“You don’t frighten me anymore, Geoffrey,” she said as calmly as she could. And she was thankful for the darkness that hid her nervousness. “I’ve had a long time to think about what happened, and what you think happened, and I can only feel sorry for you now. There’s no fear, and there certainly isn’t any hatred.”
“Not even for what I did to your husband?”
“Had he been a stronger man, you wouldn’t have done it.”
Hawkins took a step toward her and paused, listening to the music filling the midnight air.
“Cassandra, I didn’t follow you all the way down here just to compliment you on your escape.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“In fact, I’ve found quite a lovely home over in Meridine, and I’m thinking of staying for a while.”
“Suit yourself.”
He leaned toward her, his face scowling darkly. “Damn it, woman, I am trying to spare your sensibilities!”
“You didn’t spare them before, why should you start now?”
He raised a hand to strike her, then lowered it slowly, trembling.
Cass closed her eyes briefly, opened them, and waited. She knew she was goading him, and she didn’t know why. Out here, alone, he could do just about anything and no one would be the wiser. But somehow she sensed that keeping him off balance verbally would muddle his plans, whatever they were; and it was vitally important that he knew, that he understand here and now that she was not the same woman he had encountered in Philadelphia. She was older, she was stronger, and she had something more than revenge to fight for now.
“If you’re going to hit me,” she said, “get it over with, please. Hitting women seems to be your favorite pastime.”
He pressed his arms to his chest and swayed slightly, lowered them and moved to one side. From out of the shadows behind him another man stepped, and she smiled, nodding, while she slowly moved her left hand to the fencepost—the better to guide her should she have to clamber over.
“Mr. Forrester,” she said. “Wonderful. Everyone’s here. I hope you’re enjoying the party.”
Forrester said nothing.
“Gerald,” Hawkins said, his voice so taut he sounded as though he were being strangled. “Gerald, Mrs. Roe does not appear to be shaken by our appearance. She thinks she has matters well in hand, in fact. I do wish you would dispense a sample of what she can expect if she keeps playing her childish games.”
A brief flare of light behind them went unnoticed as Forrester deliberately stripped off his gloves and folded them before tucking them into a jacket pocket. Someone, Cass thought, had come out of the kitchen, but she dared not call out; Forrester was too close.
“It will only take a moment, Mrs. Roe,” Forrester said, grinning.
“Mrs. Roe, you all right?”
Cass slumped against the rail and swallowed dryly. “Over here, Judah. Some gentlemen seem to have lost their way out.”
Before either man could react, Judah was between them, a full head taller than either and twice as broad at the chest. Hawkins stifled a curse, wheeled, and strode away, but Forrester only looked the black over from head to foot and smiled crookedly.
“I didn’t know, Mrs. Roe,” he said without looking at her, “that you had niggers for guards.”
“Judah is a friend,” she said stiffly.
“Judah?” he said. “Fancy name for a goddamn animal.”
“If you’re trying to provoke him,” Cass said in anticipation, “don’t bother. He’s strong enough for the both of you, and I doubt Geoffrey could manage without his crutch.”
“Bitch,” Forrester spat, turned to her, then suddenly spun around, aiming a fist directly for Judah’s throat. The black man, however, had already sensed the move and his massive right hand closed over Forrester’s wrist before it reached the mark. Closed, tightened, bent the arm down and to the side, forcing the man to his knees with a painful grunt. And it might have ended there had Cass spoken quickly enough; but before she could tell Judah to drag him away, Forrester had grabbed a handful of dirt and had flung it at the black man’s face. Judah stumbled back, releasing his grip, and Forrester was on him. They stumbled, fell into a tangle, rolled over several times before the gunman sprang to his feet and aimed a kick at Judah’s head. It missed, struck a shoulder instead, and Judah grabbed for the ankle, toppling Forrester onto his back. Then he rose, reached down, yanked the man to his feet, drew back a fist and plunged it hard into his face. Cass winced at the soft sound of flesh meeting flesh, heard Forrester moan in pain. But he could not fall; Judah’s arm was straight and the gunman’s feet were barely touching the ground. Again the fist drew back, and again it struck home. A third time, and Judah let go, and Forrester swayed for a long moment before crumpling to his knees.
Cass walked over to him, grabbed a handful of hair, and yanked his face up. The blood spilled from his nostrils and two deep cuts—one over each eye—and she surprised herself by feeling no pity at all.
“You are trespassing, sir,” she said. “Judah will show you to the road. Please be so kind as not to come again.”
She turned to the black man and thought for a moment, then looked down at Forrester and felt a stone cover her heart. “Judah,” she said calmly, “if he refuses to obey you, show him the well.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
S
he had no idea how she managed to make it through the rest of the evening, but make it she did, with no one the wiser. And when the last guest had left and the servants had been ordered to their beds, she moved out to the porch, a heavy shawl about her shoulders. The satisfaction of seeing Forrester’s blood spilled had long since faded to a numbness she tried to cap with reason; it had been due him, sooner or later, and now he would think twice about drifting ghost-like in and out of her life with his vile threats and condescending manner. It sounded good, and she was almost convinced. But a few moments on her own, in the silence of the hours just before dawn, broke down the wall she had built, and she knew that what she had done, through Judah, had been tantamount to a declaration of war. Forrester would not forget his humiliation. And Hawkins would not let him. Together they would renew the madman’s scheme to bring her to her knees, only now there was an additional motive not born of the hell Geoffrey had suffered in that Gettysburg cellar: they had just as much cause for revenge as she did, and they would exact it as they always had—in their own time, at their own pace, like a noose drawn slowly and inexorably around the curve of her throat.
She smiled suddenly. For all that grim prediction, she thought as she turned back to the house, it was good, wasn’t it, to see the man humbled? First Melissa had thwarted him and now, indirectly, she had also. How galling it must be to his precious, fine ego!
She ignored the litter of the party scattered around her and hurried up to her room. She paused only once, outside the Vesslers’ door, hearing the faint sounds of an argument inside. For a moment she thought to knock, feign ignorance of the ruckus and bid them both a good night. Not that it would work, she thought as she moved on. Melissa had drunk enough wine tonight for seven men, had nearly thrown herself bodily at every man who had wanted to dance with her; it was small wonder David was angry. Though, by the same token, he wasn’t entirely blameless. She knew how he neglected her, and how she resented both that and Riverrun. Not that she blamed him for the kind of woman Melissa was turning out to be: vindictive, drinking more and more as each day wore on …
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Cass,” she muttered as she entered her room. Here she was leaping from one side to the other as if she were a judge in a separation trial. Taking Missy’s part first, then David’s, then Missy’s … the next thing you know, girl, you’ll be scolding Rachel, for crying out loud.
A
nd several months later she very nearly did. By late spring, it was evident to everyone that David and his wife were not going to last out the year in each other’s company. Cass did her best to keep them together, giving as much responsibility for the household as she dared to Missy when she was sober, then doing all the work of supervision herself when the wine levels diminished and Melissa took sick to her bed.
One evening in May they were sitting on the porch listening to the concert of night creatures and wind, when suddenly Melissa threw down her knitting. “That whore,” she said. “That foul-mouthed whore!”
“Melissa!” Cass said, surprised.
“Well, it’s true,” she whined, turning in her seat to stare at Cass. “I know how she’s trying to tie Davy up. I can see the looks she gives him, and the way he follows her around all the time. I’m not blind, Cass. And I probably would expect it of him, my bein’ so ill and all, but … but the damned woman’s black, Cassandra. Black as the goddamned dirt.”
“Melissa, please, I don’t—”
But Melissa had already gathered her work together and was heading for the door. Nothing would stop her now, and Cass decided it was about time she stopped pretending it would all blow away like smoke in a summer wind. David was behaving badly, and it appeared that Alice was doing very little to discourage him. There had been a few months during the winter when Judah had seemed to have the upper hand, a few months when peace, restless and fragile, had settled over the Vesslers until something she didn’t know what—separated Alice and Judah again, and David once more wore the look she had come to know so well.
Insane, she thought. It was bad enough that she was losing sleep waiting for Hawkins to make another move; now she had the makings of a full-blown insurrection right in her own household. And this time there was no vacillation; she knew where the blame lay and she knew what had to be done. The trouble was she wasn’t at all sure she had the strength to do it. Alice was too close to her, despite her independence, and to dismiss her … she shook her head and sighed. It was the only practical solution. She could always get another housekeeper, but she could not, these days, count on the local lawyers to give her the advice she needed.
There had been a brief respite after the party last October—primarily because most of the profits from the last tobacco crop were spent in Meridine on her debts—but now a few of the merchants were once again grumbling, and this time the banker, Jennings, had given her a deadline; at the end of the fall harvest he was calling in his loan. She would make it, she was positive. The first corn was growing well in almost perfect weather, and the second had just finished planting, along with the tobacco. She even thought she’d be able to sell a few of the hogs to get some of her troubles off her back. But it was the knowledge of that pressure, not the pressure itself, that made her jumpy, made her detest the shadows and the trips into town.
If they would just stand away for a while, she thought, just stand away and give me some air.
In June, several horsemen rode through the servants’ plot and dropped torches on the shacks. Nothing was fired that couldn’t be extinguished easily, and after a few nights of posting guards, Cass nearly relaxed. Then, a week later, it happened again, and shortly before noon of the following day, she was in Garvey’s office.
“I think Mr. Vessler—” the sheriff began, and sputtered into silence when Cass thumped a fist on his leather-topped desk.
“Mr. Vessler works for me,” she said. “And I am demanding that you do something about those—those murderers!”
The jail was a single-story brick building set well back from the main street and hidden beneath a canopy of ancient willows and stout elms. The outer room looked very much like a lawyer’s sanctum, and the only sign that there were cells beyond the thick inner wall was the muffled sound of someone singing a sprightly Stephen Foster tune as though it were a dirge. Cass couldn’t help a nervous look to the connecting door. Garvey, seeing the break in her concentration, rose quickly and walked to it proudly.
“Looks like wood, don’t it?” he said. “Ain’t. Just the outside. In the middle’s two-inch iron. Can’t have that show, though. Bad for visitors.”
Cass smiled weakly, the music fading from her ears as she remembered her anger. “It’s very clever,” she said. “So what are you going to do for me?”
“Mrs. Roe, I don’t really know what I can do.”
I don’t believe this is happening, she thought helplessly.
“I would think,” she said, when she could control herself again, “that you would take some of your men and get into the hills, find those men and bring them in. If you need something in writing, I’ll give it to you.”
Garvey sauntered back to his desk and perched on the edge. “Mrs. Roe, if I do that, and you can’t point those boys out to me what burned your niggers’ homes, you’re gonna make a lot of unnecessary trouble for yourself.”
“But surely I’m not the only one who’s had problems.”
“Can’t say. I hear lots o’ things, but you’re the first to come to me about it.”
Her gaze drifted from his face to the window, through which she could see a team of albino mules pulling a long timber wagon stacked with stripped pine. The man was lying. She had no doubts, and she had no proof. But somehow, some way, the law’s protection was slowly being drawn away from her and Riverrun. She scoffed to herself immediately that she thought of it, yet she was not able to unearth any other explanation. Riverrun had become a target, and she was its center; it was only a brief second before she concluded that Garvey had been gotten to, and most likely by Geoffrey Hawkins. Money? Promises? Maybe it was a threat of the kind Forrester was so expert at delivering. Whatever the reason, whatever the source—
“Mrs. Roe, are you all right?”
She rose, abruptly aware that she was dressed for working and not for town. She nodded once, brusquely, and left the man standing thoughtfully behind his desk.
H
alf an hour outside of Meridine, she slowed her horse to a walk. The sun was growing warmer as it climbed through startlingly blue sky over the low hills, and the air was filled with small clouds of gnats that hovered over the roan’s head and made it snort angrily. Cass tried to wave them away, but only succeeded in drawing the gnats’ attention to herself, and she decided that the way her luck was running she’d probably stumble across the world’s largest nest of hornets before she arrived home. A hawk screamed above the trees. A family of quail darted across the road and disappeared into a thickly grassed meadow as the forest thinned to make way for farmland. It was the perfect time of year, before the cauldron-heat of July, to enjoy the best Virginia had to offer; and she tried with a powerful wrench to lose herself in the warmth, the breeze, the muttering of a creek winding its way toward the Green River. She wanted to stop and find some flowers to grace the house. She wanted to turn back to the creek, take off her boots, and wade over the slippery small rocks that rippled the water into a silvery washboard.