Southern Rapture

by Jennifer Blake

  The need to feel that coolness, momentary as it might be, was strong. Lettie moved toward the doorway, reentering the house. Her footsteps soundless on the wood floor, she eased past the parlor on the left and her own bed-chamber door opposite, past the dining room in the middle of the house and the bedchamber occupied by Sally Anne and Peter, and on toward the last bedchambers at the back of the house, those opening onto the rear veranda. From the one on the right, that of Aunt Em, still issued the rhythmic noises of deep sleep. The faint sheen of light on the mahogany panel on the left showed that Ranny's door was closed.

  Abruptly, Lettie came to a halt. There was a strange bundle lying on the floor outside the door of the bedchamber belonging to the owner of the house. She took a step nearer. The bundle stirred, gave a sigh.

  Lettie gasped on a soft laugh. It was Lionel, sound asleep on a rug. How very medieval.

  She could not think, however, that the boy was there at Ranny's orders. Ranny had gone to bed soon after the evening party had broken up. Perhaps he had had another of his headaches after the excitement and Lionel was staying close in case he was called in the night. He was a most loyal companion with a true affection for his large charge.

  Stepping lightly so as not to awaken the boy, Lettie moved on. Emerging on the back veranda, she angled across its width to the right end where a bright wedge of moonlight lay. She stopped at the side railing and leaned her shoulder against the corner post. To her left lay the kitchen with its slate roof shining dully and beyond it the row of cabins at the edge of the field. To the side, behind the kitchen, was the overgrown orchard, while closer at hand so that it almost merged with it was an alley of crepe myrtles interplanted with a dense tangle of rambling roses.

  Something moved among the crepe myrtles. Lettie, catching the flicker from the corner of her eye, stiffened. A moment later a bird flew up with a sleepy squawk and the calico kitchen cat stalked out of the undergrowth, twitching its tail at the loss of its sport and midnight meal.

  Lettie castigated herself for her jumpiness as she relaxed again. She lifted her gaze to stare at the moon. She could feel its light on her face like a touch. It gave her a deep sense of pleasure, one she surrendered to for a brief moment.

  The radiance poured over her, giving her skin the soft luster of pearls and settling in the waves of her hair like pale fire. It edged her dressing gown in silver gilt, forming a glowing nimbus around her body that made her look ethereal, not quite real.

  Ransom, where he had stepped back in haste into the dark shade of a spreading pecan tree, stood transfixed. His chest swelled, and he pressed his hand against the trunk of the tree beside him until the faint ridges of the bark pressed into his palm. He did not move for a long moment, then slowly the tension seeped away. The temptation to approach Lettie once more in his present guise had been nearly irresistible, but it was not an indulgence he could afford.

  This Yankee schoolteacher was more than a minor impediment to him; she was fast becoming a major threat. This was the second time she had stood between him and his refuge. It was unintentional, of that he was almost certain; still, Aunt Em's decision to take in a boarder had complicated his activities beyond measure. More than that, her presence did strange things to his power of reason. She was dangerous. It was possible that something would have to be done about her.

  He could not think what it might be. He had expected her to flee from Louisiana in horror and disgust after the incident at the corncrib. That she had not done so left him with mixed feelings of puzzlement, distraction, and an odd, debilitating tenderness, feelings compounded by the sure knowledge that he had a problem.

  Aunt Em herself, bless her, never gave him cause for worry. Though she was apt to say that she hardly closed her eyes at night, she always sank immediately into the deep sleep enjoyed only by those with kind hearts and clear consciences. With a little help from Lionel and Mama Tass, he had been able to come and go at will.

  The decision to keep his aunt in ignorance was something that often troubled him, but it could not be helped. She was a dear but completely incapable of dissembling for long. She was sure to become flustered if questioned, or else forget and give him a sound scolding instead of treating him with the patience and compassion due to one with his supposed affliction. No, the way he was handling his aunt was for the best. That the same could not be said about Letitia Mason, was, he knew well, his own fault.

  His face bleak, Ransom retreated a step, then another. Swinging around, he circled with stealth toward the kitchen.

  There came to Lettie the faint sound of water splashing. She straightened, trying to locate it, and finally turned in the direction of the kitchen building. Alarm raced with the blood in her veins, then was slowly replaced by curiosity. There was nothing furtive, nothing secretive about the noise she was hearing.

  A man stepped from the kitchen door out onto the walk. Lettie made a swift movement toward the hall of the house, then stopped short. How foolish of her. It was only Ranny.

  He came toward her along the walk with free and easy grace, his movements unhurried. He wore only a pair of trousers and had a towel slung around his neck. His hair glistened wetly and he ran his fingers through it, raking it back in a quick gesture that sprayed water droplets like silver rain into the air. Water beaded on his bare torso, glittering upon the golden furring of hair on his chest. As he approached the house, he was humming quietly to himself.

  Lettie walked to the head of the flight of steps. Her voice soft but carrying, she said, "What are you doing up?"

  He stopped just below her and looked upward, his song dying away. A smile spread over his face. "Miss Lettie."

  "I asked you a question," she reminded him. It was not really suspicion that prompted her but rather a niggling feeling that it was not normal for him to be out at night.

  He laughed up at her. "Swimming."

  "Alone?"

  "It was hot. Lionel was asleep." There was a trickle of water running down his chest, a trickle still dark with brown dye. He wiped it hastily.

  "Do you do it often?"

  "No. Only sometimes."

  "In the river?"

  Ransom calculated swiftly. Not the river, for Aunt Em would be upset if she heard of this supposed midnight swim and thought he was fighting the river currents. There was only one place left. "Dink's Pond."

  "And no one minds?"

  "I don't tell them. You won't tell, will you?"

  Instead of answering, Lettie sighed. "I wish I could have gone with you."

  The suggestion was so unexpected that it took Ransom's breath. He had a flashing vision of what it would be like: the two of them disporting themselves, naked in the murky waters of the pond, their wet flesh shining in the moonlight, gliding together. Lettie didn't know what she was saying, of course. Or perhaps she did, only it was Ranny she was saying it to, someone she considered safe, someone less than a man. Annoyance as unreasonable as it was real moved over him.

  "Come now," he suggested, his voice soft. "I'll go again."

  Why she had mentioned such a thing, Lettie could not have said. The thought of acting on it was alluring and yet frightening. She stared down at Ranny. The moonlight gilded the planes of his face and chest, highlighting the superb musculature of his body while leaving his eyes in shadow. It turned the tousled wetness of his hair to shining gilt and gave the drops of water on his skin the sparkle of diamonds. A peculiar sensation invaded the center of her being. Unconsciously, she raised her hand to her throat, gathering the edges of the opening of her dressing gown together.

  It was embarrassing that she should feel this awareness of Ranny as a man. It was doubtful that he saw her as anything more than a chance companion, like Lionel. She had no desire for it to be otherwise, and yet she felt his ability to look at her without awareness very like an insult to her femininity. It was ridiculous, but she had a strong desire to test whether he would respond to a warm smile in the same way that other men did. The impulse within herself was h
orrifying, so much so that she backed away from him.

  "Don't go." Ransom was contrite the moment he saw the change in her face. He put his foot on the bottom step and began to mount upward.

  "It—it's late."

  "Yes. Stay. Talk to me."

  "I can't."

  He stopped. His voice grave, he said, "Are you afraid?"

  She was, afraid of herself, of the new and sensual part of her nature that had been revealed to her.

  Before she could speak, there was a shuffling step in the hall behind her. Lionel, his voice thick with sleep and yet shaded with concern, cried, "Mast' Ranny, you all right?"

  "I'll talk to you in the morning," Lettie said hurriedly to the man on the steps. Turning, she fled into the house.

  In her room once more, Lettie shut the door behind her, slipped from her dressing gown, and climbed into bed. She lay down flat on her back with her hands at her sides and her eyes so tightly closed that her lashes felt meshed together.

  It didn't help. The images she had been keeping at bay for three days flooded in upon her. The Thorn. The rain. The corncrib. Her incredible lack of self-control.

  What had come over her that she could permit a vile murderer like the Thorn to take liberties that she had refused to Charles, the man who had loved and wanted to marry her? It was true that the Thorn had been in a fair way of taking those liberties whether she permitted them or not, but she could not think, looking back, that he would have forced himself on her if she had struggled. What was so reprehensible in her mind was that she had not fought him, had not made the least protest.

  Physical passion, it was said, was an overwhelming force. She had never believed it. She had thought instead that it must be no more than an impulse that was controllable by the intellect. Never had she suspected that she was capable of being affected by it. She had felt, with good reason, that her nature was moderate, even a little cool. She could not understand what had happened to her, could not accept that she had been so wrong about herself.

  Was it possible that the difference was in the man who had held her? Such a thing made no sense. She despised the man who styled himself the Thorn, hated him and everything he did. She fully intended to see that he was brought to justice. If the opportunity came, she would destroy him as she might the mosquito that whined outside her netting.

  Or would she? She could have shot him dead, but she had not.

  The truth was, there was something inside her that responded to the touch of the Thorn as it did to no other man. That it was against her will, against her principles made no difference. It could not be denied. The question was whether that weakness was an indication of other wanton tendencies within her, such as her desire to have Ranny recognize that she was a woman. She prayed that it was not, or that if it were, she could continue to suppress it so that she need not admit it.

  The morning brought the news that the Widow Clements, whose house and lands were to be sold at auction that afternoon, had awakened the night before to a strange noise and found a bag of gold on the table beside her bed. The bag was tied up with a piece of yellow ribbon to which was attached a locust and a thorn.

  The tale was a three-day wonder, one much discussed on Splendora's veranda by the visitors who came and went. O'Connor, the tax collector, had stamped up and down and made a great many threats, predicting that the twenty-five hundred dollars he had added to the five thousand already on the Thorn's head would see the man caught and hanged.

  The widow kept her property. There was nothing to prove that the money she had used to buy it back in at the sale had any connection with the sum that had been taken from O'Connor. Widow Clements, with great presence of mind, had destroyed the symbols left for her, though she had spoken of them in the greatest secrecy, of course, to her friends.

  Colonel Ward took a philosophical view of the event. So long as a man wanted to risk his life for such a quixotic cause, there was little he and his men could do to stop him. It would be as well, however, if the Thorn did not try to rob the tax collector again. O'Connor had requested and received permission to keep a squad of soldiers with orders to shoot to kill with him while traveling about his business in the countryside. The army had no choice but to comply.

  Thomas's lack of heat was perhaps characteristic, but it may also have been occasioned by the fact that his views were expressed to Sally Anne during an afternoon drive. After succeeding in his campaign to achieve her company, he was hardly likely to offend her by appearing too anxious to capture one who was becoming a hero to her countrymen.

  The commander had arrived with a box of chocolates and a small bottle of attar of roses for Aunt Em's widowed niece. He had begged Sally Anne's pardon once more for his conduct the evening before and followed it by a plea that she come out with him for a drive to show that she had no ill feelings. Sally Anne, it was plain, had no idea where to look, much less what to say, particularly since Peter was staring at the chocolates, a rare treat, with avid longing in his big blue eyes.

  Inspired, the colonel, included the boy in the outing. Peter insisted that Lionel should go also. Sally Anne, a gleam of amusement in her eyes at the thought of two wriggling, chocolate-smeared boys between her and the Yankee colonel on the buggy seat, had assented with the proviso that the chocolates must go as well.

  "Dear me," Aunt Em said as the quartet drove away. "I hope Sally Anne minds her manners."

  "Are you afraid Thomas will use his position to retaliate if she insults him?" Lettie asked. "If so, I think you misjudge him."

  "Heavens, no, but Sally Anne, for all that she's such a quiet little thing, is capable of making the drive most uncomfortable for him."

  "He'll recover."

  "It was nice of him to wish to make amends, but really I think he should have taken you with them instead of Peter."

  Lettie could not prevent a chuckle. "As a chaperone? I think the two Sally Anne has with her will be more than adequate."

  "No doubt," Aunt Em agreed, smiling in her turn, "but the colonel first came to see you."

  "I like him well enough, but I have no claim on him!"

  "You need not take me up so quickly, Lettie. It's a pity, though. The colonel is such a nice man."

  Ranny, sitting on the steps breaking a stick into little pieces and throwing them in the yard, looked up at them. "A pity," he repeated, his tone guileless.

  Lettie sent him a quick glance, but it was impossible to tell whether he mocked her or his aunt or, indeed, anyone at all.

  As the summer advanced and the warm days lengthened, more travelers passed through the Natchitoches area. They could be seen in town buying supplies, asking for information about the roads ahead, consulting the doctor, attending church services on Sunday. Lettie, shopping in town with Aunt Em, saw them on the streets, dispirited men and women with children either subdued from weariness or else wild with the escape from the constant plodding along the road. They aroused Aunt Em's ready sympathy so that she often struck up a conversation, learning where, they had come from and why, and sometimes inviting them home to dinner.

  Some of them had sold up homes in Arkansas and Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama and Georgia; many had simply left them behind with a sign tacked on the door reading G.T.T., Gone to Texas. For some, the land had been played out, depleted of its nutrients by years of planting without adding anything back to the soil so that the yields were scanty and the price a man could get for it just wasn't enough to live on. For others, the tax collector, whose bite had become bigger every year since the war, had finally swallowed the whole thing. For many more, the move was brought on by fear of the increasing violence in the night as groups of men fought back against the government that had been foisted upon them. And then there were those who had decided, finally, that they could not abide with honor where they were and so were heading to Mexico and Central America to join friends and families who had already emigrated.

  Most carried everything they owned in the world in a single covered wagon pulled
by mules or oxen, with chickens in crates slung underneath and a cow and a dog tied to the back. They were a fair indication of the kind of small farmers—men who had owned four or five slaves at the most—who had been and still were the major landholders of the states south of the Mason-Dixon line. Some families, however, required a train of wagons to transport their goods and furnishings. Through the ends of the canvas covers could be glimpsed the sheen of gold-leaf mirrors and polished rosewood, and when the wheels fell into pot-holes, the jangle of piano wires or the tinkle of crystal could be heard.

  The latter type of traveler most often had guards, hard-eyed men who carried rifles across their saddle horns. The single wagons were not so well protected. Now and then a man rode into town looking for word of a family who could be traced as far as the Red River but who then seemed to have disappeared.

  The jayhawkers were suspected, though nothing could be proven. Wagons could easily be burned or driven across the state line into Texas and sold. There was a ready market for horses, oxen, and other livestock in Arkansas as well as in Texas. Valuables could be disposed of to unscrupulous storekeepers. Bodies could be buried anywhere in the deep woods or thrown down the nearest well if that was more convenient. The backwoods families, clannish and self-sufficient in their isolation, did not encourage anyone to ask questions, and prying around their barns and outbuildings could be downright dangerous.

  They were not all so unsociable, however. It seemed that Aunt Em was related on her mother's side of the family to many of the people who lived along the creeks and bayous and swamps in the deep woods. A cousin who lived some eight or nine miles from Grand Ecore on the opposite side of the Red River was marrying off his daughter, the last of five, and was throwing a party to celebrate. Aunt Em was obliged to go, even if she had not wanted to, which she certainly did. Friends and relatives would be coming from miles around; news and gossip would flow along with the homemade blackberry and possum grape wine and the corn whiskey. It would be a good time to catch up on what was happening with everyone. Sally Anne and young Peter would go, and of course everyone wanted to see Ranny. Lettie must come along, too—it would be a good opportunity for her to meet people, become acquainted.