Promise Bridge (4 page)

Marcus nodded and then vanished into the darkness of the upper field. I gathered my nightdress and tiptoed through the dewy yard toward the house. Sensing eyes upon me, I looked up at my bedroom window. My silk dressings twirled peacefully in the breeze of the half-opened window. I breathed a sigh of relief as I stepped back into the seclusion of the kitchen and slipped quietly through the house.
What would happen if Aunt Augusta discovered Marcus and me?
I put the thought out of my mind and took solace in the refuge of my room. I lifted the pitcher of my chamber set and filled my basin. Staring into the looking glass as I bathed, I no longer saw a child quaking beneath the iron fist of a heartless caretaker. Nor did I see a woman of grace and confidence. What, exactly, was I? Choosing a calico cotton dress from my wardrobe, I put it on with the hope of leading all to believe that my morning would be spent picking wild raspberries. After tucking and smoothing my dress into perfect disguise, I sat silently on my bed, waiting for daybreak. Sunrise would find me dressed and ready to throw fate to the winds.

Chapter 5

I
n keeping with the daily routine of the house, I listened at my door until I heard Aunt Augusta descend the stairs. She always awoke early and sat at the tremendous oak table that formed the center of the chandeliered dining room overlooking the mist-draped river far below, a view much like the one gracing Aunt Augusta’s bedroom directly above us. I could not imagine a more glorious greeting than the one offered through those windows as the sun painted the eastern sky pink and orange. The colorful display, coupled with the crackling of wood in the stone fireplace in the wall adjacent to the servants’ entrance to the kitchen, made for a warm and alluring room. Even Aunt Augusta mellowed in its ambience as she sipped her tea each morning.

In order not to appear eager, I stepped nonchalantly from the stairs and turned down the hallway streaked with beams of sunlight. I eased into the room and was startled to see Colt at the far end of the table.

He simply nodded at me as he forked the last hearty slice of griddle cake from his plate. I sat across from him and wondered what had brought him to Hillcrest so early. He often took care of various necessities for Aunt Augusta. In fact, as he had grown into manhood, she had come to rely on him for a great many things. And although it was not unusual for them to be found talking privately as she asked questions or gave him instructions, he was not inclined to appear before morning chores were completed. A flutter of anxiety had me fearing that perhaps pangs of guilt and disloyalty had brought him to her table at the crow of the rooster. But I wore my concerned face as discreetly as I did my carefully chosen dress.

“Good morning, Colt. What brings you here with the mourning doves?”

Colt took his last sip of tea and placed the empty cup on the table. “Augusta is leaving for Cumberland Gap tomorrow.”

“I have asked Colton to oversee my interests in my absence. I shall be gone no longer than two weeks. I’ll expect you to behave in accordance with our discussion last night.”

“Of course, Aunt Augusta,” I answered while diverting my eyes from Colt.

“If you’ll excuse me, ladies,” Colt said as he rose to his feet. “Some prime hogs broke free of a pen last night. Willy Jack took a passel of field slaves out looking for them. I must check on the status of their search.”

“Why isn’t Twitchell overseeing the slaves?” Aunt Augusta asked impatiently.

Colt glanced at me as he spoke. “Twitch packed up his hounds and set off on a slave hunt before daybreak.” Seeing my face drain of color, he quickly added, “He headed downriver, where some say a band of runaways escaped through the Carolina pass. He’ll track them through the Virginia lowlands for a few days.”

After Colt excused himself, Aunt Augusta and I sat wordlessly until Esther Mae entered through the swinging kitchen door with a steaming tea service balanced in her hands. Moving with well-oiled swiftness, she poured and prepared my morning tea, then stepped away to face Aunt Augusta.

“Anythin’ else, Miz ’Gusta?”

“Yes, Esther Mae. Have Granny Morgan fix a plate of griddle cakes and ham for Hannalore.”

“No, thank you,” I spoke up before Esther Mae could make her retreat. “Tea is all I am suited for this morning.”

“Nonsense, Hannalore. You must be famished. I will not have you weaken yourself and fall ill while I am away. I have important business with my tobacco traders, and I do not wish to be called home before sealing an agreement.”

“Surely you do not believe I will collapse because of one refused griddle cake?”

Aunt Augusta eyed me intently, daring me to sass her again. There was no benefit in agitating her further, and I had more important issues up on the peak, so I surrendered the battle and used it to my advantage.

“Serve Hannalore her breakfast, Esther Mae,” Aunt Augusta said as she rose from her chair. When Esther Mae disappeared into the kitchen, Aunt Augusta circled the table and stood behind me, where I could not see her scowl, though it was present in her voice. “I see you are dressed for outdoor activity this morning.”

“Yes, I shall gather raspberries and enjoy a brisk walk before retiring to my needlework.”

“Indeed, some purposeful activity will be invigorating. I will leave you to your breakfast while I make preparations for my trip.” Then with one last stern glare, she added, “Do not excuse yourself until you have finished your meal.”

Upon being served my breakfast, I immediately wrapped the griddle cakes and smoked ham in my linen napkin. I shoved the bundle into one of the deep pockets of my dress as Esther Mae returned to clear away Aunt Augusta’s teacup. Her brow arched slightly when she saw my emptied plate. However, she said nothing as she gathered the dishes in her arms.

“Esther Mae, do we have any clean rags and ointment I could use to treat a deep flesh wound?”

“Chile, have you done hurt yo’self?” she asked carefully, with a hint of confusion.

I should have thought through my reasoning before asking. The less attention I brought on myself and my whereabouts, the better. I could not risk confiding my secret runaways to Esther Mae, even if I thought she would be akin to helping me. I was well aware that Mud Run had a social dynamic all its own, wherein the slaves interacted, gossiped, and abided by a pecking order often dictated by those who were in highest favor at the main house, be it with Aunt Augusta, Uncle Mooney, Colt, or even wicked Twitch. In fact, his slave driver, Willy Jack, was kept in sturdy brogans with wooden soles, and his cook fire often smelled of pork drippings simply because Twitch favored him. Willy Jack often carried out Twitch’s fierce orders within the ranks of his fellow slaves. Willy Jack was feared as much as, if not more than, Twitch because his eyes could see all that was transpiring beyond the fields after the master retired to the comfort of his hearth. So rather than chance any suspicious notions being set loose and whispered through Mud Run, I placated Esther Mae with the quickest fib I could fabricate.

“No, it’s nothing, really. I saw a helpless fawn yesterday. The poor thing was clawed across the haunches by a bear or mountain lion. It was bleeding quite badly and not likely to survive. If I come across it while berry picking, perhaps some comfort can be offered by sealing its wound.”

Esther Mae chuckled. “Miz Hannah, you know yo’ auntie won’t never let you waste good liniment on some half-dead animal in de woods. Now, I can’t touch de medicine closet without permission, but if yo’ heart is set on it, then I’ll have my boy, Elijah, fetch me some herb poultice from the cabin. It helps some when Massa’s whip lays open de skin.”

“Oh, Esther Mae,” I said, reminded of her husband’s suffering the previous day. “I am so sorry about what happened to Winston in town.”

“Don’t say nothin’ more, chile,” she said with an agitated wave of her arms. “Don’t want no more brought down upon us.”

I hushed in shame and followed Esther Mae through the kitchen and into the side yard, where hours earlier I had promised Marcus I would come to the peak after breakfast. I waited outside the gate of the fence that sectioned the yard. Esther Mae trotted across the front lawn and down the knoll into Mud Run. I watched as she waved Elijah into their cabin to fetch the poultice, and that’s when I noticed Winston gingerly running a brush over the back of a mare alongside the stables. Our eyes locked. To my surprise, he did not turn away. Stiff and sore, he nodded politely and then turned his attention back to the horse.

Winston was a gentle soul and the most amiable of any slave I had ever encountered. Because he was our carriage driver, I found myself in his company almost as much as in Granny Morgan’s and Esther Mae’s. Fatima and Tessie also worked in the house, although their duties usually kept them in the sewing room. However, they rarely spoke when I joined them during my afternoon needlework. Winston, on the other hand, was always quick to give me a wink and a grin, as if we shared some grand secret joke between us. I could never quite figure it out, but it was oddly comforting and never inappropriate or forthright. Unlike the indelicate winks directed my way by Twitch when no one else was aware.

“Miz Hannah, my mama says to fetch this to you,” Elijah said, handing me a preserve jar half- filled with a brown salve. “Says you should bring back what you don’t use so she can send it with my daddy when he leaves with Miz ’Gusta tomorr’y.”

I waved down to Esther Mae, who stood, arms folded, on her doorstep. “Tell your mama I will return it this afternoon.”

“Yas’sum.” He grinned with a pleasant smile as quick as his father’s. As he scampered off, I went to the shed for a berry tin and headed up the mountain.

I could barely contain my feet in an unobtrusive march until I reached the meadow, where I broke free into a full-out run. Unrestrained breaths were soon bursting from my bosom as I pushed upward to the peak without so much as a moment’s rest. I slowed my pace when I reached the shadowed coolness of the pine hollow. If not for the exuberant trill of a scarlet tanager hidden somewhere in the treetops, it would have been easy to believe that there wasn’t another heart beating within a hundred miles. A strange swell of anticipation filled me as I neared the rocky ridge that held my secret.

Suddenly, the unmistakable snap of footsteps on twigs peppered through the trees behind me. I stopped in my tracks, barely a stone’s throw from the cave entrance, unsure of whether to run or face the threat head-on. Fear pounded in my chest as I frantically scanned the trees around me. The crunch of heavy boots sent me scampering like a frightened squirrel in another direction, in the hope of misdirecting my pursuer away from Marcus and Livetta. Kicking up pine needles and mossy cakes of dirt, I fled deeper into the hollow; however, the footsteps came with me and closed the gap between us.

“Hannah! Where are you going?”

I looked over my shoulder and saw Colt trotting along the wooded path. I stopped and dropped to my knees, relieved but confused. He hurried past me toward the cave, with a large sack over his shoulder and a small wooden box in the crook of his arm.

“Land sakes, Colt, you frightened me to death.”

“Didn’t you hear me call out to you? I saw you enter the path in the meadow. What are you doing up here?”

“Marcus came down the mountain last night. Livetta is sick.”

“I know,” he said, nudging through the gap in the rocks. “I was here before dawn.”

Taken aback by the thought of Colt initiating such action, I helped him push his hefty sack through the hole and followed him in. Entering the cave on my hands and knees, I looked up and found myself surrounded by a sea of black faces. From my crouched position, I watched as they parted for Colt to walk toward the rear of the cave. There, Livetta shivered in Marcus’s arms as he stroked her forehead with a wet rag.

The group turned their guarded eyes back to me. There were seven new runaways in all, including a stern boy who looked to be a few years younger than I, and a proud, glaring woman with a motherly arm around his shoulders. Fidgeting in the shadows to my left was a sad and weary mulatto woman with two quadroons clinging to her waist, and a robust, gray-haired mammy with her stocky son propping her up at the elbow. Thoughts of the previous day played out in my mind, when unseen companions had scattered away through the tall grass, leaving Marcus and Livetta to face their fate alone. I had assumed they were long gone, but obviously they had stayed near enough to return once it was deemed safe. Now, in an air of bitter scrutiny, not one among them moved to assist me as I hoisted myself onto my feet.

“Hannah, come and give me a hand.”

I straightened my disheveled dress, and as I passed through the united front, I handed my small bundle of griddle cakes to the young mother. The older of her two children, a girl, pulled at her mother’s blouse with desperate hunger shaking her small, frail body.

“Lillabelle,” the woman said gently. “We is all like kin now, together like this. So we gots’ta give up some to feed t’others.”

With that, the attention on me dissipated into a tangle of hands reaching out to the woman who shared the modest meal equally among them.

Marcus looked over at me when I knelt down between him and Colt at Livetta’s side. Her dark skin was taut and ashen. Her marble eyes stared blankly, focused on nothing. It was clear the germ had taken hold of her. The gentleness of Marcus’s brotherly comfort wobbled my heart. I could barely take my eyes from his tender intent, until Colt opened the wooden box tucked under his arm. He ran his fingers across the sleek, shiny knives glimmering in the sunbeams that pierced down through the rocky ceiling.

“Gracious be, Colt. What are you doing?”

“I boiled them at the house. I must open her wound and remove the pellet.”

Marcus’s face clouded over as Colt’s words sank in. “You mean you is fixin’ to cut Livetta open?”

“I will make a small incision to remove the ball and flush the wound.”

“Can’t let you do that,” Marcus said. “Jes’ fetch some powerful medicine from the big house to rid Livetta of the fever. Don’t want no cuttin’ and bleedin’.”

Sensing more fear in Marcus’s resistance than I did blatant refusal, I offered what encouragement I could. “Colt knows what he’s doing, Marcus. He spent nearly six months in Richmond as an apprentice with Dr. Winford LaValle, one of Virginia’s finest.”

I didn’t mention that Uncle Mooney had little respect for Colt’s compassion and desire to help others. He had agreed to the apprenticeship solely because he felt whatever medicinal training Colt brought back to West Gate could be put to use in tending to lame horses and containing any disease that threatened the hog population. Beyond that, it was not an endeavor he encouraged his son to pursue. Colt had been quite impassioned by it, but upon his return, at his father’s insistence, the small box of medical utensils and elixirs was regretfully tucked away. Uncle Mooney wanted all notions beyond the business of West Gate to be cast from Colt’s mind. Now and again, though, an urgent situation would arise that brought Colt’s hidden talents to the surface, and this was indeed one of those occasions.