Riding Shotgun (18 page)

Cig wondered about her choice to accept surfaces, to go along, to ignore what she felt powerless to change… until she blocked it completely. What was she accepting that she didn’t even know could be questioned, just as Tom accepted the idea of a king and queen? Choices. Brutus stabs Julius Caesar. Genghis Khan sweeps out of the East. Leonardo starts projects and rarely finishes. Elizabeth I beats back Philip II. The Germans, the English, the Russians, the
Americans, all said they didn’t know about Auschwitz until after the fact. Choices. Not just in knowing; in not knowing. Ignorance demands constant effort.

At the cusp of the eighteenth century, what incredible choices. And for her, on the cusp of the twenty-first, what choices.

Perhaps time wasn’t linear at all but elliptical, and she truly had fallen through the loop. Perhaps everything was occurring at the same instant and the human mind needed to organize it into discrete cubes of time. The centuries were like railroad cars hitched to one another, pulled by the engine of fate or God.

Time as a lie. The thought intrigued and terrified her. Not just an illusion but an outright lie. Too many choices are too frightening. Perhaps we had to limit them or blow apart from sensory overload. Yes, she did come from another time, a cacophony of facts and little truth, an orgy of comfort yet no peace, a glut of pleasure yet no joy. What dreadful choices had people made since 1699? Or not made?

If nothing else, this fissure in her life, this slipping of a tectonic plate in the brain if not in time, helped her to know there was no golden age.

She uncurled in her bed. The last log in the fireplace glowed incandescent scarlet edged in gold. Dislocated and disoriented, she felt a gratitude welling in her. Perhaps she was lucky to be in this place with these people.

Perhaps God—or the gods—was wiser than she could know. Submission to a higher god’s or goddess’s will was freedom. Cig smiled. What would Margaret think of the notion of a female god? Was it twentieth-century feminism that produced the notion or was it an intimation from an even earlier time when goddesses made the world tremble and sing?

It didn’t matter. What mattered was that she found sanctuary in the human heart. She’d found her family.

A thought did flash through her mind. Why couldn’t this have happened to Grace? She fell asleep laughing and crying.

The temperature plunged during the night, a stiff wind kicking up a fuss. The wind had slowed little by daybreak and it swept over the James, dumping on Buckingham its cargo of moisture.

“I’ll ride with you this morning.” Tom walked into the barn. “Do us both good.” He smiled. His upper teeth were strong and straight, the lower ones were a little crooked. Tom was lucky, because he had no recourse to an orthodontist.

They quickly tacked up and Tom swung into the saddle, his coordination and timing a double of Cig’s way of moving. “Monkey!” He laughed, pointing to her legs, her forward position in the saddle. Tom sat farther back on the horse’s back, legs nearly straight and out in front of him and hands held high although the line to the bit was soft, much like the modern saddle seat.

“You ride your way and I’ll ride mine but you’ll be surprised at what I can do.”

“All right,” he said with no conviction.

“I love this time of year,” Cig remarked as they rode west along the river.

“Taquitock.”

“Pardon?”

“Taquitock. The Powhatans call the harvest and fall of the leaf taquitock. They celebrate five seasons. You remember—don’t you? Winter is cohonk. They count their years by winters so you and I are coming into our twenty-eighth winter.” His voice rose as if waiting for her to recall.

“It will come back to me.”

“When we were little we had an old Indian friend and—” he broke off for a moment. “Well, I guess there are more important things to remember. You recognized Lionel. I didn’t tell him everything, only that you’d been exhausted by your journey and weren’t quite yourself.”

“Thank you for protecting me.”

He nodded, then pointed across the river, wide at this point. “See there where the Appomattox River flows into the James? Across from Eppington there?”

“Yes, but I thought the house was called Appomattox Manor, not Eppington.”

“Francis Eppes likes to name things after himself, but I’m happy you remember him even if you’ve mixed up the name. Well, Sister, right across there you can see how they’ve cleared more land. Francis is going to build another mansion as his daughter’s wedding gift.”

“Weston Manor. Of course, that’s what I was searching for when I rode in but the mist was so thick.” Then she stopped herself. There was no Weston Manor. Not yet.

“Weston Manor?”

“That’s what Eppes will call it.” Then seeing how this affected him she softly said, “I’ll bet you a pound sterling.”

The Deyhle sense of humor was in evidence. “Pryor, I don’t have a pound to spare but if Francis Eppes names that Weston Manor I’ll build you four new bee boxes.”

“Better get out your saw, Tom.” She felt in her breeches pocket for her money. She wanted to show Tom her money but then she put aside the idea. The concept of a person
from another time would overwhelm his linear, logical mind. It overwhelmed hers.

They rode on. One lone poplar, straight as an arrow, lay by the side of the road up ahead.

“Now you’ll see why this forward seat is special.” She took Full Throttle at a slow canter toward the tree trunk and jumped over.

“Ha.” Tom rode right after her and jumped the old way, leaning back, legs far forward. He had good hands and didn’t interfere with Helen’s mouth.

“All right.” Her competitive blood warmed. She dismounted. “You hold my boy here. I’ll show you.”

She dragged some branches and placed them at the bottom of the poplar trunk to fill out the jump. Horses don’t like airy jumps. Then she found some branches with fewer leaves on them. It took some doing as she had no axe but she managed to make a scruffy three-foot-nine jump, which usually was big enough to get most foxhunters’ attention.

“You’ll break your neck.”

“I won’t.”

Once she swung back into the saddle she cantered in a large easy circle to relax Throttle. The bay never even looked sideways at the makeshift jump. If Cig wanted to jump this mess, why, he was only too glad to comply. He had a great Thoroughbred heart and sailed over with the fluidity of a natural athlete.

“See!” she triumphantly called from the other side. “I go with his motion instead of leaning back against it.”

“And if he stops you’re over his ears.” Tom wanted more insurance than the forward seat offered.

“Well, if Helen stops you’ll slide off her ass.”

She circled, clearing it from the other direction.

“When there are fences, hedgerows, and ditches, this makes it so easy.”

He swept his arm out indicating the land. “Few fences, no hedgerows, and nary a ditch in sight.”

She considered this. Tom didn’t need the forward seat. “Ah, well, I guess there aren’t many man-made obstacles—but I’m sticking to the forward seat.”

“Once you set your mind on something, I’m not going to dissuade you. Nobody ever could anyway.” He chuckled. “Mother would try one argument and then another. You two were like banty roosters sometimes.” He turned Helen to head back. “I said to her once, ‘Mother,
agree
with her. It makes life so much easier, and when she comes around she’ll think it’s her idea.’ And she said”—he imitated Elizabeth Deyhle’s voice—” I can’t agree with her when she’s wrong!’”

The words piled up unsaid behind her teeth. She wanted to tell him that two hundred and ninety-five years separated her mother from Elizabeth Deyhle. If she screamed loud enough would they hear her in the twentieth century? Would God hear her? Instead she cleared her throat. “And you were a model of obedience?”

“When they were looking in my direction, I was.” He smiled.

“Do you want me to marry Lionel deVries?” She caught him offguard.

“Yes. He’s a good match and will provide for you.” He put his left hand on his waist, holding both reins in his right hand. “You are a prize. You can have your pick of the litter and he’s the biggest and the strongest.”

“Why am I a prize?”

For a moment he looked annoyed. Her memory lapses unnerved him. “Because women are so scarce, you know that.”

“Ah. What if I don’t want to marry?”

“Everyone wants to marry unless you’re a convert to the Church of Rome. In which case, get thee to a nunnery.”

“I don’t know which is worse.”

“Pryor, don’t be obstinate.” Tom couldn’t imagine anyone choosing to remain single, a pitiable state. “This match benefits our family as well as his.” His face reddened, he looked to the sky and then out to the river. “Anyway, ‘Whoever sups with Lionel had better use a long spoon.’”

“I’d be supping with him and sleeping with him.”

This made Tom laugh. “That you would.”

“Are you afraid of him? I apologize for being so direct but
I have to know. I’m desperately trying to remember but—” she shrugged.

“Afraid? I’m cautious. Always a prudent idea to be on good terms with your neighbor.”

Cig pressed her lips together. “Did he ask Father for my hand?” She assumed this tradition was way older than the era she was in.

“Father never mentioned it.”

“Did I go to London to get away from Lionel?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Tom, I don’t want to be a burden, nor do I want to keep the Deyhles from material gain—”

“Thankful increase.” He grinned broadly. “That’s what Father called it.”

“Yes, my father, too,” she blurted out.

“He
was
your father, Pryor.”

“I’m sorry. I, well, I get addled.” She dropped her feet out of the stirrups to wiggle her toes. “I’m drawn to Lionel but something is holding me back. Can you understand that?”

“Yes.”

“Did you harbor doubts about marrying Margaret?”

He shook his head and smiled. “Love at first sight. It took me a good year to convince her though—perhaps you ladies are more sensible in such matters. Now understand, Sister, I don’t mean to push you toward Lionel, but the union of our families would ensure our prosperity, God willing.” It didn’t occur to Tom that Lionel was slippery enough to get the better of almost any deal.

“When will I see him again?”

“In a few days. We’ll all be hunting at Shirley.”

“I thought he had business to attend to.”

“He’ll be back. He’s at the Falls with William Byrd. They have fifty armed men there. Lionel and William have bought up as much land as they can. Speculation is a vice with them.”

Cig knew the Falls would eventually become the city of Richmond.

“We should buy land there, too.”

He studied her for a moment, surprised at her suggestion. “Land speculation has ruined more men than drink.”

“Made some men fabulously wealthy, too.” Cig held up her hand as he was about to protest. “Think on it. No hurry.” She exhaled through her nose. “I had another thought.”

“Oh—” He shot her a scalding glance.

“Do you believe Lionel’s idea about the murdered Indian, that it was bad blood?”

“Why?” A note of alarm rang in Tom’s voice.

“I don’t know. Do you believe him?”

“Yes. He trades with the tribes west of the fall line, and he knows them.”

“I don’t believe him.”

“Why?” Tom’s voice rose.

“I don’t know. Just a feeling.”

They rode in silence for a while, Tom struggling with thoughts he had formerly suppressed. “Pryor,” he said at last, “don’t tell Margaret.”

She met his eyes then nodded her assent.

Frost, translucent, etched fanciful shapes on the window-panes. Geometric perfection yielded to human imagination as Cig traced an eagle with her forefinger and then a Christmas tree. Without a clock she couldn’t tell what time it was in the dead of night. She’d been awakened by a dream in which she was driving a midnight blue Porsche. She couldn’t go back to sleep so she wrapped herself in blankets and stared out the window,

She was looking for Fattail. He had led her here. Perhaps he could lead her out. No sight of his saucy face but she did see a large black fox. She’d never seen one before but he came close to the house and in the shimmering moonlight she could plainly observe him.