Part 28 (1/2)

Tessie awoke, too, and quickly fetched the matches to light a lamp. Eli stopped her. ”Guards gonna be all over this city when they find out there's a prison break. Better not see our lights on.”

I put on my dressing gown and carefully followed Eli downstairs, the familiar furnis.h.i.+ngs looming in the eerie darkness. It was raining lightly outside, and I s.h.i.+vered in the cold. With no light from either moon or stars, I could barely find my way down the path to the carriage house. Robert had chosen a good night to conceal his escape.

”Why did he come here?” I whispered to Eli. ”And how did he find our house?”

”Said he knew your address from writing all them letters. He thinking he just gonna hide out in the stable for while and not let us know he here. But the little mare woke me up-she don't like strangers, you know-so I go on out and see what's bothering her. There's Robert, hiding in the hay. He's bleeding, Missy Caroline. Guard shoot him in the leg.”

Robert huddled in the dark in the farthest stall, looking very pale. His face, hands, and uniform were covered with dirt from the tunnel and smudged with blood. Eli had hung an old blanket over the window to mask the candlelight, and Esther and Ruby knelt beside him, doctoring his leg. The bullet had sc.r.a.ped across the side of his calf, taking a good-sized chunk of flesh with it. The wound was deep, but it was already starting to clot. At least there was no bullet to remove.

Robert groaned when he saw me. ”I don't want to involve you, Caroline. Please, tell your servants to let me leave now.”

Ruby grunted. ”Humph! How far you think you gonna get, dragging this leg like a crippled gra.s.shopper? They catch you in no time, limping along.”

”I just needed to rest. I couldn't run anymore. It hurt too much, and I had to stop and wrap up my leg. Please, I can't stay here.”

”Do the guards know there's been an escape?” I asked.

”They do now. A lot of us made it out, though. I volunteered to wait in the Towing Office and watch out the front window. I was timing the sentries, telling the others when it was safe to go.”

”What went wrong?”

”One of the men panicked and ran out before it was safe. Three others misunderstood and ran with him. A sentry spotted them and shouted for the rest of the guards. After that, all the prisoners stampeded out. We're all in Federal uniforms, so there was no point in waiting or trying to bluff our way free. I had to run, too. One of the sentries started shooting at us with his revolver. I was lucky he only nicked me. I know he hit a couple of my friends because I saw two of them fall. Couple more jumped into the ca.n.a.l.”

Ruby finished wrapping his leg and tied the bandage. ”Don't you be moving your leg all around or it's gonna start bleeding again,” she warned.

”I have no choice. Thanks for your help, but I have to go.”

”They'll have roadblocks up,” I said. ”You'd better stay right here.”

”No! I won't endanger you!”

But in the silent night we could already hear the faint sound of the alarm bell ringing downtown in Capitol Square. ”Too late to worry about that,” Esther said. ”They ringing the alarm.”

”You can't outrun the home guard,” I told him. ”They'll be on horseback. And they'll have torches.”

”What are we going to do?” Tessie asked.

We all looked to Eli.

”Everybody go back to bed,” he said. ”If they come here looking for him, y'all be just waking up. I'll hide Ma.s.sa Robert. That way, they ask you where he hiding, you won't have to lie because you won't know. And you won't be giving the secret away by acting nervous.”

He took Robert's arm to help him up, but Esther gripped Eli's other arm to stop him. ”I don't want you getting in no trouble, Eli.”

”Lord can take care of me if He choose to. Now, you hurry up and go on back to bed.”

I crept back into the house with Tessie and climbed into bed. I couldn't stop s.h.i.+vering though, nor could I go back to sleep. Downtown, the alarm bell rang and rang, probably waking all of Richmond by now. Loud shouts and the thunder of hooves drifted uphill on the wind. I thought I heard Ruby or Luella tiptoeing up the stairs and padding down the hallway, but I stayed in bed. The clock downstairs struck three.

I hadn't been this scared since the war started. I prayed and prayed until I ran out of words to say. Then, not long after threethirty, I heard horses trotting up Grace Street, and the murmur of men's voices outside. They stopped beside my house.

”You head around back. Search the stable and all the outbuildings. We'll go around to the front.” It was Major Turner from Libby Prison. I recognized his boyish voice.

Moments later, he pounded on the front door downstairs. I nearly leaped out of bed, my heart hammering along with his fist. Then I remembered that I was supposed to be asleep. It was Gilbert's job to answer the door. I waited. The pounding continued.

Finally I heard Gilbert's footsteps in the foyer. ”Who's there?” he called.

”Major Thomas Turner from Libby Prison. Open up.”

Tessie got up and wrapped a shawl around herself. ”Keep praying, honey,” she whispered as she hurried out into the stair hall. The front door squeaked slightly as Gilbert opened it.

”I need to speak to Miss Fletcher immediately,” Turner said.

”She sleeping,” Tessie replied. Her voice grew more distant as she hurried downstairs. ”That's what everybody here trying to do. Don't you know it's the middle of the night?”

”Wake her up,” Major Turner commanded. ”Government orders.”

”Okay . . . guess I got to do what the government says,” Tessie grumbled. ”But Missy need to get dressed. Gonna take few minutes.”

”There's no time for that. Get her down here now.”

Tessie returned to my bedroom and lit a candle. ”Take you time, honey. You supposed to be asleep, remember?” She helped me into my heavy winter dressing gown. Even so I felt naked, especially in front of Turner.

”What's wrong?” I asked him as I descended the stairs. ”Did something happen to Robert?”

”There's been a prison break. Your lieutenant friend is among the missing.”

”Was it really necessary to scare me and my servants out of our wits just to tell us that? Couldn't it have waited until morning?”

”We need to search your house.” Major Turner pushed the door to Daddy's library open and motioned for one of the two men with him to start searching it.

”Wait a minute. What do you think you're doing? May I please see your search warrant?”

”We don't need one. Our country's at war. We're under martial law.”

It was useless to argue. When Eli walked into the foyer and stood behind me as if guarding me, I knew I no longer had to stall. ”Gilbert, fetch us some lamps, please,” I said. ”Major, I will ask you and your men to kindly wipe your shoes.”

They did so, grudgingly. Gilbert returned with the lamps and was sent with one of the men to search the bas.e.m.e.nt. Turner and the other man searched the ground floor as Eli, Tessie, and I watched. The men were very thorough, peering into every corner, crevice, and niche. I saw Eli's wisdom in not telling us where he had hidden Robert. Like in a game of Hot and Cold, we might easily have given away his hiding place by acting nervous whenever they neared the spot.

Through the drawing room windows, I could see lights in the carriage house and in the kitchen as more soldiers searched outside. Torches bobbed in the garden like clumsy fireflies. Surely if they had found Robert outside, they would have sounded the alarm by now.

”Was my cousin the only one who escaped?” I asked as Turner peered beneath the parlor sofa.

He gave me a long, appraising look, as if trying to read my guilt or innocence. ”No,” he finally said. ”There are more than a hundred men missing.”

”How did they manage to escape?”

Turner shook one of the drapes as if Robert might flutter out of it like a moth. ”I think you already know the answer to that, Miss Fletcher.”