Josiah's Treasure

by Nancy Herriman

  On the other side of the bed, Phoebe smiled. “I told you, Minnie. We keep the wound clean and there will be no cause to worry.”

  “What am I doing here?” Sarah asked, every word feeling like a blacksmith’s strike against an anvil in her head.

  “You were shot last night. Don’t you remember? By Frank Burke.”

  “Shot?” That would explain the bandages. “But my head . . .” She probed the back of her skull and found a tender lump. “I can’t remember what happened to me.”

  “When Mr. Cady came to rescue you and that Frank shot you in the tussle, you fell backward and struck your head on the edge of a crate.” Minnie exchanged looks with Phoebe, who nodded. “The doc says you were concussed.”

  “Oh.” Sarah tried to scoot higher on the pillows, but the motion set off throbbing in her temples and a rush of dizziness. “I’m afraid I don’t understand why Mr. Cady was here to rescue me. And what do you mean about Frank?”

  Minnie and Phoebe took turns explaining what they’d learned had happened last night, that Anne’s man had come to rob Sarah again and that Mr. Cady, like some avenging angel, had interrupted him, but not before he’d shot Sarah. The police caught Frank when he tried to run off, though, and he was locked away. They’d also heard that Mrs. Brentwood had shrieked and cried yet had managed to help the doctor carry Sarah into her bedroom, right before she collapsed in a dead faint on the parlor settee. The two girls giggled over that.

  “Is Mr. Cady here?” asked Sarah. “I’d like to thank him.”

  “I’ll tell him you want to see him,” said Minnie. “He’s been pacing like a caged animal.”

  Minnie left the door open as she went to fetch Daniel, and it wasn’t long before Sarah heard hurrying footsteps and he burst into the room. Minnie gestured for Phoebe to come with her and leave them alone. Daniel inspected Sarah for injury as if he couldn’t believe she was alive and awake.

  “Sarah,” he said, sitting on the bed, his weight sagging the mattress. He carried a stack of letters, which he deposited on the bedside table, and gathered one of her hands in his. His touch was comforting, whether he meant it to be or not.

  I could never carve him out of my heart.

  “For a moment last night I thought the worst,” he said. “I’m glad to see you’re all right.”

  “The girls told me what happened, because I can’t seem to remember much,” she said, searching his face for some emotion deeper than anxiety. “And I don’t understand how you knew Frank was here.”

  “I didn’t.” Daniel’s thumb swept across the back of her hand, causing her skin to tingle. “I was busy being stupid at the Occidental when that reporter came along and goaded me into asking you, one last time, about the nuggets.”

  “Ah.” That rumor could have killed her. “Satisfied, Mr. Cady?”

  He lifted an eyebrow and she thought of Josiah. “Actually, Miss Whittier, there was some gold.”

  “There was?”

  “A nugget about the size of a cherry pit. It was on the floor in the study,” he explained. “Frank Burke missed finding the treasure he was searching for.”

  “Those stories about gold nuggets weren’t completely wrong.”

  “It seems not.” He glanced over at the letters he’d brought into the room. “But I was completely wrong about other things.” His gaze returned to her face, and his expression was somber. “Sarah, I need to go to Chicago.”

  Her heart contracted. “I know you need to go back to Chicago, Daniel.” That had always been his plan. But she’d hoped that his actions last night, how gently he held her hand, meant those plans might have changed.

  “I mean I need to leave as soon as I can. If I hurry, I can make this afternoon’s three o’clock train.” He frowned and took another look at the letters. “There’s business I have to attend to. With my grandfather.”

  She could hear the anger in his voice. The emotion was never far from the surface for him. “Your sisters will be happy to see you.”

  “It’s because of them that I need to go. They’ve been living with a lie. We’ve all been living with a lie.” He stood, his hand still wrapped around hers. She resisted the temptation to cling. “You have two very capable nurses out there in the hallway. You’ll be all right.”

  Was he saying that to reassure her, or himself? “I’m sure I’ll be up and about in no time.”

  “I never had a doubt, Miss Whittier.” Another brief smile that never reached his eyes. “If you want, I’ll send you a telegram letting you know I’ve arrived safely.”

  “Only if that’s what you want to do. You don’t owe me anything, Daniel Cady,” she said. She wouldn’t beg to hear from him or shed tears of longing. Other women might, but not her. He wouldn’t expect her to, either.

  Daniel slipped his hand from hers, and she felt every finger as it relinquished its hold. How many times can my heart break, God?

  Many times, it seemed.

  “I shall be back, you know.”

  Did she? Did she know that at all? “Take good care.”

  “Read those letters.” He nodded toward the stack. “They’ll explain.”

  Hesitating, he brushed a hand across her forehead, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, then turned and strode out of the room.

  Minnie rushed in after he was gone. “Have you two worked everything out between you?” She lifted her brows expectantly, as if Sarah might announce they were set to be wed and all their problems taken care of.

  Sarah couldn’t think about that, think about him if she didn’t want to bawl in front of the girl. “Minnie, help me sit up. I need to do some reading. And if you could, bring me some tea.”

  Her face fell. “Is Mr. Cady leaving, then?”

  “He has business to attend in Chicago.”

  “What? The louse.” More roughly than she intended, Minnie hoisted Sarah into a sitting position against the pillows. “And to think I was actually starting to like him.”

  Sarah fanned Grace Cady’s letters across her bedspread. Josiah had kept them secreted away like the treasure he must have felt they were. The item he was guarding someplace that Mrs. McGinnis had told Sarah about. She touched the nearest, like the rest, a missive of love to a distant husband. Grace’s affection for Josiah was unmistakable in every note as she described how much she missed him, her arms aching for his embrace, her eyes always searching the road, her ears always listening for his voice, his laughter, her body yearning for the warmth of his in the bed next to her at night. Told him that she read his letters to their children, regaling them with his funny stories about his fellow prospectors, his breathless descriptions of the wide-open West, his excitement at finding gold and knowing his earnings would bring him home one day soon.

  Which, in the end, they hadn’t done.

  On a whim, Sarah lifted the nearest letter from Grace and inhaled. The paper smelled of tuberose, and here and there, the ink was smeared as though teardrops had fallen upon the words. Whether they’d been Grace’s tears or Josiah’s, Sarah couldn’t tell.

  The second bundle was smaller, just a few letters that Josiah had written to Grace and her parents, the Addison Hunts, innocuous short missives that detailed travel plans, bank account numbers, and little else. Not the letters Grace would have faithfully read to Daniel and Lily and Marguerite by lamplight. Those had disappeared.

  She picked up the telegram that had been at the bottom of the stack, a faded Western Union dated the summer of 1875. It had been sent from Chicago to Josiah in Placerville, eventually finding him at his mining claim in Grass Valley. A yellowing memento of a horrible lie.

  Regret to inform you that my daughter and your children have died from the influenza. No need to return. They are buried. A.H.

  Died from the influenza. No wonder Josiah had told everyone his family was gone. No wonder Josiah’s eyes had always been shadowed with pain and regret.

  Sarah reread the telegram again and again, but the words didn’t change. What sort of man lied t
o his son-in-law about such a thing? What sort of man was Addison Hunt that he could be so vile? Forcing Josiah to live with a loss that wasn’t real. Forcing Daniel and his sisters and their mother to believe Josiah preferred life without them, when that was utterly untrue. Setting Daniel on a path to revenge that had stripped Sarah of all she’d come to own. Had Addison Hunt despised Josiah, a rough and restless soul, that much?

  He must have. And then returned the few letters he’d found in the Hunt mansion along with a terse note from some Chicago solicitor requesting that Mr. Josiah Cady refrain from further contacting the Hunts. The note and the telegram explained why Daniel was rushing to return to Chicago. Why an old anger had found a fresh target.

  She tidied the stack of letters, retied the pink ribbon, folded the telegram closed, shutting out the words. So much hurt in that stack of paper resting on the bed, no thicker than a dictionary or a Bible, yet big enough to destroy dreams and fuel revenge. Fuel hatred in a son’s heart, hatred that had now turned to a grandfather who had deceived, leaving no space for love.

  No room at all for Sarah.

  Twenty-Eight

  “Mr. Daniel?”

  The maid answering the door blinked at him like she was seeing a ghost. Maybe she’d thought he would never come back to Chicago. Maybe everyone at Hunt House was rather wishing he had gone for good. “Good morning, Susan.”

  “Sir.” She retreated to let him enter the foyer.

  Daniel lifted his hat from his head and looked around. He hadn’t stepped foot inside this house for years, but the entry hall hadn’t changed one bit. Beneath the double staircases arcing up to the second floor landing, the parquet floor was waxed as ever to the sheen of a mirror, and the walnut foyer table groaned beneath a massive china vase filled with roses and ferns from the garden. The space smelled of polish and flowers and hollowness. Nothing had changed at all.

  Except, perhaps, his own heart.

  “I’m here to see my grandfather,” he said to the maid, staring at him.

  “I will tell him, sir, that you wish to speak to him in the library.”

  “Thank you, Susan. I remember where it is. You don’t need to show me there.”

  His grandfather’s library lay beyond the stairs and down a short hallway. From the kitchen, angled off to the right at the end, came the smells of luncheon being prepared. He wouldn’t be invited to stay.

  The double pocket doors stood open, and Daniel went through. The green velvet curtains, fringed in gold, were closed, making the room appear even darker than normal. Daniel strode across the thick carpet, throwing them open with a rattle of curtain rings, letting in the sunlight. Neither the view of the side garden or the morning sunshine did much to brighten the dark paneled walls or the black leather sofas and armchairs arranged around the room, or lessen the oppressive presence of the glass-fronted bookcases towering higher than Daniel. But the sunlight did manage to illuminate the portrait of his mother that hung over the marble fireplace mantel. The only warm spot in a cold room.

  Daniel walked over to it. The painting had been completed when Grace was a young woman, before she and Josiah had married. She wore a dress of vivid blue that belled out from a tiny waist, and her blonde hair was arranged into two coils at the side of an unlined and happy face. Grandfather likely wanted to remember her before the taint of a Cady had entered their lives.

  He took her from you, Josiah. And, by pursuing a dream in California, you let him.

  “You’ve come back.”

  Daniel hadn’t heard his grandfather’s footsteps, and the man caught him by surprise. “I never claimed I wouldn’t.”

  Age hadn’t stooped Addison Hunt, and he still carried himself like a man who was used to getting his way. His even-featured face had given Daniel’s mother some of her beauty, but the deep lines that bracketed his mouth had not come from a lifetime of smiling, as hers had.

  “I suppose I imagined you would stay out in San Francisco with your newfound wealth,” his grandfather said, making a wide circuit of the room until his back was to the window, casting his face in shadows.

  “Like Josiah?” Daniel asked, aware that was what his grandfather implied.

  The other man inclined his head. “The sum was not as much as you anticipated, I take it, and now you’re looking for a handout.”

  “I haven’t come back to beg you for a job, Grandfather,” he answered, crushing the brim of his hat in his fist.

  His grandfather folded his arms. “So what are you here for?” Daniel strode up to him, standing close enough to see the dark rimming his grandfather’s irises. He realized he could look into those gray eyes and no longer be intimidated by the man behind them.

  “I found the telegram you sent my father,” Daniel said, old anger rising and then, miraculously, dissipating as if it had never been felt. He’d spent a lot of time reflecting during a long train ride east, and his heart was no longer willing to hold on to the pain. “The one that told him we were dead.”

  His grandfather didn’t blink. “You’re here hoping for an apology.”

  “No, not an apology.” Daniel knew better than to hope for the impossible. “An explanation.”

  “It’s simple. Josiah Cady was an opportunist who married your mother in order to obtain her money. My money. But she didn’t see his ambitions or his weaknesses. All she saw was a handsome fellow who knew how to flatter her. I wanted him out of her life for good.”

  “Your strategy failed. She never stopped loving Josiah like you hoped she would, did she? And he never stopped loving her, as far as I can tell.” Daniel believed it, now. “Beloved Friend.” I wish I’d been there to say good-bye, Father. “Or stopped loving my sisters and me.”

  “The only thing Josiah Cady ever cared about was gold,” Grandfather scoffed. “That was his first and only mistress. He was a flashy sort who’d been lucky once or twice in the gold fields and thought that meant he was a Midas. Instead of just another overly optimistic dreamer.” He regarded Daniel with contempt. “And you were growing up to be exactly like him—headstrong, reckless. I saved you more than once from your own stupidity, Daniel. Fights, unpaid debts, the wrong sort of friends. One worthless job after another.”

  “Those jobs were the best I could find, given that I had to watch over the girls when Grace got sick.”

  “Worthless work for a worthless man. Just like your father,” he insisted, spitting venom.

  “Leave Josiah out of this,” Daniel retorted, defending Josiah like his mother might have done. He’d had a lot of time to think on that train. “He’s gone and doesn’t deserve your enmity anymore. Never did.”

  “Oh, I see. Now Josiah Cady is some sort of saint.”

  Daniel ignored the provocation. “I almost became what you tried to make me, Grandfather. A man full of hatred, convinced that wealth would make me valuable, consumed with getting what I thought the world owed me . . . rather like you, if you think about it.”

  His grandfather’s look was black. “You are no longer welcome here, Daniel Cady.”

  “That’s quite all right, because I don’t intend to ever ask for welcome again.” Daniel secured his hat on his head. “I’m sorry we have to part like this, Grandfather. If you hadn’t despised my father, things could have been different between us.”

  His grandfather had no answer, and Daniel turned to leave.

  “I shall cut you off without a penny,” his grandfather pronounced.

  Daniel paused in the doorway. “You’ve always threatened to do that, and honestly”—he smiled, which turned his grandfather’s neck red—“I no longer care.”

  “Och, I’m glad I returned early, I am.” Mrs. McGinnis wiped her brow with a handkerchief then stashed it away in a pocket in her skirt. “But what a sad, sad day.”

  From the level of the street, Sarah gazed at the house, the afternoon breeze cooling her flushed skin. She didn’t need to stand there to memorize every angle, every turn of wood, because she would never forget what the house look
ed like nor what it meant to her. Would it touch the next owners like it had her? Or would they see only its lovely bay windows and elaborate decorations, knowing nothing of the heartbroken man who’d built it, unaware he’d been deceived by his father-in-law? Would they even care to learn about Josiah, or be solely interested in the size of the front parlor or if the dining room could hold enough people for a respectable supper party?

  Ah Mong carried her Turkish rug out through the front door and down the stairs to a wagon waiting at the curb. He passed Cora, rushing up the steps to fetch another crate. Minnie fussed over the moving company men, berating them to be careful packing the cargo. Sarah wished she could assist, but the doctor had said a week wouldn’t be long enough recuperation from her bullet wound to start lifting boxes and crates. She couldn’t wait any longer to move out. Tomorrow, the real estate agent would come and begin the auction.

  “Is that all?” one of the moving company men asked Minnie, rearranging Josiah’s portrait, wrapped in sheets of paper and a tattered old blanket found in the attic.

  “Just about,” she answered.

  Sarah’s entire belongings occupied but a quarter of the wagon bed. She’d be departing the house on Nob Hill with not much more than when she’d first arrived.

  “It is a very sad day, Mrs. McGinnis,” Sarah said, blinking to stop tears from falling. “I will miss this place.”

  “We’ll find our way. The Lord will guide us and we’ll find our way.”

  “I hope so.” Sarah glanced at the sky, clear and blue, as if she might spot Him there, ready to lead her. All she saw was a bird whirling on a current of air.

  Mrs. McGinnis patted Sarah’s arm. “I’m going to see how they’re doing in the kitchen. Don’t want anyone packing pots or pans Mr. Cady might claim belong to him.” She scanned the street and the yard. “If only that daft cat would show up. Doesna feel right leaving without the wee beastie.”