Chapter Twelve

“I need to go back.” The words came from Josie as if impelled by some irresistible force impossible to deny.

Dorothea stared at her in alarm. The two of them sat on the floor of the deserted cottage a mile or so up the shore, the place devoid of furnishings, while Chieftain guarded the door and the two lads played some game that led them from room to room.

Dorothea had kept up a steady stream of chatter, to which Josie failed to listen. All the while her inner senses screamed at her, till now, with the sun sinking away to the west and dark gathering off over the sea, she knew what she must do.

“No.” Dorothea lowered her voice, maybe in the vain hope the boys wouldn’t hear. “You can’t! Those men…”

“You think they won’t figure it out, discover where I am?”

“Douglas will turn them away.”

“No.” Violently, Josie shook her head. Oh, she believed in Douglas’s promise right enough. But he didn’t know the kind of people these were. Josie did, and she’d rather return to Massa Collingwood than see him pay the ultimate price on her behalf.

That’s what love was about, wasn’t it? Caring more about somebody else than herself. And she cared more, so much more.

He’d given her that promise, sure, but he couldn’t keep it if he was no longer breathing. And she couldn’t go on living knowing she’d cost him everything.

“If they come here, Dora, they’ll hurt you, and the boys, and Chieftain.”

The big dog turned his eyes on her and huffed, as if he knew she spoke of him. Both boys stopped their running and came to stand beside their sister. They eyed Josie gravely.

Josie so seldom saw them still, or quiet, it seemed strange now. They had handsome little faces, dark hair, and their father’s deep blue eyes, gone solemn.

Josie’s heart clenched with protective love. She couldn’t let harm come to them for her sake. She had to go and face this nightmare that had followed her so long, had to face it down.

She scrambled up from the dusty floor. “Dora, you stay here with your brothers. I don’t want any harm to come to them.”

“No,” Dorothea said again, and her face went pale and tight. She seized Josie by the wrist. “I don’t want any harm to come to you!”

“What is it, Dora?” Alasdair, the elder of the two lads, asked. “What’s happening in town?”

Dorothea stood, which brought Chieftain to her side. “Jo, Douglas told you to stay away.”

“But he’s in danger. I can feel it.” Josie pressed her hand to her breast. “Here.”

“Oh, God,” Dorothea whispered, “I don’t know what to do.”

Josie touched her cheek. “Not up to you, Dora. This is for me to do.” To face, at last.

Dorothea pulled Josie close in a fierce hug. “You have to be the bravest person I’ve ever known.”

Funny, Josie didn’t feel so brave.

****

She ran as she hadn’t run since that awful night when the chains fell from her wrists, not away from the danger this time but into it. The dark slipped over the land from the direction of the sea to accompany her, and her heart pounded in time with her footfalls. Terror sat on her shoulder, an even closer companion.

As she ran she formed a plan in her mind: she would go to the blacksmith shop, enter through the back quarters and see what was what. If Dougie had managed to chase those men off, all well and good. If not, she would have to get between him and them the way a mama cat got between her kittens and a fierce dog. Because she knew just what this kind of men would do.

Dougie had never lived in her world, a place of unreasonable injustice and unfathomable cruelty.

Hadn’t she always known things would end this way, with her dragged back into the same nightmare from which she’d emerged? Yes, she’d known this time with Dougie for nothing but a beautiful dream, and just as fleeting.

She pressed one hand to her belly as she ran and wondered about the little one who sheltered there. Dougie’s child. Would it be born far away from here and never know its father?

Tears blurred her vision as she pelted on. How hard it was to protect the ones she loved!

The discord inside her unfurled ever more sharply when she reached town, the big dog still loping at her side. She should have begun meeting folks by now, but they passed no one at the harbor or along Main. She ducked behind the houses and businesses that lined Maple, so as to approach the blacksmith’s through the back yard. She tore open the door to the quarters which were empty, and froze where she stood.

She could hear voices.

They came at her like blows through the curtain that closed off the forge and from further still—out in the street. Men, angry—shouting. All the agonized warning that had been clamoring inside her surged into one bright spear, sharp as pain.

Dougie’s voice. And another that stole her breath and drove her to her knees.

Not that. Not him. Not here.

Chieftain looked at her in question and moved nearer, panting. Calling upon every shred of will, Josie used the dog’s broad back and pushed herself back up.

Driven by the love inside her, she walked through the forge and out into the street.

****

Douglas rarely allowed himself to indulge in hatred. He’d learned all too well by watching Rab Sinclair that a good man instead chose kindness and reason. But the individual who now stood facing him in the middle of the street destroyed all his hard-learned forbearance, swept it away like a harsh wind.

Buford Collingwood. Douglas didn’t know what he’d pictured when Josie spoke of her former master, but it wasn’t this. A cruel man, yes—hadn’t he sold Josie’s ma away? Powerful, perhaps. Wealthy, though surely most of what he’d owned before the war must be lost to him now.

To be sure, he retained enough wealth to hire these mercenaries to track innocent folks down, and to book his own passage for the sake of…what? Spite?

Looking into the man’s face, Douglas believed it, for his was a face made ugly by hard and bitter emotions, lines carved deep, cheeks sunken. Buford Collingwood did not appear well, his complexion grayed and the fine clothes he wore hanging on a gaunt frame.

Douglas hoped he was dying.

Josie’s father. Those words whispered in the back of his mind. And then—no, it couldn’t be so. It must be a lie.

She would have told him. Wouldn’t she?

Thank God she wasn’t here.

“You know who I am,” Collingwood said to him now. He had come up from the packet boat led by the fellow called Grady, and Douglas met him in the street with his hammer still in his hand. The four of them now ranged opposite him, the three slave hunters at Collingwood’s back.

The entire town, or so it seemed, had gathered, filtering up and standing along the street utterly silent. The last thing Douglas ever wanted was to be a show, but he was willing to fight this out here or anywhere else.

“I know who you are,” he spat and barely recognized his own voice, thick with loathing.

“Then you understand I have a prior claim to Josie Collingwood.” The man’s lip curled. “I understand she goes by the name Josie Freeman now.”

“Josie Grier,” Douglas said carefully. “You’re speaking of my wife.”

Collingwood gave a cough of laughter. “You’ll have to do better than that. She was born on my land. That makes her my property, just like any other livestock. And no piece of paper signed by any Negro-lover in Washington is going to make me give up what’s mine. The laws I obey were made in the Confederacy, son.”

“I’m not your son,” Douglas returned, as he had earlier.

“Well, then, you can’t claim you’re married to her, because the little filly’s my daughter. By-blow got on one of my house slaves.” Collingwood gave a ghastly smile that revealed pale yellow teeth. “Wealth, you see, has its privileges.”

A red haze appeared before Douglas’s eyes. When it faded, he stood in the grips of several of his neighbors, the hammer raised above his head, and all three of the slave hunters had their weapons drawn, aimed upon him.

Buford Collingwood took a decided step backward and adjusted his fine coat.

“We’re taking her, boy, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it—’less you’re fixing to die.”

“No!” Josie cried as she stepped out into the center of the street.