Elizabeth Lane (8 page)

“In the years since I first came to Miner’s Gulch, you have honored me with your friendship and your…trust.”
Her voice wavered. She gazed down at her hands. For an instant, Donovan hoped she might come to her senses and stop, but it was not to be. Raising her head and taking a deep breath, Sarah plunged toward the precipice.

“I’ve tried to be worthy of that trust, that friendship. I’ve tried to be a good neighbor…tried to make myself of use. I’ve delivered your babies, schooled your children—” Her breath caught in a little gasp as she struggled for self-control. “I’ve tried. But when someone is living a lie, nothing else matters. Nothing else counts enough to make up the difference.”

Again Sarah paused to collect her thoughts. The meeting’s drowsy atmosphere had evaporated. Every head was turned, every eye riveted on the slender figure who stood alone in the aisle, a beam of light from the window falling on her tightly bound hair.

Donovan felt Katy nudge his arm. “What’s happening, Uncle Donovan?” she asked. “What’s Miss Sarah talking about?”

“Hush!” A frowning matron in the next row spared Donovan the task of silencing his niece. “Be still and listen, child!”

Sarah’s face was so pale that Donovan feared—or perhaps hoped—she would faint. He had not expected this of her. He had not asked it, nor even wanted it. He had only wanted the woman out of Miner’s Gulch. Now she was about to destroy herself, and he was powerless to stop her.

She roused herself at last. Squaring her jaw, she plucked the pince-nez spectacles from her nose and let them drop, to dangle unneeded from their thin black cord. Her voice, when she spoke, was neither Sarah Parker’s brusque Yankee twang nor Lydia Taggart’s languorous Southern purr. It was the rich, cultured voice of a professional actress—a voice with the strength to penetrate the upper balcony of a theater, a voice with the subtlety to curl around a man’s heart. The sound of it thrilled Donovan to the quick.

“I’ve lied to you long enough,” she declared to the gaping townspeople. “It’s time to open the book of my life and set the record straight. When you’ve heard my story…” She drew a tremulous breath. “When you know everything, I leave it to you, my friends and neighbors, to sit as my judges. I can only ask for your understanding…and your forgiveness.”

A rustle, like the sound of wind through a Kansas wheat field, passed through the congregation. In Miner’s Gulch, Sarah Parker had clearly lived above reproach. The idea that this saintly but mysterious young woman had something to hide created a stir of the most delicious anticipation. These were decent people, Donovan reminded himself. But they were human. All too human.

They would crucify her.

“I spent most of last night wondering where to begin,” Sarah continued, plunging relentlessly toward her doom. “In order for you to understand everything, I suppose I should start at the beginning. I was raised in New Bedford, Massachusetts. My father was a preacher—which church no longer matters. He loved me in his way, I suppose, but he was strict, and I was rebellious. At sixteen, I eloped with a traveling actor, a Mr. Reginald Buckley from Savannah.”

An audible buzz rippled through the little church, a murmur of surprise and speculation. Donovan felt a dark tightening in his gut. Sarah’s first revelation was merely scandalous. How would the people of Miner’s Gulch react to the rest of her story? There was no call to even wonder.

“Mr. Buckley taught me his profession,” she continued as crisply as if she had memorized the lines. “We performed together for nearly six years, mostly in the South. I grew to love the warmth and graciousness of the Southern people. But there was one thing I could not abide, and that was slavery!”

There—she had touched a nerve. Most of the listeners had been too poor to own slaves before the war. But the
idea was a point of bitterness all the same. Donovan could feel the rising tide of hostility in the little chapel. He could hear the murmurs, sense the clenching of fists and quickening of pulses. Sarah was already in danger.

Suddenly he knew what he had to do.

“I’ve heard enough!” He sprang to his feet with a force that tumbled poor Annie into the lap of the woman on her right. “We won’t have a blasted abolitionist living in this town and teaching our children!” he thundered. “Pack your trunks and be out of Miner’s Gulch by sundown, Miss Sarah Parker, or else—”

“Sit down and be quiet, Mr. Cole.”

Sarah’s voice rang out in the shocked silence of the little church, its queenly tone riveting even the frantic Donovan. She stood alone and erect, an imperious figure now, in her prim white shirtwaist and dark blue skirt. What role was she playing now? Donovan wondered. Was she Medea? Antigone? Joan of Arc?

Her calm gray eyes drilled into Donovan’s like rifle bullets. “I know what you’re trying to do,” she said. “But it won’t work. I told you Miner’s Gulch was my home, and I intend to remain—at least until these good people have heard everything I came to say.”

Donovan felt a sharp tug at the tail of his coat. “Siddown!” a male voice hissed behind him. “Let the little lady have her say!”

“Yes!” a woman chorused. “We want to hear everything!”

Swearing under his breath, Donovan crumpled in defeat. He had done his best to save Sarah Parker’s miserable life. But as he had long since learned, there was no point in saving someone hell-bent on self-destruction.

He sagged into his seat, glaring at her in impotent rage. Why had he even bothered? Why should he care? Let the stubborn little fool hang herself! Heaven knows, she deserved it!

Sarah stood quietly, waiting for the uproar to fade. Only when the chapel was as silent as the grave itself did she take up her story.

“Many of you have seen what I saw. Children sold away from their mothers. Men scarred and broken under the lash. Women living as concubines to their masters…I never got over the horror of it. And I vowed that if I were ever offered the chance to fight such an evil, I would not turn away.”

Some members of the congregation listened with downcast eyes. She was good, Donovan conceded. The slaves on White Oaks had been decently treated, but he knew of other plantations where blacks had been shamefully abused. Sarah’s eloquent voice brought back every wretched sight he had ever witnessed, and he knew she was having the same effect on others within her hearing.

“My chance came just before the war,” she continued, plunging ahead with an abandon that made Donovan reel. “My husband had died. I found myself alone in Washington, in desperate straits. I had no money. No employment. My family had disowned me when I ran off with Mr. Buckley, and there was no hope of going back to them. That was when President Lincoln’s first secretary of war, Mr. Simon Cameron, summoned me to his office.”

The chapel was deathly still, except for the wail of a baby, who was rapidly hustled outside, and the intermittent coughing of the old man who had read the scriptures. The sense of anticipation darkened as the listeners strained in their seats. This, they’d begun to realize, was not the simple confession of a woman gone astray. What Sarah Parker had done went beyond the bounds of ordinary sin. It was something that had touched them all.

Sick with fear for her, Donovan watched helplessly as Sarah squared her shoulders and went on speaking. “Mr. Cameron offered me a new name and a new life, in Richmond, Virginia, working as a secret agent for the United
States government. Out of duty and necessity, I had no choice but to accept.”

The explosion of a mortar shell could scarcely have had more impact on the little congregation. People sat frozen in shocked disbelief, eyes staring, jaws gone slack, as Sarah’s words sank in. Donovan drew his nieces protectively close, expecting a riot to break out in the next instant. But he had underestimated Sarah Parker’s theatrical talents. She held them in thrall with her voice, with her eyes, as the fatal flow of words continued.

“In Richmond, there was a woman with secret abolitionist sympathies who had died and left her property to the cause. Posing as her widowed niece, I was set up in her fine house. I was supplied with servants, with beautiful clothes, and enough money to give the most lavish parties in town. Music…the best food, the best wines…the gayest conversation. At the beginning of the war, when spirits were high, there was no livelier place in all of Richmond.”

The cadence of Sarah’s voice had slowed and softened, taking on a throaty sweetness that clawed at Donovan’s heart. He stared at her, transfixed. Had anyone else noticed the change? The coquettish tilt of her small, cleft chin? The subtle arch of her torso that thrust her breasts into saucy little points beneath the prim shirtwaist? Or was his mind playing tricks on him?

He tried to blink the vision away—but no, what he saw was real. She was doing it on purpose, and her witchery was directed right at him.

Forget the drab clothes. Forget the pale face and skinned-back hair. The woman who stood before Donovan now was Lydia Taggart.

Their eyes met with an impact that flashed like flint igniting tinder. For an excruciating instant, their gazes locked—his astonished and angry, hers blazing defiance. Then, with a self-possession that made Donovan grind his teeth, she turned away from him, back to her riveted audience.
Once more, Lydia’s honeyed voice took up the thread of her story.

“My home became a gathering place for young officers of the Confederacy. They were free with their talk, especially when their tongues were loosened by a bit of Madeira or peach brandy. Learning military secrets was little more than a matter of listening and remembering.”

A shudder, slight but unmistakable, passed through Sarah’s slim body. Only then did Donovan realize how deeply she drew on her own courage. “I did my work well,” she said softly. “For nearly four years, I gathered information and relayed it through the lines to the Union army.”

The chapel was a powder magazine, primed to explode at the touch of a spark. Donovan could feel the tension rising, the long-suppressed rage of a proud people shamed by defeat—the lost sons, fathers and brothers, the homes and fortunes gone up in smoke.

Sarah was throwing herself on their mercy. But mercy was not what she would find. Donovan could see it in the eyes of the congregation. He could see it in the tightened fists, the clenched jaws. They were bitter enough to kill her. And some of them were capable of doing exactly that.

Was this what he’d wanted when he’d threatened Sarah? His sister’s neighbors thrown into mob violence? A helpless—albeit guilty—female, destroyed at their hands, in an act that would haunt them to the end of their days?

Damn the woman! Why had she done such a crazy fool thing? Why couldn’t she have simply packed up and left town?

Sarah had fallen silent and was staring down at her fingers. Lydia Taggart had vanished. The self-possessed actress had vanished. Now, when Donovan looked at her, he saw only Sarah Parker, thin and pale and vulnerable, standing alone in a sea of anger.

He was sick with fear for her. But then, he’d done all he could, he reminded himself. He had tried to get her out of this mess, and Sarah had adamantly refused his help.

The crowd was stirring now, muttering like a swarm of riled-up hornets. Without Sarah’s story to hold them at bay, they were losing control. Donovan circled each of his nieces with a protecting arm. Annie was as rigid as ice. Katy was trembling. They were too young to understand what Sarah had done, but they sensed the darkness that had invaded their worship house. They felt the danger around them. They felt the rage, the fear.

It was MacIntyre, the one-armed ex-corporal who ran the livery stable, who touched off the powder keg. Reeling to his feet, he staggered into the aisle and shook his single gnarled fist in Sarah’s face.

“You lyin’ Yankee bitch, you owe me an arm!” he rasped. “We oughta string you up here and now!”

Hoots of approval rang out in the chapel. The crowd was boiling, surging with pent-up fury. People were jumping to their feet. Another instant and they would all be out of their seats, swarming over Sarah like a pack of wolves.

Sarah had backed up against the end of a pew. She stood tall, her chin lifted in proud defiance. Donovan felt a prickle of grudging admiration. Seldom, even in battle, had he witnessed such cool courage. The woman’s veins had to be pumping ice water.

Half hesitating, she turned toward him. For the space of a heartbeat, their eyes met. Only then did Donovan glimpse the flash of stark terror in their depths. Sarah had bared her soul to the neighbors she’d served. She had gambled on their forgiveness, and she had lost. Her plight tore at his heart. Suddenly something in him snapped.

“Hold it right there!” Donovan was on his feet, barreling his way into the aisle. He was not armed, of course, but his broad shoulders and towering bulk defied any man to lay a hand on the woman beside him. Most of the townspeople knew he was a lawman, as well. They hung back, MacIntyre with them, waiting to see what would happen next.

“Listen to me!” Donovan glowered beneath his thick eyebrows. “I suffered more than most of you in the war. The Yankees burned my family’s plantation! I lost a brother at Antietam and rotted away nearly two years at Camp Douglas! But that doesn’t entitle me to lynch a helpless woman, no matter what she might have done! When the war ended three years ago, the president declared an amnesty! Stringing up former spies is against the law these days!”

Donovan glared at the congregation. As he waited out their anger, he could feel the sweat drops beading his temples and trickling between his shoulder blades. He was right about the law. But no jury in the land would convict a churchful of embittered Southerners for lynching a selfconfessed Yankee spy.

Willing himself to stay calm, he glanced up and down the pews, focusing a hard, direct gaze on each face. A retired U.S. marshal in Dodge had taught Donovan the trick as a means of controlling unruly crowds. Although he’d never had occasion to use it until now, the method seemed to work. Little by little, Donovan felt the frenzy easing. His eyes met downcast faces as people settled back into their seats.

“That’s better,” he rumbled, surveying the chapel. “Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, but me, I’m still curious. I’d like to know how Miss Sarah here managed after the war. I’d like to know how the devil she ended up in a godforsaken place like Miner’s Gulch, playing Yankee nursemaid to a bunch of washed-up Southerners who have every reason to hate her guts.”