The Soldier's Wife

Ike waited by the side door, reeking of the O Be Joyful just as Father Bartholomew had said. Thunder rumbled in the distance, a sound they both mistook for cannonading for a brief moment. The wind was picking up and the trees on the grounds of the orphanage began to sway.

“A good storm will give you cover,” Father Bartholomew said. “Be watchful and Godspeed to you both.”

“Thank you, Father,” Jack said, offering the old man his hand. “This is twice now you’ve given me my life.”

“I believe it to be worth the effort,” Father Bartholomew said. “You’re a good man, Jeremiah. Sometimes in spite of yourself. Now go! Hurry!”

The rain came only moments after they’d left the grounds. Ike led the way, alert as he always was whenever the Orphans’ Guild—or one of its members—was in danger. He zigzagged through back lots and alleys Jack had never even seen before or didn’t recognize. It was taking twice the time it ordinarily would have to reach the old cemetery where the horse was supposed to be. As the thunder grew louder, Jack began to lose hope that it would still be there. Tied securely or not, horses didn’t wait well in a thunderstorm without a human in attendance, and even then it could be difficult.

“Wait,” Ike whispered when they were about to cross a street. His warning was well-timed. Two of the city’s watchmen were coming out of the narrow lane they intended to travel. They waited in the shadows until the men had passed.

“Now!” Ike whispered, and they began to run, the noise of their passing hidden in the sound of the rain and wind. “Not much farther—”

It took only minutes to reach the iron gates. Ike pulled one of them ajar. It creaked loudly, and they hurriedly took refuge behind an ornate but eroded angel-covered tombstone until they could be certain that no one had heard the sound.

“That way,” Ike said after a moment, and Jack followed him as best he could in the dark, stumbling several times over footstones along the way.

“I don’t see the horse,” Jack said.

“Over there—”

Jack still didn’t see it—and then he realized that Ike meant inside a nearby mausoleum, one he immediately recognized.

Ike laughed and slapped him on the back. “I knew you’d be thinking that horse was long gone. Ain’t, though, is it?”

“I’ll tell you after we actually find it,” Jack said, making Ike laugh harder.

But the horse was where Ike had left it. Dry and out of sight inside an ostentatious marble structure dedicated to the erstwhile Horne-Windham family. Jack remembered playing in the mausoleum when he was a boy. It was a good place to hide—except that Father Bartholomew always found him.

“Don’t reckon the Horne-Windhams ever expected a horse to be in here,” Ike said as he lit a candle stub he had in his pocket. He let some hot wax drip onto a narrow ledge and planted the candle firmly into it. The rain was barely audible inside the thick marble structure and the candle flickered in the draft from the entrance.

“They’re not the only ones,” Jack said, wiping the rain from his face and attempting to calm the horse because it had become unsettled by their sudden appearance.

Despite the animal, there was still enough room to get around. He looked at the many bronze plaques placed one above the other on the opposite marble wall and appearing to reach well above his head. “It’s a good thing there were so many of them.”

“Biggest marble box in the place. Here,” Ike said, bringing a small bundle out from under his coat.

“What is—?” Jack began, but then he recognized the weight and the feel of it.

“Things must be bad if Father Bartholomew is giving me a sidearm.” He turned the bundle over in his hands.

“He ain’t,” Ike said. “I am. It’s loaded so don’t go throwing it around and shoot the horse or something. Now all we got to do is get you out of here.”

Ike moved to the entranceway, alert and watchful as Jack led the horse forward.

“Ike,” Jack said. “I...don’t know how to thank you. I can’t ever repay you—”

“There ain’t but one way, Jack,” Ike said without looking at him. “Die in your own bed when you’re ninety—and don’t you ever come back here.”

“Ike, if—”

“Shh!” Ike said sharply. “Watchmen—I think it’s the same two.”

The horse, alarmed by the sudden tension in both men, began to toss its head and shift about.

“Easy,” Jack whispered, hanging on to the bridle. “Whoa! Easy!”

“Out the candle. I’m going to draw them away,” Ike said, slipping outside before Jack could stop him. Incredibly, as his footsteps faded into the darkness, Ike began to sing, a rousing song about a little chicken that wouldn’t lay an egg, the one he used to sing on the march to make the Orphans’ Guild perk up and laugh.

“O, I had a little chicky and he wouldn’t lay an egg...”

Jack waited, listening hard, but the storm was nearly overhead and the walls too thick for him to hear whatever it was Ike had heard. All he could do was stay put and try to keep the horse from bolting. His hands were beginning to shake, but he didn’t let go of the bridle. He leaned his head close to the animal’s nose and breathed evenly, quietly, until he could loosen his grip. Then he reached into his pocket and gave it a piece of the peppermint candy.

“All right,” he said to the horse after what seemed a long time. “In for a penny, in for whatever’s in that leather pouch.”

He moved to the doorway and stood for a moment, then led the horse outside. It was still raining, but the worst of the storm had passed. He couldn’t see or hear any activity in the cemetery.

He made sure his haversack was secure, then he mounted the horse and let it find its own way among the tombstones until he reached the road leading out of town. He knew better than to take it. He cut through more back lots and alleyways instead, hoping the watchmen would be more interested in staying dry than in obeying Farrell Vance. Eventually he found a part of the town he could still recognize even in a downpour. He cut across a field, careful to stay between the rows of corn and not leave an irate farmer in his wake. Heading into the mountains was a better plan than Father Bartholomew had realized. Jack had impulsively told Elrissa that he was heading out West, and it seemed likely that she would have told her husband.

In a very short time and through any number of plowed and planted fields, Jack had ridden beyond the Lexington town limits, but he stayed off the main road until he was certain he was beyond any watchmen assigned to monitor the comings and goings of nighttime travelers. It was still raining, and he stopped for a moment and listened to get his bearings. Then he crossed into yet another field and ultimately came out onto the road again. He headed for London, and he didn’t look back.

Chapter Four

“Who are you?” The voice was muffled behind the closed cabin door, but Jack could understand her. He had managed to get this far—from Lexington to Knoxville and over the Tennessee border to Asheville, and then the final long hard trek toward Jefferson—without ever having to fully answer that question. At one point he’d even ridden rear guard on the stage heading through bushwhacker country on the so-called buffalo road, apparently the only way to get through the mountains, still without identifying himself by name. He had no intention of breaking that precedent now.

He wasn’t here by accident. Somewhere on the way to London, he had checked his haversack, and he had realized that he had a true destination after all. He just hadn’t expected how hard it would be to get this far.

He had some serious misgivings about his decision at the moment—since it was becoming increasingly clear that this endeavor could be as dangerous as facing Farrell Vance’s men. The best plan he could devise under these circumstances was simply to wait for the woman inside to give him the information he wanted and to hope she had a bad aim.

“I’m looking for someone,” he called after a moment. He couldn’t see the musket trained on him, but even without Ike’s skills, he could feel it.

“I don’t know you,” she said, and it was clearly a serious accusation. “Leave your hands where I can see them!” she shouted when Jack would have reached for his haversack.

“I was asked to deliver some letters and personal—”

“Letters for who!”

“Mrs. Garth.”

“And what Mrs. Garth would that be?”

“Mrs. Thomas Henry Garth,” he said. “Sayer.”

“Sayer?”

“Yes.”

“They come from Thomas Henry? Is he dead?”

“Where can I find her?” Jack asked instead of answering.

“Is he dead?”

Jack didn’t say anything, and after a moment the door cracked open and a woman stepped outside. The musket was still trained on him, and he had no doubt that she would kill him if she thought it the least bit necessary.

“Is he dead?” she asked again.

“Yes,” he said, and the woman let the musket fall.

“Oh, no! Oh, no,” she said, lifting the musket slightly and then letting the barrel swing downward again. “That poor girl.”

“Can you tell me where to find her?”

“She ain’t here,” she said, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. “You’re on the wrong ridge.”

“I’ve come a long way,” he said. “I just want to give her the letters and then I’ll be gone.”

“I’ll take them to her—if she’s alive.”

“What do you mean?”

“They got sickness at the Garth cabin. The two little girls—I don’t know about Sayer. She didn’t holler this morning.”

“Holler?” Jack asked blankly.

“It’s how we know one another’s all right. Give a loud holler so whoever lives closest can hear you. You send it back to them and if there’s anybody else can hear you, you pass it on. She didn’t holler. Ain’t no smoke coming out the chimney, neither.”

“You can see the place from here?” he asked, looking around for a clearing in the trees.

The woman stared at him warily without answering.

“I don’t mean her any harm. I just want to give her the letters and tell her what happened.”

“You was with him at the end?”

“Yes.”

“He die easy?”

“No,” Jack said truthfully, mostly because she had lifted the musket again and because he thought that this old woman would spot the lie before he got it out.

“You ain’t going to tell her that.”

“No. I’m going to tell her what he—Thomas Henry—wanted me to say.”

“Who are you?” she asked, studying him hard, and they were back to that again.

But he still didn’t answer the question.

“You soldier with him?”

The horse was growing restless, giving him the opportunity to ignore that question, as well.

“You the one what killed him?” she asked bluntly, her voice louder now.

He stared back at her and drew a quiet breath. “I...don’t know.”

“Well, at least you ain’t a liar,” she said after a moment. “These here hills is full of liars and I can’t abide any of them.”

“Where’s the Garth cabin?” he asked, still hoping to get some information out of her.

“You going to help or hurt?”

“I told you. I don’t mean Thomas Henry’s wife or his little sisters any harm.”

She continued to stare at him and the minutes dragged on. “You wait for me,” she said abruptly, as if she’d suddenly made up her mind about something. “I’m going to get my sunbonnet. Make that there horse come up here by the porch.”

He considered it an encouraging sign that she left the musket leaning against the door frame, and he walked the horse forward. She returned shortly, wearing the blue-flowered cotton bonnet she’d gone to fetch and carrying a basket. The bonnet was faded but clean, and her withered face had disappeared into the deep brim. He thought she would have a horse of her own someplace to get her to wherever they were about to go, but she had other plans.

“Hold that,” she said, shoving the basket into his hand. “Well, let me grab your arm. How do you think I’m going to get up there?”

He shifted the basket and the reins to his other hand while she awkwardly caught him by the forearm and swung up behind him. She was much stronger than she looked. He expected to have to help her a lot more than he did.

“My name’s Rorie Conley,” she said when she was situated and he’d handed the basket back. “And yes, I already know—you ain’t got one. That’s Rorie Conley. Try to remember that. I’m a old widder woman and I don’t suffer fools gladly. That’s something else you need to remember. That way,” she added with a broad gesture that could have meant anything, and poking him in the ribs for emphasis.

He set the horse off in the direction she’d more or less indicated.

“That basket’s heavy. You got a revolver in it?” he asked after they’d gone a short way.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she countered.

“I would,” he said.

“I ain’t telling you.”

He waited for a time, but apparently she meant it.

“Well, they say ignorance is bliss. I’m not feeling particularly blissful, though.”

“Life’s like that, ain’t it?”

He smiled to himself and urged the horse back onto what may or may not be the path.

“You ain’t the first one,” she said as the way grew more wooded and more precariously downhill.

“The first what?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.

“Soldier without a name. No-name soldiers been coming to these hills ever since George Washington had an army. Some men just don’t like armies, I reckon.”

“Not much to like,” he said.

“Don’t reckon there is,” she said agreeably.

“How far are we going?”

“Why? You got a train to catch?”

He couldn’t keep from smiling. “No, ma’am. No train.”

“This trip ought to work out real well, then. I ain’t catching no train, either.”

They rode for a while in silence. He could feel the air growing cooler as they descended farther and farther down into the wooded hollow. He could hear water flowing somewhere, and every now and then a bird flew up or something scampered off among the bushes and undergrowth. There was nothing to do but follow the path he could barely see, in lieu of more specific directions.

“Jeremiah,” he said when they finally reached the bottom and crossed a small but bold stream and started up the other side. “My name’s Jeremiah.”

“Oh, I see,” she said. “You got yourself half a name. Well, I’m proud to know it. Half of something’s better than all of nothing, ain’t it, Jeremiah?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “That it is.”

“Did you up and run off from somewhere?” she asked, verifying what he already suspected regarding her penchant for bluntness.

“War’s over,” he said, assuming she was asking if he was a deserter.

“More things to run from than a war, Jeremiah. Must be one of them other things, then.”

He wasn’t about to ask what she meant, but she continued as if he had.

“You don’t look like you got no money, so I ain’t thinking you up and robbed a bank. Don’t look like no gambler what can’t pay his loses, neither. Must be something to do with a woman,” she said. “You running from somebody’s mad husband?”

He didn’t say anything, and she chuckled softly. “Didn’t take you for one of them, Jeremiah. Still, men ain’t the smartest creatures God put on this earth. They get themselves in all kind of messes and don’t never know for a gnat’s second how they got there. That’s how we ended up brother-fighting-brother these here last four years, to my way of thinking—and poor Thomas Henry Garth dead.”

That remark seemed to have ended the conversation.

For a while.

“I’m worried, Jeremiah,” she said, but he had lost sight of the path and wasn’t really listening.

“That way,” she said, pointing over his shoulder. “I’m worried and that’s why I’m running on so. Well, I like to talk anyway, and I don’t get much chance except when I get down the mountain to church. So when I’m all vexed like this—well, it just comes out and I’m a sight. I’m right fond of all of them Garth girls—Beatrice and Amity and Sayer. If the Lord takes them, it’s going to break my heart—and I told Him that, too. Don’t know that He sets much store by what’s going to happen to my old heart if He does one thing or another, but I figured it won’t hurt for Him to know for sure I ain’t going to be happy. I been real good about not asking for things for myself for a long time now—didn’t even mention how bad my knees is been paining me. But then it come to me—right out of the blue—right when I was of half a mind to shoot you for a bushwhacker. I thought, ‘Quit your yammering, Rorie Conley. Get that boy with the horse and go see about ’em.’ So here we are.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, because she had stopped talking and seemed to be expecting him to make some kind of response.

“Sayer, now, she’s a outsider,” Rorie continued when he’d obliged her by using the small space she’d given him. “She ain’t from these here mountains, but she tries. Thomas Henry’s mama showed her how to cook. And me, I showed her a couple of things about making soap and hominy and such as that. But there’s a lot of things she don’t know. There’s a lot to be said for trying, though. I didn’t reckon she’d last half as long as she has. Life’s hard enough around here when you got your man. When you ain’t, well...” She gave a heavy sigh. “Thomas Henry’s uncle—Halbert, his name is—he’s been plaguing her to death. If Thomas Henry knowed what that sorry uncle of his is been doing to Sayer and his little sisters, he’d kill him first thing he was home—blood kin or not. I know that for sure—but he’s dead, so what good is he?” She suddenly squeezed his shoulder. “I’m scared, Jeremiah. I’m scared we’re going to go in there and find them girls as dead as Thomas Henry.”

He didn’t say anything to that. He could hear her sniffing from time to time.

“No use worrying till we know,” he said, and he could feel the bonnet nod against his shoulder.

“You better hang on to that horse now,” she said.

“Why?”

“I smell a bear.”

“Maybe we ought to hurry, then.”

“Well, my stars, Jeremiah. You ain’t nearly as simple-headed as you look.”

With that, she gave the horse’s flank a dig with both her heels, not knowing that this particular piece of horseflesh would take such a gesture completely to heart and bolt to the top of the ridge, path or no path, whether they wanted it to or not. Unfortunately, the mount Ike had found for him was a seasoned warhorse whose war still continued at every turn—something Jack had discovered the hard way.

Rorie Conley was hanging on for dear life, but he didn’t try to slow the animal down. He already knew how useless that would be. A charge was a charge to this horse, at least until it ran out of room. They finally broke into the clearing around the Garth cabin, and he had to work hard to rein it in. “Next time, you let me give this animal his instructions,” he said as he helped her swing down.

He dismounted and looked toward the cabin. Someone had put a lot of work into building it. It was tall enough to have a good-size loft if the small window near the eaves was any indication. There were two more windows off the front porch—double-hung three-over-twos, the kind he would have thought would be too expensive and complex to build for a mountain farmer. Two straight chairs sat on the porch, and a glass jar with some kind of fading wildflowers in it had been placed in the middle of one of the windowsills. Apparently Sayer Garth liked the little touches.

Rorie was still trying to get her breath. Her bonnet had fallen off her head and was hanging down her back, but she still had a good grip on the basket.

“Did you hear what I said?” he asked.

“Yes, Jeremiah, I reckon I did. And I’ll remember it. Another ride like that one and I’ll be simple-headed, too.”

She untied her bonnet and put it on top of whatever she had in the basket, then stood for a moment, listening.

“You hear anything?” she asked, turning her head side to side.

“Nothing but the wind in the trees,” he said.

“Well, I reckon I got to go see.”

“I’ll go,” he said.

“No, you won’t. How many times a day do you want to come that close to getting yourself shot?”

“Used to be a pretty regular thing,” he said. “Of course, ‘wanting’ didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Well, now it does. Sayer might be in there with a musket sighted on the door. She’s got those girls with her, and you’ll scare her so bad she’ll shoot first and then worry about what you was wanting.”

She began walking toward the cabin, and he came with her. “Used to be she had a dog,” she said. “Good old dog. Wouldn’t let nobody come up on the cabin unless Sayer called him off. Something happened to him.”

“Thomas Henry’s uncle, you mean?”

She flashed him a look of what could have been appreciation for his powers of deduction or one that indicated she didn’t find him quite as “simple-headed” as she’d first thought.

“You hear that?” Rorie said suddenly. “I hear crying.” She moved forward quickly. “Sayer! It’s me! I’m coming in!” She stepped up on the porch. “You stay out here,” she said over her shoulder.

He watched as she disappeared inside. He could hear the crying clearly now, but he couldn’t be certain if there was one person in distress or two.

He kept looking around for anything that might be amiss outside the cabin. He’d heard enough now about Thomas Henry’s uncle to think that the dead Reb had been right to worry about his wife’s safety.

The horse began to prance nervously, something Jack took as a sign that this situation might not be safe for ex-soldiers. The crying coming from inside the cabin seemed to be tapering off, in any event. He pulled the horse’s reins forward and dropped them on the ground, because he had learned from an ex-cavalryman riding the stage to Jefferson that it would stay put as if it were tethered. Jack’s not knowing about the animal’s war training had seemed to satisfy the man’s mind regarding Jack himself and the all-too-obvious U.S. brand on the horse’s left shoulder. A man who hadn’t been a Union cavalryman and who had bought a warhorse cheap wasn’t going to know the fine points. The imaginary tethering and the fact that it would come whenever he whistled—unless it thought it was in the middle of another charge—thus far had proved at least somewhat useful.

“She ain’t in here and she ain’t in the privy,” Rorie called after a moment. “The girls don’t know where she got to. That path yonder leads down to the spring. You walk down that way, Jeremiah. See if you can see her. I’ll tend to these young-uns. They’re still fevering and they’re both scared might near to death. I’m going to leave the back door open. You holler if you find anything—you can holler, can’t you?”

She didn’t wait for him to say whether he could or not. “Watch out for snakes! We got some big rattlers and copperheads around here!” she yelled as she went back inside.

Jack stood for a moment. He had thought Mary was accomplished at having the last word, but Rorie Conley was a true artist.

He began walking through the tall and probably snake-filled grass to the path that led...somewhere. He kept looking for livestock. He would have expected chickens, at the very least, but what he took for a henhouse and a chicken lot were clearly unoccupied as was the pigpen and the barn. He could see a smokehouse and tobacco barn, and there was a planted field on a slope some distance away—hay that needed cutting and drying. There was another field lying fallow with the rotting stubble of a corn crop beyond that one.

But what was most apparent was that Sayer Garth had no animals to feed of any kind. Uncle Halbert didn’t seem to favor one species over the other. Chickens, cows or child’s pet, they were all the same to him.

The path grew very steep suddenly, and it was difficult to keep his balance because there was nothing but tall grass to grab on to along the way. It occurred to him that if the path led to anything of importance, the grass needed to be scythed. If he was going to run into any snakes, this would be a good place for it. The path needed to be terraced and braced with thick planks, something he supposed Thomas Henry might have done if he’d lived.