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  Silas took a deep breath and pressed on. “I examined her this afternoon, and although her child seems healthy, she has already lost two babies. I wonder—” He paused, trying to choose his words carefully. “I wonder if it might be possible to give her some lighter work until after the baby is born—something, perhaps, where she doesn’t have to be on her feet all day.”

  When Silas glanced up, he found Warren staring at him as if he had just grown two heads. “Excuse me?”

  Silas frowned. Had he not been clear in his request? “It’s hard on her, having to work in the kitchen,” he repeated. “I’ll be there for the delivery, but I’d hate for her to lose another child.”

  Mrs. Warren fanned harder, and all the blood drained from her face. She looked as if she might be about to faint.

  “Let me get this straight. You examined her?”

  “Well, yes—”

  “And you intend to deliver her baby?”

  “I, uh—”

  “And you want me to let her sit around with her feet on a pillow, eating chocolates and sipping mint juleps until she finally gets around to dropping the little pickaninny?”

  Silas fought to control his temper. “I just thought—”

  “No, you didn’t.” Warren cut him off with a snarl. “You didn’t think at all. You come down here from your high-society Baltimore culture and want to start telling me how to deal with my own property? Who hired you in the first place?”

  “You did, sir.”

  “And what was our agreement?”

  “That I would, ah, provide medical services to your family and the other plantation families in the county, and—”

  “Exactly! Plantation families. White families. Until the nigras are paying your bills, Doctor Noble, you’re working for me, not for them. This is business, not charity. You understand? Business!”

  Something in the way Warren emphasized the word business triggered an idea in Silas’s imagination, and he latched onto it. “Yes sir, I do understand business. In fact, that’s exactly what this is—a business arrangement.”

  The colonel sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “You want to explain that, son?”

  Silas nodded and tempered his voice. “Well, sir, you see, I have a fiancée back in Baltimore—a lovely young woman named Regina. She comes from a very fine family, and—”

  Suddenly Olivia came to life, her hands fluttering and her eyes shining. “Oh, Robert, won’t that be wonderful! To have another lady on the place. A real lady! Right here at Rivermont! Why, we can plan teas and parties and—”

  Warren smiled indulgently and pushed a wayward curl away from his wife’s temple. “Yes, dear. Now let’s just let the young man finish, shall we?”

  “So,” Silas continued, “when I saw the house I had purchased, I knew—” He stopped mid-sentence. He needed to phrase this just right, so as not to offend the Warrens while still getting his point across. “I thought I might like to add on to the house. The oak grove is such a magnificent location, and I could just envision a beautiful two-story on the top of that hill—a place Regina and I could call home. A house that would, well, be in keeping with her station in society.”

  “Sounds like a good idea to me,” Warren commented.

  “It’s perfect!” said Olivia. “Absolutely perfect! And having a lady here would be just—”

  “Yes, dear.” Warren raised an eyebrow and motioned for Silas to continue.

  “Anyway, Booker indicated to me that he and some of the other slaves would be glad to help me out . . . in exchange for occasional medical services.”

  “Ah. A business arrangement.”

  “Exactly. And I want you to understand, Colonel Warren, that this would be entirely separate from the slaves’ other duties. They’ll work after hours. And I—I’ll cover all the costs of materials myself.” The truth was, Silas didn’t know how he would manage to pay for the materials on his salary. But somehow he was determined to make it work.

  Warren looked over at his wife, who was nudging him in the ribs and rolling her eyes at him. “Nonsense,” he said amicably. “Olivia is so excited about the prospect of having another lady around the place. Just get Booker to tell you what he’ll need, and order everything from Avery’s Lumber Mill.” He held out his hand and shook Silas’s vigorously. “Didn’t think a doctor would have that kind of business sense. I’m proud of you, son.” He clapped Silas on the back. “Just remember that the plantation owners and their needs come first.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t forget who hired me.”

  “That’s good to hear. And one other thing, Noble.”

  “Yes sir?”

  “I know you’re not from these parts, so I can give you a little leeway on account of not being familiar with our ways. But be wary of getting too involved with the nigras. They’re like children or hunting dogs. They don’t know what’s best for them. They’ll want a lot of attention, but what they need is a strong hand of discipline to keep ’em in their place. Let down that discipline, and you’ve got chaos. You gotta let ’em know who’s boss, all right?”

  Silas almost choked on his response. “All right, Colonel Warren.”

  “That’s a good lad. Now, be off with you. I know you want to get settled in.”

  Booker drove back toward Silas’s cabin without a word.

  “Don’t you want to know what happened?” Silas asked after a while. He didn’t really want to tell Booker, but he figured he owed him that much.

  “Guess I pretty much know, since you ain’t said a word. Massah don’t have no intention of giving Celie lighter work, does he?”

  Silas shook his head sadly. “I don’t think so. But I did try.”

  “And I appreciate it, Massah Doctor. I also appreciate you looking after Celie.”

  “I’m glad to do it, Booker. I think everything will be all right. We’ll just have to hope for the best.”

  “And pray,” Booker added quietly.

  “Yes, that, too.”

  Booker pulled to a stop in front of Silas’s cabin. “You need anything else, Massah Doctor?”

  “Not tonight. Midmorning I thought we might go into town and see about getting some lumber and supplies for the house.”

  “See you in the mornin’ then. Night, Massah Doctor.”

  “Good night, Booker.”

  For an hour after Booker left, Silas labored over a letter to Regina. He tried to tell her about the house Booker was going to build, but all he could think about was Celie, due this summer and undoubtedly worried. One thing he knew for certain—no matter what Robert Warren believed, Celie was not just another mare about to foal, nor was Booker just a breeding sire. They were human beings, with human emotions and concerns, human passions and desires.

  Silas laid aside the letter to Regina and put his head down on his arms. Something inside nagged at him, telling him that he was here for a reason. It felt true, but he wasn’t sure he could make his mind believe it.

  After all, he was only one man. What difference could one man possibly make?

  8

  The Abolitionist

  June 1853

  Silas awoke exhausted, vaguely aware that for hours he had been disturbed by the sounds of voices and hammering and Booker’s booming instructions, telling people to hush so as not to wake Massah Doctor. He pulled on his trousers, snapped the suspenders over his shoulders, and stepped out onto the front stoop of the cabin.

  “Mornin’, Massah Doctor!” Booker grinned at him and laid down the two-by-four he held in his massive paw. “She’s comin’ right along, ain’t she?”

  Silas let his gaze wander over the clearing around his cabin. It looked for all the world like a Pennsylvania barn-raising, only with black faces instead of white ones, and ragged slave clothing rather than the stark dress of the Amish.

  “What are all these people doing here, Booker? It’s well past dawn—why aren’t they in the fields?”

  Booker threw back his head and gave
a hearty laugh. “Why, Massah Doctor, it’s Sunday! Even black folks don’t chop cotton on Sunday.”

  Silas shook his head. The truth was, he had been working so hard and keeping such late hours that he had trouble remembering what day it was. Just yesterday he had spent seven hours traveling around to four plantations in the area to treat colds and lance boils and doctor colicky babies. And then after supper he had been in the slave cabins until nearly midnight. No wonder he couldn’t get his days straight.

  “But you are working,” Silas protested.

  “Yessuh. I reckon we is. But this here’s a different kind of work. We’s workin’, but we’s also worshipin’. Fact is, we’s thanking the good Lord for sending you to us.”

  From somewhere behind the house, a deep baritone voice began singing, and other voices joined in: “Soon I will be done with the troubles of the world. . . . Goin’ home to live with God.”

  “Come see, Massah Doctor, what we done.”

  Silas turned back into the cabin, pulled on his boots, and followed Booker.

  “See,” the big slave said proudly when they had gone ten paces out and turned around. “Over there’s the front entrance, parlor, and a nice big bedroom. Upstairs, three more bedrooms, and above that, the attic.”

  Silas took in a breath. He could see it, the framing rising high above his head. A fine brick chimney going up on the right. A gabled roof, not yet closed in but clearly visible. And in the front, six massive square columns and what looked to be a small second-story porch.

  “Booker, I can hardly believe my eyes. You’re really doing a wonderful job.”

  Booker’s chest swelled, and he put his big hands on his hips and grinned. “I done told you, Massah Doctor. Come fall, you’ll have yourself a house fit for your fine Baltimore lady.”

  An unaccountable twist of dread knotted Silas’s gut for a moment, then released. Surely Regina would be pleased with such a house. Surely she would get along with Olivia Warren, find a place for herself among the society of plantation owners. He would send for her, they would be married, and his dreams would be fulfilled.

  “Morning, Doctah Silas.” Celie’s soft voice captured his attention, and he looked down. She stood there, smiling up at him, holding out a plate of food and a tin cup filled with steaming coffee. “Thought you might like some breakfast.”

  Silas positioned himself on a tree stump and took her offering. Fried ham and grits as thick as mashed potatoes, with something that looked like flat cornbread.

  “Hoecakes,” she explained. “I made ’em myself, but"—she laughed and ducked her head—“in a skillet, not on the flat of a hoe.” She pointed toward an open fire, where a dozen or more slave women gathered around, cooking and gossiping.

  “Lily’s got a real bad infection in her foot,” Celie told him as he ate. “Cut herself chopping cotton. Do you s’pose—”

  Silas nodded. “I’ll take a look at it as soon as I finish.” He waved the tin fork at her. “This is very good, Celie. I didn’t know how hungry I was.” He pointed to a stump a few feet away. “Sit down. I don’t want you on your feet any more than necessary.”

  “Yessuh.” She lowered herself onto the stump with a sigh.

  “You feeling all right?”

  “I reckon so, sir. Baby’s kickin’ all the time.”

  “It shouldn’t be long now.”

  Celie placed a hand on her stomach, and her eyes took on a faraway expression. “We been prayin’ ever’ day that he’d come through healthy and strong.”

  “He?” Silas grinned. “You know it’s going to be a boy?”

  “I just got a feelin’. Middie hung a ring on a thread over me, and she says it’s a boy.”

  “Middie’s going to help with the delivery, right?”

  “Yessuh. And Pearl, too.”

  Silas frowned. He didn’t remember meeting any slave by that name. “Who’s Pearl?”

  Celie pointed. “That’s Pearl. Over next to the fire, talkin’ to Middie.”

  Silas’s eyes followed the direction of her finger. Midnight, the big black slave woman, stood with her back to him, her hands waving animatedly as she carried on a conversation with someone Silas couldn’t see. He got up and handed his empty plate and cup back to Celie. “I’ll get my bag and go tend to Lily,” he said. “And maybe I should meet this Pearl before your time comes.”

  Lily’s foot was bad, but not as bad as it could have been without treatment. Some of the slaves, Celie included, had watched him intently when he treated cuts and lacerations, and already they knew how to clean a wound and bind it to reduce inflammation. Apparently one of them—maybe even Celie herself—had washed Lily’s wound and kept a clean covering on it.

  Lily was a fieldworker, and she was tough. She never flinched when he poured alcohol into the deep gash. The skin around the angry wound was dark and swollen, infected, no doubt, by the dirt on the hoe that had caused the lesion. Whoever had treated her initially had probably saved her from losing the foot to gangrene.

  “When did this happen, Lily?” he asked as he put salve on the cut and bandaged it.

  “Couple, three days ago. I don’t rightly remember.”

  “Did you clean and bandage it yourself? Because, you know, you could have lost this foot if you’d let it go without treatment.”

  “Naw suh, I didn’t do it. I’s hurtin’ too much at the time. Bled real bad, it did. But Pearl stopped the bleedin’ and took care of it for me.”

  Pearl again, Silas thought. Who was this woman who was going through the slave camp practicing medicine without a license? She obviously knew the rudiments of medical treatment, knew how to make a pressure bandage and clean a wound properly. And according to Celie, she knew a thing or two about midwifing as well. Pearl, whoever she was, must be an exceptional slave. He was more determined than ever to meet her. Maybe with some additional training, she could serve as a nurse when he wasn’t available, and as an assistant when he was.

  “I think that’ll do it, Lily,” he said as he finished tying the bandage. “Stay off of it for today, and keep it propped up. You have to go back to the fields tomorrow morning?”

  “Yessuh. Massah Robert, he don’t take to slaves shirkin’ their duty.”

  “I’ll see what I can do about that.” Even as he said the words, Silas remembered his futile attempt to keep Celie out of the kitchen. Lily was right—Robert Warren didn’t have much patience for sick or injured Negroes. He wanted everybody working, giving him his money’s worth, keeping Rivermont Plantation the richest, most profitable industry in the county.

  Silas sighed and packed up his bag. “I’ll check on you tonight. Meanwhile, don’t go running around on that foot.”

  By the time Silas was finished with Lily, the sun was almost directly overhead, and Midnight was standing over the fire, stirring a pot of stew for the men’s dinner. He walked up beside her and set his medical bag on the ground.

  “Smells good, Middie,” he commented, inhaling a deep whiff of the savory steam.

  She turned and grinned at him, her round face dominated by a wide mouth full of large white teeth. “Well, Massah Doctor! How you be this lovely spring day?”

  “Just fine, Middie. Even better if I can get my hands on a bowl of that stew.” He reached for the spoon, and she playfully slapped his hand away.

  “Now, don’t you go messin’ in my stew,” she reprimanded with a robust laugh. “If you want some, I reckon you’ll have to wait like ever-body else.”

  “I reckon I will, Middie,” he retorted, “especially with you guarding the pot.”

  “Booker’s doin’ a right nice job on your house,” she observed. “Guess it won’t be long ’fore you can bring that fine lady of yours down here and get yourself hitched.”

  Silas shook his head and chuckled. “Does everybody on this plantation know my personal business?”

  “Why, sure, honey. Ain’t no secrets here. We’s family.”

  An unexpected rush of pleasure surged through Silas
at her words. Family. And he felt it, too—that inexplicable sense of connection that binds people together, even people who seem to have no common ground. It had only been three months since he had first set foot on Rivermont soil and met Booker for the first time. Now he was surrounded by people who cared for him. People who welcomed the sight of him. People who—could he think it without presumption?—needed him.

  And the truth was, he needed them, too.

  Robert Warren had warned him about getting too involved with the slaves. They were like children, Warren claimed, wanting their own way and needing a firm hand of discipline to keep them in their place. But Silas had experienced nothing of the kind. He had found them gentle and compassionate, hard-working and humble. And among them he had experienced a taste of something else, something totally unfamiliar to him: faith.

  How these people could have faith, Silas couldn’t imagine. They were enslaved, worked practically to death, treated like farm animals, and yet they looked beyond the difficulties of this life to the promise of the next. He had never once heard any of them blame God for their captivity. Instead, they identified with the oppressed people in what they called the Good Book—with the Israelites, whom the Lord liberated from servitude to the Pharaoh of Egypt, with Daniel in the lion’s den, and the three children in the fiery furnace. According to the Good Book, the Lord had miraculously delivered those ancient believers, so the time must be coming when God would set the captives free on plantations all across the South.

  The faith and hope of Booker and his people stirred conflicting emotions in Silas’s heart. On the one hand, he desperately wanted to trust in a God who would liberate the oppressed. In the past few months he had looked into the eyes of those forced into slavery, touched them with his own hands. He had lived among them, bound up their wounds, comforted them in sickness, and wept with them in death. At times he almost found himself agreeing with their deep faith, believing that God loved them and wouldn’t leave them in bondage forever.