Only the Gallant (19 page)

“Thank the Lord for small favors,” added Major Peter Abbot in the humble disguise of a Congregationalist minister.

Bon Tyrone looked back at the fussy, bespectacled man dressed all in black with a stiff white collar around his neck, a flat-brimmed black hat on his head, and a worn leather-bound Bible tucked under his arm.

“Maybe you’ll put a good word in for us with the man upstairs,” he said with a grin.

“Count on it, my good sir. Why, encountering you and your men, Captain Tyrone, was nothing short of a miracle. Yes indeed, a miracle. I should have never made it past these woods but wandered in them till I died. Then my sister in Natchez would have to find someone besides me to marry her off.”

“Glad to be of help, Reverend Pettibone,” Tyrone said. The Gray Fox and his raiding cavalry, returning from a foray in search of Sherman’s army, had crossed Abbot’s path at sunset. Bon had dispatched his raiders east toward Jackson while he took a more circuitous route, one that would bring him to Dunsinane. He liked to check on Ophelia whenever possible. When Bon Tyrone suggested the major ought to accompany him to Dunsinane, Abbot was only too happy to accept. He needed to find McQueen, and Tyrone’s plantation struck him as an ideal place to start.

“Is it often that you visit home, Captain Tyrone?” Abbot asked.

Spider chuckled. “It is nowadays.”

“That’s enough out of you, Sergeant,” Tyrone said, dropping back to ride alongside Boudreaux.

“I don’t mean any harm, Captain Bon,” said the heavyset Cajun. “If I had a sister pretty as yours, and a good-looking fella I weren’t quite sure of came around like McQueen, I’d worry, too.”

“You talk too much.” Bon glowered at him.

“Hell, yes. I reckon I was just born sociable and been jawing ever since.”

“Spider!” Bon warned for the last time. He’d drawn the line and not even his friend had better cross it.

The Cajun shrugged, catching the officer’s threat. He managed to change the subject without breaking stride. “Where’d you say you were from, Pettibone?” The man failed to answer. “Your name’s Pettibone, ain’t it?” Major Abbot blinked and looked up. The poor light hid his embarrassment.

“Quite so. Quite so, my good fellow. Yes … uh … my congregation—is in Oxford, back in the hills.”

Boudreaux shrugged, attributing the minister’s halting response to fatigue. “I rode through Oxford a few times.”

“It is a splendid place. So peaceful … ”

The sergeant and the parson continued their pleasant conversation but Bon Tyrone paid them no attention. His thoughts were of Dunsinane and his sister. She was so headstrong and stubborn. Ophelia would never leave the plantation for the comparative safety of Vicksburg or, better still, their aunt’s house in Richmond. She had been steadfast in her determination to remain. He wondered if a certain lieutenant had anything to do with her decision. What exactly were McQueen’s intentions? Bon hadn’t worried before. But ever since the mysterious rescue of Rosalie DuToit or whoever she was, he had been plagued with suspicions. There was no proof of her rescuer’s identity. But Bon Tyrone had sensed McQueen’s animosity toward Colonel Henri Baptiste. Their clash in Vicksburg had only been a manifestation of something deeper. Despite the fact that McQueen had stopped the train in Edwards and possibly saved the president’s life, Bon could not rid himself of the notion that Jesse might also have been responsible for the death of the colonel in the attack on the mail car—which in turn linked him to the escape of a suspected Union spy. Yet it was all conjecture. Bon truly liked McQueen, and owed him a debt. He honestly hoped his fears were groundless. For the moment he would behave as if they were.

Golden sunlight filled the sky and chased away the last of the stars. It warmed Jesse’s naked back as he hefted the ax in his strong hands and went to work. The woodpile was located just off to the side of the winter kitchen. Here was familiar work and a task all the more difficult for a willowy lady like Ophelia Tyrone. Jesse wondered if there was anything she wouldn’t attempt. He doubted it. She was bound and determined to keep Dunsinane alive. He swung the ax in a mighty arc and split a two-foot chunk of cured oak then put another in its place, split it, and repeated the process. The bite of the blade and the splintering wood shattered the morning stillness. After an hour his bronze torso glistened with sweat. But the supply of firewood was nearly replenished. The work was simple and strenuous and cleared his head.

Jesse paused to watch the graceful antics of a flock of red-winged blackbirds darting and diving among the furrows in the garden. He considered shooing them away but decided they were probably after insects and changed his mind. Indulging in a moment’s reverie, he allowed the pleasant warmth and the good smell of fertile earth to renew his spirit. The crank of the well handle behind him ended his idyll. He glanced around and saw that Ophelia had joined him. She raised a bucket of cool water from the covered well that had been dug between the winter kitchen and the rear of the house.

Ophelia wore a pale yellow dress suitable for a day in the country. The smudges on her nose and cheek were gone. Her auburn hair was drawn back in a bun. She took the dipper from the bucket and brought him a cooling drink.

“Jesse … last night—”

“You’re a brave lady, Ophelia, for whom I have nothing but the highest respect.”

“Please,” she replied, “don’t make it too high.” She lifted her eyes to the meadow and the distant edge of forest. “Perhaps today—” Then her expression changed dramatically. “Oh!”

Jesse did an about-face. Tension rippled up his spine at the sight of three horsemen riding toward them. He set the ax aside and walked around the woodpile to the table by the brick hearth in the winter kitchen. He’d left his shirt, gray coat, and gunbelt on the tabletop. The navy Colt was the first thing he reached for. He caught Ophelia staring at him, bewildered by his actions.

“Jesse, they’re wearing gray. In fact, I do believe it’s my brother,” she said, shading her eyes with her right hand. “And a man in black—oh my, I think it’s a minister. There, you see, they’re hardly enemies.”

“A man can’t be too careful these days,” Jesse said.

“Well, I doubt you have anything to fear from my brother, silly.”

Jesse pulled on his shirt and coat and buckled his gunbelt around his waist, pausing as his fingers traced the letters “CSA” stamped in the brass. If she only knew. That was the problem; one day she would.

“A minister,” Ophelia repeated, exasperated. “That means a real dinner. If you’ll fetch me a ham from the smokehouse, I’ll fix you the best meal you’ve ever eaten.” She placed a hand on his arm. Standing close to him in the shade of the winter kitchen, the young woman felt his tension. “What is it, Jesse? What’s wrong?”

He looked at her, searching—no, memorizing her pale oval face, her rose-colored lips and hazel eyes. A powerful current flowed between them, drawing them together—a current broken only by the medal … always the medal, the symbol of who he was and why he was here and what his first love must ever be.

“The time,” he answered. And when she seemed puzzled, he added, “The time is wrong.”

It should have been a bloodbath but instead they had dinner. Confederate raiders sat on one side of the dining-room table, their backs to the windows. The two Union agents sat across from them with Ophelia at the head of the table receiving the accolades for the dinner she had prepared. Jesse couldn’t help but think how, if his and Abbot’s loyalty were revealed, there’d be an exchange of gunfire instead of platters of corn bread, bowls of peas, and slabs of ham.

With the meal coming to an end, the “Reverend Pettibone” dabbed up the last of the sauce on his plate with a wedge of corn bread and plopped it into his mouth and sighed in satisfaction.

“Miss Tyrone, I shall forever be in your debt. I have never tasted a better ham.”

“Why thank you, Reverend. I shall make you a supply of sandwiches when you leave tomorrow. That ought to see you through to Natchez.” Ophelia looked around at the other men. “I’ll make enough for all of you,” she added, much to Spider Boudreaux’s relief. Soldiers traveled as hungry as preachers, and the sergeant was loath to ride to Jackson on an empty belly.

“My heartfelt thanks, madam,” Abbot replied. He smiled benevolently at all the other men at the table. “Good food and good company is the Lord’s way of blessing the righteous.” He looked at Jesse seated to his right. “Don’t you agree, Lieutenant McQueen?”

Jesse met his gaze momentarily then shrugged. He shifted his attention to Bon across the table. Ophelia’s brother still looked somewhat shocked over the departure of the slaves. True to his sister’s word, he had also seemed relieved at first, as if a weight were lifted off his shoulders. Yet those feelings quickly changed to concern for Ophelia’s well-being now that she was more isolated than ever. Spider had been all for chasing after the Negroes and returning them to Dunsinane. Bon would have none of it. But the nobility of his sentiments gave him precious little reassurance that all would be well.

“Oftentimes, righteousness is only in the eye of the beholder,” Jesse told the phony parson.

“Are you saying there is no right or wrong?” Abbot asked, pressing the issue.

“I am saying this war is made up of Confederates who believe their cause is just and that God is on their side, and Federals who feel exactly the same way. We can’t both be right. But we can sure as hell both be wrong.”

“You sound disenchanted with your cause,” Abbot said, studying the agent he had sent south. As he searched the younger man’s expression lamplight reflected off the lenses of his wire-rim spectacles, which had slid down his nose. He pushed them back with his forefinger.

“I know what I believe,” Jesse told him matter-of-factly. “I just don’t have to use God as my crutch to see things through. I like to think there is a greater truth above the issues men contrive to kill each other over.”

“Let the bloodshed fall on our heads, eh?” Bon grimly interjected. His expression became guarded. “Are you now the philosopher, Jesse? Just how many hats do you wear?”

“You’d be surprised,” Jesse said.

“Maybe not,” the Gray Fox retorted.

The two men stared at one another across the table for several seconds as if taking the measure of each other for the first time. Then Jesse slid his chair back and slowly stood.

“Your pardon, Ophelia, but if I am to leave tomorrow, I must tend to my horse. It has a loose shoe and I’d rather see to it here in your barn than on the Jackson road.” He bowed to her, then nodded to the men at the table.

“You know your way around a blacksmith’s forge, do you?” said Abbot, hoping to ease the tension.

“Yes, sir, Reverend Pettibone. It’s a skill passed down through generations of my family,” Jesse told the man, playing along with his game.

“Perhaps you might look at my mare. She started favoring a leg as we rode up.” Abbot stood and excused himself. “I’ll tag along with our philosophical friend here.” He dusted the crumbs from his frock coat. “And when I return, we shall have that game of checkers, Sergeant Boudreaux.”

“Why, I’d be glad to whup you, preacher.” Spider grinned.

Bon watched the two men leave the room. His features grew pensive as McQueen and the preacher disappeared through the doorway. He listened to the rap of their boots on the hardwood floor and recognized the familiar creak of the hinges on the front door as it opened and shut.

“Bon … you say the queerest things sometimes,” Ophelia told him.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

“And your whole attitude, as if you begrudge Jesse’s presence. He has been nothing but a perfect gentleman since he has been here.” She scrutinized her brother and her defense of Jesse trailed off. “But that’s not it. You aren’t upset that we were alone here. Something else is bothering you. What is it?”

“No,” Bon lied. And realized his mistake. Ophelia could see through him like a well-scrubbed window. “Colonel Henri Baptiste, before leaving Vicksburg, told me he was almost certain he had seen Jesse before, maybe in New Orleans. He thought there was some link between his prisoner, Miss DuToit, and Jesse.”

Ophelia sat back in her chair, folded her hands in her lap, and stared at them. Finally she shook her head. “You think he is a spy? My God, Bon, talk like that could get him hung. Jesse is my friend and yours. How could you think such a thing?” Her protest was ardent enough, but failed to convince her brother. Jesse was a mystery to her in many ways. But somehow she believed that whatever secrets the man from the West held, she could trust him with her life.

“I don’t know what to think,” Bon replied at last.

“Then, dear brother, I suggest you keep your opinions to yourself,” Ophelia snapped. She tossed her cloth napkin onto her plate, abruptly stood, and left the dining room.

Bon glanced at his sergeant, who had watched the entire exchange.

“She asked me, didn’t she?”

Spider nodded and poured another glass of strawberry wine for himself. “Sure,” he concurred. “And beggin’ your pardon, Captain, you were fool enough to comply.” He hefted the glass in salute and drained its contents. “Hope she ain’t too mad to pack us them sandwiches.”

Major Peter Abbot peered through a mud-grimed barn window at the plantation house with its lamplit windows so warm and inviting against the dark of night.

“They’re nice people,” he mentioned with a sigh. “It’s a shame wars are fought by nice people, on both sides.” He turned in time to see Jesse roll a barrel of nails away from the corner of a stall by the forge, then kneel and remove an oilskin-wrapped packet.

“I retrieved this from the woods while you and the others slept away the afternoon,” Jesse told him. He hung an oil lantern on a peg jutting from a nearby post and turned up the flame as Abbot crossed to him.

“It was a stroke of luck running into Tyrone,” Abbot said as he opened the packet. “Caitlin told me to look for you in Vicksburg or Jackson and here at the Tyrone plantation if I could find it. By the way, she reached Memphis without incident, though I was mightily surprised to see her and those two youngsters—” His voice trailed off as he examined the drawings, maps, and estimations of troop strengths Jesse had compiled. “Sweet Jesus!” The color drained from Abbot’s face. He quickly rewrapped the packet and tucked it away in his saddlebag that he had draped over the stall gate where he had left his mare. “This could get a man hanged,” he muttered.