The Hunger(43)

Keseberg looked her up and down in a way that made Elitha uneasy. “What you doing out by yourself, girl?”

Watch out. Halloran’s voice occurred suddenly and strongly in her head, and for the first time it felt not like an intrusion, but a friend. She remembered what Thomas had said. Maybe the dead are trying to warn you.

She decided to sidestep Keseberg’s question. They wanted to think she was just a dumb girl, so she’d act like one. “What are you two doing with them shovels?” she asked.

“We just finished burying Halloran,” Snyder said. “Can’t leave him around to stink up the place.”

Keseberg took off his hat. There was something wrong with his face, though she couldn’t say what, exactly. It was like a sculpture of a face, made all of hard stone. But in certain lights, you could see the cracks.

“Oh, I was just coming to say a prayer for him,” she said.

“Trying to make up for what your mama did?” Something ugly showed beneath Keseberg’s smile. “You’re too late, anyway.”

“It’s never too late for prayer,” Elitha said, trying to pass around them. But Keseberg grabbed her by the forearm.

“You’ll do no such thing. Your mama wouldn’t want me to let you go off by yourself at this hour,” he said. His grip was strong, and damp and too warm.

“Let go of me.” She tried to pull away but he held on a minute longer, twisting it just enough so that she let out a little yelp. Snyder liked that. He laughed. Keseberg, too.

“You ain’t a child, you know. You’re as good as a woman. That means you shouldn’t be out by yourself. There are men might take it a certain way, might think your blood is running hot.”

She was just about to call out for help—maybe Keseberg’s wife was in shouting distance, though of course it wouldn’t matter if she had been, the woman seemed helpless—when Keseberg let Elitha go. He gave her a little push so she stumbled before regaining her feet. “If you ever want a nighttime stroll, you just let me know and I’ll come and take care of you,” he said.

That made Snyder hoot again, and the sound of their laughter burned in her ears as she ran.





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN




Springfield, Illinois

April 1846


The bite of cherry pie leaked its scarlet juices down Lavinah Murphy’s chin, and she quickly reached for a napkin. Undercooked, it was—too thin and too red. She’d have done better but wasn’t about to tell Mabelle Franklin that. They were throwing this going-away picnic for her, after all.

She’d only hauled her whole clan up to Springfield a year and one month ago—just after her husband’s death—but in that year, she’d grown restless.

The Franklins understood. They felt it, too. The fear in the eyes of people in the market, sometimes, even here in Springfield, where people were said to be more tolerant. She heard the whispers. Though people pretended this country could be home to anyone willing to make their own way, it wasn’t true. They treated you differently if you didn’t share their beliefs. Same God, but a different book. They looked at you funny; they didn’t trust you.

Well, Lavinah didn’t trust them, either.

“Another piece, Mrs. Murphy?”

She shook her head and looked down to see that the pie had stained her hands. A coldness gripped her momentarily. For when she’d looked at her hands she’d seen not the cherry filling, but blood. Her husband’s.

“You must be mighty nervous for the journey?” Mabelle went on. “I don’t know how you do it. You’re so brave.”

She didn’t just mean the preparations for the trip, Lavinah knew. She meant all of it.

A woman raising a large family on her own was a curiosity in a town like this. But she couldn’t very well have stayed in Nauvoo. Not after what happened. Menfolk killed, family driven out of their homes. And Joseph Smith’s assassination. These days it seemed wherever Mormons lived together, somebody was trying to drive them out.

“It just seems a shame,” Mabelle said. “Not to be among your own people.”

Didn’t she understand? It was safer that way. Other Mormons meant more trouble.

“I’ll have my family,” she replied. “And that will be enough for me.”

As soon as it was seemly, Lavinah slipped away. She wasn’t upset with these people, but she knew what some of them thought. That she was choosing her own safety over God.

As she strolled the pasture, she looked back at the Franklins’ yard. Smiled to see all her friends gathered there—what she saw made her heart full to bursting. The golden fields, the pale blue sky. Women’s skirts billowing in the afternoon breeze, full like the sails of ships on the horizon. Children—including five of her own, and three her grandchildren—playing hide-and-go-seek in the corn field. Springfield was a lovely town, a peaceful town—and in just a short time, it had come to feel like home. But who knew how long the peace here would last?

Urgency moved her to the far side of the hayfield, away from the merriment and noise. She spied a farmhouse just beyond a rise, weathered gray and sagging. The family that lived there was also leaving with the wagon party on Wednesday. Lavinah had met the husband once or twice. A disagreeable man, only recently married. Funny name, what was it—Kleinberg? No, Keseberg, that was it. She shivered beneath her shawl, remembering the perpetually angry scowl, eyes that could make your blood stand in your veins.