The Jackal’s Mistress

Chapter 19

19

“It seems we’re always the last two awake,” Libby murmured. She was wearing a black cloak with a hood tonight. Years ago, the first time Peter had seen her wear it, he’d joked that it looked like she was in mourning. But it was October now, and she’d been cold when she and Weybridge were last chatting here on the porch, and so she’d retrieved it from her armoire after supper. Besides, she could hide a pistol beneath it. She liked that idea, given the number of people who seemed now to be sniffing around. The professor was wearing Peter’s barn coat. The moon was almost full, and she could see him from this angle even without the light from the lantern. As seemed to have become their custom, he was in the rocking chair, and she was sitting on the top step beside him. “You should have a pipe,” she added.

“Or you,” he teased her.

“I can’t imagine such a thing. I have no interest.”

“To be honest, I can’t see you smoking a pipe either. But life is nothing if not unpredictable. You probably didn’t expect you’d be running this place a few years ago—and feeding the Army of Northern Virginia.”

Or, she thought, sitting with a Colt she could draw if anyone came looking for this man. She took another sip of the whiskey. “It’s quiet now. You should have seen the mill back in July and August.”

“Oh, I am quite certain the quartermasters and teamsters were fighting to come here, Libby. I see them rolling dice: the winner gets to bring the wagon trains to Libby Steadman’s mill in Berryville.”

She punched him lightly in his left shin.

“Trying to break my one good leg?” he asked.

“Yes. I want you in a wheelchair so my life can be even more complicated. That’s my plan.” More complicated. She had chosen those words over harder. There was a difference. She supposed she knew why, but didn’t want to give the idea credence. Just words, she told herself. Just words. She knew she was lonely before she met Weybridge, but she hadn’t known how she hungered for company like…this. Like him.

He leaned over for the jug of whiskey and topped off both of their glasses. An owl cried out in the nearby woods.

“Jubilee sure gave me hell for not giving her a shooting lesson today,” he said.

“You think that was my niece’s idea of giving someone hell?” She laughed. “You got off easy.”

“I just didn’t think it was wise. The noise? Too risky now.”

“I know.”

He gazed up into the night sky. “?‘When it is dark enough, you can see the stars,’?” he murmured.

“Is that your Thoreau or your Hawthorne?” she asked. “I recognize it from one of them.”

“Close.”

“Dear God, please don’t tell me it’s Harriet Beecher Stowe.”

“You’ve read Uncle Tom’s Cabin ?”

“I have. I read it years ago. When I lived in Charlottesville with my parents.”

“And?”

“I told you: my family never owned slaves. And in my current…situation…the adults closest to me these days are Joseph and Sally. Yes, Negroes. I probably have more Negro friends, that means, than you do in Vermont. What do you make of that, Professor Abolitionist?”

“You’re right,” he admitted.

“You’ll see I’m right about most things,” she said lightly. “Tell me, have you read Macaria ?”

She could see embarrassment in his eyes. The name was familiar, but he couldn’t place it. “Something from the Greeks? Euripides?” he asked.

“Oh, Professor. You can do better. You’ve been fighting too long.”

“I have,” he agreed. “We all have.”

She pulled her legs close and wrapped her arms around her shins. “It was a sensation in these parts this spring and summer. It was the book to read all across the South. Augusta Jane Evans—our Harriet Beecher Stowe. Macaria: Altars of Sacrifice. A romance, and I usually like romance. Not this time. I couldn’t get past the first chapter.”

“No?”

“?‘Brightly-burnished brazen candlestick.’ That’s in the very first sentence. Real tongue twister. And, I’m sorry, candlesticks aren’t brazen. As you may have noticed, I don’t have time for foolishness. These days, I don’t have time for much of anything but work. What we’re doing now? These nights? Until you came, I hadn’t done something like this in forever. Fact is, I don’t have many friends. I don’t have time for friends. And, who knows, maybe I was never going to make any here, especially after Peter left. Anyway, Uncle Tom’s Cabin only pointed out for me what I already knew.”

He seemed to be taking this in. He cleared his throat and said finally, “Emerson. That quote I mentioned. It’s Emerson.”

“Well, now. Here’s the Emerson you can put on my tombstone if you outlive me and are, for whatever the reason, still hanging around these parts: ‘All loss, all pain, is particular.’ Six words, short and sweet.”

“I think you’ve read more than my students.”

She rolled her eyes. “Should I be insulted because you don’t think women read? Or Southerners?”

“Actually, I was making fun of my students.”

She found herself chuckling, and the sound of her laugh surprised her. It was so rare. For a long moment, she only breathed. But, slowly, the reality of the world and where they were and what they were doing returned with the force of winds before a summer storm. “Sally thinks Lieutenant Morgan knows you’re here,” she said finally. They hadn’t discussed it over supper because Jubilee was present. “Sally’s nerves are as good as mine—maybe better—but she said today was a close call.”

“It was.”

She thought of Morgan’s grandfather, wondering at his suspicions. Leveritt had thought so highly of her husband until Peter emancipated his family’s slaves. His attitude toward the young man changed then. Thought he was both a coward and an idiot: was scared of his slaves and didn’t understand the economics of farming.

“And Libby?”

She waited.

“The wolves,” he said, “will only circle closer until they catch the scent and find me. And that means cornering you and Joseph and Sally, too.”

Sally had confronted her after supper about the weapons she’d found. She hadn’t discovered the carbine, but she’d uncovered the Colt pistols Libby had taken off the blackberry pickers after she’d killed them weeks ago on the way to Harper’s Ferry.

“What are you suggesting?” she asked.

“I should go. I should leave.”

She knew this was coming, but the short sentence still hit her like a Minie ball.

“I believe Joseph thinks so, too,” he added, when she said nothing.

“So, your plan is to limp north twenty miles on crutches to the Union line? Take the turnpike that the Army of Northern Virginia uses? The roads that Mosby’s Rangers own?”

“Libby, I—”

“I didn’t mean to snap at you. I was just pointing out the absurdity of your leaving. You were at death’s door not all that long ago.”

“You’ve done wonders.”

“And now you want to go.”

“We need a plan,” he said, and she felt his utter lack of reaction to her like a slight. “We need a plan that keeps you all safe and, yes, gives me a fighting chance.”

There were reasons people drank that had nothing to do with a lack of character. She took another swallow of the bark juice, vowing never to judge Jeremiah Norton again.

“And that plan is?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Don’t know.”

“So, we have finally stumped the professor. Hallelujah. Found a problem the professor can’t solve.” She was trying to regain her equilibrium and say something playful, but her tone, she feared, sounded only ornery.

“Not yet,” he replied, not taking the bait. “But I’ll solve it. We’ll solve it.”

“Well, if you make it north, you can ask your bluebelly friends about my husband. I did when I was there. And I remain unimpressed with their efforts on his behalf.”

“You don’t know what they’ve found. How could you? For all you know—”

“I know he’s dead,” she said, and once the words were out, she understood this short sentence had been inside her like a tumor for months. Once the letters stopped. Once she heard about the overcrowding and the smallpox. Once Peter wrote they were moving him. “And he’s just one of the people I’ve lost. It’s a long list, Professor. One goddamn long list.”

“Libby, I know—”

“You know nothing! Who have you lost? No, you know absolutely nothing.” She reached into her cloak and pulled the Colt from the inner pocket. “This pistol? It’s one of five I’ve amassed. Five! Sally found the other four today. Didn’t know that, did you—that I have five? And I have a cavalry carbine, too, hiding now on a beam above one of the hoppers in the mill. And—take a breath, Captain Weybridge, inhale good and deep—I may not be a good shot, but I have shot to kill. Two times. On the way to Harper’s Ferry to get you your goddamn medicine. I shot two deserters, Southern boys, who would have been happy to kill Joseph and…” The words stopped in her throat, but already he was climbing down from the rocking chair and sitting beside her. He started to put an arm around her, but she pushed him away and continued, “And as for Joseph? What he’s done? Well, there’s a dead ranger—or some bastard who may once have been a ranger—who attacked me in my kitchen, was pulling up my dress and reaching into my drawers, when Joseph took a shovel to the back of his head. He’s buried right here. On this land. And this Colt? My first Colt? It was his. That, Captain Weybridge, is where I got it.”

Suddenly she was shaking her head against the tears, but she had no chance of stemming the tide. She closed her eyes, but it was hopeless. She collapsed into him, after all, that first arid, choking sob swelling into runnels of despair, and felt his left hand, the one with but two fingers and a thumb, on her shoulder, and then his right, and she nuzzled her face into his neck and allowed herself to be engulfed by him.

In the morning, once the animals had been tended to—the cow milked, the chickens fed, the horses’ stalls mucked and the pair walked to the south field to graze—and once the water had been brought from the well to the kitchen and the washtub, Libby gathered the five of them around the kitchen table. She could see in Jubilee’s face that she knew something of importance loomed. Sally had broken some eggs into one bowl and poured flour into another, and had a cup of cow’s milk on the counter. But she hadn’t started baking the biscuits yet.

“The professor here has announced that it’s time for him to go,” she said without preamble.

Jubilee sat back and folded her arms across her chest, her eyes growing small and dark. Libby was not surprised by her disappointment. Weybridge had meant more work for the girl, but he had also been something new: a break in the routine. Libby wanted to believe this was all he had meant to her, too, but now that she’d accepted the idea that Peter was dead, spoken the words aloud, she knew she was mistaken. Weybridge, for whatever the reasons, was no mere placeholder. She had liked him—no, she liked him still. She was just now feeling a nonsensical hurt. He had begun as an act of kindness, a moral absolute; she’d never expected to have feelings for him beyond what she might for any sick or wounded stranger. He was a totem for her husband, something (not someone, some thing ) that gave her a reason to believe that Peter was being cared for as well. And then he became something more than that. Something more tangible.

“Well, praise the Lord,” her niece said, raising her hands. “I get back a bed of my own.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Jubilee. Maybe we can find a nice officer from the Army of Northern Virginia to billet here. Wouldn’t that be a kind thing to do?” Libby teased the girl, trying—rather like her niece—to be courageous and put a bow on her disappointment.

But this wasn’t just disappointment: it was a venomous mix of sadness and irritation. Something combustible fueled by yet more loss.

“?’Specially if he can’t walk without crutches and is finicky about catfish. That would be just perfect,” Jubilee added.

“Was I finicky about catfish?” Weybridge asked, offering the girl a small smile.

“When you weren’t puking it up, yes, Jackal, you were. You are. But that’s okay by me, because the only thing I am more sick of than catfish is eggs.”

Joseph clasped his hands on the table, taking charge. “When you leave,” he said to the Yankee, “you’re obviously goin’ to have to ride in the wagon, but, just as obvious, you ain’t goin’ to be sittin’ on the seat. We should think about whether nighttime is better than daytime. I can see advantages to both. When Mr.Steadman returns—”

“Peter’s dead, Joseph,” Libby said, interrupting him and silencing the room like a sudden, unexpected clap of thunder. This anger was new, the coals igniting the night before, and now it was as hot as a blacksmith’s forge. Flames rose high, yellow and red, the sparks devils’ eyes, and she could not contain them when they reared up. “He’s not returning.”

“How do you know?” asked Joseph. “Did you hear something?”

She shook her head grimly. “I’ve been lying to myself for months. We’ve all been lying to ourselves for months.”

Sally put her hand on Libby’s arm and stroked it. Libby had the sense this older woman assumed her husband had perished months ago, and had had the wisdom and kindness not to dampen her hopes. Suddenly, Libby hated her husband for dying, and while she understood it was unreasonable to feel this way, she couldn’t help herself. She turned her attention back to Joseph, because now that she had said her piece, she wanted to speak no more of Peter this morning. “Yes, Joseph, you’re right. We need to decide the timing, and we need to decide whether we’re going to disguise the captain or hide him.”

“Libby,” Weybridge began, “we’ll figure out how to get me north. We will. But as for Peter, let’s talk—”

“There is no as for Peter. You and I resolved that last night.” As soon as she finished the sentence, she felt Joseph and Sally looking at her even more intensely now, their sympathy tinged with curiosity. Last night. The adults were wondering what she meant—what happened. Even Jubilee was more alert. And so Libby looked around the table and elaborated, “I told the captain last night that it’s clear my husband is dead. That’s all I meant. So, let’s please focus on the issue before us: how do we get this man back to Harper’s Ferry? What were you thinking, Joseph?”

Sally and Joseph glanced at each other. They cared for her, but she didn’t want their sympathy today. She wanted the sorts of things they couldn’t give her, the things this war had taken from her and could never give back.

“Go on,” she said finally to Joseph. “Speak your piece.”

“Well, this is goin’ to sound mighty dark. But I was thinkin’ a coffin. We put the captain here in a casket, and say we’re goin’ to Charles Town, like we did in September. But this time, we’re bringin’ a body to be buried if someone stops us.”

She liked the idea. She looked at Weybridge, curious as to how he’d respond.

“Adonis,” he said. “That’s an accurate way to describe me.”

She knew the reference and how he was endeavoring to lighten the mood, but no one else at the table understood the allusion. “Adonis was killed by a wild boar,” she told them. “Zeus brought him back from the dead. The professor here is showing off his oh-so-fine book learning. His…erudition.”

“I was thinking Lazarus and the Bible,” said Sally.

“I wasn’t thinking either,” Joseph told them. “No miracle to the captain bein’ alive this morning: just good doctorin’ and good food.”

“And the biggest bed in the whole house,” Jubilee added. “Biggest bed on the whole property!”

“I don’t suppose you have a coffin lying around,” Weybridge said.

“No. I’d build you one. I don’t think we got grain deliveries comin’ to the mill in the next day or two. Do we, ma’am?”

“No,” said Libby. “We don’t. So…a coffin.”

“It will be plain. Plain and simple. But it’ll do.”

“Who are we saying is in that coffin, since it isn’t Lazarus?” asked Sally.

“I guess that depends,” Libby said, thinking aloud. “If we’re stopped by people who know us near here, I don’t think there’s a lie in the world that’ll work.”

“I could build it different. Shippin’ crate. We could say there’s pottery in there, maybe,” Joseph suggested. “But, thing is, that wouldn’t stop rascals from breakin’ it open. That’s why I thought coffin. You have to be the worst sort of nasty to break open a coffin.”

“And you have the perfect black cloak for a lady in mourning, Libby,” Weybridge told her, but the remark—part flattery and part small joke—only irritated her. She was almost nothing but ire now, as irrational as that was. She just didn’t want him to go.

“I could find a way to bore an airhole. Punch in a gap so you could breathe,” Joseph continued.

“Maybe ones for a gun, too,” said Weybridge.

“I’d carry one Colt, and you could have another inside your coffin, Captain,” she said. There was something hurtful in the way she called him “Captain” this morning. It was formal. It was distant. She knew he preferred it when she called him “Professor,” teasing him good-naturedly.

“We got ourselves two guns?” Jubilee asked.

“Yes,” said Libby. “We do.”

“Where’d we get the second one? I want to carry one.”

“No.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“Where doesn’t matter. We have two. I’ll carry one, and the Yankee here will have one. Joseph, you’ll build the casket?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And, Captain, you’ll help Joseph in whatever way you can?” she said to Weybridge, framing the question in a way that both asserted her control and his diminishment. She hated herself for being this cantankerous, but her world was about to grow empty again.

“Yes. Of course.”

“One thing,” said Sally.

Libby looked at her, and she saw the older woman’s face was strained. Sally was worried about her. Well, so be it. Libby was a train without an engineer. “Go on,” she told the woman. “What’s on your mind?”

“If we put the man in the coffin and you and Joseph are stopped before you’ve gone far, we still don’t have a name for the body. A person you’re taking to Charles Town to bury. We ain’t solved that one.”

She stood. Sleep had come slowly last night, and she was tired. She went to the counter and stared at the fixings for breakfast, her hands on her hips. She lit the stove. “Fine,” she said, her tone a mixture of exasperation and pique. “I’ll go kill someone.”