The Blue Cloak

by Shannon McNear

  Her father stopped, blinking behind his spectacles before the dark eyes narrowed. “Let me think on that a bit. In the meantime—” He lifted the letter and fluttered it. “Dan and Anne are requesting your presence a little sooner than expected, Rachel. But likely better now than once winter sets in.”

  Rachel clutched her list and pencil to her middle. “But I’m not yet ready for the journey. And who will escort me? You can’t yet get away.”

  Pa rubbed his bearded chin as Mr. Wheeler opened his mouth to speak, but it was his son Isaac who snapped to attention first and sputtered, “Why, we could carry her up the road to Cumberland Gap and over, couldn’t we, Dad?”

  Going that route was still a novelty, since opening the year before last to wagon traffic, and the boy had obvious wanderlust to be fed in the process.

  “Mebbe,” Mr. Wheeler said, evenly, as if he didn’t care, but Rachel had already seen the twinkle in his eyes.

  It was a done deal, she knew.

  Preparation took surprisingly less time than expected. Mr. Wheeler expressed his willingness to stay an extra day, beyond the accustomed rest of the Sabbath, but Rachel had been planning this so long that packing was a rather quick affair. And Sunday meeting afforded her the opportunity to say farewell to nearly anyone she might wish.

  Except … Sally.

  After her wedding a year ago, Sally had attended Sunday meeting more and more seldom. The perplexity of her family over such a thing was obvious—and at first it was said that the distance must simply be too great, but then the looks became more pained, and the questions died to whispers.

  Rachel herself had thought little of it—living on the frontier often meant occasional attendance at best. And she’d heard that Sally’s new husband and brother-in-law were doing brisk business, supplying John Miller with sheep and hogs for meat.

  Then came the day when Sally visited the Taylors’ trading post, and while looking at a display, shied like an unbroken yearling at Rachel’s approach. But when Rachel threw her arms around her, Sally held on, trembling, like she was drowning.

  “My dear friend! What is it?”

  “Oh.” Sally drew back, her once-bright and direct gaze falling, shifting, going anywhere but to Rachel’s. “It is—nothing. Truly. I am—well.”

  With her hands still on Sally’s shoulders, Rachel peered into her friend’s face. “You don’t seem well. Is aught amiss?”

  A better question would be, What is amiss? She knew this.

  Sally glanced past Rachel. Her face went pale, then her blue eyes met Rachel’s, wide and imploring. “Pray for me. Please. Just—pray for me.”

  Her hands pressed Rachel’s for but an instant before she scuttled away, to where Wiley stood near the door, with an expression somewhere between distress and a glower.

  And in the months following came the whispers—that Big and Little Harpe’s business was not entirely on the level. News of one neighbor’s barn burning down, then another. Occasional glimpses of Sally were never without the presence of two other women, one tall and gaunt and the other smallish like Sally—and as the weather grew colder, the tall woman wore the unmistakable blue cloak Rachel had given Sally as a gift.

  Why that seemed more troubling than anything else, Rachel could not say.

  She’d not been able to get close enough to Sally after that for conversation, but some said that Big Harpe had himself married. And then, closer to summer, it was said the Harpes had all simply disappeared.

  God in heaven, keep her safe, wherever she is.

  September 1798

  Pittsylvania County, Virginia

  Benjamin Langford stepped inside the tavern and scanned its close, dark, smoky interior. The object of his search sat at a table over by the far wall, the angle at which he leaned in his chair and the way his arm encircled the tankard giving away just how long he’d been there.

  Without a word, he marched across the room, hauled his cousin up by the scruff of his coat and one arm, and dragged him outside.

  Thomas knew better than to do much besides twitch and sputter—at least until they were outside. There, he shook himself free and, between glares, straightened his coat and brushed off his breeches. “Blast it all, Ben, why must you be such a killjoy?”

  “For the same reason I’m always tasked with fetching you, I suppose.” Ben folded his arms. “I like it no better than you, but you refuse to listen to anyone else.”

  “So what is it this time?”

  “Your father bids you home.”

  Thomas released an actual growl.

  “What? You know he isn’t well. Have some consideration for your own sire.”

  His cousin continued to glare, weaving now on his feet. “Just because you are his namesake, you think you can push me about?”

  Ben had the strongest desire to roll his eyes—or just thump his cousin insensible and save himself the trouble. “You’re cross only because you’ve drunk too much.” Or more honest about his true feelings because of it, but his normally cheerful cousin often grew morose with too much strong drink.

  At least whenever Ben appeared.

  “And my father summons me.” Thomas’s voice took a mocking edge. “Or so you say.”

  “In truth,” Ben said. The exasperation was beginning to erode his patience. “He is not well and wishes to speak with you.”

  “More like, he has a task he wishes accomplished, but will not discommode you.” Thomas sighed noisily. “Very well, let us be on our way. Now, what might I have done with my horse?”

  “You walked,” Ben answered evenly, nudging his cousin into motion.

  “Ah. So I did. How convenient.”

  Thomas wobbled, and Ben took his arm more firmly. “Steady now. And you wonder why I feel the need to come after you.”

  “I don’t wonder,” he muttered, but Ben let it go unanswered.

  Perhaps another bit of honesty seeping through.

  They arrived back at the Langford town house with no further incident. Thomas’s mother, Henrietta, a petite, plump woman dressed in the latest high-waisted fashion, her hair carefully curled but covered with a proper pinner cap, met them, clucking over Thomas’s unsteady state—which was much improved by the walk. “Your father is in the garden,” she said at last, and despite her warm smile to Ben, he could read the worry and dismay in her features.

  A quick embrace and buss on the forehead did much to soften the look, however, and then he followed after Thomas.

  A stone path weaved amid the sculpted hedges, red now with autumn, banks of lilies artistically placed to seem as though they’d sprung up on their own, and clumps of still-fragrant herbs. At once like the gardens he’d wandered during his year in England, and yet unlike. Near its center, bending to smell a lone white rose bloom, stood his uncle, “Pitt Ben,” the graying sheriff of Pittsylvania County, Virginia. Thomas stood a few paces off, shifting from one foot to another, hands sliding into pockets.

  At least he had the good grace to be ill at ease.

  Ben held back, but his uncle straightened and beckoned him closer, all the while regarding his youngest with obvious frustration.

  “I have been considering, Thomas, what you told me you’d be most interested in doing with your life,” Ben’s uncle said.

  Thomas straightened, just a little. His father definitely had his attention.

  Clasping his hands behind him, Ben’s uncle walked back and forth a few steps. “I have been concerned for Mary and the children, since Richard died. She assures me that her situation with her brother-in-law Judge Todd is yet beneficial to all of them, but, as a father, I’d like more than her letters for reassurance. So, Thomas, I have decided to approve your request to travel to Kentucky, on the condition that you first visit your sister and write me immediately regarding anything she may need.” He fixed the young man with another hard look. “And whatever you do, aye, look for a situation for yourself. Perhaps your brother, Stephen, will take pity on you and assist you in finding something.�
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  “Thank you, Father,” Thomas said, in tones of astonishment.

  “And you.” The penetrating gaze swung toward Ben. “As much as I would prefer your accompanying him, I think it best to send you a little after. That is, if you are willing.”

  Ben found himself with the urge to fidget as well, as his uncle’s words only seemed to lend credence to Thomas’s assertion that he was the favorite. “I am,” he answered mildly.

  Thomas, of course, only shot him a baleful glare. “Told you,” he mouthed.

  But it was to Thomas that his uncle turned and ushered away with a hand upon his shoulder, strolling down the flagged pathway toward the house. Ben lagged behind, allowing them their privacy.

  There were things he’d wanted as well, truth be told. Some of them involved venturing west, and exploring that vastness referred so often to as “the Wilderness,” populated by wild animals and even wilder men.

  And that included white men as well as red. Perhaps even more so.

  Ben absently patted the pocket of his coat, feeling the crackle of the letter inside. “There is great need for law on the frontier,” Hugh White had written. Half raised on the frontier himself, yet with a strength and gentility to rival anyone in Ben’s own family, his school chum spoke often of his beloved Tennessee while they attended law school together, and how he longed to return and serve the folk there. Ben envied Hugh’s vision and passion. Could he himself find a sense of purpose out there in the wilderness, at least something greater than looking after a wastrel cousin?

  He snorted softly and watched said cousin and his father tread the path ahead of him. Hugh had also alluded to a particular feminine personage he found particularly worthy of notice—a veiled hint, no doubt, that Ben should also find her of interest. Perhaps if Thomas settled upon a place and occupation out in Kentucky, Ben might find the leisure to go and see what Hugh found so interesting. He surely wouldn’t have any such luxury until then.

  The Tennessee wilderness, north of Knoxville

  It had been a warm enough fall day, but evening was coming. And doubtless with it, the frost.

  And there might be rain.

  Please, Lord, don’t let there be rain.

  As if God would listen to her prayers. He hadn’t seemed to be paying any attention at all this past year and more.

  Sally drew her knees up closer to her chest, and wrapping her arms around her legs, curled as tightly as she could. A bed of moss and leaves softened the timber floor, and tucked here in her little nest, surrounded by brush, she could almost pretend she was yet a child, innocent and carefree.

  Before Wiley. Before any of the Harpes, and the mockery they made of marriage.

  A flutter in her lower belly startled her. She flinched and looked down. It came again, first the sensation of something tiny brushing against her insides, then—a most definite tap, tap-tap.

  Oh. Dear Lord, it’s true.

  A rush of emotion flooded her—panic, joy, terror, elation—and wetness flooded her eyes. She’d known for weeks, with the cessation of her monthly woman’s time, that she was likely with child.

  Whose, she could not say.

  A wave of nausea, hot and heavy, rolled over her, with the memory of Wiley’s voice, cursing.

  “She’s mine! You agreed it would stay that way.”

  “I agreed to no such thing. We share. Everything. As we shared Honey and Tunney. And in return I keep us safe. Do not forget the Cherokee. Or Dunn.”

  More cursing, such as Sally had never heard in all her born days. “You are a filthy son of a slave, Big.”

  Micajah’s smile was slow and terrifying. “’Twould be sad to leave your little wife a widow.”

  Wiley caught his breath then released one last curse before turning away.

  “See? It’s better this way. You still have a chance at getting a child on her for yourself.”

  He didn’t only take her—but he did it in plain sight of everyone, with muttered endearments borne on what felt like the hot breath of hell itself.

  After, she dragged herself outside to the necessary and heaved until only bile came up.

  And after, Susan and Betsey were nicer to her and began to include her in their conversations.

  She was truly a Harpe now, they said. And at least Wiley had been her first. He was the gentler of the two.

  But woe be upon any of them if they conceived a child. A baby’s life would be worth nothing, especially to Big. When the men weren’t about, the women slipped her seeds that they promised would keep her barren. It must have worked, because their courses came as expected all through the first fall and winter.

  But then, come spring, their supply of seeds ran out. And there was no time to find more—or think about what to do instead—because the men came home from selling hogs, all in a lather, ordering them to pack up. While Sally scrambled beside Susan and Betsey to gather what they needed, the men left again and returned with a brace of horses. Fine ones.

  Sally knew they couldn’t have been purchased honestly.

  In less than a day, then, they launched into the wilderness, headed straight north from Beaver Creek, on a path so faint and narrow it could hardly be called a track—but Big and Little seemed to be familiar with it, and to have no hesitation about wherever they were going.

  The cabin they’d left behind seemed a mansion now.

  Just a few days later, it became apparent that someone was in pursuit. A mounted party led by men Sally thought she recognized overtook them, and in the scuffle, Susan and Betsey dragged Sally away into the brush. “Naught to do now but hide,” Susan muttered, as they found a place to huddle together, deep under cover of the wild forest.

  And here they’d been, for three days. Susan insisted the men would be back. She and Betsey talked of finding their way northward, to Big’s father, Old Man Roberts. Sally contemplated slipping away southward, to her own family, and something of her thoughts must have shown on her face, because Susan looked at her then leaned in and hissed, “Don’t even think about running away. He’ll only find you again.”

  Sally didn’t have to ask who “he” was.

  But Susan couldn’t stop her from at least thinking about it. Or wishing she could have one more conversation with Daddy and Mama.

  “Be a good wife,” Daddy had admonished her, “and he’ll be good to you.”

  If that was true, she must be doing something horribly wrong, for Wiley to treat her so. Maybe she only needed to try harder to be what he wanted.

  Maybe then he’d have found her worth fighting for, and wouldn’t have just handed her over to Big.

  And now—here she was, with child. What would become of them?

  The thoughts were still swirling, back and forth, ebb and flow, like floodwaters on the river, pulling her along with a strength she could not deny, when Big and Little reappeared.

  Just as Susan said they would.

  Both filthy and reeking, yet possessed of a strange, dark jubilation. They’d escaped from Tiel and his men—just slipped away out from under the posse’s noses, Micajah crowed.

  Sally doubted that detail but dared not question it.

  The men had next gone to a tavern west of Knoxville, intending just a drop of refreshment, but wound up in a scrape. Wiley proudly displayed a knife wound to his chest. “Take more than this to bring down a Harpe,” he growled.

  Sally fussed over him as the two men continued their story, but what had begun as merely a tall tale fell sharply into horror.

  “Johnson sure willnae ever rat on us again,” Micajah said, laughing, his Scots brogue thicker than ever.

  She could no longer bear listening and walked away into the forest, limbs shaking so that she could hardly stand. Heavy footsteps followed her.

  “Sunny,” came Wiley’s voice, but she refused to turn.

  His hand came down on her shoulder, hard and painful, yanking her around. His face was cruel and thunderous.

  “Dinnae you be walking away from me,” he s
aid at last, in menacing tones. “Dinnae you ever walk away.” When she didn’t reply, he went on, “You are my wife. Part and parcel of this.”

  “Am I still your wife?” she whispered, barely above a whisper. “You handed me over to your brother.”

  He leaned in close. “Which makes you even more part of this.”

  Oh, he stank—and of something more than hogs and man-sweat. It was blood and death, she was sure. But when she turned her face away, unable to bear the smell, he grabbed her jaw and pulled her back again.

  “Look at me, Sunny.”

  “My name is Sally. And you stink.”

  His fingers squeezed until she thought her bones would crack. “I dinnae know what kind of fancy you thought you was getting here, but we are man and wife before any court in the land, and before God Himself. You cannae get out of this.”

  She pulled in a long, slow breath, lifted her eyelashes to meet his furious gaze, and gathered every ounce of her courage. “You are not the man I married. And God would not approve of your use of me.”

  With a growl, he let go but only to backhand her. She fell, a squeal escaping despite her best attempt to muffle it. She tried to scramble away, but he overtook her, both hands rough upon her body.

  “I’ll show you ‘use,’” he snarled, and proceeded to prove just how futile were her thoughts of escape.

  Chapter Three

  December 11, 1798

  Moddrell’s Station, Kentucky

  Rachel tucked the shawl more tightly about herself against the chill lingering at the edges of the room, stacked high with goods, and went to peek out the window at the gathering clouds, bringing evening gloom earlier than usual. There’d be snow tonight, unless she missed her guess. The air held the cold tang of it.

  Out at the hitching rail, a man was dismounting, and glancing this way and that, tethered his horse before heading for the door of the trading post. Rachel reached for the broom beside the window and started sweeping. It was always better to appear busy when folk walked in, but she’d perfected the art of observing from the corner of her eye.