The Rebel Wife (26 page)

“Gather them up, you fool,” she said. “Gather them up. These are going to Judge to sell if he can make any money out of them.”

These are going to Judge. Mama must have put them in the case and delivered them over to him. And now the case is in my attic. Judge must not have sold them.

How long ago? Over ten years? My handwriting is so different now. My name is different. This was written by another person, not me. A person in another life. But it wasn’t, really. Judge was the same person then, wasn’t he? He was someone people looked up to and respected. A man of honor. But he isn’t, is he? Buck, too. Can it be true? Can he really have done what Mike said? Was it all a part of his father’s plan? Like the barn dance.

“Miss Gus.” Emma’s voice comes to me from the open doorway. “Come out of there, Miss Gus. You look a fright.”

I turn and look at her, scowling. The anger is full in me, and the sting of Mama’s slap on my cheek feels as if it just happened.

“What is it, Emma?” I mean no friendliness with my voice.

Emma doesn’t answer me. I close the case and stand up, catching the handle and pulling at my skirts. The weight bears on me, tilting me lopsided. Emma’s face is open in surprise as I walk past her, the case under my arm. The air on the landing feels fresh after the confines of the attic.

The case bumps against the banister as I struggle with it down the narrow stairs. Emma stands above me, outside the open door of her room, her mouth agape. My hair is coming undone, unraveling in loose strands around my face. Dirt spots my hands and wrists, sweaty smears of dust and cobwebs that are hot and wet. Long strands stream off my dress like so much mourning crape.

Eli’s door is open. Simon is in there. The light in the hall seems washed out, it is so bright. The walls seem gray, and the rugs and pictures are monochrome, like a tintype. The hickory bench that was my father’s is dark and hard.

The case slips and slides fast off the railing. It tumbles to the floor with a bang. The broken clasp slips loose, and the lid flies back, dumping sheaves of promissory notes across the hall.

Simon appears. Our eyes meet. He must sense my anger. Voices come from my room, and Henry rushes into the hall with Rachel behind him.

“Mama,” he says when he sees me. “What is it?” Rachel looks at all the papers and then looks at Simon. She can’t know what they are, but she knows there is something wrong. One look at me tells her that things are not right.

“Henry,” she says and puts her hand on his shoulder. “Henry, come away from that.” She holds him back as he grasps at the papers. Little John is behind them.

“It’s nothing, Henry,” I say, trying to control my voice. “It’s nothing. Mama just had an accident, and now she’s got a big mess to clean up.”

“You had an accident?” Henry asks, his blond hair lustrous in the light, his blue eyes clear and sharp. “Can I help, Mama?”

“No, Henry,” I say, still catching my breath. “Mama and Uncle Simon will take care of it. Go back to the nursery with Rachel and Little John.” Rachel’s eyes rest on me. She doesn’t make a face but nods, holding Henry gently and leading him back to the nursery, leaving us in the hall.

“You seem to have a lot of knowledge, Simon,” I say. My voice is shaking, and my hands hurt from the struggle with the case. “Maybe you can tell me what these are doing in the attic.”

“What are they, ma’am?” he asks me cautiously. He leans down and picks up several of the bonds, considering them.

“Don’t lie to me, Simon, or pretend like I’m an idiot.” My voice rises. “You knew the case was up there. You knew that finding it would upset me. You know there’s no money hidden in the attic. Why did you send me up there to find this?”

Simon’s face becomes serious. He stops looking at the bonds in his hand, letting it fall to his side.

“Didn’t you?” I insist. “Answer me.” He stands in front of Eli’s bedroom door, but I can see around him. The wardrobe is open, and Eli’s clothes are piled neatly on the floor. The drawers of the chest are open, too, and papers are piled on top of it. “What was this? Some ruse for you to hunt Eli’s room alone? Did you find it?” I rush against him, trying to get into the room, but he takes my wrists and holds them. I struggle, but he is too strong.

“Shhh,” he says. “Quiet now. Do you want them to hear you?”

Emma’s feet are on the top step. Her skirts shift, and she steps up, out of sight.

“Come in here,” he says. He pulls me into Eli’s room and shuts the door.

“How dare you put your hands on me,” I hiss. “If my brother saw you, he’d string you up for daring to touch me!”

“Shhh,” he says again. “I’m sorry. I apologize, but you are losing control of yourself.”

I suck air into my mouth, my hands on my knees, trying to breathe, glaring at him. “Tell me. Tell me why those bonds from my mother’s house are in the attic.”

“Because they belonged to Mr. Eli.”

“That’s a lie. That case is my father’s. Eli Branson never had that case.”

“Yes, ma’am, he did,” Simon says. He walks away from me, across the room, then turns and begins again. “Your mother gave these bonds to Mr. Heppert, your cousin. He put them together with his own, and he sold them to Eli. Didn’t you know that?”

“That’s a lie. Why would Eli buy something he knew was worthless?” The notations in Eli’s ledger. Those bonds from Judge. And what was I? Did Eli have a special Greek character for me? Loans advanced for goods pledged. No, a purchase. Funds paid for goods received.

“Some people think the state of Alabama may yet have to honor these bonds. And Eli was getting something else he valued.”

His face is quiet, neither angry nor ironic nor condescending. He looks at me in a simple, factual way. My body is something apart from me. As if I can watch myself and listen to myself. As if I am locked outside of my body. A valuable body. Something that I would gladly be rid of. Yes, like the carriages and the silver and the farmlands in the county. Eli collected things of value, and he wanted me. Mama was excited by the prospect of our marriage, almost frenzied about it. And Judge was so adamant. Sympathetic but firm. Of course he was firm. Of course marriage to Buck was unsuitable. He arranged the entire transaction. And pretended that it was all Mama.

“What did Judge get in return?” I don’t want to know. Don’t tell me.

“An income for your mother. Cash and other considerations for Mr. Heppert.”

“The mill?”

“No, the mill came later. I believe what Mr. Heppert sought was relief and a pardon. Eli got the taxes on what remained of his property forgiven, and he intervened with Governor Parsons and President Johnson to secure a pardon for Judge.”

“I see.” I feel so far from sight. I am blind, feeling my way along with my hands. “I see,” I say again automatically. “Of course.” I was traded to Eli like the Meissen figurines. I was the only thing of value left in my mother’s house. I have the Blackwood name. Did I prove as valuable to Eli as he thought?

I turn against the closed door. I do not want Simon to look at me, nor do I want to look at him. I put my hands over my eyes. I can see it all.

“Miss Gus,” he says. His footsteps approach me.

“Keep away from me,” I say. I push my hand out at him. “Keep away from me.” Quieter now. My hand out for the doorknob, wiping my tears, not wanting him to see. Not wanting anyone to see.

“Miss Gus, please,” he says behind me.

“You keep away from me.” I shout it.

Emma is on the stairs, coming toward me. She follows me into my room, pushing her way past the door. “What’s the matter?” she says, and I fall against the bed, my head buried in my arms. Emma is near me. She kneels next to me, taking me in her arms and holding me against her breast. We sit on the floor together. She knows how this feels. Of course she knows. They all know much better than I do. It’s supposed to be fine for them. But not for me. It cannot be like this for me.

The laudanum takes effect so slowly. Not like it used to. That’s what they say. The more you take, the more you need. I’ve heard women complain of it. I’ve heard of women who have taken too much and slowly fade away, cold as stone by morning. Mama used to take it. Never often. Sparingly. Mama always knew herself. She didn’t need to take it. Maybe I need it because I don’t know myself. I need it to forget myself. If I could just get away from Albion. This sickness is creeping in around us. It started here. With Eli and Greer. It was Greer who first gave me laudanum. Years ago. I had been married to Eli for two years. Our anniversary. I have not been able to get far away from it since. They keep giving it to me. I must stop this. I must think clearly.

The current is taking me. I want it to take me. I am letting go of the room. The bed and the roses and ribbons seem far away. I feel like I am floating in a river, being carried in its coolness. I drift in nighttime darkness, and I can hear the cicadas with their droning refrain down the whole long, lazy river. Just drifting. They buzz and hum in the high boughs of the live oaks and hickory trees, and I drift away down the river.

It’s like swimming. My hands feel so cold on my forehead. I feel as if I am swimming against the current. If I just let go, it will take me away. Like Hill and Buck, when they would sneak down to the riverbank to swim in the Oosanatee. I followed them sometimes. A child spying on children. I would go by myself and put my feet in the water, too scared to jump in. Too nervous that there might be someone watching me. Buck and Hill would strip down to nothing, naked and pale. They would climb out on a tree branch, hairless bodies flying out as far as they could over the water. Splashing into it. The waves would ripple out from them with their laughter and shouts. Daring each other to climb farther on the tree, to leap farther. They weren’t afraid of the river or the snakes.

Hill is dead. The river took him. No, the war did. Judge fired his rifle fourteen times from his front yard. It wasn’t patriotic. It was a warning to men like Weems. To everyone. Judge and his guns and fires and whippings. He said the war wasn’t over. The words stick in my head. It was an anniversary—my second wedding anniversary—and they fought across the table about the Republicans and Negro voting and Johnson’s impeachment. Eli made awful jokes about setting the Richmond pudding on fire. Judge said the war wasn’t over. It’s not over, is it? No, it ended, but badly. It ended in such a way that it will never be over. “The field of battle has changed,” Judge said. He’s still fighting. Buck is still fighting, too, though he doesn’t know why. And Simon fought. Wasn’t the war enough for them?

Buck has scars from it. Bullet wounds from Shiloh and Kennesaw Mountain and Franklin. He showed them to me that summer after the war. In the house on Allen Street. In my room, sitting on my bed with his shirt off. The sun lit up the dust that floated in the air, holding it suspended as if time were standing still. I traced the scars with my fingers. Two fingers delicately tracing those purple patches of lacerated skin. On his back, under his shoulder, a small ring from a bullet at Franklin. On his belly, under the wiry black hair, a large scar, dark, from a shell at Kennesaw Mountain. Just under his chest, the minié ball that gouged him in the burning pines at Shiloh. He didn’t know he’d been hit until he saw the blood. Mama burst into the room, scandalized. She shamed us, but Buck just laughed and put his shirt on. I had so much need for him then. That was a lie, too. That first time in the woods by the mill with the soft blanket of pine needles under me. The strength in his hands. A soldier’s strength. It all faded away. The itch I got from those scars. Who doesn’t have scars? Greer does, across his face. Eli had scars on his arms from a knife fight. He would sell and buy people. He bought me. Judge sold me to him for a bunch of worthless bonds and a pardon. Who would really pardon Judge? I don’t. I should have listened more to Eli. He never told me where or why he had a knife fight. From the slaves he dragged south? From rough men in highway taverns? Simon must have scars. What does a scar look like on black skin? I’ve seen them, dark ribbons on arms or a back. What must they look like on Simon? Could I touch his scars if he showed them to me? Could I bring myself to touch a colored man’s scars?

If Hill hadn’t died. Or Pa. What if Pa had lived? Would I still be in the house on Allen Street? Pa on the bench with his newspapers. The sun setting over the Oosanatee, slow and black, winding its way through the trees. The thick clover under me and the warm sun on my back. School in Huntsville with all the girls, giggling, straining for a look at Albert Sidney Johnston. Little flashes like fireworks. All stitched together.

The room is so hot and my hands are so cold.

I wonder, would Simon let me touch his scars?

THE HEAT IS SO
intense, and the smothering humidity, but it may break. Monstrous dark clouds obscure the sun, and shivering breezes sweep across the garden. The trees shudder against them. My head feels so thick. I took too much of the laudanum last night.

I don’t know why we haven’t found the money yet. Simon is still searching. I don’t know where he is searching, but I feel it like a second sight. Henry leans against me, his head on my knee, and I pat his blond hair. He raises his head when the breeze wakes the curtains. He cranes his neck to peer out the window into the garden. He lays his head back down as I stroke him.

I don’t know how long this waiting can go on. Waiting to find the money. Waiting for the sickness, this blood fever. Waiting for Buck to come again, or Judge or Mike, to take what little I have. I feel like I am in some sort of nightmare. And yet I move so slowly. I am stultified by this heat. And the laudanum. I do want to get away, but to where? To beg off of Bama for a room at the back of her house until the sickness fades or my fortunes turn?

There is no sound from anywhere in the house. I am alone with Henry, as if there is no one else in Albion.

“Let’s go see Emma,” I say. I rise from my chair and take his hand.

“Where’s Aunt Rachel?” he asks, but he really wants to see Little John. I do not know where they are.

The door into the kitchen is open. It is not so hot in here. Emma has not lit a fire in the stove. She sits at the table drinking coffee.