A Free Heart (7 page)

“Did you come from a religious home, then?” Harriet was curious despite herself. Tom had a way of putting things that made them seem alive in her mind.

“Well, I guess that all depends on what you consider religious.” He scratched his chin. “My grandmother certainly tried to put the fear in us. She had a Bible on a table in the corner of the parlor, and it was full of watercolor paintings of Adam and Eve and Satan and the Good Lord. Looking at that book was the only thing I was allowed to do on Sunday afternoons, so you might say it’s all burned in my brain. I didn’t stick with it as I got older, though.”

“And where was your grandmother’s house?”

“Wichita. I started traveling around when I was about fifteen, though—been on the road and rails ever since, finding jobs here and there.”

A strained note had entered Tom’s voice, and Harriet turned to look at him directly. “Why did you leave, Tom?”

He didn’t answer for a moment. Instead, he fingered the brim of his hat, and Harriet wondered if she’d asked something too personal. She often didn’t know when to stop prying, and it had gotten her into trouble many times in the past.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “We can change the subject.”

“No, that’s all right. I just haven’t talked about that day much.” Tom paused again and cleared his throat. “Well, it was me and my mother living with my grandma. I hadn’t seen my father for a few years—he liked to drink, and my mother had told him he needed to stop. He wasn’t ever happy unless he had a bottle in his fist, so he took off and told us he didn’t need us anymore. We were getting along fine, but then he showed up one day and told my mother she was coming back home with him.”

The conductor came down the aisle just then, and Tom paused until they’d handed over their tickets. After the man had worked his way down several more rows, Tom turned back to Harriet. “My mother told him she wasn’t going, that she could smell whiskey on his breath. I’d heard them shouting from outside and came in just in time to see him strike her. I tried to get between them, but he punched me good and hard and then pulled out his gun.”

Harriet realized she was holding her breath and forced herself to exhale. “Then what?” she asked when he fell silent.

“He shot my mother and left.”

“Oh, no.” Harriet pressed a hand to her mouth. “And you saw . . .”

Tom nodded.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She wanted to reach out and touch his arm, but didn’t.

“My grandmother fell ill because of grief and went to live with her sister. I was sent to live with my uncle, but he was a mean man and liked to use his whip for more than just training horses, so I left. I’ve been traveling ever since, and I’ve had a lot of adventures. So you’re not to feel sorry for me, Miss Martin.” He grinned when he used her surname. “I go where I want, I do what I want, and no one has me tied down. Mr. Brody’s been a good boss, though—I might stay in Topeka for a while.”

Harriet mulled that over. What did the future hold for her? After she met with Jane, would she go back to Atlanta? She just didn’t know.

“There’s one part of your story you’ve left out, and it’s one I’m particularly anxious to hear,” she said.

“Oh?” Tom raised an eyebrow.

“Yes. It’s about this Miss Beulah May Evans. It seems that I have a right to know all about her, considering that you mistook me for her once upon a time.”

Tom’s cheeks colored. “You’re right—you do deserve to know about her. Well, she lived in the house right next door to my grandmother’s. She was a spunky little spitfire, a lot like you—I guess that’s common with redheads.”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Harriet said. Many was the time she had cursed her red hair and her mother’s Irish heritage, which had made all the women in the family for the last three generations a bit difficult to handle.

“Beulah May was about fourteen years old when I decided I was going to marry her. I told her that one day while we were out picking corn—our fields touched on one side, and we liked to work that side together and talk. Made things go much faster. Anyway, she didn’t seem to like the idea too much, so I set down my basket, pulled her to me, and kissed her.”

“Oh, so you have a habit of grabbing and kissing women.” Harriet shook her head in secret amusement. She should have been angry, but she couldn’t bring herself to it this time. “I’m sure you could come up with another way that would be more persuasive.”

“Oh, there’s nothing wrong with my powers of persuasion,” Tom said, another grin crossing his face. “As soon as I let her go, she promised to marry me on her sixteenth birthday. But then my mother died, and I left.”

“Did you ever go back to see her?” Harriet asked.

“I did, once. About two years ago. She’d married someone else and had settled down to raise a family. She told me she thought about me once in a while, but that it was probably all for the best that we hadn’t gotten hitched.”

“So when you kissed me, thinking I was Beulah May, you thought you were kissing a married woman? For shame, Mr. White! I hardly know what to think.”

He looked down at his hands, his cheeks red again. “This may sound foolish, but for a moment, I thought I’d somehow gone back in time and she was fourteen years old again. I forgot all about her husband and children—it was just the two of us in that cornfield.”

Harriet opened her mouth to make another retort, but found that she couldn’t. She’d thought Tom’s actions had been impetuous and improper, and true, he shouldn’t have grabbed her like he did, but now, knowing the reasons behind it . . . She saw not a man trying to take advantage, but a boy seeking after his lost love. It was more touching than any romantic novel she’d ever read.

“I
am
sorry for being so hard on you, Tom,” she said after a long moment of trying to decide if she could even speak. “I didn’t understand.”

“Don’t worry about it. In fact, I think it makes for a mighty interesting story.” Tom smiled and gave her a nod. “Now, tell me about this lady we’re about to go meet.”

They really had nothing else to do to occupy their time, so Harriet told him all about growing up on the plantation and what it was like to own slaves. She wished she could skip over that part of the story and that she could do away with the memory altogether, but that was impossible. She couldn’t change the facts of what happened any more than a bee could change its stripes. So she tried to focus on her good memories, on the fudge Jane used to make and her wonderful dinner rolls, the way she’d come tuck Harriet in at night, even though Harriet had her own nanny, and the way Harriet knew she could always go to Jane when her mother was away or distracted, which happened far too often.

“In many ways, Jane was like a mother to me as well as being a dear friend,” Harriet explained. “Marrying Sam and becoming an extension of his family would have felt natural because Jane and I were already close.”

“How did Jane feel about your engagement to Sam?” Tom asked. He’d been listening attentively, which had encouraged Harriet to say even more than she normally would. He probably now knew more about her than any other person alive, and it would be a miracle if his ears still worked at the end of their journey.

“I don’t know,” Harriet confessed. “She had moved to Kansas by that point, and I don’t know if she had even been told of our plans. Part of this trip is to speak to her about that. I hate to think that we’d made a decision that would bring her grief.”

Tom shifted in his seat. “You might . . .”

“What?”“Nothing. I didn’t say anything.”

“Yes, you certainly did. Now, what was it?”

Tom shifted again, and Harriet wondered if he’d suddenly sat on a cocklebur. “Jane was a slave for a long time, probably even her whole life. You might want to be open to the possibility that she might not have been in favor of her son marrying her former owner’s daughter.”

“Even though Sam was in love with me?” Harriet couldn’t help the sharp note that entered her voice.

Tom held up both hands. “You know as well as I do that tension gets high between the races. I worked on a ranch with a couple of men who used to be slaves. They had plenty to say against the plantation owners, and from where I sit, they were justified. If Jane’s holding any kind of ill feelings, it’s best you prepare yourself for that now.”

“But I never supported any of my father’s doings when it came to slavery. As soon as I was old enough to realize what was going on, I stood up to him. Wouldn’t she know that? Wouldn’t she understand?” Their perfectly nice conversation had taken a horrible turn, and Harriet couldn’t believe what Tom was saying. Hadn’t he been listening at all when she told him how she felt about the slaves?

“I’m not saying you had anything to do with it. But sometimes, people have a hard time separating the actions of one person from the actions of another. Listen, Harriet, I don’t mean to imply anything. I’m just trying to prepare you in case you aren’t received the way you’d like to be.”

Was he really saying anything she hadn’t already thought? No, but hearing it out loud made it real and frightening. She also didn’t like how familiar he was becoming with her situation when they weren’t even friends—they’d only called a truce a few days ago, and that hardly entitled him to become so interested in her life and to offer advice.

“I believe I’m quite fatigued and will close my eyes for a bit, Mr. White. If you’ll excuse me.” She tried to lay her head on the headrest behind her, which was hard to do while wearing a hat, but she tried it all the same.

“Well, there you go again.”

Her eyes snapped open. “What do you mean?”

Tom looked at her with disgust. “Any time I annoy you, you start using all your fancified language and push me aside like I’m nothing more than a piece of hay under your foot. I guess you expect me to feel put in my place, like I’ve been told what’s what. I have some information for you, Miss Martin. Part of being a free man is not caring anymore what other people think. I’ve never been a slave, but I had to get free from my own situation, and I did. Since that day, as long as I’ve felt right with myself, that’s all I’ve cared about.” He shook his head. “I felt bad for offending you because my actions weren’t what they should have been. But when I’ve done no wrong, when all I’ve tried to do is help you, and you decide I’m no longer worth your time, I refuse to be made to feel like less of a man because of it. Enjoy your snooze, and I’ll wake you when we get there.”

He turned away and pulled his hat over his eyes. Harriet was stunned into silence. Had she really been treating him that way? Before she’d even finished asking herself the question, she knew that yes, she had, and she was thoroughly ashamed of herself for it. She had made a case for being fair to all the slaves and treating them as equals, and yet she hadn’t done that for Tom, who was also a human being with rights. She peeked over at him, his neatly trimmed blond hair sticking out from under the sides of his hat. She’d been so blind, so determined to prove that the slave and the former slave were deserving of respect, that she hadn’t extended that courtesy to all, regardless of their backgrounds. If she was going to fight for equality, it needed to be offered to everyone or it could not be considered true equality.

She tried to doze, but her thoughts kept her from it. A bit later, she decided she was hungry, and opened the basket Miss Hampton had packed for them. Tom accepted a sandwich and a bit of cake without saying much, then pulled his hat back down and resumed his nap. At least, that’s the impression he tried to give—Harriet suspected that a hard-working man like Tom wasn’t used to taking naps, and was just trying to avoid her. She couldn’t blame him. She wasn’t pleased with her company at that moment either.

Chapter Nine

When the train pulled in to Salina at last, Harriet’s legs were so weak from disuse, she felt as though they would collapse underneath her. She made her way down the aisle and managed to descend the steps to the platform without sagging or swaying, which she considered to be a huge accomplishment.

After her set-to with Tom, she assumed that he’d forget his vow to take care of her and that he’d just as soon leave her to her own devices. But as soon as they stepped off the train, he was right at her elbow, looking around for clear paths to walk, steering her where it would be easiest to get through the crowd. On more than one occasion, she caught men looking at her with thinly disguised interest, but then their eyes would flick over to Tom and they’d move away. She had to admit, he did make a rather imposing figure, and she wouldn’t want to go up against him for any reason.

Tom guided her over to the ticket booth. “Pardon me, sir. I have an address. Is this near or far from here? Is it possible to walk?”The man on the other side of the window picked up the envelope Tom slid under the glass partition and squinted at it through his dusty spectacles. “That’s quite a piece from here, son. I wouldn’t try this on foot unless you had all day and a healthy snack. There’s a livery stable just yonder. Renting a buggy is probably your best option.”

Tom thanked him, put the envelope back in his pocket, and took Harriet by the elbow again. “If anyone asks, we’re married,” he said low in her ear.

“I beg your pardon. What?” She glanced at him with indignation.

“You are my wife. Now keep moving off the platform. We need to get out of this crowd.”

“You certainly could have picked a more charming way to propose.” She had to move her feet twice as fast to keep up with him. The grip he had on her elbow, while not painful, was definitely firm, and she knew there was no squirming out of it.

They reached the livery stable just as she caught sight of two men from the train station following them. At least, she assumed they had followed them, but she was sure that many of the passengers just off the train were in need of a buggy. It was probably a coincidence that had placed them all here at the same time.

Tom spoke to the owner about a rental while Harriet moved down the row and found a nice little chestnut mare to stroke. One of her favorite memories of childhood was riding her horse, Cherry, along the paths that lined the plantation. She had never forgotten that feeling of total independence as she flew along in the wind, her hair streaming behind her. Cherry had grown old and was no longer able to be ridden by the time Harriet was twelve, but she’d visited her in the stables every day until her father finally sold the horse off the property.