Lynda Trent - The Fire Within

“How much kindling do you need?” Bridget asked.

“If I don’t do it now, I’ll just have to do it later. Kindling will keep.”

“I almost forgot. Papa said he saw a Union patrol down the mountain yesterday. He says for you to be real careful. They may be coming this way.”

“I’ll watch out for them.” Megan wondered if they could be looking for Caleb. By now he would have been missed and someone might have a way of knowing he wasn’t captured or buried.

“I’ve got to be going now. Mama says she’ll be expecting you for dinner on Sunday.”

“I always eat there on Sunday. Why would she have you remind me?”

“I don’t know. You know how Mama is. She has the sight just like her grandmother did. Maybe she saw something keeping you from coming down.”

“Tell her I’ll be there.” From time to time Megan had also experienced the family phenomenon. She always became uneasy whenever a death was about to occur. She had never told Bridget because her sister would only have worried.

“Anyway, she said to tell you she expects you for dinner.”

“Tell her not to fret.” Megan frowned slightly. Did her mother somehow suspect that Caleb was in Megan’s cabin? Frequently Jane knew things no one had told her, and on occasion Megan had experienced this herself. As far as she knew, Bridget had no glimmerings of the sight at all and was as uninformed as their father in that respect.

When Bridget was gone, Megan took the brimming box of kindling into the house. Since she rarely allowed her fire to go out, there was enough kindling to last her a year. She dropped it beside the hearth and put another log on the fire.

A glance at the window told her that evening was only a couple of hours away. She shouldn’t have wasted the precious minutes of daylight talking with Caleb earlier.

She went back outside and to the shed where she kept the tools and ropes needed around the farm. Taking several lengths of rope, she went into the woods. After tying a chunk of wood to the end of a rope, Megan tossed it over the highest limb possible. Then she went back to the smokehouse and brought out the first of the smoked meat, tied carefully in a tow sack.

She tied the sack of meat to the end of the rope and hauled it up into the top of the tree, being careful not to leave it suspended too close to other limbs. She didn’t want to go to all the trouble of hiding it from soldiers and have some predator eat it.

When the end of the rope was tied to the trunk of the tree, she looked up. If a person didn’t know where to look, it was as good as invisible.

For the next two hours she repeated the process until every spare roast was tied in the treetops and hidden as well as she could manage. She ached from the unaccustomed effort and was glad to fasten the smokehouse door and go back to the cabin.

As she approached, she heard voices. Fear congealed in her veins as she rounded the corner and saw three Union soldiers entering her yard. The sun hung low over the treetops and night would soon be falling. What did they want at her house?

“Yes?” she asked in a cold tone. Had they heard Caleb inside? They could have been in there with him for all she knew.

“We’re looking for food, ma’am,” one said. None of them were smiling.

She kept her distance. “So am I. Your army already cleaned me out.” She jerked her head in the direction of the smokehouse. “See for yourselves.”

The man in charge motioned for one of the men to go look. “We’re also looking for a man named Captain Caleb Morgan. Have you seen him around here?”

“I don’t know of any Morgan family living in these parts.” She deliberately made herself sound a bit slow of wit. That had worked in the past. “You could ask over to Raintree. The Morgans might live there.”

“No, this was a Union soldier, not a family,” the other man said impatiently. “We’re trying to see if he was killed or captured.”

“I haven’t killed anybody.” Megan crossed her arms over her chest. “If you find any food, I’d appreciate it if you’d share it with me.”

“Not much chance of that,” the second man said again.

His superior frowned at him. To Megan he said, “I apologize for my men. These are hard times for all of us.”

Especially those of us who don’t get to ride around on horses and steal from women who are trying to keep body and soul together. She frowned at them in the fading light.

The other man returned. “The smokehouse is empty. It smells like smoke though. Maybe she heard us coming and is hiding the meat.

Megan held her arms out. “Do you think I could hide much under this shawl? Maybe it’s in my shoe?”

Behind her, she heard a voice call out. Caleb had heard the men. She stepped up on the porch, blocking their way. “Since there’s nothing to steal, I won’t object to you riding away.”

“Is that a man in there?” the second soldier asked. “Who do I hear?”

“You hear my brother. He’s a bit slow in the mind and the army doesn’t want him. He’s been on a three-day drinking binge. If you’ll take him off my hands, you can have him.” She held her breath.

The officer grinned. “No, we aren’t recruiting drunken brothers today. We’ll be on our way.”

“Wait!” she could hear Caleb shouting. “I’m Captain Morgan!”

To cover his words, Megan bumped against the washtub that hung on the porch and it fell with a deafening clatter. The soldiers’ horses shied away. “Sorry,” she said. “I’ve always been clumsy.” She made more noise as she wrestled the tub back onto its peg.

When she turned around the men were riding away. Megan hurried into the house and sighed with relief as she shoved the bolt in place on the door. She leaned her forehead against the wood and closed her eyes. That had been too close. If she had been a bit slower, they would have found her precious cache of meat and it was only luck that they hadn’t discovered Caleb.

“You can quit shouting. They’ve gone,” she called to him as she went to the pump to wash her hands.

“Get in here!” he commanded. “You kept them from hearing me on purpose!”

“Of course I did! Do you take me for a fool?” She pushed open the bedroom door and frowned back at him. “You’re my prisoner. I’m not giving you up until I can trade you for Seth.”

“They might have known where to find a doctor! Not one of those army sawbones, but a real doctor.”

“More likely they would have put you on one of their horses and you’d have bled to death before they reached Raintree. You couldn’t travel if you tried!”

“At least I would be with my own army!”

She glared at him. “Is it better to die with your army, with strangers, than to stay here and be doctored back to health and traded? I think not. Certainly it wouldn’t serve me as well.”

“What about me?” he demanded.

“You’re my prisoner,” she said loudly and slowly so it would sink in. “I’m not giving you up until it suits me.”

He was still arguing but she closed the door. This was turning out to be more difficult than she had originally supposed.

She put a bit of the horse meat on to boil for supper, then went to the back room. This was farther from the road and had a door that could be latched. She had wondered at the time why her father had fitted a latch on it, but now she was glad he had. He had said it might come in handy. She hoped he would never guess in what way. Not until she had Seth home safely.

Her pallet lay in the middle of the floor, its covers neatly in place. What would it take to make a proper bed out of it?

With a great deal of difficulty, Megan managed to maneuver four kegs from the barn into the back room. Then she went out to the smokehouse. Taking a hammer, she knocked the pins from the hinges and dragged the door back to the house. It was long past dark by the time she finished. With all her muscles aching, she pulled the pallet up onto the door and braced all of it in the corner. It was pretty sturdy. Would it be strong enough to hold a man Caleb’s size? There was only one way to find out.