American Dreams Trilogy

by Michael Phillips

“You know… your wife.”

  “My wife!” exclaimed Seth in a bewildered tone, breaking into a half smile of utter confusion. “What are you talking about!”

  “Veronica, I think her name was.”

  “Veronica!”

  “Yes… the girl you introduced me to.”

  “Veronica and I aren’t married!”

  “But… I thought… didn’t she say you would be married in December… and that was right after our visit?”

  “Oh… you mean… that day we saw her in town!” said Seth. At last the light broke over his face. “Yeah, I could have killed her for that!” he added with a light laugh. “Gosh,” he said, “I’m sorry for the confusion… no, it was nothing like that.”

  “But then, I don’t understand… what—”

  “You thought… I mean, when your father wrote to invite me… you actually thought she was with me!”

  Cherity’s head was spinning.

  “I… I didn’t know… what else to think,” she said, struggling for words.

  At last a serious expression came over Seth’s face as he saw Cherity’s confusion, though he still did not fully grasp what it signified.

  “Veronica was right,” he said. “She and I were sort of engaged.”

  “How can you be sort of engaged?” asked Charity, head still reeling.

  “Well, it’s a long story, and one I’m not particularly proud of,” answered Seth. “It was all a mistake. I broke it off over a year ago. Veronica and I have not seen one another since.”

  Cherity’s face was suddenly very hot.

  “I am sorry for not writing,” said Seth. “To tell you the truth, after the thing with Veronica, I didn’t know what to say. I felt so stupid. I figured you probably thought I was an idiot for being engaged to a girl like that.”

  “I would never think that.”

  “Well if you had, you’d have been right. I was an idiot. But it’s over and done with now. Veronica’s father was appointed to the Senate. He and the family—well, except for Wyatt—all went to Washington where apparently Veronica got herself engaged to the son of an ambassador. Like I said, I haven’t seen her since.”

  “Oh, I… uh… I see.”

  “I guess I’m not much of a letter writer, huh? I’m sorry… I never really thought of writing letters till I left home a few months ago. Then all at once I had to. I was so used to talking to my mom and dad about things. Suddenly they weren’t there so I had to write them.”

  They walked about the garden in silence for a minute or two. It was not like Greenwood’s arbor, with endless paths and walks. They quickly returned to the point where Seth had walked up behind Cherity on the lawn.

  “Are you… uh, all settled in inside?” Cherity asked at length.

  “I suppose. Well… actually all I did was toss my suitcase on the bed. Then I saw you and ran down and outside. I didn’t even open it yet.”

  “Why did you leave Virginia? Was it to visit your sister?”

  “Only partially. There were some unpleasant things going on at home. My dad and I thought it best for me to get away for a while.”

  Briefly he recounted the series of events, leaving out details of the hanging and Malachi’s death.

  “That’s awful!” said Cherity. “Can nothing be done about such people?”

  “Not really. Whatever anyone might do would only make them retaliate all the more. I was worried about my folks and Greenwood.”

  “What about yourself?” said Cherity with obvious concern. “I would be worried about you!”

  “Well, that too!” Seth laughed. “I wasn’t especially anxious to be a target either. But I especially didn’t want to be a target that brought retaliation on anyone else. I thought it would be better for everyone if I was gone for a while. My sister’s husband was stationed in New Haven, so I came up here.”

  By supper a few hours later that evening, Cherity had regained her composure and had hidden away the feelings that had threatened to betray her. She was again the spunky, lively young lady whom Seth remembered from her visit to Greenwood.

  “There is so much I want to show you,” she said enthusiastically. “And we can go riding… it won’t be like where we went in the hills behind Greenwood, but I think you will like it. Can we go riding tomorrow, Daddy?”

  “Give Seth a little time to get settled, Cherity!” her father laughed. “Not everybody was born with quite your energy!”

  “What are you talking about!” said Seth. “I haven’t been on a horse in months. I’m ready!”

  “I was planning to go into the office.”

  “Do you feel well enough, Daddy? You remember what the doctor said.”

  “Oh, what does he know—I feel fine. I thought Seth might like to go with me. I was thinking of making a newspaper man of him.”

  Seth laughed at the prospect. “Me… a journalist!” he said.

  “Actually I had something else in mind,” rejoined Waters. “Or at least something other than journalism in the normal sense.”

  “Can’t it wait a day, Daddy? I want to take Seth riding.”

  “I suppose it might. But I think I will go in anyway. I want to talk to a few people and see what might be available.”

  “Are you seriously thinking that there might be a job at your newspaper?” asked Seth.

  “Why not? It would be better than dock work, I would think. Isn’t that what you said you were doing in New Haven?”

  “Yes, sir. I took the first thing that came along, and that was it.”

  “Well I think you would find newspaper work far more interesting and mentally stimulating. Tell me… what do you know about photography?”

  “Nothing at all,” added Seth with a laugh. “I’ve only just heard of it. What is it?”

  “The reproduction of images, pictures, on paper.”

  “Do you mean art and drawing and that kind of thing?”

  “No, actual photographic reproduction… the transmission of an image, exactly as it is, onto a special kind of paper. It’s new. Your father and I discussed the developments. They are very exciting. It is in the earliest stages of development. Unless I am mistaken, it is a field that will ultimately change the news business, and perhaps much else in the world.”

  “It sounds fascinating. But what does it have to do with me?” asked Seth.

  “Does it sound like something you would be interested in learning more about?”

  “I don’t know, possibly. Why?”

  “My paper is just beginning to develop a photographic staff. We publish a weekly magazine and there are hopes that photographs will eventually be able to be reproduced in its pages. The editor happens to be looking for a field assistant he can train. I heard him talking about it just last week. I think a bright young man like you might be exactly what he wants.”

  “I would be willing to learn,” said Seth. “Do you think I might actually have a chance of getting the job?”

  “I don’t see why you wouldn’t have as good a chance as anyone. That’s one of the things I want to talk to him about tomorrow when I tell him about you.”

  The following afternoon, while Cherity’s father went into the city, Cherity took Seth by buggy to the stables where she kept her horse. Half an hour later they were far from the center of Boston in a wooded region of wide horse paths and roads. As they went, the year and a half since they had seen one another evaporated as if it had been a day. They were young again, happy, carefree, full of exuberance, relishing, though neither would have dared put it into words, the simple pleasure of being together again.

  “We can’t exactly race,” said Cherity when they were away from the stables and, to all appearances, far also from any other human beings. “You never know when you might run into riders or a buggy, and there’s no place like Harper’s Peak to ride to. But shall we have a gallop?”

  “Lead the way!” replied Seth. “I want to feel the wind in my hair!”

  Cherity dug her heels into her horse’s flan
ks. Seconds later they were flying along the wide hard-packed trail.

  They rode and chatted freely for over an hour, catching up on the nineteen months since Cherity and her father had left Greenwood. Cherity was especially interested in their expanding involvement in the Underground Railroad.

  As they made their way back, more slowly now, walking their horses side by side, Seth brought up what that had been on his mind since his arrival.

  “Your father seems… uh, not particularly energetic.”

  Cherity smiled sadly. “He is very ill, Seth.”

  “What is it?”

  “Doctors are vague, and Daddy’s even worse. He’s always trying to downplay it and pretend it’s not really so bad.”

  “But the change in him is obvious. I hardly recognized him.”

  Cherity sighed. “He fell pretty badly before Christmas,” she said. “He was in bed for two weeks.”

  “What happened?”

  “I came on him standing a few steps up from the landing on the stairway, leaning over on the banister as if he could hardly stand.”

  “‘Daddy, what is it!’” I cried as I ran to him. But he couldn’t even answer me. His face was dreadfully pale and his left arm was hanging limp. He was gasping for air as if he could hardly breathe. I ran up the stairs for Mrs. Porterfield and I will never forgive myself for leaving him. For just as I reached the top I heard a thud from below. He had fallen down the two or three steps and was lying on his back on the landing. My scream as I ran back to him brought Mrs. Porterfield running. We let him lie there and gradually he began to come back to himself and breathe more easily and after twenty or thirty minutes we got him to his bed. By the next day he was fine, though of course we had sent for the doctor.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Oh, he talked about excitement of the heart and how my father needed to be careful not to put undue strain on his nervous system and that agitation of all kinds should be avoided. But he’s been telling Daddy all that for years. That was the reason he recommended an extended stay in the country, and why we went to visit your family.”

  “But what is the cause? Is there nothing that can be done?”

  “A weak heart and poor circulation, I think is what it is. After Daddy’s fall he said that there was no immediate danger of a recurrence of the attack. Yet neither could he guarantee that there wouldn’t be. He said it was a disease whose outcome could not be predicted, that sometimes people lived for many years after such an incident, but that sometimes—”

  Cherity glanced away.

  “Sometimes… what?” persisted Seth.

  “Sometimes, where circulation in the arteries and extremities is poor, the heart can fail suddenly without warning.”

  “How has he been since then?”

  “His spirits have been good,” replied Cherity. “But even now I don’t think he’s fully recovered. The bruise on his hip isn’t healing. It’s swollen and discolored. I can’t help but worry. But the doctor says nothing when he comes—just the same thing, keep him from too much excitement. I know Mrs. Porterfield is worried too. Daddy tries to put on a brave front. But I think he is afraid.”

  “Is it really that serious?” Seth asked.

  “I… I don’t know,” replied Cherity, beginning to cry. “But I am afraid it might be. When the doctor spoke about the heart suddenly failing, though he didn’t actually use the word die, I know that’s what he was talking about.”

  Cherity drew in a deep breath and wiped at her eyes.

  “I wrote to both my sisters, without him knowing about it. Their families both came to visit for Christmas and it was a very happy time. But they were shocked to see the change on him too. We are all worried.”

  Forty-Nine

  A black form stole with stealthy step toward an abandoned house in the foothills of central Virginia.

  He had been watching the place most of the day and, perceiving no activity, now dashed across the open field to the front door. He tried the doorknob. It turned. A moment later he was safely inside. He would sleep there for the night.

  The following day, the watcher crept closer to the plantation of which the abandoned house was a part. He was looking for no weathervanes nor wind horses. He knew well enough what manner of people dwelt here. Nevertheless, he would keep watch from a distance, make sure it was safe and that he had not been seen or followed, before making closer approach.

  He must do nothing to endanger the friends who had risked so much on his behalf.

  When Wyatt Beaumont saw the little black figure scampering across the road a hundred yards in front of him, and into the undergrowth, he immediately knew something was wrong. None of their slaves could possibly be this far west, not with loose children running around. And the uppity Davidson blacks weren’t taking to hiding out these days.

  This smelled like runaways. And where there was a kid, there were bound to be more. Slowly Wyatt eased his horse forward until he came to the place where he had seen the bedraggled black urchin disappear.

  He stopped and waited, but heard not a sound. His eyes scanned the brush and woods for any sign of life.

  “All right… come on out of there!” he called after a minute. “I know you’re in there. I saw the kid.”

  Again it was still and quiet.

  “Maybe I can help you,” he said loudly. “Otherwise, I’ll have to bring the dogs back. So you might as well come out and let me help you now.”

  Still there was no answer.

  “All right, if that’s the way you want it,” said Wyatt, beginning to turn his horse around. “I’ll just have to go get the dogs.”

  Two or three clomps of his horse’s hooves was enough. He heard a voice behind him.

  “Hey, jes’ you’ hold on er minute,” he said. “You say maybe you kin he’p us?”

  Young Beaumont turned and saw a tall black man walking out from the trees.

  “That’s what I said, mister. If you and that kid I saw a minute ago just want to come with me, I’ll see that you get all the help you need.”

  “Dat’s fine, den, cuz we cum as chilluns ob da Father.”

  Wyatt eyed him with a puzzled look.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Behind him, Wyatt now saw the brush and woods filling up with blacks of all sizes and shapes coming out of hiding. There were nine of them! This would be his biggest haul yet.

  “I wuz jes’ axin’ effen dis be da right place,” said the man.

  “This is the right place, all right,” said Wyatt. Even as he spoke, his brain was calculating how to get this catch back to Oakbriar and whether to contact Murdoch. This could be a huge feather in his cap, and who could tell but there might be a sizeable reward. But he didn’t have a gun with him, and two of the black men, not to mention that big burly teenager, looked tough. It might not be such a good idea to risk it on his own.

  “Where you from?” asked Wyatt.

  “Norf Carolina, suh.”

  “Well, that’s just fine. I’ll tell you what, so that you won’t have to walk so far, because I’m sure you’re all plenty tired, I’ll just ride back and hitch up a wagon and come back for you. How does that sound? You all just wait right here for me. But get down out of sight like you were until you hear me again. You can’t tell when someone might be coming along who’s not as friendly to runaways as me.”

  “All right, suh… I reckon we kin do dat.”

  Wyatt spun around and galloped off as fast as he could make his horse move. He would be back within fifteen minutes… with help, and with guns.

  “I don’ like dat boy’s looks, no how, Macon,” said Mrs. Diggs at his side. “He don’ look like no frien’ ter me.”

  “But he said dis was da right place.”

  “Only cuz you put da words right in his mouf.”

  Diggs felt a tugging of his shirt at his side. He glanced down at his seven-year-old daughter.

  “Daddy,” she said, “you said it wrong. You wazn’t supposed ter
say nufin’ till he ax’ed you who we wuz from.”

  “He did ax where we’d cum from,” said Diggs.

  “Da girl’s right, Macon,” now said his wife’s cousin, the only other grown man of the group, who had come along with his sixteen-year-old son. “He din’t ax dat till you’d already spilled it ’bout bein’ chilluns ob da Father. You wuz su’pozed ter wait.”

  “An’ he ax’d where we’d come from,” now said the other woman of the group, Macon’s widowed sister. “He neber ax’d who we wuz cum from.”

  “I din’t like his look, no how,” repeated Emily Diggs. “An’ duz you recollect what he said w’en you said it, Macon? He said, ‘Wha’chu talkin’ ’bout?’ Dat don’t soun’ right ter me.”

  Macon only had to run the conversation with Wyatt Beaumont through his brain one more time to realize he had blundered badly.

  “We got’s ter git outer here!” he said. He turned and fled into the woods, with eight others on his heels.

  When Wyatt Beaumont returned to the spot with Brad McClellan and found the nine runaway slaves gone without a trace, he cursed himself for being such a fool to have forgotten the dogs. With two rifles between them and enough rope to tie them all up in the back of the wagon, the threat of using dogs had never crossed his mind again. He hadn’t intended on having to go after them—he figured the simpleton had believed him.

  He glanced around at the empty road and quiet forest.

  “You sure this is the spot?” asked Brad.

  “Of course I’m sure… what kind of a fool do you take me for! This is where they were, all nine of them.”

  He swore loudly again, then grabbed his rifle and emptied it into the surrounding woods. When his temper had cooled and the echoes of the useless shots died away, Brad spoke again.

  “What do you want to do?” he said. “They can’t have gotten far, especially if there were kids. We can’t just let them go.”

  “I don’t intend to let them go. If there’s a reward, I intend to collect it. If not, I intend to see that lying nigger swinging from one of these trees. But we’re not going to find them without the hounds.”

  He paused and thought a minute.

  “You stay here,” he said. “Keep out of sight, just in case they are close by and come out when they think we’re gone. I’ll make a lot of clatter with the wagon so they’ll think we’re leaving. Keep both rifles and the rope. I’ll go for the dogs and get back as soon as I can. I shouldn’t be longer than three-quarters of an hour.”