The Color of Your Skin Ain’t the Color of Your Heart (27 page)

From upstairs we could hear everything they were shouting back and forth. The voices from outside sounded angry. Whatever her uncle had said about staying out of sight, Katie couldn’t stand it. She was so worried about him and scared about what they were saying that she couldn’t stay put. All at once she got up from where she sat on the floor and dashed for the stairs. Henry tried to stop her, but by then Katie was out of sight.

“Aleta, Emma, you stay here with Henry,” I said. “He’ll make sure nothing happens to you.”

I jumped up and hurried after Katie. By the time I caught up with her, she was in the kitchen listening to her uncle as he tried to talk to the men. We crept up beside him where he stood just to the side of one of the windows that was halfway open.

“What in blazes!” he said. “What are you two doing here?”

“I was afraid for you, Uncle Templeton,” said Katie. “I wanted to be with you.”

“Just keep your heads down.”

We crouched beside him. But my curiosity finally got the best of me. I raised myself a little and snuck a peek out the bottom of the window. Just as I did, another man rode up alongside the fellow called Jeb—a fourth rider who hadn’t been with them when they’d come before.

“They’re all cut out of the same lying cloth,” the new arrival said. “If the rest of you want to keep talking, that’s fine. But I say we get this done and get it done the quickest way to make sure nobody lives to talk about it.”

His voice was harsh and cold and cruel. The very sound of it made me shiver.

“Something about that voice seems mighty familiar …” said Mr. Daniels, more to himself than to Katie or me. Then he glanced over at me. “Keep your head down, Mary Ann!” he said. “What are you trying to do, get yourself shot?”

But I had seen enough.

It wasn’t only the man’s voice that made me start shaking.

Through the window I had seen a face I knew I’d never forget, with reddish hair and a thick moustache, and those horrible huge eyes of white. It was the man who had killed my family and trampled my grandpapa under his horse’s hooves. A chill seized me and I began to tremble in terror as I sank to the floor. For the first time since that awful day, I thought we were all about to die.

Almost the same instant, beside me as he glanced out again, I heard Mr. Daniels say his name. The sound of it filled me with dread.

“It’s Bilsby!”
said Mr. Daniels. “What is he doing here!”

“Who is he?” asked Katie.

“He’s the meanest cuss I ever knew,” he replied. “I didn’t know he was hooked up with the rest of them, but I should have figured it. He’ll kill us all even if we do give him the gold. I may not be able to talk my way out of this.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell Katie who he was. And we didn’t have long to wonder what they were going to do. Suddenly a shot exploded and sent the glass from the shattered window above my head tinkling all over the floor. The terrible man called Bilsby wasn’t one for settling things with words but with bullets. He’d shed enough blood in his time, and a few more dead bodies weren’t going to sting his conscience … if he had one at all. “You girls get outta here!” said Mr. Daniels. “Bilsby’s a guy who plays for keeps!”

He knelt below the windowsill, stuck the barrel of the rifle out the broken window, and fired back two or three shots. A rapid volley of gunfire came back at us and broke several more windows. Mr. Daniels fired back again and the room filled with the echo of loud shots coming from everywhere. Katie was yelling and crying in panic—horrified to see the house she loved being shot up, yelling at everyone, and terrified that someone was going to get hurt.

“Stop … stop!” she yelled. “Stop it!” But her voice was drowned out by the blast of gunfire and shattering glass and splintering wood and ricocheting bullets all around us. I don’t know what it would be like to be in the middle of a war, but it seemed like this was it. Earsplitting explosions echoed from every direction.

Suddenly Katie jumped up from the floor, ran to the table, and grabbed the bag of gold. Then she darted for the door.

“Katie!” I cried.

“Kathleen, get back—” shouted Mr. Daniels.

But it was too late. Katie flew straight out toward the yard and into the middle of the gunfire.

“Stop … stop!” she cried in desperation, running toward the men. “Here’s the gold, you can have it! There’s no more … this is all there is! Just take it and stop shooting and leave us alone!”

Beside me, the rifle he had been using crashed to the floor. Katie’s uncle jumped to his feet and tore through the door after her.

I stood and looked outside. One man was already down. Then I looked at Bilsby and watched in horror as an evil grin came to his lips and he raised his pistol.

I screamed in terror and dashed after them.

Running as fast as he could, Mr. Daniels threw himself on Katie and knocked her to the ground. The same instant a puff of white smoke burst from Bilsby’s gun and a deafening roar filled the air.

He turned and saw me running from the house. I glanced toward him and saw the same wild look in his eyes that had paralyzed me with fear a year before. He lifted his gun and pointed it straight at me. But then a second shot exploded from behind me. The same instant a huge splotch of red burst from the middle of Bilsby’s chest. I saw the light of life instantly go out of his face and he crumbled from his horse onto the dirt.

“Katie, Katie!” I cried, running to where she lay partially covered by her uncle’s body. My brain was in such a panic for Katie and the sight of the blood splattered all over her dress that I thought nothing of where the second shot could have come from.

But Jeremiah had seen it. He now walked deliberately out of the barn, shotgun in his hands. He was not looking at me but toward a second-floor window of the house, stunned at the sight that met his eyes. There stood his father with the rifle in his hands, still smoking, that had ended Bilsby’s life.

“Let’s get out of here,” cried Jeb. “If they find us with him, we’ll swing from a tree. I don’t want to hang for the rest of Bilsby’s murders!” The bag had flown from Katie’s hand as she fell. Gold and dirt and dust were strewn everywhere. With one last fleeting glance at the half-empty bag on the ground, the man called Jeb thought better of it, then spun his horse around and galloped away with his one remaining comrade, just as Jeremiah sent a barrel of buckshot after them.

I ran forward and knelt sobbing beside Katie. Blood covered her back and neck as she lay motionless. “Katie … Katie, please … please don’t be dead!”

Then I felt her arm move and heard a faint whimper.

“Katie!” I cried.

She tried to roll over. “I’m … I’m all right, Mayme,” she groaned. “I think I just fell.”

I buried my face in hers and smothered her with kisses, hardly realizing that I was getting blood all over my hands and sleeves. For a second or two I was so happy to find she wasn’t hurt that it didn’t occur to me to wonder why there was so much blood.

Slowly the truth dawned on me. I leaned back onto my knees and now took in the horrible sight. The blood splattered on Katie’s dress wasn’t hers at all. It was the blood whose origins Katie and I shared, the blood of the
Daniels
name.

As Katie struggled to get out from under him and to her feet, Templeton Daniels lay unmoving on the ground, with the bullet from Bilsby’s gun now lodged about an inch from his heart.

V
ENGEANCE
C
OMES TO
R
OSEWOOD

40

I
WAS STILL KNEELING OVER
K
ATIE AND HER UNCLE
when Henry emerged from the house, followed by Emma and Aleta. He and Jeremiah approached each other and stood gazing into each other’s eyes a second or two, then silently embraced. Whatever they said in those moments together, I never knew. One thing I did know—Jeremiah realized what running downstairs to get that rifle had cost his father inside, and knew the sacrifice and heartaching pain it had taken for him to pull the trigger.

When news gradually spread in the coming weeks through Shenandoah County that the marauder Bilsby was dead, and that it was the soft-spoken Henry Patterson from the Greens Crossing livery stable who had exacted the Lord’s vengeance on him, Henry was a hero throughout the whole region, black though he may have been. In Henry’s own eyes, however, what he had done had been born out of necessity not heroism. Though he never regretted his action, he would carry the grief for the rest of his days that he had had to take the life of one of the Lord’s own.

From that day onward, if it was possible, Jeremiah held his father in even higher respect than before.

Slowly they came toward us.

By now Katie and I realized the truth. Both stained with his blood, still warm, we were sobbing and weeping over the form of our uncle and father that lay facedown in the dirt.

Henry stooped down and rolled him partially onto his side. His eyes were closed. A trickle of blood oozed out of the side of his mouth.

“Hit don’ look good,” mumbled Henry. “He’s hurt bad.”

He glanced up at us. Emma and Aleta were by then slowly approaching with expressions of awe and fearful curiosity.

“You girls, you don’ need ter be lookin’ at no dead man’s face,” said Henry, “effen dat’s what dis is.—Jeremiah,” he said, glancing up at his son, “you git t’ town an’ bring da doc. Ef he hesitates, you tell him hit’s a white man. You git him here soon, boy. Don’ take no fer an answer.”

Jeremiah ran for the barn.

“—You ladies,” said Henry again, “git back. Y’all can’t do him no good now. He an’ dose other two layin’ dere—dey’s in da Lord’s han’s now.”

We stood and stepped slowly back, still weeping. We tried to make our way toward the house but were unable to tear our eyes away from the dreadful sight of Templeton Daniels lying so still on the ground in his own blood.

Henry now stood too and slowly walked to where Bilsby lay. He stooped down to see for sure whether he was dead.

He was.

“Well, I reckon you’s gone ter da place,” he said softly, and I could just barely make out his words, “where ye’ll see effen da Lord can do somefin more wiff you by use er his far dan he was able ter eccomplush here wiffout it. I pray you won’ be so muleheaded as you wuz on dis side ob dat ole ribber when da lovin’ hand er dat far’s flame bites in ter yer sowl an’ opens yer eyes t’ what you hab been. Whateber yer fate now, da Lord know what you needs an’ what you deserves, an’ He’ll gib you both, ’cuz on dat side dey’ll be da same.”

Then he bowed his head and closed his eyes. I knew he was praying. All my life I wished I could have heard what dear old Henry was saying to God over the body of the man he had killed to save my life and Katie’s. But I never did. And somehow I didn’t think I ought to ask. When he rose a minute later, there were tears in his eyes. It was one of the few times I’d ever seen a man cry.

Then he walked over to the body of the man who had looked at Katie in the field the day before with such a lecherous grin. He wouldn’t be looking at anyone like that ever again. He was dead too, from Mr. Daniels’ rifle.

Despondently we stumbled into the house. Katie was still sobbing and babbling for her uncle. Though I had always been the practical one, I wasn’t in much condition to be practical right then and I couldn’t still the stream of tears pouring from my own eyes.

Now it was Emma who showed that she was made of tougher stuff than some people thought. It was her turn to take charge.

“You two sit down right dere,” she said. Her voice was tender, calm, and motherly. “Me and Miz Aleta, we’s git yous cleaned up an’ feelin’ better in no time.—Miz Aleta, you go git dat tub upstairs fillin’ wiff water, an’ I be along t’ help you directly.”

As Aleta did what Emma had told her, already Emma was gently wiping at Katie’s face with a wet cloth from the sink, wiping at the dust and blood and tears. “Dat’s jes’ fine, Miz Katie,” she said. “You cry all you wants, ’cuz it feels good t’ cry an’ you jes’ go right ahead. But meantime, we’s gwine git a nice bath fer you and den you too, Miz Mayme.”

When she had Katie’s face wiped off, she went to the pump and cleaned the cloth with fresh water and then began washing my face too and talking to us both like she talked to William. Right then it felt good. I didn’t want to have to think. I just sat there and let Emma wash my face and arms and dab cool water over my eyes and cheeks like she was being a mama to both of us.

A
FTERMATH
OF
D
EATH

41