Indigo (10 page)

His soft voice stayed her. "Was it my imagination or did I see two settings on that tray?"

The room seemed to grow very warm, and Hester looked down guiltily at the two plates and two sets of silver, then said, "I—thought you might enjoy some company. You've been here all alone today and—"

"I would enjoy that," he replied in a tone so gentle it set her pulses to beating.

Hester stammered. "Then I'll—step out—so you may—"

"No need for you to leave. If you'll just stand as you are—"

The sound of sloshing water filled the room. Hester momentarily forgot his caution and instinctively turned to the sounds. Seeing him about to emerge from the tub she gasped again, and spun back.

His soft laugh behind her only increased her dismay. He chuckled, "I told you to stand still."

She countered in her own defense, "I'd no idea you were—"

The sloshing began again and she froze, rooted like a tree. It ceased only a moment later, followed by the sounds of him quietly moving around behind her. A big, standing oak mirror stood to Hester's right. She unsuccessfully fought the unladylike urge to peek at what it might reflect across the room. In the glass he stood with his back to her, drying himself with a flannel drying sheet. Her eyes roamed slowly over the golden muscles rippling across his back and shoulders, then lower over the powerful thighs, hips, and legs. Shocking herself at this brazen breach of good manners, she raised her eyes and her breathing stopped upon finding him watching her in turn. Scandalized, she hastily looked away.

Galen said amusedly, "The curiosity is only natural, Indigo," though he wondered what to do with the natural rise in his manhood brought on by her innocent voyeurism. "Maybe someday, you'll offer me the opportunity to indulge my own curiosity . . ."

His voice was filled with heat, causing Hester to sway. She lacked the experience to even begin forming a reply to such an intimate request.

She felt relieved when he finally said, "You may turn around now."

He'd donned a simple shirt and trousers, but the image of him standing nude had burned itself into Hester's memory. "Maybe we should eat downstairs," she offered.

"Wherever you feel most comfortable."

She broke contact with his potent gaze, and drew a calming breath. Hester wondered why it suddenly felt like July in there, and why looking at him made the tingling start up again. She knew why. In spite of her previous denials, she found herself attracted to Galen.

Downstairs at the table, Hester told herself that she did not feel the heat of his body warming her own as she went about setting the plates, but knew she lied. The heat was as rattling as the memories of his boldly expressed desire to see her nude.

Galen looked down at her hands as she placed his plate before him, and fought down the urge to stroke the indigo-colored backs and the small severed finger. He knew he shouldn't be indulging himself with the imagined touch and feel of her, for he would be out of her life very soon, but the more he denied himself, the stronger the urge became. To her credit, she'd chosen to eat at the table. The atmosphere in the room upstairs had been sultry and charged. He'd felt it and was fairly certain she had also. Propriety dictated she not be alone in his room. Propriety also dictated that he do nothing to undermine her relationship with her fiance, though Galen wished it sorely.

In her seat across the table from him, Hester fought to keep herself on an even keel. By all rights she should be viewing Galen as just another passenger seeking a safe harbor, but he'd become more than that and she'd no idea how to proceed. She thought to neutralize the intensity by asking, "Where'd you learn to speak French?"

"Louisiana. Where'd you learn to cook?"

Hester smiled. "My aunt Katherine."

"She taught you well."

Before Hester could stop herself she asked, "Is Galen your true name?"

He observed her over his plate for a few, long moments, so long in fact, Hester said contritely, "You don't have to answer. I'm sorry. That's really none of my business."

"No apologies are necessary. My true name is Galeno. It's Spanish, and means 'the light one.' Galen is the English version."

"I see," she said, still shocked at her serious breach of Road manners. She knew better.

"Any other questions?" he asked softly.

She shook her head, no.

"Then I've one for you. Is your fiance real or just a ploy to keep strange men from intruding into your life?"

Hester looked over at him, and into his heated gaze. "Which would you prefer?"

He gave her that smile again. "The latter, truthfully."

"Are you always so blunt?"

"With you, always."

"Surely if there are women in your life who will willingly enter your tub, what use would an inexperienced, purple-handed, ex-slave girl be, but for amusement?"

"You devalue yourself for no reason, Indigo."

Hester felt herself blossom again under the name. She told herself to remember her fiance Foster. "I prefer you call me Hester."

"But you're not a Hester. You're an Indigo. Hesters are joyless, pruny old women who look down their noses at sinners like me. Take the word of an authority on women. Indigo is what you are, Indigo is who you will be." Then in a voice which further constricted her breathing, he added, "At least to me, you will be Indigo."

She didn't argue.

He then asked, "Who told you your hands would always brand you a slave?"

Hester was so relieved by the change in topics she answered gladly. "A woman who took care of me on the place in Carolina where I grew up. Her name was Dot.

"Dot's daughter, Ella, was my best friend back in Carolina. We were about eight or nine, and had just been allowed to work the vats with the older women in the yard..."

 

"You think our hands will ever be dark as my mama's?" Ella asked Hester. The two young girls stood over the big steaming vat of blue-black indigo, their small hands immersed to the wrists, twisting and squeezing the smelly dye through the cotton cloth.

Hester pulled her hands out and surveyed the palms and backs. "Don't know. They're pretty dark now, but no way near dark as your mama's or Aunt Kay's."

"Well, pretty soon, don't you think? I mean it didn't take long for our toes. Hands shouldn't take that much longer." Like all the other children on the place, the girls' first job had been to help macerate the indigo plants by using their feet, in much the same way European workers processed grapes for wine.

The young Hester shrugged at Ella's assessment. Ever since they'd been allowed to work the vats, all Ella could talk about was getting her hands as dark as her mama's. Ella's day began and ended with her mama, Dot. To hear Ella tell it, Dot was the smartest woman on the place. Hester had to agree; Dot knew everything from where to find the herbs Aunt Kay used to keep everybody on the place healthy, to the position of the Freedom Star. She could even read, a skill Hester found absolutely amazing since she didn't know anyone else who could. Ella had confided this surprising information to Hester one night the summer before while they lay side by side on their pallets in the small cabin Dot's family called home. Ella made Hester swear not to tell another soul because if the owner Master Dill ever found out he'd sell Dot deep south for sure.

"Ella!" came Dot's warning voice. Both girls looked across the yard.

"You and Hester stop that dawdling and get to work. Lot of dyeing to do before Dudley blows that horn tonight."

Dudley was the overseer. His horn called them to the vats at dawn and sent them all back to the cabins at dusk.

Ella's mother and the other older women stood barefoot in the ankle-deep, mud-filled yard, hands immersed in steaming, smelly vats of their own. Ella held up her stained hands, then boasted proudly, "See mama. Pretty soon my hands will be just as dark as yours."

The sounds in the yard were usually a mixture of voices, soft humming, and the rhythmic slap of the cloth being dipped in and out of the vats. On the heels of Ella's boast the yard became very silent. Some of the women lowered their eyes, others shook their head as if saddened.

Hester, having no idea why Ella's comments had drawn such a strange reaction, looked over to her friend and saw Ella's confusion mirrored her own.

Dot said gently, "Ella, Hester, hands like these are nothing to be proud of. They're slave hands. Marked hands. Until the day you die your hands will say slave. Now, you two get on back to work."

 

Hester looked over at Galen. "We were children and until that moment Ella and I had never been ashamed of our life, because it was the only life we'd known. That night, Dot sat us both down and told us the truth about our lives and how the world viewed us. I never forgot it."

"How long after that did you escape?"

"Ironically it was only a few days later. A speculator showed up on the place."

Galen had posed as a speculator on more than a few occasions. Speculators were itinerant slave salesmen who traveled from plantation to plantation, purchasing any slaves a master might want to sell—usually the unruly, lame, or aged slaves no longer able to pull their weight. The speculator then sold them wherever he could.

Galen asked, "So what happened?"

Once again, Hester's voice spirited them both away and back to the past.

 

News of the speculator's arrival had everyone on the place tense and afraid. As a result, the yard was thick with silence. The master hadn't had much trouble with his slaves, but no one claimed to know the master's mind; for all they knew someone might have committed an infraction, and whether the infraction be real or imagined, any slave could be sold in a whip's flick.

As the speculator, accompanied by Master Dill, slowly made his way towards the women in the yard, Ella cautioned Hester, "Don't look at him. Look at him and he'll buy you for sure."

Hester definitely didn't want to be bought so she dropped her head and focused her attention on the dyeing, but when she heard, "How about this one?" she tightened with fear.

Hester forced herself to concentrate on her task, praying with all her might they were speculating on someone else.

"How much?" the master asked.

"How old is she?" the speculator countered.

"I've had her for . . . let's see
..."

Hester heard the rustle of paper as the master looked through his ledger. He then said, "Six years. So that makes her about eight, nine."

"She a good worker?"

"Far as I know." The master turned to Dot. "Dot?"

Dot looked up, her eyes brushing Hester's own for a breath of a second. "Yes, Master Dill."

"This here girl a good worker?"

Dot held Hester's eyes. "Yes, sir, she is."

"Good. Just like I thought. Turn around here girl, let's get a good look at you."

Hester felt a tap on her shoulder. It confirmed her worst fears. Shaking so badly she could hardly move, she turned.

The speculator had the coldest blue eyes she'd ever seen. They were like chips from the sky. She knew her fear showed itself plainly on her face.

He asked her, "What's your name, girl?"

"Hester," she whispered.

"Hold out your hands. Man I know wants a girl your age to train in his loom house."

Hester complied, hoping her cut-off pinky would somehow make her unfit.

"What happened to your finger?" the speculator asked then.

"I don't know. Dot says it was this way when I came here."

He looked to Dot. She nodded verification.

When he brought his attention back to Hester, she shook under his piercing, blue gaze.

He said, "Go on back to work, Hester."

The men moved on.

That next morning, Hester was amongst a group of four slaves purchased by the speculator. Mistress Dill allowed Hester only enough time to gather up her meager belongings and to share a quick, tear-filled goodbye with Dot and Ella. Tears streaming down her cheeks, Hester went and stood with the others, two women and a man, sold because they kept running away. The man was shackled at the ankle to a long chain attached to the back of the wagon. Hester and the women were allowed to ride in the wagon bed behind the cold-eyed speculator.

They departed at dawn. As they rolled away, Hester saw Dot standing outside the cabin, holding a quietly sobbing Ella to her side. A tearful Hester held Dot's stoic eyes until the wagon took her from sight.

 

As Hester ended her story, Galen could see the tears standing in her eyes. He wanted to hold her in his arms until the pain of that day vanished from her memory forever. "Were Dot and Ella the only family you'd ever known?"

She nodded yes, then said softly, "I never saw either of them again. I pray for them every night."

"How long after that did you escape? You said earlier you came north when you were nine."

"About two weeks later. The speculator left the others at various houses in and around Charleston. He took me across town to the home of a man named Hancock, gave me over to his care, then departed. I remember being terrified. I stayed there only a night or two before embarking on a train trip to Philadelphia with Mr. Hancock and his young daughter, Julia. It was the first time I'd ever worn a pair of real shoes. I'd never even seen a train before." She turned to Galen and gave him a bittersweet smile. "Everything was new."