Hannah Howell (29 page)

“They are my enemies too,” she said, but she could see that he was too caught up in his own thoughts to listen.

“And I have forced ye to put away your pretty gowns and wear calico.” He took her hands in his. “And look at your wee hands. ‘Tis a wonder ye can abide speaking to me.”

“Ballard, do you think me so shallow that I have naught to do but fret over the condition of my gowns and hands?”

“Nay, lass. But everything is different for ye now.”

“Ballard, I have no complaints and you are to stop wallowing in self-pity and blame. Right now.”

He smiled faintly. “Are ye giving your husband an order?”

“I am, and I was sorely tempted to give you one or two when I arrived.”

“Oh, aye? Such as?”

“Such as please hold me,” she whispered and then grimaced. “I wanted a hug. I wanted a big welcome.”

“And I just looked at ye.”

She nodded. “It sounds a bit weak, but I wanted to hide in you for just a little while because I was afraid and tired and sore.”

“It doesnae sound weak, lass. I wish I hadnae acted like such an idiot. Is it too late now?”

“Well, with a little effort you could make amends.” She patted the mattress next to her. “Come to bed, Ballard.” She almost laughed at how quickly he acted upon her invitation.

He gently pulled her into his arms. “Are ye hurt badly, loving?”

“Sore, but that could be as much from the rescue as the capture.”

“I dinnae seem to be doing much rescuing meself,” he murmured, stung again by his inability to keep her safe.

“Poor Ballard,” she teased, then grew serious. “‘Tis all up to you now, though.”

“I ken it. I will get him, Clover. I will put a stop to this.”

For a while they just held each other. Clover knew it would be some time before she completely recovered from her ordeal. Now she was deeply afraid—for herself and for Ballard. Even being in Ballard’s strong arms could not completely dispel that fear. She was pleased that he was no longer holding himself apart from her, however. They needed to be together now. It was the only way they would have a chance of beating Thomas Dillingsworth.

“Clover?” Ballard kissed her cheek. “What is in the box on the dressing chest?”

She smiled. Several times in the last few minutes he had glanced at the box her mother had brought in to her. It held the money from the sale of their belongings in Langleyville. Ballard had been curious, but he had restrained himself from peeking. She wondered how he would react when she told him what she planned to do with the money. She knew he wanted Willie to be free of Morrisey as badly as she did, but money was hard to come by.

“‘Tis the money from the sale of our furniture. I am going to use it to get Willie away from Morrisey. Mother freely gave it to me for that purpose.”

“How much do ye have?”

“Not quite forty dollars.” She frowned when he slipped out of bed, went over to the wardrobe, and lifted a small sack down from a top shelf. He tossed the sack onto her lap. “This will help.”

Clover opened it and gasped. She tipped it out and carefully counted fifteen dollars.

“Ballard, I cannot take all of your money too,” she protested.

“‘Tisnae all mine. I hold it for all of us who are collecting money to free the boy. Little by little, penny by penny, we have managed to collect this much toward buying Willie’s freedom. Although I dinnae like to use the word
buying.”

“Neither do I.” She put the money back into the pouch and set it on the bedside table. “This means that he will be free soon.” She kissed him. “Thank you, Ballard.”

“Dinnae get your hopes up too high, lass. Morrisey still might refuse ye.”

“Then I shall have to use all of my powers of persuasion.” She smiled sweetly. “I
will
free that boy.”

“I almost pity Morrisey. He doesnae ken the power of a foster mother defending her cub.”

“Are you sure about this, dear?” Agnes asked, regarding the ramshackle Morrisey house with distaste, then looking wistfully at Adam, who waited with the wagon.

“Very sure, Mama.” Clover rapped on the door again, wishing she had come sooner instead of allowing her mother and Ballard to coddle her. She had not been seriously injured in her ordeal, and it had been selfish to leave Willie in Morrisey’s brutal hands for four more days.

“You do not have the full sixty dollars,” her mother reminded her.

“I know.” She smiled at Bess when the timid woman eased open the door. “Mrs. Morrisey? You may not remember me, but I am Ballard MacGregor’s wife, Clover. This is my mother, Agnes Sherwood.”

“What do you want?”

“I would like to talk to you.”

“‘Bout what?”

“The boy. The one who is half-Shawnee?”

“My husband ain’t wanting to talk about him. He ain’t giving that boy up for nothing.”

Clover took the bag of coins from a pocket inside the folds of her cloak and hefted it in her hand so that Bess Morrisey could hear the distinctive chink of money. “I am here to do more than talk.”

Bess opened the door wider. “I will send one of the boys after my husband.”

As she entered the house, her mother following on her heels, Clover saw three young girls standing in the doorway of the kitchen, watching her closely. When Morrisey had mentioned his family that day in the Clemmons store, he had talked only of sons. She suspected the girls were treated almost as badly as Willie.

Bess tugged a small boy out of a dark corner of the room and sent him to get her husband. She then signaled Clover and her mother to sit at the long plank table.

“You got all sixty dollars?” Bess asked as she sat down across from Clover and Agnes.

“Not quite,” Clover replied, noticing how hard Bess stared at the sack of money she had set on the table in front of her.

“Then he ain’t gonna be agreeing with you.”

“There is no harm in trying, is there?”

“Reckon not. Still, if my man said sixty, then he means sixty. He can be stubborn.” Bess tentatively reached toward the sack of money, but did not touch it. “How much do you have?”

“Forty-two dollars.” She saw Bess’s tired eyes grow wide and knew she had guessed correctly in thinking that the Morriseys rarely saw any coin at all. She had held back some of the money and began to think she
would be able to keep it. “I realize it is short of the fee your husband has been demanding, but ‘tis far, far more than he paid for the boy, and I suspect far more than anyone else has ever offered. After all, he is quite small and ill-fed. Judging from how often your husband feels it is necessary to discipline the boy, I would say that he must be a very difficult child.” She met Bess’s sardonic look and knew the woman was not fooled by her carefully chosen words. Clover also sensed that Bess would say nothing, however.

“Ma, we ain’t never seed that kind of money before,” said the tallest of the three girls.

“This ain’t none of your business, Lottie,” Bess said. “Your pa won’t want to be hearing from you. You three get back to the cooking.” She looked at Clover. “Why do you want the boy so bad?” she asked in a soft voice, glancing at the door as she spoke.

Clover realized that Bess was trying to find out something before her husband arrived. She wished she knew what it was. For a moment she hesitated, then decided to tell the truth. Since Bess clearly did not want her husband to hear the conversation, Clover felt certain that whatever she said would not reach Morrisey’s ears, to be used against her later.

“What I want, Mrs. Morrisey, is to get that child away from your husband before he kills him,” she replied in an equally soft voice. “I owe that boy my life. Four days ago he saved me from Big Jim.”

“Four days back, huh? That was the day my man came back spitting poison about you. He don’t like you much.”

“I suspect my threat to shoot off his manhood rather
soured his opinion of me.” To Clover’s astonishment Bess briefly, timidly smiled.

“You did that?” When Clover nodded, Bess quickly grew solemn again. “That ain’t gonna put him in a humor to bargain with you.”

“I am hoping this will put him into a more reasonable state of mind,” Clover said, lightly touching the money bag. “Fifteen dollars was collected from the townsfolk. The rest is mine. I am not the only one who wants that child taken from your husband’s hands.”

Bess nodded. “It mighta been better if you shot him when you had the chance. He will be holding that agin you.”

“To be honest, I have never handled a gun in my life. I was lucky I aimed the right end of the musket at him. I will get the boy free of him. If not today, then another day. I will not give up. As I said, I owe the boy my life. I owe him my husband’s life as well, for our enemies meant to use me to draw Ballard to his death.”

“I ain’t gonna be able to help you.”

“I do not ask or expect you to.”

“I ain’t even sure you will be safe in my house right now. My man purely hates you. I reckon he figures you shamed him. Scared him too, and he ain’t gonna forgive that. I ain’t gonna be able to help you if he sets on you.”

“You do not have to worry about us. As you saw, Adam Dunstan brought us here. At the first hint of trouble he will enter, gun in hand, and
he
knows how to use it.”

At that moment Morrisey slammed into the house, stopping just inside the front door to glare at Clover. “What the hell are you doing here, woman?” He
glowered at his wife. “Why’d you let her in after all I been saying ‘bout her?”

“She done come to buy the boy.” Bess pointed to the sack on the table.

Morrisey strode over and reached for the sack, but Clover snatched it away. She did not flinch under his hard glare, not even when he raised his fists. He had come in the front door, so she knew he had seen Adam and understood what would happen if he touched her. Clover was not sure how long the threat of Adam would restrain Morrisey, however, so she hurried to get down to business.

“You do not get this money until I get the boy,” she said.

“Then show me your money.”

Clover tipped the coins out on the table. Morrisey stood there for a long time, staring at it and not saying a word. When she caught a glimpse of his lips moving, she realized he was struggling to count it.

“There ain’t sixty there,” he accused.

“I know.”

“I said his price is sixty.”

“And do you really think someone will pay that much for the boy? He is underfed, battered, and obviously troublesome. We both know a lot of people want that boy free. They have been trying to raise the ridiculous price you are asking for a year, and they still do not have enough.”

“They got this much together. They can get the rest.”

“That money does not come from your neighbors,” said Agnes, speaking for the first time. “It is my money. I sold nearly everything I had just before I left Pennsylvania, and this is all I could raise. The pot will not grow any bigger. Yes, a few dollars did come
from others, but only a few and, as Clover said, it has taken them nearly a year to gather even that small amount. I doubt they will ever get a full sixty dollars together. You have overpriced the child, Mr. Morrisey, and that means no one here will ever pay your blood money.”

“Then I can sell him someplace else,” Morrisey grumbled, but his gaze remained fixed on the silver coins.

“I sincerely doubt that Mr. Morrisey. He is a skinny, dirty little boy and half-Indian. You know most people do not believe Indians can work hard. A number of people would not want him near them because of their dreadful fear and loathing of Indians. And, for sixty dollars, a person can get a good strong black man, perhaps even more than one black slave. I detest the business of buying and selling people, as does my daughter. Nevertheless, if we must stoop to meet your despicable demand in order to free that child, we will. We will not, however, pay a price you could get nowhere in this country. What my daughter is offering is more than generous. I suggest you think twice before you refuse.”

While her mother spoke, Clover carefully returned the coins to the pouch, determined not to reveal her astonishment at her mother’s boldness. The usually timid woman was talking in a firm voice, calmly facing the large, glowering Morrisey. She had also lied about how much of the money had come from the townsfolk. It was a clever lie intended to convince Morrisey he would never get his asking price, and Agnes Sherwood never lied.

Clover looked up at Morrisey as she dropped the last coin into the pouch and closed it. He really
wanted the money. Just as she had hoped, showing him the coins had aroused his greed. She still had thirteen dollars in her pocket for bargaining, but it began to look as if she would not need it.

“Take the money, Jake,” urged Bess, tensing when he glared at her.

“This is my business, woman,” he snapped.

Bess flinched, but pressed on. “Folk ‘round here just ain’t got much money. They ain’t never gonna get sixty dollars together, not for no half-breed boy. The only reason this money is here is because these ladies done brought it with them to Kentucky. We got plenty of workers, Jake, but we ain’t got no coin.”

Morrisey scowled, then held out his hand. “Fine, then. Buy the brat. Give me the money and you can take him away.”

“I want to see the boy first,” said Clover. “Until he is in my hands, you do not get a penny.”

“Get the brat, Bess.”

Bess’s expression as she moved to do her husband’s bidding made Clover uneasy. When Bess pushed aside a thin rag rug on the floor and Clover saw the tiny trap door, she understood Bess’s shame. Clover struggled hard to control her rage as Bess helped a filthy, unsteady Willie up through the hatchway. He shielded his eyes against the light. Clover suspected he had been in that hole since he had returned home after helping her. She looked at Morrisey and knew that he could see the fury in her eyes.

“You already done agreed to the price,” he said.

“Come here, Willie.” Clover frowned when Bess had to help the boy over to her. “You are coming home with me. Is there anything you want to take with you?”

“The brat don’t own nothing,” Morrisey said even as Willie shook his head.