The Bride of Texas (58 page)

But his general didn’t see this scene. From Slocum’s dispatch he knew that a single division under Carlin was facing
the onslaught of battalions under Hardee and Hoke and Lee and Stewart and Cheatham and Hill. He would not see, later that day, the ragged division banners fluttering over the heads of what were scarcely a regiment, or the regimental banners flying over squads. “Hardee,” General Howard said. “I taught his son Willie in Sunday School at West Point.” The general ignored him and started barking orders. “Hazen! He’s closest to the left flank. His division will immediately join Carlin! Woods, Smith, Corse, they’re at Cox’s Bridge.” The Rebels had set fire to the bridge, but while it was burning Logan’s engineers erected a pontoon bridge across the Neuse. The sergeant understood the general’s intention: “They’ll cross the Neuse and hit Johnston from behind. Blair and the entire Seventeenth Corps will move to Bentonville tonight!”

There wasn’t much night left. The marathon march of divisions and battalions continued through the day, while the huge battle raged at Bentonville.

“Why do you always use that perfume, little rose?”

“Does it bother you?”

“Of course not. I love the smell. But I always end up smelling like it too.”

“That bother you?”

“Not me. But you told me Étienne gets jealous.”

“He can’t tell. He’s so used to my perfume he never even notices it anymore.”

It made him feel sad and angry. “Yes, he’s used to it — I’ll never get used to it.”

“Wait till I’m yours,” she said. “I mean, I’m yours and only yours already. It’s just that I don’t belong to you yet.”

The light hoof-beats of a carriage-horse came in from the road.
Dinah ducked down behind the machine he was assembling. She had stopped off at the lean-to on her way to take some medicine to sick Uncle Habakuk, the old patriarch of the plantation, who was at least sixty-five and who used up enormous quantities of rheumatism ointment that M. de Ribordeaux got sent from Galveston for him
.

“He smears it on his bread,” said Dinah
.

“His bread?”

“That’s right. Uncle Habakuk has peculiar tastes, all on account of an overseer named Mister Williams, who had it in for him back when Uncle Habakuk was still on Massa Butler’s plantation in Louisiana. Mister Williams, he was a mean overseer. He beat the niggers and did all kinds of things to them. He accused Uncle Habakuk of being lazy and, fact is, Uncle Habakuk was lazy, and still is. He’d rather practise fiddling in his cabin than pick cotton, and Saturdays he’d play the fiddle at dances.”

“And Williams let him? Maybe he wasn’t that mean.”

“He had to let him. Uncle Habakuk was so good at faking that he even had Dr. Benson fooled for two whole months, before the doctor caught him making a tongue paste and sent him back to work.”

Cyril was puzzled. Did she mean that Uncle Habakuk had a recipe for a spread made out of beef tongue? There were still gaps in his knowledge of English, or perhaps Dinah’s pronunciation had something to do with it. When she wanted to she could talk as well as the white gentry, and when she was alone with him that was how she spoke
.

“No, it wasn’t a beef spread,” she said. “It was something he used to mix from mustard, dandelions, and God knows what else. He’d smear it on his tongue and the back of his throat and pretend he couldn’t talk and had the shivers. He knew how to fake shivers so bad it looked like he was chilled through to the bone. Dr. Benson tried to scrape the yellow-brown coating off his tongue but it held
so strong he had trouble getting it off himself later on, when he was back in the cotton-fields. The only thing that would take it off was whisky. Not even julep would do the trick. So Uncle Habakuk’s throat was coated for weeks at a time, because whisky was hard to come by. On the other hand, it stuck so well that he could be sick for days at a time
.

“Dr. Benson tried out all his cures on Uncle Habakuk. First he bled him, then he purged him, then he had him fast for a couple of days, bled him again, and when the film in his throat wouldn’t go away he sent Uncle Habakuk back to the cotton-fields.”

She had told him this story the second time they met in the arboretum; she hadn’t brought him a book to read. There were fireflies everywhere, midsummer Texas fireflies. Dinah’s eyes were full of mischief and he accused her of making the story up. Her eyes grew grave
.

“Why would I make things up?” She glanced across the hedge to the white lights of the big house, and the yellow lights of the cabins beyond it. “I don’t need to make anything up.”

He realized she was right. With the life she led, why would she need to make things up?

She laughed out loud. “It’s Mister Williams who’s responsible for Uncle Habakuk’s strange tastes. Once he caught him taking a snooze among the tobacco plants. ‘You lazy bastard! So this is what you do! And I keep wondering how come there’s still so many caterpillars on my tobacco plants. You just wait,’ he hollered. ‘I’ll teach you.’ Then he ordered the niggers not to stomp any of the caterpillars they were picking off the tobacco plants, but to put them in a tin pot he gave little Sarah to carry. When the pot was full and it was time for lunch, he pulled out a spoon and ordered Uncle Habakuk to eat the caterpillars. Well, everybody expected him to throw up, but Uncle Habakuk sat down on the ground, set the pot in his lap, dug his spoon into that squirming mess of caterpillars — ugh — I get sick just thinking about it. I’d surely have
thrown up if I’d been there. But I only heard about it from Uncle Habakuk.”

“And he didn’t make this up?”

“Where else do you think he got those strange tastes, like spreading rheumatism ointment on his bread? Anyway, Uncle Habakuk says his stomach did feel pretty awful. But then he shut his eyes, grabbed a caterpillar off the spoon with his fingers, and took a bite. ‘It taste a little like blackberries, girl,’ he told me. Uncle Habakuk actually took a liking to them and dug right in. When Mister Williams saw that, he threw up himself.”

Cyril burst out laughing
.

“And so did five women who were expecting.”

“Now you just thought that up!”

“All right, I did,” she admitted, “but that was all I made up. That feast didn’t make Uncle Habakuk very popular with Mister Williams. In fact, it turned into a feud between the two of them that dragged on and on. But Uncle Habakuk came out on top in the end. You see, he could read, except nobody knew. And he also drew pictures, really beautifully.”

Lida sniffed. Like a cat. She was wearing a new dress Cyril had given her money for, with a bold décolletage and a hanky tucked into it. Her mother had shaken her head over the dress, and her little brother Josef had whistled when she was looking at herself in a mirror that was too small. She had taken that as a compliment and said, “Thanks.”

Now she sniffed. “You had that woman here again.”

“No I didn’t!”

She looked around the room, stepped over to the wide bed with its silk coverlet. She sniffed again
.

“You swear?”

“I swear it!”

“You had no woman here yesterday?”

“I swear I didn’t.”

Impatiently, he went up to her and put his hands on her breasts. She pulled away and walked over to the window. “I believe you, but.…”

Outside Benjamin was walking by. He tossed her a lewd, knowing glance and then quickly looked away, as though he hadn’t seen her
.

“But what?” asked Étienne uneasily
.

“It’s not discreet enough here,” she said. “I found a sort of an —
Absteig
—”

“A what?” She sometimes resorted to words he didn’t understand
.

“A place to meet so your niggers can’t spy on us.”

“Where?” he asked. He seemed baffled
.

“It’s in Austin,” she replied sweetly. “By the river. In Baywater Street.”

He turned beet-red
.

“My dear,” she said, her voice still sweet. “You will not cheat on me, because you cannot. And you will sell the woman who uses this perfume. Really sell her this time.”

He dropped to one knee — something he had learned to do even with his wooden leg — embraced her thighs, and buried his face in the front of her tight skirt. “I’ll sell her, Linda my sweet, I swear —”

“But you will sell her where I tell you to sell her,” she interrupted. She looked out the window. The cotton-fields sloped away to the setting sun. “I think I know who will buy her.”

“I’ll sell her to anyone you say, Linda!”

“And you will sell her cheap. As punishment!”

As he fled, Lieutenant Bellman could see General Carlin running ahead of him, his
Schlachtanzug
gleaming like a blue target, unstained by battle. The entire division was running away, driven by explosions overhead that sheared the branches off the pine trees. Minnie balls made the air buzz with their discordant funeral music. Just ahead of the lieutenant, a soldier fell to the ground, half his head tumbling bloodied to the grass. The lieutenant jumped over it and ran on. Another soldier beside him fell, grabbed his leg, and howled as blood poured from his wound. They could feel the Rebel yell driving them. General Carlin and a group of his staff scrambled into the black brush. Lieutenant Bellman joined them. All across the green meadow, men in tattered uniforms were rushing forward, their ragged banners flying victoriously in the sunshine. General Carlin pulled out a pistol and fired once, and then again, at the thin but furiously advancing line led by General Bate, his crutches bouncing up and down against his saddle. A group of Union riders tore past, pulling their field-guns behind them. A blue target, General Carlin stood towering over the black bush.

“Get down, general!” one of the mounted artillerymen yelled. “My battery’s the last one. Ain’t nothing but Rebel troops behind me!”

A rifle cracked nearby and a captain in Carlin’s staff grabbed himself by the arm; droplets of his blood spattered the general’s
Schlachtanzug
and quickly soaked into the fabric. Carlin broke into a run again, with his staff behind him, including the captain whose arm was spurting blood. Bellman came last, his mind on those impaled bugs. Now, when the end is already — he ran.

He must have run a whole mile, turning now and then to fire. The grey lines kept advancing, their banners shredded by gunfire and fluttering like butterflies high over their heads. General Bate brandished his sword. Lieutenant Bellman
reached the palisade at the edge of the woods and clambered over it.

General Carlin was already standing there, talking with two excited men in blood-soaked shirts.