River of Mercy (27 page)

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had indicated that Samuel might be somewhat judgmental. But now she wondered if she might not be the one guilty of that sin. Yet she couldn't help but side with her mother.

On Sunday morning, Gant tried his best to keep his thoughts on his own church service instead of allowing them to wander to the one taking place in the Amish community.

To save him though, he couldn't concentrate on Pastor Hartman's message. His mind was consumed with what-ifs, and one question loomed large above all others. What if Samuel Beiler were to become the new bishop? The very thought caused his stomach to knot.

He knew all too well, of course, what that would mean to Rachel and him: the loss of any hope of ever becoming husband and wife.

If Beiler were to have his way—and as bishop, he most definitely would—Gant would most likely not be allowed to show his face anywhere near the Amish community again. Ever. Indeed, if looks were any indication, Samuel Beiler, pacifist Amish man though he might be, would dearly love to tie his Irish nemesis to a stake and light a fire under him. Or just shoot him and have the deed done quickly. Whatever his weapon of choice, Gant thought sourly, Beiler would find a way to dispatch him without delay.

He glanced across the aisle just then and found Ellie Sawyer watching him with a questioning expression. Gant felt like a guilty schoolboy who'd been caught cheating in class. Of course, Ellie couldn't read his thoughts about Rachel and whatever might lie ahead for them. All the same, his recent awareness of the attractive young widow's possible romantic interest in him made for an unsettling awkwardness.

Gant quickly glanced away. Sighing, he chastised himself, not for the first time, for his lack of good sense. If Ellie Sawyer—young and pretty and available—really did have an interest in him, life might be a whole lot easier if he could simply respond instead of continuing to love a woman from afar, a woman he quite possibly could never love in any way other than at a distance.

He sighed again, this time more deeply. No point beating himself up over a situation he had no control over. Loving Rachel in the only way he could might not make much sense, but for now it would have to be enough.

After the church service ended, although he admittedly felt like the worst kind of scum for doing so, he cut out of the building as quickly as possible, scarcely acknowledging those standing close by and deliberately avoiding eye contact with Ellie Sawyer.

He rationalized that he simply didn't have it in him to be personable today, tense and short fused as he was. Somehow though, any excuse he came up with didn't take the edge off his self-contempt.

27

Is this my dream, or the truth?

W.B. Y
EATS

O
n Sunday night, Asa found the boy, Silas, considerably stronger. He was sitting up, eating a bowl of rice pudding. Not with gusto, perhaps, but at least he seemed not to tire with the effort.

“It's good to see you looking better,” Asa said, watching him.

The boy nodded without looking up.

Asa put a hand to the youth's forehead. “I would say the fever is gone. Eat well. You need to get your strength back.”

Again the boy gave a nod but said nothing as he scraped up the last few bites of pudding and then set his bowl aside. Asa studied him, relieved to see the improvement from only the night before.

Although he sensed no invitation in the boy's demeanor, he sat down on the floor beside him. Silas darted a brief look before pulling a blanket more snugly about his shoulders.

“Perhaps you'd best lie down,” Asa said. “You don't want to overdo.”

“I'm all right.”

“You were very sick.”

“I'm strong. I heal fast.”

“You're fortunate then.” Asa paused. “Last night—you were calling for your mama. Is she already in the North?”

Silas snapped around to look at him, his dark brows knit together in a frown. “What?”

“Last night. When your fever was so high. You called for Mama Ari.”

The boy's expression suddenly shuttered, and he made no reply. Asa persisted, however, curious about this youth, wondering if he were a self-appointed leader of the runaways or if the responsibility somehow had been thrust upon him. “Is your mama already waiting for you in the North?” he repeated

Silas lowered his head slightly. “My mama is dead,” he muttered, his tone sullen.

Taken aback, Asa drew in a long breath. “I'm sorry.” He hesitated and then asked, “Has she been gone long?”

The boy shook his head. “She died on our last trip, a few months ago.”

“I'm sorry for your loss,” Asa said again. “Had she been sick?”

This time the boy looked directly at him, his eyes glazed with what appeared to be a combination of pain and fury. “No. A slave catcher shot her.”

Sadness crept over Asa, weighing him down like a sodden blanket. “That's a hard thing.”

He was surprised when the boy offered more. “They'd been after her a long time.”

“They?”

Silas nodded. “She was one of the best conductors there's ever been. The catchers, they'd been trying for a long time to stop her, but they never could.” He stopped. “They couldn't capture her, so they killed her.”

“How did it happen?”

The boy looked off into the shadows. “They ambushed us. Meant to take us all. But Mama, she tricked them and took off in a different direction. Told me before she ran that I wasn't to follow, that if anything happened to her I was to take the people on. So that's what I did.” He stopped but then added, “Guess they wanted her more than all the rest of us put together. There was three of them…and they shot her three times. We heard it all. And then I did what she said. We ran, and I led the way. I knew how…I'd been with her many a time, so we all got away. All but her.”

Asa ached to reach out to the boy, to touch him and try to console him. But he sensed that young Silas would reject any attempt to comfort, so he remained still.

“Your mama was a hero.”

The boy's expression cleared a little. “I know. They wanted her bad. Slave catchers had tried to get her other times too, but she was always too smart for them. This time she just…she let them kill her.” He sounded as if he were about to strangle. “They hated her,” he said, his tone edged with a strange note of pride. “All the slave catchers hated her. They hated her so much they didn't care about getting paid to trap her alive. They just wanted rid of her. They all wanted to be the ones who caught Ariana.”

The boy's words struck Asa like a bolt of lightning. “Ariana?” he choked out. “That was your mama's name?”

“Uh-huh. Most folks called her Ari though.”

Asa remained silent, thinking…
True, Ariana was an uncommon name, but not unheard of. Still, there was no point in stirring the boy's curiosity. Yet he had searched for her so long, looked in so many places, hoping, always hoping… how could he
not
ask?

Finally he ventured another question. “Where…where are you from, boy, you and your mama?”

Silas shrugged. “Here and there. Nowhere special. We lived on the road a lot. Mama, she said once she came from Alabama but had me in Georgia.” He eyed Asa suspiciously. “Why you asking so many questions anyways?”

Alabama…

His gaze swept over the boy's features, more white than black, for certain, but clearly mixed blood.

“Just wondering about you,” he said. “How you got so far away from home, how you got involved as a conductor…”

“Mama was the conductor. I told you, I just took over after she…after she was gone. I learned all I needed to know from her.”

“But how did she get caught up in it? You don't find too many women conductors.”

Silas gave him a dubious look. “I reckon you know about Miz Tubman, don't you?”

“The one they call Moses,” Asa said. “Yes, I've heard about her.”

“There are others…other women besides Mama and Miz Tubman, I mean. Mama, she said she started to the North once all on her own. Never made it though. Instead she met up with some people who had lost their way, so she took them as far as Ohio. She took sick not long after that. Came down with the pneumonia. A white man—a preacher—and his wife took her in and took care of her. She said she stayed with them, worked as their housekeeper for several months. A group of runaways who'd lost their conductor came through about that time, so she took them partway up North, then went back to Cincinnati and started helping other folks too. After that, a lot of people depended on her, I reckon.”

He paused, lifted his chin, and added, “I heard tell from another conductor that Mama set hundreds of our people on their way to freedom and never lost a passenger, just like Miz Tubman.”

Asa chose his next words with care. “And what about your daddy?”

Again a closed, glum expression locked the boy's features up tight. “Never knew him. According to Mama, she got sassy one time too many with the white man who used to own her. He up and beat on her and then sold her to one of them places where men go and do bad things to women. She finally got away from there, but she was carrying me by them. After she had me, she never left the life, just kept helping folks get to the North.”

Asa's heart began to bleed a little and then hammer with reluctant hope. The boy's story lined up with the little he knew about his younger sister. His half-sister. They'd had the same mother but not the same father. Ariana's father had been the white master of the plantation where they'd both lived for several years. But eventually she had been sold from there—sold by her own father into a bawdy house because she was “mouthy…too uppity for her own good.”

After that, Asa never heard of her again, though the Lord knew he had tried over and over throughout the years to find her. Everywhere he and Gant had gone, he asked after her but never found a trace.

Now, after all these years, was it possible he'd finally learned her fate? Was this boy seated beside him his sister's son?

“Have you no other family?” he ventured.

Silas shook his head. “No. There was only my mama.” He stopped but then went on. “She told me once that she'd had an older brother. Sounded as though he'd been pretty good to her. But she hadn't seen him for years, not since she was taken away from the plantation where she grew up. She said it was just as well…she wouldn't have wanted him to know how hard things had been for her once she got sold.”