Cheryl Reavis

by The Bartered Bride

  She unhitched the horses quickly—with a skill she had never aspired to possess—and put them into the barn, leaving them with more feed than she should have as a token of her undying gratitude for another successful trip. Frederich had told her once that old Koenig had no idea that she couldn’t keep him from doing whatever he wanted to do, and she earnestly hoped to maintain the deception.

  She hurried across the barnyard and began unloading the wood, stacking it in the woodbox by the back door. At one point, she thought she heard whispering from inside the house, and she dismissed it as a sign of how little progress she’d made. She was a fallen women to be talked about behind her back, and clearly she would remain so. The last armload of wood she carried into the kitchen, fumbling with the door until Lise came to open it. She glanced at her niece, then back again. Lise was positively beaming.

  “Hurry, Aunt Caroline!” she said, shooing her along with her hands but not touching her so as not to interfere with the load of wood.

  “Aunt Caroline! Aunt Caroline!” Mary Louise cried behind her. “Guess—”

  But Lise snatched her up midsentence and walked quickly toward the pantry.

  The kitchen was warm and full of women in the process of sewing as Caroline expected—except that no one seemed to be working at the moment and Johann Rial stood in their midst.

  “Are you sewing trousseau now, Johann?” she asked, walking in his direction because he was standing on the hearthstones in the approximate location where she needed to put the wood. Leah and Mrs. Steigermann stood shoulder to shoulder on either side of him.

  “Oh, yes!” he said brightly. “No—I mean no, Caroline.”

  Caroline looked at him—at all three of them—noting that they all wore the same expression. But she made no comment, stepping closer with the wood. Neither of them moved aside.

  “I need to set the wood down, please,” she said finally. Surely Johann wouldn’t be smiling like this if he’d brought bad news.

  “Shall we let Caroline do that?” Johann asked Leah and Mrs. Steigermann. “Shall we let her put down the wood?”

  They grinned at one another and immediately parted, giving Caroline full view of the rocking chair behind them. Frederich sat in it, a thin and exhausted, chilled-to-the-bone Frederich.

  The wood spilled out of her arms. “Oh—oh!” she heard herself saying. She rushed forward, in spite of the onlookers, kneeling by the chair, both her hands gripping his arm. “Frederich—what are you doing here? It’s not William, is it-?”

  “Your brother is well, Caroline. Both your brothers are well. They are with the regiment in the winter quarters in Virginia.”

  “When did you get here? How? Johann said there were no furloughs,” she said, her eyes searching his.

  “We cleaned him up for you, Caroline,” Leah said behind her. “You should have seen him when he got here. You should have smelled him.”

  Frederich gave a tired half smile. “You are glad to see me, Caroline?”

  “Glad?” she repeated as if she’d never heard the word before, and she suddenly remembered herself. She stood up immediately. “Look who’s here!” she said to Lise, who had returned with Mary Louise from the pantry.

  “We surprised you!” Lise cried. “Mary Louise was going to tell everything!”

  “We surprised you!” Mary Louise said, ignoring the accusation and immediately climbing onto Frederich’s lap.

  “Yes,” Caroline said, rattled still. “You surprised me." She began to pick up the spilled wood and stack it on the hearth, feeling Frederich’s eyes on her every move and dropping several logs again in her haste. “I have to see to the horses,” she said abruptly, because the room was too small suddenly and she had the overwhelming urge to cry. Frederich was here—when she never would have expected it. She hadn’t been given any time at all to see how she might feel about the possibility. He was just here and she didn’t know what to say or do, not with everyone watching.

  She managed a smile of sorts as she escaped to the outside, and she stood on the porch for a moment trying to decide in which direction she wanted to flee.

  “The horses are that way,” Frederich said behind her. “Or have you moved them, too?”

  She immediately turned on him, fists clenched. “Don’t!" she said. “I don’t want to hear it!”

  “Hear what? I have only asked a question. One question, Caroline. Have you moved the horses?”

  “No,” she said, her chin still up.

  “So do we go see about them or not?”

  “Not,” she answered, stepping off the porch. To her dismay, he came right along with her. “The horses are fine,” she added, because he looked so tired.

  But she didn’t stop walking.

  “Don’t you have something to do?” she said pointedly over her shoulder, because he continued to follow.

  “I’m doing it,” he advised her.

  “You look terrible,” she said, hoping he would take the hint and go sit by the fire again.

  “So do you,” he countered.

  She stopped walking, trying to find some indignation to fling at him. And she might have—if he hadn’t been so right. She did look terrible. She needed clean clothes and a bath and her hair washed. She needed a good night’s sleep. She needed—

  She looked up at him. “We heard about the battle at Fredericksburg.”

  “Not too bad for the regiment this time,” he said. “Mostly we were held in reserve and never needed.”

  “I see,” she said, fully aware that she didn’t see at all.

  “You didn’t answer my question. Are you glad to see me?”

  She made herself look at him. It wasn’t gladness she was feeling. Gladness wasn’t weak knees and wanting to cry at the mere sight of him. “No,” she answered.

  “I’m thinking that I am going to kiss you anyway,” he said.

  “Kiss—Frederich, everybody is watching—at the windows—you can’t—”

  He chuckled softly. “I didn’t say now, Caroline.”

  “What you said was for me to stay away from you.”

  “I was feeling sorry for myself that day. I no longer have the time for such things.”

  “Indeed,” she said, still not sure whether to be angry or flattered, or to run or stay.

  “Indeed,” he assured her. “Come. Show me what you’ve done to my farm—come,” he coaxed, because she made no attempt to do as he asked.

  They walked together over the barnyard. Whether he approved or disapproved of her numerous burial pits for cabbages and turnips and potatoes, she couldn’t tell. He had questions, of course.

  “They are trenched?” and “How much straw?”

  “How did you get the cornstalks plowed under?” he asked when he saw the north field.

  “John Steigermann and Aaron Goodman’s boy—”

  “Jacob—the one who lost his leg? He can manage a plow, then?”

  “Yes. He walks with the wooden peg they gave him, and he falls a lot—but he won’t put up with anybody trying to help him. He and Mr. Steigermann went around to all the farms to get the plowing done. I let them use the Belgians—because they’re a good team,” she said. “Easier to manage.”

  She waited for his disapproval, but he merely nodded.

  “I saw Jacob Goodman as I came in—talked to him. Old Aaron tells the boy all the time that God has punished him for running off to the army with his brothers and leaving his father all alone.”

  “Yes,” she said, because he was looking at her as if he expected her to do so.

  “He would be happier out of his father’s house. His sister cries over him all the time—it makes him ashamed that he is not a man anymore. What do you think about him staying at the Holt place—keeping it up, paying a rent with part of whatever he can grow until Avery gets back?”

  “What do I think?” she asked incredulously.

  Frederich sighed. “Yes, Caroline. You are the only other person here.”

  “Very well. I thi
nk Avery would have a fit if you let Jacob Goodman live in his house.”

  “I had in mind that you would let him live there.”

  “Oh, of course. How silly of me not to realize who gets to face the wrath of Avery Holt here.”

  She glanced at Frederich. He was smiling.

  “I like you when you’re like this,” he said, walking off in another direction.

  This time, she followed. “What do you mean ‘like this’?" she asked, ready to be insulted.

  “Sharp-tongued,” he said over his shoulder. “Sort of…like Beata,” he added.

  “I am not like Beata!” she said, and he laughed out loud.

  “Which well did you have the trouble with?” he asked.

  “How did you know about the well? Never mind, I know. Beata told you.”

  “Beata,” he agreed. “And half the county. John Steigermann says you put on William’s old clothes and he lowered you down on a rope.”

  “There was no other way—I couldn’t very well dangle him on the rope.”

  “Were you afraid?”

  “Of course, I was afraid. I’m not a complete idiot.”

  “John says you were very brave. But Beata says you are going to hell for wearing men’s britches.” He paused, apparently to hear her sharp tongue again. She didn’t oblige him.

  “You got the well cleaned out?” he asked.

  “Yes, for now.”

  “Good. I hate going down in wells. It’s good I have somebody to send in my place when it needs doing again.”

  He was teasing her, blatantly, and she simply didn’t understand.

  “Did you see the stars?” he asked.

  “Stars?”

  “When you went down in the well. If you look up at the sky, even if it’s daylight, you can see the stars.”

  “Yes, I saw them—Frederich, what are you doing here?" she asked bluntly.

  “My children are here. You are here. You don’t write to me—” He held up his hand when she was about to protest. “You don’t write to me,” he said again. “You tell me how many sacks of corn I have, not how my family is. You don’t come when I send for you. What else could I do—?”

  He abruptly stopped talking as the geese on the far edge of the field became noisy and unsettled. Caroline immediately saw the reason—a group of gray-coated men on horseback coming along the edge of the woods, their hats pulled down, their bodies hunched against the cold. Frederich stepped nearer to the shed, out of their line of view.

  “Into the house,” he said, taking her by the arm and pulling her along the side of the barn to stay out of sight. “You—and the others—haven’t seen me. Do you understand? One of you must take Mary Louise upstairs so she won’t say I’m here—”

  “Frederich, wait!” she cried, holding on to him. “What have you done? Have you deserted the army?” she asked— again she almost said.

  “There was no other way.”

  “Frederich, they’ll hang you if they catch you! It was in the paper. They are hanging deserters in Richmond—”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you going to do?” she cried, trying to keep up as he walked her rapidly toward the house. “Maybe they’re just foraging again—”

  “They aren’t foraging.”

  She looked past him to the approaching line of soldiers. Their progress was slow. Nothing about the Graeber farm had alarmed them—yet.

  “Come into the house,” he said. “Hurry before they see us—when they’re nearly here, I’m going to try to make it to Avery’s. They’ve come from that direction, so it may be that they’ve already been there. Johann!” he cried as he flung open the back door. “Take my hat and coat! Hurry!”

  Johann stood for a moment, completely bewildered as Frederich tore off his coat and flung it at him.

  “Put them on, Johann,” Frederich said. “The army is coming. I want you to take Caroline back outside.”

  “Frederich—” Leah said, stepping forward.

  “No questions,” Frederich said. “Where are the girls?”

  “Upstairs,” Leah said. “Lise is looking for your fiddle and her birthday presents. What—?”

  “No questions, Leah,” he said again. “Keep them up there out of the way—Caroline, I am glad. Do you understand?”

  “No,” she said, trying to get Johann into the coat.

  “To see you,” he added. He reached out and touched her face, much the way he might have done if she had been Lise or Mary Louise. Then he moved around her and grabbed up his rifle and blanket roll and hurried out. She stood for a moment, watching him go.

  “I don’t understand,” Johann was saying, but she hardly looked at him. She took him by the arm instead and dragged him and Frederich’s hat out the back door. She understood the plan now. If the army had seen her with Frederich in the yard, then “Frederich” needed to still be here when they arrived.

  “Caroline,” Johann whispered urgently. “Would you kindly tell me the purpose of this subterfuge I’m perpetuating?”

  “We don’t want Frederich hanged,” she said simply.

  He blinked. “Oh.”

  She stuck the hat on his head. “Now walk with me and ask me some farm questions.”

  Caroline’s hair was still wet when she braided it. She had long since run out of things to wash, including herself, and she could still hear the soldiers down in the kitchen, still hear the muffled laughter from time to time at some remark Leah made. Clearly, these men were not going to leave until they were turned out.

  She left the room and crossed the hall, stepping quietly so as not to wake the children. She pushed open their door slightly. Both of them appeared to be sleeping.

  She pulled the door to again and walked quickly to the room that had been Frederich’s. She never came in here, and she didn’t stop to inspect it now. With trembling hands, she lit a candle and opened the huge armoire in the far corner, riffling through it until she found Frederich’s heavy work coat. She held it to her face for a moment, but it only smelled of cedar and not him.

  There was little else in the armoire she thought he’d need. All his shirts and socks and drawers had long since been sent to him—the last of drawers after William’s complaint that they were all “Holy.”

  She snuffed the candle and put it and some apples she’d been hiding from Beata into the pockets. Then she carried the coat into the hall, leaving it on the floor by the back staircase. She’d pick it up on her way out.

  If she ever got the chance to be on her way out.

  There was a roar of laughter from downstairs. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves before she made her way down the steps to the kitchen. All the soldiers were still seated around the table, still eating and drinking whatever Beata kept finding to give them.

  “Mrs. Graeber, ma’am,” they all said more or less in unison when she reappeared, scraping their chairs back to stand up as she entered. She realized immediately that she had been gone from their company long enough to make their officer suspicious, so she smiled graciously—she hoped—and tried to subdue the resentment she felt for these men who stayed safe on the home front instead of having been on the sunken road to Sharpsburg with Frederich and William.

  She glanced around the room. Mrs. Steigermann and the other women had long since gone. Only Johann and Leah remained, and both of them were beginning to show the strain. Johann kept pulling at his collar, fearful, no doubt, that he would be put in the position of having to lie. Dressing like Frederich was one thing. Saying outright that he hadn’t seen him was something else again. As far as she knew, none of the soldiers had specifically said they were looking for deserters, but she was certain that Frederich had been right. These men were not foraging.

  But the person Caroline was really worried about was Beata. Beata could be mindlessly spiteful with no regard whatsoever for the consequences. She glanced in Beata’s direction and tried to remember her mood before the soldiers arrived, but, unfortunately, she had become so used t
o ignoring her ire that it hardly registered anymore. Caroline’s only comfort was that as long as these men were here, they weren’t out looking for Frederich.

  “I was just about to ask for you, ma’am,” the officer said. “The weather, I expect, will turn most foul. I would consider it a kindness if you give us and our mounts shelter for the night.”

  Caroline stood for a long moment. She was taken completely off guard. She certainly hadn’t expected that they might want to stay here. If their horses were all shut up in the barn and Frederich thought the soldiers had gone and returned to the house, he could walk right into them.

  “Ma’am?” the officer said again.

  “I leave it to our clergyman, Mr. Rial, to say, sir,” Caroline answered. “We are only women and children here. I simply don’t know if it would be…seemly.”

  She smiled slightly. The officer didn’t.

  “Well,” Johann said too heartily. “We can hardly let our gentlemen suffer in the cold when it is in our power to do otherwise. I believe that if they stay in the—”

  “Please, stay here by the fire, sir,” Caroline interrupted, glancing at Beata. It was immediately clear to her that Beata had come to believe all her own lies about how Caroline Holt had become illicitly pregnant. Her obvious indignation that Caroline would openly solicit the presence of soldiers in the house was something to behold. “I think that it would be proper,” Caroline went on pointedly, “if Mr. Rial also remained.” She gave Johann a pleading look. Regardless of what Beata thought, the last thing she wanted was a bunch of soldiers milling around outside. “If you will excuse us, we ladies will retire now. Mr. Rial can see to whatever you might require—”

  She abruptly stopped because Mary Louise was standing barefoot at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Papa?” she said, wandering into the room and peering into the soldiers’ faces. “Papa!”

  “He’s not here, darling,” Leah said. “Of course he isn’t.”

  “He said we can surprise Aunt Caroline again,” Mary Louise insisted. “She’s easy to surprise. Papa! Where did you go? I can’t find you!”

  “Where is your papa, little girl?” the officer asked.