Sentinels (22 page)

Chapter Thirty-Two

Hours later, Noah Chandler, steering his father's two-horse rig, rode the borrowed wagon toward Toby Jenkins's farm while crafting questions that bordered on the absurd.

Should I ask him if he's training a team of assassins to murder the more undesirable members of society before or after we load the corn? Probably after.

He left for Toby's at one o'clock, confident he'd return in enough time to greet his guests at four. Even though the sun spread its rays across a cloudless sky, the heat wave broke to the point where being outside was bearable and welcome.

Turkey's roasting in the meantime, been doing so for hours. This'll be nice.

As much as he was looking forward to playing host, Noah could not get Toby Jenkins out of his mind.

If anything I hope to convince him we can help—the sheriff can help—if he's getting threatened by Diggs and his goons,
he thought.
I have no doubt that's happening.

Noah came prepared. He wore an ammunition belt around his waist and his Colt on his hip.

I'll be damned if I'm gonna let whatever was in that barn get the jump on me. Rats? My ass.

Toby leaned on the railing on his front porch and waved Noah to bring the horses to the backfield.

“I really should get me and Natalie one of these.” Noah climbed down from his perch and slapped the wagon's side. “I mean, we got one but one of the wheels is iffy, got a few broken spokes.” He lowered the wagon's gate. “Our wagon's old, anyway, and with the new baby, it'd be nice to have some extra space. Know what I mean?”

“I sure do.” Toby grinned as he hitched the horses to a post he'd erected near the cornfield for just such a project. “Already pulled enough ears for you, I think. How many you need, a dozen?”

“Whatever you're willing to give, Toby. I do appreciate it.”

“How's six dozen sound?”

“Like a lot of damn corn! Wow, our boy can't even eat solids yet. There ain't no way me and Nat can make dent in that. I mean, we'll make good work of them tonight—we're having a dinner party—but I can't even see us eating eight of them.”

“Well, give some to your parents for me, then. They're kind people and I know you'll be seeing a lot more of them with your baby around.”

Toby, wearing brown overalls that covered a blue short-sleeved undershirt, began loading the wagon bed—and Noah followed suit—with one of six small, easily loadable wooden crates, each holding twelve ears a piece.

“Speaking of dinner parties.” Noah didn't complete the thought until loading the final dozen ears and closing the bed. “I'm still holding out hope
we
can have one after all this blows over.”

“And what, pray tell, does
this
refer to?” Toby gave the wagon bed door a yank to make sure it was secure, and turned serious. “Just come out and say it.”

“All right, why'd you steal Robert Culliver's body and light it on fire in front of Diggs's place?”

“I did no such thing.” Toby stood calm, unflustered.

“You aren't stupid and neither am I. Someone accuses me of stealing a corpse, I'm getting angry, dumbfounded even, that someone might suggest such a thing.”

“I've learned to channel whatever outward aggression might otherwise consume me. When you been through what I've been through, it takes a lot more than some baseless threat to get my dander up.”

“You trying to spook Diggs? Let him know you ain't messing around and to stay away? Like, ‘Here's what might happen to you—I'll burn you to a crisp.' Is that the message?”

“Noah, my wife and child, along with myself, are the only ones who live here. And if you think I'd risk my life—and theirs—to somehow rob a grave, or whatever, then you're not as bright as I thought you were.”

“You didn't do it yourself. Who's working for you? Some of the freedmen in town? How much you paying them to do this? I like you, Toby. Really, I do. I'm trying to help you here, let you know that you don't have to go fighting some war against some greedy snake who'll kill you if he can't buy you.” Noah stood five feet from Toby, both staring each other down in a way that might seem hostile to those who believed the two had just met in a bar and might come to blows. “I know Diggs has been investigating your property. Before I came here I let myself into town hall. Diggs has been pulling your land records. And you know this.”

“Not that he went to town hall and snooped in my shit, but of course I know he's got eyes on me. Told me so himself, and I said no.”

“Clearly that ain't stopping him. And if you were complicit in sending out freedmen to kill those bigots, soldiers
and
Sheriff Cole, then Toby, you're looking at a noose, and not one held by a Klansman.”

“I told you in town that day, I don't know a goddamn thing about who killed Cole!” Toby hissed it at Noah, and glanced sideways toward the house, feeling his wife's stares from within.

“Then how about those butchered men? You know a goddamn thing about any of them?”

“Even if I did, you wouldn't believe me.”

Noah felt a chill and stepped back. “The hell's that supposed to mean?”

Toby stayed silent.

“Why wouldn't I believe you?” Noah persisted.

Toby eyes changed, as if he'd suddenly become aware of something, and he began surveying his property. Eventually he settled on his home.

“I have to go inside for a second.” Toby pointed to his wife waving for him through an opened window.

“We're not done here,” Noah said as Toby walked toward his home—but Jenkins stopped.

“Honey, I'll be inside in a minute,” he called to Sarah. “I gotta get something from the barn.”

“Might that be a few dead mice? Care of a new cat?” Noah couldn't help it.

Toby looked over his shoulder. “I won't be in the barn but for a moment or two. Entrance to my ice house is in there. Think I left it open. But I probably'll be in my house a while, Noah. It might have something to do with little Isaac. I think it's my turn to change him—can't back out of that, you'll learn. You're welcome to stay. Like you said, we're not done here.”

“Yeah, fine. Can I use your outhouse?” Noah spied the simple wooden structure set about one-hundred feet back from the right side of the house.

“Be my guest. Just dug a new hole and moved it the other day. Smell ain't bad at all. You should've been around the old one during the heat wave.” Toby chuckled and walked away.

“Thanks,” Noah said flatly. He watched Toby open the barn and go inside. A few minutes went by before he heard a heavy door slam shut. Toby emerged from the barn, shut it, and went into his house. Satisfied Toby wasn't up to something, Noah ambled to the slim, seven-foot-tall building with the profile of a crescent moon carved in the top of the door and entered to do his business.

“What are you going to tell him?” Sarah Jenkins had just laid Isaac down for an afternoon nap and sat at the kitchen table waiting for her husband's reply.

“Thanks for bailing me out.” Toby stood before his wife. “It's nice to have a breather. I can handle one deputy snooping around. I'm just glad there's not a whole posse of them out there. I'd be getting nervous.”

“This ain't funny. I saw the way you two were talking. He's on to you. That means he's on to
us
. I don't think he's gonna let go.”

“There's nothing linking us to any of those murders.”

Sarah sprang to her feet. “How can you say that?! Earlier this day you literally unleashed the same bunch of—”

“They've been here for years, honey. Never once been discovered, no one's so much as sniffed 'em.”

Sarah folded her arms across her chest, clearly displeased. And then she grew pensive.

“What were you doing in the barn, Toby?”

“You
know
what. Getting ready for the reckoning.”

“Excuse me?”

Toby heard a knock at the door, but not the back one.

“Noah? You should've stayed out back,” Toby called while walking through the kitchen and sitting room. He opened the front door.

“Hi there, nigger.” Standing outside, his LeMat aimed at Toby's forehead, Lyle Kimbrell smirked. “Step back.”

Franklin, standing behind Lyle, barged into the house and made for the kitchen. He saw from the outside where Sarah Jenkins had been speaking to her husband and was quick enough so that she couldn't arm herself.

“Please don't make this any harder than it has to be, ma'am.” Franklin, his hand gripping her bicep like a vise, led her to the sitting room where Toby, his palms raised, waited for her.

Lyle never once looked away from Toby. “I will blow both your fuckin' brains out if you so much as twitch. Just do as I say. Understand?”

Sarah Jenkins, shocked, silently nodded. Toby only stared.

“Go outside, Franklin. Tell the boss to come on down.”

The big man bounded out of the house up to the road.

“Now, why don't you both go have a seat on the sofa?” Lyle repeatedly flicked the point of his gun toward the two-seater. “Just go slow-like.”

The two did, both thinking of their baby boy sleeping upstairs.

“Should've done this the first time, just come right up to the front door and knocked.” Lyle's voice took on a mocking tone. “All that fucking around, hiding and shit, what good did it do us the first time?”

“Just get it over with,” Toby said. “What are you waiting for?”

Sarah's eyes bulged and she looked at him in disbelief.

“Honey, what the hell?”

“You knew this day would come,” Toby said, looking at Lyle. “I just didn't know it'd be today.”

“Why you so eager, boy?” Lyle spit tobacco on the Oriental rug. “Maybe my boss is feeling beneficent today.”

“I doubt that.”

“Franklin was right, boy. Don't make this any harder than it has to be. It ain't looking good for you now, but my boss very well might think of a way for you to continue caring for that piece of shit you got sleeping upstairs.”

Toby clenched his fists and began to rise.

“Uh-uh-uh, slow down, boy.” Lyle grinning wide, hitting a nerve, cocked his gun and stretched his arm out to Toby's head, the gun's point barely touching his flesh. “Let's think about what we're about to do. I wouldn't want to see your brains wind up all over your wife's pretty face.”

Mid-crouch, Toby retreated and sat back down.

“That's more like it.” Lyle backed ten feet away from Toby, mindful he appeared strong and was probably fast on his feet. “You see, what I want to know is which of those freedman from town are you paying to kill those Klansmen tonight? Guns for hire, right? Maybe if you tell me their names the boss'll be lenient on you. Maybe he won't kill you, but put you and the missus to work for him. The way it always should've been. Am I right?”

“We both know that ain't gonna happen,” Toby said.

“I expect you're right.” Lyle glanced out the open front windows when the sound of rattling and galloping caught his attention. Diggs, seated in a one-horse carriage steered by Brendan, came into view first, followed by Franklin and other men—Toby counted at least nine—all on horseback.

“Good afternoon, Toby!” Diggs, resplendent in the crisp black suit of a southern gentleman, complete with his Lincoln top hat, entered the house and held out his arms, as if reuniting with an old acquaintance after a long stretch of time. Toby, unamused, turned away.

“My goodness, your knickers must be in a twist over this, so let's come to terms like gentlemen.” Diggs squatted so he could observe both Jenkinses at eye level. “Provide me the deed to this property, with your signature transferring it to me, and you and your family can live. I realize this offer entails considerable angst, so I will allow one minute for you to decide.” Diggs stood and smiled along with Lyle. Franklin lingered in the doorway, nervously looking at Toby and then back outside to Brendan and the hired help.

“So, let me get this straight,” Toby said, eyes rolling up, feigning consideration. “I essentially hand over to you everything I own and have worked for. And in exchange I thank you for not killing me? Some offer.”

“You have thirty seconds remaining,” Diggs said.

“Clever of you,” Toby said.

“Twenty seconds.”

One of the railroad workers poked his head inside.

“Anything?” Diggs said.

“He was loading corn into his wagon out back,” the man said. “Nobody else around.”

“Don't let your guard down. Those men of his are good.”

“Got it.” The railroad man ducked out.

“Klan's not actually coming to town, is it?” Toby said to Diggs.

“No, it is not.”

“It isn't?!” Franklin said. “What the hell's going on? Those railroad guys you hired said a hundred Klansmen would be at Elkton's. And that they were skipping out on you to join the lynching party. And now they're here?”

Diggs sighed, but remained upbeat as he addressed the big man.

“Had I told you that the railroad workers were in on it, your nerves likely would have bested you, leading to you to seem insincere when told by those chaps that they were backing out on my proposition. I deemed it best to keep you in the dark so your concern seemed genuine.” Diggs turned to Toby. “It did seem genuine, didn't it, boy? Franklin peddled snake oil he didn't realize he was selling. Enough to get you to focus on a faux attack rather than me.”

“It was in the back of my mind that you might be up to something.”

“But greed for a massive slaughter won the day. You and I are not so different. You pay men to kill, as do I. The only difference is that I seek something tangible—land, money, women—in the destruction of my enemies. You desire peace of mind, I suppose. But we both want something of value in return for our dirty deeds. We are both murderers. Only one of us has the stones to admit it.”