by Riva Zmajoki
“That is the reason I went to the sheriff,” his uncle said calmly. “To save the mother of your child to fall down with that wicked woman. I don’t understand why they released those two other maids. They were still living there when the news broke. They hadn’t had the same defence your wife had. She left the damned house of sin. She refused to participate in their doings.”
“She left because I came for her,” William said weakly. “Other girls didn’t have the same luck.”
“Luck,” his uncle said with disdain. “You said that well. That girl had luck. She better be grateful and remembers who saved her.”
“She will,” William said and Tricia pressed her fist together.
“What is it?” Sue asked when she returned home.
“Nothing,” Tricia said with a sigh. “I think that I need to find another position. I don’t want to be a burden to you.”
“You’re not a burden,” Sue hurried to grab her hands.
“I know,” Tricia said. “But we’ll get along better if I live somewhere else.”
Sue smiled nodding and Tricia went out in search of a position.
Santos went further south in search of his father.
Luiz saw through Santos’ cover and let him go. That ruined life he had in York County and cut him off from the illusion he built around Tricia, the denial that she was right. His mother would never accept her as a worthy wife for her son.
It also broke the illusion Santos had about his father. Now he didn’t seem like a flawless hero. His mother didn’t seem heartless for denouncing him.
While he travelled, Santos wondered did his father deserved to be saved.
When he rested, Santos turned the pistol in his hands.
‘Love can’t be wrong,’ looked at him from the barrel.
He thought about Tricia how she told him that she can’t be loved, that she’s ruined. She was ruined for being forced to leave a child. Santos didn’t have to be told, her eyes told him how much it hurt her to leave her child behind.
If she had that child in marriage and lost it and her husband she wouldn’t be ruined but a respectable widow ready to remarry.
Luiz Terdreau walked around like a respectable Federal Marshal. He invested years in chasing his grandma around for some crime no one talked to him about.
Santos’ father roamed, he was almost never at home. Santos had no knowledge about his life away from home.
Now it seemed that he knew nothing of his father.
Still, he knew that he did help slaves escape. He put his time into building the rails for them to escape to freedom.
If nothing else, that made him valuable saving. He deserved to be saved.
After he came to that conclusion, Santos’ search became less random. He focused searching for the traces of the railroad. When he would find a conductor he connected himself to the rails. Then he followed it down south listening to the stories about his father from strangers he persuaded to make the rails and keep it alive.
When he found the end of the trail, reached the last station that wasn’t connected to anything beyond it, Santos stopped.
“There is no other conductor,” the man said. “I just wait at this spot every dark moon. No one ever comes. Still, I wait, in case that man comes along. He was a reasonable man. It would be a pity to come here and I’m not there to greet them.”
Santos went around stations and post offices showing his deputy badge. Finally, he found a sheriff’s station on which wall there wasn’t the poster with his father’s face.
“Where do you take most of your runaway slaves, when you catch them?” Santos spoke up.
“Slaves don’t run around these parts,” the sheriff spat on the floor. “But if you find any Silver Silk plantation gives out the best rewards.”
Santos went to Silver Silk plantation and sat in the woods beside the fields. First few days, no one seemed familiar. Santos became fearful that he wasn’t able to recognize his father anymore. He feared that all the men looked the same in their raggedy clothes.
When his father finally appeared among slaves, there was no mistake. Santos would recognize him anywhere. Looking at his long hands and his careful movements Santos was sure that love can’t be wrong. When you love someone, everything about them is engraved in your retina, unique and irreplaceable.
Santos lifted his voice and started the song. Slaves took on and kept singing. While the song lasted Santos felt one with the slaves in the field.
When the song ended, Santos was sure that he’ll go back to York and let Tricia slap him across his face and then talk to her until she says yes.
“You’re more than worthy of my love,” he whispered while he waited for the night to fall. “Because you fixed yourself, you survived through your troubles and now you’re new.”
Night fell and brought them shelter, the moon was dark, and their conductor will wait at his post. This night he won’t be waiting in vain.
11.3 Inscription on the Pistol
Between Tiles
Evan had a hard time keeping up with the rest of the runaways. He had a fever for days. Ever since his last whipping, he felt ill. His back still hurt and his wounds never seem to heal properly.
He should have stayed behind. This way he’ll just endanger them all.
“I’ll stay and rest,” he said weakly to the conductor in the dark. “You go on without me.
“There is no way that I’m leaving you,” the voice said fiercely and Evan tried to make out his features in the darkness.
“Why wouldn’t you? The safety of others is more important than me anyway.”
“Not to my father,” he said and Evan finally recognized Santos’ voice. “But you’re right. We’re endangering others. Stay here. I’ll lead them to the next station and get back for you with the wagon.”
“Go on, save them,” Evan caressed his face. “My son.”
He made a sign of a cross on his forehead.
“If you don’t make it back,” he said to him. “Don’t feel bad. You did well.”
“That’s just fever talking from you. I’ll be back.”
“Of course, it is,” Evan nodded and let them leave.
He didn’t believe Santos will find him again. The woods were vast, marshes everywhere. Still, it will be nice to die out here on the open. Better than being thrown in the pit to forever rest at the plantation.
Evan let himself fall asleep.
He was awoken by shaking. In the first moment, he thought that there is time to go out in the fields again but the familiar voice reminded him that he escaped.
“How did you find me?” Evan frowned looking at the open wagon behind Santos.
“Do you think that I would leave you on some random place?” Santos lifted him up and only now Evan noticed how he’d grown. “I crossed this route many times looking for you.”
“You shouldn’t have,” Evan heavily fell at the back of the wagon. “You should have lived a good life, away from all of this.”
“Shush,” Santos covered him but left his head visible. The wagon had no roof.
“We’ll be caught in a heartbeat,” Evan complained.
“No, we’re not,” Santos took out his badge. “We’re legal. I’m a deputy marshal returning a runaway slave. We can just ride all the way through to Camden. After that, we’ll find another cover.”
“I promised your mother I won’t go there,” Evan said weakly.
“I know. Don’t worry, we won’t go in but because of your warrant we can go till there without disturbance.”
Santos gave him the poster with his face and Evan looked at it while the wagon rocked beneath him causing his back pain.
‘Return to the Back Cotton Plantation,’ the poster said and Evan thought about all the times Luiz and he hid around Black Cotton searching for hiding places that would seclude them from view.
Evan felt tired from running away from those memories. Maybe it was time to meet his ghosts and rest in peace.
Eva
n felt like his end is near but he said nothing. He wanted for Santos to be happy, to feel the taste of victory. If he manages to feel it a few hours more, maybe it stays in his mind fresher than the sorrow of loss.
“You grew strong,” Evan said when they stopped to eat. “I am, as I always was, proud of you.”
Santos just squirmed with discomfort.
“Tell me of your mother and your sisters. Are they well,” Evan asked him.
“They are well, last time they wrote everything was as it should have been,” Santos looked down in shame. “I’ve been away for too long to know for sure.”
Evan understood his shame all too well.
“Then tell me of your travels. They surely were a tale to tell.”
Santos talked and Evan closed his eyes to picture his journey.
“The Marshal told me that you’re more likely to be caught as a slave than to be in a prison so I went down south. I followed your trail, made some connections. In Augusta, there was no picture of you on the wanted wall so I stayed there suspicious of them. I went around the plantations. Imagine my luck when I finally saw you in the field. I started to sing from joy.”
“It was a nice song,” Evan said content. “The story was good. The girl seems nice. Will you go back to see her?”
“She’s white. Even if she forgives me for leaving what would she do with me,” Santos grumbled.
“Don’t say that ever. Your mother wanted me for some strange reason. The girl rescued slaves she can’t be all that bad.”
Santos nodded still looking down.
“Mother remarried, didn’t she?” Evan finally said.
Santos looked at him in shock but then slowly nodded.
“I know that woman all too well. I did love her, fiercely, you know. But life is what it is. When a man is haunted with his past and his heart isn’t whole he doesn’t have much to give.”
Santos hesitated for a second and then pulled out the pistol that Luiz gave to Evan to console his fears. The pistol that Evan gave Belva to use to console her on the day they ran away.
‘Love can’t be wrong,’ it said and he remembered how his mother cried when he gave it to her. He remembered the pain of expelling Luiz from his mind.
“Love can’t be wrong,” he said to her. “You did it to protect me. There is no blame in what you did.”
She cried then hugging him tightly.
“If she parted with the pistol, then grandma believed you’ll find me,” Evan said calmly not showing his inner turmoil.
“No,” Santos looked away. “She didn’t know I went to find you. The Marshal found it in the ruins of that white house where she hid. He gave it to me to give it back to you.”
Evan slowly sat up.
“What is the Marshal’s name?”
“I think you already know,” now Santos looked him in the eye.
“Luiz Terdreau,” Evan said. “Did he instructed you to bring me to him? Did he say he’ll kill me in the end?”
“No, he said that you’re a free man and that he has no quarrel with you. He only wants to bring grandma before justice.”
Evan looked at the pistol. Luiz released his claim over Evan, he admitted in his absence that Evan is a free man.
‘Love can’t be wrong,’ looked at him mockingly.
“Take me to Camden. I want to see my home before I die. I’m tired of running.”
“You promised mother,” Santos objected.
“She promised to me too. Sometimes promises must be broken for life to fulfil its circles. I want to see my home once more. You see, as I feel, that I’m not well. There’s no reason to fear anymore. If I’m free, I’m free to walk into my home town and see how much it had changed.”
Santos nodded and they went towards Camden.
As Luiz watched the scenery go by the train window he could feel how his inner world is tumbling down.
The first crack in his wall was made when he heard Belva and Josephine running away from the fire acting like they’re free to love one another.
The second was made by Santos and his defiant loyalty.
“Father’s picture is upon your wall,” Santos said and Luiz didn’t believe him.
Still, his surety made him doubt. Luiz stood before the wall he was always avoiding to look at. The wall that described their world better than anything else in his life. A wall of black faces that were brave enough to run but weren’t allowed to.
Since he was a child, Luiz was fighting to justify the world they were living in. He placed his father’s words like bricks before the cries of slaves under his window.
He kept himself firm as a man should be, unmovable. What made him stray his path that first time, was Evan and his smile. After few masses staring at each other Evan smiled at him. His smile made his face lit up and suddenly he was the most beautiful person Luiz had ever seen.
Luiz smiled back carefully and they started to hang out secretly. Because they weren’t allowed to be friends, they hid from the start. When their friendship turned into something more, their seclusion seemed even more natural.
In their solitude, they didn’t think that anything they did was wrong.
“I think,” Evan frowned one day. “I think that mother wouldn’t approve of us if she knew. I think that she would say that it’s wrong.”
That made Luiz take the pocket gun that he received for his last birthday and take it to be engraved.
‘Love can’t be wrong,’ was his final decision.
It seemed like a safe phrase, one that can’t be objected against.
“To protect and remind you,” Luiz said to him with all determination he could find, “that I love you more than anything in this world.”
Evan frowned and then smirked.
“Anything? I bet you don’t love me more than your rifle. That is a weapon for a man, not this thing for cowards.”
“You idiot,” Luiz tried to stay serious but his lips were betraying him. “That’s not how you take a gift.”
Evan chuckled.
“I know, I love you too,” he pulled him near. “Still, a rifle would be nicer, it’s much bigger.”
“A rifle can’t be hidden,” Luiz argued as they fell to the ground. “I can easily be taken away from you. What is hidden, can’t be stolen.”
Luiz stood before the wall. Between all of the faces that didn’t resemble real men stood one that looked at him with a familiar stare. It was painted vicious but it was him. Evan’s face shook his world once more.
He took it from the wall.
‘Return to the Black Cotton Plantation,’ it said.
How many times did Evan see this? If his son noticed, he must have too. How many times did Evan stare at this vicious face and thought that Luiz painted it, that he was the one who wanted to own him?
It had to be Francis who sent out the poster. That damn Francis had to smear everything. He and his hidden anger. He couldn’t let it go.
Luiz didn’t want to confront Francis about it. There were too many questions he could ask and Francis wasn’t the one who let go when he was on his trail. The only thing Luiz could do was to catch Belva and bring her to justice. Luiz’s hunt was going on for too long. It was time to end it.
Between the captured maids, it wasn’t hard to tell which one Santos liked. That one would never tell their secrets but could be used against the other one.
The girl led him and he persisted even when their trail would be cold. Finally, he found them way up north only to find out that he chased Belva in vain.
So many years of misplaced anger. So many dead ends. The chase was the thing that kept him going and now that chase was over.
He looked at the horizon and nothing was there for him.
The girl tried to talk to him but for him her words were meaningless. It ached him to look at her face. It reminded him of times when he was so young to think that any wound can heal.
Some wounds got dirty and they never recover. They linger until one day you die of them. Life
wasn’t so merciful towards him.
When he heard that the battle is ahead, he resisted urging to go up and just dive into the battle. He tried to find reasons to live, reasons to go on.
He couldn’t find any. The letter in his pocket wasn’t a reason to persist. It was just a burning reminder that Evan will never try to find him. He had no reason to search for him.
Luiz spent his whole life chasing a ghost. The ghost turned out to be vicious in death as he was in life.
In his pursuit, he forgot to build a life for himself, any kind of life. Luiz was an empty man. There was nothing under the sky that was his, nothing he could live for.
XII. You Measured Me with Your Hands
05/30/1860
Dear Josephine,
You measured me whole, your hands brought me joy unlike any that I encountered in my years before you.
Then his hands took a measure and take away all my joy.
He was a vicious man and I hate him dearly.
You, I pity that you had to live beside him watching at that wretched face constantly.
I found life agreeable in other activities.
Despite my mother’s aspirations I never married.
I live from my embroidery work, on which you instructed me well. Besides that, I paint and my paintings, under a male pseudonym, are getting good offers.
That makes my life comfortable.
Still, I don’t let anyone measure me with their hands because you can never tell beforehand whose hands are kind and whose are cruel.
I advise you to stay out of the hands of others and be your own woman as every woman should be.
Sincerely and with a hopeful stare towards the future,
Mildred.
12.0 The Windows Shook
In the train, Josephine felt marvellous. It was like she’s on the top of the world. The recent victory made her feel like she can do no wrong. She gazed through the corridor towards their cabin.
Everything was as it should be, luxurious.
“We’ll now go and grab lunch in the restaurant. I’m famished,” she said to Belva.
“Is that wise?” Belva objected. “There everyone will see us.”