Widow of Gettysburg Read online

She sighed. Times were tight at Holloway Farm, but she’d never been very good at saying no, to anyone. “Your mount looks as though he could eat something too.” She led them both to the barn where the horse could eat hay and oats, then took the stranger into the summer kitchen. Twenty feet behind the house, this was the small outbuilding where she did most cooking, baking, preserving, and laundry during the hottest season of the year. It would serve to feed a stranger without allowing him into the house.

  “Sit there.” She pointed to the rough-hewn table butting up against the old fireplace and crossed the room to slice a loaf cooling on the sideboard. Major spread himself out to dry on the floor in front of the warm stove, the smells of wet dog and fresh bread thickening the air.

  When Libbie turned back to the table, she found the man still standing. He shrugged, his hat still in his hands. “I never sit when a lady still stands. Won’t you join me? Or do you mean to make me stand while I eat alone, like a common beggar?” His smile dissolved any argument on the tip of her tongue, and she allowed him to seat her at the worktable, her face flooding with warmth that did not come from the oven. Even Levi’s manners had not gone this far. But to be fair, Libbie had not expected it. Aunt Helen had raised her to believe that manners were not meant to be wasted on the likes of her. Liberty swallowed. She should not think anything uncharitable of the dead. Either of them.

  The man’s stomach growled as she set the loaf of rye on the table, yet he made no move for it. “Are you waiting for me to serve you?” The question sounded more prickly than she intended.

  “Ladies first.” He nodded at the bread. “You baked it. You should be the first to enjoy it.”

  “Well, you certainly don’t act like a beggar,” Libbie admitted as she helped herself to a steaming piece.

  “Wouldn’t Mama be proud.” He laughed, but a shadow passed over his face. He took a slice for himself then, but before taking a bite, bowed his head for a moment.

  Then he ate. And ate—until the loaf was gone.

  Finally, when the last crumb had disappeared, he leaned back in his chair and raked a hand through his hair. “I haven’t been full in a very long time. Thank you, ma’am.”

  She nodded and stood, and so did he.

  “It doesn’t suit me to take something for nothing, though.” He flicked a glance at the water dimpling in the pie plate. “I can fix that for you.”

  “You needn’t trouble yourself.”

  “Your husband certainly didn’t.” He dropped his gaze to the ring she twisted on her finger. “Perhaps he is away.”

  “Quite. He’s dead.” Libbie bit her tongue in punishment for its bluntness.

  His eyes softened. “I do beg your pardon. I meant no disrespect.”

  “I can get along just fine by myself.” Liberty dropped her voice. “This is my property, and—”

  “Yours?”

  Libbie blinked. Most likely, he thought her too young to own property. “Yes, mine. So I should manage it myself. It wouldn’t do to let you spoil me.”

  One eyebrow hitched up as he looked down at her. “Every woman deserves to be taken care of every now and then, no matter how capable you are.” An easy smile curved his lips. “I’d consider it a pleasure to help.”

  “That isn’t necessary.” To be alone with a man, even for this long—it was almost indecent. Liberty hoped the warmth she felt in her face did not color her cheeks.

  “Necessary? Neither was your sharing your bread with me. But courtesy, kindness, and good manners are all necessary now more than ever.”

  “Thank you kindly, but I’m sure you have some place to be. Godspeed on your journey.” She waited for him to take his leave. But, rolling the brim of his hat in his hands, he remained planted in the doorway. Rain fell on the ground behind him, speckling his trousers with tiny flecks of mud.

  “I am sorry for your loss, truly.” His eyes probed her face, and she wondered if she looked sorry for her loss, too. Or just guilty. “How long’s it been? Since your husband died.”

  She swallowed. “Since the Battle of Bull Run. The first.”

  “Almost two years. You should be out of mourning soon.”

  Liberty stiffened. “If I so choose. Some widows wear black for the rest of their lives.” Will I forever be told what to do?

  “And bury yourself with the dead? I can’t imagine that kind of life for you.”

  Liberty stared at him. “I can’t imagine why in heaven’s name you—a perfect stranger—feel compelled to even comment on such a private matter! It’s not your place to judge.” She turned her back and pummeled the bread dough she’d left on the sideboard earlier that morning.

  “There’s enough death in this war as it is, ma’am.” His tone was tender, not spiteful. As hers had been. “Just when do you plan to come on back to the land of the living? There’s so much more to life than death, you know. Sure would hate for you to miss out on it.”

  An unwelcome tingle ran down her spine. “It’s not your concern.” She pounded the dough again.

  “Just remember what I said. There is more to life than death. Whatever happens. There is more.”

  “You speak in riddles.”

  “You’ll see soon enough.” He stepped outside, and Liberty followed, her doughy fingers gumming together in the rain. “If I were you, I’d go visit kinfolk somewhere else. And don’t come back for a few weeks.” As if she had family to visit. As if she had anyone at all, aside from her hired hands and her horse.

  Her mouth went dry. “What do you know?”

  “There’s trouble brewing.”

  “We’ve been hearing that for months.” But her pulse quickened at the intensity of his gaze. “You’re crying wolf along with the rest of them.”

  He looked down at her for a moment, as if testing his reply in his mind before speaking. “Don’t you remember? In the end, the wolf actually came.”

  “It will take more than a wolf to scare me off my farm.”

  The mysterious stranger shook his head and sighed. “Good day to you. Be well.” He held her in his gaze for a heartbeat before tipping his hat and fading back into the rain.

  Liberty’s heart thundered as she entered the farmhouse, still dripping with rain. It could have been worse. She told herself. It could have been a raiding party.

  But it wasn’t. It was just a man passing through. Now if only his words weren’t still echoing in her mind.

  As she passed her bedroom on the way to the great hall, she caught a glimpse of herself in the looking glass on her bureau, and paused to weave an errant curl back into her braid.

  She walked closer to the mirror. At a mere five feet two inches short, if it wasn’t for the gentle curve of her waist and the way her corset filled out her bodice, she could pass for a tall child. She ventured a smile, and dimples popped into her cheeks. No one would guess she was old enough to be married, let alone widowed. But her sapphire blue eyes were shadowed by the valley of death the war had carved into her life.

  When do you plan to come on back to the land of the living?

  The question was, when would her conscience allow it?

  She picked up a framed daguerreotype of Levi in his new uniform and studied it. She was sure he had been told not to smile while they captured his image, but he couldn’t help it. He was so happy to fight for the Union, even though it meant taking a break from his studies at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg to do it. I want to fight while I have the chance, he had told her. The war will be over before you know it, Libbie, and I have to do my part. They married first, right after she had come out of mourning for Aunt Helen. It had seemed like perfect timing, and a dream come true for the orphan girl. A family of her own. A new beginning.

  But I barely knew him. She was seventeen when they married, a mere child. They knew nothing, absolutely nothing. They believed he would be fine, would come back and finish his schooling and take over the Holloway Farm, and they’d have the rest of their lives to discover exactly what it was
they loved about each other. The thought of his possible death was only fleeting. The idea that he may be wounded—wounded beyond recognition and yet still alive—never occurred to either one of them. Her mind reeled back to the day she learned the news.

  She had not responded well.

  Struggling to bridle her memories so they would not run away with her again, Libbie sat on the edge of her bed and absentmindedly traced with her finger the pattern of the colorful patchwork quilt that covered it. Her first. She smiled wistfully as the last two years flashed through her mind. When other girls her age were having fun together and being courted by their beaus, Liberty Holloway was home, forced into the social isolation of widowhood, learning to quilt and preserve the harvest she grew with her hired hand.

  Not that it was that different from before … As an orphan living with a spinster in a community of large families, Libbie had always been an oddity, a curiosity, but never really a friend. Levi’s death had merely changed the reason for her solitude. She went from being Libbie the Orphan to Libbie the Widowed Bride.

  But that was two years ago. There’s so much more to life than death. Levi would have agreed. He had told her, in his one passing moment of gravity, that if he died, he would be happy knowing he had died in the service of his country. That he wanted her to find a way to be happy, too.

  Maybe it was time, at long last, to try.

  Kneeling on the rag rug at the end of her bed, Libbie pried up a loose floorboard, dug out the key she placed there nearly two years ago, and unlocked the cedar chest in front of her. The smell of a sunbaked forest greeted her as she lifted the lid, and she inhaled deeply. Slowly at first, and then like a child on Christmas morning, she lifted out dress after dress that she hadn’t seen since those first bewildering months of the war. They were simple, practical, made by her own hand. But they weren’t black, and some of them were even pretty.

  Liberty’s eyes misted over, and suddenly, she couldn’t get her black crepe off fast enough. After unfastening the fabric-covered buttons she could reach, she cast her mourning into a rusty black puddle on the floor and stepped into the blue muslin, perfect for a summer day.

  “What are you doing?”

  Libbie jumped at the sound of Bella’s voice from the hallway. Nervous laughter trickled from her lips at the sight of her standing there with two horses in tow, smelling of damp earth and hay. “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting. I was on my way to get you. The danger has passed, we’re alone again.”

  Bella’s velvety brown eyes widened as she looked at the discarded mourning dress and back to Liberty. “Those mourning clothes were your protection, Miss Liberty. No man, no matter how roguish, would try to take advantage of a woman in mourning.”

  Liberty set her lips in a thin line. For hired help, Bella certainly could be outspoken. “Am I not free to make my own decision?” She shook the ring off her finger and into the jewelry box on her bureau. “It’s been long enough. Now fasten me up, please.”

  Bella’s brow creased, but she obeyed. “I don’t think your mama would approve.” It was barely a whisper.

  Libbie caught Bella’s eye in the looking glass, and with uncharacteristic sharpness, said, “My mother? You know she’s not around. She never was.”

  Guilt trickled over Silas Ford as he rode east on Hagerstown Road, away from the Holloway Farm. He hated what he had become. And there was no place like Gettysburg to remind him of just how far he had fallen.

  The Lutheran Theological Seminary loomed ahead on Seminary Ridge, its cupola white against the pewter grey sky. Silas thought he’d never see it again—not after what happened before his final year as a student there. Yet here he was, near enough to see that the brick building remained unchanged, while he was so far from being the pastor the seminary had trained him to be that the contrast nearly choked him. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.

  But regret accomplished nothing. Silas swallowed the lump in his throat and clucked his tongue, urging Bullet up the hill. It was an odd name for a horse whose owner refused to carry a gun. Named before it had come into Silas’s possession, Silas had tried to change it, but the horse only responded to “Bullet.” As a Lutheran, Silas wasn’t supposed to believe in penance, but that’s what it felt like. Not that he needed such an ever-present reminder of the sin that had changed more than just his life.

  Mud sucked at Bullet’s hooves as he carried Silas over the ridge and down the other side, toward town. With Holloway Farm out of sight behind Seminary Ridge, Silas breathed easier.

  At least Liberty hadn’t recognized him. He almost gave himself away back there, calling her by name like that. It was pure luck that he remembered the wooden sign by the road, the U.S. flag unfurling behind the lettering. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought “Liberty” was some reference to a Northern ideal, and not the name of a girl.

  “Woman,” he muttered, correcting himself. She was not the girl of fourteen summers he remembered, wilting beneath the scrutiny of the spinster who had hired him to repair her fences. No, Liberty had grown into a woman.

  “And I’ve grown into an old man.” The soft body of a student had been chiseled into muscular leanness. The fair skin and butter-blonde hair he’d brought with him to seminary were now darker. The last time he’d seen a looking glass, he’d seen grey hair sprouting at his temples, and lines framing his eyes, though he was only twenty-eight. It should not have surprised him, not after what he’d seen. He doubted that anyone in Gettysburg would recognize him. It would be far easier if they didn’t.

  Thoughts of Silas’s past scattered as he entered Gettysburg, carefully riding slow enough to appear casual, but fast enough that he did not look aimless. He had a purpose, indeed. He was oath-bound. The fact that it had been against his will had no bearing on his situation now.

  “Whoa, Bullet.” Though this stop was not part of his assignment, Silas drew rein and dismounted in front of Christ Lutheran Church on Chambersburg Street. Removing his hat out of habit, he relished the gentle shower streaming over his body. Oh, how he wanted to be clean.

  After tying Bullet to the hitching post in the street, he climbed the stone stairs, passed through the white columns under the portico, and slipped inside the arched door.

  And waited. And hoped. Maybe here, in this church, he would feel closer to God than he did in his saddle. Silas did not bother to sit down, knowing his rain-soaked trousers would dampen the oak pews. And if God could meet him on a bench, He could just as well meet him standing in the back. He had met him here before. This was where Silas had worshiped alongside his fellow seminary students. That pew—fourth from the front on the left side—that was where he sat when Rev. Samuel Schmucker had fanned into flame the fire that had been kindling in his belly for the freedom of all men, regardless of color. When Schmucker’s wife brought slaves into their marriage years ago, he taught and trained them to live as free men and women, then freed them. The reverend was the seminary founder, Silas’s professor, and his role model. What must he think of me now? Silas shuddered. With any luck, he’d forgotten him all together.

  Rolling the brim of his hat in his hands, he surveyed the narrow stained-glass windows. If the sun were shining, mosaics of vibrant color would depict inspiring stories from the Bible.

  But the sun was not shining. So he closed his eyes, listening for God to speak to him anyway, and heard—nothing. Felt nothing. He sighed. If I were God, would I want to talk to Silas Ford? His mama had called times like these dry spells. “But the important thing,” she had said, “is to keep talking to God anyway, even if He isn’t talking back.”

  Forgive me, Silas prayed. Show me the way out. And he left the church feeling as much like a hypocrite as he ever had.

  Chambersburg Street was springing to life as he reached Bullet and untied him, with women and children and a handful of men all headed toward the center of town.

  “Excuse me,” he called down to a young lady carrying a tray of bread down the sidewalk. “Is there a
parade somewhere?”

  The girl beamed up at him. “Better,” she chirped. “Our soldiers are back!”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Did they take a holiday? You must forgive me, I’m not from around here.”

  “I know.” She laughed. “I’m sure I’d remember you if I’d seen you before.” She flashed a smile that made his skin creep, but he waited for more information. Girls were always ready to talk. “Last week, after President Lincoln called for a hundred thousand more volunteers to defend us from the Rebels, Governor Curtin issued a call asking for fifty thousand of those men to come from Pennsylvania.”

  Silas swallowed his surprise. Fifty thousand? One hundred thousand? Did they have that many men to spare?

  “So about sixty—or was it seventy?—of our boys from the college and seminary here signed up and went to Harrisburg. They are part of Company A, of the 26th Pennsylvania Emergency Infantry regiment. And now the 26th has just arrived by train!”

  “Is that so?” Silas’s gaze followed the people now streaming past them into the square. College and seminary recruits? They’d be as green as the apples he’d eaten yesterday, and softer, too.

  “Yes indeed!” The woman’s chipper voice grated on him. “They were supposed to arrive last night, but their train hit a cow on the track and it derailed them.” She giggled. “Let’s not bring that up to them. I’m just glad they’re here to protect us now.”

  “Protect you from …”

  “My goodness, you really are not from anywhere around here, are you? Haven’t you heard? The Rebel army is around here somewhere! They’ll be on to Washington next, if we don’t stop them!”

  “We?”

  “They.” She laughed brightly. “I meant ‘they.’ Women have no part in war. Come on, we’ll miss them!”

  Soon Chambersburg Street opened into the town square, or The Diamond, as locals called it, and the girl ran off to join some friends. A young boy tugged on his stirrup and offered to sell him a plug of tobacco.

  “No thanks, can’t stand the stuff.” Silas smiled at the puzzled expression on the boy’s face before the child shrugged and tried for another customer.