The Night Angel (32 page)

“May I also?” her mother asked.

“Oh, well, if you wish.” Now Serafina felt seized by an urgency that had little or nothing to do with Nathan Baring and everything to do with the sensation of something amiss. But what was she to say? That a nightmare had filled her with foreboding?

Nathan Baring stood in the doorway and looked about the dining room, seemingly fascinated by the impromptu art studio before him. Serafina found herself examining the room through Nathan’s eyes.

The dining room table had been pushed to one side and covered with a sheet. Another sheet covered the chairs that were stacked to either side of the table. Only one chair remained by the parlor door, for whichever model might be drawn into use at the moment. More sheets covered the floor about Serafina’s work area at the room’s far end. Two easels formed a dividing wall that effectively split the room in two, with three more easels folded into the corner.

Serafina observed Nathan’s slow entry into the room. The side wall captured him, which was hardly a surprise, since it was almost completely covered with sketches. The wall would have to be completely replastered and painted to mask all the tack holes. She apologized to her father almost daily for the damage she was causing. But Alessandro always waved her words aside. Nathan’s face held the same intent surprise as her father when he stepped up to the wall. Wordlessly he studied each of the sketches she had done of his mother.

Finally he stepped around to the easel. And stopped once more.

She studied him as well as the painting. She had known it was a good painting for over a week now. She had almost done away with the pencil’s darkly embedded lines, softening and softening until the shadings played out a story upon the paper. No longer was Mrs. Baring old. Nor did the painting tell an untruth of a young woman who existed no longer. Instead, the two were melded together, the young woman and the old. Serafina examined it anew and saw that it was a proper and fitting study. The image contained the timeless beauty of an eternal fire. The aged body, with its illness and pain, was also true. Yet it did not dominate the vision. Both the eternal and the earthly came together in the harmony of a faith-filled life.

Nathan caught his breath in what might have been a cough. Serafina was watching with this new sense of awareness, and she understood that he was struggling to hold back, to compress, to keep his emotions all locked tightly away.

She asked, “What is it that causes you this sorrow?”

His features maintained their handsome calm while his eyes revealed the torment within.

“It is not just your mother,” she said. “Why are you in such pain?”

His voice was reduced to a whisper by the force required to keep himself under control. “I fear the burden of false visions, wrong choices, and a wasted life.”

“You did what your father asked of you,” she comforted, remembering that she also was doing what her father was asking of her.

“But it is I who will stand before the Master’s throne and answer for a life—”

“A life filled with faith and good works,” she insisted. “A life filled with devotion to your family and good causes.”

He turned his attention fully to Serafina. “How . . . how do you know these things?”

“I speak merely of what I see.”

He held her gaze long enough for Bettina Gavi to clear her throat. Nathan turned back to the portrait of his mother and said, “It is truly magnificent. What a wonderful gift.”

“Thank you.” She understood his intent to bring several meanings to the word
gift,
and she appreciated his gratitude. She also knew that she was only at the beginning of her own exploration into capturing the mystery, the unseen essence, of each painting.

When she looked at the image of Eleanor Baring, she was satisfied.

Falconer and his motley band marched until darkness obscured the road. Falconer directed the first wagon down a narrow track, then hastened back to lead in the others. They carried no lights, and it would have been easy to miss the turning. The small clearing really was too cramped for them all, but the folks were too weary to care. They drank from a trickling stream, crouching like animals in the mud. Falconer had just four canteens, and his only bucket was the one he had taken from the disused farmhouse to water the horses. He eased the wagon traces but did not release the horses entirely, for what reason he did not know. When the horses had their noses deep in their oat bags, he sat on the ground, leaned against a wheel, ate a plate of something Joseph put into his hand, drank his canteen dry, and dozed.

But not for long. He was jerked awake by a sound.

The clearing was packed with wagons and animals and people. The horses shook their heads and jangled their traces, and the group slept wherever they had finished their meal. The adults groaned or snored in their sleep while the children cried and whimpered. From the surrounding trees a hawk complained over having his hunting ground disturbed. It was impossible for Falconer to have heard the night warn him.

Nonetheless he knew he would sleep no more that night. He eased himself up slowly, his body complaining loudly. Intending to make a circuit of the clearing, he stopped when he found two pairs of eyes watching him.

Falconer murmured, “I must have been dreaming.”

Both Hattie and Joseph rose from the earth to stand beside him. Hattie asked, “Was it God talkin’ or the road?”

“I wish I knew.” Now that he was discussing it, he could take the sensation out and study it more carefully. “I have a feeling we’re being tracked.”

Joseph said, “I done had a creepy crawly feeling under my skin ever since I laid down.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

The tall shadow shrugged. “Long as it was just me, it coulda been my tired bones talking.”

Hattie was already moving. “Up! Everybody, rise and praise God!” She picked her way over the supine bodies, clapping her hands and calling in her hoarse voice. “We got Glory ahead and the wolves behind!”

Somebody groaned, a child whimpered. But Hattie was prodding them now with her bare feet and clapping louder still. “Y’all been tired before, but never for a reason good as this!” Her clapping and shouting was joined by the horses’ whinnying. “We’re movin’ out now! We can all sleep once we’s safe in Glory!”

They marched on through the night into the chill of a dry dawn. Their journey continued through rising heat and thirst. They did not pause for a meal. They marched at a pace that would have made an army proud. Most adults walked to spare the horses, and some carried children. Even the horses seemed to catch wind of something more than dust and sunlight filling the trail ahead. They pulled the wagons with snorting impatience.

And as they marched, they sang.

They sang and they praised God. They sang and they spoke of Glory ahead. They chanted in time to their footsteps. One of them would talk for a while, of how Moses parted the Red Sea. Of how God stilled Abraham’s hand before the knife could plunge into his son. Of how God’s own Son came down to give them all a reason to keep marching on. On and on and on.

They did stop at every spring and creek and river. They drank along with the horses, then hands patted the horses’ flanks to turn them away from the water. Then they rejoined the trail. The endless, dusty, hot, weary trail.

Hattie’s voice had long since given out. But she could clap and walk. She did more than her share of both. Sometimes she would whisper to someone closest to her, and they would start another song for her.

The afternoon stretched out over endless time. Falconer had never known the sun to move so slowly. He had the impression they were drawing close. He could not be certain, for the Salem Trail was little more than a drovers’ route and had none of the milestones found on turnpikes. They crested a rise that seemed familiar. The valley descended to a bridge over a chuckling creek, where they all stopped for one more drink. He glanced over at Joseph, hoping the man would agree with him that they weren’t far off, but Joseph was walking like the horses, with his head hanging low. Though his arms hung at his sides, a child was clinging limpetlike to his neck. Falconer shifted the boy he carried and decided not to say anything for fear of raising false hopes.

Climbing that next ridge was very hard indeed.

Then they reached the crest. And there before him was the sweetest sight he had seen in many a day. Four valleys stretched out like fingers of a splayed hand. At the center nestled a village. Descending sunlight played over the orderly rooftops like the divine hand. The trails of smoke rising from the chimneys turned into gossamer pillars holding up heaven itself.

Hattie stepped up beside him. She spoke with a voice as low and cracked as an old man’s. “Is that it?”

“Salem,” Falconer agreed, his voice as dusty and fractured as hers. “We made it.”

She eased the child she was carrying down to the ground and clapped her hands over her head. “Y’all come on!” She meant to shout, but there was scarce little volume left. “We’re gonna sing now! Yes! We’re gonna enter Glory with praise on our lips!”

And so help them, that is exactly what they did. Even Emmett Reeves rose to his feet, standing upon the wagon seat to sing hoarsely with the others. The horses lifted their heads to the clamor.

Doors opened up and down that side of Salem, and villagers began filing out. The community sentries stepped into place like a military escort, and they were soon joined by more and more, all dressed in shades of gray and white and exuding welcome. Falconer sang along with his charges, too tired to feel embarrassed at his lack of musical ability. The afternoon was too fine to be silent.

A familiar form came racing up the trail toward them. Falconer slipped the child he carried to another pair of hands and bent over to accept the boy’s embrace. He lifted him up and breathed in the wonder of this clean slight form whose arms held such an intense comfort as they wrapped around his neck.

Chapter 26

They filled the four stables on that side of town and spilled out into the pasture that linked them. Falconer stretched out beneath a pecan tree that had just begun sprouting its leaves. A pair of dogwoods proclaimed in white-clad splendor that spring had arrived and all was well. Falconer dozed and woke to find Matt playing a game of mumblety-peg with three darker-skinned children. Women tended a savory-smelling kettle on a big open fire. Others walked among the still forms, offering mugs of cider and fresh-baked bread. Ada stood to one side, speaking with the pastor and two men Falconer did not recognize. Beyond the fence was gathered what appeared to be the entire village. He dozed off again.

The next time he awoke, it was to find Matt seated beside him eating from a tin plate. “Mama said I could stay as long as I didn’t bother you.”

“You’re not bothering me at all.” Falconer reached over and tousled the boy’s hair. “I missed you, lad.”

Matt’s smile outshone the lingering sunset. “Shall I bring you a plate too?”

“Heap it high. I’ve been hungry for weeks, it feels like.”

As the boy raced off, a voice behind him said, “You shouldn’t tempt him so, John Falconer. He will pile the food on higher than his head.”

“Greetings, Ada.” He rose to his feet, then noticed the pastor standing beside her. “Excuse me, I mean, Mrs. Hart.”

She made no move toward him, but her eyes were welcoming. “You have been busy, John Falconer.”

“They are good folks,” he said simply, wishing he could express the tumult that rose in his chest at the sight of her.

“Indeed, they say the same of you,” the pastor said, stepping forward and offering his hand. “You are welcome, Mr. Falconer.”

“Thank you, sir. That means a great deal to me.”

“How many did you bring to us this time?”

“Forty-nine.”

The pastor’s beard trailed across his dark coat as he shook his head. “That is a larger group than we normally handle in an entire summer.”

“We shall manage,” Ada said comfortably.

“Yes, well, I suppose we shall have to. We certainly can’t turn them away.” The pastor’s gaze was hesitant. “Do you intend to carry on with more such rescues, Mr. Falconer?”

“If you will permit me.”

He blew out his cheeks. “I can scarcely say no, can I now?”

“Indeed not,” Ada said, her gaze still warming Falconer’s bones.

“I’ve taken ownership of a farm north of here,” Falconer said. “You may use it if you wish.”

Ada said archly, “I thought you said you did not care to reside in these parts, John Falconer.”

“I said merely that I was a stranger to this green and pleasant land, ma’am.” He kept his eyes safely upon the pastor. “But the farm was never intended for my use.”

“No?” the pastor asked.

“Not for farming, that is. I wouldn’t know the first thing about that profession, honorable as it is. I just hoped it might be of use in freeing more slaves.”

“Our own efforts have been hindered since the loss of Ada’s husband, may God keep his soul in eternal peace.” The pastor looked from one face to the other, then continued in a reflective tone, “There are other ways to help the cause of freedom than driving yourself to exhaustion, Mr. Falconer.”