Open Country

by Warner, Kaki

  There was page after page of chemical notations in feathery script, as well as detailed drawings of odd canister-type things, hot air balloons, rockets, and airships. Some of the designs Hank recognized; others he didn’t.

  Halfway through the book, Molly reached out to stop him from turning to the next page. “I know that name.” She pointed to a note in the margin. “McCullough. He’s a chemist, I think. My father mentioned him.”

  “The Professor,” Jones said. “One of the Lincoln Conspirators. He developed a very potent poison gas. Thankfully the war ended before it could be put into use. I understand he was also working on a way to accelerate Greek Fire into an inferno within seconds.” He gave Molly a studied look. “How did your father know him?”

  “I’m not sure.” Resting her elbows on her knees, Molly pressed the palms of her bandaged hands together. “I do know Papa didn’t like him, probably because of the Professor’s association with Jeff Davis. Even though my father disagreed with his stand on slavery, he liked President Davis. I think it upset him that McCullough might be carrying out some highly questionable and unethical experiments under Davis’s orders.”

  “What kind of experiments?” Jones asked.

  “Things my father wouldn’t talk about but that seemed to worry him a great deal. Dangerous things involving chlorine gas and cyanide gas and other poisons that could kill a lot of people very quickly.”

  Frowning, Hank rotated the book to study a drawing of an airship. The word AEREON was penciled beside it. He tried to remember where he’d seen it.

  Brady looked up from the drawings. “I thought using poison was forbidden.”

  “It was,” Jones said. “U.S. War Department General Order 100 banned the use of poison in any manner, gas or otherwise. But the South had no such strictures. A schoolteacher named John Doughty was even trying to devise a way to put chlorine gas into artillery shells. Other men, like Elmer Clements and Henry Kirkland and Fletcher, were looking for a way to deliver the gas to the battlefield or into the water or food supply, knowing it would cause widespread panic and open the door for a new rebellion.”

  “They may be planning to use airships.” Hank thumped the drawing with his index finger. “I recognize this from a scientific paper I read. It’s Dr. Solomon Andrews’s design for his steerable airship, the Aereon.”

  “Well, there you have it then.” Returning to his place at the hearth, Brady rested an elbow on the mantle. “Arrest them, hang them, and be done with it.”

  Jones settled back in his chair. “We can’t.”

  “Why not?” Brady wasn’t one to dally with niceties. Or legalities. He was pretty much a “see it, do it, worry about it later” type of fellow. Hank preferred a more considered approach. Until now. But after seeing what Fletcher’s man, Hennessey, had done to Molly, he was ready to tear all of them apart with his bare hands.

  “They haven’t done anything illegal,” Jones argued. “You can’t arrest a man for drawing pictures, or even for experimenting with poisons.”

  “So he gets away with hurting Molly and threatening all of us?”

  “That was Hennessey,” Foley said in his gravelly voice. “And we have no proof Hennessey was working on Fletcher’s orders.”

  As they argued the point, Brady’s voice got louder, Jones’s got softer. Hank just got a headache. He glanced at Molly, wishing he could shield her from all of this. Her restless nights and frantic searches had taken their toll on her. She looked pared down, and there were dark circles under her eyes.

  Charlie seemed no better, his fingers worrying the end flap of his belt, his face pale and watchful as he listened to Brady and Jones argue.

  Wanting to offer reassurance, Hank leaned over and said, “You did the right thing, Charlie, bringing this to us. Uncle Brady and I will see it through from here.”

  “Maybe I should take him upstairs,” Molly offered, looking as if she’d like to escape upstairs herself. But before she could rise, Jones turned to her again.

  “Did your father ever mention any of these other men?”

  She shook her head. “Only Professor McCullough. He even went to Savannah to confront him. The Professor admitted he was experimenting with poison gas—not for the government, but for a group of private investors, one of whom was my brother-in-law, Fletcher.”

  Hank heard the stress beneath Molly’s clipped tone and, reaching past Charlie, laid his hand over hers. She sent him a grateful smile.

  “Did your father confront Fletcher?”

  Molly shrugged. “I don’t know. I doubt he would have told me if he had. My sister and I were close, and he probably wouldn’t have wanted to worry me, or have me let slip to Nellie what her husband was up to.” Something shifted in her expression, and her voice took on a bitter note. “But two days after he spoke to McCullough, Papa was found dead in Fletcher’s office. The investigators said it was suicide, but I’ll never believe my father killed himself. Never.”

  “He didn’t,” Charlie said.

  All heads except Rikker’s swung to the boy. Under so many watchful eyes, he seemed to shrink into himself.

  Jones leaned forward again. “Why do you say that, son?” he asked gently.

  “I saw.”

  “Saw what?”

  “My stepfather kill my grandfather.”

  Molly inhaled sharply.

  Hank felt something cold and deadly swell in his chest. No wonder the boy was frightened. And angry. And unable to trust anyone. He had seen the unimaginable and no doubt feared it would happen again if he told what he knew.

  “It was my fault,” Charlie blurted out, tears rising again. “They were yelling at each other. My stepfather thought my grandfather had taken the book, and he was really mad about it. I didn’t want my grandfather to get into trouble, so I ran to get it, but when I came back, I saw him on the floor. He wasn’t moving. My stepfather was shouting at someone on the other side of the room I couldn’t see. I started to go in, but then—then . . .”

  “Then what, Charlie?”

  “T-Then I saw the monster.”

  Charlie’s eyes were almost glazed now, focused inward on images in his mind rather than the people in the room. Sweat and tears streaked his face, and he was shaking so hard, Hank put an arm around him to give support.

  “His face was all twisted and blotchy. He hissed like a snake when he talked, and he was really strong. He lifted my grandfather up and shoved him into a chair. Then h-he put a gun in my grandfather’s mouth and pulled the trigger, and my grandfather’s head jerked and blood—”

  “Enough!” Weeping, Molly took the boy in her arms. “No more, Charlie. It’s all right. You don’t have to say anything more.”

  Hennessey. Hank looked at the other men in the room and saw that they had reached the same shocked conclusion. “Now do you have enough to arrest Fletcher?”

  Foley glanced at Jones.

  Jones nodded. “With the book and the boy’s testimony, I think the circuit judge will issue a warrant. But he’ll have to hear it directly from the boy.”

  As that sank in, all eyes swung back to the terrified eight-year-old boy sobbing in Molly’s arms. The unasked questions hung in the air: Could Charlie do it? Should they even ask it of him?

  Foley started to speak, but Hank held up his hand. “Not now,” he said curtly. “He’s had enough. Molly and I will talk to him later.”

  Brady pushed away from the mantle. “It’s late. You’ll have supper and stay the night.” It was more of an order than a cordial invitation. “In the morning Hank and Molly will let you know what they’ve decided to do.”

  That impatient look crossed Foley’s face. He aimed it at Brady, then at Hank.

  Hank met it with a cold smile. “Or you can leave now. Your choice.”

  When no one spoke, Hank rose. Motioning for Molly to take Charlie upstairs, he turned to Jones and Foley. “We’ll see this through, gentlemen. One way or the other. My word on it.”

  Once he was sure Molly and Charl
ie were all right, Hank promised to have a supper tray sent up, then went back down to their guests.

  Supper was a quiet affair, the other children having eaten earlier in the nursery, and the visitors silently mulling over all they’d heard. As soon as the meal was over, they retired to the rooms that Jessica had readied for them in Jack’s wing of the house. Jessica took a tray up to Molly and Charlie, and Hank followed Brady to his office. After pouring each of them a drink, Brady settled behind his desk and Hank took his usual chair in front, boots propped on the edge of the desk.

  “Helluva thing,” Brady muttered. “No wonder the kid’s been so troubled.”

  Hank studied the whiskey in his glass and pondered how he might get to Fletcher before Jones and Foley did.

  “You and the boy going with them tomorrow?” Brady asked. Hank shrugged.

  “Think Charlie will be up to it?”

  “Maybe.”

  “If all he has to do is talk to the judge, he’ll probably be all right.”

  “As long as he doesn’t have to face Fletcher or Hennessey,” Hank agreed.

  They drank in silence for a while. As the whiskey spread like a slow fire through Hank’s belly, he thought about all the recent changes in his life. It felt odd having a family of his own and people who depended on him. He normally left the worrying and family obligations to Brady. He was good at it, and Hank wasn’t. Hank had always done his part, but he’d never felt essential to anyone. Necessary. But now he was responsible for three other lives. It weighed heavily on him, and he began to understand the burdens that Brady bore and had new respect for the way his brother managed to balance it all.

  “You figure once Fletcher is in custody, Hennessey will have no more reason to come after Molly?” Brady asked after a time.

  “Why would he? It was the book he was after, and that’ll be in the marshal’s hands from now on, not Molly’s.” He needed to have this over so he could get his life back on track. All this worrying had his mind going in circles. He couldn’t be fretting over children and worrying about henchmen and thinking about bosoms all the time. He had mines to run.

  Out in the valley a pack of coyotes yodeled and howled. “Bastards have been close lately,” Brady said absently. “We’ll have to keep an eye on the stock.”

  Hank swirled the last swallow of whiskey in his glass. “Maybe I should take Molly with me. Just in case.” Penny would be fine at the house, but until this was over, Hank didn’t want Charlie or Molly out of his sight.

  Brady continued to stare out into the darkness beyond the window. “I wish you wouldn’t,” he said after a while.

  Hank studied him, noting the weary slump of his brother’s shoulders, the creases in his brow. He could see Brady was thinking about Jessica again, worried that if Molly left, there would be no one to tend his wife if the babies came early.

  “We’d only be gone two or three days. Four at most.”

  Brady tossed back the last of his drink, then set the glass aside. Folding his hands atop the embossed leather desk pad Jessica had had shipped all the way from Spain, he looked directly into Hank’s eyes. “I’d guard her with my life, Hank.”

  Hank didn’t respond.

  “She’d be safer here with two dozen men around her than out on the trail or in the middle of town.”

  Unsettled by the panic in his brother’s eyes, Hank looked away. Was that what caring about someone reduced a man to?

  “I wouldn’t ask, Hank, if I didn’t think there was a chance she’d be needed.”

  “There’s still half a month before she’s due.”

  Brady ran a hand through his hair, then gave a shaky laugh. “Hell, you’re right. What am I thinking? Nothing’s going to happen. Everything will be fine.”

  Hank finished his own drink and dropped his feet to the floor. He rose, then stood looking down at his brother’s bent head. Brady wasn’t one to ask for help, or even admit that he might need it. That he had done so now was an indication of how concerned he really was.

  Pushing aside his own worries, Hank set his empty glass on the desktop. “I’ll try to get her to stay. But if she insists on going, I won’t talk her out of it.”

  Brady’s relief was almost painful to see. “I appreciate that, Hank.”

  “Everything will be fine.”

  “Of course it will.”

  “Don’t let anything happen to her.”

  “I won’t. My word.”

  With a nod, Hank left and went upstairs.

  They had moved Charlie back into his old room for the night in case the bad dreams came again. Hank stopped there first.

  Buddy gave a low growl when the door opened, but when he saw it was Hank, he settled back into a tight curl against Charlie’s side. The boy never moved. Closing the door, Hank crossed to Molly’s room.

  His room.

  Their room.

  Another change he had to get used to.

  Twenty-One

  MOLLY WAS DREAMING.

  She knew it was a dream because it was warm and sunny, and even though she was in the surgery wing, there was no antiseptic smell and no patient moans. Papa was there, too, just ahead of her, coattails flaring as he moved quickly down the hall.

  “I thought I lost you,” she called, out of breath from trying to keep up.

  “I’m not lost, daughter. I know exactly where I am.”

  “Wait.” She reached out to slow him, but he kept rushing away from her, intent on some important task. Pressing a hand to the sharp stitch in her side, she walked faster, her footfalls echoing off the stone floor. “Papa, please wait.”

  Without looking back, he waved a hand, slinging bright spatters of blood against the stark walls. “I haven’t the time, Molly. I’m already late.”

  “Papa, please. Don’t leave me.”

  Finally he stopped and whipped around to glare at her out of his ruined face. “Can’t you see I’m busy, daughter?” He held up his hands. Cradled in his palms was a beating heart.

  She looked down, saw the gaping hole in her chest. “But, Papa, that’s mine. Why have you taken my heart?”

  “You weren’t using it.” He spun on his heel and rushed away. “I can’t wait for you, Molly. I have to go.”

  With a cry, she fell to her knees. She pressed her hands over the hole, but dark blood flowed through her fingers like hot sand.

  WITH A GASP, MOLLY OPENED HER EYES.

  The room was dark except for the glow of the fire. Hank stood at the hearth, his hand braced on the mantle as he stared down into the flames.

  Emotion swelled in her chest, filling that empty hole Papa’s death had left. Hope, yearning, desire, joy . . . all the things she had guarded herself against for so long. Love. It filled her almost to the point of bursting. She didn’t know if she could bear the weight of it. She didn’t know if she could survive without it.

  She must have made a sound, because his head swung toward her. And in the instant his gaze found hers, all the love she felt for this man came back to her through his eyes, and she knew in the deepest, most vulnerable part of her that he loved her as much as she loved him. He had never given her the words, and maybe never would, but it was there in his touch, in his smile, in that connection that flared between them like an arc of pure light.

  He straightened and let his hand fall back to his side. “Did I wake you?”

  Sitting up, she drew her legs to her chest and folded her arms on top of her knees. She studied him and saw how weary he looked. All this unrest had taken its toll on him as well. “No.”

  “I checked on Charlie. He seems to be sleeping soundly.” As he spoke, he began unbuttoning his shirt. A simple act, but the intimacy of it made muscles deep inside her shift and soften. “Did you get a chance to talk to him?” he asked.

  “I think he’s relieved to finally get it off his chest.” She watched him pull the shirt off his shoulders and down his arms. It was like unveiling a living statue.

  Plopping into the chair, he tugged off
his boots one at a time and tossed them into a corner. Then he rose, unbuckled his belt, and began unbuttoning his trousers. “Do you think he’ll be up to meeting with the judge?”

  Anticipation tingled along her nerves as his trousers slid down his long sturdy legs. “I think he needs to. It’s important that he has a part in punishing Fletcher.”

  “Will you come with us?”

  “Do you need me to? I’d rather not leave Jessica right now if I don’t have to.”

  “Up to you.” He began untying the tabs on his unions.

  “Come here,” she said.

  He paused and looked up, then walked toward her, every muscle and tendon and bone and joint working in perfect synergetic harmony. It was the absolute ideal of the human form put into motion, and the beauty of it was like a song in her heart.

  “What?” he said, stopping beside the bed.

  She held up her bandaged hands. “Take these off.”

  “Are you sure they’re healed? It’s barely been a month. Doc said—”

  “I want to touch you.”

  A slow smile spread across his face. “Well, in that case . . .”

  Crossing to the bureau, he dug through her new medical satchel, found a pair of scissors, and came back to the bed. The mattress sagged as he sat beside her. While he carefully cut through the wrappings, she studied his bent head, wondering if his glossy hair was as soft as it looked, if his skin was as warm and smooth as she remembered. She leaned over to press her lips against his shoulder, drawing in the scent that was Hank’s alone—the piney tang of the soap he used, old smoke, the musk of a healthy male.

  When the casts finally came off, her hands felt weightless and strange. She closed and opened them several times then rotated her thumbs. Stiff from disuse, but not unduly sore. As long as she didn’t reinjure them, she should be fine.

  “How do they feel?” he asked, setting the scissors on the bedside table.

  “Let’s see.” She trailed her hands over his chest, enjoying the way his pectoral muscles jumped beneath her palms. “They feel good. You feel good.” She heard the change in his breathing when she skimmed her fingertips over his shoulders and up the corded muscles of his neck then around to his face, his perfect face, with his stern jaw, and bristly cheeks, and those soft lips parting on that perfect smile.