Rachel's Choice (30 page)

Union soldiers crowded around Rachel, quickly buying all she had in her wagon. She scanned the doorways and an open porch on the far side of the compound, but she didn't see the Dutchman or the lieutenant she'd met earlier.

Unsure of what to do, she started to walk through the passageway that led to the chaplain's office. She'd gone only a short distance when her path was blocked by a red-haired private.

“No admittance into the inner prison, ma'am,” he said. “We've had some attempted prison breaks, and regulations are being enforced.”

“But …” Her heart pounded as she searched frantically for some excuse to remain. If they put her out, how would she find Chance? “I need to see the chaplain on an important religious matter,” she said.

“He's not here, ma'am. Gone to Jersey to read over the dead. You'll have to leave.”

She waved her heavy, leather-bound Bible under his nose. “But I must—”

He pointed back the way she'd come. “You'll have to leave at once, or you'll be held for questioning. By rights, pie sellers should remain outside the walls. Whoever admitted you—”

“You got a problem vit this voman?”

Rachel turned to look into the face of Daniel Coblentz. “Actually, Sergeant,” she stammered, “if I could talk to thee in private, perhaps …”

“No problem, Sarge,” the redhead said. “She was just leavin'.”

“About your business, Zuckerman.” Coblentz pushed open a door and motioned Rachel inside. “So,” he said with an unpleasant smile. “You come back to see Coblentz, after all.”

“I want information about a relative of mine,” she murmured. “I was told that you …” She drew in a deep breath. “I'm willing to pay.”

He laughed. “Of course you are. In vat vay did you think to pay Coblentz? Vith money or …”

“Money,” she said quickly. “I need to know about a prisoner—if he's here.”

“So, little Quaker, you are not so pure after all, are you? You are a rebel spy, maybe?” He took a step toward her and she fought to keep from gagging at the stench from his broken, discolored teeth and unwashed body.

“I am no spy. For pity's sake, I only wish to know the welfare of my cousin William's son.”

“How much?” He stared pointedly at the bodice of her gown.

“What?”

“How much will you pay to know if he's dead or alive?”

“Twenty dollars.”

Coblentz sneered. “I thought you vas serious.”

“Fifty?”

“More like it.” The sergeant ran dirty fingers down her left forearm. “Vat's his name, missy?”

“Chancellor.”

Surprise and recognition registered in Coblentz's eyes. “Chance Chancellor?”

Hope surged through her as she nodded. “Yes. That's him. Is he here?”

“Let me see the color of your money.”

“You think I'm stupid, to carry so great a sum on me?” she lied. “But this much I have.” She emptied her pocket of the assorted bills and coins she'd received from her baked goods and offered it to him.

“He's here,” Coblentz answered, snatching the money from her hand and counting it. “You're short.”

“I have more on my—” She broke off and corrected herself. “My companion, Brother Paul, has more money. I will not cheat you.”

“By damn, you von't. No one cheats Daniel Coblentz of what's his.” He touched her cheek, and she flinched. “But you ain't after vord of dis Chancellor are you? You vant more. You vant maybe he should escape from Pea Patch Island.”

“That would be illegal,” she stammered, backing away until she pressed against the closed door. “Thou cannot think that I would attempt to bribe a Union officer.”

“Good thing,” he said. “It's a hangin' offense, bribing a United States soldier. But …” He put one hand on either side of her and leaned close. “You kin have him for a thousand dollars.”

“I don't understand,” she answered, shoving her Bible into his face and twisting free. “What are you saying?”

Coblentz wiped his mouth and nose. “Heavy-handed vith that good book, ain't ya, voman?”

She circled a table piled with clean, folded bandages and tin bedpans. The room was small and dingy, lit by a single window. Chairs were stacked against one wall, and blankets filled one corner. There was little room to avoid intimate contact with the sergeant. “I am a decent widow,
friend,” she said. “It is not seemly that I permit you to put your hands on me.”

“You did come to help Chancellor escape,” the Dutchman accused. “You ain't no more Quaker than I am. You're a damned secesh rebel.” He swept a stack of bandages off the table. “Let me see the color of your money, voman. One thousand dollars, and you can have him.”

Hair stood up on the back of her neck. “I don't have a thousand.”

“How much vill you give? No dickerin'. Take it or leave it. How much is a gray-back murderer vorth to you? He tried to kill me, you know, your Chancellor. They sentenced him to hang by the neck until he vas dead.” He chuckled. “You ever see a man dance on the end of a rope? He loses control of his bladder and—”

“Enough! I have five hundred dollars. It's yours if you can get him off this island in one piece,” she dared.

“Oh, I can do that all right, missy. Hand over the money.”

“You get it when Chancellor's free.”

Coblentz laughed. “It's like that, is it? You think Sergeant Coblentz is crook? You think he take your money and not let Chancellor go?”

“Something like that.” Rachel met his stare with one as steady. “I'm no fool, Sergeant. Five hundred dollars is a lot of money, more than you'd make in six months. And if you try to double-cross me, you'll have to kill me to shut me up. My family has a friend on President Lincoln's staff.”

“I keep bargains. Unsatisfied customers are bad for business.”

“How? How will you do it?” she demanded.

“There's only one way off this island for a prisoner,
the death ship to Jersey. Your man vouldn't be the first reb smuggled out of Fort Delavare in a coffin.”

She swallowed, willing her knees to hold her up a little longer, praying the sergeant wouldn't realize how terrified she was. “When?”

“There's a boat leaving here at dusk.” He held out his hand. “All of it. And don't try to cheat me. If you can't pay, there are plenty others who vill.”

“Stay where you are,” Rachel warned him. She turned her back and lifted her skirt to pull loose the pouch of money. “You can count it, if you want. There's five hundred there, in new fifty-dollar bills.” She faced Coblentz again and tossed the packet to him. “Where do I get Chancellor?”

“Finn's Point.” The sergeant thumbed through the currency. “Good. You are an honest voman.” He grinned at her, exposing his green, mossy teeth. “See the chaplain.”

She frowned. “The chaplain? I don't understand.”

“Simple.” Coblentz licked his bottom lip. “Ask for the body. He'll give it to you.”

“The body?” she repeated.

“Yah.” The Dutchman grinned wider. “No trouble. He hands corpses over to their families all the time.”

Disbelief spilled through her body. “But Chancellor's alive. You said he was alive!”

Coblentz unbuttoned the front of his shirt, and Rachel caught a glimpse of black curling chest hair as the sergeant shoved the money inside. “I never said he vas alive,” the Dutchman corrected. “I said he vas here, and I promised you I could get him off the island.” He laughed as he grabbed for her arm. “You came too late, missy. Chancellor's already dead.”

“No!”

His hand closed on her wrist. “Yah. He's dead, and now you vill give me a little something more. Something to pay me for taking such a risk.” He pawed crudely at the front of her gown.

“You son of a bitch!” Rachel cried. Seizing a bedpan, she slammed it against the side of Coblentz's head. He groaned and slumped sideways, and she hit him again.

He went down like a sack of wet sand.

Rachel ripped open the front of his shirt, grabbed her pouch of money, and fled out the door. She dashed back into the courtyard, took hold of her wagon handle, and hurried back toward the door to the outer compound.

The same corporal was on duty as she passed through his guard post. “Sold it all, I see,” he said to her.

“Thanks be to God,” she murmured.

She was too numb to cry. Chance was dead, and she'd just assaulted a sergeant after attempting to bribe him to release a rebel soldier. If she didn't get away from Fort Delaware soon, she'd end up staring through the bars of a cell.

Somehow she made it through the prisoners' area and out the gate. She left her wagon beside the walls and walked as fast as she could toward the docks. She was nearly there when she heard a commotion behind her.

“Stop!” a man's voice yelled. “Stop that voman!”

Rachel ducked in front of a mule team and scrambled onto a cart between two half-grown boys. A mounted officer trotted past her, headed back toward the fortress. Between the line of wagons, she saw Coblentz and two soldiers running after her.

She slid down from the back of the cart and dodged between a coal wagon and a flatbed carrying straw. Two black women were driving a flock of geese down the
dock. Ignoring the angry shouts, she ran through the squawking birds, climbed down a ladder, and jumped off a wooden plank into a dory. The boat tipped under her weight, but she caught her balance and used the oars to row along the bank to the spot where she'd tied up her sloop.

Once she reached the
Windfeather
, she pulled the anchor and let the racing current carry her out into the river.

“Stop her!” Coblentz shouted. “There! Shoot her! Shoot the thief!”

The soldier beside him raised his rifle. Rachel heard a crack and saw a puff of smoke. A small hole appeared in the sail beside her head, but she didn't stop to worry over it. She scrambled back to the stern and took the rudder, steering the sloop around a larger vessel and turning south with the outgoing tide.

When she looked back, she saw that Coblentz and one of his companions had caught the line to the dory and were climbing in. Coblentz crawled up to the bow and took the rifle while the other soldier manned the oars.

The Dutchman stood up and fired at her again.

Rachel ducked her head and prayed for wind. The sloop turned slightly, and the sail puffed out.

A patrol boat rounded the tip of the island. Coblentz waved the rifle and pointed toward Rachel's sloop. The tide caught the dory, and it bounced along over the surface of the whitecaps, gaining on the
Windfeather.

Rachel looked back over her shoulder at the rowboat as the Dutchman crouched and shook his fist at her. The rising wind carried the word “whore” over the waves to her. She couldn't hear all they were saying, but Coblentz and the other soldier were plainly arguing. The private
kept pointing to the water and then back to shore while Coblentz reloaded his weapon.

The guards in the patrol boat turned toward the dory, but they were fighting wind and current, and the sea was whipping the waves into a three-foot chop.

Rachel's sloop leaped ahead as her sail filled. She held to the center of the channel between the mainland and Pea Patch Island, coming dangerously close to the patrol boat. As she passed the heavily armed vessel, a guard motioned to the fins cutting the water near his boat.

She nodded. “I see them!”

Behind her, the Dutchman stood up and lifted his rifle just as the dory plunged into a trough. Coblentz flew out of the small boat like an arrow from a bow. He hit the water with a splash, went under, and surfaced waving his arms and yelling.

The private laughed and guided the rowboat into a circle before pulling in his oars. He stretched out his hand to the cursing sergeant, but before he could reach him, the Dutchman rose and suddenly sank. When he came up, he screamed once and then vanished.

“Sharks!” the private shouted. “Sharks!”

The patrol boat cut between Rachel and the dory, and without looking back, she turned her sloop toward the widest part of the river.

Devil take him, she thought with a shudder. Coblentz was the worst sort of human scum, and she hoped Lucifer would make him a warm welcome in the bowels of hell.

Rachel spent the night on the sloop, hidden in the thick reeds of the Jersey shoreline. She hardly slept at all. Instead, she spent her hours agonizing over the loss of Chance and swatting mosquitoes.

At first light she splashed water on her swollen eyes and dressed in her own clothing. She weighted down the Quaker dress with lead fishing sinkers and buried it in the mud. Then she sailed her boat along the river until she came to the first village, anchored there, and asked directions to Finn's Point.

She caught a ride with a Nanticoke Indian woman carrying butter and eggs to sell in the next town, and the matron was more than willing to share her breakfast of bread, hard-boiled eggs, and buttermilk. Rachel had no appetite, but she ate anyway. She knew she would need her strength to carry Chance's body home to Rachel's Choice.

The day was cloudy and overcast, threatening rain. Across the river, from the west, came rumbles of distant thunder. For once Rachel paid no heed to the weather; her sorrow was so great that she could hardly summon the energy to walk the last half mile from the main road to Finn's Point burial ground.

She asked directions from a boy surrounded by a flock of black-faced sheep. He didn't speak, merely pointed through the stand of white pines toward the river.

Dry-eyed, Rachel made her way through the fresh mounds toward the burial party. To her left a gang of black men sang an old spiritual as they dug a deep pit in the marshy earth. A white corporal on horseback was obviously overseeing the operation.

I'll not let them put Chance's body in a mass grave, she thought, not if I have to shoot someone to stop it. As she neared the blue-coated soldiers, she saw that most wore neckerchiefs over their faces to mask the smell of corpses.