The Immortal American (The Immortal American Series) (17 page)

The blade of the ax sliced into my thumb. Pleased and bleeding, I walked to the barn’s door and was stopped by something: a phantasm. One moment the door was empty, and the next Jacque was there holding me, clutching me, whispering in my ear.

“I came as soon as I got news,
chér.
I’m so sorry. I’ll never forgive myself for what has happened.”

“Am I dreaming?” I whispered into his shoulder, wrapping my arms around Jacque’s neck instantly, even while holding the small ax.

He pulled away enough so I could see him shake his head as his fingers dug into my shoulders and back.

“You’re really here? I’m not dreaming this?”

“
Non, chér
. I’m here with you.”

My grip on the ax loosened, and I let the tomahawk fall so I could plant myself more firmly against Jacque’s shoulder, his body. His heart hammered against my breasts.

“It is you.” My voice trembled with the pronouncement.

“I’m so sorry,
chér
. I should have—”

I looked up at him. “No. No. Don’t blame yourself. Please. You did nothing—”

“
Exactement.
Only today did I try to search for records of Lieutenant—”

“Don’t say his name. Please.” I placed my fingers over his perfect lips. He wrapped his fingers around my hand and kissed my fingers then my palm. His nose skimmed the inside of my wrist. “What did you find? It was him that hurt my sister?”

He whiffed at my wrist and slowly stood, not answering for a moment. “Yes. He came back to Boston bragging of his . . . actions.” Jacque paused and let me sway against him, feeling too exhausted to stand on my own anymore, but he continued. “I found little about the man, other than he’s not much of an officer. He commissioned his rank from a wealthy uncle who actually is a decent military man—a major in the Troupe de le Marines. But this man that has hurt your sister, this person is not a good soldier and many of his men call him the Liar Lieutenant, but that was as far as my investigation got before I received the letter from Mathew.”

“Letter from Mathew?”

“He wrote to me as soon as he could, asking if I could be of service during your family’s time of need. He asked that I place . . . that man under arrest.”

“Did you?”

Jacque nodded.

I embraced him. “I can’t tell you how much this means to me to have you here.”

From my emotions, from our hold onto each other, from the moment, whatever it was, something overpowered him and he walked backwards, stepping onto the tomahawk. He still had one hand on my arm when he reached down and retrieved the ax. In the dark I could only make out his silhouette and the ax’s silver gleam that radiated from the sliver of a moon and the dampened stars. But even with that little of light I saw his black brow arch.

“Protection,” I said simply, answering the unasked question.

He lifted me with one arm around the back of my waist, while squeezing me to his stomach. My feet dangled in the air as he walked to the counter. After placing the tomahawk by the rifle, his free hand curved around my cheek as he set me back on my own two feet. “Ah, your rifle.”

“I won’t let him hurt her again.”

He nodded. “Mathew couriered the letter to me, for me to be here, while he organizes a group of men to assist him to argue that . . . that man be charged and tried by your colony. I found the man and placed him under arrest easy enough. The British Army I do not have much respect for, but once I spoke of what he had done to your sister, he was jailed right away. Mathew is still arguing for a change of venue.”

Jacque was referring to yet another mandate from the Intolerable Acts that ensured that the redcoats were to be tried back in England, even though the crime was committed here in Massachusetts. My sister’s rapist would also be jailed amongst his own military, not set in a colonial jail.

“Mathew,” Jacque kept saying his name as if just the word itself punctured his tongue, “will have an audience with Governor General Gage himself tomorrow. But already I have heard that your governor general is seriously considering trying the man himself. Gage does not agree completely agree with the law, and I think he will listen and do as Mathew will ask. Mathew has done so much for Hannah.”

Indeed. And I was grateful for all Mathew was doing for my family, for my sister, me. Very appreciative. Yet . . . how I ached to rest my head against Jacque’s strong chest. I didn’t question Jacque’s knowledge of Gage’s inner thoughts at all. I trusted Jacque, felt safe within his arms.

“Mathew is such a good man, Violet.”

I nodded. “But I wanted
you
here.”

He sucked in a sail-ful of air and looked to the barn’s ceiling. He kept swallowing, then, dropped his head and kissed me. I had been numb since I’d first read Hannah’s note this morning, but Jacque’s kiss exploded into me and all my emotions erupted. I let tears spill out of my eyes and felt bitterly cold. I needed his heat to invade my mouth, to find some kind of balance within my body, within my soul.

He lifted me off the ground, and it wasn’t a thought at all, but I wrapped my legs around his hips.

He stopped kissing me. Looking down at me, he whispered, “I love you.” 

In the dark, with only the blade-side of a scythe of a moon in the inky sky, I took in his face. Surprisingly, I saw him well–his strong straight nose flared, and those piercing yet glowing blue eyes of his. Oh, those eyes of his, like blue fire pouring into my soul.

He adjusted his hold on me, and somehow held me with only one arm as his free hand traced the tiny chain that ran down my chest.

“You wear it?”

“Yes. It’s over my heart.”

“
Oui
. It is over your heart.”

Then, I kissed him with my lips pushing into his, my tongue finding its way into his mouth. He moaned and walked me to a wall, my body learning all he could offer me. He suddenly stopped.

“
Merde
,” he whispered, and gently released me to the ground. “I will make this right, Violet. I will make this right for you.”

Then he vanished. I must have blinked, for he was gone. Only, my blue gem stood on the outside of my shirt, and I had several hundred pound notes in my hand.

“Violet? That you?” Jonah walked into the barn’s open door.

I looked about the barn, thinking that I was surly going mad, except for the money in my hand and my body’s fire slowly dwindling. I blinked and looked around one more time.

“Violet?” Jonah’s voice was so soft as he touched my arm.

My eyes finally focused on him. He flinched as if he were looking at a Heron Indian warrior, instead of me.

He sighed and tilted his head down toward me. “Violet, let’s go back to the house.” Jonah’s hand smoothed my shoulder.

I nodded and folded the money into my pocket. The tomahawk was neatly placed beside the rifle, and I placed the rifle back up on the shelf, but gripped the ax and walked toward Jonah.

He swallowed.

“Protection,” I said, not at all recognizing my voice. It was deeper, more rough, and detached.

“Good thinking, Violet, girl. Good thinking.” His voice was tempered with down-like comfort. “We’ll go back to the house now.”

He guided me out of the barn with an arm looped around my shoulders. “I think it’s good to protect yourselves, Violet. I really do. Luckily, Miss Hannah doesn’t need any more protection from that man.”

“He’s in custody; I know.”

“How you know that? The letter from Mathew only just arrived?”

I never answered, but kept walking.

Jonah whispered to me before we entered my home. “He’ll get his justice, Violet-girl. You just wait. He’ll get his justice. Mr. Adams is on the job. Ain’t nothing going to stop your Mathew Adams.”

I stumbled in my footing, but as I forced my gaping heart to go numb, I kept marching back to my sister.

Hannah progressed little as the days passed. She never opened her eyes. She didn’t move, and the only noise she made was when the midwife had to funnel a tincture down Hannah’s throat in the effort to remove any pregnancy. We also forced beef tea down her, which did seem to help with her color, gradually growing back to pale marble mixed with apple blossom on her cheeks. Both Mrs. Jones and I cried while my sister spit and coughed as we compelled the broth down Hannah’s throat. The midwife, Mrs. Smith, had given us many salves: one to rub on her body and face to help her forget the pain; another to heal the deep gash in Hannah’s lower lip; and another for internal peace. Mrs. Smith had gotten the recipes for the salves from her mother’s, mother’s, mother’s and so on. It was rather Pagan, she had warned me, but I knew she said that to absolve herself from the panic of judgment that a couple generations ago would have killed her, or at least locked her in the scaffold, for offering my sister the kindness of topically treated inner peace. I’d asked Mrs. Smith to concoct another large batch of the stuff, and shoved twenty pounds in her hand. I’d do anything to get my sister back to me; my lovely sister who wouldn’t or couldn’t open her eyes, even with the pleasant combination of potions that smelled exquisitely of comfrey, chamomile, and mint. Mrs. Jones and I kept washing my sister with lavender, rose, and apple blossom water. It was my method of willing my sister to just open her eyes, knowing how she loved the scent of herbs and flowers.

The doctor performed a bloodletting after four days had passed with no movement from Hannah. He was very happy. He said her blood appeared to be thicker than he thought it would be and stronger. I couldn’t throw her blood out like it was dirty water when the doctor asked me to dispose of it. I cried into the bowl. I cried and cried and cried.

My mother found me beside the barn, my tears rolling down my face, and began crying herself. It was Jonah who finally took care of the bowl full of blood and tears. I lay with my sister daily. Jonah did all the farm work, but there wasn’t much to do other than to wait out the April rains. Mrs. Jones had baked petite cakes for Hannah, each day hoping she would open her eyes and eat the sweets.

If I wasn’t with my sister in our room, I was in the barn. I stared at Bess and the horses. My sister liked the horses. Beautiful creatures, even though ours had no breeding of value, but they were both bays who would run to the ends of earth for Hannah. I wept while I stood in their stall, currying their fur. Strange, but they seemed to understand. The mare with the darker coloring would let me hang on her neck and cry as long as I needed. Her brown eyes would find mine with sorrow filled in them.

Sometimes, I would find the spot where I had clung to Jacque. Did I imagine him completely?

No. I’d paid the doctor and midwife with the money I’d found in my hand from that night.

If I wasn’t with my sister or letting the animals comfort me or staring at the spot I might have imagined Jacque, I indulged in a fantasy. Nay, fantasy isn’t the right word. It happened innocently enough, this daydream. Mathew had told me how he made sure to have a different regimental officer quartering Kimball, since Kimball’s own colonel hadn’t been jailing him at all, and had let the rapist wander around Boston at his own whim. That was the first I had allowed anyone to talk about my sister’s rapist, and it made me think about him. I knew so little, but could visualize a blond, tall man with a smirk for a smile and that dreaded red coat. Mathew spoke about Kimball’s possible punishment: to hang in the gallows in London.

My father had allowed me to hunt with him at eleven years of age, but killing an animal was for food. Killing a human . . . I had never thought of before. My father had tried to shield me from viewing capital punishment, but being raised during a time of war I had seen men dead from a musket shot or hanging from trees–they were French allied Herons and Delawares, being picked apart by crows. Horrific, and I had nightmares for weeks about the dead men dancing a jig in the air with bones for fingers and toes, and hollowed black pits for eyes.

What I felt toward Kimball was murky, cold, and vicious. I wanted to see him twisting at the end of a rope, practicing his own death dance. Or to be pierced with bullets, blood oozing from his gaping wounds. Sometimes I envisioned my own hands punching his face, until it no longer existed. I saw it clearly and maddeningly—a nose broken, a jaw dislocated, an eye gouged. I saw blood—black blood, all over a man.

My father would tell me that murder was a barbarian’s path, but I had never claimed to be Quaker. Perhaps I was too weak of spirit to stop my visions of seeing Kimball dead, or too barbaric. Of the philosophers I adored, they abhorred violence, yet many, like Locke for one, did write that one could defend oneself. I was sure my sister had. I saw how her fingernails were broken and there was blood crusted on many of them. Not for certain, but I’d thought that blood was her abuser’s. But crime, sickening violence, had been committed anyway. Punishment by England’s law was death for a convicted rapist. But, Mathew had informed me, many courts in England–sixty percent, he’d said–pardoned rape. This, I thought, was indignant, yes, but what boiled my blood was when Mathew had given me a copy of the laws pertaining to rape. Why the legislature had decided upon a death penalty for raping a woman, especially a single woman, was that she would be deemed worthless after a rape. In other words, her property value was erased.