Gone to Texas (15 page)

Skeptical, Morgan grunted again. "Oh, you're a clever specimen," he said. "But I don't believe you. He's coming home. And when he gets here, we'll be waiting for him." He turned his dark and hostile gaze upon Isaac. "Old man, you take care of our horses."

"Oh, nossuh. Please, Ah doan like horses . . ."

"Do what I say," snapped Morgan, raising his rifle as though to strike Isaac.

"I'll tend to your horses," said Rebecca.

"No. He will. You might just get it into your head to jump into the saddle and ride off to try and find your son and warn him. Well, I'm warning you. Anybody tries to leave this place, I'll kill him. Or her. And then I'll burn Elm Tree to the ground. Do you understand?"

"Isaac, tend to the horses."

"Miss 'Becca, Ah . . ."

"Do it."

"Yassum," sighed Jacob, and shuffled off the porch like a man resigned to meeting his end.

Morgan put his hand on his chest, smiling coldly. "I and my brother have traveled a long road. We're hungry. You, Mrs. Groves, and your smart-mouthed nigger, will prepare a meal for us."

Prissy shrilled, "Who you callin' a smart-mouthed nigger, you . . ."

"Prissy!" barked Rebecca. "Let's do what he says. We don't need to be poor hosts just because we have poor guests."

Mumbling something about poor white trash, Prissy preceded Rebecca and Morgan Vickers into the house.

Watching them eat, Rebecca had to give the Vickers boys some credit. Though they consumed the food put before them like they hadn't enjoyed a decent meal in a month of Sundays, at least they demonstrated some good manners. They used their napkins and utensils like men of good breeding. Each had several helpings of smoked ham, beans, collard greens, corn bread, and coffee. Rebecca sat at the other end of the long dining room table from them, trying to develop a plan of action.

Prissy carried the food in from the kitchen. Isaac helped her. The other four blacks who worked at Elm Tree stood with their backs to the wall—three men and a woman. Rebecca had summoned them, on Morgan's orders. They hadn't been told anything about what was going on, but they could sense that something was amiss. Both the Vickers brothers kept their rifles close at hand, leaning against the table, and Morgan had placed a pistol beside his plate. While he ate, Morgan kept a wary eye on the servants, as though he expected one of the men to make a hostile move, or try to escape. There was not the slightest doubt in Rebecca's mind that he would shoot to kill, without hesitation or remorse.

"You set a fine table, ma'am," complimented Joshua as he pushed his plate away.

"Thank you," said Rebecca, barely civil. "Now that you've eaten your fill, I think you should be on your way."

Morgan's laugh had an ugly ring to it. "On our way where?"

"Home."

"We'll go home—when your son is dead and buried. And not before. We gave our solemn word."

"To who? Your father? I can't believe a father would send his sons on such a fool's errand."

"He didn't send us," said Joshua. "He doesn't know."

"Shut up," growled Morgan. "He'll be right proud of us when he finds out what we've done."

"I doubt it," said Rebecca. "I think you should go, now. You see, you're just not very bright. I'm afraid the two of you are the ones who will be killed."

Morgan scowled. "I'm bright enough to pull a trigger."

"No. For instance, that food could have been poisoned. Did you ever think of that?"

The expressions on their faces told her that they had not. Joshua blanched, looking from his plate to Rebecca and then to Prissy.

Smirking, Prissy said, "Lordy, Ah wish Ah'd thought of that."

"Fetch some more coffee," snapped Morgan.

Prissy departed for the kitchen. Morgan turned to his brother. "I think we should lock them all up in the smokehouse. Then we'll take turns standing guard."

"Even Mrs. Groves?"

"Why not? She won't mind. She loves niggers. Don't you, ma'am? Set them all free. Pays them a wage for their work."

"I would much prefer being locked in the smokehouse with them to staying in this house with the likes of you," she declared.

Prissy returned with the coffeepot, holding it with both hands and using her apron to keep from burning herself on the handle. She filled Morgan's cup, then Joshua's, and came to Rebecca just as Isaac appeared to place another cup on the table.

"I don't care for any, Prissy."

"It's mighty good coffee, Miss 'Becca."

"No thank you."

"Now, you come on and try a little of dis coffee."

"No, Prissy."

"Miss 'Becca, you gots to try some of dis . . . "

Isaac had taken the empty plates from in front of the brothers. As he turned away from the table, one of the plates slipped from his gnarled fingers and shattered on
the floor. Rebecca's nerves were on edge; she nearly jumped out of her skin. Morgan stood up so suddenly that he overturned his chair. He snatched his pistol up from the table. Seeing that both Vickers boys were looking in Isaac's direction, Prissy let the horse pistol she had kept concealed beneath the apron drop into Rebecca's lap. Rebecca was so startled that she nearly let the pistol fall to the floor. She caught it between her knees. Prissy beamed at her and moved away, to descend on Isaac like an avenging angel.

"You clumsy fool. I shoulda knowed better than to let you handle the china. Now jis' look at what you's done. Go get the broom and clean up dis here mess. Land's sakes!"

Completely cowed, Isaac ducked out of the room, Morgan righted his chair, belted his pistol, and sat down, disgusted, glowering at them all, as though daring anyone to indicate by the slighest change of expression that they were amused by his show of nerves.

The horse pistol lay heavy in Rebecca's lap. It had belonged to Jonathan, but she'd kept it anyway, in a wardrobe in her bedroom. She had never had occasion to use it, and she was reluctant to do so now. But maybe Prissy had the right idea. Maybe this was the only way to save Christopher's life. Prissy was watching her—Rebecca could feel her eyes, but she kept her own gaze fixed on Morgan Vickers at the other end of the table. She could shoot one of them, and with any luck the three hands standing over against that wall would see their chance and jump the other. One word from Prissy and they would jump.

"Where did that old man go?" asked Morgan.

Rebecca glanced at Prissy, and Prissy's eyes were pleading with her to act.

What was Prissy up to?

The sound of a horse cantering past the house . . .

Suddenly Rebecca understood. Prissy and Isaac had
devised a scheme of their own. At some point, when she was supposed to be in the kitchen, Prissy had slipped up to Rebecca's bedroom to get the pistol. Isaac had dropped the plate as a diversion, to give Prissy the opportunity to hand Rebecca the weapon. And now that courageous old man, in spite of his fear of horses, was riding for help. And Prissy—Prissy expected her to use that pistol. Now.

Both the Vickers boys were on their feet at the sound of the horse. Rebecca was up, too, the horse pistol held in both hands. She aimed it at Morgan.

"That black bastard!" said Morgan, snatching up his rifle, not looking at Rebecca, unaware that she was armed. "I'll kill him!"

"You'll do nothing of the sort," she said, quite calmly.

Chapter 12

Morgan Vickers saw the pistol then—and froze. But Joshua kept his wits about him. Joshua—the calm and rational one, thinking on his feet, quick to act, so quick that before Rebecca knew what was happening he had grabbed Prissy. Prissy was the nearest. He locked an arm around her throat and put his own pistol to her head.

"Please drop it, ma'am," he said in the same tone of voice he would have used to ask her to pass the bread.

How ludicrous, thought Rebecca, for him to be so well-mannered at a moment like this. Please and ma'am! The whole scene struck her as so unreal that she wondered if she was dreaming.

"Doan you do it, Miss 'Becca," said Prissy. "You go ahead and shoot, and doan you fret none about me."

"Don't make me shoot her," said Joshua.

Rebecca threw the pistol onto the table.

With a growl Morgan bolted from the room. Joshua shoved Prissy away, grabbed the horse pistol from the table, and collected his own rifle, before following his brother.

Rebecca couldn't move. She was frozen in place by the horror of what she had done. Prissy was standing across the room, raising her arms to the ceiling, her face upturned, and she was beseeching the Lord Almighty in a hoarse whisper, asking God to deliver Isaac, and Rebecca knew only a miracle could save the old man now.
God helped those who helped themselves, anyway—Rebecca was overwhelmed with guilt.

"What we gwine do, Miss 'Becca?" asked one of the hands.

"Run," she said dully. "They'll kill us all. Run. Out the back way. Run and don't ever come back. There won't be anything to come back to."

"But Miss 'Becca . . ."

"Go! Now!"

They ran—all except Prissy, who watched Rebecca sink heavily into a chair.

"Go on, Prissy."

"Ah ain't gwine, lessen you come, too."

"I'm staying here. This is my home."

"Mine, too. So Ah's stayin' with you."

A rifle spoke. The sound lanced through Rebecca's heart like a knife, causing her such pain that she twisted in the chair, as thought she could feel the bullet tearing through her body, just as it was tearing through poor Isaac's.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed, knowing Isaac was dead, knowing it as surely as she knew she was to blame for his death. For if she had done what had been expected of her . . . "I'm sorry."

The Vickers boys returned. Morgan looked downright smug. The smell of gunpowder and death clung to him. When he saw Rebecca he remembered what she had done and his features contorted in a sudden hot rage and he struck her, the back of his hand across her face, and the impact of the blow rocked her back in the chair. Prissy flew at him, hitting him like a freight train with her considerable bulk, and almost knocked him off his feet. But he recovered his balance and struck back, viciously, this time with a clenched fist, and Prissy went down. He raised his rifle, wanting to crack her skull open with the stock, but Rebecca was out of her chair,
throwing herself across the fallen Prissy, shielding her, before he could deliver the blow.

"Don't do it," said Joshua.

It was his brother's voice that stayed Morgan's hand, not Rebecca's intervention. The elder Vickers would have killed them both in his blinding wrath.

"I won't be a party to killing a woman, Morgan," said Joshua. "So why don't you just lay down that rifle."

Morgan lowered the rifle. Then he grabbed Rebecca roughly by the arm, his grip so tight that it would leave bruises, and hauled her to her feet.

"I won't kill you," he sneered. "No, you'll live to stand over your son's grave."

"No," she said, and it was as if the hate flowed out of him and into her, as though it were some kind of contagious disease that she contracted just by his touching her, because now, suddenly, she could understand what was going through him, and the desire for blood vengeance stirred her own blood.

"No," she said softly, her eyes blazing. "It's your grave I'll stand over, Morgan Vickers."

He laughed, a little nervous all of a sudden, and a little shaken by something only he could detect lurking deep in her eyes.

"The others," said Joshua. "They've bolted."

"Doesn't matter."

"It does matter. They'll fetch the sheriff."

"To hell with the sheriff."

"Groves won't come here now."

"Yes he will," said Morgan. "He'll come on her account." He nodded at Rebecca, and he sounded very confident.

"Let's get out of here, Morgan, This isn't working out. They'll hang us."

"For what? For shooting a nigger in the back? Hang a Vickers for
that?
Not likely."

"Let's go. We'll get Groves some other time."

"No!" barked Morgan, tired of arguing. "Go on. Run, if you're of a mind to. I didn't know you were a coward. But if you are, then I don't need you."

"You know better than that."

"Do I? You're sure talking like a yellow coward."

A muscle worked in Joshua's jaw, but he maintained his composure. "I'll stay," he muttered.

Morgan leered at Rebecca. "Since all your bucks ran out on you, lady, I guess you'll have to be the one to bury that old man. He's out yonder, lying in the road. But that's only fair, come to think of it, since you're to blame for his getting killed. That was a stupid thing to do. I warned you. But you just wouldn't listen, would you?"

"Let go of me."

He let her go. She turned away and helped Prissy to her feet. Prissy's lip was cut and bleeding.

"I'm sorry, Prissy," she said. "I . . . I just froze. I guess I wasn't prepared to kill a man." She looked coldly at Morgan. "But I am now."

Morgan laughed. Joshua didn't join him. He watched Rebecca solemnly, warily, sensing that hers was no idle threat.

Sundown caught Christopher and Nathaniel some miles shy of Elm Tree. They decided to push on. Christopher was so sick and tired of worrying about how his mother would react to the news of the duel and his dismissal from the Military Academy and to his ideas about Texas that he just wanted to get it over with.

They heard the galloping horse before they saw the rider, emerging from the indigo gloom of fast-falling night as he charged hell-bent for election up the road toward them.

"I didn't think we had a problem with Indians in Kentucky anymore," said Nathaniel. "But that feller sure
looks like he's being chased by a passel of hostile Shawnees."

"Something's wrong," said Christopher. "He's burning the tallow off that horse."

They checked their mounts and waited for the rider to reach them. He turned out to be just a lad, not yet old enough to grow side-whiskers. Pulling rein so hard that his lathered horse sat down on its haunches in a pale cloud of drifting dust, he gaped at Christopher and Nathaniel with wild eyes.

"One of you be Christopher Groves?"

"I am."

"Lordy, I'm right glad I found you. We figured you'd be coming down this here road."