‘‘Just like I thought!’’ I exclaimed.
‘‘But my daddy said he didn’t think he would come back with a war on. Then they were talking about her brothers, Ward and Templeton, hating each other and what would happen if Uncle Templeton found out.’’
‘‘If he didn’t ever come back, then—’’ I said, ‘‘then it could still be here!’’
We were walking pretty fast by now, our legs trying to keep up with our tongues.
‘‘Is that what those bad men were after?’’ Katie asked, panting to keep up with my longer legs.
‘‘Hmm . . . doesn’t seem likely.’’ I shook my head. ‘‘Otherwise why would they have killed your family and other folks around? Why would they have killed your ma if she was the one who knew where it was? Why wouldn’t they have searched the place? Just doesn’t seem likely to me.’’
We were both quiet for a while.
‘‘Where might it be?’’ I wondered out loud. ‘‘Think, Miss Katie. Is there any place where your ma and pa might have hid something valuable? Did they have someplace like my mama’s chest under the bed where they kept treasures, a box or a—what’s that kind of thing called where people put stuff and lock it?’’
‘‘A safe? I think my daddy had one in his office.’’
‘‘Show me.’’
We were pretty excited by the time we got back to the house. We hurried into the house and upstairs to the office.
Katie looked around, then walked to a picture on the wall and swung it open. It was attached on the side instead of the top. Behind it in the wall there was a black metal door with a round knob on it with numbers all around in a circle.
‘‘There it is!’’
‘‘Can you open it?’’ I asked.
She tried the handle, but it was locked.
‘‘That’s gotta be where it is,’’ I said. ‘‘How do you open it?’’
Katie shook her head. ‘‘I think it’s something like a puzzle. You have to turn the dial back and forth. I saw Mama fiddling with it once.’’
‘‘But you don’t know how to do it?’’
She shook her head again.
‘‘Maybe there’s something in the desk that tells about it,’’ I said, walking over and looking at the papers and boxes and files on top of it. ‘‘You gotta look, Miss Katie, and see if you can find something that tells about it.’’
‘‘I will, Mayme.’’
‘‘Maybe it better wait till later,’’ I said. ‘‘I can smell that fresh bread down in the kitchen, and it’s making me hungry.’’
‘‘You’re always hungry, Mayme,’’ Katie laughed. ‘‘Let’s go eat.’’
‘‘Maybe we should finish the old half loaf first,’’ I said. ‘‘And besides, the new ones will be too hot to cut.’’
UNEXPECTED VISITORS
33
NOW WHERE IS IT?’’ I SAID AS WE WALKED into the kitchen.
Katie glanced around too, but the leftover half loaf of bread was nowhere to be seen.
‘‘That’s a mite odd,’’ I said. ‘‘Did that dog follow us into the house when we came back from the woods?’’
Katie laughed. ‘‘I’ve never seen him eat bread, and he sure isn’t here now.’’
I shrugged and headed out to the barn while Katie worked on our lunch. I had to clean out the stalls after the morning’s milking.
As I came in, something scurried into a dark corner. Probably a barn cat, I thought when I didn’t see or hear anything more. Maybe it’s the critter that ate that missing bread, I joked to myself as I climbed up into the hayloft to throw down some clean hay for the animals. I tossed down the bales, then clambered back down the notched pole to the barn floor.
I had just started to shovel the manure out of the stalls when suddenly Katie ran in, a look of terror on her face. Her eyes were huge, and she was trying to say something.
‘‘There’s . . . it’s some . . . there’s men coming. On horseback,’’ she stammered.
A shiver went all through me. It was just what I’d been afraid of. After the two earlier visitors we’d had, and my talks with Katie about what was to become of us, I’d hoped the next people we’d encounter would be someone Katie trusted, someone who could help her—a relative or a friend, or maybe someone from nearby like a sheriff or a minister or something, or maybe even that Mr. Thurston fellow again.
But the first thing to come into my mind, when I heard her say some men was that marauding gang that had killed my family and hers. If they’d come back, I knew well enough what they’d do if they found us alone. They’d kill me and do things to Katie I didn’t even want to think about. She was pretty enough and growing up. That much was plain to anyone who took a good look at her. And if they found an empty house, they might just decide to stay and take it over themselves.
I didn’t need to tell Katie to be quiet. She was trembling from head to foot. It wasn’t but a few seconds after she came in before I heard horses outside, then men’s voices.
I set the pitchfork down as quietly as I could and crept to the door of the barn. I peeked out and saw a couple of men on horseback. Luckily it wasn’t anything like the big band of riders from before. They were riding into the open space between the barn and the house.
I jerked my head back and scurried to Katie, grabbing her hand and motioning with a finger to my lips. I pulled her to a dark corner where we ducked down out of sight behind an empty stall. I stuck my face up to the boards and shut one eye, trying to peer out through a crack.
‘‘See if anyone’s home,’’ said a rough, deep voice that made me shiver just to hear it. ‘‘I’ll check the barn for feed.’’
I could see plain enough that there were three of them. I suppose they could have been just friendly neighbors. But I doubted it. They were scraggly and mean looking. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the men who’d killed our families.
‘‘Look through here,’’ I whispered. ‘‘Anybody you know?’’
Katie leaned across me and squinted, then leaned back and shook her head.
The next moment we heard the door of the barn creak open, and a shaft of light followed. Then came the dull thud of boots walking slowly across the wood floor. Katie was huddled so close I could feel her whole body shaking. She stuck her head against my chest, and I put my arm around her and stroked her hair. I was afraid she might start crying, but she didn’t.
Suddenly the boots stopped. The man was in the middle of the barn, only about twenty feet from us. I could sense him looking around.
‘‘Anybody there?’’ he called out.
Silence. I wondered if he could hear our hearts pounding.
He stood there for what seemed like forever. Then the boots started walking again. I heard what sounded like oats being scooped out of the bin into a bag, then he went back outside.
I peeked through the crack again. The other man was just walking back from the door of the house.
‘‘Ain’t nobody in the house, Jeb,’’ he said.
‘‘Abandoned?’’ asked the man who had been in the barn. He handed the bag of oats to the third man, who started giving handfuls to their horses.
‘‘Don’t look like it. Place’s all tidy and a fire’s on. Fresh bread’s on the table.’’
The one called Jeb scratched his chin.
‘‘Huh . . . barn looked worked too,’’ he said.
‘‘Might be women here. Wouldn’t hurt to look around.’’
I felt Katie’s trembling become even more noticeable.
‘‘I could use a woman, Jeb,’’ he went on. ‘‘It’s been—’’
‘‘Shut up, Hal, you fool! You’ll get all the women you want after we find what we’re looking for.’’
‘‘Where are they, then?’’ asked the other.
‘‘Don’t know.’’
‘‘Out in the fields someplace?’’
Jeb shrugged. ‘‘From the looks of it, there’s folks about.’’
‘‘Then we’ll just
wait and kill ’em when they come back,’’ snarled the other man with a nasty laugh.
‘‘Yeah, and you’re a blamed idiot. Ain’t you had your fill of killin’? We don’t need a price on our heads. ’Sides, we’ll never find him if we kill his kin. If this is his sister’s place, then she’s likely to know something.’’
‘‘Maybe not, Jeb. We ain’t found a trace of him in months. He likely never even made it back this far.’’
‘‘What else we gonna do? We’ll just feed our horses and rest up a spell. When they come back, we’ll just be real friendly and ask if they can put us up for a couple a nights. We’ll do our nosing around and get a lead on Ward and the dough. Now go inside and rustle us up some grub. I’ll unhitch the horses.’’
They’re sure to find us sooner or later, I thought. We had to do something.
‘‘Come with me,’’ I whispered real quiet to Katie.
Slowly I got to my feet, took her hand, and led her toward the back of the barn. If we could get out the back door and make a dash for the woods, we might be able to get away without being seen.
I opened the door slowly. It was a good thing it didn’t make much noise. Nobody was in sight. The three men were all still on the other side between the barn and the back of the house, or maybe they’d gone into the house by now.
‘‘Can you run with me?’’ I whispered.
Katie nodded.
‘‘Then let’s go.’’
We got outside. I closed the door behind us carefully, then we took off side by side. The first trees were maybe fifty yards away. We had to climb over one rail fence, which we did. By then we could have been seen from the kitchen if anyone had been looking out the window. But I heard nothing behind us.
We ran as fast as we could, and in another thirty feet we were in the trees. Katie stopped and fell to the ground.
‘‘Not yet, Miss Katie,’’ I said, ‘‘we’ve gotta get farther. They can still see us from here.’’
I gave her a hand and pulled her to her feet. We ran a little more and when we couldn’t see any of the plantation buildings I finally began to feel safe.
We stopped to catch our breath. After half a minute I started walking again.
‘‘Where are we going?’’ asked Katie.
‘‘We’re gonna try to get back to the house,’’ I said. ‘‘We’ll have to keep in the woods. But if we walk all the way around to the other side, we’ll come toward the front of the house without them seeing us.’’
‘‘Why?’’ said Katie. ‘‘What are we going to do?’’
‘‘I ain’t sure yet,’’ I muttered. ‘‘I’m workin’ on it.’’
‘‘What did that man mean about finding the dough?’’ asked Katie. ‘‘Was he talking about our bread?’’
‘‘No, Miss Katie—dough’s money. It sounds like they’re looking for money.’’
‘‘But we don’t have any.’’
‘‘We might, Miss Katie,’’ I said.
‘‘What do you mean?’’
‘‘Your uncle’s gold. Didn’t you hear? They said they were trying to find Ward.’’
Her eyes got wide again.
‘‘But it doesn’t sound like they think the gold is here,’’ I said. ‘‘—Come on.’’
There was no time to think about gold now. I had to figure out a way to get rid of the men . . . and keep ourselves alive!
We crept through the woods, making a great big wide circle back toward the house. I half hoped we’d imagined the whole thing or that we’d get back and find the men gone. But after what had happened already to both of us, I don’t guess there was much sense in thinking like that. This predicament was happening all right, just like everything else we’d been through.
And sure enough, the men were still there. I saw the three horses tied up in back. I ducked back into the woods and we kept going.
As we sneaked through the trees and bushes, I gradually came up with a plan in my head. A pretty crazy one, I reckon, but then what else could we do?
When the coast was clear and I hoped the men weren’t looking, we scurried toward the front of the house on the opposite side from the barn and kitchen where the three had gone in, making our way closer and hiding behind each of the big oaks until we were approaching the big white front entryway.
TAKING ON THE MOTLEY
STRANGERS
34
MISS KATIE,’’ I WHISPERED. WE WERE AT THE front of the house and ducked down low against the wall. ‘‘—You know where your daddy’s guns are? In that cabinet in the hall between the living room and the parlor?’’
Katie nodded, her eyes getting big again. ‘‘What do you want with my daddy’s guns, Mayme?’’ she said.
‘‘We’re gonna try to scare those men away.’’
‘‘How?’’
‘‘I’ll tell you when the time comes. What I want you to do first is sneak around the side of the house, there toward the kitchen wall. Keep under the windows. When you get to the corner, get some rocks and throw them at their horses.’’
‘‘Rocks—what for?’’
‘‘To startle ’em. When they run outside to see what’s wrong, I’ll dash in and grab us two guns.’’
‘‘But, Mayme—’’
‘‘You can do it, Miss Katie. Don’t be scared.’’
‘‘I am scared!’’
‘‘Nothing will happen to you.’’
‘‘What if something happens to you!’’
‘‘Nothing’s gonna happen to me neither. I’ll be in and out of there quicker’n you can snap your fingers.’’
‘‘What should I do after I throw the rocks?’’
‘‘Keep hidden around the corner. The minute you see the men coming out the door, get back to the front of the house and out there into the woods and past the oaks where we just were. I’ll meet you there.’’
‘‘I can’t do it, Mayme. What if they hear—what if they come after me?’’
‘‘You’ll be clear on the other side of the house while they’re out tryin’ to figure out what spooked their horses.’’
She wasn’t none too pleased about the arrangement. But she finally nodded and said she’d try. And I’ve got to hand it to her, she held up her end bravely enough.
I helped her get going off along the side of the house between the white columns, making sure she hunched down under the windows. Then I crept up onto the front porch. I waited.
When I heard a rock thud on the ground in back and a horse start to whinny, I opened the door a crack to listen. I heard chairs scraping back from the table and booted feet going out the door.
I darted inside, into the hallway by the parlor and to the cabinet. I fumbled to get it open, took out a rifle and a shotgun, then grabbed a bunch of shells, stuffed them in my dress pocket, and hurried out the way I’d come.
The second I was out the door I saw Katie across the field ahead of me from one oak to the next, holding her dress up and running like a jackrabbit.
I took off after her, but not as fast since I was lugging the guns. I was glad the house was between the horses and us. Every second I was afraid of shouts or a shot behind me. But neither happened. We made it to the woods and ducked down out of sight again. Both of us were gasping for air.
‘‘You did right fine, Miss Katie,’’ I said between breaths.
‘‘I was scared,’’ she panted.
‘‘So was I. But look—I got the guns.’’
‘‘What are we going to do with them?’’ she wanted to know.
‘‘We’re gonna shoot ’em.’’
‘‘Shoot the three men!’’
‘‘No, silly, just shoot the guns off. Scare ’em.’’
‘‘I never held a gun in my life.’’
‘‘Ain’t nothing to it. Except it gives a little kick on your shoulder.’’
‘‘What do you mean, a kick?’’
‘‘It just knocks you back a bit. You have to lean into it so it doesn’t knock you on your r
ump.’’
‘‘But how’re we going to scare them?’’
‘‘By making them think a whole bunch of men are shooting at ’em. Now, come with me. I’ll show you what to do.’’
‘‘Oh, Mayme. I’m afraid. What if I do it wrong?’’ she moaned.
I pulled her to her feet, and handed her a gun, which she took in her hands like it was going to explode any second.
‘‘You’ll do fine, Miss Katie. We’ve gotta get your house back. We don’t want them to stay here, do we? They might stay forever if we don’t do something.’’
‘‘How do you know how to shoot a gun, Mayme?’’ she asked again, like she couldn’t help herself.
‘‘ ’Cause I watch and listen,’’ I said as patiently as I could. ‘‘I’ve seen white men with guns, and I listened to our own men talk about them. The master used to take my grandpapa hunting with him, and grandpapa talked about it. Grandpapa kept one of the master’s guns in our cabin, and I used to watch him clean it. But I’ve never shot a gun in my life either. I just figure it can’t be too hard.’’
I carefully looked over at the shotgun I held, then the rifle in Katie’s hands.
Katie just stood there staring at me like she did when she was all worked up about something. It wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to think clearly when somebody was staring straight into your face from about a foot away. But I did my best.
I figured Katie’d be safest right here, at the edge of the woods, far away from the house. I leaned the shotgun against a tree so I could show her how to use the rifle.
‘‘You’re gonna shoot this one, Miss Katie,’’ I said. ‘‘It ain’t got the kick of a shotgun, but you still gotta lean forward and hold on tight.’’
She looked terrified.
‘‘Now here’s how you load it,’’ I explained. ‘‘We’ll load it right now—here’s the shells. I’ll leave this handful with you. Just put them on the ground beside you. Here . . . take a few shells. . . .’’
I made her take some and load them into the gun herself so she’d know how.
‘‘You might need to load and shoot real fast,’’ I said.
Angels Watching Over Me (Shenandoah Sisters Book #1) Page 16