The Long Way Home

by Lauraine Snelling

  The man in blue pants and shirt, no jacket, led her into a small room. ‘‘Wait here.’’ He left a lamp on the table and exited the room.

  Louisa shivered in the dampness of both clothes and room. No one would ever know if she disappeared now. Like two pieces of flotsam on a river, she and Zachary could be swept out to sea and never heard from again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY - SEVEN

  Washington

  Praying and shivering, Louisa waited out the hours. Every time footfalls sounded outside the door, she sat up straighter, only to slump again as they passed on by. Her head ached, her stomach grumbled. She dug out the bread and cheese to nibble on, but her stomach rebelled, roiling and threatening to erupt.

  Thirsty. Lord, how can I be so thirsty? She felt as though she’d been trapped in the room for days rather than hours when the door finally opened.

  ‘‘Come with me.’’

  She followed the stiff back up the stairs and into the general’s office.

  ‘‘You have something for me?’’ The general held out his hand.

  She laid the paper in it and fought off the shivers, of fear or freezing, she knew not which.

  ‘‘I see.’’ The look he sent her over the edge of the letter made her take a step back. Malevolent. She’d never understood that word before, but now she even felt it. When she looked again, his face had assumed a look devoid of any emotion.

  His words came softly. ‘‘You had better pray that I never see either one of you again.’’ He rang a handbell on the side of his desk. An aide entered.

  ‘‘Release Highwood and show both him and his sister out.’’

  ‘‘Thank you.’’

  The general did not respond.

  Louisa nodded, turned, and followed the aide to the hall and back to the room she’d memorized before.

  Within a few minutes she heard Zachary’s crutch-and-thump gait. She met him in the hall, faced his icy stare, and in moments the two of them stood outside the gate, the door thundering shut behind them.

  How could Zachary walk as far as her hotel? Why didn’t he say something?

  ‘‘This way.’’ She pointed up the street. ‘‘Perhaps we can find a buggy.’’

  He stumped beside her, his false foot swinging in the peculiar gait he had developed.

  ‘‘I have a hotel room. In the morning you can get a bath before we leave for home.’’

  Still no answer. She tried to see his face in the lamplight as they passed another lamppost. The light threw shadows that made her shiver.

  She paced her steps to his. Did he not care to know what had happened?

  The rain picked up again, but at least now they were free. The drops fell like a warm, cleansing shower.

  At one corner, Zachary stopped and raised his face to the downpour. The streetlight showed his good eye closed. He took a deep breath, and they started off again.

  Louisa could endure his silence no longer. ‘‘Zachary, dear brother, what is it? Why are you not rejoicing to be freed from that . . . that’’—she shuddered—‘‘that terrible place?’’

  He stopped with a turn. ‘‘Would that you had let me die there.’’ He swung his crutch and clumped onward.

  Would she ever forget the look in his eye? The gargoyle sneer on his dear face? The scar from eyebrow to chin glittered like a lightning strike in the lamplight.

  Sometime later, when Louisa felt sure Zachary could go no further, as his steps had grown slower and slower, she touched his arm and pointed at the hotel where she’d been staying. ‘‘In here.’’

  Without even a nod, he staggered up the steps. She sprang ahead of him to open the door, receiving only a glare for her efforts. Instead of following her to the stairs, he arrowed for the desk.

  ‘‘Send up a bottle of Kentucky bourbon, and make sure you don’t water it down.’’ Zachary stared at the desk clerk as if daring him to argue.

  ‘‘But . . . but we have no . . .’’ The young man with mutton-chop whiskers gestured to the single room furnished with the desk, one chair under a gaslit lamp, and a brass spittoon badly in need of a polishing.

  Zachary leaned forward. ‘‘Am I to understand you don’t know how to buy a bottle?’’

  ‘‘N-no, sir, that’s not it.’’ The man took a step backwards. ‘‘But I . . . I cannot leave my post, sir.’’

  Louisa thought to stick up for the clerk, even so far as to take a step forward, but she restrained herself. If her brother chose to act like an overbearing boor, so be it. She turned instead and started up the stairs. Lord, what has gotten into him? At the scowl on his face, even she had not wanted to cross him, let alone a poor desk clerk who was only doing his job.

  The sound of a fist slamming on wood made her look back over her shoulder.

  The clerk scurried out from behind the desk and headed out the door they’d entered. Louisa knew he would be back within minutes, for there was a saloon only two doors down.

  Zachary crossed the room and started up the stairs, left hand on the railing pulling himself up, while his right arm clutched the crutch to his side. He hopped to each step on his good leg.

  ‘‘Shame you couldn’t get a room on the first floor.’’

  Louisa ignored his comment and made her way down the hall to the room she’d stayed in for the last few nights. The single bed would not do for the two of them, certainly, but she’d ask for another quilt and make up a pallet on the floor. Every time the question arose in her mind as to how they would get home, she shoved it aside. Let Zachary worry about that, she commanded herself. He’s the one spending money like the bag will never run empty. God took care of the widow with the oil, but I think liquor doesn’t count. She felt like slamming the door and locking it before he could get there, but with the mood he was in, he’d pound on every door in the building.

  The bottle arrived shortly after he did.

  ‘‘Pay him!’’ His order cut through her tender skin.

  Without a word, Louisa removed the leather pouch from her reticule. ‘‘How much is it?’’ She gasped at the price.

  Zachary thumped his cane on the floor. ‘‘You suffering mess of a man. What kind of fool do you take me for? You doubled the price. Now, how much did you really pay?’’

  Louisa stood with her eyes closed. How can I bear even being in the same room with him?

  ‘‘A-a dollar, ma’am. I’m sorry, but the boss says that other is what to charge.’’

  ‘‘I understand.’’ Louisa gave him the dollar bill. ‘‘However, this is the best I can do.’’

  ‘‘Don’t just stand there, bring it here.’’ Again the crutch thumped.

  The clerk thrust the bottle at Zachary and scuttled from the room.

  Louisa shut the door behind him. I will not open the bottle for him. She leaned her forehead against the door, listening to him curse the cork, the clerk, and life in general.

  The pop of the cork and the glugging of the liquid told her he’d succeeded without her help.

  Moving to the window, she studied the street below, the pools of yellow light from the gas lamps glittering the rain. How will we get home? Without other distractions, the question took over. The few remaining coins wouldn’t buy two good meals, let alone two train tickets or rental for a horse and buggy. Lord, you have said you will provide, that you will take care of our needs.

  The bottle glugged again. She clenched her teeth at the sound. Sure, the booze would give Zachary momentary solace, but it wouldn’t do anything for their situation. He needed a clear mind to figure what they should do next. Her stomach rumbled. Thank God for President Lincoln. Without his concern, she’d have fainted from lack of food. Taking the napkin-wrapped bread and cheese out of the reticule hanging from her wrist, she nibbled it while keeping her concentration on the street below. Anything rather than turning to face her brother. Time dragged at her like her wet skirt. The bread gone, she leaned her forehead against the cool windowpane.

  ‘‘Louisa?’’ His words had already starte
d to slur.

  ‘‘Yes.’’

  ‘‘How much money is left?’’

  At least he was still thinking.

  ‘‘A couple of dollars in coins.’’

  ‘‘They give it all to you?’’ He coughed, spluttered, and took another swallow.

  ‘‘How should I know? You were very careful to keep from telling me anything. I was grateful to get any money back. Thanks to that pouch, I’ve at least had a roof over my head for the last few days.’’

  ‘‘You could have gone to dear cousin Arlington.’’

  ‘‘I could have. And if I were starving, I might have.’’ She ground her teeth again, fighting the eruption pushing at her control. ‘‘I had the audacity to think it important to do all I could to keep you alive.’’

  He lifted the half-empty bottle, drank, and lowered it to stare at her across the chasm yawning between them. ‘‘I’d be better off dead.’’

  ‘‘Yes, you informed me of that already. Pray, come up with something new.’’ She clamped her arms across her chest to hold in the shivering.

  ‘‘You think I want to live like this?’’ He gestured to his leg, then raised his stump and turned his head to show his patch.

  ‘‘Others do. You can be a man about it.’’

  ‘‘What do you know?’’ His voice cracked. ‘‘Everything I do takes ten times as long. I can hardly dress by myself. I can no longer ride a horse—how will I manage Twin Oaks when the day comes we can return? I slave in that office on the grace of my brother-in-law, Steadly—what a misbegotten name.’’

  ‘‘Other men would be grateful to have a place to work.’’

  ‘‘But I’m not other men! I’m not even a man anymore. I’m a caricature! I thought I could at least be a courier, but I couldn’t even do that.’’ He stared at her out of his reddening eye. ‘‘What did you have to promise to keep me from the firin’ squad?’’

  ‘‘That we would not make another trip like this.’’

  ‘‘How could you do that?’’ He leaned on his crutch. ‘‘How could you take away the one thing I can contribute to the cause?’’ He lifted the bottle to his mouth again.

  Louisa knew she should just keep her mouth shut. He wouldn’t remember what he’d said in the morning anyway. ‘‘Haven’t you had enough?’’

  He held up the bottle, shook it, and took another swig. ‘‘There’s still some left.’’ He wiped his mouth with the sleeve that covered the stump of his arm. ‘‘Worthless, that’s what I am.’’

  Louisa watched him, anger warring with pity. Might as well ask the question, or rather one of the questions that had been bothering her. ‘‘Zachary, did you pay the taxes on Twin Oaks?’’

  He looked up at her from under his eyebrows. ‘‘With what?’’

  Louisa closed her eyes. Lord, please, don’t . . .

  ‘‘Rest easy, dear sister. Steadly took care of the matter. One more thing we owe to dear Jefferson.’’

  His words slurred even more, coming in bursts punctuated with silences. The scar gleamed against the deepening red of his face. Jaw slack, head back, drool slipping out the side of a mouth no longer flattened with rage.

  ‘‘Twin Oaks, all for you . . .’’ Silence and a snore.

  Louisa brushed at the tears she’d not realized were trickling down her cheeks. Zachary had been the best looking of the two brothers, the laughing, dashing brother who charmed the acorns off the trees and cookies from Lucinda. The brother who fetched kittens from trees and bonbons from the confectionary, who assisted his mother in teaching the slaves to read and write, who first promised Louisa she would be beautiful when she felt ugly with the chicken pox. While their mother insisted she had no favorites among her children, Zachary was the one who wrote her letters from college and made her smile.

  Ah, Mother, I hope you cannot see him now. It would break your heart as it has mine. So what to do, leave him in the chair or try to get him to bed? She eyed the distance she would all but have to carry him.

  She knelt beside him and took the bottle from his lap, easing it out from under fingers that clutched the bottle’s neck like a life preserver.

  ‘‘Zachary, dear brother, let’s get you to bed.’’

  ‘‘No, no. Leave me—no more.’’ He cringed back as though she’d struck him. ‘‘I . . . I don’t know. Can’t you . . . understand? I don’t know.’’

  She could barely hear his words. She studied the back of his hand, realizing that what she thought to be dirt was instead a festering sore. She pushed his sleeve up to reveal more sores crusted with dried blood.

  Had they beaten him? She pulled up the pant leg on his good leg only to find the same. ‘‘Those . . . those vermin from hell.’’ The other words that marched through her mind were beyond even thinking. She didn’t mean the four-footed kind, although they must have done their share.

  She smoothed back the hair that fell over his forehead. A snore flapped his lips, and the smell of both unwashed flesh and booze-burdened breath made her gag, swallow hard, and nearly gag again.

  ‘‘Zachary.’’ She shook his shoulder, then dodged back as he flailed a hand in her direction. ‘‘All right, sleep in the chair.’’ Surely he would rest better there than he’d done at the prison.

  Dear Lord, make this night like a lanced boil. Let the pus flow out and the healing begin. She unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt and left him to sleep off the alcohol. Worn beyond endurance herself, Louisa crawled into bed and fell asleep halfway through ‘‘Our Father, who . . .’’

  When she woke, Zachary was gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY - EIGHT

  Returning From the Harvest

  Jesselynn, Meshach, and the boys cut hay for ten days. By the time the last cutting was dry and loaded, they were exhausted and more than ready to head home.

  Jesselynn glanced up at the thunderclouds looming over the western foothills. ‘‘The rain held off right well, wouldn’t you say?’’

  Meshach leaned on his three-pronged pitchfork. After Jes-selynn finally convinced him he could sell them at the fort, he and his students had quickly carved four of them and were working on others. Finding the perfectly pronged branches was half the battle, but Aaron and Lester were getting adept at spotting them.

  ‘‘Dis load done be topped as much as I can. Rain run right off it. We should have brought de canvas.’’

  Jesselynn studied the hay load. Both it and the two piles they’d stacked to come back for later looked like golden bread loaves with combed hair, all the strands lying curved toward the sides so the water would run off. She’d seen pictures of thatchroofed cottages in England that looked much like these. And England was a wet country, so the thatching must work.

  ‘‘Looks mighty fine to me. We could cover some miles before dark.’’

  Meshach slid to the ground and forked back up the hay that slid off with him. He stuck his fork in behind the wagon front where they’d built a vertical frame like the wide flat one they’d built for the bed. The oxen looked dwarfed in comparison to the load.

  Clouds scudded overhead as the westerly wind picked up. The oxen leaned into their yokes, and with a creak the wagon started forward. Jesselynn and Meshach walked beside. The boys were scouting good rake trees and fishing for supper. Jes-selynn took out the mitten she was knitting and, other than watching for holes, continued to knit one row and purl the next. Mittens were easier to do while walking than gloves.

  While the sky looked ominous, the rain held off but for a spatter or two. They covered about five miles before dark and set up camp within minutes. While Jesselynn hobbled the oxen and started the fire, Meshach tossed out a grasshopper on the hook where the river eddied and whispered in the deep dusk. Fireflies dipped and twinkled, and bats swooped for their evening meals.

  Jesselynn dug out of her pocket the rose hips she’d picked as they passed a patch of pink roses. Using her knife handle and a flat rock, she pounded them into bitty pieces. She mixed them with the last of their cornmeal
and water, then patted the mixture into flat cakes and laid them in the pan to bake. When the water boiled in the deep pot, she poured in the grains she’d pulled off marsh grasses. Wolf had shown her which ones tasted the best. After they cooked, she would add the greens she’d picked as they walked—dandelion, pigweed, and watercress from the river.

  Her heart said Wolf had been gone forever. Father God, please take good care of him. I know getting horses and meeting with his people are important to him, but his coming back is more important to me. I don’t want to be a pest, but can you help him hurry? We have a mighty lot to do before winter. As the wind tugged at her shirt she shivered and laid a couple more sticks on the fire.

  A stick cracked, and Meshach stepped into the ring of light with enough fish for supper and breakfast hanging from a forked stick.

  ‘‘Dis land got food enough for de grabbin’. Never seed such good fishin’.’’

  Jesselynn stirred her gently boiling pot and set the cover back in place. ‘‘Wolf says the Indians use far more that the land offers than the whites do. All we have to do is learn what’s good and what isn’t. I think I saw a plum tree on the way down. Might be ripe enough to pick on our way home. He said something about chokecherries, but I don’t know what the tree looks like.’’ As she talked, she pulled back the frying pan and slid the cakes out onto the tin plates.

  Meshach scaled the fish he’d already gutted at the river and, along with the last of their grease, laid them in the frying pan. The smell of frying fish rose with the smoke, the sound of sizzling pleasing as well.

  ‘‘Seems strange, doesn’t it, to be out here all this time, and to have no one else come by? Like we’re the only ones on the earth.’’ Jesselynn poked another stick into the coals so the kettle would continue to simmer. Watching the flames held the usual fascination.

  ‘‘De Good Book say who be man dat God be mindful of him.’’

  ‘‘I know. And under skies as big as these, I feel pretty small.’’