A Perilous Proposal (29 page)

By midmorning the tension was so great that Jeremiah could hardly stand it.

Katie went down to the cellar and came back a while later with a canvas bag. Jeremiah could tell by the way she carried it that it was heavy. She clunked it down on the sideboard in the parlor.

“Well, there it is,” she said.

“You gwine gib it t' dem, Miz Katie?” asked Emma.

“I don't know, Emma,” said Katie with a sigh. “I just don't know. But I've got to be ready to give it to them if it seems like it'll help.”

From the tone of her voice, it appeared Katie had about given up all hope of saving Rosewood. The bag of gold sitting on the sideboard was the only hope left—and now she was ready to give it away. Jeremiah exchanged looks with his father across the table, but Henry only shook his head thoughtfully before bringing his coffee cup back to his lips.

Slowly the morning passed.

About eleven, Jeremiah couldn't sit still a moment longer. He jumped up from the kitchen table.

“I don' know 'bout da res' of you,” he said, “but I'm
gettin' me a gun.—Miz Katie, show me da gun cabinet, an' wiff yer permishun—”

Henry rose to his feet.

“Now jes' wait er minute, Jeremiah,” he began. “We don' wants ter go git all riled. Ain't no good comes from killin', nohow. We ain't gwine do no shootin', not unless hit becomes a matter on life er death, which ain't likely ef gold's sittin' at da root ob it—”

“Look, Papa,” interrupted Jeremiah. “Dose men ain't gwine ter be feelin' too kindly tards Miz Katie when dey come, an' wiff respec' t' yer feelins' in da matter, I ain't gwine let dem hurt her, or any ob da res' ob dese girls. I ain't neber shot nobody in my life. But I's takin' one ob Miz Katie's guns an' I'm hidin' myself in dat barn, an' effen dey lay a han' on her or Mayme or Emma, or you either, den I'll shoot 'em. I'm sorry, Papa, but I ain't gonna stan' by an' watch dem do what white men sometimes does. Dey's carryin' rope too, an' dat fears me right fearsome. You can whip me later ef you wants to, if you an' me's still alive, an' I won't gib a squeak er protest. But right now . . . —Miz Katie, show me yer guns!”

Henry kept silent. Jeremiah wasn't sure if his papa was upset or if he agreed with Jeremiah. He hoped it was a little of both.

Five minutes later Jeremiah was on his way out to the barn carrying a loaded rifle and a shotgun in his two hands.

Mayme called after him, “Jeremiah, please . . . be careful.”

He turned back to her. “I'll be as careful as I can be,” he said. “I'll jes' bide my time till I see's what's gwine happen. I won't start nuthin'. An' Lord knows I's scared a da thought ob it all. So I's keep quiet, res' assured a dat, till I sees what dey's gwine do. But I ain't gonna let 'em rape Miz Katie, or hurt Emma or . . .”

He paused a second and looked down into Mayme's eyes.
In that moment he knew he'd die himself before he'd let anything happen to her.

“An' I sure ain't gonna let dem hurt you,” he said. “An' if dey lay a finger on my daddy, den I'll kill 'em.”

Suddenly he stepped forward, leaned toward Mayme and kissed her. Then he turned and hurried off toward the barn.

A W
ELCOME
S
URPRISE

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I
watched Jeremiah walk away toward the barn holding the two guns, leaving me standing there with my heart pounding about twice as fast as it should have been. It wasn't how I'd imagined the first time being kissed by a boy—with us worrying whether we'd live through the day.

I returned to the kitchen to wait with the others. At quarter till noon we were all the more on edge and scared. Even Henry was sober and silent and just sat in a chair calmly waiting. He still had no gun. As was clear enough from what he'd said to Jeremiah, he wasn't a fighting man. He just sat there praying, though I could never have guessed the direction his prayers were taking. I reckon he would say that was his kind of fighting. We hadn't heard any more from Jeremiah since he'd gone out to hide in the barn.

Suddenly we heard a horse outside. The moment we'd been waiting for had come!

I didn't know if Katie'd decided what to do or not. At a time like this, as much as we'd shared of our life together, what we were facing on this day involved decisions she had to make herself.

A tense minute went by. We heard the horse walk up and stop. A few seconds later a knock came on the door. It seemed so loud it nearly made us all jump right out of our chairs.

We looked around at each other. I could tell that Katie didn't know what to do. But she was the mistress of Rosewood now.

She hesitated a moment, then got up from the table and went slowly toward the door. Slowly she opened it.

“Uncle Templeton!” she exclaimed. The next instant her visitor found himself smothered in a tight hug of joy
.

The words flowed like a wave of deliverance into the room. The rest of us let out big sighs of relief accompanied by smiles, and of course Emma started carrying on immediately.

“Hello, Kathleen,” said Mr. Daniels. Even as he embraced her at the door, I saw his eyes searching past the entryway into the kitchen until they found me. He smiled above the blond hair of Katie's head buried against his shoulder, and I knew the smile was meant just for me.

“You came back!” said Katie, still holding him.

“That I did, Kathleen,” he said. “I can't keep running forever. So here I am.”

He stepped back from Katie, and the two of them walked into the kitchen, Katie beaming with pride. Like he had before, he was looking straight at me and gazing deep into my eyes. Now I knew why. And at last I wasn't afraid to return the look of love in his eyes.

“You and me are going to have to have a long talk, Mary Ann,” he whispered, “. . . a long talk about your mama, and about you, and me.”

I just nodded my head, and for a moment the whole kitchen was silent.

“We're so glad to see you!” said Katie, excitedly interrupting the quiet moment between us. “We're in trouble, Uncle Templeton. Those men I told you about . . . they're back. They're coming today, real soon . . . they said they were coming with guns! Jeremiah's outside right now with a gun. I'm afraid he's going to shoot them. We don't know what to do!”

A serious expression came over Mr. Daniels' face. That's when he noticed Henry standing on the other side of the room.

He walked toward him and stretched out his hand.

“I take it,” he said, “that you must be Henry.”

“Yes, suh,” said Henry, shaking his hand.

“Templeton Daniels,” said Katie's uncle.

“Henry Patterson,” said Henry with a nod.

“Well, I'm glad to know you, Henry,” said Mr. Daniels. “From what these girls of mine tell me, you've been a mighty big help to them. I should have been doing more myself. I want to thank you. I am most appreciative that you've taken it upon yourself to watch over things here. I hope we will be good friends from now on.”

A little taken aback to have a white man treat him with such courtesy and respect, Henry hesitated a moment before saying, “Miz Kathleen's right 'bout one thing, Mr. Daniels,” he said. “Dem men's comin' back. Dat's what I'm doin' here. Dey's after Miz Kathleen's gold, an' like she say, my son's out dere right now—”

But Mr. Daniels didn't hear the rest of what Henry was about to say.

“What!” he exclaimed, spinning around. “You found it!”

“Oh yes! I almost forgot,” said Katie excitedly. “We found it, Uncle Templeton. There really was more gold after all.”

“Where?”

“In a lantern down in the cellar.”

“A lantern! Well, I'll be.”

“I tried to tell them there wasn't any more, but they didn't believe me. They said they were coming back today and that if we didn't give it to them, they were going to ransack the place. They even said they would burn us out if they had to.”

“Looks like I got here just in time,” said Mr. Daniels, taking in everything Katie had said.

He sat down with a serious and thoughtful expression on his face, then let out a long sigh.

“What's this about your son, Henry?” he said after a minute, glancing toward Henry.

“He took two guns, an' is hidin' out dere right now.”

“We got any more weapons?”

“Don' know, suh,” said Henry, shaking his head. “Whateber else Miz Kathleen's got, I reckon. But I ain't no man ter use er gun. Dat ain't my way.”

Mr. Daniels thought a minute, then looked up at Katie.

“Where is the gold, Kathleen?” he asked.

Katie went and got the bag and set it down on the kitchen table. “So what should we do, Uncle Templeton?” she asked.

He stared at the bag. “Why don't we just . . . give it to them?”

“What about the loan at the bank?”

“It's not worth anyone's getting killed over. We can
take care of it. We're a family now. I'll talk to the banker. I'll tell him what's happened and about Rosalind and the rest of your family. Surely he'll understand. I'm certain he'll extend the terms a few months. I'll work. We'll harvest crops.—That's possible, isn't it, Henry?” he said, glancing toward Henry.

“Dat it is, Mr. Daniels,” replied Henry. “Dese ladies here, dey picked dere own cotton las' year an' wiff all da lan' out dere, ain't no tellin what can be done.”

“There, Kathleen, you see. It's just like Henry says. We don't need gold, we've got land, and that's better than gold. And we've got each other now too. We don't need that little bag of gold to be a family and to make Rosewood prosperous again. All we need is each other.”

Suddenly the sound of horses from outside interrupted him.

Our brief enthusiasm vanished. Suddenly tension filled the room again. Unconsciously every eye in the room went straight to Mr. Daniels. Whether he liked responsibility or not, he was in charge now. He walked toward the open window and looked out.

“It's them, all right,” he said. “There's four of them.”

He thought a minute.

“All right . . . Henry, you take these ladies upstairs.”

“What about you, Uncle Templeton?” said Katie.

“Right now I'm more worried about the rest of you,” he said. “I'll talk to them and give them the gold. But I want the rest of you out of sight in case they're on a short fuse.”

“Should we hide in the cellar?”

“I don't think there's any need for that. I'm going to
try to handle this thing peaceably.”

Reluctantly we all left the kitchen and Katie led the way upstairs.

In spite of what he had said, the moment we were gone, Mr. Daniels went to the gun cabinet, took out a rifle, loaded it, and walked with it back to the window, carrying a box of shells.

By then there were already shouts coming from outside.

S
HOOT-OUT

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