Patricia Rice

by Wayward Angel

  Josie met her in the kitchen, glancing at Dora's empty hands. "Did he eat it?"

  "I couldn't even get him to talk with me long enough to convince him," she answered wearily.

  "He doesn't eat enough to keep a gnat alive." Josie worried at her bottom lip. "He's always out in that field. Does he ever sleep?"

  That was a loaded question if Dora ever heard one. She washed her hands at the pump and smoothed the cool water over her face just to avoid answering. Pace had moved her into his larger room on the other end of the hall from his mother, but he spent little time there himself. Occasionally she would wake to find his dirty clothes lying on the floor and a hollow in the pillow beside her, so he apparently at least went to bed sometimes. She wasn't at all certain that he actually slept. Only a person who never slept could creep in and out of bed without her noticing.

  "He is a grown man. I cannot tell him what to do," Dora finally answered, wiping her face on a towel.

  "Someone must!" Josie paced the floor in agitation. "If he drops dead, all is lost. We can't possibly run this place without him."

  Tired, irritated, worried more than she wished to admit, Dora replied angrily, "Thou art welcome to try and save him from himself if thou wishes."

  Josie returned an angry glare. "Maybe I will. You may have trapped him, but he loved me first. It's killing him living like this."

  Dora felt those words all the way to her heart. Josie could very well have the right of it. Pace's behavior made very little sense otherwise. He worked too hard. He didn't eat or sleep. She didn't consider that the normal behavior of a happily married man expecting the birth of his first child.

  "It was Pace's decision, not mine," Dora said with as much dignity as she could muster. Then she walked out, leaving Josie to think what she wished.

  She didn't know what to think herself. She was battered and confused inside, and more frightened than she could remember. Pace had always seemed so strong, so confident, so certain of where he went and why. And now he seemed as lost and aimless as she.

  She found Annie in the upper hall, carrying the remains of Harriet's meal from her chamber. Since Pace had started paying her a small wage, Annie had become visibly more efficient. She couldn't overcome the habits of a lifetime of servitude overnight and so still kept her head bowed, and muttered in the presence of Josie and Pace, but she treated Dora more as an equal. After all, they had both been little more than servants in this household for some time.

  "You're back soon," Annie said disapprovingly.

  Dora didn't need that remark to rub in her inadequacy. "He's not a child. I can't spoon food down him."

  Annie went on as if she hadn't heard the anger in Dora's reply. "Did you hear them militia done hung Uncle Jas last night? Old man like that couldn't harm no one. Someone ought to go after them with a pitchfork."

  Dora closed her eyes and swayed at this blow. Not Uncle Jas. She'd just sent him a ham last week. She knew better than anyone that the blind old Negro wasn't harmless, but he'd lived a long life and deserved to die in peace. What kind of fiends would find pleasure in hanging an old man who couldn't fight back?

  "It will take more than pitchforks," Dora whispered. "But the devil ought to take their souls straight to hell."

  Annie's coffee-colored face became a mask of concern. "You'd better take yourself off to bed, Miss Dora. You don't look too good. You go lie down now. You don't need to do nothin' else today."

  There was plenty she needed to do, but Annie's words made sense at the moment. Dora nodded and entered the room that had been Pace's since boyhood.

  She hadn't changed anything. Massive walnut furniture and midnight-blue draperies dominated the spacious chamber. A bootjack and a hat rack added more masculine touches. The only feminine detail was a frail muslin cap hanging on one of the spare hooks of the hat rack. She had folded her few dresses and tucked them out of sight in the bottom of the wardrobe. She had no perfumes or cosmetics to decorate the vanity the room didn't have. The only mirror was Pace's shaving mirror over the washbowl. Accustomed to invisibility, Dora didn't notice the lack.

  * * *

  Pace slipped into his room to change his filthy clothes. The slight lump of Dora's silhouette in the bed almost made him withdraw again. Dora never took naps.

  In the dusky light he could see the halo of curls falling against her pale cheeks. His fingers itched to slide through their silkiness. He needed the touch of something soft and gentle, if only to remind him of the tough callus formed around his soul.

  He drew closer, drinking in the sight he never dared observe when she was awake. Even carrying the bulk of his child, Dora was small. She looked much too fragile, too ethereal to carry a child. He wanted to pick her up and hold her and swear to her that he would take care of everything.

  He still hadn't learned to lie to Dora. He tried hardening his heart and looking away, but the child within her moved, and he watched with fascination. His child. The child they had created together in those few halcyon days when he had pretended the world was Dora. It had been a stupid fool thing to do. He'd known it then. He suffered for it now, knowing he'd destroyed the one perfect thing in his life by doing so.

  God, he had never wanted to hurt Dora. He would destroy himself before he would see Dora harmed.

  But as it was, he was no good for her dead or alive. He could only stay out of her way and hope he didn't hurt her more.

  Grabbing a clean shirt, he quietly left the room.

  * * *

  She slept until almost dusk. Waking to find the room cast in shadow, she hurriedly rose and dressed. Pace should have returned from the fields. She should have a hot meal ready. Some of the women from the quarters had agreed to cook for wages, but they needed a lot of supervising still. A diet of cornbread and beans couldn't improve anyone's digestion.

  Dora worried what would happen when the small supply of coins in the desk dissipated, but she had more pressing concerns for the moment. She and Pace needed to talk.

  She found him in the study where he had obviously been poring over the books. He had account ledgers scattered across the desk and stacks of papers covered in figures lying haphazardly all over the floor around the desk chair. Pace no longer sat in that chair but roamed the room, hands in pockets, muttering to himself. He kicked idly at one of Amy's toys as Dora entered the room.

  "I am sorry if I overslept. Hast thou eaten yet?"

  "I had a sandwich. I'm fine. You'd better go eat something before Solly comes in and finishes it off." He didn't even look at her.

  "Could we talk first?" she asked hesitantly.

  Pace gave her an impatient glance. "About what?"

  Now that he listened, Dora didn't know precisely what to say. She couldn't ask him why he didn't eat or sleep. She couldn't ask him if their marriage had been a major mistake and if he still loved Josie. All the things she really wanted to ask were forbidden. She contented herself with inquiring, "Will the army look for the men who killed Uncle Jas?"

  Fury leaped to his eyes, illuminating them from within like green fires. Just as quickly as the fury had appeared, it disappeared again. He regarded her with hostility. "Even the grand Union army doesn't have time for one blind old nigger. Go get something to eat, Dora. I'm not in the mood for small talk."

  "Thou art never in the mood for anything," she said bitterly. "Thou doth nothing but sulk and hide and pretend the rest of us do not exist. Thou canst not make us go away by pretending we're not here."

  He looked up and glared at her then. "For God's sake, Dora! What do you expect of me? Should I sit on the veranda, sip lemonade, and smoke cigars while keeping you ladies entertained? I've got this huge damned nuisance of a farm to run and nobody to run it with. I've got a blamed bad arm that makes everything I do useless. I've got a wife and a child to support and no damned means of supporting them! Should I shout hallelujahs?"

  Dora cowered against the door, increasingly fearful of his ungoverned temper. Childhood memories of yelling and weep
ing crystallized into reality, and she reacted instinctively, not even knowing she did so.

  Pace was known for his volatile explosions. Logically she knew he had never subjected her to them. She still didn't like what she saw. She had seen the results of Charlie's violent temper and her father's before him. She just couldn't believe that Pace would take his rage out on her. Unlike Josie, she would remain calm and sensible. Perhaps that would cool him off.

  "Thou couldst give thanks thou art alive," she answered, wincing when he shouted his reply.

  "Who in hell says I'm grateful? What in hell have I got to be grateful about? I should thank God I'm a useless piece of nothing who's good for nothing but ruining young girls?"

  He smacked his fist into his palm to accent his words, and Dora flinched but continued resolutely, "If that is the way thou feels, I absolve thee of all guilt. I do not regret this child. Thou art free to go anytime thou so desireth."

  "Damn you, Dora, I..."

  He swung his hand as if to strike. Dora dodged, emitting a shrill scream as she did so. Pace's fist slammed harmlessly against the wooden door, but he looked as shattered as she did when she edged away from him.

  "You're my wife now, Dora, dammit. Don't look at me like that. I wasn't going to hit you."

  His wife. His possession. To do with as he pleased. She had known. It just hadn't sunk in until now. The screaming. The yelling. And then the fist to the mouth.

  Terrified, she continued backing away. The need to protect her child and a sense of self-preservation overruled anything else she might have felt. Unwittingly, she responded just as her mother always had. "I'll get out of your way."

  Pace watched her disappear down the darkened hallway with a sick feeling in his gut. Dora's abject cowering made him want to hit something more than ever. He hadn't realized he could go so far as to terrorize women, particularly a fragile wisp like Dora. The frustration boiling up inside him needed some outlet, but not Dora.

  He didn't know what had made her turn tail and flee like that. She'd seen his outbursts before and ignored them. The fear in her eyes made him want to weep. She had done nothing but offer him everything she had. He couldn't blame her if she couldn't fill the abysmal emptiness within him.

  With a curse, Pace strode down the hall in the opposite direction and slammed out into the night.

  * * *

  "They say that Howard boy was so spooked, he ran buck naked into the woods to get away!"

  Dora heard the glee in Solly's whispered voice as he spoke to his sister behind the kitchen. The child inside her womb rolled uneasily, and she really didn't want to hear more, but her weight made it impossible to escape fast enough.

  "Was it really the haint of Uncle Jas?" the girl's voice whispered excitedly.

  "The noose is still swingin' on his front stairs right now," Solly declared.

  Dora worked her way through the walled gallery to the house, away from the voices. She didn't want to know what happened at the Howard house last night. Pace hadn't come home until the early morning hours.

  She was afraid to ask where he'd been. The nightmare of her mother's death hadn't faded so much that she had forgotten, and the night of Amy's birth stayed with her as clear as if it had been yesterday. She might be stronger than her mother, but she didn't think she was as strong as Josie.

  The little farmhouse at the end of the lane was seriously tempting, but Dora knew the futility of running away. Pace's pride wouldn't allow him to let her go. He would come after her.

  She had no real reason to run, she told herself. Pace had never actually struck her. Only her cowardice made her imagine he would. But she knew as well as if he had told her that Pace had instigated whatever terrorism had occurred at the Howards' last night. And she had the ominous feeling that he wouldn't stop with terrorism. And sooner or later, they would clash over his methods.

  Dora stayed out of his way all day and said nothing when Pace disappeared again that night and the next. She said nothing when she learned he came in at dawn to sleep on the sofa in the study. She refused to retreat to her bedroom as his mother had done, but Pace avoided Dora just as successfully as she avoided him.

  Josie returned from a visit with her mother one day with news that Matt Howard had left the county, and Joe Mitchell had found a noose hanging from his veranda just that morning. Pace came in the back door as Josie imparted that information to Dora, and their gazes met briefly. He looked away first.

  "I'm going over to the courthouse to conduct a little business. I'll be home late. Don't keep supper waiting." He stalked through the dining room in the direction of the hall.

  "You might check our supply of rope," Dora called after him, maliciously. "We'll need a new clothesline soon."

  He slammed the study door and Josie looked at her with curiosity, but Dora didn't care. She hated herself for her timidity. She hated herself for not confronting him directly. But most of all, she hated herself for not coming up with a better solution.

  Someone must end the depredations of Joe Mitchell and his cohorts, but she didn't have a clue as to how to go about it. She just didn't think hanging nooses on their front porches and scaring the pants off them with make-believe ghosts was a very permanent solution.

  She didn't like it any better when Pace emerged from his study carrying a rifle and wearing his pistol in his belt.

  Chapter 24

  Revenge is a dish that should be eaten cold.

  English Proverb

  "That man done been touched by the debil, I swear he is," Annie muttered as she entered the dining room from the direction of the kitchen while Dora came in from the hall.

  Dora didn't have to ask to what man she referred. Pace had always possessed a wild streak of the devil, and it grew wider with every passing day. She merely helped herself to a boiled egg from the buffet and settled her bulk into the nearest chair. "What has he done now?" she asked with resignation.

  "You don' wanna know." Annie stalked across the room with her tray of food for the invalid.

  Dora didn't figure she did want to know. Pace hadn't given in entirely to the bad side of him. He spent the better part of each day out in the fields with Solly, plowing, planting, and doing what he could with his injured arm and one horse. He tried very hard to be what he was not, but the pressure took its toll. He had scarcely been home for three nights in a row.

  "Was anyone hurt?" Dora called after Annie's departing back.

  Annie turned and glared over her shoulder. "The mayor's office done burned to the ground. At least Uncle Jas is dead and dey can't blame dat on him no more."

  Josie came in then, and Annie escaped upstairs. She helped herself to some sausage and biscuits and sat across from Dora. "Billy John got himself shot last night," she said casually as she buttered her biscuit.

  Why were they telling her this? Dora grimaced at her uneaten egg. It wasn't as if she could do anything about it. If Pace wanted to round up a bunch of violent vigilantes and burn and plunder and destroy, she couldn't do anything at all. She couldn't even know for certain that Pace caused the destruction.

  The fact that someone systematically harassed his old enemies didn't mean a thing. A lot of people hated the Mitchells and Howards. Maybe it was one of the McCoys. She didn't know how poor Billy John got dragged into this. He never had the money for slaves. He was friends with Joe Mitchell, but then, he was friends with the McCoys too. Billy John got along with just about everybody except Pace. Nobody got along with Pace.

  "I'll wager Sally is worried to death," Josie continued. "Billy John isn't real strong. She's got those three babies to look after and can barely mind the store as it is. I don't know what she'll do now."

  Dora's head came up and her eyes widened as a thought grabbed her and wouldn't let go. Pace would be beyond furious. She feared his violence and didn't wish it turned on her, but she had to take a stand of some sort. She wouldn't become her mother, shivering and shaking and catering to her husband's erratic whims. Besides, Sally had alway
s been kind to her.

  With a tone of determination, Dora announced, "I'll go in and take care of the store. Sally should be with her husband."

  Josie crumbled her biscuit and stared at her. "That's the silliest thing you've ever said. Even if you could get into town, it isn't proper for you to show yourself like that."

  Dora didn't consider these as reasonable objections, but her plan had other flaws. "I can't stand behind the counter long," she murmured, more to herself than Josie. "I wonder if they have a chair I could use."

  "Dora Nicholls, you cannot work in a store! You're likely to give birth and have that baby fall out on its head while you're waiting on customers. This is ridiculous. You can't consider it."

  "I'm very good with figures," Dora reminded her. "And the baby isn't due for weeks. I'll be fine. I just can't wait on customers very well."

  "I'll tell Pace," Josie warned.

  Dora shrugged. Pace would find out sooner or later. She rose and started for the door. Maybe she could find someone to help her hook up the carriage.

  By the time she had donned her best cap and found her cloak, the carriage was waiting for her, and so was Josie. Dora raised questioning eyebrows at Josie's heavy gray polonaise.

  "I'm going with you," she said. "You can sit behind the counter and hide and do the figures while I wait on the customers."

  Josie didn't possess a particular inclination for unselfish acts, but she was capable of helpfulness. Dora welcomed her suggestion, and they left together. She didn't know what Pace would think when he returned to an empty house at noon, but she didn't intend to worry about what hadn't happened yet.

  They found the store closed and shuttered and had to go around to the living quarters in back. Sally greeted their plan with tears and ushered them in the back way.

  "I've been worried sick," she whispered as she hurried them through the humble kitchen and downstairs parlor. "We can't afford to close the store, but I just couldn't leave Billy John lying upstairs feverish and in pain. The doctor says he'll do just fine, but you it could take a week or more. I've been out of my mind with worry."