A Time for Everything

by Mysti Parker

  Oliver’s rage-red face turned gray.

  “All those barrels of coal oil gone up in flames, incinerating everything within three or four blocks. How many children died? A dozen? Three dozen? Not counting all the men, women, and firemen and those they never found in the ashes. And all because you had a score to settle with Blackburn.”

  “Who told you this?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Enjoy your freedom while it lasts.” No matter how Lydia would take the news, it felt good to watch the bastard squirm. Beau tipped his hat and turned for the door.

  An all-too-familiar click, click spun him around.

  A gun barrel pointed right at his forehead. Where Oliver had gotten it, Beau had no idea, but he had no time to go for his Colt. Oliver squeezed the trigger. In one fluid move he’d learned on the battlefield, Beau deflected Oliver’s arm and locked it tight against his ribs. A shot exploded inches from his chest. He butted his body against Oliver’s and flipped him over his knee. Oliver landed on the floor with a thud. His head bounced once on floorboards, and he cried out like any wounded man would.

  Except when he went silent, a shrill scream intercepted the chaos.

  “Lydia! No, no, oh God no… Lydia!”

  Beau turned around, heart plummeting into his stomach. Polly was hunched over her daughter, screaming her name. The two of them lay in a heap of fine skirts and crumpled packages. Polly pressed her palm to Lydia’s chest. Blood soaked into her white silk glove, climbing up the fabric to her fingers, until she could hold back the tide no longer. A stream of blood flowed down Lydia’s side to the floor.

  “No.” Beau hit his knees, slid his arm under her neck.

  She blinked up at him, her pretty lips parted, gasping for air. “I… love…”

  “You’re gonna be fine. Just hang on. Polly, go fetch the doctor. Hurry!”

  But she didn’t seem to hear him at all. She lifted her laudanum-dulled face to Oliver. “You… shot… my… daughter.”

  Beau focused on Lydia and cradled her against his chest. He’d never wanted this, never wanted to hurt her. Spoiled yes, but her heart beat true. She was not her father’s daughter. Not like him at all.

  “Stay with me,” he pleaded, cradling her smooth cheek in his hand.

  Tears rolled from her eyes. She lifted her trembling hand to his face. “…love you.”

  Emotion spilled from Polly’s eyes as she sat upright. All those years of pent-up heartbreak from whores both willing and forced, innocents killed in his lust for power, loneliness suppressed in bittersweet liquid addiction. She carried it all with her and crawled to her husband. He clawed himself off the floor to his knees just as she reached him.

  Polly grabbed his arms and pulled herself up until they were face to face. Her blood-soaked gloves curled into fists, and she beat them into his chest. Thud, thud, thud, thud. “Damn you! Why? Why? You never loved us. You never loved me!”

  Lydia’s body trembled. Her hand slid down Beau’s face to his chest and lingered over his heart. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. She tried to speak, but the words gurgled in her throat. Her eyes spoke volumes, and he understood every question in their blue depths.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry. Claire would be so proud of you.” Though the feeling didn’t come from the same place hers did, he added, “I do love you, Lydia. I always have.”

  She smiled. Her hand slid down his chest. Her body went limp, and she died right there in his arms.

  Tears burned his eyes, but he would not release them yet. He turned to Oliver. “She’s gone, because of you.”

  The man who had once owned so many regarded his dead daughter with the eyes of a grieving father as his wife screamed and wailed and beat on his chest. Slack-jawed, Oliver’s shoulders drooped in surrender.

  From downstairs came thundering footsteps. “Oliver Clemons, surrender now! We have a warrant for your arrest!”

  Justice had arrived a moment too late.

  Awareness sparked in the tyrant’s eyes. Before the police could reach them and before Beau could stop him, Oliver swept the gun from the floor and jabbed it to his own temple. He cocked the hammer.

  Men with guns emerged from the stairwell into the hall.

  Oliver closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Sun beat down on Portia’s back as she tended the graves, pulling weeds, straightening the flowers in the vases and adding fresh water. She appreciated Frank’s dedication to keeping the grass cut, but the finer details were left to the women. Ellen helped clean the bird droppings and dust from the gravestones. Baby Jake slept soundly while strapped to her back with a thin cotton sheet. Jimmy and Louise played tag around the shade trees. Their laughter brought a smile to Portia’s face while she dug a thistle from the corner of Abby’s stone.

  “I know Mr. Stanford is engaged to that rich woman,” Ellen said, “but you’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

  “Why would you say such a thing?” Portia’s cheeks grew sunburn hot, though she’d only been outside for a half hour.

  “You wrote about him in every letter.”

  “What’s so strange about that? He was my employer and I was living in his house.”

  “It’s the way you wrote about him with such reverence and empathy. And you sure didn’t seem to like his fiancée, either. You know you can be honest with me, Po.”

  Portia lowered herself to the carpet of grass, staring at Jake’s name. Her voice quivered. “How could I be in love with someone else, when my husband and child are still warm in the ground? And how could I love Beau after having known him for so short a time? He’s getting married in a week.”

  “So now it’s Beau, and not Mr. Stanford?” Ellen laughed as she settled on the ground under the nearest shade tree, and out of sight of the barn builders across the road. Baby Jake had started fussing, so she took him from his wrap, unbuttoned her dress, and put him to the breast.

  “That’s… it doesn’t matter.” Portia wanted to rip handfuls of grass from the ground and throw them at Ellen, but avoided such desecration and slapped the ground instead. “And even if I was, it’s not meant to be. I used the money I had left to book passage on the next stagecoach to Kentucky. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  “Is that your answer to everything that doesn’t go your way? Just run from it?”

  “I am doing no such thing. It’s not like I have a choice in the matter, and he doesn’t either.”

  “We all have a choice,” Ellen said. She held baby Jake to her shoulder and patted his back. He let out a satisfied burp. “He’s in love with you, too, isn’t he?”

  “Arrrgh,” Portia groaned, pushing herself to her feet. She walked to her mama’s grave and back again. “You are so infuriating, Ellen McAllister!”

  “Infuriating or not, you love that man, and he loves you. If there’s any chance you can be together, you should take it.”

  “Well, there’s no chance,” Portia said, and swiped the air with her hand, hoping to cut this conversation off at the knees.

  “Really?” Ellen re-buttoned her dress and returned baby Jake, now full and content, into his wrap. She pointed past Portia to somewhere down the road. “Then tell him.”

  Portia spun around and blinked into the sun. A carriage rattled down the road, drawing closer with every kicked-up cloud of dust from the Morgans hitched to it. She would have recognized those horses, that carriage, and that familiar hat anywhere.

  “Beau…” she whispered. “Ellen, how did you know?”

  Laughing, Ellen stood and came to her side, putting her arm around Portia’s shoulders. “I didn’t, but I prayed to God I was right. Besides, I’ve never seen you look at another man the way you looked at Jake… until now. Talk to him. Give him a chance. I’ll be at the house, waiting for you.”

  Beau pulled the carriage up to the cemetery gate. He met Portia’s gaze with one of uncertainty, while a smile hemmed and hawed on his lips.

  He climbed o
ut and took off his hat, nodding to Ellen as she passed through the gate. “Ma’am, I’m Beau Stanford. Pleasure to meet you.”

  “I know who you are,” Ellen said, stopping only long enough to flick her pale green eyes between Beau and Portia. “And you better make this visit worthwhile, or you’ll have my husband to contend with.”

  Ellen marched on down the road toward her house, while Beau scratched his head, looking dumbfounded. Jimmy and Louise caught up with her, casting wary glances at the dark-haired stranger.

  “That’s Ellen,” Portia said. “She’s right about her husband. He’d make two of you.”

  “I hope I don’t disappoint her, then.” His face lit up with one of those genuine smiles that made her heart flutter.

  She knelt by Jake’s grave to rearrange the fresh cut gladiolas that didn’t need rearranging. “What are you doing here?”

  Hat held to his chest in reverence, he knelt beside her. “I have something for you.”

  Her back went stiff, as did her voice, and she dared not take her eyes off the flowers. “Oh? What is it?”

  From the corner of her eye, she could see him removing a piece of paper from the inner pocket of his leather vest. He held it out to her, and glancing at his blank face, she took the folded square. She unfolded it and read the not-too-sloppy handwriting:

  Dear Miss Po,

  Thank you for teaching me. Me and Mama and Daddy are all rite now, and I can still read real good. I want to be a teacher just like you when I grow up.

  Love,

  Sallie Mae Jenkins

  Tears burned the corners of Portia’s eyes. “They’re all right? Does that mean — ?”

  “They’re free. Should be well into Kentucky by now.”

  Pushing herself to her feet, Portia smoothed her black skirt and went to stand in the shade of the nearest oak. “Thank you for telling me, Mr. Stanford. I’m happy they’re safe and sound.”

  He followed and leaned casually against the tree trunk. “I thought you would be.”

  She had no idea what to say next. Words tickled her tongue, but her mind couldn’t sort them out. She focused on the fresh timbers of the new tobacco barn and the steady tap, tap as the men pieced it together with hammers and nails. He’d come all this way to tell her this, but why? He could have sent a letter. Did this mean he had already married Lydia? Or did it mean something else, something she had not let herself imagine?

  “I have something else I need to tell you,” he said.

  So solemn were his words, that she fell against the tree trunk to stay upright. The rough bark snagged her black lace gloves and poked uncomfortably into her back. She tried to look him in the eyes, but couldn’t force her gaze past his leather vest. His chest expanded and relaxed with each heavy breath.

  “I hope you and Mrs. Stanford will be happy,” she blurted, then spring boarded from the tree and hurried toward the gate.

  Don’t cry, don’t let him see you cry. She captured each choking sob before it could escape and swallowed it down.

  “Portia, wait.” Beau caught her arm.

  She tried to pull away, but he held fast.

  “I can’t!” Her grief came loose, rushing out with each keening word. “Just let me go. Please.”

  He had her by both arms now, craning his head this way and that to try to meet her eyes. Finally, he gave her a little shake, and she snapped to attention.

  “I’m not married,” he said. “Lydia’s dead.”

  His hands fell away from her, and he removed his hat again, twisting the brim as he plowed through the horrific story. She tried to catch all the details of how Beau had found Oliver beating Lucy, and how Oliver had tried to kill him but shot Lydia instead. Then he said Oliver turned the gun on himself and something about a pile of money and Amelie Hamilton and an Irishman named McKee.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and waved her hands to silence him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t quite follow all of that, but… Lydia’s dead? And Oliver?”

  “Yes,” he said in one heavy sigh. “Polly took both of them to be buried back in Philadelphia. I never meant anyone to get hurt, even if Oliver deserved it. But Lydia didn’t. I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself, but… I want you to come back to us.”

  Everything around them went silent, as though the earth itself waited to see what would happen next. She glanced at the barn builders — three of them, hammers frozen in mid-air. They quickly focused on their work again and pounded those nails for all they were worth.

  She let her eyes find his once more. “I’m leaving by stagecoach tomorrow to find work up north.”

  Deep worry lines formed familiar streaks across his forehead and around his eyes. “If that’s what you want, I won’t keep you from it, but will you sit and talk with me awhile? I need you to know something else before you go.”

  She filled her lungs with wood-scented breath and nodded. He led her back to the shade tree, where they sat upon the cool, thick blanket of grass.

  “I was with Jake when he died.”

  Not in a million years did she expect him to say that.

  The world went wobbly. Thank God she had a solid tree to keep her upright. “W-What do you mean you were with Jake?”

  “The night Samuel died, I saw his picture in your room, and it all came back. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you then, not with Sam…” He closed his eyes and swallowed hard.

  She gathered courage from the only place she could — the desire to know the truth. “It’s all right. You can tell me now.”

  After a deep breath, that’s what he did. No matter how hard she tried, this time she couldn’t look away, and watched every nuance of his features as he told the story. There was no deceit in the way his eyes penetrated the past, how his trembling words picked up every detail and delivered them with regretful determination.

  “It was December,” he said. “Cold as hell, with freezing rain that stung our faces no matter which way we turned. My and Harry’s wounds had mended enough for us to get put back to work, so we were transferred to Major General A.J. Smith’s detachment and assigned to patrol the eastern border of the Cumberland River, there on the outskirts of Nashville.

  “I heard a shot, followed by a soldier laughing — one of ours but not in our regiment — and he was waving his rifle in the air. He kept saying, ‘I got one, I got me a Rebel!’ His buddies were slapping his back, saying they ought to drown him and finish him off.

  “I think Jake must have strayed too far. Might have got blinded by the smoke or fear. I’d seen many a man turn tail to flee in the middle of a skirmish. When you’re in all that noise and bloodshed, it’s easy to run straight into enemy fire.” Beau paused, searching her eyes as though he feared she couldn’t handle any more.

  She nodded for him to go on.

  He looked out toward the fields as he continued. “At first I thought, So he got him a Rebel. So what? The damn war had taken everything from everybody. What did it matter?”

  Portia closed her eyes and winced.

  Beau gently touched her face. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I want to know. I need to know. Please…”

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Harry said we ought to put him out of his misery. I could justify killing men that were hell-bent on killing us, but not somebody who had the misfortune of getting lost. Or maybe he was deserting. Whatever the reason, he didn’t deserve to be killed in cold blood.

  “I went over to the boys. They were young, maybe eighteen or nineteen at most. I don’t think they saw any difference in killing a Rebel or a rabbit.

  “I said, ‘That’s enough.’ I grabbed the barrel of the boy’s rifle and shoved it against his chest. He got mad, started cursing, tried to pull the gun away from me.

  “So I told him, ‘You don’t get it, do you? Someone out there’s waiting for him to come home, just like someone’s waiting for you. I don’t care what color he’s wearing. You don’t kill a man just for the hell of it.�
��

  “I made them go with Harry to fetch the medic. That’s when I heard him calling, ‘Po… where’s Po?’

  “At the time, I didn’t know who or what a Po was, but I felt compelled to go to him. He lay about ten yards away, and when I reached him, I saw the wound on his belly. It was bad. I’d seen many such wounds and sat with many men from our side as they died from wounds like that, but never a Rebel. Not that it made any difference. At death’s door, I figure we’re all created equal.

  “I said, ‘What’s your name? Maybe I can take a message for you.’ His hand was bloody and shaking, but he reached out and grabbed my sleeve. He kept saying, ‘Tell Po…’”

  Portia gave herself a moment to simply breathe and to let the resurrected memory sink in. He couldn’t be lying, not with those details — the bloody streaks she’d seen on Beau’s jacket — Jake must have left them there.

  Beau shifted, cleared his throat, and kept talking. “I searched through his jacket to see if I could find any identification. No soldier pin, no tag hanging from a string around his neck… I said, ‘Can you tell me your name?’

  “He just clung to my arm and looked at me with those eyes. His voice was getting weaker, but he kept saying, ‘Po, I’m sorry, Po…’

  “I pulled back a lapel and saw a scrap of paper pinned there. But it was covered in blood, and the only ink I saw was smudged into a blurry blot. I told him, ‘I’m sorry. Keep breathing. The medic’s coming, and you can go home.’

  “I could see it in his eyes. He was thinking of home. It meant a different place to each of us, but it meant the same thing no matter who you were. It meant life as it should be, with family, friends, and an honest day’s work. It didn’t mean we’d never see hardship, but there’d be someone there to ease the burdens, and a place to lay your head at night. Home meant peace.

  “Again, I asked him for his name, but his hand went limp. I caught it before it hit the mud and held it. He was looking right at me when he died. It was that very same afternoon when I got word of Claire’s death. From then until now, everything from the war has come back in bits and pieces. I dream a lot of it, like being wounded and seeing this strange angelic glow around me.”