I FELL ASLEEP as the air around us thickened and the woods pulsated with things that were not to be seen. Likely in those woods were loose animals and our own negroes, hiding from the Yankees. Negroes could be stealthy. They could disappear from you in plain sight inside the house. I had personally seen them do it. Me, I could never hide from anybody. When I’d done mischief, no matter what pains I took to conceal myself, I stood out like a cut on Seth’s face that he’d made shaving.
I slept right through it all, like I was dreaming it, until I heard that voice.
“Juliet? Hey, Juliet.”
Seth. Waking me early to go riding with him. Or to see a newborn foal in the barn. I stirred myself, and awoke to the gray haze. I coughed, sat up. Seth was below me on his horse. He was wearing all his fighting gear, from the high-topped cavalry boots into which he’d tucked his pants, to the gray shirt Martha Anderson—his sometime sweetheart—had made for him, with the red embroidered stitching and all the pockets for ammunition.
He had four revolvers tucked into his holsters and wide leather belt and another four on his finely bred horse. He looked like a knight in one of my books. He was lean but broad of shoulder, over six feet and at ease in his own body, clean shaven, with a mouth that Martha Anderson teased “curled up even when he wasn’t smiling,” so that he didn’t look threatening, no matter how many guns he wore.
From beneath his wide-brimmed hat he looked up at me with those sad eyes of his, which were fringed with black lashes any girl would envy.
Still, he was shy enough for girls to be smitten with him at first glance. But he was my brother. And he better make sure he always knew it.
“Juliet, you all right?” he asked.
“She be fine, Master Seth,” Maxine told him. “I been keepin’ an eye on her.”
And then it all came tumbling down on me. The Yankees. Pa dead. The house and barn burned. The animals and servants run off. I started to stutter it out to Seth, but the tears came too fast and before I knew it, I was sobbing and feeling five years old again.
Sue Mundy was forgotten. Especially when Seth reached both arms up to me. “C’mon down, baby.”
I went to him, let him enfold me in his strong arms. He set me in front of him on the horse, so close I could hear his heart beating and smell the woodsmoke, tobacco, and rum on him. Traitor, I told myself. You like playing the little sister after all.
“Take the mule, Maxine,” he directed. “It’s the only animal I’ve been able to find on the place.”
“It’s Bleu,” I reminded him. Bleu was known for his stubbornness. Only Seth could control him, not even Pa.
“I’d like to see the welcome he gave the Yankees,” Seth said. “Wonder how many he kicked. Surprised they didn’t shoot him.”
“Haven’t you seen my Caboose?” I asked Seth. Had the Yankees shot him? My beloved horse?
“No, honey. Likely he’s with the others in the woods. When they get hungry, they’ll come back.”
“To what?”
“I’ve alerted the negroes in the woods to bring them to my place. It’s where they’ll go, too.”
“Can we go there now?”
“No. I’m taking you to the Andersons.”
“I don’t want to go to the Andersons.”
“I’m afraid what you want doesn’t come into it now, Juliet,” he said with mild firmness.
As we neared the house, Maxine reminded him. “Master Seth, we’ve got to bury your father.”
“It’s all taken care of. Did it soon’s I got here. You two were both sleeping so I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Did you bury him next to Ma?” My voice quivered.
“Yes.” He squeezed my shoulder. “And at the proper time we can come back and say some prayers over their graves. And leave some flowers.”
“Pa didn’t like flowers,” I reminded him. “He said they made him sneeze.”
“Well, right now the flowers are for us more than for him, Juliet,” he said quietly.
“Seth, I was hoping we could go to your new house,” I pushed. “I’ve never been there. But I heard about it from Pa.”
“What did you hear?”
“That it’s deep in a hollow and you need a map to find it and it’s a lot like this one and it’s probably where you take all your ladyloves.”
He sighed. “I have only one ladylove and she’s too much of a lady to go there with me until we’re hitched proper-like.”
“Martha Anderson,” I said.
“And how do you know so much?” He poked me in the ribs.
“A person could be an owl in daylight and see that much,” I teased. “Anyway, Pa said you strung her along too long while you ran around with your fast women.”
He sighed again. “Without his help I couldn’t have built that place, the mean old codger,” he said.
“You’re not supposed to talk that way about the dead,” I scolded him.
“Why not? I talked that way about him when he was living. And he knew it, too.”
I started to cry again. My shoulders shook.
“Here,” he said, “you’re exhausted. Your spirit is worn down. Lean your head back and let the horse’s gait rock you to sleep.”
I leaned back on him. “Seth?”
“Umm?”
“Maxine says I have to respect you now, ’cause you’re all I’ve got. Is that right?”
“You just mind what I say and we’ll be all right. No need for me to pull rank on you.”
“Do I have to call you Master Seth, like she’s doing?”
“You do and I’ll build a closet in my house and put you in it.”
“So what will you do if I’m bad?”
“You planning on it?”
“Well, I can’t be good all the time. I’ll get the ague or something. I can’t promise you that, Seth.”
“Not asking you to promise me anything. You just be yourself. We have any trouble, we’ll work it out between us. That all right with you?”
I sighed, contented, and said it was.