Buck brought me an issue of Godey’s Lady’s Book from the November before. He said he hoped it wasn’t too out of date. A girl in the home where he convalesced gave it to him. For me, he said. He had rolled it up and carried it inside his jacket, so the edges had started to fray and the pages refused to give up their curl.
He stayed in our house and slept in Hill’s bed. Mama loved having him in the house. He eased the pain of Hill’s absence. Mama asked him again and again to tell the story of my brother’s death. Hill was at the forefront of the fighting, he said—as he always was, leading the men of the 26th. The ragged, tattered few who remained, who had survived the slaughter of Franklin and were more or less whole. The man said they were coming out of their earthworks and moving north up the Granny White Pike when the shelling started from Fort Negley. He said there was nothing he could do.
After the surrender, when Buck moved back to Judge’s house, he found ways to meet me. He courted me. It was a true courtship. He waited for me on Allen Street, grinning, leaning against a mulberry tree, holding a bundle of peaches wrapped in cheesecloth. Or bread that Sally had made. The streets weren’t safe, he said, for a lady alone, especially one as pretty as I was.
We went to Three Forks on long rides through the woods, where the forest was so dark and quiet that all you heard was the horse’s breath and the drumbeats of the woodpeckers. That was before the mill was built. We went out alone together, and Mama let us. What could she do? She was so terrified herself with the way Albion had changed. Freedmen and poor whites flooding into town, loitering on the square. Soldiers likely to burst into your house to search it for God knows what. Mama was beside herself with fits. She barely paid attention to anything I did.
Buck brought me flowers. Bouquets of lilacs and cape jessamine clipped from a neighbor’s yard. Nosegays of roses and mountain laurel. He told me how pretty I was. How deep and thoughtful my eyes were. He caressed my chin with his fingertips, ever so gentle, but I knew their strength. All those things he did. He reached for my hand more than once. And I let him take it. When I told Mama what I hoped, she laughed nervously, clucking and moving around the parlor to pick up whatever gewgaws we had left, looking at them to see if they might be worth something.
And that night of the barn dance. That terrible night of the barn dance. Judge decided out of nowhere to have a ball, and it sent Mama into paroxysms. She thought it was imprudent. He used the old barn east of town that had not been used for anything in years. He said though he had sworn off politics, he wanted to do something to welcome the boys home. We could not say openly what the dance was for—the Federals would not have allowed it. We were trying to pretend like things were as they used to be. That was what Judge was pretending, anyway.
The night was clear. The day’s heat seemed to have been swept off the bluffs with the setting sun. My dress was of twice-turned sky-blue lawn, and I wore it with Mama’s black cashmere shawl. I trimmed the dress with blue satin ribbons and flounces, like I saw in the Godey’s Buck had given me. I stitched at it for days, tearing up an old silk dress of Mama’s. It was the first time that I had not worn black since Hill’s death. Six months had passed and Mama insisted I wear something gay. The dress was careworn, but I was beautiful. I could see it in everyone’s eyes. My hair was combed up in curls gathered at the back and over my ear. I wore tea roses, and their perfume mixed with the spicy scent of the pine torches that lit up the old barn.
By some negotiation, Judge had guaranteed the men would not bring their weapons into the dance, and soldiers checked the boys’ pockets and coats, taking away for the evening whatever small arms many of them carried. The barn was draped with garlands of honeysuckle and jasmine and wide swaths of blue and white bunting. All the young men in town who had come back from the war were there, such as they were. Some were on crutches or bandaged, nursing wounds that refused to heal. There were as many men missing an arm or a leg as there were men whole and complete. In between us danced the ghosts of the boys who never came back—like Hill. The eyes of the soldiers—paroled and pardoned or not—were not the careless, proud eyes of four years ago, but eyes stunned behind their forced gaiety. The Confederate insignia was forbidden, so they wore their old gray uniforms stripped of braid and with buttons covered in black cloth to hide the embossed CSA.
Mama sat in a corner with Bama Buchanan and the other matrons. She smiled at me as the men came by, asking for a dance. Buck had asked me that day for the opening reel, and we lined up, the sons and daughters of the defeated South, and danced to the music of the banjos and guitars. The fiddler of the little band sitting atop a pile of hay bales whipped up the dancers, and we clapped along.
We danced with a frenzy under the torches, knowing the dark blue uniforms were near. If I narrowed my eyes and blurred my vision, I could see the gray coat of my partner looking new, with epaulettes and bars glittering in the flickering light. The dresses were fresh, and hopes were high, like in ’61. The world had not ended, and the promises that had been made four years ago could still be kept. We could all pretend that for a dance.
Judge beamed from the side, talking with Dr. Greer and Mr. Lilly and the other men. At the supper break, he spoke and brought so many of us to tears. I thought of Hill, buried somewhere in the lonely country around Nashville, lost to us. Mike was gone, too, we did not know where. Mama cried in her corner, and Bama gave her a handkerchief. Buck came over to me and put an arm around my waist and squeezed me so close that I blushed.
Punch glasses were raised and the men whooped and the fiddler jumped up and started playing a tune we all knew, although it was a new song. Someone began to sing it, and soon we were all singing, laughing against each other, laughing sidelong at the blue soldiers.
Oh, I’m a good old rebel
Now that’s just what I am,
For the fair land of Freedom
I do not care a damn.
I’m glad I fought against it—
I only wish we’d won,
And I don’t want no pardon
For anything I done.
Hats flew in the air, and men cheered from all sides as the blue soldiers began to step forward. Judge went to the colonel in charge and talked to him. He waved his hand at the fiddle player, who immediately swept up the crowd with “Sally Goodin.”
Buck took my hand and pulled me into his arms, and I saw Ralph Jennings, his right sleeve rolled close to his shoulder and held with a gold pin. He stood alone against the wall, betrayed by me for the dance. Buck sang the words to me as we hopped around the room, swept along in the heat and swirl of the other dancers.
Had a piece of pie and I had a piece of puddin’
An’ I gave it all away just to see my Sally Goodin.
Well, I looked down the road an’ I see my Sally comin’
An’ I thought to my soul that I’d kill myself a-runnin’
I laughed and sang, too. We skipped and turned, and the torches and bunting spun around blue and yellow, blue and yellow, until I was so dizzy the only thing holding me up was Buck.
I’m going up the mountain an’ marry little Sally
Raise corn on the hillside and the devil in the valley
The music stopped. I couldn’t catch my breath for laughing, my stays were so tight. Buck laughed, too, and his black eyes gleamed. It was so good to see him laugh, to see that sadness leave his eyes. I thought I could make his sadness go away. I didn’t realize how much a part of him it was. He took me out a side door of the barn, pulling me into the quiet night. I looked back to see if anyone was watching. The wide barn doors were empty but for the music of the beautiful, sad waltz “Aura Lee.” The light from the barn cast pale gold shadows on the unmown grass, and the stars glittered. The dew had settled in, and I pulled up my skirts to keep them from getting wet. The night air held a coolness that was like breathing after being underwater a long time. Like some intense desire relieved.
“Do you want me to climb a mountain for you, Gus?” Buck asked and his vo
ice was sweet and low like the music. I blushed and turned from him, walking in the tall grass, but he tugged at my hand, pulling me back to him. “I would if you asked me to. I’ll go climb Monte Sano all the way to the top if you ask it.”
I didn’t answer, just looked up into his face, knowing that as foolish as he sounded, he was trying to make love to me in his sad, romantic way. I laughed and turned my head away.
“Don’t laugh at me, Gus. I mean it.” I knew he did. He meant it then.
He took my waist in his hands, pulling me closer. I could feel the whalebone pressing into my skin, pinching my sides, but I didn’t feel the pain, only breathlessness, like from our dancing. My arms went up around his neck, and he leaned his face to mine. We kissed and the stars seemed to spin and I felt myself fall against him. He was holding me and he kissed me again and I kissed him back for a moment that seemed like my entire life. All the fear of the war I exchanged for that moment. And it was all right. Everything was all right.
He pulled away from me, drawing his head back and looking into my eyes. I could see only a blur, shades of blue and gray shadow fractured by tears.
“I’ll climb a mountain and build a house for us—away from all this,” he said, and it was like a rushing in my ears. I rested my forehead on his chest, feeling his lips on my hair and his nose nestled in the tea roses.
Then there was a sound, someone near us, someone running. I pushed away from Buck for shame, fearing that Judge or Mama was coming outside to scold us. It wasn’t them. A man was running toward the barn. He had a lamp or a light of some kind in his hands, and he threw it into the barn, smashing it through a window into the middle of the dancers. Even outside, we could see the flames leap up from the burning fluid as it spread across the dried old wood. Women shrieked as the wild blaze spread.
The man cried, “That’s what you get, you dirty rebels! You can all burn in hell!” He raced back across the meadow and disappeared into the woods. Buck pushed me aside and went running across the grass and into the woods after him as soldiers followed, shouting.
The cries inside grew louder as people rushed out, chased by the flames. The fire climbed the walls and leapt across the rafters. Soon the roof was on fire, and the thick black smoke bellowed from the building as a hole opened and it began to collapse in on itself. Girls came outside with singed skirts, and the men beat at their feet with coats and blankets.
“Mama,” I cried out, coming close to one of the doors. I was pushed aside by the terrified dancers. I saw the fiddler leap from a blazing bale with his coattails in flames. “Mama,” I cried again, and heard her voice in response.
I ran to her. She was in front of the barn with Bama Buchanan. She was fanning herself and trying to catch her breath. “Augusta,” she said, and put her arm over my shoulder, leaning on me as we moved away from the blaze. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”
“Did everyone get out?” I looked at the crowd outside the burning barn. The heat was intense, almost singeing us. The soldiers moved us all back, further and further away. The orange light lit up the meadow like daylight, and all around us women cried, comforted by fathers or lovers. Some of the men ran off, chasing the soldiers into the woods. “Is everyone safe?” I asked, looking at Bama, who stood staring at the flames, great wicked tongues of it that leapt up to the stars. Her black dress shimmered in the white-hot glow of it.
Bama said something like “Yes, we all got out, but I would not say that any of us is safe.”
We stood watching those wild flames, dancing and leaping from the barn like demons released from hell fleeing up into the sky.
Thirteen
RACHEL SWEEPS OPEN THE bedroom door and startles me. She carries a bundle of linens in her arms—my chemises and undergarments, bed linens and pillowcases. It is morning. She must be ironing today.
“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.
The Rebel Wife Page 15