A Family Apart (18 page)

F
RANCES PULLED THE
horses to a halt, cringing as one bounty hunter stopped so close to her that she could see the red veins in his windburned eyes.

“Jake’s new boy. Frankie, isn’t it?” Marshal Dawson asked, then, giving her no time to answer, he added, “Where are you off to?”

“I—I’m taking a load of corn to Mr. Mueller’s farm,” she stammered, “because Jake can’t do it. He’s ill with the fever.” She tried not to meet his eyes and prayed that the secret she carried didn’t show on her face.

“Sorry to hear that Jake’s ailing,” the marshal said.

One of the bounty hunters interrupted him. “Since the boy’s goin’ into Nebraska, he may have more than corn in that load.”

“That could be so,” the other bounty hunter said. He leaned close to peer into her face. Frances shot him a look of hatred and anger and quickly turned away. She
tried to keep her hands from shaking by gripping the reins tightly and pressing them against her knees.

Frances’s stomach clutched, and she held her breath as one of the bounty hunters slowly rode to the back of the wagon to poke at the canvas and the sacks of corn with the barrel end of his rifle.

“You seen any sign of those runaways?” the other bounty hunter asked. “Remember—a man and a woman. And she’s got an embroidered shawl. Stole it from her mistress.”

Frances remembered how Mike had taught her to face the street bullies in New York. These men seemed no different, so a show of spunk would be her best defense. She knew they were watching her closely for any sign of fear, which would let them know their suspicions had been right, so with all her might she fought her terror, stared scornfully, and retorted, “Stole it? That’s not the truth. The marshal said that the woman gave it to her.”

“You got a good memory,” he said. “So remember this. Anyone who helps slaves escape can get sent to prison.”

“He’s just a boy doin’ a job for his pa,” the marshal said. “Let him get on his way. It’s going to snow soon.”

The men guided their horses back a few steps, then whirled and rode in the direction from which they had come.

Frances’s hands shook inside her heavy gloves, and it was hard to hold the reins, but just in case they had glanced back to watch her, she sat straight as a new board and clucked to the horses to start up again.

It wasn’t until they were out of sight that Frances finally was able to breathe normally. The wagon rolled on. At last the narrow river crossed their path ahead,
and she soothed the horses down the bank and into the shallow water. She could easily see farm buildings on the other side. The Muellers’ farm. She was weak with relief when she finally drove into the yard and up to the barn.

Mr. Mueller ran out to meet her, grasping the horses’ bridles and leading them into the barn. “You get into the house,” he said. “I’ll take care of everything.”

As Frances entered the warm kitchen, Johnny grinned at her.

“My pa never let
me
drive the wagon alone,” he said.

Frances clutched Mrs. Mueller’s arm with fingers still stiff from the cold and whispered, “The bounty hunters stopped me. They’re still looking for a woman wearing that embroidered shawl. This time they said she stole it. Odette mustn’t wear it any longer. She can take my coat.”

“You need your own coat,” Mrs. Mueller said in hushed tones. “We have extras, and we’ll give one to her.” Her voice returned to normal. “Now, Frankie, don’t waste time with worry. Use your energies to eat.” She propelled Frances to the table and put a plate of hot potatoes, carrots, and boiled beef in front of her.

While his brothers concentrated on their meals, Johnny leaned across the table and whispered, “Tell me about the slaves. How many were there?”

“Two,” Frances mumbled, her mouth full.

“Let Frankie eat his food in peace,” Mrs. Mueller said, frowning at Johnny as she tossed quick glances at his younger brothers. “This is not the time for talk.”

Later, after the younger three boys had been sent to bed, Johnny told Frances, “You brought them by yourself. You’re really brave!”

“I wasn’t brave. I was frightened,” Frances confided.

He shook his head. “That doesn’t matter. You were brave enough to take a big chance and break the law! If you were caught, you’d go to prison!”

“Johnny!” Mrs. Mueller warned.

“I didn’t want to break the law,” Frances said, “and it didn’t seem wrong to help those people.”

“It wasn’t wrong,” Mrs. Mueller said.

Frances slowly shook her head. “It’s such a muddle. The people who obey the laws, like those bounty hunters, are really doing the wrong thing; and the people who try to help the slaves reach freedom are right, but they’re breaking the laws!”

Mr. Mueller had slipped into the kitchen in time to hear most of the discussion. He nodded from his seat by the fire. “In this case, at least, you did not do a bad thing, Frankie. The people who help slaves to find freedom have chosen to take the risk of going to prison, to make a sacrifice to help someone else.”

“Sacrifice,” Frances said, repeating the word she had heard her mother use. She sighed. “I’ve heard adults talk of sacrifice, but I don’t really understand all that it means.”

Mrs. Mueller pulled off her apron and hung it on a hook on the side of a cupboard. “Sacrifice is not always easy to understand, Frankie. It means that someone or something else means more to you than your own self. Let me explain it this way—it means that you can love someone or some idea enough to give up something that you prize, in order to make people’s lives better. You understand that, Frankie. Today, to help others, you made a sacrifice.”

She patted Frances’s shoulder. “Enough talk,” she said. “It’s time for this boy to get his rest.” She led Frances to a bed in the room with the little boys, who
were bundled into quilts on the floor. “Sleep,” she said. “You’re so tired that your eyes will close the moment you pull the quilt around your ears. We want you to have a good night’s rest, because if the weather is clear tomorrow you will have that long ride back.”

Frances’s eyes did not close right away. She kept repeating to herself Mrs. Mueller’s explanation of sacrifice. If you love someone enough to give up something you prize—
Is this what you were trying to tell me, Ma, when I was too angry and hurt to really listen?

Ma’s face, as it had looked in the courthouse hallway, appeared before her. Frances could see the pain in her mother’s eyes as she remembered her words: “Help me, love. Help me to make them understand.”

A hard knot inside Frances’s chest melted with such a rush of tears that she curled tightly underneath the quilt to smother the sound, whispering again and again, “Oh, Ma! Ma, I do understand!”

Morning broke clear, the night’s snowfall leaving only a fine dusting of white across the hills. Frances quickly pulled on her clothes and hurried downstairs.

“How are Janus and Odette?” Frances asked as she devoured a huge breakfast of eggs, biscuits, and frizzled ham slices.

“They’re fine,” Mrs. Mueller said. “They’ve been given warm clothing and food and sent on their way long ago. No one will be able to stop them now. I can promise you that.”

Frances leaned back in her chair with a happy sigh. She had done it! She had helped them to escape! She could hardly wait to get home to tell Jake and Margaret. “I should leave, too,” she told Mrs. Mueller. “I’m needed at home, because Jake is too ill to do the chores.”

Johnny dashed into the room. “I heard what Frankie said, and I’ve got a good plan. I’ll ride home with him and help. I’ll even take a turn with the horses.”

“Sure, that’s a grand idea!” Frances exclaimed.

“Just how would you get home, Johnny?”

“Uh—Frankie could drive me back.”

“And once more back and forth?” Mrs. Mueller laughed. “Frankie is capable of driving alone. He’s proved what he can do.”

“Awww,” Johnny complained. “Pa never lets me drive alone, and I’m a year older than Frankie.”

His mother gave him a playful swat on his bottom. “Since you are so old you must be very strong, so you can go out and help hitch Frankie’s wagon. Get along with you!”

Along with food for the journey, Mrs. Mueller carried to the barn a length of dress fabric, a seedcake, and a pot of cheese to take to Margaret. “We’ll find something with which to wrap that cheese well, so the cold won’t spoil it.”

Frances, eager to get on her way, spotted the black shawl and picked it up. “I can use this,” she said. She wrapped the cheese and tucked the packages into a corner of the wagon. Then she folded the canvas next to them.

“Take care,” Mrs. Mueller told her, and Johnny yelled, “I’ll see you at the Christmas party!”

Frances waved and led the horses south on the road toward home.

Although icy, the river was still easy to ford. The horses stepped briskly as though they knew they were headed for home. With no load to take back, the nearly empty wagon bounced on the road, and the team, with less to pull, made better time. Frances hummed to herself,
delighted at the picture in her mind of Janus and Odette reaching freedom in Canada. As soon as all the slaves had been freed and she didn’t need to keep the Underground Railroad secret any longer, she would write to Mike and tell him all about the adventure—and Ma, too. Wouldn’t Mike think it a grand thing and wish he’d been with her! And she could almost hear Ma saying, “Ah, love, it’s so very proud of you I am.”

She’d write the story to Megan, too. As the two eldest girls in the family, she and Megan had always shared a special bond. When Megan heard about Odette and Janus’s freedom, she’d be just as happy for them as Frances was now.

Although the white-frosted hills were serene under a clear sky, the wind prickled Frances’s face with sharp slivers of cold, so she kept urging Sal and Daisy to keep up their pace. As she looked west she thought long about Megan. The couple who took her had a home out on that prairie. It was so far away, and Frances missed her sister so much. She hoped the isolated prairie life would not be hard on the gentle, sensitive Megan.

Frances missed Ma, too. She could hardly wait to get to the Cummingses’ farm so she could write to her mother. When she wrote to tell Ma of her adventure, Frances would also tell her that she’d been wrong—that now she really did understand Ma’s sacrifice.

Frances was almost home when the marshal and the two bounty hunters suddenly appeared on the road. They’d never know how close they’d come to the slaves they’d been tracking. They’d ride on, retracing their steps toward the north, searching for Odette and Janus in vain. Frances raised a hand to wave at the marshal and was surprised when he turned with the bounty hunters and rode beside her for a few moments.

“Glad the weather didn’t close in on you,” he said.

“It was an easy trip,” Frances answered. She was aware that one of the men was poking the barrel of his rifle in the back of the wagon. She suppressed a smile. He wasn’t going to find any hidden slaves behind the cake and cheese.

The cheese! Suddenly Frances realized that she foolishly had used Odette’s shawl to wrap the pot of cheese! How could she have been so stupid? She froze, clinging to the reins so tightly her fingers became numb.

“Give my regards to your folks,” Marshal Dawson said, and he urged his horse on. But one of the bounty hunters suddenly yelled, “Wait a minute, Marshal! Pull up, boy!” He pointed his rifle at her head to make sure that she obeyed.

The man grabbed the wrapped pot of cheese and shook the shawl until its contents tumbled into the wagon. He waved the shawl over his head. “Ain’t this what that slave woman was wearin’?”

The other bounty hunter examined it closely. “Looks like.”

“Where did you get this shawl?” the marshal asked Frances, and this time his voice was stern.

“I found it on the ground,” Frances said truthfully. “I used it to wrap the cheese so it wouldn’t freeze.”

“On the ground where?” Marshal Dawson asked.

Frances lifted her chin, staring back. No matter how frightened she was, she wasn’t about to give him an answer.

“We can figure that out,” one bounty hunter said to his partner. “C’mon, let’s head north. You take care of this lawbreakin’ boy, Marshal.”

He tossed the shawl into the wagon, and the two of them set off at a gallop.

Janus and Odette had been given a long head start. Mrs. Mueller had promised that they’d be in no more danger, and the Muellers could handle these two ruffians, so Frances didn’t worry about them. She only wanted to get home to Jake and Margaret. Could they help her? What would become of her?

“I’ll ride back with you to Jake’s place.” The marshal’s words broke into her thoughts. “You know, son, that as of now you’re under arrest.”

Frances jumped as though he’d struck her. Under arrest! Did that mean she’d go to prison? She shuddered. Would Jake and Margaret be arrested, too? What would happen to Petey? Her new parents had made a home for her, and now everything was about to be lost. Tears spilled from her eyes, stinging her cheeks. She’d lose her new family and her old family!

It was true she had broken the law. There was no question about it, so she’d have to accept the punishment. She couldn’t be saved the way Mike had been saved. There was nowhere left to send her.
It’s all so unfair!
she thought.
If a law hurts people, then shouldn’t it be broken?
Frances concentrated on driving the wagon, angrily rubbing away the tears.