The Believer (44 page)

Elizabeth kept her voice calm. "Leave him be. I told you I'd go with you" She went over to Colton with sure steps and put her hand on his arm. "We can go right now"

"Eager, are you?" Colton peered down at her with a victorious smirk.

She managed to push a smile across her face. Not a real smile, but one that was convincing enough. Hannah was not going to get back with the sheriff in time, but at least she would see that no one else got hurt. She let her eyes go to Felix.

"I'll be fine,' she said. "Take care of Hannah:" And then she couldn't stop the tears as they began to stream down her cheeks.

"Oh yes, little sister Hannah. I forgot about her. Where is the little freak?" Colton looked around. His eyes were cold. "Don't you want her to go with us?"

"She's afraid of you. She doesn't want to go:"

"Imagine that" He laughed. The sound stabbed through Elizabeth. "Just as well. I never took to her any better than to your dog over there:" He casually threw the axe handle and hit Aristotle in the head. The dog yelped and scooted under a table of bolts of cloth.

Elizabeth didn't look toward the dog. "Just let me get my things." Perhaps she might yet delay long enough. She looked toward the street. The sun was coming up. People would be out and about.

"You're looking for help" Colton sounded surprised as he suddenly grabbed her. "You might as well forget that. It's not coming in time:" He pulled her out the door.

Aristotle came out from under the table to grab the back of Colton's leg, but he kicked the dog away. He kept a stranglehold on the collar of her dress as he mounted his horse and then jerked her up in front of him.

"Don't try to get away," he said with his mouth against her ear. "I've got a gun. I'll shoot the old man if you fight me." He pulled her back against him so tightly she could hardly breathe.

It didn't matter. She wanted to be dead.

The sun was pushing its light into the stable when Ethan woke. He hadn't planned to sleep when he'd climbed into the loft and settled down in the hay to wait for the morning, but two nights with little sleep had caught up with him.

Still it was early. The storekeeper might be awake now, but the store wouldn't open for another hour. The man would know where he could find Elizabeth and the little sister. They'd surely gone to him since Linley hadn't known where they were.

Ethan thought he had time until he climbed down out of the loft. He stared at the empty stall where the man's horse had been as his heart began pounding in his ears.

The stable owner came in the door and saw him with hay clinging to his clothes. He pointed the pitchfork he was carrying toward Ethan and studied him with narrowed eyes. "What are you doing in here?"

"I slept in your loft;' Ethan answered with the truth.

The man stepped closer to him. "You look like one of them Shaker men:"

"I was"

"Well, then I don't reckon you was trying to steal nothing. You fellows got some sorry ways, but pilfering stuff ain't one of 'em' He set the end of the pitchfork's handle down on the dirt floor.

"I needed a place to rest. I'll come back later and clean your stalls to pay you'

"No need in that. Not unless you ate some of the hay up there:" The man let out a loud guffaw as if he'd said something particularly funny.

Ethan pushed a smile out on his face as he edged toward the door. He needed to get to the storekeeper before Linley. The stableman stepped in front of him. "You running away from that place out there?"

"I've left them" Ethan pointed toward the empty stall where Linley's horse had been. "When did that horse go out? I didn't hear him:"

"I led him out early this morning. Just as it was beginning to get light. The man was all in a stir to get under way. Didn't matter none to me whether he waited till after I fed the horse or not. Same price feed or no'

"What was his hurry?" Ethan asked.

The man shrugged his shoulders. "Men like him are always in a hurry. Never take time to treat their horses right. Act all righteous and uppity but have a mean streak clear through them, if you know what I mean"

Ethan did know what he meant. He ran out the door and down the street as fast as he could. His heart sank when he saw the store at the far end of the street. He was too late. The man was leading Elizabeth out of the store toward his horse. He got on the horse and pulled her up after him to sit sideways in front of him. She wasn't fighting against his hold.

Ethan yelled, but no one heard him. The storekeeper stumbled out of the store behind them, holding the dog by the scruff of its neck but doing nothing to stop Linley. Ethan couldn't let them ride away. He might never find her if they rode away. If only he had grabbed the stableman's pitchfork. But Shakers didn't use weapons.

He pulled in breath and ran faster. A Shaker would not, but the son of Hawk Boyd would. The son of Hawk Boyd could match meanness with the man on the horse and find a way to stop him.

He stepped in front of the horse as the man snapped the reins on its neck. The horse shied to the side. Ethan grabbed the horse's bridle and let his eyes touch on Elizabeth's face for just a second. She looked beaten, without hope, and then when she recognized him, frightened. But not for herself. For him.

He shifted his eyes away from her to stare at Linley. "Let her go"

Looking irritated, the way one might look when bothered by a pesky fly, Linley tightened his arm around Elizabeth and let out a short laugh. "You know how to pick them, my dear Elizabeth. An old man and a peace-loving Shaker boy. Who's next?" He pulled up a pistol with the same hand that held the reins and pointed it at Ethan. "Now tell your little friend to get out of our way. Tell him you want to go with me. You do, don't you?" He moved the gun close to Elizabeth's face to rub the barrel across her cheek in an obscene caress as the reins slid loose in his hand.

Elizabeth looked at Ethan. "It's all right, Ethan. I am going with him" She spoke in a monotone and her eyes looked dull and lifeless. "It is the way things must be:"

"Nay, you are wrong, Elizabeth. I won't let you go with him:" He held the horse by the bridle while he slipped his other hand over the reins dangling down from the bit in the horse's mouth. He made a soft clucking noise with his tongue to let the animal know he intended it no harm.

Again Linley laughed. "And how are you going to stop me? Are you planning to stomp and shake to try to knock me off my horse?"

The man gathered up the reins, but Ethan's hold on them kept the bit loose in the horse's mouth. The confused horse tried to dance to the side, but Ethan held it steady by its bridle.

"Unhand my horse or I'll shoot you. Simple as that"

"Simple," Ethan muttered. Maybe the answer could be simple. Ethan got a better grip on the reins. He didn't dare look at Elizabeth or at the gun Linley was surely pointing at his head even when he heard the hammer cock. With a sudden jerk, he yanked the reins out of the man's hand and jumped to the side as Elizabeth screamed and banged her head back against Linley's nose.

The gun fired. The shot hit the ground at the horse's feet and it reared in panic, pulling the reins free from Ethan's hands. Linley grabbed for the saddle horn, but Elizabeth knocked his hands away.

Ethan moved in dangerously close to the rearing horse to reach for Elizabeth, who met his eyes and with a sudden twist jerked free of Linley. Ethan caught her in midair and fell backward. They scrambled back from the horse's hooves.

With the dog barking and biting at its tail, the horse did a sidewinder buck to unseat Linley before it raced off up the street. Linley hit the ground hard, jarring the gun out of his hands. It bounced toward Ethan, who let go of Elizabeth to grab it. He cocked it and pointed it at Linley as he lay in the street. This man, if ever a man did, deserved to die.

"You don't have the nerve to shoot:" The man laughed scornfully. "But even if you did, it wouldn't matter. That gun's already fired its load" He started to push up off the ground. "You'd know that if you weren't a Shaker."

Ethan was Hawk Boyd's son. His seed had grown and flowered inside him. He turned the gun in his hand to use as a club. The man had no weapon. Ethan could knock him down with one blow.

Nay, my son. You are the son of my heart. Not his son. Brother Issachar's words whispered through his mind. My son.

Then Elizabeth was beside him, her hand soft on his arm. "You are not like him, Ethan. The sheriff is here. Let him do what has to be done:"

As if he had just come back from somewhere far away, Ethan looked around. There was a man with a gun pointed at Linley. And there was the little white-haired sister. Hannah, he told himself. Hannah was her name. Behind Elizabeth, the storekeeper watched Ethan while he gingerly held the elbow of his right arm that appeared to be broken. Others were gathering around, staring at Ethan, wondering at him.

He wondered at himself too. He didn't know who he was anymore. He stared at the gun in his hand for a long moment before he let it fall out of his hand back down on the ground. Then he looked at Elizabeth. "I am no longer a Believer."

Elizabeth gently wrapped her arms around him the way one might hold a wounded child. "That's not true, Ethan. I look into your eyes and I see belief. Did you not pray and did the Lord not answer that prayer? Here we stand together. We may not be Shakers. But we are Believers"

The days passed and became weeks. Ethan cut his hair, put on one of the storekeeper's old shirts, and lost the outer trappings of being a Shaker, but inside it was not as easy. He had washed up on Harmony Hill's riverbank when he was six. He had vague memories of Preacher and Mama Joe from the years before that, but it was the memory of Hawk Boyd stealing him from his bed that was clearest in his mind. Hawk Boyd was the world that the Shakers had shut away from them at Harmony Hill.

And now he was in that world. In the world, no sisters cooked in the kitchens and set bowls of food out on a table for their hungry brothers. In the world, there was no rising bell to tell a man it was time to get up and begin his work. Work that was assigned for the good of all. In the world, a man had to make his own decisions. A man had to make his own way. There was no harmony in the world. Sometimes Ethan worried there was no Lord in the world.

That was what Brother Martin told him when he came after Ethan to lead him back to Harmony Hill. The Shaker brother had found Ethan in the livery stable where the owner had given him a cot in the tack room in exchange for cleaning the stalls in the morning. A rough-talking man, Mel Derbin had little use for Shakers and told Ethan so two or three times a day. His brother had gone to the Shakers years before and turned over his part of the family land to the Society. Mel had never forgiven his brother or the Shakers for that.

Brother Martin didn't seem to have much forgiveness in his heart for Ethan either. He stood in the middle of the small room and visibly shuddered when Ethan offered him a seat on the cot or the upended crate in the corner. He looked about him and said, "You know good spirits won't live in this kind of filth:"

"I've been cleaning some on it," Ethan said.

"You can't clean this place, Brother Ethan. You must come back to Harmony Hill. Back to your family of Believers. This way, this place.. " Brother Martin frowned as he waved his arm around to take in the whole room. "Nothing but destruction awaits you here. The ways of the world will sweep you into rivers of sin that will carry you far from where you need to be. You must not continue on this slippery slope to everlasting condemnation"