The Blue Cloak

by Shannon McNear

  The two women were there on either side of her then, Betsey’s hands and voice oddly gentle and comforting, and even Susan less rough than she was wont. And somehow the glad prospect of riding did give her enough strength to get back up and climb on the mare.

  One of them shoved Eady into her arms and helped her tie the baby close. Out of habit, as the crying faded to whimpers, she opened her bodice and put the tiny thing to breast.

  As the horse started into motion beneath them, a strange relief flooded her, and she closed her eyes and released a sigh.

  Lord … oh Lord … protect us … cover us under the shadow of Your wings….

  She was under a shadow, of a certain. Whether it was the Shadow of God or not, remained to be seen.

  The rest of the day wore away. Eady slept, between brief times awake to nurse. Long about evening, they stopped near a creek to camp, and while Betsey and Sally set everything out, Susan led the mare away to a nearby settlement. Sally was too weary to even ask why, or inquire as to where they were. She simply rolled herself in her blanket with Eady tucked up against her breast, and fell into a deep sleep.

  When Susan nudged her awake, just before dawn again, the horse was nowhere in sight, and there was a canoe drawn up onto the bank. Without a word, they packed their belongings into the conveyance, stepped in, and pushed off into the water.

  Betsey paddled in front, and Susan in back, while Sally curled up as small as she could in the middle. It was the most comfortable way of traveling yet.

  If only she didn’t know with awful certainty that at some point or another, they’d meet up with Wiley and Micajah again.

  Susan and Betsey chatted quietly, wanting to be as unobtrusive as possible on their journey downriver.

  Lord … oh Lord …

  She should give up on trying to pray. It was clear the Lord had no deliverance for her in all this. But the words kept echoing through her head, a plea that found no other articulation but just that single form of address.

  One day blurred into the next. Sally took the occasional turn paddling, just to spell Betsey and Susan a bit, but for the most part she huddled there in the middle, soothing Eady when she cried, feeling the heaviness pressing upon her more with every mile down the river.

  God … oh God, I thought You promised to protect Your children. I thought … that I was one of those. Maybe I’m not anymore.

  The echo of her father’s voice, so long unheard, rippled through her memory. “I am the good shepherd…. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them.”

  And then another scripture, rising from the imprint of the family Bible, the pages crackling beneath her fingertips: “For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.”

  Sally blinked. How long had it been since she’d thought about the Holy Word of God, let alone heard it?

  Lord, is it true? You really will never leave me or forsake me? Even now? Even—in this?

  She peered into the sleeping face of the baby in her arms.

  “Thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb … I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

  Surely such a tiny, precious thing could only be the work of God, even in Sally’s circumstances. And Sally wanted so much better for Eady than she had gotten.

  Sometime during the second or third day on the river, she stirred, curious as never before about the women whose fortunes she’d shared these past almost two years. “Did you know Big and Little were going to escape?” she asked Susan.

  At first, the rawboned woman gave no sign of hearing the question. “I knew they’d planned to,” she answered finally.

  “Is it true they bought off the guard?”

  Susan’s almost-black eyes leveled on her then, a hard look.

  “How was it that you and Betsey came to be with them in the first place?”

  This time the older woman’s expression held something of the exasperation that Mama’s used to when Sally pestered her with too many questions, in the middle of Mama trying to work and think about other things.

  “We was—very young, Betsey and I,” Susan said at last, slowly. “It was the summer before I turned thirteen. Betsey was about eleven. The war was in its last days—the British hadn’t surrendered at Yorktown yet and signing all the treaties wasn’t for two or three more years after that, but Big and Little was wild Tory boys who stole us and two other girls from our homes.” She pressed her lips firm and drew a long breath through her nose. “We thought it a lark, at first. Big and Little’s daddies had fought together, and Big’s daddy was at Kings Mountain, where they’d seen the killing for themselves, Big and Little had—”

  “Wait, daddies? They’re not brothers?”

  Susan smiled a little. “Nah, at least—I don’t think so. Their dads were brothers, but Little’s died earlier in the war, and Big’s stepped up to take care of him as well.” She hesitated, her voice softer. “He was dad to all of us, really.”

  A sudden suspicion grew within Sally. “Old Man Roberts?”

  The older woman’s smile widened. “One and the same.”

  It had never occurred to Sally to ask—when the grim, hulking man stood as witness for Micajah and Susan’s wedding and signed the marriage bond, and Susan had first given her name as Roberts, it was easy to just assume and accept that Old Man Roberts was her father, and Betsey her sister.

  But suddenly—now that she knew the truth—other details appeared in a different light. The older man’s sternness with Big and Little, while still tolerating their presence, and his gruff gentleness toward Susan, Betsey, and Sally. And the presence of a tall, strapping lad with wild black hair, whose skin was not quite as dark as Micajah’s, but bore him a startling resemblance. “Is Burt—?”

  Susan sighed a little. “My boy, and Big’s. He was my first.”

  Oh Susan. “How many were there?”

  The older woman was quiet so long, Sally wasn’t sure she’d answer, but finally she did, softly. “Him, and another what didn’t live.”

  Sally let the flow of the river fill the silence for a bit. But still the questions bubbled away, inside her. “So what happened to your own father?”

  “He—Betsey, look sharp there—log ahead. He and Betsey’s dad tried to get us back. Got one of the other girls—another run off on her own—but Betsey and I, we stayed.”

  “But—why?” The words were out before Sally could stop them.

  “Because.” To her shock, a flush crept from Susan’s neck, upward across her face. “By the time our dads found us, the damage was done. No one else would have taken us. What else were we to do?”

  “Your dad said that?”

  “Nah. But I knew it was the truth.” She was silent for a moment. “I never spoke to him again. And he was killed in some skirmish not long after.”

  Sally swallowed past the thickness in her throat.

  “Besides.” Susan’s voice went tart again. “It ain’t like I was pretty, like you or Betsey. Though, I own I was a mite prettier then.” She shook her head. “Not anymore though. God made me tall and ugly—and tough.” Her gaze skipped across Sally, hard and scornful. “To help take care o’ the likes of you.”

  Sally stared at her. At the moment, Susan appeared about the bravest woman Sally had ever known.

  “How can you even bring God into it like that?”

  The curl returned to the older woman’s mouth. “Why, what’s wrong with it? That it don’t square with your idea of Him, Miz Baptist Preacher’s Daughter?”

  “Shh,” Betsey said. “Y’all are loud.”

  Sally felt herself flushing and looked away. “So what happened then? Where did y’all go after the war was over?”

  “West,” Susan answered without hesitation. “We stayed with the Cherokee awhile. That was … interesting. They’s some good people, most of ‘em. And unlike white folk, they sure didn’t care how me and Betsey came to be Big and Little’s women.�
�

  Sally had been aware for some time now that it was no wonder Wiley had known so well how to sweet-talk her into giving him her all. It still stung, although these days, she felt mostly numb to it.

  “We was in Nickajack, in fact, when word came that the white settlers were going to attack. But we got out before it happened. Not long after that, Big and Little decided they wanted to try their hand at living in white society. More and more, the Cherokee are being pushed out anyway.” Her gaze refocused on Sally, sharp and half amused. “That was about the time Little met you and decided he just had to have you to wife.”

  Betsey snorted and cast a sour glance back. Sally flushed even more at that.

  And here she sat, in the middle of a canoe on the Green River—she’d finally asked Susan where they were—headed for the Barren and then, at least the other women hoped, they’d find Wiley and Micajah.

  Their third day out on the river, they pulled up the canoe at some rough-looking settlement, one of dozens strung out along their way, and during a quick visit to a trading post for a few provisions, heard talk of a pair of murders. The most recent was some hapless older man, out fishing, gutted and his body stuffed with stones before being sunk in the river—just like a man down in Tennessee, last year. But the one before that was even more terrible—a young boy, his bloodied body flung into a sinkhole even as his father was being asked to join a posse to find the murderous Harpes.

  Doubtless, folk agreed, it was these same dread criminals who were at fault, having broken out of jail the previous month and now making their presence known in west-central Kentucky. But where would it end?

  Sally exchanged a glance with Susan and Betsey, and they finished their purchases and hurried back to the canoe.

  None of them drew an easy breath until they’d pushed off once more, she knew. And by the fierceness of Susan’s expression, Sally also knew that the older woman liked it no better than she—or Betsey.

  “We could still go back,” she found herself saying. “There’s still time.”

  Shutting her eyes briefly, Susan shook her head, and Betsey just looked drawn and mournful.

  Chapter Twelve

  Barely two weeks out on the trail, and there were all the leads in the world—and yet none at all.

  Ben found it absolutely maddening.

  At least a dozen or more different bands of mounted men, by his reckoning, combed the Kentucky wilderness. From one perspective, it could be only a matter of time before the Harpes were caught and brought in—but from the other, Ben had seen firsthand just how dense and tangled were the forests and canebrakes, not to mention numberless caves tucked up into the hills, and all the different ways the fugitives could slip away.

  How could they ever know where these men were, except by the trail of woe they left?

  They sat at the moment, men from three different search parties, in a tavern on the Little Barren River, where a man living alone on the banks of a nearby creek had gone to greet who he thought were new settlers, but discovered the Harpes instead, and fell prey to their predations.

  A handful of the men Ben rode with months ago were here, Ballenger and his brother among them. A grizzled older man was present, Henry Skaggs, who Ben had been told was among the earliest settlers almost thirty years before, along with Colonel Daniel Trabue, who had lost his son, a boy of only twelve, to the Harpes. “Didn’t find his body for two weeks,” Trabue gruffly said. “We thought he’d done been kidnapped, but when we ran across a place where the Harpes had kilt a calf to make themselves new moccasins, there weren’t no sign of any footprints but theirs.” He sucked his teeth a moment. “I was at a log rolling when Skaggs here was with the posse come seeking men to go with them. They’d found the Harpes, had a run-in with ‘em on the trail where the Harpes were surprised but ready to shoot. Skaggs suggested they go back to his house, get his dogs and track them by scent, and then they tracked them up to a terrible thick canebrake. He felt they should go after them but needed more men. But the log rollers didn’t think they was needed.” Trabue sucked a deep breath through his nose, mouth compressed. “They know now they shoulda done their duty in turning out. Law’s too sparse out here yet to leave it to them.”

  Men all around the table tucked their heads, peered closely into their cups.

  “So, you said the Harpes didn’t even take the sack of seed beans the boy had gone to fetch home?”

  “Aye.” Trabue cleared his throat. “They took the sack of flour I’d sent him for, but not the beans. And—he was cut in pieces.” He shook his head slowly. “These men—it’s like they ain’t even men. Ain’t got the heart God gave ordinary human beings. They’re just in it for the fun of shedding blood.”

  Shaking of heads and muttering greeted that statement. Ben held his silence, gripping the cup in both hands. The brew was decent, but he’d no taste for it at the moment.

  Trabue lifted his anguished gaze to Ben’s. “You lost a cousin in all this, yourself, and they tell me you’re a man of law, to boot. What’s your thought about it all?”

  “I would agree with your assessment,” Ben said. “There’s no sense or reason, but only a certain unwholesome air about these men.” He cleared his throat. “I encountered them myself, back in December, on the road to Crab Orchard, not long after my cousin was found murdered. Only by the grace of God and a fast horse did I escape.”

  He let a half smile lift the corner of his mouth at the oft-repeated phrase, and brought the tankard to his lips just by way of breaking the moment.

  The wording reminded him, though, of Rachel. Of course, nearly everything reminded him of her.

  Lord God, please let this business be done quickly. Please … for Uncle Ben, and so I can return to Rachel.

  He’d not even time to dash her off a letter.

  “Well,” Trabue said with an answering smile, also somewhat wry, “we’re glad to have you and your fast horse join us.”

  Rachel smoothed the newspaper out on the counter. May 9. It still amazed her how they could receive the Frankfort Palladium just two days after it was printed.

  “BY THE GOVERNOR,” the article read, “A PROCLAMATION.”

  Whereas it has been represented to me that MICAJAH HARP, alias ROBERTS, and WILEY HARP, alias ROBERTS, who were confined in the jail of Danville district under a charge of murder, did on the 16th day of March last, break out of the said jail; - and whereas the ordinary methods of pursuit have been found ineffectual for apprehending and restoring to confinement the said fugitives, I have judged it necessary to the safety and welfare of the community and to the maintenance of justice, to issue this my proclamation and do hereby offer and promise a reward of THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS to any person who shall apprehend and deliver into the custody of the jailer of the Danville district the said MICAJAH HARP alias ROBERTS and a like reward of THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS for apprehending and delivering as aforesaid the said WILEY HARP alias ROBERTS, to be paid out of the public treasury agreeably to law.

  “Well,” Rachel muttered, “at least they’re recognizing their true names now.”

  She kept reading.

  In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and have caused the seal of the Commonwealth to be affixed.

  Done at Frankfort on the 22nd day of April in the year of our Lord 1799, and of the Commonwealth the seventh.

  (L.S.)

  By the Governor JAMES GARRARD

  Harry Toulmin, Secretary.

  MICAJAH HARP alias ROBERTS is about six feet high—of a robust make, and is about 30 or 32 years of age. He has an ill-looking, downcast countenance, and his hair is black and short, but comes very much down his forehead. He is built very straight and is full fleshed in the face. When he went away he had on a striped nankeen coat, dark blue woolen stockings, - leggins of drab cloth and trousers of the same as the coat.

  WILEY HARP alias ROBERTS is very meagre in his face, has short black hair—

  Rachel straightened. “’Tisn’t black, but red! At least, when h
e’s washed on a regular basis.”

  —but not quite so curly as his brother’s; he looks older, though really younger, and has likewise a downcast countenance. He had on a coat of the same stuff as his brother’s, and had a drab surtout coat over the close-bodied one. His stockings were dark blue woolen ones, and his leggins of drab cloth.

  She puzzled over the similarity of dress. It was known now that they’d murdered and robbed a peddler on their way up the Road, before encountering Thomas Langford. Perhaps they’d cadged the clothing from there.

  Regardless, the description was otherwise fair enough. Downcast countenance, indeed. What Sally had ever seen in Wiley—

  In a flash, she remembered the shine of his gaze as they stood before her daddy, saying their vows. At least in the moment, perhaps he did at least believe himself in love with her.

  Unfortunately the memory brought with it the recollection of meeting Micajah’s eyes, and the shiver that had coursed through her then returned, redoubled. To know what that man had been capable of, indeed was just months away from committing—

  And then there was Hugh White, and the unbelievable coincidence of his connection with the Langfords—which then led to the wrenching sorrow of Thomas’s fate, and a flutter of longing for the grave, elegant cousin.

  Whom she still could not quite believe had kissed her so thoroughly before riding away that morning.

  Remembering the press of his mouth on hers, she touched the edge of her bottom lip with her fingertips. She’d never realized just how strong those feelings could be—and what was it about the peculiar mix of the man’s own winsomeness and sweet intoxication of his embrace that made her forget herself in the moment? Because it already seemed a strange kind of madness took hold when his gaze turned to her and he smiled—and then to add a touch or a kiss—

  She blew out a long breath and looked again at the newspaper. If what Sally had felt was anything like this, Rachel could not fault her for the desire to follow her heart. Not at all.