Simply Dead

by Eleanor Kuhns

  ‘But no one else can do this,’ Rees said, attempting a touch of flattery. ‘You are the constable. They know you, at least somewhat. And you have the authority. Would they even open the door to me?’

  Rouge eyed Rees and shook his head. ‘Probably not,’ he said. He lapsed into silence but his mouth twitched as he thought over the suggestion.

  ‘I’ll accompany you,’ said a thin fellow nearby. His fair hair stuck out around his cap and he was missing two of his bottom front teeth. ‘They know me.’

  ‘Lucas Bennett,’ Rouge said, casually. Since he did not seem prepared to complete the introductions, Rees stuck out his hand and announced his name to Mr Bennett.

  ‘We were hoping Hortense made her way back to you and your family,’ he added.

  ‘No,’ Bennett said. ‘She left us more ’n a week ago and we have not seen her since then.’

  ‘You are correct,’ Rouge said, breaking into the conversation. ‘Only I can question those people.’

  ‘This is for the best,’ Rees said, hiding his smile.

  ‘We can begin with Mr Morton, the shopkeeper. Anyone going up the hill by the road would reach the general store and the tavern first,’ Bennett said.

  Rouge gathered the men he’d brought from town. After a few minutes of conversation they mounted their horses. Slushy snow flew out from under the hooves as they started forward, adding another set of tracks upon the deeply scarred snow in the center of the highway.

  Rees went around to the back of the cart. It had been here for several days at least; the snow lay two or three inches deep on the seat despite the canopy. Still visible in the untouched snow at the road’s shoulder were the grooves left by the cart’s wheels as the vehicle careened into the gully. He expected to see Hortense’s footsteps. But there was nothing. Rees stared at the blank snow for a moment, trying to make sense of what his eyes were telling him. No one had stepped down from the cart here, not unless she had gotten out the passenger side. In that case, where was she?

  He looked back at the road. The center of the street was a mush of unidentifiable tracks; Hortense’s buggy could have come from any direction for all he could tell.

  Rees crossed the gully and looked at the snowy band edging the evergreens. Ice coated the stalks and leaves of the dead vegetation protruding from the snow, looking like the sugar-dusted beignets. No footsteps marked the glittering white here either. Hortense had not gone into the woods, not from here – or anywhere around here – anyway. He stared around him, searching for some sign of the girl’s presence. He was fairly certain she had not started walking back to town. The tracks of the men who had come to search for her would have covered hers; that was true. But North Road was consistently traveled and she would already have been found. Yet no one had seen her. Taken together with the missing horse, he began to believe Rouge had guessed correctly; someone had intercepted the girl and abducted her. The absence of Hortense’s footprints told Rees that the actual attack had taken place somewhere else and then the abductor had driven the cart here to confuse the issue.

  He moved toward the Shaker Brothers. The four of them were huddled together against the cold and Brother Jonathan’s nose was bright red. ‘Would you go into the woods here?’ Rees asked, gesturing. ‘Look for footsteps. And spread out, but not too far apart. ‘He grinned. ‘I don’t want to be looking for one of you.’ Jonathan inclined his head in acknowledgment. The men walked into the forest and soon disappeared among the trees.

  Rees pulled the horse blanket from Hannibal’s back and threw it into the wagon. He climbed up into the seat and clucked. They turned in a wide arc so that they faced north and then began a slow walk along the side of the road. He kept his gaze pinned to the shoulder, looking for some disturbance in the thin snow. Although he expected to see something almost immediately, the minutes ticked away and the cold bit through his greatcoat and still the snow in the gully remained unmarked by anything but rabbit and deer tracks. Fat flakes began to fall lazily from the sky. He looked up at the curdled clouds. This snow, although light now, would continue to fall and grow thicker and thicker. Time was disappearing. If Hortense was loose in the woods and wasn’t found soon she would die of exposure. Rees found himself hoping she was safe inside even if that meant her captors still held her.

  He had almost reached the turnoff to Gray Hill, upon which Rouge and his company had disappeared, when Rees saw wheel marks and footprints on the side. Pulling Hannibal to a stop, he stepped down. Since the throng of searchers had not come by here, trampling the snow, the long channels left by buggy wheels remained crisp and very visible. They looked, he thought, identical in size to the midwife’s cart. And footsteps were pressed deep into the snow on the driver’s side as though someone had jumped down and begun running. The boot prints were small ones. But, confusingly, instead of going into the woods as Rees expected the footprints went back, toward the turnoff to Gray Hill.

  Rees stepped down from the wagon and flung the horse blanket over Hannibal’s back once again. Then he crossed over the ditch. He followed Hortense’s icy tracks, the stiff frozen vegetation that edged the trees crackling under his leather soles. He’d taken only a few steps when he came upon the churned snow where the girl’s tracks met and mingled with larger footprints. The deep prints scoring the snow were too large for a woman and the blurry outlines told Rees they’d been made by moccasins. They blended and overlapped in a way that caused him to wonder if, when Hortense had been caught, she’d been wrestled into submission.

  He squatted to peer at the ground. The ankle he’d injured last year ached in protest and Rees rose to his feet once again. There was a second set of big footmarks, slightly smaller than the largest and with the pronounced imprint of the big toe. Hortense’s smaller boots marked the snow between the two sets of moccasin tracks. Two men then, one on either side of her. They were not dragging her; her tracks were sharp and even, but Rees guessed they had grabbed her arms to propel her forward.

  The marks of the horse hooves occasionally strayed over the footprints of the people, covering them. One of the men had gone back to collect the horse – well, he already knew they’d stolen the beast – and here was the proof. One of the men held the reins of Hortense’s horse, drawing the mare behind them. About ten yards to the north Hortense’s tracks disappeared but he found the hoof prints of a second horse, one with a broken horseshoe.

  Rees went down on one knee to examine the tracks. He did not immediately assume because the men wore moccasins that the local Indians had taken the young woman. Many people wore moccasins. Why, he himself had been known to wear them. But not in winter. Today he wore boots and the wet was already seeping through the greased leather. Moccasins afforded even less protection. He hadn’t seen anyone wearing moccasins lately; all of the men he’d met, especially all of the searchers, wore stout boots or shoes.

  And where had they taken her? Rees rose to his feet and stared into the thickening snow.

  The temperature had dropped considerably in the last hour and the falling snow had become an opaque curtain. Soon the snow would cover the tracks and all signs of Hortense would disappear. He began following the trail left by the midwife’s newly shod horse, hurrying before the tracks disappeared. But the kidnappers turned out to the center of the road and the trail disappeared into the mess left by the other traffic.

  Now what? He wished his old friend Phillip, an Indian tracker who had worked with the Continental Army, helped him now. Although Phillip had taught Rees something about tracking, the Indian was much more experienced and perhaps he could have deciphered the tangle in the center of the road.

  Rees looked around him. He stood within a few yards of the path that led to the top of Gray Hill and, as he stared at it, the conviction that the kidnappers had taken Hortense up the hill grew upon him. He hoped Rouge had found some sign of her.

  A sudden muffled scream from the forest froze Rees. He listened hard but heard only the crack of a branch. It was nothing. As he turned away
he heard another cry. Was that Hortense? Had she escaped her captors? He began to run toward the trees.

  He slipped on the icy surface beneath his feet and fell, right shoulder first, knocking the breath from his body. But he pushed himself upright again and kept going.

  Inside the woods the falling snow seemed lighter. Rees slowed to a trot, weaving around the tightly woven firs and the trunks of the bare oaks and maples. He did not hear anything further except for the crunch of his feet hitting the snowy ground and his breath puffing out into the air. Realizing he wouldn’t hear anything as long as he made so much noise, he stopped and listened again. The snow hissed down, whirling as the breeze picked up and soughed through the trees. He thought he heard a whimper but could not tell from which direction it came.

  He began walking, trying to keep the sounds of his own movements to a minimum. He heard faint sobbing but was it ahead or to his right? The crack of a breaking branch sounded like a pistol shot. He turned right and tried to watch the ground, looking for the disturbed snow that would mark someone’s passage. He had to watch his own footing as well; low bush blueberries caught at his feet and he almost tripped more than once.

  He had gone some distance when he spotted footprints in the snow. Wavering prints left by bare feet marked with bloody spots. Much of the trail had been brushed out – by skirts dragging on the ground, Rees thought. He went down to his knee once again and examined the footsteps. The prints were small, the bare toes clearly indented into the snow. She was coming from the north, heading south-southeast. He began following the trail, moving as quickly as he dared. Barefoot, Hortense, or whoever this woman might be, would not last long in the increasing cold. Even in a greatcoat with gloves, boots, hat and a scarf, Rees was shivering. His booted feet were wet and the moisture had begun wicking its way through his stockings to his knees. She was tiring too. He spotted several places where she’d fallen and struggled back up. And, as he followed the path, he saw more frequent areas of churned snow where cold and exhaustion had driven her to her knees. Oh no. Cursing softly, he began to hurry, tripping over the downed branches and jutting boulders. He climbed a slight rise, panting with the exertion, and saw her. She had collapsed as she tried to descend the hill and this time she had not gotten up. Falling snow already dusted her with white. Rees began to run.

  As he feared, the body lying in the snow was Hortense, her brown hair fanned out across the white ground. Her bare feet were blue with cold, the soles scored by cuts and scrapes. He shuddered in sympathetic pain. ‘Hortense,’ he said. ‘Wake up. Hortense.’ Where had she come from? And why had she left shelter when she was so poorly dressed for the weather? Besides those injured bare feet, she wore only a thin shawl wound around her shoulders. Where was her cloak? Something terrible must have compelled her to flee into the blizzard. ‘Hortense.’ Rees shook her. Not even her eyelids fluttered and if it were not for the heartbeat pulsing faintly in her ashen throat he would have thought her already dead.

  He knew he could not leave her here, unconscious in the snow. He took off his scarf and wound it around her, as far as it would reach, and picked her up. Then he began the long walk back to the wagon.

  THREE

  By the time he reached the road, north of his horse and wagon, the snow was coming down so thickly Rees could see only a few yards ahead. The flakes had gone from large soft feathers to small flecks of white, falling in a blinding cloud. At least, he thought with an exhausted chuckle, he’d come out of the woods further south than he’d gone in. Hannibal was a shadow; if Rees had been any further to the north the horse would have been invisible and Rees would have been completely disoriented.

  Had Hortense lost her way in the woods? If she’d turned west, toward the road, she would have reached it and help far sooner. Instead she’d been caught in the woods, far away from anyone who could rescue her. Or was she trying to stay hidden? Rees thought of the churned snow and the cart abandoned by the side of the road many days ago and wondered what exactly had happened.

  As he staggered toward Hannibal, first the horse and then the wagon behind the gelding solidified into view. Now that the end was near Rees was not sure he could make it. Hortense was small and slender but she’d begun to feel like she weighed a ton. His arms ached and the stabbing pain in his back would not let up. ‘One foot in front of the other,’ he told himself. That was the answer. One foot in front of the other. Finally he reached the wagon and was able to drop Hortense into the wagon bed. Gasping, he unfolded his arms. He groaned as sensation began to return in a prickling burning wave.

  She had not awakened and he began to fear he’d reached her too late. He took off his great coat and swaddled her in it, hoping the residual warmth from his body would help her. Oh, it was cold! The freezing air swept through his jacket, vest and shirt as though he were wearing nothing at all. He hurried forward and snatched the blanket from Hannibal’s back. It smelled of horse and straw but Rees wrapped it around his shoulders and was glad of it.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he called to Hannibal and slapped the reins down. The horse jumped forward, eager to go home to a nice dry barn.

  Within a few minutes Rees came upon the Shaker Brothers. They’d abandoned the search and were climbing into their wagon. He pulled up alongside. ‘I’ve found her, Jonathan,’ he said.

  ‘The others won’t know,’ the Brother replied.

  ‘If they’re smart,’ Rees said, looking at the snow swirling all around, ‘they will have taken refuge with someone on the hill. Otherwise, they are already on their way back.’

  Jonathan lifted a hand in response and the two wagons started forward.

  The snow was building up rapidly on the road and Rees was glad to follow the Shakers’ wagon. They’d hitched two horses to their vehicle and still the animals were struggling to plow through the deepening drifts. Rees followed a few feet back, driving in their tracks. When they arrived at the intersection of the Main Road with Surry, the Shakers turned right for Zion and he turned left. He found the going much more difficult. Hannibal struggled and Rees could hear the horse wheezing with the effort. He was tempted to climb down and walk but he would have an even more difficult time than Hannibal. Finally the house came into view. As he pulled into the yard he began shouting, ‘I found her. I found Hortense.’

  Lydia and Bernadette rushed outside. Rees pulled up by the front porch and jumped down from the wagon. By now Hortense – and Rees’s greatcoat – were completely covered with snow. He picked her up and carried her inside.

  After rubbing Hannibal down and offering him a bag of oats as a special treat, Rees joined the others in the parlor, a room they’d closed off for the winter. The fire Lydia had lit when Rees had brought in the still unconscious Hortense was only now beginning to send some heat into the frigid space.

  Lydia had put every quilt she owned over the girl. Although the parlor did not feel cozy to Rees, Hortense was warming up. The snow on her hair had melted and her wet brown locks looked black against her bloodless face. Bernadette knelt beside her daughter, rubbing those cold white hands. A bowl of stew sat close to the midwife, though Rees couldn’t tell if Bernadette was planning on eating it herself or had been spooning it into Hortense’s slack mouth.

  ‘How is she?’ he asked.

  ‘She may lose a few toes to frostbite,’ Bernadette said, looking up at Rees, ‘but I think she’ll live. You saved her. I can never repay you …’ Her voice trembled to a stop.

  He nodded although he was not so sure the girl would survive. Hortense had traveled a long way on bare feet in the snow with only a thin shawl to cover her. But he knew better than to voice his fears.

  ‘Has she wakened?’ he asked. Lydia shook her head.

  ‘What was she doing in the woods without shoes or cloak?’ Bernadette asked, her voice rough with tears.

  ‘I hope she can tell us,’ Rees said.

  Shedding the horse blanket as he walked, he went into the kitchen. It was by far the warmest room in the house with the fir
e blazing on the hearth. Rees stripped off his boots and wet stockings and put them on the stone to dry. He felt such longing for a cup of coffee he poured out the lukewarm liquid left over from breakfast and drank it down without sugar or cream. Although it was tepid, it warmed him going down and he finished the cup in one long draft. He poured out another cup and looked around at the children. He was surprised to see Jerusha and the other two eldest.

  ‘Why aren’t you in school?’ he asked them.

  ‘I fetched them early,’ Lydia said, coming into the kitchen. She went directly to the kettle bubbling away over the fire. Rees had shot a deer a week ago and with the vegetables from the root cellar she had made a hearty stew. It had been simmering over the fire for days, a little different each time since she always added something new. ‘Bernadette watched Sharon,’ she added as she ladled a portion into a clean bowl. She turned to hand the bowl to Rees. ‘Eat this. You must be hungry.’

  ‘It’s gotten very nasty outside,’ he said as he took the bowl to the table and sat down. After a moment Lydia joined him.

  ‘Where did you find Hortense?’ she asked in a whisper.

  Rees threw a look at the children and lowered his voice as well. ‘She was running through the forest just south of the road up Gray Hill.’ He lowered his voice still further, down to a whisper. ‘She was abducted, Lydia. I found the tracks where she was taken.’ Her eyes widened.

  ‘Abducted? Here? In Durham? By whom?’ She glanced involuntarily at Jerusha, kneeling on the floor beside Nancy and tickling her. Although still a child, both Rees and Lydia knew she would not remain one for too many years more.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Rees said with a shake of his head. ‘But she escaped.’

  ‘She must have been desperate,’ Lydia said, her voice cracking with sympathy. ‘To run away without her shoes or her cloak.’

  ‘I think her abductors took them so she wouldn’t try to leave,’ Rees said. ‘She …’ A soft sound at the door drew his attention. Bernadette, the empty stew bowl in her hands, stood paralyzed at the entry. Her white face rivaled the bloodless countenance of her unconscious daughter.