Love and War: The North and South Trilogy (Book Two)

by John Jakes

  “You’re sure it was Cuffey?”

  “I wouldn’t make a mistake about that face. It was him. I heard he was with that bad lot of runaways, but I didn’t believe it till today. He was wearing a Yankee soldier’s uniform, and he’s fat as a spring toad. That bunch must eat mighty well.”

  He started to smile, but Meek’s anger checked it. “They do. They’re thieves. Who do you think carried off those six hens a week ago? Reckon we’d better prepare to give ’em a welcome if they come back. We need to mold some musket balls and inspect those two kegs of powder for dampness.”

  “I’ll do it,” Andy promised.

  Meek pinched the top of his nose. “You haven’t said anything about the curing salt.”

  Andy shook his head. “Isn’t any to be had, Mr. Meek. I even went by Tradd Street in hopes of borrowing some from Mr. Cooper. No one was home. Least, no one answered. I knocked long and hard at the street gate. I’m mighty sorry to come back empty-handed.”

  “I know you did your best. Tomorrow you can ride over to Francis LaMotte’s place. I hate begging favors from that conceited little rooster, but I heard he brought some salt from Wilmington when he came home on leave.” He waved in a tired, absent way. “Thank you, Andy. I’m glad you didn’t get hurt.”

  Leaving, Andy saw Meek pick up the Testament he kept on his desk. The overseer opened the book and bent over a page, his lips moving silently. His face had a desperate look. Well, no wonder, Andy thought as he walked down the path. A tense and dismal atmosphere pervaded the district and the plantation. On top of all the other problems, out in the marshes there was that band of runaways, thirty to fifty of them. Including Cuffey.

  The swollen face sighting along the gun barrel stuck in Andy’s mind as he approached the great house in search of Jane. The runaways left the marshes to steal food or kill and rob travelers unlucky enough to be caught alone on deserted back roads. Two white men from Ashley River plantations had been found dead last month. In January, the band had been seen building cook fires near the abandoned great house at Resolute, where Madeline had lived with Justin LaMotte. Shortly thereafter a blaze had leveled the place.

  “Evening, Miss Clarissa,” Andy said as he reached the front drive. Orry’s mother didn’t respond. Motionless on the piazza, she gazed down the lane of arching trees toward the road, her smile sweetly bewildered. She raised her right hand and brushed it past her face as if some of the ubiquitous low-country gnats were bothering her. Andy hadn’t seen any this evening.

  Shaking his head, he entered the house and followed the sound of hammering till he found Jane. She was helping a houseman nail strips of scrap wood over a downstairs window that had broken in a recent windstorm. Replacement glass couldn’t be bought in Charleston, or good lumber either.

  She smiled when she saw him, but his expression told her something was wrong. Drawing her aside, he reported the incident on the road, though he minimized the danger. “I’ll bet that crazy Cuffey is just waiting to do mischief to this place. Maybe—” he lowered his voice to be certain the houseman wouldn’t hear “—maybe we should go ahead and jump over the brooms and steal off together some night”

  “No. I gave Miss Madeline my word that I’d stay. And I don’t want to jump over the brooms. That’s for slave weddings. You and I are going to be married as free people.” Taking his hand, she pressed it tightly. “It won’t be long. A year. Perhaps even less.”

  Affection warmed his eyes. “Well, I guess I’ll still go along with that, since I haven’t met any woman I fancy more than you. Yet.”

  She batted at his head, and he jumped away, laughing. He hoped the laughter helped hide his gloom. He was sure there’d be a visit from the renegade band one of these days. He was sure, because Cuffey was part of it now.

  That night he slept badly, dreaming of Cuffey’s bloated face. In the morning, as he prepared to leave for Francis LaMotte’s place, Philemon Meek took him aside and pushed a small revolver into his brown hand. “That’s loaded. Make sure it’s out of sight if you meet any white folks on the road. Hide it in the brush while you’re on LaMotte’s property. You could be hung for carrying it.”

  “You could be hung for giving it to me, Mr. Meek.”

  “I’ll stand the risk. I’d hate to see something happen to you.”

  Andy’s smile grew stiff. “Don’t want to lose your number-one nigger?”

  Angered, Meek said, “I don’t want to lose a good man. Now get on your mule and get out of here before I boot your uppity backside.”

  Andy drew a long breath. “Sorry I said that. Old times doing the talking.”

  “I know.”

  They shook hands.

  Whistling “Dixie’s Land,” Andy jogged down a dim, overgrown lane, a shortcut to Francis LaMotte’s. Old Meek wasn’t half bad, he was thinking just as he came upon something dark and misshapen, like a bundle of discarded clothing, in the center of the weedy track.

  “Whoa, mule,” he whispered. He sat listening. He heard bird cries, the small stirs and rustlings of the low-country forest, but nothing alarming. He climbed off the mule and walked slowly along the track with Meek’s revolver in hand.

  The bundle was a black man, raggedy and still. The pockets of his pants had been turned out. Two red-edged holes marked his forehead like a second pair of eyes.

  Andy shivered, swallowing and studying the brush on both sides of the lane. On his right, he saw a large area trampled down. He walked there, rousing half a dozen noisy salt crows farther back among the trees. Looking that way, Andy invoked the name of Jesus under his breath.

  In the humid breeze, something that was not a festoon of Spanish moss swung slowly from a water oak limb around nine feet off the ground. Andy recognized Francis LaMotte, in his Ashley Guards uniform—or the remains of it. LaMotte hung by a rope around his wrists. His top boots had been stolen, and his stockings, too. His feet were bare.

  Andy could have been staring at some fantastically colored bird. LaMotte’s bright green chasseur’s jacket was ripped in many places, creating a feathery effect. The jacket and canary-colored trousers showed patches of red still brilliant because they were still wet.

  The sagging limb creaked. LaMotte’s body turned slowly, pierced by stab wounds. Andy stopped counting the wounds when he reached thirty.

  That same April evening, Orry approached the farm Mrs. Halloran had sketched for him. Thin clouds dulled the moon and stars. That would make it easier for him to cross the unplowed field as his informant had suggested.

  Orry wore the black broadcloth suit he had packed away when he arrived in the capital. Into the sheath on the outside of his right boot he had slipped a bowie knife, but he was otherwise unarmed. Should something go wrong, he would claim to be a traveler who had lost his way.

  He tied his horse to a fruit tree at the side of the field farthest from the four buildings on the bluff above the James. It was a long way down to the river. By day, the view must be spectacular.

  The old house, main barn, and chicken coop all showed as solid black masses. A pronounced V-shaped break in the roof line testified to the barn’s disrepair. But the structure Mrs. Halloran called the implement building, perched on the side of the bluff, seemed to have its near side marked with vertical yellow lines—a trick of lantern light shining through gaps in the siding.

  On the night wind, Orry heard the whicker of a horse. He drew the back of his hand across his damp upper lip and started a slow, quiet walk toward the lighted building.

  There was no cover, no way to remain unseen unless he crawled. When he was halfway across the field, its weedy soil broken here and there by the indentation of rain gullies, he thought he saw a match flare out beyond the house, a good distance to his left. A sentry on the road? More than likely.

  Now he heard the horses, softly stamping. A ten-yard strip of thick, tall grass separated the building from the edge of the field where he hunkered down and counted the animals: four saddle horses and a fifth hitched to a covered b
uggy. Based on this evidence, Mr. Lamar Powell’s revolutionary army was minuscule. But Orry had read his Julius Caesar as a boy, and he knew it didn’t take an armed host to commit a political murder.

  Riding out from Richmond, through the picket posts where he had presented his pass like any other traveler, he had begun to feel sheepish, even gulled. At one point he almost turned back. Now he was thankful he hadn’t.

  Remaining crouched, he started to work his way toward the siding where the light shone through. He grimaced at all the rustling and crackling of the weeds, struggled to advance more cautiously, minimizing the noise. Halfway to the wall, he heard muted conversation. For a moment he doubted his own senses. Mixed in with the male voices, he detected a woman’s.

  Because he was surprised, when he moved again, he shifted his weight too quickly. His right boot broke an unseen twig with a loud crack.

  “Wait, Powell. I thought I heard a noise outside.”

  “Probably a rabbit—or a rat. They infest this place.”

  “Shall I take a look?”

  “No. It isn’t necessary. Wilbur’s on watch at the road.” In the voice of the man identified as Powell, Orry heard absolute authority. As fast as he dared, he crept the rest of the way to the wall and pressed his eye to one of the gaps.

  Damn. Powell’s back was turned. Orry could see nothing but fawn trousers, a dark brown velvet coat, and graying hair, pomaded. Boots stuck into Orry’s line of sight to the left—someone seated, legs stretched out.

  “Our most important arms shipment arrived yesterday,” Powell said, walking toward crates piled on the straw-littered floor. Reaching them, he turned around.

  In his late thirties, Lamar Powell had the kind of face Orry supposed most women would term handsome. He posed in a theatrical way, one slim hand clasping the right lapel of his coat. He gestured to a rectangular crate resting on two square ones, both smaller. Painted on the rectangular box was the word WHITWORTH.

  “As you can see, we will be equipped with the finest.”

  “Whitworths are goddamn expensive—” someone began. Powell’s eyes showed sudden fury. The speaker mumbled, “Beg your pardon, ma’am.”

  “Expensive indeed,” Powell agreed. “But they’re the finest sharpshooting rifles in the world. The .45-caliber Whitworth has a mean radial deviation of one foot or less at eight hundred yards. If there are only a few of us taking aim at the enemy”—a humorless smile jerked his mouth—”each must achieve maximum accuracy.”

  By uttering just those few sentences, Powell managed to unsettle and alarm Orry. Unlike many fanatics, the man had an air of competence. He would not fail through stupidity, Orry suspected.

  Powell continued, “I don’t believe any of you would care to hear how many illegalities were necessary—how many costly bribes—to obtain this shipment. The less you know, the safer you are. And we’ll be risking the rope soon enough as it is.”

  “I didn’t hazard the long ride out here to joke, Lamar.”

  Orry’s mouth opened, silent shock. The voice belonged to James Huntoon.

  “I want to get to the issue,” he said. “When and how do we kill Davis?”

  Then Orry thought he truly had lost his mind. The next speaker who approached Powell was the woman.

  “And who dies along with him?”

  There, clearly visible beside Powell, he saw his sister Ashton:

  Kneeling by the wall, he shook his head, then again. But of course truth couldn’t be banished so easily. Undoubtedly she had become involved through her husband. Madeline had recognized the possibility, but he had dismissed it. He owed her an apology.

  He must identify the other conspirators if he could. He changed position, thus able to see a different part of the interior. A man leaned against the wall that overlooked the river. On each side of him, a large window framed a rectangle of darkness dulled by the grime of the glass. The man was a rough, burly sort, unfamiliar to Orry.

  Anxious to see more, he put his palm against the wall and pressed his other eye to the crack. The siding creaked under his hand. Huntoon said, “Someone’s out there.”

  Powell ran across Orry’s line of vision. Orry scrambled back, almost losing his balance as Powell shouted, “Put the lanterns out.”

  The vertical slits of yellow turned black. Orry lunged up and ran toward the field, bent low. A door rolled back. He heard voices outside the implement building, Powell’s the loudest.

  “Wilbur? We need you. We’ve been spied on.”

  Orry’s chest already hurt from running. Halfway across the field, he heard a horse galloping up the dirt road to the buildings, loud voices again, a confusion of questions and orders. The rider turned into the field, firing a shot.

  The bullet slashed through weeds two feet left of Orry. His boot caught the moist earth, and he lost his balance. The shot frightened his own horse, who neighed. Orry slid on his knees, then pushed up so hard he felt a spasm in a muscle in his arm. He ran on, reaching his horse and mounting as his pursuer passed the field’s midpoint.

  He booted his mount down the lane by which he had approached. Low branches whipped his cheeks and forehead. The man behind him fired a second round. It missed. Orry galloped into the wider main road that curved away from the James. Pulling away from his pursuer and topping a slight rise, he saw the sky glow that identified Richmond.

  He breathed deeply of the wind rushing against his face. He was riding away from shock and peril—but toward an inevitable meeting with his conscience. It took place about midnight. Madeline sat on the edge of their bed, arms folded over the bosom of her nightdress, while he paced one way, then other, lumps of mud falling from his boots.

  After he told her everything, the first thing she said was: “How in heaven’s name did she become involved?”

  “Right away I decided it was because of James. But I’m not so sure. Something bothers me about that explanation, though I haven’t figured out what it is. Anyway, explanations hardly matter at this point. I’m the one person with knowledge of a direct threat to the President’s life. Other lives, too—”

  He seized the bedpost. “I must go to Seddon with the information. And Winder. The provost can pick up the conspirators quietly—It’s the first time I’ve ever been thankful Stephens failed in his congressional crusade.” In February, despite the politicking of the vice president, suspension of habeas corpus had been reenacted.

  “All the conspirators?” Madeline asked. “Does that include your sister?”

  “She’s one of them. Why does she deserve special consideration?”

  “You know, Orry. I don’t like her any better than you do. But she’s family.”

  “Family! I’d sooner have Beast Butler for a relative. Madeline, my sister tried to have Billy Hazard murdered.”

  “I haven’t forgotten. It doesn’t change what I just said. I know you dislike hearing it, but it’s true. There’s also this: No crime has been committed as yet.”

  “The very most I could do—and I’m damned if I think she deserves it—is refrain from mentioning her name or the fact that I saw her.”

  “You would have to do the same for James.”

  “I owe him nothing.”

  “He’s Ashton’s husband.”

  A long silence. Then a disgusted sigh. “All right. But that’s as far as I’ll compromise for either of them. I’ll identify Powell and no one else. If he implicates Huntoon or my sister, so be it.”

  “We’re discovered—we’ll be arrested—what in God’s name are we to do, Lamar?”

  Huntoon’s wail sickened Ashton. Outside the implement building, with the others crowding around, Powell shot out his hand, twisting Huntoon’s collar. “The one thing we will not do is cry like infants.” He shoved Huntoon away as the sentry, Wilbur, came trotting back across the field to report.

  “Lost him.”

  “But you got a look at him—”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Damn you.” Powell turned his back on Wilb
ur, who tugged his farmer’s hat down over his eyes and sat silently.

  Powell rubbed his knuckles against the point of his chin, thinking.

  Another of the conspirators cleared his throat. “They’ll be out here by morning, won’t they?”

  Huntoon spoke up. “Perhaps not. Suppose it was just some nigger boy hunting chickens to steal.” He was trying to reassure himself.

  “It was a white man. I seen that much,” Wilbur said.

  “But maybe he meant us no harm—”

  “Are you an imbecile?” Powell said. “He approached by stealth. He observed us through one of the cracks in that wall. But setting that aside, do you seriously imagine I’d sit and wait to find out whether he’s harmless?”

  He shoved the humiliated Huntoon aside and strode along the weedy strip of ground beside the implement shed. He scanned the bluff, the field, the other buildings. “What we require are sound tactics for meeting the situation. If we think them out carefully and keep our heads, we’ll come through this unscathed.”

  Badly scared, Ashton clung to her faith in Powell’s brains and courage. But it was shaken when he returned to them, smiling, and she heard him say, “The first thing we must do is enlist the aid of Mr. Edgar Poe. My favorite author. How many of you know his tale of the purloined letter?”

  “You’re the one who’s an imbecile,” Huntoon ranted, “talking of cheap hack writers at a time like this.”

  For once Ashton silently sided with her husband. Her lover didn’t say a word to explain himself, merely gave Huntoon another insulting push and walked past him, laughing.

  At daylight, Orry marched up the high stoop of Secretary Seddon’s residence and used the knocker so loudly he was sure he woke the whole neighborhood. Within minutes, grumpy Winder was summoned. When he arrived, he resisted for half an hour—Orry was not, after all, one of his most trusted colleagues—but gave in under pressure from Seddon. He would send investigators to Wilton’s Bluff before noon.