by Susan Page Davis, Darlene Franklin, Pamela Griffin, Lisa Harris
“You must write to Simon tonight and tell him we have a boy,” Lucy said.
“I shall.”
The baby stirred and let out a little wail.
“What do I do?” Jack asked in dismay.
“Give him to his mama.” Alice laughed. “Now, pardon me, and I’ll go help Sarah fix dinner and do a bit of laundry. We’ll bring you something to eat in a few minutes.”
She left the room, and Jack passed the baby to Lucy, feeling clumsy in his new role.
“When I married you, I never thought I’d live to see this day,” he said.
“Nor I,” she admitted. She cuddled the baby close. “Most women would say their wedding day was the happiest day of their life, but that’s not so with me.”
“Nay, that was quite a grim day,” he agreed. “Today is much happier.”
She smiled at him over the baby’s head. “Aye. Today is wonderful. But still, I think the very best day …”
Jack raised his eyebrows. “Go on.”
She squeezed his hand. “The best day of my life was the day your name was cleared, Jack Hunter, and you stopped courting me.”
LOVE’S RAID
by Darlene Franklin
Dedication
To my newest grandchild and only grandson, Isaiah Jaran.
May you live up to your name, to proclaim the truth that the Lord is salvation.
Chapter 1
Maple Notch, Vermont
Wednesday, October 19, 1864
The grocer’s wagon flew past Clara Farley as she walked down the road, the wheels spewing dirt and rocks that coated the skirt of the dress she had chosen for this special occasion.
The dust settled on Clara’s glasses, and she dug blindly through her reticule, looking for the handkerchief she had tucked away earlier that morning. She rubbed the lenses while listening for approaching travelers. The road between Maple Notch and St. Albans carried a fair amount of traffic, but young Dixon had ridden as if the entire Confederate Cavalry chased him. Clara didn’t intend to allow the next passerby to mow her down.
A glance back at the house she shared with her brother reminded Clara she had reached the midpoint to her destination. Either return home for a change of skirt and arrive late, or arrive on time with a dusty habit. She lifted her chin. She had never been late in her life, and she wouldn’t start today—not with so much depending on the meeting at the bank. Picking up her skirts, she turned her face to the center of town.
By the time she reached the common ten minutes later, every man in the town center had gathered around the grocer’s wagon. Among the mix stood one of the men she was supposed to meet at the bank in five minutes, the town constable, Daniel Tuttle. His brother Simeon, the banker, might be there as well, but Daniel stood head and shoulder taller than anyone else in town. She frowned. Had he forgotten their appointment?
Daniel looked straight at her and smiled, if that pained grimace could be called a smile, and touched the brim of his hat. So he hadn’t forgotten their meeting, after all. She relaxed and waited to hear what news had the men so agitated.
Daniel’s voice rose above the clamor. “If you’ll all be quiet, Mr. Dixon will explain what happened this morning.” He didn’t speak louder. He didn’t need to. He exuded the kind of confidence and control every successful schoolteacher mastered. If she could do half as well with her prospective students, she’d consider herself well ahead.
The men in the circle quieted down, and Dixon climbed back on the wagon.
“I had gone to St. Albans to make my usual deliveries like I do every Wednesday.” Dixon allowed himself a self-satisfied smile at the mention of his marketing of Widow Lawson’s fine, sharp cheese.
“T’weren’t cheese that sent you back here quicker ‘n a jackrabbit,” Brent Frisk joked.
“‘Sides, it looks like you still have the rounds of cheese there in the back of your wagon.” He bent over and lifted one out of the bed as if to prove the truth of his statement. “So explain yourself.”
Dixon’s face blanched, and he looked at his feet. Clara inched forward, as eager as the gathered men to hear the news. Then his usual bonhomie reasserted itself, and he said in his best orator’s voice, “Them Confederates have taken charge of St. Albans and robbed all their banks!”
Gasps echoed around the circle, obscuring anything else Dixon said.
“Them Rebs! All the way up here in Vermont?”
The question froze Clara to the core. Had the war, subject of many heated debates at Middlebury Female Seminary, arrived on her doorstep? It wasn’t possible. She had spent hours tearing bandages, had read the accounts of Dorothea Dix and Clara Barton nursing on the battlefield, listened to her roommate Savannah’s pining for her southern beau, mourned with pretty Miss Trudeau’s grief when her fiancé had died at Gettysburg. But never, ever, had the war invaded Vermont until today. St. Albans was only a short ride away. She put her hand to her throat, checking that the top button was secure.
The men looked like they were ready to go to their homes, grab the nearest weapon, and race to St. Albans. These men, most of them unwilling or unable to go to a distant war, would fight like the old Green Mountain Boys militia when one of their own was threatened.
None of the men gathered had fought in this war and returned to tell about it—none except Daniel Tuttle, the newly appointed town constable. Her eyes sought him out. His right arm had clamped on to the stump of his left arm, as if by holding it tight he could hold in all the memories and feelings brought about by that war. His face darkened, but when he lifted his head moments later, his hazel eyes blazed. While the men continued throwing out suggestions, Daniel carried on a quiet conversation with Dixon. He nodded a couple of times before calling a halt to the hubbub around him.
“Looks like I’ll have to earn my pay sooner than you expected.” Daniel’s lips lifted in a half smile. “Dixon thinks the folks of St. Albans fought back. I’m asking for a couple of deputies to ride with me and check out the situation.”
Every man’s hand shot into the air.
“I appreciate your willingness. Frisk, Gamble, you come with me. Dixon is in charge of gathering our local militia. Someone needs to stay close in case Johnny Reb decides to head our way next.”
All around Clara, men straightened their shoulders.
“I’ll send word once we’ve ascertained what’s happened.” Daniel jumped on the back of his horse faster than most men with the use of two arms, and the three men turned in Clara’s direction. He paused in front of her. “I’m sorry to put off our business, Miss Farley.”
Clara had almost forgotten her business with the Tuttles in the excitement of the announcement of battle at her doorstep. “Another time. Godspeed, Mr. Tuttle.”
He touched the brim of his hat and kicked his horse into a gallop down the road past her farm.
Men going into battle said they conjured up an image of the woman from back home whenever they wanted to remember there was life and beauty and reason after the ugliness of war.
Daniel Tuttle didn’t have a sweetheart, but if he did, he’d bet she would have dark-auburn hair and ridiculous glasses that hid the beauty of eyes as gray as Clara Farley’s. He knew the color, because he had spent enough time staring at her when they contested each other for every spelling bee at school. The change in her when he’d come home from the war had surprised him. But then, he had changed as well.
They had crossed the bridge heading into St. Albans when Daniel pulled up his horse. So far, no sign of any traffic ahead, nothing to mar this sunny autumn day with a hint of winter’s chill in the air. “I’d better tell you what little I know. Dixon said there were two dozen of them rebels, more or less. One of them jumped on the steps of the hotel and shouted, ‘This city is now in the possession of the Confederates States of America!’ The soldiers herded everybody onto the town green. He said he was never so afraid in his life.”
“So how’d he get away?”
“Dumb Rebs. They couldn’t fi
gure out if they were fighting a war or robbing a bank. As soon as they had their loot, they skedaddled out of there. Dixon headed back to Maple Notch to let us know.”
Gamble scrunched up his face. “Do you think they’ll take us for more of them Rebs?”
“Not likely.” Daniel resisted the urge to scratch the stump, his constant reminder of the war. He grabbed his once-blue forage cap from his pocket and pulled it on his head. “We’ve all done business in St. Albans a time or two.” He draped his rifle across his saddle horn and leaned forward. “Ready?”
Frisk and Gamble nodded, and the three of them took a slower pace as they approached town. They passed the still-smoldering remains of a burned-out woodshed. Daniel tightened his grip on his emotions. He didn’t see any flames ahead, and no soot cloud darkened the sky. Perhaps this fire had no connection to the events of the day.
A group had gathered in front of one house, one that rivaled his grandparents’ home for size and importance, and he recognized the home of Governor J. Gregory Smith. The governor was supposed to be in Montpelier this week, according to the paper. If he was at home …
Daniel sped up his horse.
“Halt!” A uniformed guard stopped him before he could approach the crowd. Daniel relaxed his face, making sure they could see the badge on his chest and the color of his cap.
“That’s all right, Jones.” A man dressed in the uniform of General Custer’s cavalry strode up the path—the governor’s brother, if Daniel remembered correctly. “Captain Tuttle, sir. Has the news of our little contretemps here this morning reached Maple Notch already?”
“Our grocer came to town making a delivery when the—incident—happened.”
“Ah, yes. I remember seeing Dixon’s wagon.”
“We came to find out the true facts of the affair—and to learn if our militia could assist in hunting down the rebels.”
Smith pushed his cap back on his head. “They’ve already hightailed back over the border to Canada, and we can’t get to ‘em there.” He snorted in disgust. “They managed to make off with more than two hundred thousand dollars, and they killed a man and burnt down a woodshed, but that’s all. Not much more than a skirmish.”
Daniel doubted the folks of St. Albans would feel the same way, but after the battles the two soldiers had seen, he knew what Smith meant. “Send one of your men straightaway if they come back.”
“The same to you.” Smith turned his glare to the north, the direction where the rebels had fled. “I hope today isn’t a portent of things to come—little bee stings up here in the north to distract the battles going on down south.”
“Yes, sir.” Daniel couldn’t agree more. He had come home to escape the ravages of war, to heal, to recover his confidence, if he were honest with himself.
How could a man fight an enemy when he was missing half an arm?
After all the heated comments of the men gathered on the common, Daniel half expected to meet them racing down the road to St. Albans when he returned. But they stood in a straight line, Dixon inspecting their weapons and making notes on his grocers’ pad. Every now and then, he motioned for his assistant to bring him something lacking in the man’s kit. The group had doubled in size. Daniel spotted Clara’s brother, Lewis, among the additions.
One of the Whitson twins noticed them first. He ran to his horse, his rump in the saddle before Daniel could open his mouth. “Where’s the action?”
The gathering stilled with his shout.
Daniel waited until he reached the group on the common. “There isn’t any.”
“Are you saying they didn’t rob the banks this morning?” Whitson demanded.
“I know what I saw.” Dixon sounded tired, as if he had repeated his story countless times throughout the day.
“They escaped back to Canada, and we can’t cross the border to chase them.” Weariness washed over Daniel. This job was supposed to allow him time to recover, not demand he head back into battle. He longed to slip from his horse, eat a bite of supper, and relax, but the safety of Maple Notch came first.
What else? “They may come back and strike somewhere else next time. Be on the lookout for any strangers in town. We think the Rebs up in St. Albans came in two or three at a time. We’ll post an extra guard by the bank, and we’ll also patrol the roads leading into town.” Roads left the town common in four directions: the one he had traveled that day, which meandered north to St. Albans; the one past his family’s farm, going south to Burlington; the one heading east to Jeffersonville; and the one going west to Fairfax. He named the families and men responsible for patrolling each path.
The men scattered, talking amongst themselves. Only Frisk, Simeon, and a handful of others remained, the ones with homes and farms along the Old Bridge Road. They settled who would patrol the road that night, and the others left Simeon and Daniel alone.
“I’ll look into hiring an extra guard for security at the bank.” Simeon clutched the lapels of his coat close as the wind picked up and swirled leaves in their direction. “Although I’ve had trouble finding good men who aren’t already working.”
“I’ll come by more often.” Daniel swallowed a yawn.
Simeon peered into his brother’s eyes. “Come home with me for a bite to eat. My Molly will have plenty fixed.”
Daniel appreciated the offer and the good intentions he knew lay behind it. But he refused—not for the first time.
“Not this evening. I will come on Sunday, as usual. No, a simple dinner and a good night’s rest are all I need.” He managed a thin smile. “We can expect Miss Farley to present herself bright and early tomorrow.”
Simeon’s gaze wandered to the east side of the common, where their grandparents’ house stood. “If she has her way, you will be our guest, like it or not, before too much longer.”
Daniel shrugged. He’d seek a room in town if the house sold. How could he explain the desperate need for solitude that quieted his soul and restored his spirit, which needed healing as much as—nay, more than—his arm?
Which was why he’d just as soon Clara Farley did not get her wish to buy the Bailey Mansion.
But he didn’t say any of that to his brother. Instead, he tipped his cap and said, “See you in the morning, then.”
Thursday, October 20, 1864
At least the day’s delay had given Clara the opportunity to brush the mud splattered on her skirt. They were still in mourning. Papa’s death only a few weeks after her graduation from the seminary still shocked her. God had blessed her with the will and training to be independent and strong. She needed it.
She paused in front of the door to Lewis’s bedroom and lifted her hand to knock. No, she decided. He had been up late, patrolling the road to St. Albans, perhaps the most important route of all since it led straight through St. Albans and on into Canada. Even through the closed door, she could hear his loud snore. At least he had taken responsibility for the patrol.
Don’t be so uncharitable, she scolded herself. A good four years younger than she was, he was hardly more than a boy pushed into the position of titular head of the family far too soon. In an unusual move, Papa had made her guardian of Lewis’s portion of their inheritance until he reached his twenty-fifth birthday.
She descended the stairs and headed for the kitchen. After the delay in meeting with the Tuttle brothers yesterday, she had expected nerves to overtake her this morning, but she felt quite the opposite. Perhaps the trouble in St. Albans had put her dreams into perspective.
Or perhaps it was the memory of the solid confidence that oozed from Daniel Tuttle. He made her feel safe, and she was certain he would be fair. His brother Simeon, while a good man, was a banker and the grandson of a banker, and had about as much charm as most bankers she knew. In other words, like a caterpillar crawling across a leaf.
Wind rattled the windows, and she hoped Lewis would think to chop up some more firewood before cold weather settled in for the long haul. After she finished the dishes and set aside two m
uffins with jam on a plate for him when he awakened, she checked her appearance one last time in the hall mirror. The deprivations of war and her wire-framed glasses had done nothing to soften her pinched face. Her thick, not-quite-auburn hair was her one vanity, and she refused to feel bad about it. For this business occasion, she pulled it back in a bun and covered it with a dark-brown hairnet. She dressed simply. The craze for hoops puzzled her. What sensible woman would want her ease of movement restricted so by a contraption wider than most doors? She had bought one hooped dress for her graduation and didn’t even wear it then, due to her father’s ill health. Today she settled for a flowing skirt that would allow her to check out each and every room of the Bailey Mansion for its suitability as a girls’ school.
At least she hoped she could check out the house that day. No one expected the eldest Tuttle brother, Hiram, to take a break from his farm as the harvest season drew to a close. Daniel might well be following up on yesterday’s events. She sighed at the thought of facing Simeon alone, afraid his banker’s face would put an end to all of her hopes and dreams.
She stopped by Lewis’s room one last time on the way out. Groans issued from within, and she tapped on the door. “I’ve left you breakfast on the table.” She took his mutterings as an acknowledgment and headed out.
At least today no one raced past her as she walked into town. She did run into Jericho Jones patrolling the road. He reined in his horse when he spotted her. “Where are you headed this fine morning, Miss Farley?”
“I have business in town.”
Jericho frowned. “Can’t it wait? We’re encouraging people to stay close to home until we know those Rebels have disappeared for good.”
Clara lifted her chin. “I’m not afraid. I have business in town that won’t wait.” She relaxed her posture. She knew she appeared haughty when she stiffened up like that. “Besides, I’m sure I’m perfectly safe with you and the other fine gentlemen of Maple Notch patrolling the roads.”
