“Come on,” Raines said, in the gentlest voice on this earth, “get on up here and you can laugh at me instead. It’s time to get for home.”
HE MADE A GAME of the journey. He told her, “That nice fellow over there’s a Yankee. You see him over there?”
She gawked at me. Astride behind the saddle. “Him’s a Yankee?”
“That’s right.”
“He’s near’s little as Marse Billy, and Marse Billy ain’t got no legs.”
“No, no. He only looks on the short side because he’s sitting on that great big horse. And you know why he traveled all the way down here from Yankee land?”
“Chris’mas gif?”
“No, girl. He traveled all the way down here because he wants to learn to ride like Marse Billy and me.”
“Marse Billy ain’t got no walking legs now. So he don’t ride no horse. And Bridie say he got other parts took away, too. It a judgement, Bridie say. She say I ain’t good, they goin’ take away my fixings, too.”
He ignored her. “You and me, we’re going to give that Yankee fellow lessons in how to ride. See him just a-bouncing all over? He came all the way down here and said”—at this, the young man lowered his voice, as though impersonating a wild boar, and his tone bore no resemblance to mine own—“he said, ‘Please, Lieutenant. I done saw you in that big horse race, and I got me a fine old horse, and I want to learn to ride him just like you do.’ What do you think? Should we teach him?”
“Is he Marse Lincum?”
Raines laughed. “No, girl. Not unless they’re fooling everybody west of the Tennessee. Now you hold on. And I’m going to show this fellow how to post himself right.”
At that, the fellow began my instruction. I am not simple, see. I realized he had longed all that day to criticize my horsemanship, such as it was, but had found no gentlemanly approach. Now, by making it a game, he had softened the insult. And he was doing a good turn to both myself and the girl.
The girl laughed and laughed.
“All right, sir,” Raines told me. “Now let’s try it at a trot. Ready?”
Without receiving my reply, he get-upped the black. The horse charged and the girl’s hat blew off.
She began to shriek.
Raines pulled up immediately, turning to her. Rascal stopped beside him.
“What is it?” the lieutenant asked. “What’s the matter?”
“Her hat fell off,” I said.
And then I saw her.
The loss of the hat revealed a misshapen head. It was the queerest thing. It looked as though her skull had been caved in above the ear. Her wooly mop of hair could not cover the damage and a kidney-shaped swale of livid flesh stretched down to her cheek. I would not have thought one with such an injury could live.
The girl screamed toward heaven, pounding her thighs with her fists.
“Hush up, now,” Raines said, throwing a leg high over his mount’s neck and dropping to the dust. “You hush. I’ll fetch your covering.”
She did not lower her voice until the straw hat sat on her head again. Then she whimpered down.
“You just sit right there,” Raines told her. He stroked the black’s neck. “Easy, boy. It’s all right.” Instead of mounting, he strode over to me.
“Got to fix those stirrups,” he said. “Draw your feet out. Can you straighten that leg?” He glanced back down the road. “And where the damnation’s Mr. B.?”
“What happened to her?” I asked.
He did not look up. “Accident,” he said. And cinched my leathers with a savage force.
THE AFTERNOON SOURED in the wake of the outburst. After a few snappish comments, my riding lesson ended and silence possessed us. Perched behind my escort, the girl wore a cautious look. Reading his mood as an animal would. Twas clear young Raines no longer feared the world might break apart from too much beauty.
Again, I sensed how much I did not know. What had just happened that I failed to see?
I did not understand enough to fit any pieces together. I was not even sure which piece was which. I thought again of all that Raines had said. And tried to spot the holes words failed to fill. I kept coming back to the female question, and not because I have an indecent bent, you understand. It is only that women are often at the core of things.
Look you. This Captain Barclay had been married. And then bereaved before a house was finished. And he was young. The marriage had not been a long one. I wondered how the wife “no longer with us” had perished. There had been a reference the day before to a woman among the murdered Negroes. I tried to recall which of the two, Wylie or Raines, had said what. I needed their precise words. But my memory was not powerful enough to recapture them with the clarity I wanted. I thought I recalled Raines asking if “she” had been among the slain. And Wylie, though he hesitated, had understood exactly who “she” was. Surely, the wife would not have . . . could not have run off with her husband’s slaves? And been murdered for it?
I fear my mind grew lurid with imaginings.
In the afternoon’s maturity, we entered a forest. Just at that hour when the light turns into gold dust and the day’s warmth rallies for its final stand. The countryside was hillier now and deep hollows anticipated the evening. By the side of the road, someone had decapitated a man-long snake. The horses shied and Paddycakes said:
“Moc’sin.”
This was poor land, not worth the sweat to clear it. A meager skin of soil hid bones of rock. Yet, the undergrowth was a jungle. This Southland was a world of contradictions, of things closeted and unexpected. Again, I thought of many-layered India.
We passed a clearing with a shanty. A woman smoked a cob pipe on the porch. Her eyes had the steadiness of a serpent’s and her cheeks were impossibly sunken. She looked as though she had not moved for ages. Wilderness had reclaimed the adjacent fields, and the woman had not even a dog for company. Human intrusion seemed fragile here. And, perhaps, unwanted.
Our journey led us deeper into the woods.
We were coming around a turn in the trail when the men with guns surrounded us.
EIGHT
THREE MEN IN TATTERED UNIFORMS THEY WERE, TWO of gray and one blue. A fourth man positioned himself in the center of the road. His lurid attire looked robbed from a fancy man, and a top hat, askew, pressed down on his dirty hair. An officer’s dress sword dangled from his hip. He would have seemed a fool but for the revolvers in his hands. The other fellows held long arms, a shotgun and two muskets.
Top Hat glared at Raines and said, “Thet feller moves his hand another inch, you shoot him dead, Jake.” Then he spoke to the lieutenant directly. “Don’t go touching thet gun, sonny. Won’t help none, though it’s like to do you harm.”
I hoped Raines would be sensible. Rashness is not valor. I watched his hand as it wavered above his pistol. For my part, I made no move to defend myself, for my Colt had empty chambers. All things had been returned to me except cap and ball.
Carefully, Raines lifted his hand away from his holster.
“Thet’s right, sonny,” Top Hat said. “Thet’s right. Lighten their loads for ’em, boys. Git them irons.”
The fellow to my flank reached up and took my Colt. Rascal nickered.
Behind young Raines, the Negress made herself small. Watching us with the eyes of a cornered doe.
The bandit in blue grabbed the lieutenant’s revolver and passed it off to his comrade. Then he stroked the girl along the thigh. No frightened creature could have matched her stillness.
“Christ amighty,” Blue Coat said, “ain’t she one ugly nigger bitch?” He raised his face to Raines. I saw only the back of his forage cap, but I knew the fellow was grinning. “Hell, boy. Dockyard hoor looks better than that there cunny.”
Raines spoke to Top Hat. And to them all. “You men are all traitors to your country. In time of war—”
Top Hat cackled, followed by the others. “And what country would thet be, sonny? Damnation, we ought to jest set us up a country of our o
wn right here, thet’s what we ought to do.” He smiled broadly, displaying ruined teeth. “Jake, you got a cotton to be president? Charlie? You got that senator look, boy. Yes, sir. The Republic of You and Me. One of you boys lift that girlie on down.”
A gray-clad youth, the cleanest of the pack, grabbed the girl by the forearm and tugged her off the horse. As she tumbled, the hat left her head.
Paddycakes screamed. Plunging between our mounts.
The boy yanked her toward him and gave her a slap. But the girl fought back and shrieked.
He let her go. Abruptly.
“Lord Jesus,” he said, “she got a great big dent in her head.”
Paddycakes scrambled over to the fallen hat and pulled it on with both hands. Pulling it down as low on her brow as she could, stretching the straw. Then she cowered, eyes skittering from one face to another.
“Like as not she’ll have another dent soon enough,” Top Hat told us.
“For the love of God,” Raines said. “You can see the girl’s touched. She’s simple.”
“Ain’t nothing wrong with simple,” Top Hat said. “Some fellas kind a like ’em thet way. Though a crazy nigger’s some ways low.” He waved one of his pistols, first at Raines, then at me. “Now you two boys git down easy. You go first, little man. Thet’s right. And we’ll settle things up.”
Behind me, a voice said, “I’m figuring as to how to cut a bullet in half. Cause I ain’t about to waste no whole one on a midget.”
Why I do not know, but I became aware of the birds again. The forest fair raged with them. Loud as a battle they were.
“Thet’s right,” Top Hat said when we had both dismounted. “Now step right up here. Fine horses you got there. Say thet much. Beholding to you both.”
Two of the men moved up and nudged their gun barrels into our backs, while Top Hat shoved his pistols behind his belt. He started with Raines, testing each pocket, drawing out the lieutenant’s purse then a fancy handkerchief.
“Well, ain’t thet pretty.” He shook the folds from the linen and wiped his nose. Grinning black-toothed at Raines. “I do thet right, sonny? Like a real gentleman?”
Then he patted the lieutenant’s body for hidden treasures. And found one. He tore open Raines’s shirt at the chest.
Gold flashed.
“No,” Raines cried. Jerking backward into a rifle’s muzzle.
“Well, just you lookee there. A little gold heart. Your Sally Dar-lin’ know you ride with a nigger gal up behind?”
I sensed Raines was about to commit an act of great folly. “Master yourself,” I said in the most commanding voice I could muster. Twas that of an angry sergeant. “Control yourself, Lieutenant.”
Raines understood me. He stood stiff as a grenadier while Top Hat ripped the locket from its chain.
When he got to me, the fellow tossed my Testament in the weeds, but paused over my purse. Examining the crisp green notes.
He looked at Blue Coat. “Hiram . . . what the hell?”
“Them’s the new Federal dollars. I seen ’em around camp afore the battle.”
“See thet?” Top Hat asked me. “Tain’t no disunion here. We all united. Hiram fit over on the Yankee side til he come to his senses. And the boys here, well, they seed the light when it come out the other end.” He smiled again. “Seems a fool thing to go killin’ for nothing. Now don’t it? When you got the choice of killin’ for something you can put right in your pocket.”
Finally, he drew out my papers from General Beauregard. He opened them to insure nothing of value was concealed within, then flicked them after my Testament.
“Now I ask you, gentlemen,” he said, stepping back and straightening. “What does it profit a man to have money in his pocket? Well, I’m going to tell you. It makes for a right good time.” He laughed. “Beholding to you both. Hiram, you walk these two friends of ours on down the hollow. Far enough to where ain’t no traveler goin’ to come by and disturb ’em. Charlie, you gather them horses up. Me and Jake got to look over this here nigger.”
Again, Raines almost acted. But I closed my hand over his wrist.
“Thet’s right,” Top Hat said. “You boys behave. Go on now. And you be sure to think high thoughts. Yes, sir, you all just go walking on down there in the path of righteousness. Git now.”
The fellow with the shotgun and the Union tunic prodded me in the side. “Move,” he said. And I did. Drawing Raines along beside me. We went slowly. For there were briars just off the road. And the pain of the moment knows naught of the pain to come.
I felt Raines tense. I understood him, see. For these were doings of a sort I knew. The boy was trying to judge the right moment to turn on our captor. I prayed he would hesitate long enough to leave the business to me. For I feared he would move too soon and bring down the others upon us. To have any hope of success, we needed to be out of their range, two against one and not four against two.
Every stolen second was a treasure, every yard we covered a little miracle.
I listened to the footfalls and branch-breaking of the fellow behind me. Waiting for him to stumble or slip.
And if he did not? If the moment never came?
It would come. For I would make it come. The Welsh was up in me. And my old regimental rage, the methodical fury.
Sometimes I fear we do not change at heart, but only put on years like layers of clothing.
Behind us, the girl began to scream. It was a different sort of cry this time. Like the loudest of birds.
We blundered down an embankment. A welcome way it was, for now the earth would shield us from the fire of the men on the trail. Oh, they were sloven and did not know their trade.
One was off with the horses. Two were pawing the girl. How many rounds did our guard have for his shotgun? I had not seen a pistol on him. So we would have one weapon only between us. If one of us did not die in the taking of it. And the shotgun was good only at close range, while two of the others had rifles.
I feigned an even greater weakness in my leg than I felt. Our captor cursed and prodded me with his weapon. But I had drawn him too close for his own safety. I waited only for a slicking of mud, a mutter that signaled the slightest loss of balance or diverted attention. Ready to strike, I was.
Things happened otherwise.
SHOTS PIERCED THE QUIET. Up by the road.
Service in John Company’s ranks and old India made a hard school. But you got your lessons for a lifetime.
In an instant, I had turned on my good leg and had the shotgun in my hands. Blue Coat stared down at me. Baffled by the celerity of fate. That look was only on his snout for a sliver of a moment. I clipped his jaw with the peak of the gunstock. You use the point, see, so a discharge is less likely. We could not spare the shotgun’s load.
The bones of his face collapsed like an emptied sack. He staggered, clutching the damage. I swept the gun’s butt back around and caught the side of his head with the other tip. It is the simplest motion, once you learn it.
Down he went, into a pile of moans. He must have been thick-skulled, for the second blow should have killed him.
I started up the embankment, shotgun in hand, when Raines reached out for it.
“I can go faster,” he said.
He was right. Twas no time for postures of manliness. I let him have the shotgun. And looked back at the figure on the ground. A twisting, suffering creature.
I should have crushed his skull with a rock for safety. But the battle had gorged me with killing, and I had enough to atone for.
I judged the man. Still conscious, he saw me watching, but pretended he did not. Covering his eyes, he rolled over and groaned. He was a coward in the face of pain. As so many of us are. I knelt and patted him down as he squirmed, but found no other weapons. Blood stained my hands and I wiped it on his trousers. He did not even have the strength to beg.
The shooting above had ceased. It had lasted no longer than a proper roll of thunder. And I had not heard the shotgun fire. That wor
ried me. But neither did I hear the bandits calling one to another, as such men do when they survive a fuss.
There was only the sound of the girl, her fear transformed to yet a new variety, and a boy’s voice calling, “Oh, Lordie, oh, Lordie, help me up, help me git up . . .”
I sneaked up through the brambles. Barnaby was the first thing I saw, for he was hard to miss. I saw him before I spied our loitering horses. Then I marked the girl clinging to the Englishman’s trunk of a leg.
And I saw Raines. Tearing at a corpse.
“Help me up . . . I cain’t git up . . .” that boy’s voice begged. “Sumpin’s wrong, oh, Lordie, sumpin won’t let me up.”
As I neared the road, I saw the young fellow. “Charlie” I think they called him. His body lay as still as the grave, but his head jerked sidewards. He lay just in front of the horses. He had not led them far.
“There, there, missy,” Barnaby said to the girl. “Bob’s your uncle, but you’re a brave lass. There, there.” These comforts were his means of breaking free. He left her and walked up the road, a pistol in each hand.
He stopped above the young fellow. The boy quieted for a moment, then said, “Help me on up, mister. I didn’t mean no harm. I cain’t git up.”
Barnaby shot him. Without the least expression on his face.
I was standing over Raines by then. He savaged Top Hat’s pockets. The dead man’s eyes were open and his tongue stuck out like a dog’s. The last fellow lay nearby, face down, with deep stains spreading over the gray of his jacket.
When Raines found the locket, a gold heart the size of a dollar coin, all the tension fled his body. His shoulders sagged, and he sighed. Then he forced himself up and wandered to the side. Leaving it to me to recover our purses.
Up the road, Barnaby was dragging the boy’s body off into the brush. Too proud to bolt, the horses stood with their rumps to us. Disgusted by our doings.
The lieutenant remembered himself then and went to lift the girl, cooing to her as to an infant.
Call Each River Jordan Page 17
