My brother, meanwhile, remained keen on our original plan to visit the Standen-Gale place this afternoon.
That made no sense. “If you want to see Marian Gale, go see her.” On the way out of the cabin, I flared my eyes at him. “You don’t need us to accompany you.”
He sighed and shuffled behind Daniel and me.
In the end, we all trudged across the clearing to do what we could to rid the field of rocks, but we worked slowly. Our quandaries demanded so much energy, we had little to spare for chores. My gravest concern was Rachel. She’d seemed so troubled this morning, so terribly sad.
Clouds filled the sky, snuffing out the sun, and the wind picked up. Leaving the men behind, I headed for the cabin to collect my coat and had just reached the doorway when, for the third time that day, our road was enlivened with the clatter of another’s approach.
It was Phineas and the Welds brothers. In the lead, the former charged into the scant clearing on Sweetheart; the latter drove their yoke of oxen, hell-for-leather. They arrived in the spit and crunch of pounded rocks. Beside me, Fancy barked like mad.
When the dust settled, my pulse leaped. Where was Rachel?
As if I’d voiced my worry aloud, a ghastly white Ed leaped from the wagon, ran forward with his hands flapping the air, and screeched, “She’s missing! Lord help us, we lost her. There one second, gone the next.” He sent up a terrible howl before falling to his knees in the small yard and blubbering into his hands.
I stared. “You lost her?”
Phineas and Robert reached us. Daniel and Gid had started hurrying our way, too.
Drying his perspiring face with his coat sleeve, Robert booted Ed in the back. “Get up.”
Instead, his brother pitched forward until he was flat on the ground, facedown. “I want to go home,” he cried into the dirt. “I miss Mother. I hate it here.”
Heart pounding, I raised my eyes to Phineas. “What does Ed mean, they lost her?”
He gazed blindly past me.
I slapped my forehead. “Phin! What happened to Rachel?”
Appearing beside me, Daniel gripped Phineas’s arm, a contact that had the promising effect of jolting Phineas into speech. “I don’t know what happened. Just that she’s missing.” He plowed his hands through his hair. “I encountered the brothers on Oak Orchard. They were heading here.”
Pouring sweat, Gid joined us and asked breathlessly, “What happened?”
“We lost Rachel at the sociable,” Robert said crossly, as if he was tired of repeating himself. “Figured we’d better get you. We need to form a search party.”
“What? Lost…?” Gid breathed a disbelieving sound. “What were you thinking, Bob? You’ve wasted valuable time. You had an entire gathering of folks who could be searching as we speak.”
I held my head. Rachel’s missing. Rachel’s missing. This information repeated but eluded me. I couldn’t grasp the thought. It was inconceivable.
Ed released a sob.
Robert scowled and retorted, “We didn’t have anyone to help us. They’re all foxed. We’d be, too, if we hadn’t been so queasy from last night and too sick to lick another drop of spirits. Not a single person there would be of use to us.”
“Explain what happened,” Daniel said.
Robert’s forehead puckered. “Cousin Rachel, sour-faced as ever I saw her, said she needed some air away from the reek of smoke. She stepped out but never stepped back in. By the time I thought to go look for her—”
“How long would you say that was?” I asked.
“Maybe a half hour, maybe an hour…” He shrugged. “She was gone.”
Phineas, in a voice laden with regret and fear, suddenly said, “What if she ran away, Freddy—or—or worse? What if I drove her to that?”
The Welds brothers turned to him in bewilderment, but I knew what he meant. I furiously shook my head. “Don’t even think it.” I looked away from his white face, acutely uneasy myself. How despondent Rachel had seemed by the stream this morning. How alone.
“We won’t find answers here,” Daniel said. “Let’s go. If we rush, we might have some daylight left to search for her.” He glanced at Gid and me. “We won’t be back for a while. One of us should hurry through the chores that won’t wait.”
“Chores. Oh, hellfire!” Phineas gripped his hair. “I’m forgetting all about Marian and the farm. If I don’t make it back by sundown, she’ll worry herself into a conniption.” His head whipped my way. “Freddy? Would you take care of the livestock and see to my sister and the children?”
“Gid should do it.” Rachel was my friend. I had to find her.
Straightening, my brother nodded. “I’ll whip through the tasks here, then leave for your place.”
Before Gid finished the sentence, I was running toward the horses. Daniel caught up with me and said over his shoulder, “Get there as soon as you can, boys. Freddy and I will move faster traveling by horseback. We’ll follow Phineas and see what we can discover.”
* * *
Daniel kept the horse at a steady trot over the uneven ground, but when we turned onto Oak Orchard Road, he hastened her into a canter. I only had to hang on, and this gave me time to think.
Unfortunately, all I could muster was a recollection of this morning, my friend and what she’d said, words that now portended nothing less than disaster: I’d like to leave, too … just run away.… Of course, running away implies you have a home you’re escaping. I don’t have that. Middleton’s not home. This isn’t, either.
Why had I let her depart with her cousins? Why hadn’t I insisted she stay? Or why hadn’t I gone with her? And why, oh why, when she was so obviously wretched, hadn’t I told her I would put off a return to Middleton for as long as she needed me? Selfish, stupid Harriet. Rachel had been through so much, too much, in her life. How many losses could a person bear?
Daniel urged the horse to go faster. The increased jostling brought me to attention.
He was scanning the sky, his profile apprehensive. Clouds had formed, like dark wraiths joining in a sinister celestial coven. Obliterating the sun, they swung over the surrounding woods with menacing intent. A moment later, thunder growled from the south.
Phineas, not far ahead of us, shouted, “We must be close.”
Daniel patted my arm, tense across his waist. “Don’t worry. We’ll find her.”
We rode into the storm, as though we were hastening to greet it. Thunder increased in volume and frequency, and with a resounding crack, the sky broke apart. Rain shot down and soaked us in seconds.
But our destination was straight ahead, unmistakable even in the violent weather.
Scattered wagons half blocked the road, and nervous oxen and horses, tethered to the posts along the fence, shuffled and dripped. While the men hurried to the barn to look for a dry place to secure their mares, I raced toward the rain-blackened building, my boots slipping on the road, then the mill’s lane, both of which had loosened into mucky streams.
The doors and windows were open. People craned their heads outside and hollered merrily at the driving rain.
“Excuse me,” I barked at two beefy boys blocking the entrance.
Instead of simply stepping back, they laughed and lurched out of my way.
I desperately scanned the interior. It sported an entire party of rowdy drinkers, mostly men, sliding and stumbling across a floor not much different from the rain-saturated ground. It was slick and rank with tobacco juice and liquor. Some dancing, of a sort, was under way, but even the fiddler’s playing sounded drunk.
Phineas appeared beside me, shook the wet hair off his face, and spared a scorching glare at the offensive musician. “Do you see her?” His eyes searched the gloom.
I ground my teeth. “No.” How could I make out anything in this crowd?
It was pointless to look for Rachel among the revelers. I couldn’t picture her stomaching this event, not at all a lively sociable but more of a drunken mob. She’d seek another shelter—an out
building, if one existed—to wait out the storm.
I sidestepped between the strapping boys playing doormen and hurried outside, shivering in my wet shirt. Maneuvering around empty bottles and dips in the ground that had widened into good-sized puddles, I rushed along the building’s side, passed an overturned bench, and headed for the back.
The clearing didn’t go far before the forest started. A muffled roar sounded from the swift brook that ran snugly along the wheel side of the mill.
Woods or water: how easily either could oblige the despairing who wanted to disappear.
I fought the impulse to panic. Rachel had never despaired in the past. She was a survivor. I sluiced rain off my soaked head, wringing my hair’s short length like a just-washed handkerchief. Think. Remain calm. Stay focused, Freddy. A hysterical cackle popped out of my throat. Now I was calling myself Freddy, too.
I tried to check these disordered thoughts and concentrate. How much time had passed since the brothers had last seen Rachel? What had she said before parting?
There was something I was missing, some blatant possibility I was stupidly overlooking. I sensed this detail, yet it evaded me, like a butterfly fluttering just beyond my net. The nuance teased me back to their account: Rachel’s bad mood, her disgust with the mill party, her desire to leave, her wandering outside by herself. I blinked the damp from my eyes and stared at the millhouse, veiled with rain but still raucous with bad fiddling, slurred singing, cracks, and thuds. Things breaking. Bodies falling.
Why, why, had those foolish boys made Rachel linger here? Once they saw the unchecked behavior inside, they should have left. Anyone could see this wasn’t a fit place for a sensible person. And Rachel, more than anyone I knew, had good reason to find boozy behavior offensive, after all she’d endured at the Lintons.
At the Lintons … with Mr. Linton …
Drunken, abusive, disgusting, dangerous Mr. Linton.
The tickling half thought at last took shape.
Oh, no.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Mr. Linton had kidnapped Rachel.
It struck me as an absolute certainty, even a God-granted epiphany.
And the revelation galvanized me.
I shot straight for the road, questioning, with livid disbelief, how the bloody hell this could have happened. Rachel would have put up a fight. Undoubtedly, at least a few of the attendees had loitered outside when she’d been taken. Were the revelers so drunk or selfish or stupid or callous that the sight of a young woman’s struggle couldn’t rouse them to action? Or perhaps luck had favored Mr. Linton. It was possible he’d found her on the property’s edge. He might have knocked her senseless and made away with her quickly …
Oh, God. I ran faster.
The rain had eased to a sprinkle, but the road oozed with rivulets of mud, particularly in the grooves left by wheels. I wasn’t certain how many miles away the Linton homestead was but didn’t doubt that Mr. Linton, after capturing Rachel, would have absconded by wagon rather than foot. He wouldn’t have managed to kidnap her without a vehicle, not with his infirmity. When I’d encountered him, he had walked with a limping gait and used a branch for support.
And as a club.
This recollection of Mr. Linton delivering punishing blows with his makeshift cane compelled me to break into a sprint. My mind spun with terrifying images of my friend being subjected to his ruthlessness. That he had beaten her I knew. I’d seen the bruises around her neck. Even as I had stood in arm’s reach, he’d jabbed her in the side. That he had raped her, as well, I suspected. He was brutal, unconscionable. And he had my friend.
This dreadful line of thought made me realize I didn’t have a weapon. Stupid! I should have grabbed a farm tool from the barn to use as a cudgel or spear. I should have taken Daniel’s or Phineas’s horse to expedite my chase.
With a skid across the muck, I staggered to a halt, my hands flying to my wet head. What would Daniel and Phineas think when they discovered I’d gone missing, too?
I looked back, guessing how far I’d traveled, wondering frantically if I should return and collect my friends. The empty road stretched to the north like the wet slash of a knife wound. The forest fenced in its sides, the trees’ thick upper branches black against the gray sky. Already darkened by weather, the day was fast slipping toward night.
No time to spare. I ran.
A stitch in my side, the ache in my right ankle, and welling fear: I could ignore the first two but not stave the third. What had that man done to my friend? What would he do? And would I be too late to stop him?
I jerked up my head and forced myself to focus on a plan. I would tear into that ramshackle cabin and demand Rachel’s release. I’d threaten Linton if he tried to stop us.
Threaten him with what?
I slowed to a stop again and stuffed my pockets with good-sized stones; then I plucked, from along the road’s slick edge, a fallen branch. Thanks to the storm, there were many, and my selection was big enough to inflict damage.
As I flew toward my destination, the rocks clanked against my sides. The heavy limb, raised over my head like a sprinter’s flag, whooshed through the air, its young leaves wetly twitching.
I desperately did not want to mentally prepare for the worst, for the darkest possibility, and strove not to contemplate it. When avoidance proved futile, I tried reason and thought Linton probably wouldn’t kill my friend because he had uses for her. Oh, but what cold comfort! There were evils other than murder.
I had to hurry.
Rachel, my friend, my dear Rachel. I strung the words into an invocation, as if in mentally repeating her name, I might summon her, conjure her …
And then: there.
In the mist-shrouded distance. A silvery form. An approaching figure.
I slowed. I stilled. I stared. Straining my eyes to make out the person, I discerned first a steady stride, then a swish of a skirt, then a lowered head, then a familiar shape.…
For the first time since this horror began, I released a sob. Leaping forward, I cried, “Rachel!”
Her head came up. She flew my way.
We collided in an embrace made noisy with clinking rocks, labored breaths, and weeping.
As soon as we parted, I blinked away the tears and ran my eyes over her, looking for hurts, reassuring myself that she was here, really here, alive and in one piece, and all the while I panted, “Oh, thank God, you’re—I never thought I’d—are you—”
Her hands were on her face. She pulled them away to stare at the damp fingers, then closed them into fists and dropped them to her sides. “I never thought I would, either,” she said faintly.
I reached for her arm and paused when I realized I still held the branch. Instead of tossing it aside, I switched it to my other hand, then grasped her above the elbow. I wasn’t ready to release my weapon. Who knew if we were safe?
I urged us in the direction of the mill. We walked pressed together along our sides, so tightly our legs brushed, making clumsy our strides. I felt we could not get close enough. Could never be safe enough. “Oh, Rachel.” The enormity of the situation rattled me, and I stumbled. Glancing nervously over my shoulder, I clung to her tighter. “Did he hurt you?”
She began to answer. A sob cut short the words. She gasped when her wrist grazed her brow.
I halted us and scanned her features. A swelling discolored her temple. My eyes burned. “He did that.”
She closed her eyes, nodded.
My breath came fast, like I was still running. I gripped the branch. The bark bit into my palm. “I want to do the same to him.”
Her eyes opened. “You can’t.”
“I can. We can. We have friends. We’ll hold a meeting. We’ll tell them…” My shoulders jerked up. Gnawing on my lip, I shook my head and tried again: “We will tell them enough. There are good folks here, plenty to form a posse, and we’ll—”
“He’s dead.”
I stared. “He’s—”
“Dead.”
<
br /> “How?”
“A fit. Some kind of fit.” She started walking again, slowly. She looked behind her, strode faster, tripped, but righted herself even as she continued forward in scrambling haste.
“Let me…” After lunging to catch up with her, I hooked my arm through hers. She leaned in to me but stared straight ahead, intensely, as if in focusing her gaze on the distance she would reel us more quickly in that direction.
“It was his legs that gave out first. He stood like he aimed to charge me but … didn’t. Couldn’t. He went down, hands flailing. The arms fell wide, splayed from his body, and his mouth spread into a grimace that was like”—she sobbed a thin laugh—“a grin. The whole time, he watched me. He followed me with his eyes. He followed me…” She slowed and wavered.
I wrapped my arms around her. “Oh, Rachel, Rachel.”
We wept into each other’s necks.
When the tears abated, we slogged forward again. It felt like I was bearing my weight and most of hers, too. Hoping talk would keep her from fainting, I asked the first question that came to mind: “His family?”
“Not there. Mrs. Linton left days ago. Took the children. The last of the money. Fled.” She scrubbed her face and shuddered. Her hand went to her throat. “He blamed me. Said I gave her the notion. Said I had to … to…” She shook her head violently and, on a single keening exhalation, finished: “Take her place. After that, he…” Another sob shook her.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I said helplessly, holding her up, wishing there was more I could offer than a litany of apologies and an embrace.
“I know.” She pulled away. Then, like someone putting herself back together, she straightened, ran trembling hands over her hair, and smoothed her dress at the waist, again and again. “He ordered me to fix his supper, threatened to kill me if I didn’t do his bidding, but then shoved me toward a pantry that held more rat droppings than food.” She gasped a disbelieving sound and staggered forward. “Nothing but a bit of cornmeal and lard. Nothing in the garden, either.”
“What did you do?”
“I told him I’d have to forage.” Her face crumpled. “I hoped he’d release me long enough so I could flee. Instead he tied a rope around my waist with a kind of knot I couldn’t unravel.”
The Beloved Wild Page 24