The Rebel Wife by Taylor M. Polites Read Free Book Online

and lots along the square. He talked about railroads. It’s so muddled, but I’m sure he did. He owned some sort of railroad. Or a part of it. There were men here who talked about pig iron. At dinner not too long ago. And a cotton mill. He would bring home the yarn for me. He would say he made it himself. He gave one of the first skeins to Mama when she was alive. There must be something left of all that.
    The ice is melting through the cloth. It almost burns, it is so cold. The water streams across my wrist, and I want to scratch at it. I can hardly think for this headache. And this heat, dear Lord, it’s hot as an oven in here.
    How can Eli have done this? It cannot be. Judge must be mistaken. He seemed to hardly know himself what Eli did and didn’t have. Eli’s debts? He never seemed to worry about money. Wasn’t that what Mama wanted from the marriage? Wasn’t that what I married him for?
    There was more reason than that. Damn Buck. He’s to blame for me marrying Eli. That’s not right, either. Mama wanted me to marry Eli. She didn’t really know about Buck. It wasn’t a baby. No, I did not let it become a baby. But for Emma, I don’t know what I would have done. I was too far along for Eli to ever think it was his. Damn Buck. And Judge, too, he wanted me to marry Eli instead of his own son. He pushed me like Mama did. We always did what Judge said—after Pa died. He decided when Hill and Mike would go to school and where. He treated Hill about like another son. Buck was like his brother. He sent them to the university in Tuscaloosa together.
    And then the war broke out.
    Weems blames Judge for the war. At least men like Judge. So many men ranted on slavery and secession for so long, there was no room for anything but war. And this is what it got us all. I’m sure Judge believes we would have won but for men like Weems. Judge was never one to compromise. Not until after the war. He went in breathing fire and brimstone, and Weems was scorched by him. Judge was such a fire-breather. He signed the Ordinance of Secession in Montgomery with all those other men. He fired his largest hunting rifle fourteen times from the front yard of his house in honor of the Confederacy. And he outfitted a full company of the 26th Alabama.
    While Judge was firing off his rifle, the Weems family was shut inside their house with the shutters closed. They refused to take down their United States flag until someone tore it down and nearly burnt their house down around them. After the secession convention, men came and dragged him and one of his brothers into the street and whipped them like slaves. Calling them yellow dogs and cowards. Eli said Weems thought Judge ordered it, or that Judge’s speeches had incited the violence. You don’t forget something like that.
    Eli wasn’t a part of all that. Not then. He was locked away in his counting room. He helped the Yankees, though. That’s what Mama said before he started asking to call on me. He was head of the local Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands by then. Hill was dead. Mike was still missing. It was Eli who came out on top. Out of nowhere he appeared, no name and no family. He had been working at Val Heyward’s store, and when Val died, Eli took it over. Eli was smart. Who could say that he was wrong? How many men back then envied him for his influence? He was a moneylender, too. Mama would whisper across the fence to her friends that he robbed graves. And he was a Republican, which was even worse. An opportunist. Among the first to be called scalawag. He led the men like Weems and all the newly freed Negro men into some sort of political party while Judge and men like him were fairly banished. That was when Eli and Weems became friends. And now Judge comes to tell me that everything Eli has is gone. I can’t believe it.
    When Eli asked me to marry him, I refused to see him and sneaked out to see Judge. There were bluecoats on the street corners. They were