A Guardian of Slaves

by Naomi Finley

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The Carters’ slave you helped.”

  “How do you know about that?” Jones beat me to the question.

  “I was making my way through the woods to Mr. Anderson’s farm when I heard the dogs. I hid, and from there I saw it all.”

  A cold knot settled in my stomach as I exchanged a look with Jones and Kipling. I turned my eyes back to the man. “What was your business with Anderson?”

  “Masa Abbotts hired me out to him.”

  I shifted in my seat. “You were hired by Anderson?”

  Jones’s back became erect, and he eyed the slave with a hooded expression.

  “Several times,” Jethro said. “It’d do folks well to pay attention to Mr. Anderson and his comings and goings.”

  “Make yourself clear,” I said.

  “I overheard Mr. Anderson talking to someone down by the river on my way to the quarters one evening. He was carrying on like someone had wronged him. Curiosity got the best of me—”

  “That seems to happen to you a lot,” I grumbled.

  Jethro grew silent. In the moonlight I could see his sharp eyes assessing me. “Well, go on.” A muscle twitched in my cheek as I suppressed my impatience.

  “I crept in to take a look,” he continued. “Only thing was, he was by himself.”

  Jones and Kipling appeared as confused as I was.

  “Then who was he talking to?” Kipling said.

  “Don’t rightfully know. He was acting all crazy, flailing his arms around and saying you will pay. Then he lifted his hands and started hitting the sides of his head with his palms.”

  Kipling’s frown deepened. “What else?”

  “A man called to him from his cabin asking him if he was all right. After Mr. Anderson told him to mind his own business and go back inside, Mr. Anderson wiped his hands over his eyes as if to clear his vision and went to the house.”

  “The man? You mean Caesar?”

  “Not the black man, the hired man.”

  “I wasn’t aware Anderson had a hired man,” I said.

  “Name’s Collins,” Jethro said.

  Collins. The man Bowden had fired? The one Bowden thought was responsible for cutting the horses’ harnesses?

  Jones and I rowed harder, our gazes locked on each other. The sound of the oars hitting the water mimicked the pounding in my chest.

  Willow

  “I TOLD YOU!” WHITNEY LEAPED from her chair the next morning at breakfast when Ben filled us in on what Jethro had revealed about Anderson. “He’s no good. Crazy, in fact, by the sounds of it.” She paced the room.

  Jack’s fork clanged on his plate, and his face paled. Kimie’s eyes followed her sister around the room as she chewed faster to empty her mouth.

  “What is it?” Kimie said to Whitney’s back when she finished her bite.

  “Children, everything is fine,” Ben said, patting Jack’s tight fist where it lay on the white-draped table. “Tillie, please take the children outside.”

  Tillie moved from her position in the corner. “Come along, chillum; let’s go see if Dolly had her calf yet.” She pulled back Kimie’s chair.

  “But James says the baby isn’t to be born for at least another few weeks,” Kimie said as Tillie took her hand.

  Jack rose. Fear and worry shone in his eyes. The boy, like his sister, had seen and dealt with things no children ever should. “Calf could’ve come last night.” He encircled his sister’s shoulders with an arm as they left the room.

  My stomach roiled with worry as I looked at Ben. “What do you think? Is Anderson a threat to Livingston?”

  “Well, he doesn’t seem all together. Certainly not the neat little package he has presented himself as.”

  “The question we need to be asking ourselves is why did he take over the widow’s homestead and whom does he intend to make pay? And pay for what?” Whitney mumbled, more to herself than us. I swear, if she kept up her pacing, she’d wear the floorboards down to splinters.

  “For the love of God, Whitney, take a seat.” Her pacing had carved through my last nerve.

  She plopped down beside me. “Do you think we have reason to be concerned?” Stress and worry pulled at her pretty face as she sought reassurance from Ben.

  “No one really knows for sure. It all seems a mite suspicious. Until Jones and I can figure out if Anderson is up to something or is just some poor bloke touched in the head, I think it’s best if you two pack up the children and move to town earlier than expected.”

  I wanted to dispute him on the matter, but I kept silent. We were all under an abundance of stress, and my challenging him on his decision would only put unnecessary pressure on him. Haggard and tired, he’d returned home as we came down for breakfast.

  “We’ll go.” Whitney rose to her feet. “I’ll start packing the twins’ trunks.”

  When she was gone, Ben pushed back his chair and stood. “Do you think you can get yourselves together by the afternoon?”

  “I’m sure we can.”

  “Good. I’ll have Jimmy prepare the carriages. I’ll arrange for some of Jones’s men to accompany you to town.”

  “You aren’t coming with us? At least to say goodbye?”

  “We’ll say our farewells here. I intend to pay Bowden a visit and let him know where Collins has found employment. Maybe we’ll pay Anderson a visit as well.”

  Fear exploded in me like the firing of a cannon. “No. You can’t.” I jumped to my feet. “I can’t bear the thought of something happening to either of you.”

  “We’ll be fine.”

  “You can’t promise that.”

  “Only a fool would poke at a buzzing hornet’s nest.”

  “But if you show up with Bowden, that will only fuel up Collins and Bowden both.”

  “Very well. You speak reason. I’ll take Jones with me.”

  Not that I liked the idea any better. “Be careful,” I said.

  In the early afternoon, a caravan of carriages and a wagon filled with trunks pulled out of Livingston headed for Charleston. Mary Grace and Mammy, along with the other house slaves, were left to manage the house until our return in the fall.

  “You leave it in capable hands.” Ruby smiled with encouragement.

  I shifted my gaze from the window to rest on her where she sat across from me. Her bonnet, accented with peach and ivory flowers, brought out the rosiness in her cheeks. The hat sat cockeyed on her head, its ribbons tied securely under her chin.

  “I shall miss you when you are gone,” I said.

  “And I, you. My time went too fast, and I feel like my father and I were only beginning to get to know each other. I hope you’ll have me back someday. I quite liked being in the quarters. It gave me a sense of what my life might have been like if it weren’t for your family.”

  “My family?”

  “I’m indebted to your family and gratefully so. If your father hadn’t brought you to New York, we might have never met. Who knows what would have happened to me if it wasn’t for your mother and her bravery. Then there’s you—if your love for my father hadn’t guided your steps, all of this would never have happened.” Her beautiful face gleamed with happiness and rosiness caressed her high cheekbones.

  I studied her for a moment. “I’m not sure I deserve that gratitude.”

  The softness in her face faded and a puzzled expression took its place.

  I dropped my eyes to my hands, folded in my lap, and hurried to explain myself. “For so long he’d been my Jimmy—the father I always longed for—so when I found out he had a daughter, I searched for you. I was determined to find you, but when I discovered you were Mag, I feared you’d take him from me.”

  She snorted and her eyes glinted. She grinned. “Aww, Miss Willie, dere ain’t nobody dat ever gonna steal de affections I have for you,” she mimicked before convulsing in a fit of booming laughter—his laughter.

  When she straightened and her laughter ceased, she said, �
��He bonds us together. We’re sisters, in a way.”

  I smiled. “I like the sound of that.”

  My mind drifted to another girl an ocean away, the rightful daughter of Charles Hendricks. Callie. What was she like? Did she know of me?

  WHITNEY, THE TWINS, AND I settled into the townhouse in Charleston. Papers were drawn up, and Ruby returned to New York accompanied by a female companion and conductor of the Underground Railroad. Over the summer, Ben came to visit and brought word of things at home. He’d gone by the Anderson homestead and reported that Silas was building a new house. Though only a frame of a home stood, Silas’s mention of this intention at the Christmas banquet rang true.

  Silas informed Ben that Collins had ridden up looking for a job a while back and, needing the help, he’d hired him. Ben said that Silas was cordial and invited Ben and Jones in for some whiskey. Silas hadn’t joined them in a drink, but spent his time speaking about the masked men. He told them that someone had recently come by his homestead when he wasn’t home and ransacked the house. Besides the desperate need for a housekeeper, Ben thought all appeared normal. However, he wouldn’t dismiss Jethro’s insight so easily.

  Mr. Abbotts put up posters all over town for his runaway and doubled the reward for the Guardian. Word in the quarters was that slaves on the plantations across the country sang the praises of a man said to be outsmarting the planters. Talk that riddled me with fear.

  Today I sat in the front garden, engrossed in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the novel that was all the buzz lately. The hustle and bustle of the street just beyond the wrought-iron gates melted away as I read how Eliza crossed the Ohio River on a floating piece of ice to escape the slave traders. Eliza’s profound courage was an inspiration in itself.

  Whitney’s raised voice pulled me from the book, and I lowered it to my lap. Whitney was storming up the street, her arms swinging fiercely. Knox trailed slowly behind her; his expression was one of total bewilderment. She charged through the gates, and they rasped on their hinges. “Willow. Just the person I wanted to see,” she said as she strode up the stone walkway. “He has lost his mind.”

  “What is the problem?” I said.

  “Can you believe the nerve of that man?” she scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “What has got you so riled up?”

  “That man is the reason.” She jerked her head at Knox as he reached the gate. “He thinks he can show up here proposing marriage and think I—”

  “That’s what has you so angry?” I laughed.

  Her sourness amplified. “You bet it does. I told him from the start I wasn’t the marrying kind. If he were looking for a woman to mother a herd of children, he’d best keep on looking. It isn’t just me he would have to care for. There are the twins too. Besides, his apartment over the general store just wouldn’t do. Jack would never be happy in town. The funds I’ve saved up from the wage you pay me is enough to purchase a piece of land, but a house would take months to build. He’d go from caring for one person to four.”

  “Sit down and calm yourself.” I poured her a glass of punch.

  She dropped into the white rocker with a thud. Her eyes fell on Knox as he strolled cautiously toward us.

  “Mind your manners.” I plucked the words from her book of vocabulary titled Jack Barry.

  She scowled and leaned back in the rocker, and it began to rock furiously. Squeak…groan…scrape, the rocker sang.

  Knox clenched his tan hat in his big paws. With the sleeve of his shirt, he wiped the sweat dripping down his forehead as his shadow engulfed us. His warm brown eyes shifted from me to Whitney.

  “Is that a no?” he asked.

  “It’s a hell, no.” She shifted her body away.

  “Whitney Barry! You better get ahold of yourself,” I said, astonished at her rudeness. “Don’t mind her none. Whitney doesn’t take kindly to people showing their feelings.”

  Whitney turned her flashing eyes on me with a you-better-watch-it look.

  “Now, ladies, I didn’t mean to cause all this fuss. I’ll be on my way.” Knox set his crumpled hat on his head. “At least think on it.” His eyes fell on Whitney.

  She tilted her nose in the air.

  “She will,” I answered for her and offered him a smile of encouragement.

  “Good day, ladies.” He tipped his hat and left.

  After he was gone, I said, “I know you love him. So what’s the trouble?”

  “And what makes you think that?”

  “A woman like you wouldn’t allow Knox to call on you if you didn’t care for him.”

  “Care and love are two gravely different things.” Her posture relaxed somewhat, the best Whitney Barry was capable of.

  “You deserve to be happy, and I believe Knox would be the person to do that. He’d be a good father to the twins.”

  “Are you suggesting I marry to lighten my burden?”

  “Of course not. It’s just—”

  “It’s just you think I’m too headstrong to see what I need in life.”

  “Maybe,” I said, blushing, knowing I was not one to give advice on love. Look at the horrible mess I’d made of my own life.

  She thought for a minute and then, as if overcome by too many confused emotions, she rose. “I know you mean well, but you should get your love affairs in order before you give insight into mine.” She marched toward the front piazza and up the steps and into the house, slamming the door behind her.

  “Did I not just think that?” I shook my head in annoyance.

  I reached out to steady the empty rocker beside me and heaved a sigh as I slumped back in my chair. “So much for a pleasant day,” I said to the ruby-throated hummingbird that hovered at the coral-colored trumpet vine entwining the wood archway.

  “YOU KNOW YOU HAVE PAID staff to do that,” Whitney said from the doorway of the carriage house a few days later.

  “I enjoy coming out here. Mindless hours of wondering how things are at Livingston are making me crazy. It’s best to keep busy.” I brushed the coat of the sixteen-hands-high bay.

  An elderly silver-haired man polished the enclosed carriage that sat in the middle of the building.

  Whitney ambled toward the two-horse stall. She stroked the nose of the horse I groomed. I took a sideways glance at her and smiled to myself. Something was troubling her and knowing Whitney as I did, she was struggling to find the words to speak what was on her mind.

  Expelling a long sigh, she said, “I’m sorry. I behaved poorly. Can you find it within your big old heart to forgive me?” Redness crept into her face as she looked at me through lowered auburn lashes.

  I stopped brushing the horse and balled a fist on my hip. “I did that the day you acted so ghastly. Well…by the next day, at least.” I broke into a big smile.

  Her laugh echoed throughout the building. A light chuckle came from the man polishing the carriage. “I appreciate your generosity.” She dipped low into a curtsy, but not before I caught her roll her eyes.

  I held out my hand, palm down, for her to kiss.

  “I’m not kissing that! You’ve been playing with horses all morning.” She swiped my hand away. “I’ve been thinking, and I think maybe I should consider Knox’s proposal.”

  “It’s about time you started making sense. Knox loves you and the twins. You’d be very happy.”

  “I suppose we could make his apartment work until we could build our own place.”

  “I’ve got a better idea. You may think it’s selfish on my part, but I’ve had some land cleared close to Livingston. Before we came here, I rode out to check on how things were coming along. By the time we return home, the house will be almost finished. I’d love for you, Knox, and the twins to have it. My wedding gift to you.”

  “But why?”

  “Why not? I guessed marriage was in your future. Jack would have the countryside for a playground, I would have my best friend near, and it’s the least you deserve. We all win.” I beamed.

  “I don�
��t know what to say.”

  “Say nothing. I count it a blessing, the day you were dumped in my lap. Without you, these last years would’ve been bleaker than they’ve already been. I can’t thank you enough.”

  Tears dampened her eyes, and her lip quivered. “I-I can’t begin—”

  “Then don’t.” I leaned over the half wall of the stall and placed a kiss on her cheek.

  “You’re too much, Willow Hendricks…too much.” She grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze. “You know it doesn’t come easy for me…but I love you.”

  “I might love you a little too.”

  Carefree laughter passed between us and for the first time in a long while, I felt almost content—like stepping out and breathing in the fresh air after a rainstorm. Laughter was indeed the remedy to soothe the soul.

  “I suppose this means we need to plan a wedding.” Whitney looped her arm with mine and led me toward the house.

  SQUEALS OF DELIGHT CAME FROM Kimie and Jack when Knox and Whitney shared with them the news of their upcoming marriage. It was decided that the wedding would be a small, quaint affair and take place on our return to Livingston in October. Whitney sent a letter to Aunt Em in New York informing her of the wedding. Invitations were ordered and delivered by a hired man on horseback to the list of invited guests.

  During the next few weeks, we made multiple trips to the dressmaker’s shop, and dresses were ordered and plans for the wedding were put into motion. In the months that followed, I was grateful for the distraction the wedding planning provided from my longing for Livingston.

  One morning in September, while we were visiting the general store, Miss Smith said to Whitney and I, “With Knox leaving, I’ll have to find a new renter for the apartment. Without his heavy tread, I’d never have known anyone lived above.” Her eyes followed the only other customer in the store as he made his exit.

  “I’d think you’d find it more convenient if you lived upstairs.” Whitney ran an appreciative hand over a bolt of silver fabric.

  “I’ve considered it over the years, but my house is out of the way of prying eyes.” She removed her spectacles and rubbed the bridge of her nose before replacing them.