Authors: Jill Marie Landis
“Oh, we already got him,” Ern said. “We picked him up this morning down at the river. Just sat there all through the rain last night. He was soaked through. He was surprised to find his knife was missing, but he didn’t have an alibi, nor did he put up any resistance at all.”
Payson tried to picture Noah under arrest, being held somewhere. The image did not fit any more than the idea that the man he thought he knew might have committed murder.
“Did he confess?”
“No. But then he didn’t even try to offer an alibi, either. I told him he’d most likely hang,” Ern volunteered.
“Oh, my God,” Susanna cried.
“He actually looked relieved,” Ern added with a shake of his head.
“He didn’t kill Lankanal,” Susanna told Ern. When she let go of Payson’s hand, she took a step closer to Ern Matheson. Her face was intent, her mouth set in a firm, determined line. “Noah did not kill Darcy Lankanal,” she said again.
“How do you know that, ma’am?”
She turned to Payson, imploring him with her eyes, silently urging him to tell the man how they knew Darcy Lankanal was still alive. He hesitated. If he told Ern Matheson that Olivia had gone off with Lankanal, he would have to tell him why. Eventually it would all come out, where Olivia had been living, what she had done, what she was doing with the gambler.
“Payson,
tell
him,” Susanna whispered. “You have to tell him.”
He had no choice. Noah’s life was far more important than Olivia’s good name. He knew what Olivia would have him do if she were here. She would tell Ern everything herself in an effort to save Noah’s life.
“Lankanal left town this morning with my daughter. They’ve gone to New Orleans.”
“You say your gal took off with the gambler? When?”
“Sometime this morning,” Susanna admitted, when Payson could not speak.
Ern’s forehead folded into lines as he concentrated. “Did LeCroix know she was going off with Lankanal?”
Payson shrugged.
“Olivia told him last night,” Susanna said.
“So, maybe in a rage, he came into town and stabbed Betts.” Ern stood up and stretched, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck.
Payson stared at the ground between his feet, thinking aloud. “But that makes no sense. Why would Noah kill Betts?”
Ern speculated, “Because he couldn’t find Lankanal. No one saw the gambler at all last night.”
“He was here early in the evening,” Susanna said. “He came to see Olivia, but she was with Noah.”
When Payson looked up, Ern was concentrating on Susanna.
“You know anything more about any of this, Mrs. Bond?” Matheson asked.
“Susanna?” Confused, certain now that she knew far more than she was saying, Payson took her hand. “Susanna, what’s going on?”
“I have to go into town.” Her eyes pleaded for understanding before she turned to Ern. “I have to talk to Noah.”
Noah had never thought he would end his life trussed up like a ham, but as he sat in the dirt in the dark on the floor of Ern Matheson’s smokehouse, that’s just how he felt. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered anymore.
When they had come for him beside the river that morning, he had been surprised, but welcomed his arrest. At least now his muddied future was clear. He would end it hanging in a noose.
The hard dirt floor of the smokehouse had numbed his butt the way Olivia’s rejection had numbed his heart and soul. He drew his legs up, propped his bound wrists on them, and rested his head in his hands. Ern had chinked the logs of the smokehouse good and tight so that not even a sliver of light filtered through. When they led him inside this morning, Noah had counted four hams hanging inside. At least he wouldn’t starve to death in the meantime.
Ern’s talkative wife Faye had brought him a cup and a bucket of water, and promised him some sugar cookies later in the day. He expected her to add, “If you’re a good boy.” Without a doubt he would give them no trouble. They were doing him a favor.
Once in a while he would hear whispers filtering through the wooden walls, disembodied voices of the curious standing outside.
“He’s in there,” someone said. “Noah LeCroix. Killed a man.”
“Stabbed him in cold blood with a skinning knife.”
“Prince of the Ohio’s nothin’ but a stinkin’ half-breed after all.”
“I heard tell he scalped Betts.”
In the darkness, Noah had smiled at that. Betts didn’t have enough hair on his head to bother with.
He felt as if he were shut up inside his head, sitting there in the close, confined space, unable to see his hands in front of his face. When they opened the door to put him in, he got a glimpse of the inside of his makeshift prison and expected he would go crazy in no time at all, but so far he had found the solitude comforting, a dark netherworld where he could drift in and out of his thoughts, reliving over and over the last time he had seen Olivia.
Her words echoed in the canyons of his mind, fell like boulders against his heart. The more the memory of it came to him, the more he recalled the way she had been almost frantic, even desperate during their lovemaking.
Something about her actions, something in her voice nagged him, prodded him to dwell on the exchange while another part of him tried to stop the madness.
She had made her choice. She was gone. What difference did any of it make now?
But the woman who had stepped away from him, the one who coldly pulled up his pants and turned away dismissing what had happened, the woman who said she was going to choose Darcy over him, was not the same Olivia he had found in the swamp, not the same girl who had awakened terrified and trembling, suffering memories of the man in New Orleans she had been desperate enough to escape without even a pair of decent shoes or a penny in her pocket.
Why
? he kept asking himself over and over. Maybe she did not want him, he would grant her that, but
why
would she go with Darcy Lankanal?
What did he, Noah, know of pleasuring a woman? He had only made love to Olivia twice, and each time she had taken the initiative. There was no doubt that Lankanal was a better lover.
Over the past few months, had she gradually forgotten the hell Darcy had put her through in New Orleans? Had time tempered her memory? Had she truly come to miss the luxuries Lankanal could give her? The bleak cabin, the hard work and lack at the homestead might have worn her down.
Surely she knew that she would never want for anything if she went with him to Heron Pond. She would have everything he had the power to give her, but she would never have the fine things Lankanal could buy.
Noah had never set foot in a fancy whorehouse, but he doubted the kind of a life she would have to live there would suit her for very long. The thought of Olivia letting anyone touch her, lie with her for money sickened him, but since Olivia truly believed that Darcy Lankanal had soiled her for life, she might have finally convinced herself it was the only life she deserved.
There were people outside his small jail again; this time though, he recognized Ern Matheson’s voice. “LeCroix’s in here.”
“You put him in the
smokehouse
?”
Noah’s head went up when he heard Payson Bond.
“Well, hell, the jail fell apart after one of the last floods. This is the only place I got with a good latch on the outside.”
The door swung open. Noah slammed his eye shut against the sudden light that filled the interior.
“Get up, LeCroix.” Ern took his elbow and helped him to his feet. “You got yourself some visitors.”
His leg muscles were cramped from sitting. He shuffled like an old man to the door of the smokehouse. Raising his hand to shield his eye from the light, Noah squinted around them and saw Payson and Susanna standing in front of the door. Behind them a crowd had gathered: women in leghorn bonnets, the usual onlookers and gossipmongers from farmers to merchants. The butcher had stepped outside and still had his blood-smeared apron tied over his clothes.
“Let’s go on in the house and get away from all this. Damn place is startin’ to look like a prayer meetin’ out here.” Ern turned to the assemblage. “Go on home now folks, the show’s over.”
“When’s the hangin’?” the butcher wanted to know.
“I’ll post a sign,” Ern shouted back. “Now move on.” He kept ahold of Noah’s elbow as he led him across the yard to the back door of the dry goods store. Once inside the rooms upstairs where he and Faye lived, he had Noah sit on a spindly-legged chair with a fine embroidered seat.
Noah noticed that Susanna never took her eyes off of him, almost as if she were silently begging him to read her mind. Payson stepped into the parlor, took off his hat and politely stood near the door. Finally Susanna sat on the edge of a settee near Noah’s chair.
“I brought these folks up here because they wanted to talk to you, LeCroix,” Ern said.
Susanna turned to the peacekeeper. “Can I speak with him alone?”
Ern shook his head. “Anything you got to say to him you say in front of me.”
She looked down at her hands where they were folded in her lap, then up at Noah. He saw the desperation in her eyes. Something was tearing her apart.
“What is it, Susanna?” he said softly.
“Did you do it, Noah? Did you kill that man?”
Payson stepped away from the doorjamb. “Susanna!”
Her gaze flew to her husband. “I had to ask, Payson. He had good cause.”
Noah saw Payson flinch. “What is it you know, Susanna? What have you chosen to keep from me?” Olivia’s father’s voice had hardened; his features were taut, more than worried. He had aged overnight.
“Did you, Noah?” Susanna pressed.
Noah shook his head. “No.”
She let go a sigh of relief. “I made Livvie a promise this morning,” she said, her voice quivering. “I promised on my little girl’s grave that I wouldn’t break that promise, but my baby’s already dead. What I have to say won’t hurt her anymore, but it might save Livvie and it might save you, too, Noah. I know Olivia would want me to help you.”
Payson visibly relaxed, crossed the room, and hunkered down beside his wife. He took her hands in his and stayed there beside her, lending her his strength. “I’m sorry, Susanna. I didn’t know what was said this morning, only that you were shutting me out again.”
Susanna’s eyes were bright with tears when she laid her hand in Payson’s. Then she looked at Noah and told him, “Livvie went with Darcy because he told her that he would kill you, Noah, and you, Payson, if you stood in her way. He even threatened me and the boys … all of us, if we kept him from having her. She went with him out of fear.”
Noah felt the hot, killing rage come over him again. He fought it off, focusing on Susanna, on Payson. On the fact that his wrists were bound and he was already being held for a murder he hadn’t committed.
“Wait a minute,” Ern said. “How is a gambler from New Orleans connected to your daughter, Bond?”
The color drained from Payson’s face. Susanna spoke before her husband could even collect himself. “Don’t try to get it out of me, because that’s a long story that I’m not even going into because you don’t need to know all of it. That man threatened to kill Noah and took Olivia with him. Maybe Lankanal killed Betts—I don’t know. I do know that I believe Noah when he says he didn’t do it and I think you do, too.”
Ern looked directly at Noah now. “How did your knife end up in Betts?”
Noah shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t know. I must have lost it in the tavern. Betts was kicking at me. He probably knocked it out of the sheath. I didn’t even know it was gone until you arrested me this morning.
Someone
picked it up.”
“And killed Betts with it,” Payson finished.
“Who’d want him dead?” Ern turned to Noah. “Why did you go after him in the tavern, anyway?”
Because Olivia had just ripped my heart out
.
Because I was stupid enough to believe what she told me instead of believing in what had just passed between us
.
“I was looking for Lankanal. Olivia had just told me she was going back to New Orleans with him. I’m glad I didn’t find the gambler or I might have killed him. Someone else killed Betts and made it look like it was me.”
“So you were mad enough to kill,” Ern was watching him closely.
Noah nodded. “Maybe.”
Payson and Susanna both protested. Finally Susanna won the floor and said to Ern, “Lankanal forced Olivia to go with him. He seemed like just the sort of man who would kill Betts to make certain Noah took the blame.”
Payson gave Susanna’s hands a squeeze and stood up. “Turn Noah loose, Ern.” When he looked down at Noah, there was trust, friendship, and an unspoken promise in his eyes. “Let him go so he can bring my girl home again.”
It took another twenty minutes of talking to persuade Ern Matheson to release him. The peacekeeper told Noah that he would hold Payson Bond personally responsible if he did not come back with Olivia and Lankanal and prove that he hadn’t killed Betts. Afraid the town would want his head for letting a suspected killer go, Ern made Noah wait until dark when he could slip out unnoticed. For now, only the Bonds, Faye, and Ern would know that Noah was free. They all agreed to keep up the pretense that he was still incarcerated in the smokehouse for as long as possible.
With his rifle back in his hands and a new skinning knife on loan from the dry goods, Noah left by the side door, mounted up on the horse he had bought for Payson, and headed out of town overland. He kept to the less-traveled trails, heading due south along the river until he could somehow manage to beg, borrow, or steal a flatboat. He was already suspected of murder by almost everyone in Shawneetown. What did a little thievery matter?
Cave in Rock
On the Ohio River
Outside the glow of the fire, the dark walls of the cave loomed around them. Even in the heat of midsummer, the cool stone walls exuded an oppressive dampness, and the smell of mildew permeated the ground. Cave in Rock had sheltered man for centuries—Indians, river pirates, weary travelers.
As Olivia watched the firelight undulate over the rock walls, she was reminded of something tucked in the back of her memory, something illusive and lost to her now. She looked across the fire and shivered waiting for Darcy to return down the steep incline that led to the mouth of the cave.
They were alone here; the farmer who had carried them down the river on his way to market had only pulled in to let them off, directing them to the cave high on the bluff. Tomorrow Darcy intended to go overland to Golconda, where he would buy passage on a keelboat all the way to New Orleans. He chose to mix both river and overland routes in case her father, as he put it, “took it in his head to come after them.”
Olivia knew her father would not come. Not after last night. Not after she convinced him that she would rather whore herself for trinkets than stay with the family. No, Payson Bond would not come after her. She had seen as much on his face, in the sadness reflected in his eyes.
Tonight she was alone with Darcy, here in the dark, hollow belly of the cave, sheltered by the cool sandstone walls on the bluff above the river. Little Pay, Freddie, Susanna, her father—they were all part of her past now. There was no going back.
And Noah? She still could not bring herself to even think his name, or she would shatter into countless, worthless pieces.
She heard the ring of Darcy’s boots against the rocky floor as he made his way back down from the wide mouth opening of the cave, guided by the firelight. They had finished the food the farmer had sold them: chicken, pickles, and some bread, all wrapped in a piece of checkered cloth. Darcy had been hungry enough to eat what he called farmer’s fare without much complaint, but sleeping on the ground with nothing between him and dirt but a thin wool blanket was keeping him awake.
He stood opposite her, deciding whether to sit or not.
“This place certainly isn’t up to your usual standards,” she told him. She was beyond caring if she made him angry.
“I told you I would go to any length to have you, Olivia. Even this, although I would much prefer a bed and clean sheets.” He walked around the fire, hunkered down beside her and reached for a lock of her hair. When he rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger, the movement was so reminiscent of Noah that she had to close her eyes and tried to pull away.
He held tight, until her eyes stung with tears. Finally, he let go and her hair bounced back into a curl. She brushed it over her shoulder, lest he be tempted again. Ignoring him, she stared down into the white-hot flames of the fire that crackled and devoured the firewood beneath it.
Darcy hated her this way—resigned, compliant, the fire in her extinguished. He got to his feet and walked to the opposite side of the fire ring, lowered himself to the ratty blanket he had bought from the farmer, and concentrated on Olivia. He knew he was making her nervous by not touching her, by staring at her. She was so transparent it was pitiful. Let her try to avoid looking at him, let her try to ignore him. With very little effort and hardly any cost at all, he had her back in his possession. Soon, he would take her body again, but first he would heighten his need by watching her, owning her with his eyes.