Riverrun (53 page)

“Lawd, Missus,” Simon said, raising his head up and looking at her imploringly. “Missus, you gots to save me! These men they outs of their minds!”

Before Cass could respond, Judah’s massive fist blurred and Simon’s head rocked sharply to one side. A trace of blood leaked through his lips, and it was evident as she moved closer that he had already suffered a beating.

“Tell me,” she said to Judah. She kept her voice flat, noncommittal, hoping it wasn’t something as foolish as Simon trying to steal a kiss from Alice Jordan, but knowing that was not it.

“We find him down to the road,” Judah said. “He be sneakin’ in.”

“Sneaking? Why should he be—”

“He gots money, Missus,” Cable said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small leather pouch. When Simon groaned, Judah clubbed him again; Cable emptied the pouch onto the table. Gold pieces. At least a dozen of them. Cass reached out a hand to touch them, and pulled it back as though it had been burned.

“Where—” She stopped and cleared her throat. “Where did he get it?”

“The captain, Missus,” Judah said. “Seems like Simon want to be a nigger again.”

Cass turned suddenly and put her hand to the door.

“He go out every night, Missus,” Judah continued. “He tell one of them bastards what you doin’, and the bastard tells the captain and the captain pays the nigger. He be stabbin’ us, Missus, when we ain’t lookin’.”

“Did—did he tell the captain what we did with the crop?”

“I don’ know, Missus.”

She looked back over her shoulder at Simon and Judah, then yanked open the door. “Find out,” she said tightly. “I don’t care how you do it, just find out. Cable, you get back and help Abraham. Judah can take care of this alone.”

“An’ if I don’ find out?”

“You will.”

“Whats do I do with him then?”

“I told you, I don’t care.”

She threw herself out the door and strode quickly toward the stable. She tried not to think of how Simon had betrayed her, tried not to believe that it was his deviousness that had trapped her Eric into … into what? Into death? When she reached the fence she grabbed onto the top rail, let out a low moan and draped herself over it, retching, coughing up the bile that had been churning inside her since the day had begun. Her head ached. Her throat burned. But she could only shake her head and weep until, finally, a warm hand came to her shoulder and someone shoved a ladle of cold water in front of her mouth.

“Drink it,” Alice said softly.

“I—”

“You have to, Missus.”

A man’s scream rose from the house, and she shuddered, but Alice would not release her until she had taken all the water. There came another scream that was cut off suddenly, and there was a long pause before the door opened and Judah stood framed by the light.

“What is it?” Alice called out when Cass could not speak.

“They don’ know ’bout the crop,” Judah answered. “What do I do—-”

“He will not be buried on my land!” Cass screamed. “I don’t care what the hell you do with him, but I will not have that creature buried on my land!”

She thrust Alice away from her, vaulted the fence, and walked quickly toward the stable door. She could hear the woman following, but she would not turn until she was inside, safe in the dark amid the comforting smells of the horses, the straw, the rest of their meager livestock. She leaned heavily against the wall and shook her head slowly, reached out, and was glad when Alice took her hands.

“I don’t know, Alice,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t have a choice, seems to me.”

Cass would not look at her.

“I knows about the Mister, y’know. I know what you’re thinkin’. You’re thinkin’ there ain’t no use what with him maybe dead.” She clasped Cass’s hands more lightly. “Yes, maybe dead. But he was maybe dead before, y’know, and it turned out he wasn’t. Seems like it took more than that damned fool captain to make him dead that first time. What makes you think he’s done any better this time?”

“Alice, I’m tired.”

“You think I can dance the night out? You think any of us can? What’s your problem, woman? You think you ain’t got nobody but yourself anymore? Who put out your eyes, huh? Who made you blind to all what you got around here?”

“Alice, you’ll just never understand. I—”

Alice dropped her hands, and stood closer to her. “Cass, if you lets all this go up in smoke … hell, I don’ know what to tell you.”

Eric was anxious, impatient. He had to get to Riverrun, to tell Cass what he had done despite the madman, but he knew that he could not build up her hopes until he had every word correct, every aspect of the transaction assured. And so he waited in Jennings’s office for Richmond to respond to the query, both he and Jennings growing increasingly angry when the hours slipped by and there was still no answer. He thought several times that perhaps Hawkins had had the lines cut down, but realized that he would have had no reason. Hawkins thought Eric was, if not dead, at least incapacitated and in Lambert’s hands. There would be no reason in the world … no reason except that the man was mad. When he grew tired of pacing, he sat. When he grew tired of sitting, he would stand at the window, seeing nothing but the dimming light that sent shadows across the narrow alley between the bank and the feed store. Jennings did his best to stay out of the office as much as possible, but when he entered they would stare at each other for several seconds until Eric began to worry that the banker just might lose what small nerve he’d been able to muster and send word to Hawkins.

“Getting late,” Eric said finally.

“Richmond,” Jennings said apologetically, “isn’t the most rapid place in the country, Mr. Martingale. I can assure you, however, that the follow-up message stressed the urgency of our … of our …” He gave up, and ducking his head, scuttled out of the room and left Eric alone.

Five minutes later he was back, beaming, holding aloft a telegraph message form.

Eric collapsed into the nearest chair, his grin so wide his cheeks began to ache.

“It’s done,” Jennings said.

“Indeed,” Eric said. “My God, it’s done.”

“I—well, I imagine you’ll want to head out for Riverrun and tell Mrs. Roe the good news.”

Eric half-rose, then dropped back again. “Damn. I don’t have a mount. I had one, but it shied and got away from me.”

“I understand,” Jennings said. “If you can have one moment’s patience more, I’ll send my boy over to the stable for mine. It’s the least I can do.”

You’re right, Eric thought, but he only smiled and nodded, following the banker from the office and across the main floor that was, in actual measurement, quite small, but made more massive-looking by the artful arrangement of pine paneling in varying shades for the cages, the flooring, the mirror-polished walls. As they headed for the front door, Jennings beckoned to a small boy who sat on a low stool near the bank guard’s position. He was dressed in an ill-fitting suit and was blatantly uncomfortable; thus, when Jennings summoned him, his eagerness at the prospect of relief was almost laughable.

“Henry,” Jennings said, “I want you to run over to Hardy’s and fetch my mare. You bring her straight back here, y’hear? Look sharp, now!”

The boy raced out and the men followed more slowly, standing to one side of the door and watching the parade of shoppers and businessmen, dockers and other workers making their way home for their evening meal. The sun had taken on a crimson hue, the sky shading to purple, virtually black on the eastern horizon. A man could paint this, Eric thought, and never once know about the blood that runs behind it. He scowled. Such thoughts were scarcely in keeping with the jubilation he should be feeling, but there was an itching at the back of his neck, one that he refused to scratch. He did not believe in portents, yet he could not help but stiffen when Henry, astride a large chestnut with a blonde mane and tail, raced around the corner and skidded the animal to a halt, throwing up dust and clods of dirt. Jennings opened his mouth to scold the boy, but Henry was too fast for him. He was out of the saddle and on the ground before a word could be said, and took off at full tilt down the sidewalk.

“Henry!” Jennings bellowed. “Boy, you’d best come back here right now!”

Henry twisted around, slowed, but did not stop. “Can’t,” he shouted back. “Ain’t you heard? There’s a war on at Riverrun!”

C
ass and Alice walked slowly out of the stable, eyes down and somber. They said nothing to each other, had nothing left to say. They paid no attention to Melody, who was racing around the corral trying to drive the chickens back into their roosts for the night. They were, as usual, giving her a difficult time and she filled the air with shrill curses in a
patois
not even Cass could understand.

Alice chuckled. “She gonna make a fine wife, that one.”

Cass made as if to reply, but a puddle of water near the fence caught her eye. It was reflecting a deep shimmering pink she thought was the sunset until she looked up and saw that the sun had already dropped below the trees. She stopped.

Alice moved to her side, her arms hugging her chest. “That’s—”

“Fire,” Cass said for her. “Oh, God, Alice, it’s begun?’

Chapter Thirty-Five

T
hey began without firing a shot. Using the trees and the darkness of the fields for cover, they crept stealthily up to the sheds, keeping well beyond the range of the weapons they suspected were mustered inside. Their horses were with them, saddles off, blankets draped over their backs. But no man rode; each walked carefully ahead of his mount after having wrapped the hooves in cloth to muffle their clopping. And when they were ready, four of them fell to their stomachs and crawled as close to the sheds as they dared move. Once there, they struck flints against oil-soaked rags wound about thick clubs and tossed them against the walls. Instantly, when the fires flared up along the dry wood, they moved back and took to their saddles. And waited.

Inside, Marcus, Tim, and Edward heard the thudding of the torches striking the walls; they did not need to investigate to know what they were. And they did not panic, though there had been long moments of quiet when they thought they would have to scream to relieve their tension. Instead, they moved quickly to the front and side windows—little more than narrow slits without covering—and fired blindly into the night. They were answered, and great chunks of dried wood splintered into the air. Edward’s arm was pierced, but he only grabbed hold of the sliver and yanked it out without making a sound, returned to his firing and shouting without missing a turn. As soon as their mistress had left them and they had moved back inside, they had changed their clothes from field hand whites to shirts and trousers of an unrelieved black, belted with ropes so there would be no light-reflecting buckles. Now they were virtually invisible, and despite the growing, shimmering light outside, there would be no safe way for the attackers to determine how many men they faced, even when they were forced to bolt.

The air grew thick with smoke.

The horsemen outside moved closer.

Marcus, without consulting the others, knelt by the front door and pulled it to him slowly. Quickly, he raised an arm against the glare of the fire, squinted, saw a shadow and fired at it before slamming the door again. There was a scream. Marcus grinned.

“Hey,” Tim muttered. “Hey, we gonna be heroes?”

“A moment,” Marcus said. “We gots to hol’ as long as we can.”

Edward, prone on the floor now to escape the smoke, coughed and waved his arm weakly. “We can’t stay no more, fool. We gone be roasted, and ain’t nobody gonna want to smoke a nigger.”

Yet still they fired without aiming, shouting as best they could until they could no longer open their mouths without taking in smoke. Once, as they retreated toward the back of the building, they were rewarded with the sound of another man hit. They grinned at each other, nodded, and decided without speaking that they could delay no more; if the fires already set made their way to the back, then they would be more than easy targets for the fifteen or twenty riders they estimated were outside, fighting ghosts without knowing it.

The rear door was small, narrow, barely enough for a man to squeeze through. They took one more look at the inferno raging at the front, then slipped outside and began running. There was no sense in waiting for each other; standing in the open would only invite death, and the treeline was less than fifty yards away. Within seconds they had plunged into the brush and were moving as swiftly as they could beneath the low-hanging branches toward Billy’s position in the woods near the house. As they ran, crawled, stopped every few yards, and pressed against a tree to check on their flight, they tried too to follow the activities of Hawkins’s riders. It was, however, impossible. There was still sporadic firing, a few shouts, and while it was clear some of the men were still waiting for the defenders to bolt from the shed, they had no way of knowing if any had decided to make for the house, and it bothered them. The Missus would need to know, and there was nothing they could do here to help her.

D
espite Judah’s vehement protests, Cass decided against sending him and Cable down to the road. “Two men are not going to stop anyone,” she said as she helped Rachel and Melody tear dresses into bandages. “And I need you both here. If some do come around by the road, you can stop them at the head of the lane. If you get trapped down there … it would be a waste of manpower.” She added wryly, “As the captain might say.”

“But Missus—”

“Judah, I haven’t time to argue with you. You want to do just what that man wants you to—help divide us so he can pick us off with ease. Why do you think we went to all that trouble of keeping Billy and the others out at the sheds? If it all works the way I pray it will, he’ll think he’s taken care of most of our men.”

“Surprise,” Alice said grimly as she struggled with a kettle of water to set on the fire.

“Exactly,” Cass affirmed.

Judah scowled, but he deferred to Cassandra and was right behind her when she darted out of the completely dark house and raced for the path that would lead her to Billy.