Simply Dead

by Eleanor Kuhns

  ‘I-I can’t.’ Tears filled Hortense’s eyes. ‘Is Jerusha all right? I don’t want anything to happen to her.’

  ‘She’s scared to death,’ Rees said, approaching Hortense. ‘What happened to you? What did you mean when you talked about the blood? Why were you so frightened you fled barefoot into the snow? Tell me. Now.’ Rees did not realize he was shouting until Lydia came up behind him and grasped his shoulder.

  ‘Will, Will. Calm down.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ he said, looking at his wife. ‘The boys who attacked Jerusha were wearing moccasins, just like the tracks I saw in North Road.’ He turned back to Hortense. ‘Where the cart was driven off the road and you were taken. It takes no great stretch of imagination to guess these are the same individuals who abducted you. Are they still looking for you?’

  Hortense gulped back a sob and stared up at Rees with watery eyes.

  ‘If you know something,’ Lydia said, ‘tell us. I don’t want to see Jerusha hurt and scared—’

  ‘I don’t know anything,’ Hortense broke in. ‘I don’t. I don’t know who took me. Or why anyone would come after Jerusha.’ Despite her vehemence he did not believe her, not completely anyway.

  ‘You said there was blood,’ he said, trying to keep his voice level. ‘Where did that blood come from? What happened?’

  Hortense turned her face away, pressing her hands to her mouth. Frustration overcame Rees and, grabbing her shoulders, he began shaking her.

  ‘Hortense. Tell me what happened.’

  ‘I don’t know, I don’t know,’ she screamed at him. ‘Leave me alone.’

  Lydia put her hand on Rees’s right arm and pulled it back until he released his grip on Hortense’s shoulder. Rees stepped back from her just as Bernadette ran into the room.

  ‘Stop it. Stop it,’ she shouted at him. ‘How dare you attack my daughter.’

  ‘I wasn’t—’ he began but she raised her voice even further.

  ‘Leave her alone. She has already been through so much.’

  ‘Jerusha was attacked,’ Rees said, shouting in his turn. ‘By young men who, I believe, were looking for her.’ He pointed at Hortense. Bernadette frowned at him.

  ‘That’s not possible,’ she said flatly in a voice that brooked no discussion. ‘Come Hortense,’ she said, holding out a shabby, pale-gray cloak and a pair of clogs. ‘Uncle Simon brought around the sled; we’ll go home now.’

  Hortense nodded, her eyes downcast, and reached for the cloak. In less than a minute the clogs were on her feet and the cloak over her shoulders. Bernadette put her arm around her daughter and drew her from the room. As they crossed the kitchen and approached the door, she turned and said to Rees, ‘You stay away from my daughter. Do you hear me?’

  ‘You’re making a mistake,’ he said. ‘She knows more than she is telling.’

  ‘She doesn’t,’ interrupted Bernadette in a sharp angry voice.

  ‘Those men who attacked Jerusha this morning will not give up. Hortense is still in danger.’

  ‘No, she isn’t. Except maybe from you. You stay away from my daughter from now on.’ Bernadette bundled Hortense through the open door. Shaking with frustration, Rees watched the women climb into the sled.

  The warm sun was softening yesterday’s snow. Water dripped from the room. As Constable Rouge, who tipped his hat to Rees in a friendly fashion, turned the sled around, the runners left long grooves in the slushy snow. Rees closed the door with a sharp slam.

  ‘Hortense knows more,’ he said, turning to Lydia. ‘A lot more.’

  ‘I know,’ Lydia said, nodding. ‘But she is too terrified to speak about it.’

  ‘I think there is more to her silence than that,’ he said, recalling his impressions of her guilt and shame earlier this morning. ‘And Bernadette is a fool if she thinks Hortense’s silence will keep her safe.’

  ‘Bernadette is no fool,’ Lydia said as Jerusha left her seat by the table to join them. ‘She knows her daughter is not telling all she knows. Bernadette is protecting her chick. As we wish to protect ours.’ She smiled at Jerusha. ‘Why don’t you go upstairs and wake your brothers and sister. They have already overslept. And Nancy still has to collect the eggs.’

  Jerusha nodded. Despite the marks of tears on her cheeks, she seemed to have recovered somewhat from her scare. ‘There is something,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ Lydia smiled at the girl.

  ‘When … when those men grabbed me,’ she swallowed, her voice beginning to tremble.

  ‘You don’t have to talk about this,’ Lydia said.

  ‘Yes, she does,’ Rees said, turning to Jerusha. ‘Did they speak to you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said in relief. ‘The one who pushed me down said, “This isn’t her. I told you she was too short.” And the other one said, “Let her go. She’s just a kid.” And the other one said, “Why don’t we take her anyway.” And then you came over the hill, shouting.’ She smiled at Rees and leaned forward to hug him before leaving the kitchen.

  He watched her as she went out the door into the hall. Both Jerusha and her brother Simon were resilient. Well, he guessed they’d had to be, living with their drunken mother in New York. Another thought struck him and he turned to Lydia. ‘See?’ he said. ‘Those young men did come down here looking for Hortense.’

  ‘But how did they know she was here?’

  Rees thought of all the men who’d helped search and of Rouge who ran the local tavern as well as served as constable. ‘There were a lot of people looking for her,’ he said. ‘Any one of them could have talked about it. And Rouge chats with people all day in the ordinary. I’d wager this house that the news of her disappearance, the wagon found by the side of the road, and my discovery of her unconscious body lying in the snow went through the town like a forest fire.’ As he spoke Lydia’s cheeks paled. She moistened her lips with her tongue.

  ‘Will those wicked boys return?’ she asked in a hushed voice.

  ‘I don’t believe so,’ Rees said in a confident voice. ‘They want Hortense and she isn’t here anymore.’ He sounded more certain than he felt. But if those young brutes did dare set foot on his property he would be waiting. From now on he planned to carry his rifle with him every time he stepped outside. After a short pause he continued, ‘I just wish I knew what happened to Hortense. What was she involved in? It sounded almost as though she witnessed a murder. Or,’ he added, thinking of the young men who were searching so determinedly for the girl, ‘she committed one. And that’s why she ran.’

  ‘Oh, surely not,’ Lydia said quickly. ‘Not Hortense. She is not a murderer. But there is something …’ Her words trailed away.

  ‘I must talk to Hortense again,’ Rees said. ‘Despite her mother’s wishes. Those lads don’t seem willing to abandon their efforts to recapture her again.’

  ‘Especially if she saw them murder someone,’ Lydia said, an expression of horror crossing her face. ‘Oh, how terrible.’

  ‘I need to speak with her again,’ he repeated. The determination of the young men to recapture her was easily explained if she had witnessed a murder. ‘We need at least to discover what happened.’

  ‘I doubt Bernadette will allow you to talk to her daughter now,’ Lydia said. ‘She warned you off, remember?’ He nodded reluctantly.

  ‘Do you think I should wait a day or two?’ he asked. He did not want to suggest that Jerusha might still be in danger. The thought sent a shiver through him. He had done his best to comfort everyone. But there was no one who could reassure him.

  ‘We will take extra care,’ Lydia said. She leaned forward and put her hand over Rees’s. ‘I know you want to rush into town and pressure Hortense to speak. I want answers too. But I doubt Bernadette will even allow you to see her daughter, especially now when she is so protective.’

  ‘I have chores anyway,’ Rees said. He saw no reason to admit that once he had completed them, he would reward himself with a trip into town. Even if Bernadette would not permit him e
ntry into his house, he would speak to Rouge. Although he was uncle to Hortense, he had never shown himself prone to the softer emotions. He was in fact, a suspicious cuss, and so would probably be able to listen to Rees’s theories without anger. Rouge was, moreover, the constable and so would have a professional reason for wanting to capture Hortense’s kidnappers.

  As the children ate their breakfast, Rees went outside to harness Hannibal to the wagon. Usually the kids walked to school but after the attack on his daughter he couldn’t risk it.

  Jerusha and the others had attended school at Zion, the Shaker community, the previous year. But when Rees had moved his family to this farm, he and Lydia, after some discussion, had decided to put them in the dame school just outside of town. The Shakers separated boys and girls and Simon, a hard-working little boy for all he still didn’t know his letters, had been humiliated. Rees hoped David had made arrangements for the boy to continue his lessons. For the hundredth time Rees wished Simon had not stayed with David.

  The school was about five miles from the farm by road although the children had a shortcut through the woods that decreased the distance by a mile or so. Rees expected to finish his morning chores as the children ate breakfast. But Jerusha refused to go to school. She was still too frightened, she said.

  Lydia threw a quick anxious glance at Rees. He had initially been reluctant to allow the girl to continue her schooling, even though she loved learning. In his opinion, Lydia had too much work and needed Jerusha’s help around the house. Anyway, she would eventually get married and what purpose her education then? But Lydia had refused to yield, eventually wearing him down until he finally agreed.

  And here was Jerusha, refusing to attend school.

  ‘You will and that’s that,’ Rees said.

  ‘I won’t,’ she said, her angry voice rising to a shriek.

  Lydia grasped the girl’s arm and drew her aside. He turned to the children grouped around the table. Although each had a bowl of samp – cornmeal porridge – before them not one was eating. Their eyes were focused intently on their older sister.

  ‘Eat,’ Rees said, moving so that he stood between Jerusha and the others. ‘Eat now.’ Nancy picked up her spoon and, after a slight hesitation, her brothers followed her.

  He could not hear what Lydia said to Jerusha but, when he had gotten Hannibal hitched to the wagon and was ready to leave, the scowling and unhappy girl climbed in with her siblings.

  After that excitement the children were almost late; the final vibrations of the big brass bell were just fading when they ran up the steps and disappeared inside. Rees waited outside for a few seconds, just in case he was needed. Then, reluctantly for he still felt a powerful urge to talk to Rouge, he drove home to finish his morning chores.

  But he found himself too nervous to settle. Although he unhitched Hannibal and cooled him down he could not force himself to attend to anything else. Instead, driven by the need to identify Jerusha’s attackers, he crossed the yard and went to the stream to examine the disturbed snow where his daughter had been tackled. That area, the snow scarred right down to dirt, told him nothing. But he could see the footprints on the other side of the stream leading into the woods.

  Since the War for Independence, Rees had had many occasions to use the skills taught him by Indian guide Phillip. In this case no training was necessary. The two lads had made no attempt to disguise their presence and the trail was clearly visible. If the situation were not so serious Rees would have laughed.

  The boys had paused just inside the line of pines. Behind that screen the snow was trampled, as though they’d lingered to watch the farm. One of the young men had relieved himself against a tree, the yellow at its base a clear marker of their time here. They had probably been waiting for Hortense to come out so they could capture her, Rees thought sourly.

  The boys had paced back and forth, their repeated footsteps digging a channel through the snow. From that trench, footsteps went deeper into the woods, curving over the hill in a shadowy blue line. One set, toes forward, came toward the farm. The other tracks went in the opposite direction. The two young men had run side by side, the steps widely spaced and deep. Those were the ones that interested Rees. He began to follow, carefully avoiding stepping into the trail left by his quarry.

  Where had they come from? And where were they going now?

  Although the sun was visible in the sky and gold streaked the edges of the woods, once he penetrated the thick trees the light faded to a dim grayish gloom. Without sun to melt it, the snow was deeper here. And it was much colder. The tracks, crusted with ice, remained clear although a little blurred.

  Rees’s farm lay in a valley – the same low point in which the town and the Shaker community rested. At the back of the property, the woods rose upward to the highlands of the mountains that stretched across the district. The tracks angled across these foothills, heading north-east.

  He was already out of breath and he could see by the footprints that the boys were no longer running.

  The ground rose for some time before dropping precipitately to a valley. He started descending the steep slope at a careful walk but slipped and fell and slid the rest of the way. The snow was much deeper at the bottom of the hill and a dead tree, lying on its side with its roots to the sky, barred his way. To his left an icy stream cut through the snow. He wondered if it was the same waterway that bisected his property and that he had crossed once already. Possibly not; many creeks and ponds wound through these hills.

  When he looked east he saw a patch of blue sky through the leafless branches. If he somehow managed to make his way over the dead tree and continued in that direction he would probably reach the northern leg of Surry Road. But the tracks went north, uphill through the snow. He struggled through the knee-high drifts to the stream and crossed from rock to rock over it. He could see moving water under the ice here.

  He followed the trail through a thick stand of evergreens to a bare slope of ice-spattered granite. There they ended. Panting, Rees stopped. Without the footprints to follow he could not continue. Paths and hidden shortcuts criss-crossed these hills and he knew better than to try and find his way. Most likely he would lose himself in the snowy forest and his body not be found again until spring. Anyway, the boys were too far ahead and he had no chance to catch them now, no chance to find out exactly what they were trying to accomplish. He turned around and began the long slog back to his farm.

  EIGHT

  By the time he reached the end of the woods, morning was well advanced. He guessed it was after nine; the sun penetrated the edge of the trees with golden fingers. He paused just inside the trees and surveyed his property.

  Lydia’s first husband, Charles Ellis, had left this farm to her and it had transferred to Rees upon their marriage. Living in Zion as a celibate Shaker Brother, Ellis should have given the farm to the community. Instead he had willed it to his wife. When Rees and his family had fled from Dugard, taking refuge in Zion, everyone understood that the Ellis property would go to the Shakers. Rees and his family were supposed to be living here only temporarily. But in truth he did not know what he was going to do over the long term.

  The chicken coop had been built new this past fall by Brother Jonathan and already housed a flock, although there were not as many chickens as Lydia wished to own. Rees eyed the old barn. He could hear Daisy and her calf mooing, the beginning of what he hoped would one day be a herd. Attached to one side of the barn, the pigpen held a pregnant sow that grunted contentedly as she foraged for acorns. Next year Rees intended to purchase some sheep and Lydia had already begun planning for beehives. It appeared the family was settling in.

  But as he gazed at the scene, he realized something was gnawing at him. What was it? He knew he had to fetch the pail of milk and bring it inside. But that wasn’t it. He swept his eyes across the yard, the annoying itch increasing. The fields behind the chicken coop and the fence that protected it were in clear view of the piney woods.


  Rees turned around and inspected his yard from another angle. The rutted lane that entered the property, looping behind the barn’s back, was clearly visible. He backed up until he was pressed against his fence, realizing that the drive into the yard could easily be seen by anyone standing within the shadow of the trees across the stream.

  Those buckskin-clad lads could have watched him bring Hortense into the house. And, if they’d remained hidden in the shadows, they would have seen Bernadette and her brother come for Hortense. Rees gulped. They would know she’d left the farm and exactly where she was going: into Durham to her mother’s house.

  Despite his worry, and his desperate hurry, Rees did not get on the road to town for another hour. First he pocketed the few eggs Nancy had missed as he hastened across the snowy yard. He fetched the milk, already showing a grainy crust of freezing cream, and brought it inside. He fed the cow and her heifer just a few forkfuls of hay and left with a promise to give them more soon.

  But most of all it was Rees’s attempt to explain to Lydia why he had to drive into town again that slowed him down. She seemed unaccountably reluctant to understand. ‘You didn’t see them, the boys I mean, did you?’ she asked, laying one hand upon his arm. ‘They may not have seen Hortense leave.’

  ‘I have to warn her,’ he said, staring intently into his wife’s face. ‘I don’t believe Bernadette or Rouge understand the danger that girl is in.’

  ‘But Mr Rouge is the constable,’ Lydia objected. ‘I’m certain they will not be so foolish as to approach his niece. Especially with him so close by – next door in fact.’

  ‘They didn’t hesitate to come on this property,’ Rees said in a grim tone. ‘I suspect they are too desperate to take the girl to hesitate.’

  ‘You know Bernadette won’t speak to you,’ Lydia said, trying another tack. ‘Not now. She is too afraid of you harming her child to listen to any warnings you might give.’