A Time to Bloom (Leah's Garden #2)(78)

“Yeah.” RJ shook his head and focused on driving a nail straight. They were building walls and stairs inside the boardinghouse now. “Just—there are some rather awful people in this world.”

“Ain’t that the truth?” William sent a ringing blow with his hammer.

Something twisted in RJ’s chest. “I’m sure you know that better than I.”

The young man shot him a quick glance.

RJ swallowed. He’d said that before he thought. “Forgive me, I didn’t mean to pry.”

William hammered for another moment in silence, then reached down for a new handful of nails. “No matter. Expect you’ve been wonderin’ if I was a slave.”

RJ glanced about the building, seeing the other workers busily occupied. “It’s no business of mine.”

“Maybe not. But I don’t mind tellin’.” William positioned a nail. “I was enslaved down in Maryland but got free some years ago. Several other slaves and me, we managed to write ourselves passes and paddle a canoe up the Chesapeake Bay.”

“How did you write your own passes? I thought . . .”

“That slaves couldn’t read or write? Not legally. But there are ways. You ever read that book by Frederick Douglass?”

RJ nodded. “My parents were great admirers of his.” It was through their involvement in the New York Manumission Society that Jemmy and Jehosephat had come to them years ago when they needed a safe place to live after reaching freedom.

“Well, then you know how he taught himself to read as a boy there in Baltimore and then taught other slaves in secret. One of them ended up bein’ sold to my master later on, after they failed to escape and got separated. He was an old man by the time I knew him, but he taught me, so’s I could write those passes.”

RJ shook his head. “You are a braver man than I, my friend.”

“Courage ain’t so hard to come by when the alternative is staying in chains.” William pulled a nail from his mouth. “Now I just need to find my little brother.”

“Where is he?”

“I didn’t know, not for the longest time. We were separated when he was just a baby.” His eyes darkened.

“You mean he was sold?” RJ’s gut clenched.

“He and my mama were sold farther south when our master fell on some hard times. After the war, I got news my mama had passed on, but my little brother had been taken under another family’s wing, and they was makin’ their way north.” He paused. “He’ll be near on ten years old now. I sure would like him to get some schoolin’. But that’ll come later, once we’re together. I’m savin’ up for enough to bring him out here on the train as soon as I find him.”

RJ shifted the hammer between his hands. Here he’d thought he had a bum deal on life. When he got even a hint of what some people went through . . . Shame tasted bitter in his mouth.

“If there’s ever anything I can do to help,” he said, the words seeming inadequate, “let me know.”

“You givin’ me a job is already a big help.” There came William’s quick grin again. But then he sobered. “There’s one thing I should say, though. This mornin’ as I was heading here to work from where I camp a ways outside town, had the feelin’ somebody was followin’ me.”

RJ frowned. “What?”

William shook his head. “Could be I’m imaginin’ things. Just thought I heard rustlin’ or footfalls behind me at times, and once when I turned ’round real quick, I thought I saw someone slip behind a building. My ears got mighty sharp evading slave catchers when we made our way north. But again, maybe it’s nothin’.”

A prickle ran down RJ’s legs. “Is this the only time you’ve noticed anything?”

“Maybe one other day. Then one night, I heard some rustlin’ and heavy breathin’ in the grasses. Lit a fire, and whatever it was moved away. Coulda just been a coyote.”

Could have. But . . . “If it happens again, let me know. I’ll keep an extra eye out, regardless. Maybe you should start sleeping in town.”

“I’d move in here soon’s this boardinghouse is ready.” William shrugged. “If they’d have me.”

“If I know these Nielsen sisters, they will.” At least he could be confident about that. A thought struck, and before he could think, he added, “How about you move your stuff in here now? It’d be good to have someone always on site.”

“You mean that for certain?”

RJ nodded, at the same time wondering what the sisters would say to that. He guessed he’d find out.

When he stepped outside the near-complete structure and scanned the surrounding area, a foreboding in his belly chased away the tiredness, at least for now.

There was nothing to see, only the autumn wind blowing dry leaves about the bare yard. Maybe William had just imagined whatever happened. But RJ didn’t like it. Not at all.





23


Who around here has threshed their wheat?” Lark smiled at Mr. Jorgensen, who had become her repository of information on farming and local farmers.

He twitched his nose, a sign he was thinking hard, and nodded at the same time. “Martin Huckstep planted wheat the last two years and fixed hisself some kind of threshing floor or something. The Hucksteps live some south of here, but we’re still the closest town. And now that the train goes through here, I’ve seen a bit more of him.”