American Dreams Trilogy

by Michael Phillips

  “Perhaps your enthusiasm will get through to me yet,” laughed Waters. “You continue to intrigue me. If more Christians in the world preached the Davidson gospel—”

  “May I correct that, and say if more Christians in the world lived the gospel of the Son of David,” interposed Richmond. “In any event, this was the conclusion that I finally reached in my own personal quest. The universe is not really so hard to understand once one grasps that we are the reason for its wrongness, and that God is the reason for its Tightness, and that the love of a perfect and infinitely redemptive Fatherhood will, and must be, victorious in the end.”

  “Perhaps you have just solved the riddle about human nature that I have been pondering,” said Sydney thoughtfully. “I can see that I will have to reflect on this further. You indeed give a man much to think about.”

  They heard footsteps behind them.

  “So this is where you men disappeared to!” said Carolyn. “We have all been looking for you. There is tea, coffee, bread, butter, and cake on the table in the dining room!”

  Twenty-Four

  Three days later, on the evening before Cherity and James Waters were scheduled to begin their return trip back to Boston, the mood around the dinner table was quiet and subdued. This had been a special time for them all. Each sensed that saying good-bye would not be easy. Sydney was also talking of moving on, though no firm plan had yet been devised for them to do so, and the next hundred miles could be the most perilous of their entire journey. Chigua would have remained indefinitely, but they knew they would never be safe as long as they were south of the Mason-Dixon Line. The mood of approaching separations had quieted the entire household.

  Cherity was the first to leave the table. A few seconds later they heard the front door open and close. One by one the others rose also. Thomas disappeared upstairs. Chigua took the children to their room. Richmond and Carolyn, and James and Sydney made their way to the parlor where not long thereafter Maribel appeared with coffee, tea, and a few small cakes. Seth sought the out-of-doors, suspecting where he might find Cherity.

  A few minutes later she heard his step behind her where she sat. She was wearing no hat. Her auburn hair fell down around her ears and neck past her shoulders. She did not turn around, but heard him climb up the rails, swing his feet over, and sit down on the topmost rail beside her. For some minutes they sat in silence gazing out across the pasture. A thin mist had begun to gather over the pasture and fields as the evening cooled.

  “What do you think?” he asked at length. “How ought we to proceed with Moonbeam? sternly or gently?”

  “Judging from my own personal experience,” she replied, “—as one for whom the gentle approach of your mother helped me see things I had never been able to see before—I would recommend the soft word of encouragement rather than the whip.”

  “Spoken like one who knows horses!” rejoined Seth. “And loves them.”

  “I hope that I know them a little better than I knew them before… now that I know myself a little better. I hope I have learned to love and understand them a little better too.”

  It fell silent. The hearts of neither were thinking about horses.

  “I hope—,” began Cherity.

  “I, uh—,” said Seth at the same instant.

  Both turned toward each other and laughed, but nervously. Their laughter on this evening was not like that after their race to Harper’s Peak.

  “You first,” said Cherity.

  “That wouldn’t be right,” said Seth. “Ladies first… I insist.”

  “All right,” smiled Cherity. “I was just going to say… that I hope you and Veronica will be very happy together.”

  A stab of distress stung Seth’s heart. He had almost succeeded in forgetting that anyone called Veronica Beaumont existed, even if just for one evening.

  “Yeah… thanks,” he mumbled.

  Another long silence followed. Slowly the evening closed in around them. At this time of the year, it would not be dark for another hour or so. But the stillness of night had descended. The horses were thinking of sleep. The crickets were getting about their business in earnest.

  “It’s your turn now,” said Cherity. “What were you going to say?”

  “Oh, yeah… just that I, uh… that I’ve got something I want to give you,” said Seth. “Kind of a going-away gift, I guess… though it’s not much.”

  Cherity turned toward him expectantly.

  “It’s not here,” said Seth, then turned. He swung his legs over the rail and jumped to the ground. “Come on.”

  Cherity leapt off the fence and followed. Seth led the way to the barn.

  “Where are we going!” she asked excitedly.

  “You’ll see.”

  “But… what is it?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “Seth!”

  “I can’t tell you… I have to show you.”

  He opened the door and they went inside. A candle was burning in a rusty lantern, casting a yellow light about it.

  “Remember our race to the top of the ridge?” Seth asked.

  “Do I… what kind of question is that!”

  “Do you remember what I said… that I’d give you your prize later, after I thought of one?”

  Cherity nodded.

  “Well I finally did.”

  He stopped at the saddle rail, hoisted down the saddle she had been using her entire time at Greenwood, then turned to face her.

  “I never told you this,” he said, “but this used to be my old saddle. It’s the one I learned on, the very first saddle I ever called my own. It’s a little small for me now… but it seems to fit you perfectly. I would like you to have it.”

  Tears of disbelief welled up in Cherity’s eyes.

  “That is,” added Seth with a laugh, “if your dad will let you take it on the train!”

  Still Cherity stood speechless.

  “I don’t know what… Seth, it’s the most… I just—”

  Suddenly she broke into tears and ran from the barn, leaving Seth still standing where he was holding the old worn saddle.

  He left the barn carrying it, setting it upright on the bench on the veranda, then went inside. There was no sign of Cherity.

  Cherity made sure Seth would not see her when he left the barn.

  From her vantage point behind one of the nearby oaks, she watched him as he went inside. She couldn’t bear to have him see her crying like a baby. He would probably ask her what was wrong! She didn’t dare tell him.

  Now she had two secrets. Perhaps she would have to carry both in her own heart for the rest of her life.

  But she wouldn’t trade her quiet new loves for anything. Even if the one came with a thorn that had pricked her heart with pain even as the other had flooded her with joy. She would bear the pain, and cherish the joy. For in the quiet place within her where such memories are kept, both loves, and all they made her feel, would always be as one.

  Hearing the door of the house close in the distance, Cherity stepped out from behind the oak. She could not possibly go inside yet. She would walk about in the thickening darkness a while longer, visit the horses in the pasture one last time, maybe cry again, and, when she had closed the window to her heart a little more securely and could put on her smile again, then she would go inside.

  Seth heard the door open half an hour later. He was in the parlor with his parents and Cherity’s father, seated with his back to the door.

  Footsteps came across the carpeted floor. He felt the gentle touch of a hand on his shoulder. He turned and looked up. Cherity smiled down at him.

  “I’m sorry for running out like that,” she said in a soft voice that bore trace remnants of the huskiness of tears. “I was just… too overwhelmed with happiness. I… I accept your gift. I cannot think of anything so special anyone has ever done for me…. I will treasure it.”

  She pulled her hand away and drew in a deep breath as she glanced around the room with a smile.


  “I think I shall go upstairs to bed now,” she said. “Good night, everyone.”

  After breakfast the following morning, with a few tears from Carolyn and Cherity as they embraced, but with silent stoicism from Seth as he shook the hands of father and daughter… they were gone.

  Cherity did not once look into Seth’s eyes. She hadn’t dared.

  Twenty-Five

  The train ride north was somber and quiet. Neither Cherity, with the saddle sitting on the seat beside her, nor her father across from her, said a word for most of the morning.

  Both Waters were changed. Their whole lives had been changed in the two short weeks since they had made this same train ride in the opposite direction.

  James Waters did not thoroughly grasp the reason for his daughter’s silence, nor appreciate the extent to which the spiritual foundations of her life had been forever altered. As she had not found a suitable opportunity to tell Seth about her conversation with Carolyn and subsequent ride and walk in the arbor, neither had she found opportunity to tell him. And now other things had pushed the urgency to do so from her heart.

  James had plenty to think about for himself. Until this juncture of his life he had always been able to dismiss what he considered religiosity without much depth of thought regarding its deeper meaning. But now he had met a man and a woman who lived their Christian faith so practically and forcefully that it was impossible to ignore. Richmond and Carolyn Davidson could not be passed off as intellectual lightweights. Everything they believed they backed up with actions—from the way they opened their home to strangers of any background or color, to the freeing of their slaves, to their handling of financial obligations, to the respect they showed one another and every other person with whom they came into contact, as well as to the simple joy and energy and optimism they brought into their lives. He had never before connected living character with faith. Yet he could not deny that the man and woman Carolyn and Richmond had become—both apparently emerging out of hardships and suffering—were due in no small measure to what they believed and how they had determined to practice their Christianity. It was a remarkable thing. They were people whose Christianity mattered with a consistency, even an appeal, he had never encountered before.

  He had met so many remarkable individuals here—from Malachi Shaw and the other former slaves, simple but genuine humble blacks, to Alexander the horse trainer… and the two remarkable LeFleures! Into what an assortment of backgrounds and cultures he and his daughter had been drawn during their visit!

  But in a sense the mixing pot of people and cultures and personalities all had Richmond and Carolyn Davidson at its foundation. Their love and respect for everyone was the reason that Greenwood was such an energetic center of life and activity and intellectual stimulation.

  Like Sydney LeFleure, he found himself reflecting on this great mix of humanity and thinking of the conversation in the library—how every man and woman had within himself or herself roots of both good and evil, the seeds of God’s own goodness as well as the seeds of sin. He had never thought about such things before in connection with himself. Spiritual ideas had been for him distant and abstract. Now the theological concept of free will took on a very practical reality. Suddenly the “Christianity” he once thought he knew had changed. It was no longer a system of belief, but a daily opportunity of choice between two opposing aspects of man’s nature.

  Within his nature.

  Now he saw why Richmond Davidson insisted that faith was really a very simple thing. It reduced to little more than choosing between the good within him, or as Richmond would probably say, the God within him, or the self-centered tendency toward sin which was also within him.

  He wasn’t sure he liked the implications.

  For years he had been satisfied with himself. He did not at all like the idea that something may be required of him—that Someone might have a claim upon him.

  To what extent his unsettled mental condition might also have to do with the fact that neither could he dislodge from his memory the strange sensations that had risen within him whenever the conversation at Greenwood had turned to the enigmatic Cherokee called Mr. Brown, James Waters could not have said. And the startling appearance of Sydney’s wife and what her name represented… suddenly so many things were staring him in the face!

  Meanwhile Cherity continued to stare out the window, a book in her lap open to a page containing the small Virginia bluebell she had pressed between its pages.

  Having somehow been apprised of the fact that the Davidsons’ guests had departed on the morning train—though she had not been told details nor of the obvious emotional nature of the final good-byes on the station platform—Veronica made an appearance at Greenwood that same afternoon.

  Borrowing one of Veronica’s tricks, though the sighting had been purely coincidental, Seth saw her coming from an upstairs window.

  Hating himself for it, Seth told his mother that by the time she heard the knocker sound on the door he would not be home and that she could truthfully answer to that effect. Then he dashed from the back door of the house to the cover of a empty chicken coop, and was disappearing into the woods behind the house about the same moment Veronica walked up the steps to the front door.

  What kind of sneaking, waffling coward had she turned him into that he couldn’t even face her!

  He would have to think about his engagement to Veronica eventually. But right now his memories of the recent visit were too fresh to make that possible.

  He circled around to the barn. There he hid out until he saw Veronica ride away, well able to imagine her annoyance at having come all this way for nothing. Then he went out the side door to the corral, called for Malcolm, saddled him, and had a long, solitary ride up to Harper’s Peak, during which he thought about many things.

  The next day, knowing their new black and Indian friends were planning to leave soon as well, Carolyn found Chigua LeFleure upstairs.

  “Good morning, Chigua,” she said. “I am on my way to meet with some of the black women. We read the Bible together. I thought you might like to join me.”

  “I would, thank you, Mrs. Davidson… what about the children?”

  “I’ve already spoken with Richmond and Sydney. They said they would keep close to the house until we return.”

  The two women left the house a short time later and walked to the collection of homes where their black workers lived, formerly known as the slave village. As stealth was required, some of the women had already departed in ones, twos, and threes. Others would be taken in the back of a wagon driven by Josaiah Black beneath a thin layer of hay and straw for the animals.

  Though Richmond had long used some of the higher pastureland for horses and sheep, he had recently undertaken the cultivation of several of the Brown fields, and also begun the establishment on the Brown tract of a huge orchard of varied fruits, as well as grapes and berries. These activities assured that there was always plenty of work for their people, and also provided much-needed cover and protection for the clandestine meetings that took place under the former Brown roof.

  Carolyn led the way to the Shaw house, then she and Nancy and Chigua set out walking together the two miles through the gently wooded hills.

  “I am curious,” said Carolyn as they went, “how you became a slave, Chigua. Richmond told me briefly of Sydney’s story. But other than what you told us that first day, for a Cherokee to be a slave seems very unusual.”

  “Not as unusual as you might think, Mrs. Davidson… especially for one with skin as dark as mine. I am often mistaken for a Negro rather than an Indian. And I am sorry to say, but the Cherokees owned slaves too. They bought many black slaves to work their farms. But then we found ourselves enslaved as well. As slavery grew prevalent in the last century, I’m afraid it crossed ethnic and cultural lines without shame.”

  “It is such a travesty in our history.”

  “In the old times,” Chigua went on, “many of our people lived in caves, but
later the Cherokee had houses and owned farms and lived and dressed in most ways just like the whites, even to the point of operating sizeable plantations that used slaves.”

  “What was your background?”

  Chigua nodded. “I lived a normal life,” said Chigua. “My mother died when I was born and my father did not run a plantation with slaves. But I went to a Cherokee school. My father owned a reasonably large farm and we were considered moderately well-off. My father died when I was six and my sister and I went to live with my grandfather. But then came the removal to the West and I was captured by a Seminole raiding party. I never saw any of my family again.”

  “That must have been heartbreaking,” said Carolyn. “I cannot even imagine it.”

  “I was nine when I was captured. I was frightened to death for what would happen to me.”

  “How did you meet Sydney?”

  “He was captured by the same Seminole tribe several years later. He stayed close to me and told me he wouldn’t let anyone hurt me. He was so gentle and kind, I knew immediately, even though he wasn’t an Indian, that he would never hurt me. The Seminoles noticed his protectiveness of me. They knew Sydney was different from other Negroes. His whole bearing was regal. They thought we looked stately together. We were sold to the owner of a cotton plantation in Georgia. We were happy together and remained at the same plantation as slaves until just a few months ago. With our children growing older, Sydney feared that eventually they might be sold away from us. Once we began to hear about the Underground Railroad, he began looking for a chance to take us to the North.”

  “An amazing story,” said Carolyn, “isn’t it, Nancy?”

  “Yes’m, Miz Dab’son. I ain’t got nufin like dat. I wuz born a slave an’ wuz always a slave. I lived my life right here on dis plantashun an’ nowhere else.”

  “It is clear you value your Cherokee roots,” said Carolyn.

  “We are taught pride in our heritage,” replied Chigua. “But it is hard to keep that heritage from the old days. Things have changed so much for our people. Our chief Moytoy was named Emperor of the Cherokee nation. One of our chiefs, Attacullaculla, my own ancestor, went to England and met the king. We have a wonderful legacy.”