Lizzy's Hope (Heartsong Presents #443)
By Lynn A. Coleman
Order Now!
Chapter One
Key West, 1866
“Evenin’. Miz. Lizzy?”
A massive chest caught Lizzy’s gaze as she opened the door. Slowly she raised her head. A large, dark man with mahogany eyes and squared shoulders towered over her. She tightened her grasp around the glass doorknob.
“Yes, may I help you?”
His shoulders eased. His rigid stance softened. “Mr. Ellis sent me here.”
In turn, she loosened her grip of the knob.
“Come in,” she offered with a smile.
Ellis Southard, a local businessman, had become more than her mother’s employer. He and his new wife, Bea, had become some of her closest friends.
“Thank ye, Ma’am.” He lifted his straw hat from the top of his head and stooped to enter through the doorway.
“Take a seat, Mr...?” She stammered, realizing she’d forgotten to ask the man his name.
“Name’s Mo.”
The large rattan chair creaked as his huge body mass eased down. It wasn’t that he was a heavy man. Lizzy doubted there was an ounce of fat on him. His broad shoulders were well rounded with thick muscles. His hands were massive, and yet also agile, she noticed, as he curled the edges of his Bahamian hat.
“So, what does Mr. Ellis have need of?” She sat on the sofa opposite Mo’s chair.
“No, Ma’am, Mr. Ellis don’t need nothin’. I’s afraid I mislead ye.”
Her eyes caught a glimmer of his wrists marred with encircling dark scars. Lizzy scanned the house to catch sight of someone, anyone, she could call to if necessary. She lived with her brother George and his family since her husband, Ben, had gone off to fight in the war. When Ben had died, her stay with her brother and his family had become permanent.
“Mr. Ellis sed ye might be able to help me. It be embarasin’ to ask, bein’ a grown man and all.” The hat in his hands twisted into unnatural shapes. “Mr. Ellis, he figures ye understand. And bein’ that yer helpin’ the young’uns, ye be understandin’ why I, uh, need this help.” His shoulders slumped. His eyes looked down at his feet.
“Relax, Mo.” She’d seen folks like this far too often. If her suspicions were correct, he didn’t know how to read or write. “If Mr. Ellis sent you here I guess he figures I might be able to help you.”
He stopped fumbling with his hat, leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I cain’t read or write.”
“And Mr. Ellis thought I might be able to teach you?”
“Yes ‘em. He be showin’ me some letters and makin’ me practice ‘em, but he ain’t got no times for me.” He pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and handed it to her. A series of A’s and B’s lined the page. “At least not ‘nuff so’s I can learn faster. I wanna learn.”
She examined the letters more closely. He had a steady hand, but the deep impressions on the paper showed he worked with intensity. “I can pay ye. I know ye teach the young'uns; and I’s a working man. I can come after work or on the Lord’s day. Don’t seem right to have schoolin’ on the Lord’s day–but ifin it’s all the time ye can give me, I be a willin’.”
She could give him a couple evenings a week, and the extra income would help. She loved her brother George and his family, but desperately needed a place of her own. Of course, a widow with four children finding housing and earning enough for the family would be quite an undertaking, but it was her secret dream and hope.
“Which evenings would you be free, Mo?”
“Whatever be best fer ye.” Mo settled into the high back of the rattan chair, resting his hat on his left knee.
Lizzy clicked her right first fingernail upon the arm of the sofa. She tended to go to church with her mother and the children on Wednesdays, and on Fridays her mother usually came by. “My best nights would be Tuesdays and Thursdays. How about around seven?”
“Seven’s fine, ma’am. Would I be needin’ to buy anything?”
“Some paper, and a pen and some ink would be helpful.”
Mo nodded his head. “I can git them, ma’am.”
“Momma.” A whine broke through the hushed atmosphere. “Benjamin’s picking on me.” Sarah came running into the room.
“Excuse me, Mo.” Lizzy removed herself from the sofa and pulled her daughter by the hand toward the back door. “Benjamin Joseph Hunte, what have you been doing to your sister?”
Her slender son shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing.”
“Whatever ‘nothing’ is, you best be behaving. I have company in the front room, and I don’t need you children making a fuss.” Lizzy leaned over to Sarah, “Now, you go play, and don’t you start picking on Benjamin either.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Sarah’s braided pigtails bobbed with her nod of agreement.
“Good. Now go play.” Lizzy tapped her daughter’s backside as she jumped down the stairs.
Lizzy walked through the kitchen and back to the front room. “I’m sorry about that.”
“No trouble. I best git goin’. Shall I come tomorrow night, it bein’ Tuesday and all?”
“Sure, Mo, tomorrow will be fine.”
He rose from the chair and again Lizzy was struck by his size. “Thank ye kindly, Ma’am. I do appreciate ye takin’ on the likes of me.”
“Don’t think of it. I’ve taught a few adults how to read and write. There’s no shame in it.”
Mo nodded and bent his head to exit the door. For a man so tall, he certainly seemed gentle. Lizzy couldn’t help notice the scars on his wrists...former slave, she imagined. Her jaw tightened and her fists curled, nails biting into her palms. She took in a deep breath, counted to three, and eased it out slowly. She had lost her husband in the war against such things. Ben’s parents had been slaves too, but had won their freedom in the Bahamas. Lizzy’s parents never were slaves, so she hadn’t known the pain, fear, and anger first hand. But she’d seen enough over the years to know, and the very idea of someone owning another human being made her skin crawl. When would she be free of this anger? She didn’t hate like she used to, but she still burned with fury when she saw someone like Mo, scarred and illiterate because some slave owner thought the color of one’s skin determined his or her intelligence.
“Jesus, thank you for letting me grow up here. Help me to deal better with the pain of the injustice.” She mumbled her prayer and returned to the kitchen. “Dinner time is a coming, and ten people with hungry bellies will be wanting to be fed. So you better get your mind to your work, Lizzy,” she chided herself, and went to the sink to clean her hands.
* * *
Mo placed the hat back on his head and ambled out of Lizzy Hunte’s front yard. Palm trees lined the road heading inland toward his own place. A smile spread from ear to ear. “I be a learnin’ man in no time at all. Thank ye, Lord.”
Mo looked back at the house, now distant. “She be a fine woman, that Lizzy Hunte.” Her home was a simple but serviceable structure, he noticed, with a coral foundation and clapboard siding and a pitched roof. Why anyone would need a pitched roof in Key West didn’t make sense to him. Pitched roofs were were for snow and ice-bound houses. Word was, the first owners of the island came from the north.
Mo thought back on his previous visit with Ellis Southard in his home where he’d met Lizzy Hunte’s mother, Cook. She be a fire ball, he thought, remembering how she stood her ground. And yet Lizzy seemed to not have that same self-assurance that her mother possessed. ‘Course, losin’ a husband and havin’ four young'uns to raise probably factored in on that.
Lizzy had taken a quick glance at his wrists. Not much a man could do to hide ‘em, especially down in this heat. Mo slowed his step and wiped his brow. The sun beat down on the pulverized coral streets. A fine white dust filled the air around him. He glanced to the west and could see the sun lowering on the horizon. So different than the cotton fields back in Alabama. The blue, flat surface of the water turned to crimson red, then caught the streaks of the last rays of the setting sun just before it slipped quietly below the horizon.
Yup, this place sure was different than the plantation. His mind flashed back to the sweet smile on Lizzy’s face when he’d mentioned Ellis Southard. His name relaxed her. She feared me, though, Mo realized with a sigh. Seemed most folks he met feared him. Sometimes being built like an ox didn’t come in handy.
Of course, he was used to it. Folks just had a problem with someone as tall as himself. He’d yet to meet a doorway he could go through and not have to bend down before entering the house. A knot tightened in his stomach. That wasn’t exactly correct. The southern mansion his master had owned had a door he could have walked through. Goodness, two his size could have walked through it shoulder to shoulder.
His mind darkened. The past, the beatings–all of it swirled in confusion and anger. He’d escaped eight years ago and still the memories haunted him.
“Evenin’, Mo.” James Earl waved from his porch.
“Evenin’, James.”
“Been out walkin'?”
“Some.” James was a kindly old man. His graying hair and eyebrows accented the wrinkles that lined his face.
“Wouldn’t be courtin’ now, would ya?”
Mo chuckled. “No, Sa. I’s not ready to find me a woman.” He wanted to know how to read and write first. He knew he’d have to sign a marriage license if he were to ever marry, and he didn’t trust anyone. He could be signing on as someone’s servant and never have a clue until they came to get him for work. No siree, I’m not signin’ no papers until I knows how to read and write.
“Seems to me you’re old enough, and you’ve got a good job.” James tapped his pipe on his porch railing.
“Thirty years ain’t that old.”
James rapped his hand on his knee and let out a guffaw. “Son, you’ve been old enough for a decade.”
Mo thought back. “I fell in love once.”
“What happened?”
Mo sat on the step of James’ house, removed his hat, and worked the brim with his hands. “My master decided to bed her, just to show me who wuz in charge.”
James got up and settled beside Mo on the steps. “I’m sorry, Son. I earned my freedom when I was a young man. How’d you earn yours?”
“Escaped! After my master took Caron, she didn’t want no part of me. Seems he offered her all sorts of favors ifin she’d...well, just made me so mad that I up and run to freedom. When the war came, I signed up. They promised freedom for every Negro man who fought fer the Union Army fer a year, and wages after that. So I fought.”
James placed a hand on Mo’s shoulder.
“I never did see Caron again, or the plantation. I heard the South ransacked the house and took most of the food, but I never saw it to knows ifin it be true or not.”
“How long were you on the run?”
“Three years. Kinda hard to hide, being as tall as I am. But I worked my way west for a spell, then went north. Figured they think I head north, so I didn’t want them to find me. I had a mean master. Some folks didn’t have it quite so bad. But I did.
“Truth be told, I think my master wuz a afraid of me, so he set out to try and scare me every chance he git. I stood head and shoulders over the man.”
James chuckled. “You’re a big one. How tall are ya?”
“The Army said six foot, nine inches. But them trousers they gave me were still a couple inches too short. So I guess I be closer to seven feet.”
James let out a slow whistle. “And how big was your master?”
Mo’s chest rumbled with laughter. “Tiny little man, maybe five foot seven.”
“No wonder he was afraid of you. You could have crushed him with one hand.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t do that. As bad as the man wuz, I couldn’t of killed him. Ain’t right to take a man’s life, no matter how bad that man is to ye. Not to say I didn’t think it a time or two, but no, God wouldn’t be pleased. War’s different. But I never git used to seein’ a man fall because of my own hands. I took more prisoners than a lot of men. Most were so full of anger they didn’t mind killin’ off every Reb they came in contact with. Just ain’t right.”
“You’re a wise man, Mo. Not too many understand and accept God’s forgiveness.”
“I wouldn’t say I’s all that wise; just tryin’ to live by the Good Book.”
* * *
“Was that Mo Greene I saw leaving here, Lizzy?” George asked as he came into the kitchen and washed his hands.
“Yes.”
George stopped drying his hands. “Is love in the air?”
“Goodness, no, George. He’s needing someone to teach him how to read and write. And don’t you be spreading that around either.”
“My lips are sealed. He’s a good man, Lizzy.”
“How do you know him? He seemed nice.”
“Met him at Ellis’ dock a time or two.” George leaned over the simmering pot. “Dinner smells great, what are we having, tonight?”
“Chicken and dumplings, just like the ones Mom used to make.” Lizzy grinned.
“Now, Sis, you’re a fine cook and all, but no one can make them like Mom,” George teased.
“Perhaps you better tell me that after you’ve eaten. I think I figured out her secret ingredient.” In fact, she’d finally gotten her mother to tell her the truth for the entire recipe. The secret ingredient was a spice in the biscuits, or rather, the right combination of spices. Lizzy grinned.
“Did I miss something?” George lifted the pot lid to the Chicken and dumplings.
“Momma, Ben’s pickin’ on me again,” Sarah whined.
“Did not.”
“Were too.” Sarah stomped her foot.
“Nah-uh, you were foolish enough to go fetch it,” Benjamin defended.
Lizzy looked at Sarah’s legs full of muck and mud, and some scratches from briars, no doubt. “Sarah, get yourself outside and cleaned up right now.”
Lizzy placed her hands on her hips, then turned toward her son and watched his grin instantly dissolve. “And you, Benjamin Joseph, what do you have to say for yourself?”
“Aww, Ma, it’s her fault. She kept daring me.”
“And you, being the older, don’t have enough sense to not let your sister’s teasing get the best of you?” She tapped her foot for emphasis.
“I’m sorry.” He bent his head low and looked at his bare toes.
“How’s a mother supposed to make a living knowing she can’t leave her young'uns at home without them getting into trouble.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’ve got work tomorrow cleaning for Mr. Sanchez. How am I to go and not concern myself with you misbehaving.”
“It won’t happen again, Mom.”
“You’re right it won’t, and you’ll be painting the chicken coup tomorrow for your Uncle George just to remind you not to get all caught up with your sister’s teasing.
“But, Ma. that ain’t fair.”
“Isn’t, not ain’t”
“But it isn’t fair, Ma. Sarah ought to have to do something too.”
“I’m the parent, I’ll decide who gets what punishment. And you’re right, life isn’t fair. Never has been; never will be.”
Benjamin held his tongue. She could see his little mind working. As for Sarah, she’d have to think up a real good punishment for her. Not only was she teasing Benjamin, but tattling as well, exonerating herself in the process, or so she thought.
George’s wife, Clarissa, walked in with her three children. “Smells great, Lizzy.” Clarissa gazed back and forth between Benjamin and Lizzy, then over to George, who nodded.
“Thank you, Clarissa. Dinner’s done cooking when everyone’s ready to come to the table,” Lizzy offered, and went to lift the large pot from the stove.
George called the household to the table. The family of three adults and seven children sat down to pray. Lizzy examined each of their faces. So many people under such a small roof. Perhaps tutoring Mo was the answer to her prayers?