A Quilt for Christmas (11 page)

Missouri Ann suggested the soddy, where she and Nance slept, or the root cellar, but John told her anyone hunting the woman would look in those places.

Eliza said Clara might roll beneath the bed or under the straw in the barn, but John said men would check there, too. Then Luzena spoke up. “There's a hidey-hole in the haystack next to the barn. I use it when I hide from Davy”—she glanced at her mother—“and Mama. Clara could go there.”

Eliza nodded. “There's also a small hole under the floorboards where Will hid our valuables, but it's no bigger than a coffin.”

“We've hidden contraband in smaller spaces, and it's better than no hiding place at all,” John said. Then he cautioned, “You must not worry too much. The chances are good that no one will come here, but it is best to be prepared.”

“Best for all of us,” Eliza told him.

“Yes, it could go hard on you if the Starks or others found you had hidden her. I will come around when I can to check on Clara and inform you of the plans for her removal, but my visits might cause suspicion, so I must be judicious. Print has agreed to come in my place.” He turned to Missouri Ann and said, “Please forgive my presumption, Mrs. Stark, but I think it might be got about that these are courting visits. That way, there will be no cause for comment.”

“Except from those who might find the courting of a young widow offensive,” Eliza told him. “But better we be gossiped about for lack of propriety than for hiding an escaped slave.”

“I don't mind if Mr. Ritter don't,” Missouri Ann said.

“Why, no, ma'am,” he replied.

“That is good of you,” Eliza said, then turned away to hide her smile. John Hamlin seemed to be the only one in the room who didn't know that Print had already begun to court Missouri Ann.

From the doorway, Eliza and Missouri Ann watched as Print mounted his horse and John climbed into his wagon and both started down the lane to the road. Then the two women turned to Clara, who was lying on the bed, her eyes darting about. She was still afraid, Eliza knew, would be afraid until she reached Colorado, afraid until the terrible war was over. She might live in fear the rest of her life.

Davy came into the house with a pail of milk, and Clara gasped when she saw the boy.

“My son. He won't harm you,” Eliza said. Then she explained to Davy why Clara was there.

Davy grinned. “This is as exciting as fighting Rebs. Any slave catchers come here, I'll shoot them.”

Eliza said she hoped it wouldn't come to that. Clara would be there only a few days. Their job was to tend her and keep her safe. If any men came onto their land, Eliza and Missouri Ann would hide Clara in the haystack near the barn or in the hole in the floor. Eliza accepted the pail of milk from Davy and set it on the table. Then she took a dipperful and offered it to Clara, who drank it so quickly that Eliza wondered if the woman were starving. She found that a little of the chicken stew was left in the kettle and dished it into a bowl, handing it to Clara with a spoon.

Clara ignored the spoon and drank the stew, drank it so quickly that a little spilled on her dress. When she was finished, she examined the spoon, turning it over, then licked the dish. As she handed both back to Eliza, she said, “I never ate with no spoon before. Or a dish, neither.”

Missouri Ann frowned. “How'd you eat, then?”

“My hands or clamshells in a trough in the yard, out back of the big house.”

“Oh, how awful,” Eliza said. “From now on, you will sit at the table with us and eat the way we do. We will have supper soon. I imagine you are still hungry.”

Clara nodded, her eyes on the basket of eggs Luzena had brought into the house and the slab of salt pork Davy had fetched from the smokehouse.

“First, we'll see to your wounds,” Eliza said. She sent Davy out to feed the animals, then she helped Clara remove her dress, which was filthy.

Eliza took out a shift for Clara to wear, while Missouri Ann volunteered to wash and mend the tattered garment. “There ain't much left to it, is there?” Missouri Ann observed, holding up the dress. Then she asked, “Where's your shoes?”

Clara shook her head. “Never had shoes.”

Eliza thought it odd the colored woman did not cover herself when her dress was removed—she wore no undergarments—but only looked straight ahead dumbly, as if pretending she wasn't there. Modesty might be an extravagance for a slave, Eliza thought then, wondering what indignities the woman had suffered. Perhaps she was used to white people staring at her—white men. Eliza had heard that slaves were stripped naked on the auction block, so that buyers could examine them for imperfections. She was revolted by the idea that men had stared at the pretty slave as she stood there unclothed, perhaps touching her and making crude remarks. Clara would suffer no indignities in that house.

Eliza filled a pan with water, for Clara was as dirty as her dress. Then using soap and a soft cloth, she bathed the woman's face. When she was finished, she handed the cloth to Clara, who ran the wet rag over her thin body. “Never felt of soap on myself,” Clara said. Eliza took back the cloth and told Clara to turn so that she could wash her back. When the slave did so, Eliza gasped. Clara's back was crisscrossed with ugly welts. Some were scabbed over, but others were angry with infection.

“Oh, Ma, what happened to her back?” Luzena burst out.

“She was whipped,” Eliza replied. “You see, Luzena, that is one reason your father died fighting to end slavery. No person, especially a woman, deserves to be treated like this.” She felt proud of Will.

“She must have been awful bad to get whipped that way,” Luzena said.

“No, she didn't do anything.”

“You got any liniment?” Missouri Ann asked. “That's what Mother Stark puts on the dogs when they get whipped. Heals them right up. She uses brandy and turpentine and camphor gum. Maybe beef gall if you got it.” She paused. “But even a Stark wouldn't beat a dog that way.”

“I use honey and beeswax and turpentine,” Eliza said, going to the cupboard and taking down the ingredients, which she combined in a bowl. She spread the mixture on Clara's back, and though the slave winced, she didn't utter a word. “You're a brave woman, Clara,” Eliza said after she was finished dressing the wounds and bandaging them with strips of cloth. She slipped the shift over Clara's head.

While Eliza cared for Clara, Luzena fried the salt pork and the eggs, and placed the food on a platter, which she set on the table along with cornbread and a pitcher of milk.

“It isn't much, but it's the best we can offer in these hard times,” Eliza explained.

“I hardly never got a taste of egg before,” Clara said. She held back, while the others seated themselves.

Eliza started to bow her head, but when she saw that Clara was still sitting on the bed, waiting, she said, “Come along. You will eat with us, Clara. Sit beside Nance.” She pointed to the little girl. After Clara joined them, Eliza bowed her head again. Until Will's death, Eliza had prayed that he would come home unharmed. Now she asked help in keeping Clara safe. Perhaps God would do a better job this time.

Eliza served Clara first—after all, she was a guest—then remembering the woman had said that on the plantation, she'd eaten from a trough using a clamshell for a utensil, Eliza gave her a spoon, thinking a fork might confuse the girl. Clara did not wait until the others were served, but picked up the plate and spooned the food into her mouth, finishing before Eliza had begun to eat. Then Clara tore off a chunk of cornbread, stuffing it into her mouth.

“She eats too fast,” Luzena observed.

Eliza thought to reprimand her daughter for her rudeness, but instead, she explained, “If there is not enough food and you fear someone else will take it all, you would eat quickly, too.”

After she finished eating, Clara demanded, “Where's your man?”

“He was killed fighting for the Union,” Eliza answered.

“And yourn?” she asked Missouri Ann.

“Dead. He was a soldier, too.”

“Ain't no man here?”

“I am,” Davy spoke up.

“You only a boy.”

Davy would be good protection, Eliza explained. He could shoot a gun as well as his father, and so could she and Missouri Ann.

“I never saw no lady with a gun.” Clara thought that over. “Maybe you ain't ladies. You're womens.”

“In the North,” Eliza told her, “we are both.”

*   *   *

Through the night, Eliza heard Clara moan and thrash about, once calling out, “No, mist'ess.” Missouri Ann was sleeping in the loft that night with the children, so Eliza rose from the pallet beside the bed, to attend the slave. It was a wonder that the poor thing could sleep at all with her pain and suffering. In the morning, Clara was almost out of her mind with fever. She muttered, “Joe,” over and over in her sleep, until Eliza told Missouri Ann that Joe must have been Clara's son. During the day, Eliza, Missouri Ann, and Luzena took turns sponging the woman's face and arms with cool water. Clara slept only fitfully. Once she awoke and sat upright and blurted out, “Lord Jesus going send you to hell.” Then toward evening, she fell into a deep sleep. At first, Eliza was thankful, hoping that meant Clara's fever had broken, but at dinnertime, when she tried to awaken Clara, Eliza wondered if the woman was in a coma. If that were so, there was nothing Eliza could do about it.

*   *   *

Although neither Eliza or Missouri Ann wanted to leave the house the next morning, work had to be done. They had skipped an entire day of hoeing because of the quilting bee and had spent the next day hovering over Clara. They could not sacrifice a third day. So the two left Clara in Luzena's care and went to the near field, finding chores that would take them to the barn or close to the house to check on the sick woman. Luzena stayed inside with Clara, latching the door each time someone left and demanding to know the identity of anyone who wanted to come inside.

Once when Eliza returned to the house, she found Luzena pretending she was on a wagon train going to the gold fields. It had been her favorite game when she was small, and now she'd set up the wagon train for Nance, stretching a quilt over two chairs facing away from each other, putting a third chair at one end for a wagon seat. Then she'd arranged the two bears that Eliza had made for Luzena when she was a baby and stuffed with chicken feathers, in front of the chairs as oxen. They did look a little more like oxen than bears, Eliza decided. With her doll, Miss Cat, on one side, Nance on the other, Luzena sat on one of the chairs with a string tied to a stick for a whip and called to the oxen to hurry along. “I'm taking Clara to Colorado where she'll be safe, but the oxen move right poorly today, Mama,” Luzena said, as she let Eliza into the room, then secured the door.

“So do I,” Eliza replied. “It's the heat.”

“I should have bought me mules for the trip.”

Laughing at the silly game, Eliza tiptoed across the room and examined Clara. The woman still was in a deep sleep.

“Is she going to get better?” Luzena asked.

“Yes, I believe she will. The greater danger is someone trying to steal her away. It's best you keep the curtain drawn across the window.”

What if someone came while Eliza was in the fields? Luzena asked.

“If you are outside, you must ring the dinner bell to summon us. If you are inside, then keep the door bolted. Don't open it to anyone but Missouri Ann, Davy, or me.”

“I wish Papa was here. He'd shoot anybody who tried to take Clara.”

Eliza nodded her agreement. She had never felt so keenly the loss of her husband. Will would have protected them, would have stood up to anyone who tried to take Clara. Despite her brave talk of the day before, Eliza was uneasy, afraid of what might happen with only two women and two children and a baby to protect the hunted slave. “Oh, Will,” she whispered to herself. “It is so hard without you.” She turned toward the door so that Luzena would not see how distraught she was.

Outside, Eliza walked to the bend in the lane, looking up and down the road to see if there was dust from a wagon or a horse, but the air was still, and she thought Clara would indeed be safe. It would be only a day or two before the woman was well enough to continue her journey.

*   *   *

But Clara did not heal quickly. “She is dangerous ill,” Eliza told Print Ritter when he called that evening. The family had heard him ride up and had stared at each other before Davy jumped up and took down the shotgun and Eliza went to the window and peered out from the edge of the curtain.

“Hello the house,” Print called. “It's the blacksmith come for a visit.”

Eliza sighed with relief, while Missouri Ann smoothed her hair and took off her apron. Davy looked disappointed as he drew out the board from brackets bolted to either side of the door frame. The board kept anyone from forcing the door. As Print entered the room, Clara, who had been sleeping, suddenly sat up and drew against the wall, the quilt twisted in her hands.

“It's all right, dear,” Eliza said. “It's only Mr. Ritter. You know him. He brought you here.”

Clara seemed confused, and Eliza wondered if the slave remembered arriving at the Spooner house. Perhaps with her delirium, she didn't even remember Eliza. “You are safe,” Eliza said, putting her arm around Clara, who winced, and Eliza remembered the terrible wounds. She turned to Print and said, “Mr. Ritter, Clara has had a bad time of it. It would be dangerous for her to leave just yet.”

Print nodded. “There's danger out there, too. It's rumored in town that she's in the vicinity, and slave catchers have been looking for her from Genesis to Revelations. I've overheard them at the smithy. We'll have to wait and hope they give up.”

“The others might give up but not the Starks, Mr. Ritter,” Missouri Ann said. “They'll want that reward. These are squirrel-food times for them.”