Promise of Yesterday (10 page)

Her gaze fell to the slate between them and all the words crowded there. She was transported back in time to Walter’s slate, filled with words. The quick brush of his lips after he had praised her for being such a good teacher.

The shock of memory jolted Marylu, and she suddenly understood the burst of emotion that had caused Chester to utter such a precious phrase.

How easy it had been for Walter to love her when he saw her not as a man should see a woman but as a pupil feels appreciation and tenderness for a teacher. She had seen it in the handful of men she had taught over the years since Walter. Then there was always the hard reality—true love would never have allowed Walter to leave her side, but infatuation was fickle and slippery.

And now another pupil declared his love.

And she had this minute to respond.

No words came. At the point where communication became essential, her tongue, healthy and whole, failed. And the specter of her doubts charged to the fore of her thinking. What she felt for him gripped her hard. Still, even after weeks together, she hardly knew him. With his newfound ability to talk, she could now ask him the question that burned through her every time she felt the softer emotions swirl in her heart. She was afraid to hear his answer, for should it be affirmative, she would be crushed. She could never love a man whose moral character she could not condone. She valued life too much.

The question begged to be asked. So simple to give voice and finally put to rest her own doubts. Simple, yes, but staring into his eyes, so hopeful and vulnerable, made her ashamed to believe the flapping tongue of Mrs. Burns over a man whose sincerity she had witnessed time and again. But she had to ask.

“There is a rumor,” she said, her voice low and intense, “that you murdered someone.”

His expression shifted ever so slightly. Surprise mingled with something else, and his gaze skittered to the surface of the table.

She closed her eyes and swallowed, recognizing what his averted gaze meant. Not the innocence she had hoped for, but resignation. Even fear.

Chester clutched the slate that Marylu had placed in his hands right before she opened the door for him to leave. Her question hovered, unanswered, between them. An effective barrier that he didn’t know how to cross.

He chided himself for not trying and, instead, allowing Sam’s betrayal to win, again, his silence. But Marylu’s question had so taken him off-guard. In his head, the words of his defense formed. He could explain the situation in detail, but only with great care would he be able to say the words out loud. Dredging up his past. Reliving the chase. The dogs. Loneliness. Days of hunger followed by nights of cold that froze his bones. The explanation itself proved an obstruction, insurmountable. Yet his silence won him nothing.

He wandered through the night, without thought of where he was or what he wanted to do. Mind blank. Body riddled with hurt and embarrassment and a hundred other painful feelings.

When the terrible shock faded, he thought of heading out to Mercersburg. He could stay with his mama and siblings. Find work. No one in Greencastle would miss him, except Mr. Shillito, but replacing him would not be a problem.

Exhaustion weighted his steps. Finally, he tripped and fell. He lay there, wanting to never get up. Instead, he rolled onto his back. Blackness obscured everything, the moon hanging behind a cloud. Walking in the dark, ten miles to Mercersburg, seemed too daunting a task. But he wanted to go. Needed to run just as he had needed to when his master’s head hit that boulder.

Samuel’s voice rang in his head. “
Better run hard and fast and hope no one ever catches you for killing the master
.”

He got to his feet slowly, straightening with effort, and squinted into the dimness. His path had led him through town and along a vast field of trees lined like soldiers. An orchard. Behind him lay the outline of the town’s buildings, and he did an about-face. As he placed one foot in front of another, he laid his plans for leaving. He would rest through the night, talk to Mr. Shillito in the morning, then begin the trek to Mercersburg. Seeing his mother and brothers and sisters again … Excitement coiled in his stomach and leaked into his limbs, until he walked at a pace that left him breathless.

Antrim House came into view and he slowed, grateful for his room. He would ask Mr. Shillito if he knew someone in Mercersburg who needed a hired hand and even prayed the man might. It would save him time looking for a job.

A shadow moved in front of Chester. His heart slammed hard, and he tensed. When the form shifted again, Chester relaxed. He recognized the slender outline of Zedikiah. For the last week, Zedikiah had sought him out more and more, even sleeping on the floor in his room two nights in a row, but only one of those nights had he been drunk. The smell of alcohol grew stronger as Chester neared the swaying form. He reached out to touch the boy.

Zedikiah tensed.

“Chester.” He said his name to ease the boy’s tension. “I’m sick,” Zedikiah whined.

Chester wedged his shoulder underneath the boy’s and reached to push open the door to the hotel. Zedikiah stumbled through the doorway under his own steam, and Chester shut the door to the hotel then swung open the door to his room. The boy lurched inside, staggered, and fell into a heap. He lay there, sprawled, not caring, already breathing heavily.

Chester sat down on the edge of his bed and stared at the still form. He had talked with Zedikiah about his woodworking, even showed him a couple of tricks he had learned, but in all his days here in Greencastle, he had never addressed the boy’s drinking problem.

He knew little of Zedikiah’s past, except that his mama had been dead for a year. Clearly, with no one to guide him, the boy had lost his way.

How well he understood.

Except Chester’s mama hadn’t died. He had left her, and all he had known, because stubbornness drove him to leave and foolhardy imagination told him he would be able to make it. Those lonely days in the South, when he’d first been captured and sold to a huge plantation in the middle of a country foreign to him, he had known a despair so deep and cutting that he had been lured to taste alcohol. Its numbing qualities eased the hurt, but the aftermath of his binges made the drinking a vile thing. Only, the ache of loneliness that plagued him outstripped the vileness, and he had continued to imbibe.

His cure came in the form of a whipping, when one morning the drinking caused him to be late to the fields. The master’s son had administered the “cure” by laying his back bare with the whip. The young woman who tended his wounds invited him to go with her and the other slaves to the little church down the road. So, on Sundays, with the rest of his ragtag slave family, he began attending with Lily, the young woman. His soul awakened to the comfort he recalled his mother talking about. And he came to believe that his mama’s Lord would help him.

And now, he had a young boy falling prey to the same siren song of drink. Zedikiah’s presence here, tonight, meant he trusted Chester, but it would take more than trust to help the boy. Zedikiah needed love and support and courage.

“Zedikiah.” His tongue tripped over the Z. He clenched his fists and tried the boy’s name again. He couldn’t make his tongue feel the letter and, instead, knelt to shake the boy awake.

Zedikiah’s body twitched and his eyes opened briefly, unfocused.

Chester pulled him upward and wedged his shoulder underneath to pull him to a sitting position. “Wake up,” he commanded.

His strength didn’t match the dead weight of the young man, though, and Zedikiah fell back again. A moan slipped from his lips, and he rolled away and curled into a ball, as if hurt.

Chester frowned at the inert form and yanked the blanket off his bed. He shook it and let it float downward to cover the boy. He stretched out on the mattress, willing sleep to come, half praying, half begging God to send the burden of helping Zedikiah to someone else. After all, he needed to leave town.

Guilt burned through Marylu’s mind after Chester left. By turns, she chided herself for asking the question and him for not answering. He should understand her need to know the truth. Even if he couldn’t talk well, he surely knew she was patient enough to listen as he talked or wrote it out.

She paced and prayed and fretted and grew angrier by the minute. It was too soon for him to tell her he loved her. They weren’t youths in the throes of romantic notions. At least she wasn’t, nor would she allow herself to be. They were two mature individuals who had seen clearly how love didn’t always conquer. And her teaching him to write and read and talk didn’t make her a hero. It made her a woman who cared and wanted to help.

There was no fool way she would love a man so quickly again. Not after Walter. There were things about Chester she sure liked, times he made her feel that same giddiness she had felt over Walter, but it had been infatuation then and must also be infatuation now.

“What the world you doing in there?” Cooper’s voice broke her reverie.

Marylu pivoted. A board creaked. “You hush and go back to sleep. You’ll wake Miss Jenny with your hollering.” Not that she, herself, wasn’t doing a good job of it.

The telltale shuffle of Cooper’s footsteps let her know he was headed her way. She sighed and sat down on the bench at the table.

“I heard that board creak a thousand times.” Cooper popped through the doorway and stared hard at her. “Thought I was having a dream until I realized it was you making the racket.” He looked around the room, eyebrows arched. “Where’s Chester? Thought he’d still be here working on his talking.”

“He left.”

Cooper’s gaze landed on her, searching. “Something happen I should be knowing about?”

How she wished Miss Jenny had been the one to come down the stairs. No use shedding water on the table in front of Cooper. He’d curl into a ball of agony if she sprung a leak.

“Marylu?”

If there was ever a serious bone in Cooper’s body, he showed it in the soft question that was her name. His tenderness caught at her, and she waved him into the room. “I’ll get you something.”

“Just stay put.” He pushed away from the door frame and crossed to the chair. “You always fuss over me like I’m some old man that can’t do a thing for myself.”

“You can’t.”

“Can too and you know it. And the last thing I want is a cup of your tea. Whoever put garlic in tea anyway?”

“It’s good for you. Gives you spunk, and you sure were needing it.”

“It gives me bad breath.”

“You already had that.”

Cooper chuckled and shook his head. “Chester tell you he’s sweet on you or some such foolishness?”

The sudden change in conversation brought her up sharp. She narrowed her eyes. “He been talking to you about me?”

“Thinks you’re a fine woman.”

“I don’t hold to you two talking about me behind my back.”

Cooper didn’t back down. “You think women have a corner on that market? Not gossip talk.” He shook his head. “Man-to-man talk.”

“Ain’t you one man short?”

Cooper snorted. “That’s no way to talk about Chester.” He cocked his head and stabbed a finger at her. “Now what’s got you riled up?”

She wanted to duck that direct question. Her skin burned with the shame of what she’d done. Whether she needed the reassurance or not, her timing for asking the question of Chester couldn’t have been worse, and she knew Cooper would tell her so.

“Must be bad if you can’t be looking me in the eyes.”

Marylu did her best not to break down right there, and so, for the first time in a long time, she dared to tell him exactly what she thought. “Not bad.” She pulled in a long, slow breath. “I just wanted to know about the rumor of him murdering someone.”

Cooper pursed his lips. “Yup.”

She tilted a look at him. “What you mean, ‘Yup?’”

“He sure did do something. If you wanted to know, you should have asked me.”

“Mrs. Burns said that he killed his master, but I should be able to ask him.”

“Well you asked him. Why’d he leave?”

She didn’t know. Not really. Why did he leave? Shame? Fear?

Cooper sat up straight, his eyes grave. “Got the story from another black who jumped off the train with Chester. Recognized him from years before. What I got from him was that Chester’s friend made it look like he’d stolen from the master. When the master went to punish Chester for the deed by laying stripes along his back then cutting out his tongue for lying about it, Chester, struggling for his freedom, pushed the man, and he slammed his head a good one on a pile of rocks removed from the fields. Broke his neck or something. Master’s son chased him with dogs and posted an ad to get him returned, but no one never caught him.”

Relief streamed through Marylu’s body. Then guilt pinched along her spine. And anger. Why hadn’t he just told her?

“You’ve got poison in your eyes.” Cooper raised his brows and rubbed his jaw.

She leveled her gaze on Cooper. Chester had fought back against an unfair deed. She’d known something haunted him. In all her days helping the McGrearys run the “station” on the Underground Railroad, she had heard many stories, but, though compassionate, the cruelty had never quite touched her. Perhaps it had been her youthful naiveté. Walter often told her how good she had it with Miss Jenny’s family, and though Russell and many of those who had stayed in Greencastle still called her “Queenie,” in honor of her deed, she realized now how that one moment of courage failed to hold a candle to the hours and days and years of suffering the people she had helped had endured.