The washed skillet was heating on the grate to be tucked in at Father’s feet. The girls would get the top and bottom of the Dutch oven. Wrapped in towels, cast iron would hold comforting warmth till bodies could begin to warm the frigid bedding. Deborah banked the fire well, fervently hoping the storm was over and that Father wasn’t going to be really sick.
If only Thos were here—or Dane! Thrusting the covered Dutch oven lid at the foot of her bed, Deborah told Judith good night and sternly told herself not to worry. She would just have to do the best she could, ease Mother’s load as much as possible.
It seemed a year since Rolf had left them, longer since Thos had. Yet that was all only yesterday.
xii
She awoke the next morning to Father’s coughing. He wasn’t better and it was still snowing outside. No blizzard, thank goodness, no piercing swirl of pulverized ice, but big, feathery flakes that, though beautiful, layered relentlessly on the previous fall.
Deborah, shivering, pulled on her clothes and hurried to build up the fire, then put on the coffee brew. Strange how new concerns could override others. With the thick, blanketing snow outside, the roads and trails drifted and impassable, they seemed in a white, muffled, isolated world of their own. Judith couldn’t get to the smithy, but neither could any slave-catchers reach them. What preoccupied Deborah now was Father’s cough and keeping the family and animals warm and fed.
She realized she was making more of it than probabilities warranted. If Josiah had been well or had Thos been there, she would scarcely have worried. The stock was in a good shelter with plenty of hay and fodder, the chickens were safe, there was plenty of food, and fuel was right outside the door. She was being a proper goose!
Self-scolded into adopting a brisk, confident manner, Deborah asked Josiah how he was. “Cough’s a nuisance,” he grumbled, rubbing his sideburns. “But I’ll see to the stock, daughter.”
“You won’t,” said Leticia firmly. “And you can just stay under the covers till the other room warms up.”
“You took care of things during the blizzard,” Deborah reminded her father, dropping a kiss on his forehead, where the dark hair was receding. “It’s warmer today and the wind’s died down.”
“We won’t get the paper out this week.” He fidgeted. “And provided it didn’t snow in town the way it did here, the legislature’s probably meeting there right now.”
“Won’t they have to meet at Lecompton?” asked Leticia.
“Yes, but they hate that place for being the pro-slave capital. Bet they do just what they did last year—meet at Lecompton and adjourn to Lawrence.” He chuckled, eyes lighting up. “And this session, I hear, they’re going to repeal the bogus laws the Bogus Legislature adopted from Missouri, except for the slavery code, which wasn’t harsh enough. Going to throw it out from start to finish! That’ll be real news!”
“You can make next week’s issue extra large,” Leticia suggested.
Father nodded. “That’s so. I’ve got time to work on several articles I’ve held aside till I had a chance to do them satisfactorily.” He looked pleadingly at his wife. “Are you sure I can’t get up yet?”
“Breakfast will be soon enough,” she said. “Judith, will you start the biscuits while I scramble the rest of those eggs?”
Deborah put on her coat and scarf, took the milk bucket, and stepped out into the steady, gentle, inexorable fall of snow.
All that day it snowed off and on, the skies never lightening, dusk closing in as softly as the big flakes. In spite of the syrup, Josiah’s cough was deep and wracking, but he vowed that apart from that, he felt perfectly all right and he expected he’d improve if the women would let him get up.
The next day was much the same, though it snowed less and the skies seemed a little brighter to Deborah’s straining eyes, though it could be so long since she’d seen the sun that these heavy leaden clouds were beginning to seem normal.
During the snow lulls, Venus and the horses ventured out, hooves caking with ice, but finding no forage, they soon returned to the soddy. Deborah brought in more wood and corncobs to dry.
By now she was weary of being cooped up and welcomed the outside chores in spite of the biting cold. In the cabin, she found herself waiting for and tensing at Josiah’s spasms of coughing. Surely it was only a bad cold! Yet pneumonia behaved like a cold at the start.
Mother was worried, too, yet she read to him, studied what he’d written, and made suggestions, all the time maintaining a calm and sweetness that was balm to Deborah’s frayed nerves and seemed to have a like effect on Judith.
Always quiet, the young woman had been almost silent all day. Perhaps the decision to shift hiding places was making her agonize about whether to go north or wait, hoping she could live in this more familiar region rather than try to make a life in another part of the country.
Bringing in the eggs and milk, Deborah wished her twin were home. More than to help with the work, she needed someone to joke with or grumble at. As she took off her coat, Judith began to cough. This time she didn’t try to say it was something stuck in her throat.
Deborah awoke the next morning to find that Judith wasn’t in their partitioned cubby, though she remembered half-waking up in the night to her coughing. It turned out that Judith had moved her pallet near the fireplace in order not to disturb Deborah. She was feverish, and Josiah, who insisted he was much better, ceded the benches so her bedding could be raised from the floor.
He seemed to be coughing less, so it was likely that he, and now Judith, only had troublesome colds. Deborah and Leticia looked at each other with an unspoken mutual worry: What if one or both of them fell sick before the others had recovered?
I can’t get sick, thought Deborah. I won’t! And she dressed to do the chores.
That day and the next two were overcast and freezing, but mercifully there was no more snow or strong wind. The animals ventured out, walking gingerly, but didn’t stray far from the stable and food.
Judith stayed feverish, coughing till the sputum was bloody, but said colds always took her this way and she’d be better soon. Fortunately, Josiah was. On the sixth day, though he still had a nagging little cough, he shoveled a path to the stable and well-house.
“This won’t stay frozen hard enough to walk on forever,” he said. “And when it thaws, we’ll have mess enough without floundering in wet snow and soaking ourselves above the knee!”
His effort was just in time. The sun was out the next day, sparkling with blinding brilliance over the unbroken white vastness, drifted here and there into dunes or crests.
The roof, punished by the weight of accumulating snow, now began to leak hesitating muddy drops in spite of the cheesecloth. Deborah and Mother placed buckets or pots beneath the dribbles, and Father and Deborah took shovels and, standing on the woodpile and benches, scooped off as much snow as they could. They couldn’t reach the center, but Josiah got out his fishing pole and whacked at the snow till some fell within reach, and the rest was thinned to where it should melt off fairly soon.
Venus and the horses soon trampled the space around the stable into dark muck, but they fared out in the field now and hooved or nosed the snow aside to reach stubble or grass. The chickens pecked and scratched. All living creatures seemed freed by the sun, stirring again, loosed from wintry prisons.
Deborah’s shoes were soaked and mud-caked after each sally into the yard. She cherished hope that such abuse would ruin them so that this spring Mother’d have to let her go barefoot or moccasined. And by winter, perhaps she could have a pair of men’s boots, which could be oiled to protect against the weather, or even rubber ones.
The brightness seemed good medicine for Judith. Her fever was gone and she ate with appetite. The cough was less frequent, though it still wracked her when it came. By noon she refused absolutely to keep to her pallet, washed carefully, and helped shift and empty the leak-catching receptacles.
It was time now, while the roof wept and the snow
almost visibly shrank and melted, to be part of the world again; to wonder when the way to Lawrence wouldn’t be a quagmire; to wonder when Thos might be coming and what he’d have to tell them; to wonder when Judith would be well enough and the path clear enough to go to Johnny’s.
“Maybe in a few days, if it keeps thawing,” Father surmised to that last question. “Won’t hurt to take care of that cold, child.”
The sun shone next day and the next. Thawing continued, though the snow and run-off froze at night. Judith said she was well enough to go to the smithy, and Father was impatient to get to The Clarion, to hear what the legislature was doing, and start setting up the big double issue.
So, on the tenth morning after their marooning by snow, after breakfast and family worship, Deborah and Judith started off. Judith’s other dress and the few things Deborah and Mother had been able to give her were tied in a bundle behind Chica’s saddle. Judith, afraid of horses, had finally been coaxed into riding the sweet-tempered mare, so Deborah rode Belshazzar. She’d belted the Bowie beneath her skirts. She was out of practice. If Johnny had time, he might give her a lesson.
Josiah and Leticia would be starting for Lawrence soon, but Neubuchadnezzar had been out in the field and Father had to go after him. He and Leticia embraced Judith and wished her good luck with her wayfaring, though if she did go north, they wanted to get over to Johnny’s and see her a last time.
“No way to thank, you,” she whispered. “Every day of my life, I’ll pray God have a care for you.”
“And we’ll pray for you,” Leticia promised. She kissed Deborah, too, though ordinarily they didn’t do that on parting. “Be careful, dear. You may visit, if Sara’s not too busy, but start home right away if it starts looking stormy.”
Deborah promised. And with a final wave, they started off toward the smithy.
It was slushy underfoot. Chica stepped daintily, annoyed at the splattering, but Belshazzar plunked down his big hooves as if resigned to all that bedeviled honest horses, including girls who should have the sense to stay home. It was cold but at least not freezing, and the sun made it seem warmer than it was.
“I’m goin’ to miss your folks,” said Judith. “Specially your mama. My mama died havin’ a baby when I was real little. About all I can remember is how she screamed and screamed.”
“Did the baby live?”
“No. It was yellow, scrawny as a plucked old rooster. Must’ve belonged to Mr. Jed’s pa, or maybe even Mr. Jed. He was about twenty then and down in the quarters most every night.” Judith gasped in belated recollection. “Your mama wouldn’t like me tellin’ you such things, Deborah.”
“She’d be sorry they happened. I’m really going to miss you, Judith.”
Judith hadn’t talked a lot, but she’d joined into whatever needed doing, and once she’d come to trust Deborah, she had often smiled or shot her glances of understanding. They were close to the same age, though Judith didn’t know hers exactly. Still, in some ways, she seemed much older.
With Thos gone, too, it was going to be lonely. Deborah forced cheerfulness into her voice. “Sara’s going to be glad to have another woman at bachelors’ hall.”
“I can help her, that’s sure! The mending alone she has for those three men critters! Never get to the end of it ’cause into the basket they keep tossin’ socks, shirts, and trousers.” Judith illustrated the careless motions of the male part of the household so disgustedly that Deborah burst out laughing.
Judith frowned. “That Maccabee—ought to get a woman, stop loadin’ Sara down.”
“He can’t just kidnap someone off a wagon train, and he doesn’t like to go to town.”
“Takin’ the easy way,” said Judith. “Let him wash, mend, and cook for himself and see how fast he finds a wife!”
“I hope you’re not going to scold the poor man.”
“Sayin’ what’s true’s not scoldin’.” Judith grinned and Deborah laughed back, glad to see a spark of devilment in the usually subdued young woman.
They could see the distant fringe of trees along the river now, the sprawl of the smithy like tiny toy structures set down in the remaining snow. By tomorrow the prairie should be fairly clear except for drifts along the slopes.
Johnny, Maccabee, and Laddie were at work and saluted briefly, shouting a welcome as Sara came to the door. Quickly mastering her outward disappointment that there was no word from Thos, she helped the girls stable the horses and, when Judith’s decision was told, made her feel warmly at home.
“I don’t want any more menfolk around, but a woman—well, I’m glad to have you!” she said.
They had milk and fresh-baked cinnamon rolls, sharing their snowbound experiences.
An old bachelor from upriver who’d brought his team to be shod had been forced to stay longer than the night he’d counted on, and a courting couple on their way home from a late party had come hammering for shelter as the blizzard began. They had gone their ways yesterday. “And I suppose the courting couple will have to get married to avoid scandalization,” ended Sara with a chuckle.
Since Johnny was behind in his work, Deborah felt she couldn’t ask for a Bowie lesson, and Sara must have plenty to catch up on. Shortly before noon Deborah said her good-byes and started home, leading Belshazzar.
In just these few hours, more snow had dissolved. This would be a good time to thoroughly clean out the stable and chicken coop, put down new straw. It might not hurt, either, to scatter straw along the mucky path from the house to the stable. And she could start another kettle of potato soup.
It was going to be quiet without Judith or Thos, especially after the cabin’s being crowded since Christmas. Deborah intended to stay very busy, preferably outside.
She was about halfway home when she noticed something whitish rising above the snow, tinging the sky like a low cloud.
Smoke!
Deborah made a choking sound. Could a coal have rolled from the fireplace? Father was always so careful!
Deborah tried to urge Belshazzar to hurry, but a grudging trot was all he’d do. Frantically, she dismounted and fastened his bridle around a scraggly plum bush. She’d get him later.
The ride seemed to take forever, though Chica plunged gallantly through the slippery mush. Gradually, the shape of the cabin and stable rose above the white horizon. Smoke rose sluggishly from the roofs. If a fire had started from the fireplace, without wind to carry it, how could it reach the stable? She couldn’t see anyone moving about, though surely the blaze must have started before or very shortly after her parents left. It was a strange time for fire, with the sod and brush roofs so recently saturated with melting snow.
And no one moving.…
Fear at something uncanny, something worse than fire, clutched Deborah. She urged on the reluctant horse with voice and heels. Now she could smell the acrid odor of damp wood, grass, brush, and sod. She saw the overturned, broken, smoldering buggy, the carcass of a cow—her mind refused to say it was Venus—lying in blood that stained the trampled snow.
There were other broken things near the buggy.
Chica shied from the smoke, refusing to come closer. Numbly sliding from her back, Deborah made her wooden-feeling legs carry her forward. It—it couldn’t be!
Mother. Father.
But maybe they weren’t dead. Maybe—Swooping toward them, she groaned as she lifted her mother from Josiah’s body, and she had to let her drop to cover what had been done. From throat to abdomen he was hacked and slashed, as if by cutlasses or knives. One arm lay severed, the one beneath Leticia, as if he’d tried to protect her.
The only wound Deborah could find on her mother was the contused lump on the side of her head which matted the soft brown hair with blood. Perhaps they—who were they?—hadn’t meant to kill her but had struck too hard when she tried to save her husband. Quick hope flared in Deborah. It wasn’t such a bad wound!
“Mother!” she pleaded, raising her, touching her face, listening for a heartbeat. “Moth
er! Don’t! Come back—”
No warmth, no breath, not the faintest motion. Deborah knelt in the bloody snow and couldn’t believe it. Oh, John Brown had cutlassed five men at Pottawatomie, Hamilton had slaughtered five and wounded more at Marais des Cygnes, and there were the countless murders of one settler here, a few others there, raids and counter-raids.
In May three Missourians had died almost in this same spot. It hadn’t seemed quite real; it had happened in the night and she’d never seen the bodies, didn’t know where they were buried.
This was real. Daylight and sun, Venus with her throat gaping, the chickens tossed here and there, necks wrung.
Why? Who? Almost certainly pro-slavers, most likely from Missouri. Had they been pursuing Thos or another runaway?
Rising stiffly, Deborah moved toward the cabin, mechanically thinking she should try to put out the fire. The roof near the fireplace had caved in and burned, but the rest of the pole-supported sod and brush emitted only sulky yellow smoke. Nearing the door, eyes stinging from the thick vapors, she saw that the fireplace had evidently been heaped with wood, and the furniture had been dragged close.
Charring parts of the benches, tables, the four-poster, the rocking chair, sewing machine, and, yes, the pianoforte thrust out of the blackened remains of clothes, shuck mattresses, and her parents’ featherbed. Books were sprawled everywhere, some ripped from their jackets, blackened and torn.
Entering, she stood among the wreckage, the smashed china, wantonly scattered food, then wandered into the bedroom. The chest had been too cumbersome to move, or they’d been in a hurry, but Mother’s music box was gone from on top and the drawers had been rifled. The shawl Dane had sent Leticia and Deborah’s mantilla were gone.
Like a wound-up clockwork toy, she moved back to the main room. The silver was gone. Evidently the looters had taken what they could, small treasures, Nebuchadnezzar, and destroyed everything else, even poor Venus, who couldn’t have kept up with men in a hurry to get far from the place they’d pillaged.
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