The Caged Graves (25 page)

Liza shook her head. She cast him a frightened look, then cut her eyes desperately at Verity. “I have to . . . I have to . . .”

“She has to go outside,” Verity translated.

“Girls,” he muttered, as if it were a uniquely female problem. He dropped the canteen and hauled Liza to her feet by her bound hands. Pushing her toward the door, he retrieved his weapon off the table.

“Same deal as before, Miss Thomas,” he said. “You can go outside and around the corner of this cabin, no farther than ten feet. I'll count to sixty. If you're not back by the time I finish, I'll shoot Miss Boone in the head and come find you.”

Liza looked at Verity with wild, frightened eyes and dashed from the cabin.

Harwood watched her go, then turned around and grinned at Verity. “Do you trust her, Miss Boone?”

Verity did
not
trust her, though she would never have told him so. However, thoughts of Liza and possible betrayal were erased by the sight of the young man's grin, which sent a cold shiver through her body.

Harwood leaned out the door to check on Liza's progress. Frightening young women apparently revived him, for he seemed in good humor. Barking a short laugh, he stepped back into the cabin and called out loudly, “Fifty-eight, fifty-nine . . .”

“I'm coming!” Liza screamed from outside. “Don't shoot her!” The girl burst into the cabin with her skirt tangled and her petticoats hanging out, her face red and streaked with tears. When she saw her tormentor laughing and his hostage unharmed, Liza flung herself across the room. She nearly fell upon Verity, looping her arms over her cousin's head, her wrists still bound. They were in danger and dependent on each other for survival. Even so, Verity was surprised by this show of affection.

Liza pressed her lips against Verity's ear and whispered, “This is Hawk Poole's hunting cabin. He might find us. If he hunts today, he might find us!”

That was it. Now everything made sense, and Verity felt she was sinking, as if the very ground beneath her had turned into quicksand. She could not tell Liza she was wrong—that no rescue would come from Hawk Poole—because Harwood yelled at them to separate. Liza released her, scuttling backward to her former place.

Verity closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall of the cabin. How stupid she'd been. How utterly naïve and stupid.

 

Hearing voices outside, Verity reluctantly opened her eyes. Harwood took his gun and went to the door, opened it wide, and looked out. Liza stirred, a hopeful expression crossing her face.

Johnny stumbled in first, looking worse for wear with a swollen lip and a ripped shirt. He ducked past Harwood and scrambled over to his sister.

Next, Clara Thomas entered the cabin with a straight back and a raised chin, even though her hands, too, were bound. She surveyed the situation calmly, her eyes passing over Liza and Verity in their corners and turning to appraise Harwood.

“Mama!” Liza gasped, with a choked sob.

“Welcome, Mrs. Thomas,” Harwood said with mock courtesy. “I'm sorry we can't offer you a chair.”

She turned on him coldly just as the scarred man stepped into the doorway. “You two are the sorriest excuses for criminals I've ever seen.”

“And yet here we are, with two of your children plus your niece,” returned the young man. “Your husband is out of town, I understand, but I think it's better for us to converse without him. The man needs a keeper, and I suspect you're it. I should have come to you in the first place.”

“Just get on with it,” growled the larger man. “Enough talk. I'm tired of this swamp and this miserable town. Where the hell's the gold?”

“There is no gold, you fools,” Aunt Clara said in her unemotional voice.

Harwood laughed. “We've seen the gold coins, Mrs. Thomas. Your husband produces one every time he has a gambling debt he can't pay off by other means.”

Verity watched carefully. Her aunt's eyes did not waver for a second.

“There were only ten coins,” Aunt Clara said finally. “John and his brother-in-law found them years ago. Ransloe wanted no part of them after his wife died, so John kept them, and we used them as we needed them. They're all gone now—used up and spent. We have no more.”

The men looked at each other. The one with the scarred face moved away from the door to stand at her back, and Harwood took a step toward her as well, so that she was hemmed in by the two of them. “We don't believe you, Mrs. Thomas,” the younger man said quietly. “Ten coins don't make a payroll for a regiment of soldiers, not even a hundred years ago.”

“The man who originally stole them spent them or lost them—”

Harwood overrode her. “If you found some, you know where the rest are. You have them in your house, or else they're hidden in this valley somewhere.”

Aunt Clara shook her head, but Johnny shot Liza a significant look. Verity watched as Liza glared her brother down. They all knew something, every one of them except her, and in that moment she hated them all.

“There are no more,” Aunt Clara repeated.

“Mrs. Thomas,” Harwood said sadly, “I didn't want to hurt your children, and now you're forcing me to do so.”

His accomplice grabbed Johnny by a fistful of hair and dragged him to his feet. The boy flung his bound hands over his face and wailed in terror, nearly drowning out the sound of the cabin door being thrust open with a resounding bang.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Johnny whirled, his face lighting with hope. “Doctor!” he cried. “Help us!”

Verity threw her weight against the wall of the cabin and used this support to stand without the help of her bound hands, now numb and useless. “Don't waste your breath, Johnny,” she said, staring across the cabin at Hadley Jones, whose eyes widened at the sight of her. “He's with
them
—and he always has been.”

HADLEY JONES didn't deny his guilt, and the sudden peal of laughter from Harwood confirmed it.

Verity wrenched her gaze away from Jones and nodded toward the laughing man. “They're cousins or some other kin,” she said, sick at heart. The color of Harwood's eyes and the shape of his grin had perturbed her, but she hadn't been forced to acknowledge his resemblance to Hadley Jones until Liza told her whose cabin they were in.

“Half brothers, actually,” Harwood declared. “
Worthless
half brother is probably what Hadley calls me—the kind you'd leave to fester in an army tent after cutting off his arm.”

“Shut up, Geoffrey,” Jones muttered. “Are you all right, Mrs. Thomas?” He pushed past the scarred man to examine her bound hands.

Aunt Clara answered him coldly. “As well as can be expected while in the hands of common criminals.”

“I'm sorry.” Jones spoke with quiet regret, moving to Johnny to take a quick look at the boy's split lip. Then he bent to examine Liza's bound hands. “You've tied her too tightly,” he complained over his shoulder. “I'm going to cut her loose.”

Harwood lifted the revolver again and cocked the hammer. “No, Hadley, you won't.”

Hadley Jones stood upright and glared at his brother, but instead of cutting Liza's bonds, he turned to Verity. “Let me see,” he said, reaching for her.

Verity recoiled, but there was no place for her to go. “Don't touch me!”

He grabbed her by the arms and forced her into the corner. Then he bent his head and tried to loosen the twine around her wrists. “Can't you trust me a little longer?” he murmured in a barely audible voice.

“Let him examine you,” Harwood called out, laughing. “My little brother's sweet on you, Miss Boone. Even hit Barrow here with a shovel to stop him digging up your mother's grave.”

The scar-faced man growled. “And if it turns out that's where the gold is hid after all, I'll do more than blacken his eye!”

Verity gasped, remembering Hadley Jones's bruised face on the day after the grave desecration. With a surge of fury, she shoved the man she'd once considered a friend—possibly more than a friend—away from her.

Jones caught his balance and turned on Barrow. “The gold's not in the graves,” he said slowly, as if speaking to a stupid child. “How would John Thomas get it out when he needed it?” He turned back to Aunt Clara. “I didn't bring them here, Mrs. Thomas. They followed your husband's trail of gambling debts and the rumors that he paid his way with gold. I don't control them, and they don't answer to me.”

Hadley Jones stabbed a finger at the scarred man. “Jasper Barrow killed an officer and escaped from army prison; he's got a price on his head.” He jerked his head toward Harwood. “My
esteemed brother
is a deserter and a convicted felon. Neither one of them has anything to lose. I've tried to prevent them from doing any harm here, but now”—he looked around at the bound hostages and drew an anxious breath—“I can't protect you.”

“That's right; he can't.” Harwood sneered. “Never much love lost between us, and I
owe
him.”

Verity shuddered. Harwood didn't seem sane—or maybe he was crazed by the sickness in his blood. She couldn't guess what had happened between the brothers, but she knew that Hadley Jones had lied for Harwood, tending to his arm, giving him money, hiding him in Hawk Poole's cabin, and probably helping him elude the searchers. Jones's silence had allowed these two men to conduct their treasure hunting with increasing violence; he'd placed Verity and her uncle's whole family in danger.

Verity began to shake, frightened now as she should have been from the moment Harwood pulled a gun on her in the graveyard. She'd been misled by his resemblance to someone she cared about; she'd been fooled by his infirmity and ill health. Verity had thought Harwood was bluffing, but now she realized he'd shoot any one of them without a second thought—his brother included.

“Just tell them!” she burst out. Clara Thomas shot her a withering glare that might have quelled her own children but made no impact on her niece. “We all know you've been lying, Aunt Clara. Just tell them where they can find the gold, and they'll let us go.”

The scarred man, Barrow, leaned close to Aunt Clara and whispered in her ear with the intimacy of a lover but loud enough for Verity to hear every word. “I hear Jones has a knack for amputations. If you like, we can shoot your son in the foot and watch him operate.”

Aunt Clara jerked her head away and shoved Barrow defiantly with her shoulder. “Enough,” she snapped. She turned and pinned Johnny with eyes like nails. “You know where to take them, don't you? Your father showed you what to do.”

The boy's eyes were wide and frightened. “But Mama, I—”

“Do what you're told,” his mother snapped. “You've been instructed on this. Be obedient.”

Liza whimpered, and Verity eyed her cousin with suspicion. It sounded as if Aunt Clara was finally cooperating, but Liza showed no sign of relief. If anything, she looked terrified.

The men didn't seem to realize.

“That's better, Mrs. Thomas,” Harwood said with his cold smile.

“My son will take you to the hiding place,” Aunt Clara replied. “It's among the caves along the river.”

“He'll take Barrow,” Harwood corrected. “You three women will remain here with me until they return—
with the gold.
”

Aunt Clara raised an eyebrow as if to question this, but Barrow grabbed the boy by the arm and thrust him toward the door. “It's you and me again, Johnny-boy.”

“Ma—?” Johnny cast one panicked look back at his mother before disappearing out the door.

Verity was certain the Thomases were up to something. Her aunt had not directed the boy to hand over the gold; she'd made it clear he was to
do as he'd been told.
They had a plan for a situation like this, and Johnny was supposed to carry it out. Liza's pale, worried face suggested that Barrow and Harwood would not be happy with the results.

Hadley Jones let out his breath and eyed his brother warily. “Put the gun down, Geoffrey. They're doing what you ask. There's no reason for anyone to get hurt here.”

“You're such a
good
doctor, worried about your patients.” Harwood uncocked the gun and lowered it. Then he leaned his shoulder against the wall of the cabin and closed his eyes, as if fighting off a wave of dizziness.

Every other person in the cabin froze. Verity's heart pounded as she watched the occupants of the room, each one weighing the moment carefully, and for an instant she spared a thought for someone who was far away and whom she might never see again.

Hadley Jones shifted his weight, and his brother's eyes snapped open. Harwood jerked his head up and lifted the gun suspiciously.

“You should have gone with them,” Aunt Clara said.

“I'm not equipped to climb the cliffs along the river, Mrs. Thomas,” the young man snapped.

“Pity, then,” she replied. “You'll never see a lick of that gold. My Johnny will hand it over to your friend, and he'll take off with it. You'll never see him again.”

“No, he—” Harwood broke off in midsentence and looked at his brother.

Hadley Jones shrugged indifferently. “She's right.”

Harwood cursed and launched himself toward the door, flinging it open and sticking his head out, and his brother hit him from behind.

Jones's left fist slammed Harwood face first into the doorjamb, while his right hand reached for the gun. Harwood howled with anger and pain and—with a slight advantage in height—kept the gun just out of reach. His thumb cocked the hammer again, and he swung the weapon back toward the room. Verity gasped and flinched.

Deliberately, Jones grabbed the stump of his brother's arm and squeezed. Harwood screamed and dropped like a stone, weapon and all. Jones kicked Harwood as he went down, and Verity threw her bound hands up and over her face. She heard the body hit the floor, heard a second scream, choked off—and then silence.