Sophia gazed across the Ohio River for the third time in a matter of months. Weeks of heavy rain had swelled and muddied the water so much that their crossing would have to be delayed.

“It’ll be a couple of days at least,” the ferryman had said. “I’ll make the float across when most others won’t, but that there is too treacherous even for me.”

Isaac had taken a deep breath, resigning himself to the wait. He had not pressed Sophia to leave, however, when she lingered on the roughcut assembly of pine planks that served as the ferry platform.

“It’s so close, Isaac. Coming this far and not being able to get just over there, it’s just . . .” she trailed off.

“I know, dear one. I know.”

He put his hands on her shoulders and gently steered her away from the river and back toward town.

“We still have a fair amount of that money left from Mr. Page and Ms. Burwell. Why don’t we go ahead and see what we can find in the way of lodging?”

Sophia nodded and the couple slowly made their way down from the ferry platform and back toward Louisville’s main street.

The town seemed almost quaint compared to Richmond, yet it was not without its own sense of hurry and busyness. Doubtless its location on the river had much to do with that. Traffic from one side to the other supplied ample business for the ferrymen, but once an agreement was reached with Spain, the procession of boats down the river to where it emptied into the Mississippi was sure to seem almost endless. If Louisville was bustling as Isaac and Sophia slowly walked away from the river that afternoon, it would be booming by the next time they visited.

An assortment of boarding houses and taverns with rooms to let were scattered along the primary avenue. Sophia looked longingly at the first they came to—a placard named it “Breckinridge House” in neat, white lettering—with its fancy front door and fine draperies, but Isaac hardly seemed to slow down as they passed by. Attitudes toward former slaves had not shown themselves to be noticeably better this far west than they had ever been back east; places like the Breckinridge House were not likely to be exceptions to that general rule.

Before long Sophia found herself back at the coach station and Isaac was asking one of the stablehands where they ought to look for lodging.

“In Louisville?” the man asked in between heaving a bail of hay from wagon to barn.

“Yes,” Isaac answered with a tone of confusion.

“Not liable to find anything in town. If you come back around dark I might be able to let you sleep in the loft there.”

The man seemed to be sympathetic to their plight, Sophia thought. She glazed up at that hayloft.

“It ain’t much, but it don’t leak. Keep the rain off your heads and the dew off your clothes leastways.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said a voice from behind them.

Sophia turned and looked into the kindly eyes of Martha Parke. The Kentucky Abolition Society did not quickly forget those it helped it seemed.

“You will, of course, stay with me. Now bring your bags and come along and introduce me to your husband, Sophia.”

An entire lump of sugar would not have been sweeter in the mouth than the woman’s tone of voice was to the ear, yet it still somehow managed to convey a force of will that dare not be disobeyed. Isaac and Sophia dutifully followed Mrs. Parke as she led their small procession back the way they had come and a few streets over to her house.

“Now, this room ought to do nicely for the night,” she said to them a few minutes later, holding open the door to a spacious room with an inviting four-poster bed. “Just put your belongings over there in the wardrobe if you like and come down for dinner after that. It’s just a bit of stew I’m afraid—”

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“We’re more than grateful, ma’am—Martha, I mean—for the lodging and for the food,” Sophia interrupted.

“And for all the help you gave my Sophia before,” Isaac added. “I don’t know what we can possibly do to repay you for your kindness then and your hospitality now.”

“I appreciate the kind words, Isaac, but I simply won’t hear of any kind of repayment. Your safety and happiness is all the reward I ever require this side of eternity. I need to go tend to the stew, but don’t dally up here. You must be famished.”

With that, the woman shut the door and left the couple in a stunned silence. They arranged their bags and such in the bottom of the wardrobe and sat on the bed, where Sophia laid her head upon Isaac’s shoulder. It was at that moment that she came to a startling realization.

“Isaac, this isn’t where I stayed before. Mrs. Parke has given up her own bed for us.”

A few minutes later Sophia found herself in the small room that served as both a sitting area and a dining room. Large bowls of stew were placed in front of each of them by Mrs. Parke; the warm aroma wafted gently up and forced Sophia to realize just how hungry she had become. A loaf of dark bread that appeared as if it too were freshly made sat in the middle of the table. Their hostess offered husband and wife a generous slice with which to sop all the goodness of the stew. They more or less ate in silence, savoring the best hot meal they had had in what seemed like ages.

“I assume you’ll have heard of the peace council already?”

Sophia shook her head.

“We tried to keep to ourselves as best we could. Didn’t seem wise to ask more than was necessary of anyone during our journey,” Isaac said.

“Ah, yes, well I suppose that makes sense given your situation.”

“Is there news we should know about?” Sophia asked.

“Well, yes, I suppose it affects the two of you even more than myself,” Mrs. Parke continued. “After all, although Kentucky still has its share of native inhabitants, I can only imagine what things are like on the other side of the river.”

The diminutive abolitionist rose and cleared the table, retrieving a tea kettle and three of the daintiest cups Sophia had ever seen from the kitchen. The tea was poured and then she relayed the news as far as she knew it.

“The governor of Virginia is to be there—or here, rather, in Louisville, just a few weeks from now—along with the governor of Kentucky—the new fellow, not Wilkinson. They’ve sent messengers all over the territory to try to get all the bands and tribes to come.”

Mrs. Parke took a sip of her tea and then splashed a few more drops of milk into her cup.

“At our Abolition Society meeting last week, the peace council was almost the only thing that anyone could talk about, though I can hardly see how it very directly affects our work. In any event, you get the distinct idea that the stakes for this meeting are very high. Some of the men around town even seem to think that this council may be the last chance to avert war with the Indians and with England too. I follow politics only as much as necessary to keep the work of the Society going. I’m sure I can’t say whether the worries about war are more real than imagined.”

Isaac had never been overly fond of tea, but Sophia could see that he was making a valiant attempt to be polite. He took a sip before speaking.

“Seems like both sides should see that a war won’t do anyone any good. I just don’t know where we fit in all this. All I want—all we want—is to work our land and raise a family, to make an honest, free life. Sitting in that jail cell, it seemed like it was all going to be taken away from us. I can’t see as why the Lord would get us all the way back out here only to see the whole thing go up in flames for a war that no one ought to want in the first place.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Isaac,” Mrs. Parke said. “I pray you’re right.”

Sophia set down her teacup and squeezed her husband’s hand. They had been this close to the land across the river once before, but his countenance was changed this time. Not changed for the better, she thought. The last of his youthful exuberance was gone and though he was not yet old he had become a man who wore the full signs of his age: faint crow’s feet had begun to line the corners of his eyes and a few gray hairs had started to show here and there in the stubble on his chin. But those were trivial things. What she saw deep in his eyes was what struck her. He still had hope, she knew, but there was some measure of caution that had not been there before, of holding something back. Though he seemed willing to allow for the best in their situation, the allowance, it seemed to her, was somehow different than it would have been before.

“We’ll show them,” she said. “The two of us, on our farm, raising our children will show them.”

Isaac turned to face her and she put her hands in his.

“The white men and the black men and the Shawnee or whoever else is out there. We’ll show them what it means to live together in peace. ‘Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.’ That’s what it says, doesn’t it? In the letter to the Romans?”

Isaac and Mrs. Parke nodded in unison.

“We don’t owe anyone back in Virginia anything and we don’t owe anyone out here either. So we’ll love our neighbors and live free. That’s all we can do, I suppose.”

Sophia paused and looked down at the floor, fearing she had made a spectacle of herself.

“You’re right,” Isaac said, lifting her head and kissing her gently on the cheek. “You’re right and I’m blessed and highly favored that you’ll be by my side to remind me now and always.”