Neither Bound Nor Free, page 14
Above her the cornhusk mattress rustled. Bessie whispered, “Don’t you worry none, Auntie. I do ’xactly like Mama say.”
It was a crazy plan, but it was all they had. She would trust in God and wait.
Because she was in the earth, she heard the vibrations of the hooves a long way off. The Yankees were coming. And then the hooves stopped, and she knew they were there, Yankee soldiers in front of the Big House. There was nothing to see there in the darkness of the hidey-hole, but she kept her eyes open, staring as though she could see the scene at the Big House.
Minta confronting the Yankee soldiers, asking, no—begging—for the privilege of burning down the Big House that now stood deserted. The other women screaming and begging for torches, too. Would Minta be able to convince the Yankees that they hated the master and mistress who’d run away? Would she be able to save Slave Row?
Even covered as she was, Sarah could hear the shouts and screams of the women as they milled about the Yankee soldiers. Her legs twitched. She wanted to run, far away from here. But she had to lie still, to trust in God. The Lord is my Shepherd.
She heard the soldier’s footsteps before he reached the door. So did Bessie. “I want my mama!” she wailed, just like she’d been told, thrashing around on the cornhusk mattress. “I sick. I so sick! Where my mama?”
Sarah held her breath. Please, God. Please.
There was a long silence. Then, “Easy, little girl,” the soldier said. “She’ll be back.”
“I want my mama!” Bessie repeated and started to sob in earnest.
After another minute or so the soldier left, mumbling, “Don’t cry. She’ll be back.”
Sarah knew when he left because Bessie’s crying eased off. “He gone,” she whispered finally. “But I do want my mama. I hope she come soon.”
The minutes passed, oh, so slowly. The shouting and screaming went on. And Sarah lay there, clutching Calvin’s letters, waiting.
“They burning it,” Bessie cried, bouncing up on the mattress. “They burning the Big House! I see the fire! I so scared! I want my mama!” The mattress rustled above Sarah’s head. Terror grabbed at her heart.
“Bessie! Bessie!” She couldn’t let Bessie leave the cabin. A four-year-old wouldn’t be safe out there. “Bessie, listen. Remember, Mama said to stay here.”
“But, Auntie, I so scared!”
“I know,” Sarah whispered. “Lie down. Put your head near the edge of the mattress. Up here near mine. Let’s say the Bible words together. But if you hear someone coming, tell me, so I can stop. Will you say the Bible words with me?”
Bessie’s voice quivered, but she said, “Yes, Auntie, I say ’em.”
So they repeated the words together, “ ‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. . .he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul.’ ”
They went through the Twenty-third Psalm. Once, twice. They went on for what seemed like an endless time. Her mouth grew dry as dust, but Sarah didn’t dare stop. She had to keep Bessie in the cabin.
Finally, Bessie said, “Someone coming! I hear someone coming!” Sarah fell silent, her heart pounding, her hands clutching the tin box.
“Mama!” Bessie screamed with joy. “Mama, you come back!”
Sarah let out a sigh of relief. Thank You, God.
“Yes,” Minta said, breathing heavily. “You done good. A soldier come and tol’ me you was sick. He tol’ me they wouldn’t burn the cabins counta you. You done good, chil’. Now, we got to get your auntie out from under them boards.”
The boards came away and Sarah pulled in a deep breath of the night air, night air laden with the smell of burning. She sat up. “The others? Minta, is everyone all right?”
“Didn’t no one get hurt,” Minta said. “ ’Cepting our throats hurt from screaming.”
Sarah climbed out of the hole. “And the little ones?”
“They all stayed with the grannies. We all all right.”
“Thanks to you,” Sarah said. “Your plan worked.”
“Praise the Lord Jesus,” Minta breathed. “I never been so scared in my life. Even of ole Vickers. But we went running and screaming, and we told them Yankees how we wanted to burn the place ourselves. And they laughed and give us the torches.” She looked down, tears in her eyes. “I sorry, Miss Sarah, sorry ’bout the Big House. It gonna burn clear to the ground.”
Sarah hurried to put her arms around Minta and hug her tight. “I’m just Sarah now, remember? The house doesn’t matter. You saved the Row, the women and children, and you saved me. I’ll never forget that.” She turned and lifted Bessie into her arms. “And you, too, Bessie,” she said, giving her a big hug. “You were such a brave girl.”
But Bessie hung her head. “I be bad, Mama.”
Minta frowned. “Bad?”
“I got scared, Mama. I gonna go find you.”
Minta looked into Sarah’s face, her eyes wide with fear. Then she frowned at Bessie. “I tol’ you not to leave this cabin, chil’. Not for nothing.”
“I know, Mama.” A tear stood in Bessie’s eye, and her bottom lip quivered. “I scared. But I didn’t go.” Bessie’s little brightened. “Auntie help me. We say the words.”
“Words?” Minta repeated.
“Yeah, Mama. The Bible words. ‘The Lord is my shepherd.’ We said ’em over and over. And I stayed. Like you said, Mama.”
“Thank the Lord Jesus,” Minta said. She looked at Sarah. And then they sank to their knees, all three of them, and gave thanks to God.
twenty-two
Mid-April 1865
“I can’t believe it’s over,” Willie said, slumping wearily in the saddle. “The war’s really over.”
“Yes,” Calvin said, his voice hoarse with exhaustion. They’d been riding for days, catching an hour’s sleep here, a few minutes’ rest there, never able to relax, never really feeling safe, always with information that needed to be somewhere else. “It’s over and we can go home.”
“Miss Sarah’s going to be happy to see us. Minta, too.” Willie grinned. “And I want to see that Bessie. Bet she’s grown a lot.”
“Yes,” Calvin said, trying to sound cheerful. Time enough for Willie to grieve when he learned who was lost. There hadn’t been any word from Sarah for so long. It’d been months since he’d had a letter. Hiram was all right; he knew that much. Hiram had been in the hospital in Philadelphia when they’d passed through there a week or so ago. But soon he’d be on his way home. If he had a home to go to. That was the thing that bothered Calvin. What would they find when they reached Hawthorne Hill? The thought ate at his heart and soul. Was Sarah still alive? There’d been so much fighting. So many Yankee raids in and around the plantation area. Anything could have happened to her. Anything at all.
So many good men had died. He’d been with some of them, seen them pass on. So many good women had been hurt, lost their loved ones, been killed themselves. Why should he and his loved ones fare any better? God might have promised to be with His people, but He hadn’t promised to spare them the pain of loss.
Calvin pushed the horse a little harder. He had to get there. He had to know the worst.
Shortly before dawn they reached Hawthorne Hill. Willie had long ago stopped asking why they didn’t rest and go on again in the morning. He just trailed along silently, slumped down, half asleep.
As they turned up the lane between the great oaks, the moon came out from behind the clouds, and Calvin cried out in horror. “No! Please, God, no!”
Willie jerked awake. “What? What’s wrong?”
“It’s gone! Willie, the Big House is gone!” And he set spurs to his stallion and galloped up the hill.
Hampered by a slower horse, Willie followed. By the time he reached the top of the hill, Calvin was on his knees, sobbing in the ashes. “She’s gone,” he cried. “My Sarah’s gone.”
“Massa! Massa!” Willie was tugging at his jacket. Calvin could feel that, but it didn’t matter. He’d told the boy to stop calling him Massa, but that didn’t matter either. Nothing mattered now. His feelings of foreboding had been true. Sarah was gone. He wanted to lie down in the ashes himself and die. The war being over meant nothing now. Without Sarah—
“Massa,” Willie was saying, still tugging at his sleeve. “You got to get up. Miss Sarah around here somewhere. Minta take care of her. I know it.”
Hope crept into Calvin’s heart, the faintest glimmer, but enough to make him raise his head. “But the Big House—”
“Massa,” Willie said, trying to shake him and pull him up at the same time. “People don’t stay in no house when it burning down.”
“But if the soldiers got her—” Thinking about that was almost worse than thinking that she was dead.
“Massa,” Willie insisted. “Get up now. We got to find Minta and see what happened. That’s what we gotta do.”
Slowly Calvin pushed himself to his feet. He was so weary, with a weariness that no amount of sleep could ease. These past weeks his dreams had been haunted by the things he’d seen, the burned shells of houses that had once been homes, the blood, the mangled bodies, the grieving women. His fear for Sarah had grown and grown. But he had been under orders—he couldn’t leave to go to her. He couldn’t protect her from any of it. And now he had the awful feeling that it was too late, that she was gone.
But the war was over. Finally the fighting and killing could stop. And Willie wanted to see his sister, if she was there. Willie half-pushed, half-pulled him down the path toward Slave Row. Calvin let him, fear fighting with hope in his heart.
“Look, Massa,” Willie cried as they turned the corner. “Minta’s cabin’s still there! They all still there. See!”
“I see.” The cabins stood, solid blocks of darkness in the predawn light. He mustn’t hope. It would hurt too much to hope and be wrong. But he started to run anyway, pushing his exhausted body to the limit. He had to know for sure. Whatever it was—he had to know.
Willie was right beside him. “Minta,” he yelled. “Minta, wake up! We home!”
They burst through the door into the darkened cabin and Calvin’s legs refused to take another step. He fell to his knees on the earthen floor, gasping for breath. Please, God, let her be here.
Three shadowy figures detached themselves from the cornhusk mattress. He squinted through the darkness, hoping, praying.
“Willie? Is Calvin with you?”
“Sarah?” he breathed, hardly able to believe his ears. “Oh, thank You, God—Sarah.”
And then she was running to him, throwing herself at him so hard that she knocked him flat on the packed earth floor. He didn’t care. She was there, actually there, alive and in his arms, covering his face with kisses. He didn’t care about anything but holding her close, while Willie chanted, “I told you, Massa! I told you! Minta take care of Miss Sarah.”
“She did, too,” Sarah said, easing out of his arms and helping him sit up. He gazed at her sweet face, lit now by faint moonlight, the face he’d never thought to see again in this life. “Minta and the other women convinced the Yankees that they wanted to burn the Big House,” Sarah said. “And Bessie—” She looked over to where the little girl had wrapped herself around Willie’s leg and was hanging on for dear life. “Bessie pretended to be sick and kept them from burning down the Row.”
“And Auntie,” Bessie piped up. “Auntie and me say the Bible words. So’s I didn’t get scared and run out, like Mama tol’ me not to.”
“Praise God,” Calvin breathed. He got to his feet and pulled Sarah into his arms again. He never wanted to let go of her. “I thought— When I saw the Big House was nothing but ashes, I thought—God help me, Sarah, I lost my faith. I thought you were gone.”
“God kept us safe,” Sarah said. “He brought us all through.”
“All but my Hiram,” Minta said, her voice a mere whisper. “If only—”
“Hiram’s all right,” Calvin said, turning to her. “I’m sorry, Minta. I should have told you sooner. He was in the hospital in Philadelphia when we passed through there about a week ago. He was getting better. I’m sure he’ll be heading home soon.”
“Praise the Lord Jesus,” Minta cried, grabbing up Bessie and whirling her around and around the little cabin in a joyful dance. “Your daddy’s a-comin’ home! Your daddy’s a-comin’ home!”
“Oh, Calvin,” Sarah said, wrapping her arms around him tightly. “I’m so glad you’re safe. I was so worried, so afraid—”
Willie grinned at them. “You got to trust in the Lord,” he said.
Calvin chuckled. “The boy’s right.” He straightened. “We mustn’t forget that—to trust in God—now that we’re making a new beginning.”
“Yes,” Sarah said, sliding an arm around his waist. “I’ve been thinking what to do. Now that the war’s over I want to divide the plantation so that everyone has a share.”
“We’ll rebuild the Big House and—”
“No,” she said, putting her fingers over his lips. “That life is over. We’ll build a small house, next door to Hiram and Minta’s. We’ll live like the others.”
“Yes,” he said, smiling at her. “But we’re going to need one extra plot of ground.”
“But, Calvin,” she protested, “I don’t want any more than the others.”
His beautiful, good Sarah. He laughed. And to think that moments ago he’d thought never to laugh again.
“It isn’t for us,” he said. “It’s for Willie. To build his school on. He’s going to teach his people to read.”
“Kin he teach me?” Minta asked.
“Of course,” Calvin said. “He’ll teach anyone who wants to learn.”
“Me!” Bessie cried, pulling on Willie’s shirt. “Me want to learn!”
“We’ll start today,” Willie said, lifting her in his arms. “Look, Bessie, the sun’s coming up.”
Calvin and Sarah turned to the window, where the first rays of the morning sun were lighting the earth.
“Yes,” Sarah said. “The sun is coming up on our new life.”
“A life we’ll dedicate to God,” Calvin said. “To God who brought us through this awful time.”
“Amen,” they said, all of them bowing their heads. “Amen.”
About the Author
Nina Coombs Pykare has been writing novels for over twenty years. Recently widowed, Nina is a native resident of northeastern Ohio, and she has five grown children and several grandchildren.
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Nina Coombs Pykare
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Nina Coombs Pykare, Neither Bound Nor Free
