Ebb Tide (Ella Wood Book 3)

by Michelle Isenhoff

  She hungered for that moment. She’d waited nearly a year. Suddenly she couldn’t stand to postpone a second longer. She sat up and threw her legs over the side of the bed. At the same moment, a knock sounded at the door, and a familiar figure pushed inside the room.

  “Well, it’s seems our situations have reversed, does it not, Miss Preston?”

  Emily beamed a welcome. “Mr. Beatty!”

  “It’s quite uncanny, seeing you here. Not a month ago, I received a letter in your hand, and now you’ve shown up on my doorstep.” He crossed the room and shook her hand.

  “You got Missouri’s letter! I feared it had gotten lost in the mail.”

  “I sent back a prompt reply, although my haste may have lost some momentum in our postal system. I am afraid I have not seen your friend, Mr. Cutler, is it?” He sighed. “We must get at least thirty requests a month. It seems everyone is looking for someone these days. Not to discourage you from looking,” he added hastily.

  “It’s all right, Mr. Beatty. I found him.”

  “You found him?” His eyeballs bugged out. “I haven’t heard of many happy endings.”

  “He was sighted in Baltimore. I was on my way to rendezvous with him when I was…waylaid.”

  He glanced at her bandage. “I heard you’d been shot.”

  She fingered the torn material of her blouse with some embarrassment. It was the same one she’d been wearing since she boarded the train in Ashepoo. The next time she saw Apollo, she’d request her valise with its change of clothes. A mud-stained shirt was better than a partial one. “I was fired upon by the same man who visited me the day you walked me home from school. You may remember seeing him on the porch of my boardinghouse.”

  “I remember seeing someone.”

  “It was the day I refused his suit.”

  “And this is the reason he shot you?” he asked doubtfully. “A full year has passed.”

  “It is the reason he hates me. He shot me because I stole his slave woman.”

  She had his full attention now. “Miss Preston, you have never failed to intrigue me. First, I find you drawing portraits in a prison hospital. Next, you turn up at an art exhibition in the heart of Baltimore. Now here you are in a Union military base, shot through the shoulder and in possession of a contraband slave. Do you ever do ordinary things, like needlework or playing the piano?”

  She smiled grimly. “You don’t want to hear me play the piano.”

  He seated himself on the ammunition crate and crossed an ankle over the opposite knee. “Would you care to tell me the story?”

  She wondered if he’d been sent for just that reason, but she trusted Solomon—at least as much as she trusted any Yankee. And it would feel good to clear up the whole situation.

  “I had a maid,” she began. “A young woman I’d grown up with. When she was raped, I smuggled her off the plantation and onto a northbound ship. Later, I found out the perpetrator was my fiancé—the man you saw. I broke off our relationship immediately. He has never forgiven me for placing higher value on a black woman than I placed on him.

  “I also have a half-brother, a fine mulatto man of whom I am quite fond. When I learned that the woman he loves came into the possession of my former fiancé, I removed her from his home. She is one of the two women I brought here. I meant to take them north with me, but circumstances directed us here.” She fingered her bandage. “We nearly didn’t make it.”

  Solomon was shaking his head with an expression of mild incredulity. “You truly are a remarkable woman, Miss Preston.”

  “I’m just a woman who would rather be in Baltimore. Can you tell me when I’ll be free to continue my journey?”

  “I’m afraid that isn’t my decision to make.”

  “Mr. Beatty,” she said wearily, “please explain to your superiors that I am not in the employ of the Confederate military. I am only trying to survive this war and protect the people I love.”

  “It’s merely a formality.” Solomon rose and smiled reassuringly. “In our acquaintance, I’ve known you to be truthful and compassionate, Miss Preston. I have no doubt as to the authenticity of your story, and I promise to do everything I can to help you.”

  ***

  The next day she had yet another visitor. Or rather, a pair of them.

  “Sarah! Trudy!”

  Sarah carried her valise, and Trudy bore a plate covered by a white cloth. The smell of fried chicken preceded them. “The guard let you in?”

  “Corporal Beatty said we free to come whenever we like,” Trudy answered.

  Emily sat up cross-legged on her cot. “It’s so good to see you both. What have you been doing?”

  Trudy handed her the plate. “Workin’.”

  “Cotton?”

  “Fo’ now. But I wanna set up as a seamstress. I figure dere be plenty o’ men in dis camp who don’t like doin’ dey own sewin’.”

  “That’s an excellent idea. Have you had any customers yet?”

  “No, miss.”

  “Then I’ll be your first. I need a new skirt and blouse. If you’ll help me wash and change,” she indicated the difficulty the sling presented, “you may take these for a pattern. Charge me whatever you think is fair.”

  “I won’t charge anything if you help me.”

  “Trudy, I can’t possibly sew with my arm in a sling.” Emily pulled the cloth off the plate. There was no silverware, but the chicken, fried okra, and biscuits set her mouth to watering. She took a long pull at their fragrance.

  “I ain’t talkin’ about sewin’, miss.” The woman’s face grew animated. “I thought since you draw so fine, maybe you could make up some pictures tellin’ de soldiers about my work.”

  Emily paused with a chicken leg halfway to her mouth. “Why, of course! I’m sure we can sweet-talk Mr. Beatty out of some paper and ink. And he could show us the best places to hang them. I’d wager that before the week is out, you’ll have more business than you can handle.”

  “You think so?”

  “We’ll certainly give it a try.”

  Anticipation lit up Trudy’s face. “Thank you, miss.”

  Emily bit into the chicken. The greasy flavor splashed across her tongue so that her jaw ached with pleasure. “What about you, Sarah?”

  The woman still stood near the door. “I be happy ’nough hoein’ cotton.”

  “You can earn a fair bit while you wait for Jeremiah. Have you written to him since our arrival?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  Emily popped a few slices of okra into her mouth and peered at Sarah quizzically. Her short answers and sober expression weren’t at all what she would expect from a woman new to freedom. “Sarah, are you ill?”

  “No, miss.”

  Emily looked to Trudy for an answer.

  “We got word about Fort Pillow today. She plenty worried about Jeremiah.”

  “Fort Pillow?”

  Trudy glanced at Sarah. “A massacre in Tennessee. Black troops were cut down when dey try to surrender.”

  Emily’s ribs crushed together. It was an old nightmare crawling into the daylight. “You’re sure?”

  “It all de talk among de colored troops in town.”

  Emily set her plate aside. Would the day ever come when she wasn’t waylaid by these gut-clenching surprises?

  Sarah stepped forward, clutching a rumpled handkerchief. “Oh, Miss Emily, what we gunna do if he—”

  “Sarah, don’t. It wasn’t Jeremiah.” She held the woman’s gaze steady. “Imagining the worst won’t keep him any safer. It will only make us miserable. We can’t do that. We have to stay positive.”

  Sarah’s eyes dropped to the floor. She kneaded the handkerchief to a pulp. “Fightin’ off de darkness take every drop of energy I got.”

  Oh, how Emily understood. But exhaustion was far preferable to despair. “Sarah, may I write to you when I reach Baltimore? Until this war is over, I think we’re still going to need each other.”

  “I’d like dat fine, mis
s.”

  Emily smiled and took another bite of chicken, but it had lost much of its flavor.

  ***

  Two days later, Solomon presented the requested ink, pen, and paper and set them on the ammunition box. “Do you feel like taking some exercise, Miss Preston? Dr. Davis has granted permission, provided you don’t overexert yourself.”

  Emily’s answer was reflexive. “Yes!”

  He ushered her out the door and past the guard. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to full sunlight. Her first glimpse of Port Royal revealed only a long, low building directly across the street.

  “The hospital,” Solomon told her.

  “It’s huge!” Her cabin was situated near one corner. Two sides of the massive structure stretched out before her, equal in length.

  “It has to be. Sometimes we don’t know what to do with all the wounded.”

  Emily was abundantly familiar with that difficulty.

  “It’s fairly empty at the moment, but that will change once the roads dry up and the armies start moving again. I expect we’ll be full up by the middle of next month.”

  Emily was overcome by an unsettled sense of floating through time. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a calendar. “Mr. Beatty, what is the date?”

  “April twenty-fourth.”

  Her lips parted. Had it only been three weeks since little Elsie’s birth? It felt like months. She wondered briefly if Abigail had left Ella Wood. Or if her own parents had any inkling of what had happened to her. But of course they couldn’t possibly know. She wanted to write to them, to assure them of her health and safety, but news of her recovery would certainly leak out to Thad. Would her parents be safer if he thought she was dead?

  Solomon guided her along one side of the hospital to an expanse of open water beyond. Port Royal Sound lay before them, blue, glistening, and bobbing with anchored vessels. She counted thirteen warships, dozens of steamers, and an ironclad hunkering low in the water. Until that moment, she’d been able to disregard the fact that she had landed in the middle of a Yankee war camp. Now she bristled as that fact was driven home. Port Royal was the epicenter of destruction, the root of every violence perpetrated against her homeland.

  Solomon Beatty was her enemy.

  He smiled warmly down at her. “I thought you might appreciate a stroll on the beach after so many days indoors.”

  An offshore breeze tousled her hair and tugged at her skirt. She inhaled deeply of the fresh scent of sunshine, trying to balance out the loathing that swelled within her like an ocean tide. No doubt the ships in this fleet had cast the bombs at Wagner and Sumter. But Solomon didn’t feel like an enemy any more than Missouri or Mrs. Calkins or Professor Woodward or Jeremiah. She realized that he had a part to play on the opposite side of this conflict, even as she played out hers. But right now, at this moment, she would make the decision to not initiate a personal battle with this man who was helping to restore her health.

  With an effort of will, she locked away her repugnance and forced a smile. “Thank you, Mr. Beatty. I do love the ocean.”

  The sand was hard and flat beneath their feet and interspersed with tiny seashells. Solomon turned her down the shoreline and past yet another long side of the hospital square. She initiated the distraction of conversation. “It was quite a surprise when I heard Dr. Pyle’s name and realized you were here in the camp. I’ve never been so glad to see a friendly face.”

  He chuckled. “It must seem strange. But I’ve been here since November. I have to say, the winters far exceed the ones up north, though I’ve been told I’m in for a rough summer.”

  “Be glad you’re on the coast and not inland.”

  As they emerged from behind the hospital, the outpost came into view. Row upon row of tents and small frame structures like the one she occupied. Barracks stretching into the island’s interior and housing thousands of men. She felt another strong wave of resentment, which tripled as they passed a massive reinforced earthworks bristling with cannon. The conquered Fort Walker. It dominated the shoreline. Would the war have gone differently if the South could have held the stronghold three years ago?

  They continued past a parade ground, a handful of shops, a three-story hotel, the quartermaster’s depot, and a massive dock extending beyond the farthest reach of low tide. When her legs began to wobble, she took Solomon’s elbow with her good arm. Past the town, no land remained but a thin, sandy spit stretching between the ocean and a marsh.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “There’s something I want to show you.” They reached the end of the spit before Solomon explained. “You can’t really see it from here, but beyond those trees lies Mitchelville, a town set up especially for the thousands of Negroes who sought asylum with the Union army.”

  It was the town Apollo had spoken of, where Trudy and Sarah were staying. Emily stared across the mouth of the narrow inlet and thought she might detect a building or two through the trees beyond the rise of a low dune.

  Solomon led her to a log cast onto the beach by the tide and sat down beside her. “I’d never been exposed to slavery before I came here,” he admitted. “I hardly even gave it a thought. But meeting these men and women, seeing their joy, their simplicity, their appreciation for things I’ve always taken for granted…it’s been eye-opening.”

  He glanced at her. “You surprised me, as well. Risking your neck to bring a slave woman here. I didn’t know there were any Southerners who think as you do. I’ve only heard the horrors of slavery.”

  “Well, Northern papers would hardly seek out stories like mine, would they? It wouldn’t suit their purpose.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Real life is far more complex than any ideological generalization.” She peered out across the gulf separating the Negro settlement from the white encampment. “For all its faults, slavery does bring the races into close contact, refuting this idea that we need to segregate ourselves. On occasion, friendships even form across racial barriers.”

  He shook his head. “I can hardly fathom that.”

  “It’s because we’re all still human, Mr. Beatty. Aren’t you and I maintaining an amiable relationship even though we’re divided by a war?”

  She tucked a windblown strand of hair behind her ear. “I grew up with Negroes in my house. I played with their children. I thought we were all the same until I was taught differently. The true problem, the underlying sin that feeds the evils of slavery, is this deep, arrogant belief that one race is superior to the other, and the North is just as guilty of it as the South.”

  He turned to gaze toward Mitchelville as he pieced together her logic.

  She gestured across the water. “Can we walk through the town?”

  He shook his head. “Perhaps another day. It’s some distance around this marsh, and I’ve no wish to incur Dr. Davis’s wrath.”

  She didn’t argue. Despite the ease of their path, an ache had begun to gnaw the flesh deep within her shoulder.

  They retraced their steps. The sun was lowering behind the farthest reach of the sound. Solomon walked her back to her cabin and paused outside the door. “When you are released from our care, will you continue your journey north?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how will you get there?”

  “I suppose I’ll take the train.”

  “So you plan to pass through two picket lines and possibly cross paths with the man who put that bullet through your shoulder?”

  “I don’t believe I have a choice.”

  “Perhaps you do.”

  “What do you mean, Mr. Beatty?”

  Solomon paused beneath the branches of a sweet gum tree. “I’ve been scheduled to deliver a communication to Washington. I’ll be leaving the first week of May. My commanding officer is aware of our prior acquaintance. I have explained your story and your danger and vouched for your character. You’ll be expected to pay passage, of course, but he has granted permission for me to remove you to
the North.”

  19

  The steamer smelled of unwashed men and old manure, and the odor grew stronger with every hour the sun climbed. After waiting expectantly all week, they’d landed a ship that had been used to transport horses. Many times. Without a single scouring of the hold in between. It was almost enough to send Emily back to Port Royal. Almost.

  She squeezed her hands together and pressed a knuckle to her mouth. She was on her way to see Jovie! In less than a week, the ship would dock in Washington, and from there she would take the train to Baltimore. She willed the engine to greater speeds, and her agitation grew as her destination neared.

  At the same time, she struggled with some serious misgivings. After her walk with Solomon, she had persuaded him to pen an official letter announcing her death, which had already been dispatched to her parents. It broke her heart to think of her parents mourning her loss, especially Marie, who would be crushed by the belief that not a single child was left to her. But for their own protection, they needed the rumor to spread. Thad was capable of anything, and her father was in no condition to combat him. But if she were dead, perhaps Thad would be satisfied with his victory. Once she reached Baltimore, she would write to her parents through Missouri and let them know the reasons for her deception. To maintain it, contact would have to be extremely limited thereafter.

  “Whew! Got to come up fo’ fresh air now an’ den.”

  Emily made room for Apollo at the bow railing. It was nearly too much to believe that the Union army had allowed them both passage. She hadn’t felt this light, this free, since she and Sophia sneaked out to Charleston when she was sixteen. She smiled at Apollo out of sheer happiness. “What will you do when we reach Washington?”

  “I gunna buy me a new suit o’ clothes and start walkin’.”