by Beth White
“How could he?”
“Oh, Levi, he was a good man. He just didn’t see our slaves as people, and he didn’t want me to be hurt. In his mind it was like, you teach your child that a beautiful snake can be poisonous, and you stay away.” She sighed deeply, rubbing her cheek against his chest. “I knew it was wrong, but you don’t question your father. At least, I didn’t then.”
He gave her a silent squeeze, letting her know he heard her, dreading the moment he’d have to let go. “Your father was an artist?”
“Yes, he painted the portrait in the dining room.”
He was so stunned that he couldn’t formulate words. “The—what? That exquisite—what?” He released Selah to stare at her.
“You see what I mean? How could someone with such an eye for truth be so blind? Later, when I came home from boarding school one Christmas, I tried to argue, using Scripture. He didn’t want to see it and would counter with verses in Leviticus and Titus and Colossians about slaves respecting and submitting to their masters.” Her lips twisted. “Pointless.”
“Well,” he said slowly, “it’s a fact that changing the mind of someone who has believed a concept from youth is nearly impossible. Especially when the surrounding society supports that concept—or at least does nothing to change it. But I admire the fact that you personally haven’t caved in to society’s pressure to conform in that way. Do you have any idea how courageous it is, simply to hire your former slaves? To give them a chance to regain the human dignity guaranteed in the American Constitution? Certainly it took a long time for the nation to arrive at enough of a national consensus to spell it out in the 14th Amendment. And it took a bloody, hellacious war. But we did it.”
“Yes, but my father and others like him—”
“He’s dead, Selah. You can’t change him.”
“No. He’s not. I’ve seen him.”
He gripped her shoulders. “Selah, no. I realize you’ve been under a lot of pressure—mental, financial, all sorts of ways—and nightmares are normal. God knows I’ve had my share—”
“It wasn’t a dream, and I didn’t imagine it.” She looked as if she might faint, though.
He put his arm around her again. “Here, sit down on the step with me. Tell me what you mean.”
She sat down hard, as though her knees had buckled. Her eyes closed. “It started with Wyatt. The day you and I—the day we went to the pagoda. Remember?”
As if he’d ever forget that in a hundred years. He nodded.
“Remember how distracted Wyatt was that evening? And you got him to tell us about Doc’s research. Somehow. I don’t know how you do that, make people say things they know they ought not say.” She looked up at him, her brown eyes naked in their pain. “But I knew there was something else, because I know fear when I see it. And Wyatt is not afraid of Doc. So yesterday while y’all were gone to town, I sent Mose out to the woods where he and Wyatt had been hunting before, and asked him to look around to see what might have scared Wyatt. A big bear, bobcat, anything unusual.”
Levi nodded, a knot growing in the pit of his stomach.
“Well, Mose came back after a couple of hours. It had occurred to him to look in an old shooting house my father built years ago, deep in the woods. He said he knew my papa would go there sometimes to get out of the house, away from all the women.” Selah gulped. “Mose said it was empty, but someone’s been living there. It’s not too far from a freshwater creek, there would be plenty of game. There was a blanket in the house, a recent campfire outside . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“That doesn’t mean it was your father. Could have just been some vagrant—”
“No, listen. He’d come through here about a year ago, acting pretty crazy, so I gave him some food and made him leave. Because I was afraid—well, I knew the law was looking for him. So this time I knew he’d come back. I just knew. So I went myself last night—”
“Selah!”
“I took Mose with me. I’m not stupid. But I asked him to stand out of sight and watch, with a gun ready just in case. So I started calling Papa’s name before I got too close, I didn’t want to scare him. And he came out looking so . . . Oh, Levi, so old and broken—he’s got a patch over one eye, and you can see the scar from his hairline to his chin. He called me Penny—that’s my mama—but he must’ve thought I was a ghost, because he didn’t try to touch me, just started to cry.” Selah wiped her eyes, looked up at Levi, her lips trembling. “I don’t know what to do. I know he’s still a wanted criminal, but he surely wouldn’t hurt anybody now. So I told him I loved him and I’d bring him some food and pray for him, and I just—just left.”
Levi sat staring at her, stroking her arm in an attempt to comfort, while squaring everything he knew with what Selah just told him. Jonathan Daughtry was alive, living in the area as a ghostly vagrant. He had a patch over one scarred eye. Wyatt had seen him and was afraid of him, and had described a similar man involved in the Humboldt train robbery.
But why would Daughtry sabotage a train that carried his daughter as a passenger? Unless he didn’t know she would be on it. And why would he take shots at the house where his daughters lived? So much of this still didn’t make any sense.
Another question occurred to him. What if Selah truly had dreamed that whole event?
She must have seen his mental wheels turning. “Ask Mose. He’ll tell you.” Chin set, she returned his stare.
“And you think your father’s presence might explain Wyatt’s odd behavior? Why would you make that leap?”
“Because I asked Wyatt about it this morning, and he admitted he’d seen an old vagrant in the woods. I told him to be careful and let him go. Doc never came for him today. The more I thought about it, the more worried I got—”
Levi jerked to his feet. “I’ll go look for him now.” But that would leave Selah and the rest of the women in the house unprotected against an unseen, most likely insane antagonist. Then he remembered Spencer and Beaumont, Mose and Nathan. They would make a dependable little army of defenders. He looked down at Selah, sitting on the top step of his little porch, back straight as an arrow. There was the definition of grit, a woman who would track a known killer to his lair, in the dark, with only an elderly servant for protection. “Do you know how to use a gun?” he asked her.
“Yes.”
“All right. Find one and make sure it’s loaded. Tell Spencer and Beaumont that I’ve gone to look for Wyatt, and I want them to stay in the house, armed, until I get back. For that matter, keep everyone inside until further notice.” He would post Mose and Nathan outside to stand guard. He pulled Selah to her feet and kissed her hard and quick. “Pray for me to be able to find Wyatt.”
“I will.” She turned and ran for the house.
He watched until she was safely inside, then retrieved his pistol and rifle from the cabin. He tucked the Colt into the back of his waistband and shouldered the rifle. It had been a long time since he’d taken on a manhunt. He just hoped he could bring Daughtry in alive. Killing Selah’s father would not be a good way to start a marriage.
She must have been mad, thinking she could hide anything from Levi. He had an uncanny knack for reading people and, as she’d pointed out, bringing their secrets to light. Secrets she hadn’t even wanted to think about. Now she had to not just think, but act.
Selah went straight to the parlor and found Mr. Spencer still bent over the open piano, from which a series of random tinny, harplike noises emanated. A cup still full of coffee languished, apparently untasted, on the table.
“Mr. Spencer.”
He stood up, a hand at the small of his back, and smiled at her. “Please, Miss Selah, I think we’ve come to the point where you may address me as James. Did you find Wyatt?”
“No, I—something has come up, and I—but I did find Levi. He sends his regards.” Mercy, that sounded limp. There was no way to start this conversation that wouldn’t sound melodramatic. “Mr. Spencer—James, Wyatt is missing. Levi has gone
to look for him.”
“Missing?” Spencer laid down his tuning wrench and approached her in concern. “What has happened? Does it have to do with your father?”
She blinked. “As a matter of fact, yes. How did you know?”
“Riggins didn’t tell you he’d asked me to find out what I could about your father’s wartime activities?”
“No. Why wouldn’t he just ask me? I could have told him—”
“My dear, I’ve uncovered things that I doubt you’d have any way of knowing. Details covered up by Confederate authorities who had good reason to hide them.”
Selah felt for the closest chair and sank into it. “I know why he went to prison. And I know he escaped.”
“Did you also know he went to Mexico with General Maney? And that since they came back to the United States, the two of them have been systematically hunting down the Union gangs who raped and pillaged their homes?”
Twenty-Eight
LEVI CRISSCROSSED THE PROPERTY, surrounding his mind with prayer, even as he combed through the possible actions of his quarry. There was no guarantee that Daughtry could be counted on to pursue any logical course of action. After all, according to his own band of accomplices, he had ordered the cold execution of several men without remorse. He wasn’t likely to stand for the annoying interference of a fourteen-year-old boy.
Wyatt could be dead. If Daughtry’s purpose was eliminating his perceived enemies, then the boy would be high on the list. His description of the train robber matched Selah’s description of her father. Though Wyatt hadn’t been an eyewitness to the robbery, there was no telling how Daughtry’s twisted imagination might deal with the threat.
But a methodical search to eliminate the obvious was the place to start—then he could proceed on gut instinct.
He started at the blacksmith shop, where he found Nathan Vincent at the forge, pounding at an ax blade on the anvil.
Nathan looked up and smiled. “Afternoon, boss.” Throwing aside his hammer, he used a pair of tongs to lower the blade into a bucket of water. “What brings you out here on this fine spring day?”
“Nothing good,” Levi said. “Whatever weapon you’ve got to hand, take it and get over to the main house. I want you to post a circular guard around the house, don’t let anyone come or go for any reason. We’ve got an intruder, could be dangerous.”
“An intruder? Who you think it is?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s Selah’s father.”
“The Colonel? Thought he was—”
“—dead? Yeah, we all did. But turns out he’s been camping out in a shooting house in the woods.” Levi paused, gave Nathan a straight look. “So you haven’t seen any signs of him coming and going? Nothing out of place?”
Nathan scratched his sweaty chest. “Come to think of it, there’s been some food gone missing here and there. I just thought it was varmints out of the woods. Could’ve been him, I guess.” He began the process of putting out the fire. “You sure you don’t want me to come with you?”
“I need someone to protect the women at the house.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll do that. Don’t you worry.”
“Good man. Where’s Mose?”
“Said he was going to check on the horses.”
Levi nodded and headed for the barn. “Mose!” he called. “You in there?”
Mose appeared, a pitchfork in hand. “Yessir. You need something?”
Levi stalked toward him. “How long have you known he was out there?”
“Sir?”
“You know what I mean. You took Selah out there in the dark to see her father, and you didn’t come get me. Have you lost your mind?”
The old man wilted. “I seen him a time or two, creeping around with a rusty old shotgun. He’s just pitiful, Mr. Levi, like a mangy old stray dog. Couldn’t hurt nobody.”
“He could, and it looks like he did. Wyatt’s missing.”
“Naw, sir!”
“Yes, so I want you to take me where you found him last night. He’s likely gone by now, but I want to look around.”
“Yessir, sure enough, but what about the ladies in the house? Horatia and Charmion be there too.”
“I honestly don’t think he’d try to storm the house, but Schuyler Beaumont and a justice of the peace from Oxford are inside, and I sent Nathan to watch from outside. So you’re going to take me to his lair, then I want you to go stand guard with Nathan.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, boss. Miss Selah said for me not to.” Trading the pitchfork for a rifle leaning in a corner, Mose followed Levi out of the barn.
“Selah wasn’t thinking straight last night, but she understands the danger now.” He stopped at the edge of the woods and gave Mose a level look. “Here’s what I suspect about Colonel Daughtry. He’s a convicted war criminal who believes the world owes him justice. I think he loves his daughters, but if they get in the way of whatever revenge he’s got planned, they could be collateral damage. And I think he may just be crazy enough to not care.”
“I dunno,” Mose said slowly. “I saw him one night, laying across his boy’s gravestone. Crying like a baby. That’s when I started leaving him food.”
“What boy? I thought there were just the three daughters.”
“Infant son, born late to him and the mistress. Didn’t live more than a few days.”
Levi stared at Mose. “Where is the gravesite?”
Mose pointed east. “That way.”
“All right. Take me to the hunting cabin first. Quiet now.”
Nodding, Mose started off soft-footed.
Levi followed, listening with every step for another presence in the woods. Except for rustlings of birds and forest animals, all remained quiet. The sun filtered through the trees overhead, though soft clouds blocked some of the glare, and the crisp odor of new plant growth belied the serious nature of their mission. It was almost as if this search would have been more appropriately conducted in the dark or in a winter snow.
After a ten-minute walk, Mose halted behind a scrub oak outside a clearing, where a tiny rough cabin, little more than four walls with a door and three rectangular windows, squatted on three-foot pilings. Levi came abreast, controlling his breath, alert to every sound. Exactly as Selah had described it, the remains of an old campfire marred the ground off to one side. It seemed abandoned, but Levi raised his rifle and approached the cabin with extreme care.
“Colonel!” he called softly. “If you’re in there, I just want to talk.” He stopped. “Colonel!”
There was no answer, not a scratch of sound from the cabin.
Levi approached and climbed the short ladder propped against the doorway. The little house was empty, just some chicken bones left in a corner. He returned to Mose. “He’s gone.”
“I knowed he would be, boss.”
Levi had halfway expected it too. What now? The ice house was a long shot, but maybe they should look just in case. Levi had replaced the broken lock with a new one Nathan had fashioned and left the explosives materials where he’d found them, thinking they could be moved when the ice for the party arrived from Nashville.
When they reached the ice house, Levi knelt and rattled the lock. Finding it tight, he almost got up to leave, but then noticed some odd scratches around the keyhole. A new lock shouldn’t look like that.
“Mose, this lock has been jimmied. I’m going to get the key and check to see if the explosives are undisturbed. While I do that, I want you to go make sure Nathan hasn’t had any trouble.”
“Yessir.” Mose took off at a remarkable clip for a man his age.
Levi ran for his cabin and grabbed the key off the hook. He had turned for the door when a flash of metal on the table beside his chair caught his eye. The spyglass he’d found in the cupola and slipped into his pocket the day they’d moved the bees and the shooter had attacked.
And Levi suddenly knew where Daughtry would have gone.
The gun stood in the corner where she’d left it, j
ust at the edge of her peripheral vision.
She’d taken it out of the gun cabinet in the library, noting with relief that someone—probably Schuyler—had recently cleaned it. Now she sat quietly, aware of its cold strength, smiling at her sisters’ flirtation with James Spencer. She would not tell them of the danger outside.
Perhaps Levi was worried for nothing. Maybe Wyatt had simply decided to walk to town and meet with Doc. Or maybe he had gone to check his traps. That wouldn’t be good, though, for what if he encountered Papa in the woods? What if Papa were angry? If anybody understood his volatile temper, she did.
And then there was Levi himself in danger. Papa hated Yankees. And Levi was about as Yankee as they came. Papa would likely shoot him on sight.
How on earth was she going to sit here and smile, when any minute now—
“Selah, come and sing this with me.” Joelle was beckoning, incandescent with joy at having her instrument restored to perfect pitch.
Selah shook her head. “No, I can’t—”
“Yes, you can! You do the harmony so well, and Aurora says she doesn’t know this one.”
“Why, Miss Selah!” James turned to Selah, a finger wagging. “You neglected to mention that you are a musician as well.”
“Truly I’m not,” she said, wishing she could sink through the floor. “What song are you looking at?”
“‘Aura Lee.’” Joelle’s blue eyes pleaded. “Please, it used to be Mama’s favorite.”
If she continued to demur, someone was going to ask her why, and she might blurt out her worry. Wouldn’t it be better to keep everyone distracted and entertained, right here in the parlor? Where was Schuyler? Shouldn’t she tell him to be prepared to defend them all?
James was already giving her an odd look.