The Raging Hearts: The Coltrane Saga, Book 2 (19 page)

She didn’t like the contempt in his voice, and she was exhausted from her shopping, her encounter with Corey and her scrap with Nancy. She looked at the soldier wearily and said, “None of your damn business, soldier. Now get out of my way.”

He stepped back, astounded, as Jacob helped her up to the wagon. He followed quickly, and, with a pop of the reins, the old mules began to take them out of town. “I know it was Gideon, and so do you,” Jacob said as soon as they reached the outskirts and turned toward the river. “He gonna get hisself killed. I know he is. He ain’t gonna stop with just stealin’ food and blankets, like he said. He gonna run wild. You wait and see. And the rest of us, me and my people, we the ones what gonna pay for it.”

“Not if you mind your own business and obey the law,” Kitty said in her firmest voice. “Now, Jacob, don’t you worry. You tried, Nolie tried. So did I. Gideon wouldn’t listen, and neither would those who went with him. So now they are going to have to suffer the consequences. There is nothing more we can do for them. Except pray.”

“Gideon always was rebellious. He hated bein’ a slave. He never got over his sister being raped by whites. I wasn’t s’prised a’tall when he run away to join the Yankees. And I ain’t s’prised he’s come back to make trouble now.”

“The whole Southland is in a turmoil.” Kitty tried to comfort him, though she could tell by the expression on his face that her words were of little solace. “I heard talk today when I was in the stores how the Negroes are causing trouble all over. Vigilantes are doing what the Federal troops won’t do—and that’s ride out and shoot them. It seems the Negroes are glad for the chance to punish the white man for all their years of slavery, and the whites are eager to fight back, angry because they can no longer hold the black people slaves. I don’t think the winds of peace are ever going to blow across our land, Jacob, not in our lifetime anyway. But just try to remember that it isn’t by your hand, or mine, that any of this is happening. We have to find some comfort in that.”

“Yes’m.” He nodded, a little more relaxed. “I knows I got lots to be thankful for. Your pappy freed me and mine a long time ago, and he still let us live on his land, paid us when he could. Saw to it we never went hungry. We always had wood to bum in the winter. If we got sick, you or Doc Musgrave took care of us. We always loved you and Mastah John fo’ yo’ goodness, and I’m proud to be able to try and pay you back now, by helpin’ you when nobody else will.”

“We won’t tell them about the news,” Kitty said to Jacob as they approached the swamps. “They’ll hear soon enough. Let’s let them rejoice in our good fortune, knowing that we do have a real home now.”

“I think yo’ right.” Jacob nodded. “Like you say, they find out soon enuff. No need in me a’breakin’ Nolie’s heart. Look at her. Standin’ to one side, away from the others, wringing her hands and a’cryin’. I know what she’s a’doin. She’s prayin’ I don’t have no bad news, and God forgive me, but I gonna lie and say I didn’t hear one word.”

They got down out of the wagon, but none of those gathered around made a move to come forward. “Hey, what’s wrong with everyone?” Kitty called out merrily, moving to the back of the wagon. “Come and see what we have. Food. Supplies. Lumber is being delivered to my land this afternoon. Tonight we feast and celebrate, and tomorrow we start building and planting crops. I even bought a cow and some chickens…”

Her voice trailed off as she realized that no one was paying her any mind. Nolie stepped forward, tears pouring from her veined, puffy eyes.

“Jacob.” It was a moan, deep in her throat. Her hands covered her chest as she swayed. Someone steadied her.

“Nolie, what’s wrong with you?” Jacob was hurrying toward her. “What you tryin’ to tell me, sistah?”

Her eyes rolled back and she clasped her hands together in prayer. “Oh, Lordy, Jacob, it’s happened. Gideon come back. He come back with horses and guns.”

He grabbed her, shook her gently, crying himself. “Nolie, I heard about it in town, me and Miss Kitty. We weren’t gonna tell you. We didn’t want to worry you. We can’t do nothin’. Gideon is in a heap of trouble, but it’s his own doin’. We can’t help him now. We got to think of ourselves, and the new life Miss Kitty is a’offerin’ us. Get hold of yo’self now. God will look after Gideon, make him come to his senses. We pray for him. We get down on our knees now, and we’ll pray.”

He looked about at the others, gestured to them to get to their knees as he got to his. No one moved. He looked up into Nolie’s face, and, with an anguished cry, she fell to her knees and clasped her big arms around him. “Oh, Lordy, Jacob. Gideon took Luther with him. He said he’d kill anybody who tried to stop him. And Luther wanted to go. He’s gone, Jacob. They both gone. Yo’ boy and mine.”

And the two old Negroes wept, arms about each other. One by one, the others got on their knees, their bodies swaying. They prayed out loud for the deliverance of Gideon and Luther and all the others who rode with them.

Kitty bit her lip and turned away from the scene. She would not cry. Crying would not help. Crying made for weakness. Only the strong would survive these times.

She began to walk across the barren fields, head held high, the wind blowing her hair about her upturned face. And she kept on walking, till the weeping and wailing of the Negroes was only a distant echo.

Chapter Thirteen

July melted into August, and September crept across the lands to cool the air. The late crop had been abundant. The new barn held much corn and hay. Two cows gave milk. A calf was flattening. There would be meat for the winter.

The house Jacob and the Negroes had built for Kitty on the site of the old one was small but adequate. The furnishings were sparse. Frayed blankets covered the windows. The bed was roughhewn and had a worn, lumpy mattress filled with pine needles. She would not have had even that if she had not awakened one morning to find it in her front yard. Jacob said Gideon and his men had brought it. It was obviously from an old slave cabin. She wanted to leave the stolen item where it had been left, but her pride bent to the aches in her bones. The same was true of her kitchen stove, a nice, wood-burning model, hardly used. One morning she awoke to find it sitting in the back yard. Jacob and another man brought it inside. Kitty sighed reluctantly. She told herself it was really too cold to be cooking over a fire outside.

Other items appeared mysteriously—chickens, two pigs, a basket of apples, a thick quilt, some muslin. “I know Gideon is stealing these things,” Kitty wailed to Jacob one morning as they stood together looking at a badly needed washtub. “I feel terrible taking them. Maybe if I just left them sitting where he leaves them, he would stop it.”

“He’d give ’em to somebody else,” the old Negro said, shaking his head. “He got quite a gang now, missy. I heers all about it when I goes to town. The whites done formed a vigilante group, and they go out a’ridin’ ever night, but they can’t catch ’em. They done stole the fastest horses, so they can outrun anything the whites got. At first they just went to the empty places, houses where the folks had run off a’fore the Yankees came. Now they robbin’ anybody they pleases. You heered about ’em even robbin’ Mr. Calvin Potts?”

“Jacob, I don’t hear anything unless you tell me,” she pointed out. “I have not been to town since we settled in here over three months ago. People don’t want to have anything to do with me, and I’m certainly not going to seek them out. I don’t know what I would do if it weren’t for you and your people.”

“Well, my people is thinnin’ out,” he said apologetically. “The white folks is seein’ they gots to have help, so they started payin’ a little. An’ the shacks they offer is some better than what we wuz able to build on yo’ land, Miss Kitty. So they been takin’ off right regular. I tol’ ’em how ungrateful they were, how it was a sin to walk out on you after what you done for us, but they’s afraid you ain’t gonna be able to make it, what with the baby comin’, and the cap’n not comin’ back.”

She squeezed back the tears. “I understand, Jacob. They realize my money can’t last forever, and that is certainly true. I’m trying my best to hang on to enough to plant my crop come spring, but that isn’t going to be easy if I don’t have hands to help me. Poppa always said the future of North Carolina lay in tobacco, and I wanted to plant a crop this year. And corn—lots of corn. And then there are the scuppernongs and the beehives. But I am going to need help.” Biting her lip, she asked fearfully, “Just how many of you are left, Jacob?”

“Tom and Hildy left yestahday to go to work for Mistah McRae.”

“Mr. McRae?” Kitty screeched. “Jacob, Will and Addie went there last week. That makes four families I have lost to that man. What is happening? Is he paying them pure gold or something?”

“Just about.” His frizzled gray head bobbed up and down. “He built that big fine mansion, you know, right where the old Collins place stood, but this one is even finer. It has real marble terraces and steps. He had furniture sent from England and France to furnish it. Dulcie, she one of the first ’uns to go, she say she never seen nothin’ as pretty as that house. He got velvet drapes and silk drapes, and she say the floors is some kind of special wood.”

“Mahogany,” Kitty said quietly.

“That’s what she called it. She heard Mistah McRae say most folks just made stair railings and trim out of it, but he made his floors like that. She has to polish ’em by hand, but she say she likes it, ’cause they looks like mirrors when she through. That house got three floors, and Dulcie, she can’t count but to ten, and she say she counted to ten two times, and they is some rooms lef’ ovah. He payin’ his help good, and he fixed fine cabins for ’em, with fireplaces. He give ’em all the food they can eat, too. So that’s why they leavin’, Miss Kitty. If they can go to work for Mistah McRae, they think they is in heaven. Treats ’em kind, he do. Nevah yells, says Dulcie. She thinks the whole world of that man. She don’t like Miss Nancy, though.”

“Nancy Warren?” Kitty raised an eyebrow. “Is she living there?”

“Not yet, but she comes around a lot. Dulcie says she Mistah McRae’s mistress. She say she stay all night some times, and she hears ’em arguin’ about how Miss Nancy wants to be Missus McRae, and Mistah McRae, he don’t want to get married. Dulcie, she a’hopin’ he don’t, leastways not to Miss Nancy. She say that one mean woman.”

“Dulcie should learn to keep her mouth shut about what goes on in her master’s house, Jacob. It’s wicked when servants gossip.”

“Yes’m.” He bowed his head guiltily, knowing that he was just as bad as Dulcie, having repeated her tales.

Kitty folded her hands across her swollen body. It was getting harder and harder to move about. “How many are left, Jacob?” she asked quietly. “How many families do we have now living on Wright land to help with the spring planting? I don’t know because I seldom get out anymore. I’m so clumsy lately.”

He looked everywhere but at her. He heard her patting her foot impatiently and finally mumbled, “Me and Nolie’s bunch. That’s it.”

“You and Nolie’s bunch?” Kitty grabbed the porch railing for support as she swayed. “Jacob, why haven’t you told me this before? My God! You have two small grandchildren, hardly big enough to pick peas, and if their daddy ever comes back from the war, he’ll, likely as not, take them off and try to make a home for them. You told me so yourself.”

“I don’t think he’s a’comin’ back.” A tear rolled down his wrinkled cheek. “He took his daughter’s dyin’ mighty hard. I don’t imagine he tried too hard to dodge any balls.”

Kitty had no idea the situation had grown so desperate. “Why haven’t you told me this before, Jacob?”

“I didn’t want to worry you none, in yo’ condition and all,” he said humbly. “Nolie, she tell me not to say nothin’. She say the cap’n come back and then ever’thing be just fine. He’ll know just what to do. And Nolie, she said she’d never leave here. She got two girls, too, fine workers. Ever’thing gonna be all right, Miss Kitty. You just wait and see. You don’t worry. The Lord look after all of us.”

The sky overhead was gray and overcast. A damp, chilling wind blew across the lands. Kitty tightened her shawl about her shoulders as she began to pace around the washtub, deep in thought. Suddenly her head jerked up and she eyed Jacob suspiciously. “Why is Nolie so loyal? I never even knew the woman until I went to the swamp campground with you that day. Why does she refuse to leave here? With two healthy, strong daughters, and her experience as household help, she should have no trouble at all getting a very good job. I am sure Mr. McRae has tried to hire her away from me.”

Jacob wouldn’t look at her. He knelt down beside the washtub and ran his fingers around the edges. “I’ll get this cleaned up today, missy, and bring it into the house fo’ you. I know you gonna like havin’ a washtub—”

“Jacob, answer me,” she cried, whirling to stare down at him. “Why does Nolie stay here? She has no reason to be loyal to me. I want the truth. You have been keeping too much from me lately. I suppose next you will be leaving me, just like all the others?”

“Oh, no, missy, no.” He straightened quickly, eyes wide. “Miss Kitty, I’d never walk out on you, not for any kind of money. Mistah McRae, he knows that, too. I told the man he sends over here to tell him old Jacob would never leave. No sir, I owes it to Mistah John to take care of his daughter.”

“Mr. McRae sends a man over
here
?” She blinked incredulously. “He sends someone right onto my property to talk to my help and hire them away from me? How long has this been going on?”

“All along.” Jacob shook his head from side to side in misery. “It seems like he’d come up out of nowhere, and he’d just talk to one man about his family. Sometimes, others’d be willin’ to go right then, but he’d say Mistah McRae didn’t need nobody else right then. Then, a few days later, or maybe it’d be a few weeks, he’d come back. Nolie and me talked about it, and we knowed they wasn’t nothin’ you could do, Miss Kitty, so why make you fret, jus’ like you a’frettin’ now? T’ain’t right, you in yo’ shape and all. But don’t you worry none. Me and Nolie, we’ll do all we can. Maybe by spring some of the others will get dissatisfied and come back. Like Dulcie. She’d never stay over there if Miss Nancy was to be mistress of the house.”