Broken Pledge Read online

  “What?” John asked.

  “We will soon have a newspaper.”

  “In Kentucky?” Uriah asked.

  “Where?” John quickly asked, fearing she might hit his father with something or Gideon might burst out laughing.

  “Lexington. Mister Skull and Mister Bradford have received their printing press and they hope to have regular word from Pennsylvania to report.”

  John returned her smile. “That is good news. I find it distracting not knowing what’s happening in the East. We could be at war again and not hear for a month, at least.”

  “I don’t see what good it would do to know a thing like that anyway,” she said.

  “Of course you don’t,” Uriah muttered.

  “What I mean is, if the British attack, we’ll know it here long before they’ll know in the East.”

  “More troops?” John asked.

  “Mister Thurston couldn’t say for sure. But he did say none were going home. And John, the most scandalous thing has happened. So scandalous, even your father might find it shocking.”

  John raised his eyebrows. “Perhaps Papa should sit down, then.”

  “A child has been abandoned,” Emiline went on.

  “Where?” Uriah asked.

  “Right where they left her. Mister Purdy, he’s the sheriff, you know, was fit to be tied. So I said, ‘Bring her round to me, I’d be happy to board her...poor little thing.’”

  “A girl then?” Uriah asked.

  “Papa, do sit down.”

  “What? Sit now? Now that Emiline tells of a thing which shocks even me?” In a huff, Uriah walked to the window and began to open the shutter. Remembering the cold, he thought better of it.

  “Go on, Emiline,” said John.

  “Well, they simply cannot care for her. They’ve nine children already and another on the way.”

  Uriah instantly spun around. “Do you mean they abandoned the child because they had too many?”

  “Who?” she asked.

  “Her parents,” said Uriah.

  “Oh. Well, I’ve no idea why her parents abandoned her. I was talking about the Purdys...the sheriff, remember?”

  With Gideon behind Emiline struggling to keep from laughing, John moved his stool so he couldn’t see him. “How kind of you to take her in.”

  “Any woman in my position would do the same.”

  “And what position is that?” Uriah asked.

  “You are well aware I live alone. These are trying times, what with thieves, Indians and strangers at every turn. Mister Puddifoot and I...”

  “I’ve got it,” Uriah interrupted, “you need a dog.”

  “Aye, but not our dog,” John shot back. “Go on, Emiline.”

  “As I was saying, Mister Puddifoot and I had no children, though I cannot think why not—Mister Puddifoot was a most congenial man. When he was killed, that was the end of that. And John, he had no scalp when they brought him home.” Emiline’s words hung in the air. She gazed downward, her brow furrowed and her mouth puckered. Then she abruptly shrugged. “And Jacque La Rue has moved his Indian wife onto the place.”

  “What place?” Uriah demanded.

  “The Lewis place. He’s shed his trapper clothing and taken a vow of respectability.”

  “He’s given up his beaver cap for a proper hat?” Uriah asked.

  “Yes, and he’s proven what I’ve said all along – Jacque La Rue is the most handsome man in the whole Territory.”

  “You find La Rue handsome, do you,” Uriah started, “In that case...”

  “Papa, we have left poor Gideon standing by the hearth with nothing to do. Perhaps he might bring the tea.”

  Relieved, Gideon quickly headed for the door. “Yez, Massah.”

  As soon as he was out of sight, Emiline leaned closer to John, “You never said you were building a plantation. Will you buy more Negras?”

  “Africans. We prefer to call them by their proper name, just as you and I are Americans and Papa is British. Would you mind awfully if we did buy more?”

  “Well, I hadn’t given it much thought. I come from Boston and I have not met many...Africans.”

  “Papa is old, you see. I simply cannot manage the place without them.”

  At last, but not without first pulling the third stool further away, Uriah sat down and smiled. “Emiline, we’ve been thinking. Did you not say you hoped to build a shop for your weaving?”

  “Yes.”

  Uriah kept his tone warm and mellow. “Well, we are in need of a bunkhouse for our Africans. We think to have a shop raising in the spring.”

  Emiline paused when Gideon came back and offered her a cup of tea. Then she watched as he served Uriah and John, set the board on the floor and went back to stand by the hearth.

  “Shall we build your shop on the road or adjacent to your house?” Uriah was saying.

  “I suppose with a child,” John put in.

  Uriah nodded, “I’d forgotten about that. By the house, then.”

  “But I cannot clear the land,” she stammered, finally paying attention.

  “We will clear the land,” Uriah said.

  Emiline considered the warm expression on Uriah’s face for a long time before she spoke, “Have you ever met the king?”

  “Well, yes. But I cannot see...”

  “And is his castle as grand as they say?”

  Uriah wrinkled his brow. “I doubt mere words could describe it. Why do you ask?”

  “Because I wondered, and because this is the first time you’ve been halfway pleasant. You’re up to something, aren’t you?”

  Uriah looked at Gideon and then at John before he answered, “The truth be told, the Africans need clothing. We’ll pay a fair price and send Lilly to assist you.”

  “I see. If I agree to clothe the Africans, you’ll clear my land, build me a shop, pay a fair price—and send a slave to help me? Fancy that. If you’d simply asked, I’d have done it for the price of the cloth.”

  Uriah abruptly got up and marched to the far wall. He folded his arms, lifted his chin and tightened his lips. “The woman is a hopeless case.”

  “Emiline, about the child,” John asked.

  “Mercy me, I’ve got to go,” she said, handing her untouched tea to John. “I’ll have my coat and gun now, and the empty bread basket if you don’t mind.”

  “Yez’um,” Gideon said, hurrying to beat her to the door.

  “Sheriff Purdy promised to bring Eleanor today and I have not made up a bed. My, but she is a pretty thing with blonde curls and big brown eyes.”

  Emiline allowed John to help her on with her coat and then took her musket and the breadbasket from Gideon. “Poor little thing. I’ll bring her round tomorrow if you like.”

  “I’d like that very much.”

  “Good day then, John.” She leaned back until she could see into the sitting room. “And to you, Uriah.”

  No sooner had she gone than Uriah rushed to the window to watch her walk down the hill. “Peace, at last,” he muttered.

  “What are you up to?” John asked, following Gideon back into the sitting room. “When did we decide to build her a shop?”

  Still watching, Uriah did not bother to turn around. “That woman, as annoying as she is, is invaluable to us. She can sew. She will teach Lilly and Lilly will teach the others. Don’t you see? When the Africans take up land of their own, they’ll need a trade.”

  “I do see. Papa, you astound me.”

  “And me,” Gideon said, taking a sip of Emiline’s untouched tea. Then he reached into his pocket. “I don’t suppose either of you would be interested in a letter from Rose.”

  CHAPTER 10

  John happily took the letter from Gideon, opened the seal and began to read,

  Mahala, 12 October, 1787

  My beloved uncle and cousin. How I do miss the two of you. Papa and Mama are both well, as are the rest of us, except perhaps poor Gideon. You see, Gideon suffered a fright when Mama discovered him in
the barn holding two bottles of Papa’s rum. He heretofore vows never to touch a bottle of Mahala rum again, and—

  Uriah’s jaw dropped and he turned an incredulous eye on Gideon, “Do you mean you did not bring any?”

  “I couldn’t. Elizabeth threatened to burn the barn with Miss Daisy in it!”

  “I see. You gladly face a dozen sheriffs and bounty hunters, yet, you fear an unassuming woman?”

  “That one, yes! Don’t you?”

  “Well...come to think of it.”

  “Shall I go on?” John asked.

  “Please,” Uriah answered.

  John cleared his throat and began again:

  I happily report the barn yet stands and Papa has moved all the rum to a secret cellar. Can you guess where? Under the schoolhouse. I tell you, the hatch he put in the floor is so well concealed even I couldn’t find it. Rachel married in August and has gone with her husband to live in New York. Suzanne vows to never marry, hoping instead to teach in Kentucky. And who can blame her? Virginia is so tedious in its poverty, and daily we have new word of excitement in the Territory. Occasionally, I have thought to go myself.

  My son, Christopher, learned to walk and follows Papa everywhere. Papa has taken to calling him “Kit,” which is all the fancy for Christophers these days. Maralee, Stephen and the children are quite well and send their love.

  Our baby sisters are becoming so beautiful that Papa threatens to hire an army to protect them from the unending stream of gentlemen callers.

  My dearest Adam says Congress has at last gone completely mad. He now suspects they had no intention of winning the war, wanting instead nothing more than seats in Parliament. After all, he reminds us, our cry was “no taxation without representation.” It has been eleven years since we declared war, and still we have no useful laws or solutions to our most urgent problems. A few months past, the entire Congress went off to a place even Adam could not determine.

  “They’ve jumped ship,” Adam was convinced. More and more, I believe Adam thinks to do the same. Congress did not jump ship. They went instead to Philadelphia, to throw out the Articles of Confederation in favor of a constitution. Though Adam has not yet seen it, he holds in his hand the Federalist Papers, written by Publius—whom no one has ever heard of. “The Federalists,” Adam says when I can get him to calm enough to tell me, “lean toward everything British and advocates a strong central government.” What precisely that means is yet unclear to me.

  My husband’s protests notwithstanding, Congress has done something. They have written an ordinance concerning the land north of the Ohio River. It, too, specifies land divisions and sales, just as the first ordinance. But this one vows not to take Indian land without the Indians receiving benefit of payment. Oh, I nearly forgot, slavery is forbidden in the Northwest Territory.

  How you will laugh when I tell you that Banutu has been captured by the Spanish. They caught him in a swamp so far south, none of us had ever heard of the place. The Spanish claim that capturing him, while our government does nothing, proves they are better fit to rule the Empire.

  I send all our love to you by way of Gideon and impatiently await his return.

  Rose Carson Williams.

  Post Script: We have just received your letter by way of Mister Stallings. How glorious it is to know you are well. I simply cannot wait until Congress does something about the deplorable postal situation.

  John slowly folded the letter and placed it on the mantel.

  “Gideon, is it true? Have you been that far south?” Uriah asked.

  “Sadly, yes.”

  “Then they did nearly catch you.”

  “Aye. The Spaniards are determined to catch all trespassers. And a trespasser I had unknowingly become when they arrested me.”

  “Arrested?” John asked, returning to take a seat on a stool.

  Gideon chose the one opposite John and sat down as well. “They took me to a rather odd, poorly built jail of sod. I enjoyed their hospitality for nearly a week. Then, when I was well rested and had grown weary of the food, I pushed on the back wall until it fell.”

  “Did they chase you?” John asked.

  “Aye, they did...directly into a swamp. Fortunately, they were not inclined to follow.”

  John folded his arms and looked at Gideon with a stern expression. “Do you still consider yourself to be a Carson slave?”

  “I do.”

  “Then I forbid you to go that far south ever again.”

  “Yez, Massah,” Gideon mocked.

  Uriah walked to the window, opened the shutter a crack and peeked out. The widow Puddifoot was nowhere in sight. “Perhaps Gideon might redeem himself by saying he brought Virginia Tobacco.”

  “That I did, and fresh pipes as well.”

  “Good,” John said. “Is there no word of your wife?”

  Gideon bowed his head. “No.”

  “Will you give up looking?”

  “I cannot, I am haunted by the memory of her pleading eyes when they took her away.”

  Uriah closed the shutter, wrinkled his brow thoughtfully and began to pace. “Could she have made it safely to the North?”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “Can she read, though?” Uriah asked.

  “A little, I taught her myself,” Gideon answered.

  Uriah abruptly stopped in his tracks. “Notices! I cannot believe I’ve neglected the idea. We’ll have Adam put notices in all the papers, big notices—half a page if necessary. And while we’re at it, we’ll do the same for Polly. She might have gone east, you know. Gideon, tell my brother to spare no expense. I’ll write the notices and you can take them to Mahala.”

  “Now?” John asked.

  “Of course not now. The man needs a day or two of rest.”

  “You want him to go back in winter?”

  “Has he more pressing business?” Uriah asked.

  Gideon sat up a little straighter. “No, I don’t.”

  MARYLAND, 1788

  It wasn’t long after the Lewis family arrived that people began to come from miles around to hear Ezekiel tell about life in the wilderness. With them came women who were more interested in him than in his stories. When spring came, it was Bessie Green who had found favor in the eyes of Ezekiel Lewis.

  With the children in school, the chores done, and yet another crowd around her father’s blacksmith shop, Polly wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and went for a walk. Wildflowers were beginning to bloom and occasionally she paused to pick one. She admired the spring breeze, watched birds glide through the air and gazed aimlessly across a small pond. Too soon, it was time to go back. But when she arrived, she found the children standing outside, Ezekiel’s horse was saddled and the door to the house was wide open.

  “What is it?” she asked, pausing next to Israel.

  “I cannot be sure. Papa said to go play.”

  “Play, when thou hast studies? I’ll see to it,” she said. She quickly climbed the steps. Then she hesitated and cautiously peered through the door.

  On the table, Ezekiel had placed an open satchel and was standing nearby folding her best dress.

  “What art thou doing?” she asked, bursting in.

  “Thou art leaving, daughter,” Ezekiel answered, giving up on the folding and stuffing her dress into the satchel. He walked around the table, quickly hugged her, and disappeared into the bedroom Polly shared with her sisters.

  “Thee is happy to see me go?”

  Ezekiel returned with a second dress and her other shawl. “I am delighted. And thou need not fret, I have asked Miss Green to marry me and she has accepted. Thy brother and sisters like her, I think. My shop is profitable and as much as we love thee, we no longer need thee.”

  “Does Miss Green want me gone?”

  “No, Polly, no. Sit, read the paper,” Ezekiel said. But when she hadn’t moved, he put the dress down, rounded the table again and pulled a chair out. He sat her down and unfolded a Philadelphia newspaper. Inside a thick bla
ck border, the words were in big, bold letters—

  Come home, Polly Lewis, you were not too young!

  John Carson, Mahala, two miles west of Richmond, Virginia

  Stunned, Polly stared at the bold print. “But Laughing Rain said he had a wife.”

  “No married man would post a notice for all the world to see. He’s a bit late, but he is looking for thee. Go to him, Polly, thou hast waited long enough. Let thy heart fill with hope and love again.”

  “And when he learns the truth? How will I bear it if he rejects me?”

  Ezekiel put his hands on her shoulders and kissed the back of her head, “Thou art frightened. But think, Polly. If he placed the notice, he knows thou left Kentucky. And if he knows that much, he knows the Indians took thee.”

  “He cannot know all of it, I did not tell anyone but thee.”

  “He is a man, daughter. His fear of what happened is surely far worse than what thou said. And think of the money he spends to find thee. A man who does that will not reject the woman he loves.”

  Polly laid the flowers on the table, lightly touched John’s printed name on the paper and then took a long-forgotten breath. The rims of her eyes filled with tears.

  “Go, Polly, take my horse, take my heart with you and go. Virginia is that way,” he said, pointing south.

  KENTUCKY

  Fishermen fish and hunters hunt, but in a woods filled with wild turkeys, Uriah preferred to sit on his favorite rock and wait. When he heard the unmistakable gobble and saw the first sign of movement, he slowly raised his musket. He took aim at a space between two bushes, put his finger to the trigger and held his breath.

  “You’ll miss,” a woman’s voice said behind him.

  Startled, he pulled the trigger. The gunpowder exploded, the ball hit a tree and the turkey fled for its life, squawking in terror. Uriah narrowed his eyes and turned around. “You are truly the most annoying woman of my entire acquaintance.”