A Reckless Love, page 26
“I think we should find a way to get out.” Aurora looked around to Grandmama for corroboration. Her grandmother was missing. Panic rose, but then it dawned on her Grandmama must have already recognized the danger of sitting in one place. She grabbed Joelle’s arm. “Where’s Grandmama?”
Joelle looked wildly behind her. “I don’t know! I thought she would have—Maybe she went behind the bar?”
“Probably.” Aurora looked for ThomasAnne and found her at the far end of the table, curled into a ball with her arms over her head. “That’s where Bedelia and Rosie would be too. They’ll be guarding the kitchen door. But I think we can get out through the cellar and go for help.”
Joelle looked like she might argue, then gulped and nodded. “Selah, do you want to come?”
Selah looked as if she might vomit. “I’d better stay here with ThomasAnne. We’d only slow you down.”
Aurora didn’t like the idea of leaving her sister and cousin here, but there was danger in leaving too. In all likelihood, none of them would make it out of this situation alive. “All right. Pray.”
Selah nodded.
Taking a deep breath, Aurora briefly clasped Joelle’s hand. “Let’s go.” Hiking up her skirts, she got into a crouching position, while Joelle did the same. When the gunfire paused, she darted out from under the table, keeping her head down, and headed for the bar.
A bullet zinged past her as she dove around the wall of the bar into safety. Joelle followed a second later. They lay facedown for a moment, gasping, shivering, then Aurora lifted her head.
“Why, Miss Daughtry, fancy meeting a lady like you in a place like this,” Bedelia said with a husky chuckle.
The two saloon girls crouched under the inside corner of the bar, taking advantage of the greatest protection from the mayhem in the dining room. It occurred to Aurora that Selah and ThomasAnne would be safer here, if they could make it across the open space between here and the table. Too late for that now.
“Grandmama’s not here!” Joelle stated the obvious.
“Maybe she had the same idea we did. Jo and I are going out through the cellar,” she told Bedelia. “Y’all want to come?”
Bedelia’s green eyes widened. “I ain’t daft! What if that bunch of thugs is guarding the cellar door? For that matter, what if they come in through the cellar?”
“I doubt anybody knows it’s there. We’re going to give it a try. The only option is sitting here waiting for some stray bullet to hit.” Aurora shrugged with assumed carelessness. “I’d rather die trying to do something.”
Bedelia shuddered but clutched Rosie’s shoulders. “Not me. I ain’t no hero.”
Aurora might have argued with her, but Joelle pulled on her sleeve. “Let’s go, Pete. The longer we wait, the greater the chance somebody will discover that cellar entrance.”
Crouching, the two of them duck-walked toward the cellar trapdoor and wrestled it open. Gunfire opened again in the front of the house as Aurora slipped through the opening, Joelle close on her heels. The noise muted as they went underground, and Aurora felt a corresponding rise in confidence. She stopped to listen. If anybody waited down here, they were awfully quiet.
Looking over her shoulder a couple of times to make sure Joelle was still behind her, she crept across the dark cellar. It gave her pause to think of Deputy Marshal Mosley’s dead body having been dragged here by the vile Sam Jones. And when Zane discovered she’d flouted his orders, he was not going to be happy. But going back was not an option.
At last they reached the rear stairs.
“Wait.” Joelle grabbed Aurora’s hand. “We don’t have any kind of weapon. What if there’s somebody out there?”
Aurora looked around the shadowy cellar. A faint stream of light came from the bar and kitchen areas, but she could distinguish few details in her surroundings. “I remember when I was cleaning this place out, before Zane came. I was going to get rid of all the whiskey, but I kept a couple of bottles for cooking. Horatia likes to put it in her bread pudding sauce.”
“Bread pudding is going to save our lives,” Joelle said with a sigh. “I love it.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“No. Where are the bottles?”
“Next to the kitchen stairs.” Aurora retraced her steps and came back with two bottles. She gave one to Joelle. “If someone threatens you, throw this at their head and run.”
Battling genuine terror, she climbed the steps. What if the exit was still blocked from Zane’s attempt to trap Jones? She couldn’t remember if anyone had removed the boards and bricks he’d piled on top of the door. At the top of the steps, she shoved on the door with her free hand. When it moved, she pushed harder and felt it give upward. Cautiously, she peered out. Heavy darkness had fallen—she thought the time must be close to nine o’clock by now—but starlight revealed a sliver of the back alley behind the house. Across the alley lay the slope down to the town square. At least they would emerge well beyond the back door, and thus, theoretically, bypass any attackers guarding the kitchen.
“Looks like we’re clear,” she told Joelle and pushed the door open. It fell back onto the ground with a frightening thud, and she paused, heart pounding. Nothing else happened, so she climbed out and squatted beside the opening as Joelle followed suit.
“I neglected to ask where we’re going,” Joelle whispered. “I assume you have a plan.”
“We could go for the sheriff or the constable, but I don’t trust either of them.”
“Don’t you think the sound of gunfire would have brought them anyway? This whole thing smells really evil.”
“I know.” Aurora tried to think who their allies might be. “Mr. McCanless would come,” she said doubtfully. “There’s the marshal and Mr. Wells, staying down at the Gum Pond. Surely they’ll hear the noise and come to investigate.”
“We should have invited them to supper.”
“Too late now. Jo, we’re running out of time. We’ve got to do something.”
The two of them crouched, thinking. Aurora feared she’d launched herself and Joelle out of one desperate situation into another one even worse. She didn’t even know what to pray for.
Finally Joelle said quietly, “I have an idea. But it’s going to be pretty scary.”
twenty–six
GUN RELOADED AND READY TO DISCHARGE, Zane stood with his back against the wall between the front door and the shattered window beside it. His physical control over his own mental violence was in an equal hair-trigger state. He didn’t know why Wells and Pierce hadn’t come to investigate the source of gunfire just down the street from the hotel, but surely they would have arrived by now if they were coming at all.
He glanced over at the big oak table, which Riggins had flipped onto its side to protect the women. He hadn’t heard a peep out of them in quite some time. That seemed odd—he hoped no one had fainted—but he dared not leave his post. The seven men in the room—Riggins, Beaumont, young Wyatt, Spencer, the two physicians, and himself—should have been able to repel the attack. But they were already nearly out of ammunition.
Surely the enemy knew that.
A couple of quick attempts to discern the identity of the attackers revealed torch-lit figures in black robes and hoods spread across the lawn—evil costumes disguising evil intent. They had been shouting incoherent insults and threats since the first shots broke up the dinner party. Zane had hoped firing back at them would send them running.
It had not. Now his main fear was that one of them would decide to set the house on fire.
It was time to act.
He caught Riggins’s eye. “Cover me.”
“What are you going to do?” Riggins asked.
“Negotiate.” He slid to the other side of the door and stood behind it as he opened it an inch or two. “Whitmore!” he shouted, taking a stab at the identity of the ringleader. “I want to come out and talk.”
The response was a bullet whizzing into the opening.
Zane slammed the door. Shaking with rage, he moved to the window. “You realize there are seven women and a boy in here, don’t you?”
“A bunch of Negro-loving sluts,” Whitmore yelled. “We’ve put up with them long enough. Nobody wants to hurt them, we just want them gone—and you government flunkies with them.”
“Whitmore, there will be federal troops here next week. So far you haven’t hit anybody, which is miraculous. It’s almost Sunday. Give us a day of peace, then let’s gather on Monday at the courthouse to talk. None of us wants bloodshed, but it’s my job to apprehend the men who killed my fellow officers—and make sure they’re prosecuted according to the law.”
A shotgun fired, presumably into the air. “And I want the scum who murdered my sons in cold blood!” That rough, countrified voice was not Whitmore. In fact Zane was sure he’d never heard it before.
The crowd of cloaked men parted to reveal a solitary gray-bearded figure, dressed in an old-fashioned suit and string tie, advancing with a hunting rifle at his shoulder.
Zane opened the door and stepped onto the porch. “I’m Deputy Marshal Sager. Please identify yourself.”
The man aimed his gun at the center of Zane’s chest. “You’re the one I want. I hear it’s your fault they got to my boys.”
“You must be Mr. Jefcoat,” Zane said coolly. “If you shoot me, there are six guns aimed at you from inside, and one of them is bound to take you out for the murder of a federal officer.”
The rifle wavered. “Where’s my son’s body?”
Zane noted the reference to one body this time. Perhaps his half-black son didn’t rate a Christian burial. “At the morgue awaiting your arrival. Mr. Jefcoat, I did my best to protect them. I would have done so anyway, but you should know that Andrew and Harold had separately agreed to testify against terrorists like these men around you—men who dress up like children in costume and ride around at night, burning down the houses and churches of innocent people. Threatening and beating men doing nothing more than attempting to exercise their legal right to cast a vote. Destroying the property of the free press—which, if I’m not mistaken, is a right guaranteed by the Constitution to every American citizen.”
Rage suffused Jefcoat’s face. He seemed a broken man with very little left to lose. “It’s our votes that don’t count! We were the ones invaded by raiders stealing our property. Now my son is dead. I want justice.”
Voices in the hooded crowd shouted, “That’s right!” and “Tell him, Jefcoat!” and “Murdering Yankees!”
Zane madly picked through possible responses. Why had God put him here at this time? He was no orator. Riggins or Beaumont should come out here to address this rabble. Or even venerable Dr. McGowan. Maybe one of them could calm everybody down.
But he was the one with the badge. He’d sworn to protect the people in this house. Maybe he had failed in the past few days, but that didn’t mean he should give up now.
He lowered his gun, released the hammer, and put it in its holster. He would not raise his hands in surrender, but left them loose at his sides, where all could see. “Mr. Jefcoat”—he raised his voice to be heard above the growing clamor of the mob—“your son was killed at the behest of a man manipulating this bunch around you. They’re all scared the same thing will happen to them if they turn on him.”
The noise of the crowd turned off like a spigot.
“What are you talking about?” Whitmore roared. “Nobody’s scared of nobody.”
“Take off your mask, Whitmore,” Zane said wearily. “Everybody knows who you are. You say you’re not afraid, but disguise is a mark of fear.”
The storekeeper reached up and whipped off his hood. The torchlight revealed his bald head and sweaty, scowling face. “I told you—”
“I’m not done,” Zane said. “Think about what you folks are protesting here. You know who’s in this room? Your neighbors. Your doctor—the man who delivers your babies and sets broken legs and sews you up when you open your hand on a plow blade. A justice of the peace, who settles disputes and marries young couples. A young inventor who might discover a way to get you on the other side of the country in less than a day or figure out how to cure smallpox. And that’s not to mention the women who turned a rundown plantation and a seedy saloon into thriving businesses. You run them out of town, and you’ll be the poorer for it.” Zane took a breath and kept going. “Put that aside for a minute, and let’s go back to Mr. Jefcoat. I’m sorry for your loss, sir. I’d bring those two men back if I could. I’d bring back Judge Teague, Ezekiel Beaumont, Deputy Redding, and Deputy Mosley. But I’m not God, so I can’t. Best I can do is stop the violence right here and now.
“I say that, not as a Southerner or a Northerner or even a federal officer. I say it as a man who wants to marry one of those ladies in there and live here among you. I want to be your neighbor. I want to go to church with you and eat in your hotel restaurant and walk down the street without being afraid somebody’s going to knife me in the back. But that can’t happen if we can’t settle our disagreements in the open, in daylight—and, if necessary, in a court of law.”
“The law’s not on our side!” someone shouted.
A roar of agreement went up.
Zane waited until it abated, then took a step forward. “Think about what you just said! If the law’s not on your side, then whose side are you on? Anarchy? Violence? Screaming and mobbing and tearing each other apart make you less than human. If you don’t like the laws, vote to change them! That’s what Americans just fought a war over—the right for every man to have an equal say in his destiny. In the meantime, give one another room to disagree. Keep arguing—verbally or in print—but keep it civil. Come to the trials, if you wish, listen to the testimonies and decide for yourselves. Don’t let a handful of men with personal agendas, like greed or revenge or hunger for power, twist us against one another. Don’t let them destroy our humanity.”
Had he said enough? Too much? Zane felt as if some powerful current had taken over his body and mind, turning him into a new version of himself. Even with one eye, his vision clarified.
As he looked at Jefcoat, pity filled him. “Mr. Jefcoat, somebody here knows who ordered your sons’ murders. Maybe your political views differ from mine, but we both want that monster brought out into the open and prosecuted.”
Jefcoat wheeled toward the crowd. “Is that true?” he cried, faced twisted in grief. “One of y’all know? Take off those hoods, you cowards, and let me see your faces! I joined the Klan myself this spring, out of fear. I sent both my boys to fight against what I thought of as tyranny—but if I’d known they’d turn on Andrew and Harold—if this is what they do, how can I—how can we bear it?” He sank to his knees, keening, cradling the rifle.
Zane bent to put a hand on the man’s shoulder and, as he did, looked over the robed mob. Behind them had gathered a darker group, dressed in plain homespun and denim, ragged and quiet—but also armed.
The Negro militia had arrived.
Aurora looked down and realized she still carried a full bottle of whiskey. She wondered if she might have to use it after all.
Surrounded by Negro militia, she had stood beside Joelle, bursting with pride and love as Zane finished as eloquent and courageous a speech about constitutional liberty as she’d ever heard.
After escaping from the besieged house, the two of them had hurried down the street to the north end of town, then across the railroad tracks to the gum swamps of Shake Rag. Aurora and Joelle had helped their families rebuild the Negro church there after it burned, had eaten with and worshiped alongside its members—and thus had begun to establish a new and better relationship after the ravages of slavery and war. Perhaps miles remained to go. But steps had been taken in both directions.
Now. Now, it turned out, her family needed them. She and Joelle went first to the pastor, Reverend Boykin, and he called in other men to meet at the church. They listened to her hurried description of the events of the day. And they responded. They went for their hunting rifles and accompanied her and Joelle back to town.
In their company, at this moment, she felt secure, though she couldn’t guess how the crowd would respond to Zane’s plea or Jefcoat’s agonized challenge. She thought the white mob still hadn’t realized they were surrounded. At any moment they could turn, unleashing violence.
She looked for her sister. “Joelle, I think we should slip around to the—”
A rough hand went over her mouth. “Oh, no, missy, I think you’ll stay right here.” She felt something sharp dig into her throat. “Move and I’ll slice you in two where you stand.”
Her blood went to ice. Rolling her eyes to get a glimpse of her captor, she saw nothing but the edge of the beard and long, unkempt hair pressed against her cheek. But the hoarse, high-pitched voice in her ear had given away her captor’s identity. Her arms were fastened to her sides by Jones’s sinewy ones, and she knew if she wiggled, he’d do what he said.
He raised his voice to a harsh rasp. “Everybody shut up and give me room, or I’ll kill her!”
Where was Joelle? Had someone else grabbed her? Was Jones going to kill her in the middle of a hundred people, right there in front of Zane and her family? What did he want? She couldn’t give him the safe code, since she didn’t have it anymore.
She still held the bottle, but it dangled from her numbed hand, useless beneath the powerful arms holding her motionless.
The Negroes around her didn’t seem to know what to do. They moved back, muttering.
“Maney!” Jones shouted. “Where are you? I have her.”
The robes in front of Aurora parted, shuffled, a bizarre dance she would have found amusing if she hadn’t been scared spitless. She found herself held prisoner in the center of a macabre ballroom of hatred, confusion, violence. Torchlight flickered above and all around, with the lamps blazing through the open door and broken windows of the boardinghouse in front of her.
Zane stood on the porch, horror in every line of his face and body.
“Maney!” Jones roared again. “Get whatever you want out of him. He won’t touch you now.”
