Galveston Between Wind and Water - By Rachel Cartwright Page 0,7
all we hold right and sacred?”
Someone threw a rotten tomato that hit William in the chest.
A young woman stepped forward from the crowd. “Speak plain or don’t speak at all.” The people around her clapped their hands and shouted approval. The young, freckle-faced woman pulled back her black kerchief letting her red hair fall around her shoulders. “After climbin’ into bed with those Yankee sons of bitches, how can you stand there preachin’ to us?” She wiped tears from her eyes. “You ’n’ your ‘Peace Plot!’ Why? So we can let the slaves take over our farms while our husbands, sons, and fathers are dyin’ every day like pigs in the dirt?”
She threw another rotten tomato , this time hitting William in the temple. The crowd clapped even louder this time. “You forget Nat Turner, mister? Let them niggers kill your children, but they ain’t gettin’ any more of mine.”
William shook his head, trying to steady the tremors building in his body. “My prayers are with you, ma’am, but I ... we all want the same thing.” He spat the words out, feeling the tightening of the noose around his neck. “But only a strong federal government has the means of suppressing slave insurrections and hostile Indian attacks. I beg you, all of you, to listen to reason. There’s still time to stop and end this madness. There are many in the North who—”
Captain Boland punched him in the jaw. “Copperheads ain’t worth a damn. You could have voted for secession when you had the chance or kept your trap shut afterwards.”
Bret stumbled breathlessly up toward the back of the noisy crowd. Everyone kept staring ahead and no one noticed him peer around a tall pine.
He shielded his eyes from the sun and squinted up at the platform. So many people, so many . . . Bret gasped. No . . . was that— His eyes went wide with horror. He opened his mouth to scream when two strong, black arms reached around his mouth and waist, yanking him off the ground.
Bret struggled to break free as the black man carried him back swiftly into the concealing shelter of the trees. Still looking at the platform, tears filled Bret’s eyes as he saw the man open another sack.
Arley Caldwell and his new eighteen-year-old bride, Melissa, turned to see what the commotion was about. Only the trees stood towering in mute witness to the unfortunate proceedings before them.
He tapped his pipe. You should have listened to me, William, and you would have been standing here with your friends instead. He smiled at his radiant, auburn-haired wife who had insisted they be present so that everyone would know they were respectable, decent folk who didn’t want any trouble. Arley slid his arm around her slender waist and gently turned back to face the gallows.
Haines pulled the sack tight over the traitor’s head, muffling his voice. “Captain’s right. Once we whoop those Yankee Nancy-boys, we’ll dig out every other nigger in the woodpile down here ’n’ string ’em up with yer Union flag. Just like you.”
William heard the crowd yell and clap its approval through the burlap of the flour sack. Fear and lack of oxygen made his knees wobble and buckle as his head became lighter. I love you Lorena. Thank you for the best years, darling. Take care of our son. When Bret’s older, remember what you—
The roar died away, and the creaking of the trap door lever was the last sound William McGowan heard on Earth.
CHAPTER 3
Friday, August 24, 1900
Bret shot bolt upright in bed, gasping, drenched in the sweat of his fever dream, his eyes searching frantically around his luxurious bedroom as though he expected the home guard to leap out of the cherry wood linen closets at any moment.
Still trembling, he wiped his forehead with the blue silk bed sheet. A sudden fit of sharp coughing made him reach for the small, dark brown medicine bottle on the polished walnut bedside table.
He unscrewed the cap with fumbling fingers and drank until the bottle was empty. As the soothing warmth spread through his body and mind he leaned back on the embroidered Persian pillows and stared up at a small plaster crack in the high ceiling.
Once more the terrifying faces and sounds retreated into the darkest cavern of childhood nightmares. Bret brushed his damp black hair behind his ears and glanced at the dark circles and lean face reflecting back from the full-length dressing mirror on the wall.