Heaven in a Wildflower (48 page)

Anjele knew he spoke the truth and wasn’t just attempting to frighten her. “I’ve got to try,” she said with firm resolution. “No matter what, I’ve got to try to reach New Orleans as fast as possible.”

Daisy thought of her daughter, who’d died at the age of four. Perhaps she would have grown up to be as pretty as Anjele. Her hair had also been the color of a March sunrise, and she had a little dimple in her cheek, too. Daisy couldn’t bear the thought of someone not helping her daughter, if she were trying to get to her as she lay dying. Reaching to cover Jasper’s hand with her own, she asked hopefully, “What about your brother in Baton Rouge?”

“What about him?” Jasper sharply asked, suspicious as to what she had in mind.

With an embarrassed smile in Anjele’s direction, Daisy informed him, “I happen to know a few things that go on in your family, Jasper, and I’ve known for some time how Luther and those friends of his sneak into New Orleans every week to sell home brew to some of the soldiers.

“They make good money off them Yankees, too,” she remarked gleefully before asking, “so why can’t they take Anjele with them next time they go? Nobody searches their boat, ‘cause they know what they’re hauling—sin in a jar, that’s what.” She frowned with disapproval.

Anjele leaped at the idea. “Yes, that would be perfect. All they have to do is get me to the outskirts of the city, and I can make it the rest of the way.”

Jasper pursed his lips, scratched his head, thoughtfully looking from one to the other as he tried to convince himself it could work. Finally he announced, “If it’s all right with Luther, why should I care?”

Both Daisy and Anjele hugged him with grateful joy.

Within three days, Jasper delivered her to his brother, who agreed to smuggle her into New Orleans in exchange for the fine horse she was riding. Anjele didn’t bat an eye at turning over the stallion. It was a kind of redemption, she felt, since the horse belonged to Brett, as though
he
were the one financing her journey home.

Luther’s partners, Hollis and Edwin, were, like Luther, too old to go to war. Anjele liked them at once, finding them to be kind and polite and felt at ease around them.

They smuggled her on board, where she hid in the smelly bait well below deck, along with the bottles and jars of their homemade whiskey. Once they were safely out of port, they invited her topside, where she would remain, sleeping on deck, for the two-day journey into New Orleans.

They confided that they were making quite a bit of money, explaining how Federal officers had access to alcohol, but the common soldiers had to scrounge for theirs. Since Baton Rouge had fallen to the Union after fierce fighting last August, the trio had been slowly getting rich off thirsty Yankees.

Anjele was grateful for their company, as well as shared news of the war. Engaging in conversation kept her from thinking about the smoldering rage within.

“Rains and high winds,” Luther grumbled as they reached the outskirts of New Orleans. “Weather’s been like this for weeks now. One of the soldiers said the streets in the Vieux Carré look like canals.”

Hollis spoke up to add, “Colder than normal, too. And lots of pneumonia and not enough doctors. Them that didn’t go off with the Confederates ‘cause they were too old, like us, ain’t allowed to work nowhere ‘cept the Union hospital, and then they ain’t allowed to treat anybody that ain’t took the oath.”

Edwin joined in the conversation to share, “There’s a terrible shortage of everything. No candles. Folks either make their own or do without. And no kerosene. Gas is turned off at dark, so there’s no streetlights, and everybody’s scared to go out after dark.”

“Who wants to?” Hollis said with a derisive snort. “I got a cousin who still lives there, and she says the Yankees just march in any time they want to, lookin’ for contraband, like gray wool, anything with Confederate colors. Even sheet music of Southern songs. If they find anything, they just run the people out of their house and confiscate it.

“Jelsie,” he went on, “my cousin, she was bound and determined she wasn’t gonna take the oath. Said she’d die and go to hell first. But then she realized those what didn’t could expect to be raided every night, so she said hell, she’d sign it. Didn’t mean nothing, no how. Said it was like a young’un promisin’ he wouldn’t steal no more cookies. Like me, she said why not use the sons of bitches? We keep ‘em in rotgut whiskey and grin when we take their money.”

By the time they arrived, Anjele was in a very foul condition. Her clothes were filthy, tattered, and torn. Her hair hung limp and loose about her face. But her spirits were high, and she knew that was all that mattered. She had her precious eyesight, and she was nearly home.

They put her ashore about a mile out of town just before daylight. They took turns bidding her farewell and wishing her good luck the rest of the way.

Hollis pressed money into her hand as he hugged her, saying, “Rent you a buggy to get where you’re going. A pretty girl like you don’t need to be out alone around them damn Yankees.”

Edwin also gave her a few Federal greenbacks and told her to buy a new dress.

Luther’s donation was for a bath, as he apologized to have to tell her, “You’re going to scare folks to death, the way you look and smell, missy.”

With tears of gratitude and a heart filled with love for all their kindness, she gave them each a warm hug and a fond kiss on their whiskered cheeks.

Waving them away, she hurried into the woods to get her bearings and try to figure out what to do next. The only people at BelleClair she felt she could trust were Raymond and Mammy Kesia, but she didn’t intend even to encounter them if it proved possible to slip in and out without doing so. Even so, looking as she did, she wasn’t about to be seen by anyone. Then she thought of Melora Rabine. If she was still there, Anjele knew she would help.

She headed into the city, moving at the edge of the woods, unnoticed by anyone traveling on the road. Head bowed against the chilling, slicing wind, she absently thought how it had been so unseasonably warm only a few hundred miles north, warm enough to—

She gave herself a vicious shake.

Never, she vowed, would she allow herself to think of that warm night in Brett Cody’s arms. She would force herself never to think of any time with him at all.

It was the only way she could cope with the nightmare of the past.

Reaching New Orleans, she went directly to Melora Rabine’s house, praying to find her there. Creeping in by a back alley, she felt a hopeful jolt at the familiar sight of the old carriage in the rear yard.

She moved quickly, not wanting the neighbors to see and wonder why such a wretched-looking woman was in Melora’s yard.

After a few rapid knocks, the door opened and Melora’s mouth dropped open at the sight of her. “Oh, dear God, child, come in,” she cried, reaching out for her, and then the miracle dawned. “You can see! Oh, praise God, you can see, Anjele!” She burst into tears.

Worn out, exhausted physically and mentally, Anjele gratefully collapsed in her arms.

Melora clucked over her, insisting she lie down while she fixed something for her to eat and heated a tub of hot water. “Then you can tell me everything. I heard how you’d been sent to prison for harboring bushwhackers, and it made me so mad, especially when I heard that little witch Claudia was responsible for your getting caught. Then I heard you’d escaped, and I’ve been worried sick ever since that something terrible had happened to you.

“At least,” she rattled on, “I’ve got something to feed you. I signed their stupid oath, and while it’s not much, I do get a ration of potatoes and little beef to boil now and then, and I’m glad to share it with you, darlin’, so glad…” Her eyes sparkled with tears as she paused to hug Anjele again.

Finally, clean and fed, Anjele told Melora part of the truth—that she had escaped from prison and was on her way to BelleClair to get some things that belonged to her. “I don’t intend to stay long, and I know I’ll have to sneak in. Otherwise, with my luck, Major Hembree would meet me at the door and take me straight back to Ship Island.”

Melora grinned and told her, “Oh, no, he won’t. He left when Butler did, back in November. General Banks is in charge now. Conditions are some better, but not a lot.” She went on to describe some of the horrors, how planters who refused to sign the oath of loyalty had been rounded up, along with refugee slaves, and made to work on fortifications of the city. “Even old men and children are prodded by soldiers with bayonets. Why, anybody going out on the streets is in danger of being hauled away at any time. The only reason I’ve fared as well as I have is that I agreed to teach music to the officers’ children.”

“What about others I used to know?” Anjele asked. “Poppa’s lawyer, Mr. DuBose? What about Dr. Duval? And did the Maxwells get their house back when the Hembrees left?”

Melora told her Hardy Maxwell did indeed regain possession of his house, and he and Millard DuBose had both signed the oath and now worked in the Federal bank. Dr. Duval was one of the head doctors at the Union hospital. “I don’t suppose they’re any prouder of themselves than I am,” she was sad to point out, “but we did what we had to do to survive. Still, the Yankees haven’t had as easy a time as they thought they would, because we haven’t groveled at their feet. We’ve let them know we hold them in contempt.”

She went on to express sympathy for the Negroes who thought they would be better off once the Union took control. No distinction had been made between freemen and slaves, and all were rounded up either to labor in the city or be carted off to plantations and warned not to return to New Orleans. Women whose duties had never been harder than caring for their mistresses’ wardrobes, or wet-nursing their babies, had found themselves at hard labor.

Anjele could only shake her head with sadness.

“The Union wives have behaved the ugliest,” Melora angrily continued. “Our women have to stand back and wait in the shops while they push their way to the front. And we’re supposed to step off the banquettes into the gutters, in mud if need be, to let them swish by, three or four abreast, noses up in the air like we’re just dogs. And they ride along in carriages or horse-cars, while we have to walk. I got to keep my buggy, as you may have noticed, because I go to their homes to teach music, but they’ve told me if I’m caught using it for any other reason, it will be taken away.”

“I suppose Claudia is smug to have been among the first to grovel at their feet, and…” Her voice trailed as she saw the mysterious way Melora was smiling at her. “What is it? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Well, it’s bad news for your home place, of course, child,” she said, “but I have to say, I’m glad it happened.”

Anjele was even more confused. “What are you talking about?”

“BelleClair. Major Hembree not only declared it off-limits for officers but withdrew the protection of the army, as well. He said it wasn’t proper to socialize at the home of a man who’d steal from the Union. And here it is sugar-making time, and your daddy’s cane is just rotting in the fields.”

Anjele guiltily realized she didn’t care, not if it meant Claudia getting her comeuppance. “But what happened to the slaves? Did they all run away? I wouldn’t be surprised, the way she treated them.”

“I heard most of them did, according to Ida. But she hasn’t been out there in a long time. Nobody ever sees Claudia anymore. She got so mad when the Yankees tore the place up that she had a big fight with Major Hembree’s wife, and the major told her not to show her face in New Orleans again, or he’d send her to Ship Island, too.”

“And why did they tear it up?”

“They were trying to find whatever it was they claim your father stole from the government.”

It was Anjele’s turn to smile. She was becoming even more confident her suspicion as to where the plates were hidden was correct. Her father had cleverly assumed no one would enter the mausoleum, much less open a coffin. With BelleClair no longer crawling with Yankees, she wasn’t worried about going there long enough to look for them.

Melora went on to relate how she saw Ida Duval from time to time in the market. “She worries so over Raymond. I understand he practically lives in a drunken stupor now.”

It was a life of his own choosing, Anjele felt like saying, but held her tongue. He should have been stronger, because
his
blindness had come from his mind. He could, at least, have seen the person who was beguiling him.

Melora said she was going to make some tea. “It won’t be very tasty, I’m afraid. The leaves have been used several times, but I suppose it’s better than nothing.”

They were sitting in the parlor, for it was the only warm place in the house. With wood so scarce, Melora could only afford to have a fire in one room. Outside, the wind howled, and Anjele pulled the wool afghan tighter about her. Leaning her head back on the sofa, she closed her eyes and let exhaustion take her.

When Melora returned with the tea, she drank it all herself, deciding it was best to let Anjele sleep the afternoon away.

Brett was almost to Louisiana. He rode like a man possessed, which he was, and driven by one burning thought.
He had to get to New Orleans and find Anjele before whoever wanted her dead found her first.

It had been midmorning when he had finally awakened, there on the hillock. He hadn’t realized how tired he was, having had only snatches of sleep in the past week. Still groggy, he had instinctively reached out for Anjele, and was jolted to discover she wasn’t there.