“Hey! Who’s letting out the Rebel scum?” Tom shouted. The hall filled with the angry buzz of dozens of other prisoners as they pushed their bodies to the bars, many waving their hands out into the hallway.
Annabelle began to pant and had to grab the bars to keep from crumbling. Grandmother arched her back at Mr. Crook and pinned him with a glare that could melt iron. “Do not make me remind you of your debt, William.”
Mr. Crook turned the key with a jerk and yanked the door open. Peggy rushed inside, looping her arm around Annabelle’s waist and pulling her close. “Come on, now, honey. I’s got you.”
Annabelle trembled and stepped out into the hall, not daring to look at Mr. Crook lest he change his mind and throw her back inside. Grandmother offered no comfort, but the anger in her eyes gave Annabelle courage. She straightened herself and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear.
Grandmother offered a slight dip of her chin by way of encouragement, then turned and began to stalk toward the door. Mr. Crook made an odd noise in his throat and then stiffly followed after her. Peggy clasped Annabelle’s arm, and she forced her chin high as she began to walk down the line behind Grandmother and the lawman.
“Rebel tart!”
“Murderous traitor!”
“Filthy liar!”
Each call built onto the other until pain that burned her like the brander’s iron began to stoke a flame of anger in her heart. How dare they! They knew nothing about her. They didn’t know that she had long been a Unionist in her heart. But looking at the loathing in their eyes, the fury they flung from uncivilized mouths, she almost wished she hadn’t. Maybe Matthew had been right all along. He called them Blue Devils. Evil men set on nothing but coming down to the South and burning, pillaging, and steeling everything from them. All they wanted to do was destroy!
Heat burned in her stomach until it began to sizzle along her skin, racing like currents of lightning across a sinister sky. The Yanks did this! They were the ones that invaded the South! They were the ones who couldn’t just leave them alone. Leave them to their way of life and…and…
Her breath caught and suddenly her vision cleared. She clutched Peggy’s arm tighter, and the older woman patted her gently. “There, there. Don’t you pay them no mind. They’s just scared, and they’s taking it out on you. They know ain’t none of this your fault.”
Annabelle’s heart swelled and she remembered why she had turned away from her beloved South. Peggy. The South had fought to keep her a slave, and Annabelle couldn’t agree with them. It had been a long time since she thought about that day, that day when the reality of it all had come crashing down around her.
Amid the shouts of hateful Yankees, Annabelle’s mind traveled back to that sunny spring morning in ’63. The day when the traders came.
“No! Please! Please, no!”
Lacey’s howl had brought Annabelle running down the front stairs and out onto the porch. She stumbled to a halt as she saw the men dragging Eli, Lacey’s young son, across the yard. Peggy grabbed her elbow, drawing quick breaths from hastily chasing Annabelle through the house.
“Inside, Miss Belle!” Peggy pleaded, glancing back toward the house.
Annabelle snatched her arm away. “No. I want to know what’s going on.”
A pained look skittered across Peggy’s face as she looked at Lacey. Two of the field foreman held the kitchen woman’s arms as she thrashed between them. “Please! Please, don’t take him!”
The hairs on the back of Annabelle’s neck stood on end as another group of men rounded the side of the house, prodding a group of dark-skinned boys ranging from about seven years to young men almost to a man’s full height with long metal pokers. The boys’ eyes looked wide and white in their dark faces, and they kept glancing at the wagons waiting at the end of the walk.
Father came around behind them, talking to a white man in a wide-brimmed hat. The man looked like a bull. Thick, burly arms stuck out from his rolled sleeves, and a massive neck bulged from his open collar. Annabelle could only stare at him as Peggy tugged on her arm.
She shot Peggy an impatient look. “Stop it! I will stay right here until I know what is happening.”
Peggy pressed her lips into a line and dropped her eyes. “Yes, mistress.”
Annabelle gathered her sage silk skirts and hurried down the stairs. When Father saw her, he quickly excused himself from the beefy man. “A moment, Byram.”
The man gave Annabelle a look that made her feel odd, and then turned away. Father came to her side, grasping her arm and leaning his head close to her ear.
“What are you doing down here, darling? You are supposed to be tending your pianoforte lessons.”
“What’s happening, Father?” She threw a curious gaze over to Lacey, who had ceased protesting and stood wailing between the men who held her.
Father put his lips into a thin line and gazed down at Annabelle as though he were contemplating just what he was going to tell her.
Lacey continued to sob, and her anguished cries shook Annabelle’s nerves to the point that she had to get out her fan and create a breeze, lest she faint of this heat and noise. Father noticed her distress and turned on his heel, pointing to Lacey. “Get her out of here!”
The two foremen hooked their arms under Lacey’s elbows and started dragging her back around the side of the house. Annabelle watched them go until they disappeared behind the rose bushes and then looked back at Father to see him gazing at her intently. “I had hoped to discuss this with you before they arrived, but they have come two days early.”
“Early?”
The beefy man began shouting out orders to three other men, and they started loading the boys on the backs of the wagons. Father cupped her elbow and led her back to the front porch. “Darling, you know that we are at war and….”
Annabelle waved her hand. “Oh, yes, Father. But surely they are nearly finished with all that fighting off in Virginia.”
Father’s eyes softened. “No, dear. I’m afraid that’s not the case.”
Annabelle tilted her head. “Whatever do you mean? You said the war would be over soon. You said it wouldn’t possibly go on once the North saw how well the South was holding its own.”
Father guided her over to the chairs on the porch and gently eased her down into one. He looked so handsome in his ivory broadcloth jacket, and she didn’t like the way his frown marred the strong lines of his face. She rarely ever saw Father upset. She glanced back over to the wagon where they had loaded the rest of the boys. Perhaps they were the cause.
“Where are they going, Father?”
He turned his gaze away from her and tugged on his collar. “I’m selling them.”
“To where?”
He reached up and ran a finger through his dark hair, where only a few streaks of silver shimmered in their auburn waves. “I don’t know, darling. They are going to auction.”
Annabelle’s brow gathered. “But what about their families?”
Father patted her hand. “Don’t you worry yourself over things like that. Slaves aren’t like us. They don’t think of families in the same way we do.”
Annabelle’s frown deepened as she glanced at Peggy. Peggy had been her mammy since she was born. Had loved her and comforted her when she lost her mother. Peggy certainly seemed to love in just the same ways as Annabelle. Surely Father must be mistaken. Her gaze darted back to the wagon where the boys sat, hanging their heads. Lacey sure seemed as though she was upset about them leaving. “Are you sure, Father?”
“Of course I am, darling. You don’t worry about these things. They are not for a lady to have to fret over.”
Annabelle offered the smile she knew he wanted, but she still wasn’t so sure. Something seemed terribly wrong. “But why are you selling them? None of them have ever left before.”
Father looked out to where the beefy man stood and then turned his azure eyes back on her. The worry she saw within them sent her heart fluttering. “I’m afraid t
his war has changed things. I’ve already lost a dozen of the field hands. They took off during the night last week to run north.”
Annabelle put a hand to her throat and looked at Peggy again. Peggy wouldn’t leave her, would she?
“Don’t worry,” Father said, misreading her concern. “I have men looking for them. There’s a fugitive slave law. We’ll get them back.”
Annabelle watched Peggy’s shifting form for a moment and then looked to the wagon before finally turning her attention back to her father, trying to understand things that felt just out of her grasp. Why would they want to run away? This was their home. Annabelle couldn’t fathom wanting to run off to the hostile northern lands.
Father sighed, drawing her attention back to the lines on his face that made him appear old. “I thought it better I go ahead and sell off some of the younger ones and try to still get a good price for them while I can. But don’t you worry. There’ll still be plenty here to keep things going when I’m gone.”
Annabelle’s heart began thumping wildly. “Gone?”
“It’s time I join the fight,” Father said softly, his eyes begging her to understand something she could not.
Annabelle jumped to her feet. “No! You can’t! You’re supposed to stay here. The law says that any man that owns more than twenty slaves doesn’t have to join.”
Father rose slowly and placed his hands on her shoulders. “I can’t let other men fight for me, now can I? What kind of man does that make me?”
Annabelle looked down at his polished boots.
“The war is coming closer, Annabelle.” A hint of frustration snaked through his words and settled heavy on Annabelle’s ears. “I have to go and protect our home. Protect you.”
Annabelle’s eyes watered and as she looked up at Father, tears spilled over despite her effort to contain them. “But who will stay here with me?”
He smiled. “Sarah’s father is coming to stay with you. Don’t fret now, he’ll take good care of everything when I’m gone, and in a few months, when I get home, everything will go back to just the way it was.”
Just the way it was….
The shouts in the hall grew louder as Annabelle neared the prison door, jarring her out of her thoughts. Nothing had ever been the same after that. In some ways, she was glad. How could she have been so blind? How had she looked upon the people of Rosswood for all those years and never really seen them? She’d even been mad when they’d first run away. She shook her head. How foolish she’d been. How childish.
Annabelle stepped out of the main door and felt a shiver of relief as it slammed behind her, muffling the screams in the hall. Annabelle kept her eyes down as the stone floors turned to the gravel drive and finally to the welcomed steps of Grandmother’s carriage. But it wasn’t until the door latched her safely inside that she finally believed she would be free.
Rocks crunched under the wheels as the carriage rolled away from that horrible place. When gravel turned to the steady rhythm of the cobbled streets, the air left her lungs in a rush.
“Peggy! Grandmother!”
The spell hanging over them dissipated like fog under the morning sun, and the three women fell into each other’s arms on the floor of the carriage and cried the rest of the way back to the hotel.
“What must be Mother’s feelings at this time? With herself in prison and unaware of my safety. How did they discover her connection with the affair? Someone must have betrayed her.”
John Surratt
Shouts drifted on the air like languid seagulls, floating in and out of George’s consciousness like oscillating lights. He groaned and put his arms over his head, trying to get the foul things to cease pecking at his brain.
“Rebel tart!”
George shifted, removing his arm from over his head and using his fingers to massage his temples. When he’d awoken on the cold cell floor after his first night in the prison, it had been to a searing pain at the base of his skull. He’d pulled himself up onto the cot and sought the solace of sleep to leach away the ache. Somewhere in the back of his memory an army doctor warned about sleeping with head injuries, but George simply couldn’t bring himself to care.
Besides, little good it would have done him. He had tried to stay awake and had only gained the injury because of it. The muffled shouts grew louder, accompanied by the banging of metal upon metal. George turned himself onto his back and willed his crusted eyes to open. It took several tries and a bit of scrubbing, but after a time he was rewarded with the dismal view of his prison cell.
Stone walls, stone floor, and cold bars without even the comfort of a window to let in fresh air or a bit of light. Judging by the way the gloom filtered through the shadows, George guessed it to be sometime in the day. When he had awoken at night, the putrid darkness had only been broken by the single lantern hanging somewhere farther down the hall, its meager light scarcely enough to be a tiny lighthouse on a sea of inky shadows.
George swung his feet over the side of the cot and sat up, waiting a moment as his vision fuzzed and then finally cleared. His gaze traveled over the gray floor and to the bottom of the bars where two trays of food had been left. Running a dry tongue over cracked lips, George slowly gained his feet and took an unsteady step forward.
The shouts coming from somewhere on the far side of the prison had gained the attention of the others on his wing, and as he drew near to the bars he could see two men in the cell across the hall staring at him. Neither said anything. George dropped down to his knees beside the nearest tray and studied the contents. Two bits of stale bread that had been nibbled by rats and a pile of mush that even they wouldn’t eat gave off a faint putrid odor that twisted his stomach. He plucked the tin cup of water off the tray and pushed the rest of it away.
The cool, stale water cut like a river through his desert throat, and he gulped it so quickly he began coughing.
“See, I told you he wasn’t dead.”
George wiped a dirty sleeve over his mouth and darted his gaze over to the two men shrouded in shadows across the hall. One of them poked a hand through the bars and wiggled his fingers at George.
“You, there. You all right?”
George stared at him for a moment before turning to search out the other tray. Perhaps it had some water as well. He crawled across the floor, feeling out with his hand until his fingers touched the smooth metal of the tray that had slid almost to the far back corner, coming to rest next to the chamber pot. He groped for the cup and touched the rim of it, knocking it over with a faint clang. George yelped and scrambled to scoop it up, but the damage had already been done. He put the cup to his lips and downed the last remaining swallows, then leaned back against the wall.
“Hey, you. Over there. The fellow kneeling at the pot.”
George rolled the back of his skull against the stone wall and turned his gaze outside the cell. Silence went on for so long that George thought he must have imagined it.
“He can’t even hear you, you fool. I told you. If he ain’t dead, then he’s some kind of dumb mute without his wits.” The harsh whisper plucked at George’s ears and he narrowed his eyes to try to get a better look at the two figures across from him. Nothing else made a sound, and George wondered if they were the only people in here.
“I can hear you,” George said, his thick words coming out in little more than a rasp. He cleared his throat. “I can hear you,” he said again, stronger this time. His voice sounded foreign to him, the scratchy croak of an old man. “I’m not a mute.” Or a man without wits. He hoped.
“See? I told you,” the other one said. “Hey, fellow, come over here.”
George stared at them for a moment, then decided that speaking to someone else might be the only thing that would keep his sanity in check. Drawing a long breath to shove aside the dull throbbing in his skull, George shifted onto his knees and crawled over to the bars.
The other two watched as George settled back against the wall, drawing his knees up. He waited, but nei
ther of them spoke again. He had just begun to fear that he had imagined their presence when the one who’d claimed George was a witless mute spoke up.
“We thought you were dead over there, seeing as how you ain’t moved in two days.”
“Two days?” George croaked.
“Yeah,” the other said. “You were standing in the middle of the cell when we were brought in.”
The other huffed. “Kind of creepy, if you ask me.”
“Sorry,” George mumbled. Neither seemed to have heard him.
“Then you dropped to the floor and we thought for sure you were dead.”
George was as surprised as they were that he wasn’t, in fact, dead. Unless, of course, he was dead and this was hell. Panic swelled for a brief time before he shook his head. No. He’d given his faith to the Savior two nights after the battle of Corinth. This might be a version of Hades, but it sat past the Union lines, deep in Yankee territory, and not somewhere below the earth. Fitting, really, if you asked George. In his experience, everything north of Virginia bore a mark of Hades. Well, except for that one little place in New York where an angel resided.
“I hit my head, must have knocked me out,” George offered, reaching up to gently prod at the sore place on the back of his head.
One of the men grunted. “When we woke up and saw you on the cot, we started taking bets on if you would get up again.” He nudged his companion. “You owe me your bread.”
The other man waved him off. “Fine, fine.”
“Why are you here?” George asked.
Both men scooted closer and pressed their faces to the bars, enough so that George could see their sparse whiskers poking through the slats. “We work at Pumphrey’s Stable,” the one on the left replied, as if that were answer enough.
George just stared at them.
The one on the right nudged the other. “Maybe he don’t know.”
“Know what?” George asked.
“The president’s been assassinated.”
George sighed. “That, I do know. I was there.”
The Liberator Series Box Set: Christian Historical Civil War Novels Page 65
