by Naomi Finley
She shrugged. “I know not where the soldiers go once they leave here. We tend to their wounds, and that is all.”
Sensing eyes on me, I directed my gaze to where Tucker stood observing me before shifting my attention back to Zeke. My heart struck harder. Had she recognized me?
“Check the upstairs,” he said before turning and proceeding with his search of the home.
Upstairs I passed from one room to another, finding no one; I collected trinkets of value—jewels, a candelabra, a silver brush, and a handheld looking glass—and shoved them into a satchel. Such novelties had long lost their appeal to me, but I’d draw suspicion if I came out of the house with nothing. I was walking down the hall when the sharp bite of Tucker’s tongue halted my footsteps.
“I thought after Five Points we’d become friends of sorts.”
I pivoted to see her standing at the top landing with her arms crossed, her expression capable of sending the faint of heart scurrying. “How wrong I was.” She advanced. “I knew there was something familiar about you and that soldier. I must say, I do prefer you as the uppity Madame Laclaire to a thieving Union soldier.”
“Friends?” I said with a curt laugh before sweeping low in a bow. “We meet again, Tucker.”
“Under dire circumstances again.” She stopped in front of me and eyed the satchel in my hand. “Only this time, you are the enemy.”
“I am not your enemy.”
“No?” She arched a perfectly shaped brow. “You show up here with Union soldiers, looking to rob us and leave us to starve.” She flung a hand at the boarded windows at the front of the house.
“How was I to know this was the home of the famous Willow Armstrong?”
“You can drop the disguise.” Whitney fixed her jaw.
Annoyance rose in me. “It’s war, Tucker.” I swept a hand at the grandeur of the home. “Or have you been so sheltered in the riches of your friend and the comfort of her mansion that you’ve failed to recognize we are at war?”
She dropped her arms, and her face reddened. “Don’t patronize me. I am well aware of the affairs of this country. My husband lost an arm in this war and almost died. And you can thank your past lover for that.”
Her statement snatched my breath, and I placed a hand on the wall to steady myself. “Reuben?”
“The one and only.” Her voice rang cold. “He enlisted in the Union Army of the Potomac under Major General George B. McClellan—under an alias, one can only assume. He clashed with Willow’s husband on the battlefield and would’ve left him for dead, but my husband intervened. There’s no telling where the bastard is now.” Her defenses slipped, and fear radiated in her eyes. The same fear I had witnessed at the cafe in New York when I had broached the subject of Willow, and Reuben’s intent. Despite personal traits that left one mystified and unsure of her goals, Tucker was fiercely loyal to her loved ones.
“H-he’s dead.”
“Dead? How do you know?” Her voice squeaked.
“He obtained the identity of a Captain Smith and joined General Sherman’s army. A while back he came out of nowhere and attacked me, bent on killing me. If Zeke hadn’t spotted me dangling in Reuben’s grip, I wouldn’t be standing here now.”
“Maybe that is for the—”
“The better.” I finished her thought. “Perhaps, but maybe it’s better Zeke and I showed up here than another party of foragers, or Reuben himself.”
“He already did that.” Her expression was haunted. “We heeded your warning, but despite the Armstrongs’ efforts, Reuben and a gang of Northern militia showed up here.” She gestured at the front of the home, the boarded-up windows, and the telltale signs of a fire that had scorched the wallpaper, ceiling, and floorboards. “Willow and her husband were in Charleston. They came in the early hours of the morning, taking everyone by surprise. The slaves of this plantation took up arms to defend the place and sacrificed their lives in the end. Willow has carried the cross of guilt and self-blame every day since. And as you might expect, Reuben slipped into the dark, never to be seen again until the battlefield. I swear that man is the Devil in the flesh. He has countless lives.”
“Well, not this time,” I said.
She gazed at me in puzzlement.
“He’s dead. Zeke blew a hole in his chest.” A cold knot lodged in my stomach each time I recalled the day in the alley. “He will no longer wreak havoc on anyone, and thankfully so.”
Tucker took a moment to find her voice. “Are you sure…he is dead?” She looked at me with a mixture of hope and disbelief.
“For weeks I could hardly believe it myself, but I’ve verified the fact that Reuben McCoy is no longer of this world.”
She swallowed hard before nodding.
I stepped past her, opened another door, and started at the stout black woman sitting in the middle of the floor with a dark-haired child. The child glanced up from playing with her doll and turned intense blue eyes on me. “Mammy.” Panic filled her voice, and she scrambled onto the woman’s lap.
I strode into the chamber that appeared to be the child’s nursery and looked around. I smiled at the child as she regarded me from the curve of her mammy’s neck before squatting to gather the discarded doll. “What a pretty doll,” I said as a childhood memory surfaced of me standing on the boardwalk admiring a beautiful doll with blond ringlets and a pale pink-silk dress through a store window. Until my mother had pulled me away and shoved me onward.
I shook my head to dislodge the memory and offered the doll to the child, which she accepted hesitantly. The black woman regarded me like a mother bear, ready to reveal her fangs to defend the cub in her embrace.
I stood and walked from the room with the hovering Tucker on my heels. She closed the door and turned to me. “Are you satisfied with your search?” The defensiveness returned to her posture.
I strode past her without answering and descended the staircase as Conner walked into the house. He ignored me and gawked at the parlor and the cots before striding down the corridor to inspect the main floor for himself. “What is all this?” he said to Zeke as he and Willow walked from a room at the back of the home.
“It’s of no concern of yours.”
“Isn’t it?” He glanced back into the room as I passed them. “That looks like blood on those linens.”
Annoyance filled Zeke’s voice. “The home doubles as a wayside hospital for Confederates. Mrs. Armstrong claims the patients left this morning, and we’ve checked the place and see no reason to believe otherwise. Isn’t that true, soldier?” He looked at me.
“It’s all clear upstairs.” I feigned a grin and held up the satchel of treasures. “Found some loot to disperse amongst the boys.”
Greed lit in Conner’s eyes as he observed the bag. “We’ve gathered the horses and what rations we could find in the smokehouse and kitchen house.”
“Good; let’s be on our way.” Zeke marched toward the front door.
I eyed Willow and noted the relief that enveloped her face, but when she caught me watching her she smoothed it away.
Conner shouldered past me and strode after Zeke, but stopped when there was a noise overhead. He cocked his head. Behind me, Willow gasped, and I saw Tucker’s hand stiffen where it rested on the banister.
Zeke, catching the sound, froze and swung back as Conner moved to the door under the stairs. The floorboard squeaked behind me, and before I could respond, someone gripped me around the throat.
“Stay where you are!” Willow’s panicked breathing tickled my ear.
Zeke and Conner reached for their weapons. Zeke seized Tucker in one swift movement and yanked her back. “Hold it right there, Mrs. Armstrong,” he said.
“Take your men and leave.”
“Am I to believe you deceived me?” Zeke crept forward with his weapon aimed and shielded by a seething Tucker, who tried desperately to heel him in the shins, but he avoided her assaults. “Still yourself, woman, or suffer the butt of my pistol.”
Conn
er kept his gun pointed at Willow while opening the door under the stairs.
“Please,” Willow said, her voice desperate as she clutched me tighter.
Conner disappeared inside the space under the staircase, followed by grunts and a ruckus, then a loud squeak. “Well, I’ll be damned,” Conner’s voice drifted out. “You best come see this.”
Willow’s body trembled next to mine as Zeke strode forward with a wide-eyed Tucker. But as he drew closer, a shot resounded, and he jumped back. Bullets from more gunfire ricocheted within the space.
The back door banged open, followed by soldiers bolting through the front door with their weapons drawn. A man’s voice erupted next to me: “Lower your weapons, now.” I heard the cocking of a revolver. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed the gun a soldier positioned at Willow’s temple. No, no, no! my brain screamed. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
I gasped as Willow’s arm loosened around my throat, and I stepped from her grip. “Cease fire!” I held up my hands, one in either direction of the corridor, as the gruff-looking fellow from earlier fell into position behind the soldiers standing in the foyer, his gun drawn. I looked to the back door, where the black man and woman who had greeted us on our arrival stood with their weapons pointed.
The gunfire from inside the space under the stairs stopped. Zeke tossed Tucker to the side and ducked inside the opening. Voices resounded overhead, and all eyes turned to the open door.
“Please, they only sought to defend themselves,” Willow said.
“Well, they shouldn’t have opened fire.” The soldier holding her captive shoved her forward.
My brow furrowed as I regarded Willow, who looked at me with teary eyes. I craned my neck to examine Tucker as she gathered herself from the floor where she’d landed after Zeke had discarded her. My legs rigid, I advanced cautiously to the door through which Zeke had disappeared. Inside I discovered a false wall with shelving that groaned and swayed on its hinges, and beyond, a staircase leading into an attic space. “Is everything all right up there?” I called up.
There was the crack of a gunshot, followed by another before Zeke’s voice called, “Enough, you imbecile. They are prisoners of war.”
A commotion took place, and Conner tumbled backward down the stairs. I jumped out of the way as he crumpled to the floor in front of me. He stared dumbfounded up at Zeke, towering on the landing above.
“I am in charge, soldier, and you will abide by my commands. The general will hear of your disobedience.”
Conner pulled to his feet and retrieved his weapon.
“Get out of my sight.” The lethal bite in Zeke’s tone kept Conner from responding, and he elbowed past me and limped into the corridor.
I looked back at Zeke, already knowing the answer. “The soldiers are up there, aren’t they?”
He nodded grimly. My stomach dropped, and I pressed my lips together and backed into the corridor.
Zeke ordered Tucker, Willow, and the others outside. Defeat shone on their faces. Giving up the fight, they allowed us to remove the soldiers from the attic.
While Zeke took care of matters inside, I hustled the women onto the front veranda.
“You too.” A soldier assigned to assist me gesticulated with his weapon to the gruff-looking man Willow had called Jones. “And you.” He gripped the black man’s shoulder and pushed him out the door along with the woman clutching his arm, her eyes flitting to the scene unfolding.
“Tillie, come, it’s all right.” Willow kept her gaze pinned on the soldier and me while motioning the black woman forward.
My weapon trained on the group, I looked past them as another recruit steered the remaining blacks collected from the plantation into the front yard, noting the young man with a walking stick I had seen earlier and the two older men attempting to console weeping children.
“My babies,” a woman’s panicky voice cried.
“Mama,” a small, terrified voice called.
I returned my attention to the group huddled on the veranda and studied the black woman who peered over her shoulder at the children. “Those children yours?” I said.
She gaped at me with tear-filled eyes. “Yes, sah.”
“Go to them.”
She nodded and darted past me and down the stairs.
“Please, Amelie,” Tucker said through clenched teeth.
I tensed at her mention of my name.
“Amelie?” Willow studied me as though peeling back the layers of my disguise before her brow softened. “As in Madame Laclaire?”
“Silence.” I cast a look to the soldier to my right. He had his neck craned, peering back inside the house, appearing not to have heard. “Soldier,” I said with authority, and he returned his attention to the matter at hand. “Upstairs there’s a child and her mammy. Go get them and bring them here.”
Willow flinched and moved to step forward. “Remain where you are.” I butted her with my gun.
The soldier dashed back inside the house.
“What are you doing?” Tucker’s face reddened.
“Trying to save you fools from yourselves. No more need die today.” I pointed at the body of a Confederate soldier lying on the veranda.
“Are you to tell me, if we hadn’t hidden them, your gun-happy friend wouldn’t have murdered them in their cots?” Tucker sneered.
I ignored her and waited until the nursemaid waddled onto the veranda with the child.
“Mama?” The sobbing child held out her arms upon seeing Willow.
Willow glanced at me, and I nodded. The nursemaid deposited the child in her mother’s eager arms.
Zeke and a recruit carried a second body from inside and laid it on the veranda. “That is the last of them.” Zeke straightened and eyed the injured Confederates in the back of the supply wagon. “You two, go and collect the weapons deposited in the corridor and remove the grain and supplies from that room in the attic.” The recruits dashed back inside.
“How are we to protect ourselves if you leave us without weapons? And without grain, how will we feed our animals?” Willow coddled her daughter and regarded Zeke with fury blazing in her green eyes.
“After today, you won’t have any left to concern yourself with.” He delivered an austere look at her before turning as the soldiers returned with sacks of grain, flour, and sugar slung over their shoulders; one carried a crate of preserved goods. “Get it in the wagon, and gather the chickens and goats.”
“You sign our death warrant,” Tucker spewed. “We’ll have nothing left.”
He ignored her and descended the steps. I turned to follow him, but Tucker gripped my arm.
“You have to help us,” she said. “Leave us something.”
“What makes you think that I should help you again?” I said in a low tone. “I have been beaten down and stomped on by my share of Confederates over these past years. Which is more than enough reason for me not to want to help another Southerner.”
Her hardened expression softened. “Because you aren’t a monster.”
“No?” I recalled the congressman I’d murdered and the young women from poor families I’d gathered from the streets to fill my establishment.
“No, you’re not,” she said with conviction, but her brow knitted with perplexity. “But I see you may believe differently.”
I swallowed back the emotions thickening my throat and shook my arm free. “You know nothing about me.” I turned and marched down the steps. I wouldn’t allow Tucker to get into my head.
I paced the yard for a moment before my gaze rested on the blacks clustered in the yard. My attention settled on an older black man before my heart jumped. He seemed to tower to the heavens, and he was as dark as the night sky. Despite his age he stood with shoulders squared, peering straight ahead; he had a proud, bold spirit. Did my eyes play tricks on me? I blinked and took a closer look.
“Big John?” I gulped and crept forward.
It was him. My pulse raced. After all these years…
Tears threatened.
“All right, everyone, mount up.” Zeke slung himself up onto his horse.
“I need a moment,” I said over my shoulder.
“What is it, recruit?” Zeke said.
“I need to speak with this man.”
“What for?”
“Just a moment,” I said, ignoring his question.
“Then make it quick.”
I strode forward and gripped Big John’s arm. He turned his gaze on me, but he moved without resistance as I steered him toward the corner of the house.
“Don’t you touch him.”
I cast a glance at the fleshy black woman as she hurried to the veranda railing.
“Stay where you are,” a soldier ordered her from the yard.
Tears glistened in her eyes as she halted and stifled her protest.
“Don’t worry, ma’am,” I said. “I seek to talk to him, that’s all.”
“Make it quick.” Zeke’s voice carried.
I waved a hand in acknowledgment.
Once I had guided Big John out of earshot and away from the others’ view, I freed his arm. Taking a few paces forward to put some distance between us, I turned back to look at him. “I never thought I’d see you again.” I spoke in my normal female voice.
His brow furrowed, and he peered at me with keen, dark eyes.
“You don’t recognize me,” I said with a nervous laugh. “Of course you don’t.” I removed my cap, revealing my shorn red hair.
“You a woman,” he said, his expression sharp and assessing.
The tightness in my chest increased. “The last time we met, I wasn’t…well, let’s just say I…” I couldn’t speak the words. I didn’t want him to remember me naked and squatting to gather my dress from the jail floor before being thrown into the street.
But as I hesitated, his breathing caught, and his frown deepened. “I only seed hair dat color once ’fore.” His jaw quivered. “Dat you, Miss Amelie?”
My tears came in floods, snatching my words and leaving me shaking before him. “It…it is.”
“Olorun be praised.” He tilted his face to the sky and extended his arms in exaltation. Tears glistened in his eyes when he looked at me. “I never stop thinking of you, gal.” He bowed his head. “Never let go of de guilt of de sacrifice you were willing to make to set me free dat night in de jail.” He shuffled his feet, appearing uncomfortable.