Cheryl Reavis (18 page)

“Yes, I saw them—Frederich, what are you doing here?" she asked bluntly.

“My children are here.
You
are here. You don’t write to me—” He held up his hand when she was about to protest. “You don’t write to me,” he said again. “You tell me how many sacks of corn I have, not how my family is. You don’t come when I send for you. What else could I do—?”

He abruptly stopped talking as the geese on the far edge of the field became noisy and unsettled. Caroline immediately saw the reason—a group of gray-coated men on horseback coming along the edge of the woods, their hats pulled down, their bodies hunched against the cold. Frederich stepped nearer to the shed, out of their line of view.

“Into the house,” he said, taking her by the arm and pulling her along the side of the barn to stay out of sight. “You—and the others—haven’t seen me. Do you understand? One of you must take Mary Louise upstairs so she won’t say I’m here—”

“Frederich, wait!” she cried, holding on to him. “What have you done? Have you deserted the army?” she asked—
again
she almost said.

“There was no other way.”

“Frederich, they’ll hang you if they catch you! It was in the paper. They are hanging deserters in Richmond—”

“Yes.”

“What are you going to do?” she cried, trying to keep up as he walked her rapidly toward the house. “Maybe they’re just foraging again—”

“They aren’t foraging.”

She looked past him to the approaching line of soldiers. Their progress was slow. Nothing about the Graeber farm had alarmed them—yet.

“Come into the house,” he said. “Hurry before they see us—when they’re nearly here, I’m going to try to make it to Avery’s. They’ve come from that direction, so it may be that they’ve already been there. Johann!” he cried as he flung open the back door. “Take my hat and coat! Hurry!”

Johann stood for a moment, completely bewildered as Frederich tore off his coat and flung it at him.

“Put them on, Johann,” Frederich said. “The army is coming. I want you to take Caroline back outside.”

“Frederich—” Leah said, stepping forward.

“No questions,” Frederich said. “Where are the girls?”

“Upstairs,” Leah said. “Lise is looking for your fiddle and her birthday presents. What—?”

“No questions, Leah,” he said again. “Keep them up there out of the way—Caroline, I am glad. Do you understand?”

“No,” she said, trying to get Johann into the coat.

“To see you,” he added. He reached out and touched her face, much the way he might have done if she had been Lise or Mary Louise. Then he moved around her and grabbed up his rifle and blanket roll and hurried out. She stood for a moment, watching him go.

“I don’t understand,” Johann was saying, but she hardly looked at him. She took him by the arm instead and dragged him and Frederich’s hat out the back door. She understood the plan now. If the army had seen her with Frederich in the
yard, then “Frederich” needed to still be here when they arrived.

“Caroline,” Johann whispered urgently. “Would you kindly tell me the purpose of this subterfuge I’m perpetuating?”

“We don’t want Frederich hanged,” she said simply.

He blinked. “Oh.”

She stuck the hat on his head. “Now walk with me and ask me some farm questions.”

Caroline’s hair was still wet when she braided it. She had long since run out of things to wash, including herself, and she could still hear the soldiers down in the kitchen, still hear the muffled laughter from time to time at some remark Leah made. Clearly, these men were not going to leave until they were turned out.

She left the room and crossed the hall, stepping quietly so as not to wake the children. She pushed open their door slightly. Both of them appeared to be sleeping.

She pulled the door to again and walked quickly to the room that had been Frederich’s. She never came in here, and she didn’t stop to inspect it now. With trembling hands, she lit a candle and opened the huge armoire in the far corner, riffling through it until she found Frederich’s heavy work coat. She held it to her face for a moment, but it only smelled of cedar and not him.

There was little else in the armoire she thought he’d need. All his shirts and socks and drawers had long since been sent to him—the last of drawers after William’s complaint that they were all “Holy.”

She snuffed the candle and put it and some apples she’d been hiding from Beata into the pockets. Then she carried the coat into the hall, leaving it on the floor by the back staircase. She’d pick it up on her way out.

If she ever got the chance to be on her way out.

There was a roar of laughter from downstairs. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves before she made her way down the steps to the kitchen. All the soldiers were still seated around the table, still eating and drinking whatever Beata kept finding to give them.

“Mrs. Graeber, ma’am,” they all said more or less in unison when she reappeared, scraping their chairs back to stand up as she entered. She realized immediately that she had been gone from their company long enough to make their officer suspicious, so she smiled graciously—she hoped—and tried to subdue the resentment she felt for these men who stayed safe on the home front instead of having been on the sunken road to Sharpsburg with Frederich and William.

She glanced around the room. Mrs. Steigermann and the other women had long since gone. Only Johann and Leah remained, and both of them were beginning to show the strain. Johann kept pulling at his collar, fearful, no doubt, that he would be put in the position of having to lie. Dressing like Frederich was one thing. Saying outright that he hadn’t seen him was something else again. As far as she knew, none of the soldiers had specifically said they were looking for deserters, but she was certain that Frederich had been right. These men were not foraging.

But the person Caroline was really worried about was Beata. Beata could be mindlessly spiteful with no regard whatsoever for the consequences. She glanced in Beata’s direction and tried to remember her mood before the soldiers arrived, but, unfortunately, she had become so used to ignoring her ire that it hardly registered anymore. Caroline’s only comfort was that as long as these men were here, they weren’t out looking for Frederich.

“I was just about to ask for you, ma’am,” the officer said. “The weather, I expect, will turn most foul. I would consider it a kindness if you give us and our mounts shelter for the night.”

Caroline stood for a long moment. She was taken completely off guard. She certainly hadn’t expected that they might want to stay here. If their horses were all shut up in the barn and Frederich thought the soldiers had gone and returned to the house, he could walk right into them.

“Ma’am?” the officer said again.

“I leave it to our clergyman, Mr. Rial, to say, sir,” Caroline answered. “We are only women and children here. I simply don’t know if it would be…seemly.”

She smiled slightly. The officer didn’t.

“Well,” Johann said too heartily. “We can hardly let our gentlemen suffer in the cold when it is in our power to do otherwise. I believe that if they stay in the—”

“Please, stay here by the fire, sir,” Caroline interrupted, glancing at Beata. It was immediately clear to her that Beata had come to believe all her own lies about how Caroline Holt had become illicitly pregnant. Her obvious indignation that Caroline would openly solicit the presence of soldiers in the house was something to behold. “I think that it would be proper,” Caroline went on pointedly, “if Mr. Rial also remained.” She gave Johann a pleading look. Regardless of what Beata thought, the last thing she wanted was a bunch of soldiers milling around outside. “If you will excuse us, we ladies will retire now. Mr. Rial can see to whatever you might require—”

She abruptly stopped because Mary Louise was standing barefoot at the bottom of the stairs.

“Papa?” she said, wandering into the room and peering into the soldiers’ faces. “Papa!”

“He’s not here, darling,” Leah said. “Of course he isn’t.”

“He
said
we can surprise Aunt Caroline again,” Mary Louise insisted. “She’s
easy
to surprise. Papa! Where did you go? I can’t find you!”

“Where is your papa, little girl?” the officer asked.

“Here,” Mary Louise said, looking up at him. “He’s not lost. I got lost and Aunt Caroline got lost and—but Papa didn’t—”

Caroline and Beata both stepped forward, Beata reaching the child first and snatching her up off the floor.

“You see!” she said, immediately turning on Caroline. “She is sleepwalking again!”

“Give her to me, Beata,” Caroline said, reaching out for Mary Louise, because her eyes were big and afraid.

But Beata turned away and kept going. “I don’t give her
to you! You
are no more her aunt than I am! Who are you to take her? You let soldiers stay in this house—my brother should have never married you!”

“I want to talk to that child!” the officer said loudly, but Beata ignored him, holding Mary Louise closer and railing in German as she mounted the stairs.

“The little girl
is
sleepwalking again,” Johann said, stepping into the man’s way when he would have followed. “She did so after her mother died—and it appears that it has come back now that her father’s been away. I’m sure that Frau Graeber would rather that you had not been made aware of the animosity that exists between her and her sister-in-law, but, please, do not cause the lady of this house or the little one any more distress tonight. Perhaps in the morning—”

“We have been put on the alert for deserters, Reverend,” the officer said, clearly unmollified. “The biggest group of conscripts came from this vicinity. That child’s father, I think, is one of them—and
she
believes that he is here.”

“I can assure you he is not,” Johann said truthfully. “Do you want to search the house? Frau Graeber will not object—if the word of a man of God isn’t good enough.”

“Mrs. Graeber,” the officer said, suddenly turning to Caroline. “Where is your husband?”

She looked at him evenly and told the truth as far as it went. “We had word that he and both my brothers and Miss Steigermann’s fiancé were in the line at Fredericksburg three weeks ago. The fighting was very fierce there, I’m told—but I’m sure you’ve heard all about it.” There was just the slightest pause before the word “heard,” just enough to convey the reproach Caroline intended. “Search the house if you like. You will find nothing but our continued hospitality.”

He stared at her across the room. “I can assure you, ma’am, your hospitality is both recognized and appreciated. I will not search your house, but I will see the child in the morning. I bid you good-night.”

Caroline gave him a slight nod and took Leah by the arm.

“Good night, Mr. Rial,” she said to Johann.

She walked slowly up the stairs with Leah, putting her finger to her lips when Leah would have spoken while they were still in earshot.

“I’m going,” Caroline whispered when they were in the upstairs hallway. “Please, Leah, take care of the girls for me.”

“Going where?”

“I have to look for Frederich,” Caroline said, still whispering. She grabbed up the coat she’d left by the back stairs. “I have to warn him.”

“Caroline, shouldn’t you wait until the soldiers are asleep?” Leah asked, wringing her hands.

“No, I’m going now—before one of them decides to sleep on the bottom step and I can’t get out.”

“But what do we tell them if they miss you?”

“Tell them I went to the privy. Tell them Beata and I quarreled again and you don’t know where I went.” She buttoned Frederich’s coat and pulled her shawl up over her head.

“Caroline, it’s so cold out—”

But Caroline didn’t hesitate, giving Leah a quick hug before she slipped down the stairs. She could hear the soldiers talking when she reached the bottom, and she waited long enough to determine that all of them were accounted for before she opened the pantry door and crept inside. She was in total darkness. She didn’t dare light a candle; the soldiers might smell the burning wax or see the light under the door. It had been someone’s idea to put a small outside entrance in this thick-walled room as a way to bring in potatoes and turnips without having to drag them through the house, and she had to feel along the wall for it, realizing finally that Beata had baskets and wooden boxes stacked directly in the way. She set about trying to move them, carefully, one at a time, her heart nearly stopping when several of the baskets toppled over.

But the noise apparently hadn’t penetrated into the kitchen, and she went about finding the door again.

It was locked. Caroline lifted the handle and pulled it as hard as she dared, but she couldn’t open it. She tried again and again, finally resting her forehead against the cold wood.

Now what?

She looked over her shoulder. The sounds from the kitchen were much quieter now, and she would have to be quieter as well.

Maybe it isn’t locked. Maybe it’s just stuck.

But she couldn’t budge it. She began running her hands along the door frame, searching for a latch of some kind. She found nothing. She tried to reach higher, thinking that Frederich might have put it out of a climbing child’s reach.

Nothing.

Her eyes were growing more accustomed to the darkness. She could see some light coming through the cracks in the door that opened into the kitchen. She would have to wait until the men were all asleep and slip across the kitchen and outside that way.

She leaned against the wall and slid downward to sit on the floor and wait. Her hand immediately touched a piece of wood at the bottom of the door—a wedge, she realized. The door wasn’t latched. It had a piece of wood jammed under it to keep it closed.

With some difficulty, she pulled the wood out. The door immediately swung open. She scrambled upward and hurled herself through it to the outside, moving as fast as she could go in the dark toward the Holt farm. It was only when she reached the shelter of the woods that she dared to stop and look behind her. There was no activity from the house. No one had heard her and sounded the alarm.