Lapeer County, August 1861
The barn door squeaked, drawing Mary from the dark precipice of sleep and back to the light.
“Ma’am?”
Mary pushed herself up on one elbow and swiped at a piece of hay that stuck to the trail of drool on her cheek. “Yes, Bridget?”
“I have letters for you.”
She sat up as straight as she could, resting her pregnant belly upon her thighs. “Anything from Mr. Balsam?” The question was automatic, uttered without much thought to the answer that would follow. It was nearly always no.
“Yes.” Bridget reached out for her mistress’s hand to help her up, but Mary waved her away.
“Where is it?”
The girl fumbled through her apron pockets and produced a small envelope. “But it’s not the only thing.”
Mary snatched up the envelope, aching to hold anything Nathaniel had touched. “My girl, all I want in this life is a word from my husband. It’s been two weeks since that horrendous battle was in the papers, and this is the first certain sign I’ve had that he is alive.”
“But there’s a package. A trunk. A man brought it for me on his wagon, and he is waiting at the house to take it down. It’s very heavy.”
Mary struggled to her feet. “What on earth can it be?” But in her mind she feared she knew. Letters might be delayed in times of war. Was it possible that the trunk was Nathaniel’s? That it contained his effects, sent back after his death, and that the letter in her hand had been penned in haste the night before battle? That he might be dead even now? With every step toward the house, Mary’s heartbeat quickened, both at the effort it now took to do such a simple thing as walk twenty yards and at the dread that was building in her chest.
As she rounded the front of the house and the wagon came into view, her knees buckled. It was Nathaniel’s trunk.
Bridget caught her arm and slung it around her own sturdy shoulders. “This is too much strain for you. You need to sit down. You’ve been working too hard for any woman, let alone one in your condition.”
Soon Mary found herself seated in the parlor as Bridget helped the man drag in the heavy trunk.
“I trust you have the key?” the man said as he wiped the sweat from his brow.
“I do. Thank you, sir. Bridget, please find this nice man something to eat in the kitchen and pay him from my reticule.”
“I thank you for the pay,” the man said, “but I’m afraid I must pass on the food. I need to get back to town.”
Moments later, the two women sat staring at the trunk as the sound of the horses’ hooves faded.
Mary forced her breath into an even rhythm. “Fetch the spare key from Mr. Balsam’s desk drawer, please.”
Bridget hurried off, and Mary looked at the envelope in her shaking hands. Which should she open first? The letter that was surely meant to arrive before whatever heartache the trunk held? Or should she save the last words of her husband to her as a small comfort after facing the reality of his death?
Bridget returned too quickly and Mary was still undecided. With the letter in one hand and the key in the other, she felt on the brink of tears.
“Perhaps you should read the letter first,” Mary suggested, holding it out to Bridget.
“Heavens, no! I wouldn’t dare.”
“I don’t know—” Her voice cracked. She breathed deeply. “I don’t know how I could bear it if he—which should I open?”
“The trunk.”
The answer came in a muffled voice that didn’t belong to her maid.
Mary’s eyes locked upon the trunk, then flashed to Bridget’s. She slid to the floor, thrust the key into the lock, and flung open the lid. The act released the foul stench of urine into the parlor, but it was the sight of the contents rather than the smell that shocked the senses. Both women screamed.
Inside the trunk, folded up into a grotesque shape and littered with bloodied straw, was the lacerated body of a Negro man. His eyes squinted against the sudden light, and he took a shuddering, groaning breath. Bridget was still screaming.
“Stop, Bridget! Stop!”
The girl clapped her hands hard over her mouth and exchanged her screams for shallow wheezing.
Mary attempted to gather her scattered wits. “Wh-who are you?”
The man groaned again and twisted in the cramped space. Scarred brown fingers curled over the edge of the trunk.
Mary reached for them. “Bridget, help!”
Together they extracted the man and laid him out upon the floor. He moaned as joints that had been bent at severe angles for who knew how long struggled to straighten themselves. Straw was everywhere, stained red and sticking in clumps. Mary snapped her fingers at a pillow, and Bridget helped her slide it beneath the man’s bleeding head, then ran for water.
“Who are you?” Mary asked again.
The man coughed. “Mr. Balsam . . .”
“You’ve seen Nathaniel? Where? Where was he? When did you see him? Were you in the battle?” Then she remembered the letter. She tore open the envelope and unfolded three small pieces of paper, all graced with her husband’s distinct penmanship.
My Darling Mary,
I know you are anxious for news of how I fare, but before I share with you my adventures south of the Ohio River, I must mention a practical matter. I’ve sent you a large package, and I hope that this letter reaches you ahead of it. I’ve devised a clever way of keeping my belongings in a smaller space and so have sent my trunk home to you. Please open it immediately and remove the contents, for nothing could abide such confinement for long, and its contents are precious to me. They came to me here in Maryland from parts south, and though they were damaged I vowed to myself that they should find a place in our home, even if just for a time. They will surely be a help to you, and I know that you will take good care of them.
I am sure you read in the newspapers of the Union’s troubles at Bull Run. I did as well. I was not there and, as you can plainly see, am very much alive and well. However, our cause is floundering. Thus—and I know it will come as a cruel disappointment—I have decided to reenlist. I know you expected me home at the end of my three-month enlistment, but I’ve not yet had the opportunity to fight for the cause, and I would feel disgraced coming home with nothing to show for my time beyond a few amusing stories of our training camp. I am sure that when you see what I have sent you, you will not begrudge me the chance to fight. Do not despair. God has seen the end of this war—indeed, He has written it.
Now, my dearest one, it is with tears in my eyes that I close this letter to you. I know it is a bitter thing to hear that I will not be home to kiss our baby when it is born. But I want this child—and all the many children we will have—to live in a country that is united in truth and justice, and to know that their father did not retreat in the face of the great evil of slavery but fought to destroy it. That is the legacy I desire for our family. And I must, for a time, put this above my desire to see you and touch you again.
Your Loving Husband,
Nathaniel
August 1, 1861
Mary looked up from the letter, her vision clouded by tears. Bridget was steadying the broken man before her as he attempted to slake his thirst. He was shorter and slighter of build than the fugitive slave she had met back in the spring, but Mary still did not see how he had managed to fit into the space of the trunk. What terrors could possess someone to commit himself to what might become his coffin, to risk death as nameless cargo aboard a northbound train? What if someone had opened the trunk en route? What if delivery had been delayed and the man had suffocated? Any number of dreadful things might have happened in this desperate escape.
Mary felt a sharp pain in her abdomen and pressed her hand against her side. She wanted the full story from this man—to hear every word he had exchanged with Nathaniel—but even in times of war one must attempt to retain some sense of decorum. Perhaps especially in such times.
“Bridget, will you please prepare a bath for . . . I’m sorry, what is your name?”
“George,” the man said in a still-parched voice.
“Please prepare a bath in the kitchen for George and then freshen the pitcher in my bedchamber for me. And we must take this trunk outside at once.”
George attempted to stand.
“No, no. You stay there. We can manage it now that it’s empty. Bridget?”
The girl helped her off the floor. They closed the lid to suppress the rank odor and each grasped a handle.
“Let’s take it straight back through the kitchen,” Mary said, “and leave it open in the yard. We’ll deal with it later.”
When Mary hoisted up her side of the trunk, the sharp pain in her belly returned and she sucked in a breath between clenched teeth.
Bridget looked at her with concern. “Ma’am?”
“It’s fine, Bridget. Come, let us dispense with this task.”
They hobbled down the hall and through three doors before they reached the backyard. Mary dropped her end.
“What is it?” Bridget asked. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, fine. Just a little discomfort. Though I’m sure it is nothing compared to what that man went through. Do you think the trunk can be saved?”
“I’ll have to rip the lining out,” Bridget said. “Then it can be scoured and aired.”
“The lining can be replaced. I’ve a green silk gown I’m sure I’ll never have the shape or the occasion to wear again. We can use that. Be sure to remove the bottom panel. There is a hidden compartment beneath it for important papers. If you don’t clean it out, the smell will haunt the trunk forever. Draw the bath and fetch me some fresh water for the pitcher. Then you can start on this.”
The girl ran off to gather supplies, and Mary crept back to the parlor, keeping one hand on the wall for balance. George was standing, two fingertips touching the very edge of a table to steady himself. They were snatched back up the moment he noticed her in the doorway. He clasped his hands and seemed to be awaiting instruction.
She lowered herself onto the settee. “Won’t you sit down?”
“No, ma’am. I’d soil it.”
She nodded. Of course. The man’s clothes would have to be boiled.
She was unsure what to say next. If she had previously thought that her first interaction with a fugitive slave was the most uncomfortable conversation of her life, she knew now that it was infinitely more difficult to find something appropriate to say to a man who had been delivered to her house in a trunk.
“We’ll get a meal ready for you as soon as we can after you’ve had a chance to clean up. You can rest a bit and then be on your way tonight.”
George nodded. “Thank you, ma’am.” He was silent a moment, then said, “Mr. Balsam say you have a man name of John Grouse can loan me a set of clothes. Said he about my height.”
Mary gritted her teeth, still as angry as she ever was about John Grouse’s abandonment. “We did have a man here by that name, but he enlisted. I haven’t heard from him since. I’ll have Bridget fetch you something from Mr. Balsam’s wardrobe when she’s drawn the bath.”
“Just you and the girl and the cook, then?”
“No,” Mary admitted with a regretful tone. “Mrs. Maggin was dismissed in April.”
“That ain’t no good. How you farmin’? You’s lucky I come when I did.”
Mary was about to respond to this bold pronouncement when Bridget entered.
“The bath is nearly ready.”
“Then I think we shall all retire for a time. Bridget, please get a set of clothes for George and take his outside. I’ll be down to help with dinner once our guest has had a chance to clean up.”
She walked out to the front hall and took a long look up the staircase. She grasped the banister and took the first step, then the next, then the next. Each was a study in self-control. She had hidden the pains from Bridget for a month, despite the fact that they had been building in frequency and intensity, and now she was determined to make it up those steps.
“Mrs. Balsam!” Bridget exclaimed from behind her. “You’re bleeding!”
Mary turned to look. Drops of blood led from her left foot down the stairs to the parlor door.
“I just stepped in some of that straw, Bridget. I should have been more careful. Now you’ll be scrubbing blood out of the carpet here too. But not now. I could use your help. I’m very tired.”
Bridget scrambled up the steps to her mistress. After a few steps more, she looked back. “If you’d stepped in something, there would be less and less of it as you walked, but the spots are getting bigger.”
“Just a little further, Bridget.” But even as she said it, Mary felt her head swim. The heat, the climb, the trunk, the man, the blood. All of it circled around until it coalesced into a leaden weight.
Then the world went black.