Night Winds (28 page)

Spots swarmed in her vision, like a mass of fat, black flies
. Her knees buckled, and only her tight grasp on the railing prevented her from falling off into the churning waters.

A large chunk of latticework broke free of the house and was immediately churned under, into the floodwaters.

Just as Phillip must have been. Her stomach heaved, and she would have vomited again if she’d had anything inside it. The little house groaned, as if in sympathy, and she wondered how long before it broke up, like the barn she’d seen.

Why in God’s name had she made him bring her here
? For what? A dead dog and her mother’s tainted jewelry? A portrait that soon would spin among the debris in the gulf? None of it had been worth the cost of Phillip’s life. None of it worth the man she loved, the man she’d come to think of as her future.

She saw the horse’s head first, appearing from behind a fringe of oleanders
. Half-staggering and half-swimming toward her, it was followed by a second animal. Peering closer, she could see Phillip was riding on the first horse and leading the second sorrel of the team. Her head spun with relief, and, inexplicably, her knees again threatened to unhinge.

The carriage was nowhere in evidence, and Shae guessed he’d had to abandon it
. Before he could reach her, Shae darted inside to retrieve the wooden box. She wanted something, at least, to show for this ill-considered side trip; it would also serve as evidence against her father.

Phillip had to climb down from his own mount to help her onto the second horse
. She hooked her good hand into the harness and wrapped her legs tight about the sorrel’s ribs. She was long past caring that her skirt had hitched up high enough to reveal her legs to the knee. She couldn’t care less if she had to ride naked to get to higher ground.

Phillip didn’t attempt to speak to her as he climbed back aboard his own mount
. Even if he’d tried, she doubted she would hear him. For the wind had risen to a howl, making missiles of the chunks torn from nearby rooftops.

She began to wonder if, even with the horses, they would survive their journey toward a safe haven, or if such a place yet existed on this sunken strip of land.

*

“Where in heaven’s name do you think you’re going in this weather?” Alberta’s slippers made a shuffling noise on the wood floor of the entry.

King turned up the collar of his jacket, a useless gesture against the onslaught he must face. “To find my daughter. I’m going to find Payton. He might have taken her to his home.”

She placed a restraining arm upon his shoulder
. “You can’t mean to go out in this. The streets are flooding, and the only sound horse we have is upstairs chewing the moss stuffing out of Mary Shae’s mattress.”

He shrugged off his sister’s hand
. “At least she’s quiet now. I thought she’d kick me through a wall when I tried to drag her downstairs.”

“Don’t go out there, King
. This stor
m
”

“

Mary Shae’s out in this weather. I’m going to fetch her home.”

Alberta shook her head
. “She’s found herself a young man. Let him take care of her.”

“Do you think I’ll have my daughter wed to Phillip Payton
? The man’s being blackballed from here to New Orleans for inciting Negroes to demand more. No. Mary’s ruined her only chance to marry honorably. She needn’t sour my business as well. She’ll stay here and work with me, as always.” He pulled an umbrella from a wooden stand and thwacked it like a club into his palm. “And if that agitator gets in my way, I’ll show him how we Yanks deal with men who trifle with young girls.”

“Bad blood and weak flesh
. She’s no more innocent in this than Glennis. Leave her be, King. Leave it be this time. If he marries her, she won’t stir up more trouble. But she won’t ever be content to go back to that room.” Alberta’s gaze flicked to the stairwell. “Or to whatever Delilah sees fit to leave us of it.”

“We’ll see about that, Sister
. You mark my words, I’m not coming back without my Mary Shae.” As if to underscore the point, he slammed the door on his way out.

*

Justine tried to keep her face a mask, but she knew she hadn’t yet spent time enough with people to learn to hide her feelings. As people moved in and out of the small room, she flinched at each strange voice, looked away from every curious gaze. With no place to retreat, she fought a vicious battle with her shyness, one she was powerless to win.

Withdrawing into silence was her last resort
. But even there, she wasn’t safe for long.

A small, gnarled hand grasped hers firmly
. She looked up in surpris
e
into the eyes of the old nun, she of the delicate eyeglasses.

“I need you to help.” The skin around her brown eyes was creased, but her gaze was sharp with a natural authority.

Justine heard her own blood whooshing in her ears. Why couldn’t she at least be left alone? “No, I can’t.
I
I need my cane to get around.”

The old woman’s grip tightened
. “I’m seventy-five years old, and I have bad corns, rheumatism in my knuckles, and bouts of constipation. With the Lord’s help, the two of us might make up one good nurse. And that’s what’s needed now, girl. You come with Sister Josephine, and I’ll set you right to work.”

Justine glanced helplessly at Lydia, who looked as pleased as Mr. Carroll’s Cheshire cat
. And then, because there seemed nothing else to do, she grabbed her cane and followed the diminutive taskmistress into the crowded hall.

*

Phillip turned to peer at Shae, and a wave swept off his hat. It floated only yards before it sank. At the moment he found that inconvenience far less troubling than Shae’s pallor or the dazed way she was clinging to the mare.

The horses struggled past the point of exhaustion through waves that sometimes lifted them off of their feet
. He could feel his own mount shaking with weariness. When a nearby stable groaned and then collapsed, she lacked the spirit to even start at the huge crash. Surely, the poor beast was close to breaking down, and Shae’s mount’s condition appeared little better.

Debris washed through the water: planks from houses, shattered hulls of boats, and telegraph poles that cut through the water like huge battering rams
. The air was little safer, for a hail of tree limbs and timbers charged the howling winds with the promise of swift death. They had to get to shelter quickly before they both were killed.

The best that they could hope for was an old white two-story, which jutted like a lighthouse above the floodwaters
. Despite the porch trim breaking to pieces with the wind, it looked well-made and solid. Its windows were lit gold with the possibility of human comforts. He turned the horses’ heads toward the potential shelter.

Once they reached the house front, Phillip reluctantly decided to release the sorrel mares, just as he had the gray
. He hated to do it, for they were fine animals who had given their all for him. But penning them would only result in their certain drowning. He owed them at least the chance of escape to higher ground.

Pulling Shae off her horse, he was surprised to find that even though he’d lost both his wallet and revolver, she still clutched the wooden box
. He patted each mare and then swatted the first hard on the rump. The second followed, and he was chagrined to notice that they staggered in the wrong direction, toward the gulf. He could only hope they would regain their senses and turn toward Villa Rosa on Lee Boulevard.

Two men waded out the house’s front door and helped him carry Shae onto the flooded porch and then inside
. Dressed in oilskins, they worked with such grim determination that Phillip wondered if they’d been dragging in waterlogged folks all afternoon. The house’s crowded interior proved his suspicion. Though knee-high water had invaded, at least a dozen people splashed about the lower story. Many were carrying candlesticks and crockery up to the second floor. Two youths were hauling an overstuffed chair. Its base dripped as they hoisted it toward the stairway.

Though it was much quieter inside, the rush of wind and rain overwhelmed the sounds of conversations, all but the voice of the woman closest to where they stood.

A plump matron whose brown chignon was shot with silver shook her head at the boys. “Don’t bother. It’s already ruined, and there’s no room anyway.”

The chair splashed back into the water when they lowered it too quickly
.

A loud shattering attracted all of their attention as a chunk of masonry, made a missile by the wind, smashed through a side window
. Several men scrambled to turn a table up on end. Then one produced a hammer and began nailing it over the breach to stop the water already pouring in over the sill.

Turning back toward Phillip, the woman raised her voice, as if in defiance of the storm’s assault
. “I’m Mrs. Henry Jennings. This is my house, but you’re welcome. You take her upstairs. My daughter’s making hot coffee and cornbread as long as we can keep the stove dry. I’ll send her up with some. You all look like you can use it.”

She turned her back on Phillip’s thanks and continued shouting directions to other guests for saving whatever belongings she deemed both salvageable and worthy.

“I can walk,” Shae insisted. “Just tired, that’s all.”

Phillip carried her to the stairs, then lowered her feet onto the landing, which stood above the water’s level
. She touched his cheek, and he noticed her hand quivering with weariness. “Thank you for that, but it’s not as if either of us could get wetter.”

He took her cool fingers and squeezed them, then led her to the second floor
. As with the lower story, this was populated by a great variety of people. Two families, with no less than eight children between them, were crowded in one bedroom. One of the two men adjusted a pair of wire-framed glasses around the curved backs of his ears. Cracks formed spider webs across both lenses. A bedraggled, dripping woman tore strips from an old bed sheet while a second, hugely pregnant, struggled to look into a screaming toddler’s ear.

They walked further down a hall lit by old-fashioned oil wall lamps
. In the next room, a bedridden old woman had a cotton blanket pulled to her chin, as if she feared the four old men who’d pulled up chairs might somehow molest her. One white-haired man’s arm hung in a sling, bent at an unnatural angle. Nonetheless, he listened to the old woman intently, though his eyes watered with apparent pain.

They passed up both rooms as too crowded and glanced into another
. In it, a Negro woman huddled uncomfortably against a wall; two dark, half-grown boys flanked her. The three of them glanced nervously toward Phillip.

Shae broke from his grasp and knelt on the wood floor
. She embraced the woman tightly, though the slight, dark figure seemed disinclined to raise her arms. “Eva, I’m so glad to see you found a place t
o
where’s your other boy?”

When Eva merely continued staring, the taller of the two boys answered for her
. “Jeremia
h
he be gone. Them wave
s
” His voice fractured, like a rock might if one threw it at another, harder sort. Then he shrugged, as if no further explanation were needed.

The crest of a huge wave slapped the cramped room’s only window
. Water trickled down the leaking wall beside it to soak a braided rug that had been wadded up against the growing puddle.

The boy swallowed back his grief and sat up straighter, as if circumstances had conferred manhood upon him
. “My mama say they throw us outta here if more white folk keep comin’. She help you when you need it, Miss Shae. You gonna help us now?”

“Abraha
m
you’re Abraham, aren’t you?” Shae asked him. When he nodded, she continued. “I’ve known your mother since I was a child. I will never let them turn you out. You have my word on it.”

Eva looked away, a gesture that plainly declared her opinions on the promises of white folk
. “You say that now, but when this house be full, we’ll see.”

Phillip saw Shae’s expression change from hurt to puzzled; then she shrugged her shoulders and reached out for both boys’ hands
. They seemed unsure, but finally accepted. The younger of the two stared at the sodden bandage around Shae’s wounded palm. Spots of blood had seeped through, top and bottom.

“Do right by us,” Abraham whispered.

Shae nodded solemnly, then slid down against the opposite wall. Phillip pushed aside a sewing chair and joined her. He knew that he should change the dressing on her hand, but right now, when he closed his eyes, he felt as if the whole gray world were surging, then subsiding, like the waves they’d fought so long.

The younger boy’s snuffling roused him before he’d fully fallen to an exhausted doze
. In the center of the small room, some unseen saint had placed a silver tea tray. Shae passed out thin, bone china teacups filled with coffee. She offered the first to Eva and the youngest boy.