Watcher in the Piney Woods

by Elizabeth McDavid Jones

  Philip was nodding his head, agreeing with Cassie. “There was some cornbread left over, I know,” Philip said, “and some field peas. Why don’t you go get him some, Cassie? I’ll stay here and keep Gus company.”

  Keep him company? A Yankee? That sounded a little too friendly for Cassie’s taste, and it sure didn’t sound like Philip. What had happened to Philip’s vow to get even with the Yankees for killing Jacob? Cassie couldn’t figure Philip, not at all.

  For a minute Cassie stood and eyed Philip. Philip met her gaze. “You going to get him something to eat or not?” Philip said.

  Cassie’s temper flared. “Reckon I will. But don’t get too friendly with him, brother. Soon as he eats, we’re sending him on his way. Hear me?”

  “Yeah,” said Philip.

  But the way Philip looked at Cassie made her very suspicious. What was he up to?

  In the kitchen Cassie put beans in a tin cup and took a slab of cornbread from the pie safe, then dropped them both in a poke sack. She chucked in a few dried apples plucked from the string hung over the windowsill. Last, Cassie stopped at the well and filled a gourd with water. The whole time she was thinking about Philip with that Yankee. Philip was acting peculiar, even for Philip, and it worried Cassie.

  When Cassie got back to the barn, she found Philip and the Yank chatting as nice as you please. “You’d think they was kin,” Cassie muttered under her breath. It made her mad to think Philip could forget so quickly what the Yankees had done to Jacob.

  Cassie strode over to the boy and handed him the food poke. His name might be Gus, but he was still just a Yankee to her. “Here. Eat,” she said. Then to Philip she said, “I want to talk to you—alone.”

  “What about?” asked Philip.

  “Don’t matter,” said Cassie. She shot her brother a look. “I just want to talk to you.”

  Philip gave her another queer look. Then he shrugged and said to Gus, “I’ll be right back.”

  Philip followed Cassie to the doorway of the barn, just out of Gus’s earshot. “Now, you want to tell me what in Sam Hill is so important?” Philip said.

  “I figured you had something to tell me,” Cassie said. “Like why you’re all of a sudden so fond of Yankees. It’s one just like your Gus who killed our brother. You done forgot that?”

  At first Philip didn’t say anything. He glanced back at Gus—nervously, Cassie thought, which struck her as odd. When he finally spoke, his voice was unnaturally loud, and he didn’t answer Cassie’s question at all. “We’re going to help Gus get away, Cassie—take him to one of the Quaker caves and hide him for a spell till I get the planting finished. Then we’re guiding him through the woods and across the river—get him safe away from Confederate troops and headed north.”

  Cassie exploded. “Who says we’re going to? What you doing, turning traitor? You can’t help a Yankee soldier escape. We’re still at war, remember? That’s treason, Philip—betraying your own country. And it’s betraying Pa and Jacob, too.”

  “No, it ain’t. Think about it. What if somebody had helped Jacob? Some Yankee come pick him up off the battleground and nursed him, instead of leaving him there to die? Maybe he’d still be alive. Might be with us now.”

  Cassie stared at Philip, unable to believe her ears. Who would ever think to hear such a speech from Philip? He’d been more bitter toward the Yankees than she had. She couldn’t figure out what had made him change.

  But what Philip said made Cassie think. What if some kindhearted Yankee soldier—and it was hard to imagine such a creature—what if some soldier had helped Jacob? Would Jacob be alive today?

  Cassie looked back at Gus, who was tearing into the food poke like some wild animal. She sighed. “All right, we’ll help him escape. But only for Jacob’s sake, understand?”

  Cassie and Philip took Gus to the creek that night and hid him in the same cave in which Cassie had hid from the deserter. They got him settled, as settled as you could be in a cave, and left him with food enough to last a few days. Though the creek was back to normal now, Cassie cautioned Gus to watch for floods. Philip told him to stay put in the cave, at least during the day. “Last thing you want is to be spotted by Confederate cavalry,” Philip warned.

  Going back to the caves gave Cassie a strange feeling—part dread, part nerves, and part plain old fear. All she wanted to do was get Gus settled in and leave. That done, Cassie was anxious to get away from the caves—and from that feeling.

  “Let’s go,” she told Philip. Then, without waiting for him, she clambered up the creek bank and plunged into the woods. The clouds had cleared, and the moon was so bright Cassie had no need for the lantern. Yet under the brilliance of the moon, the shadows loomed darker, and the tree trunks shone white. They looked to Cassie like ghosts risen from their graves. The branches crackled in the wind, and an owl hooted from somewhere deep in the woods.

  Cassie felt even more disturbed than she had at the caves. She kept thinking about her own words to Philip—That’s treason, betraying your country—and the more she thought about it, the more sure she became that her first instinct had been the right one. The Yankees were their enemies, had been for the last four years. How could she betray her own people—Pa and Jacob included—to help some Yankee boy, a boy who had already shown himself to be a thief and a liar? For all Cassie knew, this boy could have shot at her very own pa. It might be their Christian duty to feed and clothe their enemy, but it was treason to do anything more.

  They should go straight back tomorrow, Cassie decided, and turn Gus loose to find his own way home. She just had to convince Philip that she was right.

  Cassie was so lost in thought, she never noticed Philip passing her. She only noticed all of a sudden that he was way up ahead.

  She yelled to him to wait up, but he wouldn’t stop. He kept right on making tracks toward home, past the springhouse and the weeping willow beside it whose spreading leaves always made Cassie think of a lady dressed for a ball. The willow branches, ghostly silver in the twilight, stirred slightly in the breeze. Cassie shivered. She started running and finally caught up with Philip. She yanked at the tail of his nightshirt sticking out of his britches, but he jerked away.

  “Hold on a minute, will you?” Cassie said. “I got to tell you something.”

  “Leave me be,” Philip snapped.

  “What’s sticking in your craw?” Cassie said angrily. She grabbed hold of Philip’s arm and wouldn’t let go. “You cozy up to that Yank and won’t even talk to your own sister.”

  Then he wheeled around, and the gray-pink dawn lighted his face. “Cass,” he said. “You know what we got to do.”

  There was an edge to his voice that held Cassie prisoner. “What?” she asked.

  “It hit me way back in the barn, before we’d said more’n a few words to him. I’ve got it all planned out. It’s a way we can fight back against the Yankees, for what they did to Jacob. It’s too bad he turned out to be such a nice fellow, but he is a Yankee—”

  “Philip, what are you talking about?”

  “We got to turn Gus over to our army, Cassie. We got to.”

  CHAPTER 9

  VENGEANCE

  Cassie’s anger melted away like butter on a hot biscuit, replaced by sheer shock. She was dumbfounded. How in the name of heaven could Philip—dull, work-all-the-time Philip—cook up such a scheme? Plod-along Philip never thought fast on his feet. That was Jacob’s style.

  Here Cassie was all set to give Philip a talking-to on being a loyal Confederate, when all along he was more devoted than she was. Why, then, did she have this sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach that going along with Philip’s plan would only be trading one kind of betrayal for another? Sending the Yankee on his way was one thing. Pretending to be his friend, then handing him over to the Confederate army to be thrown into prison, was another thing entirely.

  Then again, thought Cassie, Gus was a Federal soldier. He came down here on his own accord and took up arms against her people.
No telling how many southern boys just like Jacob Gus had shot at and killed.

  Cassie felt torn apart. How on earth could a person be sure in a war such as this what was wrong and what was right?

  While all this was going on in Cassie’s mind, she was standing planted under the willow. When a woodpecker swooped out of a hollow right above her head, it startled her. She realized her mouth was hanging open, and Philip was still talking to her.

  “There’s an infantry encampment about four miles this side of Danville, Myron told me. I figure we can finish the corn by tomorrow evening and set off with Gus after Mama and them are asleep. We’ll tell Mama we’re leaving before dawn to go to Myron’s and help him with his planting.”

  “Hold on,” Cassie said. “I ain’t agreed to nothing yet. I got to study on this, all right?”

  “Dang it all, Cassie. You pick a fine time to get cautious on me. Since when did you ever take time to study on a thing? Usually you’re ready to hurl yourself into the fire and tug all the rest of us in with you. Now, when we get a perfect chance to get back at the Yankees, you don’t have the guts to go through with it.”

  “Ain’t a question of guts. I got twice the guts you have.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I’m not sure it’s right, is all.”

  “He’s a Yankee, Cassie. Look at all they done to us. Look at what they done to Jacob. It’s eye for eye and tooth for tooth, like Pastor Hicks preached on last Sunday. Same thing, only this is brother for brother.”

  Put in that light, Cassie thought, what Philip said made sense. What did one Ohio farm boy matter in a savage war like this one? One less Yank around to kill someone else’s brother, that’s how she had to look at it.

  With the garden planted and the spring-cleaning finished, Mama insisted that everyone pitch in and help Philip with the planting. So the next day, Cassie found herself plowing and planting out in the cornfield under a sun brutally hot for early spring. While she worked, she tried to smother the nagging of her conscience about what she and Philip planned.

  Cassie had never felt so bad-tempered. She ached to get the corn in the ground and be finished with what had to be done to Gus. She clammed up and wouldn’t talk to anyone, not even Ben, and when he pestered her to take him swimming, and again to help him find birch buds to nibble on, and again to hunt for morel mushrooms, she lost her temper, yelled at him, and made him cry. Then she felt guilty for that on top of everything else.

  At sunset, when they finished the corn planting, furious black clouds were rolling across the sky. “It’s going to pour tonight,” said Mama at supper. She claimed she could smell rain in the air. All Cassie could smell was corn pone and steaming turnips.

  Cassie waited for the rain all evening while she worked on knitting a pair of socks for Pa and then while she lay in bed waiting for Emma to drop off to sleep. She kept thinking about Gus in the cave, wondering if he might get trapped by a flood like she had, and feeling bad at the prospect.

  Every so often a flash of lightning flooded the room, but it never did rain. When Cassie closed her eyes against the bright flashes of lightning, she saw behind her eyelids rows and rows of plowed red earth. Finally she must have dropped off to sleep because she dreamed about being chased through the woods by something, which at first she thought was wild hogs, but then it was the deserter. She saw his sharp yellow teeth. She thought he had grabbed her and was shaking her. She wondered how he knew her name.

  Then suddenly her eyes were open, and it was Philip standing above her shaking her, not the deserter. He looked deadly serious and determined. Cassie didn’t know if she was feeling drowsiness or fear, but the last thing in the whole world she wanted to do was get up and go out into that night.

  “Come on,” Philip whispered. “We got to get a move on. It’s long past midnight. Get dressed and come out to the barn. I’ve got a lantern stashed behind the wagon.”

  Cassie dressed by moonlight and tiptoed downstairs. She stopped in front of Mama’s closed door, she didn’t know why. Maybe she was looking for courage, courage to see this thing through. If only she could sort out her feelings, know for sure what was really the right thing to do.

  Finally, Cassie forced herself away from Mama’s door and into the dark sitting room. She looked about the room, gathering in its familiarity: the pine blanket chest against one wall, and the drop-leaf table against the adjacent wall; on the table, Mama’s writing box with the mother-of-pearl inlay, and above it, the old planter’s clock with pink and blue flowers painted on its face. The walnut armchair was in one corner, and in front of the hearth were the other chairs: the slat-back straight chair with the rush seat, and Mama’s rocking chair. On the mantel were the brass candlesticks, the ironstone coffeepot, and the matching ironstone pitcher that was chipped on the bottom …

  Wait a minute! Something was missing from the mantel—Jacob’s silver mug. Grandpa had sent the mug from Richmond when Jacob, his namesake, was born. It was the most valuable thing in the house, and practically part of Jacob. Now it was gone! Anguish cut Cassie to the quick.

  Her anguish, though, immediately turned to anger. It didn’t take much imagination to figure out what had happened—Gus had stolen the mug.

  Cassie could hardly believe it. She had felt sorry for Gus before because she thought he’d only taken what he needed to survive. Now, to think he had had the mug all along … Cassie burned with fury when she thought of him, sitting in the cave, laughing to himself at how easy it had been to fool two ignorant southern bumpkins.

  Then she thought of something else, something that planted doubt in her mind. Even though Gus was the logical thief, had he really had an opportunity to steal the mug? He couldn’t have had it when they found him; he was wearing rags. It was possible, Cassie supposed, that Gus could have sneaked back to the house while they were all out planting corn, but it wasn’t very likely. How could Gus find his way alone through those thick piney woods?

  Maybe there was another explanation. But what?

  Mama.

  Mama had said only yesterday how hard it was to be reminded of Jacob at every turn. Mama must have taken the mug from the mantel and put it away so it wouldn’t make her think of Jacob.

  Cassie understood why Mama did it—it felt like a thousand needles pricking Cassie every time Jacob came to her own mind. Still, it hurt Cassie to think that Mama would remove the mug without saying a word to anyone else.

  Suddenly all the grief of losing Jacob welled up fresh in Cassie’s heart. Then, just as quickly, her grief turned back to anger. It was the Yankees’ fault—all of it was—Yankees just like Gus. It was them that had come down here, invaded Virginia and the rest of the South, and if bad things happened to them here, well, it was nothing more than they had dished out, was it?

  Fiercely Cassie pushed aside all her doubts about what they were doing to Gus and hurried out to the barn where Philip was waiting.

  CHAPTER 10

  GUS’S REVELATION

  Cassie and Philip didn’t speak as they walked to the caves. The lantern pricked a hole through the black tangle of trees. In its ring of light, Cassie could see Philip shifting his jaw back and forth, back and forth.

  “Quit staring at me,” he said.

  Cassie didn’t answer him. She was working too hard to put a name on the feeling that was slowly building inside her. It wasn’t fear—not quite—it was more an uneasiness, a gnawing impression that somebody was following them. She kept shooting backward glances, but all she saw outside the lit circle in which they walked was darkness, just darkness. Cassie pressed closer to Philip—he had his hunting knife and the musket—but she said nothing.

  When they finally reached the cave, there was no sign of Gus. “Blast,” said Philip. “Leave it to a Yankee to disobey orders. Where did that fool get to?”

  Cassie was surprised at the way relief washed over her. Gus was gone; now she wouldn’t have to—

  Then out of the darkness came the Yankee’s vo
ice. “Over here. Woke up hungry. Trying to find something to eat.”

  Cassie looked toward the sound of the voice. The shadows sorted themselves out into skinny Yank against rocky creek bank. He started toward them; his body swayed when he walked, like switch cane on a hillside. “Before the war, a bunch of us boys would sneak out at night in summer and go frog gigging,” he said, “build a fire and roast the legs on sticks, then sneak back in before we was even missed.”

  “Hope you wasn’t planning on roasting frog legs tonight,” Cassie said. “The smoke from a fire would get you noticed real quick.”

  “Wouldn’t be that much of a fool,” Gus said, “though you probably think so, my being a Yank.”

  Gus picked his way across the rocks and ambled up to Cassie and Philip, grinning. His teeth shone in the dark. An image of the deserter’s yellow teeth flashed into Cassie’s head. The image disappeared, but the contrast between the two men stuck in Cassie’s mind. One Yankee. One Confederate. If you stacked them up side by side and studied on their decency, there would be no contest as to who would come out on top. Cassie’s conscience throbbed. She did her best to ignore it.

  “No need to hunt frogs,” Philip was saying. “We brung you corn pone and a jar of tomato pickles.”

  “I’m obliged,” said Gus. He hooked a pickle with his fingers and gulped it whole. Juice dribbled down his chin. He wiped it with the corn pone he was stuffing into his mouth.

  “Mighty good,” Gus said. He licked crumbs from the corner of his mouth and stuffed in another pone. Then he spoke with his mouth full. “I was wondering something.”

  “No more pones right now,” Philip said. “We’re saving the rest for later.”

  “No, nothing about the pones,” Gus said, munching and swallowing. “I was wondering whether there’s any other caves around here.”

  “Might be,” said Cassie. She knew, of course, that there were other caves, but she wasn’t about to tell the Yankee that. “Why you asking?”