A Most Inconvenient Marriage (16 page)

He grabbed his crutch and pulled himself up. “What’s a matter?”

Ma pulled a wisp of white hair out of her face. “Varina Helspeth is here and she’s raising a ruckus. You have to help me.”

Varina? What had they done to set the woman off? But he didn’t have to be within cannon range of the house before he could hear her hollering about something.

“Don’t play all innocent with me. You mentioned that horse every time you came up to see my boy. You admired it something fierce.”

Jeremiah opened the door. Abigail’s normally fair complexion had lost even more color. She plunged her hands into her pockets and murmured, “I was merely being nice. I didn’t see any other livestock to compliment you on, so I tried to find something kind to say about the nag.”

From Varina’s flat nose to her chin, the only thing that stuck out was her mustache. “Well, my nag is gone and I think you had something to do with it. No one else has been up to our place.”

“Hello, Mrs. Helspeth. Have a seat,” Jeremiah said, but Varina didn’t spare him a glance.

“I want my horse back and this woman knows where it is.”

Abigail’s blond eyelashes fluttered down. “Truly, I’ve never stolen a thing, no matter what everyone says.”

Everyone? Jeremiah’s ears perked. Had he missed something?

“What else is gone?” he asked.

“Isn’t a horse enough?” Varina huffed. “What else needs to disappear? My cabin?”

The charge was ridiculous, but Jeremiah understood Varina’s anger and fear of outsiders. Hadn’t he accused Abigail, too?

“I haven’t seen your horse,” he said, “but besides the fact that Abigail noticed the animal, do you have any reason to think she’s a horse thief?”

Varina gnawed on her bottom lip. “Someone took it. She’s the only new person in these parts.”

“Only one you’ve met. We can’t know who is lurking about nowadays. I’ll tell you what, if Abigail has a horse hidden here, I’m bound to find it. If I do, I’ll turn her over to you and the law. What happens next will be out of my hands. Does that satisfy?”

Abigail clasped her hands before her, looking like some kind of Swedish martyr. Varina narrowed her eyes and studied her. “I reckon I ought give her the benefit of the doubt. After all, she doctored my boy.”

“That’s mighty fine of you.” Jeremiah went to the door and held it open. “And I promise, if I see or hear of anything, I’ll let you know. You have my word.”

With a last withering glance, Varina made her departure. As the door clicked shut Ma sank into the sofa and Rachel called out from upstairs, “Should’ve seen that coming.” But Abigail didn’t move an inch.

What had brought on the accusation, and why had Abigail stopped defending herself? Instead of fuming, she had cowered. Why?

Jeremiah took her arm and propelled her to the kitchen. She stopped where he left her and didn’t move again until he’d pushed a cup of water into her hand. “It’s going to be all right,” he said.

Were those tears she was blinking back? “You believe me? You think I’m innocent?”

“Of course.”

“And you aren’t going to run me off?” She set her cup on the table.

“Did you steal her horse?”

“No.” She sniffed.

“Then that’s all I need to know.”

“Just like that? That’s all it takes for you to believe me?” Her face went all blotchy.

Something was awry with her response. “How’d Varina get you so upset?” he asked. “When I got mad at you, you laughed in my face. You called me a liar.”

“I thought you were upset because I called you my husband.” She smiled even as her voice cracked.

Smiling and crying at the same time? Women! But as always, mention of the husband talk irked him. “Still, I was mad and you stood up to me. So why do you care what Varina thinks?”

“I’m not crying because of Varina, you imbecile. I’m crying because of you.” She dabbed at unspilt tears, her confidence restored.

He crossed his arms. “It’s my fault again. I can’t win.”

Her face broke into a grin. With a last swipe at her eyes, she turned to the basin where a pile of potatoes wanted peeling.

“Go on,” she said. “You’ve got work to do.” And she hummed as she picked up the paring knife.

He scratched his head. All women were a puzzlement, but this one . . . well, there were pieces of her puzzle she was hiding, and he aimed to find out why.

C
HAPTER 11

July 1865

Abigail sat on the porch with a bowl of fresh green beans on her lap and watched as Jeremiah gathered the livestock into the barn for the night. After a month of their morning exercises, he could steady himself on his bad leg. His heel came just short of reaching the ground, but he was making progress, and with each ounce of progress his impatience grew a pound.

And so did her regard for him.

She snapped another bean, drawing a breath of the fresh earthy scent. Despite what Jeremiah thought, her emotions hadn’t arisen from Varina’s accusation. Varina’s opinion had no sway over Abigail. Instead, her tears had come from Jeremiah’s defense. Even though her decision to stay had inconvenienced him, Jeremiah had sided with her over a neighbor.

He left his crutch resting against the fence, choosing instead to balance himself on the gate as he closed and latched it. Abigail smiled. A more determined patient she’d never had. If only Rachel cared half as much.

As if on cue, the door behind her opened. Ma motioned
Rachel out before her. “Well, isn’t it a nice night? I told Rachel she’d be more comfortable out here than in that hot upstairs. She’d enjoy the airish evening temperatures.”

Abigail abandoned her rocker for Rachel and moved to the steps. “I don’t mind,” she answered to Ma’s protests. Ma took the old chair that rested against the wall behind her where she could keep an eye on them all.

They sat in peaceable silence, listening to the bullfrogs down at the river, watching the lightning bugs dazzle the deep, dark woods. The kind of night she wished could last forever.

With the last chicken in the coop and the last hog in the pen, Jeremiah made his way to them, a stalwart figure against the moonlight, if it weren’t for the one flawed limb.

He lowered himself to the step next to her and just sat. Abigail threaded her fingers through her bowl, feeling for longer beans to snap, but couldn’t keep working with the same focus. Not when the night seemed so alive—buzzing, humming, croaking. Here they sat near their tiny refuge built against all the critters that ran, crawled, and flew out there. They called this their land, but the overpowering screeches of the cicadas challenged that assertion.

“What was your home like?” Ma asked from her seat by the wall.

Abigail’s chin dipped. Home. She didn’t have a home anymore. Nowhere that would claim her. “We have hills, too, but they are tamer than this. They invite you to explore instead of erecting impossible barriers to keep you out.”

Jeremiah picked a piece of clover and spun it between his fingers. If he noticed how she avoided a personal answer, he didn’t mention it. “That’s why we love these mountains. They’re barriers to discourage people from entering.”

“But it didn’t work.” Rachel’s skirt rustled against the rocker. “We minded our own business, but violence still found us.”

Abigail wasn’t looking for a fight, but neither could she allow them to malign the men from her home who’d given their lives to preserve the Union. Their sacrifice should be honored. “Those soldiers didn’t want to fight you, but what choice did they have when your region was in rebellion to the federal government?”

“Rebellion?” Jeremiah spoke the word carefully. “Is it rebellion to protect your house? To keep your family safe? Jayhawkers raised havoc through here, claiming it was because of some action in Kansas, but none of my folks raided Kansas.” He shook his head. “When the war started, those same men were made official soldiers, and defending my property against them would make me a bushwhacker—a common highwayman—to be hung on sight. No trial, no truce, no courtesies afforded to prisoners of war.”

Ma’s chair scooted forward. “Then they made a proclamation that every able-bodied man was to report to Springfield to serve. Those people who claimed to believe in freedom told our sons to report or be shot.”

Jeremiah tossed the clover away. “Miles from here, there might be noble men with fine motives, but somehow that honor was spread thin by the time it reached these mountains.”

Abigail had a hard time reconciling their bitterness with the stirring speeches she’d heard about freedom and God’s will. Since she’d arrived in the Ozarks she hadn’t seen any evidence of the slavery these people were supposedly fighting to protect. She didn’t like this feeling of uncertainty. Easier to think one side was good and pure and vilify everyone who opposed them.

“There, there.” Ma reached forward to pat her on the shoulder. “We don’t mean to blame you, not when you were busy taking care of our wounded men.”

Jeremiah tensed next to her at the mention of Alan, but here was one sorrow they held in common.

“I met many fine men,” she said, “and all were devastated that the conflict was so costly.”

“What you must’ve seen,” said Ma. “So much suffering.”

Abigail felt a lump forming in her throat. “They joined so confident, thinking they were invincible, only to have their lives cut short.”

Rachel strained her words between clenched teeth. “It’s not just soldiers who live with certain death. Their war is over and they can live now. They’ve been pardoned.”

And no such pardon was coming for Rachel. Her fate was certain.

A possum waddled across the field, its gray humped back swaying in the bright light of the full moon. Abigail closed her eyes and thought of Romeo. What would he want her to say to his Juliet? She prayed for guidance as she spoke.

“I’ve been at the bedside of many who died, Rachel, including Alan. Do you know what I’ve observed? When death approaches, we weak humans finally drop our pretenses. We see more clearly what God had placed us on earth for. Maybe our purpose was to fight, maybe it was to proclaim truth, or to protect, but no one passes without trying to complete his task. Preparing for death is part of living. The tragedy is that we wait so late to begin.”

Abigail had meant to encourage Rachel, but now she wondered about her own purpose. Had coming here been God’s plan all along? What about her family? If she were to die tonight, would she feel she’d left anything undone? Should she try to reach her mother again? Her conscience pricked at her.

“I’m going to bed.” Rachel stood, her breath coming shallow. “Enough of your cheer for one night.”

Ma rose without a word and followed her in, the door clicking shut behind them.

Abigail stood and set the bowl of beans on the empty chair.
The dark forest beckoned her—a much better place to ponder than caught inside the stifling stone walls. “I’m going on a stroll,” she said.

Jeremiah stood. “Not by yourself, you aren’t.”

Drawn to the leafy roof of the forest, she sauntered with him at her side.

“I didn’t think anyone else ever thought like that,” he said. “I mean, really ponder what God gave you breath for. Most of our suffering means nothing. What are we striving for? To make ourselves more comfortable? To add prestige or honor to our reputation? But then you find something—a cause, a person—worth dying for, and you realize that’s the best gift God can give you, because until you know what you’d die for, you don’t know what you’re living for.”

His efforts to use his bad leg slowed him. Abigail paused so he could stay next to her. “To hear you talk, to see what it’s like here, makes me wonder how we can know a worthy cause,” she said. “How much has been excused in the name of justice?”

Now in the trees, Abigail stopped. She held her hand out waiting . . . waiting . . . and then with a quick scoop, caught a lightning bug. Through her fingers it blinked patiently.

“Thank you,” he said.

She looked up. His eyes caught hers and held them as he’d never dared before. “You’re from the North. You knew people who fought against me, but thank you for not believing that we all wanted this.”

Abigail stammered, shaken by his honesty, by his sincerity. “I never considered what it must be like for you. I mean, I’m not sorry that emancipation occurred. That needed to happen. It’s just a pity that it cost so much . . . on both sides.”

The lightning bug floated out of her open hand and landed
on Jeremiah’s shirt. Its small bulb illuminated a circle above his heart.

“After I was shot, those Quakers hid me in a cellar hidden by a trap door. It took weeks before I realized that the colored people caring for me weren’t the farmer’s slaves but runaways he was helping escape.”

“The underground railroad?”

“I hadn’t really been around colored folk before, but there I was, depending on them for my life. And to hear them talk about their hopes for freedom and their families, well, I understood. I had the same hopes. It just doesn’t make sense that the same people who wanted to help them had to destroy my life to do it.”

This was his plea, his defense. She could tell he desperately wanted her to understand that he hadn’t meant the harm he’d caused. He hadn’t wanted to kill, but bound by his sense of duty he had no choice. Now she stood here, a representative of every daughter, mother, and wife who’d lost their loved ones, and Captain Calhoun wanted her to know he wished he hadn’t been involved.

Abigail caught the lightning bug, her fingers brushing against his chest. “I don’t judge you, Jeremiah. Only you know your intentions, but even if they were wrong, God is merciful. He offers grace even when our hearts have deceived us.”

The trapped lightning bug shone through her fingers, reflecting its gentle fire off Jeremiah’s face and illuminating his anguish. “I promised my family that I’d protect them. How could that be wrong?”

“And I promised a man I’d take care of his sister, even though fulfilling that promise has brought havoc to the family I wanted to help.”

“We need you.” He took her hand and held it open, allowing the firefly to walk unrestrained. The pulsing light glowed on
their entwined fingers. “I can’t imagine where we’d be without you.” His eyes rested on her lips.