by Janet Dailey
Kipp raised his glass. “To your health, and to many more years of it."
"Hear, hear." Alex lifted his glass in an echoing salute.
Eliza, alone, was slow in raising hers. "I should have thought you would wait until Temple and The Blade arrived to join in the toasting."
"We will simply drink another toast when they get here," Alex told her and took a healthy sip of champagne.
"Not I," Eliza declared and raised the glass to her mouth. She tipped it, intending only to wet her lips with the celebratory wine. But in her caution, she inhaled the fizz, which immediately ignited something that fell between a sneezing and choking fit. Will came to her aid, slapping her soundly on the back, all the while struggling to contain his laughter. "It was not amusing," she told him when she had recovered.
"Of course not." But, like Kipp and Alex, he was still fighting back a smile. "Next time, though, I suggest you drink the champagne rather than inhale it."
"I prefer to do neither." She set her glass on Shadrach's tray.
"Do you remember that gala dinner we attended at the fort a few years after we arrived here?" Will asked. When Eliza ignored his question, he confided to Kipp, "One of the officers poured almost an entire bottle of whiskey into the punch when no one was looking. Your stepmother thought it was the most unusual punch she had ever tasted—and kept going back to refill her cup."
"I was merely trying to ascertain the ingredients."
Will chuckled. "You should have seen her face when I told her it was laced with whiskey."
Eliza tried to be angry with him for resurrecting that memory, but she found herself laughing as well.
"Did you get a little tipsy, Granny El?" a laughing Alex wanted to know.
"Not in the least," Eliza insisted, struggling to regain her composure.
"But she did feel quite wretched the next morning, as I recall," Will said.
And Eliza found herself laughing again, in spite of herself. "That was quite an experience," she admitted, then sighed a little wistfully. "They did have some grand parties at Fort Gibson."
"With the firing on Fort Sumpter by the new Confederacy of the South, we may soon wish there were still Union troops at the fort," Kipp remarked.
"Their civil war does not concern us," Will stated crisply.
War. North. South. That was all anyone talked about lately. Eliza remembered too well all the threats of secession by Georgia and the terrible turmoil of that time thirty years ago before the removal of the Cherokee. Back then she had been an avid participant in any political discussion, quick with her opinions and combative in defense of her beliefs. But she no longer found such talk stimulating.
The memory of the detention camps, the long trail, and those first years of bloodshed and struggle before they built Oak Hill into the vast plantation it had become, was much too fresh. She knew the pain and suffering, the deprivation and poverty, the illness and death that could result from war. Whether it was fought with rifle and sword or with lawyers and writs, the devastation to a people was the same. Cowardly or not, she didn't want to hear such talk.
"Did I tell you, Alex, that we received a letter from Susannah this week?" she asked, turning to him. "She asked about you. She is anxious to learn when you will be leaving for Harvard."
"I haven't decided whether to go."
"But you have never been East. The trip will be an adventure for you. I know I shall never forget the experience of my first train ride when we went East with Susannah."
"What difference does it make if I wait another year before going to college? The East will still be there. So will Harvard, if that's where I decide to go." Before Eliza could respond, Alex turned to Will and a new topic. "I raced my filly last week," he told him. "She showed her heels to all of them and won pulling away. She is definitely the fastest thing around. She could make your Firestorm look like an old nag."
"And The Blade's stallion, too," Kipp inserted with a jeering curl of his lip.
Beyond glancing at his father, Alex took little notice of the remark. "Maybe after dinner, we can have a match race. Shooting Star against your Firestorm."
"You seem very confident," Will observed.
"I am."
"What is the wager?"
"Will!" Eliza objected that he would encourage Alex to gamble.
"Now, Granny El, I will make a wager that even you will like." Alex smiled. "If my filly loses, I will go to college at the end of summer."
"And if your filly wins?" Will asked.
Alex hesitated, the grooves in his cheeks deepening as his smile widened. "I have admired that navy revolver of yours ever since you got it last year."
There was a brief raising of eyebrows when Will heard his response. For a moment, he said nothing, then nodded. "Very well. The revolver it is—if your filly wins."
"Men," Eliza declared. "If I live to be a hundred, I doubt I will ever understand your fascination with guns and fast horses." But she knew much of her current objection to the former came from all the talk about civil war in the United States.
Shadrach came to the archway. "Miz Temple and Master Stuart are here, Miz Eliza."
As he stepped aside to admit them, Sorrel ran up. "You forgot me, Shadrach. I am here, too."
"My mistake, Miss Sorrel." Shadrach bowed to her in apology, then faced the room once more, eyes twinkling, smile suppressed. "Miss Sorrel is here as well," he said as Temple and The Blade walked up. The Blade paused, his glance searching out Kipp's whereabouts.
Without waiting for them, Sorrel dashed into the room, straight to her grandfather. "I made you a present, Grandpa." She smiled up at him, every inch the miniature coquette in her party dress of white organdy trimmed with blue rosettes and silk ribbons. "But Mama says I mustn't give it to you until dinner."
"If that is what she says, I have no choice except to wait 'til then, do I?" Will smiled back.
"Do you want to know what it is?"
"Sorrel." Temple hushed her as Will laughed.
"Whatever it is, Sorrel," he said, "I know it will be my favorite present because you made it for me."
"Did you hear that, Mama?" Sorrel turned, proud and excited.
"I heard." She smoothed a hand over Sorrel's flame red locks and absently straightened a blue ribbon twined through them.
"Where is Lije?" Eliza frowned. "Don't tell me he was called away?"
At that moment Lije came through the archway. "I am here, Eliza."
"Good." Will reached for the magnum of champagne. "Now if we can get Shadrach to bring more glasses—" But Shadrach had already anticipated the need and returned with three more on his tray.
"Champagne?" Temple arched a startled look at Eliza.
"Yes, champagne in this house." Eliza shook open her fan and waved it at her face, her expression drawn in disapproving lines. "An exception for this one special occasion, he says. The man is absolutely impossible today. Anyone would think he was turning sixteen instead of sixty-six."
The Blade sent Will a knowing look. "I think Eliza worries that this rush of youthfulness might not last until you retire this evening."
Eliza heard Will's chuckle and saw the smiles the others tried to hide. Heat flooded her face. "Such things should not be said in mixed company." She waved her fan with renewed vigor, trying to cool her cheeks even as the suggestion curled deliriously through her. Will saw it and laughed outright, earning him a sharp, "Behave yourself, Will Gordon."
"If I must," he murmured with a nod of mock acceptance and poured champagne into the glasses. Shadrach passed them around.
"A toast to you, Will." The Blade lifted his glass. "Where is mine?" Sorrel demanded. "I want some ch-cham-pagne, too."
"Absolutely not," Eliza declared quite emphatically.
"But I have never had it before." Sorrel saw at once that her grandmother was not about to relent and appealed instead to her grandfather.
"May I have some, please, Grandpa? You said it was a special occasion."
H
e glanced at Eliza and smiled at Sorrel with genuine regret. "I think not."
With a determined set to her chin, she turned away and fixed her attention on Lije, giving him her sweetest, most confident smile. "You will share yours with me, won't you, Lije?"
He smiled faintly and shook his head. "Your grandmother is right, Sorrel. You are too young for champagne. You will have to wait until you are older."
"That isn't fair." She folded her arms, pushing her lips in a mutinous line. "I only wanted to taste it."
"Sorry. Another time."
Before Sorrel could renew her protest, The Blade raised his glass and proposed a toast to Will. Lije echoed the sentiment and took a sip of his champagne. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a slight movement and glanced sideways in time to see Alex motion for Sorrel to come stand by him. When she did, he bent down and whispered something to her. Her expression turned triumphant, then just as quickly changed to something prim and decidedly secretive.
"How is that new riverboat of yours doing?" Will asked The Blade as Alex and Sorrel strolled over to the parlor window.
"She ran full her last trip," The Blade replied. When the pair paused in front of the window, Alex stood slightly behind Sorrel, partially shielding her from the view of the others. "I only rode her as far as Little Rock, but we bested the Nancy May's time by three hours."
Alex passed Sorrel something. Lije couldn't be certain, but he suspected it was his glass of champagne. An instant later, he had a glimpse of it as Sorrel tipped her head back to take a sip. Immediately, she drew back and pushed something at Alex, who laughed softly.
"A time like that will gain you more customers," Will remarked.
"While you were in Little Rock, did you meet with the governor and Boudinot's son?" Kipp challenged. The thinly disguised venom in his voice pulled Lije's attention back to the adults. "Everyone knows they are trying to force our Nation into making an alliance with the new Confederacy."
"I spoke with the governor... briefly," The Blade admitted coolly.
Eliza closed her fan with a snap. "Must we discuss such matters today?"
"What matters are you talking about?" Alex came wandering back to the group.
"The ones we are not going to discuss," she said crisply.
Lije obliged her by changing the subject. "I expect you will be leaving for college soon, won't you, Alex?"
"That will be decided this afternoon after dinner," Alex replied, sliding a quick smile at his grandfather.
"Will you sit beside me at dinner, Alex?" Sorrel asked.
"There is no one I'd rather sit beside than you, Sorrel," Alex promised.
More than an hour later, Shadrach entered the kitchen and handed the silver tray with its solid silver coffee service to one of the maids. "They have retired to the drawing room. You and Sally get the dishes cleared from the dining room table."
He waited to make certain they did his bidding, then pulled a kerchief from his pocket and blotted the perspiration from his brow and neck. Taking advantage of these few moments' respite from his duties, he shrugged out of his day coat and hung it on a wall peg. Next to it was another black coat with a top hat and a pair of white gloves on the shelf directly above it, part of his nephew Ike's livery uniform as the Stuarts' driver. Glancing over his shoulder, Shadrach smiled at the young man seated at the kitchen table, taking pride in the way his sister Phoebe's son had grown.
Ike was an intelligent and handsome man. Tall like his grandfather and namesake, he was leaner, without the bulging muscles his grandfather had acquired from working at a blacksmith's forge. Although lighter skinned than Shadrach's father, Ike had the same honed jaw and cheek and long, straight nose that came to a point like an arrowhead, the line of the nostrils flaring back.
Shadrach walked over to the big metal coffeepot and poured a cup. "Where is your father, Ike?" He had expected to find him sitting at the table, eating with his son.
"Outside I guess." Ike sat with both elbows resting on the table, a fork in one hand, a piece of fried bread in the other. "Keeping watch, I imagine. You know how Master Blade is whenever that brother of Miss Temple's around."
But he didn't look up from his plate when he spoke, his answer barely audible. That wasn't like his nephew. Frowning, Shadrach sat down on the long bench opposite Ike. Lifting the cup to his mouth, Shadrach blew on the scalding hot coffee and quietly studied his nephew. From the looks of the plate, Ike hadn't eaten more than three or four mouthfuls.
"Doesn't look like you're very hungry."
Ike shot a quick glance at him, then again lowered his head to stare at the plate, the fork in his hand now idle. "It's too hot outside today, I reckon."
"Or else you have something on your mind. Want to tell me about it?" Calmly, Shadrach took a sip of the coffee and waited, noting Ike's increased tension and vague agitation.
Ike leaned forward, resting all his weight on his forearms and casting an anxious glance at the kitchen staff to see if they were listening. "Haven't you ever wanted to be a free man, Uncle Shad?" His voice vibrated with the effort to keep it low—and the intensity of his feelings.
Shadrach stiffened. He had expected Ike to confide in him about a woman or maybe the new overseer at Grand View, but not this. "You aren't thinking of trying to run away, are you, Ike?"
Resentment and hurt flashed across Ike's face as he tossed the piece of bread and his fork onto the plate, indifferent to the clatter he made. He pushed back and rose to his feet. "I should have known you felt just like them," he muttered and headed for the door.
Stunned by the underlying anger, Shadrach was slow to follow him outside. Ike stood at the far end of the kitchen's sheltering overhang, his hands on his hips, the stance mirroring his frustration as he stared at the milky blue sky.
When Shadrach started toward him, Ike glared. "Go away. Just go away."
Shadrach hesitated, then continued forward. "Your question took me by surprise, Ike."
"Yeah." He expelled a short laughing breath that reeked with bitterness.
"Would you like to hear my answer?"
"Why? I know how much you think of your mistress. I've heard the story a thousand times about Miss Eliza teaching you and my mother, the way she used to leave lessons and books out for you after your own mammy refused to let you go to the school. You feel the same loyalty toward her that my father feels toward Master Blade."
"Loyalty has got nothing to do with being a slave. It's something you give freely because it's been earned—not because you'll feel the lash of a whip otherwise. Slave or free, I would feel the same toward Miss Eliza. And every slave in this world has his dreams of freedom, Ike, and don't you ever think otherwise. But a slave has only got two ways to get his freedom—he can either earn enough money to buy it, Or serve his master the best he can and hope that he will be rewarded with his freedom. Running away isn't being free. It's just running, trading one life of fear for another."
Ike lowered his head. "What about this war everybody is talking about, Uncle Shad? Do you think they will really send armies into the South to free all the slaves?"
"That's what everybody says, and I think it might happen."
Ike heard the hesitancy in his uncle's voice as if he, too, was uncertain whether he should believe freedom could come to them. Somewhere nearby a lark sang. Ike gazed at the plantation, the manor house, the orchards, the distant slave cabins, and the fields of tall corn and cotton. He tried to imagine what it would be like to be free. This was the only life he had known. Every morning he had awoken to the sound of the horn blowing, summoning the slaves to work. Every day, he had done what he was told to do. He had never owned anything in his life, not even the clothes on his back.
"If you were free, Uncle Shad, what would you do?" he wondered.
"I would teach." The answer came quick and strong. Surprised, Ike glanced at the slender wisp of a man who was his uncle. There had never been any size to him. And Ike had never thought of him as being strong. His mind was
quick— and filled with many stories and much knowledge, but strong? No, Ike had never thought of him that way. Now he saw his uncle's strength—there, in his face as he dreamed. "I would build a schoolhouse and I would teach as many children as the building would hold. I would free them from ignorance because it enslaves."
Ike said nothing. Instead he let his uncle's words ring in the summer air, quietly spoken yet no less fervent. Dreams. There had to be more than dreams.
7
Lije stood with the others on the shaded front veranda that served as an impromptu grandstand for the afternoon's match race. The irregular course followed a narrow dirt lane that swung away from the house, curved between two fields, and circled back to the front of it, with the iron ring post serving as the finish line.
"Can you see them yet? Can you see them?" Sorrel bounced up and down with excitement, straining to catch a glimpse of the racers.
"Not yet." Lije scanned the dirt track between the fields. "They should be making the turn at the fields about now. We should see them any minute."
Too impatient to wait, Sorrel dashed off the steps and into the center of the temporary race course. Temple took a step off the veranda. "Sorrel, you come back here this instant."
"I will, Mama. I will." But she continued to peer down the road. Just as Temple started after her, Sorrel turned, all excited. "Here they come! Here they come!" she cried, running back to the veranda.
The sound of drumming hooves reached Lije first; then he saw the two horses racing toward the house, both riders bent low. The sleek black filly was in the lead, stretched out flat and driving effortlessly. On her heels pounded a bright red chestnut. The chestnut surged forward in a burst of speed.
"He's catching her," Will murmured, intent on the racing pair. "He's catching her."
"Come on, Firestorm," Eliza urged, her earlier objections to the race forgotten in the excitement of it. "Come on, boy."