Cuffey grabbed Jane and swung her into the line of fire. Meek jerked the pistol upward, and Cuffey dropped down outside the window. He bolted away into rose mist that was deepening to gray.
"Stop, nigger," Meek commanded, discharging one round. Cuffey disappeared behind a live oak. The mist stirred and settled.
Meek swore an uncharacteristic oath. "Andy, what happened?"
"I was outside and — I heard Jane cry out." The words were labored; he was still breathing hard.
"I came inside and found him hiding here," Jane said. "He said dirty things to me, then unbuttoned his trousers."
The listeners outside, especially the women, expostulated and groaned. Still angry at losing the culprit, Meek snorted, "If we gelded all you bucks, things'd be a sight more peaceful."
Andy glared: "Listen here —"
The overseer was too mad to pay much attention. And just then a voice rolled out of the deep rose mist behind the cabin.
"I'll kill ever one of you on this place, you hear me?"
"Get some men," Meek said to Andy. "Eight or ten at least. It's a bad night to chase runaways, but we're going to catch that one. Then I'm going to sell him off."
The pursuit ended three hours later, when the mist had become fog. By the light of a fatwood torch he was carrying, Andy reported the failure to Jane. "I 'spect he's gone for good. Toward Beaufort, most likely."
"Good riddance," she said. The dank night and the memory of Cuffey's wild face made her uneasy. She knew what kind of life Cuffey had led. His hatreds — Mont Royal, its owners, the more docile slaves — were understandable. Yet she nurtured the same hostilities and so did Andy, and neither had been ruined by them.
"Maybe I ought to keep watch here on the porch till morning," he suggested.
"He won't come back."
"You heard what he yelled after he jumped out the window."
"Cuffey's been a braggart ever since I've known him. We'll never see him again."
"Surely hope you're right. Well — good night, then."
"Good night, Andy." She touched his face below the strip of linen tied around his head to protect the clotted cut. "You're a brave man. I meant what I said about being proud to marry you."
His eyes shone in the flaring light. "Thank you."
He walked down the creaking steps into the fog. As soon as her door closed he extinguished his torch, faced about, and quietly lowered himself to the edge of the porch, where he intended to stay until daylight.
Although Jane was awake for some time, she didn't know he was out there. She heard instead the noises of the spring night beyond the window from which Cuffey had torn the curtain. She heard the doglike barks of the frogs, the three-note chant of the chuck-will’s-widow, the drone of insects. And, in imagination, she heard a voice promising vengeance. She lay with her hand clenched against her cheek, wishing she didn't hear the voice but unable to silence it.
76
In the early morning of April 28, Billy wrote by the light of a candle pushed into the mounting ring of a borrowed bayonet.
Lije F. and yr. obdt. are detached with a volunteer co. for duty with Gen. Slocum's three corps. We march upstream tomorrow. Some suspect a great sweep around Lee and a strike at his rear. The regulars and vols are cooking rations for 8 days. Pack mules numbering 2,000 will replace most of the supply wagons, further evidence of a desire for speed and surprise.
Weather is better — rains over, though roads & stream banks remain very muddy in some places; we will earn our pay planking the worst spots.
Among the army's current complement of vols, about half are replacements for deserters or the dead, wounded & sick; most of the greenhorns are foolishly excited at the prospect of battle — much happier to march forward than stay behind with those corps which will apparently demonstrate against Lee's works in Fredericksburg, or below the town. One such corps is Howard's XI, the Germans, almost universally detested as radicals, revolutionaries — fugitives from the trouble of 1848 whether they be so or not. Almost without exception, the Dutchmen swear by Old Abe and his proclamation, while the rest of the army swears at them. We have not much tolerance — and I point the finger of conscience first at myself. Yesterday I saw two Negro teamsters in army blue and confess to being unsettled by the sight. Lije prayed twenty mins. longer than usual tonight. At supper, while a band played "The Girl I Left Behind Me," I asked why. He replied, Do not forget who is over in Fredericksburg. Two of the best — Bob Lee & Old Jack. Lije said he had implored the Almighty to confuse their minds and impair their judgment, though he stated this was done with regret, as both generals are staunch Christians. Wish I were, Brett. It might ease my soul. I am sick of the dirt and killing and cannot take any joy in what's to come, as the vols do. But they are boys yet. They will be something else before this spring's over.
Late the next day, Billy and a detachment of twelve volunteer engineers found a farmhouse with a sturdy barn and a smaller outbuilding from which the breeze brought the powerful odor of chicken droppings.
"What d'you think, sir?" asked the senior noncom with the group, a youth from Syracuse named Spinnington. He had been appointed corporal because he seemed less lazy and stupid than the other replacements; no positive traits recommended him.
From the roadside Billy studied the neatly kept buildings surrounded by a small orchard of peach trees. The detachment had fallen out around a wagon commandeered from another farm. Other detachments, with wagons similarly obtained, were roaming the countryside just above the Rapidan. Screened by Stoneman's horse, the army had marched with great secrecy and encountered no difficulties until reaching the chosen ford. The rain-swollen river could still be crossed, but its near bank was a bog where it should be solid.
"Sir?" Spinnington prodded. Billy continued to stare at the farmhouse, wishing he could give the order to move on. He felt tired enough to drop. He knew that had little to do with the forced march from Fredericksburg and everything to do with the task at hand.
Billy's beard had grown out during the winter; it was carelessly trimmed, and matted in places. Despite a natural stockiness, he had a curiously shrunken appearance. Seen with his brother George, he might have been picked as the older — or so he thought on those increasingly rare occasions when he saw himself in the scrap of polished tin he used as a mirror. The reflected face had a saggy look, as if it were made of melting candle tallow.
Spinnington fidgeted. Billy said, "All right."
There were whoops as the new replacements charged the house, the low-lying sun gilding an ax blade, the face of a boy with a crowbar. Their elongated shadows climbed up the side of the house.
The front door opened; a man came out. A tiny man with a white tuft of beard but huge strong hands.
Billy approached the porch. Before he could speak, a woman appeared behind the man. She weighed three times what he did and stood a head taller.
"Mr. Tate," she said, "get back inside. General Hooker's men who came by said we'd be shot if we stepped one foot in the open."
"It's a bluff," the old farmer said. "They're afraid we'll slip over the Rapidan and warn Bob Lee. I wouldn't do that. I have to protect this place. That's why I must talk to these boys."
"Mr. Tate —"
"What do you boys want?" the old fanner called over his wife's continuing objection.
Billy pulled off his kepi. "Sir, I regret to inform you that we've been sent to forage for lumber and siding. We need them because the Germanna ford is a mire and must be planked so General Hooker's forces can cross the river. I'll be obliged if you and your wife will go back inside and permit us to do our work."