Daughter of Twin Oaks (13 page)

“Runaway slave.” Meshach hunkered down where he was, shaking his head all the while.

“How do you know?” She kept her voice low also, not wanting to frighten the child.

“See de brand on her face.”

Jesselynn recognized it now. Her father had forbidden such atrocities.

“Hey, baby, we come for you.” Meshach’s voice carried the same gentle cadence he used for the skittish horses.

The little one whipped around, screwed up his face, and, sitting in the muck, raised his arms to be picked up.

Jesselynn reached him first, crooning all the while, then picked him up and hugged him to her chest. “Ah, baby, how’d you make it through the night without wild animals gettin’ you?” She rocked from side to side, watching as Meshach checked out the body of the woman and the dead infant. “We have to bury her,” she said.

“I know.” He held up a pitifully small sack. “She been on de road some time.”

“And died in childbirth.” Jesselynn looked around them. While in the sunlight this would be a lovely shaded glen, in the rain and fog, dismal was the only word she could think of. When she saw the scars of the whiplash on the woman’s arms and chest, she hugged the baby tighter, making him wail instead of whimper.

“Think you can find de way back?” Meshach had placed the infant on its mother’s chest. “Send Benjamin to help here.”

She nodded. “We didn’t come too far. I can call if I need.”

“Or whistle like a robin?”

“Oh, I guess not.” She picked up the tow sack and, with the child on her arm, made her way back around the ancient tree. “I’ll have Benjamin bring the Bible.”

“Yessuh, thanks.”

As she climbed higher, she felt a rush of warmth down her side before she could hold the child away from her. “Well, thanks for that little gift. You could have warned me.”

The boy whimpered and stuck his thumb and forefinger in his mouth, hiccuping at the same time.

“Wonder how long since you’ve been fed.” She stopped at the top of the bank to catch her breath. He might be just beyond babyhood. She doubted he was even a year yet, but lugging him up the steep hill made him seem heavier with every step.

By this time too she was fairly certain he was running a fever. What might she be bringing into camp?

Chapter Twelve

The military hospital

Richmond, Virginia

“Do you think he is ever goin’ to wake up?”

“I certainly hope so, Miz Highwood.” The doctor shook his head. “But every day he remains comatose, the less chance …” His voice trailed off. “Maybe if you spent some time talking with him, reading to him, that might help.”

“You think he can hear me?”

“I’ve heard tell of folks who woke up knowin’ things they could only have heard while asleep. Makes me think ears are more important than we give them credit for. Let’s see if Corporal Shaddock there might read to him. Missin’ a leg won’t hurt his tongue any.”

If he can read
. Louisa was careful not to voice the thought. Corporal Shaddock didn’t need anything else to make him feel worse. Some men seemed to handle the loss of a limb better than others, but no one accepted living on one leg easily.

She studied the man wrapped in bandages and lying so still. Who was he? Why did he seem familiar? Was it because she had seen so many bandaged men by this time, or was it something else? Could he hear them and was just not able to respond?

But he wasn’t paralyzed. The doctor had made sure of that. What was keeping him in some no-man’s-land?

She thought back to her early morning time reading her Bible. This soldier had come into her mind even then, and so she had prayed for him as she did for so many others. That thought led to another, as so often happened. She’d prayed for those at home too. What was going on at Twin Oaks, and why hadn’t they heard from Jesselynn after the letter she wrote telling them that Father had died?

Sometimes the urge to go home was almost more than she could bear.

Instead of succumbing to the tears that threatened, she pasted a smile on her face and took the few paces to stand beside Corporal Shaddock’s bed. “I know you are awake, so just open your eyes and take this little treat I have for you.”

He blinked and cracked one eyelid. “Go ’way.”

“Now, you know me better than that.”

“Be nice to the lady, son, if ya know what’s good for ya.” Lieutenant Lessling leaned on his crutches, another victim of losing a leg but choosing to make the best of a bad situation. Said he had a plantation to run as soon as they released him from “this miserable example of a house of healin’.” This he repeated more than once to whoever happened to be in the vicinity.

The general in charge hadn’t thought too kindly of the rebuke.

Louisa had a hard time keeping a straight face when Lessling went on a diatribe. She’d heard much worse.

“So, Corporal Shaddock, shall I go on to someone else?” Her smile made him blink twice and flush once. He was young enough that he hadn’t lost the ability to blush, and his fair skin shone like a rose in full bloom.

“No, ma’am.” He winced as he rolled flat on his back and pushed himself up against the wall. He tried glaring at her, but the cutting glance from the man on crutches changed his glare to a grimace meant to be a smile—perhaps.

Louisa waited until he was about as comfortable as he would be, then handed him two molasses cookies in a napkin. “Wish I could offer you coffee too, but …” She shrugged. “You slept through breakfast.”

“Warn’t neither sleepin’.” The act of growling made him cough and clench his treat tight enough to break the cookies into small pieces. He opened the napkin and gave her an apologetic look. “Sorry, missus.”

“They’ll taste just as good, but don’t you go tellin’ all the others what you have there. They might get jealous.”

He ducked his chin, but she could see the beginnings of a true smile stretch his lips. She patted his shoulder before bending closer. “Now if you could do me a favor, perhaps?”

He nodded. “If ’n I can.”

“Would you mind talking with the man in that bed?”

“But he don’t say nothin’.”

“I know that, but Doc said this might help. I’d read to him if I had time.” She touched the Bible she always kept in the pocket of her apron.

“I don’t read so good, ma’am, but I could surely give it a try if you could see fit to loan me your Bible.”

Rejoicing in the spate of words from a man who hadn’t strung more than two together before, she handed him her Bible. “Why don’t you start with the Gospel of John? It’s always been my favorite.”

With the crumb-sprinkled napkin spread on the bed beside him and the Bible propped on his chest, he fumbled through the pages until he found John and began to read. “ ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.’ “

Thank you, Father
. She sent her prayer winging heavenward as she went on to the next patient.

“Shore do be fine to hear them words.” The boy on the bed looked too young to begin shaving, let alone nearly die in a hail of bullets. “My ma read to us ever night.”

“Mine too, when my daddy wasn’t there.” Louisa handed him a lemon drop. “Thought this might help that frog in your throat.” While she knew the frog would live there permanently due to his neck injury, sucking on the candy would be soothing.

“Thankee.”

By the time she’d finished one side of the long room, the men on the other were getting restless. The heat and the flies ripened as the sun reached the midpoint, turning the second floor of the hospital into a miasma of sickness, smells, and sweat.

“You go on, take a minute under that shade tree out there.” The lieutenant stopped beside her after his self-imposed traversing of the center aisle. While she’d tried to get him to take it easier, he insisted that walking not only made him stronger but also helped pass the time.

She’d noticed that much of his time was passed assisting those who were worse off than he. “Thank you. I think I will.” She wiped her perspiring face with the underside of her stained apron. “I’ll get a bucket of cold water at the same time.”

“You let Jacob bring the water. Better him carrying those buckets up the stairs than you.”

Louisa gave him an arched eyebrow look that clearly said, “Who made you my boss?”

“Sorry.” A tiny smile quirked one corner of his well-defined lips. But he didn’t back down, even leaning on crutches and looming over her. “That’s what he was hired for. You want to take an old man’s job away from him?”

Louisa sighed. “Now that you put it that way, of course not, but it doesn’t look to me like he has extra time on his hands.” She glanced over to where the corporal continued reading. Several other ambulatory patients had taken up the spare spaces on the beds.
Why didn’t I think of that before?

“You can’t think of everything.”

Her attention snapped back to the lieutenant. “How …?”

“Your face is like an open picture book. One needn’t even know words to read it.” He cleared his throat. “I better get back to …” Without finishing his sentence, he turned and clump-thumped his way back down the aisle.

She watched him go. Thin—no, emaciated was a better word for his build, his shoulder bones sticking out of his thin cotton robe like angel wings. His wrists and fingers could do with a better flesh covering; the bones showed so clearly. And his face … She’d seen a human skeleton once, and it didn’t look too different from the man swinging on his crutches. Yet his eyes hadn’t lost their piercing blue nor his mind its sharpness. Both courtly manners and a keen intellect, quickened by a good education, were evidenced by every word he spoke. She’d be willing to bet he came into the world as officer material, and the war only honed it.

What would he do now?

None of your business, my girl. Now get on about your chores and quit lollygagging over something that has nothing to do with you. He’s one of your patients, that’s all
. On her way out, she grabbed both buckets and headed on down the stairs.

A slight breeze made pumping the water a pleasure, and when the first gush hit the tin bucket, she wished she could stop and splash it on her face but kept pumping instead. Stopping would only prolong the effort. The clang and suck of the handle and pump sang a song peculiar to hand pumps, the gush turning to a gurgle as the bucket filled.

“You don’t want to do dat, Missy.” Old Jacob took the handle from her with a reproachful shake of his grizzled head.

Louisa glanced up to see the lieutenant looking down at her from the window. She put two fingers to her forehead in a saucy salute and stepped back as Jacob took the first bucket from under the spigot and set the other in place, all the time keeping the handle in motion. She dipped her handkerchief under the waterspout and used it to wet her face. If he weren’t watching, she might have wiped her neck and down her bosom also. If only she dared defy Aunt Sylvania and go without her corset, the cool air could at least reach her skin.

She sneaked an upward peek, but no, he hadn’t moved.
Drat and tarnation!
Taking the dipper that hung on a hook beside the pump, she filled it with water and drank, making sure that some of it dribbled down her front. The remainder she poured over her hands and wrists. She thought of plunging her hands in the bucket up to her elbows, but who’d want to drink water she’d had her hands in?

“I takes dese up now.”

“Yes, thank you.”

She watched him go, the weight of the full buckets rounding shoulders already curved from heavy toil. But as the lieutenant said, the man’s job was important to him. She wondered whose slave he had been before and when he had been freed. Had Jesselynn freed all their slaves as she’d threatened to? Or had Father done it himself? Oh, the questions of home. When would a letter come through? Thaddeus would be so grown up by now that she would hardly recognize him, and he wouldn’t even know who she was. They must be cutting the tobacco. Lucinda would have the kitchen in an uproar putting up pickles and jams and jellies.

Louisa leaned against the rough bark of the elm tree.
Home, Lord. Oh, please, I want to go home
.

“Miz Highwood, come quick.” The lieutenant’s voice propelled her into a decidedly unladylike run.

Chapter Thirteen

Western Kentucky

September 29, 1862

“He one sick baby.” Ophelia frowned in concern over the little tyke they had rescued.

Jesselynn nodded. Ophelia wasn’t exaggerating this time. “We’ve got to get his fever down.” The baby twitched in her arms. Thaddeus sat leaning against her, forefinger and thumb both in his mouth. He didn’t look too good either at the moment.

It had taken them two days to get all dried out after the rainstorm, but the roads were still too muddy to make decent time, so they decided to stay where they were for another night. Right now she was wishing they didn’t have the wagon—or the extra horse that needed to stop for rests. Riding, they could have been long gone and able to cover the country faster. But riding with Thaddeus would be miserable, near to impossible. Besides, they didn’t have enough horses to pack all their supplies, meager though they were.

“See if you can get some more milk in him while Thaddy and I go search for some willow bark. A tea of that should help bring his fever down.”
If only I’d brought more of Mother’s simples
. But now was the time to be out harvesting things like ginseng, Solomon’s seal, wood sorrel, and the like. If she didn’t have to sleep during the day, she could be searching for them in the afternoon. How much easier it was at home where she knew where the best patches of everything grew.

Here it was hit or miss, although Meshach had brought in a fine mess of cress and dandelion to boil up for dinner. Stewed with the rabbit he’d snared and the wild onion, it tasted mighty fine. That was one good thing about Kentucky—one could live off the land if need be. While Benjamin and Daniel were catching some much needed sleep, Meshach seemed to need little rest. When she asked him about it, he shrugged her off.

“I gets enough, Marse Jesse. Not to worry.”

But worry she did in spite of her good intentions. While she knew they were heading west, they’d had to detour so often she wasn’t sure where they were or if they were traveling the best way. She rubbed her forehead, the ache behind her eyes getting worse instead of better.
What if that baby has something we can all catch? How do I care for all these people if I get sick? Or Meshach?

The last time she remembered being sick she had the chicken pox, but Lucinda and her mother had cosseted her back to health in spite of the itchy bumps all over her body. While Louisa and Zachary had gotten off lightly, she and Carrie Mae had had bad cases. Her mother had always said it was amazing she didn’t have more scars on her face.

Lucinda had warned her that if she scratched, her skin would all fall off and she’d be nothing but bones.

That picture kept her from digging at the sores.

But what did this baby have? Other than being out in the rain and wind by himself. No wonder he whimpered every time they put him down, poor thing. Too easily the picture of the dead mother came to her mind. She was trying to escape with her babes, and look what it got her. The scars covering her body said she’d gone under the lash more than once. It didn’t take too strong an imagination to see the horrors she must have endured.

Jesselynn shuddered. While she’d heard many stories, she’d never seen one human beaten by another, other than the whipping Dunlivey had given one of the field hands. That had been Dunlivey’s last act at Twin Oaks. Later on they’d learned that he’d beaten others, but by threatening them with worse, he’d never been caught at it.

What if he is searching for us now?
The thought made shivers chase each other up and down her back. The sight of his snarling face made her stomach clench—and her headache worsen.

While she needed to be sleeping herself, she couldn’t do that with the baby crying and coughing.

“Jesse, hold me.” Thaddeus held up his arms. She wiped his runny nose with a square of cotton she used for a handkerchief and, picking him up, let him wrap his arms around her neck and his legs around her waist. He clung like a baby possum to its mother’s back. She kissed his forehead and, sure enough, he felt warm too. Two sick children, muddy roads, and patrols going past not a quarter mile away. How were they to manage?

Now her headache felt like the drum of galloping horses’ hooves on a wooden bridge. An entire platoon.

“He won’t take no milk.” Ophelia carried the baby on her hip, jiggling him gently but without much success. He cried anyway.

“Here, you take Thaddeus.” Jesselynn tried to pull the limpet off her neck, but then he stopped whimpering and fell to out-and-out crying.

“Want you, not ’Phelia,” he stammered between sobs.

“But the baby needs me.” She tried prying again with no success.

“No-o-o-o.” He scrubbed his runny nose against her neck.

“Hey, how ’bout we think of a name for the baby?”

“No. Don’ like baby.” He clung so tightly, he almost cut off her air.

“Thaddeus Joshua Highwood, you stop that this instant.” She bounced him with a sharp jerk to get his attention.

“No!” He cried harder, stiffening his body and banging his head against her collarbone.

Wonderful. Now he was working his way up to a full-sized High-wood tantrum. She recognized it well, having thrown a few herself. One time Lucinda had dunked her in cold water. Trying to breathe around the shock made a screaming tantrum pretty near impossible, when she got her breath back, that was. She’d never thrown one again.

She hoped something like that wouldn’t be necessary with Thaddeus.

But when he began shrieking and nearly threw himself out of her arms, she started looking for a bucket of water. When none was in sight, she thunked him down on the wagon bed. “Now you just stay there until you can behave. I will not hold a boy who kicks and hits me.”

He rolled from side to side, arms thrashing.

Meshach came running from the woods. “What wrong?”

Jesselynn shook her head, disgust narrowing her eyes. “My little brother is throwing a tantrum, that’s what. All because he is jealous of our new baby.”

The poor baby was also screaming at this point, but stopping to cough brought his cries to a standstill. He coughed until he threw up what little milk Ophelia had gotten down him and then coughed some more. It sounded like he was coughing his lungs right out.

“You stay with him,” she said to Meshach, pointing to Thaddy, then ran around the wagon to help Ophelia with the other one. She dunked a cloth in warm water and washed the baby’s face and his nappy hair. His cries subsided, his eyes drifting closed and a hiccup jerking his entire body. While they had put one of Thaddy’s shirts on him, she could still count every bone in his neck. His fingers looked more like claws than baby hands and his bowed legs didn’t have the strength to hold him up yet.

Jesselynn thought back to the fat black babies tumbling around the little house where the babies stayed while their mothers worked in the fields. Twin Oaks had few women working alongside the men in the tobacco and hayfields, having them instead work the acre-sized garden and the orchards, and do the household tasks like spinning and weaving. Providing food and clothing for all the folks on the plantation took many hands and many hours. It seemed they never had enough of either.

She and Ophelia nursed the children through the afternoon and evening, but as the stars poked holes in the heavens, Meshach came to stand beside her. “We best be pullin’ out.”

“I know, but dare we travel with this one so sick?”

“Got to get away from sojers.”

“I know.” They’d heard another patrol just before dusk. “All right. You want to drive or ride?” Asking his preference was a real act of grace on her part. All she wanted to do was mount up on Ahab and ride free, gallop through the night far enough ahead so she couldn’t hear children crying and coughing. If only she had some of Lucinda’s elderberry wine or a hot toddy for the black baby. Her mother mixed honey, lemon, and whisky for sore throats and coughs. Surely there was something in the simples bag to help, but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember. Why, oh, why hadn’t she brought her mother’s housekeeping journal along? It held all the recipes.

“I drive. ’Phelia can take care of both boys in de back of de wagon. They go to sleep and wake up better in de mornin’.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I bin prayin’ for dem.”

Meshach’s simple faith smacked her in the face. She had not thought to pray lately, other than a frantic “Oh, God” a few times. And how long since they’d read the Scriptures? She’d seen him reading in the early morning. Why hadn’t she?

She squinted her eyes, staring at the fire until the flames seemed to fill her mind.
Because I’m no longer sure that God is listening
. She plundered her mind some more.
Or cares
.

“I’ll saddle Ahab, then.” Relief flooded her mind. She could get away. “And I hope your God is listenin’.”

“He yo’ God too, Marse Jesse, and He won’t let you forget it.”

“Yes, well …” She turned to Ophelia. “Let’s fill that jug with hot water and wrap it in one of the quilts so you can use it as you need it.” She tucked a quilt around Thaddeus, who had finally fallen asleep. When she felt his forehead, he didn’t seem any cooler.
So much for God making them better. Maybe if I can find some willow bark by a stream that would help
.

Within minutes they were on the road, heading toward the evening star again. After the deluge the nights before, the air still smelled fresh and clean. A hint of woodsmoke, the tang of a long-departed skunk, ammonia of fresh horse droppings, the smells of forest and fall melded into a rich soup of aromas.

A rising half-moon cleared the treetops and sent their shadows leading them onward.

In spite of herself, Jesselynn dropped back to see how the babies were doing. Ophelia was rocking the black baby, and Thaddeus coughed in his sleep beside her.

“He burnin’ up wid fever.”

“Unwrap him from the quilt.”

“Him get cold.” But she did as Jesselynn ordered and loosened the covering. As the cool air touched his skin, the baby set up a howl.

“Here, hand him up here. Maybe the rocking of the horse will settle him down.”

“With Ahab?” Meshach joined the conversation.

“Oh, you’re right.” Jesselynn felt like plugging her ears and riding hard—away. If she’d used her head earlier, they could have harnessed Ahab and she could have ridden the mare. “Up ahead, if he doesn’t calm down, we’ll switch the team around.”

“Should do that anyways. De mud makes for heavy pullin’.”

At least we’re not hub-deep in it
. That alone was something to be grateful for.

The moon floated high above them, silvering the trees and whitening the road. Jesselynn let herself slump in the saddle, riding far enough ahead so the fitful cries of their sick ones sounded more like bird twitterings.

“Halt! Who goes there!”

Her heart hit triple time before she could suck in a breath.