Night Song

by Beverly Jenkins

  Chase found her sitting on the bed, trying to take off her shoe. The buttons were giving her problems because of her limited vision.

  “Need some help?”

  “If you would . . .”

  Chase closed the door and picked his way to the bed through the books littering the floor. He took her small foot in his hand and began to unlace the shoes. “This another of your gifts?”

  “Don’t start with me, Sergeant. It has not been a good day.”

  “I’m sorry,” he apologized, smiling. He eased off her shoe, apologized sincerely again when she winced, and set the shoe aside. “You’re going to have to take the stocking off.”

  “Turn around.”

  When he looked confused, she said, “Sergeant, your talents may be many, but they do not entitle you to see me taking off my stockings. Now stand up and turn away.”

  He complied and she quickly lifted her skirt, pulled off the black stocking, then readjusted the skirt. “Now you can turn back,” she said and held out her bare foot for his inspection. “Do you think it’s really broken?”

  Chase moved her foot and ankle gingerly, noting which movements gave her the most pain. “It doesn’t seem to be broken, but it does look as though you have a very bad sprain.”

  “That’s a relief,”

  “Maybe not,” Chase said, rising. “You’re going to have to stay off it for a few days.”

  “I can’t do that,” she gritted out, trying to put some weight on the ankle. “I have school—oh!” The sharp pain put her right back on the bed.

  “See? You are so hardheaded.”

  “I think I hurt my hip, too,” she said, wishing she could rub it, but he was standing right next to her.

  “I’d offer to kiss it and make it feel better, but that isn’t something a gentleman suggests to a lady.”

  She shot him a look that should have singed the skin off his magnificent chest, visible where his hastily donned shirt remained unbuttoned. He simply smiled at her.

  “Didn’t I say a woman can be kissed in a thousand places?”

  It was her turn to be singed.

  “However,” he continued, “right now you should soak your ankle and maybe that hip as well in some warm water. I’ll go down to the kitchen and bring up a few buckets.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Do you want to walk tomorrow, stubborn woman?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “Then do this. You need help, schoolmarm, and the U.S. Cavalry is more than willing to assist.”

  Cara reluctantly nodded agreement.

  He returned from the kitchen a few minutes later. “Couldn’t find Dulcie. Is everyone still at the church?”

  “There and at the Men’s Club monthly meeting.”

  “Well, I put some water on the stove.” He looked around your cluttered room. “You’re going to need a tub in here, but I can’t imagine where we’d put it.”

  “Usually I have to rearrange things to bring in a tub.”

  “How long does it take?”

  “A day or so.”

  Amazed, he shook his head. “Personally, I don’t see how you can get another book in here, let alone a tub.”

  “Well, just bring water for the ankle. I’ll take care of the hip tomorrow.”

  Chase could see the difficulty she seemed to be having in trying to sit up. “Leg getting stiff?”

  “A little bit. It’s sore mostly.” She sighed. “Lord, what a day. First my eye, now this. Maybe I should be locked away for my own safety.”

  He grinned.

  “Not funny. I can barely see you out of this eye. I’m a sight, I’ll bet.”

  “The eye will heal,” he said softly. “It makes your face even more interesting.”

  “You’re so kind, Sergeant,” she drawled.

  Cara could feel herself succumbing to his magnetism. She hoped he hadn’t noticed her staring at his chest. His strength drew her, made her want to feel the warmth of his skin beneath her palms. She shuddered and looked away. “Do you think the water’s hot now?”

  “I’d better go and see.”

  Chapter 6

  Cara was growing testy because of her aches and pains. Chase had been gone for such a long time. In a few moments she would go after the water herself, despite her bad ankle.

  She was about to try to climb off the bed and hobble down to the kitchen when she heard noises coming from Chase’s room. What in the world could he be doing in there? He appeared within seconds, but without buckets.

  “Is the water still heating?” Cara asked.

  “Nope. All set. Nice hot bath waiting for you in my room.”

  “Your room? Oh, Chase, you know I can’t possibly—”

  “I set up a screen next to the tub, and you’ll be safe.” He grinned. “No fun chasing somebody who can’t even run, much less chase back.” Before she could protest again, he moved to her side and gently scooped her into his arms.

  Suddenly Cara felt wonderful. Her ankle might throb and her hip might ache, but she couldn’t care less. She felt Chase’s warmth, his strength. Never had she been so cared for, so cherished. She couldn’t repress a sigh.

  “If you want me to leave you, Cara, I will,” he murmured. “But I’m concerned about you, and I’d like to stay nearby in case you need me. I’m worried you might slip or have trouble getting in or out of the tub.”

  His low voice was a caress, his words an embrace.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  His room was dark. Conscious of Cara’s modesty, Chase had doused the lamps. The only light came through the opened curtains at the big front window from a moon that was round and exceptionally bright this warm May night. He carefully made his way across the room and deposited Cara on the bed; the tub sat next to it, the screen behind it.

  “I’ll just get out of your way, schoolmarm. You let me know when you’re ready for me to lift you into the tub.”

  Emotion filled Cara as she watched Chase disappear around the screen. She guessed he was standing in front of the window, looking out on the street. She was so moved by his tenderness that it took her several minutes to compose herself and strip down to her chemise and slip. The moment she called out to him to help her into the tub, she felt transformed. Barely dressed and alone in a moonlit room with the strapping, handsome, virile Chase Jefferson, she felt brazen . . . and reckless.

  It was Chase who was in control and banked the fires within Cara that were threatening to flare into flames. He seemed to her to be very businesslike about the whole matter of lifting her and depositing her in the tub. And he was downright quick at getting himself back around that screen. She couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

  Damn, Chase thought, this was going to be more difficult than he’d anticipated. Lord, just one look at the moonlight shining on the skin of Cara’s neck and the swell of her bosom had made him hard as a rock. How he wanted this woman . . . wanted her physically, of course, but wanted her, too, in every other way a man could want a woman. He was shaking and took deep gulps of air to help get himself back under control.

  The water had cooled but still held enough warmth for Cara to sigh pleasurably after he eased her in. It seemed to welcome her sore, aching body with soothing open arms. She didn’t think about being half dressed in Chase’s room. All thoughts and fears, real and imagined, fled as she luxuriated in the warm water and let its blissfully, lulling peace enfold her.

  Still, she was acutely conscious of Chase’s presence across the room, especially when his voice came out of the darkness. “Mind if I smoke, schoolmarm?”

  She didn’t and told him so, compelled to turn in the tub and look over her shoulder. He stood as a tall, dark shadow at the window. He’d opened the curtains and the hems flapped lazily in the May breeze. He was reaching into his shirt pocket.

  “Something wrong?” he asked softly.

  “No,” she answered, quickly looking away. She heard the match strike, then imagined the flare illuminating
his face.

  In the silence, crickets and other night songs could be heard through the opened windows. A dog barked in the distance, and every now and then, Cara heard the faint strain of the organ and voices of the choir emanating from the church. To fight her rising awareness she was determined to start an innocuous conversation with Chase. She said the first thing that came to mind. “Sophie says she and Asa have known you a long time.”

  “A very long time. I’ve known Asa even a little longer, though.” Chase was usually very close-mouthed about his past, not because he felt ashamed, but because of the dangers that had schooled him to silence. Suddenly, with Cara, all that changed. He wanted to tell her everything about himself. He also liked the sound of her husky Georgia voice. If he couldn’t touch her, he could at least enjoy the pleasure of hearing her voice in conversation.

  “Sergeant?” Cara prompted.

  “I’m sorry, what did you ask?”

  “Where was it you met Asa?”

  “Stealin’ away.”

  Cara went still. “You were a slave?”

  “Yes. That bother you?”

  “No. Should it?”

  “It bothers some women.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You didn’t ask to be a captive.”

  “I know, but back East things like that matter to quite a few folks.”

  Cara sensed his bitterness. “How old were you when you ran?”

  “Two days past twelve.”

  “You ran alone?’

  “No, there were other men and women who left with me. Asa and I got from Mississippi to Louisiana. Knocked on Sophie’s back door looking for work one day, and she took us in. Stayed with her until she and Asa shipped me back East to Asa’s sister in Philadelphia. She fed me, saw to it that I got proper schooling, and at eighteen, she shipped me back to New Orleans.”

  Cara realized that in ways, their pasts were similar. “Did you get to know either of your parents?” It took Chase so long to reply that she thought he might not.

  “My father was hanged a few hours after I was born. He never saw me. I was told my mother died two weeks later. Asa knew them both and said she died of a broken heart.”

  Cara wondered if the world had scared him as much as it had her when she first realized she’d have to go through life alone. “What made you decide to run?”

  “All the talk in the quarters at night about freedom and the drinking gourd.”

  Cara knew about the drinking gourd. It was another name for the North Star. Some also called it the Freedom Star, and many runaways used its positioning in the sky to guide the way North.

  “The adults would tell stories of going North where they’d be free to name themselves and work their own land,” he continued. “For many years, I was too young to really understand what it all meant, but they spoke of it with such reverence and awe that I think the tone of their voices when they talked about their dreams grabbed me more than anything. As I got older, I knew life had to be better somewhere.”

  “Did you leave any family behind—brothers, sisters, grandparents?”

  “No brothers, no sisters. My mother’s mother lived on a place a few miles down county. I saw her only once, about a year before I left. She said my father ruined her daughter. Called him a dirty black African, and me a dirty black African bastard. Said she didn’t have any grandchildren.”

  Cara’s heart broke for him. Even though she’d had her grandfather only a short while, he’d loved her very much. How awful it must have been for Chase to have that sole family member toss his heritage back into his face like so much offal. “How could anyone say such hateful things to a child?”

  “Didn’t seem to bother her. Asa told me later she’d gone a little mad after my mother’s death. My grandmother was the mistress of a white planter who got her pregnant. That child was my mother. Some said my mother was the most beautiful woman in the state, Black or white. The planter who owned her planned on selling her to another planter a couple counties away, but her relationship with my father and her pregnancy made the sale impossible.”

  “Surely your grandmother didn’t approve of her daughter being sold?”

  “According to Asa, it had been her idea.”

  Cara gasped.

  “It’s not so surprising. My grandmother belonged to that small percentage of slave women who felt that being the master’s mistress gave her importance and some little bit of power over her life. A mistress might get her own little house away from the quarters; she’d eat better, dress better. When the master got her with child, she might not have to see her son or daughter put on the block. Instead, if female, she often became the companion of a planter or was given to one of the legitimate white children as a birthday or wedding gift. If male, he might be given his freedom when his father, the master, died.”

  “So your grandmother thought she was securing her daughter’s future.”

  “I’m sure she did. After all, the women in her line had lived that way for generations. She probably did go mad when she discovered her beautiful mulatto daughter had lain with a trouble-making field slave. His name was Branch.”

  “Branch?”

  “Yes, for the size of his arms. Asa described him as being as tall as an oak and able to do the work of two men. The master had him on the books as Toby, but he would only answer to Branch.”

  “How’d your parents meet?”

  “Long story. My daddy was not a model captive. The overseer was mad at a slave woman he said wasn’t pulling her weight in the field. She’d been sick for a time, but the overseer didn’t believe that and accused her of slacking. To teach her a lesson and to discourage others from trying it, he took her to the barn, tied her hands, then hung her up by her bound hands to a hook in the ceiling. When he raised the whip to give her the first cut, my father, who like the other slaves had been brought in to watch, stepped between her and the lash. The overseer obliged my daddy, who offered to take the woman’s place. It took four men to raise Branch to the hook in the ceiling, and they didn’t cut him down until the blood ran down his heels.”

  Cara tasted bile on her tongue.

  “They rubbed salt into the welts on his back, flung him into a four-by-four pit, and left him there. At the end of three days, they hauled him out barely alive, and the master sent Pretty Sally, my mother, down from the big house to see about him. She was a root woman and the healer for the quarters.”

  “She was able to help him?”

  “Quite a bit, it seems.” He guffawed. “She found out she was breeding his child just a couple months after she first started treating his wounds.”

  “And her mother didn’t approve.”

  “I heard no one but Branch and Pretty Sally approved. The master was so furious he sent her to the quarters until she gave birth. Before then she’d lived with the servants in a small wing of the main house. She worked a loom.”

  “So what happened to you? Who raised you?”

  “Everyone and no one. How much do you know about a slave’s childhood?”

  “Not very much.”

  “Well, every baby started out in the nurse house. Usually there was an older woman looking after anywhere from twenty to a hundred babies, depending upon the size of the place. Then when you got to be about five or six, you went to work, either in the house doing something like fanning flies away from the table while the master and family ate, or out in the fields where you got to pick weevils off cotton or worms off tobacco. At eight or nine you pulled your weight like any other adult.”

  “Did you live with a family?”

  “At first, but they were sold when I was about ten. The master kept me because of the good price he’d be able to get for me once I was full-grown.”

  Cara could give no name to the emotions rising within her. They’d both had great tragedy in their lives, but while she’d been rescued and nurtured by Rosetta and Harriet not long after she’d lost her grandfather, he’d gone most of his childhood with no one. She knew with cer
tainty that it must have been terrible to be a child under slavery, but also to be a child alone, without family . . . What a testament to his strength of character that he’d gone beyond mere survival to make so much of his life!

  “You’re a very brave woman, Cara Lee Henson. Sophie told me about your grandfather.”

  Grief, sadness, acceptance for herself mingled with all the emotions Chase’s story had evoked. “We’re both survivors, you and I.”

  “Does it bother you, me wearing the uniform of the Union Army?”

  “I tell myself no, but deep down inside I’m sure it does. I—I have nightmares sometimes about Bluecoats.”

  “Then I won’t wear it when we’re together.”

  The sincerity in his offer touched her deeply. “No, please. It’s my problem, not yours.” Silence resettled and then Cara added, “Silly, isn’t it? A grown woman still scared of something from her childhood?”

  “No,” he answered. “We can’t always control the things that haunt us.”

  “Since I left the orphanage, I’ve never told anyone about my nightmares.”

  “Then I’ll hold the confidence close to my heart,” he pledged softly.

  The water had cooled, and Cara wanted to get out of the tub.

  Chase had turned to her to ask about her years at Oberlin, but forgot the question as he watched her rise, moonlight and water streaming off her scantily clothed body. The wet chemise and slip, molded against her curves, were so provocative he couldn’t catch his breath. She lifted her leg to step out of the tub, and he cried out a warning for her not to put weight on the ankle. He didn’t trust himself to get any nearer, but knew she needed his help. “Hold on. Let me lift you.”

  “No. I can manage on my own. If you’d just hand me my skirt and blouse, then bring the screen, I’ll get out of this wet slip. Sophie will shoot me if I drip water all over the floor.”

  He did, then returned to his spot by the window.

  Behind the screen, Cara balanced on her good leg, carefully rid herself of her dripping garments, and dried herself with the towel he’d hung atop the screen. After cautiously getting out of the tub she put on her skirt and blouse before wringing water from the wet things into the tub.