The Titans Page 20

  The guard outside the window remained motionless. Over the man’s shoulder Jeremiah saw an ecstatic celebration in progress down among the slave cabins.

  Young women danced in Catherine’s dresses. One buck strutted with a torn Confederate battle flag draped over his head and shoulders like a shawl. Three of the foragers pursued a pair of girls across a ramshackle porch. The bummer in the lead had his hand up one girl’s skirt, from behind, as they disappeared inside.

  Crouching, Jeremiah rubbed at his chest where it hurt the worst. He gazed at Henry Rose’s torn portrait.

  The painted sections of the genteel, bearded face lay at right angles to one another. Broken apart—just the way everything at Rosewood was being broken by the actions of unprincipled men. Again he felt contempt for the pathetic soldier who’d tramped midnight roads, obeying an order, fulfilling a promise; believing he could fight honorably, meaningfully again on the plantation.

  He did admire Serena’s determination. But he was positive her scheme would come to nothing. Ambrose Grace would no more listen to her than he’d jump to obey an order from Robert Lee. North and South, dishonorable men had seized any excuse—nigra freedom, defense of their homeland, punishment of the enemy—as a justification for indulging their worst impulses. The Franz Poppels of the world were rarities. Even Poppel himself had admitted as much by secretly giving him the Kerr.

  He brushed glass aside. Knelt. Touched one of the ripped halves of Rose’s image. His fingertip rested on the rough-textured paint that created a melancholy eye.

  I’ve failed you so far. But it isn’t over yet.

  The yearning to race up to the attic became almost unbearable.

  He drew deep breaths. His chance would come. Serena was bound to fail. The question was—how badly?

  If she got through her interview without a physical assault by Grace, Jeremiah decided he’d bide his time. No more outbursts. No more foolish assaults when more than one man was present to beat him to the ground.

  But if he heard the slightest alarm—a cry from her—then somehow he’d batter the damn door to pieces. He’d do as much as he could—go as far as he could toward the attic—before the sentry or one of the other Yanks shot him down.

  Either way, the answer was his, not Serena’s. The answer was the hidden gun.

  He licked his lips, increasingly sure. He’d only stopped arguing with her because she was so adamant, and because she’d linked her plan with other plans for their future together.

  He wanted the future at which she’d hinted. He realized that despite everything—including Catherine’s spiteful warnings—he was falling in love with Serena.

  Yes, there was a certain cruel edge to her personality. But there was a similar edge to his—sharpening moment by moment. To have denied her a chance to test herself—even though he felt she was foolhardy—well, it might have wrecked everything between them. She didn’t want any protection—or any suggestion that she was a simpering female incapable of independent action. Maybe that’s what had rankled poor Catherine so; she’d raised a child who didn’t conform to the acceptable standards of feminine behavior. Jeremiah was glad she didn’t conform. It made her a woman worth having.

  He’d let her flirt and wheedle, and remain ready to act if Grace molested her. Even if Grace didn’t, he was sure to reject her appeals. Then Jeremiah could step in. He knew how, finally. The only thing that would make an impression on the Union officer was the Kerr revolver.

  Impression—

  He laughed over the inadvertent aptness of the thought.

  He’d make an impression, all right.

  Three inches deep in the center of Grace’s forehead.

  Chapter V

  Night of Ruin

  i

  FIFTEEN MINUTES PASSED.

  Twenty.

  Jeremiah lingered close to the door, listening for an outcry from the front of the house. Once in a while he caught the soft sounds of the hall sentry shifting position. But that was all.

  Growing more and more worried, he paced the office. He didn’t hear anyone approach outside. He started violently at the quick, hard rapping.

  He rushed to the door. Pressed his ear against it.

  “Serena? Are you all right?”

  She sounded shaky when she answered. “Yes. He—he agreed.”

  “What?”

  “I talked my fool head off. Flattered him—practically crawled for him. But he agreed to leave the house standing.”

  He couldn’t believe it. She was more persuasive than he’d ever imagined.

  “Did he try to—?”

  “No. Seems there are a few rules General Sherman’s pretty fierce about. His officers not harming women is one of them. Any man who’s caught—Well, I just got the feeling Grace wouldn’t chance it.”

  “Serena, is anyone listening to this?”

  “The guard’s a ways down the hall. The major told him to stay there while I talked to you.”

  “But you’re sure the house is safe?”

  “I don’t know how safe. There are men rampaging all over the place. But it won’t be burned. Jeremiah, the major ordered me locked in my room for the night.”

  “Why not back in here?”

  “Guess he’s worried we might cook up some kind of trouble for him.” A low laugh. “He doesn’t know we’ve already gotten what we wanted. Now you stay calm in there. I’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t trust—”

  “I tell you he’s scared white about any of his troopers injuring women!”

  “Doesn’t make sense! He let Skimmerhorn—”

  “Skimmerhorn’s not one of his men. He can always claim he had no control over him.”

  “He’s a liar.”

  “’Course he is. But he’s protecting himself.”

  “What did you learn about Catherine?”

  “Nothing yet. Skimmerhorn isn’t back. Maum Isabella promised to keep watch.”

  “Damn it, Serena, we’ve got to find out about her!”

  “I can’t!” She sounded close to tears. “I’ve done all I could. Now you—you rest. Don’t fret about me. Just remember”—she was moving away—“we’re going to be together soon. I love you, Jeremiah.”

  The unbelievable words left him openmouthed. He banged a fist against the door in sheer surprise and happiness, overwhelmed by her unexpected success—and the whispered admission of her feelings.

  A brief period of euphoria tempered his hateful feelings about Ambrose Grace, and distracted him from what was taking place outside. But before the night was over, he had spent a great deal of time at the window—

  There, his hatred of Grace renewed itself, and grew stronger and stronger as the hours passed with no news of Catherine.

  ii

  All that Monday night he watched the systematic ruin of Rosewood.

  The part of the property visible to him swarmed with the enemy, coming and going on foot and on horseback. Once darkness fell, cook fires were started wherever the Union soldiers and foragers pleased. With the fires lit, the activity outside took on the aspects of a nightmare.

  Figures of horses and men became specters of flame and shadow. It seemed to him there were more stragglers in castoff clothing than blue-clad cavalrymen. Foot by square foot, the bummers devastated the expanses of lawn between the main house and the head of the lane leading to the slave cabins. They used sabers and ramrods to jab the earth and tear out slabs of turf as they hunted for buried possessions.

  By torchlight, eight or ten bummers worked the slaves’ burial ground in the same way, knocking over hand-hewn wooden markers and crosses of sticks and unearthing bodies—or parts of them. At one point Maum Isabella rushed at three of the men ripping up the cemetery. A spade glinted, swung by a pair of grimy white hands. The old black woman fell and crawled off into the dark before she could be hit again.

  When digging up the grass and the burial ground yielded no treasures, forty or fifty of the enemy divided into two groups and staged
a sort of sham battle with buckets of pine knots fetched from the woods. The knots were lighted and hurled at those on the other side. For a while the night sky was crisscrossed with arching traceries of fire and sparks.

  Other men invaded the slave cabins, carrying out blankets, pans, or any other useful item. The few blacks who tried to stop them were knocked down, and if they resisted further, beaten.

  A foul smoke from campfire garbage began to blur the scene, heightening Jeremiah’s feeling that he was gazing through a window at hell.

  His thoughts kept returning to Catherine. Then to Serena.

  To what she’d said.

  “I love you.”

  Those words foretold almost unimaginable happiness if he and Serena survived the night and the next few days.

  Shortly after midnight, half a dozen cavalrymen converged on the three hog pens.

  Two dismounted soldiers tore the first gate off its hinges. The horsemen milled just outside, revolver and rifle barrels catching the glare of the firelight. One pistol exploded. The hogs stampeded into the open, terrified by the snorting horses and whooping men. The office window shook from volleys of gunfire.

  The sight of the dumb beasts falling, blood pouring from their snouts, bellies, brainpans made him turn away, nauseated. He listened to the shooting and the squealing for about twenty minutes, crouching in a corner with his hands clenched and his mouth a slit.

  Is this what Grace calls sparing Rosewood?

  iii

  He must have dozed. Daylight hazed by garbage smoke brightened the window as he roused to hear another urgent tapping from the hall.

  The office smelled sour. In the night he’d been forced to urinate. Now his stomach hurt. He was starved.

  The knocking came again. Louder. He stumbled to the door.

  “Who is it?”

  “Serena.” Her voice sounded unnaturally faint and husky.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “When I got up an hour ago, Grace let me out. Catherine still wasn’t back. I got permission to go down to the bottoms. Had to sneak past three Yank camps to get there. I spent half an hour searching. I—I found her.”

  The last words were so hoarse and full of anguish, he had a premonition about the rest. “How is she?”

  Serena’s voice broke. “Half her clothes were torn off. She’d been dragged two or three hundred yards. She was all filthy with red clay. She—she’s dead, Jeremiah.”

  He shut his eyes. “Jesus Christ in Heaven.”

  Somehow she managed to tell him the rest. “About half the slaves have run away. But Leon’s still here. I sent him to—carry her back. She was lying facedown in the water. Drowned.”

  Suddenly the girl began sobbing. “She wasn’t my mama—I never pretended to like her. But I didn’t want anything like—like this—”

  The words grew incoherent. His belly felt heavy as a stone. He pressed both palms against the wood.

  “Serena? Serena, listen to me!”

  The sobbing lessened a little.

  “Did you tell the major?”

  “Right—right away.” Bitterness: “He’s scared out of his wits. He kept saying he’s only responsible for men directly under his command.”

  “It was that son of a bitch Skimmerhorn, wasn’t it?”

  “Can’t be anyone else, can it? Grace questioned him. But he denied he killed her. Denied it over and over. The major’s letting it go at that.”

  He closed his eyes a second time, but opened them almost immediately. There was no longer any doubt about what he had to do.

  “Serena, get me out of here. Get Major Grace to unlock the door. Tell him I won’t cause any trouble.”

  “I don’t know whether he’ll believe—”

  “Make him believe it! You persuaded him last night—do it again!”

  No response except faint crying.

  “Serena?”

  “I hear you.”

  “Get me out. Any way you can.”

  “Y-yes. All right. I’ll try.”

  Ten minutes later, the bald cavalry officer came personally to turn the door key.

  iv

  “Kent—” Grace looked pale, far less assured than he’d been yesterday. “I assume Miss Serena told you.”

  “About Mrs. Rose? Yes.”

  “I deeply regret—”

  “Shit.”

  “I do!”

  “Because you may be in trouble with Uncle Billy Sherman? What a pity.”

  “Kent, listen to me! Skimmerhorn’s given me his word he wasn’t the one. He—took her, yes—”

  “Against her will.”

  “But he didn’t do anything more! She was alive when he left her. Someone else must have found her.” The man seemed genuinely terrified. “Look, Kent. Understand. In wartime, things happen that can’t be helped.”

  “You could have helped. You gave him permission.”

  “I’ll deny it. I’ll deny it to heaven!” Desperate, he tried bluster. “General Sherman said it right, just before Atlanta. War’s like the thunderbolt, he said. It follows its own laws. It doesn’t turn aside even if the virtuous and charitable stand in its path.”

  Sanctimonious bastard! How anxious, now, to ease his own conscience and avoid disciplinary action.

  “I doubt Sherman was referring to rape, Major. I doubt he was referring to murder either.”

  Yet who besides Sherman had turned these monsters loose?

  All at once Grace’s muddy eyes took on the look of a helpless boy. “I realize Mrs. Rose didn’t stand in the way by choice. But the woman’s dead. What’s the use of arguing about blame?”

  “None. So long as you aren’t blamed.”

  “Kent, for Christ’s sake!”

  “All right.” Jeremiah sighed, masking his feelings. “It’s done. No more argument. I can’t stand this damn room one minute longer. Just let me out of here and—”

  He was interrupted by hysterical wailing from another part of the house. Maum Isabella.

  Grace sniffed the rank odor of urine. “Under the circumstances—considering what’s happened—the excesses—if you give me your pledge to cause no trouble for the next few hours I’ll release you. We’ll be gone by late afternoon.”

  Jeremiah’s mouth soured. “How can I possibly cause trouble? What can I do against all the men you’ve got?”

  He held up both hands. “I’m not exactly heavily armed. Just let me out. I need to eat something and use the privy.”

  He thought the plea might work. Grace was sufficiently upset—no longer the controlled, arrogant officer of yesterday. Blinking rapidly, the major studied him.

  “If you pledge not to—”

  “Yes,” Jeremiah said, careful to sound beaten. “I give you my word. No trouble.”

  The major hesitated a moment longer. “Just remember—the guilt isn’t mine. If you try to tell anyone it is, you’ll never prove it.”

  “That I know,” Jeremiah said, no longer lying.

  Grace pivoted and moved unsteadily down the corridor, leaning a hand against the wall to support himself.

  Jeremiah stood rigid in the open doorway. You don’t care that Mrs. Rose is dead. You only want to save your stinking Yankee skin.

  He clenched his fists but didn’t move until Grace was out of sight.

  v

  Rosewood was a shambles. He discovered broken furniture everywhere. Feather pillows from the bedrooms had been ripped open, and their contents strewn like snow throughout the downstairs. Near the front entrance, someone had defecated. The stench was vile.

  By the time he approached the door to the kitchen, he noticed his boot soles were sticky. Molasses had been spread all over the dining room carpet. Then corn meal had been spilled and ground in. The feathers were the finishing touch.

  In the kitchen, Maum Isabella and the four house girls wailed like demented creatures. They stood or knelt around the body of Catherine Rose laid out on the long butchering block. The body had been covered with a tattered b
lanket. Except for the face.

  Jeremiah forced himself to approach the body, stare at the livid bruises on Catherine’s cheeks and forehead, the dried red clay in her hair. He didn’t want to forget that face. Not until he’d done what must be done.

  On her knees at the end of the improvised bier, Maum Isabella wrung her hands and rocked back and forth, tears running in the seams in her dark face. As he started to turn away, one of the other women screamed at him, “Cry for her, Marse Kent. Cry for the poor woman!”

  He shook his head. “It’s too late.”

  His eyes looked feverish as he crossed the dining room with its sweet reek of syrup. Feathers stirring brought on a violent sneeze. His boots crunched the meal.

  He checked the hallway.

  Clear.

  He stole up the staircase toward the attic. He found the wire dress form toppled over and bent beyond repair.

  But the loose plank hadn’t been disturbed.

  V?

  General Skimmerhorn was dippering a drink from the well on the rear piazza.

  Two laughing, frock-coated bummers went trotting past on stolen horses. The neck of one of the animals was decorated with a shawl Jeremiah recognized as Serena’s. Out of sight beyond the house, wagons rambled. A blare of brass and riffle of snare drams kept cadence for the men beginning to march.

  General Skimmerhorn noticed him half hidden by a lattice. The forager dropped the dipper back into the well. Droplets of water spattered his carpet coat when the dipper rope snapped taut.

  Using his left hand—it was concealed behind the lattice—Jeremiah touched the front of his dirty linen shirt, making sure it bloused out sufficiently around his waist. Then he started toward the well.

  Skimmerhorn brushed back the lapels of his coat so he could grab for his Navy Colt quickly.

  “What you want, boy?”

  “A word with you, General.” He tried to sound appropriately cowed.

  Skimmerhorn broke wind noisily, edging around to the well’s far side. He was obviously wary of the lank-haired young man standing stoop-shouldered and motionless. Behind the forager lay one of the shot hogs, its entrails spilling from its belly and aswarm with crawling white things. The morning air was dark gray, heavy with humidity, and fouled by the fumes of smoldering garbage.