was your father when you were a baby?”
“No! No mi father,” she shook her head and then stopped as if the movement pained her. She pointed to her chest and then to the sky. “Father from Dios, you call God. Father come to hacienda to say to God, ‘be good baby.’”
Unsure what she was trying to say, Chris set the cup back on the table and pondered what to do next. Her English was much better than he had expected, but even so, he wasn’t even sure what her name was now. How would they ever get her back to her people if he didn’t even know her name?
“Master Chris, I heard tell that some people call their minister ‘Father,’” Nana Ruth suggested.
“She’s talking about a minister?”
“Ain’t most babies christened by a minister?” Nana’s question made sense, but then it still left the girl without a name.
Turning back to their patient, he slowly asked, “What is your name?”
“Mi Vic-kee-ta.” She pointed to herself. “Maria Victoria Ruiz Torres. Vic-kee-ta.”
“They call you Vicky?” Her beaming smile completely transformed her face, and for the first time, she looked like a woman, not a young girl. That smile made him want to say the word again just to make her happy.
“So where do you live?”
“Hacienda Ruiz.” Her eyes flashed pride and fear at the same time.
At least he knew where that was. He’d be able to take her back to her people without too much problem, once she was ready to travel—assuming she wanted to return. Something in her eyes made him wonder why she had left the hacienda to begin with.
“How did you end up in the forest all by yourself?” The questions wanted to pour out all at once, but the confusion on her face told him that she hadn’t understood.
“Master Chris, why don’t I get the girl some of that soup you got on the fire. I dare say she’s plum worn out, and a little warm soup might just loosen up her tongue.”
Nana Ruth made to get up off the chair. “Sit back, Nana. I’ll see to this.” He laid a hand on the older woman’s shoulder until he felt her relax into the chair.
“Now, this just ain’t right, Master Chris.”
“Nana, you’ve had your years of serving, and you’ve done a good job. Now it’s my turn.”
“It ain’t fittin’ for you to be servin’ me, Master Chris.”
“We’re not in South Carolina anymore, Nana, and last I checked, God’s word said to care for our family. You just about raised me from the time I could roll over in my crib.”
Taking two bowls down from the shelves, he partially filled both, set a spoon in each one and then pulled the tea off the hook over the fire, poured it into two tin cups and then added some fresh milk.
“Now, don’t let your mother hear you say such a thing, Master Chris! Why, she’d be mighty upset.”
He set the first bowl and cup on the table next to Nana’s elbow and then returned to the stove. “Good thing she’s not here to find out, isn’t it?” He chuckled as he returned to his guest’s side.
Setting the cup and soup bowl on the chest next to the bed, he sat in the chair facing Vicky.
“You eat and no give me?” Vicky’s astonished expression and the disapproval in her eyes made him chuckle. Did she really think he’d be so rude as to eat in front of her without offering? Little did she know about good old Southern hospitality.
“Of course not, Vicky.” Nana had left some toweling next to the bed, and he draped it over Vicky from shoulder to shoulder. Picking up the bowl, he dipped the spoon into the steaming broth, ladled out some and blew on it like Nana Ruth had done for him as a child. Somehow, this situation felt very different. He raised the spoon and blew a little more. “Now, let’s see how you like my cooking.”
“I no baby.” Indignation darkened her already jet-black eyes so much that he couldn’t distinguish the iris from the pupil. Her jaw tightened, and he actually feared for her teeth.
“I know you are not a baby, but you can’t move your right arm. Nana tied it to your side, and the soup is too hot for you to manage one-handed.” The furrows in her forehead didn’t relax, but she opened her mouth when he lifted the spoon. Sitting back, he waited for her verdict. It wasn’t long in coming.
“No tiene sabor.” She wrinkled her nose at the food but opened her mouth again for more.
“Is there something wrong with my soup?” Chris asked. He had never bothered to learn to cook until this last year when Nana’s arthritis started to act up so bad that some mornings she couldn’t even get out of bed. To Chris, making soup consisted of chopping up meat, a few carrots and maybe some potatoes and letting it all boil throughout the day while he saw to his chores. It might not have been as appetizing as something Nana would have made, but it kept spirit and body together for another day. Nana Ruth had never complained, but perhaps that was because of the guilt she felt for not being able to work anymore.
Using the edge of the towel that had kept his poorly aimed attempts at feeding the girl from soaking her, he wiped her chin where some soup had trickled down. Almost as quickly as Vicky had finished off her soup, she fell back to sleep. Thankfully, this time she seemed to rest peacefully. How young and vulnerable she looked as she slept.
He suddenly felt a surprising desire to protect her, and it caught him off guard. He stood up quickly, nearly upending his chair. He’d felt a need to protect others before, and it had never worked out well for him. In fact, it had caused him nothing but pain. The last thing he wanted to do was go down that path again. But he wasn’t about to abandon this young woman.
“You’ll be safe here, Vicky,” he heard himself say. But who was he to promise such things? He had failed to protect others before, and he knew he shouldn’t let himself get wrapped up in Vicky’s dilemmas. She was better off without his help. If not for saving him, she’d probably be at home, hale and happy and surrounded by those who loved her.
His own baby sister, Nelly, had tumbled right off the porch when they were just tots. His father had taken him to the woodshed for that. He’d been overprotective of her from that day on and so relieved when Matt came along and took the job from him.
The whole reason he’d sold the plantation, left his mother living with Nelly and Matt and sailed months on end around the very southern tip of South America to come to the wilderness territory of Mexico was so that he could be far removed from the horrible way that some humans treated others, be where no one would bother him or depend on him while he built his own farm. He would never again sit around and let the forced labor of others benefit him.
He thought of Ezequiel, one of the younger slaves he’d been so happy to free after his father died. Ezequiel had tried to behave as a free man in a world that wasn’t ready for him to be free, and he’d paid with his life. Chris would probably feel responsible for Ezequiel’s death until his own.
No, the last thing he needed was to have someone under his care. He clearly wasn’t good at it.
Of course, from the start, he had to take care of Nana Ruth and Jebediah because they had nowhere to go when other freed slaves left for the north. They were too old to start over and had no living children who could take care of them in their later years. He had done everything in his power to provide and protect them, but even here, five years after they built the cabins and barn, a trio of outlaws came and killed Jebediah. Chris had managed to fight off the three bandits, but he wasn’t able to save Jebediah.
The old slave had been more of a mentor and father to him than his own father had. Instead of enjoying his last years on earth peacefully living in a small town with someone looking out for him and his wife, he’d spent the last of his strength helping to build the cabin, barn and all the other outbuildings plus working with the livestock. Chris should