Nodding a greeting to the lone Indian woman tending the cooking fires late the next morning, Beth checked on Joanie, who had gone back to bed after breakfast. She’d had a poor night, her coughing waking Beth continually. Sitting beside her sister’s pallet, Beth allowed her fears to surface. Her sister couldn’t endlessly go on praying for each breath.
Praying, the one thing Beth hadn’t tried in order to help her sister…well, except for the one time beside the road when Preach struggled to keep Joanie alive. She had prayed then, sort of, and Joanie had found breath again. Until this moment she hadn’t made the connection, but it was surely Preach’s prayers that had brought Joanie through yet another breathing crisis and not her clumsy attempts at talking to God.
Beth’s gaze roamed the camp, where others were setting about their morning rituals. Did these people pray? The thought intrigued her. Some of the pickers prayed out loud. And the nuns? As they had washed dishes together, Mary Margaret told her a tolling bell summoned them to prayer morning, noon, and evening. What summoned the pickers? What made Joanie drop to her knees to lift her face upward with such assurance? Beth had been deeply entrenched against that God for so long that she’d never given the issue of prayer much thought.
She was beginning to think that everyone but her prayed. Pa and Ma did, but they never had family prayer. Pa was always so worn out at night that about all he could do was eat and then drop into bed. Bowing her head, Beth tested a prayer on her tongue. “Lord. God. You.” She shook her head. She didn’t know the first thing about asking something from someone she couldn’t see.
Joanie slept soundly at last, so Beth rose and roamed the camp. Oddly enough, others took no notice of her but simply went about their business as though she belonged there. Meat sizzled in heavy skillets. Coffee perked.
When the sun climbed higher, she ventured deeper around the camp’s perimeter, keeping the captain’s warning in mind. She was not to wander far away. She was to wait until Walt found them. Captain Montgomery. Her lips still tingled from his kiss. When she even thought about his brashness she shivered. She had enjoyed it. Far too much.
The gurgling stream wound deep into the woods. She followed the trail, listening to bird calls and the sound of river life. Bright yellow butterflies flew overhead, darting here and there. She wasn’t in the habit of taking notice of her surroundings. From sunup to sundown she had bent over sacks of cotton, striving to meet both hers and Joanie’s daily quota. Joanie picked all she could, but there were hours where she sat in the hot sun and simply struggled to breathe. Beth’s hand reached out lightly to capture a butterfly. Handling the insect carefully, she examined its unique beauty. How did such a creature, so intricately formed, come to be on this earth? Lifting her palm she gently nudged the insect to flight. Nothing this beautiful should be restricted. Deeper and deeper she wound her way downstream, losing all track of time.
An unfamiliar sense of freedom empowered her. Her world had been limited to the plantation, but here another world existed. A world of towering trees and blooming wildflowers. Here she could almost forget her former life. Almost.
Memories flashed of earlier conversations with Pa after working thirteen hours under a stifling sun with little water to quench their thirst.
“How can Uncle Walt be so cruel?”
“It’s not our place to judge, daughter. He might not be punished here on earth, but he will one day stand before God, and then he’ll have a powerful lot of explaining to do.”
Beth had let the thought skip through her mind all that day. Perhaps there was a God and Walt would answer for his meanness. That only seemed fair. But long ago Beth had come to realize that life wasn’t always fair. Not in her eyes.
Locating a large rock, she brushed it clean and sat down, pulling her knees up to her chest. She had nothing to do but sit and admire the beautiful morning and enjoy the scent of blooming flowers, the sight of little rabbits skipping across the path, and the sun’s warmth as she sat in partial shade. Her body didn’t ache from bending over all day, and her head didn’t hurt from the blistering sun.
Glancing up at the sky, she noted with surprise that it was close to noon. She’d been gone longer than she had intended. Joanie would probably wake soon and wonder where she had gone.
Beth started back to camp, lightheartedly picking her way through the thick vegetation that grew along the banks of the stream. When a hand clamped down on her shoulder, she whirled, her heart in her throat as the captain’s warning came back to her.
Stay close to the camp.