by Holly Bush
“Please sit down. You’ve been on your feet all day so I could wash. Please sit.”
“You did some laundry I see.”
“Yes. It was such a gift to get the smell of blood and dirt and grime from my person, and to clean my clothes. This dress,” she said with a catch in her throat, “was my mother’s. That horrible man grabbed her valise from the wagon when he took me.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“We were traveling from Allentown, Pennsylvania, with a group of families, planning on settling near Charleston, Virginia, where my father had a connection. He was a minister, you see, and he intended to build a church there. We were separated from the rest of the group because of a broken axle on our wagon. My father felt we would be able to catch up with the others in less than a week as he had mapped out our directions with stops along the way, in towns or with families he knew through the church. We were more than halfway on our journey and using well-traveled roads.”
She stopped, feeling the tears spill over onto her cheeks. “They came in the middle of the night and shot Father and my two sisters immediately. Mother screamed ‘run’ and I did, and for whatever reason, they did not follow me, but I stopped, foolishly. I had to see. That was when I saw them tearing her clothes off of her body. The last thing I heard was her screams.”
Eleanor did not know how long she sat staring, the image of her father’s body, twisted and bloody, and her mother standing naked, trying desperately to cover herself. She did not know if she would ever get the image out of her head. Mr. Gentry cleared his throat and stood to throw a log on the fire.
“You got away?”
“We’d been in Winchester for a week or more, resting the horses and getting our wagon fixed. I ran and ran until I found my way back to town. I went to the church that we’d attended while there for help from one of the congregants and they gave me clothes as I was still in my nightdress and they fed me. I asked them to post a letter for me to my father’s sister, my only living relative, that he’d been killed. Perhaps I should have asked to borrow money to get myself back to Allentown and then find a way to my aunt in Philadelphia. I admit I wasn’t thinking straight. I begged for help from . . .”
Eleanor stood, unable to divulge the final dagger to her heart. “I went back to our wagons the following day to bury my parents and retrieve what I could, and that horrible, filthy man came out of the trees and grabbed me. We rode from morning until night, in circles I think, my hands tied to the saddle horn. I thought for certain I was to die when I saw you come out of the woods and kill those men. But then I’d been anticipating my own death for several days at that point.”
Eleanor lay down on the bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. Mr. Gentry sang a song she’d never heard, and then hummed the melody for some time. She let herself drift off to sleep, dry and clean and nearly free of fear.
Chapter 2
“I think it’s time we get you to Winchester,” Beau said the following morning.
He had cleaned up the area, buried the garbage and waste, and strapped his furs over the back end of his pack mule and helped Eleanor get herself settled on the animal. He cinched down her valise and lead the mule and his horse through the brush and bramble. They came upon a well-traveled path and began seeing others. He kept his hand on his pistol as he nodded to passersby. The woman sat still, eyes downward, and made no response to the occasional halloos.
Early in the afternoon, Winchester came into view as they rode out of the foothills and into the streets of the city. “I’ll deliver you where you need to go, miss.”
She slipped down the mule’s side and looked up at him. “Thank you, Mr. Gentry, for everything you’ve done. For all the kindnesses you’ve shown me, which are many. You are a good man, sir. I wish you luck.”
“What the hell’s the matter with you?” he whispered as he dismounted, holding the reins for his horse and the mule. “We’re right in the middle of all the saloons. I can’t leave you here. You said that your father knew people in the towns you stopped in. Who did you socialize with here? Where’s that church you ran to that night?”
“There’s no one,” she said and turned, walking slowly through the wet street, pulling a shawl tight around her shoulders and carrying her mother’s bag.
“Miss! I can’t just leave you here in this Sodom and Gomorrah.”
She turned with the shadow of a smile, the first he’d seen from her. “Thank you, Mr. Gentry. I must find my way on my own. There is no use putting it off.”
Beau watched her walk down the wood planks in front of the saloons, her head bowed. A few men whistled and bent over in mock bows but most stepped aside for her. He mounted his horse and followed her at some distance down streets, and up avenues, until she came to a church. She stood motionless in front of it, staring up at the steeple, as if getting her bearings and maybe gathering courage, although why anyone would need courage to enter a church, he could not begin to imagine. He tied up the horse and mule and leaned against the post, wondering why he cared. Why was he still even standing there? He’d rescued her, kept her warm and safe until she healed, and now delivered her to people who would be familiar to her. Church people like her parents and the others on their wagon train.
Even as he wondered why he was still there, his feet took him on a well-worn rock path along the side of the building. He stopped when he heard voices but glanced around the corner to see a grassy area with the last of the fall trees in a blaze of color, around benches and wooden chairs. She was seated on one of the benches, speaking to an older gray-haired man wearing a collar of the church. There was a younger man standing, tapping his foot, holding his hat behind his back, and staring at Miss McManus as she spoke with the older man.
“I have one elderly aunt in Philadelphia, my father’s sister, who was quite ill when we left. She may have already passed on to her reward by now.”
“There won’t be anyone from our flock traveling to Charleston until spring at the earliest. Do you have aunts or uncles or other family already there?” the minister asked.
“No. But there are neighbors who I could stay with, until . . . until the new pastor is voted on and installed.” She glanced up at the young man. “Perhaps my circumstances will be different in the spring.”
“I have never found it wise to place too much hope on an outcome that is not guaranteed,” the young man said.
She held herself with dignity as she stood, although Beau could see her lip trembling. She thanked the pastor, and he clutched her hands. They prayed for some moments and then he made a bow and walked into the back of the church. Miss McManus looked up at the young man.
“Is there no hope for us then, William?” she asked.
He tilted his head. “Surely you understand, Miss McManus. A minister must be upright in all his dealings. Especially in his choice of a wife.”
“Nothing happened, William. There is no scandal for you to concern yourself with. I was kidnapped by a man who found me at my family’s wagon,” she said, and swallowed. “I was rescued by a person on his way to claim some property. He found me in the woods when I escaped and brought me back to Winchester.”
“You wandered through the woods alone on that day, the day of your parents’ death, until you made your way back here. Your nightdress was torn and you were hysterical. What do you think people thought of your appearance?”
Beau stared at the young man, most likely close to his age, in his black suit, all wrapped up in his own self-worth. The woman had been savagely treated and this man’s concern was his own reputation. He’d best leave before he told the jackanapes what he thought of him. And then she began to cry.
“But William, don’t you see? I have no one,” she said as tears rolled down her face. “I have nowhere to go. We have corresponded for two years. We were to be married.”
“None of this would have happened if you had obeyed me. I told you not to go back to your wagon. I told you! But you insisted! And what did it
get you?”
“I had to go back. My parents were not buried. There were no words said over their graves. I begged you to go with me but you wouldn’t. Why, William, why wouldn’t you accompany me? You are right! None of the horribleness of the last six days would have happened if you would have gone with me!”
“We are not married! I could not ride out alone with you! Young women should not be traipsing around the countryside with unmarried men, even if they are affianced. If you were not ruined on the day of your parents’ death, your good reputation is gone now.”
“William!” she whispered, and brought her hand to her lips, her eyes wide.
Beau had heard enough. He quickstepped to the man’s blind side and punched him with all the anger that the woman must be feeling. The man reeled and Beau caught his shirt, stood him upright, and pummeled his midsection. He dropped to his knees in front of Beau and covered his head with his arms.
“You let a woman, your intended no less, ride out alone to bury her parents? You’re a son-of-a-bitch!” Beau knelt down and grabbed the man’s face in his hand and waited until their eyes met. “And you’re going to hell. There’s no doubt about that. You can wrap your sorry ass up in the vestments all you want. God will see you and remember you sending an innocent woman out into dangerous territory. You’re going to hell for sure.”
Beau stood, breathing hard, and looked back at Eleanor McManus. She was staring at him. “I’ll take you to your wagon if you still want to go.”
“Yes, Mr. Gentry. Thank you,” she said in a low, shaking voice. “I would appreciate that very much.”
Eleanor settled herself in front of Mr. Gentry’s furs on the mule with his help and all the dignity she could muster after wiping her eyes. How mortifying that he was witness to her humiliation! Where had he come from? Why had she gone back to William anyway? Had she expected a different answer? He’d already shunned her when he refused to help her bury her parents.
It occurred to her that nothing of her sheltered and planned life was proceeding as she’d anticipated or as her family had prepared her for. She could not imagine her mother or father ever encouraging her to remain in the company of a stranger, a man, with no ties to her family or church, but that was exactly what she was doing, perhaps because the only ones left who were acquainted with her family had left her to navigate on her own.
Mr. Gentry tied the horse and the mule to a post on the main street and helped her down. “We’ll stop at the general store over there and pick up a shovel so I can dig your family’s graves. I want to stop in here at the land agent first to check on my uncle’s property.”
Mr. Gentry guided her to the lone wooden chair in the office and turned, stepping to the counter to speak to two men poring over a massive map.
“What do you mean I need fifty dollars in silver to make my claim? I have the deed right here, and my uncle’s will, and his death certificate,” he said loudly after several minutes.
“Don’t matter, son. You still have to pay the deed transfer, even with all the paperwork in order, which it looks to be.”
“I don’t have fifty dollars. I have forty. Will you take furs for the other ten?”
The older man shook his head. “Nope. You can sell your wares across the street. We take silver.”
“And anyway, if you give us all your money, what are you going to do for a house or food? There’s a cabin still there but it’s been abandoned and probably ain’t fit for living in. You going to stick your wife there in a lean-to ’til spring?” he said as he pointed at Eleanor.
Gentry picked up his papers, folded them neatly, and put them in a leather pouch. “There’s no need for you to concern yourself with the comforts of those I’m responsible for. Good day to you, gentlemen. I will be back.”
Eleanor rose, nodded at the men, and patted Gentry’s arm in consolation. He looked down at her hand and then into her eyes. What an intense man he was! She felt as if every inch of her were on fire, and she was certain she was blushing. She’d only meant to offer him comfort as his plans had gone awry as well as hers, but his forearm under her hand was muscled and thick and made her wonder who his wife would be. She would be a lucky woman to have this steadfast and determined man as a husband.
Gentry bought a shovel at the general store and tied it to his horse’s saddle. They rode in the direction she gave him, and she felt sick and weak for what she might see. He was unsure as well, and offered several times to take her back to town while he did the burying. He would bring her back again to pray over their graves.
“No, Mr. Gentry,” she said. “I will not be stripped of the chance to attend my family. I am the last of the McManus line if my aunt has gone on to heaven and will not shy away from unpleasantness. My mother and father never did. They deserve my ministrations.”
“You do realize that varmints have already gotten to the bodies. They will not look like the people you remember. Maybe you should hang on to the pictures in your head rather than what I imagine will face us when we get there.”
“My mother and father and sisters are no longer of this world. The Lord has them in his keeping and they feel no pain or sorrow. We are here in borrowed vessels, Mr. Gentry.” She pointed. “There. There is the wagon.”
It was as grim a scene as Beau suspected it would be. The flesh on the bodies was eaten by scavengers or rotting, he couldn’t tell which, and there were only three bodies there, with tattered clothing and scraps around them. He suspected the missing one was in the woods somewhere, having been dragged off by a large animal or a pack of dogs. He dug four holes in some soft ground away from the road; it was hot work, even in the cool fall air. Eleanor stood for the longest time in the middle of the area where the bodies lay, silent, praying, he figured. She held a hand to her nose occasionally as the breeze carried the putrid smell of rotting flesh. She gathered rocks and made crosses with the stakes he’d taken from the back of the feed mill.
Beau took his rifle and followed a trail of broken grass into the woods. He didn’t need to go far to find a woman’s body with long hair. He laid down a piece of canvas he’d brought and pulled the body onto to it. He dragged it to the first hole and waited for Eleanor to turn to him. She came the short distance and he heard her sharp intake of breath.
“My mother,” she whispered as tears tumbled down her face. “I can tell from her hair. My beautiful mother.”
Eleanor dug through the valise she carried on the mule and covered the body with a dark green dress made of a shiny, fancy fabric. He waited ’til she stepped away and then began to shovel dirt onto the body. He helped her move the two smaller bodies, her sisters, she had said, Emily fifteen years old and Ruth just nine. She laid a homemade doll with the smallest of the two and a book of poetry with the larger one, before Beau covered them. It took them both to get her father onto the canvas and into the largest hole. He’d been a big man, Beau could tell, probably six feet or more, tall. Eleanor placed a crucifix, a bible, and a white collar on the man’s chest before straightening. Finally, the bodies were covered with dirt and stones, with crosses pounded into the ground. She had written their names on each with a lead pencil she got from the wagon. He tied the shovel to his horse and waited.
“Mr. Gentry? Will you join me?”
Beau straightened his hair, tucked in his shirt, and walked over to the graves.
“Dear Lord, take the souls of my dearly departed family into your arms. Give them rest and comfort from whatever earthly torments they suffered,” she began.
Eleanor McManus’s voice was beautiful even when reciting a funeral dirge. He admired her, she who’d lost everything dear to her in a fragment of time and was still doing her part in the gruesome task that no young woman should have to do. He watched her make her pleas to the Almighty and could tell that she believed. Her God was real and beloved by her. He was jealous for a moment, nonsense he knew, as how could a flesh and blood man be jealous of the Lord. But he was.
“I will miss your quiet ways, Em
ily, and your kindness. Ruth, you were the light and laughter of this family. As our family’s guiding light, Gordon McManus, Father, I will miss your steady hand and wise counsel.”
Eleanor was silent for a long moment. Her voice hitched on her mother’s name. “Olivia McManus. A most wonderful and gracious woman. I will aspire to be like you, to love as you did, to sacrifice as you did. I have been truly blessed by the Lord with a righteous, loving family.”
She bowed her head, repeated the Lord’s Prayer, and began to sing then in a clear beautiful voice that carried on the breeze and surely into the hills. He was mesmerized. There was no need for violins or harps or flutes to accompany her, every note rang clear.
“I shall profess, within the vale, a life of joy and peace.”
Beau turned to his horse as she finished singing, adjusting the pack and the saddle, unable to steady his shaking hands. Had he ever been witness to such heartfelt love? He didn’t think he had. She had loved them all with deep and profound feeling. He was humbled by her and unsure of himself suddenly. Nothing and no one had ever left him shaking or fearful or even in awe, until this very moment. She had changed him in some fundamental way that he did not yet understand. He turned when she called his name.
“You’ve done so much for me already, but I need your help,” she said.
“What do you need? Where are you?”
“Under the buckboard.”
Beau ducked under the wagon and found Eleanor picking at a piece of wood with a knife.
“I can’t seem to budge it. Can you try?” she asked.
“What are we doing?” he said as he put his hand out for her to lay the knife in.
“There. Can you see the edge there? My father was brilliant, and I didn’t believe him. Mother told me to believe in him, and yet I didn’t!”
Beau raised his brows and looked at her face, now inches from his beneath the seat of the wagon. “Miss Eleanor. You’re not making much sense.”