A Secret Refuge [02] Sisters of the Confederacy by Lauraine Snelling Page B

Oh, Father, please take care of my dear confused sister. Bring her back to you so she can be comforted. Please, Lord, let us all make it through this terrible war and get back together . God had done miracles before, but would He do this one?

Springfield, Missouri
    “I should have made her come.”
    “How? Tie her up?” Meshach clucked the horses to a faster pace. Darkness hugged them round about.
    Jesselynn felt at any turn they might meet something terrible, like those three renegades with the chained slaves. People kill for horses, to protect themselves, or to avenge another. Some kill for pure pleasure, like Dunlivey . Everything evil she measured against the Dunlivey scale. Would killing the slave runners make Meshach and the others murderers? How would they live with that? Or was killing different for men? She knew now that she would kill to protect her family. And she would have killed to protect Twin Oaks. She knew that for certain. She withdrew into the hood created by the blanket Aunt Agatha had pressed upon her. In payment for her stubbornness perhaps? So many things to think about. Had the war loosed some evil monster across the land that gave people the right, or the need, or the desire to kill? Or was the monster always buried beneath the surface, waiting for the opportunity to raise its filthy head and be loosed?
    Had Meshach ever killed anyone before? That thought made her slant a look his way, but the dark was so profound she saw only a blurred hulk. Yet she was close enough to him on the wagon seat to feel his warmth through the blanket.
    Was killing animals for their food and clothing making it possible for him to kill another human being?
    Suddenly she thought of the wood they had brought to town. The wagon was light again, the wood gone. “What happened to the wood?”
    “Left in de barn.”
    “Why? Do you know those people well?”
    “Good ‘nough. Dey need wood.”
    “Did they pay you?”
    “No, suh.”
    Leave it alone . Jesselynn ignored the voice of reason. “But why them?”
    “Dey be Quakers.”
    “Oh.” And that is my answer? After all, I didn’t cut the wood, but . . . Like the sun coming up right now in the west, the truth hit her. Quakers were often part of the underground for carrying escaped slaves north to freedom. She started to ask another question but clamped her lips before the words passed them. If they freed those captive slaves tonight, they would most likely go to that house. The wood was Meshach’s way of helping out.
    “Meshach, did you ever think of leaving Twin Oaks, of running away?”
    “Thought about it, but dat my home. Marse was good to me. Teached me to read and write, teached me a trade, and let me keep my own money. I owe him.”
    “But now?”
    “Now I make sure him daughter and son be safe. Den I farm my own land, land I homestead so it be free like me.”
    His voice rang in the darkness, so sure, so proud. Not the Meshach she had known all her life, but a man who understood the difference between slave and free and would never go back.
    No wonder he wants to free those poor wretches in irons . “I’ll go with you.”
    “No, someone need take care of de others.”
    Meshach whistled their signal, and as soon as it was returned, he drove the wagon into the thicket and unhitched the horses to lead them out the other side. Jesselynn gathered up the stores Agatha had pressed upon them and followed him down the steep slope to the cave.
    The three black men, none of them smiling now, took one of the rifles and the pistol and the cold chisel to break the chains if they didn’t get a key, then disappeared out the mouth of the cave. Ophelia ran after them for one more hug and kiss from Meshach, then returned to the fire to sit rocking with her arms around her middle. With the children already asleep, Jesselynn stoked a small part of the fire higher so she could have light to sew. She didn’t try to make conversation.
    Ophelia knew as well as she what