The Sword (20 page)

His plan was to stay out of sight, which he did. Ordinarily he would’ve gone to the saloon and gotten into a poker game, but he stayed in his own room in a dirty five-room boardinghouse. The only time he went out of his room was to stop at the general store, buy some horse liniment, and tend to Lightning.

He slipped around the town at dusk. It was a small town, which made it difficult to keep from calling attention to himself, but he spoke to no one except the stable hand and the surly woman who ran the boardinghouse.

After three days, Lightning had lost all signs of soreness in his foreleg. Clay decided to ride on to Petersburg. It was a hard ride, a day and a night straight through, and Clay knew that he shouldn’t put much stress on Lightning, but he realized that once they had gotten on the train, Lightning could rest up again. He left Lucky Way in a sad, blurry dawn that promised rain later.

Clay thought of little else but of what had taken place in Richmond. He cursed himself for a fool, and a stupid one at that.
He knew he had acted like the worst kind of scrub with Belle.
I should’ve stayed away from her. She didn’t deserve all this. I hope Barton doesn’t die. That’ll get me hanged for sure.

Once he got on the main road, he kept Lightning at a steady fast trot that would eat up the miles. During the day, he passed several wagons and other riders, but the traffic waned as night fell. The whole day had been overcast, but it had never rained. Now, dark ominous clouds scudded over the half-moon brooding above him.

About three hours after sunset, he heard riders behind him. Clay was not the type of man to always be looking over his shoulder with fear, so he had wasted very little time worrying about the Howards. If anything, he thought they might search Richmond for him and maybe contact Morgan in Lexington, but it simply had not occurred to him that they might hunt him down. So, since the unknown riders were moving at a fast pace behind him, and the night was so dark, he cautiously pulled Lightning over to one side to let them pass.

They drew nearer, two men, riding hard. They were still at least forty feet away from him when the black clouds cleared the moon. Even in the dimness, Clay recognized the bulk of big Ed Howard. At the same time Ed shouted, “That’s him, Charlie! Standing right there! Ride!”

Clay spurred Lightning, and like his name, he bounded into a gallop so fast that the men fell farther behind. Still they rode, yelling like hounds baying.

Clay barely heard the gunshot before it seemed as if a giant had simply kicked him in the back. He flew through the air and landed in the mud. He felt himself losing consciousness, and his last thought before the blackness set in was,
I’m dead, God. You’ve finally killed me …

The two brothers rode slowly to the side of the road and looked down at Clay Tremayne, sprawled facedown, unmoving. Ed lowered his shotgun then slowly dismounted. He kicked Clay, not very hard, in
the side. “He’s dead, Charlie,” he muttered. “Miserable dog.”

Charlie didn’t speak. He dismounted his horse and stood beside Clay, then knelt down by him. He grabbed his hair and yanked up his face. Clay’s eyes remained closed. Charlie took his pistol then started working on taking a diamond signet ring off Clay’s finger.

“Stop it, Charlie,” Ed ordered him in a harsh voice. “He’s dead. We had to kill him for what he did to Belle, but we’re no thieving trash. Just leave him.”

Charlie grunted then stood and threw Clay’s pistol down to the ground. “You’re right, Ed. I’m not going to sink as low as he is. Was. Let the buzzards have him.”

They mounted up and rode back north without looking back.

But each knew Clay Tremayne lay in the mud without moving.

I
think we need to celebrate, child.”

Chantel sat loosely on the wagon seat holding the lines. Spring in the Southern states was lovelier than anything she had ever known. Sweet-scented breezes blew the trees back and forth so that they swayed like dancers. All along the back roads were foxes, rabbits, squirrels, and multitudes of butterflies. She turned to smile at Jacob, who was watching her intently. “What do we have to celebrate?”

“You don’t know?”

“Well, I know things are going ver’ well. We’ve sold lots of goods, and I think, Grandpere, that we’ve made a lot of money, you and me. Is that what we want to celebrate?”

“The Lord has blessed us exceedingly,” Jacob agreed placidly, “and that is always something to celebrate. But what I meant was, we should celebrate the two years we’ve been together. If I’m not mistaken, it was as the month of March was ending, two years ago, that you saved me.”

A surprised look came to Chantel’s face. “Has it been that long? It has, yes? I’m seventeen now. I was fifteen, me, when I found you, Grandpere.”

Jacob nodded. “Every day I thank God for bringing us together. I know I would have died if you hadn’t saved me, daughter, and these last two years of life would not have been nearly so good as they have been … if they would have even been. I could never have continued in this work without you, Chantel. I can never thank God—or you—enough.”

“Never you mind that, Grandpere,” she said quickly.

Jacob still thanked her, often, and expressed his affection to her.

It embarrassed her, for though her mother and father had been loving people, they were not outwardly affectionate. “I’ve been so happy. My life has been so good, yes, so much better than I ever dreamed it would be.” She reached over with her right hand and patted his shoulder a little awkwardly, aware of the thinness of his frame and the fragility of his bone structure. “We make a good pair, don’t we, you and me?”

Indeed the two were very happy together, if they were something of an odd couple: the elderly Jew in the sunset of life and the exotic-looking young woman that Chantel had become. She had come into full bloom, and she had a dream of a figure, for she was strong and lithe and worked hard every single day. Her skin was an attractive golden hue, as Cajuns sometimes had, and her violet-blue eyes, wide-set and perfect almond shapes, were of startling beauty. She was in perfect health and always felt energetic and strong and eager for each new day.

Still, she had an abhorrence of male attention, so she stubbornly wore loose men’s breeches and men’s cotton shirts that were too big for her. She kept her trousers up with a wide leather belt that had her knife sheath fitted to it, for she still carried it, always. She crammed her blue-black hair up into a felt hat with a big floppy brim that half hid her face. Jacob had bought her two pairs of fine leather boots, one brown pair and one black pair, but no matter how he pleaded, Chantel would not let him buy her any women’s clothes, even modest skirts and plain blouses, much less pretty dresses.

As they rode along, Chantel thought back over the last two
years. They had indeed been good for her. Her fear of being caught by her stepfather had long faded, like a vague remembrance of a bad dream. They always traveled the South, crisscrossing the roads across Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Virginia.

“Pah,” Jacob had grunted to her one time. “Business isn’t nearly so good in the North. Too many cities, too many big towns, too many people all huddled together, and too many mercantile stores. Here the farmers are glad to see us because they need us. They are hospitable, and there aren’t nearly as many ruffians riding the roads.”

It was true. People received them everywhere they went. They were lonely on the homesteads, they were anxious to talk, and they definitely had need of Jacob’s goods. Sometimes it could be three days’ journey from a farm to a nearby town to get supplies.

Today it was an easy ride, for they were going north to Richmond, and it was a good road. For the last two months they had been lazily roaming around southern Virginia, cotton and cash-farming country, and business had been good. Most of the great plantations in the South were close to the big towns, like Charleston and Savannah and Atlanta and Richmond. It was the smaller farmers, farther from the cities, who welcomed the peddlers so happily.

Chantel glanced affectionately at Jacob. She had made a fine feather cushion for the wagon seat and had fashioned two pillows to fit in the corner of the seat, leaning against the back and the side upright. He had plumped them up and settled back in them, and Chantel thought he was falling asleep.

Before he dropped off, he murmured, “Virginia … I think it is my favorite … the Shenandoah Valley.”

In silence she drove, enjoying the freshening day. The night before it had rained off and on, so Chantel had set up the little tent and stove for Jacob. Even in the warmth of spring he still was chilled at night. Last night Chantel had slept in the tent, but on clear nights she usually slept out under the stars, by a small, comforting campfire.

Now all traces of yesterday’s lowering skies were gone. The air
was fresh and smelled of wet dirt and new grass. Clouds of spring’s first yellow butterflies floated in front of the wagon sometimes, and once a fat honeybee made a lazy dizzy flight alongside it for a while. Chantel watched it with amusement.

“What’s this?” she asked herself. Just ahead, on the left side of the road, was a big black stallion. He was fully saddled, his reins hanging down to the ground. He seemed to be grazing, but as they drew closer, Chantel could see a lump on the ground. The horse was nuzzling it, it seemed, with some agitation.

“Grandpere,” she said softly, so as not to startle him.

“Hm! Hmm?” he said, pushing his hat back and looking around sleepily.

“Just up here. Do you see him? A fine horse, he is, with no rider.”

Jacob straightened up and stared. “What’s that at his feet? Better stop the wagon, daughter.”

By the time they drew up to the horse, they could see the man.

Chantel pulled Rosie to a stop and leaped down to the ground, her boots making a squishing sound in the deep mud as she ran. Sliding to a stop, she came to her knees right beside him. In the bright innocent sunshine, she could clearly see the matted blood in his dark hair and the dried blood on his back. One or two places were still oozing. She touched her finger to it and held it up to Jacob, who had reached her side. “Fresh,” she said. “He’s still alive.”

Ignoring the wet ground, he creakily got to his knees beside the wounded man. “He’s been shot in the back. It looks like with a shotgun.”

“We’ll have to get him to a doctor, Grandpere,” Chantel said in a low urgent voice.

Jacob shook his head. “It’s still at least three days to Richmond. I don’t know of any settlements around here, and if we start getting off the road hunting one, this man will probably die on us. We have to do what we can here, now.”

Chantel bit her lower lip. “I can nurse sick people, me. But I don’t know anything about gunshot wounds.”

With some difficulty, Jacob got to his feet. “Neither do I, daughter. But I don’t think the Lord has given us a choice about it, so that means He will guide us. You’ll have to put up the tent. Thank goodness you were smart enough to start hauling stove wood in the wagon. It’ll take us both to get him into the tent, but I know that we can help this man. Can you do all that, daughter?”