An unwelcome tingle ran down her spine. “It’s not your concern.” She pounded the dough again.
“Just remember what I said. There is more to life than death. Whatever happens. There is more.”
“You speak in riddles.”
“You’ll see soon enough.” He stepped outside, and Liberty followed, her doughy fingers gumming together in the rain. “If I were you, I’d go visit kinfolk somewhere else. And don’t come back for a few weeks.” As if she had family to visit. As if she had anyone at all, aside from her hired hands and her horse.
Her mouth went dry. “What do you know?”
“There’s trouble brewing.”
“We’ve been hearing that for months.” But her pulse quickened at the intensity of his gaze. “You’re crying wolf along with the rest of them.”
He looked down at her for a moment, as if testing his reply in his mind before speaking. “Don’t you remember? In the end, the wolf actually came.”
“It will take more than a wolf to scare me off my farm.”
The mysterious stranger shook his head and sighed. “Good day to you. Be well.” He held her in his gaze for a heartbeat before tipping his hat and fading back into the rain.
Liberty’s heart thundered as she entered the farmhouse, still dripping with rain. It could have been worse. She told herself. It could have been a raiding party.
But it wasn’t. It was just a man passing through. Now if only his words weren’t still echoing in her mind.
As she passed her bedroom on the way to the great hall, she caught a glimpse of herself in the looking glass on her bureau, and paused to weave an errant curl back into her braid.
She walked closer to the mirror. At a mere five feet two inches short, if it wasn’t for the gentle curve of her waist and the way her corset filled out her bodice, she could pass for a tall child. She ventured a smile, and dimples popped into her cheeks. No one would guess she was old enough to be married, let alone widowed. But her sapphire blue eyes were shadowed by the valley of death the war had carved into her life.
When do you plan to come on back to the land of the living?
The question was, when would her conscience allow it?
She picked up a framed daguerreotype of Levi in his new uniform and studied it. She was sure he had been told not to smile while they captured his image, but he couldn’t help it. He was so happy to fight for the Union, even though it meant taking a break from his studies at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg to do it. I want to fight while I have the chance, he had told her. The war will be over before you know it, Libbie, and I have to do my part. They married first, right after she had come out of mourning for Aunt Helen. It had seemed like perfect timing, and a dream come true for the orphan girl. A family of her own. A new beginning.
But I barely knew him. She was seventeen when they married, a mere child. They knew nothing, absolutely nothing. They believed he would be fine, would come back and finish his schooling and take over the Holloway Farm, and they’d have the rest of their lives to discover exactly what it was they loved about each other. The thought of his possible death was only fleeting. The idea that he may be wounded—wounded beyond recognition and yet still alive—never occurred to either one of them. Her mind reeled back to the day she learned the news.
She had not responded well.
Struggling to bridle her memories so they would not run away with her again, Libbie sat on the edge of her bed and absentmindedly traced with her finger the pattern of the colorful patchwork quilt that covered it. Her first. She smiled wistfully as the last two years flashed through her mind. When other girls her age were having fun together and being courted by their beaus, Liberty Holloway was home, forced into the social isolation of widowhood, learning to quilt and preserve the harvest she grew with her hired hand.
Not that it was that different from before … As an orphan living with a spinster in a community of large families, Libbie had always been an oddity, a curiosity, but never really a friend. Levi’s death had merely changed the reason for her solitude. She went from being Libbie the Orphan to Libbie the Widowed Bride.
But that was two years ago. There’s so much more to life than death. Levi would have agreed. He had told her, in his one passing moment of gravity, that if he died, he would be happy knowing he had died in the service of his country. That he wanted her to find a way to be happy, too.
Maybe it was time, at long last, to try.
Kneeling on the rag rug at the end of her bed, Libbie pried up a loose floorboard, dug out the key she placed there nearly two years ago, and unlocked the cedar chest in front of her. The smell of a sunbaked forest greeted her as she lifted the lid, and she inhaled deeply. Slowly at first, and then like a child on Christmas morning, she lifted out dress after dress that she hadn’t seen since those first bewildering months of the war. They were simple, practical, made by her own hand. But they weren’t black, and some of them were even pretty.
Liberty’s eyes misted over, and suddenly, she couldn’t get her black crepe off fast enough. After unfastening the fabric-covered buttons she could reach, she cast her mourning into a rusty black puddle on the floor and stepped into the blue muslin, perfect for a summer day.
“What are you doing?”
Libbie jumped at the sound of Bella’s voice from the hallway. Nervous laughter trickled from her lips at the sight of her standing there with two horses in tow, smelling of damp earth and hay. “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting. I was on my way to get you. The danger has passed, we’re alone again.”
Bella’s velvety brown eyes widened as she looked at the discarded mourning dress and back to Liberty. “Those mourning clothes were your protection, Miss Liberty. No man, no matter how roguish, would try to take advantage of a woman in mourning.”
Liberty set her lips in a thin line. For hired help, Bella certainly could be outspoken. “Am I not free to make my own decision?” She shook the ring off her finger and into the jewelry box on her bureau. “It’s been long enough. Now fasten me up, please.”
Bella’s brow creased, but she obeyed. “I don’t think your mama would approve.” It was barely a whisper.
Libbie caught Bella’s eye in the looking glass, and with uncharacteristic sharpness, said, “My mother? You know she’s not around. She never was.”
Guilt trickled over Silas Ford as he rode east on Hagerstown Road, away from the Holloway Farm. He hated what he had become. And there was no place like Gettysburg to remind him of just how far he had fallen.
The Lutheran Theological Seminary loomed ahead on Seminary Ridge, its cupola white against the pewter grey sky. Silas thought he’d never see it again—not after what happened before his final year as a student there. Yet here he was, near enough to see that the brick building remained unchanged, while he was so far from being the pastor the seminary had trained him to be that the contrast nearly choked him. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.
But regret accomplished nothing. Silas swallowed the lump in his throat and clucked his tongue, urging Bullet up the hill. It was an odd name for a horse whose owner refused to carry a gun. Named before it had come into Silas’s possession, Silas had tried to change it, but the horse only responded to “Bullet.” As a Lutheran, Silas wasn’t supposed to believe in penance, but that’s what it felt like. Not that he needed such an ever-present reminder of the sin that had changed more than just his life.
Mud sucked at Bullet’s hooves as he carried Silas over the ridge and down the other side, toward town. With Holloway Farm out of sight behind Seminary Ridge, Silas breathed easier.
At least Liberty hadn’t recognized him. He almost gave himself away back there, calling her by name like that. It was pure luck that he remembered the wooden sign by the road, the U.S. flag unfurling behind the lettering. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought “Liberty” was some reference to a Northern ideal, and not the name of a girl.
“Woman,” he muttered, correcting himself. She
was not the girl of fourteen summers he remembered, wilting beneath the scrutiny of the spinster who had hired him to repair her fences. No, Liberty had grown into a woman.
“And I’ve grown into an old man.” The soft body of a student had been chiseled into muscular leanness. The fair skin and butter-blonde hair he’d brought with him to seminary were now darker. The last time he’d seen a looking glass, he’d seen grey hair sprouting at his temples, and lines framing his eyes, though he was only twenty-eight. It should not have surprised him, not after what he’d seen. He doubted that anyone in Gettysburg would recognize him. It would be far easier if they didn’t.
Thoughts of Silas’s past scattered as he entered Gettysburg, carefully riding slow enough to appear casual, but fast enough that he did not look aimless. He had a purpose, indeed. He was oath-bound. The fact that it had been against his will had no bearing on his situation now.
“Whoa, Bullet.” Though this stop was not part of his assignment, Silas drew rein and dismounted in front of Christ Lutheran Church on Chambersburg Street. Removing his hat out of habit, he relished the gentle shower streaming over his body. Oh, how he wanted to be clean.
After tying Bullet to the hitching post in the street, he climbed the stone stairs, passed through the white columns under the portico, and slipped inside the arched door.
And waited. And hoped. Maybe here, in this church, he would feel closer to God than he did in his saddle. Silas did not bother to sit down, knowing his rain-soaked trousers would dampen the oak pews. And if God could meet him on a bench, He could just as well meet him standing in the back. He had met him here before. This was where Silas had worshiped alongside his fellow seminary students. That pew—fourth from the front on the left side—that was where he sat when Rev. Samuel Schmucker had fanned into flame the fire that had been kindling in his belly for the freedom of all men, regardless of color. When Schmucker’s wife brought slaves into their marriage years ago, he taught and trained them to live as free men and women, then freed them. The reverend was the seminary founder, Silas’s professor, and his role model. What must he think of me now? Silas shuddered. With any luck, he’d forgotten him all together.
Rolling the brim of his hat in his hands, he surveyed the narrow stained-glass windows. If the sun were shining, mosaics of vibrant color would depict inspiring stories from the Bible.
But the sun was not shining. So he closed his eyes, listening for God to speak to him anyway, and heard—nothing. Felt nothing. He sighed. If I were God, would I want to talk to Silas Ford? His mama had called times like these dry spells. “But the important thing,” she had said, “is to keep talking to God anyway, even if He isn’t talking back.”
Forgive me, Silas prayed. Show me the way out. And he left the church feeling as much like a hypocrite as he ever had.
Chambersburg Street was springing to life as he reached Bullet and untied him, with women and children and a handful of men all headed toward the center of town.
“Excuse me,” he called down to a young lady carrying a tray of bread down the sidewalk. “Is there a parade somewhere?”
The girl beamed up at him. “Better,” she chirped. “Our soldiers are back!”
He raised his eyebrows. “Did they take a holiday? You must forgive me, I’m not from around here.”
“I know.” She laughed. “I’m sure I’d remember you if I’d seen you before.” She flashed a smile that made his skin creep, but he waited for more information. Girls were always ready to talk. “Last week, after President Lincoln called for a hundred thousand more volunteers to defend us from the Rebels, Governor Curtin issued a call asking for fifty thousand of those men to come from Pennsylvania.”
Silas swallowed his surprise. Fifty thousand? One hundred thousand? Did they have that many men to spare?
“So about sixty—or was it seventy?—of our boys from the college and seminary here signed up and went to Harrisburg. They are part of Company A, of the 26th Pennsylvania Emergency Infantry regiment. And now the 26th has just arrived by train!”
“Is that so?” Silas’s gaze followed the people now streaming past them into the square. College and seminary recruits? They’d be as green as the apples he’d eaten yesterday, and softer, too.
“Yes indeed!” The woman’s chipper voice grated on him. “They were supposed to arrive last night, but their train hit a cow on the track and it derailed them.” She giggled. “Let’s not bring that up to them. I’m just glad they’re here to protect us now.”
“Protect you from …”
“My goodness, you really are not from anywhere around here, are you? Haven’t you heard? The Rebel army is around here somewhere! They’ll be on to Washington next, if we don’t stop them!”
“We?”
“They.” She laughed brightly. “I meant ‘they.’ Women have no part in war. Come on, we’ll miss them!”
Soon Chambersburg Street opened into the town square, or The Diamond, as locals called it, and the girl ran off to join some friends. A young boy tugged on his stirrup and offered to sell him a plug of tobacco.
“No thanks, can’t stand the stuff.” Silas smiled at the puzzled expression on the boy’s face before the child shrugged and tried for another customer.
Silas remained on the edge and watched smooth-faced boys in blue peacock about. So you traded your textbooks and Bibles for rifles, did you? His stomach soured for them, for their mothers and sweethearts. The beat of a drum hammered in Silas’s chest as the high-pitched fife played Yankee Doodle to a backdrop of feminine cheers. Even the dripping, sullen sky seemed unable to dampen the throng now filling The Diamond.
How pitiful. How pathetic. They would not cheer if they knew what he knew. They would not believe him if he told them.
Their march ended, the uniformed students milled about the crowd, accepting pies and coffee from grateful townsfolk.
“You a seminary student?” Silas called down to a soldier near him. With cheeks bulging with cherries, the boy nodded in the affirmative. “Is Rev. Schmucker still teaching? He was my professor once upon a time.”
The student-soldier’s eyes brightened. “You don’t say! When did you graduate?”
Silas rubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw. “Let’s see—I was there in ’57 and ’58.”
“Why then, you must have known Silas Ford!”
“As a matter of fact—” He stopped himself. “Why do you say that?”
“Oh every student from ’57 on knows him. For pity’s sake, the whole town knows about him. He’s a legend! You know—‘Silas Ford, man of the Lord’?”
Silas was stunned. “Man of the Lord?” He dared to believe it was true of him once, but—
“Of course! ‘Silas Ford, man of the Lord, took slaves to bed and shot Pa dead’! Remember him now? Did you have any idea he was a bad egg?”
His blood turned to ice in his veins. “No, no, you must be mistaken.”
The boy shook his head. “Hardly. Watch this. Hey Blevens!” he shouted to another soldier. “Finish this rhyme: Silas Ford, man of the Lord …”
“Took slaves to bed and shot Pa dead!” Blevens hadn’t missed a beat.
Silas was going to be sick.
“You see?” The boy took another bite of cherry pie. “I can’t understand how you don’t know about him. Silas Ford is a cautionary tale. His mother wrote a letter to Rev. Schmucker explaining why he wasn’t coming back, and word got out quick. Just goes to show no matter how close we feel to God, we can all fall away as he did …” Another bite of pie.
Silas had heard enough. Clucking his tongue to Bullet, he began threading his way out of The Diamond.
Then he saw Liberty on the other side of the square, a simple blue dress gracing her frame as she climbed down from her buggy and joined the crowd. So she decided to put off mourning after all. Does she know the rhyme too? Does she believe it? Silas was glad she didn’t see him. He wanted to watch her, unnoticed. She hadn’t recognized him this morning, but what if she had a sudden
recollection? Still, he couldn’t help but watch Liberty one more moment as the old protective instinct for the orphan girl swelled in his chest.
Then he remembered why he was here in the first place, and the smile faded. Protecting the innocent was not part of his line of work. And it was certainly not what he was known for in Gettysburg.
Bella could still smell that rye bread and rhubarb pie she’d made at the Holloway Farm as she let herself into her modest two-story house on South Washington Street. She was tempted to bake a pie for herself just to have that heavenly smell of buttery crust and tangy-sweet rhubarb permeate every corner of her comfortable home.
Large pink flowers bloomed on the creamy papered walls of her kitchen above wainscoting painted a mellow green. Open shelving revealed crocks of coffee beans, flour, lard, and sugar, while jelly pots sparkled with cherry and peach preserves. It was not furnished as finely as the homes of the white women she worked for, but it was her home—together with Abraham—and that was what was important. No mistress above her here. No master, no overseer, no driver. Here, she was her own mistress. As long as Bella had a choice, she would never consent to live in someone else’s home again.
But there was no denying she still needed white folks as employers. Her eyes drifted to the baskets of laundry waiting to be ironed, and a sigh escaped her. At least it was already washed. Just the thought of toiling over a washboard in a bucket of water made her back muscles tie themselves up in knots. She much preferred tasks that allowed her to stand straight. Some days, judging by the way she felt, even she didn’t believe she was only thirty-six years old. Maybe her body still suffered from years of bending over harvesting rice down on Georgia’s St. Simons Island. Maybe the memory alone was enough to cause the ache.
Balderdash. She scolded herself as she dropped some kindling into the stove and lit the fire that would heat the iron on top. That was a lifetime ago. But a nest of hornets had buzzed in her belly this morning when she was hiding with the horses. Her past was not so distant that the idea of repeating it couldn’t shake her to the core of her being. She had been lucky today.
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