Together is All We Need (9 page)

As we opened our eyes, I could see on Emma's and Josepha's face the same thing I felt in my heart—a quiet joy to have had a minister pray for us like that. It felt good knowing that people cared about me, like I knew everyone around this table did.

And that God cared about us all too.

D
EVASTATING
N
EWS
13

T
HE LAST PERSON WE'D HAVE EXPECTED, AND CERTAINLY
the last person we'd have wanted to change our future was Mrs. Elfrida Hammond. But unfortunately she was the one who brought the terrible news to us.

One day she rode up to Rosewood in her buggy. I think she was just looking for an excuse to come out to see the place ever since learning that Katie's family was dead. The whole time she was there, which wasn't long, she kept looking around like she was trying to see something strange that she might gossip about when she went back to town.

Katie walked out to meet her.

‘‘Hello, Mrs. Hammond,'' said Katie, trying to sound friendly. Judging from the look on the woman's face, Katie's smile was lost on her. I walked over toward the buggy and she glanced my way with her hawk eyes. I had the feeling that she wanted to talk to Katie without me listening, but I didn't want Katie to be in an awkward position and so I went right over and stood a few feet away. It was obvious that Mrs. Hammond was annoyed.

‘‘I brought out a letter that came, Kathleen,'' she said. ‘‘It arrived a while back, and since it was addressed to your mama, I thought I should wait and give it to her. But, of course, now. . .''

Katie waited. For a few seconds Mrs. Hammond just kept sitting there in her buggy.

‘‘It's from that Daniels fellow that was here,'' she said after a bit.

‘‘Uncle Templeton!'' shrieked Katie. ‘‘Where is it . . . where's the letter?''

‘‘I told you, I have it right here.''

‘‘Give it to me, then . . . please, Mrs. Hammond.''

‘‘But I told you—it's addressed to your mother. So I—''

‘‘Mrs. Hammond,'' interrupted Katie with as insistent a voice as I'd ever heard come out of her mouth. ‘‘You had no right to keep that letter, whoever it's addressed to! It might be important. Now give it to me . . . please!''

Taken aback by Katie's raised voice and flaming eyes, Mrs. Hammond fumbled a minute with the bag sitting beside her on the seat, then took out a white envelope and handed it down to Katie.

Katie stepped forward and grabbed it without even saying
Thank you
.

‘‘It
is
from Uncle Templeton, Mayme!'' she said, turning toward me as she hurriedly scanned the envelope. ‘‘But it's addressed to
Rosalind Clairborne,
just like she said. Come on, let's go inside and read it.''

‘‘But, Kathleen . . .'' came Mrs. Hammond's flustered voice behind us.

Katie didn't even slow down and I followed her inside the kitchen. Katie ripped open the envelope and sat down at the table, just about the same time as we heard the buggy turn around and leave.

‘‘Maybe he wrote it before he knew about your ma,'' I said, sitting down beside her.

‘‘I don't think so, Mayme,'' said Katie. ‘‘It's addressed to you and me.''

‘‘Read it out loud,'' I said.

‘‘Dear Kathleen and Mary Ann,''
Katie began,

‘‘I wrote Rosalind's name on the envelope, because I
didn't want that nosey lady at the general store who distributes
the mail to get too curious. I know that's a little bit of a
gamble, but I didn't want her asking too many questions and
I thought a letter from me to you, Kathleen, might do that
and I wanted to make sure your secret was safe. I sure hope
she doesn't get too nosey and open this up—she'd know
everything then! I just hope you get this letter, because I'm
in a little bit of trouble and I didn't want either of you to
think I'd deserted you again. Truth is, I think about you both
every day and I'd have been back with you a long time ago
if I could have been.

‘‘I told you that I had some old things to take care of. I
haven't always been the most upright man in the world,
which I'm ashamed to admit to you two more than I would
be to anyone. It's not that I've ever stolen money or anything
like that, but I've done enough to make a few people hate
me, and I suppose they had a right to. One of those is a
pretty powerful and important man in these parts. I was
intending to go see him and try to work something out to pay
him back the money he thinks I swindled out of him a few
years back. But before I could do anything, some of his men
spotted me even before I got to town. They grabbed me and
took me to the sheriff, and before I knew it I was sitting in
jail.

‘‘Well, the long and the short of it is, that's where I am
now. I been trying to tell them that I came back to make
things right. But they don't believe me, and as I've got no
money to show I'm telling the truth, the sheriff's determined
to keep me here. It doesn't help that the sheriff was in a poker
game with me once and didn't come out so good.

‘‘I'll get it worked out and be back as soon as I can. But
I've got to find some way to convince them that I've changed
and that I mean what I say that I'll pay back every dime,
even if it takes me the rest of my life. Until then, I want to
tell you how sorry I am that I didn't come back soon like I
said I would. But you two've been running the place all this
time without me, so I imagine you're doing just fine. I love
you both more than I can tell you.

‘‘I'll be back just as soon as I can get out of here.

‘‘Your uncle and papa,

‘‘Templeton Daniels''

To hear him say he loved us like that, and to hear the word
papa,
couldn't help but bring tears to my eyes. But Katie wasn't thinking quite such sentimental thoughts. For once she was the practical one.

‘‘Oh no!'' she moaned, setting the letter down on the table. ‘‘What are we going to do, Mayme? I was so sure he would come back in time to save Rosewood from Uncle Burchard. But now what are we going to do!''

‘‘Why don't we write back to him,'' I said, ‘‘or maybe go see him ourselves!'' I added, suddenly excited about the idea that had just come to me. ‘‘Why couldn't we tell the sheriff that what he says is true?''

‘‘Yes . . . yes, that's a great idea, Mayme!'' exclaimed Katie, grabbing the letter again and scanning it from top to bottom. But gradually a worried look replaced her expression of excitement. She turned the sheet over, then picked up the envelope from the table and looked at it again.

‘‘There's just one problem, Mayme,'' she said. ‘‘There's nothing that says where he mailed it from. There's nothing on the envelope but
Templeton Daniels
. There's no place or town or return address or anything.''

‘‘Maybe Mrs. Hammond would know,'' I suggested.

‘‘She couldn't know either,'' said Kate. ‘‘Mail comes from all over and she just gets a bag full that might be from anywhere. Unless something's written on the envelope, she's got no more way of knowing than we do.''

I picked up the envelope and looked at it. Everything was just like Katie'd said.

‘‘What's that little mark over the stamp?'' I said. ‘‘It looks like some kind of writing.''

I handed it to Katie and she squinted as she looked at it.

‘‘I don't know,'' she said. ‘‘I can't tell if it says anything. It's too faint. It doesn't look like anything.''

We sat a few minutes thinking.

‘‘And you don't remember your mama ever saying anything, or hearing your uncle say anything himself about where he was or had been or where he lived or anything?'' I asked after a while.

Katie shook her head. ‘‘No,'' she said. ‘‘I don't remember hearing anything except that he and Uncle Ward had gone to California and that then he had come back, just like he told us.''

‘‘I don't know what to do, then,'' I said.

‘‘What else can we do but wait,'' said Katie, ‘‘and hope he comes back?''

‘‘But what if we're gone before he does?'' I said. ‘‘Your other uncle isn't going to wait—that's for sure.''

K
ATIE
C
RACKS THE
S
AFE
14

T
HE LETTER FROM MY PAPA CHANGED EVERYTHING.

Now there was no hope left, it seemed. When Katie's seventeenth birthday came in May, she was too sad even to let us have a party for her, though Josepha baked a cake.

As the time got closer to when Katie's uncle Burchard said he was going to take over Rosewood, he came around almost every day and acted like the place already belonged to him. He never spoke to any of the rest of us, only Katie sometimes. When he happened to look at me or Emma or Josepha, though he ignored us, you couldn't help thinking that he hated us at the same time. I still can't figure what it is inside a person that could make them hate someone else. I've spent a lifetime trying to figure it out, but never have.

Sometimes the man named Mr. Sneed came with him too. He carried a leather briefcase and papers and things and didn't pay any more attention to any of the rest of us than Mr. Clairbornedid. The two men walked around the place keeping to themselves, talking and writing things down and making lists. I heard the word
inventory
once, at least I think that was the word, though I didn't know what it meant.

But most of the time when Mr. Clairborne came he went upstairs to Katie's mama's office, sometimes with tools, and we'd hear banging and clanking and hammering and other noises coming from inside. Once he came with a man in a buggy that said ‘‘Locksmith'' on the side of it. Katie and I watched through the crack in the door as the man tried spinning the dial back and forth and muttering various numbers to himself. ‘‘
Right
thirty-seven,
left
twenty-eight,
right
twenty-nine . . .'' and even tried opening the safe with some sort of drill, but as far as Katie and I could tell, nothing he did seemed to work, and more often than not Katie's uncle would come back down the stairs angry and swearing and muttering to himself.

One day Katie decided to try to open the safe herself. She was desperate, and it was all she could think to try. Katie told me she remembered enough bits of her parents' conversations over the years to know they feared Burchard might try to take the plantation from them, but Katie said she didn't know why.

‘‘I wish I could see that deed with my own eyes,'' Katie said, hoping there was still some way out of our predicament.

We even looked in the cellar one night, thinking that if her mother had hidden the gold there, she might have hidden the deed there as well. But we quickly realized that the damp, musty hole was not a likely place to keep such an important piece of paper.

One morning Katie took my hand and led me up the stairs.

‘‘I'm going to try to open the safe, Mayme,'' she whispered. ‘‘Maybe I can find something that will help us.''

‘‘But, Katie, if the locksmith couldn't open it . . .''

‘‘I know. But it's worth a try. You stand there by the window and watch for my uncle.''

The picture was already off the wall from her uncle's latest attempt with the safe. Katie stood in the middle of the office and stared at it. She told me later she was trying to remember if she'd ever seen her mother or father open it. She did remember something . . . some memory of her father and mother talking in hushed tones. Katie thought they might have been talking about Burchard . . . and . . . someone else, another uncle . . . Uncle Templeton maybe? But she didn't think so.

Katie reached up and touched the dial, then quickly drew her hand back.

‘‘How does it work?'' I asked.

‘‘I think you move it first one way, then the other, and back and forth like that. You have to stop on certain numbers.'' ‘‘How do you know the numbers?''

‘‘I don't know. I guess you have to memorize them. I wonder what numbers my mama and daddy would have used.''

Katie's uncle Burchard had already scoured the place looking for a written combination—we knew that much. But he'd found nothing.

‘‘They would have used some numbers that they'd never forget,'' said Katie. ‘‘What about . . . maybe their wedding anniversary? It was October 1, 1844.'' She excitedly began turning the dial. ‘‘Let's see. Ten,'' she said, then stopped. ‘‘One . . . and forty-four.''

‘‘What's supposed to happen now?'' I asked when she stopped and withdrew her hand.

‘‘I don't know, I think the door is supposed to open.''

She tried the handle, but it was still locked. Katie exhaled a long sigh of disappointment.

‘‘Try something else,'' I said, my own excitement growing.

‘‘But what, Mayme?''

‘‘I don't know. . . how about somebody's birthday?''

‘‘Mayme, that's a great idea!'' exclaimed Katie, bounding forward again. ‘‘Let's see, my daddy's birthday was December thirteenth . . . oh, but I forget what year he was born . . . hmm, was it eighteen-nineteen? I think so. I'll try that.''

Again she began turning the dial with trembling fingers. But still the handle was locked.

‘‘Uh . . . maybe my mother's,'' she said and tried again. But yet again the door didn't budge.