The Witch of Roan Mountain (9 page)

Delphine nodded sadly. “He tried to make me do it but, with my hand like it is, he finally gave up and did it himself.” She held up her hand so that Maeve could see it. It was shaped like a lobster claw with only two appendages that didn’t even really resemble fingers. They weren’t jointed and Maeve saw no fingernails on them.

“And framed you?”

“Bessie already told them all I was the cause of the pox, that I was the one making every one sick. She knew they’d believe anything about me after that.”

“Why was the rifle at your house?”

“It wasn’t the same one. The one at my house was Hoke’s. I never fired a rifle in my life.”

Maeve shook her head. “And they hanged you for it.” It was sadly, not a unique story. One of the reasons she’d gone into criminal law was to make sure that no innocent person was jailed or executed.

“What can I do to prove he killed Jenks? I want to clear your name.”

“I don’t know if it’s still there.”

Maeve wrinkled her brow. “What and where?”

Tears welled in the corners of Delphine’s eyes. “Afterwards, when I saw that Jenks was mortally wounded, I fell on the ground beside him. My candelabra, the one my mother had carried from Charleston when she’d married my daddy, was right beside me. I wanted to see Jenks’ face, I wanted him to know I was with him until the very end.”

Maeve wanted to touch Delphine, wanted to take her hand and comfort her. She took a couple of steps closer to the ghost. “He knew he was dying?”

Delphine nodded. “He knew he didn’t have much time.”

Maeve couldn’t imagine what a moment like that must feel like. Her mind darted to Campbell.

How would I feel if I had to watch Campbell die? Holy shit. She was in love with Campbell. Again.

Tears welled in the corner of Maeve’s eyes. “I can’t imagine what that moment must have been like.”

“I told him that I’d always love him, that I’d make sure our child had a good life. He smiled and then,” she sobbed softly. “And then he was gone. When I stood, Bessie and Calvin were gone. They’d taken the rifle and left.”

“Why didn’t they kill you?”

“Bessie wanted me to suffer.”

“What did you do?”

“I stayed with him until the Sheriff found me there the next morning.”

“And by then he’d found the gun at your cabin?”

Delphine nodded. “I never went home again.”

“So how can we prove that you didn’t kill Jenks?”

“The candelabra.”

Maeve knitted her brow. “How could that help?”

“I had a piece of paper. One I’d shoved down into the hole beneath the candle to keep it upright. He wrote out what happened right before he died. He didn’t want me to be blamed.”

“How come you didn’t show it to the Sheriff? Why didn’t your lawyer?”

“No one believed me, and I was in jail.”

“You think the piece of paper is still in the candelabra?”

Delphine shrugged. “It’s the only thing that can really clear my name.”

“Where is it?”

“I asked the jailer to make sure Evelyn Hyatt got it. I wanted my baby to have the one thing that was my mother’s.”

“I’ve got to find it,” Maeve said.

“Please do, Maeve.” When Delphine said her name, a chill ran up her spine. “I want to leave this place. I’ve been trapped her for so long. If I make it to heaven, maybe I can see Jenks, my little girl, those who came after her.”

“Campbell? The man that’s been helping me? He’s one of your descendants.”

Delphine smiled. “He looks a lot like Jenks and he looks at you a lot like Jenks used to look at me.”

Maeve blushed. “I don’t think we’re meant for each other.”

“Then you’re blind.”

Maeve doesn’t know what losing Campbell would do to her. She’s too young to know that true love, the kind where you don’t know where you end and your lover begins, is as rare and beautiful as an April snow. They have the real thing. I can see in the way her eyes sparkle when she looks at him and in the way he grins when she speaks his name.

If she has any sense, she’ll grab onto him and never let go but I have little confidence in the living. They think there will always be one more day, one more hour. Not always.

One minute you’re holding your lover in your arms and the next you’re on the gallows for something you had nothing to do with.

Jenks didn’t give anyone the pox. If he had, it would’ve been me. I was the only woman he loved, and after Hoke died, I was the only woman he ever lay down with. I know that as sure as I know my own name.

The pox came to the mountains with someone else. Who? We’ll never know. The truth is lost to time.

*****

Maeve’s conversation with Delphine had forced her to reflect on her feelings for Campbell. She was in love with him. She’d never stopped loving him.

She hoped he’d never stopped loving her.

As soon as she had cell service, she dialed him. “Can I come to your house?”

“I guess. What’s up?”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” She couldn’t explain everything on the phone.

His house was located at the end of a gravel road. It was a small wood-framed house, painted a brilliant white. Maeve drove across the wooden bridge that spanned the large creek that ran along the edge of his property and parked near the side of the house.

Campbell, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, was standing on the porch, leaning against the beam that supported the porch roof. He looked delicious. If she didn’t have to find the candelabra and help Delphine move on to another realm, she’d jump out of the car and run into his arms. Not say a word to him until they were snuggling in his bed. Afterwards.

Instead she focused on her mission. “Do you have an old candelabra?”

He wrinkled his brow. “There’s an old silver one mom gave me before she passed away.”

“Where is it?” Maeve asked, brushing past him toward the front door.

“Whoa.” He stepped between her and the door, blocking it. “What is this all about?”

Maeve was so keyed up, so determined to find the scrap of paper that would clear Delphine’s mane and so damn attracted to Campbell, she couldn’t think straight. “I need to see that candelabra.”

He relented and stepped back from the door and opened it for her. “It’s on the mantle.” He pointed to the fireplace on the far wall.

Maeve rushed over and grabbed it. The four candles were old and dusty. She yanked them out one by one and peered into the holes. It was very difficult to see, but in the fourth well, she thought she saw something. “Get into my purse and hand me the tweezers.”

Campbell stood behind her. “Not until you tell me what in the hell is going on.”

She turned to face him, candelabra in her hand, “The only thing that might free Delphine is a piece of paper that might be stuck down in this.”

He grabbed her purse from the sofa where she’d tossed it on the way to the fireplace. He dug around until he found a pair of tweezer and handed them to her. “Be careful. If there’s anything in there, it’s pretty old and probably brittle.”

She tilted the candelabra on its side and held it up the light. Inserting the tweezers into the hole, she gingerly teased out a piece of paper. Rolled tightly, like a cigarette, it was yellowed with age. Maeve looked up into Campbell’s eyes. “This might be it.”

“I had no idea anything was in there. Let’s sit at the table and see what it says.”

After unrolling it, Maeve squinted to read the words. Written in loose cursive script, it read:

Calvin and Bessie done this. Delphine is innocent.

Jenks Vance, 1867

“This is it. Just where Delphine said it would be.” She ran the tip of her finger along the script and savored the feel of the rough paper. “It didn’t save her life but maybe it will clear her name and she can finally see Jenks again.”

Campbell and Maeve looked up at the same time. Their eyes met and Maeve couldn’t stop herself. She reached across the table and pulled him into her arms. She wanted Campbell more than she ever wanted anything.

He rose, lifting her to her feet. The kiss has all the heat of the one in the rain and all the softness of the one on Granny’s front porch.

Campbell took her hand and led her down the hall toward his bedroom.

“Wait,” she said, stopping him in the hallway.

“We both know what’s going to happen, Maeve.”

She smiled. “There’s something I want to say first.”

“Well, for God’s sake, hurry up.”

“I’m still in love with you.” She was taking a big chance but she couldn’t, wouldn’t, deny it any longer. “I want this to be more than just physical.”

He pressed her against the wall, his hands on her shoulder, his green eyes looking deeply into hers. “I can accept that.”

His lips branded hers and she kissed him back. They tore at each other’s clothes, ripping pulling, demanding. Standing only in her bra and panties, Campbell wedged his leg in between hers and she rubbed against him, desperate for release.

“Ummm, love makes you pretty excited, huh?” he whispered against her throat. “I don’t think we’re going to make it to the bedroom. Do you?”

Maeve moaned in response.

He reached around and unhooked her bra. He took one nipple in his mouth and massaged the other between his thumb and forefinger. He moved down her stomach, licking and kissing until her whole body felt as if it would melt with pleasure. He ran his tongue along the elastic of her panties making her moan.

“You ready for me?” he asked, his voice deep and husky.

“Mmmmm” was all she could manage.

He shimmied her panties off and she stepped out of them. He shucked out of his boxer shorts and tossed them aside.

“I can’t wait to make you scream,” he said. He ran his finger along the outside of her labia, barely brushing her clit with the tip. “I’ve waited a long time for you to come to me and I plan to take full advantage of this.”

He grabbed her ass and lifted her up like she weighed no more than a penny. With her back against the wall and her legs around his waist, he thrust into her. He fit inside her perfectly and she loved the cool feel of the wall against her back with the heat of Campbell touching every inch of her front.

His skin was warm and smooth. She ran her fingers along the muscles of his shoulders, feeling the strength in them.

He nibbled her neck as he drove into her. She pulled his lips back up to hers and he shoved his tongue into her mouth, taking every ounce of self-control she had. She locked her legs behind him. “Harder,” she demanded.

Campbell obliged. “I want to hear you scream my name,” he said into my ear. “So loud they can hear it in Tennessee.” He thrust into her as deeply as he could and looked into her eyes. “I love you, Maeve, and I intend to spend the rest of my life proving it.”

“Prove it now,” she teased.

“Ask and you shall receive.”

He moved his hips from side to side, brushing against her clit with every deep stroke. She tilted her head to the side and closed her eyes, abandoning everything but the sensations coursing through her body.

“Oh, God,” she moaned.

“Say my name,” Campbell said. “I won’t let you come until you do.”

The thrill of having Campbell in control of her body sent a delicious thrill through her. She loved a man in charge.

He slowed down, pulled out and she felt like she was going to explode with the frustrations. He took his tongue and licked a straight line from her neck, between her breasts, and all the way down to her pubic bone. “Mmmm,” he said, inserting his finger into her. “I’ve never seen you this wet.”

She couldn’t take it another second. “Take me to bed, Campbell Hyatt.”

His wolf-like smile made her even hotter. He led her down the hallway and into his bedroom.

She lay on the bed and he stood over her. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he said. “I want to make love to you every day for the rest of your life.”

“Let’s see what you can do, then.”

He climbed on top of her and slowly entered her. She moved against him, feeling the wave inside her building slowly until she couldn’t hold back another minute. “Make me come, Campbell.  Make me come right now.”

He drove into her and rubbed his finger along her clit. She fell into rhythm with him until she was floating, flying, in another world entirely. She shook with the intensity of the orgasm, shivering with pleasure.

When Campbell found his release, he fell beside her and pulled her into his arms. He covered them with a cotton quilt. “You’re never going back to Atlanta.”

“With incentive like this, I might just stay.”

Thank God Mama’s candelabra was there. Maybe I can finally leave this place. I’ll miss the wind, the smell of the snow, the way the fall air tastes like applesauce. But I’m ready. I’ve been ready for a long time.

Maeve will make sure everyone knows it wasn’t me.

My only crime was love.

*****

When Maeve and Campbell got back to Granny’s cabin, Granny wasted no time. “No secret what y’all have been up to,” she said with a mischievous grin. Instead of knitting she was making corn shuck dolls. Her basket overflowed with corn husks, pieces of felt and scraps of yarn. “I’m not too old to remember some things.”

Maeve felt her face flush. “We, well, we—”

“You’re both grown. You certainly don’t owe me an explanation but I do think you should have been doing more of that of sooner.”

Campbell laughed. “You’re right as usual,” he said.

Maeve took the tiny scrap of paper and showed it to her grandmother. “We figured it out. We solved the mystery.”

The old woman held the paper under the light and examined it. “That’s amazing. Like holding a piece of the past.”

Campbell and Maeve explained the details to Granny and she listened intently, asking several questions.

“You know you’re going to have use that legal mind of yours to clear her name. Get her conviction overturned. It’s the only thing that will set her spirit free.”

Over the next few days, Maeve worked feverishly assembling all the documents she’d copied into a motion. Even though the verdict was over a century old, she had compelling proof that Delphine had been wrongly convicted and hanged.

When she presented them to the judge a couple of months later, he agreed.

“Maeve McMahan, you’ve done an outstanding job of researching this case and bringing it to a conclusion that will clear the name of a wrongly accused woman. My hope is that it will give her spirit rest.”

With one signature, it was done. Finished.

Campbell took Maeve and Granny, whose leg was now healed, out to the Steakhouse for a celebration supper.

“The only thing left to do is tell Delphine,” Maeve said. “I’d like for you both to go with me.”

Granny shook her head. “This is something you and Campbell need to do. Just the two of you.”

Campbell looked across the table and nodded. “She’s right. Delphine is my grandmother and she’s the reason we’re back together.”

“I told you this boy had more sense than all the others put together,” Granny said.