Afternoon of November 23, 1864
Macon, Georgia
Reverend Hess knocked on the door of the Collins home and waited. Eli knew every inch of the expansive front porch with its elegant white wicker furniture. How many times had he served his sister and her husband drinks here on a warm summer’s evening enjoying a cool breeze? Not a thing had changed in the six years he had been gone.
It made his skin crawl to be back. He had hoped never to darken this door again, and now he voluntarily returned. He hoped not for long.
A black serving woman opened the door. It was Betsey, whom Eli knew, larger than ever and now hunched with age. Eli feared she might recognize him, but she hardly gave him a look and focused her attention on Reverend Hess.
“Good afternoon, Colonel,” she said.
Hess nodded to her. “We’ve come to see Mrs. Collins, Betsey. I’ve brought a cousin of hers who’s come to visit.”
Betsey glanced at Eli, looking puzzled. She knew the Collins family inside - out, and obviously thought it strange she did not know Eli. However, she did not question the colonel and instead invited them inside.
“You can wait in the parlor while I fetch Miss Deb.”
She showed them to a room Eli knew too well. He walked in and his heart stopped. Sitting in the corner in a wheelchair was his father, Major James Smith, a maroon comforter spread across his lap, his hands resting on it, his head hanging forward and the left side of his face twisted into an unnaturally contorted grin, while the right was relaxed and his eyelid dropped. His eyes fluttered up at them as they entered.
“Major,” said Betsey, “these are guests come to see your daughter. You know the Colonel Reverend Hess. I’ll leave you with them while I go fetch Mrs. Collins.”
Betsey turned and left.
Eli walked up to the Major, oblivious to his two companions. He could not stop himself. He knelt down to look into his eyes. The old man’s head trembled and a thin line of drool trailed down his left cheek. How he loathed the man. How many times had he fantasized seeing him lead a rebel charge and shooting him dead. Yet like it or not, his blood flowed in Eli’s veins, and nothing would ever change that.
Their eyes met, and in them Ellie saw only the faintest hint of the man she once knew. He seemed to try to speak, but only a weak strangled caw, like a dying crow, came out. A part of her hoped he lived like this a long, long time, a prisoner in a ruined body, drooling like an infant and only able to watch helplessly as his way of life collapsed around him. He certainly would not be raping anymore slaves.
Behind her Ellie heard someone enter the room.
“Reverend Hess,” said a voice she knew very well. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”
“I’ve escorted your Cousin Elijah Johnson here to see you.”
Behind him Ellie heard Hess walk across the room to greet Debra.
Ellie simultaneously reached into her breast pocket and into her belt, withdrawing her two pistols. She winked at the old man, and then swiftly stood to face her sister.
“Do not move. Do not speak. I swear I’ll shoot you dead if you do.”
Debra’s pasty complexion turned an even paler shade of white. Colonel Hess reached for his side arm and Ellie pointed the gun in his right hand directly into his face. “Move one more inch and I will send you to hell.”
The young private fumbled with his musket and Ellie nearly laughed. It was not loaded, and did the boy really think Ellie would wait while he bit open a cartridge, dropped the powder and bullet down the barrel, rammed it home and placed a firing cap under the hammer so he could shoot her?
“Drop the gun, boy,” said Ellie in a tone that caused the boy to stop. He looked plaintively at Hess for some hint of what he should do.
“Now,” said Ellie, and the boy dropped the gun to the floor.
“Who have you brought into my home, Reverend Hess?” stammered Debra. She clutched her breast, shaking.
Hess’s face flushed. “He said he was your cousin, Mrs. Collins. At first, I had my doubts, a man of his age not being in the army, but he appeared to know so much about your family I finally accepted he must be a relative. I should have heeded my suspicions. I fear he’s nothing but a clever scallywag deserter from our army who has heard of your family and come to rob you.”
Hess’s hand still hovered above his pistol, and Ellie said, “Zachary, if you don’t put your hands up I will shoot you, and gladly.”
“How dare you address me by my Christian name, you scoundrel?” Hess sputtered. “How do you even know it?”
Ellie smiled. “Oh I know all of you very well indeed. In fact, you weren’t really wrong about me. I am related to Debra.”
“Sir,” said Debra, “I have no notion of who you are. But if it’s money you want, take it and leave us in peace. We are a prominent family, and if we come to harm you will be hunted down, I promise you.” Her expression was a mixture of fear and defiance.
As Ellie looked at Debra, out of the corner of her eye she saw Hess lunge for his gun. She shot him in the arm. Hess’s gun clattered to the ground as Debra screamed, her hands flying to her cheeks.
Hess cursed, his face contorted in pain, an expanding patch of red soaking his sleeve from above the elbow. The boy made as though to lunge at Ellie, but stopped dead when she pointed a gun at his face.
“Don’t,” she said.
Behind her the old man made a strange keening sound, and Ellie was glad the house was so big and far from others in the neighborhood it was unlikely anyone else could hear the commotion.
Betsey burst back into the room, stopping dead at the sight of Ellie’s guns.
“Shut up, all of you,” snarled Ellie. Turning to Hess, who whimpered in pain, she said, “Step back.”
He staggered back a few steps, and Ellie stooped to pick up his gun.
“Now I want all of you to sit down.” She waved to a long sofa upholstered in yellow silk at the end of the room. “But not you, Betsey,” she said as Betsey took a step. She stopped and waited while the others did as they were ordered.
“My jewels are in my bedroom upstairs,” pleaded Debra. “Take them. They’re worth a small fortune.”
Ellie ignored her. “Betsey,” she said, “is William Craft here?”
Betsey looked at her, amazed. “How you know that?” she stammered.
“Betsey,” said Ellie, “go get William and bring him. You won’t be harmed, but if you don’t bring him directly, I’ll shoot these people. Don’t raise the alarm, just go get him.”
Betsey nodded and hobbled off as fast as she could.
“What do you want with that worthless nigger Billy?” said Debra, looking at her intently. “How do you know so much about this house?”
The Major still keened behind Ellie, and she turned to him and snapped, “Shut the hell up you old goat.”
Amazingly, he did, but gazed back at her with an expression of pure hate. Ellie suspected he knew who she was, and was glad of it. She wanted him to know.
Ellie heard an odd clumping coming down the hall, and then Betsey backed into the room looking terrified. A black man stepped into the doorframe. It was William, and Ellie’s heart leapt. Then she saw the shotgun he in his hands, pointed at her.
“Drop those guns or I’ll blow your damn head off,” he said.
“Thank God,” said Debra, rising up from the couch.
“William,” Ellie said, wanting to run and throw her arms around him.
“I said drop that gun, you dirty scallywag, or I’ll shoot you dead.”
Ellie took off her hat and tossed it behind her.
“It’s me, William. It’s Ellie.”
William’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open in an expression that would have been comical had Ellie been in a mood to laugh. “Ellie?” he said softly.
She nodded, tears springing to her eyes.
The shotgun slid from his fingers and dropped to the floor with a clatter at the same time that Debra shouted, “Ellie??”
Ellie stepped toward William but then heard movement from the couch and swung back to find Debra advancing on her, rage on her face. Ellie leveled her guns on her. “Don’t take another step, Debra, or I swear I’ll shoot you through your heart, if you have one.”
Debra stopped, her eyes ablaze in her plain, narrow face. “How dare you point a gun at me? How dare you address me by my Christian name? I’ll have you beaten within an inch of your life, you ungrateful, unnatural monstrous bitch. After all I did for you, all I gave you, and this is how you repay me?”
“You’re calling me unnatural?” said Ellie, incredulously. “You, who kept your own sister as a slave, and you think I’m the monster?”
Debra raised a shaking hand and pointed a finger into Ellie’s face. “What did you ever want for? What did I ever deny you?”
“I worked day and night and you gave me a room. I waited on you hand and foot and you gave me your hand me down clothes. I cooked for you and you gave me the scraps from the table when you were done. That’s what you ‘gave’ me. But what you denied me would fill a book. You denied me education. You denied me opportunity. You denied me the security of a family I could keep forever. But most of all you denied me freedom.”
“You’re a Negro!” shouted Debra.
“Yes, I am,” spat back Ellie.
“You are not my equal. You never will be. You never can be. Let the damn Yankees do what they will, nothing will ever change the fact of your inferiority. Your ingratitude only proves it. We were fools to think we could be your salvation.”
A rage like molten iron in her veins seized Ellie. Her finger tightened on the trigger of the gun in her right hand and for a brief instant she wanted to kill her. Debra Collins would never understand who she was or what she had done. No matter what Ellie did or said, no matter what she accomplished or how many times she proved Debra wrong, she would never admit they were equals. Ellie wanted to bring her low for it, to force her to humble herself. She wanted Debra to see herself as Ellie saw her, cruel, ignorant, self-absorbed, bigoted and blind. But where Ellie saw a demon, Debra, she knew, only saw pious self-righteousness.
And then Ellie laughed. At first she did not even know why, but the harder she shook the more it dawned on her what Debra’s life would be like. The South would lose the war. She had lost her husband. Her old goat of a father was a dribbling idiot. Her whole way of life, her whole notion of what was high and what was low, was about to come crashing down around her. And she would never understand it, was incapable of grasping what was happening or why. She would go to the end of her days bitter and unhappy, a lonely old woman unloved and unmourned, mystified as to why God had deserted her.
“What are you laughing at?” Debra demanded.
“You, dear sister. I am laughing at you. You are such an ugly old toad I almost feel sorry for you. Almost.”
Debra raised a hand to strike Ellie, but Ellie was faster and gave her a backhanded slap across the face with the barrel of her gun. Debra staggered backwards, her hand to her cheek, stunned.
“Don’t ever raise your hand against me,” Ellie said low and calm. “Never again. Ever.”
Hess and the young boy rose from the couch when Ellie struck Debra, and she waved her gun at them. “Sit back down,” she commanded.
They abruptly did.
A hand touched her shoulder from behind and she swung around, wound tight as a spring. It was William.
“What’s your plan, Ellie?” he said.