CHAPTER 1
Indiana 1865
The rusted door hinges squealed as a slit of light shot across the dirt floor of the barn. Morgan closed one eye and held a hand up too late to block the light, nearly blinding his open eye. His other hand slid under the warm straw and closed on the grip of the pistol lying near his hip. He rubbed his open eye to focus. The barn door gaped and a bold glare quivered around the dark form of a man in the widening doorway. Morgan strained to see, still holding the one eye closed, saving it for the instant when he would need to shoot straight.
The farmer's low, strong voice relaxed Morgan's finger from the trigger, and he dropped the heavy weapon back in the hay.
"Mr. Lewis," the farmer said, "I see you're still with us, and we're about to have breakfast. Why don't you join my family and me?"
Morgan pulled his hand from the hay that had been his bed on the barn floor and rolled onto his knees. He'd welcomed the cool earth under the hay and his best sleep since he left Ohio. Yet, his lower back froze in that position, all fours. The pain was not the result of the hard, packed hay of the night's bed. The cause was the three years in a saddle and the many nights without a bed, either of hard earth or of packed hay.
"You can freshen up at the well. I saw your horse was still here and told Edith to set another plate. Take your time, Mr. Lewis."
"Morgan." The night before, he'd suggested that the farmer call him by his first name.
"Right, Morgan. Take your time, Morgan." The farmer backed out of the doorway, freeing the bright light again. Morgan moved to the shadows and watched the man walk toward the back door of the house. Slender, more so than Morgan was, and about the same height, two inches under six feet.
He knew he should get back on the road, ride on. The farmer could make better use of his time than in hosting a stranger for breakfast. Even in the growing dusk of arrival the night before, Morgan had seen the overgrown hillocks where weeds had replaced the vegetable and grain crops of a few years before.
He felt for the gun in the hay, found it, and put it in the saddlebags that lay nearby. The gun should stay in the saddlebags, not within his reach. The war was over, yet the waking sense of alarm and danger at times lingered. He might shoot somebody. He tucked in his shirt and hurried out into the warm sunlight. He'd turned down the offer for supper the night before, leaving Mr. Williams free to think he had eaten late on the trail—a meal that Morgan had only imagined. He didn't want to be a burden to the man, or to Mrs. Williams. "Edith," the man had called her. He'd not seen her the night before. He dipped his hands in the trough beside the well, splashed water on his face, and ran his fingers back through the dark, unruly, brown hair. He should have washed his hair at the river crossing the previous day. If he had any soap left, he would have. The wind and winter sun under the prairie skies had tanned his face below the protection of the slouch hat. He didn't feel comfortable entering a home just now. He pulled his palms down the front of his shirt, losing most of the dampness. He had no bandana. He rubbed his hands together and stepped up onto the back porch.
When he entered the kitchen, a pretty woman welcomed him and pointed to one unoccupied side of the table. She looked too young to be the mother of the two girls seated on the opposite side of the table. Mr. Williams introduced her as his wife, Edith. Morgan thanked her in advance of responding to her invitation to sit down and said he hoped he was not a bother. She said he was not and introduced him to Millie and Norma. They looked maybe six and four, and they looked clean. They seemed comfortable—safe. Their faces shone, as did their hair, clean and dark, like that of their father. Morgan had seen too many children in the last few years who hadn't been clean and who hadn't looked as if they felt safe. He noted the light, blue eyes, like their father's eyes. Their mother's eyes emphasized that he was the only person in the room with brown eyes.
Mrs. Williams asked her husband by his given name, Mark, to say grace and, with a tip of her head, bade the two girls to bow theirs. Morgan looked down at the table. Mark was brief and Morgan looked up to see Mrs. Williams rise and go first to the younger girl to cut her salted ham into small squares and then to the older, Millie, to correct how she was holding her knife as she cut the meat. Then she stopped at Mark's shoulder and leaned down to cut the ham on his plate, in squares, neat and larger than those she had cut for Norma.
Mark Williams' lower left arm rested below the level of the table. Morgan had been unable to ignore the shortened left arm the previous evening, and knew that the farmer had then picked up his stare and looked down at the place where a hand should be.
"The war," he said with a slight grin. "Shiloh. I spent the rest of the war in the quartermaster's wagon. Lucky, maybe. It probably saved my life." Mark had managed a grin. Morgan had said nothing, and didn't feel like grinning.
Morgan turned to cutting his ham in squares, noting that Mrs. Williams was doing the same. All was quiet. He found he could add nothing—no words.
The evening before, he'd stood in front of the farmer in the coming darkness. A missing hand. Morgan had lost no hand, no arm in the war. His wounds had been slight—mostly—and quick to heal. Yet, he had lost everything.
"Where are you going, Mr. Lewis?" Edith Williams asked.
Her voice was soft, polite. She smiled. She was being friendly. Morgan felt as if she had poked him in the eye with her fork.
Her face reddened. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry," she said.
"I don't know," he said, finally. He felt an urge to say more. "I mean, Chicago, or maybe St. Louis. I haven't decided yet."
"Well, we don't want to get too much into your business," Mr. Williams said. "But I must say, Mr. Lewis, okay ... Morgan, that Terre Haute here is a good place to decide. Chicago is almost straight north and St. Louis is a tad south of west from here." The farmer went on to say that the name of the town meant high land and that his father had been one of the town founders.
Morgan thought to congratulate him; then thought better of it. He realized he didn't know anything to say—about anything. They finished the breakfast in near silence. Morgan was uncomfortable, despite the warm reception and his first minutes in the house.
It was not her. It was the question, so similar to the words in the question asked nearly nine years earlier by another woman—a girl.
This woman, Edith, this warm hearth, the girls, the question. It all reminded him of what he once hoped he would, might, have—and had lost.
Later, he knew he made it worse when he left the Williams home. He thanked them again, which was okay. Then he offered them money. Neither of them spoke. He wished he hadn't slept late. He wished he'd started early as he'd told Mr. Williams he would. He shouldn't have stayed for breakfast. He felt he should apologize—for something. He didn't. He wasn't sure just what he felt right at that moment.
Where are you going? It had been a simple question, a polite little question. It was too much like the questions back there—back then.
"What are you going to do, Morgan?" she had asked in that foggy past, and more...
