The Heart's Charge

by Karen Witemeyer

  Mark hunkered down, shocked at how sore his legs felt while carrying out the simple task of folding. “Those look like farm horses, built for pulling plows and wagons, not for speed,” he said gently. “I doubt the man in black rides a plow horse.”

  Al crossed her arms. “He might. You don’t know.”

  “No, I don’t. Not for sure. But it’s more likely those horses belong to someone else.”

  Al shrugged. “It wouldn’t hurt to hide out and wait for the owners to come back. I was gonna lie down in the grass and keep watch. One of ’em might be the fella that snatched Wart.”

  Mark gave her a steady look. “What if he’s not wearing black today? Will you still recognize him?”

  She jutted out a quivering chin. “Maybe. If he said something. I’d remember his voice.”

  Huh. Mark hadn’t thought about her being able to identify the man’s voice.

  “What if I promise to take you out with me tomorrow? To places where men congregate. Places where you can listen to their voices without anyone suspecting what you’re about.”

  Kate laid a hand on his arm. Her concern weighted the air like impending rain, but she didn’t give it voice. She gave him trust instead.

  Man, but he loved this woman.

  As much as he wanted to look at Kate and reassure her with silent promises, Mark kept his gaze locked on Alice. “What do you say?” he challenged. “Do we have a deal?”

  She peered at him long and hard, then thrust out her hand. After he took it and gave it a firm shake, she declared her answer. “Deal.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Eliza cast a final glance over her shoulder as she drove the wagon out of the yard and onto the road. Was she making the right choice? Leaving the children alone with Jonah?

  The man in question lifted his hat from his head and waved it at her as if he could see her furrowed brow. With his sharp eyes, he probably could.

  Eliza returned her attention to the road in front of her. Jonah was one of Hanger’s Horsemen, for heaven’s sake. He could corral a half-dozen kids for an hour or two. Besides, he wasn’t truly on his own. Abner and Ruby would help him. They knew all the routines.

  “I’m sorry for putting you out like this.”

  Eliza smiled at the thin, wan woman on the wagon seat beside her. “It’s no trouble.”

  When Fern Dawson had shown up on Harmony House’s doorstep a mere quarter hour after Katherine left in a panic to fetch Mr. Wallace, Eliza had known this wouldn’t be a short visit. Mrs. Dawson could only have one reason to travel all the way to Kingsland. Her baby.

  “I know you must think me a terrible person,” Fern said, her head bowed, her fingers tangled in a white handkerchief that stood out in stark contrast to the black widow’s weeds that covered her from chin to bootheel.

  Eliza bit back her agreement, reminding herself that God called his people to mercy, not judgment. Even toward those who abandoned their children. “I think you . . . a woman beset by grief.”

  Fern’s unnaturally stiff posture buckled at the kind interpretation of events. “I was. God help me, I still am.” Tears clogged her voice as she turned pleading eyes on Eliza. “Wendell was my whole world. When he passed, I begged God to take me too. I couldn’t imagine living without my husband. I had no one else. No family. No friends. No desire to walk this earth alone.”

  She wouldn’t have been alone. She had family. A child.

  The words perched at the top of Eliza’s throat, ready to jump forth in admonishment. But the Spirit bridled her tongue. Fern was here now, taking steps to fix what she’d broken. Which meant the Lord had been working on her heart since the birthing. Eliza wouldn’t undo that work by handing out recriminations and lectures.

  Fern hung her head. “I was out of my head when the baby was born.”

  The baby. Not my baby.

  “I didn’t even look at her.” Fern glanced up again. “Did he tell you that? The man who brought her to you.”

  “Mr. Wallace.” Eliza neatly sidestepped the question.

  “Wallace.” Recognition rang in Fern’s voice. “That’s right. I remember the doctor mentioning him. I’m afraid I didn’t pay much heed to his name at the time. All I remember is being angry that he wouldn’t take the baby and leave so I could . . .”

  Join her husband.

  Fern shifted on the bench and turned her gaze to the horizon. “That same anger clawed my insides for three days. But with Mr. Wallace gone, I directed it at the church ladies who forced themselves into my home. Fussing over me night and day. Not giving me a single moment to myself.” She fiddled with a pleat in her skirt. “They took shifts. All Mrs. Abernathy’s doing. She organized my guards better than her husband organizes his sermons. They cleaned my house. Made sure I ate. Prayed over me.” Her voice hitched.

  “No matter how much I yelled at them and demanded they leave, they stayed. Mrs. Peabody bathed me and combed my hair. Mrs. Green brought me quilt squares to appliqué and praised my stitches even though they were a shambles. And when my breasts became so swollen it hurt to move, Mrs. Hawthorne made cool compresses and offered a distraction by reading a novel to me.

  “They were all so patient and kind. To someone they barely knew.” Fern spoke softly, a touch of disbelief coloring her voice. “Living miles from town, Wendell and I didn’t make it to Sunday services very often. Yet the women came anyway. Cared for me despite my ingratitude.”

  Eliza’s heart warmed at the testimony. “‘Pure religion . . . is this,’” she said. “‘To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction.’ They were living out their faith. Loving you as Jesus does.”

  “But how can Jesus love me after I turned my back on my own child?” Fern wailed.

  Eliza tugged Tessie and Bessie to a halt, then turned to her companion and gently touched the distraught woman’s arm. “How can Jesus love any of us? We’ve all broken his heart with the poor choices we’ve made. Yet the Good Book teaches that God delights in showing mercy. He has compassion on us, treads our sins underfoot, and hurls all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.” She squeezed Fern’s forearm. “All our iniquities. Pebbles, boulders, even mountains. Nothing is too heavy for him.”

  Fern shook her head. “That’s a nice thought, Miss Southerland, but mountains? Really? Such a thing’s not possible, and you know it.”

  Eliza smiled. “Nothing’s impossible with God. Jesus himself said as much.” She stared into the distance, concentrating on the verse she’d memorized as a child. “‘For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.’ Mark 11:23.” Eliza returned her focus to Fern’s face. A spark of hope flared in the younger woman’s eyes. “He can forgive anything, Mrs. Dawson. Move any mountain. No matter how large. All you have to do is believe in him and ask.”

  Fern’s gaze remained locked on Eliza’s for a long moment before she ducked her head to stare at her lap. Eliza snapped the reins and clicked her tongue to set Bessie and Tessie in motion once again, but the clop of their hooves on the road rang louder and louder in Eliza’s ears the longer her companion remained mute.

  “What brought you to Harmony House today, Fern?” she prodded gently. “Why now? You could have waited until tomorrow.” She’d arrived so late in the day that the trip couldn’t have been planned. It had to have been an impulse.

  “Laura Thomas came to see me this morning.” Fern twisted her handkerchief in her lap. “The ladies aren’t staying with me around the clock anymore. They only come by for an hour in the morning or afternoon to check on me. Laura came today. With her baby.”

  Fern spoke the words with a reverence that caused Eliza’s heart to thump painfully against her breastbone.

  “I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. She must have noticed, because she asked if I wanted to hold him. I
shook my head, but she brought him over to me anyway. Sat beside me on the sofa. Handed him into my arms. He seemed impossibly small, but he already had two teeth cutting through his bottom gum. He smiled at me and grabbed the buttons on my blouse.” Fern paused and raised her handkerchief to wipe her eyes. “For the first time since Wendell died, a pinprick of light penetrated the black dungeon of my grief. But it hurt my eyes. I’d gone too long without it. I thrust the baby away from me, and as soon as his mother took him back, I ran from the house. I didn’t know where I was going, only that I needed to get away from the hope that light had stirred. From the truth I couldn’t bear to admit. I had abandoned my baby. Wendell’s baby.”

  “And so you came,” Eliza concluded, but Fern shook her head.

  “No. The shame was too stark. I told myself I didn’t deserve to be her mother. That I had lost my chance and there was no going back.”

  Eliza frowned. She’d hoped Fern’s mental state had lost its fragility over the last week and a half, but listening to her confess events from mere hours ago tempted Eliza to turn the wagon around.

  “Even so, I couldn’t escape the urge to learn what had become of my daughter. I needed to confirm she was safe. So I visited the only person in town who could give me the answers I sought.”

  Eliza adjusted her grip on the reins. “Dr. Hampton.”

  Fern nodded. “He’d called on me a couple of times after the birthing to check on my healing and give instructions to the ladies overseeing my care. So I went to his office and asked him to tell me everything he could about my baby. He assured me my daughter was well. That she’d been taken to Harmony House, and that a wet nurse had been found. But his answers didn’t satisfy. He urged me to come see for myself, but I couldn’t. I just . . . couldn’t.” She shook her head as if she still didn’t believe it a good idea, even though she was on a wagon barely a mile from where her daughter was being fostered.

  Then she grasped her purse, which sat on the bench between them, and pulled it onto her lap. She unfastened the clasp and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “That’s when the doctor gave me this letter.” She unfolded the page, smoothed it against her legs, and inhaled a long, shaky breath. “From Wendell’s mother. The doctor had written to her about the baby. About me.”

  Jonah had told Eliza as much. Said the doctor hoped the Dawsons might provide a home for Fern and the child. Or at least the child. But how would they react to a daughter-in-law they barely knew? To a child they might be too old to care for themselves? What if they had health problems? Or were harsh taskmasters? Or were lazy and overindulgent in nature?

  “I was afraid to read the letter at first,” Fern said, “sure it would be full of blame and anger. How could it not? I’d only met them twice. At the wedding and then three months ago at the funeral. They’d offered to stay a few days and help around the house, but I sent them away. I couldn’t bear hearing Yancy’s voice when it sounded so much like my Wendell’s. And his face—he had the same eyes, the same cleft in his chin. It hurt too much to look at him.

  “But when I read Myrna’s letter, there was no hate in evidence. No anger. No blame. Only the most amazing grace.” She ran her fingers along the words inked onto the page. “I’ve read this a dozen times and still find it hard to believe.”

  She met Eliza’s gaze. “They’ve made up a room for me in their home. Invited me to live with them. Said I was family and that I could stay as long as I liked. Even permanently, if I wished.” Fern swallowed. “Myrna said that Dr. Hampton had explained about my . . . complications following the birth. About how the baby was with a wet nurse while I . . . recovered. She’s already talked to one of the young mothers at her church, and that woman has agreed to nurse my daughter along with her own should I decide to move to Houston.”

  A chance to rebuild her family. Not many were given such an opportunity.

  “They are coming next week.”

  “So soon?” Eliza asked as she steered Bessie and Tessie onto the side road that led to Tildy James’s house.

  Fern shrugged. “They’re probably anxious to meet their granddaughter.” She ran her hand over the letter a final time, then carefully folded the page and slipped it back into her purse. “I decided I better meet her first. See if what they proposed was even possible.”

  “Remember what I said earlier, Fern. With God—”

  “—all things are possible. I know. I’m just not sure I believe it yet.”

  “Well, I guess today’s as good a day as any to start.” Eliza grinned.

  A tiny smile curled the edges of Fern’s mouth, proving she wanted to believe, she just needed some practice.

  “Now,” Eliza said, turning the conversation to more practical matters, “don’t take it personally if little Sarah cries when you hold her. Crying is what babies do. She’ll get used to you quick enough. She was part of you for nine months. She’ll remember.”

  “You call her Sarah?” Fern’s nose wrinkled slightly.

  Either she didn’t care for the name or it bothered her that someone besides her had selected it. Well, Eliza’s sympathy only stretched so far, and here was where it stopped. “Every child deserves a name,” Eliza said, perhaps a little more forcefully than gentleness dictated. “When your daughter came to us, she didn’t have one, so Mr. Wallace named her after his mother.”

  Bessie tossed her head and snorted at the front of the wagon, bringing Eliza’s awareness to her too-tight grip on the reins. She relaxed her hold, offering a silent apology to her ponies and her Lord. Passion for the children in her care served her well most of the time, but perhaps this particular instance called more for compassion than conviction.

  “Of course,” she said, taking pains to soften her voice, “if you take the babe back into your keeping, you may name her whatever you like. Did you and Wendell have a name picked out?”

  Fern shook her head. “No. And after he passed, I stopped caring.”

  “But you don’t like the name Sarah.”

  Fern’s nose wrinkled again. “No. I had an Aunt Sarah who took me in after my parents died. She was a miserable old hag who was impossible to please. When I met Wendell, I couldn’t escape fast enough.”

  Eliza spotted the James homestead and turned the team down the short drive.

  Fern sat up straight, smoothed her bodice, and lifted a hand to her hair. “I do like the idea of honoring the man who brought my daughter into the world and kept her safe for me, though. Just not with the name Sarah. What is his first name?”

  “Mark.” Eliza chuckled. “Doesn’t really lend itself to a little girl, does it? I guess you could call her Marcia.”

  Another wrinkled nose. Apparently Marcia didn’t sit well either.

  “You’ve got time to decide,” Eliza assured her as she halted the wagon and set the brake. “Why don’t you wait until you see her? Maybe the perfect name will come to you.”

  Fern tucked her handkerchief inside her sleeve and ran her palms over her skirt. “I . . . I don’t know if I’m ready.”

  Eliza patted her hand. “No first-time mother is ever ready.”

  Fern still made no move to disembark.

  “Come on,” Eliza said as she climbed down from the driver’s seat. “I didn’t drive you all this way so you could sit in the wagon. Let’s go.”

  Eliza made a wide circle around the ponies and reached the front stoop about the same time Tildy opened the door. “Eliza? What brings you out here so close to sundown?”

  “Tildy James, this is Fern Dawson. Sarah’s mother.” Eliza gestured for Fern to come closer when she hesitated at the base of the porch. “Fern, this is Tildy, your daughter’s nurse.”

  Fern blinked back tears as she stared at the other woman, but Tildy wasn’t one to stand on formality.

  “Well, come on in, Miz Dawson.” Tildy threw the door wide and waved them into her tiny cottage. “I’ll fetch baby Sarah for ya. She’s a sweet little thing. Don’t hardly cry unless she needs somethin’. I wish all my young�
�uns were so well-behaved. This ’un here,” she said as she rubbed the head of a boy around five years old, “used to keep me up all hours of the night, hollerin’ like the Lord Jesus was comin’ back and he’d been assigned trumpet duty.” She chuckled and shooed him toward the back portion of the room that served as their kitchen. “Go help your sister with the dishes, Zeke.”

  The boy trod off without a word as Tildy led them deeper into the room. A three-year-old girl ran up and grabbed her mama about the leg, her thumb planted firmly in her mouth as she stared, wide-eyed, at the white woman entering her domain.

  A toddler, barely over one year, waddled over and lifted his arms to his mother. “Uh. Uh!” he demanded, not shy in the least around the strangers in his home.

  Tildy complied, plopping him onto her hip. “This one wasn’t too happy about sharing his mama when Sarah first came to stay with us,” she said as she pulled a piece of lint out of his hair and straightened his shirt to cover his brown belly, “but he’s gotten used to her now. Even comes to get me if I’m not fast enough in respondin’ to her fussin’. He’ll be sorry to see her go.”

  Fern’s eyes widened, and her hands waved in front of her. “I’m not taking her. Not yet, at least. I just . . . wanted to meet her.”

  “Of course you did,” Tildy said as if she’d never considered any other possibility. “And here she is.”

  On the far side of a small sofa was a cradle, one that had been invisible until they came deeper into the room. Tildy set down her son, then reached into the hand-hewn baby bed. “Wake up, little Sarah,” she cooed as she pulled the babe, blanket and all, from the cradle. “Your mama’s come to call.”

  Tildy straightened, a wide smile on her face as she held the child out for inspection. Fern didn’t reach for her child, however. Just stared in wonder at the tiny babe.