“I meant all of you. Alice, too. Please do come.”
Dolly spoke up. “Your horse is wandering, Mistress Gage. I’ll get him.”
I raised my brows at Margaret. “You rode horseback?”
“What else could I do? I had to come to you the moment I heard.”
I marveled at her to have jumped upon a horse to be with me. I smiled, though it felt weak and trembling, even to me, and said, “If you will have the three of us, I shall come, then, Margaret.”
“Oh, my sweet friend. You are so kind to me,” she said.
“Kind to you?”
“I feared that you somehow placed blame upon me.”
Without a knock or waiting for us to open, Gwyneth let herself in. “Ma?”
“Gwenny? You look afright.”
“I cannot find Sally. She wandered out the door while I was changing Peter’s clouties.”
“She cannot have gone far.”
“You know that one. She has feet like wings. And the sun is setting.”
“Where is Roland?”
“At a meeting in Concord. I sent Nathan to the Parkers’ and Dodsils’ to ask help.”
Margaret fastened her bonnet, too, and followed fast on my heels. We went first toward Gwyneth’s house, calling for my next-smallest grandchild. The babe, Peter, cried, so that Gwenny was forced to stop and feed him, but carried him with her, calling Sally.
The sun set. Roland and James joined the search. Before long, everyone was hoarse from calling. We fetched lanterns, and the neighbors came with more lanterns, so that our woods was alive with moving lights. It seemed as if we had just begun when the sky turned such a strange color it seemed lit from some magic within the woods and hills. It was sunrise.
I told Gwenny I had to fetch water for my throat, so weakened since that terrible day that I had nearly lost my voice calling for Sally. I opened the door to the barn to go through it to the house simply to save a few steps. I felt such panic, such rushing of need, as if every step I wasted could cost the life of this wee girl.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of gray-green amongst the dry hay where a single needle of sunlight illuminated a bit of cloth. One of the cows, ripe with its own odor, lay there, chewing cud. At the cow’s back, a wee form. Whether she slept or had died there, crushed perhaps, or fallen from the loft overhead, I could not tell. Teeth clenched, I let myself in and the cow stood. To my horror, beside the child, half buried in straw, lay the form of a man. His clothing was tattered to shreds, his long hair and beard knotted and greasy, and his skin scaled. I pushed the cow and went to Sally. “Is this Grandma’s wee mite?” I crooned as I picked her up, expecting a stiff little corpse.
Sally’s eyes opened as if on springs. “I hided, Grandma. No one found me. I found Cap-aw.”
“Cap-aw?” I searched my memory. “You found Grandpa? No, child, every old man you see is not your grandpa.” I looked down at the man’s foul-smelling body, unmoving still, and began backing out of the stall with the child in my arms. “That’s not Grandpa, dearie. Oh, little Sally, did he hurt you?”
Sally reached toward the ragged stranger. “Cap-aw!” she cried.
The man moved! His arm swatted at the air as if he fought against awakening.
Sally called again and fought in my arms until I was forced to put her down. She ran to him. “Cap-aw, I keept you warm.” She petted his matted hair. I did not move, trying to think what I would do with this vagabond adopted by my grandchild.
He spoke one word. “Wife?”
“Cullah?” So haggard. So shrunken. I knelt in the dirty straw and held him to my bosom. “Cullah. Oh, my husband. They told me you were dead.” We wept, our tears washing his face. “My Eadan,” I moaned. Sally nestled herself between us and cried, too. I helped him rise and walk to the house. Soon as I gave him bread and fruit, and a cup of ale, I called Gwenny to come.
James was true to his word, and stayed until Cullah had been home a week. Then, with a cloak I had made him rolled around his other clothing, and a pushcart loaded with ten bolts of my best woolens, he walked away from our lives at sunup.
I loved them all, these people in my life, even he, Patience’s first child. We were all guilty in our own ways; all had been formed by our lot in life. Was I also the godless outlaw he saw in my husband? It must be, else I could not love Cullah, could not tolerate August. Was it unholy to love a person in spite of their actions? For the first time in years, I wished Ma sat by me.
Alice came to my side. “You sad Master James is gone?”
“Of course.”
“Don’t be, Mistress. He a man. You can’t mother a man fully grown. It isn’t natural. Best he leaves. Wasn’t good at farming. He t’ink everyt’ing in the world has to come on his terms. World isn’t like that. More natural that he find it out somewhere else, then he won’t judge you so harsh. That’s all I got to say.”
CHAPTER 36
May 23, 1769