The Rebel Wife (35 page)

I rush across Pulaski Street, the wind whipping dust and leaves against me. The storm is moving so fast, it may break soon. I am sweating, though the wind is chilling. It howls, and the great black clouds cover the sky. Judge’s house is across the street. I crouch in the Jamesons’ yard behind the hedges and the black iron fence. There are men behind Judge’s house, three men on horseback in wine-colored cassocks. They ride up Elm Street, kicking up dust that is spun into whirling devils by the battling gusts. Branches scrape against each other, groaning to the point of breaking, like limbs torn from a body.

There must be eyes everywhere—Judge’s eyes, watching everything. Does he know I’m coming to him? The handle of the front door gives with little resistance. I close the door and shut out the frenzy of the wind, but it shudders over the house with a low moan.

There is someone here, I feel it. The inky darkness fades to gray. I can hear breathing, soft but labored.

“Miss Gus?” There is a form in front of me, a shape. She seems to materialize from the air.

“Sally? Is that you?” The words float from my lips, barely audible.

“Are you here to see Mr. Judge?” She wheezes the words. I can see her face. Her eyes are wide and black, like dark, empty holes. She leans on a chair.

“Are you ill, Sally?” My hand reaches out to her, but I pull it back. She seems to be dripping. Dark drops fall from her face and mark the floor around her with small black spots. Sweat or blood. The fever has her.

“I’ve been with Mr. Judge over thirty years and never been sick. I ain’t sick now.” The rhythm of her breathing is uneven and loud. She does not look at me but straight ahead, like a sleepwalker. “Go on up, ma’am. He’ll see you.”

“Sally,” I whisper. She turns and shuffles into the darkness. She isn’t in her right mind. She stumbles against the wall and struggles through the back of the house.

I cannot run away. I must see Judge. I hold the thick carved banister and climb the stairs. The bottle is in my pocket. I grasp it through my skirts. The house does not make any noise of its own, no creaking from the force of the wind. The stairs are noiseless, no sighing groans under my feet. The beams do not shift or crack. The house is perfectly still, as if built of solid stone, like a giant mausoleum. There is only the noise of the keening wind outside.

“Judge?” My voice is a hoarse whisper. “Judge, are you home?” There is a light from under the door of his study.

“Who’s there?” Judge swings open the door. He is a silhouette against the lamplight. A gun is poised in his hand.

“Judge, it’s Augusta.” His face is too dark to see, but he is looking at me. I come around the top of the stairs. His arms relax.

“Augusta, what are you doing here? What do you want?”

“I wanted to tell you that Mike is dead. He died today from gunshot wounds.” He is close to me, and his skin is sallow and sagging, but his blue eyes blaze like sapphires. The bones of his cheeks bulge out from the shadows, giving his face the appearance of a fleshless skull. He looks down at the gun in his hand and slips it back into his belt.

“I am sorry, Augusta. I heard there was a skirmish. Come in.” He walks into the study. A lamp flickers on a small writing table, and pen and paper are beside it. The wick makes a faint hissing sound as it burns. Judge notices me looking at the lamp. “All I have left is burning fluid. The whale oil has run out. Sit down.” He takes his seat and picks up his pen.

“Judge, I think Sally is ill. She doesn’t seem well.”

He looks at me sharply. “Nonsense. Sally is as solid as Gibraltar. There’s no sickness in this house.”

The double doors to his bedroom are wide open, and a single candle flickers by his bedside. Judge’s bed is massive, carved wood with a high headboard, and floats in the shadows like a great black barge. A worn saddlebag sits on his bedside table by the candle. It is a match to the saddlebags in the carriage house. Eli’s saddlebag.

“You shouldn’t be on the streets tonight,” he says. “There’s a Negro insurrection. They’ve used the weakness the fever has caused to rise up and attack us. They killed Mike and who knows how many others. I’m writing a telegram to the governor to ask that he invest me with military authority to quell the uprising. Since the governor is a friend, I am sure he will do it.”

Judge picks up the pen and dips it in a small inkwell. He scratches the paper. His bright blue eyes steal a glance at me.

“A Negro uprising?” I ask. He’s a liar. He killed Mike. He killed those other men, and he killed Rachel. He is why Hill is dead, too. The blood is on his hands.

“Buck and some of my men caught them organizing on the Tullahoma Pike. We gave them a pretty good thrashing, but I understand they are planning on making a stand tonight. Cowards. They won’t even fight in the daylight, like men.”

He’s the one who attacks at night, wearing masks and disguises and terrorizing people. My heart feels like it is bursting out of my chest. “What will you do if the governor agrees? Isn’t the army moving in?”

“They’re outside town for now. They’re afraid of the fever, but so are we all. The governor will agree we need support in town. This can’t be allowed to continue. We’ll mop them up fairly quickly. My men are already at work. The telegram to the governor is a practical formality. When he sees the names of the men who are involved, he’ll be stunned. Politicians in government who support this nigger revolution.”

The list. He’s using the list from Eli’s saddlebag.

Desperate tears well in my eyes. I must cry. He must believe me. “I am afraid of the fever, too, Judge. You were right about everything. I’m so sorry. I’m terrified. The whole town has gone away, and now an insurrection? Emma and Henry and I are all alone in the house. Everyone else has run off.” My voice is pleading.

“That nigger Simon is gone, is he? He’s their leader, Augusta. Or didn’t you know that? He’s the first one we’ll flay and string up alive. We won’t have any rabble-rousing niggers in Albion.”

They’ll kill Simon if they catch him.

“I heard, Judge, but I couldn’t believe it. It makes sense now. He was Eli’s man. You were right about everything. Please forgive me. Tell me you forgive me.”

I kneel before him. He is surprised and embarrassed. I reach out for his hand and pull it to my breast. “Please, Judge, you must forgive me.” I kiss his hand, my Judas kiss. His hand is wet from my tears.

“Get up, Augusta. Enough. You are forgiven.” He pulls his hand from me. “There’s real work that needs to be done tonight. You should leave me in peace. Go back to your home.”

“But Judge, we’re all alone in the house. Can’t you send someone to protect us?” My hands are on my face. The sobs come lurching up my throat.

“My men are all in the field, Augusta. Good Lord, get ahold of yourself.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t help it.” The wind is roaring outside like a wild beast.

“Let me get you a brandy.” Judge rises from his seat.

“I’m so sorry, Judge.”

He walks to a chest of drawers in the corner and pours a small brandy into a glass. He holds it out to me and I take it. I push myself off the floor and move back to my seat. The bottle taps against my leg. I pull it out. The bottle feels cold between my fingers.

Judge’s eyes are on me. I remove the cork. The acrid odor is intense. My head jerks away, but underneath, I can smell the laudanum. The liquid is darker than the brandy, and they swirl together in gold and brown as I pour in a little tonic. I can smell the bark and liquor, too. I tilt the glass back, feeling the heat of the laudanum against my lips. I open slightly, taking a small taste into my mouth. My mouth reflexes into a grimace in spite of myself.

“What is that?” Judge asks sharply.

I look at the bottle and place it on the table. It shines in the lamplight. “A tonic that Emma made to ward off the fever. I swear it’s the only thing that has kept us safe.” I lift the glass again. The liquid touches my lips, but I cannot drink.

Judge frowns at me and looks at the bottle. “It works, you say?” he asks. “What fear will do to people. You believe these darky superstitions?”

“I know it seems foolish, but Eli died from it, Judge, and we were all with him. But none of us have gotten sick. I worry myself all day about it. The only thing I can reason is because of Emma’s tonic.”

Judge picks up the bottle. His hand holds it tightly so that bones and veins bulge through his waxy skin. He lifts it to his nose and inhales in a huff. He pulls back quickly, his eyes wide and his mouth creased in a deep frown. He brings it back to his mouth and tilts the bottle back, taking a sip. “Awful stuff,” he says, wiping it from his mouth with the back of his hand. “It’s bitter.”

“Yes, it is.” Drink it. I tilt my glass back again. One tiny sip. My skin buzzes from the taste of the laudanum. I cannot have more. This much I can tolerate, but no more. “Emma insists we drink it all at a gulp, but I just can’t. I have to sip it.”

His eyes are on the bottle, analyzing the muddy liquid inside. “It keeps the fever off, does it?”

“Yes, I’m sure it does. I’ll have Emma send you over more tomorrow.”

He sniffs at the bottle. “All at once?”

“Yes, sir.”

He gives a grim smile and tilts the bottle back, drawing it into his mouth. His throat contracts as he swallows. Once. Twice. His Adam’s apple bobs with each draught. Three times. Four. The bottle is empty. He gives a coughing groan, almost a belch, and sets the empty bottle on the table. “Terrible stuff. But if it keeps the fever at bay.” He walks evenly over to a chest of drawers and pours himself a brandy, which he throws back quickly. He leaves the glass on the chest and sits at the table, picking up his pen. He dips it into the ink and scratches at the paper. “Buck should be by soon to give me his report. They’ve been combing the North Ward, looking for these insurrectionists.” He coughs against his sleeve and resumes writing.

“Have they been out long? Hunting these men?” His face is mesmerizing. Is he reacting? His eyes squint. Will it work? The saddlebag is so close. How long before Buck comes?

Judge looks up at me and squints again. “Since sundown. With the storm now, I don’t know how much more work they can do. At least it seems to have broken the heat.” He holds his pen in midair, scanning the papers up and down. “Where was I?” He puts the pen against the paper and holds it there. He squints at the page. He lifts his left hand and rubs his eyes with his thumb and fingers. He squints at the page again. He looks at me.

His eyes are shocking blue. Though they blaze at me, they do not focus. They rove around me, trying to find my face. His mouth is open. His breath comes quickly. He has blanched pure white, the purple of his veins showing under the skin. He looks down at his hand. His hand is limp and the pen falls loose onto the table. He holds his hands before him, watching them as they tremble ever so gently. The wind is screaming through the trees. Rain has started to fall. It beats against the windows in waves.

Judge lifts his eyes to me, shaking his head. “My God, Augusta, what have you done?”

I stand and step back to the wall. “Nothing more than you deserve,” I whisper.

He looks around the room, at the lamp with its hissing wick, at his papers. He tries to grab the pen, but it rolls off the table and clatters on the floor. The papers flutter down over it. He looks up at me again and places his hands on the arms of the chair. He tries to push himself up. “I swear to God, I’ll kill you myself,” he says. His voice is weak and slurred. He glares at me. He means to come after me, but he can’t grip the chair. He pushes himself, but he has grown too weak. He wrenches forward in a convulsion. His body contracts as if he will vomit. He falls from the chair to his knees, hitting the small table, knocking it forward and crashing to the floor with it.

The lamp explodes into a million pieces of glittering glass, and a pool of flame jumps from the floorboards. Judge is curled up next to it, retching, his body rejecting the tonic and the poison. It floods out of his mouth in a river of mud. He is too weak already. The flames dance across the floor. They reach his legs and his dark pants flare up in bursts.

“Help me, Augusta. Dear God, help me.” He twists his body in agony, his face contorted and ghastly, like a demon’s from the depths of hell. He feels the fire. My God, the flames are everywhere. They leap from the floor to the drapes and climb until they are smoking garlands of flame that touch the ceiling.

I hold my skirts against me and race into his bedroom. I take up the leather satchel and pull it open to reveal a mass of banknotes.

The fire has swallowed the study. Judge is writhing on the floor, blanketed in flame, howling like a mad animal, like the wind outside.

I run down the stairs. I must hold tight to the saddlebag. I hug it against my stomach as I burst out the door into the torrents of rain. It is falling in pounding sheets, and the wind blows it against me. I am soaked before I reach the street. I don’t care. My God, Judge is dead. He must be dead.

This rain. The heat has broken. I have broken its back, and it is all cold, driving rain against my skin, in my hair, soaked through my dress. The streets are black. I cannot see through the rain that surrounds me. If only it is not too late for Simon. The gravel lane is so long, lined with wild gardens heaving in the wind and rain. The houses seem to melt from the relentless drive of it. They twist and bend in the wind that is pulling them apart, cracking them open, and flooding them with rain as they melt back into the earth. I have won. I have killed the dragon. He will not hunt and kill anymore. It is all like laughter and tears and this cold rain. I have killed him.

The keys are awkward in my fumbling hands. Finally, it slips into the lock, and the kitchen door opens. I must lock it again behind me. Emma and Henry. I race through the dining room and up the stairs, through my bedroom, and back to the nursery.

“Emma,” I whisper, tapping on the door. “Emma, it’s Gus.”

The door opens, and I fall into Emma’s arms. She holds me tight. Henry is sitting up in bed in the dark, frightened. My hair is hanging in thick wet strands over me, dripping water from my sleeves on the floor.