The Woman on the Painted Horse

by Angela Christina Archer

  “You are awfully quiet this evening.” William’s breath whispered against my neck, the heat tore me in half. I shouldn’t be here, and yet here was the only place I wanted to be.

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  “Do you wish to tell me what your mother said?”

  “It wasn’t important.”

  “It sounded pretty important to me.”

  “No. It wasn’t.”

  William didn’t press the issue further, accepting my warning that I wished to drop the subject. The thought of telling him what Mama said, repeating her terrible accusations, made me sick to my stomach. Knowing how they made me feel, I didn’t want to imagine how he would react.

  A pack of wolves howled in the distance, a fear-provoking sound that silenced the owls and made my body quiver. I detested the night. Even in the calm, darkness held secrets and mysteries, ones that crept down my neck and gave me the chills.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll keep you safe.”

  “How close are they?” I asked.

  “They’re far enough away, and they won’t come near Essiyetv or us if they can help it.”

  “What if they can’t help it?”

  “I have a gun,” he laughed.

  Nestled in the thick forest was a clearing, a small meadow with grass and several fallen trees. A quaint, humble place one would envy for the sheer peaceful ambiance. Resting between two of the fallen trees, a lantern sat upon a brightly colored blanket, illuminating through the trees. As we approached, a raccoon scampered away, disgruntled that our sudden appearance had hindered his attempt to pilfer the food inside a worn looking wicker basket sitting on the blanket.

  William slid off Essiyetv and helped me down. His strong arms engulfed me. I almost hated them, hated them for making me want them to hold on to me forever. He sat down and I sat next to him. As he began to untie the basket, his fingers tugged and twisted the strings—their delicate, yet intense movements mesmerized me. As much as I wanted to deny the fact, I desired their touch.

  Stop it, Alexandra.

  “I never would have guessed this place existed,” I said in awe.

  “I come here quite often and just lay in the grass. It’s a very relaxing place.”

  William grabbed a few pieces of bread and cheese, and stuffed them into his mouth before handing me the loaf. His nonchalance amused me, and when he caught my smile, his face blushed in a bright shade of red.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled, chewing on his large bite.

  Without a second thought, I grabbed a slice of bread and a slice of cheese and shoved as much of them into my mouth as I could. William burst into laughter and I practically choked as I laughed with him.

  “Why are you so different from your family?” he asked.

  “Several reasons, I suppose, or perhaps just one. I don’t know. Their beliefs are different than mine . . . well, my parents are, at least. John, my brother, is different.”

  Tell him, Alexandra. Tell him about the slaves.

  I fidgeted with a piece of cheese. No one except for Peter and Clive knew my secret. I wanted to tell him, but I couldn’t bring myself to say the words. The admission of guilt had stakes, turmoil, and should word spread, it wasn’t just my own life at risk. Not that I thought William would tell anyone, but I still had an obligation to protect Peter and Clive.

  “Are you close with your brother?” he asked.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Have you told him about me?”

  “No, I haven’t. As close as we are, I don’t believe he’d understand or condone my behavior.”

  “Does he, too, wish for you to marry Thomas?”

  “He doesn’t have an opinion on the matter, actually, unlike my parents.”

  “Do they really want you to marry a man like that?”

  I laughed. “Do you not know the legacy to which I am chained, Mr. Graysden?”

  “I suppose I don’t.” He shrugged and stared off into the trees, lost in thought. His reaction was not what I had anticipated.

  “William, I didn’t mean—” I bit my tongue as soon as I saw his expression. The conversation needed to end, now. “Will you tell me about your family?”

  He hesitated for a moment and then his body relaxed as he obviously conceded to my change in topic. “Certainly, I suppose. What do you want to know?”

  “How did your parents meet each other?”

  He laughed, amused at his own thoughts. His laughter and the sincerity of his smile made me weak. It was a thousand times more powerful than Thomas’s smile, catching my skin on fire. Sitting next to him was hard. His eyes, his voice, the smell of his skin, the movement in his body, all drew me in like a moth to a flame, and I didn’t know how long I could keep myself from him.

  Thomas. Remember Thomas, Alexandra.

  “My mother loves to speak of a relentless young man that annoyed her to the ends of the earth. He fell instantly in love, though, knowing they came to this earth to love each other. She’s a lot younger than he is, so as a young woman she was unsure of an older man’s affections. He waited, enduring her fickle, young mind for many years until one day she saw him differently and everything changed.”

  “How long have they been married?”

  “Nineteen years…twenty in a few months. Money and supplies were scarce so they married under a night sky in some ragged clothes that my grandmother found, cleaned, and sewed back together. They didn’t care, though. All they cared about was that they were going to be married.”

  “So he finally won her heart.”

  “Yes. They’re still that same young couple in love, each sharing their life with the one that they desire most. Family completes them, and they’re looking forward to growing old together, watching me fall in love, marry, and bear them grandchildren.” He leaned in and nudged his shoulder into mine, and his playful suggestive tone made my stomach flip.

  Why did he have to give me that look?

  “They sound very happy,” I stuttered, trying to distract myself by studying the piece of bread I had torn into several tiny pieces with my nervous fingers.

  “They are.”

  A small part of me envied William. Everything I’d been raised to believe contradicted everything William was raised to embrace, which was everything I’d wished for in my own life, a simple life of love and happiness.

  Mama’s only concerns were our image as the perfect family and how we appeared to her social coterie. She believed people should have magnificent manors, own luxurious possessions, wear high-priced clothes and jewelry, and host lavish parties. In Mama’s mind, people should have arranged courtships and costly weddings. Yet, all that mattered to William’s parents was a simple and genuine life lived surrounded by a loving family. I craved a life like that.

  “How long have you lived near Montgomery?” I asked.

  “My whole life.”

  “Why haven’t I seen you before now?”

  “Don’t know, but I’ve seen you, quite a few times, actually, around town. I was thirteen the first time I saw you. It’d been one of my first travels into town with my father. You walked out of the dress shop with your mother across the street from where we were standing. I remember you looked sad, but angry at the same time, not taking your eyes off the cobble ground and stomping your feet a little.”

  “And what were your thoughts while you brazenly watched a young girl from a distance?”

  “I questioned how one could be so utterly oblivious to the world around her,” he laughed as I playfully slapped his arm.

  “Did you ever think that one day we would be here, together?”

  “No, I didn’t. I didn’t think we would ever meet until the afternoon we ran into each other.” He brushed my arm with his soft fingertips, and chills ran down my spine.
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  Why did he have to be so alluring?

  I reached for another piece of bread to distract myself, but froze when hounds suddenly bellowed in the distance. The only reason hounds would be out in the middle of the night is if they were tracking escaped slaves. I thought of Peter’s letter tucked away in my drawer and tried to remember the date etched on the paper. It wasn’t tonight. It couldn’t be. I’d looked at the date a hundred times. Besides, he didn’t have any money. He couldn’t have stolen them tonight, and if he did without money he was crazy foolish.

  “Alexan—”

  “Shh.” I placed my finger to my lip. The hounds sounded close, close enough for me to help. “William, I have to leave.”

  “Leave? Where are you going?”

  I ran into the trees, and William followed, chasing me until he could grab my arm. I clutched his hand, and peeled his fingers from my skin. “I know you don’t understand, William, but I have to find the slaves those hounds are tracking. Peter might be with them. I have to find them, and help Peter get them to Clive’s house where they’ll be safe.”

  “Are you talking about Clive Benson?” he asked.

  “I’ll explain everything to you later, I promise.” I turned to run, and he grabbed my arm again.

  “You think I’m just going to let you to run off into the dark by yourself?”

  “William, let go of me.”

  “Alexandra, I’m coming with you.”

  “No,” I shouted. “I won’t let you risk yourself.”

  “I’m going with you,” he insisted. His expression and tone told me he wasn’t about to be deterred.

  The thick trees obstructed the moonlight, and without lanterns, my vision was greatly impaired. William led me through the brush and trees, his senses far better than I could ever dream mine would be. Growing closer and closer to the bellowing howls, we slowed our pace, and kept our attention on our surroundings, searching for any sign of movement. We changed direction a few times before William stopped and knelt beside a fallen tree. I knelt beside him and squinted in the darkness. Suddenly a woman ran past us, several feet from where we hid, followed closely by two large animals.

  “Get away from me,” the woman screamed at the hounds nipping at her heels. The fear in her voice made the hair on my neck stand up and chills run down my spine. Within seconds, she screamed again as they grabbed a hold of her ripped clothing and drove her into the ground. I lunged forward to help her, but William grabbed me and pinned me to the ground next to the log.

  “Don’t move,” he whispered.

  “Let me—”

  I struggled with him as he covered my mouth with his hand. Another set of footsteps ran past us and a gun fired, evoking horrifying, unimaginable fear. Face to face, I trembled under William’s weight—his body lay on top of mine with his arms wrapped around me.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he whispered.

  I closed my eyes and squeezed his body tight. To say I wasn’t scared would be a lie. I was scared, scared to death. In all my slave runs, I’d never been so close to capture or so close to seeing the end of a gun barrel.

  “No, please ma’ser, please,” the slave woman begged in horror.

  “Wasted piece of trash,” the man shouted, and shot the gun once more. The gunshot echoed through my ears, rattling my brain. I flinched, and dug my nails into William’s skin. He pressed his body into mine, shoving us closer to the log. “Make me chase you all over the forest,” the man with the gun continued. His voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t see his face in my mind. “I don’t care what my father says. You can lay there and bleed to death for all I care.”

  I heard the woman gasping. His shot hadn’t killed her. Feet from where we hid lay a woman writhing in pain and facing death.

  “Don’t move an inch,” William whispered. Suddenly the cold, wet nose of a scent hound pressed against my arm. I froze, held my breath and scrunched my eyes tight, fighting the urge to jerk my arm away from the hound. The animal sniffed around William and me. The more I tried to hold my breath, the more my lungs gasped for it. Slowly, I buried my face into William’s neck.

  Please, God. Please.

  Our scent was not the scent he was chasing, so he had no real interest in us and the dog finally vanished. I trembled as I lay in the dirt. William’s hand reached up and clutched the back of my head. How he was maintaining a steady breath, I didn’t know. My heart was racing, and I couldn’t stop shaking, no matter how hard I tried to make myself. William slowly drew a branch over our heads, and moments later, footsteps jogged past us, disappearing in the distance.

  “Wait,” William whispered. “The man’s not out of my line of sight yet.”

  Seconds seemed like hours as I lay underneath him. The slave woman sobbed and screamed in pain on the other side of the log, each of her screams stabbed my ears. William finally rose and released me, and I ran to her side. Still alive, but with only minutes left, she gasped for air.

  “Everything’s going to be all right,” I said, kneeling down beside her. “I won’t hurt you, I promise.”

  Crying and gasping, she clawed at me with dirt stained hands. The only comfort I could give was to cradle her and stroke her forehead. He body jerked and the blood stains on her clothing grew with every second. Gazing upon her face, I recognized her from the slave block just a few days ago. She had been huddled with the group on the platform sobbing because she couldn’t comfort her son, the son I later took from Mr. Cole.

  “You’re Jackson’s mother,” I said, loathing my own words.

  Why did she have to be Jackson’s mother?

  Her eyes widened. She tried to speak, but her own blood began strangling her. She only had minutes left, if not seconds.

  “He’s safe. Know that he’s safe. He’s fed and clothed and he will never see the end of a whip, I promise you. He’s loved and will grow up to become a fine man.”

  I don’t know how much of my words she heard. Tears dripped from my nose as I stuttered through each syllable. No one should have to watch another person suffer in pain.

  She tried to speak again, but her lungs were filling with blood. She grabbed my hands, shaking with pure fear. She faced a horror I couldn’t imagine.

  “You’re safe now. You’re safe now.” I repeated my words, rocking on my knees with her head in my lap until she was gone.

  I slid from underneath her body, and gently rested her head on the ground. I rose to my feet and stumbled to the nearest tree, mourning the loss of a woman I couldn’t save. My lungs screamed, unable to breathe through my sobs. I should’ve watched who bought her that day. I should’ve known where she lived, stolen her, and sent her with her son to Tennessee. Taking him from Mr. Cole that day had been wrong. I had been wrong. I hadn’t thought clearly, hadn’t thought at all. How could I have been so foolish? Why did I not save her?

  “Explain, Alexandra,” William demanded, crossing his arms. “Explain why you just risked your life to watch a woman die in your arms.”

  Here I stood, in the middle of the forest, covered in blood, and lacking any energy to speak. I bit my tongue, shook my head, and turned away from him, burying my face into the bark of a nearby tree. I had nothing to say to him, nothing at all.

  “Alexandra, I know who Clive Benson is, and I know what he does for Peter O’Brien,” he paused for a moment. “Look at me when I’m speaking to you, please.” I faced him, but couldn’t look into his eyes. Wiping the tears from my face, dirt scraped my skin, sticking to the sweat mixed with blood. The smell made me gag.

  William continued, his tone fiercely disapproving. “He uses our land, or he has in the past, running stolen slaves through the forest in the middle of the night. He’s a lawbreaker, constantly putting my family at risk for having knowledge of his actions. If word got out around town that we
know, and have done or said nothing, people would hold us just as accountable as Clive and Peter. You’re just another lawbreaker like them. You’re a slave smuggler.” His words were an accusation, not a question.

  “William, please don’t be angry with me.”

  “Do you know the ramifications of your actions? Do you know the punishment for your treason?”

  “Yes, William, I know exactly the crime I’m committing, and the punishment I would receive if caught. Don’t, for one second, believe that I don’t know the ramifications of my actions.”

  “Do you even know what could have happened tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t believe you do, Alexandra. You didn’t know what you would find. You could’ve come across criminals. That man could’ve seen us, or worse, shot you or me. Do you know the predicament you have put me in?”

  He buried his face in his hands.

  “William, I’m sorry. I know I acted thoughtlessly. But I didn’t ask you to come.”

  “And I was just supposed to let you run off in the darkness, in the middle of the night, without question or concern?”

  “Yes,” I shouted.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but paused for a few seconds. “Knowing you didn’t want my help, and knowing that you planned to leave me in the middle of a meadow without a reason why, does nothing for my confidence in you.” His expression broke my heart. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I’ve never told anyone.”

  “Am I simply anyone to you?”

  “No.”

  “Alexandra, I won't be just another person in your life that you to lie to, and if you have chosen to regard me as such, then tonight will be the last you see of me.”

  “I didn’t mean to lie to you or to keep this from you, but I would hope you would understand my precarious dilemma. I shouldn’t tell anyone because if word spread, I would be caught.”