A Light in the Wilderness Read online

  She was left with the next best path: having a say in what she cared about and deciding how she’d challenge any threats to that hope. Maybe those were the choices any human had, free or not.

  6

  Cleaving

  Davey chopped at weeds threatening the borders of Letitia’s garden. It had been a spur-of-the-moment comment to offer her an arrangement, one his fellow patrollers would scoff at. “Take the wench,” they’d tell him. Assumed he already had, likely. But Tish had a presence about her, a dignity and calm. She deserved to have respect. He wasn’t much of a planner. Being in Carroll Township inside Platte County raising stock was the most settled and organized he’d ever been, and he found the work less burdensome with the woman beside him. She held a steady hand, didn’t faint or falter at the sight of blood or bind like most women he encountered. And she wasn’t a minx like that Eliza either. I did not hurt that girl.

  The hoe snagged a rock as he chopped and he felt the vibration through the wooden handle clear to his clenched jaws. He stopped to rest, removed his floppy hat, and wiped his forehead of the August heat. If she agreed, what could he do to make it official-like, he wondered? No minister of the Word would allow it. He might get a lawyer sympathetic to the abolitionist cause to speak some legal words to satisfy the woman. And himself for that matter. He didn’t want this arrangement to be a toss in the straw. He wanted to know she’d stand with him during planting and harvest, work beside him splitting logs and raising them to roof, and, God willing, bear his children. He didn’t want to have to chase her down if she took off running. Maybe he should seek out someone now. That way she’d know that he was making it as respectful as possible. Yes, that’s what he needed to do.

  He put up the hoe, washed his face and arms before heading out to Platte City. Here he was, planning ahead. Why, the woman had already changed his ways.

  Letitia walked the path to the colored church, a tiny clapboard building recently washed white as piano keys. She’d helped pay for the stain herself, being one of the few who attended who had a little money to spare. After the service she would speak to the pastor, an old Negro man who had seen the worst of things before he got his freedom. He told his people more than once how the Lord had led him to Platte County, to open this little church in an abandoned chicken coop, and lo, here they all were years later singing and praising, the smell of chickens feathered into the walls forever.

  “Oh, no, no, Miss Letitia. That’d be a dangerous thing for you to do.” She and the pastor stood out under a spreading oak tree, moving the heat with chicken-feather fans. “Folks find out about it and arrest you for illegalities.” He paused. “Is he a good man, Sister? There was that incident with Sister Eliza and he does patrol . . .” He let his voice trail into the unspoken.

  “He been nothin’ but good to me, Preacher. Allowin’ me shelter and sharin’ his food. That and doin’ the Lord’s work. Lookin’ after widows and orphans as I’s both.”

  The old man patted her hand. “Not safe—though I think the Lord would abide it, love being foremost in our Savior’s heart. But I wouldn’t want the sheriff pressing either of you saying you broke the law.”

  “We be common law then? No word from God to bless us?”

  “Best people think you belong to him but not as husband and wife. Safer that way. The two of you would know. The Lord would know. That’s enough.”

  “Is it?”

  It felt unsettled, like she was giving up something of herself to accept the proposal without the hope of God’s blessing on it. Wouldn’t it risk the future, being with a man without the words uniting them? She was free, neither belonging to nor the property of a father, brother, husband, or son. She wanted to stay that way, but she also wanted what binding together brought: safety, laughter, lives entering the world and strengthened inside a family. Especially if they headed west to the unknown. Others might never see her as his wife, even if they had the preacher’s words said over them. But still, she’d like to know that was how the Lord saw their union.

  “I agrees to your offer.” They stood in the barn, watching the calf suck.

  “My proposal? You do?” Davey leaned back, wanting to look at her. She had a profile as chiseled as the statues that graced the courthouse hall. He liked how she pulled her hair back away from her face in those long braided rows, leaving her high forehead clear and a lamb’s frizz at her temples. She turned to him, lips plump as berries eased now into a smile; a nose rounded and promising to be as soft as a lamb’s ear. Her brown eyes glistened, looking deeper surrounded by that pure white.

  “Yes, I’s willin’ to become Letitia Carson. But I likes it to be . . . official.”

  He nodded. “I spoke to the solicitor, the one who handled the Eliza case.” He frowned. Why did I bring that up? “He says we shouldn’t worry over words. Say them myself maybe? And you say them too.” He pushed away hay scratching at his back in the manger. “Or maybe that preacher you hear on Sundays. Would he?”

  “We had words but he say no.”

  She was serious if she brought it to her preacher friend.

  “He say it would be . . . would put me at risk. Maybe you too if folks think we breakin’ the law. Even though God’s law don’t say no to it—God findin’ it merciful to have people cleave to each other for all time.”

  “Funny, that word,” Davey said. “Used to puzzle myself as a boy told to cleave the bogs of their fuel for our stove. Cleave is a sticking and splitting word. It’s the sticking that the Bible speaks of.” He suggested again, “We could speak the words ourselves.”

  She nodded.

  She didn’t seem too certain, but he’d move ahead before she changed her mind. “Good idea. What about Saturday next?” He clapped his hands. “Charity can be our witness.”

  Letitia frowned. He had wanted to lighten her mood, but instead his words robbed the occasion of gravity. He cleared his throat. “God will be our witness.” He touched her elbow crossed over her narrow chest. “He’ll see to it that we’re never cleaved apart.”

  They planned for it on a Saturday in late August so she could still go to church the next day and none would be the wiser that she was now Letitia Carson. Yellow tickseeds bloomed along the roadway to Davey’s house, and in the woods he found surprise lilies, their pale purple like a winter sunrise. He picked a few, wishing the butterfly weed with its splash of orange might bloom, but the milkweed held a hint of a later flower. It would have to be enough. He carried the posies in his wide palm. Funny what women liked. Truth was, he liked flowers too, and he held the bouquet to his nose. He wished in a way that there could be human witnesses. Letitia was a good woman and she might have liked to have a friend or two along. Maybe she had none, though that didn’t seem right, her being so generous and kind. People were attracted to traits like that just as stockmen wanted good beef-to-bone ratios.

  Now why was he comparing his intended to a good cow? He shook his head. At least he hadn’t said it out loud to Letitia and he’d be sure he wouldn’t when he handed her the flowers.

  Davey read her the actual words from the Bible he took from the cupboard. Leathered with stains, he said he’d brought it from Ireland when he came as a lad. His mother died on the crossing and his pa never recovered, giving himself to drink, leaving his boys and one girl to fend for themselves. He pointed to the names in the Bible, of his sister, married now, and his brothers back in North Carolina. “’Cept for my older brother Smith.”

  “Met him.” She ran her fingers over the name of Carson most real to her besides Davey. Davey had been the one to branch out, was ready when the Platte Purchase opened in 1837. He left the mountains and streams of North Carolina, settling into stock-raising. Somehow the Bible had come to his hands and he’d kept it well, considering the weather he’d carried it through. His voice held pride that he was the keeper of that family book. Letitia listened as he read the words she couldn’t. She’d like to learn, but there were laws against teaching slaves, and after she was freed the
re were other things needed doing besides making sense of the scratches on paper. But now, it would be nice if she could read what Mistah Bowman’s paper said about her freedom; and it would be good to read for herself the words in the Bible that Davey Carson said she was to repeat. She had a good memory for words. They practiced them together days before the event.

  “So are you ready then. To marry meself?”

  “’Spect so.” She watched him smile, his lips surrounded by that fading red mustache. Looking at him made her face grow warm. She wore her best tow linen and fitted herself with a crocheted belt that showed her small waist. She’d asked the pastor’s wife to part her hair in the middle, making tight twists, but had kept a braided strand to form a small medallion-like cluster centered at her forehead. The pastor’s wife asked no questions about the ornate hairdo or her plan, but Letitia figured the pastor and his wife had few secrets between them. The rest of her rinsed hair she pulled back tight into a knot at the back, smoothing it with her coconut mixture. She’d bought a ribbon at the Weston store and worked it into a bow at the top of the cascading braids.

  “I brought these for you.” Davey handed her a blush of colors, his face a little pink as he did. “And may I say you’re looking, well, like a woman should on her wedding day.”

  Her eyes dropped to the tips of his polished boots. “Thank you.” She took the flowers. “I puts them in a jar.”

  “I’ve something else for you too.” He handed her a pewter cowbell with a hawthorn leaf engraved on the side.

  It was cool to the touch. Letitia shook the bell, liking the clanking sound. She turned it upside down and put the flowers into it. Her fingers rubbed the hawthorn engraving. “’Spect this’ll work.” She walked to the pump and filled it with water.

  Davey said, “Are we ready now?”

  “Yes, Mistah Carson. Davey.”

  “You remember the words?”

  “I ’member.”

  He cleared his throat, took a deep breath as they heard the jingle of a bell from the road. The tinker’s bell jangled, the man in his cart with buttons and bows and pots and pans making his monthly stop to sell to ladies of the house. He waved his hat at them, jostling the two curls that framed his face and stopped just at his jaws. The single horse carriage rolled forward. Rothwell barked, then wagged his tail in greeting, recognizing the man.

  “May I water my horse at your spring?”

  “You may, Aaron,” Davey said.

  Letitia took the bridle and led the horse to the trough as Aaron jumped down.

  “And what’s the occasion?” Letitia heard him ask. The old tinker had endured his own brand of abuse but was no slave and had never been, though his people had. Still, Letitia wished he’d move on. If there were no witnesses, the law wouldn’t ever touch them. She walked back toward the men. “Pretty posies whatever the call for them. Nice little vessel you have too. Looks like it’s engraved.”

  “It is,” Davey said. “We’ve no need of trinkets today, but you’re welcome to water the horse, then be on your way.”

  “Aaron Moshe doesn’t intend to barter when there’s an occasion presenting itself.” He nodded toward Letitia. “A bride?”

  Letitia swallowed, her throat dry as a corn husk. What would Davey say? He should let the comment sink into the August heat.

  “Truth is, she intends to be one. A wife for myself.”

  No, no. But then the thought: a witness other than the dog would bring weight to the words. And he wouldn’t likely tell others, why would he? “Well now.” He looked around. “Moshe sees no preacher. But then, that’s not going to happen, now is it.”

  Letitia’s heart thumped like a butter churn. Would Moshe let the sheriff know of their breaking the law? She looked to Davey. Could he keep her safe? He’d risked their safety with his blurting out their plans. Make the best of troublin’ times. Rothwell bumped his head up against Letitia and she petted the dog, glad for the comfort. “Maybe you see yourself officiatin’ us today, suh?” Jews read Davey’s book too, didn’t they?

  The man moved his head back as though accepting a remarkable thought.

  And so on a hot day in August, David Carson once of Ireland took Letitia once of Kentucky to be his wife. Davey told the tinker the words about honoring each other, staying together in the hard times, caring for each other, and cleaving unto each other under God’s watch, not letting any others nose their way in. Davey spoke them, holding the Bible, then Moshe repeated the words for Letitia, her hands quivering on the worn leather. She was glad he was there. For while she had memorized the promises, the moment flustered her. Then Moshe added words of blessing, about not allowing men to split them.

  “We need a proper ending,” Moshe added. He trotted to his carriage store. “Moshe has it, hold on. It’s right here.”

  Letitia looked at Davey, who winked at her. She lowered her head, but Davey lifted her chin, his gaze making her chest tighten.

  “Ah, here it is then. Let’s add another tradition, shall we?” He placed a glass goblet on the ground. “Now then. No canopy, but you, Davey, stomp on it. Breaking the Jewish wedding glass is yours to do.”

  Davey laughed.

  “Why he do that?”

  “Oh, any number of reasons. That your children will be as many as the shards and your happiness also. Or that you will remember the temples destroyed in Jerusalem. And the one Moshe prefers, that the glass is fragile as is love, and marriage must be carefully cared for and never broken but in death. Go ahead.” He motioned with his hands.

  Davey shrugged and stomped the crystal that did shatter to a hundred shards.

  “Mazel tov!” the tinker shouted, raising his hands, startling the horse who lifted its head and shook the bit and reins, and that got Rothwell to howling. “You may kiss the bride. And may the broken glass be a reminder that while you cleave together as one, the world is still broken and will always need mending.”

  7

  Precious Promises

  It was the first kiss of her husband. His mouth was soft, his lips thin but moist; his whiskers bristled against her lips and cheek when he nuzzled her. A warmth formed inside that flowed to her toes and back up, settling at her heart.

  Davey stepped away.

  “Moshe best be traveling.”

  “Lookee, let me pay you for the crystal and your blessings.”

  “Consider them a gift.” Moshe grinned. “But I would join you for a wedding meal, if you’d planned one.”

  Over food they spoke of festive things—weddings the tinker had attended in Pittsburgh before coming west, though he said this was the first time “Aaron Moshe has officiated at one.” Letitia served beef sliced from the smoked roast hanging in the larder. Fresh greens and beans from her garden, berry jam she’d put up. Buttermilk. Then she brought out a black raspberry pie with fresh cream she’d sugared with slivers of maple from the cone.

  “You have made a good match, Mr. Carson. Mrs. Carson is a rare and opulent cook.”

  “I don’t know what that means, but I’ll take it as a compliment. On my wife’s behalf.” Davey raised a fork full of pie toward Letitia. “To the opulent cook.”

  Letitia didn’t know what the word meant either, but it seemed to fill Davey’s face with gladness, a sight that helped reduce the nervousness for what she knew would follow once the tinker left.

  Moshe drove his carriage rattling down the lane. “I suppose I should have told him he could bed down for the night in the barn if he wished, but I was hoping to have my wedding night with my wife, alone.”

  Letitia lowered her eyes. She had never felt this fluttering of her stomach with the fathers of her children, but then she’d never been given the choice to have them either. She was sent to those men to enhance the owner’s arsenal of labor. It had struck her as unusual; she was not a big woman and she found the taller, larger slave women produced bigger babies with less trouble, children who grew to be strong men and tall women. She didn’t know how big Nathan might have been if
he had lived. His father was tall. But Jeremiah, at five, when he’d been sold, sprouted up tall as a possum haw holly. But perhaps her masters did recognize that she could reason well, worked hard, fit in, and didn’t carry anger around like a hot coal always burning. The gift of a marriage to someone she had chosen and who was kind enough to bring her flowers and break the wedding glass was more than she could have hoped for. There was a Bible verse about blessings being shaken down and pressed together. Today, she’d experienced it.

  Davey walked up beside her on the porch. A warm dusk settled like a shawl around her shoulders, and she remembered a custom of her people with a quilt wrapped around a wedding couple as they jumped the broom together. She’d seen it done, a happy leap. Her mother had told her it was an African tradition. She stepped inside, grabbed the broom, and the two jumped it, laughing.

  “You know we won’t be able to tell folks that we’re married.” Davey caught his breath.

  “I knows.”

  “But I will treat you as though we are.”

  She’d been thinking about something all day. “We could have a contract, separate from the marriage.”

  Davey raised his eyebrows.

  “I agrees to stay with you, to help you along the trail next year and build our land claim. Clear brush, cook, do your laundry.” She didn’t say bear your children. “I’s your wife so no need to pay me. In return, you agrees to take care of me and if something happen to you, you say whoever ask whatever property you have, you leave to me. And to your sons and daughters, if we have any . . .” She looked away then. They’d never discussed children.

  He plucked at his beard. “That I could do.”

  “And you would put that onto paper, that I could keep? And sign it, with your name?”

  “I could do that.” He was removing the bow at the back of her hair, sending his fingers down the sides of her cheek.

  He didn’t say he would sign such an agreement, but Letitia feared to push him too far at that moment, when they were just beginning and she’d done nothing for him yet.