Never Too Late (13 page)

A deathly silence was everywhere.

Almost on tiptoe, Josepha crept toward the back door. Fearfully she opened it. Outside, the quiet stretched in all directions from the house. An eerie silence. Again Josepha shuddered. Everything looked normal. But the occasional bark of a dog or bellow of a cow or cackle of a chicken in the distance sounded strangely off-key. There were no human noises to go with them—no singing, no shouts and laughter of children, no calls to plough horses.

Something was dreadfully wrong. She could
feel
it.

“Kin we come out now?” came a voice from inside the house behind her.

Startled in the midst of the silence, Josepha turned back inside. There was Emma's frightened face peeking out from the cellar door. It wouldn't be Emma's last time hiding in a dark cellar.

Josepha hurried toward her.

“Come on out,” she said, giving the pregnant girl her hand. “You kin come out, all ob you. But we's stayin' inside an' ain't goin' out anywhere till we find out what happened.”

“Why, Josepha—what does you think happened?” asked Emma.

“I don't know, chil'. I jes' got me a bad feelin', dat's all. So we's stayin' right here.”

It was William McSimmons, the father, who later that day was the first to discover the horror and devastation that had resulted from what eventually came to be called the Massacre of Shenandoah County by a roving band of soldiers called Bilsby's Marauders.

With the Confederacy failed, though many of them didn't know it yet, his slaves were now free men and women. The former life of the Southern plantation was changed forever.

Whether it was those changes or something else, the awful sight hit William McSimmons hard.

As he stood surveying the scene of desolation and death, the realization came over him that even though he had opposed the idea of it all along, his own blacks would never be able to enjoy the freedom they had yearned for so long. He was sad, not for himself, but for them—that they would not live to know freedom.

As William McSimmons stood staring in stomach-wrenching disbelief at the slave village of his plantation, and at the dead bodies strewn about, tears slowly filled his eyes, and he wept for the loss of his people. For the first time in his life, he realized how much he cared for them despite the color of their skin, even, perhaps, in some measure,
loved
them. What kind of animals would do such a thing!

He did not even notice at first the crude, hasty burial of the Jukes family among all the other slaves, nor stop to think what it signified—that
someone
must either have come upon the horrifying scene before him, or else survived it.

His son and fiancée were not so equally moved.

William McSimmons the younger, in fact, lamented the fact that the scatterbrained house slave he had gotten pregnant was not among those killed. He would have to devise some other means to get rid of her. One way or another she would have to be gone before he brought his new bride to the plantation.

It was no secret on the plantation who the father of the unborn child was. And when Emma suddenly disappeared two months later, no one doubted that young William McSimmons was behind it.

Everyone assumed she was dead.

U
NEXPECTED
R
EUNION

19

J
OSEPHA GRIEVED FOR ALL THE FRIENDS SHE HAD
lost in the massacre. How strange it was to think back to her first days here, when she had been the newcomer. Now suddenly she had been with the McSimmons longer than anyone who was left.

Mostly she grieved for dear Lemuela, who was one of the main reasons she had stayed and never again tried to escape to the North. Now Lemuela and her family were dead, gone to join her husband, Hank, who had died a few years before. They were now free. But it didn't seem to matter anymore. What was freedom with no friends to enjoy it with?

Freedom had come too late for her. And once again those she loved had been torn from her.

Josepha never stopped to puzzle over the fact that only six mounded graves marked the resting places of what everyone assumed to be the remains of Lemuela and her children, and her father-in-law Wayne, since their bodies were the only ones not accounted for. Josepha did not
wonder why there wasn't a seventh grave, nor imagine for a moment that the oldest daughter whom Josepha had helped into the world might still be alive. Neither did she know that the time would come to remember the promise of that night, though not as Josepha expected.

Several months went by.

The McSimmons plantation, as well as others in the area that had been attacked and brutalized, slowly recovered, though life would never be the same again. A few workers were hired, both white and black, to keep the work of the plantation going. Those house blacks who had not been killed were given their freedom. Two or three left. Josepha chose to stay and began receiving a meager wage for her work. How long she could tolerate it, however, under the rule of the new Mistress McSimmons, she didn't know. The new mistress was the kind of woman who made her presence felt, and with no wife to administer the affairs of the house and its staff, her father-in-law was not inclined to prevent her treating the blacks however she saw fit. Kindness toward blacks was not an element of her personal creed.

Then came a day when Josepha received the shock of her life.

She was on her way to the well when she saw a girl of what looked like fifteen or sixteen crouching behind the well-house, apparently hiding. Wondering who she might be, Josepha slowed and continued on.

Suddenly she recognized her. It was Lemuela's own daughter!

“Mayme!” Josepha exclaimed. “What'n tarnashun . . . dat really you!”

“It's me, Josepha,” said the girl, turning and smiling almost sheepishly.

“We thought you wuz dead wif da others . . . how in tarnashun . . . but where you been all dis time, chil'!”

“I ran away,” she said.

“Come in da house!” she said, standing back and running a scrutinizing eye up and down the girl's frame. “You always wuz a scrawny one, but wherever yo been, dey ain't been givin' you enuff food. You needs some vittles in yo tummy.”

“I can't stay, Josepha,” said Mayme.

“Whatchu mean . . . you ain't fixin' ter run off agin?”

“I can't come back here, Josepha,” she said. “I've got another place that's home to me now that my kin's gone.”

“You set yo min' at ease, chil',” she said. “Jes come wiff me. I'll take care ob you, chil'. Why, I wuz dere when you wuz borned—”

She paused a moment, an odd expression passing briefly across her face as she looked the girl over.

“—What I's sayin is dat you's always been a mite special ter me. 'Sides, no white man ain't gwine tell you what ter do no mo, nohow.”

“Why, what do you mean?” asked Mayme.

“Ain't you heard . . . ain't no mo slaves. We all been done set free.”

“Free,” she said, not understanding what Josepha meant.

“Dat's right—you's free now, chil'. Dere's somefin' called a 'mancerpashun proklermashun what's done made it against da law ter own slaves. Some feller named Lincoln
done it. You's a free black girl. Da white man can't do nuthin' ter hurt you no mo.”

“But what about the war?” asked Mayme.

“Dat's all over, Mayme, chil'. Dat's what dey was fightin' 'bout, near as I kin tell. Da Norf won an' da Souf had ter set us coloreds free. Leastways, somefin' like dat's what der master done tol' me.”

Josepha put her great big arm around Mayme and led her up the steps into the house.

In another minute a plate of bread and cheese was on the table.

“Whatchu gwine do now, chil'?” Josepha said. “Da master'd likely keep you on like he done me.”

“You mean, stay here like before?” asked Mayme.

“Dat's what I mean. But not like no slave. You'd git paid fer yo work now. You could stay here in da house wiff me, an' be a house girl an' work wiff me.”

“What do you mean, get paid?”

“Jes' like I say. Dey gots ter pay us now, since we ain't slaves. I's be gittin' five cents er day ter stay an' work fer Master McSimmons. I don' know what's ter become er me wiff dis new mistress what don' seem ter like me none. But fer now I gots me my same room ter sleep in, an' you can see wif yo own eyes dat I ain't sufferin' from not havin' enuff ter eat.”

“And . . . and you
want
to stay here?” said Mayme.

“Where would a fat ol' black woman go, chil'? I reckon I'm free, but I gots noplace else t' go. I been here so long it seems dat I been here all my life, so I figure dis'll be my home fer what years I got lef'.”

“I don't think I could do that, Josepha. And so I reckon I oughta be going.”

Mayme stood up from the table.

“Whatchu gwine do den, effen you don' plan ter stay here?” Josepha asked.

“Like I said, I've got another place that's home now.”

Josepha turned and trundled into another room and disappeared for a minute. When she came back she was holding something in her hand. It was a piece of white cloth. She took some more of the bread and cheese and wrapped it inside the cloth, and handed it to Mayme.

“Don' open it till yo gone,” she said. “Dis is jes' from me ter you. I know it won' make up fer losin' yo mama, but maybe it'll help some.”

Then she took Mayme in her arms and held her for a long time. Josepha had never stopped to think about it before, but this girl she was holding was closer to a daughter of her own than anyone in the world.

Slowly they both stepped back.

“Thank you, Josepha,” said Mayme. “It was real good to see you.”

“An' God bless you, chil',” said Josepha, big tears starting to drip down her face. “Now dat I knows yer alive, I ain't gonna be able ter keep from thinkin' 'bout you. Anytime you want, you come back an' see Josepha, you hear?”

Mayme smiled. “I may do that,” she said. “I reckon you'll see me again.”

They walked back outside together. Mayme walked slowly down the steps from the porch, then away from the house. She glanced back one more time. Josepha was
standing there sniffling and wiping her eyes with the back of one hand, her other hand half raised.

All of a sudden from around the side of the house the old master came walking straight toward them.

He slowed as he saw the girl, then stopped.

Mayme froze.

There used to be a saying among the slaves that all coloreds looked alike to a white man's eyes. And one look at Mr. McSimmons' face said that he was confused seeing the girl walking away from the house. He knew she didn't belong there. But at the same time, the way his eyes and forehead wrinkled slightly said that he recognized her, even though he didn't quite know why.

Then slowly a light came over his face.

“I see you came back,” he said. “You're old Hank and Lemuela Jukes' kid, ain't you?”

Mayme nodded.

“You didn't get killed?”

“No, sir.”

“Where you been all this time?”

“Over yonder.”

“Well, don't matter now, I guess,” he said. “I reckon what you do's your own business. You ain't mine no more. Well . . . talk to Josepha—she'll put you to work.”

Then he kept going the way he'd been walking, and disappeared around the other side of the house.

Josepha looked at Mayme from the porch, like maybe she thought now she'd change her mind. But Mayme just waved again, then kept going.

A P
ROMISE
F
ULFILLED

20