The Jackal’s Mistress

Chapter 25

25

Libby shed no tears as the horses plodded north with the wagon behind them, and the October sun rose. She supposed it was a combination of anger at all they had taken from her and, pure and simple, the will to live. Even now. Her attention was on the road ahead, the blackened fields they passed—the occasional corn plants that hadn’t collapsed beneath the heat of the torches standing like lone, shadowy sentinels above long plains of ashes—and the patches of forest that occasionally covered the wagon in shade. She was prepared to shoot anyone and anything that came near them, to (as soldiers were wont to say) rain down hellfire and hot lead.

Joseph said almost nothing, his own soul crushed by Sally’s death. Her murder. Even Jubilee was mostly quiet, stunned into silence.

“You tired?” Joseph finally asked Libby at one point.

“I am not,” she replied. She’d sleep after they killed her. Or when they reached Harper’s Ferry. Whichever came first.

“I’m not, either,” Jubilee murmured, her tone defiant, but she leaned a little deeper into Libby.

Occasionally, Libby called back to Weybridge, sometimes reassuring him (and herself) that though the horses were moving slower than usual, they’d get there soon enough, or to warn him when the road ahead was rutted. One time, she alerted him that riders were approaching, but it was rebel teamsters roaring south, and they had no interest in a Negro man, a white woman, and a white girl heading the other way. Another time they had to pull over so Confederate infantry, also marching south, could pass them unobstructed. But, again, the soldiers, some barefoot and some with rags for shoes, paid them no mind, even though Weybridge in his casket and she in her seat had held their guns cocked. Only as row after row of boys passed did she realize the utter absurdity of bothering to have her pistol ready: what did she really believe she and a man in a box could do if these soldiers wanted to stop them? And why in the name of heaven would these men have any interest in a modest coffin?

By late morning, they were nearing the patch of road where the Union pickets had emerged when she and Joseph had first ventured to Harper’s Ferry for whiskey and medicine, and the trip had been uneventful. And so when the two bluebellies appeared from behind a copse of hickory and oak, a few dying leaves still dangling from a few quiescent twigs, it was almost anticlimactic. The soldiers seemed more like teenagers than hardened veterans; they were not the same pair as last time, but they were interchangeable, she thought. Boys who should have been raising a barn with their elders or learning a trade or, perhaps, being taught Shakespeare by the likes of the professor behind her. They pointed their muskets at her, and she marveled at how easy it would be to shoot one. She wouldn’t; they were just so young. But she felt the Colt in her hands and almost wanted to demonstrate that if they were going to threaten her with rifles, there would be a price to pay.

Instead she asked, “May my man and I get down and open the box in the wagon?”

One of the pickets glanced quickly at the other. “That coffin? What’s in there?” he inquired, lowering his weapon slightly. The other kept the rifle aimed at Joseph and her. “What’s so important you got them animals winded and lathered up?”

“A Yankee.”

“You bringin’ us back a dead soldier? Someone…” His voice trailed off, but his interest had been piqued. Someone… important ? Someone… I’ve heard of ? Someone… you all killed ? There were infinite ways he might have finished the sentence.

Of course, there were thousands of ways she might have finished it for him. Someone… decent. Someone… kind. Someone… I kept alive at a price I could not afford.

“Not dead. Very much alive,” she answered.

And from inside the coffin Weybridge shouted, “Captain Jonathan Weybridge, Eleventh Vermont. Wounded last month near Berryville.”

“What the hell?” the picket said. He walked to the side of the wagon and asked her, “You from Berryville?”

“I am.”

He said to the other soldier, “I’m goin’ to climb into the wagon and open this thing. If some secesh spy or assassin jumps out and I get kilt, please be sure and shoot these two.” His tone was calm. He wanted to believe her and the voice from inside the makeshift casket.

“I swear it’s me, soldier,” said Weybridge.

The fellow stared quizzically at the holes on the side. He knocked on the wood. “You ain’t gonna shoot me, are you, feller? You do, and the two adults you got driving this rig are dyin’ with me.”

“No one’s going to shoot anybody, I hope,” the captain said.

And with that, the picket shook his head, attached his bayonet to his rifle and jimmied the blade between the lid and a side wall. Then, as if it were a crowbar, he popped out the few nails Joseph had banged half-heartedly into the top to suggest verisimilitude and pried off the board.

Weybridge sat up, his right hand against the side for purchase, and blinked against the daylight. “Thank you, Private,” he said.

“If that don’t beat all,” the soldier said, and he allowed his jaw to fall slack.

“You going to salute him or just gawk?” Libby asked, and when a wave of worry crossed the private’s face, she smiled at him. “It’s fine to gawk. Man just popped up in a casket like he was a jack-in-the-box.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed, but then he did salute. Both soldiers did.

Weybridge saluted them back and looked around at the trees as if they were unfamiliar flora, not the exact same kinds of maples, chestnuts, and red oaks he had observed daily the last month in Berryville. Then he sighed and murmured, “Well, now. It’s good to be home.”

They approached Harper’s Ferry, her second time here this autumn, one of the pickets walking beside them. Weybridge was sitting atop the coffin, and the picket occasionally glanced up at him with something like wonder in his eyes.

Libby could see how wet the horses were beneath their harnesses, and an idea took shape. She knew to give it life now, otherwise it would die inside her.

“Joseph?”

He waited.

“The horses are yours.”

“Yes, ma’am. Soon as we stop, I’ll dry ’em and get ’em fed.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I’m giving them to you. They’re yours.”

“No, I can’t—”

She patted his hand. “You can. Who knows if I’m ever going back? I have no use for them. You do. You will.”

“Ma’am, that’s too generous.”

“The Yankees are less likely to take them from you than me. I’m surprised I was able to hang on to them this long, with one army or the other in need of animals to pull their cannons. Besides, I want you to have them. And the wagon, too, if you want it. Take it. View it as a partial payment for all the money I owe you or all the money I paid you in worthless Confederate currency.”

He said nothing for easily half a minute. His future was as murky as hers. Finally, he replied, “Okay, then. Thank you, ma’am.” And she was relieved. She had been worried that once he had brought her and Jubilee and the captain safely here, his will to live would collapse like the framing of their homes when the rebels had burned them to the ground. The fact he was willing to accept the animals was an encouraging sign.

She sat on the grass beside one of the sloping streets that meandered uphill through Harper’s Ferry, the afternoon sun on her face, Jubilee beside her. She and Weybridge had each kept one of the Colt pistols, but she’d turned over the other guns she had stockpiled to the Yankees. Weybridge had been taken to the Sanitary Commission, where he could be examined by a surgeon. Joseph and a Yankee private were watering the horses and getting them fed, and parking the wagon…wherever. She had no idea where, and, at the moment, couldn’t care less. She was homeless. A refugee. A stranger in a strange land.

Jubilee had wrapped her arms around her shins and was resting her chin on one knee.

“That brick building,” she said to Libby, motioning with her head. “That where it happened?”

“That’s what I’m told,” she answered. She knew what her niece was referring to. The firehouse doors had been repaired, as had the walls, but she could still see where holes punched through stone and brick had been filled with limestone and clay.

“Were you scared?” the girl asked.

“A little. Not very. I was in Charlottesville. By the time I heard the news, John Brown and his men were already surrounded. It was only a matter of time until they’d all be killed or have to surrender.”

“You didn’t think the rest of ’em would rise up? The Negroes?”

“I thought it was possible,” she answered. But she hadn’t thought it was realistic. Southerners had too many guns and whips and shackles and swords.

“Is that why my uncle freed his servants?”

Libby turned to look at the girl. She was still gazing at the building that Brown had briefly held, and so Libby lifted the child’s chin off her knee and brought her face near. She looked deep into the girl’s eyes. “They’re not servants. You—you and I both—need to stop calling them that. They were slaves. My husband set free his family’s slaves.”

“Them’s just words.”

“Yes. And words have meanings.”

“You been spendin’ too much time listenin’ to Professor Jackal,” said Jubilee, and Libby felt an unexpected spike of anger. But then she registered the levity in Jubilee’s eyes. The girl had meant nothing flippant in her response. She was just joshing her, as she did everyone, even now.

Even after last night.

She released Jubilee’s chin and smiled, relieved. The idea that her niece could joke after what she’d witnessed only hours ago as the rains fell with apocalyptic fury was another source of comfort. Like Joseph, this girl would go on. She, too, was a survivor.

“You’re probably right,” she told the child.

“Where do you think we’ll sleep tonight?”

“There’s an inn.”

“We got money for an inn?”

“No.”

“So where will we go?”

“Tonight? Tomorrow? That’s easy. Colonel Duffy is grateful for the way we saved the captain’s life. He said he’ll take care of our rooms.”

“And then?”

“I don’t know. But don’t worry. I have the garnet pin that your uncle gave me. I have my wedding ring. And my earbobs. I brought all my jewelry so we can sell it. And when the money runs out? Well, I’m still here,” she said. In her mind, she added, For now. But she wouldn’t verbalize such a thing this afternoon, even as she had doubts that she was capable anymore of caring for anyone, much less this resilient, remarkable filly beside her. The child deserved better than what she had become—and what, in the coming months and years, she would be able to offer the girl.

“What about Joseph?”

She ran a hand through her hair. “He can’t stay at the inn.”

“But ain’t we north now?”

“He’s still a Negro.”

“Are you tellin’ me that even Yankees—”

“Someone will figure it out, Jubilee. I’m sure they’ll find him a bed,” she answered, but she really had no idea.

Two bluebellies, one with but a single arm and one, on crutches, with but a single leg, waved at them. They were likely going to the Sanitary Commission or the garrison. The Yankee who’d lost his right leg looked like he was closer to Jubilee’s age than hers. The one without his left arm had the first threads of white in his beard.

“Will you look at them,” whispered Jubilee when they were past.

“What about them?”

“It takes the two of them to make one jackal: the kid has just a left leg like the professor and the other one has just a right hand.”

“The professor still has most of his left hand. That poor man lost his hand and his arm completely. But I do see your point.”

“Think it’s easier to keep a man in line who ain’t got but one leg or one hand?”

“Hard to say. Men, even crippled men, seem awful fond of killing. Why?”

“I expect when I get married, most of the boys I’ll get to choose from will be cripples. So, I was trying to find a silver lining.”

“Nothing wrong with a man without an arm or a leg. I just meant they’re still men.”

In the distance she heard a train approaching, and when she looked in that direction, she saw the black spindle of smoke curling above the engine as it approached the station. Already it was starting to brake, the wheels squealing against the rails.

“After the war, will it be hard for my daddy to find me?” Jubilee asked.

“No. When this is over, he’ll come home. And you’ll go home. And you’ll both start again.”

“If he lives.”

She nodded. She wouldn’t lie to the girl and reassure her that he’d survive. After last night, Jubilee would know the words were hollow. Or, perhaps, she would have known even before last night.

“Will them bluebellies hate him?”

“Do you hate Captain Weybridge?”

She shook her head.

“There you go,” Libby said.

“They tell you anything about Uncle Peter? When you was talkin’ to that Yankee colonel?”

“Nothing helpful.”

“You still sure he’s passed?”

“The colonel,” she told her niece, “wants to help me. Help us. He said he’ll send another telegram to the two camps where Peter might be located, and see what he can learn. There’s no record of his death, but they can’t find him, either.”

“Maybe he escaped.”

“Well, if he did, he was killed trying to reach me, because he never made it to Berryville. But a lot of men died at Camp Chase of smallpox, and some probably died when they were moved elsewhere.” The words caught in her throat, and she paused a second to gather herself. “Your uncle’s not coming back, Jubilee. That colonel? He might just as well be telegramming the sky.”

The train stopped, and she watched the teamsters descend upon it, unloading ammunition and food. They would fill wagons and wagons by the time they were done. The bounty was endless. The supplies were endless. It was—and she almost (but not quite) smiled darkly to herself—enough to feed and arm a whole goddamn army.