Debra Holland (33 page)

Harriet’s anger didn’t abate. She wanted to shake the man. “You could have written the information to me in the note you left. I’m not a child, Ant. Yet, you keep treating me like I’m one with your secrecy about Lewis.”

“Let me explain.”

She ignored him. “You certainly have turned into a despot. My eyes are open to your character.”

“Harriet,” Ant grabbed her wrists.

She tried to wrench herself away, but might as well fight a mountain.

“If we don’t find Lewis, we’ll never be safe here. We’ll always be looking over our shoulder. We need to leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I teach here.”

“Marry me. You won’t have to work. You and David and I will go to Europe. Lewis will never find us there.”

“Marry you.” She gaped at him. “Anthony Gordon, I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man in Montana!”

“I know you love Sanders, and I’m not asking for an intimate relationship, just—”

You know I love Nick?
Harriet jerked her arms back. When he didn’t release her wrists, she kicked him in the shins. “Let go of me, you oaf!”

He opened his fingers, stepping back and holding up his hands. “Just hear me out, Harriet.”

“How did you know about Nick?” she snapped.

“I saw the way you look at him, Harriet. Like a lovesick puppy.”

Humiliation lodged in her stomach, sending waves of heat through her body. Harriet put her hands to her burning cheeks. “You’re perceptive,” she said in a bitter tone.

“It’s common knowledge.”

“No. No one knows. I...I never told....”

“People figured it out anyway.”

Dismayed, she whispered. “It can’t be.”

A look of pity crossed Ant’s face, and he stepped forward. “Yes, they know, my dear. I’m not certain about Elizabeth, but Sanders surely does. It was mentioned in his presence at the meeting with the town leaders. He didn’t look surprised.” Ant gently grasped her shoulders. “Now, will you hear me out?”

Anger twined with the shame. Harriet pushed him away, but he didn’t budge. “I have nothing to say to you, Anthony Gordon. Not another word! Do you hear me?” She put all her schoolteacher authority in her voice.
 

He stepped back and let her pass. “We’ll talk later.”

“We most certainly shall! But for now, I’m going to find David. Hopefully, you haven’t rendered him permanently mute!”

Harriet marched across the room and out the door. On the porch, she could see the sun heading toward the horizon. She scanned the area for David and caught a glimpse of him at the edge of the trees that led to the stream. He was probably headed for the pool they’d discovered yesterday. She hurried after him.
I’ll have to catch him … reassure him he’s safe.

* * *

Like a locomotive, Harriet steamed out of the house, leaving Ant with all his persuasive words still unsaid.
Might as well try to stop a train.

Ant followed Harriet to the porch, feeling an odd sense of helplessness. He watched her head to the stream and figured he’d better let her cool down before going after her, although he’d keep her in sight. If he caught up with her while her anger was still in full boil, he’d have a wildcat on his hands. Her head start wouldn’t matter. With his longer legs, he’d be able to overtake her soon enough.

He paced back and forth across the porch, careful not to trip over the puppy, who decided to shadow him.

In front of the barn, Pepe rose from the straw bale and took a few steps toward the house.

“Stay there and watch the house and the horses,” Ant called to him.

Pepe waved his understanding.

Ant scooped up the puppy, who licked his chin. Petting the dog seemed to help soothe him, yet it took a while for him to calm his smoldering emotions. The intensity and heat of his reaction alerted him that something was wrong—something far greater than a book of poems.

Ant knew he wasn’t a man given to hot anger and hasty words. His wrath tended to burn cold and quiet, a characteristic that had served him well in the long hunt for his brother-in-law. This reaction wasn’t like him.

Ant began to pace again, all the while keeping an eye on Harriet who continued her trek to the river, her back ramrod straight.
Why did I get so furious with Harriet?

I was tired and on edge already. Easily set off.
But he’d been exhausted and edgy and in danger many times before without exploding at anyone.
Why Harriet? Why now? Why poetry?

 
He’d blown up at Harriet for reading Emily’s poems, yet he was the one who’d carried the book in the bottom of his saddlebag for two years. Ant had known of Harriet’s love of books and poetry. It was inevitable that she’d find the book and read it.

A long-forgotten recollection surfaced—his stepfather snatching a paper out of his hand, reading it, and then tearing it up, before taking a whip to him. “A man doesn’t write poetry,” he shouted with each blow. “Only sissies write poems.” Ant’s back tingled from the memory.
 

Deliberately forgotten childhood memories flooded his mind. After that experience, Ant had never written another poem, although he hadn’t lost his love for writing. He turned to journalism instead, a more manly and rational form of writing. The beatings lessened, but didn’t stop.

The man ignored Emily, which probably was a good thing. He’d been known to break a stick over Ant’s bottom and legs for the slightest infringement of his rules.

Emily had been so anxious to escape the brute that she’d married a man just like him. Although it had taken several years for the darkness to surface in Lewis, surely there’d been shadows that Emily should have recognized while the man was courting her.

But this isn’t about Emily.
The chiding voice brought him to his present predicament.

“What have I done?” He’d been unreasonable and cruel, just like his stepfather. He’d turned into a bully like him. Ant groaned.
What an idiot I’ve been. The man’s been dead for ten years, and I was his parrot instead of being myself—a man of reason and moderate passions. Well, except for a certain woman.
 

I’ve hurt the two people I care about most, perhaps damaging my relationship with them beyond repair. All because of a man I hated, yet became. Harriet was right to call me an oaf, and worse.

Still carrying the dog, he leaped off the porch.

I need to fix what I’ve damaged, explain. Ask for forgiveness
.

The pup squirmed, and he squeezed his arms tighter so he wouldn’t drop the dog.

Will Harriet understand?
 

I’ll find a way to make her. I just have to reach her before she becomes dead set against me.

He hurried to the barn and handed over the dog to Pepe. “Keep her with you.”

Pepe stood, grabbed the dog, and sat back down on the straw bale, stroking the puppy to calm her.

Ant clapped his hand to his hip and realized he’d left his gunbelt in the house. In his eagerness to catch up with Harriet, he almost continued after her. But a ration of common sense made him turn back for his gun. He wasn’t about to let his sidewinder of a brother-in-law catch him unarmed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Fear propelled David away from the house, past the barn and toward the trees shading the stream.
I can hide there.

Once he reached the shelter of the trees, he ran upstream, leaping over rocks and dashing around trees until the constriction in his lungs and the ache in his side forced him to a walk. Gasping for air, he searched his surroundings for a hiding place.

Seeing an oak with a hollowed out trunk, he crouched down and used a nearby branch to poke around the interior. When no critter charged out, he crawled inside, drawing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around his legs.

There, he sat panting, mindless. His breath had eased long before David felt his awareness return. He replayed the scene with his uncle and Miss Stanton and started shivering at the enraged look on his uncle’s face and the angry sound of his voice.
 

I left Miss Stanton alone with him.

Shame coursed through him.

Uncle Ant could have beaten her. Killed her. And Miss Stanton was littler than his mother. David pictured her lying in a pool of blood like ….

The memory tore aside the curtain of the past, ripping through the gray fog of forgetfulness he’d cloaked around his mother.
He saw his pa, staggering drunk, with a knife in his hand and an evil look on his face. “You think you’re leaving me,” Pa had yelled at his mother. “You’ll never leave.”

David had dodged behind a wingchair in the corner of the parlor, crouching until he was out of sight. He’d peered around the side, watching.
 

Pa had grabbed his mother. She’d screamed and fought him, trying to break away. But he’d held on tight and slashed the knife across her throat.

Blood spurted from her neck. She made a horrible gurgling noise. Pa let go of her. She dropped to the ground like a red-stained rag doll.

David had wailed at the sight, but he hadn’t let the noise out for fear Pa would hear him. But the sound had exploded in his mind.

Then Pa had kicked her in the side, cursed her. Finally, he’d turned and staggered up the stairs.

David had listened for his footsteps to die away. He crept out from behind the chair and tiptoed over to his mother. She lay motionless on the wooden floor, blood pooling around her.
 

He’d stooped to touch her cheek. The coppery smell of her blood filled his nostrils.
 

“Mother, Mother,” he whispered, trying to get her to turn and look at him. But she’d stared wide-eyed at the ceiling, an empty look in her brown eyes. He began to shake.

David was so engrossed with his mother that he didn’t hear his pa come back into the room. A heavy hand dropped on his shoulder, almost shooting him out of his boots. “You come with me, boy. We’re leaving.”

Pa jerked David around to face him. With one hand on his shoulder, he shook his finger in David’s face, his blue eyes so icy, they froze him in place. “Don’t you ever say a word about this to anyone, you hear? You even think about talking, and I’ll pull out your tongue and cut it off.” He gave David a shake for emphasis that almost knocked him over.
 

The wail David had held inside for two years boiled out. The sound filled the hollow of the tree, vibrating around him. An invisible cord tight around his chest released, and he screamed and screamed. The noise amplified by the trunk made his ears ring. The tree seemed to wrap its essence around him, comforting him at that same time as it drew out the pain. “Mother, Mother, Mother!”

He sobbed, crying out some of the tears he’d stored up over the pain-filled past. When the sobs eased, leaving him snot-nosed and wet-faced, he sniffed and wiped his sleeve across his face. Although he felt ashamed about blubbering like a baby, he felt better than he had in a long time.
Cleansed
was the word that came to his mind from something Reverend Norton had said in his sermon on Sunday.

David relaxed against the tree, limp and almost dosing. Then he remembered Miss Stanton, left alone with his angry uncle, and jerked awake. He shot up so fast he bumped his head on the top of the hollow.

David scrambled out of the oak and ran downstream. He leaped over a fallen log, dodged around a tangle of willow. Just past the trees, a pair of hands reached out and grabbed him. David yelped.

“Got ya, boy.” At the sound of the raspy voice and the familiar stench of whiskey, David went limp like a dead rabbit, the reaction he’d always had to his pa’s abuse.

“Thought ya could git away from me, ah?” His pa leered at him. “Well I don’t want ya either. But I got some use for ya.”

David’s terror of his father wiped his fears of Uncle Ant from his mind, and he could only long for his uncle’s protection.
Uncle Ant, save me!

Pa fingered the butt of the gun tucked into his pants. “Then again, I could always kill your interfering uncle, take that pretty little lady of his for a ride, and then kill her too. What do you think about that, boy?”

David could only stare into his pa’s cold, reddened eyes in his puffy face, feeling his limbs freeze.

 
“You’ll be good for something, alright.” He pointed at Old Blue, munching on some grass. “Now git on that mule!”

* * *

Harriet reached a stand of cottonwoods and ran on, searching. The impact of Ant’s revelation burned through her body. All this time she’d thought her feelings for Nick had been secret, but to learn they’d been common knowledge....
Have people been gossiping about me? Laughing at me?
She hurried downstream along the path, her face hot from embarrassment, her stomach tight and sick with shame.

She wished she could stop and sink into the bark of one of the giant cottonwoods, like the dryad she’d fancied David to be, leaving her shame behind.
Inside the tree, no one would find me. I’d be safe. Protected from the world, from the shame I’ll feel each time I go into company—wondering what people are thinking.
But Harriet couldn’t stop and hide. She had to find David. Reassure him before he retreated back into silence.