Bitter Eden (65 page)

She edged down the hallway to Peter's bedroom. Enraged to find it empty, she slashed at the bed, tearing the coverlet and pillow to shreds.

Peter finished his coffee. He left the dining room having decided to walk to the brewery to see Stephen himself. There was no need to send a message, and it was time he spoke to Stephen about Natalie, and about his prolonged absence from home. He started up the staircase, preoccupied, trying to plan the simple trip to the brewery to find Stephen in an orderly fashion. He felt as he had the first time Rebecca had let him free to go into Hobart Town alone. He had been terrified; but finding Tom Baker had been important enough to override his fear. Today Callie and Stephen and Jamie were important enough for him to try again.

Natalie slithered along the wall, quiet and intensely alert to every sound in the house. She crouched at the corner of the wall where the steps reached the top landing—waiting, controlling the laughter and the moment of intense triumph that was so near.

Peter came within four steps of the second floor when she flew at him laughing maniacally, the knife held firmly pointed at his throat

His arm went up, and Natalie hit him at the same time. They both fell with uncontrollable force down the stairs.

Mary Anne ran from the back of the house. She saw them both at the base of the stairs on the hall floor. Peter s arm was soaked in blood where the knife had gouged him. Natalie lay beside him, a broken doll. The knife was on the floor.

Mary Anne screamed at the top of her lungs, quivering in shock.

Peter dazedly opened his eyes, grimacing and holding his head. Her screaming cut through him. Then he moved quickly, getting to his feet, staring in glassy-eyed horror at Natalie. He put his hands out, his eyes imploring Mary Anne. She cowered away from him, finally breaking her fright to run from the house shouting to the field men to get the sheriff.

Peter was still huddled against the stair wall shaking and staring down at Natalie when Callie came up the front walk from having taken Jamie to the Tol-berts'.

She stepped inside the foyer, taking off her coat and hat, hanging them neatly and straightening the others before she entered the main hall.

She swayed, her eyes growing dark as she looked at them. She compelled herself to cross the hall, going down on her knees beside Natalie, knowing before she touched her that she was dead. "Why? Why didn't you stay away from her?" she asked in anguish.

Peter began to shake his head mindlessly. "No . . . No . . . I didn't . . . I . . ."

Callie looked at him in shocked understanding. "I know you didn't," she said. "Oh, Lord, Peter, it wasn't you. I know that." As she looked at him and felt his bewildered pain, she began to gather her senses. She got up, coming around Natalie to him. She took his hand, felt the hot moistness of the still bleeding wound, and led him to the study.

"I didn't want her to be hurt. I tried to catch her," he said, looking at Callie. "She . . . she threw herself at me . . . she . . ."

"Drink this," she said and handed him a glass of brandy. She began to clean and dress the knife wound.

Though it was quite some time, it seemed they had no more than a few seconds before the sheriff and

several men from the fields burst into the house led by Mary Anne hysterically babbling her story.

Peter laid his head against the back of the sofa, all expression drained from his face. If the taut look of despair hadn't been imprinted on his features, she would have thought him asleep. She stood between him and the door to the hall. She heard the voices of the sheriff and the other men mixed with Mary Anne's high tremor.

"Watch yourselves. He's got to be here somewhere. Don't take no chances."

Callie heard the sheriff's instructions and stepped out into the hall, leaning against the closed door to the study. "Sheriff ..."

"It's all right, Miss Dawson. Don't you worry none. We'll get him."

"Sheriff . . . Natalie tried to kill Peter. He did nothing to her."

The sheriff looked at Mary Anne. Mary Anne looked sorrowfully atCallie. "I don't know about that. But it's Miss Natalie who's dead, and he was with her."

"Natalie tried to kill Peter," Callie repeated, fighting to keep control of her voice. She stood as she had been, her back to the study door, guarding it

"Were you here too?" the sheriff asked, confused and no longer certain.

"She was at the Tolberts'," Mary Anne said.

"Then how do you know what happened?"

"I know."

"He tell you?"

"He didn't need to tell me, but he did."

The sheriff nodded to his deputy and two of the men from the fields. "Well, he'll get his say at his trial. You just step aside, and well get this over with just as quick as we can."

"You don't need Peterl He did nothing!" she said, her voice rising. She pressed harder against the door.

"Step aside, Miss Dawson," the sheriff said firmly.

"You cant take him." She was pleading now.

"Step aside, Miss Dawson."

"No! No! I won t let you. You can't do it!" she cried, cornered and frantic. The sheriff took her arm, pulling her away from the door. "You're blocking me from doing my rightful job, Miss Dawson. We'll find out if he's guilty or innocent of this, but either way, he's a wanted man by the English. I got to take him. Now you stand aside or I'm going to have to see you do."

The other man opened the door to the study. Peter sat where he had been, unmoving, his eyes closed. "Callie!" he said in alarm as she broke free of the sheriff.

She darted into the study, trying to block the men. "Get out of my house! You have no right to come in here!"

"Take her out of the way," the sheriff said to Mary Anne.

Callie ran forward shoving at each of the men in turn. "You can't take him! You can't! He's done nothing! Why don't you believe him? Why won t anybody ever believe? Oh, please! Please!"

"Callie, don't," Peter said, trying to get to her.

Both the field hands from the farm grabbed hold of him. "Let go of me! Let me go to her!"

"Get him outside."

Callie ran after them. "Let him go! Let him go!" She clawed at them. Peter turned back, struggling now with a desperate strength wanting to get to Callie.

The sheriff said quietly to Callie, "I told you he's a condemned man by English law. I'll shoot him if I have to. Nobody's gonna care. I'll get thanked for it. So unless you want to see that happen, Miss Dawson,

you quiet down and let me do my job the right way, or I wont be responsible."

Callie looked at him with horror. "Is your job to condemn the innocent? He's done nothing. Why? Why are you doing this? You wouldn't if he were someone else."

The sheriff unsheathed his gun as Peter pulled free of the two men who held him. Callie leaped forward, throwing herself against Peter. He put his arms around her, ignoring the confused, angry voices of men uncertain now how to take him yet determined to doit

"If you care for her, Berean, you'll come quietly," the sheriff said, alert now, ready for another struggle.

Callie clung to him, sobbing as he held her. "Callie, let me go," he said gently, his face buried in her hair.

"Berean," the sheriff said, moving closer.

Peter unwound her arms from around his neck, holding her at arm's length. "Don't let them hurt you, Callie, please," he begged. "Just let me go with them now."

"You've done nothing. They have no right"

"Callie . . . please. Don't fight them anymore." Peter released her, backing in between the two men who had held him before. He walked out the door guarded by the deputy and the two field hands.

The sheriff watched, following slowly after. He stopped at the front door. "He'll get his trial."

"I told you he was innocent! There can be no trial when you believe him guilty," she screamed, once more looking frantically to where Peter was climbing into the carriage. Mary Anne came up, putting her arm around Callie's waist.

"Come sit down, Miss Callie. Let me get you something to make you feel better."

Callie rounded on her, pushing her away. "Damn

you! You knew Natalie and still you condemned him!"

"Miss Natalie, devil that she was, was a tiny woman . . . she wasn't going to be doing any harm to that big brute. You know that as well as I do, Miss Callie. He was a violent man. He'd murdered before . . ." Mary Anne came near her again.

"Don't you touch me, you Judas."

"Miss CalHe!"

Callie's voice was cold and flat. "Get out, Mary Anne."

"Out?" Mary Anne said weakly. "But . . . Master Jamie—"

"You'll never touch his son. Get out, Mary Anne. Get out now!"

Mary Anne packed her things, making one last unsuccessful attempt to talk to Callie before she left. Callie sat numbly in the study, uncaring that she was now alone in the house, or that Natalie lay unattended on the floor in the hallway. She sat in darkness and thought about Rehoboam, the son of Solomon. Reho-boam, the young and tender-hearted against whom the wicked children of Belial strengthened when he could not withstand them. And who were these children of Satan, who strengthened time and time again with their eyes blind and their ears deaf to all goodness, if not the very people with whom she had lived all her life? Were they not Rosalind turning from him to lust after another; Natalie coveting his son; Mary Anne, who knew him only by the brand on his chest; Frank, whose jealousy caused him to deny his brother's existence rather than risk his own pride? '

If those were the legions of the Satan Belial, where was hope?

Chapter 44

Once in the carriage, Peter didn't speak again. He went as docilely and with as little interest in his destination as the sheriff had ever seen in a man. As long as Callie was left alone and the wary attention was on him, Peter was quiet.

"You want your brother told?" the sheriff asked as he locked the iron cell door behind Peter. Peter walked to the cot along the wall, lying down without saying anything or indicating that he had heard at all.

"Send for his brother," the sheriff said to the deputy. "Should be able to find him at the brewery. If not, try Jack Tolbert's place."

Stephen rode directly to the house. All he knew from what the deputy told him was that it hadn't been Callie who'd died. He saw the pitch-dark house, fright rising inside him. He burst through the front door. "Camel-He didn't hear a sound—no movement, no answer, not even the ticking of the clock. He lit the candelabra in the halL Natalie still lay at the foot of the stairs.

"Oh, God!" He raced up the stairs, calling her name, "Callie! Answer me. Callie!" He came back downstairs, going from one room to the other. He opened the door to the study. The light from the hall fell across her, sitting motionless on the sofa.

"Callie . . ." he said softly, coming into the room. He sat down beside her feeling a sick relief to know where she was, and yet afraid to touch her looking as she did. "Speak to me, please."

"Natalie has finally killed him. She killed him, Stephen. She killed him and we're guilty ," she said, emotionless and staring.

"He'll have a trial, Callie. It wont be like England. Things have changed."

She laughed senselessly in the dark. "Things never change. There'll be no trial. There'll be no justice. There is nothing!" she said shrilly, crying again.

Stephen touched his forehead to her shoulder. She kept on laughing and crying. "Should I give him another code? Another May house, Stephen? Should I tell him to believe? Should I? Believe in what? What is there, Stephen?"

The painful wrench he felt made him catch his breath. "Oh God, Callie, don't talk like that. Not you."

Stephen went to the hall, picking up Natalie to carry her to her room. He had never prepared a body. He had no idea of what should be done. He arranged her on the bed, trying to make her look whole and straight. Then he went back to Callie. "Where is Mary Anne?"

"Gone."

"Bea?"

"Gone."

"Callie . . . something has to be done for Natalie," he said helplessly.

She sat, unchanged in frigid stillness.

Stephen moved toward her then stopped, not knowing what to do or say. He wanted to go to see Peter; he couldn't leave Natalie as she was; and dear God, he didn't want to leave Callie this way. "She's my sister, Callie. Please. Peter . . . Peter wouldn't want her left like that . . . not even now. Do it for him. Please. She's dead."

"She killed herself trying to kill him, Stephen. And you ask me to do it for Peter?"

"I ask it for him, Callie . . . and for myself."

When she didn't answer, he said, "I'm going to see Peter. Ill bring someone from the village for Natalie."

Callie sat quietly as she heard his horse canter down the road in front of the house. Then she got up and went upstairs to Natalie.

Peter got up from the cot as soon as he saw Stephen approaching the cell. "Is Callie all right?"

The gaoler let Stephen inside the cell. Stephen looked at Peter, hesitated, and then embraced him as the whole of Peter's thirty-two years passed between them.

"When does it all end? Isn't there ever enough?" Stephen asked, holding Peter and seeing nothing ahead for any of them but the endless tragedy-torn years that dogged them.

"Is she all right?" Peter asked again as he and Stephen sat side by side on the cot.

"She'll be all right," Stephen said, trying to believe it himself.

Peter sat quietly thinking for a long time; then came a long damned up flood of words and feelings. He began to talk to Stephen of all the things he wanted to leave behind for Jamie.

Over Stephens protests about the trial, which this time had to be fair, Peter laid out his plans to insure Jamie's future. When he finished he turned to Stephen and said, "Go to her, Stephen. If there is any sin I need atone for more than others, it is knowing you loved her when . . ."

"There is no sin, Peter. Callie loves you."

"Yes . . . and Jamie . . . without her I would have died long ago. She was hope to me. Where Callie stood there was light," he said and paused. He got up and walked to the window. He held fast to the grille, pulling against the bars. "Stephen—I don t want to die taking that away from her."