Elias cleared his throat to grab Gretchen’s attention. He tilted his head, glaring at her. This was not the time to fly off the handle. She did not have a revolver to make Werner see reason.
“You’re nothing but a dirty Copperhead,” Werner said. “You’re not my sister, and I don’t want you as my cousin. I want you out of my house. You will not spend another night under the same roof as my wife.”
Gretchen fell back. Her face stung as if he had slapped her with all his might. She was not a Copperhead. She was against the Confederacy and all it stood for. She hated the Confederates for breaking up the Union. She hated the Confederates for breaking up her family. She hated the Confederates for breaking her cousin.
Gretchen looked at Elias, who nodded at her. Tante Klegg grunted and stepped back. Gretchen did not think too hard about it. She launched herself at Werner. Elias was close behind. The screams of his wife and mother almost drowned out the explosion of the revolver firing. The lead ball went through the slatted ceiling as Werner landed on the puncheon floor with a hard thud.
Werner grunted when Gretchen shifted her weight so most of it was on him. This was difficult because her hoop skirt had popped up when she threw herself to the ground. She managed to keep Werner still so Elias could wrestle the revolver from him.
“Will you shut up?” Gretchen shouted at Adelaide and Alina.
Alina complied, whimpering and wringing her hands together. Adelaide stopped screaming, but the words she said instead would have made a hardened soldier blush.
Tante Klegg considered the dramatic scene. She held Werner’s bedroom door open and waved inside.
“You help them?” Adelaide said.
“Your son did not abide by his promise,” Tante Klegg replied. “He said we had until Monday. Yet he waves a weapon in our face on Saturday when we should all be reflecting on the state of our nation.”
“Is this the son you’ve pined for, Mama Miller?” Gretchen said, sitting on a wriggling Werner. “A son who left the war because he grew tired of it? A son who threatens unarmed women because of a temper tantrum?”
Adelaide glared at her.
Gretchen punched Werner hard in his side. He groaned and tried to curl into a fetal position, but could not because Gretchen still sat on him. Elias pointed the revolver at his head.
“How do you think life will be like with this person?” Gretchen asked Adelaide. “Do you think his return is worth all those years of being cruel to me?”
“He is my son,” she said. “You cannot understand.”
Tante Klegg reached into the bedroom to retrieve the rope that once held the door shut at night. With Elias maintaining a lock on Werner, Tante Klegg helped Gretchen tie Werner’s hand to his ankles.
“You would hogtie your own cousin?” Alina whimpered.
“Oh, stop it, Alina,” Gretchen said. “How can you be so naïve to marry a man without waiting to see how the war changed him?”
Alina scowled. “You think you are so smart,” she said. “I am a wife now. I am important to society. You are a nuisance.” She lifted her skirts and joined Adelaide by Werner’s bedroom door.
Elias tucked the revolver in the back of his pants to help Gretchen and Tante Klegg haul Werner off the floor. It was not difficult to do with Werner’s malnourished weight. Gretchen and Tante Klegg shouldered Werner. Elias trained the revolver on Alina and Adelaide.
“If you please,” Elias said in his nicest voice, gesturing in the direction of Werner’s bedroom with a little bow.
Alina and Adelaide sat on Werner’s bed and watched Gretchen and Tante Klegg dump Werner on the floor in front of them. They said nothing as Gretchen and Tante Klegg backed out of the room, Elias guarding them the entire way.
Tante Klegg shut the door. They heard a loud shuffling noise followed by a startling thump against the door.
“He’s trying to kick his way through,” Gretchen said.
The door began to shudder. Werner was making progress, and he screamed his fury. Gretchen could only imagine what it was like on the other side—Alina and Adelaide cowering on the bed, her hogtied cousin kicking his way to insanity.
The hinges began to rattle. Elias leapt to hold the door in place. Tante Klegg ran from the room.
“Now Gretchen,” Elias grunted, “I know I’ve only known you a little while. But it’s been a busy two weeks. And I know that you think this is your home, but it’s becoming mighty clear that it’s not.”
Gretchen rolled her eyes. She braced the door to help him. “Now what makes you think that?”
Elias cleared his throat and raised his voice over Werner’s shouts and kicks. “I don’t know what you think, but we get along all right.”
Gretchen’s eyes narrowed.
“Uh… it wouldn’t be so bad to do as your aunt—your ma—” Elias stumbled to correct himself under Gretchen’s suspicious glare. “Anyway, maybe you’d consider marrying me.”
“What?” Werner shrieked through the door.
“Maybe we’d drive each other nuts. Maybe we’d be good companions. Don’t know for sure either way,” Elias rushed.
Tante Klegg walked between them with a hammer and pounded at a hinge, mangling it. She acted as if Elias and Gretchen were not staring each other down.
“Could we talk about this some other time?” Gretchen said through gritted teeth.
Tante Klegg bent, hammering and mangling another hinge.
“All you got is your ma and me. And I ain’t got nobody but you two. So it’s up to you. Not going to make you make up your mind now—”
“Generous of you,” Gretchen said.
“But I wanted to put it out there that I’m not opposed to marrying if you’re not.”
Gretchen closed her eyes and waited for Tante Klegg to finish the third hinge. When the room fell quiet, she said, “You think this is the best time to be talking like this? We locked my family—wekidnapped my family—in a bedroom and you decide now’s the time to propose?”
Tante Klegg snickered, took one look at Gretchen, and walked back outside to the barn. “I will get the wagon ready,” she called over her shoulder.
Elias shrugged. “Didn’t seem any other time to do it.”
Gretchen crossed her arms over her chest.
“We do it now or we’re spending our days with your ma—yes, your ma, Gretchen. She’ll be chaperoning us as if we’re courting when we’re on the run and that… seems odd. To me.”
Gretchen’s nostrils flared, and her eyes flashed.
“You have to admit it don’t ever seem to be a good time for anything, so I figured I might as well just ask.”
“Unbelievable,” was her reply. Gretchen stomped up the stairs to her attic bedroom with Elias staring after her.
Werner began kicking against the door again with more fervor. Elias watched the door shake.
Gretchen stumbled down the stairs, having thrown everything she owned in a carpetbag. “Come on,” she said. “You got one thing right. We’re not staying here anymore.”