Dreams of Savannah

by Roseanna M. White

  But logic said General Robert E. Lee was right. Savannah was a lost cause. There was no hope of insulating it from the fleet off the Georgian coast, no matter how many stones they dumped in the river to try to keep the Yankees out. All they’d accomplish would be keeping themselves in.

  Yet his heart cried that they ought to fight for her anyway. Fight for home, fight for family. Fight for what was theirs. Fight for the chance to make her worth fighting for again.

  His leg throbbed at the very thought.

  Luther cleared his throat and motioned toward the docks, where a familiar schooner had found a home. Phin turned his horse that direction and scanned the crowd for Father. He didn’t see him at first, but he did see a blond head that immediately set his nerves on edge. Julius James? What was he doing here?

  Or maybe it wasn’t him. In the next shift of the crowd, Phin lost sight of the figure he’d thought he’d spotted. He was probably just starting at shadows. Shaking it off, he turned back toward their small boat and finally saw his father supervising the loading of a wagon. “Father!”

  “Phin?” Father turned, frowned. “You didn’t need to brave this madness to greet me today.”

  “Mother was worried.” In days of old, Phin would have swung down and helped with the transfer of crates and bags. But dismounting was trial enough without swarms of people nearby to trip him up. “I’ve been coming all week to see if you’d made it back. We heard the Yankees have taken all the coastal islands.”

  The frown deepened on Father’s forehead. He slid one last package into the saddlebag of the horse tethered to the rear of the wagon and vaulted onto its back. “It’s true. Big Tybee was overrun. Not our plantation yet, but it’s only a matter of time. I left the place in Caesar’s care. He swore they would see to the planting and harvesting as always, but we shall see. I won’t be able to risk another run to the island, hence why I brought all the valuables with me.”

  Phin’s jaw clenched at the pile of parcels. It had been nearly a year since he’d last stepped foot on the plantation. What had Father brought? The silver, certainly. Perhaps some of the family paintings. Whatever gold may have been stored there, and the crystal. But he wouldn’t have been able to bring the enormous magnolia Phin had played under as a boy. The beaches he and River had raced along, shouting with laughter as only boys can do. Or the hidey-hole between rooms that had been his pirate lair.

  “You’ll find that all your friends are sending their treasures away from Savannah too,” Phin said, “and most are sending themselves as well.”

  Father picked up his reins. “They’re leaving? Who?”

  “Everyone.”

  “The Owenses?”

  Phin’s mouth quirked up. “Almost everyone. Owens still won’t budge, though Delia said he’s sending their valuables away. Lacy is, of course, already with their older sister at the Worth plantation, and Owens has been begging Delia and her mother to join them. I believe the Youngs are still here, given Delia’s written tirade about the evil sorceress who refused to relinquish the city from her black spell.”

  Father breathed a laugh and pressed his heels to his horse’s flanks. “Quite the young lady you have, that’s for certain.”

  “There’s no one in the world quite like her.” If only he could see her for more than a stolen minute here or there. Letters were better than nothing, but he wanted to hold her. Hear her tell one of her stories with all the inflection and drama she always included. See the gleam in her emerald eyes when she looked at him. With a sigh, Phin guided his horse even with his father’s. The crowds, thankfully, were shifting toward the other end of the docks, no doubt where the Fingal was moored. “I don’t know how she can keep it up. The letter I received this morning had a complete fairy tale in it that she’d come up with. While I just look at the world and see nothing but a tragedy.”

  Father sent him a knowing grin. “And that’s why you suit so well. You need that sunshine, Phin. Frankly, we could all use a good dose of it. We need happy stories in the midst of trials. They keep us going. Remind us of what we’re struggling for.”

  “I know.” It was part of the reason he ripped each letter open as if it were water and he was stranded on that Cuban beach again. “I just wish they could last. But it seems like happy endings aren’t real. They’re just moments isolated in time. After one crisis, before the next comes.”

  “Quite right.” Yet Father sounded at peace as he said it. “They are pauses we all need. Those moments of beauty we can look back on, take strength from, when we’re in the valley of shadows again.” He sent a piercing gaze Phin’s way, the very same he’d been spearing him with since he was a boy. “Those stories of hers are all that got your mother and sister through the worry this summer.”

  “Really?”

  Father led them down a quiet alley. “When Beau let us know you were missing, I think we all knew it wasn’t a matter of being a day or two behind. We all knew something had gone wrong. And we all would have given you up for lost if your Delia hadn’t kept hope alive in us. I was rarely present to hear her stories firsthand, of course, but the ladies would retell them to me in the evenings. Stories of how you could overcome anything, anyone, and make your way home.”

  His father might as well have thrust a sword into him and twisted. “I’m no hero. The fact that she believes I am—”

  “Son, no one expected you to wrestle alligators or charm savages. No one really thought you were single-handedly saving a marooned crew.” Father smiled again. “But she made the impossible seem worthy of hope. And here you are.”

  “Through no skill of mine.” For one moment—one single moment—he let his eyes slide shut. “I should have been dead, Father. The bullet should have killed me, I should have bled out. The water should have drowned me. Infection should have set in, gangrene should have eaten me up. A million things were against me, and there’s no good reason for me to have survived, except through the prayers of the faithful.”

  “Prayers the faithful wouldn’t have offered up if we thought you dead. That young lady—her faith kept ours alive. And Owens or no Owens, you need to get her down the aisle.”

  “I mean to. And . . .” He dragged in a deep breath and then heaved it out again. “And I’m terrified to. What if I disillusion her? I’m not a hero. And this world—it’s falling to pieces. I don’t want to be the thing that tarnishes it all for her. But if she can’t even see the bad now, with all of this . . .”

  “Not see it?” Eyes wide, Father shook his head. “You think she could have come up with the stories she did if she thought nothing bad possible? You think she integrated the worst of her imaginings into her stories for us? I suspect not. I suspect her dreams were filled with fears much worse than she ever put to paper.”

  “What good will that do me if your ship is blown to bits by cannonballs? Or capsized in a hurricane? Or attacked by a giant squid? Or . . . or eaten by a whale?”

  Phin rubbed his eyes and drew in a long breath. With that imagination, Father was no doubt right. She could devise the impossible, and not just in the direction of lovely things. But the terrible too. “Giant squid.” He shook his head.

  “Pardon?”

  “Nothing. Just . . . you’re right. She would have feared the worst. And not just the reasonable worst, but the far-fetched worst. And if she did it then, no doubt she’s still doing it now. It’s not that she doesn’t see the tragedy—she just chooses which stories to tell.”

  Father nodded, sure and decisive. They turned again, and the bustle of the port behind them faded. “The question, then, is how to move forward. Owens is set against you, and I’m not sure how to change that. But I know this—no success, be it in marriage or war or life in general, comes without a cost. If you want her for your wife, you’re going to have to fight for her.”

  And she would be worth the fight. Phin cast a glance at the city, the only place he’d ever thought of as home. A place with flaws, with blinders, with a dichotomy that could very well
feed its destruction. A place the Confederacy seemed determined to abandon. Delia was worth it . . . and their home was too. The question was whether he had a prayer of winning her before Savannah came down around them.

  DECEMBER 3, 1861

  Luther plodded down the sand-packed street of Currytown, yearning for cobblestones. The familiar sound of Cockney voices shouting. London fog. They’d had a few blessedly cooler days . . . but only a few. Here they were, into December, and most days it still reached seventy degrees. It just wasn’t right.

  But the weather was the least of his concerns. Lord, I am running rather short on hope just now. Their last lead on Eva had run dry, and he honestly didn’t know where else to turn. Phineas had been asking every family he could find whether they’d recently purchased a woman matching her description, but most of the families wealthy enough to own a houseslave had left the city. And among those remaining, all he’d received in response lately were doors slammed in his face. And increasing rumors that his intentions were less than honorable.

  The boardinghouse that Luther had been calling home for the last two months loomed ahead, all dry, cracking wood just waiting for the next stray spark to set it ablaze. Every night when Luther laid his head on the miserable pallet on the floor, he prayed he’d wake up with a house around him in the morning. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d dreamt himself home in Stoke Newington, his tidy townhouse around him, his Eva asleep beside him.

  He couldn’t count the number of times he’d awakened and wondered if it would ever be more than a dream again.

  Turning in through the narrow front entrance, he climbed swiftly up the rickety stairs and aimed for the door to the small flat he shared with River and two other slaves—Jeremiah and Tim-Tom, brothers who were both in their midtwenties. Low voices sounded within, so he assumed one or both were there, keeping company with River, whom Phineas had sent home an hour ago.

  But when he pushed open the door, it wasn’t either of the brothers inside with River. No, it was rather a young man who looked remarkably like him. And whose lips went silent the moment Luther ducked through the door.

  River greeted Luther with a smile and motioned to the stranger. “Rock, this be Monty, the one I tol’ you bout. Monty, this be my brother, Rock.”

  Luther opened his mouth but then shut it again. River’s brother, yes. But did that mean he could trust him enough to speak? Usually here in the flat he didn’t dare. Tim-Tom and Jeremiah were pleasant enough, but he didn’t know them. Any conversations he held with River were hushed and in complete privacy.

  But River chuckled. “I already tol’ him a bit. You can talk. He won’t say nothin to nobody.”

  Irritation sparked, fanned, burst over him for a few seconds. Who was River to decide who knew Luther’s secrets?

  Then he actually looked at Rock, met his gaze, saw the serious smile on his lips. “I got me secrets as big as your’n, Reverend. Mebbe bigger.”

  Reverend. It had been too long since anyone but Phineas had called him that. Careful to shut the door tightly behind him, Luther joined the brothers. And kept his voice at a bare murmur. “Bigger?”

  Rock swallowed and darted a glance at River. “Came here to get a bit a help with it. The Dunns, they hire me out. I been a pilot these ten years, helpin folk navigate the tricky waters round the islands.”

  Luther sucked in a breath. He’d been overhearing more and more whispers about good pilots in recent weeks. From the slaves, who spoke of them in reverent tones as the only possible saviors for those who wished to flee to the islands and the Yankees on them. From the masters, who spoke of them with dread for the selfsame reason and cursed themselves for “allowing Negroes to ever learn a skill so dangerous to their masters.”

  But neither Phineas nor his father had ever mentioned to anyone that one of their slaves was counted among the number. “Interesting.”

  “He be the best too,” River put in, a proud lift to his chin. “Only way Mass Sidney could get back from Tybee last month.”

  Rock ducked his head. “Riskier far getting back to Tybee.”

  “Wouldn’ta been, if you didn’t have impo’tant cargo.” He said no more. Just shot Luther a look that said he ought to know what that cargo was.

  And so he did. He pulled out one of the roughhewn chairs at the small table and eased himself down on it. “That is risky business.”

  “Worth it though.” Rock leaned forward, tapping a fingertip to the table. “And I have safety in the very thing I’s doin. Kin’t navigate the river nor the islands without a pilot, so the white folks kin’t come after us. But if you help here, River . . . ain’t no such safety.”

  “Help?” Brows flying up, Luther looked to River. “Help how?”

  “Gittin folks to where he be.”

  Helping would-be runaways become actual runaways. Luther let his breath ease out from between his teeth. He admired the young man for taking the risk. And yet . . . the risk was greater for him than for others. “River. You know well Lieutenant James has been watching the entire Dunn household like a hawk, just waiting to catch someone in a misstep.”

  “He ain’t gwine catch me.” River’s eyes looked as hard as his brother’s name. “You got yo callin, Reverend. I got mine.”

  And Luther wasn’t about to argue with him about it. But now he had someone here who could answer a few of the questions he’d been having as he heard about the scores of slaves fleeing for the islands. He looked to Rock. “What do they do once there? Is it a stopping place or a destination?”

  “Depends. Some move on. Most stayin, though, right now. It’s safe, and still familiar.”

  That familiar was what Luther had been thinking about. “And what are their goals for after the war? Assuming the best, that they’re granted freedom? What then? What do they hope to do, other than what they’ve always done?”

  Rock frowned at him. “Don’t rightly know if dey’ve all thought dat far.”

  And how could they? When someone had been trapped for his entire life, held down and kept deliberately ignorant of anything that could help him dig his way to a better existence . . . “In London, I ministered to many former slaves from the Americas. But it didn’t take us long to learn that it wasn’t enough to preach to them. We had to equip them for something more. Teach them to read, to write, if they didn’t know how already. Give them the schooling they’d been denied. Is there anyone on the islands doing the same?”

  For some reason, this just inspired Rock to lean back in his chair, cross his arms over his chest, and smirk at River.

  River sighed. “Stop lookin at me like dat.”

  “You the only one I know who can read, River.”

  “I know how—don’t mean I know how to teach it.”

  Luther’s brows shot up again. “Phineas taught you?” He knew his young charge had changed during his convalescence . . . but was it possible he’d started at a better place than Luther had given him credit for? He’d just assumed he believed fully in the doctrines espoused by his culture: that a black man or woman shouldn’t be taught such skills, and should be kept removed from any job where they could pick them up.

  But River chuckled. “Taught me every lesson his tutors taught him till he gone off to college. Though I admit, I’d druther be outside playin than larnin letters and numbers.”

  It seemed Luther may owe Phineas a bit of an apology. “It’s crucial that they be given schooling, whether at River’s hand or someone else’s.”

  River deflected the look his brother sent his way with a roll of his eyes. “If’n the time comes when I have to leave here, we talk den bout it. But right now, I ain’t leavin Savannah. I can do good work here.”

  Rock snorted a laugh. “It ain’t just the work, and don’t you be sayin it is. It’s that ooman you been talkin bout.”

  Luther smiled at that. River had been seeing quite a bit more of Salina than Phineas had been of Miss Owens, thanks to River’s continued guarding of Miss Dunn. Given his own situati
on, Luther could hardly blame him for postponing a possible calling to focus on the one that kept him near her. Even so, it was critical that the runaways be given the opportunity to learn. Otherwise they’d find their freedom not nearly as full as it should be. Education, his father had always said, was the wings they were given with which to fly.

  He looked from one brother to the other. “If there’s anything at all I can do to help either of you, know that I’ll do it.”

  When Rock looked at him, he had the strange sensation the bloke was seeing right past the words and down to the one thing he wasn’t willing to do just yet. “I hope you mean dat, Reverend. Cause there be plenty.”

  Here. There was plenty here, in Savannah. And that was the plenty he meant to focus on until Eva was safely back at his side.

  CHRISTMAS 1861

  Cordelia stared down at the page before her, not seeing the familiar scrawl of her own writing or the words she’d just penned. Usually when she finished a story, a burst of satisfaction filled her—or of dissatisfaction, if she knew it still needed a lot of work. This time, she was altogether uncertain whether her imaginings about one of the shepherds who saw the Christ child on the night of his birth were worth the telling or should be tossed into the fire behind the grate.

  Would this story make anyone rethink the arrival of their Savior? Their way of approaching Him? Would it change anyone? Did it have to?

  With a sigh, she picked up her pen again and wrote a quick Fin at the end. She had no way of knowing whether it would resonate with anyone when she read it to them after dinner. But it was finished, regardless.

  Her gaze darted to the bottom drawer of her secretaire. Under the stack of other stories and letters from her sisters rested a collection she’d have liked to protect with lock and key, if she didn’t know that something like that would only garner her mother’s interest. A stack growing by the day—the collection of stories she’d been writing down from the servants.

  Old Moses. Fiona, his wife. Fanny, the cook. Martha, Mama’s maid. Each had claimed, when she approached them, that they didn’t have a tale worth the time it would take to tell it. And at first, no one would tell her anything beyond the stories of her own family, which she already knew.