From This Day Forward

by Victoria Thompson

  Eric grinned. “And what if they do?”

  Billy grinned back. “Reckon we could have us a little fun then, like we did the other night.”

  “Place that small won’t have no slaves,” another boy said.

  “Ain’t no rule says she got to be colored, is there?” Billy challenged. “Me, I like white meat better, anyways.”

  This outrageous remark earned him hoots from the other boys, and one of them said, “Better look out. You go sniffin’ ’round a white girl, you’ll likely get yourself shot, Billy.” Billy glared defiantly at the other boys who murmured their agreement, then he looked at Eric. “You said white girls is even better,” he reminded him.

  Enjoying his role as elder statesman—nobody at Elmhurst had ever sought his opinion about anything—Eric frowned the way his old man had always frowned at him whenever he’d considered Eric a fool, which had been most of the time. “They are,” Eric agreed, speaking from his vast experience, “but the boys are right, you’ve got to be careful. No woman’s worth a load of buckshot in your backside.”

  The boys hooted at Billy’s embarrassment, and Eric smiled benignly, still savoring the power of his position. These boys would do whatever he told them, whether it be kill a man or hold down a slave girl while they each took a turn with her.

  That had been some night, the most fun he’d had since he’d joined up with this godforsaken army. Just enough whiskey to loosen him up and then the girl.

  They’d found her sleeping in a shack on the edge of town. Plainly, she belonged to the family in the big house nearby, but Eric didn’t think they’d mind too much. It wasn’t like they were going to hurt her or anything. She’d screamed at first, until they got a rag stuffed in her mouth, and she’d tried to fight, at least in the beginning. That had been fine with Eric, who had by privilege of rank gone first. But she didn’t have much fight in her, so by the time the second or third boy was done with her, she was just laying there crying. Stupid whore. Stupid, stinking whore. What did she have to cry about? Hell, nobody even lifted a hand to her.

  And after that, the boys had looked at him differently. They knew he was more than a veteran soldier now. He’d taught them the ways of the world. He’d shown them what life was all about. He was their leader.

  The cabin was closed up tight with the shutters drawn when they arrived, although it was obvious somebody was home. Smoke still curled from the stick and daub chimney, and Eric could actually feel the gaze of the residents, whoever they might be. As they approached, Eric heard a dog’s frantic barking from inside, but it stopped abruptly as someone hushed the animal.

  “They got pigs,” Billy pointed out unnecessarily. The stench would have told them, even if they hadn’t been able to see the wallow, plain as day. Two fat sows lay in the mud, not even acknowledging their arrival with so much as a flick of an eyelash. This would be a profitable trip.

  “Hello, the house!” Eric called. The place was pathetic, practically falling down for want of repair. The shirts drying on the bushes were hardly more than rags.

  “What you want?” a voice called from inside. Eric couldn’t tell if it belonged to a man or a woman, although if it was a man, Eric was sure he would be too old to be of any danger to them. No other kind of men were left in Texas, and precious few of them now that so many had joined Ford’s army.

  “We want to buy your pigs,” Eric reported.

  “They ain’t for sale. Now git before I start shootin’!”

  That was a danger, of course. Even a helpless old man could kill you with a gun. But they had guns, too, and more of them.

  “I’ve got government script,” Eric said in a last effort to be conciliatory. “And I’m prepared to be more than generous.”

  “Don’t make me waste a bullet on you, boy!” the voice called. “I been savin’ ’em for the Yanks!”

  Eric was studying the situation. The cabin had only one window and that faced the front. The pigs were in the back.

  “All right!” Eric said. “You win. We’re leaving.”

  “Lieutenant!” Billy protested, but Eric silenced him with a look.

  “Follow me,” he commanded his puzzled troops.

  “It’s just one man,” Billy muttered as they turned their horses. “We could take him easy.”

  “While he picks us off one by one,” Eric pointed out.

  He led them back down the road until he judged they were out of the line of fire from the window, then he yelled, “Come on!” and kicked his horse into a run and circled back around the house to where the pigs waited.

  The boys needed only a second to figure out his intention, and they were right behind him as he charged into the yard.

  “You two,” Eric yelled, pointing at two of the boys, “set the pigs loose and run them to the road! The rest of you, stand guard!” He pulled his pistol and the others drew whatever weapons they had as their mounts danced excitedly.

  The two boys Eric had designated threw open the gate to the wallow and rousted the pigs who began to squeal in panic. Eric fought to control his horse as he kept his gaze fixed on the house, ready to fire at the first sign of trouble. It came from an unlikely source.

  “No!” someone behind him screamed, and he glanced over his shoulder to see a small figure darting from the ramshackle barn. “You leave them pigs alone!”

  The figure was moving so fast, racing across the yard to head off the escaping pigs, that Eric needed a second to identify it.

  “It’s a girl!” Billy cried in the same instant Eric himself realized the truth.

  A very young girl, to be sure, but a girl, nonetheless. Barefoot and wearing a threadbare gown that hung in tatters around her naked legs, her long black hair streaming out behind her. Recognition sent a pang of longing throbbing through him in the moment before his brain could acknowledge that she wasn’t really Lori, but he still yelled, “Catch her!”

  Billy needed no further urging, and he kicked his sway-backed mule into a lope and went after her. The other boys shouted their encouragement as Billy gallumped along and the girl deftly zigged and zagged, simultaneously avoiding Billy and herding the pigs toward the thorny underbrush where no horse or mule would follow.

  They were all screaming encouragement to the boy who finally managed to capture a handful of black hair and drag the girl to a halt. She was screaming and yelling and calling down every curse heaven could offer as he turned the mule and started walking it back while the girl stumbled and dragged along beside him, still screaming.

  “We’ll have us some fun now!” Billy shouted triumphantly over her screams. “I get her first, too!”

  The boys who had rousted the pigs were running toward him while the other boys were jumping down from their horses, ready for the fun Billy was promising them. Eric had already opened his mouth to shout at them to wait—he was still in charge here—when Billy’s head exploded.

  Before their eyes could even register the horror of it, they heard the roar of the rifle behind them and then the shouted warning, “Run, Sharon! Run, girl!”

  For what seemed like forever, nobody moved. Billy still sat his mule, even with most of his head blown away, and he still held the girl fast by the hair. But in the next second she tore free, leaving a fist full of black hair still clutched tightly in Billy’s frozen hand, and she raced for the brush.

  Finally, Eric turned to find an old man with one leg, supported by a crude wooden crutch and still aiming the huge, old blunderbuss. “Run, Sharon, run!” he was still shouting, too, and not paying the least bit of attention to any of the men, but only watching to make sure the girl was escaping.

  The old bastard! Look what he’d done! In a rage, Eric lifted his pistol and fired. A hole appeared in the old man’s forehead, and after another second he crumpled lifeless to the ground.

  Satisfied, Eric jerked his horse around again, looking for other enemies, someone else to kill. The girl? Where was she? He didn’t want to kill her of course, but he’d need her later, aft
er it was all over.

  Except that she was gone. Disappeared along with the pigs into the impenetrable thicket of thorns and spines and cactus. “Where’s the girl?” he shouted furiously. “Go after her! Find her!”

  But the boys weren’t paying the slightest attention to him. They were all still staring at Billy, watching in horrified fascination as his mule continued to walk and Billy’s half-headed body continued to ride, swaying now, back and forth, growing ever more unsteady until finally, slowly, it slid over to one side and toppled to the ground with a thump.

  “Jesus,” one of the boys said, and it sounded more like £ prayer than a curse.

  What the hell was wrong with them? Were they just going to let the girl get away like that?

  Eric kicked his horse into a run and raced past where the mule had lumbered to a stop and past where Billy’s body lay in a bloody heap and on to the edge of the clearing

  “Come out of there, girl!” he shouted furiously, then caught himself. Use your head! he told himself, echoing his father’s words to him. How many times had the old bastard warned him about going off half-cocked? “Hey, girl!” he tried more calmly. What the hell was her name? Oh, yeah. “Hey, Sharon, come out here! The old man needs you! He’s hurt real bad!”

  He waited, listening. At first, all he heard was the thundering of his own heart and the roaring of his own blood in his ears.

  “Sharon!” he tried again and was rewarded by a rustle it the undergrowth.

  She was coming out! His heart thundered even louder as he waited, tracing the noise of a body scraping against the tearing thorns, holding his breath with anticipation. She was a scrawny little thing, but Billy had been right, white girls were always better. Maybe he’d even keep this one, take her with him. She could do their laundry and be the company whore. She’d be a hell of a lot better off than she was here, too, especially with the old man dead.

  The movement was getting closer. She was almost here. He jammed his pistol back in its holster and kicked his horse into motion as he hurried to the spot where she would appear, then caught a glimpse of movement, and then she broke free of the brush. Except it wasn’t the girl at all, it was one of the pigs. Running free again. Damn it!

  “Sharon!” he screamed, trying desperately to peer into the thick undergrowth but seeing nothing. He glanced around frantically and saw the other boys were still standing where they’d been when Billy had toppled over. The frantic pig raced by them unnoticed.

  “At least catch the damn pig!” he cried, but none of them gave any indication he had even heard. Kicking the horse again, he rode over to them. “Wake up!” he shouted, leaning from his saddle to cuff first one and then another. “What’s the matter, you never seen a dead man before!”

  They turned horror-filled eyes on him as they dodged and ducked to avoid his crazed assault.

  “You worthless sons of bitches!” he condemned them all, but they didn’t seem to even hear the insult. They just kept staring with those huge, blank eyes. “Isn’t anybody interested in that piece of tail that got away? Isn’t anybody going after her?”

  “Billy’s dead!” one of the boys shouted back, as if that explained everything.

  “You’ve seen men die before,” he reminded them furiously, but they only kept staring at him. Worthless sons of bitches. “All right, mount up,” he said in disgust. “There’s nothing left for us here.”

  “What about Billy?” another of the boys asked. “What about that old man?”

  “Leave them. They’re dead, aren’t they?”

  “We can’t leave Billy!” several protested.

  “Then pack him up and bring him along,” Eric said impatiently. “I’ll see you sissies back in camp.” He put the spurs to his horse again and took off down the road, damning every last one of them to hell.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “How’s things with you and Massa Adam?” Sudie asked as the two women finished up their inventory of the linen closet.

  Things were almost as good as they could be. Almost. “How will I know when I’m ready, Sudie?”

  Sudie laid down the stack of pillowcases she’d been counting. “Ready to be a wife to him?”

  Lori nodded and looked away, unable to meet Sudie’s knowing gaze any longer.

  “I don’t know if you ever will be,” Sudie said, stunning her.

  “But I have to!” Lori insisted.

  “Why?”

  “Because...” She caught herself before she confessed the deepest of her secrets.

  “Because he might turn you out if you don’t?”

  “No!” Lori cried.

  “Then why?”

  She shouldn’t tell this woman. Sudie was a slave, after all. Lori’s servant, not her friend. She could just imagine what Bessie or her father would say if they knew how much she’d confided in her already. Lori pressed her lips together, as if she could hold the truth inside of her by force of will. But Sudie just kept staring at her, willing her to tell with even more force.

  “Because,” Lori finally admitted, although the words felt as though they were being ripped from her, “I want him to love me.”

  Sudie’s dark eyes narrowed suspiciously. “That’s a mighty hard thing to wish for. Mean, too, unless you love him back.”

  “I do!” Instantly, Lori covered her mouth, wishing the words back, knowing she had given this woman a power over her that no one had ever possessed: the power of knowing the one thing in the world that could truly hurt her.

  But once again, Sudie surprised her. Instead of gloating in her triumph, she threw back her head and clasped her hands to her bosom and whispered, “Praise be!”

  Then, just as suddenly, she looked back at Lori, as suspicious as ever. “You really mean it? You love that boy? With all your heart?”

  There was no sense in denying it now. “Yes, I do.”

  “Since when?” Sudie challenged.

  “Since always! Or at least since I can remember,” she amended at Sudie’s frown.

  “You don’t care he’s got a limp?”

  “Of course not!” Lori insisted indignantly. “Why does everybody think that’s so important?”

  Sudie looked at her oddly, as if she was trying to figure something out. “I reckon it’s important to him, but if it ain’t to you, then it don’t matter at all.”

  “So what’s the answer, Sudie?” Lori asked when Sudie offered nothing else. “How can I be a wife to him when I’m still so afraid? How did you do it?”

  Sudie shook her head, and for a moment Lori thought she wouldn’t tell her. Then she said, “I was in love. I didn’t think it could ever happen, but it did. Then—well, it wasn’t that I wasn’t afraid anymore. I was. Sometimes I still am. But... you just got to trust him, to believe he won’t hurt you.”

  “I do,” Lori said. “I’m sure he’d never hurt me.”

  And if she really did believe that, Lori realized, she no longer had a reason to wait.

  ***

  “Would you like some brandy?” Lori asked as they walked into the parlor after supper.

  Adam looked down into Lori’s lovely face and had to grit his teeth. She was smiling, and her eyes were shining, and he knew exactly what she was thinking and what she wanted. She wanted to sit with him on the sofa, and she wanted to do what they had been doing every evening for almost a week now. She wanted to be kissed. And held. And petted.

  Adam wanted that, too, but he wanted more. He wanted everything. And he just didn’t think he could take another evening of stopping cold when Lori had had enough and spending the rest of the night enduring the agony of sexual frustration. Not tonight. Not when just looking at her during supper had made him hard.

  “Adam?” she said, reminding him she’d asked him a question. Her smile was fading, and the expectant gleam in her eyes had grown puzzled.

  “I don’t think I’d better drink tonight,” he said, choosing the chair instead of the sofa, which they had discovered was much more comfortable for spooning
.

  She came to him, her expression telling him she had figured out what he had in mind. Or thought she had. But when she tried to sit on his knee, he had to stop her. “Not tonight,” he said, his voice strained with the effort of turning her away when he really wanted nothing more than to pull her closer and closer still.

  She stepped back instantly, and for a moment he was simply aware of her. Completely aware of her physical presence. Of her full breasts and her shapely waist and her rounded hips. And of the silken flesh that covered all of her, everywhere, beneath the fabric of her dress. The flesh he’d touched here and there, enough to know he would never get enough of touching it, not as long as he lived. And to know he would go out of his mind if he didn’t get to touch it all very soon.

  Then he saw her face and knew she’d completely misunderstood him.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured, stricken by what she must believe to be his rejection of her. Quickly, she turned away and plunked herself down in the opposite chair and began to rummage in the sewing basket for something to do.

  “Lori?”

  She looked up warily, her eyes large in her delicate face, and she looked so vulnerable, he wanted to reach out to her. Of course, that would be the worst possible thing he could do.

  “Lori, it’s not that I don’t want to... to kiss you tonight.” Oh, no, not that at all. Not when the mere mention of it had started the heat pooling in his loins. In fact, there was only one thing on earth he wanted to do more. And that was the problem.

  Her hurt expression instantly transformed into sympathy as she once again misunderstood him. “Is your leg bothering you? You should have said something! I can—”

  “No, my leg isn’t bothering me.” If only it was. For once the distracting pain would actually be welcome. But telling her what it wasn’t would not help. He had to tell her what it was. Please, God, let him find the words. “But something else is.”

  “What?” she asked. “Is something wrong with the crops? Something you haven’t told me?”