Pieces of Sky

by Warner, Kaki

  “There isn’t,” he cut in harshly. “You’re not needed.”

  Molly looked steadily at him, refusing to back down, wondering as she had so many times, why her older sister had taken such an unpleasant man as her second husband. Grief over her first husband’s death had been part of it, no doubt. And fear of raising a six-year-old daughter and eight-year-old son on her own had added to it.

  “May I see her?” she asked.

  Being the weak, bullying man he was, Fletcher looked away first, his gaze as shifty as that of a guilty child. “Oh, all right. Stay if you must.” He turned and went down the hall to his office, slamming the door hard behind him.

  Molly wondered how he could bear to go into that room. She had only had the courage to venture through that door once. The walls had been cleaned by then, the reek of gunpowder and blood masked by the cloying scent of funeral flowers and smoke from Daniel’s cigar. But Papa’s ghost had lingered. She could feel him still.

  “Did you come to save Mama?”

  Molly looked up to see her nephew, Charlie, sitting on the top step of the stairs. He looked lost and small and too knowing for his eight years. He’d already lost his father and grandfather. Was he to lose his mother now, too? “I’ve come to try,” she answered.

  “It doesn’t matter. He’ll get her anyway.”

  Molly frowned in confusion. “Who will get her?”

  “The monster. He’ll get us, too.” Jumping to his feet, Charlie darted away, his footfalls ending with the thud of an upstairs door.

  Frowning, Molly started up the stairs. As she rose above the parlor, she looked down through the open door to see it was a shambles, rugs thrown back, drawers half open, books scattered about the cluttered floor. Apparently, Fletcher hadn’t seen fit to hire a cleaning girl during Nellie’s illness. Typical.

  Outside the master bedroom, she paused for a moment to prepare herself, then knocked. When there was no response, she gently pushed open the door.

  The room beyond was still and dark, the curtains pulled tight over the tall windows. The air was rank with the smell of soiled bedding, illness and despair. Except for labored breathing, it was silent.

  How long had her sister been left unattended? When had she last had her bedding changed, her face washed or her hair brushed? Had Fletcher simply left her in the dark to suffer alone? “Nellie?” she called.

  “Molly . . . is that . . . you?” The voice was a weak rasp, followed by a bout of coughing that seemed to rip through her sister’s throat.

  Rushing across the room, Molly bent beside the bed, her years of medical training at her father’s side overcoming her disgust with Fletcher and her terror for her sister. “Yes, I’m here,” she said in the calm, soothing voice Papa had taught her.

  Nellie looked ghastly, a mere shadow of the lovely woman she had once been. Her skin seemed stretched over her bones and was an unhealthy gray except for bright spots of color high on her cheeks. Her lovely green eyes shone feverishly bright and her welcoming smile looked more like a grimace.

  Recognizing encroaching death when she saw it, Molly sank weakly onto the edge of the mattress. Dear God, she cried in silent desperation , don’t take Nellie from me, too. “Oh, Nellie,” she choked out as tears flooded her eyes. “Why didn’t you send for me?”

  “Daniel . . . wouldn’t . . . let me.”

  To cover her shock, Molly brushed a lock of lank auburn hair from her sister’s hot forehead. “Well, I’m here now, dearest. And I won’t leave you.”

  “You must . . .” Reaching out, Nellie grasped Molly’s shoulder and pulled her closer. Her breath stank of the infection in her lungs. Her eyes glittered in her gaunt face—but with feverish desperation, not madness.

  “Take my . . . babies,” she gasped. “Before it’s . . . too late.”

  Molly struggled to understand. “Take them where?”

  “Away . . .”

  “From Daniel?”

  “He’s up to . . . something. Something . . . bad. Bombs. A new . . . war.” Her voice was so weak Molly had to lean close to hear. Every word was a wheezing struggle. “Thinks children . . . took papers. Threatened . . . hit . . . them.” A coughing fit gripped her and Nellie writhed, eyes scrunched tight as she struggled to drag air into her flooded lungs. Once the spasm passed, she opened her eyes and Molly saw that desperation had given way to grim determination. “Promise me . . . take them . . . away before . . . too late.”

  “But, Nellie—”

  “Must . . . hide them . . . keep safe.” Nellie was panting now, her eyes frantic. “Now. Tonight.”

  “I c-can’t just leave you.”

  “Must.” Tears coursed down Nellie’s temples to soak into the filthy bedding. “Keep babies . . . safe. Promise me . . . sister.”

  Molly blinked back her own tears. “I promise.”

  A WEEK LATER, IN A DARKENED ROOM TWO HUNDRED MILES west of Savannah, Daniel Fletcher peered nervously through the shadows at the man seated in a wheeled chair behind the wide cherry wood desk.

  It irritated him that Rustin didn’t have the lamps lit. Even if the old man didn’t need light, the rest of them did. He looked around, sensing other people in the room. Probably the artillery expert, maybe the professor.

  “Well?” Rustin demanded in his papery voice. “Have you found it?”

  “Not yet,” Fletcher answered, hoping his voice didn’t betray his growing alarm. Why hadn’t any of the others spoken? And why hadn’t Rustin offered him a chair? He felt like a fool standing here in the dark talking to a disembodied voice.

  He had never liked Rustin. Even though the old man was the glue that held them all together, Fletcher thought it hypocritical that after stealing all that gold from the Confederate coffers, Rustin would use it to foment another rebellion a decade later. But this wasn’t about breathing new life into the wounded South. It was about money. “I’ve literally torn the place apart,” Fletcher said nervously. “If my wife hid it somewhere before she died, it’s gone now.”

  “Who else could have taken it?”

  “No one was in the house but me, my wife and her children. Occasionally the doctor came by, and near the end, Nellie’s sister came, but the book had disappeared long before that.”

  “Could Matthew McFarlane have taken it? He must have known something if he came all the way from Atlanta to confront you about it.”

  Fletcher felt that quiver of guilt move through his stomach. Poor, stupid Matthew. His wife’s father had always had an overblown sense of integrity. “He had heard rumors. That’s all. He knew nothing about the book when he—when I questioned him.”

  It was a moment before Rustin spoke again. “How old are your children?”

  “Stepchildren. Eight and six, I believe.”

  “Have you questioned them?”

  Battling the urge to wipe his clammy palms on his coat, Fletcher glanced around, wondering again why the others hadn’t spoken. This was beginning to feel like an inquisition. Turning back to Rustin, he said stiffly, “The children are no longer at the house.” And good riddance. Always underfoot, poking into things they shouldn’t. He was glad to be shut of them.

  “Where are they?”

  “I-I’m not sure.”

  Finally a voice erupted from a darkened corner. The Professor’s. “Christ, man! They could have taken it and might even now be showing it to the authorities!”

  Fletcher could hear whispering in the shadows, a furtive, hushed sound, like rats skittering behind walls.

  “They wouldn’t have left on their own,” Rustin said. “Who is with them?”

  “Their aunt, my wife’s sister. Molly McFarlane.”

  “Why did she take them from your care?”

  That dry, choking feeling returned to Fletcher’s throat. He coughed to clear it. “I d-don’t know.”

  Anger swirled in the closed room like coils of greasy smoke.

  “She must have taken it,” a voice accused.

  Fletcher shook his head. “How
could she have even known about it?”

  “Maybe your wife told her.”

  “You imbecile!” Rustin cut in with such an explosion of vehemence Fletcher flinched. “You idiot!” Leaning forward in his chair and into a pale slant of light penetrating the edge of the drawn drape, Rustin spread his bloated hands on the desktop. His milky eyes seemed to stare into Fletcher, although Fletcher knew that was impossible. “You go find them, you bumbling fool! You find that woman and those children and get that book back! Now!”

  “Y-Yes. All right.” Fletcher edged toward the exit. As he swung open the door to the blinding brightness of the hallway, Rustin’s voice drifted out behind him.

  “Send for Hennessey. Just in case.”

  One

  East of El Paso, Texas, November 1871

  “THAT OLD MAN LOOKS LIKE A BEAR, DOESN’T HE, AUNT Molly?”

  Blinking out of her reverie, Molly glanced at her niece, Penny, then up to see that the bearded man seated at the front of the passenger car was staring at her again.

  Pursing her lips, she shifted her gaze to the shoulders of the woman seated in front of her. Men didn’t usually study her so intently—healthy men, anyway—and it made her acutely uncomfortable. But Penny was right. He did look a bit like a bear with his great size and all that dark hair, although it could only be from a six-year old’s perspective that he be considered old.

  “He isn’t scary like the other one,” Penny added, sending a shy grin in the man’s direction.

  “What other one?”

  “The ugly one. He was watching us, too.”

  Watching us? Frowning, Molly looked around. “When? Here, on the train?”

  “By the kitty in the window. ‘Member the kitty in the window?” Penny bounced her heels against the front of the bench seat and smiled. “I like kitties.”

  Molly vaguely recalled a tabby dozing in the display window of a general store in . . . where was that? Omaha? But she hadn’t noticed anyone watching them. “Is that the only time you’ve seen him?”

  “He was in the red town, too. He waved at me but I didn’t wave back.”

  Someone waved at her? Why?

  Reaching up, Penny twisted a curl around her finger as she often did when she was anxious. “I didn’t like him. He looked like a candle.”

  “A candle?”

  “His face was all melted. He was scary.”

  Melted? Was he old? Did he have a burn scar? Molly thought of all the faces she’d seen in the last weeks, but none stuck out. She had tried to be vigilant in case Fletcher had come after them, but what if he had sent trackers instead? The thought was so unsettling it was a moment before Molly could draw in a full breath.

  “I had a kitty once but he went dead.” Penny peered up through her flyaway blond hair. “Can I have another one, Aunt Molly? I promise I won’t sneeze.”

  “Perhaps. We’ll see.”

  What if someone had followed them this far? What if he was on the train even now? Nervously Molly glanced at the other passengers then froze when she found the bearded man staring at her again. Suspicion blossomed in her mind.

  Several times that morning she had looked up to find his assessing gaze on her. At first, she had thought nothing of it. They sat facing each other, after all. Since the man was apparently too large to fit comfortably into the narrow forward facing passenger seats, he had taken the bench at the front of the car. It was natural that their gazes might cross occasionally. But after years of being invisible and for the last three weeks trying desperately to attract as little notice as possible, Molly found it disconcerting to be the object of such interest, idle though it might be. Could he be a tracker sent by Fletcher?

  The man looked away, but Molly continued to study him.

  He wore a thick shearling jacket so she couldn’t see if he wore a gun. But those work-worn hands hinted that he earned his living doing more than just waving a pistol about. And his face, despite the low hat and concealing beard, didn’t seem particularly threatening, although that dark stare was a bit unnerving.

  Turning her attention to the window, she tried to remember what she knew about him. She had first seen him that morning when the train had stopped in Sierra Blanca to fill the tender with water, and she and the children had gotten out to stretch their legs. He had been supervising the loading of some sort of machinery onto a flat car. The men assisting seemed to know him, as did the conductor, who had stopped to chat with him when he’d passed through the car a while ago. That meant the bearded man had reason to be here other than to track her and the children. It was simply coincidence that they were on the same train. That, and nothing more.

  Letting out a breath of relief, she glanced at the children. On her left, wearing his usual scowl and chewing his thumbnail, Charlie stared morosely out at the west Texas landscape bouncing by. On her right, Penny dozed, her thumb stuck in her mouth. It was a habit she had resumed of late and indicated she battled the same troubling fears that Charlie did. That they all did.

  Hopefully, soon it would be over and they would be starting a new life in California. She would find employment—either as an assistant to one of her father’s medical colleagues, or in a clinic or hospital—and then they could cease this erratic flight. If she only knew what it was they were running from and why, maybe she could find a better way to protect them. But Nellie had been so weak and distraught the night Molly had spirited the children away from Savannah, Molly hadn’t questioned her. Now she wished she had.

  Feeling the weight of exhaustion pulling her down, Molly tipped her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. How long had they been traveling? Almost three weeks?

  The children had hardly spoken at first. Confused and terrified, they hadn’t understood why they had to leave in such a hurry or why they’d had to leave their mother behind. Penny still didn’t understand, but Charlie did. He had lost so much in his eight years it made him fearful of what might be taken from him next. Because of it, he trusted no one. Not even her.

  Opening her eyes, Molly’s gaze fell on her nephew. She had no experience with children. She didn’t know what Penny and Charlie wanted or needed or expected, and her inadequacy terrified her. But she loved them with all her heart and hoped to find a way to reach them and gain their trust. They were all that was left of her family now, and probably the only children she would ever have, and she was all that stood between them and Fletcher and whatever threat he posed. She was resolved to protect them at any cost.

  Moved by concern for her troubled nephew, Molly reached over to stroke the fall of auburn hair from Charlie’s furrowed brow.

  He jerked away.

  Molly let her hand fall back to her lap. “Charlie,” she said, and waited for him to look at her. When he did, she saw fear in his eyes, and more anger than any child should ever carry. “Why are you so angry?”

  He stared silently at the back of the bench in front of him, his lips pressed in a tight, thin line.

  “I know you’re upset about your mother.”

  His head whipped toward her. “Why didn’t you save her? You’re supposed to be a nurse. You should have made her better.”

  “I tried, Charlie. I wanted to help her. More than anything in the world.”

  He glared at her for a moment more, then the fight seemed to drain out of him. “It doesn’t matter,” he said and turned toward the window. “The monster would have gotten her anyway.”

  The monster again. Molly sighed. How often over the last weeks had she awakened to her nephew’s screaming nightmares? “There is no monster, Charlie,” she told him as she had so many times. “It’s just a bad dream.”

  Charlie continued to stare out the window, a wall of silence between them.

  With a sense of defeat, Molly looked down to see that her hands had curled into tight fists. With effort, she opened them, forcing her fingers to straighten one by one until they lay flat against her thighs. At least she had control over her fingers, she thought wryly, even though e
verything else in her life seemed to be spinning out of control.

  A distant voice shouted. Footsteps pounded overhead as someone raced across the roof of the passenger car toward the rear. A moment later, metal squealed on metal so loudly the children covered their ears. The car lurched as the brakes took hold. Charlie careened against her shoulder. Penny almost tumbled off the seat before Molly caught her.

  A woman screamed. Men’s voices rose in alarm. The screech of metal grew deafening and acrid smoke began to seep through the rear doors from beneath the back platform where the brakes were.

  “What’s happening?” Charlie cried, clinging to the armrests as the car began to shudder and buck.

  “I don’t know,” Molly shouted over Penny’s wails. “Hold on!”

  Another lurch threw Penny to the floor. As Molly reached for her, a falling valise slammed into her shoulder. Then suddenly the car was rocking so hard bodies were flying every which way.

  “Penny!” she shouted, terrified the child would be trampled or smothered.

  Then big hands scooped the terrified child from the tangle of passengers. A flash of brown eyes as the bearded man thrust her into Molly’s arms, then he stepped over thrashing bodies and charged into the smoke billowing at the back landing.

  Windows broke. Valises flew from the overhead racks. Then in a thunderous crack, something tore loose from the undercarriage.

  Feet braced, her arms wrapped tightly around the wailing children, Molly looked back out the cracked window to see the last three cars of the train topple off the tracks in a thunderous roar of splintering wood. Immediately their car shot forward, rammed into the car in front of it, then shuddered to a stop.

  AMID SHRIEKS AND SCREAMS FROM TERRIFIED PASSENGERS milling about in the smoke, Molly managed to keep a hold on the children and get them out of the car. By then, men had beaten back the flames where the brakes had caught fire beneath the rear platform, and other men were pawing through the wreckage of the baggage car, looking for survivors. Once she made certain the children were unharmed, Molly settled them at a safe distance from the wreckage then went back to help where she could.