Daughter of Twin Oaks (6 page)

Lucinda nodded.

Jesselynn stood still a moment before heading for the door. She paused, looked back. “Winter will go fast and when spring comes, watch for us.”

They began loading the wagon after dark.

“Food all in de wagon. I packed a carpetbag for de baby. Yo’ dresses in de trunk.” Lucinda wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron.

“Thank you.” Jesselynn couldn’t bear to tell her right now that there would be no need for dresses. “Just in case anyone is watching this place, we must go on like nothing is changed. Those of you who stay here, you have to do the same.” Jesselynn looked at June, Lucinda’s daughter, whose skin wasn’t much darker than her own. While June was more rounded, they were about the same height.

If she could become a boy, surely June could become her.

“June, come with me.”

“Yessum.” Eyes rolling, the young woman rose from the table where she’d been plucking a chicken.

“Now, there’s nothing to be afraid of,” Jesselynn said as they mounted the stairs. “I have an idea that might make things look normal around here. After I’m gone, I mean.”

“Don’ want you to go.” The whimper lashed at Jesselynn’s shoulder blades.

“I know. I don’t want to go either.” She crossed her room to the chifforobe and pulled out the other of her mourning dresses. “Put this on.”

“Can’t do that.” June took three steps back, folded hands clasped to her breast. The shaking of her head made her kerchief shudder.

Jesselynn breathed deep and sighed. “Yes, you can. You and I are about the same size, and if you wear my clothes and a straw hat like I always do, anyone watching this place will think I am here.”
And not come hotfooting it after us. Anything to buy time
. Every time she thought of Dunlivey watching the big house, she wanted to hide under the bed.

“But you be gone. I can’t be you.”

“Please, June, for the sake of everyone at Twin Oaks, try the dress on.” She held the dress out until June reached for it as if she were being told to put her hand into flames. Jesselynn dug in the chest of drawers for a camisole and petticoat and handed them to the shaking woman beside her.

“Come now, you and I used to play dress-up together, remember? You’ve worn my clothes before.”

“I know, but dat was playtime. This for real thing.”

“Just be glad I’m not making you wear that corset.”

When June finally stood dressed in the black silk dress and a white apron, Jesselynn looked at her with eyes slitted. “You fill it out far better than I do.” She motioned to her chest area. Taking the straw hat off its peg, she clamped it onto June’s head. “Sure do wish now I’d worn a sunbonnet. That way no one could see your face at all.” She stepped back and, hands on hips, nodded. “Go ahead, look in the mirror. What do you think?”

June fingered the material of the skirt. “I think I done gone to heaven, dis here stuff feels so fine.” She smiled at the woman in the mirror. “Pretty dark for a nigger like me.”

“Don’t use that word, June. You are a beautiful free woman who is doing Twin Oaks a big favor.”

Tears pooled in June’s eyes and one slipped down her cheek. “Thank you, Miss Jesselynn, from de bottom of my heart.” She smoothed the silk over her bosom and down to her waist. “I do my best till you gets home again.”

Several hours later, Jesselynn was wishing Lucinda were half so cooperative. She breathed in wind for a sigh big enough to blow the woman down and let it out slowly. “Lucinda, no matter what we all think and want, I have to take the horses to Uncle Hiram’s in Missouri like Daddy said. I promised. You know that.” While Jesselynn thought this discussion had been taken care of in the kitchen, she was learning otherwise.

“Oh, lawsy, my baby get herself kilt fo’ sure.” Lucinda threw her apron over her head.

“Lucinda, please get the scissors.”

One dark eye peeked over the white hem. “Why?”

“Just get them, please.”

Jesselynn had tried on two pairs of her father’s boots before Lucinda heaved her bulk back up the stairs. By stuffing the toes with cotton and wearing two pairs of socks, it looked like she had footwear more in keeping with her new life. Now for the hair. She pulled out the seat to her mother’s dressing table and sat down.

Handing Lucinda the comb, Jesselynn sat with her eyes closed. “Cut it off short like a man’s.”

Lucinda took the scissors and comb, all the while muttering and shaking her head. She stepped back. “I can’t do dis thing. Hair like dat, no way, Missy. Lucinda won’ be party to such goin’s on.”

Jesselynn’s eyes snapped open. She straightened her back and narrowed her eyes, sending sparks bouncing off the mirror and catching her mammy full force. “Will you help me or won’t you? I
have
to save the horses, for without them we will have nothing after the war is over. You know what marauding soldiers would do to a young woman traveling with fine horses like ours.”

“Laws, Missy, I can’t cut yo’ hair.” Tears bubbled from her dark eyes and tracked down her cheeks.

Jesselynn spun on the bench seat and reached for the scissors. “I’ll do it, then.”

“Den yo’ look like, like …” Lucinda shook her head. “I do it.” Tears flowing, she cut the heavy tresses off at the neckline, then lifted it in sections with the comb and snipped some more.

Jesselynn gritted her teeth against the hurt as she watched her hair fall to the floor. John had loved her hair, said it reminded him of shimmering silk in the moonlight. All her life she’d had one vanity, and now it lay in pools around their feet. She closed her eyes, pretending it was her mother standing there as she’d done for so many years, combing her daughter’s hair and telling stories of when she was a young girl.

Oh, Mother, if only you were here now to tell me what to do. I’ve needed you so these last years
. Immediately she felt guilt jab her in the ribs. Poor little Thaddy had never known his mother. At least she’d had one for seventeen years.

Lucinda’s repeated sniffing and harrumphs broke into her reverie. Jesselynn turned enough on the walnut bench that she couldn’t see in the mirror.

“Hold still, lessen you want to look like a sheared sheep.” Lucinda sniffed again. “Good thing yo’ mama ain’t here. Dis nigh to break her heart.”

Better a broken heart than …
But Jesselynn didn’t want to think of the coming days either. How could she leave Twin Oaks, the only home she’d ever known, and head across country without her father or her brother or …? She sucked in a deep breath and let it out as a heavy sigh.

Lucinda stepped back. “Dere.”

Jesselynn looked up into her mammy’s tear-filled eyes. “I’m sorry, Lucinda, dear, but I just can’t see any other plan. Do I look like a boy?”

“Maybe if you use walnut dye on yo’ face and hands and keep a hat on yo’ head.” She squinted her eyes. “Maybe dye yo’ hair too.”

“That’s a good idea. Good thing I’m not as endowed as some of the others.” She pulled her camisole tight across her chest. “I won’t miss the corsets, that’s for sure.” She thought of the whalebone contraption hanging from a hook on her closet door. Up until yesterday for the funeral, she’d pretty much given up wearing one, as she’d had to do more of the outside work. Even though Joseph ran the stables and barns, someone as big as Meshach had needed to oversee the tobacco planting and hoeing, the haying, and the grain harvesting. Could Joseph really take care of the tobacco picking? She’d planned to start that next week.

Could she trust the slaves left behind to keep things going? Perhaps one of the neighbors would check in once in a while.

Oh, God, this is too much. I can’t leave Twin Oaks. And if I do, will there be anything left to come home to?

“Missy Jess, you all right?” Lucinda bent down to stare into her mistress’s face.

Jesselynn nodded. “I will be. God will uphold and protect us.” She wished she believed that as truly as her mother had. If God had been protecting them, why did her mother never recover from childbirth and her father and brother die in the war?

I will never leave you nor forsake you
.

“Funny way you have of showing it.”

“What dat you say?” Lucinda stopped on her way out the door.

“Nothing. Just muttering.” Jesselynn got to her feet and ran her fingers through her hair. It barely covered the tops of her ears. She shook her head, and bits of hair flew free. But long tendrils did not slap her in the face, and her head felt strangely light. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

She returned to her own room and, after donning brown britches, a belt, and a white shirt, dug in the back of the closet for her porkpie hat, the one she’d worn when working the racing stock. It fit much better now that it didn’t have all that hair to hold up. She eyed the two, broad-brimmed or porkpie. Of course she could take her father’s straw hat … but she shook her head. Young boys didn’t wear plantation owner hats.

She stared into the mirror. Did she look enough like a boy? She switched to the broader brimmed hat and pulled it lower onto her forehead. That was better. By lowering her chin, she could hide more of her face.

She’d have to deepen her voice too. When had her brothers’ voices changed? Fifteen, sixteen Earlier? With all that had happened in the last two years, somehow small facts like that had slipped away. She looked back in the mirror. How old did she look? She twisted her head from side to side.
After I dye my hair and skin, will that help?

Whirling, she ran to the stairs, her boots clattering as she descended. “Lucinda?” She lowered her voice and tried again. “Lucinda!”

Lucinda came down the lower hall. “Comin’.”

Jesselynn turned her body as if to study the empty space where her father’s portrait had hung.

“Yessuh?” Lucinda stopped in the doorway.

“Is Miss Jesselynn to home?”

“Yessuh. Who I tells her is callin’?” “Jonathan from Creekside.”

“Wait here.” Lucinda began to climb the stairs.

Jesselynn waited until Lucinda was halfway up the stairs before she looked up. “That’s right kind of you, ma’am, but you won’t find her up there.”

Lucinda stopped with one foot on the upper riser. She looked down over the shiny walnut banister, rolled her eyes, and shook her head. “Well, I never …” Heaving a sigh, she came back down the stairs. “Such a trick to play on ol’ Lucinda.” Jesselynn breathed a sigh of relief. If she could fool Lucinda, anyone else would be easy.

“Let’s get the dye, all right?”

“Lawsy, what dis world comin’ to?” Lucinda continued to shake her head as she made her way toward the back of the house. “I boiled up some walnut husks an’ we see what happen.” The sniff at the end made Jesselynn wonder if tears weren’t clogging her mammy’s throat as they were her own.

Jesselynn gathered the last of her things, her father’s journal, and the precious ink bottle. When she walked by the mirror, she didn’t even recognize herself. Were her hair not so straight and brown, she might have passed for one of the mulattos. She brushed walnut-colored hair back, but it fell forward onto her brow. Her hat would have to keep it back.

The grandfather clock in the hall struck eleven as they gathered for a final prayer. Sobs from some of the house slaves broke the silence as Jesselynn bowed her head. “Heavenly Father, we commit our lives into thy hands. Keep those of us on the road safe and those at home as well.” She stopped and swallowed hard, trying to clear her throat and keep the tears at bay. She knew if she broke down, there would be such wailing that it would be heard clear to Lexington. “Please set your legions of angels in charge over us all. If it be thy will, bring Zachary safely home again.” Oh, how she wanted to pray for God to take care of Cavendar Dunlivey in a permanent way. “Protect us from those who set to do us harm, we pray in thy holy name, amen.”

“Missy Jesse?”

She whirled and, taking a step forward, glared up at Meshach. “You mean Marse Jesse!”

“Yessum—ah, suh.” Meshach studied the wrinkled brim of his hat. The sound of a nighthawk called from the front portico. “Dat mean all is clear.”

“All right.” She turned to the others. “Now, you all know what you have to do. You will all refer to June as Miss Jesse, even when inside the house, in case Dunlivey makes it through those posted as guards. Everything will go on as usual here. If someone comes calling for me, say that I am indisposed or gone to town or something.” She looked around the circle to make sure everyone nodded.

“All right, Ophelia, go get Thaddy. You and he will sleep in the back of the wagon.”

“Yessum.”

“What?” She spun on the slave as if to strike her.

“Yessuh.” Ophelia ran up the stairs without looking back.

Dear God, if we manage this, it will be a miracle for sure
.

Chapter Five

On the trail

September 18, 1862

Unlike Lot’s wife, Jesselynn knew she didn’t dare look back.

The squeak of the wagon wheels sounded like children screaming as they passed the two stone pillars and turned onto the road from the long drive of Twin Oaks. She didn’t need to see the copper plaque posted on one to know what it said. TWIN OAKS. Established 1789 by Joshua A. Highwood. The two trees from which the plantation garnered its name stood sentinel at the junction as they had for longer than her family’s memory. Story had it that her great-grandfather had picnicked under those trees the day his land grant was signed and delivered. His journal had described them as “two oaks, nearly perfect a match in size and shape, huge and majestic beyond description, offering shade for the weary, a home for birds and squirrels, and enough acorns to raise an entire herd of swine.”

How his heart would break if he could see us now
. Jesselynn wiped a tear from her eye with the back of her sleeve.
It’s just too much—Father dying and now my having to leave. What will Zachary think when he returns? How can I do this God, you are asking too much
.

She blew her nose and pressed the bridge between thumb and forefinger, anything to stop the tears. If her people—she refused to call them slaves any longer—if her people knew how she felt, they would not be able to go on.

Except perhaps Meshach. Since she’d given him his papers, he had become different. Always straight and broad shouldered, he no longer looked down at the ground when talking to anyone. He held his head high and looked a person in the eye. His speech too had changed some, but God help them if he called her “missy.”

She flicked the reins for her team to pick up their feet. The mare on the right still hadn’t quite gotten the idea of teamwork in wagon pulling, but at least she was willing. Ahab had not taken kindly to the harness, so Meshach was riding him. The mule didn’t seem to care who pulled with him.

Why hadn’t she thought to break them to harness earlier? She shook her head. Why so many things? Like her father had said, “If only you’d obeyed me two years ago …” The memory reopened the lacerations on her heart. Could one die of a broken heart?

“Riders up ahead,” Daniel, who’d been riding point, whispered out of the darkness.

Jesselynn immediately pulled off the road under the bordering tree, the wagon wheels crushing brush as they hid. Thank God there was no stone wall or fencing here. She leaped from the wagon and ran to her horses’ heads, clamping a hand over each muzzle so they wouldn’t nicker.

Her heart made so much noise, she had a hard time listening for the riders. Grateful for the darkness, since the moon had yet to rise, she strained to hear, knowing Meshach and Daniel were near and doing the same thing. Benjamin would be ahead somewhere. Thank God she’d thought to give Thaddy a few drops of laudanum so he would sleep through anything. What if he cried out? Only soldiers or scum would likely be on the road at this hour. Once they were farther from home, they could disappear in among all the normal traffic. After all, what was one more wagon loaded with despair?

The clop of hooves, the jingle of spurs and bits, sounded like five or six horses. While one man said something, blood thundering in her ears kept her from picking out his words. The smell of tobacco smoke overlaid the fragrance of crushed leaves and bark. Her eyes ached and watered from trying to peer through the darkness. One of her horses stamped a foot.

Now she knew what a deer felt like when it suspected danger. Her mind wept
Oh, God, help us. Please help us!
over and over till she thought she would scream. They waited what seemed like half the night from the time they could hear even the faintest sound of the riders.

“Go now,” Meshach said right next to her. She hadn’t heard him moving at all. Her heart leaped back up in her throat, and she clamped a hand to her chest.

“Oh.” Leaning her forehead against the warm neck of the mare, she waited for her heartbeat to settle back down and her knees to regain their strength before she climbed back up in the wagon. Right at the moment, she wasn’t sure she could make it.

“Marse Jesse, you all right?”

“Yes, thank you.”
At least I soon will be
. She patted the mare’s neck and, in spite of nearly tripping over broken brush, got herself back up on the wagon seat.

“Oh, Mi-Marse Jesse, I skeered so bad I ’most wet my drawers.” Ophelia’s whisper made Jesselynn smile, then start to chuckle.

“Me too, Ophelia, me too.”

A giggle from behind added to her chuckle, and by the time they had the wagon back up on the road and running straight again, all of them, except for the sleeping child, were choking, trying to keep from laughing so loud that any other stragglers out on the road might hear them.

Sheer relief, that’s what it is
. Jesselynn could no more cap the gurgling laughter than fly back home to Twin Oaks.
Twin Oaks
. She sobered as if she’d had a bucket of water doused on her head. Had that been Dunlivey returning to watch over the home place?

Watch! Ha! Spy! That’s all he is. A spy, and one cruel beyond measure at that
.

She flicked the reins, and the horses picked up a fast trot. They clattered over a stone bridge, echoes bouncing from the low stone walls. Before long they turned west onto the Lexington/Frankfort Pike and picked up the pace, needing to be off the pike before sunrise and miles from Twin Oaks.

Her eyes burned as if she’d been standing in the smoke from a fire, and her rump ached from the hard boards by the time Meshach cantered back to them just as the birds made their first twitterings. The sun had yet to reach the horizon, but already she could see the features of the landscape. The trees grew taller as they drew closer to the Kentucky River, and the gently rolling hills sported pastureland with plots of trees. Stone fences, their flat capstones set on a slant, looked like gray medieval fortresses in miniature. Mist hugged the hollows. Horses whinnied. Roosters heralded the rising sun.

“Dorsey up ahead. We takes a road off to de left,” Meshach said. She nodded and rubbed her eyes with the tips of chilled fingers. Tomorrow night someone else could drive the wagon and she would ride. She heard rustlings in the wagon bed behind her.

Ophelia yawned and climbed over the supplies until she sat beside Jesselynn. “We stoppin’ soon?”

“Soon.” They both kept their voices low so as not to wake Thaddy.

Jesselynn turned on the road Meshach had indicated and saw Daniel waving at her a hundred or more yards ahead. In spite of the weariness that dragged her down, she wished they could keep on going. Farther out, maybe they could travel some during the day, when they and their horses wouldn’t be so easily recognized.

Although looking at the team in front of her, she doubted anyone would believe the mare pulling with the mule was the dam of four Keeneland Derby winners. Two of her progeny were at stud already. And paid for handsomely in spite of the war. They were probably dead on the battlefield by now if the armies had had their choice. Unless others had already done what her father had told her to do two years ago.

“Dey’s water here and even pasture fo’ de horses.”

Daniel rode beside her, showing the way after they left the narrowing dirt road.

“Meshach say we be safe here.”

“Good.”

Mockingbirds trilled their morning arias when she stepped down from the wagon with a groan. Squirrels chattered from the oak trees, informing them and the world of the invasion.

Jesselynn stretched, kneading her lower back with her fists and leaning from side to side. There was indeed water. A creek burbled over moss-covered rocks and around knobby roots. Out in the open, where the sun was already stretching golden fingers across the grass, the blades sparkled green, like a welcome mat sprinkled with diamonds.

Ahab snorted at their arrival and dropped his head to graze again, his front legs hobbled so he couldn’t run or even walk fast.

Meshach came out of the trees with an armload of dried branches and dumped them by a fire pit that showed others had used this glen for respite. “ ’Phelia, you get dem fryin’ pans and such out of de wagon. Since you slept all night, you get de breakfast.”

“Do we dare start a fire?” Jesselynn listened for any nearby farm sounds. Only the creek’s gurgling and the birdsong broke the early morning silence.

“I think yes. We off de main road a mile or so, and de next farm way down over dere.” He pointed to the west. “Can’t see de clearin’ from de road.”

“How did you find this place?”

Meshach studied the dusty toe of his boot. “Don’ ask. Just say I heard tell of it.”

“Oh.” Was this one of those places where runaway slaves could stop in safety? And had her people ever thought of running off? What did they talk about down in the quarters when the marse wasn’t around?

“Lynnie?” Thaddy’s voice came thinly from the wagon bed. “Lynnie?”

Jesselynn trotted to the wagon and lifted her little brother out of his nest. “Shush. You musn’t talk loud.” She kissed his cheek, pink from sleep, and settled him on her hip. “Come, let’s go.”

She sent an inquiring look Meshach’s way, and he nodded.

“Just stay close.”

When trees and low bushes screened them from camp, she pushed down his diapers and let him pee in the creek, much to his delight. Then while he threw twigs and pebbles in the clear water, she relieved herself, thinking immediately of the niceties of home. She would have had a pitcher of warm water to wash with, one of the household slaves would have emptied the slop jar, and breakfast would have been ready when she descended the stairs. But that was home, and this was now.

Dipping her handkerchief in the water, she used it to wash Thaddy’s hands and face.

“Cold.” He pulled away, scrunching up his face. “No more.”

“Be a big boy, Thaddy.”

“Go home now?”

I wish we could
. Instead she knelt down in front of him and, laying her hands along his cheeks, looked deep in his eyes. “Listen to me, Thaddy, and listen good. Call me Jesse from now on, you hear me?”

“Lynnie.”

“Not anymore, little brother.” She shook her head. “Not anymore, and don’t you forget it. Now, what is my name?” She dropped her hands to his shoulders and shook him gently.

His lower lip came out, and his eyes narrowed. At that moment he looked so much like his older brother Zachary that she blinked.

“No. Jes-sie-lynn,” he said slowly.

Jesselynn sighed and rocked back on her heels. Right enough, she’d approached him the wrong way. One thing this child didn’t lack was southern backbone. He’d go along nice as you please until … She’d just come up against that
until
.

How much do you tell a two-and-a-half-year-old child?

Seeking to corral her thoughts, Jesselynn picked up a stick with a caterpillar attached. She handed it to Thaddeus, sure that it would distract him for a moment while she thought what to do.

He held on to the stick and giggled as the fuzzy caterpillar humped his back feet up to his front.

“Thaddy, how would you like to play a game with me?”

He studied the now extended caterpillar.

Jesselynn sighed and got to her feet. Dipping her handkerchief again, she washed her own face and hands, ran damp fingers through her shorn hair, and set her hat back in place. They were ready for the day, and all she could think of was a hot meal and a soft bed, or any bed for that matter.

She took her little brother’s hand. “Bet you don’t know what my new name is.”

“Jesselynn Marie Highwood.” He glanced from the stick up to her, then grinned. “Jesse. Me new name?”

She let out a sigh of relief.
Not a bad idea
. How could this child be so smart? “Sure, what would you like?”

“Meshach.”

“Ah, that’s a good name, but it already belongs to Meshach over there. Think of another.” They wound through the trees as they talked, Thaddeus all the time careful to keep his caterpillar on the stick.

“Joshwa.” He stopped walking and looked up at her. “My daddy gone to heaven name, huh?”

Her eyes flooded. Pain gripped her heart. She sank to her knees and pulled Thaddeus into her arms, hugging him close so he couldn’t see her tears. “That’s a fine name. One I’m proud to call you by.” She sniffed and relinquished him when he squirmed.

“Oh, my catepiwar.” He looked around on the leaf-strewn ground. “Find him.”

Jesselynn rocked back on her heels just in time to see that the caterpillar had been smashed by her knee. She fluffed some leaves over it and, rising, pulled him to his feet. “We’ll look for another one later. See, Ophelia has breakfast about ready.”

“Want my catepiwar.” The lower lip jutted out and his face screwed up in what Jesselynn knew could give rise to a wail fit to raise the soundest sleeper.

“You eat, I’ll look. Come, Joshua, tell everyone your new name.” His face cleared, and he ran to stand by his hero, tugging on the man’s pants. “Meshach. Meshach.”

“What you wants, little marse?” Meshach picked Thaddy up so they were eye to eye.

“Me new name. Like Jessel—Jesse.” He glanced over his shoulder to see her approval. When she nodded, he smiled and turned back to his holder. He thumped his chest. “Me Joshwa.”

Meshach nodded slowly. “Yessuh, that a fine name. We all call you Joshua, little marse. How dat?”

“Good.” Thaddy pushed back. “Eat now.”

Jesselynn took the plate Ophelia brought her and sat down on the wagon tongue. “Thank you.” Looking around at the sun-dappled ground, the hobbled horses grazing on the open glen, her people sitting cross-legged on the ground or on a hunk of wood and laughing softly while they ate—it all made her think more of a picnic than a flight for their lives. Or at least their horses’ lives, she corrected her meandering thoughts. Her mind skittered away from thoughts of any of them really being in danger. Only the horses.

A crow flew overhead. His raucous announcement that there were strangers in his woods sent shivers up her back. What if they were indeed running for their lives?