High Hearts (16 page)

Riceland clapped Dancer’s neck. “Jimmy, you said a mouthful.”

“Micah 5 exhorts me? ‘O daughter of troops’ to go to war once again—for the Lord, of course,” Lutie chattered. “Why do I bother telling you, Emil? You’re a Muslim. You probably kneel on my Persian carpets when I’m not looking and bow your turbaned head toward Mecca. Sin-Sin wears turbans but I can’t feature her kneeling on a rug. It’s quarter to seven, and I’d better get this house running.”

She fastened her shoes. She’d rather go barefoot but then she’d get splayed feet. That’s what her mother, Diddy Elizabeth Simms Chalfonte, told her. Diddy Simms, born in 1798, exercised notions, one of which was that she could tell who had the Third Eye of Prophecy by the number of times they blinked within a minute. Those that blinked but once possessed the eye or had paralyzed eyelids.

“I’m hoping that Jennifer Greer Fitzgerald throws her May party. I fully intend to ride on a lavender ostrich. You’re conspicuously silent, Emil. I hate it when you flout superior airs. It’s all those luxurious silks and satins that you wear.”

A bottle green cloud so dark it was nearly black drew Lutie’s attention to the window. She peered out, then threw open the door to her room and hurried down the long hallway. “Sin-Sin! Sin-Sin!”

Ernie June answered her from the kitchen. “Sin-Sin ain’t in the house, Miz Lutie,” she called out.

Lutie reached the kitchen. “Ernie June, look out the window!”

A terrible howl began. Ernie June opened the kitchen door, and Cazzie, the cat, barreled by her and hid in the pantry. A treacherous funnel mesmerized both women.

Coming to her senses, Lutie pushed the door shut with Ernie June’s help.

The front door opened, then slammed shut. “Miss Lutie! Are you here?” Di-Peachy’s usually deep voice rang shrill.

“Yes. Come on down to the cellar.”

“My Boyd’s out there with Braxton,” Ernie wailed.

“He’ll take care of his sister.” Di-Peachy comforted her.

“Where were you?” Lutie asked.

“I was shutting up Geneva’s house when I noticed everything was still. I saw a dark cloud, maybe half a mile off but moving fast. Big Muler closed the back of the house, and I closed the front and ran for you.”

A horrifying rumble overhead shut them up. A great cracking reverberated outside of the house. The roar then drowned all other sounds.

“Lord Jesus, this ole nigger woman ain’t done nothin’ wrong,” Ernie prayed. “Take me ’fore you take my babies.”

Listening to Ernie’s sincere prayers, Di-Peachy remained calm, and Lutie found an inner strength in the face of the tornado that amazed herself.

The howling finally faded. “I think it’s over. Let’s go back upstairs,” Lutie ordered.

Ernie showed no signs of moving. “Come on, Ernie, it passed.” Di-Peachy offered her a hand.

“The devil’s straw, a whirlin’ storm! Stick you head up too soon and whoosh, off it go to a big stewpot in hell.”

Lutie and Di-Peachy were in the kitchen before Ernie put one foot out of the cellar. From the kitchen window everything appeared fine.

Lutie opened the door and stepped outside. “Holy Mary, Mother of God!”

Di-Peachy followed her. A path about seventy-five feet across had been cut clean through the property. A tornado had veered off to the right and had torn down a woodshed as
well as two servants’ houses. The brick chimney had been knocked down at another servant’s quarters.

Sin-Sin, picking up her skirt, ran toward Lutie. She was so worried she forgot to call her Miss in front of the others. “Lutie, Lutie, you all right?”

Lutie ran for her. Meeting midway in the backyard, the two embraced. “I’m all right. What about you, Sin-Sin?”

“Never saw anything hurl itself outta the sky so fast. Di-Peachy, I see you in one piece.”

Behind them, Ernie bellowed at the top of her lungs, “Boyd, Braxton!” Both emerged from the stables.

“Let’s inspect the damage.” Lutie grimly headed toward the servants’ quarters. She passed a three-story-high chestnut tree, one mighty limb dangling like a broken arm.

The women and Braxton reached a flattened house. “Anyone in there?” Di-Peachy called. Nothing stirred in the rubble.

Braxton observed the flattened house before them. “Be firewood now. Lucky thing Peter down at the stable. This one’s his.”

“Where were you?” Sin-Sin asked, as Tincia and the other women came up behind the quarters.

“Mess of us hid in your pots’ oven, Auntie Sin-Sin. Everybody there but the house folk and the barn folk.”

“Thank God,” Lutie sighed.

Di-Peachy opened the door. She blanched. “Auntie Sin-Sin, you’d better come here. You, too, Miss Lutie.”

Sin-Sin pushed through the door, but Lutie saw him first. She knelt over the twisted body of Alafin. His skull was smashed in. Bricks were strewn about. Braxton looked in and then turned around to keep the others away.

“Braxton, tell Timothy to saddle up and get Father Manlius. And tell him to come up as soon as he can.” She reached in her skirt pocket, pulled out a pass, and gave it to Braxton. “Even though everyone knows Timothy, we can’t take chances. After all, it is wartime.”

Braxton left. Di-Peachy observed a brick. Hair and brains covered the end of it. Lutie took it from her. “I don’t think a tornado did this.”

“Wind does strange things. Heard tell of a reed bein’ driven through a tree.” Sin-Sin grimaced.

“Alafin made enemies.” Lutie laid the brick by his crumpled body.

“Peter, for one,” Di-Peachy said.

“Couldn’t keep it in his pants.” Sin-Sin crossed her arms across her bosom. “Ran after women, especially Tincia. Even Frederica, and her bein’ married didn’t faze him. Di-Peachy, too.”

“Everyone notices Di-Peachy.” Lutie waved that off.

“He’d get all randy and rub up against the girls.”

Lutie looked at Di-Peachy, who nodded her confirmation.

“Miss Lutie, you have enough on your mind. We womenfolk watch out for one another.”

Lutie stared at the lifeless body. Poor dumb fool, she thought.

Sin-Sin leaned over and felt his wrist. “Still warm. He was kilt within the hour.”

“During the storm.” Di-Peachy shuddered.

“Who would search him out in that terrible wind?” asked Lutie.

“Someone who hated him beyond reason.”

Sin-Sin muttered a rhyme under her breath, the rhyme she’d used to admonish Geneva and Di-Peachy when they were children.

“Right is wrong

And wrong is right.

And who can know it

All by sight?”

Sundays in camp were a mixture of piety and drunkenness. Banjo was working on the drunkenness.

“Banjo, if I put a torch to you, you’d explode.” Geneva sat down next to him.

“Christ died for my sins. I got to sin as much as I can, else he woulda died for nothin’.” Banjo took another pull.

Mr. Poist, Sam Wells, Banjo, Benserade, Nash, and Geneva sat around the open fire in varying states of inebriation.

“Did you vote?” Sam asked Nash.

“Sure. Breckinridge and Lane.”

“I voted for Bell and Everett,” Benserade chimed in. “Family’s always been Whigs. We wouldn’t be in this war if they’d won.”

Sam replied, “I don’t know. I’ve been living in Philadelphia for years now. Voted up there. Lots of votes for Lincoln. And even if a Whig or Democrat got in, we’d still have those
fanatics in the Senate like Thaddeus Stevens from Pennsylvania, I am sorry to say.”

“Someone should of shot that son of a bitch abolitionist years ago.” Poist folded his hands.

“They should of jammed him back in the womb.” Benserade poked at the fire.

“That’s what you hear down here. Up there,” Sam reminded them, “they hear nothing but stories about wild secessionists in South Carolina and slave beaters in Mississippi. You wouldn’t believe the talk.”

“Small choice in rotten apples.” Banjo rocked back and forth on his hunkers.

“What do you mean?” Nash asked.

“Crooks. Never saw a politician yet that wouldn’t steal the pennies off a dead man’s eyes.”

“Hear! Hear!” agreed Mr. Poist.

Nash’s brow wrinkled. “Some of them are good men. Can’t go around thinking the worst of people.”

“I don’t think the worst of people. I give ’em the benefit of the doubt, and they prove my thinkin’. The higher a monkey climbs, the better you can see his little red ass,” said Banjo.

Sam smiled, and Nash spoke again. “Nobody thought there was even one Republican in Albemarle County, so they printed up Constitutional Union ballots and Democratic ballots. Then along comes old T.W. Savage.”

“T.W.’s still alive?”

“T.W.’s been alive since the French and Indian War, I swear it. Anyway, he came down and told the clerk to cry his vote. Fine. But T.W. says, ‘Lincoln.’ The clerk wouldn’t cry it. They laughed T.W. out of the courthouse. Course T.W.’s disgrace didn’t last long. After all, everyone is entitled to a few mistakes, especially an old man.”

“This old man thinks all politicians are as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.” Banjo spat in the fire. “I say let the rough side drag.”

“Huh?” Geneva asked.

“You know,” Banjo explained. “Let them go to hell. Now if Bob, the tailor, will lend me his banjo, you’ll find out how I got my name.”

Banjo returned with a banjo and Bob, who carried a guitar.
Soon after they began to play, soldiers ran over from other tents, and the party started in earnest.

“Let’s dance!” Poist nimbly kicked up one leg. He grabbed Benserade, and they galloped around the fire. “Come on, boys, grab a partner. If you take off your neckerchief and wave it in the air, you can be the girl.”

This suggestion was met with a burst of laughter. Some of the men untied their neckerchiefs and played the lady’s part. A few were graceful, but most were not.

“Let’s dance,” Geneva whispered in Nash’s ear.

“I’m afraid I’ll hold you too tight.”

Sam Wells hauled Geneva to her feet. “Come on, little Jimmy Chatfield. Let’s see if you can dance as good as you can sit on a horse.”

“I don’t want to be the girl,” Geneva protested.

“You’re the youngest. Come on, don’t be touchy about it.” He slapped his right arm around her waist and off they went.

Three other men joined Banjo and Bob. One had a mouth organ, another had a banjo, and the third joined in with his fiddle.

The dance finished. Each man sipped a drink or other refreshment. Banjo and his crew began to play another tune. This time Nash asked Geneva to dance. He trembled when he held her. They couldn’t look into one another’s eyes.

Mars Vickers, walking with a few of the staff, stopped to enjoy the merriment. He pushed his way to the inside of the large circle.

Poist, wild with music and whiskey, released his partner, who twirled into the crowd and landed flat on his ass. Poist clicked his heels in the air. The men cheered. He tiptoed over to the major and bowed low. “Major Mars, may I have this dance?”

Mars bowed equally low. “Mrs. Poist, I’d be honored.”

Yelling and whooping, they trotted into the fray. Poist waved his hanky in a fit of exaggerated femininity. Now all the men were dancing, except those too drunk to stand. At least five men were sprawled flat on their backs in the grass, out cold.

The band began to play.

Mars released the enthusiastic Poist and walked over to Geneva. “Might I have a dance with my conqueror?” His moustache twitched.

“I don’t want to be the girl.”

“Jimmy, I’ll gladly be the girl. In fact, if there’s reincarnation, I want to come back as a woman.” He held up his arms as would a lady, and she clumsily put her hands in the right places. She began to push him around like a barge. “Come on, Jimmy, I’m not that bad.”

Nash leaned against a tree, arms folded across his chest. He despised the very air Mars breathed.

Geneva stumbled; Mars righted her, quickly switched positions, and seized the lead. She followed him naturally. He was a bigger man with a heavier build than Nash. She could feel the huge muscles in his shoulders and smell the sweet odor of whiskey on his breath. He loved to dance, and he was light on his feet. He whirled her around, picking her up on one pretty pass. A few of the men cheered. Geneva blushed.

“You aren’t half bad, Jimmy.”

“Thank you,” she stammered.

“Up we go.” He lifted her up again, and the music picked up tempo. Despite Nash fuming on the sidelines, she couldn’t help but enjoy herself. She threw back her head and laughed. That inspired Mars even more, and they tore through the group like a cannonball. There was something about Mars Vickers that made people watch him. He provoked strong emotions, either love or hate. Fortunately for him, most people loved him. His men would follow him into the jaws of hell. And deep in his heart, he knew that’s where he would be leading them.

The music stopped. Mars released Geneva. He pulled a flask from his hip pocket and offered her a swallow.

“No, thank you, Major.”

“Gotta learn sometime, boy.”

“Why’d you say you’d come back as a woman?”

He licked his lips and handed the flask to her again. “Because women are beautiful. Because if a woman even looks at a man, he’s defeated. We work, die, even kill for women. I hope never to be a second in another duel as long as I live.”

“I think women are silly.”

“What?” He laughed at her.

“They sit around and sew and gossip and nurse the sick. You’re better off as a man.”

“Jimmy, all the guns of the Confederacy aren’t as powerful
as one kiss from the woman you love.” He paused and then laughed. “Or the one you don’t love. Come on, yearling, let’s dance.” He placed his strong hand in the small of her back before she could retreat, and they slammed back into the mob.

Nash wiggled his way between the dancers. He tapped Mars on the shoulder. Mars turned around to behold his least favorite recruit.

“What do you want, Hart?”

“I’d like to dance with Jimmy.” Nash grabbed his wife. Mars didn’t appreciate his roughness.

“Don’t do me like that, Hart,” Mars said, his voice sharp, “or I’ll give you a knockdown answer.”

“I don’t much care one way or the other,” Nash caustically replied.

Geneva slid between them. She turned her face up to Mars. “We’ve all been funnin’ and drinkin’ too much. Don’t hit him, Major.”