Crossing Ebenezer Creek Page 3

  And whenever Dulcina went off into the woods for too long, someone was bound to notice, and one or more of them scouted her out, fetched her back. Mariah could see Sadie coaxing Dulcina to eat, Esther struggling to get her to wash, and Sadie trying to pass a comb through her hair. No matter how Dulcina lashed out—pushed the food away, overturned the wash tub, slapped them in the face—Sadie and Esther never gave up on her.

  Mariah had a sudden urge to call out to them, jump down from the wagon, rouse Zeke and Dulcina, grab their things, and take off after Sadie and Sam, Hannah, Esther. But then Mariah glanced back at Jonah and Mordecai, and she decided to stay put. Familiars enough. Facing front, she snuck a look at Caleb. Not a familiar, but something close. Agreeable, though peculiar.

  Mariah marveled at the good state of his denim pants, blue-checked shirt, the mustard duster stashed under the seat. Clearly his master hadn’t been mean as a hungry bear.

  Intriguing too was the toolbox she’d spotted beneath the seat. It had an odd design on the front: like a stack of spinning whorls, with a ram’s horn poised on top. All in all, Caleb seemed safe. Something of a comfort too. More comfort—and joy—swept over Mariah when she looked back and sighted two more familiars, the Doubles, striding strong as always, matching as always: black linsey dresses and turbans made from a goldenrod cloth. Mariah jumped down from the wagon.

  By the time she reached the Doubles, Mordecai and Jonah were already beside them.

  “Bless God,” said Chloe, squeezing the breath out of Mariah.

  Zoe hugged Mariah hard too.

  Mariah filled the Doubles in on Josie and those who had fanned out to find family.

  A heavy silence followed, like a boil about to burst.

  “Nero?” asked Chloe.

  “Hide nor hair,” replied Mordecai, ramrod straight. “Not since I saw him scoot up under the Big House.”

  Mariah sent up a silent hallelujah. No more Chaney place! And no more Nero! The fiend, always lording his power over the rest of them. Too vile to show Dulcina mercy—tying her to a post or tree, taunting her, pelting her with chicken bones, stones, whipping at the air above her head, at the ground beside her feet. And frightening her even more with his devilish laugh, his devilish grin.

  Chloe nudged Mariah. Eyes trained on the back of Caleb’s head, she asked, “And him?”

  “Was with the Yankees who came our way,” replied Mariah. “Name’s Caleb.”

  “Y’all sure was talkin’ a lot,” muttered Jonah.

  “About the march. He told me a heap of things about the march.”

  “Sumpin’ ’bout him don’t seem right,” sneered Jonah. “Seem shifty, like he hidin’ sumpin’.”

  “Who ain’t when whitefolks around?” snapped Mordecai. “Seems to me it’s a benefit that this Caleb came our way.”

  “How so?” asked Jonah.

  “There’s an ease to him,” replied Mordecai. “And Mariah just said he has knowledge about the march. And look.”

  Mariah and the others turned to see Caleb and Captain Galloway talking.

  “That white man’s manner,” continued Mordecai, “suggest they got some common ground.”

  “That’s Captain Galloway,” said Mariah.

  Jonah snorted. “Any colored man got common ground with a white man gotta be a hazard to the rest of us.”

  “Jonah, please,” said Mariah, patting his arm. “This here’s no time to borrow trouble—not on this glorious day! Let us fix our minds on freedom and ready ourselves for new tomorrows!”

  MORE THAN A MISTY MEMORY

  When Captain Galloway came over and started talking about an idea he had—what a relief! It took Caleb’s mind off Mariah.

  He had been thinking about the light in her eyes when he told her about the march. A babbling fool is what he felt like. And he couldn’t stop wondering what happened to her man. He was about to ask at one point, then had second thoughts. Talked about General Kilpatrick’s cavalrymen instead. He was talking so fast—he hoped he hadn’t come off as a know-it-all, hoped he hadn’t made her feel bad about all the words she didn’t know. But then he remembered how she teased him about having a head for soldier business and numbers. She wouldn’t have done that if he’d made her feel bad. And now he couldn’t decide what was more delightful. Her smile? Her laugh?

  The twin women she ran off to meet. Impressive. Big-boned but slender and with great horned owl eyes. Stately. Tall. Were they kin? Clearly they meant much to Mariah. The way she and the others crowded around—were they figuring out a way to travel together? Or worse, head for a different part of the march like those others did during the halt at the crossroads?

  Any minute they’d be falling in. Any minute Caleb would learn if Mariah would be riding with him a little longer or never again. He tried to convince himself that if she came back to the wagon to get the boy and the madwoman, he’d handle it fine. Told himself that by the time they reached the campground—and surely by the time he blew out the candle in his tent that night—Mariah would be nothing more than a misty memory.

  When the signal to fall in came, Caleb looked back, saw Mariah heading for his wagon. His heart sank when she climbed into the back, but then his spirit soared when she pulled a quilt out of one of her sacks and placed it over Zeke and Dulcina.

  “Captain Galloway gave you some good news?” Mariah asked as she rejoined Caleb in the buckboard.

  “Not really. Why?”

  “You look like you won a prize or somethin’.”

  MOVING WOUND

  On the move again and traveling a wider road, along with rows and rows of bluecoats, Mariah beheld a growing crowd of people. All shades. All sizes. All ages.

  From behind boulders and trees and across fields they came. Doubled up bareback on lank mules, scrawny nags. Squeezed five, six in oxcarts, belongings pressed to chests. Women in worn-out dresses, bundles atop their heads, babies on hips. Men in patched pants and frayed frock coats toting sacks. Some old folks had churn staffs as walking sticks. A few were crumpled up in wheelbarrows and being pushed.

  A host of girls and boys skipped.

  Hosannas honeyed the air. Hallelujahs to God, hallelujahs to Yankees. Even while savoring sounds of jubilee Mariah couldn’t help but liken this exodus to one great moving wound. Like her, they all had scars.

  Mariah saw limps—some from accidents, some from hamstringings, she guessed. Saw cropped ears, cheeks branded with an R. Saw forefingers missing first joints.

  The sight of a girl about nine leading a big grown man by a rope tied around his waist was a punch in the gut. The man had a dull, vacant stare, the same as Zeke sometimes lapsed into. Mariah had vowed that if she ever got free she’d hunt up a special kind of doctor, get Zeke some help. Looking over her shoulder, she saw him still asleep, like Dulcina. Maybe in freedom she’d find help for her too.

  “Girl, you keep looking back like that, you’ll get a crick in your neck,” Caleb teased. “Rest easy.”

  Rest easy?

  All her life Mariah had lived on tenterhooks, even in her dreams.

  Rest easy?

  What a freedom that would be! If only the Yankees would whip the Rebels today, tomorrow—soon—so she could get on with having new tomorrows.

  But where would that be?

  “Where we headed?” she asked. She figured they were more than a mile away from the Chaney place.

  “Goal is to make Davisboro before dark.”

  Mariah had never been to Davisboro but knew it wasn’t that far away. “After that?”

  “Louisville.”

  “Then?”

  “On to somewhere farther south.”

  They had just rounded a bend. Mariah fought the impulse to look back on Zeke. “This somewhere place have a name?”

  Caleb nodded. “Bound to, but General Sherman keeps that to himself.”

  “Why’s it a secret?”

  “Keep Rebels in a scramble.”

  This didn’t sit right with Mariah. Going deeper s
outh was not what she wanted. Up north where slavery had been done away with a long time ago—that’s where she wanted to go.

  New York, if Mariah had her pick. That was the only place up north she had ever had a small glimpse of thanks to a stained, tattered print, that looked to be torn from a book. It pictured a proper brick building. “New-York African Free-School, No. 2” was written at the bottom. Below that, “Engraved from a drawing taken by P. Reason, a pupil, aged 13 years.”

  Was “P.” for Peter or Paul? Maybe Pip? Mariah had wondered the first time she laid eyes on the picture. Did P. Reason have a sister who had pretty dresses? Did she get to go to school too?

  Mariah kept the print tucked inside the old speller hidden beneath a floorboard in her cabin. Some nights after Zeke fell asleep she brought out the book, gazed at the print.

  Daydreaming on freedom, Mariah could never envision the journey once she got away from the Chaney place. Couldn’t imagine the world beyond. Kneading dough in the cookhouse, beating a rug out back, staring at P. Reason’s school—Mariah sometimes conjured up a flying carpet at the end of Riddleville Road. A flying carpet that would take her high up and away to New York, where more good fortune would follow: work and a place to stay in one of the buildings on either side of African Free-School No. 2.

  But there was no flying carpet, and the march was heading south.

  She glanced at Caleb. He looked relaxed. That calmed Mariah’s mind. A bit. Had her trying to convince herself that General Sherman’s somewhere place would be safe.

  Mariah turned to Caleb with a half smile. “We jus’ have to trust the Yankees, right?”

  “I trust God and my gut. And Captain Galloway, I trust him.”

  “He’s a kind one?”

  Caleb nodded. “More than kind. He’s good. Been strong against slavery since he was a boy.”

  “Abolition man.”

  “Two hundred percent. More than a few of them on the march.”

  More than a few of them? What an odd thing to say.

  “There’s General Oliver O. Howard,” Caleb continued. “He heads up the right wing. Like Galloway, strong Christian. They call him Old Prayer Book.” After a pause, Caleb added, “There’s Sergeant Hoffmann in the company we’re with. There’s—”

  “Ain’t they all?”

  “Ain’t they all what?”

  “Ain’t all Yankees abolition men?”

  Caleb shook his head.

  Mariah frowned. “But they freein’ us.”

  Caleb had a funny look on his face.

  Mariah became more anxious. “I know about Lincoln’s proclamation. And I won’t ever forget what Captain Galloway said to me, ‘No more slavery!’ ” After a pause, Mariah added, “They really are freein’ us, right?”

  Caleb faced her. “Freedom is real, Mariah,” he replied. “Don’t fret yourself.”

  Mariah sensed that Caleb was taking her measure. She also sensed that he was holding something back. “What is it, Caleb?”

  “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the thing is …”

  “What?”

  “Truth is, lots of Yankees don’t really care what happens to us.”

  Mariah’s eyes narrowed.

  “Many look on colored the way they do cattle. Freeing colored is the same as hauling off Rebel livestock and crops, same as tearing up Rebel railroad tracks, burning down Rebel buildings. Whatever means hell and a mess for Rebels, whatever makes them cry mercy, that’s what the Yankees will do.”

  Mercy. The word triggered another horrible memory, picked at a scab.

  Mercy. She’d known precious little of that.

  Mercy! She saw herself at the feet of a figure head to toe in black, beginning with a veil. Saw herself a bundle of snot and tears, pleading for mercy.

  No more, no more! Mariah pushed back against that memory. She looked up, took a deep breath, fixed her mind on freedom and the mercy at hand. Maybe all Yankees weren’t abolition men, maybe many saw colored as cattle. Right then, right there, that didn’t matter none to her. Prayer had been answered! Yankees had come her way! Being in that wagon free—that was a mercy for the ages! And anybody out to make the likes of Callie Chaney cry mercy was all right with Mariah.

  “We heard how they burned Atlanta to the ground.”

  “Not the whole city, but plenty,” said Caleb, suddenly solemn. “Railroad tracks, locomotives, train cars, roundhouses, bridges, machine shops, mills. Some blown up. Some burned.” Caleb tightened his grip on the reins. “Pillars of fire everywhere.”

  Mariah felt a chill. She rubbed her arms. “Learned all that from Captain Galloway?”

  Eyes on the road, Caleb shook his head. “Lived it.”

  Caleb’s jaw tightened. Mariah wondered what else he was holding back.

  Dulcina stirred, mumbled. Not “Texas,” just gibberish.

  Caleb glanced over his shoulder. “Her name again?”

  “Dulcina.”

  “Always like this?”

  Mariah shook her head. “Not before Judge Chaney sold her husband and their boys.”

  “Judge Chaney?”

  “Who owned us.”

  “I saw only the old woman.”

  “His wife, Miss Callie. Judge died a few years back.” Again Mariah pushed back against memory. After a swallow, she unwrapped the rest of Dulcina’s story.

  She explained that the judge sold Dulcina’s husband, Joe, and sons, Fred and Bunny, to clear up gambling debts. “Not his, but the son, Master Robert.” Mariah paused. “Had they been sold to somebody near … but they were carried off far.”

  “Texas?” Caleb asked.

  Mariah nodded. “So we heard. And Dulcina, she couldn’t bear up. Mind went loose.”

  Wagon wheels and horses’ hooves did the only talking for a while.

  “Master Robert reformed himself for a time. But after the judge died, he went back to his mess.” Mariah’s eyes latched onto a stand of dogwoods, bare to the bone, branches uplifted in worship, fingertips bearing shiny red drupes. “More got sold,” Mariah continued. “Didn’t stop till Master Robert got killed last summer.”

  “In a battle?”

  “No, in a street in Milledgeville. Shot over some woman.”

  Gingerly, Caleb asked, “Your husband, he was among the sold?”

  Mariah shook her head.

  “Hired out?”

  Again, Mariah shook her head.

  “Did he—?”

  “Never had no husband.” Mariah was bewildered until she caught Caleb’s drift. “Zeke ain’t my son.”

  Caleb rubbed his chin, frowned. “But I heard him call you Ma.”

  “He’s not yet mastered my name. Zeke’s my brother.”

  By then, Caleb was pulling into a meadow bordered by a grove of longleaf pine.

  STROKING THE SCRUB OAK

  Hordes of Yankees had already made camp. Arms stacked. Tents pitched. A thousand campfires crackled.

  The wagon rolled on, horses in a four-beat gait.

  Caleb looked out over all the people, in small and large clusters, making camps in the meadow some distance from the soldiers. Familiar scene. Day after day he’d seen families and flung-together folks, without much talk, with no ado, fall into timeworn routines. Certain ones minded little ones. Others headed for the stream with pots and buckets or into the woods with hatchets and machetes.

  Caleb brought the horses to halt by a scrub oak. “This looks a good spot.”

  By the time Caleb reached the other side of the wagon to help Mariah down, her feet were already on the ground and she was heading for Zeke.

  “I’ll tend to him,” said Caleb. “You take care of Dulcina.” He picked up Zeke and planted him by the scrub oak, then watched as Mariah gave Dulcina a gentle shake.

  Dulcina sat bolt upright, looking like her brain was in bedlam. She hauled off and slapped Mariah.

  “What in the—” Caleb headed over.

  Mariah waved him off. “No! It’s fine. I’m fine.” She rubbed
the left side of her face. “Just one of her upsets.”

  “Better let me see to her.”

  “No, Caleb, really, I can handle her.”

  Caleb wasn’t about to leave Mariah’s side. He looked from her to Dulcina, saw a calm come over both. He walked with Mariah as she led Dulcina over to Zeke, who was rolling a peppermint stick between two fingers. Not until Dulcina was seated on the ground did Caleb return to the wagon to get their things, even Dulcina’s grimy bundle.

  “Much obliged,” said Mariah.

  “Not at all.” Caleb was still worried about Mariah. “She in need of restraints?”

  “No, she’ll be fine.”

  “You can handle her and the boy by yourself?”

  “Won’t be by myself,” replied Mariah. “Here come my people.”

  Caleb turned around and saw the old man, the young man, and bringing up the rear, the twin women, heading their way.

  Caleb tipped his hat. “I best be on my way now, but—”

  “You leavin’ for good?”

  Not if I can help it, thought Caleb.

  “Just wanted to know if … if you leavin’ … for good, for if so—want to give a proper thanks. For the ride, all the aid.”

  One horse nickered, the other neighed as Caleb watched Mariah fidget. “Need to parcel out some things then take the remainder to the commissary officer,” he explained. “I’ll be back.”

  SAVORING THE SIGHT

  Mariah had no idea what a commissary officer was, and she didn’t care. Caleb was coming back. Nice. Warming like his smile. As she watched him walk away, she found herself savoring the sight of his shoulders. And the way he walked. Like he knew how to make his way in the world. She wondered—

  No, woolgathering wouldn’t do. She needed to get her bearings.

  Mariah reckoned the time by the sky. Took in the height of longleaf pines. Her mouth watered as the aroma of beef stewed, roasted, of pork being fried, wafted her way from where soldiers camped. Her stomach growled. During the ride she’d felt peckish, but now it was as if she hadn’t eaten a morsel in days.

  Mariah saw herself in their cabin after sundown, slicing fatback to flavor a pot of greens, heating the skillet to a sizzle for corn pone. Big dinners at the Big House before the war came to mind next. Sadie in commotion, fussing over the feast. Baked ham with brown sugar glaze, spiked with cloves. Turkey oozing oyster dressing. Corn soufflé, potato soufflé, creamed peas, candied carrots. Mariah smiled at memories of Sadie slipping her a bit of berry cobbler or sweet potato pie for Zeke.