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

boys, war-hardened though, and we had heard so many stories of insults to women. Mama said that the commanding officer wanted to make a show of force in Albion to intimidate the Knights of the White Cross. There seemed too few of them to make any difference.
    The Knights had appeared over the winter. They dressed in dark red hooded cassocks emblazoned with a white cross and claimed that they were the fallen crusaders of the war come back to take their vengeance on the Yankees and the freedmen. A Negro man had been found dead, shot in the face on the road to Chattanooga with a whitewash cross on his chest. Since then rumors had spread, each day bringing more tales of Union sympathizers harassed, black families burnt alive in their homes, men hanged from trees, white and black, Republican and scalawag and freedmen, subject to some terrifying justice. They would leave notes scribbled with crossed sabers and owls and coffins, telling whole families they had a few days to leave town. Everyone said the war was over, but there was no end to the dead and wounded. They just didn’t print them up on casualty lists anymore.
    Judge’s house stood amid bare trees. Late in the war they used it to quarter Union soldiers. They took out their wrath on the house as if it had belonged to Jeff Davis. They slashed the chairs and sofas, shattered china that had been in the family for generations. They pilfered the silver and broke up the dining room chairs and tables for firewood. They slashed family portraits and tore open the sofas, looking for hidden money or silver. The kitchen became their cesspit. They scrawled profanities over the French wallpaper.
    When the war ended, Judge came back from Montgomery to all that. The soldiers vacated the house, leaving the damage for Judge and Sally. He was kept a prisoner in his house for months because he refused to take the oath.
    Sally showed me up the stairs to Judge’s study. She must have been a young girl when Judge bought her, before Mrs. Heppert died giving birth to Buck. She was a yellow mulatto and pretty—she still is. As Emma remained with me and Mama, Sally had remained at Judge’s side.
    “Augusta,” Judge said as he rose from his chair. He looked surprised to see me. It was warm in his study. His shirtsleeves were rolled up. Legal books lined the shelves and a pair of chairs sat before a fire. The logs snapped and spat sparks up the chimney. “What are you doing here?”
    “Please, Judge, I need your help.”
    “What is it?” He sat down and watched me.
    “It’s Mama, Judge. She wants me to marry Eli Branson,” I burst out.
    “Yes, I know,” he said. His voice was tender but resigned. He looked at the pages on the small table beside him. “I would find Mr. Branson objectionable, too, if I were you.” He sighed and leaned back in his chair.
    “You must stop it, Judge! You must talk to Mama!”
    “I have spoken with Elsie. I understand what she thinks she’s getting. She says she only has your interest at heart. She believes this is best for you. For both of you.”
    “Do you think it’s best for us?” I had my hands out to him, pleading. I debased myself in front of him.
    He only shook his head and stared at his papers. “Here,” he said, picking up one of the sheets. “This is what I am being forced to do.”
    The page was covered in Judge’s clean, even hand. A letter to General Swayne and President Johnson, seeking a pardon.
    “There is no possible way they will give it to me unless some sort of miracle occurs. We gambled and lost, and this is what we are compelled to do. Beg forgiveness when we have done nothing to be forgiven. That is the cost of being vanquished.” His eyes hardened, and he shook his head again. “I understand your antipathy, Augusta, but I am lucky to have my own freedom. You should consider yourself lucky not to face much worse. It is a stroke of fortune that Eli Branson is courting you. What if you were a plain girl? Where would you and