Undaunted Love (23 page)

Chapter Fourty-Three

L
IVVIE HEARD A HORSE TROTTING up the drive, and went to the door, Gabriel in her arms, to see who was arriving. She was surprised to see the Smith’s son Nathan, a boy a few years younger than herself, approaching on an old black gelding. She waved at him, and he grinned, waving a letter and a parcel.

“Miss Emmy sent me, with a letter for you, and this parcel for the baby. She said to tell Madeline to come visit, that Mr. Byrd’s gonna be up to Columbia and then Washington, and she’ll be all alone for a month.” He hopped down from the horse, and ran up the steps. “Is Madeline feeling better? And that is a one cute little fella!” He made a face at Gabriel, who was watching him solemnly. When Nathan stuck out his tongue the baby tried to copy him, making the teen laugh. “I gotta get back. Mama told me to deliver these, take a gander at the baby so I can report back, and get a move on home.”

Laughing, Livvie took the letter and parcel, and waved again as Nathan trotted off the way he’d come. Looking at the envelope, she saw that it had a postmark from Florida. Frowning, she tore it open, and immediately recognized her husband’s handwriting. She gasped, and sat down heavily on a rocker on the porch. The baby squawked at the sudden movements, but settled as she began to rock.

As she read the letter, tears began to flow down her face. When she finished it she had a big grin, but was still crying, which was how Madeline found her.

Alarmed, she asked, “What is it, Liv?”

Livvie handed her the letter, rocking and smiling and kissing the baby. When Madeline had finished it, she kissed her sister on the cheek, tears on her own face. “It’s a miracle, isn’t it?” she asked.

Her sister merely nodded.

May 17, 1866

My Darling Rafe,

You do not know what a joy it was to get your letter! I have never wavered in my love for you, and have only prayed that you would be safe and well, and that God would show you the way back to me. It would seem that my prayers have been answered! I am enclosing a journal that I have kept for you, along with letters I wrote when you first left. I think that is easier than me writing down again all that has happened. I must tell you, though, that the murder of Mr. Monighan has not been solved, and I am afraid that, if you come back, Sheriff Gingras will arrest you on sight. Now that… well, when you read the journal you’ll know all that has happened that has kept me in Wadmalaw and not Byrd’s Creek. But suffice it to say that I have been gone for some time. I am going back soon to visit Emmy and will make inquiries, and write to you if I hear anything new.

I will join you, my love, wherever you are, wherever you go. Work hard, stay true, keep writing to me, and we will trust God for His timing. You are still and always my one true love.

Faithfully,

Liv

The following week Livvie and Gabriel, with Madeline and her three children, went to Byrd’s Creek. They arrived in the evening, trying to keep the neighboring eyes from all the children, and Emmy welcomed them with a hot supper and a full plate of gossip.

“That Mistuh Wyman got sent back to Byrd’s Creek by yo daddy a couple a’weeks ago, and he been gettin’ drunk, banging on doors in the middle a’the night, and finally that new sheriff took him off to jail. He been sleepin’ it off in the jail off and on ever since, and he been tellin’ everybody in town it’s all cause a Miz Livvie,” she said breathlessly.

“Me?” Livvie asked, confused. “Why me?”

“Ain’t nobody been able to tell fo’ sure, but seems like after you told yo daddy you weren’t a’gonna marry him, Hugh Byrd started lookin’ for somebody else. Since the Phelps ain’t from South Carolina anyway, Wyman’s daddy cain’t be a big help for the ‘lection, and since Livvie weren’t gonna marry him, he wasn’t too useful anymore. So Mistuh Byrd, he found hisself a young man from an old Aiken family or thereabouts, and that boy been travelin’ around wit’ him now. He dropped Mistuh Wyman like a hot potatah, and that don’t seem to fit with what Mistuh Wyman thinks about hisself.” She laughed, throwing her hands in the air, her eyes closing and her face breaking into wrinkles like a dried apple.

“Where’s Wyman now?” Livvie asked. She knew enough about him to know that he was arrogant and spoiled. Not getting his way was going to bring out the cruel streak that had been hidden just below the surface all those years.

Emmy shrugged. “Cain’t rightly say. He was renting that little house down to the end a’Oakview, last I knew. Maybe he gone back to his daddy in Savannah. Good riddance, I say.”

“Have they arrested anybody for killin’ that carpetbagger that bought Rafe’s house?” Livvie asked.

The old woman shook her head. “Nah, that Gingras, he can’t see past yo Rafe, Miz Liv. Never mind ain’t nobody in town what thinks he done it, and they found nothin’ at the house, neither. He ain’t looked at it ‘cept to call Rafe Colton a fugitive. It’s ridiculous! For all we know that man had enemies from up North, wherever he come from.”

Madeline reached over and took her sister’s hand. “Maybe we can talk to people, Liv.”

Livvie turned the baby around and set him on her lap, leaning against her stomach. She nibbled on a piece of buttered bread. “Wouldn’t anybody who knew somethin’ already have told the sheriff? And Rafe’s house is so far out of town, so far off the road even, it’s not like someone would be passin’ by. Unless someone else was there when it happened, I don’t know what anybody could tell us.” She was dejected. She knew she could join Rafe in Florida and they could live there the rest of their lives. But Rafe was innocent, she knew, and she didn’t want him to live as a fugitive. Not to mention that it galled her that someone had obviously tried to frame him, to get him arrested. Her father’s involvement in it all made her uneasy, although she couldn’t see Hugh Byrd strangling someone with his bare hands. He didn’t like touching people – he was more of a gun man.

“We’ll figure it out, Liv,” Madeline assured her, but she didn’t really see how they would.

Livvie woke up in her bedroom, baby Gabriel cooing and burbling in her old bassinet. She stretched and smiled as she listened to him, waiting to pick him up until he began to fuss with hunger. Scooping him up she wrinkled her nose at his dirty diaper, and nuzzled him under his chin. He chuckled, and she laid him down and quickly changed him, then propped herself on the bed to nurse. When he’d had his fill, she burped him, settled him in the middle of her bed so she could change, then took him downstairs.

She’d just come to the bottom of the stairs when there was a loud knocking at the front door. Waiting to see if Emmy would answer it, she tensed when the knocking came again, louder this time. Hesitantly she went to the door and opened it. On the landing stood Wyman Phelps. She could tell that he was drunk, either from the night before or because he’d started with breakfast. Either way, she didn’t want to talk to him, and started to close the door, holding Gabriel tightly to her shoulder. Wyman pushed his way in, his face plastered with a false smile.

“Just who I was hoping to see. A little bird or two told me you’d come back home.” He swept past her to her father’s office, swinging the door open and weaving a bit to the desk. He propped himself up on his buttocks, crossing his arms over his chest.

“What do you want, Wyman? It’s not fittin’ you should be here, with you not working for Daddy any more and all.” Gabriel started to fuss and she bounced him gently, keeping in the doorway, with her eyes on the young man.

“Ah yes, so you heard that the great Hugh Byrd decided he didn’t need me. I should have known that news would travel.” He swung around and sat himself in her father’s chair, propping his feet up on the glossy desk.

“What do you want, Wyman?” Livvie asked again. She was aghast at his boldness, but without Emmy or Madeline around, she didn’t dare provoke him too much.

“What I
want
,” he spit out, his face changing alarmingly fast from amiable drunk to mean, hard stare. “What I want is what I was promised by your daddy. And the first thing he promised was
you
.” He stood up, lurching around the desk. Livvie backed into the hallway. “He promised me a wife, a career,
greatness.
He said he could see what I was destined for, and that he had a lovely young daughter who would be just the right woman to have by my side as I followed my destiny.” He took a few steps towards her, and she backed up until she was against the far wall, the baby beginning to fuss at being held too tightly. “I mean to have what I was promised.”

He lunged at her, but found that his way was blocked by a furious black woman with a cast iron skillet in her hand. Gabriel started howling, and Livvie slid sideways down the wall towards the kitchen door.

In a deadly calm voice, Emmy said, “Mistuh Wyman, you git on outa here now, ‘fore I call for Sheriff Gingras. We don’t want no trouble from you, and I don’t think it be a good idea to mess with Mistuh Hugh Byrd nor his daughter. Git on, now…” She still had the skillet raised, and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that she could and would swing it with all her might at his head if he didn’t obey. Furious, Wyman stalked to the door, slammed it open so that it hit the wall, and walked out.

Chapter Fourty-Four

A
GROUP OF MEN, MOSTLY WORKERS from the quarry, met regularly to fish on Sunday evenings. They were all veterans from the War, and had come to Florida to start a new life. None of them liked to talk about the War, the battles, the death, but they had a camaraderie from those shared experiences, even with out articulating them. Most had their wives and children with them, and the new little town was bustling with a new schoolhouse and the sounds of children at play. One of the men, a thirty year old German, had lost his wife to yellow fever the summer before the War ended. His mother lived with him to take care of his three children, but he still grieved his sunny Georgia bride.

The youngest in the group besides Rafe was Isaac Mitchell, a tall, broad, brawny man from the mountains of North Carolina. He, too, had left his wife at home. She had been pregnant with their first child, and had preferred to stay at home with her family rather than make the long and arduous trek south to the quarry and risk delivering along the way. Neither could read or write, and Rafe sympathized with Isaac’s loneliness. He had gotten a telegram when the baby was born, a little girl they’d agreed to name Elizabeth, but they didn’t have the funds for such extravagances regularly. That was the only news he’d had of his family in a year.

Rafe had six catfish on a string and Isaac four as they walked along the dirt River Road towards home. As happened most times they were alone, their talk turned to their wives.

“I make a decent livin’ down here,” the young man said, his brown curly hair a halo of frizz in the humidity. “And Mr. Wallace, he’s as good as they come.” Isaac had a heavy accent, different from the coastal Carolina accent of Byrd’s Creek. “But it don’t seem ever enough to send for Mary, and I cain’t take a month or more of’n work to go get her.” He shuffled his feet, discouraged. “They say the railroad’ll come here by and by, but nobody ever said when by and by is…”

Rafe laughed. “Florida has a law that railways can’t come across the state line. I heard tell it was to keep any company that was Yankee owned out. Closest you can get is Savannah, which is a darn sight closer than the mountains.”

Isaac shook his head and swung his fish. “Don’t do me no good to have her in Savannah. What she gonna do then, walk?”

Since Rafe had spent considerable time on this question himself, and having no solution as of yet, he walked on in silence. Finally he said, “I could write a letter to your wife for you. Is there someone in your town who could read it to her?”

The big man thought a moment, then said, “Aye, the rector up to the church, I reckon.” He looked over at Rafe. “You sure you don’t mind?”

“Course not. Come on by after supper, and we’ll write it. You can take it to the post office on your way in the mornin’.”

Not a man of many words, Isaac grinned all the way into town, swinging his fish so that Rafe thought they’d go flying off and into the road at any moment. He wished he had answers for Isaac, but even more, he wished he had them for himself.

When he arrived at home, he saw that someone had left a package in the small box by his door. Only one person knew where he was, so he knew it was from Livvie. Scarcely breathing, he set the fish down, sat in a rocker on the porch, and carefully opened the brown paper with his fishing knife. He moved slowly, wanting to put off any bad news as long as possible. He hadn’t allowed himself to think that his wife was still his. Much better to believe she had moved on, so that when he read the words, he was prepared.

Inside the box was a small leather bound book which had several folded pages inserted, and a letter. He slid the letter out and unfolded it, took a deep breath, and began to read. When he was done his face was flushed, his heart was pounding, and he wanted to jump and shout and dance and sing out in his joy. She was his! Beyond all reason, beyond all hope, she was his, and she loved him still. He sat back, shaking his head and laughing, then saying a silent but heartfelt prayer of thanks to the Father who’d knit them together.

After a few minutes of giddy happiness he remembered the journal. He realized that the folded pages were letters that Livvie hadn’t been able to send, which were dated before she had started the journal. He began to read through them, stopping dead when he read that she was carrying his child.
A baby!
he thought.
Do we have a baby?
He wanted to skip forward and see if he was indeed a father, but he also wanted to live those days vicariously through these letters, feeling close to Livvie and her joys and sorrows, so he kept reading.

It was getting dark when he was done with the letters, and the fish were still lying on the ground. He realized he’d better tend to them before they spoiled, so he set everything inside on the kitchen table and went back outside to clean the fish. A half hour later he came in with a plate of fillets, and set out a cast iron pan with oil on the stove. As it heated, he turned on the lantern and picked up the journal. When he read of his mother’s death, he put his head down on his arms and cried. He knew, somewhere inside, that she had to be dead. He’d seen her, and knew that she wouldn’t last long. But as long as he didn’t know for sure, he had fooled himself, part of him choosing to believe that she had recovered again and was reading books, and laughing with Livvie, and teasing Nackie about his cooking. He laid the journal aside as he grieved, releasing all his losses in a way he had never been able to before.

As he cried for his mother, he realized he was crying for his father, for the farm, for his family’s home, for all the dead friends in the War, for those he’d killed, for so much destruction to his beloved country. He cried for his marriage, for his wife and – dare he think it – his child. He cried for Byrd’s Creek and all the men lost. He cried for himself, for the boy he’d been, for the mistakes he’d made, for the hurt he’d caused. And he found that all those tears washed away the anger that had been building inside him, building since his daddy died, hardened when his land was taken, anchored when he was given a rifle and told to kill his countrymen. He gave it all up, and asked God to wash him clean, to take it all and leave him with nothing but peace.

When he finally picked up his head, he saw smoke billowing from the hot oil on the stove, and rushed to turn it off. Seeing that it was burned, he laughed. It was the last of his oil, and he wasn’t a great cook anyway. He wrapped the fish up in newspaper and set out. Maribel would be willing to cook it, and there was more than enough to share. In fact, he’d be sharing a lot more than fish.