The Fallen Fruit, page 15
“Yes, ma’am,” they said in unison.
A scalding breeze fanned her face, bringing with it the scent of youth and sweat as the pair walked away. For a moment, the child in her womb stilled as Luke’s words clung to her. Out here on the farm, many folks never got what they needed, much less what they deserved. They had no control over their circumstances so they did what they had to do. They endured. They survived. Reba spread her fingers over her belly and sighed. A peculiar unease settled into her chest. Her mother used to say it was a sign of bad omens. Reba tried to cast the thought aside, but she feared for what lingered on the horizon.
* * *
It was not the cool air in the morning that roused Reba but her husband. Herb slid his arms around her waist and drew her closer. Time and childbirth had stolen her slim waist and the smoothness of the skin on her thighs and stomach, but he snuggled against her, content. Heat radiated from him, but this warmth was familiar—a steadiness that forever remained and soothed her. No matter the season, they lay here together. Sometimes with a babe between them, other times with nothing but their passion and a need to stroke or kiss the other’s skin.
If not for Papa Raley’s work ethic, as well as his greed, Reba would’ve never met Herbert and found such happiness. After living for twenty years as a mulatto slave at Dunlora for Samuel Carr, Papa had saved enough money to purchase his freedom. Papa’d had a shrewd nature. And a quiet voice that penetrated the most stubborn customer. He’d lined his pocket with coins, and after he’d bought his freedom, he’d paid for Mama’s too.
One morning, when Reba was no older than fourteen, Herb appeared. They’d first met when he came to her family’s home during the busy fall shipping season. Papa’s barges carried furniture, spices, and expensive goods to the elite whites living up-country. When she thought about it—long after marriage and children—Herb never stood out among other men. He shared the same height as the other laborers and had a calm way about him, with slumped shoulders, bowed legs, and a stoic expression.
When Papa’s men arrived at dawn to pick up a shipment of tobacco, sweat from the late summer weather already dampened their backs. Herbert ambled about while the others spoke in quiet tones.
Reba had slipped out the front door with Mama. They’d gotten up early to tend to the gardens. Pluck the weeds. Gather shocks of greens for supper. “Like yesterday, and the week before that,” she complained. They had housemaids to wash their clothes and cook their meals. Downhill from their house, farmers minded the fields of corn and barley while others tended to their livestock.
“You can’t tell them people what to do if you don’t know how to do it yourself,” Mama insisted. By “them people,” she meant the slaves she ignored in the streets and the dark-skinned Negroes who worked in their home. “Half of them forgot what I told them twice.” Mama’s voice trailed off as she disappeared around the house.
Off to Reba’s left, a smear of blue caught her eye. Someone had dropped a handkerchief and darted after it. Herb stooped, picked up the blue handkerchief, and drew the cloth across his brow. The wind flicked the frayed edges of the dark-blue material and the smoothness of the skin above Herb’s full beard shone in the morning light. Their gazes connected, and Herbert should’ve looked away, but he stared. A light sparked in his eyes as if he’d seen her before. His bold glance made Reba hurry after Mama. After that moment, they didn’t see each other again until Papa moved their family onto the Bridge land he’d bought.
Herbert’s rough palm stroked the curve of Reba’s cheek, drawing her out of the past. He reached for her, and they slept until the light from the rising sun pried them apart. They couldn’t sleep with all the noise anyway. Little George carefully made his way down the ladder from the loft. The child blinked as he left the house to relieve himself.
Herb kissed Reba’s nose. “Morning, wife.”
“Morning, husband.”
They always said that to each other—no matter the mood the night before. Disagreements came and went, but they’d always had each other. On most mornings, they settled into a routine. Reba rekindled the fire and warmed their porridge breakfast while Herbert scurried about wrangling the children to wash their faces and prepare for the day. Mariah, who ambled down the ladder next, rubbed the back of her head to wake herself. When they were younger, Mariah had never wanted to get up early.
“Is it morning already?” the young woman asked.
“According to the rest of the world it is.” Herb chuckled while he tried to get a squirmy George to don a fresh shirt. The boy had soiled his last one.
Reba never asked Herbert to help her—perhaps he pitied his wife. While carrying Georgie, she crouched outside in the early mornings, her stomach lurching until it emptied itself. After Reba had fainted three times after George was born, Herb never left until everyone had eaten breakfast and the children had gotten to work on their chores.
“Harvest started?” Mariah pulled a chair up to the worn four-seater table. Little George escaped his father and scrambled into the woman’s arms. “Boy, you getting too big to be running ’round.”
When Mariah tickled him, George squealed and tried running away.
“Not yet,” Herbert said. “You got good timing, I must say.”
“I doubt it.” Mariah accepted a slice of bread and bowl of porridge. “Harvesting is as hard as tailoring.”
The three children finally sat on the floor with their bowls. Herb scooted George’s bowl closer to him while Annie frowned and picked out the dried apple ring Reba had added on top. Annie added the piece into Georgie’s bowl.
“How come you didn’t return to Charleston again?” Reba asked. Before Mariah had settled down in Richmond, she’d worked in South Carolina for a few years.
“There was work for a spell, but everything dried up, so I had to start over.” Mariah traced her finger along the bread’s crust, her gaze briefly lost in the hearth’s flames.
“I can’t imagine starting from nothing,” Herb said stiffly. “We spent all those years scraping every penny together to make a life for ourselves. My granddaddy was born on this land more than seventy years ago. His parents tilled the soil and planted the trees. Ain’t no reason to spit in their eyes over free Negro jobs elsewhere.”
“True.” Mariah finished her meal and leaned back in her seat. “Land is king around here. Damn shame your daddy didn’t leave you anything back in Richmond.”
At the mention of Papa, Reba rose to gather the dishes. “We’re better off now. That man’s greed blackened his heart. You made a living for yourself back there. There’s no reason why you can’t do the same here.”
She waited for Mariah to disagree, but her friend merely nodded. Memories of that man had a way of souring any mood. The family had another hot day coming and their chores—which they’d do on the land they’d bought back from Papa—wouldn’t do themselves. Through their labors, they’d carve out a fruitful existence for the children. This was their home now and no one could take that away from them.
Chapter 16
Rebecca Raley-Bridge
September 1817
The next day, Reba had a full porch of students, but the six children had the vigor of old folk. Fifteen-year-old Patience Bridge sagged next to her younger brother, Pete, while the oldest student, a slim boy named Nelson Bridge, stared fondly at Patience from the edge of the porch. The boy was older than her by a year and always followed her around. At least he got some learning out of fawning after her. Jimmy, Lizzie, and Gerald slumped against the wall on the other side.
Today would be as productive as the last lesson.
Not long into the lesson, Patience spoke. “Is it true Miss Kenner returned?”
“She ain’t got no candy,” Jimmy said dryly.
“Maybe she hasn’t shown you what she got.” Patience was as nosy as her mama, but the girl spread gossip far quicker.
“Jimmy, please show everyone how you do a carryover when adding two three-digit numbers.” Reba tried not to use Jimmy to set an example, but far too often her child had to set the standard.
While Jimmy scribbled out the math on the small chalkboard, the other children feigned interest, but she could see their eyes darting beyond the porch to the dragonflies zipping about. To the lone hawk circling the pastures. To the trees rustling as their branches swayed. After Jimmy finished, the rest of the children each took the board in turn until only Patience remained.
“When we’re done, can we go swimming?” Patience asked, her subdued gaze intent on the first row of digits. “The water would feel nice . . .”
Then Patience paused and blinked.
“You all right?” Reba asked.
“Just felt funny.” Patience puckered her lips and squeezed her eyes open and shut.
Her brother, who glanced over her shoulder, fanned her face with his hands. “You’re sweating, Pay-Pay.”
When he got too close, she frowned at him. “ ’Cause it’s hot! Get back.”
“I’m helping—” Then Pete disappeared.
Patience scrambled to stand. “Where did he go?”
“I-I don’t know.” Reba stood with Patience. “He was right behind you.”
Among the confused murmurs of her students, she wondered if they’d missed Pete running away. They waited. The only sounds around them were the cicadas’ steady clicks, and midday songs of robins. She listened for the thud of footsteps, the whistle from someone passing by, or even a door slam from the nearest outhouse.
“Don’t make any sense . . .” Nelson stepped off the porch. His booted feet kicked up dust from the patches of dirt. He stared past Reba’s house to the nearby pasture. She couldn’t see Peter hiding behind any of the trees dotting the rolling hills or escaping into the forest less than a mile away.
“You see him?” Patience asked.
Nelson shrugged, took two steps toward them, then vanished.
Patience slapped her hand over her mouth, but a tortured scream slipped between her trembling fingers. “No!”
The girl’s cry pierced through Reba’s stomach, leaving her mouth agape.
“What happened to him?” Jimmy whispered as his siblings emerged from the house.
Patience, Jimmy, Gerald, and Lizzie turned to Reba. Her younger children held questions in their eyes too. She tried to breathe, but she couldn’t catch any air. “I don’t know.”
This had to be a trick. The heat must’ve deceived them like Papa Raley had warned.
Patience approached Reba, her eyes wide and glistening. The girl clutched Reba’s skirt and spoke words Reba couldn’t make out.
“Where are they?” Patience’s voice had finally reached her.
“I don’t know,” Reba managed. “We should search for them.”
They circled the house two times. Their hands wrenched open the doors to the outhouse and the barn. The root cellar proved just as empty. Not a single child hid among the neat rows of food. A breeze hit Reba’s damp back and the children whimpered, not from the heat but from an awareness that something horrible had happened.
Reba felt the same.
“Did they go home?” Jimmy asked.
Patience shook her head. “Why didn’t we see them leave?”
Reba’s gaze swept along the shallow dips and rises of the hills leading to the closest home to the northeast. Nelson’s. The maple and elm trees hid no one. Half a mile to her right, smoke rose from the cabin of Peter and Patience’s family. Only the children’s mother, Ruth, could be seen hanging up clothes on the clothesline in front of their summer kitchen.
Reba picked up Georgie and broke away from the children to run across the pasture to Nelson’s home. The rest of the children trailed after her in tears. The wind pushed her back, but eventually she reached the fence posts protecting their gardens. A tepid breeze tugged at the stalks of corn and pulled her toward Nelson’s mother, Carrie. The small-framed woman leaned over her washboard and tub. Her tiny hands moved with a familiar rhythm to scrub a shirt. Carrie’s two younger children, a set of eighteen-month-old twins, played at her feet. Patience caught up and ran into Reba like the harsh peppery scent of the lye coating Carrie’s hands.
Nelson’s mother grinned at them. “What’s wrong? Did the devil show up for schooling today?”
“Have you seen . . . your boy?” Reba struggled to ask.
Carrie scoffed. One of the toddlers at her feet reached for his mother.
On the other side of the pasture, Ruth turned around and peered at them. She had to see crying children. Gerald clung to a sobbing Lizzie. Jimmy tried to quiet a confused Annie. Ruth dropped the breeches she held and ran in their direction.
Please let him be home—please let him be safe, Reba thought.
“He should be with you for book learning.” Carrie’s smile withered away.
Ruth joined them and Patience rushed to her mother. “Ma, we can’t find Pete,” she sobbed.
“What are you crying about, Pay-Pay?” Ruth’s head tilted in question.
Reba tried to explain, but every word felt like one of those fantastic tales Herb told their children during the long winter days. After she finished, she didn’t believe what she had said.
Ruth and Carrie weren’t convinced either. They circled Reba like mosquitos, their mouths slashes for frowns, their eyes hard and accusing.
“Children don’t pass from sight!” Carrie snapped.
“They probably ran away.” Ruth drew her crying daughter closer.
“But they didn’t!” Jimmy stepped forward, shaking his head in disbelief. “They were there—then they weren’t.”
“Go get your daddy,” Ruth hissed at Patience. “Something ain’t right here.”
“We didn’t hurt them,” Reba said. “The girl shouldn’t go out there all alone.”
“Why should she believe you?” Carrie swept in, her teeth clenched and free hand bunched into a fist. No one on the farm crossed her family—especially after her husband died two years ago. She’d birthed twins and raised three children alone since then. She fought first and settled with words afterward. “You never wanted to teach them kids. Always telling ’em to come back another day.”
“Four years ago was different,” Reba said. “I was feeling poorly.”
“We’ve all been with child. You do your job for a couple months a year. It ain’t hard.” Ruth made an annoying clicking noise with her tongue. “Get, girl!” she yelled to her daughter.
Reba caught Patience’s tear-streaked face before she ran into the woods. No one spoke. Reba searched the pasture, hoping Herb would show up too, but she stood alone with Georgie hiding his face in her skirt. Jimmy hovered nearby with a frightened Annie.
Soon enough, a brooding Joseph Bridge marched out of the woods with his daughter behind him. Joe was a man of few words. He spent most of his time felling timber for hoop poles.
After he arrived, in a clipped tone, Ruth explained to her husband what had happened. Reba waited for him to brush her off. He didn’t speak for a bit, merely taking in his only daughter’s despair.
“Stay here. They probably went swimming” was all he said before he strode across the field to return home. From afar, they watched him saddle up one of the geldings from the barn and ride off to the west.
After he disappeared over a hill, a nagging feeling clouded Reba’s thoughts. He won’t find them.
Reba’s students weren’t hiding around her house or splashing in the creek or traipsing through any part of the woods. She shivered, and suddenly George released a loud and piercing wail.
“It’s all right.” She kneeled and stroked the soft tawny skin of his rounded cheeks. She should’ve picked him up, but exhaustion left her knees weakened. “We’ll go home—”
“You’re not too worried about our children.” Ruth rested her hands on her wide hips and blocked Reba’s path. She threw Reba a glare hot enough to sizzle meat on a spit.
“Of course I’m worried.” Reba gestured to the pasture. “But standing here won’t bring them back.”
“Don’t you want to wait and see?” Carrie used her dress sleeve to wipe her damp brow. The boy, then the girl, mewled at her feet. “Two children are missing.”
Reba eyed them up and down. Let them try to stop her.
“I’m not feeling well and my children are frightened.” Reba tried to step around Ruth.
“All of us should be frightened,” Ruth said. “And yet you can go home with all of your babies.”
Before Reba could speak her mind, two breathless Raley boys came running up to them.
“Hiram’s gone! Hiram’s gone!” The oldest boy fought to catch his breath. “He was swimming in the creek and drowned.”
“He ain’t drowned,” his younger brother cried. “Our mama was there and she said he’s just . . . gone.”
Reba’s gut clenched. Hiram was a grown man at nineteen. Her husband’s younger brother always had a friendly smile. Herb told her his brother loved to splash in the water from the first day his mama dipped his toes in.
And now he was gone.
Reba grabbed Jimmy’s hand, feeling assured he was still here. Good Lord in heaven. Two boys gone. Now a third. She squeezed her eldest son’s hand tight enough for him to flinch, but he didn’t let go of her.
Her two neighbors fell silent. Their faces darkened as if a storm had brewed. She felt the storm too. And even her children’s presence couldn’t drive away the rising dread inside her.
* * *
After Hiram disappeared, further accusations hung unspoken, but the hard stares remained and seeped into Reba’s skin. Perhaps her neighbors needed someone to blame. Word spread quickly, and when the families convened in front of Luke’s cabin that evening, more glares and grimaces were thrown at her.
Reba’s husband ambled up to everyone with sweat lining his brow and worry in his eyes. His calves were wet up to his knees. The water was far too low at this time of year for anyone to drown. Herbert kept asking her what had happened to Pete and Nelson, but she shook her head each time. How could she look him in the eyes and tell such a far-fetched truth? She turned to face the others instead. All the families formed a semicircle around Luke’s porch. Gerald and Lizzie’s parents hovered on the periphery. Questions swam in their widened eyes. Not far from them, other Bridges spoke in whispers, throwing rumors around to salt the earth at Reba’s feet. Meanwhile, Ruth and Carrie scowled at her from the opposite side. Other families wandered closer with questions.
