The Warriors (26 page)

The knocking came again. Louder. He stumbled to the door.

“Who is it?”

“Serena.” Her voice sounded unnaturally faint and husky.

“What’s wrong?”

“When I got up an hour ago, Grace let me out. Catherine still wasn’t back. I got permission to go down to the bottoms. Had to sneak past three Yank camps to get there. I spent half an hour searching. I—I found her.”

The last words were so hoarse and full of anguish, he had a premonition about the rest. “How is she?”

Serena’s voice broke. “Half her clothes were torn off. She’d been dragged two or three hundred yards. She was all filthy with red clay. She—she’s dead, Jeremiah.”

He shut his eyes. “Jesus Christ in Heaven.”

Somehow she managed to tell him the rest. “About half the slaves have run away. But Leon’s still here. I sent him to—carry her back. She was lying facedown in the water. Drowned.”

Suddenly the girl began sobbing. “She wasn’t my mama—I never pretended to like her. But I didn’t want anything like—like this—”

The words grew incoherent. His belly felt heavy as a stone. He pressed both palms against the wood.

“Serena? Serena, listen to me!”

The sobbing lessened a little.

“Did you tell the major?”

“Right—right away.” Bitterness: “He’s scared out of his wits. He kept saying he’s only responsible for men directly under his command.”

“It was that son of a bitch Skimmerhorn, wasn’t it?”

“Can’t be anyone else, can it? Grace questioned him. But he denied he killed her. Denied it over and over. The major’s letting it go at that.”

He closed his eyes a second time, but opened them almost immediately. There was no longer any doubt about what he had to do.

“Serena, get me out of here. Get Major Grace to unlock the door. Tell him I won’t cause any trouble.”

“I don’t know whether he’ll believe—”

“Make
him believe it! You persuaded him last night—do it again!”

No response except faint crying.

“Serena?”

“I hear you.”

“Get me out.
Any way you can.”

“Y-yes. All right. I’ll try.”

Ten minutes later, the bald cavalry officer came personally to turn the door key.

“Kent—” Grace looked pale, far less assured than he’d been yesterday. “I assume Miss Serena told you.”

“About Mrs. Rose? Yes.”

“I deeply regret—”

“Shit.”

“I do!”

“Because you may be in trouble with Uncle Billy Sherman? What a pity.”

“Kent, listen to me! Skimmerhorn’s given me his word he wasn’t the one. He—took her, yes—”

“Against her will.”

“But he didn’t do anything more! She was alive when he left her. Someone else must have found her.” The man seemed genuinely terrified. “Look, Kent. Understand. In wartime, things happen that can’t be helped.”

“You could have helped. You gave him permission.”

“I’ll deny it. I’ll deny it to heaven!” Desperate, he tried bluster. “General Sherman said it right, just before Atlanta. War’s like the thunderbolt, he said. It follows its own laws. It doesn’t turn aside even if the virtuous and charitable stand in its path.”

Sanctimonious bastard! How anxious, now, to ease his own conscience and avoid disciplinary action.

“I doubt Sherman was referring to rape, Major. I doubt he was referring to murder either.”

Yet who besides Sherman had turned these monsters loose?

All at once Grace’s muddy eyes took on the look of a helpless boy. “I realize Mrs. Rose didn’t stand in the way by choice. But the woman’s
dead.
What’s the use of arguing about blame?”

“None. So long as
you
aren’t blamed.”

“Kent, for Christ’s sake!”

“All right.” Jeremiah sighed, masking his feelings. “It’s done. No more argument. I can’t stand this damn room one minute longer. Just let me out of here and—”

He was interrupted by hysterical wailing from another part of the house. Maum Isabella.

Grace sniffed the rank odor of urine. “Under the circumstances—considering what’s happened—the excesses—if you give me your pledge to cause no trouble for the next few hours I’ll release you. We’ll be gone by late afternoon.”

Jeremiah’s mouth soured. “How can I possibly cause trouble? What can I do against all the men you’ve got?”

He held up both hands. “I’m not exactly heavily armed. Just let me out. I need to eat something and use the privy.”

He thought the plea might work. Grace was sufficiently upset—no longer the controlled, arrogant officer of yesterday. Blinking rapidly, the major studied him.

“If you pledge not to—”

“Yes,” Jeremiah said, careful to sound beaten. “I give you my word. No trouble.”

The major hesitated a moment longer. “Just remember—the guilt isn’t mine. If you try to tell anyone it is, you’ll never prove it.”

“That I know,” Jeremiah said, no longer lying.

Grace pivoted and moved unsteadily down the corridor, leaning a hand against the wall to support himself.

Jeremiah stood rigid in the open doorway.
You don’t care that Mrs. Rose is dead. You only want to save your stinking Yankee skin.

He clenched his fists but didn’t move until Grace was out of sight.

Rosewood was a shambles. He discovered broken furniture everywhere. Feather pillows from the bedrooms had been ripped open, and their contents strewn like snow throughout the downstairs. Near the front entrance, someone had defecated. The stench was vile.

By the time he approached the door to the kitchen, he noticed his boot soles were sticky. Molasses had been spread all over the dining room carpet. Then corn meal had been spilled and ground in. The feathers were the finishing touch.

In the kitchen, Maum Isabella and the four house girls wailed like demented creatures. They stood or knelt around the body of Catherine Rose laid out on the long butchering block. The body had been covered with a tattered blanket. Except for the face.

Jeremiah forced himself to approach the body, stare at the livid bruises on Catherine’s cheeks and forehead, the dried red clay in her hair. He didn’t want to forget that face. Not until he’d done what must be done.

On her knees at the end of the improvised bier, Maum Isabella wrung her hands and rocked back and forth, tears running in the seams in her dark face. As he started to turn away, one of the other women screamed at him, “Cry for her, Marse Kent.
Cry for the poor woman!”

He shook his head. “It’s too late.”

His eyes looked feverish as he crossed the dining room with its sweet reek of syrup. Feathers stirring brought on a violent sneeze. His boots crunched the meal.

He checked the hallway.

Clear.

He stole up the staircase toward the attic. He found the wire dress form toppled over and bent beyond repair.

But the loose plank hadn’t been disturbed.

General Skimmerhorn was dippering a drink from the well on the rear piazza.

Two laughing, frock-coated bummers went trotting past on stolen horses. The neck of one of the animals was decorated with a shawl Jeremiah recognized as Serena’s. Out of sight beyond the house, wagons rambled. A blare of brass and riffle of snare drams kept cadence for the men beginning to march.

General Skimmerhorn noticed him half hidden by a lattice. The forager dropped the dipper back into the well. Droplets of water spattered his carpet coat when the dipper rope snapped taut.

Using his left hand—it was concealed behind the lattice—Jeremiah touched the front of his dirty linen shirt, making sure it bloused out sufficiently around his waist. Then he started toward the well.

Skimmerhorn brushed back the lapels of his coat so he could grab for his Navy Colt quickly.

“What you want, boy?”

“A word with you, General.” He tried to sound appropriately cowed.

Skimmerhorn broke wind noisily, edging around to the well’s far side. He was obviously wary of the lank-haired young man standing stoop-shouldered and motionless. Behind the forager lay one of the shot hogs, its entrails spilling from its belly and aswarm with crawling white things. The morning air was dark gray, heavy with humidity, and fouled by the fumes of smoldering garbage.

“If you come to talk about the woman, I’ll tell you what I told the major. I didn’t have nothin’ to do with killin’ her.” Skimmerhorn scratched his beard. “I took her to the bottoms, right enough. Had my pleasure with her. Even got so het up, I clean forgot we was after three crates of chickens. Never did find ’em. She passed out ’fore I could ask her where they was. But I left her
alive!
And a long way from that water where I hear the girl found her.”

“Facedown.” Jeremiah’s attempted laugh came out as a snort. “She just crawled right on down to the water and drowned herself, did she?”

“What do you want me to say? Some women do queer things if they get mauled a little.”

“Get raped, you mean.”

“I didn’t kill her! I ain’t gonna stand and jaw about it!” He started away.

“Wait!” Jeremiah exclaimed, then added an appeasing word, “Please.”

Skimmerhorn swung around, suspicious.

“I didn’t mean to quarrel. Nothing’s going to bring Mrs. Rose back.”

“An’
I
didn’t drown her—just you keep that in mind!”

Oddly, Jeremiah felt the forager was telling the truth. There was a desperate quality in Skimmerhorn’s speech—an anxiety to absolve himself—that seemed genuine.

“Shit, boy, you seen the fields. There’s hundreds of men movin’ between here and the river. Any one of ’em could of done it.”

“I know. If you say you didn’t, I believe you.”

“Well, that’s a heap better.” Skimmerhorn acted relieved. He settled his stovepipe hat on his greasy hair, a touch of his cockiness creeping back. “You’re bein’ sensible. Now is that all you wanted?”

“No, sir.” Carefully he began the plea he’d rehearsed in silence. “After you go, we’ll need some corn.” He pointed to one of the cribs. “I’d like to ask you to bring some out. A sack or two—”

Skimmerhorn started to snicker.

“I can make it worth your while.”

Skimmerhorn’s greed overcame his caution. “How? You got nothin’ we ain’t took already.”

“You’re wrong. There’s something valuable back in the pines. One thing Price didn’t see me bury.”

A quick glance down the street between the slave cabins. Most of the blacks remaining on the plantation had disappeared indoors. Just one small boy was visible, seated on a slanting stoop in a forlorn posture and staring into space as if he’d been abandoned.

“Where is Price?”

“I dunno,” Skimmerhorn answered. “He’s been all over the place since yesterday. I ’spect he’s struttin’ around somewhere with that musket of yours. Listen, get on with it. What’d you bury?”

“A small sack. Mrs. Rose’s jewelry.”

“Jewelry! That a fact!”

“Look, General”—he tried to sound whiny, pleading—“we’ve got to have at least a little corn to tide us over. You could take some out of one of the cribs before they set fire to them. I don’t suppose they’ll let me near the cribs.” He eyed the soldiers guarding the doors of the buildings. Skimmerhorn’s nod said his guess was correct. “But you can get in. If you hide two bags I’ll show you the buried jewelry. Mrs. Rose doesn’t need it any longer.”

Skimmerhorn pondered the proposition. “How far we got to go to find it?”

“Only about half a mile into the pines.”

The forager closed his hand on the butt of the Navy Colt. “Wouldn’t be smart for you to play tricks on me, Reb.”

“No tricks. We have to eat.”

Another speculative glance at Jeremiah, and the forager made his decision. “Find us a shovel and let’s go. I’ll take a peek in the sack. If it’s good jewelry, mebbe I will fetch that corn. But I don’t promise nothin’ till I see the goods.”

“That’s fair.” Jeremiah nodded. “All right if I come around the well?”

Skimmerhorn drew his Colt.

“Slow. Good an’ slow.”

Jeremiah nearly smiled. So far it had worked perfectly. He kept his voice appropriately apologetic. “It’ll take me a minute to turn up a shovel. Ought to be one down by the cabins. Then we’ll be on our way.”

General Skimmerhorn chuckled. “Goin’ on a little treasure hunt. Right pleasing idea. Yes, sir, right pleasing. You finally come to your senses.”

I did, General. Finally.

“I know when we’re whipped,” he lied.

J
EREMIAH AND SKIMMERHORN WALKED
toward the lane, the bummer two paces behind. Pretending to scratch his chest, Jeremiah loosened his shirt a little more.

A soldier standing guard by one of the cribs hailed the forager, wanting to know where he was bound. Skimmerhorn waved the Navy Colt.

“Little private errand. Be right back.”

They went from cabin to cabin in search of a shovel. Each of the small houses had been stripped. Finally Jeremiah spotted the tool they needed lying near the edge of the burying ground. By now he was breathing so rapidly he was sure Skimmerhorn would notice the change.

But he didn’t. The general was in good spirits, strutting and whistling “The Battle Cry of Freedom.”

They followed the rutted track into the pines. The gray daylight barely penetrated here. The earth smelled dank. For a while the silence was broken only by the forager’s whistling. Then he struck up a conversation.

“You know, boy, now that you’ve calmed down some, I can say I truly feel it’s a pity about that woman. I wanted to enjoy her, an’ I did. But I don’t wish no female dead on account of me. Sure is a shame. Nobody’ll ever catch the man who did it, I ’spose.”

Jeremiah’s shrug pretended weary agreement.
But someone will be punished for it.

“Still,” Skimmerhorn went on, “you an’ that little redheaded gal ought to consider yourselves lucky. You’ll be alive when we move on. The major says he don’t plan to burn the main house.”

“Miss Serena persuaded him to be lenient.” Jeremiah nodded.

Skimmerhorn laughed. Jeremiah puzzled at the salacious sound of it.

“I’d love to have a morsel o’ her persuasion.” He nudged Jeremiah’s elbow with the Colt. “She given you any?”