His greeting was easy and natural. Aunt Em, as if to make up for Sally Anne's silence, was most affable, offering coffee or tea and cake.
"Thank you, ma'am, it's kind of you, but not just now. I had a few free hours and I thought to look in on Miss Mason, maybe see if she might like to go for a drive."
He was speaking to Aunt Em, but the words, and his smile, were for Lettie. She returned it. "How thoughtful of you, but, as you can see, we are in the middle of a … ticklish job."
"Which makes no difference whatever!" Aunt Em declared. "Go along with you now. Sally Anne and I can finish here. You'll be wanting to see a little more of the countryside and there won't be many chances once you start teaching."
"No, really. I hate to leave a job half done."
"Nonsense. Go on with you."
"Well, if you're sure, then."
Lettie would have protested further, but it seemed that Sally Anne might be more comfortable if the colonel's presence was removed. Setting her pillow aside, Lettie rose and stepped into her bedchamber to fetch her hat and gloves and also to smooth her hair and brush away any clinging bits of down. A few minutes later, she and the officer in blue were bowling away down the drive.
"This is very nice of you," Lettie said.
"It's my pleasure. Besides, we Yankees have to stick together in enemy territory."
She sent him a quick upward glance. "Do you really still think of it like that?"
"Sometimes, such as just now with the young widow. The women are the worst. Southern men may forgive and forget; Southern women, never. Though if Congress doesn't end this mess soon, we'll never overcome the bitterness. But that isn't what I intended to talk to you about when I asked you to come with me. I wanted to be sure you are being well treated and that you are satisfied with your lodgings."
"Yes, on both counts," she answered, following his lead, and then went on to talk of other things.
He asked if she had gone, as planned, to the spring. She told him she had, but gave him to understand that nothing had come of it. She had told no one anything different since her return, had not even mentioned the pair who had attacked her. To do so would mean explaining how she had escaped them, and as she did not want to cast herself in the role of a heroine and had no intention of bringing up the name of the Thorn as her savior or in any other capacity, it seemed best to remain silent. That did not prevent her from asking her escort if anything had been heard of the man during the past few days.
The colonel's face took on a grim cast. "You might say so. Last night he stopped a detachment of my men who were escorting a prisoner into town. The prisoner was old man Jim Hathnell, a cantankerous old goat who the day before had fired a double-barreled shotgun at the troopers who came to serve him with his eviction notice for nonpayment of taxes. The Thorn claimed the old man was near blind with cataracts, couldn't tell the difference between troopers and jayhawkers. He even dared to ask what had become of a man's right to defend his home! And he was also kind enough to advise us not to waste our time looking for our prisoner because the old man would be on his way to Texas to stay with his granddaughter."
"Was it true about the man being blind?"
"I don't know. Probably."
"And you're sure it was the Thorn?"
"He left his calling card, though the troopers swear he was seven feet tall, as round-bellied as an ox, and spoke with a German accent. Of course they may have been trying to account for the fact that one man was able to hold up the six of them and not only take their prisoner but leave them bootless and on foot thirteen miles out of Natchitoches."
"It seems incredible."
"It's damned—downright annoying! I can't understand what he thinks he's doing. The things he has pulled are so different it makes no sense. It's almost as if he's doing his best to confuse us, or else he's touched in the head. I swear you'd think he was running a one-man campaign to right the wrongs of the world."
"Angel and devil," Lettie murmured.
"Exactly."
She stared ahead of her for a long moment, snared in memories of a dark corncrib and the terrible magic there could be in a caress. She closed her eyes to banish the images, saying abruptly, "I suppose you sent men out on all the roads to Texas?"
He gave a short nod. "Not that I expect them to bring back the Thorn or even old man Hathnell. Even if it wasn't a ruse to make us chase off in the wrong direction, there was nearly enough time before my men walked back into town for anybody to reach the Texas border. It's not more than forty or fifty miles any way you go."
Since she was interested, the colonel pointed out the roads that led south and west to Texas as they passed through town. The two of them drove southeast along the river, passing through cotton fields that marched in green rows to the horizon and past shanties where Negro children played or big old houses that were falling into ruin, seeing only now and then a well-kept dwelling that looked as if it might house prosperous owners. Where the road began to leave the river, they took a narrow track that wound back to the water. At the end of it, they pulled up to rest the horses on a bank overlooking the channel.
"I wish there was more time," Thomas Ward said. "There are a lot of places I'd like to show you. Just a few miles below here is the community of Isle Brevelle, the home of several families, most related, of what are known here in the state as gens de couleur libre, free people of color. They are fascinating people of mixed French and African blood who count among their ancestors one of the earliest merchant-soldiers to settle at Natchitoches during the French regime, a Monsieur Metoyer."
"Yes, Henry wrote me about them."
"They consider themselves to be a third caste, nonwhite but definitely not Negro. They were once wealthy, owners of hundreds of slaves, and highly educated—many of them were sent to Paris for continental polish. Now their way of life is gone."
"I believe the funeral earlier in the week was for one of them?"
"Right. He was a man who had lost everything he valued, the only way of life he could bear to live."
The fortunes built by these free people of color had been tied to the slave economy and so had been forfeited. The freeing of the Negroes had also tended to lower the social barrier between the free people of color and the former slaves so that they were gradually losing the special status they had once held.
"It's terrible, really. You have to pity them."
The colonel nodded. "They have become very clannish, avoiding strangers who don't understand who and what they are. It's hardest on the younger ones, those old enough to marry. I understand it was once the practice to supply large dowries for the daughters in order to find Caucasian husbands for them. The money for that is gone and they hold themselves above the freedmen with pure African bloodlines. Now they marry only among themselves."
"How complicated everything is," Lettie said, her tone baffled, "not at all as I expected."
"I know what you mean. Did Henry tell you about the McAlpin plantation?"
"I don't think he did."
"It's supposed to be the setting for Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Robert McAlpin was a bachelor from New England; some say he was a family friend of the Stowes'. At any rate, he had the reputation locally of being a cruel master to his slaves and apparently he's the model for the villainous Simon Legree."
"I've never read the book." It was, she felt, a damning admission.
"I tried once, but it was heavy going. From what I remember of it, I can't think that Mrs. Stowe was ever in Louisiana or at least in this part of the state. It's funny when you think of the influence the book had."
"You know, Colonel," Lettie said with some asperity, "you are beginning to sound more Southern than the Southerners."
His laugh rang out loud, the skin around his green eyes crinkling and his mustache rising at the corners. "It happens to us bluebellies sometimes, it really does. But if you are going to take me to task, Miss Mason, you really ought to call me Thomas."
"I'll do that, if you
will call me Lettie."
Theirs was a short acquaintance for such informality, but the circumstances were unusual and there seemed to be no harm in it. The colonel was an attractive man and good company. Lettie liked him, not only because the two of them were, in a manner of speaking, compatriots, but because he was plain-spoken and without pretension. It made her feel much better knowing that he was in command at Natchitoches, even if he didn't approve of what she was trying to do.
In a strictly superficial way, he reminded her of the Thorn. It was the mustache, no doubt, and his height. Hirsute males seemed to be everywhere she looked these days. Facial hair was the fashion. Though beards were not in favor, the mustache was a masculine glory, from the thinnest pencil-line on the upper lip to the full, flowing masterpiece that merged with muttonchop whiskers in front of the ears. This prevalence did not help her to determine what the Thorn looked like. She had only seen him in either shadow or darkness. He had appeared nondescript, really; tall, but no more so than many of the men she had met lately, such as the colonel and Martin Eden, who had been introduced to her at Aunt Em's, or even Ranny for that matter. It was possible, of course, that the image she had of him had been carefully contrived; he was apparently very good at disguises.
It was time for the colonel and herself to return to Splendora. Her escort turned the buggy and they started back the way they had come. Lettie sat in silence for long moments. Finally she spoke.
"There's something that bothers me about Henry and the payroll. My brother was a cautious man, and he suspected that the Thorn had some kind of inside knowledge about the movements of the gold. It seems unlike him to set out alone with the shipment in his saddlebags. I can't believe he wouldn't have waited for an escort."
Thomas Ward's green eyes were dark as he turned toward her. "What are you getting at?"
"Why did he do it? Was he perhaps under orders?"
"To my knowledge, Henry acted on his own initiative."
The man most likely to have ordered her brother to take the risk was sitting beside her. There was no reason he should deny having given the order, however. Or was there? Colonel Ward was also one of the few people who would know the exact movements of the payroll: when it reached Natchitoches, where it would be stored, when and how and by whom it would be transported to Monroe.
She was being foolish. Thomas Ward was an officer of rank in the United States Army. He would not stoop to such treachery.
And yet it might well be hard for him to watch other men making themselves rich on the spoils of the defeated South. He had hinted before that he felt he was being used by such scavengers. In addition, it was obvious that he lacked the patriotic zeal for the Northern stand on Reconstruction that might have been expected from a man in a Union uniform. He would not be the first to have divided loyalties stemming from the recent conflict.
"I still don't understand it," she said, keeping her voice even and free of accusation with an effort. "Were there many people who knew when the payroll would be going out?"
"Three or four, not that it means anything. If a man was watching, the heavy saddlebags used for the trip would have been enough to arouse suspicion."
"All the more reason to wait for an armed escort."
"So it would seem. I don't know if there is any satisfactory explanation. It was just one of those things that happen. It's hard to guard against them when there are men like the Thorn and his ilk who are willing to take any risk to get what they want."
Lettie pursued the matter no further, but directed the conversation toward the more mundane subject of books, leading from there into her bout of reading with Ranny and the two boys and then quite naturally to her teaching experiences. Their conversation was easy, lightened by laughter and mutual understanding. In many ways, due perhaps to the colonel's uniform and military way of looking at things, it was not unlike talking to Henry. By the time they reached Splendora again, her doubts about him seemed so heinous that she was tempted to apologize. She did not, but when he asked her if he might call on her again, her reply was a shade warmer than it might have been otherwise.
They were standing at the gate where he had walked with her after helping her down from the buggy. There was no one on the veranda, and the aromas wafting from the direction of the outdoor kitchen suggested that the others might be making ready for the noon meal. The colonel took her hand and rubbed his thumb across the fine skin of its back.
"You're an unusual young woman, Miss Lettie, to travel so far alone and to lend your time and skills to try to help out here in the South."
She shook her head with a smile. "My family thinks I'm headstrong, not to say as stubborn as a Missouri mule."
"I think you're a marvel, though I'd like to be able to protect you from the trips like the one you made to the spring. I'd like to protect you from the competition I'm going to have, too. The men have found out that there's a girl in the vicinity who not only talks like they do but is considerably more than attractive. Pretty soon Aunt Em is going to have to take a stick and knock the men in blue off her veranda like chickens off a roost."
"She should be very good at that."
"You think I'm joking, don't you?"
"Well, exaggerating just a little."
"Wait and see. And you had better brush up on that phrase your mother taught you that goes "But this is so sudden!"
"So long," she said, her eyes sparkling, "as I don't need it just now."
"I'm making no promises." He pressed her hand and released it, but then reached to place one finger under her chin. "Hold still a minute, will you? There's something I've been wanting to do for the last hour."
"What?" She drew back, suddenly wary.
His voice rich with laughter, he said, "Not what you think, though I'm more than willing. You have a feather caught in your eyelashes."
"A what!"
"Well, a piece of down. Hold still."
A moment later, she felt a touch at her closed eyelids. When she opened her eyes, he carefully showed her the small piece of white fluff. "There. Proof." He blew the piece of feather away, then took the hat he held under his arm and settled it on his head. "I'll call again soon."
"Do that, and bring your friends," she called after him as he turned and walked away.
"An unkind cut," he said over his shoulder, but when he stepped into his buggy and gathered up his reins, he was smiling.
Lettie waved, then turned and went to the house.
Under the magnolia tree at the side of the house, Ransom straightened from where he leaned against the trunk in the deep shade. He stared after the buggy, his eyes crystalline with self-knowledge, though there was resignation in the hard set of his mouth. He had no right to feel jealous, none at all.
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7
Fresh eggs, warm from the nest, for breakfast, that was the lure. The hens began cackling out their pride in their laying endeavors by a good sunrise. Lettie, awakening early, set out in the dew to find them. When her apron, which she had taken to donning for the random jobs she did around the place, was full of eggs, she turned toward the kitchen.
The sound of raised voices stopped her in the middle of the path. She recognized the irate tones of Mama Tass mingling with the deeper ones of a man of her own race. The last thing Lettie wanted to do was become involved in a private quarrel; still, she could not stand there with her fragile burden for long.
Aunt Em, with her no-nonsense manner, would doubtless know how to settle the altercation, but though Lettie looked hopefully toward the house, there was no sign of the older woman. Even Ranny's appearance would be welcome since Mama Tass had a noticeable tendency to give him her undivided attention when he was on hand. He was awake, for she had heard movement in his room as she left the house earlier, but he was nowhere around now. The only living thing in sight was the calico cat that came stepping down the walk toward her to wind about her ankles and a half-dozen chickens scratching with extreme industry around the nearby h
erb bed.
The voices ceased. When they did not begin again after a few seconds, Lettie breathed a sigh of relief. She started forward, only to be stopped short once more as Mama Tass spoke again, her voice throbbing with despair.
"You gonna get yourself killed, that's what's gonna happen."
"I have to help my people."
"By lettin' these carpetbaggers use you?"
"If they're using me, I'm also using them. Our reasons are different, but we want the same thing, a voice for the freedmen."
"You can't say much if you're dead! If you want to help somebody, help your boy Lionel, help me, help the folks here at Splendora. We all need you, and this is where you ought to be!"
"I don't owe Splendora a thing!"
"'Course you don't!" Mama Tass said with heavy irony. "Just your life that Mr. Ranny saved for you time and again, just the learning that makes you think you can be a senator—"
"Representative."
"Don't correct me, boy! And don't forget the clothes on your back was bought by Miss Em. Not to mention every bite of food that goes into your son's mouth and mine."
"How can I forget, when you won't let me?"
"I won't let you because I know a thing or two about being grateful, because taking care of ourselves is what being free's all about. And I know a thing or two about the white folks, and they've about had a bellyfull of being told what to do by Yankees and trashy black folks. You don't need to run with that crowd. You do, and one night the men in white sheets will hang you from a tree limb."
"I'm not afraid of them."
"That's just fine, but it won't keep your neck from stretching, and I didn't raise you to hang!"
It was her son Bradley, Ranny's former manservant, whom Mama Tass was addressing. He was apparently paying an early-morning visit, since he lived in town, or perhaps he had spent the night with his mother and son as he sometimes did. To be caught listening would be a terrible embarrassment. Lettie looked around her. She could not pass the kitchen without being seen from the open door, but she could circle it to the rear and perhaps unload her apronful of eggs in the dining room.
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