A Dream of Daring

by Gen LaGreca

  Tom looked around, frantically wondering what to do next. There were no windows clear of the flames. He saw he could reach the stone fireplace, and rushed toward it. Coughing, choking, trying to keep his bearings in the thickening smoke, he grabbed an andiron and smashed it repeatedly against a wall. He made a hole, then kicked it out, widening it to give them passage into the hallway.

  “Watch out!” She gasped, pointing to the ceiling.

  Fire-eaten ceiling beams gave way and fell near them. He covered her head with his arms. The chandelier came crashing down, shattering across the floor, sending glass shards flying into the mix of smoke, flames, and heat. A ceiling beam grazed Solo’s shoulder, setting her sleeve on fire. Tom knocked the beam away, then hit Solo’s sleeve repeatedly with his hand to choke the flames. He picked her up and pushed her through the opening in the wall; then he leaped out after her. The two of them raced down the hallway. Weakened by the effects of the fire and smoke, choking and staggering, she fell. He picked her up and carried her to the back door of the house.

  In the heavy smoke, they met a man who was charging in.

  “Get out! Get out, Jerome! We’re okay,” Tom ordered.

  Seeing that the home’s residents were headed for safety, Jerome turned and exited with them. He ran to the plantation bell to summon the other slaves.

  Tom rolled over on the ground with Solo, stifling the patches of smoldering flames on the two of them. He was on top of her when they stopped rolling. His eyes searched her smoke-covered dress, her hair entangled with debris, and the surface burns on her arms. “Are you okay?” He stroked her hair and stared into her eyes, waiting for reassurance.

  “Yes.” With her arms around his neck, and with her brilliant eyes and white teeth the only shining spots on a face covered with soot, she smiled at him.

  He slid his arms around her waist, buried his face in her neck, and held her close. Feeling her supple body, he sighed in immense relief from the still-vivid image of her caught in the flames and the dread that he would lose her. He raised his head, and their eyes locked for a moment.

  She began coughing. He picked her up and carried her away from the smoke, putting her down on the grass near the pond.

  They caught sight of the wiry figure of Jerome. He had summoned the slaves, along with the store of lightweight leather buckets kept in the tanner’s shed specifically for use in a fire. Jerome was forming a bucket brigade. Tom and Solo saw him lining up men from the pond to the house to haul a stream of buckets onto the fire. Jerome was also forming another line, of women and boys next to the men, to pass the empty pails from the house back to the pond for refilling.

  Tom’s eyes, two blue beacons on a smoke-covered face, watched intently the procedure Jerome was organizing to save the house.

  Solo read his thoughts. “Go. I’m all right,” she assured him.

  He observed her condition. Her voice was weak and hoarse, she coughed intermittently, and she had a few superficial burns. She needed to rest and clear her lungs of smoke, he figured, but otherwise she looked unscathed. “You’ll be okay?”

  “Go!”

  “Stay out of the smoke and rest.” In a flash, he was gone.

  Battling his own coughing, he joined the growing group of slaves by the house.

  Like the captain of a distressed ship, soaked to the waist in water, with a shirt still unbuttoned in his haste to respond to the emergency, Jerome moved about from the pond to the house, until everything was set. Then he positioned himself last in the line to receive the buckets, and he directed the water onto the flames. As he threw bucket after bucket on the fire, he continued to monitor the human assembly line and give orders to new slaves arriving. He summoned one: “Git more buckets. Git every last one o’ them—outta the stable, outta the barn, outta the well house, outta the kitchen. Go!” He summoned another one: “Git lanterns; we need light here. Go!” He turned to another slave: “Git—” Just then Tom approached, and Jerome abruptly stopped speaking, deferring to his master. “Oh, ’scuse me, sir.”

  “You’re doing fine, Jerome. Continue.”

  Jerome looked curiously at Tom, then smiled and resumed. “Git the ladder from the stable. Go git it, quick!”

  Soon, more buckets appeared for the brigade and lanterns dotted the landscape. The ladder came, and Tom climbed up to douse the flames on the roof. Jerome forked off part of the brigade to supply Tom.

  Hearing the bell and seeing the smoke, Nick and the field hands came running. They brought another stack of fire buckets from their area. Nick organized his slaves into a second brigade and joined Jerome and Tom at the house.

  * * * * *

  The prodigious efforts of the people of Indigo Springs proved fruitful. Before long, the flames were extinguished, and the smoke clouds drifted away from the house. The relentless rumble of the advancing flames and the frenzied sounds of the people fighting it were now still. The library was significantly damaged, but the rest of the house was saved.

  Despite Tom’s admonition to stay clear of the smoke, Solo joined him and the others to peer at the damage. The library was a disaster of fallen planks, smoldering debris, a partially caved-in ceiling, blackened carpeting, and singed furniture. Books charred to varying degrees were scattered everywhere. Those items that had escaped the fire were covered with soot. Everything was doused with water.

  The slaves from the brigades approached. Soaked from standing in the pond and exhausted from hauling the buckets, they silently took in the scene. Tom had never seen the slaves push themselves with so much drive. He stood with the charred remains of the library behind him and the bedraggled, muddied slaves before him, and he smiled at their victory.

  “I’ve never seen a finer bucket brigade anywhere,” he told them. “I’ve never seen a finer bunch of firefighters than right here.”

  The slaves stood before him, some without shirts or shoes in their haste to come and help. Their bodies looked spent, but their spirits seemed lifted by his words and their deed; they looked as proud as if they were wearing the imposing uniforms and shiny hats of a true fire regiment.

  “This house is still standing thanks to the extraordinary efforts of all of you.” He looked at the group with heartfelt gratitude. They seemed to sense it and smiled in response. “Jerome, I think some rum is in order.”

  That brought a wild cheer from the slaves.

  “Yes, sir!” Jerome, ever full of energy, charged ahead toward the liquor storeroom with a platoon of thirsty slaves following him.

  One of Solo’s students brought a bowl of water with rags to wash the burns on her teacher’s arms. Sitting on the grass, Solo accepted treatment, trying not to flinch from the sting. Tom walked over and bent down to observe the lean figure. She was covered with soot, but what he saw were the flashing eyes and the hints of glowing skin and glossy hair beneath the grimy surface, and he realized that from their first encounter, at the height of her wretchedness, he had always seen her inner luster.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Tom . . . ” She had forgotten the Mister. “I feel . . . happy . . . really happy . . . to still be here.” Her words were spoken simply, without the trimming of a smile, but her lingering glance at him held gratitude for his rescue of her.

  Both of their voices were softened with affection. In the aftermath of an event that had torn down walls in the house, he wondered if it had also torn down walls in the places where their feelings lived.

  Nearby, students from Solo’s class were coming out of the house with books. They had found ones with only minor damage, which they carried gingerly, like sacred texts. They gently patted some of the books with rags to dry them from the water damage. They were gathering a collection of saved books on a clean blanket.

  Tom walked toward them, and Solo followed.

  “These will dry, Mr. Tom. They’ll be good agin,” said Tom’s butler.

  “We can save these,” said the gardener, pointing to a little stack.

  “Remember this o
ne, Miss Solo?” The weaver held up a slightly charred volume. “This has a chapter you read to us.”

  Solo nodded, smiling.

  As the butler and the gardener were about to go back into the house, Tom stepped in front of them. “What are you doing? You can’t go in there.”

  “But Mr. Tom,” said the butler, “what if the ceilin’ falls down? Then the books will be done for.”

  “If the ceiling falls down, then you’ll be done for!” He raised his voice so everyone would hear his admonition. “No one can go in the house until it cools down and we can assess the damage. Right now, it’s too dangerous.”

  “But, sir, our primers are still in there—” the weaver protested.

  “We’ll buy more, and we’ll rebuild the library, which is now your classroom. We’ll build a bigger and better library.” He smiled. And we’ll build it to contain a secret underground room where I can hide your class, he added to himself.

  Solo stepped forward. Her students looked at her with affection. She said between coughing, her voice still hoarse, with Tom holding her arm for support: “There are a few hours left before dawn. Have a little rum; then go back to your cabins and get some sleep.” Battling her weakness from the ordeal, she raised her voice in triumph. “You all get a perfect grade in firefighting!”

  She smiled fondly at her students as they left to join the others at the storeroom.

  Tom’s hand lingered on Solo’s arm. “When we started the classes, I asked you to make them care about something.” He pointed to the books on the blanket. “You have.”

  She smiled with satisfaction.

  While the slaves were having their drink, Jerome had slipped away, leaving his apprentice in charge. Now the chef, who had changed into clean, dry clothing, walked over to Tom and Solo. He carried a sack, which he put down by his side; then he bent down to remove a few items among articles of clothing.

  Tom’s eyes absorbed the purposeful gait and the items in Jerome’s hand. He looked with astonishment at his slave, anticipating what he was about to say.

  “Mr. Tom, I wants to—” He glanced at his teacher, whose eyebrows raised at his grammar. “I mean, I want to give these back.”

  Jerome placed in Tom’s hands a watch, an ivory comb, a scarf pin, and a few other small valuables from the big house that had made their way into Jerome’s possession prior to his reform.

  Tom accepted the objects, placing them in his pocket, with his eyes still fixed on Jerome for what was coming next.

  Jerome reached into the sack for another item. “Here’s your mama’s book, sir.”

  Tom took the housekeeping journal that Jerome had used to prepare many recipes; he placed it on the grass next to them. The slave seemed hesitant, as if the words to come were harder to find.

  “What’s going on, Jerome?” Tom asked kindly, knowing the answer.

  “Sir, it’s about our deal. Remember that?”

  “I do.”

  “You always said it still stands. Does it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m ready now, sir. I’m ready! I been sellin’ pans o’ my chocolate squares to the captain o’ the Cincinnati steamer. You remember him?”

  “I do.”

  “Well, the captain, he says Jerome has a job anytime to bake them chocolate squares on his ship, with your pass, sir.”

  “And did you talk to him about the . . . rest . . . of the deal?”

  “Yes sir, and he says it still on with him.”

  “And the money, Jerome?”

  “I have enough, sir, and then some. I done good with my bizness here.”

  “I see.” Tom smiled.

  “The captain, he’s goin’ through with the deal. I’m supposed to be on the ship in the mornin’.”

  Solo’s eyes slid back and forth from one speaker to the next, and her quick mind grasped what was occurring.

  “I arranged this before the fire, sir. I was gonna tell you tonight. But with the meetin’ you had with the slaves, then after it, I couldn’t find you. . . . You weren’t around the big house.”

  “It’s all right, Jerome.”

  “Then come the fire, and, well, I don’t wanna leave now, but if I back out with the captain twice, he maybe not give me ’nother shot.”

  “I think you already did your part here. You saved the house, Jerome.”

  The slave reached into his sack again. Amid his clothing he found a paper and pencil. “If you write the pass for Jerome to work on the captain’s ship, he takes me.” He held out the items to his master.

  Tom hesitated. He couldn’t seem to raise his hands to take the objects from Jerome.

  “Sir, I trained Brook real good for you. He kin keep the kitchen, and he knows the system for givin’ out the cocoa beans. And I showed him how to make the chocolate squares for you.”

  “Brook does a good job. I’m not worried about that.”

  “Then . . . sir?”

  It was Tom’s turn to falter at words. “Are you . . . sure, Jerome?”

  “Like you say, the new time’s a-comin’. My time’s a-comin’. That’s how I feel.”

  “What about the snake with two heads? You said you dreamed of that snake, and that the head facing north was scarier.”

  “Funny thing, sir. Now when I dream ’bout goin’ north, I don’t see that snake no more.”

  “I do,” said Tom.

  “That snake, I don’t fret about her no more.”

  “But I fret about her.” Tom realized that it had been easier to let Jerome go when he hadn’t cared about him.

  “Gee, Mr. Tom, you ain’t worryin’ ’bout ole Jerome, now, are you?”

  “If you stay here, you can come and go as you please. You can have . . . leeway.”

  Jerome smiled and shook his head. “’Taint the same, sir.”

  “But I can protect you here. You can have security.”

  “’Tain’t the same, sir.” His voice held affection for Tom’s concern and a resolve of his own. “I want what I saw in that book Miss Solo showed us.”

  He turned to his teacher, who nodded in understanding.

  “That shop there in Paris, with the winder full o’ pastries—I want a shop like that. I want what free folks call a deed.”

  Tom also nodded in understanding.

  “I want a family too, an’ a little house for my family. I don’t see no snake no more, sir. I see a shop with my name on it! Clear as I see Jerome’s Squares, I see Jerome’s Shop.” The yearning in his voice seemed to say that he saw Jerome’s life.

  “I understand, Jerome. I really do. But I want to know that you understand too. You might escape the marshals and bounty hunters because I won’t report you, but do you realize there are still dangers?” Tom saw the snake vividly, the vicious, hissing monster that could bite with deadly venom. “There are laws working against you, and there are kidnappers who’ll try to capture you and bring you back to the South to sell—”

  “They ain’t gonna git me, sir.” Jerome smiled confidently.

  “What about the . . . safe house?”

  “I know the address, sir. That I do.” He recited it for Tom.

  “You must get to that address! That’s the key!”

  “I will. Jerome will git there sure as yer standin’ here, sir!”

  Tom sighed in resignation. He had to face what was inevitable . . . and right. He forced a note of optimism into his tone. “Above all, make your hosts some chocolate squares.”

  Jerome laughed.

  “Before, sir, when you made yer deal with Jerome, when I was worth nuthin’, we didn’t discuss a price.” When the law had allowed manumission in prior years, it was common for a slave to save money from extra jobs and buy his freedom from his master. “Do I need to pay you to buy myself, now that Jerome is worth somethin’?”

  Tom grinned. “Forget it.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because we’re both worth something.”

  Tom took the paper and pencil from Jerome, w
rote the pass, and gave it to him.

  Handling it carefully, like the deed to his future, Jerome folded the pass and placed it in his pocket. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  “Take a horse. You can leave it at the livery.”

  Jerome nodded.

  “And take this.” Tom gave him the housekeeping book with his mother’s recipes.

  Jerome was speechless.

  “I’m sure they’ll need some good cooking in Cincinnati.” He looked at Jerome solemnly. “I want you to have it. It was our family heirloom; now it can be yours.”

  “Why . . . why, thank you.” Jerome took the book that was now passed down to him and his future family, and he placed it with the utmost care at the top of the sack. It rested next to his chef’s hat, folded lengthwise at the pleats and jutting out of the bag. Then he turned to Solo.

  Always practical, the teacher faced him. “Finish your schooling. You’ll need a class in bookkeeping to run your shop.”

  Jerome smiled. “Yes, Miss Solo.”

  “And write to us!”

  “I will.”

  Impulsively, she removed Mrs. Edmunton’s journal from the sack. “And, please—” her voice broke, “please keep the book right here!” She slipped the volume inside Jerome’s shirt, like a plate of armor over his chest.

  The meaning of the gesture was obvious—and chilling—to the three of them. The two slaves stared at each other in a moment of naked, abject terror that Tom, as a free man, could only observe on their faces but never fully grasp.

  Solo sighed and bowed her head as if she regretted the act, yet she was unable to shake off the fear that had provoked it.

  Jerome spoke reassuringly. “I’ll keep that in mind, if I meet trouble. But right now, I reckon I’ll git to the docks jus’ fine with Mr. Tom’s pass.” He cocked his head in search of her troubled eyes—she was staring at the ground—and he smiled. “That be okay with you?”