The Holy Warrior (3 page)

CHAPTER TWO

CHARLES TRAPS A MAN

When Knox Winslow arrived in Boston two weeks after Chris had been pardoned, his first visit with his brother proved to be quite a shock. He had been impressed with the stately home of his New England relatives, which seemed huge and ornate compared with his own home in Virginia. He had heard a great deal about Paul Winslow, whose rapid rise as a Navy officer made him something of a hero to many.

When he had first met his second cousin, he was a little shocked to see that Paul was not a large man, as he had expected of such a warrior; his own father, Nathan Winslow, could have knocked the trim officer down with one blow. But it was common knowledge that Paul Winslow was probably the best swordsman in America, and Knox could tell instinctively that the stories of the man’s coolness under fire were not exaggerated.

“Well, Knox, how are your parents?” Paul Winslow had seen to it that the young man had been fed well; Charity had outdone herself with a meal of lobsters and homemade corn-bread dressing. Then she had shooed them into the informal study—used by their son Whitfield for his own work. There the two men relaxed and drank hot coffee.

“Pretty well, sir” was Knox’s immediate response. The twenty-year-old son of Nathan and Julie was quick in most things, Paul decided. The officer prided himself in his ability to assess a man’s character almost immediately; before he had known the young man half an hour Paul had said to
himself:
Too bad the other one isn’t of this cut!
For though Christmas was bigger and stronger, there was a decency and courtesy in Knox that the other lacked.

“They think a lot of you, Uncle Paul.” The older man smiled.
Uncle Paul.
This manner of address was customary between the older and younger generations of the Winslow clan; although he was really more distantly related, Captain Winslow appreciated the affectionate title the boy had bestowed on him. After a brief pause, Knox continued. “Grandfather Adam is fond of your father, as well. He often tells us stories of when Charles was a boy.”

As if the sound of his name had summoned him, Charles Winslow appeared at the door, and both men rose as he came in, leaning heavily on his cane. “Plague take it! I’ve got rid of that blasted idiot Cory! Now, let’s have a drink of that good whiskey, Paul!”

“Dr. Webb says you shouldn’t drink it, Father,” Paul said evenly, but there was a grin on his face, and he allowed his right eyelid to fall in a sly wink as he glanced at Knox.

“He’s a worse fool than she is! Now, obey your father, as the Good Book says. Reach me that bottle before that ebony witch comes in on her broomstick!”

Knox had told the truth: He had heard stories of Charles Winslow all his life—most of them unflattering. But his grandfather had said in his last conversation before Knox left, “You’ll find my brother different from the man in the stories, Knox. All his life he’s been his own worst enemy—and he tries to live up to the stories about himself. I’ve been praying for him for more than forty years, and God’s not going to let that time be wasted!”

The old man, Knox saw, looked like a Winslow. His bright blue eyes and fair hair had marked many of the men of his family. But age had worn him down, and illness had taken its toll. As Charles slumped into a chair, aided by his son, Knox could see that the man was very ill. His eyes were the only thing about him that seemed alive—his eyes and his spirit,
which flashed out as he commanded again, “I say get me that bottle! We’ll see if this whelp can drink like a gentleman!”

Paul winked at Knox again, then pulled down a square crystal bottle and poured three small drinks in matching glasses. Charles threw his back and breathed a ragged sigh of pleasure, then shoved the glass forward. “Again!”

Paul bit his lip and a worried look appeared on his thin face. “You really shouldn’t, Father. It’s not good—you’re not well!”

“Not good for me? You sound like that crazy doctor—and like Cory! I don’t have long to hang around here, and I’m not going to get better—so fill that glass up and don’t argue with me, son. I’m not one of your seamen, you know!”

A spark of amusement glinted in Paul’s eye. “If you were, I’d have you keelhauled. You’re more trouble than any man I ever saw. And if you don’t stop pestering Cory, she’s going to poison you.” Cory was the middle-aged black servant who served as a nurse for his father; there was a running war between the old man and the black woman.

The second drink went down, and Charles Winslow smacked his lips. “Ahhhhh! Now that’s fine-drinking whiskey.” He looked at Knox with a light in his eyes and said, “Don’t suppose any of Adam’s brood ever gets to taste good liquor? I hear the whole tribe’s got religion so bad they won’t even eat an egg laid on Sunday.”

Knox was unruffled; as his grandfather had warned, Charles’s badgering was more bluster than substance. “Why, Mr. Winslow, I guess whiskey is pretty scarce at our house, for a fact.”

“Not with your brother, though,” Charles retorted, and his bright blue eyes flew to Knox’s face. “Adam tells me the boy’s drunk enough whiskey to float Paul’s frigate.”

“Well, sir—” Knox shifted uncomfortably, and could not think of anything to say. He loved his brother Christmas, and had spent a great deal of energy defending him against the attacks of others. He had several scars to prove it. Knox was
not going to give this old man the satisfaction of agreeing to these accusations.

“Oh, never mind, never mind! Adam’s always been a great letter writer, so I know more about you than you think.” Charles smiled wickedly and added, “For example, you’ve always been jealous of your brother because he’s a big, strong fellow, and you’re a runt!”

Knox’s face turned pale, for the truth of the old man’s words hit him like a rock. “I can’t help it if I’m small.”

“You’re not small, boy; you’re just measuring yourself up against somebody else—and that’s a bad thing sometimes,” Charles warned. Knox was only marginally less than average height, and he was slight of build, but he had grown up in the shadow of his brothers, Christmas and George, both large men, and he had allowed the matter to prey on his mind.

“And you’ve always admired your brother—which bothers you a lot, because you know he’s a no-good rascal.”

“He’s not that bad!”

“Yes, he is,” Charles countered calmly. “It takes a scoundrel to know one, and I’ve spent enough time with Christmas Winslow to say with certainty that he’s one of the rotten Winslows—like me.”

“Like—like you, sir?” Knox had never met a person in his life who could admit to being a villain with such nonchalance. Most people, he knew, spent a great deal of effort trying to convince others that they were respectable. “My grandfather says you’re not so bad.”

“Your grandfather would make excuses for Judas Iscariot, boy!” Charles grinned, and slapped his frail leg with an equally thin hand. “Why, Saul Howland and I did our best to skin Adam Winslow out of every dime he had—and he never took a shot at either of us!”

“But, he says you saved his life once,” Knox argued. “He told me how you jumped in front of him and took a bullet that was meant for him.”

Charles Winslow dropped his head, and the silence in the
room ran on so long that both Knox and Paul thought the old man had dozed off. But then he lifted his head and there was a quivering smile on his thin lips and a bright light in his bright eyes. “The only good thing I ever did for that man—and he’s never forgotten it!” Then he seemed ashamed at showing weakness, and slapped his thigh again, violently. “Well, one good deed don’t make a man decent. Your brother Christmas, he’s probably done a few good deeds, but they don’t make him a good man. Sure, he may be a fine hunter, an expert trapper. But that boy has broken your parents’ hearts—and Adam’s, too. Don’t deny that, do you? No, you can’t! Still, you think he’s something just because he’s big and strong—and as stubborn a sinner as he ever was.”

“Father, you’re being too hard on Knox,” Paul finally protested.

“Got to be hard on him, Paul. Because he’s got to be tough enough to help us if that fool boy upstairs gets a chance to live.”

“Chance to live?” Knox straightened up with alarm. “He’s not going to die, is he?”

“He’s doing very poorly, Knox,” Paul said. “We’ve had him here two weeks, and he’s not made much progress. Dr. Webb tells us that he needs to get into a warm climate.”

“Why, I’m taking him home with me, aren’t I? Isn’t that why Father sent me here?”

“Well, Adam sent you here to take the boy south, but Mr. Christmas Winslow, sick as he is, has made it abundantly clear that he’ll die before he sets foot in his father’s house. How’s that for sense and gratitude, Mr. Knox Winslow?”

Knox bit his lip, for he had seen firsthand all the strife that had passed between his father and Christmas. Nathan Winslow was a strong Christian, a pillar of the church; when his firstborn son began to drink, it had broken his heart. He had tried to reason with the boy, but Christmas was blindly rebellious. The situation had rapidly deteriorated until Christmas had left home at the age of seventeen—vowing never to
return. “You’re too holy for me!” Knox had heard his brother shout as he ran out the door.

“I—I’ll find a place for him,” Knox finally said, with more conviction than he felt. His mind raced wildly, and he could not think of a single alternative.

“I’ve written Adam, boy,” Charles said, and his voice was weary with strain. He leaned back and closed his eyes, his lips moving with effort. “You know my daughter Anne married Daniel Greene.”

“Yes, sir. My folks think he’s about the best man there is!”

“Well, I guess I’ll have to agree—though I pitched a fit when my only daughter married a dirt-poor preacher. I don’t mind telling you now that I was wrong. Dan’s almost as good a man as your grandfather—and that’s about the most I can say of anybody, I guess—”

“Whut’s you doin’ wit’ dat whiskey!” A large black woman framed the doorway, her eyes big as moons. She swooped down on the old man like a hawk and pulled him to his feet. “Ah kotched you, didn’t ah? And shame on you, Mistuh Paul! Letting yo’ po’ old fathah drink hisself into his grave! Fo’ shame!”

“Guilty as charged, Cory,” Paul Winslow said ruefully. “I’ll be around to see you later, Father.”

As the huge woman practically carried Winslow out, he turned and said, “Knox—boy, you pay heed to what my son tells you. It’ll go hard for your brother otherwise.”

Paul waited until they were gone, then said, “I’ve been writing to your father, and we’ve come up with a plan. Chris will never go to Nathan’s house—but I think he’d go and stay with my sister and her husband.”

“What can I do, Uncle Paul?”

“We’ll have to trick him into it, Knox—but if you’ll do as I say, we’ll get him to agree.”

“I’ll do anything to help Chris!”

“All right. The first thing I’ll do is to try to get him to go home with you. He’ll fight that, as we already know. You join
in with me, and we’ll really put pressure on! Then, when the time is right, we offer him an alternative. He’ll be against living with a preacher; but I believe by the time we get through with him, he’ll agree to live with anybody to stay out of his father’s house.”

“It might work—if we let him think he’s making the choice,” Knox agreed. “You think Rev. Greene can put up with him?”

Paul Winslow thought back to the time when he had stood beside Dan Greene on a deck filled with dead and dying men, and he smiled and said, “Knox, I believe Dan Greene can handle just about anything that comes his way. Now, let’s go up and we can start trying to trick your fool of a brother into doing something wise for a change!”

Knox followed Winslow upstairs, and the older man stopped before the door with a word of caution. “He looks pretty bad, Knox.” Then he pushed the door open and the two men entered.

“Here’s Knox, Chris. He’s come to take you home.”

Knox stepped inside the room, which had a high ceiling, with two large windows on one wall and a fireplace on the other. There was a smell of burning pine as a log crackled, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney. A man was sitting in a chair with a red and black blanket over his lap. For a moment Knox could only stare—the skeletal figure bore almost no resemblance to his brother.
That’s not Chris!
he thought wildly.
They’ve made a mistake!

He moved closer, and a bar of bright sunlight from the glass window fell across his brother’s pallid features. “Hello, Chris.”

“Hello, Knox.” Chris had always had a lean face, but he looked like a living corpse, the flesh drawn and his blue eyes enormous in his shrunken face. The once-powerful neck was now nothing but bone and gristle, looking far too weak to hold up the large head. The full lips that Knox remembered
were thin and had a bluish cast, and were drawn back from the teeth in a grimace.

“You look like the Devil, Chris,” Knox blurted out.

“Don’t I though?” A wheezy laugh came from the thin mouth, and Chris raised a hand, saying, “Look at that! Can’t even lift a glass to my mouth!” Then he added without a pause, “And I ain’t goin’ back home with you, Knox, so keep shut about it.”

Knox knew at once that Paul had the method that would work, so he sat down and for the next two days he nursed his brother and tried to talk him into going home. The nursing had no more effect on him than the persuasion—less, perhaps, because the more he urged Christmas to go home with him to Virginia, the more the sick man shook his head.

“He just cusses and says he’ll go to hell before he goes back home,” Knox told Paul and Charles.

“Got no sense, like I said,” Charles snorted. He was having one of his better days, and the color in his cheeks was high. “I think it’s about time to spring our trap. Come along.”

He led the way to Christmas’s room and said loudly as he entered, “Well, I hear you’d rather go to hell than to live with your people. Just about what I expected, boy. You’re not only a worthless scoundrel, you’re dumb as a backwoodsman!”

Unexpectedly a smile lifted the corners of Chris’s thin lips. Charles Winslow had made several visits, and his bluntness seemed to please the sick man. He nodded now, saying quickly, “You got me figured right. Only man in this place that’s stubborner and meaner than me is you.”