The Roswell Women

by Statham, Frances Patton

  "No, Madrigal. That's the master bedroom. You can select one on the third level, as we all will."

  "You sure are a spoilsport, Allison." Madrigal brushed her blackened hands on her petticoat. And for the first time, she realized that even her dress had been lost in the fire. "What about our clothes? We don't even have a camisole left between us."

  "Surely Major Meadors won't begrudge us the use of anything we find," Allison said.

  "I saw a trunk in the attic the other day," Madrigal confided, "when I was rummagin' around. There's the prettiest blue dress in it. Come on, Rebecca. Let's go up to the attic."

  Rebecca looked at Madrigal. "We'd better wash ourselves off at the pump first. Otherwise, we'll leave a dirty trail all through the house."

  "And we'd better do the same, Flood," Allison suggested. She winced as she pushed herself up from the chaise. Blisters lined both hands. The large bruise on her left leg caused her to limp awkwardly toward the pump where she and Flood joined Madrigal and Rebecca, already at work removing the soot and grime from their losing bout with the fire.

  Chapter 27

  The rains began in the night, falling upon the charred timbers of the cottage and spreading that peculiar acrid odor through the air as the ashes and water combined.

  Inside the redbrick mansion, Allison heard the steady patter on the roof, and she climbed out of bed to close the window. For a moment, she stood, looking out and breathing the harsh-smelling air.

  It was strange, Allison thought, that certain odors could trigger memories long hidden away in the unconscious. She remembered that day as a child when she'd watched the servants making lye soap—with the steady dripping of water over hickory ashes and then boiling the mixture with tallow. She had wanted to help, but her mother had sent her away to play under the magnolia tree, away from the cauldrons with their fires underneath.

  But white-haired old Auntie Susie had allowed her to help after all, sending her into the wooded area to gather sweet heart leaves to perfume the soap.

  Allison smiled as she closed the window against the rain. With that childhood remembrance in mind, she began to plan yet another project even while she groped her way back to bed.

  In the corner bedroom down the hall, only a few feet from the narrow stairs that connected the third level with the second, Madrigal O'Laney was still awake. All day, she'd kept her pains to herself. She hadn't thought much about it that previous night when she'd tripped over the water bucket. But by morning, she'd known that something wasn't exactly right. Her first thought when she woke up was that maybe she was going to lose Caleb's brat. And she couldn't say that she was sorry.

  The pains began to come closer and closer, causing her to grip the bedpost. And she clamped her teeth together to keep from making a sound, for she didn't want to wake up anybody, if she could help it.

  She had been careful not to confide in any of them about her condition. Not Flood, and especially not Allison. And if she could get through the night without any of them knowing, so much the better. Unless, of course, if she began to bleed like Ellie.

  For the next hour, Madrigal managed alone. Bands of escalating pain began to tighten around her stomach and spread to her back. Closer and closer they came together, until there was no respite, no separation of one pain from the other. It kept up with unrelenting insistence, causing Madrigal to regret her decision to manage alone.

  Finally, in one long steady wrenching motion, Madrigal felt a part of her body being torn asunder. Despite her vow, she cried out, but the sound behind the closed door was muffled by Flood's loud snoring reverberating down the entire hallway.

  Gradually, the unbearable pain subsided. In relief, Madrigal lay upon the bed. She was weak—emotionally, physically—but the worst was over now.

  Yet there still remained a very necessary chore. Somehow, some way, before morning, she had to get up and dispose of the bloody sheets before the others found out. But the night was only half over. She still had plenty of time.

  Madrigal slept off and on, with the steady downpour of rain hitting the dormer window and splashing onto the windowsill. She could feel the moisture on her face, but she didn't have the strength to get up and close the window.

  Shortly before dawn, Madrigal awoke. Lying in bed, she listened to the sounds around her. Outside, the crickets were chirping their nightly lovesong, and inside, Flood's snoring indicated that the household was still asleep.

  Madrigal forced herself to crawl out of bed. She could wait no longer. Wrapping the quilt around her, she took the sheets that she'd bundled up earlier and started down the narrow backstairs. As one of the stairs creaked, she stopped. But no one challenged her.

  A barefooted Madrigal trudged along the pathway that led to the charred cottage. And there, amid the ruins, she took a slab of wood, dug a hole in the soft, water-saturated soil, and buried the sheets.

  When her chore was finished, she wrapped the now wet quilt around her and returned to the redbrick mansion.

  That morning as the sun rose in the east and touched the tips of the trees shading the expansive lawn of Bluegrass Meadors, Rebecca Smiley, on the opposite side of the hall from Madrigal, awoke. Quietly, she got up, dressed, and started downstairs to the kitchen to make a fire, as she was accustomed to doing. Halfway down the narrow stairway, she looked down and frowned. Dirty, wet footprints—small and dainty—marred the polished wood. Curiosity made her turn around and follow them back up the stairs. They stopped in front of Madrigal's door.

  A puzzled Rebecca stood for a moment, and then shrugging, she went back to her room and got a clean cloth to erase the marks along the hall and from each step. It wasn't any of her business if Madrigal decided to slip out at night, for whatever reason. But if she did it again, she would make sure that Madrigal was the one to clean up her own dirty footprints.

  Rebecca had not been in the kitchen long when Allison brought Morrow downstairs. There was now no containing Morrow in a basket. She was far too active, crawling and climbing. Allison set her on a small pallet on the floor and gave her two wooden spoons to play with.

  As Allison walked to the shelf to retrieve a bucket, she turned to the black woman. "Rebecca, will you please watch Morrow while I go to the barn to milk the cow?"

  Rebecca nodded. But just before Allison reached the back door, she stopped her. "Miss Allison?"

  "Yes?"

  "I suppose I shouldn't say anything about it, but I cleaned up some dirty footprints on the backstairs this mornin'."

  The alarm showed in Allison's face. "You think a bushwhacker came into the house while we were asleep?"

  "No'm. It was Madrigal, goin' out somewhere in the night. At least the footprints stopped at her door."

  "But we made a pact that no one would leave the house after we all went to bed unless it was absolutely necessary. And then we'd wake up someone. You think she spoke to Flood?"

  "I don’t know. Guess we can ask her later on when she comes downstairs."

  "Ask her what?" A curious Flood, dressed in some old jodhpurs belonging to Rad Meadors, appeared in the doorway.

  "Rebecca said that Madrigal went out during the night. Did she let you know, Flood?"

  "No, she didn't."

  "Well, that's strange. But surely she'll have an explanation when she comes downstairs for breakfast,"

  A worried Flood looked first at Rebecca and then at Allison. "I think I'll go back upstairs and check on her."

  "Yes, that would be a good idea." Leaving the problem in Flood's hands, Allison swung the milk bucket over her arm and headed for the barn.

  In the unusual peacefulness of early morning, as she walked down the path, Allison observed the remnants of the fire—the empty fields and the charred timbers that served as blackened monuments to the tobacco barns and cottage. But the sense of devastation she'd felt the previous day had vanished with the rain. They had lost the entire tobacco crop, but Allison had followed Rad Meadors's advice—to allow a few of the healthier plants to go to s
eed so that another generation of the burley tobacco could be planted in the spring. The seed was safe, and for that Allison was grateful.

  The wind rose through the trees and swept over the fields. Allison shivered as four wild geese flew overhead. Summer had vanished overnight with the coming of the rain. And now a colder season was beginning, as evidenced by the premature activity of the animal world. Bushy-tailed squirrels with nuts in their mouths scurried in haste. And in the towering oak tree beyond the paddock, a large nest became visible on a lower limb, a sure sign that the winter would be a hard one.

  In the barn, the cow was waiting to be milked, and Allison, after seating herself on the three-legged stool, filled the bucket with fresh, warm milk. She heard the horse neigh and the young foals kick in their stalls, but she paid no attention to them. It was Flood who was now responsible for feeding the animals and letting them out to pasture.

  Twenty minutes later, the milk pitcher sat on the kitchen table and the three women began to eat their breakfast.

  "Did you check on Madrigal?" Allison looked at Flood and waited for her reply.

  "Yes. She won't be comin' down to breakfast," Flood announced. "She's feelin' rather poorly and says she wants to stay in bed this mornin'."

  "I'm sorry. Is there anything we can do to make her feel better?"

  Flood looked at Allison. "I think she just wants to be left alone, Allison. At least, for now."

  Rebecca looked at Allison and then back at Flood. No one needed to say a word. Somehow it was understood that something momentous had happened—something that Madrigal did not want to share with the others. And so the three women around the table began to discuss the chores for the day, dividing them up among themselves. But as the day progressed, each woman, at some time, slipped upstairs, either to take Madrigal a little food or to check on her.

  "Really, Allison, I'm all right," Madrigal insisted. "I'm just tired, that's all, from all the work these past two days."

  Allison looked into Madrigal's pale, wan face—so like Ellie's during her worst time at the institute. "Of course, Madrigal. You just stay in bed today. It's not as if we have chores that can't wait. There'll be plenty of time for you to catch up later when you feel well again."

  "I think Madrigal's lost the baby," Flood announced, not looking at Allison but rather gazing into the distance beyond the meadows.

  "Rebecca thinks so, too, Flood. But she evidently doesn't want us to know. So, as far as I'm concerned, it's better if we don’t ever mention it to her."

  "I agree."

  Flood left the porch and headed for the barn where she began to mix the sorghum and hay for the animals. She was still afraid of them and somehow they sensed her fear, for they became skittish every time she appeared.

  But like Madrigal, she kept her own secret to herself. There was no need to broadcast her fear of the animals to the others.

  Later, when Allison took Morrow downstairs to the kitchen to feed her, the hearth was cold, the candles unlit, and Rebecca was nowhere in sight. Allison had not seen the woman since early afternoon, and with the approach of night, she began to worry.

  Along a stream a half mile past the boundary of the meadow and apple orchard, Rebecca suddenly became aware of the dark, eerie shadows closing in along the bank where she sat. The weeping willows hanging over the water began to move with the wind, their pendants hanging like fingers rippling the murky waters where one large fish had teased her for the past hour with its constant jumping beyond the reach of her bamboo fishing pole.

  To her left, she heard a twig break. She didn't look up for fear of what she might see. But the past two days had made her cautious. In haste, she pulled the string of bream out of the water, picked up her pole, and left the bank.

  As she began to walk back toward the mansion, she realized the steps she heard were parallel to her own steps, with only a scant distance separating them.

  She hated the stealthy manner in which she was being tracked. Finally, in a fit of exasperation, Rebecca stopped, picked up a large stick, and called out, "All right. Show yourself, if you're not too scared to."

  She waited and then watched the limbs of a tree divide to reveal Big Caesar, Royal Freemont's man. Recognizing him from the night he'd come to help fight the fire, Rebecca was livid. "What do you mean, followin' me and scarin' me half to death? You coulda got your head knocked off just now."

  "My, don’t we sound sassy." He grinned at Rebecca, which made her even angrier.

  "Don't you come a step closer," she warned.

  He ignored her threat. "Looks like you been fishin', too."

  For the first time she noticed the pole he carried, but her anger still controlled her. "And what if I have? The creek belong to you?"

  "Not exactly. 'Cept you did take my fishin' hole from me. I been tryin' to catch that big one for the past two weeks, but I see you didn't have any luck either."

  "I caught me enough for our supper, anyway."

  "What? Those skinny little things? They look like the ones I threw back in several days ago."

  Suddenly, he held out the big string of fish he'd caught. "Here, why don’t you take these with you? If I was you, I'd be too ashamed to go back home with that small mess of fish. Mr. Tompkins might laugh right in your face."

  "Ha! You don't know what you're talkin' about." And she called him by a derogatory name.

  Big Caesar winced. "I don’t much like bein' called that, woman. I'd rather be called by my real name—Caesar."

  "Doesn't matter. I won’t be seein' you enough to call you anything."

  "Then I can have my fishin' hole back?"

  "I didn't see a sign with your name on it."

  "Here, take the fish, like I told you, and stop your fussin'. Or else it'll be too late to cook 'em."

  Big Caesar thrust his string of fish into her hand as Rebecca suddenly looked up at the sky. Big Caesar was right. It was late. Past time for her to go home.

  He didn't wait for her to thank him. It was almost as if he knew the words would come out wrong no matter how she said them. Big Caesar disappeared. Rebecca stood still and listened to his footsteps until they were gone and the woods contained only the sounds of the katydids and the tree frogs tuning up for the night.

  At the front window, Allison stood and watched a figure hurrying toward her. And when she recognized Rebecca, she felt a great relief.

  Chapter 28

  The war escalated, with hit-and-run tactics by small groups of Confederates diminishing the sheer power of cannons and artillery belonging to Grant and Sherman. Like will-o'-the-wisps, the raiders appeared, did their damage, and then vanished before the men in blue could give chase.

  At times, it seemed that the Confederates would be successful in winning back Missouri and regaining Nashville and Petersburg at Sherman's rear. Then, in a battle at Marais des Cygnes, in Kansas, the Federal cavalry caught up with Price's troops, and captured over a thousand men, including two generals and four colonels—officers the South could ill afford to lose.

  While prosperity in the North flourished and fortunes were made overnight, the South gradually grew weaker and hungrier, with a triumphant Sherman cutting a barren swath across the land to the sea. And in December of 1864, he presented an early Christmas present to Lincoln—the captured city of Savannah, childhood home of Allison Forsyth.

  The rest of that hard, cold winter finally passed into the spring of 1865. And by April, when Allison and the others at Bluegrass Meadors were planting the tiny tobacco seeds into seed beds and protecting them from frost and damaging rain, a prison train with Union prisoners from Andersonville, Georgia, was being sent to Jacksonville by the Confederates, forcing the Federal army to take back their own since there was no food left to feed anyone, Northerners and Southerners alike.

  All that remained was for the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to surrender its arms and flag at Appomattox Courthouse. This was done on April 9. And with that action, the war was lost.

  It was
at the end of April that Royal Freemont brought the news to the women. And when he'd left, Allison and Flood sat down and cried, for they were the ones who'd lost the most in the war—husbands, home, and livelihood. But once they had mourned, they put their despair behind them, and for the first time since they had been loaded in wagons and taken to Marietta, they began to look to the future.

  "Do you realize what this means?" Allison said. "We can all go home again. Just as soon as Major Meadors returns and pays us our wages."

  "I hope he won't be too upset, seein' the barns and cottage gone," Flood said, gazing out over the fields, where the tender young plants were now six inches high.

  Overhearing them, Madrigal said, "Well, it certainly wasn't our fault." She sat on the steps and lazily twirled a stick, making a design in the air.

  "It would have been nice, though, if we'd been able to rebuild at least one of the barns."

  "That's crazy," Madrigal said. "Nobody would expect a bunch of women to do that."

  "But you forget, Madrigal. Major Meadors thinks Flood is a man," Allison reminded her.

  "Won't he be surprised when he gets home." Madrigal laughed and then stood up. "Come on, Flood, I'll help you get the foals in."

  The two left the porch and began to walk toward the meadow, while Allison and a thoughtful, quiet Rebecca remained on the porch.

  "Caesar said if the major doesn't get home by the time the tobacco is ready to be cured, he'll come over and help us put the barn up."

  "Won't Mr. Freemont mind?"

  "Not where you're concerned, Miss Allison."

  "I should never have let it slip, Rebecca—my husband being dead. That was a tragic mistake."

  "I don't know about that. We wouldn'a had the hog if you hadn't. And I sure did enjoy the winter sausage."

  Allison laughed. "So did I. But I have an uneasy feeling. Royal Freemont doesn't give anything away without exacting full value."

  "Well, we'll worry about that after the major comes home."

  "I wonder how long it will be."