She did not recall how many days ago that had been, knew only she’d burst into tears and had not stopped until sometime later. And when she was done, she’d spent a great deal of time trying to understand what it was that drove her to her decision, how much of it was her own free will and how much was an inexplicable destiny that drew her to an inescapable conclusion no matter what she said, what she did … or who she met.
That she would be completely free of Hawkins and Forrester she did not believe except in brief moments of fantasy. But when confrontation came once again, she would not be alone, and more: she would not be in Philadelphia, an alien city with alien ways, populated with people who mouthed smiles and gladness over dark souls and hypocrisy. She would not be lost. She would be on her own ground, among people she understood, a life she understood … and loved. Geoffrey would probably never understand that; he saw only different terrain for the same type of battle. And he would certainly never be able to grasp her belief that, despite her own denials in the solitude of her bedroom, there was still a small, shadow-thin chance that Eric Martingale might still be alive. And if he were, there was only one place in the world he would know absolutely where to find her: Riverrun.
Running again. But not away, this time. Toward.
The carriage slowed and she opened her eyes, saw Melissa grinning at her and stretching. Cass did the same, straightened and pressed her hands to her back to ease the stiffness that now seemed permanently settled there. Without speaking, then, Melissa reached into the basket and handed her a Spanish orange and a small hide pouch of water. Cass took the fruit gratefully, bit into the rind and grimaced at the tart assault on her tongue. Melissa laughed, and Cass marveled. Like herself, Missy had had her own small world overturned in less time than it takes to tell of it, and yet she maintained a jocular, almost frivolous attitude toward what she called a “grand adventure.” Perhaps that was the way to look at it, she thought; but Missy was still young, and while Cass was only two years older, she felt a gulf of decades between them. Mother and daughter, she thought, and almost laughed aloud as she shook her head.
“How much farther?” Melissa asked a few minutes later.
The curtains were pulled up, and beyond the blur of the closest scenery they could see farmland and gently rolling hills marching across the horizon. “A day or two,” she said. “The closest town is called Meridine, and unless the war did it in we should have some news there.”
“What if …” the young girl said then, “well, what if it’s been destroyed?”
Cass’s eyes narrowed. “It won’t have been,” she said flatly.
But as the sun dipped lower, tinting the October air a rare gold, she began to wonder just what she thought she was doing. The plantation could have been sold, could have been burned to the ground during the Wilderness Campaign, could have undergone innumerable disasters and changes that would render it all but uninhabitable. Any one of these things could have happened, and yet here she was, flying blindly down country roads, avoiding the villages and towns as much as she could, heading toward a future that had only appeared in her dreams, without any guarantee of Riverrun’s existence.
David had been right. Despite all her rationalizations, she had never really doubted that Riverrun would be her ultimate destination.
The carriage lurched to a halt, then, and the sounds of a tavern yard filled the air: horses snorting in the stables, young boys playing around the front fence, livestock bellowing in the twilight. Immediately she began to fuss with her dress and touch at her hair. She smiled weakly when David’s face appeared in the door window.
“Ladies,” he said, his eager voice a marked contrast to his haggard appearance, “we have arrived for the evening. Would you mind?” and he opened the door, let down the step and held out his hand for Melissa to take. She groaned dramatically before climbing out, and stood waiting for Cass to join her while David made arrangements with the landlord for care of the horses and the vehicle. The inn itself was a large, rambling structure of logs and fired brick, with a profusion of chimneys poking through its peaked black roof. A rooster perched on the eave over the door and eyed them solemnly as they walked in, and four hens tried to follow them before being chased by a harried-looking middle-aged woman whose hair was flaxen, gone gray. She smiled at the travelers, her hands constantly wiping themselves on a remarkably clean apron, and took them into the dining room where, Cass noted, there were only three other people seated: two men in the far corner by the fireplace, hunters by the looks of their buckskins and unkempt beards, and a young black woman sitting alone beneath the back window. She was, Cass saw, a beautiful girl whose light-toned skin marked her at once as having come from the West Indies. She was dressed simply, and in front of her on the rounded table was a single bowl of steaming soup. None of the three looked up when David entered, but as Cass and Melissa took their chairs at a table nearest the door, Cass saw a quick, upward glance from the black woman, a glance that darted downward as soon as she caught it.
The next few minutes were spent in ordering a light meal and a pair of rooms, and listening to one of the hunters as he played softly on a battered mouth organ. It was a haunting tune that bothered Cass until she ordered herself to stay away from melancholy; she was too close to her goal now to let herself tumble into a vat of self-pity and remorse. So thinking, she attacked the freshly cooked venison with vigor, praising the landlady highly when she came around afterward to ask after their comfort.
“It’s nothin’,” she said, a flush on her pinched face. “I jes’ cooks it, that’s all. Sometimes it comes out, sometimes it don’t. That’s the way of it. But you folks, you’re from up North, ain’t ya?”
They stiffened, expecting a barrage of hatred to spill from the woman’s mouth. But none came. The landlady admitted in a quiet voice, and with an accompanying sly grin, that she herself was from Connecticut. “Somethin’,” she said, “I don’t let on around here, if you know what I mean.” She winked slowly. “But tell me,” she said quickly, “what news? Y’all hear from the Red-nose at all?”
The Red-nose, Cass knew, was a reference to President Johnson, who, it was said, had showed up at his inauguration drunk and almost uncontrollable. That Congress was already howling for the man’s blood, that Johnson was a Tennessee Democrat no one wanted to claim these days, made for uneasy times among Northern businessmen and all Southerners. With Lincoln gone, there were no steady hands on the reins of Reconstruction, and the phrase “damned Yankee” had taken on a new, almost obscene turn. And Virginia, which had taken the brunt of the war’s later years, was in no mood to stand for any more carpetbaggers drifting down to take over her towns and villages now under martial law.
Before any of them could respond to the woman’s question, however, a commotion broke out on the other side of the posted room. One of the hunters was standing over the black woman’s table, his fist shaking in her face. She did not look up, and that seemed to make the man angrier. His companion joined him, and when they stood together they blocked Cass’s view
There was the sound of a slap, and the hunters roared their laughter.
“Oh my,” the landlady said, her hands now buried in her apron. “Oh my, not again.”
“What?” Cass asked, straining across the table to see if the black woman had been injured.
“Them forest folk,” the landlady explained without turning around. “They come in once in a while, get a few drinks, then hunt out the niggers. Ain’t no difference they been freed; a nigger’s a nigger to a man what used to own ’em. Those two, they had a place deeper down, lost it all when Sherman held through. Anybody what—”
Another slap, and Cass turned to David, her eyes beseeching him to do something. But David was stunned, his face gone pale and his left hand slowly, absently, patting Melissa’s right. Cass scowled and rose. “Where’s your husband?” she said to the old woman.
“He ain’t gonna be part of this, Miss,” she said. “He likes livin’ too much.”
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“For God’s sake,” Cass hissed, and froze when one of the hunters reached over the table, grabbed the black woman’s hair, and dragged her out of her seat. The woman yelped, struck out, and hit only air, which only served to fuel the two mens’ delight. The taller one pulled her roughly to his chest, kissed her hard on the lips, and spun her into his friend’s waiting arms. The woman cursed loudly and kicked at the man’s shins, to no effect that Cass could see.
“Oh my,” the landlady said again.
“Damn it, David,” Cass said, “aren’t you going to help her?”
“No, he’s not,” Melissa answered for him. “That isn’t any of our business.”
She’s right, Cass thought; but immediately changed her mind when the tall one grabbed for the woman’s dress and tore it down the back, exposing a soft band of honeyed flesh.
A shimmering veil of crimson snapped down over Cass’s eyes. She strode swiftly across the room, unnoticed by any of the three combatants, hesitating for only a moment before her hand darted out and snatched a broad-bladed knife from the tall one’s belt. His hand slapped to his side, and he turned, his grin slowly fading to a sneer when he saw the blade aimed at his stomach.
“Well, now, Harry,” he said, gesturing to his friend. “Lookee here. The nigra’s got a friend.”
Harry shoved the black woman aside and drew his own blade. “I surely hope she knows how to use it, Bill.”
Cass felt the ice in her stomach, the heat at the back of her neck, but her outstretched arm remained steady, as did her gaze when it drifted from one man to the other. And when she curled her fingers around the hilt for a better grip, the man called Bill noticed the move, and his sneer began to vanish.
“I think she does,” he whispered. “Don’t—”
But Harry, his disdain evident, had already made his move. He dipped forward slightly to feint with his weapon, obviously intending to frighten her back. Cass, however, had often seen her brothers use this tactic; the moment the knife slashed harmlessly past her, she stabbed upward and caught Harry’s arm between wrist and elbow. A glint of red appeared through the torn deerskin.
Melissa cried out.
David rose rapidly to his feet, his chair toppling backward against the front wall.
“Damn,” Harry said, staring at his own blood stupidly.
Cass’s hand flicked out again. Several strands of fringe on the chest of the man’s jacket dropped to the floor.
Bill stepped backward quickly until he bumped into a table, turned, and found his own seat. Harry glared at her, but sheathed his knife. “You do fine,” he said, reluctantly.
“I know,” she answered, and a snap of her arm sent the blade deep into the floor between his boots. He leapt back, collided with the wall, and fairly fell into his chair; a moment later began laughing quietly to himself. Cass, however, paid him no attention once the knife had left her hand; instead, she hurried to the black woman, slipped an arm around her waist and led her to David, who was already setting another chair at the table. Melissa said nothing, but the expression on her face as she followed Cass indicated clearly that this grand adventure was turning out to be more than she bargained for.
The black woman’s name (she told them over a hot platter of meat) was Alice Jordan. Her family had been taken from the Caribbean when she was two years old and had been sold to a cotton plantation, where she had worked until the war had ended. The owner, Michael Jordan, had been relatively kind to them all, teaching the children the basics of reading and writing while, at the same time, preparing to lease his land to the men who had once been his slaves. He had foreseen the downfall of the South years before, and had wanted to protect himself against it by developing a decent relationship with his workers; unfortunately, the plantation had been overrun by an arm of Grant’s troops, and most of the people on it, including Jordan, had been killed defending it.
“So I get work here and there, wherever so I can,” she said, her voice a pleasant lilt. “Seamstress, cook, wherever so I am let.”
“What do you mean, let?” Melissa asked, curiosity momentarily overcoming her initial suspicion of the black.
Alice’s smile was sardonic. “The war be over, Miss, but that don’t mean colored folks got the rights. Some places, yes; most places, no. I head North, y’see, and find work in the city.”
“It’s just as bad up there,” David said sadly. “Not even all the whites can find work these days. A lot of the men are rejoining the army.”
“What for?”
“The Indians,” he said. “They don’t like the people traipsing west of the Mississippi, and they’re starting to fight back. Great excitement, they tell me.”
“Nice,” Alice said. “Always nice to get out and kill more folks.” She laughed, once, bitterly.
“Now that’s not fair,” Melissa protested. “People have a right to live where they want to, don’t they? They have a right.”
Alice shrugged, wrapped her delicate fingers around a dark mug of ale, and sipped at it slowly.
“Well, they do,” Melissa insisted, turning now to David, who only smiled and patted her hand.
Cassandra, as the talk wore on, sat back and watched them. It was a curious sensation, but it was as though she were watching a recital, detached from the scene as though she were the audience. The inn was growing warm, far more cozy as the flames in the fireplace crackled into the chimney to drown out the low howl of an autumn wind. The hunters had finished their drinks and left without a glance in her direction; the landlady was fussing back in the kitchen somewhere and her husband had finally come indoors to sit on a rocking chair by the hearth. Alice began to talk of life on the plantation, its risks, its sometimes happy moments, the monotony of daily chores that blended one sunset into another. Her face was softly featured, her eyes a deep brown that matched perfectly the fall of hair that pressed to her shoulders. She had a full figure, and Cass noted wryly that David was not above dropping his gaze now and then to the rise of the drab gray material of her dress—she was an exotic contrast to his own doll-like Missy, and Cass couldn’t help but believe that the black woman had considerably more native intelligence.
Eventually, David and his wife retired to their room upstairs, and after dousing the candles and leaving the fire, the landlady and her husband bid Cass goodnight. She was alone, then, with the black girl, the fireplace talking to itself, the wind’s counterpoint.
“I should say thank you,” Alice whispered then.
Cass smiled. “I was lucky.” She told her, then, of her journey to Meridine and what she wanted to do there, saying nothing of her involvement with Eric, or with Hawkins and his man, and the more she spoke the more her voice softened and her eyes grew bright. It was as though Alice were exactly the person she needed to talk to; she gave voice finally to a complete summary of her dreams—though those dreams would remain, as always, darkly private. And even when Alice began asking knowledgeable questions about the running of a plantation, Cass would not admit any obstacle; she overrode everything with a flash of teeth, a mimed slash of her knife.
“You’ll need people to work,” Alice said thoughtfully. “I don’t expect many be left after all this time.”
“There’ll be some,” she answered. “Nothing spectacular, of course, but there’ll be some around who’ll need a job.”
“Like me.”
Cass shook her head. “You’re going north.”
Brown eyes shaded for a moment, dark lips pursed.
“Could be. But I don’ like the cold. It gets fierce up there, so I’m told.”
“Alice—”
“Mrs. Roe, if you don’t mind me saying so … well, your friends, they seem good intentioned enough, but what do they know about farming? As much as you?”
Cass frowned, sat back, and stared at the beams crisscrossing the ceiling. It was something she had not considered. She’d only let them talk her into coming with her because she needed someone to support her, and both David and Melissa had f
it the bill at the proper moment. And now that Alice had brought it up, Cass could not imagine Melissa toiling beside her in the fields from dawn to dusk, with no days off, for months on end. David, perhaps. But not Melissa. Suddenly she felt elation drain from her like air from a balloon, replaced by a feeling of gray-tinged dread.
“Now me,” Alice said with a bright smile, “I can cook, I can sew, and I do the damnedest cleanin’ job on a house that you ever did see!”
Cass reached over her shoulder and pulled a handful of hair to her chest, stroking it idly. “You don’t owe me anything, you know,” she said quietly.
“Only m’life,” Alice countered. “After gettin’ done what they wanted to get done, they wouldn’t have left me around to talk about it.” She raised a hand to stop Cass’s interruption. “It’s like that around here, Mrs. Roe, believe me. At least before, a nigger’s life was worth somethin’ to the man what owned him. Now?” She snapped her fingers in the air. “And ain’t no one gonna stop him, neither.” She set her forearms on the table and leaned forward. “Mrs. Roe, you can use me, I know you can! I don’t want to go north, not really. ’Ginia a beautiful place mos’ of the time, and you’re a nice person and … who knows? Maybe sometime I find a big rich man and he’ll set me on a hill with niggers o’ my own.” She laughed heartily, rocked back in her chair, and lifted her face to the ceiling, shaking her head until the tears rolled from her eyes.
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