Free Leaving Independence by Leanne W. Smith

might be a scoundrel?
    “No,” she answered hesitantly, letting go of the broom, which he set by the churn. “But you do have a piercing . . . hard way about you.”
    He turned back toward her and burned her with his eyes. “Does that make me a bad person?”
    Abigail looked from the churn to the broom, and back to Hoke. “I guess not.”
    Charlie came bounding around the wagon. “Mr. Hoke! Good to see you again.” They shook hands. “This is my brother, Jacob.”
    “Good to meet you, Jacob.”
    Hoke took Jacob’s hand in his like he was shaking hands with a man. Jacob stood straighter.
    “You boys probably already know this,” said Hoke, “but let me show you how to hitch and hobble these mules and horses.”
    The boys looked at each other with raised eyebrows and followed him.
    Abigail didn’t know if she was glad or upset to have Hoke on the trip.
    She looked at the churn and broom again, wondering how he’d managed to take them from her hands in such a way that she had barely noticed, then stepped to the back of the other wagon to put her reticule in the cherry box.
    Immediately she knew: someone had been in here . . . one of the children, maybe. Things she had left sitting on the top of the chest were strewn to the side of it. When she raised the lid and looked inside, it was obvious someone had rifled through her letters. Panicked, she checked the drawstring purse that had held the last of their twenty-dollar gold pieces.
    It was empty!

CHAPTER 7
    Mere suggestion of money
    Fear nearly stopped her heart.
    Abigail dug under the letters for the small box that held her jewelry. When the lid flipped up, she felt her heart beat again. The cameo brooch and pearl pendant were still there. The cameo had been her mother’s. As a girl, Abigail had thought the silhouette in the carved ivory was her mother’s profile.
    Robert had given her the pearl pendant as a wedding gift.
    Abigail tucked the jewelry box under her arm and searched for Colonel Dotson, but found his wife, Christine, instead.
    “Mrs. Dotson!”
    “Hello, Mrs. Baldwyn. Is everything all right?”
    “Money is missing from my wagon . . . over a hundred dollars in gold coin. Nearly all we had left.” Fear and doubt squeezed her heart in equal measure. How could they possibly survive this trip on the few remaining coins in her reticule? Was she a fool for bringing her family out here?
    Christine left to get Colonel Dotson while Abigail went to find her children. None of them had seen anyone near the wagon.
    Hoke arrived with the colonel, and Abigail showed them the cherry box. “This is where I keep important letters. The money was in here, along with a small jewelry box.”
    “They didn’t take the jewelry?” asked the colonel.
    She shook her head.
    The colonel looked out darkly over the camp. “I won’t tolerate thievery.”
    “Be hard to know if it was someone in our group. People have been coming and going all day,” said Hoke.
    “Mrs. Baldwyn, we could go wagon to wagon,” said the colonel, “but Hoke’s right. It could have been somebody from town. We could have everybody in our own group turn their pockets out, but how would we know your coins from theirs?”
    Abigail thought of the bag of coins she’d laid in Hoke’s hand only days ago. She wasn’t sure she would recognize those same coins again if Hoke handed them back to her, so how would she know her missing coins if she saw them ?
    She bit her fingernail. “I don’t know if we can still afford to go. Unless . . . how much time do I have before the group meeting, Colonel?”
    “Two hours.”
    “Charlie, Corrine, watch Jacob and Lina. I’ll be back in an hour.”

    Mrs. Helton looked surprised to see Abigail standing in the door of her kitchen. “Did you decide to stay?”
    “No. I’m hoping you’ll help me go.”
    Abigail told Mrs. Helton what had happened and showed her the jewelry. “Do you know anyone who might buy a pearl pendant?”
    Mrs. Helton