The black swan (21 page)

"Bad luck to kill a buzzard, Mastah."

"Bad luck for the buzzard," he growled. "Protect Mr. Garrett, you hear?"

The men dragged the two catchers under the low-hanging branches of a pine. Next they padded the dray with blankets and lifted Jane and Garrett into it. Somehow they persuaded Jane they would have to take dead Jason, so his soul could be released by proper Christian burial. Marcus and Mandy could sit beside Adam, while Boy rode on the back.

Marcus was needed to control the horses, for the catchers' saddle horses were sulkily unwilling to be hitched. He soft-talked them, ignoring the roan's bared teeth. An hour later the four horses were awkwardly moving forward.

They rumbled through the fallow field and up into Ebenezer's barn. His wife came out to meet them, her face pink and wholesome under her dove-gray sunbonnet "Friend Adam, thee's had trouble?"

"Yes, ma'am. We'll need help."

"Thee heard the horn sound? Eben will be in from the field directly. We didn't expect thee in daylight." She gasped as she saw Garrett.

"He's had a bullet wound and a blow on the head. He keeps fainting. We've got two people with broken limbs, a man dead, and two stolen horses."

"And thee, friend Adam?"

Vignettes from the awful journey flashed through his mind, but he could not speak of them. He said, "It was a hard trip, ma'am."

She smiled. "Thee acquitted thyself well, else thee'd not be here."

They had reached safety, but Adam could not relax yet. He was still responsible for Garrett's welfare.

The fugitives who could walk were helping the others into the windowless room. They laid Garrett on a high bench. Adam helped the little Quaker woman remove his shirt. His bullet wound was minor. She cleaned it with soap and water and bound it with muslin strips.

Garrett's eyes opened. He smiled faintly at her. "Well, well, Prudence, I seem to be ... on the receiving end of . . . your mercies."

"Thee lie still, friend Garrett,'* she said good-naturedly. "Thee's a knot large as a goose egg on thy skull. It wants cold compresses."

"Adam. Where's Adam?" He tried to sit up and fell back dizzily.

"I'm here." With Garrett in expert hands, Adam was comforting Jane. She was in severe pain. He felt he could not bear it if she started screaming again. "I'm fine, Garrett."

"Turn thy head a bit," Prudence instructed him. Garrett sucked in his breath as she began to clean dirt from his wound.

Eben came in with two husky field workers. He greeted everyone, then assessed the situation with few questions. He gave instructions to his men as Prudence worked. Adam went out before this was begun. He had no stomach for tasks that Ebenezer and his men could do better.

He looked with dull eyes at Jason in the wrecked dray. He would be prepared and decently interred. The blacks believed the spirit of one who lay dead unburied and unblessed was doomed to wander the earth for eternity. Was it true, he wondered, of the men who pursued slaves for the bounty?

Adam walked slowly out into the bright, hot day and leaned against Eben's barn, holding his face up to the sunshine. Was Garrett in shape to travel? It might be best to leave him here.

Into his thoughts unbidden came the glimpse of a man silhouetted against the morning sun, falling.

Adam shuddered. Then he heard Prudence call him, and he stepped swiftly back into the dark barn.

"Friend Adam, Garrett is asking for thee."

Garrett was still lying on the bench, covered by a blanket Adam put a hand on his shoulder. "How do you feel?"

Garrett licked his lips. With difficulty he focused his eyes. "I'm fine, Adam. Eben will let us use his . . . spring wagon."

"It's foolhardy for you to travel now. You'd be risking your life."

"I'm going home." He shut his eyes. "You're not to leave without me."

"Rest thee awhile now. Adam will speak with thee again."

The men were still setting Jane's ankle, but Prudence took Adam to the house. Two shy young girls had a hot meal ready.

"I can't eat," Adam blurted out.

"No? Then thee'll have a cup of beef broth." The broth was thick with herbs, and vegetables. As Adam was finishing, she said, "Thy uncle wishes to leave. Eben has the spring wagon ready, with a fresh horse."

Adam said apprehensively, "What'll I do if he—d-dies?"

Prudence's hand was warm on his arm. "Don't fash thyself, Adam. He has promised to lie quietly. The good Lord will watch over thee."

Garrett, deathly pale, stubbornly walked to the wagon. "See? I'm perfectly fine. Prudence has fixed me a kingly bed. Touch up that horse!"

In spite of Adam's anxiety, the trip was uneventful. But as they splashed through the ford at Smith Creek, Garrett said, "Adam, stop."

"What's the matter? Are you getting sick? We'U soon be home."

"I'm going to drive."

"Like hell! Think I want you falling and busting your skull open?"

"Look at yourself. You can't drive through Wilmington like that."

Adam looked down. His shirt and trousers were spattered with large dried blood spots. "Give me your coat, Garrett. I'll cover it up."

"I left it at Eben's. I'm going to drive, Adam. You keep hidden."

They got back late in the afternoon. Zoe, looking anxiously out the windows, saw a white-faced Garrett swaying on the seat of a strange wagon behind an unfamiliar horse. And Adam was not with him.

Chapter Thirteen

Leona was in the carriage house, seated on a hay bale. Her fingers flew as she knitted a blanket to be used on some future trip. Her nervousness was betrayed only in the taut way she held her head, her ear straining toward the doors. Already it seemed that several lifetimes had passed since Adam and Garrett had driven away. She'd gone into the house once to reassure Zoe that everything was all right.

but she knew it was not. The men were long past due.

Her knitting fell unheeded to the floor at the sound of wheels biting and spattering the gravel and shells of the driveway. She flung wide the great doors of the carriage house.

Garrett drove the wagon, pale and weak, alone. Leona didn't notice Adam's absence. Her eyes were for her husband, who released the reins and slumped down on the seat. Leona's ears blotted out the sound of Zoe's frightened, mournful shriek.

"He's dead! Ohhh, my God! He's gone! Adam!" Zoe tore wildly at herself and pulled away from Mammy's restraining hands.

"Miz Zoe, you gwine hurt yo'seff. Doan carry on so," Mammy pleaded.

In the back of the wagon the blankets jounced as Adam tried to free himself of them. "Ma!" His voice was drowned out by his mother's hysteria and Leona's shouted orders to the servants.

Adam leaped from the wagon. He pressed Zoe against him, mufiiing her sobs against his shirt. Her screams abated. Her sobs were deep and heart-rending. "I'm all right, Ma. Nothing happened to me." He put his face in the soft pillow of her hair. "I'm all right."

"Adam, help me with Garrett," Leona's voice was on the edge of hysteria.

He smoothed his mother's hair back. "Go with Mammy. I'll come as soon as we get Uncle Garrett into his bed."

Still trembling and clinging to him, she nodded, then stood back looking at him as if to assure herself he was truly there. Her face distorted in renewed horror as she saw the bloodstains. She rubbed frantically at her cheek where she'd pressed it against his chest. Her screams were long, howling cries that reason could not temper.

"Get her out of here, Mammy!" Leona's fists beat at her skirts. "Adam, help me! Garrett is dying! Help me!"

Adam and the servant called Luster carried Garrett to his room. Leona dogged their steps. Her untidy hair flew about her face in gray wisps. Adam placed Garrett on the bed and hurried out.

For an instant he hesitated at the top of the stairs, wanting to run down their length into the outdoors, away from the noise and the chaos, away from his mother.

Mammy had taken Zk)e to her sitting room and there

tried to quiet her. By the time Adam had gained sufficient resolve to face his mother, she was crying in soft, self-pitying hiccupping sobs. Her normally pretty face was swollen and blotched with red.

He said awkwardly, "It isn't so bad, Ma. Mr. Cline says Uncle Garrett will mend. The dray turned over, and he hit his head."

*1 wish he had died! I do! I do!"

"Miz Zoe!" Mammy breathed, clasping her hands and rolling her eyes sincerely heavenward. "Doan you talk hke dat. De Lawd done heah you!"

*'He deserves it, after what he did," Zoe sobbed.

"Ma, quiet down, you don't mean what you say. It's over. Look, nothing happened to me. Everyone is saife."

"Till next time and next time and next time, till he finally gets you killed!" She clawed at his shirt, pulling him toward her. "Adam," she whispered urgently, "promise me, promise me you'll never do this again. We'll leave here today, and then you must promise you'll never see Leona or Garrett ever again. Promise me, Adaml"

"Ma—I can't do that."

"You will! You must! I can't stand any more of this!"

"You'll feel different in the morning. Ma. Wait—"

"I won't wait! I can't! You've dragged me from my home, gotten us into one trouble after another! I demand that you do as I say in this!"

Carefully he opened her grasping hand, freeing himself. Zoe, wrapped in her own hysteria, did not see her son's hurt and anger. Adam looked at his mother, who, pathetic but determined, was waiting for him to accede. He said, "Ma ... I can't do it."

"They mean more to you than II You'd sacrifice your own mother's well-being for your quixotic notions?" Her voice rose. "You ungrateful ignorant! You know nothing, nothing of what you are involved in. Can't you see Garrett and Leona are taking advantage of you? You're a child I They are using you for their own purposes!"

"No, they're not, Ma. They're good people."

"And what am I? Doesn't it matter to you that my life is being ruined? I love you, Adam. Is it so much for a mother to ask that her son not bring her sorrow every waking moment of her life? Do this for me, promise me."

He took another step away from her. "I can't," he said more quietly than ever, choking on the words.

"Adam!" she cried, coming toward him. "Go to your room! Go immediately, and stay there until it is time to leave for the new house. Do as I say!" she shouted, stamping her foot when he didn't move. "Adam, I am your mother! You will obey me, you will!"

"Ma, don't . . ." he said, his hands out to her. The hurt on her face was mirrored in his own. She screamed at him again. He walked to the door, stopped there, looking back over his shoulder, then ran down the hall. He took the steps two at a time, stumbling as he hurled himself through the front door and out into the soft evening light.

His mind raced, but nothing formed into a coherent thought. Impressions and scenes and feelings sped in and out of his consciousness. Like a wounded animal, he wanted a safe place to lick his wounds and try to mend the awful tearing that had occurred last night and today. Vaguely he thought of Tom. Tom, better than anyone, would understand what he felt over having killed the catcher. Tom could feel what he felt and help him to find sense somewhere.

He ran for the flatboat, jumping into it with such recklessness he nearly capsized the craft. He rowed down the Cape Fear River, then poled his way back into the depths of Green Swamp with hardly a thought to which channels and meandering creeks he was taking.

It was cooler in the swamp. By night it would be cold. The dark creek water that wound its way through the spongy, vine-clogged growth was quiet but swift running, a powerfully tranquilizing, immutable force that always calmed Adam, gave him pause and insight. This time nothing calmed his turbulent feelings. He poled, his eyes fastened unseeing on the blackish water. All was turmoil, disorganizing him, forcing him on deeper and deeper into the swamp, his mind always returning to the moment when the dray had suddenly overturned. After that there had been no thought, only impressions, horrible, sickening vignettes that tormented him.

He wasn't in the right branch of the creek for Tom's cabin, and he no longer cared. He didn't want to see Tom either. He didn't want to see anyone. He didn't want to talk or think or feel. All he wanted was sleep.

He moored in a deep channel, throwing a rope across a bough that hung far out over the water. He lay down in

the bottom of the peacefully rocking boat and closed his eyes.

He awakened to the shrill morning songs of the swamp birds. Bright spots of sunlight through thick overhead foliage danced against silhouettes of isolated leaves. Lazily he lay there, cradled by the boat, lullabyed by the woodland sounds on the undulating water. So long as he didn't move, nothing was real. But he felt dirty. The 6dors of tension and sweat clung to him, befouling the sweet fresh air he breathed.

He climbed out of the boat to relieve himself and looked down at the hardened splotches of crusted blood with bits of dog hair dried into them. Hastily he pulled off his clothes, throwing them into the water. He knelt on the bank, scrubbing the clothes, rubbing them until his knuckles chafed. The bloodstains weren't coming out. He picked up a rock and jumped into the water. Again he scrubbed, pounding the clothes viciously against the rough surface of the rock. The fabric gave until the pink of his hand showed through the thin remains. He placed the garments on bushes to dry. As he looked at them, rippling slightly in the breeze, he felt one part of yesterday had been left behind.

He dived and came up in waist-deep water. With hand-fuls of grass he scrubbed the day-old sweat and dirt and memory from his body. When he had finished, he let the grass float away from him like tiny green ships on a vast, dark sea. The waters of the creek carried them slowly past its deep-cut banks, covered with tangled late-summer grasses and blue dayflowers, until the little flotilla had disappeared. He ducked again to rinse himself, stood up, and stretched his body. His clothes might be dry enough to wear in an hour or so.

He gave a startled yelp, thinking of alligators as something slithered past him. As if disembodied, long strands of blond hair fanned out underwater like silken snakes. She surfaced, stretching her smooth, tanned body to come out of the water so close to him that her full breasts rubbed his chest disturbingly.

**Mawnin',*' she said cheerfully. "What be yere name?"

"A-Adam," he said, backing away.

The gu-1 giggled and let the water carry her against him again. **Then mayhap moi name be Evel" Her laughter

rang out, echoed by a chorus of birds on the swamp not far away. "What be ye a-doin'?"

"I, well, I . . . was taking a bath. I didn't know anyone was nearby."

"Been watchin' ye since afore ye woke up. Watched ye make water up agin that tree, watched ye wash yere clo's an' scrub yere body. Oi got plumb tuckered wie watchin', so Oi come to be wie ye."

In spite of his confusion, Adam found himself fascinated by her voice and straining to understand what she said. The strange cadence and pronunciation of her words, mixing the hard sounds of the Banker with the soft slur of the hill people, formed a very ancient, very English language he'd never before known except here in the swamp.

He realized he was leaning forward as he listened. He straightened, embarrassed anew. "I'm sorry, I seem to be in your swimming hole. I'll—I'll—if you'll just turn your back, I'll—get right out." He kept moving back, getting nowhere. She was right there no matter what he did.