Shifted By The Winds

by Ginny Dye

  Morah took a deep breath. “We need your help, Rose. Things can’t keep going like they be going. You be Moses’ wife, and you be the teacher. Can you do something?”

  Rose swallowed hard. She had read the brochure that seemed to have sparked all the trouble.

  “Change is hard,” she began. “When all of us were slaves, the master was the one in charge, so most of us felt more equal. There was not one person earning money, because none of us did. We were all equally powerless.”

  “But…” Morah began to protest.

  Rose raised her hand. “Let me finish and then we’ll talk about what we’re going to do.” Morah nodded and sat back. “Now that we’re free, our men are starting to think more like white men,” she admitted. “Many of them have decided men and women are different.” She sighed heavily. “Actually, a lot of them have decided they are better than women.”

  “Nonsense,” Morah snorted.

  Some of the other women looked doubtful. Rose understood. A lifetime of slavery had already made them feel less than. Most of them were used to being abused and controlled by their masters and their overseers. It would be frightfully easy for them to concede control of their lives to abusive husbands. Anger flared in her as she stared into eyes that had seen so much suffering. They were working so hard to learn and to make their lives better. “Morah is right,” she said. “It is pure nonsense.” Her declaration made most of the women sit up straighter. It also loosened their tongues.

  “My man told me he was going to run things now because he served as a soldier. He said that makes him better than me, and that I have to let him control things now.” The statement was offered up by a mousy-looking woman who had lived as a slave for most of her fifty years.

  “My husband told me about a brochure that says men are the only ones who can sign contracts for their whole family. It ain’t happening here on Cromwell, but he said men were going to be paid more than women for the same work,” another chimed in. “He said that makes him better than me, and the one who should be in charge. I figure if I’m out sweating in the tobacco fields the same as him, that I ought to get paid the same!”

  A murmur of agreement rose from the rest of the room.

  “Ain’t gonna do nothing but get worse if black men get the vote like Congress is trying to make happen,” Hettie added. “I be eighty years old. I lived long enough to know men like to think they are in charge. The black man always been pushed down, but if they get that right to vote it’s gonna make things even harder for us.”

  “You don’t think they should vote?” Rose asked, wanting to keep the conversation going. She hoped it would give her time to think of an adequate response.

  “Oh, I reckon they should vote, but they ain’t got no more right to vote than I do,” Hettie snapped. “It ain’t right that white women can’t vote, and it ain’t right that black women can’t vote. I figure men done quite enough to mess up things in this country. It’s gonna take women to make things right again. I reckon I’ve lived long enough to figure that much out!”

  Rose couldn’t have agreed more, but she recognized the more immediate need of dealing with the abuse in the community.

  “Does Moses treat you badly?” Morah asked, eyeing her sharply.

  “Never,” Rose said. She smiled. “He wouldn’t dare.” There was a ripple of laughter, but serious concern remained on every face as they stared back at her. “I know Moses is unique, but it’s only because he learned another way of treating women.”

  “How?” Morah demanded.

  It was a good question. Rose thought through her answer. “I think my mama probably put the fear of God in him before she died.” Her tone was light, but she realized that her mama had probably made it very clear how she expected him to treat her daughter. “It was more than that, though. All of you have heard the story about how Carrie Cromwell helped us escape through the Underground Railroad. Watching how she struggled to do the right thing and make the right decisions about slavery made him think about his own beliefs.” She paused. “Then we got to Philadelphia, and he met Abby Cromwell—only she was Abby Livingston then. He saw a woman who owned her own business, and who was succeeding in a man’s world. He developed even more respect for women.” Her gaze swept the room. “He grew up in slavery just like all your men did. But he turned into a different man.”

  “My Abraham told me I was supposed to submit to him,” Morah said. “I ain’t a slave anymore. I know how to read now, and I work every bit as hard as he does. There ain’t gonna be no submitting.” She fairly growled the words.

  “Can you help us, Rose?” Hettie asked, her eyes resting on Morah. “I ain’t got no man telling me what to do, because my man died years ago, but the other women here need help.”

  Rose nodded. “You’re right.” She took a deep breath. “Women all over the country, both white and black, are fighting for their rights.” She had gotten a letter from Carrie about that very thing last week. “It’s going to be a tough battle, but we’re not going to quit fighting until we have the right to vote.”

  Morah snorted. “You really think men gonna let that happen?”

  Rose waited until every eye in the room was looking at her closely. “I think the day will come when they won’t be able to stop it,” she said. “Women will get the right to vote.”

  “Not in my lifetime,” Hettie observed.

  “Perhaps not,” Rose replied. “And it may not even be in my lifetime. I sincerely hope that is not true, but the thing I do know to be true is that women simply won’t quit fighting for equality and the right to vote.”

  A somber silence fell on the room as all the women contemplated her statement. Courage filled their faces, and their shoulders straightened, but Morah’s next statement just as quickly deflated them.

  “That’s all fine and good, Rose, but how’s that gonna stop our men treating us badly right now? I’m tired of Abraham treating me bad. I thought I left all that behind me. I told my children they would never be treated wrong again. Now it’s their daddy doing it.” Anger dripped from her voice, but her eyes were cloaked with something verging on hopelessness.

  Rose knew she was right. “I’ll talk to Moses,” she promised. The husband of almost every woman in the school worked for Moses. It wouldn’t address all of their problems, but it would be a place to begin. She pushed aside the thought that most of them would be moving on at the end of the harvest. It was imperative they do something now. “He will talk to the men and tell them things have to change.”

  “What about when we have to move on?” Morah demanded. “We gots to leave here when the harvest is done and look for different work.”

  Rose sighed. “I wish I could tell you Moses can make everything different, but I can’t honestly promise you that,” she admitted. “It will be a start, though,” she said. “Your men respect my husband, and they need the job he is giving them. That alone will insure they will at least listen. Some of them will change when they know Moses doesn’t agree with them.”

  “And the rest of them?” Morah demanded, fear spiking her voice.

  Rose suddenly understood things must be very bad for her. This kind of fear didn’t come from being hit occasionally, though any kind of abuse was inexcusable. She stepped over and took Morah’s hands. “You’re being beaten.” It was not a question.

  Morah’s face flamed with shame before she dropped her gaze to the floor. “Abraham ain’t the same man he was before the war,” she mumbled. “He came back hard and mean. He was the gentlest man I ever knew before he went off to fight for the North. That’s gone,” she said flatly.

  Rose knew men all over the country, both Union and Confederate, had returned home as changed men. Moses still had nightmares, and there were nights she heard Robert cry out in his sleep. June had told her Simon still wasn’t the same, but she knew he wasn’t abusive to her sister-in-law. “Everyone changed,” she said, “but that doesn’t give him an excuse to beat you.”

  Morah shrug
ged. “We’ll see if Moses can change things.” Her face tightened with fear again. “What if Abraham figures out I told about him?” She began to tremble. “It will only make things worse.”

  “We’re all here telling,” Hettie reminded her.

  A chorus of agreement rose from the room.

  “We’ve had enough.”

  “They’s got to treat us better.”

  “We ain’t putting up with no more of this!”

  Rose gazed at the resolute faces that reflected both fear and determination. “I will talk to Moses tonight,” she promised.

  Moses listened quietly as Rose recounted what the women had told her after class.

  “It’s terrible for some of them,” Rose cried. “They’ve already suffered so much. Will you talk to the men?” She took a deep breath. “I promised them you would.”

  Moses took a deep breath of his own. “I’ll talk to them,” he agreed.

  Rose wished there was more light on the porch so she could see his face more clearly, but she knew him well enough now to hear every nuance in his voice. She had waited until everyone had gone to bed before she broached the subject. “What are you not saying?”

  “Some of the men are very angry,” Moses said. “Talking to them might make them angrier, because they are going to believe their wives said something.”

  Rose squirmed as she thought of Morah’s fear.

  “I can control what happens on the plantation,” Moses said, “but when they leave, I can’t do anything.”

  “I know,” Rose admitted, “but we have to try. We can’t just do nothing.” The look on the women’s faces as they implored her for help was engraved on her mind. “We have to do something, Moses.”

  Moses nodded. “I know.” He stood and walked to the edge of the porch, staring out into the night for a long moment before he swung around. “I want you to be careful, though.”

  Rose stared at him. “What?”

  Moses sat down next to her and took both her hands. “The men know the women respect you and come to you for advice. They know you are teaching them and giving them a self-confidence they never had before.”

  “Those are good things!” Rose cried.

  “Yes, but certain men also see it as a threat to their manhood,” he said. “They might decide to take it out on you.”

  “Let them try,” Rose retorted, but she felt a flash of discomfort. Every man working for Moses had served in the Union Army. They had the potential to be dangerous. She gripped Moses’ hands. “I’ll be careful,” she said, struck by the look of love on his face.

  “You’ll do more than that,” Moses replied. “From now on, I would like you to carry a pistol with you at all times.”

  Rose gasped. He hadn’t asked her to do that even with the threat of vigilantes. “You really think one of them would hurt me? I’m your wife!” Unbidden, an image of the anger and pain in Trevor’s eyes floated into her mind.

  “And that should be enough,” Moses agreed, “but men who have been through battle are sometimes never the same. I’m giving all these men a chance, but that doesn’t mean I trust all of them. I’ve taught you how to shoot. Will you carry the pistol?”

  Rose hesitated, but nodded slowly. “Yes,” she said. “And you will talk to the men?”

  “I will talk to them,” Moses promised.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The sun was still tucked beneath the treetops when Moses rode Champ out of the stables. The cobalt blue sky was just beginning to take on the hue of dawn when he reached the tobacco fields. He had told Rose he needed to check on the final stages of harvest. The truth was that he needed time to think. He agreed with her that something needed to be done to help the women in the community, but he felt uncomfortable with the knowledge that the weight of the responsibility seemed to rest on his shoulders. He had come to grips with the idea of being a leader for his people, but the demands of the tobacco season had allowed him the luxury of pushing that reality far to the back of his mind. It was a future possibility, not a present thing. Rose’s revelation had brought it roaring back with an intensity that threatened to overwhelm him. He knew that whatever he chose to say could make things better for these women. It could also make them worse.

  A riotous chorus of birds broke through his thoughts. He managed to smile as cardinals flitted through the trees. It was easy to spot the bright red of the males, but he was just as adept at identifying the softer ocher color of the females. Their identical dark orange beaks made them stand out, but it was their calls that pulled his heart this morning. Waaait… Waaait… Cheer …Cheer …Cheer…Cheer. He wished he could follow their heed to wait to talk to his men, and then he hoped someone would cheer him after he lowered the boom on them. Somehow he was certain neither thing was going to happen.

  Moses sighed, shifting easily as Champ shied away from a wide-eyed deer that bounded out of the woods. Champ snorted but stood steady as the doe turned and raced back into the trees. Moses couldn’t see it, but he was sure there was a fawn joining its mama in the race from danger. The fawn’s spots would have all faded as its coat thickened in preparation for winter.

  In spite of his anxiety, the peace of the plantation began to work its way into his soul. He turned his head and gazed out over the fields. Every field, once standing tall with fluttering tobacco plants, was bare. Just the tough green stalks, cut almost to the ground, remained behind as testimony to Cromwell Plantation’s biggest ever tobacco harvest. All the tobacco was now either packed into barrels headed downriver to Norfolk for export, or to Richmond by wagon to be turned into chewing and pipe tobacco or cigarettes. Moses smiled with satisfaction as he thought of Thomas’ stunned response to his final report on the harvest. He planned on waiting until the Harvest Celebration to let the workers know the final results of their hard labor, but he had shared it with Thomas as soon as he had calculated the final numbers.

  A flurry of raucous calls from deep within the pine and cedar trees made him turn his head just in time to see a flock of ten blue jays darting through the woods. He never tired of their bright azure blue color, though there were times he could do without their noisy, harsh calls. He remembered the day his father had told him these crafty birds could also imitate the call of a hawk. He had watched for years to find one doing it, but so far he had come up empty. He would keep looking, because he knew his father wouldn’t have told him something that wasn’t true.

  Another burst of song made him smile. He had always loved the robin’s trilling whistle heralding the arrival of spring. Cheer-up, cheery me… Cheer-up, cheery me… He knew most of the robins would soon be migrating further south to avoid the snow, but just listening to them now made him feel better. Their constant cheer had helped him through many long days of toiling in the tobacco fields as a boy.

  His father had taught him all the birds he knew, telling Moses their songs would help him get through the longest days. He had been right—until he had seen his father hanged from a tree. The birdsongs had ceased to comfort him after that. They were nothing but a stark reminder of what he had lost. Until recently… The joy had returned, bringing with it the memories of a man who had given all to try and offer freedom to his family.

  Moses took a deep breath, feeling courage surge into his heart. He could almost feel Big Sam right there with him. He wished his father could have lived to experience freedom. Now he just hoped his father knew his wife and children were finally free. Big Sam would not have stood by if he knew a wrong was being done. He would have done the right thing, no matter the consequences. Now it was Moses’ turn.

  Moses was relaxed as he watched everyone arrive. The sun had just begun its ascent above the treetops, casting a golden glow over the morning. Now that the heat of summer had abated and the harvest was almost done, it was not necessary for everyone to begin work at dawn. The fields were bare, but the final remnants of the tobacco were drying, and there was still a large amount waiting transport. The rest of the men were going to be busy rep
airing tools and equipment broken during the season. There was still a lot to be done before the Harvest Celebration, but everything was on schedule.

  Some of the workers had ridden in from their homes. Others had walked in from the quarters where they were living. More had come in from the surrounding community. The men from his old unit who had appeared in the middle of the night, and who were now sequestered in the quarters, were also working. They had insisted they work for room and board. Every man arriving was grateful for a job, and every one of them worked hard. He watched them as they gathered, wondering which ones were abusing their wife and family. The very thought made his blood boil, but he knew he had to handle things carefully.

  Shuffling feet and anxious looks revealed they wondered what was going on. Different groups were usually pulled together in the morning to be given their assignments, but not since the beginning of the season had he brought them together as one unit.

  Simon walked over. “What’s going on, Moses?”

  “There’s not time to explain. It will all be clear when I’m done.” His brother-in-law eyed him closely, but nodded and stepped back. Moses was grateful for their effortless relationship, forged by years on the battlefield.

  He stepped up onto a box he had placed on the ground so he’d be able to see every man’s face as he was speaking. “Good morning,” he called. An instant hush fell over the group as every eye turned toward him. It was interesting to view who looked anxious and who looked merely curious. He would analyze that later.

  “I’m not ready to give a final report yet, but I want everyone here to know that the Cromwell tobacco harvest has broken every record ever set here. Other plantations all over the South are struggling. You men have proven what can be done when everyone has a chance to work together…reaping the benefits together.” He smiled as excited murmurs rose into the morning air. He let the comments continue for several moments, and then raised his hand for silence.