Silent Thunder (13 page)

When we'd finished in the storeroom, we rolled the rug and carried it back to the guest quarters. As we passed the small window at the first landing of the main staircase, I took a hard look at the snow outside. It had spread its petticoat over every inch of Parnell land. It was a sugar-snow, white and sparkly. But I struggled to find its beauty. I still had a fire churning up inside my belly.

December 15, 1862

I
T'S TIME FOR ANOTHER LOOK-SEE
in the master's study. Another birthday, when Gideon Parnell calls me in and pays me some attention. Usually he does most of the talking. But this time I'm the one who's saying the most. I want something from my master, and the only way to get it is to ask.

When I appear in his doorway, Gideon says, “Don't be scared, I don't bite.” He's leaning full back in his armchair, holding his spectacles in one hand.

I say, “I ain't scared.” But I'm feeling afraid. Still, I let the master know what's on my mind. “I need to speak to you about something.”

Gideon nods, gives me the go-'head to keep on talking.

“I'm lookin'to marry—to get hitched with the Union army,” I say.

Parnell puts on his specs. Peers at me for what seems like a long time. Scratches his chin. He's thinking on something. Finally he says,
“Tell me why you want to hook up with this Union army. The Union army ain't good for boys like you. She'll fill your head with all kinds of foolery.”

I start to tell Parnell that the Union
is
good for me, and for everybody who wants freedom. And, I'm thinking I should tell him, too, that the Union army wants me. Wants me badly. Wants me to come fight.

But before I can even get the words out, I notice a crack in the floorboard that's opening up under my feet. Out from the crack pokes the head of a strange, black snake, a kind of snake I can't name.

Soon the snake is slithering out fast. It grows longer and longer, curling and twisting its ugly black body through and around my ankles.

When the snake ties itself into a knot at my shins, I come to see this is no snake at all. It's the overseer's whip, come to life, squeezing the living wits out of me, and roping me down to the master's floor.

“The Union can,'t take you so soon” Master Gideon says with a little laugh. “I won't allow it.”

With that snake still at my shins, somebody was prodding me to wakefulness. “Ros! Wake up!”

Had Mama come to comfort me?

“Ros! Ros!” When the voice came a second time, it wasn't Mama's.

“Wake up, Ros!”

I shuddered. Except for the glowing coals in the pit at the center of the quarters, the room was black. A heavy hand nudged me. “Clem, that you?”

“Throw your britches on, Ros! Move quick, 'else we gonna miss it!”

My mind was a jumble. It was telling me two things at once.

Hurry up! Hold back
!

I scrambled for my britches. Clem came into view. His face was a shadowy form, lit blue-brown by the coals. He was poking at my shoulder. I could hear the town hall clock striking in the distance—nine . . . ten . . . eleven . . . twelve. . . .

Midnight.

“What is it, Clem? What
is
it?” I was talking as loud as a person fully awake. I heard Mama stir on her pallet.

Clem pressed two fingers to his lips. “Shhh.” He tugged at my sleeve. He motioned to the door of the quarters. “Just come on,” he whispered.

Without a lick of good sense, I followed Clem down the plantation entry road. The moon was out, spreading its cream over Parnell's land. I could see clear to the far fields, where haycocks stood like hunchbacked giants. It was unusually warm for a December night. We'd had a snowfall a few days back. It had covered everything but had melted the very next day. There were leftover patches of white, though, clinging to tree roots and the roof of the toolshed.

Before we were even halfway to the end of the entry road, I saw why Clem had pulled me from my pallet.
There was a night vigil winding along the lane at the edge of Parnell's property.

Clem and I made our way to the low stone wall that separates the plantation from the lane. We stayed low, crouching just enough to see over the top of the hedge. We had a clean view. A slow, quiet parade passed in front of us. There were whispers and whimpers floating out from the group. But their eyes stayed ahead. They each held a burning candle, piercing the dark with a flickering ribbon of light.

“Where they goin'?” I asked.

“To the church for a midnight service. Three Confederate soldiers from Hobbs Hollow were killed two days ago, fighting in the Battle of Fredericksburg, just south from here. Them nightwalkers are going to pray for the souls of the soldiers.”

“How come they're taking to the lane so late at night?”

“To keep watch over the bodies,” Clem explained. “There's been a pack of body-robbers round these parts, people stealing the dead before they're even rested in their graves, and selling 'em to the medical college in Winchester, for those that's learning to be doctors. The body-robbers strike in the deepest nighttime. When the vigil gets to the church, the townsfolk will sit till daybreak, till it's safe to leave the fallen soldiers.”

Crouching behind the stone wall was putting an ache to my knees. But I stayed low, watching and listening to Clem.

“When I went to town today to get a razor strop for the master's shavin' kit, the Battle of Fredericksburg was all the talk,” Clem told me. “I passed through Littleton Square, where folks was saying the fighting started when an army of Union soldiers came up along the Marye's Heights hills. They came storming, trying to attack. But the Confederates, they held 'em off. Held 'em off, and
killed
'em off at the same time. Folks in town was saying them Northern boys was fallin' fast and hard. It was an ugly defeat for the Yanks, and a bloody one, too.”

The band of townspeople seemed to grow, bringing more light to the lane. The walkers were mostly women and young'uns.

“It was the North who lost the battle,” Clem said, “but it was Hobbs Hollow that lost some of its very own soldier boys.”

The sky above us was a clear, wide blanket of black, dappled with stars. It looked like heaven was having its own vigil of tiny lights. “Who from Hobbs Hollow went down in the attack?” I asked.

“There was Ben Stokes, whose pa, Travis, is a good friend of the master's. There was Russell Appleton, that skinny, freckled boy who used to live over by near where Doc Bates's plantation is. And there was Johnny Kane, Miss Rose McCracken's beloved, who she was set to wed, come the harvest.”

No sooner had Clem spoken Miss McCracken's
name did I spot her among the mourners. Her head was lowered toward the sputtering wick of her candle. From what little I could see, it looked as if she was weeping.

I didn't even know Rose McCracken had a beloved. She never once mentioned Johnny Kane's name. Seeing her pass in a wash of sorrow filled me with an unspeakable sadness. I sure didn't want the South to win the war. And I didn't much care that friends of the master's had lost boys in the fight. But I did care that Rose McCracken's beloved had fallen. Rose didn't deserve no kind of hurt. I watched her trudge along the lane with the rest of the grief-stricken group. Soon the sight of her was lost to me among the procession.

Clem said, “You know what this all means, don't you?”

I shrugged. To me, all it meant was that a grim night had come to some white folks in Hobbs Hollow.

“The Union army needs us, Ros. They need us now, more than ever. Fredericksburg put the South on the one-up. Next time, it could be worse for the Union. And if the Confederates get to feeling too cocky, it'll be harder for us to get North. The South'll be spreading its Secesh pride by seeing how many escaped slaves it can round up and bring back to Southern sod. If we wait too much longer, we'll end up like them dead soldiers, 'cept
we'll
be dead before we even have the chance to become fightin' men. And once Missy Claire's
brother brings his cotton-lovin' self to Parnell's, getting North is gonna be all the harder.”

The vigil had fully passed us now. Their candlelit march trailed off up the lane, closer to town. Clem and I were left alone under the light of the moon and stars.

“See that—the Diamond Eye. The North Star.” Clem pointed. “It's showing us the way, Ros. The way to freedom.”

I let my gaze follow Clem's finger to the brightest star in the sky. It truly
was
a diamond. A jewel nestled in a spread of black velvet.

Clem and I were silent for a long time. We each slipped into our own thoughts. The Diamond Eye watched us from above. I gave that star a long, hard look. That's when it came to me: I was truly doubtful about running North.

Doubt is one of those things that creeps up slowly for days and days, then pounces. Tonight it had me pressed under its paws. And without me saying a single word, Clem knew it. “You backsliding, aren't you, Ros—having second thoughts,” he said.

I didn't even have to answer.

“Ros,
you
the one who told
me
you wanted to enlist.”

“You're right, Clem. I ain't denying it. But if I flee, I'll be leaving all that I know—Summer, Mama, even Marlon, the master's horse.” I didn't mention Lowell or Miss McCracken. There were pieces of each of them that I was slow to leave behind, too. “Besides,” I said,
“if Abraham Lincoln's proclamation passes at the first of the year, like it's supposed to, we got freedom coming soon. Real soon.”

Clem sucked at his teeth. “
If
,” was all he said.

I took to speaking my piece carefully, trying to make Clem understand. “What about Parnell being so sick? Who's gonna help Mama care for him if we're gone? Who's gonna look out for Summer? And who will tend to Marlon?” Not only was I having doubts about leaving Mama and Summer, and Parnell's stubborn horse, but that snake-dream hadn't fully let go of me. I said, “You know what happened the last time you ran, Clem. Ain't you scared of the whip?”

“I'm more scared of stayin' a slave,” Clem said.

Clem flung a pebble high over the top of the hedge. He said, “Seems you don't have that problem, Ros. Seems you ain't nothin' but a white man's critter.”

December 18, 1862

I
WAS SUFFERING A FIT OF
sleeplessness when I heard Mama rise from her pallet. Mama bundled in a woolen blanket. She gathered her lantern and went to her prayer bench. The blanket's tail dragged behind her as she made her way.

I couldn't tell if it was night or near-morning. The quarters were quiet as a burial yard, but twilight's gray seemed to be filling our cabin. One thing was for certain: It sure wasn't Sunday. Mama was taking her slice of solitude during a time other than the Sabbath.

I followed Mama without her hearing me. When I pushed aside the burlap draping that set Mama's prayer bench apart from the rest of the quarters, Mama was hunched in her blanket. Her head was lowered toward her hands. Like always, her back was to anyone who
entered the private place. I slipped around to Mama's side to watch her pray.

Mama's lantern rested next to her on the bench. Her blanket was peeled back at her lap. When I took a hard look, I saw that she wasn't praying at all. She was holding an open book! She was holding my lesson book, my
Clarkston Reader
, smoothing its pages as if they were fine silk! Her dark, gnarled hands moved carefully across the book's parchment.

I blinked. My squirreliness got the best of me.
“Mama.”

Mama quickly pulled the blanket in around her. She turned at me with a startle. She looked shamefaced. “Summer, Summer, child,” she stammered. “Daybreak's a ways off. Chief ain't crowed yet. I'm praying, is all. Go back to sleep, now.”

I shook my head no, and came closer. “My book, Mama. You got my book.”

Mama's body, blanket and all, let go a sigh. She was dumbstruck. I slid onto the bench next to her.

Mama gently closed the book. Its handsome cover stared up at us. With the lantern's glow spreading across its leather, that book looked like a newly found treasure.

“You know letters, Mama?” My eyes had gone wide.

Mama shrugged. “Not a one.”

“Do you want to know them?” I asked.

“No, child,” she said plainly.

The very sight of my lesson book started me to remembering how much I loved learning letters from
The Clarkston Reader.
Or from anyplace, for that matter. Seeing as Mama had the book right here, I was gonna try my best to show her that reading was far from evil.

“I could teach you, Mama,” I said. “We could learn letters together. Then
you'd
see what
I
see in all them curly shapes.”