Lost Souls Recovered, page 4
“Yes, Madame.”
She looked back. “Sam, give me the purple tulip.”
She took a long smell of it, closing her eyes while stroking the wet stem with her left hand.
“Good day, Madame,” Sam said, bowing his head. “Oh, Madame, there is some chicory coffee on the stove for you. I’m leaving now.”
Laura had initially rejected drinking chicory—too ersatz—demanding that Tyrone, anyone really, turn back the clock before the War, so she could savor her fresh-brewed black coffee. As the War dragged on, she faced the harsh reality that the Confederate states just could not gain access to her favorite coffee beans. So even though she succumbed to an inferior product, drinking chicory was her way of taking a piercing stab at the North, her own personal way of remembering the savagery of the North and its ill-mannered people.
She took a sip of her chicory coffee, then strolled to her botanical gardens out back of the house. She ambled across the Kentucky bluegrass, allowing her bare feet to feel comforted by the soft blades of grass. Two quarreling mockingbirds, perched on an elm bough, caught her attention. She craned her neck to look at the birds, which were too busy fussing with each other to notice her. They were ignoring her, just like Tyrone, like the wealthy women of Richmond. Just as she wished that the sunbeams in the dining room could cart her away from her misery, she now wished she could be as free as the mockingbirds, to fly away, to wash away her living nightmare.
It was time to feed her misery by escaping into a bottle of bourbon. She removed the bottle from the cabinet in the butler’s pantry and took a long pull. Drips of bourbon fell from her mouth onto her robe. She wiped her mouth with the back of her left hand and then took an even longer pull.
Before long, she lay sozzled in bed, collapsed from the weight of her heavy mind and a liver full of liquor.
k
Several days had elapsed since John had left Billingsly with a wide smile on his face after learning about the coded flasks. There could be no more smiling. Over the next several days, John vacillated about stealing the flasks. It was a grave decision. Stealing the flasks was fraught with danger; his life would likely be imperiled, and he’d never see his mother again. She’d die all over again, and his heart would surely crush from what he did to her.
While his heart and mind ached over the dreadful consequences of stealing the flasks, he breathed deeply in an effort to expunge them from his mind. His thoughts would then pivot to finding another life. He couldn’t stand the life that had been handed to him, one in which he’d been dependent upon white men like Billingsly to give him and his mother the leftover dross that fell from Billingsly’s pocket, his house. He still clung to seeking a bigger life somewhere, and the flasks could help him with that life, he thought. But inevitably, thoughts about his mother crept back into his mind; he couldn’t escape the thought of what would happen to his mother if he stole the flasks.
The prospect of hitting the jackpot with the flasks ultimately proved too much to dismiss. He decided to take his mother with him, and they’d travel somewhere with the flasks. He didn’t know where. He didn’t even know if his mother with her weakened back would be up to leaving Richmond.
Billingsly’s desk, the floor, and his leather chair could be shined only so many times. The longer he stayed in the study, the more he was mesmerized by the cabinet; it taunted him every hour, every minute, every second. It had become too much. The only way to exorcise the spell was to break in while Billingsly was still out of town.
As he left the study carrying a bucket of water, he saw Madame Billingsly at the foot of the staircase. She waited until he’d come down before she started her ascent.
It was six o’clock and he had finished working. “Goodnight, Madame Billingsly,” John said as he reached the bottom.
She said nothing.
John walked into the kitchen, where he saw Sam writing something on the back of an envelope.
“What’re you doing?” John asked.
“Trying to think of the groceries needed here.”
John took a few steps toward Sam. “Let me see it,” he said with an outstretched right arm.
Most of the words were misspelled. He knew his mother had made an effort to improve her education through self-study and asking questions of John. John thought of helping Sam improve his vocabulary and writing, but he didn’t have time. He didn’t even know how much longer he’d even be alive.
“I’ll go to market and get the groceries, Sam. When do you need them?”
“No rush on it. Whenever you have a bit of time.”
Sam thanked him and told him to give his regards to Ann.
John’s mind continued to whirl about his planned break-in. He knew Emmaline would be in Maryland visiting her daughter for two weeks. As he watched Sam limp around the kitchen, he thought of an alibi for Sam. Whatever went down with the plan to steal the flasks, Sam would not be around if he took time off from work. “Sam, you ought to take some time off. Seems you don’t miss a day of work. Monsieur Billingsly has said it’s fine; that’s what you once told me.”
“Yeah, son. Reckon you right.” Pointing to his right leg, he said, “This here leg ain’t getting no better. And I ain’t breathing like I should. Something wrong. I’ll take them days I got coming.”
Sam walked out of the kitchen on gimpy legs and went home.
John quickly doffed his work clothes and donned his tattered clothes that were kept in the servants’ quarter.
John sat on the back steps mulling his next move. His head began to spin, his heart raced madly, his hands trembled violently, and his stomach made gurgling noises. He stood up, took a few steps forward, and lowered his head to allow the contents of his stomach to gush out of his mouth.
He sat down, lowered his head, and asked God to understand what he was about to do. He promised God that he’d do the right thing later.
Time needed to pass before he could act. John would have to wait for Madame Billingsly’s signal. She almost always had a glass of cognac before going to bed, no matter the hour. As was her habit, she’d placed the empty snifter on the marble top parlor table outside her bedroom just before going to bed.
He meandered through the Billingslys’ botanical gardens before settling on a small bench near the pergola at the back of the gardens. He curled up on the bench in a fetal position and dozed off. About three hours later, he awoke to a late-night light drizzle.
He gathered his nerves, took a deep breath, and walked stealthily up the long staircase. As he climbed each step, the thought about how Madame Billingsly loved cognac, how he’d seen her caress the snifter and circle the rim with her right index finger, and how she’d become somnolent after her last sip. He hoped that she had surrendered to the glowing liquid amber that he had poured so often for her. After reaching the landing, John observed the empty snifter and smiled.
It was time to act.
He scurried into the study, careful to tiptoe and avoid the squeaky floor panel near the cabinet. He tugged on the door to the oak cabinet; it was locked. He’d never thought it would be easy.
He tiptoed to the corner of the room away from the cabinet and opened the center drawer in Mr. Billingsly’s large walnut desk, hoping to find the key to the lock. He saw a pocket watch and a band of keys, too many to count. Trying each key to unlock the cabinet door would consume too much time, time which would gnaw at his nerves. He looked in the other drawers, shuffling paper in his quest for a key that would unlock the cabinet. Nothing. He put the watch in his front pocket.
The voices returned to his head, his mother’s, his own. He saw an apparition of Tyrone Billingsly in the room with him. He swallowed hard, forcing the bile back down his throat, wincing at its brackish taste. He’d have to act soon, or he’d slowly lose his nerve.
He sat in Billingsly’s black leather swivel chair, spinning it fast, as if that would help him think of the answer for how to claim his prize. It simply made him dizzy, and he stopped.
As he rose from the chair, his right hand accidentally knocked over a book that sat on the corner of the desk. He reached out with both hands to catch it, but he could only deflect it, causing a softer landing. He quickly picked up the book and put it on the desk.
His mahogany face swelled with panic, fearful that the commotion might have awakened Laura. John stood in place, frozen, waiting to see if his plan for a bigger life were about to be ruined.
A minute later, Laura’s door squeaked open, and John’s heart began to pound. The bile in his throat, having not quite gone away, reappeared, forcing him to swallow again. He skulked behind Billingsly’s oak desk and positioned himself to be able to peek though the opening of the door to the study.
She walked in the study, the .22-caliber rifle pressed up against her right side, just as her husband had taught her in one of the shooting lessons he’d given her many years before.
She walked over to the window and looked at the first-quarter moon. A barn owl perched in a live oak tree hooted, and she caught the barn owl’s iridescent yellow eyes staring at her. Satisfied that the noise may have come from the owl, or perhaps some foraging nocturnal animal, she closed the jalousie and returned to her bedroom.
A deep sigh of relief spilled out of John on her departure. It was a close shave, too close, one that could have left John wounded or dead. John had to act that night, or he’d never act.
He wanted it over and decided to move tantivy to capture the flasks. Quick action was called for, something in the form of a heavy, blunt tool to break into the cabinet. But before he could claim his prize, he decided to rehearse his plan. He opened the jalousie, then the window, leaned over the ledge, and measured the distance to the ground. He debated whether he should jump out the window. It would be better to jump out the window after he claimed his prize. If he jumped now and broke his leg, he’d never claim it. The decision was made for him.
He closed the door to the study, sidled to Laura’s bedroom door, and listened for sounds of sleep. After fifteen seconds, he heard a loud snore. Relieved, he crept down the long staircase and then slipped out the back door.
He spied a kerosene lantern sitting on the back porch. He lit it, then looked up and saw the Big Dipper in the sky and smiled as he recalled that Ann loved gazing at the stars at night. The smile evaporated as his thoughts quickly turned to how his mother would die all over again if she found out what he had done. He had to find a way to make it work.
He walked to the front of Billingsly. Seeing the grove of live oak trees, he recalled how he had climbed some of them as a child, how he could see the Billingslys’ vast estate. He put down the lantern and ran to a live oak and sprang from the trunk with his right leg, able to go high enough to grab a thick bough.
Reaching the top of the live oak, he took in the vast estate. The garage that once housed barouches, cabriolets, and other vehicles, came into view first. Pictures of Tyrone Billingsly, perhaps in his heyday, surrounded by his vehicles hung throughout Billingsly. Many of his vehicles had fallen into disrepair, like the garage that housed them. His eyes then fell upon the crop and grazing fields, recognizable by the twenty-foot watch tower that stood in the middle of the fields. His mother had told him about how the overseer would use it periodically to check on the slaves. Just a few years ago, several oxen, mules, dairy and beef cattle occupied the fields. Most were now gone as a result of Billingsly’s declining finances. He turned his head slightly to the left and saw the tobacco-curing house off in the distance. Billingsly had hired help on a seasonal basis to help with his tobacco crops. John figured he and Edmund would be the last people to work in the curing house. The clapboards had warped badly, and it was only a matter of time before it caved in, John thought. The horse stable was next to the curing house. It was Billingsly’s pride and joy. Where Laura loved her botanical gardens, Billingsly, as John knew, spent a lot of time tending to his Cleveland Bay horses. He had sold most of his Bays, keeping three. Finally, his eyes landed on the tool shed; that’s where he’d head first.
As he said goodbye to the estate and began his descent, he heard a soft growl, which stopped him. The growl turned into rapid barks. The dog looked up at John and down the path of the driveway several times. After two minutes, the dog tired of John and chased a raccoon.
He had spent too much time in the tree. His patience grew thin; it was time to act, yet again.
He pulled on the door to the tool shed, but it was locked. The bile at the back of his throat would not leave him alone. He swallowed hard, wishing he could have a dipper of water.
He canvassed the tool shed, looking for an entrance. The window held promise, but it was stuck. But with some pressure, he forced it open. He leaned over the sill and put the lantern on the floor. He climbed into the shed and walked around, holding the lantern high. A few field mice scampered in front of him, startling him, which caused him to stumble backward. His heart raced. He took two deep breaths and regained his composure. Moving closer to an array of tools, he espied what he was after.
There it was, mixed in with some garden tools. He placed the lantern on the uneven dirt floor, and the lantern tipped over. Quickly, he grabbed the heavy sledgehammer and tossed it out the window. As he followed after it, a protruding nail dug into his right thigh and ripped off a part of his denim trousers. The pain stopped him in place; he groaned with a closed mouth as he teetered on the ledge with nearly half his body out the window. With a slight effort, he pushed himself forward, tucked his head in, and somersaulted to the ground.
Blood oozed out of the two-inch nail scrape on his upper right thigh; he applied pressure to his thigh with both hands to staunch the bleeding. He shook his right leg a few times to make sure it worked, and then ran in place for a few seconds. Satisfied that he could go on, he retraced his steps to the house.
As he walked across the foyer, he lamented his thoughtless act of leaving the lantern in the shed.
He crept up the sweeping staircase, careful not to bang the sledgehammer against the balustrade. The sconce light outside of Laura’s bedroom allowed him to see that her snifter was still in place. He opened the door to the study, then closed it. He quickly turned on a paraffin lamp that was on a stand. He was one step closer to claiming his prize.
Intrusive thoughts invaded his head. He sat in the corner of the study thinking about his saintly mother—thoughts about her were never far removed from his mind. He wondered how many times would he need to strike the hasp with the sledgehammer? What would he do if Laura awoke from the violent noise? If necessary, he wondered if he could kill Madame Billingsly if she tried to impede him from stealing the flasks. He hoped it would never come to that. His mind continued to be racked with doubt, which expanded as he got closer to his theft operation. Then he speculated that if the flasks were not there his operation would be for naught; he’d be captured and hanged from one of the Billingsly’s trees.
He stood up, took a deep breath, and walked to the cabinet. He took one practice swing. The next swing hit its mark. He crushed the hasp, knocking it to the floor. He opened the oak cabinet door, then grabbed the only box on the bottom shelf in plain sight.
As bile percolated in his esophagus, he opened the pine box and saw the flasks with engravings on them. He swallowed hard to tamp down the percolation. He covered the box, then kissed it with that same feeling of satisfaction that he felt when wrapped in his mother’s arms as a young boy. He scurried to the open window, leaned over the ledge, wincing when the small wound pressed up against the ledge, and tossed the box to the ground below, hoping the soft Kentucky bluegrass would soften the blow and protect the coveted prize he had worked so hard to obtain.
John placed his left leg over the ledge.
“Stop right there, coon!”
He turned around and saw her pointing a rifle at him.
“Don’t you think my husband would be disappointed in you?”
John didn’t answer.
She moved the rifle to her right, motioning John to move away from the window. He complied.
John didn’t know what to say at first. He thought of his mother. “Madame Billingsly, me and Mama been good to your family,” he said, hoping to avoid execution.
“That gives you no right to steal from my house.”
John watched her tapping the trigger with her finger. “Sorry, Madame Billingsly,” he mumbled.
She ordered John to move to the hallway, where she retrieved her long, dark cloak from the hall closet and put it on slowly, careful to keep her aim on the mass of John’s chest, an easy target. John thought her putting that on was a bad omen, perhaps her disguise. He wondered whether she was going to keep him alive, so her husband could see her quarry, like a proud pointer with a game bird in his mouth, whipping his tail feverishly as the owner petted his head.
John’s mind stopped racing on its own accord, as it was overcome with the crushing and mind-numbing fear that his tormentor was going to kill him like a rabid dog.
“Look at me!” she shouted with such ferocity that her words reverberated in John’s head and stomach. He forced himself to halt the trickle of urine that was ready to drip.
John willed his head up in her direction. As quickly as his mind stopped racing, a bolt of adrenaline zipped through him, and he balled his hands into tight fists.
He was much taller and bigger than she was; he could overpower her. The adrenaline dissipated with as much force as it had arrived, leaving his brain in control again. No matter how fast he was, he knew he wasn’t as fast as the bullet that would zip through the barrel in the rifle, killing him instantly.
“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. Please don’t tell my mama,” he said, his voice quavering. “If you kill me, please don’t tell her. If you tell her, you’d be killing two people.”
“I should shoot you right now, but I want you alive so I can hear you explain to my husband what you did. He’ll finally see why I never trusted you. I knew sooner or later you would slip up.”
