Leg throbbing, Zeb rolled onto his back, staring at the night sky.
“Zeb,” Ebenezer said after a while.
“Yeah?”
“I could teach you.”
Shame overcame Zeb, who closed his eyes, balled his hands into fists, tried not to cry.
“I mean,” Ebenezer said apologetically, “if I can learn, anybody can. I mean . . . I didn’t mean that. I meant . . .”
“I make out fine without reading or writing.” Defiant on the outside, Zeb tried to hide the envy he felt toward Ebenezer Chase, a slave. “I’m going to sleep.”
He knew, however, that sleep would not come easy on this night.
Chapter Twelve
“James! James! Come back, James! Don’t leave me! James!”
Zeb’s shouts brought Ebenezer out of a deep sleep, and he yelled at him to shut up, told him he was dreaming, but Zeb kept right on yelling, twisting, turning. Grumbling, Ebenezer tossed off his blanket and went over to his companion.
Dawn hadn’t broken, but the eastern skies were turning gray. One of the horses snorted. Ebenezer placed a hand on Zeb’s shoulder, and the soldier stopped fretting. Ebenezer could feel how warm Zeb was even before the back of the slave’s right hand touched his companion’s cheek.
“Zeb,” Ebenezer whispered, more to himself, “you’re burning up.”
Zeb wasn’t awake, but his eyes darted beneath his lids. His curly hair was pasted to his brow, soaked with sweat.
“I’m cold, James,” Zeb said, and Ebenezer hurriedly fetched his blanket, covered Zeb with it, and then started saddling the horses.
They had covered a lot of territory since leaving the Cahaba River, had to be getting close to Mississippi. What Ebenezer wanted to do was leave Zeb Hogan here, make his way to Texas alone. Zeb would live or he would die, but that he was sick was his own fault. He shouldn’t have blown up that powder back on the Cahaba River.
If I get him a doctor, Ebenezer thought while cinching a saddle, that’ll just slow me down, keep me that much farther from Lizzie and little Tempie. Zeb Hogan isn’t my affair. He . . . He saved my life.
Ebenezer rose, gripping the saddle horn, staring into the woods, remembering those four deserters back in Georgia. Zeb could have let those men whip him. Zeb had gotten him through Atlanta, and there’s no telling what those Jones Valley militia men would have done if Zeb hadn’t spoken up. Besides, no matter what Zeb Hogan said, Federal soldiers were fighting to free the slaves, and Zeb had done his part blowing up that gunpowder. He had risked his life, been injured.
No, I can’t . . . won’t . . . leave Zeb Hogan alone.
Silently he returned to Zeb, knelt, and tugged on his shoulder, telling him to wake up.
“Let me sleep, Pa,” he whimpered, and Ebenezer let out a sigh, then jerked Zeb up.
“Come on, Zeb,” he said. “Lean on me.”
It reminded Ebenezer of dragging cotton and tobacco sacks back at Oliver Hall’s plantation, but he managed to get Zeb to his horse and shove him in the saddle. Zeb wasn’t quite awake, but he had enough sense to grip the mane. Ebenezer then mounted his mare, took the reins to Zeb’s gelding, and rode out of the woods and onto the road, praying they wouldn’t pass any white folks while making their way southwest down the pike. There was no telling what a white man would think if he saw a Negro leading a sick white boy on a stolen Confederate militia horse.
Come noon, their luck had held. They hadn’t passed anybody on the road, but Ebenezer hadn’t found a doctor or even a town for Zeb, who was awake now, no longer delirious, but still sweating, feverish, chilled.
Ebenezer swung from his horse, uncorked the canteen, let Zeb drink a bit. As Zeb handed back the canteen, he leaned over and threw up all over the gelding’s withers.
“God, Ebenezer,” Zeb moaned as he straightened in the saddle, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He was paler than a whitewashed fence. He started weaving and leaned forward, head bent low. “I don’t want to die,” he muttered.
“You aren’t dying,” Ebenezer said, but he knew if he didn’t find someone soon, be it a doctor or a grown-up, Zeb Hogan would likely die. Ebenezer stuck the Dragoon in the saddlebag, knowing he couldn’t let anybody in Alabama see a Negro boy carrying a revolver, but he fetched the wallet and pulled out some money. That might take some explaining, too, Ebenezer knew, but maybe, he thought, he had learned a thing or two from Zeb over the past month.
About lying.
Again, Ebenezer led Zeb’s horse. He kept glancing back, not sure how long Zeb could stay in the saddle. Zeb Hogan was game. Anybody else would never have gotten on that horse in the morning, let alone stayed on for all the miles they had covered.
Two hours later, they came upon a dirt trail that led off from the main road to a farm house about a mile away. Muttering a prayer, Ebenezer turned onto the trail, and headed toward the little shack.
He heard voices before he saw the people and reined up in the yard, already realizing what a terrible choice he had made coming to this farm.
A gangling man with a week’s worth of beard stubble on his face held a cotton sack over the well, and something was moving, kicking, screaming inside that sack. Off to the side, a white girl, maybe sixteen years old or so, in a homely dress and no shoes, had dropped to her knees, tears streaming down her face. She clasped her hands as she begged her father not to do it, not to kill little Petey, saying that it had all been her fault.
“Boy was eatin’ dirt,” the man said.
Ebenezer could smell the corn liquor on his breath from where he sat in the saddle.
“I’m a-gonna drop him in the well. That’ll teach him.”
“No, Papa. Please, Papa! He’ll drown.”
“Serve him right. Eatin’ dirt. No boy o’ mine . . .” He stopped, having noticed the strangers, and slung the sack away from the well and dropped it with a thud. As the farmer stepped away from the well, a boy, no more than four years old, dirty face streaked from tears, crawled out of the bag’s opening and kept right on crawling, away from his father, toward a fallow field. He stopped when he saw the two strangers and sat up, quietly staring while the farmer shouted, “Who is you? What you want? This any of your affair, boy?”
Ebenezer hooked a thumb at Zeb. “My master,” he said, thickening his accent. “We’s bound for Vicksburg, but he taken sick. Bad fever, and his horse rolled over his leg. Needs some attention, and I just don’t knows what to do.”
The farmer spit. “I ain’t no doctor.”
“Papa,” the girl said.
“Shut up, Luansy.” The man wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Nearest town’s Livingston,” he said, staring at Zeb. “’Bout ten, twelve miles that way.” He pointed behind the barn. “It’s the county seat. Doc Truluck might . . .”
Angrily Ebenezer pointed at Zeb. “He can’t make it ten more yards, so how’s he goin’ to make ten miles?”
“Ain’t my concern.”
Ebenezer gestured again. “If he could just rest here some. Maybe . . . maybe you . . .”
“Get out of here!” the man barked.
Reaching into his vest pocket, Ebenezer withdrew a few greenbacks, letting the farmer see them: $100 banknotes from the State of Alabama, with a picture of Indians in the center of each bill. “We’s willing to pay.”
The man stared at the money. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “What if what he’s got’s catchin’?” he asked. “I don’t want my kids to get sick.”
“A horse rolled over on him.” Ebenezer felt like adding—Last I heard, that wasn’t contagious.—but he stopped himself, not wanting to infuriate this man, who obviously had a wicked temper. He realized that the farmer wanted to know if he had even more money, but Ebenezer knew better than to show him the wallet.
Their eyes remained locked until the farmer looked over at his daughter, who had pulled herself to her feet. She was walking over toward the two riders, wiping her face, trying to make herself look presentable.
“Luan
sy, what you doin’?” the man snapped.
“He needs help, Papa.”
The man took a step toward his daughter, but stopped as if his legs refused to cooperate as his eyes went back to the $300 in Ebenezer’s hand. Again he wet his lips, and after a moment’s pause, he strode over, snatching the money, pointing to a rickety old barn. “Put him in the barn. Luansy, don’t you spend much time frettin’ over that boy. Make sure you got supper cooked. I’ll be back.”
His long legs carried him down the road, and Ebenezer was watching him when he heard the girl’s voice. “Help me get him off that horse.” That brought Ebenezer’s attention back to her and Zeb. The slave slid out of the saddle and, with Luansy’s help, eased Zeb to the ground.
“Is your pa going to fetch that doctor?” Ebenezer asked.
“No. He’s going to Cutch’s still. Now help me get him to the house.” She pointed.
“But your pa . . .”
“Never mind Papa. Just do as I say.”
* * * * *
Her name was Luansy Taylor. With her father and little brother, she lived on this farm that was bordered on the west by the Tombigbee River. Her mother had died giving birth to Petey. Her older brother, Russ, was fighting with Holtzclaw’s Brigade, or had been last she’d heard, back in October.
She told Ebenezer this while she tended to Zeb, laying him on her cot in the corner of the one-room cabin. She put a wet rag on his forehead, then cut off his trousers with a butcher’s knife. When she looked at his leg, she grimaced and gave Ebenezer a look of pure disgust.
“Looks like he got kicked.”
The slave’s head bobbed slightly. “Might have. Horse rolled over him.” He figured it best not to go into details.
“The shoe cut him,” she explained. “It’s infected. Knee and ankle are likely sprained, but I don’t think he broke any bones.”
She had blonde hair, dirty and stringy. Calluses covered her hands, which were rough and filthy, yet somehow she managed to be gentle with Zeb.
“What’s his name?”
“Zeb Hogan.”
“And yours?”
“Ebenezer Chase.”
“He a deserter?”
Ebenezer started to answer, but didn’t know how. He wasn’t so good at lying, after all. Luansy turned away from Zeb and stared at Ebenezer with the clearest, coldest blue eyes he had ever seen. He knew he couldn’t lie to her, not convincingly, and swallowing he turned his head to stare at Zeb, who was sleeping.
“Is he going to die?”
“I don’t know. He will if I don’t fix up his leg.”
“Will he keep it? His leg, his limb, I mean.”
“I ain’t hacking it off. Now you answer my question, Ebenezer Chase. Is he a deserter?”
“He escaped from a prison camp in Florence. In South Carolina. He’s from Wisconsin. I can’t remember what city. He’s bound for Vicksburg.” Zeb let out a long sigh. Now I’ve done it, he thought.
Yet Luansy Taylor chuckled. “A Yankee soldier. Don’t that beat all.” She straightened Zeb’s leg, and he let out a little moan, winced, but didn’t wake up. “And what about you?”
Ebenezer wet his lips. “I ran off from Master Hall. Bound for Dallas, Texas, to try to find my wife and daughter.”
She gave him the longest stare. “You got a wife?”
Ebenezer nodded.
“And a child?”
“About fifteen months old now, I guess. Her name’s Tempie.”
“How old are you, Ebenezer Chase?”
“Sixteen.” He stiffened. “Don’t say a word about me being too young to be a daddy.”
She laughed again, musically. “Bosh,” she said, gesturing with her hand before looking down at Zeb. “I got cousins younger than me, and I’m your age, and they got young ’uns older than your Tempie. Besides, I’d say you act a whole lot more growed up than many moms and dads I know.” She frowned, whispering tightly, “Includin’ my daddy.”
Ebenezer looked down and realized he was rubbing the button ring on his finger.
“How old’s your wife?” asked Luansy.
“She was eighteen, we reckon, when we jumped the broom and got married. But we love each other.” Suddenly he laughed. It felt good to talk about Lizzie, about Tempie, even with a stranger, a white girl at that. Strange, but Ebenezer trusted this poor farm girl, and he wanted to talk. “Master Hall, he figured that slaves weren’t apt to run off if they were married. Lizzie and I just fell in love, and Uncle Cain, he spoke up for me, asked Master Hall to let us marry. Master Hall, he said that would be fine. Didn’t have a preacher, so Uncle Cain married us, and Missus Hall, she came to watch. Made her smile. Afterward, Uncle Cain laid down the broom on the floor, and Lizzie and me jumped backward over it. We didn’t touch the broom. That was supposed to mean good luck. But . . .” He didn’t want to think about the selling of Lizzie and their baby to Master Hall’s brother. He tried to think of pleasant memories, and one came to him.
“When Lizzie gave birth to Tempie, and Master Hall was away, Missus Hall had her house servants bring Lizzie to the big house. I was nervous, let me tell you . . . just paced up and down outside. They wouldn’t let me in the house. I felt about to pull my arms out of their sockets, hearing Lizzie shouting so. Birthing must be the hardest thing anybody can go through, I’ll tell you that. And then I don’t hear my wife screaming any more, and I’m worried sick, fearing she died, but the door swings open a few minutes later, and there’s Missus Hall, and she’s beaming. She tells me . . . ‘Congratulations, Ebenezer, you have a strong, and quite vocal, little daughter.’”
He stopped, praying that Miss Luansy wouldn’t ask anything else, because emotions had overcome him. He just stood by the cot, tears rolling down his face, as he tried to recall all those good times he had enjoyed with his wife and daughter.
* * * * *
For nigh a week, they stayed at the ramshackle Taylor farm. Ebenezer kept expecting Mr. Taylor to come back, maybe bring a bunch of men with him, but Luansy laughed at his fears, assuring him that her father wouldn’t return in a ’coon’s age, not with $300 to spend at Cutch’s still.
“Your pa’d spend that much money?” Ebenezer shook his head in disbelief. “On John Barleycorn?”
Luansy waved her hand. “Oh, it ain’t that much money, not in these hard times. Three hundred dollars’ll buy a barrel of flour over at Johnston’s Trading Post. Bushel of cornmeal . . . which often don’t look fit to eat . . . costs twenty bucks. A pound of coffee, fifty. That’s the price of things. But with Cutch, that three hundred dollars’ll look like pure gold to him. Give him a reason to drink, and give him somebody to drink with. Nope, I daresay Pa’ll be gone a spell.”
She had lanced the cut the horseshoe had made on Zeb’s thigh, drained it, put a poultice on it, and the swelling had gone down. She fed him a broth, mostly water, while the rest ate bacon and cornmeal boiled into something far from tasty. Cush, Petey called it.
Resting did Zeb a world of good, and Ebenezer too. Ebenezer hadn’t realized how tired he was. Walking every day, seven days a week, hiding—at least trying to—from soldiers wearing both blue and gray. It wasn’t just the physical strain of walking twenty miles a day, but how it all played on the mind, the nerves. Since Ebenezer wasn’t confined to a cot, like Zeb, he found himself doing chores—chopping wood, milking the goat because either Yankees or deserters had stolen the Taylor cow, watering and graining the horses and the Taylors’ mule. Petey stayed right by Ebenezer’s side, talking about nothing, pretending to be helping, when in fact he was mostly in the way. Ebenezer didn’t mind. He liked the boy. Maybe he took his mind off Tempie.
While they worked the farm, Luansy remained at Zeb’s side, day and night, irritating him immensely because he didn’t take to being an invalid, didn’t like anybody, especially a pretty girl, tending to his needs. It was Ebenezer who had decided that, underneath all that dirt and grime, Luansy Taylor was real pretty.
By the fifth day, Zeb was on h
is feet again, just piddling around, getting his strength back. Luansy had given him some clothes that had belonged to her older brother. The pant legs were way too long, but Zeb rolled them up and pulled on a worn pair of brogans that belonged to Mr. Taylor. Ebenezer cringed, imagining what Luansy’s father would do if he came home to find Zeb sleeping in the house, and wearing his shoes.
Zeb didn’t care a whit. All he wanted to do was get back in the saddle, make his way to Vicksburg, find Sergeant Ben DeVere, and kill him.
By the end of the sixth day, Zeb announced that they would be riding out at first light. Luansy didn’t try to argue him out of it. She merely said, “That’s for the best, I suppose. Papa’s likely out of money, or near abouts, and he’ll be comin’ home soon.”
“I don’t want them to go, Lu.” Petey started crying, and Luansy picked him up and took him to the kitchen, where she made supper.
There wasn’t much conversation that evening, or the next morning. Zeb just thanked them both. Ebenezer led the horses out of the barn, helped boost Zeb into the saddle, said his farewell, and thanked them again. The two headed down the trail to the main road. By the time they reached the pike, they heard hoof beats, and turned to see Luansy riding the mule, with Petey clutching her from behind.
“By the Eternal, what do you think you’re doing?” Zeb snapped.
Before she answered, he saw the smoke.
Chapter Thirteen
“We’re coming with you,” Luansy Taylor said.
South by Southwest Page 10