The Titans Page 21

  “If you come to talk about the woman, I’ll tell you what I told the major. I didn’t have nothin’ to do with killin’ her.” Skimmerhorn scratched his beard. “I took her to the bottoms, right enough. Had my pleasure with her. Even got so het up, I clean forgot we was after three crates of chickens. Never did find ’em. She passed out ’fore I could ask her where they was. But I left her alive! And a long way from that water where I hear the girl found her.”

  “Facedown.” Jeremiah’s attempted laugh came out as a snort. “She just crawled right on down to the water and drowned herself, did she?”

  “What do you want me to say? Some women do queer things if they get mauled a little.”

  “Get raped, you mean.”

  “I didn’t kill her! I ain’t gonna stand and jaw about it!” He started away.

  “Wait!” Jeremiah exclaimed, then added an appeasing word, “Please.”

  Skimmerhorn swung around, suspicious.

  “I didn’t mean to quarrel. Nothing’s going to bring Mrs. Rose back.”

  “An’ I didn’t drown her—just you keep that in mind!”

  Oddly, Jeremiah felt the forager was telling the truth. There was a desperate quality in Skimmerhorn’s speech—an anxiety to absolve himself—that seemed genuine.

  “Shit, boy, you seen the fields. There’s hundreds of men movin’ between here and the river. Any one of ’em could of done it.”

  “I know. If you say you didn’t, I believe you.”

  “Well, that’s a heap better.” Skimmerhorn acted relieved. He settled his stovepipe hat on his greasy hair, a touch of his cockiness creeping back. “You’re bein’ sensible. Now is that all you wanted?”

  “No, sir.” Carefully he began the plea he’d rehearsed in silence. “After you go, we’ll need some corn.” He pointed to one of the cribs. “I’d like to ask you to bring some out. A sack or two—”

  Skimmerhorn started to snicker.

  “I can make it worth your while.”

  Skimmerhorn’s greed overcame his caution. “How? You got nothin’ we ain’t took already.”

  “You’re wrong. There’s something valuable back in the pines. One thing Price didn’t see me bury.”

  A quick glance down the street between the slave cabins. Most of the blacks remaining on the plantation had disappeared indoors. Just one small boy was visible, seated on a slanting stoop in a forlorn posture and staring into space as if he’d been abandoned.

  “Where is Price?”

  “I dunno,” Skimmerhorn answered. “He’s been all over the place since yesterday. I ’spect he’s struttin’ around somewhere with that musket of yours. Listen, get on with it. What’d you bury?”

  “A small sack. Mrs. Rose’s jewelry.”

  “Jewelry! That a fact!”

  “Look, General”—he tried to sound whiny, pleading—“we’ve got to have at least a little corn to tide us over. You could take some out of one of the cribs before they set fire to them. I don’t suppose they’ll let me near the cribs.” He eyed the soldiers guarding the doors of the buildings. Skimmerhorn’s nod said his guess was correct. “But you can get in. If you hide two bags I’ll show you the buried jewelry. Mrs. Rose doesn’t need it any longer.”

  Skimmerhorn pondered the proposition. “How far we got to go to find it?”

  “Only about half a mile into the pines.”

  The forager closed his hand on the butt of the Navy Colt. “Wouldn’t be smart for you to play tricks on me, Reb.”

  “No tricks. We have to eat.”

  Another speculative glance at Jeremiah, and the forager made his decision. “Find us a shovel and let’s go. I’ll take a peek in the sack. If it’s good jewelry, mebbe I will fetch that corn. But I don’t promise nothin’ till I see the goods.”

  “That’s fair.” Jeremiah nodded. “All right if I come around the well?”

  Skimmerhorn drew his Colt.

  “Slow. Good an’ slow.”

  Jeremiah nearly smiled. So far it had worked perfectly. He kept his voice appropriately apologetic. “It’ll take me a minute to turn up a shovel. Ought to be one down by the cabins. Then we’ll be on our way.”

  General Skimmerhorn chuckled. “Goin’ on a little treasure hunt. Right pleasing idea. Yes, sir, right pleasing. You finally come to your senses.”

  I did, General. Finally.

  “I know when we’re whipped,” he lied.

  Chapter VI

  Day of Death

  i

  JEREMIAH AND SKIMMERHORN WALKED toward the lane, the bummer two paces behind. Pretending to scratch his chest, Jeremiah loosened his shirt a little more.

  A soldier standing guard by one of the cribs hailed the forager, wanting to know where he was bound. Skimmerhorn waved the Navy Colt.

  “Little private errand. Be right back.”

  They went from cabin to cabin in search of a shovel. Each of the small houses had been stripped. Finally Jeremiah spotted the tool they needed lying near the edge of the burying ground. By now he was breathing so rapidly he was sure Skimmerhorn would notice the change.

  But he didn’t. The general was in good spirits, strutting and whistling “The Battle Cry of Freedom.”

  They followed the rutted track into the pines. The gray daylight barely penetrated here. The earth smelled dank. For a while the silence was broken only by the forager’s whistling. Then he struck up a conversation.

  “You know, boy, now that you’ve calmed down some, I can say I truly feel it’s a pity about that woman. I wanted to enjoy her, an’ I did. But I don’t wish no female dead on account of me. Sure is a shame. Nobody’ll ever catch the man who did it, I ’spose.”

  Jeremiah’s shrug pretended weary agreement. But someone will be punished for it.

  “Still,” Skimmerhorn went on, “you an’ that little redheaded gal ought to consider yourselves lucky. You’ll be alive when we move on. The major says he don’t plan to burn the main house.”

  “Miss Serena persuaded him to be lenient.” Jeremiah nodded.

  Skimmerhorn laughed. Jeremiah puzzled at the salacious sound of it.

  “I’d love to have a morsel o’ her persuasion.” He nudged Jeremiah’s elbow with the Colt. “She given you any?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Persuasion!” A wink. “The sort a lively female dishes out when she’s flat on her back.”

  “Flat on her—what the hell are you talking about?”

  “You mean you don’t know? Well, don’t get testy about it. I figgered it’d be all over the house by now. She an’ the major, they was locked up in her room most of the night.”

  Jeremiah nearly stumbled.

  “I was hangin’ around shortly before the men started killin’ the hogs at midnight. The major come down in his trousers and undershirt to check on things. He got to braggin’ some. Said that little girl went at it like an animal. A wild animal. They’d done it three times already—that is, if he wasn’t lyin’—and he claimed she was ready for more. Starved for lovin’!”

  Jeremiah’s cheeks ran with sweat. His voice was barely audible. “You’re the one who’s lying.”

  Skimmerhorn chuckled again, less friendly. “I ought to clout you for sass, boy. I’m givin’ you gospel.” He raised the Colt, barrel straight up, and planted his other palm over his heart. “Swear it! The major said he meant to try somethin’ with her from the very first. But she got him alone in the sitting room and damned if she didn’t beat him to it. ’Magine a girl that sweet-looking raising such a subject? Kind of shockin’ even to an old rascal like me. It’s the old saw about a book an’ its cover, I reckon.”

  Jeremiah wanted to turn on the forager right then. Finish him. Stop the filth coming out of his mouth. But he didn’t; he was suddenly haunted by the memory of Catherine’s warning.

  She is not moral.

  He recalled his astonishment when Serena claimed to have persuaded Grace with words alone. He tried to deny that Skimmerhorn’s story could b
e true. The harder he tried, the less he succeeded.

  “Yessir, she practically begged him for it, the major said. She wouldn’t of had to beg me! I’d have been up her skirts first time she flounced ’em at me!”

  It was true. It had to be true. Why would the forager invent such a tale?

  And she’d said, “I love you.”

  His faith in her suddenly seemed even more pathetic and contemptible than his misguided belief that Yanks could act decently. His head swam. Everything was crumbling away. Crumbling into corruption, lies, dishonor—

  And he hated Skimmerhorn all the more for having spoken.

  The bummer halted, considerably less good-humored. “Boy, you told me half a mile. We’ve gone that an’ more.”

  “I must have judged it wrong. We’re close.”

  Panicked, he searched the terrain ahead. Saw a break in the underbrush.

  “There. Turn off to the right.”

  “I got fish to fry back at the house. More valuables to pack up before we move on. Let’s step lively.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jeremiah quickened the pace.

  He led Skimmerhorn to the spot where he’d glimpsed an overgrown path. He had no idea where the path went. And he was worried about the sound. They weren’t sufficiently far from the plantation. But Skimmerhorn was impatient.

  His head was hurting. Rage was mounting in him. Rage at the war. At Serena. And particularly at this man who’d destroyed an illusion with a few crude sentences.

  He had meant to go a good distance along the overgrown path. But the pressure of his wrath grew too great. He stopped after a dozen steps. Here the path widened slightly. He pointed into the tangle of weeds and brush.

  “Back in there.”

  Skimmerhorn bent forward, peering past him. While the man’s attention was diverted, Jeremiah raised his hand from his belt buckle and undid two buttons on his shirt, covering the movement by swinging the shovel slowly up to his shoulder with his other hand.

  “Lord, it’s hot as an oven in here!” Skimmerhorn complained. He crouched. Pushed weeds aside with the muzzle of the Colt. “Don’t look like a clump of sod’s been turned in there for ninety-nine years.” He started to rise and twist his head toward Jeremiah. “If you’re shittin’ with me, boy—”

  Jeremiah’s sweaty palm was already under his shirt. With his other hand he let the shovel fall. He drew the hidden Kerr before Skimmerhorn realized what was happening.

  Skimmerhorn was fast, though. He pivoted on the toes of his boots, jerked the Navy Colt up with one hand, and punched Jeremiah’s groin with the other.

  Jeremiah reeled back, stumbling on the shovel. He lost his balance. Skimmerhorn fired from a crouch.

  The underbrush rustled behind Jeremiah, a kind of reptilian hiss, as the bullet spent itself. Only the fall had saved him. Before Skimmerhorn could aim and shoot again, Jeremiah fired.

  The bullet from the Kerr blew away part of Skimmerhorn’s right temple. He sat down hard on his rump. A spasm of his finger discharged the Colt a second time. The bullet buzzed away harmlessly.

  Skimmerhorn swayed. His head lolled slowly to the right while a dark stain appeared between his legs. Blood poured down the side of his face, soaking his carpet coat, and reddening the needles on the branch his dead weight finally bypassed. The branch sprang back into place, flecking Jeremiah’s shirt with scarlet.

  The fingers holding the Colt clenched, then relaxed. Jeremiah wiped his mouth. Twisted toward the dirt track. Surely they’d heard the shots up by the house.

  He thrust the Kerr in his belt and forced himself to approach the corpse. Insects were already clouding around Skimmerhorn’s shattered skull. Sourness climbed in Jeremiah’s throat as he pulled the Colt from the dead man’s grip.

  He straightened up and turned away, his face a study in confusion and pain.

  I love you. She’d said that right after she’d whored all night!

  He started to walk. In a moment he was running. Not toward the dirt track and Rosewood, as he’d originally planned. Not back to Serena, to protect her. Let her look after herself. She was quite accomplished at that!

  He fled deep into the pines, where it was rank and dark. He thought he could escape her there. Escape the shattering memory of Skimmerhorn’s words.

  But he found he couldn’t escape them—or the fury that shook him between spells of grief-stricken confusion.

  ii

  No one came hunting for him.

  Or if they did, he failed to detect the sounds of a search. By nightfall he’d lost even a minimal concern about Serena’s safety. He was pondering whether to leave—strike out for some back road and never see Rosewood again—when he noticed a red shimmer through the trees.

  A light wind had sprung up, scouring some of the rankness from the air. Fire. Reluctantly, he left the little dell where he’d spent the day alternately gripped by a sense of total betrayal and an overwhelming hatred embracing the Yanks, the war, and her.

  He didn’t want to go back. The only thing that held him was the memory of Henry Rose.

  Rosewood was the dead colonel’s only monument. Jeremiah couldn’t stand by and permit the house to burn. He felt it might, despite Grace’s promises. He didn’t trust the cavalry major. He had to go back. He had to discharge this last obligation to the man who’d saved his life.

  When he reached the perimeter of the woods, he broke open the Colt, swore, and flung it away. General Skimmerhorn had fired his last two rounds defending himself.

  He felt the Kerr under his shirt. Three bullets left.

  He crept out of the trees and stole forward through the high weeds. When he reached the slaves’ burial ground, he bellied down between overturned slabs and broken crosses, peering up the lane. The sky was bright red, the sound of the conflagration a roar.

  Both barns had already burned. Little more than the glowing beams and rafters remained. As he watched, they crumbled and crashed inward.

  The corn cribs were alight, but the flames were only beginning to eat through the walls. The smoky air had a strange tang. Roasting corn.

  The gin house was on fire as well. It stood nearest the main building. The wind was blowing from behind it.

  At the head of the lane between the cottages he glimpsed perhaps two dozen men and women silhouetted against the blaze. The nigras who hadn’t run away. Then he caught his breath as he recognized a familiar figure beyond the slaves, standing at full height on the rim of the stone wall.

  He climbed to his knees, then began angling to his right, toward the cover afforded by the cottages on that side of the road. He saw no Yanks up by the house. Perhaps Grace had fired the buildings, assembled his men, and ridden on. But he thought he understood the confrontation near the house.

  He crept to the porch of the last cottage. From that vantage point he could make out something metal-bright in the hands of the man standing guard over the well.

  His own Enfield.

  He crawled off the porch, hurried past the end of the cottage, and cut back to the left, running like someone possessed. As he ran, he moved further and further away from the cottages, so he could dash behind the first of the fired cribs standing at the extreme right at the head of the lane.

  The crib’s whole roof was burning. The wind was driving smoke and clouds of sparks ahead of it. Once the gin house was fully afire, the combined heat from it and the burning cribs would carry the blaze to Rosewood. For the moment he didn’t give a damn about that. It was Price he wanted.

  He kept running. His chest hurt. He tripped once, landing on his belly and cursing loudly. But the crackle of the fire covered the sound.

  As he sped behind the second crib, the one nearest the highway, its burning side crumbled outward. He leaped wide. A splitting beam came down, nearly braining him. He slapped at sparks in his hair and kept running straight ahead into the dark. When he was opposite the front drive, he skidded to slow himself, and turned toward the piazza.

  He searched the lane and the hig
hway.

  No tents.

  No soldiers.

  There was more fire in the sky, now in the direction of Millen. But the army had gone.

  He lunged across the piazza, calculating his best point of attack. The larder—next to the kitchen. It led directly onto the rear piazza.

  He opened the front door cautiously.

  Darkness. Silence.

  He dashed through the ruined dining room, and the kitchen where the lamps had been extinguished. Firelight through the smoke-stained windows outlined Catherine Rose’s corpse. Candle wax had melted and rehardened at her head and feet.

  He slipped into the larder. Even indoors, the heat was intense.

  He pulled the Kerr from under his shirt. Outside he heard a voice he recognized. Serena’s.

  “Price, you’ve got to let us at the water!”

  The man laughed. “No.”

  “But if we don’t wet down the siding, it’ll catch!”

  “Let it!”

  Three or four men yelled agreement. There was one fervent “Amen!” Price had the Enfield. The blacks were either frightened of it, or siding with him.

  Price’s voice boomed. “Let it burn, you white slut. You ain’t giving orders to niggers no more. We’re free people!”

  Someone clapped. Another “Amen!” Then came a sound of scuffling. Maum Isabella’s cry rang out.

  “We’re free to water the house down if we please!”

  “No!” Price boomed back. “I ain’t the only one who wants to see it burn.”

  “Yes, you are, you damned scalawag nigger. The rest of these so-called friends of yours are too scared—or too stupid—to know how mean you feel about Miss Serena and her poor dead stepmother. You stand up there with that gun, thinking you’re some almighty angel—”

  That amused Price. “Ol’ angel of death, Maum. Ready to shoot the first buck who comes close. Or the first woman.”