The Rebel Wife (20 page)

“Miss Gus,” she says. She walks past the bed to the wardrobe and swings its doors open.

“Good morning, Rachel,” I say to her. It is late and I am still in bed.

“Mr. Buck Heppert is in the parlor to see you. I told him you were feeling poorly, but he wanted me to send word up to you.”

“Thank you, Rachel.” I turn to get out of bed. “Where is Henry?”

“He’s out back with Little John. My John is watching them.” Rachel shoves the linens in between the narrow shelves. She never pays attention to where things go, rather, pushes them into the empty spaces. I long ago gave up asking her why she bothered ironing things only to crumple them in the wardrobe.

My feet are on the floor. I have to turn my head to see Rachel over my shoulder. “I should see Buck. Can you tell him I’ll be right down? And come back to help me dress.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Rachel walks to the door. She won’t look at me.

“Rachel.”

She stops and turns, her hands on her hips. “Yes, ma’am?”

“It’s the sickness, isn’t it?”

She raises her eyebrows. “Ma’am?”

“That’s why you are in such a rush to go to Kansas, isn’t it? The fever.”

Rachel narrows her eyes and shakes her head at me as if I am a schoolgirl. “The sickness that killed Mr. Eli, ma’am?” she says. “No, ma’am. We’ve wanted to get out of Albion long before this sickness came. I don’t know what Mr. Eli died of, but I know I never saw anything like it. I know your white doctor never saw it, either. My mama was a mean old conjure woman, Miss Gus. She put a curse on Rooster Cobb after he whipped my daddy and put him in a box to die. She put a spell on him that burnt up his cotton and his house and gave him the croup that killed him. She knew everything there was to know about conjuring.”

Rachel’s eyes are wide and shining. She steps closer to me. I lean away, but I don’t know where to retreat from her.

“She comes to me when I call her now. Her spirit is in me, and her mother’s spirit that was in her. They are a part of me and they answer my questions, but they can’t tell me what this sickness is. I know it isn’t any sort of breakbone fever I’ve seen, but my mama told me once a long time ago about a sickness that eats at you from the inside until you sweat yourself away to nothing. An old sickness, ma’am. That blood that came out of Mr. Eli—when I saw it, ma’am, I thought, My God, that’s this man’s insides coming out. And it’s got to come out for a reason. That blood is what’s coming out of people all over, Miss Gus. Don’t you touch it. Don’t get near it or it’ll kill you, too. I heard Emma lie to you. There are people out in the county—and yes, at the mill like you saw—whole families, black and white, bleeding all that pain out of them, and then they die. It’s the truth, that blood that’s coming out of them. It isn’t the sickness that’s making us go to Kansas. No, ma’am, it’s the truth that’s making us go.”

She fixes her eye on me, and I am frozen. Emma is lying to me. They are all lying to me. The sickness is spreading, although no one will say it.

“You should keep a charm on you, Miss Gus. Keep a charm on you and Henry to keep you safe.” She looks at the bedside table, where the bottle of laudanum stands. Beside it are two small burlap purses tied with twine. She nods to me and leaves the room.

That blue bottle. And those charms. Buck is downstairs. He must have talked to Judge. If I get the dividend, then I won’t have to think about Simon or Rachel and their wild stories. My head feels thick and heavy. I must get up. I hold my breath as long as I can and then exhale in a burst. I breathe slowly, drawing the air deep into my lungs. I take one of the charms in my hand and squeeze it. I can feel the bones and earth wrapped in the coarse cloth.

Buck’s hat is gripped in his hand. He turns from the window when he hears me enter.

“Good morning.” He does not seem happy or sad. More sad, I guess. Still the same distance in his eyes. The same stiffness to his mouth. He looks at me so intensely. He makes me self-conscious. My hands move across my arms by themselves. I can feel where I’ve missed buttons on my sleeves. The white of my chemise is showing, though it should not be. I did not have the patience to cover it. Rachel never came into my room to help me dress. Loose tendrils of dark hair hang around my face, and I try to brush them back.

“You are as beautiful as ever,” he says. He bows his head to me. He can be courtly, like his father.

“Did you talk to Judge?”

“Is that what you’re interested in? I thought we might visit.”

He is upset. I have been too brusque and thoughtless. Buck always needed a gentle hand. A hand willing to pet. Growing up without a mother makes him dislike forward women. Judge surely had something to do with that.

“Of course we can talk. But that is why you came to me, isn’t it?” I make a very pretty smile for him.

“Yes, I talked to him.” He turns his back on me and walks to the window. “He’s fine to lend you a little money to spend the summer up at Monte Sano.” He looks back at me. “Are you happy enough with that?”

I step toward him. The morning sun has settled in the room, and the air from the open windows does not move it.

“And the dividend?” I can’t resist asking. He knows that is what I want to know.

“He said he’ll think about the dividend.” We stare at each other. His eyes challenge me to question what he has done for me.

“Thank you so much,” I say. “Please sit down.” I indicate a chair, but he waits for me to sit on the divan and pulls a chair forward to face me.

“Pa wants to talk to you.” His eyes are steady and hard.

“He does? About what?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t seem happy that you were taking Eli’s things from the mill.”

“They’re my things, aren’t they?” I should not have said that. That is no way to win Buck.

“Pa says if he’s in charge of the estate, they’re his papers. He wants you to bring them to him.”

“You heard Mr. Hunslow. He said he didn’t need the papers.” My wrists feel hot and damp.

“I don’t remember hearing any such thing, and I’m not going to argue with you. That’s what Pa says. I recommend you gather them up and take them to him today.”

“To him? He won’t come to me? I’m in mourning.”

“You went to that mill without worrying about your mourning. That’s what Pa thinks.”

The clock ticking is so loud. It counts on and on each silent second that sits between us. Buck won’t take his eyes off me.

“Yes, of course, I’ll take them to him. Whatever he wishes. I didn’t mean any harm by it.”

“Really?” One corner of Buck’s mouth curls up in mockery. “What did you mean by it?”

“Why, I didn’t mean anything. It just occurred to me that I’d like to have Eli’s things. His possessions. And then Hunslow gave me all those papers, and after making such a fuss over it, I could hardly say I didn’t want the things. I mean, I can’t say that I have the slightest idea what all Eli’s scribbling meant anyway. I haven’t even bothered to look at them. I’ll take them to Judge today.”

Buck looks at the floor between his knees and breathes out. He looks at me again. His eyes have darkened. “What have these years done to you?” he asks. “Did Eli turn you into a Yankee? Is it all about money?”

“What have they done to me? What have they done to you? How can you ask me that? I’ve been through the same thing you and everyone else in Albion has been through. Forgive me if I have borne it better than you.” He knows what I have been through.

“You haven’t been through the same thing. You’ve been in this house, safe and protected, with everything you want given to you. That’s not anything like what the rest of us have been through. You didn’t have the Yankees watching every move you made, listening in on everything you say, following you everywhere you go like you’re a criminal. That’s how they treated Pa. Like a criminal. And me, too. You were friends with them. You had them over for supper. Did Eli have the niggers sit at the table with you, too?”

“No, he did not.”

“Well, that surprises me.” His face is dead. Motionless. He watches me without expression, with that hardness underneath. “He did everything else for them. He used them to get back at us. He told them to vote and showed them how, right down to putting the ballots in the box himself.”

“My Lord, can anyone talk about anything but the Negroes for longer than ten minutes at a time? You’d think we were fighting them during the war.”

“They’re not better than us, Gus.”

His face is turning red. I can’t help but look at his face. There is such ugliness under there. What I thought was sadness has turned into ugliness.

“I don’t think it would be very hard to be better than us,” I say.

He stands up, his voice rising. “That’s Eli talking again. You really have taken up the mantle, haven’t you? You should understand right now that we aren’t going to be humiliated by them. We aren’t going to be humiliated ever again.”

“Buck, please sit down. You sound like your father.”

He freezes. His fists clench. His eyes seem to bulge out at me.

“I’m sorry, Buck. I didn’t mean it like that. I understand things have been harder for other people. I know Judge is right. Judge is right.”

“Gus,” he says, and it sounds like he’s spitting at me. “I didn’t watch men die for this. My friends. Hill didn’t die for this.”

“I know Hill didn’t die for this.”

What did Hill die for? What did any of them die for?

“Every battle could have been my last. Every one of them. Your first one is the only time you’re not scared. You hear the bullets whizzing past your head so close you think they’re hornets. A swarm of them all around you. You don’t imagine you’ll ever get hit the first time. But then after, you look around and see all the dead. Your friends. Men you’ve known your whole life, dead and staring in smoldering woods or in a pool of mud and blood. After that, you know that at any moment you could be the one staring at nothing. Cold and dead and left behind unburied like carrion. Every battle after that is like death staring at you in the face, waiting to take you. I didn’t live through that for this. I don’t know how or why I lived through it, but I know it wasn’t for Eli and the Republicans and scalawags to do what they’ve done.” He exhales. He seems calmer now. He unclenches his fists. He picks up his hat from the chair. He looks down at the rug.

“I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. I lost control of myself.” He is sad Buck again. The rage is buried and he is ashamed.

“You didn’t upset me. It’s been nice visiting with you.”

I won’t get up. He can walk himself out.

“Yes. Thank you.” He makes a small bow to me but will not look in my eyes.

“Please let your pa know I’ll be by shortly.” He cannot deny to me that he is going directly to Judge.

He scowls and doesn’t answer. He stalks out of the parlor and into the hall, swinging the heavy door wide. His footsteps tap on the brick walk. He has left the door open. That is his last word. He’ll go tell Judge I’m a Republican and a Negro lover and God knows what else. You can’t see straight with that kind of anger inside you. Judge doesn’t seem as angry as Buck. But Judge didn’t fight in the war. He just talked about the fighting. Buck and Hill and all the rest of them actually did it. Only Buck came back. It doesn’t seem fair. Buck can’t see the fairness of it, either. Mama kept asking him for a lock of Hill’s hair like it was the only thing that mattered.

The door latch clicks. It is Simon in the hall. He has closed the front door. “Miss Gus?” he asks.

“Hello, Simon. You move as quietly as Emma.” He smiles a little. “Were you nearby?”

“Yes, ma’am. I was in the dining room, helping Emma with the silver.”

“Did you hear?”

“No, ma’am. I just wanted to be nearby.”

“Oh. Thank you for that.” He is so calm and grave always. But he has a sense of humor. He likes irony. I can appreciate that. “Thank you, Simon.”

“Do you need anything?”

“Yes, we have to go to Judge. He wants the papers I took from the mill. Buck sent him here to ask me. He asked specifically that I bring them to his office.”

Simon’s eyebrows lift. He doesn’t smile. There is nothing to smile about. Quite the opposite. “Did Buck Heppert say why?” He rests a hand on the door frame.

“No, Buck pretends to be ignorant of his father’s reasons, only the instrument of his will. Would Judge know about the packets Eli would prepare for his friends?”

“He might have been aware that Eli would be preparing something. He was aware that politics requires a lot of lubrication. He and Eli both knew that. If he knows of this package, it is because someone told him.”

“Someone from the mill?”

“Perhaps.”

“We should go. Judge will be angry enough without me keeping him waiting.”

Simon nods and steps back. He will get the carriage ready, and I must rebutton my sleeves.

“Simon, you will stay nearby, won’t you?”

He turns back to me, ever grave. Simon the snake killer. “I will stay as close as I can, ma’am.”

“Thank you.”

JUDGE WAS NEVER
A real judge. Not one appointed by the governor or who rode a circuit. Mama said when he was young, his pa said he was as serious as a judge. So everyone calls him that.

Simon drives the buggy around the square. The courthouse sits across from Judge’s office and dominates a space of lawn shaded by oaks and magnolias and bordered by a picket fence—the wrought iron was torn up in ’63 and fed to the foundries in Selma. The fence frames the courthouse, lined on its front and rear with eight Doric columns and topped by a green copper dome. A weather vane with a brass rooster sits at the top of the dome. It is still, facing northeast, and glistens in the sun.

Judge read law in Huntsville when he was young, about the time Pa was courting Mama. He opened his practice right on Albion’s town square before I was born. The three-story brick building sits on a lot his father had purchased well before Albion was anything but grid lines on parchment. His practice has been in that same office for almost forty years.

The streets around the courthouse are lined with brick buildings, two or three stories with simple facades, some more ornate with rusticated stonework. They line up like militiamen waiting for orders. The massive brick pile of the Maples Hotel sits in their midst like their captain, surveying the square, dressed with ironwork balconies over the wide entrance.