Juliet's Moon (9 page)

Next to me I heard Martha struggling. Then Seth's voice. "It's all right, girls. We've come to take you away."

Martha becalmed herself. So did I. Next thing you know, I was lifted in somebody's strong arms, but not Seth's. It was a moonless night. "My pillowcase," I whispered, "it has all my things."

I was allowed to retrieve it, and I suppose Seth let Martha have hers. Then we were whisked away into the nearby woods, soundlessly. There was a stream. They waded through it. I assumed that the man carrying me was a guerrilla. I could feel the stitching on his shirt. A few more yards and I heard horses nickering. I could smell them, and the leather saddles. Then I was lifted and put onto the back of one and my rescuer mounted and picked up the reins and quieted his mount. "Easy, girl."

"Hello, Juliet, how you doin'?"

"Seth!" I managed a sob.

"Hush, no crying here, girl. Let's go, Bill."

So it was Bill Anderson, Martha's older brother. How lucky she was to have her brother and her husband come tearing through the night like heroes in a fairy tale to rescue her.

I clung to Bill's waist and he had his horse follow Seth's. Not on the road but through fields and woods on trails only they knew about. Talk was intermittent. They asked how we felt. Had we been treated well? There were no words on that subject. How can you tell about witnessing the death and burial of a three-year-old boy?

Our silence was taken as testimony by Seth, and he let go with a handsome round of curses, then fell silent.

"I'll kill them all," Bill said. It was the way he said it that sent chills through me, like someone would say "It's raining outside," or "I'll take the gravy now, please."

"Martha is sickly," I told Seth.

"You're not so robust yourself," she answered back. Then to Seth, "She had to go to the Yankee doctor the other day. Her head was bleeding. She's supposed to rest and doesn't."

"We'll get you to a place to rest," Seth promised.

"Where?" I asked.

"My place," he said. "We're going back to my place."

I
T WAS
a two-day ride back to Seth's place, or at least a ride that required an overnight camp in the fields or woods. We stopped at sundown, only because Seth was afraid for my health. And Martha's.

They had food with them, beef jerky and other trail food, coffee to brew, and some canned sardines they'd taken off dead federal soldiers. At supper they talked of the war and of the other girls still at Leavenworth too maimed to travel.

Jenny Anderson was dead, of course, but now we found out that Mary survived but was crippled in the head. Fanny was still recuperating in the hospital. Bill Andersons face went dark when he spoke of it. "So many dead," he said. "I have a personal vendetta to fight now. To hell with the Yankees."

Then Seth took me aside and undid the bandage on my head, washed the wound, bandaged it again tightly, and gave me some of the medicine Dr. Powers had sent along.

"You're not as angry as Bill is," I told him.

"Some people have to let it out. Do things," he said. "You should know. He isn't the same as before the building fell and he lost Jenny. He thinks nothing of killing Yankees now. People are starting to call him 'Bloody Bill.'"

I gave a snort. "Not Bill."

He nodded silently. "He always did have a streak of violence in him. But he managed to keep it under cover. No more. You see that silk ribbon he's got tied to his horse's bridle with the knots in it?"

"Yes."

"It's from the sash of Jenny's dress. He puts a new knot in it for every man he kills."

I felt dizzy. "Oh. But why do you tell me this?"

"It's always best to be informed," he said. "Know the person you're talking to. So be careful with him, will you?"

I hugged him. It was a long, meaningful hug on both our parts, erasing every argument we'd ever had, sealing agreements we'd not yet made. "What would I do without you, Seth? Oh, I missed you so much!"

A
S IF THAT
wasn't enough to bring tears to my eyes, a bit later, before bed, Bill Anderson suggested that he and I "move away from the newlyweds a bit and give them some privacy."

So we did. We moved quite a bit apart from them, near the creek, and Bill built another fire and soon I was asleep beside it.

In the middle of the night I awoke, feeling someone standing over me.

It was Bill.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's starting to rain. The creek may rise. We'd better move."

"What are Seth and Martha doing?"

"Can't see 'em from here. But I'll wager he's left the place already. And he trusts me to get you out of here."

I felt an uneasiness about the whole thing. I sat up. "Let's go make sure they've left."

He put a restraining hand on my shoulder. "You wouldn't want to walk in on the bride and groom at an inappropriate moment, would you? Come on. Rain's getting heavier. There's a bit of a cave farther on in the woods. I know Seth knows it's there. C'mon, get your things."

I obeyed. After all, he was the head of Martha's family. And Seth had warned me to be careful with him, whatever that meant. So I gathered up my pillowcase, my blanket, put on my boots, and let him lead me and the horse across some rocky ground toward the woods.

A bit away from the camp we'd made he lighted a pine-knot torch so he could see better and it came to me then: He was prepared for this. This was no sudden act of God, rain or no rain. And when we did reach the woods there was no cave. Only us and the horse, and by then I was growing positively brilliant.

He was taking me away from Seth.

But what for? My mind whirled. My thoughts tumbled with possibilities. Seth had said nothing about this. Why had he let me go when Bill suggested we move out of his and Martha's presence back at their camp? What was going on?

I decided to display the one characteristic that Seth disliked in me. Boldness. "Nobody likes a bold young girl," he always said.

I quickened my pace to catch up with Bill. "You're taking me away from my brother and Martha," I said, "aren't you?"

"Now be a good girl and don't make a fuss. For just a little while, yes."

"But why?"

"You won't understand."

"After what I've been through these last few weeks, you'd be surprised at what I'd understand," I said firmly. "I'm not a little girl anymore."

"You'll always be a little girl to me, Juliet. Just like Jenny. You are just like her." He paused, and in the flickering light of the torch he peered at me. "I'm taking you away for a while, yes. Because you look so much like Jenny. And I miss her like purple hell. And I want to be with you alone for a little bit and just look at you and talk with you and hear you laugh and push back your hair and do all the things big brothers do. Because those are all the things that Seth does. And why the hell should he have you and Martha, too? You have Jenny's arms and Jenny's hands and Jenny's mouth. Oh, you don't know what it does to me, watching you."

My heart was beating very fast, hearing all this.

This man is a lunatic,
I told myself. Seth said he wasn't the same as he was before the building fell. Well, Seth doesn't know the half of it.

"I'd like to teach you things," he said. "Things I wanted to teach Jenny but didn't have the time. Will you let me?"

Fear was both a hot and a cold river running through my veins. "If you don't let me go back to Seth, I'll scream."

He hit me then. Not on the face, thank goodness, because my head was hurting again. He grabbed my wrist and whirled me around and gave my bottom a wallop. I cried out.

"You want a gag?" he asked. "I can give you one."

I said no. "But where's the cave?"

He laughed. "There isn't any. Just had to get on with you. Get us going."

"Where?"

"Where? Well, truth to tell, Juliet, I'm on my way to Texas."

I stopped. "You really are kidnapping me. Why? I never did anything bad to you, Bill Anderson. Are you going to kill me? I know they call you Bloody Bill. I know what those knots in the ribbon on your horse are for. And now you want to put one on there for me, don't you?"

He smiled. "By my sainted mother, you've got the same sand in you that Jenny had. No, I don't want to kill you. I told you, I just want to spend time with you, get to know you. I suspect it'll help clear my mind about Jenny. Now can't you do that little favor for an old fool like me?"

One minute showing violence and the next making a person pity him. "Yes," I said, "specially since Seth told me to be careful of you."

He stopped and pulled a whiskey flask out of his back pocket, took a couple of swigs, and offered it to me.

"No, thank you, I don't drink," I declined politely.

"That brother of yours never let you have a taste, did he? Just like he never let you shoot a gun. Well, before this little trip is over we'll remedy both those problems."

"Bill, please let me go back to Seth. Please."

He smiled. "Love him, do you?"

"He's the only family I've got left. He looks after me."

"I'll look after you these next few days. I told you that. Now hush."

I hushed. My head was pounding as I struggled to keep up. Finally I felt my head bleeding again, put my hand up there, and it came away with blood on it. Now I was angry. And I stopped walking. He was about thirty feet away from me when he realized I wasn't with him anymore.

He turned and held out the pine-knot torch. "Where are you?"

"I can't walk anymore."

"What are you, a Sissy Mary, that you have to stop?"

"No. My head's bleeding again. And I'm dizzy."

He came back to me, saw the blood, and cussed. "Damn, why do I have to get a damaged one?" he asked himself.

"This was your idea, not mine."

"You mind your tongue, girl. I take no sass from any of my sisters and I'll take none from you. What have you got for your head?"

I reached inside the pillowcase and got out the bandages and the laudanum the doctor had said to sprinkle on the wound. He fixed it for me with surprisingly gentle hands. Then he looked at the sky, decided it would soon be first light, and told me we'd be best off traveling nights and sleeping days.

We'd miss Seth and Martha if they came looking for us. But this was how he wanted it.

Back again in the woods, he made a clearing and another small fire. This time he shot a rabbit and insisted on showing me how to skin it. I'd never had to do this before. Never had Pa or Maxine or Seth made me. In our house, before the Yankees came, food was always plentiful, and if it was duck or rabbit, the first time I met it was on a good china plate, all done up with mashed potatoes and spinach and gravy, with candlelight and polite conversation at home.

That you had to shoot it or otherwise kill it first, I knew. But I was never made to watch, much less partake in the killing or skinning.

I cried when he showed me. I threw up. He laughed and told me that was exactly how Jenny had acted, but before she died she could do it like an old-time hunter.

"Next you learn to kill it," he promised.

I could scarce eat it.
Oh Seth,
I wondered, chewing it like it was taffy.
Where are you?

"Q
UANTRILL WANTS
to establish a winter camp in Texas," Bill Anderson was telling me. "That's what I'm supposed to be doing now. Heading to cross the Red River into Grayson County. We have some people there already. They sent a courier to tell Quantrill that the river is a hellhole, full of quicksand bogs, and to take the ferry. And that they found a good spot for the camp on Mineral Creek. But Quantrill wants me to put my stamp on it before he heads down there. Doesn't trust the scouts. Trusts me. Whadd'ya think of that?"

He was sitting next to the fire, smoking a cheroot. I
was scrubbing out the coffeepot with sand after nearly throwing up my supper of rabbit that I'd helped skin. He'd made me take a dose of the horrible whiskey to settle my stomach. I almost died from the taste of it, the way it burned going down, but then a peculiar thing happened: I got all warm inside and I didn't want to throw up anymore.

Girls do the dishes after supper, Bill had told me. At least his sisters always did, always helped the help. And a campout was no different from a fancy dining room. I didn't argue, afraid of what he might do to me.

"The courier said there's plenty of forage for the horses in Texas, and the creek is full of turtles and the like, catfish and trout. The woods are full of pigs and deer. I'd like to get there sooner than soon and make my own report to Quantrill. Do you understand?"

I nodded yes. "But I may be holding you back."

"No, ma'am," he answered. "You keep me company and that'll get me there faster. Two heads are better than one. And you lookin' so much like Jenny, well, it keeps me cheerful. I like teaching you things. We're out here in the hinterland enough so we can travel days now. And tomorrow I'm gonna teach you to shoot."

I lay there under the stars unable to sleep. I could easily slip away, I knew, if not for the fact that I did not know where I was, so there was no sense in escaping.

But lying awake was a good thing, too. For in the night lit only by a crescent moon, I saw forms moving in the nearby woods, and I trembled with fear.

Someone is out there, spying on us. No. Several someones.

I could do nothing. I felt helpless with Bloody Bill Anderson sleeping on the other side of the fire. If I woke him, what would he do? How far did the name "Bloody Bill" go with him? Would he kill them all? And if I didn't alert him, would they kill us?

Wait. Suppose the creeping dark forms were Seth and Martha and some friends come to get me?

I wanted to throw up again. I decided I needed more whiskey, so I crawled around the fire, as quietly as I could, to where Bill's flask lay beside him.

Luckily, my fate was decided for me. I knocked it over.

Before I knew what hit me, two hands grasped my wrists in an ironlike grip. "What are you doing, miss?"

"I need some whiskey."