House on Diablo Road: Resurrection Day (The McCann Family Saga Book 3) (18 page)

Cal was quick to intervene in his urgent need to protect himself. “The kid’s not hiding nothing. Leave him alone.”

“
Fair enough, but watch your tongue. Now would you please pass the peas?” Buck asked again.

The time had come, just as Tobi knew it would. He took a deep breath and plunged in. “I need to tell you something, Daddy. We stopped at Blue Hole when we got lost on Founders' Day. There was this skeleton and shotgun at the bottom. I know we weren't supposed to be there but….”

“
I can't believe I heard you right. A skeleton? A shot gun? That place is off limits. Calvin, you were supposed to look after your brother, and Tobias, are you saying you went in the water?”

Cal hung his head. He couldn’t let his brother take the rap. “It was
me
,” he mumbled.

“
What?”

“
It was me I said!
I was the one who went to the bottom. It was me who saw the skeleton. Somebody had been tied down the body with bricks, and it was in some kind of old fashioned night clothes, and beside it was a rusty shotgun with initials on the stock...but I couldn’t get close enough to see real good. I couldn’t hold my breath any longer.”

Gentle Katie began to shed tears over a tragedy that might have been, and Nate placed his arm around her and squeezed her shoulder.

Jesse struggled to maintain composure, and Annie looked as if she had come undone. She said not a word but grabbed Buck’s plate and slung heaping spoons of peas over it, until it was running over. “Enough talk for now,” she said. “No more about this incident until we get home. This is supposed to be a
happy
welcome home supper. Now will you all just
eat
-
even if it
kills you.”

Jesse's anger dissipated, and he smiled at her unintended irony. “I hope you boys have learned your lesson. I do need to know more about these remains, so we can bring up whatever is left. We’ll need to see if there’s a way to make identification. But now is not the time to discuss it.”

He then raised a glass of sweet tea. “Here’s a toast to peace and prosperity for our newly-weds.”

Please God...give them peace,
Annie prayed silently.

Exhausted, the family went to bed around ten o'clock, but rest was short lived. They were awakened by a mysterious noise traveling along the upstairs hallway, past the bedroom
doors—a whispery swishing sound and then soft moaning, followed by the swishing sound again. It grew growing louder and came nearer. Then came a heart thumping, relentless
Boom, Boom!
on each bedroom door, underneath whose portals crept an insidious mist that swelled into a thick cloud. It seemed to swallow the entire house. Again there was the soft swishing, but this time, it was followed by crying. Then, again came the ear splitting pounding on the walls of every room, upstairs and down. An overpowering scent of gardenias filled the hallway and was gone in a moment.

Everyone in the house came wide awake and terrified. The shrill sound of Tobi’s scream came from the boys’ room down the hall. Annie grabbed her robe, and Jesse fumbled through the haze for his revolver. “Stay here!,” he shouted and attempted to push her back into the room. She fought him, until he released her. “I’m going with you to get my boy! Don’t tell me I can’t.”

Jesse relented, and they rushed out together into the dark and fog filled hallway, just as Buck came hopping out in his night shirt, joined by Katie and Nate. Katie asked the question to which no one had an answer: “What in the world has invaded my home?”

Jesse and Annie had felt their way along the walls to get to the boys and had returned, keeping them both close. “I didn't hear nothing, and I didn't see nothing! Honest I didn’t.” Tobi babbled, despite the certainty that he couldn’t have missed it. All he could think of was Crow’s knife poised at his throat.

A wide eyed Rachel came stumbling out of the bedroom she shared with Granny. “I told you we oughtn't to be here,” she whimpered. “I can’t see my hand in front of my face, and all that noise gave me an attack of nerves.” She fumbled into the pocket of her robe and pulled out a bottle of something she called “nerve tonic” and turned it up, until Jesse took it from her. “Keep your wits about you! Get back in the room with Granny, and lock the door,” he told her.

Nathan began wandering from one bedroom to the next, feeling his way in the darkness and finally returned to the hallway with a single candle. “I can’t even find a kerosene lantern. It’s as if someone has hidden them. Maybe some day they’ll get electricity out here in this God-forsaken place. I’m starting to wonder why I wanted to live here.”

The candle flame began to flicker wildly, even though the air was still. The effect was almost hypnotic, as everyone gazed at it wide-eyed and unblinking. It seemed like a lifeline in that pitch black cloud of terror, yet the noise stopped, and the fog, like a living thing, crept down the stairway and vanished.

“
Ain't no rest in this house,” Buck grumbled. “Will somebody tell me where Crow is? I’ll bet it’s him trying to scare us off!”

Jesse shook his head. “I don’t know that he would be capable of pulling off something like that. Besides, he sleeps in the old carriage house. I’ve kept a watch on him. I know he was asleep in his own bed earlier.”

“Playing possum no doubt,” Buck replied. “Do you hear that? Now what could that be?”

From downstairs came a pounding noise, which Jesse identified as a knock on the door. “Everyone stay put, while I see who it is.”

“
My Lord. Don’t answer that door,” Buck whispered. “Nobody but a dead-dog drunk or vicious criminal would be out on a night like this...and in the middle of nowhere at that. After what’s happened tonight, it might be something even worse.”

”
This is
my
house,” said Nate. “We’ll answer the door together.”

Buck was not to be outdone. “And then so will I. I’ll whoop whatever needs whoopin’, be it human or otherwise.”

Jesse was in no mood to argue. “Okay, Buck. You and Nate. Everyone else go to one bedroom. Get Granny Minna in there with you, and lock yourselves in.”

Annie’s eyes turned stormy. “
Don’t answer the door, Jesse!”

“
Annie, do as I say.”

After the women and the boys were locked in upstairs, the men went down, and Jesse peered through the peephole, as Nate held the candle to it. Jesse saw a tall man in a navy pea-coat, hunched over from the cold winter night. From the looks of him, he was only slightly older than Jesse and of the same build but dark in complexion. Beside the stranger stood the towering form of Snake Eye Higgins.

Jesse set his revolver on the entryway table and opened the door. The man extended his hand in greeting. Jesse responded, but his eyes never left Higgins’ face. “Do you have news for me, Higgins? Who is this with you?”

Before Snake Eye could answer, the man spoke up. “We’ve never met, you and I, but I’m your first cousin, and I've come from New Orleans. I've come to help you find that which you seek and to set this house in order.”

“
My
cousin
you say? Higgins, who the deuce is he?”

“
I’ll let him speak for himself, Mr. McCann.”

“
My name is Monet,” the man said. “Thomas Monet.”

A smile spread across Buck’s face. “Why I knew you when you were just a bundle baby.”

“
If Buck knows you, that’s good enough for me,” Nate said. “ Excuse my bad manners. Come inside. It’s blustery out tonight.”

The men entered and Snake Eye began to explain: “I saw Mr. Monet in town, and he was asking about you, Mr. McCann. Then we went together and talked to Mr. Clancy at the Gentleman's Literary Club. He told me you all were spending the night out here. Prissy old codger knows everything about everybody.”

Thomas Monet handed Jesse the business card from Morgan-McCann Mills. “My mother gave your card to me, and It was given to her by Mr. Higgins.”

“
Good enough. My daughter tells me that when she visited you in New Orleans, you had a vision.”

“
That’s much of what I’ve come to discuss with you, all of which is connected with what’s wrong with this house. Have you seen or heard anything unusual?”

“
Good Lord, yes. Just before you came. We thought the house was coming down on top of us. We heard sounds like I’ve never heard in my life.”

“I knew it when I read the cards for your daughter at Madame Emmaline’s. I knew there was something in this house. What have you seen at the dogwood tree?”

“
Nothing as yet. What are we supposed to see?”

“
I can’t be sure yet.”

“
So you’re that baby I once knew. You’re Louis and Phoebe’s son,” Buck said. “How can you and Jesse be cousins? He’s not related to either of your parents.”

“
I was wondering the same thing,” Jesse added.

“
Souple, Kousan!
Louis Monet is
not
my biological father, though I was raised by his family. Do you see the ring I wear? Someone placed it on my finger the day I was sent to live in New Orleans. It belonged to my
pou debon papa.
It bears the Freemason insignia. As that closed society goes….”

“Y
ou’re saying....”

“Louis Monet is not my father.”

“
Cyrus McCann
,” Jesse murmured.

Nathan Bonney was in a quandary the next day, and the time had come to talk. Katie’s family had gone home that morning after one hellish night, and they had insisted the couple go with them. Yet they needed time to talk. Now alone, they walked that land that had been so beloved by Cyrus McCann and so coveted by Jonathan Bonney—that piece of earth owned, at different times, by both. If that were not enough, they both had been married to the same woman. The Bonneys and the McCanns, once estranged by distrust and distaste, now became connected through the marriage of Kathryn and Nathan. Now all had come full circle to the place bequeathed by Jonathan’s will.

“
I do love it here,” Nathan said. “When I was little, my parents used to bring me here to see Jonathan. He was an old man then, but he took me riding on his horse and told me old Civil War stories. He was different with me than anyone else and not at all the way I’ve heard him described. The world saw him as a hard nosed Secessionist and even suspected him of being the leader of the Night Riders—in essence, a murderer. All I remember is an embittered old recluse, who happened to love me, his one and only great grandchild.”

Katie grew thoughtful, picturing the little boy riding double atop Jonathan’s horse, listening to old war stories. There were many sides to most people, and some were shown only to those who gave unconditional love
—
like a child. She began to understand her husband's fixation on the land and everything that came with it, was partly an emotional one. Yet she sensed something more underneath it.

It was one of those warm mid-winter days that takes East Texas by surprise, when golden daylight brushes away the drabness with a watercolor tint. Nothing could compare with that breathtaking day. Katie matched her pace with Nathan’s and thought carefully
before responding. “It has to be your decision, but I say we do as your parents suggested, and pack our bags. I think I should go back home, until the house has been checked out top to bottom. After last night’s episode, I have to question my beliefs. We heard not only the inhuman sounds...but laughter and crying, as well
.
It was
human
. I’ve thought about it, and as distorted as things were, I heard a woman's voice.”