The Lost Choice (9 page)

Moses eased to the edge of his seat and slid awkwardly to the frozen ground. He walked carefully to the back of the wagon, speaking in low tones, seeking to still the huge animal. For a moment, he stood close and bathed in the warm clouds of breath as the horse blew and stamped a foot nervously.

The trace chains on the mare rattled as she shook. Moses saw that the old plow horse had turned her head to the left and held her ears straight up. Then, she nickered, sending more shivers down the man's already frozen spine. It was a high-pitched sound, drawn out and punctuated by a snort that cut through the frigid night like an arrow.

He eased away from the stallion and carefully inched up beside the mare, watching in the direction she indicated and straining to see through the darkness. He heard the riders before he saw them—could hear the horses they rode breaking the ice in frozen puddles. When the first of the four men came into view, he began to murmur a Bible verse his mother had taught him as a boy.

“I will fear no evil: for thou art with me . . .”

As the riders lined up in front of the wagon, his heart felt as though it might come out of his chest. They wore cloth sacks fitted snugly to their heads. The sacks were tied at the neck with holes cut for the eyes. Each of the men was covered in a sheet, his head pushed through a hole in the middle, causing the white material to flow over him like a robe. Three of the men held Navy Colt pistols while the leader—the first man he had seen—carried a forty-caliber Henry carbine. It was a short, ugly weapon known for its accuracy and effectiveness.

They were “night riders”—a part of Quantrill's Raiders— men who used the war as an excuse to terrorize the border states of Missouri and Kansas. When William Clarke Quantrill formed his band of three hundred men in late 1861, they were quickly acknowledged by Confederates, Unionists, and civilians alike as butchers who were on no one's side but their own.

Quantrill actively recruited psychopaths such as “Bloody Bill” Anderson, his lieutenant, who participated in raids wearing scalps around his neck. The Youngers—Jim, Bob, and Cole—were a part of this group, as were Frank and Jesse James. On August 21, 1863, they rode into Lawrence, Kansas, burned every building, robbed both banks, and murdered 183 unarmed men and boys—most in front of their families.

The leader of the four riders spoke. “Moses? How's Susan?”

Suddenly weak in the knees, the man felt raw fear as a sickening comprehension swept over him.

“Still ain't got no kids, do ya?” When the man only blinked, the leader screamed,“I said,‘Do ya?'!”

“No. We don't,” Moses replied.

As soon as he received an answer, the rider assumed a friendly voice.“Well, that's too bad,” he said.“Maybe Susan needs a real man. I 'specially like her blond hair. Don't you?” Again expecting a reply, he raised his voice.“Don't you?”

“Yes.”

Moses stood there and took it. His mouth was awash with the hot, acid saliva that accompanies nausea, but he didn't dare move or even spit. He knew what they were doing. The men were letting him know that they knew everything about him and his wife. It was a threat, plain and simple.

Moses and his wife, Susan, were slave-owning Union sympathizers whose home and farm—even before the war—had become a haven for slaves. It was well known that Moses spent his money on slaves only to free them immediately. Of course, the blacks stayed on and others joined them because, in that place, they were not mistreated.

A week earlier to the day marked the third time Moses' farm had been hit by a group of Quantrill's men. They came at night, in packs, like wild dogs, tearing at everything in their path. So far, no one on his place had been hurt or killed. But during this last attack, Mary, a black woman who helped his wife in the house and had become her friend, had been taken, along with Mary's infant child. When the Quantrill men had ridden onto his property the week before, they had come early in the evening, just after dark. Mary's other son, James, was inside the house with Susan and Moses, but Mary had been outside nursing the baby. She was in the swing under the oak tree when they swept in. The riders had fired guns into the air and more than one had swung a torch into the loft of the barn. Fortunately, several families of freed slaves were living in the barn and they quickly extinguished the blaze. But when the raiders were gone and order restored, Mary and her baby boy were missing.

Susan had been inconsolable, and yet there was literally nothing to be done. One dared not complain to the law. Moses knew that his own sheriff might well be one of the riders who sat before him at this very moment. The same was true of his preacher, doctor, and blacksmith. Ordinary men with ordinary lives, who might otherwise greet a person in the daylight with a wave or even a kind word, often harbored in their minds a hatred and violence only unleashed after dark. He was well aware that only two years before, Quantrill himself had been a schoolteacher.

Yesterday, a message had come to Moses through a neighbor who said he had been ordered to convey specific instructions to his friend. These instructions included the location and approximate time of a meeting, if he so desired, with a group of Quantrill's men. There was an impolite suggestion that his stallion might be traded for the lives of Mary and her child.

A match flared as the rider on the right lit the stump of a cigar. Moses sensed the men winding down, their jokes and threats diminishing as they grew cold from lack of movement. He addressed the leader. “I don't see Mary or the baby. I brought the stallion.”

The man urged his horse forward aggressively. “We decided she didn't get to make this trip,” he said. One of the men snickered. The leader ordered the rider with the cigar to untie the stallion, which he moved immediately to do. Moses spun about, intending to protest, when he heard the carbine cock.“Stay right where you are, Moses,” he heard and slowly turned to find the Henry aimed at his face.

The leader shifted in his saddle as he pointed the rifle with one hand.“You got the hoss?” he said to the man at the back of the wagon.

“Got 'im,” Moses heard behind him.

Moses swallowed hard as the leader, still holding the carbine with one hand, extended it closer to his face. “I'm thinkin' I can kill you or you can walk,” the man said.“You want to walk?”

Moses nodded weakly.

The man paused and appeared to think for a moment, then asked, “You boys like Moses?” The others grunted affirmations that, yes indeed, they did like Moses, and the leader, seemingly having made up his mind as well, agreed. “I like him too,” the man said as he appeared to relax.“So, Moses . . . you get to walk.”

With those words, the man swung the rifle away from Moses, placed the barrel directly between the eyes of the old mare, and pulled the trigger. The forty-caliber blast from the Henry was deafening. Instantly, the mare went down in her harness and pulled the buckboard over on its side. In her death throes, the horse sprayed tissue and blood onto Moses as he got to his knees and held her head in shock.

The stallion added to the general panic as the rider's mounts reacted to the sudden shot and the sounds of the dying mare. But cutting through the din, Moses heard the frightened screams of a baby. Looking up, he saw the man with the rifle struggling to control his horse as he untied a burlap sack from the saddle. Succeeding, he held the bag aloft and said,“He ain't dead.”Then, he wheeled his horse and added, “Here's your trade,” as he slung the bag in the direction of Moses.

“Oh, Jesus!” Moses cried out as he leaped from his knees to catch the bag.“Oh, Jesus, please.”

He was vaguely conscious of the thundering of hooves as the riders galloped away. Quickly, but with infinite care, Moses placed the bag onto the dead mare and cut away the cord that bound the opening. Pulling the stiff burlap from around the crying child, he could see that someone had wrapped him in a piece of blanket before tying the bag. It was the only reason the baby was still alive.

As Moses lifted the sobbing infant, he could see by the light of the moon that the baby boy was ashen and moving with difficulty. Moses ripped his gloves off. With his bare hands, he could feel the naked child's icy skin. He clawed desperately at the buttons on his coats and the shirts underneath, finally tearing them open to create a warm spot for the infant.

Settling the still frantic child against the skin of his belly and refastening the clothes around him, Moses lurched to his feet and, without delay, began to walk back in the direction from which he had come. He knew better than to stay and build a fire. The problem, as he saw it, was nourishment. He could keep the baby warm, but this child needed milk and, of course, he had none. There had been a homestead several miles back. Surely, they would help.

Moses' pace calmed the baby. Walking swiftly through the frigid darkness, he talked softly to the child and soon sensed him drifting into an uneasy sleep. He was sad about Mary. She was dead. Of that, he was certain. Moses didn't look forward to returning to his wife without her friend, but at least he had managed to rescue a part of Mary.

He looked at the moon and said a prayer as he trudged across the frozen ground. He and Susan would raise this boy as their own—Susan would insist on it.
And
,he thought,
I'll give the boy my name. We'll just add “Carver” to the name Mary already gave him.

He smiled, remembering the laughter they'd all shared when Mary had named her baby after a president. “That's a long name for a tiny boy!” he had told her.

Gonna be a longer name now,
Moses thought. Then, as he walked, Moses patted the sleeping child whose life was beginning without a flicker of promise and spoke his name aloud.“George Washington Carver.”

IOWA—SEPTEMBER 1895

It was midmorning on a Saturday and already promising to be a hot day. Henry Wallace, a skinny, dark-haired boy with bright blue eyes and a friendly personality,was excited to be with George Washington Carver again. Henry was a chatterbox who never seemed to run out of questions for his older friend.

“Let's not get too close to the water now,” the slender black man said to the rambunctious seven-year-old.“Your daddy would have a fit if I let you get eaten by a hippopotamus.” The little boy laughed.“Oh, George!” Henry said.“There aren't any hippopotamuses here!”

“If you say so,” George replied as he peered over the child's shoulder. “But I don't like crocodiles either, so just do me a favor and stay away from the lake.”

Frequently, Henry's father, a dairy science professor at Iowa State University, allowed his son to accompany the brilliant student on one of his “botanical expeditions.” Together, the small white boy and the young man with jet-black skin made an interesting pair as they traversed the forests and fields surrounding the campus.

Soon after arriving at Iowa State, George had distinguished himself as a scholar. During the years of his undergraduate work, he had amassed quite a collection of local plant life and his agricultural work already rivaled that of his teachers. Professor Wallace saw the polite, well-spoken graduate student as an excellent companion for his young son and encouraged their time together. He knew something of George's long struggle for an education and considered little Henry fortunate to have the opportunity to learn from a man so hungry for knowledge.

George was thirty years old and about to complete his pursuit of a master's degree in botany. As a child he had learned to read and write at home on the Carver farm, and at the age of twelve had been given permission to move to Neosho to begin formal schooling. Moses and Susan, his surrogate parents, had been sad to see him leave, but knew that his thirst for learning was far beyond that which they were able to quench.

So Moses had arranged for George to live with Andrew and Mariah Watkins as he attended the Lincoln School for Negro Children. Two years later, having reached a point where his knowledge exceeded that of his teacher, George moved to Fort Scott, and then on to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he finished the equivalent of high school.

Soon George was awarded an academic scholarship to Highland University.

From the time George had lived with the Watkins family, he had worked as a cook and housekeeper—even managing to save a bit of money from his meager wages. He was therefore able to afford the trip to Kansas by wagon. All seemed in order—the correspondence and registration had been completed by mail—until George arrived at Highland. The president of the university saw him and indignantly demanded,“Why didn't you tell me you were a Negro?” and literally slammed the door in his face.

Throughout the next several years, George had experienced that same reaction many different times, until finally, he had been accepted (and admitted) to Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa.There he excelled, later transferring to Iowa State where he studied bacteriology, entomology, chemistry, and zoology, in addition to his courses in botany. George Carver had completed his undergraduate work with honors and quickly set his sights on a graduate degree. Now, with a master's degree in botany about to be earned, he had become well known among the faculty as one who would soon join their ranks. George was loved and well respected.

“What is this one?” the little boy asked loudly. He was indicating a plant growing beside a fence post.

George ambled over, a sly grin on his face. When he answered, he spoke in a high-pitched, raspy voice—leftover evidence of a childhood bout with whooping cough. “Well, smell it, Henry. Go on, now, take you a good, deep whiff.”

The boy leaned over and inhaled through his nose. Immediately, he was seized by an uncontrollable bout of sneezing and laughter. Finally, he wiped his nose on his arm and rubbed his eyes with the knuckles of his small fists. Still giggling, he said,“I knew it was ragweed!”

“And I knew you knew it,” George said.“You just like to sneeze your head off! So, Mr. Smartypants, do you remember the Latin name for ragweed?”