Mississippi Raider (6 page)

Returning with the five-shot
ivory-handled Colt Little Dragoon Pocket Pistol revolver that Belle
kept loaded and capped in the drawer of her bedside table, Auntie
Mattie, never having fired any kind of weapon, made no attempt to
use it. Instead, letting it fall from her grasp, she rushed forward
while emitting the roar that drew the attention of the burly man
her way. Before his never-swift wits could cope with the unexpected
turn of events, although he read the menace in the massive old
Negress
’s
demeanor, he felt his throat grasped by a hand with a grip like a
closing bear trap.

Having the waist band of his trousers seized
at the same moment that the other hold was applied to inflict a
choking that further numbed his already bewildered senses, the man
felt himself being propelled backward with a force he would have
been hard-pressed to resist even if the grip were not being applied
so vigorously. Just as he was trying to halt, he found he was being
subjected to a surging thrust that sent him against the window.
Going through to the sound of shattering glass, a wail of alarm
burst from him as he was falling to crash on the ground. Unable to
halt before, Auntie Mattie contrived to do so by placing her palms
on the wall alongside the ruined casement. Seeing and hearing
certain happenings that were taking place below, she swung around
with the intention of alerting Belle to them.

Although the Creole made the lunge as he had
intended, he found that it failed to achieve the desired effect. On
coming into contact with the left biceps of the girl as she started
to turn his way, instead of her back as he had intended—satisfied
that being struck there would leave her sufficiently incapacitated
for him to take the retaliatory measures his lecherous disposition
was planning to extract—the anticipated penetration failed to
materialize. Instead of the point sinking into flesh, the blade
began to bend upward in a graceful curve.

The error made by the
girl
’s
latest would-be attacker was one of ignorance.

Although coming from the same
maker as the epee de combat and matching its dimensions exactly,
the sword taken from the wall appeared identical only in some
respects to the one
in Belle’s hand. In fact, although the Creole failed to
take the matter into account when grabbing it from the wall, it had
two vitally important differences in its construction. Designed for
use at fencing practice only, in the interests of avoiding the
chance of injury to an opponent, the edges of the blade were not
sharpened and the tip had been fitted with a protective metal
“button” intended to prevent its penetrating when making a “hit” at
the conclusion of a successful lunge. Therefore, its employment as
a means of defense and attack was far from being as dangerous as
was the case with the weapon—rather than a sporting device—she was
holding.

Feeling the pain as the contact
by the blade of the practice epee came, the girl reacted with
speed. Coming around, she once more struck back with what started
as a cut to the head and, still being under the influence of her
instinctive objection to doing something that could possibly take
the life of another human being, she lowered her point of aim to
lay open the Creole
’s right upper arm to the bone. The pain and severing of
the biceps caused him to drop both the knife and the ineffective
sword with which he had hoped to counter the epee de combat she was
using so effectively.

However, despite having disposed of her
assailant and seeing that Auntie Mattie had coped with an even
greater severity while removing the other threat, the girl
discovered that she could not account herself safe from further
danger.

Nevertheless, Belle was given an intimation
that help might be forthcoming.

“
Our
menfolks’re on their way, gal!” Auntie Mattie yelled, turning from
the window after having seen the figures armed with a variety of
improvised weapons who were approaching rapidly from the living
quarters allocated to them. A glance farther away allowed her to
deliver a further piece of information, which she regarded as being
of equal importance if she should be correct in what was portended
by it. “And there’s riders a-coming fast!”

Although gratified by the news
given by the Negress, as she knew the loyalty all their workforce
showed toward her family and deduced that the approaching horsemen
would be the rest of the hunting party r
eturning from assisting Joe Lassiter
in attending to the muck ponies they had ridden, and knowing they
would all be armed even though no weapons were carried while going
out for the evening’s sport, the girl realized that the peril she
and Auntie Mattie were facing was not yet at an end. The two men
she had wounded were put out of action, or at least sufficiently
incapacitated to be rendered close to innocuous until recovering
from the injuries sustained, but she saw yet another of the
attackers coming through the door. What was more, unlike his three
predecessors, he was carrying a cocked muzzle-loading pistol in his
right hand.

Skidding to a halt, the man brought the
heavy-caliber firearm into a shoulder-height alignment upon the
girl.

Before the latest intruder
could squeeze the trigger of his weapon, Auntie Mattie made her
presence known in the same way she had done previously. Hearing the
awesome roar and looking at its source, the man was not led into a
sense of false security by discovering it was emanating from an
elderly woman—and a Negress, at that. Deducing the very real threat
she was posing to himself, while the girl at whom he was aiming
stood a greater distance away, he swung the pistol around and
completed the pressure already commenced. With a deep coughing
roar, the charge was detonated and the heavy ball of lead left the
muzzle to plow into Auntie Mattie
’s ample torso. Not even her massive bulk
could offset the effect of the impact. Giving a cry of pain, she
had her advance turned into an involuntary retreat that ended with
her sprawling supine on the floor.

Seeing what had happened to the elderly
woman, Belle was filled with a desire to take revenge upon the man
responsible. However, the instincts that came from being the
product of a race of fighters on both sides of her family warned
that attempting to do so while armed only with the epee would be
ill-advised. She had not noticed that the pistol had only a single
barrel and so was useless as a firearm until reloaded. What she did
know was that there were other would-be attackers who might soon be
arriving and some more effective means than cold steel would be
required if she was to defend herself and Auntie Mattie from
them.

Fortunately, Belle thought, the means she
required was close at hand.

Allowing the epee to fall from her grasp,
Belle went in a rolling dive that took her to where the Negress had
dropped her Colt. Closing her right hand around the ivory butt,
which had never felt so comforting as it did at that moment, she
came to her knees. With her left hand joining its mate, she
completed the move on her knees facing the man and started to raise
the short-barreled weapon. The move was as smoothly accomplished as
if it had been practiced a great many times until a peak of
perfection was achieved, instead of being made for the first time
and only by instinctive reflexes. However, she was prevented from
bringing it to the kind of conclusion she desired.

Seeing the response being made by Belle and
hearing yells accompanied by other significant sounds from outside
the room, the man was all too aware of how precarious his situation
had become. Letting out a snarl of rage, his instincts warning that
she possessed sufficient knowledge to be able to shoot with enough
accuracy to put his life at risk, he hurled the empty pistol at her
with the intention of distracting her aim before she could open
fire. Having done so, he ran to the shattered window and, springing
through, alighted on the feebly moving body of his predecessor to
leave—albeit involuntarily—by that route. Ignoring the moan of
agony that greeted his arrival, he started to run across the
grounds as swiftly as his legs would carry him.

Chance rather than a skilled aim caused the
pistol to achieve a result the man would have been pleased to
witness.

Caught on the side of the head by the butt
of the approaching weapon before she could deflect it, Belle was
toppled sideways; She was stunned by the impact, and blackness
descended upon her.

S
hortly after Belle Boyd was rendered
unconscious by the pistol thrown at her, two of the men who had
been on the fox hunt earlier in the evening and a pair of Negroes
clad in attire suggesting that they were field hands rather than
members of the mansion’s domestic staff dashed into the
room.

Already from below the sounds of fighting
had died away from the ground floor, although there were other
indications that activity of a hostile nature was continuing in the
grounds.

Furthermore, originating from somewhere on
the ground floor, there were other noises suggesting that efforts
were being made to put out the fires that had been started in
various parts of the mansion. These had been started, using
kerosene, by the members of the mob holding a grudge against the
owner of Baton Royale plantation for his part in curtailing some of
their unsavory activities. Therefore, although Belle and the others
on the upper floor were unaware of the problem, because of the
highly inflammable nature of much of their surroundings as well as
the fluid employed to set each blaze going and the primitive means
that were being employed in an attempt to douse the resulting
blazes, the men fighting the fires were finding great difficulty in
achieving anything against the ever-growing flames.

Realizing the danger posed by the spreading
conflagration, the quartet had come to the second floor to give
whatever succor was needed to its occupants and ensure that there
were no more of the attackers about. It had only needed a quick
examination to inform them that there was nothing anybody could do
for the owner and his wife. However, as neither had put in an
appearance down below, they had surmised that the daughter of the
house and possibly her former maid were upstairs. It had been the
biggest of the Negroes who guessed where the women could be
found.

“
Quickly!”
snapped Phillipe Front de Boeuf,
^iv
the young white man in the lead.
Dressed as he had been during the hunt, although lacking the most
undesirable qualities some of his family had had and one at least
still possessed, he had the size and bulk for which most members
his family had long been renowned.
^v
“Get them downstairs and
outside.”

“
You
’tend to my li’l lamb first!” Mattie Jonias croaked, trying to
force herself up from a kneeling position while still keeping her
right hand clasped to the wound in the right side of her torso just
below her massive bosom.

“
We’ll
see to you
both!”
Front de Boeuf asserted. He was a medical student and knew
enough about such injuries as the old Negress had sustained to
appreciate the danger of what must be done, but he was aware there
was no other choice if she was to be saved from the flames. “Danny,
help get Belle downstairs. We’ll see to Auntie Mattie.” His eyes
went to the woman and he continued in a gentle voice, “It’s going
to hurt, but we have to carry you out of here.”

“
Not
‘til my li’l lamb’s safe away!” Auntie Mattie denied heatedly and
weakly, trying to fend off the approaching men with her hands. “You
get to toting her off downstairs, Sammy-well!”

“
I can
do it easier’n the two of us, boss,” stated the shorter of the
Negroes, which did not make him small or feeble in
build.

“
Very
well,” assented the young white man who had almost landed on the
girl when they took the fall with their horses in the woodland.
“I’ll fetch along these swords and pistols. I know how much Belle
cared for them.”

“
Get
some clothes for her from the bedroom closet, sir!” Auntie Mattie
said, making the words more of a demand than a request. “They’ll be
a whole heap more use right now than them fool weapons of her’n
regardless of how she would insist on playing with ’em.”

“
Yes,
ma’am,” the young Southron answered, instinctively speaking with
the politeness he would have employed if it had been his own
colored “mammy” addressing him. “I’ll ‘tend to it!”

Refusing to let the two big men
lift her until she had seen the girl being borne through the door
in the arms of
“Sammy-well” and her instructions regarding the collection
of garments being obeyed, the elderly Negress submitted to being
removed as soon as she was satisfied that all was being done as she
wanted it. Although the of necessity swift way in which she was
being carried by the shoulders and upper thighs between the equally
massive and well-muscled pair caused her great pain, she did not
allow more than the occasional extra-heavy exhalation of breath to
give an indication of her suffering. There was, she realized, a
pressing need for haste. Already the flames were gaining to such an
extent that she realized there would be little saved of the mansion
that had been her home for a great many years. She wondered how the
girl she had done so much to raise—and secretly admired for
qualities that were not a normal requisite of the wealthy Southron
maiden— would react when she learned what had happened.