“What happened?” I ask James as soon as we’ve left the forge.
It took only a moment to check on Betsy and gather my medical bag while James saddled my horse. Brutus didn’t make it easy for him, however, and James rubs the sore spot on his shoulder where my horse tried to take a bite out of him.
He takes a shaky breath. “We left Dawin’s Wharf late last night when the ice started forming. Me and Sam and Jonathan. There was still an open channel down the middle of the river, about fifty feet wide. We thought we’d have enough time to get the boards to Long Reach, but the ice closed around us an hour ago. I’ve never seen anything like it, Mistress Ballard. It just swallowed the raft whole. One minute we were moving in the current, and the next we ground to a halt. Sam Dawin fell through trying to get to shore.”
“Was he swept under?”
“Almost. But he grabbed the edge when he went down. His toes just reached the bottom. You know how tall he is. Took some effort, but we got him out. Jonathan rode him straight to your house for help.”
“Then we’d best hurry back,” I say, digging my heels into Brutus’s side. He lurches forward into a canter, and it takes a moment for James to catch up.
“Beg your pardon, Mistress Ballard, but we ain’t going back to the mill. Amos Pollard sent me to fetch you to the tavern.”
“What does Amos have to do with this?”
“When Sam went under the ice, he saw a body.” He takes in my look of astonishment and explains, “A man. Dead and frozen. We cut him from the ice. Me and Amos and a few others. That’s why we’re headed to the tavern. Amos insisted that you see the body first. Before anyone else. Said you would have a particular interest.”
I have seen more than my fair share of dead bodies over the years, but never once would I classify attending them as an interest. A necessity at times, to be sure, but never something I enjoy.
The sky is turning from ink to pewter, and I tilt my head to study James’s profile. The careful set of his mouth. Eyebrows drawn together. Hands tight on the reins.
“What is it that you’re not telling me? Who did you cut out of the river?”
After a long pause he says, “It’s hard to say.” “Meaning you don’t want to say?”
“Meaning that I can’t. I’m not sure anyone can right now.” He swallows. “There’s been a good bit of injury…particularly to his face, I mean.”
James Wall is a terrible liar. That skill will take another decade and a good bit more life experience to acquire. So I can see it there in the set of his jaw as he turns back to the road. Not a lie, perhaps, but certainly an omission.
“Fine then,” I answer, voice pleasant. “Who do you think was cut from the ice?”
The question startles him, and he answers before he has time to think about the consequences. “Joshua Burgess.”
Oh.
I am startled at the relief—no, the joy—I feel at hearing that name. What a strange miracle. I had hoped to see Burgess swing at the end of a rope for what he did, but dead is dead, and I’m not sad to hear the news. I still don’t understand why Amos sent for me, however, and I tell James so.
“There’s a lot of”—he pauses, unsure of the appropriate word
—“damage…more than just his face, you see. Someone will have to declare
cause of death. So it’s official, in case there is an inquiry.” Injury. Damage. Different words, different meanings.
“And Amos Pollard doesn’t think Dr. Cony is up to the job?” “The doctor is known to be good friends with Colonel North.”
My mind is quick, connecting dots he’s barely had the time to draw with his carefully worded answer. “Then it is Joshua Burgess they found? And someone has killed him?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, James’s mouth twists as he works up the courage to ask the question he’s been holding in reserve.
“Do you think Rebecca Foster is telling the truth? About Colonel North and Joshua Burgess?” He seems embarrassed by his own boldness, and his windblown cheeks redden further. “Do you think they raped her as she claims?”
Even now, months later, the image of Rebecca Foster is clear in my mind. I found the young woman alone, at home with her children, several days after the assault. Husband away, she had been an easy victim. I tended to the split lip, the black eye, the bruised cheekbone. I inspected the dark, purple bruises littered across her torso, arms and thighs, wrists and ankles. Searched for broken bones and cuts, finding little that I could mend. There is no mending the kind of damage they had done. I’ve seen such bruises before. I knew what they meant. So I bathed the young, pretty pastor’s wife and helped her into clean clothes. Wrapped her in a blanket. And then I sat down and let the girl weep into my bosom. I stroked her hair and muttered gentle sounds in her ear. Waited until Rebecca Foster wrung herself dry, then I took that horrible, heartrending confession so that she wouldn’t have to carry the burden alone.
Listening is a skill acquired by the doing. By many long years spent sitting at bedsides and in birthing rooms, waiting as women share the secret deeds that bring them to labor. I know these secrets come in waves. The first, horrible admission, and then the smaller, deeper acts that came before. A stolen glance. A secret, erotic touch. Moments of passion and lost control. But sometimes—the worst times—it is a story like the one Rebecca spread before me in that broken, disjointed way four months ago. Sometimes, my
job is to sit and listen to the tales of brutality and ravishment. Of women who find themselves confessing sins they did not commit. Or even believe could happen to them. Acts they had fought against. So I had remained still and quiet with Rebecca that afternoon. Encouraging her with the occasional understanding nod of my head, instead of words. No. I couldn’t speak. Not then. I knew that the sound of my voice would scare the girl into silence. And whatever else happened afterward, I was certain of two things: Rebecca needed to tell me everything, and I needed to know who must bear the punishment for what had been done to her.
“Yes,” I tell James, finally, as I clear the hard knot of rage from my throat. “Rebecca is telling the truth, and I believe every word of what she says. I saw the damage they did to her. But I had hoped Joshua Burgess would hang for it.”
James looks at me, mouth set in a grim line. “Don’t be so sure he didn’t.”
