The Devil's Cold Dish (16 page)

Rees drove away, driving as fast as he dared over the deeply grooved ground. This was a new record for him—he'd been expelled from two farms in one morning. He felt as though he couldn't breathe until he reached the road outside. Then he stopped. He'd begun shaking and he sucked in great lungfuls over and over until he could hold the reins again. He was going to have more trouble with Farley, but was he the force behind the attacks targeting Rees's family? Rees still couldn't be sure.

Perhaps it had not been a good idea visiting. Every time he spoke to Farley, Rees felt disoriented, as though the world he knew had shifted to a reality filled with witches and magic. Caroline's angry spite had found fertile soil in Mr. Farley's superstitious fears.

Caroline and Farley haunted Rees's thoughts all the way home. Could either have been the murderer? Both owned rifles. But Caroline could not have climbed Bald Knob in her skirts and both Caro and Farley were small and slight. Rees doubted either would have had the strength to lift Tom McIntyre. Nonetheless, it took great effort for Rees to push them from his mind when he finally turned into his own drive. He unhitched Hannibal and released him into the meadow. The gelding raced to the trough and plunged his nose into the water. Once Rees stowed the wagon in the manure-and-hay-scented barn he walked to the back of the house. He could feel his tension begin to dissipate in the soothing commonplace that surrounded him.

Every branch, every bush wore a piece of clothing. Jerusha and Abigail were walking around checking each piece for dampness. “Where's Lydia?” Rees asked. “Inside?”

Abigail nodded.

“Is dinner ready?”

“Soon.”

Rees ran up the back steps, hoping he would not have to make do with stale doughnuts.

He found the kitchen hot and steamy. Even the buzzing flies sounded sleepy. The table had been pushed as close to the back door as possible while still allowing entry. Since the washing part of the laundry was done, the empty copper lay upended on an old piece of canvas, drying before it was stored. It would resurface next Monday. Lydia was bent over the spider, making pancakes. Although Simon was seated at the table, none of the younger children were present.

“I fed them first and sent them outside to play,” Lydia replied to his question. She put a stack of the cakes before Simon and turned to her husband. “Are you ready to eat?” Flushed and perspiring, she looked both hot and irritable. The tendrils of hair hanging from her cap were glued to her forehead in damp curls. “After dinner, Abby and I'll begin ironing.” Rees heard the rest of the sentence: so everyone should eat and leave the kitchen. But he was just so glad to see her he hugged her tightly.

“Really, Will,” she said in annoyance. But she smiled at him.

“Pancakes are fine,” Rees said, although pancakes did not excite him. In his opinion, they should be consumed only when there was nothing else but he did not express this view. Wash day was not a good time to cross a woman.

He took a chair next to Simon who had drowned his pancakes with maple syrup and was eating his way through with grunts of enjoyment. Lydia placed a plate before Rees. When Abigail and Jerusha brought in their baskets, they joined Rees and Simon, and a short while later David and Charlie came in for their meal. Like Simon, Charlie ate with a good appetite and great enthusiasm, appreciating a plentiful meal cooked and served by someone else. If he noticed Simon's ferocious glare directed his way, Charlie did not say so.

Lydia did not sit down with her own plate until the irons were lined up before the fire to heat, and then she collapsed the last few inches with a sigh. For several minutes, as everyone ate, the kitchen was silent.

David and Charlie took Simon with them, which made him smile, when they returned to their outside work. As the women cleared the table and began laying out the linens, Rees escaped upstairs. He was almost finished with his weaving commission and expected to cut it from the loom today. Besides, the bedroom, which was shaded by several large maples and had all the windows thrown open to catch any breeze, was much cooler than the kitchen below.

He wove the last of the yarn given him and rolled the finished cloth around the beam. This had been a simple job, just plain weaving, and had been quickly completed. Nothing else waited, and for the first time Rees wondered if his lack of custom was connected to Caroline's hateful gossip. Maybe the housewives of Dugard feared Lydia would curse the cloth and cause sickness or death to anyone who wore clothing made from it. No, that couldn't be true. This was Dugard, Maine, his birthplace and home.

But when his eyes fell again on the finished cloth he shivered.

Well, if he couldn't find more custom here in Dugard he would gladly take another weaving journey through the neighboring farms and villages. This time David would certainly understand.

Rees knotted the ends of the cloth to keep it from unraveling and carefully unrolled the yardage from the beam. He rerolled it into a bundle and tied it tightly with rope. He must make a trip to the Widow Penney soon to deliver her cloth.

As he stood up, Rees realized he could hear angry voices outside. Male voices, not the lighter tones of David and Charlie. Putting down the bundle, Rees ran out to the hall and started down the stairs. He met David coming up. The boy had lost his hat and his face was crimson with hurry. “What's going on?” Rees asked.

“There's trouble,” David said. “Bad trouble. You'd better come now.”

 

Chapter Fourteen

His heart pounding, Rees clattered after David. When they passed through the kitchen it was empty and Rees wondered if Lydia was already on the front porch. But when he stepped out, she wasn't there. David fell behind Rees but shadowed him so closely he almost stepped on Rees's heels.

For a moment Rees considered the group of men standing in the drive. It was not the entire town, but twenty or so men. Mr. Farley, frowning with such self-righteous rectitude Rees's gut clenched in fear, stood with his sons. The boys were grinning and one of them held a rope that he pulled through his hands with a sensuous delight.

Behind the Farleys stood the three McIntyre boys. Their faces were still flushed and mottled with grief. Elijah would not meet Rees's gaze. Some of the regulars from the Bull, including Sam Prentiss, filled out the mob. Rees began to feel queasy with the threat of imminent battle. “What do you want?” he asked.

“You know there've been two murders,” Farley said. Although he spoke loudly, he licked his lips over and over. Rees realized Farley was not just nervous but terrified. Rees suspected Farley had already had this confrontation planned this morning, when Rees unexpectedly visited.

“I know,” he said. And then, because he couldn't believe he was facing down a mob of people he'd known since childhood, he added loudly, “I've told you I didn't kill anybody. Not Ward. And certainly not Mac—Mr. McIntyre. We were friends. Our argument was over politics.” He stopped suddenly, realizing he should have kept silent.

“We're not here for you,” Farley said. He flicked a glance over his shoulder as though assuring himself of the men behind him. “We're here for your wife. We—she—will be arrested for murder. Murder by witchcraft.”

Rees's mouth went dry as fear began to invade his anger. He felt the vibration in the air behind him as David moved. The door to the house shut quietly behind him. Rees did not turn around. His world had narrowed to the group of men standing in the dusty yard. “Witchcraft? Are you crazy? Lydia is no witch.”

“The evidence,” Farley said, trying to speak with the certainty of the law behind him, “is against her.”

“Ward was shot,” Rees began.

But Farley interrupted him. “So you say. If one of us had killed him, we wouldn't go to the top of a mountain. And what about Mac, huh? Not only murdered but hung upside down in a mockery of the Crucifixion, candles all around. Your wife's candles.”

“Let us talk to your wife,” said Elijah McIntyre. “Where is she?” He made as if to peer around Rees into the shadowy house behind.

“I don't know,” Rees said truthfully, his thoughts moving at a furious speed. Farley turned around to confer with the others. Several of the men looked at Rees with suspicion. They were right to. Rees wouldn't tell them if he did know. And he certainly would not turn Lydia over to them. He could feel the fear and anger coming off these men thick as smoke. Even if they did not mete out a rough justice of their own—hanging her from a convenient tree—Rees knew they would not be kind to her before delivering her to Wheeler's Livery. Since the jail had not yet been rebuilt, she would be confined to a stall and might not be released for months, well after the birth of her child. His child. He could not allow that to happen.

How quickly his passion for justice and his belief in law disappeared when it was Lydia at risk.

He looked over at McIntyre's sons. Not one of them could meet his gaze. “Do you believe this?” he asked. “Do you believe my wife killed your father with witchcraft? Why?”

For a moment none of the three young men spoke. Rees could see they were wild with grief, looking to blame someone, anyone, and yet the two eldest looked down at the ground in shame and discomfort. They didn't want to be here anymore.

“Someone killed him,” Elijah finally muttered. “And he was strung up and the candles…” He broke into sobs.

Rees understood how emotion could move a man to do something that he would normally not even consider. And now Mac's boys were so angry and grief-stricken they were capable of anything. Rees couldn't look for help from that quarter. He wondered if he could dart inside the house and collect his rifle from the front parlor.

The door slammed shut behind him. He smelled the mixture of hay and sweat that marked David. “She's in the dairy,” David said, his voice so low Rees could hardly hear his son. “I told her and Abby to stay there and lock themselves in.”

Rees inclined his head in acknowledgment, moving so slightly he hoped none of the mob could see it.

“We want to check your house,” Farley said.

“No,” Rees said loudly. He clenched his fists, and adjusted his stance, ready to hit the first man who came up the porch steps.

“You can't hide her forever,” shouted one of the men in the back.

“David, get the rifle,” Rees said.

“Stall them. I'll get Charlie and ask him to ride into town and fetch the constable,” David said. The house door snicked shut behind him.

“You can't beat all of us,” Farley said loudly, showing his yellow teeth.

Rees looked at the men. Farley was shifting impatiently back and forth, back and forth, and the bruiser behind him, a big fellow Rees dimly recalled from the Bull, was slapping a cudgel into the palm of his hand. At the meaty sound of wood hitting flesh, an involuntary shudder swept over Rees. He dared not speak for fear his voice would tremble and betray his fear. When he thought he could trust himself, he said, “How do I know that once you are inside you won't hurt one of my children or destroy my property?”

Now it was Farley who looked surprised. “Why would we do that?” His voice squeaked. Rees wondered if Farley was really as naïve as all that. Surely he must know the type of man he stood with. His own sons were trembling with excitement, like attack dogs on a scent.

“We won't let them,” Elijah McIntyre promised.

Rees hesitated. In the past, he would have dared them, knowing he could leave if it went badly, take an extended weaving trip, until all the trouble blew over. But he couldn't do that now, not when it would leave Lydia, his unborn child, and his adopted children in danger. The clatter of David's footsteps came up behind Rees but he did not turn around.

“Letting them look through the house will give the constable the necessary time to reach us,” David whispered. Rees turned to look at his son. Underneath his summer bronze, David was pale. His freckles stood out in crisp definition.

“Are you going to let us in, nice like?” Farley asked. “Or are we going to come over you?”

“Very well,” Rees said. “But I will accompany you. And if I see anyone stealing anything…” Farley raced forward. He had his foot on the bottom step before he paused and stared at Rees with a nervous expression. Rees folded his arms and stared down at the short, skinny man, daring him to ascend the stairs. In the sudden unexpected silence the birdsong in the maple sounded piercingly sweet. Rees could hear a cow lowing in the meadow. Then the other members of the mob caught up to Farley and with several men at his back, he was brave. They came up the stairs and pushed past Rees.

Farley and the McIntyre boys went up the hall stairs, David at their heels. Rees distinctly heard the thud of their feet above him. He followed Farley's sons through the hall to the kitchen. Grinning like a fool and whistling, Sam trailed after them. He seemed to view these proceedings as though they were a pantomime put on for his benefit.

Rees would have followed them up to the second floor and the bedroom he shared with Lydia, but Jerusha and her siblings had come inside and were standing by the back door. Jerusha was white with terror and she clutched at the door for support. “Are they going to warn us out?” she sobbed. “Do we have to leave?” She had lived with this fear in New York, before Rees and Lydia had adopted her and her brothers and sister. The three youngest began crying too.

“Of course not,” Rees said. He had hoped he would never see that terrified expression on her face again. “It's going to be all right.” But before he reached her she vomited with fright and began weeping harder. Rees picked up Joseph, the baby, and pulled Nancy and Judah to him. He couldn't abandon them; they were already scared, and he couldn't send them off to Lydia.

Rees watched as Farley led his group up the stairs. Rees tried not to listen to the thud of their footsteps overhead and the crash of something falling. Rees started for the back steps, the children at his heels. Mocking male laughter floated down the stairs.