"But this bunch has stayed put in the low country," Meek said. "I'm told the leader is an old chum of yours — nigra named Cuffey."
Mildly startled, Charles finished the field peas and started to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand. He noticed Marie-Louise, grown now and quite pretty, staring at him. The skin above his beard turned pink as he snatched his napkin from his lap.
"Cuffey," he repeated. "Imagine that. Think Mont Royal might be in for some trouble?"
"We've been preparing for that eventuality," Meek said.
"It appears to me you don't have many men left on the plantation. Except for your driver, those I've seen are gray as the moss outside that window."
"We're down to thirty-seven people," Cooper admitted. "Barely enough to run the place. I thought of closing the rice mill entirely for a while, but how would we survive? I don't mean just Judith and Marie-Louise and Mother; I mean everyone. Especially the older nigras. They're too worn out and frightened to run away."
"Which is what the rest did, I presume?"
Cooper nodded. "Liberty's a magnet for human beings. One of the strongest in creation. That's a point I frequently made to my father, to no avail. For a while I also forgot it myself, I'm ashamed to say. Ah, well. Why rake up the past? I want to hear the news from Virginia. Have you been in Richmond at all? Seen Orry or Madeline?"
To Charles's left, Clarissa sat with her meager meal untouched. Hands folded under the table, she studied him with the eyes of a threatened child. She had been doing so ever since they sat down. Those eyes held the kind of awe and fright with which long-ago European folk must have watched the pony-mounted Mongols storm out of Asia.
The thrice-boiled chicken pieces, so flavorful a moment earlier, suddenly had the taste of chewed paper. Well, he thought as he returned Clarissa's sad, alarmed stare, there's at least one blessing in a broken mind. She won't understand.
Cooper was awaiting an answer. Slowly, Charles placed his napkin to the left of his plate.
"I didn't expect to be the bearer of the bad news."
Judith leaned forward. "Oh, dear — is one of them ill? It is Madeline?"
Silence. Memories flashed by, including one from the time when Orry had been educating him for the West Point examinations. The hired German tutor had forced Charles to read Scripture for its literary value as well as its religious content. He remembered a passage he had never fully appreciated before: the moment during the Crucifixion when Christ asked His Father to let a cup pass.
"Charles?" Cooper said, almost inaudibly.
But of course it wouldn't pass, and he told them.
On his knees, Salem Jones heard the commotion beyond the blanket hung on a length of wisteria vine to afford a little privacy. He withdrew from the grimy, drunken white woman, who rolled her head from side to side and whimpered for him to start again. He was already buttoning his pants.
Picking up his shirt, he stepped around the great live oak to which he had spiked one end of the vine. The usual evening fires sent smoke and sparks toward the winter stars. He spied Cuffey seated on the stump he liked to occupy — as if he were some damn nigger chief in Africa, Jones thought with a flash of resentment. He put the bad feeling aside in order to learn the reason for all the excitement.
Men crowded around Cuffey while two tried to talk at the same time. One was Sunshine, who had been away scouting around Charleston. The other was a light tan Negro whose name Jones didn't know.
Hurrying to the group, Jones heard Sunshine say, "Hardee marched out. I seen it. By now the troops are all gone from the city."
"There ain' but a few protectin' my old home place," Cuffey mused, smiling. "Now they's no sojers to come help, either. That's what I been waitin' on. Hey there, Jones — you hear?"
A vigorous nod. "Yes, sir."
"Well, that ain' the only good part. Lon —" he poked a thumb at the beige boy with the flannel star on his pants "— he spied an old friend at Mont Royal this mornin'. Cousin Charles."
"Invalided home from Hampton's cavalry?"
Cuffey prompted Lon with a look. The boy shook his head. "Didn't see any sign of him bein' hurt. But he was walkin', not ridin'."
Jones nodded. "That's enough to bring him home."
A meditative look spread over Cuffey's face. "Cousin Charles an' me useta be friends. Useta fish together. Wrestle, too."
He spat in the flames. Men smirked and nudged each other, sensing the end of boring inactivity. Cuffey arose and hooked his ' thumbs over the bulging waist of his trousers. Like a king, he paraded around the huge sparkling fire. Jones loathed the ignorant oaf, but Cuffey had spared him and allowed him to join the band in anticipation of their next big raid. He had to be grateful for that, he supposed, reaching up to scratch the itching D.
"We wait one more day — maybe two," Cuffey announced. "Till we sure the sojers are gone." He peered past the leaping flames at Salem Jones. "Then we go to Mont Royal an' take it clean down to the ground. Kill every living thing."
In the raw amiability of the moment, Jones rashly said, "Young Charles may give you quite a fight."
Cuffey's face drained of good humor. "I'm waitin' for that. I'm jus' waitin'. Maybe we wrestle one las' time. We do, I know who gonna lose."
124
Invalided home with a chest wound, Billy slept a good deal. He wasn't awake when Constance, ashen, brought the letter to Brett in the library.
"It's from George. Come sit down before you read it."
The news about Orry fell on Brett with the force of a sledge. Seated, she felt her whole body sag, and for a moment she labored to get her breath. Constance dropped to her knees beside the chair while Brett swallowed and made queer gulping sounds. She lifted the two sheets, gestured with them in a forlorn way, laid them down again, shaking her head.
"I don't understand. Madeline said he was still in Richmond."
"We all thought that."
Brett started to cry then, heaving sobs. Constance was startled because the manifestation of grief lasted such a short time. Less than a minute. Then a stark look came onto Brett's face. Constance saw the object of her sister-in-law's fierce stare: the prized meteorite in its place on the library table.
"Damn them. Damn their oratory and their precious rights and their generals" — Brett was up then, lunging — "and their weapons — " Constance was too slow to prevent her from snatching the meteorite, whose significance all those in the household understood. Spinning, Brett threw it like a discus at the nearest window.
It shattered glass and sailed away over the sunlit lawn. In panic, Constance thought, He'll never forgive me if it's lost. I must go find it this minute. She was immediately ashamed of the reaction; staying with Orry's sister was far more important.
Brett collapsed on an ottoman, the pages of the letter fluttering to the floor. She crossed her arms on her knees and bent her head, crying again. Constance barely heard the words amid the sobs.
"I'm — sorry. I'll — hunt for the star iron. I know it's — George's treasure. It's just — just that —"
Constance could make out nothing else.
What an admirable woman Billy had married, she thought half an hour later. In the face of a smiliar responsibility, would she be as strong? Brett had dried her puffy eyes, put back a few undone strands of hair, and recovered the letter, saying, "I must go up to Madeline. Is she in her sitting room?"
Constance nodded. "She wanted to read awhile. Would you like me to go with you?"
"Thank you, but I think it's best if I'm alone."
Slowly, Brett walked past the library table. After a ten-minute search, the meteorite had been found by the gardener and returned to its place on the gleaming wood. But Billy's wife, in a matter of an instant, had conceived a hatred of the object — what it meant, what it made possible — that would last until she died.