The man sat down across from Will at the table. “I’m John Simon. This is my wife, Clara.” She took a seat on the bench beside her husband.
“Hello.” Will didn’t know what else to say.
“Mr. Miller has done us much good,” Clara said. Her plain face was calm beneath its scars. “He wants us to tell you our story.” Will focused only on her bright eyes to keep from looking at the cross-and-circle scar above them.
Their hostess set down cups of tea for them and withdrew. Mr. Washington considered them for a moment, then followed his wife.
John Simon spoke first. “Mr. Miller wrote to say you have a hard master.”
“Yes.” Will found he could say it aloud to them.
“Our master was a hard man too,” Clara said.
“And a drunk,” John added. “I was born a slave, and so was Clara. We grew up working in the fields next to each other. We both loved the Lord, and we sang and we prayed together at night when we could sneak the time. One thing led to another, and we figured one day we should get married. So we did and life was hard, but we had each other.” He gave her a faint smile, and she returned it.
“But our master was a gambler and a drunk. One day at cards he gambled away one of his slaves to another planter. That man, Mr. Holmes, he got his pick of us. He needed another house slave to clean his house, so he picked Clara.”
A flicker of pain went across his wife’s face, and she looked down at the table.
John cleared his throat. “I hollered at it, but it wasn’t no use. The overseer knocked me down and they took me away. Then they took her away. And Mr. Holmes lived a good way off.”
Determination hardened his face so Will could almost see him, on the plantation, as he must have gazed into the distance that had robbed him of his wife.
“I wasn’t going to let Clara go. God put us together, and no man would pull us apart. So I went after her. The first time the master caught me, he whipped me ’til I couldn’t stand. The second time, he cut off my ear.”
Will repressed a shudder.
“Then he had Mr. Holmes cut off hers and send it in a box, to show me. He knew that would hurt me worse than anything he could do to me.”
How could he remain so calm? John was like a mountain, quiet and unmoved even after a thunderstorm.
“But I didn’t give up.” John looked at Clara again. “I went for her one more time, and we ran for the North. We made it to Kentucky before the slave catchers got us in the woods.” Their locked gazes spoke of a terrible memory, and John fell silent.
Clara spoke up in a soft voice. “They took us back and branded our heads, in front of the other slaves. The master told us we needed a cross on our heads to remind us that if we loved the Lord so much, we needed to remember the Bible says slaves must obey their masters. And now we couldn’t go anywhere, because we would be marked wherever we went.”
John turned back to Will. “That was Mr. Holmes’s idea, and my master agreed to it. He told me Jesus was going to betray us to everyone who met us, with his sign on our heads, because Jesus is a white man and we’re nothing but slaves to him. But I knew my master was a liar.” He leaned forward and put both hands flat on the table. “I told Clara before they took me away again that the sign of Jesus would be a blessing on our heads and a curse on theirs who tried to twist his name and his words. I told her we would escape under his sign.”
Clara put her hand on top of one of his, and he turned his palm up to intertwine their fingers.
“And that was what came to pass,” he said. “God sent messengers and angels to us. First one man helped us to Kentucky, then another to West Virginia. There we met Mr. Miller, who made a way for us to get here.”
John looked at his wife as if to invite her to add anything he had forgotten. He took a sip of his tea. Clara nodded.
Will could not find anything to say. There was no answer to such a story, or to the visible signs of their suffering. Only respect.
“Thank you.” He shook John’s hand and stood up. John stood up with him. Will hoped that the scarred man and woman would see his sympathy in his face, as he could not find a way to speak it aloud.
“God go with you.” Clara remained seated but smiled at him gently. He was staggered by the strange juxtaposition of her smile with the marks of her torture. That smile welled from a source untouched by any cruelty the world could inflict.
On the carriage ride home, Will’s thoughts whirled together so he could not separate one from another, and he looked out the window in a half daze. With one fingertip, he absently traced a figure on the seat cushion next to him: a circle, bisected by a cross.
Seventeen
DUELING IS A SIN IN THE EYES OF GOD,” ANN’S father said.
“With all respect, Mr. Miller, I believe God sometimes calls us to right wrongs,” Allan replied.
Snow flurried around the figures of Allan and Ann’s father. Wrapped in dark cloaks, their hats pulled low over their brows, they stood a few feet away from the road where their coach waited. The solitary hillside was already thick with snow—a white silence that swallowed their words, deadening their voices in the winter air.
Ann watched them surreptitiously from the carriage window. Allan would not be pleased if he knew that Ann had come along this morning. She pulled her cape tighter against the cold; her stomach roiled. Should she try to intervene now, before Mr. Holmes arrived?
Her father shifted the pistol case from one hand to the other. “God does not call us to sin in his name, Mr. Burbridge. And taking a man’s life is a sin.”
“The responsibility for the challenge is mine. I only asked you to serve as my second. But it’s too late for you to change your mind, in any case. Holmes will arrive shortly.”
“I only agreed to be your second in hope of dissuading you.”
“It’s a matter of Miss Miller’s honor. Surely you cannot deny what has happened. It cannot go unpunished.”
Ann could keep silent no longer. She pushed open the coach door and jumped out, calling out to Allan as her boots hit the snow. “Don’t do it, please!”
Allan turned away from her father and stared in shock. “Miss Miller! What in the name of—?” He walked toward her through the shallow drifts. “You have no business here. What possessed your father to bring you?”
“He did not wish to. I begged him to let me come. I hoped I might be able to reason with you, if he failed.”
“You should get back in the coach and leave. Your father and I will handle this.” He placed his hand gently under her elbow as if to escort her back.
“No, Allan.” She pulled away and looked up in his face, willing him to truly hear her. “I do not want you to do this. You should not risk so much.”
“I can’t let it pass. I saw it. Holmes must pay for his part in what happened.”
“But I only heard him, I didn’t see him! What if I am mistaken?”
“If you were mistaken, he would not have agreed to my challenge.”
She hesitated. “But I am the one wronged, and I’m asking you to drop the matter. For my sake, and for your family’s sake. Please.”
He was unmoved. “No gentleman could witness a stain on your honor and refrain from defending you. When another man of rank is responsible, he must answer for it.”
“Is it my honor that concerns you, or your own?”
“Both.” He blinked away the flakes that had caught on his eyelashes, blown even under his hat brim by the swirls of wind. “You know as well as I that were this matter to come before the law, your name would be forever ruined. I will not allow it.” He grew more impassioned, his voice rising as he clipped off each word. “Nor will I permit such base behavior to go unpunished. The code of honor was developed for just such a wrong as this. There is no other answer.”
She fell silent. The tension in his face subsided.
“Now, go sit in the coach and wait,” Allan said. “You should not see Holmes. And you mustn’t witness this.” He lowered his voi
ce to a murmur. “I cannot believe your father brought you here.”
“I won’t faint away at the sight of Mr. Holmes.” But tendrils of dread sprouted inside her as she thought of what might happen. “I will stay here, Allan.”
He tilted his head and took a quick breath as if to argue with her further.
A jingle of harness and a thump of hooves drew their attention to the road. Just topping the hill was the Holmes’s hired coach. The coachman pulled up with a flourish, the two gray horses blowing steam in the frosty air.
When Mr. Holmes stepped out of the coach door, Allan left Ann standing by the coach and went back to where her father stood. Another man followed Mr. Holmes out into the snow beside the road.
The flurries were now so thick that they scattered Ann’s view of the men into whirling fragments. Beyond those four dark figures, the snow pressed in so close that the men seemed to stand in white nothingness. She was grateful for the snow; perhaps Holmes would not notice her standing against the coach wheel, if she kept very still.
“You requested pistols,” Allan said to Mr. Holmes.
Mr. Holmes nodded curtly, indicating with one hand his second, who carried a pistol case just like the one Ann’s father bore. The second knelt in the snow and unlatched the box.
“You know, Burbridge, you’re being a hotheaded young fool,” Mr. Holmes drawled, then sniffed in his honking way. Ann’s skin crawled.
“All you have to do is apologize for defending this . . . thief”—he looked at Ann’s father, who had also knelt to open his case of pistols—“and Miller must tell me where he’s keeping my property. Then, young man, all will be forgotten, and you can return unharmed to your family.”
Allan crouched and retrieved one of the pistols. He stood, pointing it away from the group, raised the hammer with his thumb, then let it down again. “Holmes, you are well aware this is not a matter of stolen property. You have permitted a young lady to be outraged. I give you this last opportunity to apologize for it, and to turn over your accomplice to us. Or you may ready your pistol.”
“I will confess nothing of the sort, nor will I apologize to thieves and the friends of thieves,” Holmes said, checking his own weapon. An unpleasant smirk pulled his mouth crooked. “But my offer still stands. And I must warn you, I’m an excellent shot.”
Ann’s father stood, the pistol box at his feet. “Do not persist in this course, Mr. Holmes. Your stolen property, as you put it, is not this young man’s fault. He knew nothing of it before your man took my daughter. If you need to address your grievance, address it to me.”
“Very noble of you, Mr. Miller. But I won’t agree to it. For though you might throw away your own life, I do not think you will let this young man go to his death to protect a couple of runaway slaves. So tell me where they are, or I proceed against Mr. Burbridge.”
Ann’s father did not hesitate. “I am certain that if I did know the whereabouts of the persons you seek, divulging them to you would be as good as a death sentence for them. So I will not weigh the value of one life against another. Mr. Burbridge must make his own decision.”
“I am decided,” Allan said. “And since you will not repent of what you have done, we will proceed.”
Ann squeezed her gloved hands into fists under her crossed arms. Her knees were unsteady under her cape, and she braced herself against the coach. Lord, Lord, please. Please preserve Allan. Misdirect their shots. Bring it all to an end without bloodshed.
Her father and the other second went through the business of checking the weapons, loading them, and supplying one each to the duelists. Allan and Mr. Holmes moved away from their seconds; the snow blew thicker about them until they were hazy silhouettes. They stood back to back, pistols raised, Allan’s young straight figure contrasting with Mr. Holmes’s portly one.
“Ten paces,” the other second called. “At my count!”
Ann clamped a hand over her own mouth.
“One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . .”
The figures drifted apart like shrouded specters. Ann stopped breathing.
“Six . . . seven . . . eight . . . nine . . . ten.”
The pistols erupted, puffs of black smoke against the white.
Both figures staggered backward and fell. Ann rushed out into the snow, picking up her skirts as she ran, freezing wetness pouring over the tops of her boots. Her father ran a few yards ahead of her. He reached Allan and knelt beside him as Ann ran up.
A bright red splotch of blood marked the snow. Allan grimaced as Ann’s father pulled him up and braced him in a sitting position. Then he caught Ann’s eye and tried to turn it into a smile. “Just a touch,” he said. “Not as good a shot as he claimed.”
Ann’s father pulled his coat away from Allan’s breast to look at the wound; the young man gritted his teeth and stopped talking.
The blood on his white shirt was very high on the shoulder, though its vivid color still sickened and frightened her. She knelt next to him amid the folds of her blue dress.
“I’m sorry, Allan,” she whispered, laying her hand on his ashen face. “I should never have run after the man in the hat. Please forgive me.”
Though he was pale with pain, his gray eyes were free of the burden they had held since the attack. “You did nothing wrong. And I will live. It’s a flesh wound, though it stings like the—”
“He’s correct,” her father said, gently easing Allan’s coat back into place. “The ball passed clean through, Mr. Burbridge. As long as you keep it dressed properly, you’ll be good as new in a few weeks.” He stood and looked across the white hill to where Mr. Holmes’s second crouched over him. “Your opponent, however, does not appear to have come off so lightly.”
Ann saw that Mr. Holmes had not risen, nor even sat up.
Oh no. Let me not be the cause of murder. She staggered to her feet again.
Her father grabbed her arm. “What are you doing?”
“I must see. I must help.” She was incoherent, her tongue disconnected from her thoughts. She pulled free and stumbled through the snow toward the fallen man.
“Ann!” Behind her, her father’s strained call heralded his pursuit. He was hampered by the snow and could not catch her as she reached her goal and stopped, almost falling in the drifts.
Mr. Holmes’s second bent over him. The Southern man’s face was almost as white as the snow he lay in, but his lips were grayish-blue. He moaned—an awful sound, like a dying animal in a trap, guttural and thick. All around him the snow was marked with spatters of scarlet, but near the middle of his trunk, there was a large circle of red pooling around him where his thrashing had packed the snow firm.
She had stopped a few feet away in horror. Her father continued past her and knelt next to Mr. Holmes as he had next to Allan. He took his limp hand. “Philip Holmes, I pray that God will have mercy on your soul, as I pray he will have mercy on all of us here today.”
Mr. Holmes gasped for breath, then said in fits and starts, “I want none of your prayers, Miller. Rot in hell, all of you.”
The man who had served as his second whispered something in her father’s ear.
“Certainly,” her father responded. The other man took Mr. Holmes by the shoulders, and her father lifted him by the feet, and they carried him to his coach. All the way, Ann could hear the man doing his best to revile in foul language her father and Allan, though his curses were broken by his cries of pain. There was silence after they put him inside the coach. Her father remained leaning inside for a minute. She heard a rattling noise.
She gazed at the circle of red against the white ground, so like the pure white of linen. The spreading blot, so like the color of her mother’s vanishing life. Her vision blurred and a roaring in her ears blew her off balance. She fell forward, her arms plunging up to the elbows in the snow. Inches from her face, it seemed that two pools of scarlet joined in past and present, a stain seeping over her entire field of vision.
A hand touched her shoul
der. “Ann.” Her father’s concerned face bent down to her sight level. He helped her sit up. “Breathe. Don’t look at the blood.” She did as he said, turning her head back toward Allan and the coach.
“There, your color is a little better now,” her father said. “Let’s attend to Allan and get him home.” He assisted her to stand, and they made their slow way back to where the younger man lay.
Her father crouched down next to him and looked back at Ann. “Are you well enough to help me?” She knelt again beside them, unsure of how to proceed. Perhaps she should take one of Allan’s arms.
“Mr. Holmes is dead,” her father said to the younger man.
An expression of satisfaction crossed Allan’s face. There was something terrible in it, to see a good man rejoice in killing.
She thought of mercy, and Amelia Holmes, and how she would have felt were it Allan or her father lying there. Nausea crawled through her. Would Amelia wake up at night sobbing, as Ann had after her mother’s death? Would Amelia see Mr. Holmes in her dreams?
Ann’s mother had given her own blood to bring new life into the world. A life given for a life. Mabel’s new little soul had shown through her deep-blue infant eyes as Ann held her and wept. As God took away, he gave, both death and birth in blood.
But when men took away, there was only death. Here there was no sacrifice, and no beginning. There was only damnation, as men made themselves into little gods who wrenched away breath with metal and black powder. And this murder had been done in her name.
At the taking of a human life, there was some impalpable change in the air. She trembled, knowing that the all-seeing gaze of the Almighty fell upon them as they crouched over the telltale red patches in the snow.
Two days brought no respite from the constant return of the bloody scene to her mind. Ann could only hope that when they left the city tomorrow, as her father had announced, the haunting of her imagination would cease.
But first, courtesy required that she and her father stop by the Burbridges’ home.
Fairer than Morning Page 13
