Undaunted Love (18 page)

Chapter Thirty-Three

L
IVVIE WOKE UP EARLY, WITH sunshine streaming through the windows and the room starting to heat up. Seeing that Rafe wasn’t lying beside her, she stretched, sat up, and waited. When he didn’t join her in fifteen minutes, she got up and drew on her dressing gown, tying it loosely around her waist. She wandered downstairs, thinking about the day, wondering how long she could stay at the Hauser farm before she would have to head home, and if Nackie would take her part of the way in the old cart.

When she reached the kitchen, she found the old man sitting at the table, his hands clutching a few greenbacks, his eyes staring unseeingly out the window. Instantly she knew.

“He left, didn’t he,” she said, watching the man’s face. Nackie slowly turned to her and nodded sadly. “Is he coming back?”

“He’ll come back, Miz Livvie. He’ll come back for you one day. He say he couldn’t have you married to someone s’posed to be a murderer, and he knew that new sheriff weren’t gonna look for no one else what killed that man if’n he had Rafe Colton in his jail.”

Livvie sat down, feeling hollow. “He’s probably right about that, at least.” She toyed with a biscuit crumb on the table. “I would’a gone with him,” she said quietly. “He should’ve told me…”

“He knew you’d go. But that ain’t no life for a lady like you, Miz Livvie. Mistuh Rafe, he been sleeping on the ground so long he don’t even notice. And those poor soldiers, they spent mos’ of their time scroungin’ for food. You cain’t live that way, not for long. I ain’t sayin’ what he done is right. But I understan’, I reckon.” Nackie pushed the money into the pocket of his trousers, standing slowly as his stiff body unfolded from the chair he’d been in since midnight. “He’ll come back, don’t fret none.” Patting her on her shoulder, he shuffled out of the room.

Livvie stared out the window, like Nackie had done, seeing nothing except more loneliness.

Rafe stayed off the roads while he was amongst the Sea Islands. He knew the way to Hilton Head, and, farther south, Savannah. He kept to the swamps and creeks, traveling from early morning til the heat rose in mid-day, resting in whatever dry spot he could find, then starting back as dusk came. He didn’t dare hike all night, as the ground was treacherous and there were snakes whose venom would kill him before morning. But the days were still long, and he made good time.

Just south of Hilton Head he found a boat washed up in the marsh grass, half sunk with summer rain. The fifteen foot skiff was sound when he baled her, and a half rotted oar was at the bottom. It wouldn’t last long, he reckoned, not with good use, but he would be on the lookout for a branch that might serve in the meantime.

He made better time on the boat, and for a week the weather held, allowing him to take advantage of the calm mornings and evenings, and rest in the easterly breezes during the hottest part of the day. He skirted Savannah by staying along the coast, and was just south by Wilmington Island when the skies darkened, the wind picked up, and he decided he’d better hunker down until the storm passed.

The storm was a hurricane, the eye of which passed right over Rafe as he sad huddled in the corner of an abandoned barn a quarter mile off a tributary of the Savannah River. Until then, Rafe had been deafened by the sound of the wind, terrified that the barn would be torn apart around him. Suddenly it became deathly still. Birds started chirping. There wasn’t even any rain. He crept outside, looking up at the sky.

All around him were walls of grey. The sun shone brightly overhead, and a few birds fluttered about, but he was in a bottomless bucket, the sides hemming him in. He’d never seen a hurricane when the eye passed directly overhead, but he’d heard stories of people getting killed because they thought the storm over. In the daytime, he didn’t see how you’d make that mistake, with those ominous grey clouds all around, and the wall of rain clearly visible. But at night, with the stars brightly shining overhead… He shuddered. He drank some rainwater from a leaky trough with his hands and went back inside. Soon enough the winds were howling again, and the rain was pounding the roof.

At some point in the night he fell asleep. When he awoke, he listened to the quiet.
A hurricane’s only got one eye
, he thought. Or so he’d been told. Birds were once again chirping, crickets were playing their music, and frogs were croaking all around. He rubbed his eyes, stretched his sore back, and made his way to the large door. Pushing it open, he was rewarded with a stream of sunshine, blinding him and warming his face. When he could open his eyes, he looked in all directions and saw that the storm was, indeed, over.

He went to the water to check on his skiff, hoping against reason that he had saved it by pulling it up behind a large oak. The oak had been knocked down by the strong winds, its huge root ball like a wall, the boat smashed underneath. He stood looking at it for awhile. He knew it was beyond repair, but its loss was grievous to him. He would have to walk again, and his boots were almost worn through already. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he walked back to the trough, washed up, collected his bag, and started down the road that led away from the barn, and away from the water.

Hugh Byrd came back to town on Friday, grinning from ear to ear. He disappeared into his study with only a cursory hello, and Wyman Phelps turned up at the door like a bad penny a half hour later. Livvie had the misfortune to answer the bell, and couldn’t hide her disgust when she came face to face with the man. Wyman grinned at her lasciviously, like they shared a dirty secret, and brushed by close enough to touch her when she merely pointed down the hall towards her father’s study.

Livvie waited until he’d closed the door behind him before returning to the kitchen. She’d been helping Emmy prepare dinner, peeling carrots and potatoes while Emmy plucked a chicken. She’d told the old woman about the murder of Mr. Monighan, the sheriff’s visit, and Rafe’s midnight departure, fighting tears.

“Why, that’s the most ridiculous thing I ever did hear!” Emmy exclaimed. “Anybody with a lick a’sense knows Rafe Colton ain’t gonna go murderin’ some fool Yankee, even if he did take his house. That boy lost enough in his life, and he come from a good, sensible family.” She snorted in disgust. “That’s what come from havin’ outsiders running our business, Miss Livvie. You mark my words.”

“I’m afraid Daddy planted the bug in Sheriff Gingras’ ear…” Livvie said softly. Emmy stared at her a long moment.

“Child, you may be right about that, alls I can say. Yo daddy, he ain’t no nice man. He ain’t a man afeared of God. Seem to me he looks at all us as pieces on that there chess board, just little wood pegs to move around, and if someone git in his way, well, he gets swept right off’n the board. Yo grandmama was one of the nicest women Byrd’s Creek ever did see, just like yo mama, but yo grandaddy was mean as a snake. He whipped Mistuh Hugh for any little thing, that he sure did, and he made him beg or fight for anything he wanted. Yo daddy turned out jes’ like him, I’m afraid. He don’t like that yo Rafe kep that house so long, not when he had his sights set on it. Getting’ rid a’Rafe Colton for good would give him nothin’… ’cept satisfaction.” Emmy flipped the chicken over, running her capable hands over the carcass to make sure to pin feathers were left. Satisfied, she thumped it down into a roasting pan and deftly tied the legs and wings with twine.

It wasn’t anything Livvie hadn’t guessed about her father, but it was depressing all the same. There would be no talking to him, no reasoning with him, no more than when he’d taken the Colton’s farmland. When he set his mind on something, Hugh Byrd didn’t stop until he got it, and he didn’t lose a second’s sleep worrying about who got hurt along the way.

Chapter Thirty-Four

L
IVVIE DIDN’T FIND OUT UNTIL Sunday dinner what had her father strutting around like a peacock. Clara Byrd had come down to the table at the request of her husband, but she looked cadaverous and deathly pale, her breathing loud in the small dining room. Emmy had propped her in the chair with cushions from the parlor, but Clara still listed to the side, unable to hold herself upright. When she’d seen the old negro woman bringing her downstairs and been told why, Livvie had been livid.

Wyman Phelps was also in attendance, and Madeline and Gardner had come after church. Young Thomas was sitting in a chair on a stack of pillows, proud to be at the grown up table, but fidgeting and babbling incessantly. Gardner glared at Wyman, Madeline held his hand in hers to keep him silent, and Livvie kept her eyes on her plate. Only Hugh, at the head of the table, and Wyman, to Clara’s right, were happy.

Emmy set out the food, a roast beef, turnip greens stewed with salt pork, sweet biscuits with honey, mashed sweet potatoes, and a bowl of pickled peaches. Hugh uttered a quick prayer, much more anxious to spill his news than thank the Almighty for the food. He cleared his throat and stood, which drew all eyes to him. Looking conspiratorially at Wyman, he looked at his family and smiled.

“While it’s always good to have the family together, I am sure that y’all have figured out by now that there is more than that going on here today.” He waited for a response, but, getting none, continued, “Since May, when the War was all but over and those of us in the South who had assets and land began to get together and talk about how the Reconstruction was going to effect us, there have been a group of men asking me to run for Congress. Now of course, at first I said no…” Hugh tried to look modest, but it was impossible in his pious and haughty face. “But they’ve insisted.”

Gardner said, “I thought Lincoln said that no former officials from the Confederacy could hold public office.”

That’s bordering on insubordinate,
thought Livvie, and it occurred to her,
He doesn’t like Daddy either!

Hugh nodded, ignoring or not catching the jibe, “Yes, that’s been the question. Technically I was never an official of the government. I consulted with the governor, to be sure, but when the question was taken to a judge in Washington, they ruled that I was eligible because I’d not received pay from the Confederacy nor the state.” He grinned. “First time in my life I’m happy I did something for free!” No one laughed, although Wyman grinned broadly to match his boss.

Clara coughed weakly and slumped further to her left, and Livvie reached out to her. “Mama, are you all right?”

Clara nodded, although she clearly wasn’t all right. “Daddy, this is too much for Mama. Will you please let Emmy take her back to her bed?”

Hugh waved the suggestion off brusquely. “I’ll be through in a moment. Your mother is fine, Olivia. Now, the election is next year, but that means we have to get started soon. I will expect your support, and sometimes your help. I may require one of you girls to travel with me, since your mama is obviously unable to…”

Both Madeline and Livvie said, “No!” at the same time. Their father scowled.

“I can’t leave the children, Daddy. The baby is only six months old, and Thomas and Sarah are too much for Mrs. Kinney.” She took her husband’s hand again, and he nodded.

“And I’m teaching, now. I can’t go off with you and leave the school.” Livvie wouldn’t have wanted to go even if she’d been doing nothing but helping Emmy in the kitchen, but there was no one else to teach in the small school, she knew. As did her father.

Hugh looked less than pleased, staring down his nose at his seated family. Wyman was still smiling, unperturbed by the family rebellion. “Very well,” Hugh finally said. “I shall make do with Mr. Phelps, although if I entertain here, I will expect you all in attendance. Is that clear?” Livvie, Madeline and Gardner nodded. Hugh sat and began to serve the roast.

The Kinneys didn’t stay the night, Gardner needing to be back on the farm with first light, and Madeline preferring to let the children sleep in their own beds. They’d had no time alone together, so Livvie hadn’t been able to share her problems. It made her sad to have no one to talk to, no one except Emmy and Nackie who knew what she was going through.

That night she knelt down by her bed and laid her head in her arms. She started to pray, tried to pray, but she found that all she could do was cry. The only word her head and heart could form was, “Please…” She felt as if her insides were too big for her body, everything aching and painful. When her tears were spent she crawled into bed and stared out her window. As she went to sleep she did find a prayer:
I know I’m angry at Rafe, Lord. I’ve been mad as a hornet at times. Forgive me, and help me to pray as I ought. Father, please keep Rafe safe, watch over him, and bring him back to me. And help us to find out who really killed that man, so that we can finally live as husband and wife. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

When Rafe got to Sea Island, Georgia, his clothes were almost in tatters and his boots had long since fallen apart. He came to the little town barefoot, finding it strikingly similar to Byrd’s Creek. There was a main street, and orderly little side streets all at right angles. The nine small blocks that made up the town held a general store, a blacksmith’s smithy, an apothecary, and some boarded up buildings that looked like a fire had been thwarted before the buildings had been burned to the ground, but not before the contents had been consumed. But like Byrd’s Creek, the town was slowly coming back to its own, and the pounding of hammers and chafing of saws could be heard from several corners.

Before he got into the town proper, Rafe pulled out two greenbacks and put them into a pocket, stuffing the pouch back under his shirt. He entered the store, finding the shelves a good bit more stocked than those in Byrd’s Creek. He went over to the clothes and pulled down a pair of homespun trousers, a loosely woven linen shirt, and some secondhand boots in the right size. He took them to the proprietor at the counter, setting them down.

“Son, looks like you been rode hard and put up wet,” the old man said. At least sixty and balding, with wispy white hairs around his ears and small spectacles on his eyes, he smiled.

“Well, I guess that’s the truth,” Rafe said laughing. “I fought pretty much the whole War, then a carpetbagger’d taken my house by the time I got home. So I just set out walkin’, and here I am.”

The man spat onto his wooden floor. “High falutin’ Yankees, comin’ down here and takin’ advantage of hard workin’ folks. We ain’t been too bad here, leastwise not yet. I think they ain’t found Sea Island, to be honest. But we got us a few scalawags, come over from Atlanta.”

Rafe shook his head in disgust. Scalawag was what Southerners called their own when they either had sided with the Union, or were working with the Federals now, during Reconstruction. Most Southerners saw them as traitors, especially since they’d had Union money before anyone else, and had swooped into areas and bought up land cheaply.

“You know of anyone got any work? I can do most anything…” Rafe laid down the money for his clothes as he spoke, trying not to look desperate.

The old man looked at him awhile, then nodded slowly. “Maybe. Mabel Simpkins managed to keep her farm, mostly with her shotgun and dogs, but she did pay her taxes during the War. Jack, her husband, he come back from fightin’ a cripple, and he ain’t right in the head neither. They lost two sons, and now they just got the one son-in-law out there, helping them with fifty acres. Their barn got burned down, too. We ain’t got too many young men in town these days, and most of the younger freed slaves, they left when nobody could pay ‘em.”

“Point me in the right direction, and I’ll offer my help,” Rafe said, gathering his clothes and tucking them in his rucksack. He pulled out a pair of socks – a pair Livvie had knit for him, he realized sadly – and covered his feet with socks and boots.

“Take the road south, then the third road on your right. Can’t miss it. If you hit the ocean, you’ve gone to far.” The man laughed at his joke, then took a peach from a box nearby and handed it to Rafe. “You look a bit peaked, son. This’ll get you out to the Simpkin’s place. Good luck to you.”

“Thank you, sir!” Rafe said, biting into the juicy peach with relish. He hitched his pack onto his back and left, turning south.