Through the Storm

by Beverly Jenkins

  With all her soul she yearned to confront Henry Morse, but her mind slid back into darkness.

  When Sable awakened again, it was full daylight. The ache in her head had subsided only minimally, but she forced her eyes open. The light hurt, but she forced herself to endure it so she could evaluate her surroundings. She was lying in the bed of a moving wagon. Beside her sat Blythe, whose dark eyes were so filled with fear and anguish, Sable vowed to send Morse to hell. Hazel flanked Sable’s other side, but unlike those of her little sister, Hazel’s eyes glittered with a desire for vengeance.

  “How’s Cullen, Hazel?” Sable forced out.

  “He’s still asleep.”

  The pounding in Sable’s head increased as she attempted to turn her head, but she had to see her son. He lay at her feet. The bandage circling his head was stained with blood.

  Sable crawled over to him, fighting dizziness.

  Hazel said, “I bandaged his head with the end of my gown.”

  Sable’s heart cried at seeing him lying so still. As she lowered her ear to his chest to make certain he was still breathing, she almost passed out again, but the sound of his faint heartbeat gave her hope.

  “Well, Sable, good to see you up and around.”

  Morse.

  She ignored him. Her concern for Cullen overrode all else. Softly she called to him, “Cullen?”

  There was no response.

  She called again, slightly louder. His body moved as if he’d recognized her voice, but he fell still again almost as quickly.

  Sable turned a malevolent eye on Morse driving the wagon. “He needs a doctor.”

  “I’m sure you think so, but I’ve never known a young buck who didn’t have an iron-hard head. He’ll be fine in a day or two.”

  Sable’s jaw tightened. “The lad is only twelve.”

  “The young heal fast.”

  “Where are you taking us?”

  “To Paradise.”

  “There will be a room reserved for you in hell for this.”

  “Where folks like you will be my slaves.”

  They were still traveling in the wagon when Cullen finally awakened late that evening. His first words as he regained consciousness were a softly spoken, “I’m sorry. I promised Papa Rai I’d keep you safe.”

  “You did your best, Cullen. There were just too many of them.”

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered again.

  As a tear slid from his eye, her heart broke in two. “We’ll get out of this, don’t worry.”

  Morse countered pleasantly, “I wouldn’t be so quick to make rash predictions if I were you, Sable, my dear. It’s my guess you’ll never see that major of yours ever again.”

  Bitterly Sable replied, “Now who’s making rash predictions? I will see Raimond again, even if I have to walk over your grave to do so.”

  He just laughed and flicked the reins to get the horses moving faster.

  As dusk approached, Morse pulled the wagon into the wild growth on the side of the road and announced they would be stopping there for the night. He’d been behind the reins since before dawn. Sable hoped to find a way to escape while he slept, but when she saw him reach beneath his seat and extract four sets of leg irons, she knew it was not to be.

  Once they were shackled, he hooked them to a long length of chain whose end was attached to an iron cuff around his wrist. If they moved, the tug on the chain would alert him.

  Helpless to do anything else, Sable and the children huddled together and slept.

  They were already under way the next morning when Sable awakened. The sky above was a beautiful blue; it was much too fine a day to be shackled to the devil, she thought, but she thanked the Old Queens for letting her live to see it. Morse stopped the wagon and undid the shackles so they could take care of their needs, but he let them go only one at a time.

  “If any of you run, I’ll kill at least one of those who remain.”

  Sable had no idea if he would carry through on the threat, but she had no desire to find out.

  Once they were all back in the wagon, he replaced the leg irons, tossed them a few pieces of stale bread and a canteen of water for breakfast, then proceeded on down the road.

  By mid-morning, the road had turned into a track, and by mid-afternoon it was nothing more than a rutted trail. The land around them was vast and desolate. Sable didn’t know this region outside New Orleans well enough to determine their exact location, but she made a point of remembering landmarks they passed—oddly shaped trees and stands of wildflowers—so she could find her way home if the opportunity arose.

  It was nearly dusk when Morse finally turned off the trail. Ahead stood a ramshackle mansion. The land around it was wild and uncultivated. Knee-high weeds and thick brush covered what had probably once been cleared fields, but time and neglect had returned it to its natural state.

  “Where are we?” Sable asked.

  Morse answered, “I told you before, Paradise. Might not look like it now, but once it’s cleared and cotton is planted, it should live up to its name.”

  He pulled the wagon up to the side of the house and set the brake. The side door opened and Sally Ann Fontaine stepped out. “What took you—” Her eyes met Sable’s and widened. “What’s she doing here?”

  “She’s going to be living with us, Sal. Say hello.”

  “You take her back to wherever you found her, and those brats as well. She’s been nothing but trouble since the day she was born!”

  “Can’t do it, Sal. We need slaves to clear the land. These’ll be the first four.”

  Sally Ann’s face was twisted with anger. “I will not have this murderess in my home.”

  “You got no choice,” he declared.

  Hopping down from the wagon, he came around and unlatched the back of the wagon, then unlocked the irons shackling Sable and the others together and gestured for them to get out. “Let’s go. Sal, I hope you got some supper on. I’m hungry enough to eat a bear.”

  Sally Ann’s eyes continued to spit fire. “You take them back this minute, Henry Morse!”

  Morse sighed and took her aside. “Sally Ann, we need help clearing this land.”

  “With all the slaves in this state, you can’t find anyone else?”

  “Sally Ann, haven’t you always wanted to make her pay for Carson’s death?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, here’s your opportunity. You’ll have free rein to treat her however you want. Nobody knows where she is so she’ll be your slave for life.”

  “We’re free!” Cullen declared angrily.

  Morse cuffed him. “Never say that around me again, boy. God put you on this earth to be the servants of men like me, and you’d better remember it.”

  Sable moved quickly to Cullen’s side. Seeing the blood trickling from his split lip, she snapped, “You and the rest of those masked cowards don’t know the first thing about God.”

  Morse ignored her and turned to Hazel, who glared back at him. “How old are you, gal?” When she didn’t answer he said sharply, “I asked you a question. How old are you?”

  “Twelve,” she told him sullenly.

  “Better watch that tone, girl. Are you bleeding yet?”

  Hazel didn’t answer.

  “Why on earth would you care about that?” Sally Ann demanded.

  “I need to know if she’s old enough to breed.”

  Before Sable could voice her outrage, Sally Ann snapped, “Henry, she’s a child, for heaven’s sake. If you need to rut, use that one,” she said, indicating Sable.

  Sable’s jaw tightened.

  Sally Ann’s eyes narrowed as she looked at Sable more closely. “When’s your baby due?”

  “She’s carrying?” Morse exclaimed.

  “If you’d been using your eyes instead of what’s between your legs, you’d’ve noticed.”

  Sable and the children were still in their nightclothes. Sable’s growing stomach was easy to discern beneath the light flannel gown.

/>   Morse stepped closer to her. “Well, well, well. Guess I’ll have to wait until you whelp before I can breed you. No matter. I can wait.”

  He turned back to Hazel, and the smile on his face chilled Sable down to her toes. “Touch my daughter and I will send you to hell,” she warned.

  “He won’t, or he’ll answer to me,” Sally Ann promised. She swept toward the door, saying over her shoulder, “I won’t have them in the house, Henry. Bed them down in the quarters, then come eat.”

  Sable looked down the row of dilapidated cabins that had once housed slaves and was reminded of another place, another time. For the sake of the children, she did not give voice to her fear that they might, indeed, be forced to live out their lives under Morse’s control. Instead, she prayed to everyone in heaven who’d ever loved her to grant her the will to survive until she could take her children home.

  She settled upon the least damaged cabin. It had a partially intact roof and walls that were more or less standing upright. There was no bedding, of course, or any candles. Sighing, she turned to her son and daughters. “This will be home for a while, but only for a while. We’ll get back home, I promise.”

  Blythe peered around the dark place. “Sable, I’m scared.”

  Sable pulled them all into her arms. “We’re going to cry just this once, okay?”

  The girls nodded, tears already streaming down their brown cheeks. Through her own tears she saw Cullen standing in a corner, his face set like stone.

  “Cullen?”

  He didn’t answer, so Sable held the girls and prayed.

  Since it was almost full dark by now, Sable tried to figure out how and where they could sleep. They’d had nothing to eat since the stale bread and water Morse had tossed them for breakfast, and she was certain the children were starving.

  Sally Ann appeared in the cabin’s doorway with blankets in her arms and a pot that bore the scent of collards in her hand. She dropped the blankets to the ground, set the pot beside it, and left without saying a word.

  The next morning at the crack of dawn she returned. “Get up. It’s time to start the day.”

  Sable and her children roused themselves slowly.

  “Sable, I need your signature on this work contract.”

  “I’m not signing anything, Sally Ann.”

  “Either sign or I’ll send these children away so fast your head will spin off your neck. Sign.”

  It was yet another threat Sable didn’t want to test, so she took the pen from Sally Ann’s impatient hand and reluctantly signed her name to a contract she couldn’t even read in the dim light.

  “Good. You and the children are here for life, so go join Henry in the fields. He’s waiting.”

  “I’m hungry, Sable,” Blythe said sleepily.

  Sally Ann snapped, “You work and then you eat, not before—now get moving.”

  They trudged out to the field where Morse was standing. He handed them scythes and hoes. “We’re going to clear this land. Let’s get started.”

  Six days later, when Raimond returned to New Orleans, the news that Sable and the children had been taken by night riders almost brought him to his knees.

  A stricken Archer reached out to keep him upright, but Raimond pulled away angrily. “How could you have let this happen?” he raged at his brothers. “There are four of you, dammit, and between you you couldn’t keep them safe?! Damn you all!”

  He wanted to turn over every piece of furniture in his mother’s house, smash every window.

  The grief in his brothers’ faces did not soften his rage. “Why did you let her stay there at night? You should have made her come home, dragged her here if necessary.”

  Juliana had had enough. “Raimond, stop this! Can’t you see the pain in their faces? They’ve exhausted themselves searching for her and the children.”

  “I don’t care about their pain or their exhaustion. It’s my wife who’s gone, my children!”

  “And how is this tirade helping to find them?” his mother snapped. “How many arguments have you won from Sable?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Not many, I’m guessing. Your wife is a very determined woman, you know that as well as I do. She was determined to spend her nights there so the orphans—her orphans, Raimond—would not be afraid. We are all worried sick, have been for six days. You love her, yes, but so do we!”

  He knew his mother was right. Sable was not a woman to be deterred once she made up her mind. “One of you should have stayed with her,” he echoed tightly. “She shouldn’t’ve been alone.”

  Drake admitted quietly, “We know.”

  Raimond whispered, “I’ll lose my mind if they aren’t found.”

  A somber silence settled over the room.

  Beau told Raimond, “We’ve been searching everywhere since she and the children were taken. No one knows who the men were or where they went. We found the orphans’ cook and the housekeeper dead behind the house. They’d been shot.”

  “How many of the orphans were taken?” Raimond asked as his world crumbled around him.

  “Six,” Drake replied. “Four boys, two girls.”

  “They’re being forced to work for some White man someplace, I’m guessing.”

  “We think so too,” Phillipe put in. “We found homes for the other nine while you were away, but those six could be anywhere. Anywhere.”

  “So could Sable,” Raimond added. “And that’s what most scares me—they could be anywhere by now.”

  “So what do we do?” asked Phillipe.

  Raimond didn’t know. His brothers appeared to have covered every avenue. “I know Morse has something to do with this. I feel it in my bones. Did you check the deed office?”

  “In every parish within one hundred miles. There is no record of a Henry Morse owning property, or for a woman named Sally Ann Fontaine or Sally Ann Morse.”

  Raimond had no idea how he’d survive if Sable and the children were never found. He prayed they were still alive. There were so many things the four of them had yet to do, so many places he’d wanted them to see. The idea that he might never hold the child she was sheltering in her womb compounded his anguish. Where were they? He hadn’t even told Sable how much he loved her or begged her forgiveness for not believing her claims of innocence regarding the Baker affair. So many things had been left undone and unsaid that he’d give up everything he owned just to hold her in his arms again. But he didn’t even know where to begin looking.

  Juliana’s soft voice interrupted his thoughts. “Raimond, what shall we do?”

  He replied in a voice as soft as her own. “I don’t know, Mama. I don’t know.”

  Raimond spent the next day retracing his brother’s steps, but he turned up no new clues. He contacted friends in the Freedmen’s Bureau, old army acquaintances, missionaries, and anyone else he thought could offer assistance. Archer had put up broadsides in his hotel and restaurant, and Phillipe continued combing the docks. The Tribune had been running a notice about Sable’s disappearance, and the disappearance of the orphans, since the day after the orphanage’s torching. The editors used their influence and contacted Black newspapers as far east as Richmond and as far west as Topeka, but they heard nothing in response. By the end of the second week, losing hope, Raimond felt he was going out of his mind.

  Chapter 16

  Sable and her children had been in Paradise for over two weeks. Morse forced them to clear land from dawn to dusk. They’d all become slightly thinner due to the lack of quality meals, but Sable’s baby was still kicking and growing so she assumed it was fine. She guessed that Raimond had returned from Mobile by now and was half out of his mind with worry. She hoped he wouldn’t fault his brothers for her disappearance. She could only blame herself for not listening when the Brats expressed their well-founded concerns.

  Sable’s biggest concern at the moment had to do with the way Morse continued to stare at Hazel. He watched her with the same intensity he’d watched Sable when she’
d been Hazel’s age. Hazel ignored him, but Sable did not. Remembering the rumors from back home surrounding the deaths of two of his young female slaves, she made a point of keeping her daughter in sight at all times. Cullen seemed to be of like mind. Sable noticed that whenever Morse approached Hazel about anything, her brother always came to stand at her side.

  Sally Ann made no attempt to veil her contempt for Sable and avoided any contact unless it was absolutely necessary. When Sable asked her about Mavis, Sally Ann declared she knew no one by that name.

  Clearing the fields was hard, grueling work. Morse still had the mentality of a slave owner in the sense that he expected as much work from Blythe as he did from Cullen, and of course, the work was not going fast enough for him. On several occasions he angrily accused them of slacking and threatened to lay a whip across their backs, but as Sable so angrily pointed out to him, they were three children and a pregnant woman; they were working as fast and as hard as they could.

  One day, when Sable asked if he had been among the night riders who’d terrorized the orphanage, he denied it, admitting only, “I contracted with them, told them what I wanted done, and they did it. It wasn’t hard convincing them; they relish making misery for you people. Emancipation is the worst thing to ever happen to the South, and they’re willing to do whatever’s necessary to make sure you people don’t rise above your natural place.”

  Sable wondered how anyone could be so consumed with hatred that they’d take it out on defenseless children, but having been a slave, she knew men like Morse and his friends were certain they were doing what was necessary to preserve their way of life. “So how did you learn about the orphanage?” she asked.

  “That wasn’t hard. You’re fairly well known. So’s your husband. After I saw you at the dressmakers, all I had to do was ask around. After my friends were done with the orphanage, they brought you and your brood to a prearranged spot outside town. I paid them and they slipped away. Now, enough questions. Get back to work.”