Wild Midnight (25 page)

“Oh, D’Arcy, how awful. For all of them.”
 

D’Arcy lifted her delicate shoulders and shrugged. “Well, poor old Til, he made his mistake and they made him pay for it. You know I hear he loves his little boy half to death, and Loretha won’t even let him see him. You’ve got to be sorry for mixed people—he’s caught between two worlds, black and white, and he’s taking punishment from both. He’s got a masters in something, and I heard he has his doctorate in political science, the Lord only knows what he’s doing teaching high school down here. You like him, don’t you?”
 

Who wouldn’t like Til? Rachel thought. His generosity, his willingness to help the co-op with his high school students, his funny off-the-wall sense of humor that, she was beginning to understand, covered his pain.
 

“Oh, D’Arcy, all that’s so cruel. Isn’t there some way Til and his ... Loretha can work things out? They both seem like such fine people, and she’s very ... imposing. I suppose she has a good job with the telephone company. You’d think they’d at least try, for the sake of their little boy.”
 

“Rachel, don’t you understand
anything
? They’re crazy about each other, but neither is going to give an inch! Loretha and those damned Bulloch women have got their pride. As far as they’re concerned Til Coffee is half
white trash
—they never accepted Lee Tillson here. And Til’s half brother is Beau, and that’s another can of worms. Much as I love him, nobody really wants that crazy devil around, they just never know what he’s going to do. Loretha lays all that on Til and just makes his life miserable, and her mama and her sisters just egg her on. You’ve seen her following him around, haven’t you? She won’t let him go, and she won’t let him alone. I don’t know what she did to bring him back down here, but its just like she’s got a string tied to that poor man’s toe. When Loretha pulls on it, Til jumps!”
 

“But that’s cruel,” Rachel cried. She was beginning to think they were all mad. “Most of what you’re telling me took place years ago. They can’t all be obsessed with what Til’s father did, or his mother did. Or her family did. That’s not fair.” She stopped, not quite sure where she was in this tangled scheme of things. “They can’t all be living in the past.
 

“Can’t they?” D’Arcy brooded. “Low-country people have been living like this for hundreds of years, Rachel. You know what they say of us, don’t you—that we’re like the Chinese. We eat rice and worship our ancestors. Crazy hasn’t got anything to do with it. It’s the only thing that kept these little towns going, remembering who did what to who, and keeping score. And being hateful to each other. Oh, Rachel,” she burst out, “if it wasn’t that way, I’d be so damned happy. If people would just forget the Draytons and the DeRennes and the Beaumonts and who owned the slaves and the land once and who’s got the money now—mah God, that’s not important! Then I could just grab ahold of my lover and drag that fool off to bed and get things settled! I could marry whoever I wanted to!”
 

Rachel found D’Arcy was right about the conjure dolls. When she stopped removing them from the front steps, the last one stayed, facing the road, evidently doing whatever D’Arcy said it was supposed to do. It was right in the way going in and out, so after a few days Rachel sat the figure in a saucer and shoved it under the althea bushes by the door, where one couldn’t really see it unless one looked for it.
 

Til Coffee, however, noticed it right away. He stood looking at it for a long moment before he lifted his eyes and said, “I got your message that you wanted to talk to me about something.
 

His tone was cold and formal; he didn’t address her teasingly as “Miz Rachel.” He’d come in his bright blue late model Buick, and as always during school hours, he was dressed neatly in a dark blue blazer, white shirt, and tie. It struck Rachel for the first time that Til looked more prosperous than any of them.
 

“Yes, I do want to talk to you,” she said in a rush of relief. “I’ve been asked to see if you can help the cooperative with a loan to replant our crop. Come inside, won’t you?” she said, swinging the screen door open.
 

He shook his head. “I’ll stay out here, if you don’t mind. When I visit white ladies I stand in the yard.”
 

She couldn’t believe Til was serious. What had she done? she wondered. Was he throwing up this unpleasant barrier between them because she had spoken to Loretha that day at the tomato field? Or, she thought with a sinking feeling, had he heard the gossip she was certain was circulating about her and Beau Tillson? Now that she looked at him, Rachel saw a distinct resemblance to his half brother in his finely chiseled features, particularly in his new unyielding expression.
 

“I’m sorry.” She came outside and let the screen door slam behind her. She saw his eyes slide toward the figure of the conjure doll under the althea bush.
 

“You know what that is, don’t you?” he asked quietly.
 

“I’ve already had it explained to me, thank you.” She didn’t want to go through that again. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, so I left it there. I just had to move it a little out of the way.”
 

His amber eyes regarded her flatly. “I want to get some things straightened out, if you don’t mind. First of all, regardless of what you might think, I can’t talk to the black people around here about joining the farmers’ co-op. I’m not any kind of leader in the black community, I don’t care what my wife told you.” At her look of surprise he smiled grimly. “Oh, yes, we’re married. I married Loretha before my son was born. They let me do that much. I wasn’t going to let him grow up like I did, with only half a name.”
 

A flood of embarrassment swept over Rachel; she supposed she was turning fiery red. “I wasn’t prying,” she said in a small voice.
 

He seemed to sigh. “You don’t have to pry, anybody in Draytonville will tell you. In small southern towns everybody knows everybody else’s business, it’s a cottage industry. As I’m sure,” he said with soft emphasis, “you’re finding out.”
 

Rachel blushed even more deeply. There was no need to speculate now as to whether Til had heard the gossip. He’d made it plain.
 

“I can look into getting a loan, if that’s what you want,” he went on, “but you’re going to have to supply me with some of the co-op’s records, work up a presentation if you can. The cost of seed, what you intend to plant, the cost of custom tractor work, and so forth. It’s an unsecured loan, right?”
 

His offer to find them some money was not making her happier; on the contrary. She said in a low voice, “You don’t think it will work, do you?”
 

He considered her for along moment. “I’m not any more of a farmer than you are, but these people need help. I heard you’re thinking of planting soybeans. You might consider that will give the white members an edge over the blacks—all the Gullahs have are their mules and their hands. Their shares will be smaller.”
 

“But it won’t be like that,” Rachel promised. “In the interim we still have the sweet corn crop on the land the Yonges rented us. We’ll all work when that comes in, to pick it and send it to Charleston.”
 

“That’s the Yonges’ land, too, as well as their machinery. The corns only what—splitting the profits after expenses?”
 

“It will be good enough,” Rachel vowed. “I’m sorry we lost the tomatoes, but perhaps the co-op members will vote to plant soybeans. We’ll just have to see.”
 

He squinted down at her, his face impassive. “Won’t you need the use of Beau Tillson’s road to get into that field again to plant?”
 

Rachel shut her eyes. “Oh, Til,” she breathed, sensing that he understood in some way that perhaps he knew what a problem, emotional and otherwise, her entanglement with Beaumont Tillson presented. He had always been so sympathetic and helpful in the past. But one look at his face told her she couldn’t rely on that now.
 

She lifted her eyes to his and met the challenge she found there. “Lawyer Screven will help us negotiate an agreement. I’m sure of it.”
 

For a moment she thought he was going to smile. But he only said, “You’re a stubborn lady, Miz Rachel, I have to give you credit. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”
 

But after Til Coffee left, she was depressed. She went back to work, determined to give him the presentation he had requested, trying to gather some figures that would make their case for an unsecured agricultural loan. But she couldn’t concentrate, and finally she abandoned the co-op’s records on the desk and did some chores to tidy up the little house. She swept and carried out the garbage to the metal can in the backyard.
 

Before going back into the house Rachel paused for a moment to savor the soft, velvety night that had settled thickly in the woods and the river. The sandy path that led down to the tidal pool was only a glimmer; she hadn’t dared to go back there either to swim or to bathe since that fateful night Beau Tillson had come to her house.
 

At some time in the future, Rachel knew, she would have to leave Draytonville. There was going to be a natural ending to her work if the cooperative flourished, or even if it went down in failure. But the realization depressed her even more. She had grown to love the low country. And there was a knifelike pain around her heart when she thought of Beau Tillson. She was so unhappy to have fallen in love with him. D’Arcy’s words came back to her: “Nobody wants him around, nobody knows what he’s going to do.” The beautiful devil. Ruthless, mercurial, cruel, strange as the mysterious low country itself. Even though they had made love, she couldn’t really say that she knew him. Why in the world, she asked herself miserably, had she succumbed?
 

She breathed in deeply, finding the air almost as warm as it had been during the day; it was thick with the scent of the tidal marsh and the river beyond. There was no moon, but the incredibly clear, close veil of the Milky Way spread across a black velvet sky. For whatever purpose, she was
there
, in that hour, in that time and place. What was to happen was inevitable.
 

Just as she was turning back to the house, she sensed something ... the vague impression that someone might be out there in the dark with her. Then suddenly there was a rush of movement to her left. Before she could do more than turn her head, she staggered under a fierce pain. Reeling to her right, she dimly realized she’d taken a hard blow to the back of her head.
 

She was stunned. The dark world spun dizzily. She fell, and rough hands caught her. In the same instant a slick, cold plastic tape was pressed to her mouth, sealing it shut. Something seized her hands, binding them together. Fishy-smelling cloth—a sack?—came down over her head and arms, pinning them.
 

Then she was being lifted and carried away.
 

Chapter Fourteen

She thought it was Beau Tillson.
 

Was he going to kill her
? The question was totally irrational, but it was there.
 

Frenzy seized Rachel. Gagging sobs racked her under the tape that sealed her mouth when she tried to cry out. The one sense that sharpened immediately was her hearing: whoever was carrying her breathed slowly and heavily. Such small sounds, but she knew they didn’t belong to Beau. There could have been another voice, but she wasn’t sure.
 

She was suddenly dumped on a hard surface and a rough covering that smelled of dogs was pulled over her. Someone started the engine; it was loud, more powerful than a car. A truck of some sort. She lay on her stomach, hands tied behind her, knees and shoulders bearing most of her weight. She heard only the roar of the truck’s engine as a heavy foot gunned it, then footsteps went around the side and a door slammed.
 

The vehicle she was in gave a lurch in the sandy loam of her front yard and then started forward. As it hauled over a bump and onto the first road the metal floor came up and hit her in a series of hard blows which she absorbed in her breasts, her stomach, her knees. She groaned. The bouncing of her body in the bed of the truck was some sort of endurance test that went on and on. She heard the clash of gears as the truck went faster. Tires squealed as they cut a sharp turn, and she rolled painfully over the metal surface.
 

What was happening to her
?
 

She tried to roll some of the weight off her hands, which were tied behind her back. The truck slowed, then came to a stop, its engine idling. Gradually the thought came to her that they must be on the highway, waiting at a red light; the smells of exhaust and the sounds of automobile traffic filtered through the covering over her head.
 

No one even knew she was gone, and might not, perhaps for hours. The thought made Rachel go wild. She tried to thrash, to howl for help, but all that came out from under the plastic tape was a thin, helpless mewing in the back of her throat. The covering over her body hardly moved.
 

When the truck started again she stared into the smothering darkness, wet with perspiration, filled with a thwarted frenzy that was almost madness.