But it was too dangerous for him. There might be someone listening beyond the window or in the next room. In any case, it wasn’t necessary.
“Never mind,” she said quietly.
Ransom had never loved her more. She was pale, there were shadows of sleeplessness under her eyes, and the hat tipped forward on her head was so drab that it drained her face of vitality. Still, the look in her eyes made him feel that there were no such things as bars.
She knew; he sensed it. And she had betrayed him. But he had handed his life to her with a rose when they had first met and he had no right to complain if she had tossed both away. If she had asked, he would have told her what she wanted to know. She didn’t, and he was glad. It indicated that she understood more than he had ever dreamed she would. Or so he wanted to believe. It could also mean that she didn’t care to know, that the burden of guilt for what she had done was so intolerable that it no longer mattered. Either way, he was satisfied.
Footsteps sounded on the steps leading down from the upper floor. The colonel was returning.
His voice deep, Ransom said, “Kiss me, Miss Lettie.”
She went on tiptoe, straining against the bars, feeling the cool metal against her heated face as she met his lips through them. Firm and sure, there was in the contact both wrenching pleasure and a pact sealed in silent abnegation.
Thomas was whistling as he came. The sound was sharp, a warning. Ranny released Lettie and she stepped back. Her cheekbones carried a hectic flush and her voice was unsteady when she spoke for the benefit of the colonel.
“Do you have everything you need?”
“Except you. To read to me,” he answered, his eyes bright in the dimness.
She managed a smile, acknowledging that faint edge of comic longing. Then Thomas was beside her.
“Ready?”
She said her final farewell and placed her hand on the blue sleeve that covered the colonel’s arm. Holding on to her composure, breathing slowly, steadily, she walked away, leaving behind her Ranny, Ransom Tyler, who was without doubt the Thorn.
18
NOTHING WOULD EVER BE the same. Lettie knew it would not, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. That fact should have been shocking, but it wasn’t. So great was her relief at being freed from her doubts that she wanted to sing, to shout, despite the weight of fear inside. She did neither. She drove sedately home to Splendora, a frown of such fierce concentration on her face that the tax collector O’Connor, pausing to tip his hat to her on a Natchitoches street, stared after her in astonishment as she bowled past him without a sign of recognition.
Lettie hoped to find Aunt Em alone. She should have known better. Not only was Sally Anne still visiting, she had been joined by Marie Voisin and Angelique. The two young women had apparently been seeking Sally Anne so that Angelique could say her good-byes. They were all gathered in Aunt Em’s bedchamber, perhaps because they had interrupted the older woman’s afternoon rest or possibly because some privacy was desired. It was Lionel who pointed out their location and told Lettie who was present. A few hours earlier, Lettie might have hesitated, uncertain of her welcome, but now she had no thought except to see Aunt Em and speak to her as soon as possible.
Lettie heard their voices as she lifted her hand to knock. They stopped abruptly when her tap sounded. A moment later, she was told without ceremony to come in.
Aunt Em sat in a slipper chair with Sally Anne standing on one side and Marie Voisin on the other. Angelique knelt on the floor, her tearstained face in the older woman’s ample lap. She sat up, searching for a handkerchief as Lettie stepped into the room.
“Oh, it’s you, Lettie,” Aunt Em said. “I thought it might be Mama Tass coming for the coffee tray.”
“I can take it away if you like and save her the trouble.” The offer was sincere. Lettie had the distinct feeling that it would be better if she came back later.
“Mama Tass will be along directly.”
Lettie closed the door and came forward. Her tone stiff, she said, “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
Angelique used her handkerchief, emerging from behind it after a moment. “Oh, no, I’m being s-silly. I will be c-calm in a minute.”
“We were just going, anyway,” Marie said.
“Is there nothing I can say,” Aunt Em asked, touching Angelique’s arm, “to convince you this is unnecessary?”
The girl gave a small, hopeless shrug. “You know how it is with me.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way. A lot of your people are going to California or to Mexico where they are accepted as—”
“As Spanish. Yes, I know, but Papa won’t consider it. He will hold on to his land until the end because being a great landowner is his pride. I need something more.”
“Not this. Not some half-life. It won’t be the same as it was before the war. Nothing is.”
“It will be enough, with the man who has chosen me.”
“Can you trust him? I mean, really trust him?”
“I must.” The sadness of all the women in the world was in the girl’s tremulous smile.
Aunt Em sighed. “I don’t like it. There’s no use pretending I do, but it’s your choice, and I can’t honestly say that if I was in your shoes I would do any different. When do you go?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow night? But why?”
Angelique looked away. “That must be obvious.”
“The man’s a fool.”
“He has his reputation to think of. As you said, things are not the same. It’s no longer the fashion for a man to have a woman of color as his mistress.”
“Fashion, my eye! What kind of life is it going to be for you if he never wants to be seen with you in public?”
“The only kind I can have. But — I could be wrong. It may have something to do with the fact that we are going to Monroe to catch the river packet.”
“Monroe?” Aunt Em’s frown seemed to demand an explanation.
“He has Federal business there, possibly, or it may be that he would rather not risk having to introduce me to his friends, as he might if we left from here to catch the train at Colfax.”
Sally Anne leaned to put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Angelique, please, don’t go.”
Angelique smiled, with a mist of tears rising once more in her liquid brown eyes. “I appreciate your concern and I will remember it, but I have no other choice.”
“A man of your own race would be better than this — this insensitive idiot who is taking you away.” That she did not speak the name of the tax collector was a matter of delicacy.
“My own race? But I am only a quarter Negro, just a quarter. What is my race?”
They were all silent, abashed, for the law was specific that any trace of Negro blood made a person nonwhite. It was a position that was both rational and irrational, one that the war and the laws of Reconstruction had done nothing to change.
Angelique pushed herself upright and kicked her skirts out of the way so that she could get to her feet. She would have turned away, but Aunt Em put out her hand to catch her wrist.
“You are a fine and beautiful woman and a worthwhile human being; never forget that. If things don’t work out, don’t be too proud to come back home.”
“I won’t,” Angelique said, her voice soft. “I would not have cried all over you if you had not been so understanding, but I’m glad you were. You have helped me so much. I’m grateful.”
Aunt Em shook her head. “You know we wish you happiness?”
“I know. Well, I had better go if I’m to be packed in time.”
Angelique looked around for her hat, which lay on a nearby table. She put it back on and secured it with the pin that was thrust through it. Marie moved to straighten the veil that fell down the back, then reached for her net purse, which lay on the bed.
They left the room in a group and moved out onto the veranda. There was a series of good-byes, then the two visitors went down the steps t
o their buggy. Lettie, Sally Anne, and Aunt Em stood watching and waving until they were out of sight.
Aunt Em lowered her arm. Her face grim, she said, “If O’Connor had never asked her to go to New Orleans, Angelique would have been perfectly happy where she was. I could kill that man.”
“I have a better idea,” Lettie said, her eyes gleaming with the inspiration that had been growing for the better part of the past half hour.
“What are you talking about?”
“What do you mean?”
The two women spoke at the same time. There was suspicion in Aunt Em’s voice. Sally Anne sounded irritated and intrigued as she turned to search Lettie’s face.
Lettie told them exactly what she had in mind.
There were five of them when they set out the following evening. Sally Anne refused to allow Lettie to go alone; she couldn’t bear to miss out on the excitement. Aunt Em insisted on going because it was simply too dangerous for the two young women without protection. Lionel would not stay behind because he wanted to help Mast’ Ranny. And Mama Tass would not let Lionel go without her.
Lettie did not object to the company. Reinforcements were welcome, so long as they stayed out of sight. It was entirely possible that they would be needed. What she was going to do was risky at best; at worst, it could be disastrous. With the others present, the situation might be saved by turning it into some kind of monstrous practical joke.
They left before nightfall, to all appearances just the family from Splendora traveling by wagon to some gathering, with a saddle horse trotting along behind. Lettie was driving with Aunt Em up beside her. The others were in the back sitting on a bench, with their feet propped on a long, quilt-wrapped bundle. Smiling, chatting among themselves in an attempt to appear at ease, they passed through town and continued south toward Isle Brevelle.
It was dusk dark by the time they came within a half mile of the turnoff for the drive of the house that belonged to Monsieur La Cour, Angelique’s father. It was Aunt Em who had chosen the place, first of all because it had a plum thicket and a grove of scrubby post oaks just beyond a tight curve, and second because just back up the road was an abandoned farmhouse.
They pulled into the farmyard and wheeled the wagon around behind the old house with its blank windows and sagging door so that it was well hidden. Lionel was dispatched to make his way to the La Cour house to watch for a short while to be certain their quarry had not already come and gone. Mama Tass unpacked a basket containing a cold supper, and they all ate standing up as they waited for Lionel.
In between bites of biscuit and cold chicken, Lettie took the long bundle from the back and unwrapped it. She laid the weapons it contained on the seat, then shook out the man’s hat, coat, shirt, and trousers; the feather pillows; the large black kerchief; and a revolver, the same one she had taken from the Thorn at the corn crib. Removing her own clothing, she began to put the other things on.
By the time Lionel returned, night had fallen. Angelique was still at the house, he reported; he had seen her through the windows moving back and forth in her room.
The boy was handed biscuits and chicken, and the rest of the food was put away. Aunt Em and Sally Anne each took a rifle from the wagon seat. Mama Tass fished a wicked-looking carving knife from underneath it. Lionel, holding the biscuit he had left in his mouth, reached into his pocket and brought out a slingshot and a handful of rocks. Mama Tass was detailed to stay with the wagon, ready to send it back toward Splendora at speed if necessary. The others moved quietly after Lettie, who led the horse, as they made their way toward the road.
Lettie moved on past the plum thicket Aunt Em had marked out, drawing her mount into the cover of the grove of post oaks. The others pushed their way into the thorny concealment of the low-growing plum trees, though not without a sharp exclamation or two under their breaths and even what sounded like a few mild oaths.
In the grove, Lettie turned the horse’s head toward the road. She looked up at the man’s saddle with a pillow tied to the seat, then down at her own form made portly with more pillows. With her mouth set in a determined line, she put her foot in the stirrup, grasped the saddle with both hands, and pulled herself upward.
She couldn’t do it. Her pillow-clad breast hit the edge of the saddle and she dropped back to the ground. She tried again. The same thing happened.
The sounds of hoofbeats. Someone was coming. She had to be ready. She reached higher, gave a mighty heave.
She was in the saddle, sitting high on the pillow that was to give her a man’s stature. She quieted the dancing horse that had been disturbed by her strange appearance and her efforts. With one hand, she shifted the pads in the shoulders of her coat for the correct broad appearance, then adjusted her hat lower across her face, pulled her black kerchief higher over her nose, and looked up the road.
For a moment she thought she was seeing a ghost. It was not yet moonrise, and in the darkness all that was visible was a shifting white blur. She closed her eyes tight and opened them again. The blur was a light-colored shirt worn by a man on a dark-colored horse. Closer he came. It was an old black man slouched in the saddle of a nag so rawboned and ancient it was comical in its ugliness.
A single horseman, not a man in a buggy. He was not their quarry. Lettie sat still. The old man trotted past and faded into the night.
The minutes passed. She relaxed and lowered her kerchief, then scratched her upper lip with one careful finger. Her mustache with its spirit gum adhesive itched infernally. Heaven alone knew how Ransom had been able to stand it so often and for so long at a time. She took off her hat and fanned herself with it. Hot, it was so hot girded around with pillows as she was. It would be a good thing if it rained again soon to cool things off and to wash the dust from the trees. At least the mosquitoes weren’t out tonight.
Strange, ridiculous things went through Lettie’s mind. What was she going to say? “Stand and deliver!” like some highwayman on an English heath? Or would a simple “Stop!” do? Maybe she should have constructed a bulbous nose for herself? It would have been a better disguise in case there was a carriage lantern, and it might have changed the sound of her voice if it had pinched her nostrils.
What did she think she was doing? Was she crazy?
It was best not to answer such questions. She thought instead of the ease with which Mama Tass had gone about finding the things she needed for her role, as if it was not an unaccustomed task, and of Lionel’s easy acceptance of his role as spy.
Ranny. He had been so innocent. She regretted his loss. The love he had offered her, so simple and pure, had been besmirched. She had not known how much she had come to depend on it until it had been taken away. That was not something she could easily forgive.
At the same time, she was devoutly thankful to know that her responses to him, which could not be characterized as either simple or pure, were not the perversion she had thought them to be. She could hold her head up again, look herself in the eye in the mirror. Her transgressions were at least understandable, and so forgivable. It was possible that she could, eventually, come to live with them.
It was such a relief to be through with doubts, to know once and for all that Ransom Tyler was the Thorn, and no killer. Where that left the matter she could not quite see. It appeared, however, that Aunt Em might be right. But at least she was free, at last, of any compulsion to discover who had murdered her brother and Johnny. That was a job for the law, and she would let them do it. There was only one last thing that had to be done by her now, tonight, and then she could go with a clear conscience and basically an easy mind. If at times she dreamed of masked men, of phantom lovers who visited in the dark, that was her penance, one she would gladly pay.
A vehicle was coming, driven fast. She replaced her hat and kerchief, gathered the reins in her hand, and sat up straight, her every sense alert. It was odd how strong was the smell of dust and oak leaf mold, crushed grass and bitter weeds from where they had turned into the overgrown drive o
f the farmhouse. Odd, too, how soft and velvety the air felt against her skin and how friendly the concealing darkness seemed all around her. She could feel her heart jarring against her ribs, feel the blood pulsing along her veins. Alive, she was so alive. She was going to remember this night and others when she was a very old lady.
The buggy was coming nearer. She kept her head turned, watching it through the trees as it appeared down the road. It carried no lanterns. In the gleam of starshine it was a dark, moving shadow trailing a gray plume of dust. She nudged her horse with her heel, moving closer to the edge of the trees. From the direction of the plum thicket issued a clear, sharp whistle. Lionel. She smiled a little, a smile that quickly faded as she steeled herself for what lay ahead.
The driver of the buggy wasn’t going to check for the curve. Yes, now he was slowing. The horse he was driving leaned into the swing of the road, its mane tossing. The man’s arms were taut, his hands full.
Now!
She kicked her horse and charged out of the trees and into the road. She pulled up hard so that the animal reared, neighing, dancing on its hind legs. The buggy horse shied violently, jerking in the shafts. The man on the seat cursed and came to his feet. He sawed on the reins, dragging the animal to a plunging, snorting standstill. Lettie brought her mount under control and drew her revolver as she straightened.
“What in hell is the meaning of this?” the man in the buggy shouted with fury. “Get out of my way!”
She had been practicing her hoarse whisper for twenty-four hours, until her throat was raw and the sound was as coarse as she could wish. She almost forgot to use it as she recognized the voice of the man in the buggy. Was this the gentleman for whom Angelique was waiting? There could be little doubt of it. No wonder the girl had been confident of her future.
There was no time to reconsider, no time to change plans. He had released one hand from the reins, reaching inside his coat.
“Don’t!” she rasped. “Put your hands in the air. Now!”
He obeyed her, though slowly. “You stupid bastard,” he said, his tone low and grating. “Do you know who I am?”
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