Chapter 21
21
There was a sunset, the orange and red of smoldering embers, and now, deep into the night, there was thunder.
At least this was Libby’s thought when the distant booming woke her: an October storm was approaching. The rains soon would follow. She sat up in bed, careful not to wake Jubilee, and supposed it could be cannonade. But she doubted it. She’d never heard artillery this time of night. Still, she rose and went to the window, gazing out at the night sky.
And it was then that she noticed the movement on the ground. Her first thought was a lone buck wandering past the house where Joseph and Sally lived and toward the autumnal weeds that had overtaken the kitchen garden. But it wasn’t a deer. There was another bolt of lightning, and in the percussive burst of light she saw it was a person, a Negro, and her instincts said runaway slave. Did he know them? Know of them?
Well, she thought bleakly, why wouldn’t her property be a stop on the underground railroad? She was already hiding a Yankee. Why not runaway slaves?
He knocked on what had been the overseer’s front door, and she watched Sally open it, a lit lantern in one hand, but rather than let the man inside, she stood with him on the porch, talking, and then Joseph joined them.
God. She thought, if nothing else, she knew what occurred on this property. Her property. She felt her jaw clenching in anger, not so much because this land might have been a stop that runaways had been using for years to rest during daylight, but because two of the people closest to her in this world hadn’t told her a secret of this magnitude. How many ways had they endangered her by not telling her? Hadn’t the property been searched at least twice since they had taken in the captain? And they were not just endangering her, they were putting Jubilee’s life at risk.
She would have called out to the small assemblage, but she didn’t want to wake the girl.
She’d have to put on her cloak and see precisely what they were doing.
But there was another dagger of fire from the clouds and another clap of thunder, one that startled her with its proximity—it was as if it was overhead—and reflexively she stared at the sky that a second ago had been torn for the briefest of seconds with draperies of daylight. And when sheturned around, there beside her was her niece.
“Jubilee,” she said, “what are you doing up?”
“Same as you. Hard to sleep when the sky’s bangin’ drums like that.”
“Just a storm. Go back to sleep.”
“I will if you will,” the girl said, and before Libby could stop her from gazing out the window, the child had seen the group. “What in the world? Who’s that man at Joseph and Sally’s?”
“Don’t ask me. I have no idea.”
“Then let’s go find out,” Jubilee said, and she turned and ran down the stairs. Libby called after her that she was in her nightclothes and needed to put something on, but the girl ignored her and, a moment later, Libby saw her racing across the yard to the trio on the porch.
By the time Libby had pulled on her cloak and boots, she heard Weybridge clomping down the steps from the second floor on his crutches. It was dark, and she half expected him to fall down the second half of the stairway and break his one leg. But he didn’t, and in a moment he was beside her.
“I saw them, too,” he said.
“A runaway, I guess.”
He nodded, and together they ventured outside.
Already the other adults had grown quiet because Jubilee had beaten Libby and Weybridge there, and then Libby instantly recognized the man. He may have been a runaway, but he’d only run a mile and a half. It was Clark, a fellow owned by Leveritt Covington. He’d brought deliveries of wheat here dozens of times over the years, and had it not been nighttime and had he not been wearing a hat, she would have recognized him from the window right away.
“What’s going on? Why is everyone awake?” she asked. She looked directly at Clark, his eyes catching glimmers from the flame in the lantern. “Why are we all standing here, about to get rained on when that gully washer coming over the mountains opens up?”
“Ma’am,” Clark began, still a little breathless from running, “they’re comin’ for the Yankee.” He pointed at Weybridge. “Mr.Covington’s cavalry kin: Henry Morgan. Him and some rangers are comin’ in maybe an hour. Maybe less. I overheard them talkin’ to Mosby’s men outside the house.”
“I was about to wake you,” Sally added.
So, he wasn’t a runaway, she thought, and she couldn’t help but see how ironic it was that she would have been better off right now if he were. They all would.
“They’re plannin’ to surprise you all and search the place—whole property—and lynch the captain if they catch him.”
“Does Leveritt know?”
“He does. He says they’re not supposed to hurt you or the child.”
“Well, this is a big place. Big enough, anyway,” Libby said, thinking aloud. “And in the dark, there are plenty of places to hide.”
Clark shook his head. “Not this time.” He looked at Jubilee, unsure if he should continue.
“Ain’t nothing you can say is gonna shock me,” the girl said.
“Go ahead,” Libby told Clark.
He nodded toward Joseph and Sally. “You two? They’re goin’ to do whatever it takes to make you talk. Then, after they hang the Yankee, lynch the both of you.”
“The cavalry carbine’s in the mill, right?” Weybridge asked Libby.
“Yes, it’s still there,” she answered. She recalled the moment, which was only last month but felt like an eternity ago, when Henry Morgan had first shown up at the gristmill. He’d told her it was unlikely that the battle would ever be brought to her land. Well, it seemed, he was bringing it here himself. She turned to Clark. “Thank you,” she told him. “You may have saved our lives.”
“I hope so,” he said.
“Why are they so sure I’m here? Any idea?” Weybridge asked him.
“Doc Norton was visiting Mr.Covington’s sister, Felicia. And he just had so much medicine. And someone heard there was a Yankee at Maude Bingham’s before you spotted him, Sally, and then they saw Doc Norton comin’ here. So, people figured it out. He didn’t confess to anything. He didn’t have to. He’s a drunk, maybe, but I don’t think he slipped up.”
Libby took this in. “You should get back to the Covingtons’. You don’t want them to find you missing. And you don’t want to be here when…when Morgan and the rangers arrive.”
“I can stay and help.”
“No, you’ve done enough already,” she reassured him, moved by his willingness to fight for and perhaps die for a Yankee he’d never met until tonight. “You need to get back. And, for God’s sake, stay off the road. Stay in the fields and use that sliver of wood when you can.”
He doffed his cap and was off.
“Thank you, Clark,” Joseph called out to him, and the man turned and offered a small salute of sorts.
Libby looked at Weybridge, her arms folded before her. “So, Captain?”
“Go ahead.”
She felt waves inside her that left her jittery. She shook her head against the doubt: this was her fiefdom, and she was no delicate flower. “I’m tired of people shooting people like deer. But I’m much more tired of being bullied and threatened. On the road, in my kitchen. Rangers, blackberry pickers, criminals. Henry Morgan may be Leveritt Covington’s kin and a soldier who, I presumed until tonight, was an honorable man. But I will not go quietly. No. I will not.”
Jubilee’s eyes grew wide, and she drew the girl into her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. The girl felt so small, so slight. Libby said to Weybridge, “Captain, we have five Colts and one carbine. You have two people who can shoot—including me, a rank amateur. So…”
He waited.
“Deploy your forces.”