Finally! Do something, boy.
The spyglass revealed Toby carrying a book. He made for the barn, reopened the door, and entered. Five minutes passed, then ten. Brendan strained to hear if Toby might be doing some kind of sawing or hammering in the barn, but heard only the gentle rustle of leaves around him.
Then Toby, still wearing his customary overalls without a shirt, emerged and stood before the opened barn, as if assessing what was inside. He read a few passages, periodically looking down at the text and then back into the barn. Then he pointed.
Someone’s in there? I hope not. He ain’t reading to one of his horses—they’re out running around. Maybe a farmhand? He keeps his help in a hot barn? Maybe there’s a bed in the loft? He got company? But it’d be an inferno up that high this time of day.
Brendan brought down the telescope and stared beyond the farmstead in disbelief.
It’s gotta be like one-hundred-and-twenty degrees in that barn, at least. I figured Toby for a savage, but that cinches it for me—leaving someone in there to cook all day.
Brendan brought the telescope back up to his eye and still Toby read from the book like a preacher.
That’s one angry man, Brendan thought.
Toby paced back and forth before the barn entrance the way a general might while barking at his troops. He pointed into the fields.
Brendan would’ve given anything to hear Toby. His voice didn’t carry, not enough for Brendan to hear from this distance. But he wanted so badly for the target of Toby’s wrath to walk from the barn so it could be seen beyond the rooftop.
Come on, show your face, dammit. Step into the sunlight.
Toby harangued before the fields to the point of looking silly.
If they’re farmhands, why ain’t they out there working? No white man would ever work for a black, so he’s hired freedmen? Freedmen working for a freedman? Never thought I’d see the day.
Brendan ran the possibilities through his mind, but one thought persisted.
What the hell’s in there?
Brendan kept watch through the scope, seeing that Toby had cooled down. He snapped shut the book and placed his hands on his hips.
Toby then imparted some final words to his cornfields.
Brendan placed the telescope on his lap and fidgeted in his satchel for the last apple. He rummaged over a blank diary and a pencil Diggs had given him in case he wanted to take notes.
If I can’t remember it, then it wasn’t important in the first place. Brendan ignored the book as he grasped the last piece of fruit.
He brought it up, about to bite, and froze.
The trees’ shadows on the manicured side of Toby’s property dissolved, consumed by darkness that slithered from Brendan’s point of view, crashing like a black tide over the barn and farmhouse, sweeping across the cornfields, ridding the world of daylight. Brendan looked up to see lightning streak from multiple black, billowing clouds expanding across the sky. Lightning bolts flew from all the dark masses, knotting themselves in the middle of the sky, and still Brendan saw sunlight poking through the tree leaves behind him.
“How can the sun still be out?” Brendan said as a translucent black square encased the farmland’s perimeter. The thunderclap shook Brendan’s tree, making him bounce in his seat.
Rain drenched Toby’s fields and the wind picked up, blowing the droplets sideways with force enough to spray Brendan in the sunlight. The farmer stood with his arms outstretched like Christ, but slightly raised toward the heavens.
Then Toby Jenkins, an unmoving statue, notched his head toward Brendan’s perch, boring holes through him.
How the hell did he see me? I ain’t done nothing to reveal myself. Kept my movements hidden. Hell, I’m the color of a frickin’ tree.
He again grabbed the spyglass.
Toby’s hands now rested on his hips. His face lost all emotion, and his eyes rolled up and into his skull. Toby’s lips moved slowly—like Franklin’s when reading Little Women—as if conducting a conversation with himself.
Or chanting? Or praying?
Toby Jenkins stopped, his mouth agape, lashes fluttering above dead eyes.
Nervous shakes made Brendan drop the eyepiece. He helplessly watched the telescope somersault to the ground and land with a glass crack.
Now a speck, Toby disappeared into the barn.
What in God’s name was he saying? Who’s he talking to in that barn?
Brendan focused on untying the rope that protected him from falling, and in the process glanced toward the farm. He ceased fiddling with the cord.
Through the misty black shroud stood six farmhands, Brendan surmised, armed with tools, surrounding the vacant spot where Toby seemed to evangelize moments earlier. Brendan barely made out the scythes’ curves and pitchforks’ tines. Field hats and other headwear concealed their faces.
Freedmen? Did they just drop out of the sky too? Brendan instinctively tore through the knotting, knowing nothing good lived on that farm.
Toby appeared and faced the barn, standing a few feet in front of his men. Brendan distinguished through the thunder strikes a low didgeridoo-like hum, whose sound built in strength and force. Brendan’s stomach heaved after being enveloped by a hypnotic voice—Toby’s emanating voice, for Brendan could see, even through the shadows and without the spyglass, Toby appearing to wildly holler at Brendan.
Toby jabbed his right pointer finger at Brendan, a move that simultaneously released Brendan’s bladder and unleashed the dark spectres to pursue him. They burst past the barn and bounded across trimmed grassland leading to the forest.
Is it one thing or a mass of men? Or both? Brendan couldn’t tell, for at one moment they appeared as individual men with little arms and legs flailing through the torrential rain, and then the six seemed to work as a cohesive unit, one perfectly trailing the other to form a weaponized centipede skittering across the lawn. The telescope would’ve answered what the hell charged his way.
He scrambled to secure the satchel and canteen and went to descend the tree, forgetting he was still tied to it.
“Shit!” His scream spooked birds from the branches, and he fumbled with thread. Loosening it proved easy, but it killed precious seconds. He knew the six lunatics could see him.
The rope fell and Brendan tried retracing his route down the tree. Branches slipped through his sweaty hands and he plummeted. He hit the ground feet first with enough force to snap his right leg sideways. He howled while crumpling into a heap.
Brendan ignored the pain and literally crawled—fingers raking through dirt to drag himself forward—to save his skin. Adrenaline fueled his slithering over tree roots and rocks. He stopped when the tips of two sunlit black boots appeared before him.
Too late.
Quick death was not in the offing, not with the tools they carried. Brendan drew his gun while glancing to see what he hoped to shoot before it could cut him.
“Hi, Brendan, what are you doing down there?” Franklin hovered over him and tilted his head from side to side, trying to understand why his friend was crawling like a baby. “It’s past five o’clock. I was getting worried about you.”
“Franklin!” Brendan rejoiced at the miracle and holstered his gun. “My leg’s broke! Get me out of here!”
“Now you just hold your horses. I gotta go take a piss and—”
“No! You don’t! Men are coming this way to kill me and you! Pick me up! Go!”
Franklin, sensing the urgency, plucked his friend off the ground. Brendan screamed as his right leg dangled in ways God never intended. Franklin scampered out of the woods, carrying Brendan like a bride.
Franklin heaved him into the wagon bed, ignoring Brendan’s pained cries, and then bounded back toward the forest.
“Franklin! Where the hell you going?!”
“What about the ladder?”
“
For Chrissakes leave it!” Brendan screamed, almost pleadingly. “Just move!”
Franklin gave a “well, okay” shrug and climbed into the driver’s seat. He somehow had the presence of mind to park the rig in Henderson’s direction. He released the brake and slapped the reins.
“Hya! Hya!”
The horses broke into stride and built momentum. Brendan pushed himself up to peek over the bouncing rear door.
The shadow men stood sentinel side by side across the road.
Sunlight penetrated the dissipating black mass and hit them from behind, making six silhouettes appear as a chain of black paper dolls.
One hurled a tool at the wagon. Brendan ducked.
A hand sickle punctured the bed’s wooden door. The tip jutted through and slit the nub of Brendan’s nose. His eyes crossed to focus on the stinging wound. He knew it couldn’t be a coincidence. They held many weapons and could’ve thrown all of them at the wagon. Surely one would’ve pinned him. Brendan was certain he’d seen that same blade split Toby Jenkins’s water bucket on the night of the failed assassination.
Go ahead, keep me, the weapon practically spoke. There are more where I came from.
“Don’t look back, Franklin! Whatever you do, don’t look back!”
Franklin heeded Brendan and pushed the horses to their limits. Soon the black shapes disappeared into a sunlit meridian amidst swirls of dirt and dust.
Chapter Eighteen
Noah’s four o’clock-to-midnight shift wouldn’t begin for a couple of hours so he opted to make constructive use of his time.
His parents insisted he and Natalie sleep uninterrupted for a full night, allowing the grandparents to attend to Jake when he awoke wailing during the dark hours. Natalie protested, wanting Jake to stay in the basinet, but they demanded she reenergize for the days—“and decades,” her mother-in-law joked—ahead.
The current quandary was Natalie’s inability to produce breast milk.
“They’re plenty ripe—almost ready,” said her father-in-law, Alexander Chandler. While this observation unnerved Natalie to no end, Alexander correctly concluded the baby would need bottle-feeding until she could bear milk.
“No hireling breast will nurse my grandchild.” Susanna Chandler ended the discussion of whether to hire a wet nurse.
Secretly, Natalie embraced deep sleep and felt like a selfish mother for craving it. Jake slept in a wooden cradle at the base of the elder Chandlers’ bed, and but for one outburst that was quelled by a bottled mix of water, cow milk and sugar, the child managed a quiet night on the plantation.
Noah, clean and refreshed, sat with Natalie in bed as she tried nursing Jake. Noah managed earlier to wrestle his son away from granny’s surprisingly strong arms and held him for long stretches of time. When Natalie and Jake napped at two o’clock, he rode Wilbur to the far side of the plantation and carried a burlap bag whose interior clanked the entire way. He tied Wilbur to a small tree and walked the remaining three-hundred feet to his destination.
He reached into the sack and placed the five empty metal cans on the wooden fence posts outlining the Chandler property. A solitary, centuries-old oak tree stood behind the centermost can and had taken many a bullet from Noah and his deceased brother when they were learning how to shoot. Behind it stood flat grassland leading to miles of bogs, providing an uninhabitable backdrop for humans. God willing, nobody would mistakenly be on the receiving end of a bullet—hopefully just the cans.
He backed up sixty feet and figured it sensible to aim first for the center can, and then pivot to shoot the two on either of its sides, working his way out. He brought with him a lever-action Winchester rifle that wasn’t due to go on sale until the next year. (His father knew people.) It bolstered his confidence when he picked off the five cans one after the other in six seconds. He shot them near the base so they whirled in a circle before landing.
The bitch of it was loping back and forth to reset cans, which he did, in preparation for the quick-draw.
They’re just cans. They held coffee and ain’t gonna shoot back. Don’t be nervous.
He couldn’t help it. His right hand lingered to the side of his Colt, his sweaty fingers brushing the handle and trigger.
One fluid motion: Cock the hammer with the thumb and grip, draw, point, shoot, he thought. Do it. Don’t think.
Noah cocked, gripped and shot while drawing and nearly blew off his foot. A chunk of dirt exploded from the ground next to him. The gunshot echo amplified his embarrassment, and he slowly circled around to see if, somehow, someone had seen his failure. Other than Wilbur, who milled around the tree, nobody had.
Take out the bullets, genius, he thought. Practice.
Noah did and became comfortable enough dry firing the piece to reload it.
He opted not to rush his first time back with live ammo. He drew in what looked like slow motion and fired: Nothing on the horizon moved.
Missed. That’s okay—you can still walk. You’re making progress.
Noah had no clue if he came close to nicking the can. He drew and fired five more times. The unmoving center can mocked him.
Maybe I hit the tree. Maybe?
“Who am I shitting?” Noah mumbled. “In a real fight I’d be maggot meat by now.”
Noah took a drink of water from a canteen he’d brought with him. He looked behind him to see Wilbur now resting on the grass.
Can’t take your rifle everywhere. Keep at it, he thought.
Confident he progressed enough so he wouldn’t shoot himself, Noah squared and focused on the shiny middle can.
He cocked, gripped, drew, pointed, aimed and fired, and picked off a squirrel he didn’t even know had shielded itself (or so it thought) within the high oak branches behind the fence. The dead critter hit the ground with a final thump and a squeak.
Aim lower.
Then he looked on the bright side: At least I hit something.
Noah kept at it: Gunshot and silence, gunshot and silence. Over and over.
I’ve got to go to work soon.
Gunshot and silence. Gunshot and silence.
Never a clink of a can.
Chapter Nineteen
“Well, I guess you’re going to be the next one lying on my table, big fellow.” Doctor Richardson smiled at Franklin, and then looked down at Brendan languishing on the examination table. It was late in the day when Franklin and Lyle came to check on Brendan, who slept the night in Richardson’s office after having his leg set and remained unconscious most of the morning.
“But I’m not in pain, Doc,” Franklin said. “I do get this itchy rash that pops up—”
“No, son, I was merely commenting that your two friends have already—”
“Don’t bother, Doc.” Lyle stopped the nonsense with a raised voice. “It’s a lost cause.”
“I see.” Richardson’s fading smile conveyed pity for the thickheaded man. “As for Brendan here, how are you feeling?”
“More morphine.” Brendan tilted his head up to look at his bum limb. The doc had cut off his right pant leg to tend to the bone.
“That’s not an answer to my question.”
“More morphine means I’m feeling pain, Doc. More morphine. Please.”
“He gonna be able to walk again, Doc?” Lyle eyed the wooden splint secured to Brendan’s leg with leather straps.
“Your friend should count himself lucky that the bone didn’t cut through the skin. That would mean possible infection, meaning possibly becoming gangrenous, meaning I might have to go into this drawer.” Richardson slid open a drawer near the base of a medicine cabinet and pulled out a bone saw. “But I don’t think that will be necessary here. I was able to pull and push the tibia in place—or what I believe to be in place—rather cleanly.”
“I don’t remember that part,” Brendan said to the ceiling.
“That’s because of the chloroform, and be thankful for it.”
“I am, and I’ll be thankful for some more morphine. Shoot me up.”
Richardson, exasperated, went to a medicine cabinet and prepared an injection of morphine while apprising the others of Brendan’s condition. “I think I can cast your leg—which I believe I’ll rather enjoy. I’ve not had a chance to use plaster of Paris yet on a human. Brendan qualifies.”
Richardson looked at the full syringe and demurred. “I’m not certain you need this, Brendan. You’ve had quite enough. I simply think you like the way this makes you feel. You’re not the first or last man to get addicted to morphine, and I’m not going to help facilitate that process. Much as I know you’ll object, I’ll hold off on this unless and until I’m convinced you’re in pain.”
Richardson stuck the needle into a small piece of cork and laid it on a mobile medical tray well out Brendan’s reach on the far side of the room.
“I just need to buy some linen from the mercantile to cut into strips before the place closes,” Richardson said. “But I will not do that until one of the sheriff’s men arrives to keep an eye on Brendan while I’m out.”
“Wait a sec, Doc.” Lyle’s eyes zigzagged around the room, revealing to Richardson that was the last thing Lyle wanted. “Brendan sure as hell ain’t under arrest like that guy that got hung, so what gives?”
“You want the unvarnished truth? I don’t trust you and your friend there to mind my rapidly depleting reserves of morphine any more than I trust Brendan.”
“Like I said, Doc, I ain’t in any pain,” Franklin said.
Richardson looked at him in astonishment while speaking to Lyle.
“Surely you would agree that a man in my position, having addressed injuries you and Brendan sustained during what any reasonably intelligent person would presume to be the commission of multiple crimes, would be wise not to leave you in the unguarded presence of medicines whose names you likely cannot even pronounce, much less understand what they would do to you if improperly ingested.”
Lyle rolled his eyes—whatever.
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