Widow of Gettysburg (8 page)

“Then allow me,” said Silas, and Liberty rose to stand next to him, her lamplight falling upon the paper. “‘The commanding general considers that no greater disgrace could befall the army, and through it our whole people, than the perpetration of the barbarous outrages upon the unarmed, and defenceless, and the wanton destruction of private property that have marked the course of the enemy in our own county.’”

Silas glanced at the two soldiers’ faces. They looked down at their splayed open shoes.

“‘It must be remembered that we make war only upon armed men,’” Silas continued, “‘and that we cannot take vengeance for the wrongs our people have suffered without lowering ourselves in the eyes of all whose abhorrence has been excited by the atrocities of our enemies, and offending against Him to whom vengeance belongeth, without whose favor and support our efforts must all prove in vain. The commanding general enjoins upon all officers to arrest and bring to summary punishment all who shall in any way offend against the orders on this subject.’” Silas tucked the paper back into his pocket.

“Bunch of big word balderdash, if you ask me.” Wade licked his fingers as he flicked his gaze to Amos, who nodded. “Made no sense at all.”

Silas sighed. “I’ll make it simple for you. First, you are not to repay evil for evil. Let God do that. Second—” He pulled from his coat two pairs of handcuffs the provost guard let him borrow. “You are under arrest.”

“You can’t do that, you ain’t got no rank!”

“Order Number 73 says I can.” Actually, it said officers could do the arresting. But Silas could restrain and bring them to their superiors, who had their hands full burning the railroad bridge at the moment. And the two were drunk enough they didn’t have enough wits about them to put up much of a fight, either mental or physical.

Handcuffs securely in place on both men, Silas surveyed the wreckage of the room before turning to Liberty. “I can fix this.”

“Please just go. I’ll clean it up myself.” But her shaking voice betrayed her.

“I’m sorry—”

She shook her head, cheapening his apology, and a ringlet of hair slipped from her braid and bobbed next her face. “What about my horse?”

“Can’t have her.” Amos spat on the ground. “Contraband of war, and you know it.”

“Horses of the Union army are contraband. You take the horse of a private citizen, that’s just plain stealing.” He turned back to her. “The horse is yours.”

She flattened her full lips into a thin line. “I don’t know if I should thank you or tell you to get off my property, Mr …” She looked at him expectantly.

Silas Ford, man of the Lord …

Wade grunted. “Hey Johnny, I’m about to need a privy, so …”

Billy Yank on the inside, Johnny Reb on the outside.
It was as good a name as any, and a whole lot better than Silas Ford. “Just call me Johnny.” Somehow, he managed a smile. “For your sake, I hope we never meet again. Now let’s get your horse from Jud and leave you in peace.”

But when they stepped back into the night, Jud and the horse were gone. He’d been proven a liar. Again.

Libbie awoke with a start and a crick in her neck. Peeling herself off her windowsill, she struggled to remember why she would have been sleeping, fully clothed, on a chair beside the window in her bedroom. Her mind still felt murky from exhaustion. Then she remembered. The Rebel raiders. The man named Johnny.

He knew the movements of Lee’s army. He had a copy of Lee’s order in his pocket! He had to be one of them. Didn’t he? She should hate him, the way she hated the others. She should not warm at the memory of how he looked at her. Defended her. She shuddered to imagine what could have happened if he hadn’t come when he did.

Stiffly, she rose from her chair. After splashing some water on her face at the washstand, she sat at the vanity, unplaited her braid and gave it one hundred strokes with the horsehair brush, trying to wipe the stranger’s face from her mind with every pull before taming her curls into a thick knot at the nape of her neck.
He did say he hopes we never meet again.

With that thought firmly in her mind, she went downstairs and let the screen door bang behind her as she and Major crossed the dew-kissed ground to the barn.

Just as she suspected, it was empty. Daisy was still gone. In all probability, she was now the mount of a Confederate cavalryman, thanks to Jud sneaking off with her. The few chickens and the rooster Libbie kept for eggs lay silently on the sweet-smelling hay, their necks wrung.
Jud must have forgotten to take them when he left with Daisy.
No horse, no chickens, no eggs. The barn was a mere shell, with nothing left to shelter.

Numb, Liberty sank to the ground and stared absently at the dust mites dancing in the sunbeams streaming down through the hayloft. Major sat down next to her, sniffing the air. She wrapped her arm around the big dog’s neck, and he leaned into her, the motion of his wagging tail gently rippling through his body and into hers.

She should get up. She should check the garden and the springhouse, with its crocks of butter and bottles of milk staying cool in the waters of Willoughby Run.

Sitting in a heap won’t bring anything back, that’s sure. Time to get busy.
Libbie rose, brushed the dirt and hay from her skirt, and checked the rest of her outbuildings, Major ever at her heels. The summer kitchen was even more of a mess in the glaring light of day than it had been under the cover of semidarkness.

Major stayed in the summer kitchen lapping up the food on the ground while Liberty stalked back to the farmhouse to put on her apron, frustration churning in her gut. It was time to clean up.

Suddenly, footsteps whispered from somewhere inside the house. Alarm rang in her ears.
Not again!
She bounded up the stairs to the back door. Locked!

Heart pounding, she hiked up a fistful of skirts and dashed back to the summer kitchen, snatched up the first thing she could reach—a washboard—and rushed around to the front of the house.

Noiselessly, she slipped through the door, sidled along the front hall and peeked around the corner, palms sweating into the weathered wood frame of the metal washboard.
I should have grabbed the iron skillet. How much damage can a washboard do?

“Liberty?”

The washboard fell from her hand and clattered to the floor as she wheeled around. There stood a woman draped in black, complete with a weeping veil covering her face. Liberty’s body froze, her mind reeled. But not a single idea gained traction.

“It’s me. Amelia Sanger. Your mother-in-law? I’m so sorry I startled you.”

Liberty’s breath seized as Amelia removed her veil. “But what—what are you doing here?”

“Please, call me Mama. We are family, aren’t we?” In an embrace that smelled too thickly of lavender, Amelia pressed Liberty to herself before holding her at arm’s length.

“I don’t understand.” Libbie’s voice sounded more like a child’s than a woman’s, and she hated herself for it.

“I must say, Liberty, I don’t either.” Her eyes took her in from the top of her head to the red petticoat peeping out from beneath her blue floral calico. Just last week, she and the rest of the Ladies Union Relief Society had stripped all their white petticoats into bandages and sent them away, where they could be useful. “Have you forgotten my son so soon?”

She gaped, embarrassed at first. But hadn’t she fought this battle already, over and over, to be free from Levi’s death? Tasting anger, she found her voice: “The fact that I no longer wear the color black does not mean I have forgotten Levi, Mrs. Sanger.” She would not call her Mama. She was not her mother. They were not family—not anymore.

The woman sighed. “You must forgive me. And if you won’t call me Mama, at least call me Amelia.” Her face looked pinched and pale. Snood-covered pecan brown hair was dusted with grey at the temples, reminding Libbie that Levi had been her miracle child, come later in life. “You can have no idea what I’ve been through to get here.”

“Please, tell me why you’ve come, but sit first.” She followed her to the front parlor where they sat at a marble-topped table. “You’ve chosen a fine time to travel. Don’t you know Lee’s army is here? Rebels raided the place last night. I thought you were one of them.”

“You’re not hurt, are you?” Amelia’s eyes went round. “When I arrived and didn’t find you at home, I began to fear all was not well.”

All is not well.
But, “I’m fine. They took my mare, killed the chickens, wreaked havoc in the summer kitchen, and helped themselves to the springhouse. But I am unhurt.” She hoped her face bore no trace of Amos’s slap.

Amelia nodded, and her eyes glazed. “I did not choose the time for our journey. Hiram—my husband—has just died, you see—”

“I’m so sorry,” Liberty whispered, but Amelia waved the condolence away.

“We knew his time was near, and so did he. He made it very clear
that he wanted our family to be buried together. ‘Parted in life, but not parted in death,’ he told us. Family was always the most important thing to him. To all of us.” She dabbed her eyes with a black-edged handkerchief. “We never dreamed that Levi would be the first to be buried, but—well, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. So here we are.”

Confusion creased Libbie’s brow. “You’ve come to take his body back to Ohio?”

“No, my dear girl.” Amelia’s voice warbled. “We considered that, but decided against it. Poor Levi has been moved enough, has he not?”

Liberty closed her eyes. She would not let her mind travel back to the awful trip she made by rail with his coffin.

Amelia nodded. “We have brought Hiram here, to be buried with his son at Evergreen Cemetery.”

“But won’t it be hard for you, to cover the miles when you want to visit their graves?”

“I’m not leaving.” Her tone was laced with triumph. “There is nothing left for me in Ohio, not without Father. Now he and Levi are here. This is where our family is now. Including you.” Amelia reached across the table and held Libbie’s hand. “You are all I have left in this world. We belong together in these uncertain times. You don’t deserve to be alone, my girl. I am your family, and I’ve done you wrong by not showing it more. But from now on, I’ll stand shoulder to shoulder with you.”

Libbie’s mouth went dry.
Family?
She didn’t know Amelia. She barely knew Levi when they married! “Where will you stay?”

“Here, of course. I can help you: cooking, preserving, sewing, needlework. We’ll make a fresh start of it, together. The two of us. Hiram and Levi would have wanted it this way.”

“But I—” Liberty’s spirit flinched, but she could not say exactly why. Wasn’t this what she had wanted? To not be alone? Yet this solution did not seem right. Like an ill-fitting store-bought dress, it pinched where there should be freedom; it hung loosely where it should have been snug. She licked her lips and tried again. “I mean no disrespect to you, nor to the memory of Levi or Mr. Sanger, God rest their souls. But
death has severed the marriage bond that tied me to Levi. I could not ask you to stay and tie yourself to me, then.”

“But I can help you! And Lord knows, my dear girl, I can’t possibly go back to Cincinnati now. I had to sell Hiram’s shop, and with the money I have from that, we can start over. Together. It would give me such pleasure to be close to you, dear. I want to know you and love you, because Levi did. I want to be close to him. You’ll not deny me that privilege, will you? Levi would have taken good care of you had he been here. Hiram wanted the money he left me to benefit you, as well. You can’t deny you could use a little help around this acreage—”

“I don’t—I don’t want to farm anymore. Very soon, I’m afraid there will be very little for you to do here.”

“And just how will you make a living? Without a husband? Without a harvest?”

“I’m turning the farmhouse into an inn. This is a large house, with seven bedrooms not in use. The great hall upstairs can be turned into a recreational room of sorts, with a billiard table at one end and tables for checkers on the other. Perhaps a piano, too. If I can fill even some of the rooms more often than not each month, it will be enough money to live on and enough to put away for the future. I can even sell some of my quilts, and jars of applesauce and preserves. Adams County is famous for its apples. Travelers would be happy to bring some token home with them.” Liberty took a deep breath.

“I see.” Amelia’s tone was thick with condescension. “And how many customers have you right now?”

“None.”

“Well then, how many have you had up to this point?”

“I am still in the process of converting the farm’s purpose. I haven’t had any customers yet.”

“Yet you need money in order to make the place a pleasant accommodation, do you not? Let’s see, you want to buy a piano, a billiard table, more beds, linens, washstands, basins and pitchers. Bureaus and writing desks would be ideal for each room, too. You can use my horses and
wagon for the time being, but at some point you’ll want to buy a horse of your own, too. Not to mention the expense of repairing the damages caused last night. Am I right?”

Out of nervous habit, Liberty reached for the ring that spun on her finger before crossing her arms instead.
My, how the list did go on.
At length, she nodded.