Promise of Yesterday Read Free

opened the firebox to stick in a couple more pieces of wood.
    “Too old to be patient. Gotta hurry and get things done before no more time’s to be had.”
    Marylu wiped her hands and sat down across from Cooper. “You still getting your night scares?”
    He lifted tired eyes to hers. “I’ll never forget that time. Thought that man was gonna shoot us dead. Then when he didn’t and he told us we was going south, I wished he would have.”
    Marylu sat up straighter. “Seeing you all was the hardest thing …” The silence stretched long between them. Images of that night fifteen years ago flared to life in Marylu’s head.
    The wagon had rolled into Greencastle upon the Confederates’ retreat from Gettysburg, full of black-skinned strangers with fear in their eyes and guards surrounding them. Marylu remembered watching Miss Jenny’s mama and papa taking in the pitiful sight. She also knew, before they ever started whispering, that they were forming a plan to help the blacks, just as they, for years, had helped those who came to them in the night to escape to the North.
    “You were a brave woman,” Cooper interrupted her thoughts. “When that horse reared up, I thought you was done for, but you just did what it took.”
    “Except where those hooves snapped on my knee. Still aches.”
    Cooper nodded. “Reminder of what you done. Brave woman. Still are. Got more sass than most. Guess living with Miss Jenny’s family made you feel that brave.”
    Marylu dropped her hand to the table and speared Cooper with her eyes. “Not brave. I just knew what was right. There’d been enough suffering from them Rebs looting the stores as they came through town the first time. Had all our people runnin’ farther up north.”
    “Those of us still ‘round won’t ever forget what you done.” Cooper’s eyes took on a faraway gleam. “When you came out right under that chaplain’s nose with Miss Jenny’s daddy and that other man …” He shook his head.
    She wrestled for something to distract Cooper from the subject of that night and the wagon full of slaves she’d help to free. Only God’s strength had helped her then, as it helped her now. No matter how the slaves had hailed her as their hero and dubbed her “Queenie,” she had only done what had to be done. The fact that she’d lost her heart in the process didn’t matter none. Most had forgotten Walter. He was a moon that would never rise again, and Marylu didn’t want to think on him. Didn’t do any good. Just like taking the reverence to heart of those that she had helped free didn’t leave her quite comfortable.
    Cooper slapped his leg. “I told the whole story to Chester, and he just smiled and nodded like he does—”
    Marylu’s back snapped erect. “Chester?”
    Cooper chuckled. “That’s right. The mute. He wanted to meet you real bad. Said he’d heard the story even way down in South Carolina about a black woman freeing her own.”
    She ignored that and focused on his apparent familiarity with the black man. “Mute he might be, but he can hear just fine.”
    “Heard he stomped on your floor and got your temper to flarin’ pretty hot.” He slapped his leg. “Wished I’d seen that. Not often a man gets one over on you.” Cooper loosed a chuckle. “He was right impressed with you and the story of you saving all of us, Queenie.”
    Marylu frowned. “Don’t call me that. I was as scared as you all were that night.” She cast an eye toward the coffeepot and used it as an excuse to move from the table.
    “And what about them years you worked in the railroad?”
    “Miss Jenny’s papa did that. Was my job to keep Miss Jenny safe.”
    “That’s not the way Miss Jenny tells it.”
    “She wasn’t even eight when we started. You taking her word over mine?” Marylu poured coffee into two tin cups and set one in front of Cooper. “Don’t you have a garden to tend or something?”
    Cooper eyed the window and the peek of sunlight lightening