Honor (41 page)

“Whoa,” she said in a reassuring tone while slowing the
team so she could free her hand. She nudged Samuel with her elbow and signed, “Look for a clearing or a low place away from the trees. A storm is coming.”

With the swift spring storm sweeping toward them, the horses became more and more restive. No clearing was in sight. The horses danced, nervous of the change in the wind.

Samuel tapped her arm once more.

Honor swung to face him. “I can’t talk now!” she bellowed. The barest hint of thunder rolled in the distance. The team fought the lines. “Whoa!” She hauled back on them, and for once Samuel reached over and helped her restrain the horses. She couldn’t wait another moment. She turned to him and mouthed, “Hold them!”

Scooting down from the bench, Honor quickly unhitched the team and took off their harnesses. She even tugged off their bridles, which she worried could attract lightning with their metal parts. Then she released both horses, clicking her tongue, urging them to go. At first they looked around, agitated as if they couldn’t figure out what was happening. When lightning crackled in the distance, the team charged forward, racing headlong down the trail—as they would have even if harnessed to the wagon. She’d acted just in time.

She swung back to Samuel, who sat with the slack reins in his hands, looking astonished. She gestured to him to follow her as she raced toward the rear of the wagon. She signed for him to open the tailgate and then clambered up into the narrow wagon bed under the tarpaulin.

Samuel hesitated. Then, with a cold gust, the rain
poured down like a bucket tipped overhead. He shouted in surprise and scrambled under the tarpaulin, crowding up against her.

The world around them detonated. Lightning flashed. Thunder pounded. She panted and shivered from the sudden chill, from wet and from fear. Hail battered the tarpaulin and wagon around them. Thunder pounded without interval. As if he could save her, she gripped Samuel’s shoulders, cringing with every flash of white lightning.

The fast-moving storm swept onward, leaving them panting from the exertion and worry. She still clung to Samuel, grateful for his presence and strength, but her feeling of being tossed in a blanket by recent events hadn’t lessened. She didn’t trust her own heart and mind. Her husband was physically here to weather this storm. But since Darah had come, the similarity between what she’d felt for Alec in the past and what she now felt for her husband shredded her peace. Had she ever loved Alec, or had it been something completely different? Did she love Samuel? Did that matter in their life together? She fought tears of frustration.

Samuel finally slid toward the foot of the wagon bed and down to the earth. Honor lay on the pallet, smelling the stale sweat left by Darah and Sally. Now, on top of everything else, she and Samuel were stranded far from anyone, with barely any food. And who knew where their horses had run to?

It was too much. Honor lay curled on the pallet, bereft. She rolled onto her back and smelled the wet, low-hanging
tarpaulin overhead, steaming. She couldn’t summon the strength to face this, too.

Samuel touched her ankle. Closing her eyes, she squeezed back tears. She mustn’t just lie here till dark came. Life had to be faced. She slithered down, and he helped her out. She leaned against the wagon and gazed at him.

Samuel met her eyes, his brows raised. “We’re stuck here without our horses. Why did you let them loose?”

“Didn’t thee see how they bolted at the first thunder and lightning? I had no choice but to let them run free.” Frustration and hurt billowed inside her. She leaned back against the wagon and folded her arms, refusing to talk further to him.

Samuel touched her shoulder. “We must find the horses,” he signed.

“I know that!” she shouted and signed.

“Why are you so upset?” he asked. “You’re angry about something.”

She went around and lifted their traveling bag and cloth bag of supplies, seething at the situation, at the husband who remained oblivious. She slung the lighter bag over her shoulder and handed him the other. “Let’s go.” She strode away.

He hurried after her. “Are we just going to leave the wagon behind?”

“What can we do? Can thee pull the wagon thyself?” Thinking of the plight of her lost team, she felt her irritation dissolve into worry. “Let’s hope neither of them was injured or struck by lightning. I think they will stay together.
I hope.” Shrugging her uncertainty, she stopped and looked heavenward. “God, help us. We need our horses.”

But no hope flickered within her. She plodded beside Samuel, occasionally whistling for the horses but with little hope of finding them. She stared down at her muddy shoes and her mud-spattered hem in despair. Was there no balm in Gilead? Or Ohio?

In the midst of the endless, brooding forest, Samuel trudged through the mud and puddles beside his wife. He was at a loss for how to shake Honor from her dark mood. And now they were slogging up a miry, slippery track, looking for horses. Would they have to abandon their wagon this far north and buy another team somewhere?

He glanced at Honor from the corner of his eye. He could see her anger. But it wasn’t due to the storm and their situation—he understood that. She should be angry at the man who’d hurt her cousin, and perhaps even at Darah herself—but not at him.

Another mile passed and his own frustration increased. Finally he tapped his wife’s shoulder. “Tell me why you are so angry.”

She scorched him with her gaze and kept walking.

He hurried after her. Here in the uninhabited forest, absolutely alone, at last he would demand the truth.

He grasped her shoulder and halted her. “Stop. I want you to explain to me why you are so upset. And don’t tell me it’s about the horses.”

She glared at him, slashing the air with a question. “Thee doesn’t know?”

“No!” he signed back, not hiding his frustration.

Ripping off her driving gloves, she held out her hands before her. In spite of the gloves, they were painfully red, swollen, and callused from driving the team. The sight unsettled him, shamed him. He should have been the one driving.

“Look at my hands! Isn’t that enough to be upset over?” Leaning forward, she began to sob, appearing to have trouble catching her breath.

This alarmed him. He drew her close under one arm and signed, “I’m sorry, but that isn’t all. You have been upset since your cousin came.”

“Yes!” Her expression confirmed that he was missing something.

“Because she inherited the land that was rightfully yours?”

“No! Because Alec courted me first!” She jabbed a finger at herself. “Then married my cousin. How could I have believed such a false-hearted man?” She averted her face, yet her fingers went on signing. “He just wanted the land. Why didn’t I see that? Am I blind?”

Samuel jerked backward, stunned by this revelation. Such a man deserved to be horsewhipped.

Honor turned away from him and began marching down the road again.

He rushed after her, stopping her by grasping her arm. “I still don’t see why you are so angry. He courted you, but you didn’t end up married to him. You married me.”

“Yes, and I’m glad, but that doesn’t change the fact that I was betrayed by everyone—my grandfather, Alec, and my cousin. It hurts. I can’t help that. I hurt.” She pressed a fist to her heart.

He moved to catch her hand.

She evaded him and stalked away.

Baffled, he bent and braced his hands against his knees, gasping for air, for a way to help his suffering wife.

When Samuel was able to look up, he saw that she must have fallen. And she wasn’t trying to stand. His anger was quenched in a second. Was she hurt?

He hurried forward. “What’s wrong?”

She gazed at him but made no effort to reply. The knapsack she’d been carrying had fallen so it supported her head. Lying on the muddy road, she was weeping.

Terror for her ripped everything else from his mind. He dropped to his knees. “What can I do? Tell me!”

She wouldn’t look at him but just lay there, inconsolable.

He ransacked his mind but could think of nothing to do. They were alone in the middle of nowhere.

Then Honor turned her head, and he saw her mouth form an O.

He followed her gaze and saw a wagon rounding the bend through the thick fir trees. He couldn’t believe who was coming toward them. The slave catchers. What help would they be?

The older one, Zeb, hauled up on the reins. Looking as though he were shouting, he jumped down.

Samuel sprang up and stood in front of his wife, ready to protect her.

Honor could not believe her eyes. Their horses were tied to the rear of Zeb’s wagon. She grabbed Samuel’s hand before he stirred trouble. “They caught our horses,” she signed.

Samuel looked as disbelieving as she felt.

“What’s the matter, Quaker?” Zeb asked, coming to stand in front of her.

“I stumbled,” she said, still too done in to rise. “We’re walking because a storm came and we had to set our horses free for their safety. Thee found them.”

“I thought the horses looked familiar.” Zeb regarded Honor, worry creasing his forehead. “We were lucky enough to find shelter in a clearing. When we started out again, we found these two on the road. Where’s your wagon?”

“Not far.” She pointed behind them.

“Are you ailing?” he asked.

Honor sighed. “No, I’m just so tired, and I’m sick every morning, and—”

“Sounds like you might be in the family way,” Zeb interrupted.

A jolt went through Honor, and she counted back the weeks. She had missed two monthly flows now. Darah—coming, upending everything—had pushed any suspicion out of her mind. She rubbed a hand over her eyes, trying to feel something besides exhaustion.

“You look like you been cryin’.” Zeb frowned deeply, eyeing Samuel as if he’d done something to upset her.

Zeb’s concern lifted her spirits. “I was,” she admitted
but didn’t elaborate. She tugged on Samuel’s hand, and he bent to help her up. She was sweaty and muddy and miserable. But somehow she didn’t care about herself any longer. Samuel’s strained, unhappy expression pierced her. Memories of his past mistrust of her returned.
I should have been kinder, more diplomatic, when I told my husband about Alec courting me. Or held my tongue. After what he did for Darah, I shouldn’t have lost my temper and taken this out on him.
She tried to smile at him but failed.

“Well, let’s go find your wagon and get your team hitched up again,” Zeb said. “Dan, you get down and let the lady sit up here.”

Dan obeyed and helped her up on the bench.

Zeb took his seat beside her and set the wagon in motion.

“Zeb, I admit, I am glad to see thee,” she said.

“Never thought you be sayin’ that, did ya?”

She found it in her to grin. “No, I didn’t.”

“You ain’t been home for a spell. We were followin’ a slave and lost him.”

Thank God the runaway had eluded them. Honor glanced at him sideways. She knew he and Dan hunted slaves for money, but what kind of life was that for anyone, even men who furthered a system of oppression she hated? “Doesn’t thee ever tire of roaming around?”

“No, I got Dan and this wagon. We get by.”

If there were anything she could say to change the man’s mind, she would have said it. But now she merely patted his rangy arm. “I thank thee for catching our horses. I’m
exhausted and just didn’t know if I could face trying to find them or buying a new team.”

“What are you up this far north for?”

“Samuel had bottles to deliver, and we carried a friend on the way. She’s starting a lace business near Detroit.” Honor chose her words carefully, not wanting to lie but neither able to tell the entire series of events.

He squinted at her. “You telling me the truth?”

She was glad to be able to say yes.

“You sure this ain’t about a runaway slave?”

Honor drew in the clammy, cooler air left by the storm and again selected her words with caution, avoiding his question. After all, the maid had not run away from her mistress; she had helped her mistress run away. “My friend is fleeing her husband. He beat her and broke her arm in a rage. She had no family to protect her. Now I suppose thee will tell me that a wife should submit to her husband and that we shouldn’t have helped her.”