The Black Swan

by Day Taylor

  He untied her bonnet and flung it onto a chair, then began plucking out the heavy horn hairpins until her hair tumbled onto her shoulders. He put both hands on her

  face, with his fingers up into her hair. With his thumbs he gently stroked the smooth freckles over her cheeks. "I'd come back to you, you know," he said earnestly. "No matter whatever might happen, I'd always come back to you."

  Her eyes searched his. "Adam, do you love me as much as I love you?"

  "Ask me m fifty years," he replied softly. "If you still need to ask."

  Much later Dulcie said, "Are you ready for your surprise now?"

  Adam lay on his back, his hands dangling over either side of the bed. "Didn't I just have it?"

  She giggled. "I made somethin' for you. Every evenin' I'd think of you and work on it It was somethin' to keep you close to me."

  "A ball and chain."

  She scrambled off the bed, and he watched the tilting motion of her rounded buttocks as she walked to the dressing room. She came back, one hand behind her, and as he watched her breasts bounce pleasantly, he said, "This must be captain's paradise."

  She grinned, holding out a vest of finest white ribbed silk, hand embroidered with moss roses in shades of pink and cream.

  He put it on. Over a shirt it would fit him perfectly. "Dulcie mea, you're a wonder." He laid the vest down carefully. "But modest as I am, I believe I deserve somebody as nice as you." He hugged her, his face buried in the sweet, perfumed place between her breasts. She held him there, stroking his hair, for a long time.

  "Adam, did you mail my letter?"

  "Yes, from Wilmington. Your parents may have it by now."

  "Tell me about everythin'."

  "The Yankees have replaced Major Anderson in Kentucky with General Sherman. Sherman's an Ohioan, a West Pointer, a Mexican War veteran. His last job was as president of a street railway in St. Louis. He's got some peculiarities, a nervous, twitchy man, I've heard. He probably won't last long in command, though it'll be a good thing for the South.'*

  "Are there others like him?"

  "I haven't heard. There's General George McClellan. He's the man who organized the Army of the Potomac.

  Now he's general-in-chief of the army. If he continues as well as he started, the South's in trouble."

  "And the battles since I left the States?" It came out so easily, she thought; none of the homesickness showed yet

  "The Confederates took Ball's Bluff. The Union officer. Stone, sent a regiment across the river without providing a way to return. We attacked from the bluff and slaughtered nearly half of them."

  "Don't tell me more. Adam, did you get shot at?"

  "Yes, love, and missed. Now let's plan for tonight. Any parties?"

  "Beau mentioned a cockfight. Do ladies get to go here m Nassau?"

  "They do everything else. I don't see why not. We'll go if you like." He stood up, pulling on trousers. "For now let's go for a horseback ride. I need the wind in my teeth today."

  She dressed quickly in the silver and gray outfit he had had made.

  As she entered the parlor, Dulcie was surprised to see Claudine rise from a straight chair. She had forgotten her maid's existence.

  "Them trunks come, Miss Dulcie," she said sullenly.

  "Well, unpack them, Claudine. We're goin' ridin'."

  "Miss Dulcie, you ain't gwine on no street in no git-up like that."

  Dulcie smiled. "All the ladies wear this kind of outfit now."

  "Yo' hair's a mess too. Look like you ready fo' baid. Mastah Adam, Ah's s'prised you doan take a han' to Miss Dulcie. She doan look—"

  "That will do, Claudine! We're in Nassau now, not at Mossrose. And I'm a married woman. If I displease my husband, he'll tell me so."

  "Yes'm." Claudine turned away muttering to herself.

  On their way downstairs Dulcie asked, "What do you suppose has gotten into Claudine?"

  "Nobody, lately," he said.

  "Adam, Glory was right. You're a low-minded man. How do you know that?"

  "Guesswork. The dissatisfied look, the one you used to wear when you were still your Daddy's girl."

  "What do I look like now?"

  "The cat that licked the butter crock.'*

  So they began a pattern for the months together in Nassau, Dulcie alone while Adam made his runs. Usually he went to Wilmington, sometimes to New Yorjc, though he hked that less and less. In spite of Rod's precautions he coul^ too easily be observed entering Oyster Bay. From the empty house on Centre Island anyone could watch his activities.

  He remained in Nassau to take Dulcie to the Junkanoo Parade on Boxing Day. The celebration began about four in the morning, after an all-night party. Festively garbed men and women gyrated to the music of goombay drums, cowbells, and horns. Dulcie and Adam danced and sang with the others until the merrymaking palled. Then with Glory, Ben, and Beau they dined royally on hot sherry-laced conch chowder, baked crabs from Andros Island, and guava duff.

  "We'll have a happy year, Adam," Dulcie assured him. "If you take part in the junkanoo, you chase away the evil spirits and invoke the good ones."

  "It's true," Glory said. "I went last year, and look how well I turned out."

  "We can see that. Glory," said Beau, leering down her generous cleavage. "But I think you got your start a little before last year."

  She giggled. "I think you did too, Beau."

  Ben looked sharply at them. "I think it's superstitious nonsense."

  "Well, well, there's always one sourpuss in every crowd. We certainly know who ours is!" Glory said.

  Ben glared at her, then attacked his crab.

  As the weeks passed, Dulcie became more irritated by Claudine. When Adam was gone and the exquisite tension that existed between them had gone with him, Claudine was easier to manage. She was not so outspokenly critical. But when Adam was around, Claudine was always helping, always underfoot. Adam couldn't do anything wrong. And Dulcie couldn't do anything right.

  Yet, watching, she could see nothing in Adam's manner toward Claudine that would encourage her behavior. He didn't even go around naked anymore unless their bedroom door was locked.

  She'd give Claudine every second night off. Knowing

  Claudine, she'd find another 'Polio and soon forget her attachment to Adam.

  Before they knew it, April had come. Beau was going home to his sister's wedding. He would stay in New Orleans a month if the blockade permitted, visiting friends he might not see again until the end of the war.

  Beau left an hour ahead of Adam, who had gotten a last-minute consignment of saltpeter. Though there were sources in the Confederate states, the quality the blockade runners brought in was thought purer for manufacturing gunpowder. As with everything in short supply, those who wanted it would pay handsomely.

  Glory chirruped, "Don't you drag yourself back here all overworked and unable to enjoy yourself with me.'*

  Beau laughed. "Just you keep the sheets good and hot for when I get back." He shook Adam's hand. "See you next month, Adam. So long, Dulcie."

  Dulcie kissed Beau fondly, feeling his cheek smooth against her lips and smeUing his lime tonic. He had grown dearer to her these past months, and there was a vulnerability about him.

  Beau clapped his hand on Ben's shoulder. "Take care of yourself, Ben." His eyes twinkled. "And don't forget she's mine when I get back."

  Glory threw her arms around him and crushed him to her. "Honey, you take good care of yourself. Will you, now?"

  "You bet. Glory chil'." Beau strode up the gangplank. At the top he turned, smiling, and waved. He grinned, noticing Glory's hand already tucked under Ben's arm. Then slowly the Ullah steamed out to sea.

  Adam said, "I'd better get on board. Behave yourself, Glory."

  "I will—^unless I get a better offer."

  Ad^m kissed Dulcie briefly. They had said their goodbyes the night before, making love with leisure and fervency.

  Dulcie whispered, "Good-bye, love." In her eyes was the me
ssage come back safe.

  In the carriage going to the hotel Glory wept.

  "I always feel that way, Glory."

  "Isn't it silly of me? I've fallen in love before—every night, sometimes—but he's the first man I ever still loved after he was gone."

  Dulcie giggled. "That's what you said when Ben left last time."

  "But Ben won't ever need me—and Beau might."

  Chapter Twenty

  The Ullah, loaded with Enfield rifles, Belgian muskets, percussion caps, bolts of serge, lead, tin plate, and steel, steamed uneventfully into the Gulf of Mexico. Beau chided himself for hunting trouble where none was. It was a beautiful dark April night, and for once he was having an easy run. He should be grateful, but it had been too easy.

  He concentrated on the things he knew to be right and good. He'd never known Ad^im more contented or pleased with himself than he was standing on the Nassau pier with Dulcie. That was good, and Beau was happy for them.

  Then there was Barbara. He knew she loved Morgan. Longworth III with all her heart Before the month ended, Barbara would wear the same glow that now bathed Adam and Dulcie.

  But once more his thoughts took on an edge of doubt He hadn't heard from Barbara since last October. It was unlike her. Both his mother and Barbara were regular correspondents, though the mails were anything but reliable.

  Barbara's last letter told him that Morgan was stationed with the Beaufort Artillery under the command of Captain Stephen, manning the fort at Bay Point that guarded Port Royal and Hilton Head Island. As Beau well knew. Port Royal had fallen to the Yankees last November. Where Morgan was now, he had no idea.

  The more he forced his mind over Barbara's letter, the more uneasy he became. Ceaselessly, he scanned the Gulf horizon. His keen ears, accustomed to listening for the slightest sound, could hear the telltale noises of other ships. But he saw nothing but the inky black night No flare went up. No signal split the night sky. Nothing indicated the Ullah would be hampered in entering the Mississippi.

  Again he brushed away the filaments of spider-web ghosts, superstitions, and expectations of trouble. He should take this run as a godsend. And still, he couldn't. The Fed-

  erals were out there. Every nerve in his body sensed it. If they were, why didn't they stop him? The Ullah was not like the Liberty or the Independence. She could never outrun a cruiser. This trip she was heavily loaded, slower than ever. Though Beau would never tell Ben or Adam, he always took the Ullah out thinking it would be his last run. And tonight, by all reason, he should have been caught. Why hadn't he been? What had kept the blockading ships from guarding the Mississippi?

  The Ullah slipped into the Pass a I'Outre without a shot fired or a flare to light the sky. It gave him the worst, most foreboding feeling he'd had since the war began.

  After he discharged the cargo, Beau loaded a dray with special items for his family. Though the South was carrying on much as always, the shortages were being felt. Prices rose alarmingly as it became more difficult to bring supplies in. Beau had brought coffee, which his mother deemed too expensive at four dollars a pound. And he had several tins of tea, which sold in the South at eighteen to twenty dollars a pound. Muslin, even a bolt of silk, along with woolens and serge, he stacked in the dray. Last he put a box containing scarce items such as corset stays, toothbrushes, sulphur matches, needles, and an assortment of medicine, including a case of good French brandy for his father. Satisfied he had chosen well. Beau whipped up the horses and headed out of New Orleans for the LeClerc house.

  Mavis, his mother's personal maid, opened the door. Her eyes immediately filled with tears. She drew him close against her bone-thin frame as he had when he was a small boy. "Mastah Beau! We gwine be all right now."

  Beau disentangled himself. "What's the matter, Mavis? You spoil Ma's hair?"

  "Ever'thin' gone sour, Mastah Beau. Or Mastah gone off to fight wiff Gen'ral Lovell's ahmy, an' Mastah Morgan got hisseff kilt. Ol' Miss, she workin' hersefl[ to death, an lil Miss, she doan think o' nothm' 'ceptm' Mastah Morgan an* dem Yankees. She hates 'em fierce an'—"

  Beau rubbed his cheek. "Morgan's dead, and Daddy's gone. I thought Lovell was m New Orelans. Where's my mother?"

  "In de pahlah. She allers in de pahlah. AUers workin*, makin' cloth fo' de uniforms. Ah cain't do nothin' wiff her no mo'."

  His mother dropped the old hand card she had been

  working with, her face a mixture of sorrow and joy at seeing her son.

  Beau went to her, holding her, soothing her. She picked up the hand card and began to work as she talked. As supplies of ready-made clothing ran out, women who remembered the old ways hand-carded. He stopped her hand. "I've brought you plenty of cloth, even some wool. You don't need to do this by hand. Ma."

  She began to work again. "But I want to. Beau. There are so many in need, and"—her face clouded—"it keeps me busy."

  "What happened, Ma?"

  His mother shrugged. "There's so little to tell—and so much."

  "What about Daddy? Mavis says he's with General Lov-eU."

  She nodded. "I don't know where. They were in the city, then they left. He'll write when he's able."

  "Why didn't you write to me. Ma? There was no need for you and the girls to be alone. I would have come home."

  "But I did, Beau! I write to you regularly."

  Beau's feeling of foreboding grew. His mother recounted the attack on Port Royal last November seventh; but she used Morgan's words.

  The island had been guarded by Morgan's Beaufort Artillery, a volunteer company on Bay Point, and by the Charleston Company, manning Fort Walker. The Federals sent a fleet of thirteen men of war and fifty troop transports. The Wabash, a double-decked steam frigate mounting sixty-two guns, was the flagship. The Confederates had little chance. Port Royal fell.

  Morgan had been shot in the first few minutes of the bombardment. Seriously wounded and unable to move, he had written all that he saw and heard to Barbara. He was dead by the time the Confederates evacuated, but his letter was sent on to New Orleans.

  "How is Barbara, Ma? Is she . . .'*

  She rose from her chair, leading Beau into Barbara's sitting room. Barbara was with her younger sister, listening and correcting as Sissy read Ivanhoe aloud. Sissy jumped up, the book tumbling as she dashed to hug Beau. But Barbara remained in her chair. She was thin, and tired looking. It seemed impossible that she was the same radiant sixteen-year-old he had seen last fall. When she spoke, her

  voice was low, too mature, too expressionless, too contained to be his sister Anguished eyes met and held Beau's. He released himself from Sissy and went to Barbara, cradling her as she cried and told him again how Morgan had died.

  Next day brought word of the impending attack on New Orleans that Beau had sensed and feared. Federal ships gathered in the Gulf under the command of Captain David Farragut, whose objective was to gain control of the Mississippi, splitting the Confederacy in half.

  Word spread like wildfire. The people were edgy and excited over the coming Federal defeat, for it was unthinkable that the great city of New Orleans would fall. With General Lovell ordered elsewhere, the citizens armed with whatever weapons they could muster. Beau was amazed by his mother and Barbara sitting in the parlor, two old muskets tucked neatly by their chairs. At Beau's inquiry Barbara's eyes blazed, haunting and fierce in her wasted face. "I'll do my part. We all will. Any Yankee sets foot on our soil will rue the day his mama gave birth."

  "Barbara, you listen. If the Yankees come, you and Ma hide. Don't get fancy ideas about doin' your part with a weapon you can't handle."

  "You talk like a defeatist, Beau. No Yankee's comin* here, 'cause New Orleans'!! never fall. We're goin' to win, 'cause we got God on our side."

  "You can't talk for God, Barbara, so you just do as I tell you."

  "But I can talk for God. I know. God hates all Yankees."

  Beau shook his head, annoyed and saddened at her adamant hatred of the Federals. His mother was equally s
tub-bom if more rational. "No Yankee is goin' to drive a Le-Clerc from land we built up with our own hands. Wliatever we lack, it will never be pride or self-respect. You keep that in mind. We're Southerners, and God didn't make a man any better than that."

  Beau left liis warlike family and went to the city. For the most part it was undefended, relying on Forts Philip and Jackson downriver to ward off Farragut's fleet.

  Twice David Farragut had had to postpone his attack, waiting for conditions to be right. Then, on April 23, 1862, at a signal of two red lights from the flagship Hartford, Farragut's fleet of twenty-five wooden ships and nineteen mortar schooners moved into the Mississippi. The first di-

  vision, under Captain Bailey headed for Fort Philip. Ten minutes later Bailey's guns were replying to the concentrated fire pouring from ,the fort.

  Captain Boggs, on the Varuna, accompanied by the Oneida, hugged the shore, avoiding the heavy fire of elevated guns set to protect the midchannel of the river. The Confederates sent the Louisiana State gunboat Governor Moore and the River Defense ram Stonewall Jackson against the Varuna. The two Confederate craft forced the Varuna into shoal water, where she sank to her topgallant fo'c'sle. But the two Confederate vessels were ablaze and ran to shore. The crew of the Governor Moore under the command of Commander Kennon surrendered to the Federal cruiser Oneida.

  The Confederates sent pyres on rafts into the river. The Mississippi was clogged with ships and rivercraft. The Brooklyn nearly ran afoul of the smaller Kineo. The ugly turtle-back ram Manassas appeared under the Brooklyn'^ bows, glancing off the large ship, her chain armor taking most of the impact. The ram steamed on, and the Federal Kineo met her. The bulky, awkward Manassas continued her erratic journey up and down the river, eluding most damage, until the Mississippi struck her a broadside that knocked her into deep water. On fire, the ram moved past the mortar boats and blew up.

  Farragut's flagship the Hartford, trying to avoid collision with a fire raft pulled by the Confederate tug Mosher, grounded. Captain Horace Sherman, master of the tug, managed to lodge a huge torch along the side of the Hartford. Flames sprang up the ship's sides and along her rigging. But Farragut, screaming orders, would not give up his ship, and his mate fought to put the.fire out and refloat her. The little tug Mosher was broadsided and sunk with all aboard.