CHAPTER SEVEN

April 3, 1865

With Clara wrapped in a quilt and huddled beside her, Eliza drove the buggy down the lane and out onto the main road. Eliza feared the Starks might be waiting for her at the turn, although Mother Stark had assured her the men would not come to the farm until dawn. She’d said they had finished Will’s jug of whiskey before they reached home, and once there, they’d started on their own corn liquor. They’d fallen asleep and wouldn’t wake for a while. When he wasn’t being mean, Dad Stark was either drinking or sleeping, Missouri Ann had told Eliza. “He’s got a gizzard for a heart,” she said.

It wasn’t just the Starks who made Eliza uneasy. If they weren’t on the road, others might be. After all, John had warned the Starks weren’t the only slave catchers who would be looking for Clara. And then there were always the tramps, the discharged soldiers and deserters, who would not hesitate to stop a woman driving a buggy late at night. She’d thought of bringing Luzena with her so that she could explain the child was sick and she was taking her to the doctor. But the doctor lived in the opposite direction. Besides, anyone stopping the buggy would see Clara curled up inside. Moreover, Luzena had already played a heroic part in keeping Clara safe. Eliza did not want to cause the girl further anguish.

The night was dark, with only a sliver of moon visible through the clouds. The hard rain kept falling, and the wind blew drops into the conveyance. Although she wished the skies would clear, Eliza knew that the rain offered protection, keeping at home anyone who did not have to be out on such a dreadful night. She flicked the reins against Sabra’s back, but the old horse had settled into little more than a walk, and Eliza knew the buggy would go no faster. Mercy’s farm was just two miles away, but with the time it had taken Davy to hitch up the buggy and Missouri Ann to dress Clara in warm clothing, then bundle her up in a quilt, it would be an hour or more before they reached the Eagles farm. Eliza judged it was already ten o’clock, so she wouldn’t return home until past midnight. But as long as she was there before sunup when the Starks were expected, she would be all right.

The buggy wheel hit a rock, and Eliza felt Clara’s head bounce against her shoulder and knew the woman was asleep. She wondered how Clara could sleep when her life was in danger, but perhaps she had lived her whole life in fear. Sleep was the best thing for her in her illness, and Eliza was glad the slave could rest. She snuggled up next to Clara and pulled part of the quilt around her shoulders and sank back against the seat. Despite the rain, she felt a kind of peace, as if she were alone in the world. The buggy seemed like a cocoon, and the rain made a sound like soft music. The blackness engulfed her, soothed her, and she felt almost safe.

Eliza thought back to the buggy ride so long ago, when she and Will had ventured out on a rainy day in the Ohio countryside. He had borrowed the buggy from a friend and had showed up at her farm, persuading her father to let Eliza go for a ride, just the two of them. Her father had protested, saying the rain that had come in the morning was liable to return, but Will had pointed to the bright sun and cloudless sky and said that even if the weather turned bad, the buggy had a top that could be raised to keep them dry. The drive had been lovely, past fields of wheat and corn. Goldenrod bloomed on the roadsides as well as asters, and Will had stopped to pick her a bouquet of the purple flowers. They drove farther than they should have, and when the rain came suddenly, it took the two of them to raise the buggy top. The top was cranky, and Will and Eliza were soaked by the time they got it righted.

“I should get you home before you come down with chilblains,” Will said, but Eliza told him the rain was warm, almost like a bath, and she was happy to sit in the buggy until the sun came out. It didn’t occur to Will to drive home in the rain anyway, or if it did, he didn’t say anything. Nor did Eliza. They sat in the buggy and talked, and then Will reached over and smoothed a wet strand of hair that had fallen across Eliza’s face.

“I must look like a drenched chicken,” Eliza said, realizing that her hair was plastered to her head, for she had taken off her bonnet when they struggled with the buggy top. She was embarrassed at looking so unsightly.

“You look beautiful. I believe you are the most beautiful young lady in the world,” Will said. He had never paid her such a compliment. Indeed, those were words only a lover would utter, and Eliza was embarrassed and turned away, muttering, “Surely not.”

Will seemed a little taken aback at his forwardness, but having spoken, he plunged ahead. “I thought you were the prettiest thing I’d ever seen the day I met you, when I wasn’t more than ten years old, and I never saw a reason to change my mind. I vowed then I’d marry you, too. Will you have me, Eliza?”

Eliza turned to him, astonished. Not only was her hair damp against her head, but drops of water ran down her face, and her clothes were wet against her body. She had known in her heart that they would marry. There had never been anyone else for either of them. But she had imagined Will would propose in a more formal manner, in her parlor, presenting her with a bouquet of flowers and perhaps getting down on one knee. But she was not a formal person, and the spontaneity of the proposal pleased her. She glanced at the asters he had picked. They were so rain soaked that Will had thrown them onto the ground. The flowers made her laugh, and then she glanced at Will, who had a horrified look on his face.

“I am laughing at the poor flowers and not at you,” she said quickly. And then she looked into his kind face, at the blue eyes as bright as a kitten’s, his expression expectant, and she reached up and patted his damp curls into place. He looked as bedraggled as she did. “Of course I will have you, Will. If we can pledge ourselves to each other looking our worst, as we do now, I believe we can only look forward to better days.”

“My dear one,” Will said. He took Eliza’s hand and raised it to his lips, and then he put his arms around her and kissed her.

Eliza had never been kissed before, and she wasn’t sure it was proper for Will to do so until they were married. What if someone saw them? She glanced around, then laughed again, for who would be spying on them in the rain? And then she boldly raised her mouth and kissed Will.

“We will have a life filled with both sunshine and rain,” Will said.

“Sunshine and rain,” Eliza repeated, savoring the remark. Later, on their wedding day, she presented him with a quilt she had pieced in a design she had created herself and named Sunshine and Rain. “There are fewer rain squares, because I believe our lives will have more sunshine,” she told him, and it had. Will gave her his mother’s old wedding ring, worn and thin, promising that one day he would buy her a gold ring with a ruby in it.

“A buggy would be more romantic,” she had told him, remembering their ride, and Will had promised that, too.

They had married only a month after Will proposed, and there were those who wondered at the abruptness of the ceremony. But Davy was not born until eleven months later. And then they had taken him to Kansas, not in a buggy, of course—they didn’t have one—but in a wagon.

The buggy came later, and it was a surprise. Luzena had been a baby when Will rode Sabra, then a young horse, into Topeka. He had come home to the soddy late at night, long after dark, and he had called, “Come out, come out, Mrs. Spooner. Your husband may take his time, but he keeps his word.”

With Luzena in her arms and Davy beside her, Eliza had opened the door and found Will standing beside Sabra—and a buggy. It was not a new one, of course. Both of them would have considered such an extravagance wasteful. In fact, the buggy had been well used, but it had been finely built and was serviceable. Will had bought it from a man in Topeka whose wife had used it, but she had died, and he no longer wanted it. When Will told him he had long desired a buggy for his wife, the man had replied, “A good wife should not ride in a farm wagon,” and had named a fair price.

There had never been a ruby ring. It had become a sort of joke between them, Will promising it for their twenty-fifth anniversary, or maybe their fiftieth. He had mentioned it in one of his letters. Eliza tried to remember which one. She had read his letters over and over again when they arrived, but after his death, she had put them away, saving them to be read at special moments. She wanted the letters to seem new again, to open them as if she were reading them for the first time. And so she had put them into the candle box on the mantel. When Clara was safely gone, Eliza would reward herself by reading one of the precious missives.

She leaned back against the black leather seat, which had cracked in places so that white lines ran from the tufted spots. She was grateful for Will’s thoughtfulness in buying the buggy. She and Clara would have been soaked and chilled to their bones in the open wagon. Besides, the buggy was faster—and quieter. The farm wagon could have been heard a quarter mile away in the still night. Davy had removed the bells from the buggy just before Eliza left, and it moved silently in the dark.

Eliza had almost reached the Eagles farm, when she heard horses and a wagon behind her, going fast. In a few minutes, the driver would overtake her. She felt Clara’s head rise and knew she had awakened at the sound.

“Mens?” Clara asked.

“I don’t know, but best we be cautious. Probably it’s a farmer on the road late, or maybe a man out courting.” Suddenly, she was afraid. They were two women, one with a price on her head, alone on the dark road. There was no one to look out for her, no man to protect her. A grove of trees loomed up just off the road, and Eliza made for it. The moon was hidden under the clouds, and if they were lucky, whoever was on the road would ride on by without seeing them. Eliza hoped the rain had covered their tracks on the road.

She whipped the reins against Sabra’s back and hurried the horse down a lane and into the trees, then stopped under the largest one, whose branches dipped almost to the ground. She jumped out of the buggy and put her hands on the animal’s head to quiet her, hoping the scent of the horses on the road wouldn’t cause Sabra to neigh. Clara got out of the buggy, too, and came up next to Eliza, saying she would hold the mare. “Get in the buggy, mist’ess, and keep you dry.” The rain was falling as hard as ever.

“I am not your mistress, Clara. I am only Mrs. Spooner,” Eliza said in a low voice. Then she added, “Maybe you should hide in the ditch or out in the field, just in case someone is up to no good.”

“I not leave you alone,” Clara said.

“It will be safer for both of us if you do. If there are men looking for you, you will have a chance to get away. The house up ahead, on the left. That is Mrs. Eagles’s place. You can explain that I sent you there.” She thought a moment, then asked, “Do you know left from right?”

Clara nodded but said, “I stay here to protect you.”

Eliza would have none of it and explained that it would go harder on her, too, if slave catchers found her with Clara. She looked around. “The ditch is filled with water, and the fields are too open. Can you climb the tree?”

Clara grinned, the first time Eliza had seen her grin. “Like a squirrel, Miz Spooner.”

“It may not be necessary. Wait and see.” They spoke in whispers, although the road was a hundred yards away. She whispered to the mare, too, to quiet her, but Sabra caught the scent of the other horses and gave a loud whinny.

The wagon stopped, and a man called, “Who’s out there?”

“Hide, then don’t move a peg,” Eliza whispered, and Clara began to climb the branches. When Eliza looked up, she could not make out the woman’s shape. She patted Sabra, hoping the horse would make no further noise, but then the horse whinnied again, and a man called, “Show yourself. I got a gun.” The wagon started up and headed toward the trees.

Eliza had no choice. “It’s Mrs. Will Spooner,” she called. And then she added. “And son.”

“Well, Mrs. Spooner, why didn’t you say so? I’m Hoyt Wymer out here. What are you doing in them trees?”

“I shall come for you,” Eliza whispered, hoping Clara could hear her. Then she got into the buggy, muttering, “Nothing ventured, nothing have,” and drove to the man. “Mr. Wymer, you put a fear into me,” she said. “I have been sitting with a friend who is ill, and I did not know how late it had gotten. When I heard your wagon, I thought it best to hide. I suppose I am a silly little thing, frightened by the dark.” She hoped that the rain had covered up her buggy tracks so that he had not noticed she had been going down the road before him, not toward him.

“You ought’n to be out here. Where’s your son?”

“Oh, I just said that, in case you were up to no good.”

“You’re lucky it’s only me. There’s slave catchers about.”

“Yes, I know. The Starks were at my house and tore it apart.”

“That’d be who I’d bet on.”

“They found nothing, of course. I don’t know who they were looking for.”

“A contraband what kilt her mistress, and Starks ain’t the only ones out looking. Plenty of men are after that reward.”

“How dreadful,” Eliza said. “My children will be worried, so I’ll be on my way. Give my best to Mrs. Wymer.”

“I’d see you to home, but she’s ill herself, and I’ve went to the doctor to get her a tonic. She’s waiting for me.”

“Then you’d better hurry along. I shall be fine. I have my buggy whip and know how to use it,” Eliza said.

“I don’t like to leave a lady alone.”

“I should not like to delay you when your wife needs you—more than I do.”

“There’s that.”

“Good evening, Mr. Wymer. Tell your wife I shall call with a custard.”

“Oh, she’d like that.”

Eliza assured him again that she would be all right, and she slapped the reins against Sabra’s back and pulled onto the road. And then because she knew Hoyt Wymer was watching her, she turned toward home instead of the Eagles house. She drove until the road turned and she was no longer visible, then pulled to a stop. If the man followed her, she would say the top had slipped and she had stopped to right it. She didn’t hear his wagon start up, and that bothered her. She’d also noticed how he’d peered into the buggy as if looking for someone hidden there. Clara would be frightened, left alone in the dark, wondering if Eliza had abandoned her, but it was better to be safe. Eliza would wait until she was sure the farmer was gone. The wind came up and shook the buggy, and Eliza huddled against the seat, thinking if Will were there, he would have taken Clara to Mercy’s farm. He would have known how to deal with Hoyt Wymer.

After twenty minutes or so, she heard the creak of a wagon, clear at first, then fainter as it disappeared in the opposite direction. She waited even longer, and then she turned the buggy and went back to the grove.

“Clara,” she called softly. “It’s Mrs. Spooner. I’m alone.”

She did not hear a ruffling in the trees or the sound of footsteps, but in a minute, Clara was beside the buggy. “I hope you didn’t fear I’d abandoned you,” Eliza said.

Clara didn’t reply. Instead, she said, “That man come over here, walked instead of drove, maybe thinking I wouldn’t hear him, and he stay a long time. He call to me, say he come to fetch me to safety, but I know he ain’t, and I don’t say nothing. He fall in the ditch and get hisself wet, but he don’t see me. I hide good.” Clara climbed into the buggy and then smiled at Eliza. “He say, ‘Damn-fool woman driving in the dark, too purely stupid to hide a yellow dog. Who’d trust her with a slave?’”

The two of them laughed, and Eliza started for the road. “We are going to Mrs. Mercy Eagles’s house. You will be safe there, because she has made it known she is not against slavery.”

Clara sat up and peered at Eliza in the dark. “Ain’t she likely to turn me in to those mens?”

“No, I believe when I tell her your story, she will be as sympathetic as Mr. Ritter and Mr. Hamlin.”

Clara stared out into the darkness. “I won’t be catched.”

“You will be safe. Mrs. Eagles is a good woman.”

Clara considered that, but she did not seem persuaded. She moved to the edge of the buggy, as if ready to jump out, and it was clear that she would run if she thought she might be captured. Eliza patted Clara’s knee and assured her again that Mercy Eagles was as harmless as a dove.

They pulled the buggy into the Eagles farm, and left it hidden behind the barn. Eliza was glad to see that despite the late hour, a light shone through the kitchen window, which meant that Mercy was up. She would not have to pound on the door, waking her friend. Eliza could see Mercy sitting at the table, knitting, and went close to the window and called, “Mercy, it’s Eliza Spooner.”

Mercy jerked up her head as she looked toward the window, and Eliza was sorry she had startled the woman. She thought how frightened Mercy would be alone with two children, and hearing a voice in the night. “It’s Eliza Spooner, come on an errand of great importance. Please let me in.”

Mercy rose and went to the door, unlatching it. “Eliza, you gave me a fright. What are you doing out in the middle of the night and in all this rain, too?”

“The girls…?”

“Are asleep.”

“May I come in?”

“Of course.” Mercy opened the door, then stared in shock as Clara followed Eliza into the house. Eliza went to the kerosene lamp and blew it out. “What is going on?” Mercy demanded. “And who is this creature?”

“She is an escaped slave, and I want you to hide her for a day or so.”

Mercy put her hand to her chest, her knitting needles thrust upward to her chin, and took a step backward. “Eliza, what are you asking? I’ll do no such thing.”

“Yes, I believe you will, Mercy, because you are of good character. I would not ask, if Clara’s life didn’t depend on it. We hid her at our place, but the Starks came today and turned the house and all the outbuildings upside down. It was a miracle she wasn’t found. Mother Stark warned us they will be back early in the morning. Clara has been unwell.” Eliza thought to ask the slave to show her back to Mercy but would not humiliate her, so said only, “She has been beaten almost to death, the skin flailed off her back. I have never seen such savagery. Her son, a boy not much older than Baby Nance, was whipped to death, and she is accused of killing the person who did the beastly act.” Eliza thought it best not to mention that the person was a woman. She explained that John Hamlin had made plans to transport Clara to Colorado, but that the woman had been delirious and unable to travel. She was better now and could continue her journey soon.

“But you know I have never been sympathetic to the cause.”

“Yes, that is why your farm is the best place to hide Clara. No one would suspect you.”

Mercy thought that over, then shook her head. The children would see her, she protested, but Eliza said Clara could be hidden in the barn for a day. Mercy told Eliza to take Clara to Ettie, whose abolitionist views were well-known. Eliza replied she couldn’t, because that was an obvious place to look. In fact, the Starks had already talked about searching the Espy farm.

“Then take her to the sheriff.”

“I believe he is proslavery. I’d sooner take her back to my place.”

“I can’t. I just can’t, Eliza. Nathaniel would be furious,” Mercy said.

Eliza resisted the impulse to state the obvious, that Nathaniel was dead.

Mercy looked away. “Slavery isn’t my fight. I know you think I am wrong, but I’m not an abolitionist. I don’t want to be a hero the way Ettie does. I have already given my husband to the war and want no further part of it. Surely you of all people would understand that. I wish the woman well, Eliza, but I can’t do as you ask.”

Eliza took her friend’s hands and waited, while Mercy looked at Clara, then around the room, and finally into Eliza’s face. “This is not about slavery, Mercy. It is about a woman, a woman who has been beaten, whose child was murdered. If Clara is captured, she will be smuggled back down South and hanged or maybe consigned to one of those cages that they hang from a tree. I read about them in an abolitionist newspaper. Men will strip her naked and put her into the cage to starve to death, if she doesn’t go mad and kill herself first. It is not enough to wish her well. I didn’t want to be involved, either, but I didn’t have a choice. You don’t, either. We are Christian women called upon to do our duty. We must sacrifice as our husbands have. We dishonor them by doing nothing. I believe it will go hard on you for the rest of your life if you refuse Clara. You would not forgive yourself.” Then she pleaded, “If nothing else, will you hide her as a favor to me?”

Mercy took a deep breath. Eliza had always thought her a silly thing, but Mercy surprised her as she stood a little straighter and looked Eliza full in the face. “You are right, Eliza. We must accept what we are called upon to do, just as Nathaniel and Will did. I may not agree with you about slavery, but I will not turn away this woman. She can sleep with Mary Ann.” She turned to Clara and said slowly and in a louder voice, as if Clara were deaf, “Mary Ann is twelve.”

“No need,” Eliza told her. “Clara is safer outside the house, and so are you. It is best the children don’t know about Clara at all for fear they might say something. Besides, it is not likely, but if someone should come here and find Clara, you can say you were not aware of her presence.”

Mercy nodded and offered to fetch a quilt, since the one Clara had was wet, and then the three women walked to the barn in the dark, for they did not want to risk a light. Mercy explained there was a small storeroom behind the hay, where Clara would be safe. Nathaniel had built the hiding place in case Indians came onto the farm, although they never did. After Clara was inside, she and Eliza could pitch hay in front of the door so that no one would know it was there. Eliza asked Clara if she understood, and when Clara nodded, Eliza told her John Hamlin would return the following day.

“The Reverend Hamlin,” Mercy said. “So that was what he was doing on your farm the day of the quilting bee. I should have guessed, since I have heard he hid slaves before the war.” She led Clara to the little room, no bigger than a wardrobe. It held a broken chair and a trunk whose hinges were dark with rust. “Nathaniel’s mother’s trunk. She kept her sewing in it,” Mercy explained. She forked hay onto the floor to make a bed for Clara. Eliza started to close the door, but Mercy told her to wait. “If Clara is to be here a day or more, she will need something to eat.” She hurried back to the house and returned with a loaf of bread, a bowl of cooked potatoes, two boiled eggs, and a jug of water. “I do not dare bring you a candle, for if you caught the hay on fire, you would burn to death. There is no way you could push open the door from the inside. Besides, someone might see the light through the cracks. But in the morning, you will see that daylight comes in, so you will not spend all your time in darkness.”

“You give me your needles, I knit. I can knit in the dark,” Clara said. “I always be working with my hands. I stitch right good.”

But Mercy would not give them up, remarking she had only a single pair. Then she and Eliza closed the storeroom door and piled hay in front of it. When they were finished, Eliza said no one would ever guess there was a hiding place in the wall.

“I believe it will do,” Mercy said.

“Why did you agree to it?” Eliza asked, when Mercy walked her to the buggy. The rain had let up, and Eliza paused before climbing into the conveyance.

Mercy smiled. “You are my friend. You asked me. Helping each other is what friends do.”

*   *   *

Eliza was exhausted by the time she returned home, unhitched Sabra, and led her into the barn. After she rubbed down the horse, she went to the house and found Missouri Ann in the doorway. “You’ve not slept?” Eliza said.

Missouri Ann shook her head. “Not till you was home safe. I didn’t straighten the house, because likely the Starks’ll just tear it up again.”

“You are sure they will be here at dawn?”

“I am.”

Then they had better get a few hours’ sleep, Eliza said, and the two women lay down on Eliza’s bed, fully clothed. Eliza thought she was too agitated to rest well, but minutes after she closed her eyes, she was asleep.

Neither she nor Missouri Ann awoke until they heard mules in the barnyard, and a voice cried, “We know you got the slave girl hid somewheres. Now open the door, or we’ll burn down the house and all that’s in it. We brung kerosene to help us with the burning.”

Eliza righted herself and went to the window, peering out at the sky, which was light in the east. “Will they do it?” she asked Missouri Ann.

“Oh, yes, ma’am.”

“Are you ready?”

“I am.”

Deciding not to awaken the children, Eliza opened the door and stepped outside. “What are you doing here, Mr. Stark? You have already searched our house and outbuildings. You know no one is hidden here.”

“Don’t know no such thing. Maybe you hid her before, but I reckon she’s right around here now. You probably brung her inside, thinking we wouldn’t be back. Well, we outsmarted you.” He grinned at Missouri Ann, who stood behind Eliza.

“You’ve already terrified the children,” Eliza said.

“Don’t know as I care.” He swung down off his mule, leaving his shotgun attached to his saddle, and gestured to his three sons, who dismounted, too. “I believe we’ll start in the house this time, save us trouble. You get in our way and you’ll lose an eye. Maybe that girl will, too, the one kept the house bolted up last time. Or maybe you’ll get an arm broke off.”

“You can’t come in here,” Missouri Ann said.

“Oh, I can’t, can’t I? Who’s to stop me? Not a puny thing like you.”

“I’ll stop you,” said a voice behind the Starks. “You ain’t fit for the kitchen cellars of hell, frightening two women like you just did.”

Dad Stark started to turn, but the voice said, “You stay right where you are, Mr. Stark. I have a shotgun trained on you.”

Eliza, startled, stared into the darkness, not knowing who had spoken or what the man was doing on her property. Perhaps he was another slave-catcher.

“Who’s there?” Dad Stark asked.

“Print Ritter.”

Eliza turned to Missouri Ann, who gave her the ghost of a smile. “Mr. Ritter?” she mouthed, and Missouri Ann nodded. “What’s he doing here?” Eliza whispered, but Missouri Ann only put her finger over her lips.

“Oh, the fool blacksmith. You spend the night here with Missouri Ann, did you, laying out in the barn like hound dogs coupling?” Dad Stark asked. “Well, you take her for all I care. She ain’t good enough for a Stark.”

“Watch your mouth,” Print said.

“Best you watch yours,” Dad Stark said and laughed. “I got three boys with me, and we all got guns.”

“Yours is on the horse, and I’ll wager the onliest thing your boys have is pistols.”

“Good enough to shoot a man. We’re four against one.”

“Two,” another voice said, and Eliza recognized it as John Hamlin’s. What were the two of them doing there? she wondered. How had they known about the Starks?

“Oh, a reverend can’t shoot worth nothing,” Dad Stark said. “He’s no more danger than a girl.”

“Well, I can shoot,” a third voice said.

Eliza could not imagine who that man was, but Dad Stark could. “What you doing here, Tom? You ain’t against slavery. We could cut you in on the reward.”

The man was the sheriff, Tom Miller. He was proslavery, Eliza knew, so surely he was not there to protect Clara.

“Maybe not,” the sheriff replied, “but I sure am against threatening women and children. That’s my job. I seen how you tore up the house here and put a fear in those little ones. I knew you was mean, hamfat, but you’re even worse’n I thought.”

“You got no cause to call me names, Tom. We was just kind of teasing, having a little fun. We didn’t mean nothing by it.”

“Is that right, Mrs. Spooner?”

Eliza shook her head, then realized that in the dark, the sheriff could not see her. “It is not. He threatened to take my son’s arm off, and I believe he would have done it if he hadn’t been allowed to go into the house. And you heard him just now, saying he would do the same or even gouge out an eye. Missouri Ann’s face is already badly bruised where he hit her, and if you have been inside, you have seen how the Starks tore up the place. A ten-dollar gold piece wouldn’t pay for all the damage.”

“He threatened to hurt Ma, too,” a fourth voice said, and Eliza realized Davy was with the men. She had thought he was asleep in the loft, but he must have gone for John after she left with Clara. He would have run all the way through fields to the Hamlin farm. Then John would have gone for Print and the sheriff. They had come from the opposite direction so Eliza had not encountered them on the road.

“I guess we’ll be on our way then,” Dad Stark said.

“Not just yet,” the sheriff told him. “You ain’t leaving less’n Mrs. Spooner says so. You want to charge them with something, ma’am? I’d be happy to jail them.”

Eliza thought it over. The Starks deserved to go to jail for the fright they had caused and the mess they had made, but that would make them madder than ever, and despite the sheriff’s threat, the Starks might try to get even. Besides, she did not want others to suspect she had hidden Clara. What if John Hamlin needed her assistance again? “I will forgive it this time, but I never want to see a Stark anywhere near this farm. I want their word on it.” She wasn’t sure why she’d asked that, because the word of a Stark was worthless.

“I’ll do better than that. I’ll come by here every now and then, and so will Mr. Hamlin and Mr. Ritter, and if we see a Stark within a mile of your farm, I’ll make it hot for him. I’ll lock him up, and you can charge him then with the mischief he done.”

“How’d you know we was coming back?” Dad Stark asked as he mounted his mule.

Eliza feared for Mother Stark, was afraid Dad Stark would whip his wife if he suspected she had warned Eliza. But before Eliza could speak, Missouri Ann said, “I lived with you too long, Dad. I can outsmart a Stark any day of the week.”

*   *   *

Later that day, when she was alone in the house, Eliza went to the candle box and took out Will’s second letter. She carried it to the bench on the porch so that she could smell the earth scent as she read it. “You would have been proud of me, I think. Oh, how I wish I could have told you about this venture,” she whispered as she stared at her name written in Will’s hand. And then she added as she unfolded the letter, “But I believe you do know about it. Perhaps it was you who protected us.” She looked up at the sky, at a cloud that was long and thin, the sun edging it in gold.

She began to read the letter, but just then, Davy came up and sat down on the porch step. He looked at the letter, and said, “Read it aloud, Mama.”

October 18, 1864

Dearest Wife

I do not like the army much. The food is worse than what we feed the hogs. We eat beans & bacon, bacon & beans & crackers so hard you could not break them with a hammer. Yesterday I chewed on a piece of meat that had the hair still on it. Coffee tastes like the runoff from the soddy roof. I would gladly trade my gun for one of your apple dumplings. But I am here in a good cause & should not complain. It is said the Johnnies have it worse. Well, they caused this war & deserve it. I never hated a people so much. If one comes by the farm, you are to take down the shotgun.

Davy made a fist with his right hand and hit the palm of his left. “You should have let me join up, Mama. I could have gotten a Secesh, gotten one for Papa.”

“And what if something had happened to you, too?”

“It wouldn’t.”

Eliza did not remind him that Will had said the same thing. She continued with the letter.

I worry about you & the children living there alone. I have heard terrible things about what some of the soldiers of our own army do to Southern women & can only imagine what the Secesh, the vilest men on earth, would do to a Union woman alone if they were to come into Kansas. Use the shotgun if you have to. But be careful. Guns beg you to fire them.

We ran across a party of Secesh two days ago. War seems to be long days of practice, then an hour or so of the worst excitement I ever saw & we excited those boys pretty bad. There were five of them & I’m sorry to say that three survived, although in poor condition. There is a Southern tradition in this war—I do not know the source of it or what it means—that Johnnies yell to each other, “Mister, here’s your mule.” We have taken it upon ourselves to say it to the captured Rebs at every opportunity. They do not like it.

Before long you will be harvesting. Do not tax our old horse too much, for she must last at least another year. Davy can help with the plowing, & even Luzena can do her part. If I am not there by spring, do not plant too early, because a frost could scour the tender plants. Those are my orders. Dear me, why do I feel I must instruct a farmer as experienced as yourself? I believe you can do quite well without me, although I do not want your independence to become a habit.

Well, Eliza, that is all I have to say except that I miss you & our children. There is no sight I wish more to see than you standing beside the door as I come up the lane when this terrible war is over. Meanwhile, I think about you every night as I go to sleep. I hope you know how well I love you. Give a great deal of love to Davy and Luzena & save a good measure for “my little girl.”

Until I see you, I remain your loving husband

William T. Spooner

*   *   *

Neither Print nor John told Eliza when or how they removed Clara from her hiding place and sent her west. In fact, for all Eliza knew, the escaped slave was still hidden on the Eagles place. But a week later, Mercy Eagles and her children stopped at the Spooner farm on their way to town.

“I’ve baked a panful of gingerbread and thought I’d share it with you. I remember you liked it, and I thought it would be a nice way to celebrate the end of the war.” The news of the surrender had come only two days before. “It came too late for us,” Mercy added, “but we must celebrate nonetheless.”

“We must indeed,” Eliza said. “We can be grateful that Ettie’s husband will come home now, and Anna’s.” She did not have to say how sorry she was that Mercy’s and her husbands would never come back.

Mercy seated herself on a tree stump and took off her bonnet, using it to fan herself, because the day was warm. She no longer carried her knitting needles. Missouri Ann had cut the gingerbread, and the children had taken theirs out to the orchard. The three women sat in the shade with their cake and talked about the weather, the crops, the promise of more rain. Then Mercy leaned toward Eliza and said, “There is something else.” She reached into her basket and removed two folded squares of cloth and handed them to Eliza and Missouri Ann.

Eliza opened hers and found herself looking at a quilt square, but a square like none she had ever seen. The maker had cut out a rough outline of a woman and appliquéd it onto a plain square of fabric. The square had a moon, a tree, and a strange shape that looked almost like a buggy. She glanced at Missouri Ann’s square, which showed a woman and a child. Then she looked up at Mercy, her mouth open. “Clara—”

“I found them in the barn after Mr. Hamlin took her away. There were three. Mine has a woman on it and a barn.”

Eliza held the square close so that she could examine it. “I never saw such fine stitching.”

“Even better than yours.” Missouri Ann smiled.

“What will we do with them?”

“They are quilt squares. I shall add mine to a quilt.” Mercy looked off into the distance and sighed, then added, “A quilt that will remind me that I must not shirk my duty.”

“No,” Eliza told her. “It will remind you that when called upon, you did what was right.”

“And of our friendship,” Mercy said.

Eliza nodded. She would add her square to a quilt, too. Thinking about that she remembered Will’s Christmas quilt and wondered again what had happened to it.