Angels Watching Over Me (Shenandoah Sisters Book #1) (8 page)

K
ATIE STRUGGLED OUT OF A DEEP SLEEP
. S
HE
lay for a moment in her bed, wondering about the sounds that had awakened her. Gradually she drifted back toward slumber. But a few moments later she was wide awake, scrambling out from under her blankets. She heard muffled voices drifting up the stairway.

Her bare feet made no sound as she hurried out of her bedroom and tiptoed down the stairs in her nightgown. Heart pounding, she paused in the kitchen doorway, taking in a scene she had imagined in her mind for months, but never thought she would actually see again.

There stood her father and mother, arms intertwined, standing in the middle of the room talking earnestly in low tones. Behind them, Joseph and Caleb sat at the table, devouring the remains of the corn bread and bean stew from supper.

Katie stood silently for several seconds. She could see the lines of fatigue in her father’s face and his long hair, now amply streaked with gray, curling around his ears. His eyes looked tired and careworn even as he gazed tenderly into his wife’s face. Soon they all became aware of another presence in the room.

‘‘Katie!’’ exclaimed Richard Clairborne, releasing his wife and covering the distance across the floor in three giant strides. He scooped her into his arms, nearly lifting her off the floor.

‘‘Hello, Papa,’’ said Katie shyly, almost as if she were being embraced by a stranger.

‘‘I can’t tell you how I missed you, Katie,’’ her father said, his cheek against her hair. He pushed back a little to look at her. ‘‘And you’ve grown! You must be eight inches taller than the last time I saw you. But I’d know you anywhere.’’

Her face buried in his coat, with its smells of travel, dust, and gunpowder, Katie thought she had never felt so contented in all her life. Not even the smell of a man who hadn’t bathed in a long time could take away her happiness.

As her father released her and she stepped back, she saw dark red splotches on the sleeve of his coat.

‘‘Papa, what’s that?’’ she asked, then drew back as realization struck her.

‘‘Never you mind what it is, Katie,’’ he answered. ‘‘All that’s behind us now . . . behind us forever. It’s all over and we’re home—that’s all you need to know.’’

‘‘You got more of this corn bread?’’ came a voice from the table. ‘‘It’s uncommonly good, Mother.’’

As Rosalind bustled about setting every scrap of food she could find on the table, Katie now moved slowly toward the two ravenous young men, whom she could only half remember as once being boys she had played with.

‘‘Hey, little girl!’’ said Caleb, reaching out a hand and tussling her hair. ‘‘Papa’s right, you done grown up. Ain’t that right, Joseph?’’

‘‘She’s turned into a lady, all right, haven’t you, Katie?’’

‘‘I suppose so, sir.’’

‘‘Sir?
What’re you talking about, Katie! I ain’t no sir, I’m your big brother Joe!’’

‘‘Don’t pay any attention to them, Katie,’’ laughed Katie’s mother. ‘‘They just grew to become men and forgot their manners.’’

‘‘That’s what war does to a body, Rosalind,’’ said Katie’s father, shaking his head. ‘‘It’s a horrible thing, and I hope nobody in this country has to go to war like that again.’’

The kitchen fell silent as their thoughts unconsciously turned to the son and brother the war had forever taken from them. Even the memory of that tragic loss, however, could not dampen the enthusiasm of the reunion. Soon mother and father and the two sons were laughing and talking and eating, while Katie sat silently and contentedly at her mother’s side, drinking it all in.

‘‘We’ve got bad money problems, Richard,’’ Mrs. Clairborne eventually said, and the atmosphere took on a more somber tone. ‘‘Most of the darkies are gone . . . I had to take out a loan at the bank.’’

Richard reached for her hand. ‘‘I can’t believe—’’ ‘‘I had no choice. I didn’t know what else to do.’’ Rosalind’s eyes fell to her lap.

‘‘Well, no matter,’’ said Clairborne. ‘‘We’ll get all that straightened around. Me and the boys are back, and we’ll get Rosewood back to normal.’’

The next several days were blissful for both Katie and Rosalind Clairborne. No longer did Rosewood’s fate rest solely in their hands. The men were back—to make decisions and do the hard work, and mostly just to know what to do.

The first day Mr. and Mrs. Clairborne walked all about Rosewood as Katie’s mother explained what she had tried to do, what she hadn’t been able to do, showing her husband the nearly empty slave quarters, the broken fences, and the partially planted fields.

The frustration at having been gone for so long was clearly evident on Richard Clairborne’s face as he saw to what a state the once proud plantation had fallen. But he was not one to mope about, and that same afternoon, he and Joseph and Caleb busily set to repairing a stretch of fence near the woods.

————

Two days later Katie sat at the kitchen table watching her mother knead a batch of bread. She was supposed to be peeling potatoes for their supper, but her hands were still, though her thoughts were not. ‘‘Mama,’’ she finally began, ‘‘why don’t Caleb and Joseph want to talk about the war? When I ask them questions, they just pat my head and change the subject.’’

Rosalind’s hands stopped too and she stared out the window. ‘‘I know, Katie—I’ve noticed that also. I think it will take time for all of us to get over the long separation and the awful memories to become a family again.’’ She turned back to Katie with a smile and buried her hands again in the dough.

At the stove across the kitchen, Beulah was just pulling a sweet potato pie from the oven. ‘‘Hmm, hmm,’’ she exclaimed. ‘‘My boys are going to have themselves a supper jes’ like da ol’ times,’’ she added. ‘‘Good, warm food, a roof ober dere heads, hard work every day—dere souls will be back wiff dere bodies in no time.’’

Katie and Rosalind smiled at each other.

‘‘Thank you, Beulah,’’ said Rosalind. ‘‘You’ve been a faithful part of our family all these years.’’

‘‘Yes’m’’ was Beulah’s only reply.

T
RAGEDY
10

E
VERY DAY ROSEWOOD RETURNED MORE and more to normal. Beulah’s deep contralto could occasionally be heard singing from the kitchen. With a newly slaughtered pig and calf, and a batch of potatoes dug up, there was more food for her to prepare than there had been in months. Smoke rose over the smokehouse, where most of the meat hung, and a fresh barrel of brine was prepared in the cellar for the rest. Flour and cornmeal were once again in plentiful supply after a morning’s session at the mill. And except for the problems at the bank, Rosalind began to think they had survived this after all.

Her husband had been too busy, however, to get into town. He kept saying he would get to it in a few days, just as soon as he and the boys got the most important things attended to at Rosewood. But Rosalind could tell he was no more anxious to go hat in hand to Mr. Taylor than she had been.

Exactly eight days after her father’s return, once again Katie was suddenly awakened in the middle of the night from a sound sleep. Startled, she sat straight up in her bed.

As she came to herself, she recognized the ominous thunder of riders approaching. From the bedroom across the landing, she heard her father shouting to wake Joseph and Caleb as he sprinted downstairs and to the gun cabinet. Several gunshots cracked through the night from the direction of the slave quarters.

Groggy and bewildered, Katie’s brain tried to make sense of the confusion.

Horrifying sounds were everywhere. Outside, shouts and yells, pounding hooves and frightened whinnies from what seemed a dozen or more horses screamed through the night.

In the house she heard more yelling . . . then footsteps hurrying up the stairs, and the door burst open.

‘‘Katie . . . Katie, get up!’’ said a voice in a terrified whisper.

Katie could see nothing as her mother shook her fully awake.

‘‘Get up, Kathleen . . . get up and come quickly!’’

In a sleepy daze Katie swung her feet over the side of the bed. Mrs. Clairborne pulled her to her feet and Katie struggled to stand.

Suddenly gunfire exploded outside, and her mother let out an involuntary scream. Terrible shouts echoed everywhere. Katie was too frightened to wonder what this confused nightmare could mean.

Tugging her along by the hand, Mrs. Clairborne hurried her daughter downstairs and into the parlor. She stopped, threw back the rug, yanked up the trapdoor, and pushed Katie down the cellar ladder, then followed herself. Katie sat down on the cold floor, trembling from cold and shock.

‘‘I’ll be back in a few minutes, Katie,’’ said her mother frantically, throwing an old quilt around her shoulders. ‘‘I’ve got to go back up and get a few things. Don’t make a peep. Do you hear me—not a sound!’’

Mrs. Clairborne turned and hurried up the rickety ladder. A moment later Katie heard the wood door clunk back down onto the floorboards. She was absolutely alone, still wearing her nightclothes, sitting in pitch-black darkness beneath the floor of the house.

Above and outside, the terrifying sounds continued, though she could not make out what they were through the floor and rug and furniture.

Somewhere a door banged open, heavily booted feet tramped above her—suddenly a terrible crash made her jump where she sat. Katie didn’t know it, but her mother’s glass china cabinet had just fallen over, sending plates and dishes and cups spewing in broken pieces across the floor.

Shouts followed. More doors slamming. Another crash, and sharp blasts of gunfire. Voices she didn’t know—screaming . . . what she thought was her mother’s voice. More screams, more explosions that seemed to go on for hours. Running footsteps, a few shouts . . . then gradually the muffled sound of horses retreating in the distance.

And then finally . . . silence.

What she had been listening to was foreboding and terrible. Even with the quilt around her, Katie’s body began to shake with undefined terror.

Afraid to move, afraid to breathe, afraid to think, Katie sat in a black stupor. How long she remained huddled in the dark corner where her mother had tucked her, she had no idea.

Why doesn’t Mama come back?
was all she could think.

But she heard nothing. The great Clairborne house was quiet as a graveyard.

Eventually—how long was it, an hour . . . maybe two—Katie fell into a restless sleep.

When she came to herself she was slumped on the dirt floor, clutching the quilt around her, so cold her arms and legs and feet were numb. All she could think was that she had had a terrible nightmare, was still in the middle of it, and would wake up before long in her own bed. But finally sleep overtook her again.

Morning came. But Katie didn’t know it. Not the tiniest crack of light entered the cellar. All remained silent above.

Katie gradually began to feel things that told her she wasn’t dreaming and she wasn’t in her bed—like the growling in her stomach and the freezing cold in every inch of her body.

Finally she sat up, moved her stiff arms and legs, and pulled herself to her feet. She felt her way to the ladder. Slowly she put one foot ahead of the other and began climbing. Her head bumped against the cellar door. She pushed against it, but it wouldn’t budge.

With all the strength she could muster, Katie struggled to raise the trapdoor. Finally a chink of light came through a tiny crack as she strained to hold the door up. Now she knew it was daytime for sure.

Whimpering with cold and fear, she gave one last shove with all her might. Something rolled off the door with a dull thud, and it swung up and back on creaking hinges.

‘‘Mama—Mama!’’ cried Katie. ‘‘Mama, where are you!’’

Nothing but silence answered the dying echo of her voice. Katie took another step up and pushed herself the rest of the way into the room.

Katie’s hand went to her mouth. Destruction was everywhere. Windows were broken. The furniture was turned over. Pictures and vases and plates and glassware had been shattered and strewn about. The china cabinet wasn’t the only case on the floor. Several bookshelves had suffered the same fate. Books and pieces of china were scattered all through the parlor. Her mother’s piano was still upright, but had a big gash on top where something had crashed on it. Her own violin beside it was shattered into three pieces, held together only by the now useless strings. Seeing the sight broke through Katie’s shock. Music and books were as much a part of her life as her special place in the woods. She began to cry and tears poured down her face.

Katie tried to call her mother again. But her trembling lips could hardly form the word.

Hers was not an imagination capable of even dreaming such horror. But the sights before her were enough to fill her with mute shock.

What confronted her delicate young innocence was a hurricane of death and destruction.

She stumbled across the room in a trance. Before she could find her voice again, the sight of her mother’s body lying across the doorway into the kitchen, her dress torn and bloodstained, made calling out again useless.

Katie’s knees began to buckle. She gagged once or twice and an icy chill seized heart and brain together, more despairing than any cold she had ever felt.