understand and agree?'
He made all of them give their verbal consent before he continued. Then he shifted positions, scanned his audience, and said, 'Who's going to start explaining?'
'Do you think we stole her?' Cole asked.
'We didn't,' Travis said. 'Someone else did. Whoever it was must have gotten cold feet.'
'We found her,' Cole said.
'Where?' Harrison asked.
'In the trash,' Cole answered.
'Where?' He hadn't meant to raise his voice, but surprise made him overreact.
'You heard me. We found her in the trash heap in our alley. The four of us had formed our own gang. God, we were young and stupid back then.'
'You were children,' Harrison replied. 'There is safety in numbers.'
'Yes,' Cole agreed wearily. He turned to Adam. 'You tell him what happened.'
Adam nodded. 'We had formed a gang of sorts. We all lived on the street. I had made it to New York City with the help of the Underground, but I wasn't going to stay there. I'd promised my mother I'd head west. She thought I would be safer there, until things changed.'
'What things?' Harrison asked.
'Mother kept up with all the news. Lincoln was talking about ending slavery. The movement in the North was growing and she knew a fight was coming. If it went in our favor, we'd be freed. It was a hope, and I clung to it.
'My brothers and I lived in the alley. We slept close together so we could keep warm. It was going on May, but the nights were still cold that year, and we didn't have many blankets.'
'In 1860?'
'Yes, 1860,' Adam said. 'There were other gangs of displaced children roaming the streets looking for food and trouble. The alley was our home, and we were determined to defend it. We each took turns standing watch at the entrance. It was Douglas 's turn that night. Travis and Cole and I were sound asleep. He whistled to us and pointed to the trash heap. Then he took off. He was curious about something and wanted to investigate.
'I heard a noise,' Adam continued. ' Douglas told me later he thought it was a cat inside. Travis, I remember, was worried it might be a snake.'
'Inside what?' Harrison asked.
'A basket,' Adam answered. 'Anyway, I thought there was an animal inside too. I went over to get a better look. I saw the rats then.'
'Dear God…'
'They were all over the thing. I had to light my torch to chase them away. One had worked his way up to the top and was chewing through the lid. If I had waited another minute, the rat would have gotten to her.'
Harrison pictured what would certainly have happened to Mary Rose and blanched in reaction.
'I got to her in time, and that's all that matters. We thought she was a boy. We named her Sidney.'
'She knows everything, doesn't she?' Harrison asked.
'Oh, yes, she knows how we found her. We've never kept any secrets from her. She knows all about us too.'
Harrison smiled. 'Now I understand why she was so upset when Cole called her Sidney.'
'Yes,' Cole said. 'It's a reminder to her that she isn't any better than anyone else. She is though. She's pure of heart and noble and…'
Cole's voice belied his stony expression.
Adam cleared his throat and continued on. 'We made a pact late that night to do the best we could for her. We didn't think she would make it if we took her to one of the city's orphanages. Travis was the only one who knew for certain no one was searching for him. We all became Claybornes and headed west. It took us a long, long time to get here and build a home.'
'But we did it,' Cole said. 'Now that I think about it, I guess maybe Mary Rose's father helped us.'
'How?' Harrison asked.
' Douglas took the money from the woman who threw the basket away. He was real good picking pockets. The money financed our way for a long time. Whoever took the baby must have stolen the money too.'
'How old were all of you?'
Travis answered him. 'I was really just nine, going on ten, but I told everyone I was close to eleven. I was afraid they wouldn't take me if I was too young. I wanted them to think I could hold my own in a fight. Douglas and I knew what it was like living in an orphanage. We weren't going back. I guess I was smart enough to realize I needed protection. Adam was big and mean-looking to me, and so I chose to hound him day and night until he finally let me stay with him. He was thirteen. Douglas and Cole were eleven years old.'
'You were children,' Harrison said. 'Yet even so, didn't it occur to you that the baby might have been stolen?'
'Why would such a thought occur to us?' Cole asked. 'We just figured her mother or father didn't want her any longer.'
'You believed they threw her away? How could you possibly believe such a thing?'
Cole and Douglas looked at each other, then turned to Harrison again.
'Why not?' Douglas asked. 'We were.'
Cole couldn't understand Harrison 's incredulity. 'How do you think the city got glutted with so many children? Do you really think they all just got lost? The authorities knew the truth. Every once in a while, they'd grab as many of them as they could, put them on trains, and send them away. None of them knew where the trains were headed.'
Douglas let out a sigh. 'No one wanted them,' he said. 'And no one wanted the three of us. Adam was different. His mother had sent him away to keep him safe. She didn't abandon him.'
'I don't know if my mother would have thrown me out or not,' Cole remarked. His voice was devoid of emotion now. 'I heard she was a nice woman. She died giving me life. Her name was Mary, and I figured I could repay her by handing her name down to our Mary Rose. Adam had the same idea about Mama Rose. Douglas decided we should combine the names.'
'What about your father, Cole? Do you know anything about him?' Harrison asked.
'He kept me around for a while. Eventually he started to favor whiskey and gin more. He tried to sell me. I heard him negotiating for two bottles and I took off.'
Harrison was too stunned to speak. He couldn't imagine such bleak lives. And then he began to see the wonder in it all.
He saw the brothers in a completely different light. His admiration and his respect were evident in his expression.
They had done the impossible and had flourished in spite of the odds.
'You are all men of courage.'
Douglas wouldn't accept Harrison 's approbation. He shook his head.
'No, we're just men doing the best we can. We were all scared little boys back then who wanted to see that Mary Rose had someone to care about her. None of us really believed she'd make it. I didn't think any of us would. Still, she deserved a shot at life, didn't she?'
'It couldn't have been easy.'
'Changing her drawers was a real bitch.' Cole smiled when he made the comment.
'How did you know her real birth date? Mary Rose told me she had papers. What are they?'
'There were two papers tucked in the envelope with the money,' Douglas explained. 'Adam has them in the library. One of the papers has a lot of numbers scribbled on it. The other paper looks like a page from a book. Across the top was a baby girl's date of birth. Her weight and measurement were written down too.'
'The page is from the family Bible.'
'It is?'
'Yes,' Harrison said. 'Two pages were torn out. One was returned with the ransom note. It was proof they really had Victoria. Her full name was written on the bottom line.'
'I told my brothers about the papers, but we were more curious about the money then. Adam was the only
