Chapter Eleven
After the night on the uncomfortable sofa, Raven awakened that next morning with her body sore and feeling as if she hadn’t slept at all. She would’ve loved to crawl into the bedroom and get some true sleep, but Mrs. Stipe was expecting breakfast, so she forced herself to sit up and dropped her head into her hands. From outside she heard Steele and the ringing ax, and although she ached everywhere, she tried not to begrudge him having gotten a good night’s sleep.
After washing up quickly with her lovely smelling soap, she dressed and stepped outside. Because the sun was still in bed, Steele was again working by torchlight, and she took a moment to appreciate his strong, lean contours as the flames played over his frame. Seeing her, he stopped, shrugged into his shirt, and walked over to where she stood.
“Morning,” he said.
“Morning. Did you sleep well?”
“I did. How about you?”
“I’m never sleeping on that thing again, and I’m grumpy enough to punch you if you say, you told me so.”
He grinned. “Then I’ll keep that to myself.”
“I ache everywhere, and I’ll be smelling that mildew until the Second Coming.” She shuddered at the memory. “I’m going to start breakfast. Come and eat when you’re done here. And thanks for the extra wood.”
“You’re welcome.”
Mrs. Stipe preferred to take her breakfast in bed, so once the scrambled eggs, grits, and biscuits were done, Raven placed everything on a tray and carried it upstairs. She eyed the closed door to the husband’s room and the space between the base of it and the floor. More than enough room for a mouse to go in and out, she decided.
She tapped lightly on Mrs. Stipe’s closed door. “I have your breakfast, Miss Helen.”
“Come on in.”
Helen was in bed with a wealth of pillows braced behind her. The worn silk jacket over her nightgown was pink and accented with faded lace. Her wig was on, the heavy makeup already applied, along with the bright red paint on her thin lips. After placing the tray on her lap, Raven asked, “Anything else I can get you?”
“No. This is fine for now. I’ll be going tospend the day with my sister, so tell your man I’ll be ready to leave at nine. She lives about thirty minutes away and he’s to return for me promptly at four this afternoon.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re doing the wash today, correct?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“If you’ll be washing for you and your man, too, I insist you keep my items separate.”
Raven kept her reaction from showing on her face. “As you wish. Do you want yours hung separately as well?”
“Yes.”
“Then if you don’t need anything else from me, I’ll go get started.”
“Make sure supper’s ready by five.”
“I will. Enjoy your day with your sister.”
“I won’t, but thank you for the thought.”
Raven left the room. She’d separate the wash not to honor Helen’s bigotry, but because who knew what little beasties might be living in that ratty wig on her head.
Brax dropped Helen off at her sister’s and after being pointedly reminded for the third time when she wanted him to return for her, he headed back to assist Raven with the wash. As he drove through the crowded streets, memories of being in the area during the war rose unbidden, bringing with it the cries of battle, the sounds and smoke of cannon and weapons,and the screams of the injured and dying. He and the men of the Fifty-Fourth were initially assigned manual duties, digging latrines and such. Many in the nation and the Union army harbored doubts about the Black soldiers’ ability to prove their worth under fire, however, Brax and his fellows were eager to show what they could do. On July 18, under the command of Massachusetts abolitionist and Harvard graduate Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the Fifty-Fourth along with five thousand Union soldiers began marching in the darkness towards the rebel-held Fort Wagner on South Carolina’s Morris Island. Those in command and their troops were filled with confidence. The Union had been battering Wagner with artillery from its fleet led by Rear Admiral John Dahlgreen, and assumed the battle would be easily won. The Fifty-Fourth led the attack, and when they began the charge, the Southerners opened fire. The screams of the dying and wounded pierced the darkness. In his mind, Brax recalled the chaos, firing back, the ear-shattering explosions of the armaments, and trying to stay alive. The Union had badly underestimated the size of the Confederate forces. Inside the fort were eighteen hundred rebs. More than three times the six hundred men of the Fifty-Fourth. As the rebs’ artillery kept up the barrage, the intensity of their return fire made Shaw halt his men and change direction. Brax and the others followed him througha moat and up a slope. At the summit, the rebs were waiting, and in the desperate hand-to-hand combat that followed, Shaw, who’d been injured earlier in the war at the battle of Antietam, became among the first to die. Of the six hundred Black soldiers with him, two hundred and eighty were killed, wounded, or missing and thought to be dead. Brax thought back on the friends lost in the bloodbath: Rogers from Canada, Jean-Pierre, who’d come from Haiti to help with the fight, Prince, an escaped slave from Charleston. Hoping to turn the tide, a second wave of Union troops from New Hampshire, Maine, and Pennsylvania pushed forward after the Fifty-Fourth, but the rebs were determined to hold and they did. In the early morning of July 19, after hours of fighting, the Union forces withdrew.
Brax and the others were devastated by the loss of Shaw. He’d stood up for them when the army paid them less money than its White soldiers, and in the fight to take Fort Wagner, he’d led his men into battle, not sent them ahead as was the conventional method of war. In a mean-spirited show of contempt, the Confederates dumped Shaw’s body and the bodies of the dead of the Fifty-Fourth into an unmarked grave and sent a telegram to the Union generals saying, “We have buried Shaw with his niggers.” They’d hoped this would make other White officers think twice about leading Blacktroops. It didn’t. The 180,000 Black troops under their White commanders would go on to help the Union win the war. Brax just wished Colonel Shaw had been alive to savor the victory.
In the days and months after mustering out and returning home, Brax had struggled with the question of why he’d lived and so many others in his regiment hadn’t. The guilt plagued him. One night at supper he’d discussed his feelings with his father, who told him the question would never be answered, but having returned home whole was a gift Brax should use to honor those who’d died, ensuring their deaths hadn’t been in vain. The wise advice brought light into the dark corners of his soul, and in response he picked up the mantle of charity work left behind by his mother and grandmother. Each time he helped a local school pay its teachers, or donated to families needing housing or food, or employed young apprentices to help them learn to make a living, he looked upon it as a tribute to Rogers, Jean-Pierre, Prince, and all the others who’d made the ultimate sacrifice.
He was just about at the Stipe place when he saw a sign on a white wood fence that read:suzysews. Behind the fence, a small, bright yellow house was set back from the road. Seeing a handful of Black children playing in the yard, he wondered if Suzy was a woman of the race and if the sign referenced a shop inside. Remembering the wonder on Raven’s face when he giftedher the soap at the market, he assumed, rightly or wrongly, that being given presents wasn’t a regular occurrence in her life. He wondered if Suzy might have some things he could purchase for her. He stopped the carriage and walked to the house.