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EVANGELINE AND LITTLE MOSES
Copyright, Rudy Young, 2007
rudyyoung@bellsouth.net

If, after reading these three chapters from Evangeline & Little Moses, you would like to read the entire novel for FREE, just CONTACT me at the bottom of the page and I will e-mail it to you. I would like to know what you thought of it after you're finished reading the manuscript.

Chapter 1

I watched Danny get onto a bus at Aspiration Station on the last day of May, nineteen hundred and forty-three, and I watched him ride away into the sunset. My older brother was off to fight a war and he would die before I would see him again. Our mother, Marietta, came along to the station the first couple times, but then stopped doing so, saying she would rather remember my brother waving good-bye from our driveway. That memory would serve her well for the rest of her life, but would do little to ease the pain and heartache she would endure getting used to his absence. She would cry for weeks. Our dad would hold her and cry some too, while my sister would sit for hours staring down the hallway to Danny’s room. My grandmother, Felicity, after watching her friends pass away over the years, would take my brother’s death in relative stride. The dogs would sleep on his bed at night to be close to where he had been, and I would lose myself in writing.

Once I thought I saw his face as the bus pulled away, but it could have been anybody.
As a writer I didn’t have much to write about in the beginning. I wrote about my mother, a song of beauty and devotion, of a love that knew no bounds, and about my father whose black hair would turn gray before its time from the weight of my mother’s pain. He would leave us a year after Danny died.
Coming back from the station, I look for the church steeple I used to mark where I left my truck. People were visiting in the churchyard next to where I parked, and now they stand in line on the walkway, moving slowly into the building. The small white chapel has a high roof, with bells inside the steeple that seem to ring with joy as a choir begins to sing.
I open the door to my truck and find a flyer someone has left on the seat, announcing the Aspiration Teacher’s Association would be giving a lifetime achievement award that night to a woman named Evangeline Cruder. I recognize the name from my Grandma Felicity’s Civil War stories; she was the slave girl who was a close friend to my great-grandfather, Daniel. Evangeline had been a slave on the old Cruder plantation during the Civil War during the time Grandma Felicity was born. Evangeline Cruder must be a hundred years old.

I push open the gate and enter the churchyard. The building is small, its white paint hardly visible beneath layers of Jasmine and Wisteria growing up its walls, while on top, the brown shingled roof exposes itself proudly to the evening sky. Even though I am the only white person here, as I stand in line waiting to enter the church, I feel very much at home. Some people have made good use of the honeysuckle vines next to the gate, and the flowers adorn many a blouse and lapel.
“Gift o’ God!” the woman ahead of me is saying, referring to the flower she has just inserted into her husband’s buttonhole. “Gift o’ God!”
“Has Evangeline Cruder arrived yet?” I ask the woman. “She was a good friend of my great-grandfather.”
Before the woman can answer, the crowd becomes quiet as a very old woman steps to the porch railing. She is very thin, and she is the blackest person I have ever seen. Dressed in a brilliant white, ankle-length dress, she seems even blacker, and her gray hair is a wonderful halo around her face. Leaning over the railing she looks down at me as if seeing a ghost. She smiles, and when I go up the steps to the landing, she walks into my arms and hugs me as though I am long-lost family.
After a time she leans back, her eyes wet with tears, and she whispers, “You are Daniel Howard’s boy.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m Daniel’s grandson, Jericho. How did you know?”

“I could see that red hair and freckles in the middle of a foggy night filled with the storms of summer and know you were related to Daniel Howard.” Mrs. Cruder laughs, as do those around us, and I settle into our familiarity as she pulls me into another long hug. I had no idea the closeness between my great-grandfather and this woman, for I realize, in truth, she is hugging him. “Come in, come in,” she beckons, taking my arm and leading me inside. People move about finding seats and those already seated cool themselves with cardboard fans. A group of children have been seated in the middle rows, and a chaperone is trying to keep them still. The church windows are open so the people out on the porch will be able to hear. Evangeline introduces me to several guests as we walk in, some I already know from town, and we make our way toward a small stage.
“I knew your great-grandfather well,” she says. “Daniel Howard was the most handsome, exciting man that ever lived, besides my husband, Little Moses, of course.” The old woman studies my eyes. “Talking to you, my darling boy, is like having your great-grandfather looking back at me, just as though he never went away. I was in love with him, you know? Of course, I was just a child. What a time. What a time.”

“Grandmother Felicity speaks of those early days as the happiest of times,” I tell her.
Evangeline laughs. “That’s because she wasn’t born until it was almost over. I remember little Felicity; she was a good baby. I rocked her to sleep many times. Is she still with us?”
“She’s living with my family. Did you know my dad built our house directly on the site where the old Cruder plantation big house used to be, before it burned down? All he had to go by was that picture down at the courthouse. We even used the original chimneys.”
“I remember those chimneys,” she says. “Two went up through the bedrooms, and the other one came up through the kitchen. I think I would like to see the old place again. I’ve always been afraid to go by; there are ghosts buried there you would not believe.”

“I’d like to hear about them. Are you going to speak tonight?”
“Yes, I believe they want me to say something about the old days. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I wanted to visit the past, but now that Daniel’s great-grandson Jericho is here, I know everything will be fine. Do you know much about your great-grandfather?”
“I know he was in a duel.”
“Yes, well, that about covers it,” Mrs. Cruder laughs. “His whole life was a duel.” She shakes her head at the memory, and looks away for a moment. “So,” she says, returning, “You’ve built your new home on the Cruder land. I’m glad your family ended up with the property.”
“Well, we’d certainly love to have you come spend some time with us. You and Grandma Felicity would have quite a reunion.”
“This is true. Tell me, Jericho, are those four Magnolia trees still growing in the back yard?”
“Yes, Ma’am, they are. They’re huge now; we’ve got nothing but shade in back of the house.”
“Daniel and I planted those trees one night after everyone had gone to bed. He was nine and I was six. It was a full moon and we sneaked out back and planted them in a ritual that we made up as we went along. Each tree was to serve as a Spirit to protect the yard. And you know what? Up until the end of the war, there never was so much as a bee sting or skinned knee in that back yard. I know it was because of those trees. By the time I was fourteen, they had grown as tall as Daniel.”
“They’re as tall as the house, now.”

A woman comes from the crowd and offers Evangeline her arm. She asks, “Are you ready to talk to the people, Mrs. Cruder?”
“Margaret,” Evangeline says, “this is Daniel’s great-grandson, Jericho. Would you believe? And Jericho, this is Mrs. Samson, President of the Teacher’s Association.”
“Glad you came down, Jericho,” the woman smiles. “If you want, you can sit on that first pew over there in the place reserved for Mrs. Cruder.”
“Thanks, I will.”
Mrs. Samson helps Evangeline up the step and onto the stage, and I make my way to the vacant spot on the front pew. The pulpit has been moved off the stage and replaced with an easy chair. Mrs. Cruder sits down as the Matron lifts a microphone from a table. Her words become amplified through small speakers somewhere off to the side. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I am glad so many of you could attend our ceremony tonight. If everyone is ready, we will start the proceedings.” The Matron turns to Evangeline. “It gives me great pleasure to introduce a woman who has been an inspiration to all of us for so many years. We have heard Evangeline Cruder’s name in our homes all our lives, at the supper table, or around the evening fire before prayers, and every time her name is mentioned it is spoken with pride. Mrs. Cruder worked her way up from slavery into the school system, to spend her life in the teaching profession.” The Matron hands a plaque to Mrs. Cruder. “The Aspiration Teacher’s Association is honored to present you with this plaque, a small token of our appreciation for sixty years of service. We hope it will always remind you of those you have helped and encouraged along the way, by your life and your wonderful example.”
Evangeline Cruder holds the plaque up so all can see. The room resounds with Amen’s and light applause.
“As you can see,” the Matron points out, “we’ve invited some of Aspiration’s young people to this event. It would be a great honor, and an education for these children if you would tell us some of the things that happened when you were a growing up on the Cruder plantation.”

The old woman acknowledges the children with a smile, as she hands the plaque back to the Mrs. Samson. Taking microphone in hand, the old woman looks out over the audience. “Thank you all for this wonderful gathering,” she begins. “It is so good to see old friends again. I guess you’ve noticed that good-looking, redheaded young man who has joined us today. That’s Jericho, Daniel’s great-grandson. If you know anything at all about the Cruder heritage, you’ve heard about Daniel. I’ll try to tell you something about him as well as the rest of the family.”
Mrs. Cruder bows her head and closes her eyes for what seems like a long time. Whether intended as a pause before proceeding or as a prayer, soon everyone in the church has their heads bowed as well. Then she begins to speak. “I guess a good place to start would be when my mother and I first moved to the Cruder plantation. I was five, my mother, Sasha, eighteen. Mama was a handsome woman. She was of average height, had large green eyes, and being originally from the Islands instead of Africa like my father, her hair was naturally straight. She let it down at night, but in the daytime kept it held up in a large red bandanna. She had a wonderful smile, and I was proud when people said we looked just alike.
We were purchased by Maxwell Cruder, in the winter of 1850, as a gift for his new bride, Mercy Howard, a woman he had met on a horse-buying trip to New Orleans. Mama and I arrived at the farm the same day his bride got there, with her son, Daniel, who was eight at the time. Maxwell Cruder, known as the Colonel, had a ten-year old son of his own, Ransom, by a former marriage.

Master was not really a Colonel, but he looked enough like one to warrant the name. With his white suit, white hat and long white mustache, and his white Arabian horse named Lady, he was the perfect example of the Southern plantation owner.
“You older folks in the audience tonight will remember the legacy of Colonel Maxwell Cruder as being that of exceptionally benevolent man, especially where his slaves were concerned. Although he detested slavery, he knew the South could not exist as a cotton empire without it. When he bought a slave, he considered that slave to be his property just like his horses and cattle, and the slave’s name and price went down in a book just like his other animals. But, to understand the man, you have to understand that he also treated his horses and cattle well.
“His protest would be to actually pay his slaves a portion of the profits for their work. Not only were we never to know the sting of an overseer’s whip, we were given an equal share in a third of the income from the crops we produced. This was unheard of, definitely a radical idea at the time, but it led to the Cruder plantation being one of the most successful farms in the state of Louisiana. Even divided among a hundred slaves, the arrangement was impressive.

“The Colonel stretched the rules even more by allowing his slaves to use that money to eventually purchase their freedom. When a slave bought his or her freedom, their price being what the Colonel had paid for them, they were indeed given the status of a freeman, along with papers to prove it. They were welcome to leave the plantation and seek their fortune elsewhere if they wanted. But, even after the war was over, the road north was long and hard, with nothing but suspicion and a wary eye for the black man every turn along the way. But if a black person had papers, signed by the man who had previously owned them, they had a chance of beginning a new life. The laws were based entirely on ownership, and the papers you possessed showed that the white man who had owned you had chosen, in effect, to sell you to yourself. And it was legal. Those who did leave the Cruder farm were never heard from again. Whether they just never looked back or they met a tragic end was never known to those who watched them leave.
“I only knew I was a slave because Mama told me I was. Daniel told me, too, but I didn’t believe such a thing until Mama confirmed it. I thought all slave children helped themselves to the food in the pantry, and it wasn’t until I saw children on other farms eating out of troths, scooping mush into their mouths with their hands, that I knew my life was different.”
The young people sitting in the middle church pews behind me, at first so fidgety and restless, were now settled, listening intently, their eyes wide open.

“That any slave would be thankful for kindness,” Evangeline Cruder went on, “which should have been our birthright, can only makes sense if you were there. I won’t begin to honor slavery by looking for someone to blame; it happened, and it will happen again. But on the Cruder farm things were different.
“I had heard about slave whippings from the neighbor kids and visitors, but I never allowed myself to believe that something like that was possible. It wasn’t until I was twelve that I witnessed the cruelty of a bullwhip, and before I tell you my own story, I must tell you about that night. Though the memory is sad, it is tinged with a strange, melancholy sweetness, for it was also the night I met the boy who would become my husband.”

Chapter 5

Crawdoo Road was a hot, dusty strip of sandy clay that came out of the swamps of southern Louisiana and meandered north into Arkansas. It got its name from a horse thief who was hung somewhere along its route. The road progressed over bayous, rivers and farmland until, in the center of a hundred miles of Louisiana wilderness, it crossed a railroad track. The shade of the trees around this crossing offered a quiet place to rest, and travelers coming through in the early 1800’s would stop and visit, waiting around to watch the spur line go through carrying cotton to the markets in New Orleans.

After a while a water tower was put up, and then a large warehouse to store lumber and materials for building a town. It wasn’t long before there was a hotel, a restaurant, and a bar, and the small encampment quickly grew into a busy town that the people named Aspiration.
By the time the Civil War started, Aspiration had ten hotels, fifty bars, nine hardware stores, several pool halls, and thirty restaurants featuring every delicacy favored by man, serving lobster, steak, and fine wines and liquors, as rich as could be found in New Orleans. This was all possible, of course, because of the railroad.
Plantations of various sizes dotted both sides of Crawdoo Road, with the Cruder farm on the left-hand side two miles north of town. The farm consisted of more than twenty thousand acres of prime farmland, with cotton, rice, corn and sugar cane as far as the eye could see. The entrance road came straight in from the front gate and circled two giant Oak trees by the picket fence gate. A pathway from there would take you around to the front porch. The front door was heavy oak, with a stained glass window set into the upper half, and a door latch and handle originally used at an old English tavern.

A double-doorway opened into a huge living room, large enough to hold Saturday night dances, and on the ceiling above were six hand painted murals depicting scenes of colonial and pioneer life, a gift from Master to Missy on their first wedding anniversary. These paintings had been commissioned from a freeman, brought in from Baton Rouge.
The home radiated a pioneer ruggedness, from the handmade beds and furniture to the roughhewn iron hinges on the doors. The Cruder big house was a man’s house, run by strong men, in the care of strong women.
Above the fireplace hung a portrait of Merrimac Cruder, Maxwell’s father and patriarch of the Cruder family. It was Merrimac who helped start the Cruder Coffin Factory, from which much of the Cruder fortune was obtained.

The rest was made in cotton. A hundred slaves worked the Cruder farm during the pre-Civil War years, most working the fields, while others worked the blacksmith shop, the stable, and the spinning house. The slave quarters were fifty small cabins lined up in rows with a clay road between them. Beyond the Quarters a path led through the woods down to a small waterfall that I called my Secret Place. Fed by springs, the river was tranquil and smooth. In the mornings the migrating cranes would pause from their flight to pluck sluggish minnows from the shallows, and in the evening you could hear fish jumping.
Seven house workers served the Cruder big house, all of them under Mama’s direction. Mama and I had our own rooms close to the kitchen, where we did most of our work. Every morning before daylight I would go out to the blacksmith shed and get an ember from the coals, carrying it back to the kitchen in a little metal bucket, and I would have the oven fires going by the time Mama finished sweeping the porches. Several large metal pots hung from hooks inside the fireplace, and by dinnertime, these pots would be bubbling with our dinnertime meal. But breakfast was cooked on a large oven in the center of the kitchen, over which lay a plate of iron we used as a grill. It was large enough that several frying pans filled with cornbread, eggs, sausage, ham and bacon could all bake and sizzle at the same time.

“Good-morning, Sweetheart,” Mama said to me, as she picked up the flapjack bowl. Filling it half-full of flour, she dropped in several eggs and added milk, then began stirring with a wooden spoon. “When I went to the Creighton farm yesterday,” she mentioned, “Sam askin bout you.”
“And what was he asking?”
“He askin bout you and him gettin married.”

“And did he throw himself under a wagon wheel when you told him that was the last thing that was going to happen on this earth?”
“Sam’s a good man,” Mama countered. “He’s a growed man and he’s Marse Julian’s wagon driver.”
“He’s Marse Julian’s everything. He’s the only field worker they have left over there.”
“Well, that show the confidence Marse Julian have in him. I know Sam not the smartest man to make footprints down a country road, but folks say he’s good. Pa Will say Sam only act dumb like that so he won’t get sold.”
“Well, it works. He and Pa Will are the only slaves who didn’t get sold off to pay wonderful Marse Julian’s gambling and drinking debts.”

“Don’t talk like that about a white man. At least he sold them as families; Marse Julian never split nobody up.”
I told Mama, “Master would never sell any of us.”
“No, but Massa never come on hard times. No tellin what a man do, times get bad enough. And Massa he know everything there is about farmin. Julian so bad at farmin peoples laughs about it. And after Mayo leave, he get so upset over his new sponsibilities he took to drinkin and playing the cards. Before long he done lost all his money and had to sell off a family of slaves to get by. A month later he have to sell off another and then another, until one day he look around and they nobody left but Pa Will and Sam. Sam’s a good man; any girl be lucky to have him.”
“Pa Will has been more of a father to Julian than his own father ever was,” I pointed out. “Julian Creighton would sell off his sister before he’d sell Pa Will. Speaking of sisters, did Pa Will say anything about Mayo?”
“Just that she still over in Spitwater lookin after her mama. The old woman broke her hip; she might die from it.” Mama paused, pouring flapjack batter onto the grill. She had her point to make and was intent on making it. “You fourteen now, an if you owned by any other farm but the Cruders, you already be havin babies with whoever the Massa put you with.”

I knew Mama had a horrible past, back on the sugar plantations in the islands where she was born, but she only talked about it in her sleep. “I know, Mama. But I’ve fallen in love. It happened to me the day I met Little Moses.”
“You said yourself that boy dragged away on a shackle and chain; that two year ago. That overseer gonna trade that boy the first town he come to, and that might be a hundred miles down the road. What you think that boy gonna do, come driving up here in his new wagon and take you off to town? And, say that boy was able to get away and find his way here; Massa not gonna keep no run-away slave what belongs to some other man.”
It was true. But it didn’t matter. Mama noticed something, “Why you wearin your prettiest red dress underneath them aprons?”
“I’m wearing it for Little Moses.” I took a seat on a high chair next to the grill, and laid sausage and bacon into a frying pan already sizzling with ham. “He’ll show up one day.”
“We talk about that more later,” Mama said. “Daniel be down soon; go ahead and fix his plate.”
I had already seen Daniel come down the stairs, but he didn’t see me. Missy’s son, Daniel, and I had grown up together like brother and sister. I told Mama, “I wish I could marry Daniel.”

Her expression turned helpless. “It don’t pay to get serious with you at all, do it? You can’t marry Daniel,” she told me, “he own you!” Mama smiled and added, “Of course, you and me can carry on like this because we both knows that we only funnin. But we can’t never let none of the Cruders hear us talk like this.”
“Talk like what?” Daniel asked, coming into the kitchen. It was apparent he had not removed his clothes since arriving home at first light, his shirt rumpled and his long red hair uncombed except by his fingers, and he still wore his boots, like he was going back out again.
“Well, well,” Mama said to Daniel. “Look what the rooster done dragged in. That Lucy woman finally send you home?”
Daniel managed a half-smile.
I continued my conversation with Mama. “Of course, if I was to get me a pretty one like Daniel, I’d want him to stay home so I could look after him.”
“And you know the chances of that,” Daniel put in, taking a seat at the table. “Besides, I can’t marry you; I own you.”

“See?” Mama said, pouring out another row of flapjacks on the grill. “I tries to tell her! It your fault, Marse Daniel, for teachin her how to read. She done read every book in that library and now she’s got her head all full of what-not concoctions.”
Daniel and I talked about these things all the time, but he enjoyed playing with Mama’s imagination. Daniel didn’t want me to get married at all; who would watch the horses while he climbed a grapevine in the moonlight to some woman’s bedroom window?
Mama was pleading, “What do you say about all this, Marse Daniel? You spend more time with this youngun than any the rest of us. I say she should be thinking about gettin married, but she think they nobody around good enough for her.”

I sliced a cantaloupe on a plate and set it in front of Daniel.
“Thanks, Little One,” he said, lifting a slice from the plate. “Well, there’s nothing wrong with being single. How old are you now, fourteen? A mere child.” He took a bite of the Cantaloupe. “The only advice I can give is, if she has to get married, she should marry someone from her own farm.”
I took a plate of flapjacks to the table and pushed them off onto Daniel’s plate, which was already layered with sausage, bacon, and several slices of ham, all covered over with thick butter and homemade cane syrup. He sliced his fork into the pancakes, dragged a bite through a stream of butter and molasses and ate it.
Mama looked to me and continued with her advice, “When you married to somebody, they be certain sponsibilities that go with that.”

“You mean like the husband thinking he can be sleeping in the same bed with me? I guess under the circumstances I’d have to allow that. And Sam as big as a house he’s going to break something. Sam needs him a big woman, like Lulu; he doesn’t need a little girl that hardly comes up to his knees and could get bones broken.” I took up the spatula and turned over the last batch of flapjacks. “Best thing about being married to someone from another farm is I wouldn’t have to see them but one or two days a week. Otherwise, he’d be making himself a nuisance.”
“You not gonna cook for your own husband?” Mama asked.
“These hands only work for the man I love. That’s why I only wait on Daniel, and Little Moses when he gets here.”
“In that case,” Daniel said, tapping an empty metal cup on the tabletop, “could I get some more coffee?”
Mama laughed, “Darlin, you’d wait on the chickens if they needed waitin on.”
I took the coffee pot to the table and poured Daniel’s cup full.
He said, “My wife would have thought of that on her own.”

Mama laughed at the silliness going on. She set a large plate of pancakes and cornbread on the table and covered them over with a cloth to keep them warm.
“I’m waiting on Little Moses,” I told them both. “I’m going to keep watching the road and one day he will be here.”
“I’m sure it’ll happen, little one,” Daniel assured me.
Reaching into her apron pocket, Mama pulled out a folded piece of paper. “I near forgot,” she said, setting the paper next to Daniel’s cup. “Ransom’s wagon driver bring that note for you.”
“A message from Ransom? I haven’t heard from my Stepbrother since he moved out.
“He wants to talk to you,” Mama told Daniel, as she lifted an empty plate from a stack and took a seat across from him.
“About what?”

“He says somethin important come up, and he needs your help.”
Daniel looked at me. “I know now why they don’t want slaves to learn how to read.”
“Baby boy,” Mama told him, “Evangeline taught me how to read so I could help her keep you out of trouble, and that’s what I’m tryin to do.”
Daniel picked up the note and read it. “It doesn’t say what he wants.”
Ransom left the farm two years before, the day after the Tasting at the Splinter farm. Daniel folded the note and set it next to his coffee cup, and went back to eating his breakfast.
Mama told him, “Marse Ransom’s driver didn’t know what the note was about either, but Ransom gave him a silver dollar to bring that message out here.”
“That doesn’t sound like my step-brother, does it? He must be in love.”

“That not ever gonna happen in our lifetime. Your step-brother never love nothin but hisself. He gone from this house two year now, making hisself all that money building them coffins, and he never send the first penny home to his family.” Mama paused, then added, “But at the same time, we not known nothin but peace and quiet since he gone.” She pulled two flapjacks onto her own plate and cut a clump of butter from a block. “That Lucy woman you been seein, Marse Daniel. I know you tired of me talking about this, but I worried about you. What you do when her husband catch you?”
“I’m through with married women, Sasha,” Daniel told her. “I promise. You were right; there’s no future in it.”
“You got caught!” Mama blurted, her words ringing with anticipation as well as fear.
Daniel went right into an explanation as though they had been talking about this all along. “Charles was in Memphis; he wasn’t supposed to be back for another week, but everything went bad for him in a business deal and he lost everything. He was coming home to explain his misfortune to Lucy, but found me in bed with her when he got here.”

Mama and I listened with blatant enthusiasm, hugging each other.
“Well, he became unadjusted very quickly, and I had to jump from the porch roof onto Jewel while at a full gallop. I’m not as good at that as I pretend to be, and I fell off. Ol Charles comes out of the house with a rifle and would have shot me dead, too, if Lucy hadn’t killed him first.”
Mama gasped, “S-she killed her own husband?”
“Shot him with a pistol from the upstairs landing. It’s supposed to happen the other way around, isn’t it, Sasha,” Daniel considered, “you know, where the husband shoots the lover, rather than the wife shoots the husband to keep him from shooting the lover.”
“Well, now I don’t believe any of this,” Mama told him. “You like to play with Sasha’s mind sometime. Why don’t you stop all this play-acting and go on into town and find out what it is your step-brother want, so you can hurry on back here and tell us what it is?”

Daniel finished his coffee and wiped his lips. “I haven’t spoken to Ransom in two years. I can’t imagine what would be so important he would pay one of his workers a silver dollar to bring me a message.” Daniel got up, lifted his coat from its peg, and said to me, “You want to go to town?”
“Sure. I was going in to watch for Little Moses anyway.”
“Okay, meet me at the barn.” Daniel left the house, headed out the back pathway.
“Mama, will you be okay? Do you need something from town?”
“No, you go,” she said. “Just stay away from that Miss Lucy’s place.”
“I’ll be okay,” I said, taking my own coat from its peg. “Daniel looks after me.”

“Sweetie, Marse Daniel can’t even look after hisself. Now, finish your breakfast before you go.”
I wrapped a pancake around a length of sausage, and after dragging it through a pool of syrup, I rolled it up in a napkin and took it with me. By the time I got to the stable, Daniel had Jewell and Maggie saddled and ready to go. In silence, we walked them out to Crawdoo Road, where we mounted up and started toward town. I asked Daniel, “So, what really happened with Miss Lucy?”
“Not good,” he replied, very serious. “I’m meeting her husband by the river today at noon.”
“Charles? Are you going to fight him?”
“No. It’s to be a duel with pistols.”
I was aghast at hearing this. “Pistols? You can’t shoot! I’ve read about duels. You have to be a good shot or you could get killed.”

“Actually, I’m not a bad shot.”
“I’m a better shot than you,” I reminded him.
“That’s with a long rifle. This duel will be with pistols.”
“That means he’ll be closer!”
“No, it means I’ll be closer. Look, I know what I’m doing.”
“Daniel, you never know what you’re doing; you’ve told me that yourself.”
“I know,” he admitted. “I couldn’t get out of it.”
“Why didn’t you tell Mama about the duel?”

“Because your mama would tell my mama, and my mama would tell the Colonel. That’s all I need is for the old man to come out on the dueling grounds and take me away by the lobe of my ear.”
I couldn’t help laughing at this, in spite of the circumstances.
“I’m supposed to meet Charles at the dueling grounds at noon.”
“That’s three hours from now.”
“I couldn’t lie to your mother any longer; I had to get out of the kitchen. We’ll go see Ransom first. But, listen, sometime before the duel, I want you to figure me a way out of it.”

Chapter 9

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Daniel commented, as the stable man brought our horses from the stalls. Daniel paid him and we mounted up.
“I can see why Ransom was so taken with her,” I said. “She’s not your average woman, is she? Not like any white woman I’ve ever met. I really like her.”
“I do, too,” he agreed. “I wish Elizabeth was the cause of this duel rather than Lucy; I could feel as though I was dying for a more sacred cause.”

The sky was blue now, reflected in puddles along our path, as we followed Crawdoo Road through town and about a mile south, to where a trail dipped off through the trees and down to a river. Next to the water we could see the grassy clearing known to all as the dueling grounds. This was where disputes over love, life and finance had been settled between Louisiana men for as long as anyone could remember.
I told Daniel, “There’s still time to get out of this. Just say you’re sorry, and let’s go back to town. Who cares? You sleep with lots of married women, why should this husband be the one to get retribution?”
“It sounds so unfair when you say it,” Daniel considered. “I told Charles I was sorry, and that his wife meant absolutely nothing to me, but that only seemed to make him madder.”

“So let’s go home and forget all about this duel. Everyone knows you’re a scamp. It’s true there are some who would like to see you horsewhipped a little, but no one really wants to see you killed for sleeping with Lucy. After all, she did have something to do with it.”
“Evangeline, if I run away, I’d never be able to hold my head up in this parish again. I’ll be branded a coward. And now I have to consider Elizabeth.”
We came to a wooden bridge that had no railings and our horses instinctively formed up single file going over. The water beneath was swirling, coming from the hills above the town.
“You’re right about me not being a good shot, ”Daniel admitted. “If you can outshoot me, how can I stand a chance against this man?”

“I have a plan,” I told him.
He did not ask, but waited to hear.
“Just remember, you’ve got two things in your favor. One, even if Charles is the best shot in the parish, he’s nervous about the duel. Two, he’s probably so mad at you that he can’t see straight; much less shoot straight.” I considered something else, “Before the counting begins, you have to stand back to back, is that right?”
He nodded that it was.
“So, before the Sheriff starts the count, you say something to Charles; something that will make him even madder. Tell him it was Lucy who loaded and primed his pistol.”
“How old are you?”
“I love you, Daniel. Life won’t be the same if you get killed. If one of you has to die, it needs to be Charles.”

We nudged the horses forward again, following the trail around to where four men were waiting in the clearing. “I can hardly see Charles,” Daniel whispered. “Look how skinny he is. I can see both sides of that tree behind him. A bullet would have to be two-feet wide to hit him.”
Words of comfort were hard to come by at this point, but I had a strong feeling that Daniel could pull this off. “Remember,” I told him, “he’s only got one shot.”
“And how many do you think he’s going to need?”
“What I mean is, another thing in your favor would be if you shot first. When we were shooting your daddy’s pistol out in the field that day when Julian came over, you had been shooting all day and never hit anything. But then you said, ‘Look at this, Julian,’ and raised the pistol and shot without even aiming. Remember, you hit the target right in the center.”

“You’re right,” Daniel smiled, “I did hit the target once!”
“Well, that’s what you’ve got to do today. Just let the barrel of the pistol find its aim, all you do is pull the trigger. You hit the target then; you can hit it now.”
“I can smell him,” Daniel considered, his adversary standing up-wind from us. “He smells like his closet.”
“Yes, yes, well think about something else. Forget about his closet. Forget about Elizabeth. Think only of this moment. You will soon be shooting at a man who will be shooting at you. Think about nothing but the plan.”
Sheriff Anson Splinter came to where we were tying the horses next to two wagons. Six feet tall on a stocky, two hundred fifty pound frame, the Sheriff resembled an old wolf, his bushy gray hair and eyebrows framing piercing yellow eyes. Wild hair and yellow eyes had been handed down in his family from one unfortunate generation to another. He got the job as Sheriff, not only by the way he looked but by being the toughest man in the parish. If he were a little further west, he would probably be famous, but in Aspiration he was just the Sheriff. He was definitely the law in Aspiration, and little happened that he did not know about.

The Dueling Grounds were surrounded by woods, leaves of yellow, gold and red, and the lush, wet grass of the clearing was speckled with clumps of Clover. Situated next to a river, the Dueling Grounds was a perfect setting in which to die.
“Hello, Daniel,” the Sheriff offered.
Daniel only nodded.
“How’d you get yourself into something like this, boy? Does your daddy know about this?”
“N-not yet, Sheriff,” Daniel answered, finding his voice. “I thought I’d have something figured out by the time I got here, but I don’t.”
“Even if you win this thing, your daddy’s gonna whip your ass.”

“I hope so, Sheriff. If I can feel it, that’ll mean I’m still alive.”
The Sheriff continued, “You probably don’t even know that Charles over there is the best shot in Louisiana. I was in the Crawdoo Bar one night and saw him shoot a gold dollar out of the air in the dark, with his eyes blindfolded and only a mirror to aim with.”
“Are you messing with me, Sheriff?”
“Yeah. But I can’t think of no other way to tell you what a stupid thing you got yourself into. We were all hoping you’d just leave town for a while, until Charles cooled down, but it’s too late now. I’ve known your daddy a long time, son, I’d hate to be around when he hears about this. I know that you were always his pride and joy.”
“I’ll be okay, Sheriff. Evangeline has a plan.”
“Well, that makes me feel so much better.” The lawman looked down at me with questionable sarcasm. “Are you his Second?”

I shrugged. “Sure, I guess so.”
The Second was usually a friend or someone from the duelist’s immediate family, someone to be there for support and to carry home the news and possibly the body afterward. We followed the Sheriff to where Charles was waiting.
Charles was every bit as skinny as Daniel had implied; his body was a reed. I noticed that Charles’ Second had the forethought to bring their own wagon. I took this to be a good omen for us. The deputy retrieved a wooden box from their own wagon seat and brought it back to the Sheriff, who called the participants to come together before him.

I had to hide my shock when Charles came closer. His body was literally shaking all over, not from fear, but hatred and rage. The pain in his poor soul was bringing tears to his eyes; yet another advantage for us. Half of my plan was working already, and the Sheriff wasn’t even counting yet.
Daniel asked the Sheriff, “Can I have a word with my Second?”
“You were supposed to already done that. It’s noon.”
Daniel came to me and I could tell by his voice how scared he was. He said, “Well, if I don’t see you again.”
“None of that, none of that,” I told him. “Just stick to the plan and you will do fine. Remember, at the count of ten, turn around and shoot without aiming; let the barrel find its own level; all you do is pull the trigger gently but firmly.” In the middle of my last words of advice, we heard the clatter of hooves behind us, and looked around to see that Master had come to watch from the top of a rise.
“And don’t forget,” I added, “your daddy’s watching.”

The Deputy held the box while Sheriff Splinter lifted the lid, revealing a brace of first class dueling pistols with ivory-inlaid handles etched in silver. Lying in their peaceful velvet relief’s the beautiful pistols hardly resembled instruments of death.
Charles lifted one of the pistols from the case, letting out a huff of defiance as he did so. He was thin to be sure, but the tight gray suit he was wearing made him almost invisible. The man scowled at Daniel with a deeply furrowed brow, his lips quivering.
Daniel took up the second pistol.
“Okay,” the Sheriff told them, “I want you both to stand with your backs to each other.”
Pointing their pistols skyward, the dualists took their positions.

“I’m going to count to ten,” the lawman instructed. “When I call out the number one, I want each of you to take a step forward, and continue to do so with each count. When you hear the number, ten, you are to turn and shoot. I hope both of you have taken time to say your prayers.”
Daniel gave me one last glance of hopelessness before looking again at his stepfather on the hill. The Colonel was still there, watching from atop his Arabian horse, Lady.
“Is everyone ready?” Sheriff Splinter called out. Both men said they were. He continued, “Cock your pistols.” The ratchet sound of the hammers pulling back was like bones breaking, unnerving in the quiet of the dueling grounds. Charles’ Second went to the far side, and I stepped back to stand with the Deputy.
Sheriff Splinter began to count loud and clear, “One!”
Daniel and Charles took a step away from each other.

“Two, three, four,” the count went on, and the steps continued, until I was hearing “seven, eight, nine.” I was no longer able to breathe. Daniel’s life was now balanced on the razor-edged rim of the next second. The tension brought home the truth that with the next count our lives may be changed forever.
The Sheriff counted, “Ten!”
Daniel turned on one heel and let his arm swing down in the direction of his adversary. The pistol exploded with smoke and a flame that shot several feet out in front of the barrel. The sound echoed through the trees, sending birds fluttering up and away. Too soon, I thought at first, numbed by the absolute silence that followed the shot. A moment of anticipation so severe it was painful, and I heard the sound of a bullet hitting flesh. I opened my eyes to see Charles doubled over, as if cut in half by a sword, and he collapsed to his knees with the unfired pistol still grasped in his hand.

Running barefoot through the grass I threw my arms around Daniel. He was still holding the pistol aimed in Charles’ direction, smoke drifting up from the barrel. The sound of hooves told us the Colonel was leaving. I would consider later how awkward and ironic it was that, if Master had stayed a little longer, he would have seen how the duel really ended.
Charles was not dead! He was critically wounded to be sure, but able to pull himself up, clutching a gaping wound in his stomach as he struggled to bring his legs beneath him. Death was certain, but there was a chance he could get off his shot and take his adversary with him.

I felt the Sheriff take my arm and pull me out of the way. As long as Charles could squeeze the trigger he was welcome to do so, and Daniel was obliged to stand and face him. This he did, holding the empty pistol at his side. At last Charles was able to stand up, and, letting go of his stomach, he gripped the pistol with both hands. Charles’ eyes became visible from across the clearing, glaring white with rage. Or was it pain? Charles dropped into the grass like a length of gray string being loosed. On impact, the pistol fired and the bullet went harmlessly out over the river.

I cried out and again ran to Daniel, throwing my arms around him again. No words could express my relief. I could only cry.
At the far end of the clearing, Charles’ Second was devastated with grief and knelt next to the body of his friend. We made our way to the horses. Daniel was so numbed the deputy had to run after him and retrieve the empty pistol from his hand. I helped Daniel into the saddle, climbed onto Maggie, and we headed back toward town and Elizabeth.

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