Maggie lay just out of arms reach, chest heaving as she pulled in great draughts of air.
He shook his head. The blackness swept in and blurred the edges of his vision.
The door jerked open and banged against the wall. “Zeb! Zeb, come quick! He tryin’ ta kill her!”
Simon rubbed the back of his head and staggered to his feet. He cursed the darkie soundly and surged toward her, his fingers fumbling for the red kerchief tied about her head.
Gasping like a fox on the run from baying hounds, she spun to face him and pressed herself flat against the wall as her man barreled through the front door.
Simon’s fingers fell short of their intended grasp as the buck plowed into him and he tumbled backward, sprawling onto the floor once more.
Maggie crawled away toward the corner, her lungs still sucking madly for breath.
The black buck loomed huge, his clenched fists the size of sledge-hammer heads.
Think Simon. Get control. From his prone position, he stretched out his palms and tapped them toward the ground in a calming gesture. “Everyone just quiet down. I only want to know where the child is. Bring me the child and all will be fine.”
The darkie kept his watchful stance. “I’m sorry massah. We cain’t be bringin’ you the child. It’s done buried in the cemetery. You come with me now and I’ll show you the parcel. You leave Miss Maggie be.”
Simon studied the female, assessing her reaction to the words. Her gaze darted to the floor, but then her chin tipped up and she nodded her agreement. “Thet’s the Good Lawd’s truth, Suh.”
Simon slid his derringer into his palm and shot the man through the leg.
Both women screamed as the darkie toppled with a cry of pain. His head lolled to one side and he passed out. The doe fell to her knees beside him. “Zeb! Zeb! Oh Lawd, Zeb Honey!” She pulled the kerchief from her head and cinched it around the red, gushing wound.
Simon calmly reloaded. He would get the information. He was good at getting information.
After several long moments she lifted her head. Hatred, such hatred as he had never seen, radiated from every trembling inch of her.
“Ah good. I see you’ve realized how powerless you are.” He stiff-armed the gun toward the buck again. “Tell me where the child is, or today you will watch your husband die, slowly, one bullet hole after another.” He spoke slowly so she would be sure to understand.
Her eyes widened, stark with fear, but fixed on something over his shoulder.
Instinctively, he ducked and spun around arms swinging in a sweeping gesture.
His elbow caught Maggie in the ribs. A sharp snap reverberated through the room. With a cry she stumbled back clutching her ribcage. The crystal vase she’d been holding over her head fell from her fingers – shattered with a piercing clash. Her foot caught in the hem of her dress. She flailed helplessly as she toppled backward. A loud, hollow thunk resounded as her temple smacked into the wooden arm of the settee. Her body fell limp and slumped to the floor.
He gaped at her.
“Oh, Lawd have mercy!”
“Shut up!” he snapped at the hysterical darkie, emphasizing his command with the level of the gun.
“Mags, darling.” He squatted by her, feeling for a pulse in her neck. Nothing. He sighed. If she would have just been the good, compliant wife he’d thought she would be. Why did she have to be so fractious?
The red marks left by his fingers stood in stark contrast to the pale skin of her lifeless throat.
As though he could erase what he’d done, he stroked a finger across them. “Ah, Mags. We could have had such a good life together.”
He paused. The locket she always wore, the one that had been her grandmother’s, was not around her neck. He’d never seen her without it. What had happened to it?
A movement from the corner of his eye drew his attention. The slave trying to pull her man out the door.
Forcing his focus to where it needed to be, he demanded, “Stop.” Standing to his feet, he steadied his aim. Even with her kerchief tied about the darkie’s leg, a large pool of blood oozed across the floor. The man was not long for this world. Best he work quickly then.
He tilted the barrel of the gun up toward the ceiling and lowered his voice. “Tell me what Mags has been up to while I’ve been gone and I will help you get him to the doctor.”
The doe shook her head. “I don’t know nothin’, Suh. Honest, I don’t.”
“Your buck is dying right in front of you, girl. Speak up, now.”
Her gaze darted to the darkie and the expanding pool of blood around him. “I can’t tell you somethin’ I don’t know, Suh.”
He frowned. “Mags always told you everything!”
“Please Suh, this time she didn’t confide in me. Said the less I knew the better.” Her voice was too calm.
He jacked a second shell into the buck’s other leg.
The woman screamed and sprawled out over the man in a lame attempt to protect him. “Please, please, Massah Simon, Suh. I knows nothin’! Miss Maggie, she have the baby early. A little girl it was. Miss Maggie sew that little baby a doll. Then she took a trip with my Zeb and she come home without the baby. Thet’s alls I know, Massah, honest it is!”
Another bullet slid easily into the gun. “What about all the valuables? I suppose you know nothing about them either?”
“She take all them things into town and come home without them. But I don’t know what she done with them! And that’s the Lawd’s truth!”
He leveled the gun and squinted down the barrel just to keep the woman talking.
Like a mother hen trying to protect a chick she spread herself over the man. “She weren’t expectin’ you home. Not this soon, Suh. She wrote you a note! Left it on the mantle for you to find, she did.”
He strode to the fireplace, leaving her to do what she would with the dying buck.
The note had been simple. Good bye, Simon. Your wicked deeds have folded back upon you. May God have mercy on your soul, for I cannot. Margaret….
….He rubbed his sweaty palms down the front of his pants. This would be the telling moment. Had he figured things out correctly? Or had he spent years of his life on a desperate search for something that didn’t exist? That would certainly give Mags the last laugh.
Two steps and he had the doll in his hands. He squeezed and felt nothing hard on the inside. He cursed. If all these years he’d been searching for a phantom…. He started with each leg and methodically squeezed and bent them. Nothing. The main part of the body, stuffed with something soft, held no hard objects. Nothing in the arms. That left the head. He compressed it. It was hard. Filled with sand? He grinned. “Ah Mags. You really were a smart one. Some days I miss you.”
The seam in the head was mostly covered by yarn, but a small section of it became visible at the doll’s neck. He should just take the whole doll and work on it in his room at the boarding house. But by the way they’d looked at the picnic, he had plenty of time before they came home and he didn’t want anyone to notice anything amiss. He just needed to find her sewing basket and a pair of scissors. After a few moments he would return the doll looking as if it had never been touched and slip away totally undetected.
20
“May I have everyone’s attention!” Mr. Reed stood at the top of the hill and clapped his hands. Silence settled across the hillside and Victoria focused her attention on the man. “The board members and I have been talking. This turnout has been such a success, and we know we owe a lot to our special school teacher, a woman who grew up attending our fine school, Miss Sharyah Jordan.” He held a hand out in Sharyah’s direction and everyone applauded and several whistles pierced the air.
Victoria frowned. Where had Cade gone? He’d been by Sharyah’s side only a moment earlier, but now she seemed to be alone and her face held all the color of bread dough.
Sharyah smiled, however, and waved her thanks. Perhaps Cade had just wandered off for a moment.
�
�But that’s not all we talked about,” Mr. Reed continued. “As you all know, every year the children participate in the three-legged-penny races and the winners receive half the pot for that race. Those races will start in a moment—”
A cheer rose up from the cluster of children by the creek but Mr. Reed held up his hands for silence. “But first, this year, we’ve decided to give the opportunity for parents and children to enter the race as teams!”
A murmur of excitement rippled over the hillside, but Victoria noticed several of the orphans on Hannah’s blanket squirm uncomfortably. She closed her eyes, her heart going out to them.
“Now, listen!” Mr. Reed had to yell now to be heard over the growing tumult. “There are several children in our midst who do not have parents. So we’d like to ask any of you who don’t have children of your own to race with, to partner up with one of the orphans and let’s make this a day of fun and celebration for all!”
The little faces on the blanket next to theirs brightened considerably and Victoria eased out a slow breath of relief.
“Can we enter the race?” Jimmy blurted as he, ChristyAnne and Damera suddenly appeared back at the blanket with expectant looks of anticipation. They glanced first at Rocky then her, bouncing from one foot to the other.
“Well, I don’t know…” Rocky glanced over at her a twinkle in his eyes, and it was almost more than she could do to keep a somber expression as, in unison, the children’s countenances fell. “…why we wouldn’t.”
It took a moment for his last words to register. Then…
“Yes!” Jimmy spun in a circle.
“Oh Goody!” ChristyAnne clapped her hands.
“Hooway!” Damera jumped up and down, kicking her legs like a spring calf.
Victoria grinned at their delight in something so simple.
Rocky chuckled and stood to his feet, dusting his pants and settling his hat on his head before he reached down to help Victoria up. Once she was standing, she started to pull away, but he tightened his grip on her hand and stepped closer. “There’s three of them!” he whispered in her ear, near panic lacing his voice.
She chuckled and whispered back, “You have two legs, make it a four-legged race!” She stepped back and this time he allowed it.
“Ah!” A light of understanding dawned on his face as he turned to look at the children. “Okay, here’s how we are going to do this. ChristyAnne, you pair up with Victoria. Jimmy and Damera you’re with me.”
ChristyAnne hopped over to her side and Victoria draped an arm around the girl’s shoulders as they made their way to the starting line.
“I’ve never been in a three-legged race before. Some children back home went to a picnic one time and ran in one and they told me about it later, but Mama….” The little girl’s voice trailed off and Victoria gave her a gentle squeeze, sensing she needed to say whatever it was she’d been about to say.
“Mama, what?”
“Well,” ChristyAnne bent down and plucked a blade of grass, shredding it with her thumbnail as she talked, “my daddy used to work in a factory. But one day one of the machines caught his leg and crushed it and they had to take his whole leg off.”
“Oh honey, I’m so sorry.” Victoria rubbed her palm up and down her arm.
ChristyAnne sighed. “Daddy couldn’t work after that and he changed a lot. Got mad real easy.”
Victoria’s heart weighed down, at that revelation. How much these girls must have gone through! She wanted to speak soothing words of comfort, but held her peace, knowing that often simple silence and a listening ear was more comfort than anything.
“Our church back home was going to have a picnic with three-legged races, but Mama wouldn’t let us go to church that day. I think she was worried about how Daddy would feel, seeing all those people pretending at something that he had to live with everyday.”
“Does it make you sad to be in the race? Because we don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” Victoria reassured.
“No. I want to. Somehow I don’t think Daddy would mind. After all, he’s in heaven now, so he doesn’t have to worry none about a missing leg anymore. Leastwise, not if what the pastor says, is true.”
Victoria gave her a squeeze. “That’s right, honey. Do you mind my asking… what happened to your mama and daddy?”
The little girl stiffened and gave a small sigh. “Our neighbor lady said it was cholera. It took Daddy first. Then Mama.” She looked ahead to where Damera hopped along by Rocky’s side, seemingly without a care in the world. “Mama made me promise, before she passed, that I would take good care of Damera.” She swallowed and bent to pluck another blade. “There were so many times when I was so scared they were going to separate us! I prayed hard every day that God would keep us together and let me keep my promise to Mama.” She looked up and the pain in her expression was almost more than Victoria’s heart could take. “You have no idea how happy I was to hear you say you wanted to take us both. I know God used you to answer my prayers, and I’ll forever be indebted to you, even though you and Mr. Jordan can’t keep us.”
“Oh, honey!” Victoria pulled her close and laid her head against the little girl’s. “I’m so glad Rocky and I were there to take you! God often works for us in ways we can’t see until we travel ahead a bit and can look back with a little perspective. Rocky just reminded me the other day about the verses in Psalm 23 that talk about God preparing a table for us even in the presence of our enemies. I wonder sometimes if we even recognize when we are sitting at a table God prepared especially for us. I’m sure there have been times when I haven’t realized it. And it is so good that you are wise enough to recognize that God had a lot to do with keeping you two together.” She squeezed the little girl again. “And I, for one, am so glad that God let me be part of your answer.”
“Me too.” ChristyAnne hugged her back.
They had arrived at the starting line now, so further conversation would have to wait. Standing side by side, they placed their feet next to each other, slipped the loop Mr. Reed handed them around their ankles, and cinched it down tight.
Victoria noticed that Mama and Doc had both partnered up with an orphan, as had Sharyah, Sky and Brooke. Rachel Jordan stood on the sidelines holding baby Sierra, but Sean was also on the starting line with an orphan by his side. And even Hannah grinned at her from down the line, one sturdy leg being tied to the leg of a little girl less than half her size. When Victoria returned her grin, Hannah lifted her palms as if to say, “What else was I to do?”
Rocky paid the nickel entry fee for the five of them. There was much guffawing and laughter as Rocky had both his legs tied, one to Jimmy and the other to Damera.
“Hey that’s not fair,” Doc joked. “They’re going to have a distinct advantage! They’ve got four legs instead of three!”
Mr. Reed grinned as he wrapped an arm around each of his girls. “Well he won’t have an advantage over us, will he girls?” Elsa and Daria giggled and shook their heads as Mrs. Halvorson cinched down the last knot tying them to their father.
Mr. Halvorson stepped up to the end of the line and raised his arms above his head.
“You need a pistol!” someone shouted.
There was a pause as Mr. Halvorson waited for someone to bring him a gun.
Beside her, Victoria felt ChristyAnne tremble and she wrapped her arm around her and bent down. “Okay, now listen. To win a three-legged race we have to work together. We both start with our middle legs and then our outside ones. We need to go slow at first until we get our rhythm, then we can start moving a little faster, okay? Just listen to me and do what I say and whatever we do, let’s not let Rocky, Jimmy and Damera beat us!”
Gun in hand, Mr. Halvorson raised his arms above his head once more. “Ya’ll take your marks now!”
The little girl giggled. “We definitely can’t let Jimmy beat us! We’ll never hear the end of it!”
“Get set!”
“Okay, then. It’s a pact.” Victoria gr
inned, amazed at the swell of love that surged through her, not only for ChristyAnne, but for Damera and Jimmy, too. In that moment she knew she would do anything for these children.
Even allow yourself to have a complete relationship with Rocky?
The thought so flustered her, when Mr. Halvorson’s gun went off, she started on the wrong leg and she and ChristyAnne tumbled into the grass.
“I thought you said to start with the middle leg?” ChristyAnne giggled.
Victoria fought her skirts and ChristyAnne’s weight as she fumbled back to her feet. “I did!” She laughed. “Okay, this time, ready? Middle leg. Go!”
They started off in unison this time and quickly passed up, Rocky, Damera and Jimmy who had fallen in a tangled heap next to a similar mound formed by Mr. Reed and his two girls.
“Damera! Get up!” Jimmy’s tone held the epitome of frustration.
“I’m twying, but yo’ sitting on my dwess!”
ChristyAnne giggled and glanced back to see if they were making any progress, which turned her body into Victoria.
“Oh!” Victoria lost her balance and tumbled forward, her ribs connecting solidly with ChristyAnne’s shoulder as she landed on her and rolled over the top of her.
They both lay still in a stunned, frozen state for a split second then ChristyAnne said, “Ow!” She spit out a clump of grass that had somehow found its way into her mouth during the tumble. “Ew!” With swift fingers, she swiped at her tongue trying to remove the last vestiges of grass bits.
Victoria tried to stand but, when she couldn’t move her free leg, realized her foot was in a partially caved-in rabbit hole. “Ah!” She collapsed back to the ground and grunted when she landed on ChristyAnne’s hand.
“Sorry!” ChristyAnne jerked her hand free and shook the smashed appendage. “Ow again!” With a grunt she tried to get back to her feet but was jerked back down because Victoria’s derriere firmly pinned her skirt to the ground. With a huff, she gave up and sat still.
They looked at each other in befuddlement for a long moment. ChristyAnne’s mouth quirked up at one corner and Victoria felt her own humor mounting. All at once, they both burst out laughing.
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