“Did you think of sending for Garvey? Or maybe one of your old creditors who might now look more kindly on us all out here?” He gestured quickly before she could answer. “Never mind. No use, I imagine you’re thinking. No use. And besides, you want to do this on your own.”
“Hawkins has them all, David. I have no choice.”
It was his turn to nod.
And finally, with a grimace she almost felt herself, he turned his head toward her. “I want you to know something, Cass.”
“Don’t,” she cut in quickly. “I just wanted to see if all that bother outside was keeping you awake.”
“I don’t sleep much these days.”
“David, I don’t want to—”
“I want you to know something, Cass,” he said again. The hoarse rasp was gone from his voice now, replaced by the near-lilt she remembered from his days with Hiram Cavendish. “I want you to know that I don’t blame you. I did. I thought you were a witch, y’know, had turned my brain to pudding. In spite of Missy I think I would have followed you right into the camp of some foul-smelling Sioux, if that’s what you’d wanted. But it wasn’t your fault.”
“David—”
His palm slapped his thigh. “Damn it, woman, will you let me have my word?”
She flinched at the gesture, the look on his face.
He fumbled under the covers and pulled out a long barreled revolver, gleaming from hours of polishing until the metal seemed like a mirror. He hefted it, blew an imaginary spiral of smoke away from the mouth and grinned at her.
“You try to have someone take this away from me, Cass, and I’ll kill them.”
She was too shocked to answer.
“It’s for the end,” he said. “I’ve already told you I’m not going to die lying here like some damned godforsaken cripple. I’ve been saving this,” and he waved the gun at her, “for months. I didn’t want to show it to you. I have. It’s done. I’ll be using it, Cass. I will.”
“I know you will, David,” she said quietly. “And I love you for it.”
“It’s in the air,” he said. “I can feel it. It’s all over the county. They know it, too. The smug ones, the lying bastards, the sons of bitches who slapped our hands when we reached out to them to help us … they know it. They won’t come out here when the shooting starts because they know I’ll blow out the eyes of the first one of them I see. It’s in the air, Cass. It’s waiting. Just waiting.”
The rope tasted of sweat and blood. He tore at it with his teeth like a starving animal, working the knot until he finally felt it loosen. His lips were raw. His wrists scraped until they felt as though they were dangling over a fire. But he had done it—he had with one agonizing wrench and twist brought his hands under his buttocks and over his feet so that he was now able to rip at the knot. He continually glanced up at the door when a grunt of pain broke through the silence. He had nearly passed out when the trick had been accomplished, but he’d held on long enough to convince himself he wasn’t going to die. He nearly cried out in joyous relief when the rope suddenly fell slack and he wriggled his hands free. He instantly went to work on his ankles and freed them within moments. He paused until he was sure he could move, then slowly pushed himself to his feet and made his way to the door. He pressed an ear against it, heard nothing, and slid a hand along the splintered wood until he reached the latch. To make the wrong move now would only destroy everything he’d worked for, but there was only one way he could discover whether there was in fact a guard outside.
He jiggled the latch and stepped to one side.
Five seconds. Ten. Fifteen. The door pushed slowly open, the wood protesting loudly. A shadow stepped cautiously over the threshold, a revolver preceding it. Eric wasted no time—he brought his hand down on the wrist, an elbow into the man’s face. The gun clattered to the floorboards, but he ignored it, following the man’s backslipping progress out the door and sliding his good arm around his throat, pressing a knee into the small of his back, squeezing, ignoring his shoulder’s screams of pain, waiting until the man slumped to the ground. He knelt, took hold of the man’s arm, and dragged him back into the cabin. Within moments, he had the man tied in the ropes that had bound him only minutes earlier, had turned his face down into a corner. Then he snatched up the revolver and jammed it into his waistband. He didn’t bother to be quiet; had there been anyone else, he would have been dead already. Dead now, dead later, it wouldn’t have made any difference. He hurried outside, slowed and saw the faint gray light on the horizon. It was dawn.
Soon, he promised himself as he glared back at the cabin. Damn it, soon!
“You got to get some sleep,” Alice said, pushing Cass toward her room. She did not protest, knowing that the woman was right. No sleep now would mean she would be unable to function properly when the moment for action came.
“Eric,” she said as Alice pushed her softly onto the bed.
“Don’t worry none ’bout him. He gets back while you’re sleepin’, I’ll tell him a thing or two ’bout leavin’ like that.”
Cass wanted to contradict her, but the room was already swirling in shades of scarlet and black. She tried to stay awake for one more moment, one more second, but it was impossible.
Eric, please she prayed as Alice’s form drifted away from her. David was right, she thought. It’s in the air. My God, it’s in the air. The stench of death.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Cass awoke feeling groggy, as if the sleep she had had were no sleep at all. Her eyes felt swollen and filled with grit, her throat was parched, her lips ready to crack, and there was a dull weariness that attacked her spine, keeping her from sitting up easily when she wanted to. She could tell from the light streaming through the panes that dawn had long since gone. At first she was annoyed that the household had let her sleep so long. There was too much to do, there were too many things to worry about to waste the day lying in bed. On the other hand, had she risen when she had planned to, she would probably feel a hundred times worse than she did, and that would have made her virtually useless for the rest of the day.
Rubbing her hands over her face and lacing her fingers into her hair, she tried to order her thoughts into some sort of coherent pattern. Apparently, there had been no serious trouble while she was sleeping, and since no one was pounding on the door she felt somewhat at ease. Daylight was remarkably calming, and for that she was grateful.
So get up, she told herself. Eat; check with Amos … she closed her eyes tightly. Eric. Where was Eric? Why hadn’t he returned, or at least sent a message?
A red-eyed rat began to gnaw at her insides—doubt that he would return, fear that he had once again left her when she needed him more than she ever had. After all, what was there to stop him from continuing on from Richmond to the sea? What did he really have here, now that she had taken over, to prevent him from returning to his brother, especially now that Harry was apparently making a fortune on his own? The women he could have in London, the gowns and the jewels they could wear, the titles they would bear, the peacefulness of a countryside without the ravages of a war to remind him of what he had lost; My God, what a temptation!
And what did she have to offer him? She was not the same woman he had known and had claimed to love; Riverrun was not his and never fully would be because of her; death, destruction, a major uncertainty gripped the country as well. What did she possess with which to lure him? She did want to lure him.
“Great God Almighty!” she said suddenly, sitting up and pushing off the bed. “You keep this up, Cassandra, and they’re going to have to lock you in a closet.”
Trust. She had to have trust. She had to believe that all Eric had told her before he had left was real and true, and not simply a clever string of words to keep her off-balance until he could make good his final escape. But my God, she thought, where the hell is he?
From the washbowl she doused her face with cold water and her hands automatically pushed her black hair into its accustomed working b
un. She thought of changing her shirt and trousers, but decided it would be too much trouble. She left the room, stopped to listen at David’s door and grinned when she heard him complaining loudly to Melody. That, at least, was normal, and it served to buoy her as she made her way downstairs and into the kitchen where Alice was standing at the stove.
“‘Bout time,” the black woman said with a grin. “Thought you was goin’ to sleep all day.”
“If ever I had a wish, that would be it, believe me.” She sat at the table and brushed some crumbs onto the floor absently. “Well?” she said.
“Well, what?” Alice said.
Cass stared at the steaming cup of tea Alice had placed before her and tried to decide whether or not she should throw it. Finally, she took a deep breath and brought the cup to her lips, sighing.
“All right,” Alice said, “all right. Judah has the men sleeping in shifts still, out to the sheds like they was last night. Amos is nearly done with the forge and he’ll be going out there later to hand out what he’s got made; the rest he’ll bring back here. Ain’t gonna be much, though, I can tell you that Abraham’s still down at the road. Rachel went to check on him jes’ a few minutes ago. That’s all,” and she spread her arms wide.
“Sounds like you’re doing fine without me,” Cass said with a weak smile.
Alice put her hands on her hips and shook her head. “If you wants good words ’bout yourself from me, Mrs. Roe, you ain’t gonna get them that way. You know what you done, as we know what you done, so there ain’t no use in your goin’ fishin’.”
Cass ducked her head in mock apology and grinned into her cup. Alice had been right, however; she was looking for someone to tell her how well she had done, how well she had held up under the threat of destruction. But there was a reason, one she hadn’t realized until she had walked into the room just those few moments ago—the tension that had weighted the air the night before had not vanished as she had hoped. The sun had not miraculously washed the world clean, washed Hawkins and Forrester and Lambert away while she slept. Nothing had changed, except now there was light. And there were no distant gunshots from the fields.
She emptied her cup and bit desultorily into the bread Alice had placed before her. A large plate of freshly churned butter failed to tempt her, nor did the biscuits that followed. Alice glared at her, but said nothing; there was nothing she could say. Cass knew she would not have a proper appetite again until it was all over, until, one way or another, the fate of Riverrun was decided.
But she did accept another cup of aromatic tea, and was halfway through it when Abraham raced into the kitchen.
“The captain!” he gasped, looking more like a child than he ever had. “He comin’, Mrs. Roe. That captain comin’.”
Her initial impulse, after a frantic glance to Alice, was to find someplace to hide. It would have been the easiest way to avoid a confrontation she was definitely not up to; but that impulse died immediately when she saw the expectant look on the boy’s face—a look of such unqualified trust that she was helpless to deny it.
“All right,” she said, rising. “Abraham, get to the stable and tell Amos. Have him come to the dining room and stay by a window. Armed. If it looks like I’m in any kind of trouble at all, Amos is to shoot to kill. Not to scare, to kill.”
And before all the words had sunk in, she left the room. Fear had turned to anger. What Geoffrey was doing was so unimaginative and transparent that she could not believe he thought she wouldn’t see through it. And if that were true, why was he bothering? Why not just wait until dark and have his men move in for the final kill? It was all still so much a game to him, she thought as she yanked open the door; a war game in a field tent where all the officers sat around toying with dark pebbles for the enemy, white pebbles for the heroes. Combinations speculations, all for the sake of the goddamned game and no thought at all for the people who had to die so the game could be proven.
As far as she could tell, Geoffrey was alone. But this time he stayed on his dapple, glaring down at her as though he had already won.
“What?” she demanded sharply.
“You look as though you could use some sleep.”
She refused to answer.
He nodded. It was obvious he thought it was just as well that she kept her silence. “When I was here yesterday,” he said, “you should have told me Mr. Martingale was not here.”
She tried not to gape, managing an infuriatingly small shrug to tell him she did not really care that her deception bothered him.
“It was lucky for me,” he continued, “that one of my lieutenants, a Mr. Lambert, discovered your perfidy in time. At least we’ll have no more problems from that quarter.”
“What are you talking about?”
He dismissed her question with a disdainful wave. “The real problem still lies in what I’m going to do with you, Cassandra. And I thought it only proper that I come here personally to warn you that unless I have an affirmative answer from you regarding our conversation yesterday, I will have to take steps to insure the protection of my soon-to-be property.”
“My answer has not changed since yesterday,” she said tightly.
“Is there anything I can do, anything I can say that could possibly alter your stand?”
“You sound like a lawyer, not a madman, Geoffrey,” she said. And when he reached into his coat for his gun, she shook her head quickly. “Don’t,” she warned him.
He paused, then looked over her shoulder, and she knew he could see Amos, and perhaps the weapon as well, trained carefully on him. Slowly he brought his hand back into the open, fingers wide and palm out, and settled it carefully on the pommel of his saddle.
“What happened to Eric?” she asked flatly.
He only continued to stare at the house.
“If I give the word, you’re dead, Geoffrey. What happened to Eric?”
“Mr. Lambert and he met on the Richmond Meridine Road early this morning or late last night. I’m not sure which; I haven’t been in town for a day or two. There were shots fired. Your Mr. Martingale was struck. Mr. Lambert was instructed not to tell me anymore.”
“Instructed by whom?”
“By me,” he said, grinning. And suddenly the dapple wheeled about to an unseen command and Hawkins was off down the lane before she could act.
She made no attempt to return to the house. Her legs instantly grew weak and she sat, hard, on the top step. Eric, she thought, and could think no more. Dead? Wounded? It really made no difference. Lambert had him finally, and there was no way she could help him. She wanted to cry; she wanted to tear at her clothes and gouge her breasts, lift her head to the sun and fill the sky with imprecations, turn the blue sky to furious black. But it was no use.
She was alone again, and Geoffrey was not about to pour her mercy from the acid cup he carried in his hook. He had known what her answer would be. He had only ridden here from wherever he was staying to let her know about Eric, and deliberately to stir up these doubts, and her hatred, perhaps enough that she would lose what reason she had left and leave the plantation to search for him, or simply wait here for the riders to thunder up the lane, and surround the house, while Geoffrey stood before her and accepted her surrender.
Abraham crept out of the house and sat beside her. His trousers had been sliced off at the knees. They were smeared with dark mud, as was his shirt. He seemed a wraith waiting for the instructions of a demon. He clamped his hands tightly together and pulled them to his stomach, rocked on his buttocks until he could stand the silence no longer.
“You want me back there, Missus?”
She followed his nod to the lane. “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I really don’t know.”
The homes on the outskirts of Meridine were generally small and white, built of clapboard, set back from the road behind a screen of willow and oak. A picket fence surrounded each plot of property, and it seemed that each one had at least one extraordinarily vocal hound to mark the passing
of a stranger. Eric had grown used to the noise by the time he reached the house he wanted and he paid no attention to the black-and-brown squat beast that yapped at his heels as he strode through the gate to the tiny front porch. A woman was waiting at the door, apple-shaped and gray-haired, with a puzzled and not quite friendly look on her face.
“Doc Garner,” Eric said, and put a hand to his shoulder. The binding had come apart during his escape, and after two hours of walking he could feel the first trickle of blood breaking through the reopened wound.
“Well,” she said doubtfully, then turned suddenly and stepped back when Garner himself joined them. He was still in his shirtsleeves, his braces dangling from his hips, and there was a large muffin in his hand that made Eric’s mouth instantly begin to water.
“Mr. Martingale,” he said.
“Got a problem here, Doctor,” Eric said.
“I’m still eating breakfast.”
“And I could bleed to death before you finish.”
“I got patients to tend to.”
“Like David Vessler?”
They stared at each other while disgust rose in Eric’s throat like bile. Finally, Garner backed away and Eric went in, following him down a narrow carpeted hallway into a darkly paneled room filled with surgeon’s equipment, a table covered with a white cloth, a floral-patterned couch, and a desk that seemed nearly as large as the room. Garner directed him to the table, and Eric hoisted himself up and took off his shirt.
“Nasty,” Garner said as he examined the wound, cutting away the bandage with a blue, gleaming scalpel, “Hunting accident?”
Eric concentrated on the bookcase on the far wall. “You know damned well it wasn’t a hunting accident, Doc.”
Garner probed around the shoulder front and back, muttering to himself. “Passed clean through. You’re lucky. My hands aren’t as steady as they used to be. Thinkin’ about retirin’.”
“Why do you let him do it?” Eric asked.
Garner looked up at him over the top of his rimless glasses. Then he shuffled to a corner where he poured half the contents of a brown bottle into a small iron bowl that had been polished so it resembled pewter. “He doesn’t own this town, he’s a Yank, but in one day he comes in and everyone backs away from him like he was their bitter shadow, if you know what I mean.”
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