“Can’t see how you could be intrudin’ when the land beneath our feet is yorn.”
“What I mean is, I imagine the Runians would think me out of place wandering among them.”
Livie’s left eyebrow arched halfway up her forehead. “No more out o’ place than I feel every day up at the big house.” Slowly, her face slacked with resigned acceptance, which troubled me, because my attempt at explanation had left her with the wrong impression. My hesitation was not the result of distaste, but rather from unmitigated fear. Uncle Mooney often professed that the slave population as a whole could not be trusted, and any one of them would slice the throat of a white man, woman, or child if given the chance. For the most part, I dismissed Uncle Mooney’s rants as peacockish sermons fueled by his indulgence in apple brandy, but to my dismay, the impact of those absorbed opinions weakened my knees. Livie lowered her head, fingering the sores on her hands and perhaps wondering if we had uprooted differences we could not ignore. She kept her eyes from mine, releasing me from any challenge or disappointment she could not mask. It shamed me as I faced the hurt feelings of a dear friend. Even worse, Livie’s posture shifted as though she were a conforming slave girl stepping back in obedience. With that, I cast off my unfounded fears and moved quickly to repair the damage caused by my hesitation.
“Thank you for inviting me today,” I said, slipping my arm around Livie’s elbow and nudging her with apologetic tenderness. “It means the world to me—really. Please forgive my nervousness. I truly did not mean to imply mistrust. Sometimes the unknown is a bit scary, and to be truthful, I am not sure the Runians even like me. I guess it never occurred to me until this moment.”
“I understand bein’ scared of what you don’t know, Hannah. Remember how jittery I was up in the ol’ cave when Marcus tol’ me he was leavin’ me behind? But you stood by me and made sure no bad came to me. It was hard at first, but I growed to trust you. So don’t be scared none, even if you get to feelin’ peculiar with some folk. I won’t let no harm come to you. Do you trust me?”
“You are my friend, Livie. Of course I trust you,” I declared proudly, and prayed that my sincere conviction made amends for my earlier lapse.
I linked my arm in hers and let her lead me down the hill, away from Hillcrest and into a world I knew only from afar, framed like an oil painting in my bedroom window. As we stepped through the first line of trees that bordered Mud Run, my eyes and ears were awash with activities and sounds so rich, the portrait I held jumped from its canvas and burst alive.
Each clapboard cabin I passed stood bare and simple, with a modest stack of firewood and a mildew-stained rain barrel. The slaves moved with an ease of step I was not accustomed to seeing, and no doubt came from being beyond the watch and demand pressed on them by their overseers. They talked and joked with one another as they went about their business, their voices warm and lyrical. The scent of smoked venison flavored the air as women in aprons filled with carrots and potatoes bustled by in pairs toward the large cook fires crackling in the clearing. Between the two cabins nearest us, a handful of pickaninnies in worn, ill-fitting shirttails crouched in a circle, playing with marbles and wooden pegs.
“Lawd have mercy, Miz Hannah, what’chu doin’ down this way?” Winston said, pushing a wheelbarrow piled with split logs “Livetta, you get her on back up the hill now, ya hear? This ain’t no rightful place fo’ Miz Hannah.”
“I am here of my own choosing, Winston.”
Winston settled the wheelbarrow on the ground, then reached up under the back of his felt hat to scratch his head. He gave me an amused wink from under the brim of his hat. Some may have thought it an inappropriate gesture, but I knew it was Winston’s amiable way of sealing the secret between us. He readjusted his hat and hoisted the barrow back onto its wooden wheel.
“Well, that’s a whole ’nother story den, Miz Hannah.” As he heaved his load back in motion and headed for the gathering by the fires, Winston shook his head and chuckled. “Don’t that beat all. Somewhere, Miz ’Gusta is pitchin’ a big ol’ fit, none the wiser that her fussin’ is seeded and sprinkled right here in Mud Run.”
I was not offended by his forthright humor, because I could indeed picture Aunt Augusta bristling with agitation brought on by instinctive awareness of something, somewhere being out of order. I was quite grateful the group surrounding me had as much reason as I to keep Aunt Augusta in the dark about my journey below. And so began another day in the year of my awakening.
Livie took hold of my wrist and led me to where the fires roared. The sea of dark faces parted to let us pass. Some nodded respectfully, while others turned away, not wanting to engage me. Puzzled stares came at me from every direction, and if not for Livie’s firm grip on my arm, I would have turned on my heels and retreated from the whispered exchanges passing from one to the other. I held a delicate smile on my face so tightly, it felt branded in place. Any superior air I may have carried at other times surely dissipated as I lowered my head self-consciously.
Still, Livie tugged me along, undeterred by the dampened effect my appearance had on the mumbling crowd. My heart lightened when we came upon the Runians with whom I was better acquainted.
“Good afternoon, Esther Mae.” I lit up as she paused with an apron piled heavy with corncobs.
“Land sakes, Miz Hannah! Do you need somethin’ up at the big house? I’ll fetch it fo’ you rightly.”
“No, thank you kindly, Esther Mae. I was simply drawn to the music. I come with no directives or expectations.”
She cocked her head in doubt, then relaxed into a smile. “Jes’ when I thinks I seen it all, the two of you show up here.” Esther Mae looked at me in a way she never had: warmly and directly in the eye. Her gracious nod revealed an earnest soul who harbored no ill will. Holding tight to her load, she made a broad stroke with her free hand. “Well, then, Miz Hannah, welcome to the Run.” Esther Mae’s acceptance seemed to signal the others to accept, or at least tolerate, me as well. As she joined the shuckers sitting on the haystacks, a sigh of relief was breathed by all.
Old Joe, one of Uncle Mooney’s hog slaughterers, resumed his tune on the gourd fiddle, coaxing the revelry back into the crisp December air. Before long, a few of the young girls broke from their labor and took to the dance floor with rhythmic stomping that had me clapping along with the crowd.
“There!” Livie shouted over the music. She pointed over to the hay bales where Granny Morgan waved us over. The bales were lined and layered like choir benches along the south side of the blacksmith quarters. It was a building unseen from my window, with the exception of its wood-shingled roof, and it stood nearly as large as the carriage house. James emerged from the side entrance with a lasso looped over his broad shoulder. As he walked past us, he tugged the brim of his hat and nodded, first to me, then to Livie. Her eyes instantly gleamed with pleasure.
“Ain’t he a fine sight?” she oozed as she watched him walk off through the crowd. “Folks down here think he’s a mite peculiar, ’cuz he’s so quiet and inside hisself.”
“My, my, Livie,” I said, playfully. “From your deepening hue, I can see you have a warm opinion of silent James.”
Livie giggled and shrugged her shoulders. However, the smile on her face was not that of a childlike crush, but rather the reflection of a vulnerable woman’s heart. I envied the amorous swirl in her eyes, which so sharply contrasted with the vacant eyes of my counterparts who existed in marriages arranged like business deals struck long before their hearts could awaken with love.
“Come over here, young’uns, so you ain’t trampled.” Granny Morgan greeted us like a mother hen corralling her chicks. She patted the stacked bales of hay, signaling us to sit.
Mabelle swayed and hummed as the music gained momentum. Sensing our approach, she paused to echo Granny’s declaration. “Tuck yo’self in behind Granny. Best place fo’ stayin’ warm and out o’ the way.”
Mabelle’s pocked eyes rolled back and forth as she reached her hands out and groped the air. “Is this here the Blessin’ girl I hear tell of ?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, stepping toward her to let her hands find mine.
Her plump fingers squeezed my hands and pulled me nearer. “The good Lawd give you a fittin’ name, chile. Jes’ like yo’ mama and papa.”
Her words took me off guard, because in all of my time at Hillcrest, no one with the exception of Aunt Augusta ever spoke of my parents. “Miss Mabelle, did you know my mother and father?”
“Of course, chile, we all—”
Granny Morgan laid a firm hand on her sister’s arm. “Hush up now, Mabelle. An ol’ soul with hair as white as yorn don’t recollect proper or know nothin’ ’bout nothin’. Ain’t that right, ol’ gal?”
Granny patted Mabelle’s hand in a way that delivered a message that transcended her words. Mabelle released my hands and receded back into her own world, humming and swaying to the spirituals. Livie grabbed an armful of corn and nudged me up on the hay, where we settled behind Granny Morgan. Tucked away in this makeshift balcony, I found discreet respite, although the mournful strains of Mabelle’s serenade tugged at my heart. Countless times in the past, I had heard her sing when she sat on the stoop of the mercantile. Melodies filled with random tales and meaningless words seemed designed to fill the emptiness of a day. But somehow they cut deep in me now and released a dormant ache. Thankfully, the laughter and fiddle music around us pulled me from my stupor.
Any doubt I had about coming down into Mud Run was replaced with curiosity about the people who lived behind the abiding, complacent faces that moved through my life, barely noticed. As the shadows spread into twilight and most of the corn was cribbed, the fires grew into excited infernos. The blazing halo gave light to the twisting and turning pairs immersed in musical escape and contentment. Smaller cook fires produced a stream of sweet potatoes and turnip greens for anyone seeking to fill their wooden bowls. Eventually, Livie and I left the balcony and mixed among the revelers as they ate and clapped in unison. Occasionally, though, Mabelle’s voice rose above the others and had me wondering what she knew of my mother and father. And why was it being hidden from me?
Chapter 13
S
weeping tentacles of fire whooshed high into the midnight sky as the mountain of harvested corn was leveled, shucked, and cribbed. Six crates of jugged corn whiskey, a limited allowance offered by Uncle Mooney, were now empty. The enthusiasm of the inebriated pushed the music and carousing into a feverish uproar. The blend of fiddles, mouth organs, and banjos shook my heart free of the social corset in which I had been dutifully bound. I stepped in tune and clapped my hands, discreetly at first, then with complete abandon as Elijah’s small, rough hands held mine and bounced me in a circular two-step. I laughed shamelessly as my skirt whirled above my exposed ankles, until I finally reached down with one hand and hoisted my hemline halfway up my calf so I could move without restriction.
Swept up in my unguarded enthusiasm, I lost sight of Livie, who had remained faithfully at my side throughout the night. As I turned around the dance floor with Elijah, I caught a glimpse of Livie leaning against the corner of the blacksmith barn. Next to her, James straddled an overturned rain barrel, keeping his usual quiet distance outside the circle of activity. Livie shifted shyly as she spoke to him, her dewy eyes soft with warmth and sweetness. James hunched forward, delicately working his small carving knife up and down a smooth piece of cherrywood as a slow tumble of wood shavings fell around his feet. Livie’s face radiated as she spoke with him. He stood and brushed his trousers clean of wood dust, then removed his hat, holding it awkwardly in his thick hands. Words passed from him to her. Livie responded with shining eyes. Then, to my surprise, James’ terminally solemn face melted into an engaging grin accentuated by a timid nod inviting Livie to join him. Livie floated to his side and as they settled onto the barrel together, he pressed a gentle hand against the small of her back. They were the picture of contentment embraced by the bright aura of fire. And though it went unnoticed by most, or perhaps dismissed as nothing more than the flicker of firelight, I recognized the spark of infatuation when I saw it.
“Does yo’ feet need to rest a spell, Miz Hannah?”
I looked down into Elijah’s cocoa bean eyes and realized I had stopped dancing. My heart skipped with excitement from my exertions of the evening. Elijah’s angelic face lit up with a smile, unaware of the powerful impact his acceptance of me had within the circle of Runians. His innocent gesture of bringing me onto the dance floor had given me a gateway into their lives. Gone were the sedated bows and curtsies that hung like a curtain between their world and mine. The absolute real-ness of the night dizzied me, and for a fleeting moment, I wished the music would never end.
“Do you want me to fetch you some cider, Miz Hannah?”
Elijah’s words were punctuated by the fiddle bow stroking a quick and unexpected end to the delightful jig. As the musicians set aside their instruments to wipe their brows, the crowd continued stomping and singing, their spontaneous momentum never waning. But I savored a momentum all my own. I tucked my fingers beneath Elijah’s chin and raised it in a playful yet sincerely felt gesture of gratitude.
“Thank you for the lovely dance, Mr. Elijah,” I said with a delicate bow of the head and curtsy. “It was truly my honor to have such a fine partner, but I do not wish to be utterly selfish by keeping you all to myself when there are so many other pretty girls waiting to share your time. I shall go over and dip my own cider while you run off and have some fun.”
Elijah beamed a satisfied smile as he turned on his heels and strolled away toward a group of giggling girls, his chin still high in the air. I walked my tired feet across the dance floor to where a gaggle of women, some young, some old, whispered around the cider barrel. A tall, lanky Runian named Isabel dipped a hollow gourd in the cider barrel and handed it to me as I approached. Isabel worked in the fields, so I did not know her well, but I smiled as I accepted the tart cider from her. As I sipped the cool refreshment, she watched my movement with a perplexed gaze.
The crowd thinned as the gray predawn sky brought with it drowsy completeness. Light snow began falling tranquil and silent, a fitting end to a celestial evening. Many of the older Runians who had nodded off during the night now shuffled with stiff, labored steps to the cabins hidden in the shadows. An intimate group of coupled pairs, including Livie and James, swayed to the strains of a lone fiddler, serenading them with a waltz so tender it was impossible for courtship not to be set in motion.
The smile I held from afar drained my last bit of vigor and with it my ability to hold open my heavy eyelids, which bobbed and sagged with exhaustion. Unwilling to face the gloomy trek back up the hill, where isolation and loneliness would be my only companions, I decided to seek respite in Livie’s cabin at the far edge of Mud Run. I slipped through the shadows that laced the path between the huddled cabins. If not for the remnant of moonlight still fighting the dawn, I would have stumbled over rocks and tree stumps hidden along the way. Still, the gray mist enveloped me, and I became disoriented and led astray. A hoot owl mocked my ignorance from above. I paused to regain my bearings, but was assaulted by the dank stench of rat droppings and chicken manure, a bleak reminder of the harsh and desperate conditions within Mud Run.
Without warning, a rough, clammy hand latched on to my wrist. I shrieked, and when my frantic eyes found blank eyes staring at me through the mist, my body erupted into molten fear. I twisted my hand to break free, but could not release it. The eyes moved toward me, shedding the haze between us, and revealed the weathered outline of one of Uncle Mooney’s ragged slave women, who was nameless to me. She was a tall, meatless woman with one hand gnarled into a claw. Her infirmity was the result of a suffocating August day several years earlier, when heat and lack of water had collapsed her in the fields. Now she earned her keep by looking after the children left motherless during the day when the able-bodied women worked the fields.
The strength brought on by a lifetime of labor flowed powerfully from her good hand, still clutching my wrist. Her mouth, which hung as crippled as her claw, garbled a few low groans with no meaningful form. Using her claw, she gestured gruffly up through the trees. Shrouded by a thin veil of tumbling snowflakes, the gray outline of Hillcrest stood lifeless in the distance. I shook my head.
“No, I do not seek the path up the hill. I am trying to find my way to Livetta’s cabin.”
She cocked her head and moaned with disapproval. Poking twice more toward Hillcrest, the woman let the grossly bent angle of her wrist punctuate her insistence that I leave Mud Run. By now the rug-thumping fright eased in my heart and in its place came steady resolve.
“Old woman, I know you mean well, but I insist you direct me toward Livetta’s cabin.”
With a resigned grimace wrinkling the side of her face not robbed of expression, the woman released my wrist and shuffled like a broken pinwheel in a strained half circle. She pointed down a narrow trail beyond the dull gleam of candlelight illuminating the cabins nearest us. She turned back to me long enough to mumble something befitting a stern warning, then scuffed away until all I could hear of her was the sound of her dragging leg.
I hurried among the cabins, some silent and others with the soft hum of songs meant to coax sleep. The path darkened beneath a line of hickories, then opened into what I recognized as the nearest cabin cluster to the upper fields. Livie’s cabin was the last one along the back edge, and the only one of the cluster with the faint glow of firelight leaking from its door frame. Even though I had never stepped inside its log walls, I ran toward her home like it was my safe haven
I creaked open the door and was met by the scents of damp leather, straw, and earthy simplicity. Orange embers dozed near dormancy in the stone fireplace of a hazy room. A small table with benches centered the room, and two cast-iron pots hung from pegs above the hearth. Near the smoldering ash sat a wooden bucket with a small ring of water puddling at its base. There were two modest bed frames huddled against opposite walls. Each held a straw mattress draped with a lump of frayed blankets and one fairly sturdy quilt. The bedding struck me as inadequate, considering the limited warmth put forth by the meager ashes that gasped for life from across the room.
Without warning, one of the lumps bolted up. I reeled backward against the door, and would have screamed if the force of the collision had not knocked the breath from my lungs. The ebony reflection of my surprise stared out at me from beneath her blanket. I had forgotten Livie shared her cabin with another slave girl who had not yet been matched for breeding. I recognized Fatima from our time together in the sewing room.
“Excuse me,” I said with awkward embarrassment. “I did not mean to wake you.”
Realizing I wanted nothing from her, Fatima burrowed back under her covers. I was now dizzy with exhaustion, so without further consideration of my surroundings, I folded my weary body onto the empty bed nearest the fireplace. The straw mattress was stiff and prickly, making me long for the crisp linen sheets and thick, warm quilt tucked neatly over my feathered mattress. However, in spite of my dependency on the fine comforts accompanying wealth, I was not yet prepared to let go of my day of immunity from pretense and distinction. Shucking day awoke new understanding in me, and left me as raw as the harvest. Much like the stripped corn prepared for the coming winter, I too was made ready for new purpose by the hardened hands of the oppressed. Wrapped in a tattered quilt and with the lilt of Mabelle’s mournful songs beckoning me, I sank into sleep.
“Wake up, Hannah! He’s here! I seen him.”
Livie jerked me to my feet and shook me until the fog cleared from my groggy head. Through the dimness of dawn, I saw Livie’s wide eyes snapping against her strained face. My heart jolted to life as I realized I was still in her cabin.
“Has Twitch returned with Aunt Augusta?” I lurched, pulling the door ajar. “She must not find me here, Livie.”
“No, no . . .” Livie had me by the sleeve and pulled me into the bite of a cold morning.
I fought against her, but her strength had me stumbling along after her. A thin crust of frosty snow crunched beneath our feet as she tugged me across the back edge of Mud Run. Before we broke through the last line of trees, I grabbed the branch of an azalea bush as an anchor and brought us to a sudden halt. Our breath churned rolls of mist through the icy air between us.
“Livie, this is serious. I shall be of no use to you if Aunt Augusta sends me away. If she finds me here, she will disown me and banish me from the plantation. What’s more, no matter how cruel my fate, you and the others will bear worse. Aunt Augusta will take great pleasure in levying punishment on all of you. It will be swift and merciless, because she will see this as the worst kind of betrayal.”
“No, Hannah,” Livie panted. “Miz ’Gusta ain’t home.” Urgency sparked from her fingertips as she took my hand and dragged me to where the trees opened into the upper fields. “I seen him up yonder.”
“What are you talking about, Livie? Who did you see?”
“Marcus,” she squealed. “Marcus came back, jes’ like he said he would. James and me was behind the tobacc’y barn, and I caught a glimpse of someone runnin’ through the trees up there. James said I was plumb crazy ’cuz he didn’t see nothin’. But I took off, ’cuz I knowed what I seen.”
“Are you certain it was Marcus? There were lots of folks wandering around last night.”
“I know the difference ’tween wanderin’ and runnin’,” she shot back, tight with frustration. “If you think I’m crazy like James says, then I’ll go off and find him by myself.”
I reached out and gripped her shoulders in steady loyalty. “I do not think you are crazy, Liv. Show me where you saw him.”
I followed in the direction Livie pointed. We raced to the upper edge of the field where two large boulders called Castle Rock were wedged at an angle against each other. A knotted pine, wounded by years of winter gales, twisted from behind the rocks and slouched over them like a thatched roof. The heavy lid of daybreak had not yet blinked entirely open, but there was no mistaking the sudden whisking movement within the gray shadows of the formation as we approached. Livie exploded by me, no doubt seeing the illusive figure ducking from sight.
Excitement drove my feet against the back of Livie’s heels, matching her step for step. My heart took an unexpected leap.
Is it possible? Is Marcus there in the shadows?
There was no time to reflect or wonder. When our feet brought us within an apple toss of the rock, the figure shot from the hovel and sprinted back through the trees where the mountain’s slow rise weighted our legs.
“Marcus! Oh, Marcus!” Livie called in a hushed voice.
The dark figure did not respond but stumbled in one direction, then another. The morning mist hung low on the snow-kissed fauna. Its weightlessness swirled beneath our footsteps as we sliced nearer to him. It seemed our familiarity with the terrain gave us the advantage, until we closed the gap enough to realize the figure was hobbled and exhausted. My heart stuttered with disappointment.
“Marcus, don’t run off. It’s me, Livetta!”
Livie’s emotion must have clouded her vision, because it was clear to me the figure we were chasing was not Marcus. The man in the woods was shirtless, with torn, frayed trousers barely clinging to his shrunken hips. Even with his back to me and his skin as dark as a scorched chestnut, I recognized the cut of his shoulders was not as broad as the powerful image of Marcus emblazoned in my mind. He was not as tall and the marks on his back were fresh and pocked with sores. The man slipped on the frosty dew and sprawled against the base of a weeping willow. He dragged himself within reach of a willow branch that dangled close to the ground and hoisted himself upright.
“You ain’t . . .” Livie gasped. “Who you be?” She choked back tears and sought no answer for her question. Livie wilted when struck with the realization that Marcus had not come back.