SEPTEMBER 1862
The late-afternoon sun had turned the river red and there was a sharp nip in the air. Summer was almost done. They had been on the move for two weeks, travelling mostly at night and both of them were exhausted. A few apples they’d picked had been the only thing to sustain them for three days, wormy and sour as they were. Lena stopped on the crest of the hill.
“Look, Fiddie, there’s a farmhouse down there. Maybe we can find something to eat.”
“And maybe we’ll get taken. I’d rather stay hungry. We’d better scout it out first.”
“But we must be in Union territory by now. They won’t turn us in.”
“They sure enough will if they think there’s a reward. Come on, crouch down here, it’s out of the wind a bit and we can watch.”
Lena huddled close to Fidelia and they sat until the sun disappeared behind the horizon. They saw a wink of light from the farmhouse as somebody lit a lamp.
“Let’s get closer. See who’s at home,” said Lena.
Cautiously, they slithered down the hill, keeping to the shrubs that dotted the slope until they were within a hundred feet of the house. The windows were uncurtained and they could see clearly into the front room, which from the look of it was the only room in the house. They could see a kitchen range, a table, and steep stairs leading to the upper floor. A grey-haired woman sat sewing by a fire that burned low. She was dressed in black.
“I think she’s alone,” said Fidelia.
“Let’s wait a bit longer to make sure.”
A cow started to bellow from the shed that adjoined the house, and the woman got up stiffly, put down her sewing, and walked over to the door. Shortly afterwards she came out with a shawl around her head and shuffled across the muddy yard to the shed. The cow was louder than ever.
“That critter’s gonna bust if that old woman don’t get there soon,” said Fidelia.
They waited, but nobody else came out of the house, no new lights appeared in the upper window. The cow had quieted down.
Suddenly, the piercing bray of a mule came from the shed. Fidelia nudged Lena.
“The Lord done sent us a gift. Come on.”
They stood up and walked across the yard toward the out-house just as the woman emerged carrying a pail of milk. She stopped when she saw the two of them.
“Vot you want?”
She had a thick, guttural accent and she looked afraid.
“We’re in need of food and shelter, ma’am,” said Lena politely. “I wonder if you’d be so good as to let us have some of your fresh milk and a place to bed down for the night? We can work for it.”
The woman shook her head. “Nein. I sell this milk. You go away. No niggers here.”
Close up she wasn’t as old as she had first appeared, but her face was careworn and weathered.
She continued to walk past them to the house, but before she had gone more than a few steps, Fidelia grabbed a spade that was leaning against the wall and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of the woman’s head. She dropped to the ground, blood leaking through her grey hair. The pail fell and tipped on its side, but Lena was there in an instant and righted it, saving most of the milk. The woman was convulsing and twitching, but Fidelia hit her again and she was still.
“It was her or us,” she said.
Lena stared down at the body for a few moments. “Let’s go into the house, I’m freezing.”
“Shall we bury her first?”
“Later. We should make absolutely sure she is alone. Bring the spade just in case. I’ll carry the milk pail.”
They went inside. The room was plainly furnished, the plank floor well scuffed and worn, but the woman had been able to maintain herself somehow, and to their starved eyes the place was cozy and inviting, especially the sight of a half a loaf of bread on the table and the smell of something cooking on the well-blacked stove.
“Jesus, hallelujah,” whispered Fidelia.
Lena nodded. “Amen to that.” She went to the tall cabinet that was by the stove and quickly opened some of the drawers. She removed a long bread knife and handed it to Fidelia.
“Run upstairs and have a look in the bedroom. Leave the spade with me.”
Fidelia did so, climbing the stairs, the knife behind her back. A few minutes later, she called down.
“Not a soul. That old ugly white biddy lives alone, all right.”
At that, Lena tore a chunk of bread from the loaf and stuffed it in her mouth. She lifted the lid from the steaming pot and flinched at the heat of the handle. She grabbed two bowls from the shelf and started to ladle the soup into each one.
“Fiddie, come on down now, we can eat.” She heard a thump from up above. “What are you doing?”
“Just goin’ exploring. Hey!” Fidelia yelled out with excitement and the next thing she was hurtling down the stairs, almost falling.
“Lena, look what I done found under her mattress.” She was holding a fistful of paper money. “Is it Confederate money?”
“No, Yankee.”
“Quick, count it.”
Lena took the notes. “It’s mostly ones and twos, probably her milk money. Oh, Fiddie, there’s almost a hundred dollars here.”
“She most likely got more hidden somewhere about, we should search.”
“Not right now. We’ve got to eat or I shall faint. Put the money on the table where we can look at it.”
Lena went to the window and pulled the heavy woollen curtains closed.
“We don’t want anybody looking in.”
“We didn’t pass no farmhouse since yesterday. We’re all right.”
They didn’t speak until the soup was devoured and Fidelia filled their bowls again. She was shovelling up the thick stew into her mouth when Lena rapped her hard on the hand with her spoon.
“Don’t gulp your food. Where are your manners?”
“I lost them long time ’go,” said Fiddie with a scowl.
“Well you’ve got to acquire some. You’re not an ignorant nigger gal now.”
“And you’ve got to start talking properly. You must say, I know that. And it’s incorrect to say, ‘The Lord done sent us,’ it should be ‘The Lord has sent –’”
“What you doing, missus?”
“I’m trying to teach you. These things are important, Fiddie. When we’re in New York, you might as well wave a Cessie flag saying ‘ex-slave, ex-slave’ when you talk like that.”
“Why you raging on me, missus high and mighty?”
“I’m not raging on you, I’m –”
“Yes, you are. I know you. You’re roaring at me, ain’t you, for hitting that old woman?”
“I might have been able to talk her into helping us.”
“Not her. You heard her. She don’t have no time for niggers.”
Lena shuddered.
“What’s the matter?” asked Fidelia.
“Nothing, I’m just cold that’s all. Let’s light all the lamps and stoke up the fire.”
“Not before you ’pologize to me. I saved us.”
There was a long silence. Lena stared down at the table, then her body sagged and she reached out her hand. “You’re right, Fiddie. Please forgive me. It’s just that…”
“I know what you’re thinking. You’re saying to yourself that this old white woman is all soft and helpless, but she weren’t. She’d have shot us soon as blink if she had a chance.”
“You’re right again, Fiddie.” Another pause while Fidelia wiped her bowl clean with the last crust of bread.
“While we’re talking bout ’pologies and ‘you’re rights’ are flying round the table, I’ll give you one back. From now on you can correct me all you want. I’m not gonna be a nigger gal any more.”
Lena leaned forward and kissed her. “My angel, my dove. Your price is above rubies.”
Fiddie gave her a slap on the arm. “That so? I hope you ain’t thinking of selling me.”
Lena touched the girl’s cheek. “Not God Himself, nor the Archangel Gabriel, not all the company of heaven could tempt me.”
“You and your poetry,” repeated Fidelia. “Now come on, I’se full of beans now. Let’s you and me give this place the spring cleaning of its life and see what we can find.”
They searched for two more hours and discovered another forty dollars in coins hidden in an old cigar box in the kitchen cabinet. Fidelia made up a bundle of things they could use or perhaps sell later when they got to New York. There were a few good pieces of silver cutlery, a man’s steel watch; several picture frames. One of them contained the photograph of a young man in a Confederate uniform.
“See, what I tell you?” said Fiddie. “She wouldn’t have helped no nigger women.”
She removed the photograph from the frame, tore it up, and threw it on the fire.
“It’s almost midnight, Fiddie,” said Lena. “We’ve got to stop. We can’t take the entire household with us.”
“We’ll take much as we can carry. You’ll see. It’ll be worth it.”
She had been going through the wardrobe in the corner of the room and she took out a navy blue worsted suit. She sniffed at it.
“Smells like tobacco. Must have belonged to her old massa man.” She slipped on the jacket. “Looka this, Lena honey chile. It fits me snug as a bug in massa’s ass. See, there’s boots as well.” She thrust her bare feet into the boots that were at the back of the wardrobe. “They’s perfect.” She beamed at Lena. “You know what I think, missus? I think Miss Fidelia and Miss Lena, slaves in the possession of Mr. Leigh Dickie and his wife, may she rot in hell, Missus Caddie, have now died and here we have two new folks. One a respectable widow lady and the other her faithful boy, Solomon.”
“Solomon? Why Solomon?”
“He was very wise, wasn’t he? And ain’t I very wise too?”
Lena chuckled. “You most certainly are. You’re going to have to bind your little rosebuds down though, if you want to be convincing.”
“Missus Caddie told me just last month I was as flat as an ironing table and as ugly as spoiled porridge.”
“She was wrong on both counts. You’re sprouting every day and you’re as pretty as any coloured gal I ever saw.”
Fidelia touched her own breasts tentatively. “Good thing we got out of there then.”
Lena turned away. “I’ve changed my mind, Fiddie. I don’t care if it is late, I’m going to have a bath.”
“What for? You’re only gonna get dirty again.”
“Never mind about that. Look, she’s got a tin tub. I’m going to boil up some water and sit in that old tin tub till I wrinkle up. You can go to bed if you like.”
“No. I’ll stay. You’ll probably need somebody to wash your back for you.”
After Lena’s bath, they decided it would be warmer and safer to sleep downstairs, so they hauled the mattress off the bed and brought it down in front of the fire. The old lady had more than one nightgown, and Fiddie insisted Lena take the cleaner of the two.
“We can burn our clothes,” said Lena. “I never want to see them again. I’ll take hers, they’re decent enough.”
“What name you gonna take as your new self?” Fidelia asked.
“I don’t know yet, I’ll have to think about it.” She pulled the girl closer. “It’s cold, snuggle up. I don’t think I’ve stopped shivering yet.”
Fidelia rolled over so she was facing Lena. “I’ve been a thinking, the best thing to do is to set the house on fire. We can bring the old woman’s body in here. When the neighbours find her, they’ll think she just gone and knocked over a lamp or something like that. They might not even know ’bout her money and if they did they’ll think it burned in the fire. We can get ourselves a good start that way.”
“Surely, they’ll notice if the mule is missing?”
“He could just have escaped.”
“But what about the cow? It would be suspicious with the cow gone as well. Cows don’t ever wander far.”
“If we leave her, she’ll holler if she ain’t milked and that could bring the neighbours over too soon. We’ll have to kill her.”
“We could take her with us. We won’t be travelling that fast and it means we could have fresh milk.”
“No, she’ll slow us down.”
Lena sighed. “If we leave her in the shed, it most likely catch fire and she’ll be burned alive.”
“If it bothers you that much, I’ll cut her throat first.”
“If you say so, Solomon.”
At daybreak they were up. Silently, they carried the corpse of the old woman, now stiffened in death, into the house. Lena made a pile of their old clothes, then splashed lamp oil on the furniture and the floor while Fiddie packed the mule’s panniers. She milked the cow and added the pannikin of fresh milk to the mule’s burden. Then as Lena started to throw lit matches onto the oil-soaked carpet, Fidelia released the cow to a merciful death.