Leaving Independence Read Free Page A

winter brush from around the springhouse and that headstone so the daffodils could breathe. Robert had built the springhouse with stones from Mill Creek—the coldest creek in Tennessee—which ran off Treetop Ridge, looping around its base like a lasso. Abigail felt like her own neck rested in the crook of a lasso. All it needed was a little more tightening to become a hangman’s noose.

    When the sentry walked the letter into his office and laid it on the desk, the man immediately recognized the handwriting and swore.
    How had she found him? The memory of Bonnie pulling out her photograph floated back to him.
    Prophetic.
    He carried the letter to his private quarters before opening it. Then he held it to the lamplight with his right hand—a hand missing two of its fingers.
     
    Dear Robert,
    Words fail me in knowing how to pen this letter. If Major Talbot’s words are true and you are alive and serving in Idaho Territory, why have you not written to tell us this news yourself? Our resources are quite low. The banker, a Yankee, threatens to take the house if we cannot soon find payment. Tell me . . . do you have any intention of returning home to us, or are we left to face this new dilemma on our own?
     
    She was out of money. He felt marginally guilty. But wasn’t her father one of the wealthiest men in Tennessee? Didn’t that old man have some of the finest horses in the South on that large plantation of his? And he would have bet a large sum that not all the slaves had skipped out on old Mr. Walstone, either. He knew that Mimi’s sister, Annie B, and her husband, Arlon, were particularly devoted to the old belligerent.
    If Abigail lost the house, so be it. He wasn’t going to feel sorry for her. All he had to do was remember their last conversation to stop feeling sorry for her.
    It took him several days and drafts to settle on the proper tone in his reply. Repentant? Evasive? Authoritative? Or nonchalant? He finally decided to strike a balance between them all—all but repentant.
    Repentant was struck from the list.

    Abigail tightened the string of her hat. “You’re sure you don’t want to come with me? Ride out and see Arlon and Annie B?”
    Mimi wrapped two blackberry pies in flour-sack cloths and sniffed. “I’ll just send the pies.”
    Every clop of the horse’s hooves on the familiar, hard-packed path to Franklin brought back a memory for Abigail. The late-February wind chilled her cheeks, but her heart, under woolen wrappings, was fever-hot.
    First she stopped at the cabin overlooking the Harpeth River. Three small children ran out, all smiles and gangly arms. Abigail hugged Annie B over the bobbing heads and handed her one of the pies.
    “What brings you all the way out here deliverin’ pies without your brood?”
    “Came to talk to Daddy. What kind of mood is he in?”
    “Ornery as ever, accordin’ to Arlon. He’s up there now breakin’ the north pasture.”
    “It’s too early.”
    “And another freeze is comin’. I can feel it in my bones. But your father wanted it broke.”
    Abigail shook her head and kissed each of the children, then hoisted herself back on the horse and turned toward the big house.
    Her throat tightened as her eyes swept over the horse trails she once rode with her brothers, trees she’d climbed with Mimi, and the spot on the hill where Robert first kissed her. She veered off the path and stopped briefly at a small cemetery, dismounting so she could brush leaves off the headstones.
    Half of her thirty-four years had been spent at Walstone Plantation . . . happy years, mostly. But her childhood home had also been scene to some of Abigail’s bitterest heartaches.
    Abigail understood why Mimi hadn’t wanted to come with her. Mr. Walstone, whose outlook had always leaned toward overcast, had become increasingly caustic since Mrs. Walstone’s death. A heavy cloud had settled over the Walstone house and fields. But Abigail rode through it. She was out of