Undaunted Love, page 15
He caught up with Nackie at the outskirts of town. The old negro was using a walking stick, one that Rafe recognized as having been his grandfather’s. His back was stooped, and Rafe hated to see him walking so far.
“Nackie!” he called, jogging to catch up with the man.
Nackie slowly turned, and his eyes lit up when he saw Rafe. “Mistuh Rafe, suh! You’s home! Praise the Lord!” Rafe hugged him, realizing just how shrunken the man had become.
“Are you on the way to see Mama?” he asked.
“Yes, suh. Yo mama and me, we been together a long time. Don’t seem right now, bein’ apart. But Miz Hauser, she ain’t got much herself, and even this old man eats too much when you ain’t got nothin’.”
“How’s she doing? Mama, I mean?” Rafe asked.
Nackie was silent for a long moment, speaking volumes. Finally he said, “Not so good, Mistuh Rafe, not so good. She was already weak from those fevers, and then when that man took her house, why she just died inside. She’s right back where she was, not talkin’ and not movin’. Miz Hauser, she been mighty good to her. She was a friend of your grandmama, and she’s all alone now, so she’s dotin’ on poor Miz Mariah. But I don’t know, suh, I just don’t know.”
Rafe didn’t press him for more. He knew the thing Nackie didn’t know: how long his mother was going to live.
Mariah Colton was propped on a long upholstered sofa wrapped in quilts, even though the day was hot and humid. Her hair was lank, her skin frighteningly pale, her lips bloodless. Mrs. Hauser put her hand on Rafe’s arm and squeezed.
“Now dear, she’s not well, as you can see. Don’t be upset if she doesn’t recognize you, you hear? This is one of her bad days, I’m afraid.”
Rafe wondered if she ever had good days. He walked over and sat down gently next to her. She was skeletal, the bones of her face just under the skin, and her body taking up no space under the covers. With the quilt drawn up under her chin, he couldn’t take her hand, but he stroked her hair.
“Mama? It’s me, it’s Rafe.” He watched her face and saw nothing. No flicker of recognition, no warmth, no life. “I’m home now, Mama. The War’s over. I ain’t a soldier no more.” He could feel Nackie and Mrs. Hauser watching him, feel their pity. Anger burned in the pit of his stomach, anger against Mr. Hugh Byrd, against this carpetbagger Mr. Monighan, against the Yankee judge who gave his home away. He leaned over and kissed Mariah’s cheek, feeling the coldness there.
He stood up, clenching his fists. Without a word, he walked out of the room and out into the open. The air was full of the sound of birds and nothing else. He stalked over to a magnolia whose lower limbs had been hacked off, for firewood, he assumed. He kicked a root that had meandered up out of the ground, snaking through the dirt and grass, only to disappear again two feet on. He kicked it again, then again, then hit the tree and kicked its base, hitting and kicking until he felt the tears running down his face and the gnarled hands of Nackie on his arm.
“Mistuh Rafe… Come on now, Mistuh Rafe, you come inside with me. Mrs. Hauser, she has some nice sweet tea. You’ll feel better, you’ll see.”
Rafe allowed Nackie to lead him as far as the front porch, but he sat there on an old rocker, staring sightlessly down the drive. Nackie brought him tea that had been sweetened with honey, and sat down in the chair next to him, but neither spoke. Livvie would come down that drive, and as far as Rafe could tell, she was the only good thing left in his life.
Chapter Thirty-One
IT WAS GETTING DARK WHEN Rafe saw Livvie walking towards him, struggling with a valise. He leapt up and ran down the steps. Livvie spotted him and dropped her bag, lifting her skirts and running towards him. The met and Rafe crushed her to him, kissing her hair, her face, her lips, her throat. Livvie clung to him, crying and laughing and returning whatever kisses landed on her lips. She finally cupped his face in her hands and looked at him, seeing the lines caused by his sorrows, a scar across his forehead and left eyebrow, the dark shadows under his eyes. But she also saw the love, the passion, and, deep inside, the boy she’d known. Yes, this still was her man. She drew his face to hers and kissed him deeply.
After the long kiss, Rafe pulled away, breathless and smiling, and looked at her, drinking her in. Her hair was still long and beautiful, the chestnut waves caught up in a barrette and cascading down her back. Her brown eyes sparkled, with small creases at the corners that hadn’t been there before. She was thinner than he remembered, and there were slight hollows under her cheekbones. Her mouth was soft and smiling at him, the same smile filled with love that he’d dreamed of at night.
“I missed you…” he whispered inadequately, pulling her into him once again. “Every day, every night. Even when I was fighting, I saw your face and knew I had to get back to you.”
He could feel her smile against his chest. “I knew you’d come back. And now we’re free…” She hugged him tighter, unwilling to let him go.
Finally he turned and took her hand, walking back down the drive to retrieve her valise. They walked hand in hand back to the house, enjoying the quiet night, the stars, the crickets and frogs, and, mostly, the nearness of each other.
Mrs. Hauser and Nackie had set up a room for them at the top of the house, a large room with dormers on two sides and a sloped ceiling. Up under the rafters it was cool at night. The room held a big four poster bed covered in well used but impossibly soft cotton linens. Nackie had picked flowers from the ruins of a garden, and there were dozens of beeswax candles. On the bed was laid out an old but clean chemise for Livvie, and a soft white shirt and homespun pants for Rafe. Clean water was in the pitcher.
Rafe washed his hands and face, and when he turned back to the room, he found Livvie in the chemise, standing demurely by the foot of the bed. She held her hand out to him and he came to her, mesmerized by her form silhouetted in the moonlight. She smiled and led him to the bed. He laid her down gently, stretching out next to her, kissing her. His hand ran down her side and he felt her shiver, nothing between his hand and her skin but the thin chemise. Her hair was loose about her, its scent filling his senses. He kissed her again and closed his eyes, losing himself in his bride, putting all thoughts of the War and its aftermath firmly aside.
The next morning they sat outside under the magnolia and ate a light breakfast of corn cakes and chewy bacon with hot coffee. Coffee had been impossible to get for much of the last two years, and Rafe knew that Mrs. Hauser was giving them a great gift by serving them the real thing. Rafe had moved a small whitewashed table and two rickety chairs from the back porch, and Livvie had picked a handful of wildflowers to put in a chipped porcelain vase.
“We could go to my sister’s,” she said, sipping the sweet coffee with enjoyment. “Gardner’s got about a third of his fields planted with cotton. That was all the seed he could get. And he put down tobacco on a few acres. He couldn’t pay you right away, but if we help, he would pay from the proceeds of the sale after the harvest.”
Rafe thought about it. If they moved to Wadmalaw, they’d have a roof over their heads and food on the table, and once the crops were harvested and the tobacco cured, he’d have some money in his pocket to get them established in Charleston. He knew that his long term prospects were best with Mr. Greene, but if they went to Charleston now, they’d have no place to live.
“If Gardner will have me, I think that’s the best plan. I can work, if they can give us room and board. Then we can move on for the job at the sawmill after harvest.”
Livvie smiled. “Madeline and I have already talked about it. Daddy won’t be best pleased, I’m quite sure, but the Kinney farm is far enough from Hugh Byrd’s wrath that we’ll take the risk. We’ll have to tell Mama and Daddy about our marriage first, though, and Daddy is up in Charleston right now.”
“When’ll he be back, then?” Rafe asked. He didn’t relish the conversation, but thought it better to be done with than anticipating it.
“I don’t rightly know. I expect by the end of the week. He usually comes home for the weekends.” She nibbled some bacon. “Mama isn’t well, nor is Emmy, but Micah is still with us and he’s helping out. Fortunately, Wyman doesn’t come around anymore.” She hadn’t told Rafe about her near rape at his hands, nor her salvation at her brother-in-law’s. It hadn’t been seemly to write it down, and, now that Rafe was home, she only wanted to forget it.
“Are you staying here?” Rafe asked.
“I can tonight, then I’ll have to go home.” She took his hand and kissed it. “But soon we’ll be together all the time, and nothin’ will keep us apart.”
“These four days are gonna seem longer than the whole War!” Rafe said, laughing.
Livvie spent time that morning with Mariah, reading to her, bathing her and washing her hair. She was as small as a child now, and showed no reaction to her at all. Livvie kissed her and said goodbye with tears on her cheeks. Her own mama was ill, too, but at least she still smiled and her eyes were still alive, even if the rest of her was dying.
Rafe did what he could to repair Mrs. Hauser’s house, although she, too, had been unable to pay her property taxes and would likely lose her farm. Her fields had grown up with saplings and scrub, her horse was near lame, and she’d had to sell off all her slaves after her husband had died in 1861. Desperate but not broken, she was still quick to smile, and she offered what hospitality she could with joy.
Nackie spent a good deal of time napping on the front porch. Rafe didn’t know how old the negro was, but he had to be at least sixty, and the last few years had been incredibly hard. Deprivation, caretaking, and worry, had taken their toll. Perhaps the Kinneys would allow Nackie to come live on their farm until harvest, too, and he could go to Charleston with them. Rafe decided that he would talk to his wife that afternoon.
The day was hazy and hot, the humidity making the air feel like a rain shower. Everyone was sweating, and even Mariah had kicked off the quilts. In the heat of the day, Rafe and Livvie took a blanket and lay under an old, half dead, oak on a small rise, hoping to catch a small breeze. Their upper room, lovely in the cool of the night, was a furnace in the heat of the day. They were dozing, holding hands, when they heard hoof beats galloping up the drive. Rafe stood and pulled his wife to her feet, trying to see who was coming. It could be awkward if Livvie was found here with him, so he pushed her towards the back of the house.
“Go inside until we see who it is. We don’t need word getting to your daddy before we have a chance to tell him ourselves.” He walked towards the front steps.
When her got there, he saw three men he didn’t recognize. One had a badge on his jacket. They swung down off their horses, eyes fixed on him.
“Rafe Colton?” the man with the badge asked, his accent not from the islands.
“Yes, sir, and you are?” Rafe countered.
“I’m the sheriff, Louis Gingras. We’re here to talk to you about Mr. James Monighan.”
Rafe looked blank. “I don’t know any Monighan.”
“He bought your house a month or two back…” The sheriff let that hang there, waiting.
Rafe shrugged. “I never met him. I been in Virginia, just got home yesterday.”
“You can’t be happy about losing your house,” Gingras said.
“Course I ain’t happy about losing my house. I weren’t happy about losing my land neither, but that didn’t stop it happenin’. My mama did her best, and it wasn’t enough. But I seen a lot worse these last four years.”
Gingras was silent a moment, then said, “James Monighan was murdered last night, in his house. In your house. Somebody strangled him.”
Rafe stared. “I ain’t been out there. I was here all night. That’s what you’re sayin’, right, that I killed him?”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“I seen enough killin’ to last me a lifetime, Sheriff. I got home and came here, and everyone here can tell you that’s so.” Rafe was getting angry.
“They saw you all night, then? Monighan was killed in his bed, after midnight.” The sheriff continued to look at him, blank faced, barely blinking.
“I was with…” Rafe stopped. “I didn’t kill him. I don’t have a horse, and I didn’t go out to the house. I was here. All night, and all day today.”
“Mrs. Hauser, they tell me she’s got a horse,” Gingras drawled.
“A half lame horse,” Rafe said. “You can go take a look at her yourself. If I’d ridden her out to the house, I’d still be on the road.”
“Mr. Monighan was new to Byrd’s Creek, didn’t know too many folks. He didn’t exactly have time to make enemies.”
“He was a Yankee, and a carpetbagger what’s more. He didn’t have to do nothing to make enemies around here. But I didn’t kill him.” Rafe stood tall, arms crossed over his chest, jaw set, feet apart. He looked like the officer he’d been, and older than his age.
The sheriff stared at him awhile, then shrugged and mounted up. “Ain’t nobody else we can think of that would want to kill Mr. Monighan but you, and it’s awfully coincidental that you get home and he gets dead.”
“A bit too coincidental, don’t you think?” Rafe asked, not cowing.
Gingras shrugged again. “Sometimes things are just what they look like. I’ll be talkin’ to the judge tomorrow, and I expect I’ll be coming out to visit you again. You might want to pack a bag, seein’s how the jail ain’t got much in the way of creature comforts.” He mounted and whirled his horse around, cantering down the drive. His two men were close on his heels. When they were out of sight Rafe sagged, his bravado gone. He turned and trudged up the steps.
Chapter Thirty-Two
WHEN RAFE ENTERED THE HOUSE, he found Nackie and Livvie pacing in the back parlor. Livvie ran over and hugged him tightly when he walked in.
“We could hear… We were standin’ in the hall,” Nackie said. “Sheriff ain’t got the sense God gave a goat, he thinks you killed somebody.”
“Well, I have killed people, Nack, but it ain’t the same in battle. Leastwise so they say. Maybe some men come back from war ready to keep killin’, but not me. I’ve seen enough death to last me the rest of my life. But I don’t think that matters to Mr. Gingras none. He’s convinced I did it, and he said he’d be back to take me to jail.”
Livvie’s hand flew to her mouth and the color drained from her face. “But you didn’t! I can tell him! You were with me all night.”
“Yep, but who’s he gonna believe. If you tell him why you were with me all night, he’ll know we’ve been lying for four years now, to almost everybody. To Mr. Hugh High-and-Mighty Byrd most of all. On top of that, what wife wouldn’t lie for her husband? He ain’t gonna believe you, and we gain nothin’ by tellin’ him, Liv.”
Nackie sat down heavily in a chair. “Mistuh Rafe’s right, Miz Liv, and yo daddy’s the one what bring that new sheriff to Byrd’s Creek anyhow. He been actin’ like a mayor even though he ain’t one, and mayor ain’t high enough for yo daddy anyhow. ‘Scuse me for saying, ma’am.”
Livvie shrugged. “You’re right, Nackie, I know it. My daddy’s not a nice man, and he’s set his sights on gettin’ back all he lost in the War and more, and by any means. He worked with Mr. Monighan somehow to take your house, Rafe, and he won’t care about why you’re out of the way. He’ll just be glad you are.”
“What could I do to him anyway? Seems to me he worked it all legal and proper. I’m not even stayin’ in town!” Rafe ran his fingers through his long hair.
“He doesn’t know that. He knows people like you, and that they weren’t any too happy when he got your farmland. Carpetbaggers sure aren’t popular – we all suffered through as best we could during the War, and some Yankee taking a family’s home for a song, just because they have Union money when we’re not even back on our feet… Well, it wouldn’t help him none if everybody knew he helped one of ‘em.” Livvie paced the floor. “But still and all, we need to tell.”
“No. This ain’t how we’re telling your mama we’re married, when you’re trying to keep my neck out of a noose.” He slammed his fist into the doorframe. “It ain’t fair!”
Livvie sat down and watched her husband. The pent up frustration from the War, all the death, the defeat, his house… It was too much for him, and she knew that there was nothing she could say that would change it or make it better. And he was right, it wasn’t fair. He’d volunteered, he’d proved himself on the battlefield, he’d stayed until the bitter end. How could they want more from him now, and accuse him of this heinous crime?
He decided he wouldn’t take Jeb Greene’s horse or Nackie, nor would he take his wife. How could he take her, when he had no money, no prospects, and no idea where he was going? He was used to hardship, to sleeping in the woods, to eating acorns and squirrels. His wife deserved better, and he loved her too much to make her a fugitive.
The night had been quiet. Rafe was angry and sullen by turns, Livvie downcast, Nackie exhausted. Mariah Colton seemed in an even worse state, and Mrs. Hauser, sensing the tension but not knowing its source, dithered and chattered until Rafe wanted to stick cotton boles in his ears. They went to bed, and Rafe softened. He had decided to leave, but he didn’t want their last memories of each other to be of fear and angry silence. He held her and stroked her hair, kissed her, and they made love quietly but intensely. Livvie fell asleep, and when her breathing was smooth and regular, Rafe left her side.
