“What ya wanna know?” Buck asked.
“What do I want to know? Well...everything you know, of course” she replied.
Buck repositioned the wad of tobacco. “Then sit yourself down. It’ll take me awhile.”
Katie sat and studied the photograph, Jesse laid down his paperwork, and Buck began:
“Back in the war between the states, I was a part of Company D, 7th Cavalry, camped near Nacogdoches. Me and Cyrus worked in an infirmary over there, but then they sent me south to the Texas coast where the action was. They turned me into a sniper. I did some things I never wanted to do, but I had no choice but to follow orders. I was young and strong and learned to be an expert rifleman. Cyrus McCann had been drafted with me, and he hated every minute he was at camp. His heart was at home on the plantation with his wife Lucinda, and he worried about her being there alone with so many men around and no family. Then too there were the Night Riders going around terrorizing the Unionists and even those uncommitted to any side.
He was so worried about Lucinda being alone, he bought her a shot gun for protection. Before he left, he took her out back and taught her to shoot. Besides that, he knew he had placed the worries of their cotton business on her shoulders. So finally he was allowed a furlough, just before the war ended, to tend to business back home.
I remained on the coast in the thick of things. Charlotte and my baby boy had been gone for four years, and I had nothing left to lose and nothing to go home to. One day, I got a letter from Cyrus. It was the only letter I ever received from anyone I could count as a true friend, and so it meant something to me. That’s why I saved it.”
Buck dug deeper into the box and retrieved a sheet of stationery so aged that the folds were almost worn into. He read aloud, as Jesse and Katie listened attentively.
July, 17, 1864
My Dear Friend Buck:
I need your help here at the plantation, as I am recuperating from the white leg. After receiving treatment, I expect to be well enough to return to camp with your help. Request that you take a short business furlough to square away the workers and assist in my return.
I remain your grateful friend,
Cyrus McCann
P.S. Enclosed are funds for your travel. I await your answer.
Buck’s eyes caught the spark of remembrance, and his gnarled hands tightened around the arms of his chair, as if bracing himself for an arduous journey back through time.
***
Without delay, Colonel Jameson signed Sgt. Colin Hennessy’s furlough on July 17. He liked the young soldier. He himself was from the same county and had been gone for a long time. While alone in his cot, the colonel , like Buck, dreamed of East Texas: the rolling hills dotted with wildflowers, fragrant, thick forests and slow muddy rivers meandering through the countryside like molasses. He missed the soft demure ladies who were unlike the camp followers with their hard eyes and painted lips. He missed the sound of mockingbirds singing every birds’ song and the sight of white tail deer frolicking in the meadows on crisp, frosty mornings. It seemed the copper haired young Irish–American standing at attention before him was one of his own kind.
“At ease, son,” Colonel Jameson ordered. “I’m approving your furlough, because I’m sympathetic to the cotton growers up there in the piney woods. All the same, you need to urge Lt. McCann to return with you when your furlough is up ,or risk being branded as a deserter. McCann is several days overdue. You’ve no doubt heard that the Night Riders hang deserters, and they’re highly active in East Texas.”
“We will return, sir. Cyrus is no deserter. Of that you can be sure. He’s been laid up and delayed, but he’s on the mend. Only the Grim Reaper himself could prevent his return. Of that I am sure!”
“Good enough. Here are your papers. You’ll take the next train to Galveston. There are men there with wagons. You can hire one of them to take you as far as Nacogdoches, but it’s a long ride and will take a few days. You can make it on your own from Nacogdoches to Morgan’s Bluff. Report back to me as soon as you return. I'll be relieved to see you. You're the best shot in this regiment. You never miss your mark.
By nightfall, on the twentieth, Buck finally set foot upon the rough red ribbon of clay called Diablo Road and laid eyes on the place he had called home for four years: McCann Plantation. It was a sight for sad weary eyes, with its lush fields sloping gently down to the bank of the Neches River and the rustic house looming tall against the backdrop of towering pines. In the night he could see the flicker of small bonfires between the cabins and hear the workers’ hearty laughter. He could smell the fragrance of smoldering pecan wood and roasting pork belly, and his mouth watered. He had forgotten when he had eaten a real meal. The men, most of whom he knew, offered him all he could eat, and he gladly accepted.
Then came the moment he had dreaded. He returned to the cabin where he and Charlotte had spent their first and only year as husband and wife. Inside, the moonlight cut hard edged shadows against the bare bones of the cabin. By oil lamp he surveyed the austerity of what had been his life: a rocker, the bed still spread with Charlotte’s Wedding Ring quilt, a rusting iron pot still hanging in the fireplace, the unused crib he had made for his baby.
It was late, and choosing not to awaken Cyrus and Lucinda at the main house, Buck prepared for a night in his lonely little home. No breeze stirred through the open windows, and the heaviness of the air lay on him like a hot, wet blanket. After an hour of tossing about on the narrow bed, he tugged on his trousers and rode horseback to Caney Creek to take a good cool soak.
The trickling clear water was invigorating on his bare skin, and for a moment he could shut out everything: that memories of his dead wife and son and the war that set neighbor against neighbor and brother against brother. Before the war broke out, he had sided with neither Unionists nor Secessionists. How he regretted being responsible for killing men who had done him no harm—men whose faces he could not forget but whose names and histories he would never know. Yet it had been a matter of kill or be killed, and it was only then that he knew he wanted to live.
Sgt. Colin Hennessy was no coward, but he was losing the heart to fight. The war had begun to gnaw at his soul, until he feared there was little left for the hereafter. Sometimes he dreamed that Charlotte waited for him behind Heaven's portal, but the gate was locked. He was turned away by faceless Union soldiers.
At that moment, no dream troubled him. He pulled himself up from the creek and lay down in the grass, where his skin dried in the hot southerly wind. He drifted off for some time and was awakened by the thundering of horses’ hooves across Deadman’s Bridge. Night Riders were out, riding the county, hunting down deserters. He thought of Cyrus and the warning given by Col. Jameson, and he scrambled for his horse.
When he finally arrived at the plantation, he dismounted quickly as Phoebe Monet, Lucinda’s cook, ran to him with Baby Thomas bouncing on her hip. Her black eyes were unnaturally bright, and her face was a dramatic muse of tragedy in the yellow glow of her lantern.
“Mr. Hennessy. Night Riders finally got him!”
“What?”
“They’ve murdered Cyrus. Jonathan Bonney and his bunch did it, I do believe. Some folks say Bonney’s the leader of those heathens, you know. None of us saw it happen, but they left Cyrus’ body on the tree. My Louis found him. A picker saw him there and said he took the body someplace safe until tomorrow. I wish it hadn't been him. All because he’s Haitian Creole and from Louisiana, he's trusted by no one.”
Buck’s felt a cold chill, despite the muggy heat of summer. What more could happen? It seemed Jonathan Bonney had everything figured out. Buck thought of the day of the funeral four years ago, when Bonney and his group came calling on the McCanns. He remembered the longing in Jonathan’s eyes as he surveyed Cyrus’ fertile land and lovely but infertile wife. How far would the man go to hold what his eyes had already touched?
“How long ago ?” Buck asked.
“Seems like forever...but tw
o, three hours, and Louis is still gone. Somebody will say it was him.”
“I have nothing to say against your man. All the same, no matter how bad it looks on anyone, I'm obliged to report it to the sheriff, and he will ask questions. Now take me to the dogwood, so I can view the body for myself.”
“How did you know it was the dogwood?”
Buck thought for a moment and remembered Charlotte’s dream and knew it had been destined to be that particular tree. “Doesn't matter how I know. Take me there now.”
Phoebe turned her head to stare at something in the darkness. Following her line of vision, Buck saw Louis Monet moving into the circle of light, creeping stealthily in from the shadows like a sleek panther. When he spoke there was a thick archaic French accent in his speech. “You will not see the body.”
“Why not?” Buck asked him.
Now Louis was close enough for Buck to see fear in his eyes. “Phoebe, you say no more now. Toujou! When you left to fetch Minna, I took the good wagon and carried the body away. I trust you both will say nothing. Don’t ask to see the body. I placed it where no one can find it...ever. I cannot tell you why, but I had no choice...paplis!”
“You have no choice but to tell me. Where'd you put the body, man?”
“Don’t ask me anything about Cyrus, or anything about tonight-not if you are my friend and wish to keep me alive.”
Buck felt bile rising in his throat. “My Lord. What have you done?”
Before he could think better of it, Buck slammed his fist into Louis' stomach with such force the man lost his wind, staggered backwards and fell. Louis looked up in amazement. “Are we not friends?”
“We are. That’s why I did it. If you didn’t kill Cyrus, why’d you hide the body? Did someone force you to do this? What you did was a sacrilege.”
“There’s things you don’t know nor would you understand. I say no more. I’ve already said too much, but I had to explain that much at least. The other pickers saw me take him down from the tree. I can’t deny that.”
“You broke the law,” said Buck. “I'm gonna have to report the lynching. Now what do I tell them about the body?”
“It was not me who killed Cyrus McCann, and I can’t tell the sheriff anything else, no matter how rough it gets. Better to remain silent and stay alive.”
“Cyrus deserved a proper Christian burial. Don’t you have any scruples? Now I’m asking one last time. Where did you hide the body?”
Louis' eyes grew unnaturally bright, like a cornered animal. “You know I can not say.”
“What if a wild critter drags him up?”
“He is someplace where no wolves or coyotes can get at him and no man will ever find him.” As the impact of what he had done finally hit, his voice broke. He dropped his head into his big calloused hands, and Phoebe started to cry, and the sound set off Baby Thomas.
Buck shook Louis gently. “Stop it now. Listen to me. No matter what the pickers say, no matter what town folk will believe, I don’t think you could kill anybody. At the same time, I’ve never known the riders to force anybody to hide their victims’ bodies, but maybe that’s what happened. Lots of folks know they were out tonight. If they forced you, the law can protect you, if you only tell them what happened. Now I need to know about Cyrus’ widow. What does Lucinda know, and where is she?”
“I do not speak for her. She must speak for herself,” Louis said.
Phoebe spoke up. “She’s locked up in her room, so she can't do herself no harm. I took a wagon up there to that full-blood Minna and brought her to the house to tend to her. Lucinda took a whole bottle of laudanum. All she would say is ‘Cyrus left. He left the Confederacy, and he left me too.’ But I knew better. That man was in no shape to go anywhere. His leg busted open like a watermelon left afield in August.”
“His wife had to know what happened tonight.”
She says she was upstairs asleep, and Cyrus was downstairs going over business receipts. She says she didn’t see or hear what happened.
Buck knew nothing more could be settled. “Y’all go on now, and get some things together. Take one of the wagons, and I’ll deal with whatever happens here. You’re both free. Now get out of here, before I have to report this in the morning. Mr. McCann signed for your freedom, and so did Mr. Lincoln...and a war was fought toward that end.”
Louis Monet raised his hands, palms up in a sign of helpless surrender. “Free? You think that word counts for anything? I have no place to go and no place to hide.”
Buck grabbed him. ”Listen to me. Leave here tonight, before daybreak. Take the baby and Phoebe and go stay in my grandpa's old house in the thicket. It's two miles east of Blue Hole as the crow flies, just this side of the county line. The house has been vacant nigh on to twenty years.”
“But how do we live out in those bushes? What do we eat?” Phoebe asked.
“Have you been so well provided for that you can’t survive on your own? The woods are full of game. I’ll bring you a rifle, Louis. But go easy with the ammunition. Kill only when you need food. There’s plenty fish in the Neches and clean drinking water in the spring. I keep up the vegetable patch there, so now that privilege belongs to you.”
“You don’t need to bring me a rifle,” Louis said. “ My shotgun will serve well enough for protection, and I'm an expert fisherman. Someday we may return, but do not expect it, my friend.”
After a moment of silence, Louis Monet, the Haitian Creole and Colin “Buck” Hennessy, the Shanty Town Irishman, reforged their bond with a handshake. Buck slapped Louis on the back and bid him farewell: “Go now, and may God protect you...and may God rest the soul of Cyrus McCann.”
The memories Buck edited in the telling, one by one. There was one thing Buck left out, and that was where the Monet family fled that night. Only under extraordinary circumstances would he give the location. Otherwise, there would still be someone who wanted the man punished, even after fifty-seven years. Yet he knew the secret was ready to demand release, because once that door had cracked open, he had no right to close it.
***
Buck let go of the past, and that long ago night of grief and horror retreated. It was 1921 again, and he found himself old and crippled. The Civil War was long over, and with it, all the misdeeds and tribulations—except for the unsolved murder of Cyrus McCann. There had to come a kind of resurrection, as surely as if the man’s spirit could rise from its grave—wherever that might be. And if he examined his heart, he might find that the need for that cleansing was stronger than his need to protect one man.
No longer the young and fearless soldier, Buck fumbled for his cane, hauled himself up, and turned to Jesse, a man who was not only like his own son but the nephew of Cyrus, his first real friend: “So now you know why Tobi didn’t see Cyrus’ headstone in that old graveyard. It may be that nobody’s ever gonna find the remains.”
Buck leaned forward to his rapt audience, as if what he was about to share had beleaguered him for a very long time: “Cyrus told me, before we went to war, that if something should ever happen to him, to go into his attic and find his private journal and his will and documents. He said he’d hidden everything in a box full of old books, and one of ‘em contained all his important papers pressed between the pages. He said it’d be the one book I'd never think to open. That’s what he told me. I never had the chance to find anything. When Jonathan paid the back taxes and took up with Lucinda, I never again set foot in the same house where I’d spent many happy times. The old warrior stood to lean on his cane and test his balance. “Jesse, you do what you need to do with what I told you. It's in your hands. Memories have drained this old man’s spunk, and I’m all tuckered out. Let’s give it a rest for another time, Katie.”
It seemed to Jesse that a house, an old plantation and the people connected to it, past and present, had become a magnetic vortex drawing his family into its center. There was a truth that had chosen them to set it free. He decided to find whatever his uncle had hidden in that
house if the opportunity presented itself
First, he wanted to know more about its caretaker who had threatened his son, and there was one person in all of Morgans Bluff who knew about everything and everybody.
6: Where Secrets Are Kept
Jesse went to find the man with the answers. He had heard rumors of a speakeasy called “The Gentleman's Literary Club”, an oasis in an era when the selling of alcohol had become illegal. The East Texas Ladies Temperance Society had long marched against the prolific saloon trade in Morgans Bluff, and they, along with others nationwide, were at last victorious. Or so they thought.
There was just one little snag to the activists’ unmitigated joy: the age old human obsession with the forbidden, starting when Adam caved in to temptation and bit into that apple. So, although Percy’s Saloon was shut down, faithful patrons would find a new “watering hole” regardless of the law. Some who never touched a drop began to imbibe on the sly, simply because they were told they couldn’t. Before long, the townsfolk were consuming rot-gut brew produced in stills so far back in the thicket, seasoned law men got lost in the search.
The lobby of the Excelsior Hotel had been transformed into the Book Emporium, as a cover for an illegal club in a secret room upstairs. From the street, it seemed like just another empty boarded up second floor above a bookstore. Access was no simple matter. It began with a hike up the back staircase armed with a secret password.
So it came to be that Jesse found himself outside that door to the inner sanctum, after ferreting out a mill worker who knew the code. Jesse had not come to partake. He had come looking for the town’s most prolific gossiper who had been absent from the bench outside the barber shop. The password worked, the door opened, and he stood face to face with Mr. Clancy, the retired town barber. The round little man stared dumbfounded for a moment before finding his voice: “Where did you, of all people, get the password to a dive like this?”
House on Diablo Road: Resurrection Day (The McCann Family Saga Book 3) Page 4
