He took a slow, deep breath. Another. The pain resumed its accustomed throbbing. He stared at the cabin’s one small window and thought he saw a shadow move across it. A bird, he thought. A man would have seen what I’m doing and would have been in here. A bird. That’s all it was. Yet his eyes would not leave the window until he felt himself growing tired as the weight of sleep began to find chinks in the barrier of his pain. He looked away quickly. There was no time for unconsciousness now. Every hour that kept him away from Cassandra and Riverrun was another nail in the coffin Hawkins was building to place them both in. He wondered for a moment what would have happened had he built Riverrun closer to a more substantial community, where the law was more easily enforced and the courts more in touch with that same law. He did not know, and he realized that it was useless to dwell upon it. Ifs and I-wish-I-had-knowns had never solved a problem before, and they weren’t about to now. He had to make the best of the situation. And, he thought grimly, since it’s bound to end in more than one death if I have any say in it, perhaps it’s a good thing the law, in the person of Sheriff Garvey, was as lax and approachable as it was. Otherwise, he would probably spend the rest of his days in jail.
Not, he thought with a sardonic grin, that he wasn’t in a jail already. But this jail was one he would get out of. Concentration would do it. He stared at the door until nothing else filled his mind but the blackness of it, the emptiness of it, the promise of what lay beyond. He stared until his eyes ceased their watering, his arms ceased their trembling and began to move slowly, an inch at a time, down beyond his waist.
“W
hat do you mean?” Cass demanded. “What do you mean, you don’t think they took him?”
For the first time since she had known him, Judah appeared uncertain. From the moment he had come into the room he had been unable to take his eyes off Alice, and now his gaze seemed to appeal to her for help, while at the same time knowing that she was as much in the dark as his mistress. His hands moved in front of him and he rubbed his palms together, slowly, nervously.
“He s’pose t’be in the hickory.”
Cass nodded sharply.
“They can’t get him down without they either shoot him like a coon or drag him down. They ain’t no fight signs there, Missus. He jes’ gone.”
“They could have threatened him,” she said impatiently. “There are a hundred ways they could have done it.” She punched a fist into her palm. “Damn that man! Sometimes I think he’s a magician. Damn his soul!”
“Missus,” Judah said, “I don’ think he was taken.”
Exasperated, Cass slumped into a chair, and setting her elbows on the table, buried her face momentarily in her hands. “What exactly are you talking about now, Judah?” she said, her voice muffled and weary.
“You t’ink all the reasons you want to, Missus, but Simon, he don’ come down outa that hickory lest he gots somethin’ to tell you. That’s what you tol’ him to do, and that’s what he do. The only way he come down from there, he gots to be dead or he gots to come down by hisself, with nobody around to take him. That’s the way it is, Missus. Nobody takes Simon ’cept whats Simon wants to take him.”
“He’s right,” Alice said. “That’s the way Simon is, and you of all people should know that.”
Cass did know it, but she did not want to come to grips with it. It opened too many new boxes containing too many new questions, and she had all the problems she could deal with just at the moment. She had to think.
“Judah,” Alice said, “go out to the stable and fetch Abraham. He’s small enough. Put him up in the hickory with something to shoot with.” When Judah hesitated, Alice frowned. “Judah, do it. We can’t have too much time go by without someone down there, you hear me?”
Judah left immediately. Cass lifted her face, and Alice grinned at her. “I think I feel better,” Alice said.
Cass laughed; and once the laughter started it was impossible to stop. She leaned back and roared at the ceiling, dropped her face into her hands and tried to smother the sound that escaped through her fingers. She gasped, giggled, broke into another peal and tried to stand. Her legs, however, would not hold her, and she fell back into her chair, still laughing, wiping now with the back of her hands the tears that coursed down her cheeks. Ludicrous, she told herself, and laughed again.
Rachel came in from the scullery with the broth ingredients in her dark wooden bowl, saw the two women practically lying on the table in what seemed to her to be hysterics, and ducked back out again. This she wanted no part of.
“Be … calm!” she ordered Alice, who only exploded again and set off Cass’s own momentary loss of control.
For nearly ten minutes they fought to regain their composure, each one staring at the other and igniting another round. Finally, however, Cass could no longer stand the aching that spread through her chest and her stomach. She waved at Alice mock-angrily and stood, stumbled to the doorway, and made her way down the corridor toward the stairs. It was, she thought, as though she were drunk, as though she had emptied the wine that cooled in the cellar, or had taken more than a glass of the hard, clear liquid that Amos prepared each week behind his shack.
“Stop,” she whispered to herself when, at the foot of the steps, she nearly started herself off again. With the heels of her hands pressed to her eyes, she waited, testing herself, for that one last guffaw she knew would come. And when it did, she ran up the stairs, away from the still-sputtering laughter she heard coming from the kitchen. She ran into David’s room where she found him sitting up, a book in his lap. The lantern made flickering shadows that seemed to have no source. His nightshirt was opened to the waist, and she could see the painfully thin chest, the flesh reduced to drumhead tightness, the ribs as clearly defined as though he’d not eaten for weeks. His hair was nearly totally gray now, and the black of his eyes had gone flat, colorless as Vern Lambert’s.
“Where’s Melody?” she said.
“I sent her away. She tries to tell me stories.”
“She’s supposed to be cheering you up, you know.”
“She doesn’t.”
Cass scowled and took Melody’s stool, folded her hands in her lap and sat there for several minutes without speaking, staring at the folds of the coverlet as it draped over the side of the mattress. She could see faint stains, knew they were blood, wished there were something more she could do than continually promise him a visit from Garner.
The problem was, she also knew, David did not want to see the doctor again. He had made up his own mind about his fate, and he would not let anyone—from Garner to Rachel—disrupt his plans. Cass could only hope against what she knew the outcome would be, and pray that she was not fooling herself when she tried to believe he would last out the winter.
“Judah thinks Simon has run off,” she said at last. David shook his head, his gaze on the far wall, unwavering, barely seeing.
“I don’t know why,” she said.
“I never did like that boy,” he said. “He worked too hard. Never trust a boy that works too hard.”
“David,” she said softly, “you’re not making sense.” He coughed, and there was another silence.
Cass thought she heard another shot, but when she looked quickly at him he had not moved, had not blinked.
The room grew oppressive. Door, windows, and drapes were closed, and the air trapped within was overly warm despite the night’s chill that lingered outside the panes. There was also the acrid smell of David’s bandages, of blood, of the deep brass pot on the other side of the bed filled with his lungs’ clearings. She fought back the sensation of gagging. There was another smell, too, but it was one she would rather not put a name to, one she desperately drove from her thoughts.
“It’s in the air,” he said suddenly, and she jumped at the sound.
“What is?”
“You know what I mean, Cass. It’s in the air. I can feel it even up here.”
“Hawkins?”
David nodded, slowly. “Him. His men, what they’re doing out there. I can feel it. It’s like … like another blanket sitting on top of me.”
She tried to understand, to feel as he did, could only succeed in wincing at the smells that now pervaded the room.
“I expect they’ll wait until tomorrow night,” he said. She nodded, saying nothing.
“Did you think of sending for Garvey? Or maybe one of your old creditors who might now look more kindly on us all out here?” He gestured quickly before she could answer. “Never mind. No use, I imagine you’re thinking. No use. And besides, you want to do this on your own.”
“Hawkins has them all, David. I have no choice.”
It was his turn to nod.
And finally, with a grimace she almost felt herself, he turned his head toward her. “I want you to know something, Cass.”
“Don’t,” she cut in quickly. “I just wanted to see if all that bother outside was keeping you awake.”
“I don’t sleep much these days.”
“David, I don’t want to—”
“I want you to know something, Cass,” he said again. The hoarse rasp was gone from his voice now, replaced by the near-lilt she remembered from his days with Hiram Cavendish. “I want you to know that I don’t blame you. I did. I thought you were a witch, y’know, had turned my brain to pudding. In spite of Missy I think I would have followed you right into the camp of some foul-smelling Sioux, if that’s what you’d wanted. But it wasn’t your fault.”
“David—”
His palm slapped his thigh. “Damn it, woman, will you let me have my word?”
She flinched at the gesture, the look on his face.
He fumbled under the covers and pulled out a long barreled revolver, gleaming from hours of polishing until the metal seemed like a mirror. He hefted it, blew an imaginary spiral of smoke away from the mouth and grinned at her.
“You try to have someone take this away from me, Cass, and I’ll kill them.”
She was too shocked to answer.
“It’s for the end,” he said. “I’ve already told you I’m not going to die lying here like some damned godforsaken cripple. I’ve been saving this,” and he waved the gun at her, “for months. I didn’t want to show it to you. I have. It’s done. I’ll be using it, Cass. I will.”
“I know you will, David,” she said quietly. “And I love you for it.”
“It’s in the air,” he said. “I can feel it. It’s all over the county. They know it, too. The smug ones, the lying bastards, the sons of bitches who slapped our hands when we reached out to them to help us … they know it. They won’t come out here when the shooting starts because they know I’ll blow out the eyes of the first one of them I see. It’s in the air, Cass. It’s waiting. Just waiting.”
T
he rope tasted of sweat and blood. He tore at it with his teeth like a starving animal, working the knot until he finally felt it loosen. His lips were raw. His wrists scraped until they felt as though they were dangling over a fire. But he had done it—he had with one agonizing wrench and twist brought his hands under his buttocks and over his feet so that he was now able to rip at the knot. He continually glanced up at the door when a grunt of pain broke through the silence. He had nearly passed out when the trick had been accomplished, but he’d held on long enough to convince himself he wasn’t going to die. He nearly cried out in joyous relief when the rope suddenly fell slack and he wriggled his hands free. He instantly went to work on his ankles and freed them within moments. He paused until he was sure he could move, then slowly pushed himself to his feet and made his way to the door. He pressed an ear against it, heard nothing, and slid a hand along the splintered wood until he reached the latch. To make the wrong move now would only destroy everything he’d worked for, but there was only one way he could discover whether there was in fact a guard outside.
He jiggled the latch and stepped to one side.
Five seconds. Ten. Fifteen. The door pushed slowly open, the wood protesting loudly. A shadow stepped cautiously over the threshold, a revolver preceding it. Eric wasted no time—he brought his hand down on the wrist, an elbow into the man’s face. The gun clattered to the floorboards, but he ignored it, following the man’s backslipping progress out the door and sliding his good arm around his throat, pressing a knee into the small of his back, squeezing, ignoring his shoulder’s screams of pain, waiting until the man slumped to the ground. He knelt, took hold of the man’s arm, and dragged him back into the cabin. Within moments, he had the man tied in the ropes that had bound him only minutes earlier, had turned his face down into a corner. Then he snatched up the revolver and jammed it into his waistband. He didn’t bother to be quiet; had there been anyone else, he would have been dead already. Dead now, dead later, it wouldn’t have made any difference. He hurried outside, slowed and saw the faint gray light on the horizon. It was dawn.
Soon, he promised himself as he glared back at the cabin. Damn it, soon!
“You got to get some sleep,” Alice said, pushing Cass toward her room. She did not protest, knowing that the woman was right. No sleep now would mean she would be unable to function properly when the moment for action came.
“Eric,” she said as Alice pushed her softly onto the bed.
“Don’t worry none ’bout him. He gets back while you’re sleepin’, I’ll tell him a thing or two ’bout leavin’ like that.”
Cass wanted to contradict her, but the room was already swirling in shades of scarlet and black. She tried to stay awake for one more moment, one more second, but it was impossible.
Eric, please she prayed as Alice’s form drifted away from her. David was right, she thought. It’s in the air. My God, it’s in the air. The stench of death.
Chapter Thirty-Three
C
ass awoke feeling groggy, as if the sleep she had had were no sleep at all. Her eyes felt swollen and filled with grit, her throat was parched, her lips ready to crack, and there was a dull weariness that attacked her spine, keeping her from sitting up easily when she wanted to. She could tell from the light streaming through the panes that dawn had long since gone. At first she was annoyed that the household had let her sleep so long. There was too much to do, there were too many things to worry about to waste the day lying in bed. On the other hand, had she risen when she had planned to, she would probably feel a hundred times worse than she did, and that would have made her virtually useless for the rest of the day.