The Raging Hearts: The Coltrane Saga, Book 2

by Patricia Hagan

  “That…that is absurd,” she sputtered in disbelief.

  “That is the way tenant farming operates, my dear. Didn’t you know that? I get sixty percent and you get forty percent, and that is after expenses. So it will take you quite a while to ever pay off your debt to me. I doubt that you ever will. I happen to be a businessman. Do you think I should just wipe the slate clean and tear up the certificate? Maybe send you another cow? Send a load of food over every week? What kind of fool do you take me for?”

  “Corey, I—”

  “Maybe I should just sell the certificate to Jerome Danton. Perhaps you would prefer dealing with him instead of me. I doubt that he will ask you to marry him. I am sure he will have another arrangement in mind, without the dignity and respectability of marriage, you may be sure. Shall I send word to him that he may buy your tax lien?”

  “No!” She all but screamed the word. “Corey, listen to me.”

  “Listen to you?” he bellowed. “Kitty Wright, I have listened to you since the day we met. I have laid my heart at your feet, only to have you laugh and walk over me—”

  “I have done neither.”

  “I’m through begging.” He started toward the door, then whirled about and pointed a shaking finger. “You are not strong enough to leave today, but if you wish, no one will stop you. Rest assured I will not bother you again. Just be sure that when the time comes, I have my sixty percent.”

  He stormed out. Kitty stared after him, lips parted in amazement. She shook her head. Things were happening too fast. The man professed to love her and her son. Was that possible?

  Her legs felt weak as she tried to stand. She fell backward in tearful frustration. Flinging her arm across her face, she blinked back the tears. Travis. If only Travis had returned. Either he had never truly loved her, or… She did not want to think of the possibility. Or he was dead. Either way, it was time to face reality.

  She was alone. Her land had a tax lien against it. She had a baby. She had no help, only Jacob, who was very old and could not do hard work. She was desperate.

  There was a soft rap on the door. Forcing herself back against the pillows and pulling the covers up to her chin, she made her voice steady. “Yes, who is it?”

  The door opened slowly. Dulcie stepped in, holding John. “Miss Kitty, Mistah McRae said you might be leaving. He told me to bring the baby in.”

  “Yes, oh, yes, let me have my baby.” She held out her arms eagerly, letting the tears stream down her cheeks. She cradled him against her bosom. Kissing his forehead, she smoothed back the dark hair. He opened sleepy eyes to look up at her, then wriggled contentedly. The eyes were still blue, but there was a definite touch of gray, Kitty thought, a stab of longing slashing her heart. Those eyes would be the color of gray smoke one day, and the lashes long and thick, just like his father’s.

  She was still holding him, crooning, when she heard footsteps and glanced up to see Jacob standing next to Dulcie, His eyes were brimming with tears. “Missy, you goin’ home?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She made her voice firm. “We are going home, Jacob. We’ll survive somehow. We have to.”

  “Missy, there’s somethin’ I think you should know.”

  Fear shivered up her spine. “Jacob, what is it? Tell me!”

  “The cow died. Wandered out and froze to death. Maybe she was sick. I don’t know. She just died. We ain’t got nothin’ left, missy, nothin’ at all. What we gonna do, missy? Oh, Lawdy, Miss Kitty, how you gonna take care of the baby? How is me and you gonna live, Miss Kitty?”

  He turned away, bent shoulders shuddering. Even Jacob was defeated, Kitty thought wearily. His spirit had finally left his old bones. He was scared. He would remain loyal, starve to death with her if it came to that. But he could no longer hide his fear.

  “Leave me,” she whispered to the two Negroes. “Leave me alone with my baby, please.”

  Memories came back, memories from the last time she had been in this room…Corey’s clutching hands, his moist, seeking mouth. She shuddered. Dear God, the only man she ever wanted to touch her was Travis, and he was gone. Now the future held two roads, and only misery seemed to wait at the end of each.

  The baby stirred. She gazed down at him and felt her heart warm. Her life was over, but his was just beginning. What must she do for him?

  She did not hear the door open, did not know that Corey stood next to the bed until he spoke. “Kitty, I don’t want us to part in anger. You mean too much to me. I am a businessman, however, and I can’t continue to dole out charity. You and I both know that. I have many people begging me for help, and I can’t help them all. I will give you a start, though, if you will let me. Jacob tells me the cow I sent over has died. I’ll send you another. I’ll loan you the money for your crop this year. I won’t take sixty percent of your profit this first year. I won’t take anything. We’ll wait awhile, see how things work out.

  “But I wanted to say this: should you change your mind, should you decide you will let me love you and your son and care for you both…if you decide you will marry me, I will tear up that tax lien. When we marry, your property will become mine, and I will immediately draw up a deed putting it in trust for your son. No matter how many other children we might have, the Wright land will always belong to little John. I swear this to you.”

  She could not believe what she was hearing. She looked at him, completely bewildered.

  “I mean every word, Kitty,” he said in a strained voice, gesturing with his arms as though floundering for a way to make her believe him. “I love you. I will not see you suffer. I will not see John suffer. But please, I ask only one thing of you. Don’t leave this house now. You are too weak. Rest and get your strength back for a few days while I send my men over to check out your shack and make sure it’s snug and warm for the rest of the winter. I want your pantry stocked, too. I have hams in my smokehouse, and I will see that you have some. While you are here, I won’t bother you again, I swear.”

  “Corey, why?” she gasped. “Why do you offer to do all this?”

  He touched the baby’s downy hair, smiled at him fondly, then gazed into her eyes and whispered, “Because you are the most beautiful woman I have ever met, Kitty Wright, and I love you and want you for my wife. And maybe someday, if God chooses to smile on me, you will accept my proposal.”

  “You love me enough to do so much for me and my son?”

  “Everything I have is yours, Kitty. I love your son as though he were my own.”

  “But you know that he was born of the love I hold in my heart for another man.”

  He nodded soberly. “I realize that. I’m not a complete fool. But had it not been for me, the baby would have died, wouldn’t he? So I guess that sort of makes me his father, too, since I saved his life. Dr. Sims says he was in a bad way when I brought him here, so you might say that I saved the little fellow’s life twice. How can I not love him as though he were my own?”

  “But why do you love me? I have never tried to win your favor. Quite frankly, I have always held you in contempt.”

  “I know, I know, and that is my fault. I tried to win your heart with my money, my power, but you are too freewilled and independent to be swayed by such things. I was a fool, but that doesn’t stop me from loving you all the same. And how can I explain love? How can anyone?”

  She nodded. It would be difficult, indeed, for her to try to explain to anyone why she loved Travis so fiercely.

  “Well, I’ll go now and let you rest.” His smile was forced, she knew. “Would you like me to send in Dulcie to take the baby so you can have a nap? You will stay a few more days, won’t you? Let me do that much for you, to make up for being so angry before.”

  She nodded, and he turned to go. But before he reached the door, she called out in a small voice, “Corey.”

  He turned, his eyes searching hers.

  “Corey, I won’t promise that I can love you as a wife should love her husband, but I will promise to be a good and obe
dient wife. There is John to consider, and I can’t jeopardize his future while I live on past dreams.”

  He was across the room so quickly she hardly saw the movement, gathering both her and the baby in his arms and hugging them as he laughed in delirious delight. “Darling, darling, we’ll plan a wedding right away before you change your mind. You will see. Everything is going to be so wonderful. You and John will have everything money can buy.”

  His lips touched hers, softly at first, then hard and possessive. She forced herself to try and return the kiss. She had taken the first step down the road, and she would have to keep putting one foot before the other.

  There would be no turning back. Not now.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Corey’s black eyes gleamed. His whole body shook with rage. “You fool! You damned, blundering fool! You were in charge! How could you allow such a thing to happen?” He slammed his palms against the marble mantel, oblivious to the stinging pain.

  Rance Kincaid shifted his weight uneasily from one booted foot to the other, then yanked off his hat to sling it onto the floor in a sweeping gesture of disgust. “Hell, I don’t know!” He turned completely around in his frustration, eyes rolling upward, then faced Corey once more. “Boss, I just don’t know how it happened. I took three of the men with me, and—”

  “Which ones?”

  “Jabe Martin, Coot Wiley and Zeke Musgrave.”

  “And I suppose they were drunk, as usual.”

  “Boss, they’re our best guns.”

  “Go on, go on.” Corey gestured impatiently.

  “I didn’t know they’d been drinking that much, boss. I mean, we all had a few drinks in the bunkhouse before we left, you know? Talking about how we were going to work things and all. I told ’em over and over what you said, about how we were going to wear hoods so if anybody saw us, they’d blame the whole thing on Danton’s Klan, and how we was supposed to go over to the widow Glass’s house and ask her one more time if she was willing to sell out. I told ’em if she said no, then we was supposed to bust up the place a little…throw things around…scare the kids…make her glad to sell and get into town where she’d be safe. Just like you said, boss.”

  Corey strode over to the mahogany sideboard and poured himself a glass of whiskey. He downed it in one gulp, standing with his back to Rance. Then he whirled about suddenly and sent the glass shattering into the fireplace. “Then you tell me how Mattie Glass got raped, damn you! Damn all of you! I want to know how this happened!”

  Rance shrugged helplessly. “It just happened, boss. I don’t know why things got out of hand. But she’s a feisty one, she is, and she wasn’t a bit scared when she opened the door and saw us standing there with those white hoods over our heads. She had a shotgun pointed right at us, and we could see those boys of hers standing back in a corner. We didn’t even get a chance to say nothing because she was yelling we had till she counted ten to get off her property and then she was going to start shooting. She started counting.”

  Corey raised an eyebrow. “And?”

  “Well…” He hesitated uneasily, then rushed on defensively. “Me and the boys ain’t gonna let no female run us off with no gun. Coot just reached out and grabbed that shotgun away from her before she knew what was happening. Then those boys of hers come charging across the room, grabbing chairs and swinging. Coot busted one in the mouth with the gun butt and took care of him right off, and I believe Zeke knocked the other one out.”

  “And what were you doing all this time that you were supposed to be in charge, Kincaid?” Corey’s nostrils flared as his glittering eyes raked Rance over, sweeping with contempt.

  “I was busting things,” he said with a shrug. “That woman kept fightin’ and scratchin’. She was like a whirlwind. It got the boys excited, I guess. Next thing I knew, Coot had her down on the bed, and Zeke was holding her arms over her head, and Coot ripped her skirt off and went at it. She didn’t quiet down a bit, kept on screaming. Then Zeke got to her, and when he finished, she’d passed out.”

  “And I suppose you all had a turn.” Corey turned his back so Rance would not see that the conversation had aroused him. He was not thinking of Mattie Glass and how it would feel to thrust himself inside her bony little body. He was thinking of the woman upstairs. She was his bride now, and this was his wedding night, and this trouble about that stupid widow was keeping him from something he had dreamed of for almost a year.

  “Yeah, we all had a turn. Coot went twice. He’s horny, you know. He’ll pop a calf in the pasture if he ain’t had none in a while.”

  “Spare me the sordid details,” Corey snorted. “I want you to tell me what condition the woman was in when you left her.”

  “She was still out. Bleeding some. Her face was bruised up from the guys trying to stop her fightin’. We just left her like that, but we knew her and the boys were alive, just shook up a bit.”

  “And whose idea was it to burn that cross?” Corey jerked his silver brocade coat over his crotch, then folded his hands over the bulge so he could turn and face Rance. “Who burned that cross in front of that woman’s house to make it look like the Klan’s work?”

  “Coot’s.” Rance looked at his feet miserably. “I see now it was dumb. But at the time, we were sort of scared about the way things turned out, and we wanted to make sure nobody traced it to us—or to you, boss,” he added quickly.

  “You blundering bastards. So far all Danton’s bunch has done is beat up nigras. They’ve burned many a cross to scare a black boy that got uppity with a white woman. They consider themselves knights, you idiot, shining knights, protecting the South and its women. They would never rape a white woman. Never! No one believes they were responsible for what happened to Mattie Glass. Everyone can figure out it was deliberately perpetrated to look like the Klan was responsible. The whole county is in an uproar.”

  “Well, I ain’t heard nothing about it.”

  “And you were hoping I wouldn’t. That’s why you did not report to me this morning.”

  “It was your wedding day. I didn’t figure you wanted to hear about all this on your wedding day.”

  “I didn’t want to be told about it at my wedding, either.”

  “I figured this was what you wanted when you called me up here, but you could have waited till morning to chew me out.” Rance’s eyes rolled toward the ceiling, and he smiled suggestively. “Ain’t you got something better to be doing?”

  “You’re damned right I have!” Corey shouted. “And as for ‘chewing you out’, as you call it, I ought to have your hide hung on a tree limb for allowing such a thing to happen.”

  He walked back to the sideboard and poured himself another drink. “Parson Brooks drew me aside after the ceremony, when we were having refreshments, and he told me what had happened. I was horrified and nearly choked on my champagne, trying to keep from letting on that I knew anything. I carried it off, but it was quite difficult, believe me.”

  “Well, look at it this way, boss. You can go and pay her a visit in a few days and offer your sympathy over such a terrible thing happening, then offer to buy her land again. Maybe you should even offer her a bit more than you’d planned, just out of the goodness of your heart over what happened to her. You know, like you’re trying to be a good neighbor and all. She’s gonna be glad to sell, and you’ll look like a hero, helping her get to town where she’ll be safe. See, we didn’t say nothing about buying her land. She pointed that gun at us when she opened the door, and nothing was said about land. So she won’t connect it with you.”

  “All right,” Corey said finally. “Just tell the men to keep their mouths shut. Maybe it will all blow over in a few days, but I doubt it.”

  “How come? They can’t trace nothing to us. Nobody saw our faces.”

  “Because the people in this county aren’t going to forget what happened any time soon, Rance.” Exasperated, Corey downed his drink, then poured another. “You see, the parson says her son woke up sometime durin
g the night to find his brother’s face mashed in and bleeding, and he only had to take one look at his mother to see what had happened to her. He ran out and walked to the next house, about a mile or so, and the people living there took him to town to find a doctor. The boy Coot hit in the mouth with the gun butt has a broken jaw. Just about every tooth in his mouth was knocked out. According to the parson, Mattie is badly bruised and torn, and he quotes the doctor as saying she is in some kind of shocked state over what happened. They have her and the boy in the hospital. The one who went for help wasn’t badly hurt, though his face is bruised rather badly. So you see, it will be some time before I can approach the woman with my offer. It might make people think.”

  “I’m sorry, boss.” Rance shook his head in dejection. “I really am. I’m going out to the bunkhouse right now and beat the shit out of those guys.”

  “And start the other hands to talking and wondering what’s going on? Not to mention the nigras and how they’d gossip all over the county. No! I’ll say something to them myself and let them know I’m disturbed and angry over the way things were handled. But for now, let’s just try to keep things quiet.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. At least we took care of old man Mooney without a fuss. I was in town today and heard somebody in the saloon talking, saying they’d heard he’d disappeared. They figured he just finally went nuts and wandered off. That’s the way you said they’d figure it, boss.”

  “What did you actually do with him?”

  “Coot shot him, and then we tied rocks on him and dumped him in the, river. Nice and clean. All you got to do now is show up with that tax certificate and claim the property as yours.”

  “Not for a while I don’t. We’ve got to lay low. Federal marshals are going to be coming in soon, and I imagine the first item of business the good citizens of Goldsboro will place before them will be the rape of the good widow Glass. They won’t concern themselves over Mooney. You can bet Danton is going to be furious about the cross burning. He knows it was meant to put the blame on him, and he’ll try to put the marshals on our trail because of the cross. So we have to be extremely careful, Rance. You pass the word along to the boys, and I’ll speak to them myself in a few days, like I said. I don’t want any of you even going into town. Just lay low. No one will suspect anything if things are at a standstill around here. After all, I have just married, and we have a lavish party coming up in a few weeks. After the party, we’ll move back to normal, and I can claim Mooney’s land and make the pitch to the widow Glass. She should be all right by then.”