Bristol burst through the door and knew instantly the house was empty; it had that peculiar silence of empty rooms.
She waited all afternoon, and still Charity did not appear. Night deepened and the hours passed. Frantically Bristol paced back and forth through the rooms, picking up items and letting them fall. Where was she? Where was she! Throughout the slow silent hours, Bristol reviewed every word, every tiny gesture Charity had made today. She’d been so elated to see Charity restored to her old self that Bristol hadn’t questioned the reasons for the change. Charity should have been beside herself with anguish, but she’d been outwardly calm—inwardly peaceful. Why? What had happened? What had released Charity’s agony?
Toward dawn, Bristol sank into a chair and rubbed her aching temples. Where was Charity? What was her state of mind? What was she thinking? Bristol leaned her head against the top of the chair. This was getting her nowhere. She’d have a mug of hot beer to steady her nerves. By the time she finished a mug, the sun would be up. If Charity hadn’t ridden through the gate by then, Bristol would go for help.
She stood and passed a weary hand across her eyes. Exhausted, she’d bent to the hearth before she remembered the beer would be cold; they’d let the fire die out. Her eyes stared at a pile of fine white ash for several seconds before she registered what it was. Then her green eyes focused on a browned curl of paper. A scrap of letter that hadn’t burned:
... forgive you, my darling, but I worry that you will not forgive yourself....
Bristol screamed. In her heart she knew. Oh, God, she knew! She knew where Charity had gone!
The mare’s pounding hooves made an eerie sound in the empty predawn lanes, and Bristol felt a surge of relief when the mare turned into freshly seeded fields and raced toward the forest edge. They entered the shadowy thicket, and Bristol found a hidden pathway, overgrown with summer foliage, gray and dim in the feeble light.
“Hurry,” Bristol urged, her teeth chattering. “Hurry!” She kicked hard at the mare’s flank.
Her heart jumped to her mouth, and she felt lightheaded when the mare skidded into the clearing. Early pink touched the tumbling chimney of the settler’s cabin. A chill iced Bristol’s flesh as she spotted Exodus, still saddled, nibbling at the encroaching forest.
“Charity!” Bristol screamed, her feet running before they touched the ground. It was quiet. So terribly quiet. “Charity!” Bristol raced across the sagging porch and burst through the door.
She stopped, her skirts billowing out in front of her. Then she crashed to her knees, clutching her stomach and staring up in sick horror.
Charity swung from the rafter, turning slowly.
She had thrown a rope over the sturdy ceiling beam. Below her dangling feet, a stool lay on its side. Bristol looked at the stool. A C was carved in the top—not an old C, but a fresh one, perhaps a year old. C for Charity.
Slowly Bristol raised her eyes; she could not look away. One of Charity’s shoes had fallen off, and her stockinged foot seemed so small, so vulnerable. Her fingers were curled like a child’s. And for once, Charity’s freckles were unnoticeable; her face was swollen, infused with blood. Her pale blind eyes stared into eternity.
Bristol pitched forward into the black dirt.
32
They brought Charity home, quiet men from the village, and laid her out on the kitchen table. “No,” Bristol said politely, there would be no public service. “No,” she said, she didn’t need or want help. “No,” she repeated, no cemetery plot, she’d bury Charity at home where she could tend the grave herself. “Thank you and good-bye.”
When they left, she washed the body, moving like a person in deep wooden shock. It took a long time to work the rope loose from Charity’s neck. Then she dressed Charity in her finest gown and best linen apron and wove white roses in her hair.
Bristol did not hurry. It was late afternoon before everything was exactly right and she’d done all she could. Then she removed Caleb’s musket from above the hearth, and carefully loaded it. She poured herself a tall mug of straight rum and marched out to the barn.
The men, Clem and Booker, straightened in surprise when she entered the musty-smelling building. She ignored them and seated herself on a mound of sweet bay. Carefully she set the rum in the straw beside her and raised her knees, resting the musket there. She aimed it at the two servants.
“I want two caskets,” she said evenly.
“Ma’am? Two?”
“Two. Build one for my sister. Build the other for a man six feet tall.”
Clem and Booker exchanged uneasy glances. “Well, uh...”
“Do it, or I’ll blow you to hell.”
They stared at her calm white face and looked hard at her finger curling on the trigger. “Aye, ma’am.”
It was full dark when they finished, and Bristol’s mug was empty. She stepped them into the house at gun point and ordered Clem to pour rum all around. They sat outside on the porch, drinking and listening to the night. She kept the musket on them.
The moon had dropped when Bristol prodded them awake with the musket barrel. “Come on. We’re going now.”
Reluctantly they hitched the wagon and climbed on the seat. Bristol stood behind them in the straw bed, the musket inches from their heads. They cast terrified looks at each other, both knowing where they were going. She didn’t have to tell them.
For a few minutes she thought she’d have to shoot them both. But they stared into her narrow eyes, then drug their feet up Gallows Hill.
“Don’t make me, Goody Wainwright, please don’t make me,” Clem pleaded, looking down at the shallow grave and the pieces of flesh protruding above the dirt.
“I can’t!” Booker begged, a sob in his throat.
“Get him out of there, or I swear I’ll kill you both.”
They looked at each other desperately, neither doubting she’d do it. Booker sobbed, and Clem shuddered uncontrollably. “It ain’t natural!” he cried. “The devil will get us sure!”
“Maybe,” Bristol snapped. “But right now you have to worry about me.” Her finger tightened on the trigger. “Get... him... out... of... there!” She stepped back and aimed, and her finger quivered.
“We’re doing it! We’re doing it!” Sobbing openly, frightened nearly out of their wits, the men brushed the dirt from Caleb’s body; then she threatened them down the hill to the wagon. They laid Caleb in the straw bed and drove her home, the musket steady at the back of their necks.
“What if somebody sees us?” one of them asked, shivering. The horses made a lonely flesh-creeping sound in the dark dead lane.
“Are you gonna let us live?” the other one whispered.
Bristol didn’t speak, not a single word, until the wagon creaked to a halt before the barn. “Over there. Under the oak tree. Dig.”
Golden rays of dawn glowed across the treetops before they finished the graves and fell exhausted against the oak trunk. They stared at her like she was a demon escaped from the pits of hell.
“Get up,” she ordered. The three of them went into the barn and returned with the coffins. She watched as they lowered the caskets into the open holes. “Now, bring my husband.”
Clem stopped beside the wagon, his face set in stubborn fatigue. “No, ma’am. This is it. I ain’t going to touch him again. That there is a witch. I ain’t going to do it!” be balked.
She lowered the musket and blew off the tip of his left shoe. Before either of the tired, stunned men could react, she dropped the spent gun and reached under the straw in the wagon and withdrew the loaded musket Caleb kept hidden there. She aimed it at their chests. “Dammit, now you move!”
Clem howled and stared at his bloody shoe. “My Gawd, she shot off my big toe! Look at that! Most of it’s gone!”
“The next ball goes between your eyes unless you put my husband in his grave!”
Grunting, they carried Caleb to the grave and lowered him into the coffin. Clem trailed bloody footprints in the dust.
“Now my sister.” They fetched Charity, and Bristol watched through narrowed eyes. “Be careful!”
When they’d finished, they stood in shuddering quiet, the open graves behind them.
“If I hear one word, a single word, about what happened here tonight, I’ll shoot you down like dogs,” she said in a steady voice. “It may take the rest of my life, but I will find you and I will kill you.” They believed it. “I never want to see either of your faces in this county again.” They nodded crazily. Bristol tossed a bag of coins at the feet of each. “Now, get out of here. You may both take a horse, but not Exodus or old Brown. Any of the others.”
They raced for the barn like the devil nipped their heels, and in a few minutes they flew past the house and vanished down the lane.
Bristol waited until the noise of horses’ hooves faded, then slid into the graves and placed a spray of summer flowers in the hands of Charity and Caleb. She didn’t look at their faces; she wanted to remember them as they’d been, not as they looked now. She smoothed Charity’s apron and adjusted Caleb’s leg so the tear in his stocking did not show. Then she lowered the coffin lids into the holes and nailed them shut.
Exhausted, Bristol dragged across the yard and into the house. Already the sun was hot, and wet rings circled her arms. For a moment she sat at the kitchen table and rested. She felt tired and empty.
But she couldn’t stop, not yet. After dashing her face and neck with cool water, she collected a broom and a sharp knife and returned to the open graves. Filling them was hard. Blisters bubbled up on her palms, broke over the shovel handle, and reformed. At the finish, she thought she would faint. Her arms felt like lead, and her back ached as if she would break in two.
Before sitting for a brief rest in the leafy shade, Bristol stamped up and down over the graves, packing the dirt. She shoveled more dirt and packed that. The graves might sink as they settled, and she didn’t want that to happen.
In the barn she found a wheelbarrow and used it to carry away the extra dirt, scattering it about the barnyard. The sun hammered at her head, and the entire upper part of her gown was soaked through with perspiration. A buzzing roared in her ears, and only sheer determination kept her on her feet and moving. She didn’t know how much time she had. And oh, God, she was tired!
Finished with the extra dirt, she returned to the graves and swept all traces of loose soil out of the grassy cover beneath the oak. Then she took the knife and walked into the pasture. She hacked out a piece of sod here and another there, not taking them from the same spot. Loading the pieces in the wheelbarrow, she pushed back to the graves. Working painstakingly, she trimmed the sod and fitted it together like a puzzle over the raw dirt of the graves.
At last it was done. Bowing her head, Bristol stood between the graves and quietly offered a prayer for them both. “God bless you and keep you,” she whispered at the end. “And may you find each other in heaven.”
She stepped back, swaying with fatigue, and critically examined her handiwork. Unless someone stood exactly over the spot, the graves were unnoticeable. She’d fitted the sod tightly, and in a few weeks nature would complete the task. Only Bristol would know the graves were there.
Satisfied, she returned the wheelbarrow to the barn, put away the wagon, fed the animals, swept out tracks and footprints, and picked up her broom and dulled knife. Both hands were bloody and swollen; gripping anything sent waves of pain up to her shoulders. She dragged herself to the house.
Inside, Bristol stripped off her wet ruined gown, wanting a bath more than anything. She sat on the edge of her bed, telling herself she’d rest for just a moment, then carry in water for a wash. But she sagged backward and fell instantly asleep.
When she woke, the heat of the day had passed and the slant of mellow shadow streaking the planks told her it was early evening. Bristol pulled into a sitting position, scrubbing at her eyes. Even with sleep, she still felt tired, and muscles she hadn’t known she had, ached and protested each movement.
The buzzing continued to hum inside her head, and for an instant she wasn’t certain whether she’d heard a knock or imagined it. Tying a wrapper around her waist, she walked slowly down the hallway.
A thin man with shifting eyes and a weasel face stood on the porch; another rode through the gate. Bristol combed her fingers through her hair and pulled the wrapper together at her breast. “Think, think,” she whispered to herself, but her mind seemed wrapped in insulation. Her body walked, her puffy hands moved, but her mind didn’t seem part of anything she did.
“What is it?” she said.
The man’s eyes lifted from her breasts. “You the Widow Wainwright?” He leered.
Bristol cringed.
He unrolled a length of poster, his eyes flicking to her breasts and the satiny gleam of moisture on her skin. “This here’s a legal notice,” he announced. He waved it briefly in front of her face, then nailed it to the side of the door.
“What?” Bristol gasped. If only her brain would wake up! The paper looked fuzzy. “What are you doing?” How dared he drive nails into Caleb’s house?
“Your husband is an executed felon. Everything he owned now belongs to the state.” The weasel face smiled in satisfaction; all was right in the world. “You got ten days to vacate the premises.” He licked his lips. “If you got no place to go, dearie—”
“Get out,” Bristol choked. A tide of panic tightened her throat. Where could she go? With no money and no family, where in God’s name could she go? A sense of despair cluttered her mind, and her eyes hardened at the injustice of it. Green flint stared over the farm Caleb had loved. Gone. All gone.
The man leaned his elbow against the door. “Now, I could—”
“You heard the lady, get your slimy butt out of here!” Sheriff George Corwin slid off his horse and walked up the porch steps. He stared hard at the weasel-faced man.
“I’m only doing my job,” the man whined.
“Do it somewhere else.” George Corwin kicked the weasel-faced man over the side of the porch and growled down at him. The man scrambled up from his knees and ran toward his horse. “Ten days!” he called over his shoulder. “You got ten days!”
Bristol closed her eyes. “Thank you,” she said softly to George Corwin. She leaned against the doorjamb, feeling two hundred years old. Old and burned out. Where would she go? She didn’t have money for ship passage, she didn’t even have enough actual coins for more than three days at one of the inns.
Sheriff Corwin fidgeted on the porch, turning his hat in large hands.
“I’m sorry, Sheriff, my mind is... Would you step inside and share a cup of cider? It’s cool.”
“... uh... the truth is, Goodwife Wainwright, this isn’t a social call.” An uncomfortable red darkened his face. “Fact is, I have to arrest you.”
Bristol stared, and her heart fell to her knees. But it wasn’t really a surprise; nothing could be. “Witchcraft?” she whispered when her stiff lips would move.
Corwin nodded. “The girls say you witched Charity to death and, uh...” He shifted his bulk and glanced briefly at her swollen hands. “... and there’s a second count of bodysnatching.”
Bristol nodded slowly. She’d known it might happen, else why had she taken such pains to hide the graves? She stood in the doorway, not moving.
“I know it’s a shock,” Corwin said smoothly, not looking at her hands again. “But Wainwright’s body is gone.” He ran a finger around the inside of his collar. “Lotta folks want a decent burial for their loved ones... however, I sure don’t see any grave around here.” He didn’t look.
Instead he met Bristol’s vacant eyes with an expression of sympathy, and she wondered if George Corwin believed in witches. She suspected a tug-of-war played in his head.
His hat circled in his fingers, and he stared out at the barns and pastures, the fields thick with young shoots of summer wheat. “I told you I knew your pa,” he said quietly. “Not a finer man born than Noah Adams. I served wit
h him in the militia, back in the early days. I’m glad he isn’t here to see what’s happened to his family, to this county.”
“You’re only doing what you have to,” Bristol said, guessing his thoughts.
Heaving a massive sigh, he met Bristol’s eyes. “We have to go, ma’am,” he said.
“Aye.” Bristol shook her head, wishing the buzz would go away. Stepping toward him, she wondered if he would tie her hands.
“Maybe you’d like to change out of that...” Corwin’s big hand indicated the wrapper. No surprise showed in his ruddy expression; he’d done this before, he knew what arrest did to people’s minds.
“Aye,” Bristol agreed, her voice blunted. But she didn’t move. She looked at him to tell her what to do.
Corwin opened the door and guided her inside. He sat at the kitchen table and waited while Bristol entered the bedroom and dropped a gown over her head. When she came into the kitchen struggling to fasten her collar, he gently pushed away her puffed hands and fastened it himself. Then he suggested she might want to take a few things.
“Aye,” she answered, returning to the bedroom. Picking up her hairbrush, she turned it in her fingers, trying to think what to do with it.
George Corwin took the brush and laid it on the bed. “Maybe a change of... ah...”
She understood and lifted fresh underclothing from her trunk. He turned his back. “You might want a dress for the examination...?” Of course he was right. She chose a light summer green—someone had once mentioned she looked especially well in green, but she couldn’t think who might have said so. Folding the gown around her underthings, she handed the bundle to the sheriff, who then laid it on the bed.
Gently he suggested stockings, apron, collars and “... something for your hair, those little caps.” She laid them out, “I think it might be wise to include a cloak,” he added, dropping his eyes. “We don’t know how long you’ll be gone.”
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