by Lori Benton
What would happen when the baby was too big to be taken for a little extra weight? Bone-thin as she was otherwise, how would she hide it?
She took another step away from the cabin-yard, mind spinning with its endless questions. Where was Ian? Why hadn’t he come? Couldn’t he find her, or had he given up trying?
Maybe he never looked at all. Maybe Thomas was right.
Such thoughts lurked around every corner, waiting to sting and claw. It was getting harder to fend them off.
Angry, she strode forward into the night until her bare foot came down on a sandspur and she stifled a yelp. She pulled up her foot, found the wicked thing, and yanked it from her flesh. What was she doing walking off in the night with nothing but the clothes on her back? She hadn’t planned to run. She’d gone out to use the privy and just kept going.
She wrapped her arms tight around herself, finding no warmth. Lord, I don’t know what to do. Please . . .
Staying and leaving both were a risk, but tonight she risked more by leaving. Turning, she walked back to the cabin-yard. She was passing the woodpile when a stick cracked—not under her foot. She veered toward the wood and started picking up pieces.
Missus Gibbs’s voice came out of the dark. “What you doing out here?”
Seona straightened, cradling kindling. “Woke up cold. Thought I’d get some wood . . .”
The woman moved closer, her face in the starlight hollow-eyed. “Don’t do it,” she said.
“Don’t bring in wood?” Seona asked, pretending she hadn’t understood.
“He’ll hurt you bad, you try it again.”
Instead of the warning Seona had expected, it had been pleading she heard in the woman’s tone. “I’m just getting in wood.”
She tried stepping around Missus Gibbs, who stood on the path to the cookhouse, but the woman shot out a hand and clamped her arm hard.
“I know you’re carrying. Is it his?”
Seona halted. For a second she thought to go on playing dumb, mutter something about carrying wood. That wasn’t what squeaked out of her mouth. “No, ma’am, it is not. But does he know?”
The grip on her arm released. “Iffen he did, you wouldn’t need ask.”
The woman sounded worried. Seona swallowed. “How long have you known?”
“Since you ran that first time.”
She hadn’t even been sure then. Mama would have known too, before I did, she thought, and it rankled that this woman could remind her in some way of her mama, who she missed so deeply right then she had to bite back a sob. Or was this woman just pretending she’d known?
As if she could read Seona’s thoughts—again reminding her of Lily—Betha Gibbs turned toward the cabin full of sleeping babies, then ran a hand over the one soon to join them. “You think I don’t know what a woman breeding looks like?”
Nothing Seona could say to that. Only one thing mattered. “You going to tell him?”
The woman was silent a stretch, then said, “Long as you stay put, no.”
But he’d know, by and by. Should they hide it the whole nine months, there’d be no hiding a newborn from the man, even among his own brood. “Will he take my baby?”
Silence again. Cold and dark.
“I don’t know.” This time Seona was certain the woman lied. She knew what her man would do. Or thought she knew. “Go tend the fire. Might as well get breakfast going since we’ll all be up early.” Missus Gibbs was talking fast now, as if to prevent more questions. She gave Seona a push to get her moving. “He talk of taking the wagon into Fayetteville for some things. Said we can all go. You too. Ain’t leaving you here alone, and I’ll need your help with the babies.”
Ian sighted down the rifle at the painted target fastened to a tree at the field’s end. He was reasonably certain of hitting the mark. The target wasn’t moving. Neither was his aim, despite a few swigs from the flasks passed round since the morning’s militia maneuvers. From among the line of spectators perched on the split-rail fence behind him, someone gave a catcall. Someone else whistled. In the face of Ian’s stillness, the ribbing died. He released a breath and fired.
A lengthy pause as the powder smoke drifted. Then a shout of affirmation carried down the field. A dead-center strike. A clamor rose as a crowd of men and lads came surging to congratulate him.
“You won it, man!”
“You’ve hawks’ eyes, Cameron.”
“It’s that dang widow-maker rifle,” a slurred, morose voice cut in. “Puts our muskets to shame.”
At Ian’s side, Charlie Spencer muttered, “Go suck your sour grapes in private, Dawes.”
Ian turned to see his uncle’s overseer stalk off the shooting field. An uneasy truce had reigned between them the last few months. Dawes had kept his head down, gone about his work, given no reason for complaint—until three days ago, when he’d disappeared on one of his drinking binges. Ian was revisiting the notion of sending him packing, but he wasn’t about to let the ill-tempered man’s reappearance spoil the muster-day festivities.
“I’ll have another go,” he offered, grinning and relaxed, “should one of ye care to loan me a brown Bess.”
A hand gripped his shoulder as a smooth voice said, “Your uncle’s man couldn’t hit my barn at twenty paces—even sober.” Gideon Pryce held out the shooting prize, a polished black powder horn, its cap engraved in silver. An eye-catching piece to judge by the warmth of bodies pressing close. “Yours wasn’t the only rifle fired today.”
Pryce held the rank of captain in the local militia, though a colonel had ridden to Chesterfield to direct the county muster and record the names of recruits, Ian’s among them. Requisite maneuvers had been dispensed with while the morning’s mist lay over the trampled field.
“And it doesn’t even leave the family,” Pryce added, nodding toward the house, where Rosalyn watched from the garden’s edge.
Hugh Cameron had agreed to Pryce’s renewed offer of marriage, made during the celebration of Ian and Judith’s nuptials in January. Past the militia’s exemption age, Uncle Hugh was back at Mountain Laurel, no doubt ensconced fireside with pipe and brandy. Since the wedding his uncle had retreated from the farm’s daily managing, leaving the responsibility in Ian’s hands. Not that there was a great deal to manage in winter—acreage to clear, soil to enrich, seeding beds for the new tobacco crop to prepare.
Ian slipped the horn into his shot bag.
Off toward the veranda, Chesterfield’s slaves were busy setting out food. Searching for the dark head and quick stride of John Reynold and failing to find him among the crowd, Ian shouldered rifle and bag and trudged up the field. He hadn’t seen John since the wedding. Sometime during that interminable day their neighbor had spoken of an intended trip south. To Fayetteville, Ian thought.
Judith met him near the garden, the voices of the gathered crowd swelling around them. “How did you fare, Ian?”
“Middling well,” said Spencer, who’d come up the slope with Ian, then chuckled at Judith’s crestfallen expression. “Your husband whipped us all from here to Sunday—Mrs. Cameron.”
Judith beamed. “Was there a prize?”
“I’ll show ye later.” Ian gestured at Reverend Wilkes, who had officiated at their wedding, now awaiting their attention from the veranda steps. They gathered at the foot of the steps while the man pronounced a blessing over the dinner that spanned tables running the veranda’s length.
They filled their plates, then found a seat on the veranda steps. Ian ate, sporadic in his conversation with those nearby, smothered by Judith’s hovering—did he need more to drink, a fresh napkin, another slice of sweet potato pie?
“Ian, would you care for some?” Judith held a linen napkin on which rested a triangle of shortbread. “It’s from our kitchen.”
He’d never refuse Naomi’s baking. “Aye. Set it down, then.”
She stood at the foot of the steps, expectant. Suppressing a sigh, he picked it up and took a bite. Frowning over the dry texture, he
chewed, tried to swallow, and choked. He grabbed for his cider and washed the crumbly mass down.
“What did Naomi do? Toss in wood shavings for flour?”
Judith’s face stained radish-red. Wordless, she backed away from the steps, bumped into Zeb Allen, apologized, then hurried off into the crowd.
“Jud—” Ian tried to call, but a dry bit caught in his throat. Coughing, eyes watering, he slipped the offending shortbread over the veranda railing and into the waiting jaws of one of Charlie Spencer’s less-discerning hounds.
“Naomi didn’t make that, Mister Ian.” He looked up to find Lily at his side. “Miss Judith’s been coming to the kitchen for days to practice. Ye praised Naomi’s shortbread in her hearing, said it reminded ye of your mama’s. She wanted to make it for ye.”
He might have imagined the mild reproach in Lily’s voice, but the guilt that smote him was real enough. Breathing imprecations at himself, he went after his wife. She wasn’t with her mother, nor had she joined herself to any of the knots of women scattered across the veranda.
He spied a flash of mousy hair, across the lawn among the ornamental shrubs.
“Judith!” He caught her up behind the shrubbery and turned her toward him, wincing at her tears. “Ye meant to do me a kindness and I spoilt it. I’m sorry.”
Judith bit a quivering lip. “I suppose I best stay clear of the kitchen.”
“No . . . it was a fine attempt.”
“Really?” Her eyes held hope. “Ought I to try again?”
He started to reply, then heard a familiar voice calling his name.
“Judith—a moment.” He ducked round a shrub and scanned the yard. John Reynold was making his way down from the veranda, searching the crowd, creased and mud-spattered as though he’d ridden a great distance. “John! Here, man.”
Spotting him, John made for him straight as a plumb line, concern evident on his face.
“Is it Cecily? Robin? D’ye need Lily?”
Heads turned near the garden, distracted by the small scene. John took Ian by the arm and steered him back into the shrubbery. “They’re well. I’ve been to Fayetteville.”
“Aye, I thought so. Ye missed the morning muster—”
“Ian, I’ve seen her.” John’s eyes held his, intense. Urgent. “I’ve seen Seona.”
His friend might have brained him over the head, so stunning was the utterance of her name. “What?”
“Seona,” John repeated. “In a wagon full of children, heading out of Fayetteville. At first I wasn’t sure—her hair was covered—but once I knew my eyes weren’t playing me tricks, I followed at a distance and saw where she was bound. A plantation about three miles outside of town.”
The words washed over Ian, a flood of syllables without meaning. “Fayetteville? That’s south. Days south. She’s away north—”
“Ian.” John’s grip tightened. “She’s on the Cape Fear River.”
Ian jerked away. The garden, the milling crowd beyond the tall shrubs—his own flesh—none of it felt substantial, as though the universe were in the act of flying apart at the seams. And he with it.
John’s hand steadied him. “I’d never tell you like this if I thought for an instant I could be mistaken. I’m not. It was Seona.”
His gut knotted. “And Thomas?”
“I don’t know. I saw no sign of him.”
Dazed still, he was seized with sudden conviction—and the need to act on it. “I should tell Uncle Hugh. Get some things. Papers . . . proof.”
“And a fresh horse if you can spare one,” John added.
Bit by bit Ian was gaining possession of himself. He felt his feet, planted on the garden path, and his face, hardening with resolve. “Ye’ve been gone, John. Cecily will want—”
“But of course John will go.” Cecily was there, Robin on one hip, though he hadn’t noticed her approach. “You will together bring Seona home. This has been decided.”
Relieved, Ian leaned down to kiss her cheek. Only then did he notice Judith, silent at his side. Her expression told him she’d heard it all. He’d no words to allay the distress in her eyes or the foreboding in his heart. “Judith . . . I must.”
She firmed her chin. “I know. I—I’ll go home with Mama, in the carriage.”
“Aye.” I’m sorry, he wanted to say again but couldn’t. He kissed her forehead briefly. Then he was away like an arrow loosed.
34
Though a ragged turban swathed her hair, a glimpse was all it took to banish whatever lingering doubt might have remained. Seona wasn’t free, wasn’t with Thomas. Wasn’t in Boston or anywhere to the north. She was enslaved to strangers, spreading their wash over a thicket to dry.
Waves of emotion crested and crashed through Ian as he rode beside John Reynold through the towering longleaf pines—elation, rage, relief, regret. Black Huzzah and the pack mare trailed behind, hoof-falls muffled in sand and pine straw. The air bore the tang of turpentine. Distant shouts and the chunking grind of a sawmill, somewhere off through the trees, made it clear the mill’s overseer, in whose possession John had seen Seona, wouldn’t be found at home—home being a listing cabin with a smoking chimney and a yard littered with children.
Seona hadn’t noticed their approach. One of the bairns, having crawled to her, was attempting to pull itself up by fistfuls of her dragging skirt. She bent to detach the child, who latched on to the wash basket, nearly tumbled into it, then set to wailing when Seona rescued the wash from grubby fingers.
Another child stood and shouted, “You let Billy alone, Show-nee!”
Their arrival was spotted then, and the lot of them set up a howl, Mama being the sole distinguishable note in the chorus. This drew a woman with a bairn in her arms, another swelling under her apron, to the cabin doorway. She stepped outside, moving with the distinctive waddle of advanced pregnancy.
Not until then did Seona turn their way, petticoat in one hand, child grasped in the other.
Across the sandy yard she saw him and went as still as stone. Then she let go child and petticoat both and came running.
“I regret the inconvenience, Mr. Gibbs,” Ian told the overseer, who’d come from the sawmill to confront the unexpected claim on his recently acquired slave. Gibbs and his wife had their heads bent over the document pertaining to the birth of Seona, one light-skinned, green-eyed female offspring of the slave Lily, belonging to Hugh Cameron of Mountain Laurel. “But she was never sold. She ran, though she’s still my uncle’s property.”
Seona looked at him blankly. A command from Gibbs’s wife had halted her short of reaching Ian, but not before he registered the hollowed eyes, the too-sharp cheekbones, the ill-fitting gown and petticoat that even at a distance stank of sweat and fear.
Gibbs shoved the paper back at Ian. “Reckoned ’twas too good to trust, cheap as she come—though ’tweren’t cheap to me.” He glared from Ian to John Reynold, who’d dismounted to add his witness to Ian’s claim, then shot a scowl at Seona. “I ought to contest this but . . . maybe it’s for the best. Betha needed a hand with the young’uns, but last thing in this world I need is another mouth to feed.”
Before Ian could ask why the man had purchased a slave, that being the case, he was distracted by Mrs. Gibbs, who’d covered her belly with her hands, as if to shield her child from its father’s bitter words.
“As I said,” he began, “I regret—”
“Regret ain’t worth spit to me!” Gibbs snapped. Mrs. Gibbs flinched as her husband’s hand rose, but he reached for Seona, shoving her at Ian. “Reckon you’re the one to blame. Take her, then, and get off my place!”
Seona staggered against Ian. As he caught her, he saw the bruise fading on her cheek, another set on her wrist. The aftermath of a hard-gripping hand. He looked up, seeing red, as Gibbs pushed past his wife.
The woman latched on to his sleeve. “Eben, ain’t nothin’ you can do?”
“Forget it, Betha. Work’s waiting on us both.” Shaking her off, the man stalked off throug
h the pines.
Ian took the pack mare’s reins from John, ready to help Seona mount, then noticed the brood of children staring at him, grubby-faced and grave. “Dey takin’ Show-nee away?” one asked, but Mrs. Gibbs had her mouth pressed too tight to answer.
He made the decision on impulse. Motioning Seona to wait, he led the saddled mare to Gibbs’s wife. The woman’s eyes were bruised with fatigue, their color the soft gray of a dove’s wing. They peered from her worn face without expectation or hope.
“She’s called Cricket,” he said and put the reins into her work-ruined hand.
It was John who rode beside Seona as they turned the horses northward, John who learned Thomas never set foot on that plantation. Ian heard them conversing, John asking his questions, but kept Ruaidh too far ahead to join in. He couldn’t think past the different set of questions roaring in his head. Those first moments in the cabin-yard spun through his mind. Had she meant to fly into his arms? He hadn’t expected that. But why wouldn’t she be relieved to see him? Since her bid for freedom had failed, better slavery to his uncle than to strangers. At least at Mountain Laurel she had Lily, everything familiar. But she’d left it all once. Left him. For Thomas? Why else? How could he have been so blind to her true feelings?
He’d thought he’d put these bitter questions to rest, but they burned in him still. He lengthened the distance between them so he wouldn’t hear her weary voice, John’s consoling replies.
Toward evening two riders approached on the road. Between them trudged a line of slaves, men and women, faces bronzed with red clay dust. Ian’s mouth, gritted from hours of riding, went drier as with faint hope he scanned their passing ranks for Thomas.
His attention lingered on the last in the coffle, a scrawny woman with cropped hair gone white. Every few steps she stumbled, dragging at the woman next in line, who strained to bear her up by their linking chain.
He didn’t meet the gaze of the rider in the rear.
What was he to do about Thomas? Should he even find him, he hadn’t money enough to buy him outright and no proof of his status; his free papers had vanished with him, taken from the desk where Ian had kept them locked away.