She handed the last teacup and saucer to her father and seated herself on the other side of the hearth. She was glad the Simons were here, despite her lingering fear at the thought of Jack Rumkin pursuing them. Helping John and Clara soothed her wounded heart after her failure to help Will in Pittsburgh.
“I will help you set up there and get food and firewood, John,” her father said. “You and Clara can have a little home of your own for as long as you need it.”
John’s eyes glistened with emotion; he did not say anything.
“It’s very kind of you, Samuel,” Mr. Washington said.
John recovered his composure. “Mr. Miller, you don’t know how much it means to me and my wife.”
“Call me Samuel, please.” Ann’s father stood up and walked to the hallway that led to the bedrooms. “Girls!” he called. “I need your assistance.”
A bustle of activity began. Ann and the girls gathered food and supplies in baskets for the Simons while their father and John loaded the mattress in the wagon.
Ann placed a tin of dried beef in a basket and went back to the pantry to get some jars of apples. The younger girls had already set off for the cabin with their baskets, preferring to make an adventure of it rather than ride sedately in the wagon. Ann was alone with her thoughts as she packed the jars in rags to keep them from breaking against one another.
It was always possible that Jack Rumkin would find them. She pushed away the nauseating memory of his weight on her legs, trapping her. Her hand trembled as she reached for the box of salt on the shelf.
She would have to ask her father what they would do if he came after them. A loaded shotgun leaned in the corner behind the door—only a fool would live in this untamed state without a gun at the ready. She shuddered at the idea of staining her soul even more deeply with human blood. But she would do it, if she must. Even so, nothing promised that she or her father would be close enough to the house to get the gun in time.
She would just have to pray that Jack Rumkin never learned where the Simons had gone.
The heavy coach trundled down the road at a rapid clip. Will could not shake off his conviction that he was dreaming. He wore a coat that Mrs. Crandall had given to him with the insistence that her husband did not need it. She had also sent along an extra set of clothes and a few books to pass the time on the journey. On the occasions when the coach stopped for the driver and horses to rest, Will exchanged a few words with the coachman, but for the most part he read the books. One of them was about a man named Natty Bumpo. Will lost himself for hours in Cooper’s dramatic tale of pioneers, settlers, and Indians.
Reading kept his mind occupied more fruitfully than contemplating the future. He did not know what else to do except to look for Mr. Miller. His only useful skills were in saddlery. But any saddler other than Mr. Miller would guess immediately that this wandering young man with nothing but his stitching skills to recommend him was a runaway apprentice. And most saddlers who needed apprentices already had them. He would have to rely on Mr. Miller’s compassion for employment.
The daylight faded and his eyes grew tired. When the coach stopped and the driver came around to tell him they were in Rushville, his sense of unreality intensified. He disembarked from the coach, taking the knapsack that held the extra clothing.
“Mrs. Crandall told me you have friends here,” the young ruddy-faced coachman said. “Where are they?”
“They live a little way out from town, off the main road,” Will said. Mr. Miller had told him so while they worked together in Pittsburgh.
“Ah,” the coachman said. “I’d take you, but the coach barely made it over this last road. A little more mud and we wouldn’t make it back.” The coachman extended his hand. “Good luck to you,” he said.
Will shook it. “Thank you. And please give Mrs. Crandall my thanks, again.”
“I will.” The coachman climbed back to the driver’s seat and turned the horses around.
As the coach rattled away, Will looked around him on Rushville’s main street, such as it was. The whitewashed store in front of him displayed a sign that proclaimed it to be Sumner’s General. It was growing late, but perhaps the storekeeper would give him directions. The sign on the door still read Open.
He walked in. A woman sat on a stool behind the counter, jotting something in a ledger. She looked up at the tinkle of the bell.
“Good evening! We are just about to close up. May I get you something?” She had a freckled face and a broad smile.
“Yes, ma’am. I mean, no, ma’am.”
She chuckled. “Make up your mind now.”
“I just need to know the way to Samuel Miller’s farm.”
“Are you a friend of the Millers?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He felt it would be polite to explain more, but he didn’t dare.
She gestured at the street outside. “Take this road past the town center. After about a mile or so through the trees, you’ll see a big oak on the left that’s been split in two by lightning. You can’t miss it. It’s huge.” She made a circle with her arms. “Each trunk is this big, and it’s split almost all the way to the ground.”
Will nodded.
“Look to your right there and you’ll see a smaller road through the trees—little more than a set of wagon tracks. You’ll go down that road about another mile, and you’ll see the Miller farm. You can’t miss it; it’s the first farm, and there aren’t any others close by.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“You’re welcome. But you’ll need to hurry if you want any light to walk by.”
He nodded again, but as he walked out the door he hid a wry smile. She did not know how accustomed he had grown to walking without light.
He moved up the road as rapidly as his blistered feet would tolerate; they still stung inside the sturdy boots Mrs. Crandall had given him. An oak was a landmark easy to miss, among all these other trees, especially in darkness. And the light was fading.
By the time he reached the split oak, it was almost dark, with just a trace of gloaming left to outline the tree trunks ahead of him. He followed the little road as she had instructed, as the stars came out overhead through the treetops.
After just a few minutes, he saw the farmhouse. It nestled between two hillocks, the glow of a fire faint through its front windows.
His chest clenched tight as he walked through the yard and headed for the front door. He could not believe he had made it this far. And if Mr. Miller would not take him, he did not know what else he could do. He reassured himself by recalling the sympathy in Mr. Miller’s eyes when he spoke of the one who came to save people from darkness.
He took a deep breath and knocked.
Twenty-Five
A KNOCK CAME AT THE FRONT DOOR. ANN WAS DEEP in the pages of a novel by Mrs. Radcliffe. Her father would answer; he was out there reading to her sisters in the sitting room. The visitor was probably John Simon, who had been back to the house once already to collect a few small items after settling Clara in the little cabin.
The bar on the front door clunked, and a murmur of male voices seeped over the threshold of her bedroom. She hoped her father would not call for her help. Her candlelight time alone with her books was precious. Her reading gave her food for thought for the next day, keeping her mind alive through hours of repetitious chores.
“Ann.” Her father raised his voice from its previous low rumbling so it carried clearly to her.
She sighed. Perhaps her father’s request would be quick and she could return to her novel in just a minute or two. She marked her place in the book with one finger and clutched it to her bosom with one hand. With the other hand, she cleared her skirt from its tangles around her feet, then rose from her chair and brushed through her bedroom doorway.
There was enough light from the fire in the kitchen hearth to guide her through the hallway. The shifting glow grew brighter as she emerged into the sitting room. Across the room, a lamp on the side table cast its whiter light d
own on the faces of Susan and Mabel where they sat at the foot of her father’s empty armchair. The girls sat in total silence. Curious, this absence of chatter. They did not even glance at her. Instead, their attention was riveted on their father. He stood with another man, silhouetted against the flames that leapt behind the open hearth.
The visitor’s back was to Ann. It was not John Simon, but a young man with dark hair, about her father’s height. His blue shirt lay close over his shoulders, which were sharpened down to nothing but bone.
“We have an unexpected pleasure,” her father said to her. The young man turned around.
Will Hanby.
He was different somehow. Neater. More civilized. His dark hair had been trimmed from its former wild tangle—now it waved thick but obedient above his brow and tapered to neat sideburns behind his cheekbones.
She was gripping her book so tightly that she must look like a scared rabbit. She scrutinized the spine of the book as if she had never seen it before, then laid it on the side table with the greatest care. She hoped that her eyes were not as wide and astonished as those of her sisters. It was not polite to remain silent for so long, but her social graces had hopped off down the rabbit trails and showed no signs of returning to her.
When she looked again at Will, his face was in shadow, unreadable. But he stepped toward her, and the lamplight rose up and caught his clear brown eyes.
He nodded and said, “Miss Miller,” as any townsman would, but his eyes could not conceal the same wild aloneness she remembered from before.
Only half civilized, then, despite appearances.
How should she address him? Mr. Hanby? No. She could not bring herself to speak to him as she would speak to Allan or another gentleman. It did not fit with the memory of his degradation and the strange intimacy of sponging the blood from his forehead as he lay on the barn floor.
“Good evening,” she finally said. She was aware of the cold sound of it but blindly obeyed her protective instinct to raise a social barrier against his physical presence in her home.
His eyelids came down like shutters, his expression instantly aloof.
She did not know if she regretted that or not—she did not want to offend him, but the veiling of his gaze restored to her some sense of privacy.
“Pardon my daughter’s discomposure, Will,” her father said from behind him. “I’m sure you understand that your arrival comes as a shock.”
“Yes, sir.” As Will pivoted back toward her father, she realized a major improvement: Will no longer smelled of the pigsty. He had bathed.
Her father extended his hand to Will. “I agree to take you on as an apprentice.”
Will grabbed her father’s hand and shook it, his drawn face softening with relief.
Her father released his grip and put a hand on the young man’s arm. “I cannot in good conscience turn you away, knowing the master you fled. We will just have to chance it, and pray that your master does not think to look for you here.”
Ann could not believe her ears. Her mouth had fallen open like a fish out of water; she shut it with a snap.
“As long as you are aware, Will,” her father added, “that there is not enough work in my saddlery to employ you fully. Are you willing to perform tasks around the farm as well?”
“I am familiar with the work, sir.” Will smiled slightly. “And I have no objection to it, if I may work for a good master.”
This was an unforeseen benefit. Help around the farm. She looked at Will’s rangy frame with new appreciation. Skinny or not, he was a man, taller and probably stronger than she, even in his malnourished state. Her mountain of daily tasks might shrink to a more manageable size.
“Is he going to stay in our house?” Mabel said.
Heat flooded Ann’s face. She swiveled to see Mabel jump to her feet as Susan tried without success to yank her back down by her skirt.
Her father’s eyebrows rose, and he stared at the beams of the ceiling for a long moment.
“I had not thought of that. We cannot have you stay in the house, Will,” he said. “Not with three girls here.”
Ann occupied herself in retying Susan’s hair ribbon. She did not want to know if Will’s face was as scarlet as her own must be.
Her father cleared his throat. “But neither do I wish to consign you to another barn, without a real fire to warm you. The nights are still cold.”
“I would manage, sir.”
“No, I have another solution. We have guests who arrived earlier today who are staying in a cabin not far from here. The Simons, whom you met in Pittsburgh.”
Will looked blank, then his eyes focused. “John and Clara?” he asked with a note of wonder.
“Indeed. I’m sure that given the circumstances, they would be amenable to your lodging with them. You would sleep in a blanket on the floor, but at least it would be warm next to the hearth.”
“Yes, sir. That would be fine.”
“And when they are ready to leave in a week or two, you may stay in the cabin by yourself.”
“I’m grateful to you, sir.”
“Then let me escort you out to the cabin before it grows even later. Ann, will you fetch a quilt?”
She retreated to the cedar chest and pulled their old red-and-white quilt from the pile of linens. It was faded, but clean. She skirted Will on the way back and handed the folded bundle to her father. With a quizzical glance at her, he passed it to Will and unhooked a lantern from the peg by the front door. He lit it and closed its glass hood.
“Shall we go?” he asked, taking his hat from the peg. “I’ll be back shortly,” he said to Ann before walking out.
Will followed, casting a last glance at her over his shoulder.
Even when the door shut behind him, she stayed rooted to the floor.
“The pig man!” Mabel said. “Why is he here?”
Ann wheeled on her and said more sharply than she intended, “That is ill-mannered!” She still did not know how to address him herself, but she had better instruct her sisters lest they adopt another teasing nickname. “You may call him Will,” she said. Susan and Mabel were too young to worry about the propriety of using a man’s given name.
Unabashed, Mabel flopped down on the braided rug next to Susan. “How long is he going to stay?” she asked Ann.
“I don’t know.”
“Will he do our chores?” Susan asked. “Father said he would have to help.”
“No,” Ann said. “He will do my chores.” She laughed at the outraged scrunching of Mabel’s pert nose.
While the girls wrangled about what Will would or would not do around the farm, Ann barred the door and came back to seat herself on her father’s chair.
“Now, what was Father reading to you?” She picked up the Bible from the side table beneath the lamp and opened to the red ribbon that lay in the fold.
Will trailed Mr. Miller along the border of the field, which bristled with fine stubble from last year’s crop.
“Ready to plow,” Mr. Miller said, pointing to the hardened furrow.
Will knew nothing of plowing, as the Goods raised only livestock and a few garden vegetables in summer.
“Is it planting time?” he asked, hoisting his bag of extra clothing a little higher in his arms, where the quilt lay draped over it.
“We won’t seed for a month yet, but an old farmer back in Pennsylvania once told me that early plowing brings a higher yield for corn.”
“And how do you plow it?”
“With our mules. You’d be surprised how deftly two mules can work a plow.”
“I’d like to see them, sir.”
“Oh, you will have your chance.”
They both chuckled.
“From the rear, sir?”
“To be sure.”
“You’ll have to teach me how to plow, Mr. Miller.” Will hoped his new master would not be too disappointed that he lacked such a basic skill.
Mr. Miller stepped over the little rise in the earth
between fields. “It’s not difficult.” His voice floated back to Will, reassuring.
They trudged over two more fields and reached the edge of the woods. Here the treetops blocked most of the moonlight. Will had to stick close to Mr. Miller’s heels to find his way.
Soon the trees opened up into a small clearing, where the moonlight once again glistened on the moist grass. Scattered tree trunks testified to the labor that had produced this clearing. Will thought of the wide expanses of Mr. Miller’s fields and wondered if he had cleared that land tree by tree with his own hands.
A log cabin sat in the clearing. Mr. Miller knocked on the plank door. It opened, and John Simon’s good-natured face appeared in the lantern’s luminous pool. The sight of the scar on his head struck Will with the force of a blow. That cross inside a circle had floated through his dreams in the week before he went to court with Master Good.
“Samuel, come in!” John said. “Did I forget something else?” He opened the door wide.
Will traipsed after Mr. Miller. Inside the tiny log-bound chamber, John’s wife was lying in bed, propped up on a straw bolster.
She opened her eyes and raised her head, which gleamed at the temples with traces of perspiration. “Mr. Miller?”
Mr. Miller corralled Will with his arm and brought him forward. “This is Will Hanby, Clara. He came to see you at Enoch Washington’s house. And, please, call me Samuel.”
“Well, it sure is a surprise to see you here, Mr.—Will.” She smiled. “Will.” Despite the wrinkles and blotches etched on her cheeks by over forty years of sun and wind, her smile was natural and lovely.
He smiled back. “Likewise, Miss Clara.” He balanced his armload again, as the quilt was sliding to the side.
“You can put that down over there by the chair.” Clara barely lifted her hand from the bed to point.
He complied while Mr. Miller explained the situation to the Simons.
“You best stay with us, young man,” Clara said.
“There’s plenty of room in here,” John said as he sat on the edge of Clara’s bed and enfolded her hand in his.
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