American Dreams (14 page)

 

 

 

12

 

 

Temple overlapped the heavy drapes to shut out the morning sunlight, then turned and glanced at her mother, at last sleeping restfully in the big feather bed. Her lank black hair was loose about her face, accenting its thinness and pallor. Even though Black Cassie regularly bled her, her mother seemed to get weaker instead of better.

Maybe this time it would be different, Temple thought, and tiptoed to the door. She closed it quietly behind her and moved toward the staircase.

"Miz Temple. Miz Temple!" Black Cassie called anxiously to her from below, alarm in her voice.

"Quiet," Temple hissed, impatient with the Negro woman's thoughtlessness. "You will wake Mama."
 

"Miz Temple, you best come quick."

"What is it now?" she asked with undisguised irritation. Since she had been forced to take over the household duties because of her mother's illness, there seemed no end to the number of crises demanding her attention that occurred in the kitchen.

"They be riders comin', Miz Temple," Black Cassie declared, her voice filled with apprehension. "And they looks like they be Georgians."

"What?" Temple faltered in midstep halfway down the stairs.

"Hurry, Miz Temple," Black Cassie urged. "They be ridin' up the lane, bold as Satan. Somethin' bad's gwine to happen. I knows it."

Temple flew the rest of the way down the stairs and ran past Black Cassie to the dining room's front window. A blustery March wind chased dead leaves across the lawn, and her thoughts raced with them. The screeching of the peacocks at the as-yet-unseen intruders echoed the alarm she felt. They were alone, without a man to protect them. Her father was still in Washington and her uncle was away buying spring seed.

"Does ya see 'em?" Black Cassie hovered behind her.

"No."

Then Temple spotted them through the trees, a half dozen men on horseback, their hats pulled low and their collars turned up against the wind, all milling about the schoolhouse. Xandra, Kipp, her cousins—they were in there with Miss Hall.

Fighting down her fear, Temple swung from the window. "Where is Shadrach? That boy is never around when I need him."

"He be at school, Miz Temple."

Belatedly, Temple recalled that both Shadrach and Phoebe attended the morning classes. "Go to the stables as fast as you can and tell Ike to ride to Master Stuart's place."

"But he can'ts leave widout a pass."

"There isn't time for that. Go. Do as I tell you."

"No'm." Black Cassie stood where she was, shaking her head from side to side in defiant refusal. "If they stops my Ike on the road an' he ain't got a pass, they calls him a runaway."

"You will do as I say!" Temple lashed out in anger, striking the woman's cheek. She had never before hit a servant, but she had never before had cause. "The Georgians are at the schoolhouse. Do you hear?" Seeing the answering leap of fear in Cassie's eyes, Temple gave her a push toward the door. "Go. If Ike is stopped by anyone, he is to bring them here."

"Yes'm." The woman hurried off.

Temple turned back to the window and looked out one last time. A rider walked his horse along the side of the schoolhouse and stopped near a window. Grabbing up her long skirts, Temple ran to the front door and out of the house.

 

Hearing the
clump
of a heavy boot on the school steps, Eliza closed the primer in front of her and rose from her chair. An instant later, the door burst open and two men filled its frame, looming hulks in long winter coats.

"Who are you and what do you want?" Without thinking, Eliza snatched the pointer from her desktop, the only thing close to a weapon at hand. A third man climbed the steps behind the first two intruders, and three more riders sat on their horses outside the school.

The first man scoured the school's single room with a searching glance. "Where's yer husband?"

"I have no husband." The new law—Eliza belatedly recalled that the new law had gone into effect four days ago, on March 1, requiring all white men in the Cherokee territory to register or face four years' imprisonment.

His glance came back to her, sharp and accusing. "We heard this here plantation had a white teacher living on it. He ain't registered hisself with the proper authorities yet."

"
I
am the teacher," Eliza asserted. "As a female, I am not required to register with anyone."

"You're the teacher?" He gave her a long, sneering look, then turned and spat a stream of yellow tobacco juice on the puncheon floor. "I reckon you must be one o' them Injun-loving white women."

Eliza ignored that and moved out from behind her desk to plant herself squarely between the ruffians and her young charges. "You have yet to identify yourselves and the nature of your business here."

"Is that a fact?" he jeered, then he puffed out his chest, swaggering a bit. "It so happens that we're with the Georgia Guard."

"Then you should be ashamed of yourselves, barging in here unannounced, spitting on the floor, and frightening the children," Eliza declared. "The Cherokees I have met are certainly not as uncouth as you and your men are."

His companion nudged the man with an elbow. "Lookey there. Ain't that a nigger holdin' a book?"

The first man's glance fell on Shadrach and turned cold with malice. "Hey, you. Come 'ere, boy."

"Stay where you are, Shadrach," Eliza ordered, not taking her eyes off the men.

There was a sudden flurry of movement outside the school as Temple came rushing up. She pushed her way past the man on the steps only to be snared by another before she could reach Eliza's side. She struggled, fighting wildly to free herself from his hold.

The man laughed and shifted his grip to hold her by the wrists. "Lookey here. I just caught me a real Injun princess. Yessirree, an' she's on the warpath, too."

"Let her go," Eliza protested. When he ignored her, Eliza brought her rod crashing down on his forearms. The man yelped in pain and jumped back, releasing Temple. She quickly retreated out of his reach.

The first man took a step toward Eliza. She raised her pointer, threatening to use it on him. He stopped, but his eyes turned colder and meaner. "You just struck a Georgia Guard."

"Only after he attacked the person of a young girl." With her free hand, Eliza pulled Temple closer to her.

He changed tactics. "What are them niggers doin' here?"

"They are my students."

"It's against the law to teach niggers in Georgia."
 

"Fortunately, this is not Georgia," Eliza retorted. "You happen to be in the Cherokee Nation."

"You got that wrong, ma'am. This here land belongs to Georgia."

"That, sir, is for the Supreme Court to decide." In all her twenty years, Eliza had never been confronted with a situation fraught with such peril. She had to use her wits. Neither she nor Temple were a match for the brute strength of these men.

"I still say there's a white teacher here," the second man complained, rubbing at a forearm that she had struck. "They got him hid somewheres."

"I told you, I have no husband. I am the teacher," Eliza insisted, conscious of Temple's fingers closing around her hand as if in support and reassurance.

"Search the school and the house, if you must," Temple challenged, all stiff and stormy-eyed. "But I warn you—if you lay a hand on a single person or damage one thing, we will have you arrested."

"Arrested?" The first man snorted in derision, then sent a sly grin in the direction of his companions. "Did ya' hear her threaten us with arrest, boys?" The other two men nodded and grinned their unconcern. "You ain't got any rights around here, little princess. We can do anything we please an' you can't do nothing about it."

"I can," Eliza asserted. "I can testify against you. None of your spurious laws can silence my testimony. I am white, not Cherokee."

A dawning look of shock claimed the man's face as the truth of her words sunk in. He tried, and failed, to assume his former belligerence. "You can't stop us from looking for that white teacher."

"I would not presume to interfere with your duty," Eliza replied smoothly, confident that she now had the whip hand. "But I will observe your every action."

Under Eliza's watchful eye, the men made a cursory search of the school and the grounds around it. "He could be hiding in the big house," one of the riders suggested.

The disgruntled leader flashed a baleful look at Eliza and shook his head. "By now he's probably hightailed it into the woods. We got other birds to flush."

Eliza didn't draw an easy breath until they rode out of sight. She hurried back inside the school and closed the door, then leaned weakly against it. With the danger passed, delayed reaction set in. Eliza wasn't certain if the loud pounding she heard was the hammering of her heart or the knocking of her knees.

Conscious of nine pairs of eyes staring at her in silent question, Eliza managed a somewhat tremulous smile of assurance. "They are gone."

Temple came forward, her eyes dark with concern. "Are you all right?"

"I am fine." Eliza pushed away from the door, determined to control her shaking limbs.

"You were extraordinarily brave." Temple looked at her with a new respect and admiration.

"I was extraordinarily scared," she admitted, then resorted to anger to cover the quaver in her voice. "Those brutes, they should be flogged for coming in here like that and terrorizing the children."

"I need to check on Mama." Temple started toward the door.

"Perhaps we should all go to the house," Eliza decided. "Come. Let us put everything away. Quickly now."

Twenty minutes later, they were all inside the thick walls of the red brick mansion, except for Phoebe and Shadrach, who were sent to the kitchen to prepare the noon meal. But Black Cassie was more concerned with assuring herself that they were unharmed and learning for herself all that had happened.

Phoebe let Shadrach do the talking, sensing the fear that gripped her mammy and not understanding it. Yet it made her uneasy, the same as those white men had.

"—an' one of them men says t' Miz 'Liza—'What's that Nigra boy doin' wid a book?' " Shadrach tried to make his voice sound as deep as a man's. He lapsed into his mother's dialect, as he usually did when he talked to her. " 'Come 'ere, boy,' he says, but Miz 'Liza say, 'Shadrach, you stay right there.' An' I did." Black Cassie started moaning low and shaking her head, her eyes all dark and worried. She barely listened when he told her about Miss Temple coming just then and how Miss Eliza took after that man with her pointer. "—an' then the man say it's against the law in Georgia t' be teachin' a Nigra."

She moaned louder. "I knowed it. I knowed somethin' bad were gwine t' happen."

"No, Mammy. It's all right." Shadrach frowned at the way she held herself and rocked, like she was in pain. "Miz 'Liza, she tole him this ain't be Georgia. This be Cherokee land."

Black Cassie wrapped an arm around each of them and pulled them tight against her. "They's gwine t' come in de night," she moaned. "That's what they gwine t' do. I seen it before. They's gwine t' come and drag you out an' whip you till there ain't one skinny breath left in you."

"But. .. why?" Shadrach pulled out of her smothering hold and stepped back, frowning in disbelief and the beginnings of fear.

" 'Cause that larnin' you been so all fired t' git be for white folks. They ain't gwine t' let no black knows it. I tells Ike an' I tells him, 'Don't let those babies go t' that school. Bad's gwine t' happen.' Now, it's comin'."

She sounded so certain that Phoebe started trembling, then nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard the thundering of horses' hooves coming up the lane to the big house.

"They's back." Cassie clutched Phoebe closer as Shadrach ran to the doorway. "Come away from there. We gots t' hide you."

"It ain't them, Mammy. It's Master Blade and Deu. Pa's with them," he said, then raced from the kitchen.

 

When The Blade rode up, Temple rushed out of the house. He was out of the saddle before his lathered horse came to a full stop. He caught her by the shoulders and held her firmly away from him.

"Are you all right?" he demanded.

"Yes—"

"The others?"

"Yes."

Only then did the pressure of his grip lessen. "How long have they been gone?"

"Twenty minutes, no more than that."

He turned his head and looked down the road, his jaw ridged and tight. Then he swung back to face her, the glitter in his blue eyes ominously cold and frightening. "What happened?"

Briefly, Temple explained it, then added, "Miss Hall says it's the new licensing law. They were looking for violators."

"Yes." He nodded slowly, twice. "I heard this morning three missionaries were arrested."

"You should have seen Miss Hall," Temple declared. "I have never seen her so irate—not even with Kipp. When one of them grabbed me—"

"He did
what?''
The words sprang from him in a snarl.

"He didn't hurt me," she assured him softly. "Miss Hall saw to that."

"If he had, I—" He clamped his jaw shut on the rest of the threat.

The scar stood out whitely against the bronze of his skin. Temple reached up to touch it, then let her fingers lightly caress his cheek. "Blade," she whispered, loving his fury, loving his strength—loving him.

His mouth came down on hers as he swept her into his arms, the rawness of his passion and his fears washing over her and spinning her into their turbulence and fire. The storm of feelings was what she wanted, what she needed, the lightning that tingled through her body, the thunder that rocked her to her very toes.

"Oh, Temple, the things I thought when Ike came," he murmured, then shuddered against her, struggling to regain control of his emotions. "Your uncle, how long will he be gone?" He drew back, cupping her face in his hands, a faint tremor in them.

"He should be back tomorrow or the next day." She closed her eyes, savoring the unexpected tenderness of his lightly caressing fingers.