by Ann Rinaldi
Juliet's Moon
Ann Rinaldi
* * *
Harcourt, Inc.
Orlando Austin New York San Diego London
* * *
Copyright © 2008 by Ann Rinaldi
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rinaldi, Ann.
Juliet's moon/Ann Rinaldi.
p. cm.—(Great episodes)
Summary: In Missouri in 1863, twelve-year-old Juliet Bradshaw
learns to rely on herself and her brother, a captain with Quantrill's Raiders,
as she sees her family home burned, is imprisoned by Yankees, and is then
kidnapped by a blood-crazed Confederate soldier.
1. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Juvenile fiction.
[1. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Fiction. 2. Brothers and
sisters—Fiction. 3. Self-reliance—Fiction. 4. Clark, Marcellus Jerome,
1844–1865—Fiction. 5. Guerrillas—History—19th century—Fiction.
6. Orphans—Fiction. 7. Missouri—History—19th century—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.R459Jul 2008
[Fic]—dc22 2007030378
ISBN 978-0-15-206170-8
Text set in Adobe Garamond
Designed by Cathy Riggs
First edition
A C E G H F D B
Printed in the United States of America
This is a work of fiction. All the names, characters, places, organizations,
and events portrayed in this book are products of the author's imagination
or are used fictitiously to lend a sense of realism to the story.
* * *
For my daughter-in-law, Lori,
who is always interested in my work
* * *
PROLOGUE: Summer 1863
MY SECRET hiding place in the woods saved me and Maxine the day the blue-bellied Yankees came through and fired our house and barn, ran off the cows, horses, and sheep, destroyed the fields of wheat and corn, and chased away all the negroes.
"Go, go," my pa yelled, "run."
I stood there in the barnyard with him and Maxine, feeling the rising heat of the terrible yet fascinating flames that were now eating up the blue afternoon sky above our heads.
"Where?" I asked dumbly. "Where should I go?"
"To the woods. Take Maxine with you."
"To the woods?" I repeated. I could, when the occasion warranted it, be very stupid.
"To your secret hiding place," he urged.
I didn't even think he knew about my secret hiding place. He stood there, holding his rifle. The Yankees were returning from setting the fields afire.
"I can't leave you, Pa," I said. My voice broke.
"Go," he said again. His voice was strong, like it was when he "held forth" at the table some nights on Mr. Lincoln or states' rights, and Seth and I listened because we were too scared not to.
"You won't be alone for long," he said. "Seth isn't far away. He'll see the flames and come home. Remember what the Bible says: 'And your children will meet the enemy at the gates.'"
"Oh, Pa!"
"GO!"
I took Maxine's hand and we ran.
Chapter One
LIKE I SAID, my secret hiding place saved me and Maxine that day, just as I used to fancy it would. I'd stocked it well with sugar cookies, slices of smoked ham, even tins of food like Seth used in his guerrilla unit when he fought with Quantrill and his Raiders. Maxine, our house nigra, cook, and all-around friend to Seth and me, had given me a stone jar of water, pillows, and blankets to make it comfortable.
And, of course, I had my box of treasures: marbles I'd won from Seth at our last game; a blue feather from a peacock; one of Pa's cigars, unsmoked, that I'd stolen from his desktop; some quills for a pen; a set of teeth from an animal that I like to think was a baby dragon found by the creek in back of the house; and my mother's good pearl necklace that she gave me when I turned twelve. Right before she died.
Maxine was having some difficulty climbing the ladder to the tree house. I had to help her up. We spent the rest of the afternoon there. We ate the cookies and ham. We could see the house from where we were, disappearing in the smoke, belching flames from its windows.
And Pa, standing there alone one minute, alone in the barnyard, like he was cleaning his rifle, but waiting for the Yankees to return from the wheat fields. And in the next minute lying at the feet of the Yankees. Shot.
I didn't love Pa. I never had. Not like I loved Mama and Seth. Pa was gruff and had a quick, hard hand to slap and no patience with a little girl. Seth knew how to handle him; I didn't. Seth even bad-mouthed him, jokingly, calling him an old codger or some other term that Pa never seemed to mind. If I did that, I'd be put in a closet in the cellar and made to wait there until Seth talked him into pardoning me. Then Seth would come down and get me. "Don't you know any better?" he'd say as I clung to him. "You can't talk to him like that."
"You do," I'd sob.
Though they had their fights, Pa gave Seth freedom to "sow his wild oats" and would lecture him at the table the next morning. Seth yes sir'd and no sir'd him to death.
"He'd be disappointed in Seth if he didn't sow his wild oats," Maxine told me.
Once, when Seth didn't get home by four in the morning, Pa sealed up the house. Locked him right out. Seth came rapping softly at my window and I let him in. I got time in the cellar closet the next day, and Seth had to talk him out of my punishment.
I know Pa didn't like girls. I know he'd wanted another son, instead of me. And he never let me forget it. For fatherly affection I went to Seth. Pa didn't care at all.
Still, Pa shot! It was outside the realm of all family pettiness. He was still my father. Shot for what? For not giving out the whereabouts of his son's guerrilla army unit? For not telling where their cache of ammunition was stored?
I shivered. Maxine put a blanket around me. "Pa's dead," I told her.
"I know, chile."
"I'm an orphan. Will the authorities put me in an orphanage in Kansas City?"
"Ain't no orphanage in Missouri will take you."
"Am I that bad?"
"No, 'cause you ain't an orphan. You gots your brother, Seth."
"But he goes away to war."
"Seth ain't gonna let anybody take you away. Not while he lives and breathes. Now you're just a little girl. You just twelve. Seth is all of twenty-four. He old enough to care for you, even though he go to war. He gots me to see to you while he's gone."
I hugged her. "We got to bury Pa."
"We wait for Master Seth," she said.
I looked up at her. "You call him 'Master Seth' now."
"Thas' right. Thas respect."
"Do I have to respect him, too?"
"Wouldn't hurt none if'n you did."
I giggled. "He'll still swing me around, won't he?"
She sighed. "Chile, it's a different world out there now. I wouldn't count much on anybody swingin' you round."
I sobered. "I wager he would if I asked. Wouldn't he?" Ail h
ope was gone from my voice.
Maxine sighed. "I wouldn't ask, honey. I jus' wouldn't ask."
We were quiet for a while. The hours passed. I decided I didn't like this world anymore. What kind of world was it if I couldn't ask Seth to swing me around? The fire was down to smoldering and the afternoon blue turned to gray and my eyes stung from the smoke. My house was gone, my room gone. I wondered how the flowered bedspread had burned, if the dolls had stopped smiling, if my dresses and shoes had taken it well. I wished I had a newspaper so I could read about Sue Mundy. They had stories about her every day and I followed her doings avidly.
She was the only woman who rode with William Clarke Quantrill, the notorious leader of Quantrill's Raiders. You couldn't pick up a newspaper but there she was, in her women's attire, sometimes in her men's attire.
She fought as a man. Seth fought with her. But he would never talk about her.
I wondered what made her do what she did. If she ever had anyone to swing her around when she was a child.
We waited for Seth to meet us at the gates.
Chapter Two
I FELL ASLEEP as the air around us thickened and the woods pulsated with things that were not to be seen. Likely in those woods were loose animals and our own negroes, hiding from the Yankees. Negroes could be stealthy. They could disappear from you in plain sight inside the house. I had personally seen them do it. Me, I could never hide from anybody. When I'd done mischief, no matter what pains I took to conceal myself, I stood out like a cut on Seth's face that he'd made shaving.
I slept right through it all, like I was dreaming it, until I heard that voice.
"Juliet? Hey, Juliet."
Seth. Waking me early to go riding with him. Or to see a newborn foal in the barn. I stirred myself, and awoke to the gray haze. I coughed, sat up. Seth was below me on his horse. He was wearing all his fighting gear, from the high-topped cavalry boots into which he'd tucked his pants, to the gray shirt Martha Anderson—his sometime sweetheart—had made for him, with the red embroidered stitching and all the pockets for ammunition.
He had four revolvers tucked into his holsters and wide leather belt and another four on his finely bred horse. He looked like a knight in one of my books. He was lean but broad of shoulder, over six feet and at ease in his own body, clean shaven, with a mouth that Martha Anderson teased "curled up even when he wasn't smiling," so that he didn't look threatening, no matter how many guns he wore.
From beneath his wide-brimmed hat he looked up at me with those sad eyes of his, which were fringed with black lashes any girl would envy.
Still, he was shy enough for girls to be smitten with him at first glance. But he was my brother. And he better make sure he always knew it.
"Juliet, you all right?" he asked.
"She be fine, Master Seth," Maxine told him. "I been keepin' an eye on her."
And then it all came tumbling down on me. The Yankees. Pa dead. The house and barn burned. The animals and servants run off. I started to stutter it out to Seth, but the tears came too fast and before I knew it, I was sobbing and feeling five years old again.
Sue Mundy was forgotten. Especially when Seth reached both arms up to me. "C'mon down, baby."
I went to him, let him enfold me in his strong arms. He set me in front of him on the horse, so close I could hear his heart beating and smell the woodsmoke, tobacco, and rum on him. Traitor; I told myself. You like playing the little sister after all.
"Take the mule, Maxine," he directed. "It's the only animal I've been able to find on the place."
"It's Bleu," I reminded him. Bleu was known for his stubbornness. Only Seth could control him, not even Pa.
"I'd like to see the welcome he gave the Yankees," Seth said. "Wonder how many he kicked. Surprised they didn't shoot him."
"Haven't you seen my Caboose?" I asked Seth. Had the Yankees shot him? My beloved horse?
"No, honey. Likely he's with the others in the woods. When they get hungry, they'll come back."
"To what?"
"I've alerted the negroes in the woods to bring them to my place. It's where they'll go, too."
"Can we go there now?"
"No. I'm taking you to the Andersons."
"I don't want to go to the Andersons."
"I'm afraid what you want doesn't come into it now, Juliet," he said with mild firmness.
As we neared the house, Maxine reminded him. "Master Seth, we've got to bury your father."
"It's all taken care of. Did it soon's I got here. You two were both sleeping so I didn't want to disturb you."
"Did you bury him next to Ma?" My voice quivered.
"Yes." He squeezed my shoulder. "And at the proper time we can come back and say some prayers over their graves. And leave some flowers."
"Pa didn't like flowers," I reminded him. "He said they made him sneeze."
"Well, right now the flowers are for us more than for him, Juliet," he said quietly.
"Seth, I was hoping we could go to your new house," I pushed. "I've never been there. But I heard about it from Pa."
"What did you hear?"
"That it's deep in a hollow and you need a map to find it and it's a lot like this one and it's probably where you take all your ladyloves."
He sighed. "I have only one ladylove and she's too much of a lady to go there with me until we're hitched proper-like."
"Martha Anderson," I said.
"And how do you know so much?" He poked me in the ribs.
"A person could be an owl in daylight and see that much," I teased. "Anyway, Pa said you strung her along too long while you ran around with your fast women."
He sighed again. "Without his help I couldn't have built that place, the mean old codger," he said.
"You're not supposed to talk that way about the dead," I scolded him.
"Why not? I talked that way about him when he was living. And he knew it, too."
I started to cry again. My shoulders shook.
"Here," he said, "you're exhausted. Your spirit is worn down. Lean your head back and let the horse's gait rock you to sleep."
I leaned back on him. "Seth?"
"Umm?"
"Maxine says I have to respect you now, 'cause you're all I've got. Is that right?"
"You just mind what I say and we'll be all right. No need for me to pull rank on you."
"Do I have to call you Master Seth, like she's doing?"
"You do and I'll build a closet in my house and put you in it."
"So what will you do if I'm bad?"
"You planning on it?"
"Well, I can't be good all the time. I'll get the ague or something. I can't promise you that, Seth."
"Not asking you to promise me anything. You just be yourself. We have any trouble, we'll work it out between us. That all right with you?"
I sighed, contented, and said it was.
Chapter Three
NEXT THING I knew we were at the Andersons' place. One of the prettiest farms in Jackson County, after ours.
The girls, all at different stages of attractive, came out to meet us. Martha was eighteen, Mary, sixteen, Fanny, fifteen, and Jenny, fourteen. Their older brother, Bill, twenty-four, also fought with Quantrill but hadn't come home with Seth.
The girls crowded around me and Seth, their questions about the Yankees urgent and half scared, until Martha insisted we be ushered into the house and given some vittles and hot tea.
Their mother had died a few years ago while giving birth to a baby who had died, too. Their father was shot last year by a man named Baker, who had been courting Martha, but who, at the last minute, refused to wed her. Martha's father went to the man's house with a double-barreled shotgun the day Baker was to marry his new love, a schoolteacher. That's when Baker shot him.
The wedding went on.
Martha never got around it. Her embarrassment and shame at being put aside by Baker knew no end. And Seth, with whom she'd always been friends, was there to comfort her. I think that's when sh
e became smitten with him.
Maxine told me all about it.
"Your brother gots his wild side," she told me, "an he gots to find women to satisfy it, even while he love Martha."
I didn't understand it all, of course. I was only ten or eleven at the time. But the words stayed with me and I always looked for, and never found, this wild side in Seth. I'd watch him when he didn't know it, when he was cleaning his rifle, or strumming his fiddle, or brushing down his horse, or just leaning back in a hammock in the sun, and I'd wonder: How do men go about showing their wild side? If Martha knew about this wild side, she never complained.
"I know," she told me once, "that he loves me. And I'll wait for him."
In all of this, she'd made me her confidante. I was to tell her if Seth spoke as if he was getting serious about somebody. I promised her I would.
"They're a caution together," I'd once told Maxine. "They pick up each other's thoughts and finish each other's sentences. It's as if they're married twenty years already."
"You got that right, honey."
"So why don't they go and do it, then?"
"Bad times right now. Martha still has to work off some of her guilt"—she was counting reasons on her fingers—"an that wild side o' your brother must still be lookin' at somebody."
"Who? He sees just men in his unit."
She looked at me and I at her. And then the notion came to me. And I thought, Oh Lord God no. I waited for Maxine to say the name, but she didn't. So I did to myself.
Sue Mundy.
MY HEAD was pounding and I wished the Anderson girls wouldn't cackle so. But I sat decorously on the couch in the parlor and sipped my tea and ate my meat sandwich.
Seth had pulled me close to him because I had started crying again. And I heard his words like a rumble in his chest. "Pa dead. House and barn burned. Negroes run off."
"Well, you can stay here, of course. We have room," Martha was saying in that voice of hers that always sounded as if she were telling a story to a child, so melodious and comforting.
It was Maxine who put her hand to my forehead. "She burnin' up, Master Seth."
