Daughter of the Sword

by Jeanne Williams

  The door shut on Melissa’s gratitude. The key grated, as if turning in Deborah’s head. She had to control herself or her nerves would snap. Her futile outburst had confirmed the story that she was unbalanced; Townsend would spread his account. Even if, for appearances’ sake, Melissa called the doctor, he knew Deborah only by sight and would probably concur that her mind was unhinged. It was simpler, after all, to let rich, popular Rolf Hunter take care of his fiancée.

  Johnny would help, or Sara—or Judith, if she could. But by the time they learned of her imprisonment, Rolf might have somehow smuggled her away. Besides, she feared what Rolf might do if Johnny interfered.

  In a frenzy of impotence, Deborah wrung her wrists, trying to loosen the cotton strips, but her efforts only tightened the knots and forced the strips into more constricting bands. If her feet weren’t tied, she could have walked around, at least, gone over to the lamp and knocked it over. She probably still could roll off the bed and worm her way to the chest, then struggle up and break the lamp. But she didn’t want to burn to death, and, with her feet encumbered, that could certainly happen.

  Her mind was hazing. Images formed and vanished against her closed eyelids, swelled and darkened like giant waves. These toppled, closer each time. They closed over her.

  She must have awakened at the sound of the opening of the door. By the time she was drowsily aware of where she was in spite of a dull oppressive ache that increased to throbbing as she opened her eyes, Melissa was gazing down at her.

  Placing a tray on the stand, she pulled up the chair. “It’s evening, dear. Time passed quickly, didn’t it?” I’ve brought some nice chicken soup.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “You have to eat.”

  Deborah said nothing and closed her eyes. Melissa’s voice took on an edge. “Mr. Townsend came in a little while ago. Shall I call him?”

  The memory of his hairy-tufted knuckles and strong odor made Deborah sit up reluctantly and accept the spooned, creamy liquid.

  “That’s better,” approved Melissa. “It’ll taste good if you’ll let it.”

  It did warm Deborah. “Is Reverend Cordley back?” she asked.

  “Yes. Everything’s being taken care of.”

  “The—the funeral?’”

  “It’ll be tomorrow. Rolf’s paying for the best black walnut coffins, all covered with black alpaca. Naturally, disturbed as you are, no one expects you to come.”

  “But I have to!”

  “And start your raving hysterics?” Melissa shook her head, full mouth tightening. “Indeed, you won’t. Rolf entrusted you to me. Apparently the only way to be sure you don’t run off or cause trouble is to keep you in this room. That’s what I’m going to do.”

  Black and crimson swirled before Deborah, coalescing into shapes: her parents’ bodies, blood and fire, a dead tree on the river. But worse, what she felt she could not bear, were the crowding ordinary flashes: Thos’s eyes merry as he said, “Cross your heart?”; the way he’d cut the wheat, or gazed tenderly at Sara; her mother at the pianoforte or in the kitchen; Father saying grace or reading aloud some passage he wanted them all to hear.…

  Never to happen again? Never, any of them, to breathe or smile or move? How could it be? Deborah felt as if great parts had been ripped from her body and she was bleeding to death, but it was so cold that she bled slowly.

  “I can’t stay here like this,” she said through numb lips. “It will really drive me mad.”

  “What can I do?” Melissa demanded angrily. “It’s your own fault you’re tied up. I’m sorry about it, but I can’t have you throttling me every time I bring you food.”

  Battling to keep from begging or crying, Deborah finally got command of herself enough to say, “The Bible—it ought to be buried with my parents.”

  “I’ll give it to Reverend Cordley,” Melissa said eagerly, glad to find one point of conciliation. “I’ll read to you, or talk if you’d rather. Truly, Deborah, I’m trying to help. When Rolf gets back—”

  Deborah averted her face. “I’ll appreciate your taking the Bible to the minister. And I want to talk to him, though you and Rolf probably have him thinking me insane.”

  “Take some more of these soothing drops,” said Melissa, pouring them into a spoon.

  “I’ve slept enough. All that’s left are nightmares.”

  “Shall I fetch Townsend?”

  Deborah opened her mouth and swallowed the drops and the milk Melissa offered.

  “Shall I read till you sleep?” Melissa asked.

  “No.”

  “Suit yourself,” said Melissa. Flouncing over to the chest, she picked up the Bible, then hesitated a moment. “I don’t like to leave you in the dark, but crazy as you’re acting, you might manage to set things afire. I’ll put the bell here on the stand where you can reach it.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask Reverend Cordley to come?”

  “Yes, of course, but if you’re asleep he won’t want to disturb you.”

  Deborah laughed mirthlessly. “What’ll you do, Mrs. Eden, when these drops don’t work anymore?”

  “Long before that, Rolf’ll be back,” said Melissa with feeling. “And I’ll be glad to give you over to him! I’m doing my best, but you haven’t a speck of gratitude or sense, either!”

  She blew out the light. Quick steps, door opening, closing. Deborah was sure Melissa would keep the minister away as long as possible, keep her tied and drugged.

  Her parents and twin were in their coffins and would be buried in the morning before the unembalmed bodies began to disintegrate. She really didn’t want to see them buried, but she clung to being near what was left of them as long as she could. In an agony of loss, she beat at the pillow with her bound hands, then gave way to wrenching sobs. If only Dane were here! But no, damn him, he’d gone away and left his brother!

  Of course, the Missourians Rolf meant to kill might get him, instead. If he didn’t come back in a few weeks, Melissa couldn’t keep up this deception. She’d have to let Deborah go and insist that she’d believed Rolf’s story and carried out his orders in good faith.

  But tonight there were bonds and darkness, tormenting familiar images of Father, Mother, and Thos as they would never be again. Like a treadmill, Deborah’s thoughts kept grinding, grooving deeper into her spirit with each monotonous circling.

  If what had happened was God’s will, she couldn’t trust or worship Him. If it wasn’t God’s will, then what was God? The whirlwind’s answers to Job didn’t ease her. She didn’t care who’d laid the foundations of earth, shut up the seas, commanded the morning, or divided the watercourses. She only knew the heavenly Father she’d been taught to revere had let her earthly father perish terribly.

  Cruel as it was, she could accept Thos’s death. By breaking man-made law, he’d done what he knew could bring killing. It was a volunteer’s risk. But her parents had died in their own yard. They’d sheltered runaways, helped them escape northward, but they hadn’t used or believed in violence.

  No. She couldn’t believe, ever again, that good was stronger than evil. She couldn’t pray. She rebelled against her family’s death as she did against her bonds, uselessly, hurting only herself. But the laudanum was misting her senses. At last she slept.

  She awoke to a firm hand across her mouth, an arm cradling her head. “Deborah, it’s Sara!” came the soft whisper. “Are you all right? Do you remember me?”

  “I haven’t lost my mind,” answered Deborah as Sara’s palm relaxed. She sat up and resisted the instant throbbing in her temples as Sara untied her. “Let’s get out of here!”

  Questions could wait.

  Deborah’s head felt swollen with pounding blood, but she located the new shoes and stockings and fumbled them on. Faint light came through the window, from which the lower boards had been removed. She groped and got her coat and scarf from a peg, then picked up the sketch pad from the bottom of the bed. Her gauntlets were in her coat pocket. Rolf had her Bowie
. She wished she could have traded Melissa’s good clothes for her old ones, but they hadn’t been returned.

  Sara waited, a shadow in deeper shadows. Did she know about Thos? She must. Wordlessly, Deborah put her arms around her friend, but Sara gave her a strong push toward the window.

  Scooping up her skirts, Deborah cautiously put a leg over the sill, found hard earth, then climbed all the way out. Sara had joined her in an instant, then was tugging her toward some trees not far from the street. No lights burned in the town and the sky was dark except for stars.

  “Chica must be in the livery,” Deborah whispered.

  “She was. Judith’s got her down by the river. Don’t talk now, meshemah. We don’t want dogs barking.”

  They circled out of town and back to the river well beyond the ferry, Sara leading, Deborah just behind. Soon she heard the faint creaking of saddle leather, the shifting of restive horses.

  “Judith?” whispered Sara.

  “You find Deborah?” came the low-pitched response.

  “Wouldn’t be back if I hadn’t.”

  A hand searched, closed on Deborah’s arm, found her hand, and squeezed fiercely. “You ain’t crazy? Ain’t marryin’ that Rolf like they say?”

  “No and no!”

  They hugged each other and this time Sara was in the embrace, though she quickly broke it. “Come on, let’s get out of here!” she urged.

  Deborah hung back. “The funeral—it’s tomorrow.”

  “So? Will it help your family to leave Rolf a clear trail to follow?” Sara thrust Chica’s reins into Deborah’s fingers. “These Lawrence people think you’re mad. You can’t take shelter with them.”

  “But if I stay at the smithy, Rolf’s already threatened to make trouble!”

  “You won’t be at the smithy,” Sara replied. “Hurry! We can talk once we’re well away.”

  xiv

  They picked up the road along the Kaw, and when they were far enough away for talking, Sara and Judith explained.

  Belshazzar, still saddled and bridled, had wandered to the smithy yesterday morning. Probably he’d gone home first, smelled blood and smoke, and retreated to the nearest place of which he had good memories. Johnny and Maccabee were gone, summoned early from their beds to help a wagon that had mired at a ford some miles upriver and broken a wheel.

  Alarmed, Judith had wanted to ride with Sara to the Whitlaws’, but Sara pointed out that the Whitlaws had risked much to help Judith to freedom, and if she got caught now it would undo their efforts. Promising to come back as soon as she could, Sara rode fast to the farm and encountered Reverend Cordley and his party as they carried out their grim task of exhuming the bodies.

  Cordley had told the horrified Sara Rolf’s version of the raid and about Thos’s death, along with the news that Deborah, at least temporarily out of her mind with shock and grief, was under Melissa Eden’s protective care.

  “I told Reverend Cordley that you weren’t engaged to Rolf and that I didn’t believe, either, that you’d gone mad.” Sara’s tone was bitter. “But he doesn’t really know me, and I suppose, having just heard about Thos, that I sounded crazy myself. Anyway, when he went on being pityingly kind, I told him he was a fool and rode back to the smithy. Johnny and Maccabee still weren’t home. After we talked it over, Judith and I decided it might be best if she and I got you out.”

  In the gray light, Judith’s nod was emphatic. “Johnny, he’d storm in and fight anyone gave him trouble, maybe get himself hurt or killed or do damage to nice folks who think they’re protectin’ you. Even if he get you away, Rolf goin’ to know where to look.”

  “So we told Laddie to take care of things and to tell Johnny and Maccabee only that we’d gone to see you and not to worry.”

  “Johnny doesn’t know about—about my family?”

  Sara’s voice trembled. “Not unless he’s happened on to someone who told him. Judith and I left the smithy in the middle of the afternoon, but we stopped a few miles out of town and waited in a ravine till all the lights were put and everything was quiet. I wasn’t expecting your window to be nailed shut, though. Johnny’s going to swear when he sees what I did to one of his knives by prying the boards loose.”

  “You—you must have wanted to go to Thos, Sara.”

  “Why?” asked the Indian girl harshly. “If he had been left to me, yes, if I could wash and prepare him. But another group had gone for him. I wasn’t his wife. Had I tried to touch him, mourn as I wished, it would only create scandal. No. I’ll remember him as he was.”

  Judith said in a tight, aching voice, “Rather would’ve died than bring all this! Your folks were so good to me, Deborah. They died on my account.”

  “No,” cut in Deborah strongly. “I don’t know what tale Rolf’s put out, but he told me he fell in with the gang for excitement. He says he didn’t know they were chasing Thos till he was shot. The raiders had split up. It was just bad luck that part of them hit our farm. Any Free Staters would have done as well. Don’t blame yourself, Judith. If there was any real reason for my parents’ death, it was John Brown’s slave-stealing trip to Missouri.”

  She wasn’t quite as sure as she sounded that some member of the band hadn’t heard about Jed’s death at the Whitlaws’ while hunting his runaway, but there was no use in Judith’s carrying a burden of guilt. Leticia and Josiah wouldn’t have wanted that. When it came right down to it, they had faced and accepted the chance of death when they decided, after Jed’s raid, to stay on the farm.

  They’d been slaughtered, but they weren’t victims. Like soldiers, they’d decided not to abandon a post and had lost their lives for it. That pride was the first balm for Deborah; not much, but a slight easing.

  She told her friends then of how, after leaving them at the smithy, she’d seen smoke coming from the direction of her home.

  Only the day before yesterday! It seemed years. Two full days ago, her parents had still been alive. Now they were dead forever; there could be no change in that. And Thos! She thought of John Brown with hatred. If he’d never come to their house, if Thos had never looked into those spellbinding fanatic’s eyes! If—

  As a bleak, rising sun tried to pierce through high, wintry clouds, she muffled her face in her scarf and gave way to silent weeping.

  Two shapes appeared on the sere rim of the horizon, from which all snow had melted, assuming size and gradual identity, first as horsemen, then as a very large man and a shorter one, black and white or Indian, and at last, Maccabee and Johnny.

  Meeting on the open prairie, the five stopped. “Cesli tatanka!” growled Johnny, sliding from his spotted horse and striding up to Sara. His old horsehide jacket was buttoned up to the last bone toggle. “I ought to skin you, Sara! I see you have Deborah, but what if you’d gotten yourselves shot or jumped on by some bunch of cutthroats?”

  “We’ve got Deborah, and without a fuss, Johnny.” Sara divided a withering glance between him and Maccabee, who was watching Judith with his heart in his eyes. “You two had come thundering into town and there’d have been trouble. Folks there believe she’s crazy and engaged to Rolf Hunter—”

  “Same thing!” Johnny grunted. Scowling, he moved awkwardly over to Deborah. “You all right, lass?”

  She couldn’t speak. Shaking his grizzled head, Johnny gave her hand a rough pat. “Nothin” helps right now. I know, honey. But your folks was the finest I ever knew. Thos was the son I wish I’d had. Hopo! Let’s get going!”

  He rode ahead with Sara, from the rise and fall of his gruff tones alternately scolding, questioning, praising. Judith kept to one side of Deborah, with Maccabee on the other. He said that he and Johnny had gotten back after dark last night along with the broken wheel from the mired wagon. Johnny hadn’t believed Laddie’s story, though the boy stuck doggedly to it, and after a hurried meal, Johnny had ridden off to the Whitlaws’.

  Even in the night, he’d been able to guess most of what had happened. Cabins might burn, but that doesn’t rearrange furnis
hings, smash up a buggy, or cut a cow’s throat and wring chickens’ necks. He’d gone back to the smithy and this time had convinced Laddie that for Sara’s sake, the boy should tell what he knew. Maccabee had awakened during that and insisted on coming along.

  “Guess we wasted our time,” he said in his deep, pleasant voice; giving an admiring glance to Judith. “But land alive, woman, what you mean pokin’ ’round town—an’ you a runaway?”

  “Deborah needed me.”

  “Maybe someone else needs you!” he reproached.

  “We don’ talk on that yet.”

  “If you’re goin’ to be up to tricks like this,” he rumbled, “the sooner we talk, the better.”

  Judith tossed her head. “You don’ like my tricks, now’s the best time to find out! After all the Whitlaws did for me, you reckon I’ll hide when trouble strike them?”

  “That’s what you need a man for.”

  “Ha! Sara and me did as good as you and Johnny could’ve! Didn’t get into any scrapes, either!”

  “That’s the Lord’s mercy!”

  “Oh, our thinkin’ it out real careful had somethin’ to do with it,” retorted Judith airily. “You ever get in trouble, we’ll do the same for you!”

  Maccabee’s reluctant laughter rumbled. “Full of sass! Wonder you didn’t get it whipped out of you!”

  “You’re not the meekest man I ever saw!” Judith’s tone was wry but not angry.

  It was clear that Maccabee loved her. Impossible to guess how she felt. She’d never spoken of the man Jed had said she fancied. Thinking of Dane, Deborah wondered how long a woman should let herself be bound by a memory, then repeated the question as she watched Johnny up ahead next to Sara.

  With her young love gone, could the girl come to think of Johnny as a man rather than a foster father? Deborah hoped so. It would help if some happiness followed all the wreckage and misery.

  Johnny stopped abruptly, reining his horse around, ignoring Sara, who caught at his arm. “Deborah, do you want to go to your folks’ burying?” he demanded. “If you do, I’ll take you! And I’ll notch the ears of anyone who makes a move to shut you away!”