Together is All We Need

by Michael Phillips

  ‘‘Hmm . . . well, they were a bad lot, all right. Which one of them did Templeton shoot?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know.’’

  ‘‘And what became of him?’’

  ‘‘He’s dead, Uncle Ward. Uncle Templeton killed him. He did it to save me. The man was about to shoot me.’’

  ‘‘Whew. . . sounds like it was bad . . . real bad,’’ he said, shaking his head. ‘‘Me and Templeton both got mixed up in a few things we shouldn’t have. Where’s he in jail at?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know, Uncle Ward. He didn’t say. The letter didn’t say either.’’

  ‘‘Well, you can show it to me when we get back and I’ll see what I can make of it.’’

  They kept talking, but gradually their voices got so quiet I couldn’t hear them above the sound of the horses and the clattering of the wagon wheels. I wondered if Katie was telling him about me, and that even though I was colored, I was his niece.

  When we got back to the house forty minutes or an hour later, Henry was waiting for us. There was no sign of Burchard Clairborne, though one of his wagons and a lot of the stuff he’d brought out earlier was still there.

  Josepha climbed down and went straight into the kitchen and started fixing us all something to eat and drink. It was mighty strange coming back still another time after I’d thought I was leaving Rosewood for good. It seemed like I was always leaving and then coming back.

  ‘‘You’ll stay awhile, won’t you, Uncle Ward?’’ said Katie as they walked inside. ‘‘You’re not just going to leave again, are you?’’

  ‘‘I’ve come too far not to stay and rest up a spell.’’

  ‘‘Then what will you do?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know, Kathleen. I reckon everything is changed now. I gotta think on it some.’’

  ‘‘Do you want to see Mama’s grave?’’

  Mr. Daniels nodded. The two of them walked away from the house while Emma and I and William followed Josepha inside.

  Half an hour later we were all sitting around the table in the kitchen eating lunch. This was sure not what we’d been expecting to be doing this afternoon after the day had begun with us all saying good-bye to each other!

  ‘‘You got that letter from Templeton, Kathleen?’’ Mr. Daniels asked.

  Katie had to think a minute, then remembered she’d put it in her suitcase, which was still sitting where she’d left it outside the door. She brought it in and opened it up, then handed the letter to her uncle. He read it thoughtfully, nodding a couple times.

  ‘‘Yeah, I reckon I got a pretty good idea where he is,’’ he said after a bit.

  ‘‘Then let’s go get him . . . let’s get him out of jail!’’ said Katie excitedly.

  Mr. Daniels laughed. ‘‘It ain’t quite that easy, Kathleen,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Why not, Uncle Ward?’’

  ‘‘We don’t know what the charges against him are,’’ he said, ‘‘—though I’ve got a pretty good idea.’’

  ‘‘We’ve got to try to help him.’’

  ‘‘Maybe you’re right. I don’t reckon we can just let him rot in jail.’’

  ‘‘Yes, Uncle Ward! We’ve got to help him! Can we, Uncle Ward? Will you take me to find him?’’

  ‘‘I’ll think on that a spell too,’’ he laughed. ‘‘I can see you must have grown mighty fond of your uncle Templeton.’’

  He paused and glanced at me, then back to Katie.

  ‘‘But tell me,’’ he said, ‘‘what was Templeton talking about ‘your uncle and papa’? Who’s this Mary Ann he’s talking about?’’

  The whole room went silent. I felt the heat rising on the back of my neck. I glanced at Katie and could tell that she didn’t want to say anything I didn’t want her to say.

  ‘‘That’s me, Mr. Daniels,’’ I said after a few seconds. ‘‘Mayme’s what folks always called me, but Mary Ann is my real name.’’

  ‘‘But why was he writing to you like that, along with Kathleen?’’

  I hesitated and looked at Katie. ‘‘Because . . . I’m his daughter,’’ I said finally.

  He stared back at me with a blank expression for a few seconds.

  ‘‘Templeton is your father?’’ he said.

  ‘‘Yes, sir.’’

  ‘‘Is your mama Lemuela?’’

  I nodded. ‘‘You know about my mama?’’ I said.

  ‘‘Sure. She was just like part of our family before Rosalind was married. Now that I think of it, you look just like her.’’

  He shook his head. ‘‘Well, if that don’t beat all! So when you called this your family back there, you weren’t kidding . . . this really is your family?’’

  ‘‘Mayme and I felt like sisters even before we found out we were cousins,’’ said Katie. ‘‘That’s what made it so hard about Uncle Burchard saying none of them could stay, and why I was going to leave this morning too. I couldn’t bear to be here without them. And that’s why we’ve just got to get Uncle Templeton out of jail! He’s part of the family, just like you are now too, Uncle Ward.’’

  He laughed again. It was hard not to get caught up in Katie’s enthusiasm once she got determined about something!

  ‘‘Well, I’ll read his letter again after lunch,’’ said Mr. Daniels, ‘‘and I’ll think on it a spell. Then maybe we’ll talk about my going up there and finding out what’s going on.’’

  ‘‘Oh, thank you . . . thank you, Uncle Ward!’’ exclaimed Katie. ‘‘But don’t you mean you’ll think about us going and finding out what’s going on? I’ve got to go too!’’

  ‘‘You?’’

  Katie nodded eagerly.

  ‘‘What if it’s dangerous, Kathleen?’’

  ‘‘I don’t care. He’s my uncle. I’ve got to go.’’

  ‘‘Well, then, I reckon I’ll have to think on it even harder.’’

  ‘‘But we’ll try, won’t we, Uncle Ward? You’ll help me try to find him?’’

  ‘‘I reckon so, Kathleen . . . I reckon so.’’

  ‘‘Oh, thank you . . . thank you, Uncle Ward! When can we leave to go find him?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know, in a day or two maybe. And you’re still intent on going along?’’

  ‘‘Yes, Uncle Ward,’’ said Katie. ‘‘If Uncle Templeton’s in jail, I’ve got to try to help him!’’

  IN SEARCH OF TEMPLETON

  DANIELS

  32

  IWASN’T SO SURE ABOUT KATIE AND HER UNCLE leaving the rest of us alone so soon after what her uncle Burchard had done, knowing that he might still be around. And I wanted to go too! But one of us had to stay at Rosewood, and we all knew that having Katie plead the cause for her uncle would do more good with a white sheriff than anything I could do. One look at me, with me saying he was my daddy, and he’d probably keep him in jail longer! So we asked Henry to come out and stay at Rosewood while they were gone just so that nothing bad would happen with Mr. Clairborne. We also made sure that no townspeople knew they were leaving, especially Mrs. Hammond.

  Katie and her uncle Ward planned to take the train up to Baltimore, which was near the town where Mr. Daniels figured they were keeping my papa. Katie took twenty dollars of her money, which Mr. Daniels said would be enough to get them there and back.

  They left two days later, rode into Charlotte, spent the night in a hotel, and then got on the next morning’s train north to Richmond and from there to Baltimore, where they spent the next night. Then Mr. Daniels rented two horses and they rode out to the little town of Ellicott City, where he hoped they would find his brother. If they didn’t, he said, then they were sunk because he had no other idea where he might be. But it was a town where he knew my papa had spent quite a bit of time and was the only place he’d seen him after coming back from California. After riding all that way together on the train, Katie said they got to know each other pretty well. Her uncle Ward was a lot like her uncle Templeton, she said. They were so much alike, she couldn’t understand why they hadn’t been bette
r friends through the years and had drifted apart like they had.

  They got to Ellicott City a little after noon on the third day after leaving Rosewood. It wasn’t a very big town, Katie said, about the size of Greens Crossing, though it had a sheriff ’s office and jail, which Greens Crossing didn’t.

  ‘‘Well, there it is,’’ said Mr. Daniels, pointing ahead as they rode through the main street of the town.

  Katie looked ahead of them and saw a small wooden building with the word SHERIFF painted above the door. They rode to it, stopped, tied their horses in front, then went inside.

  A young man was seated behind a wooden desk. Katie said he didn’t look much older than her. He looked up and nodded.

  ‘‘Afternoon,’’ he said, smiling at Katie.

  ‘‘Are you the sheriff?’’ she asked.

  ‘‘No, miss . . . I’m just the deputy. What can I do for you?’’

  ‘‘Do you have someone in jail here whose name is Templeton Daniels?’’

  ‘‘That we do, miss,’’ said the deputy, glancing at the paper in Katie’s hand where she was holding the letter. ‘‘He’s our only prisoner.’’

  ‘‘We would like to see him.’’

  ‘‘On what kind of business, miss?’’

  ‘‘We’re kin. He’s my uncle, and this is his brother.’’

  ‘‘I see . . . well, I’ll have to talk to the sheriff and make sure it’s all right.’’

  ‘‘When will he be back?’’

  ‘‘Can’t say, miss. But if you two will be good enough to step outside so I can lock the door—he always makes me lock the door if I have to leave the office—I’ll run over to the saloon and ask him about it.’’

  A minute later Katie and Mr. Daniels were standing on the boardwalk while the young deputy ran across the street. He came out two minutes later with a man at his side. They walked across the street.

  ‘‘I’m Sheriff Heyes,’’ said the older man. ‘‘My deputy here says you want to see Daniels.’’

  ‘‘That’s right,’’ said Mr. Daniels. ‘‘I reckon we want to talk to you too, to find out what kind of trouble he’s in. He wrote our niece here a letter, but it don’t say much.’’

  ‘‘What did he tell you?’’ asked the sheriff.

  ‘‘I have the letter right here,’’ said Katie, pulling out the letter. ‘‘He said that he had come back to try to pay back some money a man thought he owed him but that he got put in jail before he could and that you wouldn’t let him out until he paid it, which he couldn’t do as long as he was in jail.’’

  ‘‘Well, I reckon that’s partially right,’’ said the sheriff. ‘‘He swindled one of the biggest ranchers in these parts out of a good piece of dough, and the man’s pretty upset about it.’’ He eyed Mr. Daniels carefully. ‘‘Don’t I know you too?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘I was around a time or two with my brother years ago.’’

  ‘‘Yeah, I thought so.’’

  ‘‘But how can he pay it back if you keep him in jail?’’ said Katie, bringing the conversation back to the subject of my papa.

  ‘‘Maybe he can’t. But I got the law to think about too.’’

  ‘‘There wouldn’t be any harm in us seeing him, though . . . would there?’’

  ‘‘No, I don’t reckon so. He’s not dangerous, and the two of you sure don’t look dangerous.—Go ahead, Rob, you can let them see him.’’

  ‘‘Thank you, Sheriff!’’ said Katie.

  The sheriff nodded and almost returned her smile, then walked back toward the saloon.

  They followed the deputy back to the office and inside. He took out another key and unlocked another door, then nodded for them to follow. He led them through a narrow corridor with empty cells on each side.

  ‘‘You got visitors, Daniels!’’ he called out as they went.

  Katie was walking behind the deputy. He stopped and pulled out a set of keys and unlocked a metal door to his right, then moved back. Katie stepped into the doorway. There was her uncle Templeton standing there.

  ‘‘Kathleen!’’ he exclaimed.

  ‘‘Hello, Uncle Templeton.’’

  ‘‘What in thunder . . . what are you doing here! How did you find me?’’

  ‘‘I had some help figuring out where you were.’’ Katie smiled. ‘‘Look who I’ve got with me,’’ she said, looking behind her.

  My papa saw a figure step out of the shadows of the hallway and follow Katie into the cell.

  ‘‘Ward! What the—’’

  ‘‘Hello, Templeton,’’ said Mr. Daniels, a little sheepishly, Katie thought.

  ‘‘I figured you for dead . . . I hadn’t heard from you in so long. But—’’

  He glanced over at Katie.

  ‘‘—How in the world did you two . . . what are you doing here—together?’’

  ‘‘It’s a long story,’’ said Mr. Daniels.

  ‘‘There’s so much to tell you, Uncle Templeton,’’ Katie burst in. ‘‘My other uncle I told you about—Uncle Burchard, my father’s brother—he’s been trying to take Rosewood away the whole time you were gone. We didn’t know what had happened or where you were and we were so afraid. Mrs. Hammond didn’t bring us the letter right away, and we didn’t know what to do. Finally we all decided to leave Rosewood. Then right at the last minute—after Mayme and Emma and Josepha had all left and were heading up north to find some people Josepha knew—’’

  ‘‘Mary Ann’s gone!’’ my papa interrupted.

  ‘‘She’s not gone anymore,’’ replied Katie. ‘‘But she had left, and I was getting ready to leave too. We didn’t know what else to do, because you were gone and we didn’t know where you were. Then suddenly Uncle Ward came from out of nowhere. And guess what he had with him!’’

  ‘‘I doubt if I could guess in a hundred years . . . he wasn’t carrying another sack of gold, was he?’’ asked my papa, glancing toward his brother.

  ‘‘No, something even better! Tell him, Uncle Ward!’’ said Katie excitedly, turning to Mr. Daniels.

  ‘‘You go ahead and tell him, Kathleen,’’ he said. ‘‘I think he’d like hearing it from you.’’

  ‘‘He had the deed, Uncle Templeton!’’ said Katie. ‘‘The deed to Rosewood. Mama’d given it to him a long time ago and he’d kept it all this time. Once the lawyer looked at it, there wasn’t anything more my uncle Burchard could do but leave.’’

  ‘‘Rosalind gave you the deed?’’ asked my papa. ‘‘What about Richard? He never took much shine to either of us. Can’t figure he’d let her do that.’’

  ‘‘For some reason, Richard had put the place in Rosalind’s name,’’ said Mr. Daniels. ‘‘So it was legally hers. When I gave her my gold to keep, after I got back from California, she gave me the deed.’’

  ‘‘Why?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know—she thought it was the right thing to do.’’

  ‘‘Sounds like Rosalind, all right.’’

  ‘‘I think Richard was afraid this Burchard fellow’d try to pull something. Might have been his way of trying to protect the place.’’

  Templeton rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  ‘‘I, uh . . . I take it you got my letter?’’ he said.

  Mr. Daniels nodded.

  ‘‘I don’t have much to offer,’’ said my papa, ‘‘but there’s no sense you two just standing there. You want to come in—I guess you can sit on the bed there.’’

  Katie and her uncle Ward walked inside the cell and sat down while my papa continued to stand. The deputy had been standing in the hallway and now pulled the cell door closed but stayed nearby listening.

  ‘‘What’s it all about anyway, Templeton?’’ asked Mr. Daniels.

  ‘‘It’s an old beef,’’ answered my papa. ‘‘It’ll never hold up in court. Roscoe’s a greedy man and all I did was take advantage of that—he’s the rancher who brought the charge against me. Trouble is, the sheriff here’s his brother-in-law. So there’s nothing I can do as long as
I’m here.’’

  He glanced toward the deputy in the hall, like he wished maybe he hadn’t said what he did.

  ‘‘But couldn’t we help, Uncle Templeton?’’ said Katie. ‘‘What if I gave him my money?’’

  ‘‘Gave it to who?’’

  ‘‘Whoever that man is who’s making you stay here.’’

  ‘‘I don’t know. . . might help some, though I doubt you’ve got enough, Kathleen. And there are some other folks that are waiting for a chance to take it out of my hide too.’’

  ‘‘If she ain’t got enough, I’ll chip in,’’ said Mr. Daniels.

  ‘‘You got money?’’ asked his brother.

  ‘‘Not much. But I got a little stashed away left over from the gold. Probably not more’n a hundred dollars. But there’s Rosalind’s deed too. That’s likely worth twice what anybody’s got against you.’’

  ‘‘Yes, yes!’’ said Katie, suddenly realizing the significance of what her uncle Ward had said. ‘‘We could get a loan again, just like Mama did—a loan against Rosewood.’’

  ‘‘You can’t be doing that, Kathleen. Not now that you finally got them other two loans paid off and your uncle Burchard off your back.’’

  ‘‘But what good is Rosewood, Uncle Templeton, if you’re in jail? You and Mayme and Uncle Ward are the only family I’ve got and—’’

  Katie started to cry. ‘‘I just want us to be together,’’ she tried to go on. ‘‘That’s all we need—being together. I don’t care if we even lose Rosewood, just so we can be together . . . and be a family.’’

  BROTHERS

  33

  THE CELL WAS QUIET A MINUTE. THE ONLY SOUND was Katie’s crying. I don’t know what the deputy was thinking.

  ‘‘I reckon she’s right,’’ said Mr. Daniels after a minute. ‘‘Whatever I got is yours too, the hundred dollars, even the deed Rosalind gave me . . . whatever it takes to get you out of here.’’

  Katie said my papa just stood there and stared down at the floor.

  Katie gradually stopped crying. When Templeton Daniels spoke again, Katie said his voice sounded soft and husky, like he might have been fighting back a few tears of his own.

  ‘‘Kathleen,’’ he said, ‘‘Ward and I need to have a little talk, between ourselves, brother to brother. You don’t mind waiting outside for a spell, do you?’’