Walk on Earth a Stranger (5 page)

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

F
inally, Jefferson peeks his head out the doorway and says, “I think it's clear.”

I slide off Peony and loop the reins of both horses through the porch rail. “Let's get this done,” I say, and my voice is heavy with the knowledge of what I won't find.

Jefferson makes Nugget stay outside. She whines as the door shuts behind us, but I feel better knowing she's out there keeping an eye on things.

“This way,” I say to Jefferson, and I lead him into the kitchen. The pine table I used last night to clean the Hawken rifle is askew, the braid rug beneath it wrinkled. One of the four chairs lies toppled on its side.

Jefferson helps me lift the table. I get down on my knees and peel back the rug to reveal two floorboards that almost-but-not-quite match the others.

“This isn't a very good hiding place, Lee,” Jefferson says over my shoulder.

Tears are already streaming down my face. I push down on the boards just so, and the opposite ends pop up so I can grab them. “Guess we never figured on actually getting robbed.” I reach into the hole.

“Anything?”

“It's gone,” I say in a dead voice. I pull out an empty flour sack, the one we were going to start filling next. It's still folded into a neat square.

“What's missing?”

“A three-pound flour bag.”

“Of gold?”

“Yes.”

“Like that one there? Except full?”

“I said yes.”

“Oh, heavens, Lee,” Jefferson says. “Three pounds of flour . . . That would be the same as . . .”

“Almost six pounds of gold.” I sit back on my heels, holding my hands in my lap to keep them from shaking. “That bag was worth well over a thousand dollars.”

Enough to take a whole family to California, easy.

“Where did you find it all?” Jefferson's voice is filled with breathless wonder, and maybe a little anger.

“Here and there,” I say, avoiding his gaze. The lie sets ugly in my heart. “We got lucky.”

“And now it's gone.”

I wipe my eyes quickly and get to my feet. “I have something for you.”

“What?”

I close my eyes and turn in place. “Just have to remember . . .” There. On the shelf above the box stove, where Mama's wrapping-paper flowers sit in their plain wooden vase. I walk over, upend the vase, and the nugget drops into my hand. I hand it to him. “This one is yours. I . . . chanced upon it after I chased a white tail on to your claim.”

He grips the nugget tight, saying nothing. He's still staring at the empty flour sack on the floor by the hole. It's stamped
CULBERT & SONS, LTD. FLOUR MILLERS.

“We had to import sacks special from England,” I say. “To get the small size. Daddy hoped people might think they were really filled with flour at first glance.”

He tears his gaze from the sack to stare at my face instead.

“Please say something, Jeff. Daddy was going to take it all to the Charlotte Mint, where no one knows who we are, but he got so sick. It's just been sitting here for more than a year and . . . Well, Mama said people would hate us for being too rich too quick. I couldn't stand it if you were one of them.”

Jeff shakes his head. “It's not that.” Finally, he shoves the nugget I gave him into a pocket. I thought he'd forgotten it.

“Then what is it?”

He squats down beside the empty sack, brushes the top with a finger. The fever burns in his eyes. He's picturing it full of sweet, raw gold. All of a sudden, he snatches his hand back like he's bee-stung.

“Let's go get Sheriff Weber,” he says. We head out the back door, where Nugget greets us with a little yip.

“Don't tell!” I say, and he freezes on the porch step. “About
the gold, I mean. People might think there's more. They might . . .”

His shoulders rise and fall with a breath. “If you say so.” Before mounting up on the sorrel mare, he turns to me and adds, “But, Lee? You could have trusted
me
.”

I nod, even though shame makes the back of my throat hot. There's so much he still doesn't know. So much I can't say.

“We should grab a few of your things,” Jefferson says. “I'm sure someone in town would take you in while—”

“No.”

“Lee—”

“I'm getting help, and I'm coming right back. This is my
home
, Jeff.”

He frowns. “Promise me you'll keep your guns handy. I'll stick around as much as possible.”

“Thank you.”

As we ride toward town, I can't shake the feeling that someone is watching us. Maybe it's the continued dead-silence of the woods or the way Nugget keeps her ears perked and sticks so close to Peony that she nearly gets stomped.

Not that it matters. Anyone who's watching is wasting his time. I've already lost everything.

News of the murder sends the town of Dahlonega into a frenzy, and the next few days are a blur. I have visitors every waking minute, which makes me feel a lot safer but puts a terrible ache in my head. Everyone's condolences have an
edge of excitement to them. When Mr. Cooper, superintendent at the US Mint, lends all his assayers and other staff to Sheriff Weber for a search of the woods around town for the murderer, it becomes almost like a holiday.

Mama said to run, but I've no place to go. This is my home. I've worked just as hard to build it up as Mama or Daddy ever did, and I won't let anyone scare me away. So I sit in my house for days, pretending to be grateful for company, waiting and waiting for news that doesn't come. I keep the five-shooter close by and ready, breaking a rule about loaded guns in the house. I hope to hear that bandits have been raiding the mountains, that mine isn't the only house they hit, because that would mean I'm probably safe now. It would mean Mama wasn't trying to warn me about anyone in particular.

The search of the woods reveals nothing. Sheriff Weber asks around at Mrs. Choice's hotel and Free Jim's store, where they say a steady stream of strangers have been passing through all week on their way to the gold fields of California. He eventually concludes that the awful deed was perpetrated by bandits looking for Lucky's secret stash—which I assure him never existed—and that they're probably well west of here by now, along with all the other good-for-nothings.

I'm not convinced he's right, and it makes me a little sick for my parents' murders to be put to rest so easily. But God help me if I'm not a little relieved too. I don't know what I'm going to do next or how I'll run a homestead all by myself. Maybe after the funeral I'll finally have time and space to
think it all through, away from prying eyes and wringing hands.

Everyone inquires politely about my parents' relations, as if somehow their asking will conjure up the kin everyone knows I don't have. Mama's family cut her off when she married my daddy, and she hasn't talked to them since moving away from Boston. Daddy has no blood left but his brother, Hiram, a fancy lawyer way down in the state capital of Milledgeville. In a place where family connections spread out like wild grapevines covering the trees, I'm all alone.

Or not quite all alone. There's still one person I can turn to for help.

Jefferson and a couple other boys from school spend an afternoon digging graves for Mama and Daddy. I found out it would cost me twenty dollars to have headstones made, and maybe I could witch up enough gold dust given a little time, but not without raising questions. So I ask Jefferson to make a pair of wooden crosses for now.

The day of the funeral dawns icy clear. Meltwater from the warm snap froze overnight, leaving the trees, the eaves of the barn, and even the henhouse dripping with tiny icicles. The whole world sparkles so bright in the winter sun it's almost hard to look at.

After finishing my morning chores, I wash up and don my best dress—a brown wool with lace cuffs, and a pointed waist with pretty yellow piping. Mama and I finished it just last week.

I can't get the corset very tight without help, but the dress buttons up with surprising ease. It has the fullest skirt I've
ever owned. I remember twirling in place during my final fitting, admiring how high the hem lifted in spite of the fabric's weight. Mama scolded me for showing off my petticoats.

I stand before our tiny mirror to put on her locket, and I see her face staring back at me. Everyone says I have her eyes—widely spaced and mostly brown, a little too deep-set. But I look like her more than ever today. I seem older, with thinner cheeks and sunken eyes. I haven't eaten much these past few days.

I reach around the back of my neck and clasp the locket in place. I flip out the lace collar to cover the chain. The pendant rests just above my heart. It's a relief to feel the gold sense come back, even a little. I may never take off the locket.

Someone knocks at the door. I glance at the table to make sure my revolver is still there. I've been keeping it handy these past few days because whoever killed my parents is armed with at least a Colt. If my visitors have found it strange that I never open the door unarmed, they haven't said.

I grab the revolver and head toward the door, feeling a stab of embarrassment; the steps leading up the front porch still have bloodstains on them, though I've scrubbed and scrubbed. They're brown-black now, not like blood at all. Still, if I don't replace them soon, I'll see Daddy's body in my mind's eye every time I step outside. Maybe Jefferson will do it for me.

And it's like I've summoned him with a thought, because I swing the door open and there he is, his gaze downcast and his wrinkled hat in hand. Nugget sits at his heels, her tail thumping.

He blurts, “I'm going west, Lee.”

It's like a kick in the gut. “What? When!”

He looks up finally, and I gasp, for his right eye is the color of spring violets and swollen shut. “Now,” he says.

“Oh, Jeff, what happened? Was it your da? I'll kill him if he—”

“Come west with me.”

The sorrel mare is tethered at the bottom of the steps. Two saddlebags hang over her sides, and Jefferson's long rifle rides high in its saddle holster near her withers. “That nugget you gave me. I should've given it back, but . . . I just came from Free Jim's store. He bought it off me. Gave me enough to buy a stake in a wagon train.”

“It never belonged to me. It was yours to do with as you wanted.”

“Then come to California with me. You could sell this place to Mr. Gilmore today.”

A vision passes before my eyes: clear mountain brooks sparkling with gold flecks, nuggets winking up from pine needle–choked earth, game so plentiful you'd hardly have to leave your back porch to shoot. For a girl like me, California is the Promised Land.

“Leah, we'd have enough money to buy our way there if you sold—”

“I . . . I don't know.” Is that what his marriage proposal was about? Finding someone to help him buy his way there?

“Mr. Gilmore has had his eye on this place for years,” he insists.

I shake my head. “Doesn't matter. I'm just a girl, and I can't sell what I don't own until I get my hands on Daddy's will, proving the place is mine.” I'm not sure how I'll do that. Uncle Hiram was the one who drew it up, years ago. “This is my home, Jeff. I've worked so hard to build it into something nice. I don't know what's going to happen to me, or how I'll run this place, but . . .”

He steps forward until his body fills the doorway. When did Jefferson become so large? “Then let's just go.”

Oh, dear Lord, but a hole is opening up in my heart again, just like the one that started gaping wide when I saw Daddy's boot in the snow. “I have to go to the funeral, and then I have to sort through Mama's and Daddy's things, and then there's my chickens, and . . .”

He plunks his hat back on his head. “I know you, and I know you want this. When you change your mind, find me in Independence, Missouri. I'll wait a spell for you. Can't head west until the prairie grass starts to grow, anyway. Otherwise, the sorrel mare will starve. But I can't wait too long either, else I meet winter in the mountains.” His lips press into a firm line. “I'll wait for you in Independence as long as I can.”

I watch him walk away, the hole growing wider and deeper. Sunshine falls onto his shoulders, lighting him up like a torch, and for a moment I can hardly breathe.

He pauses. Turns. Sadness tugs at his eyes as he says, “Seems like I've been waiting for you to come around my whole life, Lee. But a man can't wait forever and stay a man.”

And with that my best friend in the whole world is gone.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

I
've hardly closed the door on Jefferson's retreating back before another knock sounds. I smooth down my hair and check my hairpins before opening it again. It's Mrs. Smith, wife to the judge and mother of Annabelle.

“Oh, Leah dear, I was worried something had happened to you.” She frees one spindly, gloved hand from its fur muff to pat my cheek, but her gaze moves beyond me, roves the interior of the house. Looking for untidiness to gossip about, I'll wager. Or hoping giant sacks of gold will magically appear on the kitchen table.

“Everyone is waiting for you graveside,” she explains at last.

She's wearing a funeral-appropriate black gown with velvet panels, but it's her locket that catches my eye and makes my throat buzz a little. It's gold, like Mama's, and etched with interlinking hearts. It contains photographs of her husband and Annabelle, taken when the Smiths visited Charleston on holiday. I know this because Annabelle told everyone at
school about it when they got back.

Mama would never have allowed such an expense. The locket I now wear contains a tiny tuft of my baby brother's soft hair.

“Aren't you coming, dear?”

Does Mrs. Smith realize how lucky she is to have a whole family? “Yes,” I say to the locket. “I . . . I just needed a moment to myself.”

“Of course.” Her tone holds a whiff of disapproval. “I'll walk with you.”

“Thank you.”

She grabs my hand and yanks me out the door. Judge Smith waits in the walkway, and he tips his hat as we descend the stairs. “Glad to see you, Miss Leah,” he says.

I mumble something polite as the Smiths take up posts at each shoulder. They are both long and lanky, and they walk with unerring purpose and perfect posture, certain of their significance in this world. I am towered over. Hemmed in. Imprisoned.

Jefferson's words return to me like a clanging church bell.
I'll wait for you in Independence.

When we arrive, others are already gathered around the snow-dusted mounds that mark my parents' graves. The air smells of freshly turned earth. Almost everyone wears black. They huddle in groups, bundled against the cold, their breaths frosting the air. It's more people than I'd like to see right now, but less than my parents deserve.

Annabelle Smith is the height of fashion, even in mourning
black, with a rabbit-fur cape and a poke bonnet with blue silk flowers and long, trailing ribbons. Her young slave, Jeannie, stands a pace behind her, shivering in a thin muslin dress. Reverend Wilson has already taken up his post behind the twin wooden crosses, his huge Bible in one arm and his huge wife under the other.

I'm surprised to see Jefferson's da. He wears his buckskin coat over stained trousers, and he stares dolefully as I approach, his red nose brighter than ever. Does Mr. McCauley realize Jefferson has run away?

Beside him is Free Jim Boisclair, the richest Negro in Lumpkin County and a great friend to my daddy. He speaks in hushed tones to a few others I recognize from our infrequent visits to the Methodist church. He points to something in his hand. A leaflet, with writing I can't make out. Several others are clutching leaflets too. There's a buzz in the air, like when everyone is worked up to hear a new preacher. I can't shake the feeling that the leaflet is the main attraction and the funeral a mere afterthought.

Upon seeing me, the reverend clears his throat. Conversations die around me. My face warms under the scrutiny of silence, and I'm almost relieved when he launches into his eulogy.

To my dismay, it turns out to be a sermon. He speaks of the toils of this life and how sometimes our troubles make us want to escape to far-off places instead of standing strong in the Lord's grace. He says the love of gold is the root of all evil and we should be storing up treasures in heaven instead.

Tears prick at my eyes. No one would blame me for shedding a few, but I hold them back anyway, because I don't want to let rage tears flow when my parents deserve grief. It's not right, the reverend using their deaths as an excuse to give us all a talking-to.

I'm in a bit of a haze and grateful for it when Annabelle Smith—who wrongly thinks she has the voice of an angel and always sings loudest in church—barrels through all six stanzas of “Amazing Grace.” Finally, everyone comes to shake my hand and tell me how sorry they are and that God is looking out for me as one of his sparrows and do I need anything?

Mr. McCauley hangs back. Gone is his angry scowl. He wrings his hat in his hands and glances around as if searching for something. Finally, he approaches.

“You seen Jefferson?” he asks.

I echo his own words back at him. “Dunno where that boy run off to.”

My mockery is lost on him. “Sorrel mare is gone. And my rifle. I found this by his bed.” He shoves one of the leaflets in my face. “Dog's gone too.”

I snatch it from his hand and look it over. It's an advertisement for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, promising to take passengers to California, beginning in the spring, for the sum of two hundred dollars. This is what everyone's so excited about. This is what the reverend is speaking out against.

Mr. McCauley says, “You think he went to catch a boat?”

I pin him with a gaze, and he shifts uncomfortably.

My heart starts to soften toward him, but then I remember Jefferson's busted eye. “He's probably halfway to Savannah,” I say. “If you leave now, you can catch up.” Keeping the leaflet, I turn my back on him.

Annabelle Smith finds me next. She clasps my hands and says, “I'm so sorry, Lee. I wish . . . I mean . . . I'm just sorry.” She can't meet my gaze, but her words have a ring of sincerity.

“I'm glad you came,” I say automatically. But suddenly it's true. I watch her back as she walks away, wondering what it would be like to have a girl for a friend.

Free Jim is next in line. His dark hand closes around my cold, pale one—too tight and too warm—and I blurt, “I'll make good on Daddy's credit, Mr. Boisclair, I promise. I just need a little time to—”

“No need, Miss Leah,” he says gently. “The account was brought up-to-date just this morning.”

“What? How?”

He frowns. “Your uncle Hiram paid it. Apparently, he's done well for himself down in Milledgeville.”

My stomach drops into my toes. How did my uncle get here so fast? How did he know?

“That man's a born politician,” Free Jim says, and it doesn't sound like a compliment. “Anyway, I'm praying to the good Lord every day on your behalf. Your daddy was a fine man; one of the finest I knew. The world is a poorer place today, but heaven is all the richer.”

“Yes, sir,” I say, swallowing hard. “Thank you, sir.”

Free Jim and my daddy have a history, going back to the
first discovery of gold in these parts. Daddy always considered him a friend, and we've gotten through many a tough winter thanks to Free Jim and his generous negotiating. We'd have owed him even more for that winter wheat seed if he'd demanded fair market price.

“I thought your uncle would be here,” Free Jim says, glancing around. “He said he had a few errands, but afterward he'd—Oh, there he is. Mr. Westfall!”

My heart races as he calls out my uncle's name. Slowly, I turn.

The conversation around us dies as Uncle Hiram bears down on our little group, tromping through the winter-gray trees like he owns them. He's followed by Abel Topper, a shovel-faced man with keen eyes, who used to be a foreman before his mine dried up and closed down.

Hiram exchanges greetings with Free Jim, who afterward tips his hat to me and nods in solemn farewell. He and Abel walk off together. Uncle Hiram turns in my direction.

Dread curls in my belly, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because he looks so much like my daddy, though he's more dashing, truth be told. Thick lashes rim sharp brown eyes, and neat sideburns frame a solid jaw. His long nose would be the bane of any lady, but on him, fits proud and strong. He wears a shiny top hat and a fine wool suit with silver buttons, and the sparkling silver chain of a hidden pocket watch loops across his left breast. His sweeping, knee-length overcoat is unbuttoned, revealing a black leather holster with white stitching slung across his hips. The revolver is partly
hidden by the holster, but I can plainly see that it's tiny, ivory-gripped, and sparkling new.

A Colt.

I'm sure of it.

It's doesn't mean anything. Lots of folks have bought Colts recently. Still, my hand creeps to my imaginary holster before I remember that I'm dressed in funeral finery, that my five-shooter lies lonely on the table.

I glance around. Everyone is clearing out, except Mrs. Smith, who lingers. I edge closer to her.

“Hello, sweet pea,” Hiram says in a slow, sleepy Milledgeville drawl.

Daddy's endearment coming from him feels as false as hearing a cat bark. “Why are you here?”

His smile is just the right amount of sad. “Judge Smith wrote to me with the terrible news. I came right away to put Reuben's affairs in order.”

Uncle Hiram doesn't seem all that shaken by “the terrible news.” When my baby brother died, I thought the pain in my chest would never go away, even though I only knew him for a few days.

He says, “I'm here to help you put—”

“I don't need your help.” He hasn't bothered to visit since I was eight years old.

“I don't think you understand. I'm your guardian now.”

I blink. “Oh.”

I'm still staring up at him when he reaches out with his fine gentleman's hand and caresses my cheek.

The gold sense wells inside me, so startling and quick that tears spring to my eyes. I lurch away from him, swallowing hard to keep down my breakfast.

“There, there, sweet pea,” he says, as though talking to a recalcitrant horse. “We'll get accustomed to each other in time. Everything's all right now, I promise.”

My skin is crawling. Everything is not and never will be all right. Because my uncle is carrying a new Colt revolver, and he's covered in gold dust.

Sure, he probably brushed it off. Wiped his hands. And I can't
see
the gold caught in his knuckles, or trapped beneath his fingernails, maybe even lingering on his overcoat. But I can sense it. I can always sense it.

“Leah?”

Grief washes over me in waves until I'm dizzy with it. Jeff was right: Daddy rushed out of the house to greet someone. Someone he was glad to see.

And my uncle killed him. His very own brother.

“It's okay to cry, baby girl,” he says.

I blink against tears and clench my fists, imagining what it would be like to feel his nose bust under my knuckles. But my rage dribbles away, and my legs twitch as if to flee. Is he going to kill me too? Who would help me? Not Mrs. Smith, who even now gazes up at my uncle like he's the second coming of George Washington. She would never believe me. No one would.

“You have room in the barn for my horse?” he asks, and for the first time, I notice the tall black gelding hobbled behind
him in the woods. It's snowing again, and his back is powdered with white. “Poor boy could use a bit of pampering.”

There's not a hint of regret or shame in his face. No fear of discovery in his voice. And maybe that's what will keep me safe for now. I can't let on that I know what he did.

I force my voice into perfect blandness. “I have two empty stalls. Put him in the one by the door, or Peony will give him a nip.”

“We'll talk more in a bit,” he says. “I'll come back later to pay my respects.” He tips his hat to Mrs. Smith, who stands enthralled beside me, and he heads back toward his gelding.

“I'm not moving to Milledgeville!” I call out after him.

He looks over his shoulder. He's still wearing that slight smile. A whole world I don't understand is in that smile. “Of course not,” he says.

Why did you do it?
I want to scream at his back.

“A very fine man, your uncle,” Mrs. Smith says.

“I hardly know him,” I murmur, still staring after him.

“Well, you're lucky to have him.”

I say nothing. Mrs. Smith has known me my whole life. But she's delighted to see me given over to a perfect stranger, for no other reason than I'm a young girl and he's a fine gentleman relative.

There's no proof Hiram murdered my parents—not unless I lay my secret bare, the one I swore to Mama and Daddy I'd never reveal. There's nothing I can do.

Well, maybe there is one thing.

I'll wait for you in Independence.

I return to the house and discover that several people dropped off food before heading back to their own homes. I count three jars of jam, two baskets full of biscuits, a meat pie, some baked ham and smashed potatoes. More than I can possibly eat. Warmth swells in my chest, surprising me. The people of Dahlonega are a gossipy, small-minded lot, but we've always taken care of our own.

Boots tromp up the stairs outside. The braid rug covering our hidey-hole has puckered at the edge. Quick as a snake, I put my toe out and stomp the wrinkle down, smoothing it out. I almost laugh aloud at myself. Hiram already stole my gold. Keeping secrets is such a habit.

He doesn't even knock, just swings the front door wide and strides inside like the house has been waiting for him. He whips off his gloves and whacks them against his thigh, sending powdery snow falling to the floor.

I don't bother to hide my glare. “Hang your hat and coat there by the door,” I say, indicating the iron hooks in the wall.

“What culinary delights are conspiring to make my mouth water?”

If he's trying to sound like a fine Southern gentleman, he's failing. “I don't know. Whatever folks left for us?”