Rachel's Choice

by Judith French

  “So if he isn’t dead and he isn’t here …” Chance left the rest unsaid.

  “Mama told you,” Pharaoh grated. “If she says she sent him home, then she did.”

  Cora smiled. “The Underground Railroad, reb. We sent your Travis home the same way we’ve been bringing slaves north for years. Only we sent him the opposite way.” She chuckled. “He’ll be safe enough, if his lungs don’t kill him before he gets there. He ought to be halfway to Salisbury by now.”

  Rachel took a deep breath. “That’s that, then. Travis is taken care of. And if I don’t get home quick, Ida will be halfway to Milford with my Davy.” She turned and grasped Chance’s arm. “If you love me, if you want to spend the rest of your life with me, then you’ll be man enough to wait here. You’ll let me see to paying my father-in-law what I owe and getting my son back.”

  “You’ve still got the money?” he asked her.

  She nodded and patted the front of her dress. “Safe as it was in your bank. Enough to settle the loan, pay my taxes, and buy this winter’s necessities.” She glanced at Cora. “Is Blackie here? I can get to Rachel’s Choice faster on horseback.”

  “The boys have him with our livestock in the swamp, but Pharaoh’s gray is tied out back,” Cora answered.

  “I’ll throw a saddle on him,” Pharaoh offered. “Deacon’s spirited, but you’re a good rider. If you keep a tight rein, I think you can handle him.”

  Chance kissed her. “Be careful, darling.”

  “I’ll try.” She hurried after Pharaoh, then stopped and looked back at Cora. “Keep Chance from trying to be a hero,” she said. “He hasn’t kept his part of the bargain yet. He promised to get my fall crop in, and if I have any say in the matter, he’s not going anywhere until my corn’s harvested.”

  Chapter 25

  The gray horse’s mane and tail streamed like banners in the wind as he galloped down the woods trail. Rachel rode hard through the forest as far as the fallen tree at the entrance of the swamp road. Leaping over the rotten log, she made the hard turn and took the Taylor’s Neck shortcut down a path so narrow that brush and branches scraped her arms and legs from both sides of the track.

  When they reached low ground, Rachel had to use all her strength to rein the spirited hunter to a trot so that he wouldn’t lose his footing in the mud, but once they crested the ridge at the edge of her meadow, she kicked him into a run once more.

  The audacity of James’s parents amazed and infuriated her. She had fully expected Isaac to bring in the authorities when her payment was late, but she’d never thought that they would dare to take Davy. And unless she fell off this horse and broke her neck between Cora’s cabin and Rachel’s Choice, Rachel swore that it would be a decision that her in-laws would come to regret.

  Rachel was breathless; her hair was undone and tangled with leaves, and her mouth tasted of horse and mud. Her pulse was pounding, not with concern for her own safety but out of fear that she couldn’t get Davy back from James’s parents.

  A covey of quail burst up almost under the gelding’s feet and he shied, nearly throwing her, but she got him under control again and let him have his head. And when the horse thundered toward the cornfield fence, she never hesitated.

  “Jump!” she cried. Deacon tried to turn left at the last moment, but she held firm and kicked him in the sides with her heels.

  The gray flew over the four-rail fence as though he had wings, missing the top bar by a foot. His hooves touched the earth, and he lunged ahead, tearing through the field, trampling corn stalks and ripening ears of grain. The gate at the far end of the field stood open, and they dashed through it and galloped on toward the farmhouse.

  Rachel heard Bear’s deep, rumbling bark before the barn loomed up through the trees, and she guessed that Isaac was still on Rachel’s Choice. She only hoped that James’s mother hadn’t already taken Davy back to their home in town.

  Foam flew from Deacon’s mouth, and his nostrils flared. The gray horse’s heaving sides were streaked with sweat, and he was breathing heavily as they rounded the sheepfold and pounded into the yard, nearly running Isaac down.

  Sheriff Voshell, mounted on a wall-eyed roan stallion, shouted a warning. Isaac, who’d been aiming his pistol at Rachel’s dog, leaped back and scrambled to shelter behind the brick well.

  “Put that gun down!” Rachel shouted. Deacon squealed and danced sideways, scattering chickens and spooking Voshell’s mount. The roan wheeled around and lashed out with a hind hoof at Rachel’s horse.

  Deacon sidestepped the kick and delivered a sound thump of his own before Rachel got him under control and turned her attention back to James’s father.

  “Leave my dog alone!” she ordered as Isaac raised his pistol again.

  “The mastiff’s dangerous. He needs to be destroyed!” Isaac said. “He attacked my wife.”

  The sheriff, red-faced and breathing heavily, dismounted and walked toward Isaac without taking his gaze off Rachel’s horse. “Calm down, Mr. Irons. No need for that, now. I’m sure Miss Rachel can control her dog.”

  Rachel glanced back at Bear. He crouched, hackles raised and teeth bared, in front of Isaac’s buggy. And from the back of the two-wheeled carriage came the shriek of a hungry baby.

  “First you steal my son, now you try and shoot my dog!” Rachel reined the gray horse in between the men and Bear. “I’ll have you charged with kidnapping,” she threatened her father-in-law. “How dare you come and take him from Cora Wright without my permission?”

  Bear whined excitedly and thumped his tail as Rachel moved closer. Then he bared his teeth and snarled as Isaac circled Rachel and moved toward the buggy.

  “Shoot that creature!” Ida urged through the open kitchen window. “Shoot the dog and get my grandson before he’s eaten alive.”

  “Shut up, Ida,” Isaac shouted. Then he glared at Rachel. “You’re past due on your note. I’ve brought the sheriff here to enforce the law. That vicious animal bit Ida.” He eased the hammer down on the heavy pistol and shoved it into his belt.

  “If he did bite her, it was to protect Davy,” Rachel defended. The gray horse snorted and tossed his head, and Rachel, still mounted, reined him in tightly and glanced at the sheriff. “You call taking my son enforcing the law?”

  “No, Miss Rachel, I don’t.” John Voshell’s sunburned face darkened to the color of new-washed beets. “But Isaac’s within his rights to—”

  “To get off my farm!” Rachel answered hotly. “Here’s his money.” She pulled the pouch from the bodice of her dress and threw it at Isaac’s feet. The cloth bag burst open, spilling the crumpled bills and silver coins across the hard-packed dirt. “There’s what you came for, Judas. Every last cent.”

  She urged her horse toward the buggy, but Isaac blocked her way. Deacon laid his ears back and pawed the ground. Rachel eased up on the leathers and let the horse move dangerously close to her father-in-law’s feet.

  “Not so fast, young woman,” Isaac huffed as he backed up a few steps. “There’s interest due on this month’s—”

  “I told you, it’s all there.” She gestured to Voshell. “Are you part of this outrage? Is it your job to terrorize war widows and steal their infants?”

  “Isaac, I think you’d best give me your gun, pick up what’s yours, and go,” the sheriff advised. “It’s clear you’re not wanted here.” He nodded to Rachel. “I’m sorry for the trouble, ma’am. But the note was overdue, and Miss Ida claimed that you’d abandoned the boy and run off God-knows-where with a half-wit farmhand.”

  Rachel scoffed. “I went to Philadelphia to secure an inheritance. That’s where I got the money. You can contact Benjamin Gordon of London Bank and substantiate my story, if you like. And the hired man Ida mentioned ran off back to New Castle. His name was Abner Potts, and he was homesick for his mother.” She grimaced. “You know I will receive a widow’s pension from the war office. I have no need to marry—especially not a mute fieldhand.”

  “But the bab
y is our James’s child,” Ida whined as she pushed out of the door. Her bonnet was askew, and Rachel noticed a large rip in her skirt that could have been caused by a dog bite.

  Bear snarled at Ida, and she shrank back.

  “That beast is clearly dangerous!” the woman sputtered. “He attacked me once. Look at my dress.”

  Rachel maneuvered Deacon close to the buggy, dismounted, and picked up her son. He had ceased wailing and now was sobbing loudly. “There, there, sweetheart, Mama’s here,” she soothed. “It’s all right, darling.”

  Nothing had ever felt so right in her life as holding Davy close to her heart. Tears of joy spilled down her cheeks to mingle with his.

  “I’d never leave my child unattended, Sheriff,” she said as she wiped her eyes and covered Davy with kisses. “Philadelphia is a filthy city, no place for a country-bred infant.”

  Davy’s lips puckered into a half smile and he waved chubby, starfish hands at her.

  “He’s wet and hungry,” Rachel declared as she laid her son against her shoulder and patted his back. “Cora Wright is a respected midwife. She delivered your daughter’s babe last spring, didn’t she? Would you consider Cora to be incapable of caring for a baby?”

  “Rachel’s an unfit mother,” Ida insisted through the partially opened door. “She didn’t even notify us when he was born.”

  “That’s not against any law I know of, Mrs. Irons,” the sheriff said patiently.

  “But she promised to tell us when the baby was born. You did!” she reminded Rachel. “This is our grandchild and you—”

  “Have never been what you and Isaac wanted in a daughter-in-law,” Rachel finished for her. “It’s true that Davy has your blood as well as mine, but it’s also true that James would turn over in his grave if he knew how you threatened me for the money he borrowed from you. Rachel’s Choice will go to Davy when he’s grown, and if you’d succeeded in robbing me of this farm, it’s him you would have wronged most.”

  “We have rights,” Isaac grated. “We’ll see the boy, if we have to drag you before a judge to do it.”

  “You’ll see Davy when you learn to act decently to me,” Rachel answered. Her milk that she’d feared was drying up had leaked out as soon as she’d heard him cry. Now, as her fury evaporated, she wanted nothing more than to take him inside and nurse him, and she wanted Chance here.

  Isaac gathered up his money and began to count it carefully. “There was no need to throw it on the ground.”

  “No?” Rachel eyed him warily. “And there was no need to load the back of your buggy with my personal belongings either.” She looked at the sheriff. “My clock is here, and my jewelry chest.”

  “Merely for safekeeping, I’m sure,” Isaac muttered.

  “Thought you had succumbed to foul play,” Ida supplied.

  Rachel sniffed. “You hoped. Take it all back into the house, or I’ll spread it at Sunday service that James Irons’s parents are nothing more than common thieves.” She motioned Bear to her side. “Now, you’ll be pleased to leave my home,” she said to Ida. “And I trust that Sheriff Voshell will attend to the legal niceties, making sure that I receive James’s note back, marked paid in full.” She smiled at the sheriff. “I have all the money for last year’s taxes and this, if you wouldn’t mind settling that business as well.”

  “Not at all,” Voshell replied, taking Deacon’s reins and tying him securely to the metal ring on the corner of the brick well.

  “Well, then.” Ida flounced off the step and hastened to climb into the buggy. “Mr. Irons, I believe we are needed elsewhere.”

  “Indeed,” Rachel agreed. “Anywhere else but Rachel’s Choice.”

  “You will relent and let us see the child, won’t you?” Isaac asked when he’d unloaded her things and taken them back into the kitchen. “It’s the Christian thing to do.”

  “Perhaps,” Rachel agreed as she rubbed Davy’s back and nuzzled the nape of his neck. “Someday when I’m feeling particularly charitable.”

  Chance and Pharaoh arrived by boat only minutes after the Irons couple and John Voshell departed. Pharaoh stayed just long enough to make certain all was well with Rachel and then rode his gray horse home.

  “You know, he’s not as mean as he seems,” Chance said to Rachel. “But he does pack a wicked punch.”

  “No, Pharaoh’s not mean-hearted,” Rachel agreed. “He’s been a good friend to us.”

  “A wonderful friend,” Chance said wryly as he rubbed his jaw.

  “You’re lucky he didn’t shoot you and leave you in the swamp for the crabs.”

  He grinned, hugged her, and gave her a hasty kiss before scooping up Davy. The baby had been so exhausted by his crying that he’d fallen asleep in her arms as soon as she’d fed and changed him. Now, when Chance woke him, he began to fuss again.

  “See what you’ve done,” Rachel admonished. Secretly she was delighted that Chance wanted to hold the baby, but as Davy’s mother, she had to keep up the appearance of being in charge of her son’s care.

  “He’s put on weight,” Chance said. “He wasn’t this heavy when I left. You’re going to be a big, strong boy, aren’t you, Tiger?”

  Davy grabbed two handfuls of Chance’s hair and squealed.

  “See that? He missed me.” Chance glanced at Rachel. “Didn’t he?”

  “He did,” she agreed. “We both did. You belong here with us.” A lump rose in her throat, and she turned away. A few weeks more she’d have him, and then uncertainty would make her lie awake at night wondering if he was alive.

  “Maybe I do,” Chance replied. “Philadelphia’s not far away. A smart young lawyer might make a living there.”

  Rachel felt a sudden chill. “I’m not a town woman,” she said. “I don’t know what fork to use if there are more than two, and I’ll never learn to walk in a bustle. If you want the life you had before the war, it will have to be with someone else.” She drew in a deep breath and plunged on. “My roots run deep in this land. As much as I love you, I could never be happy where the grass doesn’t grow and the rain falls dirty from city soot. You’d be ashamed of my country ways, and I’d make you miserable.”

  His blue eyes dilated with affection. “I could never be ashamed of you, Rachel. And I still say you’d make a hell of a trial lawyer.”

  She reached for Davy, and he embraced them both. Then he put the baby in her arms. “This is where I should sweep you up into my arms and carry you both upstairs,” he said. “But—”

  “But …” She laughed and put her hand in his. “You can do it next month,” she assured him, “when you’ve recovered from your trip to Pea Patch Island.”

  Together they walked up the steps to her four-poster, and they spent the afternoon laughing and talking and making love.

  “Enjoy today,” Rachel said. “Tomorrow the cow comes home, and life gets back to normal around here.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  As Rachel had promised Chance, there was work aplenty to do on the farm before the fall harvest. There were tomatoes, beans, apples, and squash to dry, potatoes to dig, and fall spinach and turnips to plant. Rachel put the last of the season’s cucumbers into pickling crocks and sliced cabbage to cure as sauerkraut. There were jams and jellies to make, grapes to press into wine, and fish to salt for the coming winter.

  Cora Wright sent two of her granddaughters each day to help with the baby and the preparation of meals so that Rachel could work side by side with Chance in the garden, in the fields, and in the boat. Together they plowed a small field and planted winter wheat, netted fish, and dug clams and oysters.

  The work was hard and dirty, but Rachel took such satisfaction in the completion of each task that Chance began to find a similar reward in the results. And at the end of each day they would bathe together in the creek or—when the weather turned cool—in the shower that Chance rigged in the barn with a barrel of sun-heated water. Evenings were for them and Davy alone.

  Chance healed and grew stro
ng, and Rachel stored up a chest of memories for the uncertain times ahead. Neither spoke again of marriage. She assumed that if he lived through the war and still loved her, he would come back and ask her to be his wife. But whether he believed the same thing, she didn’t know and wouldn’t ask. She was determined to save her tears and enjoy the time they had left together.

  Somehow the days piled one upon another, as the green hues of summer turned to autumn reds and gold. Morning air was as crisp and tangy as the first sip of apple cider. Pumpkins ripened in the garden, and the branches of the gnarled old pear tree sagged under the weight of ripening fruit.

  One silvery evening, after a light supper, Rachel walked hand in hand with Chance to the cornfield gate. Both were weary from the hours of cutting corn and stacking the stalks into rows of shocks. Neither spoke. Around them the silvery dusk vibrated with the mournful honking of great Vs of wild geese flying south to take shelter in the nearby marshes.

  “Almost finished,” he murmured.

  She bit her lower lip and refused to weaken. She’d not beg him to stay. She knew before she opened her mouth that it would be useless. She could not shame them both by the attempt.

  “I saw Pharaoh this morning,” Chance continued in his honey-laced Southern tones. “He asked me if I wanted to buy his Deacon. I said I did, but that I didn’t have the money. He said he’d trust me for it.”

  She felt all hollow inside as she leaned against him.

  “He said it was best he sell the gray,” Chance continued. “Your father-in-law was asking about the animal. It seems Deacon comes without a bill of sale, and Pharaoh thought we might suit each other because the horse was originally a Virginian. His wife’s dowry, I believe he said.”

  Rachel squeezed his hand. “And if you don’t come back to pay him?”

  “I’ll expect you to do it for me.”