Leaving Independence Read Online Free PDF

events that had been set into motion.
    As Abigail hugged Mimi one last time before she climbed onto the buckboard to leave with Arlon, Abigail whispered in Mimi’s ear, “Am I doing the right thing?”
    “Yes, ma’am, you doin’ the right thing. I know it in my bones, Miz Abigail. The Lord, He whisper it to me. I couldn’t let you go otherwise.”
    It gave Abigail hope because Mimi wasn’t one to stretch or alter what the Lord said.
    “I’m only sorry I won’t see with my own eyes how much these children are goin’ to grow up out there. ’Specially this little miracle baby.” Mimi folded herself over and smothered Lina to her.
    Laying herself across Mimi’s bent back, Abigail breathed deep, trying to memorize every inch of her. “You smell like cinnamon,” she whispered. Then frowning suddenly, she said, “You should have made me learn to cook.”
    “You know, I’m sorry about that.” Mimi straightened up. “Maybe you can trade off sewing with some of them other ladies for cooking. Or get Corrine there working the stove.” Corrine rolled her eyes at the mention of her name. “That’s right. I know you heard me. And I know how much you been helpin’ me in the kitchen, too. You know what to do. And you better be helpin’ your mama. If I hear otherwise, I’ll be chasin’ down that wagon comin’ after you. You hear me?”
    Lina smiled up at her. Mimi had never laid an angry hand on the children.
    “You got mighty fine”—Mimi had to shake her head twice to get the words out—“mighty fine children. I can say that since I helped raise ’em. And I love ’em like they was my own. My very own.” Mimi didn’t look down at Lina again, fat tears welling in her eyes.
    Charlie, Corrine, and Jacob each hugged her tightly, then stood awkwardly by, the boys trying not to cry, Corrine shaking her head, still unhappy with Abigail’s decision.

CHAPTER 3
    The sudden click of heels
    Come join me in Idaho Territory. I like it here . . .
    He had chuckled when he wrote it, and chuckled again when he retold it to Bonnie as he buttoned his jacket, getting dressed to leave the cabin.
    She had a small cracked mirror and had held it up so he could see if his waist sash was even, but now she lowered it, alarmed. “What if she comes out here?”
    “Some chance. Abigail is too fine to travel out here. And she’d never leave her children. Hold that straight, Bonnie.”
    She complied. That was why he put up with her and the squalor of this cabin—she complied.
    “ Her children? Ain’t you Robert Baldwyn? Don’t that make ’em both y’all’s children?”
    He frowned as he polished his sword handle with his sleeve. “I suppose it does.”
    “How many are there?”
    He leaned in to check his beard. “How many what?”
    “Children!”
    He straightened and looked out the window. “I forget exactly. Three or four.”

    They arrived by boat in Independence, Abigail’s nerves pinging like the sounds of Reconstruction. The air was ripped with the sounds of sawing, men hawing horse teams, and the clangs of metal hitting iron. Not one face that passed by on the riverbank was familiar. After they’d disembarked, Abigail stood on the boat dock and clutched Lina’s hand, wondering what to do.
    She was just before putting them back on the boat to Tennessee when the riverboat captain’s wife put her hand on Abigail’s shoulder and shouted, “Percy!” to a man in a wagon. “Get over here!” Then to Abigail, “Percy can haul you over to Mrs. Helton’s. She’s particular about who stays with her, but she’ll take you.”
    Charlie and Jacob helped the man load the heavy trunks, then lifted Rascal and their sisters into the wagon bed. Abigail didn’t flinch when Percy offered a grime-caked hand as she climbed onto the wagon seat, but her heart did lurch with a sickening thud. What was she doing? Loading her children and all their earthly possessions in the back of an unsavory man’s wagon?
    “That there is