Walk on Earth a Stranger Page 4

  “I’m getting my gun,” he says. “Maybe your daddy heard a shot and ran outside.”

  Nugget trots along beside us. “Wouldn’t he have grabbed his own gun first? He just ran outside. Like . . . like . . .”

  Jefferson stops cold, and I almost bang into his shoulder. “Like he knew the person. Someone he was powerful glad to see.”

  I nod up at him. “Who would Daddy . . .” A sick worry wriggles around in my chest. “Mama said . . . before she . . . She told me to run.”

  “She thought the murderer was still nearby.”

  We stare at each other.

  “This is bad, isn’t it?” I say.

  “We’ll figure it, I promise. Did you bring a gun?”

  “The cap and ball. Loaded it on the way here. All five shots.”

  “Good. Nugget, stay here with Lee. I’ll be right back.” He flings the door open and disappears into the murky cabin.

  Jefferson never lets me in. He doesn’t want me to know how bad it is between him and his da, and he doesn’t realize I’ve already guessed about the moonshine still that’s hidden inside. There are things even best friends don’t tell each other.

  Nugget leans against my leg, and I bend down to scritch her neck; we’ve always gotten along, Nugget and me.

  A thump echoes inside the cabin, then Mr. McCauley yells something loud and angry. Jefferson strides out a moment later, rifle in hand. He won’t meet my eye, just heads over to the goat pen, Nugget and me at his heels.

  He grabs the sorrel mare; they’ve never named the poor girl, just call her “the sorrel mare,” and they keep her penned for lack of a proper barn. Jefferson mounts up, and I use the fence to climb up on Peony, and off we go. Jefferson leads us southward, toward my house.

  “We’re going back?” I thought we’d go for help.

  His voice is gentle as he says, “No use getting Doc now. And no murderer with a lick of sense would stick around after doing the deed.”

  I stare blankly.

  “Surely you know, Lee?” Jefferson says. “Lucky’s Gold is practically a legend. Once word is out that your mama and daddy have gone to Jesus, the whole town will come poking around. Everyone thinks your daddy stashed—”

  “Oh.” Tears threaten to spill again. I can imagine it now. Annabelle Smith and her mother coming by with their peach pie and their slick words of sympathy and their darting eyes. Sheriff Weber searching the whole homestead for “clues,” opening cupboards and shifting hay bales and maybe even prying up floorboards.

  “I need to hide . . . until everything’s settled.” The words make me feel heartless and cold. Necessity is a harsh master, Mama used to say. Bet she didn’t anticipate that necessity would make me look to our gold even before giving her a proper burial.

  “It’s true, isn’t it?” Jefferson says, his voice suddenly wistful.

  “It’s true,” I whisper.

  “All right, then.” He nods, as though to himself. “We’ll have to be careful and quick. Just in case your mama was right and whoever did this decided to stick around.”

  “I’m glad Nugget is with us.”

  “She’ll let us know if someone happens by.”

  We pass the ridge where Daddy and I started working the new vein, then I cross the tiny cemetery that only has two headstones—one for Orpha the dog and one for my baby brother who lived three days. Daddy carved them himself. There’ll soon be two more, and I don’t know who will carve them.

  Our pace slows even more as we ride through the orchard. Jefferson sits tall on his mare, alert for the slightest strangeness. As we pass the henhouse, something in me screams not to look, but I can’t help glancing that way. The woodpile blocks my view of everything except Mama’s legs. Her skirt is still tucked beneath her ankles.

  A shadow passes overhead, and I duck before realizing it’s a great buzzard circling. The first of the scavengers, coming to get what’s mine.

  “Let’s go in the back door,” I say. I’ll have to face Daddy’s body again soon enough. But not just yet.

  Jefferson guides our horses past the garden and to the back porch. He hands me the reins to the sorrel mare, puts a finger to his lips, and whispers, “I’ll check the house. Wait here.” He hefts his rifle and slips inside.

  He’s in there a long time while the cold sun beats down on my head and the buzzards circle and the silent woods watch my back. The world feels empty and quiet. Too empty.

  My breath catches. Our gold.

  I do sense something—the tiniest spark of sweetness. Probably just the nugget I found yesterday, hiding wherever Daddy stashed it. But the usual, ever-present thrumming in my head whenever I’m near our bag of dust is completely gone.

  Strange how you don’t notice things until they’re taken away.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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

  Chapter Five

  Finally, 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.”r />
  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

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