House on Diablo Road: Resurrection Day (The McCann Family Saga Book 3) (5 page)

The groom, Jonathan Bonney, had been photographed in white starched collar and gray suit, darkly handsome with a strong jawline and cleft chin. Katie saw enough family resemblance to realize that her suitor, Nathan Bonney, was the great grandson of Jonathan and his deceased first wife. Since no offspring between Cyrus and Lucinda showed on the McCann family tree, it was apparent that Lucinda had been barren in marriages to both Cyrus and Jonathan. Katie could almost feel the woman's presence—her disappointment, her sadness, her feeling of worthlessness. Suddenly the overhead gas light flickered, went off and came back on, and the soft fragrance of some type of sweet perfume lingered in the air.

And what had become of the the plantation? Shuffling through the editions, Katie soon came to the answer.

If Katie had been working a jigsaw puzzle, she may have found the last missing piece, but mind games are not so easy to piece together. Lucinda's address had never changed, according to the records. She remained in the house with Jonathan Bonney, the new owner, even before he married her. What
a strange turn of events,
thought Katie.
Something here seems underhanded. Had there been something between Lucinda and Jonathan all along?

The librarian cleared her throat and tapped her pencil on the counter. Katie looked up at the clock on the wall . It was six o’clock. She had spent three hours digging through the archives, and it was now closing time. Her legs were numb, her eyes ached, and she suddenly realized she was hungry.

Before she could return the references to their proper place, Nate strolled into the library looking dapper and acting nonchalant—part of the casual charm of which he was all too well aware. Everything about him whispered wealth and privilege.

Oh yes,
she thought.
He is indeed the great grandson of Jonathan Bonney.
The family resemblance was even more striking after skipping a couple of generations—as is sometimes the way. There was a current like static electricity running through her as he came closer. This was different from her earlier romance with the boy down the road. The Yancy boy had been comfortable and familiar as a teddy bear. Nate was a strike of a lightning bolt that jolted the heart.

He took her notebook from her and read what she had scribbled. A shadow crossed his handsome face but was quickly replaced by a half smile. He leaned forward and brushed his lips against the side of her neck, where her pulse beat, and then he closed the newspaper documents.

“
I see you’re unearthing skeletons,” he said. “What a silly girl to be digging up the past.”

He swiveled her around in the chair and knelt before her, until they were eye to eye. “You know, Katie, there’s no need to pick open healed wounds. These ancient stories are better left where they do no harm—right here in this stuffy old library. Now put everything away, and let’s get you home for dinner.”

He pulled her to her feet, and his fingers interlocked at the small of her back, enclosing her in a tender trap with her as a willing prisoner. Yet something in his tone had seemed patronizing to her, in a modern era when many women still expected nothing more. Kathryn Hannah McCann was not one of those women. Nathan Bonney had made her feel as if she were an overly curious child who needed to be saved from herself. Yet she did not pull away from his embrace, as his lips sought hers. He knew exactly what his effect on her was, and he used it to his advantage.

The librarian clucked her tongue and shook her head. “Closing time.”

Katie walked with Nate out into the brisk evening air and decided now was not the time to discuss what she had learned. The evening was much too perfect—sitting close to him as he drove, taking in his soapy scent beneath the spiciness of his cologne, feeling the strength of his shoulder against hers. All cohesive thought came to a roaring halt. There was one thing she
would
do. Tomorrow, she would ask the one person who had firsthand knowledge of the rivalry between her great uncle and Nate’s great grandfather. She thirsted for the knowledge of what went on in that house—just as her little brother had been drawn to that same place.

The next day, Katie entered her father’s office where Jesse sat at his desk, and Buck cat napped in a chair. Without preamble, she came straight to the point: “Do either of you know anything about the killing of Cyrus McCann?”

Jesse, preoccupied by mill production sheets, looked up and gave Katie a vacant stare. Buck extricated himself from the deep cushion and chased thoughts scattered like feathers in the wind:
I knew this day would come
—
the day when a McCann would read something somewhere, and the question would be asked. What do you know about the killing of Cyrus McCann?

Buck fumbled with a chew of tobacco. “I ain't never talked about those days, but I never forgot neither. Guess it’s time I took out my keepsakes. Will you hand me that cigar box on that top shelf, Jesse?”

Jesse did as Buck asked. “Keepsakes?” he said. “And all this time I never knew you were sentimental. You, of all people?”

“Has it ever occurred to you that sometimes a grouchy outside is a disguise for a mushy inside?”

“It occurred to me,” Jesse said.

They had come to a serious matter that Buck had dreaded for a very long time. It was time for whatever truth he knew. He dug inside the box and handed Katie a sepia colored Civil War tintype of two Confederate soldiers: a young, two-legged version of himself and a tall, fair haired soldier who vaguely resembled Jesse: the same thick light hair and aquiline features. On the back of the photograph was scrawled the words ”Me and Cyrus”.

“
What ya wanna know?” Buck asked.

“
What do I want to know? Well...everything
you
know, of course” she replied.

Buck repositioned the wad of tobacco. “Then sit yourself down. It’ll take me awhile.”

Katie sat and studied the photograph, Jesse laid down his paperwork, and Buck began:

“
Back in the war between the states, I was a part of Company D, 7th Cavalry, camped near Nacogdoches. Me and Cyrus worked in an infirmary over there, but then they sent me south to the Texas coast where the action was. They turned me into a sniper. I did some things I never wanted to do, but I had no choice but to follow orders. I was young and strong and learned to be an expert rifleman. Cyrus McCann had been drafted with me, and he hated every minute he was at camp. His heart was at home on the plantation with his wife Lucinda, and he worried about her being there alone with so many men around and no family. Then too there were the Night Riders going around terrorizing the Unionists and even those uncommitted to any side.

He was so worried about Lucinda being alone, he bought her a shot gun for protection. Before he left, he took her out back and taught her to shoot. Besides that, he knew he had placed the worries of their cotton business on her shoulders. So finally he was allowed a furlough, just before the war ended, to tend to business back home.

I remained on the coast in the thick of things. Charlotte and my baby boy had been gone for four years, and I had nothing left to lose and nothing to go home to. One day, I got a letter from Cyrus. It was the only letter I ever received from anyone I could count as a true friend, and so it meant something to me. That’s why I saved it.”

Buck dug deeper into the box and retrieved a sheet of stationery so aged that the folds were almost worn into. He read aloud, as Jesse and Katie listened attentively.

My Dear Friend Buck:

I need your help here at the plantation, as I am recuperating from the white leg. After receiving treatment, I expect to be well enough to return to camp with your help. Request that you take a short business furlough to square away the workers and assist in my return.

I remain your grateful friend,

Cyrus McCann

Buck’s eyes caught the spark of remembrance, and his gnarled hands tightened around the arms of his chair, as if bracing himself for an arduous journey back through time.

Without delay, Colonel Jameson signed Sgt. Colin Hennessy’s furlough on July 17. He liked the young soldier. He himself was from the same county and had been gone for a long time. While alone in his cot, the colonel , like Buck, dreamed of East Texas: the rolling hills dotted with wildflowers, fragrant, thick forests and slow muddy rivers meandering through the countryside like molasses. He missed the soft demure ladies who were unlike the camp followers with their hard eyes and painted lips. He missed the sound of mockingbirds singing every birds’ song and the sight of white tail deer frolicking in the meadows on crisp, frosty mornings. It seemed the copper haired young Irish–American standing at attention before him was one of his own kind.

“
At ease, son,” Colonel Jameson ordered. “I’m approving your furlough, because I’m sympathetic to the cotton growers up there in the piney woods. All the same, you need to urge Lt. McCann to return with you when your furlough is up ,or risk being branded as a deserter. McCann is several days overdue. You’ve no doubt heard that the Night Riders hang deserters, and they’re highly active in East Texas.”

“
We
will
return, sir. Cyrus is no deserter. Of that you can be sure. He’s been laid up and delayed, but he’s on the mend. Only the Grim Reaper himself could prevent his return. Of that I am sure!”

“
Good enough. Here are your papers. You’ll take the next train to Galveston. There are men there with wagons. You can hire one of them to take you as far as Nacogdoches, but it’s a long ride and will take a few days. You can make it on your own from Nacogdoches to Morgan’s Bluff. Report back to me as soon as you return. I'll be relieved to see you. You're the best shot in this regiment. You never miss your mark.

By nightfall, on the twentieth, Buck finally set foot upon the rough red ribbon of clay called Diablo Road and laid eyes on the place he had called home for four years: McCann Plantation. It was a sight for sad weary eyes, with its lush fields sloping gently down to the bank of the Neches River and the rustic house looming tall against the backdrop of towering pines. In the night he could see the flicker of small bonfires between the cabins and hear the workers’ hearty laughter. He could smell the fragrance of smoldering pecan wood and roasting pork belly, and his mouth watered. He had forgotten when he had eaten a real meal. The men, most of whom he knew, offered him all he could eat, and he gladly accepted.

Then came the moment he had dreaded. He returned to the cabin where he and Charlotte had spent their first and only year as husband and wife. Inside, the moonlight cut hard edged shadows against the bare bones of the cabin. By oil lamp he surveyed the austerity of what had been his life: a rocker, the bed still spread with Charlotte’s Wedding Ring quilt, a rusting iron pot still hanging in the fireplace, the unused crib he had made for his baby.

It was late, and choosing not to awaken Cyrus and Lucinda at the main house, Buck prepared for a night in his lonely little home. No breeze stirred through the open windows, and the heaviness of the air lay on him like a hot, wet blanket. After an hour of tossing about on the narrow bed, he tugged on his trousers and rode horseback to Caney Creek to take a good cool soak.

The trickling clear water was invigorating on his bare skin, and for a moment he could shut out everything: that memories of his dead wife and son and the war that set neighbor against neighbor and brother against brother. Before the war broke out, he had sided with neither Unionists nor Secessionists. How he regretted being responsible for killing men who had done him no harm—men whose faces he could not forget but whose names and histories he would never know. Yet it had been a matter of kill or be killed, and it was only then that he knew he wanted to live.

Sgt. Colin Hennessy was no coward, but he was losing the heart to fight. The war had begun to gnaw at his soul, until he feared there was little left for the hereafter. Sometimes he dreamed that Charlotte waited for him behind Heaven's portal, but the gate was locked. He was turned away by faceless Union soldiers.

At that moment, no dream troubled him. He pulled himself up from the creek and lay down in the grass, where his skin dried in the hot southerly wind. He drifted off for some time and was awakened by the thundering of horses’ hooves across Deadman’s Bridge. Night Riders were out, riding the county, hunting down deserters. He thought of Cyrus and the warning given by Col. Jameson, and he scrambled for his horse.