The Yankee Widow

by Linda Lael Miller

  Enoch stood firm, the muscles rigid in his arms, as his hands clutched the front of the slave catcher’s coat and pushed his head into the creek, heedless of the rush of water and the bubbles that rose to the surface and then burst.

  At some point, the man ceased to struggle, but Enoch didn’t realize that until the young woman appeared at his side, clutching his upper arm with both hands and crying out, “Mister, you’ve got to leave off before you kill that man!”

  Enoch’s reason returned in that instant, and he hauled the stranger upward, out of the creek, sensing even before he completed the motion that it was too late.

  The man’s head lolled to one side, and his eyes, though open, were empty of whatever it was that made a body think and move and feel.

  The young woman hung tight to Enoch’s arm, shifting as she scrabbled to plant her feet on the slippery bed of the creek. Slight as she was, he barely felt her there; her voice was shrill with panic. “He’s dead!” she said.

  Enoch turned his head, looked down into her thin face. “Hush, sister,” he said.

  She stared at him, her brown eyes huge, the lashes spiked with creek water.

  Enoch hoisted the drowned man up and over his right shoulder, his eyes still on the young woman. He saw she was trembling, her breathing too quick and too shallow. She had gumption, that was plain, but she’d all but used herself up.

  “Girl,” he said, “you take hold of my belt and don’t let go till we’re out of this water, hear?”

  She gulped, nodded and did as she was told.

  Together, they slogged to the creek bank, slowed by the strong current and the weight of their wet clothing.

  Once they were on solid ground, the girl released her hold on Enoch and crumpled to the grass, winded and, from the looks of her, fixing to go into shock.

  Enoch threw his head back and gazed up at the sky for a long moment, gathering himself. He could feel those armies coming, almost hear the steady march of boots on the hard-packed dirt of country roads as soldiers in blue and gray alike marched relentlessly onward. Even now, he knew, they were trampling fields, fording streams and rivers, crowding the once-peaceful streets of small towns as they passed through. They were harbingers of chaos, whether friend or foe, with their cannons and their rifles, their wagons and horses and mules, two vast and unstoppable forces, equally fierce in their differing convictions.

  Collision was inevitable, and the scale would be catastrophic; the ground would splinter, the sky would rain fire, and the rivers would run red with blood.

  And, in a few short hours, the evening train would pull into town, carrying a new widow and a coffin containing the body of a man Enoch had loved like a younger brother. He would be there to collect both.

  In the meantime, however, there was the girl to see to, and the slave catcher’s remains to bury in some out-of-the-way place. Whatever the provocation might have been, a black man had killed a white man, and even in a free state, there would be hell to pay.

  Enoch scanned his surroundings, saw no one; although he knew that didn’t mean they were safe, he and the young woman. The body still slung over his shoulder, he moved quickly into the shelter of the trees, dropped his burden into a brushy thicket of undergrowth and covered it with leaves and sticks.

  Then he went back for the girl. “Can you walk?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I think so,” she replied shakily, but she sat with both hands on her distended belly.

  Enoch extended a hand, helped her to her feet.

  ”My name’s Enoch Flynn,” he said. He was already leading her toward the copse of trees where he’d just hidden the dead slave catcher’s body.

  “Mine is Jubilee. Folks call me Jubie.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Enoch answered, once they were out of plain sight. The words seemed inadequate, but there was no time for anything more complicated just then.

  Jubie looked up at him, her face dappled by the shadows of dancing leaves. He paused, thoughtful. “That dead man,” he said. “You know his name?”

  Jubie glanced nervously in the direction of the mound of leaves and twigs, and Enoch noticed a bluish-gray hand protruding from the pile.

  A shiver ran down his spine, which he put down to his wet clothing, although he moved quickly to cover the evidence.

  “Said he was called McKilvoy,” Jubie murmured. She was hugging herself now, and her teeth chattered. Enoch was becoming aware of the time. He still had to hitch up the wagon, drive to town to meet the train, bring young Jacob home to be buried with his kinfolk—and who knew what kind of state Missus Caroline might be in. Not only that, he couldn’t leave Jubie here on her own.

  “McKilvoy—was he riding alone or with a gang?”

  “When he caught me yesterday morning, he said I better not give him no more grief or he’d let all his friends have a turn at me,” Jubie said. “I never seen any of them, though.” She shivered again, hugged herself even harder than before. “You reckon they’ll come looking for him.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  “Seems likely,” Enoch said, eyeing McKilvoy’s mount, grazing at the edge of the copse. The gelding was no beauty, bow-legged, mud-brown in color, ribs standing out beneath his dirty hide, but that didn’t mean he would go unnoticed. In farm country, most folks knew everyone else’s livestock by sight, same as their own. He was thinking aloud when he added, “We’d better hide the horse, too.”

  Enoch was already leading the horse into the shelter of the trees, taking down the coiled lasso hooked to a strap on the saddle, forming a loop on one end, then slipping it over the gelding’s head and knotting the rope so it couldn’t be pulled taut.

  “Mr...Mr. Flynn. I—I don’t know what to say. Don’t know what happens next. I need to get North, have my baby in a safe place, maybe Canada, and I’ve heard that there’s people who can help me...”

  “You’re a runaway, with a price on your head. McKilvoy’s friends will be hunting for you soon, if they’re not on your trail already. You come on back and stay in my cabin for the time being. I have a sorry errand to do in town. When I get back, we can figure out a way to keep you safe. That’s the main thing. You can tell me your whole story later or whenever you are ready—or not at all. I don’t need to know anything more than you are a young woman in need of protection.”

  With that, Enoch patted the horse on the neck and walked away without looking back. He followed the path of the creek with Jubie beside him and bent to retrieve his fishing pole when he came across it.

  4

  Gettysburg and Hammond Farm

  June 18, 1863

  Caroline

  Feeling exhausted to the point of incoherence, Caroline was relived—and grateful—to see Enoch waiting for her at the train station on Carlisle Street, flanked by Edward Bellows and his son Jonathan.

  She and Enoch exchanged a tearful glance, and that was enough. Nothing needed to be said, not here and not now.

  The three men bowed respectfully and, just as respectfully, removed the coffin and transferred it to the farm’s wagon.

  All of them stood there in silence for a moment. Then Bellows and his son gave their condolences to Caroline, backed away, bowing again, and left to return home.

  Enoch, still not speaking, placed Caroline’s bag in the front of the wagon, then helped her into the seat. She arranged her cloak around her, despite the evening’s warmth. Darkness was gradually overtaking the sun’s setting light and the gas lamps had been lit.

  Caroline finally looked at him, smiling faintly. “Thank you, Enoch.”

  He nodded. “Whatever you need, Missus Caroline... Now let’s retrieve the young miss from your grandmother’s.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered again.

  They drove to Geneva’s house on Baltimore Street to collect Rachel, who was waiting impatiently by the front door, her g
reat-grandmother beside her. Rachel threw herself into her mother’s arms, alternately yawning and chattering. Once her small bag had been put next to her mother’s, they both hugged Geneva goodbye and Rachel scrambled into the wagon front with a boost from Enoch. Caroline followed behind her. Rachel gave a brief glance back at her father’s coffin, then hugged her mother tightly. Caroline had decided Enoch would come for Geneva the following day, an hour before the funeral her grandmother had quickly arranged at Caroline’s request.

  Then the wagon went back to the farm, along Baltimore Street and then the Emmitsburg Road—Enoch, Caroline, Rachel...and Jacob.

  * * *

  The following morning, the little Methodist church at one of the other crossroads seemed to sag in the heat, as though its clapboard walls might actually melt away and leave Jacob’s poor, rough pine coffin and the group of mourners in the open. After taking the exhausted Caroline and Rachel home the night before, it was so late that Enoch had transported the coffin to the church with the help of the current minister, who brought keys to lock the building. Once the funeral and formal condolences were over, Enoch would bring Jacob back to the farm for one final night.

  Reverend Thurgood, long past the days of his eloquence, had returned to the pulpit only because his latest successor was serving as chaplain in some distant Union encampment. That morning, he labored through a lengthy sermon that made little sense to Caroline.

  Flies buzzed in through the gaping doors of the church, and bees hovered about the unadorned windows, seeking their way out.

  The congregation had dwindled steadily since the beginning of the war. That day, the mourners consisted of a few dozen wives and widows, including her Ladies’ Aid Society friends, several restless children, coerced into attendance, as well as a number of local farmers. And one Albert Dunsworthy, a white-bearded old man with an unnerving tendency to shout out the occasional “Amen!” or “Hallelujah!” seemingly at random.

  A small cadre of uniformed men occupied a rear pew, every one of them missing an arm or a leg or an eye or in some other way maimed. They had all grown up in or near Gettysburg and knew Jacob and liked him. They, too, had answered the call to volunteer.

  Once, they’d all been laughing boys together, full of mischief and bright, vital plans for a future. Now those dreams would never come to fruition. Blissfully unaware that they were of a generation marked for the cruel realities of a conflict they couldn’t possibly have imagined, even as rumors stirred in faraway places, they had worked and studied, played rowdy games and fished or swam.

  Their fathers had fretted over what they read in the newspapers. Certainly their mothers had worried, sensing the slow but inexorable waking of a great and ravenous monster of war, however remote it might have seemed, here in the peaceful Pennsylvania countryside.

  As young men, however, they had begun to hear, with their minds and hearts if not their ears, the summons and thrill of beating drums, faint at first, but always thrumming, thrumming. Intrigued, knowing nothing of cannon fire and cavalries, bloodshed and bayonets—for how could they know of such things, these sons of farmers and shopkeepers, blacksmiths and schoolmasters—they had fancied themselves soldiers. They had believed, along with virtually everyone else in this place, that the Southern rebellion would be put down with quick and glorious ease.

  Caroline had once believed that, too.

  Four-year-old Rachel huddled between her mother and her great-grandmother on the hard pew. Overwhelmed by her grief, Caroline was keenly aware of the need to show a quiet strength in front of her daughter.

  From the pews behind theirs, Caroline heard shuffling, whispers, the clearing of throats.

  The reverend droned on, never once mentioning Jacob’s name. Caroline could only assume he’d forgotten, as he’d forgotten so much else.

  Just when Caroline was about to stand up and call a merciful halt to the proceedings, Mr. Dunsworthy intervened.

  “For God’s sake, Thurgood,” he boomed, at a volume that belied his tiny, withered frame, “show some Christian mercy and stop your infernal ramblings before we all die of the heatstroke!”

  Caroline did not turn around.

  “Hear, hear!” someone else interjected.

  “My heavens,” her grandmother murmured.

  Caroline faced forward again, saw the reverend blinking as though he’d just awakened from an afternoon nap.

  “All right, then,” he said agreeably. “May our beloved deceased soldier find everlasting peace. Amen.”

  Enoch stood up and strode purposefully up the aisle, his broad face drawn with grief. The two Bellows boys and their father joined him, looking neither to the right nor the left.

  The men in uniform got up, hobbled to the aisle, and stood at attention, three on either side. Those who could salute did so, while the others held their heads high and stared straight ahead.

  Enoch took his place at one end of Jacob’s coffin, the Bellows boys at the other, their father trailing slightly behind.

  Caroline and the rest of the congregation rose as well.

  She and Rachel and Geneva were the first to follow as Jacob was carried down the aisle and outside, into the dazzling sunshine.

  As she passed the soldiers, honoring their boyhood friend and fallen comrade in the only way they could, she laid back her veil and looked each man in the face, silently thanking him for this tribute.

  Outside, another soldier waited, bugle in hand. He’d lost both legs at Bull Run, and been confined to an invalid’s chair ever since. Now, in full uniform, trouser legs pinned at midthigh, he raised the horn to his mouth and played taps.

  Enoch and his helpers hoisted the coffin into the rear of a wagon.

  Caroline, surrounded by women friends, embraced her grandmother as another of the Bellows brood stepped forward to help Rachel onto the high seat.

  “You and Rachel must come and stay with me for a few days when the burial is over,” Geneva fussed, her plump and kindly face wet with tears. “Let Enoch manage the farm.”

  Caroline shook her head. “Jacob would want me to carry on as usual,” she said. “But thank you, Grandmother. Thank you for everything.”

  “Jacob would want you and Rachel to be safe,” Geneva objected, in an anxious whisper. “You must know we’re all in grave peril. Some say the Confederates are moving toward us, even now...”

  Caroline stepped back, clasping her grandmother’s hands in her own. She knew the rumors were probably true; some of her friends and neighbors had already packed what goods their wagons would carry and fled, and others were preparing to do the same.

  As sensible as escape seemed, she couldn’t bring herself to abandon the farm to marauding armies and scavengers; she had to defend it. That fertile ground, those lush trees, bearing their sweet fruit in late summer, the sturdy house, the sparkling stream, brimming with fish—all of those things added up to more than a home. More than a refuge.

  The land had become part of Caroline, in ways she couldn’t have explained, even to herself. When she stood very still, she could feel the living force of it rising through the soles of her bare feet, sharing its strength with her. Someday, it would receive her, as it would receive Jacob.

  To leave it would be a betrayal.

  Again, Caroline shook her head. “Whatever happens,” she told her grandmother, “I will not leave the farm.” I will not leave the place Jacob loved to the exclusion of all others. The place that is his legacy—and Rachel’s.

  “Think of Rachel!” her grandmother pressed.

  “I am thinking of Rachel,” Caroline said quietly. “If I have to send her away, I will, but I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  “You are as stubborn as your father was, Caroline Prescott Hammond, and your grandfather, too,” Geneva said.

  Caroline managed a fragile smile. “I know,” she said softly.

  “Then I shall c
ome to you,” her grandmother said.

  “I think that’s a very good idea,” Caroline replied. If the Confederate army was indeed on its way, and if their regiments arrived before the Union forces, who were bound to confront them at some point, it seemed to her that they would occupy the town proper before they began foraging in the surrounding area.

  “Very well,” her grandmother said. “Send Enoch for me tomorrow, whenever you can spare him. Perhaps sometime during the evening? I will gather my things and will be ready by then. I’m sure the reverend will take me home in his buggy.”

  Caroline nodded, grateful. She loved her grandmother and looked forward to her company in the trying time ahead.

  The other mourners, those who’d offered their condolences earlier, were dispersing, no doubt relieved to return to their own homes.

  The remainder of the service was to be private and would take place the next morning; Jacob would be laid to rest in the family plot on the Hammond farm, not in the cemetery adjoining the churchyard. Only Caroline, Rachel and Enoch would be present for the burial, although Ed and Jonathan Bellows who lived close by had agreed to come back to the farm now, to help unload the coffin into the house, then return once more in the morning to load and unload it one final time before it was lowered into the waiting earth.

  Enoch set about digging the grave himself after briefly checking on Jubie who stayed hidden in his cabin, exhausted from her ordeal. Mr. Bellows and his son had offered to help, but Enoch had been adamant; this was his job, and he would do it alone.

  * * *

  Now Caroline sat in the rocking chair in the front parlor, Rachel on her lap, and watched numbly as Hannah and Patience and her other friends from the Gettysburg Ladies’ Aid Society, along with neighbors, moved past Jacob’s open casket, paying their respects through the afternoon and into the evening. Each one brought a gift—a jar of preserves, a pie or a cake, a ham, and Caroline had received these offerings graciously.

  Rachel stared steadily at her papa’s coffin, which rested on three sturdy wooden sawhorses brought in from one of the sheds for that purpose. She gazed at her father’s unmoving face, her own expression never changing, and Caroline waited for the questions that were sure to come. Lanterns and candles burned, lending the scene a soft eerie glow.