Simply Dead

by Eleanor Kuhns

  TWELVE

  Rees found Brother Jonathan in the woodshop. Although the Shaker Brother was a talented carpenter, today he was sanding broom handles. A sheaf of finished poles, white and smooth, leaned against the wall. Jonathan looked bored; broom handles did not utilize his skills at all, but the sale of these Shaker brooms were a big part of Zion’s income. Several young men, barely into their teens by the look of them, were attaching straw to the handles with a large wooden contrivance. Everyone worked in that total silence that Rees found so unnatural.

  ‘May I have a word?’ he asked the Elder. Jonathan looked at his unexpected visitor and stepped back from the lathe.

  Rees had met Jonathan for the first time a year ago September. After the murders that had taken place in this community and the added responsibility that had come with Jonathan’s promotion to Elder, he had grown gray. He looked much older now and careworn.

  ‘In private,’ Rees added.

  Jonathan shook his head. ‘Not another terrible crisis,’ he said, sounding resigned and alarmed both.

  ‘I hope not,’ Rees said.

  Jonathan looked at the lads. ‘I know the Sisters in the kitchen will offer you something to eat. We’ll begin again after our noon dinner.’

  The young men, although they looked surprised, wasted no time hurrying from the shop. Jonathan turned his wary gaze upon Rees. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘The girl we were searching for in the woods? You know I found her. She needs a place to stay. Just for a short time.’ Rees launched into the tale. At first he minimized the role played by the two young men and avoided mentioning the attack on Jerusha altogether. But when he paused and Jonathan began to nod, Rees felt guilty. This community had already seen its share of tragedy. The murders last year had left lasting scars. He didn’t know if the Shakers here would ever recover. ‘Before you answer,’ he said, blurting into speech, ‘there’s something else you should know. The men who kidnapped Hortense are searching for her. They attacked Jerusha, mistaking my daughter for the midwife’s girl. And when Bernadette took Hortense home, the villains followed her there and broke into Bernadette’s house. Fortunately, the constable had already removed his niece to the tavern for safety.’

  Jonathan picked up the broom handle and ran his hands over it. Frowning, he inspected it closely. The sanded finish did not meet his standards and after several seconds of disapproving examination he put it back down again. ‘So,’ he said, ‘in the interest of keeping the midwife’s daughter safe, you suggest endangering my Family.’

  ‘I would not have described it in those terms,’ Rees said, staring at the floor in shame. ‘But put like that …’ He supposed Jonathan was correct. ‘I just thought that garbed as the Sisters are and traveling in a group, Hortense would be as safe as she could be. Certainly a stranger coming into Zion to search for her would be easily identifiable.’

  ‘But if those ruffians entered Zion we would not be able to protect her,’ Jonathan pointed out. ‘We are not armed. We do not own weapons and we would not use them if we did.’

  Rees bowed his head in silent agreement. For a moment they stood in silence, Rees cudgeling his brain for another place that might serve as a refuge for Hortense.

  ‘How long would that young woman remain with us?’ the Elder asked.

  ‘Only a few days I believe,’ Rees replied, a tiny flame of hope springing to life within him. ‘Perhaps until Monday or Tuesday. Her mother is planning to remove the girl to relatives in Canada.’ Jonathan stared unseeingly over Rees’s head for several seconds.

  ‘We know Hortense,’ Jonathan said. ‘Well, we met both her and her mother during Lydia’s travail, when Sharon was born.’

  ‘Do you have to ask the other Elders?’ Rees asked, trying to keep the eagerness from his voice.

  Jonathan offered Rees a sour smile. ‘Both Esther and Daniel – you know that he moved from Deacon and caretaker of the boys to Elder? – would choose to do this for you. Both of them feel such gratitude for your assistance last year. Only the other Eldress, would hesitate.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Rees said, understanding that Jonathan felt he’d been put in an untenable position.

  ‘All right, we’ll do it,’ he said. ‘But you must bring her here as secretively as possible. I do not want to put my Family’s safety at risk.’

  ‘Of course,’ Rees said. ‘Maybe tonight, after nightfall?’

  ‘It will be dark before suppertime. If you come when everyone is at their evening meal, the community will be in the Dining Hall and unaware of her arrival. By the following morning she will be seen simply as a new member.’

  ‘That sounds like an excellent plan,’ Rees agreed.

  ‘I’ll speak to Sister Esther,’ Jonathan said. ‘I’m certain she will wish to help. And of course she will assign work to the girl. While she remains here, Hortense must live as we do, no matter how few the days.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Rees said. ‘Thank you. I’m certain Hortense will agree.’ Turning, he hurried out of the shop. He knew Bernadette would wish to hear this news as soon as possible.

  Rees pressed Rouge to follow the original plan and go back up Gray Hill, this time to question Granny Rose. But he would not hear of it. He was too frightened for Hortense’s safety. It was all Rees could do to persuade the other man to return to town and take up his post in the tavern. Rees had to promise he would protect Hortense and insure her well-being.

  He would have done so more readily if he’d been able to question the girl again. But Bernadette stayed behind and watched her daughter as closely as a mother bear with a cub. Every time he even approached Hortense, Bernadette rose to her feet and put her hands on her hips, prepared to do battle. If his children had gone to school he might have confronted the midwife and her daughter anyway. But Lydia, nervous about their safety, had chosen to keep them home today. So Rees, reluctantly, withdrew from the front room and tried to satisfy himself with regular circuits around the farm.

  Rouge arrived just as dusk began to creep over the farm. When the darkness was absolute Bernadette hustled Hortense out to Rees’s wagon. She lay down on the wooden boards, out of sight of anyone riding past. Rees covered her with a blanket before driving through the gate to the lane. Although the full moon had not risen yet, the silvery disc hanging just above the horizon emitted enough light for him to see his way to Surry Road. He turned right, toward Zion.

  As he pulled into the road, Rees looked all around but saw no lights. Unless those boys had eyes like cats, they would need at least one lantern. He began to think this subterfuge might work and Hortense would be safe within Zion.

  Rouge and his sister followed in their cart.

  Jonathan and Esther waited within the lighted doorway of the Dining Hall. When Esther heard them she moved into the road with her lantern held high. Rees stopped and, jumping down, went to the back for the girl. She sat up, straw sticking out from her hair, and turned a wide-eyed look upon him.

  ‘You’ll be safe here,’ he said. Leaning forward he added in a whisper, ‘You might consider telling the truth, the whole truth, not just the parts you wish to confess. Capturing those boys is the only thing that will keep you safe.’ Hortense glared at him and scooted over the rough wood to the back. When she dropped to the ground she hurled the blanket at him as though it was thick with fleas.

  Bernadette’s sobbing sounded clearly through the gloom as they came up behind the wagon. She climbed down and ran to her daughter. Clutching Hortense tightly in her arms, Bernadette said, ‘We will come for you in a few days, just as soon as we have set the arrangements for your journey.’

  ‘Really, Bernie, what is the cause of these tears?’ Rouge said with assumed impatience. ‘She’ll be scarcely fifteen miles from home.’ But Rees saw the furtive swipe Rouge gave his eyes.

  ‘What if something happens?’ Bernadette said with a sniffle. ‘I won’t be here.’

  ‘The more quickly you arrange to spirit her away to Quebec, the sooner she will be safe,�
� Jonathan said in an austere voice.

  Bernadette turned. ‘You can’t possibly understand,’ she said in shaky tearful voice. ‘You are not a mother. And Hortense is all I have.’

  ‘We’ll make sure nothing happens to her,’ Esther said, wrapping her arm around Bernadette’s shoulders and urging her toward the Dwelling House. In the candlelight, Hortense’s pale-gray cloak appeared white. As the two women disappeared up the steps and through the women’s door, Bernadette uttered a sob.

  Rees turned to Jonathan. ‘Thank you. And please, extend my gratitude to Esther as well.’

  Jonathan nodded without speaking and turned to the Dining Hall.

  ‘I will let you know everything that happens,’ Rouge said as he handed his sister into the buggy.

  Bernadette turned a pale mournful face in Rees’s direction. ‘Thank you for all you did,’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘I have daughters also,’ he said. Having daughters changed a man; the world suddenly seemed a much scarier place. Children were so vulnerable and daughters even more so. Remembering how he felt when he saw the two men standing over Jerusha, he shivered.

  ‘I hope they will be safe now and forever,’ Bernadette said, nodding at him. ‘I never thought something like this would happen.’ Rouge climbed into the seat beside her.

  ‘Good night,’ Rees said, tipping his hat. He wondered if she remembered the September Sharon had arrived into the world, when Bernadette had told him that no one would interfere with her or her daughter. She’d been so certain. And, as it proved, so wrong.

  Rouge flicked the whip over the horse’s withers and the buggy began to turn. Rees walked back to his wagon. Jonathan had gone into the Dining Hall. Through the opened door the aroma of roast chicken seeped through the street. Rees’s mouth began to water and he was suddenly very eager to go home to his own supper.

  He did not light the lanterns that hung on each side of the wagon until he reached the turn-off to town. He climbed down and struggled for a minute or so with his tinderbox before he achieved a flame. Then he continued on his way home feeling that he’d accomplished a very good deed. But he could not help but hope he’d seen the last of Hortense.

  THIRTEEN

  When Rees took Lydia to market the following day, he visited the tavern and tried to persuade Rouge to join him on a journey up Gray Hill. But the tavern keeper, too busy to stand still, refused. ‘Monday,’ he said as Rees trailed after him through the crowded room. Frustrated, he left the ordinary and returned to market. Lydia was already finished although her basket was only half full. The scanty offerings from the local farmers had not appealed. But he saw some colorful ribbons and a few wooden toys in her basket. ‘Christmas is coming,’ she said in response to his inquiring look. ‘I want something for the children.’ She meant other than the mittens and scarves she had been knitting after the children had gone to bed. Rees nodded but sighed, thinking again of David and Simon. He was so afraid they would not make it here for Christmas.

  He turned Hannibal toward home. Besides farm chores, which never seemed to end, he hoped he would have time to sit down at the loom with Jerusha today.

  Sunday was Rees’s least favorite day of the week. Church services took most of the day and Lydia insisted they attend, saying she did not want to see the children grow up as savages. But he knew she was remembering the events in Dugard where Lydia had been accused of witchcraft. One of the pieces of evidence against her was the failure of the family to attend regular Sunday services. Rees wasn’t sure the effort would have helped in his hometown; the degree of malice was so great, but here in Durham he acceded to Lydia’s wishes. He knew he wasn’t the only one suffering from the after-effects – the terror and determination to prevent it ever happening again – from the final summer in Dugard.

  Although Sunday was the Sabbath, it still began with chores. Rees carried his rifle outside when Nancy went to collect eggs and he stood and watched over Jerusha as she carried water into the house. Then he went to milk Daisy and throw down some hay into her stall. With this warm weather, warm for December anyway, Daisy and her little heifer could be released to graze but there was no time before church. Anyway, he preferred his few cattle safe within the barn. And he could not resist walking around the yard, paying particular attention to the area beneath the pines, just in case those young villains had returned.

  He saw no sign the young men had come back to his farm. But when the family returned in late afternoon from services, an unfamiliar buggy was pulled up to the gate.

  Heart thudding like a hammer, Rees scrambled out of the wagon seat, almost falling in his haste, and threw open the gate. It was Brothers Jonathan and Daniel. Rees’s heart sank. Fearing the worst, Rees hurriedly unhitched Hannibal and released him into the paddock before following his family and their visitors into the kitchen.

  Jonathan was frowning – well, that wasn’t uncommon for him, but Daniel’s mouth was tightened into a thin line. His reddened eyes sent Rees’s stomach into a sickening spin.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘Why are you here on a Sunday when you should be attending services?’

  ‘Rees,’ Jonathan said, turning, ‘we’ve been waiting for you.’

  Rees knew they brought bad news; he could feel it in his very bones. Staring at them in apprehension, he swallowed, unable even to speak.

  ‘There’s been a murder,’ Daniel said, so pale even his lips were gray. Younger than Rees by a decade or more, he’d lived in Zion since boyhood. Apprenticed to the Shakers at the tender age of eight when his parents couldn’t care for him, he’d grown up within their shelter. He’d signed the Covenant as soon as he could and never left.

  ‘Water?’ Lydia asked him, moving forward with a hand outstretched as though she would catch him if he fell. Daniel shook his head but when Lydia pulled over a chair he sank into it and put his face in his hands.

  Rees turned his gaze to Jonathan who was staring at Rees with a mixture of anger and accusation. ‘A Sister,’ Jonathan said.

  ‘Not Hortense,’ Lydia said in a trembling voice.

  ‘No.’ Jonathan did not remove his wrathful gaze from Rees. ‘But most likely in mistake for Hortense.’

  ‘Oh God, I am sorry,’ he said, his voice so hoarse and shaky he sounded like a different person. He tottered over to the table on weak legs and leaned upon it.

  ‘Some Sisters saw the murderer,’ Jonathan said. ‘You must catch the man.’ He did not say, “because this is all your fault”, but Rees heard it just the same.

  ‘And Hortense must be removed,’ Daniel said. ‘She is putting other lives, the lives of our Sisters, in danger.’

  ‘Of course.’ Rees half-nodded. ‘I’ll speak to Rouge. But I must see the body first.’ He turned to look at Lydia. One hand was pressed to her mouth and the eyes that stared at her husband over it were big and dark with fear.

  ‘Jerusha,’ she said faintly. ‘This could have been her.’

  He nodded, feeling the gorge rise up into his throat. ‘Let’s go examine the body now,’ he said. He needed to do something so he wouldn’t fall into an agony of blame and self-recrimination. ‘We need to go right now. And I want to talk to the Sisters who saw the attack.’

  ‘They are all much distressed,’ Jonathan said in a wintery voice. Rees knew that he was blamed for that as well. ‘I don’t know if they will be able to speak to you this evening. And anyway, you must do so with a chaperone.’ His gaze moved to Lydia. She nodded without speaking.

  If the situation had not been so terrible Rees would have smiled at her. They had met in exactly this way when he’d visited Zion the very first time. His son David had run away from his aunt and uncle. Rees, returning home from an extended weaving trip, had followed. He had been the first one accused of the murder of a young Sister. A farmer, in whose barn he had slept the night, spoke for him and as soon as he was released he’d begun searching for the real killer. Lydia had chaperoned him then as he questioned the Sisters. As she would now. Some of the tens
ion went out of her shoulders and although she did not smile Rees knew she too recalled those first days.

  ‘I’ll go and examine the victim’s body now,’ he said. He did not want Lydia to see it; what if it was as horrifying as Mac’s body had been last year in Dugard? Mac had been tortured and left hanging in the mill. Rees still had nightmares.

  ‘It’ll be dark soon,’ she said, glancing through the small kitchen window.

  Rees nodded, his forehead wrinkling. Dark came early in this district’s winter. He would carry a lantern with him so he would have light on his way home. There would be no time to fetch Rouge today. ‘Tomorrow, after I speak to the constable, I’ll come home for you. We’ll question the Sisters together in the morning.’

  Lydia smiled. ‘I’ll bring the babies with me,’ she said, throwing a quick glance behind her at Joseph and Sharon. ‘But we must return before school ends. I don’t want the children to walk home …’ Her voice trailed away and she bit her lip.

  Rees reached out to lay his hand upon her wrist. He understood; he too felt a quiver of fear at the thought of his vulnerable children and these villains on the loose.

  ‘The murder may have nothing at all to do with Hortense,’ he said. But not even he believed that.

  Removed to the barn, the body lay on the hay-strewn floor, illuminated by two lanterns. The pale-gray cloak was indeed Hortense’s and in the flickering candlelight from the lantern the cloth seemed to shiver and move. Rees closed his eyes and swallowed.