I squatted down beside Mama and felt her forehead. As I'd feared, her skin was still burning-hot to the touch. A fit of coughing woke her and she looked at me.
"Haswell," she murmured. "I was dreaming of Burton. He came riding out of the mist and called my name." She stopped to cough, her gaze unfocused as if she were still seeing Papa. "I ran to him and it was springtime. We were young. Birds sang the sweetest songs. It was like heaven."
I had to lean close to hear her, for her voice was low and hoarse and she couldn't speak easily.
"That was a wonderful dream," I said. Her fever-bright eyes reminded me of James Marshall on his first night with us. Mama had nursed him through his illness. But how was I to nurse her?
"Yes, it was." Mama smiled. "I love your papa so much." Her smile faded and the troubled look returned. "But he shouldn't have gone off to war."
"He had to go, Mama. You know that."
She shook her head and frowned. "War means killing, and killing's wrong. It's wrong, Haswell."
I patted her hand and she began coughing again, harder this time, as if she'd never stop. "Where's Rachel gone to?" she asked when she could.
"To the springhouse, for water."
Mama nodded. "I'm so cold," she whispered.
"When Rachel comes with the water, I'll brew sassafras tea," I told Mama. But she was already asleep.
Just as I was thinking I'd have to go find Rachel, she appeared at the top of the steps, holding Sophia.
"Where's the water?" I asked.
She came down the steps and huddled beside me. "Why did he have to die?"
"Oh, Rachel." It seemed everyone asked me questions I couldn't answer.
"He looked so sad," she went on. "It fair broke my heart." The tears started then, and I hugged her tight. She was a skinny little thing, bony in my arms and shivering as if she'd never be warm again.
We sat together till she stopped crying. Then I put on my damp clothes and went to get the water. I glanced at James Marshall. He lay as still as before. If only he'd open his eyes and sit up and not be dead after all. But that only happened in dreams. He wasn't ever going to be alive again.
I carried a pail of water back to the root cellar, and Rachel brewed sassafras tea. We woke Mama when it was ready and got her to drink some, but she wouldn't eat more than a mouthful of the potato.
"I'm not hungry," she said. "You eat it."
Since we couldn't persuade her differently, Rachel and I divided Mama's potato between us. Though I wished Mama had eaten it herself, I didn't want to waste food.
***
The day passed slowly. Mama slept, coughed, woke, slept again. In a wakeful spell she told Rachel how to make soup with the carrots, parsnips, turnips, onions, and potatoes she'd stored in the root cellar.
"It would taste better if we had salt and a good beef bone," Mama said, "but we'll have to make do with what we have." She smiled at Rachel and patted her hand.
For a moment Mama seemed like her old self, and I let myself hope she was getting better. I listened to her give Rachel a few tips about making biscuits and peach cobblers, baking bread and deep-dish apple pies. Unfortunately, we had no flour, and so my stomach growled in vain for the delicacies Mama used to make for us.
Gradually her speech slowed and her voice dropped and she was asleep again, waking herself now and then with coughing spells.
"Is there any more of that medicine Mama brewed for James Marshall?" Rachel asked. "It might help her."
I shook my head. "I reckon everything burned up in the fire."
"I should have listened when Mama tried to teach me about herbs." Rachel sat with her knees drawn up tight and rested her chin on them. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "But I couldn't bear the way those things smelled. I always ran off. I knew how to make myself scarce, Mama said."
She raised her head and looked at me. "Why didn't I learn about remedies and cures and such? Grandma Colby's right about me. I'm a lazy, sinful girl."
I patted her shoulder. "Don't carry on so, Rachel. How could you know something like this would happen?"
"If Mama dies, it'll be all my fault."
"Mama won't die!" This time I shouted in her face and shook her. I wasn't about to let my sister say a frightful thing like that. It didn't bear thinking about, let alone saying out loud.
Rachel squirmed away from me and put some distance between us. "But what if she does, Haswell? What will happen to us? Where will we go? Who will shelter us?"
Rachel's voice rose so high she woke Mama. She reached out and grabbed my wrist with her hot hand.
"Rachel's right to worry," Mama whispered. "If I die, promise you'll go to your Grandma Colby. But be careful. War is everywhere these days. War and killing." She broke off and started another coughing fit.
"We'll all go to Grandma Colby's," I told her. "I'll put you on the captain's horse, and Rachel and I will walk alongside of you. You'll look like a queen."
Mama shook her head, coughing too hard to speak.
"Here, Mama." Rachel held out another cup of sassafras tea. "Drink this."
Mama's hands shook so badly she couldn't hold the cup, so Rachel carefully spooned it into her mouth. After a few sips, Mama turned her head away. "Enough, Rachel, enough." Gazing past us to the square of sky outside the root cellar door, she smiled. "Your papa's coming," she whispered. "Everything will be all right when he gets here."
Mama's head fell back and her eyes closed. Once again she slept. Rachel and I sat beside her and fed the fire to keep her warm. The sun slid down the sky, turning the clouds scarlet and purple, as if all heaven was afire. A preacher might have claimed it was the end of the world at last, but the colors soon faded to dull grays and lavender, and it was an ordinary night after all.
The next time Mama woke, Rachel and I tried to feed her the soup, but she turned her head away. We sat by her and ate our portions.
"Is it all right?" Rachel asked me.
"What? The soup?"
She nodded, her eyes on mine. "Is it as good as Mama's?"
I took another big swallow and smiled. "Why, it's delicious, Rachel. You're a very good cook."
Rachel sighed happily and went on eating. Though I never, ever would have told her so, the soup was flat and watery compared to Mama's, but that might have been because she'd had no salt or beef bone to put in the pot. I ate every bit, swallowing with zest, doing my best to make my sister feel good about something.
I went out a few times to fetch wood to keep the fire going. I also fed and watered Ranger, which meant another trip to the springhouse. James Marshall was as quiet as ever, keeping his thoughts to himself the way the dead do. I gazed at him a long while, pondering the mystery of life and death, of heaven and hell, but I can't say I came up with any new notions about these matters. The world just seemed to roll along while we got born and lived and died. Just a little while ago, James Marshall was alive, with no idea his life was almost over. It could be the same with me. With all of us. Alive now ... dead tomorrow.
I folded my arms tightly across my chest, feeling the living warmth of my own body. Even though I was looking straight at a dead man, I couldn't believe someday I'd be cold and still like James Marshall. How could I, Haswell Colby Magruder, die? How could the world go on without me?
Slowly I reached out and touched James Marshall's face. His skin was as cold as stone and just as hard. It no longer had the feel of human flesh.
I picked up the pail of water and went out, pulling the door shut tight. As I crossed the yard, the moon sailed out from behind the clouds. I watched it race across a patch of dark sky and duck behind another cloud, as if it were running from pursuers.
7
IN THE ROOT CELLAR Rachel knelt beside Mama. The firelight lit the two of them like figures in a painting.
Rachel looked up at me. "I coaxed her to drink more tea, but most of it just ran out of her mouth."
I dropped down beside Rachel and took Mama's hand in mine. Her skin near burned me.
"Won't you please drink something, Mama?"
She shook her head and coughed. "I told you, your papa's on his way. Don't you hear his horse?"
I listened hard, fearing it could be someone else—one of Captain Powell's men returning to look for us, maybe, or a marauder who'd seen our fire. A fox barked a long way off. The wind sprang up and the tree limbs rattled like dry bones. But even when I went to the cellar door and looked out, I neither saw nor heard a horse.
I sat back down and took hold of Mama's hand again. She murmured Papa's name, and I hoped she was dreaming that nice dream about her and Papa walking in the green woods. Rachel leaned against me, clutching Sophia, and slept like a baby. Every now and then she twitched and squirmed, but nothing woke her. I reckoned she was worn out from all that had happened to us.
At some point Mama began to sing in a voice so low I had to lean close to hear. "Down in the valley, the valley so low," she sang.
It was her favorite song, the one she lulled Avery and Rachel and me to sleep with when we were little children scared of the dark. I joined in, keeping my voice as low as hers.
"Hear the wind blow, dear, hear the wind blow," we sang. "Down in the valley, hear the wind blow."
Slowly her voice faded and she looked at me and smiled. "Those were good times back then, Haswell. All of us together. Safe. No war. The Valley was so green, so lovely. And we were happy, weren't we?" She closed her eyes again and slept, her hand holding mine tight.
Although I meant to watch Mama all night, I must have fallen asleep, for the next thing I knew the gray light of dawn was creeping down the cellar steps and spreading across the floor like spoiled milk. Rachel had toppled over on her side, sucking her thumb in her sleep. Sophia sprawled beside her, her arms outspread, her china face expressionless.
I looked at Mama, hoping the fever had gone down in the night, but when I reached over and touched her forehead, she felt as hot as ever. She opened her eyes and smiled. "It's Papa," she whispered.
She sounded so sure I looked at the cellar door, expecting to see Papa standing there, not dead after all, ready to make everything right again. But all I saw was the blank gray sky. The flash of hope faded, and I turned back to Mama.
I didn't need to touch her again to know that she was gone. "No." I grabbed Mama's hands. "Come back, Mama, don't leave us!"
Rachel sat up, startled out of her sleep. "Haswell, what's wrong?"
"It's Mama," I wept. "She's—"
Rachel flung herself on Mama, sobbing loud enough to wake her. But Mama was beyond hearing. She neither spoke nor breathed nor moved.
I don't know how long the two of us crouched beside Mama, mourning her passing. At one point Rachel fell asleep, leaving me to sit alone and wonder what to do next. Grandma Colby's house was half a day's ride from our place. If we set out by noon, we'd get there before dark. But how could we leave Mama behind?
By the time Rachel woke up, I'd decided what to do.
My sister looked at Mama and started crying again. "Oh, Haswell," she sobbed, "I was hoping it was just a bad dream."
I stroked her hair. Rachel had never looked so pitiful. Mama had kept her neat and clean, her dresses fresh, her hair combed. Now she looked like the orphan she was, her dress torn and dirty, her face and hands grimy, her un-braided hair a tangled mop.
"What are we going to do?" she asked. "What will become of us?"
"We have to go to Grandma Colby's, like Mama said."
"And leave Mama here?" Rachel stared at me, her face pale under the soot and dirt.
"We'll carry her to the springhouse. She'll be safe there."
Rachel thought about my idea and sighed a deep sigh.
"We can't stay here," I said softly.
Slowly Rachel nodded her head. "But what if Avery comes home? He won't know where Mama is. Or us, either."
"When we get to Grandma Colby's, I'll write him a letter. Or maybe I'll go find him myself and bring him home. Where he ought to be. We need him." Once again my anger grew. What did the army want with a boy like Avery? He should have stayed with us. He should have helped us. He should be here right now telling me what to do.
"You can't go off looking for Avery," Rachel said. "I need you." She started crying again. I put my arms around her and she clung to me, her head pressed against my chest.
Though I said nothing more to my sister, I decided then and there to leave Rachel with Grandma Colby and set out to find Avery. The biggest problem would be getting from here to Petersburg. It was a long way, almost two hundred miles, even farther than Richmond. I'd been to the capital many times to see Papa's relatives. Once I got near the city, I'd keep going south, following signposts to Petersburg. I had a good horse to ride and I was sure I could do it.
Gently I freed myself from my sister's arms. "Help me wrap Mama in her blanket, Rachel."
"We should wash her first," Rachel said softly. "And comb her hair. That's what Mama did when Grandma Magruder died."
Rachel tore off part of her slip and dipped it in the bucket of water I'd brought from the springhouse. Carefully she washed the soot and dirt from Mama's face and did her best to tidy her hair. By the time she was done, Mama looked more like herself. But her face was sad.
I hoped someday I'd remember Mama's smile and her laugh, the bedtime stories she told and the songs she sang. But at that moment I couldn't picture her any way but the way she was now.
Without saying a word to each other, Rachel and I wrapped Mama in the blanket. Somehow we got her up the steps and across the yard. Gently we laid her on the stone floor next to James Marshall. The cold had kept him well. I hoped it wouldn't warm up till Grandma Colby sent someone to bury the two of them properly.
Rachel and I knelt together. When we'd said all the prayers we knew, we kissed Mama and James Marshall good-bye and left the springhouse. After I shut the wooden door tight, Rachel helped me gather stones to heap in front of it to make certain Mama and James Marshall would be safe.
While Rachel watched, I used my pocket knife to carve Mama's and James Marshall's names, followed by "Rest in Piece," on a charred board from the house. I wanted anyone who passed this way to know the springhouse was now a tomb, not a place to seek drinking water. I wished I had flowers or something pretty to place there, but all I saw was patches of snow and ice, gray and ugly under the cloudy winter sky, bare trees and bushes, and what was left of our house.
"We've got nothing now," Rachel said in low voice. "Nothing." She pawed at her runny nose with the back of one hand and clutched Sophia to her chest with the other. "We're orphans, Haswell."
"There's still Avery," I said. "When he comes home, he'll take care of us."
"Avery's our brother, not our parents. Besides, he's an orphan, too." Rachel sniffed and turned away to study the marker I'd made. "You spelled 'peace' wrong," she said.
"I did not. I know how to spell just as well as you do."
"You wrote the wrong word, then. It should be p-e-a-c-e and you wrote p-i-e-c-e." With that, she started crying as if she never meant to stop.
I stood beside her, feeling helpless. I knew it wasn't my ignorance that made her cry, but I didn't have any idea what to do or say to comfort her. Finally, I touched her shoulder. "We'd best be going," I said as gently as I could. "I'd like to get to Grandma Colby's house before dark."
Rachel flung her arms around me, letting the doll clatter to the icy ground. "Oh, Haswell," she cried, "I don't want to leave Mama. What if she's not dead? What if she wakes up beside James Marshall in the dark and she can't shove the stones away and we're gone and there's no one to help her?"
"Rachel, Rachel." I held her tight. "Mama's not going to wake up anymore than James Marshall is."
She pulled back and gazed at me. "Are you certain?"
I nodded.
"Can we wait here a while and make sure?"
I looked at the sky. Even though it was covered with thick gray clouds, I could see the sun like a pale spot rising up toward the meridian. I hated to
delay. The roads were bad enough in the daytime with soldiers hunting one another in the woods and fields, but at least you could see them coming. After dark, there was no telling what lurked in the bushes or behind the trees.
"Please?" Rachel tugged at my arm to get my attention.
I sighed. "Well, just for a few minutes."
We sat down side by side in front of the pile of stones.
"Should I make another marker with the right 'peace' on it?" I asked Rachel.
"No," she said softly. "People will know what you meant."
I stood up. My rear end was cold right through my trousers from sitting on the ground. "We have to leave, Rachel. While I saddle Ranger, go to the root cellar and gather all the food you can find."
She scowled as if she were about to argue, but she thought better of it. Getting slowly to her feet, she trudged across the muddy yard toward the ruins of our house.
"Bring the blankets, too." I called after her.
Rachel stopped and stared at me. "What on earth for? Grandma Colby has plenty of blankets."
"We can't be certain of anything these days." I didn't want to worry her, but it was the truth.
I went to what was left of the stable and fetched Captain Powell's fine leather saddle from the hitching rail. The big horse sniffed at the saddle, but he stood still while I threw it over his back and adjusted the girth. Every now and then he pawed the ground in an agitated way and rolled his eyes at me. I kept talking the whole time, soothing him with my voice, hoping he'd soon grow accustomed to me.
While Ranger watched, I dumped what was left of the oats into the saddlebags. "See? I'll take good care of you," I whispered. "You'll never have to go into battle again. And I'll never use this." I showed him Captain Powell's whip and he shied away. While he watched, I broke the damnable thing over my knee and tossed the pieces aside.
I stroked his side and told him he was a fine horse. To my relief, he let me lead him out of the barn. He had a graceful walk, and his neck curved in a way that showed his breeding. Yankee-born or not, Ranger was without a doubt a noble steed.