The River Wife by Jonis Agee

Author:Jonis Agee
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781588366306
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-07-17T00:00:00+00:00

16

IT’S MY TURN,” OMAH ANNOUNCED AS SOON AS THE MEN DISPERSED FROM the night’s work. They had disposed of the body, quickly dividing the money, clothes, and weapons, and only the horse remained as evidence. In the morning, Boudreau would ferry it across the river and sell it to a family of half-wild men who had settled in Tennessee near the large shallow body of water called Reelfoot Lake, which had been created by the New Madrid earthquake. The men never asked questions and the Confederate military authorities avoided them altogether.

Jacques was trying to pull on the man’s high oxblood leather boots, but he couldn’t quite force his foot.

“Merde!” he cursed, tossing the boot aside.

Omah picked it up and slid her bare foot easily into the leather. “Small feet,” she said, tugging the boot up her calf and lifting her leg to admire it.

Jacques brushed the matter aside with his hand. “Take them.”

She smiled—not even a trade required! Old Jacques was thinking of something else.

“I’m ready. I can shoot at least as well as Boudreau, and I’m as good as you with a knife.”

“Boudreau has trouble hitting the barn from five feet, ma chère, and as good as me?” Jacques shook his head and smiled grimly as he tapped a long finger on the dead man’s packet of letters, which he had read as soon as they settled at the kitchen table.

“The war is changing things. We must work quickly now if we are to survive.” He picked up his large knife and cut a chunk of cheese, then sliced into the fresh bread Marie had left on the table for their return.

“The war will be over soon,” Omah scoffed. Taking the cheese he offered on the point of his knife, she nibbled the corner. She’d almost mocked him for being old and afraid, but in the candlelight, he appeared as strong as ever, as if he never aged. Was it true, what the slaves whispered, that Jacques had traded an arm to the devil for immortal life? Not much of a bargain for the devil. Omah smiled and shook her head.

“No, chère Omah, this war goes on. Already the Africans make plans for escape, as the Federals draw near. They want the river. Both sides try to control shipping. We could help them, but no one asks.”

“Help which side?” she asked.

“This one, that one, both, for that matter.” He laughed and picked up the gold ring with the onyx stone they’d plucked from the man’s finger.

“Raiders, too, they fight the invaders to save the family, but some are like us—they work for themselves.”

Omah paused, listening to the wind picking through the trees, rattling lilac bushes against the windows. Jacques had let the outside of the house grow shabby, wouldn’t repair the broken windows and cracked roof shingles, hadn’t repainted in years, so the paint peeled in long yellow-white curls. He wanted outsiders to think they were poor, without means. He and Omah had hidden furnishings and gold and jewelry

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