"That's very sensible, ma'am," Captain Powell said.
In disbelief, Rachel and I watched Captain Powell follow Mama upstairs. She kept her back straight and her head high.
Rachel began to cry. She would have chased after Mama if I hadn't stopped her.
"Mama said to wait here," I said. It was hard to speak, for my mouth was dry and my tongue felt as if it had swollen to twice its natural size. I wasn't sure I could have climbed those steps, for my knees had melted and I could barely stand.
Upstairs the captain slammed the bedroom door. In the deadly quiet, we both heard the key turn, locking us out. Never had I felt so useless in my life. If only I were older and braver. If only I had a gun or the gumption to fight for Mama. It seemed I was nothing but a puny weakling, of no more help than Rachel.
4
RACHEL AND I WAITED at the foot of the steps, praying to God to keep our mama from harm. We heard nothing from upstairs. Not one sound. Rachel began to cry.
Suddenly, a gunshot shattered the silence.
Rachel screamed. Like me, she must have thought the captain had shot Mama. I wanted to run upstairs, but I still couldn't make myself move.
I heard the bedroom door open and then slam shut. Rachel buried her face in my shirt and clung to me. I shut my eyes to keep from seeing the captain pointing his gun at us.
"Haswell, Rachel," Mama called in a high, unnatural voice.
I opened my eyes and looked up. Mama stood at the top of the stairs. Her face was dead white, her hair tumbled in a tangled mass down her back, and the front of her dress was torn. Worst of all, she was spattered with blood. Face, hair, dress. In one hand was the revolver Papa had given her for protection.
"Mama, you're bleeding," I cried.
"It's his blood, not mine," she whispered. "God forgive me, I've killed him."
Rachel and I ran upstairs. My sister flung her arms around Mama. "We thought he'd killed you," she sobbed. "We thought you were dead."
Mama paid no mind to Rachel. She went on speaking in that high, trembling voice. "I took the pistol out from under the pillow. I shot him dead."
I started to open the bedroom door to make sure he was truly dead, but Mama stopped me. "Don't look. I shot him in the face."
"What will those men do when they come back?" Rachel whispered. "Will they hang us?"
"Maybe we should hide," I said.
"I killed him," Mama said. "I took the pistol from under the pillow and I, and I—"
"Mama." I shook her gently, hoping to bring her back from wherever she'd gone. "Mama, what should we do now?"
"Thou shalt not kill," Mama murmured. "Thou shalt not—"
Rachel began to cry. "Mama, Mama," she begged. "He was a wicked man, he tried to hurt you."
"You had to kill him, Mama," I said. "You had to!"
But nothing we said had any effect. Mama stood there, the revolver dangling from her hand, and stared about her as if she saw nothing.
I took the revolver from her and stuck it the waistband of my pants. She didn't move or speak. She might as well have been walking in her sleep.
It scared me to see her like that, for she'd been the same when the last baby died. Grieving and mourning, blaming herself for poor little Benjamin's death. Her milk had been bad, she hadn't kept him warm enough, she'd neglected him in some basic way that had made him sicken and die. None of it was true. Doctor Adams told her over and over the baby had come early and was too small to live, but it was at least six months before she stopped crying whenever she thought of him.
Papa said Mama was delicate. She took life hard. In bad times, he'd been there to comfort her, to love her back to life. But Papa had been dead more than a year and Mama was still grieving him. If only I'd had the revolver, if only I'd been the one to shoot the captain. But no, it had to be poor, delicate Mama.
While Rachel hugged Mama and tried to comfort her, I put my mind to work. We had to do something before the soldiers came back. Get rid of the captain's body, clean up the blood, hide his horse. We'd need the horse ourselves if we managed to survive the night.
I squeezed my sister's arm to get her attention. "Stay with Mama, Rachel. I have to hide the horse."
I opened the front door to a blast of wind and sleet. The captain's horse was tied to the porch railing, waiting patiently. He let me lead him across the icy grass and into the woods. No doubt he thought I was a groom come to take him to the barn and feed him, dry his coat, and cover him with a blanket. He wasn't going to be happy when he learned the truth.
I took him down into the gully and tied him to a tree. I didn't want anyone to hear if he whinnied. Which he did loudly. "Hush," I said, stroking his sides and neck. "Hush, now. You're all right here. Safe. I aim to take good care of you."
When I'd managed to calm the horse somewhat, I headed back to the house. The sleet was still falling, pricking my face till my skin stung. I dreaded the task that lay ahead of me. But I was the only one fit to hide the captain's body. Lord, I wished Avery were here. He always knew what to do, and the best way to accomplish it. I cursed him under my breath.
And James Marshall, too. If only he'd chosen some other farm. Why in God's name had he stopped at our door, bringing the devil with him? And now he was free, riding back to Mosby to win more glory, leaving us to deal with the Yankees. Nothing in this world was fair, and that was the truth. It was enough to make me doubt God's goodness. What if Our Lord sat on high like Zeus and watched us suffer? Maybe He sent angels to help those He favored. Maybe the devil sent fiends to help those he favored.
At the house I found Rachel and Mama sitting at the kitchen table. Rachel had fixed tea and was trying to get Mama to drink it, but Mama's hand shook so bad she couldn't hold the cup steady. Her face was clean of the captain's blood, but her dress was still soaked with it. I'd never seen Mama kill as much as a mouse or even a spider. She was the sort that caught them as gently as she could and set them outside. Papa used to tease her about her tender heart. He might not have recognized her when she'd opened that bedroom door, holding the revolver in her hand, and told us what she'd done.
"Are you feeling better, Mama?" I asked.
She didn't answer, just sat there clutching the cup, her hair loose, her face blank. I'd seen a woman being hauled off to the county poor farm once. Avery had told me she'd gone crazy—that was why her husband was sending her away. It seemed a hard thing to do, but the woman didn't seem to care where they took her. She'd sat in the wagon, her head down, her eyes as vacant as Mama's were now.
Rachel patted Mama's shoulder and stroked her hair. "It will be all right, Mama. Haswell's taking care of everything."
"Haswell's a boy," Mama whispered. "Avery's no help, either. He's never here when troubles come. We need Papa. He'd know what to do." She turned her face to the window. "When is Burton coming back?"
Rachel and I looked at each other. "But, Mama," Rachel said, "Papa can't come back. He's, he's—don't you remember?"
"Oh, yes." Mama sighed. "The war. He's at the war. I begged and begged Burton not to get involved in all that killing and dying. But he went anyway. Out of duty and honor, he said."
Mama struck the table with her fist. Tea slopped over the rim of her cup. "His duty is here," she said. "To us. Honor and glory—what good are they to anybody but a fool?"
I touched Mama's shoulder lightly. "Drink your tea, Mama. I swear I'll make things right. Just trust me." To tell the truth, I was getting edgy. Those soldiers could come back any minute. Fearful a task as it was, I had to hide the captain's body before they returned.
Mama looked up at me, her eyes sharpening. "You're a good boy, Haswell. Promise me you won't run off to the war. Stay home, read your Bible—" Her voice broke and she began to cry.
I patted her hand. "I promise to stay here and take care of you. I promise, Mama." Turning to Rachel. I said, "Try to calm her."
Leaving them in the kitchen, I walked slowly down the hall and climbed the stairs like an old man, one step at
a time, dreading the task before me. At the closed bedroom door, I paused. It wasn't as if I'd never seen a dead person. Folks died all the time. Grandfather Colby, Grandmother and Grandfather Magruder, a great aunt, my baby brother. They'd been laid out properly, their faces peaceful, their hands crossed on their breasts. They'd looked as if they'd been expecting death somehow and were content to go with him.
Since the war began, I'd seen worse deaths—soldiers killed in skirmishes and left where they'd fallen in the woods by the road. Some boys stole the corpses' uniform buttons and searched their pockets. Not me. I hadn't looked at them closely and I'd never touched one. Those soldiers hadn't gone peacefully. They'd been taken unawares, and the sight of their sprawled bodies scared me. They didn't lie there long. Somebody, usually soldiers, fetched them and did the burying.
But this time, it was I, Haswell Colby Magruder, who had to do the fetching and the burying. And I had to do it fast.
I took a deep breath and slowly eased the door open. The kerosene lamp burned low beside the bed, casting long shadows on the wall. The wind tugged at the shutters just enough to make them rap against the house. I could see the captain sprawled on the bed, his face hidden in the shadows. The wind rose and banged the shutters harder. It blew in through the cracks and the kerosene lamp flickered. The shadows wavered and made me think the captain was about to sit up. I backed away, reaching for the revolver, preparing to shoot him again and again until I was sure he was dead.
When he failed to move, I forced myself to walk to the side of the bed. My legs were weak and a vile taste surged up my throat, but I made myself look at the captain. Half his head was blown away. His blood soaked the sheets and quilts and pillows with crimson. His one remaining eye glared at me in fury. If the dead could curse, I was damned for all eternity.
Much as I feared to touch him, I hauled him off the bed. His body hit the wooden floor with a dull thud that shivered my flesh. His arms and legs twitched as if he were coming back to life after all. I jumped back, my heart pounding, and watched him settle down. When I was once again sure he was dead, I wrapped him in a quilt Mama had made, ruined now with blood and gore. I remembered her piecing it together in a pattern she called the Drunkard's Path, working hard all through the warm months so it would be ready for winter's cold nights.
Just as I finished wrapping the captain's body, I heard a small sound. Rachel stood in the doorway, staring at me and the corpse.
"How long have you been standing there?"
"Since that loud noise," she whispered. "I was scared something had happened, that maybe he wasn't dead after all."
"Did you see him?"
Rachel shuddered. "I never saw anything so horrible in my life. All that blood. How did you dare touch him?"
"I had to. We've got to get him out of the house, hide him somewhere. If those soldiers see him..."
Rachel looked past me at the bed. "How are you going to clean that mess up?"
"With water and a scrub brush, I reckon."
"That will take a long time," Rachel said. "What if the soldiers come back before you're done?"
I looked down at the body and then at the bloody bed. The soldiers had been gone for about thirty minutes. They were sure to be back soon, cold and angry and emptyhanded.
"You could leave him in here and lock the door," Rachel suggested.
Before I left the room, I scooped up the bullets Papa had kept in the top dresser drawer and dropped them into my pocket. Though I hoped I wouldn't need them, it was smart to be prepared for calamity.
Although I disliked the idea of agreeing with a seven-year-old girl, Rachel's idea made sense. "We could tell his men he left to join them," I said.
"And they must have missed him in the dark," Rachel added. "So they should go find him right away."
Turning our backs on the captain's body, we locked the door, and ran downstairs to the kitchen.
Mama was still at the table, the empty teacup clutched in her hands, as if she was trying to warm them. I sat down opposite her and took the cup from her. Holding her hands, I told her I'd hidden the captain's horse and left his body in the bedroom. "When the soldiers come back, we'll tell them the captain rode after them. They must have missed him in the dark."
"And he said for them to follow him at once," Rachel put in.
"I killed him," Mama whispered, "I killed him."
"No, don't say that!" I cried. "We can't let on anything's wrong."
I turned to Rachel. "Help her fix her hair."
While Rachel fetched the comb and hairpins, I draped a shawl over Mama's shoulders to hide the tear in her dress and the blood staining the front. "You have to act as if nothing happened."
Mama turned to me, tears running down her face, "But, Haswell," she sobbed. "I killed him. There was blood everywhere. Oh, God, forgive me."
"Mama, please." I held her hands so tight I could feel her bones. "Please don't carry on like this. You did what you had to do. The Lord knows that."
Mama lowered her head and plucked at her skirt. "His blood is soaking through my dress. I feel it on my skin."
It wouldn't do. Mama would tell those soldiers what she'd done. They'd kill us all then. Even if Mama kept quiet, they might take her upstairs the way the captain had. And then they'd most likely kill us. I'd heard rumors of such things happening to women left alone on farms. Deserters from both sides, soldiers bent on vengeance—it didn't matter whether they were from the North or the South sometimes. Depended on their nature. The last time Papa had come home, he'd said war lets out the beast in men. Now I knew what he'd meant.
I got Mama to her feet and told Rachel to fetch our coats and all the blankets she could carry.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because we're going to hide in the gully down in the woods. We don't dare stay here and wait for those men to come back."
Rachel looked at me as if I'd lost my wits. "But, Haswell, it's cold and it's sleeting. And it's dark."
I grabbed her shoulders and peered into her eyes. "We can't trust Mama not to tell those Yankees exactly what she did. And then what do you think they'll do to us?"
There must have been something in my voice that scared her, for she scurried away and came back as fast as she could, loaded down with coats and blankets. We bundled Mama up as best we could and struggled to get her out the door.
"No," she cried. "I must stay here and be punished for what I did."
Ignoring her cries, Rachel and I managed to force her through the door.
The wind blasted us with sleet. Slipping and sliding on the icy ground, we made our way across the yard. Mama's lamentations mingled with the sound of the wind. At any moment I expected to see the Yankees riding toward us, their guns aimed at our heads.
5
ONCE WE WERE AMONGST the trees, we had some shelter from the wind, but the ground was so icy we could scarcely stay on our feet. I headed toward the gully where I'd hidden the captain's horse. He stood where I'd left him, enduring the sleet. When he saw me, he raised his head and whinnied. I wished I'd thought to bring a handful of oats for him. But at the moment, Rachel and Mama were my concern. Passing the horse by, I led the two of them under a rock overhang.
"I'm cold," Rachel whispered. Her teeth were chattering, and I could feel her shaking on one side of me and Mama on the other. Mama was still muttering about blood and hellfire.
"We're all cold, Rachel," I said. "Just be still and listen for those men."
Whimpering to herself, Rachel snuggled into Mama's side like a newborn kitten trying to warm itself. Mama put her arm around Rachel, but it was just a gesture. She didn't seem concerned about either Rachel or me. Or herself. Whether we survived the night or not made no difference to her.
For a while all we heard was the wind lashing the trees and the sleet pattering on the ground. Then my ears caught the sound of voices. I'd been certain they'd be coming from the other direction, but they were only a few feet away, riding along a trail at the top of the gully. r />
I hugged Mama and Rachel, praying they'd keep quiet. "I'll be right back," I whispered. "Stay here and don't make a sound."
Thinking the sound of the storm would cover any noise I made, I crept up to the edge of the gully and watched the men ride toward me.
"We must be almost there," Anderson said.
"Won't the captain be pleased when he sees what we got?" The man riding close behind laughed.
"He ain't so sassy now." The Yankee glanced at the black horse he was leading. A body lay across its back. It was James Marshall, clearly dead. I reached for Papa's revolver, thinking I'd murder the devils, but in the dark, with the trees around, I had no hope of killing all three. I'd end up giving Mama and Rachel's hiding place away. Filled with hatred, I crouched behind a rock and watched the Yankees file past.
"Powell better show us some gratitude," Anderson said. "He's been snug and warm while we been out here freezing our asses off."
"Pray them Rebs ain't Methodists or Baptists. I could use a whiskey long 'bout now."
"How about you, Hicks? Some fire in your belly might give you some grit."
Hicks didn't say anything. He rode his horse in a dispirited way, his head hanging down as if he were close to sleeping.
The men disappeared into the darkness. Long after they were out of sight, I could hear them laughing and cursing.
I slid back down the hill, my heart heavy with grief for James Marshall. It shamed me to think I'd blamed our troubles on him and now he was dead. Mama had cured him only for him to die.
"Are they gone?" Rachel asked in a scared little voice.
"Yes."
"Did they catch James Marshall?"
I put my arm around her. "I'm afraid they did."
"Is he dead?"
I hugged her closer. "Yes."