MY NIGHTMARE WAS OVER, BUT ITS EFFECTS LINGERED for several weeks. I was exhausted and the wounds on my back were so painful I could hardly move for three days. Most of that time I spent in bed, relishing my freedom and never appreciating so much what it meant. The other three waited on me hand and foot. Once she saw my back, Aleta was all the more sensitive and compassionate.
The incident seemed to change us all. We knew this was no game. It was a risky adventure we had undertaken, and we were all in danger. If we hadn’t realized it before, we certainly did now, especially now that Jeremiah knew. Katie was deeply concerned about Emma and me and all the more committed to protecting us. Emma seemed quieter and more thoughtful, like she’d suddenly grown up several years in knowing that I hadn’t betrayed her, even when my own life had been at stake. I hadn’t really thought about it in those terms, but she kept saying over and over, “I can’t believe you did dat fer me, Miz Mayme. I jes’ can’t believe it!”
Aleta seemed most changed of all by what had happened. She didn’t seem like such a little girl anymore, but like she was really one of us.
But though the nightmare was past, we all knew the danger was still with us. It would always be with us as long as William McSimmons and his wife were worried about Emma and her baby. I think for the first time Katie realized just how much danger would be part of our lives from now on. But luckily, the man from the McSimmons place asking about black babies and pretending there was some disease going around never came back.
One thing I knew, and it made me sad, was that I could never visit Josepha again.
But though we expected trouble every day, no more trouble came for a time—at least of that kind—and I gradually recovered and got my strength back and began getting up and helping again with the daily chores. And after a while we settled into the old routine from before, though we were all more wary, always watching and listening for the sounds of horses coming.
September came and the crops all about Rosewood were ripening. Katie still had most of the ten dollars left from the gold coin she’d changed to smaller money and the two dollars she’d found in the pantry, and so money was the last thing we were thinking about. To girls like us, ten dollars seemed like enough to last us a lifetime.
And the fact that there was a loan coming due real soon, from when Katie’s mother had borrowed against Rosewood, was a fact that neither of us really knew what it meant. We knew that you had to pay back loans, but it never dawned on us what might happen if you didn’t.
So we didn’t think about it and didn’t realize we should be thinking about it, and all the while an even bigger danger to our scheme of keeping the plantation going was sneaking up on us a little closer with every day that passed.
Then a new danger came calling, and we suddenly had a new crisis on our hands that neither Katie or me had any idea how to get out of.
One day a carriage drove up to Rosewood. As soon as I heard it in the distance, I hurried Aleta to the blacksmith’s shed and got her pounding on the anvil. Then I hurried to light a couple of fires in the slave cabins while Katie got Emma and William into the cellar with a lantern. When the fires were lit I walked through the yard with the laundry basket we always had ready full of rags and old blankets.
I didn’t recognize who the visitor was, but Katie did. It was the man from the bank.
Katie met him outside the back door. He rode up and stopped in front of the house.
“Miss Kathleen,” he said in an abrupt tone as he started to get down from his carriage, “tell your mother I am here to see her.”
“She’s not at home, Mr. Taylor,” said Katie.
“What—after I have come all this way?”
He shook his head and let out a frustrated sigh. You could tell he was getting tired of never seeing Katie’s mother.
“I must see her,” he said. “The financial situation since you were into the bank to make that small payment has grown very serious. The balance of one hundred fifty-three dollars on your mother’s loan is due next month, and I am being pressured to take action.”
“Uh … what will happen if the loan isn’t paid, Mr. Taylor?” asked Katie.
“I am afraid I will have no choice but to begin foreclosure proceedings.”
“What does that mean?” asked Katie.
“It means that the bank will take Rosewood.”
“You mean … take the house away from my mother?”
“I am afraid so,” said the man as he climbed back into his carriage.
“You wouldn’t really do that … would you, Mr. Taylor?”
“It would not be my decision,” he replied. “I don’t own the bank, I only work for it, Kathleen. There are policies that I have to follow. Those policies protect the bank’s interests and enable it to make loans in the first place. Now I do not want to foreclose on Rosewood. I will do everything I can to help. But if your mother continues to avoid coming to talk to me, there will be nothing I can do … or that anyone can do. I am sorry. I will be sending a team of auditors out to Rosewood in a few weeks to valuate all the assets and the house. They will have to look at everything. A public notice will then go out for the auction.”
“What’s that?” asked Katie.
“When all the assets of the plantation will be sold. It will be announced in all the newspapers. Tell your mother to come see me immediately. These delays are hurting no one but her. If she doesn’t do something, and soon, she will lose everything.”
He climbed back into the seat, flicked the reins, called to his horses, then turned the carriage around as they moved off and bounced back in the direction of town.
As soon as he was gone, I asked Katie what he wanted. I could tell from her face that it was serious. She tried to explain to me what he’d said.
“Mayme,” she said, “he’s going to send people here and announce in the newspapers that Rosewood’s for sale! Everyone will find out. The bank’s going to take Rosewood away from us. They’ll find out about me and Emma and Aleta and you … everything.”
“Then we have to do something,” I said.
“How can we? He said we had to pay back the whole loan. We don’t have a hundred fifty dollars. All we’ve got is what’s left over from that one ten-dollar coin. Oh, Mayme … what are we going to do!”
“I reckon it’s time to start praying again,” I said. “God’s helped us out of every fix we’ve been in so far.”
Katie’s momentary despair was cut short as we both suddenly realized we were hearing the clanking of iron on iron coming from the blacksmith’s shed. Poor Aleta—her arm must have been about ready to fall off from pounding the hammer on the anvil!
We turned and ran toward the sound.
“He’s gone,” called Katie. “You can come out now, Aleta.”