Glimmers of Change (31 page)

The conductor jerked his thumb toward the back car. “Suit yourself. The train leaves in ten minutes.”

Moses felt a flash of gratitude but hard on the heels of the gratitude was a knowing of what he had to do. He strode with Matthew and Robert toward the ticket counter but stopped them before they walked inside. “Don’t,” he said quietly. He held up his hand when Matthew opened his mouth to protest. “I appreciate your willingness to ride with me but your being there will make it impossible for me to talk to the other passengers.”

“What?” Robert asked, confusion evident in his eyes.

Moses became more certain of what he needed to do as he thought about it. “I want to talk to
my people
,” he said strongly. “They won’t talk as freely if there are two white men in the midst of them. I need to know what they are dealing with. I need to hear their stories.” He wasn’t sure why he needed to do it, but he felt more certain with every word that came out of his mouth.

“But—” Matthew protested.

Robert laid a hand on his arm to stop him. “Moses knows what he wants.”

Moses flashed him a smile, grateful for the closeness they had developed since Robert had healed from his illness. “We’ll be together as soon as we get to Memphis.”

“Then at least let me apologize that there are such bigoted idiots in the white race,” Matthew said, deliberately raising his voice so he would be heard. “You’re a better man than anyone else on this platform.”

Moses saw the conductor flush, but he also saw his eyes glitter with greater hatred as they settled on him. While he appreciated Matthew’s support, he doubted it would do anything but create more trouble for him. He fought back a sigh as he picked up his bag and walked to the back of the train. He forced himself not to think of the relative comfort Matthew and Robert would experience during the long trip. He was already sure the car reserved for blacks would have little to offer in way of comfort, but perhaps it was going to offer something he hadn’t expected.

Moses bit back his bitterness as the train pulled out of the station, black smoke blending with the dark gray clouds hovering overhead until it disappeared. He forced himself to relax, reminding himself he had suffered far greater humiliations when he enlisted in the Union Army as their first black spy. This was nothing in comparison.

“Who them white men you was with?”

Moses jerked his head around when the man in the narrow, cramped seat behind him spoke. “What?”

“Who them white men you was with?” the man repeated. His narrow face, creased with wrinkles, belied the bright sparkle in his eyes.

“They are friends,” Moses replied. “We’re on our way to Memphis.” He had come back here so he could talk with other blacks. There was something about this man he liked. “My name is Moses.”

“Name is Charlie,” the old man said easily. “Them men really be friends?” he asked skeptically.

“Yes,” Moses assured him, not sure he should go into details. He didn’t have a need to talk — he wanted to listen. “Where are you headed, Charlie?”

“Nashville,” Charlie responded promptly. “Going to look for my wife.”

“How long have you been separated?” Moses asked. He’d heard stories like this from so many.

“Twenty years,” Charlie replied, the pain in his eyes contrasting with the smile on his face. “We were together on a plantation down in eastern Virginia for eighteen years. Our owner came up on hard times and had to sell most his slaves. He kept me, but he sold my wife and chillun. My chillun done all be grown by now. I ain’t got no idea where they be. ”

Moses winced, anger mixed with the pain that shot through him. “How did you find your wife?”

“Took me a lot of lookin’,” Charlie admitted. He hesitated, a deep look of suspicion on his face. “You don’t talk like no black man I know,” he muttered.

“No,” Moses agreed.

“Why not?”

Moses knew he would have to earn the man’s trust. “I was a slave all my life. I was sold to a plantation outside of Richmond the year before the war started. My wife grew up as a slave there. She taught me how to read in a secret school out in the woods. She also taught me how to talk correctly. She told me it would make it easier to exist in a white world.”

Charlie stared at him for a long moment. “You reckon it’s done helped?”

“I reckon it has,” Moses responded. “I was a spy for the Union Army for over three years, and I headed up a battalion of soldiers.”

“Do tell,” Charlie said with a whistle, admiration shining in his eyes. “I sho nuff wanted to fight, but they done tole me I was too old. Sho was hard to sit it out. You got hurt?”

“Only if you consider a crater in my chest from a cannonball being hurt,” Moses said casually, suddenly anxious to earn this man’s trust so he would talk openly.

“And you lived to tell about it?”

“One of my closest friends was a doctor at Chimborazo Hospital. She saved my life. My unit brought me in right after Richmond fell.” Moses held back his chuckle, knowing he was certain to get Charlie’s attention with his statement.

“
She? Chimborazo Hospital?
That be a white hospital.” Charlie’s expression went from amazement to complete suspicion and then wavered back. He clearly had no idea what to think of what Moses was saying.

“Yep.” Moses smiled. “Carrie Cromwell’s father owned the plantation where I was a slave. He went into Richmond just before the war started and left Carrie to run the plantation. Carrie helped me and my wife, Rose, escape through the Underground Railroad. Carrie became a doctor at the hospital during the war. She was there when my unit brought me in. I would have died without her.”

A long silence stretched between them as Charlie stared into his eyes. “I do believe you be tellin’ the truth, but that sho nuff be some kind of crazy story.”

Moses smiled. “I can’t disagree with that.”

“What you doing now, Moses?” Charlie asked.

Moses decided the attempt to explain his relationship with Thomas Cromwell, and the fact that he was half-owner of the plantation, would be completely unbelievable. He didn’t want to shatter the rapport he felt building. “I’m headed to Memphis with my friends.”

Charlie nodded, not seeming to care if he knew more of the story. He was suddenly eager to tell his own. “My kids be all grown up now. I ain’t sure where they be, but I found out through somebody in Richmond that my wife be out in Nashville. As far as I know, she ain’t with no other man.”

“Does she know you’re coming?”

Charlie shook his head, his eyes suddenly hesitant. “I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout sendin’ no letter,” he admitted. “I don’t know how to read. I don’t reckon my wife do either. What good be a letter?”

“Do you know where she lives?” Moses asked. He knew Nashville wasn’t a small town.

“Done heard she lives with a sister down in the black part of town. I’m just gonna look ‘til I find her.” Charlie’s face twisted with emotion. “I sho nuff didn’t figure I would ever see her again. I don’t know for sho that I find her, but I sho nuff gonna try.”

Moses had more information he wanted. “Have you lived in Richmond since the end of the war?”

“Pretty much. I came in from the master’s place right before all them men got rounded up last summer and shipped back out to the country. I guess they left me alone ‘cause I be so old. They didn’t figur’ I’d do them much good workin’ in the fields again.”

“How have you been living?” Moses asked.

Charlie shrugged. “I been stayin’ here and there with folks. I been tryin’ to get a job, but nobody wants me ‘cause I’m so old. Folks been takin’ pretty good care of me, though. Ever’body be stickin’ together pretty good. I don’t see many people full, but I don’t see many starvin’ either. We all knows we be in the same boat.” He stared at the church steeples barely visible in the distance. “I left me some good friends in Richmond, but I want to see my wife again before I die. I done seen lots of families gettin’ back together over the last year. I reckon I wouldn’t mind none if it were me that had the smile on my face,” he added quietly.

Moses put a hand on his shoulder. “I hope you find her, Charlie.”

He looked around at the other people on the train. One in particular caught his attention. The piercing eyes focused on him indicated he had caught the other man’s attention as well. He stood, gripping the seatbacks to steady himself against the swaying of the train, and walked back. “Mind if I sit down?”

“Nope.”

Moses sat, studying the man who was studying him so carefully. He liked the man’s lean muscles, steady eyes, and calm expression. “I’m Moses.”

“I’m Dillon.”

Moses waited for him to say more, but there was just silence. “I’m heading out to Memphis,” he said casually. He waited a moment to see if Dillon would give him more information. He remained silent, but his eyes demanded more. “Have you ever heard about the boat that went down outside of Memphis last year?”

Dillon’s face twisted. “The
Sultana
.”

“Yes. I’m heading out there with a friend who almost died when the boat exploded.”

“One of the men you tried to board first class with?” Dillon asked bluntly.

Moses smiled. Dillon was obviously a careful observer. That meant he had heard everything he told Charlie. His gut told him Dillon also had a good reason to be so careful. “Yes. Matthew Justin is a journalist. He was traveling up the river with the returning soldiers from the prison camps.”

“Andersonville,” Dillon said bitterly.

“That’s right,” Moses said carefully, sensing that the surface calm hid a churning cauldron. “You spend time there?”

Dillon sighed heavily and seemed to relax some. “No. A bunch of men from my battalion were captured the last year of the war. They got sent to Andersonville.” His face stiffened. “They all died.”

Moses grimaced. “Over thirteen thousand men died there,” he said quietly. “Did you know the man who ran Andersonville, Henry Wirz, was found guilty of war crimes and hanged last November?”

Dillon nodded. “I heard. Seems to me he’s about the only one that didn’t get away with what he did. The rest of them high falutin’ Confederate men just seem to have gone back to their cushy lives.” His eyes flashed angrily and took on a haunted look that quickly faded into blankness.

Moses watched him. “Where are you headed, Dillon?”

“North.” Dillon’s voice was now as emotionless as his eyes.

Moses had seen this before. Talk of Andersonville had triggered painful memories for Dillon. “Where in the North?” he probed gently, trying to bring his new friend back from the darkness.

“As far north as I can go,” Dillon finally said after a long silence. His eyes met Moses’s. “I was stupid enough to think things would be better after the war. I thought if I helped win our freedom, that life would be better.”

Moses waited quietly. He understood what he was feeling all too well.

Dillon’s eyes took on a new level of raw pain. “They came for us.”

Moses waited, but Dillon had seemed to turn inward. “Came for you? What do you mean?”

Dillon stared at him, his eyes suddenly wild and feral. He clenched his fists as his face seemed to melt with agony. “A bunch of white men,” he finally ground out. “Last month. I was down in North Carolina with my family. I had walked into town through the woods to get some supplies. When I was almost home I heard a bunch of horses coming from the direction of my house…” His eyes glazed over as his voice faltered.

Moses felt sick. He knew what was coming.

“I jumped into the woods,” Dillon continued. “A group of white men galloped by. They was laughing and talking like they ain’t just done something horrible.” He shook his head. “I knew even before I got there. My wife and kids…” His voice faltered again. “They’d been beat to death.” His shoulders shook with silent sobs. “They done left me a note saying I best get out of the South or they would come back for me.”

Moses’s heart clinched at the same time he was filled with a fury so intense it almost choked him. “I’m sorry,” he managed. Right on the heels of his words was a sudden fear of what could happen to Rose and the rest of his family while he was gone. He tightened his fists as he battled his feelings.

“You got a family, Moses?” Dillon asked hoarsely.