Somewhere. But she has no idea how to find that place.
Amanda turns to lock the door. What a strange thing to do since they haven’t locked it in years. She holds a long iron key dangling from it. The only place she can think to hang the key is right from the locked doorknob. A message to Wayne that she’s come and gone. Welcome back to your empty home.
She steps back to stare at the finality of the moment, suitcase on one side of her, pillowcase full of possessions on the other. So this is why some women stay with men they don’t love. The emptiness of leaving can be even more crushing than just staying put.
Amanda catches a reflection in the glass. Up the hill, near the woods, Agnes waves frantically. She points down the road. Amanda turns to look and sees the familiar dust cloud rising. It can mean only one thing at this hour—Wayne is returning for something he forgot. He remains an unpredictable enigma right to the last.
Panic sets in. She looks toward Agnes, nodding. But she won’t let the panic consume her. She won’t yet run because there is one more thing she must do.
Running to the horse trough, she rolls up a sleeve and plunges her hand into the water. Feeling around, she shoves the large stone aside and watches the wooden puzzle box bob to the surface. Grabbing it, she tucks it into the top of the pillow case and runs up the hill toward Agnes. She’s now a person who can carry all her earthly possessions in just two hands. It’s a strange—and oddly liberating—feeling.
The baggage slows her. It bangs against thighs and drags on the grass.
“He’s seen you!” Agnes shouts as Amanda staggers up the slope. The old woman runs down, grabbing the suitcase to lighten Amanda’s load. Just as they reach the edge of the woods, the pillowcase rips.
Agnes wheezes as they drop to their knees. Gathering up the items, they spill them into an apron that Amanda ties off in a rough bundle.
“We must leave! Now!” Agnes shouts. “I could tell, just by the way he looked at you, that he’s mad with rage!”
Amanda dives into the back bed of the carriage as Agnes staggers to the front driver’s seat. With a cough the old women snaps the reins and wheels the cart through the trees, bouncing over rocks and roots. Amanda slides around in the bed of the wagon until they come out on the trail.
“Why did you have to grab that last thing out by the trough?” Agnes demands. “He might never have spotted you.”
“It’s important to me,” she sputters, sitting up. “It just is.” She looks around for one of the extra grain sacks they brought with them.
“So what is it?” Agnes shouts. “Is it that box you found? That one you saw at the beach?”
“Yes.” She tries to crawl around the wagon to collect the bundle of items and the last few loose ones. The bumping and weaving sends her sprawling again.
Agnes shakes her head and shouts over her shoulder. “If he heads back up the road instead of heading to your house, he’ll meet right up with us—probably right where this trail comes out. Is there any other way out of here?”
“No. This is the only path.” Amanda braces her legs against the sides of the wagon as they round a slow curve. She removes the puzzle box from the bundle and places it in the sack, padding it the best she can with clothes. When she’s done, she drags it with her as she pulls herself across the flatbed and up onto the buckboard, settling in beside Agnes. The old woman’s white hair flows harpy-like behind her in the wind.
“If we can’t avoid him, I guess we’ll have to outrun him. Hang on!” She flicks the reins and sends the horses even faster down the path.
“Do you think we can?” Amanda shouts.
“Maybe we can. These are both good horses, and we know he has some weight in his wagon.”
Amanda holds on, laughing out loud in spite of the danger. She laughs mostly at the spunk of this old woman and the folly of their situation. For some strange reason, she’s starting to enjoy the ride.
They roar out of the woods and across a short field, merging onto the road. Wayne is indeed coming this way. His wagon is about 120 yards behind.
With a snap, he also makes his horse break from a fast trot to a full gallop. The poor horse strains at the weight of the cart it’s pulling. Amanda looks back and sees the fury in his eyes. They have two horses and should be able to stay ahead of him. But so what? He’ll remain close enough to follow their dust cloud and their tracks. He’ll chase them all the way back to the Quincys’ farm. Then he’ll know where she’s hiding. He’ll know too much. And …
Did he pack his gun?
They’ll have to shake him somehow. Amanda looks around the cart for something to push into his path. She finds nothing. Sliding back into the bed of the wagon, she tries to pry up one of the floorboards. She could toss planks of wood at him. That might do something. But the boards won’t budge. Then she has a far-fetched idea. A desperate idea really. Squatting there, in the bottom of the wagon, she finds a seam and tears away the bottom of her dress. She also tears away the bottom of her long petticoat. She throws them to the wind. They float near Wayne, but they fail to cover his face or the horse’s face.
But that wasn’t the main point of the idea. She then rolls up her sleeves and climbs back up to the front seat.
“What are you doing?” Agnes shouts over the bumps. She looks at Amanda like she’s sitting next to a mad woman.
“We need to lose the wagon!” Amanda shouts. “We have to lighten the load, and we need to stop leaving wagon tracks. There are lots of horse prints in the road. We can blend into those. Wayne isn’t a good enough tracker to be able to pick out our prints!” She smiles at Agnes. “Ever ride a horse bareback?”
Agnes shrieks. “You’re crazy! I haven’t ridden a horse at all since I was a girl.”
“But are you with me? I’m not going to dump the wagon unless you agree. It’s yours after all!”
Agnes stares straight ahead for a moment. Then a smile creeps over her face. She nods her approval and watches in fearful fascination as Amanda slides forward tentatively.
Holding her feedbag and suitcase, the young woman, now in a much shorter skirt, steps tentatively out onto the tongue of the wagon. Flopping the sack over the back of one of the horses, she tries to steady herself.
“You’ll fall! You’ll be killed!”
“He’ll kill us too if he catches up! Come on! Step up! You can do it! I know you can.”
Amanda tugs the reins from Agnes’ hands. The horses feel nothing and continue on their fast, straight course down the road. The young woman uses the excess reins to hang her suitcase from one side of the horse. She uses a buckle to rip a small hole in the burlap then hangs the bag on the other side. Very makeshift saddle bags, but they’ll do.
“You can do it!” she shouts back over her shoulder to Agnes.
“I can’t!”
“Please! You can, and you must! If we leave the wagon, we’re free!”
“I can’t, dear! I’m an old woman.”
“You can do more than you think. I already know that about you.” She looks back, but sees Agnes shaking. With no reins to hold, her hands have found the sides of her head, and she holds onto herself in panic.
“Think of Elmer! He needs you!”
That comment stirs her a bit.
“And think of your life after Elmer!” Amanda shouts. “You’re going to have to be tough from now on. Let’s both start being tough right now!”
Amanda wonders for a moment if she’s said the wrong thing. Perhaps the thought of life without her husband is enough to make Agnes give up, rather than press on. But the old woman suddenly leans forward, grasping the front board of the wagon. She slips out of her skirt. Then, freeing her legs by ripping off the bottom of her petticoat, she steps tentatively out onto the wooden wagon tongue between the two horses. Her face makes her look like a woman stepping onto thin ice atop a very deep pond.
Agnes throws her skirt into the air too, forcing Wayne to dodge it as it floats back. Amanda extends a hand, and soon Agnes has
sidestepped all the way down the wagon tongue. With a boost from Amanda, she climbs aboard the horse on the right.
Ahead of them, the path narrows, heading down a small hill to the base of a narrow bridge. Amanda grins as she suddenly has an idea. This might be better than just abandoning the wagon, but she has to time it just right.
Behind them, Wayne whips his horse relentlessly and speeds toward them, gaining slightly. The crates of preserves bounce freely, and many of the jars break, glass bouncing out behind him like an ice storm.
Below Amanda is an iron pin that attaches the tongue to the rest of the wagon. Beneath the tongue is a clip that holds the pin in place. She squats, carefully … carefully, feeling along the bottom. She finds the clip and has to yank it hard before it pulls free. She then unhooks two leather straps.
The next part will be tricky. She swallows hard, stands atop the iron pin, and grabs onto the collar of the horse on the left. Pinching the big pin between her feet, she tries to lift herself up and onto the horse. The pin doesn’t pull free at first. There’s too much weight pinching it in place. But a few bumps and bounces help wiggle the connection, and she, in turn, wiggles the pin upwards. It suddenly pulls free. As Amanda drags herself upwards, the wagon starts to pull free.
But there’s a snag in her plans. The wooden tongue has two parts, half attached to the horses and half attached to the wagon. A strap hitches the two together. It’s a safety feature in case the pin ever comes loose—just like now.
Agnes reaches into her bodice and produces a tiny folding knife. She hands it to Amanda.
“Never mind why,” she says to Amanda’s astonished look. “Just use it!”
Amanda slides off the horse, back down to the wood. She doesn’t dare place much weight on it, so she steadies herself by again hanging onto the bouncing horse collar. The animals thunder on, barely aware of her presence.
As she stretches down to cut the strap, the wood pieces start to sag. If the tongue drops too soon, it will dig in, halting their progress and probably hurting the horses. It can’t drop to the ground until the strap is cut clean through. Amanda lifts with all her might, supporting the wood with her ankle as she hangs from the horse like a trapeze artist. She cuts away the strap just as they approach the bridge. Transferring her weight to the horse collar, she kicks what’s left of the rigging backwards, almost falling in the process. The heavy wagon tongue crashes down just behind the rear hooves of the heavy horses. Swaying wildly Amanda claws her way back up onto the horse, pinching the animal’s neck hard with her legs to keep from bouncing off.
They picked up considerable momentum coming down the hill. Amanda had hoped to make it roll to a stop near the bridge, but as the tongue drops to the road it digs in hard. The wagon slows quickly. Then something unexpected happens. Then wagon tongue buries itself deep into the dirt just as the horse, the women, and what’s left of the front part of the rigging accelerate and pull clear.
The whole wagon flips high and careens end over end. The sound makes Amanda feel like she’s running away from a collapsing building. After two and a half bounces the wagon shatters on the roadway, leaving a shower of iron and boards on the road and spilling onto the bridge. A single surviving wheel rolls on, eventually veering off into the creek.
As the women, petticoats flying, ride quickly away up the road, they laugh openly. They did it. And now, as long as they can hang onto the oversized horse yokes, they’re safe.
Because the horses are still hitched together, they ride in tandem, but even in this awkward state they still should be able to outrun him.
Wayne pulls his own wagon to a stop behind the shattered rig. The main bed of the wagon, what’s left of it, blocks his access to the bridge. Even if he wanted to drag it out of the way, he knows he’ll never catch them now. He doesn’t even have time to unhook his horse and climb aboard, mimicking his wife’s escape. Through squinted eyes, he views the pair galloping away, horses hooked together with a lattice of straps and chains between them. He curses, spits on the ground, and bids Amanda good riddance.
Chapter 18
Business
Devlin Richards likes to sit close to a candle when he talks business. He draws it slowly toward him from the center of the table, letting it sit about three inches from his folded hands. Today the knuckles on those hands are puffier than they should be, bloodied and bruised just enough for a sharp eye to notice.
The candlelight shines directly up at him casting harsh shadows that oddly distort his face, making him look ominous and maybe even dangerous. The candle is a handy tool that he discovered many years ago, but few people seem to take such advantage of its power.
If negotiations go well, Devlin may slowly push the candle back toward the center, taking on a more friendly tone and a less treacherous look. Sometimes he even blows out the candle and orders drinks. The mood changes.
But if negotiations do not go well, if prices seem too high or if promises seem broken, he slowly leans over the candle as he talks. That’s the time to lay on the southern accent heavy and thick, just to seem all the more eccentric and dangerous to these Yankees. Shadows grow harsher. Uneasiness lingers. He lets the smoke that rises from the cheap tallow curl up and around his face, until his fearsome image burns into the subconscious of the person on the other end of the negotiations. With the help of a simple candle, Devlin issues his warning and slowly extracts the type of deal he desires.
Tonight at The Rose Point he has the candle very close. The smoke, which would sting the eyes of most men, seems to have little effect on Devlin. It dances and cups around his face, blackening the edges of his cheeks.
“What is it that you don’t understand?” he asks, soul afire. “I said I’m not the man you need for your little job, my good man, and you don’t offer enough anyway. Now, I’ve asked you once to leave my table, haven’t I? I’m starting to wonder, in spite of your clean clothes and refined manner …,” he leans low over the flickering light, “just how wise a man you really are.”
Across the filthy table, located near the smoky rear of The Rose Point, sits a man named Jeb Thomas. Devlin has seen him before. In fact he is the man in work clothes—surprisingly clean work clothes—who had stood near the same table two nights before, keenly listening to the same stories as Devlin. Now here he is again. And the trick of the candle doesn’t seem to faze him.
Jeb smiles at Devlin, rolls a cigarette, and picks up the candle to light it. He then sets the candle well aside, replacing Devlin’s sinister smoky haze with one of his own. He exhales a bitter cloud of tobacco.
“I guess I’m wise enough to know that we will make a deal, and that I don’t need to slink away, much as you might want that.”
“You are a very foolish man,” Devlin says with a raised but carefully controlled voice. “I wonder how long that will last?”
Jeb Thomas shrugs. “Perhaps, Mr. Richards,” he says through smoky breath, “you should instead wonder about what happened to Mr. Rudolph Baines, a man who was murdered after leaving here the other night. I certainly know what happened to him. I have a keen sense that you might know too.”
Devlin sits back slightly, but his look doesn’t change.
“You know, Mr. Richards, I really wanted to talk with that man. So I followed him, just as you did. But while you had robbery on your mind, I had other plans.” Jeb shakes his head. “Unfortunately, you spoiled those plans when you put a knife into Mr. Baines. How unfortunate.”
They stare directly into each other’s eyes. Then they look around, to see who else is within earshot. Fortunately the noise of the pub absorbs any words that drift beyond the tabletop.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Devlin sneers.
“Yes, you do.”
Devlin leans forward, grabs the candle, and snuffs it out with his fingers. “You, sir, are on dangerous ground. If you think you know something, then you also must know that such things are usually best kept to one’s self. Perhaps you have made a serious mistak
e.”
Jeb leans forward too, nearly daring Devlin to blink. He whispers, low enough so the noise of the crowd nearly swallows the whole of his voice, “This is OUR secret. I know what you have done. I’m sure you already have realized that I have my reasons for not turning you in. I would have done so by now, don’t you think? In fact, Mr. Richards, I have reason to hire a man of your skill. I should think that alone might be the basis for an interesting partnership.”
Devlin looks back. “So far I’ve heard no offer that attracts my interest. I don’t care what you think or what you know. I don’t tend to enter into business partnerships with damn Yankees.” He squints, then hisses, “You can be dealt with.”
“I did mention money earlier. Let’s consider that only the start. I’m looking for a sailor. One in particular. If we could find him and … um … extract the proper information, your reward could be substantially higher.”
Devlin’s voice slides out through clenched teeth. “And you are foolish enough to think I’d work on speculation for a man I don’t know? Especially one who is trying to blackmail me? I should think, if you now know my reputation, that you’d see the problem y’all have just created for yourself.”
Jeb Thomas pauses to consider this. “Well, more than anything, I think you are a businessman. And also a risk taker. Let me explain why I want to find this sailor, and then you decide. If it’s not for you, just walk away. I swear I won’t contact the authorities about what I saw.”
Devlin gives a cold look, but listens.
“We both stood here listening to stories about the ship that went down. Did you know the Gossamer visited South Africa just before its final voyage?”
No response. Jeb decides to take his time, so he cleans the edge of a fingernail before continuing. “Well, she did. She stopped in Port Elizabeth, month before last. Took on raw sugar cane, big bales of wool too. And something else.”
He finally catches Devlin’s eye again. Jeb reaches over, shoving the annoying candle to the side. “Do you know what it’s like over there, Mr. Richards? There’s diamonds. There in the ground, diamonds big as your damn balls. They come out raw, but after that? Cut, uncut, polished or not. Rocks are the second currency over there. And those diamonds come cheap to men who know how and what to trade.”
Wreck of the Gossamer Page 12