The Widow's War (37 page)

Carrie can’t bear to continue watching Jane suffer. Folding up the opera glasses, she stuffs them in her pocket. Behind her are fifteen men ready to die to set Jane and the other captives free, fifteen men eager to take on Henry Clark and his band of murderers. Carrie has led them to Beau Rivage. Now it’s their turn to take over. They’ve agreed that Ni and Ebenezer will lead the attack: Ni because he saw something of warfare when he lived with the Kaw; and Ebenezer because he served his master during the Mexican War.

Carrie closes her eyes and thinks of Elizabeth.
I’d come with you,
Elizabeth had said,
but I’m too old to ride that fast and that far. God bless you. God keep you.

After Elizabeth blessed Carrie, she went to each man, and blessed him by name: Abel, Andrew, Bilander, Caesar, Cush, Charles, Ebenezer, Ishmael, Jack, Jordan, Marcellus, Ni, Peet, and Samuel. When she got to Spartacus, she drew him to her and kissed him on the forehead.
Be as brave as your brothers and stay alive if you can. You’re my last living child, my last chick out of the nest.

Carrie decides that if Spartacus is to return to his mother in one piece, they will need more information than she can get through a pair of collapsible opera glasses. Someone has to go down to Beau Rivage and find out where William and Teddy are and how many men Clark has. There are signs that more raiders have arrived in her absence. The number of horses in the corral has doubled and there are tents pitched in the pasture.

We’ll take them by surprise,
Ni said.

We’ll trap them between the bluff and the river,
Ebenezer promised her.

Is this possible? Will it work? They’re clearly outnumbered now, but how badly? There’s only one way to find out.

U
sed properly, powdered fustic wood produces an evil, yellowish brown that suggests age and illness. No woman in her right mind dyes her hair with fustic if she wants men to look at her with interest; but if she does not want men to look at her at all . . .
Well then,
Carrie thinks,
it’s perfect, particularly when you combine it with a ragged head scarf, a bundle filled with herbs, a dirty face, and a limp.

Thanks to this disguise, she has passed unnoticed through the gates of Beau Rivage, counted Clark’s men, and determined that there are now at least thirty, plus Clark himself who fortunately is nowhere in sight. She has also spotted the four men in dark suits sitting on straight-backed chairs under a tree drinking something out of glass tumblers. Three appear to be carrying sidearms. The fourth has tipped his chair back against the tree trunk and flung his coat open. If he is carrying anything more deadly than a penknife, Carrie can’t see it.

She intended to find out where William and Teddy were being kept, but there were so many of Clark’s men walking around she didn’t dare linger any longer than it took her to walk from the front of the house to the back. Now she is in the kitchen standing beside the cook who is in the process of examining a pack of needles, a partly used bottle of glue, and half a dozen packets of herbs that Carrie has spread out on the table in front of her.

The cook is the same tall, heavyset, dark-skinned woman Carrie saw fetching firewood. She wears a coarse smock under her apron and a pair of old boots out at the toes. If they were in Kansas, she might be free, but here in Missouri she is undoubtedly a slave. Since it costs a great deal to take a woman out of the fields and put her in the kitchen, the owners of Beau Rivage must be prospering.

“What’s this here?” the cook asks, poking at one of the packets.

“That’s for worms.”

The cook frowns and nudges at the packet again. “How fast it work?”

“Fast.”

“Can y’all use it to worm hogs?”

“Nothing better.”

The cook picks up the packet, opens it, and cautiously sniffs the contents. As she does so, Carrie hears a sound that makes her stiffen. Somewhere in the house, Teddy is crying.
My boy, my baby!
she thinks.
Where are you!
She grits her teeth. For Teddy’s sake, she can’t afford to betray what she’s feeling.

“Does your mistress have a child?” she asks. She can hear her voice trembling, but the cook must not for she says:

“It ain’t hers. She just takin’ care of it for a spell. Then it going South.”

“South?”

“With the new slaves. They sellin’ ’em all South. Not keepin’ a single one. I was hopin’ they give me a girl for the kitchen. I need help in here, but they sellin’ ’em all at auction this afternoon. The buyers done already arrived. How much you want for this worm medicine?”

“Seven cents.” Carrie nearly chokes on the words.

“You think we made of money here? I go ask Miss Emily for seven cents for wormin’ hogs, and she think I crazy.”

“How about five?”

The cook nods her head. “That be more like it. You stay here. I be right back.” Carrie knows she needs to avoid exciting suspicion, but she can’t stop herself.

“Are they selling the child, too?”

“Now you the crazy one. That’s a white child. You think they gonna sell a white child? No, they gonna give him to some folk who own a big place down in Lus’ana or Georgia or sumwheres.”

“Doesn’t the child have a mother or father?”

“Oh yeah, he got a father, but there a price on his head. Massa Clark gonna hang him for helpin’ slaves escape. That’s the law here in Missouri.”

“When are they going to hang him?”

The cook looks at her warily. “Late afternoon or thereabouts, I reckon. Massa Clark say he want to do it before the guests et their dinner, but Miss Emily say hangin’ put folks off their feed. What you care anyways?”

“Just curious.” Clark plans to hang William in two or three hours! Carrie’s mind begins to move in all directions, making plans, discarding them, making more plans. If she had returned from Osawatomie a day later—even a few hours later—William would be dead; Teddy and the others gone . . .

She can’t think about any of this now. She has to concentrate on playing the role she has created for herself. She forces herself to smile at the cook. “I always enjoy a good hanging.”

The cook frowns and shrugs. “Most white folks do, but I’m the one who got to cook the vittles for the big party my masters throwing. You bake pies and fry chicken in here this time of year and it get so hot you near to smother.” She slips the packet of worm medicine into her apron pocket.

“Now you stay put, and I’ll go see if I can talk Miss Emily into givin’ you five cents for this stuff. Of course if you was to lower the price—”

“Three cents,” Carrie says.

Five minutes later, the cook returns to the kitchen with three pennies only to find that the peddler lady has disappeared. Deciding this is her lucky day, she slips the pennies into her apron pocket and sets about rolling out the crusts for the pies.

D
uring the course of their married life, Miss Emily has won every argument she has had with her husband except the one that brought her to Missouri. She wanted to stay in Tennessee so she could be near her mama and papa, but Jed dragged her to Beau Rivage, and she has been making him pay for it ever since. As a result of her refusal to yield an inch in the direction of compromise, everyone is eating dinner before the hanging this afternoon, not after.

The slaves have all been put up on the block and auctioned off. Mr. Thompson bought most of them, including the sullen-looking one and her two little daughters; the planters bought the rest, grumbling at the quality of the merchandise but pleased by the price. Did Jed make a profit from these sales? Miss Emily neither knows nor cares. At present the slaves are back in the slave pen, out of sight awaiting transport, which means, as far as she is concerned, they have vanished as completely as morning dew.

While the auction was going on, the slaves of Beau Rivage placed sawhorses in the front yard, covered them with planks, and brought out every bench, stool, and chair in the house, including a cane-bottomed rocker that really should be reglued before anyone sits in it. On the table intended for Miss Emily, her husband, and his cousin, the planters, and Mr. Thompson, the cook spread a white linen cloth. The other tables, where Mr. MacNally the overseer and Henry Clark’s men were to sit, had to make do with ordinary cotton.

Miss Emily entrusted her good china and silver plate to all the tables, despite the fact that some of the men who ride with her husband’s cousin look like ruffians who wouldn’t know a fish knife from a marrow spoon. She fears breakage and depredation, but she cannot resist bringing out her best. Of course there are not enough Wedgwood dinner plates to go around, but on the whole she is pleased. She loves to put on parties, particularly ones where she is the only woman present and thus can flirt outrageously without fear of censure.

Unfortunately only the two planters and Mr. Thompson are worth flirting with. Henry Clark also would be a possibility, except there is something about him that bothers her. She can’t quite put her finger on it. He’s handsome enough, but whenever she looks into his eyes, she feels as if she’s staring at a blind man. He doesn’t appear to see her, and this annoys her no end.

“May I offer you another serving of chicken?” she asks, hoping to force him into a civil conversation.

“Yes, thank you, Cousin Emily.” Clark flashes her a smile that reveals teeth so perfect they look as if they’ve been dipped in whitewash.

“Messlina,” Miss Emily commands, “provide Mr. Clark with some chicken.” The cook hurries forward and offers Clark the platter. Picking up his fork, Clark spears a drumstick.

“Where’s the boy?” he asks as he deposits it on his plate and sets about eating.

“Upstairs taking a nap. He’s just the cutest little thing. I love him to bits.”

“I’d be obliged if you’d wake him and bring him out to the table.”

Miss Emily represses an impulse to ask why her husband’s cousin wants the little brat at an adult gathering when all he will do is drool, scream, and break things.

“Why certainly,” she says, giving him her most charming smile. Again she turns to the cook. “Messlina, hand that platter to Lucy and go upstairs and fetch . . .” For an instant, she cannot recall the child’s name. “. . . Teddy. Before you bring him down, make sure his face and hands are clean.”

Without waiting for Messlina to reply, Miss Emily turns back to Clark. “It’s uncommon to allow such a young child to witness a hanging. May I ask why you want him present?”

Clark puts down the chicken leg and wipes his lips with one of Miss Emily’s linen napkins. “I doubt the boy will remember the execution of Doctor Saylor,” he says, “but Doctor Saylor will see him and—”

“And what?” Miss Emily prompts.

Clark lifts his eyebrows as if imparting a secret. He lowers his voice and leans close to Miss Emily—unpleasantly close, actually. “Well, let’s simply say that the doctor could have avoided the sight by being more cooperative. And then—” Clark puts down his napkin and stares at the remains of the drumstick. Miss Emily follows his eyes and sees some scraps of skin and a well-picked bone.

“And then?” she prompts again.

He does not reply. Despairing of further engaging him in conversation, she turns and begins to talk to Mr. Thompson.

 

 

 

 

 

U
p on the bluff concealed from view, Carrie lies between Ni and Ebenezer. Ebenezer is peering down at Beau Rivage through Elizabeth’s opera glasses.

“What are they doing now?” she asks.

“Still eating.”

“Is Clark’s flag still flying in the front yard?”

“Yes.”

“And Jane and the girls?”

“Still in the slave pen with the others.”

“How many of Clark’s men are guarding them?”

“One. The other two appear to have joined the dinner party.”

“Any sign of William?”

“Not yet.”

“We can’t attack until we know where he is.”

“I don’t think we need to worry about finding him. I think they’re going to bring him out soon. One of Clark’s men just put a chair under the big tree. It’s right under a limb and no one’s sitting in it.”

 

 

 

 

 

A
fter the chair has been placed under the hanging tree, Henry Clark stands up and taps on his water goblet with his fork, calling both tables to silence.

“Cousin Emily, Cousin Jed, gentlemen, boys, Mr. MacNally, we now come to what the French call the ‘resistance piece.’ In a little while, after you have enjoyed Miss Emily’s pies and finished your coffee, we are going to hang an infamous abolitionist.”

The guests break into applause, and some of Clark’s men give hoots of approval. Clark glares at the men who made rude noises. Clearing his throat, he looks down the length of the tables. It’s a sight of devastation: plates piled with bones and scraps, platters smeared with the remains of mashed potatoes, green beans swimming in pot liquor, crumbled cornbread, broken biscuits, tablecloths so spotted with congealed cream gravy that a man could probably eat off them for a week.

“Saylor didn’t get a trial because he didn’t deserve one. He’s been wanted for slave stealing since fifty-four, and we caught him red-handed harboring fugitives. But this presents us with a problem. In the ordinary course of things, a man who’s been condemned to death sits in jail for a few weeks thinking about how that rope is going to feel as it tightens around his neck. There’s no use hanging a man so fast he doesn’t know what’s happening to him, so I propose we give our Kansas Jayhawker time to understand that the feet he’s got planted on the seat of that kitchen chair over there are going to dance him straight to hell.”

“Bring the son of a bitch out here now!” Jed yells. Cousin Emily flinches as if someone has dropped a hot coal on her head. Henry Clark suppresses a grin. Jed is going to spend years paying for that one. It will be a miracle if he gets laid before the Second Coming.