by Cathy Gohlke
“We’ll try to be back before Christmas,” Ma had told Grandfather. “With Charles.”
“You’d better be!” Grandfather had bellowed. “You’ve a ball to host!” But he’d held Ma close and then blown into his handkerchief. I knew he wasn’t worried about the ball.
Nanny Sara did not speak to me or show me her eyes. It was as if her late-night visit had never taken place. Despite everything, I left Ashland with some regret. I wanted to go home, to see Pa and Miz Laura and William Henry. But I’d been treated more like a man here and was given freedoms that I’d not dreamed of at home. I didn’t want to step back into my old shoes.
The days settled into a blur of jerking trains, stops and starts, of coaches shuttling us from train line to train line, boardinghouses and hotels. We either sweltered too near the stove in the car or our feet froze too far away. Still, Grandfather had seen to it that our tickets were first-class—better seats on the train than when we’d gone south, better hotels, good food. I tried to imagine Pa traveling to North Carolina on the train with us for Christmas. I couldn’t make the picture stick.
At last our train pulled into Elkton. Pa stood, waiting for us on the platform, hat in hand, broad grin across his face and new worry lines etched in his forehead. I waved from the window. He raised his hat to me. I stepped off the train first and turned to help Ma, but Pa squeezed my shoulder and pushed past me. He swept Ma off the bottom step and into the air, twirling her three times around. Her bonnet went flying. I didn’t mind. From the laughing color in her cheeks I don’t think she minded, either. Pa looked tired and thinner, but happy to have us home. “You’ve grown, Robert! You’re nearly as tall as me!”
But our spirits settled when the talk turned to Miz Laura. “Her body’s just giving out. She can’t get out of bed anymore and can’t bear the pain of being lifted. Doc’s been out from town a number of times, but told Isaac there’s nothing more to be done. He leaves medicine to cut the pain, but you know Miss Laura, she doesn’t like missing anything. She’ll only take it at night when she thinks she ought to be sleeping anyway. Trouble is, she needs to sleep most of the time.” Pa squeezed Ma’s hand. “I’m glad you’re home, Caroline. She’ll be glad, too.”
I turned away. Why did things have to change? Why couldn’t we go back to the way things had been last summer?
“Something else you should know.” Pa studied the reins in his hands. “Sol Tulley caught Joseph on his property and set his hounds on him, tore his leg up pretty bad. Then he strapped Joseph to the hooks in his smokehouse and beat him unconscious. Joseph’s just now sitting up.”
“Was he trespassing with illegal company?” Ma asked, her voice cold.
Pa didn’t look at her. “The Tulleys had a poor crop this year. Joseph was delivering an offer from Isaac for a wagonload of corn and potatoes.”
Ma looked stricken. “I’m sorry, Charles. I spoke out of turn.”
Pa squinted into the afternoon sun. “When Joseph didn’t come home Isaac got worried, sent me looking for him.” Pa swallowed hard. “There’s not much left of his leg. The Henrys have had a hard time of it.”
We drove straight to the Heaths’ house. Aunt Sassy was out carrying the noon meal to Joseph. Mr. Heath had gone to Elkton for the doctor again. The wasted body in Miz Laura’s bed looked nothing like the woman who’d clutched the pearl-handled pistol in the folds of her parasol five months before, nothing like the Miz Laura I’d known all my life who reigned over all of us with courtly grace and good humor. She’d lost most of her soft, white hair. Only her eyes and the soft lines creeping from their corners looked familiar.
“Robert,” she whispered and smiled, reaching for my hand. I held her blue-veined hand and tried to return her smile. I chattered to her of our time in the South because I couldn’t think what to say, but her pain soon grew too sharp for her to listen. Ma sent me out so she could tend to Miz Laura’s needs. I was glad to leave the sick room. I couldn’t get my mind around the idea of Miz Laura dying.
“What you wearing that step out for?” William Henry’s voice found me slumped on the back step of the Heaths’ house.
“William Henry!” I stood to shake his hand but he didn’t respond at first, and I realized that I’d never shaken William Henry’s hand. We both laughed uneasily. When did I get such high and mighty notions? “It’s good to see you, William Henry. How have things been here?”
“You seen Miz Laura?”
I nodded.
“Then you know how things been.” We both looked away.
“It’s not right. It’s just not fair and doesn’t seem possible.”
“Not much fair in this life.”
“I heard about your pa. Is he any better yet?”
William Henry shrugged, his jaw clenched. He buried his fists in his pockets. “Better, maybe. He always carry a limp now.” I waited. “Jake’s the one set the dogs on my pa. He begged his daddy to let him do the beating. Sol Tulley said no, he wanted the pleasure for himself. The Tulleys be out to kill my pa.” I didn’t know what to say. William Henry rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the ground. “What you do all day in North Carolina?”
My first thought was of Jeremiah and Jacob. But I’d promised Jeremiah that I wouldn’t tell. I’d almost told Pa already. It was a hard thing to keep. So I stepped up to the question. “Been getting to know Ma’s family. Grandfather Ashton gave me my own horse, a black stallion with a white star blazed on his forehead. I named him Stargazer. I ride every day. You’d love him, William Henry.” But William Henry didn’t answer, so I rattled on. “I learned to shoot. Grandfather and Cousin Albert say I’m a fair marksman. That’s the good part. Cousin Albert’s been teaching me Latin and mathematics with my cousins, Alex and Emily—but I get equal or better time fishing.” William Henry looked at me like I was talking Latin.
I couldn’t bring myself to tell him about the saddle or the gun I’d already lost or how much I liked Emily. I fingered the gold watch in my pocket, but left it there. “You’d like it. The Yadkin River is full of catfish and you can fish long into the fall, easy.”
“Your granddaddy own slaves?”
“Yes.” Now I looked at the ground.
“Then I don’t reckon I’d like it much.”
“Not everybody treats their slaves bad.” But the words sounded false, even to me.
“Those slaves wait on you and say ‘yes, massa and no, massa’?”
“Sometimes. But only because I’m Grandfather’s kin.” William Henry shook his head and turned away. But I wanted him to understand, so I spun him back to me. “I might inherit Ashland someday, William Henry. Then I can free the slaves just like Mr. Heath did here.” I wanted William Henry’s approval like I wanted air.
“They wait on you because they’re slaves, because you are white and free. Because your granddaddy keeps a bill of sale in his pocket saying he owns their bodies.” He turned again to walk away.
“It’s not my fault, William Henry. I didn’t start slavery.”
“No, but I don’t see you doin’ anything to stop it, either.” William Henry kept walking. I watched him go and felt sick to my stomach. What had happened? Why had everybody changed? I walked back to my house, hoping to see or feel something familiar and comforting. I hadn’t even seen Joseph or Aunt Sassy or Mr. Heath, and yet part of me dreaded that, too.
My room looked smaller, and bare. I lay on the handmade crazy quilt and stared at the beams in the ceiling. I could see why Ma had missed Ashland—long summers, people waiting on you. Even the house was a world apart from our home at Laurelea. I realized for the first time all that Ma had given up to marry Pa and live here, and knew firsthand that she must not have known what she was getting into. Still, I loved Ma and Pa both. I hoped they didn’t regret their life together.
Ready to shed my traveling suit, I pulled open my drawer. Inside I found my old coat and a pair of britches I didn’t recognize, brown homespun and ragged. I emptied the drawer. The pants I was looking for were
gone. Who would trade ragged pants for my blue stained work pants? I looked around my room, seeing it again. Some of the furniture had been moved, just a little. Pa would not have bothered. Runaways. Pa must have hidden runaways in our house while we were gone. I stuffed the brown homespun into the bottom of my drawer and sat down to think. I hoped the boy who’d taken my pants was getting good wear out of them. I hoped he’d made it to freedom, wherever that was. I wished that boy could have been Jeremiah, with Jacob.
I heard Ma and Pa through the wall that night. They sounded happy to be together, and I breathed a little easier. Maybe things would turn out right after all. Maybe we all just needed time to settle into one another again. Maybe that was true for William Henry and me, too.
I dreamed that a hoot owl was pecking at my head and woke, realizing that the pecking was a soft tapping at the window in Ma and Pa’s room. I could hear the muffled voices of Pa and William Henry, then Ma, angry and urgent. Their window closed and William Henry’s voice was gone, but Ma’s rose.
“You can’t mean it, Charles! Miss Laura is dying, and now you’re off running stolen slaves across the countryside! I can’t believe you’d leave me on our first night home!”
Pa’s boots hit the floor. “It has nothing to do with your being home, Caroline. You know I’d stay if I could. But we’ve got to move them tonight. It’s too dangerous to keep them here with the doctor and all the people coming and going to say their good-byes to Miss Laura. I’ll be back before daybreak if all goes well.”
“Pa?” I stood in their doorway. “Pa, I want to help, if you’ll let me.”
“I forbid it!” Ma screeched. “Not another word! One more word and we’ll pack for Ashland and leave on the morning train.”
Pa looked at Ma, then at me. He didn’t speak and I couldn’t tell the meaning of his look. He tried to take Ma in his arms, but she pushed him away. He walked out the door, giving my shoulder a squeeze, but not speaking the forbidden word. Ma threw herself on her bed and cried. I felt knots roll in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t go to her. How could she let Pa go out on a trip that dangerous with such anger between them? I sat on the edge of my bed again, not knowing what to do.
Only minutes passed before a pounding came on the front door. I flew to open it and Aunt Sassy nearly fell in my arms. “Robert! Robert! I’m so glad you’re here. Where is your mama? Where is Miz Caroline?”
Ma appeared in the doorway, frightened, trying to compose herself. “What is it, Sassy? What’s happened to Charles?”
Aunt Sassy was still fighting for her breath and shook her head. “Miz Laura. She’s taken a bad turn and I don’t think she can last long. Come. Please come, Caroline.”
Ma’s hand flew to her mouth. I found Ma’s shoes and pulled her shawl off the peg and wrapped it around her. Aunt Sassy took Ma’s hand and led her out by her pool of lantern light.
I sat down on the rocker and held my head, praying hard for Miz Laura and for Ma and Pa. The mantle clock swung its pendulum with maddening regularity, and the sound stretched my nerves to the breaking point. I couldn’t wait it out. I pulled on my clothes and shoes and pushed into the night. Maybe I could just see if the wagon with the false bottom was missing. At least I’d know if Pa and his cargo had gotten safely away.
The wagon was gone and the barn door stood open. I closed it softly, glad to do even a little thing. I pulled Grandfather’s watch from my pocket and held it up to the moonlight. Two o’clock. If they’d be back by daybreak they must not be going farther west than the Susquehanna or farther north than the Pennsylvania line in Chester County. A noise behind the barn caught my attention and I tiptoed around the corner. Clouds gave way again and the moon shone down on William Henry, bagging a skunk pelt from the barn wall. “William Henry, what are you doing?”
Startled, William Henry dropped his bag. “What you sneak up on a person like that for, Robert?” He swore under his breath.
“Well, what are you doing? You going skunking now? Whew! Why’d you save such a smelly pelt?”
William Henry turned back to his chore. “Never you mind. You go on back to the house. Your ma’ll be worried and come looking for you.”
“Both of our mas are up with Miz Laura. Aunt Sassy said she can’t last long.”
William Henry stopped his task then. I couldn’t see his black face in the dark, but he whispered, “You go on home, anyhow.”
“Stop treating me like I’m some stranger, William Henry! Does this have anything to do with where Pa went?” He didn’t answer. “Tell me! My pa is out there, William Henry! If you’re doing something to help, I want to help, too.” Still he didn’t answer. “Don’t you trust me?”
“I don’t know who to trust, Robert. I don’t know what to think. You been off down south living high on the hog in the golden land of slavery. You seem to think it’s mighty fine, like maybe you’ll live there and ‘inherit’ your granddaddy’s plantation, slaves and all. How do I know what you think?”
“I’m the same person I always was, William Henry. Only now I know about slavery from both sides. And even though it cuts Ma’s heart, I know it’s wrong. Even if I didn’t, my pa is out there and I want to help him any way I can.”
William Henry stared at me in the dark, surely taking my measure, and I wished I could have seen his face. At last he handed me the burlap bag. “Hold this.” He unpinned two good pelts, dumping them in the bag. “Smokehouse.” I followed him to the smokehouse, anxious to know his plan. We pulled open the door. William Henry felt his way through the hanging meat and finally lifted something from one of the ceiling hooks. “This should be big enough. No sense throwing away more than we need to.” In the moonlight he wrapped skunk pelts loosely around the ham, the stinky one inside the other two, then tied it together with a rawhide strip. Still, the stink overpowered the smell of the ham for me.
“What are you doing with this?” I couldn’t stand the suspense any longer.
“What’s needed.”
“Don’t fun me, William Henry. Let me in.”
“You’ve helped some, now go on home. If you get in any deeper your mama will have my hide and she’ll send you packing, south.”
I grabbed his arm. “She won’t know. I need to help.”
This time William Henry didn’t hesitate. “As soon as the word goes out those slaves are gone, trackers will go for Tulley and his hounds. I’m making sure Tulley’s hounds won’t be smelling nothing for a while, least of all your pa.”
“You sure it will work?”
“They’ll go after that ham like Jake went after that ivy poison. Tulleys are all stupid. They want quick glory, even the hounds.”
I knew William Henry hated the Tulleys, and with good cause. I wasn’t sure they were all as stupid as he said. But it seemed like a good plan. As long as we didn’t get caught it might help Pa, bide him some time.
“Mr. Heath’s out there, too, you know.”
“Mr. Heath? But what about Miz Laura?”
“She told him to go on, that she’d said her good-byes and he should help those folks for her sake.” William Henry hefted the sack. “So we got to make this work. For Miz Laura.”
“For Miz Laura.” It was my solemn pledge.
We kept to the fields and woods. Tulleys’ place was just over Laurel Run and a mile beyond. We made good time, even in the dark. The hounds picked up our scent a good thirty feet away. They barked wildly and lunged against their pen. William Henry lifted me up on his shoulders. I meant to empty the burlap sack over the pen wall. But my pants caught on a stray wire from the fencing, and between the dogs lunging against the fence and William Henry about to drop me, I was lucky to throw the whole bag over the top of the fence before Sol Tulley stepped out on the porch and raised his shotgun in the moonlight. A lantern lit up beside him. “Put that fool light down, Jake, I can’t see! Who’s there? Speak up or I’ll fill you full of buckshot!”
We fell backwards on the ground, scrambling to find our feet as the dogs went w
ild, tearing open the sack. The shotgun exploded over our ears. We tore through the trees, then out toward the road so he’d not think we came over the run. Those dogs would be too busy for a while to try to track us, and with any luck, their noses would be so full of skunk perfume they wouldn’t be able.
We ran until our lungs felt they’d burst, then dove in a stubbled cornfield, and let out our rip-roaring, doubled-over laughter. It was almost like old times.
By the time we reached the back porch of the Heaths’ house we’d gotten a little control over ourselves, mighty little. William Henry set a lantern with only one slat open so we could wash the stench from our hands with strong lye soap and a jar of Aunt Sassy’s tomato juice. We stuffed our heehaws in our armpits and did all we could to keep the noise down. Aunt Sassy appeared in the doorway. “You boys finished?”
We sobered. “Yes, Mama,” William Henry said. “Those dogs won’t be worrying nothin’ for a while.”
Aunt Sassy nodded and glanced at me. She put her hand on my shoulder. It felt good. “You boys come on up and speak to Miz Laura. She going fast.”
“Did Pa and Mr. Heath get back?”
“Not yet.” Aunt Sassy looked worried. “But don’t you let Miz Laura know you worried. You done your best for them, now do your best for her.”
I couldn’t think of Pa being caught. How long had they been gone? I reached for my pocket watch to check the time. It was gone. “My watch! My watch is—”
“Come on, Robert. Hurry, now.” Aunt Sassy pushed me toward the downstairs bedroom they’d made up for Miz Laura when it hurt her too bad to be carried up the stairs. I tried to push my panic down. I tried to forget my gold watch, but the fear nagged at my insides. Ma sat on the bed, cradling Miz Laura’s hand. Joseph sat in a chair alongside. It was the first I’d seen him and I nodded. He looked pained and older. The soft glow of candlelight cast a halo all around the room, lighting the faces of the people I loved. If angels attend death, I know a host stood guard that night.