Authors: Julie Doherty
Chapter 53
“Your father should have been here by now.”
Sarah paced the perimeter of the threshing floor, bouncing the wailing baby on her hip. Her skirts brushed against Mary, who sobbed on a heap of empty grain bags.
“It’s all my fault,” Mary cried.
Henry shared their worry, but they didn’t need to know that.
“He’ll be here afore nightfall,” he assured them.
He sat on a rickety barrel near the barn’s sliding doors. Its head hoop was split, its staves loosening. He studied it, hoping to occupy his mind, but even the barrel led to thoughts of his father.
Father could fix it, like he fixed Sarah’s barrels in Derry.
How long ago that day seemed now.
“Sarah, ye should sit doon and rest. We have a long walk ahead of us.”
Sarah faced him, still bouncing the crying child. “If he so much as touches a hair on your father’s noggin . . . Yon devil needs a pitchfork through his middle, that’s what he needs.” She resumed her pacing. “Ergh, why was I not born a man?”
“It’s all my fault,” Mary said again.
“It’s nobody’s fault. The two of ye need to have more faith in the man. He’ll be here afore nightfall.”
Please, God, let it be so.
“And if he is nae?” Sarah asked.
“Then we’ll head off wi’oot him.” He hoped he sounded confident. “It’s too hot in here for the wain.” He slid open the two large doors on the banked end of the barn, hoping to create a cooling draft.
Sarah kissed John’s forehead. “Shh, wee man.”
Behind her, dust gyrated in sunbeams streaming all the way from haymows to the wide boards of the threshing floor. The barn was newly built by its Quaker owner, a Welshman by birth, who traded in livestock. Some of his cattle lowed below them. The odor of their manure drifted up and fouled the sweet scent of the hay.
“He is nae gonny settle, Henry,” Sarah said, still pacing. “Mayhap I could take him oot by the spring?”
She wanted permission, guidance . . . leadership.
“I . . .” He realized suddenly that if his father failed to return, he would inherit a mountain of responsibility. Two women, two babies, and they would all be his to feed.
The barn grew stifling.
“Henry?”
“Aye, Sarah, ye’ll be grand. Just do nae go far, and make sure ye’re back afore dark.”
“Ye want to come along?” she shouted over John’s cries to Mary. “The cool water will ease the swelling in your stumps.”
Mary shook her head.
Sarah smiled awkwardly. “I suppose the two of ye have things to talk about. Shush, John,” she said to the baby she rocked in her arms, and then to Henry, “Ye’ll come and get me as soon as your father gets here, will ye not?”
“Aye, I will.”
John’s wails faded as she carried him out of the barn and away toward the spring.
What is taking him so long?
Henry picked up Sarah’s pacing where she left off. Maybe his father and uncle would work matters out. Maybe Father had been arrested and was, even now, nailed to a pillory. No, no, they would never take him alive. Oh, dear God, maybe he was dead . . . and if not dead, then injured. He could be lying in his own fluids, calling for help, praying for Henry to somehow hear him.
“Why do ye do that?”
Mary’s voice returned him to his senses.
“Do what?”
“Ye have a wild habit of touching your neckerchief when ye’re worked up about something.”
“Just a habit, I reckon.”
“Henry?”
“Aye, Mary.”
She sat straighter. “Mayhap I should go back, and—”
“What? Why?”
“I could check on your father.”
“He’ll be grand. Has nae lost a fight yet.”
“It’s just that . . . She started to cry again. “I canny bear thinking about the pox I bring upon ye. Do ye know the punishment for harboring a runaway?”
Henry ceased pacing. “Aye, I do, and I’d risk it a hundred times again. So would Father. Stop your worrying, and try to get some rest. We’ll go west after dark, Father or no. It’ll be a long night, and in your condition, I reckon not all that pleasant.” His cheeks heated at the mention of her ailment, and he tried to hide his chagrin by looking outside. They had yet to broach the subject of her pregnancy. “I’m gonny walk to the top of yon hill and check the road. Father should be on it by now.”
He took only three steps toward the doors when she asked, “Henry, ye believe me, do ye not?”
He faced her.
“What do ye mean?”
“Ye believe me that I did nae offer mysel’ to him.”
“Let’s not talk about it, Mary.” He wanted to see about his father. To think of his uncle sawing away at the girl he loved was more than he could bear right now. “We have a lifetime.”
“I need to hear it. I need to know that ye believe me.”
The shame on her face filled him with pity. This moment arrived too soon for his liking, but he could hardly avoid it, not with Mary so desperate about it. He abandoned his plans to check the road and knelt in front of her. A lump rose in his throat as he took her face in his hands.
“Of course I believe ye. I’m only sorry it happened. E’en sorrier I canny kill him for it.”
“Can ye e’er love me again after . . . after this?” She spread her hands across her belly. A tear slid down her cheek.
He wiped it away with his thumb.
“What do ye mean, love ye again? Ye eejit, I ne’er stopped loving ye the first time. The letter I put in your pocket—did ye think I made all that up? Ye did get my letter, I hope.”
“I did, but I could nae read it. My master read it for me.”
“Gibson?”
“Aye, he said ye took work as a navigator.”
“And ye believed him, ye believed that I could abandon ye . . . after all I promised?”
“I hardly knew what to believe. One minute ye were there, the next ye were gone. I had no reason to doubt his honesty, not at that time anyway. It was only when I saw ye in the garden at Lafferty Hall that I realized he’d lied to me, that ye were here the whole time.”
“I’ll always be here, Mary.”
A noise outside caused him to cock an ear toward the door.
Just a murder of crows roosting for the night.
“But how can ye love me now that I’m carrying another man’s wain, your uncle’s, no less.”
“The wain is half yours, Mary. Your bairn was nae created in love, but it will ne’er spend a day wi’oot it, I promise.”
She took his hands in hers. “Ye’re too good, Henry McConnell.”
I had a good teacher. Father, where are ye?
He kissed her forehead, then sat beside her and pulled her close. It didn’t take her long to fall asleep.
He eased her down onto the heap of grain bags, then went outside where barn swallows and bats swooped through the Quaker’s yard hunting for insects. The crickets and frogs had already commenced their nightly chorus. Evening was descending quickly, and Sarah had not yet returned.
She must have fallen asleep, too.
He would have to go get her. They would leave when the moon rose above the tree line.
The benevolent Quaker who sheltered them sat sharpening a scythe near the front door of his house. A lantern and a pile of implements suggested he intended to work well into the night. He noticed Henry and nodded.
“The woman and bairn seem to have misplaced themselves,” Henry said, chuckling. “Have ye seen ’em?”
“Upstream.” He took another swipe with the sharpening stone.
Henry nodded his thanks and followed a cow path through brush along a babbling stream. Ahead, the crown of a great oak tree rose above the scrub. He guessed he’d find Sarah there.
The trail wound through a shoulder-high grove of chokecherry bushes, hawthorns, and laurel. It ended at a meadow where the lone oak rose up from swaying goldenrod and black-eyed Susans. Between two of its exposed roots, John slept on Sarah’s shawl while Sarah leaned against the tree’s trunk. She was not alone.
Father knelt in front of her and sobbed into her skirts.
She stroked the back of his head.
Henry stifled a gasp and slunk back into the concealment of the shrubs. He jogged to the barn, his relief at his father’s return tainted by concern. Not since his mother’s death had he known his father to cry, and even then, Father shed his tears privately. Something horrible must have happened with Uncle Sorley, something so heinous it required the solace of a woman’s embrace. His father would tell him about it when he was ready. Until then, Henry would think no more of it. Father lived and Mary slept in the Welshman’s barn. That was enough for him.
Chapter 54
They returned to the news that a party of drunken Mohawks came from Shamokin to burn down Lemuel Tanner’s house and barn. Lemuel and Clara escaped to the McConnell cabin, but Clara’s son perished in the fire. Her arms had been badly burned while trying to save him.
The warriors watered their horses in the creek after the attack, catching Magi, who’d been girdling trees, unprepared. He noticed the plume of smoke billowing above Turkey Ridge and started for his rifle, but the Mohawk leader held up a palm and said they meant no harm. They only wanted to point out how easily they could burn down a white man’s house, so that The One Who Commands Wolves might be grateful enough at being spared to make the wolves stop killing their deer, which they themselves needed for winter.
“What is he on about?” Sarah asked.
“Naught,” Father said. He’d returned from Philadelphia with chronically stooped shoulders and daily headaches that sent him to his bed.
Magi, furious with the Mohawks, vowed to avenge the Tanners. His hatred festered during the passing weeks, and no amount of Scripture could change his mind.
On a sunny morning, after they’d sown the last row of wheat and covered it with loam, he took the Tanners west to join Big Turtle. Joining the French meant fighting England’s allies, the Mohawks. Magi promised to murder as many of them as time would allow.
The mood was somber at dinner that evening.
At the head of the table, Father said, “I’ve been thinking that we should also head west. Mayhap find your Uncle William.”
Henry swallowed a half-chewed bite of turkey. “
Now
? We just planted two fields of wheat.”
The first fire of the season crackled in the hearth. John slept next to it in a cradle Father made for him.
“We can come back in spring.”
“Leave our warm home wi’ one bairn born and another on the way, all on the slight chance we might find Uncle William drifting through the wilderness? Forgive me, but that’s madness! Uncle William’s last letter said he’d be back here in two years. There’s been no sign of him. He has nae been to Harris’s either, or he’d have picked up that letter Rogers sent wi’ me. God knows where he is or e’en if he’s alive.”
The idea of William’s ill fate seemed to affect his father deeply. He stared blankly at the fire, his food untouched in front of him.
“There’s another reason I think we should go. Ladies”—he looked at Sarah—“would ye gi’ us in a private moment to discuss a few things?”
“Of course.” Mary rose and swung a shawl around her shoulders.
With the women outside, Father recounted the events surrounding Sorley’s death. “There could be inquiries.”
“But the cook promised not to say anything.”
“A whip can force truth oot of anyone, Henry. There’s a vast estate to be settled in Philadelphia, another in Ireland. Someone will eventually summon Edward and Henry McConnell for questioning concerning the death of one of Philadelphia’s most illustrious citizens. We accepted a letter for William. Harris’s clerk knows who we are. Duncan, too, and while they may be inclined to turn a blind eye for the time being, if a constable shows up, they’ll squeal like pigs. We could be confined until we can provide papers in our real names, which we canny do.”
“The Tanners lost theirs in a fire. We could claim the same.”
“They’d ask us for the name of the ship that brought us. Our real names will nae be on the register. Mary could be charged as a runaway, and us too for harboring her. We should go west, where papers do nae matter. Wi’ the money we have left, we could get a fresh start.”
“I’m tired of fresh starts. What’s the point in laboring so hard if ye ne’er see the benefit of it?”
“I’m sorry, son, but it seems our only choice. We can come back in a year or two, when the matter of Sorley’s estate is long settled. I’ve prayed for another answer, but I do nae think God hears me.”
Henry studied his father’s grave face. No amount of arguing would change his mind.
“I guess we have no choice.”
“I think it’s for the best.”
“Well then, how much money do we have?”
Father rose and retrieved their coin bag from the cupboard. He emptied it onto the table and lifted their haversacks from the wall peg. These he overturned, spilling their contents on top of their coins.
“What’s this?” He picked up the letter that nearly got Henry killed in Lancaster. He snapped the wax seal before Henry could explain. “It’s from Donald.”
“What?” Henry made no attempt to hide his astonishment. “But it was addressed to Robert McAdams from someone in Boston. I meant to gi’ it to Rogers at Harris’s, but we went too far north on the way hame.”
Father studied the return address, then flipped the letter and pointed at the first line. “That says Henry.” He stabbed a finger at the last word on the first page. “And that says Donald.”
Henry wondered often how Donald fared in the New World. The prepaid stamp and quality paper implied Donald’s reconciliation with his wealthy father.
Father handed him the letter, which was six months old and several pages long.
Henry moved next to the fire and slanted the pages toward the light.
Dearest Henry,
You will be shocked to learn that the law, or rather, my circumvention of it, has made me a wealthy man. After leaving you, I traveled north where I took a menial job in a printing office. The printer was fond of me and gave me scraps of paper. I put them to immediate use by printing false papers for runaway servants, which are plentiful in and around Boston. With my profits, I managed to purchase a portable press, and I found a partner to help with the seals.
“What does it say?” Father asked.
Henry held up a finger and continued reading.
The long and short of it, Henry, is that I am rich, unbelievably rich, richer even than my father or any of his friends. I am heading to Jamaica, and I know you can guess why.
“Andrew,” Henry said aloud.
“Who’s Andrew?” Father asked. “God’s nightgown, lad, what does the letter say?”
“I’ll tell ye in a minute, Father, let me just finish this page.”
I have purchased the most precious commodity—information. For a considerable sum, I learned that Andrew was sent to Jamaica aboard a prison ship. He lives, Henry! He’s in Kingston, working as a clerk. I sail for that place on the morrow and from there, with Andrew, home to England. This time, dearest Henry, I make the journey aboveboard, not in the unwholesome belly of an immigrant vessel!
Enclosed you will find the last evidence of my illicit services. I included some for Mary, since I know that you, too, will never give up looking for your true love. I pray this letter finds you reunited.
Remember me always, Henry, and if you ever get the notion to write me, I would be most pleased. I shall not be hard to find, for I am certain my wealth will purchase my father’s forgiveness. Affluence has a curious way of blinding a man to his son’s faults.
Be well, now and always,
Donald
Henry shuffled through the remaining pages, laying them on the table one at a time. A signature and seal embellished each official-looking page.
The clever shite.
“Edward McConnell,” he said, sliding a page in front of his father. “Henry McConnell,” he said, sliding another. The last paper was an official Release of Indenture for Mary Patterson. “Donald made them for us.”
Father sank into a chair. “We’re saved.” He smiled for the first time since his return from Philadelphia. “We’re saved!” He jumped up and embraced Henry. “How I wish I could thank that lad, God bless him.”
Henry ran his finger over the raised seal below his name. “I canny believe it.”
He didn’t think there was room for more joy in his heart, but the thought of Donald content with Andrew proved him wrong.
Society would deem Donald a sinner, an “abomination of nature,” as he was wont to say, but to Henry, Father, and Mary, he would always be the saint who saved them.