by Naomi Finley
“Dat one be quite a woman,” Jimmy said, coming to stand beside me. He wiped his hands on his heavy apron, looking out over the grounds.
I shifted my gaze to Ruby as she and the washing women strolled past the forge. Her mouth moved with the words of the black spiritual the women were singing. I envied her.
“Bin helping in de quarters evvy day since she came here.”
I snuck a sideways glance at Jimmy. Admiration shone in his face as his eyes followed her across the yard. Fear gripped my chest. What if she was Mag? Would she replace me in his heart?
“What’s dat luk on your purty face, Miss Willie?”
“What look?”
“Lak you done gone and lost somepin’.”
Had I?
I searched his face. He’d spoken, yet his eyes were glued to Ruby’s retreating back. He wasn’t waiting for my reply. The admiration had slipped away, replaced by a look of puzzlement.
“Have you spoken to Miss Ruby?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. He lifted a hand to scratch his head as the line between his brows deepened. “Dat girl never bin here before?”
“No. Why?”
“Ain’t nothing.” He turned away.
“Are you certain of that?”
“Et’s jus’ somepin’ ’bout her makes me think I’ve seen her before.”
My breath hitched.
I glanced at Ruby as she bent to retrieve a linen from the basket to hang on the line. If she was Mag, I could never keep her from him. But how did I tell him that the very girl he was marveling at might be his daughter? And if I did, where did that leave me?
Stop. Willow Hendricks, you are a selfish, horrible person.
Heat flushed my cheeks and I dropped my eyes to the piece of straw I’d been fraying with my fingernail. Emotions swelled my throat. Losing him would be the end of me. Could he find room in his heart for the both of us if, in fact, Ruby was his daughter? I squeezed my eyes shut to cut off the tears crowding the corners of my eyes.
“Miss Willie, you all right?”
I opened my eyes to find him regarding me with concern. My lip trembled. “Yes.”
“You don’t luk fine.”
“There’s something I want to say, but I don’t know how—”
“Willow!” Whitney’s call turned our heads.
Whitney stood on the back veranda, summoning me with her hand.
“I’d best go see what she needs.”
“Sho’ thing, Miss Willie.”
I touched his arm. “I’ll speak to you later.” I smiled softly.
“Ol’ Jimmy be here. Always.” He smiled back.
You promise? I wanted to throw my arms around him and make him swear his words were true. To tell him never to leave me. Because without him…I’d wilt and die…crumble like petals to become dust in the wind. Forgotten.
Broken and uncertain, I turned and strolled toward the house.
His sweet tune drifted out of the forge, the melody that soothed my sorrows. It swirled around my heart and captured me in the warmth of his embrace.
Fly, my little angel,
spread your wings and soar
Above the trees may you find freedom,
a slave no more.
“What is et, Miss Ruby?” one of the women said.
I froze and looked in their direction.
Ruby stood unmoving, her posture stiff, the soggy linen clutched forgotten in her hands. Dazed, only her eyes moved, seeking the source of the tune.
I looked from her to the forge.
Awareness captured all my senses. I recalled Ruby’s and my conversation in the café in New York. She’d said, “It’s the same visions over and over. In other dreams, a man appears to me—like the woman, always the same man. He pats my head affectionately, and his infectious laughter makes me laugh. Then when my dreams turn to nightmares, he rides in like a black knight and hums a tune that soothes all my fears.”
The infectious laughter…the black knight’s tune.
My gaze returned to her.
It was her. Here in the flesh, she stood. Jimmy’s Mag. We’d found her.
Happiness blotted out all my fears.
I moved toward her. “Ruby.” I pulled at the linen in her trembling hand.
Her stunned eyes turned to me. “That tune—” Her voice shook.
“I know.”
“It’s…the tune that’s haunted me.” Her eyes glistened.
“Come with me.” I handed the linen to a woman who stood gawking at us in confusion. I took Ruby’s hand in mine and pulled her toward the forge.
“Where are we going?”
“To meet the one you’ve been searching for,” I said.
Her steps halted, and she grabbed at my arms, her face a mixture of fear and worry. “I don’t know. I can’t do this. I need more time,” she pleaded.
I lifted a hand to cup her cheek. “Life has stolen enough time from you.” Tears pooled in my eyes as I stood looking at the woman who’d captured Jimmy’s heart from the moment of her birth; the daughter who’d always have his heart.
“I can’t.”
“You must.”
Fear and uncertainty shone in her eyes. She glanced from me to the forge and back to me.
I slipped my arm around her waist and slowly guided her to the forge. My heart hammered. My stomach churned.
As we stepped into the forge, the desire to flee and lock Ruby away, to secure my place in Jimmy’s heart, darkened my heart. I blocked out the morbid fear tainting my conscience. “Jimmy,” I said quietly.
His whistling ceased as he turned to us. “Ah, Miss Willie. Somepin’ I can help you wid?”
“I–I wanted you to meet Ruby.” I swallowed a time or two before I said, “I believe…we think…” I looked at Ruby, and my fingers tightened on her waist. Her trembling clashed with mine. “This is Mag.”
He dropped the tool he held in his hand. His face drained of color.
“I thought…we suspected she was your Mag. But we are certain of this now.”
“How?” His gaze turned from me to her.
“The tune you were whistling—I remember it…it’s haunted me every day of my life.” Ruby’s voice quivered. She glanced at me. “I remember Olivia’s eyes. Her voice. The swamps. The dogs. The ship. All of it.” She returned her gaze to him. “And you.”
“Miss Willie, I asked…I tole you…” He turned and leaned his hands on the workbench. “Et ain’t possible. My gal is daid…gone, I tell ya.” Tears thickened in his voice as his shoulders slumped forward. His eyes closed and silent tears etched his cheeks.
I wanted to go to him. To offer him comfort. To tell him I loved him, and that I had done this all for him. But it was their moment. A moment between a father and his daughter. I gave Ruby a gentle nudge forward.
She moved hesitantly, casting a glance over her shoulder at me. I gave her an encouraging nod.
She stopped and stood beside him. She lifted a hand and touched his shoulder.
He stiffened.
She flinched.
Then the courage I’d known she possessed overtook any doubt of his love.
“Father…” Her soft voice was that of a little girl seeking the comfort of a parent.
He straightened, his face never lifting.
Ruby’s hand rose to stroke his cheek. A gasp came from Jimmy. Deep. Painful. Raw with the agony from years of loneliness and longing for the girl that now stood before him.
“Is et you…” he said, lifting eyes to her that welled with tears.
“I am Mag.”
As she said the words, all of our hearts knew she spoke the truth. She was Mag, daughter of James of Livingston Plantation.
With this realization, I slipped unnoticed from the forge and up to the house.
“What happened? What is it?” Whitney asked. She and Mammy stood in the corridor when I entered the house.
I brushed past them as the tears burst from me. I raced up the stairs without a word. A
sob, followed by another and another, battered my soul. I fell onto my bed and wept.
Tears of loss, happiness, bitterness, and self-pity soaked my coverlet.
WEEKS HAD COME AND GONE since Ruby had reunited with her father. Her and Jimmy’s joy was evident on their faces. My feelings of sadness and loss faded, for the most part. I found myself smiling as I watched their interactions. Gentle and nurturing by nature, Ruby would engage with Jimmy by placing a hand on his arm, and out of social awkwardness he’d cringe from her touch, drawing tears of frustration from Ruby at what she thought was Jimmy’s rejection of her. But after I and many around the plantation reassured her, Ruby began to understand the ways of her father. I found myself giving her advice on how to sneak into his guarded heart, a task that had seemed impossible at times. Jimmy wasn’t an easy man, but he was a man worth loving.
As I’d discovered in my relationship with Ben, only time would form a bond between father and daughter.
“What’s whisking up in that head of yours?” Ben asked as he strolled into the music room one morning.
I smiled up at him from a chair by the window. He sat down in the armchair next to me, separated by a small Victorian walnut table. He lifted the coffee urn from the silver tray and poured himself some coffee.
“Nothing, really. I was thinking about Ruby and…us.”
“Us?”
“The awkwardness of realizing a complete stranger is your father. Learning how to accept that and form a relationship at the same time.”
“We are doing all right, aren’t we?”
“I believe so,” I said as I beheld the face of the man I loved more with each passing day. “The ease of having you in my life when I’ve known you scarcely a year is something I never had with Father. Though I understand why he did the things he did, I somehow feel cheated of a father.”
Ben’s breath caught. “Many times over the years I’ve questioned if we did right by you. Some days I think we failed you. If we’d done things differently, maybe your mother would be alive—”
“You mustn’t torture yourself. If we could step back in time, I’m sure we’d all change a lot about our past.”
He chuckled lightly. “How did you become so wise?”
“I’m a thinker.” I laughed. “My mind is ten miles ahead of even me. It’s rather exhausting sometimes.”
“Maybe with our departure for the summer you will find time to relax your mind. However, something tells me you’ll find things to keep you occupied in the North.”
“Always spinning.” I placed a finger to the side of my temple.
“I knew a woman who was like that.” His eyes gleamed.
I smiled at him as I refilled my coffee. “So I keep hearing.”
“She’d have found your ways amusing.”
“You think?” My hands swaddled the warmth of my cup.
“Certain as my next breath.” He crossed a leg and set tender eyes on me.
His words were like an embrace to my soul. Since he’d become part of my life, he’d tried to etch his memories of my mother into my mind.
“I noticed on rounds of the plantation there was a new grave in the cemetery, but I was unaware of anyone’s death; nor did I recognize the name of the person scratched into the cross marking the grave,” he said.
“With all the craziness lately, I forgot to mention it. I had the grave dug, and the ledgers buried.”
He straightened in his seat. “I thought we agreed on destroying them.”
“Those journals are the reason Ruby was reunited with her father. Think about the others we could help. No one would go looking in a slave cemetery for anything of value. Therefore, the ledgers are safe.”
He considered my words for a moment before a smile broke across his face. “If you were a man, you would be dangerous.”
“And as a woman, I’m not?” I said, tipping my nose up while a grin crept over my face.
“Noted.” He chuckled.
“I’ll be in the fields for most of the day,” he added. “If we intend to have the ground turned to start sowing the cotton seed mid-March, it needs to be finished by the end of the week.”
“Is that doable?”
“Jones and the men believe so.”
“Look at you, becoming a planter,” I said with amusement.
He stood. “Not my choice of work, but we do what needs done, don’t we?”
“I suppose so.”
“I’ll see you this evening,” he said.
“You won’t be back for dinner?”
“No time.” He turned to walk away, but turned back. “I’ve noticed Knox visiting Whitney; any mention of how Bowden is faring?”
“Physically, he’s recovering, but Knox says he’s angry. I guess Bowden paid Collins’s folks a visit. His parents said he wasn’t living there. When asked where he was, they said they were unsure of his whereabouts. Said he informed them he’d taken on another job close by but left out the details.”
“That’s a bit bizarre, isn’t it?”
“I thought so.”
“And what’s the sheriff doing about Bowden’s accident?”
“Nothing more than what we already knew. Said that troubles outside the town of Charleston are the problems of the constable and the country folk to handle. But he went on to say Bowden’s suspicions aren’t just cause to accuse the man. Knox says Bowden isn’t holding out any hope of getting justice on the matter.”
The sheriff and his few deputies were stretched thin, handling the law in town and the demands of the citizens that the masked men be found. And law officials outside of Charleston were scarce. In our rural area, Mr. Sterling was an appointed constable and the country folk, vigilante groups, and posses were often left to apprehend those guilty of a crime. Advertisements had been put into local newspapers by the law and citizens asking for the assistance of the vigilante committees in finding the men guilty of larceny.
“Unbelievable. Who has to end up dead in order to get justice?” Ben said.
I let out a heavy sigh. “On another matter, Anderson came by the other day.”
“Oh? And what did he want?”
“You’re never going to believe this. When I told Whitney, she spat her mouthful of food across the table and splattered poor Kimie.”
“Indulge me.”
“He asked if I’d be fine with him asking your permission to court me.” Heat brushed my cheeks as I recalled the discomfort of the moment.
“Really? That’s interesting.”
“How so?”
“Surely he’s aware of your and Bowden’s affections?”
“I believe so. Bowden made it quite clear at the Christmas banquet.”
A groove formed between his brows and his jaw tightened. “I’ll see you tonight.”
After he was gone, I gathered the tray and headed to the warming kitchen. Inside, I found Tillie washing the morning dishes.
“Just the person I wanted to see. I’ve got a question for you.”
She continued scrubbing the plate in the basin of water. “What is et, Missus?”
“When you were at the Anderson farm, did you ever get the feeling that Mr. Anderson may not be who he appears to be?”
Her hands stopped moving. “What you mean?”
“He came here the other day and asked me about approaching my uncle with a proposal to court me—”
“No, Missus!” she blurted.
“No, what?” Her bold response gave me pause.
“You can’t court Mr. Anderson.”
“Why?”
Her hands scrubbed fiercely. Water splashed on the counter. “You can’t consider him. Mr. Bowden be better dan dat man.”
“But you said you never noticed anything out of the ordinary while you were there.”
“But in the quarters—”
“Empty quarters and his late-night visitor are no cause to think he’s unfit as a suitor.”
“I jus’ got a feelin’…”
“You a
nd Whitney both,” I said in exasperation. Not that I’d consider Anderson’s request of courtship, but a niggling at the back of my mind had troubled me since he’d made his thoughts known.
“Maybe you bes’ listen to Miss Whitney dis time.”
I left the kitchen, but not before the swinging door revealed Tillie’s soft-spoken thought. “Ain’t good at all.”
Were they all right? If so, what was Anderson’s motive?
Plantation down the Way
THE ONSET OF LABOR PAINS started late in the evening after the young woman’s parents had retired to their chamber. Hours had passed, and her handmaid’s snoring came from her pallet in the corner. The woman buried her face in the linens and gripped them between her teeth to muffle her cries as the pain intensified.
God, please help me, she silently prayed. But she knew He wouldn’t hear her prayers. God didn’t condone wickedness. She was certain a hard birth would be her punishment.
A gush of wetness soaked her linens, and she trembled with the realization that had plagued her body all day. The baby was coming, and nothing could stop it. Rachel from the quarters had said, “When you feel lak your bladder let loose, you run lak de devil is after you.”
Throwing back the covers, she grabbed her red silk shawl that lay on the window seat and covered her blond locks. Another pain came, and she rested her forehead against the post of her bed.
The woman made her way to the back stairs. Each step seemed to creak under her weight, and she winced with apprehension. If her secret were found out, her pa would see to it that Jethro never saw another day.
In the darkness she crept toward the parlor, thankful for the dim light of the moon shining through the windowpanes. She threaded around the furniture until she reached the back door. From there she hurried toward the slave quarters.
She paused a few yards from the house as the pain surged through her again. “Sweet Jesus, please don’t leave me,” she whispered. She picked up her pace in hopes of reaching Rachel’s family’s shack before the next birthing pain hit.
At the door, she knocked, and when no one called out, she pounded louder. She searched for intruding eyes over her shoulder.
