Tender Betrayal

by Rosanne Bittner

  What’s it to you, Yankee? one of them had sneered when he asked about a land office. He had explained he was just looking for someone he had known once and wondered if they had sold their property, but right now he was wishing he had tried to fake a southern accent, except he probably would not have done a very good job of it. A New Yorker couldn’t stick out more obviously than in a place like Louisiana, and he had a feeling that if the boys following him knew he had been a Major General in the Union Army and had been here when Baton Rouge was burned, they would have pounced on him in a second.

  Because he knew he was in dangerous territory, he wore a handgun strapped to his side under his fringed deerskin jacket, a jacket he found was most comfortable and practical for constant traveling in the out-of-doors. He wore brown wool pants and knee-high leather boots. It was cool even in Louisiana. It had been a very cold October in New York when he left, and most leaves had already turned bright colors and were falling from the trees.

  He walked up the steps of the church and went inside, approaching a gray-haired man wearing spectacles who sat behind one of several desks. Pews had been pushed to the sides of the interior, and several other people were there, one man arguing that someone had better find his deed because he needed to prove he owned a certain piece of land.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Jennings, but everything burned up in the fires. We’re doing everything we can, mostly by people who know other people and can testify as to what they owned. Now give me a rough description of the boundaries of your property.”

  What an ungodly mess, Lee thought, feeling partially responsible. He felt guilty for a lot of things lately, but the one thing he would never get over was killing Joey. It ate at him until sometimes he would drink himself into oblivion and then be sick for the next two days. It was a vicious cycle he had fallen into, and he was struggling to get out of it, only because he needed to keep his senses straight until he found Audra. Once he knew she was all right, and once he had told her the truth, he could drink until the whiskey killed him. Death sounded pretty damn good sometimes. Maybe then he could find some peace.

  “Excuse me,” he spoke up. “I’m trying to find someone who knows something about Brennan Manor and Cypress Hollow, two big plantations that have been deserted.”

  The gray-haired man looked up at him, eyeing him suspiciously. “If you’re another one of those Yankee bastards come here to steal what’s left,” he drawled, “you’re too late. Mr. Brennan’s property has already been sold, Mr. Potter’s, too, for the paltry sum of one thousand dollars.”

  Lee felt a whirlwind of emotion, elated at finding someone who knew Joseph Brennan, appalled and concerned to discover Brennan Manor and Cypress Hollow had been sold for a mere thousand dollars. Why? “A thousand dollars for both plantations?” he asked in astonishment.

  “Yes, sir. Reason I know without looking up the records is because I knew Joseph Brennan and Richard Potter both. I worked in the records office of our courthouse for years…until it was burned down,” he finished with a sneer, looking Lee over scathingly. He leaned back in his chair. “Just a few days ago the buyer was here, a Mr. Albert Mahoney.”

  “Mahoney?” The name sounded familiar, but Lee could not quite place it.

  “He is the husband of Joseph Brennan’s niece, Eleanor. They live in New Orleans.”

  Lee took a chair. “Of course! I remember now. Audra told me about Albert. He—” He leaned closer. “Thank God I found you, mister. Look, I’m not here to buy anybody’s land. All I care about is finding out what happened to Audra Brennan Potter. Do you know anything about her? Is she still alive?”

  The man eyed him closely. “Why?”

  Lee sighed, removing his hat. “I’m Lee Jeffreys. My mother was Anna Jeffreys, and she gave Audra voice lessons in Connecticut back in fifty-nine. I kept in touch with Audra all through the war, then lost track of her. My mother was very fond of her, and I feel obligated to find out what happened to her and make sure she’s all right.”

  The man studied him a moment longer, trying to decide if this Yankee was on the level. “Well, I expect she’s still alive, seeing as how she’s the one who signed her land over to Mr. Mahoney. Her father died, you know, and Mahoney told me her brother was killed in the war. Yankee raiders burned the place down, so Mahoney says. She needed money bad, and a thousand dollars was all Mahoney could pay her for the land. Crazy as it sounds, Mrs. Potter needed the money to help a bunch of Negroes get out of Louisiana. They headed for Kansas to homestead.”

  “Kansas!” Lee could hardly believe his ears. Audra? Selling her precious Brennan Manor to help Negroes? Audra? Leaving Louisiana for a rugged western state like Kansas?

  “Lots of Negroes have been heading to Kansas and Nebraska and other places out west now,” the clerk told him. “They can settle there under the Homestead Act. They all have big dreams of having their own land, but I’ll wager a lot of them won’t make it. They don’t know how to take care of themselves. Why Mrs. Potter, of all people, would go with them instead of go to live with her cousin in New Orleans, I’ll never understand. The woman had to be pretty destitute to sell that property for so little money, but Mr. Mahoney says she practically insisted on it. The man got a hell of a deal. He felt guilty about it, but that was all he could pay. A man has to watch his money these days, you know.”

  Lee hardly heard the man. What an ironic twist of fate! He remembered that first summer, how Audra had looked down on Negroes and had ordered him not to be too friendly with Toosie. She had been almost humiliated to discover Toosie was her half sister. Why would she go off to Kansas with Negroes when she apparently could have lived comfortably with her cousin Eleanor? But then Eleanor probably hated her for the night her own home burned and her mother died…while Audra lay in the arms of a Yankee man.

  The memory hit him so hard that he drew in his breath and stood up. It would be wonderful to find her and be able to hold her again, marry her, keep her in his bed forever and live happily ever after. But there would be no happily ever after for either of them. He might as well quit fantasizing. “Do you have any idea how long ago this happened? When Mrs. Potter might have left for Kansas?”

  The clerk removed his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. “Well, Mr. Mahoney was in here maybe two weeks ago to register for the land. The actual sale took place, oh, I think about August. I remember him saying something about her supposed to be leaving by the first of September.”

  “Damn! That means she’s probably been gone a good six weeks already. I’ll never catch up, and once she gets to Kansas, I’ll have one hell of a time finding her.”

  “That’s sure. Kansas is a big place. All those western states and territories are big, and with so many Negroes going out there, it won’t be easy finding the particular ones she’s traveling with.”

  “At least I know the name of one of them,” Lee said, partly to himself. Toosie. How many people had a name like that? It was all he had to go on. “Thanks, mister.” He left the building, wondering if he should go see Eleanor and her husband first in New Orleans. If he did that, it would cost him time, and time was important. They probably couldn’t tell him much more than he already knew. The sooner he got to Kansas, the better. One man alone on a horse could travel a lot faster than a herd of families in wagons, which was probably how she was traveling with the Negroes.

  Yankee raiders. What had they done to Audra? What a horror it must have been for her when they came and destroyed Brennan Manor. Had they also destroyed Audra? Hurt her, or maybe raped her? Perhaps that was why she was fleeing Louisiana, why she had given up on everything and left with the Negroes. Or maybe she had given up for another reason. Maybe it was the letter he had sent, telling her Joey had been killed. Yes, that would certainly make her give up. She had probably been trying to hang on to that land for Joey.

  Again the memory made him take a flask of whiskey from his saddlebag. He took a swallow, wondering how in hell he was going to get through the rest of his life this way, waki
ng up covered with sweat from the nightmare of his rifle going off, his bullet exploding into Joey’s chest, the look of terror and surprise in those innocent eyes.

  He put the flask back and started to mount his horse when something hit him in the back of the head. He fell against the horse, then slid to the ground, the initial blow leaving him unable to think straight or fight back. He was surrounded by leering faces of young men, and he recognized one as the boy he had talked to earlier, asking where to find a land office. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew what was happening. The gang of young thugs in a now-lawless town had decided to “get themselves a Yankee,” take out on one man their frustration from the war.

  The attack was vicious and quick. He remembered there must have been at least ten of them. Even at that he might have put up a good struggle, since he was much bigger and more experienced than any of them—but for some reason he could hardly move. He could not even get to his pistol before fists and feet rained blows, brutal kicks to his head, back, and groin, and again to his head, until blackness swirled around him.

  “Kill the son of a bitch!” someone shouted.

  “You freed the niggers, you Yankee bastard!”

  “You burned down my mother’s house!”

  “You killed my brother!”

  Brother. Brother. The word stuck in Lee’s head. Yes, he’d killed someone’s brother. He’d killed Joey, and probably a lot of other people’s brothers. But his own brother had also been killed. Was this his punishment for Joey? Memories passed through his mind as he lay motionless while the boys kept kicking him. Memories…Audra…the war…Joey…Voices became echoes, and there was no longer any sun…only darkness.

  “Get the hell out of here!” a man yelled. Lee did not hear. He was not aware that the young men had finally run off. A stranger knelt over him. “My God, look at him! Somebody help me get this man to a doctor! They’ve practically beat him to death!”

  “He deserves it. He’s a Yankee,” someone else spoke up.

  “And we’re all still human beings!” the stranger answered. He rose to look around at the crowd that had gathered around the northerner. They looked back at the minister, who preached in the very church that was now being used as a temporary courthouse. “Is this what the war has done to us?” the pastor yelled at the crowd. “Made us animals? Made us forget how to forgive, how to be human? The war is over! Some of you men gather round here and take this man to Doc Wilson’s place. I’ll tend to his horses and supplies.”

  A few men grudgingly picked up Lee’s limp body and carried it away. The preacher looked up at the sky, then closed his eyes and prayed…prayed that somehow there could be true peace again, prayed that the South could find a way to forget and forgive what had been done to them. He opened his eyes to look around at a few people who had not left, some of them looking guilty and sheepish.

  “I remind you of Jesus’ teachings,” he admonished them. “Matthew six fourteen: after Christ taught us the Lord’s Prayer! For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses! And First Kings,” he continued, tired of all the hatred, wondering if there was any godliness left in mankind. “And forgive thy people that have sinned against thee, and all their transgressions wherein they have transgressed against thee, and give them compassion. The hatred must end, people! We will never rebuild and get our lives back together if we let the hatred continue to burn in our souls! Go now, and ask God to forgive you for not being willing to help this man here today!”

  A few of them wandered off, and the preacher untied Lee’s horse and led it, and the pack horse tied behind it, toward the doctor’s office. He and the doctor would have to search through the Yankee’s possessions and try to find out who he was, where his relatives might be. They should be notified if the man died. He shook his head at the realization that the war was not really over at all. For the South, it would not end for a long, long time to come.

  31

  September 1866

  Audra threw another potato into the sack she dragged along beside her. She stopped for a moment, sitting down wearily, smack in the dirt of the potato field. She took a moment to study her hands. The creases of her knuckles and her fingernails were caked with dirt from sorting through bunches of potatoes after she dug them from the ground with a fork, picking out those that had been stabbed. They would have to be eaten first, before they rotted. The best potatoes would be saved to sell.

  She laughed lightly at how she must look, for it was better to laugh than to cry. The Negroes had taught her that. You looked at the bright side of things and took hope in that, for if a person dwelled too long on the dark side, he or she might wake up some morning and decide there was no reason even to get out of bed.

  The bright side was that they had managed to claim some good ground in middle Kansas, that they had survived that first terribly cold winter, and that they had even been helped by Indians. At first they all thought the Indians had come to murder them, for they had heard only bad things about the Plains tribes; but the Cheyenne and Pawnee, although bitter enemies with each other, both seemed fascinated by the Negroes, who had managed to communicate with the Indians through trade—buffalo meat for cloth; hides for potatoes. That first winter the Cheyenne had come across their miserable little tent settlement, and they had shown Audra and the Negroes how to build much warmer shelter with skins. They had given them a good supply of buffalo meat, and Audra could not even imagine what her father would have thought to see her living in a tipi like some wild thing of the plains.

  This past spring they had begun their first planting. One thing the Negroes knew how to do well was plow fields and plant seeds. Through the summer their land began to blossom into cornfields, potato fields, and vegetable gardens, thanks to a godsend of perfect rations of sun and rain. Audra decided she must have been right when she told Elijah that God meant for them to succeed, for they had made it here safely, and God sent those Cheyenne to keep them from starving or freezing to death over their first winter.

  This spring some Pawnee had come along and traded them several horses for one pound of tobacco. They taught them they could make good fires with dried buffalo manure, which they learned later from white travelers were called buffalo chips. This summer they had managed to build a few homes, some from logs cut from cottonwood trees that grew along the Arkansas River not far away; most from sod dug from the earth in solid chunks that made for a cool dwelling in summer and, they hoped, a warmer place to stay this next winter. They had learned to build the sod houses from some settlers who had lived east of their little village and passed through as they moved on to Denver, deciding they might have an easier life in the new, growing mining town in Colorado.

  Here and there, little by little, from Indians and whites alike, they were learning how to survive. Brennan, Kansas, had its own little school, where Audra taught whenever she was not needed to help in the fields. They had set up their own supply store, selling vegetables to travelers on their way to Denver. Soon they would also have corn and potatoes to sell. Out of sheer luck they had apparently picked an area frequented by people from many walks of life, all of whom usually were in need of food as they journeyed westward. Audra had helped the Negroes learn about money, how to count it, how to add and subtract and make change. They had also discovered that travelers in need were usually willing to pay ridiculous prices for food, especially those who were sure they were going to “get rich” once they reached Denver and the gold fields that lay in the Rockies.

  Audra wiped at sweat on her forehead, realizing she had probably just smeared dirt from her hands onto her face, but what did it matter anymore how she looked? Her skin was a reddish-brown from a summer of working outside; she never seemed to be able to get her hands really clean; and she had not felt beautiful and elegant or worn a lovely gown in years. Perhaps she never would again.

  She got to her feet and pick
ed up the potato fork, plunging it into the stubborn soil again, straining to push down on the handle so that the prongs would come up through the ground and catch another bunch of potatoes. She grunted as she yanked them up, then shook them lightly to get most of the dirt off. She bent over then to pick through them, again throwing the good ones into one sack, the injured ones into another. To her surprise, she had discovered she found an inner peace and satisfaction working in the earth. She liked the smell of the dirt, enjoyed watching things grow that she had helped plant.

  They had bought the corn seed and tiny planter potatoes in St. Louis, as well as seed for all kinds of vegetables; and as though God were performing some kind of miracle, she still had some money left. Now they would actually make a little money selling some of their food. If they handled things right, planted more every year, they could eventually make a very good living here. She did not doubt it, because she did not doubt the abilities and determination of the Negroes to make this work.

  Toosie had had her baby, a healthy son she had named Joseph Brennan Jakes. What else would he be called but Joey? He was a happy baby because although he and his parents had little in the way of material things, they shared a wonderful love. Joseph and Wilena had also had a child, the sixth for Wilena. The little girl was certainly not Joseph’s first child, but it was the first one he had been allowed to see and hold and love, the first child he had bred out of love for its mother.

  This was a hard life, but she felt she had learned more these past few years with the Negroes than in all of her life before that. She taught them the basics of words and numbers, but they taught her the basics of survival. They taught her faith, strength, courage, and human values. She could laugh now, realizing that laughter was as much a healing factor as crying. She could laugh because there was no point to living if one could not see hope amid disaster. She could laugh because Joey would want her to laugh. In some ways Joey had been a lot like these people, able to take joy from simple things…like gathering seashells.