The Uncharted Series Omnibus

by Keely Brooke Keith

  John touched Levi’s back. “Look down there, son.” His urgent voice was barely above a whisper.

  “Where?” Levi pulled his hands away from his face and looked in the direction his father was pointing. John motioned to the south, past the steep, rocky edges of the bluffs where the land sloped to the shore. Levi focused his vision into the dark land and saw the faint outline of an old cabin, untouched since its previous occupant’s death.

  “Frank’s old cabin.” John kept his voice quiet. “Felix may have gone inside.”

  The thought of Felix still being within reach recharged Levi’s courage, and with it came a surge of aggressive energy. He tightened his fists and lowered his chin as he stared at the cabin. The creepy shack looked unlivable from a distance. He began to walk with quick, quiet steps along the forest edge and heard his father close behind him. Staying in the shadows as he approached the property in front of the cabin, he tried to remain hidden, hoping to take Felix by surprise if he were hiding inside.

  A few sparse trees stood between Levi and the overgrown yard in front the decrepit, one-room shack. He moved behind the wide trunk of an old gray leaf tree then glanced over his shoulder at John and whispered, “The front door is open. Is there a back door?”

  “No.”

  “A window at the back?”

  “No, just the one at the front.” John sounded out of breath.

  Levi lowered his torso and moved behind a boulder to position himself nearer the cabin’s decaying front porch. John crouched beside him. “What do you plan to do?”

  Levi was too full of renewed hope to entertain his father’s justice-quelling rhetoric. He remained silent as he leaned his palms against the cold surface of the weathered stone. Over the sound of the nearby waves, he heard John inhale and anticipated a discouraging speech.

  John leaned his head around the boulder. “There is something on the threshold.”

  Levi glanced at him and then at the entryway of the cabin. “I can’t tell what it is from here. I’m going to get closer.” He stayed low and moved through the scrub, then he crouched behind a tree trunk near the porch. With a clear view of the darkened doorway, Levi saw the object on the threshold, but not its origin.

  John moved in behind him. “It is an overturned boot.”

  Levi nodded. “I can’t tell if it is attached to a body. I need to get closer.”

  “It could be a trick, son.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  John sat back on his haunches but kept his eyes on the cabin’s threshold. “Watch and listen from here before we move in again.”

  Levi watched the boot in the doorway. He wanted to rush in the cabin swinging but decided if this were another chance at killing Felix, he would be wise to move with focused intent. He wished he had brought a weapon—a bow and arrow, a hunting knife, anything. He glanced at his father beside him and wondered if John would fight too if they were attacked. Levi stared at the boot until his vision blurred. He blinked and looked around the front of the cabin. The rotten porch looked like it would crumble easily.

  After plotting his path, Levi stayed low and sneaked to the cabin. He raised his head to the porch railing for a clear view of the doorway. The boot was attached to the leg of a man sprawled on the floor just inside the cabin. Levi snapped his head toward John and motioned for him to come closer. John moved beside him. Levi pointed to the body and looked at his father. John shrugged. Levi watched the body for another moment. He detected no movement, so he stood and saw the long silver and black hair spread across the back of the body.

  “It’s Felix,” Levi whispered to John. “I’m going in.”

  John made no reply, but he moved beside Levi as they crossed the broken planks of the porch steps. Felix appeared to be dead, but Levi could not be certain without touching him. Felix’s head was turned to the side and his eyelids were open but unblinking. Levi’s pulse pounded as he considered how to ensure the man was dead. He glanced at his father. “Do you think he’s dead?”

  John lifted a foot and nudged Felix’s side. When Felix did not respond, John shrugged and looked at Levi. Felix’s breath had sounded shallow when they had fought in Levi’s house. Maybe the man had suffered a heart attack or perhaps lost consciousness from an injury he received in the fight. Levi realized his father would suggest they take him to Lydia for medical care if he were alive. Before he could react to the thought, Felix sucked in a breath and grabbed Levi’s ankle. Immediately, John thrust his body between Levi and Felix, dropping his arm into the center of Felix’s back. A short choke escaped Felix’s throat as his body flattened into the floor, motionless. His grip loosened from Levi’s ankle. Levi looked down at his father and swallowed hard. John had plunged a tool through Felix's back and into his heart.

  Levi stared down at the insentient criminal on the floor. The last beat of Felix’s pierced heart flushed blood across his back. It trickled onto the rotten wood floor and swelled in a shallow pool, mixing with dust and splinters.

  Shock coursed through Levi’s veins. “Father!” His voice cracked as he stepped away from the body. “You killed him!”

  John stood, leaving the handle of the tool protruding from Felix’s back. “He was going to try to kill you, son.”

  “I thought he was already dead.” Levi glanced at the body and then at his father. “Is that my chisel?”

  “I grabbed it as I ran out of your house.” John reached a hand to Levi’s shoulder, his fingers trembling. “I did not want to kill him, son. I had to.”

  “You saved my life. I wasn’t prepared to kill him, but you were.” Levi stepped back with short mechanical motions as he considered the possible reactions of the villagers when they found out the overseer had killed a man. He felt responsible and looked his father in the eye. “I will take the blame.”

  John shook his head. “There should be no guilt in defense, Levi.”

  “I don’t blame you, Father, but some might. You stand in the pulpit every week and preach to the village. This might diminish their respect for you regardless of the cause. I can’t allow that.”

  “I am not ashamed—greatly saddened but not ashamed. I did what needed to be done. I did not want to, but I had to.” John’s calm voice was reassuring, though his fingers still trembled.

  Levi stared at his enemy’s corpse and his gut churned. Mandy would need his strength after what she had witnessed, but he could barely gather the strength to look away from Felix’s dead body. He wanted to go to her, to comfort her. She needed him; he had to be strong. He tore his gaze away and looked out the door. “Mandy—”

  John raised a shaky hand. “She is fine—barricaded in her bedroom with her mother.”

  Levi felt a wave of relief. He glanced at the corpse, and the shock of his father’s involvement kept his heart pounding hard within his chest. All the anger and bitterness he had felt for eleven years had severed his relationship with his father, and now all he could do was stare at the tool handle protruding from his enemy’s dead body. He looked at John and saw the faint lines around his father’s eyes and the deep creases across his forehead. Somehow, in that moment his father looked both aged and vital. Levi felt a hard lump rise in his throat and let his words pour out. “I’m so sorry, Father.”

  “What for?”

  “For hating you all these years. I blamed you for Mother’s death. I felt like you did nothing to protect her. You weren’t prepared then and now I’m the one who wasn’t prepared. I hated losing her. I still hate it. I’ve been so scared I would lose Lydia and Bethany and now Mandy too, so I forced them to stay prepared, yet here I am without a weapon and you defended me. It seems inappropriate to say this while standing over a corpse, but I want to be right with you.”

  John’s expression softened as he gazed at Levi. “I did not kill him to end your bitterness toward me, but if this has changed your heart, son, I gladly accept it.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Levi spent the evening with his father, Everett, and Samue
l moving the corpses to an outbuilding between the chapel and the graveyard in the village. Due to the lateness of the hour and the exhaustion brought by fighting, the men agreed to meet at the cemetery after sunrise to dig the graves. Levi went back to the Colburn house, scrubbed thoroughly, and then fell asleep in the single bed where he had slept his entire life.

  A deep sleep settled over Levi as soon as his head met the pillow. He awoke in the morning, in the same position he fell asleep in, to silence—save for the sound of his heartbeat. As he opened his eyes, he noticed the faint light of dawn in the room and remembered the work that awaited him.

  He enjoyed the cool morning air as he walked to the graveyard. The first of the fallen leaves swirled in the breeze, confirming autumn’s arrival. It gave him a strange twinge of pleasure. He left the cobblestone road and walked across the dewy grass beside the chapel. As he approached the end of the long building, he again felt a sense of pleasurable excitement. Though he reminded himself of the grizzly task he was on his way to perform, the novel feeling of happy anticipation grew.

  He wondered if he had lost his mind in the fight, then realized the only thing missing inside him was the ancient yoke of bitterness. His enemies had been defeated. His relationship with his father had been restored. The lack of anger in his soul gave him something he had not fully known since he was twelve years old: joy.

  The splintered door to the outbuilding was open. Samuel and Everett were inside the musty shed gathering the tools for grave digging. They met Levi at the door and handed him a shovel. He walked with them to the back of the graveyard where his father stood near the cart loaded with two wrapped bodies. Felix and Harvey would be buried beside Christopher’s grave. In the two months since his burial, the ground over Christopher’s grave had already started to settle back into place.

  Connor and Lydia met them at the gravesite. As the village physician, Lydia’s confirmation of death was required before the bodies could be buried. She gave a quick check of each body and confirmed their deaths. Levi was usually amazed at his sister’s impassive demeanor in such circumstances, but she fanned her face and pressed her hand against her stomach, seeming particularly unsettled.

  Levi worked to keep his newfound enthusiasm to himself as Lydia gave her professional permission to bury the bodies. Though the previous night’s experience had given him a sense of soul-freeing satisfaction, its outward manifestation would be inappropriate at present. Connor put his hand to the small of Lydia’s back and began to walk her home. Levi imagined them in ten years—Connor with gray at his temples and Lydia carrying one child on her hip and three more running around them.

  John moved along the edge of Christopher’s grave. With his shovel, he scratched a rectangle in the sandy soil marking two feet wide and six feet long. Then he walked along the edge of that rectangle and scratched another mark for a second grave. Everett and Samuel began digging one grave, while Levi and his father dug the other. They removed the upper grass from the earth and dug without stopping until the holes were about four feet deep. The men laid a body in each grave on the bare ground and then shoveled dirt from the nearby piles to fill the holes. They stabbed a wooden marker—inscribed with the deceased’s name and date of death—into the sod at the head of each grave.

  John breathed through his mouth from exhaustion and nodded to the other men when the work was complete. Levi returned the shovels to the outbuilding, then he glanced at the road and saw Everett pulling the empty cart as he and Samuel returned to their farm.

  Levi removed his work gloves as he stepped through the wet grass. John came alongside him and they walked together past the chapel, across the cobblestones, and down the road to the Colburn property. Neither said a word, and the comfortable silence brought Levi assurance in the complete forgiveness between them.

  * * *

  Sunlight spilled through the narrow windows and into the crowded chapel. Mandy turned sideways as she shuffled between the pews and sat beside Lydia. Since Harvey and Felix were dead—though Mandy did not know the details of Felix’s death—she expected the Sunday service to have a different tone than usual as John Colburn stepped to the pulpit.

  Mandy heard the muted scuff of feet on the wooden floor as the last congregants found seats. A woman in the pew in front of Mandy fussed over a child’s Sunday dress. It reminded her of her mother’s behavior when she was a little girl. The thought made her smile.

  Levi stepped into the row and sat between Mandy and the end of the wooden pew. She had not seen him since the night they argued in the shed. She wondered if he had let it go, or if it had ignited old resentments. He sat close to her and folded his hands in his lap. Mandy noticed the two-day-old cuts across his knuckles. His face was freshly shaven, and his shirt collar was ironed to a crisp blue peak. He glanced at her and gave a small smile, then he turned his attention to the front of the chapel as his father began his weekly sermon.

  John Colburn prayed and then kept his head bowed for a moment, somber and silent. Mandy felt Levi’s arm slip over the back of the pew behind her. She accepted his gesture with the hope of a mutual reprieve. His fingers curled around her shoulder and she instinctively leaned into his side. She imagined being his wife and sitting in church with their children beside them. Though it could never be, the yearning remained despite her effort to ignore it.

  John looked out at the congregation. “Felix Colburn, a descendent of my own ancestry, came with his son to attack our village Friday evening. These men have caused great destruction in our lives over the course of many years. Their offenses include causing the death of my wife, robbing my son, the recent attack on one of my daughters, and the violent abduction of a beloved village daughter.” John’s gaze landed on Mandy briefly and quickly moved to others in the crowd. “We have heard various accounts of their savage attacks in other villages over the years as well. They came into our village with a destructive plan, but men of Good Springs thwarted that plan. Felix Colburn and his sons, Harvey and Christopher, lived by the sword and—just as the scripture warns—they also perished by the sword. It is with a heavy but relieved heart I report to you these men are no longer a threat to our village or the Land. Their bodies have been laid to rest among our departed loved ones as a testimony of our forgiveness. We forgive because we have been forgiven. Do not pronounce judgment on them, people of Good Springs, when you pass by their graves, assuming by their sinful lives that they are receiving eternal punishment, for the God who saves us promises to save all who call upon his name. We should not presume to know a man’s final thoughts, and in our forgiven hearts we should hope these men called upon God. If they did—just like the one repentant thief crucified beside Jesus—they are now present with the Lord in glory. May that give you hope for the souls of the departed; however, let it not be an excuse for your own choices.”

  As Mandy absorbed the overseer’s gracious words, she felt Levi’s warmth. She tried to direct her attention to the pulpit but could think only of the man beside her. She felt the slow rise and fall of his side with each breath. He kept his arm around her for the remainder of the service, and she hoped his gesture meant more than the comfort of a friend.

  She glanced at Lydia beside her, wanting to glean a look acknowledging Levi’s gesture, but Lydia sat with her eyes fixed on the overseer. Mandy grinned at her friend; Lydia was always perfectly attentive in church.

  When the sermon ended, Levi gave her shoulder a squeeze as he left the pew. She assumed he went back to open the chapel doors. She glanced through the rows of rising congregants to the back of the chapel but could not see him. As she stood to leave, she got caught in conversation with other villagers. Though she tried to focus her attention on their pleasantries, her gaze repeatedly moved toward the chapel’s open doors.

  Roseanna passed her in the aisle. “Amanda, I have a roast in the oven and I need to see Mrs. Ashton home. Will you tend to it for me?”

  “Yes, Mother.” Mandy excused herself from conversation and made her way out
of the church. She descended the chapel steps and moved around a small crowd. As her feet touched the cobblestone street, she heard Levi’s voice behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and stopped walking as he hurried to her. He had a tiny yellow daisy pinched between his forefinger and thumb.

  Levi looked genuinely happy as he came beside her. “May I walk you home?”

  Mandy smiled. She wanted to be with him not for protection, but because she loved him. She studied him and inclined her head. “The danger has passed, so I no longer need an escort.”

  “That’s right.” His grin did not waver. He held out the little flower to her. “May I walk you home?”

  “Yes.” She chuckled and took the flower and began to walk beside him. At the edge of the village, the cobblestones ended and the road became gravel. The pebbles crunched beneath their feet in a slow rhythm. She took his arm even though it had not been offered.

  He glanced down at her hand on his arm and looked her in the eye. “As you said, the danger has passed.”

  Her natural tendency to flirt tempted her lashes to flutter. No matter her growing desire for a life with him, she had to protect her family’s honor. She drew a breath and repeated his words. “That’s right.”

  He smiled as he put his hand on top of hers and smoothed her fingers around his arm. He seemed to be exuding an uncommon happiness, and it piqued her curiosity. She held up her hand to block the sun from her eyes and glanced at him. “Is it the return of safety in the village that has caused your happiness?”

  “Sure—at least partially.” He looked at her, still grinning, and then at the road ahead. “I feel like a new man.” His calloused fingers moved across the skin of her hand. She studied the healing marks along his knuckles. Everett’s hands looked the same way from fighting Harvey.