The Widow's War (33 page)

Pulling Teddy close, she curls up against William, and lies there listening for the sound of approaching horses, but all she hears is the rustling of the grass and the sentries coughing and talking in low whispers.

 

 

 

 

 

L
ate the next morning, before they reach Osawatomie, William and Carrie say good-bye to their escorts and turn onto the dirt track that leads to Two Rivers. Elizabeth said Mrs. Hulett and the fugitives who lived with her grew rope hemp on the plantation. Carrie has always imagined hemp would look like rope—brown and uninteresting—but instead she finds herself rolling past tall, green plants with delicately feathered leaves. The hemp is planted densely, forming a wall that sways in the wind. Carrie decides it’s the closest thing to a jungle she’s seen since she left Brazil.

The main house is less impressive than the hemp that surrounds it. Constructed of unpainted boards and sporting a thatched roof, it has nothing in common with the great, white-pillared mansions of the old South. Although much larger than the cabin Carrie and William built in Lawrence it looks similar except that instead of a small porch suitable for knocking the mud off your boots before you enter, the main house at Two Rivers has a wraparound veranda that curves in a protective circle so no matter which door you go out of, you always find yourself with a shaded place to sit.

Behind the house, lined up along the river, are a series of slave cabins. The cabins, which are also constructed of unpainted boards, are in remarkably good repair but still . . .

Carrie wonders if Mrs. Hulett’s guests live in them. Surely that would bring back very unpleasant memories if you had once been a slave.

 

 

 

 

 

N
o,” Mrs. Hulett tells Carrie and William after they have washed up, put Teddy down for a nap, and are taking tea with her on the veranda. “All of us live here in the big house, except for Ni’s wife, Jane, and their two daughters. Jane asked to move her family into one of the cabins. The rest of us have a dormitory arrangement. I’m somewhat abashed to admit that my guests have insisted I have an entire room to myself. I thought we should all share the inconvenience equally, but they laid down the law. They said I was too old and that besides, I snored. ‘If you had to take out your teeth every night, you’d snore, too,’” I told them.

She leans forward, picks up the teapot, and refills Carrie’s and William’s cups. “They won’t let me work in the fields either, but I’m not alone in that. The old men don’t work in the fields and neither do the children. That’s the glory of rope hemp. In April you have a few days hard work planting it, but then you can turn your back on it until August. We’re using China seed instead of Old Kentucky, and it’s so vigorous, you can lie in your bed at night and hear it growing.”

She shrugs. “Actually, if we could get away with it, we’d grow nothing, but we have to keep up appearances. We’ve had visitors. Pro-slavers, of course, since they think I’m one of them. For a while most people in Osawatomie didn’t know the truth, but the day after Pottawatomie Creek Elizabeth told them who ‘my slaves’ really are. As long as they keep their mouths shut, we should be safe here and so should you and your child.”

“That’s the main reason we came,” Carrie says. “For Teddy’s sake. Also, like your guests, we need to disappear for a while.”

Mrs. Hulett takes a sip of tea and looks at William with renewed interest. “There is still a price on your head, Doctor Saylor, is there not?”

“Yes. Recently, I was pleased to hear the slavers had raised the reward for my carcass to two hundred dollars. A man doesn’t like to be undervalued.”

“Someone is also likely to be hunting for me,” Carrie says. “He may even be offering a reward. We aren’t sure if he is, but I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“A pro-slaver, I take it?”

“Famously a pro-slaver.”

“Can you tell me his name?”

“Deacon Presgrove.”

“Deacon Presgrove!” Mrs. Hulett almost drops her tea cup. “Not the son of that wicked man who savagely beat Senator Sumner!”

“The very one, I’m sorry to say.”

Mrs. Hulett puts down her cup, and stares at Carrie and William with a mixture of admiration and astonishment. “I’ll ask no more questions. You can have a cabin for your clinic, and another for yourselves if you’d like privacy. They’re clean and the roofs are watertight, and since it’s summer, you’ll be warm enough.

“Of course, if any pro-slavers come down the road, I’ll introduce you as my cousin and her husband, and you’ll have to pretend to be living in the main house, but I don’t think that’s likely. Right now, my neighbors are occupied with plotting the destruction of Osawatomie, burning free-state homesteads, and hunting for John Brown. As far as they know, I’m just an old lady in bad health with a bunch of nearly-useless slaves.

“In short, you’re welcome. The clinic will be a blessing to all of us here at Two Rivers, not to mention the people in Osawatomie and the men who are living at—” She stops abruptly.

William reaches out and takes her hands in his. “My dear Mrs. Hulett, I don’t know how we’ll ever repay you for taking us in.”

“Fiddlesticks, Doctor Saylor! You have a reputation for keeping your patients alive. It’s going to be a comfort to have you and Miss Vinton here, and if you find you have too much free time on your hands, you can always help us with the hemp harvest. I don’t know what we’re going to do with it, but come late August we’re going to have to cut it down.”

“Maybe you could burn it and blame the fire on free-state guerillas,” Carrie suggests.

Mrs. Hulett smiles and shakes her head. “You don’t know much about hemp, do you Miss Vinton?”

 

 

 

 

 

O
ne month later to the day, a lone rider comes down the road that leads to Two Rivers. Stopping at the main house, he dismounts, knocks on the door, and asks one of the “slaves” if he can have a drink of water. Ni’s wife, Jane, brings him the dipper, watches him drink, and takes the dipper back when he is finished.

“Is your mistress at home,” the man asks.

“Yes, Massa,” she says. It’s a carefully rehearsed reply, one they have all discussed and agreed on. Distasteful, but necessary.

“Go get her.”

“She’s upstairs takin’ a nap, Massa. She’s real old and sickly.” At that moment, Carrie walks out of the clinic carrying a washbasin full of water. Throwing the water on the ground, she turns and goes back inside. She does not notice Jane standing on the porch or the stranger standing next to her.

The stranger stares at the clinic. Jane doesn’t like the expression on his face. “You want me to go wake the old mistress up, Massa?”

The stranger turns and looks at her with cold, blue eyes. His hair is the color of flax, his lips so red, they almost look painted. “No,” he says. “No need. Let her sleep. I already have the answer to the question I was going to ask her.”

PART 6

Henry Clark

September 1856

 

 

 

Kansas, August 30, 1856

 

 

 

T
he prairie is dry, the wheat fields are stubble, and two hundred and fifty Missourians have attacked Osawatomie, burned it to the ground, defeated John Brown, shot his son Frederick through the heart and left him dead beside the Marais des Cygnes. Now Henry Clark and his men are bringing the news to Two Rivers.

With them rides Deacon Presgrove. Deacon looks like one of Clark’s Raiders now. The costume he put on to come to Kansas has taken on a reality that terrifies him. He still has his pistols, his rifle, and his oversized knife, but his broad-brimmed hat is battered almost out of recognition, the kerchief around his neck reeks of sweat, and his trousers are so stiff with dirt they could stand up without him. Worst of all are his boots. Deacon can hardly bear to look at them. They are splattered with blood, great dark stains of it.

Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood . . .
Macbeth,
Act Two, Scene Two
. . .
I am going insane
, Deacon thinks.
I am riding with a madman bent on committing murder
. He looks up and sees Clark’s flag snapping above him, rolling and unrolling in the wind like a message from hell. The blood on it is bright red, fresh, not pig’s blood any longer.

Carrie isn’t worth this. Nothing is. Deacon would run if he could, take off into the brush and hide like John Brown, but if he does, Clark will shoot him. Clark has made that clear.

I’m not going to bring your wife and son to you,
Clark said on the day he told Deacon he had found Carrie for the second time.
You’re going to come with me. When a man’s wife runs away, he should go after her. Shoot her lover. Make things right. Honor needs to be satisfied.

Then he had stepped up to Deacon, put a finger on the bottom button of Deacon’s flannel shirt, and crawled up finger by finger, button by button to the top. It was a crazy gesture, threatening, terrifying.

You aren’t afraid, are you?
Clark asked as he touched the first button.
Not a coward?
as he touched the second.
Because then,
he touched the third;
then
, he touched the fourth;
well, then, Deacon . . .

Clark’s finger had rested on the fifth button, then the sixth. He had not completed the sentence.