Dusk had fallen when I opened my eyes. I barely remembered wolfing down Mamee’s hot soup and cornbread. I remembered theyd led me to the parlor, the sun still bright in the sky, and laid a rug on the floor for me to rest. Noah had pulled off my boots. And then it was dark.
A single candle burned on the parlor table, reflecting its light against the window glass. Someone had covered me with two quilts, and even though the room was cold, I’d slept as warm and comfortable as I’d been in a long while.
I lay there, glad to be warm, pushing against the worries that nagged my brain. The parlor door squeaked open on its hinges. A face peered in. I forced my eyes wide, to focus.
“Mista Robert? You awake?” Noah’s deep voice nudged me.
“Yes, Noah. Come on in.” I pushed myself up and rubbed the sleep from my brain. “I guess I fell asleep.”
“That good. You looked done in.”
“We need to talk, Noah.”
“Yes, sir. That we do.”
“Why did Ma and Emily leave? Emily wrote me to come. Now she’s gone.” Noah didn’t answer. “Did they go alone? What’s happened here? And what happened at Ashland? The place is near emptied.”
“Yankee soldiers—cavalry foragers. And Confederate soldiers—they foraging, too. Only I don’t know they all regular soldiers. Some of them be grayback deserters taking what they think they got a right to.” Noah shook his head. “Ashland got the worst—thievin’ and tearin’ up the place. It a mercy they didn’t burn the Big House.” Noah eyed me steadily.
“Things hard enough what with shortages of everything. No seed to plant, too many mouths to feed. Masta Marcus sold off most his slaves these last two years, trying to keep food on the table.”
I nodded. “I saw Old George and Rebecca and her boys in Salem.”
Noah’s eyes lit up. “They be all right, then?”
“They’re looking for the war to end, but they’re doing all right. If it wasn’t for them and the Widow Gibbons I wouldn’t be here.”
Noah nodded. “They good people.” He hesitated. “You know if that Rebecca got a man?”
“I don’t know. But she didn’t make mention.” Noah didn’t answer. “You and Rebecca keeping company?”
Noah’s mouth turned grim. “After this war, maybe. After this war if we all be free. I won’t marry a slave woman. Like to be sold away, and our children.” I understood that. “I know what you did for Jeremiah—helping him run North. We all grateful for that.”
“You know?”That surprised me. “Well, Jeremiah helped me as much as I helped him. He’s in Canada now.”
Noah nodded again. “Good. That good.” His forehead creased. “When those soldiers come and help themselves to Ashland’s furniture and draperies and animals and such, it scared Miz Caroline so bad she just screamed and screamed. Couldn’t nobody stop her. Nobody at Ashland and nobody here. Never was a bloodcurdling rebel yell like Miz Caroline’s screaming that day.” Noah shook his head. “After that she just wasn’t right in the head.”
I hated taking that in, hated to imagine Ma at the hands of deserters—men with nothing to lose. “Did they hurt her?”
Noah looked away. “Not them. Not that I know about.”
“Old George said she was feebleminded. Is that when it started?”
Noah’s voice gentled. “Miz Caroline be what you call ‘delicate’ ever since she come back to Ashland, Masta Robert. She have her spells—sometimes be real normal, sometimes like she in some far-off place.”
“But after those soldiers came, she was worse?”
Noah licked his lips. “Soon after. She never stepped out of that far-off place after that. We sent for Miz Emily, and she come right away.”
“Is that when my grandfather died? When the soldiers came? I saw his grave.”
Noah shifted in his seat. It seemed to me he avoided my eyes. “Masta Marcus died about the time they come.”
I tried to understand that. “So, Ma was alone there at Ashland when the soldiers came? Was Jed Slocum there?”
Noah hesitated, and it seemed to me he measured his words more carefully than was his wont. “Mr. Slocum ran off about that time.”
“Ran off?” I couldn’t imagine Jed Slocum running off from Ashland. He’d pretty much thought he owned Ashland and all its slaves. “Why would he run off? What about the slaves?”
Noah stood up, began pacing, just a little. “Like I say, Masta Marcus sold off most of his slaves. Some run off. Run North. We hear Yankee soldiers take slaves in—contraband of war. They follow the soldiers, and then they be free. Some folks get jobs digging their ditches, cooking their food, washing their clothes. Some just follow from camp to camp.”
“But where would Slocum go? Ashland was all the home he had. Right?”
“He run off.” Noah stumbled over his words. “I reckon he afraid the home guard gonna come take him—conscript him. They takin’ near every man can walk, now.” Noah stared me down. “That all I know.”
But I sensed that wasn’t all he knew. There was more-something he was not telling.
“Was Emily here when the soldiers came?” I didn’t want to think it.
“She in Salem, at the Ladies’ School there! She not here.” Noah spoke too quickly. “Masta Albert insist she go there when he went off to war if she wouldn’t go with Masta Alex to England. He didn’t want her home here, alone. But she did come home here most every weekend, and she’d visit Miz Caroline over to Ashland. That when she went over and found Miz Caroline in such a state—after Masta Marcus died and Mr. Slocum run off.” Noah looked for all the world like he dared me not to believe him. Something about it all didn’t ring true. But why would Noah lie to me?
“Have you heard anything from Alex?”
“No, sir. Miz Emily was expectin’ him to send her money, but she say what with the blockade he couldn’t do it even if he remembered.” Noah sat down again. “I hope he remember sometime, or Miz Emily not be able to keep Mitchell House.”
“What about the slaves here? How many are left?”
Noah stared at me a long time before he answered. “I tell you something because I trust you, Masta Robert. I trust you for what you done for Jeremiah, because I know what your daddy do for runaways. Mostly I trust you because Miz Emily trusts you.”
I waited. He waited. “You can trust me, Noah.”
“Miz Emily done give all her slaves they freedom. She sign papers for every one of us.” He stood and pulled from inside his shirt a folded paper, creased and handled so many times it nearly fell apart in his hands. He took my measure again, then passed it to me.
There, in Emily’s fine hand, was her manumission of one Noah, known as the driver for Mitchell House. I was amazed, and proud of Emily in a way I’d never imagined. “You say she freed all the slaves here?”
Noah nodded. “She told us right out that she didn’t have the legal right. She say that her papa was the one hold that right. Even before she got word Mr. Albert was took prisoner, Miz Emily say she don’t know if he make it home again, and that Masta Alex be set to inherit Mitchell House when Mr. Albert die. She say they might take these papers from us if the North don’t win this war, but she do her best to make us free.”
“But you stayed?”
“I stay for Miz Emily. I drive her and Miz Caroline and Nanny Sara to South Carolina, then I come back, all this way. A Yankee soldier stop me on the road, took my horse—Miz Emily’s last horse—and wagon. I felt real bad about that. But I promised Miz Emily I take care of Mitchell House best I can, and take care of Mamee, till she come back.”
“But why stay here? What if the North doesn’t win this war, Noah? What if you lose your chance?”
Noah stared at me, patient, like I was too young to understand. “Mitchell House my home since I was brung into this world. It be my home after this war, whoever hold that bill of sale.” He walked across the room, stared into the dark window.
“Something else Miz Emily done.” He turned to face me. “She taught every one of us to read.”
“She did?” I knew Cousin Albert would have forbidden it, that it was against the law.
“In this very room. Learning to read was the price for our freedom. She say we need that no matter where we go. She didn’t have no money to give us, she say, but she give us that, and it be something we keep forever, something no man can take from us. Soon as a slave learn to read she write out their paper and let them go off if they want—free and clear. Most did. She plan to stay till every last slave learn to read—all except them too little or too old to make the change.” He looked away again. “She just had to go sooner than she expect.” He ran his dark fingers across his chin. “She free all the rest just before she leave South. Just Mamee and me now.”
There was still something missing from all he said, but I couldn’t place what. And my head spun, groggy. “I just don’t understand why she left Mitchell House.”
“They nothing left here. Not enough food, no money. Miz Caroline doing poorly. Nanny Sara so old she not likely to last. Miz Emily say her Grandma Grace always told her she had a sister loved her mightily—Miz Charlotte, in South Carolina. That all I know.”
“But you drove them there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are they better off there? Is there food?”
“Not much, as I can tell. Knowing Miz Emily she be feeding anybody comes beggin’ by her door.”
“Aunt Charlotte must be as old as my grandfather was. Was she still living there?”
Noah sighed. “She there, but near the end of her days.”
“Then why didn’t they come back with you?”
Noah would not meet my eyes. “You see Miz Emily. Whatever she tell you, you know is the truth.”
“Did Emily tell you she wrote to me? Asked me to come?”
“She say you might come. She didn’t know you got her letter or not. But that be long ago.”
Now I sighed. “I left home as soon as her letter came. A lot’s happened these months.” I waited. Should I tell Noah about Cousin Albert? It seemed only fair. But it did no good for him to think ill of Cousin Albert now. “Emily asked me to go see her father in the prison before I came.” Noah nodded. “I did see him … He died there.”
“Miz Emily had a visit from Maj. McCain this summer just passed. He told her Masta Albert dead. Say you kill him.”
“He told Emily I killed her father?” Heat traveled up my neck, and my head pounded.
“Miz Emily say she don’t believe that. She say no way you do such a thing, and she wonder just how it was Maj. McCain knew so much about her papa’s death and done so little to prevent it. Maj. McCain got mad, real mad. Called Miz Emily ‘naive in military ways and the ways of this world.’”
“Did he touch her?” I would kill McCain if he’d hurt Emily.
“Didn’t lay a hand on her. But she call for me. I waiting in the hallway—see if she need me. I’m thinking if I wasn’t here, maybe he might of tried something. He trash of a man. But he rode on then. Ain’t been back since. Miz Emily say she think he came here to set her against you, but she don’t know why.”
“He’s in the field again, but not too far from here.”
“You seen him?”
I nodded. “Wish I hadn’t. He’s got it in for me. But I did not kill Cousin Albert. He was planning an escape, pretending to be a regular soldier—not an officer. My visit and Emily’s letter spoiled that for him. But he died of consumption, there in the prison hospital. I gave him Emily’s letter and picture before he died. If anything happens to me, tell Emily that. Tell her it meant the world and all to him.”
“What you mean, ‘if anything happen’ to you? What you fixin’ to do?”
I stood up. I’d waited long enough. “I’m going after them. I just need you to tell me the way.”
Noah nodded, relieved. “Miz Emily left a map in case you come. She hopin’ you come.”
That warmed me through. That told me full and clear that Emily didn’t think I’d hurt her pa, that she trusted me.
Noah walked to the bookcase and pulled down a heavy, black Bible. “Miz Emily say give this only to you—nobody else does she want to know where she and Miz Caroline be.”
“What do you tell people that come looking for her?”
“Say she off tending her sick relatives two counties away, but I don’t know which county. Say she loaned her slaves out to her kin there since we got no crop our own to harvest. That what Miz Emily told me to say.” Noah pulled a folded paper from the pages of the Bible and passed it to me. “Some doubt me, but don’t know what to make of it all. If it come to it we got our freedom papers. But I hope to stay on for Miz Emily’s sake. She do right by me if she able. She promised.”
I wondered over Emily, prouder than I could say for all she’d done for all of them. And I wondered over Noah. They seemed as sure of each other as Aunt Sassy and Joseph Henry were of Mr. Heath.
The map was detailed, and I knew enough of the roads leading out of the county to believe I could follow the directions. I recognized a couple of the towns, and remembered some things from the maps I’d seen Pa draw. I wondered if he had any idea about this South Carolina relative. I’d never heard Ma or Grandfather speak of her.
“Thank you, Noah.”
“You going tomorrow?”
“Now.” I stood up and folded the map into my pocket. “It’ll be best I travel by dark and lay low as I can in the day.”
“Anybody see that fine horse they be taking it from you.”
“I know. And he’ll need to graze whenever I can find a good spot.”
“I pack some bags of oats to take along. They still some out back I kept hidden from them foragers. Mamee get you a sack of food and a skin of water. You be careful, Masta Robert, and you give our best to Miz Emily. Tell her we takin’ good care as we can of things here.”
I reached for Noah’s hand. “I’ll tell her, Noah.”
“I saddle your horse. You come on back to the kitchen, get you somethin’ more to eat before you ride out.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that.”
After Noah left I took a long look around the room. I wondered if I’d ever get back to see it. Suddenly the burden seemed too heavy, the route on the map too far, too hard. The dizzy feeling swam over me again, took my breath, and forced me to sit down. Once I caught my breath, I sank to my knees beside the settee.
“Lord,” I prayed, “it’s a long time since I came to You for anything besides a quick beg for help. And it seems every time I come to You I’m asking something bigger, more impossible. But I’m here again. Thank You for taking care of Emily and of Ma through all they’ve been through.
“Keep them in Your care. Keep me as I ride to find them. If there’s something I should know, something I should do, please show me in a way I can understand.
“Thank You for Emily, for her strength for Ma’s sake, for teaching the slaves to read, for signing over their freedom to them, for all the signs of Emily’s love in this house.”
The dam behind my eyes built for love of Ma and Emily, for not knowing what had become of Pa, and for the goodness of Noah and Mamee, of Old George and Rebecca. I choked it back. I prayed God’s blessing on Noah and Mamee, His strength to see them through. When I finally got to my feet I felt deep in my need, and grateful, and a small flicker of hope.