Kathleen was looking past Emmy at the kitchen door, and Emmy turned to look for her little family to enter. But she could only hear the children, bickering over some silly thing.
She waited for Isaac to correct the children and then formally present himself to her family. What was taking him so long, and why was he not attending to the children?
As the dog’s barking grew more frantic and insistent, she incorporated that nuisance into her unfinished dream.
She saw that Rowdy had cornered a raccoon in the big Italian plum tree that grew outside her parents’ brownstone window. He was jumping up at the treed angry creature and snapping and grabbing at the big plum, stripping pieces of bark from its trunk, as if that would somehow dislodge the hissing coon from its perch.
She heard Isaac then, and she hoped he would shoo the pesky little bandit away quickly so she could reassure her family that she was married to a reliable man.
But Isaac made so much noise fumbling around in the dark that she suddenly felt the hard bed and remembered she was not in Boston at all.
She felt anger at Isaac for his inconsiderate clumsiness, waking her from the first good sleep she had had in a week. She was about to murmur a chastisement, but as she turned to him, she realized his movements conveyed anxiety.
It was enough to rouse her.
Still hoping to return to the colors of the dream, she pulled herself out of bed and pulled a blanket around herself, following Isaac to the stairs.
As she stepped into the hallway, she stubbed her right great toe badly on the doorstop, peeling her toenail back.
That wakened her fully, anger spilling out with a curse at Isaac who had already reached the bottom of the staircase and was fumbling with the lantern.
He did not respond to her and seemed to ignore her pain and anger. When she saw him pick up a kitchen knife, trepidation replaced the pain.
“Isaac?” she called down to him.
The expression on his face as he looked up briefly told her he was determined, but frightened. As he opened the door and stepped out onto the porch, she immediately thought of Jacob and Sarah and rushed to their room.
Jacob was already awake and looking outside the window when she entered. As she walked in, he gasped; she heard Rowdy yelp in pain, then silence followed by a loud jostling on the porch below.
Jacob cried out, “Northerners!”
Emmy was now fully functional. “Run! RUN!” she heard herself scream so loudly that Sarah awoke immediately and, without questions or protest, headed for the stairs.
The cry awakened the Isersons, and Tom emerged from the bedroom downstairs naked, wearing only his socks, with Rebah following.
“RUN, children, run!” Emmy cried again.
Iserson, hearing the fighting outside, ran to the back window and, his face contorted by his uncontrolled panic, pushed up the sash and jumped out, leaving his screaming wife and everyone else behind.
“Tom, Tom! Wait for me! Wait!” wailed Rebah, then moaning and rocking from one foot to the other, as she watched her husband disappearing into the darkness.
Emmy grabbed and shook her, interrupting the terrified woman’s palsy.
“Rebah! Move, Damnit!”
The first gunshot shook the house.
Pushing Rebah out through the open window, Emmy heard horrible, vicious screams from the porch outside and knew Isaac was fighting for his life—and for theirs.
Chapter Seventeen
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Jacob
Jacob, Sarah, Rebah and then, Emmy crawled out the window after Tom Iserson, who by this time had leaped the backyard fence and disappeared into the brambles up the hill and into the woods.
The moon cut through the clouds for just a few moments, giving Jacob his bearings as his mother ushered him and sister through the blackberry thorns in a different direction, toward the small road that led up to the Crocketts’ home a mile away.
Jacob could hear the marauders now in the house, crashing through the kitchen and overturning furniture, but he kept running as those sounds faded away, running, knowing that just behind him on that same path Death would be pursuing him silently and relentlessly.
He could not see his mother or sister now — it was so dark, and Rebah kept bawling for Tom someplace off to his left by the big woods.
Jacob heard his mother holler out in the darkness, “Run, kids. Get to the Crocketts. Run!” but he couldn’t tell where her voice was coming from.
He was old enough to reach that destination without directions, if he could find the pathway beyond the blackberries that crossed the cattle pasture. And then he stumbled onto the path.
As he struggled to stand back up, he heard careful footsteps behind him.
Mother?
The last thing he remembered about that night was the strong hands that covered his mouth.
Chapter Eighteen
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Emmy
After she called out, Emmy hesitated for a moment, telling herself that if there were pursuers, she would jump in to protect her children. As she reached the pasture, she saw no one on the path, but heard grunting noises that made her remember the young stud bull that was supposed to be penned up in the barn — big, stupid, unpredictable animal that protected that field, studding and crapping. Tonight it was an ironic bit of fear to add to the terror.
The field was uneven, and each step tore at her wretched toe as she continued running toward what she hoped was the Crockett home.
Where were the kids? Where were the kids?
Then she heard Sarah screaming up ahead. They must have reached the Crockett’s.
Emmy ran past several squawking geese and knew she was there too, past the small brown fence and up the stairs.
Sarah was pounding frantically on the big
