Chapter 13: At Fort Bayard

In a few minutes Seth looked back again. The Confederates were nowhere to be seen in the dappled sunlight. The boy sighed and relaxed, feeling his heart thumping.

"What was you so concerned 'bout back yonder?" Jefferson asked in his normal bass rumble. "I knew you could act crazy-like. I warn't worried none."

"I think one of those soldiers, that sergeant, he recognized me. I'm pretty sure I ate breakfast with him out in Rockville early this morning."

"Aw, come on now, Seth. How could he? Way you looked an' acted, yer momma might not a'knowed you." Jefferson patted him on the thigh.

"Hm, talk about actin'. That was some tent show you put on. How'd you learn to be such a good liar?"

"Part'a being a slave, Seth. Y'gotta be able to tell white folks what they wants to hear. You gotta protec' yo'sef. Boss'll want to know, 'Why ain't that crop in?' or 'Who done broke this here hoe?' or 'Why ain' that 'bacca staked?' an' you bes' be able to make up a quick answer he'll believe. One that'll keep you from bein' beat."

They reached an improved road, wide enough for two wagons, and turned left, bumping across the ruts and heading once more toward the threatened capital city.

"This here's the River Road. Seneca Road some folks calls it," Jefferson said. "Come on, Ben, les' get up this hill." He shook the reins to no apparent effect.

They still seemed alone in the land, and the few houses they passed appeared to be abandoned, the fields empty. They did not even scare up any barking dogs or squawking guinea hens.

Jefferson sat back, put his heels up on the well-worn footboard, and stoked his pipe. "Les' see now, where was I? Oh yeah, now when I was 'bout fo'teen, Seth, me and two or three other young 'uns. we was sold off. Farm might'a been in trouble. My momma went to the massa and ast him a favor, for him to sell her 'stead a me, or sell us together. T'was the onlyest time she ever ast for a favor from him, an' he laugh at her and kick her. If my gran'pappy hadn't already showed me what slavery was, that did."

They passed a small tavern that had been burned. Kitchen things, trenchers, cups, scattered linens and broken barrels littered the side yard, and pages from what might have been an account book fluttered in the breeze. The smoldering smell made them both cough.

"Sale was in 'Napolis, big town made out'a bricks, even the sidewalks," Jefferson continued after shaking his head sadly at what was left of the inn. "Auction it was. They put the older men up firs', and we boys sat and watch while them buyers punched muscles and looked in mouths and felt their bellies. Then it was our turn. Can still see it, Seth. Shoot, can still feel it." He snorted, closed his eyes and clamped his grizzled jaw, his pipe jutting upward. Ben plodded on down the road to Washington, and the wagon creaked and rumbled. High in the cloudless sky, the sun burned down baking the land and everything on it.

"We was on this here platform 'thout no shirts, an' out here," Jefferson waved at the dry, almost treeless landscape with his pipe, his eyes still tightly closed, "there was all these white folks, men a'laughin' and makin' comments 'bout us. 'Don't that one 'peer swaybacked?' and 'Look at them knobby knees.' Fore I knew what happened, it were over; hammer come down and we was sold an' led back to the shack where we'd been kept for sale day. We warn't 'llowed to watch the women and girls when they was auctioned off, but we could hear it. The whooping, the calls and the laughin'. Oh, we surely could hear it. Yep, yessir."

Jefferson McKenzie sat quietly for a few minutes, his pipe clamped in his grizzled jaw, and Seth looked behind them. The road remained empty except for their small dust trail. That sergeant knew me, the boy thought. Why did he let us go? Jefferson opened his eyes, removed the smoked-out pipe from his mouth, and spat into the dust. He knocked his pipe against the side of the wagon.

"My new owner was a Virginia man, tidewater, and folks say he made more money out'a selling slaves than growin' ter-bacca. After a bit a'time, year or so I guess, workin' every day from dawn to dusk an' thinkin' 'bout freedom every day for even longer, I found out that a man wif a trade, a skill or a craft, might save up enough money to buy his freedom, yessir, thas' what they tole me. So," Jefferson put down his feet, smiled and wiped his sweating face on his faded sleeve, "I married the blacksmith's oldest and ugliest daughter when I got to be sixteen, an' he taught me the trade. Woman's name were Leesa, an' she was twenty or so, a good woman, sure was. Good woman. We'd only been married two years, an' I was jes' startin' to learn what the different colors a'heated iron meant, when the plantation done went broke, busted. Had to sell everything. Horses, mules, slaves, tools, wagons, land, ever'thing. Our baby daughter was jes' learnin' to walk. Still recollect her laugh. Never saw my wife or chile agin. That was more'n forty years ago."

From the east came a distant crackling and a louder popping, like sap wood in a log fire, and they stopped on the shadeless road to listen in the dry oven of mid-day heat. Silence. It had been a short fight if that's what the sounds were about. Now a few katy-dids and crickets tuned up; otherwise the world baked quietly. Some sort of hawk circled high above, coasting on the rising air. Seth wished they were up with the long-winged bird so he could see what was happening with Early's dust cloud. He wondered about Wainder. Was he still unconscious in the French's barn? Had they left some water where he could reach it? Hope Mr. Bouve's little horse found his way home. Seth sighed, impatient, barely breathing in the scorching sun and glad he was wearing a hat...

On they rolled. The old wagon's creaking and Ben's iron-shod feet clicking on the hard surfaced road sounded much louder than usual in the unnatural quiet. A long gradual hill rose before them, and Jefferson clucked at the mule to encourage it for the climb. Ben glanced back but never changed his pace.

"I still don't know how you came to be free or what old Caroline had to do with it."

"Not rightly sure mysef what Caroline did," the black man said, "think I can make a good guess. 'Sides there's a lot more years 'fore we gets to her. Tell you more later. Looks lak we got us some more comp'ny. Whoa, Ben, whoa now. You talk to him, Seth." Jefferson ducked his head and studied his feet.

They had just entered what appeared to be a recently cleared area that showed a lot of stumps, and a soldier on foot, wearing a blue uniform jacket and carrying a rifle with a long bayonet, stood in the middle of the dusty road.

"Where in bright blue blazes do you think you're going?" the soldier demanded, squinting up at them, his face red and sweaty, his voice filled with a twang that was new to Seth.

From his seat beside Jefferson, Seth looked down at a young man who was obviously trying to cultivate a full mustache, a set of side whiskers and a fierce look. The boy thought of the young soldier with the tall rifle who had stopped him early that morning. His hair had also been this corn-silk yellow.

"Sir," said Seth in his most polite and serious manner, "we need to see an officer. We've got some important information 'bout the Rebs."

"That don't make no sense, boy. Rebs are right here. Don't your ears work? And there ain't nobody but militia like me and some invalids like that bunch up there on the hill to stop 'em. My hundred days is about up. I'm thinking on goin' back to Indiana today, 'fore something bad happens. They say Jubal Early's coming down from Frederick with 50,000 fighters while Bobby Lee's got another bunch just south of the city. And all we got's a file of clerks, passel a'wounded men and the like to stop 'em. Oh, it's wonderful, army life is, just wonderful."

"Still," Seth insisted when the unhappy soldier took a breath, "we gotta see an officer. Please, sir. It's real important, honest."

"Now, boy, what the aich-ee-double-ell would you know that's so important. Why don't you all get on out of here. Go on." He gestured with the rifle for them to turn around. Ben flicked his long ears.

The soldier looked both scared and worried to Seth, so he pressed his luck. "We got information 'bout Early's army, and you might get into real trouble if you don't let us through."

The young soldier in the ill-fitting uniform grounded his musket and scratched his head behind his dusty kepi. "I don't know," he finally said. "My orders was to stop folks and turn 'em back. City's full a'farmers and their cows, runnin' around, all looking for a place to flop and all full of rumors. But, well, you go on up the hill, and you'll find the corporal, or most likely, he'll find you. Be sure to tell him that I stopped you, you hear? Tell him that I sent you folks to see him. Old know-it-all caught me napping Sunday. Thought he was gonna shoot me."

He waved them past, and then returned to the side of the road and sat cross-legged in the shade of a small scrub that had somehow been missed. All the trees had been cut from the hillside and most of the underbrush removed or burned. Hundreds of stumps of various sizes dotted the landscape to show that the area had been pretty well wooded until recently.