Beyond the Valley, page 13
“On my life, you killed it, Sarah!” Thrasher slapped his thighs with delight. “You sure are a good shot in the dark. You saved my life. I’ll make you a cap out of the pelt.”
“I do not want it.” She handed him back his musket.
Thrasher tumbled out of his seat and drew out his hunting knife. “You’ll change your mind when you feel how soft it is.”
Sarah turned away as he cut into the pelt.
18
When dawn broke, Sarah looked over the edge of the wagon and found they were traveling through a narrow pass above the Potomac. Here the river flowed placidly. Great rocks jutted skyward through the water. Cranes perched upon the shore, and trees ready for spring bent over with morning frost. Veils of mist moved here and there, and she heard deer running through the forest.
She rubbed her eyes in the morning light, and her stomach ached with hunger. Mr. Thrasher handed her back a strip of venison jerky and she ate it. She wondered how many miles they had gone—how far was she from Alex? She missed him so much. He’d be rising now, shaving and preparing for breakfast. She hoped Mrs. Burnsetter would make his eggs the way he liked them, and his coffee strong. Weary in body and mind, Sarah laid her head in her arms, forcing back the urge to cry, and wondered if the girls were happy. Did they miss her?
Thrasher turned his weary horse up a slope and stopped before a log cabin. Smoke spewed from a stone chimney. A dog barked and ran to greet his master.
“This here is Ben, Sarah. I would’ve brought him with me, but he’s no good for protection. He’s too old and would have drove me crazy wantin’ to run off into the woods and sniff everything. More than likely he would’ve run into a skunk and then I would’ve been done with him.”
Sarah stroked the dog’s ears and it rubbed its nose against her palm. Her hand began to shake when she thought of going inside the cabin where she’d be alone with Thrasher. He seemed harmless, and true to his word. But Sarah had trusted before and vowed she never would again.
Before she could set foot upon the first step of the cabin, the door swung open and out stepped an old woman in a deer hide frock. Wiry steel-gray hair fell to her waist and over her eyes. Her feet were bare and dirty. She threw her hands over her hips and glared at Sarah.
“It’s alright, Sally. No reason to get your feathers all ruffled.” Thrasher dragged his musket and a leather bag off the seat of the wagon. “This is Sarah. I brought her here so you’d have less work to do, not that you do much of it anyway, you lazy ol’ coot.”
Sally grunted, threw up her fist, and swung it at Thrasher.
“She ain’t got a tongue to speak, Sarah. The Indians cut it out.” Bounding up the steps, Thrasher leaned close to the unfortunate woman. “Didn’t they, Sal? They cut it right out to keep you from screaming, or was it ’cause you talked too much?”
Sally slapped her palm over her mouth. Sarah stared at her, thinking what a terrible ordeal the woman had been through, and wondering about the reasons Mr. Thrasher had Sally living in his cabin. What was she to him? “Who is she, Mr. Thrasher? Your wife?”
“She’s too old to be my wife, Sarah. Sally’s been my helper for many a year, until she got sickly with rheumatism. Took pity on her up at Fort Frederick during the war. She’d been captured by Indians, escaped, and took refuge at the fort. No one wanted anything to do with her when they saw she’d been spoiled and her tongue cut out.”
Compassion and pity stirred in Sarah. Sally’s lot in life seemed so much harsher than her own. “I believed my story to be the worst thing a woman could face. But I was wrong.” Then she stepped up to Sally. “Hello.” She held out her hand. Sally stared at it. She touched Sarah’s fingertips, and then snatched her hand back.
After a restless night’s sleep, Sarah woke at the break of dawn and set to work. She shoved back her hair as she stacked logs next to the fireplace, forcing back the sorrow that stirred in her chest. If only there were a way for her to go home to Alex.
Sally gripped her arms together and twisted. Sarah knew the cold made the old woman’s bones ache. “I cannot set a fire in the hearth, Sally, until I clear away all this ash. When was the last time it was cleaned?”
Sally shrugged and shook her head from side to side.
“A long time obviously,” Sarah said. “Well, as soon as I am finished the cabin will be warm with a fire. Mr. Thrasher should have done this before he set out this morning. But since I am his servant, I suppose he expects me to do it.”
She got down on her hands and knees and shoveled gray cinders and bits of burned wood into a large copper pot. Her hand gripped the handle hard and a lump grew in her throat the more she dwelled on her fate. A fog of ash blew into her eyes when the wind swept down the chimney. Her eyes stung and watered. She wiped her apron over her face with the want to cry.
She stood, wiped her hands across her apron, and turned to Sally. “The floors need sweeping. I suppose you are unable to help?”
Sally clapped her hands over Sarah’s shoulders and moved her toward the door. Then she handed her the broom that sat next to it. Sarah handed it back and gripped Sally’s hand around it. “You do it.”
Sally shoved the broom back and frowned.
“We are both hungry. Every pot and dish needs scrubbing. I can’t make porridge until I do.”
With a grunt, Sally set the broom back in its place.
“Very well.” Sarah stepped away. “You think I am your servant, don’t you?”
Sally narrowed her eyes and nodded.
Sarah found it hard to be angry, and so she moved Sally to the rocker and sat her down. She banked a fire and it warmed the cabin with an amber glow. Soon she had breakfast bubbling in a skillet. She spooned the porridge into a wooden trencher and handed it to Sally.
Mr. Thrasher had gone down to the river to check his traps. Snow fell, and she heard him whistling on his return home. She looked out the window. He had a string of pelts in one hand, his leather bag in the other, and his dog trotting alongside him.
Snow tumbling from an evergreen and blowing into a vapor caught Sarah’s eye. Through the woods something drifted, tawny like the color of deer. Eagle feathers and beads stood out against the white frost and bare trees. The hair on the back of Sarah’s neck bristled and sweat broke out on her palms.
Sally smoked a clay pipe in her rocking chair by the fire. Sarah swallowed hard. “Sally, get up! I saw Indians in the woods following Mr. Thrasher. Hurry! We must hide.”
Sally blew smoke into the air, stood, and walked over to where she slept at night. She drew a blanket around her bony frame and sat down. It seemed she knew what was coming and had resigned herself to it.
Sarah hurried to her, clasped her hands. “Sally, please. Can you not crawl under the bed?”
Sally shook her head no.
Sarah hurried back to the window. She could not see Mr. Thrasher, and went to bar the door. “Dearest Jesus, help us. Protect us.”
A long, chilling war-whoop struck fear into her heart. Then she heard Thrasher’s blood-curdling scream. His dog yelped. Cold fear raced through her body. She turned to lower the bar across the door. But before she could secure it, it crashed in.
In the hazy sunlight stood a warrior, dressed in deer hide and a mantle of bear fur. He stood aside. Another warrior rushed in. He raised his tomahawk and plunged it into Sally’s chest. Then he turned on Sarah. He grabbed her hair. She struggled and cried out. He set his tomahawk into his belt and pulled out a knife. He jerked her head back and placed it at her scalp. Her body went limp with terror. Tears blurred her sight.
The first warrior shouted. The Indian drew his knife away. Released, she scrambled back against the wall. “Lord Jesus, save me.” The words came from her in a whispered prayer. The warrior squinted his eyes as if he understood. He reached his hand down to her.
“Come. You not die,” he said.
Trembling, she got to her feet. She braced herself against the wall, afraid to move. Her wrists were tied with a leather thong, and the warrior led her from the cabin. On the porch lay the bodies of Mr. Thrasher and his dog. Two arrows protruded from in his back, and the attackers had taken his scalp. Shocked into silence, she looked away from the blood and gore, from the lifeless eyes.
Sarah shivered in the cold, quaking from the horror around her. Her heart drummed in her breast and tears drifted down her face. “Though I walk through the shadow of the valley of death, I shall fear no evil.” She spoke the verse in a low, trembling voice, her breath escaping into a soft mist.
Alex. Oh, Alex.
The Indians ransacked the cabin. They gathered pots and blankets and all the food. They took Thrasher’s old mare. Then they set the cabin on fire. Sarah stared at the burning logs. Flames reached higher. Black smoke whirled. Too stunned to cry any longer, she covered her eyes and turned away.
And as the cabin and its dead burned, the Indians yelped their victory. The chief strode over to Sarah and hauled her up. He had let her live. Did this mean she now belonged to him? “You come. You ride.”
He removed his bearskin mantle and threw it over Sarah. She did not know whether to thank him, whether it would make a difference in how she would be treated. His large hands grasped her about the waist and set her on the horse.
Down to the river they rode. Ice encrusted the bank, and snow coated the bare limbs of the trees. The smell of burning flesh and wood sickened her. Smoke drifted above the trees, gray and translucent. She leaned to one side and vomited, wishing the Indian would give her water to wash the bitterness from her mouth. He ignored her.
She bowed her head, thought of all that had happened up to this moment—the loss of Jamie, her brother-in-law’s betrayal, the women aboard the ship, the Woodhouses. And then Alex had come riding down the lane on Charger. She would never forget how he fitted her shoe so she would not limp, or forget the touch of his lips on hers.
19
Alex dressed in his best suit of clothes and saddled Charger. The girls stood in the window and waved good-bye. Aunt Moria stood behind them with loving hands on their shoulders, and drew them away as he turned his horse.
He had not seen Sarah in days and anticipated the sight of her opening the door, her hair flowing about her shoulders, her eyes warm and her smile bright for him. He’d made several calls in the area, and the more affluent patients paid him in coin. His purse plump with enough money to free her, he rode toward the Woodhouse farm with his heart galloping in time with his horse.
As he rode beneath the trees, he recited what he would say to Mr. Woodhouse—what his most convincing argument would be if the gentleman rejected his offer again. Alex would not wait for years to pass before her time of indenture was paid. It had to be now—today.
Another reason caused him to be anxious to have her. He had to do his duty and return to the sick and wounded patriots. He could not leave without marrying her. She, the twins, and Aunt Moria would be safer if he moved them to Annapolis. His aunt owned a brick townhouse at the end of Market Street, where salty sea breezes blew in from the bay and where food was abundant in the waters. If he left them in the country, he knew they would not be immune from the hardships that crisscrossed Maryland and Virginia.
As he neared the Woodhouse farm and saw the house, it struck him how oddly silent it seemed. No lowing of a cow in need of milking. No rooster’s crow, no chickens clucking and scratching about the yard.
He dismounted, stepped up to the door, and knocked expecting Sarah to answer. He waited and knocked again. Then he grew concerned, for there came Flenderson waving his hat and riding an old brown nag down the lane toward him.
“Good day, Dr. Hutton. Certainly is a brisk one.”
“Good day, Flenderson. I have come to see Mr. Woodhouse.”
“You’ll not find anyone at home. They’ve gone, sir.”
“When will they be back?”
“They won’t.”
A feeling of dread bristled Alex. “What do you mean? Has something terrible happened?”
Flenderson steadied his horse. “Mr. Woodhouse went into debt and sold everything, the land, the house—all of it. Don’t know whom to, so there’s no reason to ask me. Mr. Woodhouse sold me his bull and I am here to fetch it out of the field.”
Alex felt the blood rush from his face, and grief rose in his heart. “Where is their maid, Sarah?”
“You mean the pretty one with a limp? I heard tell they sold her and took the other with them. Celia I believe was her name, their cook. Not too many folk would pass over a good cook for a housemaid.”
Ice raced through Alex’s veins. “Sold her?” The words slipped out in disbelief.
“Aye. It been a long time coming, and poor Mrs. Woodhouse hadn’t an inkling of the trouble her husband was in. They have left for Jamaica, to join his brother who owns a sugar plantation. I do not envy them one bit, Dr. Hutton. Mr. Woodhouse said they would travel by carriage down to Cape Henry and board a ship, said he’d claim loyalty to the Crown with the wish to immigrate to the islands if he came across any British soldiers.”
His hopes dashed, Alex stared at Flenderson. “I am amazed how much you know about the Woodhouses. But you know nothing about Sarah’s whereabouts.”
“Mr. Woodhouse did not say. I had no reason to make further inquiry about the girl. And even if I did know where she’d been taken, what could you do?”
“Find the place . . .”
“And face her new master? He might not be so willing to let her go.”
“It is a chance I would gladly take.” Alex mounted Charger in a fury.
“Dr. Hutton, you might have some luck finding her if you head south toward Port Henry and catch up with Mr. Woodhouse.”
Alex nodded. His hands shook as he gathered up the reins and nudged his boot heels into his horse’s sides. Long into the day he rode, until he reached the port. It looked eerie in the gray of the day, the water slate-colored and still. A lone fisherman sat on a dock mending a net. Alex questioned him about a gentleman and his lady traveling by carriage.
“They are of middle age, and have a female servant with them.”
“Yes, I saw them, sir. They boarded a ship. They said nothing to me, and I don’t know where they or the ship were headed, except it sailed out during the night, ’cause this morn it were gone.”
Could things get any worse? He had lost the chance of finding Mr. Woodhouse and thus discovering where he had sent Sarah.
Remounting, he rode home. Complete darkness covered the land by the time he stepped inside the house. The girls were asleep. His aunt met him in the foyer in her robe, pistol in hand in case he were an intruder, candle in the other, her cap awry on her head. He told her what had happened.
“Oh, dear, Alex. This is a tragedy for sure. What will you do now?”
“I will continue my search. I am setting off in the morning. Hopefully I will return with her in a few days. I doubt she was taken far.”
The doubtful look on Aunt Moria’s candlelit face made him wonder if it were a lost cause he pursued. “I will pray you do,” she said, and offered to make him a hot cup of tea and a plate of dinner. He thanked her and declined.
“Tomorrow pack the girls’ clothes. It is best they live with you until I am settled. Winter is quickly descending, and they will be better off in town, where they will be kept warm and fed.”
Moria laid her hand on his arm. “Indeed that is true. I have no idea how to build a fire on my own in the hearth, let alone live in the countryside in winter without a man to help. It is different in town. I have my housemaid Millie to help me.”
He went upstairs to his room, drew off his waistcoat and boots, and tried to sleep. Drifting in and out, he dreamed of Sarah, longed for her. At sunrise, he dressed and saddled his horse. Eager to find Sarah, he rode on to the plantation houses and homes and made inquiry about a girl sold recently, with long red hair and green eyes. No one knew anything about her. No one recognized her name or description.
Each mile Alex traveled, his heart broke a little more. He gripped the reins more tightly, set his jaw more firmly, as his face contorted with anger. How could Mr. Woodhouse do this and not tell him beforehand? How could he do this to Sarah? Did anyone care how she came to be a servant, what terrible plans had been carried out to spirit her away against her will?
He had offered to purchase her for more than what Mr. Woodhouse had paid. But he was refused, and Mr. Woodhouse would never give an acceptable reason why. How could he have sold her to someone else, when he must have known how much they meant to each other? Perhaps this other man had given him more money than Alex could have come up with.
After making inquiry after inquiry with no success he returned home. Discovering her whereabouts seemed an insurmountable task. How he would ever find her, he did not know, but there was one in whom he trusted who knew.
Into the Almighty’s hands he placed his goal and hoped God would guide him. But with no news in hand, he prepared to take his little charges to Annapolis. He would not forget Sarah, nor would he stop trying to find her even when revolution impeded his efforts. He had little time remaining on his leave, before he was expected back to the field where he was urgently needed.
On the way, they stopped at the trading post. Aunt Moria warmed her hands by the fire with the girls, while Alex spoke to Mr. Pippins.
“Have you any idea what happened to Mr. Woodhouse’s servant Sarah Carr?” Alex asked, placing a coin on the counter.
“No, sir. But they sell souls on the other side of the river, along St. Clements Bay. Said to be a large tobacco barn.” Pippins leaned on his counter. “If you take enough coin with you, you may convince someone to tell you to whom Mr. Woodhouse sold the girl.”
“You’ve sparked my memory,” Alex said. “She told me they bought and sold persons across the Potomac. I had not remembered until you mentioned it. You have my thanks, sir.” He walked out to his horse, mounted him, and turned him toward the river.
