Margaret Brownley (35 page)

L
ucy burst through the door of her father’s store. It was empty. She ran past the neatly stacked shelves to the storeroom in back. Tin cans crashed to the floor as she raced by. She found her father unpacking boxes of dry goods. There was no sign of Caleb.

Her father turned to face her. “Lucy, what is it?”

“How could you?” she cried. “How could you have put that little boy in such terrible danger?” Her father stared at her with rounded eyes but said nothing.

“Answer me!”

She held her breath, waiting. She waited for him to deny it, tell her it wasn’t true. Tell her that he had no idea what she was talking about. Instead some strange half sob escaped him, a sound that was almost animal-like in its intensity. Color drained from his face. His shoulders slumped and he began to crumble before her very eyes.

Hardly recognizing the broken man in front of her, she was too numb to feel sorry for him. Instead she shut the door behind her, closing them both inside that tiny room, a signal that they could no longer escape the truth.

Her father gave a slight nod as if he, too, knew that the time had come for honesty. “I was young and stupid,” he said at last. “We’d been drinking and weren’t thinking right.”

This surprised her, as she never knew her father to take a drink.

As if to guess her thoughts, he said, “I’ve not touched a drop since.” Dull eyes stared at her. “Don’t you think I’ve hated myself ever since? Don’t you think I’ve paid?”

“There’s no way you could pay for what you did,” she stormed.

“Oh, there’re ways. Believe me, there’re ways. Your mother—”

He ran his hand over his mouth as if attempting to erase his last words.

Her mouth went dry. She wanted the truth. She did, of course she did. So why was she shaking so much? She forced herself to speak. “What . . . what about Mama?”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “The painting hidden in the back closet, you know the one.”

She nodded. “The painting of the Eagle Rock.” The one he refused to let her hang.

“Your mother painted it shortly before—” He cleared his throat. “She said she had a strange feeling about the place. She hoped by painting it, she would understand why that particular spot haunted her.”

So it was true what others said. She was like her mother. Her mother painted to illuminate and enlighten. It was for those very same reasons that Lucy took up photography. But any joy she might have felt in knowing how much she and her mother were alike was blunted by shock and sorrow.

Her mind whirled until gradually things began to make sense, and one by one pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

“The painting . . . that was where you put him in the boat.” Each word felt like the stab of a knife.

“Your mother had no way of knowing that, of course. Not at first.” The resignation in his voice was at odds with the bleakness in his eyes. “I came home one day and found that painting over the fireplace. It was like a knife had been plunged into my heart. I—I begged her to take it down. Finally, I had no choice but to tell her why.”

She swallowed hard. “Mama knew?”

He grimaced as in pain. “She left the house, upset. I didn’t think she was ever going to come back to me, and I was right.”

This was such a shock to her that moments passed before she could find her voice. “Her horse threw her,” she whispered. There could be no mistake about that. She was there. She was only twelve, but she remembered the day her mother died like it was only yesterday. Her father had carried her mother’s limp body into the house. Bits and pieces of memory flashed through her mind. It was like flipping through old photographs. Her mother’s still body. Caleb’s high-pitched cries. Her father’s ghostly face—everything.

Now his eyes clouded over as if he, too, relived each moment of that long-ago day. “She would never have been on that horse had I not told her what I’d done.” He shook his head, his voice choked.

Stunned and sickened, she swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth. Nothing made sense. Everything made sense. He told her mother what he had done. She left the house upset, too upset to ride with care, and she paid with her life.

For what seemed like an eternity, they stood facing each other. The broken pieces of the past loomed between them. Feelings of despair welled inside her. Renewed grief for her mother descended on her like a dark cloud.

She longed to leave, to run away, hide, but she couldn’t. She still needed answers and, fearing her father would shut down again as he had in the past, she forced herself to stand her ground.

“Barnes?” she asked. Though she already knew the answer, she needed to hear it from her father.

He nodded. “He was there too.”

“Doc Myers.”

“Yes.”

She swallowed hard. She wanted so much for him to say that there had been a mistake or that it was all a nightmare. “There were four of you,” she said.

His gaze sharpened. “How do you know all this?”

She could see no point in holding back. “David Wolf told me.”

“The newspaper photo.” He blew out his breath. “Barnes told me who he really was.”

“You . . . you spoke to Barnes about him?” she asked.

“He came to see me the night he saw Wolf. He told me the boy had lived. I couldn’t believe it. All these years I thought—” He broke off and shook his head. “Barnes had this plan to pay off Wolf to keep him quiet, and he wanted to blackmail—” He stopped abruptly. “I thought he was crazy and I wanted no part of it.”

“You told Barnes that?”

“Of course I did. It was like an answer to prayer—it was a miracle that Wolf was alive. I wanted to go to him, to apologize. To make it up to him in some way. But then I found out Barnes had disappeared and that Wolf was responsible. It never occurred to me that Wolf would harm Barnes.”

“He didn’t,” Lucy said. “He had nothing to do with Barnes’s disappearance.”

Her father studied her. “How do you know that?” He grimaced as if in pain. “You’re not in contact with Wolf, are you?” When she didn’t answer he groaned. “Oh, Lucy.”

“He told me he didn’t harm Barnes and I believe him.” Her mind whirled. “Who . . . who did Barnes want to blackmail?” she asked, though she already suspected the answer. “The fourth one.” Her father neither confirmed nor denied it. Who was he? And why did Barnes think he would pay to keep his identity secret? “His name, Papa. I need to know his name.”

“I can’t tell you,” he said. In a softer voice he added, “It would do no good for you to know.” He leaned forward. “Lucy, you need to understand . . . what we did was stupid, but we never meant to do harm. The boat got away by accident and we tried to catch it but couldn’t. We ran through the woods even though it was too dark to see. By the time we reached the rapids, the boat was nowhere to be found.”

“He could have been killed,” she whispered.

“We were convinced that he was.” His eyes glazed over as if looking at another place, another time. “And all these years we’ve had to live with that. It’s not been easy.” He pressed his hand against his forehead and slumped to the floor. “When I heard that the boy lived, I thought the nightmare was over. But it’s not. Maybe it will never be over.”

It pained her to see him look so crushed, but she didn’t know how to answer him. She could picture the four youths searching the river in a desperate attempt to find the boy. What horror they must have felt. What guilt. David had been so certain they meant to do him harm, but he was wrong. Thank God he was wrong.

She kneeled on the floor and placed her hand on his back. She couldn’t imagine living with such a dark secret. No wonder he had seemed so withdrawn at times, so sad. How different things would have been for her family had her father known that David had survived.

“Papa,” she whispered.

He searched her face, then fell into her arms and wept.

Lucy left her father’s shop and raced out of town, practically sideswiping a peddler’s cart. The wagon rattled over the dirt road, bouncing Lucy up and down in her seat, but she hardly noticed. Even the narrow wooden bridge over Rocky Creek didn’t slow her down. All she wanted to do was go home and try to make sense out of everything that had happened.

She felt physically numb, but still the events of the last few hours kept going through her mind. She was her father’s daughter. That’s how she defined herself. During her growing-up years he had seemed larger than life. For that reason, she believed him perfect. She imagined his secrets were noble, his actions good and pure.

In recent years she’d resented him for not accepting her artistry, for discounting her dreams of being a photographer. But maybe hers was the worse failure for not accepting him for who he was but expecting him to be who she wanted him to be.

Wasn’t that what she did with everyone and everything? With her perfect pictures? With her glossy prints? Try to create a vision of the world that didn’t exist? Certainly it didn’t exist for David.

Tears blinding her vision, she pulled over to the side of the road and reached for her camera. She held it to her chest with both hands. It felt heavy—almost too heavy—as if it carried the weight of sadness or maybe only the weight of lost dreams.

The leather case felt hard and unyielding and suddenly she wanted no part of it. Eyes shut tight, she lifted the camera over her head with both hands and tossed it off the wagon. It hit the ground with a thud, along with her hopes for the future. Swiping at her tears, she settled back into the driver’s seat and drove away.

She didn’t notice Redd on his horse until he called to her. “Lucy, I need to talk to you.” He waved both arms over his head in an effort to flag her down.

She whizzed past him. “I can’t talk now,” she yelled. One hand on the reins, she palmed away the last of her tears with the other and kept going.

Redd gave chase on his horse until he caught up to her. “Lucy, stop.”

“I told you I can’t talk,” she said, forcing Tripod to go faster.

Redd urged his horse in full gallop to match Tripod’s stride. “It’s about Miss Hogg.” He shouted to be heard over the pounding hooves and rumbling wagon wheels. “She’s about to make the biggest mistake of her life.”

“This isn’t a good time,” she said, lifting her voice to be heard.

“Please, Lucy!” The road narrowed and he was forced to momentarily fall back, but he soon caught up with her again. “She’s going after one of those mail-order husbands and it’s not right.”

She brushed away a lock of hair blowing in her face. “Why is that your concern?”

“Because I love her.”

She glanced at Redd. Jostled by his horse, his words were obviously garbled. “What?”

“I . . . said . . . I . . . love . . . her,” he shouted.

This time there was no misunderstanding.

“You gotta stop her . . . mail-order catalog. It worked out for Timber Joe and . . .” His last words were lost to her.

His attention directed at Lucy, he headed straight toward a low-growing tree.

“Watch out!” Lucy warned, but it was too late.

The branch sent him flying in one direction while his horse ran off in another.

“Oh no!” Lucy gasped. Quickly stopping her wagon, she jumped to the ground and hurried to his side.

“Redd!” Dropping to her knees, she leaned over him and patted him frantically on the cheek.

His eyes fluttered open.

“Thank God! Are you all right?”

He waved away her concern with his hand but made no motion to stand. “I’m never gonna be all right,” he muttered.

“Oh, Redd. Where does it hurt?” She couldn’t tell if he was injured for all the ketchup stains on his shirt.

“Right here.” He held his hands to his chest.

Lucy sat back on her heels. Obviously, nothing was seriously wrong with him physically, but he looked so miserable she didn’t have the heart to leave him.

“I thought you didn’t like Emma. That you wanted her to leave you alone.”

Redd’s slanted eyebrows drooped another notch lower. “I did at first but all that changed the day I saw that photograph of her on your desk. You know, the one with the folderol on her head.”

“You mean the chemise,” Lucy said.