Carried Forward By Hope (38 page)

Opal gasped and looked around for something to sit on, sinking down gratefully on a boulder as she stared up at him. “What you say?”

Eddie smiled and knelt down in front of her, his eyes suddenly soft. “I won’t never forget Fannie,” he said, his eyes glistening for a moment before he took her hand, “but I also never met another woman as fine as her until I met you, Opal. You was just my Fannie’s cousin for a long time, but I don’t look at you that way no more.”

Opal locked her gaze with his. “You don’t?” she whispered, her heart beginning to dance joyfully. She had been stomping on her feelings ever since Eddie arrived in that wagon. She had been scolding herself as she watched him play with his kids or help Sam around the house. She loved his kind eyes and his strong heart. Telling herself a hundred times a day that he was her deceased cousin’s husband had done nothing to temper the building feelings.

“I don’t,” Eddie answered. “Do you think you could ever love me?” he asked uncertainly.

Opal’s heart exploded with joy as she reached out her hands to cup his face. “You might better ask if I could ever learn to
stop
loving you. I’m afraid that answer would have to be no.”

Eddie sucked in his breath and moved forward to take Opal in his arms. “I love you, Opal,” he murmured.

They remained silent for a long time, the sun sinking lower and lower until the sky began to turn a cobalt blue. After the years of loneliness, neither one wanted the embrace to end.

Opal finally pulled back but slipped her hand into Eddie’s. “Where are you figuring on going?”

“Depends.”

Opal grinned. “Do you ever use a lot of words?”

Eddie smiled back as he shrugged. “Not less I have to.”

Opal nodded. “Then I reckon I’ll have to do enough talking for both of us.”

“Shouldn’t have too much trouble with that,” Eddie said matter-of-factly.

Opal snorted but kept grinning. Happiness was exploding in her heart. She was just going to let the wonder of it sink in. “So what does it depend on?”

“On where you want to have your restaurant.”

Opal became very still and finally looked up at him. “My restaurant?” she whispered.

“You still want to have your own?”

The happiness grew as Opal nodded her head. “I sure ‘nuff do!” she exclaimed. She closed her eyes to think. “I’m thinkin’ Philadelphia would be a good place,” she said slowly. “Rose and Moses have told me a lot about it. I know things ain’t perfect for black folks there, but they told me about other black restaurants.”

Eddie nodded. “I’ve heard it can get real cold up there,” he warned.

Opal shrugged. “Ain’t no place perfect. The weather might get real cold, but I think the kids will have an easier time growing up there.”

“You really love them kids, don’t you?”

“Like they were my own,” Opal said firmly. “Nothing in the world would make me happier than to be your wife and to keep on being their mama.”

Eddie gripped her hand and began to lead her back to the house. “Let’s go tell the kids.”

******

Gabe slammed open the door to the cabin.

Polly jumped back from the fireplace where she was stirring a big pot of soup. “Land sakes, Gabe. You about scared the life out of me!”

“Better me din them other scoundrels,” he growled.

Polly took a deep breath and pulled the pot off the hook over the fire, placing it on the table. She glanced at Amber and Clint. Both had stopped their studies as soon as their daddy slammed in the house. “Is it time?” she asked quietly.

Gabe nodded his head in frustration. “I think it be best,” he finally growled.

Eight-year-old Amber got up from the table and walked over to stand in front of her daddy. “Is it time for us to go away now, Daddy?” Her eyes were full of a sweet trust.

Gabe ground his teeth but kept his face calm as he knelt down in front of her. “I’m afraid it be, honey.”

“How long are we gonna be gone?”

Polly strode forward, knowing the innocent question had no answer. “We don’t know, Amber,” she said briskly, determined to keep all fear from her voice. “We’re just going to go on an adventure and see how long it lasts.”

Clint snorted but said nothing. Polly shot him a look of gratitude, knowing he was keeping silent not to increase Amber’s fear.

Amber swung her gaze around to her sixteen-year-old brother, who had grown even taller than his daddy. She walked over, crawled onto his lap, and cupped his face in her hands. “Don’t worry, Clint,” she said soothingly. “You don’t need to hide nothing. I know we aren’t really going on an adventure.”

“How you…?” Gabe started.

Amber looked at him. “I heard you and Mama talking one night when you thought I was sleeping,” she confessed easily. “Don’t worry, Daddy. I’m not scared,” she said firmly.

Polly stared at her, trying to calm the pounding in her own heart. “You’re not?” she asked finally.

Amber shook her head. “Not a bit. I know you and Daddy will keep me and Clint safe. Then we’ll come back to our house.”

“How can you be so sure?” Gabe growled, not sure if he was angry or thankful that he was asking this question of his eight-year-old daughter.

“We done had things to be scared about before,” Amber answered. “Like when Robert came.” Her eyes grew soft with the memories. “Having Robert here scared both of you real bad, but look how good it turned out.”

“I guess that be true,” Gabe admitted.

“And look how many people we helped by being conductors for that Underground Railroad,” she continued earnestly.

Polly sucked in her breath.

Amber laughed brightly. “Did you think I didn’t know about that, Mama? You told me and Clint they was just people coming to visit, but I knew back then that wasn’t true. I figured it out later when…”

“When you heard them talking,” Clint finished for her, pride in his voice.

Amber nodded. “That’s right. I learn a lot just by listening.”

“I’ll say,” Polly muttered. There was nothing but pride shining in her eyes.

“So where are we going for our adventure?” Amber asked.

Laughter rolled through the cabin as the anger and fear fell off Gabe’s heart and mind. He took a deep breath and settled down at the table, waiting until everyone joined him. “We’re just going to go back into the woods for a while,” he said. “I don’t know for sure how much danger we’re in, but we’re not going to take any chances.”

“I thought the slave owners were just apprenticing their old slaves’ children?” Clint asked. He knew about the state constitutional amendment that passed after Maryland abolished slavery the year before. Slave owners, not knowing how they would run their plantations, decided to enact a pre-war statute that allowed local courts to apprentice black children, even over the objections of their parents.

Gabe shrugged his shoulders. “That’s what I thought,” he replied, “but I’m hearin’ different things. The courts are tellin’ black parents they can’t have their young’uns back ‘cause they ain’t got the means to take care of them.”

Polly snorted. “How they gonna have the means when they just got free?”

“It’s nothing but a way for slavery to keep goin’!” Clint growled.

“Are they comin’ after children like us?” Amber asked, bravely trying to control the fear in her voice.

Gabe turned to her and put his hand under her chin, tilting her face so their eyes could meet. “They’re not going to get you, Amber,” he promised. “Ain’t no one taking you and Clint.”

Amber took a slow breath, staring into her daddy’s eyes. “Okay, Daddy,” she finally said. “I believe you. When we leaving?”

“Today.”

Polly gasped.
“Today?”

Gabe nodded grimly. “I heard about some white men roamin’ around the country when I was over at Lee’s this morning. He ain’t sure what they be up to, but he pretty sure it ain’t to no good. If them plantation owners want black children, we couldn’t stop them if they come here.” He had a brief vision of being beaten or shot if he tried to stop them, knowing they would take the kids anyway. “They could be figurin’ they would get a lot of work done before the courts would make them give our kids back…” He knew he didn’t need to finish that thought.

Polly nodded and sprang into action. “Clint, you go harness the horses and bring the wagon around front. Amber, you go upstairs and pull down all our bedding. Gabe, you and Clint load up whatever you think we’ll need. I’ll make sure we have plenty of food for a while.” She paused. “If we need more, you can maybe sneak back in at night and get us something.”

Everyone sprang into action. Within one hour, they were rolling along a barely discernible road through the woods. People who lived in the area knew about it, but someone skulking around for children to apprentice would never find it. Gabe wasn’t taking any chances however. He had scouted out an area a few weeks ago when he heard the first rumblings of trouble. Nothing would keep him from taking care of his family.

Carrie tensed as Moses turned the wagon down the road leading to Sharpsburg, Maryland. “We’re almost there?”

Moses nodded. Memories pounded him as they moved down the picturesque road that still bore the scars of the battle almost three years earlier. Trees sporting bright green stood side by side with splintered trunks and patches of barren ground. All he had to do was close his eyes to see the piles of dead and hideously wounded bodies. He gritted his teeth and continued to drive forward.

Carrie put a hand on his arm. “This is terribly difficult for you,” she murmured.

Moses didn’t bother to deny it. “It would have been just fine if I never saw this place again,” he muttered. He shook his head heavily. “I hate for you to see it, Carrie.”

“But it’s been almost three years,” she protested.

Moses said nothing. He had seen other old battlefields. The passage of time seemed to do nothing but reveal more of the horror as rain and erosion washed away the efforts to bury the casualties of the war.

“Moses!” Carrie gasped, her face white as she pointed toward a field they were passing. “Are those…?”

Moses nodded grimly, staring at the bleached bones sticking up from the ground. Toothless skulls gaped up at them. His mind flew back to the night he had spent seemingly endless hours carrying wounded Union soldiers from the field. He bit back a groan as he remembered having to leave the ones deemed too far beyond help. He still had nightmares of their eyes beseeching him for help before they dulled into complete hopelessness and then closed to accept the death that was hovering over their heads.

Carrie moved closer to him on the wagon seat and took his hand. She wasn’t sure if it was to give or receive comfort. “I’m sorry you have to come back here.”

Moses remained silent, gripped by the memories. He wasn’t embarrassed when his hands trembled. He hoped he would never become immune to the horrors of battle and death.

Carrie gripped his hand more tightly, certain now who needed the comfort. She could only imagine what had happened here — Moses had lived it. He had told her very little about the night he found Robert and Granite.

Nothing more was said as Moses drove slowly, trying to piece together the battle so he could identify exactly where he would have been. The Battle of Antietam happened before black troops were able to fight. He served that night as help for the medics. In the bright light of day, with fields and woods trying to cover up the terrible memories, it was difficult to figure out where he had been and where he had gone.

As they drove along with Carrie’s hand offering comfort and strength, Moses was able to analyze the battlefield without the pounding of his heart making it impossible to think. Somehow he separated the landscape from the human faces.

It began to come back.

“They charged through that cornfield there,” he muttered. He shook his head to free himself from the memories of thousands falling with the cornstalks, forcing them into the background again as he took deep breaths. “The Rebel soldiers were coming at us from the woods over there.” He pointed slightly southwest. “They had crossed over the Potomac River. It was the first battle of the war that was fought on Northern soil,” he said almost matter-of-factly.

Carrie continued to hold his hand, but she didn’t interrupt. She knew it would help him get through the day if he could detach from some of the emotion and see it just through his mind.

Moses pulled the wagon to a stop and stood on the running board to get a better view. The horses snorted, but they stood calmly. Carrie was glad for the blinders Moses had insisted on for the team. She was quite sure the sight of the bones mixed with the smell that remained in the air would have completely spooked them. She was certain the road being empty was not an accident. Even with the sun shining brightly, she could feel death in the air.

Finally Moses sat back down and raised his hands to move the horses forward. “There’s a road that leads away from those woods. I’m pretty sure that’s the one we marched in on before the battle. I would have passed Gabe and Polly’s house then. The only thing we can do is try to retrace the route.”

Carrie nodded, a sudden peace filling her. “We’re going to find it, Moses.” She smiled, confidence joining the peace. “We’re going to find it.”

It had taken them five days of steady travel to reach Sharpsburg. Two days of it had been on muddy roads through a misty rain, but they simply wrapped their oilcloths more tightly around them and pressed forward. They had stopped every night at an inn. It was difficult for Carrie to go inside when Moses was forced to sleep outside in the wagon, but he convinced her they would be safer if he was out there alone — painting a vivid picture of what white men would do to him if they found her in the wagon with him. The best Carrie could do was bring a hot breakfast out to him every morning. They would drive until they found a stream where he could wash up and then continued to press forward. The five days had brought them, if possible, even closer.

Moses’s gaze sharpened as they reached the far side of the cornfield and turned to travel along the edge of the woods. He slowed when he reached an area strewn with stacked logs and timber. “They haven’t cleared it yet,” he murmured.

Carrie waited quietly.

Moses stared at the field for a long moment and then pointed. “That’s where I found Robert,” he stated hoarsely.

Carrie took a deep breath. “Hobbs told me he built a barricade of logs to keep Robert from being hit by any more bullets.”

“That’s how I found him,” Moses said. “The wall of logs caught my attention. If they hadn’t…” he shook his head.

Carrie shuddered, realizing how close she had come to losing Robert, but clamped her lips together tightly. She felt like she was just as close — only this time his soul, not his body, had been pierced and shattered. “Let’s go find Gabe and Polly,” she said firmly. She felt Moses’s hand relax as they turned away from the battlefield and began to move further into the woods away from the grisly remains and reminders.

Miles passed beneath the wagon wheels. Carrie drew in a deep breath of appreciation. “It’s beautiful,” she said as she gazed out over lush fields vibrant with corn and tobacco. “It’s like the war never happened here.”

“It happened,” Moses stated. “You can’t see all the men and boys who will never return here.” Suddenly he stiffened and pulled the horses in.

“Moses?”

“I think…” he said slowly, and then continued to look around. “There is something familiar here,” he said as he gazed up a wooded road intersecting the main one they were on.

“If you were marching through, why would you have gone up a side road?”

Moses shrugged. “My commanding officer at the time told me the fella in the house at the end of the road was a conductor for the Underground Railroad. He sent me up to find out if he had any information about Lee’s movements.”

“Did he?”

“No. He just wished us luck and went back inside.”

“That was all the contact you had with him?” Carrie asked with astonishment. “And yet you brought Robert back here?”

“I agree it was crazy,” Moses said easily. “I also couldn’t deny how strongly I felt it was the right thing to do.” He kept staring at the road and turned the team to follow it. “I’ve got the same kind of feeling now,” he muttered. “If it’s the wrong road, we’ll come back and keep going.”

Carrie nodded and peered down the road, silently praying they were about to find Gabe and Polly.

******

Amber walked over and crawled into her daddy’s lap, watching as her mama cooked some rabbit over the fire. “This adventure sure is lasting a long time, Daddy.”

“Not so long,” Gabe replied. “We’ve only been out here a week.” He hoped Amber couldn’t feel his frustration. He was sure they were safe, but he was equally sure he had absolutely no idea of what was going on. Were the white men still out there looking for black children to enslave as apprentices? Was their house safe? Would they have a home to return to when the
adventure
was over?

Polly walked over to him and settled down. “I think it’s time you go back for some more supplies,” she said calmly.

Gabe stared into her face, knowing she was aware of the turmoil raging in him. “You reckon?” he asked, gratitude sweeping through him.

“Yes. We need some more cornmeal out of the root cellar. And I need me some more lard.”

“You gonna find out what’s going on, Daddy?” Clint asked.

Gabe knew his restlessness was growing as well. His son had made him proud by making sure they had a steady supply of cooking wood and water, and he had devised clever traps to keep them in wild rabbit, but Gabe also knew his son was anxious to get back home to his books. In spite of all that was on his mind, he chuckled.

“What you laughing at, Daddy?” Amber asked.

“Just thinkin’ about how much Clint wants to get back to them books.” He shook his head in wonder. “I can remember the day he thought learning was just for white kids.”

Amber smiled brightly. “Robert changed all that!”

Gabe nodded. “That he did,” he agreed.

“He made both of us want to learn everything we can,” she continued. “It’s just that Clint spends most of his time learning about horses.”

“Well of course I do,” Clint responded. “I’m going to spend my life working with them. I figure I should know all I can.”

Gabe just nodded, glad Clint didn’t know how much he had to sacrifice to buy them books about horses for him. “You already know more than anybody else,” he said proudly.

Clint shrugged. “I want to be ready when Robert contacts me.” His eyes said much more than his casual voice revealed.

“We ain’t heard from Robert since he left,” Amber said sadly.

“You know there ain’t no letters coming through from the South,” Polly scolded, though she admitted she had secretly hoped for something since the war ended. For all she knew, Robert was dead. They had saved him, but he could have fallen in another battle.

Gabe polished off his last piece of cornbread and stood. “I reckon I’ll go on. I’ll be back before dark,” he promised. Clint didn’t offer to join him, though he saw the desire shining in his eyes. He knew he had to take care of his mama and sister.

******

Carrie leaned forward anxiously as the wagon rounded the final bend in the road and came out into a bright clearing. “Is this it?” she asked eagerly.

“I’ll be,” Moses said in wonder as he gazed around. “This is it! It’s just like I remembered.”

Carrie gazed around at the immaculate clearing that contained a small, sturdily-built cabin and a small barn. She smiled as she heard the chickens cackling in their coop and the pigs snorting in their pen. “Someone is still living here,” she said with relief.

“Hello!” Moses called. Silence echoed back to them, even after he called two more times. “They must be gone for the day,” he finally said.

Carrie bit back her disappointment. “I guess I couldn’t expect them to be here waiting for us,” she said casually.

Moses looked at her knowingly. “Expecting isn’t the same as wanting,” he observed.

Carrie smiled, grateful he knew her so well. “No, it’s certainly not.” She gazed around the clearing. “Do you think it’s okay if we wait under that tree in the shade?” She reached behind her to pull out the basket she’d had the innkeeper fill that morning. “Want some lunch?”

“The answer to both those questions is yes,” Moses responded with a quick grin. “Did you talk that grouchy cook out of some chicken this morning?”

“You doubt my persuasive abilities?” Carrie asked, cocking an eyebrow at him.

“Not even for a moment,” Moses assured her. “I was just giving you something to boast about.”

Laughing easily, they spread a blanket under the tree and settled down to enjoy their lunch, forcing the grisly remains of the morning from their thoughts.

******

Gabe left the wagon a good quarter of a mile from the house, tied the horses to a tree to make sure they didn’t wander, and then made his way quietly through the woods. If there was going to be a surprise, he wanted to be the one causing it. He smiled when he saw the outline of the cabin still standing, but stopped short as he approached the rear of his home and heard laughter.

Coming to a standstill, his mind raced through his options. He finally decided that while running back to their camping spot would make him feel safer, it wouldn’t give them any information. He knew no one would find the rest of his family without him leading them to him. He wanted some answers.

Picking his way silently, he walked far enough away from the cabin to be out of earshot, swung south, and began to walk rapidly. Ten minutes later he was approaching a small hill that looked over the clearing that housed his cabin. He crept up the hill quietly, crawled behind a large boulder, and peered around its protective bulk.

His eyes widened as he identified a man and a woman on a blanket beneath one of his trees. A
white
woman. And a
black
man. He listened carefully, but he couldn’t catch anything they were saying. He could tell they were talking and laughing, but a north-blowing breeze carried their words away.