The Mirk and Midnight Hour (16 page)

I couldn’t think of anything except that I mustn’t leave Dorian alone. Perhaps if I stayed at his side, they wouldn’t hurt him. I scurried over and stuck as close as I could until one of the bushwhackers took me by my arms and moved me bodily out of the way.

They led my cousin to the great magnolia tree. One of them procured a rope from his scraggy mule, formed a noose on one end,
and threw it up around a thick, high limb. They placed the noose around Dorian’s neck and pulled him up until he gasped for breath, then lowered him.

“Where’s your gold?” the leader demanded.

“Don’t—don’t have any,” Dorian panted. “You already got my ring and cravat pin.”

They pulled him up again, all the while scrutinizing us four women. Sunny was sobbing into my shoulder.

Miss Elsa gave a little cry. “Stop. I’ll get the money.” She scuttled back into the house. The bushwhackers lowered Dorian and waited for her return. At one point one of them said something to my cousin, and Dorian slapped him on the back and laughed. It was brave of Dorian, to act as if they were comrades when they might hang him any second, but somehow terrible to watch. Miss Elsa came scurrying out the door, holding forth her purse in trembling hands. She shoved it at the leader and he counted the contents.

“This is all dang Confederate bills. Where’s your gold?” he demanded.

Miss Elsa shook her head. “We don’t have any.”

“Ha!” the man cried, and once again they heaved Dorian up.

Something had to be done. They would kill Dorian, or we would lose every last penny we had—or both. I strode deliberately up to the tree, looked at my cousin struggling for breath on the end of the rope, and said calmly, “Dorian, supper’s ready.” I turned to the bushwhackers. “Would y’all care for some ham and biscuits and pie? We’d be much obliged if you’d join us. The food’s getting cold while y’all are playing around out here.”

Their mouths fell open, and one of them gave a snort of
amusement. Then, to my surprise, they lowered Dorian and removed the noose.

Laney hurried into the house and returned outside with steaming plates. None of the ladies could eat, but Dorian sat with his tormentors, shoveling food into his mouth, joining in their loud, bragging talk, and occasionally laughing. He amazed me.

The thieves left soon after. They didn’t have the cows or Star, thank goodness, but they took away Gus-the-mule; Dorian’s nervous Grindill, who stamped, plunged, and tried to knock into the horsenapper with his great, bony head; a bag of squawking chickens; and just one goose dangling by a rope from a belt. I had heard the geese hissing and honking, so perhaps they’d made too much trouble to be worth catching, or maybe even bushwhackers didn’t want to take everything we had.

“They’ll be sorry they stole Grindill,” Dorian said, glaring after them with a hard set to his mouth. “They’ll soon find no bummer can ride him.”

“They didn’t get all the money,” Miss Elsa said. “I stuffed the gold pieces into my stockings; they’re weighing me down. But I had to give them all the paper bills in order to be believable.”

We congratulated her on her quick, clever, out-of-character thinking.

“Why, you’re acting like a real grown-up mother,” Sunny said.

Miss Elsa gave a tremulous smile, fluttered her hands, and then dashed away from us, probably anxious for her medicine.

As we went into the house, Dorian put his arm about my waist in what I hoped Sunny realized was a cousinly manner. “Good
thinking on your part, coz. How could you guess half-starved men would take home-cooked food over a hanging?”

“I couldn’t,” I whispered, and tears suddenly blurred my sight and I began to shiver.

Dorian squeezed my waist while Sunny watched with narrowed eyes.

“I’m just thankful they were only starving,” she said coolly. “There are other things to lose besides animals and money.”

Dorian gave me a swift wink and deserted me for Sunny’s side. “And there are things worth protecting and fighting for, beautiful Sunny.”

She thawed visibly and edged closer to him. “It was so terrible when I thought they were going to murder you, Dorian. If they had, I would’ve—I would’ve—just screamed and screamed and never stopped.”

Michael and King came wandering up, and Laney filled them in on what had happened while they were out digging ditches. King’s face was a study of alarm.

“Where’s Master Seeley?” he asked frantically. His voice seemed to echo around deep in his chest before it found its way out.

I caught King’s sleeve. “He wasn’t with you?”

He wagged his head.

“Then where can he be?” I started to head toward the woods but Dorian stopped me.

“He’s probably up a tree somewhere. Probably been watching the whole thing. I’ll go look for him after we survey the damage.”

Tiredly we moved through the house. The bushwhackers had knocked apart furniture right and left. The destruction was
dreadful, but I hardly cared. It could have been so much worse. All of my muscles unclenched when I saw that my harp and dulcimer were untouched.

“They ruined things for no reason,” Sunny said. “How could they possibly think we had money stashed in a wooden chair?”

Stuffing was pulled from the sofa and armchairs, and bricks had been knocked loose from about the fireplaces. The bittern stared up accusingly with one beady eye, its belly slashed open. The bookcase was smashed and volumes strewn and torn. I began frantically gathering scattered pages but stopped myself. Soon enough I would mend each one.

When I discovered the empty stalls of the barn, with Star and the cows missing, I knew where Seeley was. I lifted my skirts, ran across the field, and plunged into the woods, briars tearing at my legs, until I reached our hideaway. Before I pulled up the trapdoor, I called loudly, “Seeley! It’s me!” so he wouldn’t be frightened.

“Violet?” squeaked a small voice out of the blackness. A soft lowing sounded from one of the cows down in the hole.

“Oh, my dear,” I said, descending the ramp, “you’ve been squatting down here in the dark and the standing water all this time.”

“I didn’t dare light the candle,” he said, stretching up now so that the late-afternoon brightness could reach his face, “in case the bummers could see it through the cracks.”

I hugged him. “And you saved Star and Lily and June. You’re amazing!”

Together we led the animals up the ramp and back to the barn. As we walked, he told me what had happened.

He had been playing in the pasture when he caught sight of the ragged strangers approaching far down the road. He quickly drove the cows and led the mare by her bridle to the hole in the ground. “I wasn’t scared of Star, but I didn’t dare try to save Grindill, and there was no time to get the mule or warn y’all.”

“I’d say it’s good riddance to Grindill.”

Seeley’s thin cheeks were flushed and bright. “They didn’t take the chickens, did they? I’ve been worrying about Rowena and all the others.”

“They took some.”

His face fell. “I should’ve saved them.”

I gave him a little shove. “Goose. You couldn’t rescue everything. You’re a hero. You saved one horse and all our milk and cheese and butter.”

As we approached the house, the thunder of hooves sounded. Grindill came galloping up the lane with a ragged bit of rope dangling from his sweat-lathered neck and, though it seemed impossible, a smug expression on his long face. He had broken free to return to his owner. When Dorian saw the horse, he slapped his thigh and laughed. “I knew they couldn’t hold on to Grindill.”

That evening, after everyone else had gone upstairs, I sat alone in the sitting room, too unsettled after the events of the day to sleep, and began to knit a gray soldier’s stocking. The lamp smoked, so that my eyes streamed. I sniffed and sopped up tears with a wad of snipped yarn.

I could feel someone watching, and when I glanced up, Dorian immediately came to my side. “Who’s been making you cry, Violet?” he demanded fiercely. “Was it Sunny? If it is, I’ll—”

I stopped him. “It’s only the smoky lamp. The last oil we’ve got is terrible.”

He looked as if he didn’t believe me. I sensed a confusion in him, as if this protective emotion he was experiencing was unexpected and unaccustomed. He nodded slowly, then, as the fumes reached his own eyes. “You tell me, though. You tell me if anyone ever makes you unhappy and I’ll fix them.”

I could only wonder—if it had been Sunny making me weep, what would he have done?

“Laney Lou!”

Laney frowned and glanced up from the cornmeal mush she was stirring. “You haven’t called me that in years, and I didn’t like it back then.”

“Sorry, Laney Lou.” I put my arm around her waist. “Guess what I was thinking of when I woke up in the middle of the night?”

“I bet I know.” She waggled her eyebrows. “You were fondly remembering what’s-his-name—that Pratt fellow.”

I snatched off her head wrap. “Don’t say that even in jest. Guess for real.”

“Stop it,” Laney said, grabbing back the kerchief. “I can’t guess.”

“The Lodge! Remember our old robbers’ lair!”

A light kindled in Laney’s eyes. “Oh,” she breathed. “We loved that place, didn’t we? Why’d we stop going there?”

I shrugged. “We got too old and they kept making us do responsible things. Finally we forgot about it. But when I awoke with it
in my head, I could hardly hold myself back from jumping up and paddling downriver right then.”

“You’ve got to take Seeley—I mean, Master Seeley—there,” Laney said. “Be sure to rub on Aunty’s lemongrass and basil salve, though. You know how bad the mosquitoes are.”

“You don’t have to call him master. Not an eight-year-old.”

“I sure do.” Laney’s voice was quiet and firm. “Sometimes you don’t understand the world we live in,
Miss
Vi.”

I dismissed this with a flick of my hand. “Scuppernong isn’t the world.”

“It is with Mr. Dorian and Miss Sunny here.”

I sighed but didn’t press the issue. “Well, thank goodness Dorian’s gone till day after tomorrow. The whole house seems more relaxed with him away, doesn’t it?”

“Even though Miss Sunny’s moping loud enough,” Laney said. “Where’d he go? He took King, didn’t he?”

“Yes.” I dipped out a spoonful of mush and dribbled honey over it. “He’s visiting friends in Holly Springs. Anyway, I already woke up Seeley and told him to get ready to go in the canoe. I didn’t tell him where, though. How about you and Cubby come along? The work can wait for once. We’ve gotten most of the bummers’ damage patched up.”

“Uh-uh. I’m not taking any baby of mine out on any river. Y’all have fun. I’ll pack a picnic. Remember how we always toted one?”

“Because we stayed gone all day. And that’s what I aim to do with Seeley.” I sucked the spoon clean and left the kitchen with a spring in my step at the prospect of this outing.

Seeley and I set off as soon as the lunch was ready. His thin arms strained with the paddle in front. He wore his red satin cape—from
which I had removed the lace ruffle—and appeared mystical and elf-like, with the morning fog rising up from the river in wispy patches like white steam from a kettle.

“You’re doing fine for your first time,” I assured him. “Try to slice through rather than slapping, though. I’m a terrible smacker myself, but I bet you’ll get better than me at quiet paddling. Laney and Rush were both good at it, while I spoiled the atmosphere. I hate it when I spoil atmospheres.”

Our paddles sloshed and splashed through the sleek river—shiny and shimmery like green-black watered silk. Because we were inexperienced paddlers, we hugged the bank.

The air smelled of moss and wet earth, pine straw and honeysuckle. Varying hues in the wall of leaves beside us blended into one thick summer green. The woods were busy and vibrant, everything always moving. Trunks swayed ever so slightly, leaves quivered almost imperceptibly, insects darted, squirrels and birds left branches quaking in their wake.

Soon the fog burned off the river, and stinging flies and mosquitoes buzzed close. They didn’t land because we had slathered Anarchy’s insect repellent all over us. I pushed up my sleeves and adjusted my bonnet, as already the day was heating up. Seeley’s hat would have to stay on—our brilliant Mississippi sun could do quick damage to noses and foreheads when reflected off water.

After we had canoed for twenty or so minutes, the bank rose and turned rocky. We paddled beside a great bluff, where trickles of water seeped out of the stone, staining it with minerals. It reminded me of Moses striking the rock to make water gush forth for the Children of Israel.

“We’re almost there,” I said.

“Almost where?” Seeley asked. “You haven’t told me where we’re going.”

“I’ll tell you in a minute.”

A rivulet cut through the bluff, and we steered the canoe into the gap. We took it as far as it could go, to a pool where the water gurgled against sheer cliffs on two sides and lapped softly on a narrow, sandy beach on a third.

“Can we stay here?” Seeley begged. “I want to swim.”

“Later,” I said, pulling off my boots and stockings. “First I need to show you the best robbers’ lair in all the world. If it’s still standing. And safe to go inside. As Heath Blackstock, you have to see it. Who knows what villains lurk there, needing to be banished?”