American Dreams Trilogy

by Michael Phillips

  Thomas turned to face the girl, though he could see nothing of her features.

  “Now please, miss,” he said, still in a low whisper, “I am grateful for your concern. But I must insist that you get away from here. If they find you, they will do bad things to you, just like they were going to before.”

  Instead of answering, she merely took one of Thomas’s hands and pulled, leading him again away from the camp.

  “Come, massa,” she said. “Please… just a little farther.”

  Once on his feet, Thomas found that his legs felt fine—better than his head and ribs! Reluctantly he followed. After four or five minutes, again he stopped.

  “All right, miss,” he said, feeling more determined as he felt himself gradually regain strength, “I will not move another step until you explain what you think you are trying to do.”

  Still clutching his hand, Thomas could feel the girl begin to relax.

  “I followed you, massa,” she began. “After I ran away from that man who tried to hurt me I saw what he did to you. I knew you were hurt real bad, so I followed. I couldn’t stand it when I saw them put you on that horse and your body slumping over it like you were dead. I was so afraid they’d killed you because of me. So I followed to see if I could help you. I watched all that night, and today, and tonight, after you were asleep—that’s when I heard the others talking about you, the bad man that kicked and beat you. He was talking to one of the others that was there. I heard them say they were going to kill you. So I had to get you away.”

  “What did they say?” asked Thomas, at last sobered by the girl’s story.

  “They said if they didn’t do something, you were sure to cause them trouble again. They said that the next time there was a battle that they would look for a chance, when there was fighting everywhere and nobody saw them, to shoot you and make it look like the Yankees did it. Then the man who rode up later, somebody they called sergeant, he told him not to worry—that he would make sure you didn’t get out of the battle alive.”

  Thomas sighed. Cameron Beaumont! Remembering Seth’s horror as he told the family of the terrible night Cameron and Wyatt hung a runaway, and then shot him, returned vividly to him. He knew Cameron would have no qualms whatsoever about ordering him straight into the line of fire… or shooting him himself.

  Thomas let out another long sigh. He knew Cameron and Travis Durkin well enough to realize the girl was probably telling the truth. Who could make up such a story? And why would she make it up?

  He also knew that after what had happened, he hadn’t a single friend in the whole unit. Captain Young wouldn’t believe him or back him up if he said anything about what he had just heard. Besides, what could he say—that a slave girl had come to him in the night telling him of a plot by Travis Durkin and Sergeant Beaumont to kill him? The captain would laugh in his face.

  Even though he had been in several terrible battles, until this moment he had not faced how close death really might be. Suddenly the fact was stark and clear—his life was in grave danger.

  It did not take long before Thomas began to realize that his options were severely limited—stay where he was and be looking over his shoulder every minute until a bullet found his head… or try to escape like the girl said.

  “How long have you been watching our camp?” he asked as he tried to think what to do.

  “Ever since they brought you back, massa.”

  “What about your home? Don’t you belong somewhere?”

  “Master Smith’s plantation is where I’ve been. But I don’t belong there.”

  “What about those other girls you were with out there?”

  “They’re slaves too, just like me. The mistress sent us out to pick berries. I’ve only been there a year since I was captured and sold to him.”

  “Captured… what do you mean? Had you run away?”

  “Yes, massa. My family ran away, but I got separated from them and captured. Then they sold me. But Master Smith doesn’t like me. He’s mean to me.”

  “You are a slave though?”

  “Yes, massa. But I’m not supposed to be. My family used to be free, but we got captured and sold.”

  “And you’ve been watching our camp all this time?” he said again, “—since the day before yesterday. Have you had anything to eat?”

  “No, massa.”

  “We’ll have to get you something. We can’t have you fainting this close to camp.”

  “You’re a kind man, massa. Why are you so kind to one like me?”

  “Why shouldn’t I be? You risked your life for me.”

  “You risked yours for me first. What made you do that, massa? You’re white, I’m a Negro. What did you care what those men did to me?”

  “You’re a person. They had no right to take advantage of you.”

  “But now you’re in danger.”

  Thomas nodded. “Yeah, I suppose I am,” he said thoughtfully. “Maybe you’re right and I need to get out of here… but where can I go? If I’m in danger now, I’d really be in for it if I left. What would I do… where would I go?”

  “I can help you, massa. I can hide you until they’re gone.”

  “Where are you going to hide me? At that plantation you came from?”

  “No, not there, massa. Master Smith, he’d shoot you too if he knew you ran away and I was trying to hide you. He’s got a son in the army. I only saw him once, but he’s like that man that beat you up. He’s always looking at girls with those eyes that make you know what he’s thinking. Master Smith wouldn’t like you one bit. We’ve got to get north, massa.”

  “Yeah… I suppose you’re right,” said Thomas. “Why do you call me massa,” he added. “I’m not your master.”

  “I don’t know what else to call a white man.”

  “I’m not a man either. I’m just a kid who went off to fight in this war and is now wondering why. I’m only twenty-one. I suppose some folk would figure I’m a man at twenty-one, but I don’t feel much like one right now. Just call me Thomas. That’s my name.”

  “You want me to call you by your Christian name, massa?”

  “Of course.”

  “But you’re white.”

  “That’s right, I’m white and my name’s Thomas. What’s yours?”

  “Deanna. I’m eighteen.”

  “Well, Deanna,” said Thomas with a sigh of resignation, “if we’re going to get out of here, I had better go back and get some of my things, and my gun and maybe the blanket, and try to get a horse from the corral.”

  “No, massa Thomas. They’d know you ran away. If you don’t take anything, and if your blanket and gun are still there and no horses missing, maybe they’ll think you went out into the woods and then got lost or something.”

  Again Thomas thought for a minute.

  “Hmm… I see what you mean,” he said. “That’s good thinking. If I was trying to escape, they’d figure me to take something, especially my gun. Maybe I should even leave my hat, though I ought to get my jacket. And you’ve got to have something to eat. You wait here, I’ll sneak back and get what we need.”

  “No, massa Thomas, please—why can’t we just go now?”

  “Don’t worry, Deanna, I’ll be quiet and careful. You’ve convinced me. I’ll come back. You just wait here.”

  Thomas turned and began making his way back through the trees, his one eye by now sufficiently accustomed to the darkness to keep from making too much noise. Slowly the faint glow of the campfires neared, along with the sounds of snoring and horses in the distance. With great care he found his things, knelt down and felt about for his jacket, leaving everything else as it was. After a few seconds, again he stood and glanced about. If only he could get to the cook’s wagon and scoop out a cup of last night’s cold beans from the pot. But he couldn’t risk it.

  With one last look around, hardly pausing to contemplate what a crossroads moment of life these few seconds of decision truly were, again he turned and crept on his toes as no
iselessly as he was able away from the camp, this time not to return. He hardly knew whether he was going in exactly the same direction as he had come from, but he knew that Deanna was probably keeping track of his movements and would find him again, even if he couldn’t find her.

  He was not wrong. After three or four minutes, he heard a step and felt a hand reaching for him in the darkness.

  “Are you feeling all right, massa Thomas?” whispered the girl’s familiar voice. “You ready to get away now?”

  “I’m feeling as good as I can expect with broken ribs and bruises all over my face,” replied Thomas. “But my legs are okay. Here, I brought you something. It’s not much, only a cold biscuit I had left over from last night. But it should keep you from being too famished until we can find some apples or something.”

  “You’re a kind man, massa Thomas,” she said, taking the biscuit from his hand. “But we have to get away from here before light.”

  The two deserters from regiment and plantation, one white, one black, an unlikely partnership in the struggle to stay alive and not get caught, had covered probably two hilly forested miles, though not as the crow flies, before Thomas’s regiment began to stir in the light of a damp, chilly dawn. Thomas had known roughly in what direction his regiment would be moving, and though in the darkness his orientation was not entirely to be trusted, he and his young Negro guardian nevertheless bore in more or less an opposite easterly direction. But they had to take great care. Wearing the Confederate gray, encountering a Union regiment would be just as dangerous as if Travis Durkin found them.

  “Do you know where we are?” asked Thomas, stopping and looking about.

  “Not exactly, massa Thomas,” replied Deanna. “But if we can just get to the top of that hill yonder, I think I might be able to tell. Somewhere about here’s where the conductor meets folks. At least that’s what I picked up from listening when some runaways were caught one time, before they took them away.”

  Thomas knew well enough what the term conductor meant from the clandestine activities at his own home.

  “Let’s go, then,” he said. “It shouldn’t take us more than another twenty or thirty minutes. Then we can decide what to do.”

  The sun was just cresting the eastern hills when they reached the top of the hill, and from its direction and the layout of the hills and valleys around them, they could at last get their bearings.

  “That’s Master Smith’s plantation down there,” said Deanna, pointing to the south.

  Along the same valley, Thomas saw the thin smoke from two campfires which he took to be the encampment of his regiment. To the west, opposite the valley out of which they had come, lay the range of foothills where he assumed they would be moving next.

  “Well,” he said, drawing in a deep breath and looking all about, “we didn’t make it very far. If they spot us they’ll catch us in no time. But at least we know which direction not to go. And… there’s north up that way,” he added, glancing over his shoulder. “We’re in the Blue Ridge Mountains in northern Georgia or Tennessee or eastern North Carolina somewhere. I’m not sure quite how far we’ve moved east of Chattanooga. I don’t want to go any further south. But I won’t be welcome in the North in this uniform either. But that’s the only place you will be safe, so I suppose that’s the direction we have to go.”

  “We’ve got to get back onto that railroad for runaways,” said Deanna. “You won’t be safe otherwise. We can’t try to go north all alone. We’re sure to be seen and caught. There’s bad people everywhere. But there’s folks called Friends who help people like us. The conductor would help us find them. Please, massa, let me show you where to go.”

  Even as she spoke, a wave of lightheadedness and fatigue swept through Thomas’s body. He sat down on the ground and tried to recover himself. He was exhausted from the sleepless night’s walk and the pain from his chest and head.

  “Right now I’m too beat to argue with you,” he said with a weary smile. “Let me just rest for a minute or two. Then if you think you can find a safe place for us to stay, you lead the way.”

  “Not now, massa Thomas. We can’t go in the daytime. The Negro railroad sleeps in the day. We’ve got to find a stream with water to drink and a place to rest. You need sleep, and something to eat. Your face is pale. Then at night we’ll keep going and try to get to a station.”

  Thomas sighed. “You’re right,” he said. “Suddenly I am so tired I don’t know if I can take another step.”

  Captain Young did not know that one of his men was missing as they broke camp the following morning. But as they were mounting up, Travis Durkin galloped toward him and reined in.

  “What is it, Corporal?” asked Young, returning his salute.

  “It’s Davidson, Captain,” replied Durkin, “—he’s gone.”

  “What do you mean… gone?”

  “He’s not here, sir. His bedroll looks slept in, his horse was with the others, his saddle and gun and hat is lying there beside the blanket. But nobody’s seen him.”

  “Boots?”

  “Uh… no, his boots ain’t there neither.”

  “Well go find him then. He’s probably just out doing his business.”

  “We combed the woods, sir. I sent out several men. They found a trail for a hundred yards or so, but there weren’t no sign of him.”

  Captain Young thought a minute.

  “Have you talked to Sergeant Beaumont?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Look, Corporal,” he said at length, “that kid’s already caused us enough problems. He’s a troublemaker and I do not want him left behind. Now you talk to the sergeant, then take what men you need and you find him. He’s out there somewhere. I don’t care if you have to drag him back. Just get him. Follow his steps again and don’t give up until you know where he went. He can’t have got far. He could hardly walk yesterday. He could be hiding somewhere. He was hurt pretty bad and he hasn’t eaten much. He may have passed out. You know the direction we’re headed. We ought to intercept that unit of Yanks by tomorrow. That’ll give you time to catch back up to us. And I want Davidson with you. I just might have him lead the attack tomorrow.”

  “He ain’t gonna be no good with a gun, Captain,” said Durkin.

  “Then things won’t go too well for him, will they? Just get him back here.”

  “Yes, sir. Uh… Captain?”

  “Yes, Corporal?”

  “You want him alive?”

  “I’ll leave that up to you, Corporal.”

  Durkin wheeled his mount around and rode off. Thirty minutes later the regiment pulled out with Thomas Davidson’s empty horse. Travis Durkin and four others rode off in the opposite direction.

  Nineteen

  Veronica Fitzpatrick and Cecil Hirsch returned to Washington from Chicago with Veronica in high spirits. She had more packages than would fit in one buggy!

  True, it was a little difficult to settle back into the humdrum of life in the capital. But after all that had happened, she was actually relieved that Richard was away, and would not be back from England for some time. It would give her time to settle on her story about her new wardrobe.

  She hardly had time to be bored. Cecil had taken to calling almost every day. The evening they did not dine together was a rarity. Probably people were talking. But she didn’t care. Life had not been so full of zest and interest since her marriage. She would settle down again as soon as Richard came home from Europe. She still had no intention of being untrue to him, it just felt so good to live again!

  She was in Washington to welcome Richard back from Europe. Veronica sensed a difference beween them immediately, but did not recognize that it was because of changes in her not Richard. She did not want him aware of her secret life with Cecil, but had not realized how difficult it would be to keep it from him. Going out of town on a moment’s notice was suddenly not so easy anymore.

  Richard began to suspect that something was going on, but still had no glimmer of the truth
.

  Veronica made several more trips to Richmond for Mr. Garabaldi, two with Cecil, and usually brought back a bottle of wine for him. By now she could hardly be unaware that she was delivering more than mere personal greetings, but she did not summon the mental courage to inquire too deeply into the thing. Nor did she read the papers or keep track of the war with sufficient interest to realize that both her activities and Cecil’s bore uncanny parallels to places involved in later war activity.

  She made three trips down to Fredericksburg in March and April for Mr. Garabaldi, and only connected the nearby battle in Chancellorsville in May with a vague sense of concern that the fighting was taking place so close to Dove’s Landing and her former home.

  Vicksburg was so far away she hardly took note of it. She had no idea who Ulysses S. Grant might be, though she had heard of Robert E. Lee. Her father had mentioned him once, she thought.

  Cecil never spoke of the war. Every two or three weeks he just said he would be gone for a few days. He never told her where he was going or why.

  Veronica knew about the terrible fighting in Gettysburg in July. Everybody in Washington was talking about Lee’s invasion of the North and whether the war was about to end. As for the dreadful casualties, they struck no more deeply into her than the vague news that circulated after every battle. But later, during a brief visit home in August, when she heard that Brad McClellan and Sally O’Flarity’s brother Jack had been killed, something birthed in her heart that she could not get rid of. The very word Gettysburg caused her to ache in a way she was unfamiliar with on the high personal cost of this war, and that real people were actually dying. A germ of compassion had been born within her. Only time would tell whether she would nurture it, or allow its faint flicker of life to be extinguished by more pressing concerns.

  But as the stakes of Veronica’s clandestine activity continued to increase, more than once she thought she was being followed. When she told Cecil about it, he merely laughed it off and said it was part of the game.

  What game, Veronica wanted to know.

  Cecil brushed off her comment as he had the first, with more laughter and vagueries. The next time she met with Garabaldi, after a delivery, she found $300 in the envelope he had waiting for her rather than her customary payment of $200. The message was clear—she was being renumerated well enough to put up with a few unpleasantries and unanswered questions.