More slaves were born than died. Old [John] Pinchback would see to that himself . . . because it meant money for him. He chose the wife for every man on the place. No one had no say as to who he was going to get for a wife. All the wedding ceremony we had was Pinchback’s finger pointing out who was whose wife.
James Green, Slave
WALTER STOOD WITH ARMS CROSSED TALKING to Samuel at the bottom of the porch outside. The men fell in step once Harriet descended the stairs and turned onto the street. The trio walked a block without speaking until they entered a busier thoroughfare where horse-drawn wagons coming from the port dominated the afternoon traffic.
Samuel looked straight ahead. “What the devil you up to, Moses?” His voice hummed with anger.
Walter walked on her other side as they navigated the pedestrian strip. “Robert Smalls never told me n-n-nothing bout going up the Cum’bee,” he hissed.
Harriet nodded at a white-haired old man who stopped his wheelbarrow for them as he approached with a precarious load of rocks. “Thank you, Uncle,” Harriet said as she sidled past—and took the opportunity to put Walter between herself and Samuel. It made her mad just looking at him, especially now that they were finished with Hunter.
The contraband tipped his hat and grinned. “I know’d it was you a mile off, Moses. Watch yo step now. Cain’t have you gitting runned over.”
“I surely will, Uncle.”
The man clamped his hat back on his head and squinted suspiciously at Samuel and Walter as they passed.
“Getting runned over is right, Moses,” Samuel said once they were out of earshot. “Except you barreling over us. You making up information we don’t have, without letting us in on the plan.”
“Smalls never said nothing to me,” Walter said, repeating himself. “When did he tell you bout—”
“You gone get us killed,” Samuel interrupted.
Harriet held the strap of her satchel tight across her breast to prevent the bag from knocking against her companions. She carried herself as calmly as if going to the market for a hair ribbon, but doubts troubled her. She felt certain she had done the right thing—yet what if she hadn’t? The fifth torpedo must be where Robert Smalls suggested. It made sense.
“Hunter needed a push,” she said defensively. “He understands you can’t figure every angle fore a mission.”
“Don’t you sweetmouth us,” Samuel said. “He was asking bout that fifth hole on the map. Wanted to be sure you knew what the heck you was talking about. And you don’t.”
“I did speak with Robert,” she said.
“What he t-t-tell you?” Walter asked.
“He said they put torpedoes on either side a the Stono ferry. Figures they did the same here.”
“So Smalls hasn’t been up the Cum’bee. You was lying through your teeth,” Samuel said.
Walter shook his head. “Thought you was. That’s why I stalled. Figured you was mincing the truth pretty fine.”
Samuel looked at Walter, ignoring Harriet. “That’s why I said the torpedoes in the river are plain as rice. Dang it to heck. Cum’bee is more like mud soup.”
“M-m-mud stew,” Walter said. “With a helping a alligator on the side.”
Amusement crept into their voices.
Harriet kept her eyes forward. They were almost to the dock. She wondered if they could get upriver again before the raid. General Hunter would now pass the initiative from the scouts to Colonel Montgomery, who might want them to lie low. Scouts usually stepped aside once troops came forward. It had surprised her when Walter and Samuel insisted she was still essential to the mission. And she’d been grateful. It would save her the trouble of stowing aboard.
“Thanks for sticking by me,” she said. “And for telling Hunter I should come along.”
Walter looked at Samuel. “Hear that? She saying she needed our help.”
Samuel smiled and stroked his beard. “Oh, you know how she hates that.”
“I don’t mind help,” she protested.
“Like cats don’t mind getting wet,” Samuel said.
As they approached the wharf, she wondered if her own cat had turned up at the kitchen on Port Royal. She hadn’t seen Trouble in at least a day. At the head of the dock, a contraband in a straw hat ladled molasses-water into a cup for a line of customers. Someone had written “1¢” on a broken slate shingle. A buyer at the head of the line downed his drink and passed the cup to the next man.
“Want to wet your whistle?” Samuel asked Harriet and then Walter. “My nickel.”
“Sure thing,” Walter said. “I’ve been working up a thirst ever since Hunter say he gone p-p-put us on point.”
Samuel’s mouth curled into a smile as they stopped. The hollow of his neck shone with sweat. An urge to accept his offer stole over Harriet. She tasted the molasses—nectar in a bottle to a Southerner. She wondered if he had stashed a jug for his family along with the pork he left them. Anger immediately prickled her skin. She pinched her lips tight. As if all it took was a smile to make things right.
“No,” Harriet said, and she drew her satchel closer. “I got business with the captain. I’ll see y’all back in Beaufort.”
“Suit yourself,” Samuel said without missing a beat.
Harriet made her way down the wooden dock to the boat. She was thirsty from the hot day, but no libation was worth more time in Samuel Heyward’s company. Though he had helped with Hunter, his notion of loyalty and hers could never be the same.
A raucous squall blew over Port Royal Sound during the crossing from Hilton Head, which caused Harriet to spend most of the voyage holding the hand of a contraband woman convinced they were all going to die. When she arrived at her boarding house well after dark, she opened the door to her room and lit the oil lamp expecting to see Trouble shedding black and tan fur on the clean mattress. Yet the scoundrel was nowhere to be found. Harriet searched under the bed and even carried a wooden crate up from the storage room to look on top the wardrobe in case the cat had decided to nap there while waiting for mice foolish enough to venture indoors.
Harriet finally gave up and took off her shoes to get ready for bed. She never tired of the luxury of a feather tick after all the floors on which she had slept. On impulse, just as she started to unbutton her collar, she went to the window and pushed up the sash. Propped on her elbows, she leaned into the muggy night. “Here, kitty, kitty,” she called. “Trouble!”
The wind answered in the oaks, and a cicada soloist sawed a tinny melody somewhere nearby, but the only creature she spied was a mutt trotting down the street that glanced over its shoulder in the moonlight before continuing on its lonely way. Perhaps the cat had wandered under the house, she thought, into the arched breezeway that constituted the first floor of most Beaufort mansions, with their crinolines lifted above seasonal floodwaters.
“Trouble!” she sang out again.
Hearing no response, Harriet reached for the sash to close the window against mosquitoes but stopped when a tiny whimper sounded above the cicada. She held her breath. A small meow. Then silence.
“Trouble,” she called. “Kitty cat!”
The weak meowing grew more insistent. Harriet scrutinized the street until the sound drew her attention to the oak tree that shaded the house by day. On a bough that looked a considerable jump from the windowsill, a pair of glowing eyes begged for rescue.
“Dang-blame cat,” she said. “How did you get yourself over there?” She leaned out of the second-floor window as far as she could and held out her hands. “Come on. Come back, kitty.” Settled deep into its haunches, Trouble answered only with a plaintive cry, so Harriet laced up her shoes once more.
When she descended the front steps of the sleeping house, she was relieved to see the lane deserted except for a dark form strolling up the opposite side of the street. An audience would make the indignity only more absurd. Harriet walked under the oak and gazed up. The limbs seemed higher than they had from the window. The topmost branches towered over the house. The cat peered down, watching her. Harriet circled the trunk looking for a place to begin. But although the corrugated bark offered ample handholds, no branch hung low enough to provide a foothold.
The cat cried even more pitifully. “Ain’t no way up,” she called. “You earned your name yet again. Trouble! That’s what you are.”
“Why ain’t I surprised?” said a deep voice. “Harriet Tubman’s got a cat named Trouble.” Samuel Heyward stepped around the tree and into the moonlight that filtered through the branches. “I’d help, but I know it riles you.”
Harriet doubted he could see the severity of her glare in the darkness, so she burned two holes into him without holding back. “This ain’t about me. It’s bout the cat.”
“Maybe I can help the cat,” he said.
Harriet didn’t answer.
Samuel edged a rucksack off his broad shoulder and placed it on the ground. Harriet spotted a hammer and an adze as he rummaged inside. She wondered what he was building. The man had mysterious interests. Always packing something. A moment later, he pulled out a rope.
The waterman looped the line around the wide oak and tied it about his hips. With his feet against the trunk, he threw the loop high on the far side of the tree and, leaning back into the rope, walked his way up—leveraging the line higher every few paces—until he reached a branch to climb. With one hand and then the other, he pulled himself free and onto the limb. He grabbed awkwardly for the rope at the last moment, but it fell to the ground. Harriet thought she heard him mumble a cuss word as she snatched it up, untied the knot, and stood back to watch.
The sturdy tree didn’t move with his weight until he reached the branch on which Trouble turned around to evaluate the progress of her rescuer. Samuel edged onto the limb on his belly, distributing his bulk along the branch. It sagged as he inched forward, though he stopped every foot or so to quiet the swaying.
He was too heavy, Harriet thought. She ought to be up there. The limb would support her, not him. “Samuel, come down,” she called.
“Here, cat,” he crooned high above her head. With one arm around the limb, Samuel reached out his other hand. “Come on, Trouble. Come on, stupid cat.”
The animal watched him without moving. Samuel crept closer. “Kitty, kitty,” he said.
A crack split the night. The end of the tree branch sagged toward the ground far below. The cat hissed angrily. Samuel froze. His head was lower than his feet.
Harriet stopped breathing. Dear Lord, dear Lord, she prayed. Don’t let that fool break his neck. Her own head whirled at the downward tilt of the branch. “Come down,” she called. “Dang cat ain’t worth it!”
Samuel edged cautiously back toward the trunk. The limb leveled. He called down. “Find a rock. Throw it at her.”
Harriet dropped to her knees in the dark and groped around until she found a couple of pebbles. She pitched one. It sailed below the branch. Trouble meowed but didn’t move. Harriet cursed her aim. She studied the limb and threw the second rock harder, grazing the cat’s rump. Trouble yelped and ran down the branch. Samuel snatched it under his arm and scooted backward into a seated position against the trunk. Gripping the animal against his chest, he climbed down the trunk until he finally got to the lowest limb. There he leaned over.
“You take it now,” he said.
Harriet stretched as high as she could. Samuel let go. The cat dropped into her arms and then sprang away with a loud complaint at the rough handling. It dashed through the dark, up the stairs, and into the house.
“Damn cat,” Samuel said.
“Infernal ingrate,” she said with a grin.
“How do I get down?” he said.
“Should I throw up the rope?”
“No,” he said. “I think I can make it.”
Samuel slipped over the branch again. Hand by hand, he worked his weight toward the middle of the limb. He paused a safe distance from the trunk, then dropped a sickening fifteen feet to the ground. Harriet rushed to help him up, brushing the dirt from his shirt. He looked down at her, which reminded her of the man underneath the clothing.
She stepped back. “You okay?”
“Seem in one piece.” He took an experimental step but quickly laid a hand on her shoulder. He inhaled sharply. “Think I twisted the ankle.”
Harriet picked up his rucksack and wrapped an arm around his waist. “Lean on me,” she said. “Let’s make you a bandage for that.”
They hobbled up the stairs of the house and down the dark hallway of the boarding house. “This way,” she said with a whisper. “But quiet. My landlady has a tongue on her.”
Harriet showed him into her room, where he dropped onto the bed. She took a clean rag from a basket, folded it into a long bandage, and removed his shoe and sock. The sprain had started to swell. She wrapped it tightly. “Lay back,” she said and then got a blanket from her wardrobe. She rolled it into a pillow. “Put that foot up.”
Samuel looked reluctant, but he reclined backward as instructed. “Don’t want to put you out, Moses. I know you’re mad at me.”
“It ain’t no bother. We don’t want this to get worse.” She doubled the pillow-roll and propped his ankle on top. “Stay here whilst I fetch up some ice.”
Harriet took a cup from another shelf in the wardrobe and went outside. When she returned from the icehouse, she packed the chips around his ankle with a second rag. By morning, the swelling should be reduced or gone. She would sleep on the couch in the parlor.
“You stay here tonight,” she said. She put her hands on his chest when he tried to sit up. “No walking. We need you right as rain. Can’t take no chances with the raid coming.”
“Where will you sleep?”
“Don’t you worry none. I got a spot,” she said. Harriet stood to get a shawl and walked to the side table to turn off the oil lamp.
“Stay a minute,” Samuel said. “I wasn’t just passing. I come here to talk to you.”
Harriet held the knob of the lamp. She was glad he couldn’t see her face. He’s an injured man like any other, she reminded herself. “We ain’t got nothing to talk about,” she said.
“I need to say this,” he said. “Please.”
Something in his voice reached her. She turned around. Samuel had propped himself against the wall. The lamplight caught the tip of a broken oak leaf in his hair. She resisted the urge to remove it and instead sat on the edge of the bed. Harriet folded her hands over the shawl in her lap. “Say your piece,” she said.
He waited a long moment, as if searching for words that didn’t exist. “What Walter said, that’s true,” he said. “I have a wife. Should’ve told you. Mas’r sent her to my cabin years ago. She didn’t know why—she was that young. Fourteen, maybe.”
Trouble jumped to the bed. Harriet let the cat climb onto the shawl, glad to have something to hold.
“Lucy had no interest in me. And I had my eye on another gal. But that didn’t matter. Heyward decided it was time for Lucy to breed, and I was the one. He’d bought me and my brother from a Virginia trader. Liked our size.”
Harriet stroked the cat, which stood and turned around to find a more comfortable position. Samuel leaned forward. He pinched the wisp of the cat’s tail. When the animal settled, Samuel fell against the wall again.
“I didn’t do nothing when Lucy first came,” he said. “But when I finally told her what Heyward wanted, she thought I was behind it. Got so mad, she threw a frying pan. Took a chunk out a the door.” Samuel smiled. “Luce is known to speak her mind,” he said, using what must be her nickname. He stared down at the cat on Harriet’s lap as if looking at the past rather than the animal. He doled out the facts in a low voice.
“So we decided I’d sleep on the floor. Wouldn’t tell no one,” he said. “That worked for a spell. Then Heyward’s driver told me that mas’r planned to sell Lucy to the next trader. Didn’t want no woman who wasn’t a breeder. Said a barren gal wasn’t worth her grub. Mas’r Heyward, he had a new one in mind for me.”
Samuel looked up. “I couldn’t do that to Luce. So I told her what he said. We decided we’d best get to it.” His voice roughened. “Think South Carolina is bad? In Cuba, they grind niggers up with the sugar. Never heard tell of anybody coming back.”
Harriet studied his resolute, purposeful face. Despite the turned ankle, nothing about him was weak. His wide shoulders and long legs filled her bed.
“We didn’t have no choice,” Samuel said.
Harriet nodded. “I know.”
“So we took up with each other,” he said. “Now we have three boys. I told her I’d come back for em. And I will.”
“You miss her?” Harriet asked.
“I miss my boys. Lucy and me, we get along alright, but she thick with her mama and sisters. Say she can’t leave without em. I think she needs them more’n me.”
Harriet gazed down at the sleeping cat and ruffled the fur behind its ears. She wondered what Lucy felt for Samuel, then and now. Perhaps she loved him. Or maybe she resented him. Harriet’s own years in Maryland hadn’t been lucky ones, but at least she and John had chosen one another. Turned out, some parts of hell were hotter than others. That wasn’t something preachers talked much about, perhaps because each person’s suffering was different and incomparable and designed just to torture them.
“Why is Walter mad at you, then?” she said, her gaze still trained on the cat. She recalled the yearning, conflicted look on Walter’s face earlier that day.
Samuel gave a mirthless laugh. “Jest when you think you got a raw deal, you learn someone else got it worse,” he said. “Mas’r Heyward gave me a woman to sire big youngins’. Walter, he’s a runt. Never had nobody. His mas’r kept breeders for prime hands. Walter thinks I ought to be grateful.”
Samuel leaned toward the cat again, but this time, he caught Harriet’s sleeve instead of its tail. “And I did accept my lot,” he said softly. “Until now.”
Harriet glanced up. Their eyes met. She couldn’t look away. Didn’t want to look away.
“God made you, Harriet Tubman. So I expect He gone forgive me for being awed,” Samuel said. “I never seen anything finer in all my years than that first meeting when you lit into Walter for splashing his oars near a Rebel picket.”
Harriet leaned forward and picked the golden leaf from his dark curls. “That’s what you remember? My hollering at Walter?” she scoffed.
“Made a better waterman a me,” he said with a grin. Then his smile vanished. He reached for her hand. Samuel slipped his rough fingers between hers. “It changed me. I never knew there was this,” he said. He withdrew his fingers and wrapped his hand around her slim wrist. “All this fire and glory in one woman.”
It was as if the cuff of her blouse had vanished and her skin was bare. She felt the warmth of his palm as his hand slid up her sleeve, cupped her elbow, and came to rest on her bare neck, where the scars of childhood didn’t rebel for once. A finger caressed her earlobe. Although his hand was callused, he touched her tenderly. Samuel looked for reassurance in her eyes, and then he drew her down. She came toward him until their lips met like the halves of a locket closing on itself.
Samuel’s tongue found hers. Eyes shut, Harriet sensed only the tremor in his lips and the irresistible pull of his hand on her neck. She felt his eager body through his clothing. She wanted him on top of her. Wanted to weave her legs with his. Nothing else mattered. Not even saving the world.
Harriet crushed her mouth against Samuel’s and pushed away the cat. Trouble fell to the floor along with her shawl.