The Widow's War (31 page)

The pro-slavers cheer until they are hoarse. Fixing their bayonets, they begin to march down the slope toward Lawrence.

 

 

 

 

 

B
elow, Carrie sits in a straight-backed chair with Teddy on her lap and a Sharps rifle across her knees. She hears gunshots, a confusion of voices. Ten minutes pass. Fifteen. Suddenly there is a knock on the door.

“Who’s there?” she demands.

“It’s Donald Lane, madam. Please let me in. I bring you news of Doctor Saylor.” The voice is unfamiliar, clipped vowels, British accent. If Carrie had ever seen a one-act farce entitled
Mr. Buckstone’s Ascent of Mount Parnassus
, she might have recognized it as the voice of the hero, Mr. Buckstone.

Getting up, she walks over to the bed, puts Teddy down, and pulls the quilt over him. “Stay there and be quiet,” she whispers. Returning to the door, she tries to look through the cracks and is rewarded with the sight of a bit of red that could be part of a flannel shirt.

“I don’t know a Mr. Lane.”

“Madam, please! The bushwhackers have attacked the town, and Doctor Saylor has been wounded!”

“Wounded!” Drawing back the bar, Carrie opens the door and finds herself face-to-face with Deacon. Uttering a cry of surprise, she tries to slam it shut, but before she can close it, she’s thrown off balance by an explosion so violent it rattles the windowpanes.

 

 

 

 

 

D
own on Massachusetts Street, the Free State Hotel disappears in a geyser of black smoke and fire. Bits of plaster and concrete rain down, coating everything with a layer of fine white dust. As the pieces of the hotel fall on Clark, he throws back his head, opens his mouth, and licks at them as if they were bits of honeycomb.

The bushwhacker who is holding William at gunpoint gives a yip of triumph. Lowering his pistol, he turns and begins to run toward the dry goods store. Before he can reach the other side of Massachusetts Street, a man on horseback rides him down.

The bushwhacker screams and writhes in pain. For a few seconds, William watches him curse and claw at the dust. It’s supposed to be enjoyable to see someone who has threatened to kill you suffer, but it isn’t. He hurries to the injured man.

“I’m a doctor,” he says. “I can help you.”

“Damn it, damn it, damn it!” the man yells. “You shot me in the back, you abolitionist bastard!”

“You haven’t been shot. You’re not making sense. You were ridden down by a horse and may have suffered a concussion.” But the injured man won’t listen. Standing up, he staggers forward and throws himself on William. His fingers close around William’s throat.

“Let go, you crazy fool!” William gasps.

“Crazy?” the man snarls. “Yeah, you abolitionist son of a bitch, I’m crazy!”

William sees red spots, long swirls of black, and flames that dance and flicker in front of his eyes. As he struggles to pry the madman’s hands from his throat, he realizes the flames are real. He can feel the heat of them scorching the back of his jacket.

There is another explosion and a crash of breaking glass. More gunfire. The bushwhackers are destroying
The Kansas Free State
and
The Herald of Freedom,
smashing the presses, throwing the type out the windows. Others are looting stores and private homes. They parade the sidewalks of Lawrence wrapped in silk curtains and stolen hats, dump canned goods into their saddle bags, seize hams and sausages, break dishes, bash in the sides of flour barrels for sport. Most search for whiskey, but Henry Clark and his men go looking for guns.

C
arrie hits the door from one side as Deacon hits it from the other. Seizing a broom, she jams the handle into the nearest bracket and throws her weight against it. The broom handle bends under the force of his assault, but for the moment it holds. It’s a poor substitute for the wooden bar that goes all the way across the door, but the bar and rifle are both out of reach. If she tries to get to either one, she’ll have to let go, and Deacon is hitting the door like a battering ram, commanding her to open up, yelling that he’s come to take her back to Washington.

“You’re my wife,” he bellows. “I won’t have you living in con cubinage with my stepbrother. You’ll come, you damnable bitch!”

She’d yell back, but it would be a waste of breath, and she needs every bit she has. He hits the door again and begins to pound on it like a madman. He’s saying crazy things about how he intends to run for the Senate and how she’s getting in his way. She can feel his blows through the planks. The door shudders, and the broom handle smashes against her fingers and creaks as if it’s about to snap. How long can she hold him off? Maybe a neighbor will hear the noise and come to her rescue or maybe William will show up.

All at once, the pounding stops. Exhausted, she leans against the door, shaking and terrified. Has he given up? Suddenly, she hears him running across the front porch. She braces herself, but he hits the door with such force that the broom handle splinters and the door springs open, throwing her to the floor. Rolling onto her hands and knees, she scrambles toward her rifle, but before she can get to it, he kicks her arms out from under her and slams his boot down on her back pinning her in place.

She looks up at him and sees those familiar, catlike green eyes staring down at her. And then she sees the revolver. He has the barrel pointed at her head, and at this range, not even he can miss.

“Get the hell up,” he commands, removing his boot from her back. Carrie rises to her feet. Her arms don’t appear to be broken, but her hands are full of splinters, her hair has come down around her shoulders, and the left sleeve of her dress is ripped.

“You look like hell. Like a slut. Where’s my son?”

“Teddy’s not yours. He’s William’s.” She fights an urge to look over her shoulder and make sure Teddy is still hidden under the quilt. She can’t let Deacon see how afraid she is. He’s a coward and a bully, and if he thinks he’s succeeded in terrorizing her, things will only get worse.

“Liar. My stepmother told me you were breeding when you ran off.” He readjusts the revolver so it points at her chest. Will he shoot her? He’s dressed like a bushwhacker. What’s he been doing since she left him? What’s he capable of?

She sets her jaw stubbornly and stares at him until he lowers his eyes, but he doesn’t lower the gun, which continues to waver between her chest and head. Maybe she intimidates him, or maybe he decides it’s time to change tactics. Whatever the reason, his voice grows slick, and wheedling. “Be reasonable, Carrie. Tell me where the boy is. What harm can it do for me to see him?”

How “reasonable” does he think she’s likely to be at the wrong end of a gun? Could she wrest it out of his hand if she charged straight at him? No, with Teddy hiding nearby, the risk of stray bullets is too great.

Deacon’s voice becomes oily enough to gag on. “If the boy—Teddy?—really is William’s, then this is your chance to take him to see his grandmother. Matilda asks after him constantly. Poor woman. So ill, and at her age, well one never knows how long—”

“Liar!” She tosses the word back at him and watches with satisfaction as it hits. “Matilda’s dead. She’s been dead for nearly a year. We get newspapers out here in Kansas. We read obituaries. How did she die? Did you and your
porcaria
of a father poison her? William wanted to go back east and force you to confess, but I persuaded him the satisfaction wasn’t worth—”

Deacon lunges at her, and she steps back, sure he’s going to hit her. “Shut up!” he yells.

“I won’t shut up! I know a lot of things about you that you wouldn’t want made public. I even know about that slave-smuggling operation you and Bennett are running out of Brazil. What are you going to say to the custom agents when I tell them what kind of cargo Presgrove Sugar has been off-loading on the Sea Islands of South Carolina? If you take that gun out of my face and get out of here, maybe I won’t tell them, maybe—”

Deacon grabs her by the shoulder and shoves her aside. “Teddy!” he yells. “Where are you? Come here! Your daddy has some candy for you!”

Carrie whirls around, but it’s too late. Teddy has thrown off the quilt and is sitting up. As Deacon starts toward him, she steps between them, grabs the barrel of the revolver, and leans against it.

“Go ahead. Pull the trigger. You’ll have to kill me to get to him!”

“Get out of my way, you crazy bitch!” Ramming the barrel into her chest so hard it knocks the wind out of her lungs, he gives her another shove that sends her stumbling backward. She clutches at the air and falls, hitting her head on the stove on the way down. The blow stuns her, and she lies on her back unable to move as the room turns around her in a sickening circle.

Deacon picks up her rifle and throws it of reach. Grabbing Teddy, he stuffs him under his arm like a parcel, walks over to where Carrie is lying, and stands over her. By now Teddy is terrified and screaming, but Deacon ignores him.

“I’ll give you one more chance. Come back to Washington with me. Be my wife. I won’t force you into my bed, if that’s what you’re worried about, but if you don’t leave with me right now, you’re never going to see the little brat again.”

Her head throbs, she’s bitten her tongue, and she can taste blood in her mouth. If there’s anything more she can do to make him put Teddy down and go away, she’s not capable of thinking of it. “I’ll—” she gasps.

“You’ll what? Come with me?” She nods and stretches out her hand, but he bats it aside. “What kind of fool do you think I am? Get up on your own.”

Rising to her knees, she slowly struggles to her feet. As she stands, the wind catches the door and rattles it. Looking toward the sound, she sees William standing in the doorway holding his pistol in one hand and an iron skillet in the other.

Deacon doesn’t turn around. He’s too busy doing his victory dance.
You miserable
safado
,
she thinks. She looks at him standing there like a pompous fool, and feels a mixture of relief and anger that makes her glad she didn’t try to grab his gun. They’re going to get Teddy away from him without a shot being fired.

“Life’s like poker,” Deacon’s saying, “and you just drew losing cards.”

Carrie nods weakly as if she’s given up and has no more fight left in her. Weaving a little, she grabs at the edge of the stove to steady herself—the perfect picture of a woman about to swoon. If Deacon knew her better—if he had ever really known her at all—he’d realize she wasn’t the fainting type, but the only person he’s ever studied is himself.

“None of that, now,” he says. “I’ve got no time for female fainting fits. Go get your bonnet. There’s—”

Suddenly she plunges toward him hitting his arm, knocking the revolver out of his hand, and grabbing Teddy on the way down.
Whap!
William steps up behind Deacon and poleaxes him with the skillet.

 

 

 

 

 

W
hen Deacon opens his eyes a few minutes later, he finds himself staring down the barrel of William’s gun. To Carrie’s surprise and amusement, his first reaction is to scream like someone is tearing out his fingernails.

“Don’t shoot me!” he shrieks.

“This isn’t one of your melodramas,” William says. “Pull yourself together, man, and get to your feet.”

Deacon stands up. His face is as white as a cotton pillowcase, and he’s shaking so violently Carrie almost pities him. For a few seconds William stares at him without speaking. Then he says: “If you ever come anywhere near Carrie and Teddy again, I’ll blow your damn head off. Do you understand?” Deacon makes a squeaking sound like a rat caught in a trap. He opens his mouth but no words come out.

“Get the hell out of here,” William says.

After Deacon leaves, William stays with Carrie and Teddy for the rest of the day. By nightfall the sack of Lawrence is over. The next morning, Atchison marches his men through town one last time and loads them onto a boat that will take them back to Missouri. That day and the next, William and Carrie pitch in to help clean up the mess, and on Friday a band of bushwhackers comes back in the middle of the night and burns down their house.

Who dips those rags in kerosene, sets them on fire, and throws them onto the thatch? Did Deacon send them? William and Carrie never know for sure, but they wake to the smell of smoke and the sound of riders leaving at a gallop.

The men who burn their house also steal William’s horse, but even if the bushwhackers had left the mare in the stable, William and Carrie are too busy trying to put out the fire to pursue the arsonists, so their identity remains a mystery.

Scooping up Teddy, they escape unharmed. They save William’s medical instruments and books; Carrie’s art supplies, drawings, and plant presses; the quilt; two of the buffalo robes, a tin box full of dried plants, and a trunk of clothing; but the rag rug, the hand-carved butter molds, the churn, and the blue calico curtains go up in flames.

The memory that stays with Carrie longest is the sight of the newspapers she pasted to the walls. One by one, they curl and twist, blacken and fall to the ground as ash. After the ashes cool, she picks up a handful and throws them into the air. As they drift away, she silently lists all the places she’s lived: houses in Rio, huts along the upper Amazon, Mae Seja’s
quilombo,
Grandfather Hampton’s place in Bloomington, Grandfather Vinton’s in Mitchellville, her cabin on
The Frances Scott
, that mansion in Washington Bennett Presgrove rented. This house was different. This was the first real home she ever had, the first she expected to live in for the rest of her life. Months ago, the
buzios
warned fire would take something from her. She thought she’d be able to bear the loss, but now—Picking up another handful of ashes she stares at them and begins to cry.