Shifted By The Winds (35 page)

“Does Moses treat you badly?” Morah asked, eyeing her sharply.

“Never,” Rose said. She smiled. “He wouldn’t dare.” There was a ripple of laughter, but serious concern remained on every face as they stared back at her. “I know Moses is unique, but it’s only because he learned another way of treating women.”

“How?” Morah demanded.

It was a good question. Rose thought through her answer. “I think my mama probably put the fear of God in him before she died.” Her tone was light, but she realized that her mama
had
probably made it very clear how she expected him to treat her daughter. “It was more than that, though. All of you have heard the story about how Carrie Cromwell helped us escape through the Underground Railroad. Watching how she struggled to do the right thing and make the right decisions about slavery made him think about his own beliefs.” She paused. “Then we got to Philadelphia, and he met Abby Cromwell—only she was Abby Livingston then. He saw a woman who owned her own business, and who was succeeding in a man’s world. He developed even more respect for women.” Her gaze swept the room. “He grew up in slavery just like all your men did. But he turned into a different man.”

“My Abraham told me I was supposed to
submit
to him,” Morah said. “I ain’t a slave anymore. I know how to read now, and I work every bit as hard as he does. There ain’t gonna be no
submitting
.” She fairly growled the words.

“Can you help us, Rose?” Hettie asked, her eyes resting on Morah. “I ain’t got no man telling me what to do, because my man died years ago, but the other women here need help.”

Rose nodded. “You’re right.” She took a deep breath. “Women all over the country, both white and black, are fighting for their rights.” She had gotten a letter from Carrie about that very thing last week. “It’s going to be a tough battle, but we’re not going to quit fighting until we have the right to vote.”

Morah snorted. “You really think men gonna let that happen?”

Rose waited until every eye in the room was looking at her closely. “I think the day will come when they won’t be able to stop it,” she said. “Women will get the right to vote.”

“Not in my lifetime,” Hettie observed.

“Perhaps not,” Rose replied. “And it may not even be in my lifetime. I sincerely hope that is not true, but the thing I do know to be true is that women simply won’t quit fighting for equality and the right to vote.”

A somber silence fell on the room as all the women contemplated her statement. Courage filled their faces, and their shoulders straightened, but Morah’s next statement just as quickly deflated them.

“That’s all fine and good, Rose, but how’s that gonna stop our men treating us badly right now? I’m tired of Abraham treating me bad. I thought I left all that behind me. I told my children they would never be treated wrong again. Now it’s their daddy doing it.” Anger dripped from her voice, but her eyes were cloaked with something verging on hopelessness.

Rose knew she was right. “I’ll talk to Moses,” she promised. The husband of almost every woman in the school worked for Moses. It wouldn’t address all of their problems, but it would be a place to begin. She pushed aside the thought that most of them would be moving on at the end of the harvest. It was imperative they do something
now
. “He will talk to the men and tell them things have to change.”

“What about when we have to move on?” Morah demanded. “We gots to leave here when the harvest is done and look for different work.”

Rose sighed. “I wish I could tell you Moses can make everything different, but I can’t honestly promise you that,” she admitted. “It will be a start, though,” she said. “Your men respect my husband, and they need the job he is giving them. That alone will insure they will at least listen. Some of them will change when they know Moses doesn’t agree with them.”

“And the rest of them?” Morah demanded, fear spiking her voice.

Rose suddenly understood things must be very bad for her. This kind of fear didn’t come from being hit occasionally, though any kind of abuse was inexcusable. She stepped over and took Morah’s hands. “You’re being beaten.” It was not a question.

Morah’s face flamed with shame before she dropped her gaze to the floor. “Abraham ain’t the same man he was before the war,” she mumbled. “He came back hard and mean. He was the gentlest man I ever knew before he went off to fight for the North. That’s gone,” she said flatly.

Rose knew men all over the country, both Union and Confederate, had returned home as changed men. Moses still had nightmares, and there were nights she heard Robert cry out in his sleep. June had told her Simon still wasn’t the same, but she knew he wasn’t abusive to her sister-in-law. “Everyone changed,” she said, “but that doesn’t give him an excuse to beat you.”

Morah shrugged. “We’ll see if Moses can change things.” Her face tightened with fear again. “What if Abraham figures out I told about him?” She began to tremble. “It will only make things worse.”

“We’re
all
here telling,” Hettie reminded her.

A chorus of agreement rose from the room.

“We’ve had enough.”

“They’s got to treat us better.”

“We ain’t putting up with no more of this!”

Rose gazed at the resolute faces that reflected both fear and determination. “I will talk to Moses tonight,” she promised.

Moses listened quietly as Rose recounted what the women had told her after class.

“It’s terrible for some of them,” Rose cried. “They’ve already suffered so much. Will you talk to the men?” She took a deep breath. “I promised them you would.”

Moses took a deep breath of his own. “I’ll talk to them,” he agreed.

Rose wished there was more light on the porch so she could see his face more clearly, but she knew him well enough now to hear every nuance in his voice. She had waited until everyone had gone to bed before she broached the subject. “What are you not saying?”

“Some of the men are very angry,” Moses said. “Talking to them might make them angrier, because they are going to believe their wives said something.”

Rose squirmed as she thought of Morah’s fear.

“I can control what happens on the plantation,” Moses said, “but when they leave, I can’t do anything.”

“I know,” Rose admitted, “but we have to try. We can’t just do nothing.” The look on the women’s faces as they implored her for help was engraved on her mind. “We have to do something, Moses.”

Moses nodded. “I know.” He stood and walked to the edge of the porch, staring out into the night for a long moment before he swung around. “I want you to be careful, though.”

Rose stared at him. “What?”

Moses sat down next to her and took both her hands. “The men know the women respect you and come to you for advice. They know you are teaching them and giving them a self-confidence they never had before.”

“Those are good things!” Rose cried.

“Yes, but certain men also see it as a threat to their manhood,” he said. “They might decide to take it out on you.”

“Let them try,” Rose retorted, but she felt a flash of discomfort. Every man working for Moses had served in the Union Army. They had the potential to be dangerous. She gripped Moses’ hands. “I’ll be careful,” she said, struck by the look of love on his face.

“You’ll do more than that,” Moses replied. “From now on, I would like you to carry a pistol with you at all times.”

Rose gasped. He hadn’t asked her to do that even with the threat of vigilantes. “You really think one of them would hurt me? I’m your wife!” Unbidden, an image of the anger and pain in Trevor’s eyes floated into her mind.

“And that should be enough,” Moses agreed, “but men who have been through battle are sometimes never the same. I’m giving all these men a chance, but that doesn’t mean I trust all of them. I’ve taught you how to shoot. Will you carry the pistol?”

Rose hesitated, but nodded slowly. “Yes,” she said. “And you will talk to the men?”

“I will talk to them,” Moses promised.

The sun was still tucked beneath the treetops when Moses rode Champ out of the stables. The cobalt blue sky was just beginning to take on the hue of dawn when he reached the tobacco fields. He had told Rose he needed to check on the final stages of harvest. The truth was that he needed time to think. He agreed with her that something needed to be done to help the women in the community, but he felt uncomfortable with the knowledge that the weight of the responsibility seemed to rest on his shoulders. He had come to grips with the idea of being a leader for his people, but the demands of the tobacco season had allowed him the luxury of pushing that reality far to the back of his mind. It was a future possibility, not a present thing. Rose’s revelation had brought it roaring back with an intensity that threatened to overwhelm him. He knew that whatever he chose to say could make things better for these women. It could also make them worse.

A riotous chorus of birds broke through his thoughts. He managed to smile as cardinals flitted through the trees. It was easy to spot the bright red of the males, but he was just as adept at identifying the softer ocher color of the females. Their identical dark orange beaks made them stand out, but it was their calls that pulled his heart this morning.
Waaait… Waaait… Cheer …Cheer …Cheer…Cheer.
He wished he could follow their heed to wait to talk to his men, and then he hoped someone would cheer him after he lowered the boom on them. Somehow he was certain neither thing was going to happen.

Moses sighed, shifting easily as Champ shied away from a wide-eyed deer that bounded out of the woods. Champ snorted but stood steady as the doe turned and raced back into the trees. Moses couldn’t see it, but he was sure there was a fawn joining its mama in the race from danger. The fawn’s spots would have all faded as its coat thickened in preparation for winter.

In spite of his anxiety, the peace of the plantation began to work its way into his soul. He turned his head and gazed out over the fields. Every field, once standing tall with fluttering tobacco plants, was bare. Just the tough green stalks, cut almost to the ground, remained behind as testimony to Cromwell Plantation’s biggest ever tobacco harvest. All the tobacco was now either packed into barrels headed downriver to Norfolk for export, or to Richmond by wagon to be turned into chewing and pipe tobacco or cigarettes. Moses smiled with satisfaction as he thought of Thomas’ stunned response to his final report on the harvest. He planned on waiting until the Harvest Celebration to let the workers know the final results of their hard labor, but he had shared it with Thomas as soon as he had calculated the final numbers.

A flurry of raucous calls from deep within the pine and cedar trees made him turn his head just in time to see a flock of ten blue jays darting through the woods. He never tired of their bright azure blue color, though there were times he could do without their noisy, harsh calls. He remembered the day his father had told him these crafty birds could also imitate the call of a hawk. He had watched for years to find one doing it, but so far he had come up empty. He would keep looking, because he knew his father wouldn’t have told him something that wasn’t true.

Another burst of song made him smile. He had always loved the robin’s trilling whistle heralding the arrival of spring.
Cheer-up, cheery me… Cheer-up, cheery me…
He knew most of the robins would soon be migrating further south to avoid the snow, but just listening to them now made him feel better. Their constant cheer had helped him through many long days of toiling in the tobacco fields as a boy. 

His father had taught him all the birds he knew, telling Moses their songs would help him get through the longest days. He had been right—until he had seen his father hanged from a tree. The birdsongs had ceased to comfort him after that. They were nothing but a stark reminder of what he had lost. Until recently… The joy had returned, bringing with it the memories of a man who had given all to try and offer freedom to his family.

Moses took a deep breath, feeling courage surge into his heart. He could almost feel Big Sam right there with him. He wished his father could have lived to experience freedom. Now he just hoped his father knew his wife and children were finally free. Big Sam would not have stood by if he knew a wrong was being done. He would have done the right thing, no matter the consequences. Now it was Moses’ turn.