maybe so. But it could be rabbit blood, or chicken, or hog. Did your daughter tell you to look for blood?”
I hesitated for a moment. “She didn’t say what to look for. Just said to come to this place. And it’s just like she said it would be. But she never told me why I was supposed to come here. Maybe she wanted me to see the bloodstain.”
Aunt Martha made no reply, which meant she didn’t agree with me. If I couldn’t convince her, there wasn’t much chance of Mr. Preston taking any notice of it, either. Nobody could prove that stain was human blood. I’d tell him about it before the trial, but I didn’t think it would alter the case.
We looked around the storage room for a few minutes after that, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. I’d been there an hour, which is all the time the daylight would allow me, but I didn’t think spending any more time would make any difference. A wild goose chase and a wasted day. I thanked M
artha Jones again for her help and her kindness to Zona, and she wished me Godspeed. Then I started back up the road toward Lewisburg, hoping to make it home before dark.
sixteen
HE HOPED THAT DR. RUCKER was not planning to attend the funeral. There would be enough bad memories stirred by the occasion without Rucker appearing as the specter at the feast, reminding everyone of dark times best forgotten.
After breakfast John Alfred Preston slipped on the jacket of his good black suit and studied himself in the hall mirror. Perhaps it was a bit warm in May to wear a coat of such heavy material, but it was the most appropriate garment he owned for the solemn occasion of a funeral, and that consideration far outweighed any thoughts of personal comfort. He would have to attend to legal matters in his office for a few hours in the morning, wearing his unseasonably warm attire, but at least he hadn’t far to walk in the morning sunshine to reach the site of the funeral.
The service was taking place in the Old Stone Church, not two hundred yards from his office in the courthouse. Since he was a Presbyterian elder in that church, he probably would have attended any funeral held there, unless some legal business prevented it, but this one was a personal obligation as well as a parochial duty, for he had known Austin Handley all his life. He would attend the service alone, though. The card on the funeral wreath (decorous, not too large) would say it was a tribute from both of them, but Lillie had been an infant during the war. She did not remember Austin Handley from the old days, and young Walter, who was a baby now, was too young to be trusted to behave at funerals, so perhaps it was best for his mother to stay at home with him and John. Preston had decided that he would prefer to concentrate on the loss of his friend without having to worry about a bored wife and a fretful child.
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