Southern Rapture

by Jennifer Blake

  The time was drawing near.

  Almost, she wished he would not come. She would have done her duty but would be relieved of this terrible weight of responsibility.

  Oh, but to spend the rest of her life not knowing? That, too, would be intolerable.

  Hoofbeats.

  They were no more than a distant drumming, fading and growing louder with the wind. A shiver ran through her. She clasped her hands together. She thought that Thomas wanted the Thorn alive for questioning, but she had not thought to ask. Why had she not asked?

  Hoofbeats.

  Louder, thudding with an irregular rhythm. Suppose they shot him on sight, before there was a chance to see him, to speak to him?

  Hoofbeats.

  He was coming fast. Was he anxious to see her, or was he angry that she had summoned him again? What was he thinking as he rode? Was he noticing the stillness, the lack of night sounds?

  Hoofbeats.

  A steady thunder. Could she stop this thing if she wanted to? If she ran screaming out into the night, would he turn and fly or would he ride in to discover what was wrong?

  Hoofbeats.

  Soon. She was such a fool to not know her own mind, to have any compunction for the capture of such a vicious man.

  Hoofbeats, slowing, jogging down the track. Nearer. Nearer.

  She didn't want to know. She didn't. She was afraid. There was something that nagged at her, some warning unheeded, some knowledge buried deep.

  A bit jingled. Saddle leather creaked. A horse made a soft, snuffling sound and another whickered in response. The door made a scraping sound. It swung open.

  His tall form was outlined against the gray darkness, broad of shoulder, easy of stance, a hat tipped at a slight angle on his head. He stood for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. He took a step forward. When he spoke, his voice was soft, faintly curious.

  "Miss Lettie?"

  She came erect, and the rush of the blood in her veins was like poison with the fear that gripped her. "Ranny? What are you doing here? Go away! Now!"

  The night erupted with the figures of men shouting and cursing as they ran. The door crashed against the wall as it was flung back on its hinges. Four soldiers threw themselves on Ranny while two others whirled inside, then stood back with their rifles trained on the struggling, thrashing group. There came the thud of blows, the grunts of effort.

  Lettie, recovering from her frozen consternation, plunged forward. She caught a uniformed arm, pulling, clawing. "Stop it! Stop! It's the wrong man! You have the wrong man!"

  She was jerked this way and that, tripping over her skirts. The blow came out of the darkness. It caught her on the shoulder. She staggered, reeling, and fell against the wall.

  An order rang out. The night was full of men and the bristling barrels of rifles. A lantern flared, its light blinding, virulent in its brightness.

  The fight was over.

  Ranny was hatless, his arms twisted behind his back and his legs wide apart. There was a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth and his golden-blond hair was sliding into his eyes as he stood with his head down trying to catch his breath. Slowly he squared his shoulders, lifted his head. His gaze found Lettie, resting on her as she pushed into a sitting position on the floor.

  He met her eyes. Slowly he moved his head-from side to side. "Oh, Miss Lettie, what have you done?"

  The men were pushed aside as Thomas Ward stepped into the crib. "Lettie," he exclaimed as he saw her on the floor. He moved toward her with long strides. "Are you all right?"

  She gave him her hands and he pulled her to her feet. "Thomas, make them let him go. It's Ranny."

  The colonel barely glanced at his prisoner. "I would let him go if I could, but there has to be an investigation."

  "What are you talking about? This is Ranny!"

  "This is the man who found the letter you left in the tree, Lettie."

  She stared at him in confusion and feverish disbelief. What he said might be true, but there had to be some other explanation, there had to be. She turned to Ranny. "Tell Thomas why you came here. Tell him how you knew to come."

  "I came because I found the letter," Ranny said obligingly.

  "Yes, but how? How did you find it?"

  "I saw you go. I followed you. We put a letter in the tree one time before."

  Lettie swung around to Thomas. "You see! He was with me the first time I used the hollow tree to contact the Thorn. That's all there is to it!"

  "I'm not so sure. For my part, it all fits a little too well. I'll have to take him in."

  She put out her hand to clutch his arm. "Thomas, no. Please!"

  He removed her hand from his sleeve. His voice was firm when he spoke. "It's a matter of duty, Lettie, however unpleasant. I have to do it."

  Ransom watched Lettie. It was almost worth the drubbing he had taken to hear her plead for him. He would like to hear her do a great deal more pleading, though not to Thomas Ward and not for Ranny.

  It was no use blaming her, however. He had known how disturbed she was, known also that she was his weakness. Still, most women would have thought it necessary to demand an explanation for Johnny's death, to throw his failure to save him in his face and threaten to expose him. That was what he had expected tonight. He had given too much weight to the physical rapport between them and not enough to her conscience. But he had meant to end the farce he had been playing with her. He had come as Ranny because it seemed the best way to do it. He had actually been looking forward to dropping the mask he had worn for so many years, to revealing his true self. It seemed he must wear it a little longer, as long as it would serve.

  The colonel snapped an order. Ranny was hauled around and marched out the door. The soldiers guarding him swung around smartly and followed him. Thomas, with his hand under Lettie's arm, gave her no choice except to do the same.

  The horses were brought up, including Lettie's mount from the lean-to. In a short time, they were all in the saddle. Thomas walked his horse to where Lettie sat in the darkness and touched his hat brim.

  "Are you sure you weren't hurt just now?"

  "No." Her voice was cold.

  "Good. Good. I would hate for any harm to have come to you over this."

  "I'm perfectly fine."

  "I don't think I need to tell you again how much the United States Army appreciates your cooperation."

  "No. I know it very well."

  He brought his hand down on his leg in exasperation. "Hang it all, Lettie, I'm only doing my job!"

  "I realize that. It's extremely important that you not let such a desperate and dangerous man, such a ferocious killer, ride free about the countryside."

  "He could be all of those things."

  "A man who can't bear to stick a pin in a butterfly?"

  "Be reasonable! I have to look into it."

  "Certainly."

  "Think about it, Lettie. He was a soldier, a daredevil, an actor in theatricals."

  "'Was is the right word."

  "Dink's Pond is near his house. The Thorn came at least once to Splendora itself; you saw him there!"

  "Look at him!" she cried. "He could be taken for the angel Gabriel."

  "Gabriel carries a sword."

  "The Thorn doesn't, and he isn't the Thorn!"

  "You should know, of course, since you've seen the man. Or is it just that having seen him now without his disguise you've changed your mind?"

  "Why are you so determined that he's the Thorn? Is there a promotion for you if you catch him?"

  Thomas straightened in the saddle, gathering up his reins. His tone was cutting when he answered. "I hope that by the time I talk to you in the morning you will be in a more reasonable frame of mind. In the meantime, I will detail a man to see you home."

  He was leaving. With his prisoner. Lettie put out her hand in haste to touch his arm. "I'm sorry for what I said. Please remember the hospitality of Splendora that you and your men have enjoyed. Remember, and be kin
d."

  The detail moved out. Lettie followed with her escort at a slower pace. At the Red River crossing at Grand Ecore, she had to wait for the ferry to return for her after taking the last of the detail over. By the time she reached the other side, the soldiers and their prisoner had disappeared in the direction of Natchitoches.

  Her escort left her at the gate of Splendora. She opened it and moved along the path and up the steps. She paused for a long moment on the gallery, breathing the scented air. Nowhere else, she thought, smelled like Splendora.

  The wind had died. There was only a singing silence. She could feel it all around her, that Southern summer night. But the house looming over her felt empty.

  Think, Lettie.

  She would not. Ranny had passed his test. He had been here at Splendora when he said he had a headache. There was no other time when he could have done all the things of which the Thorn was accused.

  He had not been in bed. He was outside on the veranda, so he said, but he might have heard her in his room before he left and returned to confront her.

  He had been injured long before there was a need for the Thorn to fight the changes brought about by Reconstruction.

  But he had been in prison for a long time, and after he returned home he had been ill for months more. He might have regained his senses in time to have a reason for failing to make it known.

  She had been with him for weeks, talked to him, taught him, with no sign that he might be other than a brain-injured man.

  Perhaps he had been damaged for a time so that he knew the signs. Or perhaps there had been others in the Washington hospital where he had been treated so that he learned them.

  He was so gentle, so loving. Surely that could not be counterfeited?

  He was the right size.

  So were any number of others, including Martin Eden and Thomas Ward.

  His eyes were the right color.

  Or were they? It was difficult to tell. Ranny's still seemed just a little bluer. Besides, the two voices were so different, and that was something not easy to disguise.

  Those amateur theatricals. Perhaps there was some actor's trick?

  Aunt Em was too honest, too forthright, and possibly too garrulous to keep up such a masquerade for so long, and how could so important a development as Ranny's recovery of his faculties be kept from her?

  A man daring enough to begin the subterfuge could find a way.

  The Thorn had made love to her. Surely there would have been some response within herself to that fact when Ranny had touched her?

  That feeling of longing and depravity. Oh, God.

  But if Ranny was the Thorn, then he was a killer. A man who could murder his best friend, then cry over the news when it came; a man who could throw that friend's body down a well as if it were a broken toy, then play a sweet and mournful dirge over his grave.

  No.

  If Ranny was the Thorn, then he was no killer.

  The Thorn was a killer.

  Then Ranny was not the Thorn.

  Unless …

  Unless he was not himself when he killed? Unless the injury to his brain had been such that it had caused some form of madness?

  There was a terrible sense of rightness to that possibility. If Ranny did not know he was committing the crimes, then in the light of day he would seem no different. Perhaps there was something, some kind of violence or danger, that triggered the instinct to kill. There had been something about him that had disturbed her when he had interrupted the fight between Thomas and Martin and also on the night when the Knights came.

  But how did that fit in with the avenging Thorn who set out at night to redress the injustices of the countryside, who spouted Latin and evaded the best efforts of the sheriff and the military? Surely any man who could do that for the better part of two years could not be mad?

  It was she who was insane, or who would become so if she did not end this uncertainty.

  She was so weary, the result not only of the tension and upsets of the evening but of weeks of fitful rest. She would like to go straight to her room, climb into bed, and pull the sheet over her head. She could not be so callous or so cowardly, however. There was an unpleasant duty that she must perform. What the outcome would be, she did not know, but it could not be avoided.

  Her footsteps slow and heavy, she walked into the house. In the hallway sitting room, she fumbled with matches to light a lamp. When it was burning, she picked it up and went along the hall to the door of Aunt Em's bedchamber. She paused for a moment with her head bowed, then, lifting her chin with resolution, she raised her hand and knocked.

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  17

  "Nothing worse'n a viper in the bosom, that's what I say. She-snakes are the worst of all, and as for Yankee she-snakes …"

  It was Mama Tass who spoke, muttering as she brought a coffee tray and set it down on the table on the back veranda. There was venom in her eyes when she looked at Lettie, and her lower lip was thrust out in a manner that was belligerent as well as sullen.

  "I'm sorry," Lettie said, for what seemed like at least the one hundredth time. "I didn't mean for Ranny to be caught."

  "Sorry don't butter no bread. I say—"

  "Please, Mama Tass!" Aunt Em said, rubbing a hand over her face.

  The cook clamped her lips together. With her head high, her back stiff with anger and hurt feelings, and her wide hips rolling like the sea in a storm, she took herself back to her kitchen where shouts and the crashing of pots and pans could be heard. The calico cat came shooting out of the open door a few seconds later with its tail low and a biscuit in its mouth. A chunk of stove wood sailed after it. The shouting died away to muttering once more, and the steady sounds of something being stirred in a bowl with vigor could be heard.

  It was fairly pleasant there on the back veranda, but beyond the eaves the sun was already achingly bright and hot. It was going to be another scorching day.

  "Pay no attention to Mama Tass," Aunt Em said. "Ranny has always been the apple of her eye; I sometimes think more so than her own son."

  Lettie, leaning her head back on her chair, looked at the other woman. "It doesn't matter; I suppose I deserve it. Are you certain it wouldn't be more comfortable for all of you if I moved into town to the hotel? I will quite understand if you prefer it."

  "Nonsense. You acted according to what you thought was right. It was just bad luck that Ranny was caught. I don't suppose Colonel Ward will keep him long."

  On the other side of the table that held the coffee tray sat Sally Anne. A message had been sent at daybreak to Elm Grove. Sally Anne had come at once, in time to go with Aunt Em to the Federal jail. The younger woman had brought a message that her mother and father would be with Aunt Em later. Now she spoke up. "He had better not."

  "My dear, he's only doing his duty. He isn't an unreasonable man at all. You know he let me see Ranny before sunup and didn't search all the baskets and bundles of things I had brought for him very hard."

  "He's an idiot if he seriously thinks Ranny could be guilty, and so I told him."

  "I'm sure that helped immensely!" Aunt Em said with some asperity.

  Sally Anne sent her a dark look. "It helped my feelings, as much as anything can. I have never been so incensed in my life."

  "We must be patient."

  "But just think of what people are going to say!"

  "As if that makes a bit of difference." Aunt Em sounded seriously annoyed for the first time.

  "Oh, I don't mean the silly gossip. I was thinking of the whispers and pointing fingers Ranny will have to endure. A lot of people avoid him already. Only consider what it will be like if they think he may be dangerous."

  "No one who knows him at all will believe for one minute that he's capable of these murders."

  "People," Sally Anne said, with a quick glance in Lettie's direction, "will believe anything."

  If Lettie had thought to gain some idea of whether Aunt Em and Sally Anne thou
ght it possible that Ranny could have committed the crimes while in a temporary state of madness, she had soon put it aside. So partisan were the two ladies, and so delicate her own position as a stranger and a former enemy among them, that it was impossible to suggest such a thing. She had tried to dismiss the possibility during the night, or what had been left of it after talking to Aunt Em, but it would not go away. It worried around the edges of her mind, a theory so close to fitting the facts as she knew them that it could not be dismissed.

  Aunt Em's forebearance was unexpected. Lettie would not have been surprised to be told to pack her bags and leave before dawn. It might have been more comfortable for her if she had. There was the feeling, largely unspoken by her hostess and Ranny's cousin out of good manners and their concern for him, that Lettie had committed a treasonous act by attempting to entrap the Thorn. They might sympathize with her in her need to see her brother's killer brought to justice, but not if it endangered a man they thought of as their champion.

  "They won't hold Ranny long," Aunt Em said again, though there was a pained look in her eyes. "The real Thorn is bound to show himself, go on another of his escapades. Everyone will see how ridiculous it is, arresting Ranny like that, and that will be the end of it."

  "I hope he does something soon."

  So did Lettie. She longed for proof that Ranny was as she had thought him: good, gentle, and fine.

  "I suppose it would be useless to put a note in the hollow tree and ask him to stage some public display?" There was a certain hopefulness in Aunt Em's voice.

  Sally Anne looked at Lettie. Lettie reflected that it was a little strange that they saw her both as the Thorn's potential destroyer and the nearest thing to an authority on him. Still, she answered as honestly as she could. "I expect if he saw the commotion last night and has heard what happened, he will stay as far as possible from Dink's Pond."

  That was, of course, if he was not now sitting in custody in town.