Fairer than Morning (34 page)

She hesitated. She should explain about her sisters—but then he might offer some compelling argument, might tell her father that she would not marry because of her sisters. And then her father might offer more arguments, or insist that she leave. She did not want anyone else to make this choice, or even to know of it.

“And once I start a practice, you will lack for nothing. Just imagine the life we might lead there. You would have a housemaid, a cook, even a nanny if you wish. Never again would there be an evening when you did not have the time to read. In fact, we would host literary salons right there in our own parlor. Cincinnati is becoming an oasis of culture. I know how to make you happy, my love.”

His endearment sent a shiver across her shoulders.

“Doesn't that sound divine?” he asked with a light in his eyes.

“Yes,” she said. But there was something not quite right in it. Was that the life she wanted? She stepped back and retained his hand, so as not to seem cold. If only she asked the correct question, she would find some revelation that would allow her to share his easy assurance in the future.

“Would that be enough, Eli? Would you enjoy being a doctor?”

“I would enjoy it because its material advantages would allow me to pursue my passions.” He led her with him to walk slowly down the road.

“But will you find rewards in the work itself?”

“A profession is a profession. It must be either medicine or law to make the living I want for my family. And the law is so dry, and it sometimes leads to politics.” He made a face.

She laughed. “Is it so terrible to involve yourself in the business of our country?”

“It is worthy work for some, perhaps, but not for me. You and I and others like us inherit another responsibility.”

“And what is that?”

“The pursuit of beauty and refinement. Life must not be a dull monotony, and we who are capable of caring for the beautiful things in life must do so, or they will be lost to everyone.”

“You make it sound very honorable.”

“It is.”

“And it also just happens to be pleasurable.” She looked at him sidelong, teasing.

“For us, yes. God has suited each of us to our calling, if not always to our livelihood.”

“It sounds too ideal to be true. That life could be pleasant and happy at all times, full of leisure and entertainment, and yet we would be fulfilling a high purpose?”

He stepped ahead and pivoted to face her. She could not arrest her step and plowed into his waistcoat. He set gentle hands on her shoulders to keep her close and looked deep in her eyes. “It is true, for me and for you. Not for all. But it is true. As true as my love for you.”

His almost-beautiful face so close and intent on her erased all other thought.

“Marry me.” He whispered it and bent nearer. His lips touched hers, feathery-light, but then more firmly when she did not protest. He slid his hands around her back and pulled back just enough to murmur again, “Say you will.” He kissed her again. She responded, her senses melting into his closeness, the softness of his lips.

Then he stopped, as if mastering himself with an effort. “No, don't say anything.” He slid his hands down to her elbows and held her there, still close. “Just consider it from your heart. I will speak to your father when he returns, as I should have two years ago. And I will ask you for an answer in a week.”

She nodded. A week's reprieve, to choose between Eli and her sisters. Clearly she could not bring them to stay on his brother's farm in Cincinnati. It would be one or the other, Eli or the girls. She struggled to keep her face from betraying her distress. She must have succeeded, for he smiled again.

“We had better get you to the Sumners. They will be watching my every move in your father's absence.”

Normally she would have issued some tart reply, but the tingling still on her lips had made her vague and dreamy.

He offered his arm again and they walked together, as if their closeness had said all that could be said and anything else would be a mere formality. And perhaps it would.

Thirty-One

I
T WAS DARK, SO DARK ON THE
L
ANCASTER ROAD.
Even Mr. Miller slept, lying in the back of the wagon with John and Clara, while Will drove on. The mules had rested in the daylight hours and were fresh again. They should soon come upon the National Road.

The gibbous moon floated above trees that filtered its light to a faint milky sheen on the road ahead. Will strained his eyes but could make out no details in the formless mass of forest to either side of them. The jingling of the harness and the mules' plodding feet on the dirt echoed in his ears like the din of a whole army. But there was nothing to be done about it. It was jarring only because the night was so silent.

If he thought too long about the posted bills for runaways, he could raise the hair on his own arms. He had done so more than once in the day of travel since they left Mr. Shupp's tavern. So he would not.

Mr. Miller had counseled him yesterday to rest in the power and protection of the Lord. At that, John and Clara had nodded as if they understood something. Their calm did not make any earthly sense, as they were probably not even as strong as Will himself and would fare worse should it come to a physical contest with abductors or robbers. Yet all three of the older folk seemed less anxious than Will.

Because they do not know Master Good as I do
.

But he knew that was not true. The peace of the Simons and Mr. Miller was part of the presence that had come to Will in the cabin. He could not feel the presence now. But he could see it in them: in the calm luminosity of Clara's glance at her husband, in the even tones of Mr. Miller and John as they prepared for sleep an hour ago.

He wanted to serve. He had vowed himself to the Lord. Would he also be granted this strength that he saw in the others—the assurance of the presence?

Show yourself to me, Lord. Speak to me
.

He was aware of the audacity of his request, but his weariness emboldened him.

Tell me what you wish me to do! I want to be certain, like the others
.

In an instant, the night sky became more vast, the vault of heaven opened to limitlessness. Will felt himself miniscule in the sight of something that was everywhere and moving through him, as if he broke apart and mingled with it. His breath came in short, staggered puffs. Who was he, to have asked for an audience with Eternity? At the same time, he felt acceptance such as he had never known, as if these fragments that made him were revealed in all their brokenness and inadequacy
 
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. and he was fully loved. He would never be alone again.

Tears started to his eyes. He bowed his head and closed his eyelids and the drops leaked out, warm on his cheeks in the cool night air. He blinked and looked up again at the hazy stars ahead, though he knew it did not matter if he looked or not. But he lifted his face and let the tears run down in praise of this Great Being and its love.

Tell me what to do, and I will do it. Anything
.

And something came—not exactly a voice, but a rolling in his consciousness that carried him like a wave far out beyond his own comprehension.

Then serve. Follow. You are a stranger. Go where you must go to serve. Break the chains of the captives. I will show you
.

The immanence condensed and resolved to a kind of glittering thread inside him, so that he felt himself back in his whole breathing body. He was left with a certainty:
Go where you must go
.

He pondered it. Such a mysterious thought really should not bring him this quiet confidence, and yet he reveled in the last promise:
I will show you
.

He did not understand, but he knew he would, eventually.

A rustling behind him made him look over his shoulder. Mr. Miller was sitting up, watching him with keen interest. Will was abashed.

“Have you been talking to the Lord, son?” Mr. Miller's face was just a blur in the darkness.

“I suppose . . . yes, sir.”

“I thought so.” The saddler's voice was gentle. “And has he been speaking to you?”

It seemed too personal and precious a thing to share, yet he could not forget that he owed it all to this man who had shown him God in his eyes. He would not refuse him an answer. “Yes, sir.”

Mr. Miller did not pursue it, though Will thought he saw him smile.

“Would you like me to drive, son?”

“Yes, sir, if you're not too weary.”

Mr. Miller stood up, bracing his legs against the bumps of the wagon. Will handed him the reins and they switched positions.

After a while Will heard Mr. Miller humming under his breath. It was a pleasant sound. There had not been much singing under Master Good. Mr. Miller's song drifted back to him, barely audible.

A stranger and a pilgrim I
With thy command, O Lord comply
I go where thou dost send
My high commission I obey
The toils and dangers of the way
Shall all in lasting comforts end ...

Now the back of Will's neck prickled, and shivers raced down his arms. This would be how the Lord showed himself, then. Through the words and deeds of others, he would confirm his will. The Lord had not walked away and left the world swimming in its own darkness. He was here at work. He had brought Will to this place and this godly man for his own purpose, and Will had simply to pay attention.

The wondrous calm that fell over him then was like a warm blanket that lulled him to sleep, his head nodding down toward the hay . . .

Mr. Miller's shout snapped him awake. The wagon lurched and the mules began to canter, then gallop. With sleep-bleared vision, Will saw a dark form on horseback burst through the brush on the side of the road. Will fumbled for his holster, seeing at the edge of his vision that John was scrabbling under the hay for the other pistol.

Mr. Miller was too busy driving the mules as fast as he could, probably faster than was safe on the unpredictable road surface. As Will brought up his pistol, another horseman erupted from the opposite side.

Crack!

The pistol jerked back in Will's hand, the smell of sulfur filling his nostrils. There would not be time to reload; he reached for the holster at Mr. Miller's side and yanked out the gun.

Crack!

On the heels of the ear-splitting sound, John's gun went off too, sending a double boom. At the same time, a flash went off behind them, and a ball whistled close overhead.

One of the horses shied, another reared. Will heard one of the men yelling to the other as they fell back; perhaps he had been hit.

“Blast that no-good apprentice!”

Will's fingers went cold with shock around the pistol handle. Not robbers or slave-catchers. Bounty hunters, for him. He sat down on the floor of the wagon, where John had already thrown himself to pound paper and ball into the mouth of the pistol.

The men receded farther down the road as the wagon continued its pell-mell flight. He saw one of the men drop to the road. The other man's horse was tossing its head and squealing; one of their shots must have hit it. He did not like to wound an innocent animal, but when human lives were in the balance
 
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Mr. Miller leaned forward and urged the mules on at a dead run until they were far from their assailants, then pulled the mules back to a canter. Will followed John's lead and reloaded, but the men did not reappear.

“I cannot run them any more without breaking their wind,” Mr. Miller called back to Will. He eased them down to a trot.

Will slid his pistol back into its holster, craning his neck to see back down the road. Still empty.

“They were after me, sir. They said ‘the apprentice.'”

Mr. Miller did not turn all the way around, but Will saw his shoulders stiffen in surprise. “You're certain?”

“He did say that, Mr. Samuel,” Clara said from the back, where she had dared sit up again.

“Well, highwaymen are highwaymen, whether their prize is gold or flesh.” Mr. Miller sounded dismissive, but Will thought he detected concern beneath his nonchalance.

None of them could sleep after that. The Lancaster Road met the National Road, and they turned west as the morning extended fingers of pink light behind them over the trees. John and Will both sat upright, each watching one side of the road with unfailing vigilance.

Even with his eyes glued to the tree line, Will's mind would not remain still.

You said you would show me, Lord. Make it clear to me. I am risking them by my presence here. And if bounty hunters follow me, I will bring danger to the Millers, even if we deliver the Simons to safety. So where must I go?

Ann's face and figure drifted through his thoughts, her softness, the depth of intelligence in her eyes that Emmie's flat prettiness could never match. But he had a duty to fulfill. And he could never place Ann in jeopardy.