A Perilous Proposal

by Michael Phillips

  “Why . . . can’t we just pick the rest of it when the rain stops?” asked Katie.

  “Effen da rain stop soon, I reckon we might at dat,” said Henry. “But it’s gotter stop real soon, Miz Kathleen— real soon. Effen it rain like dis fer anudder hour er two an’ dat cotton goes down, den da whole crop be los’.”

  “Lost!” gasped Katie. “But . . . but what about all the other plantations around?”

  “Dey mostly had dere cotton in an’ under cover or sol’ ter Mr. Watson weeks ago. Dat’s why I been wonderin’ what’s goin’ on at Rosewood when I seein’ you bring in dem scrawny little bales so slow an’ I’m wonderin’ ter mysef, What dat Mistress Clairborne wastin’ so much time fer—don’ she know dat she’s gotter beat da rain? Dat’s why I come out. But hit ’peers I was jes’ a mite late ’cuz here’s da rain an’ dat cotton’s still on da stalk.”

  The four of them stood there silently staring out as the water poured down. Beside him, Jeremiah felt Mayme’s fingers brush his own, and he slowly reached out and closed his big hand around hers. He glanced down at her, then at Katie, and saw tears falling from their eyes. They knew it too. The rain wasn’t going to stop.

  MOONLIGHT STROLL

  39

  AFTER THE COTTON HARVEST AND THE FLOOD THAT followed, Jeremiah was glad that he and his papa were in on “Miz Katie’s scheme,” as Mayme called it. Jeremiah thought of his own secrets, but he wasn’t ready to share those yet. Maybe not ever. But he liked being able to help Mayme and the other girls, to protect them some too. He couldn’t help but compare Miz Katie with that other white girl, Samantha Dawson. But Kathleen Clairborne was so completely different.

  Jeremiah began planning his next visits to Rosewood, getting to the mill early and saving up his time off. He even braved Mrs. Hammond at the general store to buy some soap to clean up with.

  One evening, a couple weeks before Christmas, Jeremiah came to call. It had been a warm day and sunny and everything smelled wet and warm and nice. Jeremiah had gotten all cleaned up with the new soap and thought he didn’t smell too bad either. He couldn’t keep a smile from his face when Mayme came to the door.

  “How’do, Miz Mayme,” he said. “I thought . . . uh, maybe you an’ me could go fer a walk.”

  Mayme nodded and stepped outside.

  They walked away from the house. Dusk was settling in. A full moon was coming up over the trees. It was as nice an evening as he could imagine. Neither of them seemed to have anything to say. As they walked he took Mayme’s hand and they kept walking and walking till they were in the woods and the house was out of sight.

  “What you gonna do now dat ye’re free?” Jeremiah asked. “You gonna keep working fer Miz Katie?”

  “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it,” Mayme said. “But I could never leave Katie.”

  Jeremiah wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. “Why not?” he asked.

  “She’s my friend.”

  “But she’s white.”

  “She’s like a sister to me. It doesn’t matter what color she is.”

  “Seems ter me it matters. Whites an’ blacks is different, ain’t they?”

  “Not down inside,” Mayme said. “Don’t you figure if you could open us up, our hearts’d be the same color?”

  “I reckon I never thought ’bout dat.”

  “What about you?” Mayme said. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’d like ter save a little money,” said Jeremiah, “an’ maybe git me a livery er my own someday.”

  “That’s sounds like a fine idea, Jeremiah.”

  “My daddy’s happy enuff ter work fer Mr. Guiness,” he went on. “He’s pleased enuff ter hab a job an’ ter be a free black man. But now dat young folks like you an’ me is free, maybe we can do eben more—jes’ think, a black man owning something. Don’t it jes’ soun’ right fine!” He heard the excitement in his own voice and felt a little foolish.

  “You can do it, Jeremiah,” Mayme said. “But I’m not ambitious like that. Besides, I’m just a girl. Girls can’t do things like that.”

  “Why not? Maybe dey can . . . someday.”

  “Not colored girls.”

  “Why not? You’s free, ain’t you?”

  “I reckon.”

  “Ain’t nobody can tell you what you can an’ can’t do. So don’t dat mean you can do whatever you want?”

  “I never thought about things like that before. Although Katie gave me twenty dollars an’ that almost makes me feel like I could do anything.”

  “Twenty dollars!” exclaimed Jeremiah. “Ob yer very own . . . real money!”

  “Yep. It’s in the bank in town with my own name on it.”

  “Why, ye’re rich, Mayme!” She laughed.

  “I had twenty dollars once too,” said Jeremiah.

  “You did! Then you were rich too. Why did you say you had twenty dollars?”

  “Because it’s gone now. I used it mostly all up before I got here.”

  “How did you get it?” I asked.

  Jeremiah told Mayme about being with the army company and about the Dawsons. It was the first he’d told her about the story of his past. They walked on and finally turned around. It was pretty dark by now. It was such a nice contented feeling walking along hand in hand, knowing they were really free people. Was this how it had always been for white boys when they got to this age, meeting a girl and then taking her hand and treating her like she was special?

  He found himself thinking about his papa and wondering if he’d felt this way when he’d first met his mama. Suddenly, without thinking through what he would say, Jeremiah asked, “You eber think . . .’bout gettin’ married?”

  Mayme looked startled at his words. Jeremiah felt embarrassment creep up his neck and heat his face. He was glad it was dark!

  “I reckon,” Mayme answered softly. “Doesn’t everybody?”

  “But it’s different now, you know,” Jeremiah went on. “Wiff no masters tellin’ us what ter do. Now we can make up our own minds who ter marry an’ what we wants ter do.”

  They came out of the woods into the clearing of fields and open space. The moon made everything glow a pale silver. He was wondering what Mayme would say to that, but she never had a chance.

  Suddenly they heard voices yelling.

  “There he is!” shouted a voice. Jeremiah could tell it was a white boy’s voice.

  “Look—he’s got a nigger girl with him!” yelled another one. “Let’s get them!”

  Jeremiah tensed. Mayme trembled beside him.

  “Who is it!” she asked.

  “Jes’ some no-goods dat must hab follered me from town.—You run, Mayme. You git back to da house an’ you an’ Miz Kathleen, you lock dem doors!”

  “But, Jeremiah, what about—”

  “You go, Mayme.—Go now!”

  She gave him a frightened look, then turned and ran for the house.

  “There she goes—after her!” shouted one of the white boys.

  One of them tore off from the others toward Mayme. Jeremiah bolted after them both. Mayme kept running, but the boy was a lot faster and in just a few seconds had nearly caught her. Mayme looked over her shoulder and screamed.

  Jeremiah rushed at the white boy and knocked him over, and they both thudded to the ground and wrestled against each other to get to their feet.

  “Why you cussed nigger!” the white boy yelled in a fury, “I’ll kill you for that if I—”

  Jeremiah silenced him with a whack of his fist.

  The others quickly caught up and knocked Jeremiah off their friend and started pounding and beating him something fierce. The pain was terrible, but from the corner of his eye Jeremiah saw Mayme disappear into the house. At least she had gotten away. He fought them off the best he could. But there were three of them, and within a minute he was nearly unconscious from the pain of several broken ribs.

  When Jeremiah heard the explosion, he thought maybe it was the final death blow. It took a fe
w seconds for him to recognize the sound for what it was, the blast of a shotgun. The sudden shot brought the fight to a halt. Above him, the white boys stopped kicking and pounding on him. Lying on the ground, Jeremiah opened his eyes a crack. A woman with a man’s hat pulled low over her face, shotgun at the ready, was marching straight toward them.

  “All right, you’ve had your fun!” she yelled and Jeremiah recognized the voice. It was the voice Katie used when she was pretending to be her mama. “Now get out of here before I use this again. If I have to get my husband out of bed to see to you thugs, he won’t be none too happy.”

  “He’s just a nigger, lady,” said one of them, slowly climbing off Jeremiah’s chest. “We was just having some fun.”

  “Well, have your fun someplace else. Now get out of here!”

  Muttering and swearing, the three started wandering away.

  “You can move faster than that!” yelled Katie.

  They started running slowly in the direction of town. When they were about fifty yards away, she fired another shot. This time she was aiming closer and they started yelling like they were mad and scared all at once and tore off out of sight.

  Relieved to be alive, Jeremiah tried to lie quietly, but a groan escaped his mouth. “Jeremiah . . . Jeremiah.” Suddenly there was Mayme, kneeling down close beside him. “How bad is it?”

  “I’s be all right,” he moaned. “I think some ob my ribs is broken, but dat ain’t too bad. I had dat once before.”

  “Can you stand up?” Katie asked.

  “I don’t know . . . I reckon.”

  They helped him to his feet. Holding on to both of them, with his arms around their shoulders and with Katie still lugging the shotgun, the two helped him to the house. Once they were inside, where the light from the lantern showed on his face, Mayme looked away. He must look real bad, he thought to himself. He could tell his face was bloody and swollen and one of his eyes was already starting to swell up. But Katie wasn’t queasy and was already tending to him with a wet cloth. Emma immediately went into a babbling fit. They washed him up as best they could and then got him to the couch in the parlor.

  “You’re spending the night here, Jeremiah,” said Katie. “I’m worried about those white boys. I’ll ride into town and get your daddy in the morning.”

  Jeremiah didn’t argue. Mayme tried to get him to eat and drink something, but he was in too much pain to eat and fell asleep soon after that.

  They locked the doors, and Katie kept the gun loaded all night.

  The next morning, Jeremiah was hurting something terrible. He tried to be brave but he was in a lot of pain. One eye was swollen shut and he could hardly move or turn over from the broken ribs. He was just glad they were on the other side of his chest and weren’t the same ones that had been broken before, when he was at the Dawson place during the war.

  Katie rode to town and was back with Henry by midmorning. There wasn’t much he could do for Jeremiah either. Since he hadn’t come home the night before, Henry was clearly relieved that Jeremiah was all right, but was pained to see him in such a state. Together they decided Jeremiah should stay at Rosewood another day or two, until enough of the soreness had gone down so that he could get on a horse.

  NO AIN’T NO ANSWER

  40

  Through the opening months of the new year 1866, Katie and I were anxious to get to planting the new year’s crop of cotton. But Henry kept saying it wasn’t time yet and that we had to be patient. I missed Jeremiah something awful while he was laid up in town, but after he recovered, he walked out to Rosewood whenever he could to help us with our work.

  By late February the weather slowly started to turn warmer, and Henry came out and ploughed one field. He told us what to ask for when we went to Mr. Watson’s to buy cotton seed, which we soon did.

  Together we got one field planted, and Henry and Jeremiah got to work on ploughing another. Now all we could do was wait till the cotton grew up and then we’d pick it again. Unfortunately events weren’t so patient and didn’t wait for the cotton.

  A few days later we were out planting a field when the men came. The second I saw them, terror seized me. Even though there were only three of them, the reckless way they were riding reminded me of the marauders that had killed my family. They came galloping straight across the vegetable garden, kicking up the fresh dirt and destroying the seedbeds and young shoots that had started to grow, then tore toward us across the nice furrows Jeremiah had worked so hard at with his ploughing. It seemed they were trying to do as much damage as they could. Even their horses looked angry.

  “It’s just a bunch of kids and darkies!” said one as they reined in close to us, as if they were trying to scare us.

  “Where’s Clairborne!” yelled the one who seemed to be the leader.

  Nobody spoke.

  “You all deaf!” he shouted with a menacing tone.

  “I’m Kathleen Clairborne,” said Katie, stepping forward.

  “Yeah, well I asked for Clairborne, not some kid. Who are you?”

  “I’m his daughter. He’s not here.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s away. He’s up north.”

  “Say, young lady, you look uncommonly like your ma,” said one of the other men, riding his horse over next to Katie and brushing alongside her. Even as he said it, he eyed Katie with a look I didn’t like.

  “That’s what people say,” said Katie, staring straight ahead and trying to ignore him, which wasn’t easy to do.

  “Except that you’re a lot prettier.—Can’t you look at me when I’m talking to you, girl! I said you was pretty. Don’t you like that?”

  Still Katie kept staring forward.

  Now the man reached down from his horse and felt Katie’s hair, then started running his hand slowly across her cheek.

  Beside me, I felt Jeremiah take a step toward him.

  “Jeremiah,” I whispered, “don’t. She’ll be all right.”

  “Cut it out, Hal,” said the one called Jeb. “Time for that later when we got what we come for.” Then he turned back to Katie. “Now, little girl, you listen to me,” he said angrily. “It’s your ma we want if your pa ain’t here—or what she’s got. And that is her brother’s gold.”

  “I’m sorry . . . my mama isn’t here either,” said Katie.

  “Well, maybe that’s so, but I reckon you know about that gold too.”

  “I’ve only heard about it, sir.”

  “And you have nothing to tell us about Ward Daniels?”

  “No, sir,” said Katie. “I’ve never seen my uncle Ward.”

  The man let out an exasperated sigh. It was obvious he was losing his patience.

  “Now, look,” he said, “we’re tired of fooling around. Fact is, Ward Daniels stole some gold from us and we aim to get it back. Your ma told Sneed there was no more, but you see, we ain’t convinced.”

  “What if . . . there isn’t any more?” asked Katie in a shaky voice.

  “If your ma was playing it straight and don’t know where it is, then we’ll have to find it ourselves, ’cause it’s here, whether you or she know it or not. And we aim to find the rest of it. It’s ours. It don’t belong to Ward, and it don’t belong to your ma or pa or you neither. We ain’t gonna take no for an answer. No ain’t no answer at all.”

  Katie just stared back at him.

  “So I’m asking you straight out—has your ma got the gold?”

  “I’m . . . I don’t know, sir. There’s no more gold.”

  “All right . . . if that’s the way you want it, you tell your ma she’s got twenty-four hours to stop whatever game she’s trying to play, or else to find it. Then we’ll be back—noon tomorrow. You tell your ma that if she don’t give us the gold, we’ll take her place apart board by board if we have to. We’ll have our guns, and we’ll burn you out if we have to.”

  He spun his horse around and rode off and the second man followed. The third waited, then went up close to Katie again an
d reached down from his horse to touch her hair and neck. “And just maybe I’ll help myself to a little of this too, after we find your gold!” he said.

  Then he laughed a horrible laugh and galloped away after the other two. Right then I think I could have killed him.

  As soon as they were gone, I went to Katie and took her in my arms. Every inch of her body was trembling.

  “I don’t know what we’re going to do, Mayme,” she said, tears filling her eyes. “We fooled them before, but they’re not going to let anything stop them tomorrow.”

  That put an end to our cotton planting for that day. After all, what was the use of planting cotton if the men were going to come back and knock the house apart, or even burn it down?

  The first thing we knew we had to do was tell Henry. Jeremiah left for town immediately to do that. Both men came out later and had supper with us and offered to stay the night. But having Jeremiah there wasn’t like I wished it could be because we were all so scared.

  Katie and I didn’t know what to do. There was more gold. We had found some stashed in an old lantern in the cellar. We had taken some of it to the bank and used the money to buy seed. If Katie gave the men what was left of the gold, the bank would take Rosewood, and the men might still not believe it was all of it and might do those other terrible things regardless. But if she didn’t give it to them, they might destroy Rosewood before the bank could do anything anyway.

  It seemed there was nothing we could do that wasn’t bound to have a bad ending.

  Knowing Henry and Jeremiah were spending the night close by in the barn, we somehow drifted off to sleep. But when morning came it brought no answers to our dilemma.

  And now noon was only a few hours away.

  By midmorning the tension was so great that Jeremiah could hardly stand it.

  Katie went down to the cellar and came back a while later with a canvas bag. Jeremiah could tell by the way she carried it that it was heavy. She clunked it down on the sideboard in the parlor.