Keeping Secrets (11 page)

Flustered, Ma began, “Then I might have … uh …”

“I’m sure you would have done what I did,” Miss Hennessey said. “I told the sergeant that Peg was my daughter. That satisfied him, and we were allowed to proceed.”

“I suppose in a case like that—”

Miss Hennessey interrupted, a broad smile on her face. “Oh, Noreen, how I wish I really did have a daughter like Peg. She’s such a dear, lovely young woman and a pleasant traveling companion.”

Peg blushed, but didn’t speak. She was too busy thinking over what Miss Hennessey had told Ma about misleading the soldiers into thinking that Peg was Miss Hennessey’s daughter. She’d kept her promise to tell, in her own way, just as she’d said she would, so Peg couldn’t complain; but her
own way
was just a tad different from the way Peg would have told Ma. At least Miss Hennessey’s deception got her past the patrol and to Danny, so did the way the story was told really matter?

Miss Hennessey pushed back her chair and got to her feet. “I know that you have dozens of questions to ask about Danny,” she said, “and I’m sure Peg can’t wait to tell you about the happy afternoon they spent together. So I’ll leave now with my grateful thanks.” She paused. “I do hope you’ll allow Peg to drive with me again.”

“Please, Ma! Please, please?” Peg waited eagerly for Ma’s answer.

“Since you feel it’s safe enough,” Ma said. Her eyes were warm with affection as she looked at Peg.

The moment Miss Hennessey’s buggy had left Ma wrapped an arm around Peg’s waist and steered her to the sofa. “Tell me about Danny, little love,” she said.

Peg sighed.
“Little love”
again. Why couldn’t Ma think of her as a young lady? Miss Hennessey did.

But Peg soon forgot her grievance in her delight in telling Ma how tall and strong Danny was growing. Smiling, Ma asked question after question, and Peg answered as best she could, but she didn’t tell Ma about Danny’s target practice and his eagerness to enlist in the Union Army as soon as he’d reached the age of sixteen. Why worry Ma about something that might never happen? Surely the war would be over by then.

Surprising Peg, Ma suddenly asked, “Tell me about
Miss Hennessey’s sister Nellie and her husband. Are they friendly, good people? Is Nellie as shy as Violet is?”

“She’s very different,” Peg answered. “She gives huge, squashing hugs, and she laughs a lot. She doesn’t even look like Miss Hennessey.”

At Ma’s urging, Peg went on to describe the poor, impoverished farm that still lacked livestock. “But they’re only going to be there temporarily,” Peg said.

“The poor dears,” Ma said and slowly shook her head. “War causes such terrible waste.”

With a rush of affection Peg snuggled up against Ma. “Come with us next time. Please? Danny would love to see you.”

“Maybe,” Ma said, “although it’s hard for me to leave my chores and get away. Who’d tend to John when he came home from his shop? Who’d cook his dinner?”

“Who cooked it before he married you?” Peg demanded.

Ma grinned and gave Peg a playful squeeze. “Don’t be saucy.”

“Think about coming with us, will you, Ma?” Peg begged.

“Do you know when Violet plans to make the drive again?”

“No,” Peg said. “I just hope it’s soon.”

A few days later John came home with a copy of
The St. Joseph Gazette
and thumped it onto the table. “That monster, William Quantrill, should be drawn and quartered!”

Ma exclaimed, “John Murphy, I’m surprised at you!”

He sank into the nearest kitchen chair and rubbed
his neck. “You look tired,” Peg told him. “Would you like a drink of water?”

“I’m just discouraged, Peg, my girl, after reading the news,” he said.

“What happened?” Peg poured water into a cup for him, then reached for the newspaper, but Ma was quicker and snatched it up.

“John,” she said, “suppose you give us the essence of the story. Just remember to leave out the worst of the details.”

He nodded. “On October first, Quantrill called his men to meet in the town of Perdees, in Johnson County. Four hundred of them showed up. The plan was to ride south along the Kansas-Missouri border into Arkansas and then down into Texas, where they’d stay the winter.”

Peg thought about James, Miss Hennessey’s cousin. Had he known he’d be going to Texas? And when he’d said he’d soon have word, did he mean that to be the date they’d be going?

John looked glum as he continued the story. “As they neared our Fort Baxter, on the sixth, Quantrill decided to attack. Fortunately, Quantrill’s troops were beaten back.”

“Then the news isn’t so bad,” Ma said, and Peg could hear the relief in her voice.

“I’m not through with the telling,” Mr. Murphy said. He gave a long sigh, drank half the water Peg had put before him, and finally continued: “The Union commander of the District of the Frontier, General James Blunt, was traveling on his way from Fort Scott to Fort Gibson. There were ten wagons in his train along with one hundred men of the Third Wisconsin and Fourteenth Kansas Cavalry. And a woman traveled with
them—Mrs. Chester Thomas, the wife of an army contractor, who was on the way to join her husband.

“Quantrill was informed that the train was approaching, so he and two hundred and fifty of his men rode out to meet it. Some of Quantrill’s men were dressed partially in Union uniforms, so General Blunt decided that they were an honor guard sent from Fort Baxter to greet him. He led his party right into the ambush.”

“How awful!” Peg exclaimed.

Ma clapped her hands to her cheeks. “What happened to them? And to that poor woman?”

“General Blunt and Mrs. Thomas jumped from their buggy onto horses and were able to escape. A few others escaped as well, but there were many, many casualties.

John’s face twisted in anguish. “The victory must have lit a bonfire inside Quantrill. As he and his men continued below Baxter Springs, they killed one hundred and fifty Indians and Negroes who were gathering ponies for the Union Army.”

“Oh, mercy, mercy!” Ma said as she wiped her hands on her apron. “Peg, you shouldn’t be hearing all this.”

“Yes, I should,” Peg insisted. “I’m not a small child. It’s better that I know what is happening.”

“I agree,” John said. “You can’t hide Peg inside a bushel barrel.”

Miffed, Ma insisted, “That may be, but for now let there be no more talk about war.”

“But I have a question,” Peg said. “There’s something I don’t understand. If Quantrill was told that General Blunt’s train of wagons was coming, then why wasn’t there someone to tell General Blunt that Quantrill’s raiders were traveling south?”

John frowned. “You have a good point. The Union has as many spies as the Confederates. By all rights the general should have been told.”

“That’s what I mean. Why wasn’t he?”

“Who knows? There may have been a spy rushing the information to the general. If the spy was male and he was caught by some of the bushwhackers, he would have been shot—or possibly hanged on the spot.”

“Now, John,” Ma said with an anxious look toward Peg.

But Peg persisted. “What do you mean—if the spy was male? Aren’t all spies hanged?”

“No. If the spy was a woman she would have been imprisoned, but she wouldn’t have been killed. Neither side kills women. Even Quantrill doesn’t kill women.”

Peg was intrigued. “Then why not make a rule that all spies have to be women?”

“Because there are some places women just can’t go.”

“But if—”

Ma slammed the palm of her hand on the table. “That’s enough! Supper is ready, and there’ll be only talk of pleasant things while we’re at the table. Is that understood?”

As John left to wash up, Peg glanced at the bowl of pickles Ma had placed on the table along with a small boiled sausage, turnips, and mashed potatoes. “Ma,” she asked, “Those aren’t Ennie Swenson’s pickles, are they?”

“It’s wrong to throw away perfectly good pickles,” Ma said with a warning frown that told Peg she’d better not pursue the topic. “Eat them and enjoy them. Believe me, I scrubbed them well.”

Before Peg fell asleep that night, she thought about
Miss Hennessey’s cousin, James. Quantrill and his men hadn’t been in battle when they’d ambushed the general’s wagon train and when they’d ridden down on the Indians and Negroes. They’d slaughtered people who were not prepared to fight back. Cousin, or not, how could James do such a thing?

Miss Hennessey must read the newspaper. What would she think? How terrible must she feel?

I’ll go to see her tomorrow after school
, Peg promised herself. Lazily she curled and uncurled her toes in the warm cocoon created by the down quilt, and soon she was fast asleep.

In spite of her determination, the next day Peg didn’t go to see Miss Hennessey. Black clouds swept down from the Northwest, and a brisk wind blew the icy rain in gusts that soaked the passersby who had to stagger through the storm.

“Miss Hennessey will keep,” Ma said, as she stripped off Peg’s wet clothes in the kitchen and wrapped Peg in towels she’d heated in the oven. “With a storm like this, she’s going nowhere, and neither are you.”

“But it’s important.”

“Just why is it so important?”

Tentatively, Peg said, “Her cousin James. After what was in the newspaper about Quantrill … Miss Hennessey may feel badly.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” Ma said. “I’d forgotten about the bad apple of her family who rides with Quantrill. Well, your going out in the rain isn’t going to help Violet or you, and it may put you in your bed, if you catch cold.”

She did tell Ma! She promised she would, and she
did!
Giddy with relief, Peg said, “I’ll see her tomorrow, then.”

“Not if this weather holds.”

And the weather did, the skies not breaking clear until late Friday afternoon.

Ma sighed as she held up the coat Peg flung on the chair the moment she returned from school. “Can you tell me, missy, how the back of your coat came to be splattered with mud?”

“It was Marcus’s fault,” Peg muttered. “He got me with two mud balls. I told him that when I caught him I’d rub mud in his face and pour it down the back of his shirt.” She scowled. “If I could have caught him, I would have.”

Quickly changing her mood, Peg peered out the kitchen window and said, “The rain’s gone, Ma. Could I go and see Miss Hennessey now?”

“In this coat? Covered in mud?” Ma emphatically shook her head. “And I’m sure if you caught sight of your friend Marcus on the way, you’d have even more mud to account for.”

“He’s not my friend, Ma, and besides—”

“We’ll hang the coat to dry,” Ma said, “and with a good, hard brushing tomorrow, we should get rid of the mud. Perhaps you can visit Miss Hennessey then.”

Eager for the next day to arrive, Peg woke before the others and took care of the kitchen chores so breakfast could be made. One pan sizzled with sliced potatoes, and another with eggs.

When Ma came downstairs, she gave Peg a broad smile. “What a good, helpful girl you are, love,” she said.

“As soon as I finish my chores, may I visit Miss Hennessey?” Peg asked.

Ma laughed. “Just give the poor woman time to
wake up.” She took Peg’s coat and a stiff brush out in the backyard and returned with an only slightly stained coat. While Peg sliced the bread, Ma worked on the stains with a damp rag.

“Almost good as new,” she said. “Just stay away from Marcus Hurd. Maybe I should have a talk with his mother.”

Peg shook her head and smiled. On such a beautiful, sunlit day she couldn’t feel upset at anyone—even Marcus.

Soon after John had left for his blacksmith’s shop, while Peg was washing the breakfast dishes and Ma was collecting the week’s dirty laundry, Violet Hennessey arrived. The moment Peg heard the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves and the creak of buggy wheels she raced to the front door and threw it open.

Miss Hennessey, dressed in a somber dark gray traveling coat and hat, was pale, and the skin around her eyes was dark. “I had no way to get in touch with you earlier,” she said. “Only this morning I received word that Nellie’s husband, Louis, has been hurt. I must go to them, and I hope to stay the night. Please, may Peg travel with me?”

“Violet! How dreadful!” Ma cried. Without pausing for breath, she spoke quickly, her words tripping over each other. “What happened to Louis? How was he hurt? How
badly
was he hurt? Does he need a doctor? Is there anything I can do to help?”

Miss Hennessey blindly groped for the sturdy back of the wing chair and sank into it. “Louis was shot,” she said.

Ma and Peg gasped, but Miss Hennessey said, “It was in his right arm, but the bullet went through cleanly, and the bone was not broken. He’s feverish,
but Nellie wrote that he’s improving and she’s sure he’ll survive.”

Glancing with a worried look from Miss Hennessey to Peg, Ma asked, “
Where
did this happen?”

“Oh, dear me! Please don’t get the wrong impression!” Miss Hennessey’s hands fluttered as she explained, “It was
not
at their farm. Louis was riding through southern Missouri on business.”

“Southern Missouri is dangerous country,” Ma said. “I’ve heard that most of the farms close to the Kansas border have been abandoned.”

The Kansas border? Peg remembered what her stepfather had told them. “Was it Quantrill who shot him?” Peg blurted out. “He and his raiders were moving south.”

Miss Hennessey gave a start. “No! It wasn’t Quantrill!” She took a deep breath, forced herself to calm down, and answered, “According to what Louis told Nellie, there was only a single attacker, whose purpose must have been to rob Louis. Fortunately, Louis was able to ride faster and farther, leaving his pursuer behind.”

Miss Hennessey sighed. “There was no one who could have helped Louis. We are grateful he was able to make the long ride home.”

Ma patted Miss Hennessey’s shoulder and asked, “Can I send any medicine with you? I have a tonic that works well for chills and fever, and I can quickly make up a poultice for the chest.”

“Thank you,” Miss Hennessey said, “but I’m sure that Nellie has enough of the proper remedies. It’s Peg I want. I doubt if I have the strength or the courage to travel alone.”