There were three adults and two children inside.

One woman carried a torn slip of paper with an address in Delaware.

A man showed scars from a rope and said he had been taken while seeking his sister.

The children clung to each other, unwilling to speak until an officer told Briggs to move away.

The magistrate ordered the people removed from the wagon for further inquiry and directed that the drivers remain available.

Briggs protested and reached toward his coat, then stopped when the officer warned him not to escalate the confrontation.

His authority had depended on moving unseen.

Under lantern light, with witnesses counting every person, his confidence faltered.

The officers brought the passengers to a nearby church rather than returning them to Riverbend.

Miriam and Rebecca arrived with blankets and food as soon as they heard the news.

They recorded names carefully and asked each person whom they wanted contacted.

One woman recognized the child Thomas from a crossing house and supplied a lead about his mother, Annie Wells.

She said Annie had been moved toward a coastal settlement under a different surname.

Lydia wrote both names down and asked where the woman had last seen her.

The answer was uncertain, but it gave Thomas a direction that had not existed before.

At Riverbend Richard heard that the wagons had been stopped and accused Mrs.

Fenwick of betrayal.

She stood in the hall holding a tray, her hands steady.

“I carried messages,” she said, refusing to pretend otherwise.

Richard threatened to sell her, then seemed to remember that the transfer papers were under examination.

Catherine stepped between them.

“You have threatened so many people that you no longer know which threat can be carried out,” she said.

Richard ordered both women from his sight.

Mrs.

Fenwick left the tray on the table and walked away beside Catherine, not behind her.

For one moment the hallway felt unlike the house either woman had known.

Chapter 34: An Account of the Lost

The weeks after the first hearing became an exercise in patience and painful detail.

Alden and his colleagues compared receipts, interviews, court records, and family letters.

Sometimes a name appeared in three different forms because a broker had changed a surname or altered an age.

Sometimes two children shared a given name and had to be distinguished by birthplace and family description.

Lydia insisted that uncertain matches remain marked as uncertain.

She had seen what happened when officials treated a convenient guess as a fact.