Sentinels (17 page)

“What'd you do all day?”

“Sewed clothes, cooked food for the church to give to the needy. Planted vegetables and such. But I got to make money now. I ain't never had to look for a job before.”

“Well, maybe I can help you there. I'll ask around.”

“I'd appreciate that.”

Noah devoured the rest of the pie, his appetite somewhat restored because Doreen no longer would experience Robert Culliver's wrath, and pushed forward his empty plate.

“Yeah, I expect I've kept you long enough,” she said. “Thanks for sparing some time for me.”

Noah stood. “My pleasure. And I will inquire about jobs in town. We'll find something for you.”

“Could I bake dinner for you and your wife? Hell, can I just
bring
some of the food inside to you all for dinner? I'd like to meet your wife, if that's all right, and your boy, of course. I guess I'm just looking for friends, Noah. And the ladies that were married to those other Klansmen? Just as racist as they were. I don't want to be around that no more.”

He could not ignore her pleading eyes.

“Yes, I think that would be very nice of you. My wife's staying at my parents at least for the next couple of days. I'll be taking her home soon after. When I do, and she's used to being a mama in her own home, I'll come back. But maybe I'll be back before then, if I hear about a line of work that might interest you.”

“Thank you much.”

Doreen leaned on the porch's railing and watched Noah untie Wilbur for the ride back to town. He turned to wave goodbye to Doreen, who did likewise before going back inside.

Noah guided Wilbur toward the road but halted as Doreen Culliver's shrill scream rippled across the countryside.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Noah lashed Wilbur to the nearest tree and bounded toward Doreen Culliver's open front door. He quick-drew and cocked his Colt without realizing it. Doreen backed out slowly, her outstretched fingers brushing by both sides of the door frame.

“Step aside.” He slid past her and saw an empty parlor.

“He's
gone
.” She covered her mouth with her fingertips.

Not only had Robert Culliver's corpse vanished from the room, so had his coffin.

“Stay here.” Noah remembered mourners exiting the premises and ran for the back door, finding it wide open, just like the back of Doreen's property.

He didn't just up and walk out carrying the box,
Noah thought while scanning sprawling grassland leading uphill. He saw footprints along a dirt path extending from the back door and petering into lawn. Noah sprinted along the path and ascended the hill. He reached the top and looked down to see a swath of untamed switchgrass, some patches taller than Noah, carpeting the land and stopping where a forest began.

Something jostled midway into the overgrown savannah and emerged from the tassels.

Robert Culliver, posed in the same position in his coffin, bobbed into and out of the long grass, which appeared like an angry sea rocking a boat.

Noah ran along the semi-carved path, the grass stinging his face as he whipped through it. He frequently glanced down to ensure he stayed in a groove of trampled switchgrass.

What the hell was carrying it?
I didn't see any hands gripping the box from underneath.

Then again, Noah saw only a few inches of it before haphazardly charging into an unknown situation.

Still, he flew through the grass and held his gun near his waist as he ran. He estimated he covered a good two-hundred feet before abruptly stopping in front of Culliver's coffin placed neatly on the ground. The tips of the dead man's black shoes pointed skyward before Noah.

The deputy shivered. The tall-grass surrounding the coffin remained unblemished. Whatever carried Culliver had disappeared.

Then the grass encircling Noah rustled. He heard footsteps slipping through the tangles. It was too dense for Noah to see anything other than black shapes sweeping around him, the way sharks circle prey.

“I'll shoot!” Noah sounded authoritative but could not stop the prickling fear filling him as the shadows surrounded him.

“I mean it, I'm gonna shoot.” He felt threatened and extended his arm and aimed, waiting for a glimpse of whatever stalked him.

Something lurched through the weeds and Noah fired. It staggered a few feet before collapsing. Noah slid through the grass to see what he shot.

Only the thing didn't wait for him.

A shadow rose. The overgrowth concealed it but withered enough up top for Noah to see hateful red eyes wreathed by craggy dark skin.

Noah's shaky hand cocked the Colt and he aimed squarely at the unmoving thing. He never saw what attacked him from his side.

Doreen Culliver had armed herself with her late husband's double-barrel shotgun, similar to the one that hung over Noah's fireplace. She stood on the ridge of her property that separated it from the unmanaged grassland. She saw where Noah had entered, and more worrisome to her, she saw the roiling tassels that swirled like a wide cyclone. She guessed Noah to be centered within.

She'd never fired a gun in her life and knew it would be pointless to shoot ammunition that would scatter and potentially harm the innocent. She heard a gunshot and saw crumpling grass and movements of the shooter—
please be Noah
, she thought. The gunman tentatively inched toward the downed target and stopped. Two figures from opposite ends exploded through the grass, whipping aside stalks, converging on the shooter, and taking him down.

Good Christ,
they got him!
Please don't kill him.

Her admiration for Noah guided her forward to be enveloped by the switchgrass. Doreen hoped her soft steps would cover her presence as she glided into the morass. The frantic rustling of grass soon gave way to heavy footfalls
away
from her. She entered a clearing of crushed grass and found Noah on his back. Both his hat and gun rested inches away from his body. Doreen crouched, laid down the shotgun, and caressed his forehead sideways not to display affection but to see the length of the bloody gash stretching from his left eyebrow to his ear.

He's breathing, thank the Lord.

“Noah, can you hear me?” She tenderly nudged his body and he groaned. “I'll take that as a yes. Listen, I gotta get you help and I can't do it here. Whoever it was is gone now.”

She waited for anything resembling a reply but got none.

“I'm gonna ride my wagon into town for the doc, I won't be gone long,” she said. “Promise.”

Doreen held his hand and felt relief when his fingers squeezed hers. She grabbed her shotgun and stood to leave, but stopped when she saw an empty rectangular patch of crushed grass, the size of Robert's coffin, she realized, ten feet away from her.

They dropped my dead husband to attack Noah
.
Good God, where're they taking him?

She blocked it out and ran. While her love for Robert Culliver died over the years, she didn't wish on him what had occurred to Sheriff Cole and those men killed near that farmer's house.

Among the many things that bothered her about the current situation, one stood out:
Why did they take the coffin?

Chapter Twenty-Five

Noah awoke on the same table he last saw Brendan occupying days earlier. He looked from side to side but even that slightest movement worsened the throbbing pain in his head.

The smell of chemicals and cleanliness left no doubt where he was.

“Doc?” he croaked.

“You needed a mess of stitches, Deputy Chandler.” Doctor Richardson's face poked into Noah's view like a light-speed sunrise. “Someone whacked you pretty good. Gun butt, I'd say, by the looks of it. Some blunt instrument.”

“Where's Brendan?”

“You wake up from what could've been a fatal attack had your temple been hit and the first person you ask about is that charlatan?”

Noah groaned. “Fair enough. My wife here?”

“That's better. Your wife couldn't make the trip, given her soreness, but your father's waiting outside along with the woman who ran into my office to tell me about you. She and a sheriff's deputy went to get you. Halberstrom, I think.”

“Harrison,” Noah said.

“Okay, Harrison.” Richardson pointed to the window next to Noah. “He's literally outside where Cole was massacred. And he's got plenty of company. Three more of the sheriff's men and five soldiers on all sides of the property. This place is a fortress. You're safe.”

“
I'm
safe? What about that charlatan?”

“For the love of Pete—if that's what concerns you, fine: I discharged him to Thomas Diggs's care. And for good measure Diggs has allowed some more deputies and soldiers to patrol
his
property. I'm certain the only way Brendan will encounter further harm is if that Franklin fellow is in the same room with him.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

“You're welcome. If you'll excuse me.”

Noah heard the exam room's door open and a few muffled words.

His father, Alexander, came into view moments later.

“Of course your wife's worried.” The elder Chandler dressed like a Southern gentleman preparing to conduct business. Unlike most of his wealthy contemporaries, he sported no handlebar mustache or finely groomed beard. His blond hair made him appear baby-faced even at the onset of fifty. “She about passed out while holding the baby. I believe her exact phrase was ‘We need to escape this God-forsaken wasteland of inbred hatred.' I can only conclude she was not referring to
our
family.”

“Yup, that sounds like her lately. With what's happened over the last week I can't blame her. But she'll simmer down once I'm back with her. Doc say when I can get out of here?”

“He said I can take you home. Observation seems unnecessary.” Noah's father lowered his voice. “What the hell happened out there?”

“I shot one and got jumped by another.”

“Who?”

“The one I shot, I only saw its eyes. I ain't
never
seen anything like them. Eyes of a madman, maybe. I only saw them for a split-second and even that was too long. Crazed and angry. What'd Natalie say? Inbred hatred? That's what I saw today.”

Noah's father absorbed it all and shook his head, not knowing what to make of it.

“I'm pretty sure they didn't find anyone but you out there, son. Maybe some rest will assist your memory. In the meantime, the doc says you're not to return to work until he unwraps you and checks you over.”

“Do what?”

“Feel your head, boy.”

Noah placed his hand against the bandage that Richardson had wrapped around his head, practically covering his eyebrows. He touched the section that hurt the most and felt the warmth of congealed blood stick to his fingertips.

“It probably will leave a scar, Deputy Chandler.” Richardson slid into the examination room. “A little scar. You don't know how close you came to dying. It literally was a matter of an inch where you were struck.”

Noah propped himself up on his elbows to sit on the table and instantly regretted it as the blood rushed to his head.

“All right, that hurts.” He massaged his temples.

“I think you'll feel better when you wake up tomorrow,” Richardson said. “You need rest more than anything right now. Are you hungry?”

“Can't say I am.”

“Drink some water, you need hydration. You were lying in that field a while, may even have a little sunburn, but nothing too bad. That lady had the good sense to tilt your hat on your forehead before she made the entire town aware of her presence.”

“You should thank her, boy,” Alexander Chandler said. “In fact, you
will
thank her while I settle up with the doc.”

“I can pay my own way.”

“You can pay me back while you're recovering,” Alexander Chandler said. “Don't worry about that now. Doc?”

“That's much appreciated. Come with me to the waiting room and I'll send in the young lady.”

The door swung open.

“I'm right here.” Doreen Chandler stepped into the room and held open the door so Alexander Chandler and Richardson could leave.

The three men looked at her and back at each other.

“I was listening behind the door. Sorry, I was getting bored out there.”

Richardson chuckled. “Just try not to make it a habit. Patients do appreciate some privacy.”

“It won't happen again.”

“Go ahead, Doc.” Alexander Chandler extended his arm and the two men left.

Each one waited for the other to speak first.

Noah blinked.

“Thank you for rescuing me.”

“I'd have done it for anyone who deserved it. Listen, Noah, I don't want you getting the wrong idea about me. I'm not about trying to steal you away from your wife.”

“Wow—I sure hope my father isn't listening behind the door. Listen, Doreen, you don't have to explain—”

“But I do.” She moved toward Noah, shaking her hands before her face, as if trying to conjure an explanation that wouldn't totally humiliate her. “I came off strange back at my house. I know that. It was not my intention. Please understand. I didn't want to see my husband killed. But at the same time I can't help but feel unexpected freedom. I don't know what to do with it. But I am glad I could help you. Made me feel purposeful. That, too, is something new to me. I guess I'm overwhelmed by it all.”

“You have every reason to feel that way based on what you told me before.”

“Thank you. Now, I want you to go home right now and be with your wife and baby. And when you're able, I would much appreciate your offer to keep an ear out for anything useful I can do around the town. I'll look myself—I ain't gonna depend on you to do it for me. Hell, I'll start tomorrow because I'm already going stir crazy at home. But any help you can offer would be lovely. And when you can, I suppose I would like to know who stole my dead husband, coffin and all, to do God knows what with him.”

A knock at the door stopped Noah from responding.

“Come in,” he said.

Richardson appeared and this time he held open the door.

“Your father's pulled the wagon around for you. He's out front waiting. Why don't you slide off of there and we'll see how you are on your feet.”

Noah wobbled a bit after planting his boots on the ground. He held the table for support but trudged easily enough into the lobby and out of the building, trailed by Doreen Culliver and Richardson.

“What time is it?” Noah looked at the starry sky.

“Past midnight, I believe,” Richardson said. “You were out a little while.”

“I'll say.” He turned to the pair. “I'll be okay. Thank you again, Doc, and you, especially, Doreen. I will do whatever I can to find Robert and bury him proper. I'm assuming you told Harrison about what happened to him.”

“I sure did, after we got you here and the doc went to work on you.”

“Then that means the Sheriff's Office is already on it. Harrison's a good man.”

Richardson walked Doreen to her wagon and assisted her into the driver's seat while Alexander Chandler clicked his two-horse team to take Noah home.

“Try not to bump up and down,” Noah said.

“I'll keep them as slow as I can, son. Dirt roads don't make for comfortable rides.”

The wagon trundled onward without the Chandlers speaking until: “Son, what on earth was that about finding that woman's dead husband? She didn't bring that part up in the waiting room.”

“What'd y'all talk about?”

“Just that you ran after some men who broke into her home who tried stealing something, and that you chased them into a field and that's where they took you down.”

“Well, she did leave out a couple of parts,” Noah said.

“Why?”

“Because it's easier explaining the parts that make sense rather than the parts that don't. Stealing a dead guy
and
his coffin falls into the latter category.”

“Maybe these criminals like having sex with dead people?”

“
Father!”

“I'm not trying to be indecent, but you might want to consider that.”

“I don't mind considering it. I just wish you hadn't suggested it so quick.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. It's just disturbing, that's all.”

“Corpse-snatching generally is.”

“I'll bring it up the next time I see someone from work. I expect they'll come calling on me tomorrow to see what I can remember, which I hope is a lot more than I can figure now. Those eyes, Father. I just can't explain—”

Noah stopped talking and began sniffing.

“You smell that?”

“I do,” said his father.

“Something's burning.”

The road led by the Diggs plantation, and as it came into view, so did two fires, both confined but raging next to one another, where visitors would turn to enter the Englishman's property. Noah identified the clearly visible outline of a wooden ladder, flames licking each rung and rail, next to an inferno.

“Stop the wagon,” Noah commanded his father, who parked the rig upwind from the blaze. Not only did the air reek of charring wood, but the rot of death.

The deputy hopped out of the wagon, nearly crumpling to his feet upon landing, the pain weighing his body down. He regained his composure and walked to the fires, the intense heat keeping him at bay. Two soldiers and a sheriff's deputy rode their horses up from the mansion and yielded when the heat became too much to bear.

Noah stumbled to his father's wagon, keeping one hand to his pulsing head, and climbed in the rig's bed.

“Swing it around. I need a better view.”

Alexander Chandler turned the horses to trot along the road closest to the entrance. The horses winced as they passed scorched air.

“Just a little farther.” Noah stood in the bed, shielding the pulsing heat wave with his arm, trying to identify what fueled the blaze.

“What do you see?” his father said.

“A coffin, and Robert Culliver,” Noah surmised.

Flames swirled skyward from the eye sockets and yawning mouth of a charring skull.