Heart of Mercy (Tennessee Dreams) (2 page)

Ignoring his orders, Mercy pressed through the gathering mob until the heat so overwhelmed her that she had no choice but to stop. At the same time, a giant arm reached out to halt her progress. She shook it off. “Where are they?” she gasped, breathless. “Where’s the family?”

The sheriff moved his bald head from side to side, his sad, defeated eyes telling the story. “Don’t know, Miss Evans. No one’s seen ’em yet. We been scourin’ the crowd”—he gave another shake of the head—“and it don’t appear anybody got out of that inferno.”

“That can’t be.” A sob caught at the back of her throat and choked her next words. “They were at my place earlier. I made supper.”

“Sorry, miss.”

“Someone’s comin’ out!” A man’s ear-splitting shout rose above the crowd.

Dense smoke enveloped a large figure emerging from the open door and staggering like a drunkard onto the porch, his arms full with two wriggling bundles wrapped in blankets and screaming in terror. Mercy sucked in a cavernous breath and held it till weakness overtook her and she forced herself to let it out. Could it be? Had little John Roy and Joseph survived the fire thanks to this man?

“Who is it?” someone asked.

All stood in rapt silence as he passed through the cloud of smoke. “Looks to be Sam Connors, the blacksmith,” said the sheriff, scratching his head and stepping forward.

“Sure ’nough is,” someone confirmed.

Mercy stared in wonder as the man, looking dazed and almost ethereal, strode down the steps, then wavered and stumbled before falling flat on his face in a heap of dust, bringing the howling bundles with him.

Excited chatter erupted as Mercy and several others ran to their aid. Mercy yanked the blankets off the boys and heaved a sigh of relief to find them both alert and apparently unharmed, albeit still screeching louder than a couple of banshees. Through their avalanche of tears, they recognized her, and they hurled themselves into her arms, knocking her backward, so that she wound up on her back at a right angle to Mr. Connors, with both of the boys lying prone across her body. In all the chaos, she felt a hand grasp her arm and help her up to a sitting position.

“Come on, Miz. You bes’ git yo’self an’ them chillin’s out of the way o’ them flames fo’ you all gets burned.” She had the presence of mind to look up at Solomon Turner, a former slave now in the employ of Mrs. Iris Brockwell, a prominent Paris citizen who’d donated a good deal of money to the hospital fund.

Mercy took the man’s callused hand and allowed him to help her to stand. By the lines etched in his face from years of hard work in the sweltering sun, Mercy figured he had to be in his seventies, yet he lifted her with no apparent effort. “Thank you, Mr. Turner.”

Five-year-old John Roy stretched his arms upward, pleading with wet eyes to be held, while Joseph, six, took a fistful of her skirt and clung with all his might. “Come,” she said, hoisting John Roy up into her arms. “We’d best do as Mr. Turner says, honey. Follow me.”

“But…Mama and Papa….” Joseph turned and gave his perishing house a long perusal, tears still spilling down his face. John Roy buried his wrenching sobs in Mercy’s shoulder, and it was all she could do to keep from bolting into the house herself to search for Herb and Millie, even though she knew she’d never come out alive. If the fire and smoke didn’t kill her, the heat would. Besides, before her eyes, the flames had devoured the very sides of the house, leaving a skeletal frame with a staircase only somewhat intact and a freestanding brick fireplace looking like a graveyard monument. Her heart throbbed in her chest and thundered in her ears, and she wanted to scream, but the ever-thickening smoke and acrid fumes burned to the bottom of her lungs.

With her free hand, she hugged Joseph close to her. “I know, sweetheart, and I’m so, so sorry.” Her words drowned in her own sobs as the truth slammed against her. Millie and Herb, her most loyal friends. Gone.

Sheriff Marshall and his deputies ordered the crowd to move away from the blazing house, so she forced herself to obey, dragging a reluctant Joseph with her. At the same time, she observed three men carrying a yet unconscious Sam Connors across the street to a grassy patch of ground. Several others gathered around, trying to decide what sort of care he needed. Of course, he required medical attention, but Mercy felt too weak and dizzy to tend to him. Best to let the men put him on a cart and drive him over to Doc Trumble’s. Besides, she highly doubted he’d welcome her help. He was a Connors, after all, and she an Evans—two families who had been fighting since as far back as anyone could remember.

She’d heard only bits and pieces of how the feud had started, with a dispute between Cornelius Evans, Mercy’s grandfather, and Eustace Connors over property lines and livestock grazing in the early 1830s. There had been numerous thefts of horses and cattle, and incidents of barn burnings, committed by both families, until a judge had stepped in and defined the property lines—in favor of Eustace Connors. Mercy’s grandfather had gotten so agitated over the matter that his heart had given out. Mercy’s grandmother, Margaret, had blamed the Connors family, fueling the feud by passing her hatred for the entire clan on to her own children; and so the next generation had carried the grudge, mostly forgetting its origins but not the bad blood. The animosity had reached a peak six years ago, when Ernest Connors had killed Oscar Evans—Mercy’s father.

“That man’s a angel,” Joseph mumbled into her skirts.

“What, honey?”

“John Roy was wailin’ real loud, ’cause he saw somethin’ orange comin’ from upstairs, so he got in bed with me, and after a while that angel man comed in and took us out of ar bed.”

She set John Roy on the ground, then got down on her knees to meet Joseph’s eyes straight on. His were still red, his cheeks blotchy. She thought very carefully about her next words. “Where were your parents?”

Joseph sniffed. “They tucked us in and went upstairs to their bedroom. John Roy an’ me talked a long time about scary monsters an’ stuff, but then, after a while, he went to sleep, but I couldn’t, so I got up t’ get a drink o’ water, and that’s when I heard a noise upstairs. I looked around the corner, and I seed a big round ball o’ orange up there, and smoke comin’ out of it, and I thought it was a dragon come to eat us up. I runned back and jumped in bed with Joseph and tol’ him a mean monster was comin’ t’ get us, and I started cryin’ real loud.”

John Roy picked up the story from there. “And so we waited and waited for the monster to come after us, but instead the angel saved us. I think Mama and Papa is prolly still sleepin’. Do you think they waked up yet?”

Mercy’s throat burned as powerfully as if she’d swallowed a tablespoonful of acid. Her own eyes begged to cut loose a river of tears, but she warded them off with a shake of her head while gathering both boys tightly to her. “No, darlings, I don’t believe they woke up in bed. I believe with all my heart they awoke in heaven and are right now asking Jesus to keep you safe.”

“And so Jesus tol’ that angel to come in the house and get us?” Joseph pointed a shaky finger at Sam Connors. The big fellow lay motionless on his back, with several men bent over him, calling his name and fanning his face.

Mercy smiled. “He’s not an angel, my sweet, but that’s not to say that God didn’t have something to do with sending him in to rescue you.”

“Is he gonna die?” John Roy asked between frantic sobs.

“Oh, honey, I don’t know.”

She overheard Lyle Phelps suggest they take him over to Doc Trumble’s house, but then Harold Crew said he’d spotted the doctor about an hour ago, driving out to the DeLass farm to deliver baby number seven.

A few sets of eyes glanced around until they landed on Mercy. She knew what folks were thinking. She worked for Doc Trumble, she had more medical training and experience than the average person, and her house was closest to the scene. But their gazes also indicated they understood the awkwardness of the situation, considering the ongoing feud between the two families. Although the idea of caring for him didn’t appeal, she’d taken an oath to always do her best to preserve life. Besides, the Lord commanded her to love her neighbor as herself, making it a sin to walk away from someone in need, regardless of his family name.

She dropped her shoulders, even as the boys snuggled close. “Put him on a cart and take him to my place,” she stated.

As if relieved that his care would fall to someone other than themselves, several men hurried to pick him up and then carried him to Harold Crew’s nearby buggy.

“What about us?” Joseph asked.

The sheriff stepped forward and made a quick study of each boy. “You can stay out at my sister’s farm. She won’t mind adding a couple o’ more young’uns to her brood.”

Joseph burst into loud howls upon the sheriff’s announcement. Mercy hugged him and John Roy possessively. “Their parents were my closest friends, Sheriff Marshall. I’d like to assume their care.”

He frowned and scratched the back of his head. “Don’t know as that’s the best solution, you bein’ unwed an’ all.”

“That should have no bearing whatever on where they go. They’re like family, and they’re coming home with me.” She took both boys by the hands, turned, and led them back down Caldwell Street, away from the still-smoldering house and the sheriff’s disapproving gaze. Overhead, black smoke filled the skies, obliterating the night’s first stars and the crescent moon.

2

S
am Connors fought his way to consciousness like a mouse trying to work its way through a maze. Everywhere he turned, he hit a dead end, his mind clogged with thick fog and his head pounding like a hammer striking an anvil. His lungs burned, and he desperately needed to take a long, deep breath. Voices he couldn’t distinguish called his name and spoke in broken sentences; he couldn’t piece together what they wanted, let alone lift his heavy eyelids to see which voice belonged to whom. Now and then, he heard a woman order everyone to hush up or leave. Presumably, the voice belonged to the woman whose gentle ministrations he sensed—a cold cloth dabbing his forehead; a chilly metal instrument pressed to his chest. He found comfort in the voice, even though he didn’t recognize it. He liked its no-nonsense quality.

He had the strongest urge to learn his whereabouts. Nothing felt familiar, least of all the firm, narrow surface he lay upon. Somebody’s sofa, perhaps.

Little by little, his head started clearing as waves of remembrance rolled over in his mind—scorching flames extending out at him like a thousand vicious snake tongues; the tortured cries of children. Yes, there had been a massive fire. He recalled it now—the two-story structure on the corner of Caldwell and Washington, with orange flames spewing from its upstairs windows.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he slammed the weight of his body against the front door and stormed inside. He took the steps two at a time, rounded the corner at the top, and came face-to-face with fiery, hissing balls of orange and yellow that churned out blinding black clouds. He couldn’t fight his way through the raging wave of red-hot flame, so he turned away. Smoke, thick and rancid, invaded his lungs, rapidly stealing his breath. He tried not to suck in the poisonous fumes, but his head soon went dizzy from lack of air. Hot, so hot. Was this what hell was like? Flames licking at one’s feet, scorching the face and neck, and reaching out to steal the last second of life? Frantic, he felt his way back to the stairs, blackness encasing him like a tomb. Then came the heart-wrenching screams—from the first floor, it seemed—which gave him a new sense of purpose. He stretched out his hand and found the railing, eyes mostly shut, save for a tiny slit, to ward off the searing sting of smoke. Grasping hold, he gingerly took the first step, then the next, and the next. About halfway down, a board gave way with a loud crack. Instinctively he leaped forward, losing his footing; he tumbled until his body landed in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the staircase. He gathered his senses, found a bit of air to suck in, and determined he hadn’t broken anything. Another wolfish howl drove him to his feet again. Staggering through the pungent smoke, he turned a corner and passed through the kitchen, then found a closed door and flung it wide. In the room, he found two small boys huddled together on a single bed. Thank God, the smoke had not yet found them. He scooped them up, tossed a blanket over each of their screaming heads, and then wasted a few seconds looking for a back door. When he couldn’t locate one in the smoke, he raced back through the kitchen and into a room now engulfed in flames. “Oh, Lord,” he cried, “if You hear me, please get us through this nightmare.” Dodging flames and falling planks, he found the open front door and, putting his head to his chest, dashed through it.

And that was as far as his memory took him. What of the boys? Had they survived? Had someone else managed to find their parents?

“Mr. Connors, can you hear me?” The female voice pulled at him, and he felt like that mouse again, careening off the walls toward a dim shaft of light. His brow muscles worked hard, but to no avail.

“I think he’s comin’ around,” said a man with a deep, raspy voice. “Look! He’s tryin’ to open ’is eyes.”

A cough building in his chest burst out of its own accord and brought him to partial consciousness. He opened his burning eyes a crack and looked into a pair of dark brown ones with golden flecks belonging to…belonging to…. He recognized her, but his fuzzy brain couldn’t call up her name. Another cough barreled out of him, one he was sure would make his heart stop. He had no control over the spasm, no ability to hold it at bay. His head continued to pound, his throat burned, and his scorched lungs still couldn’t seem to take in enough air.

“Here, Mr. Connors, try a sip of water. It will soothe your throat.”

He felt a cool hand come around his neck and lift his head. He tried to help but hadn’t the strength, although the need for water urged him to give it his all. Another hand came around his shoulder—a stronger, firmer one—and gave him the boost he needed. The rim of a cup touched his lips, and then the taste of cool water met his tongue. He started to gulp, but the woman stopped him.