Breathing in deeply, Colman stretched his arms wide. He still had the notion he was supposed to be doing some proper preaching, and since he wasn’t hearing any voice from the clouds, he guessed he’d have to take matters into his own hands. When they started the meetings up again, he’d leave off his stories and preach a real sermon. Maybe that one on Revelation he’d been working on before he’d been redirected.
Yes sir, that was what he’d do. He stood and dusted off the seat of his britches. Lost in his own thoughts, it was too late when he registered the sounds that didn’t fit the bucolic setting. A burlap bag dropped over his head and shoulders. The musty smell, sudden absence of sight, and his weakness left him scrabbling uselessly against the hands gripping him.
He moaned and bucked against whoever or whatever had his arms pinned to his sides. A low voice hissed in his ear.
“Right now it’s just you, preacher-man. Don’t make us drag Ivy into this.”
Colman froze. Why would someone threaten Ivy? What did she have to do with anything?
“Because she’s been taking care of me?” He blurted the words and received a knock on the head for it. Stars spun behind his eyes, and suddenly he was back in the cave, tumbling over stones, dizzy and sick, the illusion of light bursting into his field of vision. He choked and nearly vomited, but the bag over his head forced him to swallow the bile back down. He was pushed to his knees. He gasped for air and heard . . . what was that?
“Good thing you’re a preacher-man, ’cause you’re about to meet your maker,” the same voice growled.
Colman had just enough time to brace himself before a mighty blow turned everything black. Blacker even than the inside of a mountain.
Blinking and moving first one arm and then the other, Colman sat up. He rubbed the back of his head and winced when his fingers found the goose egg growing there. Groaning, he looked around and saw Webb sitting on the same rock he’d used for a bench . . . how long ago? “Where’d you come from?” he asked.
“Out scouting sign of Jake McLean when I come upon the very scoundrel himself about to do you in.” Webb shifted his rifle, which lay across his knees. “I had to decide whether to shoot him or save you.” He shook his head. “Here’s hoping I made the right choice.”
Colman couldn’t quite make sense of what Webb was saying, yet he chalked that up to his addled brain. “Where’d Jake go?”
Webb waved down the trail. “Run off that direction. I fired a shot after him, but I must’ve missed.”
Colman closed his eyes against the pounding of his skull and thought maybe he did remember hearing a shot. He’d surely heard something out of the ordinary.
“Seems you’ve got the folks around here eating out of your hand.”
Colman climbed to his feet like he was in a contest to see how slow he could move. “You mean my storytelling? I’m entertaining a few folks, but I don’t guess it’s all that important. I ought to be preaching real sermons.”
“Hunh. What you ought to be doing is explaining to all those no-good McLeans that they’re headed for hellfire and damnation.” Webb grinned. “’Course, we wouldn’t want ’em to get straightened out and find salvation, would we? No sir, the wrath of God is no less than they deserve.”
Colman, finally on his feet, stood a moment, waiting for the world to stop swirling around him. He stepped over beside Webb and eased down on the rock. He wouldn’t say so out loud, but Webb made a good point. Did he really want his enemy to find grace with God?
The day had taken its toll on him. He was tired all the way down to his toes. “What do you want, Webb?”
His uncle slapped him on the back none too gently. “I’d say you’re in a good position to get some of the McLeans to trust you. The way they keep showing up to hear you blather, they must think you’re on their side. Surely some of ’em know where Jake’s hiding out.”
Colman laughed, and it felt like a spike sticking into his temple. “It’s a long way from listening to me ‘blather’ to telling me where to find the heir apparent of the McLean clan.”
“Yeah, well, I have faith in you.” Webb picked up some loose rocks and tossed them down the hill into the creek below where their splashes were lost in the falling water. “And if you can’t prove useful, I just might have to start visiting your daddy more often.”
Colman jerked his attention to Webb’s face. “What do you mean?”
“He and I haven’t had a chance to sit and talk like we used to. Might head on over there and visit over a glass of whiskey. Or a bottle.”
Colman thought back to what Johnny and Elam said about his father’s capacity to drink himself right into his grave. Apparently without ever feeling the effects. Was Webb suggesting that he’d help his father kill himself with liquor?
“I guess Dad doesn’t need any booze from you.”
“What he needs and what I plan to give him are two different things. ’Course, if I get what I need, then I can just leave him alone.”
“What do you need?” Colman thought he knew, but he wanted to hear Webb say it.
“Vengeance.” A wicked gleam shone in his uncle’s eye. “And maybe an extra serving of what Serepta McLean’s got. Seems to me she needs to be taken down a few notches. Losing her son would be the first step toward losing her hold on this part of the country.” He stood and stretched like a cat in the sun. “We all have our weaknesses. Her son isn’t her biggest weakness, but I’m thinking tracking down Jake would be a mighty fine start.”
That was when a sliver of truth hit Colman like the sunlight when he first exited the cave. He didn’t want Jake McLean dead. Or, at the very least, he didn’t want to be part of killing him. While seeing a measure of God’s justice meted out on the McLeans would suit him fine, helping to serve up the violent death of anyone’s child—even Serepta’s—was more than he wanted to be party to.
“I don’t see how I can help you,” Colman said, kneading his shoulder where it struck the ground when he fell.
“Keep telling your stories, but start buttering up some of those pious folks who come hear you. Let ’em invite you home for Sunday dinner. Pray over their sick babies. Worm your way into their lives and then keep those sharp ears of yours open.” Webb turned and took a few steps down the trail. “If you can hear as good as I think you can, you’ll have some information for me before long.”
Colman watched his uncle stride off into the soft green leaves of early summer. Oh, he could hear all right. And he surely didn’t like what his ears were telling him.
chapter
seventeen
“Where’s Mack?” Serepta stomped into the kitchen, Charlie’s domain, and stood with hands on her hips.
Charlie turned from sliding a pan of biscuits into the oven and wiped his hands on a towel slung over his shoulder. “Out back last I seen him.”
“I need him to drive me.” Charlie’s face softened in that way she found endearing and, all too often, annoying. One of these days someone was going to see that look on his face and then there’d be hell to pay. “Don’t make eyes at me. Just fetch Mack and keep dinner warm.”
Charlie stepped closer to her. Too close. “Wait till these biscuits are done and I’ll drive you.”
Serepta felt the steel of her spine softening. “It would be better if Mack did. I need to see one of my buyers at the Greenbrier, and you’ll only cause a stir there.”
Charlie reached across the space between them and slid a hand from her elbow to her wrist. He gripped her gently. “Not so long as I keep to my place.”
Serepta tried to tug away, but he held on. “Charlie, your place is not where those fools think it is. Regardless, there are some things even I won’t risk.” She successfully extricated herself. “Now, please, fetch Mack for me.”
Charlie gave her a saucy grin, touched an imaginary forelock with his finger, and said, “Coming right up, missus.”
Serepta watched him go. She might have more power than any other woman in West Virginia, but there
were still some battles she simply could not win. She put the starch back in her spine and recalled the advice she’d given Emmaline. When something was impossible, consider what was possible and do that instead.
Serepta tried to relax in the back seat of the car as Mack began the drive home to Walnutta. Her meeting had not gone well. She was in danger of losing her largest buyer in Pittsburgh. Too many shipments were failing to reach him, and he was threatening to find someone else who could, how did he put it, “Meet my needs with consistency”?
She was unaccustomed to being dressed down, and that was exactly what had happened in the fancy suite at the Greenbrier Hotel—in her own territory no less. She unclenched her fists and folded her hands in her lap.
“I should have been part of your meeting.”
Serepta startled. She was used to Charlie driving her without comment. “So you say. However, until you’re willing to follow my lead without interjecting your own opinion, I will meet with clients alone.”
“I suppose he wanted to see you about the missing liquor.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What do you know about that?”
“There’s been talk. And while you may not value my opinion, I certainly know enough to realize customers will take umbrage when they fail to receive their promised goods. Legal or otherwise.”
She clenched her hands again and paused, thinking before speaking. “If you were in my shoes, what steps would you take?” She held up a hand. “And don’t suggest getting out of the liquor business. That is not an option.”
“I’d get to the bottom of the missing-product issue.”
“And how might you accomplish that?”
Mack pulled over in a wide spot along the road where the sun dappled the car beneath lacy maple branches. He killed the engine. “I have some connections. Know some people. I think I could find out who’s stealing our liquor.”
Our liquor. Since when did Mack think of himself as party to her bootleg business? “Is that so? And what might these connections be?”
Mack twisted more fully around so he could look her in the eye. “You’ve long put too much faith in Jake and not nearly enough in me. It might be time you let me take the lead on something.”
Did she detect a note of hurt in her younger son’s voice? Not that she would cater to his feelings, but seeing Mack assert himself put a new twist on her dilemma. What if Mack were willing to give up his foolish idea about putting everything they had into coal and gas? What if he could succeed where Jake was failing? If he could be trained to lead her empire . . .
“What do you have in mind?”
Mack turned forward again in his seat and started the engine. “Give me two weeks to turn up the stolen whiskey. If I do, it might be time for us to talk about who’s man enough to run the McLean outfit.” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Once you decide to step down, of course.”
Serepta let the car sway her as Mack pulled out onto the road. Did Mack have the sand she’d been hoping Jake would develop? She’d never thought of him as a leader. People flocked to Jake’s electric personality even when he acted the fool. Mack, on the other hand, kept to himself. Up until today she would have said he didn’t have the tenacity to do what needed to be done—no matter what. She stared at the back of her son’s head, where dark brown hair curled over his collar. She’d thought his education a waste, but perhaps he still could be shaped into what she needed.
Resting her head back against the seat, she tried to view Mack in a new light. Perhaps it was time to step back and see if he had potential. If he could do what he said, he just might be the solution she needed—at least until Emmaline was old enough to become a leader in her own right. A slow smile spread across her face. And raising Mack to the position of heir to her throne would surely put Jake in his place once and for all. It might even spur him to reformation, and if it did, she wouldn’t hesitate to shift her hand of grace to his golden head once more. Mack, after all, was the second son.
Colman had made it a practice not to linger after he finished speaking at the brush arbor, but on this Friday night he stayed as Ivy led the final song. When he was a boy, the ladies of the congregation loved to linger after church and vie for a chance to invite the preacher home for Sunday dinner. He guessed if he was going to do what Webb wanted, angling for an invitation was a good first step.
It worked better than he anticipated.
He stood to the side as the final strains of the song rose toward the stars just beginning to appear through the branches above them. The congregation stirred and began rising to go home. The ladies near the front approached like they thought he might turn tail and run, yet as he smiled and shook hands, the crowd around him thickened. Soon a sort of receiving line formed, each person shaking his hand and offering their thanks or comments about what he’d said. With husbands starting to hustle their wives home, there were still quite a few unaccompanied ladies fluttering like moths to a lantern.
Lena McLean appeared before him. “You preach better than most, but it looks to me like you’re not getting near enough to eat.” She shot a look at Ivy, then leaned closer. “I’m the best cook this side of the mountain. You come on over to the house tomorrow at noon and I’ll feed you up right.”
Colman felt a surge of relief. Finally he had an invitation and could end this torture. “That would be a kindness,” he replied.
The woman glanced over her shoulder. “Nell, come over here.” The pretty girl with the golden hair stepped forward.
“Yes, Momma?”
“Preacher’s coming to the house tomorrow for dinner. You meet him down by the crossroads and walk with him.”
“That’s not necessary,” Colman protested. “I know the way.”
Nell smiled, slow and sweet. “It’s no trouble. I like to get out for a walk.” She gave her mother a sly smile. “Gets me out of helping with the cooking.”
Her mother cackled and patted her arm. “She’s almost as good a cook as me.” She gave Colman a meaningful look. “Make some feller a fine wife one day.”
Nell pinked and pinched her lips. “Momma, you’ll give Preacher Harpe the wrong impression.”
“Maybe I will and maybe I won’t.” She poked Colman in the arm. “You meet Nell about eleven-thirty. Won’t take you above twenty minutes to get on up to the house afoot.” She bobbed what was almost a curtsy and left Colman to make his escape.
Nell graced him with one last sweet smile and ducked her chin. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He nodded and began backing toward where Hoyt stood, his arms crossed, watching. “You finally decide to mix with the rabble?” he asked as they started walking back to the cottage.
“I don’t know that I’d call those folks rabble.”
“Hunh. Guess I had the impression that while you don’t mind telling McLeans your God stories, you still aren’t what you’d call partial to ’em.”
“Jesus ate with tax collectors.”
“That He did.” Hoyt scuffed along the darkening road. “’Course, that Nell McLean is awful purty and probably ain’t never waylaid a Harpe.” He grinned. “Least not yet.”
“I’m just trying to follow God’s call,” Colman said. “I’m still not convinced this storytelling business is what He had in mind. If I spend time with folks, I can witness to them proper.”
Hoyt nodded. “Well, you’ve picked some easy ones to start with. Lena McLean’s the best cook around, and Nell’s a kind, sweet girl—both believers far as I know.” Silence expanded in the air between them. “’Course, won’t hardly nobody court her since her daddy’s prone to shoot first and ask questions later. Ain’t never been anybody good enough for his Nell.”
Colman tried not to groan. Somehow he’d managed to get invited to eat with the one McLean family more likely to do him in than Serepta herself. “Reckon her daddy will poison me?”
Hoyt guffawed. “If they’ve got a dog, see can’t you sneak him a bite before you clean your plate.”
The
next day, Colman arrived at the crossroads ten minutes early. When preaching, he wore an old suit of Hoyt’s from the man’s younger days, while today he had on a shirt Ivy made for him. She’d found some flour sack fabric that wasn’t too awful gaudy, and though he’d rather wear a plain shirt, at least it was clean and smelled good. He lifted his sleeve to his nose and inhaled. As a matter of fact, his shirt smelled like Ivy’s garden—fresh, green, and a little spicy. He smiled to himself. Talk about making a fine wife.
Lost in pleasant thoughts, Colman heard Nell before he saw her. She was humming, a tuneless sound, and stopped the moment she saw him.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Oh, you’ve been waiting.” She fluttered to his side and grasped his arm. “Momma told me to get down here early, but I guess I walked slow—it’s such a nice day.”
“I haven’t been here but a minute or two.”
She smiled up through her eyelashes. “Well, I hope today turns out to be worth your trouble.”
“No trouble,” Colman said, wishing they could just go on. He started moving, and she latched on to his arm as if determined to slow him down.
“Aren’t the flowers pretty this time of year? The daisies will give way to black-eyed Susans soon. And, oh, the roses have been lovely.”
She nattered on as they walked. Colman tried to pay attention, but all he really wanted to know was where Jake McLean was hiding, and sweet little Nell McLean seemed interested in anything but. They finally arrived at the house where Colman could smell something frying. If nothing else, dinner smelled real good.
Lena stood on the porch, one hand shading her eyes as she watched them approach. “About time you’uns got here.” She grinned, showing a gap in her teeth. “Thought I might have to send one of the boys to hurry you along.” Cackling, she waved them into the plain but clean house. “Dinner’s about ready. Just sit on down there while I finish dishing it up.”
When Silence Sings Page 14