Touching Stars (34 page)

Before she could get in the water to help, Eric reached them and, lifting Reese from Dillon, urged his son toward the shore.

Gayle waded in to grab Reese when they got close enough. The little girl was gulping soundlessly, but she let out a screech once Gayle got her arms around her. Then she began to cough up water.

Gayle moved away from the riverbank and up into the field, where she could see a crowd descending. She held Reese at an angle so the water had a place to go. “Get a blanket!”

Against her, Reese coughed again and again, spitting up water, but in between she wailed and gulped. Gayle didn’t have time to see if Eric and Dillon were okay. She stripped off Reese’s wet dress and wrapped her in a windbreaker one of the campers had been wearing. Cissy arrived, and Gayle transferred Reese into her arms.

“She’s breathing,” Gayle said. “She’s been spitting up water. But she’s breathing on her own.”

“I got wet!” Reese began to cry.

Somebody brought a knit afghan. Gayle recognized it as one that Cray kept in his truck. Gayle wrapped it around the little girl, tucking the corners between Reese and her mother.

Cissy was clearly struggling not to cry. “What’ll I do?”

“We’re going to take her in to the hospital right away, just to be sure she’s okay. A doctor needs to look her over. But I think she’s fine, Cissy. She wasn’t in for as long as a minute before Dillon grabbed her and got her head above water.”

“Where’s Dillon?” Cissy turned to search for him. She was well aware that Dillon’s swimming skills were skimpy.

“I think he can tell you,” Gayle said, stepping aside as her son, dripping river water, pushed through the crowd around them.

“Is Reese okay?”

“She’s going to be,” Gayle said. She wanted to ask how her son could have been stupid enough to go into the river when he could hardly swim himself. She wanted to insist he explain why he had acted without thinking.

“Thanks to you,” she said, because when it came right down to it, that was the only thought worth expressing.

Eric, dripping too, joined them. “Dillon, exactly what were you thinking when you jumped into the river instead of just yelling for help?”

Dillon turned and grinned at his father, a grin so much like Eric’s it was almost like looking at twins. “I guess I was thinking it was a good thing you gave me swimming lessons this summer, Dad.”

Little Reese Claiborne was okay. When word came from the hospital, Mr. Allen announced it to cheers, and Dillon was now the man of the hour. Jared still couldn’t believe that his little brother, who didn’t even like to take a bath, had jumped in and saved the little girl. Dillon hadn’t been cocky about it. In fact, in a private moment, he’d told Jared he hoped nobody else fell in for a long time, at least not while he was around.

But whether he’d enjoyed the experience or not, Dillon had showed everybody what he was made of.

Unfortunately, Brandy had, too. She had disappeared immediately after Reese’s rescue, and Lisa had taken over for her. Jared hadn’t gone looking for her, because he didn’t know what to say. From camp gossip, he knew that right before Reese had gone into the river, Brandy had been watching her. Nobody was quite sure how the accident had happened, but one thing was certain. As much as Brandy liked children, she sure wasn’t ready to be anybody’s mother.

Right before the campfire program was about to begin, Cray found Jared tossing a Frisbee with some campers.

“Hey, Jar, take a break for a minute.”

Jared threw the Frisbee to Gary, the kid most likely to keep things going for a while, and joined his friend on the sidelines.

Cray didn’t waste time. “Lisa says Brandy went home for a while, but she’s probably coming back before we go back to the tents.”

“Uh-huh.” Jared watched his campers and made a mental note to make sure Gary didn’t take this leadership thing too far and convince everybody to sneak out of their tents tonight.

“She feels really bad,” Cray said. “She told Lisa she asked one of her campers to watch Reese while she ran to do something. The girl claims she didn’t hear her. Brandy says that whether she did or not, it’s her own fault.”

“She’s right about that. It
is
her fault.”

“Yeah, well, she knows it. You shouldn’t be a hard-ass. It would make her feel a lot better if you’d offer some sympathy.”

Jared chewed the inside of his lip, but he didn’t say anything.

“Fine, do it your way.” Cray turned to leave.

“Do you think maybe this is a sign?” Jared asked. “She thinks she’s all ready to be a mom, then she does something like this?”

“Yeah, well, maybe the way you’re acting is a sign, too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Cray kept his back to his friend. “Maybe I was never the high-school hotshot, Jar, but even I know that when somebody you’re supposed to be in love with screws up, you don’t rub her mistakes in her face. Maybe you’re not all that ready to be a husband or a dad, either.”

“Yeah? Well, tell me something new.”

Cray pivoted on one heel, as if he’d been practicing. “That’s what this is all about? You’re mad at her for maybe getting pregnant?”

“I was there when it happened.
If
it happened. I’m mad at both of us.” A badly thrown Frisbee came his way, and Jared grabbed it. He threw it with such force that it sailed over everybody’s heads and disappeared into the twilight. Nobody went after it.

Cray lowered his voice, since the campers were dispersing and some were ambling toward them. “Maybe she’s not pregnant. Maybe everything’s going to turn out okay.”

“You think everybody’s going to be better for whatever happens?”

“C’mon, Jar, I didn’t say that.”

“People have to live with their mistakes. You joined the marines. Don’t you wonder if maybe you made a big one? Like what you did is going to change your life forever?”

“You know I looked at my options, and I did what I knew I had to.”

“You closed a door.”

“You close one, you open another. That’s how things work.” Cray slung his arm over his friend’s shoulders. “No matter what happens with Brandy and, you know, the baby, you still have a million choices.”

“I can’t even seem to make a couple.”

Cray shook him. “Come on, you’ll work it out. Your life is great. How can you be so confused?”

Jared wasn’t sure, but he did know that he and Robby, the kid who had grown up on the land where Jared was standing, had a lot in common. Robby’s life had changed the moment the mysterious Blackjack Brewer rode up to his doorstep. And no matter how things turned out with Brandy, Jared’s life was about to change, as well.

Even though he didn’t know how the play was going to end, he was pretty sure that Robby was going to be called on to make some tough decisions. And whatever he decided would affect the people he loved the most.

Jared was afraid he could relate all too well.

1895

B
efore the war, we knew as much about the world as we needed. News traveled with every person who passed or visited, and even though we were miles from any town, we never felt alone. But even though neighbors still stopped to tell us what they knew, now we hungered for every detail. We had always read the newspaper, but newspapers became rarer after the South marched into battle. Now they were like diamonds.

Two days after Blackjack asked permission to remain with us a while, Uncle Eb came back from town with the
Richmond Enquirer.
He had gotten a ride with a neighbor, an event that was rare these days. The roads were in disrepair, and so were wagons and buggies. Horses and mules had become nearly as exotic as elephants.

When Uncle Eb saw me sitting on the front step of the porch, he held up the paper proudly. I had wanted to go with him, but I didn’t like leaving Ma alone at home with Blackjack. He seemed a gentleman, and he knew how to coax the most reluctant smiles from her. But Blackjack was still nothing more than a stranger about whom we knew little—and what we did know might well have been lies.

Uncle Eb’s gap-toothed grin was unusual as he presented the newspaper to me. There was little any of us could be proud of these days.

“Almost didn’t git it. Had to argue my way clear through the store. It was the last one they had.”

With excitement, I took it from him. Eb and Cora could both read a little but rarely chose to, preferring to have me read to them.

“What does it say?” I asked, to be polite, but I was already scanning the front page.

This was the same newspaper that had once said about Lincoln: “What shall we call him? Coward, assassin, savage, murderer…? Or shall we consider them all as embodied in the word ‘fiend’ and call him Lincoln, The Fiend?”

I remembered this clearly, because I had read and reread every newspaper we could lay claim to so often that I had committed most of them to memory.

“It says here that bells tolled, and there were services in Lincoln’s memory.” I looked up. “In Richmond? The capital of the Confederacy?”

“Used to be our capital. Now it’s got Union troops stationed on every blamed corner.” Uncle Eb spat into the bushes. “There’ll be more of that pretending, too, even if not one living soul in Richmond mourns the man. People trying to make friends with the enemy now.”

I thought there was probably more to the mourning than Uncle Eb supposed. Ma had expressed the concerns of many Virginians. Maybe many of our citizens weren’t truly saddened by Lincoln’s death, but with the President gone and the North enraged by his murder, what would happen to us?

I read a little more, then raised my head again. “It says here that at the same time Mr. Lincoln was shot, somebody tried to kill Mr. Seward, the secretary of state, only they didn’t get to finish the job.”

I looked down and saw something even more interesting. With Uncle Eb standing over me, waiting for me to tell him what was there, I read quickly.

“They captured and killed the actor who shot the president,” I told him, looking up. “John Wilkes Booth. In a barn right here in Virginia. And they’ve rounded up other people who conspired to help him. That means they plotted to kill him together.” I looked down and then up again. “It says they’ll surely hang, and anyone else who helped.”

Uncle Eb wiped the sweat off his forehead with a sleeve. “Took ’em a while to get him, didn’t it? Think of it. He shoots old Abe Lincoln in front of a whole theater full of people, including a bunch of army officers, then he runs across the stage in full view of God and the Union, and nobody stops him. I don’t know how these strawfoots won the war.”

I smiled and went back to reading.

“They’re sure it was him?” Uncle Eb asked. “Because it would be just like them to get the wrong man.”

I continued to scan. “It says here the cavalry caught him in a barn in Port Royal and set it on fire. Then they shot him through the neck. They got him out, but he died on the front porch of the farmer’s house. Then they wrapped his body in a blanket and took it by ship to Washington. They arrested a man who was with him, too.” I looked up. “They’ll surely hang
him,
even if they can’t prove anybody helped.”

The door opened, and Blackjack came out. He still moved a bit slowly, and the limp was noticeable if I watched for it. He used a cane he had fashioned from a gnarled tree limb, but all in all, he had recovered well. As long as he didn’t overdo and kept the splint in place, Ma said he would be fine.

“Who are they going to hang, Robby?” he asked. “Not any more of our good sons of the South, I hope.”

I waved the paper but held on tightly. “They killed Mr. Lincoln’s assassin and captured a man who was with him.”

For a moment he didn’t speak. But his expression was blank, as if he was just trying to put the story together in his mind.

I suppose I’d made it clear I wasn’t going to give up the paper easily. He dropped down on the step beside me but didn’t try to take it. “Tell me what it says.”

I told him what I’d told Uncle Eb. Then more. “They buried him on the grounds of the Washington Arsenal and covered the grave with a slab of stone.”

The door opened again, and Ma appeared. She looked pointedly at me. “I didn’t know work was finished for the day.”

“Uncle Eb got a newspaper.” I held it up as proof. “It’s almost new. They caught and killed John Wilkes Booth, the actor.”

“Not actor. Hero.” Blackjack got to his feet, then added what he had said to me before. “Abraham Lincoln deserved to die.”

“No one deserves to be shot down in cold blood,” my mother said, before I could speak. “And from what I know of it, Mr. Booth shot Mr. Lincoln from behind. What kind of man kills another without any means of defense?”

“One who wanted him absolutely, utterly dead,” Blackjack said. “One who thought death was too good for him, no matter how it was dispensed.”

“One who thought he was God incarnate?” Anger seethed in my mother’s voice. “As if one more death, one more powerful man removed from the scene, will change this mess we’ve made of our country?”

“Madam, your husband died for the South. Where are your sympathies?”

I listened with dismay. I knew my mother had not agreed with my father’s decision to fight, nor had she been in favor of secession. But once the die was cast, she had done her part. Even before our food stores had been raided by both armies, we had gone without, providing whatever we could to our troops at our own peril. When the battles had come close to our home, she had tirelessly nursed the wounded and helped any passing traveler. Now I realized just how deep her resentments lay.

“I gave my husband to the Confederacy.” She gazed down at Blackjack. “And now I have none. I gave a farm that was rich and fertile and now barely feeds us. Had this war continued, I might have had to give my only son, as well. Is that not enough for you, Mr. Brewer? Am I not
enough
of a patriot?”

“John Wilkes Booth killed a dictator, but now he’s our enemy? How can one man’s courage be greeted with such disdain in his own land, by his own people?”

“We reap what we sow. Sow violence and war, reap more violence. We will suffer for this. There will be no talk of conciliation in the North now, only revenge.”

She turned her gaze to me. “Robby, there are chores to be done. The newspaper will still be waiting this evening.” Before I could reply, she swept back inside, her head high.

Blackjack watched her go, but when she closed the door behind her, he didn’t try to follow. Instead, without a word, he gestured to the newspaper. I gave it up reluctantly and watched him fold it under his arm. Then, with his cane tapping angrily, he limped off to read it beside our well.

Supper progressed in silence. My mother and Cora had made bread that afternoon, and it was a welcome change with beans. I knew the price of flour had risen to seven hundred dollars a barrel in Richmond in January. According to one of the newspapers we’d seen, there had been riots earlier in the war, and Jefferson Davis had been forced to threaten starving women with prison to make them disband.

Bread was a delicacy we would never have been able to serve had we not grown, then carefully protected and hidden, our own wheat. Tonight there was no salted pork and no stewed apples, but there was a dab of apple butter with the bread, and dried corn stewed with onions. With the war ending, I hoped the blockades and pillaging would also end quickly so we could eat well once more.

Ma stood to clear. Before she left the room, she addressed Blackjack without quite looking at him. “Eb bought milk and a little sugar in town with the money you’ve paid me, and I made pudding.”

I couldn’t remember the last time I had tasted pudding. “Pudding was my father’s favorite,” I told Blackjack as we waited.

He seemed to be thinking of something else and didn’t reply.

“This is the way my mother makes her apologies,” I said more forcefully.

He looked at me and frowned.

“I don’t know what you’ve suffered, but we’ve suffered, too,” I said. “And she’s afraid we’re going to suffer more. Still, I think she’s sorry she was so forceful.”

His expression softened. “Is that right?”

“There’s no amount you could pay us that would entice her to bake pudding. She made it as a gift.”

“You seem to understand her.”

I understood no one better. Had my father been alive, I wouldn’t have needed to stay so close to my mother’s side. I would have ranged farther, visiting friends and what was left of my father’s family in Page County. Had the war not interfered, I would have been sent away to school next year. But the war
had
interfered, and Ma and I had been left to face it together. We were closer because of it.

“She has a mind of her own.” He smiled, and even hidden inside his new beard, his teeth shone white.

Ma returned carrying a teacup of pudding for each of us. When she started to return to the kitchen, Blackjack rose. “I can’t eat this unless you’ll have some with us.”

She looked surprised, then cautious. “I have dishes to tend to.”

“Robby and I will help, won’t we?” He looked pointedly at me.

“He’s right, Ma. Come sit with us.”

She considered, then gave a brief nod. She returned with a cup for herself and took her seat.

“Robby tells me that pudding is a rare treat. I thank you.” Blackjack looked down at his. “I’m honored to share.”

She didn’t look at him, but she gave a faint nod.

“And I’m sorry if I was contentious earlier,” he said. “I’m afraid I’m still adjusting to losing the war.”

I looked up. He did indeed look like a man whose mind was filled with unpleasant thoughts. “Then you believe it’s over?” I asked.

“Some still implore our soldiers to stand their colors, but with Johnston’s surrender—”

“Johnston surrendered?”

“The day Booth was killed. You’ll find it in your newspaper.”

The date was nothing more than a coincidence, but I could see that he was grieved by both events.

Ma saw it, too. “There must be an ending before we can begin again.”

He smiled a little, but his voice was sad. “‘O, now, for ever farewell the tranquil mind. Farewell content. Farewell the plumed troop and the big wars that make ambition virtue. O, farewell. Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump, the spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife, the royal banner, and all quality, pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war.’”

Ma looked as surprised as I felt. He had spoken the words with great feeling. “You know
Othello?
”

“I am educated in the plays of Mr. Shakespeare, but not at all in the acceptance of defeat.”

“We will all of us become better,” she said.

We finished the pudding in silence; then Ma stood to clear the table. Blackjack got up to help and refused to listen when she told him it wasn’t necessary. “Many hands make light work.”

“A student of proverbs, too. What else will we learn about you?”

I noted a new lightness in her voice, and he must have noted it, too, because he smiled. “That I am uncommonly fond of pleasant evenings, of conversation and wit, and of a woman with a mind of her own.”

I expected Ma to take offense, but she surprised me. Her pale cheeks turned rosy, and her eyes sparkled. “And of pumping water and washing dishes?”

“If with them comes companionship.”

I must have frowned, because my mother looked at me and laughed. “Robby, shall I allow Mr. Brewer the pleasure of cleaning our kitchen?”

I wanted to see her at the quilt frame and not in the kitchen with Blackjack. “I’ll help him. You must have quilting to do.”

“I believe Mr. Brewer and I can finish without you,” Ma said. “Perhaps you can help Uncle Eb put up the chickens for the evening.”

I struggled for a reason not to leave the house, but one look at my mother’s face and I knew there was no reason good enough to change her mind.

“I won’t be long,” I said.