But Hannah consistently refused. “There’ll be work enough for you when you’re adults,” she said. “But that’s a long way off. These are years for play, for joy, for learning. You keep up with your lessons, that’s all the work I require of either of you.”
And they did. Though Joseph still didn’t speak, he often smiled and laughed. And Belle herself tried to improve her manner of speaking, her diction and grammar, as Hannah called them.
One afternoon Belle felt comfortable enough to ask, “Mrs. Hannah?” Hannah smiled, her permission for Belle to continue. “‘Dat story true, what you tol’ ‘da sheriff ‘dat times, whens we first comes to ‘da house?”
Hannah gave it some thought, Joseph looking up from his toy horse and gig. She said, “Well, first of all, I wouldn’t want you to think it’s a good thing to go around lying to people, least of all a person of authority like a sheriff. Right?” Belle and Joseph nodded, so Hannah went on. “That said, sometimes a person, well, they’re just not worthy of the truth, you understand? They might abuse it, use it against you, to hurt you or to hurt someone else. So if I told the sheriff a story, it was only because, well, sometimes there are worse things than lying.” After a bittersweet pause, Hannah cracked a nervous smile. “I guess I don’t have to tell you two that, do I?”
“No, Mrs. Hannah,” Belle said. “But … was it da troof?”
“Which story was that?”
“About da ghosts, spirits in ‘da mine, an’ diamonds … ”
Hannah chuckled. “Oh, my, right, I … I remember that, Betsy getting all upset about seeing a ghost. Well, Belle, no, that didn’t really happen. But as I explained —”
“No, Mrs. Hannah, I mean … is da story of ‘dere bein’ spirits and diamonds and such, ‘dat be true?”
“Is that true, Belle.”
Belle nodded. “Is ‘dat true?”
Hannah seemed to give that some thought, Joseph watching her with his undivided attention. Mr. Kincaid was nowhere around.
“Well,” Hannah said after a long sigh, “that’s the story I was told when I was a kid, just about your age, Belle. I was growing up right on this land. I built this house on the very spot where my original family home used to stand, matter of fact, once I got the land back.”
“Da land back, Mrs. Hannah?”
“I was … my family was driven off. That’s when we headed west and my parents died, remember?” Belle nodded, the pieces of Hannah’s life falling into place for her. Hannah went on, “Anyway, I had this neighbor, lived where the stables are now, Mr. Roth, such a sweet man.” Hannah stared off with a subtle little smile and a sad glisten in her eye.
“An’ he had slaves?”
“Oh no, Belle no! He told me the story about the slaves in the mines, how their cruel master made them work day in, day out … ”
And Belle sat entranced as Hannah told her and Joseph the story. Belle could imagine herself in those dark, twisting caverns, no light nor air, heat and hatred and fear mounting up until even the mountain herself could take no more. Belle could hardly breathe as Hannah told the story of their doomed scramble for freedom, trampling each other, feet pushing faces into the mud, the water, the rock, hands reaching up like claws locked empty for all eternity, slumping back into the mud. Belle could almost hear the rumble of that rising tide from some underground stream, breaking through the rock walls and pouring through the chambers, smashing into the fleeing slaves. Belle could practically feel the rocks and stalks of rotting wooden beams carried at terrible speeds just under the water, cutting skin, shattering bones, separating joints and laying men low with agonized screams of shock and pain.
It was as clear to Belle as if it were really happing right before her eyes and ears, the collapsing ceilings and walls taking the lives of those lucky enough to escape that muddy current.
“They say the spirits of the slave miners work the cavern still, all day and all night.” Hannah’s voice took on a whispery grain and Belle felt a chill run up her spine. “They keep digging and digging, determined to find those diamonds, their eternal torment that they’ll labor forever and never find it … some would say. And when the mountain trembles at night, as often it does, the locals claim that’s proof, that’s the miners making some headway, closer to their goal, closer to eternal freedom.”
Belle had to remember to breathe, looking at Joseph at the very moment he looked back at her. Then both looked up at Hannah. “An’ ‘dat ‘da troof?”
“Truth, Belle, the truth. And I wouldn’t think it is, at least as far as the spirits and ghosts are concerned.”
Belle cocked her head. “You believe in God?” Hannah twitched and leaned forward to hear Belle more clearly. “You t’ink we black gets t’go t heb’n likes’ y’all?”
“Oh yes, Hannah, yes, I do, I really do. So then I suppose it only stands to reason that those souls, like so many, can’t find their way to God without … without finding some peace.”
Belle nodded with a satisfied grin, then offered Hannah a simple shrug. Hannah laughed and leaned in to give Belle and Joseph a hug. “Well, as long as we’ve got life, and health, family, and friends like each other … those are the real treasures, right?”
“An’ Jesus,” Belle said.
“Yes, of course,” Hannah answered, cuddling her white cheek against Belle’s dark brown forehead. “And Jesus.”
*
“What ‘choo thank, Papa?”
Mo leaned forward a bit as the kids crawled into bed, each into their own, sheets warm and clean, mattresses both soft and firm beneath them. “Can’t rightly say, youn’n. S’nice to thank about, I s’ppose. Maybe someday that nice Mrs. Hannah’ll find it’s true, find ‘dem diamonds like she say.”
Belle and Joseph shared a glance, and Belle turned to look back at Mo. “What if’n we’s ‘da ones found ‘dat mine, ‘dat be a good way t’show our thanks n’all to ‘dem good folks what save our lives, nearly done mamma.”
“Nah, chil’, you just don’ thank on you mamma overmuch nah. She wif’ ‘da Lord likes ‘da Lord wants it t’be, sho’s you born, chil’, sho’s you born.”
After a doubting moment, Belle asked, “But … what about us whats still down n’eyre wif’s da res’?”
Mo gave that some thought, scratching his chin and rolling his eyes up toward the ceiling. “I reckon ‘at’s fo’ ‘da Lord hash out fo’ Hisself. Bes’ you boff’ be off to sleep, nah. Say per prayers?”
“Yes, Papa.”
“Awright ‘den,” Mo said, snuffing out the light of the oil lamp and closing the door. But Belle could hardly sleep, and Joseph also kept tossing and turning all night. She knew what he was keeping him up, what he couldn’t stop thinking of:
Diamonds.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The pork chops were smothered in gravy and onions and was falling off the bone. Betsy had been cooking them all day according to one of Mo’s recipes, and the gravy was heavy with the flavor from the pork fat and hand-rubbed spices. The greens were buttered and hot but still crisp and colorful. The lemonade was tangy and the fresh milk was boiled and then chilled to be creamy and delicious.
Belle and Joseph sat upright in their chairs, careful not to soil their fine, new clothes. In every way, the kids were treated as equals, as family members, but something kept striking Hannah about that. It didn’t escape her notice, or Mr. Kincaid’s.
“Hannah,” he said, reading her mind.
“He’s their father,” Hannah said, “he should be at the table with them, with us.”
Jack sighed. “Hannah, he’s our employee, like Betsy. He works with the rest of the kitchen staff half the time he’s here. What would they think? We’d have to have Betsy and the rest of them her too.”
“What would be so wrong with that?”
Jack shrugged. “Well, nothing really, but … who’d serve? Who’d clean up? And what about the men in the orchards or in the mines, or the guards or the smithies?”
“All right, all right,” H
annah said, “you’ve made your point.” She turned and looked down at Belle and Joseph. “But these two aren’t employees.”
“That’s why they’re here,” Jack said, taking a drink of wine from a crystal glass. “That and their penchant for silence.” He gave the kids a little wink. He turned back to Hannah to add, “And we’re paying them all well enough to sit proudly at their own tables. Mo’s gonna hit Canada with a small fortune in his pocket.”
But that’s where the conversation trailed off, Hannah turning her attention back toward the kids. Finally Jack had to say, “They’re just gonna stay here forever then?”
And Hannah was quick to answer. “I won’t push them off the estate if they don’t wish to go.” She turned back to Belle and Joseph. “You are both welcome to stay here as long as you wish, for the rest of your lives if that is what you like.”
Jack was quick to say to them, “But of course you and your father are free to go at any time.”
Hannah said, “Why would he leave such a good, high-paying job, Jack? He likes it here, I think, he knows his kids are welcome.”
“What about the sheriff?”
“That’s a different matter entirely. They’re not still hunting the Robinson fugitives. And our friends the Chippewa will keep the white tide back.”
“Sheriff Slaughter is the one behind those raids on our carts, the sabotaging of the northern railway—”
“It’s Henry Chisholm behind it, Jack. The sheriff’s just his puppet.”
“Well, sure, of course, for as long as Chisholm can keep a hold on the strings, I mean … but the sheriff’s the one putting his foot down, and is pressing it right down onto the backs of our necks.”
“I’m doing what I can about that, Jack. We’ll be in touch with New York tomorrow, probably be at that telegraph office all day with the back and forth.”
Jack took a bite of his scalloped potatoes. “The pen is mightier than the sword.” He shot the kids a glance as he often did, to include them in the meal, to instruct them as a loving guardian would. “Never forget that, kids,” he said, a phrase he often used in moments of particular import.
Hannah went on to Jack. “If we can shut Chisholm down somehow, find somebody willing to throw him onto the tracks, the steamed wheels of progress will roll right over him.”
“So long as it doesn’t take us all down with it.” Another moment passed before Jack said, “What if it comes down to a fight?”
Hannah turned, as if surprised. “We’re already in for the fight of our lives, Jack.”
“No, I mean … ” He trailed off as if he didn’t need to say anything further. His head tilted toward the kids but his eyes remained fixed on Hannah’s. Hannah’s expression changed, and Belle knew what Hannah had to be imagining.
It had all happened to Belle before: Gunfire, men and women running and screaming, a great house burning in the center of an expansive empire, blood running into the mud, hell rising up to overtake the earth.
Oh no, Belle couldn’t help but think, no, it can’t be! That bitter taste of disappointment at last had its triumphant return, leaking into the back of her throat, coating her tongue with its rancid flavor.
One look at Joseph’s frightened eyes, so familiar to Belle, told her that he was thinking the same thing she was.
We can’t let that happen!
*
The next day Hannah and Jack were in town exchanging advice and strategies with their government connections in New York and Chicago and some small Illinois town Belle had never heard of with a very ugly name she could hardly recall; Deadwood, Rattlesnake, perhaps even Murder or Killton, something like that.
Mo was with Betsy in the kitchen preparing the massive afternoon meal for the men in the orchards and the mines, which required more work and more labor as the estate grew.
Belle and Joseph were in the backyard in the shade of the willow trees behind the smithy house. Joseph played with his compass, holding it in front of him and following the little north-pointing needle, wandering around the yard, the mountains of the mines stretched out beyond them.
Belle sat under a willow, Hannah’s bible, now her own, in her lap. She drew on what Hannah had been teaching her, finger tracing one line of scripture, sounding it out as she read.
“Cain rose up … a-gainst Ab-el his … bro-ther and … kill-ed him.’” Belle looked up from her bible, her finger keeping her place, to see Joseph not far off, his eyes on the compass, then scanning the area. Belle did the same, seeing one of the familiar guards riding casually by and giving her a friendly little nod.
Belle returned to her reading. “Ththththen ththththe Lord say-eth to Cain, ‘Where is Ab-el thy broththther?’ An’ he say-eth, ‘I know-eththth not. Am I my bro-ththther’s keeper?’ Thththe Lord say-eth, "What haththth ye done?’”
Belle looked up to see that Joseph was suddenly much farther away and running fast, straight for the mountain. A cold knot tightened in Belle’s stomach, instant fear flashing back from her memory, the dangers of running out in the open, the litany of terrors Joseph himself may have chosen not to remember.
But Belle remembered; she couldn't forget. Belle bolted to her feet, the bible still in her hands, as she ran across the yard toward Joseph. But he’d grown stronger since they’d arrived, the months of play and good food and spiritual and mental health had given him force and drive, and Belle knew she’d have to work her own body harder than she thought just to catch up with him.
Belle looked around while she ran, trying to keep an eye on Joseph as he bolted toward the mountain. But the true terror of her previous experiences lagged behind her sense of reason. We got guards n’here. Whoever comin’ ‘gainst Mrs. Hannah more curious ‘bout thththem carts, whatever happenin; by that big lake. We’s allowed n’here, Mrs. Hannah said so. Thththey won’t swoop down on us n’here, on them horses, with them guns an’ ropes. Mrs. Hannah gots men with horses an’ guns an’ ropes all their own, and thems other men done know it.
But Joseph done know it too. No wonder he runnin’ so fast, so free.
Belle wanted to call out to him to stop and come back, but she didn’t want to attract any attention to either one of them either, just to be safe. Belle was confident that she’d catch up with Joseph, that he’d tire out before she would.
Belle kept running, her own legs getting a bit sore, her hand clasped around that bible. She knew if she dropped it that she’d have to leave it behind and might not find it on the way back. That bible had come to mean so much to her, as a gift, as a way to better herself and get closer to God. Those were all things she couldn't stand to lose. But her brother was her brother, and if it came down to a choice, Belle knew there wouldn’t be any choice at all.
But even the mountain seemed to get closer the harder Belle ran, the guards and the yard and the center of the estate fading behind them. But Joseph kept up his distance ahead of Belle, propelled by amazing strength and determination.
Finally the mountain range was almost big enough to touch, the ground rising up into the foothills, trees and shrubs getting thicker with the mountain wilds. Joseph ran up to one crag in the foothills, a gaping hole in the rock which was surrounded by fragments of smaller rocks and boulders. He stopped and stared at the hole, turning to see Belle as she ran up to him. She was straining to breathe, hardly able to chastise him as would have been good and proper to do. Instead she bent forward, leaning on her knees while she tried to catch her breath. The bible was still clutched in her right hand, the compass still in Joseph’s left. Together, Belle realized, science and religion, combined with their ever-present cousin lore, had brought them to the foot of that mountain.
Joseph pointed at the opening and then turned to Belle, a hopeful expression on his face. Belle looked at it and saw what Joseph clearly wanted to see. But Belle could only shake her head.
“No, Joseph, Thththat ain’t thththe mine. Thththat’s just an ol’ bear cave maybe, ‘er who knows? Maybe a big cat, come out and snatch us boththth f
er its supper. Let’s go on back home now.”
But Joseph crept toward the opening, shrubs growing over the hole. He walked in and Belle knew she had no choice but to follow.
Only sunlight lit up the first few feet of the cavern, but the iron rails poked out of the dirt to prove that this had, at least at one time, been an operating mine shaft. Belle looked around, easy for her to imagine that the mine had been collapsed at once point, but that some activity between then and more recent times had exposed the mine once again. Deeper in the dark cavern, it looked like a clear passage had been opened. The cavern was uneven, narrow, and terribly inviting. There were support beams, exposed railways, an entire shaft untouched by any recent activity.
S’a work day t’day, Belle told herself, why ain’t … isn’t the Chinese workin’ here? Must be down, can’t be worked f’some why ‘cause.
Joseph walked straight into the old mine shaft, but Belle was close enough to grab his arm with her free hand. “Oh no, uh-uh, we goin’ back to thththe house right now, Joseph, no mo’ o’ yo’ tomfoolery now!” Joseph pouted and shook his head, trying to pull his arm free. But Belle only said, “You’ll do as I say, young’n!”
With a strong wrench of his body, Joseph managed to pull his arm free and turn to run into the cave. But the earth rumbled and shook with a sudden quake, dust wafting out of the shaft, the ground trembling beneath their feet. Belle and Joseph’s eyes locked, mouths open in fear as the rumble got louder, failing to recede. Both had heard the same story, of the fabled origin of those quakes. Both could imagine the ghosts nearby, ever digging in that shaft.
The terror was too much to consider. The children shared a horrific scream, clasped hands, and turned to run from the foothills and back into the plain between them and the estate back yard. Joseph clutched his compass with his free hand, Belle’s bible still secure in hers.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Diamonds in the Rough Page 21