Trail's End

by E. L. Ripley

  “I take your meaning, but, to be truthful, we rarely have a need,” Mary told him.

  Tom could believe that, but only to a point. They had a good life here. Not easy but sheltered in many ways and stable. Potatoes weren’t a glamorous business, but these people had all that they needed and more. Good, organized farming could make for a handsome business if the weather and the seasons played along. And with that in mind and their shared values, he could see how it might have been enough to keep some of the common problems away.

  But the townspeople weren’t perfect. How did they handle things when one of their own slipped up?

  “When you do have the need, though.” Tom wiped his mouth with his napkin and looked across the table at her. “When someone does something they shouldn’t do.”

  “Jeremiah and the others talk to them.” Mary didn’t seem bothered by the question. “I suppose if someone really could not abide by our ways, they would have to go.”

  “It’s never come to that?”

  “No. Well . . .” Mary frowned and glanced at her mother, who for once had her eyes on her plate. Mrs. Washburn was ignoring her.

  “Was I wrong to ask?”

  “No,” Mary said to Tom, shaking her head. “No. We are not utterly apart from everyone else. We know about the trouble they have in other places. There’s only the one time I remember that we had that here.”

  “What happened?”

  Mary looked pained. And Mrs. Washburn had her poker face on.

  “The . . . guilty party was hanged,” Mary said after a moment, and with a look of surprise, as though she’d genuinely forgotten until just now. “It’s been a long time. More than ten years. A good deal more. I’ve stopped thinking about it.” She swallowed, though. The memories were still there, and she didn’t like them.

  “I apologize,” Tom said quickly. “That’s not what we should talk about during a meal.”

  “Agreed,” Mrs. Washburn said mildly.

  * * *

  * * *

  The cooking in the Black household really was something to take note of, and Tom looked forward to it every day. It wasn’t free, however. It was becoming something of a ritual to have dinner, then retire to a game of cards.

  Mary had no interest in cards, but her mother loved them. Not poker—they couldn’t have any stakes, because that would make it gambling, which was apparently sinful. These people didn’t play poker, but they did play other games, and Mrs. Washburn was pretty good. Good enough that if she played with the other Quakers, it wouldn’t be much of a game. She had hoped for a worthy opponent in Tom, the professional gambler who’d played in all the big cities in the East and the South.

  What she’d gotten was a man whom she couldn’t beat at anything. At first she’d found that frustrating, but it upset her even more if Tom lost to her on purpose. She’d mellowed as the days had gone by, and Tom suspected that Mary’s fondness for him played a role in that.

  Now Mrs. Washburn worried him more than the thing from the forest did. He didn’t like the way she’d stiffened up when Mary mentioned the hanging. Of course she would find that sort of thing objectionable, but there had to be something else. He’d spent countless hours watching for tells, and he knew when the way someone acted didn’t line up with the situation. That incongruity was always a sign of danger. And the notion of Quakers hanging someone in the first place—that wasn’t right, was it?

  The town had been around for a while, and the inhabitants couldn’t be the saints they pretended to be. Tom didn’t know it because he’d seen anything untoward; he knew it because he knew people. To keep everything running smoothly, someone had to have a way of solving problems. Whatever that was, maybe these folks weren’t proud of it.

  That was fine. Tom was the last man who would judge someone for doing something ugly, particularly something ugly that needed doing. He’d been there himself, more than once.

  No, it wasn’t alarm so much as old-fashioned curiosity. Imagine making that inconvenient trek up into some rocky woods, tying together some sticks, feathers, and bird bones, and leaving them out there.

  That didn’t make sense. Someone had dropped it by mistake, he was sure—but that still didn’t answer the question of what it was.

  “Mr. Smith?”

  That woke him up.

  “Is our little game boring you?” Mrs. Washburn asked dryly, seeing that he was distracted.

  “You know it isn’t,” Tom told her, drawing a card. He hoped the kid was doing a better job than he was of keeping his thoughts hidden. They drew enough attention here as it was; nothing good would come of drawing more.

  Mrs. Washburn won the game. Tom hadn’t let her do it, at least not knowingly.

  “I guess I would be foolish not to end on that note,” she said, giving Tom her usual scowl.

  He got up to help her to her feet, feeling a twinge of guilt. She probably didn’t want to quit just yet, and she thought she was doing him a favor.

  But Tom wasn’t going to protest. It was the perfect opportunity to stay and talk a little while with Mary alone or as close to alone as they could be. The sense of propriety here, at least in regard to unwed men and women, wasn’t entirely to Tom’s liking.

  On the other hand, it did make things interesting.

  Mrs. Washburn went up the stairs on her own, and Tom turned to Mary. He meant to apologize for his morbid conversation and distraction, but she cut him off.

  “What’s the matter, Mr. Smith?”

  He opened his mouth to lie, but stopped that before it could get out. She was inches away from him, and he liked the sight of her in any light—but lamplight was best. He sighed.

  “I like it here,” he admitted finally.

  Her smile had been a bit hesitant, but now it grew to its usual size, which was really something. “Do you?”

  He leaned on his walking stick and smiled back at her. “I do. But I’m a busybody, and I worry. There’s something wrong with me, Mrs. Black.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He searched for the right words. “I always want things my way. I think that’s why I did what I did. Living on the road. It was just me, and I could always make sure that things were just the way I liked them.”

  She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s different here.” He snorted, gesturing vaguely. “This place. When it’s just me, I run the show. I don’t run things here. I can’t.”

  “Put the burden down,” she said immediately. “It’s one less worry. We all look after one another, Mr. Smith. If I fall, you’re there to catch me. The same for you. Don’t you listen on Sundays?”

  “I’ve only been here for two Sundays,” he pointed out, and she grinned.

  “I am sure it will be easier in time.”

  “It’s difficult now, though. You have no idea how hard I worked over the years to be prepared.”

  “Prepared for what? What do you mean?”

  “Well,” he said, meeting her eyes very directly, “for trouble. I worked hard at shooting a pistol, for example.”

  “Oh.” Her smile shrank a bit.

  “When you play cards, you make enemies. If you want to play cards for a long time and live to tell of it, you have to be ready. So I always made sure I was.” He took his coat and hat from the rack. “That’s what it is, I think. That’s what bothers me. I worry that you all aren’t ready for trouble. And it makes me itch.”

  Mary’s grin returned. “You’re forgetting something, Mr. Smith.”

  “Oh?”

  She leaned in a little closer. There was no perfume in Friendly Field, but Tom didn’t mind that. He just gripped his walking stick. It wasn’t easy to have her this close and just stand there. It was unnatural.

  “The Lord,” she said, and he couldn’t tell if she was being ironic. “He will see to things.”


  Tom glanced toward the stairs, though there was no danger of Mrs. Washburn spying on them—but Mary saw him and read his mind. She stepped back, hardly out of reach, but he couldn’t fail to take her meaning.

  Other people weren’t supposed to be able to read him that way, but the rules didn’t apply to Mary. For God’s sake, did these Quakers think there was any harm in a damn kiss? Fine.

  She showed him out, and he pulled on his coat as she closed the door. Tom put on his hat, then stepped down into the night. There were still plenty of lit windows; it wasn’t so late yet. Yes, he might have talked another hour with Mary, and he’d have liked to.

  But he didn’t trust himself, and apparently neither did she.

  Shaking his head, he started the walk back to the house he shared with Asher. There was a light on; the boy was already home. The house had been only half finished when they arrived, and it had been intended for a Quaker family who meant to come here but had been delayed in Boston.

  What kind of people would do that: just give a house to a man and a boy who turned up unannounced with nothing to offer in exchange?

  Well, Tom had money, but the Quakers weren’t interested in that. All they wanted was for the two of them to put in a full day of work, sit for service, and mind their language. And Asher never swore, so that last rule was just for Tom. And they wanted at least Asher to marry one of their girls—they definitely wanted that.

  Still, it wasn’t unreasonable.

  Tom paused, gazing toward Thaddeus’ house. The windows were lit there, and he could see two—no, three silhouettes. Saul and Jeremiah were inside. And someone else, but Tom couldn’t be sure who. He wanted to knock on the door; it didn’t appear to be the calmest conversation, and he wanted to know what was being said.

  But it wasn’t his place. It was easy to admit he was a busybody. It would be harder to change it, but he had to start somewhere.

  He had to.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Quakers were nothing if not orderly. The rows in the fields were perfect; they were as clean and straight as if someone had parted them with a comb. Tom had never known that potatoes were so much work; every day they were out there. As the plants grew, the men kept covering them with soil so they wouldn’t be exposed to the sun. It had to be every bit as tedious as sewing pillowcases and a good deal more difficult.

  But it wasn’t the lovingly minded fields that made the valley beautiful; it was the sun and the way it caught on the dew. That, and it was easier to appreciate beauty when he wasn’t completely out of breath.

  The temptation to go up into the hills again had been strong, but to what end? Was it the dullness of days of sewing that made him so much more susceptible to his curiosity now? Or something else? He didn’t know, and that bothered him.

  He turned, leaning on his stick and gazing back toward the houses. One thing that still took him aback about Quakers was their church. It wasn’t that the church had no regular preacher; it was that the church itself was so humble. It was big enough that everyone could fit inside without undo discomfort, but it was still dwarfed by the barns. These folks spent so much time thinking about God that Tom would have thought they’d have a fancy church. The truth was, they didn’t have a fancy anything. Not even the elders—and those three were the ones holding all the money. A part of him had expected to find their homes full of fine things. He had just assumed that they were enriching themselves with the work of the townsfolk.

  That didn’t appear to be true, though. He spent his days in Jeremiah’s house, and he had been in Thaddeus’. Both were more or less the same as Mary Black’s home and the one that Tom now shared with Asher.

  There was a fair amount of money coming in from these potatoes. What were they doing with it, apart from making sure everyone had what they needed? Or was that all they did? Was the rest really just stacking up somewhere?

  It was none of Tom’s business, and there he was, wondering about these things again as though he were the one running Friendly Field.

  He turned back to the east to see that there was someone on the road. A stagecoach, still far off, but not so far that Tom could hope to limp back to shelter before it passed him on its way to town, because there was nowhere else it could be going. His own clothes weren’t so different from what the Quakers wore, just finer. He pulled off his coat and tie, tossing them out of sight. In his shirtsleeves he could have been anyone. As the stagecoach approached, he stood to one side and leaned on his walking stick, and as it passed, he tipped his hat and in doing so hid his face from the driver and anyone who might have been inside.

  They rattled on.

  Whoever it was in there, they’d traveled through the night, so they were in a hurry. It was the first stage he’d seen since coming to Friendly Field. Relief hit Tom hard; it wasn’t a posse of lawmen, after all. Curiosity took relief’s place in a heartbeat, but he caught it and didn’t let it go. It wasn’t lost on him that he had a tendency to think he knew everything. Mary was the one who really had the answer, though: he had to learn to mind his business.

  * * *

  * * *

  The stage was already gone by the time he returned to town. It was time to get to the sewing room; most of the men were already making their way out to the fields. He even saw the kid walking alongside another young man, a much taller and broader one Tom hadn’t met.

  Jeremiah was over by the church, letting himself in. Why? There would be no service today. Tom hobbled after him.

  The church was quiet and just big enough that even small sounds carried. There were pews, and that was all. There wasn’t even a lectern for the lucky parishioner who had to give the sermons or homilies or whatever the Quakers called their little chats. Tom still had some adjusting to do.

  “Morning,” he said, and Jeremiah looked over his shoulder.

  “Peace be with thee.”

  “Same to you. Is everything all right?” Tom wanted to ask what he was doing in here. He wanted to ask what the elders had been arguing about last night too, but that was none of his business.

  The white-haired man hesitated only for a moment; then he put his hand on a pew and leaned. “I think you know it isn’t.”

  “That thing mean something to you? The thing with the feathers?”

  Jeremiah shook his head. “No. Thaddeus thinks it’s something to do with witchcraft.”

  “And Saul?”

  “He’s like me. Not sure what to think.” He looked over at Tom. “What were you doing looking for mushrooms, Tom?”

  “We weren’t. Not really. The kid went up there in the first place because he thought he saw someone.”

  Jeremiah was openly baffled.

  Tom was prying instead of doing what he should have been: making for the sewing room. He didn’t stop, though.

  “You hold with this witchcraft foolishness?”

  Jeremiah just looked helpless. He spread his hands and shook his head. Tom had a feeling the other man didn’t believe in witchcraft any more than he did.

  “Well,” Jeremiah murmured, scratching his beard, “I suppose we did come across it. Some years ago.”

  “It’s not real,” Tom told him bluntly. He regretted it immediately, but Jeremiah was too distracted to be affronted. “Has it got you that worried? One little doll?”

  It wasn’t really the doll, of course. It was that none of them had an explanation for it. These other fellows might not be as bad as Tom when it came to needing a hold on things, but they couldn’t possibly like what they couldn’t explain.

  “What? Oh. No, it’s— Well, keep it to yourself.” Jeremiah glanced at the door. “The object you found is gone.”

  “What?”

  “Someone must have taken it from the house last night while we were talking. Thaddeus meant to show it to us.” He sighed. “He couldn’t find it.”

  “We
ll, we already knew that whoever made it was, you know”—Tom swirled his finger in the air—“one of us.”

  “How’s that?”

  “The thread. It’s the same thread I sew with. There’s some in every house. There’s not one woman in Friendly Field without it.”

  Jeremiah’s brows rose; then his eyes narrowed.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” he muttered. “Thaddeus didn’t mention that. He probably didn’t notice.”

  “No fault of his. He’s not the suspicious sort.”

  “A little suspicion isn’t always a bad thing.”

  “I agree.”

  * * *

  * * *

  If his conversation with Jeremiah hadn’t been strange enough, the sewing room was. The windows were open and the rising sun was shining. There was a breeze, but still plenty of warmth already. It was as pleasant a day as anyone could hope for, but Tom felt as though he’d just walked into a funeral.

  He took his place in the chair next to Mrs. White and picked up his work.

  “Good morning, ladies.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Smith. Peace be with thee.” Usually it was a chorus; today it was just Mary and something like a mutter from Mrs. Pilkin.

  Tom put on his new thimble, and he considerately waited a full minute before poking his nose in.

  “Looks like you all know who was in that stagecoach.”

  This miserable hush had to be something to do with that. Tom was certain the ladies did not know about the witchcraft business. The stagecoach, though—it was unlikely that anyone had missed that.

  Mrs. Pilkin and Mrs. Young kept their eyes down, but a look passed between Mary and Mrs. White. Mary started to speak, but Mrs. White was faster on the draw.

  “A Miss Adams, I understand,” she told Tom. Her way of speaking was always gentle and proper, but here it was a little much. Was that irony underneath? It was difficult to be sure.

  The women in the room weren’t afraid or worried; they were merely uncomfortable.