A Reckless Love, page 10
Moore’s smile was sardonic. “I think they’d be just as happy to turn us loose.”
“Pickett could have done that this morning while I was gone,” Zane said. “He’s smarter than that.”
Jefcoat snorted. “Not much.”
“If that’s so, how come you’re in this cell and he’s not? Weren’t you both involved in that business over at the newspaper office?”
“That’s not what this is about.” Jefcoat spat into a corner. “This is about Schuyler Beaumont getting revenge.”
“Well, the murder of a man’s father is bound to make him a little touchy,” Zane said. “He says you admitted it.”
“He’s a liar.” Jefcoat’s small eyes were hard. “He’s the one attacked me. Didn’t he, Harold?”
“I saw Beaumont leap on Mr. Andrew and try to choke him,” Moore said. “He ought to be the one behind bars.”
Zane pulled out his whittling. “Then what kind of revenge are you talking about? Why would he attack you?”
“I don’t know.” Jefcoat looked confused. “I told him it was an accident—whoever killed Mr. Zeke.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because he—they—were just trying to scare those two colored rabble-rousers.” He glanced at his half brother, who just gave him a stoic stare in return. “It was a wild shot not meant to hurt anybody.”
Zane paused in the act of paring curling slivers into the twig to shape the raccoon’s tail. “Jefcoat, I want to believe you. But you’ve got some high-powered influence between you and justice.” Glancing at the bearded young muscle-head, he shrugged and went back to his carving. “Only way I see you getting clear—you help us pull some of that obfuscation down.”
“I don’t know what—”
“Smoke screen,” Moore said. “He means you need to give names of the leaders.”
“I’m not a rat,” Jefcoat snarled. “Besides, they’d kill me if I talked.”
“You’re in protective custody,” Zane said. “My job is to not let anything happen to you.”
Jefcoat gave him a pitying look. “I’d watch out, if I was you. That little crowd last night was just a warning.”
“I promise you I can take care of myself. Are you willing to go to prison for these people? Klan terrorism is a federal offense now.”
“Prison?” Jefcoat smirked. “Nobody’s going to prison. Judge Hill is well known for a twenty-five-dollar maximum fine and a thousand-dollar peace bond.”
Zane’s hand clenched the knife hard. He’d heard the same thing but hoped it wouldn’t be true in this case. Marshal Eaton was convinced the presence of the US Attorney General would raise the stakes enough to force the judge to apply appropriate penalties. The president was serious about stopping Klan violence in the South.
He looked at Jefcoat coolly. “I wouldn’t take that chance, if it were me.” He transferred his gaze to Moore. “How about you? You going to let this white boy walk all over you? Beaumont told me he played you for a fool, trying to nail the white schoolteacher.”
Moore just returned his stare. “I got nothing to tell you,” he finally said with stolid blankness.
“See?” Jefcoat crowed. “Harold knows what side his bread’s buttered on.”
Zane rose and tucked the little half-finished raccoon into his pocket, making a production of folding his knife. “Well, you’ll have plenty of time to think it in that cell. Would’ve thought you’d have a little more sense—”
The outer door opened to admit Pickett, followed by a bull-shaped fellow wearing a hat too big for his bullet-shaped head and a sheriff’s badge pinned to his vest.
The sheriff stopped to knock the dust off his boots and check the environs of the building before following the constable inside. He walked over to Zane with a hand outstretched. “Sheriff Epinetus Gere,” he said by way of introduction. “You must be Deputy Marshal Sager.”
“Yes, sir.” Zane shook hands. “Sorry about taking over your jail. Pickett didn’t seem to know we were coming.”
Gere responded with a dry smile. “Pickett don’t know much of nothing.” Dodging the newspaper wad Pickett threw at him, he walked over to the cells and checked the locks. Apparently satisfied that they would hold, he went to his desk and began to rummage about in a drawer. “Sorry I wasn’t here to help with the take-in.”
“Pickett explained,” Zane said. “I hope everything is all right.”
Without looking up, Gere shrugged. “Under control.”
Zane waited. Usually people explained emergencies, loved to talk about their own heroic part in it. When Gere found a pipe in the drawer and proceeded to fill and smoke it without further comment, Zane made a mental note. He didn’t trust any of these local lawmen, knew better than to take them at their word.
He was about to take the opportunity to walk outside and stretch his legs when the door slammed open. Zane recognized the balding head and ink-stained collar of the man whose shotgun had so bravely defended him yesterday. Aurora had introduced him as Wimus McCanless, Joelle’s editor at the Tupelo Journal.
McCanless remained half in, half out of the doorway. “Is the deputy marshal still—oh, there you are. And Sheriff Gere—it’s good you’re back.” He stepped inside, removing his glasses to wipe sweat off his forehead. “I just got word—there’s been a murder.”
Gere lunged to his feet. “In broad daylight? Where?”
McCanless shook his head. “Probably last night. Fisherman found Deputy Marshal Theophilus Redding washed up in the Tishomingo River early this morning. His throat was cut.”
Zane’s hand went of its own volition to his eye patch.
Jones.
ten
Dogwood Boarding House
Monday, June 6, 1870
Fixing people wasn’t as simple a procedure as one might suppose, Aurora concluded, but at least she and Bedelia had reached what might be called an armistice.
Standing on the top step of a ladder to reach the chandelier over the bar, she adjusted the scarf tied about her head to better deflect flying dust. The upstairs mainly needed a good sweeping and a mop bucket to restore it to cleanliness. But the Dogwood’s former male denizens seemed to have viewed the alarming amount of grime accumulated on the ground floor as part of the decor.
She applied her rag and brass polish to the chandelier with renewed vigor. The first part of her plan—introducing her charges to their new home at Daughtry House—had gone quite swimmingly. Bedelia took one look at Horatia’s new grandson Benny, cooing in his swaddling in a homemade cradle on the hearth, and fell into a puddle of maternal bliss. Rosie’s interaction with Horatia’s collection of cookware exhibited similar evidence of covetousness.
Moving the girls’ meager belongings into one of the little outbuildings that had formerly housed plantation slaves had been accomplished with complete lack of drama. The cabin—along with a row of five others just like it behind the overseer’s old cabin—had been reroofed, freshly painted, and furnished with simple bedsteads, table and chairs, and a couple of rugs. Professing herself charmed (prompted no doubt by memories of her recent brush with jail), Bedelia flung herself onto the center of the bed, while Rosie wandered over to inspect a small painting hung beside the door. Aurora left them amicably arguing over who would get to sleep next to the window.
The first sign of trouble came the next morning when Aurora knocked on the cabin door. “Wake up, girls, it’s time to get dressed for church!” After a full minute of waiting with no response, she knocked again. “Bedelia! Open this door!” Finally she resorted to taking off her shoe and hammering with the heel. “Wake up! Fire!”
The door creaked inward half an inch. One black almond-shaped eye appeared. “Miss Ola?” Rosie, who struggled with Aurora’s r-filled name had resorted to her own diminutive. “We sleepy. Day off you say.”
“The day is free so that everyone can go to church. I thought you understood.”
“I understand, but Bedelia—”
Aurora simply pushed her out of the way. “Bedelia! Get out of that bed!”
“You are not the boss of me!” Bedelia’s voice came from beneath her pillow.
“Yes. I am.”
“It’s Sunday.”
“Correct. This family goes to church on Sunday.”
Bedelia came out from under the pillow. “Am I your employee or your family?”
Aurora stomped her foot, the one with a shoe still on it. “Both! Now get up or I’ll have the deputy marshal come pay you a visit.”
Bedelia sat up, blinking suddenly bright green eyes. “The deputy marshal can pay me a visit anytime he wants,” she purred, stretching. Curls everywhere, she looked like a blonde Medusa.
“If you’ll get up and get dressed, maybe he’ll be at church.” Aurora laughed as Bedelia scrambled for her robe. “Breakfast is in the manager’s cottage kitchen. We leave at nine,” she said and left the two former fancy women to clothe themselves in whatever strength and beauty they could muster.
As everyone piled into the carriage and wagon, a small kerfuffle over décolletage ensued, but Joelle solved the problem by loaning Bedelia a lacy shawl, pinned in place with a brooch Gil Reese had given her during the first week of their erstwhile engagement. Rosie’s dress was modest enough, a striped cotton travel dress with a tight black collar.
Looking back on it, Aurora should have known that Gil—she couldn’t go back to calling him Pastor Reese, not after the way he had treated Joelle—would recognize the brooch. She also could have predicted his objection to the presence of two former dance hall girls in his church service. She saw his eyes latch onto Rosie and Bedelia, seated on the Daughtry family pew between ThomasAnne and herself, saw his heavy eyebrows draw together over his Roman nose.
Consequently, she did her best to shunt her charges outside as soon as the last “amen” rang at the end of the closing hymn. “Come on, girls,” she said, hooking her arm through Bedelia’s, “we’ve got to get home to make the gravy. Rosie, you’ll like that.”
But Bedelia dug in her heels. “You said the deputy marshal would be here.”
That was loud. And here came Gil, marching down the aisle, looking like a thundercloud about to rain on everybody in sight.
Aurora pulled harder. “I guess he didn’t come after—”
“Good morning, Miss O’Malley,” came a crisp baritone from behind her. “I’m glad to see you made it to the Lord’s house after your upsetting day yesterday.”
Aurora slowly let go of Bedelia and turned to find Zane Sager standing at the end of the pew she had just passed. Had he been there the whole time? She was notoriously squirmy in church, and wasn’t that just charming?
Chancing a look at his face, she found him staring, not at Bedelia, but straight at her, a little sideways tuck at the corner of his mouth. He was freshly shaved, his hair slicked back with some kind of tonic, and his shallow-crowned hat was tucked under his arm. Of course he still looked like an outlaw in that eye patch. And she preferred his dark hair in its natural disheveled state.
“Hello, Deputy Marshal,” she said with what dignity she could muster. “I told Bedelia you’d probably be here today.” She hadn’t really believed it, but he didn’t have to know that.
Surprise flashed in his one good eye. “Did you?” He returned that quizzical gaze to Bedelia. “It was a bit of a last-minute decision. The sheriff offered to stay with my prisoners so I could leave the jail.”
“Would you like to come home with us for Sunday dinner?” The words were out of Aurora’s mouth before she could call them back.
“Oh, please come, Deputy Marshal,” Bedelia said, clasping her gloved hands. “I’m going to make the gravy.”
Before Aurora could dispute this bald-faced lie, Gil Reese reached around her to point at Bedelia’s chest with a long, bony finger. “Where did you get that?”
Bedelia’s face reddened. “It was a gift—not that it’s any of your business.”
“It was a gift,” Gil said, “from me to my former fiancée. You must have stolen—”
“There’s been a misunderstanding, Pastor,” Sager said. “Miss O’Malley is a guest of the Daughtrys.”
“That’s impossible. I know Bedelia O’Malley, and—” Too late Gil saw his mistake. “I mean, everybody knows the nature of these unfortunate girls.”
“Do they?” Sager asked silkily. “But hopefully everybody also knows how Jesus treated women who wanted a new start in life. Not to mention what he had to say about whitewashed hypocrites.”
That sounded a little off somehow, Aurora thought, but she wasn’t going to split hairs. She’d look it up later. “Exactly. I’m not sure who’s going to make the gravy”—she frowned at Bedelia— “but it will be good. We hope you’ll join us.”
Sager shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t be away from my duties any longer. Thank you for the invitation.” His gaze lingered on Aurora’s face for a second before he turned to Bedelia, picked up her hand, and kissed her knuckles. “Do your best, Miss O’Malley, and you may own a boardinghouse yourself one day.”
And that was how it came to be that on Monday morning Aurora stood on a ladder polishing chandeliers, wondering why the deputy marshal hadn’t kissed her hand. She appreciated his kindness to Bedelia, but what had Aurora said to send him back to the jail as if the hounds of hell were after him? At least he seemed to consider running a boardinghouse a worthwhile endeavor.
Despite the fact that he’d turned down the offer of staying here in no uncertain terms.
Overhead she could hear ThomasAnne tramping around, directing Bedelia in the art of bed making, while Shug Pogue’s hammer tapped sporadically as he inspected the roof. She smiled at the thought of Rosie, who had remained at Daughtry House today, happily beginning her culinary training under Horatia Lawrence. The excitement on that small round face made every bit of sweat and sore muscles Aurora endured worth the effort.
An hour later, aching in places she didn’t know she had muscles, dirt and brass polish smeared in equal portions from head to toe, she moved the ladder to the fireplace. That picture had to come down, and now. The bubble-covered woman’s saucy stare was making the back of her neck itch.
Near the top of the ladder, she tested the weight of the frame and found it heavy, not to mention large and awkward, but she thought she could manage it by herself. Bracing her hips against the ladder, she lifted the frame off its nail.
“Here, let me get that.”
As the weight suddenly shifted, she lost her balance and listed sideways with a startled little shriek.
“Hold on—I’ve got you.” Zane Sager caught her around the waist, holding her fast while lowering the picture frame to the floor with his other hand. “You all right?”
Her hand rested on his powerful shoulder, her chin was on top of his head, and she could hardly breathe for his grip around her ribs. “I’m—I think so.” The words came out in puffs of indignity. He was always sneaking up on her.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said as if reading her mind. Letting go of the picture, which slapped backward against the floor with a bang, he braced both hands at her waist and set her upright on her feet. “There you go. No harm done.”
Aurora looked down. “The pink lady looks a little jolted.” She’d been calling her that in her mind but had no intention of saying it aloud. She bit her lip.
“I don’t blame you for letting her go.” Sager didn’t look particularly scandalized. “Waste of bubbles,” he said dispassionately, shoving the frame across the now gleaming floor with one booted foot. “I prefer women covered in . . .” He half-closed the extravagantly lashed green eye to examine Aurora’s face. “Mustard?”
Blushing, she scrubbed at her cheeks with both hands. “Brass polish. I was cleaning the—” What were they talking about? Oh yes, the pink lady. “I could use a bubble bath myself, I imagine.” She stared at him in horror, imagining what must be going on in his head.
And then a very slow grin appeared on his dark face. She had been absolutely right to fear this. It transformed him from grim to heartbreaking.
Pitched headlong into insanity, she said, “Don’t worry, we’re going to repaint her.”
His eyebrow went up. The grin broadened. “So . . . orange? Purple?”
“Oh. My. Gracious.” She grabbed an old curtain she’d unearthed from the attic, and tossed it over the naughty picture. “Please forget anything I just said. Did you need something, Deputy Marshal? I’m sorry I don’t have anything to offer you to drink, since we’re not yet open for business, but lemonade is probably not your libation of choice anyway. But since you’re here, let me say thank you for sticking up for Bedelia in church yesterday. Gil Reese is a self-righteous, over-educated donkey and I never liked him, which makes it difficult to listen to him preach, but it also makes me even more thankful that Joelle finally woke up and realized Schuyler is the only man alive who can understand half of what she says.”
A moment passed while he appeared to be sifting through her monologue to decide which part to answer. “You’re welcome,” he finally said, the eye still twinkling, though his mouth resumed its usual sardonic bend. “I came to see if the offer of housing is still open.”
The sight of the ladder had disabled his brain.
Otherwise, there was no excuse for allowing an encounter with a young Southern gentlewoman to descend into risqué innuendo. But she would never understand—in fact, he couldn’t even explain to himself—why the sight of an ordinary ladder landed him back in Cahaba, enduring the stretching of his shoulders and underarm tendons, the torment of hanging for hours from a rung so high his toes barely touched the ground.
Jones’s term for that particular punishment was “On the Ladder.” And he made sure his victims never forgot its effect, even after five years.
Still, what kind of man stood frozen in a doorway, while a copper-haired elf like Aurora Daughtry hoisted a framed picture bigger than she was over her head? She could have taken a dangerous tumble if he hadn’t snapped out of his mental episode at the last moment.
Now he watched her polish-stained, heart-shaped face as she considered his question. She should slap him, throw him out on his behind, something besides purse her lips and study him with those big brown eyes.
