York’s face dripped with sweat. He spat one last time and pulled the trigger.
Josh ran onto the beach just as York fired his pistol. His heart dropped as he saw Master Trenton crumple to the ground. Mrs. Tessier and Camellia trailed Josh, their skirts dirty with sand they’d kicked up in their rush, their faces wet with sweat. Josh ran to Trenton and knelt beside him.
“My knee!” shouted Trenton. Josh stretched Trenton out and saw blood soaking his pants in his right leg. He pulled at the hole the bullet had made and ripped it wider to examine the wound. Then the doctor appeared. Josh stood with everyone else and watched as the doctor wrapped cord around Trenton’s thigh. Josh pulled out a handkerchief and pressed it against the wound. Trenton groaned and gripped his leg with both hands. His mother ran to his side, took his head in her lap.
“You have crippled me!” Trenton shouted at York.
“If you don’t die of blood loss or get the gangrene, you’ll live,” York said softly. “Consider yourself a blessed man I didn’t aim for your heart like I could have.”
“You should have killed me!” moaned Trenton. “I don’t want to live like this, half a man.”
“I figured maybe dyin’ would be too good for you,” said York. “Too easy. Best to let you live a while longer. Maybe see if you can learn some things, turn out a better man.”
“You’ll pay for this!” Trenton screamed, his empty pistol still in his hand. “This is not the end of your dealings with me!”
“I’ll kill you the next time,” said York. “You be smart now and let matters go.” He stood and faced Josh and Camellia, pointed at Mrs. Tessier. “What are you all doin’ here?”
“I came to stop this,” Josh explained. “Sorry I’m too late.” He and York moved away a couple of steps, Camellia and Johnny trailing them. Mrs. Tessier stayed with Trenton.
“Why didn’t you kill him?” Josh asked.
“Maybe I’m gettin’ a conscience.”
“You still plan to wed his mama?”
“If she’ll have me.”
“But you just crippled her son.”
“I let him live. She’ll thank me for that.”
“Is that why you didn’t kill him? So she’d still marry you?”
“You never know about me, do you? Just when you think I did somethin’ for a right reason, you suspect I did it for a bad one?”
Josh lifted an eyebrow. No matter how long he lived, he’d never understand York.
“I thought you were gone,” York said.
“I was going to be but… Hillard came this morning.”
York paused, and Josh saw the questions in his eyes. “I told him. All about the money.”
York’s face hardened. “You beat all.”
“It’s okay,” said Josh. “That’s what I came to tell you.” He motioned for Johnny and Camellia to join them, then led everybody a couple more steps away. “Hillard told me everything,” he continued, his tone low so the Tessiers couldn’t hear. “He works for Wallace Swanson. Swanson’s a rich man now, living in Richmond. Made a lot of money running a general store, then bought and operates several hotels, some houses. You name it, he’s got his fingers in it.”
“He must have changed a heap since I last knew him,” York said with resentment.
“Apparently so. Anyway, Swanson sent a man named Quincy down here to look for Camellia and Chester.”
York glanced at Camellia. “What’s he want with her? And Chester’s dead!”
“He’s their pa, remember. He sent the money to them!” Josh said. “Wanted them to know he was alive; wanted to make up for leaving them so long ago.”
York frowned. “I don’t get it. Why would he do that all of a sudden? After all these years?”
“You’d have to ask him. Hillard didn’t know the answer to that.”
York faced Camellia. “You know about the money?”
“Yes, Josh told me just a few minutes ago.”
“I wouldn’t have kept it had I known it was for you and Chester. I got my faults, but I wouldn’t take from you or the boys. You got to believe that.”
“I know,” she said.
“I’ll give you the money,” he said. “All of it.”
Josh dropped his eyes in gratitude for the good that remained in York.
Camellia raised her chin. “I don’t want it. Got no need for it. I know how much you want this chance with The Oak. You do with it what you want.”
“That don’t feel right,” York said.
“Doesn’t matter,” she insisted. “I have no desire for money from a man I never met.”
“But he’s your father.”
She shrugged.
Wanting to give York and Camellia some privacy, Josh moved off and back to Trenton. He was standing on one leg now, holding on to Calvin. When Trenton stared toward Josh, a snarl on his lips, Josh saw how much he hated York and anybody connected to him. As Calvin leaned in close to Trenton and handed him something, Josh glanced away. Camellia, York, and Johnny stood in a small circle, their voices low. Josh took a deep breath and gazed toward the ocean. He’d miss this place, the beauty of the sea, the smell of the salt air. He looked one last time at Trenton and Calvin. Blood ran from Trenton’s knee into the sand; he still held his pistol at his side.
Josh’s blood suddenly ran cold. Trenton had propped his left hand on Calvin’s shoulder and now lifted the pistol to an aiming position with his right!
Josh yelled, throwing his body between Trenton and York. The pistol fired as he moved. A crack sounded, and the bullet caught Josh in the left side of his chest. He fell to the sand, the right side of his face landing on the beach. The ocean rolled in at eye level. Strange, how different the waves looked from here, the way they slid in on the sand all white and foamy, Josh thought. He heard voices and felt pain in his chest. Then everything seemed a little darker, as if somebody had slid a cloud over the sun. He saw York’s face and then Camellia’s and wondered how they could be on the ground as he was.
Josh tasted blood in his throat. “I’m glad Trenton … didn’t kill you,” he whispered to York.
“Me too.”
“Now you … your picture … the mantel.”
“Don’t talk,” said Camellia.
Josh smiled lightly. “Stay … with me,” he murmured.
“I’m here.”
“I … I love you,” he said.
“We’ll fix you,” she replied softly.
“Beth … Butler. Care for them.”
“You’ll take care of them,” she answered.
The doctor moved to Josh, rolled him to his back, and examined his wound. “Need to get the bleeding stopped. If I can do that, he’s got a chance.”
Josh smiled again. “I got a chance.”
“Let’s get him out of here,” said the doctor.
York and Johnny gently lifted and carried Josh toward the doctor’s carriage. Camellia took his right hand and squeezed it as they walked.
“Mexico,” Josh said. “I need … to confess it.”
“I’m here,” she said.
They reached the carriage and laid him in the backseat. Camellia climbed in beside him. The carriage headed toward The Oak.
“Middle … of the night,” he whispered.
“Later,” Camellia said. “Tell me later.”
Josh closed his eyes. “Got to … say it now.” He panted. “Before it’s too … late.”
“It can wait,” she pleaded.
“I was asleep … in a camp, hundreds of men. I woke up, saw this man, short, hat over his head, covered in blankets, standing over … York.” Josh paused to draw breath.
“Not now,” pleaded Camellia again.
Josh opened his eyes. Camellia looked so lovely, but she didn’t understand, didn’t know that before a man died he needed to say things, needed to speak things he’d never said to anyone. He didn’t want to carry the guilt in his heart when he stood before Jesus.
“I saw … a weapon. He had it … poi
nted at … York. I pulled my pistol … killed him.”
Camellia glanced at York. “I don’t understand,” she cried. “It was war. Men die in war.”
York nodded gravely. “Men, yes. But this was … he was a boy.”
She looked back to Josh, her confusion evident. “A boy?”
“A boy,” said York, speaking for Josh now. “Not more than ten or eleven. He was starving. Armies, ours and the Mexicans, had been in his area for a couple of weeks, taking what they needed. The boy slipped into our camp, Josh woke up, saw him standing over me, the pistol in hand. Josh shot him before he knew.”
Camellia leaned closer to Josh. Tears streaked his face. She put her lips to his ear. “You didn’t know,” she whispered. “You were just a boy yourself.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered back, his eyes wet.
“The Lord forgives you,” she soothed. “The Lord forgives you.”
Josh took a deep breath. “One more thing,” he whispered. “Hillard … told me.”
“What?”
“Your mother … is …”
“What about my mother?” she asked.
He smiled lightly. “She’s … she’s alive.”
His mind switched off then. Even though he could vaguely hear Camellia calling his name, he could no longer answer. Then her voice disappeared completely, and he heard nothing more.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The next three weeks passed like a dark dream for Camellia.
Once they’d carried Josh back to his house, the doctor got the bleeding stopped and saw that the bullet hadn’t hit his heart. After that, he told everybody he wanted to let Josh rest at least a day before he tried to get the bullet out. The next morning he drugged Josh with laudanum and went after the bullet, carefully digging into Josh’s chest with sharp instruments and a pair of forceps. After what seemed like hours to Camellia, the doctor lifted out the bullet with bloody fingers and dropped it into a tin cup. Everybody breathed a sigh of relief.
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” the doctor cautioned after he’d finished. “He’ll bleed some more. Then we wait to see if any infection sets in. If not, he might just make it. Only the Lord knows.”
Although everybody took turns sitting with him, Camellia, Beth, and Butler did the most. Day and night, somebody stayed by him all the time. Fever came on him the fourth day, a raging heat on his face and hands that made his body almost scorching to touch. He talked out of his head for almost a week after that, his words making no sense, words about a boy in Mexico, words about Anna, Camellia. Sometimes he shouted the words, sometimes he whispered them, sometimes tears poured down his face as he talked. Every now and again, he even spoke some Scripture, his voice soft as he mouthed the phrases. He lost weight, his bones poking through his skin like tree limbs in the winter when the leaves have fallen off.
Camellia prayed more than she’d ever prayed. Not just for Josh, though she usually started and ended her prayers with her concerns for him. But she prayed also for Trenton, for her pa, for herself. Everything had become so confused in the last week. Things she’d felt certain about for years were now so mixed up she didn’t know what to think or feel.
Sharpton Hillard visited her while she nursed Josh, his words assuring her that what Josh said was true. Wallace Swanson and her mother had sent the five thousand dollars as a way to make amends for the sorry way they had treated her and her brother so many years ago. Why they’d sent it now Hillard didn’t know. But yes, they were alive, living in Richmond. Her mother went by Ruth now, her middle name. Not even York had known it.
Camellia tried to figure out her feelings about the Swansons but couldn’t. What did it matter if they were alive? They meant nothing to her, were no more real and solid than a fog that rolled in off the ocean on a winter morning. So what if they’d sent her and Chester some money? Did they think that would make a difference? Could they soothe their consciences so easily? She wanted to talk to her pa about all of it but didn’t know where or how to start. So she said nothing to anyone about what Hillard had told Josh.
The talk of war bothered her a lot too. Seemed that the whole country, led by South Carolina’s example, had gone mad with the zeal for glory. Although news didn’t get to The Oak real fast, it did eventually reach them. Within days after the duel everybody knew that Yankees and Confederates were now at war. Camellia prayed about that too, but since she didn’t know if or when it would affect her and her loved ones, she tried to keep it out of her head.
Of all the feelings that confused her, none bothered her more than her thoughts about Trenton. She worried about his leg. Although the doctor had done everything he could to prevent it, gangrene had set in pretty fast, and the doctor had been forced to amputate just over the knee. She knew this not because anybody from Trenton’s family talked to her, but because she went by the manse every day and talked to Stella and Ruby.
Her heart ached as she tried to figure out her feelings about him. How could he have taken a shot at her pa after the duel had ended? What kind of man shot at another when he wasn’t looking? Was it possible to love a man who’d do something like that?
About a week after the amputation, Calvin showed up on her porch and told her Trenton wanted to see her. Although scared of the meeting, she also wanted it, needed to talk to him and give him a chance to explain. Surely he’d lost his head to do such a thing; no man in his right mind would take such dishonorable action against another. She followed Calvin back to the manse and found Trenton in his bed, a pair of crutches beside him on the covers. He motioned for her to take a chair, and she quietly obeyed. Calvin eased out of the room. Camellia folded her hands in her lap. A soft breeze from the window pushed her hair back. Trenton’s eyes lay dark in their sockets. He seemed to have aged ten years.
“I am a cripple now,” he said. “Your pa made me one.”
She saw hatred in his eyes. He seemed completely different now, not at all the young man she’d cared about so much, the young man she’d … loved. Had he always been like this and she’d never seen it, or had life gradually done this to him, the hurts and hard times slowly carving fury from a good heart, bitterness out of a sweet spirit?
“I’m sorry about … about …” she tried to say.
“My leg,” he snarled. “My leg, you can say it. Your pa cost me my leg!”
Camellia started to remind him that he’d issued the challenge but decided against it.
“I ought to be leading soldiers,” he said. “Defending my home, my family from the Yankees. But with this—” He pointed to his knee.
“Be grateful you don’t have to fight,” she said, hoping to make him feel better.
“Grateful? What an idiotic thing to say. The Yankees want to destroy everything we own, what we stand for, what makes us who we are, and you want me to feel grateful?”
Camellia sighed. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m so mixed up, confused.”
“I meant to shoot your pa,” he said. “Not Josh Cain. I want you to know that.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” Her voice sounded angry, and it surprised her. She didn’t want to feel mad at Trenton. How could you marry someone you didn’t like?
“Your pa offended my mother. I had to defend her honor.”
“So you tried to shoot my pa when he wasn’t looking?”
“He crippled me. I was in shock. Surely you can understand that.”
“He could have killed you in the duel.”
“I would have preferred that.”
Camellia leaned closer, took his hand. “Look,” she started, “I cannot speak for what my pa did or didn’t do with your mama, whether it was respectful or not. But was it worth dying for, worth his life or yours? I don’t see it, don’t understand it. Look what it’s brought. Josh Cain near death, you with this … crippled. Was it worth that?”
Trenton pulled away and touched his thigh above his missing knee. “My mother is still going to marry him.”
&nb
sp; “What?”
“Haven’t you heard? They talked yesterday. Seems she’s appreciative your pa didn’t kill me. Said she can understand what he did, why he did it. She figures I gave him no choice but to duel. He told her he didn’t kill me for her sake, not mine. She found that … charming.” He spat out the last words as if spitting out sour milk.
“She tell you this?” Camellia leaned back in amazement.
“Yes, last night.”
“So there’s going to be a wedding on The Oak after all.” She wondered if her pa was still legally married to Ruth Swanson or if all their years of separation gave them a common law divorcement, but it was above her head, so she let it drop.
“Soon as we know whether Mr. Cain is going to live or die. Your pa didn’t want to marry until then.”
“He’s hanging on,” she said, dropping her eyes. “But we don’t know if he’ll make it.”
Trenton shrugged as if it didn’t matter one way or the other. Camellia thought of her pa and Mrs. Tessier. Since she’d not taken the five thousand from him, her pa still had enough to save The Oak, at least for now. Trenton picked up a crutch, reached out and tapped her chair on the arm with it. As she faced him, a heavy weariness hit her, a bone-tired feeling from the nights with Josh, the thinking about all that had happened in the last few days, the worry about Josh and Trenton.
“I need to go,” she said quietly. “We’ll talk again soon.”
“Please not yet,” he replied.
“I don’t know what else to say right now.”
“Don’t you want to know?” he asked.
“Know what?”
He smiled slightly. Some of the years seemed to peel off his face, and she saw something of the old Trenton again. But could she trust it anymore? Or was it just a mask he put on when he wanted something?
“What will happen to us?”
“I don’t understand.”
He pushed back the covers, lifted both crutches, and eased to the side of the bed, his right pants leg pinned at the thigh. A few seconds later he stood unsteadily and faced her. “I’m getting better.”
“I’m glad.”
Secret Tides Page 38