River

Ben

I can’t do it.

I thought I’d be able to just get back to work, be absorbed into Gregor’s crew, pull the ropes and build the dock and live Under-the-hill.

David has managed. Even after all the horror, after what Mason did to him, after how he nearly died as a result, David seems to have returned to his cheerful, chatty self. It only took him a couple of days to recover and get back to work. I don’t think he remembers how sick he was. I will certainly never forget it.

And I will never forget watching Samuel caring for him, so gently, so efficiently, so perfectly. He saved David’s life.

I guess I am glad that I have those last images of Samuel, being the doctor, tending to my best friend. I will take that memory with me when I go.

I haven’t told Gregor yet. But I can’t stay. I just can’t be in the same town as Samuel, knowing that he refuses to have anything to do with me. Every time I glance up the hill it is like my heart is being torn out of my chest all over again.

I haven’t told David either. I don’t know how he will react. He only took this job because I was doing it, but he has really begun to enjoy it. He loves the camaraderie that we all enjoy, working and living together. It is an unusually close group of workers, probably cemented together by Gregor’s unusual personality and generosity. We all like each other, we have all become almost like brothers.

I know David won’t want to go. We were both so tired of the constant loop we were living in, down the river and up the Trace. But I’m going. It hurts too much to stay here. Just as soon as I figure out how to tell my best friend goodbye, I will head north.

Stu

For the last day or two I have had to just guess where we are supposed to go, based on Mason’s descriptions. He told me that I should follow the tributary river, the Bayou Pierre, until I came to the swamps, and there we would find Little Harpe and the other members of Mason’s gang.

I guess I’m glad that I questioned him about it the first day, because he hasn’t been able to do much talking since then. Or walking. I’ve had to support him, while he leans heavily against me, as we stagger along. He’s weak from blood loss, and his leg has gone numb. Worst of all, he also has developed a high fever.

He isn’t unconscious, though, most of the time anyway. He is determined to keep going, to reach the hideaway where his men are waiting. Every time I try to make him rest, he might pass out for a few minutes, but then he grits his teeth and insists that we carry on.

I am clearly in hell. He is my burden to carry, and we trudge on, walking upstream, keeping the small river to our left, hungry and exhausted. I’ve only been able to scrounge up some berries occasionally for us as we go. We were not prepared for a journey when we fled the scene in front of Gregor’s house.

I suppose I could just abandon him. But I can’t go back to Natchez. I was seen with Mason. There is no way I can return to my old life, not with the reward money being offered for Mason and his gang. I have no other ideas about what I could do or where I could go, so I’m stuck with this. Stuck dragging Mason along at my side as I just follow the river, hoping to find his camp.

Moses

I’ll have to thank Gregor for this. I know he is arranging this deliberately, Dalila and I being left alone together.

When Ayola comes rushing over as he steps out of the carriage, he swings her up into his arms and squeezes her to him. Then, keeping hold of her, he helps Rosalind get out as well.

A groom comes from the stables to lead the horses away.

Dalila follows her child, smiling gently, and readily agrees when Gregor asks if it is all right for Ayola to stay with him. I see one of the slaves here, a woman, coming down from the house with a welcoming smile on her face. The four of them, Gregor, Ayola, Rosalind, and Thomas, greet her and then head into the house, leaving me alone with the lovely Dalila.

She looks up at me, her dark eyes glowing warmly in her lovely face. She looks well. She glances behind us at the house, then asks in her quiet voice, her beautiful accent, “Would you like to take a walk with me?”

“Yes,” I murmur, and follow her past the garden into the trees along the edge of the property. Once we are out of sight of the house, she stops, and my heart swells when she reaches over, and takes my hand before proceeding.

Stephen

The coffinmaker said that Marguerite’s coffin will be ready to deliver to Ellis Cliffs tomorrow. I asked him to keep the news of her death to himself. I know that the town will need to know this news, as she was an important member of this community, but I don’t want word to spread yet. Because Margaret and Nancy have decided that the burial should be attended only by the immediate family, I wish to have that done without fanfare. This way, when the news spreads and well-wishers descend on Ellis Cliffs, Abraham will be past the hardest part.

He truly seems broken. Grief is an interesting phenomenon. Margaret’s grief for her mother seems equal parts sorrow and love, as she is filled with her memories of her beloved mother. I will always be grateful for the instinct that led us to rush to the bedside of Marguerite in time, so that my wife will not live with the regret that she would otherwise have suffered.

Abraham’s grief is so overwhelming, so wrenching, that I am frankly baffled by it. Like many long-married couples, he and Marguerite seemed civil to each other, but not overly loving. They appeared to move through their lives like two important parts of an efficient machine, conducting their own operations, in harmony but not necessarily in contact. I would not have thought, having observed them over the past year, that he would be so utterly destroyed by her loss. He sits, staring, incapable of taking action, needing to be guided by his children. This task appears to increasingly fall on young Richard, only eleven years old, and forced to grow up suddenly by the death of his mother.

I have the sense that there is some additional story to tell about Marguerite’s sudden decline, and Abraham’s overwhelming grief, but all Nancy has told us is that Thomas stayed behind when he and Gregor came to get Margaret’s belongings, and that my brother was sent to Ellis Cliffs by Gregor to try to tend to Marguerite. I think there is more to it than that, but I am not sure we will ever really come to understand.

Nancy

I want him here with me. I know that I still have a couple of years to wait before we can make it official, but he is my family now. I am sure he feels the same. And when we bury my mother, it will be appropriate for him to be present. And of course I want the comfort of having him by my side as I say my final goodbye to her.

I have spoken to Richard, in an unusually mature conversation, about what to tell Margaret. We have agreed not to say anything to her about Papa whipping her maid. Whipping is a fact of life, and I wouldn’t normally spend much time considering whether to talk about it, but the circumstances of this were so strange. It was ugly, and awful, and confusing, and might have contributed to Mama’s death. Gregor took Dalila away, and I believe that by the time my sister sees her again, she will be fine. I’ve seen other whipped slaves recover, and believe a couple of weeks should be enough. So, no harm done, really, except to Papa. He spent the last week of Mama’s life crying at her bedside, and I know what he was remembering. The moment where Mama rushed over to him, tried to grab his arm and make him stop whipping Dalila, and he pushed her away. That is when she fell unconscious, and that was very clearly the beginning of the end for her.

He blames himself.

I do not believe any good purpose would be served by telling Margaret about any of this. I would not want her to blame him too. It is over, nothing can be done to change what happened. I doubt that Mama would have lived much longer anyway. Dr. Duncan told us that she had a blood disorder which would likely take her life, and I know she was already sick before the wedding.

Getting knocked to the ground by Papa might have hastened her death, I believe, but it didn’t cause it.

So, no point in telling Margaret. We will let the memory of that day rest in the past.

Stephen went to Natchez this morning to fetch a coffin, and Thomas. There is no way Papa could travel up to Natchez for a true funeral in the cemetery, so we are just going to use our little family burial ground here. After that is over, I hope that Papa will be able to find peace.

And I hope that Thomas is able to make it to the burial.

I wish I didn’t have two more years to wait. I don’t feel like I am only fourteen years old any more. I feel like I must be a hundred. But the two years will pass by, I know, and after they are over I will look back on them and laugh at myself for thinking what a long time that is.