Ashes (3 page)

Ruth
, I reminded myself.
Find Ruth.

Curzon searched through the pockets and haversack of the dead soldier and took a clipped bit of silver coin and twists of gunpowder from his cartridge box. The gunpowder was of more use to us than the gun itself, which would be a heavy burden and useless without lead shot. He held up the man's pocket watch, one eyebrow raised in question. “This is worth a great deal, if we could find someone half honest.”

I shook my head. “We dare not.” We'd been hoarding coins, both British and Spanish, for the journey homeward, but being caught with a watch such as that could be a disaster. Curzon nodded in reluctant agreement and replaced it in the man's waistcoat with a sigh.

“Any rabbit?” I asked.

“Not much,” he admitted. “But we could boil the bones.”

I ran my fingertips over the number that told the distance to Charleston. Though it pained me greatly, we had to walk in the opposite direction, to Riverbend. It would be much safer to first seek word of Ruth there than in a city controlled by the British.

Curzon shouldered his haversack. “Which way?”

“The woman said north and northwest from here,” I said. “If we keep the Cooper River to our right, we ought come upon the place before dawn.”

M
ANY, VERY MANY MELANCHOLY
I
DEAS HAUNT MY IMAGINATION UPON THIS OCCASION.

–L
ETTER FROM
A
BIGAIL
A
DAMS TO HER COUSIN
J
OHN
T
HAXTER

W
E MADE OUR WAY THROUGH
the woods, keeping the river close enough that we could follow its course. As sun set, we fell into our customary rhythm of night-walking. I'd walk in front for a while, then he would. People accustomed to cities require the aid of a lantern to walk in the countryside at night. Their eyes have been burned by the light of too many candles. Not us. Our eyes became sharper in the dark.

I'd expected to be even more alert than usual because we were in the midst of shifting armies and roving militia. But it was Curzon who halted our progress twice, when groups of wagons rattled by on the road. I hadn't noticed, which shocked me.

“Has your fever returned?” he asked, before we started walking again.

“I'm fine,” I answered.

'Twas a falsehood. The bees of my melancholy, which had rarely troubled me since we escaped that foul man Bellingham at Valley Forge, were buzzing inside my brainpan, fast overcoming my customary caution.

I tried to hold tight to the notion of finding Ruth, for that was my true compass heading. I strained to see her in my remembery: the little girl who slept with a doll tucked in her arms, her thumb in her mouth. The grievous truth was that the details of her face had started to fade. Was she missing a tooth from the top or the bottom jaw when she was stolen? Was her chin pointed like Momma's or broad like Poppa's?

What manner of sister was I that I could not remember her face?

  *  *  *  

Hours later Curzon touched my elbow. “Look thataway,” he whispered, pointing through the trees.

The house lay at the end of the lane of live oaks, though the distance and the still-thick cover of night made it impossible to see anything more than a dim shape of the building. Beyond it the river curved hard.

“We're here,” he added.

My heart was thumping so loud, I expected every person for miles could hear it. A ghost image of myself ran all the way down the lane and burst in through the front door, ready to tear the house down to its foundations until I found my sister. The rest of me stood fixed to the ground, shaking.

“Don't do anything foolish,” Curzon warned. He pointed to the darker shadow of the woods at a remove to our left. “We'll head over there, so the wind will keep our scent from the dogs.”

I nodded.

“Swear to me,” he said. “Give me your oath that we shall wait and watch until we understand where we might safely approach.”

Our habit was to study any house or barn for a full day and night before we drew close and inquired about food, work, or directions. This caution had saved us many times. I pressed my lips together and fought to rein in my frustration. It did no good to let desire and dream race ahead of common sense.

“I swear that if we don't hurry, the sun will rise and expose us,” I said.

We walked silently through the woods until we found an ancient sycamore possessed of branches that offered an easy climb. By the time we'd settled in a crook high above the ground, the first robins and mourning doves had begun to sing. From our perch we had a good view of the side of the main house and a hint of smaller buildings behind it. Their muddied shapes slowly took proper form as night faded: rooflines, doorways, chimneys.

A lone rooster called.

“Something's amiss,” I murmured. “A place this size ought have more than one rooster.”

“Mayhaps the others are asleep.” Curzon shifted uncomfortably, his form too large for our crowded perch. “Mayhaps these roosters post one fellow to guard, and the rest stay warm in their beds, until feeding time.”

“Beds?” I asked.

“Rooster berths.” He drew up his knees to his chin, wincing. “That's what I need, a better berth.”

“'Tis called a roost, you ninny. Climb higher if you require more room.”

He did so without another word. Since winter he'd grown even taller and more broad across the shoulders. He was near twenty years, but he still thought himself the size of a boy. In his absence the crook was perfect-size for me, as if the tree had seen me coming and grown a special Isabel-shaped nesting place where I could shelter safely through the day and doze until dark. Except I knew there would be no sleep for me. The cool mist rising from the ground brought to mind the last visit I'd made to my mother's grave, back when I was young enough to believe that people held to their promises and the world would treat all children fair. That was the day our journey had truly begun.

Was the spirit of our mother watching over us? Did she know how long I'd been searching?

Fearful questions crowded in. What if Ruth had died long ago? The notion chilled me and made me shiver. I'd worked hard to keep such terrible thoughts away, but they surrounded me now. Would strangers have buried her proper, with a preacher and prayers and weeping? Was there a lonely stone in an empty field to mark her passing? Was her grave already grown over with vine and grass? Or did her bones sleep at the bottom of the sea?

“I smell corn,” Curzon said in a low tone. “Meat, too.”

The interruption was a welcome one. I gave myself a pinch.
Pay attention. Keep your wits about you.

A cow mooed. There should have been a dozen calling by now, eager to be milked. The birdsong grew louder, accompanied by the
chirrup
of frogs and the thrumming and buzzing of insects. Lowering clouds made it hard for the sun to rise, but I could see enough to be confuddled.

Where are all the people?

The plantations in South Carolina were all bigger than the plantations of Rhode Island. When I was a girl, my family lived on a farm near Newport with another twenty people also held in bondage, along with a few indentured white servants. As we'd drawn closer to Charleston, the plantations had grown ten times that size and more, with miles of fields, and overseers keeping watch to make sure no one ran off. The stolen–for in truth, that was the circumstance of every person enduring the condition of slavery–the stolen people had to wake long before the sun. Riverbend should have had at least fifty people on their way to the fields, plus the kind of bustle we'd seen behind other big houses at dawn: women carrying wash water, old men repairing tools, little children chasing one another and kicking up dust. Despite the faint smell of cooking nearby, there were no voices in the air.

Clouds shifted and the sky brightened enough for me to see the house in more detail. All of the windows had been broken. Smoke had stained the bricks above a window on the second floor, mayhaps caused by a fire set to burn down the building. Many of the shutters lay in splinters on the ground. The legs of a fine chair poked from the charred remains of a bonfire at the side of the house.

The war had brought trouble here, too.

“Don't fret,” Curzon said. He understood my manner well enough to know I'd be upset by the sight.

“But–” I started.

“Don't fret,” he repeated. “We'll wait and we'll watch. Tonight we'll learn what we came here for.”

“We'll wait,” I muttered.

The sun broke free of the horizon and lit the ground afore us like a giant lantern raised by the largest hand. A tidy building some twenty paces behind the house was the source of the breakfast smells, a summer kitchen with whitewashed walls and gray smoke curling up from its chimney. Across from the summer kitchen ranged small buildings made of rough boards, likely the homes of families, and beyond that, a barn, with the edge of a garden visible behind it. An old dog lay in a patch of sunshine in front of the barn, and a few chickens were pecking in the dirt nearby.

“Look there,” Curzon whispered.

A white-haired man, his back bent with age, walked slowly out of the barn. The scrawny lad by his side had his right arm in a dirty sling. He was a child of Africa, but lighter than the old man. He turned and called to someone in the barn to hurry. The dog raised his head to watch them pass, then laid it back on the ground as the two disappeared into the summer kitchen. A plump woman, near as old as the man, appeared at the kitchen's doorway, wiping her hands on her apron. “Come now!” she hollered. “Now or you don't eat till midday!” The words were harsh, but her tone was kindly.

A tall girl, almost a woman, emerged from the barn, a crate perched on her hip. Her hair was covered by a rose-colored kerchief that had bits of straw upon it; her face was tilted down, peering into the box. She carried it to the dog, knelt beside him, and set it on the ground. The creature thumped his tail in the dirt as hard as a maid beating a rug.

I squinted, certain we'd crossed paths with that lass before. Had she been hired out to another farm nearby? No, we'd seen her in a town. Baltimore? New Bern? I rubbed my tired eyes and looked again. I could not place her, but if she remembered us from an earlier encounter, it might make it easier to get the information we sought.

After scratching the old hound behind the ears, the girl lifted a tiny gray kitten out of the box and held it to the dog's nose. The dog licked the kitten and the girl giggled.

My heart stuttered. I grabbed at the branches for balance.

The kitten pawed at the dog's snout and was rewarded with another lick. The girl broke into laughter that sounded loud as thunder in my ears.

The shell that I'd carefully built around my heart cracked open.

I clambered down the tree and jumped to the ground, ignoring Curzon's strangled cries for me to stop. I was totty-headed wrong to do it, but I could not help myself. I walked toward the sunlight, then I ran, and then I flew, fast as a bird who has finally caught sight of home after a dreadful-long flight.

I
SHOULD NOT DARE TO TARRY HERE IN MY PRESENT SITUATION, NOR YET KNOW WHERE TO FLEE FOR SAFETY; THE RECITAL OF THE INHUMANE AND BRUTAL TREATMENT OF THOSE POOR CREATURES WHO HAVE FALLEN INTO THEIR HANDS FREEZES ME WITH HORROR.

–L
ETTER FROM
A
BIGAIL
A
DAMS TO HER HUSBAND
, J
OHN

T
HE GIRL LIFTED HER HEAD
and shaded her eyes as I approached. She stood, the kitten clutched to her chest. She looked right at me but made no sign that she knew who I was. To the contrary, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

I stopped, the dog between us. The buzzing in my head grew louder.