by John Jakes
“Rex? There you are. I’ve been searching everywhere.”
Charles stood up and turned to see Ashton running toward them.
Breathless, she reached the kitchen porch. “Come along, you imp. I need you this instant.”
“I need an answer from him first,” Charles said.
“But Charles”—a pretty pout, but he thought he detected fear behind it—”I must get ready to drive home.”
“You can’t go until Homer comes back with the carriage.” Heavy irony then. “If we can believe Madeline, that may take a while.”
“Madeline LaMotte? You mean to say she’s here?”
“You watched me help her across the veranda. I saw you trying to hide behind the window curtain.”
Scarlet rose in Ashton’s cheeks. She stammered in uncharacteristic confusion. Charles seized the moment to turn to the boy.
“I’m waiting, Rex. Who sent you to Resolute with the message that Billy and his new wife had left for the train?”
Ashton saw the trap closing. Pretense was useless, but her instinct for self-preservation was strong. She thrust by Cousin Charles, raising her right fist upward. “Rex, you keep your mouth shut if you know what’s good for you—oh.”
The boy stared at the fist trembling near his face. Charles had blocked its descent by seizing Ashton’s wrist. The boy’s eyes grew large, and Ashton felt sick. She knew what Rex was thinking about: the whipping.
“She did.”
His words had a spitting, stinging sound. Charles sighed and let go of his cousin. She rubbed her wrist.
“What on earth’s he talking about? I don’t have the slightest—”
“Stop it,” Charles broke in. “Madeline told Orry and me everything she overheard at Resolute. Lying won’t help you anymore. Or threatening this boy, either.” He squeezed Rex’s shoulder. “Better get out of here.”
Rex ran.
Charles watched a transformation take place on Ashton’s face then. Her cheeks grew livid, and her smiling pretension disappeared. He could hardly believe what he saw. In a soft, wrathful voice, he said:
“My God—it’s true. You want your own brother-in-law hurt or killed.”
Her silence and her defiant eyes affirmed it. He wasted no time on recriminations. Clutching his saber, he ran like a madman for the stable.
Ashton took a step after him and screamed at the disappearing figure: “It won’t do any good. You’re already too late. Too late.”
“One,” Smith called in a loud voice. The duelists started to walk in opposite directions, eyes straight ahead, pistols at their sides. “Two.” The wind tossed the grass and ruffled shining water in the marsh. Sweat ran down Billy’s neck, soaking the collar of his fine wedding shirt.
To clear his mind of distractions, he fixed his gaze on a low branch of live oak directly in front of him. He examined the feel of the dueling pistol in his hand, thought of how he must raise and fire it.
“Three.”
Brett’s hands were clenched so tightly her forearms ached. She stood by the carriage, wondering how this terrible moment had come to them. Who had told Forbes where they were? It was nearly impossible for him to have come to this particular road by accident.
“Four.”
Homer was standing about six feet to the right of Brett. As the duelists separated, he saw a glance of understanding flash between young LaMotte and his second. Homer had picked up a gray stone about three inches in diameter and now began to drop it nervously from one hand to the other, thinking, Something sure isn’t right about this business.
“Five.”
To Brett’s left, Preston Smith stood by the horses he and Forbes had ridden. He wanted to stay close to his saddlebag in case things didn’t go precisely as planned. He glanced down at his right boot, reassured by the bulge of the special pocket sewn on the outside. Then his eye flicked, past Brett to Homer, who was perspiring and passing a rock from hand to hand. They had nothing to fear from a frightened nigger. A feeling of satisfaction flooded over Smith, a feeling so intense he nearly missed the next count.
“Six.”
Billy’s vision blurred. A panicky feeling tightened his gut and dried his throat. He wanted a last look at Brett. Thoughts went screaming through his brain at incredible speed:
Why should you look at her?
You’ll see her again.
Maybe you won’t.
How did they find us?
A noise intruded at the edge of his awareness, a pounding, soft and steady. He had never known his heart to sound that way.
“Seven.”
Homer knew what he had seen in the sly look that flickered between the friends. He knew what he smelled here in the sunshine. They had plotted young Hazard’s murder, those two. He didn’t know how or why, but he was positive it was true. The thought of what was coming sickened him so badly that he turned to the coach and leaned on the front wheel, his hand closing tight around the stone.
“Eight.”
Brett, too, misinterpreted the drumming sound for a moment. Then she realized she was hearing a horse coming swiftly along the road from Mont Royal. Over the noise of hoofs, a man was shouting.
Smith heard it also. One of the horses he was holding shied and whinnied. That obscured part of the shout:
“—Billy, watch—”
Brett’s eyes flew wide. “That’s Charles.”
“Nine,” Smith called.
Forbes turned around, his confidence melting. He didn’t need to look at sallow, frightened Smith to know the horseman signaled the undoing of their plan. Billy had stopped responding to the count. He stood watching the road in an expectant way. Rage and desperation took possession of Forbes. He had a clear shot at the back of Billy’s head. Smith had forgotten to call ten. No matter. Forbes raised his arm shoulder-high and leveled the gun.
Homer was aware of the penalty for attacking a white man, but he couldn’t stand by and see murder done. He flung his right arm back, then forward.
Smith didn’t exactly understand what the black man was doing, but he recognized it as threatening. He yelled and bowled past Brett. As he ran, he reached toward his right boot.
The stone went sailing toward Forbes as he squeezed the trigger. Brett saw that the stone would miss by a yard or more. But it did its work anyway, arcing into Forbes’s field of vision and causing him to jerk his head to the left. His pistol arm jerked too. An explosion—a puff of smoke—
The stone thumped into the wind-whipped grass. Forbes’s jaw dropped. Billy turned around, staring at his adversary.
Smith had knocked Brett against the carriage as he passed. She straightened; Billy was unhurt. The mounted man was in sight. “Charles!” she cried. The word was muffled by a guttural scream.
She spun around, flung a hand to her lips. Smith’s face was a grimacing mask as he grunted and pulled his right hand back. Out of Homer’s stomach came the blade of the bowie knife Smith had snatched from his boot.
“Oh.” Homer stared at the torn and bloodied front of his shirt. “Oh,” he said again in surprise and pain as he started to topple sideways. Smith shoved with his free hand to help him along. Homer died as he fell.
Belatedly, Billy realized a ball had buzzed past his ear. Except for the distraction of the rock Homer had thrown, the ball would probably have hit him.
Charles reined his sweat-covered horse. He was still in uniform. His saber sheath banged his leg as he started to dismount. Billy wrenched his eyes back to Forbes—Forbes who had fired before the final count. Tried to shoot him in the back. Shaking with anger, Billy lifted the dueling pistol and took aim. He touched the hair trigger. There was a flash at the frizzen—a crack that seemed somehow small and flat.
Forbes hadn’t changed position by so much as one inch. Billy had aimed for the center of his breastbone. How could the ball have missed such a large, stationary target?
Then, some ten paces away on a patch of bare earth, something dark caught his eye. He stalked toward it, wa
tched it define itself to lead-colored metal. The ball. The ball from his pistol, lying there spent—
He recalled Smith’s crouching while he loaded the weapons, recalled spotting spilled powder. They had carefully planned to short the charge in his pistol. He swore an oath and flung his gun into the grass.
“Forbes!”
Forbes spun in response to the shout from Smith, who threw his bowie knife by the tip, flipping it end over end. Forbes let the knife land in the grass near his feet, then snatched it up. He shifted the knife to his left hand. Then, out of his right boot, he snaked a second one, identical in design but unbloodied and two inches longer.
The sun struck silver flashes from his hands as he sidestepped toward Billy. “Sorry your shot missed.” Forbes uttered a crazy kind of laugh. “Bet you’re a whole lot sorrier.”
“I didn’t miss. The ball never came close to you. It’s lying right over there in that bare place. There wasn’t a full charge of powder in my gun.”
“Smart fucking Yankee, aren’t you?”
Wind lifted Forbes’s hair, then pasted it against his sweaty forehead. Empty-handed, Billy backed away. One step, then another. Forbes came on, scuttling sideways like a crab.
“You shouldn’t have messed with Brett. Shouldn’t have set foot in South Carolina. Reckon they’ll send you home in a sack, but I guarantee your kin won’t want to open it and look at you.”
He moved the right-hand knife in a small circle, then started the same kind of motion with the left one. “Not after I fix up your face.”
Billy retreated again. He decided to make a dash to the nearest tree, try to tear off a limb before one of those knives—
“Billy.”
The voice wrenched his attention toward the carriage. Smith had disappeared. Charles had reached Brett; his collar was unfastened, his light blue trousers dirty. His face was wrathful as he pitched his saber into the field.
Billy stepped to the right so that the sword would land between him and Forbes. As the saber tumbled, Smith jumped into sight at the rear of the carriage. He had sneaked past Homer’s corpse and around behind the vehicle. He dashed for the saddlebag on his horse. The saber landed much nearer Billy than Forbes. Billy ran to get it.
Smith pulled a four-barrel derringer out of the saddlebag. Charles saw him, cursed, and lunged. Smith took four running steps into the field. He emptied all four barrels at Billy. After the last popping explosion, Billy felt a ball hit him. He groaned in pain and staggered forward.
Charles caught Smith from behind, spun him around, ripped the empty derringer out of his hand, and smashed him with a right fist, then a crossing left. Clumsy blows but powerful ones. Smith grunted; red mucus fountained from his nose.
Billy had fallen. Blood stained the left sleeve of his shirt above his elbow. On his stomach, he pushed up with both hands. Pain flashed through his left arm. His hand refused to support him.
Silver stars of light twinkled a couple of feet in front of him. He groped for the hilt of the saber, then nearly dropped the weapon as he lurched to his feet. A shadow lengthened in the grass. Billy flung himself to one side. Forbes’s right-hand knife missed him by no more than two inches.
Pain drained his energy and muddled his mind. All he could do was retreat, parry, try to collect himself. Forbes’s sweating, grinning face loomed huge, his eyes blazing with an obsession to kill.
Billy defended himself by instinct. All of the fine, planned moves he had learned at West Point slipped away in a haze of fright and throbbing pain. Forbes slashed with his left-hand knife. Billy blocked it with the saber, then tried to push Forbes away. He lacked the strength.
Forbes chuckled deep in his throat. “Got you now, Yankee.” He bored in, knives slashing, turning, confusing Billy with their glittering motion. Billy parried air. Forbes laughed and came on, confident again.
Once more Billy retreated, trying to organize an attack. He was too weak from the loss of blood he could feel streaming hot beneath his shirt. It had reached his wrist, dripped from his cuff.
Brett called something, but he didn’t dare turn. He stumbled over heavy, exposed roots and was suddenly backed tight against the huge trunk of a tree. Forbes’s eyes widened with delight. He stabbed for Billy’s face with the right-hand bowie knife.
Billy wrenched his left shoulder forward. The knife throbbed in the tree. Rather than trying to free it, Forbes struck with the second one. Billy wrenched the other way. The knife ripped his shirt, raked his ribs, and buried itself two inches in the trunk.
Forbes was standing very close now, realizing each stab had missed. With a desperate look he reached past Billy with both hands and started to pull the knives loose. Billy knew it was his last chance. He lifted his knee, drove it into Forbes’s stomach. Forbes gasped and staggered back two steps. With a little maneuvering room, Billy rammed the saber into Forbes and thrust until he felt the point scrape against the backbone.
Forbes collapsed face down. The impact drove the hilt against his chest. The point of the saber suddenly tore through the back of his shirt and jutted into the light.
Shaking, Billy turned away. The pain in his arm wasn’t half so bad as the spasm of sickness that emptied his stomach while he leaned against the tree.
Brett gave a ragged little cry and rushed toward her husband. Charles called, “Bring him back here so I can look at that wound.” Then he turned his attention to Smith. He dragged Forbes’s crony up by the collar and pushed him against the carriage. Smith held his crotch, tears on his cheeks. Charles shook him.
“Stop caterwauling and listen! Once upon a time I fixed your kinsman Whitney, and I can do the same for you. Fact is, I’d like to. But I reckon we’ve spilled enough blood. So you get out of here before I change my mind.”
Whimpering, Smith staggered toward his horse.
“On foot,” Charles said. “I’ll keep the animals.”
Without a backward look, Smith lurched into the road. An impulse seized Charles; he shied a pebble at the hobbling man. Smith yelped, grabbed his neck, and broke into a run.
Charles’s smile faded as he looked at Ashton’s dead slave, then toward the spot where Forbes’s body lay hidden by the long grass, its place marked by the saber sticking into the sunshine. Flies swarmed on the bloody point.
Billy staggered to the carriage with his right arm around Brett and his left hanging limp and bloody at his side. “They trumped up a duel,” he gasped, and then in a couple of sentences described the treachery with the pistol and how he had discovered it.
“Bastards,” Charles growled. He tore Billy’s sleeve and examined the wound. “Passed right through the fleshy part, looks like. Lot more blood than damage. Brett, give me some long pieces of petticoat. I’ll tie it off.”
She turned her back and raised her skirt. Charles tilted his head to study the angle of the sun. “We’ll have to skedaddle to make that train. Are you up to it?”
“You’re damn right we are,” Billy said. “I want to get out of this benighted place.”
“Can’t say I blame you,” Charles murmured.
“I never realized Forbes was so crazy and vicious,” Brett said over her shoulder as more cloth tore. “How did you find us in time?”
“Madeline LaMotte overheard Forbes and Preston talking at Resolute. Talking about you. After they left, she drove to Mont Royal to warn us. I saddled up and took the road I knew you’d taken.”
“But—how did Forbes know we were leaving just now? Or that we were going to the train?”
Charles accepted the lacy strips Brett handed him. He began to wrap them around the upper part of Billy’s arm. Billy clenched his teeth. His color was improving.
“Not certain about that,” Charles hedged, concentrating on what he was doing so as to avoid his cousin’s eyes. “I’ll ask some questions when I take Homer’s body back to the plantation. Meantime, you two climb in the carriage. And hang on tight to each other. I’m going to go like hell the rest of the way.”
Cha
rles was as good as his word, driving to the flag stop at reckless speed. The train was heard whistling in the south as the carriage swayed to a stop. Charles dashed across the track to the cypress shed, flung back the lid of the box, and ran the flag up the pine pole. By the time he finished, the cowcatcher was in sight.
Over the hiss of steam and the clang of the bell, Billy tried to speak. “I don’t know how to say—”
“Don’t bother. All in the line of duty. One Academy man looking out for another.”
“But you let go of your commission.”
“That doesn’t mean West Point will let go of me.” Charles was surprised, even irked, to find himself so close to tears. All the shocks of the afternoon had probably conspired to cause that.
He hid his feelings as best he could, rushing to unload the luggage and place it on the platform. As the train slowed, the freight and mail cars passed. Then came faces behind dusty windows, faces whose bland passivity disappeared the instant they saw the bedraggled threesome—the soldier, the girl, and the young man with his coat draped over his shoulders and traces of blood showing on his bandaged arm.
Brett threw her arms around Charles’s neck. “Oh, Cousin—thank you. Explain to all of them.”
“I will. You climb aboard,” he added with a glance at the impatient conductor.
Billy followed her. Standing on the second step from the bottom, he gazed down at his friend. They clasped right hands.
“Don’t have any idea when we’ll see each other, Bison.”
The realization hit hard. “No, I don’t either.”
“You take care.”
“You do the same. A safe journey to you and your wife.”
“Thank you. We’ll meet again.”
“I know.”
Charles harbored doubts. With all the trouble in the country, their only future meeting place might be a battlefield. With each of them on a different side.
Damnation, don’t think that way and spoil everything. It’s been a rough enough day already. He managed the old reckless smile, lifted his hand, and stood waving as the train chugged off.
Some passengers had come out to the platform of the last coach. As the coach went by, Charles heard an obscenity. Something flew past his face. He looked down to find a gob of spittle on the front of his uniform. “Shit,” he said.