The Caged Graves (26 page)

Shuddering and trembling, Verity didn't attempt to move. Her captor lay on the floor, unconscious and still, and her rescuer whipped a scalpel out of his inside coat pocket. Hadley Jones flicked the knife through Aunt Clara's bonds first, then bent to release Liza's hands.

“Don't worry about your son, Mrs. Thomas,” he said. “I'll go after him in a moment. Just let me get the three of you free.”

Liza gasped as her hands came loose, and Jones rubbed vigorously at her wrists to restore circulation. He looked up, darting his eyes at Verity and Aunt Clara.

“I'm not here alone,” he said. “Hawk's out on the hillside, watching the cabin. Get yourselves out of here—head in any direction, and he'll see you. He'll come for you and escort you to safety.”

Then he approached Verity, his eyes sad and weary.

She was still shocked by his vicious attack on his brother. It had been necessary, and it had probably saved their lives, but she could hardly stand to look him in the face.

“I'm sorry, Verity,” he murmured as he sawed his knife through the twine around her wrists. The twine fell free, and her hands dropped heavily to her sides.

He reached for them, but Verity wrenched away from him, hauled back one numb hand, and slapped him soundly across the face.

Blinking a little and taking a sharp breath, he stepped backward. His face was pale against his red hair, but his expression was resigned. “I'll go after Johnny now,” he said dully. “Where's Geoff's gun?”

“I have it,” Aunt Clara said, picking it up off the floor.

Clasping it in both hands, she turned around and fired it directly at Hadley Jones.

VERITY'S SCREAM was lost in the sound of gunfire. Jones's body hit hers, and they both went down heavily in a room suddenly thick with smoke.

“Mama!” Liza cried. “He was going to help Johnny!”

“Johnny doesn't need anyone's help. He knows what to do when he gets to the caves.”

Their voices sounded far away to Verity's ringing ears. She struggled to sit upright, but Hadley Jones was lying on top of her, and when she tried to move him, she froze in horror.

There was blood everywhere.

“Hadley.” Her voice shook. “Hadley.”

A wave of emotion overcame her.
Nate . . . oh, Nate . . .
Nate was far away—safe and sound—but he couldn't help her.

She forced herself to look at Hadley Jones and the gaping wound in his chest. If there was ever a moment she would have liked to faint, it was now.

Liza turned her head and gagged. “Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord.”

Verity's hands shook. She was uncertain where to touch him, but she knew she had to stop the bleeding. “Bring me something! Bring me—bring me—one of those bedrolls.” She tried to sit up again, easing him back. His head fell limply into her lap, his face pale and still. “Get something!” She looked up—to find herself staring into the barrel of a revolver.

“Be still, Verity,” Aunt Clara instructed her.

“Mama?” Liza asked in confusion. She was holding one of the filthy bedrolls in her arms.

Verity had thought, a moment before, that her aunt had fired the gun by accident.

But Verity had been wrong.

“For a while I thought you'd throw Nathaniel over for this man,” Aunt Clara said, her mouth turned down as if she were disappointed by a small setback. “But you didn't. Then I decided it might be better to let you marry Nathaniel so he could get the Boone land, and I could deal with
you
afterward. But this is too good an opportunity to miss. No one will be able to say what happened here today.”

Hadley Jones stirred, the first sign he was still alive. Verity gasped and tightened her arms around him. Aunt Clara was eyeing him dubiously, as if considering whether to take another shot at him.

But the gun was still pointed at Verity.

“Mama,” Liza whimpered again.

“Hush, you foolish child. I told you I'd get Nathaniel for you. Did you think it could be done without a little spilled blood?” She spared her daughter a derisive glance. “I told you—life's a battle.”

She'd said that once before, to her niece, and now Verity recognized it for the threat it was.

“Is that how you got your husband, Aunt Clara?” Verity said, her voice shaking. “By spilling blood? You poisoned them, didn't you? You gave Asenath and my mother the poisoned honey that killed Rebecca Clayton. You were there when Rebecca died; you knew what killed her, and you kept some for yourself.”

Liza whimpered, but her mother made a noise of exasperation.

“The honey didn't kill Asenath—just made her sick. The second time, I brewed the mountain laurel directly into tea, as strong as I could make it.”

“You poisoned my mother,” gasped Verity.

“I had no grudge against Sarah Ann,” Clara Thomas said. “I truly regretted her passing. I had no idea she'd turn up that day, wanting to try my remedy for nausea along with Asenath. There was nothing I could do.”

Asenath pins her hopes on Miss Piper's remedies,
Sarah Ann had written. How had Verity not recognized her aunt's maiden name? She'd given it to her second son, after all . . .

“You never did a thing for yourself,” Aunt Clara berated Liza. “You never spoke to Nathaniel or did any of the things I told you would catch his attention.”

“Mama!” the girl wailed.

“You can't expect what you want to be handed to you. You have to
take
it! Put that down, stupid girl!” She snatched the bedroll from Liza's arms and flung it to the floor. Then she forced the gun into her daughter's hands.

Verity watched in horror as the woman wrapped Liza's reluctant fingers around the weapon. The girl's eyes grew round as saucers. “Now,” said Aunt Clara gruffly, “do it. You'll never appreciate him if you don't pay the price yourself.”

The price was murder. Clara Piper Thomas had murdered two women—two pregnant women—to marry the man she wanted. And she'd gotten away with it. She'd raised his five children for almost fourteen years, without penalty or remorse.

Plain, gawky Liza must have hated golden-haired Verity at first sight—perhaps months before the first sight, when Fanny McClure had initially suggested to Ransloe Boone that their children might marry. Liza's hands trembled, and her eyes wandered from her cousin down to Hadley Jones and his blood-soaked shirt. She swayed on her feet.

“For pity's sake!” Aunt Clara reached over as though to squeeze the trigger herself, but Liza shoved her away with an elbow.

“I'll do it, Mother!”

And when Aunt Clara stepped back, smiling in approval, Liza turned around, hunched her shoulders, and fired the weapon into the dirt floor—once—twice—three times.

“You fool!” Aunt Clara lunged for the weapon.

Verity let Hadley Jones fall to the floor and launched herself up, reaching for the surgeon's knife on the table. Her aunt snatched it before she could touch it and swung it at her viciously.

Recoiling, Verity ducked under the table. “Liza, help me!” she shrieked.

But Liza's rebellion stopped at emptying the revolver. After firing twice more, she threw the gun across the room, flattened herself against the wall of the cabin, and threw both hands over her face.

The smoke in the room was now even thicker. Aunt Clara bent and felt under the table with her free hand. Verity dodged her and burst out from under the table. Her shoe caught in her skirt, and she staggered, unable to stand upright. Aunt Clara got her hand on a hank of Verity's hair and wrenched her backward.

The back of Verity's head struck the table, and for a moment everything dimmed around her. She fought the darkness desperately, knowing that to lose consciousness now meant death. Flailing, trying to rise, she found one arm immobile, pinned beneath her aunt's knee. Clara Thomas leaned over Verity, her corkscrew curls swinging around her chiseled, plain face. Her stony eyes surveyed the helpless girl as if she were merely a nuisance farm animal that needed slaughtering. Tightening her grip on Verity's hair, Aunt Clara forced her head back, exposing her throat. Then she raised the scalpel.

Verity caught her aunt's wrist with her one free hand, which was slick with blood—her own or Hadley's. That hand was slipping, sliding inexorably up Aunt Clara's arm as the woman bore down with unrelenting force.

A third hand suddenly appeared in Verity's field of vision, a large, sinewy hand with long fingers that wrapped around Aunt Clara's wrist, jerked her arm upward, and slammed her clenched fist against the edge of the table. Aunt Clara gasped, her fingers flying open, the scalpel falling to the floor by Verity's head. Then she disappeared entirely, hauled backward and tossed aside.

The man leaned over Verity. It was the second time she'd seen his face looking down at her in this swamp, dark skinned with high cheekbones, an angry expression, and a scar running across his eye and down his cheek.

This time, Verity could have kissed him.

 

No more than two minutes had passed since Clara Thomas had fired the first shot. It seemed impossible that it had all happened so fast, yet Hawk Poole assured Verity it had been no longer than that. He'd been watching from the woods, with instructions to help the captives if Hadley Jones could free them, but he'd abandoned his post at the sound of gunfire.

Aunt Clara had fled the cabin.

“Let her go,” Hawk Poole said, sparing a brief glance at the unconscious Harwood and then turning to the more gravely injured brother.

“But she shot Dr. Jones!” Verity protested. “And she killed others—my mother, my aunt!”

Liza gasped and sobbed to hear it said a second time. No matter what Aunt Clara had advised Liza about Nate, Verity was sure the girl hadn't known about her mother's murderous past.

“Let her go,” Hawk Poole repeated. But he nodded toward Liza, murmuring, “What about her?”

“She saved my life,” Verity replied.

Liza met Verity's eyes tearfully for just a moment, then sank to the floor and covered her face with her hands.

Hawk Poole peeled Hadley Jones's shirt, stiff with blood, away from the wound, probing with gentle fingers. “Hadley,” Verity said, brushing ginger curls away from the young man's pale face. “Hadley, do you hear me?”

“Don't try to wake him, Miss Boone,” Hawk Poole said, stuffing a handkerchief into the wound. “He's better off unconscious. If he wakes and starts moving around, he'll bleed more, and he can't afford it.” The man rose to his feet. “The bullet is lodged in his shoulder. It needs to come out, or he'll die of infection, even if the bleeding stops. We need to get him to the doctor.”

Dr. Robbins of the shaking hands. Verity shuddered at the thought. “How can we move him?” Even Hawk Poole's gentle examination had caused a fresh welling of bright-red blood. They couldn't possibly carry him up that hill without injuring him further.

“Leave that to me.” Hawk Poole strode to the door and whistled shrilly. Two boys appeared at once, as if they'd been waiting for his signal. One was a year or two younger than Verity. The other couldn't have been more than twelve. Hawk Poole stepped outside to speak to them softly, pointing into the swamp and apparently giving instructions. Then he returned to the cabin with the older boy, while the younger one ran off.

The boy's eyes widened at the sight of the wounded man. “We'll need a sling to carry him, Uncle Hawk.”

Verity promptly picked up one of the bedrolls. “Will this do?”

She and the boy unrolled the cotton ticking and eased it under the unconscious man, while Hawk Poole bound Harwood's feet and one hand with fishing line.

“What about my brother?” Liza stood up, still snuffling and wiping tears from her eyes. “My brother is out there with that other man!”

“I sent my son Joseph after him, Miss Thomas.”

Verity looked up in alarm. “Alone? That man is dangerous!”

Hawk Poole spared her a brief, humorless smile. “Not alone. Joseph's got three older brothers. Barrow will never see them coming.” He stood up and surveyed the trussed-up Harwood. “That'll hold him. Now let's see to our friend.”

When the two men lifted the makeshift sling, Hadley Jones groaned and struggled. Verity caught his hand and, clasping it tightly, walked alongside as the Pooles carried him out of the cabin. “Be still,” she urged him, leaning close to speak in his ear. “You're safe. We're taking you for help.”

To her surprise, his eyes flew open and his hand crushed hers. “Tell Robbins to wash his damned equipment,” his voice rasped.

“I will!” exclaimed Verity. “I promise!”

They didn't carry him up the hill. Hawk Poole and his nephew took him down through the Shades, through thigh-deep water, lifting the sling up as high as they could carry it. Verity slogged along beside them, her skirts soaked in the green, slimy water, hanging on to Hadley Jones's hand.

She raised her head at the sound of a voice hailing them. Ahead, two men paddled a fishing boat through the swamp waters. One threw down his paddle and jumped over the side to splash his way toward them. It was Daniel Poole. “Miss Boone!” he called. “Thank heavens! Your father is worried sick, and Nathaniel's got half the town searching for you.” Then Daniel got a good look at Verity and the occupant of the sling and staggered to a halt. “What happened?” he gasped.

“I need that boat,” Hawk Poole said, his breath short. “And I need you to get a message to town. Tell them we've got Miss Boone and Miss Thomas. Robbins should ready his surgery, and there's a man at the cabin needing a jail cell.”

Daniel nodded, but his eyes were on Verity's hand, clasped tightly to the injured man's.

Let him think what he will,
she thought fiercely. Hadley Jones had been wounded trying to help her. Clara Thomas had shot him merely to eliminate a witness, before she'd tried to murder her own niece. Verity felt no shame in holding his hand now.