by Naomi Finley
“Is et true, Missus Willow?” Tillie raced toward me.
I clasped her hands and smiled. “It is.”
She squealed and crushed me in an embrace. “My chillum be free!”
“Yes, indeed.”
“I was afraid et all jus’ a dream.” Her face alight with wonder, she released me. “What are we to do now, Missus?”
“You can start by dropping the formalities. I am no longer your master, and gladly so. Perhaps you would consider my friendship?” Hope buoyed my heart.
Tillie grinned and nodded. “I’d lak dat.”
“Good.” I patted her arm before moving up to the veranda to address the folks. “The day many have only dreamed of is upon us. A day that requires celebration.”
Pete stood with his arm draped over Tillie’s shoulder, and he looked at her with a wide grin and drew her closer. She leaned her head into the curve of his neck, a breathtaking smile of liberation and hope creasing her face.
Passion elevated my voice as I looked over the teary-eyed and gleeful faces of the scarce few who remained. “Today we celebrate, and tomorrow we discuss what we will each do next.”
Parker jabbed his walking cane at the sky and threw back his head to howl in jubilation. “Dey tried, but dey couldn’t hold us down. From de dust dey sought to return us to, we rise!”
MY DAUGHTER GAZED AT THE yellow daffodil she rotated between her small fingers as we returned inside from the gardens. I marveled at the angelic child as she tottered down the corridor, her hand in mine. She was petite, with fetching blue eyes and dark ringlets that hung to her shoulders. She bore the eyes of her father, and her only resemblance to me was her hair. Where I had spent my life being a truth-seeker and fighting for what I thought was right, in her mere two years, she had already gravitated to nature and nurturing animals, discovering contentment in solitude.
I paused outside the library crammed with the latest batch of patients, and she halted and stretched her neck out to look past me into the room.
“Well, hello there, little miss.” A soldier with a bandage wrapped around his head and covering one eye sat on his cot, propped against pillows.
Olivia smiled and tucked herself into the protection of my side. I capped her head with my hand and pulled her closer before shifting my attention to the young man who had been a pleasure since his arrival. He had the spirit that would see him recovered and swiftly returned to the front lines. “How do you fare today?” I strode into the room.
“I’ll be as good as new before you know it.” He rewarded me with a lopsided grin.
“Not if he doesn’t rest.” Whitney entered behind me with fresh bandages and a bucket of steaming water. “Up all night reading whatever he can get you to sneak him from the shelves and keeping the lantern burning well into the night.”
I drew closer to his bed and nudged my head at Whitney. “A word of advice. Don’t get on that one’s bad side.”
“Don’t think I can’t hear you,” she tossed over her shoulder.
I grinned at the soldier, and he smiled back before holding out a hand to Olivia.
She smiled at him but pointed at the crimson staining his bandage. “Hurt,” she said.
“Yes, little miss. But I’ll be all right. Your mama is taking good care of me.”
My daughter had aroused delight but also melancholy in the soldiers who had come to Livingston to recover. For a few precious moments she helped them forget about the war, but the magic of her innocence was fleeting as the men pined for their families.
“For you.” Olivia held out the treasure in her hand.
The soldier accepted the flower, and tears pooled in his eyes. “Thank you, little miss.” He looked up at me. “Your daughter makes one dream a future is possible after the darkness of this war is a distant memory. Perhaps all we’ve fought for isn’t in vain. It’s been so long, you come to forget what you’re fighting for.”
Olivia jumped at the sound of the back door flying open and slamming against the wall.
“The Yankees are coming!” Pete’s voice reverberated throughout the main floor.
A murmur rippled through the library, and the face of the soldier before me blanched. I swept my daughter up in my arms and bolted for the corridor.
Pete hunched forward at the back door, resting his hands on his knees while trying to catch his breath. He straightened as I rushed toward him. “M-mister Jones spotted Union soldiers spying on us from de tree line. Told me to warn you,” he panted.
“God in heaven!” I looked back to the library. Union soldiers showing up would mean death for the Confederates we harbored, and God only knew what they would do to us. Fighting panic, I looked at a wild-eyed Mammy as she hurried toward us. “Take Olivia up to the nursery and stay with her.”
“Yes, Missus Willow.” She held out her arms, and Olivia willingly went to her. “Come, angel gal, let’s go play.”
She smiled and patted Mammy’s weathered cheek with affection before pointing at herself. “Mammy play with Olivia.”
Mammy pulled the child’s forehead to her lips and kissed her, then spun and hurried for the staircase.
“Come, Pete, we need to get these soldiers hidden.” I raced back to the library to discover Whitney hoisting a soldier whose leg had been blown off at the knee.
The recruit to whom Olivia had gifted the flower stood on the other side of Whitney, with the soldier’s arm draped around his neck. I glanced at the other four soldiers; one lay unmoving with his eyes closed, unchanged since his arrival, while the others lay helpless on their cots, gawking at me with alarm.
“We have a place to hide you from the soldiers,” I said. “You will need to use what strength you have to aid us.”
Big John raced into the room with Jimmy right behind him. “Ef we move him, he dies for sho’.” Big John pointed at the soldier who clung between worlds.
“It’s a chance we must take or risk them all,” I said. “I will go and meet whatever is headed this way.” I turned to Pete. “You come with me.” I raced from the room and headed for the closet under the staircase.
“Help me with this,” I said. The door of shelving swung wide with one push, exposing the stairs leading to the attic. “We need to arm ourselves.” I bounded up the stairs and returned with Bowden’s holster and two rifles, leaving the closet as Whitney and the soldier arrived with the first recruit, who appeared to have lost consciousness.
“Well, I’ll be…” The soldier craned his neck to peer up the hidden staircase before considering me with wondering eyes. “You are quite the woman, Mrs. Armstrong.”
“There is no time for pleasantries,” Whitney grumbled, shifting under the burden of the soldier they supported.
I handed Pete a rifle and the holster containing two pistols. “See that Jones gets that.” I gestured at the rifle. “Can I count on you and Tillie to arm yourselves?”
His face showed determination. “Never worked a pistol ’fore, but we do our part.”
My heart heaved with gratitude.
“What in tarnation are you doing?”
I spun to eye the soldier draped between Jimmy and Big John.
“Have you lost your damn mind, woman? Giving a nigger a gun.” He glowered at me.
I gritted my teeth. “I suggest you hold your tongue, unless you want me to leave you for the Union soldiers’ target practice.”
He recoiled, and his gray eyes flared, but he pressed his lips together.
“I didn’t think so,” I said and looked at Jimmy. “Get him upstairs before I throw him out.”
They staggered past me, and I swung back to Pete and touched his arm. “Hurry. Go.”
He rushed toward the back door and I returned to the library, grateful the shipment of soldiers had not been large enough to require the parlor too. “Good,” I said when I discovered Pippa scurrying around, scooping up uniforms and belongings. “We can’t hide the cots, but at least if we act as though we have no men in our care at the moment, perhaps w
e stand a chance.” My heart pounded faster as I loaded the rifle and strode out the front door.
A lone soldier charged toward the house on a chestnut bay, and confusion pulled at me. Pete had said there were more. But, as I thought that, I saw the others cresting the hill in full pursuit.
The terror I had envisioned for many days and nights was upon us. Adrenaline pumped through me as I prepared to preserve Livingston, those we harbored, and all the folks who remained. My determination was accompanied by sheer fear.
Movement at the corner of the house caught my attention, and I saw Jones give me a nod before returning his concentration to the advancing riders. I drew on the strength he had given me over the years and studied the soldier who drew ever closer.
I hoisted the rifle and pointed it at his chest. “Halt, right there,” I said with as much sternness as I could summon.
The soldier’s eyes flashed with contempt and an unsettling thirst. “You can’t hold off an army.”
“Hardly an army,” I said, taking in the five soldiers who reined their mounts to a trot as they reached the front yard. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
He smirked, and I cocked the rifle; his disdain evaporated. “Up with your hands, now,” I said. “Or I’ll drop you before your friends take their next breath.”
“Today, you die,” the soldier sneered, but he elevated his hands.
“Perhaps today the one who will die is you.”
“We will see about that.”
Amelie
minutes before
OUR ARMY LEFT SAVANNAH AND advanced toward Charleston, pillaging and burning everything in our path. General Sherman had split the army into two wings. Zeke and I moved toward Charleston with the right wing and the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps while the left wing marched toward Augusta.
Zeke and I had been sent out with a party of foragers to gather supplies, and from our horses we observed the plantation below. A recruit by the name of Thompson, a young man with bright blue eyes, handed Zeke the field glasses. “Looks like there ain’t but a few blacks, children, and womenfolk.”
Zeke took a look for himself. “It appears so.” He lowered the field glasses. “We collect what supplies we can and leave the plantation standing.”
Thompson nodded his agreement, but another soldier named Conner snorted and said, “Let the Southerner sympathizers burn with all they own.”
I hadn’t seen the man before, but it was easy to go unrecognized in an army our size, which explained how Reuben McCoy had been able to live amongst us and I had never detected him.
Zeke narrowed his eyes. “I mean it, Conner. No harm comes to them.”
He returned Zeke’s glare. “You don’t hold a higher rank than any of the rest of us.”
“But the lieutenant put him in charge,” I said. “Do you wish to be reported for insubordination?”
He sneered, and without another word he heeled his horse and raced toward the plantation.
“That son-of-a…” Zeke charged off after him, and the rest of us followed.
At the front yard’s boundary, Zeke raised a hand to signal us, and we reined our mounts to a trot. My gaze went to the front veranda of the mansion, where a brunette woman stood with a rifle trained on Conner, who sat ramrod straight in his saddle with his hands elevated. We proceeded with caution.
“Good day, gentlemen,” the woman said as we pulled up alongside Connor.
An armed, gruff-looking fellow of fifty or so positioned himself at the corner of the house. To the right, a black man and woman with pistols in hand stepped out.
“It appears you were expecting us,” Zeke said as he observed the revolutionary gathering of blacks and whites intending to safeguard a Southern plantation. The abnormality of the scenario registered on the soldiers’ faces.
I regarded the woman, from her worn brown boots to the green gingham frock bleached by the sun. Skin, perhaps once fair and protected, was now brown from days in the fields. The woman broadened her stance, and her piercing green eyes roved over us with grit and keen intellect. “As one would expect with General Sherman wreaking havoc across the Carolinas.”
“We come for provisions,” Zeke said.
“What more do you expect the war can squeeze from us?” she said dryly. “Furthermore, what you come seeking, the Confederates have already confiscated. We can barely feed ourselves.”
“Yet you’re fortified with weapons that could assist the Confederate army.” Zeke studied the woman with curiosity.
She bristled. “I seek to preserve my lands and the folks of this estate.”
Conner laughed and said to the soldier on his right, “The woman is a damn fool. She’s spent far too long lazing around in that fine house with slaves doting on her.” He returned his attention to the veranda. “Southerners don’t know what it’s like to put in a hard day’s work. You and all the damn fool-hearted niggers in the South can’t stop the whipping the Union is unleashing on your asses. Generals Sherman and Grant will see the South continues to feel the brunt of this war.”
“Enough, Conner,” Zeke said through gritted teeth.
Conner muttered but quelled further remarks.
The woman, however, centered her attention on him. “That may be so, but the North will not prevail without grave losses of their own.” Weariness touched her face, but she swiftly concealed it.
Zeke looked at the blacks that entered the yard, armed with pitchforks and hatchets. “Have you not heard that Lincoln abolished slavery?” He directed his question at the woman while gesturing at a black man with a walking cane.
“Yes, we heard.” She elevated her chin. “These women and men are free to leave if and when they choose to do so.”
The door behind the woman opened, and a middle-aged woman with silvery blond hair stepped out. She strode to the younger woman’s side and clasped her hands in front of herself.
“Ma’am.” Zeke tipped his hat. “As I was telling, Miss…”
“Armstrong. Willow Armstrong,” the brunette said, squaring her shoulders.
Zeke and I both tensed. Willow? The dreadfully annoying Tucker woman’s friend?
“Well, Miss Armstrong, we must gather supplies for our men. If you and your friends would be so kind as to lower your weapons, we can avoid any bloodshed.”
“I told you we don’t have anything,” she said firmly.
“In better times, it appears you were a woman of wealth. If not food, I’m sure we can find jewels and silver.” Conner craned his neck to inspect the mansion, which had seen better days.
“Our valuables are long gone,” Willow said.
“We will see for ourselves.” Conner moved to dismount, and Willow fired a shot at the ground in front of him, startling his horse. It reared back, and I looked on with amusement as he clawed at his horse’s mane to keep from being dumped.
We reached for our weapons, but the chill in Willow’s voice stopped us. “You will remain where you are, soldier. The rest of you remove your hands from your weapons. Or the first one to draw will bite the dust this day.”
I questioned the woman’s sanity in taking on trained soldiers.
“All right.” Zeke’s commanding tone gathered everyone’s attention. “Everyone remain calm.” He narrowed his eyes on Willow. “As I stated, ma’am, we aren’t seeking to do you harm—”
“And leaving us to starve isn’t causing us harm?” Her eyes flashed. “My husband fights to defend our home and country, and we here at Livingston do our part to ensure he has something to come home to.”
“If we return empty-handed, I assure you we will be sent back with more men,” Zeke said.
Willow’s gaze flitted aside, and concern tugged at her brow.
The door opened once again, drawing everyone’s attention.
Tucker? I tensed.
She leveled a callous look at us as she strode to Willow’s side and said something out of the corner of her mouth. Willow’s rigid posture eased.
�
�Very well.” She held Zeke’s gaze. “Your men are welcome to check the grounds.”
“And the house,” Zeke said.
Her jaw clenched, and she hesitated before inclining her head. “As you say.” She lowered the rifle and moved to the side.
Zeke ordered the men to dismount and spread out before assigning me to investigate the house. I ascended the front steps, attempting to shield my face from Tucker.
Inside, I paused in the foyer to marvel at the grand staircase and the mansion’s artistry before walking to a room that appeared to be a parlor, which had been cleared of most furnishings and replaced with empty, neatly prepared cots. I frowned and peered back at Willow as she and the other women gathered behind me. “What is the meaning of this?” I gestured a gloved hand at the room.
Willow strode to my side and peered into the parlor. “We have converted the home to a wayside station.”
“A Confederate hospital?” I braced and scanned what I could see of the main floor.
“And others,” the woman said nonchalantly.
“Zeke!” I placed my hand on my pistol. “You better come in here.”
Boots echoed on the veranda, and I glanced at the door as he strode inside. “What is it, soldier?”
“This place is a wayside station for Confederates.”
He tensed at the news. “You failed to inform us, Mrs. Armstrong.” His hand rested on his weapon, and he took a swift scope of the place before proceeding. “Where are the patients?”
“We are between shipments.” Tucker’s curt reply had Zeke eyeing her.
“Are we now?” Zeke’s unsmiling disposition and stature could be intimidating, but not in the presence of Tucker. The woman feared little.
Her brow furrowed as she stared at him. “You seem familiar.”
“Perhaps we’ve met in passing,” Zeke said dismissively before proceeding down the corridor to halt outside another room. “It looks like you haven’t had time to clean the linens.”
“No, the men left this morning.” Her gait graceful and one of poise, Willow moved to stand beside him.
“How convenient.” He peered down at her. “Yet we met no one along the road.”