The Soldier's Lady

by Michael Phillips

  “Oh, it is, Mister Duff!” said Emma excitedly. “Mayme an’ Miz Katie wuz so smart an’ so brave. Dey shot guns an’ everythin’.”

  “Hardly brave, Emma!” laughed Katie. “I was scared out of my wits. I’m afraid Mayme was the only brave one.”

  “I wasn’t brave either,” I said. “It all happened so fast, we just did what we had to.”

  “So what happened?” asked Micah.

  “There were some bad men who came to Rosewood,” said Katie. “They were looking for Uncle Ward’s gold.”

  “Gold!” said Micah, looking at Uncle Ward. “There really was gold?”

  “But we didn’t know it at first,” said Katie. “It was down in the cellar. We didn’t find it till later. So when the men first came, we had to chase them off, just like the four animals.”

  “But Mayme and Miz Katie, dey did it wiff guns!” said Emma. “Dey shot at doze men!”

  By now Micah’s curiosity had spread to everyone else, and they wouldn’t stop their questions until we told the whole story.

  “It was before Emma came,” said Katie, “though we told her about it afterward. And it was before our idea of pretending that the plantation was still operating normally so that no one would know we were just two girls by ourselves. Chasing off those men helped put the idea into my head. The bad men had already come by once asking questions, and then Mayme got the idea of trying to pretend there were more of us.

  “Mayme was out in the barn cleaning up when I saw them coming. I hurried out to tell her, but I was shaking so bad I could hardly get the words out.

  “Mayme snuck to the door of the barn and peeked out. There were three men on horseback coming up to the house. We kept out of sight as they dismounted and looked around. A minute or two later we heard the barn door creak open and the sound of boots coming across the wood floor. I was sitting huddled up close to Mayme. Suddenly a man called out, ‘Anybody there?’ ”

  “He stood looking around for five or ten seconds. Then he walked back outside. We heard another man call out, ‘Ain’t nobody inside.’ ”

  “The one who’d been in the barn asked, ‘Where are they? From the looks of it, there’s folks about.’ ”

  “ ‘We’ll just wait and kill ’em when they come back,’ said the other man.”

  As Josepha listened, she shook her head in disbelief.

  “That was all we needed to hear!” Katie added. “Mayme whispered for me to follow her, and we crept out of the barn on the opposite side where they wouldn’t see us, made a dash for the woods, then made a great big wide circle back toward the house from the opposite side where the men couldn’t see us. As soon as we were back to the house and crouching low, Mayme asked me about the guns. I asked her what she wanted with my daddy’s guns and she said, ‘We’re gonna try to scare those men away.’ ”

  “ ‘But how?’ I asked. Back then I was pretty dense. Mayme had to tell me what to do. She told me to sneak around the side of the house and when I got to the corner, to get some rocks and throw them at their horses.”

  “What wuz da rocks fo?” Emma asked.

  “To startle their horses,” I answered. “I figured when the men ran outside to see what was wrong, I’d dash in and grab the guns.”

  “But I was so scared,” Katie went on, picking up where she’d left off. “I didn’t want those men coming after me. I asked Mayme what I should do after I threw the rocks. She told me to stay hidden, then get back out to the woods. She’d meet me there with the guns.”

  By then everyone was listening as attentively as they had when Katie had read the story from the book of fairy tales.

  “Well, we did it,” Katie went on. “I threw some rocks to distract them, and Mayme snuck in and got the guns, and we ran back to the woods. I don’t know how we did it, especially with Mayme lugging two heavy rifles, but we did. I asked Mayme, ‘What are we going to do now?’ ”

  Katie looked over at me expectantly. “You’ll never guess what she said.”

  All eyes in the room turned in my direction. I bit back a smile and answered, “I told her, ‘We’re gonna shoot ’em.’ ”

  “Yeah!” Little William cheered, forming his hand into a “gun” and making explosion noises with his mouth. Emma quickly shushed him up.

  “I had never held a gun in my life,” Katie said. “Mayme told me there was nothing to it and showed me how to hold it against my shoulder and aim. I was terrified. I said, ‘Mayme, you don’t mean . . . we’re not going to try to shoot those men!’ ‘No, silly,’ she said, ‘just scare them away.’ ”

  “So that’s what we did. Mayme showed me how to load the rifle, gave me a box of bullets, and told me what to do. Then Mayme took the shotgun and went back to the barn. I was so scared. . . .”

  “I was too!” I chimed in. “But I knew we had to get rid of those men.”

  “You were so brave, Mayme,” said Katie, smiling at me. She turned back to the others. “First Mayme snuck back and swiped the men’s rifles off their horses,” she went on. “Then she disappeared into the barn. She had told me to count three minutes and then start shooting—up in the air or over the fields someplace. But I was so nervous that I counted way too fast. When I thought it was time, I picked up the gun and pointed it off toward the fields and held on real tight. Then I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger. The sound scared me more than anything, but it didn’t knock me over like I was afraid it would. When the sound died away I shot again, and then again.

  “By this time there was yelling from the house because the men didn’t know who was shooting at them. And it’s a good thing they didn’t! I fired the six shots and started fumbling to reload like Mayme had shown me.

  “The men ran for their guns, but Mayme had taken them and now she was shooting at them too from the barn. I managed to get the rifle loaded and started shooting again. I accidentally shot one of the windows in the house!”

  Papa and Uncle Ward burst out laughing.

  “The men were yelling and swearing,” Katie went on. “But their guns were gone and they were getting shot at from two directions at once. So they mounted their horses and rode away, with Mayme still shooting after them.”

  By the time Katie was finished telling what had happened, everyone was laughing.

  “That is unbelievable!” said Micah. “I can hardly imagine it.”

  “An’ den right after dat is when I came,” said Emma. “An’ den Mayme an’ Miz Katie an’ Miz Aleta, we done jes’ like dem animals, din’t we, Miz Katie? Wheneber folks’d come, we’d make noises an’ fool dem so dey’d neber know who we really wuz.”

  Again Micah laughed and asked what it was all about.

  “That was Katie’s scheme,” I said. “We lit fires in the empty cabins and had Aleta pound on the anvil with a hammer in the blacksmith’s shop and did whatever we could to make Rosewood look normal.”

  “I’ve got to admit,” laughed my papa. “They almost fooled me!”

  “Did the men ever come back?” asked Micah.

  Gradually the room got quiet.

  “Actually . . . yes, they did,” said Katie.

  “What happened?”

  Katie glanced at the three older men. But none of them said a word.

  “By then Uncle Templeton was here,” Katie said. “He was shot saving my life and almost died. The leader of the gang of men was killed. His name was Bilsby. He’s the one who killed our families.”

  Katie stopped. I saw Jeremiah glance at Henry, who was looking down at the floor. But neither of them said anything. Even Emma seemed to sense that Henry’s role in what had happened was not for any of the rest of us to tell about.

  Katie got up and put the book back in the bookcase.

  We sat in silence for a few minutes. Finally Josepha got up.

  “I’s gwine put on a pot er tea,” she said. “Who wants a cup?”

  “That sounds fine, Josepha,” said my papa. “Count me in.”

  “Me too,” said Katie, walking slowly about
the room.

  “You got any of those oatmeal cookies left?” asked Uncle Ward.

  “I may at dat, Mister Ward,” replied Josepha, disappearing into the kitchen.

  Now Katie sat down at the piano and started playing absently. Then she got out some of her music, and pretty soon she was playing a lively jig.

  Uncle Ward jumped up and started dancing in time to the music. We all laughed and started clapping to the rhythm. That made him dance all the harder until his feet sounded like drums on the floor.

  “Come on, Emma!” said Uncle Ward, going over to where Emma was sitting.

  He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. A minute later Uncle Ward’s and Emma’s feet were bouncing and jumping and echoing on the floor in perfect time as if they’d been dancing together for years. The rest of us kept clapping and laughing to Katie’s music.

  Suddenly I looked up, and there was Micah standing in front of me with his hand outstretched.

  “Come on, Mayme,” he said. “Let’s join them!”

  I took his hand and stood up. We didn’t put on quite the show Emma and Uncle Ward did, but it was so much fun! I hadn’t danced like that, with a black man, since I was a little girl dancing with my grandfather to the music of a fiddle. I could tell Micah had danced the jig before. He was real good on his feet.

  “Whew!” said Uncle Ward a minute or two later. “That’s enough to tucker an old man out!—Jeremiah, get up here and take over for me.”

  Jeremiah’s feet had already been itching and he didn’t need to be asked twice. He was out of his chair in an instant and the next had Emma’s hand, and they danced all around the room.

  Josepha came in with the tea a few minutes later and, after serving the men, sat down beside Henry to watch. Finally Katie’s fingers began to slow, and she gradually brought the lively dance to an end. Jeremiah and Emma and Micah and I all stopped and let go of each other’s hands and just stood laughing, panting, and grinning. We were tired but hadn’t had such a time in ages!

  “That was downright fun!” said Papa. “Almost makes me wish I was a kid again. Remember when Mama taught us to dance, Ward?”

  Uncle Ward chuckled.

  “Did she really, Uncle Templeton?” asked Katie from where she still sat at the piano.

  “That she did, Kathleen,” he replied. “Your grandmother was quite the lady for making sure her sons and daughters—me and Ward and your mama and your aunt Nelda—all had culture and refinement, at least as much as she could give us herself. I think she would have liked to send us to expensive schools if she could have, but they didn’t have that kind of money. So she made us read books and study—yes, and dance too. Why, Ward and I even took our turns there at the keyboard with her trying to teach us the piano.”

  “Uncle Templeton!” exclaimed Katie. “Come . . . show us!”

  Papa laughed. “She tried to teach us, I said. I’m afraid she wasn’t too successful in my case. What about you, Ward?”

  “Not me!” laughed Uncle Ward. “I was always a stubborn cuss when it came to practicing like she wanted me to. Listening to Kathleen play, I regret that now. That’s mighty fine playing, Kathleen. It sure takes me back. Your mama could play just like that. She was the musical one of the family.”

  “She taught me,” said Katie. “I used to have a violin too. But it was ruined when the marauders came.”

  “Well, she taught you real well.” Uncle Ward paused a moment. “You know who else was musical,” he added, “—that was Lemuela. Everything Rosalind did, she did too. She could play the piano, the violin . . . and sing! Remember how Lemuela could sing, Templeton?”

  I looked at Papa. A faraway look had come into his eyes. The faint hint of a smile crossed his lips.

  Slowly he nodded.

  “I remember . . .” he said softly. “How well I remember.”

  The sound of Papa’s voice as he remembered my mother quieted us all. Especially me. I was reminded again how much he loved her, and of the sadness he always felt at her memory, knowing that he had never seen her again.

  Softly Katie again began to play. But the quiet melancholy of memories had gotten into her soul too. All of us, everyone in the room—except little William, I suppose—would always have sadness in our hearts from the loss of people we had loved. But we had each other, and we were sure grateful for that. Yet even then, sometimes the melancholy swept through our hearts for a while when we remembered the others who were gone.

  It was a while before I recognized what Katie was softly playing. Then I remembered. It was the minuet, like she’d taught me on her fifteenth birthday just after I’d first come to Rosewood. That had been a special day that had done a lot toward making two heartbroken girls into friends.

  Katie played and we all sat absorbed in our thoughts. The music of the minuet, though happy, couldn’t help but put us in a nostalgic mood. I suppose we were all thinking about the ones we loved who weren’t there.

  Josepha was sitting next to Papa. I noticed her swaying a bit and her feet moving ever so slightly to the music. Papa must have noticed too.

  “Josepha, how about you dancing with me?” he said. “Looks to me like your feet know the minuet.”

  Josepha looked over at him with a look of sadness and longing. “I don’t think so, Mister Templeton,” she said. “Dat’s jes’ too long ago.”

  “What’s too long ago?” he asked.

  Then her expression changed and the familiar Josepha was back.

  “You jes’ neber mind,” she said. “Dat’s my business, and you jes’ mind yer own.”

  A minute later, as I sat there, a shadow slowly appeared in front of me. I glanced up.

  There stood Papa.

  He reached out his hand. I took it. He pulled me to my feet. I wouldn’t have thought I could remember it so well, but suddenly I found myself dancing in perfect rhythm to the music as Papa led me through the graceful steps. Katie’s and my grandmother had taught him well! His feet were so light on the floor he hardly made a sound. I could almost imagine him dressed all fancy in a palace court at a ball in honor of a king! He held my hand so lightly, turning and slowly spinning me around in all the right places. Somehow I knew just what to do from his touch.

  Everyone else watched as we danced, in awe that we both simply stood up and started dancing a perfect minuet. I even saw tears in Josepha’s eyes.

  Katie played and we danced, and it was almost like the whole world had stopped for those few minutes. Suddenly I was inside my own fairy tale, dancing like a princess in a story. But I wasn’t dancing with a prince. I was dancing with my very own father, which was even better.

  Gradually the minuet came to an end.

  Our steps slowed and finally stopped. We stood facing each other a moment more. I gazed up into Papa’s face. His eyes were wet.

  “If I didn’t know better, Mary Ann,” he said softly, “I would think that you were your mama. You are the most beautiful young lady in the world.”

  I went to him, stretched my arms around his waist, and leaned my head against his chest as he wrapped my shoulders in his embrace.

  BAPTISM

  21

  How exactly word began to spread was never clear. I think Henry picked up word of it from people coming into town. But wherever it came from, there was a report that a black preacher was heading our way, baptizing and preaching and holding revival services as he went.

  Then one day came when his wagon rumbled into town with the words painted in bright red against yellow sides that looked like a traveling medicine show: Dr. Giles Smithers Colored Camp Meeting Revival Service. And underneath, it said, Jesus is the way to salvation, turn from sin.

  The man talked to Henry at the livery and asked about a good place on the river to hold a baptism. Before we knew it, the man had set up his revival tent beside the river on the border of Rosewood—with Papa’s and Uncle Ward’s permission, of course—and flyers were being circulated everywhere.

  Reverend Smithers was an ol
d-fashioned hellfire revival preacher, and when he got wound up, you could hear his voice for half a mile. Katie, Papa, and Uncle Ward were the only whites at the first meeting, along with about twenty or so blacks. But the second night there was double that number, and on the last day, a Sunday afternoon when Reverend Smithers announced that there would be a river baptism, there must have been a hundred colored folks from fifty miles around. They were all people we hadn’t seen before. We never knew how they all heard about it, but they did.

  There was singing like I hadn’t heard since I was a girl on the McSimmons plantation when the twenty-five or thirty slaves would get together in the evenings and break out in old spirituals.

  I’d never seen Josepha so keyed up and excited as on that Sunday afternoon at the river, clapping and swaying her big body and singing louder than anyone. Henry entered into the spirit of it too. It was as if being around all the other former slaves had opened a part of them that had been quiet a long time. Jeremiah and Emma and I sat on the ground together. William was with Katie at the house because Katie said she had felt funny being the only white person the day before. Papa and Uncle Ward hadn’t been back since the first day either.

  Jeremiah and I were singing and clapping along, but Emma was strangely quiet. I didn’t understand why because I knew she loved to sing, and she had such a beautiful voice. After the preacher started preaching, she got quieter and more somber yet. From the look on her face I almost thought she was about to start crying.

  “My brothers and sisters,” Reverend Smithers was saying in a loud voice, “for years our people prayed ter know that life er freedom in dat ol’ Promised Land. So now we’s free, all right, but have we really entered dat Promised Land in our hearts? Have we crossed dat River Jordan in baptism for sin? Have we risen out of dose waters, jes’ like this water behind me here, into dat new life of salvation? Have you felt da fire, my brothers and sisters? Which fire is calling with your name—da fire of hell or da fire of da spirit of the living God!”

  His voice had risen to such a pitch that all through the listening crowd, murmurs and shouts and comments rose to join him.