The path started behind a clump of elderberry bushes that grew wild in the Hobbs’s backyard and was all but invisible. A stranger wouldn’t have known it was there unless they knew to look for it. As soon as the path was finished, he began work on a child-sized back door that from the outside looked like an old barrel.
Before spring turned into summer, the Hobbs children knew exactly what to do if trouble erupted. The youngest, Margaret and Virgil, were too young to see to themselves, but the older ones were taught to care for them. Margaret Rose was already walking, yet Dewey was told to snatch her up and carry her to the pathway. Ben Roland was responsible for Virgil, and Oliver was to count heads and make sure everybody was there.
“But, Mama,” Oliver said, “what about you?”
“Don’t worry, I can take care of myself.” She said Martin loved her and would never do anything to cause her harm, but even as the words came from her mouth she questioned the truth of them.
That spring Jeb and Caldonia began watching over Eliza and the children as if they were their own. On Sundays they all rode to church in Jeb’s wagon, and if a storm came through Jeb would come tapping on the window to ask if they were okay. Once it was warm enough to begin planting, he brought his horse and plow and turned a strip of ground large enough for a decent-size cornfield. Oliver, nearing nine that summer, was stretched out like a string bean, so both he and Ben Roland worked alongside Eliza as she sowed the corn, planted tomatoes, pole beans, and turnips.
The weather that summer was the best anyone in Coal Creek could remember. It was neither too hot nor too wet. The sun shone full in the afternoon, warming the ground but not drying it. The right amount of rain fell, and everything grew. The sprouts in the cornfield showed sooner than expected and before the month was out stood as tall as Oliver. That year it seemed as if Mother Nature was trying to make up for the hardships she’d caused the year before. With such a bounty, Eliza began canning in early August.
The money she brought from Charleston remained hidden in the pouch behind the bed. From time to time she took out a dollar or two to buy seed or supplies, but every penny was spent judiciously.
Although she never spoke about the fear that had settled in her bones, it was always there. At night when the wind whistled through the tree tops and the cry of a bird could be heard for miles, she’d lie in bed listening for the sound of Martin’s boots coming from the road. When the fear felt as though it would suffocate her, she began keeping the shotgun alongside her bed and an extra box of shells hidden in the drawer.
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ON THE MONDAY AFTER ELIZA’S visit to Charleston, Bess disappeared. She was sleeping when Martin left for work that morning, but when he returned later in the evening she was gone. On the kitchen counter there was a note saying her cousin in Philadelphia had taken ill and she needed to be by the poor woman’s side.
Martin was annoyed by her sudden disappearance but far from frantic. Women like Bess were easy enough to come by. Sure, he’d enjoyed her company, but he’d never really thought of it as more than a bit of fun so there was no love lost.
That same evening he shaved, pulled on a fresh shirt, and went to the Wolf’s Head Tavern where he met Martha Mae Keller. When he offered to buy her a beer, she said she preferred champagne. Martin laughed, told her she was his kind of woman, and ordered a bottle.
Moving from the bar to a small table, they spent the evening together and more than once he felt the toe of her shoe slide along the inside of his leg. He thought for sure he was in for a good time, but at the end of the night when he invited her back to his place she smiled and said maybe another night.
He leaned closer, breathed heavily into her ear, and whispered, “I’m gonna make sure there is one.”
When Martin returned to the apartment that night, he could still smell her perfume and feel the touch of her hand on his thigh. No doubt about it, Martha Mae Keller was his kind