Nan Ryan (12 page)

Smiling, Kurt came lithely to his feet and motioned Jolly inside. Shaking the older man’s hand, he said, “No mistake, Jolly. This is the place.”

“Jolly! Jolly!” Charlie shouted anxiously from under the bed. “It is too us!” He came scrambling out, the dirty shirt forgotten. “It’ me, Charlie Whitney North-way!” he said, hurrying to Jolly.

“Well, so it is,” said Jolly, nodding, arms coming unfolded, weathered hand going to Charlie’s blond head.

Mortified, Helen too came scrambling out from under the bed, wondering miserably what Jolly must think. Face scarlet, she straightened her clothes, smoothed at her hair, and said a brisk, perfunctory good morning as she scooped up Charlie’s dirty things and headed hurriedly for the door. There she paused briefly and, without looking at him, said, “Captain, kindly bring your laundry up to the back fence. I haven’t got all day!”

Rushing out, she very nearly tripped over the two valises Jolly had left on the stoop and muttered loudly enough to be heard inside about men who never bothered to put anything in its proper place.

Jolly and Kurt exchanged sheepish glances.

Charlie tugged on Jolly’s right hand and said, “Are we going fishing? Are we? Are we?”

“Soon as you put on some clothes,” said Jolly. “Fish won’t bite for a man in his nightshirt. Get your britches on and let’s be off.”

Charlie raced to the tall chest, fell to his knees, and drew a pair of short navy trousers out of the bottom drawer. “I’ll hurry,” he said, and, clutching the pants to his chest, dashed into the small curtained alcove they used for a dressing room.

Kurt smiled at Jolly and said, “I guess I’d better be getting my laundry up to the back fence if I know what’s good for me.”

“Wait a minute, son,” said Jolly. “Bring in those two valises I left in Helen’s way.”

Kurt carried the heavy cases inside and at Jolly’s direction placed them on the bed. Jolly unbuckled and unstrapped the valises, opened them. He said, “Jesse, my youngest boy, was about your same size, Captain. No need for all these good clothes going to waste. There’s shirts and trousers and suits here. Even some cravats and shoes and … and …” Jolly paused, shrugged his shoulders.

“Jolly, I can’t take—”

“Jesse, my son, won’t be needin’ ’em anymore.”

Kurt caught the sadness that clouded Jolly’s flashing blue eyes. He hadn’t known, before now, that Jolly had a son.

“Jesse was killed in the war,” said Kurt softly, and it was more of a statement than a question.

Jolly nodded. “Jesse and both his big brothers. Robert was the oldest. Danny was my middle son. And Jesse, the baby.”

Kurt stared at the floor between his booted feet for a long second, raised his head, and looked Jolly squarely in the eye.

“I’m sorry, Jolly. Jesus, I’m truly sorry.”

“I know you are, son.” Jolly’s fingers brushed fondly over the garments packed neatly in the open valise. “Take the clothes. Jesse had excellent taste. He was a dapper young man. You’ll look good in his things.”

“Thanks. It would be nice to have some decent clothes for a change,” Kurt said, smiling. Then he laid a gentle hand on the older man’s shoulder and said softly, “Jolly?”

“Yes?”

“How can you forgive me? Why don’t you feel the same hatred for me as the rest?” He looked straight into Jolly’s eyes. “You have every reason to hate me as much or more than the others.” Kurt’s hand dropped from Jolly’s shoulder and he looked pointedly at the suitcases filled with a lost son’s clothes.

Jolly sighed wearily and admitted, “I ‘spect I’ve wasted more than my share of time ranting with rage and hate and grief. Know something? It never changed a thing. Not one damned thing.” He smiled then and added, “I have no malice toward you, Captain. If Alabama was your home, you’d have fought for the Confederacy. Just as Jesse would have fought for the Union had we lived up North.” Again he shrugged.

“Providence put you on one side, Jesse and his brothers on the other. The indiscriminate hand of fate spared your life, while my boys …” He shook his white head and waved a big hand, indicating he didn’t want to talk about it further.

“You’re a wise man, Jolly Grubbs. And a kind one.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Jolly, nonetheless pleased. Then soberly, “I wish I could say that the rest of the folks down here will be hospitable to you, Captain. I can’t do that. These people are dyed-in-the-wool Southerners. The war’s over, but they’ve been whipped, and whipped badly. Blue and gray don’t mix any better now than it ever did.”

“I understand,” said Kurt. “I don’t expect the townspeople to be friendly. It doesn’t matter.”

A worried expression came into Jolly’s eyes. “Well, now, son, you might encounter more than just coolness from some of our citizens. We’ve got some hotheads in Spanish Fort, if you know what I mean.”

“I’ll watch my step.”

“You do that. Just to be on the safe side, I’d—”

Interrupting, Kurt said, “I’m puzzled about something you can probably help me out with.”

“I’ll do my best,” said Jolly.

“On my morning ride I came across three fairly fresh unmarked graves up past the northern field. I was wondering …”

Nodding, Jolly said, “Union soldiers with Farragut’s fleet. They were on board an advance monitor when it hit a mine in the bay. The mangled bodies washed up on the eastern shore and I buried them. Been meaning to put up some kind of marker but—”

“I’m ready, I’m ready,” Charlie interrupted, bursting out of the alcove. He rushed up to Jolly bare-chested in a pair of navy short pants, his shoes on his feet but not yet tied.

“Ready?” Jolly scoffed. “Why, you don’t have a shirt on nor your shoelaces tied.”

“Helen said I can go without a shirt,” Charlie told him.

“Did she, now? Well, if Helen says so, then I guess it’s okay. Tie your shoes and let’s be on our way.”

Charlie made a face. “I don’t know how.”

“You don’t know how?” Jolly said as if astounded. “Well, by jeeters, it’s high time you learned.” He sat right down on the floor. “Come here to me. I’m fixin’ to teach you how to tie your shoes.”

While Jolly sat on the floor and patiently taught Charlie how to tie his shoelaces, Kurt unpacked the valises. From the neat stacks of trousers and shirts, he chose a pair of dark twill pants and a pale blue shirt. The trousers fit as if they had been tailored for him. The shirt was a trifle snug across the shoulders and chest, but the sleeves were exactly the right length.

The trio exited the quarters together.

Outdoors, Jolly and Charlie left Kurt, circled around behind the outbuildings, and picked their cautious way down a path in the hovering fog on their way to Jolly’s favorite fishing spot on the pier at the bay.

Kurt watched until they were swallowed up in the heavy mist. Then he turned, looked toward the house, and dutifully headed up to the backyard to take his dirty laundry to Helen.

As ordered.

Chapter Thirteen

H
elen couldn’t see Kurt coming toward her through the lingering morning fog. Nor could she hear his cat-footed approach. But when he paused a few yards away, she felt his presence as if he had reached out and touched her.

She knew he was there. She knew as well that he was looking at her with that frank male curiosity which she found so annoying, so unsettling. So could feel the heat of his direct green-eyed gaze move appraisingly down the length of her body.

Inwardly Helen shivered.

She whirled away from the steaming black wash pot over which she stood, a poking stick gripped tightly in her hand. “Captain, I don’t like people sneaking up on me!”

“Ma’am, I apologize.” Kurt immediately came forward, stepping into a patch of brilliant sunshine. “I should have called out to you.”

“Yes, you certainly should have. In the future you will kindly remember to … to …” Helen stopped speaking and stared at him, her lips slightly parted in astonishment.

Gone was his faded blue army uniform, the only clothes in which she had ever seen him. He looked entirely different without them. He was fresh and well groomed and undeniably handsome in a pair of dark twill trousers and a pale blue summer shirt. The neatly pressed pants fit his slim hips and long legs perfectly. The blue cotton batiste shirt, open at the collar, strained across his broad shoulders and pulled tightly against the muscular biceps of his upper arms. The dark evidence of his virility was faintly visible through the delicate blue fabric lying flat against his chest.

He was potently masculine.

Holding his soiled uniforms balled up in the crook of his arm, Kurt turned slowly around before Helen, presenting his back to her, allowing her to fully examine him. When he pivoted, smiling, back to face her, she was frowning, her well-arched brows knitted together, her soft parted lips now thinned into a stern line.

Kurt was boyishly disappointed. He had expected her to be glad that he’d shed the objectionable union uniform which she found so offensive. Apparently he’d been wrong. It obviously made little difference what he wore. She looked anything but pleased.

In a low casual voice he said, “I’m disappointed, ma’am. I thought you would approve of my new appearance. Don’t I look at least a little better?”

Thinking that he looked better than any man—and most especially a Yankee—should be allowed to look, Helen continued to frown. She purposely centered on the lengthy black hair curling down over his blue shirt collar.

“Captain, you need a haircut!” she said, wrinkling her nose with distaste. “Ride into Spanish Fort and visit the barber. Right now. This morning.”

A tanned hand lifted to his hair. Lean fingers tunneled through the thick locks at his temple. He said, “It’s eight miles to town. I’d lose a whole morning of plowing.”

“It’s too foggy to get any plowing done,” Helen told him. “If you leave now you can be back by noontime or shortly thereafter.”

Now it was Kurt who began to frown. “I can’t. I can’t do that, ma’am.” He glanced off toward the distant horizon for an instant, then back at her. “I have no money. I can’t even pay for a haircut.”

“I can,” she said, not looking at him. Turning back to poke at the clothes boiling in the heavy black wash pot mounted on legs over an open fire, she added, “I’ve a little money saved back.”

“I don’t want to take your money.”

“Call it an advance on what I’ll owe you at harvest time.” She glanced at him, then at the small bunch of clothes tucked under his arm. She held out her hands. “Your laundry, Captain.”

Kurt handed over the soiled, faded uniforms. Helen took them, turned back to the big wash pot, and stood poised as if she intended to drop the clothes into the boiling soapy water.

She hesitated.

She turned and looked at Kurt, defiance flashing in the depths of her blue eyes. Then she tossed everything into the orange flames beneath the wash pot.

She watched transfixed as the clothes caught and began to burn. She saw tongues of fire licking the hated yellow cavalry stripe going down a blue trousers leg. She squinted through the billows of rising smoke as the braided captain’s bars decorating a tattered uniform blouse ignited and curled and blackened in the heat. With her poking stick she jabbed at the burning blouse, pushing the brass-buttoned garment more fully into the fire’s fiercest flames.

She smiled triumphantly and looked pointedly at Kurt, daring him to object. Expecting—hoping—to see blazing anger or at least a touch of wistfulness in his eyes, Helen was disappointed.

Kurt calmly held her gaze and smiled back at her. In a soft, deep voice he said, “Thank you, ma’am. I’m grateful to you for doing that. Maybe now we can both start to forget all that has happened while I wore that blue uniform.”

The wind taken out of her sails, Helen laid her poking stick aside, put her hands on her hips, and stepped closer to Kurt. Blue eyes now blazing like the fire consuming his tattered uniforms, she said coldly, “Captain Northway, in time you may be able to forget. I never will. I don’t want to forget. I want to remember everything. I shall go on remembering for as long as I live. I’ll take my hatred of your entire murdering army with me to the grave and beyond. Throughout eternity I will remember, Captain Kurtis Northway!”

For a long moment there was total silence. Then he spoke.

“No,” he said calmly, “you won’t, ma’am. I know how you feel now, but time heals the deepest of wounds. You’re young and healthy and very beautiful. You will—”

“Don’t you call me beautiful! I don’t want to be beautiful to you or for you! You hear me, Captain? To you I’m not a woman, I’m your employer. And you … you’re a hired hand only and … and … you’re certainly no part of a man to me. Keep that in mind from here on out.”

Kurt looked at her lovely face, now flushed with emotion. She was far more passionate than the present situation warranted. He was sure he knew the reason. The lovely, lonely young widow
had
thought of him as a man. And she didn’t like it. She didn’t like herself for thinking of him as anything other than a hated Union army captain.

A compassionate man, Kurt kept that knowledge to himself. He said, “I will, ma’am. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Upset me? I’m not upset!” she said hotly, then forced a laugh to prove it. “Believe me, you’ll know it if I ever do get upset.” She took a step backward, adding in a voice gone slightly shrill, “You needn’t worry, Captain.
You
aren’t capable of upsetting me.”

Kurt took a slow step forward. “No, I don’t suppose I am.”

Helen retreated one more step. “I can assure you that you aren’t.”

Kurt languidly advanced another step, smiled easily at her. “I see. I guess I should be pleased.”

Helen moved back, smiled back. “But instead your feelings are hurt, Captain?”

Kurt confidently moved closer to her. “A little, I’ll admit.”

Helen defensively moved farther from him. “Should I wonder why?” Her tone was derisive.

Kurt didn’t take another step. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his tight twill trousers and fixed her with those riveting green eyes. “Mrs. Courtney,” he said in tones so low and soft it was almost like a caress, “I’ve an idea that you already know.”