Ashes in the Wind

by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

  Alaina looked at him for a long moment, and her decision formed with a finality of a door closing in her mind. There could be no yielding. Beyond this point, there was only freedom or death. Somehow she would find a way to kill either him or herself.

  “Do you think to convince me, sir, of your gentle manner?” she laughed.

  Jacques’s black eyes narrowed dangerously. He stepped toward her, drawing himself up to his full, stunted height.

  “I have warned you, mademoiselle, do not laugh at me.” The guttural backwater French crept into his voice.

  “Ahh. Jacques DuBonné! The gentleman always,” Alaina sneered and flung a further taunt full into his face. “You are unfit company for the gentlefolk, Mister DuBonné. And more’s the pity that you will never know why.”

  “I am Jacques DuBonné! The gen’l’man of New Orleans!” His face flushed crimson as his rage showed white around his eyes. He caught Alaina’s arm roughly and threw her away from the door. “I am Jacques Dubonné!” He jabbed a thumb at his richly garbed chest. “I come with nothing from up the river!”

  “From a backwater houseboat, most likely,” Alaina interjected, rubbing her arm and backing warily away from him.

  “And now I am rich! And own much of the city!”

  “Stole much of the city,” Alaina corrected sharply.

  “From the lazy and stupid who could not hold it!” Jacques raged on. “And from the blind Yankees who polished the buttons and prance the horse along the street. I play the game, and I beat them all! Me! Jacques DuBonné!”

  “You have never played your game with men, you arrogant fop. You played your game with old women, widows, and children.” Alaina carefully placed the table between them.

  Jacques’s eyes glittered hard in the dim light of the lamp, and his yellowed teeth showed in a ragged snarl as he slowly stalked her.

  “I have seen you belly-crawl too many times when you face a man,” Alaina goaded. “You are a miserable little man.”

  “Little man!” A hoarse screech twisted his face. He lunged forward, feinting to his left, then darting to his right to catch her arm as she fled. Jacques aimed a vicious slap at his tormentor’s head, but she ducked beneath it, and her heel came down on his instep. He gasped in pain, and she snatched free, leaving a shred of cloth in his grasp.

  “I will teach you, little bitch!” he wheezed as he limped after her. “You will crawl and call me Massah DuBonné like a good black sow.”

  “You betray yourself! You are a pig, with all the wallowing grace of one.” She whirled away, avoiding his rush. “You stumble over your fine leather boots,” she chided as he lurched around. “Are you more at ease barefoot in the mud?”

  They were like two wild animals half crouched, circling each other.

  “Do you think,” Alaina ground out deliberately, “that I will give myself to the likes of you—ever? Do you think you can get me alive to one of your filthy pigsty wallows? I served you mop and bucket well, sir, and if you come to me, I will serve you much, much more, you cackling little crow.”

  Jacques could stand no more. With a bellow of rage, he launched himself in a soaring leap and came down upon her, his arms flailing wildly. Alaina’s fist thrust up with every ounce of her strength and, though unaimed, the blow caught Jacques squarely in the groin. He sagged against her, his arms now clutching for support, his eyes wide and glazed as he gagged for breath. Alaina tried to push him off, and her hand slipped under his jacket beneath his left armpit. In reflex she grasped the smooth butt of the small derringer and, putting her shoulder against the man’s chest, pulled it free.

  Jacques felt her movement and, seeing the pistol, seized her wrist with his left hand. His attention was divided between the struggle and the sickening pain in the pit of his belly. Alaina twisted her wrist and sank her teeth into the base of his thumb until he screeched and jerked away, dragging her hand with his, unwilling to loose it for fear of his life. Both hands and the gun thudded solidly into the side of his head along his cheek, and the small derringer barked. A neat round hole appeared briefly in Jacques’s left ear before the blood gushed forth. He staggered back whimpering, until he realized he was still alive and only slightly harmed. Alaina struggled with the unfamiliar weapon, trying to flip the second barrel into place. It turned just as Jacques lifted the glass lamp from the table and held it high over his head as if to throw it. She snapped the barrel into place and, aiming at the light, closed her eyes and squeezed. The echoing report blended with the shattering of glass and a scream from Jacques.

  Alaina’s eyes flew open to see Jacques standing, his raised arm ablaze like a torch, with oil and glass flying everywhere. In the next instant Jacques’s entire side was aflame and he gave another shrill scream as he fell to the floor rolling, spreading flames in his wake. He came up against the cotton bale and, scrambling to his feet, wrapped his arm in the silk brocade to smother the fire that engulfed it.

  A look of deadly purpose came into his pain-twisted face. He ignored the flames that now covered half the room and, raising his left arm to the back of his neck, slowly drew out the long, thin stiletto.

  “You have won your dying place!” his strained hiss sighed over the roar of the fire. He moved toward her and Alaina raised the pistol again.

  “Have I not served you enough?”

  “It is empty!” His pain-tightened voice sneered. “Two shots—no more.”

  There was a shout from without, then a deafening crash as the thick, but age-weakened door splintered inward. Alaina and Jacques gaped in stunned surprise as a towering black shape rose from the floor. It was Saul!

  Alaina cried his name and saw, as he came to his feet, the unstirring form of Gunn sprawled motionless on the door. Jacques retreated quickly back through the flames as Saul stepped forward and, with a casual flip of his thick arm, reached out and hurled the table at the other. The stiletto flew from Jacques’s hand, and with an enraged scream, the man leaped atop the bale and hauled himself upward toward a small trapdoor between the massive rafters overhead.

  The smoke swirled chokingly into the chamber as the fire grew, testing the taste of other goods stacked against the walls. Saul caught Alaina’s hand and led her toward the door. Gunn moaned and stirred as they stepped over his body to dash down the narrow passageway. The corridor was lined with inert shapes of several more guards, but Saul paid them no mind. Pulling her along behind him, he charged up a flight of stairs and entered a large warehouse stacked to the rafters with row upon row of cotton bales, some labeled with the cryptic block letters “C.S.A.,” then crossed out and with new letters “U.S.N.” beneath. The wild tale had floated downriver when Porter’s fleet journeyed north as to how the Union navy came to be called the Cotton Stealing Association of the United States Navy. These were some of the bales that had caused the caustic comments.

  Saul mumbled a quick apology, then slipping an arm beneath Alaina’s trembling legs, laid her over his shoulder and ran. A flickering light began to grow behind them before they found the door and dashed through it. There were angry shouts, then a high-pitched voice screamed, “Find her! Find her! A thousand dollars for the one who brings her back!”

  “Huh!” Alaina grunted out between the long, jolting strides of Saul’s gait. “The—Yankees—offered—much more.”

  They raced along the top of a levee, the river on one side, a long row of warehouses on the other. After they passed several of these, Saul ducked into a narrow alley between two of them. Alaina gasped as he half sprinted, half leaped down the steeply sloping incline of the levee, and then they were in the runs and warrens of the black waterfront section of the city. Saul lowered her to the ground and they proceeded on more deliberately. They passed a board fence where someone had left a dark blanket to air. Saul snatched it down and spread it over Alaina’s shoulders, covering the light color of her dress and forming it into a cowl to hide the pale shape of her face.

  The hue and cry followed them, and they crouched beneath a low tin
shelter as Jacques’s men raced by. The pursuit grew distant, but now a new furor mounted. Flames licked high into the air from the roof of Jacques’s warehouse and dined with hungry vigor at the bales within. The clamor grew around the burning warehouse.

  Even Jacques’s toughs were loath to spend much time in the colored section, and groups of them muttered solemnly as they withdrew past the fugitives. After a while Saul led Alaina through the narrow alleys and streets to the house of his friend where he had left the horse.

  Alaina could not return to the Craighugh house, nor was Mrs. Hawthorne’s any longer a safe haven. Doctor Brooks was known about as her friend, and she would not do well hiding in the store. There was only one place where she could hide.

  The Craighugh household was in a dither when Saul returned. He explained that Alaina was safe and began to lay out the plan they had made. It was near midnight when Saul left the house, a satchel and a large bundle beneath his arm. He placed them in the rear of the buggy and mounted to the seat, clucking the horse into motion and going leisurely down the street, not seeming to notice the pair of men who followed at a discreet distance.

  When Saul was out of sight, Jedediah and Angus dragged a large steamer trunk out to the stable and placed it aboard the decrepit old wagon. A few moments later Jedediah drove the wagon around the front and headed off in a direction opposite the one Saul had taken. A man followed him also.

  Dulcie and Angus meandered casually over the grounds until they were sure no other lurking men remained, then steathily Angus eased open a narrow little-used gate behind the stable, and Dulcie’s eldest daughter, Cora Mae led Ol’ Tar through it and across the neighbor’s yard where she climbed to the nag’s back and, keeping to back roads and alleys, wound her way toward the hospital. The hour of midnight was striking on Doctor Brooks’s tall, grandfather clock when the housekeeper was roused by a persistent tapping on the rear door. Muttering dire threats about the lateness of the hour, the black woman slipped into her robe and opened the kitchen door to find a young negro girl patiently waiting.

  “Ah’s got a message for Doctah Brooks.”

  “Git yo’self ‘way from here, chile,” the housekeeper fretted. “Ah ain’ gonna wake the doctah dis time o’ night. Yo’ come back in the mornin’.”

  The woman closed the door, and the tapping resumed as before.

  “Ah is got a impo’tant message for the doctah,” the girl repeated as the door was snatched open again. “De massah done said ah is to gib it to him, and don’t let nobody put me off. Yo’ tell de doctah it’s about Miz Lainie.”

  The older woman glared down at the child and sputtered angrily. Cora Mae smiled and started over from the first.

  “Ah is got a impo’tant message for the doctah—”

  Even the half-asleep housekeeper could recognize determined persistence. “Ah know! You said that! You said that!” She shook her finger at Cora Mae. “Ah is gonna go tell the doctah, and if he doan say it’s impo’tant, ah is gonna come back here and whip yo’ blind.”

  Cora Mae waited patiently outside the open door, her hands folded in front of her as the housekeeper went grumbling off. A few moments passed, and a man’s voice sounded somewhere in the house, then a quick slip-slap of slippers coming down the stairs, followed by the disgruntled tones of the black woman.

  “Hmph! Chil’uns dese days ain’ got no respec’. Hauling de older folks outa dere beds at all hours.”

  The fussing stopped as the kitchen door swung open, and Doctor Brooks pushed through, trying to tie the belt of his robe with one hand while he settled his glasses in place with the other.

  “Come in, child. Come in,” he bade the girl, and when she had complied, he then asked, “What is it, Cora Mae?”

  The girl cast a leery eye toward the woman who had taken up a stance beside the hearth. “Ah ain’ s’pose to tell no one but you.”

  “It’s all right, Cora Mae.” Doctor Brooks looked over the top of his glasses at the housekeeper. “Tessie would only listen through the door. She knows everything that happens in this house anyway.”

  The black woman gave an injured sniff, but made no move to depart as Cora Mae drew a small envelope from her pocket and handed it to the doctor. He opened it, withdrew the key it held and stared at it blankly.

  “Dat is de key to—ah”—the girl rolled her eyes upward for a long moment— “Miz Roberta’s captain doctah—his—his place—down at the ‘Talba house.”

  Doctor Brooks raised his brows. “You mean Major Latimer’s apartment at the Pontalba place?”

  Cora Mae nodded vigorously. “Yassuh, dat’s what it’s for.”

  “And what does this have to do with Miss Alaina?”

  “W-a-a-l-l.” Cora Mae raised her hand, spread her fingers, and began to count off the points she had been told. “Miz Lainie, she say she ain’t mad ’bout the weddin’ no more—and she will do it wid”—the girl paused and looked up questioningly—“wid the lawman? But some man—” She moved on to the next finger. “Jack DeBone, I guess it were. He done caught Miz Lainie and got her in trouble.” Cora Mae moved back to the first finger, shook her head, then moved on to the third. “Miz Lainie say—or Saul say, Miz Lainie say—for you to come pick her up wid the key, and the two of you go to that Pon—Pon—where dat key fits—and wait dere inside.” Cora Mae moved to the fourth finger and stood in deep thought for a moment. “Dat’s right! Den Mistah Angus, he gonna bring de lawman—and de preacher man—and yo’ is gonna get de weddin’ done with.”

  The girl dropped her hands and held them behind her back, grinning broadly at the success of her mission, while Doctor Brooks tried to sort out the facts as he had just heard them and the housekeeper stared fixedly at the wall, muttering beneath her breath.

  Doctor Brooks looked at the key and began to repeat carefully, “Now let me get this straight—Miss Alaina wants to go through with the marriage—” Cora Mae pulled out her hands and began to tick off her fingers as the doctor continued. “Because Jacques DuBonné caught her and caused a lot of trouble. And I am supposed to take this key, pick up Miss Alaina, and go to Major Latimer’s apartment where we will meet Angus, the lawyer, and the minister.”

  The girl nodded her head, then suddenly her grin faded, and she stared down blankly at her still-raised thumb. “Yassah! Yassah!” She worried. “But dere’s somep’n mo’. I used all o’ dem when dey said it. Dey is somep’n mo’—” Her voice trailed off as she became lost in thought. Her audience waited with bated breath.

  “Oh!” The grin came back wider than before, and she proudly pushed the thumb down. “Miz Lainie is waitin’ up where dem—where dem hurt rebel soldiers used to be.”

  “In the hospital?” Doctor Brooks asked urgently. “In the old Confederate ward? Of course, I would have guessed it. You’ve done very well, Cora Mae, and I hope Miss Alaina—” he glanced again at his housekeeper who shook her head in confusion—“will answer any further questions I might have. But tell me, child, why did you come sneaking through all the shrubs to the back door?”

  “Saul say dat DeBone man gots a buncha white trash out on de streets, an’ dey is lookin’ fo’ Miz Lainie, and we is gots to be careful dey don’t find her.”

  “Very well, Cora Mae. Do you have a way home?”

  “Ah gots Ol’ Tar. He down the street a ways.”

  “Then go back home, and be just as careful as you were on the way here.”

  When the girl was gone, he turned to the housekeeper. “I’m going to get dressed. I’ll take a horse and buggy from the hospital stable. If anyone asks, tell them I was called out to the hospital.”

  PART TWO

  Chapter 26

  A light mist had settled on the river, mottling the surface of the water into a dull brownish gray and muting the autumn colors of the thick forests. Alaina leaned against the forward railing of the upper deck, letting her eyes skim over the panorama of this northern land as the packet slid through a jumbled, island-filled stretch of water. Low limestone blu
ffs began to grow on either side. Then, a darker current on the eastern bank slowly expanded until, beneath a high cliff, it became another river that spewed its clearer waters into the Mississippi. The tributary was the Saint Croix, she was informed, and another hour or so would see them to their destination.

  Once again, a riverboat carried her away from the smell of ashes and into a new phase of her life. Alaina could hardly deny a feeling of expectation, yet a sense of strangeness roamed restlessly within her. The awareness that she was now Cole Latimer’s wife burrowed down in her mind, leaving her nothing more than a thin facade of composure to mask her disquietude. The closer she came to her destination, the faster her thoughts churned in fretful turmoil, and a full night of restful sleep had slipped beyond her grasp. This morning she had risen before dawn after much tossing and turning, packed her few belongings, and thrust her wicker valise, along with the leatherbound case, into the larger steamer trunk wherein she had started her voyage. In deference to the light drizzle that threatened to continue, she had been reluctant to wear one of her better gowns for fear of having it ruined by the rain and mud. Instead, she had donned the reliable black dress with its newly added adornment of ecru lace. Her haste to be ready gained her nothing, for she had to wait out the remainder of the morning with only the changing countryside and her own thoughts to occupy her. She chafed, not with eagerness, but with something more akin to anxiety and dread. She had hoped to meet Cole with at least some semblance of dignity, but her appearance was far from being at its best. Rather, she feared that she might be mistaken for someone’s poor relation. Yet her Scottish blood would not allow her to subject any other item of her carefully replenished wardrobe to the elements for the sake of mere pride. The black bonnet and the homemade woolen cloak of Confederate gray served to protect her from the cold, damp wind even if it lent nothing to a stately grace.