Undaunted Love (17 page)

Chapter Thirty-One

I
T WAS GETTING DARK WHEN Rafe saw Livvie walking towards him, struggling with a valise. He leapt up and ran down the steps. Livvie spotted him and dropped her bag, lifting her skirts and running towards him. The met and Rafe crushed her to him, kissing her hair, her face, her lips, her throat. Livvie clung to him, crying and laughing and returning whatever kisses landed on her lips. She finally cupped his face in her hands and looked at him, seeing the lines caused by his sorrows, a scar across his forehead and left eyebrow, the dark shadows under his eyes. But she also saw the love, the passion, and, deep inside, the boy she’d known. Yes, this still was her man. She drew his face to hers and kissed him deeply.

After the long kiss, Rafe pulled away, breathless and smiling, and looked at her, drinking her in. Her hair was still long and beautiful, the chestnut waves caught up in a barrette and cascading down her back. Her brown eyes sparkled, with small creases at the corners that hadn’t been there before. She was thinner than he remembered, and there were slight hollows under her cheekbones. Her mouth was soft and smiling at him, the same smile filled with love that he’d dreamed of at night.

“I missed you…” he whispered inadequately, pulling her into him once again. “Every day, every night. Even when I was fighting, I saw your face and knew I had to get back to you.”

He could feel her smile against his chest. “I knew you’d come back. And now we’re free…” She hugged him tighter, unwilling to let him go.

Finally he turned and took her hand, walking back down the drive to retrieve her valise. They walked hand in hand back to the house, enjoying the quiet night, the stars, the crickets and frogs, and, mostly, the nearness of each other.

Mrs. Hauser and Nackie had set up a room for them at the top of the house, a large room with dormers on two sides and a sloped ceiling. Up under the rafters it was cool at night. The room held a big four poster bed covered in well used but impossibly soft cotton linens. Nackie had picked flowers from the ruins of a garden, and there were dozens of beeswax candles. On the bed was laid out an old but clean chemise for Livvie, and a soft white shirt and homespun pants for Rafe. Clean water was in the pitcher.

Rafe washed his hands and face, and when he turned back to the room, he found Livvie in the chemise, standing demurely by the foot of the bed. She held her hand out to him and he came to her, mesmerized by her form silhouetted in the moonlight. She smiled and led him to the bed. He laid her down gently, stretching out next to her, kissing her. His hand ran down her side and he felt her shiver, nothing between his hand and her skin but the thin chemise. Her hair was loose about her, its scent filling his senses. He kissed her again and closed his eyes, losing himself in his bride, putting all thoughts of the War and its aftermath firmly aside.

The next morning they sat outside under the magnolia and ate a light breakfast of corn cakes and chewy bacon with hot coffee. Coffee had been impossible to get for much of the last two years, and Rafe knew that Mrs. Hauser was giving them a great gift by serving them the real thing. Rafe had moved a small whitewashed table and two rickety chairs from the back porch, and Livvie had picked a handful of wildflowers to put in a chipped porcelain vase.

“We could go to my sister’s,” she said, sipping the sweet coffee with enjoyment. “Gardner’s got about a third of his fields planted with cotton. That was all the seed he could get. And he put down tobacco on a few acres. He couldn’t pay you right away, but if we help, he would pay from the proceeds of the sale after the harvest.”

Rafe thought about it. If they moved to Wadmalaw, they’d have a roof over their heads and food on the table, and once the crops were harvested and the tobacco cured, he’d have some money in his pocket to get them established in Charleston. He knew that his long term prospects were best with Mr. Greene, but if they went to Charleston now, they’d have no place to live.

“If Gardner will have me, I think that’s the best plan. I can work, if they can give us room and board. Then we can move on for the job at the sawmill after harvest.”

Livvie smiled. “Madeline and I have already talked about it. Daddy won’t be best pleased, I’m quite sure, but the Kinney farm is far enough from Hugh Byrd’s wrath that we’ll take the risk. We’ll have to tell Mama and Daddy about our marriage first, though, and Daddy is up in Charleston right now.”

“When’ll he be back, then?” Rafe asked. He didn’t relish the conversation, but thought it better to be done with than anticipating it.

“I don’t rightly know. I expect by the end of the week. He usually comes home for the weekends.” She nibbled some bacon. “Mama isn’t well, nor is Emmy, but Micah is still with us and he’s helping out. Fortunately, Wyman doesn’t come around anymore.” She hadn’t told Rafe about her near rape at his hands, nor her salvation at her brother-in-law’s. It hadn’t been seemly to write it down, and, now that Rafe was home, she only wanted to forget it.

“Are you staying here?” Rafe asked.

“I can tonight, then I’ll have to go home.” She took his hand and kissed it. “But soon we’ll be together all the time, and nothin’ will keep us apart.”

“These four days are gonna seem longer than the whole War!” Rafe said, laughing.

Livvie spent time that morning with Mariah, reading to her, bathing her and washing her hair. She was as small as a child now, and showed no reaction to her at all. Livvie kissed her and said goodbye with tears on her cheeks. Her own mama was ill, too, but at least she still smiled and her eyes were still alive, even if the rest of her was dying.

Rafe did what he could to repair Mrs. Hauser’s house, although she, too, had been unable to pay her property taxes and would likely lose her farm. Her fields had grown up with saplings and scrub, her horse was near lame, and she’d had to sell off all her slaves after her husband had died in 1861. Desperate but not broken, she was still quick to smile, and she offered what hospitality she could with joy.

Nackie spent a good deal of time napping on the front porch. Rafe didn’t know how old the negro was, but he had to be at least sixty, and the last few years had been incredibly hard. Deprivation, caretaking, and worry, had taken their toll. Perhaps the Kinneys would allow Nackie to come live on their farm until harvest, too, and he could go to Charleston with them. Rafe decided that he would talk to his wife that afternoon.

The day was hazy and hot, the humidity making the air feel like a rain shower. Everyone was sweating, and even Mariah had kicked off the quilts. In the heat of the day, Rafe and Livvie took a blanket and lay under an old, half dead, oak on a small rise, hoping to catch a small breeze. Their upper room, lovely in the cool of the night, was a furnace in the heat of the day. They were dozing, holding hands, when they heard hoof beats galloping up the drive. Rafe stood and pulled his wife to her feet, trying to see who was coming. It could be awkward if Livvie was found here with him, so he pushed her towards the back of the house.

“Go inside until we see who it is. We don’t need word getting to your daddy before we have a chance to tell him ourselves.” He walked towards the front steps.

When her got there, he saw three men he didn’t recognize. One had a badge on his jacket. They swung down off their horses, eyes fixed on him.

“Rafe Colton?” the man with the badge asked, his accent not from the islands.

“Yes, sir, and you are?” Rafe countered.

“I’m the sheriff, Louis Gingras. We’re here to talk to you about Mr. James Monighan.”

Rafe looked blank. “I don’t know any Monighan.”

“He bought your house a month or two back…” The sheriff let that hang there, waiting.

Rafe shrugged. “I never met him. I been in Virginia, just got home yesterday.”

“You can’t be happy about losing your house,” Gingras said.

“Course I ain’t happy about losing my house. I weren’t happy about losing my land neither, but that didn’t stop it happenin’. My mama did her best, and it wasn’t enough. But I seen a lot worse these last four years.”

Gingras was silent a moment, then said, “James Monighan was murdered last night, in his house. In
your
house. Somebody strangled him.”

Rafe stared. “I ain’t been out there. I was here all night. That’s what you’re sayin’, right, that I killed him?”

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

“I seen enough killin’ to last me a lifetime, Sheriff. I got home and came here, and everyone here can tell you that’s so.” Rafe was getting angry.

“They saw you all night, then? Monighan was killed in his bed, after midnight.” The sheriff continued to look at him, blank faced, barely blinking.

“I was with…” Rafe stopped. “I didn’t kill him. I don’t have a horse, and I didn’t go out to the house. I was here. All night, and all day today.”

“Mrs. Hauser, they tell me she’s got a horse,” Gingras drawled.

“A half lame horse,” Rafe said. “You can go take a look at her yourself. If I’d ridden her out to the house, I’d still be on the road.”

“Mr. Monighan was new to Byrd’s Creek, didn’t know too many folks. He didn’t exactly have time to make enemies.”

“He was a Yankee, and a carpetbagger what’s more. He didn’t have to do nothing to make enemies around here. But I didn’t kill him.” Rafe stood tall, arms crossed over his chest, jaw set, feet apart. He looked like the officer he’d been, and older than his age.

The sheriff stared at him awhile, then shrugged and mounted up. “Ain’t nobody else we can think of that would want to kill Mr. Monighan but you, and it’s awfully coincidental that you get home and he gets dead.”

“A bit too coincidental, don’t you think?” Rafe asked, not cowing.

Gingras shrugged again. “Sometimes things are just what they look like. I’ll be talkin’ to the judge tomorrow, and I expect I’ll be coming out to visit you again. You might want to pack a bag, seein’s how the jail ain’t got much in the way of creature comforts.” He mounted and whirled his horse around, cantering down the drive. His two men were close on his heels. When they were out of sight Rafe sagged, his bravado gone. He turned and trudged up the steps.

Chapter Thirty-Two

W
HEN RAFE ENTERED THE HOUSE, he found Nackie and Livvie pacing in the back parlor. Livvie ran over and hugged him tightly when he walked in.

“We could hear… We were standin’ in the hall,” Nackie said. “Sheriff ain’t got the sense God gave a goat, he thinks you killed somebody.”

“Well, I have killed people, Nack, but it ain’t the same in battle. Leastwise so they say. Maybe some men come back from war ready to keep killin’, but not me. I’ve seen enough death to last me the rest of my life. But I don’t think that matters to Mr. Gingras none. He’s convinced I did it, and he said he’d be back to take me to jail.”

Livvie’s hand flew to her mouth and the color drained from her face. “But you didn’t! I can tell him! You were with me all night.”

“Yep, but who’s he gonna believe. If you tell him
why
you were with me all night, he’ll know we’ve been lying for four years now, to almost everybody. To Mr. Hugh High-and-Mighty Byrd most of all. On top of that, what wife wouldn’t lie for her husband? He ain’t gonna believe you, and we gain nothin’ by tellin’ him, Liv.”

Nackie sat down heavily in a chair. “Mistuh Rafe’s right, Miz Liv, and yo daddy’s the one what bring that new sheriff to Byrd’s Creek anyhow. He been actin’ like a mayor even though he ain’t one, and mayor ain’t high enough for yo daddy anyhow. ‘Scuse me for saying, ma’am.”

Livvie shrugged. “You’re right, Nackie, I know it. My daddy’s not a nice man, and he’s set his sights on gettin’ back all he lost in the War and more, and by any means. He worked with Mr. Monighan somehow to take your house, Rafe, and he won’t care about why you’re out of the way. He’ll just be glad you are.”

“What could I do to him anyway? Seems to me he worked it all legal and proper. I’m not even stayin’ in town!” Rafe ran his fingers through his long hair.

“He doesn’t know that. He knows people like you, and that they weren’t any too happy when he got your farmland. Carpetbaggers sure aren’t popular – we all suffered through as best we could during the War, and some Yankee taking a family’s home for a song, just because they have Union money when we’re not even back on our feet… Well, it wouldn’t help him none if everybody knew he helped one of ‘em.” Livvie paced the floor. “But still and all, we need to tell.”

“No. This ain’t how we’re telling your mama we’re married, when you’re trying to keep my neck out of a noose.” He slammed his fist into the doorframe. “It ain’t fair!”

Livvie sat down and watched her husband. The pent up frustration from the War, all the death, the defeat, his house… It was too much for him, and she knew that there was nothing she could say that would change it or make it better. And he was right, it wasn’t fair. He’d volunteered, he’d proved himself on the battlefield, he’d stayed until the bitter end. How could they want more from him now, and accuse him of this heinous crime?

He decided he wouldn’t take Jeb Greene’s horse or Nackie, nor would he take his wife. How could he take her, when he had no money, no prospects, and no idea where he was going? He was used to hardship, to sleeping in the woods, to eating acorns and squirrels. His wife deserved better, and he loved her too much to make her a fugitive.

The night had been quiet. Rafe was angry and sullen by turns, Livvie downcast, Nackie exhausted. Mariah Colton seemed in an even worse state, and Mrs. Hauser, sensing the tension but not knowing its source, dithered and chattered until Rafe wanted to stick cotton boles in his ears. They went to bed, and Rafe softened. He had decided to leave, but he didn’t want their last memories of each other to be of fear and angry silence. He held her and stroked her hair, kissed her, and they made love quietly but intensely. Livvie fell asleep, and when her breathing was smooth and regular, Rafe left her side.

Taking up his rucksack and putting on the clothes Mrs. Hauser had given him – the only clothes he had now that weren’t the Confederate uniform – he picked up his old boots. Tiptoeing down two flights of stairs, he snuck into the kitchen. He was putting a few hard biscuits into a square of cloth when Nackie came in.

“I don’t sleep well no mo’,” he said. “I figured it was you when I heard the floor squeakin’.” He sat down at the small table. “I guess you be leavin’.” The old man said it as a statement, not a question, and looked steadily at Rafe.

“I got to, Nack,” Rafe said, feeling Nackie’s disapproval. “Leastwise til they find whoever really killed that man. There’s nothin’ for me here, and if they arrest me, they won’t even look for somebody else. And Livvie…” He shook his head. “She can’t be seen to be married to a murderer.”

“You didn’t kill him, suh,” Nackie said quietly. “You don’t need to run off’n leave her alone agin…”

“No, I didn’t kill him, and I wouldn’t have, neither. Me and Liv, we were gonna go to her sister’s til after harvest. You, too, if you’d come. And then to Charleston, to take up my apprenticeship with Mr. Greene. There wasn’t nothin’ for me here, and I knew it, but I didn’t want revenge. I wanted my wife, and to start again, make a life for us. But no one’s gonna believe that, leastwise no one who matters. Mr. Byrd’ll believe I did it, if for no other reason than it suits his purpose. The judge is a Yankee, and in league with Mr. Byrd.” He dropped a wedge of butter into one split biscuit, threw a hunk of salt pork on top, and wrapped up the food tightly, tying the cloth in a knot.

“Where you gonna go, Mistuh Rafe? You ain’t got no money.”

Rafe shrugged. “South. They’ll probably think I’ll seek out a buddy from the division, or head back to Virginia. I’m gonna go south, as far as I can go. I’ll do odd jobs on the way. Plenty of soldiers are comin’ home to nothin’, and plenty of people trying to rebuild. I’ll find my way, Nack.”

The old man reached into his shirt and took out the leather pouch that Rafe had last seen in his father’s big desk. He handed to Rafe with a shaking hand. “I grabbed this when that carpetbagger come to the house, while he was fightin’ with yo mama about her dresses. There ain’t a whole lot, a’course, but it’ll get you by awhile. If’n you really gotta go.” He looked at Rafe sadly.

Ignoring the reproach, Rafe opened the pouch, his eyes growing wide at the money. “How’d you get greenbacks, Nack?” he asked. He’d expected to see useless Confederate bills. The former slave shrugged. “Soon’s the War was over, those carpetbaggers started comin’ down, wavin’ around their Union money, actin’ like they was better’n all’a us cause they got greenbacks and we don’t. That Mistuh Monighan, he was goin’ to the Byrd house, but he weren’t the only one, and Mistuh Byrd was sellin’ ‘em things to get Union dollars. Silver and such like that, what Miz Byrd had, but, bein’ sick like she is, wouldn’t know was gone. Emmy was beside herself, seein’ all Miz Byrd’s treasures that they’d kept all during that War, going out the door to those carpetbaggers. But I got t’thinkin’ about it, and I asked yo mama if maybe she had some things she couldn’t part with before. Took her awhile to tell me – she was having fevers by this time. But she finally showed me a place under the floorboards in yo daddy’s study. She had some silver, a little jewelry yo daddy’d given her, and even some Union dollars in a box.”

“All this time, losin’ everything, and she still had all that?” Rafe was incredulous.

“Missus Mariah, she ain’t been well for a long time, Mistuh Rafe. She ain’t been thinkin’ right since Mistuh Gabriel died, and that Mistuh Byrd, he knew that. So I took those things to Emmy, and she got that wicked man to buy them, for greenbacks, thinkin’ they was Mistuh Byrd’s. We had to use some, sure ‘nough, but this is what’s left. It’s yours by rights, suh.”

“It’s Mama’s, Nackie,” Rafe said, handing it back to the old man.

“Mistuh Rafe, yo mama ain’t gonna be in this world much longer, you can see that yo’self. She don’t need money where she’s going.” He refused to take the pouch.

Rafe scrubbed his face with this hand. Emptying the bag, he took out fifteen dollars and handed it to Nackie, then cinched the bag closed. “Use what you need for mama and yourself, and if she dies, it’s yours.” The former slave started to protest, but Rafe held up a hand. “You take it, Nack. I’ll come back for you one day, for you and Livvie. Til then, she’ll take care of you. But you keep that. Please.” The old man nodded reluctantly.

Nackie stood up and hugged Rafe fiercely. Rafe returned the hug just as intensely. He’d known this man all his life, and he was old and tired. He wasn’t certain he’d ever see him again, and the weight of the mounting losses in his life threatened to overwhelm him.

“Tell Liv I’m sorry. Tell her I’ll be back. Try to explain, Nackie.” He looked pleadingly at the former slave who was now his friend.

Nackie nodded. “She’ll know, Mistuh Rafe. She’ll know.”

Rafe nodded, picked up his food parcel and his rucksack, and left through the kitchen door, out into the dark night.