Keeping Secrets (18 page)

“Then hurry!” Peg said. “Take the bushwhackers’ horses and go!”

Miss Hennessey hesitated. “What about Danny?”

“I’ll get Danny home on Flash.” Peg forced herself to sound much more confident than she looked. “See, the color’s already returning to his face.” She looked at Mrs. Parker. “We’ll send a Union patrol here. They’ll take care of … everything. And we’ll see that Mr. Parker has a Christian burial.”

Sully and Floyd’s sudden pounding on the door set them all in motion. Not caring what was proper, Miss Hennessey and Mrs. Parker climbed astride the bushwhackers’ horses and raced down the road.

With Peg’s support Danny managed to climb on Flash. He pulled Peg up behind him, but soon his energy gave out, and Peg caught his weight as he sagged against her.

Jabbing her heels into Flash’s sides, Peg tried to get the old horse to hurry, but Flash complained about the extra weight by snorting and jerking his head up and down. It was all Peg could do to hang on to Danny and, at the same time, keep a firm grip on Flash’s reins.

“Ma’s coming, Danny. Ma’s coming,” Peg said over and over again, wondering if she were trying to comfort Danny or herself; and when she reached the turn-off and saw Ma and John Murphy approaching in a buggy, she cried out in relief.

They immediately took charge. Gratefully, Peg relaxed, feeling the way she did when she was slipping into sleep, with someone else to tuck her in, and smooth her blankets, and murmur softly against her hair. John lifted Danny into the buggy as Peg told what had happened, and Ma cradled Danny with one arm, Peg with the other.

“Drive to the Swensons,” John told Ma. “I’ll take the children’s horse and ride back a ways. We passed that Union patrol just a short time ago.”

“But you can’t tell them
why
Miss Hennessey and the Parkers were attacked! Please!” Peg insisted.

“It’s not up to me to give them any information at all beyond what they can see for themselves. There was a bushwhacker attack, a man lies dead, and two of the bushwhackers are imprisoned in a cellar.” He studied Peg. “They may want to talk to you, since you were there.”

Peg nodded. “It’s all right. I’ll know what to say.”

John glanced at Danny. “The Union boys may help me find a doctor, if there’s one left in these parts.”

Peg made room for Danny to stretch across Ma’s lap, but she tightly hugged Ma’s right arm that held the reins. “I told Danny not to come, Ma. Honest, I did. But if he hadn’t come … well, he did, and he saved our lives.”

“Peg, love,” Ma murmured, “it’s not your fault that Danny’s sick. No one’s blaming you.”

“I had to make a decision. Maybe I made the wrong one if it’s hurt Danny. I don’t know. It just seemed so important to try to help.”

“My dear girl,” Ma said. “Part of being a woman is making decisions and accepting responsibility for them, whether they’re right or wrong.”

“Right now I don’t want to be a woman. I’d rather be a child.” Peg shuddered. “Danny’ll be all right, won’t he, Ma? It’s just a cough. That’s what Danny said.”

“We’ll see what the doctor has to tell us.”

Ma’s voice was calm, but Peg shivered with fear as she glanced up at her face and saw the dark shadows of concern that showed what Ma was really thinking.

Danny was soon dressed in a clean nightshirt and tucked into bed. Peg sat close by in his room while
Ennie bathed his forehead, Ma held his hand, and Alfrid stood by, his face twisted with worry. “I’m not hungry,” Peg insisted. “I can’t eat. I don’t want to leave Danny.”

But an army officer, who introduced himself as Captain Rolf Allan, arrived at the Swensons and asked to speak to Peg. Reluctantly, she crept downstairs and sat in an overstuffed parlor chair, facing him.

“Miss Kelly,” he said, his voice firm and his eyes drilling into hers. “Suppose you tell me who was in that house and exactly what happened.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Parker lived there,” Peg answered. “Miss Hennessey often came to visit them, and sometimes took me with her so I could visit my brother Danny. This time, when we were stopped by a Union patrol, the leader told us that bushwhackers had invaded St. Joe yesterday and were probably in the area. After Miss Hennessey dropped me off here I noticed a man on horseback turn down River Road, and I wondered if he was going to the Parker house and why. I guess I was thinking about the bushwhackers, and it worried me.”

She took a deep breath and continued. “I told Danny I was going to ride to the Parkers on Flash and see if they were all right. And I did. But a man pulled me off Flash’s back and pushed me inside the house.”

As she described what took place next, Peg grew colder than she’d ever been in her life. Shivering, she hugged her shoulders. “Then Danny fainted,” she said, “and when he came to, I took him home.”

“Where were the two women who were there?”

“They helped him. One of them had smelling salts.”

“They’re not there now.”

Peg didn’t answer, and he asked, “Do you know where they’ve gone?”

“No,” Peg said. “And I can’t even guess. They didn’t tell me.”

Captain Allan stared, but Peg courageously met his gaze. Finally, he got to his feet and said, “Perhaps I should talk to your brother Danny.”

“You can try,” Peg said without hesitation, “but he’s awfully sick. He may not be able to answer you.”

The captain strode up the stairs, Peg on his heels, and stopped just inside the open door to Danny’s room.

“Danny is too ill to talk to you, sir,” Alfrid said sternly.

“I can see that.” For the first time Captain Allan looked unsure of himself.

“I know that Peg has told you all that she could,” Alfrid said.

“Yes.” The captain took an uncertain step backward. “It’s just that there are questions about the occupants of that house, and …”

“What’s there to question?” Ennie stood and faced him, hands on hips. “Bushwhackers have driven many people from their homes. For a while we were free from the bushwhackers’ attacks, but now it seems they’ve returned.” She glanced at the open doorway behind the captain. “Gussie,” she said, “will you be so kind as to show Captain Allan out?”

Gussie, who had soundlessly crept upstairs, looked frightened, but she said, “Yes’m,” and led the captain from the room.

Peg felt a strange pang of regret that she had to keep things hidden from Captain Allan. He was Union, and he was fighting to keep the states together. He wasn’t an enemy. He was a friend. But she had promised to protect Miss Hennessey with her secrecy, and she had to keep her promise.

That evening an army doctor arrived. He was stooped, with thin gray hair, and the knuckles on his hands were gnarled and twisted. “Captain Allan’s regards,” he said. “I seem to be the only doctor around these parts.”

He examined Danny, who opened his eyes to watch what the doctor was doing, but who seemed too weak to protest.

The doctor listened to Danny’s chest and back with a tubelike device that was attached to something that poked into his ears.

“What’s that?” Peg asked.

“It’s called a stethoscope,” the doctor said. “It helps me listen to your brother’s heart and lungs.” He folded the stethoscope and put it into the case he had brought with him.

“Why don’t you stay with your brother, little girl?” he said. “I’d like to talk to the adults of the family downstairs.”

Peg didn’t need to hear what the doctor had to say. She could tell by the hopeless look on his face. Ma, Ennie, and Alfrid, all of them pale and frightened, followed the doctor to the parlor.

Scurrying to Danny’s side, Peg huddled on the edge of the bed and took his hand. It was cold and as dry as old paper. “Danny!” she said. “Open your eyes and look at me!”

Danny’s eyelids fluttered open, but he looked at Peg with such exhaustion she wanted to cry out in protest.

“Danny, we’re all going to take good, good care of you, and you’re going to get well and strong again.”

Danny kept his eyes on hers while he slowly shook his head.

“No! I can guess what the doctor’s telling them,”
Peg said, “but it’s not true. You’re going to get well. You have to!”

Danny swallowed hard and tried to moisten his lips with his tongue.

Peg supported his head and held a glass of water to his lips.

He took only a sip of water before he lay back against the pillow. His voice was weak as he said, “Remember when I told you that when I’m sixteen I’d join the Union Army and make Mike proud of me. I’m a good shot already, Peg.”

“I know you are!” she said. She leaned closer, in her eagerness gripping his hand more tightly. “And in the meantime you’ve got school and friends and—”

“I won’t make it to sixteen. I’m going to die, Peg.”

“No! Don’t say that!”

Tears welled up in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. “I won’t be able to do anything to make Mike proud of me. I’m going to die before I can do one single thing to help my country.”

“Danny, that’s not true!” Peg rubbed her own tears away with the back of one sleeve. “You saved my life today,” she said. “And you may have saved the lives of many Union soldiers.”

As Danny looked at her in bewilderment, Peg hurried to tell him what Miss Hennessey had confided about breaking the siege of Chattanooga. “When they learn of the Confederates’ weakness, Grant’s forces can take Chattanooga from the Rebs, Danny, and it will be an important Union victory. Miss Hennessey will get the information to General Grant, because you helped her.”

“Peg,” he whispered. “Is it really true?”

“It’s true,” she answered.

“I wish I could tell Mike.”

“I’ll write and tell him, Danny, after the battle takes place. I’ll tell him it was won because of you. He’ll be so proud of you!”

The pressure of Danny’s fingers was gentle, and a smile flickered on his lips. “And of you, Peg. For a snoopy little sister, you’re not so bad.”

“Danny—”

“I’m tired, Peg,” he said. “I’m going to sleep for a while.”

As Danny closed his eyes, the smile still on his lips, Peg put her head down on the quilt and sobbed. “Don’t leave me, Danny! Please don’t go! I love you best, and I can’t lose you! I can’t!”

But Danny didn’t answer.

Ma, whose voice was husky with sorrow, came in and sat beside her. “You need some rest, love. I’ll be here with Danny,” she said.

But Peg wouldn’t let go of Danny’s hand. Later—much later—she fell asleep, her fingers still intertwined with his.

In her dreams she heard sobbing—Ma and Ennie, even Alfrid—and Ma saying, “It’s over. He’s gone.”

“Not yet,” Peg wanted to tell them. “Not until after the battle and the Union victory, because Danny will have a part in it.”

In late November broadsheets with news of General Grant’s great Union victory at Chattanooga were printed and posted on walls and boarded-up windows throughout St. Joseph.

As she had promised, Peg wrote to Mike—and Frances and Megan. She described what she had read about the siege of Chattanooga that had caused great damage to Union troops and rail shipments, and bragged that Danny had played a part in helping General
Grant’s army to break that siege. She explained that she would be able to tell them the whole story as soon as the war had ended.

And she visited Danny’s grave in the St. Joseph cemetery, where his body had been buried. It was wintery cold. The trees were twisted, black skeletons, and a heavy freeze had browned the grass. Peg had bought a small Union flag at Katherine Banks’s store, but before she drove the thin pole into the earth in front of Danny’s headstone she stopped, noting a dark shimmer of something lying near the headstone.

Peg picked up the familiar, obsidian arrowhead that she recognized as Marcus’s lucky treasure, and tears burned her eyes. “You were a hero to all of us, Danny,” she said. “A real Union hero.”

As Grandma closed the journal, Jennifer wiped tears from her eyes. “No more stories about the war,” she begged. “Oh, Grandma, I can’t bear it!”

Grandma patted Jennifer’s hand. “I can assure you there are no more stories of war in Frances Mary’s journal. It’s what happened
after
the war with some of Quantrill’s raiders that Frances wrote about next.”

“Wait a minute. If the war was over, wouldn’t the raiders go home?” Jeff asked.

“I’m afraid not all of them wanted to,” Grandma said. “Some of the men who had ridden with Quantrill and his lieutenant, Bloody Bill Anderson, couldn’t give up their guerrilla ways. They became notorious and dangerous outlaws who held up trains, robbed banks, and terrorized the West. For instance, there were Cole and Jim Younger, Frank and Jesse James—”

Jeff jumped out of his chair. “Grandma! I know about those guys. I’ve read about them and seen stories
about them in Western movies!” He stopped, his eyes wide. “Did any of the Kellys meet up with them?”

“It so happens,” Grandma said, “that on one very frightening day one of the Kelly girls—”

But she broke off and stood up. “I’m getting ahead of myself,” she said. “What happened on the Kansas plains is a story for another day.”

“Grandma!” Jennifer complained.

“Which I’ll tell you tomorrow,” Grandma said. “I promise.”