American Dreams Trilogy

by Michael Phillips

  Seth was sick with grief for days. The stakes of what the weathervane on the barn signified had suddenly increased many times.

  They could no longer conceal the constant stream of visitors that was discovering the wind in the horse’s head at Greenwood on the route North. Over the following week, Richmond and Carolyn confided in the rest of their workers and brought them in on the scheme along with Nancy and Malachi. Nancy was so thoroughly changed from having taken Malachi’s place as conductor that she was among the most eager of all to help.

  There were, however, a handful whose loyalty they did not know if they could entirely count on. The danger of exposure stemmed mostly from undisciplined tongues rather than deception in the ranks of their workers. Accordingly, Silas and a few others were sent North with two or three groups of refugees. Their longtime workers among those were given enough cash to make certain they were provided for until jobs and lodgings could be found and they were comfortably situated north of the Pennsylvania border.

  With danger increasing, the refugee stream indeed threatened to become a flood. When the family of eight appeared, two men with their wives, one sister, and three children, and one of the women in the late stages of pregnancy, they knew they would have to keep her in the big house until the baby came. None of the rest of the family would think of moving on without her. The sudden presence of so many extra blacks, and for what might be an extended time, posed difficulties they had not encountered before.

  Only a week later, five children appeared. Carolyn’s heart immediately went out to them. Questioned, the oldest, a competent and resourceful girl of fourteen called Ella Mae, told of their escape from a plantation in Alabama, of their mother’s capture and their father’s eventual death at the hands of a bounty hunter who had followed them. How the children had evaded him and how the girl had managed to lead her two brothers and two sisters to Greenwood without detection was nothing short of a miracle.

  But… what to do with them!

  The children too, it seemed, along with Eliza, should be kept in the big house, for the youngest was only four. Where else! Carolyn could not think of sending them on alone, with no family waiting for them in the North. What was to be done but keep them at Greenwood, and care for them? Perhaps indefinitely. After the recent hanging, the danger was too great to do otherwise.

  It was Nancy who proposed a temporary solution.

  She found Carolyn with Maribel in the kitchen. “Miz Dab’son,” she said, “cud I talk ter you ’bout dem five young’ uns dat come yesterday?”

  “Certainly, Nancy,” replied Carolyn.

  “I been thinkin’ dat maybe I cud help sum wiff dem. I wuz thinkin’, since we gots ter keep dem from bein’ seen, dat ef you’d want I cud cum an’ sleep sumwheres in da big house wiff dem an’ watch ober dem, spechully dose two young’ uns, Lilliana an’ LeRoy. Dat way you wudn’t hab ter worry none ’bout dem wiff all da others we got right now, an’ you an’ Maribel an’ Mary cud keep watch on Eliza down yonder below who’s fixin’ ter hab her a baby. An’ maybe sum er Eliza’s folks’ kids cud stay up wiff da others too, ef dat’s what you wanted.”

  “I think that sounds like a splendid idea, Nancy,” said Carolyn. “Are you willing to take on such a responsibility? What does Malachi think?”

  “We talked ’bout it, an’ he seyz hit be a good idea. We’s gotter help dese poor folks what don’ have no place ter go. Right now dey ain’t got no family but us, so we gots ter be dere family ’cause I reckon we are.”

  And so it was that the first lodgers in the new hidden attic room were Nancy Shaw as adoptive mother to Ella Mae and her four younger brothers and sisters.

  On the third afternoon since their arrival, Carolyn walked up the new hidden stairway with milk and a plate of fresh cookies. She had seen none of the five children for several hours, or Eliza’s daughter and the other two little boys either for that matter. It was so quiet as she reached the attic room door that she began to think no one was inside. She walked in to see seven children sitting on the floor in a circle surrounding Nancy—Ella Mae and her two brothers and older sister, along with Eliza’s daughter, Enisha, and the two little boys—every one of them spellbound as Nancy spoke in such a thick Negro dialect that Carolyn could scarcely make out a word. Four-year-old Lilliana lay sound asleep in Nancy’s arms.

  “I wuz telling dem ’bout da ol’ king from da ol’ times,” said Nancy, glancing up.

  “Well I won’t disturb you,” said Carolyn, setting down the tray. “It appears they are enjoying it. I will just leave this with you.”

  Eight-year-old Hannah jumped up and ran toward her. Carolyn stooped down to meet her.

  “Look, missus,” she exclaimed, holding out her palm to Carolyn’s face. “Dese are da lines ob da king!”

  Now eleven-year-old Rufus ran to join her, sticking his hand almost into Carolyn’s face. “An’ dere’s ribers too right here in my hand—dat’s what Aunt Nancy seyz!”

  Carolyn laughed and gave both a hug and sent them back to Nancy. “You all have quite a heritage, don’t you!” she said as she stood. “It is something to be very proud of.”

  Carolyn returned downstairs with a wonderful feeling of contentment in her heart. Aunt Nancy, she thought, chuckling to herself. And the crowd was about to grow even larger.

  The next day three black men, traveling alone and without families appeared!

  “Dis be da place wiff da win’ in da horse’s head?” asked a bedraggled slave—he had been whipped so many times the scars on his back and shoulders were visible through his tattered shirt—speaking to the first person he saw, which happened to be Thomas.

  “Yeah, that’s what they say,” Thomas replied. “Go up there and ask for my dad,” he added, nodding toward the big house. He continued on with obvious disinterest.

  Not sure what to make of the interview, the black man continued tentatively toward the large brick plantation house. Fortunately his next contact was black Mary, returning home from the pregnancy chamber. He asked her the same question, and two minutes later he was standing in front of Richmond Davidson.

  “What is your name, son?” Richmond asked.

  “Jackson, massa,” the fugitive answered, “Jackson Riles. I be on da run from a turruble bounty huntin’ man what’s tryin’ ter string me up. I be parful obliged effen you’d see fit ter let me hide out a day er two. I won’t cause no trubble, suh, only thing is, dere’s two other runaways wiff me. Dey’s out yonder in da woods, an’ dey’s parful hungry too, massa.”

  So now the five children were in the new attic room, pregnant Eliza was in the basement along with those of her group the enlarged cellar could accommodate. Carolyn and Mary came and went from the cellar regularly, Mary caring for Eliza with the devotion of a mother, and, like Nancy in the attic far above her, sleeping on a pad most nights to be ready in case the baby came. A few of Eliza’s group had been put in the cellar of the new house in the worker’s village. And the three grown men were staying in a cabin of single men with the intent of moving on as soon as word could be got to Malachi’s Quaker contact in neighboring Orange County and arrangements made for a meeting.

  And all the while Wyatt Beaumont and his cohorts were prowling the neighborhood with heightened vigilance.

  Thirty-Seven

  Several riders rode into the precincts of Oakbriar. Leon Riggs was the first to spot them. He walked toward the man in the lead and asked his business.

  “The name’s Murdoch,” said the man. “I’ve got business with young Beaumont.”

  Riggs went in search in his boss’s son. Twenty minutes later, Wyatt Beaumont was mounted and galloping away with them.

  Father and son were seated on a bench a few yards into the shade of the woods bordering the drive. A deep change had come over Seth. He had been thrust headlong into the seriousness of life, and he would never afterward be the same.

  “What do you think, Dad?” Seth had just asked. “Did I do the right thing with Veronica… calling it of
f, I mean?”

  “You’re not having doubts about that, are you?” asked his father.

  “I don’t know,” shrugged Seth. “It almost seems like that’s when these troubles began. They’ve all got something to do with Veronica.”

  “If you’re going to trace your difficulties to Veronica,” suggested his father, “I would think that many problems began by getting involved too deeply with her in the first place.”

  “Yeah… I see what you mean.”

  “It could never have worked. Calling it off took guts, and I am proud of you for it.”

  “But like you say, it might have been avoided if I had shown a little more backbone and sense earlier!” laughed Seth mordantly.

  “The point is—it happened. You got yourself into a tough situation, then you had the courage to face it. There is no humiliation in admitting you made a mistake. It is only a fool who worsens his plight by going blindly forward without being able to admit his error.”

  “Is that what happened with your first wife, Dad?” asked Seth.

  A hint of pain crossed Richmond’s face. Sometimes he wondered where she was now, or if she was even still alive. He had tried to find out several years ago and had written a number of letters. But no replies ever came.

  “No, son,” he said with a sad smile at length. “An unfortunate marriage is not a mistake that can be undone like an engagement. Once the vow is made, very little can break it. Had you married Veronica, as great a mistake as it would have been in my view, I would never have counseled you other than to be the most devoted, sacrificial, and loving husband you could be. Even if she made your life miserable, as she might have done, she would nevertheless been your wife for life.”

  “Then what happened, Dad?” asked Seth. “Believing as you do, how did you come to be divorced and then marry Mom?”

  A faraway look came to Richmond’s eye.

  “When I went to England,” Richmond began after a few minutes, “it was with every intention of studying law. I was the younger of two sons and assumed I would not be part of Greenwood’s future. I was alone and lonely. I met a young woman who was more than a little strange, I realized later. Yet somehow, her very peculiarities I found fascinating, almost captivating. She was beautiful in her own way, I suppose, though she had a distant, almost otherworldly air about her. Whether I actually fell in love is doubtful, but she apparently fell in love with me and her family was anxious for us to marry. Whenever there is pressure to rush or accelerate marriage, my boy—take it as a warning sign. Any woman who truly loves—I do not say who is in love, but who truly loves—can afford to be patient. Many women are not in love with their men so much as they are in love with an ideal of love they have in their minds.”

  “I guess I have had some experience along those lines,” said Seth.

  “Right you are,” rejoined Richmond. “You have indeed. And you heeded the signs more astutely than I did. Sad to say, I did not heed them. Her entire family conspired to make sure I was rarely alone with her and I never learned how emotionally unstable she was. The father presented himself as an erudite man who could teach me many things and who knew many secrets of the universe hidden to most men. He encouraged me to think of him as my father away from home. Yet as a father, he proved anything but trustworthy. He kept from me much in the family history that would have prevented the heartache and grief that came later. I learned nothing of the fact that this man, the girl’s own father, had raised two entire families, completely abandoning the first which included three sons who were at the time older than I. I learned nothing of insanity and suicides that had plagued the family for generations. I was swept into depths of human misery without the least idea what I had gotten into.

  “None of this lessens my own accountability. But I was very vulnerable. Young men often do not recognize their own weakness, and when someone comes along to feed their ego, they too eagerly allow it to cloud their judgment. It simply shows that there are people in the world who are less than honest, and who will deceive to achieve their ends. While we are called to love those around us with the innocence of doves, there come times in life when we must likewise be as shrewd as serpents in judging the character of those with whom we have dealings.

  “The long and the short of it is that we were married. I planned to stay in England and make a new life for myself there. I entered Oxford the next fall and began my studies toward a degree in law.

  “Soon after the marriage, however, I began to realize that my wife had severe problems. Removed from the protective shield of her father and mother, her instability did not take long to manifest itself. At first I assumed the sudden change was due to the changes of marriage and leaving home. I tried to put the best light on it possible. I tried, and I honestly hope to God I did my best to love her in hopes that she would grow out of it. But in my heart I feared something was seriously wrong.

  “She became pregnant. Instead of making her happy, the news turned her moody and withdrawn. Whenever we were with others in the family, I could not fail to pick up fragments of hushed comments and sighs from certain relatives indicating that they had seen such signs before. There was old uncle so-and-so… and a grandmother who died young… and who could forget the cousin who ran off, and so on. With every look and glance my forebodings grew.

  “A son was born to us. The year was 1833. I was but twenty-three, far too young to be a father. Afterward, my wife was weak, delirious, ranting. The child was apparently healthy. The doctor was far more concerned for the mother, though he could ascertain no immediate physical cause for her condition.

  “Several nights later she became raving and feverish. I didn’t know what to do. The doctor had already been at the house to see us three times that day. At last, himself as exhausted as I, he went home saying he thought she would be safe till morning and urging me to get some sleep.

  “But the night brought a worsening of her condition. She drifted in and out of consciousness, calling for the baby, then yelling at me and a servant girl to take the child away. She was incoherent and ranting. During one of these episodes, I sat on the bed, soothing and trying to talk to her. Gradually she calmed and eventually drifted into what appeared a peaceful sleep. Exhausted, and leaving the baby beside her I went to bed.

  “She awakened several hours later, with images still in her brain, distorted by fatigue and her mental condition. She came a little more to herself and suddenly felt the child in the bed beneath her. Her hands went to it and discovered the body cold. She let out a hideous shrieking wail.

  “The terrible sounds brought me to myself where I slept. I leapt from bed and rushed to the room where she was delirious and out of control. I bent down to investigate. She attacked me furiously, pummeling my face with her fists with a strength I could not imagine she could possess. All the while she was screaming that I had killed her baby. Finally I was able to scoop up the baby—”

  His voice choked. Swallowing hard, he continued. “I rushed from the room calling for the servant girl to run for the doctor. In the meantime, I did my best to revive the child, but could not.”

  He looked away, and took several more deep breaths.

  When Scully Riggs looked up from where he was loading an order his father had placed for Oakbriar, he saw six horses galloping by the supply yard at the station. He knew something out of the ordinary was going on.

  Wyatt Beaumont rode in the lead. He recognized none of the others. They all wore serious expressions. Every saddle had a rifle sticking out from behind it.

  Scully dumped the bag of grain from his back onto the wagon bed and dashed for his horse. He was sure to lose his job one of these days for running off. But this was a chance he wasn’t about to miss.

  In less than two minutes he was galloping west as fast as his horse would take him. He was not surprised when in the distance ahead he saw the dust from the six riders turn off the main road toward the Davidson place.

  Father and son continued to talk, unaware of the danger ap
proaching them.

  “What had happened, Dad?” asked Seth.

  “In her sleep, and unaware of herself, the poor delirious woman had rolled over on top of the child and suffocated him.”

  “Gosh… Dad—I never knew. I’m sorry! That means I had a half brother in England.”

  “It is the kind of thing I didn’t want to tell you until the right time,” sighed Richmond, tears standing in his eyes. “It was not something I wanted to tell anyone.

  “I was disconsolate,” nodded Richmond. “My wife never recovered emotionally. As she grew stronger in the coming weeks, she remained convinced that I had come in while she slept and murdered the child.

  And as she spread the tale, there were many who believed it. Strange to say, knowing as they did her unbalanced condition, her family also turned against me. I found myself isolated and alone, completely unable to concentrate on my studies. My life crumbled around me. Not only was my marriage in ruins, there was a possibility of my being brought up on charges of murder.”

  “Surely, Dad, it couldn’t have gone that far.”

  Richmond smiled. “Don’t be so sure, son,” he said. “It is one of life’s profound mysteries that lies are more readily believed than truth. Let people report that a man is kind, good, unselfish, and fair, and that he will seek the good of his neighbor above his own, and they will either register disinterest, or else laugh in your face and say that such men do not exist. Men do not want to believe such of others. To do so only indicts them in their own self-centeredness. But let people report that a man is a liar, is unfaithful to his wife and beats his children, and that he will cheat in the name of profit, and everyone will believe it, and will believe it without undertaking the slightest investigation to discover whether the reports are reliable. Human nature delights in believing the worst. Such it was in my case. I honestly expected the authorities to set in motion an investigation on the basis of my wife’s charges.”