A Shout in the Ruins by Kevin Powers

Author:Kevin Powers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2018-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

The following day Rawls staggered through a hangover, out from the shade of Beauvais’s veranda, and into the bright sun. There had been no word at all from Reid at that point, and Rawls agreed with his master that Reid was likely dead. The war had picked up its pace, and the killing had picked up as a consequence. On most nights nowadays Rawls went to sleep to the boom of cannon fire to the north and east. He woke to it as well, with the tumult closer each morning than it had been the night before. Beyond that, it was not his place to question. Rawls heard the lawyer tell Levallois that it was only a matter of time until everything would be settled as he wished. To Rawls, his master only said that there was no reason to wait for the inevitable, and then gave him his instructions.

He got the rig together and rode toward the Reid place with a team of men bouncing in the back as the cart slalomed between the drive’s deep ruts. Rawls slowed as they passed the overseer’s house. He removed his hat when he saw Emily standing on the porch watching them as they headed toward the road. She studied them intensely, and without prompting Rawls called out to her, saying, “Mr. Levallois had him a deal go through. Got us doing some sorting out on it.”

Emily took the steps down to the drive. She had been alone since she had moved into the overseer’s house after her mother fell ill, excepting the occasional visit from Mr. Levallois. Emily had taken to solitude and self-sufficiency, such as it was, and was starting to become accustomed to it. While she liked the idea of company from time to time, Mr. Levallois bringing her cut white roses, or watching Rawls tending to her chores while she sat alone in the parlor, another part of her considered it an intrusion into the world she had been building for herself.

“Well, you must go do as he says,” said Emily. When Rawls had the cart nearly out of sight he turned back toward the overseer’s house and saw that Emily remained fixed to the same spot at the edge of the drive, watching yet. Her stillness gave him a chill, and he recalled her old game when they were younger. Standing on a fence post while the birder circled below. The younger Emily laughing and shouting out commands. Rawls feeling like danger had no boundary. She was aloof and distant now. And while he had never thought of Emily’s presence as something to celebrate, he now found the depth of the girl’s recession into herself even more alarming. Rawls did not think she’d ever play that old game again, but he had started to worry that one far worse might take its place. He pressed the soles of his moccasins firmly on the floorboard of the cart. For a while he’d felt a kind of equilibrium. Not

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