“What a scaredy-cat you’re getting to be,” Cassie chided herself. “You’re worse than Ben.” The britches were somewhere in the house, Cassie decided, and would probably show up later, like a lot of things did as soon as you didn’t need them anymore.
When another, more thorough search of the house still didn’t turn up the britches, Emma, greatly perturbed, had to wear her printed cotton lawn dress into the woods. Cassie had never seen Emma act like such a baby. Emma grumbled and whined with every step. She moved like a snail, holding her skirt up to her knees, pestering Cassie to hold back briers for her, and carrying on and hollering when she walked into a spiderweb. “I swanney,” Cassie told Emma. “All the racket you’re making, we’ll never find Maybelle. You’ll scare her off for sure.” Cassie would rather have taken Ben.
By the time they reached the spring, Cassie had nearly had it with Emma. The spring was under a huge spreading chinquapin tree and bubbled up from amid a thicket of mulberry bushes. Emma was lagging way behind, and Cassie figured she’d better stop at the spring to wait for her. Cassie scooped up a handful of the cold, clear water and drank it down.
Across the brook formed by the spring was a tangle of blackberry brambles. Its wreaths of white blossoms looked like fallen snow. Cassie had the idea it would be a perfect place for Maybelle to hide. Cassie made her way into the brambles, and sure enough, there was a nest tucked away back in the briers. At first Cassie thought it might have been made by a guinea hen, until she saw that the nest was littered with white feathers. Guinea hens were black and speckled. Maybelle was pure white.
This had to be Maybelle’s nest, though there were no eggs in it yet.
“Chicky, chicky, chicky,” Cassie called, just like Mama did when she had cracked corn to feed the hens. Maybelle was always the first to come running at mealtime.
But this time Maybelle did not appear. “I told Emma she was going to scare the poor thing off,” Cassie said in disgust. “Now I got to be the one to hunt her down.” Most likely the hen had only fled her nest temporarily and would come back when she thought the danger had passed. Cassie pushed back farther into the brambles, ignoring the scratches she got from the briers, hoping to find Maybelle.
What Cassie did find scared the daylights out of her.
Dangling from a thorn was a fragment of tattered cloth, and from the cloth hung a brass button. It was identical, Cassie was sure, to the button she had found in the secret thicket.
Cassie felt as if her heart had frozen in her chest. With trembling hands, she reached out and pulled the cloth off the thorn. As she did so, the fragment unraveled and fell to shreds. All that remained was the button and a few dark-colored threads clinging to it. She couldn’t even tell what color the cloth had been.
Cassie rolled the button in her hand while her mind raced. A heap 0’no-gooders about, Myron had said. And watch out for solitary soldiers. They mean trouble …
Then an image flashed through Cassie’s head, an image that made her mouth go dry: the front of the deserter’s jacket, tattered and torn, with some of the buttons missing and some hanging practically by threads.
Cassie’s pulse pounded so hard she could hear it. Maybe the deserter wasn’t gone at all. Maybe he had been here, not long ago, standing in these very brambles. Had this piece of cloth ripped from his uniform when he bent to snatch Maybelle from her nest? Maybe he was here now, this very minute, watching her.
Suddenly, behind her, Cassie heard leaves crunching—someone approaching. She whirled around, her heart in her throat, then saw it was only Emma, standing at the edge of the brambles.
“Cassie, darlin’, you look like you seen a ghost.” Emma’s eyebrows were knit together in concern. “What happened? Did you find Maybelle dead?”
Cassie tried to hold her voice steady. “No. I found Maybelle’s nest, but she’s not in it. Likely she changed her mind and went back home.” Cassie glanced nervously around. Was the deserter listening to their every word? She dared not tell Emma about her fears. “Let’s get on h—” She started to say home but stopped herself. If the deserter was listening, the last thing she wanted to do was lead him straight to their farm.
“Let’s get on out of here,” she corrected herself. She was out of the brambles and pulling Emma back across the brook. In her mind she was already planning a roundabout way home to make it hard for the deserter to follow. “Yeah,” she told Emma. “Maybelle’s probably sitting pretty back in the henhouse. No use fretting over her.”
Emma was only too glad to give up the search and go home. The route Cassie chose led through the pine forest, up and down steep hills, but the way was largely clear, uncluttered by brambles and thickets. There were few places that anyone could have hidden from their view.
Yet Cassie walked silently, and watched. Through thick skirts of cedars and loblollies, past heavy oaks with moss-covered roots, she watched for any sign that someone unfamiliar with these woods had passed. And though she saw nothing, heard nothing unusual, the closer she got to home, the more she was bothered by a feeling … the feeling of a presence in the woods.
The feeling that something—or someone—was watching her.
CHAPTER 7
NOISES
The feeling haunted Cassie into the night. She couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Mama had told Cassie not to fret too much over the scrap of cloth. “If your deserter was out there, sugar, don’t you know Myron would’ve found him? That little bit of cloth has likely been hanging in the brambles for months.” Mama was worried more, she said, about them not finding Maybelle.
But Cassie kept seeing in her mind that awful glint in the deserter’s eyes and hearing him say in his gravelly voice, “Home … where might that be?” She kept thinking of the buttons, too, the buttons that were just alike. How could those be only a coincidence? And how could it be only a coincidence that so many things—the ash cake, the hen, the britches—had started to go missing all at the same time?
Cassie knew deep down that it wasn’t reasonable to imagine the deserter was behind the disappearances. The deserter wouldn’t stop at taking one ash cake, anymore than he would stop at taking one hen. That scalawag would take everything, just like Mama said. Maybe another no-good soldier was responsible.
Still, Cassie couldn’t get the deserter out of her head, and she couldn’t sleep. Usually the nighttime noises that carried in through the open window soothed her; now they did nothing but play on her nerves. The yrp-yrp of the crickets sounded as loud as pots clattering, and the boroop-baroop of the frogs from the pond seemed as loud as a rooster crowing in her bedroom.
Through the usual noises, though, Cassie heard something else: the click, click of Hector’s toenails on the wooden floor downstairs. That was strange, because Hector never roamed about after the family had gone to bed. He always stayed put in his place by the hearth until Mama let him outside in the morning. Cassie thought it was even stranger now that Hector should be up, since it was only today that he had gotten to the point where he could walk at all.
Something must be worrying him, Cassie thought. Maybe he was hurting, or maybe he was still shook up over the deserter just like she was. Since she couldn’t sleep anyway, Cassie decided to go downstairs and sit awhile with Hector.
Cassie slipped out from under the quilts, careful not to jiggle the bed. The mattress rustled, and Emma stirred, but she didn’t wake up. Heavy breathing drifted from the other side of the curtain—Philip and Ben, asleep. Cassie crept down the stairs to the front room.
She was immediately glad she had. Poor Hector, for some reason, had gotten up and gone to the door, and then collapsed. Now he was lying on the floor whimpering. Cassie rushed to her dog. “You poor thing,” she said tenderly. She lifted Hector to his feet. “You need to go out? Come on. I’ll take you.”
She opened the door for Hector and followed him out onto the top step. She’d have to help Hector down the stairs, she knew. She went on down and snapped her fingers for him to come
.
But Hector didn’t make a move to follow. Instead he stood with his nose in the air, sniffing. Then he cocked his one good ear, and a low growl rumbled in his throat.
Cassie felt a stab of alarm. What did Hector hear? She strained her own senses, peering out into the dark yard, listening hard for any sound above the cadence of the crickets and the frogs. Nothing.
Yet there must be something out there somewhere, something Cassie in the darkness couldn’t see. At least not from where I’m standing, Cassie thought, struck suddenly by the idea to climb the tall magnolia tree beside the house. From the top she should be able to see clear to the barn.
Holding her apprehension at bay, Cassie swung her-self up into the magnolia’s branches and climbed, easily scaling the limbs that spread like a ladder up the trunk. The magnolia’s thick, waxy leaves sprawled all around her, enveloping her.
Then Cassie drew in a sharp breath. Footsteps on the ground below! All her powers of reasoning flew out of her head, replaced by pounding fear. She held her breath, not daring to move …
“What in tarnation you doing up in that tree?”
Cassie breathed again. It was only Philip, staring up at her, along with the muzzle of his musket.
“Quit pointing that gun at me,” Cassie said.
“You’re dang lucky I didn’t shoot you, girl. Heard something stirring around out here, come down and found the door wide open, Hector growling—wasn’t sure what I’d find up this tree. Git yourself down from there before you fall.”
“Will you hush? I was trying to see what Hector was flustered about.”
“From up a tree? In the dark?”
“I thought …” Cassie couldn’t finish. Philip made her actions seem foolish.
Then, in an instant, Cassie’s embarrassment was forgotten. “Philip! Did you hear that?” she said.
“You mean Hector?”
Hector was growling in earnest now, but that wasn’t what Cassie was talking about. “No. It came from the barn.”
Philip cocked his head. “Yeah. Sounds like Birdie braying.”
Cassie hustled down the tree so fast her thigh got jabbed by a broken limb. “What you think is worrying her? Same thing’s worrying Hector?”
“Could be. Wind’s rising. Could be they smell a polecat.”
“Yeah, could be,” Cassie said, almost in a whisper.
“Could be a noise spooked ’em.”
“Yeah, but why didn’t we hear it?”
“Could be something else spooked ’em.” He hesitated. “Like a person.”
Cassie suddenly felt queasy.
A cloud moved in front of the moon. Now Cassie could barely see Philip’s face, but the white of his nightshirt stood out. His sleeves billowed in the breeze. He started walking.
Cassie was alarmed. “You ain’t … You ain’t going down there?”
“Got to, Cass.” Jacob’s name for her. It jarred Cassie hearing it from Philip’s lips. But she wasn’t annoyed—not at all. It felt almost … comforting.
“Why?” she said.
At first Philip didn’t answer. Then he said, very quietly, “Who else is there to go?”
Yeah, thought Cassie. Who else is there?
Not Pa, not Jacob. Just Philip … and her.
“I’m going with you,” she said. Cassie latched on to Philip’s arm and followed him down the hill to the barn. The wind whipped her gown, curling it around her legs. She tried not to shiver. Philip might mistake it for fear.
At the barn they stopped. Its dark, gaping doorway—only an open passageway, really, with stalls on either side—leered at them, as if daring them to go in. Cassie couldn’t see a thing inside, but Birdie was still raising a ruckus. June was bellowing, too. Something was wrong.
Suddenly Philip stepped forward into the murky darkness of the barn. Panic seized Cassie, and she yanked back on Philip’s nightshirt. “Don’t go in,” she begged in a whisper. “Let’s get Myron first.”
“Don’t be a goose,” Philip said, under his breath. “If there is somebody in there, by the time we run way over to Myron’s, they’ll be long gone, with Birdie and June in tow. We gotta go in.”
Philip started into the barn. Cassie took a deep breath and followed. Inside, she stopped and waited for her eyes to adjust to the heavier darkness. Philip had stopped just ahead of her. Finally hulks and shapes in the dark shadows of the barn began to come into focus. And there, she was sure she saw something, something scrunched up in the corner of an empty stall. It didn’t look like anything really, nothing alive, anyway. Maybe it was only a sack of feed, or an overturned washtub.
Philip was walking again, slowly, toward the stall. Cassie took a few hesitant steps behind him, then stopped abruptly. Had the thing in the stall moved? Cassie was afraid to breathe. She thought she’d seen it move, but maybe her eyes were just playing tricks on her.
Except that, then, the thing spoke. “Don’t shoot,” it said. It unscrunched and stood up. The thing was a tall, skinny boy, about the size of Philip.
“What you doing in our barn?” Cassie demanded.
“Just wanted a warm place to sleep. Ain’t up to no mischief.” The boy’s voice was husky, his accent strange. “I’ll be off before daylight.” Then he took a step forward. “Ya got anything to eat?”
At that moment, the moon slid out from behind the cloud and gilded the walls of the barn with light. Cassie’s and Philip’s shadows fell in front of them, and the boy’s features jumped into clarity: a thin face, forehead jutting out over large, dark eyes, partially covered by a mass of matted hair.
But what jumped out at Cassie most of all in the moonlight were the clothes hanging in shreds from the boy’s shoulders. Because those clothes were dark blue—the remains of a Federal army uniform.
Philip spoke first. “What d’you know, Cassie? We done found ourselves a Yankee.”
CHAPTER 8
YANKEE!
Face-to-face with a Yankee, Cassie thought. Just like the one who put a bullet into Jacob. She could feel Philip beside her, shaking, and knew he was thinking the same thing she was.
Her throat felt tight with anger, but she forced herself to speak. “Appears that way, Philip. Yankee soldier, no less.”
Philip stuck the musket’s muzzle into the Yankee’s chest. “How’d you get here, Yank?”
“You got no need for that gun,” the Yankee said. “You see me. I got no weapon.” He held out his skinny crow-wing arms. “It’s the two of you agin’ the one of me. And you’re armed. I ain’t going nowhere. ’Sides, I ain’t eaten in days. I’m about as strong as a newborn possum. Wouldn’t be no match for you nohow.”
“You’re lying,” Cassie said, for she knew now who had taken the things that had vanished. “You been eating real well. You took my mama’s ash cake off the window-sill a few days back and stole our hen just yesterday.”
“Yeah,” Philip said. “You got some nerve stealing from us, then coming back to bed down in our barn. What was you going to take from us tomorrow?”
“You think I’d come out and steal from Rebs in broad daylight?” the boy said. “I was only passing by a while ago and saw your barn. Thought I’d come in out of the wind and rest a spell. Didn’t mean no harm, believe me.”
Philip snorted. Cassie didn’t swallow the Yankee’s story, either, not for a minute. The boy was the thief; she was sure of it. It made her mad that he wouldn’t own up to it. “Reckon we wouldn’t never believe no Yankee,” she spit out.
Philip was still eyeing the boy up and down. “You come on out here, Yank, where we can see you good,” he said.
The Yankee obeyed but kept talking. “Listen, I know you don’t trust me, but all I’m trying to do is get back home. No more soldiering for me, I swear.”
“You ain’t only a Yank,” Cassie burst out. “You’re yellow. A deserter. A skunk.”
“No,” the boy insisted. “You got me wrong. I didn’t run away. Wouldn’t do that. Rebs took me prisoner at Winchester. Sent me d
own here to prison in Danville. I rotted there for I don’t know how long, till some of us managed to tunnel out. Now I just want to get along home and see my pa and sisters.”
“Where’s that? Home?” Philip asked. Cassie noticed he had lowered the musket slightly.
“A farm, like this one, in Ohio,” said the boy. “Can I sit? I’m a mite weak.”
Philip gestured toward an overturned washtub in the corner. “Yeah. Sit.”
The boy eased down on the tub like he was sore just to move. Cassie’s anger began to seep away. She had to admit the Yank did look pitiful. His ribs stuck out; his cheeks were hollow. She couldn’t blame him too much, she guessed, for taking the ash cake or even Maybelle. “When was the last time you ate?” she asked him. Besides our hen, she added silently.
“Don’t know ’zactly,” the boy said. “Found some slops in a hog trough a couple of days ago.”
“You ate what the hogs left?” Cassie couldn’t believe anybody could be that hungry.
“Yeah. And was glad to get it. Better than starving.”
“I reckon.” It didn’t seem much better to Cassie.
“What’s your name?” asked Philip.
“Name’s Gus Baer. Yours?”
“I’m Philip Willis. This is my sister Cassie.”
Gus nodded toward Cassie. “Pleased, Cassie.” Then he said wistfully, “You wouldn’t have nothing to eat, would you?”
Cassie thought with a twinge of resentment of the eggs they wouldn’t have with Maybelle gone. But what was the use of going over and over the point with this Yankee? He wasn’t going to admit his thieving, and she had to grant that he hadn’t done her family any real harm, though he very well could have. It was a relief, after all, to know the thief was just some skinny boy, and not the deserter.
Cassie felt herself softening. The boy had taken only what he needed to live, hadn’t he? “We might have something left over from supper we could give you,” she said. “But then you got to be off.”
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