Scattered Seeds (17 page)

Chapter 28

Tools clanked as the ox ambled along Lancaster Road behind Alexander MacFarlane’s mule.

“Whoa.” Edward tapped the beast’s chest with a switch. The animal halted, and he rearranged the implements.

“Why are we stopping?” Henry seemed intent on running to Lancaster.

Edward readjusted a crate that was rubbing the ox’s hide. “Crate’s gonny put a hole in him.”

“Hurry. There are people ahead.” Henry squinted. “Mayhap one of them is Mary.”

It was a tiresome scene replayed many times since Donald waved goodbye to them at the intersection of Haverford and Lancaster Roads. The boy needed to get his head on straight.

Edward wiped sweat from his brow and stepped to the middle of the road so he could see past MacFarlane’s overburdened mule. “There’s only one woman, and she is nae wearing Osnaburg.”

They made good time since leaving Donald, who swore to write when he settled in somewhere, sooner if he found Mary in the city, although the McConnells would receive no post until spring.

Alexander patted the winded ox. “Beast needs a rest and some water. So does the mule.”

“And I need to relieve mysel’,” Edward said, “again.”

“A fortnight of fruit will do that to ye. It’s bread and meat your gut needs.” Alexander uncinched a strap and slipped a fowler from the mule’s pack. “We’ll rest and eat here.”

He kicked at the charred remains of another traveler’s fire, one of many pitting Lancaster Road. “Bring some firewood back wi’ ye.”

“How long will we sit here?” Henry asked.

“A few hours.” Alexander smiled sympathetically. “Look at it this way, lad. Only God knows if Mary is in front of us or behind. Mayhap she is behind, and our rest will allow her to catch up to us.”

Henry led the animals to the side of the road, where they wasted no time in ripping at the grass.

Edward waded into a meadow of waist-high flowers, scattering butterflies and sending downy seeds soaring into the air. A rabbit bolted away from his foot, and he turned to mention it to Alexander, but the younger man disappeared over a rise on the opposite side of the road.

After relieving himself in the forest, Edward washed his hands and face in a clear spring. Finding firewood would take no effort, he realized, as he surveyed the hollow running north between two ridges; dead limbs lay everywhere, along with nuts and berries, free for the taking. Men risked their lives to stay in such a place, and no wonder. He gathered an armful of sticks, a few hickory nuts, and some berries that painted purple dots on his shirt. As he carried the bounty back toward the road, he thought of Ireland, that verdant land where a man could be hanged for merely glancing at the laird’s wood or game. How cruel to reserve nature’s abundance for the rich while poor men starved staring at it.

Henry hobbled the animals in the meadow. Their heads shot above the tall grasses at the crack of Alexander’s gun. A flock of crows scattered, and a plume of bluish smoke rose with them to betray Alexander’s location.

Edward dropped his loot near the firepit and retrieved the tinderbox he’d purchased in Philadelphia. By the time Alexander returned with more wood and a skinned and gutted bird, Edward and Henry had already unloaded their supplies and built a campfire.

Henry looked sadder than ever. The boy lit up each time they overtook fellow travelers and moped when he failed to find Mary among them. He traveled a different road than his companions, a highway of despair that Edward prayed would eventually lead to acceptance.

Alexander lifted a cluster of the berries Edward brought from the woods. “Calvin’s fists, man, were ye planning to kill us, or are ye dyeing a shirt? These are pokeberries.” He flung them to the side of the road. “And I hope ye did nae wipe your arse wi’ shiny leaves.”

“Why?” Edward tried to remember.

“There’s an ivy here that makes ye itch worse than nettle. If ye so much as brush against it, your skin will blister, and ye’ll scratch ’til ye hit bone. Ye’ll need to learn right quick what ye can touch and eat here, and by God, poison ivy had best be one of the first things ye learn to recognize.”

While Henry went for a bucket of water, Edward set up a makeshift spit for the bird. “What are we eating?”

“A grouse. They’re plentiful here, though hard to shoot. This one made the mistake of running instead of flying. We’ll have to watch for lead. I hit him square. Naught worse than breaking a tooth on a lump of shot.” He gestured to Henry, who fought his way through the meadow grasses with his bucket. “I feel sorry for him.”

“So do I. There is nae much that cures what ails him, though. I know of no remedy for a broken heart but time.”

Alexander pulled a flask from his haversack. “Some use this.” He passed the rum to Edward, who took a sip and wiped his mouth. It warmed his belly and steadied his nerves.

“Aye, there is that, I suppose, but too much of it destroys a man.”

“Indeed. We owe much of the strife wi’ the Injuns to rum. Ye should see the state of them at times.” Alexander shook his head. “It brings me to shame, sir, to see what some of them are reduced to. It is no wonder the bloody French have an easy time inciting their hatred of us.”

He tucked the flask back into his haversack. “The morrow should see us in Lancaster. If Gibson has sold the Patterson lassie on, the sale will be recorded there.”

“That’s if he came this way.”

“Aye. He could have gone to New Jersey, or more likely, New York. There’s no way to know for sure. If I were in your shoes, I would get settled first and then go looking her, though I wish ye would reconsider the offer to join me and my wife.”

Edward appreciated another man’s endorsement of his plan and thanked Alexander for his repeated offer, but his mind was set. They would try their luck on the frontier.

He said, “In the spring, I’ll buy a notice.” He should have done that already, and the oversight irked him. He blamed exhaustion, worry, and a disorderly gut for whittling away at his faculties.

Alexander said, “Anyone who can read watches those notices. Some earn a tidy living catching runaways. Offer a reward, and if she’s wi’in reach of the paper’s readership, ye’ll find her fast. Also, ask at the taverns along your way, no matter where ye go. Tavern owners are respected folk here, and they often know more than most. Not much else ye can do beyond that but pray.”

“I have nae found much use in praying these last few years.”

Alexander’s eyes betrayed his concern. “I assure ye, sir, ye will find plenty of use for it here, for when there is naught but your Maker’s protection standing between this life and the next, ye will spend many a desperate hour on your knees.”

Shame pricked Edward’s conscience, but he said nothing more. He poked the grouse, and juice sizzled into the fire. “This bird is ready.”

“Come eat, lad,” Alexander shouted into the meadow, where Henry cut sheaves of lush grass for later use. “Sooner ye get it doon your neck, the sooner we can be on our way again.”

Chapter 29

From the houses and sheds to the mills, ferry, and watering troughs, everything in Lancaster was constructed of log. The town sat on rising ground near a ford in the Conestoga River, but it had yet to see footpaths. Manure covered the rutted roads from the cattle driven through to Philadelphia.

“Good God.” Alexander wiped sweat from his brow. “How is this place to bear the surge of humanity and stock? The stench burns my nose.” He waved at a horsefly.

Indeed, the town appeared as though it had outgrown its well-planned borders too quickly.

Edward inspected the faces of the displaced settlers. All of the men clutched muskets or hatchets. Poorly dressed and dirty, some cooked over fires or lounged with their feet in the millrace. Hundreds more sheltered in canvas-covered wagons sweltering on the outskirts of the town.

“I did nae expect there to be so many folk in such a remote place.”

Was there a freeholder left in the wilderness?

“These are calamitous times,” Alexander said. “It’s gonny get worse. I reckon ye’ll find Carlisle the same. It’s good ye stocked up in Philadelphia. Supplies will soon run short in the outposts, and merchants will put the prices up on what’s left.”

With so many settlers leaving the frontier, it seemed foolhardy to enter it. Yet that’s how men made fortunes. What choice did they have now? They could burden MacFarlane and his young wife with feeding them. Or, they could make their way to the cabin, get the seed in the ground, and allow the snow and bitter cold to force peace upon the province. Surely the natives would soon turn their efforts toward preparing their own villages for winter. By spring, the provincial government would probably have a new treaty with them, one that would secure a lasting peace.

He looked at Henry, his son, barely able to grow facial hair.

What if I’m wrong?

Alexander broke Edward’s troublesome chain of thoughts. “The Royal Americans are here.” He gestured toward the town square, where a handful of soldiers wearing red coats with blue lapels and cuffs shouted orders to an ill-formed line of militia. The men responded to the officers’ shouts by sluggishly shouldering their rifles. Their apathetic expressions suggested they saw no point in the exercise. Even the drummer boy, whose instrument hid his entire torso, showed little vigor for the task given him.

The drilling militia did little to bolster Edward’s confidence in His Majesty’s capacity for protecting his distant subjects. Given that the majority of the displaced were Ulstermen, Edward doubted the king would offer much assistance at all. They would have to be their own men on the frontier, and if might wasn’t enough to survive, then wits would have to be. He understood suddenly why native-born Americans walked a little taller than their European counterparts. In a year, he would walk taller, too.

“There’s the courthoose.” Henry pointed to a brick structure in the middle of the town square, the only building with an air of permanence. Its corners were quoined with stone, and its front gable boasted an imported bull’s-eye window. A tower lifted a cupola skyward at the roof’s apex.

Henry jogged across the courtyard to the front steps of the courthouse while Edward and Alexander tethered the animals to a watering trough.

“I’ll wait here,” Alexander said. Beside him, the animals gulped water.

“What will I say to him if she is nae found here?” Edward whispered to Alexander. “He will want to search under every bush for her. We have no time. We must make our way to William’s.”

Alexander nodded. “He will come to the same conclusion on his own.”

“I hope ye’re right, or I risk losing my son.” He brushed against the mule, and its sweat soaked his sleeve.

“Good luck,” Alexander muttered.

The courthouse door squealed on its hinges. Henry and Edward entered a cheerless vestibule. A second door opened into a room where light from the bull’s-eye window cast its brilliance onto a brick floor. Wordless old men sat smoking on log benches along the walls, their glances suspicious and their pipe bowls glowing red. A soldier glided from a side door, the skirt of his red coat hooked up to expose its blue lining.

Edward spoke first. “Could ye tell me where the magistrate’s office is, sir?”

“Which one?”

Edward scratched his head. “I have no name.”

“Mayhap if ye state your business, I can send ye the right way.”

“We are looking for the office where indentures are recorded.”

“Then it’s the registrar ye want, not the magistrate. First office on the left.”

The registrar’s office contained no counter, only a log desk placed below an open window in the far wall and a matching table near the room’s entrance.

A clerk swatted a fly before noticing them.

“Good day to ye.” He hastily buttoned his shirt and waistcoat. “Forgive me. It is so hot.”

The clerk looked as if he had slept on the mill wheel. His clothes were sweat-stained and wrinkled, and his gray hair was unruly, but he met them with a cheerful smile and welcoming manner.

The three of them flinched as a volley of shots sounded outside the courthouse. Blue smoke wafted past the open window. Edward craned his neck to see what was happening.

The clerk smiled. “Just the militia. All of us had better get used to it, what with the fort being built and all. Now, then, how may I help you?”

“We’re looking for a lassie indentured to a man named George Gibson.”

“Gibson, eh?”

“Aye, do ye know him?”

“I regret that I do not, but it is a common name.”

Henry spoke up. “The agent who sold the lassie said Gibson is from Lancaster County.” His voice sounded strained. “We think he brought her here to sell her on.”

“A soul driver, eh?” The clerk rubbed the white stubble on his chin. “We do not register many transfers here.” He groaned as he stood on tiptoe to pull a thick book off a shelf. “Let us have a look. I was gone for a few days to harvest my grain. Perhaps Mister Turner made an entry in my absence. What is the girl’s name?”

“Mary Patterson,” Henry replied.

The clerk carried the book to the table and flipped it open to the last page with ink upon it.

Henry leaned his nose closer as the clerk brushed his finger over the names of the unfortunates sold to new masters.

“Ah, yes, Mister Turner did write down a few. Johannes Dietz, Elias Wagner, and Alice Fletcher. Oh, but they were sold by a Josiah Buck. I am sorry. It does not look like your Mary Patterson came here.”

Edward thanked him.

Henry remained hunched over the book, scanning the names again. And again. His face turned wan. The artery next to his windpipe pulsed.

Edward laid a hand on his son’s forearm.

Henry stormed out of the room.

“My apologies, sir. My son loves the lassie we seek.”

A look of sympathy crossed the clerk’s face, and then concern as the outer doors of the courthouse slammed. “I have sons myself. He is young. By this time next year, the lad will have moved on to another.”

“I hope ye’re right. Would ye be kind enough to let us know if ye hear of Gibson’s whereabouts?”

“Of course.”

“Send word to Edward or Robert McAdams at Harris’s outpost. I expect to be back there by spring.”

The clerk agreed.

Edward offered a diminutive bow and left the registrar’s office. Instead of following Henry out of the building, he walked to the benches, now free of pipe smokers, those men probably watching the militia fire their guns.

The soldier stared from his doorway, but Edward didn’t care. He sat and thought about how different things would be if Sorley acknowledged Mary as his own. In the life denied her, she would be safe and comfortable, and no more than Henry’s cousin.

Edward’s thoughts nourished his resentment until his jaw ached. He waited until his anger cooled, then stood to collect himself.

Henry would want to keep looking for Mary. He would challenge authority, a rite of passage in every boy’s life. Edward expected it, but the thought of an altercation made him sick to his stomach.

He rubbed his forehead and left the building. As he crossed the courtyard, he saw Alexander say something to Henry, who rearranged packs and tightened straps on the ox’s load.

He took a deep breath and walked up behind Henry. “Son, I’m sorry.”

“Well, there’s no need to be. She’s gone. It’s that simple.” Henry fumbled with a knot in the ox’s lead.

“It is nae that simple, and ye know it.” He gripped Henry’s shoulder, intending to turn him around.

“Leave me be.” Henry shrugged off his hand.

Edward swallowed hard, his face warmed by the presence of onlookers. He thought of Elizabeth and a handful of scenes of Henry as a toddler. He turned away, determined to check his tears.

“Father,” Henry said behind him, “I . . . I . . .”

Edward closed his eyes and steadied his nerves. At the scuffle of feet, he turned to see Henry storming away. He made to follow him, but Alexander blocked his way.

“Gi’ him some time. He’ll work it oot on his own.” Alexander handed his flask to Edward, who took a long draw of rum. “I was talking to him afore ye came oot of the courthoose. He knows what must be done. His heartbreak has already turned to anger, and that will yield to sense. A long winter will do him good. Spring will see him right again.”

“Ye speak like a man who knows a bit about the matter.”

Alexander’s crooked smile added no glimmer to his eyes. “Her name was Grace. She died of smallpox five years ago, just after I proposed to her. I thought mysel’ incapable of loving again, but then I met my Flora. I confess, McConnell, she fulfills me.”

Edward thought of Sarah, and his heart sank lower.

“Alexander, may I ask a favor of ye?”

“Of course.”

He opened a leather pouch and withdrew a quill, some ink, and a sheet of foolscap. “If I write a letter, could ye seal it and get it on the next packet bound for Derry?”

“Of course. I’ll be back in Philadelphia in a fortnight.”