CHAPTER 20
Ewan had made a grave error. He’d realized this as soon as he felt Marlie’s thighs squeeze around his member, as he felt the warmth of her sex encompass him and the friction of the hair between her legs. More so, he’d known when he looked into her eyes.
Ewan’s previous experiences with women had been distant. Impersonal. He was fine with that—had ensured that it stayed that way. No amount of ribbing from fellow soldiers on their way to brothels had changed that. To Ewan, sex lacking emotion had been pointless, and sex with emotion had been something he wouldn’t allow himself. He’d been a fool to think he could come away from such an interaction with Marlie with his principles intact.
He’d felt something give way in him as she’d cried out in his embrace, like a retaining wall had crumbled down and every pent-up emotion he held for her had come rushing in, engulfing him. Now he was drowning and Marlie seemed content to stand on the riverbank and watch.
“Are you sure you know where we’re going?” he asked as they tramped through the underbrush. The question was peevish, but Marlie hadn’t spoken to him in three hours. She had retreated into herself, and Ewan had let her be—he was sure their encounter was as emotionally taxing for her as it was for him, and she was still dealing with the shocking news she’d received. Before they’d set out, he’d worked on retranslating the pages of the memoir that Melody had taken, this time paying attention to every word; it had taken all of his principle to translate faithfully and to the best of his ability.
Stephen Lynch had appeared to love Marlie’s mother, if a man could truly love a woman he owned. He had told her he would free her, and when she became pregnant, that he would start a life with her. That they would be a family. When his father caught wind of the plan, he sent the heavily pregnant Vivienne away. She was given her freedom, and Stephen had told her he would join her soon.
Ewan had handed Marlie the pages and watched her read them, squinting in the firelight. He’d expected her to have some reaction, but she had rolled onto her side, her back to him. She’d remained silent after getting up, and remained so as they marched through the night, seemingly without purpose and definitively without connection.
Marlie stopped and looked at him. “Aren’t you the expert at escape? You can lead the way, if you know better than me.”
“I was simply trying to ascertain—”
“You were simply trying to tell me that I’m wrong,” she said. “Well, I know I’m wrong. I know that! I may have been good enough to scratch your itch, but you shouldn’t expect anything else of me. I don’t know where we are or where we’re going and . . .”
To his horror, her eyes filled with tears.
“Oh, I’m useless,” she muttered, angrily wiping at her face.
Ewan was poleaxed. Marlie was sheltered, for certain, but she had never seemed to lack self-assurance. But now she was crying, great heaving sobs that triggered a sort of panic in Ewan as he scrambled to make things right.
“Marlie,” he said, reaching for her in the shadowy darkness of the forest and getting a hold of her arm. “Don’t cry. You’re far from useless.”
“Yes, of course you don’t find me useless,” she said. “Men like you will always have a use for women like me.”
“Men like me?”
“Never mind.” She pulled her arm away. “We must keep moving.”
She looked up at the cloudy night sky as if it would point her in the right direction.
“We do, but if I’ve done something to hurt you, you need to tell me right now.” Ewan felt the first throbs of a headache pulse between his eyes.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said quietly. She no longer pulled against his grip—her arm had gone limp in his hold.
“How can I make things right?” he asked.
“You can let go of me right now, and never touch me again,” she said. Her voice trembled, but that didn’t dull its edge.
“What?” Ewan had not been expecting quite so definitive a statement. In fact, he’d thought perhaps he could just kiss her. That’s what women wanted when they were upset, he’d been told. That’s what she had wanted from him before. He was out of his depths.
“I am asking you to relinquish your hold on me. For the remainder of our trip, I ask that you make no assumptions about what passed between us and to not touch me so boldly again.”
Ewan let go of her, the headache flaring to life in his skull. “May I ask why?” There was no logic to her behavior, or if there was, it was lost to him.
“Because if I learned one thing from what I read today, it’s that I cannot trust you, or myself.” Her voice shook a little but she kept her head high.
“It’s not fair of you to punish me for your father’s cowardice,” he said. He didn’t know why he debated. He didn’t want anything more. Wasn’t that the case?
“And it is not fair of you to ask me not to,” she retorted. “My entire life has been based on one lie after another, and those from people who knew and cared for me. And I should expect more from you, who I barely know? Surely you know that when we reach Tennessee you will go back to your life and I will have to start mine from scratch. There is nothing to be gained from pretending anything can come of . . . this, and I am too tired to pretend otherwise.”
“But—”
“But what?” She stepped toward him in challenge, the moonlight reflected in her eyes.
She stared at him, and none of his words came to him. She was correct; he had spent the last several weeks reminding himself that his feelings for her were something to be repressed and ignored. Even if the thought of parting from her made him feel hollowed out, he was not the kind of man she needed or deserved. Best to cauterize whatever feelings he had now, before she discovered who he really was.
For another will not hurt you unless you please. You will be hurt only if you think you are hurt. Epictetus’s words didn’t explain the numbness that fell over him, because it wasn’t a numbness in which one felt nothing. It was the burning, impotent pain of a limb that has been slept upon and then called into quick usage.
“Well?” Her voice was both hard and fragile, an eggshell containing emotions that would remain a mystery to Ewan unless he applied enough pressure to crack it.
“Nothing,” he said stiffly. “I’m a stranger to you, and you do not owe me anything. I will refrain from further contact for the duration of our journey.”
“Of course you will,” she bit out, and then spun on her heel and stormed off. Ewan was completely confused. He had conceded to her wish and yet that seemed to make her more angry. He had a mind to catch up to her, to demand what exactly she was playing at, but what would that gain him? Or her, for that matter?
Instead, he kept a few yards behind her, following the sounds of her footsteps. The night wore on, and she was stumbling more than walking after a certain point, but Ewan fought the urge to go to her. Eventually the stumbling stopped, and he realized it was because they were walking on a well-worn path. He jogged to catch up to her, and she didn’t turn even when he was at her side.
“Do you think it wise to follow this path?” he asked.
“Do you think it wise not to?” she retorted. “We must find a place to hide ourselves. Listen.”
Ewan strained and heard nothing for a moment, and then a low murmur carried on the early morning wind. The sun had not yet risen, but he heard the low sound of singing, as if a church service was going on. They headed toward it, walking for a few moments before they came upon a small clearing, where a circle of people were standing around a fire. They were gathering up their things, as if making ready to leave.
Ewan looked over the group: their dark skin and ragged clothing. For a moment he took them for runaways; then he saw the large metal pots on the ground—he’d heard they were held up during secret gatherings to prevent sound from traveling. The group turned to them, one woman’s eyes large with fear, several faces creased with confusion when they saw both Marlie and Ewan and realized they were together.
“Hello,” Marlie said calmly, as if they were all gathered in front of the general store and not in the middle of the woods.
“ ’Lo,” one of the men replied, and several others echoed him.
“Do you know any place around here we could take shelter until nightfall?” she asked. “We’re heading to Tennessee.”
The group shared another look, one that involved raised brows and pensive frowns.
“Ya’ll can come with me,” an older woman said with a sigh.
“There’s space in the hayloft, and massa don’t never go up there. I hid a few Yanks up there week before last and it was fine.”
“You sure, Sallie?” one of the men asked. “There’s that empty house down by the plantation, too.”
“Naw, that place ain’t safe. Slave catchers been lying in, waiting to catch folks. Man met his wife there for some private time and got the lash ’cause they said he was trying to ’scape.”
An older man with his hands shoved in his pockets piped up. “I would take them, but massa got suspicious after the last Yanks what came through ran off with one of his pigs. He checks the grounds every night, and been keeping an eye on me.”
He looked pointedly at Ewan.
“I won’t steal any livestock.”
The man continued to stare at him.
“Or anything else,” Ewan said. “I wouldn’t take advantage of kindness bestowed upon me in that way.”
He pointedly didn’t look at Marlie; he wasn’t sure she’d vouch for that as a statement of fact. He felt a pressure in his skull as he recalled what she had said to him, but there was nothing further to discuss. He wanted her, he couldn’t have her, and trying to convince her of the former while knowing the latter would have been as unkind as she suspected him of being.
“My place got some Rebs hanging about, looking for skulkers,” a younger woman said. She glanced at Marlie, then quickly down at the ground. “Besides, you sure you trust them eyes of hers?”
“I said I’d take ’em, and I’ll take ’em,” Sallie said. She shook her head, then turned to Marlie and Ewan. “Come on now.”
She hefted up one of the heavy pots and waved good-bye to the group, and Ewan came up beside her.
“I can carry that,” Ewan said.
“Mm-hmm,” she responded, and handed it over.
“Thank you for helping us,” Marlie said.
“Mm-hmm,” Sallie replied again.
They walked on in silence. Ewan couldn’t tell if the woman was annoyed or fatigued or simply the silent type, so he kept his mouth shut.
“I need ya’ll to be straight with me: Why you traveling together?”
Marlie drew in a deep breath.
“I ain’t trying to be in your business,” the woman said, then chuckled a bit. “Okay, that ain’t true—I’m nosy. But I also need to know I’m not putting my family and friends at risk because massa’s son got a little bold and decided to run off with his lady love. I’ll still help you, but I need to know what you running from and how close it is behind you.”
Ewan appreciated her straightforwardness and decided to reply in kind. “I’m a Union soldier running from prison, trying to make it back North. She’s free and running to escape being sold to a fancy house. We have an enemy in common, and that’s it.”
“Yes, that’s it,” Marlie echoed. “It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
“Mm-hmm,” Sallie said again.
“It seemed from the conversation you had that your group helps a lot of people who pass through on their way North,” he noted.
“That’s right,” Sallie said.
“Do any of you ever join them?” Ewan asked. There was a sting at his arm as Marlie whacked him. He turned to face her with raised brows, able to make out the censure in her expression in the faint glow of the early morning sun.
“A couple of us done run off, on our own. Some made it. Most didn’t,” Sallie answered.
“You can come with us, if you’d like,” Ewan said. “Do you have family you’d like to bring? Friends?”
He didn’t see why it should be a problem. If there were too many they could break into smaller groups. He could be at the fore, scouting.
Sallie stopped to look up at him. Her dark eyes were inscrutable. “If it was that easy, you think we’d still be here? Too many to run off with. Too many lives to risk.” She shook her head. “You know you the first Yank who ever asked that?”
She started walking again, and Ewan and Marlie followed along. “Sometimes it’s like they think we just haints who wander the forest, looking to do some good for them, like we ain’t got our own kin to do good for. Half the time they don’t even say ‘please’ or ‘thank you.’ Sometimes they talk past us, like we not even really there.”
“And you still offer to help without hesitation?” Marlie asked.
“The Lord didn’t specify you had to like a body to help ’em,” Sallie said. “I’m just doing the little bit I can do from where I am. And counting on Lincoln and his Yanks to do what they can to win this war.”
Ewan felt a peculiar sensation in his throat. He knew very well how Sallie and her friends would have been treated; most of his fellow soldiers weren’t abolitionists. They told awful jokes about contraband and took offense when chided. They made lewd remarks about the colored women working in the prisons and army camps, and even when they were kind, often treated Negroes as children instead of people with lives and dreams of their own.
“I will do everything I can, Sallie,” he said. “It might not be much, but I’ll do my little bit.”
Sallie glanced from him to Marlie and back to him. “I’m gonna take your word on that.”
She didn’t know that for Ewan, everything entailed causing others pain. Since he’d been imprisoned, he had often overlooked what reaching North would mean for him. Breaking bones. Making grown men cry out to God and their mamas and sometimes their grandmamas, too. Perhaps he’d secretly hoped that things would work themselves out while he was locked away, that he could have emerged to a reunified nation in which the only thing he cracked was the spine of a book.
Guilt tugged at him. He should have escaped Randolph earlier. He should have been out there helping instead of indulging his own fantasies of a quiet life spent conversing with Marlie and helping her with her work.
When he glanced at her, she was staring down at the ground before her, her fingertips holding up her skirts as she walked.
He had been a man of his word once, and he would be again. He’d vowed to fight the Confederacy, and to never touch Marlie again, and he’d stick to both, no matter what it cost his soul.