An Undisturbed Peace (20 page)

“They were alone in the common house. Everybody else but a young girl nursin' a fever was at their chores. Ellie told us all what she'd seen while hidin' 'mongst her bedclothes. Billy Rupert put his hands on Lulu. She saw her chance and took it, jabbin' with all her might at his chest. Dammit all, he seen it comin' and it missed. He went into a rage after that. He got the knife from her. Dragged her outta the common house by her hair and into the woods and there he cut her up good. Cut her face. Cut her belly. Cut her left breast clear off. He woulda kept on goin', but a work crew come down from the fields just after and they spied him runnin' away and her layin' there bleedin' and weepin' and nearly dead.

“Lulu got bound up and she lived alright but in the meantime Jacob tracked down that Billy Rupert and killed him. Killed him with flamin' arrows. They say Dark Water dipped the arrows in pitch, lit 'em, and handed 'em to 'im, one by one. They done it together, they say. I don't know about that. Nobody knows for sure, 'cept them two and the dead. There was no one didn't think Billy Rupert had it comin', but there was still hell to pay. Oh, yes, sheer hell to pay. But who should do the payin'?

“The Ruperts didn't know about the murder of their baby boy for a bit o' time. Likely they thought he was in the town, sportin' about. Or even still at the chief's plantation, doin' what he did. Now, to get what happened next, you have to understand Dark Water was the princess of her people. Everybody loved her. She was the best of the old ways and yet she knew better than any of 'em the ways of the new, havin' been in England and all. When she was gone that year, the crops failed. Everyone thought it was because she was gone. When she returned, the world bloomed. So understand, no one wanted to see her suffer 'cause of this, especially since Billy Rupert had it comin'. Then Jacob came forward confessin' all. She did too, with some crazy story took all the blame on her own head, but no one believed her. That was when she left to live away from the people. Never before had anyone doubted her word. It was too much for that one. She was hoppin' mad at the clans, her father, and 'specially Jacob himself. He's the one what stole her word and took her power away. But she could hop spittin' fire if she wanted to, everybody'd rather Jacob pay the price than their own dear.

“An' he did. Off he went to Chota, where at least he could live. Least until the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, or so we all thought. Old man Rupert wanted his hide, but that Elizabeth Rupert, Billy's mama, cared more about the chief's land than the fair livin' head of her own son. She saw opportunity and grabbed it, went to the courts to git the chief to sign over his plantation to pay for what his slave did and dang me, I'm not sure how it happened, you'd have to ask Miss Dark Water or my lady that 'cause I'm sure I don't know who else knows, but the courts failed 'im and he gave the land away. Broke his heart too. He was never the same after that. Why, he just clammed up and faded away, bit by bit, 'til there was nothin' left to 'im and the first strong wind of winter carried him off. An' that's it. There's no more story I got except the long, cold tale of how we all got up here to the top of this mountain, and I'm not sure that's a story you care much about anyways.”

Abe was silent a long while, absorbing everything she told him. He was silent so long, Daniella fell asleep and started to snore, which startled him into awareness. Waking her, he helped her pick up the clothes and the boots. He took up the candelabra and helped her to her room off the kitchen, as she was unsteady on her feet. Once he got her there, she flopped onto her cot in one great abandonment of gravity and consciousness, rattling the floorboards. “I don' know why they say that,” she muttered when, out of kindness, he bent to remove her shoes as she had his. “Say what?” he asked. “That Jews are nasty greedy,” she said. “You been awful generous and nice to me.”

“You're welcome,” Abe said, and covered her with a sheet.

Despite the fine feather bed, his sleep was poor. He awoke every hour or so with a mind full of questions whose answers were elusive, just beyond his grasp. Who had killed Billy Rupert? Was it Jacob alone? Jacob and Marian together? Or Marian on her own? Why had she kept Lord Geoffrey's letters and portrait if she didn't love him? When he'd met Jacob, Jacob was over the moon when he told him Marian had forgiven him some great sin. What was that sin?

He was so tired the next day at Council that he promised the Cherokee everything they asked. Sassaporta and Son would return all the money they'd paid for rubber product plus 5 percent more to compensate for damages. He had no idea where the money would come from. If he had to, he'd sell the house Isadore had given him as a wedding present. But where would he find a buyer? Where would he take his pretty little wife? To Tobias Milner's farm, where they could sleep in the kitchen like slaves and wayfarers? Such thoughts did not improve the next night's sleep.

It was with a pounding head and ragged heart that he started out the next morning with Marian to Chota. His body was exhausted, his mood was dark, he'd no idea why he'd wanted to take her there in the first place. When they started out, several men carried her down the mountain on a litter to a place where the trail widened. There, they hitched Hart to a waiting wagon and placed Marian, Hart's tack, and a variety of Marian's possessions in it. Edward assured Abe the trade routes could accommodate the width of the wagon wheels and that even a novice driver could handle the terrain. Abe sat grumpily up front while Marian sat in the back, where she could stretch out her leg with the bandaged foot. She hummed happy songs, as cheery as the first spring day when flowers suddenly poke themselves up from the dirt, their green buds crushing all memory of cold and bitterness. Part of him wanted to tell her to hush up.

“You're very quiet, my friend,” she remarked when she'd tired of singing.

He wondered if he was supposed to stop the wagon, get down on his knees in the dirt, and thank God that she'd not called him peddler or titmouse but friend. He grunted instead.

“My mother told me the welcome drink was gone this morning,” she said. “If your head's aching, I can point out a leaf along the way to better it. When we stop to rest the horse, we can brew a tea. Willow might do the job, or crape myrtle, though to find the latter around here would be a chore.”

It irritated him that she'd turned into a chattering magpie all of a sudden. He understood she was excited, that their journey represented the revival of love's hope after twenty years of despair, but he liked his Marian more, well, Dark Water. He grunted again to encourage her to please shut up. But she continued.

“I'm very grateful now the time's here that you're taking me to Chota, that I didn't delay,” she said. “You were right. It was a stupid idea to wait. I don't know what I was thinking. I guess it was an issue of my pride. Ha! My pride! Why haven't I learned, my friend? Why after all that's happened, after half a lifetime of regret, I haven't learned to abandon my pride?”

“It's a large part of who you are,” Abe said.

“Really?”

There was something flirtatious in her question, the way she said it. Who was this girlish woman he found himself in company with?

“I wouldn't know you without it,” he said.

Hart made a snuffling sound as if in agreement. She giggled. Giggled!

“Jacob wrote me that when you went to him, you told him I forgave him. What did you know of that?”

“Nothing. I guessed.”

“Huh.” She was quiet for a time. Abe offered a small prayer of thanksgiving. Then she started up again. “Maybe I should tell you. Would you like to know?”

Razors scraped along the nerve ends at his neck. He wanted her quiet, the job of transport done. Since they came down the mountain and were now on the west side of the Unicoi range, it wouldn't take much longer to get her to Chota. But the trip home would be at least a week. He'd have to travel through Tennessee north and up and over the mountains again, across half the state of North Carolina, to get to Greensborough. He wished he could close his eyes and be there already with a woman who lived to please him. He wanted away, far, far away from the one who lived to give him agonies, by buckets or teaspoons as the occasion allowed. But still, he said, “Yes. I want to know that very much.” Because, damn him, he did.

Of course, she went quiet then. He waited. Gnashed his teeth. Waited some more. At last, patience destroyed, he barked at her. “Well? What was it? What did you have to forgive him for?” She sighed, three times, with long pauses in between.

Finally, she spoke. “You paid Daniella too much,” she said. “She would have told you everything just for the drink.” He bit his tongue to keep back all he thought to say. She continued. “It's a village, you know. Before the cock crows, everyone knows everything that's transpired in the night. It's not easy to keep a secret in a village, or on a plantation, for that matter. And when two people love, as much as they try to hide it, everyone near them with eyes in their heads can see it. When they're in a room together, a fool can see the way their skin shines, the way the muscles go taut. If that room is full of people, somehow they always manage to stand near each other, where a hand can brush a hand, or the breath of one caresses the neck of the other. Even the blind can feel their heat. Jacob forgot that. I was so young, I didn't know it. Our lack of caution got us into heaps of trouble.

“First there was Lord Geoffrey. He knew. He mentioned his suspicions to me several times, in that cloaked way the English have. You know it. He'd say, ‘My, but that Jacob fellow does a smashing job of taking care of you for your father, doesn't he?' and hold his breath, staring at me, waiting for a reaction. I'd do my best not to blush, but I'm sure my feet tapped against the floor, or my skin shivered, something I know gave me away because I couldn't help myself, you see? What can I say. Despite my evasions, he found out the truth somehow and left us. I know Daniella must have told you what came next.”

“Yes,” Abe said quietly.
He left us.
Was that all she had to say about a man's grisly death at his own hand for her sake? Would she have said more had it been him in Lord Geoffrey's place?

“Billy Rupert was another story altogether. Even as a boy he was cruel. I remember when we were all young together and his father would bring him when he visited my father. This was before the plantation, when we lived a normal life. My brothers and I would take Billy Rupert with us when we hunted and when we played games by the river. The things that delighted him repulsed us. He would pull the wings off insects and pin the legs of frogs to the earth, then watch while birds of prey came and plucked their innards out. He was a horror and we hated him. But years went by. He acquired an education and learned to hide his cruelties. He also acquired a future inheritance while his father expanded his properties. My father and his decided we were a perfect match. Their plantations could be joined at the price of purchasing just a small strip of land from a family of newcomer Germans. What could be better?

“Jacob and I living together in the foothills could be better. Sensing that the dogs of fate were on our trail, I told Jacob, ‘Let's get married somewhere. It doesn't have to be a Cherokee wedding. We can marry at a trading post, some frontier town where no one cares who marries who.' He hesitated. He said he could not expose me to a slave's life on the run. I told him that would be a low price to pay for paradise. He kissed me, he fondled me, he lay deep and long with me to tell me, oh, how brave and dear I was but he could not allow it. He would not have me suffer such pain out of love for him. So we went along in our mist of loving until the world came crashing in.

“We were in the wood one day, loving as we might. Afterward, we strolled along the riverbank dreaming of a future together. I'd taken my short bow and arrows as an excuse to spend time with him. I'd told my parents I was bored and left to hunt what might cross my path. They knew my habits and thought nothing of it. Anyway. As we walked, arm in arm, I told Jacob I would convince my mother to free him. Who better than he? He was raised Cherokee. He knew our ways, he respected them, there was no man closer to the true blood. Once he was free, we could marry without encumbrance. Then, in the midst of our daydreams, out of the wilderness came the cry of a woman. Her cries were cries of terror. We ran forth, thinking some poor girl had fallen prey to a pack of wild dogs. But no. It was a woman fallen prey to Billy Rupert. And the woman was Lulu, once Jacob's wife, whom he'd always liked well enough but failed to love.

“An atrocity lay before us. Billy Rupert's pants were around his knees. He had a kind of dagger in his hand, a sharp curved blade with an ivory handle, and he hovered over a sometimes whimpering, sometimes crying-out Lulu, who was bleeding on the ground. His arm swept up and down as he sliced at her, cackling like a crow while he did so. Oh, he had an abundance of pleasure in his actions. Jacob did not hesitate. He roared. Roared like a great bear. The very leaves of the trees trembled with his anger. He rushed forward to stop the man. There followed a tussle between them. Jacob was unarmed. The wild slashes of Billy Rupert's blade cut my love's arm, his leg. For a time, I did not know who would be the victor.

“So. What else could I do? I withdrew my arrows and placed them in the bowstring, one after another. I took out Billy Rupert's eyes first, then placed several in his heart, next for the joy of it, I pierced his root, just for the pleasure of seeing this beastly, dying man double up and cry out in misery for his manhood, now lost, lost by my own hand. In all of two minutes, the life of Billy Rupert was over and I could not help but think, None too soon, none too soon.

“Jacob cradled Lulu in his arms. He wept. He cried to her, to Lulu who may have heard him, maybe not. ‘Forgive me, forgive me. For leaving you unprotected,' he said. And then he shouted at me, ‘Get help! She will surely die!' This I did, running through the wood, unheeding of the stones beneath my feet, the brambles whipping at my thighs. How small my little wounds seemed to what Lulu suffered! A band of our warriors heard my cries for help. They followed me back, back to the place where Lulu lay, in Jacob's bloody arms, near breathing her last. They picked her up, took her to the medicine man nearest us that he might save her life and heal her with his crystals, powders, and smoking sticks. A conspiracy was forged at her bedside between the medicine man, the warriors, Jacob, and me. Together, we concocted a story of what had happened. My mother would learn her girl had been ravaged by a bobcat, that her life hung by a thread. My father was told his valet wished to nurse her who was once his wife, as an act of kindness, which he admired and permitted. In this way we were able to keep secret what had happened until weeks later, when Billy Rupert's body was discovered mutilated by beasts, the sun, rain, and insects.