American Dreams Trilogy

by Michael Phillips

  “Of course,” said Cherity enthusiastically. “But… there’s really nothing to do but just get on.”

  “I’m sure it seems simple, but the whole thing terrifies me. I don’t know the first thing about how to get up and how to make them go and stop and turn, and what you do with those leather things—”

  “The reins.”

  “Yes… whatever they’re called. And I don’t even know what to wear.”

  “Do you have any riding clothes?”

  “Do you mean men’s dungarees—good heavens, I’ve never worn a pair in my life. I do have a riding habit for riding sidesaddle, but—” she laughed—“I’ve never worn it.”

  “Well, that would be fine. But it is so much more comfortable in dungarees.”

  “Would you come back tomorrow and go into town with me and help me get what else I need?”

  “That would be fun! Sure, I would love to.”

  “Maybe I will even get a men’s hat! You look so wonderful in yours. Mrs. Baker will have a fit. I can’t wait to see the look on her face!”

  Cherity returned to Oakbriar the following afternoon. Veronica had asked Leon Riggs to hitch the buggy for her. It stood ready in front of the house and Veronica was proud to be able to drive them into town with at least a small degree of confidence. They returned from Dove’s Landing two hours later. Veronica changed into her new riding clothes and, to her mother’s surprise, told Lady Daphne that she and Cherity were going for a ride. After selecting the tamest horse at Oakbriar, again with the help of the Beaumont overseer, Cherity showed her how to saddle him, then helped Veronica into the saddle and jumped up into her own.

  Even before they set out, Mrs. Baker had hurried to tell Mrs. Peterson about her two customers, and Mrs. Peterson had proceeded to set the rest of the of the town’s women abuzz with the news.

  The next day Veronica was a little more comfortable in the saddle, and the two girls set off together into the hills, Cherity chose gentle terrain, and by the end of the afternoon had shown Veronica the basics of a gentle canter. Veronica was not quite brave enough to try it for herself yet. But her initial fears were subsiding rapidly enough that Cherity was confident she would be galloping alongside her within a week or two.

  Fifty-Seven

  Though she continued to carry Richmond Davidson’s gun whenever she rode alone, Cherity did not again encounter Elias Slade. By then, hearing that he was still at Oakbriar, Richmond notified the authorities, outlining everything he knew about the man.

  Cherity did, however, have another unexpected encounter that proved destined to change all their lives in ways no one at either Greenwood or Oakbriar could have foreseen.

  It was a warm day some three weeks after Seth’s departure and the day seemed perfect for a long ride to take her mind off her growing anxiety about their not having heard from him. She set off after lunch, rode toward Harper’s Peak the long way around, through the high meadow where some of their horses were grazing, and up to the ridge where she rode the length of it twice, before starting down through the Brown tract.

  Ever since her discovery of the carved symbols on the tree matching the design on the skin painting that Chigua had restored, she was convinced that some mystery concerning the enigmatic Mr. Brown was just waiting to be discovered… and that it was up to her to discover it.

  Why she was drawn to the place, Cherity could not say. The mystery of the Cherokee man had possessed her since that first day she and Seth had ridden here together when she was a mere girl. Now she was a young woman with a woman’s heart filled with a woman’s love. Chigua’s talk of the caves of North Carolina where the Cherokee had hidden the gold prior to the Trail of Tears had infected Cherity with the certainty that Brown had done the same thing prior to his strange disappearance from Virginia. There was no factual basis for such an idea. Yet in her heart of hearts… she was sure of it. The caves of the region had filled her with awe since she and Seth had explored the very first one together all those years ago. But in all her rides and investigations since, she had found nothing beyond the markings on the pine trunk near the house. And after the incident with Elias Slade, she had not ventured inside any of the caves again.

  Denton Beaumont had been back to Oakbriar half a dozen times since he had rushed away excitedly, planning to return within the hour. But he had always been too distracted and busy to devote an afternoon to the more thorough search of the Brown place he had intended. But at last came an afternoon when he had time on his hands. He went to his office and closed the door, the events of a time long past running through his mind again.

  It was with trembling hand that he opened the safe in his office, fumbled through its contents, and withdrew the envelope in which for thirty years he had kept the small faded scrap of paper hoping that someday its strange secrets would reveal themselves. He placed it carefully in his pocket, then hurried outside to saddle his horse.

  The day he had long anticipated was finally at hand!

  Cherity’s ride had been longer than usual and the afternoon had grown yet warmer and more sultry as she went, such that by the time her way led her past Mr. Brown’s house, she was weary and growing a little sleepy.

  Not wanting to take any chances of being seen, she tied her horse behind the house out of sight, then walked inside.

  She lit a lantern and made her way slowly through all the rooms, her eyes resting on all the same familiar items they had seen so many times before, especially now the beautiful skin painting that Chigua had restored where it hung above the fireplace. At length she blew out the lantern and set it on the table, and wandered toward one of the bedrooms, the weariness of the ride returning upon her.

  Denton Beaumont rode up to the Brown house, reined in, and dismounted. Even in his eagerness, he walked toward it with slowing steps. He opened the door cautiously, almost timidly, knowing no one else was within miles, yet somehow unwilling to make any unnecessary noise.

  He caught a whiff—or did he only imagine it?—of the faint smell of heat. He reached toward the lantern sitting on the table. Was its glass warm? A chill went through him. The place was utterly silent. Had someone been here before him? Or was his brain again playing tricks on him?

  He would have scoffed at any suggestion that he was being watched by the spirit of the dead. He was far too much a materialist for such mumbo jumbo. Yet some impulse urged silence upon him, as if the mere echo of his steps across the floor might wake the slumber of the departed to shout to the world the dread secret he had managed to conceal for so long.

  Cherity had not intended to fall asleep. She had only lain down to rest briefly before continuing her ride. But she was more fatigued than she realized. Within three minutes she was sound asleep and dreaming of Indian legends and gold rings and weird geometric designs carved on trees and rocks and on the flanks of white deer racing through the forest trying to keep from being seen by the eyes of men.

  Suddenly she started awake!

  Cherity’s eyes shot open. She lay still, not daring to move a muscle. A sound had disturbed her sleep. Someone was in the next room!

  She was sweating freely from the hot day and the sudden rush of adrenaline through her system. For several moments she lay still, breathing heavily and trying to gather her wits back inside her brain. It might be a runaway who had stumbled upon the place. But she couldn’t afford to take any chances.

  With extreme care, Cherity sat up, then slowly rose to her feet. With thoughts of Elias Slade reverberating in her mind, her hand went to her side and she drew the pistol from its holster.

  Denton Beaumont was engrossed with his search of the stones of the fireplace, which he had been tapping at to dislodge any that might be loose. The sudden sounds of steps behind him made him nearly leap out of his skin.

  He spun around. Across the room stood a little girl with a gun in her hand pointed straight at him.

  “What are you doing here?” he exclaimed. “And put that thing down—who are you anyway?”


  “What are you doing here?” returned Cherity.

  “That is none of your affair!” retorted Beaumont, recovering from his temporary fright.

  Strange as it may seem, though she had been at Greenwood for several years, and though his name came up often enough, Cherity had never before laid eyes on the Davidsons’ neighbor. Nor had he seen her before this moment. They were complete strangers to one another, and both were utterly perplexed to find someone else in the Brown house who appeared perfectly at home in the place.

  Now that he had heard the girl’s voice, however, Beaumont did not think her crazy enough to shoot him. His natural abusive nature returned quickly to the surface. “Now get out of here and leave me alone. I don’t know who you are or what you are doing, but I have business here. Put that gun away, I tell you! And I asked you who you were.”

  Cherity, too, was by now wide awake and fully recovered from the shock of seeing a man she did not know rummaging about and disturbing the place she considered almost sacred. She walked slowly forward as she holstered the pistol. She noticed that the skin painting was gone from the wall. She glanced about and saw it lying on the table. On top of it rested a small torn piece of yellowed paper.

  “What are you doing with Mr. Browns painting?” she asked. “And why did you take it down?”

  “What do you know of Brown?” snapped Beaumont.

  “That this was his house, and that it now belongs to Mr. Davidson,” said Cherity.

  “For now, perhaps.”

  “I want to know what are you looking for.” insisted Cherity. She did not like this man and was growing irritated. “Why did you take the painting down?”

  “Look, little girl, I don’t have time for your questions. What is your name?

  “My name is none of your affair,” retorted Cherity, getting angry now too. “If you don’t tell me what you are doing here, I will go get Mr. Davidson immediately.”

  “Go get him, see if I care. I will be gone before he gets here anyway.”

  Cherity’s eyes drifted again to the table and the torn piece of paper that lay on top of the skin. She had never seen it before. It must belong to the man in front of her. On it were drawn a series of lines, a few sketches of what might be trees and the contour of a hillside, and a squiggly line that could represent a stream.

  And there was the same pattern of lines and dots as were on the painting and on the tree outside!

  Whoever this man was, he must be looking for the same thing she was!

  But he was right. Even if she galloped all the way, she could not possibly get back here with Richmond for thirty or forty minutes. It did not take her long to assess her options.

  Suddenly she leapt forward, grabbed the torn paper in one hand, and darted for the door.

  But Beaumont had been watching her carefully. His cunning eyes had seen her examining the torn bit of map. He hoped she would think nothing of it. Obviously he was mistaken.

  He was nearly as quick as she, and his legs were longer. With two swift strides he caught her in front of the door and his hand closed tightly on her wrist.

  “Ouch… that hurts!” Cherity yelled. “Let me go!”

  “Let go of that paper,” he demanded.

  “This house belongs to Mr. Davidson. Whatever you are up to, I am going to tell him.”

  “You are going to do no such thing. Drop it.”

  Beaumont’s hand twisted Cherity’s arm backward until she screamed in pain.

  “I can break your arm in a second, little girl,” he said, staring into her eyes with an expression that indicated clearly enough that he was serious. “Now let go of that paper.”

  Cherity kicked Beaumont’s leg as hard as she could. The shock of Cherity’s sudden attack caused him to release his grip. Cherity dashed for the door, and within seconds was outside and sprinting for her horse behind the house.

  Cursing his foul luck to have been seen, Beaumont hurriedly resumed his search. When he left the place twenty minutes later, the painting that Chigua had so meticulously restored, already torn in several spots from his rough treatment, was rolled up under his arm and on its way to Oakbriar.

  Fifty-Eight

  Cherity went straight to Richmond with news of her encounter and to give him the piece of paper she had taken from Beaumont. Richmond looked at it with obvious interest, thanked her, said he would handle it and suggested she divulge nothing about it until he decided what was to be done.

  All thought of Denton Beaumont, however, faded into the background of Cherity’s mind the next day. Richmond returned from town holding a newspaper. Cherity was in the kitchen as he perused it and mentioned this and that as he read.

  “Hmm… there was a train accident a couple weeks ago,” he said, “an explosion set on the tracks near Atlanta, just outside Jonesborough.”

  “What happened?” asked Carolyn.

  “The train derailed. From the sound of it, it was pretty serious. A number of people were killed, and many more wounded. They’ve had to turn half the farmhouses along the route into makeshift sickrooms. There was heavy fighting in the region too, compounding the problem of what to do with the wounded.”

  “Will this war never end?” sighed Carolyn.

  As they went on to talk about other things, Cherity’s throat went dry. The words near Atlanta rang in her ears. It was just where Seth had said he was going. And they had heard nothing from him since!

  Was it possible…? She couldn’t bear to think of what it might mean!

  Quietly she got up and left the room.

  A pall settled over Cherity’s spirits. But what could she do until more news came… any news. Until they heard from Seth, she could do nothing but wait… and hope… and pray.

  Yet another week of silence went by.

  At last a day came when all Cherity’s pent-up anxiety broke as they sat around the breakfast table.

  “I can’t stand it anymore,” she said. “We’ve got to find out what’s happened to him!”

  She left the house, with the others staring after her wondering what she meant.

  Cherity walked away from the house, her eyes stinging and her brain spinning. She couldn’t just sit and wait any longer. She had to do something. Foolish as it might be, she had to go look for him. She couldn’t bear the uncertainty a moment longer.

  When she returned an hour later her mind was made up. She went to her room and began packing into her carpetbag a change of clothes, a warm coat and a blanket, and what few other things she could think that she might need. She returned downstairs a few minutes later.

  “Where are you off to?” asked Richmond as he saw her bag in hand.

  “I… I am going, uh… I have been thinking about going to visit my sister,” replied Cherity in a tone of determination.

  “This is rather sudden, is it not?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it for several days. I just need to get away for a while.”

  “All right, then, but you be careful, young lady. We have grown to love you as if you were our own daughter. So you mustn’t think ill of us for being protective.”

  “I don’t,” smiled Cherity.

  “Remember what I told you in connection with Elias Slade. The world is not always a trustworthy place. You watch yourself. If you get into any danger, don’t be afraid to ask for help. There are bad people in the world. But it is my belief that there are more good people than bad, and that most people will help when asked.”

  Cherity smiled again. “I will remember what you say, Mr. Davidson. And thank you… thank you for everything. I love you both… very much.”

  Carolyn walked over and embraced Cherity tightly, then stepped back, wiping nose and eyes with her handkerchief.

  Cherity turned to Richmond. He now took her in his arms as well. Her small frame was nearly swallowed up in his giant embrace.

  “Would it be asking too much…?” said Cherity as she stepped back. “I would appreciate a ride to the station.”

  “Not at all
. Of course,” nodded Richmond. “I will go hitch up the buggy.”

  Fifty-Nine

  Cherity had not wanted to mislead Richmond and Carolyn about her unknown destination. But she couldn’t betray Seth again by revealing his destination after what he had said. And she didn’t want to worry his parents with her own fears. She would tell them everything when she returned.

  She took the train first to Richmond where she spent the night in a boardinghouse near the station. The next day she continued on to Columbia where she changed trains for Atlanta, following the route Seth had spoken of to his father without revealing Atlanta as his final objective. All along the way she asked conductors and station attendants about the accident, whether there had been official reports released of the dead and injured, and where she would be likely to learn more. No one knew other than what sketchy information had been passed along the line. They told her to check the station bulletin along the way for possible news, and for lists of the dead and wounded.

  Gradually she learned that most of the wounded from the accident had been taken to makeshift wards in the towns of Bend and Jefferson’s Crossing. There had also been several skirmishes in the area whose wounded were also being put up wherever there was space between Jonesborough and Atlanta. As for the young man she was looking for, most of them said, her chances of finding him were one in a thousand. Sherman’s Union forces had moved on toward Savannah.

  Denton Beaumont had been in a foul mood ever since his return to Dove’s Landing.

  The Confederate Senate had spent the last several days discussing what was now almost surely an impending defeat for the South, and how the terms of a surrender should be handled and the government dissolved. Grant was closing in. It was time to pack their bags and get out. With a few handshakes and well-wishes, the once optimistic senators of a fledgling nation had hurried out of town before the Union army stormed in.

  It was a bitter pill to swallow to realize that his brief career in politics was all but over and that he had bet his future on the wrong horse. Of course even after the war things might resume their former patterns. Virginia would become incorporated into the Union again and would need congressmen and senators just as before. He might again run for office. But he was not optimistic about the chances of any of those who had gone down with the defeat of the Confederacy.