A Day to Pick Your Own Cotton (29 page)
Katie and Jeremiah helped me down off the horse, and I nearly collapsed at the water’s edge.
“Water …” I tried to say, “… thirsty.”
Katie jumped to the river, took off her bonnet, scooped it full of water, and hurried back to me. She helped me sit up and held the water to my lips before most of it soaked through the cloth to the ground. But I managed two or three swallows.
She went back, and after a few minutes I had managed to get some water into my belly and Katie had washed my face.
I smiled faintly and said softly, “Thank you.”
“Oh, Mayme,” Katie said, “it breaks my heart to see you like this!”
She embraced me again. I stretched my arms around her and we held each other for the longest time. Katie relaxed, and I saw Emma and Jeremiah kneeling beside her. I reached toward Emma, and she came forward and embraced me too. My back ached with pain when they hugged me, but the hugging was worth the pain. Then I smiled at Jeremiah, still too worn out to wonder what he was doing with the others.
“We wuz so worried fer you, Miz Mayme,” said Emma. “I knowed it wuz my fault an’ I’m dreadful sorry what you had ter go through on account er me. Miz Katie tol’ me dey wuz lookin’ fer me, an’ you din’t tell ’em ’bout me—I know you didn’t an’ I don’ know how ter thank you. I’m so sorry, Miz Mayme. But Miz Katie, she’s so brave, and she said we wuz gwine git you away from dem, but I wuz skeered—”
Katie laughed. “We were both scared, Emma,” she said. “I’m not sure about Jeremiah,” she added, looking at him, “but God helped us do what we had to do.—Do you think you can ride, Mayme?”
“I feel better now,” I said. “I’ve hardly had anything to eat or drink in two days. I was just feeling faint.”
“Then let’s get you home.”
We mounted again and rode the rest of the way, not quite as fast but with Katie still pushing the two horses at more than a walk.
When at last I saw the white buildings of Rosewood in the distance, I was so relieved I thought I would burst for happiness.
We had hardly come into sight when a small figure came running and yelling from the house. “Mayme … Mayme!”
Katie and Emma jumped down from their horse. Katie steadied me while Jeremiah got down and then I slumped off the saddle into his arms.
I looked toward the house and halfway opened my arms just as Aleta rushed into them and embraced me like I never thought would happen for as long as I lived. My back was screaming in pain from the drying welts, and as she grabbed me it was all I could do not to cry out. But my heart was so warmed from the look in her eyes that I thought I could endure just about anything.
“Mayme, you’re back … I missed you so much,” she said. “I was so worried about you!”
“I’m fine now, Aleta,” she said.
Still she kept clinging to me and didn’t want to let go.
“I love you, Mayme,” she said.
Tears filled my eyes. I looked over at Katie. Her eyes were wet too.
“Welcome back, Mayme,” Katie said. “Welcome home.”
Jeremiah lifted me in his arms and carried me toward the house. Katie led the way inside and up the stairs. I don’t know what Jeremiah thought, but he didn’t ask any questions. A minute or two later I was lying on the bed while Katie and Emma and Aleta were scurrying about fetching water for the tub and talking about getting some food and liquid inside me.
Whatever Jeremiah was thinking as he stood in the kitchen watching all the commotion, he kept to himself. But he couldn’t be in much doubt that Katie’s mother wasn’t anywhere around, or that there wasn’t a sign of any other grown-up either. It was clear enough that Katie was mistress of the place.
Once she had Emma and Aleta about their jobs—one stoking the kitchen fire to warm some soup and the other carrying water upstairs for a bath—she went over to Jeremiah and led him outside.
“I don’t know how to thank you, Jeremiah,” she said. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“I’m jes’ glad Miz Mayme’s safe,” he said, “an’ dat I could help.”
A moment of silence passed between them.
“Please …” began Katie after a few seconds, “you won’t tell … will you? Someday … maybe we can explain what is going on here. But for now, nobody can know.”
He stood looking at the serious expression on Katie’s face.
“I reckon I can do dat, Miz Clairborne,” he said slowly. “ ’Tis mighty strange, I gotter say, seein’ two coloreds an’ two white girls all livin’ in a big house like dat together. But I reckon I can keep my mouf shut fer a spell. But you’ll tell me someday, I hope, ’cause you got me mighty curious.”
“I will try to,” said Katie with a relieved smile. “Thank you, Jeremiah.—Do you mind walking back to town? I’d let you take one of the horses, or ride you in myself, but …”
“Don’ mention it, Miz Clairborne,” said Jeremiah. “Dat’ll give my pa an’ dose other folks in town dat was watchin’ us wiff dere big eyes a chance ter settle down an’ ferget what dey seen. I’ll jes’ sneak in a round’bout way so no one sees me.”
“Maybe you’re right,” laughed Katie. “Thank you again!”
M
Y NIGHTMARE WAS OVER, BUT ITS EFFECTS LINGERED
for several weeks. I was exhausted and the wounds on my back were so painful I could hardly move for three days. Most of that time I spent in bed, relishing my freedom and never appreciating so much what it meant. The other three waited on me hand and foot. Once she saw my back, Aleta was all the more sensitive and compassionate.
The incident seemed to change us all. We knew this was no game. It was a risky adventure we had undertaken, and we were all in danger. If we hadn’t realized it before, we certainly did now, especially now that Jeremiah knew. Katie was deeply concerned about Emma and me and all the more committed to protecting us. Emma seemed quieter and more thoughtful, like she’d suddenly grown up several years in knowing that I hadn’t betrayed her, even when my own life had been at stake. I hadn’t really thought about it in those terms, but she kept saying over and over, “I can’t believe you did dat fer me, Miz Mayme. I jes’ can’t believe it!”
Aleta seemed most changed of all by what had happened. She didn’t seem like such a little girl anymore, but like she was really one of us.
But though the nightmare was past, we all knew the danger was still with us. It would always be with us as long as William McSimmons and his wife were worried about Emma and her baby. I think for the first time Katie realized just how much danger would be part of our lives from now on. But luckily, the man from the McSimmons place asking about black babies and pretending there was some disease going around never came back.
One thing I knew, and it made me sad, was that I could never visit Josepha again.
But though we expected trouble every day, no more trouble came for a time—at least of that kind—and I gradually recovered and got my strength back and began getting up and helping again with the daily chores. And after a while we settled into the old routine from before, though we were all more wary, always watching and listening for the sounds of horses coming.
September came and the crops all about Rosewood were ripening. Katie still had most of the ten dollars left from the gold coin she’d changed to smaller money and the two dollars she’d found in the pantry, and so money was the last thing we were thinking about. To girls like us, ten dollars seemed like enough to last us a lifetime.
And the fact that there was a loan coming due real soon, from when Katie’s mother had borrowed against Rosewood, was a fact that neither of us really knew what it meant. We knew that you had to pay back loans, but it never dawned on us what might happen if you didn’t.
So we didn’t think about it and didn’t realize we should be thinking about it, and all the while an even bigger danger to our scheme of keeping the plantation going was sneaking up on us a little closer with every day that passed.
Then a new danger came calling, and we suddenly had a new crisis on our hands that neither Katie or me had any idea how to get out of.
One day a carriage drove up to Rosewood. As soon as I heard it in the distance, I hurried Aleta to the blacksmith’s shed and got her pounding on the anvil. Then I hurried to light a couple of fires in the slave cabins while Katie got Emma and William into the cellar with a lantern. When the fires were lit I walked through the yard with the laundry basket we always had ready full of rags and old blankets.
I didn’t recognize who the visitor was, but Katie did. It was the man from the bank.
Katie met him outside the back door. He rode up and stopped in front of the house.
“Miss Kathleen,” he said in an abrupt tone as he started to get down from his carriage, “tell your mother I am here to see her.”
“She’s not at home, Mr. Taylor,” said Katie.
“What—after I have come all this way?”
He shook his head and let out a frustrated sigh. You could tell he was getting tired of never seeing Katie’s mother.
“I
must
see her,” he said. “The financial situation since you were into the bank to make that small payment has grown very serious. The balance of one hundred fifty-three dollars on your mother’s loan is due next month, and I am being pressured to take action.”
“Uh … what will happen if the loan isn’t paid, Mr. Taylor?” asked Katie.
“I am afraid I will have no choice but to begin foreclosure proceedings.”
“What does that mean?” asked Katie.
“It means that the bank will take Rosewood.”
“You mean … take the house away from my mother?”
“I am afraid so,” said the man as he climbed back into his carriage.
“You wouldn’t really do that … would you, Mr. Taylor?”
“It would not be my decision,” he replied. “I don’t own the bank, I only work for it, Kathleen. There are policies that I have to follow. Those policies protect the bank’s interests and enable it to make loans in the first place. Now I do not want to foreclose on Rosewood. I will do everything I can to help. But if your mother continues to avoid coming to talk to me, there will be nothing I can do … or that anyone can do. I am sorry. I will be sending a team of auditors out to Rosewood in a few weeks to valuate all the assets and the house. They will have to look at everything. A public notice will then go out for the auction.”
“What’s that?” asked Katie.
“When all the assets of the plantation will be sold. It will be announced in all the newspapers. Tell your mother to come see me immediately. These delays are hurting no one but her. If she doesn’t do something, and soon, she will lose everything.”
He climbed back into the seat, flicked the reins, called to his horses, then turned the carriage around as they moved off and bounced back in the direction of town.
As soon as he was gone, I asked Katie what he wanted. I could tell from her face that it was serious. She tried to explain to me what he’d said.
“Mayme,” she said, “he’s going to send people here and announce in the newspapers that Rosewood’s for sale! Everyone will find out. The bank’s going to take Rosewood away from us. They’ll find out about me and Emma and Aleta and you … everything.”
“Then we have to do something,” I said.
“How can we? He said we had to pay back the whole loan. We don’t have a hundred fifty dollars. All we’ve got is what’s left over from that one ten-dollar coin. Oh, Mayme … what are we going to do!”
“I reckon it’s time to start praying again,” I said. “God’s helped us out of every fix we’ve been in so far.”
Katie’s momentary despair was cut short as we both suddenly realized we were hearing the clanking of iron on iron coming from the blacksmith’s shed. Poor Aleta—her arm must have been about ready to fall off from pounding the hammer on the anvil!
We turned and ran toward the sound.
“He’s gone,” called Katie. “You can come out now, Aleta.”
A
WEEK PASSED. KATIE WAS REALLY DOWNCAST
, like I’d never seen her before. She went through her daily chores hardly saying a word. The thought of us all having to be separated and leave each other weighed her down something dreadful. I think she felt it was somehow her fault because of the loan, and if it hadn’t been for that, everything would be fine.
