Innocent Deceptions

by Gwyneth Atlee

  One of the privates wiped rain from his face and whispered, “How could all this be somebody’s house? You sure it ain’t a church or somethin’?”

  Ignoring him, McMahon asked Ben, “Any reason to think we’ll meet resistance?”

  Ben shook his head. “According to our source, there’s no one living here right now. The place belongs to a widowed father and his son. Both are off serving the South. I’m certain they won’t mind a bit if we borrow their home while they’re away.”

  The lieutenant issued orders, and three of the soldiers fanned out around the house’s sides and back. Ben and McMahon went to the front door, so tall that, if it were open, a ten-foot giant could pass though without bothering to duck his head. After finding it locked, Ben stood back, gun drawn in case of unexpected opposition. He watched as McMahon and a brawny young Vermonter, who stood a head taller than the diminutive lieutenant, battered the wood until it splintered.

  Despite its grandeur, the door swung open with a tired creak.

  On a better day, Ben could have used his broad shoulders to force the door alone. But as it was, beads of perspiration dampened his forehead with the effort of walking from his wagon to the house. If he thought for a moment he’d be worth a damn for working cattle, he would have gone back to his ranch where he belonged instead of letting himself be talked into the role of watchdog for an addled general.

  “Have a care going in,” Ben told the other two. “Our Confederate friends may have left a few surprises.”

  Recalling the few facts he had learned about the rabid secessionist who owned the house, Ben had booby traps in mind. But as the three men stepped inside, he saw two human forms, arms raised, flanking a massive staircase.

  “Stay right there!” Ben ordered.

  McMahon gasped, then turned a lantern until its beam illuminated each figure in turn. Both were classical nude female figures, rendered of white marble.

  “Thunderation! They scared me!” the lieutenant exclaimed.

  The Vermont private swore, then laughed. “God a’mighty, I came near to messing my britches over a couple of stone strumpets!”

  “Quiet,” Ben warned. He thought he had heard movement from above. A moment later, the unmistakable crash of breaking glass followed.

  “Come down with your hands raised!” his voice boomed up the stairs. He held his revolver steady, but the idea occurred that he was more likely to be terrorizing some Johnny’s poor grandmother than facing an enemy ambush.

  Saber-sharp, an image slashed across his mind: soldiers kicking down his door in the hours before dawn in Texas and frightening his widowed mother half to death. He could almost hear her cries, though he told himself it hadn’t happened. Not yet, anyway.

  As the brittle silence lengthened, Ben couldn’t help wondering if he’d become an engine of someone else’s nightmare. Just as he couldn’t help asking himself if he’d been right to join the Union army or if he’d merely been swept up in family friend Sam Houston’s rhetoric.

  From somewhere on the first floor, a clatter made all three men start, and Ben forced himself to focus on the risks to their safety. He thought angrily of the assurances he’d been given that the mansion lay empty. Was this one of General Branard’s lapses, or had the informant been a traitor intent on leading Yankees into danger?

  “Come on out now. We aren’t here to hurt you. Just move nice and slow, so we won’t misinterpret anything.” Ben’s voice echoed off marble. He sounded calm, authoritative, but his breath caught in his throat, and his stump throbbed out a warning of what might happen if this proved to be a trap.

  As before, no one responded, but he was listening so hard that the ticking of a clock, the pulsing of the raindrops grew loud in his ears.

  “Let’s check out that noise.” Ben said, gesturing to his left, the direction of the second crash.

  “Maybe we should try and light these first,” McMahon said as he pointed to the gas lighting fixtures on either side of the staircase.

  Ben nodded his agreement. Darkness would serve only enemies in hiding. The more he and his men could see, the better he would like it.

  The lamps’ yellow flames painted both entryway and staircase in muted tones of bronze to ocher, reminding Ben of the sepia images that were all he had left of his father. Unlike the Chandler family’s functional ranch house, however, this entrance had clearly been built to impress, even overwhelm all comers with its massive dimensions and its elegantly carved banister glittering with gilded trim.

  When Ben glanced downward, he noticed splotches against the marble’s glow. He leaned forward, squinting at the muddy footprints. They looked both wet and small.

  “Someone’s been here ahead of us,” he warned. “Looks almost like a child’s prints, so let’s be careful but not hasty. Go let the other men in at the back. I’ll keep watch over these stairs to make sure no one comes down.”

  McMahon and the private moved into what appeared to be a parlor at their left. Both men had guns drawn and ready.

  Moments later, an inhuman screech was followed by McMahon’s curse. Before Ben could ask what happened, a gray and white blur streaked into the entryway, then past him up the steps. A cat, he realized, and it sounded thoroughly unhappy with the intrusion.

  Ben followed its progress until his gaze reached the violet bell of a woman’s skirt. Craning back his neck, he looked up into the face of a slender young woman, hardly more than a girl, he judged. Tousled, honey-colored hair fell loose past her shoulders, and she stared at him through wide-set eyes. Her expression blended terror with wronged innocence in a manner so compelling that, without a pause to question his response, Ben walked toward her up the stairs.

  “Don’t be afrai--”

  He meant only to reassure her, but before he could finish, the girl shifted the satchel she was carrying and attempted to rush past him. She bumped Ben hard enough to make him overbalance on his new prosthesis. He tried to put down his cane for support, but he missed the step and went tumbling down the stairs.

  Ben struck the railing so hard that he heard wood crack. A moment later, he hit the entryway flat on his back, his breath exploding from him in a painful rush.

  Somehow, the girl had managed to slip past him without losing her own footing. With a nimble grace that made Ben all the more conscious of his clumsiness, she stepped around him, darting toward the front door and escape. But before she ran outside into the rain, she paused to stare down at him.

  And the look that crossed her face was one of pity.

  o0o

  Charlotte hadn’t meant to send the soldier crashing down the steps. She’d been thinking only of escape and of Alexander waiting, huddled in the rain upon the porch roof. It was dark out there and frightening, perhaps slick with rain as well. Charlotte might dread the tall, broad-shouldered Yankee coming toward her up the steps, but that fear could not touch the terror that Alexander might slip off the porch roof or try to climb down on his own before she could retrieve him.

  Even so, she’d hesitated to be sure the fallen man was breathing, and in that moment she saw the cane beside him. Regret stung her at the idea of injuring a crippled man, but she quickly brushed aside the thought. She had no sympathy to waste upon a Yankee scoundrel here to drive her from her home.

  After hurrying outside, Charlotte raced to the edge of the side porch. She put down her satchel before climbing the rain barrel, a process that soaked her with water draining from the narrow roof. She squinted into the darkness, unsure what she was seeing.

  “Alexander?” she whispered. A wave of dizziness cascaded over her. If the child had been hurt, she was marching back inside the house to kick that Yankee in the ribs.

  Lightning flickered, and in the brief illumination, she spotted what looked like a bundle of damp cloth only a few feet away. In the flash that followed, Alexander raised his head, then scrabbled toward the roof’s edge, abandoning the blanket he’d been wrapped in.

  “I don’t like this, Charlotte! I want P
apa to come home,” he said, clutching her around the neck.

  “Wait!” she tried to tell him. She wasn’t ready for him yet.

  But as the thunder rumbled, Alexander climbed over the low iron railing that bordered the porch’s edge and swung into her arms. Her right foot slipped on the rain barrel, and both of them fell. Charlotte thudded to the ground, her cheekbone bouncing off a small rock, Alexander landing on top of her, slamming the wheeled horse into her chest.

  He curled against her, crying loudly. “I want Papa! I want Mama Ruth!”

  Charlotte’s right cheekbone and chest throbbed, but she managed to scoop up Alexander and hold him tight to her.

  “Shh. You’re all right. You’re all right,” she whispered, praying it was true. “Wait. Did you hear that?”

  Men’s voices came from the back of the house. At the muffled words, Alexander tensed and grew silent. Judging from the direction, Charlotte realized she would have to abandon the horse and phaeton if she meant to escape.

  She put down the boy and retrieved the satchel. Slinging it over her shoulder, she said, “We have to leave now, to get away from here. You’re too heavy to carry. I need you to run with me.”

  Without waiting for an answer, she fled into the night, dragging Alexander by the hand.

  o0o

  Lieutenant McMahon raced into the entryway as Ben was struggling to his feet.

  “Who --?” McMahon began.

  “A blond woman,” Ben said. “She ran out the door and to the left.”

  The lieutenant called the big Vermont soldier, and the two of them disappeared through the doorway to look for her. Their haste saved Ben from attempting to explain how it was a slender, unarmed female – one barely past childhood - had managed to charge past an armed Union captain. Gross stupidity was hardly an excuse.

  But in his heart, Ben knew stupidity was only one facet of his reason. The others sparkled in his memory of the face of innocence.

  Ben rubbed his aching hip and promised himself that the next time he saw that face, he was going to remember the lesson he had learned tonight. Not all the dangers of this war came in the shape of hard-eyed soldiers and their damned minié balls.

  Some lay hidden within a far more pleasing guise.

  o0o

  The sun peered over the horizon beneath a thick cloud bank. Everything its light touched glistened, from the rows of peach trees, with their growing fruit, to the lush hay meadow, which stirred in a light breeze. To Charlotte, the twinkling colors appeared garish and unnatural after the seemingly endless hours of night.

  They’d been fortunate that Dr. Tanner, a close friend of Father’s, had been home, more fortunate still that he’d been willing to risk driving them to Aunt Lila’s in his gig. Dr. Tanner had covered his passengers with blankets to conceal them and put up the carriage’s folding top. When Union soldiers stopped the gray-bearded physician and asked his business, he’d affected a tired sigh and told them, “Here’s my medical bag, boys, if you care to have a look. I dearly wish the Widow Morgan would time her ‘attacks’ during office hours.”

  Charlotte could barely force herself to breathe, but the soldiers merely laughed and made a crude suggestion about what sort of “services” the widow wanted. A few moments later, they sent the gig on its way, hidden passengers and all.

  Alexander had slept throughout the journey, but Charlotte could not forget how frightened she had been in those first moments after leaving home, when soldiers had chased after the two of them like common criminals. And now, only a scant few hours later, her brother, Michael, was insisting she return!

  “I thought you left your unit to check on us, not to recruit us,” she complained. “The whole idea is preposterous.”

  “Don’t you see? You’re the perfect person to help us run those Yankees back to where they came from,” he insisted, his green eyes intent, his deep voice infused with enthusiasm for his plan. “Not one man in ten thousand would suspect you.”

  As a child, she’d idolized her golden-haired brother for his brilliance and for the daring with which he carried out his plans. From a plot to trick Mama Ruth out of a peach pie to a bold mission to fill a bully’s lunch pail with slugs from the rose garden, Michael’s plots were unfailingly outrageous and exciting. And usually, almost unbelievably, successful.

  Later, when she’d fallen out of her elder brother’s good graces, Charlotte had most missed being Michael’s confidante. But as much as she relished this chance to mend fences, she could barely believe he was suggesting she and Alexander return home to face the nest of vipers now residing there. Thank goodness the child was in the barn looking at the new puppies with his cousins, for he’d been frightened enough already.

  As Charlotte clenched her fists, her nails dug painfully into her palms. “You’re asking me to endanger not only myself but Alexander!”

  Michael shook his head emphatically. Dressed in a plain shirt and trousers instead of the gray uniform that marked him as a Confederate captain, Michael looked as harmless as the young schoolmaster he had been before the war. “What danger? I tell you, the only danger you’ll be in is from Yankees tripping over themselves to help you, Charlotte. What could be nobler and more romantic than coming to the rescue of a little boy and his beautiful sister? Mark my words, those dunces will be passing along their secrets before you can stick your fingers in your ears.”

  “Beautiful, my foot,” Charlotte said, gesturing to her cheek, now swollen and sticky with her drying blood. For some reason, Michael hadn’t wanted her to clean it, nor had he allowed Dr. Tanner to stitch the cut. Her violet dress had fared no better than had its wearer. Torn at the knee and shoulder, it clung damply to her skin.

  “If the Yankees catch me now, they’ll put me in an exhibition,” she insisted. “They’ll nail a sign over my cage that reads, ‘Wild Southern Girl.’”

  “That only shows what you know about men. I promise you, when you finish telling them your story, they’ll be dragging out their handkerchiefs and daubing at their eyes.”

  “You don’t mean my story. You mean my pack of lies.”

  “Not lies, Charlotte, just innocent deceptions. Believe me, Southern men are asked to do worse every day.”

  Charlotte thought of Papa. Though Franklin Randolph was far more passionate about principles than people, he had protected her at every turn and asked nothing of her but to raise Alexander to the best of her ability. She was certain their father would be appalled at Michael’s suggestion, especially as often as she’d heard him argue the necessity of protecting Southern womanhood from Yankee depravity.

  Charlotte shook her head. “Papa would never want me to take part in such a thing.”

  “You’re right. He wouldn’t think of suggesting it to you,” Michael agreed. “He’d never expect that you were capable.”

  Charlotte wanted to argue, but at that moment she could see her father seated across from her at the table. Pity lay behind the intelligence in his green eyes, and disappointment permeated every word that passed between them. He’d once hoped for so much for Charlotte, but all of that had ended. Her protest withered in her throat.

  “Will you shirk your duty, now that fate has tapped you on the shoulder?” Michael asked her. “Or will you finally make the Randolphs proud?”

  Finally, he’d said, and that one word buried her in shame. The reminder silenced her the way it always did.

  As he’d done since they’d been children, Michael gave her no chance to consider, no chance to refuse. Instead, without the slightest hesitation, he began. “Now, when you get home, Charlotte, this is what you’ll need to say.”

  Williams: To understand the charges against me, you must first understand something of the woman, of what it was about her that led good men to disregard their better judgment.

  Judge Advocate: This trial pertains to your misconduct, Colonel Williams. The woman is irrelevant.

  Williams: Irrelevant? That’s what we all thought at the time. It was the first and
deadliest of our mistakes.

  - Excerpted from transcripts of the court-martial of Colonel Gideon Williams

  CHAPTER TWO

  Of necessity, Charlotte walked with Alexander on the last block of her journey. By design, she did so as she never had before: in a torn and filthy dress, with hair drooping and bedraggled, looking – or at least feeling - like a world-weary beggar woman.

  As she led the child by the hand, neither said a word. Though Alexander’s silence worried Charlotte, she was grateful for it, too. She needed the few remaining minutes of their journey to remind herself why she was doing this.

  Sunlight filtered through the boughs of trees, suffusing the avenue with the soft green glow of early summer. Just outside of Memphis proper, this stretch of grand homes had the self-possessed appearance of its wealthy owners, men eager to display their successes in the world of commerce. Charlotte’s gaze slid past a dignified brick Federal mansion to linger on Mrs. Martin’s classic Greek revival. Recalling last night’s encounter, Charlotte quickened her pace until she was towing Alexander toward the newest and most impressive of the area’s dwellings, her father’s three-story Italian villa. With its central tower and arches repeating in its porches, doors, and windows, the Randolph mansion seemed to Charlotte like a palace plucked from a fairy tale.

  Looking at the elegant structure, Charlotte could not help but recall a time when she had felt herself a princess living out a dream life, a fantasy so sweet and doomed, it brought tears to her eyes. Strange as it seemed, her situation this morning felt more familiar than the illusion of her girlhood.

  After all, hadn’t she been trying to worm her way back into paradise for too many years already? For Alexander’s sake, she told herself that she could do it one more time.

  Because even if she could never truly find her way back home, she needed Alexander to live the way a Randolph should.