Beverly Jenkins (7 page)

But during her first few weeks at the orphanage after the death of her grandfather, she’d participated in noting. Everyone, from the soldiers who’d taken her from her grandfather’s cellar a few days after the lynchers had gone, to the laundress who’d fed and cared for her at the contraband camps, to Rosetta and Harriet, thought Cara was mute. Because of her grandfather’s death, she’d withdrawn into a world of silence that not even the whirlwind atmosphere of the orphanage with its twelve rambunctious children could entice her to leave.

The nightmares began the second week after Cara’s arrival. The terrifying dreams were filled with images of bloodied, blue-coated demons killing her grandfather over and over again. The scenes always ended with the Bluecoats, now
horrible-looking skeletons, coming for the little girl in the cellar, and Cara would bolt awake, screaming. The soothing arms of Rosetta were always there, no matter how long it took the sweat-drenched and shivering Cara to drift back into a fitful sleep. One night after a routine visit by some Union soldiers come to fix the orphanage roof, a visit that left Cara terrified and recoiling in a corner, the nightmares were especially vivid. Her nocturnal screams brought Rosetta running more than once. As dawn broke, Cara wakened in Rosetta’s lap, the big green rocker in the front parlor cradling them both. She remembered looking up into the compassionate brown eyes and speaking her first words in weeks in a tone as broken as her spirit.
“I
miss him so . . .” And Cara had missed her grandfather, missed him with all her heart. Mrs. Sterling’s reply had been soft. “I know, darling, but we have to go on . . .” And as she held Cara, they both cried.

In the years that followed, Cara realized the words spoken that dawn could have been as much for Rosetta herself as for the benefit of the nine-year-old child. Rosetta had lost her husband, John, to slave-catchers in 1850. The men sent from his Virginia owner came for John in the middle of the night. They quoted a sum the owner demanded in exchange for John’s freedom, but the Sterling’s entire savings didn’t equal a tenth of the price. John’s one and only letter to her arrived about a year after his reenslavement. He’d written her of his love and of his impending sale in the Deep South as punishment for attempting another escape. Rosetta never heard from him again.

Harriet Bat filled Cara in on the rest of the story one night as they were writing letters to Washington in support of the proposed Fifteenth Amendment
to give Black men the vote. Both Harriet and Rosetta thought the amendment too narrow, but they supported it because equal rights for women were also being lobbied for inclusion. Rosetta had gone to Boston to attend a meeting of the American Equal Rights Association, founded by Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Frederick Douglass. Cara remembered asking Harriet how long she and Rosetta had been friends. Harriet replied, “All our lives, and in fact we’re twins.”

The revelation baffled Cara. Harriet laughingly explained. She and Rosetta had been born on the same day, six or so hours apart, to parents who’d been the best of friends. Both mothers were helping their husbands bring a group of runaway slaves from Indiana to Michigan when it came time to give birth. The two sets of parents, one free Black and the other immigrant Irish, had been not only friends, but neighbors and staunch abolitionists for many years. The birth of their “twin” daughters further cemented their bond.

Both girls were raised to confront life straight on, so during the second year of the Civil War, when Rosetta showed Harriet the newspaper accounts of the large numbers of runaways being drawn to the advancing Union Army and declared she was going South to look for John, Harriet refused to be left behind. They headed for Washington.

There, Harriet posing as mistress and Rosetta as servant, they toured the camps holding the nearly ten thousand runaways and confiscated slaves, first termed “contraband” by General Benjamin Butler. The camps across the river in Alexandria were not as large as those in the capital but also held thousands of refugees. They did not find Rosetta’s John, but they did find appalling conditions
in the camps: typhoid, diphtheria, entire families infected with measles. People near death huddled next to the living in dangerously overcrowded buildings. The relief societies and the representatives of the government were overwhelmed by the newcomers arriving day and night. Space was at a premium, food more than scarce.

The two Michigan women stayed to lend what help they could and were assigned to work in the old schoolhouse in Alexandria, headquarters for Black women and children on the Virginia side of the river. Hundreds of women and children were inside the building with nothing to do except to wait for the return of their husbands and fathers working behind the lines of Union troops. The children, like children everywhere accustomed to being outside, had become listless and lethargic from the forced confinement.

The work at Alexandria schoolhouse eventually led to establishing the orphanage. Rosetta brought the first child back to the small room she and Harriet shared because the mother, dying of disease, begged Rosetta to give her daughter a future. Rosetta did. She contacted a childless free couple she knew in Ohio and sent the girl to them via agents of the Underground Railroad. Rosetta Sterling and Harriet Bat found homes for fifty-five other parentless children. They continued to search for John and picked up children throughout their tours of the contraband camps of the South. In 1864, Cara became one of them.

Under the care and love of Rosetta and Harriet, Cara grew from a nightmare-plagued, silent child to an educated young woman of poise and conviction. By the age of seventeen, she’d been arrested twice in rallies on behalf of causes, had more than
a few letters printed in local newspapers, and been banned from the local Freedman Society offices for her fiery tirades over the disgusting conditions of the local schools under their jurisdiction.

But neither woman was there now to see how far her life had come. Both were dead, killed in ‘78 when nightriders torched the free school they’d established not far from the original site of the old orphanage. Cara, working with a relief society in Ohio, had been heartbroken at the news. And she still missed them. Always would.

An hour later, Cara seriously wondered if she’d chosen the right profession after all. The noise and commotion in the schoolroom could only be described as bedlam. The “Indians” dressed in their colorful paint and buckskins were in one corner practicing their war whoops, while the “buffalo soldiers” ran back and forth brandishing their homemade wooden sabers at any girl standing still long enough to be a target. As a result the girls were running and screaming. For what seemed to be the fifteenth time, Cara cautioned little Rilla Walker to stand still so she could repair the hem on her dress. If not for the three mothers who were volunteer helpers, the children would have been in even more of an uproar.

After placing the last stitch in Rilla’s hem, Cara removed the pins from her mouth and yelled at two of her more rambunctious eight-year-olds. “Becca Franklin, if you jump from one more desktop, I’m telling your parents. Buffalo soldiers do not abuse property. Or point sabers at their sister’s eyes, Frankie Cooper.”

Cara wished she’d chosen a nice, quiet Bible play for the children to perform tonight. “Okay, boys and girls, line up. We’re going over to the town hall now,” she called out wearily. The evening
had just gotten under way, and she and the mothers were already exhausted.

While the volunteers scooted the squirming, excited children into a passable line, Cara turned to her desk to gather up her things. She glanced up and went stock still at the sight of Chase Jefferson standing in the open doorway.

“Evenin’, Miss Henson.”

Every eye in the room focused on the two of them. A moment ago there had been enough noise to mask cannon fire, but now it was silent enough to hear a pin drop on cotton.

Into the breach sounded Rilla Walker’s awe-filled whisper. “A real buffalo soldier!”

This would be the children’s first close look at one of their heroes.

“Come in, Sergeant Jefferson,” Cara invited.

It seemed impossible to deny the effect he had upon her senses. She shook herself, desperately trying to keep in the forefront of her mind that the man would be leaving soon. She turned back to her staring students. “Children, I would like you to meet Sergeant Jefferson of the Tenth Cavalry.”

A buzz of excitement went through the children, and she had to clap her hands to restore order. When they quieted, she added, “Now, we have no time for questions this evening, but if you’re very well-behaved at tonight’s performance, and I know you will be, perhaps we can convince Sergeant Jefferson to come over to school and pay us a special visit before he and his men leave next week.”

Cara turned to him. His eyes were riveted on her with such intensity that she seriously doubted he’d heard a word.

She was right.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. What did you say?”

His eyes were working her over unmercifully. Cara heard one mother discreetly clear her throat. “I asked if you’d come by and visit with the children before you leave town.” She dearly wished he’d lower the heat of his gaze. It made her want to undo the top buttons of her blouse and fan herself.

“My pleasure,” he replied.

Cara turned back to the children, pretending not to see the smiles and raised eyebrows on the faces of the mothers. “Class, I would like you to show Sergeant Jefferson how quietly you can go to the door and line up outside.”

To her delight they did it quickly and, more amazingly, quietly.

Chase nodded a polite goodbye to the mothers as they hurried out to join the children, then turned his attention to Cara. She’d donned a white blouse and yet another dark skirt. He knew teachers, especially women teachers, weren’t paid well, but to him it was a crime that she wasn’t paid enough to afford clothing that befitted a woman of such grace and beauty. She should be draped in the finest fabrics in the latest styles, he thought. He was certain the blouse she wore was one of her best, though. It appeared to be of finer quality than those she’d worn previously and had more lace at the throat and cuffs. The contrast of the white material against the honey-brown skin of her graceful neck made him want urgently to pull her into his arms. He tamped down his desire, cleared his throat, and said, “You look very nice, schoolmarm.”

“Are you going to behave tonight, Sergeant?”

“I will behave any way you want me to.” His words communicated one thing, his expression quite another.

She rolled her eyes and handed him a small but heavy crate. “Carry this, please.”

Chase looked at the brightly colored jumble of items inside. “What is all this?”

“Scenery, Sergeant. And if we don’t hurry, the children may start without us.”

The short skit opened with a group of buffalo soldiers who happened upon a party of Indians. The groups, wary of each other at first, talked instead of fighting and parted friends at the end. The performance inspired thunderous applause. Chase and his men cheered and whistled. Cara came to the front of the hall for her bows, smiling a tad shyly at the appreciation.

Afterward, Chase watched Cara as she moved about to thank parents for their support and congratulate her young thespians. When she seemed to be finished with those duties, he eased toward her through the crowd. “Excellent performance, Miss Henson.”

Cara turned. “Did you like it?”

“I did. And so did my men. Talking instead of fighting saves lives. Maybe we should send the children to Washington.”

“Not a bad idea,” she said, smiling.

The assemblage broke up not long after punch and cake were served. The children, some walking on sleep-weakened legs, and others already asleep and carried by a parent, were being taken over to Sophie’s. She’d generously offered the beds in her big attic to the children of folks who lived outside the town. Her staff would keep an eye on them while those parents invited by Virginia Sutton went on to the dinner.

With Chase handling the reins, the buckboard rattled down the road toward the Sutton spread.
Sophie took up most of the seat, Cara, squeezed in between the two larger people, could not avoid having her thigh pressed hard against Chase’s. His muscles felt rocklike. She told herself the pressure didn’t bother her, but her body called the lie. Every time the wheels hit a rut, which was often, the upward motion threw her solidly against him, and the shocking result of her breast boldly meeting the side of his well-developed upper arm shortened her breath.

“Chase, for heaven’s sake, rein more to the right, you’re about to kill me,” Sophie ordered after a particularly violent jolt.

“Sorry, ladies,” he offered apologetically.

He expertly reined the team more in the direction Sophie requested, but his movements only increased his closeness to Cara. His hard arm slid against her nipple every time he adjusted the leads. Each pass was shattering and intimate. Cara didn’t know if it was accidental or not, but she prayed they reached Virginia’s before she swooned.

“Comfortable, ma’am?” he asked innocently, turning in her direction.

She glared at him. “Quite comfortable, Sergeant. Thank you.”

Chase, an experienced member of his gender, knew her detached manner was a pose. His accidental brushing against her breast had been just that: accidental. But, had Sophie not voiced a complaint, he would have been content to drive the rutted side of the road just so he could hear the soft, shaky breaths Cara drew each time he inadvertently stroked her.

Too soon, the lights of the Sutton house came into view. Moments later, Chase extended a hand to help Sophie alight. While she moved off toward
the house, he turned his attention to Cara. He placed his large, strong hands upon her waist and effortlessly lifted her clear of the buckboard. Her skirt billowed a second before settling back into place, and then he brought her down slowly, so slowly the heat of their bodies seemed to mingle.

When the earth became solid beneath Cara’s feet, she scarcely noticed. The raised voices of the people celebrating inside faded away. She stood there, her heart doing flip-flops, her throat clogged. Only the raw power emanating from him and the directness of his gaze touched her. She felt torn between wanting to flee from the wild magic she sensed in him and wanting to stroke the dark planes of his face. Why hadn’t she ever experienced this sweet fear with any other man? The feelings and desires he’d awakened were as wondrous as they were disturbing.