Blood of Pioneers

by Michelle Isenhoff

  And then she knew nothing.

  ~

  At first Hannah heard only the drum. Boom! Boom! Boom! It pounded with maddening regularity, filling the air, filling her body till her head ached with the noise. Then she realized there was no noise, only the pounding, the aching, the throbbing coming from just over her right ear. With a moan, she opened her eyes.

  She lay in a dark room. Firelight flickered on the low, blackened beams above her. A cool wetness touched her forehead.

  “You had quite a spill, Little Miss.” A bass voice floated out of the darkness, smooth and earthy like the deep lowing of cattle.

  “Where am I?” she asked, gasping at the pain it caused her.

  “You in de home of Ezra Jones.” A blurry face leaned into her line of vision. Hannah was aware of very white teeth. “And I be Ezra Jones.”

  She tried to sit up, but a heavy hand thwarted her efforts. “Don’t be hastenin’, Little Miss. Jus’ lie back and let yo’ thoughts settle up.”

  She collapsed onto the bed out of sheer weariness.

  “Dat’s better. Missus Jones be makin’ you some broth to get yo’ strength back.”

  Hannah closed her eyes, trying to remember how she came to be here. She knew she had been cold. Very cold. Her fingertips still tingled with hot, new blood. She’d been frightened. And alone. No, she hadn’t been alone; she’d been with Rounder.

  “Rounder!” She sprang upright, memories overwhelming her. “Where’s Rounder? Where’s my horse?”

  The soothing voice rolled over her again. “Yo’ horse be jus’ fine. He in de stable out back.”

  “But, but he ran away! There was a scream! A horrible scream. What—?” She started to tremble.

  “Dat be a terrible big cat, Little Miss. I hear ’em, too. He run away when I shoot my gun. And den I find yo’ horse caught by one rein and you sleepin’ peaceful-like beside him.”

  Now Hannah could see Ezra Jones clearly. He was a large black man, with broad shoulders and a round, smiling face. A fluff of gray hair added grace to his humble appearance. Hannah stared at the strange face, darker than any she had ever imagined.

  Ezra reached behind her and fluffed up a feather pillow. “Here come Missus Jones. Sit back and eat up what she feed you, now.”

  Hannah’s eyes had adjusted to the gloom, and she studied the woman who approached her holding a wooden bowl. Like her husband, she had rich, dark skin, full lips, and grizzled hair. She also had a thick figure that might have been the cause of her heavy limp.

  “You do like Ezra say.” The woman spoke brusquely, lacking the warm tones of her husband. But her hand was gentle as she spooned the rich liquid into Hannah’s mouth.

  As she ate, Hannah glanced around the tiny house. It was a cabin made of logs, like the one her parents had lived in. A fireplace had been cut out of one wall and a chimney built around it and daubed with mud. On one side of the blaze stood a table and two stools; on the other side was a handcrafted rocking chair. The small bedstead she lay in took up most of the opposite wall. She could see a ladder leading to a hole in the ceiling. At its base stood a wooden box filled with tools. That was all.

  Mrs. Jones scraped the bottom of the bowl. The broth in Hannah’s belly radiated warmth, and she could feel her eyes pulling closed.

  “Res’ yo’self, now, Little Miss,” Ezra told her.

  She fought to stay awake. “But you’ve nowhere to sleep,” she argued.

  “Don’t you worry ’bout us, now,” he rumbled with that gentle smile. “We’s made do without a bed afore now.”

  Hannah had no energy to argue. The soft feathers, the warm soup, the crackle of flames all contributed to send her into a deep, untroubled sleep.

  ~

  Hannah awoke to the smell of frying salt pork. The cabin was still dim, the only light coming from a single paper-covered window. Mrs. Jones was bent over the hearth, her wide back turned, but Hannah saw no sign of Ezra.

  She sat up carefully. Her head still ached, but the torturous pounding of last night had subsided. At the sound, the black woman glanced over her shoulder. “Breakfas’ be done directly,” she said.

  Hannah swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. The room toppled, but she forced herself to walk to the fire. If she hoped to reach Allegan, she must make her body obey. “Can I help with anything?” she offered.

  “I been makin’ breakfas’ in dis cabin my own self for years. You set.” She indicated the rocking chair. “Don’ need to patch up no split heads dis mornin’.”

  The woman wasn’t unkind, but Hannah had the distinct impression that her presence was unwanted. She sat without argument.

  A few minutes later, as Mrs. Jones set the board, Ezra came through the door stamping snow from his boots. Hannah caught a glimpse of white yard, gray sky, and dark trees before the man’s frame filled the doorway. He was difficult to see against the sudden glare of light, but when he closed the door she could make out his teeth in the shadows.

  “Little Miss outta bed. Dis be good.” He hung his coat and muffler on a peg pounded between the logs of the wall then crossed to the fire—it took only three strides—and held his hands out to the blaze. “Yo’ horse be keepin’ ol’ Jack company out in de stable, no worse for his fright. He hab his breakfast a’ready.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Jones.”

  “Been plain ol’ Ezra mos’ of my life. How you feeling, Little Miss?”

  “You can call me Hannah—” she told him, but as the glow of the fire fell fully on the man, she uttered a gasp. The left side of his face and neck were crisscrossed with pink scars.

  “What happened to you?”

  He traced one of the welts with a thick forefinger. “Dis be de mark of a horsewhip.”

  “Someone did that to you with a riding crop?” she asked, incredulous.

  He grunted and turned back to the fire without further comment.

  Mrs. Jones called them to the table. Ezra indicated one of the two chairs. “You takes de stool, Little Miss, an’ I’ll set in de rocker. You’ll never reach de vittles in dat big ol’ chair.” When they were all seated, he bowed his head and prayed in his deep voice, “Thank you, Lord, fo’ enough food to fill our bellies again dis day. Amen.”

  Hannah’s injury didn’t seem to affect her appetite, and the simple meal tasted wonderful. Eggs, crisply fried pork, bread toasted over the fire, and a white porridge she had never seen before that Ezra called “grits.” To wash it down, a glass of buttermilk sat beside each place, along with a hot, nutty drink that reminded her of coffee.

  Ezra took a long pull at his buttermilk and turned to her with a frank question. “So where a youngster like you be going all by herself las’ night, Miss Hannah?”

  “I was on my way to Allegan to sell my horse.” The memory of the two drunken men came back to her, and she told the Joneses the story of her abduction.

  Ezra frowned. “Hm, reckon dat cat come along at jus’ de right moment. I wonder ’bout dose two fellas.” He drifted off into silence again.

  After several bites, Hannah ventured, “I still need to get to Allegan, but I’m afraid I’m out of my reckoning. Do you think you could tell me the way?”

  “Sure. Go back half a mile and take de firs’ road wes’. But why you sellin’ yo’ horse? Seems like a right fine animal to be partin’ with.”

  Hannah’s face fell. She wasn’t at all certain she was doing the right thing. “I have to sell him, Ezra. My pa’s away fighting, and if I don’t get the money to repay a loan, my family will lose our farm.”

  Ezra sat back in the rocker and rubbed the gray stubble on his chin. “Family always come firs’.” He stretched out his long legs.

  Hannah glanced again at the scars on the man’s face. “Ezra,” she asked tentatively, “were you a slave? Did your owner do that to you?”

  Mrs. Jones made a guttural sound. Her face was tense and proud, and Hannah knew she had spoken out of turn.

  Ezra glanced up at his wife. “She ask
innocent, Sarah. How a chil’ from dese parts understan’ otherwise?”

  “I’m sorry,” Hannah apologized. “I shouldn’t pry.”

  “S’all right, Little Miss. If dare be hope of change, young’uns need truth. ’Sides, you should understan’ what yo’ daddy sacrificin’ fo’.”

  Ezra heaved a great sigh that lifted his ribcage and set it down again. “I use to belong to a man named Jeremiah Barker, meanest cuss in all o’ Georgia. His wife be jus’ as bad. She de one give me dese marks. But her husban’ done worse.

  “Weren’t always so bad. I live many years with a good man named Peters. Didn’t care fo’ being no one’s slave, but I’s never tempted to run off under Marse Peters. Life weren’t so bad to risk hounds or de hangman’s noose. Den some of my family sold off here, some there, and my sister Julia and I’s drug off to Old Man Barker.” His face darkened. “And time come when dogs and noose soun’ better’n livin’.

  “Seven years I work ever’ day. Never a Sabbath res’ or a Christmas holiday. Whip if I’s too slow. Chains if I looks sulky. Fists, nails, clubs, whatever de white man take a fancy to. Marse only had four slaves, so we all feel de lash too of’en.

  “I met my Sarah an’ need Marse Barker’s permission to marry, but he won’t give it. We jump over de broom anyway an’ has five beautiful children: two girls and three boys. Don’ know where none of ’em is. All sold off.”

  He looked out the window with raw pain in his eyes, even after so many years. Mrs. Jones stood quickly and began clearing the table.

  “Did you run away?” Hannah asked softly.

  He didn’t answer, and Hannah knew the question was foolish. Of course he had, and suddenly the Emancipation Proclamation took on enormous significance. “No one can take you back,” she told him. “President Lincoln made a law that forbids the return of runaways after the turn of the year. That’s only one more week. I studied it in school.”

  He nodded. “We heard rumors. Can’t read, and we keep most to our ownselves, but we heard tell o’ such a law. It a good one.”

  “How did you end up in Allegan County?” she asked.

  “Went to Detroit firs’. Lef’ word for my sister if she follow, but dey’s slavers all over dat city. So we settled where dare ain’t so many people and had us one more son. He all growed up now. Moved away. Comes to visit every now an’ den, but I ain’t seen my sister evermore.”

  Ezra was silent for a long time, and Hannah could hear the slosh of a butter churn behind her. She felt such pity for the old couple. In her sheltered corner of Michigan, she had no idea such suffering existed. Her own hardships paled by comparison.

  She tried to decide if Ezra’s story, and all the others like it, made the war with the South worth the cost, but she couldn’t answer that. Surely there must have been a better way. But she did feel a new pride in her father, and in her brother, and in Michigan and the North. A pride, not for the bloody heroics of a battlefield, but for noble ideals and for setting to rights of a very old wrong.

  “Thank you, Ezra, for your help.”

  He waved her away and his grin came back. “Think nothin’ of it, Little Miss.”

  She wanted to linger in the cozy little cabin and share the warm understanding she’d found that spanned age and race, but she had to get to Allegan. She stood up. “I don’t live very far away. Perhaps I could visit again sometime?”

  “I’d like dat,” Ezra agreed.

  He pulled on his coat and muffler and soon delivered Rounder to her saddled and bridled. The horse was, indeed, in fine condition, and before she rode out of the yard she thanked the old man again.

  “Miss Hannah, when you sees yo’ father again, you thank him fo’ me.”

  Chapter 16

  Hannah rode up Monroe Street looking for some clue that would direct her to the horse dealer, Mr. Rochester. The town was much bigger than Wayland, with a row of houses overlooking the river and cross streets crammed with storefronts. Some were decorated with greenery and twined about with ribbons, all gussied up like Christmas merrymakers. Others glowered out at her with stony blankness, unfamiliar and uninviting.

  The streets of town swarmed with people, more than Hannah had ever seen in one place. They walked. They rode on horseback. They traveled in small cutters, large sledges, farm wagons modified with runners, and even one low lumber sleigh. Under so many hooves, the snow had churned into gritty muck that scabbed over with the last hard freeze.

  She turned down Chestnut Street, which speared the center of town, and gaped up at the solid row of buildings stretching three stories into the air. It didn’t take long to pass through to another loop of the river, with its docks and warehouses, mill and lumberyard, and a huge wooden bridge that spanned the water.

  No one on the busy street offered to help or even glanced at Hannah. Though she thrilled with the excitement of returning to the city, now that she was here, a small part of her regretted that she had no one to share it with.

  Rounder suddenly nickered and bobbed his head. As if conjured up by her vague disappointment, a call rang out from across the street.

  “Hannah!”

  It was Joel!

  She jumped down and waved, tugging Rounder toward him.

  Her brother dodged around a team and grabbed her in a bear hug. “Fool girl! Don’t you know you could have been hurt or lost or killed? Thunderation, I’m relieved to see you’re okay! I never thought you’d actually set off on one of those crazy schemes you’re always dreaming up.”

  “Oh, don’t be a grandma,” she scorned, pushing away. “I’m fine.”

  Joel shook her gently. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately. Fighting with Justin like the devil and now running off. I’d like to take you over my knee and tan your hide. Mama’s worried sick about you.”

  “I had to come, Joel,” she insisted.

  “If I hadn’t run into Mr. Stockton, I never would have known where to look. And good thing Rounder recognized me, or I’d have passed you by.”

  She grew more adamant. “I told you, I had to come!”

  “You didn’t have to do anything but stay home and behave yourself for a change.”

  “Don’t you see it, Joel?” she pleaded. “I couldn’t save the wheat, I couldn’t earn enough money to pay the loan, and I couldn’t be the son Pa wanted, but I darn well will not fail him in this. I will not lose our farm!” Tears she had kept penned up for months bit at her eyes, threatening to break loose.

  Joel looked stunned, like she’d hit him over the head with a sawmill slab. “What did you say?”

  “I said I can’t let Pa down again, Joel.”

  “No, about being a son—”

  “Pa wanted another one so badly.” She sniffed, refusing to open the floodgates. “I tried, Joel. I tried to take Jeremy’s place, but I can’t do it anymore. I have to be me, whatever that is. I hope Pa won’t be too disappointed.”

  Joel listened, his eyes wide and incredulous. Then slow understanding filled them. He groaned and rubbed both hands over his face and into his hair, setting it on end. “Hannah, what do you remember of Jeremy?”

  She focused on Rounder, patting his soft muzzle. “Not much. I remember going to Mrs. Patton’s house with you and Maddy and Seth. When we came home we had to be real quiet. And I remember Doctor Graves coming and going a lot.

  “But mostly I remember Pa crying and crying, walking around the house cradling that blanket in his arms. And for the first time, I couldn’t reach him, Joel. He was in that room, but he was somewhere far away. I guess that day I realized his world was made up of more than just me.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself. “Funny, I don’t remember Mama at all. I just remember that for days Pa wasn’t my Pa, and it scared me. I guess I’ve never forgotten how much he loved that baby.”

  “Hannah,” Joel spoke gravely, “there was another baby he loved just as much as that one. I was only three then, but I remember Pa cradling it, talking to it, kissing it, showing it off
to anyone who would stop to look inside the blanket.”

  Hannah looked up blankly.

  “You, goose!” he exclaimed. “Pa loves you more than anything! And he loves you because you’re Hannah Grace Wallace, not because you have tried for years to be Jeremy Tyler Wallace.”

  She turned away, but Joel grabbed her shoulders and forced her to listen. “If you had been born anyone else, who would have drawn Pa pictures of squirrels and woodchucks? Who would have told him those silly fairy tales? Who would have accompanied him on every trip to town or listened so attentively when he told stories at night? Who would have been Hannah?

  “You don’t need to do anything special for Pa to be proud of you. You’re already special to him. And if we lost the farm, he would love you just as much.”

  Her brother’s words were like honey on a sore throat. Like scratching an itch she couldn’t reach. She had so needed to hear them, especially now, when all she had left was herself. And whatever that was, she finally allowed herself to believe it might be enough.

  “Do you think Pa will be angry?”

  “That you ran off? Probably.”

  “No. I mean angry that I’m going to sell Rounder.”

  “I would have done it myself if I’d needed to, and Pa would have been very sorry to lose him. But we are his family, and the farm is our home. What in the world is more important to him than that?”

  She cocked an eyebrow at him. “You said if you needed to.”

  A slow grin creased his face. “That’s right. Because we don’t.”

  Hannah sucked in her breath. “You mean—?” She hardly dared hope.

  “That’s what I was trying to tell everybody yesterday when you ran off half-cocked. We have the money to pay off the loan.”

  Hannah’s mouth dropped open. “How?”

  Joel laughed out loud. “When I asked Mrs. Patton to buy our north pasture, she turned me down. She knew how we felt about losing that land. Instead, she suggested a lease. We’ve been waiting for word from Mr. Patton. I never mentioned it in case it didn’t work out, but she got a reply from him two days ago. He’s returning next month with new stock to improve his herd, and he agreed wholeheartedly. So Mrs. Patton signed a five-year lease and paid the money up front. Mama sewed it into my pant leg. We just have to visit the post office.”