Leigh Ann's Civil War (26 page)

No Louis to say,
Look, I won't have you talking that way about our mother. No matter what she does, she's still our mother.

We rode at a slow canter, and then we heard the barking of a dog.

It was the dog who did it.

Cicero.

He came running from around back of the house, onto the verandah. For a moment he stood there barking in his best tone. Then my Buster started in, and though I tried to keep him by me he went running down the long drive toward the house, and then Cicero came charging toward him and they met halfway and started circling each other and oh, I hoped they wouldn't fight. But soon tails were wagging.

The front door of the house opened and a figure appeared and whistled. Cicero went bounding back, Buster with him.

I suppose my brother Teddy saw the blue uniform on Mulholland, for he went back into the house and came out quickly with a rifle and stood there, legs spread, waiting.

We were only about a third down the drive when Mulholland halted and stopped us. "No farther," he ordered. "You stop right here, little girl."

For I had started on. I had even yelled, "Teddy, Teddy, we're home!"

He heard me. I know he did. But he didn't move. Just stood there with that rifle at the ready.

"What now?" I asked Mulholland.

He was studying on the matter. "You go on," he directed. "Up to the house. Carol stays here with me. You have a little consultation with that famous brother of yours. No fooling around. No hysterics. We've got no time for that. I'm giving you half an hour for this consultation. You're not back in that time, I leave with Carol. You tell him that. You hear?"

"Yes, but—"

"No buts. You tell him why I'm here, what I want. How much for his woman. And if I don't get it, I leave with his woman. He comes after me, I'll kill her right off. He kills me, it's no matter, 'cause she'll be dead already. You got that?"

"Yes."

"He says yes, he's got the money, you come right away and tell me. He gets his woman when you bring the money, not before. You got that?"

"Yes."

"Now go on. Get. Half an hour."

I got.

I rode my tea-colored filly swiftly up to the front verandah to where Teddy was standing, drew the horse to a halt, got off, and handed her over to Primus, who had appeared out of nowhere.

"Hello, Teddy."

"Hello, sweetie."

It seemed so trite. But there were no other words made to say. I reached into my saddlebag, fetched out the letter from the doctor-captain, and stuffed it in my trouser pocket. Then I leaped up the stairs, and for a moment Teddy and I just stood looking at each other.

He took my measure. "You all right?"

"Yes."

"What's that bruise on your face? Who did that to you?"

"Can we talk inside, Teddy? We don't have much time. Only half an hour to settle things or Mulholland is going to leave with Carol."

He peered over my head down the drive. "He is, is he? Not while I live and breathe."

"Teddy,
please,
listen to me." Tears came into my eyes as I looked up at him. I took his free hand, the one that wasn't holding the gun. I gripped it in my own. And I used the only thing I had.

"Don't let him even try to go without listening to me," I told him. "We must do this for Carol. You want her back, don't you? She's having your baby!"

Disbelief, a mask that Teddy never wore, sat on his face. "That isn't funny," he said sternly.

Now I took his hand in both my own and pulled him to the door. "Oh, please believe me. I would never lie to you. Come into the house. There isn't time, dear Teddy. Oh, if I'm lying, you can beat me. But darling Teddy, do come."

***

We stood a few feet apart, like adversaries, which I suppose at that moment we were, in his study. The two dogs settled down near us.

"Sergeant Mulholland—he's the head of the bummers—he said he wants ransom money to give Carol back to you."

"He the one who gave you that bruise on your face?"

"Oh, Teddy, does it matter now?"

"Damned right it matters. What else did he do to you?"

I could see there was no going forward until we got around this. "He beat me. Twice."

He cussed in his best manner. "When I get my hands on him, he'll be sorry he ever drew breath."

"No, Teddy, you mustn't get your hands on him. You approach him in any way and he'll shoot Carol first. He told me to warn you of this."

"You telling me how to run my affairs now?"

I raised my chin and met his eyes. "I'm only telling you what I know, Teddy."

He nodded.
Approval?
I could not worry about that now. "Did he touch Carol?" he asked.

"No."

"Viola? Where the hell is she, anyway?"

Another thing we had to get around. "Back in Marietta. She's married by now. To a very nice man. A doctor-captain surgeon by the name of Ashton. He's taking care of her." I took the letter out of my trouser pocket, walked over to his desk, and set it down. "This is from him," I said. "He's really a good man, Teddy."

"You approve," he said sardonically.

I said yes, I did.

He nodded slowly. "How much money does this SOB Yankee want for my wife?"

I told him. "Five thousand dollars."

His eyes went wide. "What? He's crazier than a loony bird! I don't have that kind of cash on hand! You tell him I did?"

"I didn't tell him anything, Teddy."

"Why not? Did you lead him to think we had it?"

"I just wanted us to get home, Teddy, is all." Now I was truly frightened. Because I knew we had it. And more. Only either Teddy did not know how much we possessed, or he had forgotten about it.

So I must say it. It was imperative that I put my head on the block.

"We do have it, Teddy."

He scowled. He took a step toward me in a threatening manner and I backed away. But he kept on coming until he grabbed my shoulder and peered into my face intently. He felt my forehead for fever. "You sure that Mulholland brute didn't fracture your skull?" he asked.

I'd never thought about that.

"I don't know," I said. "I did have a lot of headaches on the ride home. The doctor gave me some powders and told me to watch out for feeling lethargic. But I'm thinking clearly, Teddy. We have it."

"So tell me then. Where?"

"Louis's silver that he and I buried that day so long ago now. It's worth more than twenty-five thousand. And he told me to use it, if it was needed. To save the family."

I saw my brother's square jaw tighten. I saw the tears come into his eyes. "Is this the only way out, then?" he asked. "I can't just go out there and blast his head off and get my wife?"

"Teddy," I told him, "he said that before you even got close, he'd shoot her. And if you shot him dead, it wouldn't matter, 'cause you'd never get her back again."

He took a deep breath. No, he heaved. And then my strong, beautiful brother started to cry. I went to him and he held me. And that was our hello hug. We held each other for less than a minute. And then it was over. His tears stopped, and what was surprising to me is that he was not ashamed of crying. He made no apology. It was just one of those moments that happened. Rarely, but a man accepted them in his life.

It only made me admire him more.

In an instant he was his old self, in command.

"I'll find Primus to come dig up the silver. You go tell that slithering noxious snake that I agree to his terms and he'll have his money in about twenty minutes. Then come back and show Primus and me where the silver is."

Teddy lost the war that day.

He lost the battle of First Manassas.

But he found himself for the first time in a long time. He forgave himself, which some men never get to do, I suppose. He looked at Carol and she looked at him as if they had just met.

I tried to stay out of their way, though both attempted to pay attention to me.

I let them have supper alone in the candlelit dining room. I did this by saying I did not feel very well. I went to my room, to bed. Because, in truth, I did not feel well at all.

Careen came to me. My friend. She brought me some soup she had made and she stayed with me while I sat up in bed and ate it.

She told me things. All the things I needed to know.

The house had not been ransacked as other mansions had been, because Teddy had given the house and field servants guns, as other owners had not. And Teddy and our house and field servants had always been at their stations, at the ready. Whereas many other owners had been away and left their places vacant.

"We take turns." Careen grinned. "Massa Teddy, he call it shifts. Even me. I have a gun."

"Did any of the servants run off when the Yankees left?" I asked her.

"Yes," she told me. And she named the several who did. "Teddy let them go," she said. "He know the day be comin' when they all go and he can't stop them."

And then, in naming them she told me, casually, "Your mama run off, too. With that Garrard fella."

My mouth fell open.

"Your mama, one day she come 'round and tell Teddy she wuz leavin' with Garrard. He tells her go. But she wants some of her things first."

"What things?"

"Old dresses. 'Cause you can't get dresses no more. Says she can't exist without them. She such a humbug, that woman! Massa Teddy, he told me to go with her to get the baggage. So I went to the garret with her. And I had to lug down an old gilt-edged mirror she just had to have. And some cut-glass champagne glasses. And some other stuff that was as worthless as a skunk in daylight."

"Teddy let her have it all?"

"Not before he make her sign a paper saying she would make no more claim on the plantation, or the mill, ever again."

"Pa?" I asked. "What about Pa? Why haven't I seen him?"

"You scarce seen anything, Leigh Ann. Your pa, he abed. He don't get outta bed no more. Massa Teddy, he don't say, but I think your pa, he dying."

She told me about the churches, how our church, Roswell Presbyterian, and Mount Carmel Methodist had been stripped of their pews and had their hymnals and pipe organs destroyed. How cavalry troops had desecrated graves in some of the cemeteries.

"They done ruined Factory Hill," she said. "Tore it apart. And you know Reverend Pratt's house?"

"They ruined that, too?"

"No, but tore up some thirty acres of his corn and wheat and sorghum. I rode up with Massa Teddy and saw it. Massa Teddy, he madder than a wet porcupine, he sure 'nuff is, 'bout that. And you know what all else?"

I didn't know if I wanted to know what all else, but I indicated to her that I did.

"Massa Teddy, he gots a telegram from way up there in Philly-delphia, from your grandmother. She tell him that you all never got there, that her man near gets arrested and gets hisself sent back. Massa Teddy, he worry it to the bone. He gets in touch with that nice Major McCoy some way and that nice Major McCoy tell him you all still in Marietta and that all he knows. I tell you, Leigh Ann, Massa Teddy going crazier by the day and talkin' 'bout takin' off and goin' to Marietta himself. He tells Primus, 'Can you all take care of the place? Can you all keep it safe if I go?' And Primus says, 'Yes, boss, we all can.'

"So Massa Teddy thinking serious-like about goin' just before you all come home."

***

Teddy had gone to bed early with Carol, though I saw the can delight shining from under their door.

I could not sleep. I got up and went downstairs and out on the verandah in my robe and slippers and sat there with Buster and Cicero and looked at the stars in the heavens. My head was going round and round with all I'd been through. I could not quiet it. Likely I would never sleep again.

The night did not wait for me. I heard an owl hooting and I thought,
I wonder if that is Louis's owl come to keep me company.
There was a God-ordained cool breeze and my head hurt. I wondered if I
had
a fractured skull. What was a fractured skull anyway? Did it ever get better?

For no reason in the world I started to cry. Quietly. I did not want anyone to hear me. There was so much to cry about, and I knew I would never be able to cry enough to cover all the reasons.

I must have dozed then, because I did not hear the footsteps approach.

"Leigh Ann, what are you doing out here?"

I thought I was dreaming.

"Leigh Ann, wake up. This is no place to sleep."

He knelt next to my chair and put his hand on my head. "Child, you must come to bed now."

I'm not a child anymore,
I thought.
How can I be? Doesn't he know that?

Of course not. How could he? He doesn't know what all I've been through.

But I
want
to be a child. Can you go back to being one again if you want to? And he wants me to be one. He
needs
me to be one.

For heaven's sake, I'm still only fourteen years old!

"Teddy," I said.

"Yes. I didn't even get to talk to you tonight since you came home."

I smiled. "You had your wife to attend to," I teased. "Did you attend to her?"

"Don't be sassy."

There, I was a child again. "Is Pa dying?"

"I'm afraid so."

"How soon?"

"Soon. You visit him tomorrow."

"When is Louis coming home?"

"Soon on that, too."

"My head hurts."

"I'm going to get the doctor tomorrow. Going without sleep won't help. Come on—I'll give you a powder. Do you want me to carry you up?"

I wasn't that much of a child. I said no. But I was a little unsteady on my feet, and he held my arm and saw me to bed. When I was safely there and he'd given me a powder, he stood at the foot of my bed for a moment. "Thank you for all you did for Carol," he said.

As I'd felt before, there were no words for this. I nodded. He bit his lower lip to keep his feelings from showing, turned, and left the room.

***

Dr. Widmar, who was too old to go off to war but not too old to still attend to his people in Roswell, said I did not have a fractured skull, but I did indeed have a concussion. And that meant rest, plenty of it. And so Teddy and Carol saw to it. I was allowed to see Pa the next day, but after that I was consigned to the couch in the back parlor with my books and my dogs and I was fed and spoiled and I was a little girl again.