The Rebel Wife (31 page)

“I’m going with you, Simon,” I say, and I reach for his arm. “I want to go.”

He looks at me and shakes his head but doesn’t answer me. The money must be at the mill. If it’s not in the house and not at the mill, then Judge must have it. We will know tonight and then we will leave.

“How could John do such a thing?” I ask. “And for Judge? Rachel hates Judge.”

Simon snorts again and looks at me out of the corner of his eye. We are behind the carriage house, and he pulls back on the horse and puts on the brake. He turns to me, the reins clenched in a tight fist.

“Miss Gus, who do you think John’s loyalties are to? To you? To any white folks? No, ma’am. He’s got a boy and a wife, and he’s going to do whatever he needs to do to protect them. Even if that means doing Judge’s dirty work. He’s going to do what he needs to do.”

“Yes, of course. John must look out for his family. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. I suspected it. I thought something strange was going on—even that day Judge came and told you about Eli’s will. I should have known then.”

He lets go of the reins, and they slip over the dashboard and trail in the dirt behind the horse.

“I should have known then. I didn’t think it was possible, either. I should have known in this world we’re in, anything is possible. We all act from fear and hate, Judge included. This place has been whipped and kicked to pieces, with all the people in it.”

He steps down from the carriage and heads into the barn, leaving me in my seat. He is frustrated and scared. We have waited too long to leave.

We will go to the mill tonight. I will go with Simon whether he likes it or not. We will find the money, and then we will leave. We must leave either way.

CARPETBAGS ARE PACKED, AND
Emma is making corncakes and boiling the last of the eggs. I know we will find the money. Simon agrees it will be better to travel in darkness as long as we can. We will go to my cousin Mary Lee in Winchester and from there we will see. Simon will go to Nashville. If we have the money, we will see where I go.

Dresses are everywhere. I can only take a few. Henry’s things do not take up much room. We will be back someday. I will miss this room. This house. There does not seem to be much order in the streets. The police have fled with no one to take their place. The house may be empty when we come back. The stories we heard about Athens during the war. We were all terrified. Women were violated and their homes set on fire right over their heads, everything stolen. But we will get out. Simon and I will get us out.

The door opens suddenly. Emma comes in with wide eyes. My God, she made me nearly jump out of my skin.

“It’s Mr. Judge and Mr. Buck, ma’am. They seem awfully excited.”

They have come.

Emma leaves without closing the door. My reflection in the washstand mirror is disheveled. My face is beaded with sweat and my hands are dirty. The water from the ewer is warm. What could they want here? Are they here for the money?

The case of bonds is on the floor near the door. I grab a fistful and fold them, putting them in my pocket. They are so large that the edges and half-cut coupons spill out of the pocket and rustle against my dress. Walking down the stairs makes them even louder.

Father and son. They are standing side by side near the front door, watching me. The light floods in behind them. Judge is huffing, looking into the parlor to see who else is around. He doubtless has something to say, but I am not in a mood to listen to his twisted truth. The bonds feel coarse and cheap between my fingers. They bulge from my pocket. My dowry, these were. My price.

“Leave it to Augusta to check her dress when the world collapses,” Judge snarls. He steps forward, and I look at him evenly without any welcome. Buck remains back, as if he is a spectator. “What’s the meaning of all this? Why are you still here?”

“The trains aren’t running, Judge. We are preparing to leave with the carriage to meet Bama.”

“I know the trains aren’t running! You could have left before now! Bama Buchanan is already in Huntsville. The army is moving in. The governor has declared a military quarantine. You won’t be able to go anywhere in your carriage. My God, Gus, what a simpleton you can be.” His face is red and his voice is high. He holds his cane in his hand and shakes it at me as he speaks. Buck has not moved. He watches with dark, nervous eyes.

“Did your informer tell you that?” I look steadily into Judge’s ice-blue eyes. He blanches and takes a step back. I am not afraid of him. I know who he is.

“What do you mean? Jeff Sprague told me before he took his family to Stevenson. You should be in Huntsville with Bama. Don’t you know there are people dying in this town? Jesus Christ, we’re all three of us lucky we’re not dead.” His face starts to color again.

“But we’re not. We’re here. And if what you say is true, we can’t go anywhere.”

The stiff paper rustles in my pocket, and Judge’s eyes follow the sound and then move swiftly back to my face. He knows about the money. His glance says that he is looking for it. And the list. The list of men Eli was bribing. That would be more important to Judge than the money. Simon said they had the money, but maybe they don’t have it. Judge’s accusations and the high pitch of his voice. He is looking for that list. Perhaps he thinks the paper in my pocket is the money. He must wonder what it is.

“There are still ways out,” he says. He wants me to leave Albion. “I can cable the governor. I will see what we can do.” His voice is hard. He looks back at Buck, who nods agreement. His eyes dart to the papers in my pocket.

“How can they put the whole town under quarantine?” I ask. “After Dr. Greer said we were all safe. Was that another lie?”

“Greer is dead, Augusta,” Judge says. “So anything he might have said can at this point be ignored.”

My God, Greer is dead. Dead like Jennie’s husband.

“Yes.” Judge’s voice is like a brass bell. “In the early-morning hours, he died. His wife died a few hours before him. Now do you take me seriously?”

“And for what?” I say to myself.

“What? What do you mean for what?”

“All those lies just to keep the mill open. We should all have been gone from here long ago.”

“May I remind you that you were particularly interested in the continued operation of the mill. If he did it for anyone, he did it for you. The blood is on your hands.” He is venomous, like a white snake.

“No, that’s not true,” I say. “You wanted this. You made this happen.”

“It is on your hands,” he hisses again. His eyes move back to my pocket. “What is that?” He points with his cane. “Where did you get that money? What did you do with the money I gave you?”

The bonds. They crackle as I pull them slowly out of my pocket. “These?” I ask. “These are old bonds. Don’t you recognize them?”

“Confederate bonds?” He steps forward, his hand out.

“Yes, I found a case of them. In Pa’s old trunk. There are thousands of dollars. All in that trunk in the attic.”

Judge’s eyes narrow, and his cheeks go red. “In this house?” he asks. He is lying. His voice has a forced edge. He insists on playing this pantomime.

“Yes, upstairs. They were Mama’s bonds, but I didn’t bring them into the house. Mama gave them to
you
, didn’t she? To sell to Eli. Did you sell them to him?”

Judge takes another step forward and tears the bonds from my hands. He shuffles through them, his eyes roving over the faded text printed on cheap paper with cheap ink. He looks at the denominations and the dates. He shakes his head. “Filth. Wasted filth.” He throws them on the floor at my feet, and they scatter like leaves across the carpet.

“You didn’t always think they were filth, did you?”

His eyes are blazing blue fire. His face turns dark red.

“I think Eli must have compensated you quite well for them. More than they were worth. I always wondered how you held on to your land while we lost ours. What else did you give him, Judge, to save your fortune? What else did you bribe him with to save yourself?”

I hear a snap, like someone breaking a piece of wood. Or was it the sound of Judge’s cane as he passed it from his right hand to his left? His eyes are raging, and he snorts from his nose in disgust. I look at him steadily as he takes a step toward me. I cannot think what he intends. He couldn’t mean to strike me. But his right hand goes up in the air, and I watch it as if everything has slowed and the hand must be moving swiftly. I can count the seconds as it falls down upon me, against my face. He hits me so hard against my cheek that I am thrown off my feet and back against the stairs.

Everything is black except for the feel of that slap, that hand on me. My head bangs against the carpeted steps, and it is dark. Just a brief second of darkness, and then my senses come back and there is an ache on my head and my face is throbbing. The outline of his hand stings on my cheek. He is over me, threatening me with his cane. Spittle flies from his mouth.

“Enough of this, girl. Enough of this attitude from you. You’d better learn your place. Now tell me where your servants are.” He is glowering at me, and I am afraid he will hit me again. I shake my head and he growls. He reaches out with his right hand and takes my face with it, holding me tightly under the chin and forcing me to look at him. His eyes are ice blue and so full of hate that I cannot speak. He is so close that his poisonous breath fills my nostrils.

“Answer me, girl,” he hisses, shaking my head with his hand. “Where are your servants?”

“Emma—” I begin, but he shakes me again.

“Not Emma or that nigger manservant. The others.”

“They’re—they’re gone,” I choke. “They’re gone to Kansas.” He lets me go, and I gasp in air, turning on my side, trying to turn away, to pull myself up the stairs away from him.

Judge looks back at Buck and he almost heaves. He seems to choke, but he doesn’t cough, just shudders in a series of spasms. The breath comes out of him in hacking convulsions.

“Pa, are you all right?” Buck rushes forward to him, taking him by the arm.

“I’m fine,” Judge says in a croak. “Take your hands off me.” He swings his arm up, pushing Buck back, and he teeters to the door, holding his cane. “You best leave Albion, Augusta,” he calls back as he stalks out the door. “It’s not safe for you and your boy here.”

Buck watches him go. He turns to me with his mouth open. He shakes his head at me. “God damn it, Gus. What in the hell is wrong with you?” He takes long steps toward me. His fists are tight against his thighs.

I hold the spindles of the stair rail, pulling myself up on the bottom step. The crumpled bonds litter the floor in front of me. My jaw throbs with each beat of my heart. Buck squats in front of me.

“What’s gotten into you?” His brows knit together as if he is my father, admonishing me for my behavior.

All I can do is draw in my breath. My hand grazes my cheek to feel the pressure from Judge’s fist.

“Pa wants to help you, but everything he does, you just throw it back in his face. You should have left town days ago.” He reaches for my hand and takes it in his. He squeezes it, but I pull it away from him. He looks at me hard. “You’d better do what Pa says.”

My whole body feels like stone. There is no pain, just the weight of this awareness. It bears down on me like something I’ve always been afraid of but could never see. He was always there, but he was never who I believed him to be. None of them is. I am not who I was ten years ago.

“Neither you nor Judge can make me leave this house against my will. I’ll go when I want.”

“Trust me, Gus,” he says. “You should go.”

He stands and walks out, leaving the front door wide open. A large whitewashed X is coarsely painted across it.

My knees are trembling. I pull myself up by the railing. My head is spinning.

Simon comes from the dining room.

“What a coward Buck is,” I say.

“I’m sorry,” Simon says. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stop that.”

I shake my head. “That was not the time. They would have killed you if you’d tried.”

“Are you hurt?” He steps toward me, his eyes looking hard into mine. He is so worried.

“They haven’t found the money, Simon. I know they haven’t found it.”

THE HOUSE IS DARK
and deadly quiet, like the town. The silence is interrupted by distant gunshots or breaking glass, as if we are under siege. Yet there are no shells, no people on the streets. The army is posted at all the roadways, keeping people in at bayonet point. We have locked ourselves in the house until full darkness, when we will go to the mill—as long as the back trails are not guarded as tightly as the main roads.

We are hidden away in the rear parlor. The lamps are out for fear of attracting attention. Simon believes the marauders avoid houses with a white X. He said the burials have stopped and there is a trench at the edge of town. He saw it on his nighttime search of the neighborhood. He said he is telling me everything, but I think there is much he is not telling me.

Emma’s fire is roaring. She said it must be as hot as we can stand it to keep the fever off, so we sit around the blaze, sweating in the stuffy heat of the closed room. Henry is sleeping in fits. His head is on Emma’s lap, his damp blond hair clinging to his forehead and temples.

The firelight flickers across the four of us. How are Rachel and John and their boy? Where are they now? Did they make it to Nashville? Or perhaps they’re in Murfreesboro or Shelbyville, pushing their way north to Kansas and their freedom. Where should we be if we had left this morning?

The blue bottles are upstairs. I hold my knees and rock gently, watching the fire. I will not take any, not with Simon and Emma watching—not ever again. We sit together on the floor. Our breathing combines into a long sighing whisper punctuated by the crackling fire and the ticking of the wall clock. We are listening so closely for sounds from outside. Simon says the army will come in eventually, after the worst is past, but for now we are left as if we are in the middle of a desert.