Authors: Ann Rinaldi
I
NSIDE THE
front room was a desk, behind which a grizzly old man stood. "You want something, Missy?" he asked. "We got rooms, nice enough."
"No. I'm looking for Rose Smith. A young woman whoâ"
"Doan have no Rose Smith registered."
"She's with Colonel Heffernan." I near choked on the name.
"Oh, that one. Room 3D. You say you are?"
"Didn't say, but she's my sister."
"Go on up the stairs. Right at the end of the hallway."
I hurried up. Twenty-five minutes, Gabe had said. How long would it take to convince Sis Goose to come with me? Would I have to convince her? I made swift time down the hallway. Some of the doors were not marked, but there, at the end, was the room. It said 3D, but the D was hanging half off. The woodwork was dark, and although it was a bright day outside none of the brightness seemed to come in the one window at the end of the hall.
I clutched her blue velvet cloak against my breast and knocked on the door. Softly. There were footsteps inside and it opened a crack.
Through that crack I saw her familiar beautiful brown eyes, saw them go wide, heard her gasp, "Luli!"
The door creaked as it opened. I just stood there and she reached out for me and hugged me as if we'd never been parted. "Luli, what are you doing here? How did you find me?"
And then it came to her. "Gabe?"
"He's downstairs. Outside, Sis. We came after you. We saw Heffernan go into the saloon down the street. We know we have only half an hour."
"The saloon, yes. If he's there, it'll be more than half an hour. He told me he was going to see the old fort. Oh, Luli, why did you come?"
She almost wailed it. Sorrowfully.
"To bring you home. Come on now, there's no time for questions. Get your things together. And here." I held out the blue cloak. "Remember this? Gabe would like you to wear it."
She whirled on me. Her eyes blazed. "Gabe! Does he think he still has the right to tell me what to do? I'm free now, and I'm not a little girl any longer."
It took me by surprise, much as I feared it would happen. "Gabe loves you, Sis. He wants to get you away from Heffernan."
She put the cloak around her shoulders in front of a
dirty mirror. The room had a bed and a nightstand and a slop bucket. No rugs on the floor. Tattered lace curtains on the windows. I shuddered.
"Thank you for bringing this. Tell Mama that it'll help cover my delicate condition. Remember we used to play at one of us being in a delicate condition?"
"Yes, I remember." She showed, even with the cape on. Oh, what would I say to Gabe when she came down?
"How we laughed! Well, I can tell you, Luli, it's nothing to laugh about. I'm carrying a baby, a real live baby." Tears were in her eyes, and she drew the blue cloak over her tummy.
"Gabe's baby," I reminded her.
"Did you ever tell him?"
"No."
She gasped. "Why?" She turned to me.
"Because I kept my promise to you. I owed you that."
"And nobody else knows, either?"
"No."
"My God. What would they all say?"
"It's up to you to tell them, Sis. You wanted it that way."
"My mother died having me. Do you think I'll die, Luli?"
"No. Not if you come home with us and are properly cared for. Mama will get you a doctor."
"The colonel says he knows how to deliver babies. Learned it in the army. Says he's going to take care of me, Luli."
"Why would you want to go with him?"
She turned to me. "He gave me freedom."
"Then why did everyone we meet on the way here tell us you acted as if you didn't want to be with him? One person said he had your hands tied."
She looked out the window. "I can't go back with you and Gabe, even if I wanted to. Heffernan says if I run off, he'll find me and kill me. And my child. I don't care for myself, Luli. But I care for my baby. Maybe with the third generation it'll have some luck in the world."
"Gabe will protect you," I promised. "Always."
"Oh?" She turned on me. "The way he protected me from the truth of my being free?"
"Sis, I did, too. We had to. And so did Mama and Pa. And you know how they love you."
"But Gabe's love was supposed to be different." Tears came down her face and her chest heaved. She wiped her face with her hand. "Why didn't he come up instead of sending you? Sent you to do his dirty work for him."
"Sis." I took a step toward her. "Because he saw Heffernan leave. Heard him say he'd be back in half an hour. Because he's waiting for him. Come on, Sis, you can't pretend that you don't love Gabe. I know you. I know you do."
"Of course I do! I love him and I hate him for what he did to me. But if it wasn't for Heffernan's threat to kill me, at least I'd go down and give Gabe what-for. Then I'd think about forgiving him. Now that isn't possible."
"Oh, Sis, come on with me, please. We can work all these other things out. Gabe loves you so much that I think he'll die if you don't come with us. And I want you, too. We all do. You know, Pa is dying. And he wants to see you again."
That struck her. "Pa? Dying?"
"Yes. He's going fast, too. Likely he's lying there in his bed right now just waiting to see you first before he dies."
I was being unfair, I knew it. But I had to use everything I had.
She bit her lower lip and dropped her eyes. "You'd better go. He may be back any minute."
"I ... can't ... go, Sis. Not without you."
"You want Heffernan to shoot Gabe? He will, you know. He's crazy enough. And he'll shoot you, too. So go."
"What'll I tell Gabe?"
"Oh God. Tell him I love him. Tell him anything. That if he loves me and doesn't want me to be killed, he'll leave. That he'll find someone else. Explain things to Pa and Mama. Tell them I'm sorry."
She was ushering me from the room as she spoke. I was at the door. I took one last look at her. "I can shoot a gun, you know. And if you think Gabe is going to just leave on your say-so, then you're crazy, too."
She hugged me. "I'm going to keep the cloak, Luli. Thank you. Thank Gabe for coming. Tell him I'm happy."
"You're carrying his child!"
"Go, Luli, go. And don't ever run off with a scoundrel."
I
WENT SWIFTLY
downstairs and out the door. I looked up the street. Far at the end I saw a figure on horseback, talking with some other Yankee soldiers who were likely visiting the town. Heffernan!
"Luli, come quick," Gabe called softly.
I scooted to him under the cottonwood trees.
"He's coming back," Gabe said in a harsh whisper. "Where is she? Where's Sis?"
"She ... won't ... come ... down. I'm sorry, Gabe. I did my best."
"Still sees me as the master and her as the slave, is that it? Else Heffernan has got her seeing things that way."
"She said she loves you and she hates you. She said, too, that Heffernan would track her down and kill her if she left him for you."
Something inside me wouldn't let me tell him about the baby. Even now. Especially now, because he'd go crazy if he knew.
"Well, he's going to have to get past me to do it."
I picked up my rifle and cocked it. "I'll help you. Tell me what to do."
"Just watch my back. I'm going to demand he bring her down and hand her over. After all, he kidnapped her when he deserted."
"Gabe, there are other Yankee soldiers in the saloon."
"Just a gang having a last drink before they go home. They don't want a fight any more than Ma does. If he kills me," and he turned to look at me, "don't stay around. Get on your horse and go. Take my horse, too, and go back to the nuns in San Felipe. Write to Ma and she'll send someone to escort you home. You've got to promise me."
I promised him.
It took forever for Heffernan to reach the boarding-house. I could hear my heart beating. What was that other noise? Gabe's? Who was that behind the tattered lace curtain on the second floor? It was room 3D, I was sure of it. The curtains parted, and then someone was wiping the dust off the windows with a hand.
That someone was still wearing the blue cloak, I could see. And I thought, crazily, again, that if she came downstairs onto the porch with Heffernan, Gabe would see she was carrying a child.
Heffernan finally reached the boardinghouse, dismounted his horse, and without looking around started up the steps.
Two things happened then: Sis Goose came clattering
down the steps and appeared on the porch, and Gabe stood up in full view and said, "Hold it right there, Heffernan."
"Who the hell are you?" Heffernan asked, pulling out his own revolver. And I was reminded that he'd never met Gabe before.
"It's Gabe," we heard Sis tell him. "I think he's come for me."
"Gabe, is it? Oh, so this is the massa's son who didn't even have to go down to the quarters at night to get what he wanted. Who had it right in his own house. This is the massa's son who's been at you till he got you pregnant. Show him how far gone you are, Sis Goose," and he unlatched the cloak and pulled it off from her.
And there, in the light of God's good day, you could see her rounded belly.
"You see that, Gabe?" Heffernan yelled. "There's what you did and I'm willing to care for."
"Noooo," Gabe yelled and leaned over his rifle and aimed at Heffernan. But Heffernan fired first. The shot was loud and seemed to echo right through town and bounce off the old boards of buildings and bring out the people.
Gabe doubled over and clutched himself, and I thought,
Oh God, dear God, don't let him be hurt bad.
I went to him and leaned over him. "Gabe?"
"It's my shoulder. But I can get one shot in."
"Let me do it."
"I have to try, Luli. You have to let me."
He stood up and Heffernan waited, laughing.
"Gabe, don't," Sis Goose begged.
"Move out of the way, Sis," he said.
She moved, a big answer to him on her part, and Gabe fired but missed. Between his bleeding shoulder and the knowledge of Sis Goose carrying his child, he was completely undone.
He slumped down. "He's all yours, hon," he said to me. "Give it your best. Remember what we taught you."
I stood up and took aim.
Heffernan laughed. "So he sends his little sister to do his fighting for him now."
"She's good," Sis Goose said. She'd moved back to Heffernan.
"I'm wearin' proof of it," he said. "This little witch is crazy."
"Move, Sis," I barked at her. A hundred words I wanted to say, but that was all that was good for now.
"Don't, Luli, please. Don't you remember?" she asked.
"I don't because you don't. You use your memories and hopes to play people, so I don't, now move."
Heffernan pushed her away and aimed at me. No going back now. I aimed true, steady, unafraid, as I'd been taught. Then I fired.
Just as I took aim, or some second in eternity afterward, Heffernan pulled Sis Goose toward him. More in front of him, to be exact.
There. In that spot where the heart is.
This time the shot didn't ring out. This time there was a deathly thud and it stopped, right in the center of Sis Goose's forehead.
She took the shot for him. Not because she wanted to but because he wanted her to. She took it and crumpled right at his feet.
Sis Goose was dead. I screamed. I remember screaming and screaming, and I remember Gabe crawling over to me, and with one arm around me saying, "Stop it, Luli, stop it!" All half delirious-like. And then, raising his head to look at the porch of the boardinghouse, and saying, "Oh my God, what's happened? Oh my God!"
And then I do not remember any more. At all.
H
ERE IS WHAT
they told me happened next.
There were people in the town after all. Half a dozen of them came running on hearing the gunshots. And those soldiers came who were on their way home.
All of them still very much officers, one of them a doctor, like the whole thing had been planned by the gods. First they had to decide who was in charge. Then they had to see to Sis Goose, but before they could do that they had to pull her away from Gabe. He was sitting on the porch, rocking her back and forth in his arms.
"She's dead," one of them told Gabe as they gently pried his hands loose. "Son, she's dead." Turned out he was the doctor. "You have to let her go, son."
Dead. Free, finally. Sis Goose was free. And I wondered what things would have been like if the Texas plantation owners had told their slaves they were free over two years now. There would be no Heffernan at our place. There would be no Sis Goose dead.
"And that blood on your shirt isn't all hers," the doctor
went on kindly. "Come on, son. It's yours. You're shot. Let's see to it."
"Only if you bring her along," Gabe muttered. "I'll not let her go."
They promised they would see to her only because Gabe wouldn't release her. We all, Heffernan included, were escorted to the saloon.
It seems the saloon was the most decent place they had in town. There everything was polished and clean. The doctor went ahead to prepare a settle in his "surgery," a back room where he'd already treated some townspeople. The officer who carried Sis Goose back set her down on a settle and covered her with a blanket.
"Who shot her?" asked Major Cogan, the officer in charge.
I wanted to speak. I wanted to tell them it was me. But I couldn't. Some force, some hand, had reached out of the heavens to strangle me after that first scream when I saw Sis Goose crumple to the ground. I plunged into a whirlwind of silence, as if into a creek of warm water that was now up to my neck. And I didn't want to get out.
Gabe said, "He shot at us first. He hit me and I went down. My sister picked up her gun to defend us. He was aiming to shoot her. And the moment she fired heâhe pulled Sis in front of him. That's what we call her. Sis Goose. Her real name is Rose Smith."
Major Cogan looked at me. He was not tall by any means, but there was an air of command about him. He
was young, too, with long sideburns and a pointed beard on his chin. "Is that the way it happened?" he asked.