The sounds of three young children playing in an upstairs room drifted down to them. One toddler was already wailing, and Sally turned a worried expression to the ceiling, trying to judge the seriousness of the cry.
"Go on up," Dora reassured her. "I know the price of just about everything in here, and Josie can run up and ask if we have any questions. This will work out fine."
Sally sent Josie an uncertain look, but nodded agreement to Dora's assurances. "All right. I don't know how I'll ever repay you, but I'll find a way." Her pale face grew a little tenser as she added, "Don't tell anyone that he's been shot. Just say he's down with a fever."
Josie wouldn't have heard of it if word hadn't already traveled all the way out to the country. But they nodded their understanding. They would maintain appearances one way or another.
Their first customer was one of the Howard sisters, Emma. She was married now and mother of two, but she still found time to keep up with everything that happened in town. She glanced at Dora doing some mending behind the counter, then turned in puzzlement to Josie dusting a shelf.
"What are you all doin' in here?"
"Helping Sally. Can we get you something?" Josie set aside her feather duster and tried for a prim and proper store-clerk look. The fact that her gray alpaca walking dress probably cost more than Sally's entire wardrobe didn't deter her.
"I need a card of silver buttons and some black thread." Emma turned to Dora who had picked up the sales slip pad. "I heard you and Pace got married, but I hadn't thought it's been that long." She looked pointedly at the rounded slope of Dora's belly beneath her skirts.
Dora calmly wrote up the sales ticket as Josie gathered the requested items. "It isn't as if Pace has been around much for anyone to tell." Lying didn't come easy for her. She hadn't exactly lied, but she hadn't spoke the direct truth either. Papa John would be upset with her.
Emma grunted. "He was obviously around long enough." She didn't even look at the card of buttons Josie handed her for inspection; she merely slipped it into her handbag. "I heard Billy John got shot last night. How's he doing?"
Josie smiled pleasantly. "Billy John just has a fever. He'll be fine shortly. Can we get you anything else?"
"I swear, Josephine Nicholls, I don't know what you think you're doing, but this isn't any place for you. And protecting Billy John is really the outside of enough. I suppose you'll tell me next that Pace Nicholls doesn't know anything about how that poor boy got hurt or how the mayor's office got burned either."
"That will be thirty-five cents, Emma. If thou hast questions for Pace, he's out plowing the cornfield today. Thou couldst stop and ask. His arm gives him some trouble still, so thou might find him a little surly, but I'm sure he'll gladly set the record straight." There were no lies in this. Dora really had no clue as to Pace's nocturnal activities or if he had anything to do with the mayor's house. She gave God's honest truth.
Emma shot her a sour look. "Well, it doesn't look like Pace Nicholls will run for any offices around here for a long time. He might as well learn farming. My husband says if the Yankees don't leave soon, we'll run them out on a rail. Pace best mind his back."
Dora could argue until she turned blue in the face, but it wouldn't do any good. Logic and emotion had little to do with each other, and Emma obviously wasn't strong on logic. Dora handed her the sales slip in exchange for the coins. "Thank thee, Emma."
The remainder of the day went little better. Word spread quickly, and every woman in town found reason to drop into the store to see the wealthy Josephine Nicholls working behind the counter and to hear about Dora's marriage to Pace. Everyone had an opinion on both subjects, and few were favorable. By the end of the day, Dora was exhausted and Josie looked as if she'd been beaten by a stick.
"I don't know how Sally puts up with it," Josie muttered as they climbed into the carriage. "She was always the prettiest girl in town. She could have done better than Billy John. Men! Honestly, I don't think they're worth it. Even Pace ought to be taken out and whipped. I don't think I'll ever marry again."
"Thou wouldst not have Amy?" Dora asked with curiosity.
"I wouldn't go through that agony again, I know that," Josie answered ominously. She gave Dora a quick look. "And we'd best find a midwife for you. I can tell you of a certainty that I'll be perfectly useless when your time comes."
Dora had spent many nights worrying about that, but she hadn't come up with the name of a suitable midwife yet. She didn't think she could send someone to the Union army doctor who had treated Pace, even if he were still there. She didn't know that with any certainty, either. It worried at her, but she had no solutions. The colored midwives she knew had all left the county. Other women relied on female relatives. Josie and Harriet were the closest female relatives she had, and both were utterly useless.
Pace slammed through the house as soon as he heard the carriage returning. At the sight of the two weary women straggling in the front door, he exploded.
"Where in hell have you been? The damned cook fixed beans again and Amy's throwing a tantrum and—" Pace took a better look at Dora and slammed his fist into the wall. "Are you trying to kill yourself?"
She visibly shrank backward, away from him. She might as well have stabbed a knife through his heart. Pace had always considered Dora the one person in the world he could rely on through thick and thin, better or worse. And now he'd driven her away too. It was more than he could bear. With an expressive oath, Pace swung on his heel and disappeared out the back way.
His belly rumbled, his arm hurt like hell, and the rest of him didn't feel much better after all these days of heavy labor. But the burden of Dora's fear weighed heavier than any of these physical burdens. She shrank from his touch, looked at him through the eyes of a wounded doe, and made him feel like slime inside. He hadn't done a damned thing to deserve that.
He was doing what was right, what should have been done years ago. As he saddled his horse, Pace cataloged all the wrongs committed around here over the last decade or two. The list was longer than his good arm. He held Joe Mitchell and his cohorts single-handedly responsible for turning a quiet farming community into a hub of slave trade, a hotbed of rebellion against the Union, and a stinkhole of corruption. Not a dollar exchanged in this county didn't have Joe Mitchell's fingerprints on it. It didn't help Pace to remember his own brother had been smack in the middle of it all.
He couldn't save lost lives, but he could exact punishment. Apparently the loss of the slave trade had turned their greedy mayor to other pursuits. Pace didn't intend to let Mitchell get away with any more corruption.
The April sun set relatively early. Pace rode his horse into the shadows of the trees along the river. He didn't notice the rosy hues of sunset. He didn't smell the fresh scents of newly green grass or notice the wealth of redbud and dogwood blossoms overhead. His heart hardened against the warm rush of blood through his veins as he thought of Dora resting in their mutual bed, a bed he hadn't frequented in days. He had become what his father and the army had made of him—an unforgiving avenger.
The shadows had darkened into night by the time he rode up to the tiny farmhouse. He whistled, and a figure appeared in the briefly lit doorway. The door closed, and the figure slid into the shadows, appearing a moment later with a horse in tow.
"I don't give a damn about those darkies, Nicholls," the figure warned as he mounted the horse.
The "darkies" in question were chained to a wall in a miserable pen to keep them from escaping, but Pace didn't argue the point. He used whatever weapons came to hand, and this man was one of them.
"Homer has what's left of the mayor's records in his desk. If you want that fraudulent deed destroyed, you have to get hold of it before they take it to the courthouse. Letting those Negroes loose is the best distraction I can think of to pry Homer out of the house."
"Even if I tear up the deed, he's bound to say the fire destroyed it, and that he's still rightful owner. He'll have witnesses."
"Relax, McCoy, I'm still a lawyer. I know what I'm doing. You made sure the original deed was registered at the courthouse, like I told you, didn't you?"
"It's there all right, for what good it's done me," Robert grumbled.
"Then you're protected and he's not. Mitchell may be a lying, conniving crook, but he never learned the law. His daddy can't protect him on this one. You've got a deed and he hasn't. That's all it's gonna take. You'll have your land back. Just don't let your mama go signing any more papers she can't read."
"I'd rather see the bastard swing. What's to keep him from doing something like that to all the widows in the county?"
"He'll swing all right. I'm just waiting for him to put his head in the noose. His daddy may be too powerful for the law to touch him, but we'll get him. It's just a matter of time."
The man on the horse beside him swore. "And look what else he'll do in that time. I say hang him now. The entire county will call us heroes."
Pace snorted. "Not likely. I'm a turncoat, remember? A Yankee and a nigger lover. I'm lucky they haven't showed up on my front porch with a noose."
Robert shifted uneasily in his saddle as they rode on. "Marrying Dora didn't help. You really believe in asking for trouble, don't you? If I were you, I'd get the hell out of this place before they fry you."
"I've got a little frying of my own to do before I'll consider that. That land belongs to my family, and I intend to see it stays that way."
As it wouldn't if Pace left it unprotected with only the women there. That much had already been proven. Only Dora's quick actions had saved it last time. Robert wondered if Pace knew that whole story. He was afraid to ask. Pace was a fuel keg with a lit wick. Robert wanted to be far away when he exploded.
Chapter 25
I am driven
Into a desperate strait and cannot steer a middle course.
~ Philip Massinger, The Great Duke of Florence (1635)
"No matter what happens, don't say a word," Pace warned as they tied their horses in the protection of the trees.
"I'm so scared, I couldn't say shit," Robert muttered. "This just ain't my kind of action."
Pace glared at him but said nothing further as they advanced on the outbuilding that his sources had already scouted. Inside that deteriorating gray-boarded shack lay a dozen slaves of various ages and genders, shackled to the walls. Some wore the welts of whips. All were malnourished and overworked. Homer meant to get all his fields planted even though he only had half the number of slaves he'd owned in previous years.
Robert stayed outside as guard while Pace let himself into the shack. Someone moaned. A scurrying rustle indicated he'd disturbed the rats. Then he felt the tension and knew they'd seen him. Not daring to light even a candle, he felt his way along the wall until he found the first chain bolted to the wall. The slave attached to the chain moved uneasily but didn't say a word as Pace ran his hands down the links to the padlock. Biting his lip as he positioned his awl in the center of the lock, Pace gave a prayer and swung a hammer onto the awl head with his left hand. His aim was anything but precise, and he muffled an oath as he hit his hand more squarely than the awl. The slave said nothing but waited patiently for him to try again.
Pace shattered the lock on the third try. The chains rattled to the ground, and the huge skeleton of a man rose up from the ground, taking the hammer from Pace's hand and moving silently to the next person. The whole room was awake now. A child cried, and someone hushed him. In the darkness, bodies shifted restlessly, eagerly, straining at their bonds to reach those moving freely between them. Impatience made them call out when a lock was overlooked. More hushing noises ensued.
Pace used the butt of his gun to hammer his awl into the next locks. The man he'd already freed systematically smashed locks and jerked them apart with his fingers. Pace didn't want to be on the wrong side of that man's hands when he was angry. But he understood the fury with which the stave destroyed the bonds. Some of these people were little more than skin and bones. At least one was little more than a child.
A woman darted out the door as soon as her chains fell away. Pace frowned and hoped she didn't give them away, but he didn't have time to stop her. Others immediately followed in her path. He couldn't blame them. Escape would be the first thing on his mind too. Kentuckians once spoke proudly of the loyalty of their "people." That day was long since gone. Resentment, fear, and hatred had taken its place.
The child cried out again, and a man cursed as he stumbled in the darkness. Robert whispered a warning for quiet from outside, but by then, it was too late.
Pace heard the shouts and knew the time had come. He'd known it would. He couldn't possibly keep a dozen people quiet until they all safely fled. He'd just hoped he could get them all free before the next part of his plan fell into place. With a solid blow to the lock he worked on, he freed one more. He didn't wait to see if the woman could rise on her own. He needed his good hand and his gun for something else now.
He slipped out of the cabin before he could check on who remained behind. Lantern light cut a swathe across the backyard from the door of the big house ahead. A porch light silhouetted Homer's pudgy physique with a rifle upraised in his hands. Homer couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, Pace knew, but he also recognized the rifle model. Leave it to Homer to have one of the hideously expensive new Winchesters.
Women went screaming into the night as the first shots fired into nothingness. A man dashed from the overseer's house at the first sounds of gunfire, and Pace cursed his luck. He'd counted on Homer running for his horse and help, leaving the house empty. He hadn't counted on anyone getting hurt.
A man screamed as one of the wild shots found a mark. Still cursing, Pace raised his gun and aimed as carefully as he could with his left hand. The shot would have knocked the rifle from Homer's hands if his overseer hadn't taken that moment to enter the line of fire.
The overseer went spinning to the ground, screaming with Pace's first shot. He'd killed before, but not like this. Sickened, Pace looked for Robert but couldn't find him in the chaos erupting through the yard. If the boy had a lick of sense, he was inside the house, rifling the desk. He had to give Robert more time.
Pace's attention had wandered only a second, but Homer left the porch during that brief moment of inattention. He now ran across the yard, jamming more cartridges into his weapon. A woman grabbed a crying child and tried to run after the others, but she could barely stand on her own and the child caused her to stumble. Pace felt the sickness in his stomach as Homer raised his rifle to take aim. He hadn't wanted it to come to this. He lifted his gun again.
He didn't have time to fire. A skeletal shadow stepped out of the shadows, wrapped an arm around Homer's neck from behind, and jerked backward. Pace could hear the snap of his neck breaking all the way across the yard.
The sickness in Pace's stomach burned like fire, but he didn't have time for examining his emotions. This was war, pure and simple. He could only look after himself and his men. Homer was the enemy.
The slaves disappeared into the shrubbery and the wooded copse beyond. Skirting the groaning overseer, Pace dashed for the house and the desk containing the deeds to people's lives.
Robert was there, shoving thick stacks of paper into his coat pockets, filling a gunnysack with the rest. They couldn't sort through them now. Pace helped him empty the desk.
Frightened female voices carried down from the upper story. Homer's mother and a maid, no doubt. Pace grabbed Robert's arm, nodded at the door, took the sack, and ran.
* * *
"Homer's dead and they don't know if his overseer's going to live." The words whispered back to Dora behind the counter although spoken to Josie. She pretended she didn't hear them. She couldn't tell if the speaker had intended for her to hear them or not. Surely everyone in town didn't suspect Pace.
"Where did slaves get guns?" Josie asked with true innocence.
"Someone helped them," the voice answered impatiently. "Someone we
nt in there and got them free, and then they went hog wild. They'll murder us all in our beds now that they have a taste for killing."
Dora thought that was probably one of the more ridiculous statements she'd heard this morning. If she were an escaping slave, she'd head straight for the river. Hanging around to get revenge on the white man wouldn't enter her mind, particularly since the white men they most hated already lay dead or dying.
Josie's gasp of horror said she believed the woman's hysteria. The gasps and murmurs from the rest of the gossiping crowd gave evidence that she wasn't the only one. They would all go to their beds and shiver in horror tonight. Such a scandal was even juicier than reading a Gothic novel. It wasn't a climate highly conducive to intelligent reactions.
Dora kept her mouth shut. With luck, a few days of quiet would settle the rumors and all would return to normal. Without luck, someone would get their throat cut in the next few nights and the panic would turn into a witch hunt. Silently, she prayed for a thundering downpour to keep the populace behind closed doors these next nights.
She felt achy and wished she hadn't defied Pace and come into town again. The uncomfortable chair made her back cramp, and the child within her felt like a dead weight. She had the urge to get up and roam around the room, but the other women would have heart failure, no doubt. She shouldn't even be out in public like this.
So when the messenger burst through the front door, slamming it against the wall in his excitement, it just seemed like one more harbinger of doom. Dora winced against the pain the noise of his entrance produced, then listened with incredulity to his shouts.
"Lee surrendered! The Confederacy is dead! The war is over!"
The war is over. It didn't seem possible. David had died for this ignominious ending? Charlie had rotted in prison to prevent this feeble announcement? Men still died here in Kentucky. They still had slaves. What had changed to account for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of young men? Nothing that she could see. She had imagined bells of joy pealing overhead. She wanted fireworks and celebration.
Patricia Rice Page 24