I have spread my dreams under your feet
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Yeats
1875. Peach Orchard Farm
Johnny Atkins stopped his work in the cornfield to lift his head and listen. Since losing his eyesight, he’d developed the ears of a hunting hound, able to hear the slightest noise.
“Somebody’s crying,” he said to the freedman working at his side. Captain Will and Miss Charlotte were dedicated to hiring the ex-slaves and they were excellent workers, far better than the likes of him. Jeremiah made up where Johnny lacked.
“I don’t hear nothing, Mr. Johnny. You got ears like a jackrabbit.”
Johnny could hear the smile in the man’s voice. “I better go see. Somebody might be hurt.”
“You go on, then. I’ll finish out this chopping and see what Miss Charlotte wants done next.”
Johnny was already moving toward the sound of weeping. It was a woman’s voice, and his heart squeezed with worry. Had something happened?
As he drew closer, his feet moved faster, stumbling now and then in his rush as he recognized Patience’s voice, a voice he could separate from a crowd of hundreds.
“Miss Patience,” he called. “Is everything all right?”
The crying stopped and so did he, confused now about where to go.
“Where are you? I’m coming to help.”
She was silent for another moment or two while he caught his breath and wiped the sweat from the back of his neck with a rag.
“Here,” she said in a tremulous voice. “In the cemetery. But I’m all right, Johnny. No need to come any nearer.”
Wild horses wouldn’t stop him, though he rarely visited the cemetery, which sat a hundred yards east of the house. Too many fellow soldiers lay beneath that soil, unclaimed by the living. Soldiers, like him, who would never return home, though his was by choice and theirs was not.
After making sure his sunglasses and hat were in place to protect the lady’s sensibilities, he felt his way with a stick and his free hand to the fence leading inside the graveyard.
Finding the gate, he lifted the latch and stepped inside the quiet resting place. Holy ground, he thought, a place of God and peace. “Where?”
“Go back, Johnny. Don’t bother yourself. You have work to do.”
The words were enough to guide him and he found her, both by scent and sound. She always smelled like lavender, a flower she grew in the side yard and pressed into sachets and toilet water and gave as gifts. Everyone had a distinctive scent, and he’d know hers, the same as he knew her rainwater and honey voice, anywhere.
“What’s wrong, Miss Patience?” He touched her arm, pretending he did so to guide him next to her. Her skin was delicate beneath the thin cotton she wore to protect from the sun. “You ought not to be out here in this heat.”
“I’ve had a...difficult morning and didn’t want Charlotte to hear me.”
“Why?” He was prying and she’d likely rebuff him, but he cared too much to leave her alone in tears. If someone had upset her tender heart, they would answer to him. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Benjamin—” Her voice broke. “Oh, Johnny.”
“Benjamin?” He stiffened as fear struck him in the chest like a mine ball. The boy was a little brother to him, though neither a boy nor little any longer. “Is he hurt? Sick?”
“No, no. Nothing like that. He’s on his way to Colorado to find Tandy. I’m so afraid for him...”
She began to cry in earnest now, and though Johnny didn’t understand why she’d be this upset about an extended trip, his heart ached to hear her cry. Before he could think of all the reasons not to, he took her in his arms and pulled her close to his chest.
She stiffened like a frightened mare, and when he loosened his hold, she relaxed and came back to him, leaning in, resting her forehead against his chest with a sigh.
Johnny’s heart soared. He was holding Patience in his arms, something he’d longed to do for years. He kept his hold light, gentle as he would a fragile bird, so scared was he of upsetting her more.
“There now. It can’t be that bad,” he said softly. “What’s happened? I thought Tandy was in Hartford.”
If Patience was offended about the embrace, she didn’t show it. She remained in the shelter of his arms, a slender, feminine reed made of silk and sunlight. Johnny thought his chest would burst from the pure joy of touching his dearest love.
“Charlotte received a letter today.” Her breath waxed warm on his neck. He fought off a shudder, so great was his pleasure.
“Benjamin learned that Tandy’s owner, Robert Wellston, was a wealthy hotel owner.”
“There, then. Isn’t that good news? Ben’s found him.”
“No, not yet.” She shuddered back a sob. “Wellston sold his hotel and moved to Colorado a few years ago. He took Tandy along. Ben cannot go there, Johnny. He mustn’t.”
Ah, now he understood. She feared for Ben in a strange and wild place like Colorado. The papers were full of frightening stories about the West, of robbers and Indian trouble and disreputable men. He knew because Patience read them to him.
“Ben will be all right,” he assured her, purely, he told himself, to keep his promise to Benjamin. “Don’t you worry yourself one bit. He’s a smart boy, and God will watch over him.”
She trembled in his arms until he wondered at her great fear. Patience was not a woman given to hysterics.
“You’re a good man, Johnny Atkins. So kind and thoughtful.”
She laid her head against his shoulder, and to show her it was all right, he raised his hand to the silken hair falling loose against her back.
“Your hair’s like silk,” he murmured, forgetting himself. “So soft. Logan says it’s the color of corn silks. Beautiful as an angel’s.”
She stiffened again, and he knew he’d overstepped. Regret filled him as she pulled away. What was wrong with him? He should cut out his tongue for insulting her.
“I better get back to the house.” Her rainwater voice had turned curt. “We’ve pickles to make.”
“I’m sorry if I offended. I shouldn’t have—I was only concerned—”
“No offense taken, Johnny. I must go.”
He heard her move away, her skirt brushing the grass and tombstones, each obstacle sending a different sound into his ears. But the sound he heard the loudest was his own heart, beating for a woman he could never have.
* * *
Later, after supper when the lightning bugs danced over the fields, Johnny stood in the warm night listening to the music. First, of the cicadas and the distant train, of the night birds and crickets and tree frogs that sang him to sleep, and then of the music drifting from the parlor window. Heaven’s music, he was certain, played by an angel sent to earth.
He didn’t go inside. Couldn’t after his mistake in the cemetery. Instead he stepped silently onto the porch and settled into a rocking chair to listen to Patience play. The melody was unfamiliar, maybe one of her own compositions, but the sad and yearning tune pulled at a place inside him.
He tilted his head against the cool wood, glad for the darkness that covered his ugliness. Here, in the night music, he could pretend to be a man listening to his lady love, and dream of the future he’d never have.