Walk on Earth a Stranger Page 5

  Chapter Six

  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 ja
w. 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?”

  “I smell baked ham,” he says, shrugging off his overcoat. “Fix a plate for me?”

  I consider storming off, but I can’t shake my upbringing. When you have a guest in your house, you fix them something to eat. I grab a clean plate from the hutch and cut him a slice of ham, then surround it with potatoes and the biscuits. I hope he chokes on the first bite.

  Hiram makes himself at home. He has a heavier step and quicker movements than my daddy, and the tobacco scent of him swells, pushing everything out of its way, making the air of my home seem unfamiliar and strange. He settles into Daddy’s chair by the cold fire, and I put the plate on the side table next to him.

  “Help me with my boots,” he says.

  My gut churns as I approach, careful like a cat. I kneel at his feet, and my fingers squelch in lingering mud as I grab and yank. The boots come loose easily enough that he could have done it himself. He sits back, sighing like a man well and truly satisfied. “Thank you, sweet pea.”

  I ignore him, setting the boots by the door. I wipe my hands on a rag, then, standing straight as I can, my chin in the air but my face as void as a snow-blanked hill, I ask the question that’s been squeezing my soul: “How long are you going to stay?”

  He pulls a pipe from the breast pocket of his vest. It’s carved with vines, and the sick-sweet scent of tobacco gets even stronger, though the pipe remains unlit. He contemplates it a moment, smiles a small, secret smile, then shoves it back into his pocket. “Forever, Leah,” he says finally. “This is my home now.”

  “It belongs to me. Daddy left it to me in his will.” My fists clench at my sides again. “You know it. You’re the one who drew it up.”

  “He left this homestead—everything—to me,” he says.

  I open my mouth, close it. Try again. I imagine I look like a brook trout, tossed onto the bank and gasping.

  His voice gentles. “You need proof; I can see that.” He puts his stockinged feet up on Daddy’s stool and leans back. “My bo
y will be here soon with all my belongings. When he arrives, I’ll unpack my office first and show you my brother’s will, signed by Reuben himself.”

  It takes a moment for me to realize “boy” refers to his slave. If Daddy knew that his brother owned slaves . . .

  My eyes prick with tears all over again. I won’t cry in front of him. I won’t.

  “Be reasonable, sweet pea. Such a will would have been invalid, anyway. The law, in its wisdom, protects the weaker sex from the hardships and vicissitudes that attend the ownership of property.”

  “I’m not weak.”

  “Of course not. You’re a Westfall.” His smile is all teeth. “But you are a young lady, one who has just suffered a terrible tragedy, no less. It’s a good thing I came when I did.”

  “Why? So you can . . .” I almost say “kill me too.” “So you can take what doesn’t belong to you?” I finish lamely.

  “It’s mine, lawfully and morally. And so are you, sweet pea. My very own charge.” His gaze on me softens. It’s the same look of affection Daddy gave me when he said I had a strong heart, and it chills my bones.

  “This is a hard time for you; I understand that,” he continues. “But you and I, we are much alike, I think. We’re going to get on swimmingly.” Keeping his eyes on me, he picks up his plate, stabs the ham with a fork, and crams the first large bite into his mouth.

  I ignore him, pulling on my own boots—Daddy’s castoffs from years ago—and head toward the door. I have plans to make.

  “Where are you going?”

  I whirl to find Uncle Hiram still peering at me. He seems nervous all of a sudden, and I’m pleased to have shaken that smug composure, though I’m not sure how I did it.

  “I’m going to muck stalls.”

  “That’s man’s work.”

  “There’s no man here willing to work, far as I can see.”

  He frowns. “That barn is the cleanest I ever saw.”

  “Because I don’t shirk my daily chores.”

  We stare at each other, our chins set equally hard, and the thought niggles like a worm in my belly: Maybe we are alike. Maybe just a little.