Читать книгу The Fire Within - Lynda Trent - Страница 12

Chapter Four

Megan was peeling potatoes when she heard the bell being rung at her parents’ place. She dropped the potato into cold water so it wouldn’t turn dark and dried her hands on her apron. A small frown creased her forehead. Why would someone be ringing the bell?

“What’s that sound?” Caleb called out.

“It’s the alarm bell. Something is wrong.” She untied her apron and hung it on its peg. “I have to go. They wouldn’t risk letting strangers know the settlement is there unless they were calling everyone together for a reason.”

She left the cabin and hurried down the road into the Hollow. As she neared, she could see others converging on her parents’ cabin. They all seemed as mystified as she was. Had there been an attack by the Union army? If that was the emergency, why ring the bell in such a way as to bring the women as well as the men? The settlement had long ago worked out a system of ringing the bell in a certain pattern to call only the men.

Megan hurried up the steps and through the crowd into the cabin. The Brennans were seated at the table with her parents. When she came in, they all looked at her.

For a moment she thought they had somehow found out about her prisoner and were gathering to kill him and call her to task. She stopped and stared back at them. “What is it?” she asked.

Samuel held out a sheet of paper. It was torn and badly smudged but she recognized Seth’s almost illegible handwriting. She took the letter and sat in the closest chair.

Conditions are real bad here. Folks are dying right and left of me. Mostly it’s prison fever, but lately some have come down with the measles. It might not be much of nothing for a child, but in a grown-up, it’s a killer.

The guards here are no better than animals. Men get beaten regularly and they leave us to lie in rags. When it rains, which it does more than I thought possible, water stays on the floor, seems like forever. We have to lie in it or stand. It’s real cold, too. No fires here to speak of because there’s no way to get wood. I don’t rightly know what’s going to happen when we get the first freeze.

I sure wish I was home. Signing up was the worst thing I ever done. When I get back to the Hollow, I’m not ever going to leave. Tell Ma I said hello and that I’ll be home as soon as they let me go.

Megan looked up and met Sarah Ann’s eyes. Seth’s mother was crying softly and his father stood behind her, a scowl on his face. “My boy’s in the cold and wet,” Sarah Ann said in a broken voice. “They’s treating him worse than we would an animal.”

“Yankees aren’t as good as animals,” her husband growled. “That’s a fact everybody knows.”

“Maybe we could send him some warm clothes and firewood,” Megan suggested. She was feeling sick from picturing the conditions Seth was living in. Why had Seth sent such a letter, when he must know there was nothing they could do but worry about him? Didn’t he care what a letter like this would do to people who loved him?

“Use your head, girl,” Aaron Brennan snapped. “Do you reckon the jailers would just hand them over to him? Even if he got them, somebody else would likely take them away from him. Seth may be scrappy, but he’s not real big.”

“I know. I just don’t know what else to suggest.” Megan folded the letter and slowly handed it to Sarah Ann. Had anyone else noticed that Seth hadn’t mentioned her at all? She felt angry with herself for noticing, but shouldn’t he have? He had remembered to send a message to his mother. How much more trouble would it have been for him to include her own name as well?

Sarah Ann unfolded the letter and stared down at it. She couldn’t read, but it was a link with her son.

Benjamin Grady, the preacher for the settlement, stepped forward. “We’ll pray for him. That’s the most we can do.”

There was a shuffling noise as everyone went to their knees. Megan could hear the people on the porch doing the same. The crowd was unnaturally quiet aside from the occasional cough.

“Lord, our boy Seth Brennan is in the enemy’s hands. We ask that you look out for him and protect him in Pharaoh’s land. Seth is the apple of his ma and pa’s eye and we all want him back. His bride-to-be can’t rest for wanting to see him.”

Megan glanced up but the preacher wasn’t looking at her. She hastily closed her eyes again as the prayer droned on. Is that how everyone saw her? Yearning to see Seth? It bothered her that she hadn’t spent more time in miserable loneliness and aching for his return, now that she heard Brother Grady put it like that. Was she unnatural for not missing him more? Although she would never have admitted it, she spent more time worrying about Patrick than Seth.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love Seth. She had never loved anyone but him. But they had known each other all their lives and she had always taken him for granted, even when he went off to war. It occurred to her that this could mean that she didn’t really love him at all, but she put the thought aside. This was no time for traitorous thoughts like that. Of course she loved Seth. Even if she didn’t, she didn’t want him mistreated.

Brother Grady was known for his long-winded prayers. When he prayed over a matter, he kept after it until he was certain he had God’s attention. Megan’s knees were numb by the time he said, “Amen.” She heard sighs of relief as everyone got to their feet. Aaron had to help Sarah Ann haul her bulk back into the chair, where she sat rubbing her knees and staring at the letter.

Questions broke out all over the room about Seth and what was going to happen to him. Megan listened in silence. The questions were directed at the men, not her. Again she noticed she was on the outside, looking into Seth’s life. Aside from mention in Brother Grady’s prayer, no one seemed to connect her with Seth, even though they were promised to each other. She told herself it was only because almost every family in the settlement was related to the Brennans in some way and they were all naturally worried about their kin. All the same, she felt excluded.

In the cabin Caleb was struggling to get out of bed. He had no idea what emergency had called the settlement together, but there was a chance that Union troops were in the area. He managed to swing his legs over the side and stand. For a moment he waited, giving the pain time to subside. Then he reached for his neatly folded clothes, which Megan had left on a nearby chair. Once he was dressed he felt better. Caleb wasn’t a prude, but there was something intimidating about being naked in a strange house.

His leg felt as if fire were coursing through it as he pulled on his underlinen, then his pants. He shrugged into his jacket and buttoned it as he limped to the door. He was right; Megan had left without remembering to lock it. He opened it and peered out.

The cabin was small, and a low fire burned in the fireplace. There was little furniture—only a rocker, a table and a couple of the straight-backed chairs that every house hereabouts contained. Bleached feed sacks hung as curtains at the windows and there was a braided rug on the floor, its colors still new and bright.

Caleb moved slowly over the floor, wincing every time he had to put his weight on his bad leg. He knew he couldn’t hope to walk far on it, but if Union troops had passed the house once, they might do so regularly. If he could make it to the road and away from the house, someone might see him.

He reached the door and paused to catch his breath. Caleb hated feeling so weak. His muscles were trembling and he had only walked a few feet. He was beginning to realize how badly he was hurt and that his concern of never healing properly might be well-founded. He had been there almost two weeks and he couldn’t see much improvement at all in his leg. Up until now he had thought Megan was exaggerating his condition.

Caleb opened the door and a blast of cold air hit his face and slicked through his heavy wool jacket. He had no coat and wouldn’t steal one of Megan’s quilts for warmth. Especially since that would make him easier to see.

The porch steps were particularly difficult and he half fell down them. For a moment he held to the porch and caught his breath as waves of pain ripped through him. Had he pulled the wound open again? He looked at his leg, but it wasn’t bleeding. Limping painfully, he started across the yard.

Megan couldn’t get away until everyone had exhausted their questions and suggestions and agreed that there was nothing they could do to get Seth back or to ease his suffering. More than once she had started to tell them about the prisoner in her cabin, but she was too afraid they would lynch him first and think later. No, this was the only way she could help Seth, and she was determined that nothing would undermine her plan.

She took a loaf of bread from her mother, who seemed to be the only one other than Bridget who was thinking about Megan’s feelings. Bridget hugged her and patted her shoulder, her blue eyes glistening with unshed tears. Megan nodded. The women in her family were silent when they were most emotional.

Holding the bread under her arm, Megan started the climb to her cabin. Her thoughts were on Seth and his miserable conditions. Were the Confederate prisons as bad? Megan didn’t know and she knew not to pose the question to anyone in the Hollow. It would seem traitorous to suggest their own men were as inhumane to their prisoners as were the Yankees. All the same, Megan wondered.

As soon as she topped the ridge, she saw Caleb struggling up the road ahead. She let one of Owen’s expletives escape her lips and she ran to him. “What are you doing out of bed?” she demanded once she was beside him.

He ignored her and tried to drag himself farther up the road.

“What are you trying to do? Kill yourself?” She darted in front of him. “Look at you! You’re as pale as a sheet!” Without giving him opportunity to argue, she slipped his arm around her shoulders and turned him back in the direction of the cabin. “You must be as crazy as a bedbug to try to walk to Raintree in your condition. What if you fell on that leg?”

He didn’t answer, and when she looked up at him, she saw a white line of pain around his lips. “You must be purely crazy!” she muttered.

After several long minutes, she had him back inside the cabin. “Don’t you know someone could have seen you?” she demanded as she helped him back to his bedroom.

“That was the general idea,” he finally answered. “I was hoping to see Union troops.”

“You would have a long way to go before that happened. It’s a wonder no one from the settlement decided to walk me home. The only people around here are Confederate and they would rather shoot you than not.”

“Then the emergency wasn’t Union soldiers in the area?” He braced himself on the doorframe to the bedroom.

“No, it wasn’t. It was a letter from Seth. Can you stand here while I put a fresh sheet on the bed? Of course you can. You were bent on walking to Raintree, weren’t you?” She left him at the door and stripped the sheets from his bed. “Of all the fool things for you to do!”

She moved quickly, but he was trembling visibly by the time she had his bed ready. She helped him limp to it and sit on the raised pallet. “Your skin looks like a wax candle!” She was deeply concerned. “Why are you being so quiet? You’re never quiet.”

“I’m hurting like hell,” he said through clenched teeth, “and I’m right back where I started.”

“And you’re staying here, too.” She helped him take off his jacket and the trousers that were binding his leg, but left him his underlinen. A fine sheen of sweat lay on his pale skin. He wasn’t lying about the pain. Did it usually take gunshot wounds so long to start healing? Megan couldn’t ask anyone and Caleb apparently didn’t know either.

When he was lying in bed and able to relax through the pain, he said, “You say you got another letter from Seth?”

Megan hesitated. “His parents did. They let me read it.”

He looked at her. “He wrote them, not you?”

“It doesn’t mean anything.” Megan bent to pick up the sheets she had taken from the bed. “Most likely he didn’t have two pieces of paper or he was in a hurry to send it out. Besides, he knows his mother worries more than most would.”

“Surely he enclosed a message for you.”

She glanced at him. He seemed genuinely curious. “Now you’re talking too much again. I guess that means you’re feeling better.” She left the room and took the sheets out to the service porch in back.

She sat on the back steps, despite the cold, and hugged her knees to her chest. Why hadn’t Seth at least sent her a greeting? How long would that have taken? For that matter, why had he sent the letter at all? Didn’t he know it would upset his family and only make his mother worry more? How like Seth to think only of himself.

Megan hated these thoughts but she knew they were true. Seth had always put himself first. Even that night in the clearing when they had made love the first and only time. He must have known then that he was considering joining the army and he had taken her anyway, even if a baby might have been the consequence. What on earth would she have told her parents and everyone else in the settlement? Sex before marriage was strictly forbidden, even to couples who were engaged. But Seth had wanted her and he hadn’t thought beyond that.

For the first time, Megan let herself think of her future if she backed out of marrying Seth. For one thing, she would probably have to give up her cabin and move back in with her parents. It made more sense for Bridget and Patrick to have the cabin than for her to stay there alone. Megan liked being away from the others, even if it was lonely or even frightening at times. Cabins were too difficult to build and the men’s time was too precious for her father to be willing to build Bridget and Patrick another one.

Megan rested her chin on her knees. On the other hand, if she married Seth, would she be happy? She was rather surprised to realize she had never thought about that before. Like everyone else in Black Hollow, she had always assumed she would marry him. Her future had been more or less ordained since she was twelve or so. The only real surprise had been that she and Seth had waited so long to announce their intentions of marrying. Did that mean he had reservations as well? Megan had certainly never thought of that. Maybe he didn’t love her at all, but was simply taking the easy route.

The chilling wind crept into her and Megan got up shivering. She knew her thoughts were more the cause of her trembling than was the temperature. These were thoughts she should never have had. Not when she was living in the cabin, using the things from her hope chest and waiting for Seth’s return. She would be shunned if she backed out now. Assuming, of course, that Seth returned at all. He had said in his letter that men were dying around him every day.

She went into the house and finished peeling the potatoes to boil. Doing routine work helped. It was harder to think when she had to keep her mind on the sharp knife and her fingers.

“Megan?” Caleb called.

“What is it?” She dropped the potatoes into boiling water and went into the room.

“Who drew these pictures?”

She looked at the sketches she had hung from tacks on the wall. “I did. Why?”

“You drew them? They’re good.” He was studying them as if he hadn’t noticed them before.

“There’s no need for you to make fun of me. I’m busy.” She turned to leave but he called her back.

“I’m not teasing you. Why do you always get so defensive?”

“Why would I believe you mean these things? I’m not a fool. Didn’t you just try to escape? Don’t you remember we’re enemies?”

“If you were in my place, wouldn’t you try to get away? As for us being enemies, that’s not the way I think of you.”

She frowned at him. “You must think I don’t have any sense at all. You’re North and I’m South. If that’s not enemies, I don’t know what to call it.”

“You might think of me as a person.”

“I’m busy.” Again she turned to leave but this time she paused of her own choice. “You really think my drawings are good?”

“Of course I do. They look as if they could walk off the paper.”

Megan went farther into the room. “I like to draw. Papa says it’s a waste of time and that it’s sinful to waste anything. But sometimes I just can’t help doing it.” She glanced at him to see if he was laughing at her. “I only draw when I’ve finished with the chores for the day.”

“You don’t have to make excuses for me.” His eyes met hers and she had to look away. “I’ve seen Felicity’s drawings and they aren’t nearly as good as yours, but she’s considered to be quite talented.”

Megan went to a drawing of two puppies tumbling in play. “These are two dogs Papa raised. They’re coonhounds but there’s not much for them to hunt these days. They spend most of their time sleeping under the porch.” She smiled. “That’s about all coonhounds do, sleep and hunt. And howl. You can hear these two from miles away when they pick up a scent. A good hunter can tell one dog’s voice from another and know just what they’re tracking.”

“I’ve done some hunting, but living in a city, I don’t own hounds.”

She studied him. “I can’t imagine living like that.”

“It’s not a bad life,” he said with a wry smile.

“I didn’t mean that. What do you do all day? I don’t see how you get the things you need. Surely you can’t afford to buy everything. Where do you get food?”

“From stores. We buy whatever we need.”

She shook her head. “Brother Grady would have a field day with that! He says it’s sinful not to work for everything you have and that you’re supposed to grow your own things. We try to be as self-reliant as we can be in the Hollow. There isn’t much we have to buy.” She smiled. “I guess that’s a good thing since the only thing we can’t seem to grow is money.”

Caleb didn’t comment.

“Are you hurting very bad now?”

“I’m better.”

“I could go get you some willow to chew. I’ve heard that helps with pain.”

He shook his head. “I’m all right.” He hesitated. “Megan, I wasn’t escaping from you. I have to try to get back to my unit. Otherwise, I’m a deserter.”

“I understand. I guess I would do the same thing.” She added, “Dinner will be ready soon. You’ll feel better once you’ve eaten.”

“You know your plan to trade me won’t work, don’t you?”

“I don’t know any such thing. It only stands to reason that they would want their own officer more than a private like Seth.”

“How do you intend to make this trade?”

“I don’t know yet,” she admitted.

“Crossing Union territory, even with a few Confederate sympathizers around, will be dangerous. Traveling with me as a prisoner and returning home safely will be nearly impossible. Even if we reach the right prison, there’s no guarantee that they’ll give you Seth. They might just keep me and send you away.”

Megan felt the tears rising and she fought them back. “I have to do something!”

“Because you love Seth that much?”

She didn’t answer for a long time. “No,” she said finally. “Because I don’t love him enough.” She left the room before he could ask any more questions.

Caleb lay there listening to her make supper and thought about what she had said. Certainly she was honest. She hadn’t been forced to tell him that. “If you don’t love him that much, why are you set on marrying him?” he called out.

“It’s not something you’d understand,” she called back.

“Explain it to me.”

She came slowly back into the room and sat on the edge of the bed. “I was intended for Seth most of my life. I can’t explain it to someone who didn’t grow up in the Hollow. I guess it’s different elsewhere. You see, most of us are related in one way or another so we don’t have many to choose from. Seth and I are one of the few that aren’t kin and that are the right age to marry. His cousin, Patrick, married Bridget. Seth was to marry me.”

“So it’s an arranged mamage.”

“In a way. I care for Seth. Our lives fit together. Our families are friends and the family lands are side by side. After we marry, the land will all be one, for all intents and purposes, though our fathers will control it as long as they’re alive. Do you understand?”

“I’m beginning to.”

“If I don’t marry Seth, there’s no one else eligible. Not unless I want to settle for a widower and have to raise his children from a previous wife. There are two men I could marry who already have families, but both of them are Papa’s age and I don’t care for either of them. Since I don’t have a brother to look after me as I get older, I have to marry. It wouldn’t be right to expect Patrick to take me in since he has younger sisters of his own that may need to live with them.”

“You have a brother. Maybe your family will forgive him after the war is over.”

“Not Papa. He never changes his mind. Mama would take Owen back right now. He was her favorite. Owen and Papa never saw eye to eye on anything. He probably would have left the Hollow for another reason if it hadn’t been the war. Owen is too rebellious.” She smiled faintly. “He and I are alike. Bridget is more like Mama. Papa has always said that Bridget will be happy in life because she doesn’t ask for all that much.”

“And you?”

“He says I never will be. Maybe he’s right in the long run, but I’m happy now. I like my cabin and I even like not being with the others.” She looked at him. “Can you understand that?”

“I can understand it easily. From what you’ve told me, I wouldn’t want to be with them, either.”

She shook her head. “No, you don’t see. I love them. Or at least I care for most of the people in the settlement. But I like my independence.”

“And after you’re married?”

For a long time Megan was silent. “I guess we all have to give up something. Sacrifice is supposed to be good for us.”

“I’ve never believed that. And I don’t think independence is a bad thing. It hasn’t hurt me any.”

“Of course not. You’re not a woman.”

“Why couldn’t a couple be independent together?”

“Now you’re talking nonsense.” She touched her drawing of the puppies. “If I tell you something, will you promise not to laugh?”

“Yes.”

“I used to pretend that when I became an adult I would write a book and draw pictures to illustrate it.” She threw him a quick look. “Are you laughing at me?”

“No. I was smiling because I plan to write a book someday myself.”

Megan stared at him. “You want to write a book? Now I know you’re teasing me.”

“Why do you think I’m ridiculing you at every turn? I’ve had stories in my head ever since I was a boy. I used to tell stories to Felicity and her friends all the time.”

“Men don’t write. They build fences and repair barns and hunt for game.”

“Megan, the world is larger than Black Hollow. My father doesn’t do any of those things. Neither do any of my uncles. Who do you think writes books if they’re not written by men and women? Somebody does it and I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be me. Or you, for that matter.

“I can just see me now, writing stories between milking the cow and churning the butter and gathering the eggs. Maybe I could do the illustrations while I scrub the floor.”

“Suit yourself. Far be it from me to convince you to be free.”

She frowned at him. “The world isn’t so accommodating. I’m surprised you’ve grown this old and have not noticed that.”

“The world also isn’t full of nothing but work and responsibilities. If some of us don’t dream and work to fulfill our dreams, we aren’t any better than cattle.”

“Why is it that we end up arguing if we talk more than a few minutes? I’m going to see how supper is coming along.”

“Supper can wait.”

“You talk twice as much as any man I ever saw. I’ll bet Papa hasn’t talked to Mama this much in the past year!”

“Then I feel sorry for your mother.”

“Caleb, not everyone talks all day long. And what’s more, I don’t think your people are as idle as you say they are.”

“They aren’t idle at all. They just have different pursuits.”

She nodded knowingly. “Yes, well, I’m going to pursue supper now.” She left but she couldn’t stop thinking about all he had said.

Could she really write and illustrate a book? She had harbored this dream for so long it was a part of her. Yet when she thought of how to go about it, she reached a dead end. Nobody in Raintree was a book publisher—they didn’t even have a newspaper. How would she ever go about getting a book published, assuming it was good enough for others to want to read it? No, she told herself. Being a writer would just have to be a dream.

But would Caleb write? He seemed certain that he could do it. Did he know how to go about it? Whatever her own experience, Megan knew men and women wrote books because she had read their names on the covers. How did they have time? Perhaps once she had several children to help out with chores, there would be time, but she didn’t want to wait and she hadn’t seen her own mother’s work lessening over the years. Work seemed to expand to fill all the hours of the day no matter how many hands were whittling it down.

The idea of writing never left her all the time she prepared the meal. No matter how hard she tried to tell herself it was a foolish idea, it stuck in her mind.

When she took Caleb’s supper to him, he was lying very still. She knew him well enough by now to know this meant he was in pain. He didn’t mention it but sat up, and she handed him the plate. She admired him for that.

“Will you bring your plate in here and eat with me?”

“I suppose I could do that,” she conceded. She had never had a meal in her life that wasn’t consumed in the kitchen, but who was to know?

She joined him and noticed he had waited for her. “Mama baked the bread,” she said.

“She’s a good cook. So are you.”

Megan smiled. “Mama insisted that Bridget and I learn that even if we never learned anything else. She also taught us to sew.”

“And to read.”

“No, that was one of my aunts. Papa wasn’t too pleased that Bridget and I learned that. Owen was the one who was supposed to be learning to read.”

“Megan, why didn’t Seth write to you instead of to his parents? What’s the real reason?”

She pushed the food around on her plate. “I don’t know. I’ve asked myself that all afternoon. He had to realize that I would know the letter came. I can understand him writing his parents instead of me the first time—maybe. But I can’t see a reason at all for him not even mentioning my name in the second letter.”

“Not even a greeting?”

She shook her head. She felt too close to tears to answer aloud.

“I know it doesn’t mean much to you, but I would have written to you.” His voice was softer than she had ever heard it.

Megan’s eyes met his and she found she couldn’t look away.

“I know it’s hard for you to believe, but all Northern men aren’t barbarians, just as all Southern ones aren’t knights in shining armor. I would be more thoughtful of my fiancée than that. Even if it was more or less an arranged marriage.”

She managed to avert her eyes. “Maybe I made a mistake in not letting those soldiers find you that day. Maybe I’m wrong in keeping you here.”

“I’m your pawn in this game of war,” he said with an attempt at lightness. “Remember?”

“I remember. All the same, it may have been a mistake. Maybe I should have let you go on down that road. A Yankee patrol might have found you.”

“Or I might have died of shock or exposure. I left the house thinking there was a regiment in the area. Like you said, I couldn’t hope to walk all the way to Raintree. But I had to try.”

“Did you hurt yourself too badly?” she asked.

He thought for a minute before he answered. “That’s possible. I know I’m hurting more than I was before I tried.”

“You’re a hard man to doctor,” she said.

“I know,” he replied.

“I want you to promise me you won’t try anything like that again.”

“I think I’d be a fool not to promise. I’ve had time to think lately. This is the most comfortable, even considering the pain in my leg, that I’ve been in months, maybe years. I think that’s why I thought I had to try to escape.”

“I don’t understand.” She didn’t dare look at him.

“Let’s just say I’m starting to enjoy the company. Perhaps a bit too much.”

She nodded. She knew exactly what he meant. “I guess I should have let you escape after all.” Suddenly she didn’t dare stay in the room with him and she left quickly. He didn’t call after her.

Sitting by the fire to finish her supper, Megan did quite a bit of soul-searching. She couldn’t start to care for Caleb, not even if he were a Confederate. She was promised to Seth, and in the Hollow, that was as binding as marriage vows. Certainly she could never love him or expect him to love her. But could she stop the emotion that was coming to life inside her? Certainly Seth had never made her feel this way, not even that night in the clearing.

Megan was glad no one could read her thoughts.