by Jack Ford
There was silence on the veranda as Mary sat waiting for Fanny’s response.
“Well,” said Fanny, obviously surprised by this pronouncement, “are you sure that’s the best thing for you to do? Especially after they tried to run away?”
“It’s what Samuel wanted me to do,” Mary said. “And it’s the right thing for me to do,” she added, so softly that Fanny barely heard the words.
“What do you mean, ‘the right thing’?” Fanny asked.
Mary sighed deeply. “When I asked her why she ran, she told me that she believed I was goin’ to sell her and her children. Just like I had allowed Samuel to sell her mother off after she was born.” She paused for a moment. “She told me I’d have to kill her before she would leave her children. Before she would let me do to her children what I had done to her. To force them to grow up without their mother. I’d have to kill her first,” she repeated somberly.
Fanny said nothing.
“I’ve been tryin’ to remember how I felt when I allowed Samuel to sell her mother. The anger I felt, knowing, despite his denial, that he was the father. The rage inside of me that this woman—this slave—could have provided him with the one thing that I couldn’t. A child. And then I realized that that anger should have been aimed at Samuel. He was the one who strayed. Who betrayed me. Who broke our sacred vows.” Mary paused. “Not Kitty’s mother.” Mary looked up, tears filling her eyes. “Do you know that I can’t even remember her name? I allowed her to be sent away from her own child—and I can’t even remember her name!”
Fanny reached out and covered her friend’s hand with her own, then squeezed gently.
“And the worst part,” Mary continued after a moment, “is that I actually considered doing it again. That I actually thought about selling Kitty so that I could finally erase that whole episode from my mind. From my life. What must God think of me . . . ?” Her voice trailed off as she bowed her head and shook it sorrowfully from side to side.
“I’m not going to pretend I agree with you about owning slaves and whether it’s against God’s will. Fact is, I believe it’s the natural order of things. That God wants the white folks takin’ care of the Negroes, who couldn’t take of themselves without us. And I’ve always tried to be good to my slaves, to make them feel like they’re part of our family. But I’ll also tell you this about God. He will forgive you if you think you need forgiving,” Fanny said reassuringly. “As long as you’re truly sorry and ask for His forgiveness, you’ll receive it.” She squeezed Mary’s hand again. “And now that you think you should try to make it up to Kitty—at least in some fashion—you can show her, and God, how sorry you really are. And you can ask for His forgiveness.” She paused thoughtfully. “And perhaps you can ask Kitty, too. For her forgiveness.”
Mary looked up, wiping the tears from her eyes with her hands. “I thought of that. But what if she refuses? You should have seen the look in her eyes when she was brought back. When she told me I’d have to kill her first. There was such anger.” Mary shook her head.
“All you can do is try to make things right by her. Free her and her children. Tell her it’s what Samuel wanted. And it’s what you want, too,” Fanny said. “And then tell her you’re truly sorry that you didn’t stop Samuel from sending her mother away. And hope that someday she can forgive you. Maybe not right now. But someday.”
Mary took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “That’s what I’ll do,” she said, her tone now resolute. “That’s what I have to do. Free her and her children—and hope that it frees my soul, too. And then maybe, just maybe, God can forgive me.”
“I’m sure He will,” Fanny said, a kind smile flickering across her face. “And perhaps Kitty will, too, in time. But,” she added cautiously, “I’m not so sure the folks round here will be so quick to thank you—or forgive you—for freeing a runaway slave.”
CHAPTER 14
MARY WALKED INTO THE BARN, FOLLOWED BY YOUNG JOSHUA. IT had been four days since the sheriff had captured Kitty and her children and returned them to the Maddox farm. Mary had spent the past twenty-four hours praying over her decision to free Kitty, hoping for some sign, some Biblical vision that would assure her that she was making the right decision. But none had come to her.
Kitty scrabbled awkwardly up from the ground, clutching and tugging at the chain that kept her tethered to the support post. She had been reading to the children from a tattered, dog-eared tome that Young Joshua had brought her, and they remained seated, eyes wide again with fear, the rope that secured them snaking around their little waists.
Mary noticed that a rag had been wrapped around Kitty’s manacled ankle—probably by Young Joshua, she thought—to attempt to minimize the chafing of the coarse hammered steel against her flesh. But despite the rag, Mary could see that Kitty’s ankle was scraped, bloody, and raw, and she hobbled, favoring the manacled leg, as she struggled to stand straight.
Mary stopped a few feet in front of Kitty. Again, Kitty raised herself up to her full height and glared defiantly at Mary.
“Joshua,” Mary said calmly, “please take the shackle off Kitty. And please untie the children.”
As Young Joshua stepped forward, Kitty backed away and placed herself protectively in front of the huddling children.
“Joshua, please . . . ,” Mary said, nodding toward the blue-steel shackle.
Young Joshua stepped toward Kitty, a large iron key in his hand, his face still cloaked in a mask of puzzlement. He knelt down, inserted the key, twisted until the locking mechanism reluctantly released its hold, and pulled the shackle from her ankle. He tossed the chain to the side and then bent and untied the rope from the children.
“Thank you, Joshua. You may leave us now,” Mary said, her eyes still locked on Kitty.
Young Joshua patted the still frightened children on their heads, stood, and gently touched Kitty on her shoulder as he passed her. He left the barn without saying a word, leaving the door open behind him.
“You can’t take my children from me. You can’t split us up,” Kitty said frantically. “I told you—you’ll have to kill me first!” Kitty was panicking, her eyes darting desperately around the barn, seeking something that she could seize to use as a weapon.
Mary stepped forward, her hands raised, palms out, trying to calm Kitty down.
“No one is going to separate you from the children,” she said reassuringly. “No one is going to sell you—or the children.”
Kitty stared at Mary, the fear in her eyes now tinged with uncertainty.
“Kitty,” Mary said, taking another step toward her and the children. “No one’s going to sell you off,” she repeated. “I’m going to free you. And the children.”
It seemed at first that Kitty did not hear the words. Or that, somehow, they had not registered.
“I don’t . . . understand,” Kitty muttered, confused.
“I’m going to free you. And your children,” Mary repeated.
“Why would you be freein’ us?” Kitty said, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “ ’Specially after we run away?” Kitty shook her head violently. “I don’t understand,” she repeated, wary and apprehensive, her entire body tense, her hands clenched.
“I don’t expect you do,” Mary answered. “I’m not even sure that I do,” she added, almost as if to herself. Mary spotted two milking stools nearby and pulled them over. Gesturing toward them, Mary said, “Sit. Please.”
Kitty, clearly unsure of what was happening, sat down cumbersomely, then extended her injured ankle in front of her. Mary sat down opposite her, started to reach across to Kitty, who flinched away. Mary pulled her hand back and placed both of her hands in her lap.
“I did a terrible thing to you,” Mary began, her voice quiet and hesitant, “those many years ago. When I allowed Samuel to sell off your mother. It was a terrible thing. I know that now.”
She searched Kitty’s eyes but found nothing, just a cold, empty stare.
“I was very young,” Mary continued.
“And prideful. And I was jealous, so jealous, because I was a failure at becoming a mother, but your mother . . .” Her voice trailed off as she shook her head sadly. “I know now that it was not her fault. She didn’t mean to hurt me. It was Samuel’s fault.” A note of anger seeped into her voice. “All of it was his fault. Your mother had no choice. I realize that now. But I was just so angry that I couldn’t see that then. I needed to blame somebody, somebody other than myself. Even somebody other than Samuel. So . . . I blamed her,” Mary said, her tone now somber.
“She had no choice,” Kitty said, seething. “She do what Master says, or she’s punished. What kind of choice is that?”
“I know. I know. At least, I know that now. And I tried to accept it. To move on with my life—with our life—hoping that someday I’d have my own child, our own child. But each time I looked at your mother and saw the swelling in her belly and then, later, saw you as an infant in her arms, and knew in my heart that you were his, the anger was too much for me to bear,” she said, raising her head to look directly into Kitty’s eyes. “So, God forgive me, I didn’t try to stop him when he decided to sell her. I let him destroy your family. For my own selfish reasons.”
There was a long strangled silence in the barn. The children, who sensed the tension in the conversation, had remained quiet, tucked in tightly behind their mother. Finally, Kitty broke the spell.
“Why now? Why tell me this now, after all these years?”
Mary looked pained, almost haunted by the memory, as she shook her head sadly. “It took your threats—that I’d have to kill you before I could separate you from your children—to make me realize how evil my decision had been. That made me understand what I had done to you, to your life, the hurt that I had caused. And I finally came to realize what a terrible thing I had done. Too late, of course, for your mother and you. But, hopefully, not too late for you and your children.”
Kitty looked down at her three children, whose wide-eyed gazes were bouncing anxiously between their mother and their mistress. She reached out and placed her palm on each of their tiny faces, one after the other, faint swirling images of her own mother flickering elusively in her mind, the pain of her absence bubbling, unbidden, once again to the surface.
“And it’s what Samuel wanted,” Mary said.
Kitty’s head snapped up, and she looked quizzically at Mary, her head cocked to one side.
“Just before he died. He asked me to free you. And the children.” Mary sighed. “You were special to him. Even though he couldn’t really show it very often. It’s why he brought you into the house and out of the fields. Why he insisted you learn to read and write. And learn to speak like white folks.” She shrugged. “So he asked me to free you.”
Kitty was still perplexed. “He asked you,” she said hesitantly, “but you don’t have to?”
“No. I don’t have to,” Mary agreed. “But I want to. I realize now that it’s the right thing to do. It won’t bring your mother back. I know that. But it’s the right thing to do, for me as a Christian. And for you, as a mother.”
Kitty was silent, struggling to understand what was happening and why, torn between a creeping sense of joy at the shocking and unexpected prospect of freedom and the anger that still seethed within her at the loss of her mother.
“But we ran away,” Kitty said. “And the sheriff had to find us and bring us back. Isn’t there some kind of punishment for that? A whippin’? Or somethin’?”
“There’ll be no whippin’. And no punishment.”
“But what will the folks round here think about that? About you not punishin’ us? And about you settin’ us free? They can’t be likin’ that. Not with all the talkin’ it’ll set off with all their slaves!”
“That’s for me to worry about. It’s not your problem,” Mary said solemnly, then stood. “Would you and the children come with me now up to the house?” she asked, her tone chastened yet kind. “Y’all need a good meal. And we need to attend to your leg.” She extended her hand to Kitty. “And we have much we should talk about. Please?”
After a long moment’s hesitation, Kitty stretched her hand toward Mary, who took it and clasped it in both of hers.
CHAPTER 15
“SO? DO I HAVE A CASE OR NOT?” SAM MADDOX DEMANDED.
Across the low, stumpy wood-carved table in a dark corner of a tavern, Moffet Strother adjusted his glasses once again as he peered at the document in front of him. He grasped the paper in one hand and shifted it around, trying to capture the flickering, elusive light of a thick tallow candle buried inside a clouded, cracked glass jar. Finally, he placed the paper down on the tabletop. After removing his glasses, he wiped the wire-enclosed lenses with a smudged handkerchief that he had pulled from his jacket pocket and looked up at Maddox.
Any observation of Moffet Strother would yield little evidence to suggest that he was actually a lawyer, much less a competent one. Dressed in rough home-spun trousers and a worn canvas jacket, his hair long and unkempt, he looked more like a tradesman—which, in fact, he was, engaged primarily in the business of buying and selling horses and farm animals. But he had studied law for a time in his early years and would occasionally take in some work as a lawyer on the side, mostly writing up simple wills and contracts. He shifted his considerable bulk, which was perched precariously and uncomfortably on a battered, unsteady stool, and squinted across the table at his newest possible client.
“A case? Yes,” Strother answered, contorting his round face in thought. “A winning case? That, I can’t be so sure of.”
“Why not?” Maddox responded angrily. “Says right here”—he jammed his forefinger at the bottom of the document—“that I’m entitled to the estate when she dies. Don’t it?”
“Yes. That’s what it says. But the question—the real issue for a court—is whether you have anything to say about the property in the estate before she dies.”
“Well, why the hell would my uncle put that in there if he didn’t expect for there to be somethin’ left for me to inherit? Seems to me, he’s just sayin’ that she gets to use everythin’ until she passes on. Then it all goes to me!”
Strother nodded slowly. “Possible a court might see it that way. Certainly is possible. And that’s what we’d be arguin’. But I’m just tellin’ you what she’d be sayin’—that you only get whatever is left, if anything, when she passes. That if your uncle really wanted to leave anything specifically to you now, he woulda done it right then and there in the will. Until then, until she’s gone, you got no say in anythin’. That’s what she’ll be arguin’.”
Maddox thought for a moment and then leaned forward, glowering at Strother, his eyes narrowing and fierce. “But you sayin’ we got a shot?” Maddox said.
“Yes, yes, we certainly do,” Strother answered quickly, anxious not to lose this possible new client. “Yes, we do,” he repeated. “And,” he added thoughtfully, “there’s also the chance that if she knows we’re takin’ her to court, she might be willin’ to settle. Reach some arrangement that gives you control of some of the property right away.”
Just as quickly as it had surged, Maddox’s anger was now swept away. He sat back, apparently satisfied with the possibilities offered by the lawyer.
“Well, then,” Maddox said, “seems to me we should get started. Let her know we’re serious ’bout this.”
“Yes,” Strother agreed. “I think the sooner the better.”
“So, what’re you suggestin’ we do to get started?” Maddox asked.
“Well,” Strother began pensively, doing his best to act the role of a lawyer contemplating his best course of legal attack. “I’m thinkin’ we should start off by gettin’ an injunction against her. Keep her from sellin’ any of the land or sellin’ off any property. Until we get a judge to figure out what the will means.”
Maddox nodded vigorously as he listened. “That’s good,” he said. “That sounds real good. So, let’s get started on all that right away.”
Strother cleared his throat and then continued, somewhat uncomfortably. “There is one other thing. I must inquire about my fees, if we are to commence this case. I’m sure you understand.”
“Certainly do. I’m a businessman, too. Understand you need to get paid.” Maddox shrugged and raised his hands, palms up. “But problem is, I’m a bit short right now. So, here’s what I’m offerin’,” said Maddox. He smiled companionably, but his eyes were hard. “I’m needin’ to raise some cash. So my plan is, when we win or she settles, to sell off some of the property—some of the land and some of the niggras—and you’d get paid from that. Agreed?”
“But what happens if we don’t win? Or she doesn’t settle?”
Maddox shrugged again. “Guess that would mean you ain’t done much good of a lawyerin’ job, then, wouldn’t it? No sense payin’ you if you lose.”
Strother was silent for a moment, weighing the odds in his mind. Finally, he let out an exasperated sigh and extended his hand across the table. “It’s a bit unusual, but I believe I can accept that arrangement, Mr. Maddox. I am now your lawyer.”
Maddox shook the extended hand and smiled. “Sounds good to me. Guess we can be gettin’ started right away, then. But before that, I’m thinkin’ we should drink to our success.” He beckoned toward the tavern owner, who was stationed behind the bar. “Drinks on you, of course,” he added smugly.
CHAPTER 16
“YOU THINKIN’ YOU CAN TRUST HER?” ASKED OL’ JOSHUA.
“Not sure,” Kitty answered.
They were seated at the small table in Ol’ Joshua’s cabin. Kitty was wearing a new housedress, given to her by Mary Maddox, which had replaced the torn and bloodied one she wore after her capture, and she had a clean bandage wrapped around her injured ankle. Eliza Jane, Mary, and Arthur were tucked away on the floor in a corner, playing with a collection of rag dolls.
“Since she let us out of the barn and back into the house, she been nothin’ but kind, takin’ care of my leg, makin’ sure we have enough to eat and are gettin’ enough rest.” Kitty shook her head, perplexed. “Don’t make no sense,” she continued. “Was certain she’d be sellin’ us off, and now, all of a sudden, she be treatin’ us like real family. Not just like slave family—but like real family. And all this after we tryin’ to escape. If I’d known she be reactin’ like this,” she added, chuckling, “I’d tried to run off long ago.”