Love and War: The Coltrane Saga, Book 1 (13 page)

“Well, most young ladies…”

“Most young ladies make me sick,” she snapped, “I told you before, Nathan, I love medicine. I love helping sick people. You find that shocking, but I don’t. Women have the right to do what they want with their lives, just as men do.”

He shook his head in wonder. “I…I guess you have a point, Kitty.”

She stood up, the necessary supply of poppy heads in her basket. “I know I do. My father agrees with me.” And she began to blink back tears as she thought of the condition he was in.

Hurrying back to the house, she sat down at the kitchen table with Kate to extract the opium from the poppies. Nathan watched as they used a large-sized sewing needle to pierce the bulbs, catching the opium gum in a cup.

They finished their chore and Doc came in to finish making the laudanum. “Go sit by your father,” he told Kitty. “If he wakes up, I want you to get your mother out of there. No telling what she’s liable to do—probably start lambasting him for helping those runaways.”

Nathan went with her, and she was grateful for his presence—and his strength when she needed it. They stared down at John’s body, covered in deep cuts surrounded by purple and blackened trenches of torn flesh. There was one deep cut that looked as though the very tip of the whip had slashed right into his eye, and the eyelid was puffed out in a fleshy, swollen bag of broken blood vessels and bruised skin.

“He’s going to lose the sight in the eye,” Kitty said with painful resignation. “He’s going to be blind in that left eye.”

“Maybe not,” Nathan said, patting her shoulder to give her comfort. “Maybe when the swelling goes down, it will be all right. He is going to have some bad scars, though.” He shook his head as his eyes swept over the mutilated body.

Kitty’s head snapped up at the sound of approaching horses. “Someone’s coming…” She started to get up, but Nathan pushed her back down.

“I’ll see who it is.” He crossed to a window and peered out, then, giving her an anxious look said, “Kitty, it’s my father.”

She leaped to her feet, face flooding with the redness of anger. “How dare he come here? Everyone knows he’s one of them…probably the leader.”

“No, you don’t know that’s true,” he said quickly. “That’s only a rumor, Kitty. No one knows who the Vigilantes are. I don’t believe he’d be here if he were a part of this, and, besides, he was asleep at home last night, just as I was.”

She could hear voices through the closed slat door—the solicitous tone of Aaron Collins—the gushing voice of her mother who had a special voice she used around those she considered “society folk”.

Kitty opened the door and stepped out, lips set in a tight line. Aaron turned and bowed slightly, resplendent in a fashionable black coat, his pleated shirt topped by the widest and most elegant of black cravats. He wore mustard-colored trousers, and his boots were polished to a glossy sheen. He looked at her with eyes that reminded her of Nathan, his salt-and-pepper hair curling about his ears the way Nathan’s did. But there the resemblance of father and son ended. She prayed that the man she loved could never be as ruthless as his father.

“Miss Kitty, I came here to tell you how it grieved me to hear of the unfortunate beating your father suffered at the hands of the Vigilantes. All of the county is upset that such a thing has happened. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Oh, that’s kind of you…” Lena gushed.

Kitty cut her off by snapping, “Do you really expect me to believe you are grieved, Aaron Collins, when it was your slaves my father was helping to escape?”

“Surely you don’t think
I
had anything to do with this?”

“I only know my father might die because of those murdering bastards,” she cried angrily. “And I know everyone says you are the leader of the Vigilantes. How can you have the gall to come here and pretend sympathy?” She was shaking in her wrath, and Nathan stepped forward to clamp steadying hands on her shoulders.

“Believe me,” Aaron spoke quietly. “I was home in my bed asleep when the screaming of the slaves woke me up. By the time Nathan and I got to the cabins, Willie was dead, and the girl called Jenny terribly beaten.” His voice lowered as he added, “She died this morning. They haven’t found the baby.”

Kitty gasped, turning her face away as she blinked furiously to keep the tears back. She would not let them see her cry.

“I would suggest,” she said, mustering composure as she turned back to face him, “that you send your men out to search for the Vigilantes and see that they are charged with murder, since you pretend to be so concerned by all that has happened.”

“My men are already out asking questions,” Aaron assured her. “It was not anyone’s place to pursue the runaways but mine, since they belonged to me. And it was certainly not their place to kill them.”

Through the partially closed door, the sound of John’s anguished moaning reached them. “I must go to my father,” Kitty said. “Excuse me.” And she turned and went back into the bedroom, closing the door tightly behind her.

Doc was already there, ready with the laudanum he hoped would ease the pain. He lifted John’s head with one hand, spooning in the thick liquid with the other. John swallowed, and Doc lowered his head back to the pillow.

“Poppa, can you hear me?” Kitty asked anxiously. “You’re here at Doc’s, and we’re going to take care of you. You’re going to be all right.”

“…tried to kill me…” he whispered so low they had to bend their heads to hear the words being forced through swollen, purple lips. “…passed out, and they kept…beating me…”

“John, you need to rest,” Doc spoke firmly. “You need to build up your strength. You’re hurt bad…”

“…goin’ to kill them…” he whispered. “So help me, God…I’ll get them.”

“Poppa, hush now,” Kitty cried, her heart constricting with pain.

Doc forced down another spoonful of laudanum. “…my dog…” John moaned then, remembering. “…Killer.”

“He’s going to be all right,” Kitty told him, remembering Jacob telling them about the old hound when they had returned to get Lena. “Jacob says he’ll be fine.”

He closed his eyes, sighed, and grew very still. She looked at Doc anxiously, who nodded. “He’s just asleep. The laudanum should knock him out for several hours, and he needs his rest. That’s what’s going to save him, honey—rest and getting his strength back so those wounds will heal. We’ll keep watch to make sure if infection does set in, we’re ready. Now why don’t you let Nathan take you home so you can get some sleep? You’ve been up all night, and you’re starting to show signs of wear. It won’t do your daddy any good if you collapse. And I’d like to get your mother out of here, too. She’s no good to anybody with that constant harping of hers.”

Kitty nodded. She had no intentions of going home to stay, however. But she would take Lena there and leave her.

Returning to the hallway, she saw her mother on the porch bidding goodbye to Aaron Collins. She came inside as Nathan hung back to speak privately to his father. Kitty wondered what that was all about. Then Lena was standing in front of her, eyes shining as she said, “He had nothing to do with all this, Katherine, and he’s so upset by it that he wants to make up for the way he’s been feeling toward you. He says he’ll have no objections in the future to Nathan courting you.”

“Oh, Mother, you didn’t say anything to him about that!” Kitty was mortified.

“I certainly did,” Lena was belligerent. “I have a right as your mother to be concerned about your future. I still have hopes that you and Nathan will get married, and when that happens, you’ll thank me for everything I’ve done.”

“I’ll thank you to stay out of my life and let me run it.” Suddenly she felt very weary and tired. “Look, we’re going home now. Doc has given Poppa something to make him sleep for a long time. There’s no point in you being here to get in the way. People will be coming soon for Doc’s regular office hours, anyway, so we need to get home and see to things there.”

Lena’s lips tightened. “Folks will wonder why I’m not at my husband’s side…”

“They’ll know you need your rest, too, besides, some of your neighbors might be calling on you once they hear what’s happened.”

Her mother’s eyes glittered with excitement. “That’s true. I’ll need to have some pie and coffee to serve them, and I’d better get home and get to baking.”

Kitty shook her head and sighed. Only her mother would turn such a happening into a social gathering. They moved onto the porch, and she told Nathan they were ready to go home. “As soon as I get Mother settled, I’ll ride back with you so I can look after Poppa. Kate will be needed to help Doc with his patients when they start coming in.”

Her mother hurried inside, and Nathan and Kitty ran to the barn to check on Killer’s condition. The old dog lay in a corner on a pile of straw, Jacob sitting beside him looking sad and dejected. “He going to be all right,” Jacob told them. “Got a bad place on his head that’ll take some time to heal, but he gonna live. You tell Mastah John that. He’ll want to know about his dog…”

Kitty told him that John had already awakened and asked about him, and Jacob nodded quietly and said, “I’m gonna keep on prayin’, Miss Kitty. Your pappy’s too fine a man to die. We need him…”

“Yes, Jacob, we do need him, and God isn’t going to let him die.” Blinking back tears, she let Nathan lead her from the barn to where his stallion was waiting.

He mounted the horse, then pulled her up behind him. “I really should change clothes,” she said dully, “but I want to get back to Poppa.”

“You’re fine as you are,” he assured her, starting the horse off in a gentle gait. “I’ll come back this afternoon and get some fresh clothes for you. That way you won’t have to be around your mother anymore today.”

“That will be a relief.” She almost laughed.

It was a clear, beautiful day, despite the chill of the air. A thin coating of frost covered the fields, and patches of ice could be seen in the water that ran in the ditches alongside the road. Kitty shivered as the wind rushed at them, cutting into her. Nathan felt her chill and spurred the horse into a faster gait.

Ahead, the path that led alongside the creek and into the negro cemetery loomed up at them. Impulsively, Kitty squeezed Nathan and cried, “Nathan, turn down that path. Let’s go back to the cemetery, and maybe we’ll find something that will tell us who was in on it.”

“Now, Kitty, there’s no need…”

“Please! If you don’t, I’ll jump off this horse and go on foot.”

Knowing she meant it, he reined the horse to turn into the brush-shrouded path. Low-hanging branches slapped at them, and they were forced to move slowly along a path that was used only rarely by slaves burying their dead—and they usually made the journey on foot, carrying the wooden box that served as a coffin upon their shoulders.

The trip into the woods had probably been even more difficult last night, Kitty thought, but she hadn’t noticed—intent on finding her father.

They moved along the creek, where the brush was trampled by the hooves of many horses. “See!” Kitty pointed excitedly. “We didn’t notice in the dark last night how the weeds are all trampled. The Vigilantes rode in here.”

“They probably came down the creek,” Nathan commented. “It would’ve been easier riding at night than through the woods. The creek runs all the way from the woods in back of your place, remember?”

She nodded.

They came to the cemetery. Kitty felt her spine tingle as she looked at the sight before her—crude, rotting, makeshift crosses that the slaves used to mark the graves of their dead. In several places the ground was sunken and caved-in where the crosses stood, evidence of the fulfillment of the Good Book’s proclamation of “ashes to ashes…dust to dust”. Wincing, she saw splinters of wood sticking up out of one of the gaping holes—and a glimmer of white bone.

“Don’t they ever come here and fill these graves in?” she whispered, not really knowing why she felt it necessary to lower her voice.

“Periodically,” Nathan answered drily, himself moved by the awesome sight. “They don’t dig the graves very deep to start with, and sometimes if they’re real poor, they don’t even put the body in a coffin—just wrap it in a shroud. Let a hard, soaking rain come along, and it doesn’t take long for the body to rot and the ground to cave in. They’ll be coming here in a day or two to bury Willie and Jenny, and they’ll see what shape the place is in and do something about it.”

Ahead of them loomed the massive oak tree, and from one of its lower branches swung the remnants of the rope where John had been found swinging, half-dead. Kitty stared at it, transfixed as thoughts of the horrors that had taken place here moved through her mind.

Nathan reined his horse to a halt, got down, then turned to help Kitty dismount. She walked to the spot and swallowed hard, swaying momentarily as she pointed to the ground nearby. “Blood,” she said in a choked voice, “and there…” She pointed to the tree trunk, where bits of flesh and dried clots of blood clung to the rough bark. “They tied him there to beat him before they hung him.”

Nathan was beside her to hold her and give her strength, but she pushed him away, eyes intent upon the ground, around the tree, searching for any kind of a clue to the identity of the Vigilantes.

But she found nothing.

“Kitty, you didn’t expect to find anything, did you?” Nathan asked her worriedly. She looked so strange, walking about, a wild look in her eyes. “What did you think they’d leave behind? A glove? A spur?”

“I was only hoping to find something that would tell us who they are.” She felt defeated. Sighing, she turned to where Nathan’s horse waited, pawing the ground impatiently. “We might as well be on our way. If Poppa wakes up, I want to be with him.”

He helped her mount, then turned the stallion toward the path that led alongside the gurgling creek. Kitty slumped against him, eyes half-closed as she looked down at the swirling, curving patterns in the ice that lined the bank.

Suddenly she sat straight up. Could it be? No… No, they wouldn’t…they couldn’t…not even the lowest form of animal could do such a thing.

She screamed, the sound ripping from the very depths of her soul, the stillness of the winter morning exploding as her shrieks filled the quiet air. Nathan, stunned, jerked the reins so hard that the great animal beneath him reared up on his hind legs, forelegs pawing the air above him in fright.