Columns of Cottonwood

by Sandra Robbins

  “Yas suh, but he ain’t a thief, Mistuh Dante. Doan be mad at him.”

  Dante reached for his coat. “It’s all right, Saul. I know Abraham isn’t a thief. He’s just upset. Maybe we can catch him.”

  He turned to Savannah. “Saul and I will go after Abraham. I don’t know when we’ll be back.”

  “B–but where will you look?”

  Dante’s eyes narrowed in thought. “We’ll go to the Crossroads first. Perhaps he went there to find out who they thought were responsible for the raid.”

  “Abraham knows who done it, Mistuh Dante.”

  Saul’s low voice sent shivers down Savannah’s back. “How does he know?”

  “He say when he went to town with Henry last week, he was waitin’ by the wagon for Henry to come out of da store. Mistuh Boyer from Oak Hill walked up and tole him to git in the wagon; folks like him warn’t ’posed to stand in the way of white folks walkin’ down the street. Abraham tole him he warn’t blockin’ anybody’s path, and Mistuh Boyer got right mad. He tole Abraham he’d be sorry he back talked a white man.”

  Fear rose in Savannah’s throat. “Do you think he might go to Oak Hill?”

  Dante shook his head. “I don’t know.” He walked to the sideboard, opened a drawer, and pulled out his pistol. He stared at it for a moment before he tucked it in the waistband of his pants. “We’d better find him before he gets in bad trouble.”

  The sight of the gun terrified Savannah. In the months of their marriage, she’d never seen Dante even look at it. Now he acted like a man who wouldn’t hesitate to use it. He walked back and stopped beside her. She glanced down at the revolver. “Dante, why the gun?”

  He straightened his shoulders and buttoned his coat. “In case we run into any trouble.”

  She grabbed Dante’s hands “Then hurry and catch him before that happens. I’ll go stay with Mamie and Joshua until you get back. And please be careful.”

  He glanced down at their intertwined hands and squeezed hers. “We’ll try.” He released her and turned to Saul. “I’ll go to the barn and start saddling the horses. You tell Big Mike and the others where we’re going. Tell them to keep an eye on everything until we get back.”

  Saul nodded and dashed out the door.

  Dante hurried onto the front porch. Savannah followed and watched him run to the barn. When he disappeared from sight, she stepped back inside, checked the fire in the stove, and grabbed her shawl from the back of the chair. She paused at the door and breathed a prayer for the safety of Dante, Saul, and Abraham before she hurried outside and ran toward Mamie and Saul’s cabin.

  ❧

  Dante and Saul rode through the dark night toward Oak Hill. In the months Dante had been at Cottonwood, Savannah had often talked about the Boyer plantation and what a grand place it had been before the war, but he’d never been there. Now he raced in its direction on a mission of life and death.

  He didn’t want to think about what would happen to Abraham if Jonathan and his friends found him first. Even with a squirrel rifle for protection, a young man would be defenseless against a band of angry killers.

  Dante glanced at Saul, but in the dark he couldn’t make out the expression on the man’s face. He must be worried out of his mind for the safety of his son. Saul had told Dante he could never understand what he felt, and Dante knew that was true. Someone who had never experienced slavery couldn’t start to comprehend what Saul and all the others had endured.

  A horse whinnied in the distance, and Dante and Saul reined to a stop. “Did you hear that?”

  Saul pointed at the forest to the right of the road. “Yas suh. It sound like it comin’ from those woods over yonder.”

  Dante turned his horse’s head in the direction of the sound and nudged him forward into the inky darkness. Leaves on the forest floor rustled as the horses moved slowly forward. Dante strained to hear another sound, but even the night animals were silent.

  His horse raised its head and snorted in surprise at a figure standing between the bare trees. Dante squinted and recognized the horse from Cottonwood, but there was no rider.

  “Mistuh Dante, that the horse Abraham took.”

  Dante got off and walked toward the animal. “Easy, boy.”

  The horse didn’t move, and Dante grabbed the reins that trailed on the ground. The lather on the horse’s back told Dante he had been ridden hard. But where was Abraham?

  Dante moved to the side of the animal and stopped. His nostrils flared at the smell that he could identify even in the dark. He’d encountered it innumerable times in the field hospitals where he’d worked. Blood.

  He ran his hand over the saddle and felt the sticky substance on his fingers. Saul dismounted and stood beside him.

  “Mistuh Dante, what is it?”

  “We have to find Abraham right away. Something bad has happened.”

  Dante grasped the reins of his and Abraham’s horses and walked forward. The undergrowth in the forest pulled at his boots, but he ignored it and trudged forward with Saul behind. They’d gone about fifty yards when he stopped short.

  Saul halted beside him. “What is it?”

  Dante frowned. “I thought I heard something.”

  A breeze rustled the bare branches of the trees. Dante strained to hear whatever the wind had stirred. It came from straight ahead. He inched forward. The sound, like the creaking of a swaying tree branch, grew louder.

  Just as he stepped into a small clearing, the clouds parted, and moonlight filtered down through the trees. Dante stopped and gasped. He saw the rope looped over the limb first and let his gaze travel to the noose at the end. Pain like a kick in the stomach ripped through Dante. Abraham, his hands bound behind him, swung from a branch of an oak tree ahead.

  “Saul. . .”

  A roar of despair from Saul pierced the quiet of the forest. They dropped the reins of their horses and sprinted toward Abraham’s body. Together Dante and Saul grabbed Abraham’s legs and lifted him as high as they could.

  “Saul,” Dante yelled, “hold him while I climb up and cut him down.”

  Saul clamped his arms around his son’s legs and heaved his body higher. Dante pulled the knife from his pocket and opened it before he shinnied up the tree. Easing out onto the branch, he sawed at the rope until it gave way and Abraham’s body tumbled downward.

  Dante swung his legs off the branch, dropped to the ground, and knelt beside Saul. “Is he breathing?”

  Saul frantically tugged the rope from around Abraham’s neck and pulled his son to his chest. Tears streamed down his face. “He’s dead, Mistuh Dante. They done killed my son. Why they have to go and do a thing like that?”

  Dante reached out and grasped the man’s shaking shoulder. There was no answer to ease Saul’s anguish. All Dante could do was sit beside him as he cried out his grief.

  Thirteen

  Savannah stood at the window in Saul and Mamie’s cabin and stared into the dark night. Dante and Saul had left hours ago. What if they had encountered Jonathan’s men and were lying hurt or even dead on the road to Oak Hill? She gritted her teeth. No, she wouldn’t think that way. They’d come riding up anytime now with Abraham in tow.

  She glanced over her shoulder at Mamie, who stared into the fireplace’s flames. Savannah’s heart ached for her. Although Mamie loved her younger son, Joshua, Abraham was her special child, the one who’d always done everything he could to make life easier for his mother.

  Savannah’s brow wrinkled into a deep frown. Tomorrow she was going to give Abraham a good tongue-lashing. Even though he’d suffered a tragic loss, he should know better than to cause his mother such anguish. After she got through scolding him, he would think before he did it again.

  “Where Joshua?” Mamie’s voice from behind caught her attention.

  “He went to the barn to check on the livestock.”

  Turning from the window, Savannah walked over to Mamie and put her hand on her shoulder. “Can I fix you something? A cup of coffe
e? Or maybe something to eat?”

  Mamie shook her head. “Don’t reckon my stomach would take kindly to nothin’ right now, Miss ’Vanna, but I thanks you.”

  The cabin door opened, and Joshua stepped inside. Savannah gazed at the young man. At eighteen, he was four years younger than his older brother. Savannah had always thought it remarkable that Abraham could be so like Mamie, spirited and fun loving, while Joshua resembled his father in looks and disposition.

  Both of Mamie’s sons worked hard in the fields during the day, but in other ways they differed. Joshua’s serious nature kept him focused on work and family responsibilities, while Abraham loved to sing and tell stories to anyone who would listen. Savannah remembered how the girls in the slave quarters all fell under his spell at one time or another, but he never noticed any of them until Hattie. Savannah wondered how she had been able to capture the wild heart of the young man.

  Joshua walked over to his mother and bent over her. “Mamma, I done checked the livestock. I reckon they be all right till morning. Now I thinks I’ll jest wait in the other room till Abraham gets home. You need me to do anything else for you?”

  Mamie shook her head. “I’m fine. Me and Miss ’Vanna gwine wait right here till they gets back.”

  Joshua bent and kissed his mother on the cheek. “You calls out if’n you need me.”

  “I will.” Mamie turned her head and watched Joshua enter the small room that served as a bedroom for him and Abraham. When he closed the door, she smiled at Savannah. “Joshua, he a good son. He goin’ in there to pray for his brother.”

  “He and Abraham both are good sons.” Savannah knelt beside the woman she’d loved all her life. “Mamie, Dante and Saul will find Abraham and bring him home. We just have to believe that.”

  Mamie clutched her hands in her lap. “My head tells me that, but it my heart that don’t believe it. I feels like my whole insides just torn to pieces.”

  Savannah covered Mamie’s hands with hers. “I can understand how you feel.”

  Mamie’s lips quivered. “He my firstborn. He real special ’cause I had a hard time birthin’ him. I don’t knows how I can live if’n somethin’ done happened to him.”

  Savannah gasped. “Don’t say that. Don’t even think that.”

  Sadness lined Mamie’s face. “You don’t knows how I feel, but you will when your baby born.”

  Savannah chuckled. “Don’t rush things, Mamie. That won’t happen for a long time.”

  “Don’t wait too long, Miss ’Vanna.”

  Savannah opened her mouth to speak, but the sound of a horse’s whinny from outside stopped her. She grasped Mamie’s hands. “They’re back.”

  Fear flickered in Mamie’s eyes. “You go see, Miss ’Vanna. I don’t thinks my feet gwine move.”

  Savannah nodded and grabbed the oil lamp sitting on the kitchen table. Without waiting to grab her shawl, she ran to the door and bolted onto the porch. She held the lamp high. The small beam flickered across the yard, and Dante’s horse moved into its small circle of light. Relief poured through her at the sight of her husband.

  She rushed down the steps and hurried to stand beside his horse. He climbed down, but his silence scared her. “Did you find him?”

  “Yes.” The word, spoken so softly, was almost a whisper.

  She glanced over his shoulder and caught sight of Saul, but she didn’t see Abraham. “Then where is he?”

  In the dim light she could see his face, and she gasped. She’d seen suffering before, but she’d never encountered anything as horrible as the tortured look on Dante’s face.

  His lips quivered, and he tried to speak. She looked from him to Saul, who had dismounted. She stepped around Dante and held the lamp up higher. Her eyes widened at the sight of the third horse, a body across the saddle. Her hand shook, and the lamp dipped toward the ground.

  Saul stepped forward. “They kilt Abraham, Miss ’Vanna. Them men hung him from a tree and kilt my son.”

  “My baby.” The scream pierced the air, and Savannah turned to see Mamie running toward Saul. “I wants to see my baby.”

  Saul dropped the reins to his horse and grabbed her. Her eyes had the look of a wild woman, and she beat at Saul with her fists. Saul let her fight at him until her cries turned to whimpers and her hands rested against his chest. Then he wrapped his arms around her and cradled her like a suffering child. “It gwine be all right, Mamie. I here with you.”

  The doors of the other cabins opened, and the tenant farmers of Cottonwood and their families slipped from their homes to join the mourning family. Savannah glanced back at the porch. Joshua stared at the horse carrying his brother’s body. He drifted down the steps and stopped next to his parents.

  No one spoke. Savannah looked around the group of mourners. She hadn’t seen such sorrow since the night of her parents’ deaths. Tears streamed down her face, and she looked up at Dante. “Why would Jonathan do this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Saul reached out to Joshua and drew him into the circle of his arms. Savannah hoped Saul’s touch offered some measure of comfort to Mamie and Joshua.

  She looked up at Dante and wanted to feel that from him. She stepped closer to him and laid her head on his chest. His arms encircled her and drew her closer. She buried her face in his chest and cried for the war that had destroyed so many lives, for her parents, for Abraham, and for the people whose freedom had only brought them new problems.

  ❧

  Dante entered the cabin, hung up his coat, and opened the drawer of the sideboard. He pulled the gun from his pants waistband and laid it inside. On the ride home, he’d asked himself many times if he could have used it if he’d gotten there before they hung Abraham.

  Thou shalt not kill.

  The words echoed in his mind, but he knew he could have pulled the trigger to save Abraham’s life. He clenched his fists and banged them against the wall. It didn’t matter now what he could have done. Abraham was dead.

  He slammed the drawer closed and strode to the stove. Opening the firebox, he shoved another piece of wood inside and adjusted the dampers to increase the blaze. He closed the door and held his hands over the stovetop. They still burned from the icy cold of the night.

  His thoughts went to Savannah and how she had cried when they brought Abraham’s body back earlier. Although his heart ached, too, it felt good to have her in his arms.

  He sighed and wondered if Pinky and Big Mike had finished the coffin. He’d stayed with them in the barn until they were almost finished, but he’d been unable to help much. Pinky possessed the best carpentry skills at Cottonwood, and he’d been quick to set to work on the task.

  Dante walked to the window and looked out. Savannah and the other women must still be at Saul and Mamie’s. None of the men or their wives had looked surprised when Savannah took over the arrangements for Abraham’s body. Before he knew it, there had been a cover placed on Mamie’s kitchen table, and Savannah had supervised the moving of Abraham’s body there. Then she’d sent Mamie and Saul home with Henry and Mary Ann Walton while she, Tildy, and Big Mike’s wife, Josie, prepared Abraham for burial. He wondered how long it would take.

  He sat down at the kitchen table and pulled the piece of paper out of his pocket that Saul had found inside Abraham’s shirt. With no light in the dark woods, he hadn’t been able to make out the words. Now he unfolded it and spread it out in front of him.

  The printed words that spilled across the paper sent an icy chill through his body. His hands shook, and he pulled the paper closer to make sure he read it correctly: Cottonwood Is Next.

  Abraham’s killers had sent a message to him. Dante jumped up from his chair, and it toppled over backward and clattered to the floor. What could he do? Telling the sheriff wouldn’t help. For all he knew, the sheriff was as guilty as Jonathan Boyer.

  He scooped the note up and stuck it in his pocket. Savannah didn’t need to know about this. He would decide how he and the Cottonwood residents cou
ld best protect their homes and families before he alarmed her.

  The door opened, and Savannah entered the cabin. The red spots dotting her cheeks had to be caused by the cold night air, but the redness of her eyes told him she’d been crying. She set the lamp she carried on the table and sank down in a chair. He eased into the one across from her.

  “How are Mamie and Saul?”

  Savannah rubbed her eyes and shook her head. “They’re in shock. They can’t believe this has happened.”

  “Did you complete the burial preparations?”

  Savannah took a deep breath. “Yes. Pinky and Big Mike brought the coffin just as we got through. Big Mike and Joshua placed Abraham’s body in it. I went over to Mary Ann’s and brought Mamie and Saul home. Mamie nearly collapsed when she saw Abraham. Tildy and Josie are going to stay with them until morning. They don’t need to be alone.”

  “I can understand.”

  Savannah glanced up at him, and fresh tears ran down her face. “How are they ever going to live with this? Their son has been murdered for no reason.” Her eyes hardened, and she gritted her teeth. “And knowing our good sheriff as I do, he’ll find every excuse he can to put off looking for the killers. If he looked very hard, he might find them, and he doesn’t want to do that.”

  Dante wanted to take her in his arms and tell her that everything was going to be all right, but the note in his pocket reminded him there still might be battles ahead. The thought that he might lose Savannah as Abraham had lost Hattie and as Saul and Mamie had lost their son terrified him. He had to protect her at all costs.

  Dante leaned back in his chair. “You’re tired and upset. Why don’t you go on to bed? You’ll feel better in the morning.”

  She wiped at her eyes and nodded. “That’s a good idea. You’re tired, too. Maybe a good night’s sleep will help us both.” She rose from the table and walked toward the bedroom. At the door she stopped. “Aren’t you coming to bed?”

  “No. I think I’ll enjoy the warmth of the stove for a while. You go on.”