“Yes,” she said. “How pitiful we must have seemed to you then—but not as pitiful as we are now. Why is there a bounty on your head? What did you do?”
“Nothing. I told you that the young woman I’d asked to marry me married someone else. I went to see her after I was discharged from the army. My pride was hurt. I wanted her to look at me and say why she’d changed her mind and never bothered to tell me. Looking back on it, it wasn’t one of my better plans. She...”
He stopped and turned his face away as a strong gust of wind blew the rain through the lean-to. Sayer couldn’t keep from shivering.
“Go on,” she said.
“You’re cold—”
“Please! Say what you wanted to say.”
He looked at her for a long moment before he continued.
“Elrissa was...unhappy in her marriage. She wanted to leave her husband.”
“With you?” Sayer asked when he didn’t continue.
“When I left her house, I thought she understood that I couldn’t—wouldn’t—do that. I didn’t realize how angry she was that I’d said no. In a fit of pique, she must have told her husband that I’d...” He stopped and gave a heavy sigh. “The maid in the house knows whatever Elrissa said isn’t true, but she’s afraid to speak up. She’s one of the orphans, but Elrissa’s husband is a powerful man.
“Father Bartholomew found out somehow that the watchmen who were looking for me had been paid off. They weren’t going to bring me in alive. He helped me get away. I don’t even know if there were formal charges made. Based on what Father Bartholomew told me, I suspect her husband is handling this...privately.”
“But now they know where you are.”
“Two of them do. I want to think that’s all—I don’t believe bounty hunters share information if they can help it. They want all the money for themselves. But there may be others. You and Rorie and the girls will have to be careful.”
“We have always had to be careful here,” she said. “Is that all you wanted to say?”
“Not quite,” he said, but he untied the horse and mounted, clearly still favoring his injured knee. “There’s one last thing,” he said, looking down at her. “You said you’d made it easy for me. Well, it wasn’t easy—being here, seeing you every day, longing for the things I know can never be. I love you, Sayer. I love you with all my heart. You’re the reason I’ve stayed.” He hesitated, then, “Tell Rorie and the girls goodbye for me, if you will.”
Sayer stood there, stunned. He gave her no chance to recover, no chance to say anything. He wheeled the horse sharply and rode away.
Chapter Eleven
Amity was standing by the window again, trying to peek around the edge to see outside.
“Amity, come away from there. What are you doing?” Sayer asked, but she already knew. Amity was keeping a vigil, watching the path for some sign of Jeremiah the way she had for Thomas Henry.
Neither of the girls had had much to say since she told them that Jeremiah had gone. She was grateful that she could tell them truthfully that he’d asked her to say goodbye to them and to Rorie.
Beatrice had but one question. “Why did you let him go?”
And Sayer had nothing to say to that.
“You should have told him!” Beatrice cried. “You should have said we need him here now that we don’t have Thomas Henry. I’m afraid if he’s not here! Can’t we go and find him? Amity wants to look for him and I do, too. He would take us with him—I know he would. Why did he go!”
“It was time for him to go,” Sayer said finally, not missing the look Rorie gave her. But it was the truth, albeit just barely.
I love you with all my heart….
The words swirled in her mind ever since he’d said them. She had told Rorie once that she trusted him. She did—perhaps still did, in spite of everything.
I love you...
Did he?
No, of course he didn’t. It was...something else, something she didn’t understand. Had he come here intending to enact some kind of revenge? He’d lost so many of the young men who were his orphan family. It must be something like that—except that that didn’t make any sense, either. In her heart she knew he was not a vengeful man.
All through the day Rorie kept looking at her as they did the chores that could be done without being too much in the open, but she waited until the girls were asleep that night before she finally said anything.
“You keep on working at it,” she said. “Sooner or later you’ll get to where you can turn his coming here into a bad thing.”
“It is a bad thing. He lied.”
“He cut wood,” Rorie countered. “He plowed. He made it easier to get water from the spring. And he stood up against Halbert and his men.”
“He brought his trouble here!”
“Well, I reckon I can’t argue with you none there. He did do that. But he wouldn’t have if he hadn’t been willing to help you and the girls. I reckon you should be mad at me, too. I’m the one what brought him over here. If I’d shot him when I was of a mind to, just think how much better off we’d all be.”
“That’s not funny,” Sayer said.
“I ain’t trying to be funny, girl. Do you believe what he said?”
“About what?”
“About loving you, of course.”
“You were listening?” Sayer cried, more annoyed than surprised.
“Yes, I was listening. I’m smack in the middle of all this, ain’t I? I was wanting to know what he had to say, too. This declaration of his weren’t no surprise to me, nor you either, and it ain’t no use to pretend otherwise. He’s felt that way near about from the first day he come here. That’s how it happens sometimes, and that’s why I—”
“Why you what, Rorie?”
“Nothing.”
“I think you better tell me.”
Rorie gave a heavy sigh. “Why...I told him he needed to take you and the girls with him when he left here.”
“You told him that!”
“I did. Didn’t you just hear me say his declaration weren’t no surprise to me?”
“Well, I’m surprised. I’m surprised he stayed at all after that.” She tried not to ask the question that was straining to be asked, but she couldn’t help it.
“What...did he say?”
“He said you loved Thomas Henry, and you wouldn’t go with him—which ain’t the kind of thing a man would say if he didn’t want you to do just that.”
“Rorie—”
“You weren’t born and raised here, Sayer. You ain’t tied to these mountains.”
“The girls were,” Sayer interrupted. “And I love the mountains just the same.”
“More than you love Jeremiah? Even if you do, it ain’t going to matter one whit to Halbert Garth. Thomas Henry wanted to make sure all three of you were safe from him. You know he did if he asked a soldier what was his enemy to see about you. I don’t know of a better way to do that than for you to go away from here with a man what says and shows he loves you.”
Sayer frowned and turned away. She went to the washstand and poured water into the basin, using the same delaying tactic Rorie had when she didn’t want to discuss a matter. She washed her face, unbraided and brushed her hair the one hundred strokes just the way her mother had taught her to do. And when she was finished, Rorie was waiting.
“So what are you going to do now?” she asked.
“Do? Nothing. He’s gone.”
“Is he?”
Sayer looked at her.
“I swan, Sayer, if you don’t beat all sometimes. You think a man like Jeremiah Murphy is going to come right out and say in front of God and everybody he loves you, then ride off and leave you to fend for yourself? Ain’t you been paying any attention at all to what
kind of man he is?”
Sayer couldn’t keep her mouth from trembling.
I love you with all my heart….
The problem wasn’t that she didn’t believe him. The problem was that she did. She believed every word of it.
“What are you going to do?” Rorie asked yet again, gently this time, too gently for Sayer to withstand.
She covered her face with her hands and showed her, crying again as if her heart would break.
“Well, I don’t know what good you think that’s going to do,” Rorie complained in exasperation. “I’m going to put myself to bed. You should, too. If you’d quit that crying and get yourself some sleep, maybe you’d have good sense in the morning. You ain’t got much now, if you want my verdict.”
Sayer didn’t want her “verdict.” She turned away as Rorie climbed into bed in her work dress. She had taken to sleeping fully clothed since the bounty hunters’ raid, and the girls had followed suit. Jeremiah had told them they would have to take care, and being ready to run for their lives no matter the time of day seemed to be the best they could do.
Sayer didn’t go to bed. She went to the shelf where she kept the keepsake box that held Thomas Henry’s letters and her mother’s Bible. She took the Bible out, knowing she couldn’t light a candle to read it without illuminating the inside of the cabin for anyone who might be watching. All she could do was hold it, and she would have to take comfort in that. She carried it over to Mrs. Garth’s rocking chair and sat down, the Bible in her lap, her fingers caressing the now-worn leather binding. It had been her most precious possession, far beyond that of the boxes of Royal Doulton china. The Bible had been every step of the way with her mother and with Thomas Henry. He had said in more than one of his letters how much it had meant to him to have it.
She began to rock slowly back and forth, feeling the confines of the cabin closing in on her just as she had the night Jeremiah had told her Thomas Henry was dead.
I can’t sleep! I can’t think!
No. It was more that she didn’t want to think.
What was it Jeremiah had said?
I’ll know if you need me….
And then he’d hesitated. She’d known immediately that something was wrong. Had he meant to tell her all his dark secrets then?
She gave a quiet sigh. It wouldn’t have mattered if she’d found out about his being in the Union army earlier; she knew that. She would have sent him away in any case. If Rorie was right and he was still here, then she was afraid for him. And if he was gone, then she was still afraid for him, much more than she was for herself.
She suddenly remembered a verse from Proverbs, one she’d read so many times to Mrs. Garth.
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart
And lean not unto thine own understanding...
“I’m trying, Lord,” she whispered. And then, “Please keep him safe.”
She must have dozed off in the chair. When she opened her eyes, she was still holding the Bible. The night was fading, but the sun had yet to rise over the mountain ridge. She got up stiffly and put the Bible back into the keepsake box. As she did so, her fingers touched the daguerreotype of Thomas Henry. She hadn’t looked at it since the day Jeremiah gave it to her. She knew perfectly well that it was Thomas Henry who stared back at her from the frame, and yet it wasn’t somehow. She had never known the fierce-looking soldier who looked into the camera with such determination and who held a revolver in each hand. She had known the gentle, brown-eyed boy who waited for the train every summer, who gave her candy and honeycombs and a cedar pencil. Had that Thomas Henry been long gone by the time he died on the battlefield? It’s what war is; Jeremiah had told her that.
She took the daguerreotype out of the box after all and tried to see his face in the dimness of the cabin. She wanted to find some remnant of her Thomas Henry in his features.
But it wasn’t there.
“Goodbye, Tommy,” she whispered as she put the daguerreotype back into the box and closed the lid. My whole life is in here, she thought.
She reached for her shawl, then stepped quietly out onto the front porch. Already she could feel autumn in the chill of the morning air. Halbert had said she wouldn’t last another winter here, but for whatever reason, that thought didn’t frighten her as it might have yesterday.
I love you with all my heart….
She pushed Jeremiah’s words aside and looked up at the early-morning sky. Thomas Henry had loved this place, and unfortunately, Halbert, in his own covetous way, did, too.
She stepped off the porch and walked to the big shade tree, pausing just long enough to give the swing a push and send it high into the air. Then she moved into the open and took a deep breath, savoring the dewy freshness of the early morn. It was still quiet, but any moment now the birds would begin to sing. She had always looked forward to that very instant when the world suddenly awoke.
This is the day which the Lord hath made,
We will rejoice and be glad in it...
I can do that, she thought. Despite her misery, she could still appreciate God’s handiwork.
The mule brayed in the barn, apparently alert to the fact that someone was about. It kicked the stall hard several times as a less-than-subtle reminder that it hadn’t yet been fed. She would do that, and she would milk the cow, and she would do her best to stop thinking about Jeremiah.
There was something lying on the bench under the tree and she walked over to see. It was a brown paper parcel of some kind. She picked it up, immediately knowing what was in it. Peppermint sticks. He was still doing what he could for his fellow orphans.
She put the candy into her pocket and looked around, hoping for some sign that he might still be here, but there was nothing. She could guess why he’d left the candy out here instead of putting it on the porch. He must have thought that either she or Rorie would shoot him.
“I did the right thing, Lord,” she whispered. “Didn’t I? I was right to send him away. If I wasn’t, then I need your help. Please. Please!”
She looked around sharply at a noise that came from the barn, one that didn’t sound as if it were made by a hungry mule. For the briefest of moments she thought it was Jeremiah, but it wasn’t. She didn’t recognize the man walking in her direction or the one who came out of the barn behind him.
She looked toward the cabin porch, trying to determine if she could make it to the front door before they caught her. There was no doubt in her mind that that was their intent.
She suddenly picked up the skirt of her too-long work dress and ran for the cabin as hard as she could. She made it inside. She even got the door closed before the two men burst in behind her.
Both girls were awake and screaming. Rorie managed to grab her revolver out from under her pillow and fire, but her aim was high. One of the men took the revolver away from her before she could get off another shot. The man closest to Sayer grabbed her by the arm and dragged her outside onto the porch, and the girls screamed louder.
“Don’t hurt them!” she cried, trying to fight him off enough to see what was happening behind her. “Please!”
“All you have to do is tell us where he is.”
He pulled her off the porch and into the yard; the other man was bringing Rorie out. The girls ran past him and straight to Sayer, grabbing her around the waist.
“Where is he!” the man holding her yelled, his hand raised as if to strike her, and the girls, if they insisted on being in the way.
Sayer didn’t dare say she didn’t understand what he was asking.
“He’s not here,” she said evenly, holding on to the girls tightly. She realized that there were more men in the yard now, all of them on horseback. She had no trouble identifying three of them—Halbert Garth and his two henchmen. The other man was a stranger to her. He was clearly not a bounty hu
nter. He had pomaded hair, and he was smoking a cigar, the kind Halbert had liked to flaunt at the beginning of the war when he still had a supply. This man was dressed far too fine for such a base profession as bounty hunting.
“Hand those women over to Halbert’s men and search the cabin,” he said, tossing the cigar carelessly aside. Sayer didn’t miss seeing how much one of Halbert’s men craved it, discarded in the dirt or not, but he made no attempt to retrieve it.
The men dismounted and walked in her direction.
“No,” Halbert said. “One of yourn and one of mine go looking. I ain’t letting you claim I didn’t have no hand in collecting the bounty.”
The man who had Rorie in his grip was forcing her to walk over the rough ground faster than she was able. He suddenly gave her a hard shove and went inside the cabin to search with one of Halbert’s men. Rorie went sprawling onto her knees. She cried out in pain, and the tears began to stream down her face. Sayer tried to go to her, but she couldn’t get free from the man who still held her. She watched as Rorie got slowly—painfully—to her feet, her chin thrust out in defiance despite her tears.
A loud crash came from inside the cabin.
“He’s not here!” Sayer cried, trying to jerk free again.
“Then where is he?” the well-dressed man asked mildly.
“I don’t know. He left—”
“Let her go,” he said, and he pointed to Amity. “Maybe she knows, then.”
The man apparently understood what his employer wanted him to do. He suddenly grabbed Amity and held her high over his head. Amity screamed in terror.
“Stop! Stop!” Sayer cried, trying to hit him with her fists. He pushed her away with his foot and she fell on the ground.
“I’ll ask you one more time,” the well-dressed man said.
“I told you! I don’t know! Halbert!” Sayer cried, scrambling to her feet again. She turned to Thomas Henry’s uncle. “Amity is your kin. If there is anyone left in the Garth family who cares about you, it’s Amity. She remembers you in her prayers—don’t let him hurt her! Please!”
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