The Soldier's Wife

by Cheryl Reavis

  “It settles the mule down,” Jeremiah said absently, but he had become as alert as the horse, and he was looking in the same direction.

  “Sayer,” he said, his eyes still on the line of trees off to their left. “I want you and the girls to pick up everything and go back now. Don’t hurry, and don’t go back the way you came. Go straight down through the field to the cabin, and don’t look back. When you get there, stay inside, and make sure Rorie does, too. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Now, Sayer,” he insisted, finally looking at her. “If Rorie gives you any argument, tell her...because I said so.”

  She hesitated, then got up from the stump. “You heard Jeremiah,” she said. “Let’s pack up the basket—and we’re not in a hurry.”

  She expected a lot of questions from them both, but there were none. They were clearly afraid now as she herself was beginning to be. She kept glancing at him as they packed up what was left of the picnic, but his attention was completely taken by something only he and the horse sensed. Now and then he casually handed her something to put into the basket, but his eyes were on the line of trees.

  He walked to the mule, and she realized that he was unhooking the traces.

  “I have no regrets, Sayer,” he said over his shoulder. “I want you to know that.”

  “Jeremiah—”

  “Go,” he said, still busy with the mule. “Now.”

  She picked up the basket and gathered the girls to her. They began to walk across the plowed field. She made a point of looking neither right nor left.

  “Is Jeremiah going to get hurt?” Amity asked, clinging to her hand, trying not to stumble on the plowed ground.

  “I can’t say, Amity,” Sayer said because she didn’t understand the situation any more than they did. “I don’t know what’s wrong. But whatever it is, Jeremiah is ready for it, and we have to get out of his way so he doesn’t have to worry about us, too.”

  “I’m going to pray,” Amity said. “I’m going to pray really hard. I don’t want Jeremiah to die, too. He won’t, will he, Sayer?”

  “Say your prayer. God will hear it,” Sayer said instead of answering, but her own fears were rising by the minute.

  “Well, I’m going to sing,” Beatrice said, and she suddenly burst forth with the chorus of “Shall We Gather at the River.” After a moment, Amity joined in.

  “Yes, we shall gather at the riv-er...the beau-ti-ful, the beau-ti-ful riv-er...”

  They kept singing until they reached the edge of the yard. She handed them the basket to carry between them. “Go straight inside and close the door. I have to get Rorie.”

  Rorie was still threading green beans under the tree, and Sayer moved as quickly as she dared in her direction.

  “Well, that didn’t take long. Didn’t he like the biscuits?” Rorie asked before Sayer could say anything, her attention fully on working the needle through a bean pod.

  “Something’s wrong,” Sayer said, and Rorie looked up sharply. “He told us to go back and to stay inside the cabin. All of us.”

  Surprisingly, Rorie reached for her walking stick and got up from the bench. “You help me carry this here pan of beans,” she said, gathering up her needle and thread and the beans she had already strung.

  “Sayer,” Rorie said as soon as they were inside the cabin. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Nothing,” Sayer answered. “Except the horse was upset about something.”

  “Oh, no, I was afeard of that. You young-uns stay away from them windows,” Rorie said. “Sit yourselves down over there on the floor. Put that pan of beans between you and pick out the big ones for me—the ones I’m wanting to shell.” She glanced in Sayer’s direction. “You didn’t see nothing at all?” It was more a recrimination than a question.

  “No,” she said. “There was nothing to see. I just...”

  “Just what?”

  Sayer looked at her. “I trust him.”

  Rorie nodded and hobbled to the bed and lifted the mattress. She removed the revolver she’d apparently hidden there. “Can you shoot a revolver?”

  “I... It’s been a long time.”

  “Well, now, that there is a surprise answer, let me tell you. I would have up and guessed ‘no’ and ‘never.’”

  “Willard Perkins used to come to my uncle’s house to see the cook,” Sayer said, trying to stay out of sight and still see out the window. “I think he wanted to court her—by showing her how good he was with firearms.”

  “That sounds like Willard. That boy never did have the sense God gave a turnip.”

  “He offered to let me shoot the revolver. I guess he thought paying attention to her employer’s niece might impress her if his shooting didn’t. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to try, but I was more afraid of my aunt than I was the gun. The cook said, ‘Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb’—she knew she was too good a cook to be in any danger of being sent packing if my aunt found out. So I did it. Several times. Mostly because...”

  “Because why?”

  Sayer gave a quiet sigh. “Thomas Henry was there.”

  When she glanced over her shoulder at Rorie, the old woman was grinning from ear to ear, despite their increasingly worrisome situation.

  “The things us women will do to get a man’s attention,” she said.

  “It wasn’t just that. I was like Willard. I wanted Thomas Henry to...think well of me, I guess.”

  “Well, he sure done that. Jeremiah wouldn’t be here, otherwise. Pity we ain’t got but the one revolver. You might know what happens when you pull the trigger, but I better hang on to it. Can you see anything?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  She moved to the other window to get a different view of the slope and the woods. Rorie hobbled to the rocking chair and pulled it well away from the window with one hand. Then she sat down in it with the revolver resting on her knees.

  “I hear something,” Sayer said abruptly.

  In only a moment she could identify it—hoofbeats, coming hard. The distressed mule arrived with as much speed as it could muster, dragging the harness traces in the dirt behind it. It didn’t stop, but ran directly past the windows toward the barn. Several gunshots echoed from the direction it had come. And then another, and another, and several more in rapid succession.

  Amity dropped the handful of beans she was holding and put her hands over her ears, then scrambled on all fours to get to Sayer. Sayer sat down on the floor with her out of the line of the windows and held her tightly. She reached out her hand to Beatrice. Beatrice hesitated, then crawled over to join them, hiding her face in Sayer’s shoulder. Both children were trembling. And all the while, Rorie rocked slowly back and forth in the rocking chair, eyes closed, her hand on the revolver to keep it from falling.

  Sayer strained to hear some sound coming from the high field where Jeremiah had been plowing. The only thing she heard was the still-panicked mule blowing and its tack clinking and rattling as it moved around the barnyard. She removed herself from the grasp of both children and stood up again to peer out of the window. She couldn’t see anyone.

  “I need to find out what’s happened,” she said to Rorie. “I can go the back way—through the trees.”

  “Not yet,” Rorie said.

  “He could be hurt—”

  “Not yet. You got to give him time to get back down here,” Rorie said. “He might have to circle around and we ain’t wanting him to get here and find out you’re off wandering around where you shouldn’t be.”

  Sayer gave a quiet sigh and sat back down on the floor.

  They all waited, hardly daring to breathe. Amity sniffed from time to time, and Mrs. Garth’s oak kitchen clock ticked quietly on the mantel. Outside, the birds sang and the mule had yet to settle down.<
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  “Do you think they heard the gunfire? At the crossroads?” Sayer asked when she couldn’t stand the quiet any longer.

  “They heard it. Ain’t nobody going to mistake all that shooting for rabbit hunting. Is the back door barred?”

  “No,” Sayer said in alarm without turning to see. She never bothered with the lock in the daytime when there was so much going in and out to do the chores that needed to be done. She should have locked it the minute they came into the cabin. She crawled on the floor to the back door, then stood and grabbed the bar, pulling hard. She couldn’t budge it, and she kept trying until the stubborn lock finally slid into place. In relief, she rested her head against the rough wood of the door for a moment. Someone suddenly pounded on it, causing her to jump back in alarm.

  “Sayer! Are you all right in there? What’s going on?”

  “Benton!” she cried, trying to work the lock again. “Wait—the door—” He must have pulled on the door from the outside because the bar suddenly slid back. She quickly let him inside. “We don’t know what’s happening—”

  “Is everybody all right?” He was hatless and disheveled and not looking like himself at all.

  “The mule’s in a fair state, but we ain’t hurt,” Rorie called from her corner.

  “Jeremiah was plowing—” Sayer tried to say, but Rorie interrupted.

  “What are you doing way up here, Benton?” It was a pertinent question, Sayer thought, because Benton almost never left his store.

  “I brought a letter for Jeremiah. I just come off the buffalo road when I heard the guns and it wasn’t but a little bit till somebody took a shot at me. Dang near parted my hair for me.”

  “Jeremiah is up in the high field,” Sayer said, trying again to tell him the thing that concerned her so. “We don’t know if he’s—” She broke off at the sound of more gunfire.

  “I ain’t got but one shot left in my revolver. You got any paper cartridges and mini balls?”

  “There’s near a full box of them in that there basket in the corner,” Rorie said. “You better load up if you’re going back out there.”

  “You got any other weapons?” he asked, glancing at the revolver on Rorie’s knees.

  “We got Mr. Garth Senior’s musket. I put it out of the way when Sayer was all— If I can remember where it is, we got that,” she amended.

  “All right, then,” Benton said, rummaging through Rorie’s all-purpose basket. He put the box of paper cartridges and balls on the table and then reached into an inside pocket and handed Sayer an official-looking letter. “You better keep that here,” he said as he began the process of reloading each empty chamber in his revolver. “I’ll see if I can get up there where Jeremiah is. I left my horse a ways back so don’t let it scare you if it comes wandering in. I took off through the high grass—didn’t want whoever was shooting up the place to get a clear aim at me.”

  He stuck the box containing the remaining cartridges into his pocket and moved to the nearest window to chance looking out. “Where is he? Which way?”

  “Up there. Just beyond the open meadow,” Sayer said, putting the letter he had handed her on the mantel.

  “Too much in the open,” Benton said, shaking his head.

  “You can get up there the back way. Go down to the spring. Beyond it there’s a path though the woods. It leads to the edge of the field. You’ll be in the trees most of the way.”

  Benton nodded and headed for the back door. “Lock this behind me, Sayer,” he said as he stepped cautiously outside.

  “You be careful, Benton,” Rorie called. “You don’t know who’s up there.”

  “I’m afraid I do,” he said as Sayer closed the door behind him.

  Sayer struggled with the bar again and by leaning on the door hard, she finally got it pushed into place. “Rorie, where is the musket?”

  “Well, just wait a minute. I got to think on it,” she said, frowning.

  Another gunshot sounded, this time much closer to the cabin, and the girls screamed.

  “I remember—it’s up there in the loft,” Rorie said in a rush. “You don’t have to climb all the way in. Just feel along the edge on the right.”

  Sayer climbed the ladder quickly, but she couldn’t find the musket as easily as Rorie had indicated. She had to move all the way to the edge of the ladder rung and lean out as far as she could before her fingers touched the stock. She finally managed to drag it to her and get a good grip on it, but getting it down without falling was another matter. “Is it loaded?”

  “It is,” Rorie said. “So don’t you go and drop it.”

  “I can take it,” Amity said.

  “No, you can’t!” Rorie and Beatrice said in unison.

  Sayer finally managed to carry it down safely, and she didn’t like to think why Rorie had had to put it so far out of reach. What a trial she must have been to both Rorie and the girls in those days when she thought Thomas Henry had returned.

  “What do you reckon Benton meant—he was afeard he knowed who’s up there shooting?”

  “Bushwhackers or deserters, I guess,” Sayer said, but all the while she was thinking that, given what she knew now about her head injury, it was as likely to be Halbert’s men as anybody. Rorie held out her hand for the musket, apparently deciding to take possession of both weapons despite Sayer’s experience with a revolver, minimal though it may have been. Or perhaps it was her experience with Sayer and the reason she’d had to hide it in the first place that led her to take possession of it now.

  Sayer hesitated, then handed it over to her.

  “Could be that, I reckon,” Rorie said. “More likely it’s some sorry good-for-nothing what got wind of Jeremiah having money to spend down at Benton’s. You know how quick word of that would get around.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t think bushwhackers need a reason—” Sayer stopped, realizing suddenly that Amity was crying. She moved to sit on the floor between her and Beatrice again.

  “Don’t cry!” Beatrice said, reaching across Sayer to give Amity a push. “Stop crying! We have to be ready to help Jeremiah!”

  “She’s right,” Rorie said. “We’ll cry later if we got to, but right now, we got to be ready—just in case.”

  Amity lifted her head and sniffed loudly. “I’m scared, Sayer.”

  “I know,” Sayer said. She glanced at Rorie for help.

  “Now, what did that sweet mama of yourn tell you to do when you were afeard?” Rorie asked.

  “I don’t know!” Amity said, bowing her head again.

  “She does, too,” Beatrice said. “Psalm 91. Mama always said it to us when we were scared!”

  “That’s right. She did,” Sayer said. “‘Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day...’” she quoted. “Beatrice, you recite it for Amity. Help her remember.”

  “But she does remember. She’s just being a baby!” She would have pushed Amity again, but Sayer caught her hand.

  “Beatrice,” Sayer said quietly, and Beatrice gave a sharp sigh.

  Another gunshot sounded, one that was not nearly as ominous as the abrupt silence that followed. Sayer kept trying to hear something, anything, and it was all she could do to stay put with the girls on the floor. She was so afraid that something had happened to Jeremiah. After a few more agonizing minutes, she made up her mind.

  “Take your sister’s hand, Beatrice. Recite the Psalm for her, please.”

  Beatrice began to recite, her words forced and resentful at first, but then her tone softened, Sayer thought, because the beautiful wording had begun to invoke the memory of their mother.

  “‘There shall no evil befall thee...’” Sayer whispered along with her as she got to her knees. “‘For He shall give His angels charge over thee...’”

  S
he moved to the window and stood up. Not far off she caught a glimpse of a blue plaid shirt in the tall grass—Jeremiah. She caught her breath. He was moving in a direction parallel to the barn. Where was Benton? She couldn’t see him anywhere, and she stood on tiptoe in an effort to get a better view. She realized suddenly that Jeremiah was empty-handed.

  She turned and hurried to the back door, pulling hard on the latch to get it open again so she could see where he was going.

  “What is it?” Rorie called, but Sayer didn’t answer.

  It took what seemed an eternity for the bar to finally give way. She cracked the door open slightly, but she couldn’t see him now. The mule was still in the barnyard, and in her line of vision. It lifted its head and looked in her direction. She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and turned in time to see two men moving along the edge of the trees. Both of them were armed.

  She looked over her shoulder at Rorie, panic-stricken, not knowing what to do and trying hard not to alarm the girls. She took a deep breath.

  “There shall no evil befall thee...”

  What should I do! I don’t know what to do!

  “Under his wings shalt thou trust...”

  She looked for Jeremiah again. She couldn’t see him, but she could still see the men dodging from tree to tree. Clearly, they didn’t know that he no longer had his revolver. The mule brayed loudly again and again.

  “Beatrice, Amity,” she said as calmly as she could manage. “I need your peppermint candy. Is it in the basket?”

  The girls looked at each other.

  “Is it in the basket!”

  They nodded rapidly in unison.

  “I need it to help Jeremiah,” she said as she edged to where the basket sat on the floor, and began to search through it. She couldn’t find it.

  “It’s not in here,” she said, looking at both girls.

  “Oh, I forgot,” Amity said suddenly. “I put the sticks in my pockets—so it wouldn’t get lost if we had to drop the basket and run.”

  She found the pieces after a moment of struggling with both her pinafore pockets and handed them to Sayer. Sayer quickly unwrapped them.