Lucas chose not to attend church on Sundays. He believed in God and read the Bible, but he didn’t respect Pastor Kincaid. Kincaid would come to the house once a month to elicit donations for the poor. On one particular occasion, Abigail had overheard her father speaking to Kincaid. Her father had found out that Kincaid kept most of the money he collected under the guise of expenses and gave less than a quarter of the money to the poor. Her father made it abundantly clear to Kincaid that what he was doing was wrong. And, from that day forward, he warned Kincaid that he would turn him in to the authorities if he didn’t stop taking so much of the money earmarked for the poor. He also warned Kincaid to stay away from the Hathaway family. Lucas donated money to the poor on his own. Additionally, gave to the poor by donating his time as a doctor to families in need. He allowed Kincaid to tend to his family’s spiritual needs only if they chose to attend his services on Sunday.
After Lucas died, Kincaid began coming to the house again. When his visits became more frequent, her mother began avoiding answering the door when he called.
Abigail thought of Kincaid, with his condescending attitude, as a leach. Over the years, he would try and scheme more money under various ruses, always saying it was for the church. Momma would say he was harmless and would pass off his frequent visits to his concern over the spiritual well-being of the family members.
Abigail remembered, her mother’s traditional fish dinners on Fridays, and how Kincaid so often invited himself that he became a habitual visitor. He would gorge on his dinner as if it was his last meal. Then, eight years ago, he showed up on a Friday evening that Abigail would never forget. She recalled the event from memory: After dinner, as usual, he went into the parlor to await dessert and coffee while we cleared the dishes. But on this day when Momma and I entered the parlor with the dessert tray and coffee, to Momma’s surprise, he was down on one knee in the center of the room waiting for us. Kincaid looked over at me, smirked, and turned his eyes toward Momma. I swear he looked at the dessert tray, smiled, and asked Momma to marry him. Momma was speechless. There wasn’t a word uttered for what seemed like an eternity, but it was more like a minute. All of a sudden, Momma began to laugh. And she continued to laugh even when he became indignant and threatened to leave. We knew he wouldn’t because he loved dessert, and wouldn’t give it up, even if he was embarrassed. Momma explained to me later that she had been in shock and knew that a simple “no” at that time would not suffice. So, she looked at his pathetic face and decided to burst out in laughter in hopes of thoroughly discourage him from future proposals. But he hadn’t given up. He pled his case again after downing two pieces of lemon pie. Momma, this time, said a harsh no and a few nevers until she thought he finally understood there could never, under any circumstance, be a union between them. It was the first time he left the house before having a cup of coffee, and the last time he showed up on Friday night.
Everything changed for the worse after that day. Kincaid became more aggressive in every way. He had always preached fire and damnation, but now he pointed at Momma from the pulpit. Momma decided not to go to church, and started to say her prayers at home on Sunday mornings. And, when she went into town, Kincaid would always show up and offer to accompany her shopping. He did this until, one day, Momma and Abi came out the back door and found him lurking in the yard. Momma harshly confronted him and told him not to come around or she would call the sheriff and seek a court order to keep him away.
So, Abi now thought, why had he shown up for the reading of the will? He personally had received nothing, but the church had been provided for with a generous amount set up in a trust administered by Mr. Purdy to be used for the poor. Obviously, Kincaid must have thought he would be rewarded for his vigil over the Hathaway family. More likely, he was after evidence to prove the truth to the rumor that the Hathaway clan was related to a notorious pirate, and that the evidence would provide a path to what he was really after—the fabled treasure.
“You hear voices?” Purdy whispered.
“Yes.” Abigail reached for the doorknob and yanked the door open.
Roni was standing in front of Kincaid like an NFL linebacker, blocking him from the stairway.
“Oh … I’m sorry,” Kincaid said. “I just wanted to tell you I was leaving and … ask whether I could have a moment of your time before I go.”
“I told you, Reverend, that I am busy.” Abigail glared at him. “I have to get back to the hospital, but I will try to visit you at the church tomorrow before I leave.”
“Thank you. We really need to talk. It’s very important.”
Roni stepped aside to allow Kincaid passage down the stairs. And, when she heard the front door close, she looked back toward Abigail. “I caught him listening at the sewing room door. He about jumped out of his skin when I asked him what he wanted.” Roni smiled. “I think he might have peed his pants.”
Abigail and Purdy laughed.
“What the hell is going on, Abi?”
“Be patient, Roni. I promise I’ll tell you everything later. And thanks for the assist.”
Abigail knew her mother had been right. Kincaid was looking for information about the fabled treasure of her nefarious ancestor.
CHAPTER 5
Hathaway House
Early Morning
The single strike of the brass gong from the old grandfather clock signaled it was one o’clock in the morning. It was time for Abigail to leave her room. Growing up in a house filled with so much history, Abigail had spent hours staring at the beautiful filigreed designs on the hickory wood clock hoping that somehow it would reveal the stories it had witnessed over the last two centuries.
Abigail found her ancestors to be a creative, notorious, and immoral to the core. Most of the colonials had carried out secret unions behind their proper somber black facades. Abigail had discovered several diaries hidden behind other books in the library. They were filled with explicit stories of her relatives’ sexual adventures. Secretly reading them, unbeknownst to her mother when she was a teenager, had made her blush. The stories had also whetted her appetite to know more about the history of her family.
The inscriptions in her family’s Bible traced the branches of her lineal tree back to the seventeenth century, and contained short notations that had allowed her to conjure larger-than-life tales from the bits of information. Even so, the one predecessor she diligently sought was merely a rumored figure. Abigail was frustrated. She was absolutely sure the person existed in her family tree, but she couldn’t find any evidence to prove it. No one could. So many people who lived in and around the Winchester, Virginia, area, at some point in their lives, got the bug to seek out and find the alleged treasure map her relative had supposedly hidden. No one knew for sure how the rumor of a treasure map had begun, but the searches always took the treasure hunters to her family’s property. And, even though no one had produced anything that definitively connected the suspected plunder to her family, Abigail hoped the strongbox described in the letter was really buried in the graveyard, and if it was, that its contents would finally reveal the rumor to be true—or false.
Abigail felt guilty sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night, but she wasn’t ready to explain the old letter’s contents to anyone until she’d had a chance to investigate its revelations.
She carefully opened the door to her room and peeked out. The house was quiet except for the occasional whoosh of warm air from the new oil furnace heating vents that had been installed over the past year. Since no one else was in the house except her sister-in-law, Roni, she closed the door and tiptoed down the edge of the hallway, avoiding the floorboards in the middle that might make loud creaking noises. On the creaky stairs, she took each step slowly until she reached the foyer. She carefully turned the latch on the recently oiled front door and stepped outside. She closed the door without any noise except the click of the latch.
Her cheek
s tingled in the icy wind. She looked up toward the second-floor window of the bedroom occupied by Roni Chance, saw it was still dark, and breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t want to involve Roni unless the allegations in the old letter proved to be true.
Earlier in the evening, Roni had called out several times for Abigail to come downstairs and have something to eat. Abigail had avoided answering; she needed to be alone. Her head was spinning with conjecture and imaginings of the contents of the strongbox, and her thoughts were making her attempt to nap futile.
With her mind reeling and her stomach roiling, she had searched through the branches of the family tree in the Bible, and her finger shook when it came to rest on the name she sought. Abigail realized it was only nominal proof that the assertion in the letter was true. The name wasn’t one she didn’t already know; it was just one of many she’d never bothered to research further. But now with the letter guiding her, she had a clear direction for taking the next step toward finding substantive proof of the existence of her infamous ancestor. It made sense to her that her mother, in the past, had mentioned him as only a minor player in their family history to distract her from seeking answers to questions that she would have asked.
Flashlight in hand, Abigail picked up a trowel and a small pickax from the toolbox she knew her mother kept under the front porch stairs. She rustled around trying not to make any noise, but she couldn’t find a pair of gloves. She stuffed the tools into the inside pockets of her parka, and caught the box lid before it slammed shut. She looked up at the window of Roni’s room and was relieved to see the window still dark. She buried her hands in the fleece-lined pockets of her parka and took another look at the windows of the house. Seeing no lights, she started to walk along a familiar path through the woods toward the old church—and the church graveyard—a mile or so away.
A burst of frigid wind found its way through her clothes and sent an icy chill through her body down to her toes. Picking up her pace to a slow trot, she stopped at the top of a small hill to catch her breath. The strange lighting from the half moon gave the rising ground mist an eerie purplish glow. Abigail looked down below the hill and across the small valley. The shadowy spire of the church jutted upward from the fog blanket that covered the frozen ground. A slight breeze moved the carpet of mist creepily over the gray outlines of the stone grave markers in the church cemetery.
The letter written by her ancestor gave directions to a particular headstone, but it didn’t pinpoint the location to dig. It just indicated that the box was buried by the head of the grave of her ancestral grandfather. Her hands and fingers felt as if they were turning to icicles. She blew her warm breath onto her hands and rubbed them together as if she was twisting a towel. Abigail prayed that finding the grave would lead her to uncover the secret she was seeking. A burst of adrenaline surged through her body. She blew on her hands once more and flexed her fingers. She ran down the hill, the cold air burning her lungs. She stopped to slow her breath at the cemetery gate. Now that she had come this far, there was no turning back. She had a sudden chill when she thought she could be caught by the despicable Pastor Kincaid. A sudden calm overcame her fears as she realized she was not afraid of him. But still she hoped he was not at the church at that late hour.
Abigail grasped the cold, rusted iron bars with both hands and pushed. The gate resisted. She leaned her body into the gate and gave it a hard push. Sounding as if it was in pain, the gate creaked and groaned as it slowly yielded and opened. She stepped inside and looked around at the seventy or eighty graves scattered around the small graveyard. She slowly walked along each of the rows, scanning the flashlight beam across the grave markers, seeking the one engraved with her grandfather’s name. She noticed that the dates etched into the stones were all from the seventeen hundreds. Some of the names she recognized as the ancestors of her neighbors. She remembered her mother telling her that the graveyard had provided only enough room for the final resting places of the families of the colonials who were the church’s founders.
A gust of icy wind caused the light of her flashlight to waver. She scanned the beam across the names and dates of three rows of gravestones, and began to walk down the last aisle.
“There it is,” she whispered.
Abigail knew that the strong box was supposed to be buried next to the grave where the head of her ancestral grandfather rested: William Cormac—Born 1638—County Cork, Ireland—Died 1723.
Abigail knelt next to the headstone and said a silent prayer apologizing for the disturbance to her ancestor’s peace. She began to scrape at the earth with the pickax to cut away at the grass. Once it was clear, she stabbed at the hard earth to loosen it until she was able to use the trowel to remove the loose dirt. She gouged and stabbed again and again, and continued to scoop out chunks of soil. An hour later, she was disappointed. She had found nothing. The exertion of the excavating had caused a sweat to break out on her face. At least she was warm now. She had dug two holes. She questioned the validity of the letter. She wanted to quit, but decided to once more repeat the process of scraping, stabbing, and digging. The tingling pain in her arms after the impact of each thrust into the solid ground made her arms ache. After another hour of excavation failed to provide a reward, she was frustrated. She cursed her ancestor for making her feel like a fool for believing. She took one last stab at the hard-packed earth in the third hole. Clunk! Metal striking metal.
“Oh, my God!” she cried out. “Is it really here? It’s really here!”
She didn’t even notice the blood running from the painful cuts on her fingers. She groaned as she dug around the box so she could get her hands along the sides. Abigail was amazed that, after all the years the box has been in the ground, it still appeared to be in one piece. She reached down and grasped the small handles on the sides of the box. She leaned back, pulling and straining until her arms shook. The rust-encrusted strongbox resisted as she screamed out, “Aaaiiii!” as she pulled with all her remaining strength. The box scraped against its impediments and finally broke free, sending Abigail back flat on the ground. The box landed on her lap. Breathing heavily, she looked up at the sky, thanked God, and laughed out loud. She remained lying back on the grass for a long minute, catching her breath and thinking of the answers she hoped would be revealed inside the strongbox.
Abigail groaned as she stood up. She placed the box on the ground and began replacing the dirt in all the holes she had dug. Then she placed the torn clumps of grass over the filled holes and stomped on the edges to blend them in and hide the evidence of her digging. Her hands were so numb she barely felt the stinging pain coursing through her fingers as she struggled to pick up the box. She barely felt the cold metal in her hands. The sensation reminded her of the feeling beginning to return after a cavity is taken care of by the dentist, and the anesthetic is wearing off. Abigail clutched the box tightly to her bosom. Her legs seemed to be giving away as a sudden wave of exhaustion began to overcome her. She felt lightheaded, and an odd voice in her mind told her that it was all right for her to lie down for a few minutes and sleep. She knew she would die if she listened. Her body was losing the battle to keep its body heat and started to shake. She realized she didn’t have much time before she would pass out. Abigail sucked in and exhaled two deep breaths to clear her head while she looked for a place where she could find shelter and raise her body temperature. Was she dreaming or was it euphoria? The great wooden door of the church seemed to be beckoning her. She stumbled toward it. Each step was an effort to raise her legs. She extended her left hand all the while keeping a firm grasp on the box with the other. She prayed and pushed at the door, but it didn’t give. She turned her body and threw her shoulder against the weathered wood. With all her remaining strength, she dug her feet in and pushed.
“Thank you, God,” she whispered as the door creaked and swung open. A sudden rush of warm air hit her face. Still holding on to the box tightly, she staggered inside, turne
d her body so her back was against the open door, and pushed it closed.
Abigail took a moment to catch her breath and let her eyes adjust to a dim light from a lamp on a large table at the back of the church that held pamphlets and announcements. As she walked down the single aisle toward the altar, memories of Sundays past drew her to the pew where her family had always sat while attending services over the years. As she entered to sit on the cushioned seat, she touched the little brass plaque on the end of the pew that bore her family name. Only the elders and founding families of the church had the honor of a pew assigned to them.
Abigail intended to spend only a few minutes in the church to allow the numbness in her limbs to dissipate. She set the box down next to her and succumbed to the overwhelming temptation to solve her family’s mystery.
She scraped with her fingernails around the seam between the box and the lid. Crusted rust loosened and fell away. She reached inside her parka, found her key ring, selected the largest key, and used it to pry at the seam. Impatient with the lack of progress using the key, she took the small pickaxe from inside her parka and ran its point around the edge of the lid. She saw the seam and pressed down, exerting pressure on the top while her other hand steadied the bottom. More rust fell away from the seam. She set the box on the pew and pulled the top upward. The effort caused her to grunt. Nothing moved except the rust falling from the seam. She sat back, closed her eyes, relaxed for a moment, and took in a deep breath. Then, with new resolve, she exhaled and channeled all her strength toward raising the lid. When nothing happened, she repeated the exercise. The lid resisted her first three tries. But on her fourth try, it quivered and reluctantly gave way from the position it had held for over three hundred years. Her hands trembled, and her excitement mounted as she pulled upward on the top of the box. The hinges creaked and screeched like a cat in heat, and the box opened.
Golden Legacy Page 4