A Secret Refuge [02] Sisters of the Confederacy (6 page)

Springfield, Missouri

“I should have
made
her come.”

“How? Tie her up?” Meshach clucked the horses to a faster pace. Darkness hugged them round about.

Jesselynn felt at any turn they might meet something terrible, like those three renegades with the chained slaves.
People kill for horses, to protect themselves, or to avenge another. Some kill for pure pleasure, like Dunlivey
. Everything evil she measured against the Dunlivey scale. Would killing the slave runners make Meshach and the others murderers? How would they live with that? Or was killing different for men? She knew now that she would kill to protect her family. And she would have killed to protect Twin Oaks. She knew that for certain. She withdrew into the hood created by the blanket Aunt Agatha had pressed upon her. In payment for her stubbornness perhaps? So many things to think about. Had the war loosed some evil monster across the land that gave people the right, or the need, or the desire to kill? Or was the monster always buried beneath the surface, waiting for the opportunity to raise its filthy head and be loosed?

Had Meshach ever killed anyone before? That thought made her slant a look his way, but the dark was so profound she saw only a blurred hulk. Yet she was close enough to him on the wagon seat to feel his warmth through the blanket.

Was killing animals for their food and clothing making it possible for him to kill another human being?

Suddenly she thought of the wood they had brought to town. The wagon was light again, the wood gone. “What happened to the wood?”

“Left in de barn.”

“Why? Do you know those people well?”

“Good ‘nough. Dey need wood.”

“Did they pay you?”

“No, suh.”

Leave it alone
. Jesselynn ignored the voice of reason. “But why them?”

“Dey be Quakers.”

“Oh.”
And that is my answer? After all, I didn’t cut the wood, but . . .
Like the sun coming up right now in the west, the truth hit her. Quakers were often part of the underground for carrying escaped slaves north to freedom. She started to ask another question but clamped her lips before the words passed them. If they freed those captive slaves tonight, they would most likely go to that house. The wood was Meshach’s way of helping out.

“Meshach, did you ever think of leaving Twin Oaks, of running away?”

“Thought about it, but dat my home. Marse was good to me. Teached me to read and write, teached me a trade, and let me keep my own money. I owe him.”

“But now?”

“Now I make sure him daughter and son be safe. Den I farm my own land, land I homestead so it be free like me.”

His voice rang in the darkness, so sure, so proud. Not the Meshach she had known all her life, but a man who understood the difference between slave and free and would never go back.

No wonder he wants to free those poor wretches in irons
. “I’ll go with you.”

“No, someone need take care of de others.”

Meshach whistled their signal, and as soon as it was returned, he drove the wagon into the thicket and unhitched the horses to lead them out the other side. Jesselynn gathered up the stores Agatha had pressed upon them and followed him down the steep slope to the cave.

The three black men, none of them smiling now, took one of the rifles and the pistol and the cold chisel to break the chains if they didn’t get a key, then disappeared out the mouth of the cave. Ophelia ran after them for one more hug and kiss from Meshach, then returned to the fire to sit rocking with her arms around her middle. With the children already asleep, Jesselynn stoked a small part of the fire higher so she could have light to sew. She didn’t try to make conversation.

Ophelia knew as well as she what the men planned to do—and the danger inherent in the scheme. At any word she might shatter into sobbing little bits and slip down onto the sandy floor.

After a while her mutterings penetrated Jesselynn’s own chambers of fear and horror.

“Lawd, Lawd. Jesus, Son of God, have mercy. Lawd, Lawd.” She repeated the words without seeming to even draw a breath.

Jesselynn gritted her teeth. The singsong seeped into her bones and reverberated there, ringing clear like a crystal glass struck by a spoon. Rising and falling, now intelligible, now not. If they brought her comfort, Jesselynn didn’t see it. She wanted to scream at the woman to stop.

She wanted to run after the men and plead with them to come back.

She kept on stitching.

Once she went and stood at the mouth of the cave, listening, straining to hear over hollows and ridges to a camp somewhere south. It was not so far away that they’d taken the horses, but it was out of hearing range. She should have forced Meshach to take the traders in to the law in Springfield. That was the proper thing to do.

But trafficking in slaves wasn’t illegal in Missouri. All the scum had to say was they caught these runaways and were taking them back to their masters. They might even have papers to show that they were hunting certain escaped slaves. And besides, how would she
force
Meshach to do anything?

She rubbed her arms to warm them and returned to the fire, trying to ignore Ophelia’s haunting song without end.

She caught herself nodding off after stoking the fire more times than she cared to count, so she decided to skin and cut up the rabbits she’d forgotten to take to Aunt Agatha and set them to frying. The fragrance of sizzling meat overlaid the smell of horse droppings. Even though Daniel cleaned the cave floor every day, the smell could still get a bit strong.

One of the horses snorted. Jesselynn leaped to her feet and ducked under the rope to clamp a hand over Ahab’s quivering nostrils. If there was someone out there and they heard a horse whinny, sure to heaven they’d come looking. She looked longingly at the rifle leaning against the wall of the cave.

“’Phelia.” She tried again, hissing louder, not wanting her voice to carry beyond the fire. “’Phelia, hush and get the gun.”

Ophelia rocked again, then rose and drifted across the sand to pick up the rifle. She held it barrel down and brought it to Jesselynn.

“Here, you guard the horses. Do not let Ahab whinny. He’s heard something.” Shifting places, she took the rifle and ran to the mouth of the cave, hugging the shadowed wall. Not that much of the firelight showed beyond the slight bend anyway. But shadows would show with so little light. She stopped just inside the overhang, holding her breath to hear anything untoward.

The two-tone whistle came. She grabbed the wall to keep from falling when her knees started to buckle. Jerking herself upright, she took two steps outside to whistle back. It took her three attempts before she could work up enough spit to wet her lips and whistle.

The rattle of iron chains preceded the arrival. Horses snorted. Meshach led one horse with a scarecrow on its back. Two other horses and Roman, their mule, carried two riders each. Leave it to Meshach to put the others ahead of his own need.

Daniel slid off the back of one of the horses and came to stand in front of Jesselynn. “Dey de mens what beat me up.” The narrowing of his eyes as he spoke said more than his words.

“One of dem’s Dunlivey’s partner.” Meshach helped the first of his charges down from the horse, a young woman who clutched Meshach’s jacket over her bare breasts. If there were welts on her back to match those on her legs, it was no wonder her eyes wore a wild-animal look.

“You’re sure?”

Meshach nodded. “I never forget dat face.”

Jesselynn took in a deep breath as she saw the open sores on legs gone stick thin from lack of food and eyes of men too afraid to hope. None of them looked as if they could have gone a step farther.

“Supper is ready.” Ophelia was dishing up plates as the new people straggled into the cave and sank down around the fire, holding their hands to the heat. Tears ran down the woman’s face.

Looking at them, Jesselynn knew they couldn’t send them to that house in town without first getting them stronger. They definitely needed a bigger cave—now! It was a good thing Aunt Agatha hadn’t come home with them.

With hardly a word, the newly freed slaves collapsed around the fire as soon as they finished eating. They didn’t ask for blankets. They didn’t ask for anything. They fell as if a giant puppeteer had cut their strings.

As Jesselynn crawled into her quilt, so exhausted she could barely fold the top over her shoulders, she heard Ophelia crooning, this time a song of praise, and Meshach comforting her with a gentle rumbling voice. Between the two of them, they soothed Jesselynn into a deep sleep.

Daniel and Benjamin took turns standing watch.

“How are we going to feed all these mouths?” Jesselynn asked Meshach in the morning as they stood outside the cave. Their guests had yet to stir.

“Go hunting. Cut wood for Marse Dummont for store supplies. Won’t be long before dey ready to travel again.”

“And clothe them?” Jesselynn had already decided to cut up the blanket from Agatha to make shirts for the men. Their bare feet were crusted with chilblains, and some of the sores looked gangrenous to her. The cruelty of the slavers made her turn cold inside. How could one man treat another this way?

“We share what God gived us.” His simple answer made her snap back.

“Looks to me like we work backbreaking hard for every small thing that we have.”

“We not like dem slavers.” Another simple answer, this one making guilt wash her face white.

“Thank G-G—heavens for that.”

“I do.”

Jesselynn threw her hands in the air and let them drop. How was she to reason with this man?

“Dey work when dey have de strength. Maybe weak now, but a day or two of belly being full and dey strength come back.”

“I surely do hope so.”

“Better to pray so.”

Jesselynn had started back into the cave but spun around to point a finger in Meshach’s direction. “You go too far, Meshach, into what is not your business.”

But Meshach only looked at her. With what? Pity? Jesselynn spun away again and strode on into the cave. Daniel had the horses out to water and graze already, and even the horses walking out hadn’t awakened the newcomers. Were they still alive, or had they died during the night?

She knew the answer to that, since she’d already watched them breathe to make certain they needn’t dig more graves. Ophelia smiled at her, nodded a good morning, and handed her the long-handled wooden spoon to stir the mush laced with chopped bits of dried venison. The rabbit stew last night had disappeared within minutes.

The boys woke up, and Jane Ellen took them outside for their morning duty, both staring openmouthed at the floor crowded with slumbering bodies. They kept quiet only by a strict glare from Jesselynn. Sammy had his thumb in his round mouth and stared back over Jane Ellen’s shoulder.

As Jesselynn stirred the pot, she studied the tangled mass of limbs. Three of the men were the same deep black as Meshach, with kinky hair cut so short it appeared to have recently been shaved. The lighter-skinned male still wore signs of boyhood, his shoulders not much wider than his waist and long of leg and arm, as though he had yet to grow into them. His face in repose would be beautiful once the bruises healed. One eye was swollen shut, one ear cut and bloodied, and the side of his face had a long scrape that looked as if he’d been dragged along the ground.

The woman definitely had white blood and, once her lashes healed, would be comely. It looked as if a whip had taken a chunk of flesh from beside her eye. So close she came to losing it. From what appeared to be blood on her shredded skirt, Jesselynn suspected the men had raped her more than once.

If they weren’t already dead, I’d kill them myself
. The thought made her stop stirring for a moment. She knew it was true. No one should ever be treated as these poor souls had been.

One of the men opened his eyes and looked around. He rolled his head to the side as if he didn’t remember coming here during the night. He lifted his shackle-free hands and looked down at his feet. “Thank you, Jesus,” he whispered. “And you, Mi-Marse.” His brow wrinkled as if not sure which she was. “Kin I go outside?”