“You’re fine as you are,” he assured her, starting the horse off in a gentle gait. “I’ll come back this afternoon and get some fresh clothes for you. That way you won’t have to be around your mother anymore today.”
“That will be a relief.” She almost laughed.
It was a clear, beautiful day, despite the chill of the air. A thin coating of frost covered the fields, and patches of ice could be seen in the water that ran in the ditches alongside the road. Kitty shivered as the wind rushed at them, cutting into her. Nathan felt her chill and spurred the horse into a faster gait.
Ahead, the path that led alongside the creek and into the negro cemetery loomed up at them. Impulsively, Kitty squeezed Nathan and cried, “Nathan, turn down that path. Let’s go back to the cemetery, and maybe we’ll find something that will tell us who was in on it.”
“Now, Kitty, there’s no need…”
“Please! If you don’t, I’ll jump off this horse and go on foot.”
Knowing she meant it, he reined the horse to turn into the brush-shrouded path. Low-hanging branches slapped at them, and they were forced to move slowly along a path that was used only rarely by slaves burying their dead—and they usually made the journey on foot, carrying the wooden box that served as a coffin upon their shoulders.
The trip into the woods had probably been even more difficult last night, Kitty thought, but she hadn’t noticed—intent on finding her father.
They moved along the creek, where the brush was trampled by the hooves of many horses. “See!” Kitty pointed excitedly. “We didn’t notice in the dark last night how the weeds are all trampled. The Vigilantes rode in here.”
“They probably came down the creek,” Nathan commented. “It would’ve been easier riding at night than through the woods. The creek runs all the way from the woods in back of your place, remember?”
She nodded.
They came to the cemetery. Kitty felt her spine tingle as she looked at the sight before her—crude, rotting, makeshift crosses that the slaves used to mark the graves of their dead. In several places the ground was sunken and caved-in where the crosses stood, evidence of the fulfillment of the Good Book’s proclamation of “ashes to ashes…dust to dust”. Wincing, she saw splinters of wood sticking up out of one of the gaping holes—and a glimmer of white bone.
“Don’t they ever come here and fill these graves in?” she whispered, not really knowing why she felt it necessary to lower her voice.
“Periodically,” Nathan answered drily, himself moved by the awesome sight. “They don’t dig the graves very deep to start with, and sometimes if they’re real poor, they don’t even put the body in a coffin—just wrap it in a shroud. Let a hard, soaking rain come along, and it doesn’t take long for the body to rot and the ground to cave in. They’ll be coming here in a day or two to bury Willie and Jenny, and they’ll see what shape the place is in and do something about it.”
Ahead of them loomed the massive oak tree, and from one of its lower branches swung the remnants of the rope where John had been found swinging, half-dead. Kitty stared at it, transfixed as thoughts of the horrors that had taken place here moved through her mind.
Nathan reined his horse to a halt, got down, then turned to help Kitty dismount. She walked to the spot and swallowed hard, swaying momentarily as she pointed to the ground nearby. “Blood,” she said in a choked voice, “and there…” She pointed to the tree trunk, where bits of flesh and dried clots of blood clung to the rough bark. “They tied him there to beat him before they hung him.”
Nathan was beside her to hold her and give her strength, but she pushed him away, eyes intent upon the ground, around the tree, searching for any kind of a clue to the identity of the Vigilantes.
But she found nothing.
“Kitty, you didn’t expect to find anything, did you?” Nathan asked her worriedly. She looked so strange, walking about, a wild look in her eyes. “What did you think they’d leave behind? A glove? A spur?”
“I was only hoping to find something that would tell us who they are.” She felt defeated. Sighing, she turned to where Nathan’s horse waited, pawing the ground impatiently. “We might as well be on our way. If Poppa wakes up, I want to be with him.”
He helped her mount, then turned the stallion toward the path that led alongside the gurgling creek. Kitty slumped against him, eyes half-closed as she looked down at the swirling, curving patterns in the ice that lined the bank.
Suddenly she sat straight up. Could it be? No… No, they wouldn’t…they couldn’t…not even the lowest form of animal could do such a thing.
She screamed, the sound ripping from the very depths of her soul, the stillness of the winter morning exploding as her shrieks filled the quiet air. Nathan, stunned, jerked the reins so hard that the great animal beneath him reared up on his hind legs, forelegs pawing the air above him in fright.
Losing her grip on Nathan’s waist, Kitty went sliding over the horse’s rump to land on the ground, quickly twisting sideways to escape the dancing hooves as Nathan fought to bring the horse under control.
“Kitty, for God’s sake, what’s wrong?” he watched her crawling on her hands and knees toward the edge of the creek. His eyes followed her horror-stricken gaze.
There, in the creek, weighted down by a large rock, he could see something dark beneath the surface. Slowly the shape took form. The gurgling clear waters glistened over the shriveled brown skin, tiny arms and legs bobbing in the ripples.
It was Jenny’s baby.
Chapter Nine
The inevitability of war hung over the South like a giant, black thunder cloud, threatening a storm from the North at any time, but no one was quite sure just when the cloud would break upon the lands.
On January 9, 1861, Mississippi seceded from the Union, followed by Florida the next day. The secession of Alabama came on January 11th, and Georgia made her announcement on the 19th. Extreme pressure in the face of these events was put on the General Assembly of North Carolina to call a convention. The Conservatives, who opposed secession, diminished in number, and on January 29th, the Assembly adopted a bill directing the people of the state to vote on the question of calling a convention and to elect 120 delegates.
Both radicals and conservatives worked hard to gain control of the convention, set for the 28th day of February. To the surprise of many, the vote was a victory for the conservatives, and the proposal for a convention was defeated.
But neither side accepted the result as final. Everyone knew that North Carolina would soon have to make a definite decision on whether to join her sister states in secession—or to remain a part of the Federal Union, The vote not to call a convention merely prolonged that decision.
Winter dwindled into spring as April warmth came to kiss the frozen South awake.
Kitty sat on the back-porch steps, knees hugged against her chest as she stared toward the woodlands and the beauty of the dogwood trees bursting in glorious popcorn blossoms of beauty. Leaves were budding on the trees, and a warm gentle breeze blew against her face. Spring was upon them…planting time had arrived.
Turning her head slightly, she could see her father sitting motionless in a rocking chair. His face bore the flesh-gouged scars of the whip; his left eye was covered with a black cotton patch. The vision in that eye was lost forever. He was hunched over, bearded chin tucked against his chest, but she knew the rope burns were there around his neck, caused by the hanging. Beneath the clothes he wore she knew there were more pears that would always be there, but none as deep and penetrating as the one that seemed to have warped the very depths of his mind and soul.
He seldom spoke anymore. And he did nothing but shuffle from his bed to the table to the back porch, where he would sit the entire day staring out into nothingness, only to reverse the procedure when the sun went down, shuffling to the table—then to bed. One day blended into the next.
His spirit was gone, and Kitty was heartsick because she could not bring it back.
It-had taken long, agonizing weeks for him to recover from the sadistic beating he had suffered. And during those weeks he had said nothing, merely lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling, as though he had removed his consciousness from the present.
He no longer heard Lena’s harping, and if he heard Kitty’s gentle coaxing to get him to talk to her, he showed no sign. How could he shut her out, too, she thought painfully, when they had always been so close.
Doc said a beating such as John took did strange things to some men. Only time can heal those wounds deep inside, that can only be felt, and not seen. More and more Kitty worried that her father’s wounds upon his soul and his mind would never heal.
“Poppa, it’s time to start the planting,” she said to him, turning to see if he acknowledged her remark. He blinked his eyes and stared straight ahead.
“Poppa, we’ve got to plant our garden, or there won’t be anything to eat…”
Slowly, perhaps because the pain was so evident in his daughter’s voice, he turned to look at her. His remaining eye was watery. His words came out a croaking whisper, “It doesn’t matter anymore, girl.”
She scrambled across the rough plank floor of the porch to wrap her arms around his knees and cry, “Oh, Poppa, it does matter. Life has to go on. What happened was terrible, I know, but we’ve got to go on. I’ll help you with the planting. We’ll start a new life…”
“No.” He shook his head from side to side. “I won’t be here. It won’t matter about me.”
Kitty withdrew her arms and covered her face with trembling hands, tears springing to her eyes. He could not be reached. He was in another world, not this one, and it was impossible to communicate with him.
At the sound of a horse approaching, Kitty sat up straight, waiting anxiously, but John just stared straight ahead. If he heard the hoofbeats, he did not give evidence of the fact.
Nathan came around the corner of the house, grinning broadly and waving, Kitty’s heart warmed as it always did when he appeared. “Come with me to Goldsboro,” he cried jubilantly, “everyone is going to town to wait at the telegraph office for word on Fort Sumter.”
She stared at him, puzzled. Since early dawn, she had noticed more activity than usual on the main dirt road in front of their house, but lost in thought about her father, she hadn’t really wondered about the reasons for such unusual traveling by her neighbors.
“Haven’t you heard, Kitty?” He sounded impatient. “Our forces are bombarding Fort Sumter in South Carolina.”
“No.” She shook her head slowly. She didn’t know anything about it. This was the first time she had seen Nathan in over a week. It had been raining, and everyone had stayed indoors. On days when the sun shone he had been busy with the planting in the Collins fields.
He dismounted, and, still holding his horse’s reins, propped one foot on the bottom porch step. Leaning forward and looking at John; he nodded. “Good morning, sir.
John stared straight ahead and did not acknowledge his presence.
“Still the same, huh?” Nathan looked at Kitty. “Do you think he’s ever going to come out of it?”
“Please, Nathan,” she whispered anxiously, “Don’t speak of him as though he’s just a…a thing. He can still hear.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Now tell me about Fort Sumter. We don’t get a paper now that Poppa doesn’t go into town. Jacob never thinks to buy one, and we don’t know what’s going on unless someone drops by to tell us.”
“Well, it seems that the Confederates in South Carolina felt that that United States flag flying over that Federal fort near the mouth of Charleston Harbor was just more than they could take. Now that they’re no longer part of the Union and consider themselves an independent state, they don’t want a foreign flag, as they call it, flying in one of their harbors. They asked the Yankees to evacuate, but the commanding officer there, Major Anderson, I heard his name was, sent word that he was going to keep the flag flying and he’d never give up the fort. One of father’s men came during the night to tell us that the Confederates were firing on the fort.”
Nathan’s handsome face was flushed with excitement, but Kitty felt a strange lump in the pit of her stomach—a feeling of foreboding that this latest development just might be the breaking point for the South.
“Come along,” he urged her. “I’ll help you saddle a horse. Let’s go to town and wait with everyone to see what happens.”
She chewed her lower lip as she shot an anxious glance at her father. His expression had not changed. It was as though he were dead. She shivered. Anything was better than spending another day sitting listlessly on the back steps staring out at the empty, hungry fields.
“All right.” She got to her feet, smoothed out the cotton trousers she wore. “Let me change into something suitable. I can’t ride into town looking like this.”
She hurried inside, past her mother, who started asking questions. “I haven’t time to explain,” she said, reaching for a soft blue muslin, dress she had just finished sewing.
Kitty hurried back outside, Lena behind her, and Nathan began to lead his horse toward the barn, falling into step beside Kitty, who was anxious to get away from her mother.
Nathan saddled the horse that John once rode, and they hurried toward Goldsboro. “I wanted you with me today,” Nathan called to her, grinning. “When a man hears good news, he likes to have the woman he loves at his side.”
“And she likes to be at his side,” Kitty called back as they galloped into the wind, faces flushed excitedly. “I do love you, Nathan.”
The road was crowded with wagons and carriages moving toward town. And by the time they reached the main avenue through Goldsboro—Center Street—it was obvious that everyone in the county was there to crowd around the telegraph office to hear the latest word from South Carolina.
Men jostled and tipped their jugs of whiskey and called happily to each other. Women stood in the crowd with their children beside them, heads bonneted in the bright April sunshine. A band was set up near the train station playing the new song everyone was so emotionally charged by, the tune called “Dixie”.
It was a festive, happy occasion. A celebration, Kitty thought as she marveled at the excited milling people. She couldn’t remember ever having seen so many people gathered at one time in revelry. Caught up in the tide of joy, she sought Nathan’s hand, and he squeezed strong fingers about hers, leaning to kiss the tip of her nose.
Kitty noticed that some of the people, however, wore expressions of deep concern and sadness, obviously not sharing in the revelry. The conservatives, she decided. The ones, like her father, who thought war was for fools. If he were here today, John would be standing with them, she knew.
They passed the midway point on Center Street where the slave market, called Washington Tower, stood. Kitty saw that no auction was being held that day. She wondered where Nathan was leading her, for he seemed to have some goal in mind as they waded through the endless sea of bustling people.
Stepping up on the boardwalk, Nathan shoved her through one final throng and into the open door of Gidden’s Jewelry store. “What are we here for?” she asked, as he looked down at her, grinning.
A clerk came forward, and Nathan waved an arm ceremoniously. “I want a wedding ring,” he said happily. “And I want my bride to pick it out herself.”
“Oh, Nathan,” she cried, swaying, trying to grasp what was happening. “It…it’s too soon.”
“No, it isn’t too soon.” He put his arms about her and kissed her soundly, then stood back rocking on his heels and grinning like a small boy. “I love you, and I want to marry you as soon as possible, and today is the day we get your ring.”
“Kitty, I thought I saw you come in here,” Doc Musgrave boomed as he stepped inside the jewelry store. “I need to talk to you. Been meaning to come by and check on your pa, but it seems like with the change in season, everybody in the countryside has come down with the croup. I’ve been up night and d
ay.”
“You should have let me go with you to help,” she said quickly.
“No, I figure you’re needed with your pa.” He had removed his old cotton hat, and his face took on an expression of sadness. “If he ever comes out of it, it’ll be because of you, not your ma. I think her nagging just sends him further and further away from the world around him. Is he any better at all?”
She hated to tell him that he wasn’t. “He did speak this morning when I told him we had to plant the garden or we wouldn’t have anything to eat. He said it didn’t matter, because he wouldn’t be here, anyway.”
Doc pursed his lips beneath his bushy gray mustache. “Beat the spirit right out of that man, they did. John Wright was one of the most courageous men I knew. Never afraid to speak his mind if he believed in something…”
Nathan shifted his weight from one foot to another impatiently as he said, “Doc, if you don’t mind, we’ve got some business to take care of in here, and it’s rather important.”
“Well, I won’t keep you.” He flicked his eyes over Nathan, registering his dislike for the young man. “I’ve got important business, too, with Kitty, but it won’t take long.”
He stepped between the two of them, turning his back on Nathan. “Kitty, this bombardment on Fort Sumter may bring war that much closer, especially if the Confederates are able to take the fort. The word from Raleigh is that secession is inevitable. I’ve been in touch with Dr. Charles Johnson, who’s expected to be named Surgeon General of the state, and as I told you once before, he wants to establish a hospital here in Goldsboro. There’s going to be a nursing service, and I’d like to be able to count on you to work with us.”
“No!” Nathan shouldered his way into the conversation, eyes blazing. “Kitty is going to marry me, and I’m not going off to war and have my wife working in some hospital with a lot of blood and gore…and dying.” He dropped his voice for an instant. “No, she’ll stay home where she belongs, like the other women. You forget about her working in any hospital!”
Love and War: The Coltrane Saga, Book 1 Page 11
