May the Road Rise Up to Meet You: A Novel (56 page)

And know these last twelve years ain’t all been for nothin’.

The news poured into town the previous afternoon, and people celebrated the way they
should
celebrate such news. Not like it was vengeance being brought upon
those damn Rebs
, but like it was one step, one day, closer to the end of this whole damn war. Ethan hadn’t been able to sleep for more than a few restless moments at a time, thinking all the while that it was as if the great walled city of Troy had at last fallen. And he could only imagine what it’d been like for Micah. So when he heard the creak of footsteps on the stairs the next morning, he knew it had to be him. And he waited only a few minutes, making sure that
Aislinn wasn’t stirring, to slip out of their room and join his friend on the porch.

Nice mornin’, Ethan said, after he’d run the gauntlet and made his way to the front door.

I was tryin’ not to wake anyone, Micah replied, still getting used to living with more people than he ever had before.

I’m gonna hafta talk to th’carpenter that fixed those stairs. Third one from the bottom’s got a creak in it like you wouldn’t believe, Ethan said. Shoddy work.

Yep—tough t’find good men these days, Micah replied, as they slipped into their now-familiar banter.

Ethan sat in the chair next to Micah, looking out over the dark landscape with just a suggestion of light appearing over the hills to the east. Their two family histories seemed forever intertwined after the events of the past few months. Corrine and Isabelle had been staying here at the house along with Micah for going on a month now. They’d stayed in Brooklyn with Ethan’s family for the first two weeks after they finally got a boat off Edisto Island. And now they were waiting on the better weather of summer, when there’d be more work for everyone and they could get a place big enough for the three of them.

So what’re you still doing here? Ethan asked matter-of-factly.

Micah looked at him, a little perplexed.

Richmond’s an open city, Ethan added, knowing what it would mean to Micah.

Micah looked away from him, back out over the hills, like he was allowing himself to dream a little again.

You figure I should see if she’s still there? Micah asked.

Ethan pulled his head back and let his eyebrows crowd over his eyes.

You have other pressing engagements to tend to? he asked. I know the Hoffmans’ chicken coop needs fixing, and the Richters are lookin’ to do somethin’ about th’leak in their barn, an’ th’Wesleys want a porch like this one and—yes, I guess that’s enough to keep a workin’ man from goin’ after the woman he loves. A woman it sounds like is worth chasin’ to the shores of the Ever After, but sure, this makes more sense. Maybe you can fit her in sometime in July or maybe August, an’ then just see …

And Micah’d already started laughing by then.

You think she’s still there? Micah asked, hopefully.

Only one way t’find
out
.

And Micah nodded, looked out over the porch railing again.

Ten-thirty train’s still runnin’ outta Richfield Springs, Ethan said. Henry said we could take the carriage.

Mmmm, Micah responded.

’Til Ethan grew impatient.

Just how long you gonna keep that woman waitin’?

And the hopeful hint of a smile on Micah’s face was all the answer necessary.

His first steps through the streets of his former home are unimaginable. Maybe a third of the city gone completely. Other sections with pockmarked streets where shells landed. Buildings torn through or burnt to the ground. Like the Longley place, with nothing but three brick chimneys and a foundation to say there’d even been something there. And there’s not the kind of lustful joy he might’ve felt to see such a thing not so long ago. Just shaking his head over and over.

President Lincoln visited Richmond a week before. All the colored folks swarming the streets to meet him. Reporter for the newspaper Micah read it in compared it to the Messiah being welcomed into Jerusalem. Said that if they had palms to lay before the President, they certainly would have. And he wonders if Mary had still been there for the excitement. Wishes he could’ve been there, too. Not so much to see Lincoln. Just that all the fuss made it impossible to get into the city. Took him eight days from Cooperstown. Every day maybe the one where Mary slipped away. Or maybe, if she was gone already, the day that little bitta thread that’d help him find her got swept away somehow.

It’s mostly just Yankee soldiers and colored folks in the streets now. Plenty of smiles on all their faces now that Ol’ Bobby Lee, like Ethan calls him, surrendered altogether. And the war’s all over but for the last little bits of it. Killin’ the ones so stubborn they won’t stop ’til it’s all just chimneys to mark what used to be. The whole land covered in the penance of slavery.

And as Micah walks to the Kittredges’ store, he’s relieved at least to see it’s still there. Nothin’ in it, and windows smashed in out front, but still there. And his and Mary’s special meeting place around back left untouched. Then the walkway up to the house, and his heart up near his throat like it was first time he saw her. Thinkin’ now that maybe she’s still here after all. That maybe God could forgive the man he was enough to give him that one more chance. But then as he gets closer he can see Union soldiers walking out the front door. And more sitting on the front porch. Union flag draped from a window on the second floor like it never’d be if Mista Kittredge was still there. And the only hope he can see is the colored soldier standing guard by the door.

Beg pardon, Suh, he says, just to be safe. Might you know the family that lives here?

The soldier looks down at him. Suspicious.

Why you wanna know? He says.

I used to live here—well, not here, but in Richmond, Micah answers.

You run off?

Yes, two years ago.

From this place?

No, this is where my …

Where yo’ gal live? The soldier asks, smiling now.

Yes, Micah replies, disappointed that this is the first colored soldier he’s ever spoken to.

An’ you run off wit’out her an’ now you come back to fine her? An’ you ’spect she be happy t’see ya when you run off on ’er like dat? He says, laughing louder with each breath. I lef’ my gal in Carolina befo’ the war, an’ I ain’t botherin’ t’go back an’ find ’er. I jus’ find me anotha one.

Well, I had no choice. Micah says.

Well, you go an’ see if dat gone git you anywhere wit her. And he can’t stand up anywhere near straight any more from his laughing.

Micah starts to walk away. Gets maybe three four steps, then the soldier calls him back.

Hold on jus’ a minute here—I think I know jus’ where yo’ gal is. He says, opening the door to the house and pointing back at Micah. You jus’ wait there, an’ I go get someone t’fetch her.

And the soldier steps inside for a bit. Talks and laughs with another colored soldier just inside the door. Then comes back out and stands his post.

You jus’ wait right dere. He says.

And Micah can tell by the way he laughs to himself that it isn’t going to be Mary. Then he hears the soldier inside the door talking.

I dunno, he just told me there was someone here to see ya.

The front door opens, and the soldier outside looks back at Micah.

This here yo’ gal? He says. And stops laughing before he can get started. Since it’s clear straight off that they know each other.

It’s Cora. And Micah feels more relieved to see her than he ever would’ve imagined being.

Well, you come back afta all. Cora says.

And Micah nods. Lets a half-smile come over his face. Is she here?

Now you two sho’ got dis way of passin’ each other comin’ and goin’, an’ here’s me gettin’ stuck in the middle same as always.

And with the colored soldier standing there silent as a column, Micah and Cora talk only in essential details. Him about the North. About ending up in Cooperstown. Nothing about the Home Guard or Dunmore and the Embrys. And her about the end days here. How he’ll be prouda Mary jumpin’ off the train like she did. And how she left just three days before. Volunteered on a hospital train goin’ to Washington. Didn’t know where she’d go after that.

Looks like she done changed her mine back, Cora says. She gone lookin’ for you!

It’s been ten days here now, Gertie. I know I said I was gonna stay just long enough to sell the rest of the mournin’ veils, but something happened the day I arrived that made me kinda shut down with fear. Like it was a bad thing runnin’ off again. That’s ’cause the day I got here was the day Mista Lincoln, the Yankee President, got shot. Killed dead by a man from the South, it turns out. And it’s like there’s no end to the death all around us.

You remember when I talked to you about seein’ him there in Richmond, when he came just after the Yankees took over the city? All the slaves he freed lined up along the streets, and even though Micah never had much use for him, and the Kittredges thought he was the devil himself, I was happy to see the man, the President of this new country we’re all fixin’ to be a part of again.

That train with wounded Yankees got me as far as Washington. And it’s my fault we ain’t talked since then. Since I been thinkin’ all about Micah, and what bein’ in the North’ll be like, and what’s gonna happen to me—and thinkin’ ’bout Juss too. Then Mista Lincoln gets killed like that and—I guess I was all kindsa caught up in this fear I got that maybe—I know it’s foolish—but how both times I run off, somebody died. And I couldn’t talk to you, Gertie. Not ’til now.

I sold all those thirty-four veils I had left with me just in these last two days, once I started comin’ outta that sad kinda place I was in. It helped that Misses Corcoran runnin’ the boardin’ house I been stayin’ at says that she needs another week’s board from me or I gotta get out. So I sold ten veils yesterday and gave her some of the money, then sold the rest today in just about an hour or two. Three dollars apiece, the way Misses Corcoran said I should charge, insteada the dollar I been chargin’. And the reason why I sold all of ’em, even at three dollars apiece, is ’cause the train with President Lincoln come through town today. There was a parade—a procession I guess is the better word—down Broadway. Then they laid his body out at City
Hall for all the folks to see. So I went, Gertie. I felt I had to for how he helped end this war and have it give us freedom, even though I come to understand that it wasn’t Mista Lincoln’s to give—our freedom, that is. Folks can only take away freedom from other folks, not give it.

So anyway, I waited in line for three hours just to get the chance to walk by his casket and see him up close like that. His face looked like a hundred-year-old man’s would be, all hollowed out and wrinkled. Death can’t have helped him none, of course, but he musta had an awful tough time in this life, the way he looked. And I prayed as I walked past, askin’ the Lord to look out for him. ’Cause I do believe he was an awfully good man, despite what the Kittredges and everybody in Richmond usedta say.

And when I come back here to the boardin’ house just a while ago, I told Misses Corcoran where I been and she got a sad look on her face, then she give me back the money I already paid for the resta the week. She told me to get goin’ on up to where I said I was goin’, though she couldn’t remember the name. And she wasn’t bein’ mean, just sayin’ that I should go find that man I said I’d be lookin’ for ’cause there ain’t many men good enough to go lookin’ for and she figured I’d better get up there ’fore some other gal stole him away. And so I said I’d go.

Tomorrow’s the train up to Albany and then change for another to Buffalo, and then it’s another across to St. Catharines, way up in Canada. But I’m scared, Gertie. Not of the runnin’ anymore, or of the not knowin’ if Micah’ll be there, or if things’ll be all right when I—well—I guess I’m scared of all those things. But I’m most scared of all this not-knowin’. I’m tired of it. And if this is what freedom’s all about, then maybe it ain’t such a good thing after all. I just don’t know anymore. And it’s hard not hearin’ from you, Gertie. My dreams’ve got turned off ever since I left Richmond. And it’d be nice to hear from you again. To know, whatever else’s gonna happen, that at least you’re still there.

She had allowed herself to believe that he’d be here, ever since the dream on the train, when she was sure it was Gertie speaking to her, like she was sayin’
Keep goin’, Chil’, keep goin’
. It was that dream that helped her cross into Canada, certain he’d be here. And that dream that helped her when she arrived and didn’t find him that same day, or in the days afterward, or find anyone who’d even heard of a man named Micah passin’ through here. Twelve days later it was helping her believe still, though belief was wearing a little thinner these days, and she found herself feelin’ more alone than ever before.