The Fire Within

She frowned at the window set in the bedroom wall. How had she believed even for a moment that Caleb’s womenfolk had time to sit around and read? Even in a city there must be shutters to mend and fire to be fed and corn to be shelled. These things didn’t tend to themselves. He must have been teasing, thinking she was as green as grass in the spring. With an angry movement, Megan knotted her shawl more securely and went down the steps.

The woodpile was at the side of the house nearest the settlement. She bent and put a pine log on the large stump she used as a chopping block. With her hatchet, she slivered the pine into long splinters that would easily catch fire and ignite the heavy oak logs in the fireplace. The pine was from an old tree that had been felled during a storm the winter before and had rotted to the point of exposing its core. Heart of pine was the best kindling to be found.

As she chopped, she noticed a flash of yellow coming through the woods and looked up to see Bridget crossing the clearing. Megan waved to keep her sister from going into the house. Bridget veered to join her.

“Mama wants to know if you need any of the meat we’re smoking? She put by a sizable amount and you can have some if you want it.”

“No, but tell her I appreciate the offer. I brought up all my smokehouse can hold so I have plenty to see me through the winter. Assuming the soldiers don’t find it.”

Bridget nodded. “I can’t help but think of Patrick when I see them passing. Our boys look so hungry and so poorly clothed. It’s all I can do not to send them off with all our food and extra wraps. Patrick must look just like them.”

“I know. I share stew with them whenever I can. But we don’t know that all the states are like this. Maybe in Georgia things are better. News never reaches us until it’s old. Patrick may have plenty to eat and warm clothes as well.” They both knew this wasn’t the case, but Bridget needed to hear it.

“This is true. I pray for him every night. Maybe some Confederate mother or sister is taking care of him for me.”

“I’m sure that’s true.”

“We’ve hidden our smoked meat. Have you done that? If you haven’t, Papa says he’ll come over tomorrow and help you.”

“I’m doing it today. I wanted to smoke it as long as possible.” Megan stacked the irregular sticks of kindling in the box she stored them in. “It’s so different from curing hogs. I hope it tastes all right. There was no time to let it age in salt. I just rubbed it with black pepper and borax to keep the skippers out and hung it up.”

“So did we. It might be tough, but we can boil it tender, I guess. Nobody ever handed down a recipe for horse meat that I know of.”

“I sure never thought I’d be reduced to eating a horse.” Megan picked up the kindling box and paused. She couldn’t take it into the house and risk Bridget finding Caleb. Bridget would try to keep the secret, but her mouth sometimes out-raced her mind. Megan put the box back down on the ground and started splitting more kindling.

“How much kindling do you need?” Bridget asked.

“If I don’t do it now, I’ll just have to do it later. Kindling will keep.”

“I almost forgot. Papa said he saw a Union patrol down the mountain yesterday. He says for you to be real careful. They may be coming this way.”

“I’ll watch out for them.” Megan wondered if they could be looking for Caleb. By now he would have been missed and someone might have a way of knowing he wasn’t captured or buried.

“I’ve got to be going now. Mama says she’ll be expecting you for dinner on Sunday.”

“I always eat there on Sunday. Why would she have you remind me?”

“I don’t know. You know how Mama is. She has the sight just like her grandmother did. Maybe she saw something keeping you from coming down.”

“Tell her I’ll be there.” From time to time Megan had also experienced the family phenomenon. She always became uneasy whenever a death was about to occur. She had never told Bridget because her sister would only have worried.

“Anyway, she said to tell you she expects you for dinner.”

“Tell her not to fret.” Megan frowned slightly. Did her mother somehow suspect that Caleb was in Megan’s cabin? Frequently Jane knew things no one had told her, and on occasion Megan had experienced this herself. As far as she knew, Bridget had no glimmerings of the sight at all and was as uninformed as their father in that respect.

When Bridget was gone, Megan took the brimming box of kindling into the house. Since she rarely allowed her fire to go out, there was enough kindling to last her a year. She dropped it beside the hearth and put another log on the fire.

A glance at the window told her that evening was only a couple of hours away. She shouldn’t have wasted the precious minutes of daylight talking with Caleb earlier.

She went back outside and to the shed where she kept the tools and ropes needed around the farm. Taking several lengths of rope, she went into the woods. After tying a chunk of wood to the end of a rope, Megan tossed it over the highest limb possible. Then she went back to the smokehouse and brought out the first of the smoked meat, tied carefully in a tow sack.

She tied the sack of meat to the end of the rope and hauled it up into the top of the tree, being careful not to leave it suspended too close to other limbs. She didn’t want to go to all the trouble of hiding it from soldiers and have some predator eat it.

When the end of the rope was tied to the trunk of the tree, she looked up. If a person didn’t know where to look, it was as good as invisible.

For the next two hours she repeated the process until every spare roast was tied in the treetops and hidden as well as she could manage. She ached from the unaccustomed effort and was glad to fasten the smokehouse door and go back to the cabin.

As she approached, she heard voices. Fear congealed in her veins as she rounded the corner and saw three Union soldiers entering her yard. The sun hung low over the treetops and night would soon be falling. What did they want at her house?

“Yes?” she asked in a cold tone. Had they heard Caleb inside? They could have been in there with him for all she knew.

“We’re looking for food, ma’am,” one said. None of them were smiling.

She kept her distance. “So am I. Your army already cleaned me out.” She jerked her head in the direction of the smokehouse. “See for yourselves.”

The man in charge motioned for one of the men to go look. “We’re also looking for a man named Captain Caleb Morgan. Have you seen him around here?”

“I don’t know of any Morgan family living in these parts.” She deliberately made herself sound a bit slow of wit. That had worked in the past. “You could ask over to Raintree. The Morgans might live there.”

“No, this was a Union soldier, not a family,” the other man said impatiently. “We’re trying to see if he was killed or captured.”

“I haven’t killed anybody.” Megan crossed her arms over her chest. “If you find any food, I’d appreciate it if you’d share it with me.”

“Not much chance of that,” the second man said again.

His superior frowned at him. To Megan he said, “I apologize for my men. These are hard times for all of us.”

Especially those of us who don’t get to ride around on horses and steal from women who are trying to keep body and soul together. She frowned at them in the fading light.

The other man returned. “The smokehouse is empty. It smells like smoke though. Maybe she heard us coming and is hiding the meat.

Megan held her arms out. “Do you think I could hide much under this shawl? Maybe it’s in my shoe?”

Behind her, she heard a voice call out. Caleb had heard the men. She stepped up on the porch, blocking their way. “Since there’s nothing to steal, I won’t object to you riding away.”

“Is that a man in there?” the second soldier asked. “Who do I hear?”

“You hear my brother. He’s a bit slow in the mind and the army doesn’t want him. He’s been on a three-day drinking binge. If you’ll take him off my hands, you can have him.” She held her breath.

The officer grinned. “No, we aren’t recruiting drunken brothers today. We’ll be on our way.”

“Wait!” she could hear Caleb shouting. “I’m Captain Morgan!”

To cover his words, Megan bumped against the washtub that hung on the porch and it fell with a deafening clatter. The soldiers’ horses shied away. “Sorry,” she said. “I’ve always been clumsy.” She made more noise as she wrestled the tub back onto its peg.

When she turned around the men were riding away. Megan hurried into the house and sighed with relief as she shoved the bolt in place on the door. She leaned her forehead against the wood and closed her eyes. That had been too close. If she had been a bit slower, they would have found her precious cache of meat and it was only luck that they hadn’t discovered Caleb.

“You can quit shouting. They’ve gone,” she called to him as she went to the pump to wash her hands.

“Get in here!” he commanded. “You kept them from hearing me on purpose!”

“Of course I did! Do you take me for a fool?” She pushed open the bedroom door and frowned back at him. “You’re my prisoner. I’m not giving you up until I can trade you for Seth.”

“They might have known where to find a doctor! Not one of those army sawbones, but a real doctor.”

“More likely they would have put you on one of their horses and you’d have bled to death before they reached Raintree. You couldn’t travel if you tried!”

“At least I would be with my own army!”

She glared at him. “Is it better to die with your army, with strangers, than to stay here and be doctored back to health and traded? I think not. Certainly it wouldn’t serve me as well.”

“What about me?” he demanded.

“You’re my prisoner,” she said loudly and slowly so it would sink in. “I’m not giving you up until it suits me.”

He was still arguing but she closed the door. This was turning out to be more difficult than she had originally supposed.

She put a bit of the horse meat on to boil for supper, then went to the back room. This was farther from the road and had a door that could be latched. She had wondered at the time why her father had fitted a latch on it, but now she was glad he had. He had said it might come in handy. She hoped he would never guess in what way. Not until she had Seth home safely.

Her pallet lay in the middle of the floor, its covers neatly in place. What would it take to make a proper bed out of it?

With a great deal of difficulty, Megan managed to maneuver four kegs from the barn into the back room. Then she went out to the smokehouse. Taking a hammer, she knocked the pins from the hinges and dragged the door back to the house. It was long past dark by the time she finished. With all her muscles aching, she pulled the pallet up onto the door and braced all of it in the corner. It was pretty sturdy. Would it be strong enough to hold a man Caleb’s size? There was only one way to find out.

She went back into the bedroom and caught the wrist of his good arm.

“What are you doing?” he asked suspiciously.

“You’re moving. I’m not sharing my bed with you anymore.” She pulled him up and helped him swing his feet over the side. “Wrap the quilt around you,” she said as she drew his good arm over her shoulders. “Stand up.”

Caleb did as she told him, though she knew he must have questions. He was as heavy as she remembered, but he at least tried to hop on his good leg. It was no easy job getting him into the back room, but at last he was leaning against the makeshift bed. “This is your room.”

“Why?”

“Because I can lock this door.” She helped him sit on the bed and was glad to see that it remained in place. She looked up at his face and saw he was sweating from the pain but he hadn’t cried out. “I’ll soon have you some stew to eat.”

As she was about to leave, he caught her wrist. “You should have given me to the soldiers.”

She looked into his eyes. In the dimness of the room they were almost as black as his hair. He seemed so male and so large when she had to look up to see his face. “Lie down,” she said as she hastily moved away.

As she scooped stew into her gourd dipper, she reflected that he was right. It might have been better to let the soldiers find him. She was almost afraid of what she was already thinking about him and feeling for him, and he had only been there a few days. How would he affect her by the time he had been there long enough to heal?

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.