Crossing Ebenezer Creek Read online

Mariah had a dress on, was reaching for her shoes. “Dulcina! She’s gone!”

  “Good Lord!” Chloe gasped.

  When Mariah saw Chloe moving to get dressed, she said, “No, you stay here! Mind Zeke.”

  “Zoe can do that.” Chloe stirred her sister. “You can’t be going about on your own.”

  “I’ll get Mordecai.”

  “Three heads are better than two.”

  If only she hadn’t slept so hard, Mariah chided herself as they searched for five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen, around a host of other campsites, in the woods, near a stream.

  In the predawn light they finally found her in the brambles, up on a knoll near a copse of loblolly trees.

  Neck broken. Dress, torn in places, up about her waist. A Union blue cap stuffed in her mouth. Cold eyes stared into gone tomorrows. Before heading back with the grim news, Mariah pulled down Dulcina’s dress. Chloe closed her eyes.

  Mariah was hollowed out, couldn’t cry.

  Digging the shallow grave.

  Caleb making a cross from a fence rail.

  Mordecai saying a few words, then leading them in prayer.

  Still Mariah didn’t cry.

  When she looked up from prayer, she saw Captain Galloway approaching.

  “I will launch an investigation,” he said, his face so solemn.

  “Thank you, sir,” said Mariah. Still she had not cried.

  Back at their campsite, Mariah declined the bit of breakfast Hagar and Rachel had put together for them. No taste even for a cup of coffee.

  What should she tell Zeke, who was sitting in Rachel’s lap nibbling a biscuit.

  If only Caleb didn’t have to ride out. She didn’t just want him. She needed him. But all that morning he hardly said a word to anybody, including her. And why did he look so … it was more than sorrow. It was the same look that came over him when he told her about his sister, Lily, being dead.

  As Mariah watched Caleb head off with Captain Galloway, her mind wound back to that first big meet-up in the quarters when the war began. With Nero out cold from corn liquor, they had gathered in Aunt Minda’s cabin. They whispered what they heard, thought, hoped.

  Aunt Minda, blind and with her joints locked up from rheumatism, just listened, bundled up in her bed.

  After Jack, Josie, Sadie, Esther, Maceo, Upson, Paul, Flora, Reuben, Nate, Mordecai, Jonah, and everybody else had their say, only then did Aunt Minda speak. Whatever she foresaw, they would believe.

  A candle in the middle of the floor flickered.

  “Git ready …,” Aunt Minda said, voice raspy, rattly. “Freedom dawnin’.” She raised a gnarled finger. “Southland will reap a whirlwind.”

  The joy, the hope, people making plans for hiding places if trouble came—sheds, stable, barn—and how to pack up quick if Yankees came their way. Mariah couldn’t remember why she settled on the root cellar, just her worry about Dulcina. How will she know to hide?

  Mariah marched in silence, in a fog most of the day. None of the others had much to say. Only Zeke bore a smile.

  Mariah envied him his cheerfulness. In a way he was blessed. Didn’t know how ugly the world could be, how much evil worked its will even in the days of jubilee. And for him, freedom was a pouch of peppermint sticks.

  No large gathering around a bonfire that night. But when night took over from day, Hosea brought out his banjo. “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” down tempo, start to finish.

  Mariah was glad that Caleb didn’t make himself scarce that night, but it bothered her that he was so distant. He had pitched his tent close to the one she now shared with just Zeke and the Doubles, but he didn’t sup with them. Said he wasn’t hungry.

  “May we all sleep like Zeke tonight,” said Chloe, taking a whiff of what she called nerve tea.

  Like always, Mariah had tucked Zeke in early.

  “Cups up.” Chloe raised the dented coffee pot from the fire, began to pour into Mordecai’s cup, her sister’s, Mariah’s.

  Mariah tasted lemon balm and lavender.

  Chloe handed her another cup. “Caleb could use some, I’m sure.”

  The tea was a brace against a howling wind. But Caleb was so silent, time so still.

  Mariah tried to come up with light talk. “Is a brigade in a regiment or is it the other way around?” she was about to ask but didn’t. She knew the answer, and Caleb knew she knew.

  Why is he taking Dulcina’s death so hard?

  When Mariah saw his fire getting low, she rose. “I’ll get you some pine knots.”

  “Never mind,” he said. “Turning in soon.”

  She so badly wanted to be with him, to hug him, for him to hold her. And how badly she wanted to soon be someplace safe. Safe from Rebels, Yankees, safe from another wound.

  “How much longer, you reckon?” she asked.

  “The march?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “A matter of days.”

  “The somewhere place still a secret?”

  For the first time Caleb looked up. He shook his head. “No longer a secret.”

  Mariah waited, worried about Caleb getting back inside himself, shutting her out.

  “Caleb?” She rubbed his arm. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  When eyes met eyes, Mariah held on for dear life. She saw a change come over him. She continued to stare into his eyes, continued to rub his arm. “So tell me, Caleb, where is the somewhere place?”

  Caleb almost smiled. “Savannah.”

  “Savannah?” All Mariah knew was that Savannah was a city by the sea. “Do you know what Savannah’s like?”

  “Fine city, I hear,” said Caleb. “Palm trees and parks, fountains, statues. Laid out orderly, in twenty-four squares. Mansions in peach and other soft colors, with porticoes, balconies. The ironwork—fences, gates, stairways, railings—some of the most magnificent in the world, they say.”

  Mariah knew that Caleb was coming into a better mood. He was talking whole cloth. She was overjoyed as Caleb talked on about having people there. “Well, before the war they were still there. A cousin named Isaac is a carpenter. His wife, Jane, has been running a secret school for our people for years.”

  “They free?”

  Caleb nodded. “Quite a few in Savannah. Some you might even call prosperous.”

  Mariah couldn’t wait! And she was so glad for some good news.

  Savannah.

  Sounded restful, easy, brought to mind a sweet breeze.

  Mariah smiled at the sound of Savannah.

  NO LONGER WITH US

  Caleb was hard pressed to take up his diary after Mariah left his tent. He lingered on the long look into her eyes. Her hand on his arm. The joy that came over her as he talked about Savannah. But as the minutes passed he could feel himself growing grim again.

  The more I write now, the less I’ll have to write later, he told himself. He reached for his diary, his pencil, and wrote, “Sun., Dec. 4th, 1864” at the upper right-hand corner of the page. He started with terrain.

  “Sandier by the day. More clogged roads, burned bridges, thick woods. We are deep into the river-road region, mad tangle of swamps and creeks, large and small. Not many shallow. Pontoons laid down all hours. If we are not trudging through a swamp, we are up to our ankles in sand. Foraging thin. Fewer farms. We return with very little. A few sacks of sweet potatoes, a pig or 2, some chickens. Rice the only thing in abundance.”

  Rice and more danger.

  “Reports of more than 50 deaths in Gen. Kil’s cavalry in the Waynesboro battle. Rebels lost about 5 times more.”

  Caleb thought about the danger Mariah and other colored women on the march faced—from the men who were obliged to protect their freedom. Even though her tent was not that far away from his, Caleb had insisted on walking her to it when she decided to turn in.

  Now, about an hour later, he stared at his lantern candle. For more than a minute. More than five. It was going on fifteen when Caleb felt ready to record the incident th
at had him all torn up.

  “Dulcina is no longer with us. Same as happened to Lily. When M. came to my tent tonight I started to tell her about Lily, tell her everything, but stayed clamped up. Talked about Savannah instead. Camped near a bend in the Ogeechee River.”

  DEAR LORD!

  “Miss Chloe! Need your services!”

  Mariah was sitting on a weather-beaten green cartridge crate patching a pair of Zeke’s britches when Caleb called out.

  Wagon load on the light side. Only a few sacks. Rice, she guessed.

  And a body under a blanket.

  What now?

  Mariah saw Chloe roll her eyes, take a deep breath. So worn out. Mariah had spotted her trying to rub away a hitch in her hip now and then as they tended to Rachel’s awful cough, prepared a compress for Hosea’s back, set a soldier’s broken arm. She knew Chloe had been in quite a bit of pain all day. That’s why, though she herself had been feeling feverish since midday, Mariah had insisted on gathering the birch bark and leaves for a brew to treat two other soldiers suffering from the flux.

  Chloe rose from the white pine crate across from Mariah. “Where’s the saddlebag?” She patted her right hip.

  “I’ll get it,” said Mariah.

  She hoped it wasn’t another man with a shotgun wound to the head or some part of him cut off. They had found more than a few like that. Left for dead, and Chloe unable to save them. Mariah could only speculate that the men, in one case a boy with an iron collar around his neck, had been chased down by their owners or random Rebels bound and determined to keep them from freedom.

  “Found him a mile or so back,” Mariah heard Caleb say as she emerged from the tent and Chloe reached the wagon. “Seems the worst of it is his—”

  “Dear Lord!” Chloe gasped, stepped back.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Mariah. She picked up her pace, saddlebag slung over her shoulder.

  Zeke scrambled up. “Mariah! Mariah!”

  Mariah shooed him back. “Miss Zoe, take hold of him, please.”

  When Mariah reached the wagon, like Chloe, she gasped, and like Chloe, she stepped back.

  CRY MERCY?

  “What is it?” asked Caleb.

  By then Mordecai was beside the wagon. Hagar too.

  “What is it?” Caleb asked again. Mariah looked like she’d seen a ghost.

  “Nero,” Mordecai spat. “Mariah’s no doubt told you about Nero.”

  “But who is he, this Nero?” asked Hagar.

  “Was our driver.” Mariah was trembling.

  Caleb moved to her side and put an arm around her, then watched Hagar broadcast the news.

  A crowd formed soon. The stamp of feet began.

  “Driver! Driver! Driver!”

  “String him up!” somebody shouted.

  “You ain’t gon’ see to him, are you?” Hagar asked Chloe.

  Caleb could see Chloe was in a dilemma, knew she was the type who couldn’t turn her back on a dog. “Zoe,” she yelled, “boil water!”

  Caleb lifted the saddlebag from Mariah’s shoulder, handed it to Chloe, watched her with a rag, clearing blood from around the side of Nero’s face, taking stock of the wound. He had a shoulder out of joint. A busted-up ankle too.

  Mariah, arms at her sides, fists clenched, was frozen.

  “How bad was he?” Hosea asked Mordecai.

  Mordecai rubbed his chin, shook his head.

  “The way Mariah look,” said Hagar, “seems he done her a heap of harm.” Hagar reached down, picked up a rock, held it out to Mariah. “Only right for you to cast the first stone.”

  Others reached for stones.

  “Now, people!” Caleb cried out. “Let’s all just calm down!” He scanned the crowd. Most in it hadn’t been able to look him in the eye since they almost lynched him. Especially Hagar. “The other day,” Caleb continued, “y’all came close to—”

  “But we know for a fact this here man really was a driver!” someone shouted.

  And none of them knew the half of it. Caleb imagined what was going through Mariah’s mind. Reliving her father’s last words—Love you, daughter—with the water at his chin. Remembering her mother’s bloody back. Part of Caleb wished to God that he’d never come across the fiend in a ravine, never got him to come around, never practically carried him to the wagon. Part of Caleb wanted to beat the man’s brains out.

  “Help me!” mumbled Nero.

  Mariah still hadn’t moved a muscle. She only stared at Nero. Her sharp, dark eyes like knives.

  Tears ran down Nero’s face. “Mercy,” he pleaded. “Mercy.”

  Mariah snapped out of her trance. “Mercy?” she shouted. “Mercy? You got the nerve to cry mercy?”

  Snot dripped onto Nero’s lips. “Don’t let ’em do me in,” he wept. “Please, Mariah. ’Member all them times I coulda, coulda had you … lashed?”

  “I remember, Nero. I remember everything you did.” Mariah pulled out her jackknife, lunged forward.

  “No!” Caleb grabbed her, took the knife from her hand.

  The crowd pressed closer in.

  “You can’t hold us all back, Caleb!” Hagar called out. “We act on Mariah’s say.”

  “What all did he do?” needled Hagar. “Fifty stripes for every wrong!”

  “You’d be whippin’ till kingdom come,” said Mariah.

  “Jus’ say the word, Mariah,” Hagar intoned. “Jus’ say the word!”

  Caleb couldn’t bear the sight of Mariah. What he saw on her face was beyond agony and rage.

  She was hosting evil.

  POWER

  Days, weeks, months, years of misery, of terror. Days, weeks, months, years of doing other people’s bidding. Days, weeks, months, years of being bypassed by mercy.

  All those tears and lamentations.

  For the first time in her life Mariah had power. She didn’t have to contain her rage, stifle her will. For once in her life, she could do more than weep and pray.

  “Look at me!” she yelled at Nero.

  Nero obeyed.

  Mariah relished the sight of his tear- and slobber-stained face, of his battered body. She could smell his fear and savored that.

  Nero lifted a hand. It shook like he had the palsy. He raised an index finger, seeking permission to speak.

  Mariah nodded.

  “I done you some good turns.” He swallowed. “That night—the dungeon. Drug you away when I seen he already … spare you the sight of that.”

  “Spare me? You wretched, filthy—”

  Two questions asked but never answered. Everyone on the Chaney place, the Doubles—all had pleaded ignorance, turned her mind to something else when she raised her suspicion that Nero was at the root of it all.

  “Nero,” Mariah said slowly. “Gonna ask you some things. You tell me the truth or I’ll loose these people on you.”

  Nero nodded.

  “What did my pa do to get the dungeon? And was it you who told Callie Chaney my ma was a conjure woman?”

  Nero swallowed.

  “The truth, Nero. The God’s honest truth.”

  “I loved your mama, Mariah.” Nero sighed. “After Joe pass and Judge Chaney made me head man, I thought fo’ sure yo’ mama be mine. Tole her as wife of a driver she get three dresses a year and eat mo’ better.”

  “None of this answers my questions, Nero.” The idea of her mother and Nero made Mariah sick to her stomach.

  “Then yo’ pa was brought to the Chaney place …”

  “The dungeon, Nero?”

  Tears streamed down his face. “I, I tole Judge Chaney he broke tools on purpose an’ disrespec’ me.”

  Mariah’s hate grew hungrier by the second.

  “Jus’ to punish him some fo’ my pain … Didn’t know a storm was comin’.”

  All over again, Mariah saw herself bailing water as fast as she could.

  “And did you tell Miss Callie my ma put a hex on Judge Chaney?”

  “Wasn’t me, I swear.”

  �
��But you’re a liar, Nero. Everybody knows that.” Mariah thought she now knew what it felt like to be a general. She was in charge, in command. Hagar and the others were her troops.

  “I swear, Mariah, it warn’t me,” Nero blubbered. “Back then Miss Callie was makin’ visits to that sayons woman, tryna talk wid Judge Chaney’s spirit. Was sayons woman who tell Miss Callie there be evil in her house.” Nero paused, took a deep breath. “I never say yo’ ma did conjure. I swear to God, Mariah. I swear to God.”

  “What do you know of God?” Mariah yelled. She saw her young self at Miss Callie’s feet, begging for mercy.

  “It warn’t fity,” said Nero. “Times when Miss Callie had eyes on you, tree was all I whip. Didn’t lay on the full fity.”

  The wind, whispers from the crowd, trills of birds, the crackle of campfire—all of it ceased. There was only her and Nero. And her power.

  “But she died, Nero, my mama died!” Each word a gouge, a chisel. “And my—” Mariah struggled not to cry. “My brother was marked for life!”

  “Miss Callie fault!” Nero whimpered. “I only done as tole!”

  Mariah could no longer contain her tears. “But you, Nero, you, you set it all in motion!”

  When Caleb took Mariah in his arms the tears didn’t cease. When he whispered, “Don’t do this—you can’t do this,” she sobbed harder. When Caleb tried to walk her away from the wagon, Mariah stood her ground, jerked free.

  “I can do whatever I want!”

  “Jus’ say the word!” goaded Hagar.

  Savoring her power, Mariah leaned over the wagon, got within inches of Nero’s face. “You hear that, Nero? ‘Jus’ say the word.’ All I need do is say the word, and these folks will do as told. Tear you apart.”

  “Tomorrow.” She faced the crowd. “You’ll have my decision tomorrow.” Mariah wanted Nero to twist in the wind, spend the night in terror.

  MONSTERS

  Caleb followed her. Past her campsite, up an embankment.

  “Mariah!”

  He broke into a run. When he finally reached her, he took her in his arms, stroked her neck, and rubbed her back.

  The more she cried, the tighter he held her.

  “He don’t deserve to live!”