The Blue Cloak

by Shannon McNear

  Irby could hazard no guesses either, at least none that Ben could in good conscience offer his uncle. Thomas had ever been drawn to too much drink, and cards, billiards, or games of chance, where he somehow had a knack for losing varying sums of money. Irby said he’d left off most of those on their journey, except for small change, and apart from harmless flirting with comely females along the way, seemed uninterested in dallying with women. So unless Thomas had planned to indulge in gambling or drink, without Irby there to say him nay, it made no sense why he’d insist on not traveling farther with the older man.

  If only Ben hadn’t lingered behind as long as he did. Of course, he’d little enough choice in that … but in retrospect, the business Uncle Ben had tasked him with was of little importance compared to Thomas’s life.

  “I understand your brother’s reluctance to let you go,” Ben said at last. “The Road is still an uncertain place, and he hardly knows me well enough for me to serve as escort. Even were it not improper for other reasons.”

  Rachel’s gaze flashed toward him again, and she swiped at her face with the back of her hand. “I understand it as well. Still ‘tisn’t fair.”

  The kettle steamed, and she knelt on the hearth to set tea leaves into the cups and then pour the water over them. “Sugar?” she asked Ben.

  “No, thank you.” He accepted a cup from her, curving his hands around it. She settled back into her chair with her own. The aroma of the tea while it steeped was nearly as comforting as he was sure the tea itself would be. “Hyson?” he asked.

  A glimmer of a smile appeared at the corner of her mouth then disappeared. “Aye. It’s my favorite for evenings when I can’t sleep.”

  “I can see why.”

  He breathed in the fragrant aroma again then looked up at her. Dark wisps framed her face beneath the proper cap. Dark lashes fanned across her cheekbones as she cradled her own cup, eyes closed. The wrapper rendered her figure shapeless, hunched as she was in the chair.

  “Life is full of unfairness,” he found himself saying.

  Her eyes snapped open. She straightened a little, lips compressing, and blew out a breath through her nose. “I do realize that. But why should she suffer for her husband’s crimes, if she had naught to do with it?” Her gaze dropped back to her tea. “I cannot believe she had anything do to with such unspeakable things.”

  “I tend to agree,” he said slowly.

  Her eyes came to his again, deep wells of distress in the firelight. His own heart throbbed in response.

  Thomas, Thomas, how could you have left us in such a predicament?

  And, God, for the love of all that’s holy, the young woman in question is the daughter of a minister. Would You leave Your own at the mercy of men like these?

  He shifted, folding one leg and bringing the other knee up, then tasted the tea. It was, as he suspected, very good.

  Rachel sighed again. “I should not burden you with this. It was your cousin, after all, who died so horribly.”

  It was true, yet … “And still God saw fit to have us meet, and share this connection.” Another sip—oh, it was good—while he gazed, narrow eyed, into the fire. “What if … what if I offered to serve as defense for Sally at least, when they come to trial in April? Would that ease your mind at least a little?”

  Rachel gaped at him. “Why would you agree to such a thing, under these circumstances?”

  “Well.” He wrapped both hands around the cup. “They already have a prosecuting attorney—Thomas Todd, the brother-in-law of Thomas’s older sister Mary.”

  “Too many Thomases,” Rachel muttered, mouth twitching, then buried her nose in her cup.

  Ben laughed. “And Benjamins, and Marys, and—Rachels too.”

  That wrung a brief chuckle from her. “So very true.”

  “I’ve no idea if they’d even allow me to serve as defense, officially or otherwise, with Judge Todd as prosecution, but I can at least ask.”

  Tears filled Rachel’s eyes again.

  “And,” he went on, “I’ve no idea if it would even make a difference, but I’ll try.”

  “I … thank you.”

  She unbent one arm as if to extend her hand then curled the fingers again as if reconsidering the gesture. But Ben reached over and covered her hand with his. “You are most welcome. As much as I desire to see justice done, it would be wrong not to speak for the innocent.”

  Her fingers uncurled and her hand shifted to lightly clasp his. “There is no justice if the innocent are not also tended.”

  “Precisely.”

  He stared for a moment at their joined hands then lifted his gaze to her eyes, wide and fathomless. The firelight touched the planes of her face and lent—was that startlement?—to her expression.

  She was easily the loveliest thing he’d seen out here on the frontier.

  “Will you be returning home to Tennessee anytime soon, or are you planning to stay on here, with your brother and sister-in-law?” He raised his cup to sip his tea without releasing her hand.

  She drank as well, glancing away into the fire. “I’m here for as long as Anne needs me, I reckon.” She blinked. “Another reason why I shouldn’t go traipsing off to see Sally. The baby has been a little fretful, although others say he’ll grow out of it.”

  Ben smiled. “I’ve little enough experience with babies, so I’m afraid I can’t address that.”

  Rachel’s lips curved as she sipped her tea again. “Well, it stands to reason, we do grow out of it eventually. At least,” and she grinned, “most folk do. There are some who stay fretful all their lives.”

  He had to chuckle at that. “Very true.” Their hands slipped apart, and feeling keenly the sudden separation, he scrubbed his fingers through his hair. “There is a matter I need your help with on the morrow.”

  “Oh?”

  “If I could get your assistance selecting clothing of a style worn more customarily in this part of the country than my own …?”

  Her smile blossomed once more, with but an edge of teasing. “I can most certainly do that.”

  “I heard y’all talking after I thought we’d all gone to bed last night,” Daniel drawled over breakfast the next morning.

  Rachel felt her cheeks burning and spared him but a glance.

  Ben she would not look at, at all.

  “What was so important that you needed to discuss so late?” her brother pressed, a grin lurking behind his beard.

  Anne smirked as well, but her gaze was likewise searching.

  “Sally,” Rachel answered shortly, and bit into her bacon with studied relish.

  Still she felt the weight of his eyes.

  “It’s too dangerous to let you go,” Daniel said.

  “The Harpes are locked up now.”

  His good humor dissolved into a scowl. “You know as well as I do that they’re by no means the only ones preying on travelers.”

  She huffed, her desperation rising. “We could wait until a larger group comes up the road and accompany them.”

  “At this time of year? Highly unlikely. And where would you lodge?”

  Ben’s gaze flicked between them. Swallowing a bite of food, he patted his mouth with a napkin and shifted in his chair. “She would be more than welcome at my cousin Stephen’s house in Stanford, and the ordinary where I’m staying in Danville has plenty of room.”

  Daniel shot him a dark glance. “You can speak for your cousin?”

  “With reasonable certainty, yes.”

  He sat back, still looking unhappy.

  “If that doesn’t suit,” Ben said, turning to Rachel, “I’d be happy to take Sally a letter.”

  She forced herself to take a deep breath and pushed down her frustration. “I suppose I’ll have to content myself with that. But when the weather warms, brother—” She threw Daniel her own challenging glare.

  He remained completely unmoved by it. Not that she blamed him, but she could not find words enough to explain the need that pressed upon her
heart to go see Sally for herself, to embrace her old friend and whisper the things she was longing to say face-to-face and not merely in a letter.

  But a letter would have to do.

  Chapter Nine

  February 7, 1799

  The hours wore away into the dead of night, illuminated by the lanterns of the midwife and her assistant, the silence broken by Betsey’s heaving breaths and occasional soft moans, interspersed by the whispered direction and encouragement of the midwife.

  Sally had only been present at one other birth, and that was at her mama’s last time before Sally was married. Even through the strangeness of witnessing her own mother’s travail and delivery, Sally had felt a joy and anticipation infuse the occasion. But there was no joy here. Only the sorrow of a child born in jail to an uncertain future, to a father who Sally knew was as guilty of the charges against him as the day was long—and a mother who hadn’t even the protection of that father’s name or legal bond.

  While Susan paced the cell at Betsey’s side between pains, letting the other woman lean on her during, Sally sat curled in the corner, wrapped not only in her own tattered blanket but another besides that some kind soul had offered. She watched, offered occasional prayers on Betsey’s behalf, and tried hard not to think about how she’d be travailing herself, very soon.

  She also tried hard not to think about Wiley and Micajah, just over on the other side of the building. That was possibly the one good thing about being in jail—being out from under the men’s demands for the past several weeks.

  If only she could be free of them forever.

  The cadence of Betsey’s breathing changed, and her whimpering changed to a deeper groan. “Nearly time now,” the midwife said, and bustled about, laying out supplies from her basket.

  Sally curled more tightly in on herself. Her own babe kicked and squirmed.

  Stay inside, little one, as long as you can….

  Before long, they had Betsey seated on a birthing stool, and with Susan on one side and the midwife’s assistant on the other, the midwife crouched before her. Betsey struggled and strained, and then to the sighs and coos of the other women, her babe emerged with what sounded for all the world like a cry of protest.

  In short order, they had Betsey cleaned up and tucked into her bed, the babe at her breast. “A fine, healthy boy,” the midwife pronounced, and if sadness edged her voice, rather than the usual joy and excitement Sally had always heard after the births of her sisters and brothers, no one could blame her.

  “I’m going to call him Joseph,” Betsey said.

  What sort of future could this child hope for, in such circumstances, with such a father as Micajah?

  What could any of them hope for?

  Susan’s child, a girl, arrived early in the morning, one day short of a month later. Two months now they’d all lain at the Danville jail. Still a little more than a month to go before the trial. The closer they got, the more restless Sally felt.

  The wait was driving them all half mad, though they were treated well enough and the jailer had even provided both Betsey and Susan with hyson tea, sugar, and ginger during their lying-in. Betsey’s baby was a little fretful, but not bad as babies went—and Sally had some experience there, with her younger brothers and sisters. He was so tiny, and since they’d nothing else to do with their time, Betsey cuddled and rocked him, swaddling him against her chest near every minute.

  Sally expected Susan to be an indifferent mother by comparison, but she wasn’t. Susan tended her babe with an intentness and capability that amazed Sally.

  Suspicion stole through her. Could it be this wasn’t the first babe that Susan had borne?

  About the third day, while watching Susan change her little one’s clout, Sally sidled closer. She put a fingertip in the middle of the baby’s palm and was rewarded by tiny fingers curling around it. Such a beautiful child, with abundant black curls and big, dark eyes. “Lovey fits her,” Sally murmured.

  Susan dimpled and for a moment looked almost—pretty.

  What must the harsh, rawboned woman have looked like back when—well, when she was younger? Before Micajah?

  And just how long ago was that?

  “Of course,” Sally added, aside to Betsey, “Little Joe is a sweet baby too.”

  It had been an unaccountable relief to her that the boy had a matching full head of dark curls, rather than the fiery hair of Wiley.

  Not that such a thing altered the fact that there was good reason he might have.

  Betsey also flashed a smile as she paced back and forth in their cell.

  “Not long now before your time,” Susan said, eyeing Sally.

  She leaned forward without comment, stroking Lovey’s ever-so-soft hair and the tiny, wrinkled forehead.

  “Did you”—she pushed the words out before she could lose her nerve—“did you have any others?” A quick glance at Betsey. “Either of you?”

  The women exchanged a long look. Betsey drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, but did not reply. Susan finished tying Lovey’s clout and swaddled her again in the child-sized blanket someone had given her, then moved her bodice aside and put Lovey to her breast.

  Sally sat back and waited.

  “None that we were allowed to keep,” Susan said at last, very low.

  There was another exchanged glance. Sally suddenly could not breathe.

  Oh little one … stay inside.

  March 16, 1799

  “They’ve escaped.”

  Ben looked up from the letter he was writing and blinked at the clerk of court. It was already too early, and unable to sleep, he’d risen before dawn to finish the letter.

  “The Robertses. Or Harpes. Or whatever they’re actually called. Micajah and Wiley. They’ve broken out of jail.”

  “What?” Ben was up from his chair without thought, snatching his coat from the settee nearby.

  A crowd had gathered around the jail, goggling at the gaping hole where once a barred window had stood.

  “How did they do it?” Ben asked the clerk.

  The man spread his hands. “No one knows.”

  Ben edged closer to examine the damage then without consulting anyone, walked around to the other side of the jail. Someone was already there, door open, speaking with the women. With a nod to the guard, Ben slipped inside as well.

  “We heard a terrific noise in the middle of the night, is all,” Susan was saying as she cuddled her newborn against her shoulder, her own eyes wide with a look of alarm, or innocence, that could not be completely unfeigned—though doubtless the woman was doing her best.

  Ben released a breath. He should not judge before she even stood trial.

  “So they broke out and left y’all behind?”

  The three women exchanged glances that ranged from perplexed to miserable. “’Pears so,” Susan said.

  He studied her. Was that cheer, relief, or simply resignation that lightened her tone? It was nearly impossible to tell. Betsey, now, just stared off to the side, her month-old child fussing in her arms, while Sally sat on her cot, leaning against the wall.

  “I’ll be asking to speak with each of you later,” Ben said.

  “I want to go.”

  Daniel slammed his hand down on the table. “If it was too dangerous two months ago, it’s even more so now.”

  Rachel pressed her lips together and held his gaze. “I want to be there for the trial.”

  Chewing a bite of bacon, he shook his head, a slow wag at first and then more emphatically. “What in the world are you thinking? With the Harpe boys on the loose again, Pa would have my hide—and with good reason—if I let you travel right now.”

  “Sally needs someone there,” Rachel said stubbornly. “Someone who—who remembers who she was, before. Who can help her remember.”

  Daniel favored her with a baleful stare. Throat closing up and her eyes stinging, Rachel rose from the table and carried her plate back to the sideboard.

  “Where are you going?”


  “Downstairs to begin work.” She tried not to snap but couldn’t quite keep the tightness from her voice.

  “Dan, I can spare her if there’s any way—”

  Anne’s soft entreaty floated across the room after her, as Rachel made for the door. It was childish of her to go in such a way, but the heaviness would not be denied this morning, and she could not contain the tears.

  She pounded down the stairs and dashed into the storage room, to a back corner where she tucked herself on a short stool. Bending, she buried her face in her hands. Lord God, maybe Dan is right and I’m being frivolous about this, but please make a way for me to see Sally. You tell us to visit those in prison. And You know how much she needs someone.

  Ben’s latest letter said that she’d softened a little since Micajah and Wiley had escaped. The trial would go on as scheduled, beginning with Susan, as the oldest of the women. He’d no way of telling which way things would go, but he remained hopeful that some way would present itself for extricating at least Sally from her circumstances.

  Please, Lord. Let it be that she’s delivered from all this. Even if I cannot be there.

  Peace settled over Rachel, and she dried her face and went on to get the post’s day started.

  Late that afternoon, a small wagon train pulled into their station and set up camp for the night, not a noteworthy event in and of itself. Travelers visited the post, as always, and at one point she saw Daniel in deep conversation with one of the men, over to the side, but she thought nothing of it. Business remained brisk, and after that morning, she was glad to stay occupied.

  With the days lengthening, she and Daniel had agreed to keep the post open a little later, but it was just after sunset, with a spring shower freshening the breeze, when a lone rider stopped and dismounted. Dressed as nearly every other man in a hunting coat and black felt hat, she nearly did not recognize him, but—she knew that horse.

  Her breath caught in her throat. Ben—here? Today of all days?

  She hesitated but a moment then left the counter and ran outside.

  He turned as she emerged onto the porch, and even in the dusk she could see the gladness lighting his blue eyes.