Elysium: The Plantation Series Book IV (13 page)

Thomas ran for the
Cherleu house for a firearm. He should have learned to shoot better. Cabel was
deadly out in the woods when a deer bounded through the brush or a coon darted
behind a tree limb. Thomas had never bothered to try – maybe he’d never been
hungry enough to eat a raccoon. He mostly trailed along, Mr. Bickell’s old rifle
over his shoulder. If a possum chose to amble across his path, he’d aim and
maybe even pull the trigger, but he couldn’t remember that he every hit
anything, not even a squirrel. But he could point the damn thing and make a
racket with the best of them.

Alistair galloped another
hundred yards before he slowed, then dismounted and tied his horse in the copse
of bay trees. He crept ahead, Chamard and Cabel behind him.

At the edge of Cherleu’s
property, they darted across the lane onto Toulouse and crossed through the
pecan orchard to Bickell’s place. "Don’t fire toward the house. There are
two little girls in there, Rachel, Mrs. Palmer."

"Alistair, we are
not stupid."

Alistair grinned at him
and crouched down.

Three horsemen were
circling the house, firing their weapons into the air, hooting and hollering
like wild Indians.

Their faces were covered
by bandanas, one red, two blue. Bandanas, a Yankee accent, a new pair of boots,
and a head of yellow hair would not be enough to impress a judge, but if they
could capture one of them, he’d give up the other two. Then they’d get
somewhere.

A shotgun blast lit up
the front window.

"Bickell! Hold your
fire!" Alistair called.

"That you?"

"Yeah, it’s me."

Damned fool conversation
in the middle of a firefight. Alistair motioned to Chamard and Cabel to flank
him and remembered he was the only soldier here. He mimed the maneuver more
carefully and they moved into position.

The horsemen were still
firing into the air, wheeling their horses around. Having the time of their
miserable lives, he thought.

Wait, he signaled. He
stood up and rested the barrel of his rifle on a knot in the pecan tree. He aimed,
gently squeezed the trigger, and watched a man’s thigh explode.

When he fell off his
horse, the other two dug in their spurs and galloped down the back road to
safety. That left the man on the ground, bleeding and writhing, his hands
gripping his thigh.

Alistair ran for him, his
rifle at the ready. He poked the gun into the man’s chest and told Cabel, "Check
if he’s got a pistol."

Cabel kicked the man’s
rifle out of reach and frisked him, even rolling him over to see that he didn’t
have a firearm tucked in the back waist of his pants.

"Check his boots,"
Alistair said.

Cabel did that. "No
knife. He’s clean."

Bertrand Chamard reached
down and unmasked the man. "Well, look who this is. Not a pretty face,
grimacing like that, Valmar. You in pain?"

"I’m bleeding to
death, you fool!"

Alistair sighed. He
yanked the bandana over the man’s head and fashioned a tourniquet out of it.

"Soldiering skill,
eh?" Chamard said.

"Among many."

Thomas ran up, a rifle in
his hand.

"Don’t point that
thing at me," Cabel told him. "You don’t half know what end is what."

The man on the ground
still had energy to sneer.

"You got something
to say, fella?" Chamard said, kicking the injured leg with his toe.

Peep and Garvey Bickell
came out of the house, both of them armed. "Who is the bastard?"
Garvey said.

"None of your damn
business," Valmar snarled.

"Give him another
tap on the leg, Chamard."

"Glad to."

He kicked him just below
the wound. "Tell Mr. Bickell your name. Least you can do, shooting up his
house."

Their captive spent his
breath gasping, his hands gripped around the wound in his leg. "Reckon he
needs another one," Garvey said.

"No! Valmar. My
name’s Valmar.’

"Well, Mr. Valmar,"
Garvey said, "you’re in a world of trouble. If you live."

Alistair asked Garvey, "Everybody
all right inside?"

"Shot a couple of
windows out. Flying glass gave Dawn a little cut on her chin. Everybody else
intact. Now Thomas," he called as Thomas ran for the house, "it’s not
bad."

Thomas thundered into the
house. "Dawn! Where are you?"

"We’re in the
kitchen, son."

Dawn was calmly sitting
on the kitchen table while Rachel sewed up her chin.

"Hi, Thomas,"
she said.

Thomas heaved out a breath
and pulled a chair up next to Dawn. "Got yourself a cut, huh."

She nodded solemnly. "It’s
going to make a scar. I won’t be pretty no more."

"You got it all
wrong. You’ll be pretty with a very interesting scar. Not everybody gets a scar
that is part of history. The reason you got this cut today? It’s part of the
war. It’s not really over yet, and it’s going to be in the history books. That
scar proves you were part of it."

"Like a soldier, you
mean." She winced as her mother put in one last stitch.

"Yeah. Like a
soldier."

"They came for you,"
his mother said quietly.

Thomas stood up. "Yeah.
Mama, I’m going to have to move out."

"I know it. But you
got to find someplace safe. Where you gone go?"

"I’ll let you know."

His mama opened her arms.
He figured he needed a hug as much as she did. "Main thing is, keep
yourself safe," she said into his neck.

"I will, Mama. I’ll
go talk to Papa."

Outside, Alistair said to
Chamard, "You got this?"

Chamard raised his
eyebrows and then glanced at the house. "Yeah. Go on."

Alistair strode into the
house without knocking. "Lily!"

"In here."

She was watching out the
window, Maddie at her side. He marched over and wrapped Lily in his arms. She
tried to pull back but he wouldn’t let her.

"We’re all right,"
she said.

He touched his forehead
to hers. "Scared the life out of me."

He opened an arm for
Maddie. She stepped in and leaned against his side. "Miss Maddie, looks
like you did a good job taking care of your mama. You can be very proud how
brave you were today."

"I cried a little."

"A little girl is
allowed to cry. You were still brave."

He led them over to the
sofa. Maddie crawled into his lap and leaned against his chest.

"God, you don’t know
what it means to me she’ll do that," he murmured to Lily.

"I think I do."

Alistair touched his
thumb to Lily’s lip and traced the smile on her face.

She grabbed his wrist. "Alistair,
don’t."

He took his hand away. "Tell
me what happened."

"Those three came on
at a full gallop, circling the house, firing into the air, yelling. They were
calling out "Thomas, you . . . " She glanced at Maddie. "Calling
for Thomas to come out. When he didn’t, they shot out a couple of windows."

"Dawn has a cut? Is
she all right?"

Maddie sat up and showed
him on her chin. "Right there. She gets to have stitches, Rachel said.
Will they get her drunk first?"

"I don’t think so. I
bet she’ll get a spoonful of honey, though."

"That would be all
right. She likes honey." Maddie leaned back into his chest.

"That man, did you
shoot to . . . " Lily glanced at Maddie again.

"No. I aimed at his
leg."

"Then you’re a good
shot."

"Yeah." He
didn’t want to talk about all the things the war had taught him to do.

Garvey stuck his head in
the front door and hollered. "Rachel, will you come out here and look at
this wound?"

She passed by the sitting
room with a bundle of clean rags, a bottle of turpentine, and her sewing kit.

"I better go see if
I’ve . . . " He didn’t want Maddie thinking about killing. "If the
man’s going to . . . " Or dying either.

"I hope he will be
all right."

"I do, too." He
stood up and gently placed Maddie on the sofa. "You look like you’re ready
for a sleep."

"I don’t take naps,
Major Whiteaker. For goodness’ sake."

"Excuse me. I know
very little about young ladies."

"It’s all right,"
she said. "You’re only a man."

Alistair grinned at Lily.
"Now where did she hear that?"

"I have no idea."
She held her hands up in innocence. "Not from me."

Lily had just been
through a siege, yet she hardly had a hair out of place, and she had her
daughter feeling calm and safe before he ever got in the door. "You’re
quite a woman, Lily Palmer."

"All I did was a
good job of hiding in the corner with Maddie."

"A very good job."

He should go see if he’d
killed the bastard lying in the dirt outside. "I’m glad you’re all right."

"We’re fine,
Alistair. Thank you."

Rachel had laid a cloth
over the bloody sand to protect her skirt and knelt next to the man’s thigh.
She’d cut away his pants enough to get at the wound and was daubing at the
blood.

"Bullet still in
there?" Alistair asked.

"Yes, sir."

Alistair crouched and
examined where the bullet had gone in. Missed the bone. Apparently missed the
biggest artery or he’d already be dead.

"Can you get it out?"

"Any reason I
should?" she said.

"What the hell’s the
matter with you?" Valmar growled, his face contorted with pain. "What
kind of nigger woman won’t help a man been gunshot?"

Chamard kicked him in the
leg again and Valmar shrieked, but he hushed after that.

"You notice our friend
has a red bandana and pointy-toed boots?" Chamard said.

Alistair nodded. "Rachel,
we need him alive. We need him to tell who the other two are. They’re the ones
burned out Alfie this morning."

"Alfie? And Annie?"

"Alfie died right
away. Annie, probably gone by now. I’m sorry, Rachel."

Rachel sat very still for
a long moment. Then she opened the bottle of turpentine and with no warning
poured it straight into the wound. Valmar howled.

"Whiskey!" he
cried. "At least give me some whiskey."

"Nope," Rachel
said. She gave Garvey a look like he better not offer any either. "No
whiskey."

Peep and Thomas joined
them as she leaned over the scoundrel. "This gets infected," Rachel
said, looking him right in the eye, "they’ll cut your leg off. Unless it’s
too late. Then your balls gone turn black and your cock gone fall off before
you die."

Valmar’s mouth hung open
and his eyes bulged.

Peep touched his wife’s
shoulder. "Rachel, you are one scary woman. He gone live?"

"For now.
Eventually, the devil take him back to hell with him."

"Get her away from
me! Get her away!"

Alistair laughed out
loud. "Use your biggest needle, Rachel. First we better get him out of
this sun if we want to keep him alive for the sheriff."

Once they’d moved Valmar
inside and laid him out on the kitchen floor, no pallet, no pillow, nothing,
they left him to Rachel’s tender care.

"Don’t leave me
alone in here with her!" he yelled at them as they filed out of the
kitchen. "She’ll kill me."

"Probably won’t,"
she said. "Might though. You best shut up. Dawn, you go on and find
Maddie. This creature stink too bad for you to be in here."

Once Rachel had dug the
bullet out and sewed him up, they loaded Valmar into the back of the wagon,
again with no pallet, no cushioning at all. He was quite noisy about his
discomfort on the way into town, but Thomas was  unmoved.

Garvey drove the wagon,
Thomas and Alistair rode their horses. As the feather master, Cabel, they
agreed, had best not come. But Thomas had heard Annie’s descriptions as well as
the major had, and he could honestly say he’d had no part in the tarring and
feathering.

"You stay out here
with him, Mr. Bickell?" Thomas asked when they’d pulled up in front of the
jail.

"Sure. You two take
the honors. I’m happy to sit out here and watch the flies torment our
passenger."

"You son-of-a-bitch,"
Valmar said. "You even parked this wagon so you’re in the shade and I’m
not. I’m a white man, by God, and you treat me like this."

"Second thought,"
Garvey said, "he isn’t going anywhere. I think I’ll go into Mason’s over
there and get a bag of butterscotch for the girls." He winked at Thomas.
He used to bring him candy from town when he was a child, too.

Two minutes later,
Thomas, Major Whiteaker and the sheriff came out to find Valmar trying to ease
himself off the wagon. It crossed Thomas’s mind that with one finger he could
probably topple Valmar onto the hard-packed dirt. It was an entertaining
thought, but of course he did not do it. Instead, he took his pleasure from the
obvious pain on the man’s face. Hurt that bad, and he’d thought he could sneak
away? The man was either stupid or desperate.

 "Well, that’s
handy, you already down from the wagon." The sheriff was a tall rangy man
with a wrinkled red neck. His eyes were light gray and if he turned them on a
man, he knew he’d been looked at. "Come right on in. I got a cell with
your name on it."

Leaning on the wagon, Valmar
pointed his finger at the major. "He’s a damn nigger lover, and you know
it. He and his trained monkey are lying through their teeth."

"And yet, here you
are with a bullet hole in your leg," the sheriff said.

With Major Whiteaker and the
sheriff on either side, they got him into a jail cell and swung the door shut
with what Thomas decided was a satisfying clang.

"All right,"
Sheriff Paget said. "Let’s get this written up."

Garvey came in then. There
were only two chairs immediately in front of Paget’s desk. Whiteaker raised an
eyebrow at Thomas and, with a slight motion of his head, indicated Thomas
should sit in one and Garvey in the other.

The sheriff was half into
his seat when he noticed the major, tall and aristocratic, was still standing.
He glanced at Thomas who carefully kept his face blank. Yes, he was in a chair.
Yes, a white man was standing. Thomas understood perfectly. He was to offer no
challenge to the sheriff but let the situation itself compel Sheriff Paget to
find a third chair. He certainly would not allow a man of Alistair Whiteaker’s
consequence to remain standing.

Once all four of them
were seated, the sheriff rummaged in his desk for paper, dipped his pen, and
said, "Where and when did the incident occur?"

"My place, about ten
o’clock this morning," Garvey said.

"I need a goddam
doctor in here," Valmar hollered.

Paget lay his pen down
carefully, walked slowly to the cell, and said, "Mr. Valmar, you are not
bleeding. When I am finished taking statements, I will cross the street and
fetch Doctor Millingham. Until then, you will please be quiet."

"The hell I will. I
got rights. You get that doctor in here right now."

Paget turned his back on Valmar,
resumed his seat, and picked up his pen. "Garvey Bickell’s place, ten
o’clock," he said as he wrote. "And what took place this morning?"

"Three hooligans
came racing into the yard, on horseback, and started screaming like banshees,
hollering for Thomas here to come out."

"And your name?"
Paget said, looking at Thomas.

"Thomas Bickell,
sir."

"I’m in pain,
dammit. Call the doctor or – I’ll get me a lawyer in here."

Paget seemed not to hear.

"And did you come
out?"

"No, sir. I was near
Major Whiteaker’s place where three men burned a cabin this morning, murdering
a man named Alfie, and severely burning his wife Annie."

"Why were you there?"

Thomas took an instant to
consider how to answer without mentioning Cabel. "I was present when word
was brought to Major Whiteaker that people on his property had been burned out.
I accompanied him to see if there was something I could do to help."

"You know these
people, this Alfie and Annie?"

"All my life, yes,
sir."

Paget dipped his pen
again. "Their last names?"

Thomas did not know. Lots
of ex-slaves had taken their old masters’ names, but they might have chosen
something else. River was popular, since they all lived near the Mississippi,
or Fields, sometimes even Cane. He’d wondered, the first time he’d heard of a
man called Cane, how a soul could take the name of the bitter crop that had
kept his family in bondage for generations.

"Call them
Whiteaker," the major said.

Ah, Thomas thought. The
white man claiming Annie and Alfie for his own even in death. Major Whiteaker
was a good man, a friend to his people, but even he did not see the insult in
providing them with his own last name.

"It was River, sir,"
Thomas said. He didn’t look at Alistair nor Mr. Bickell.

They went through the
morning’s events, including Annie’s description of the three men who’d burned
them out.

"Dr. Huggins was
there as well," the major said. "He will confirm what Thomas and I
heard."

Paget put his hands
together on the desktop. "What we have here is a charge of disorderly
conduct, disturbing the peace, and destruction of property. He’ll owe you for
the two windows, Mr. Bickell."

 "Why, he could have
killed somebody, firing into the house like that. He ought to be charged with
attempted murder."

"Have to establish
intent for that."

"What about
endangerment of women and children?"

"Hmm. That’s likely
included under disorderly conduct. I’ll talk to the judge when he gets back
from Baton Rouge." 

"What about Alfie
and – " Thomas began.

Major Whiteaker
interrupted him. "Sheriff Paget, I intend to see Mr. Valmar answers to the
charge of murder in the deaths of Alfie and Annie . . . River. I wish to be present
when he is interrogated about the identity of his two companions."

"Now Major, the
grounds for that charge are insubstantial. A dying old woman, in great pain,
says she heard a Yankee accent, saw a yellow-haired man and a pair of new
boots. If I stepped out this door, I could probably rustle up a dozen men to
fit those three descriptions."

"And the coincidence
of their continuing their mayhem a short while later at Mr. Bickell’s home?"

"Proximity is not
proof of guilt, Major Whiteaker."

"Sheriff Paget, you
are familiar with Mr. Valmar’s recent humiliation?"

Paget did not even try to
keep the smirk off his face. "I imagine every man in Donaldsonville could
tell you who Valmar is, and just how he looked standing there with red privates
and feathers from head to toe."

"Alfie was one of
the men who provided the tar and feathers. And I believe Valmar had
misinformation about Thomas Bickell," Alistair said.

"Well, this just
gets more and more tangled,"

The tangle certainly put
the sheriff in a tight spot. Major Bodell and the U.S. Army as well as Agent
Witherspoon of the Freedmen’s Bureau were watching him, pushing him to safeguard
the black population. But the Army wouldn’t be here forever. Paget had to think
about all the whites he’d be answering to who wanted the old days back, men who
expected a sheriff to teach the Negroes things hadn’t changed so much after
all.

"It is a tangle,
Sheriff, but I believe we can tease out the various threads."

Alistair reminded Paget
that Thomas had been whipped by Jacques Valmar at the ice cream social. Even
though Thomas was not involved in the tar and feathering, it was natural Valmar
would think he was. And if for no other reason, Valmar would target Thomas as a
leader among his people.

"What of it, Major
Whiteaker? Plenty of men in town want to bring a fellow like your Thomas down.
Plenty of men with pointy-toed boots. All you got is supposition piled on
supposition. Even if it’s all true, it’s not proof."

"That’s why I would
like to be present when Mr. Valmar reveals who was with him this morning when
he besieged Bickell’s home – and when he set fire to the cabin with two old
people in it."

Paget cast a suspicious
glance on Thomas. "And this young man took no part in the tarring and
feathering?"

"Thomas had no part
in it."

"And you know this
for a fact, Major?"

Thomas was fascinated to
see that Alistair Whiteaker could lie with the best of them. "The night in
question, I was visiting Mr. Bickell and Thomas was present. In the room."

As Thomas would have a
hard time proving he was innocent, he appreciated the major’s lie. When a man
perjures himself for you, you know he’s a real friend.

"What a tangle,"
Paget said again, running his fingers through his thinning hair. "I will
present your stories to the prosecutor, who is currently in Baton Rouge with
the judge. But I don’t have much expectation you’ll get anywhere past
disorderly conduct and destruction of property."

Valmar reanimated himself
at that point. "I won’t never be able to walk again you don’t get the
doctor in here," he blubbered.

"Major Whiteaker,"
Paget said, shoving paper, pen, and ink across the desk, "you write all
this down so I’m sure I get it right. I’m going to see if Doc Millingham is in."

Paget put his hat on and
paused. "Son," he said to Thomas, "you make bad blood between
you and a white man you better know you ain’t going to win."

Thomas looked the sheriff
in the eye. "That’s going to change."

Paget snorted and went
for the doctor.

Except for Valmar’s moans
and pitiful sniffles, the only sound in the jail was the scratch of the pen
across the paper as Alistair set out the chain of events and suppositions.

Thomas realized
suppositions were not evidence. He’d read through four law books by now, and
imagined the stack of those remaining must tower ten feet in the air. But if
they got a confession, a witness to Valmar bragging . . . something could turn
up, and then Alfie and Annie could have justice.

Bad as this was, Thomas
appreciated how far they had come in just the last few years. Here he was, a
black man in the white sheriff’s office, without fear, adding his name to a
complaint against a white man. And he was sitting down in the presence of other
white men.

He had no illusions,
however. Even now, free, decently dressed, well-spoken as he was, if he’d brought
Valmar in without the major and Mr. Bickell, he would not have been heard. He
might even have ended up in a cell himself, charged with shooting Valmar. A sharp
pain in his molar stabbed into his jaw and Thomas reminded himself not to grind
his teeth. Major Whiteaker’s pen glided across the page as he wrote. Mr.
Bickell dozed in his chair.

Doctor Millingham might
be delivering a baby or stitching up some poor sot. Or sitting at a dying man’s
bedside. Mr. Chamard had once suggested Thomas might want to pursue medical
studies as his son Gabe had. He’d even offered to sponsor him. But Thomas knew
he had no stomach for medicine. What had set him on his path in life had been
the time Mr. Bickell had taken him with him all the way to New Orleans to
consult a lawyer about a disputed sum of money. The office had bookshelves from
floor to ceiling, every shelf filled with burgundy covered volumes, the whole
room smelling of leather and paper and ink. The lawyer was content for young
Thomas to sit at Mr. Bickell’s side throughout the interview. They’d had
brandy, the two men, adding to the rich scents of the place, and Thomas had
marveled at the string of impressive sounding words that came from the lawyer’s
mouth. He knew everything. What to do, what papers to fill out, whom to talk to
at the courthouse. Thomas had wanted to be that man.

And with emancipation and
hard work, Thomas was on his way. He wasn’t going to let men like Jacques Valmar
stop him.

"Done," Major
Whiteaker said. He straightened his many-paged account and set it in the middle
of Sheriff Paget’s desk with the pen placed squarely on top.

Mr. Bickell wiped a hand
over his face, waking up.

"I don’t think we need
wait for the sheriff and the doctor," Major Whiteaker said. "Let’s be
on our way."

Thomas expected a loud
whining complaint from Valmar about leaving him alone, what if he bled to
death, and he a white man! Instead he heard a slight snoring from the cell.

They stepped into the
bright afternoon sun. They’d be limp and wilted by the time they got home in
this heat. Thomas settled his hat on his head and offered to drive the wagon
back for Mr. Bickell. He could tie his mount to the back.

"I can still drive
my own wagon, thank you very much," he said in mock annoyance.

"Yes, sir," he
said with a smile.

"You got business in
town, anyway, don’t you?"

"I thought I’d see
if Tafferty has my boots ready."

"Then I’ll see you
back at the house. Alistair, you come home for supper with me. Those women will
want to fuss over you after your heroics this morning."

"I’ll come for the
food and the good company, no fussing required. Thank you."

Thomas saw them off and
headed for Tafferty’s. As he turned the corner, he collided with Musette
DeBlieux. He grabbed her at the elbows, steadying her. She smelled of jasmine.
Her straight black hair was done up in a shiny coil and she was wearing her
blue dress, the one that showed off her tiny waist. He dropped his hands. "Miss
Musette. Good morning."