Sowing Poison (25 page)

Two weeks later, Lewis was surprised when a package arrived at the post office for Martha. He had been collecting the mail for Archibald McFaul, both of them agreeing that Lewis would work into his new position slowly. Collecting the post was, in fact, his only duty at the moment. Postage for Martha's package had been pre-paid, and although he looked it over carefully, there was no indication of who had sent it, or from where it had been mailed.

He dropped a handful of letters off at McFaul's store and made his way back to the hotel. There were not nearly as many guests as there had been in the heyday of Clementine Elliott's fame, but word had spread about the superior accommodations at Temperance House, and there were currently three rooms rented, for one night only, by customers who were making connections between the stage and the steamboat. As well, there was a farm family who had come into the village for provisions and who were treating themselves to some of Sophie's famous cookery. Not bustling, exactly, but good enough.

He waited until the dining room was cleared and his family had gathered in the kitchen for their own supper to hand the package to Martha.

“This came for you,” he said.

“For me?” Her eyes lit up, for she had never before received a package in the mail. “What is it?”

“I don't know. You'll have to open it, won't you?”

She tore all the wrapping off the small parcel. Inside was a twist of paper, wound around a handful of lemon rock and molasses candies. All of the adults at the table looked at it with puzzlement, but Martha had a wide smile on her face.

“It's from Horatio Joe!” she squealed. She peeled the paper away, spilling some of the candy onto the table. “Look there's a note inside!” And then her face wrinkled in puzzlement as she showed it to Lewis.

There were four words in the message, but only two of them were legible at first glance. It said
Thank you
twice, but the words on the left hand side were entirely backward, a mirror image of those on the right.

Apparently, Clementine had landed on her feet.

On a clear, cold Saturday afternoon toward the end of February, Lewis decided that he was finally strong enough to walk down to the harbour and along the sandbar to the dunes.

“You really want to go across the ice again? You're getting quite bold, aren't you?” Francis teased, but he agreed readily enough to go along.

The ice was solidly frozen and the wind bit at them as they crossed the channel, making their eyes water. They followed the trail along until they reached the clearing in the woods. The stench from the root cellar had dissipated, and anything that had been left behind had frozen, the slow putrefaction halted by the cold. The wreckage of the burnt-out cabin had been scattered by the crew of men who had gathered the bones, the crude stone hearth had been thrown down, the iron pot removed.

“What are we looking for this time, Thaddeus? You do have a habit of making the most amazing discoveries. I'm never sure what I'll see when I'm with you.”

Lewis didn't answer, because he wasn't sure himself why he had come, except that he felt that he owed something to the wild creature who had lived here. One of many innocents caught up by the actions of others.

Francis stood by the shore and watched as Lewis picked through the fallen hearth stones. He made no comment when his father-in-law finally selected a flat piece of limestone, but he held the rock steady while Lewis scratched the letters on it with a nail. He helped scoop out a hole in the sandy earth under the cedar trees and together the two men lowered the stone into it, shoring it up with sand and more stones. When they were done, they stood before it in silence, their heads bowed. It was a plain enough remembrance, and would probably last only a winter or two before the stone heaved and the words were lost, but at least the intent was sincere.

The inscription was short. Lewis had been able to think of nothing more fitting than to simply mark it “Boy.”

Copyright © Janet Kellough, 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

Editor: Allison Hirst

Design: Jesse Hooper

Epub Design: Carmen Giraudy

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Kellough, Janet

Sowing poison [electronic resource]: a Thaddeus Lewis mystery / Janet Kellough.

Type of computer file: Electronic monograph.
Issued also in print format.

ISBN 978-1-4597-0055-0

I. Title.

We acknowledge the support of the
Canada Council for the Arts
and the
Ontario Arts Council
for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the
Government of Canada
through the
Canada Book Fund
and
Livres Canada Books
, and the
Government of Ontario
through the
Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit
and the
Ontario Media Development Corporation
.

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J. Kirk Howard, President

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