by Mary Mackey
Drawing closer to William, Clark lowers his voice. “I really wish you had been willing to tell me what causes my headaches. I didn’t enjoy the dinner party nearly as much as I might have, and it’s not often I get served hot apple pie. I’m very displeased. I don’t care to hear any last words from you, so if you pull that gag out of your mouth when I free your hands, I’ll just shoot you and be done with it.”
Clark steps back and motions for one of his men to grab the back of the chair so it won’t fall over prematurely. Drawing his knife, he saws through the ropes that bind William’s wrists. “Let go of the chair,” he orders. The raider lets go of the chair and it wobbles: right, left, center; left, right, left; center, stop. Satisfied, Clark nods, turns away from William and walks back to the tables. When he reaches Miss Emily, he takes Teddy off his shoulders and puts him down on the ground. “Teddy, run to your daddy and give him a big hug.”
With a cry of delight, Teddy runs toward William and throws his arms around William’s legs. As the chair topples over, William grabs the rope with both hands, Teddy screams, Miss Emily’s dinner guests cheer, and Henry Clark takes out his pocket watch.
“One, two, three, four, five!” he cries. “How many seconds will the abolitionist hang on ladies and gentlemen? Place your bets now before it’s too late.”
William kicks at air and the world turns around him like a steam-powered carousel, trees blending into grass, grass into the white of the big house, white of the big house into the brown smear of the river. He feels his fingers slipping on the rope and growing numb, feels the hemp biting into his neck.
Black spots swirl before his eyes, alternating with the blue dome of the sky and the burning disk of the sun. Round and round he goes, hanging on. The noose suddenly tightens and his breath jams in his throat like a clump of dry sticks.
Faces: white, black, Clark’s, the raiders’. The face of a tall woman dressed all in white. Four men in dark suits, their beards black smears. The rope swings him around again. Now he faces the stable, sees details so fine he could never have imagined it possible: the grain of the wood in the boards pulsing like a heartbeat; shadows of ivy fluttering like wings; a chicken pecking in the dust; great sweeps of knife-edged, silver clouds frozen over the roof as if time itself has come to a stop.
Again the rope turns, and Carrie’s face suddenly appears in front of him, floating and turning with him. She opens her mouth, and moves her lips. I love you, she says. Her voice rings in his ears like a thousand silver bells. Oxygen deprivation. Asphyxia. Hallucination. Part of his mind knows this. Part denies it. Part keeps him hanging onto the rope. He can no longer feel his hands and a sharp pain has begun to crawl across his chest.
William, dearest William, Carrie says. Her blonde hair springs away from her face, and the amber flecks in her eyes flash and spin like pinwheels. She is beautiful beyond description, and he has never loved her more than he loves her at this moment.
I’m dying, he thinks. Words that make no sense fill his mind. He sees something silver falling from the sky, jagged like scraps of torn paper. Carrie’s face blossoms in front of him like a great, white gardenia, and he smells the scent of the flowers in her father’s garden, sees the sea shining out in the bay beyond Rio, feels the touch of her hand on his forehead light as a kiss.
William, hang on!
These words, which she cannot possibly have spoken, shock him back to reality. He clutches the rope more tightly and with great effort, lifts himself up, loosening the noose a little. He inhales and feels air fill his lungs. Somehow he manages to spit out the gag. Again he turns. Now he faces Clark. Clark has a grip on Teddy’s collar. Teddy is crying and struggling to get away.
“Let go of my boy, you son of a bitch!” William gasps.
“Four and a half minutes,” Clark says.
Suddenly another sound fills the air. It’s a dull pounding like hail on a wood-shingled roof. Behind Clark, William can see the dinner guests springing to their feet. Again he hears Carrie yell, “William, hang on!” Only this time he could swear it’s really her.
Chapter Forty-three
The raiders’ own horses come stampeding toward them, driven by riders who bear down on the dinner party from all directions. Ebenezer leads one group, stripped to the waist and bearing the scars of his burns like medals. Next to him rides Spartacus; next to Spartacus, Carrie; behind Carrie, Sam and Peet. Coming toward the tables, closing the trap, Ni leads Jordan and Marcellus, Andrew and Charles, little Cush with the fierce eyes, Bilander, who can split a rail with a single blow, Caesar whose master once whipped him half to death, Abel who was sold away from his mother at the age of five.
The men come yelling the battle cries that John Brown and his sons taught them, come yelling the war cries of Africa, come screaming Bible verses or singing hymns or cursing, or just yelling, giving voice to their wives and children and friends and ancestors who have been enslaved for over two hundred years.
As they charge out of the willows that border the river, gallop out of the fields, and ride up the main road driving the stampeding horses before them, Miss Emily leaps to her feet.
“Soldiers!” she shrieks. And then she turns to Mr. Thompson and says in a voice full of amazement. “Why, they’re black!” Paralyzed by the impossibility of this, the men stare at the approaching riders. One of Clark’s Raiders starts to draw his gun, then hesitates.
“What the hell are you waiting for!” Clark yells. “Shoot the bastards, damn it, and turn those horses around!”
Shocked into action, the men draw their pistols and kick over the tables to form a barricade, forgetting that the tables are merely planks set on sawhorses. The barricades dissolve into a heap of lumber, broken china, shattered crystal, and soiled linen. As the stampeding horses plunge into the wreckage, Miss Emily turns in circles screaming for help. Around her, men are being knocked down and trampled. Some of the raiders try to hold their ground. Others break and run, only to find themselves ridden down and taken prisoner.
Clark takes refuge behind the hanging tree as the panicked horses thunder by. Drawing his pistol, he shoots at the nearest soldier and scores a hit. As the man falls to the ground, Clark runs out and tries to grab the reins of his horse, but they slip through his fingers.
Dan has made it to the stable and mounted Jed’s brown mare. Now he comes bursting out the door, heading straight for Clark as if he’s going to trample him.
“Coward!” Clark screams. “Deserter!” Lifting his pistol, he aims it at Dan and shoots. In the instant between the moment the gun fires and the moment Dan falls, Clark recognizes him. Seizing the reins, he steps over Dan’s body and starts to swing himself into the saddle. Then he realizes he has forgotten something.
“Teddy,” he commands, “come here!” But the boy isn’t where he left him. He’s over on the far side of the yard, running toward the river like a spooked rabbit.
Chapter Forty-four
Carrie gallops up to the hanging tree and cuts William down. How long has he been dangling? Three minutes? Four? Dismounting, she kneels beside him, loosens the noose, and shakes him. “Breathe!” she yells. “Breathe!”
William struggles to obey, but his throat has gone into a spasm, or maybe it’s his lungs that don’t work. When he was hanging, he saw colors. Now all he sees is blackness creeping in from all sides like spilled ink. He fights to shove it away, but it keeps spreading, stuffing him into a black bag with no bottom.
Putting her lips to his, Carrie breathes into his mouth until the knot in his throat opens and her breath enters his lungs. He coughs and gulps in a mouthful of air. Breathing hurts so much he’s tempted to stop. “Clark . . .” he gasps. “Teddy . . .”
He points, and Carrie looks up just in time to see Henry Clark swoop down on Teddy, grab him by the shirttails, and jerk him off his feet.
Let go!” Teddy screams.
“Shut up!” Clark yells. Throwing Teddy behind the fork of his saddle, he wheels around and kicks his horse into a f
ast gallop only to discover he’s headed straight at Carrie, who’s riding toward him with a pistol leveled at his chest. For a second, he feels a fear so intense his heart nearly explodes, but then he realizes she can’t fire, because if she does she may hit her son.
Wheeling around, he gallops back toward the river. He can hear her coming after him, but he’s got a good head start, and the trail that runs along the riverbank passes through a stand of willows before it comes out near the landing. If she loses her senses and takes a shot at him, the chances of her hitting him from a moving horse are small. Once they get into the willows where no one can see them, he’ll turn around, stop, and surprise her by offering to let her buy back her son.
All Deacon’s money, he’ll say. All Bennett’s. All yours, if you still have any left. While she’s trying to decide if he’s serious, he’ll blow her off her horse. Simple as that. His enemies always underestimate him, but he can outthink them.
Teddy will inherit the money, and there will be ways to get at it. Forged documents. A will from Deacon, perhaps, that appoints his dear friend Henry Clark as the boy’s guardian. Then whores and whiskey, the green felt of New Orleans gaming tables. Perhaps he’ll buy a gold-headed walking stick, or perhaps he’ll just help himself to one of those canes the slavers sent Bennett after he thrashed Sumner.
A willow twig slaps him in the face. That’s the problem with galloping through brush. He’s been riding for at least a minute now, maybe two, and he can hear Carrie gaining on him. Pulling back on the reins, he halts and turns his horse around. He is in a natural alley with a row of willows on one side and the river on the other. Perfect. He’s only going to get one shot at her but in a place like this, a blind man couldn’t miss.
Grabbing Teddy by the hair, he jerks the boy upright so his face will be the first thing his mother sees. Then he draws his pistol and holds it by his side, concealing it under the edge of his jacket.
“Carrie Vinton!” he yells as she comes crashing out of the brush. “Stop! I have an offer for you!”
Carrie takes one look at her boy, jerks up short, and lowers her pistol. Clark realizes there’s no need to actually go through the charade of making her an offer. She’s holding still and couldn’t be a better target if she had a bull’s-eye painted on her forehead. He lifts his revolver and points it at her.
“Say good-bye to your mama,” he tells Teddy. And that’s when it happens: Just as he pulls the trigger the little brat, who up until now has done nothing but scream, suddenly turns on him like a snake and bites through his thumb.
With a yell of fury, Clark drops the pistol and flings Teddy into the river. Before he can mourn the loss of thousands of dollars’ worth of boy flesh, Carrie raises her gun and pulls the trigger. For an instant, Clark is sure he’s been shot; then he realizes she’s clicked on an empty chamber.
Throwing back his head, he howls like a coyote.
“You’re crazy!” Carrie screams.
Clark can see blood staining the left leg of her trousers. He may not have killed her, but he’s hit her. He starts to ride toward her figuring he can finish her off with his knife, but then he sees she’s drawn another gun. Two to his one. Hardly fair, but this hasn’t been his lucky day. Wheeling around again, he runs for it.
As soon as he’s out of sight, Carrie dismounts and plunges into the river. The wound on her leg stings as she staggers through the muck and reeds that line the bank. Just beyond the shallows, Teddy is thrashing around, going down and coming up. As she dives into the current and swims toward him, she can still hear Clark in the distance, yipping like a madman.
She grabs Teddy by the collar, and they both go under. When they come up, choking and coated with silt, Teddy clutches at her shirt and hangs on. He doesn’t fight her, so she’s able to keep his head above water as she swims toward shore.
When she can touch bottom again, she stands up, takes Teddy in her arms, and stumbles through the reeds. A few moments later, they are both sitting on the riverbank. She’s shaking, Teddy is crying, and both of them are plastered with mud from head to foot.
“Good boy,” she says as she rocks him and picks the waterweeds out of his hair. She’s so busy comforting him that she doesn’t bother to look at her leg. The wound Clark gave her hardly hurts, and she figures she can tend to it later.
Chapter Forty-five
When Henry Clark comes riding out of the willows, he looks toward the main house and sees the planters and a dozen of his own men standing by the ruins of the dinner party with their hands raised over their heads. Jed is standing with them waving a white napkin, and the black soldiers are holding them all at gunpoint. Where are the rest of Clark’s Raiders, the fiercest band of bushwhackers in Missouri and Kansas combined? Nowhere, that’s where. Not a one in sight unless you count three dead men, one of whom he himself killed.
Clark feels a wave of disgust. His men never deserved him. They’re disloyal, cowardly, traitorous scum. If he ever meets up with the ones who ran, he may have to shoot them.
Up ahead, he can see the boat that brought the planters to Beau Rivage rocking lazily beside the dock as if all the trouble going on is nothing to get excited about. Now that he doesn’t have to lead a bunch of cowards, he can ride onto the boat, cut it loose from its moorings, drift downriver, and disembark at his leisure. Money won’t be a problem. He still has one of the gold rings he took from Deacon. He can pawn it and treat himself to a hot bath, a shave, and a whore.
His only real regret, besides losing the boy, is that he’ll never be able to tell anyone what happened today. If he did, bushwhackers would be lining up for a chance to hunt down the men who attacked Beau Rivage. He would only have to say the magic words “black men with guns,” and he could just sit back and watch. They’d string up free blacks and fugitives both from here to Topeka without even asking if they’d been part of the raiding party and maybe lynch a dozen Jayhawkers for good measure. While he’s at it, he could probably get them to do away with Carrie Vinton and that doctor lover of hers in some satisfyingly unpleasant way, get the boy back if the little brat hasn’t drowned, and start spending Deacon’s money. But to do all that he’d have to admit he’s been outshot and outsmarted by a band of black soldiers, a woman, and a toddler with teeth like a serpent. He’d never live it down.
Clark kicks his horse into a fast walk. The only thing that stands between him and the boat now is the slave pen, but he never notices slaves unless he’s selling them, buying them, or entertaining himself with them, which is why, when a tall black woman walks out of the gate and stands in front of him blocking the road, he is so taken by surprise that he doesn’t notice she’s holding a rifle.
“Henry Clark!” she yells. “My name is Jane and you hurt my babies!” And lifting the rifle, she pulls the trigger and becomes the death Henry Clark never thought he would meet.
As he lies in the dust bleeding and in pain, she draws close and bends over him. Clark looks up at her with eyes filled with resentment. “You had no right to shoot me,” he gasps. “I should only be shot by a white man.”
“Sometimes you got to take what you can get,” Jane says.
“Is that so?”
“It is.”
Clark blinks and his blue eyes grow opaque. He licks his lips and groans. “It—” he says. He lifts up his hands as if to ward off something big. “It—” he repeats.
“‘It’ what?” Jane asks, but Henry Clark, who has made a habit of not finishing his sentences, does not reply. Waving his hands in an agitated way, he stares at a place just over her left shoulder with a look of such terror that Jane is glad she cannot see whatever he is seeing.
Carrie
Swaying, bone-jarring jolts, the smell of mules—I opened my eyes to find myself lying on a straw pallet in a wagon that was bumping along much too fast for comfort. Someone had strung a piece of canvas over my head, and rain was rattling against it like corn on a drumhead. I was wrapped in a fancy white quilt like the sort people give to a bride on h
er wedding day. There was a goose down pillow under my head and a warm brick at my feet, but I had never felt so cold. My fingers were almost numb, and I was so weak and sick to my stomach that I wasn’t sure I could lift my head. Where was I and what was wrong with me? The last thing I remembered was pulling Teddy out of the river.
“You’re awake,” a familiar voice said. I heard the scratch of a match. Lantern light flared suddenly, and I saw vinelike lines moving above me like snakes. They reminded me of the time Mae Seja gave me the black drink, but I couldn’t possibly be in Brazil.
“Are you warm enough?”
With great effort, I managed to turn my head. William was sitting beside me, looking at me with concern. There was an ugly purple bruise around his neck, his shirt was torn, his hair was matted with dust, and he needed a shave. But it was his voice that startled me most. It was wheezing and hoarse, as if he still had the hanging rope around his neck. I wondered if he’d ever talk normally again. He must have seen this question in my eyes for he said: “Don’t worry. I’ll sound like myself again in a week or two. How about you? How do you feel?”
“Horrible. What happened?”
“Clark shot you in the leg, and you nearly bled to death.”
Alarmed, I tried to sit up, only to fall back and collapse in helpless tears. I felt dizzy and breathless and confused. I wanted to be home in Lawrence in my own bed.
Pulling out his pocket handkerchief, William gently applied it to my eyes. “Hush, sweetheart. Hush. You’re very weak, but you’ll be fine. We found you in time. Hush. Rest and let me take care of you.”
“Teddy—” I sobbed.
“Teddy’s safe. Jed Clark’s cook is taking care of him in the other wagon.”