Riverrun

by Andrews, Felicia

  “An’ if I don’ find out?”

  “You will.”

  “Whats do I do with him then?”

  “I told you, I don’t care.”

  She threw herself out the door and strode quickly toward the stable. She tried not to think of how Simon had betrayed her, tried not to believe that it was his deviousness that had trapped her Eric into … into what? Into death? When she reached the fence she grabbed onto the top rail, let out a low moan and draped herself over it, retching, coughing up the bile that had been churning inside her since the day had begun. Her head ached. Her throat burned. But she could only shake her head and weep until, finally, a warm hand came to her shoulder and someone shoved a ladle of cold water in front of her mouth.

  “Drink it,” Alice said softly.

  “I—”

  “You have to, Missus.”

  A man’s scream rose from the house, and she shuddered, but Alice would not release her until she had taken all the water. There came another scream that was cut off suddenly, and there was a long pause before the door opened and Judah stood framed by the light.

  “What is it?” Alice called out when Cass could not speak.

  “They don’ know ’bout the crop,” Judah answered. “What do I do—-”

  “He will not be buried on my land!” Cass screamed. “I don’t care what the hell you do with him, but I will not have that creature buried on my land!”

  She thrust Alice away from her, vaulted the fence, and walked quickly toward the stable door. She could hear the woman following, but she would not turn until she was inside, safe in the dark amid the comforting smells of the horses, the straw, the rest of their meager livestock. She leaned heavily against the wall and shook her head slowly, reached out, and was glad when Alice took her hands.

  “I don’t know, Alice,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t have a choice, seems to me.”

  Cass would not look at her.

  “I knows about the Mister, y’know. I know what you’re thinkin’. You’re thinkin’ there ain’t no use what with him maybe dead.” She clasped Cass’s hands more lightly. “Yes, maybe dead. But he was maybe dead before, y’know, and it turned out he wasn’t. Seems like it took more than that damned fool captain to make him dead that first time. What makes you think he’s done any better this time?”

  “Alice, I’m tired.”

  “You think I can dance the night out? You think any of us can? What’s your problem, woman? You think you ain’t got nobody but yourself anymore? Who put out your eyes, huh? Who made you blind to all what you got around here?”

  “Alice, you’ll just never understand. I—”

  Alice dropped her hands, and stood closer to her. “Cass, if you lets all this go up in smoke … hell, I don’ know what to tell you.”

  Eric was anxious, impatient. He had to get to Riverrun, to tell Cass what he had done despite the madman, but he knew that he could not build up her hopes until he had every word correct, every aspect of the transaction assured. And so he waited in Jennings’s office for Richmond to respond to the query, both he and Jennings growing increasingly angry when the hours slipped by and there was still no answer. He thought several times that perhaps Hawkins had had the lines cut down, but realized that he would have had no reason. Hawkins thought Eric was, if not dead, at least incapacitated and in Lambert’s hands. There would be no reason in the world … no reason except that the man was mad. When he grew tired of pacing, he sat. When he grew tired of sitting, he would stand at the window, seeing nothing but the dimming light that sent shadows across the narrow alley between the bank and the feed store. Jennings did his best to stay out of the office as much as possible, but when he entered they would stare at each other for several seconds until Eric began to worry that the banker just might lose what small nerve he’d been able to muster and send word to Hawkins.

  “Getting late,” Eric said finally.

  “Richmond,” Jennings said apologetically, “isn’t the most rapid place in the country, Mr. Martingale. I can assure you, however, that the follow-up message stressed the urgency of our … of our …” He gave up, and ducking his head, scuttled out of the room and left Eric alone.

  Five minutes later he was back, beaming, holding aloft a telegraph message form.

  Eric collapsed into the nearest chair, his grin so wide his cheeks began to ache.

  “It’s done,” Jennings said.

  “Indeed,” Eric said. “My God, it’s done.”

  “I—well, I imagine you’ll want to head out for Riverrun and tell Mrs. Roe the good news.”

  Eric half-rose, then dropped back again. “Damn. I don’t have a mount. I had one, but it shied and got away from me.”

  “I understand,” Jennings said. “If you can have one moment’s patience more, I’ll send my boy over to the stable for mine. It’s the least I can do.”

  You’re right, Eric thought, but he only smiled and nodded, following the banker from the office and across the main floor that was, in actual measurement, quite small, but made more massive-looking by the artful arrangement of pine paneling in varying shades for the cages, the flooring, the mirror-polished walls. As they headed for the front door, Jennings beckoned to a small boy who sat on a low stool near the bank guard’s position. He was dressed in an ill-fitting suit and was blatantly uncomfortable; thus, when Jennings summoned him, his eagerness at the prospect of relief was almost laughable.

  “Henry,” Jennings said, “I want you to run over to Hardy’s and fetch my mare. You bring her straight back here, y’hear? Look sharp, now!”

  The boy raced out and the men followed more slowly, standing to one side of the door and watching the parade of shoppers and businessmen, dockers and other workers making their way home for their evening meal. The sun had taken on a crimson hue, the sky shading to purple, virtually black on the eastern horizon. A man could paint this, Eric thought, and never once know about the blood that runs behind it. He scowled. Such thoughts were scarcely in keeping with the jubilation he should be feeling, but there was an itching at the back of his neck, one that he refused to scratch. He did not believe in portents, yet he could not help but stiffen when Henry, astride a large chestnut with a blonde mane and tail, raced around the corner and skidded the animal to a halt, throwing up dust and clods of dirt. Jennings opened his mouth to scold the boy, but Henry was too fast for him. He was out of the saddle and on the ground before a word could be said, and took off at full tilt down the sidewalk.

  “Henry!” Jennings bellowed. “Boy, you’d best come back here right now!”

  Henry twisted around, slowed, but did not stop. “Can’t,” he shouted back. “Ain’t you heard? There’s a war on at Riverrun!”

  Cass and Alice walked slowly out of the stable, eyes down and somber. They said nothing to each other, had nothing left to say. They paid no attention to Melody, who was racing around the corral trying to drive the chickens back into their roosts for the night. They were, as usual, giving her a difficult time and she filled the air with shrill curses in a patois not even Cass could understand.

  Alice chuckled. “She gonna make a fine wife, that one.”

  Cass made as if to reply, but a puddle of water near the fence caught her eye. It was reflecting a deep shimmering pink she thought was the sunset until she looked up and saw that the sun had already dropped below the trees. She stopped.

  Alice moved to her side, her arms hugging her chest. “That’s—”

  “Fire,” Cass said for her. “Oh, God, Alice, it’s begun?’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  They began without firing a shot. Using the trees and the darkness of the fields for cover, they crept stealthily up to the sheds, keeping well beyond the range of the weapons they suspected were mustered inside. Their horses were with them, saddles off, blankets draped over their backs. But no man rode; each walked carefully ahead of his mount after having wrapped the hooves in cloth to muffle th
eir clopping. And when they were ready, four of them fell to their stomachs and crawled as close to the sheds as they dared move. Once there, they struck flints against oil-soaked rags wound about thick clubs and tossed them against the walls. Instantly, when the fires flared up along the dry wood, they moved back and took to their saddles. And waited.

  Inside, Marcus, Tim, and Edward heard the thudding of the torches striking the walls; they did not need to investigate to know what they were. And they did not panic, though there had been long moments of quiet when they thought they would have to scream to relieve their tension. Instead, they moved quickly to the front and side windows—little more than narrow slits without covering—and fired blindly into the night. They were answered, and great chunks of dried wood splintered into the air. Edward’s arm was pierced, but he only grabbed hold of the sliver and yanked it out without making a sound, returned to his firing and shouting without missing a turn. As soon as their mistress had left them and they had moved back inside, they had changed their clothes from field hand whites to shirts and trousers of an unrelieved black, belted with ropes so there would be no light-reflecting buckles. Now they were virtually invisible, and despite the growing, shimmering light outside, there would be no safe way for the attackers to determine how many men they faced, even when they were forced to bolt.

  The air grew thick with smoke.

  The horsemen outside moved closer.

  Marcus, without consulting the others, knelt by the front door and pulled it to him slowly. Quickly, he raised an arm against the glare of the fire, squinted, saw a shadow and fired at it before slamming the door again. There was a scream. Marcus grinned.

  “Hey,” Tim muttered. “Hey, we gonna be heroes?”

  “A moment,” Marcus said. “We gots to hol’ as long as we can.”

  Edward, prone on the floor now to escape the smoke, coughed and waved his arm weakly. “We can’t stay no more, fool. We gone be roasted, and ain’t nobody gonna want to smoke a nigger.”

  Yet still they fired without aiming, shouting as best they could until they could no longer open their mouths without taking in smoke. Once, as they retreated toward the back of the building, they were rewarded with the sound of another man hit. They grinned at each other, nodded, and decided without speaking that they could delay no more; if the fires already set made their way to the back, then they would be more than easy targets for the fifteen or twenty riders they estimated were outside, fighting ghosts without knowing it.

  The rear door was small, narrow, barely enough for a man to squeeze through. They took one more look at the inferno raging at the front, then slipped outside and began running. There was no sense in waiting for each other; standing in the open would only invite death, and the treeline was less than fifty yards away. Within seconds they had plunged into the brush and were moving as swiftly as they could beneath the low-hanging branches toward Billy’s position in the woods near the house. As they ran, crawled, stopped every few yards, and pressed against a tree to check on their flight, they tried too to follow the activities of Hawkins’s riders. It was, however, impossible. There was still sporadic firing, a few shouts, and while it was clear some of the men were still waiting for the defenders to bolt from the shed, they had no way of knowing if any had decided to make for the house, and it bothered them. The Missus would need to know, and there was nothing they could do here to help her.

  Despite Judah’s vehement protests, Cass decided against sending him and Cable down to the road. “Two men are not going to stop anyone,” she said as she helped Rachel and Melody tear dresses into bandages. “And I need you both here. If some do come around by the road, you can stop them at the head of the lane. If you get trapped down there … it would be a waste of manpower.” She added wryly, “As the captain might say.”

  “But Missus—”

  “Judah, I haven’t time to argue with you. You want to do just what that man wants you to—help divide us so he can pick us off with ease. Why do you think we went to all that trouble of keeping Billy and the others out at the sheds? If it all works the way I pray it will, he’ll think he’s taken care of most of our men.”

  “Surprise,” Alice said grimly as she struggled with a kettle of water to set on the fire.

  “Exactly,” Cass affirmed.

  Judah scowled, but he deferred to Cassandra and was right behind her when she darted out of the completely dark house and raced for the path that would lead her to Billy.

  But what if I’m wrong, she wondered as she ran. Suppose I’ve misjudged Geoffrey’s conceit?

  Not bloody likely, a silent voice much like Eric’s told her, and she grinned and ran faster, arriving at the meeting point just a moment after her trio of stallers stumbled in from the other direction. There were several seconds of confusion until Tim explained quickly what they and the riders had done at the sheds, and Cass hugged him tightly.

  Their position was not a strong one against a frontal attack, but Cass had good reason to expect assault from another angle. The trees on both sides of the narrow path swept in from the right and left in a wide V, and once Geoffrey realized that he had been tricked he would ride straight for the only clear way to the rear of the house—to any side of the house except for the lane. That much, she thought bitterly, she had counted on Simon telling him. The hands would be stationed, then, in those trees and they would fire one or two volleys—depending on the circumstance—before scattering to minimize their presence as targets. Once that had been accomplished, she was sure the riders would desert their mounts and it would be every man for himself, with her own people having the advantage of knowing where they were going.

  Leaving Judah to be sure each man was in his proper place. She exchanged with Cable her rifle for his revolver and ran back toward the house. Amos had already been sent on, which meant, she realized dully, that she would be left with three women, the old man, and the boy, Abraham. Not, she thought sourly, the most terrifying fighting force in the world; but she hoped that when the men began to give ground—assuming that Hawkins managed to push things that far—there would be enough of them to protect the hidden crop. Fire was what she worried about more than anything, and the wavering, bloody glow in the sky over the sheds sent an involuntary shiver down her spine.

  She broke out into the yard and had slowed almost to a walk when she heard a piercing scream shatter the relative quiet around the house. She froze and looked behind her, tightening her grip on the revolver. There was a muffled crash from inside the kitchen and another, softer scream. She ran, trying not to think, not to imagine what lay inside as she bounded onto the stoop and flung the door open.

  The table had been turned over. Bandages were scattered all over the floor. The firelight was bright but uncertain, and it took her a moment to see the man standing in the corridor, pistols drawn, a woman lying at his feet unconscious. A moan in a nearby corner made her glance aside; it was Amos, crumpled into a ragged heap. To her left, in the small passageway between the kitchen and the dining room she could hear, faintly, the sounds of Rachel and Melody whimpering.

  The figure in the hallway stepped forward over the prone Alice, and into the light, the bone-handled pistols were aimed directly at her stomach.

  “Which one of us fires first, ma’am?” Vern Lambert said.

  Behind her and outside she heard an explosion of firing that told her that Riverrun’s life-war had been joined in earnest. But it would be foolish to die now, when she didn’t have to. She had only the light of the fire to guide her, an uncertain protection, while Lambert only had to discharge both his weapons and he would be sure to strike her with at least one. She lowered her pistol.

  Lambert nodded. “Wise move, ma’am. Wouldn’t want the captain t’be disappointed with me. ’Course, he wouldn’t listen t’me ’bout the house. I told him you was plannin somethin’, but he jes’ keep on with his own little dreams. In a lot of ways, he ain’t the most smartest man in the world.”

  “Well, now that you’
ve got me, what are you going to do?”

  Rachel, for God’s sake! she thought wildly, as with her mind, she urged Amos to his feet, Abraham from whatever hiding place he’d ducked into.

  The fighting had intensified outside, so much in one brief flurry that it seemed as though the battle were raging directly opposite the door.

  “Somethin’ I should’ve done the first day we met, ma’am,” he said. He gestured toward the corridor with the pistols and she hesitated. “Move, or I’ll blow the old man’s head off,” he warned.

  She moved, then, without question, into the corridor, looking down at Alice and seeing her chest moving, praying that it was only a blow that had felled her, not a thrust from the wickedly long knife that had been jammed into Lambert’s belt. She walked slowly, listening to the heavy pounding of his heels on the floor, knowing what it was he planned to do to her and feeling her skin begin to tighten, to crawl, feeling a hollow in her stomach rapidly fill up with bile. But there was no use trying to talk him out of it. The entire Union army could have been outside and attacking, and Lambert would have had only one thing on his mind. The only point she might have in her favor was the fact that he was obviously disobeying Geoffrey’s orders, that he should not have been here in the first place.

  She stopped at the foot of the steps, looked up, and shuddered violently to keep herself from gasping. Lambert came up behind her, and stroked the cold barrel of a pistol over the back of her neck. “Very excitin’, don’t you think, ma’am?” he whispered. She could smell his fetid breath, the sweat, the odor of his horse permeating his clothes. She almost retched, but held herself steady. “I believe your room is somewhere up there. Why don’t you give me a tour, ’fore it’s too late?”

  The shooting was sporadic now. Hawkins’s riders had apparently abandoned their mounts as she had hoped and were now fighting their way, tree by tree, through the woodland barrier toward the house. Geoffrey would know, now … There would be no other reason for the resistance to be so stiff here. She swallowed. Once again, she looked up to the large oval window at the top of the stairs. It glowed with the fires spreading to the forest, and in front of it was a shadow.