The Caged Graves (27 page)

“Go!” ordered Hawk Poole. Daniel bolted. A few splashes and he was out of the water, through the trees, and running uphill.

Verity glanced over her shoulder. Several yards behind, Liza trudged along dejectedly, her head bowed and her eyes downcast.

“Clara Thomas is still out there,” Verity reminded Hawk Poole. “Do you have anyone looking for her?”

He refused to meet her eyes. “What happens to one crazy white woman in the Shades of Death is none of our business.”

She would never leave the swamp. That was what he was saying. It might be because of her own design, by accident, or by the action of other, nameless persons, but Clara Thomas would never be seen again.

HAWK POOLE navigated the fishing boat through the swamp until they reached the Susquehanna River, and then they made swift progress toward town. It took long enough, in Verity's opinion, but she was still surprised that Daniel arrived in Catawissa before them. He must have, though, because half the town had gathered on the dock to meet the boat.

Hadley Jones was lifted out, and before Verity had even climbed onto the dock, he'd been whisked out of sight.

Verity's appearance caused a wave of shock; outcries and gasps greeted her, and grown men jumped back at the sight of her. Covered in blood and blackened with soot from the gunfire, she was sure she looked as if she'd just clawed her way out of her own grave.

“Liza!” John Thomas ran down the dock, passing Verity without even a glance. Liza burst into sobs and held out her arms. Verity turned away. She did not want to witness what would surely be a painful reunion. Besides, her eyes were frantically scanning the crowd for the face she most wanted to see.

She found him in the same moment he saw her. He blanched and shoved people out of his way, panic in his eyes.

“Nate.” She mouthed his name, her voice failing her. She took a step toward him, but someone caught her by the arm and whirled her around.

“Verity!” Ransloe Boone's fingers dug into her arms, and then he began to run his hands over her, his eyes wild. “Where are you hurt? Verity!”

“I'm not hurt,” she tried to tell him. “It's not mine. Father, I'm not hurt.”

But he wasn't listening. He was crying, clasping her face in his hands and then turning her around, trying to find the source of all that blood.

Nate grabbed him by the shoulder. “She's not hurt, Ransloe! She's trying to tell you it's not her blood.” Nate's worried eyes met hers. “Is it?” Verity shook her head, speechless, and he sucked in his breath, looking her up and down. “It couldn't be,” he murmured. “Or she wouldn't be standing here.” And then his eyes tracked through the crowd. She could see him drawing his own conclusions about how she'd come to be covered in Hadley Jones's blood.

“I need to see Dr. Robbins,” Verity said. She desperately needed to talk to Nate, too, but that would have to wait. His eyes were pained, but he nodded and took her hand.

Nate dragged her off the docks, past the paper mill and the train station, shouldering people aside. Verity hung on to his hand, straight across the town common where she'd once picnicked and danced. Ransloe Boone followed, not willing to let his daughter out of his sight. People parted at the sight of them, clearing a path to Dr. Robbins's house, around the back to his waiting room and into his surgery, where the doctor was arguing with Hawk Poole.

“The bullet has to come out,” Hawk Poole insisted.

“Don't tell me my job,” Dr. Robbins blustered. “It's better to close him up. He's lost too much blood, and digging for the bullet won't do him any good!”

“He'll die of sepsis if you don't remove it.”

“Sepsis?” Dr. Robbins glared at his hired man. “You think you learned something about doctoring while driving my carriage?”

“No, I learned it on the battlefield—fighting in
your
place.” Hawk Poole narrowed his eyes at the doctor. “You don't want to do it because your hands aren't steady enough to get it out. Take a shot of whisky before you operate, then. Everybody knows you need it.”

“You're dismissed,” Dr. Robbins growled.

“I quit,” Hawk Poole shot back.

Verity glanced at Hadley Jones, pale and still on the examining table, and decided enough time had been wasted. “Dr. Jones said to wash your equipment first!” she announced in a loud voice.

The doctor turned his head, and his eyes grew wide with alarm at Verity's appearance. Then he seemed to come to the same realization as Nate: if it were her own blood, she wouldn't be standing. He looked over at his apprentice. “He said
what?
”

“Actually, he said to wash your
damned
equipment.” When Dr. Robbins looked back at Verity in surprise, she added, “He thought you could do it, doctor. He was relying on you.”

Dr. Robbins wiped a hand over his face and looked again at the injured man. He cared for his apprentice, Verity realized. He was shaken and distraught. “Damn fool youngster,” he muttered. “As if soap and water would make a difference.”

“That's what he thinks, though,” Verity insisted quietly. “He told me they had neither on the battlefield and lost hundreds of men because of it.”

The doctor approached the table. His hands trembled as he examined the gaping hole in the young man's chest. “I don't know . . .”

Nate cursed under his breath and let go of Verity's hand. “Wash your surgical equipment and take the bullet out,” he said roughly, stepping up to the table and looking Dr. Robbins in the eye. “If you need whisky to get you through it, I'll fetch some myself. Do what you have to do to save him.” Nate flicked his gaze back at Verity, then away.

For her. Save him for her sake.
That was what was in his mind, she knew.

Dr. Robbins's shoulders sagged. “I can't do this kind of work without assistance,” he said quietly. “Someone with younger eyes and a steady hand.” He looked at Nate. “Can you do it?”

Nate turned nearly green at the thought. He looked at Hawk Poole, who indicated his damaged eye.

“I can do it,” Verity said.

There was a moment of astonished silence, and then Dr. Robbins burst out, “You're just a girl!”

“He was shot because of me.”
By my aunt, who murdered my mother.
Verity swallowed hard and looked at her father, dreading the moment when he would learn how and why his wife and unborn child had died. She turned back to the glowering doctor. “My hands are steady, and I'm not afraid of blood. I've already seen his wound—look at my dress!” She rolled up her sleeves and said to Hawk Poole, “Bring some water. I need to wash too.”

“Yes, Miss Boone.”

Dr. Robbins looked helplessly from face to face, ending up with Nate.

“If Verity says she can do it, she can do it,” Nate told him.

Dr. Robbins started shouting orders, clearing the room of spectators, throwing open drawers, and selecting his tools. Verity steadied herself, drawing long breaths while gazing at the doctor's array of frightening implements.

Her father refused to leave. One look at his face and Dr. Robbins didn't dare try to throw him out. Ransloe Boone crossed his arms and stood stoically by the door.

Nate had a quiet word with him before departing, and from her father's surprised expression and the way his head snapped around to look at her, Verity could guess what had been said. Then Nate met Verity's eyes and nodded briefly in farewell. The pain in his expression made Verity's chest ache. She wanted to stop him and explain—but Hawk Poole presented her with a bucket of soapy water, and she let Nate go without a word. Hadley Jones's need was greater.

It wasn't a pleasant procedure, but Verity faced it. If it needed to be done, then she was strong enough to do it. Robbins performed the better part of the doctoring, but when his hand trembled or his eyes weren't up to the challenge, Verity followed his instructions. Ransloe Boone stood behind her, his own eyes averted, but whenever Verity faltered or felt sickened, her father sensed it. He reached out and gripped her shoulder tightly, and she drew upon his strength to get through the worst moments.

At one point she felt his hand on the back of her head, smoothing down her hair. “Is he the one you want, Verity?” Ransloe Boone's voice was quiet, calm. “If you want this man, I'll stand by you.”

She glanced back, grateful he would make such an offer, especially since she'd come to realize he loved Nate like a son. “Thank you,” she whispered, “but now's not the time to talk about it.”

No, it wasn't a matter to discuss over the surgery table, with Hadley Jones unconscious and helpless and Dr. Robbins listening curiously. This was not the time to expose her feelings, even if she did finally and undeniably know her own heart.

 

Verity was startled to see how dark it was when she left the doctor's rooms and climbed aboard her father's wagon. Staring up at the starry sky, she marveled at how completely she'd lost track of time.

She asked her father to take her straight to the McClure house, but he refused. “It's after midnight,” he said. “You're so tired, you can barely stand up. And covered in blood like that, you'd scare Fanny and her daughters to death. I'm taking you home. They're all asleep—
he's
asleep—and I'm taking you home.”

Nate surely wasn't asleep, but she didn't have the heart to argue with her father. Ransloe Boone knew everything now; the sheriff had talked to him while Dr. Robbins and Verity cleaned their patient up after surgery. He knew what his sister-in-law had done, and the burden of that knowledge seemed to have aged him ten years.

The horse headed home of his own accord, hardly needing any encouragement. They rode in silence, lost in exhaustion and grief. When Hawk Poole stepped out of the woods into the center of the road, neither one of them reacted with surprise. Verity's father just slowed the wagon down, and Hawk Poole grabbed onto the side and clambered aboard while it was still moving.

“What word?” Ransloe Boone asked.

“No sign of Mrs. Thomas. We think—”

“What about Johnny?” Verity interrupted. “Is he all right?”

Here Hawk Poole was able to report good news. When Johnny left the cabin that afternoon, under orders from his mother to
do what he'd been told,
he led Jasper Barrow to the cliffs along the Susquehanna River and pointed out a crevasse in which he claimed the gold was concealed. He even offered to fetch it out, then squirmed into the narrow crack in the hillside and disappeared.

It hadn't taken Barrow long to realize that the boy had outwitted him. Blustering, threatening, and cursing, he'd hollered into the crevasse all the dire things that would happen to Johnny's mother and sister if he didn't come out. Although he could hear the boy crying, he couldn't reach him. “When my boys arrived,” Hawk Poole said, “Barrow had wedged himself into the crevasse, trying to squeeze his way in. They pulled him out by the feet.”

The Pooles had not been able to coax the boy out of the cliffs. Eventually they had to send for John Thomas, who called Johnny out. Then, with his weeping son in his arms, Verity's uncle had looked at the sheriff and the Pooles in defeat. His wife, who'd confessed to a double murder, was missing and most likely dead. His children had been kidnapped, threatened, and terrorized. “I'm sorry” was all he said before he climbed up the cliff face himself, disappeared into a completely different cavern, and returned with a tattered and worn leather satchel.

“It was real, then,” breathed Verity. She looked at her father.

Ransloe Boone stared at the road ahead, his face lined with grief and regret. “If it was up to me,” he said, “I would have sunk it in the swamp fifteen years ago.”

“You lied to me,” Verity whispered sadly.

“I was trying to protect you. Not that it did any good,” her father added bitterly. “We found that cursed gold the day our wives died. We were celebrating down by the river the very hour they took sick—while they were . . .”
Being poisoned by Clara Piper,
Verity thought. Her father couldn't bring himself to say the words. “I was punished,” he whispered.

“As treasure, it wasn't much to speak of,” Hawk Poole said quietly. “I don't know how much was originally stashed up there”—Verity's father shrugged, as if he didn't care to say—“but there's not much left. The sheriff isn't very happy. That gold belonged to the United States government, even if it was a hundred years old. The sheriff thinks they'll take a dim view of a man who spent it on his own pleasure.”

Verity found it hard to muster sympathy for her uncle, but she felt a pang of grief for her cousins. They'd lost their mother and might see their father go to jail.

Hawk Poole swung his legs over the side of the wagon, as if to jump off. Verity stuck her hand out to him. “Mr. Poole,” she said loudly. A smile crossed his face, and he clasped her hand, shaking it firmly. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for my life. Twice.”

Holding on to his hand, she leaned over and kissed his cheek, right beside his scar.

Hawk Poole laughed. He leaped off the side of the wagon and disappeared into the woods.

VERITY NEEDED two basins of warm water to wash all the blood off her body. Beulah heated the water, took away the dirty basins, and never said a word about the tears that ran down Verity's face.

The blood had soaked through her dress and dried.Peeling the fabric away from her skin stung. It was an oddly intimate thing, to have clothing and undergarments stuck to one's body with someone else's blood.

Afterward, she climbed into bed, certain she would fall asleep instantly. Instead, every time she closed her eyes, visions of the day's events appeared on the canvas of darkness. She lay there an hour or more, sleepless, her thoughts a blur of painful memories.