Crossing Ebenezer Creek Read online

  Almost ebony. High cheekbones. Narrow, slanted eyes.

  “Your everything?” the stranger asked.

  The girl nodded.

  He returned to the wagon, rearranged some sacks, stuffed empty ones in a corner of the wagon. He motioned for her and the boy.

  She hesitated. Then, sensing no menace, she led the boy over. If she was going to chance it with anyone, who better than one of her own?

  He planted the boy in the cushioned-up corner of the wagon.

  “You Yank?” the child asked.

  The young man smiled. “No, son, I’m no Yank, but my name’s Caleb.” After a pause, he asked, “And you?”

  The boy stared at the air.

  “Name’s Zeke,” said the girl, then added, “Me, I’m Mariah.”

  Caleb relieved her of her sling sacks. “Well, Mariah, I’ll need every inch in the wagon. You sit up front.”

  “Not yet. Somebody I gotta find. We got a minute, right?”

  “Got more than one,” Caleb replied.

  Mariah took off, then spun around. “Zeke, you stay put, you hear me?”

  The others could take care of themselves, bound to come out any minute now. But Dulcina, she might not understand what was going on.

  “That’s not a bad-looking filly,” said a soldier as Mariah dashed by, heading for the quarters.

  Running faster, she cupped her hands around her mouth. “Dulcina! Dulcina!” she shouted, hoping to be heard above all the Yankee racket.

  Where to look?

  Mariah ran to Josie’s cabin. “Seen Dulcina?”

  Josie shook her head. “But you go on, Mariah, go on to freedom. I’ll take care of Dulcina as best I can.”

  Mariah raced into the woods, looked this way, that. “Dulcina! Dulcina!” In a small clearing she saw a bit of cloth fluttering behind a red cedar.

  Mariah tiptoed over. “Dulcina? It’s me, Mariah.”

  Dulcina peeked out from behind the tree. Clearly something about the commotion had registered, for the woman clutched a grimy bundle to her chest. Gently, Mariah took her by the hand.

  When Mariah returned to the wagon, she saw that Caleb had it all loaded up. Also that he couldn’t contain his shock at the sight of Dulcina. So used to her, Mariah had forgotten that to a stranger Dulcina looked a fright. Red-rimmed, darting eyes. Hair a witchy-wild, silver-streaked mane. And so scrawny.

  “Texas?” Dulcina’s voice was a scratchy meow. There was so much pleading in her eyes.

  “Texas?” she meowed again.

  Mariah nodded. If telling the poor thing they were bound for Texas would get her into the wagon … “Yes, Dulcina, Texas.”

  But the wagon was full and up front couldn’t hold three. Mariah looked at Caleb. Now her eyes pleaded.

  She watched the frown fall from Caleb’s face, watched him glance around, grab a couple of sacks, step double quick to the root cellar. He took another look around, dropped the sacks into the hole. In under a minute Dulcina was in the wagon, squeezed between a bushel of rutabagas atop a bushel of carrots and sacks of sweet potatoes. Mariah smiled as Zeke brought out a pecan from his pants pocket and handed it to Dulcina.

  When the wagon got going, Mariah’s heart began pounding again in jubilee of escaping the Chaney place—but not yet. They had just moved over to wait. Caleb brought the horses to a halt a stone’s throw away from the Big House.

  Before it two soldiers chewing tobacco were in a lazy lean against a wagon with a helter-skelter of stuff: barrel of whiskey, hogshead of molasses, crates of home-canned peaches and peas, bedding, books, tablecloths, piano stool, chair, small table. Spotting some of her dead master’s clothes, Mariah knew they’d even rambled the attic. She figured Jonah had been their guide when he loped through the front door behind another soldier. This one had a small chest under one arm, brass spittoon under the other. After he added his spoils to the helter-skelter wagon, Mariah watched as brawny, barrel-chested Jonah led the soldier over to the camellia bushes.

  Must be one of the places Miss Callie had him bury silver, Mariah thought just as Jonah smiled at her like she was a sight for sore eyes, then scowled. Mariah read his mind. To ease it, she nodded at Caleb, cupped the fingers on one hand into an O, then rearranged them into a K that quickly collapsed.

  Jonah jerked his head at the camellia bush, winked, tapped his hawk nose. Mariah knew he was signaling something. But what? Before she could signal him to be clear, Jonah dashed back inside the Big House.

  Captain Galloway rode up, eyed the soldiers by the helter-skelter wagon, at the one digging up silver candlesticks, tureens, platters. “No fear of God or man,” he muttered.

  Mariah tensed up when his eyes moved from the camellias to her.

  He smiled.

  She stiffened. No white man’s smile had ever led to anything good. She was relieved when Green Eyes clip-clopped to the other side of the wagon, whispered something to Caleb, who nodded in reply.

  “You Yank?” Zeke piped up.

  Mariah looked back. Zeke was staring so hard—too hard—at the white man. “Hush up, Zeke!” she scolded. To the captain, polite as pie, she said, “He meant no disrespect, sir.”

  “None taken,” replied the captain. Then to Zeke, “Yes, son, I’m a Yankee.”

  “Ma say Yanks gives freedoms!”

  Mariah trembled as she watched Zeke’s eyes scurry over the white man’s pockets then stop. “Where freedoms at?” Again he was looking the captain dead in the face.

  “Zeke!” Mariah snapped, then to Captain Galloway, “He means no rudeness, sir. Slow-witted.” Mariah forgot to breathe.

  “But no less precious in God’s sight,” said Captain Galloway. He reached into his saddlebag, pulled out a pouch, handed it to Zeke. The boy looked inside, beamed. “Look, Ma!” He pulled out two peppermint sticks. “Freedoms!”

  The captain chuckled, Caleb chuckled, Mariah exhaled, and out onto the second-story veranda flew Callie Chaney.

  The woman’s thin white hair was in disarray, like the rest of her. Stumbling around, she looked this way and that. “Y’all git back here!”

  Mariah faced front, clenched fists pressed in her lap, bile at the back of her throat.

  “Mariah!”

  No more. No more.

  “Mariah!”

  No more!

  No more head shoved into a chamber pot. No more slaps, kicks. No more brooch pinpricks to her arms. For taking too long to get a fire blazing. For scorching a tablecloth. For being two feet away when Callie Chaney was in a murderous mood.

  No more!

  No more tongue-lashings taken for Zeke, who left the back door open or tracked in mud. “My fault, Miss Callie,” Mariah always said. “Was me.”

  She wiped her eyes, looked back at Zeke. He was gazing into his bag of peppermint sticks as deeply as Dulcina was staring at her pecan.

  “Mordecai! … Jonah! … Sadie! … Sam! … Esther! Come back here!” Out of the corner of her eye, Mariah saw Callie Chaney walking in turnarounds now. But at least Mariah knew others had packed up for freedom. In such a state of upset, she was too scared to look around and see for sure.

  “Nero!” Callie Chaney called out. “Nero, where you at? Nero, bring the bullwhip!”

  More haunting, hellish memories surged up. Mariah fought back tears. No! she told herself. Only praise God! Only fix your mind on freedom!

  “Mariah! Zeke! Dulcina! Git back here!” Callie Chaney’s voice had some trail off to it now. “Y’all only off to perish! To perish, I say!”

  Mariah looked up, looked around, saw that she was right. Clutching sacks and bundles, others had gathered around the Yankees.

  Then came the sickening sight of a soldier by the helter-skelter wagon mocking Callie Chaney. Sashaying around in a circle, he cried out in a fake falsetto and an exaggerated Southern drawl, “Oh, muh darkies! Where muh darkies? Whatever shall I do without muh darkies! Oh, I do declare!”

  For Mariah, Callie Chaney’s screams were no laughing matter, but h
ammers at her head. Hard as she tried, she couldn’t keep the hounding memories at bay, felt dragged back to that dreadful night when she was twelve and her pa—

  No, daughter, git inside …

  No! Eyes shut tight, Mariah strained to keep her mind on freedom.

  And Callie Chaney kept calling out names.

  Of people long ago sold, hired out, dead.

  Of wily ones who stole off after war broke out.

  Of those taking freedom now.

  “Mariah!” The old woman wouldn’t quit. “I told you … them Yanks? Monsters! Pure devils! You’ll perish, I say. Perish!”

  Mariah was about to burst. May you burn in hell! she screamed within. May you burn in hell!

  A bugle brought silence, stillness. Two long minutes later, Mariah heard Caleb giddyup the horses, felt the wagon jostle and bump.

  This time it didn’t stop after a few yards. It rolled on and on out to Riddleville Road with Mariah yearning for nothing but freedom on her mind.

  BITTER

  Caleb studied Mariah while her eyes were shut tight against the old crone’s shrieks.

  Burn scar on her neck.

  Tiny gash above her left eye.

  He cataloged details that hadn’t registered before. Faded but clean russet head wrap. Black cloak and gray homespun dress patched in places with burlap. Half apron frayed. Beat-up brogans too big for her feet. He imagined the toes stuffed with rags.

  What happened to her man?

  Dead?

  Sold?

  Did he escape—leaving her and the boy behind?

  Seeing Mariah in such a terrible state while they waited to move out cut Caleb to the quick. But he didn’t think she’d break. If she had held up this long …

  Mariah. Strong, proud-sounding name. But then he remembered that passage in Exodus about a place named Marah. “A place of bitter water,” Caleb said to himself.

  How bitter her days? Caleb speculated on how much hell Mariah had endured, especially with her being such a pretty one. Mahogany. Her dark eyes had a shine like diamonds. Lips a bit pouty. Button nose.

  If only they were in a different time, a different place. Far away from war, from hate. She would not be in torment, and he would not be a bystander to her pain. Instead …

  Sighting Mariah, sizing her up, was prodding Caleb to own up to his loneliness. That frightened him. He didn’t understand it. It was all so quick.

  Caleb had known plenty of girls. Conveniences, ways to pass the time. He had never put effort into anything close to courting. Whether it was easy ones like Clara or Maggie or husband-hunters like Kate, Caleb never formed attachments. Those girls were around his life but never in it. But now his mind was moored on Mariah.

  Pretty girls, smart girls, strong girls. Caleb had known a few who were all three like Mariah. But he had never met anyone like her. The way she was with the boy, the madwoman, such a deep goodness, a goodness he had never really cared about until after that bad business a few months ago when he went out of control.

  After he came to his senses and changed his ways, he poured all his energy into helping Yankees help his people and thinking about how he could help them more after the war. To do that he needed to keep away from entanglements, attachments. Mariah had him a bit muddled up. Caleb feared the march was addling his brain.

  WINGS AS EAGLES

  Yard after yard, the farther away the wagon rolled, the more Mariah’s pain and anger ebbed.

  Not until they were a long holler from the Chaney place did she open her eyes. She found herself on a narrow road. It snaked between a gully and a field of broom sedge. Afternoon sun had it all aglow as far as she could see.

  Mariah looked back to check on Zeke.

  Asleep.

  Dulcina too.

  In a wagon behind, Mordecai. Next to him Jonah, hugging one sack like it was life. A little farther back rode Sadie and her youngest. Walking alongside them, her oldest and her husband, Sam, a large leather bag over his shoulder. Heavy, Mariah knew, with scrapers, awls, lasters, and other tanner’s tools. Farther back still was Hannah and Esther with their sprouts.

  Jonah was smiling. Mordecai was smiling. So were Sadie and Sam. Esther too.

  Eyes skyward, Mariah spotted a golden eagle gliding high. Its wingspan had to be over eight feet.

  All creation seemed a new sight.

  She followed that golden eagle’s flight, remembering her ma’s frequent whisper at the end of a hard day of carding wool, spinning, reeling, and still with supper to fix. “Shall renew their strength,” Patience would say, getting her second wind. “Shall mount up with wings as eagles.”

  Now Mariah believed that she could run and run, run a thousand miles and not be weary, that she could walk along roads, up mountains, walk forever and a day—not faint.

  She took a deep breath, let herself dream.

  Still waters, green pastures, peaceful, merciful place. Even if they had to live in a cave, they’d survive. She knew how to fish and trap. Yes, she and Zeke would be just fine, Mariah decided, as the caravan came to a halt.

  At the crossroads up ahead, row after row, four abreast, bluecoats marched by. Row after row after row. After them rolled wagons. Steady on came more rows of soldiers.

  The men stepped lively to a peppy drum-and-bugle tune as if their gear—haversack, knapsack, bed roll, poncho, ammunition, and rifles slung over their shoulders—was featherweight.

  “My goodness!” Mariah gasped. Couldn’t tear her eyes away from all the Yankees marching by. “What a power!” She turned to Caleb. “This the rest of Sherman’s army?”

  “Some of the rest.”

  “Some?”

  “Lots more, whole lot more.” Caleb smiled, pointing west. “Miles thataway, the right wing.” Sherman’s army had a left wing and right wing, Caleb explained. And each wing had two corps. And mostly they marched in four columns.

  Mariah had no idea what Caleb was talking about.

  “Each corps has more than ten thousand soldiers,” he continued. “We’re with the left wing, marching with the Fourteenth Army Corps. Just shy of fourteen thousand men.”

  Caleb didn’t stop there—his speech caught speed with every item.

  Each corps, three to four divisions.

  Each division, two to three brigades.

  Each brigade, three to seven regiments.

  Each regiment, ten companies. “On average, that is. Some might have nine, with roughly a hundred men in each. All told, there’s more than fifty-five thousand infantrymen and artillerymen.”

  Mariah frowned. “Infant men?”

  “In-fan-tree-men. Foot soldiers. Artillery, they handle the big guns. Each corps also has an artillery brigade.”

  Mariah’s mind was stuck on the number.

  “More than fifty-five thousand?” That sounded like a world. “Some sight that must be.” Mariah ached to be, for a slice of time, that golden eagle gliding high. What she’d give for a sky-high view of General William Tecumseh Sherman’s mighty march. Like others, she’d learned his complete name, whispering it sometimes like a prayer. She’d heard others call him Moses.

  “And there’s General Kilpatrick’s cavalrymen—the ones who fight on horseback.”

  Was there anything about the march that Caleb didn’t know?

  “Five thousand of them, give or take. Cavalry is there to protect both wings, switching back and forth depending where Rebels harass.”

  So that makes it about sixty thousand, Mariah thought. A world indeed! And she envied Caleb’s knowledge. She only had bits and pieces, scraps and rags. He had whole cloth.

  “Rebels harass much?”

  “In spots. Mostly they sabotage, trying to make the march harder than it needs to be.”

  Mariah didn’t know what sabotage meant, but she guessed it was some kind of devilment. “How do Rebels make the march harder?”

  “Chop down trees to clutter up a road. Burn bridges.”

  “Yankees then have to find another way?”<
br />
  “Usually the pioneers just get to work.”

  “Pioneers?”

  “Soldiers always near the head of the line of march who are skilled at repairing bridges, clearing roads, cutting side roads through forests. Sometimes there’s quicksand, mud, marsh. In those cases, pioneers lay down corduroy roads. Most of the able-bodied colored men who join the march wind up with the pioneers. Some help out the pontoniers.”

  “The what?”

  “I’m sorry. Pontoniers are another class of soldier. In charge of floating bridges called pontoons.”

  Mariah had never met anybody so talkative with a stranger. And by the time Caleb finished telling her about the twenty-five-hundred wagons, the five-thousand cattle, and what all else Sherman left Atlanta with, Mariah’s head was spinning. She eyed him suspiciously. “How you know so much?”

  “Captain Galloway mostly.”

  “One with the green eyes, who gave Zeke the sweets?”

  Caleb nodded. “We’re waiting to fall in with the second division—”

  Mariah chuckled. “You truly have a head for all this soldier business. And numbers.”

  Caleb looked at her, smiled.

  “It’s how I keep my mind from becoming mush. Learn and think. Think and learn.”

  His smile was nice, warming.

  And they continued to wait. But not Sadie and Sam, not Hannah, not Esther. Hurrying up to the crossroads with their children in tow, they gesticulated, called out. Mariah couldn’t hear their words, but she was pretty sure of their want: the whereabouts of Yankees who passed through Hebron, where they all had kin, kin they were sure had joined Sherman’s March.

  Mariah soon saw that Sadie and the others met with satisfaction. Smiling wide, they waved good-bye.

  Bittersweet.

  She couldn’t begrudge them seeking family, but as Mariah waved back, a sadness crept over her. Snatches of times past hovered up.

  Sharing food.

  Doing each other’s hair.

  Turning castoff clothes into quilts.

  Dulcina. They had all chipped in some of their rations and side food after Judge Chaney told Nero to cut Dulcina off. “No use feedin’ the wretch. Can’t work. Can’t be sold. Useless.”