Beguiled (3 page)

Her eyes met mine, and the look she leveled on me eliminated any doubt that something terrible had just happened in that room.

“What are you doing out of bed?” My voice sounded tremulous.

“When it’s my turn, will you do the same for me?” she asked evenly.

Confused, I blinked. What on earth did she mean? Clarity struck me with sickening force. I darted across the hall, past her, and into the room where I stopped short.

The Yankee lay on the floor. Dead. A black mirror of blood pooled around his head. I tried to move, to speak, to turn, but all I could do was gape, immobilized.

“Will you?” Alice asked again, her voice shaking me into action.

I whirled away from the grisly sight. “Did you…did you
kill
him?”

Even though she slumped against the door frame, I could tell she towered nearly half a foot taller than me. With her long, lanky limbs, I saw easily how she could have passed herself off as a boy. Her carriage, her demeanor—everything about her—appeared more masculine than feminine.

Her shoulders shifted. She shouldn’t be out of bed. Still, she had not answered my question. “Did you kill that man?” I demanded, pointing backward at the heap on the floor.

“He begged me to do it,” she seethed. “He was dying anyway, and he was in pain. It was the least I could do for him. Now, I ask you once more. Will you do the same for me when it’s my…”

Her voice dwindled, and she wilted down the doorjamb until her bottom plopped onto the floorboards.

“Alice!” I darted to her to keep her from falling over. Her head hung lifelessly. I patted her cheeks. “Alice?” No response. I fumbled for a pulse and found a weak one.

Cradling her head in my hands, I gently lowered her the rest of the way to the floor. I couldn’t get her back into bed by myself. Gaining my feet, I stepped over her and rushed down the stairs to get Uncle Hewlett. I’d need his help to drag the dead Yankee out of Pa’s room anyway.

My head spun. I couldn’t believe Alice had shot that man, but I knew she’d had little other choice. He’d been in tremendous pain, and I too had waited for his moans to stop so I’d know he was free from his earthly suffering. No one deserved to die, but Alice had courageously done what I could not—would not—have. I shuddered to think she could easily develop gangrene or blood poisoning. And die.

I couldn’t tolerate a woman’s pain. Not even from a woman like Alice.

* * *

After rifling the Yankee’s pockets, Uncle Hewlett buried him in an unmarked grave at the edge of the cotton field. While the cotton rotted on the stalks, Alice languished in my bed, hovering in the twilight between life and death.

My days consisted of milking and tending the herd, cleaning the mourning clothes I’d brought down from the attic, and nursing Alice.

Her fever raged, and I sponged off her dangerously thin body several times a day. She never resisted. She was too delirious to resist.

Fearing she might die, I decided to fetch Granny Page.

Granny Page held the distinction of being the oldest resident in our community. For years, everyone had gone to Granny when the doctor was unavailable—and then even when he was. Granny’s years gave her wisdom and experience no young doctor could match. She had reluctantly agreed to bring her medicine chest of poultices and concoctions, muttering the entire walk back to Rattle and Snap that Yankees didn’t deserve her special brand of doctoring.

The sweltering September sun baked my back through the black dress while the strong scent of cedar seemed to waft out of every stitch, gagging me in its intensity.

“After what they did to your pa,” Granny ranted, “I wouldn’t piss on her if she were on fire.”

I didn’t need reminding of that, but I bit my tongue as I opened the front door for Ma and Granny. Ma shuffled inside and disappeared into the parlor as Granny hobbled across the threshold. Pa was gone. He’d made the decision to protect Grayson, even knowing what the Yankees would do. Right now, I couldn’t fault Alice for Pa’s choices. Besides, I feared hating somebody that much.

Holding Granny’s arm, I let her lean on me as she heaved her gnarled body up the steep staircase one grueling step at a time. She mumbled curse words that shocked me and carried on about how the Yankees had brought Armageddon down on us all.

Not daring to dispute her, I nodded and agreed, knowing Granny’s peevishness would fade once she saw how truly pitiful Alice looked.

Uncle Hewlett sat in a wing chair I’d moved into the bedroom with his long legs crossed at the ankles. He looked up over the top of his spectacles at us from a well-thumbed copy of
Don Quixote
. “Good morning, Granny.” He greeted her with a nod of his head as he closed his book and stood.

Although it had been illegal to teach blacks, especially slaves, to read and write, my family had valued education for all. My grandfather had freed Uncle Hewlett years ago, but he’d learned to read long before he’d garnered his freedom.

“Mornin’,” Granny greeted in return before she eyed the Yankee girl in my bed.

Granny gawked as if she’d never seen such a creature in her life.

Alice lay motionless, her long, lean form outlined under the sheet and quilts. Granny’s gaze darted from Alice to the tatters of her Zouave uniform, which lay across the rocking chair beside the bed. “She ran around the countryside dressed in those ridiculous red bloomers?” Granny asked.

I shrugged. There’d only been one soldier from our area who’d gone off to fight dressed like that—a Frenchman named Guy Boliere, who’d fought in some Algerian unit before coming to Georgia. And while the red blousing breeches and blue jacket boasting braiding did indeed look ridiculous, I’d much rather be wearing those clothes than a skirt and a corset.

I glanced at Alice, wanting to know more about her, fascinated by her—attracted in some inexplicable way. Silently, I said a prayer that she wouldn’t die.

Granny ventured cautiously toward the bed as if Alice might jolt awake and devour her like some medieval dragon. I set the medicine chest on the trunk at the foot of the bed. Walking past Granny, I raked my fingers into Alice’s short auburn hair to check her forehead for fever. Alice didn’t so much as utter a moan.

“The fever has been on her since they left her here,” I told Granny.

“Let me have a look at that leg.” Assured that Alice wasn’t going to bite, Granny doddered to the side of the bed.

Uncle Hewlett cleared his throat and eased out of the room as I lifted the covers to expose Alice’s leg. She shuddered but never opened her eyes. Carefully, I removed the bloodstained bandage. “I’ve changed these bandages twice a day,” I explained to Granny as I bundled the bloody fabric into a wad and dropped it on the floor.

Despite Alice’s otherwise unladylike appearance—and with the exception of her sun-burnished face—her creamy skin gleamed flawless.

No stink wafted from the wound, and no dark lines indicated blood poisoning.

“Is she able to walk on it at all?” Granny asked, prodding the leg with her fingertips.

“With extreme difficulty,” I replied. “But only once. She’s been in a fever since the day they left her here.” A tremor crawled up my spine at the memory of Alice shooting that wounded Yankee. “I’ve tried to keep her bandages clean, but she’s lost a great deal of blood.”

Granny shot me a look, and I intuitively knew she wondered why I cared, why I hadn’t let this woman die. I couldn’t answer that question other than I would have done the same for any other human being. Besides, a woman who possessed the grit to dress up as a man and live among them as one of them intrigued me.

I wanted to know why she’d done it. Had she followed a sweetheart or husband into the army? And if she had, what happened to make the Yankees leave her here without adequate medical attention?

Some part of me pitied her with that whacked-off hair and those mannish features, which I found curiously fascinating. Another darker part of me admired her.

“I’ll mix up a poultice for that wound,” Granny muttered, turning to her medicine chest. “I’m sure you’ve got plenty to keep you busy. I won’t need any help.”

I dragged in a rough breath, realizing I’d been so busy I hadn’t had time to mourn my father. Maybe that was for the best.

As I started to leave, Granny wrapped her crooked fingers around my arm. “This girl needs nourishment.”

“I’ll bring up some grits and goat’s milk,” I said.

Granny shook her head, and cold horror seeped through my skin as I realized why she had a hold on my arm. Before she spoke, I shook my head no.

“She needs meat, a stew. She’s lost a lot of blood, Belle. She won’t get any better without something with some meat in it. These Yankees aren’t used to eating turnips and dried peas.” One of Granny’s thin gray eyebrows arched.

“We…we don’t have any meat,” I told her resolutely. “We haven’t had any since Pa gave the shoats I tried to hide under the house to the Confederates.” He’d given away every last one of my piglets to those starving scarecrows. He’d said they needed full bellies to whip the Yankees. Great lot of good that had done. All I had left was my goats, and I’d never dreamed of slaughtering one.

I stared at the Yankee girl in my bed, finally mustering hatred for her.

Granny loosened her hold on my arm, and I pulled away and stormed out of the room.

Normally, I had too much to do trying to maintain the massive rooms in the house to visit the herd when it wasn’t milking time. Today was different.

Snatching my straw hat and clapping it on my head, I shirked my inside duties and fled out the back door. Fists knotted at my sides, I walked at a brisk pace while our old orange tomcat loped along beside me.

My chest felt as if it would burst with pent-up energy. I wanted to scream, to hit something. I wanted to thrash about on the ground and wail like that damned wounded Yankee had done. Briefly, I squeezed my eyes shut. I wanted to be put mercifully out of
my
misery. Why couldn’t I have that same luxury?

Pulling up the hem of my skirt, I ran across the muddy red clay, flying past the burned shell of a barn, the rotting cotton field, and the empty cabins where the field hands had lived. Usually, walking this trek to where we kept the herd calmed me. Before today, I had always taken the time to breathe in the sweetness of the honeysuckles and the earthy fragrance of the red southern clay, to feel the sun warming me through my clothes, to listen to the sound of the creek rushing over the rocks. I’d loved the songs chanted by the field hands and the sight of the crisp, white cotton against the eggshell blue sky.

Today I found no such solace in Georgia’s bounty.

When the goats saw me, they immediately greeted me with raucous bleats. The eldest doe, Cinnamon, was the first to trot toward me. I dropped to my knees and threw my arms around her scruffy russet neck and cried against her sturdy body while she nibbled at my straw hat. I sobbed and sobbed, clinging to that goat as the others gathered to investigate. Velvety muzzles nudged my arms and back while I grieved for my father and worried for my brother and husband. Delicate hooves picked curiously at my back while I shook from the lifetime of horror I’d witnessed in the past few days. A wet nose sniffed at my ear, and I reached out to pet Brownie, the mongrel dog who guarded the herd like they were her own pups.

Even Jeff Davis, the ornery old billy, came to see what the matter was. I wiped my tears on the back of my sleeve and gave Jeff a scratch between the horns before I gave his beard an affectionate tug. The look he gave me was one of approval, of understanding.

I’d never realized how much comfort I garnered from my four-legged friends until now. These goats were a working part of the Rattle and Snap family. We’d had a herd as long as I’d been alive, and when the soldiers had come in—from both armies—demanding livestock, I’d brought the goats into the woods and had fashioned an old slave cabin into a serviceable barn.

Each goat had his or her own personality. In addition to Cinnamon and Jeff Davis, there were the white twins, Isis and Osiris, the chocolate doe Hewlett had named Ophelia, the four spring kids, a buckling I called Prince Henry, and three other does.

The goats provided milk from which I churned butter and made cheese. I traded the three commodities to my neighbors for their vegetables and what little meat they could spare.

“
She needs meat, a stew
.” Granny’s words haunted me.

Inhaling the musky fragrance of my beloved goats, I gazed around at their faces. Several pairs of expressive, almost human eyes peered back at me. I fingered one of Isis’s floppy ears. How could I part with any of them? How could I betray their trust?

Sniffing, I grabbed one of Jeff Davis’s horns and used his stalwart leverage to pull myself to my feet. He rubbed his head against my thigh, and I gave him another scratch between the horns. The old billy loved me as much as he hated Uncle Hewlett.

Of course, Uncle Hewlett had been a domestic servant until all the field hands left to dig trenches north of Atlanta. Before that, Cuff and I had shared the milking duties. But he’d died shortly after the others left.

Eggheaded Uncle Hewlett hadn’t cottoned to the goats, although he carried out the chores without ever complaining, even when Jeff Davis butted him, urinated on him, hooked his leg, trampled him, and bleated hatefully at him as only randy buck goats can do.

I gazed at the herd and sighed. I couldn’t let Alice starve to death…but which one? Which of my precious goats could I slaughter to make a stew for a woman I loathed?

Reluctantly and with a heavy heart, I carried one of the spring kids back to the house and handed her over to Uncle Hewlett, crying the entire way back.

Uncle Hewlett hadn’t said a word. He’d merely taken the goat from me and disappeared behind the old barn. I went into the house, but even through the thick brick walls, the high-pitched sound of the kid’s bleats filled my ears. When the distressed noise stopped, I barely made it onto the back porch before I retched up my breakfast.

Granny’s hand smoothed over my loosely done-up hair. “Go upstairs and sit with
her
. I’ll prepare the stew.”