Willow lowered the butt of the rifle to the floor and stepped toward the older woman. “Miss Olivia, what is it?”
“I knew it was you,” Hammond said in a rush, “a few nights ago with that fella who looked like Magnusen. There ain’t too many colored boys in these parts, and none of them smell like honeysuckles. Everybody knows you and Miss Eva spend a good deal of time together. I wondered where y’all were off to in the middle of the night like that.”
He stopped talking as if he was waiting for her to answer his unspoken question. Willow shook her head in reply and asked, “What happened tonight, Mr. Hammond? Did something happen in town?”
“It wasn’t in Canton. I was delivering some horses and was on my way back when I saw Anders and the reverend. I would have helped, but I was too far away. Besides, there were too many of them.”
“Too many of what?” Eva asked.
“Slave patrollers, I reckon. They roped Anders and the good reverend off their horses and dragged them down the trail.”
Willow’s heart lurched. She reached for Olivia, who clutched Willow as if her strength came from their linked hands.
“They’re holding Anders and Mitchell on charges of aiding slaves in escaping,” Olivia said. “Hammond heard the name Davis mentioned.”
“We have to do something!” Eva cried.
“Where did they take them?” Willow asked.
“I ain’t quite sure,” he replied. “I ’spect they went back to the Davis place. I came straight here to tell y’all. From that distance, I couldn’t tell if the man was Anders or that other fella, but I knew it was Brown. I was gonna come to your place after I stopped here, Miss Olivia.”
“Thank you, Hammond,” she responded in a distant voice. “So no one knows you’re here?”
“No ma’am. I didn’t make no stops nowhere and came directly here. I figured you’d want to know. Besides, the sheriff is down by the Etowah River. I can ride down there and tell him now. Reverend Brown and Anders got lots of friends who’ll be willing to help. I’ll drop in on a few of them before I go to the river.”
Hammond headed toward the door. Olivia called out to him before he crossed the threshold. “Thank you again, and please, whatever you do, don’t let any strangers know you saw Willow here.”
He dipped his head in a quick nod. “I won’t say a word to a soul. I understand, Miss Olivia. I won’t say nothing.”
After his departure, Olivia closed the door and locked it. “We don’t have much time. We must move quickly.”
“We have to help them!” Eva cried. “Oh, my dear God. They’ll hang them for helping runaways. I just know it.”
“Don’t talk like that!” Olivia snapped.
“What are we going to do?”
Guilt attacked Willow on all sides. If she hadn’t decided to find the children’s father, Thor wouldn’t have gone with her. He was lost to her somewhere, possibly in the next century, and Reverend Brown and Anders’s lives were at risk. Willow did not want to imagine either of the men subdued by lifeless sleep. She couldn’t.
“Although the meetings were secret and to be held in confidence,” Olivia said, “others may know we were helping runaways. We can’t be sure they’ll hold their tongues if questioned.”
“Big Nat and the children are long gone by now, aren’t they?”
Olivia nodded and squeezed Willow’s hand. “They should be at the next station by now. It’s you I’m worried about. Child, we have to hide you, and we have to do it
now
!”
* * *
The inside of the cabin resembled the aftermath of a tornado. Old clothing, worn books, and other Magnusen heirlooms littered the floor. For several days, Thor, his brother and his father ripped the cabin apart. They left no stone unturned in the search for something—anything—to help Thor in his determination to return to the past.
Thor left Cal and their father in the bedroom and ambled to the living area. Behind him, their voices rumbled. Thor knew he wasn’t alone in his frustration.
If only he could remember what triggered his voyage to the past. The answer seemed to rest on the tip of his tongue. Yet, the harder he tried to force the memory, the more his mind drew a blank on the answers. Cal said that the blow to Thor’s head caused his amnesia. Thor didn’t care what caused the memory loss. He just wanted it fixed!
The urge to strike out seized him. His right hand balled into a fist. There was a space on the wall that would have to do. He reared his arm back and prepared to swing with all his might when he spotted it. The old trunk sat on the floor. Piles of clothing lay strewn across it from Thor’s assault an hour ago. A tiny voice inside his head urged him on.
Look one more time.
He lowered his arm and relaxed his hand. Another search wouldn’t hurt. He crossed the room, knelt in front of the chest, and pulled everything out again.
Cal entered the room and perched on the arm of the sofa. “Weren’t you just in there? You’re wasting time. There’s nothing here.”
“There’s got to be. If it’s not in this trunk, it’s in this cabin. I know it is.”
Thor dug inside his jeans’ pocket and pulled out a pocketknife. He flipped it open and moved his hand inside the trunk. Cal’s hand shot out and gripped his arm.
“What the hell are you doing? You can’t just go ripping into that. Besides, I called Sonia when you were tearing into it the first time.”
Thor rolled his eyes. “You called your research assistant? You always think the answer is in a book. Sometimes, it’s not.”
“Yeah, and sometimes, it is. Don’t be such a smartass, knucklehead. Take a minute. Relax—”
“I can’t relax!” Thor postponed his plan to inspect the lining of the trunk to look at his brother. “It’s eating at me.”
“Like when you got sacked and couldn’t stop watching the tape? Over and over again?”
Thor’s eyes narrowed. His voice grated dangerously low. “If you woke up the next morning and couldn’t read another book, how would you feel?”
“It’s not the same thing.” Cal dismissed the question with a wave of his hand.
“Bullshit.”
The brothers were quiet for a moment. The rush of Thor’s ragged breathing filled the room. He was mad enough to spit. Cal’s needling tried his patience. One more crack and he would forget they were brothers.
“What’s got you so juiced about going back in time? Is it really the girl?”
“Her name is Willow.” Thor shifted to a sitting position on the floor. He rubbed his thumb along the length of the pocketknife’s blade. It wasn’t too sharp, and the mechanical movement gave him time to collect his thoughts.
“You said her father was a free black man, right?” Cal scratched his forehead. “I remember reading about a few who settled near the river.”
“Her father would have been in that group,” Thor said. “He met her mother when Brown helped her on the Underground Railroad. They fell in love, Brown married them, and they settled in the mountains not too far from here. They had Willow and were happy until slave patrollers came along and killed them.”
“Sounds like a tragic love story.”
“It was.” He remembered holding Willow in his arms as she told him about her parents. She had admitted she didn’t remember as much as she’d like, but what she did remember eased the loneliness she sometimes felt. No doubt the brutal abduction and murder of her parents overrode the pleasant memories for a traumatized eight-year-old child.
Thor folded the pocketknife up and shoved it inside his pocket. He felt Cal’s gaze boring into him, so he glared back.
“What?”
“You care about her,” Cal said quietly. “You’ve hooped and hollered enough to raise the dead, talking about overseers, slave breeders and plantations. But you left out how much this Willow means to you.”
Thor’s cheeks burned. “She’s a remarkable woman.”
“I would say she’s more than just remarkable; at least, to you. You should have told us you’re in love with her.”
“In love?” Thor’s eyebrows shot up. “I care about her, but . . . love?”
“You said you asked her to come with you to 1985 to be with you. If you don’t love her, why in hell would you ask her to do something like that?”
“She can’t have the kind of life she deserves in 1860! She can’t go anywhere for fear of being enslaved, and if she goes to college, she only has one to choose from! Willow’s life would be a helluva lot better here in 1985.”
Cal’s mouth twitched. “Oh, so your reasons are purely selfless? So, um, if she had said yes and she was here now, what would you have done?”
“That’s a moot point,” Thor bit out.
“I disagree,” Cal countered. “Let’s say you go back to eighteen-sixty, find her, and this time she wants to come with you. You figure out how to work the time travel whatchamacalit and then, wham!” He slapped his hands. “You’re in 1985 again and she is, too. What do you do then? Drop her off at the university and leave her there? Good-bye and good luck?”
“Stop being an asshole.”
“I’m trying to give you something to think about! You can’t just ask a woman to give up the life she knows and the friends she loves to be with you without having something to offer her.”
Thor nodded. “I know, and I would have something.”
“Like what?”
“I played pro ball for six years. I have some money. I can provide for her.”
Cal shook his head. “Women need more than money.”
“How would you know?” The bantering lessened the tension that gripped him and Thor chuckled.
Cal’s deep laugh joined in. “Okay, wiseass. Maybe I don’t know from personal experience. Think about what I said. She’d have to cross a century to accept your invitation. Next time you see her, be sure you mean what you say.”
“Do you have a problem with her being black?”
Cal’s laughter ceased. A frown wrinkled his brow for a split second and then rapidly disappeared. His smile was wide and knowing. “I’m sure I’d get along with anybody who got your mind off football. Nah, little brother. I don’t give a damn about her skin color.”
“What about Pop?” Thor nodded toward the hall.
“You’re asking about us, but what about you? Does it matter to you?”
“No.”
Cal reached out and thumped Thor’s forehead. “Well, that’s all that matters.”
“I found something!” Bo’s voice boomed down the hallway. He entered a moment later with a stack of faded envelopes clutched in his hand. As he joined his two sons, he thrust the mail toward his youngest son. “They’re addressed to you. Open them!”
Chapter Fourteen
October 19, 1860
Dearest Thor,
There still has been no word about you, so I trust that you safely returned to your family. I pray that your fate has not taken the same turn as your relation, Mr. Anders and my dear Reverend Brown. We continue to pray that they will be saved from the hangman’s noose, but as the days continue to dawn anew, the sentiment toward those who aid slaves in escape has become worse. We fear for their lives and are praying that a miracle, similar to the one that delivered you onto us, will liberate them from the imprisonment that keeps them away from home.
Miss Olivia continues to insist that I remain hidden. I am safe here, but very lonesome. On her last visit, she said that some of our neighbors have asked about me, and she told them I left for Oberlin College. As soon as it is safe to do so, I suppose I will. Davis and his men are looking for me, and Miss Olivia believes that it is best I remain hidden here.
I have asked Miss Eva to keep these letters in a safe place for you. The three of us have discussed
your ability to transcend time, and we are of the belief that it is possible that you will indeed find these letters in your cabin one day. A part of me believes this may be fanciful thinking and that you were only a figment of my far-reaching imagination. Then I remember the warmth of your smile and the gentleness in your eyes, and I know that you were real—
“Willow?” The hidden compartment in the wall opened and Olivia stuck her head inside the door. “I come bearing supper, fried chicken, biscuits, and a slice of apple pie. I’ll bring a bucket of water up before I leave.”
The older woman swept into the room. A hand-woven basket swung heavily back and forth against her skirt. The delicious aroma of Willow’s favorite foods filled the tiny room. Olivia placed the food on the small table where Willow was writing. She closed her hand over Willow’s shoulder and squeezed. “How are you? You’ve kept busy writing and haven’t had any trouble?”
Her adoptive mother’s gentle touch helped soothe the loneliness of confinement. “None at all. The nights are quiet, and the animals talk to each other during the day. I miss you. How are Miss Eva and the baby? Has there been any more word on the reverend and Mr. Anders?”
Olivia sat on the bed adjacent to the writing table. A grim line settled on her mouth. New streaks of gray colored her russet-brown hair. Overnight, she aged, and Willow knew without the woman saying anything that the word about the men wasn’t good.
The scraping of Willow’s chair on the hardwood floor broke the silence. She joined Olivia on the bed. Immediately, her arm wrapped around the older woman’s thin shoulders. Contrition weighed heavily on Willow’s soul. A lump rose in her throat.