“I HOPE I HAVEN’T HURT YOU.” John Andrews said, taking his hand from her mouth, “but I feared you might wake the household.”
“What on earth are ye doing here in Lancaster in the middle of the night?” she asked as they entered the shed. Lightning flashed again, and thunder roared on its heels as the storm approached.
“I had a bit of trouble over a debt and had to leave Philadelphia,” he said.
“And ye are ashamed to face your father?”
“There is more to it than that,” he said, and in the flash of a brilliant streak of lightning, Ann could see the drawn, defeated look on his face. In a flat tone, he continued his story. “There’s no need to go into the details, but what it amounts to is that a certain gentleman wanted me to pay a debt I owed him. When I could not get the money immediately, he placed me in the position of having to defend my honor against him. It did not go well.”
“Ye mean ye fought a duel?” Ann asked, astounded. In Ireland, the men of the McKay’s acquaintance used their fists to settle their arguments, leaving duelling pistols or swords to the landed gentry. “Isn’t that against the law?”
“Yes, and so is thievery,” John said, “but goods are stolen and duels are fought, all the same.” He sank to the dirt floor of the shed and rested his head against a pile of lumber. As the first raindrops peppered down, rattling the tin roof, he put his head on his drawn-up knees and made a sound very much like a sob.
“Ye say the duel did not go well—what do ye mean? Are ye hurt?”
His reply was lost in the drumming of the rain, and Ann moved closer and knelt beside him. “I couldna’ hear ye. Are ye hurt?”
“Not as much as my opponent,” he said bitterly. “I am told he may be mortally wounded.”
Shocked, Ann drew a deep breath. It was difficult to believe that John Andrews, so light-hearted and pleasure-loving, could actually have caused someone’s death. “But ye—are ye in pain?” she asked, and he nodded assent.
“We used his weapons, since I had none—a brace of matched derringers. We must have fired at the same instant, because I heard only the report of my own pistol. I felt a stinging in my left side, but I still stood. He lay on the ground and didn’t move. My seconds dragged me away to an inn, and when I saw the blood on my shirt, I realized that his charge must have grazed my side.”
“Then how were ye able to ride all this way?” Ann asked, recalling the hardships of the journey from Philadelphia. “Ye must be half-dead.”
“One of my seconds is a surgeon’s apprentice, and he bound the wound well enough so I didn’t lose much blood. But then my opponent’s man said he thought the other was dying. Under that condition, I had no choice but to leave.”
“What will ye do now?” Ann asked. “Your father is certain to find out.”
“True, but I prefer to keep it hidden as long as I can. My father can be a very hard man when he chooses, and I have no desire to put my mother in the position of harboring a fugitive.”
“Surely no one will come all the way from Philadelphia after ye, will they?”
“That is not the way things are done in the Colony. There will be a public announcement posted in town and run in the Gazette to the effect that one John Andrews is afoul of the law, and that any citizen who apprehends him can be assured of a reward. Once that comes out, I will be in great danger, because there are those who make a handsome living from chasing runaway slaves and indentured servants—and criminals. I had to ride hard to put distance between me and the newspaper.”
“Ye still have not said what ye aim to do.”
“I will,” he promised, “but first do you think you could find some food? I’ve not eaten all day.”
“Of course!” she said, turning for the door. “I should have realized your need.”
In the kitchen Ann found bread and a pastry, filled with apples and spices in the German way, and added cheese and mutton and buttermilk from the cooling slab in the cellar. The rain had subsided to a soft drizzle as she returned to the shed, her arms so full that she had to walk slowly.
John sat where she had left him, so still that at first she feared that he had fainted. “Here,” she said, spreading an apron to serve as a tablecloth. “I was afraid to draw water, the well-chain rattles so, but I found a half-crock of buttermilk.”
When he had eaten most of the food, she spoke again. “Now, tell me what ye plan to do.”
“There isn’t much I can do, except push on to the new lands until this business is forgotten.”
“When do ye think ye can go back?”
“Not for months, maybe even years. In the meantime, I’ll be fairly safe on the frontier.”
“But how will ye live?” Reading law was a poor preparation for breaking land, she knew.
“I can’t tell Father what happened, and I can’t ask him for help, but I know where he keeps the stores he sells to traders, and I know how to get to them.”
His words called to mind another trader. “Do ye know a man named Paul Yancey?”
“A rough fellow, fond of rum, as I recall. Why do you ask?”
Ann told John of her encounter with the man. “I was going to ask your father to help me trace the truth of his story, but he was not at supper.”
“Do you know if he came home at all tonight?” John asked.
“No, I don’t. Your mother retired to her room directly after supper, and Jonathan and I were in ours before full dark. He was not home by then. Is it important?” she asked, sensing his anxiety.
“It could be,” he replied, and hesitated. “Ann, I will tell you something about my father, but it must be held in the strictest confidence. You must promise that you will never mention it to anyone else.”
“Ye should not be telling me anything like that,” Ann said uneasily.
“Ordinarily I wouldn’t, but you should know that my father is not exactly what he seems to be.” He paused, and for a moment the only sound in the shed was the rain dripping from the roof. “I found out by accident several years ago that Father is engaged in illegal trade with the French. I understand how it began, and I have reason to believe that he would like to end it now, but he has been threatened with financial ruin if he does not continue to do as they wish. Yancey is one of the go-betweens in the trade, and there is no love lost between them.”
Ann remembered Yancey’s words—”James Andrews is crooked as a serpent”—words she had discounted as the rantings of a drunken man. Although she knew that Mr. Andrews hoped to accumulate as much wealth as he could, she had never seen him behave in an unseemly way, and told John so.
“Do you think Yancey means to do your father harm?” she added.
“Not as long as Father is useful to him. But Yancey has no loyalty to anyone, and if he thought there was a profit in it, he would sell his very soul.”
“I don’t fully trust Yancey myself,” Ann said, “but he has information about where my father might be, and at this point I am almost ready to believe him.”
“I think you should avoid the man,” John said bluntly. “It is my guess that he and Father are moving stores tonight in secret. They smuggle cargo by water every few months.”
“How will ye get your stores, then, if your father is at the warehouse tonight?”
“I’ll have to wait until he has finished, that’s all. Now, let’s consider what you should do.”
“What I should do?” Ann echoed, surprised. “I should think that ye’d be too concerned with your own problems to bother yourself with mine.”
“Maybe we can help each other,” John said. “You want to find your father, and with the word soon out that there is a price on my head, I need to go to the frontier. The authorities will be looking out for a man alone, not for a couple. With some work on changing our appearances, I think we could escape notice. Suppose you received a letter from your father, telling you to join him,” he said slowly, “and saying that Jonathan should stay here, because of his health.”
“But Father would never ask me to travel alone,” Ann protested, “and I wouldn’t leave Jonathan here by himself, anyway.”
“If he went with us, there would be greater danger of detection,” John pointed out. “He could easily give us away by saying the wrong thing.”
How well she knew her brother’s tendency to speak when he should be silent, Ann thought. “I couldn’t just go off supposedly on my own, anyway,” Ann said aloud. “Your father would never permit it.”
“I’ll grant you that,” John agreed. “There must be some way that we can invent an escort for you.”
“We could invent any number of things, but I have no way to travel anywhere at the moment.”
“Do you ride?” he asked.
“When I was a child I would sometimes sneak into the lord’s pasture and ride bareback, but I’ve never sat a saddle. Anyway, where would I get a mount? I have very little money.”
John sighed. “It’s very late, and I’m almost past thinking. I’ll sleep here in the shed tonight, and stay behind this lumber during the day. As soon as you can get away tomorrow, bring me some food. By then I should have worked out a plan for us.”
“Will ye be all right? Shouldn’t your wound be attended?”
“It doesn’t hurt so much, now that I’m off that jolting excuse of a horse—and, in any case, I can’t afford to let anyone know I am in town.”
“What did ye do with the horse?” Ann asked.
“I left him at the Watters stable, with no one the wiser. I can get him back, and a mount for you as well, if need be.”
“Are ye sure ye won’t come inside?” Ann asked. “It seems to me that your parents would want to help ye.”
“They must not know about this,” John said emphatically. “Can I count on you to keep my secret, sweet Ann?”
It was the first time that night that he had said anything personal to her, and for a moment he almost sounded like the John Andrews she had known before, But then his voice grew more serious, and he said “My life is in your hands.” He sounded so desperate that she felt she had no choice.
“I will not tell your parents,” she promised, “and I’ll bring food to ye tomorrow when I can.”
Back in her room, Ann lay still a long time, pondering her and John’s predicaments. A fragment of Scripture came into her mind, and she repeated it several times…”In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy path.” She desperately needed direction, but as light returned to her room, Ann was no nearer to knowing what she should do than she had been before.
Called away on a business matter…that was Mrs. Andrews’ explanation for her husband’s absence from the breakfast table the next morning.
“And what ails you this morning?” Mrs. Andrews asked, when Ann made little response to her declarations. “Are you coming down with something? I’ll not have you get sick on me! Agnes can prepare a posset—”
“No,” Ann interrupted, attempting a smile. “I’m quite well, thank ye. It’s just that the storm kept me awake, and I’m a bit tired.”
“Well, I still say you look unwell,” Mrs. Andrews declared, returning her attention to her food, “and I think you should stay in the house today and not go gadding about in the heat as you seem to have formed the unwise habit of doing.”
When Ann went to the kitchen to fetch Mrs. Andrews a second cup of tea, Agnes commented on the missing food. “I put it away myself, from supper.”
“I’m afraid I ate it,” Ann said, her eyes downcast.
“Yer needed a bit o’flesh on yet bones when yet come here, I’ll grant,” Agnes said earnestly, “but overdo it, and yer’ll have trouble catching a man.”
“I’ll remember your advice,” Ann said, smiling. Despite her rough ways and appearance, Agnes was good-hearted, and Ann knew that she would do her best to care for Jonathan if Ann were not there to look after him. But she still could not accept the idea of leaving him with the Andrews while she went to look for their father.
The morning hours seemed to crawl by. At both breakfast and dinner she had managed to sneak some bread and cheese into her pocket, and Ann hoped that it would suffice if Agnes did not leave the kitchen and give her a chance to raid for more.
Finally Mrs. Andrews was settled for her afternoon rest, and Jonathan was off to play with his friend, leaving Ann with her first free time of the day. “I’m going to take a walk,” she told Agnes, tying on her bonnet. “I won’t be gone long.”
Agnes looked up from the potatoes she was peeling and grunted. “’Tis a strange time o’day to be goin’ out,” she said. “Mind you watch where you walk.”
“I will,” Ann promised. “It’s much cooler today, and I just want to get out of the house for a while.”
“Go, then,” Agnes said, resuming her work.
When Ann entered the shed John Andrews put out both his hands and took hers in greeting. In the light of day, dark shadows under his eyes and the stubble of beard covering his face changed him from the carefree young man he had been only a short time before. When he dropped her hands, Ann brought the food from her pocket. “This is all I could get today. Agnes missed what I took last night, and I had to tell her that I ate it myself.”
John unwrapped the cheese. “Thank you. I didn’t intend trouble for you,” he said, taking a bite before continuing. “I have formulated a plan for us. It may take a few days to work it all out, but we can make a start laying the groundwork right away. You need to receive a letter from your father saying that he is near Harris’s ferry and that he wants you and your brother to join him there. At the same time, my father must receive a letter asking him to finance your trip, to be repaid on whatever terms he chooses. He will ask Father to find a trustworthy escort for you both, say a family traveling in that direction. I’ll stay around here in the woods by the river until I know what arrangements have been made, then I’ll ride out west alone. Somewhere along the way, I’ll meet you and say that I have been sent to take you to your father, and we’ll leave the west trail and go on to Shawnee Creek together. How does that sound?”
“It might work,” Ann admitted, trying to follow his reasoning, “but I wouldn’t feel right, asking Mr. Andrews to pay our way.”
“Don’t worry about that—you work very hard around here, just for your board. You’ve earned more than enough to finance your trip.”
“But what if Jonathan recognizes you when you join us?”
“I will try to disguise my appearance, but Jonathan is old enough to obey you if you tell him he must not appear to recognize me. He might enjoy the game, if it’s put to him that way.”
“And the letters from Father—how will ye manage that?”
“I think you should write them. I will get the necessary materials tonight and leave them in the shed. Then I will come back tomorrow night to pick up the letters.”
“How will you get them to me and your father?”
“That can be arranged—the ferry man on the Conestoga can find someone to deliver them for a few coppers, with no questions asked.”
“So we could be ready to leave in a few days,” Ann said, calculating the time involved.”
“I should think so. Families pass through Lancaster on their way to the west every day. It shouldn’t take Father long to find one that you can travel with.”
“But suppose your father doesn’t agree that we should go? Suppose he says he can’t find us an escort?”
“I know that he will not welcome the news that you are leaving, but you came with the understanding that it was a temporary arrangement, and whatever else my father may be, he has always been a man of his word in a business arrangement.”
“What else should the letter say?” Ann asked. She did not like deception, and felt herself stalling. “Won’t everyone wonder why Father waited so long to write?”
“Not if he had just found his land when he came down with the fever and has just now recovered. You’ll know how to word it. Come to the shed tonight as soon as everyone else is asleep.”
It all seemed to be happening too quickly. There were too many unanswered questions, and Ann felt an uneasy fearfulness growing in her. She spoke once more. “Making all of these arrangements,” Ann began haltingly, “well, I know ye’d be better off just going alone. Perhaps that’s what ye’d best do.”
“Do you want to find out what has happened to your father?” he asked.
“Of course. But what will we do if we can’t find him? Or if we find that he is…” She stopped, unable to voice the possibility that had more and more haunted her in the past few weeks.
John put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “In any case, you and Jonathan will at least have me,” he assured her. “I will see to it that you are taken care of, and that’s a vow.”
“I don’t want ye to feel obligated to us.”
John spoke in a low voice. “I need your help, Ann. Can I count on you?”
She nodded. “I’ll come for the paper tonight.”