“I never thought of that.”
“Fighting next to a man who has your back, you forget about color even if it was once important to you. You forget about a lot of things. It’s a hell of a way to learn. Harry, you ask the damnedest questions.”
“Sorry.” She paused. “From my reading, I think Vietnam’s antiwar movement overlapped the civil rights movement, which nudged along feminism. You lived it. I just read about it.”
Pewter came up to pat Herb’s leg.
“I think you’re right. It was a volatile time. I reckon 1968 was the bombshell year and then the counterculture took off. You know, Harry, Americans are a pretty tough people.” Herb mused.
“Don’t give her any more. She’s too fat,” Harry requested.
“I am not fat. I have big bones.” Pewter sang her usual aria.
The other animals wisely kept their peace.
“Speaking of mysteries, old stories, we still don’t know who was laid on the Taylors’ caskets.” Herb shifted in his seat. “I really think we have to give her a proper burial. After all, she was unearthed in November 2016. Obviously, no one is going to claim her, or they would have done so by now.”
“You’d think they’d claim the pearls. People don’t know Keller and George is keeping them in the vault, but I believe they are part of this attempted exhumation.”
“I wonder about that,” Herb said. “I believe whoever tried to disturb the Taylors’ grave must have had some information, information that has lain dormant for over two hundred years.”
“That’s just it, Rev.” She called him by her nickname for him. “Whoever did it is still out there and why now, well, in 2016?”
“I don’t know. But back to the subject. She deserves a proper Christian burial.”
“You can’t bury her in the graveyard. She wasn’t a parishioner. We’d know. That death would be in the records.”
“I’ve thought about that. We know either she was in the way or hated. Her neck was snapped. The medical examiner said it was clean. One powerful snap and she was gone.”
“I vote for hated. The pearls were left. I would think another reason other than hatred, even if the killer had to hide for years, would ultimately have brought him back to the grave to dig up the booty. And I expect it was a him because of her snapped neck.”
“Yes, that, too, has occurred to me. I propose, and I will bring this up to the Dorcas Guild and St. Peter’s Guild”—he named the men’s guild—“that we fashion a wooden casket, something appropriate to her time on earth, and bury her under the red oak. It’s lovely and not far from the cemetery.”
“But what if she really was an awful person and that’s why she was killed?”
“We all must ask for God’s forgiveness. It is not our place to judge.”
“You know I will support whatever you think best. I wonder if whoever was rooting around that grave will be drawn to the service.”
“Chances are whoever did that isn’t a Lutheran.”
“No, but the paper will print this. It’s too good not to make the news. What I’m trying to say is perhaps this is a very old crime that isn’t over.”
“We’ll see.”
“If she’s vengeful, let’s hope she knows we aren’t the wrongdoers.”
“ ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.’ ” Herb paused. “The ghosts at Aldie have made an impression.”
“Oh, people there say they’ve seen them in what was the hospital. I don’t know, I’m just running at the mouth. Then I think about what you’ve said, about the princes in the tower. Maybe they’re still there, wandering the halls. I wonder.”
“Trust in the Lord, Harry, trust in the Lord.”
7
September 6, 1787
Thursday
“I’ll do what I want.” The tall young man nearly spit in Jeddie’s face.
Jeddie worked the blooded horses at Cloverfields. The young man possessed good hands, a light, sure seat. Ralston had a long leg but not the sensitivity a good rider needed. Catherine, who worked well with Jeddie, had put the young man, nineteen, in charge of the blooded horses. The two of them would go over conditioning routines, food, turnout depending on season. She put Ralston in charge of the everyday farm horses but not the driving horses or the draft horses. Catherine had a soft spot for the big, gentle drafts.
Ralston resented Jeddie’s authority. Both young men took orders from Barker O, famed throughout Virginia for his uncanny ability to drive horses. No one looked as splendid as Barker O, in full regalia, the reins between his fingers, driving the exquisite Cloverfields coach. DoRe, who drove coaches for Maureen Selisse Holloway, ran Barker O a close second. The two men enjoyed a healthy competition, truly liked each other.
DoRe, a widower, had been quietly courting Bettina, a widow and Cloverfields gifted cook, for the last year. He’d find ways to slip away from Big Rawly. Maureen, difficult as she could be, pretended she knew nothing about the courtship for she needed DoRe. Jeffrey, her younger second husband, built expensive, beautiful coaches, brass lanterns beside the side doors, subtle pinstripes on the coach itself as well as the wheels, color coordinated with the coach body. Maureen had built a large workshop for Jeffrey. She overcame her aversion to trades because he was gorgeous, kind, and did what she told him. Also, his business was thriving and that did bring in money, not that she needed it. DoRe would drive those coaches for the prospective buyer or for the person who ordered the vehicle, taking the time to sit next to whoever their coachman was and give him pointers about the abilities of the coach.
Barker O heard the young men cussing each other, walking into the fancy blooded-horse stable just in time to see Jeddie throw a pail of water in Ralston’s face. Fists flew. Barker O crossed his arms over his massive chest.
Let them settle it, he thought, even though he was tiring of Ralston’s insubordination and sudden awakening to the delights of women, delights Ralston longed to sample.
Ralston made a fool out of himself daily, chasing every girl on Cloverfields and asking embarrassing questions about good-looking slave girls on other estates. So far not one young woman anywhere gave him a tumble, even though he wasn’t bad-looking.
Jeddie, whose shoulder had been broken in a horse race, couldn’t swing as hard as he would have liked on that left side, but his right was good. Ralston ducked low, grabbed Jeddie by the legs, and brought him down. The two rolled around in the aisle.
“Neither of you will ever make a penny as fighters.” Barker O finally spoke.
Both jumped up. Ralston pointed at Jeddie. “He started it.”
“The hell I did. He’s not to touch Reynaldo’s tack or Crown Prince’s. I saw him pick it up.”
Ralston opened his mouth, but before anything came out, Barker O rumbled, “Go on out to the north hayfield. Check the horses and unhitch them, take them down to the creek for water and a bit of shade.”
“Percy can do that.” Ralston pouted. “He’s got the energy now that Bumbee left him again.”
“Do what I tell you, Ralston. You, too, Jeddie. I’ll beat your ass until you bleed.”
They shut up, left the barn, trudging to the north hayfield, neither one speaking to the other.
Barker O watched them as Catherine came into the stable from the other end. She’d just left her husband, who had mentioned it was his commanding officer’s thirtieth birthday. John admired Lafayette tremendously. As he rarely discussed the war, Catherine had lingered at the breakfast table.