River Magic (28 page)

“That's another thing I love about you, Squirt. Honesty. You'll make me the happiest man alive, becoming my wife.”

India grew even more pensive. “I wish Phoebe and Tessa and Eugene could be here for the wedding. I feel awful for the way we parted ways. Who's to know if that lamp had anything to do with our falling in love and deciding for marriage? But I'd like to think it did. And I'd love to have your aunties and a so-called genie with us.”

“If that battered little lantern had anything to do with our union, don't you imagine it has enough magic to bring the perpetrators to the main event?”

After having posted a reward for one brass Arabic-styled lamp that had fallen into the Mississippi River just south of Memphis, and after waiting weeks before anyone responded to the plea, Tessa O'Brien at last had the lamp back.

She would not trust her sister with it.

Like a giddy gambler in a humongous betting pool, believing that he alone will win easy lucre, Phoebe had gone wild lately. She voiced dream after dream of uses for a magic lamp, all wishes centered on the benefit of India and Connor.

The tables had turned with the sisters. Tessa now became the sensible one, and she kept the precious lamp clutched to her chest, Eugene standing guard.

She wouldn't have its power weakened with too many wishes.

Nevertheless, Tessa had agreed to a return journey south, and the threesome was now aboard the
Edna Gal,
searching for the
Delta Star.
They overtook the O'Brien Steamship Company's flagship, only to learn the news of Antoinette Lawrence's fate.

“Good riddance,” Tessa said privately to Eugene after they had set a course for St. Francisville. “On to our magic, Genie.”

 

 

As it turned out, Connor was the sole O'Brien at his wedding to India Marshall. It wasn't an ostentatious affair, neither money nor champagne flowing in tune with the Old Man River, but the Marshalls being the Marshalls, the wedding turned out as all such occasions should. A lovely bride (this one not too blushing); a happy, nervous, and eager groom who wore one of Matt's fine but aged suits.

Connor noted introductions labeled him “Mr. O'Brien of Memphis.” Fair enough. He wasn't looking for war. Besides, most of the predominately female guests were well aware of which side he'd taken in the war. Just as they were aware of how many men were missing from the ceremony, such as most between the ages of thirteen and sixty-five. Gone to fight for Mr. Davis.

Alas, the male part of family and neighbors—the latter being very old, very young, injured or missing bodily parts, or both—decided on a good, old-fashioned shivaree to “liven up this place” and “get the honeymooners off to a good start.”

One squad now stationed at the door of the honeymoon suite, the able-bodied others had climbed to the balcony. Hollering and Rebel-yelling, pan-clanking—even a few firecrackers—kept the newlyweds from enjoying the night.

“When are they going to shut up?” Connor paced the bedroom in his britches alone.

Staring at her husband through a haze of mosquito netting, India patted her brow. Without open windows and balcony doors, it was as hot as a Louisiana night in early July. Which it was.

If truth be known, which she wasn't of a mind to tell, it frustrated her, having her wedding night interrupted. She and Connor had tried to elude the well-meaning merrymakers, but they were too good at merrymaking.

India refused to let the uncertainty of their tomorrows interfere with their tonight. “Patience, darling. Patience.”

“Dammit to hell, we're set to go to Port Hudson at first light,” Connor raged. “When
are
they going to shut up?”

“We can't very well tell the neighbors that this may be our last night together for a while.” If cajoling and guilt-laying didn't work on Port Hudson's General Andrews.

“Matt and Catfish know about our plans. They do resent me being a Yankee. This is their way of showing it.”

“That's childish.”

“Speaking of children, what kind of people let a child participate in a shivaree?”

“Goodness gracious, Catfish doesn't know what's supposed to be going on. It's a game to him, that's all. And even if he does know more than he should, Connor, we aren't town people. It's impossible not to get an education from the birds and bees. Shivarees are just part of getting married.” She patted the mattress. “Come to bed, husband. We'll try to ignore them.”

“We've tried. A half dozen times.”

“Let's try again.”

He didn't. He stomped to the balcony door and cracked it to roar, “Go home! Go home now!”

A roar of laughter answered.

The door got shut, hard, the glass quaking. He grimaced at the drawn draperies, but did shove his britches down hair-dusted legs, then stomped over to yank the mosquito netting aside and climb the four-step ladder to her childhood bed. “Does a Louisiana marriage ever get consummated on the wedding night?”

She couldn't help but laugh at him, standing on the ladder in his birthday suit, all indignation and outrage. “What does it matter if we make love tonight? We've had a honeymoon of sorts, if you'll recall.”

He squinted an eye, lowering his face a deuce of inches toward her. “Have you lost your mind? It could well be that you'll sleep in the Port Hudson stockade tomorrow night.”

“Then get off that ladder and get in bed.”

He plopped on the thick feather mattress, presenting a broad back, narrow waist, and . . . interesting buttocks. “I can't make love in front of an audience.”

“They can't see us. Anyway, we could've gotten caught on some deck of the
Delta Star.
That didn't stop you.”

“I can't . . . we need . . . to consummate this marriage.”

“What are you talking about, need?”

“What if you're carrying our babe?” He turned his head to glare at her. “I, by damn,
will
be the legal father.”

“We're married, Connor. Nothing can change that.”

“You and I know we haven't consummated anything.”

She was not liking the sound of this. “There is nothing I'd like better than for those men to shut up and get gone so that my husband and I can get properly married, but . . .” Portent climbed up her spine. “Why do I get the feeling you married me just to make it legal?”

“That's part of the reason.” One hand parked on a knee, he hunched his shoulders. “I'm bound by honor to protect you from all complications great and small.” He stretched out beside her. “I can do a better job of it if you're truly my wife.”

Bound by honor. Just like he was honor-bound to the Union Army. That was life to Connor, doing the right thing.

She didn't move, barely breathed, but found herself glad he didn't touch her. Staring up at the canopy, his face to profile, he grimaced. It wasn't a smile on India's face, either.

All along, he'd done the right thing. He'd kept prisoners from the necessities of life—an officer followed orders, by Jove! He'd been bound and determined to get India to Washington, 'twas surely the right thing to do. And he'd come after her out of a sense of making her own up to her actions, which was the absolute right thing to do.

Now, they were married. At least in ceremony.

Despite the heat of July, she felt cold. Too cold to lash out. Too cold to beg another avowal of love. She'd thought his love had been given without condition. Connor O'Brien never did anything without condition.

India was almost glad when the hour arrived that forced her to dress for the trip to Port Hudson.

Not many miles separated Pleasant Hill from Port Hudson, although both hugged the Louisiana banks of the Mississippi, just north of Baton Rouge. Yet it seemed a different world. Here, it was stark, with tall pines and beds of needles, pelicans, and the grip of being too close to sea level.

And North had come South. The army post crawled with a nest of Union officers as well as dark-skinned enlisted men. Strangely, Connor didn't feel at home with his brethren.

He'd felt at home at Pleasant Hill, with India, as if he'd at last found what he hadn't known he'd been looking for. Of course, she'd been fractious at the way their wedding night had turned out. Connor hadn't enjoyed it, either.

Earlier, as they had dressed in their bedroom on the morning following their wedding day, she'd admitted, “I didn't want you to marry me because you felt you must. I thought you couldn't stand the idea of
not
marrying me.”

“I couldn't.” This in no way had appeased her.

Her too-quiet mood remained while surrendering to the commander of the Port Hudson district. Her head high, her expression as brave as the most gallant of foot soldier, she marched into General George Andrews's office. “I am India Marshall O'Brien, fugitive from justice.”

General Andrews, West Point, graduating first in his class of '51, not only showed Mrs. Major O'Brien the proper respect, he also praised her good deeds of 1863. But would he grant India permission to be under house arrest at Pleasant Hill?

The Massachusetts general, showing the strain of over three years of war, leaned back in his chair. “I'm an engineer, not a man of law. We're not set up for tribunals at Port Hudson. We're training officers to command colored regiments.”

“Are you saying my trial will be moved?” India asked.

“Could be. The New Orleans district is better suited.”

Connor spoke, not fawning articulation, but the truth. “Sir, you're well known as a forthright man. And your reputation as an intellectual precedes you. I believe in my heart you can and will render a just verdict. Hear my wife's story.”

“Major, our courts ensure objective trials. I've known your bride for some time, and I fear my sentiments would set her free, even if she were proven a murderess of Mr. Lincoln.”

That was exactly what they were counting on.

“General Andrews, sir,” Connor said, “all it would take is to contact the War Department in Washington for a complete report. I've been there. I know their sentiments. They know my wife brought comfort to Rock Island, not treachery.” They also knew a faux sanitarian had failed to appear on a certain train, but why repeat it? “I can attest to her humanitarian efforts, since I, myself, was then acting commander of Rock Island.”

The general gave a snort of irony. “Sir, we are both obviously partial.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Connor's mouth. “That's what we're counting on. Will you preside?”

“Affirmative.” The general nodded once; India exhaled, worst fears assuaged. “You have a week to collect witnesses and evidence.”

If not for the impropriety of it, Connor would have swept his wife in his arms.

Andrews wasn't finished. His voice grew stern. “I'll do it, but be warned. If she's guilty, I cannot in good conscience allow her to go scot-free.”

Words. Would he put them to deed? What if he did? As the Bible promised, the truth would make her free. And Connor still had the urge to sweep her into his arms.

 

 

She never went to those arms. Their marriage continued in the limbo of name-only. Her guard remained up, no matter what Connor said or did, no matter how hard he tried to convince her that honor had been secondary. He couldn't get the point across: he'd married foremost for love.

 

 

“God love her.”

“Leave the Almighty outta this,” Phoebe demanded of her lamp-clutching sister. “My little India's in trouble, and it's up to us to help her.”

They had reached Pleasant Hill, the sisters and Eugene, at the crack of dawn on the day after India had turned herself in. That was a week ago. A long week in which Phoebe, desperate, had begged for a wish. It didn't look good for dear India.

Connor hadn't come up with any concrete evidence to merit stalling the trial. The prosecution being ready to go, thanks to a star witness who needed to get back to his post in Illinois, George Andrews ordered the proceedings underway.

He was just being fair.

Huh!

The world was a bushel of unfair. While Eugene claimed no interest in observing in the court, and had indeed gone fishing with the boy called Catfish, Phoebe figured to cajole a little sense into this awful old world.

“Sister,” said she, “that lamp's getting tarnished. Might I polish it for you, hmm?”

“No.”

Tessa repeated her negative reply a half dozen times while the sisters took passage on the
Edna Gal,
bound for Port Hudson from the Marshall plantation.

Arrived, treading through a nest of pine needles—the ruins of Confederate redoubts lining the big river—Phoebe and Tessa made a beeline for Headquarters, where the trial would convene in the commander's office. “Tessa, don't go in there like this. They'll laugh at you.”

Tessa, stubborn as a Missouri mule, still held on to their only hope. Held on to the lamp, and was chained to it. Links of brass chain banding her thick middle, Tessa O'Brien had padlocked herself to her treasure.

“Phoebe, I've endured years of ridicule over my suitor. I'm immune to mockery.”

“You'll have those Yankees thinking the O'Briens are batty as a hatter. What kind of impression will that give?”

“We aren't on trial. Anyway, everything will turn out for our couple. There's no need to worry.”

“No need to worry! Tessa O'Brien, ‘our couple' hasn't a scrap of evidence to prove she went into that prison camp without malice. She's a Reb by birth. We both know she's neither Rebel nor Yankee, not in spirit, but how can she convince those Blue Bellies to the contrary? And now that reprobate Roscoe Lawrence has talked himself out of trouble, up in Natchez.” Lawrence, his church-mouse wife Opal in tow, had arrived at Port Hudson three days earlier. “He's set to testify against sweet India.”

“Trust the magic, Phoebe. Trust the magic. I asked for happily-ever-after, and it shall be.”

They paraded into the courtroom.

Lordy mercy, did Tessa cause eyebrows to shoot heavenward, her being gripped by and to that talisman lamp.

The sisters sat side-by-side on an old church pew to the rear of General George Andrews's office; Phoebe made another pitch for a wish. “We're fools if we take chances.”

“Hush, Phoebe. There's that despicable Colonel Roscoe Lawrence, right over by the door.”

Full of fire and chomping on a cigar, he lumbered into the courtroom with a book tucked under his arm; at the same moment some sergeant called, “All rise.”

Parking his big behind into the witness stand, Lawrence gave his version of the lowdown on India. “She stole into my prison camp like a thief in the night, she did. Coerced my second-in-command to do her bidding.” He jabbed two big, cigar-anchoring fingers toward the small figure who sat pale next to her even paler husband. “If that weren't enough, she escaped from a train bound for her trial in Washington. 'Twas wiles she used, Gen'ral. Wiles. Else, she wouldn't be a Mrs. today.”

Everyone in the courtroom had heard the official part, India having confessed as much to George Andrews, the first time she'd seen him. But coming from the commander of Rock Island Prison Camp, it sounded all the worse.

“General Andrews.” Lawrence readjusted his weight while flipping ashes on the floor. “I got me a sworn deposition from a soldier under my command at Rock Island. Corporal by the name of Deuteronomy Smith. If that ain't enough, I've got one signed by Dr. Vernon Hanrahan, camp surgeon. Furthermore, I got this.” He lifted a journal. “This here's where Major La Dee Dah O'Brien signed a pardon for Captain Mathews Marshall, Confederate Army. Been told 'round here the pardonee and the impostress are brother and sister. That woman brung La Dee Dah to let him go. Back to Jeff Davis's army, would be my guess.”

“It's no crime to pardon a prisoner, and Matt didn't return to the other side,” Tessa, confident, whispered to Phoebe. “Who'll take that nasty old colonel's word to heart?”

“His fellow Yankees, that's who. They don't care if he got charged with attempted murder. He got out of it.”

Why even repeat that the Yankeefied War Department, all keyed up over Sherman's campaign in Georgia, had better things to do than send records pertaining to a woman suspected of spying?

Phoebe, hands in her lap, twisted a handkerchief. “With Antoinette laid up like a vegetable, it's her uncle's word against Connor's and India's.”

General Andrews banged a gavel. “Order in the court.”

That shut Phoebe up momentarily, even before Tessa scolded, “If you don't settle down, you're going to have an apoplexy.”

Out of the side of her mouth, Phoebe whispered, “I'll settle down when you give me that lamp.” She might as well have been talking to Antoinette. “Sister, the deck is stacked against our India.”

“There's a slew of officers hereabouts who can testify not only to her good character, but also her good deeds during the siege.” Tessa gave a so-there nod. “If that's not enough, Zeke Pays says he'll testify in India's defense, and he's already sent off for his neighbor lady's deposition. Mr. Pays told that lady the whole story.”

“Hearsay, Sister. Hearsay.”

The gavel hit the desk, twice. Hard. “If you ladies can't be silent, I'll have to ask you to leave.”

Nothing more got said between the sisters, but Phoebe was prepared to bop Tessa's head to get that lamp, then string her up with her own chain.

Lawrence finished his damning testimony, was granted permission to step down. He swaggered past his former subordinate and the accused, mouthing, “Gotcha, Pretty Boy.”

The gavel went bang again, and Lawrence was gone.

“Next witness.”

A Blue Belly, one of the guards outside the door, entered the office. “Begging your pardon, General Lawrence, but Mrs. Roscoe Lawrence has asked to speak to the court.”

What the dickens would she have to say?

 

 

India's eyes rounded when Opal Lawrence approached the makeshift stand in the crapped office, now the courtroom of General George Andrews.

Connor placed his hand over India's, squeezing gently, sending love. She believed in his love, but how could she trust his reasons? But this wasn't the time for personal thoughts. She faced Opal Lawrence and the man who was her judge and jury.

Faded hair pinned away from a tired face, Opal wore a dress too heavy for Southern summertime and carried her ever-present ear trumpet. Pinched lips showed years of putting up with a lout. A woman ill-used described her.

Sad eyes swayed to the judge. “General, you'll be patient with me, I pray. I have an affliction.” Her voice rang off-key, as always. “But surely you won't assume me stupid just because I cannot hear as well as you.”

General Andrews nodded respectfully to Mrs. Lawrence. “Ma'am, I'm eager to hear whatever you have to say.”

“Mind if I come closer?” He didn't mind, and she let a corporal pull her chair right next to the general's. After Andrews repeated his question, she said, “It's about my husband. He is not being fair to Miss Marshall, I mean, Mrs. O'Brien. Roscoe Lawrence is not a fair man, period.”

India couldn't believe her ears. Opal Lawrence, the most loyal of wives, had turned against her adored husband?

Stealing a glance at Connor, India saw a smile working its way across his tight mouth. He winked. His teeth flashed in triumph before he forced a solemn mien again.

“I am here, Your Honor, for two reasons,” said Opal. “Firstly, our niece was grievously injured at the hands of Roscoe Lawrence. General, sir, he forced himself on that girl for years, but I refused to acknowledge it. In Natchez, when I found out what happened to Antoinette, I had to accept the truth. He corrupted an innocent girl.”

The prosecutor shot to his feet. “That's irrelevant to the case before the court.”

“What did he say?” Opal asked; Andrews told her. “It may sound irrelevant to you, but it all ties together. Roscoe is a bitter man for not being born rich or handsome. It turned him mean-minded. He hated Major O'Brien from the first. Vowed to bring him down. Furthermore, my husband hated the Confederate prisoners in his keeping. He tried to starve them, left them sick and unprotected against the cold of Illinois. India Marshall O'Brien may have impersonated a sanitarian, but she was an angel. Without her, many of those boys would have died.”

Roscoe Lawrence burst into the courtroom. “Opal, what the hell are you saying!”

Glancing at his sergeant-at-arms, Andrews arced a finger toward Lawrence. “Restrain him, and get him out of here.”

It took more than one soldier to do it. Being led away, Lawrence screamed, “Don't listen to a word my wife says. She's just mad 'cause she thought I did something to Antoinette. Which”—the rest came with a slamming of door—“ain't true.”

“Go on, Mrs. Lawrence,” the general urged, building India's hopes.

The prosecutor objected again.

“I'll hear what she has to say, then I'll give a ruling.” Andrews laced his fingers, rested them on the desk. “Go on, Mrs. Lawrence.”