Sweeter than Birdsong (18 page)

When all was once again quiet, their host returned, bringing them a lantern, food, and blankets. The lantern light showed Kate their hiding place. It was not as bad as she had feared. This secret cellar was at least ten feet by twelve feet, framed entirely in heavy wooden beams and planks, and though it smelled earthy and damp, the floor was smooth and clean, and piles of straw cushioned the corners. Nelly and Frank huddled in one blanket, and Kate and Mrs. Hanby shared another. It was warmer next to another human body, reassuring. Only John sat alone against the far wall of the little cellar. His feet were bare and scratched, covered with mud and traces of dried blood.

“Mr. Parker—your shoes!” Kate said.

He had left them below the porch of the plantation master’s house, across the river.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “They cannot identify me. I purchased them in Westerville, from Armentor.”

The angry master could hardly go to every shoemaker in the state to ask who might have purchased this pair. It was a long journey to Westerville from here, even by stagecoach.

John’s face sagged into fatigue. “Let’s eat and try to get some sleep. We need rest to make it to the next station.”

They washed down the dried beef and bread with some water, and Mrs. Hanby extinguished the lamp. Kate was so tired she stretched out on the straw without hesitation, rolled to face the wall, and pillowed her head on her arm. Mrs. Hanby spread the blanket over them and set her back to Kate’s, comforting in their strange surroundings.

God, if you are there, please help us .
. . But exhaustion turned her thoughts murky, and dreams slipped in among them.

Seventeen

B
EN POUNDED ON THE DOOR OF THE HOUSE.

A plump woman in a nightcap answered. “Yes?” She looked none too friendly, but then neither would he if someone awakened him at the crack of dawn, when even the pigs were still slow and drowsy in the yard.

“I’m here for John Parker.”

“He isn’t here.”

“I’m his friend Ben Hanby. Miranda sent me.”

“And how do I know that?”

“She said to save her some strawberry pie.”

The woman smiled and opened the door, beckoning him in. “I’m Dora Collingworth. They’re in the parlor.”

He limped in, his wrapped ankle still sore. The steamboat had at least given him a few hours to rest, but there would be no rest from here, not if he knew John.

The hallway was short and led to a closed door. Dora knocked three times. A locked door inside a house. The Collingworths had harbored fugitives before.

A bolt slid with a
thunk
and a stout man with a red, full face opened the door. “And who is this?”

“Mr. Ben Hanby, a friend of Mr. Parker’s, sent by Miranda.”

“Welcome.” He shook Ben’s hand, still serious. “You wish to see your friends, I assume.”

“Yes, sir.” Ben waited as the door swung wider.

Two women sat before the unlit hearth. His mother struggled to her feet. “Ben!” She ran a few steps and embraced him. He held her tightly, without care for dignity.
Thank you, Lord.
He blinked and stepped back. Miss Winter stood a few feet away. He smiled at her, tentative.

She seemed unharmed, though there were dark shadows under her eyes and her hair was coming down in a charming, disheveled way.

“I’m glad to see you, Mr. Hanby,” she said.

His heart warmed in an odd way considering the danger they still faced. “And I’m sorry to be so late. I’ve made you do all the hard work for me.”

“I didn’t mind.”

“Where is Nelly?” He couldn’t believe he was about to meet her.

“Upstairs, with her husband and John,” Mr. Collingworth said. “It’s still too soon to have them on the ground level, where they would have no chance of escape. So John went to keep them company.”

“You’re well prepared, sir.” Ben offered his hand. “Thank you.”

“We could have lived anywhere, Mr. Hanby, but like many others in Ripley, we live here for this reason.”

“God bless you.” Ben tried to convey his gratitude in the heartiness of his handshake. For all the bounty hunters and depraved masters in the country, there were also people like the Collingworths.

“I’ll take you up to John,” Jonas said. His mother nodded and sat down, and Miss Winter did the same. They seemed to have a unity of spirit now, an understanding. He liked to see it—Miss Winter had bloomed so since their departure from Westerville. She was still quiet, but alert and bright, interested in her surroundings, not attempting to shrink from all notice.

On the landing of the staircase, Jonas stopped and turned to the wall. The paneling moved at his touch—a door half the height of a man opened inward. “Watch your head,” he said as he ducked and went in.

When Ben straightened up, he found himself in a small room, long and narrow. At the end of the closet-like space, John sat with his back to the wall, his knees drawn up. Facing him were a man and a woman with skin a few shades lighter than John’s.

They all got to their feet. “Tardy, my friend,” John said with a faint smile. He indicated the woman. “Ben, this is Nelly and her husband, Frank.”

Ben couldn’t take his eyes from her. The woman stared at him, a long look of question. She was still striking, with heavy black hair and high cheekbones, though her sorrow had left its mark in the droop of her eyelids. “Mr. Parker says you knew Joe,” she said at last.

“I did, ma’am.”

“You were with him when he died.”

“Yes, ma’am. He spoke of you. He wasn’t afraid to go, but he was sorry to leave you without a farewell.”

Her eyes clouded. Her husband took her hand.

Ben’s throat hurt, and he cleared it. He turned to John. “What next, Mr. Parker?”

“We wait for the coach our host has arranged, and then we move.”

“What if we’re stopped on the road?” Ben asked.

“Don’t worry. The coach is equipped for our needs.”

Kate shifted in the coach seat and pulled her skirt to a more comfortable position. Miranda had sent their clothes to the Collingworths’ home, and so Kate was back in crinoline and corset. It seemed more cumbersome after the freedom of the trousers, but she would not want to wear trousers in front of Ben. And John had said they would be safer from discovery in the coach if they were dressed as ladies should be.

Twice in the last few hours, Nelly and Frank had gone into the empty compartments under the seats. Whatever the disadvantages of a bell-shaped skirt, it did make an admirable coach filler and seat cover to distract any nosy townspeople. Between her skirt and Mrs. Hanby’s, there wasn’t an inch to spare.

Ben was driving, up top, with John riding horseback some way behind. Too many bounty hunters knew John, and he could not draw suspicion by riding with Ben. But it reassured her that he rode behind with his pistol while Ben was armed with another. Especially now that the light was fading and the trees crowded thicker against the road, stretching tall like a German forest where witches might wander.

She must control her imagination. She needed all her wits about her, now that they would not be returning to Cincinnati. The starch went out of her at the missed opportunity, leaving her limp against the back of the seat. No, she would not give up—something else would present itself before they made it to Westerville. It did not seem right to be overly concerned with her own plans just now. The memory of the dogs at the river was fresh. If Nelly and Frank failed, what waited for them was far worse than an implacable mother and drunken father.

The coach stopped. Nelly and Frank exchanged an anxious glance over the baby’s head. Kate and Mrs. Hanby jumped up, ready to open the seats.

“It’s all right.” Ben’s voice sounded muffled through the coach roof. They all settled back into place.

Mrs. Hanby reached for the door handle and opened it to call out. “What is it, Ben?”

“We must stop for the night. John told me to stop here.” His voice grew closer as he climbed down to the ground, then fainter as he moved to the horses’ heads.

Mrs. Hanby climbed out, so Kate followed, impatient with her skirt as it stuck in the narrow door frame. One always had to drag at the crinoline to make it fit through.

She stared around them at the darkening forest. How had Ben known to stop in this nameless place, no different from any other mile of trees on the road?

He was looking at her. With a slight lift of his eyebrows, he pointed to a tree. Carved into the gray bark was the shape of a cross, two feet long, unmistakable even in the gloom. She smiled, self-conscious. Impudent of him.

Nelly climbed out of the coach, much more graceful than Kate in her simple dress without heavy petticoat. Frank handed her their sleepy baby, who whined with half-closed eyes before settling back against her mother’s shoulder. As Nelly circled her with a gentle arm, an expression of yearning crossed the fugitive woman’s face, clearing for a moment its burden of sadness before it rolled back like a wave that can never depart from the shore. Kate’s throat tightened to a hard lump. What did she know of sorrow?

“John gave me directions to a shelter back here through the woods,” Ben said. “Mother, Miss Winter, you may stay with the coach. You will sleep in it tonight, but Nelly and Frank must be hidden off the road. They cannot sleep in compartments all doubled up like jackknives.”

Frank’s lips twitched into almost a smile.

“I wish to walk a little,” Kate said. Her legs were stiff from the run of the previous day, compounded by hours of immobility. “Mrs. Hanby, do you mind if I go with them?”

“Not at all, dear.” Mrs. Hanby went to her son and took the reins from him.

“Take this,” Ben said. “John will be along in only a few minutes, or I would not leave you alone.” Ben reached inside his coat and pulled out his pistol, offering it handle-first. His petite mother took it without hesitation. She probably had held a gun more than once if she was familiar with this kind of errand.

The path under the trees was clear where only moss and ferns could grow. The earth was damp, its loamy smell fresh and light here where no one ever tilled and no cattle grazed. Ben led the way, Nelly and Kate followed, and Frank brought up the rear. Kate’s legs pained her as bruised muscles knotted and stretched. She visualized the drawings in anatomy class—the musculature charts the ladies were permitted to see. Sinew and muscle were acceptable to study as long as the ladies were not in mixed company, though some other human systems were forbidden completely.

A sound like a whisper or soft laughter grew louder as they walked on, until a small brook trickled ahead of them over fist-sized stones, clear and ankle deep in the channel carved by its passage. Ben slung the canteen from his shoulder and knelt by the water to dip it below the surface. They all went down to the edge, Kate pushing back her skirt to lean down and trail her fingers in the water. If she were still in trousers, she would wade into it, cold and beautiful in the twilight.

When Frank had dipped water into his palms and slaked his thirst, Ben handed Kate the canteen, then offered it to Nelly. They went on over a rise in the land that then fell away down a long incline. Not far down the slope, the dark shape of a lean-to girdled the base of a large tree.

Nelly’s baby lifted her head and looked around the clearing, eyes bright. While Ben showed Frank the site and gave him the food he had brought in his satchel, Nelly carried her daughter to the tree and let her touch the bark. “Most of the trees got cut down on the master’s place,” she said to Kate.

Nelly sat down and let her girl play with the ferns, which made her laugh in her high baby squeal. She grabbed a fistful and pulled with hands too gentle to break the stems. Her little head turned to watch a bird hop into the ferns, where it eyed her, then poked its beak into the ground covering. It was a plain bird, brown, with a spotted breast.

“A thrush bird,” Nelly said. “Joe used to show them to me.” Her eyes went distant and soft. “Do you hear? Up in the trees.”

The birdsong above them resolved from a blanket of sound into separate notes as Kate listened. It was a song of astonishing intricacy, phrases of music whistled from the air, each phrase different, a variety of notes and patterns floating though the leaves.

“I’ll tell you what Joe always said.” Nelly kept her eyes on the thrush. “See how dull and quiet that bird looks, so no one would see him?”

Kate nodded.

“But it don’t matter how he looks. Up there where no one can catch him, he sings that freedom song.”

Kate could not speak, her mind a mélange of memories and emotions as the little baby clapped her hands on the ferns.

Nelly stretched out her fingers and let her daughter curl her tiny hands around them. “That’s how my baby girl gonna sing someday, Lord willing.” A faint smile graced her lips.

Kate turned and walked away through the carpet of ferns, heading blindly in the direction of the coach. She was so small and petty. Her misery in Westerville, her fear of performance, even the recent incident with her father—all so negligible, compared to this woman’s suffering and her simple hope for her baby. Would she really run away to Cincinnati and forget she had ever seen them? Pretend that Kate Winter’s unfortunate family life was the most important problem in the world, and worth all her effort and attention?