Appomattox Saga Omnibus 2: Three Books In One (Appomatox Saga)

by Gilbert, Morris

  That was when Clay had stared at Lowell. “Well, you have to have them, don’t you?”

  “Well…yes, sir, we do, but not from—from those women!”

  Clay put his pencil down, leaned on the desk, and studied the agitated face of this son of his. Lowell, he knew, had more family feeling than the twins—that is, he was more concerned about the position of the Rocklin family. He worries too much about how things look, Clay thought, hoping Lowell would be able to cease thinking about what other people thought, just as he had eventually learned to do. He was tempted to tell Lowell he was too fussy but knew that wouldn’t do.

  “Look, Lowell,” he said calmly, “in a war we have to do all kinds of things we wouldn’t think of doing in better times.” He saw the stubbornness on Lowell’s face and said a little more stridently, “You ever think your grandmother would be digging up old outhouses?”

  This was being done all over the South, for niter for gunpowder could not be imported, and there was no other source. Noting the embarrassed look on his son’s face, Clay said gently, “Do you think I like having my mother involved in things like that?”

  “No, sir, of course not!”

  “So Rooney is just doing what you asked her to do, isn’t she? Getting silk for your balloon?” Clay leaned back in his chair, his face lined with fatigue. He took his job as a captain in the Richmond Grays seriously and had missed many hours of sleep trying to put C Company back together after battles. “I think you ought to commend her for finding a way to make the project happen,” he commented quietly.

  Lowell dropped his eyes and, after standing silently, looked up. “I suppose you’re right, sir—but it’s humiliating!”

  Clay rose and came to put his hand on Lowell’s shoulder. “I know, son, but it’s for the Cause. Try to think of it like that.” He smiled, his teeth very white against his tanned skin. “I’m proud of you for doing this. Most wounded men just sit around and wait—but you’ve worked hard on this idea.”

  The praise brought a flush to Lowell’s cheeks, but he said only, “Well, guess I’ll go tell Rooney to go ahead with the crazy scheme.” A wry smile touched his lips, and as he left, Clay heard him mutter, “Doesn’t matter much—that stubborn girl’s going to do it anyway!”

  As the two men were talking, Rena and Rooney were in the barn, sitting among billowing silk. Assisted by Rose and Melora, they had cut the dresses carefully into the patterns laid out by Lowell. Now with the Yancy women back home, the sewing fell to Rena and Rooney. Rena looked up from a seam she was working on and put her gaze on Rooney. “Do you think Lowell will let you go get more dresses from Richmond? He was awful mad at you for going to those places!”

  “We have to have the silk, don’t we?”

  Rena studied the face of Rooney thoughtfully. She had grown very fond of her but was puzzled by her at the same time. “What’s it like in those places—the bars and saloons, Rooney? Do you ever see any of the bad women?”

  Rooney’s hand slipped, and a flush came to her cheeks. “Didn’t you know, Rena? My mother is a dance hall woman.”

  A gasp came from Rena’s lips, and her face contorted with embarrassment. “Why, Rooney!” she whispered in agony. “Nobody told me!”

  “I should have told you myself,” Rooney said. She looked up and saw Rena’s face. “Oh, Rena!” she cried and then leaped up and went to the girl, for tears were running down her cheeks. “Don’t cry! It’s nothing to cry about!” She sat down beside Rena, assuring her over and over that she wasn’t hurt. “I’m used to it, you see. It’s the only life I’ve ever known.” Then to avoid future problems, she quickly sketched her family history for the girl, ending by saying, “I’m so grateful to your brother for helping Buck and me. So don’t you be sad, you hear?”

  Finally Rena calmed down, and the two girls sat there working on the silk that slipped through their fingers sibilantly. Rooney was aware that Rena was troubled but waited quietly for her to speak of it. Finally Rena said with her eyes dropped to her hands, “My…my mother wasn’t a good woman!”

  “Oh, Rena!”

  “She had…men friends,” Rena said, and when she did lift her eyes, there was misery in them. “And I hated her—and now she’s dead!” This was a thought that never completely left this girl, and no matter what anyone said, a heavy guilt lay deep inside her spirit.

  “Do you want to tell me about it, Rena?” Rooney asked gently. And then, perhaps because Rooney had the same problem, Rena opened herself, speaking of her miserable childhood. She’d never been able to talk to anyone fully—they were all too close. But Rooney was her own age, and she talked for a long time. Finally she said, “Do you think God will ever forgive me, Rooney?”

  “Oh, Rena, I don’t think God holds it against you!”

  “I hope not,” Rena whispered. Then she heard someone coming and said quickly, “Thanks for listening to me, Rooney—it’s a help!”

  And then the door opened and Lowell entered. He saw the expression on his sister’s face and thought, She’s been crying, but said nothing. She’s probably been thinking about Mother again. Then he saw that there was a light expression on Rena’s face that had been absent, and it came to him that it was good for her to have a girl her own age to talk to.

  “Well, you can go get the dresses, Rooney,” he said, then blustered, “but I’m going with you!”

  Rooney stared at him, knowing how angry he’d been at her actions. “Why, you don’t have to do that, Lowell,” she said. “Buck and me can do it.”

  “No, if it’s got to be done, I’m going with you. Get ready, and we’ll go this morning.”

  Lowell turned and left, and Rena said, “Lowell’s about as stubborn as a man can get. I didn’t think he’d ever change his mind about those dresses.” A smile touched her lips, and she nodded. “I’ll bet Daddy shamed him—or maybe Grandmother.”

  “I guess so.” Rooney dropped a bright green section of silk, rose, and said, “It makes me feel bad, Rena. I hate to humble him, going to all those places.”

  “He wouldn’t do it if he didn’t want to, not Lowell.” Rena stared at the girl across the table and nodded. “He likes you a lot, Rooney. I can tell.”

  Rooney looked up at the girl quickly, then shook her head. “No, I don’t think so, Rena.” Then she turned and left, saying, “We’ll get enough to finish it—and he’ll be glad when I’m gone!”

  CHAPTER 9

  ROONEY TAKES A RIDE

  I hope the Yankees don’t have any spies around here,” Susanna Rocklin remarked. “If they do, they won’t have any trouble getting a report on this contraption of yours, Lowell.”

  The field in which Rocklin stood was crowded with spectators, so many of them that Lowell had been forced to beg them to move back so that they wouldn’t interfere with the launching of the balloon. There had been no announcement of the event, but somehow word had gotten out so that even before Lowell and Rooney had appeared, neighbors had arrived.

  Lowell, who was working on the gas-generating machinery, looked around at the onlookers, then muttered to his grandmother, “I wish they’d all go home!”

  “That’s not very likely. People around here, they’ve been talking about my eccentric grandson for days now. None of them’s ever seen a man fly, and they wouldn’t miss it for anything.” She stared at the wagon with its maze of iron pots and winding coils of copper tubing, adding laconically, “To tell the truth, I’m about as skeptical as the rest of them.”

  “It’s got to work,” Lowell said stubbornly. “We’ve tried it on those small balloons. You saw them fly, didn’t you?”

  “Well, yes, but that’s different from all this!”

  Lowell turned to look at Rooney and Buck, who were carefully spreading the canopy on the ground as if it were a monstrous bedspread. Come to think of it, he thought, it looks like one of Grandmother’s quilts!

  Made completely of small pieces of silk dresses, the canopy in the sparkling sunshine seemed to glitter with every colo
r of the rainbow: scarlet, green, blue, yellow—every hue imaginable! Since it was finished, he thought of the long, arduous hours that the women had put into the project—especially Rooney, who had worked tirelessly on the canopy. She had been adamant about examining every seam, always insisting on double stitching them for strength, and often had rejected some of the work, declaring, “It’s got to be stronger!”

  Lowell shifted his gaze to Rooney, who was wearing a light blue dress trimmed with white lace, and a white straw hat. Excitement made her dark blue eyes flash, and she was chattering like a magpie to Buck as they moved around, pulling and tugging at the colorful material. Couldn’t have done it without those two, he thought—and regretted the coolness that had come between him and Rooney. He missed their early camaraderie, and a vague sense of regret came to him as he studied her happy expression. I’ve got to try to make it up to her, was his thought, but then he turned his mind to the business of filling the canopy.

  “Rooney! Are you and Buck ready?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “All right—let’s get started.”

  Lowell checked his gauges, then nodded to Josh, who was standing a few feet away. “All right, Josh, take that hose over and help Rooney and Buck.”

  “Y–yessir!” Josh exclaimed and, leaping forward, picked up the free end of the flexible tube used to carry the gas from the generating machinery to the canopy. As the lanky boy went into action, Lowell said to his grandmother, “That’s a real smart young man. He invented that hose himself.”

  “Did he, now?” Susanna stared at Josh Yancy and shook her head. “Clay’s always said young Josh could make anything under the sun. We’ll have to see about giving him some more training, Lowell.”

  “I think that’d be good. He’s got too much potential to spend his life raising pigs.” As he watched the boy bend over to insert the end of the tube into the opening in the lower section of the canopy, he chuckled. “That hose has to bend, and I couldn’t figure out a way to do it. We were talking about it at the Yancy place, and Josh finally came up with the idea of using silk and stiff cord. So I figured he earned himself a spot on the balloon team.”

  Susanna stared at the six-inch tube that twisted like a snake as the boy maneuvered it into position. “How in the world did that work?”

  “Josh got the idea of building it around a small tree. He cut down a six-inch pine and took all the bark off. Then he put some lard all over it and took some pieces of silk that Rooney had left over and covered it with them. Then he wound baling twine around the silk and covered that with glue, and he laid strips of silk over that.” Lowell shook his head with admiration. “I never thought it’d work, but when it dried, we grabbed the end and it just slipped right off! Easier than skinning a catfish!”

  “He is a clever young fellow,” Susanna exclaimed. “What happens now?”

  “We fill the canopy,” Lowell said. Taking a deep breath, he called out, “All ready?”

  “All ready!” Rooney answered. She and Buck stood beside the brilliant silk, ready to hold it into place as it filled with gas.

  Lowell reached out and moved the lever that allowed the gas to escape from the chambers and felt the tube give a sudden jerk. “Here it comes, Josh!” he called out. Steadily he kept the valve open, watching the gauge for a moment, then turned to look at the canopy.

  “It’s working!” he exclaimed, seeing the quiltlike layers of silk suddenly rising in the center. A mutter went around the people who were watching, and Lowell grew tense. Got to be just right—can’t go too fast or too slow.

  Rooney and Buck moved quickly around the edges of the canopy, lifting folds to make the inflation easier. Josh held the entry port tightly affixed to the exhaust tube, his face intent as he tried to let none of the gas escape. It had been the best time of his life, working with Lowell and Rooney on this balloon, and he now knew that he would never be happy as a farmer. As the canopy swelled and grew like a small mountain before him, he struggled to his feet, aware that somehow he was going to do things like this—not feed pigs!

  “Look at that thing!” A cry went up from Buford Yancy, who had brought his whole family over to watch the show. Buford was tall, lanky, and stronger than most young men, and his mouth dropped open as the balloon swelled before his eyes. “I never seed such!”

  Neither had the crowd, for a babble of voices filled the air as the balloon grew larger. They were all simple people, accustomed to only the simplest machinery, and they stood there mystified. And the slaves! Superstitious to the bone, they moved back with fear, one elderly woman muttering, “It’s de debbil! Dat’s whut it is!” But she was not frightened enough to leave, for this was far too exciting to miss, so she moved back a few feet, her eyes fixed on the sight before her.

  “Watch the harness!” Lowell called out. He’d seen that as the balloon began to rise, the ropes that held the observation basket were getting tangled. “Grandmother—hold this handle right here!” he ordered.

  “What’s that?” Susanna was so startled she could hardly speak, but Lowell gave her no chance to object, so she gingerly grasped the handle, staring at it as if it might blow up in her face.

  Lowell leaped to free the lines and, seeing that his grandmother seemed to be doing the job, called out, “Hold it right there! I’ll help with getting it up!”

  Rooney, her heart beating with excitement, ran around freeing the silk. The folds were now free, and she could see that the seams were holding well. “It’s working, Buck!” she cried out, and the two of them grinned at each other wildly.

  Now the silk canopy was rising, swinging to an upright position. It was not round, but fuller at the top than at the bottom. Lowell had figured out that such an arrangement would give more lift, and there would be less opportunity for the gas to escape.

  The slight breeze caught the flowering canopy, and Josh yelled, “I c–can’t hold it!” He held on desperately but was losing his hold, Lowell saw.

  Lowell yelled, “Highboy! Box! Give a hand!” He’d given careful instructions to these two, who in turn had enlisted ten of the huskiest men on the workforce, and at once they ran to grab the suspension ropes. “Hold it down!” Lowell yelled, wild with excitement. He waited until Josh cried, “She w–won’t take any m–more, Mister Lowell!”

  “All right!” Lowell leaped back to the wagon, reached around his grandmother, and shut the valve. Then whirling, he leaped back to grab one of the ropes. Rooney and Buck, he noted, were hanging on to ropes along with the slaves.

  “Let it go up—slowly, now!”

  As they played out the ropes, the balloon rose ten feet into the air, and the small gondola made of woven willow limbs was jerked aloft.

  “Let me go up, Lowell!” Rooney cried, her face alive with excitement.

  “No!” Lowell had decided that on the first flight there would be no passengers. Instead he had placed four fifty-pound sacks of feed in the gondola. “Nobody’s going up the first flight—and I’ll be the first one to fly! Now let it go—real slow, now!”

  At Lowell’s direction, the men played out the suspension ropes. Cries went up from the crowd, and Lowell himself wanted to shout as the balloon rose slowly into the air.

  It works! he thought, and he’d never in his life had such a feeling of exultation. The rope slipped through his hands, and he kept the men steady as the balloon rose. Finally it was over a hundred feet in the air and would have gone higher if he had not called out, “That’s high enough! Hold it there!”

  Carefully he tested his rope and discovered that the slaves held it with ease. Dropping the line, he moved back and stared up at the graceful shape of the balloon as it swayed in the breeze. He discovered that he’d moved close to Rooney, who was staring upward, and without thinking, he suddenly put his arm around her and gave a squeeze.

  “We did it, Rooney,” he breathed. “We did it!”

  Rooney was startled by the sudden hug, and for one moment, she surrendered to it. Looking up, her eyes
sparkling, she whispered, “We did, didn’t we, Lowell!”

  For that one moment, he forgot the balloon, the crowd, and everything else. He was only conscious of the firmness of her shoulder as his hand lay on the thin dress she wore and of the creamy smoothness of her cheeks. Her lips were parted slightly, and her dark blue eyes were enormous.

  And then she pulled away, her expression changing, and Lowell felt the wall that was between them—and knew that he was the one who had built it. Hastily he turned his attention to the balloon, and Rooney moved quietly back to stand away from the little group.

  Only one person had noticed the scene between Lowell and Rooney—Susanna Rocklin. Her sharp eyes had taken it in, and she had not missed the manner in which Rooney Smith had moved away from her grandson’s embrace. She said nothing but on an impulse went to stand beside the girl. When Rooney looked at her, she smiled, saying, “You must be very proud, Rooney.”

  “Oh—”

  “Lowell told me this morning that he could never have done it if it hadn’t been for you.”

  “I didn’t do all that much.”

  Sensing the hurt in the young woman, Susanna said quietly, “He’s a very different sort of young man, Lowell is. He’s trying to find his way, and that’s never easy, is it, Rooney?”

  Rooney sensed that Susanna was trying to tell her something. She bit her lip and dropped her head for a moment, then lifted her eyes to face the older woman.

  “No, it’s not easy,” she murmured, and then her eyes went to Lowell, who was staring up into the blue sky. “I guess growin’ up is never easy—for anybody!”

  “You’re not going up in the balloon—and that’s final!”

  The argument about who would make the ascent in the balloon began immediately after breakfast. Lowell had gone outside to study the wind and the weather, and he had come back to announce with satisfaction, “Everything is good. Just a little breeze, not enough to matter.”