Carlyn looked at the road behind them in hopes of seeing someone coming. People should be making their way to church, but the road was empty. Even Curt Whitlow couldn’t arrange an empty road.
“Do you dare attack me in broad daylight? Somebody might ride by and then what of your reputation.”
“Money trumps reputations.”
“Not in the Lord’s eyes.”
“You think he might be watching?” He laughed and snaked out a hand, faster than she thought possible, to grasp her shoulder.
“The Lord is always watching.” She tried to shake off his hand, but couldn’t.
“Do you think he might reach down to stop me? I think not.” Curt tightened his fingers on her shoulder. “Besides, the Bible says a man is obliged to pay his debts. And since you have no man to pay your debts for you, the obligation is yours. Whatever happens next week in regard to the sheriff carrying out the law and removing you from my house, my dear Carlyn, you are still in arrears. I have a right to my proper due. Why would the good Lord interfere with that?”
“You are despicable.” Carlyn spat the word at him.
He laughed. “Save your sweet talk for later, my dear. First things first. That barn across the road, we can arrange payment there out of the public eye since that seems to concern you.”
She tried to jerk free, but he yanked her toward him and fastened his other hand around her upper arm. He was stronger than she expected. Always before she’d thought she could handle him, but that was with a gun and Asher between them. Now she was alone with no one to help her.
A verse her father often quoted in his sermons rose up in her mind, and she looked up and spoke it aloud. “‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.’”
“I already told you, Carlyn.” He leaned his face closer to her. “I am your help.”
She screamed and kicked at him. His horse shied and took off up the road, but Curt’s grip simply got tighter, bruising her arms.
She stopped fighting and tried to think. “I’ll tell the sheriff.”
“I wouldn’t make threats, my dear. That could go badly for you.”
She went limp then, pretending a faint that surprised him. His grip loosened enough that she twisted out of his grasp but lost her balance and slid down into the ditch. She landed on her back. He came after her, his boots slipping on the incline. Carlyn scooted backward away from him, but her foot caught in her skirt.
It would be a good time for that help, Lord. No sooner had she let the thought run through her mind than she heard the creak of a wagon and the sound of horses on the road. She started to cry out, but Curt fell on top of her and mashed his hand down over her mouth. The ditch was deep and the weeds tall. Whoever was in the wagon wouldn’t see her.
Tears filled her eyes. If she hadn’t fallen into the ditch, she would have been able to escape Curt. But now the wagon would pass them by and all would be lost. Curt was right. Nobody was going to help her.
Pray anyway. Her mother’s words were in her head. She’d told Carlyn that, whenever Carlyn complained that her prayers weren’t answered. “Pray anyway,” she said again and again. “The Lord answers in ways we can’t imagine.”
Let them see us. But the steady clip-clop of the horses’ hooves continued on.
When the sound of the wagon faded away, Curt raised up to look down at her. “How convenient. We can just finish our business here.” He kept one hand tight against her mouth.
She pushed open her lips enough to bite him. He swore and jerked his hand away.
“Get off me,” she demanded.
“Not yet, my dear.” He put his injured finger in his mouth and sucked on it a moment, his eyes assaulting her.
She screamed then and fought against his weight holding her down. He grabbed her hands and fastened them against the ground over her head. She screamed again.
The dog leaping into the ditch was such a blur that it was a second before she knew it was Asher. He went straight for Curt’s throat and only barely did Curt throw up his arm to keep the dog from his target. The dog clamped teeth down on Curt’s arm and knocked the man backward. Carlyn scrambled to her feet. Asher turned loose of Curt’s arm and made another lunge for his throat. When Curt huddled in the ditch to protect his head, Asher grabbed his arm again.
Curt let out a yowl. “Call him off.”
“Why should I?” Asher was on top of Curt, growling and waiting for a chance at the man’s throat.
“I’ll leave you alone. I promise I’ll never bother you again.” His words were muffled against the ground.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Call him off,” he shouted. “He kills me, they’ll shoot him.”
“Who will know?”
“You will. You’ll be a murderer.” He sounded desperate now. “Thou shalt not kill.”
He was right. She had to call Asher off. Without a word and with a calm she didn’t feel, she picked up her reticule and climbed out of the ditch. Curt looked to be trying to sink deeper into the ditch. Blood streamed from the ripped skin on his arm onto his head. Asher growled, waiting for her to say what next.
Carlyn took a deep breath. “If anything happens to my dog, I’ll tell why he attacked you.”
“I’ll say it was a stray dog. I give you my word. Just call him off.”
His word wasn’t worth much, but she snapped her fingers and spoke the dog’s name anyway. Asher looked up at her but didn’t move. She had to call him twice. At last he jumped up beside Carlyn, the growl still evident in his throat and his muscles taut, ready to spring.
Curt sat up and put his hand over the wound on his arm. His hat was gone and the long hair he looped over his bald spot hung down across his face. It might have been funny except for the blood. “Help me get my horse.”
“No.” Carlyn backed away from him.
What was she going to do? She had thought the Lord’s answer might be at church, and then the devil had stepped between her and that chance. She considered going on to church. She might even look more convincing in her need for help, but then again, often as not, people blamed a woman for enticing a man into an attack. And while she knew the Lord looked more on right behavior than money, she was not entirely sure Reverend Baskin felt the same. Especially when it was the difference between a widow’s mite and a landowner’s plenty.
“Wait,” Curt yelled at her. “I’m bleeding. You have to help me.”
“No.” She lifted her skirts and ran across the open field to the shelter of the trees. Asher loped alongside her.
Once out of sight of Curt, she was overcome with trembles and had to lean against a tree to stay on her feet. Asher shoved his head under her hand. Her crutch. Her help. Her answer to a desperate prayer. But then from whence would come the rest of her help? Church would be shuttered until next Sunday.
Pray anyway. Her mother’s words again were in her head.
“I don’t know what to pray,” Carlyn said aloud. Her voice sounded lonely amid the trees with no one but Asher to hear.
Then the bell began to ring. Not at Carlyn’s church. They had no church bell there. But the Shakers’ bell calling them to worship. To dance and whirl. But the sisters there had no worry about men except as brothers.
The bell rang on. Clear. Strong. One toll after another. Her answer.
5
Carlyn walked toward the sound of the bell floating through the air. Each step felt surer as the toll of the bell pulled her toward the village. She didn’t know what the Shakers might expect of her, but she’d heard they didn’t turn potential converts away. She could live the Shaker life for a while. It wouldn’t be forever. Just until Ambrose came home.
She wouldn’t think about that not happening. Not today when she needed some hope to lean on. Not today when the Lord had saved her from Curt and given her an answer. She refused to be bitter about the answers she did not have. Better to concentrate on the answer she did have and keep walking toward the Shaker village.<
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Even after she came out of the trees, she didn’t look back toward the road. Curt must have spotted her. She heard him yelling, but the sound was little more than the irritating whirr of a grasshopper in her ears. All she wanted to hear was the bell, the Lord speaking to her.
Then, the bell quit ringing. The silence assaulted her ears and she stopped walking. Lost. Unsure which way to make her next step without the bell guiding her. Other sounds returned. Asher panting. Horses on the road. A crow cawing a warning. Of what Carlyn had no idea, but her heart pounded in her chest anyway.
She was suddenly aware of how she must look. Disheveled. Her bonnet gone, lost in the struggle in the ditch. Her hair no longer in a tidy bun but loose and flying in her eyes. Her dress streaked with dirt, grass stains, and worse. Dark smears where Asher had rubbed against her. She touched the damp spots on the dog’s fur and stared at her hand. Curt Whitlow’s blood.
The sight made her stomach lurch. She rubbed off the blood on a thick patch of grass. She had to get rid of it. Not only from her hand but from Asher as well. She couldn’t show up at the Shaker village marked with blood. That was no way to step into a new world. An unknown world.
So even when the faint sound of singing replaced the toll of the bell, she did not move toward it. Instead she lifted her skirts and took off for home as though the devil himself was after her. Asher ran alongside, not bothered in the least by the blood on his fur. He couldn’t know what that might make happen, for there was one thing Carlyn did know. She couldn’t trust Curt Whitlow to keep his word.
Briefly, she thought of the sheriff with the compassionate eyes. She could go to him. Tell her story first. He might believe her. But then what? While Curt had attacked her, she had escaped without visible harm. Curt was the one in need of a doctor. It would be her word against his. A woman many in the community considered a bit unhinged against a man who owned half the county. Whether the sheriff believed her or not might not matter.
It would be better to rid her and Asher of evidence of the encounter. To pretend it had never happened. To hope that Curt would do the same. That his pride would make him say he’d been attacked by a stray dog. That might be too much to hope for, but Asher appearing out of nowhere to help her escape Curt’s clutches had been more than she could hope for as well. An answer to prayer. And then the Shaker bell sounding. Dare she ask for more? Especially when she was running in the opposite direction of that answer.
Her mother’s words were in her head again. Pray anyway. The Lord’s power is not made smaller by our limited faith. Trust the way the disciples in the Bible trusted.
They had been having Bible study around the table during one of those times when her father had been gone for too many weeks and their cupboard was almost bare. At twelve, Carlyn no longer accepted whatever her mother said without question. She heard the church pray for this or that sick member and then watched them bury the very same person the next week. She’d read Job. She knew John the Baptist was beheaded. Stephen stoned.
“But didn’t they all die martyrs’ deaths?” She had stared across the table at her mother with some defiance. Sure of the answer, but at the same time wanting it to be different.
Her little brothers and sister had stared at her, dumbfounded, knowing even at their young age that it was bad enough to question their mother but even worse to doubt the Scripture. Carlyn didn’t care. She was tired of praying and pretending to be thankful for mush for supper.
Her mother surprised them all by not reprimanding Carlyn. Instead she reached across the table to place her work-roughened hand over Carlyn’s. “There are many ways to die, my daughter. The one way you do not want to die is without the Lord. The faith of those saints carried them through fearsome times to glory. That is what you must remember. We look upon death with worldly eyes, but our lives are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting.”
Carlyn had bowed her head in submission to her mother, but the Bible words had not sunk into her heart.
Her mother sighed softly and squeezed her hand. “You will understand more when you are older, my daughter. Meanwhile search out the stories of faith in your Bible and let go of your doubts.”
Carlyn had muttered something. She didn’t remember now what, and her mother had put a finger under her chin and raised her face up to look into her eyes. “Whatever else, even on the days you find it hard to believe, pray anyway. It will make you stronger and the Lord will hear and bless you.”
Was any of that true or simply what her mother wanted to be true? That night and on many other nights, they still only had corn mush for supper. But they had not starved. She had met Ambrose and felt blessed in ways she couldn’t imagine. At least until the war had torn them apart. Perhaps Ambrose had not come home because she didn’t have the proper faith.
Yet she had been rescued this day by a dog that had somehow escaped a locked house to follow her and show up when she most needed him.
At the house, Asher’s escape was easy to see. The kitchen window was open. She had not expected him to jump through that, but she was thankful he had. Thankful and worried at the same time.
It took the last of the water in the rain barrel to wash her dress and Asher. But what did that matter? Someone once told her the Shakers had running water and machines for washing clothes. She couldn’t imagine such a machine and had wondered at the time if that could be true. Now, she supposed she’d find out.
She hung the dress in the kitchen by the open window. No need upsetting her neighbors by draping it on the line outside. A person shouldn’t do laundry on Sunday. Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.
There were things a person could do on the Sabbath. Tending a fire and cooking. Milking the cows and gathering in the eggs. Feeding the animals. Rescuing one’s ox from the ditch.
Carlyn shivered. She didn’t want to think about the ditch. Instead she lifted her gun off the nails above the door. She would not be caught unprepared again.
With the gun propped against the bed, she packed a few clothes in the same old carpet bag she’d carried away from her mother’s house five years earlier. Best to take only what she needed most and then come back for the rest. She’d heard the Shakers took whatever possessions a person had when one joined their society. Land, buildings, tools, household plunder. Everything went into the society to be used by all.
The brother of a man in their church had joined with the Shakers some years before, and Carlyn remembered the man’s anger and sorrow at seeing part of the family farm absorbed into the Shaker holdings. The father had gone with the men to the Shaker village to talk to his brother, but to no avail. The brother had not come away with them. Instead he had tried to get them to accept the Shaker way.
“I could not bear his blasphemous words. As if he thought he knew more about the Lord’s salvation than the Scriptures have revealed to me,” her father had railed when he got back from the Shaker village. He paced up and down in the kitchen, his coattails flipping out when he made a turn. “They’re the devil’s leeches, sucking dry the weak and foolish for their own purposes.”
The weak and foolish. If the Shakers sought such as that, she would fit their need, whatever that might be. They weren’t of the devil. Her mother had assured her of that when they had crossed paths with the Shakers in town. Misguided, her mother said, but ever kind. After swearing Carlyn to secrecy, she revealed how some of the baskets of food they found on their porch from time to time weren’t from their own church people but from the Shakers.
“Your father would not accept their charity, but while he is away doing the Lord’s work, what the Lord supplies to feed you children, I will not refuse. Instead, I am thankful and pray the Lord’s blessing on them for their generosity in sharing their plenty,” her mother said.
Would they still be willing to share their plenty? Carlyn straightened up and caught sight of her face in the mirro
r across the room. Ambrose had been so proud when he brought the dresser home. He liked to watch her brush her hair in front of the mirror and often would wrap his arms around her to delay her pinning it up in the mornings. With his chin resting lightly on top her head, she would lean against him, wrapped in his love. Would she ever feel that safe again?
The wavy mirror bent her reflection out of shape, but that seemed only right with the unknown future she faced on the morrow. She touched her hair and thought of the caps the Shaker women wore. Her hair would be tucked away all the time, hidden from the world. But then so would she, and after what happened today, she wanted to be hidden. Safely tucked away from danger. From Curt Whitlow. From starvation.
“Oh Ambrose, why didn’t you come home?” Carlyn spoke aloud to the mirror, not paying any mind to Asher when he raised his head up off his paws to look at her. “We were going to have children, grow old together. And now if you don’t come home to rescue me, I’ll grow old alone.”
Hardly alone. She’d be surrounded by people. Shakers, to be sure, but they were only people who had decided to walk a different path than most in the world. It would be like being a child again, sharing space with sisters and brothers. That would not be so bad. Like her mother, she would not look askance on the help the Lord sent her.
She wondered why her mother had been so much on her mind. Perhaps it was the Lord’s doing, his way of helping Carlyn be brave enough to face the future with faith. Her mother’s faith had never wavered even at those times when her path was obscured with difficulties.
Carlyn looked at the mirror again and wondered if her mother and father had shared love the way she and Ambrose had. They must have. Five children testified to their union as man and wife. Carlyn touched her flat stomach. Another regret. If Ambrose had given her a baby, the child would be at least three now. She imagined a little boy the image of Ambrose with laughter in his eyes, clinging to her skirts.
Her arms ached with emptiness at the thought. But it was just as well the child was no more than a yearning of her heart. The Shakers had a special house for the children who came into their society. Apart from their mothers. Carlyn couldn’t have borne that, and hadn’t her mother always assured her the Lord wouldn’t test her beyond her endurance?
The Innocent Page 4
