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Maine Brides

By Susan Page Davis

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Jack Hunter was putting the last rail of his pasture gate in place when he heard footsteps. Looking up, he saw two men—farmer Charles Dole and Ezekiel Rutledge, the tavern keeper—marching up the path that connected his homestead to the lane. A prickle of anxiety tingled the back of his neck. Shunned by many of the town’s residents, he seldom had visitors. The sight of the town’s two constables paying a call together was ominous. Jack took a deep breath.
“Good day, gentlemen,” he called.
They met him halfway across the dooryard, between his pole barn and the modest house. Stopping a couple of yards from him, they eyed him silently. Rutledge, the tavern keeper, had a prosperous air, from his powdered wig to his neat blue breeches and long waistcoat. Dole eked out his living much as Jack did, farming on a small scale and cutting firewood for others in winter. He was twice Jack’s age, and gray streaked his hair and beard.
“You’ll be coming with us, Hunter,” Rutledge said at last.
“How’s that?” Jack asked, his apprehension rising.
“You heered him,” Dole said, loud enough that the young calf inside the fence jerked away from its mother’s side and stood splay-legged, staring at the men.
Jack glanced at Dole, then focused on Rutledge. “What is it, sir?”
“We’ll need you to come with us.”
“What for?”
“Here, now, you’re addressing the law!” Dole stepped toward him, his hands extended to grasp Jack’s arm, but Jack stepped back, raising his hands in defense.
“I said, what for?”
Dole caught him by the shoulders, and Jack shoved him away. In an instant Dole leaped on him, carrying him backward onto the turf near the fence. Tryphenia, the spotted cow, grunted and sidestepped.
“Get off me, you oaf!” Jack gasped, struggling against Dole’s weight.
“Hold on, Hunter. Calm yourself.” Rutledge stood over them and hauled Dole backward. The grizzled man squatted, panting and eyeing Jack malevolently.
Jack stood and brushed off his clothing. “What do you want?”
“As if you don’t know,” Dole snarled.
“I don’t.”
“Right. You’ve been feuding with Barnabas Trent for years, and you wouldn’t know anything about what befell him this morning?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Easy, now,” Rutledge said. “Just come along with us, Hunter. We’ll discuss this in town.”
“And if I say no?”
“Then we’ll have to arrest you, boy.”
Jack stared at him for a moment, but Rutledge didn’t flinch. A dozen disjointed thoughts flitted through Jack’s mind. He was in trouble, that was certain, but why? He hadn’t done anything. Most likely it was simply because he was who he was—Isaac Hunter’s son. Whenever anything bad happened in the area, the law used to come looking for his father. But Isaac Hunter was dead now, so the next best suspect was his son. No matter that he was now a grown man of twenty-four and had never caused any trouble. The name was enough.
He saw there was no use in resisting. “Will we be long?”
“Might be.”
Dole cackled. “Might be a long, long time after what you done.”
“Quiet, Charles,” said Rutledge.
A wave of mistrust and fear swept over Jack, but he looked the wolfish tavern keeper in the eye. “Are you accusing me of something, sir?”
Rutledge drew a deep breath and looked off toward the pasture.
“You mentioned Goodman Trent,” Jack prompted.
“Trent was found dead this morning,” Rutledge said.
Jack held his gaze straight. “I. . .I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It were murder,” Dole said with relish.
Jack swallowed. Trent was a near neighbor. They’d had their disagreements, but Jack would never consider harming the man, much less killing him. “I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“That’s fine, then, boy,” said Rutledge. “Just come along and tell us all you know.” He stepped forward and took hold of Jack’s arm.
“I don’t know anything.”
“We’ll see about that.” Dole sounded downright gleeful.

#

Lucy Hamblin stood in the cottage doorway and watched her six students skip down the lane toward their homes. Seven-year-old Betsy Ellis turned and waved at her, and she smiled and waved back. Betsy took her little brother’s hand and led him away.
When the children were out of sight, Lucy turned back to the house and hurried about, straightening the main room. Her mother had been gone all morning, and there was nothing cooking for dinner. She quickly put away her speller and slate, then tied on an apron.
Corn bread and bacon again, she decided. It was monotonous, but there was no fresh meat in the house, and no time to come up with something more creative. Perhaps in the garden she would find a bit of chard mature enough to pick, though it was early in the season for fresh greens.
She prepared a creditable meal. She was beginning to wonder if she would have to eat it alone when the door opened and her mother trudged in. Alice Hamblin set down her basket with a sigh and looked over Lucy’s preparations.
“Bless you, child. It’s good to come home to hot food.”
“How is Mr. Barrow?” Lucy asked, filling her mother’s cup with tea.
“He’ll mend in time. The bull wasn’t kind, but it missed his liver. I think he’s out of the woods now.”
“Goodwife Barrow must be relieved.”
“Oh, yes, indeed. I told her to send the eldest boy if she needs me, but I expect they’ll get on all right now.” Alice hung her shawl over the back of her chair and took a seat at the table. “She gave me a chicken breast, and she said they’ll bring us a bushel of apples when they’re ripe.”
Lucy sat opposite her and said a brief grace for their food.
“There’s been a murder in the township,” Alice said as she reached for the cream pitcher.
Lucy nearly dropped her fork. “No.”
“That’s what Goody Walter says. She came to commiserate with Goody Barrow, and brought her some greens and the latest gossip.”
“Who was it?”
“Barnabas Trent.”
Lucy winced. She knew Trent. He lived about a mile away, on the other side of the Hunters’ farm. His older son had died in the Indian war a few years back, and the younger one went south as soon as he was grown. Goodwife Trent had been dead several years, and Barnabas had a reputation among Lucy’s young scholars as a curmudgeon who yelled at any hapless children who cut across his pasture on their way to school. His dog was just as bad, barking fiercely at every passerby. Most of the children avoided Trent’s property. Lucy felt sorry for him. She had always figured he would die a lonely old man.
“What happened to him?”
“I didn’t hear particulars, but likely we’ll learn more soon.”
“Could it have been Indians?” Lucy asked with a shudder.
“Goodness, child, I hope not.”
The area had been peaceful for a few years, but the threat of violence from the natives was never far from mind, especially among the elders who had experienced savage raids in the past. Trent’s farm was closer to the town and the garrison than was the Hamblins’. If Indians were striking the outlying homesteads, the farmers would have to evacuate to Fort Hill.
A quick tapping at the door preceded a child’s voice calling, “Goody Hamblin! Miss Lucy!”
Lucy jumped up and opened the door to find Betsy Ellis gasping on the doorstep.
“What is it, child?”
“It’s Mama. She said to get Goody Hamblin quick!”
Alice stood and reached for her basket. “Likely it’s her time. I’m coming, Betsy. You go ahead and tell your marm I’ll be along in less than no time.”
As the little girl fled down the path, Alice turned to her daughter.
“Can you get me some tea and a bit of maple sugar, please? Likely the Ellises don’t have any, and it will be a treat for Sarah when she feels up to it.”
“Finish your dinner before you go,” Lucy suggested.
While Alice hastily finished her meal, Lucy scrambled to restock the basket her mother always carried when going to act as a nurse, packing a few extras in case an overnight stay at the humble Ellis cottage proved necessary.
Her mother was out the door in five minutes. “If I’m not here by dusk, don’t look for me ’til the morrow,” she called over her shoulder.
Lucy was used to being alone nights. Her mother’s services as a midwife and nurse were much in demand in the growing community. Lucy kept school in the forenoon when the weather was fair, but enjoyed other pursuits in the afternoons, especially in summer. She would spend an hour in the garden most days, then put in the rest of the afternoon at her loom, while the light was good.
She hummed softly as she tidied the room and banked the fire, then went out to the garden to hoe her cabbages, corn, turnips, and beans. She had learned slowly the painful lesson of contentment. Living here with her mother was not the same as having her own home and family, but it was not so bad.
Lucy never allowed herself to think about Jack Hunter for long anymore. Never would she cook at his hearth or bear his children. Her love for him, while not cold, was carefully banked beneath the outward calm of her present life, as the glowing coals were hidden beneath the ashes in the hearth.
Day by day she kept house for her mother, taught school, wove, prepared meals, and kept the fire burning. She was useful, and that was something.
The image of Jack’s face was never far from her memory. His gray-blue eyes that looked deep inside her, his solemn demeanor, his neatly trimmed brown beard. He was a handsome man, and back in the old days, when he showed a preference for her, it took only a smile from him to send tremors down her spine.
She realized she had stopped hoeing and was standing between the rows, leaning on her hoe and thinking about Jack, though she’d sworn she wouldn’t.
She took a deep breath and determined yet again to forget him. Suddenly she remembered her mother’s words about Barnabas Trent. She looked toward the woods and shivered. Perhaps she had chopped enough weeds for today. She lifted her hoe and headed back to the house, where she could bar the door and work at her loom.

#

Jack stood before the table in the dim hall of the big, barn-like jail. With his wrists shackled, he struggled to remain on his feet.
“You can’t keep me here,” he insisted.
“Whyever not?” Dole asked with a satisfied smile.
“I have my chores. I hadn’t even turned all my stock out this morning. I’ve got two oxen fretting in the barn. If you keep me here ’til evening, they’ll be hungry, and my cow will need milking.”
Dole looked at Rutledge, his eyebrows raised. “Mayhap we should bring his cattle to my place until this is settled.”
“No need for that, Charles. Surely one of Hunter’s neighbors would do his milking for him tonight.”
Jack thought of Samuel Ellis, his nearest neighbor. Jack had helped Sam out before in a pinch, and Sam would do the same for him if need be. But he didn’t say anything. Sam had a large family to care for, and besides, Jack didn’t want the constables to think he was resigned to staying at the jail overnight.
“If you’d just admit what you did, Hunter. . .” Rutledge began.
“I’ve done nothing, sir!”
Rutledge sighed. “We’ve sent to Falmouth for the magistrate. As soon as he gets here, we’ll get down to business.”
“And when will that be?”
Rutledge grimaced. “We were hoping he’d be here by now. John Farley left this morning to fetch him, just after we brought you in. He must have been delayed for some reason.”
Jack swallowed hard. “I give you my word, when he arrives I’ll come back here and answer his questions.”
Rutledge looked away. “This is a capital case, Hunter.”
“A what?” Jack stared at him.
“And you’re the most likely suspect we have.”
“How can I be a suspect?”
Dole’s lips curled in a maniacal sneer. “Because we found the murder weapon near Barnabas Trent’s dead body.” He crossed to a small bench with a tarp on it. Lifting the canvas with a flourish, he revealed a blood-encrusted ax. Jack’s ax. “Look familiar?”
Jack’s stomach lurched, and he reached for the edge of the table to steady himself.
“Like as not we’ll be hanging you at dawn.” Dole’s grin was almost canine.
They kept him on his feet most of the morning, questioning him. At noon the jailer’s wife, Goody Stoddard, came in from the jailer’s family quarters with a plate of stew for his dinner, and they allowed Jack to sit and eat it. Then the interrogation began again.
Dole grew more impatient by the hour. Jack figured it was only Rutledge’s even temper that kept the foul man from attacking him physically.
They brought in the jailer and several of the town’s upstanding citizens to try to reason with him, as Rutledge put it, but Jack would not confess to something he didn’t do.
“I’ll go see if there’s any news on Farley,” Rutledge finally said, seeming to tire of Jack’s constant denial of any wrongdoing. He exited the room, leaving Jack alone with Dole. The only light came through a small window and the open doorway, but Jack could make out the gray-haired man’s sneer and glittering eyes.
“You may as well admit to your crime, boy,” Dole said, coming closer and peering straight into Jack’s face. “It won’t make no difference in the sentence, but you don’t want to meet your Maker with a lie on your conscience as well as a murder.”
Jack said nothing. Dole’s foul breath sickened him, and he looked away from the gap between the teeth in the older man’s jaw.
“You’re nothing but a rogue,” Dole said. “Stubborn. Just like your pa.”
Jack bristled, tempted to respond, but thought better of it. He didn’t trust Dole one whit, and he didn’t want to say something he would regret later. Besides, it was true that his father had been a scoundrel. There was no point in defending him.
Dole squinted at him and gave a sage nod. “You’ll regret it if you don’t own up to it.”
“The only thing I regret is letting you bring me here, you dog,” Jack said through clenched teeth.
Dole’s quick fist caught Jack just below his ribs, and he doubled over, gasping. Dole followed up with a punch to his temple.
Jack raised his chained hands in defense. “Whatever happened to the law?” he choked.
“We are the law,” Dole snarled. “So don’t you be striking an officer.” He shoved him hard, and Jack stumbled off his feet, his skull thudding against the rough wall.

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