by M. G. Meaney
The carriage seesawed left and right as the brown mare zigzagged.
Abigail clung to the back of the seat. She watched Acker. Then, she looked back, but Sam was gone.
Acker, crying in pain and anger, reached about blindly for the gun. "Now you die, Abby," he said with low menace.
Abigail grabbed for the gun and knocked it away but within Acker's reach.
Desperate now, to get away, Abigail leaned forward. She gathered in the reins. She tumbled back onto the bench and pulled on the reins with a death grip.
Acker, his face and fingers streaked red, tentatively opened one bloody eye. Two needles still pinned his right eye shut. Three other needles stuck out of his nose and forehead.
He was scrabbling around for the gun. "I'll put an end to your meddling," he roared.
The horse veered again. Abigail's grip on the reins slipped. Acker was thrown in her direction. He reached toward her, hands poised to choke her. Abigail pulled her legs up onto the seat. She kicked him in the face, driving the remaining pins deeper. Acker screamed. He fell back across the seat. He cradled his face with his hands, feeling for the pins. He gingerly tugged two of them out. Then, angry, he again began feeling for the gun.
Abigail took up the reins again. She wrapped them around her hands: she would not them slip again. She pulled ferociously. "Bolter, slow down, girl. It's all right. Slow down," she purred, calmly she hoped.
The horse galloped on.
"Nice Bolter, slow down," Abigail coaxed.
"Ah, here it is," a bent-over Acker announced. He straightened up. He had the gun.
"Come on, Bolter. Stop," Abigail cried as she gripped the reins.
Acker wiped at his bloody open eye. "I can't see," he muttered.
The rattling of the wheels grew slightly quieter. The wind buffeting Abigail's face softened.
Bolter was slowing down.
Abigail now pulled on one rein to coax Bolter to go right.
Acker swiped blood from the open eye. He swiped again with a finger. He peered about tentatively.
He could see again. He could see Abigail.
Abigail threw the reins forward onto Bolter and out of reach. She spun and reached for the door handle. Acker raised the gun. With just one eye open and obscured by blood, he struggled to aim. Bolter veered sharply to the right. Acker was thrown toward Abigail, gun in hand. But he landed off balance. Abigail pulled the door handle. The door snapped open. Acker righted himself and pointed the gun. Abigail let herself fall back toward the dirt road. As she floated free of the carriage, a shot exploded and punched into her. Pain seared her left arm. She contorted in the air as she continued to fall down and sideways. Sound shrank away. Even her cry seemed distant. She felt as if she were observing herself floating through the air. Her teeth were clenched and her lips drawn back, her eyes wide looking back toward Acker and the carriage. Her arms were flung out, her dress fluttered in the breeze, its black intensified by the sunlight. She drifted down and down.
Then she pounded onto the road on her back. Her head snapped back and hammered onto the ground, her ringlets flailed. She gasped from the impact, screamed from the pain. She tumbled chaotically like a thrown doll in spurts of dust, mud and manure. In fits and starts, she churned to a stop.
She came to rest sprawled on her stomach, legs splayed and right arm cushioning her bleeding left arm. Her face turned toward the carriage lurching away down the road. The sounds rushed back upon her, her screams, the wind, and the diminishing sound of horse and carriage.
Bolter had squealed at this second gunshot. The horse, in panic, broke into a gallop again. She veered sharply left, then sharply right. The carriage tilted from side to side as the mare climbed the hill toward the bend over the deep embankment toward the stream.
Abigail saw the partially blinded Acker stand. He stretched forward. He felt about for the reins. They hung beyond his reach. He bounded about the carriage helplessly. The carriage accelerated. It darted across the road. Finally, Acker toppled onto the floor, empty-handed, and disappeared from view.
Bolter now reached the crest of the hill with the deep drop-off to the right. At first, Bolter veered left. Suddenly, Abigail saw Acker appear again. He yelled at Bolter and reached again toward the reins, but they still dangled out of reach. "Stop! Stop!" he bellowed. He pulled at Bolter's hide. Then, he started to crawl onto the horse from the carriage. He pounded on the horse's flank as he flailed during the climb. Already panicked and now suddenly pounded and screeched at, Bolter abruptly turned right and broke into a gallop toward the drop-off. The carriage tipped onto two wheels and Acker slid back into the carriage.
Bolter pulled the carriage onto the narrow shoulder of the road and proceeded straight, the river yawning 50 feet below. But the carriage was too wide. It tilted slowly sideways down the sharp hill.
Acker pulled himself up. He looked down the embankment. "No!" he cried out and clutched the left side of the carriage.
"Oh, God," Abigail gasped.
The carriage, heavy with the sturdiest suspension, wheels, body and interior Acker could buy, angled down and down. The right wheels sought surface in vain. Acker hugged the carriage door. Bolter drew the carriage farther forward and right. Then, the carriage gave way. It overturned, slowly at first like a clock second hand ticking, and ticking again, and again implacably, then all at once in a cry of metal and drum of wood. It rolled over once. Then it took Bolter, and the horse and carriage crashed over twice, three times down and down the hill in flying clods of earth, horse cries, random vain spin of wheels, and squeal of wrenching metal and wood.
Finally, it lurched to rest in the river, upside down, wheels revolving idly in the air.
"Thad," Abigail cried. Covered with dust, mud and blood, she slowly raised herself with her right arm. She pulled herself forward, then pushed herself to her knees. Blood stained her black dress, now torn and caked in brown and black dust, mud and horse droppings. Her back screamed with bruises. The bash to the back of her head blurred her vision. Her thoughts meandered cloudily. The odors of blood and horse droppings and perspiration elbowed aside her lilac scent.
She swiped her hand across her cheek, but the smear from the road stuck like sandpaper. So, she gave up. She stumbled to her feet and staggered toward the spot where the carriage had disappeared. Her sagging dress hem dragged up dust and mire. Her left arm roiled with pain at every limping step. Her back convulsed, turning breaths to gasps and a raspy cry marking every advance.
As she neared the spot, the growing sound of a horse's disjoined trot worked its way into her fogged thoughts. She slowly, painfully turned herself and saw Merritt. He was approaching awkwardly on a limping Burnside.
He leaped off the horse. "Abby, girl, are you all right? What happened? Where has Acker gone?"
"I am alive, as you see," she said slowly, word by word as if from somewhere else. "As for Thad, rather Janesch, I cannot say." Then, she turned and slowly raised her right hand and pointed it. "He is down there."
Sam sprinted to the edge of the road. "The carriage is upside down in the river, Abby. I'll go down and see about Acker."
"I'll go with you."
"Girl, no. You're hurt, and you may not want to see what's down there," Sam said, about to set out.
"No. I'm going," Abigail said woozily and limped toward the edge.
"You'll never make it without falling and doing more damage to yourself."
"Then, help me and I'll tell you what happened as we climb down," she insisted, and continued to creep along.
"Oh, come on, then, if you'll be so stubborn. Now, what happened?" He put his left arm around her waist and took her right hand. The two descended sidestep by sidestep down the hill toward the wreck below.
Abigail, between gasps of pain, recounted what had happened to her and Acker. Then, Sam took up his part.
"Abby, your attack with the pins saved me, for he was pointing that pistol straight at my chest. But
Burnside was not so lucky. The shot went off and hit him in the foreleg. That and the pistol blast scared the devil out of him. He skidded to a stop and reared and roared so loud I thought sure he was done for. He nearly threw me off. Then, he turned around and fled back toward White Plains, as Acker and you continued on. I finally coaxed Burnside to stop. I had to figure out how badly the shot had got him. The damage wasn't fearful. But he was hurt, and spooked, Abby. It took me all this time to calm him down and get him back on the road.
It breaks my heart that I couldn't prevent what happened to you, but you seem to have taken care of yourself. Though a long bath may be in order."
"Sam, you could have been killed, or Burnside could have been killed, or both of you, and it's all my fault. If I'd left it alone, none of this would have happened," Abigail told him as they neared the overturned carriage.
"But had you left it alone, we'd still have a murderer, a child killer, poking about in the village and no one knowing. Now, where is Thad?"
They reached the river bank, and Sam left Abigail and ran to the carriage. The red wheels still revolved idly in the air. The water burbled, then slapped past the disrupting carriage. The overturned carriage creaked back and forth from the river flow as the sun poured through the overhead branches in a jagged checkerboard of golden light and gray shadows. Sam lay on the wet, mossy riverbank and reached inside the carriage. He pulled open the door and peered inside the front. He pushed aside seat cushions that had fallen off. "Nothing in front," he reported, then moved to the back. "He's not here either."
Abigail had limped to the front of the carriage. "Sam, he's here, in the water."
Acker lay face up in shallow water at the edge of the river bank, only his shoulders and head visible and the rest crushed beneath the carriage. His head floated slowly left then right then left as the river rippled past as if he were struggling to see something. Several pins still protruded from around his eyes and forehead. One eye was shut and bleeding. The other, red with blood, stared blankly at the sky.
Sam knelt and lifted Acker's head. Beneath sat a gray stone the size of a throw pillow smeared with blood and hair.
"He's gone, Abby. He's gone. He must have been thrown from the carriage. Then he landed here, his head hit this rock and the carriage landed on top of him. "I'm sorry, girl."
Abigail put her dirt-caked hand to her mouth and stared, forcing herself to take in the gory scene as penance.
Seeing her, Sam moved to block her view. "Turn away, Abby. There's nothing you can do."
A soft neighing drew their attention to the other bank, where Bolter was stepping back and forth and occasionally pulling at the downed carriage.
"I'll see to him, Abby. Wait here," Sam said. He trudged through a narrower point of the river a short ways up.
Sam now appeared on the other side, crooned and stroked Bolter's face, and the jittery horse gradually calmed down.
"She's all right, Abby."
What will become of Bolter? Abigail wondered idly as she stood along the mossy riverbank. The water gulped past, and the sun shone down on Abigail, her encrusted black dress, smeared face, ragged black ringlets, the crashed carriage, its upturned, creaking wheels, Sam murmuring to the injured brown horse, and Janesch Tischinski, unmasked and now dead in a foreign land.
CHAPTER 34
Abigail was still bleeding and woozy when Sam carried her into the jail dispensary in White Plains and lay her on one of the six beds. Jail guards had arrived at the river scene shortly after Sam and insisted on transporting Abigail back to the jail in a carriage.
Abigail roused and cried, "Will?" Those who had transported her knew only that Will had been shot and collapsed onto the gallows platform, was bleeding profusely, and was last seen being carried toward the jail.
"Will? What happened to Will?" Abigail asked weakly.
Three beds over, Will Haviland stirred. "Abigail? Thank God." He had been shot in the shoulder, seriously wounded. He last saw Abigail being marched away at gunpoint as Acker's hostage. No one knew how the kidnapping had ended until Sam and the guards returned with the injured Abigail.
Will, his shoulder bound in a bulky bandage, made his way to Abigail, bent over, gently enfolded her and kissed her as the others in the dispensary looked away.
"Umm, sweet as butterscotch," she sighed.
"Butterscotch?" Haviland grumbled. "Not cherry in chocolate?"
"You've had a rough day, affected your performance. But we can try again later," she reassured him.
An hour later in the dispensary, Mayor Van Amringe was telling a recovering Haviland, now propped up in a chair next to Abigail's bed, "It was not that we didn't believe you, most esteemed Reverend, but the demands of the law are very stringent, as you yourself have come to learn ..."
"What he's trying to tell you," Merritt rasped, "was they thought you was a loon and hoped you'd go away. I must confess that Tad had me taken in like the rest. Of course, it proves my point in a way."
"What way is that, Sam?" asked Abigail sleepily.
"Why, that you can't trust them foreigners, of course."
"But I hope you will promise me," Haviland put in, weakly, "that you'll wait for them to be convicted before you harass any more — or burn down any more stores. And that you'll not take your knife to my harness anymore."
"Well, what did I? ..."
"Sam," Abigail admonished, "and Dan White is to call off target practice on his shed, especially when people are snooping in it."
"All right. All right. As long as you'll be with us, Reverend, to keep them foreigners under control. What I'm saying is we'd like you back to help us fix the rectory and keep presidin' at the church. It's a safer project. I hope you'll say yes."
"All the citizenry do," the mayor seconded enthusiastically. He hoped Haviland's influence – and likely fame – would help attract someone to take over the nut and bolt works, or times would be hard indeed for Paulding.
Abigail whispered, "You will stay, won't you?"
Haviland looked over the three and at the dozen Paulding residents still gesturing to each other down below in the courtyard.
A dozen of his fellow Paulding residents.
"Stay? Why, Paulding is my home.
Why wouldn't I stay?
* * *
A month later, Elena Jenks was scrutinizing dresses on a display in Abigail's shop.
"Material, it is strong, high quality, but the price is too high. I have seen same material for half what you charge," she reported brusquely to Abigail.
"Mrs. Jenks, Elena, maybe you have seen something like it, but I'm sure it is not the same for the price you say."
"Oh, I know fabric and it is same as this," Elena insisted.
"Be that as it may, it is the design of your own dress that I'm interested in. That's why I asked you to meet with me," Abigail said, extending her hand toward Elena's maroon cotton dress with an olive green fringe at the hem, and white lace collar with two lines of maroon piping that accented her white blouse. "I want to sell that type of fringe dress and collar here. I think my customers would love it, and no other shop here in Westchester offers it."
"These are very pretty, yes. But what have they to do with me?"
"I'd like you to make them for me, the dresses and the collars. As you see, Westchester ladies pay more for clothes, so I could pay you more than, I guess, you make now. Would you be interested in working with me on this?" Abigail winced as she extended her left arm to point. She was still healing from Acker's bullet.
Elena, surprised, looked over Abigail, whose pink skirt with yellow piping at the hem and yellow blouse with ruffled collar and sleeves exemplified expensive fashion. Then, again she inspected dresses in blue velvet, red cotton and green silk. "I would do this with you, for the right price," she said, now in negotiating mode. "But still I will show I can find these same fabrics much less."
"Excellent, I'm so glad," Abigail said of the acceptance and
ignoring the fabrics remark.
They squared off across a desk in rear of the shop amid displays of blouses, dresses, jackets and scarves. Elena spurned Abigail's initial proposal. "It is not worth my while for this amount," Elena sniffed as she perched straight-backed with her hands folded tightly in her lap.
Abigail, recognizing a worthy rival businesswoman, inched up the price. Elena tersely shook it off. Abigail countered, "What arrangement would work for you, then?" Elena named a volume of items and a price. Now it was Abigail's turn to shake off the proposal. They continued back and forth, Abigail touting the connection to her Westchester ladies and Elena, now leaning forward and work-hardened hands on the desk, pointing out that if the customers were that well to do, then shouldn't Elena be paid more for making them unique – and highest quality – pieces?
Back and forth they went until Abigail sensed that Elena was close to agreeing. Abigail looked over Elena's neat but plain white blouse and maroon skirt, then suggested, "You can have any dress from that display to seal the bargain." Elena, taken aback by this unexpected stratagem, perused the colorful dresses, trying unsuccessfully to contain her interest.
"Are we agreed, then?" Abigail coaxed.
"These are very nice," Elena said slowly. "A dress would be nicer with blouse to go with it, do you think?"
Abigail was silent. She scanned the display that Elena was eying. She appraised the gleam in Elena's otherwise stern look, a look Abigail had seen many times in customers who coveted a dress but didn't want to let on just yet. Abigail let the silence continue a few more long moments.
Elena swallowed nervously, then turned back to Abigail.
"Well, Abigail?"
"The blouses are beautiful, and expensive.
But, yes, you may have a blouse as well."
"I agree then. I will start to work right away," Elena said.
A bell tinkled as the shop door opened and Reverend Haviland entered. His right shoulder appeared bulky beneath his gray clerical clothes. He was still bandaged up after being shot on the gallows.
"Will, what perfect timing," Abigail said as she and Elena stepped forward. "You remember Elena, Elena Jenks?"