M. Donice Byrd - The Warner Saga (22 page)

Donna’s eyes filled with tears. “Can you imagine what that was like for him? His mother was dead and my mother intentionally kept his father away. And Father let her. I’ve never really understood their relationship, I know my father loves him and yet he lets Mama and his career keep them from being family. I wrote to him twice every week but that was his only contact with our family.”

A frown marred Meredith’s brow. She could barely fathom what he had gone through. His mother’s death had triggered a cascade of tragedy. She thought her heart would break at the knowledge that he had to suffer through it all alone.

“Donna, is that why he helps orphans?”

“I think it scares Blake to death to think anyone might have to go through what he did. He searches out children who need him. He spends his money buying coats and shoes, stagecoach and train tickets to send orphaned and abandoned children to relatives. He finds homes for the little ones and jobs for the older ones.”

A sad look shadowed her eyes as Meredith turned to the window. Her chuckle was equally sad. “Do you think if my aunt and uncle won’t take me in, he might keep me?”

Donna put her arms around Meredith. “Oh, honey,” she cooed. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?” Meredith nodded. “I think Blake’s afraid. He’s afraid marriage will turn out to be like my parents’. He’s afraid that someday he’ll find himself married to a woman he doesn’t love and he’ll be forced to keep the love of his life as his mistress.”

“Oh.” She sounded crestfallen.

“You, goose. Don’t you know…? No, how could you when he won’t admit it to himself. Don’t give up. Don’t give up on him yet.”

Donna’s face took on a serious expression. “Don’t let him divorce you. If you want to stay married, fight him.  Fight for him.”

20

Pete Morgan’s eyes flew open as his body twitched into readiness to flee or fight. His mind jolted from nightmare to wide-awake in an instant as pain flooded various parts of his body.

He didn’t know where he was and that alarmed him. As he realized he was by himself, and no longer alone with the dead bodies of his father and stepmother, he allowed his muscles to uncoil.

He pressed one gauze-wrapped hand to his abdomen where he had been stabbed and found he had been bandaged. Awkwardly, Pete pulled at the bandages on his hands with his teeth until they were free. There were cuts on both hands in the flesh between the thumb and fingers and across his palms where his hands had dug into the knife as he fought to keep his tongue. That’s when he was stabbed. It was meant as a warning; either his tongue or his life. The knife had not been plunged as deeply as it could have been. He could still feel the knee across his chest and neck as the weight of his attacker pinned him to the floor and sliced his tongue off, cutting his lower lip in the process.

He touched his scarred lower lip, held together with four stitches on the outside and more on the inside. His tongue felt so strange. What remained felt hot, swollen and dry. Pete reached into his mouth and pulled out a wad of cotton. There was a bit of blood on it but not much. He had nearly choked on the blood during the attack and when he felt himself growing faint afterwards, he rolled to his belly to keep from drowning in it.

He closed his eyes for a moment as a moan escaped his lips. His tongue no longer touched the back of his teeth but there was still a little bit left that lifted off the floor of his mouth, the stitches creating an unpleasant sensation where they touched the roof of his mouth.

An urgent need prompted Pete to roll to the edge of the bed. Gingerly, he pushed his feet over the edge holding his injury under his hand until his feet found the floor. He toed the chamber pot with his foot until it was in position and took care of his need.

Pete scanned the room for some sort of clothing to cover himself. He had already gone to bed the night of the attack when he heard the raised voices in the other room and entered the fray wearing only his long underwear. It was those red longjohns he spotted, draped across one of the two chairs in the room. Apprehensively, he pushed at the garment to see if it was still covered in blood. It appeared to have been washed but the hole remained where the knife entered his side. Moving slowly to cause himself as little pain as possible, Pete pulled on the underwear and returned to the bed. The little energy he exerted exhausted him.

Lolly.
Where was his sister? He knew she must have found help otherwise he’d still be lying in a pool of blood in the tiny house. But where was she now? He tried to say his sister’s name but even he couldn’t understand the word. He tried again forcing as much movement as his tongue was capable of.

“Ah eh,” was the best he could manage.

He rolled onto his side and cried into the pillow. He was still weak from his blood-loss and after an extended cry, he fell back into restless sleep.

The creak of the door awakened Pete instantly. He lay perfectly still afraid of the unknown. The overhead sun illuminated the room. He watched in silence as Lolly stepped in and quietly closed the door. Pete released the breath he held. The moment her gaze fell on his open eyes, her expression lit up and she charged the bed jumping into it with him. He winced but tried to hide his pain from her.

“Petey, you slept so long I didn’t think you would ever wake up,” she said with the exuberance of a child on their birthday.

Pete gingerly pushed himself into a sitting position and pulled her into an embrace ignoring the pain it cause him. The little blue-green eyed angel squealed with joy as he squeezed her and rocked her. Suddenly, he pushed her onto the soft mattress and tickled her making her giggle all that much harder. He laughed, surprising himself that he could still laugh.

Suddenly, the door opened and a gray-haired woman appeared. She was dressed in a well-tailored navy blue dress with a crisp white apron.

“Lolly Morgan,” she scolded. “You know you are not allowed to come in here.”

“But look, Petey’s awake!”

“Yes, I see that but he needs his rest. He lost a lot of blood and he needs to sleep to get his strength back.”

The woman reached for Lolly but Pete grabbed her arm. He held it tight but he could tell he was not at full strength. Lolly scampered to her knees and quickly scrambled to his side at the headboard. When the woman tried again to grab Lolly, he threw his arm in front of her blocking the woman from taking his sister.

There was a hardness about Pete’s expression that gave the woman pause. It was an expression she saw in soldiers and criminals – a look of hatred so strong that one feared for their life.

The woman erected herself with a tightlipped expression. “I’ll tell Dr. Morris you’re awake,” she said and left the room.

The four-year-old moved to his lap and hugged him around his chest. He didn’t care that it hurt as he needed the contact as much as Lolly. He wanted to say words to comfort her, and apologize for not being able to save her mother. If he could have spoken, he would have thanked her for saving his life. Had she not gotten help, he didn’t know if he would have survived. He held her to him and stroked her head.

Suddenly, Lolly pulled away. She stood up and started jumping on the bed. “Guess who I saw.”

He shrugged with open hands, wondering if she knew he could no longer speak.

“You ‘member the man with the picture and the candy?”
Pete nodded. “Uncle Blake’s in jail and they think he’s a spy. If you tell them he’s our uncle, they aren’t going to hang him.”

Pete shook his head.

“Please, Petey, he’s really nice. He’s not a spy. And I heard Deputy Applecrumbie say if he’s our uncle, then he’ll have to take us in.”

He shook his head again.

“Why not?” She stopped jumping and looked at him expectantly.

Pete crossed his arms over his chest.

Sheriff Harlan Diller and Deputy Hyram Abercrombie were at Pete’s bedside within minutes of the news of his awakening reaching them. The sheriff was a small middle-aged man. He kept his hair pomaded in place and wore a long mustache that hid both his lips when his mouth was closed. Dr. Morris had insisted on being present when the men questioned Pete to make sure they did not overtax him.

With his hands clasped behind his back, his chest puffed out like a robin, Sheriff Diller rolled up on the balls of his feet as he looked at the thin frightened boy, swallowed up by the large bed.  “It’s good to see you feeling better, son. I don’t mind telling you, I wasn’t sure if you were going to make it.” Although Hyram was the only one who actually vomited seeing the carnage inside the house, Harlan nearly did as well. “I want you to know that we are going to find out who’s responsible for the murders of your folks and they are going to hang until they are dead.”

The sheriff suddenly realized he should have thought to bring paper and a pencil with him so Pete could write his responses. Locating a stubby pencil in his pocket, his eyes darted around the room looking for paper. “Dr. Morris, do you have any paper?”

Hyram Abercrombie nudged the sheriff with his elbow and shook his head. “He doesn’t go to school. My boys would talk about him if he did. They’re about the same age.”

“Can you read and write, Pete?”

Pete just looked at him silently.

Harlan stuck his hands in his pockets. “Well, let’s start with the easy questions. How many men were there?”

Pete’s eyebrows knitted questioningly.

“We figured there must’ve been at least two since one had a knife and one had a shotgun.”

Pete continued to stare at the men but made no indication he intended to answer them.

“He may not actually remember what happened,” the doctor said. “I’ve read in the textbooks, although I’ve never actually seen a case, but sometimes when people witness a severe trauma the brain blocks out the memories. It’s especially common in children. Pete, do
you remember what happened?”

Pete shook his head tentatively.

“Nothing?” Harlan asked.

Again he shook his head.

Hyram was not satisfied with his answer. He didn’t believe Pete didn’t remember. But he also didn’t believe Pete was going to say anything.

“Pete,” Hyram began. “I know you know what happened. And what’s more, I know you know the people who did this.”

Pete paled. The sheriff turned to his deputy. “Why else would they cut out his tongue? It was either kill the boy or cut out his tongue to keep him from talking.”

Pete cast his eyes at the hands folded in his lap and wouldn’t look at the men.

“I think I know what happened,” Hyram said. “When that Warner man was showing that picture around, someone recognized her as Anna Morgan. When he was arrested for being a spy, some men got to talking between themselves and probably drinking and thought if he was a spy and she was his sister, she was supplying him with information. And they went out there and they killed them. That’s why her murder was so much more brutal than Howard Morgan’s.”

The sheriff gave Hyram a look of annoyance. He didn’t like Hy giving his theories to anyone but him and he certainly didn’t like him giving them in front of a witness. He didn’t want Pete latching on to his theory.
He wanted to know what Pete remembered.

“Do you know who killed your folks?”

Ever so slightly, Pete withdrew. He shook his head no.

“One last thing.
Your sister says that Blake Warner is your uncle. Is that true?”

Pete looked at the sheriff. He knew what Lolly wanted him to say. She had been jabbering nonstop about Uncle Blake this and Uncle Blake that since he woke up. For all he knew
, the man
was
an enemy of the Confederacy.

It wasn’t just guilt over not saving Anna that made him give in to her wishes. He nodded his head.

Blake sat on the floor of his cell and Lolly sat on the floor just outside the bars. As he’d finished his lunch fifteen minutes earlier, Lolly walked through the door.

“And then what happened?” Blake prompted. “Did the skunk spray Pete?”

“Nah, Petey ran away fast as a jack rabbit. I just laughed and called him a scaredy-cat.”

“I would have run, too,” Blake admitted. “Sometimes you have to know when to fight and when to run.”

Blake looked up when the sheriff and deputy entered the jailhouse. He knew they had gone to speak with Pete and he would contradict Lolly’s assertion that he was their uncle.

Blake rose to his feet and brushed off the seat of his pants. His actions were mirrored by the little girl.

“Lolly, I bet Pete is wondering where you are. Can you find your way back alone or do you need someone to take you?”

“Uncle Blake,” she said in a slight whine. “I’m not a baby.”

Blake
disagreed. Lolly wasn’t even school-aged yet and it frustrated him that no one seemed to be watching her the way they should. He wondered if her caretaker even knew where to find her at that moment. She had shown up fifteen minutes earlier and no one had walked her there or shown up looking for her.

“Deputy, can you take Lolly back to her brother?”