Freedom to Love

by Susanna Fraser

  “It’s only a few miles to Mackenzie’s Stand,” Wilson said. “I say leave them, and tell them there what happened.”

  “Shouldn’t we tie that one up?” Jeannette said brightly.

  Henry exchanged an amused glance with Thérèse. Good God, was he actually laughing about that dreadful morning at Bondurant Plantation? He sobered. He’d hoped to be done with killing. At least this had been almost the same as battle. Somehow he doubted any of the local authorities would have the slightest quarrel with him over what had happened here. “You’re the closest thing we have to a surgeon, Jeannette. Would you examine him and tell us how badly he’s hurt?”

  Jeannette wrinkled her nose but obeyed, dismounting and then crouching over the man. She checked his eyes, listened to his breathing and pulse, then stood with a shrug. “His eyes don’t match,” she said.

  “The pupils?” Henry prompted.

  “Yes. One is smaller than the other, and they didn’t shrink in the light. But his heart and breath are steady.”

  “I say we tie him on a horse and bring him along,” Cutler said. “Old Mackenzie and his sons can mount a guard on him.”

  Between the three of them, the men got the unconscious bandit tied over the sturdier of the two new horses while Thérèse and Jeannette held the rest of their mounts. “What about that one?” Henry nodded to the corpse.

  “Leave him,” Cutler said, and Wilson nodded agreement. “If Mackenzie wants, he can send men back for the body. If not, let it be a warning all around.”

  Henry nodded. Faced with this grim sight, travelers would be warned that bandits haunted the trail, and the bandits would know at least some travelers were ready to fight back.

  He checked the saddle of the remaining bandit horse and spent a few minutes patting and reassuring the creature. The brown gelding didn’t seem especially ill-tempered, and when he boosted Thérèse into the saddle, the horse didn’t shy at her skirts. She gathered the reins, her chin set with determination. “At least if I fall, I’ll be closer to the ground.”

  “That’s the spirit.” He pressed her hand, then swung into his chestnut’s saddle.

  “When we get to the stand, it might be best if you talked like a Frenchman again,” Cutler said as they formed up to ride away.

  “I’ll remember, never fear,” Henry said. “I only forgot before because I was so caught up in the fight. You didn’t seem surprised, though.”

  “That French accent of yours wanders like a greenhorn lost in the woods,” Wilson commented.

  Jeannette raised her eyebrows and gave a little nod.

  Henry heaved a sigh. “Good God,” he said. “My mother’s family is French. I should know what a Frenchman speaking English sounds like.”

  “I don’t doubt you do,” Wilson said. “But sometimes you sound like one who just stepped off the ship after learning English from a book, and sometimes like one who’s lived here ten years.”

  “I hope it wasn’t so obvious to everyone.”

  “If anyone else suspected, they never said anything to me,” Cutler said. “Obadiah here has a good ear—best singer in our settlement.”

  Wilson smiled self-deprecation but did not deny this praise.

  “We can talk about it later,” Cutler continued. “For now I’d rather ride. I’d love to get this passenger of ours to Mackenzie’s before he wakes up and starts complaining.”

  “Amen to that,” Henry said, and they rode off in single file. Cutler headed the party, leading the unconscious bandit’s horse. Henry had Thérèse follow just behind, with him after her so he could help her with her horse if he proved stubborn. Next came Jeannette and last of all Wilson, whom Henry warned to make sure Jeannette’s horse didn’t take it in his head to make another unauthorized halt.

  In just over an hour they reached Mackenzie’s Stand. Henry resumed his French accent and alias, though he prudently assumed a quieter character and let Cutler do the talking. The proprietor was delighted to take over their prisoner, and even happier to hear that Henry had killed the leader of the bandits, whom he identified from their description as the head of a whole gang of robbers and slave catchers who haunted the lower portion of the Trace. “It wouldn’t be the first time they’d killed a man and sold his slaves down in Natchez,” he said. “It’s well your friends came along when they did.”

  Henry nodded and didn’t trouble to explain Jeannette’s freedom. There was no point in drawing attention to themselves.

  Mackenzie urged them to stay the night, even though most of the afternoon still stretched before them, but Cutler demurred, stating he wanted to make haste for the sake of his sick father and his friend’s pregnant wife. At that, Mackenzie pressed them to take on extra provisions, free of charge, as his small thanks for ridding the trail of trouble, and with a grin, led a saddled mare out of the stable. “Queenie!” Thérèse cried.

  “I reckoned whoever lost that mare would rejoice to see her again,” he said. “Mind you, if you hadn’t appeared by nightfall, I would’ve happily sold her to any customer who’d pay her worth.”

  At a word from Henry, Cutler engaged in some brief bargaining to sell the bandits’ two horses, judging them more trouble to keep than they were worth as possible remounts.

  “We’ll have to push it to make it to Reid’s by nightfall,” Cutler said as they rode away, “but I figure y’all want to make haste at least as much as we do.”

  Chapter Eleven

  They did indeed press hard all through the afternoon, trotting more than walking. As dusk was falling, they arrived at the next stand. They’d caught up with a large group of travelers on foot, and nothing approaching a private room was available. Henry found himself agreeing to crowd together with Cutler, Wilson and a dozen other men to sleep in the common room after dinner, while Thérèse and Jeannette would share an upstairs loft room with three other women. Thérèse caught his eye and sighed wistfully, and he attempted to convey in a small smile both his regret that they would have no privacy and his happiness that she wanted him, too.

  When Henry stepped outside before dinner to make sure the horses were adequately secured and fed in the little shack of a stable behind the stand, Obadiah Wilson cornered him at the stable door as he was returning. Henry took in the other man’s crossed arms and faintly belligerent stance and raised an eyebrow in mild inquiry. “May I help you?” he asked.

  Wilson reached into his coat, and Henry tensed lest he, all unexpectedly, produce a knife or a pistol, but he only pulled out a sheet of paper, folded small, and passed it to Henry. “Ben and me, we found these posted at two different taverns in Natchez, plus a few down by the wharf.”

  Henry unfolded the page and glanced at it. It was the handbill—what else? “We saw it, too,” he said neutrally.

  “We took down as many as we could without anyone noticing, and Ben insisted we ride hard to catch up with you and warn you. I reckon I owe you that much for saving my life, but I want you to tell me before we travel any farther together—is it true?”

  “Truth is in the eye of the beholder.”

  Wilson let out an exasperated breath. “If you want to play games with words, Ben is your man, not me. I just want to know if you killed that man.”

  “I did. But I didn’t murder him. It was self-defense. Understandably, his brother doesn’t see it that way.”

  “Hmm. What about the rest? Are you really an English deserter? What’s your real name? The way you talk, I’m sure it’s not Henri Langevin.”

  Henry bit his lip, pondering how much truth Wilson was owed. They’d saved each other’s lives now, so there was no debt between them, but if they were going to be traveling companions for the next few weeks, perhaps he deserved to know a little more. “My name is Henry Farlow, and I am a British officer,” he said. “It was never my intention to be a deserter, and I hope my army wil
l not regard me as such when I am able to return. I was wounded in the battle and dazed enough that I wandered away and got lost. Thérèse and Jeannette found me and nursed me. Just as I was growing strong enough to think of attempting a return to my regiment, the...incident occurred. At that point, knowing that I faced a murder charge, Thérèse faced utter disgrace and Jeannette a lifetime of slavery with no hope of freedom, we ran and took the first boat we could find out of New Orleans. And here we are.”

  “I see. Well, if you’re caught, I can’t defend you.”

  “I’d never expect you to do so,” Henry assured him.

  Wilson shifted awkwardly. “We should go in to dinner.”

  “If we want anything but the burned and raw bits, certainly.”

  He snorted and began walking. Henry fell in beside him and did his best to look calm and amicable.

  “So, is Thérèse really a quadroon?” Wilson asked.

  Henry wasn’t sure what to do with such a baldly stated question. “Does it matter?”

  “Do you mean to marry her?”

  “Of course I do.” Neither Wilson nor anyone else they met needed to know otherwise, not when Thérèse’s reputation depended in large part upon his stated honorable intentions.

  “Then it most surely matters. White can’t marry Negro. It’s against the law.”

  “Not in England. And besides, she’s almost as light-skinned as I am. Lighter than you.” Wilson had black hair, dark brown eyes and the kind of skin that tanned easily with a hint of sunshine.

  Wilson flushed. “My granny was Cherokee. That’s why I was surprised to think of your Thérèse as a quadroon. She looks more like she has Indian blood to me.”

  “I believe she does,” Henry said easily.

  “Lucky for her she looks it more than she does Negro. But still, you can’t mean to marry her.”

  “Why not? She is beautiful, brave and accomplished. What more could I ask in a wife?”

  “Are you telling me her blood wouldn’t matter in England?”

  “I have a friend from my regiment, a black man. He married a white woman, and no one took it amiss—well, no one whose opinion mattered. They keep an inn now.”

  “You wouldn’t keep an inn, though, would you? You’re an officer. Doesn’t that make you a gentleman, in your army?”

  “Not always,” Henry said, reflecting on several of his brother officers whose claims to gentility were tenuous at best.

  “But you are. You have that air.”

  Henry shrugged. He couldn’t deny it.

  “And you think your family would want you to have a wife like her?”

  “I’m a younger son. I can do as I like.” It was hardly that simple, but he had no inclination to go into the particularities of his own circumstances nor the hierarchy of the aristocracy and who could and couldn’t marry or buy their way in. In any case, they’d reached the stand doorway, and Henry was more than ready to have done with this conversation. “Also, I fail to see how my choice of a bride is any concern of yours.”

  “Believe me, when you even marry outside of your rank the world makes it their concern. If you marry outside your race, you’ll live to regret it.”

  They had reached the entrance to the stand, and Wilson stepped back to allow Henry to enter first with an elaborate and rather sarcastic deference.

  * * *

  Thérèse adjusted to life on the trail. After a week of backaches and sore legs, she grew comfortable in the saddle, even if she couldn’t approach Henry’s natural ease. He looked as happy on horseback as on his own two feet. When she commented on it one day, he smiled crookedly and said, “I’ve had nearly as many years to practice it. I got my first pony when I was four.”

  “When I was that age, my mother gave me my first needle and thimble.”

  “Wasn’t she afraid you’d stab yourself?”

  She laughed aloud. “You can only do so much damage with a needle. Wasn’t your mother afraid you’d fall and break your neck?”

  “If she was, she hid it well. Father was determined that all his sons would be horsemen—and riding was the one thing I was naturally better at than my brothers.”

  She knew he referred to his schoolroom struggles, which she could never mention here, with Cutler and Wilson riding just ahead and a few other chance-met companions bringing up the rear. She and Henry spoke in French, which none of the others understood, but she knew that wouldn’t matter to him. “Your brothers must be marvelous shots, then,” she said instead.

  His eyes narrowed in reminiscence. “Do you know, they aren’t especially. Charles was better than I was when we started, but he had no interest in practicing. I did. I was determined, for once, to outdo him. And my younger brother Edward never applied himself to learning anything that didn’t come naturally to him. He’s even more clever than Charles, but he can be lazy.”

  “Youngest children,” Thérèse said wisely.

  “How would you know? You were your mother’s only child, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, but she had two younger brothers, and the Roches always complained about their youngest son. He’s two years younger than Gratien and will neither take an interest in the shipyard nor any other useful occupation.”

  “Do you miss him?” Henry asked softly.

  Thérèse understood immediately he meant Gratien and not his feckless sibling. “Not as much as I probably should,” she said, also low.

  They exchanged a heated glance. Never since the first night had they been able to be alone. Now that they’d joined together with Cutler and Wilson, Henry always bunked with the other men, while she and Jeannette shared a room with whatever women they found—sometimes just the innkeeper’s daughters or slaves.

  She would have almost thought he’d forgotten that night except for the way he looked at her, and how yesterday when they’d stopped to water the horses, he’d caught her behind a tree and kissed her hard, probing her mouth with his clever tongue and running sure hands from her shoulders down to her hips to haul her against him.

  Now she shifted in the saddle and he grinned. “I’m sure the brother will grow up in due course,” he said in an utterly bland voice, “and my brother proves nothing about youngest children. Our sister is youngest of all, and a more studious and diligent girl never lived.”

  “I thought you said she reminded you of Jeannette.”

  “She does.”

  “Diligent and studious?” She was coming to love her fierce half sister, but those were not the adjectives she would’ve chosen to describe her.

  “I heard that!” Jeannette called.

  Thérèse twisted in her saddle to give her sister a rebuking look, for when they were in company she was still obliged to act the part of a slave. But then she felt chastened by the flash of anger in Jeannette’s eyes. It wasn’t right to put her in a position where she couldn’t defend herself and then tease her.

  “What is diligent and studious in one world is clever and determined in another,” Henry said.

  Jeannette made a thoughtful noise and did not object that night when Thérèse took advantage of a bright fire in their room and a half hour alone to give her a reading lesson.

  As January became February, they rode farther and farther northeastward through winter forests beginning to show their first hints of spring. Thérèse began to truly believe that their escape would succeed, that she would survive to see a world that wasn’t riding all day and sleeping in ever rougher stands each night.

  * * *

  On a cloudy afternoon halfway through February, Henry and his companions rode into Nashville. From here, they had more choices to make, and he wished he had a better idea of where precisely here was. It was a fine place, a bustling new city set on a river in agreeably rolling countryside, but what was the fastest route to Canada and safet
y?

  He confided his concerns to Cutler and Wilson after they secured rooms in a ramshackle inn. Tonight he would share a room with Thérèse, but since Jeannette would also sleep with them for her own safety, it would be no opportunity for intimacy.

  “I don’t see what your rush is,” Cutler said.

  “I won’t feel wholly safe until I’m back in my own country, and Thérèse and Jeannette will be better off there, too.”

  “You don’t even know if the war is over,” Cutler pointed out reasonably. They had asked as soon as they reached the city, and no one had heard anything from Washington yet, though rumors of a treaty were flying. Cutler and Wilson had been prevailed upon to give a highly colored description of the battle below New Orleans, while Henry adopted his thickest French accent and put on a facade of boredom. “That makes a difference, doesn’t it?”

  “It could.” Peace would certainly make crossing into Canada easier.

  “So, wait awhile and see what happens,” Wilson said. “If anyone was chasing you from New Orleans, they would’ve caught up with you by now.”

  Henry wasn’t so sure. News traveled slowly here—the uncertainty about the war’s outcome and the freshness of their own experience of a battle from over a month ago proved that—and the same could be true of their own pursuit. What if someone a few days behind them on the trail had spotted and remembered the handbill in Natchez? What if Jean-Baptiste Bondurant had sent word to newspapers all around the country with his, Thérèse’s and Jeannette’s descriptions?

  “I’d rather not linger here,” he said. “If nothing else, my purse won’t stand for it.”

  The journey had depleted their funds more quickly than Henry had anticipated. As shabby as most of the stands were, they were the only safe places for travelers to stay, and they knew it and set their prices accordingly. Before they left Nashville they would need to pawn at least one more piece of Thérèse’s little pirate hoard. She’d chosen the diamond ring for this sacrifice, for it could reasonably pass for an heirloom passed to her by her mother, sold in desperation now that harder times had come. Henry hoped that would be enough to carry them home, for everything that remained was too valuable to be believed as something a set of shabby country travelers might possess.