In The Face Of Death (31 page)

“You wouldn’t dare. You don’t know what to do with the runaways.” He laughed, and made a snatch for the revolver.

She used the barrel to strike his wrist, listening to the metal crack against the bone and his brief howl of pain. “You told me where you take them,” she reminded him as he lurched back from her. “It is a start.”

“You conniving
bitch!”
he burst out. “You’re nothing but an Indian’s whore. Who are you to—” He had started toward her once more, but she waved him back.

“Stay where you are, Mister Howard,” she advised him. “I will not hesitate to kill you if you force me to.” She made her way around the end of the counter, taking care to keep him in the line of fire the whole time. “You have told me what you want me to do, and now I will tell you what I want.”

“I’m not going to help you,” he said, holding his injured wrist carefully. “Look what you did to me.”

“Yes, you will,” said Madelaine firmly. “Or you will be left in Dallas with a note saying what you have been doing.” She hated the thought of losing anyone who had helped so many runaway slaves to freedom, but she was not willing to be in this man’s power in any way.

“You wouldn’t,” he said with contempt. “A woman like you—”

“I might do anything,” said Madelaine. “Now, will you hear me out, or shall I plan to carry you down into Dallas tonight? It’s up to you, Mister Howard.”

He lowered his eyes, not in dislike or embarrassment, but to be able to watch her without he, himself, being watched. “Tell me. I might get a laugh out of it.”

“You will take the two runaways north, and you will go with them as far as you are able. Once you have reached a Union-held city, you will surrender to the military authority, with the offer of guiding them back into Georgia.” She smiled at him. “They are giving handsome rewards for such service. You should not suffer too badly for doing my bidding.”

“The North will never get into Georgia.” He cleared his throat then, and added, “Chickamauga was only a flanking action for Chattanooga, everybody knows that.” He lifted his head and spat. “I will not go to the North to save my hide, or my reputation; no Ma’am. That for your orders.”

The children were now singing the
Doxology
in the old form, with the half-speed second half of each cadence.

“All right,” said Madelaine with a sigh. “Then I will have to ask you to turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

“Ask all you want, it won’t happen.” He had regained a little of his sureness, and was doing all that he could to provoke her. “I won’t let you truss me up like a hog for the butcher. You could shoot me, though. That’s right. I forgot that part.” He winked at her. “The gun’s loaded, you said.”

Madelaine was neither flustered nor amused. “That’s right, Mister Howard.” She did not want to kill him; she hated the way killing made her feel, the memories it brought back.

“And you know how to use it,” he went on with a condescending smirk. “I bet you shot men before now.” This was in patent disbelief.

“As you will discover,” she said, starting to lose patience with the man. “Turn around and put your hands behind you.”

“No ‘please’?” He gave a devil-may-care shrug, then began to swing around. In the next instant he seemed to trip, for he started to fall, arms flailing, first to the side, and then backward, grabbing out for support. He slammed into Madelaine with his upper body, using his momentum to carry them toward the floor.

Although Madelaine had expected mischief from him, she was unprepared for this abrupt action; she fell heavily, her shoulder striking the rough boards of the floor, jarring her and leaving her shaken. Pain sawed at her shoulder and chest as she held on to the revolver. She cursed herself for not anticipating this move, for assuming he would not fight her here, in the barn, with the others close by.

He grappled with her, trying to wrest the revolver from her hand, and swearing steadily. He smashed into her jaw with his elbow, then brought his fist down on the side of her head. “Give. It. Up.” He took hold of the bun at the back of her neck and used her own hair to help him pound her head onto the floor-boards. His breath was ragged with anger and effort.

Madelaine stopped fighting long enough to brace herself, and then, with all of her preternatural strength, she rose against him, shoving him aside as easily as she might an obstreperous child. As he struggled to regain his advantage, Madelaine got to her feet, her eyes set on him, her face blank with concentration. She still had her revolver in her hand and she raised it once more. “Now, Mister Howard,” she said in a cold, level voice, “you will get to your feet, please, and place your hands behind your back.”

He goggled at her, as if he could not believe the evidence of his senses. He crouched as if preparing to rush at her a second time, his face as flushed as if he suffered from a fever. “I will not.”

“Then you force me to knock you out and tie you up afterward,” she said with no trace of distress at this notion.

“How you gonna do that, Miz Fifi?” He indicated his size. “You couldn’t move me if I was out cold.”

“You forget I am not alone here,” said Madelaine, more than confident that she could and would move him handily without any help whatsoever. She glanced around, looking for a board of sufficient size to wield against him.

He moved as her eyes flicked away from him. He grabbed her around the legs and tumbled her to the floor once again, reaching to take the pistol from her. His fingers wrapped around her arm, tugging.

She kicked out, but was hampered by her voluminous skirts. She concentrated on keeping him from reaching her revolver as she strove to reclaim her advantage.

“You can’t stop me,” Howard said through clenched teeth. “I’ll kill you first.”

Madelaine had no doubt that he meant it. She renewed her resistance, twisting away from him and trying to roll free of him.

He grabbed her breast, deliberately fixing a deep grip on her, chuckling as she gasped against the pain. “Don’t like that, do you?” He dragged himself nearer to her again, using his hold on her for leverage. “I’ll do more before we’re through.” His intentions were clear already, and Madelaine had one great surge of energy left to her. “Keep struggling, dahlin’. It makes it better for me.”

She did not waste her strength in responding to this; with all her might she shoved him off her, dislodging him in a single, enormous effort. As she rolled free of him, she felt him reach out for her revolver, trying to yank it out of her hand.

There was a single shot, and for a moment everything in the barn was still. Then the animals, already made fretful by the fight, protested, and the singing from the old mill faltered.

Chauncy Howard stared down at the blood pumping from the inside of his leg, just above the knee. “Do something,” he muttered, and fell heavily to his side, the blood continuing to pulse from the wound.

Madelaine went to his side, and stared down, aware that there was very little she could do now. A tourniquet would slow the bleeding, but his leg, with muscles shredded and bone cracked, would not be saved. “I’d have to amputate it,” she said, her anger vanished.

“No,” said Howard. “Don’t touch me.” He floundered, trying to get away from her, then grew weak. “I won’t . . . Don’t . . .”

But Madelaine was already searching for tools that would permit her to remove his leg. The thought made her feel cold, but she knew she had to make an effort. She threw him a stirrup-leather, saying, “Here, put this around your thigh. Tight. Above the bleeding. Do it now.”

He held the stirrup-leather uncertainly, then did as she ordered, sighing with effort as he attempted, with the last of his fading strength, to put the thing in place. When he passed out a few moments later, Madelaine finished tightening the belt. Then she moved the man to the counter where her herbs were, and set him there. She had a polling saw and farrier’s tools within easy reach, and she drew her lantern closer, then steeled herself and set to work.

The Old Mill, near Dallas, Georgia, 7 April, 1864

Today the last of the children left with Sister Bethesda to join the rest at the place Luke Greentree found for them in Jasper, to the east of here, where they will be safe. . . . They have taken all the stock but one of the horses, which they have left to me. So only Mister Howard remains, and he is almost recovered sufficiently from his amputation to be able to leave here at last, for which I will be heartily glad. Let someone else endure his bouts of self-pity. In another two or three days, I will see that he is taken down to the church at Dallas. They are welcome to him. If he complains to me again that he would rather have died than lost his leg, I may let him prove it. . . .

It has been a cold spring and cold longer than usual; it is said that planting will have to be late this year, and the harvest will probably be thin. With the threat of more fighting, it may be that there will be little to harvest come fall, and it will not matter how far the Confederates forage, they will find nothing to sustain them, nor the Union soldiers.
. . .
Farmers are saying they are living on what little they have left from previous years, and sending many chickens and turkeys to the smokehouse early, to save on grain and to ensure that there is something to eat. I presume the rest of the region is similarly afflicted. . . .

I have seen no newspaper for more than two months; I am assured they are still being printed, though many are now sporadic. Few people come here, so no rumors have been repeated, but if the Union still holds the advantage, they would be foolish not to make the most of it. . . . Skirmishes over supplies are probably coming. . . .

. . . How has Tecumseh fared through all this, I wonder? He has been in Tennessee, that much is true; I learned that much from Mister Howard. But where? And when will he move again? In which direction? I know he is nearer to me than he was a year ago, but is this favorable or unfavorable? I have such mixed emotions that I do not know if I want to see him again, or to avoid him, if he and I are to cross paths once more. It has been a decade since we were together in San Francisco, and it was difficult for him to love me then. Now, in the face of war, what would he think of me? All this time I have yearned to see him, aware that he has kept me in his heart. But what if he prefers me as a memory? I have no answers to my own questions, but I rehearse them every night I go to find sustenance, which is now no more than once a fortnight, for there is too much risk in wandering abroad at night, even for those of my blood. . . .

Many preachers have been going through the land, and the spirit of conversion and revival is very strong in this part of Georgia. . . . No doubt many are hoping for God to save them now that it is apparent that the South will not win this war. . . .

He was wearing a frayed jacket that revealed his rank as sergeant; he staggered into the mill-yard with the last of his strength, dragging his rifle by the barrel. He was thin and his beard had not been trimmed in a month. He stared up at the old mill and called out, “Hallo!”

Madelaine had heard him approaching as she tended to her herbs in the barn. She came out smartly, no longer shocked by the conditions she saw when wounded soldiers arrived here. “Good afternoon, Sergeant.” She went toward him without hesitation.

He was staring at her. “They told me I’d get help up here. Down in town they told me.” He blinked as if he expected her to vanish when he opened his eyes.

“They have been saying that to many soldiers. I have not yet turned anyone away.” She went toward him, trying to assess the extent of his injuries.

“How many?” he demanded. “Have come?”

“At the moment, I have seven men here.” All told, there had been twelve; only one had died, at least so far. She waited while he thought her answer through. “Two are Union, the rest are Confederates.”

“You take in Union men! What kind of place is this?” the sergeant burst out, his eyes getting wild.

“I take in wounded soldiers,” Madelaine corrected him. “They cannot fight here, so it does not matter which uniform they wear.”

The sergeant straightened himself, his head held a bit too high. “It matters to me. I won’t lie down with no Yankees. It was Uncle Billy’s men did this to me,” he went on, lifting the edge of his tunic and revealing a long, angry gash along his ribs; the tissue was inflamed, swollen and an unhealthy color.

“Let me take care of that for you,” said Madelaine, moving closer.

“I want to see your doctor,” the sergeant announced suspiciously. “Let him tell me what my chances are.”

“Sadly, the doctor is not here at present; he has many other patients to tend to,” said Madelaine with rehearsed smoothness. “I will do what I can for you until he returns.” She gave an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry, Sergeant, I have had a great deal of experience, and I know what I am doing. You may ask the others if you don’t believe me.” As she said this, she once again felt relief that Chauncy Howard had been gone for more than a month, for his sense of outrage would have diminished the confidence of anyone.

“I will,” said the sergeant with great weariness, accepting her lie and looking toward the old mill. “In there?”

“At the top of the first flight of stairs. It’s nothing fancy, but you will be able to rest comfortably. I will treat you until the doctor comes back.” She was less than a dozen steps away from him now, and she knew she could close the gap quickly, but knew it would not be wise.

Fatigue and injury won over indignation. He sagged and stared at her. “I need some sleep. And if you have food. . . .” He dared not hope for much.

“I have a strong broth you can take now. Later I’ll have pork-and-onions, and a little bread.” She had salvaged two barrels of flour in Dallas, and paid a staggering price for them. But it was worth it, she decided, as much to secure herself some source of medicinal mould as to have unleavened, flat, Egyptian-style round loaves for the wounded to eat. She indicated the entrance to the mill. “Go ahead. I’ll come after you.”