The Right Wife (21 page)

While everyone was watching Daisy, Aaron pulled himself to his feet, his eyes searching and finding Maggie. In that one look was a world of promise. Somehow she knew that if there were any way possible, he would save them.

Aaron spit on the ground, trying to cleanse his mouth of the taste of dry dust. “Rube Whitcomb!” he shouted, and the tall man still holding the bloody whip turned to face his accuser. “Your identity is no secret to me, and your appearance here is no surprise. Everyone knows that you’re a murdering black-hearted thief with a whore for a daughter.”

Whitcomb raised his whip, but the rotund brother’s hand came down on his wrist. “Save it for later. You’ll have your turn with him. For now we need to finish off this nigger. What say we hang him?”

A massive shout erupted from the hefty man’s lips, an echoing roar of consent ringing in the stillness.

“All of you men here tonight aren’t cruel or evil men,” Aaron rationalized, hoping that one of them would listen. “Do you realize what Wesley Peterson has planned?”

At the mention of the good reverend’s name, a hushed silence encompassed the group, and Wesley stood tensely, glaring at his accuser.

“How can you call yourself a man of God?” Aaron moved steadily toward Wesley, no one attempting to stop him. “Do these men know why you brought them here? Do they know that you lusted after Phineas’s wife? Do they know that you beat and raped her?”

“Liar!” Wesley screamed, his gray eyes, visible through the slits in his hood, widened in outraged anger. “We have come here to destroy evil. These good men will not listen to your lies.”

“One of you must know this man. You must know that beneath his benevolent exterior lies the soul of a lunatic.” Aaron stood directly in front of the man of God who was holding a rifle in his hand.

“If he comes nearer, shoot him,” Wesley said. “We have no more time to listen to his lies.” He turned from Aaron, reached out, and pulled a clinging Daisy away from her husband.

“Your evil ends this night, whore.” Wesley raised his huge fist, pounding it into Daisy’s face. The battered woman fell to the ground, one shrill cry coming from her lips.

Phineas jerked and pulled, trying to free himself from his bonds, the gashes on his back oozing blood. Aaron moved forward to help Daisy, but stopped dead still when Rube Whitcomb aimed his gun and fired. The bullet grazed Aaron’s ankle, a hot sting searing his skin.

Maggie ran from the porch, not knowing what she could do, but unable to stand there watching while Daisy lay unconscious on the ground and Aaron was being held at gunpoint.

“Maggie, no.” Aaron moved a fraction of an inch and Whitcomb shot the ground at his feet.

Maggie knelt beside Daisy, taking her head in her lap. Her golden face was discolored and bloody from Wesley’s beating, but she was still breathing.
Thank God, she’s still alive.

“Wesley Peterson, may God strike you dead!” Maggie’s amber eyes glared up at her cousin who stood above her, jerking the white hood from his round, fat head.

“You will die, Maggie, and your sins with you. I offered you my love and my name and instead of a righteous life, you chose to spread your legs for Aaron Stone. You allowed him the pleasure of your body. And when I offered you forgiveness, you chose to become a rich man’s whore.”

He was going to strike her. She braced herself for the blow. He jerked her up, letting Daisy’s head hit the ground with a thud, his fat hand striking Maggie across the face. She swayed, almost falling.

Aaron reached out, his huge hands grasping the good reverend. Whitcomb turned his rifle around and brought the butt end down across Aaron’s head. He repeated the blow twice. Aaron fell, bloody and unconscious.

Maggie screamed, running to him, his big body sprawled in the dirt. She sat down, pulling him into her arms, her finger stroking back the tawny strands of bloody hair that were plastered to his forehead. The dim moonlight shimmered across the yard and illuminated the small round piece of metal lying in the dirt near Aaron’s side. She reached out, picking up the gold watch that had belonged to Richard Leander.

This had to be some hideous nightmare. She knew this couldn’t really be happening. She could feel the anger and the hatred all around her. It had become a living, breathing thing, blending with ignorance to become a monstrous creature. Even though the night air was cool, her body was drenched in sweat, her mouth dry and parched. Gone were the sweet smells of autumn, the unique aroma of the nearby river, and in their stead was the overpowering odor of blood and battered man-flesh.

“Get on with the beating,” Wesley ordered. “I think we’ll save the hanging for Stone, if he ever comes to.”

“I want the pleasure of filling him full of lead before he hangs,” Rube Whitcomb sneered, his long, bony hand stroking the top of Maggie’s head.

She jerked away, her eyes filled with terror. “Don’t touch me.”

“Oh, I’ll save that for later, girlie. I fancy getting myself some of what Aaron Stone and Thayer Coleman have been getting for the last few months.”

Her stomach was churning so that she thought she was going to vomit. Dear God, she’d rather them go ahead and kill her than have that horrible creature touch her.

The good reverend watched, his florid face beaming with sickening joy as Whitcomb resumed Phineas’s whipping. It seemed to go on forever. Maggie sat on the ground, holding Aaron in her arms, praying that he would live, her eyes watching for any movement from Daisy’s still body. Her ears were filled with the sounds of Phineas’s groans, Whitcomb’s singing whip, and Wesley’s maniacal laughter. Her nostrils filled with the stench of human suffering and sour male sweat.

She began praying again, praying that somehow Auntie Gem had found help. They couldn’t die like this, the victims of a fanatical group of bloodthirsty lunatics. Surely, among eight men, one would step forward and stop this atrocity.

“Please,” she cried out. “Please don’t do this.”

But no one listened. She didn’t know if a minute had passed or an hour, but suddenly the eight white-robed men were shouting and running and mounting their horses. Maggie turned her head looking and listening, trying to grasp the meaning of their frantic actions. More horses and riders were coming toward the house. She didn’t know who they were and didn’t care. All that mattered was that they had scared away the hooded terrors.

A tall, dark man dismounted from a black stallion and ran toward her. It was Thayer. Oh, thank God, it was Thayer. She opened her mouth to cry out his name, but couldn’t make a sound. She tried again.

“Thayer.” Her voice was so weak that she barely heard herself.

“Maggie.” Thayer Coleman stood over her, staring down into her chalky white face. “What’s happened here? Moses said there were hooded men here to kill Phineas.”

“It was Wesley and that Whitcomb man.” The words rushed out of her in one quick torrent.

“Damn them,” Thayer said. “What happened to Aaron? Is he still alive?”

“Yes, yes, he’s still alive,” she cried out, unshed tears finally reaching her eyes, glistening them to a honey yellow. “Do something for him, Thayer. That Whitcomb man hit him over the head with his rifle butt.”

“Toe Joe, you ride into Tuscumbia and bring back Doc Cooper,” Thayer said. When the black man hurried to obey, his employer called after him. “You ride like the devil, you hear?”

“Yes sir,” Toe Joe said as he jumped back on his horse.

“What about the sheriff?” Maggie asked.

“There’s nothing the sheriff can do.”

“But I know who they were, I saw Wesley’s face.”

“You don’t understand, but we’ll worry about righting things later. Isaac, you cut Phineas loose and see to his back.”

Thayer knelt down to examine his friend’s head. “It looks worse than it is, Maggie. He’s got a hard head. It’d take more than a rifle butt to kill this bull.”

She held out her bloodstained hands. “He’s lost so much blood. And Daisy . . .” She turned to look at Daisy’s still form. “She’s been through so much already. She may be too weak to live through this.”

Maggie sat there in the dirt, Aaron’s bloody head in her lap, her hands idly stroking his chest and shoulders while she watched as a badly whipped Phineas fell free from the ropes binding him to the nearby tree. When Thayer’s foreman, Isaac, reached out to help him, he shrugged off the older man’s hand and crawled on his knees the few feet to reach his wife. He raised himself up, taking Daisy in his arms.

Then Maggie began to cry while she held Aaron and watched the big, black man clutching his wife to his bare chest, keening softly as he rocked her limp body back and forth.

“Is she still alive?” Maggie asked.

Phineas didn’t hear, thus he made no reply. Thayer walked over, reached down, and felt for Daisy’s pulse. “She’s alive, but awfully weak. Maggie, see if you can talk to Phineas. Explain that we need to take Daisy in out of this damp night air.”

Before Maggie could speak Phineas lifted his wife into his arms and stood, his own blood dripping from his shredded back. He began to walk one slow, painful step after another, little droplets of blood hitting the ground, sprinkling the earth with crimson moisture. His feet faltered several times, but he finally reached the porch steps. When his foot touched the bottom round, he staggered, falling to his knees, his beloved bundle held securely in his arms. He swayed back and forth, lay Daisy on the bottom step, and fell over into the dirt.

“Help them, Thayer!” Maggie screamed.

Thayer and Isaac were running as Maggie kept screaming for them to help the couple.

She wanted to feel relief. Relief that the horrible hooded men were gone. Relief that Thayer was here and a doctor had been sent for. But she was too afraid to feel any sense of relief. Of the three of them, she was the only one still conscious. Perhaps the others were lucky not to be able to think about the nightmare they had just lived through. But what if she were the only one to survive? Would she want to live without Aaron? She had no choice. She was carrying his child. She had to go on living.

“Maggie.” Thayer touched her on the shoulder. “We’ve put Daisy to bed and sent a man for Auntie Gem. Phineas has come to. Isaac is in the kitchen seeing to his back. We need to take Aaron inside.”

She eased his head from her lap when Thayer and several of his men lifted Aaron. She stood there looking after him as they moved across the yard. She didn’t follow.

Somewhere out there, eight men were riding free, led by an insane preacher who would stand in the pulpit come Sunday spouting hellfire and damnation to sinners. Thayer had said it would do no good to send for the sheriff. Maybe not, but Wesley Peterson would have to be stopped. But how? And by whom? If Aaron were to die . . .

M
aggie liked the feel of the crisp morning air as it stung her cheeks. It felt so good to be alive, to know that, although death had come so near, it had passed over them, giving her a renewed faith in God. Sunshine fought with the October breeze, and though the sun’s warmth brightened the sky, it lost the battle to the chill of autumn.

She knelt down on her knees, reaching out to pick the dark green collards and place them in the lap of her big apron. Auntie Gem said that now was the time to pick them, after a good frost. She suspected that the old woman had known she needed to get out of the house for a while and had sent her to do this chore.

This was the second day after their nightmare experience. A new and lasting fear had been born within her. Not all the assurance in the world, not even Thayer’s and several of his men’s presence here the past two nights, had lessened that gut-wrenching panic still seizing her. The first night she hadn’t slept at all, just sat by Aaron’s bedside until he regained consciousness in the morning hours. And last night had been a series of frightening dreams from which she had awakened in a cold sweat.

Aaron had drifted in and out of consciousness all day yesterday and had slept soundly all night. She suspected that when Doc Cooper came back tomorrow, he would pronounce him fully recovered. He had eaten the breakfast she had taken him, and they had talked briefly. He had told her the one thing she hadn’t wanted to hear. He was sending Moses to Tuscumbia for Eunice.

Daisy had not survived their ordeal quite so well. The miscarriage, Wesley’s beating, topped by the shock of seeing her husband nearly whipped to death, had left the young woman hovering between life and death for the first twenty-four hours. When she finally regained consciousness late last night, she had refused to speak to anyone. She lay in the bed, her pale eyes staring off into space. Not even Phineas’s constant attention had roused her from her depression. Doc Cooper had assured them that in time, she should recover.

Phineas, who had endured the most severe punishment of all, seemed to have recovered the quickest. He allowed Auntie Gem to doctor his back, even withstood the torture of wearing a shirt, but he refused to allow anyone to talk about what had happened. When Maggie had tried to discuss it with him, he had told her to put it out of her mind. She would never forget the look in his black eyes when he had said, “There’ll be a time and a place.” His words echoed the words Aaron had spoken on Phineas and Daisy’s wedding day when he had intervened between the black man and Wesley. She would not allow herself to think about what they meant.

Thayer had spent the last two nights helping with Aaron, two of his best men standing guard with rifles in hand. No matter what his reputation as a rich, young rogue, Thayer Coleman was quite a man. His strength and kindness were qualities Maggie deeply admired. Maybe she was beginning to understand why her stubborn little sister was infatuated with him.

When Toe Joe had returned yesterday, bringing supplies from Tuscumbia, he had brought Maggie a letter from Alice Mobley that had confirmed her worst fears. Word of what had happened at White Orchard plantation had spread quickly after Doc Cooper had been summoned. Alice said that Jude had gone into incoherent fits of crying, saying that she was responsible for what had happened and that God would punish her. It seemed that Alice had finally calmed the child enough to get most of the story from her. With the twins’ help, Jude had slipped away from the Mobley house and done what she had threatened. She had gone to Loretta’s to see Verda, telling the whore that Maggie was pregnant by Aaron who wouldn’t marry her, and Thayer had proposed. Verda suggested that Judith go to the good Reverend Peterson. She had told the child that she was sure that he would want to marry his dear cousin and protect her and her innocent child from scandal. Jude had taken the foolish woman’s advice, never realizing that Wesley was insane until she saw his reaction to her news. Alice suggested that Maggie come to town as soon as possible to get Jude. The child needed her badly.

She had spoken to Thayer about the situation, and he had promised to return this afternoon and drive her into town. He prayed that she would be gone before Eunice Arnold arrived.

When Thayer had been standing by Aaron’s bedside early this morning, saying good-bye, Aaron had asked that he send Moses to town with a message for Eunice. She had remained silent, afraid to ask why he was sending for his fiancée. And as far as Maggie knew the good widow was still his future bride. He had told her nothing different.

She supposed that once she had seen to Jude, she’d ask Thayer to write his mother. Perhaps if Martha Coleman were willing to take them in she could start all over again in Franklin, Tennessee, making a new life for herself and Jude, and Aaron’s child. She refused to accept defeat. Even without Aaron, she’d find a way to survive. They were alive. That’s all that mattered now.

With her apron full of collards, Maggie walked back to the house. When she neared the porch, she stopped to stare at the big stump of a newly cut tree a few yards away. Closing her eyes, she could see Phineas’s raw and bleeding back, could smell the stench of ripped human flesh, and hear leather striking skin. And then she could see Phineas with an axe in his hands, chopping the tree to which he had been bound. She could hear the tree as it crashed to the earth. She had shared his sense of satisfaction, knowing that the symbolic act had been a catharsis for all of them.

Three hours later, the collards had been washed a dozen times, soaked in salt water, thoroughly inspected by Auntie Gem’s keen eyes, and put in the big kettle to cook. Maggie sat at the kitchen table peeling potatoes and trying to pretend she didn’t hear the buggy stopping outside. Before the door opened, she knew Eunice Arnold had arrived.

The elegant widow pranced in, brushing dust from her myrtle-green woolen dress. The hat adorning her head was black plush with red bird’s wing and veil. It amazed Maggie that the woman had ridden over twelve miles in a buggy and looked as if she just stepped out of a Tuscumbia shop.

Flashing her fake smile at Maggie, she said, “I’ve come to see my dear Aaron. Poor man couldn’t wait for me to come on my own. He had to send Moses for me.”

Maggie glared at the woman.
I’m not a lady. I don’t have to be polite to her.

“He’s in yonder.” Auntie Gem pointed toward the back bedroom.

“Thank you. I’ll announce myself. You two continue with whatever it is you’re doing.”

“We’re cooking,” Maggie said, clutching the paring knife in her tense hand.

“Oh.” Eunice turned her back on the women as she made her way to the bedroom.

Aaron had heard the cabriolet arrive. He dreaded talking to Eunice again, but it was something that had to be done. He had been terribly unfair to the woman, but marrying her would only worsen the crime. When he had gone to Tuscumbia three nights ago, rushing off like a fool and asking Eunice to marry him, he had been half crazy with pain and anger at the thought of Maggie’s betrayal. Then two nights ago, after learning the truth, he had gone back to town to talk to his fiancée. He hadn’t been sure what he wanted to say to her, and had left feeling as uncertain and confused as when he had arrived.

But things were different now. One night of terror had resolved all his uncertainties, allowing him to see clearly for the first time in his life. He had been a total fool, a selfish, unforgiving bastard. His own stupidity had made him more a bastard than an accident of birth. He loved Maggie Campbell. He had nearly lost her. God had been merciful enough to give him a second chance. He had no intention of ruining it. He felt it only fair to speak to Eunice first, to free himself of his commitment to her before he could ask Maggie to be his wife. He had been grossly unfair to both women. He was sure that Eunice would hate him, but it was a small price to pay for everyone’s future happiness. Someday the widow would find a man who really loved her and could make her life as complete as Maggie did his.

He had bathed, shaved, and dressed over an hour ago, and now sat on the side of the small wooden bed waiting for the forthcoming confrontation. He had drawn back the heavy yellow cotton curtains so that the bright sunshine could warm the room.

“Aaron?” Eunice called as she entered.

“Come in, Eunice, and please close the door.”

Obeying, she shut the door and walked over to him. Leaning down to place a kiss on his cheek, she smiled. “You’re certainly looking well for a man who’s survived a concussion. I’m pleased you sent Moses for me. Papa had intended to bring me down tomorrow.”

He couldn’t help but compare Eunice’s actions to Maggie’s. If Maggie had been in town when she’d heard the news, she’d have found a way to come to him immediately. But then, Maggie loved him. Maggie Campbell would have been asking a dozen questions about the who, why, and what concerning the brutal attack that had occurred. Ladies like Eunice did not ask questions about things so indelicate. But then, Maggie Campbell was not that kind of lady, thank God.

“Sit down, Eunice.” Aaron patted the bed, indicating a place for her to sit.

“I hardly think it proper,” she said demurely.

“Suit yourself. There’s a chair by the window.”

She seated herself in the rough-hewn wooden chair that Maggie had occupied so much lately while keeping a vigil as his bedside. “I don’t understand why they didn’t take you back to White Orchard,” Eunice said. “The accommodations there must be better than this crude little place.”

He let out a sneering, closed-mouth laugh. “Lady, I was unconscious. The only thought Maggie and Thayer had was for my life, not the nicety of my surroundings. However, I don’t find anything wrong with Phineas and Daisy’s home. It’s warm and clean and filled with love.”

“Whatever is the matter with you, Aaron? You’re talking so strangely.” She crossed her slender ankles, well hidden beneath the fine wool of her dress.

“Am I?” He placed his big hands on the top of his thighs, then rubbed them back and forth. He was stalling for time, dreading this woman’s reaction to his news.

“Since Moses is here with the carriage, would you like for me to accompany you back to White Orchard this afternoon?”

Clutching his knees, Aaron looked down at the floor. “Eunice, I owe you an apology. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but asking you to marry me was the biggest mistake I ever made. I hope someday you can forgive me for being such a fool.”

“What are you saying? It’s her, isn’t it?” Eunice refused to look at the man sitting on the bed. “Somehow she’s convinced you not to marry me.”

“I’m sorry. I love Maggie. I’ve loved her for months.”

Eunice clasped her hands together as if in prayer. She rested her chin on her knuckles. “How can you think that she’ll make a proper wife? She’s nothing but an uneducated farm girl.”

“She’s everything I want. I don’t need a fine lady for a wife. All I need is the woman I love. Try to understand. I would have made your life miserable if we had married. Could you have endured an unfaithful husband?”

“I can’t believe that you’ve actually thought this through.” She unclasped her hands, nervously smoothing her skirt. “A man of your social standing surely can’t want to marry beneath himself?”

Shocked brown eyes stared at the man who rose from the bed, laughter vibrating his huge chest. “I think there’s something you should know about me, something that will make you glad you won’t become Mrs. Aaron Stone.”

Cocking her platinum head to one side, she cut her eyes in his direction, curiosity brightening their darkness. “Something about your past?”

“I think you should consider this a farewell present. You’ll be the one who can inform everybody in the county about my mysterious past.”

“I believe you’ve just called me a gossip,” she said, her mouth tightening into a sour pout.

Aaron wondered why he had never noticed what a shrewish-looking female the widow really was. All he had seen was her cool, blond loveliness, her regal bearing, but never the petty glint in her eyes or the haughtiness of her speech.

“I’m a bastard,” he told her and waited momentarily while she gasped. “Not just any ordinary bastard, mind you, but Richard Leander’s offspring by a woman as young as his own daughter.”

“You’re . . . you’re Martha Coleman’s . . .”

“Yes, I’m Martha’s brother. A brother that she is more than willing to claim. I’m the fool who’s been too ashamed to accept my birthright, too stupid to forgive my parents for loving each other more than they cared about public opinion. I understand now because that’s how I feel about Maggie.”

“You would have married me with such a secret between us?” she demanded, rising quickly from the chair, her trembling fingers patting the back of her perfectly coiffed head.

“You have been saved from a fate worse than death, my dear Mrs. Arnold. You and I are totally unsuited for one another.” He stood up, moving toward her.

An agitated Eunice walked away from him, but stopped when she opened the bedroom door.

“You’re quite right. We most definitely are not suitable for one another. And you can rest assured that I will not spread one word of this to a living soul. I should be too embarrassed to admit that I allowed you to pay me court.”

In a huff of righteous indignation, Eunice Waite Arnold departed, leaving behind an amused and very relieved ex-fiancé.

“Auntie Gem got her to drink some tea, but she wouldn’t eat a bite,” Maggie told Phineas. “She’s going to be all right. It’s just that she’s been through so much. It’ll take time.”

“I know, Miss Maggie, but it’s hard for a man to see his wife in such a bad way. I feel like there’s something I ought to be doing to help her.”

“In the long run, your love is going to pull her through this.”

Phineas stood there on the porch watching as Toe Joe disappeared down the road, his horse leaving a trail of dust behind him. “I know you was wanting to get to town to see about Miss Jude, but she’ll be all right till you can get there. Mr. Thayer’ll be on as soon as he can.”