O’Malley’s hand dropped to the ground. Lifeless eyes stared ahead and David O’Malley parted from the world that had so wounded him.
Matthew sat there in silence a moment, saying a prayer of thanks for the Lord’s incomprehensible mercy. O’Malley’s tortured soul had finally found rest.
Matthew ran his hand over O’Malley’s face, closing his eyes. “Find your peace, now. The war is done.”
Two hours later, with trembling, bloody fingers, Matthew pried the casing back from the doorframe with a snap. He studied the gap in between. If only he had something….
Stepping around O’Malley’s body, Matthew picked up the chair and snapped off one of the legs. It was thin, but it might do. Matthew shoved it into the crack and pushed on the lever he’d created. The wood groaned. “Come on, just a bit more,” he coaxed.
The gap widened and Matthew shoved the tapered leg in farther, then pulled again. “Come on…”
It snapped and the wood in his hand splintered, sending shards into his hand as he lost his balance. With a groan, Matthew dropped the broken chair leg and looked back at the door. At least he’d made enough room that he could get his fingers in….
Matthew put both hands into the space between the splintered frame and the door, and then braced one leg against the stone wall. He pulled, struggling with all his might and ignoring the blood that flowed from his palms and dripped down his forearms.
Matthew screamed and gave a mighty yank, and something popped free, sending him sprawling backward and onto O’Malley’s body. Matthew quickly rolled back up to his feet and snatched the lantern up from the floor. Cautiously, he stepped through the doorway that now stood open.
On the other side, a set of narrow stairs led up to yet another thick door. Light seeped under the crack in the bottom, giving him hope. What would he find on the other side?
Matthew glanced down at his bare chest, his coat and shirt sleeves having been sacrificed to O’Malley’s bleeding, and then held the lantern back up toward the room he now guessed to be some kind of unused cellar. He shook his head and turned back to the stairs. Better to emerge into the unknown bare-chested than soaked in another’s blood.
Matthew eased up the stairs and placed his bloody hand on the knob, saying a prayer he would not have to try to break through another door. Holding his breath, he twisted his wrist.
The knob turned easily, and Matthew swung the door open to a room flooded with light. He braced himself against the frame and blinked until his eyes adjusted. He stood on the threshold of a cabin of some type. He took in the small space in one sweeping glance.
A stone hearth laid cold, and a layer of dust settled on humble furnishings. Matthew stood there for a moment, wondering who the abandoned place belonged to and what had happened to them.
He put his back to the wall and crossed to a glassless window, pushing aside a tattered curtain. Birdsong filtered through from a quiet meadow beyond. Matthew let the curtain fall back and walked over to a cupboard by the hearth and began opening drawers, leaving bloody fingerprints as evidence of his time here.
Finally, in the bottom drawer he found something of use. Two tattered rags would serve well enough for his sore hands, at least until he had opportunity to properly clean and wrap them. He glanced back toward the cellar door. What to do about O’Malley?
There was only one thing that could be done.
He crossed the plank floor and stepped out onto a porch that had begun to sag on one side and then into an open field surrounded on all sides by towering trees. He looked up to find the sun in the pristine blue sky and judged it to be around four in the afternoon. Not much time, but perhaps enough.
He circled around to the back of the cabin and found what he hoped—a rusted pick and an axe. A spade would have been better, but this would do. Hefting the pick over his shoulder, Matthew chose a place at the edge of the woods, under the shade of an ancient oak and began to dig.
By the time the sun began to dip behind the trees, Matthew had shouldered O’Malley’s body and carried him to the grave he hoped would be deep enough to keep animals at bay. He placed the body in the ground, and then reached down to grab a pinch of dirt, and sprinkled it on the man below. “Dust we were, and to dust we return. Rest well now, your soul is at peace.”
It seemed too little by way of funeral rights, but it was all Matthew could muster. With numb hands and tired feet, Matthew shoved the loosened dirt back into the hole and then patted it down.
When he had finished, sweat, dirt, and dried blood caked his trembling muscles. He found a pump and worked the rusted handle, but it produced no water for either his filth or his thirst.
Matthew returned the tools to where he found them, and then stepped back into the cabin. He’d seen a buckskin coat on a peg by the door that would serve as covering, once he found somewhere to wash himself. He shook it out, then slung it over his shoulder and stepped back outside.
Then, choosing the only direction that he hoped would eventually lead him home, Matthew squared his shoulders and started south.
“Every loyal heart must suffer the terrible shock, and swell with overburdening grief at the calamity which has been permitted to befall us, in the assassination of the Chief Magistrate.”
New York World
Rosswood Plantation
July 3, 1865
I think perhaps it is time I go, Annabelle. I do not think you need me here any longer,” George said, wiping the sweat from his brow after he placed down his latest offering—a small bench Peggy had requested that would eventually go to the kitchen. He wasn’t much by way of a carpenter, but the makeshift table and wobbly chairs he’d managed to construct would at least keep his future sister from having to sit on the floor.
Annabelle looked up at him from her perch, a width of log turned on its side and smoothed enough so as not to snag the lady’s skirts. “I suspected you wouldn’t be long with such an announcement.” She dropped a pea hull into the wooden bowl at her feet and reached down to grab another handful to put in the basket in her lap. Her deft fingers worked quickly, and George noticed that the skin around her nails was stained green.
Peggy grunted an agreement, and his eyes drifted over to her. She wore the same style cotton day dress as Annabelle, and her fingers worked on the peas even more efficiently than the lady’s. He took in the two of them, struck by just how much four years of war had changed their lives.
“Where shall you go?” Annabelle probed, turning questioning eyes on him.
It was a question ripe with insinuation, and he looked at his feet. “To try to right a wrong, and then home to my mother at Westerly, where I am long overdue. The news sheets say the trial is over. It shouldn’t be much longer before Matthew returns.”
Worry skittered over her eyes, though she tried to suppress it. George inwardly cringed. So far, no word had arrived from his brother. He softened his tone. “You know the post service has been dreadfully behind.”
She plucked more purple hulled peas from their shells and offered him a fictitious smile. “Of course.” Then she brightened. “I wish you the best of luck on your quest.”
He smirked. “That I do not doubt. You’ve not been subtle in your opinion on the matter.”
Annabelle ducked her chin to try to hide the upturn of her lips.
“So, is you goin’ to New York? That where this wrong that needs to be righted is?” Peggy asked, her brown eyes boring into him.
George studied the woman he’d grown rather fond of these past weeks at Rosswood. She was brashly honest in a way most people weren’t, though her words were tempered with kindness. He’d seen the affection between her and Annabelle, and the more he’d spent time around Rosswood and the more nights he spent on his knees in prayer, the more his mindset had changed.
He put his hands in his pockets and gave her a sheepish grin. “I was thinking of riding that way, yes.”
“Hmm. You know it ain’t gonna be no easy thing.”
Annabelle
jerked her chin up and dropped a half-shelled pea hull. “Peggy! Don’t you go trying to discourage him!”
Peggy lifted her eyebrows and huffed. “That poor girl done been through enough. She’s got a fence around her heart, sure enough. And even if she didn’t, after that…” Peggy looked up at George, embarrassed, and trailed off.
Annabelle bit her lip. “Well, I still think he should try.”
George watched a silent argument go on between the two women by way of flashing eyes. He cleared his throat. They both turned to him, as though they had forgotten he stood there. How many times had they discussed him?
George ran his hand through his hair. “I have no delusions that the future I had once hoped for can still exist.” He pushed past emotions that tried to gather in his throat. “However, my actions were…unacceptable. But the Lord has done a work in me I hope she’ll see. I must tell her of my regrets, and, in time, I pray she’ll be able to forgive me.”
Annabelle put aside her basket and rose to place a hand on George’s arm. “Oh, George. Please don’t give up on the feelings I know you have for her.”
George shifted uncomfortably. He’d always been more controlled with his emotions, not flinging them about for the world to see as Matthew had. How had he become a man so easily read? Somehow, the beautiful woman that both his rearing and the law said he should not love had undone him. How cruel to have finally found the one he yearned for in both body and spirit only to find she would never stand by his side.
As though reading his thoughts, Annabelle squeezed his arm, her gaze bright as she studied him. “Lilly is a fine lady, George. Where she was born means so little, especially now.” She gestured toward the stump she had vacated. “Why, just look at me. Born into a high family, and yet here I am staining my calloused hands with pea hulls.”
George swallowed, unable to give the chuckle that the levity in her voice tried to tease out.
She gave a small shake of her head, and bits of golden hair that had escaped her pins stirred about her face. “Our world’s not what it once was, George.”
He glanced again at Peggy, who watched him openly, then looked back to his future sister. “Indeed. Much has changed. Though not enough.”
Annabelle crossed her arms and looked past George across the barren fields of Rosswood. “Many fought for changes, and many fought for things to stay as they were. I fear that nothing will come easy anymore. Whatever we want out of the days ahead, we will have to work for them.” She swung her gaze back to George. “What future are you willing to fight for?”
Peggy gave a soft chuckled. “That’s my Miss Belle. Never did give no mind to what color package a soul comes in.”
Unbidden images from his dream on the train flashed through George’s mind and he clenched his hands, a million reasons against the idea pounding against one relentless truth—he loved Lilly. He shook his head. “It isn’t possible.”
Annabelle opened her mouth to protest, but George continued before she had the chance to pelt him with foolish hopes. “Even if Lilly could forgive me, and if she cared enough for me to accept me, it still isn’t possible.”
Annabelle looked annoyed. “Why not?”
“What of the anti-miscegenation laws?”
Surprise bloomed on her face and she twisted her hands at her waist. “Oh.”
Indeed. George had thought deeply on such things, when he had spent his nights going through all the possibilities left to him. Even if Lilly forgave and accepted him, she could never be his bride. He thought he’d come to accept that fate, but the tightening his chest evidenced the contrary.
Annabelle seemed to find her tongue again. She wagged a finger at him. “Surely those things will no longer be upheld since slavery has been abolished.”
George gave her an even look, and she faltered. He admired her determined hopefulness, but he knew better. Things had not changed as much as she thought. If anything, he believed resentment between the races would only increase. “Even if that were the case, there will always be those that would hate my family for it. What life would that be for her and Frankie?”
“A right sad thing, that,” Peggy said, not looking up from her work.
George agreed, but said nothing more as Annabelle floundered for an argument that would not hold water.
“But if some folks don’t start trying to make things change,” Peggy continued, her eyes not leaving her peas, “and is not brave enough to fight through the hate, then how’s things ever going to be different?”
Unable to refute the simple logic, George couldn’t help the smile that curved his lips. “Wise words, for a cook.”
Peggy turned up the corner of her mouth. “Funny how that works, ain’t it?”
She glanced up to exchange a look with George, and he saw in her deep brown eyes both worry and compassion. He’d come to discover that Peggy was a woman quick in her wits and with a keen insight into the thoughts and motivations of those around her. She tore down every notion that her people lacked the mental capacity their masters possessed.
Sensing his discomfort, she flashed him a smile. “I say, Mr. Daniels, that you is a changed man.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but she pointed a finger at him. “But even so, if you want that girl, you is goin’ to have to fight for her. Maybe even the whole world to do it, but if you have decided that she’s worth it, then you needs to be man enough to win her and keep her.”
George gaped at Peggy, never before having his manhood challenged by a woman of color.
Annabelle laughed. “Indeed.” She brushed her hands on the apron hanging in front of her skirt. “So, when do you plan to go?”
George found his composure again and tugged on his broadcloth jacket. “At first light tomorrow. Your uncle has been kind enough to lend me a horse.”
A smile played on her mouth. “How generous of him.”
“That’s only because he’s ready to see you go,” Peggy quipped.
Annabelle turned her eyes to the heavens. “Peggy, you still have a great deal to learn about propriety. There are some things you simply don’t speak aloud.”
George chuckled. “She speaks truth, and we all know it.”
Annabelle bit her lower lip. “I don’t think my uncle dislikes you. He simply has concerns about….” Her voice wavered, and she had to draw a breath to steady herself.
George gripped her shoulder. “I understand. Matthew will be here soon, Annabelle, and you’ll be my sister in no time.”
She gave a tight nod, and George wondered if she doubted that were true. Then the light returned to her eyes and she smirked at him. “I hope you’ll manage to provide me a sister as well.”
He knew she meant the words in hopeful humor, but they still stung. Had he followed his heart, and even the Lord’s own will, weeks ago, such a thing might have been possible. Now…well, he had little optimism for anything beyond begging forgiveness. “I will go to her,” he finally said with a glance at Peggy, “and try to fight an impossible battle, but I would not put too much hope in it.”
Annabelle cocked her head. “On the contrary, I believe that is exactly what we should do. If we do not hope and pray for better, then we are resigned to things as they are.” She looked up at him with blue eyes that brimmed with sincerity. “A woman knows when you hope for her, George. Show her that.”
George nodded, feeling too many emotions to risk embarrassing himself further with wavering words.
Annabelle returned to the stool he’d made for her and replaced the basket in her lap. “Now, I need to get back to these peas. Peggy’s going to show me how to cook them, and if they are to be ready by supper, I’d better hurry.”
How the two of them had managed to revive an abandoned garden and coax food from the earth was a miracle George’s stomach revered.
A few hours later he took his place at the rough-hewn table at the end opposite of Michael. The women came in and placed bowls of peas, okra, and potatoes on the table, and the smell awakened
the hunger that hours spent at hard labor had produced.
“Sorry there still ain’t no meat,” Peggy said as she took her seat between the men and opposite Annabelle at the small dining space.
Michael Ross glanced at Peggy, but his discomfort with her sitting by his side at the four person table seemed to lessen with each meal. George tapped a finger on the base of his fork, nearly bemused at the situation. Changes, indeed.
They served themselves the vegetables, passing the bowls around with an easy familiarity George had not often experienced, especially among the genteel. When all had made the rounds, and Michael asked grace over the food, George took a bite of his peas and looked to Annabelle. “They turned out quite well. I’d say your cooking skills are coming along wonderfully.”
Michael grunted. “I still don’t see why a lady needs to learn such things.”
Annabelle looked to the ceiling as though petitioning the Almighty for patience. Then she turned a sweet smile to her uncle. “It is a useful skill, Uncle Michael. One of many I have learned these past years.”
Michael’s brow furrowed. “I must get this place restored before my niece is nothing more than a commoner. What would your father think to see you so?”
Annabelle straightened. “I should hope that he would be proud to see that I have found the strength necessary to persevere through the hardships that have befallen us.”
Michael’s eyes softened. “Of course, Anna. I meant no offense. Only that it would pain him to see the changes this war as wrought.”
She lowered her eyes. “Not all of the changes are bad, Uncle.”
She didn’t look at him, but George knew that Annabelle’s words were directed at him. He glanced at Peggy, but the other woman kept her focus on her plate.
They continued the meal in silence, and when all had been consumed, Michael sat back and regarded George. “I feel that I should thank you for all you have done here. I did not expect you to labor so much for us while you tarried.”
George dipped his chin, choosing to focus more on the gratitude than the slight. “No thanks required. It was little enough that I was able to do for my future sister.”
The Liberator Series Box Set: Christian Historical Civil War Novels Page 86
