High Hearts (29 page)

“You chicken shit, Momma. You know that little white dot on toppa the black? Thass you, Momma. You thinkin’ you somethin’ special, but you still chicken shit, and you still a slave!”

Ernie June threw an egg and hit Boyd’s head.

“Stop it, Momma, stop it!”

“I’s gonna beat those bad manners outta your skin.”

“Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! I’s sorry I sassed you.”

Ernie let her go. “Sit down. You listen, and you listen good! I work all my life for these people. I knows Henley’s father and mother and they father and mother when I was little. They ain’t so bad as those people go. They got their ways, but they ain’t bad. Doan you go and undo the good your Momma store up. We mean somethin’ here. We gonna run Chatfield someday. That witch Sin-Sin can’t live forever!”

Sin-Sin’s jaw dropped on her bosom. Lutie put her hand on Sin-Sin’s shoulder to reassure and restrain her.

Boyd appreciated her mother’s position, even if she didn’t appreciate taking her orders. “You do a better job than that nasty stinkin’ cow. But, Momma, things is happenin’. Grizz heard that Bumba run off and leave Nash. He heard that the Yankees treatin’ Bumba right good, and he workin’ for them as a sapper.”

“Huh?”

“Diggin’ ditches. Grizz says Bumba get paid most of what the white man get paid.”

“Grizz full of shit! Wild talk!” Still, Ernie was glad to know it. “What else you young sparks talkin’ ’bout?”

“I hear tell that Peter stole again.”

Ernie stopped toweling Boyd’s head. “You hush you’ mouth ’bout this.”

“Momma, will you give Grizz a chance? Doan belittle him.”

“I doan think he good enough fo’ you, and you knows what I thinks of the Fitzgeralds.”

“Please, Momma.”

“An’ you gotta stop comin’ in this kitchen and makin’ yo coffee with Miz Lutie’s cream ’fore she get up in the mornin’. You didn’t think your old momma knew. Rules is rules, missy.”

Hearing footsteps in their direction, Lutie and Sin-Sin tiptoed back to the dining room. They worked a bit in silence. “Sin-Sin, what are we going to do?”

“I be stirrin’ my brain ’bout it.”

“I don’t know if I have any brains left to stir.”

Sin-Sin began to hum, and Lutie picked up the tune.

“Moses smote the water, and the children they crossed over.

“Moses smote the water, and the children they crossed over.

“Moses smote the water, and the sea gave way.”

Anthony Farr-Jones’s people descended upon Chatfield to take him home. Stillwater, Alabama, a pinpoint on the map, was their pinpoint nonetheless. They were good people without much in the way of money, and Lutie, who had grown fond of the unfortunate boy, gave them a team of mules to drive back home. She told them they would be doing her a great favor to keep the ornery things because, as they could see, the men were gone, and she could only do but so much. They gratefully accepted her offer.

During their visit of three days, the war was uppermost in everyone’s conversation. Mr. Farr-Jones, an ardent secessionist,
declared that the mutiny in the Seventy-ninth New York Regiment and the Second Maine Volunteers boded well for the Confederacy. The New Yorkers were shipped to an island off Key West as punishment.

Young Anthony, however, asked some disturbing questions. On August 27, the Yankees won Cape Hatteras in North Carolina without much of a fight. If the North controlled Cape Hatteras, the future would be bleak for blockade runners.

The old man disagreed. War’d be over before the South missed anything from those snotty Europeans anyway.

Mercer, Lutie, Sin-Sin, and Di-Peachy listened to Mr. Farr-Jones with respect, but the Chatfield household was relieved when the bellicose gentleman and wife finally left with their son.

“You think the sight of that po’ chile would tone him down,” Sin-Sin remarked.

“Some people never learn. ‘Some people have a thousand thoughts, others the same thought a thousand times.’ ”

Jeremiah cried about his bowels in chapter 4. Geneva thought someone with better manners should have edited the Good Book. Awake before sunrise as always, she put the Bible under her blanket and left the tent. Camp life wore on her nerves. Fighting was better than sitting around, drilling, writing letters, and polishing her saddle.

Nash mumbled in his sleep. Last night they made love, the first time since the big battle. Lately there didn’t seem to be much desire on his part, and when there was desire, there was no privacy.

She dipped two buckets into the stream. Seeing no one
about, she shed her clothing and jumped in. The cold bit into her skin with a tingle. She splashed around, ducked her head under the water, and skipped out. Shivering, she shook herself like a dog, then quickly put on her pants and shirt. She carried the buckets back up to the fire pit and started a fire.

“You’re the early bird around here, aren’t you?” Mars came up behind her.

“I like the dawn to myself. It’s the only time I have alone.”

“I know what you mean. Come on, visit with me while I shave.”

“Colonel, I want to know your beauty secret,” Geneva teased. “How do you keep your teeth so white?”

Mars smiled. “I’ll show you.” He reached into his shaving bag and brought out a tin of baking soda. “First I pick ’em clean. Then I rub this on. Tastes terrible, but scrub hard and your tobacco stains will disappear.”

“Is that why the ladies are crazy for you?”

“No, it’s my superior intelligence.”

“It’s your moustache,” Geneva offered.

“That, too. In fact, I don’t think there’s a part of me that isn’t pretty.”

“Don’t think much of yourself, do you?”

“If I don’t like myself, who will?”

“There’s a difference between like and conceit.”

“You’re, of course, a walking saint.” Mars shaved his throat between sentences.

“Sumner told me you danced with my mother at your party.”

“I did, and I flatly adore her. She’s that rare creature, a woman with sense.”

“Oh, balls. I bet you if I raised a regiment of women”—she thought a minute and then pressed on—“they’d fight like tigers.”

Mars paused. “I agree. They’d be the terror of the field until the enemy dropped mice and spiders in the middle of it. Be the end of the battle.”

“Georgia peaches maybe or Mississippi belles, but I bet Virginia girls would fight.” Geneva was annoyed.

“Now why is it that Virginia doesn’t produce belles? You know I never thought of that.” Mars toweled off.

“You are revolting mean,” Geneva hissed, still defending Virginia women.

“Just the way I am.” He shrugged. “You know, Jimmy, if I had a son like you, I’d kick his ass bad.”

“You don’t have a son, and I’m not applying for the job.”

“Let’s not start the day with speculation about my reproductive capabilities.”

Friday, the thirteenth, set Ernie June and Sin-Sin into a tizz. Ernie carried on so with her superstitions that even Cazzie the cat left. Ernie shrieked about burning her fingernails and making her right eye jump. If the right eye jumps, there will be good luck; if the left eye jumps, there will be tears. Ernie’s right eye twitched like Saint Vitus’ dance.

Sin-Sin’s potions on this blistering day consisted of sassafras tea, drunk while sweet herbs burned in Geneva’s cobalt blue pot. Sin-Sin brought the pot up to the big house because she could kill two birds with one stone. Since it was Geneva’s pot, Sin-Sin could bring luck to Geneva, and since the pot was inside the main house, Sin-Sin could keep the spirits off Lutie, too.

Lutie ignored this orgy of fluster, just as she ignored the fact that she could be more irrational than either Sin-Sin or Ernie June. Emil was proof of that. She was girding herself to meet Jennifer Fitzgerald on September 20, Ember Day and a fast day at that. The Very Reverend Manlius decreed that it was Lutie’s Christian duty to pacify Jennifer, who in her distress thought Lutie could talk to the dead. Under no circumstances was she to bring messages from the dead, even if it would ease Jennifer’s mind. However, he didn’t think that a chat about the afterlife was out of order, and Lutie
might assure Jennifer, in a manner of her choosing, that Greer was with God. Jennifer’s suffering, while sad, did not make Lutie like her any more than when Greer was alive. Lutie dreaded the day.

Mercer sat under a tree with Di-Peachy. He neglected to tell her that Big Muler cornered him, threatening him if he trifled with Di-Peachy.

When Mercer replied that he would do no such thing, that he intended to marry her, Big Muler laughed. He said that no white man was going to marry a black girl. Plus, Mercer would have to survive the war. Big Muler wasn’t menacing, but Mercer felt certain that if he were not a guest at Chatfield, the huge man would have carried him to Mechum’s River and dumped him in it with chains wrapped around his neck.

Mercer told Di-Peachy that he was rejoining Stuart. His commander had written that he’d give Mercer a chance, and if the leg hampered him on horseback, they’d find something else for him to do. Mercer worked with Braxton and Timothy for the last four weeks, and although his wooden attachment still hurt the stump, he was getting used to it. He could grip with his thigh and his knee.

When he told Di-Peachy he would be leaving next week, she cried.

“Will you do me the honor of marrying me? Please consider it. Don’t reject me out of hand. I love you with all my heart.” She did not reply. Faltering, he murmured, “Did I mistake your kind attentions to me? I thought you bore me some affection.”

“You did not mistake me, Mercer.”

“Then marry me!”

“You’re grateful because I nursed you.”

“I’m grateful because Almighty God put you on earth and then allowed me to find you. I want to go through the rest of my life with you and only you.” He kissed her.

Di-Peachy put her hand on his chest, holding him at bay. “I’m a Negro woman, and I am a slave.”

“I’m a white man who wants to be your slave.”

“Don’t ever say you want to be someone’s slave, Mercer. Not even mine.” Di-Peachy smiled sadly. “You want to marry me now, but in the cold light of reason, you will change your mind. I would become an albatross around your neck.”

“No, I won’t change my mind, and I’ll buy your freedom!”

“Who will be our friends?”

“We’ll find out, won’t we? We’ll know who our friends really are. That’s more than most people know, isn’t it?” Breathlessly, Mercer held her hand. “Please say you’ll marry me.”

“After the war is over and if you still want me then, yes, I will.”

Mercer kissed her passionately and stood up. He hobbled in the direction of the stable. Di-Peachy scrambled to her feet.

“Where are you going?”

“To rejoin my regiment. I’ve got to win this war!”

“I want to get Italian marble.” Sumner was discussing his plans for Lutie’s fountains. His drawings were spread on the ground during a brief rest period.

“Why can’t you get marble from Vermont? I had a friend oncet worked up there in Barre.” Banjo nipped off the end of his cigar.

“At this point, Vermont might as well be Italy.” The wind picked up and Sumner put a stone on the corner of his drawings.

“Everyone will go back to trading again once things are back to normal.” Nash leaned over the plans.

“I thought the war would be over by now,” Sumner mused. “Summer is over, and we’re still here. At least I escaped Camp Misery for a few days.” Sumner drilled with his artillery crew on their twenty-three-pounders, called Napoleons, until they could fire three rounds per minute. He was, however, going batty with inactivity, as was everyone. When
Colonel Vickers ordered Geneva’s company to cook up two days’ rations because they were going scouting, Sumner had begged to go along. Mars agreed.

After the rest break, the scouting party rode toward the Leesburg-Alexandria turnpike, the sun behind them, warming their backs. While heat alternated with thunderstorms, proving it was still summer in Virginia, an imperceptible tang assailed the nostrils, warning that fall edged ever closer.

The land was rolling and crisscrossed with streams. They were on the east side of Wolf Trap Run, threading their way through woods. Banjo, first out of the woods, wheeled his horse around immediately and hurried back to Mars. “Yankees on the road down there,” he reported.

Mars held up his hand for the others to halt. He trotted to the edge of the trees with Banjo. “I make them out to be somewhere around three hundred.”

Banjo nodded. “Enjoyin’ themselves, from the look of it. You know, Colonel, the sight of them Yankees, ridin’ around with all that blue on, gets on my nerves.”

“I was thinking the same thing.” Mars grinned.

“We’ve got forty men. Sun’s at our back. Scare ’em so bad they won’t have time to count how many we are.”

“I expect they need a lesson in etiquette. It’s not the correct thing to trespass on another man’s property.”

“Rude boys always get their noses bloodied.”

Mars returned to his scouting patrol. He spread them out at the edge of the tree line. They’d have to gallop down a grade which leveled into a fine pasture. The turnpike bisected the pasture.

“You boys have been bragging how you can whip two Yankees apiece. Now’s your chance.” Mars nodded to the bugler who sounded the charge.

Geneva closed up next to Nash. She let out a piercing yell. Flushed, Nash hollered as well. The forty voices, joined by the rhythm of hoofbeats, surprised the drowsy Northern column of cavalry. Certain they were being attacked by a large force, they turned tail and thundered back toward Washington. Not a shot was fired.

After ten minutes of thrilling chase, Mars galloped next to the bugler and told him to sound a retreat. Hooting, hollering, and laughing at the top of their lungs, the exhilarated
men rallied and closed up ranks. Riding four abreast, they turned back toward the southwest.

They camped out that night. Each man put his rubber blanket roll on the ground and put his blanket over that. Then he’d roll up in the blanket. When it rained, the men slept in twos. One rubber cover and blanket would be on the ground. The two would lie on the ground blanket, then put another blanket and rubber cover on top of themselves.