The Cottoncrest Curse: A Novel

Chapter 39

140 Chapter 39 “I don’t know how you did it. I been scared ever since it happened. When we found the Colonel Judge and Miss Rebecca, my skin was crawlin’ like crawfish dumped in a boilin’ pot, and my wits were as fidgety as a grasshopper, and yet there you was, calm as calm could be, doin’ what had to be done, tellin’ me and Marcus and Cubit and Jordan what had to be done. You was right. Everything you said. The things had to be moved right then. We did it. The room had to be rearranged before dawn. We did it. And all the while, you was out there in the middle of the night, traipsing who knows where to get them safe. How you stayed so collected, I don’t rightly know.” Sally walked slightly behind Jenny as they moved north along the river road, the soft rush of the Mississippi River in their ears. To the west the sky was red from the setting sun. To the south the sky was red from the fire in the cane fields. But ahead of them the sky was already dark. That was good. It was safer for them in the dark. “It was you that stayed so collected when all this started, Sally. If it hadn’t been for you, Rebecca would have been dead long before. Yet there you were, calmly telling all of us what to do.” Sally brushed off the compliment. “That’s nothin’, nothin’ at all. Weren’t anythin’ I hadn’t done lots and lots of time before. But you? No one has ever done somethin’ like that.” “When you come right down to it, neither one of us had a choice.” Jenny readjusted her cloak as the temperature continued to drop. “We both did what had to be done because not to do it would have been worse.” “Well, when I do what I usually do, I just get myself started and follow on through. But the other night I had the conniptions. My stomach was all tight like. And ain’t none of us got no sleep, but at least we 141 had things to do. Unlike you, at least we could stay in and around the big house, haulin’ the stuff down the back stairs and breakin’ it up and buryin’ it, like you said. Ain’t none of that won’t ever be found. But you was up all night and gots to have traveled miles and miles before you got back. Must’ve half-run on your way back, from the looks of you. Yet, you got cleaned up so quick and seemed so calm that by the time Mr. Raifer and Mr. Bucky came out, you looked like you hadn’t gone any farther than from Little Miss’s room. ’Course, I don’t want you to tell me where you went. Don’t ever want to know that.” “No, you don’t. That’s the only way you and Marcus will be safe. What you never know you can’t reveal.” “Lord, I was worried that if Marcus talked any longer to Mr. Raifer, he was goin’ let somethin’ about them slip for sure. You were right that we all gots to leave. It’s for our own safety. And for their safety as well.” ...