Traces of Mercy (33 page)

“I, ah …”

“We need to get going,” he said without preamble, handing her Lucky’s reins.

She slipped her journal into a saddlebag, then took a moment to brush her hand lovingly over Lucky’s neck before she mounted the horse.

Captain Hale mounted his own horse, and in seconds, she was following him across the expanse of the prison yard. As they reached the road, Mercy glanced over her shoulder at Gratiot. Her eyes swept the building silhouetted against the dark skyline, but then her gaze caught on something else. Not something—but someone partially obscured from view. Her heart stuttered in her chest. Rand? It had to be. She recognized the way he sat on his horse, the tilt of his hat—even the outline of his shoulders in the semidarkness.

“Let’s move,” she heard Captain Hale say. She turned back in the saddle and in moments had Lucky galloping, putting the shadow of Rand and the horror of Gratiot behind her.

She heard nothing but the sound of the horses as they moved over the ground. Lucky had always run for the joy of it, and she could actually feel him straining to restrain himself. She knew he could go much faster if only she’d give him his head. But she had no idea where they were going. She’d waited for Captain Hale to say something—anything—but he remained silent. They pushed on through the humid night through acres of forested trails. Finally, she pulled up short, and Lucky stopped. She waited a moment, then felt a tug of relief mixed with trepidation as Captain Hale brought his horse back around.

“Why did you stop?” he asked brusquely.

“I want to know where we’re going.”

“I thought Collins explained the stipulations of your release to you,” he said.

“He did. I know I have to leave the state. I’m just wondering which way you’re taking me.”

“We’re headed north.”

“I want to go south,” she said. “It’s the only place I’ll find the answers I need.”

“It doesn’t matter what you want right now. North is the safest route to the state line, and that’s the direction we’re headed.”

“Why not head east to the river? Lucky and I can board a river boat and be in Illinois before anyone knows I’m missing,” she said. “You could be on your way, and I would be forever out of your life.”

He studied her for a moment. “We’re going north. It’s not up for discussion.”

He urged his horse into a trot again, but instead of following him, Mercy wheeled Lucky around, and with a nearly imperceptible command, she urged the horse off in the opposite direction.

She didn’t look back, just leaned down low over Lucky’s neck and felt the night air stream over her face. She gave Lucky a free rein, holding fast to the pommel to hold her seat. They flew in and out of the cover of trees, but the farther they went, the more the trail opened up—leaving the rider and the horse more exposed than before.

A mile later, Mercy felt Lucky’s sides heaving beneath her, and she dared to glance over her shoulder just before the moon slid behind a cloud. She didn’t see Elijah following her and couldn’t believe her luck. Maybe he’d given up and said good riddance to a problem. The cloud swallowed the moon, and the landscape darkened. She felt a rush of relief and slowed the horse to an easy gallop, amazed at her own moxie.
I told him I wanted to go south
, she thought, just before something came out of the dark and caught her. She felt herself being lifted up and out of the saddle, then heard her assailant grunt when she landed on top of him. Before she could say a word, she felt a hand slip over her mouth, and someone lifted her up and started to carry her away. She struggled against him, still unable to see his face because of how tightly he held her. Her heart hammered as hot breath hit her neck.

“Don’t say a word,” Elijah’s voice hissed into her ear as he deposited her behind some bushes.

Mercy wrenched away from Elijah and whipped her head around to stare at him, but he put a finger to his lips and adamantly shook his head. He pointed into the darkness, and that’s when Mercy heard it—the sound of a horse’s hooves galloping toward them.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-
S
EVEN

Mercy felt Elijah’s hand tighten around her arm, and she wanted to reassure him she had no intention of running into the path of whoever was coming at them in the dark; but there was no time for that. One moment he was holding on to her, then he was leaping from the meager cover of the bushes toward a horse and rider that seemed to materialize right in front of them. Elijah connected soundly with the rider, and she heard a surprised grunt as he was swept from the back of the horse. She could see the dark form of Elijah as he drew his pistol and leaned down over the man on the ground.

“You’ve been following us for miles,” Elijah growled.

“Yassuh.” The voice was thin with fear. “I has been.”

Mercy frowned at the familiar voice and searched the memory that usually did her no good.

“Don’t … shoot me, suh, please.”

Mercy rushed toward them. “Isaac?”

“Yassum,” the boy said. “Yassum, Miss Mercy, it be Isaac.”

“Let him up,” Mercy said. “I know him. He’s one of the Prescotts’ servants.”

Elijah looked down at the black man still prone on the ground. And then he realized it—he was no man. He wasn’t much more than a boy with wide, frightened eyes.

“Get up,” Elijah said.

Isaac scrambled to his feet.

“Why are you following us?” Elijah demanded.

“When Mr. Rand came to the cottage, I hear him tell Ezra that Miss Mercy not gonna be hanged.”

Isaac turned to Mercy then and smiled. “God saw fit to save you, Miss Mercy. I am mighty glad ’bout that.”

“Thank you, Isaac. Me, too,” she said.

“That doesn’t tell me why you’re here, Isaac,” Elijah said.

“Mr. Rand say she be needing Lucky to get to the state line,” Isaac said. “I tell myself that if Miss Mercy gonna leave St. Louis, then I am gonna go with her.”

“Did you lose your job with the Prescotts?” Elijah asked.

“Nasuh. I be a hard worker and ain’t give nobody call to cut me loose, Cap’n,” Isaac said. “I jes wanna leave that place, is all. The only thing that been keepin’ Ezra from beatin’ on me was that he be scared you gonna catch him, Miss Mercy. Once they toted you off to prison, he gone back to his old ways, and I can’t stand it no more.”

Mercy’s eyes welled up, and she looked at him. “I’m sorry, Isaac.”

“We wish you luck, Isaac,” Elijah said. “I’m sure Mercy appreciates your concern for her, but we need to be pressing on now.”

“I know, Cap’n. I be pressing on with you.”

“No,” Elijah said quickly. “You can’t come with us.”

“Please,” Isaac said, looking directly at Mercy. “Please take me with you. I got no one—no place.”

“I’m going south, Isaac,” Mercy said. “You don’t want to go there.”

“We’re turning around and heading north,” Elijah said.

“But, I—” Mercy said.

Elijah interrupted her. “I’m not having this argument with you.”

“Yes, you are. Why should I go in the opposite direction of where I’m so obviously from? I need to head south. That’s where I’ll find answers about my past. That’s where I can begin to look for my family—my home.”

She could see Elijah shaking his head. “No. We’re going the route I have planned, and that’s the end of it. Do I need to remind you about the conditions you agreed to upon your release?”

“No, Captain Hale, you don’t need to remind me, but for the life of me I don’t understand why it matters which way we get out of the state as long as I get out of the state!”

Elijah blew out an irritated breath. “There is a bounty on your head, Mercy.”

“Bounty? I don’t understand …”

“A price. A prize. A good deal of money has been offered to anyone who kills you.”

“But they’ve exonerated me. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

“There are a lot of angry, hateful people who can’t let go of the war. Groups that commit vigilante acts in the name of their cause. They believe anyone who fought for the South should pay—either with prison time or death. They were already riled up about the delay of your execution. When the judge made the stay permanent, the underground groups made it clear they intended to serve up their own brand of justice should the opportunity ever arise. The way some prison guards can be bought, I have no doubt the word of your release is spreading and people will be looking for you.”

“So we are taking the northern route because it’s the least likely?”

“Yes,” he said. “But here we stand under the moonlight, out in the open, chatting like we’re at a tea party.”

“Pardon me, Cap’n,” Isaac said, “but seems to me if I kin find you, so kin the bad men who be looking for her.”

“Don’t think I haven’t already thought of it, Isaac,” Elijah said.

“I could help you look out for the bad men, seein’ as how I blend right in with the dark,” Isaac said. “I can fetch things, bring wood, rub down the horses.”

“Speaking of horses, Isaac,” Elijah said, “do I want to know where you got yours?”

A look of guilt crossed Isaac’s face. “He be an old horse at the cottage that nobody never paid mind to,” he said. “I left all the money I have in the world and a piece of paper that says I’ll pay more some day.”

Elijah blew out a breath. “An amnesia victim and a horse thief. An unlikely pair.”

Mercy rolled her eyes at him, then looked at the boy. “Captain Hale is only taking me as far as the state line, Isaac,” she said. “We won’t be traveling long enough to need your help.”

“Then once you get to the state line, I be going on with you,” Isaac said firmly.

“We can stand here and argue all night, or we can get going right now,” Elijah said. He mounted his horse, and the other two did the same. Elijah looked over at Mercy. “No more arguments about which direction we’re headed?”

“No.”

“Good. Now, we all need to stay close,” he said. “I’ve had enough surprises for one night.”

She let Elijah set the pace and rode alongside him while Isaac brought up the rear.

Mercy glanced over her shoulder at the boy, then looked at Elijah. “Do you really believe it was a good idea to let him come with us?”

“No, but at least this way we can keep an eye on him.”

“Who knows about the bounty?” she asked.

“Everyone who was privy to your release tonight,” he said.

“And that includes Rand?”

He looked over at her. “Yes. It’s one of the reasons he insisted you ride Lucky. He said you could outrun anyone on that horse.”

“Except you,” she said. She could just make out the ghost of a smile on his face.

As the sun rose, Elijah reined in his horse in a secluded spot near the river, and the others followed suit.

“We’ll stop here for a few hours,” Elijah said. There was palpable weariness in his voice.

Mercy and Isaac dismounted, and Isaac, in an obvious effort to seem useful, hurried to take care of the horses and brought them to water.

“We’ll take turns keeping watch,” Elijah said. “An hour at a time. Agreed?”

“Yes. I’ll take the first watch,” Mercy said. “I slept a few hours after—after you let me shoot at you in the field.”

“I didn’t let you shoot at me,” he said. “I let you shoot at my hat.”

“In any event, I don’t think I could sleep if someone tried to force me right now,” she said. “I’m fine to keep watch.”

He withdrew a pistol from the waistband of his pants and handed it to her. “Here. I hope you won’t need it, but just in case …”

She nodded. “Just in case.”

He pulled a bedroll from behind his saddle and dropped it on the ground. “Wake me in an hour.”

“All right.”

He closed his eyes and was asleep before Isaac even returned with the horses.

Mercy sat with her back against a tree trunk and smiled at the huge yawn Isaac tried to hide.

“Why don’t you sleep for a while, Isaac?” Mercy asked quietly, so as not to disturb Elijah.

“No, ma’am. I’ll watch with you,” he said, even as he yawned again.

“If that’s what you want.”

He nodded, eyes huge as if he was fighting to keep them open. “That be what I want.”

“You know, Isaac, I’m still not convinced that you should go with us.”

“I need to, Miss Mercy. I need to leave this place.”

“I meant what I said to you at the cottage. You’re young and healthy—good with horses. You could pick any place to go and you’d be fine. You are free.”

“I always been free. Never been no slave, even though Ezra treat me like one,” he said. “I pick to go with you.”

She looked over at Elijah, still sleeping soundly as the sky continued to brighten. “I’m not sure where I’m going, Isaac,” she said quietly. “After Captain Hale takes me to the state line, I don’t know what’s next for me.”

“I don’t mind not knowin’,” he said stubbornly. “I knows where I come from, and I knows I don’t want to go back.”

“Now, see, that’s where we’re different,” she said. “I don’t know where I come from—so I don’t know how to find my way back. I just know I have to.”

“I s’pose that’s what be next for you then,” he said wisely. “Trying to find out where you used to be.”

“
Who
I used to be,” she said thoughtfully.