Hot tremors raced up Susanna’s arms like flames up a dry tree. “You listen to me, George.” She stood up.
“Susanna,” Aunt Ann whispered.
She did not look at her aunt. “My sister is a good woman whom you neglected and took for granted. She and her children often went hungry because of your lack of character and fondness for drink. And now you come here asking us to pay you for your children?” Her voice rose, edged by fury. “None of us has a thousand dollars to give to anyone.”
“Everyone always claims they ain’t got it, but they do.” His sideways look reminded her of a fox.
“We don’t!” Her cheeks felt full and hot. “But even if we did, we wouldn’t give it to a miserable excuse for a human being like you! What would you do with it? Nothing but drink!”
He got to his feet. “Don’t you disrespect me, Susanna. I’ll make you wish you hadn’t.” Little flecks of spittle came out on the hard ring of his lips.
“Tell me where Rachel is! I believe you know something about it!”
Over George’s shoulder her aunt’s face had whitened.
“She’s a bad woman who can go to the devil for all I care. Maybe she’s already with him.” George smirked.
Susanna drew back her hand and slapped his leering face.
He exploded in a blur of motion. A hard blow to her chest threw her back against the wall, her head hitting with a thud. The room collapsed into a bleary whirl around her and she would have fallen, but his hands wrapped around her neck, cutting off her breath, so hard her throat crushed in agony. She opened her mouth but nothing could come in or out, only the waves of pain at her neck.
She batted at his arms but had no strength against the determined glee of killing in his drawn lips and bared teeth. She heard Aunt Ann shouting but it was fuzzy.
The room dimmed, disappearing from her sight.
Twenty-Four
JOHANN PAUSED NEXT TO ONE OF THE OIL STREETLAMPS and examined his shirt in the faint light. A black smudge of powder marked the place where the barrels had touched him. He buttoned his lightweight blazer, hoping to hide the worst of it. There. The Hanbys probably would not notice. Good thing his trousers were black so any hand-wiping done by the creek would not have left a trace. He could still smell it though.
He passed Corbin’s saloon, which had five or six hardy drinkers inside on stools from what he could see through the window. He hoped one was not Arthur Pippen.
He shoved his hands in his pockets as he walked. Should he really go visit Susanna? Yes. By now she would be almost frantic about the youngest children and their adoptive placements. He could at least talk with her and together they could try to produce some new solution.
But when the white frame rental home Mrs. Hanby had mentioned loomed ahead, he had second thoughts. He continued walking, on past the house down State Street, nerving himself. What if the enchanted quality of the night in the garden was only an effect of the music and the beautiful setting? He might walk into her house and be greeted with cold hostility if she regretted her venture into German life—or her dance with him.
He was ten yards past the house. Don’t be a fool. Go talk to her. He stopped, spun on one heel, and strode back toward the door.
Within steps of the front porch, he stopped again. You are going to New York and it will all be a moot point.
But as he dug his heel in the grass, the sound of a woman’s voice raised in fear came from the house, accompanied by loud thumps.
“Don’t, don’t! Let go of her!”
It was Ann Hanby crying out. Something was wrong. He sprinted up the stairs and hurled himself at the front door, crashing it open.
Against the far wall of the parlor, a dark-haired man pinned Susanna by her throat. Her hands weakly pushed at him, her eyes dulling into unconsciousness. Her aunt pulled the man’s hair, trying vainly to drag him off. He threw the elderly woman off with one blow, and she staggered back and fell against a chair.
Johann charged across the parlor and yanked the man backward by one shoulder. As he spun around, surprised, mouth open, Johann swung one fist around with all his strength and connected hard with the man’s temple. He went down like a felled bull, his head swinging back and forth. George Leeds.
With a roar he rushed up from the ground and swung wildly at Johann. He missed, grabbed for Johann’s shirt, and clutched him in vise-like hands. He shoved hard. Something slammed into the back of Johann’s knees. He tumbled backward over a chair, hitting his head hard on the floor.
In an instant George was on top of him. Johann heaved him over and thrust his knees in his chest. The other man gasped, totally winded, paralyzed. With a deft twist, Johann wrapped his arm behind him in one of the holds from wrestling at the Turnverein. Thank the Lord for physical education.
The only sound was the heaving of breath—Johann’s, Susanna’s, and eventually George’s, when his mouth stopped working in silent agony.
“You swine!” Johann forced his arm farther up, bringing a wince from the greasy-haired man. “What do you think you’re doing?”
George did not answer.
Susanna and Ann staggered into his line of sight, the older woman supporting her niece. Susanna tried to speak, then put a hand to her throat with a grimace.
“It’s all right, dear,” her aunt said. “Don’t talk right now.”
“What happened?” Johann asked Ann.
“He wanted us to give him one thousand dollars for the children. Susanna flew into a temper and slapped him, then he attacked as you saw.”
“I, too, probably would have hit him after such an offer,” he said, pitying the humiliation that filled Susanna’s face.
He spoke down at George. “Have you no shame at all?”
George said nothing, his teeth gritted, face inches from the floor.
“Well, perhaps you’ll feel more comfortable conversing outside.” He hauled the man roughly to his feet and pushed him toward the door. “If you’ll excuse us, ladies,” he said grimly over his shoulder.
When he had marched George a good thirty feet behind the house, he hooked George’s legs out from under him with a practiced sweep and put him down on the ground again, facedown.
“So you come here blackmailing these women who want nothing but to take care of your children?” he asked. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t even know if they’re my children,” George said. “If she ran off with another man now, how do I know she wasn’t loose before and I just didn’t find out?”
The ludicrousness of it staggered Johann. At least some of the children had to be George’s, no matter what kind of woman Rachel Leeds was. “Unless you prove her false and the children bastards, you have a responsibility to support them, which includes signing them over to family, not allowing them to be sent off to strange cities and separated.”
“If you knew what she was like, you wouldn’t judge me, Giere.” George’s voice turned bitter. “Always nagging, always complaining, never satisfied. And always pregnant, popping out more babies so we couldn’t keep up.”
“I assume you contributed to her condition or you would have known her faithless for certain.” He couldn’t keep some dryness from his voice.
“That woman ruined me. She drove me to drink and then blamed me for it. I could have made a good life for us. I had talent.”
“At what?” Johann tried not to scoff. The more George talked, the more chance he had of learning something useful about Rachel.
“At acting. They all said so, all the traveling players after I recited for them.”
Johann had visions of a drunken George spouting ballads.
George took on a boasting tone. “They said I should come with them, join their life. But by that time we already had three children and she nagged, nagged, nagged. Then when she heard I wanted to go with the actors, she went to them and told them I was married with three children. They told me they couldn’t support a family man, not for the bit parts. So they withdrew the
ir offer. She ruined me.” He paused, breathing hard.
The pride and selfishness was too much to answer. “Be that as it may”—Johann could hardly disguise his loathing—“you just attacked a woman after an attempt to blackmail her. The only reason I don’t haul you straight to the police in Columbus is because I retain some faint hope you will come to your senses and reclaim your children on Susanna’s behalf.”
George sneered. “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.”
Johann stood up. “Get out of here. Go straight to the train station and get on board, or you’ll regret it. And keep in mind that there will be bullets in the Hanby home, always, with your name on them, should you ever repeat such a command performance. And it would be self-defense should any of them shoot you dead in your tracks.”
“I don’t have any money,” George whined, scrambling up.
Johann kept a wary eye on him, though George looked like a classic bully—no fight when faced with an equal opponent. He took out his billfold and sighed. “This is the fare.” He threw it at George’s feet in the road so George could not use it as an opportunity to take him by surprise. George went to his knees and patted the ground until he found the coins. What a despicable creature. Was it his nature or the drink? Drink alone could not make a good man bad, could it? Perhaps it could, but he did not think that had been the case with George. The man was a poser and a lover of self, as shallow as a pie plate.
George stood up with the money in his fist and hurried up State toward the station.
Johann watched him the whole way.
Five minutes later Johann gave a polite knock before he walked back in the Hanby’s front door.
“What happened?” Susannah asked. Her voice was hoarse, a wisp of its usual self. She was holding a mug and sitting beside her aunt on the one padded bench against the wall of the sitting room. Her aunt’s arm circled her waist.
“We had a discussion about the law and the rights of a man defending the lives of others.”
“You mean,” Mrs. Hanby said, “you told him you’d kill him if he came back?”
“Essentially. Or you would, with the gun that will now be waiting for his return. And I punctuated it with the reminder that we already had more than enough reason to put him in jail. But I know you want him to get the children for you, so I stopped short of hauling him there tonight.”
“And he’s gone?” Susanna said.
“He slunk off to the train station on my orders. And on my dime.”
She set down her mug on the brick hearth beside the bench. “I see.” She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. “I don’t know how we will get the little ones now.”
“I’m sorry. Should I have behaved differently?”
Her eyes popped open in surprise. “No—no. I’m grateful to you, Mr. Giere.”
“Johann.”
She sighed. “Johann.” She looked very young, gazing at him with dark shadows under her eyes.
Her aunt looked hesitant but did not object. He had guessed correctly that saving a young woman’s life qualified them to speak on a first-name basis.
Aunt Ann turned to Susanna and rubbed her shoulder with a considerate hand. “It would not have mattered, Susanna. We did not have the money, and that was all he wanted.”
Johann went quiet. “Would you have given him the money if you had it?”
Susanna touched a hand to her forehead as if it pained her. “No. He could have come and taken them away at any time and demanded more money.”
“An astute point.” As she sat there struggling to hide her distress, he wanted to console her in his embrace.
Instead he walked to the door. “Ladies, I will make sure he has left on the train. Then I will do my best to bring you some better news within the next week.” He did not know how, but he would figure it out. Anything to make her happy, to see her eyes light up. Even if he was leaving for New York within a month.
“You are very kind.” Susanna set down her tea and stood, as if she could not decide whether to follow him to the door or stay where she was. He returned to her in a few steps, took her hand, and kissed it. He felt the blood rush to his cheeks, but it was worth it because she did not pull away—her eyes just went wide and her lips parted in surprise.
“Good night.” He nodded to her aunt and left.
He usually hated blushing in front of others, but tonight the heat in his face was oddly pleasant. All the way up State Street, the tingle in his skin reminded him of her.
Twenty-Five
“JOHANN GIERE IS A NICE YOUNG MAN.” AUNT ANN was deceptively casual as she washed Uncle Will’s shirt in the laundry tub.
“Yes.” Here came the question she had been dreading since yesterday. Susanna dolloped out batter into the muffin pan.
“He seems to think highly of you.”
Susanna smoothed off the batter with a spoon.
“Which is understandable, for you are a lovely young lady.” Aunt Ann soaped the shirt and rubbed it against the board. “But it’s curious too.”
“Yes. We differ on many things. I would think he’d hate me for how frankly I’ve spoken. And sometimes rudely.” She remembered the soft brush of his lips on her hand and a shiver ran up her arm. To hide it she grabbed a rag, opened the stove, and inserted the pan.
“It’s a good sign when a man likes frank speech in a woman. It isn’t common.”
“His father said he liked it too. Johann must have inherited the trait.”
“I respect his father.” Aunt Ann twisted the shirt and wrung it, then looked at it again. “Men with good fathers have a good start in the world, whether their fathers are rich or poor. It’s the character that matters.”
Where was Aunt Ann leading this? Yes, Johann was very attractive, and yes, she had discovered that he had many good qualities. But they were from two separate worlds and his family still made beer. Time for a new topic of conversation.
“It’s the nineteenth today.” Susanna deposited her rag on the kitchen table and wiped her hands.
“Yes. Only a few more days until we may visit the Hare Home.” Her aunt was too compassionate not to guess immediately why Susanna would mention the date. “I’m sure the children will be fine until we see them. Even getting a good meal once per week makes a difference.”
Susanna wished she could trust it was enough. She paced around the kitchen, straightening jars.
The front door opened and Uncle Will let himself in, locking the door behind him. They were more careful since what had happened with George. Uncle Will had been conscience-stricken not to have been home with them, despite their reassurances that nothing could have been done. And indeed, despite his good intentions, he was too frail to have stopped the attack. It was a blessing that he had not been present, for he could have been seriously injured when he went to their defense, as he surely would have.
“I had some success at the docking basin.” He walked in and sat in his chair with a sigh, not even stopping to lean his cane in the stand.
“What happened?” She approached, took his cane gently from his hand, and replaced it before taking a seat. Aunt Ann took the other one with a soft rustle.
“I asked many men whether they had seen an auburnheaded young woman in a gray dress. Every man on the docks, I think, and probably some of the mules.” He closed his eyes and Susanna had to smile. Then she realized she was perched on the edge of her chair. She shifted back, reminding herself to stay calm and behave serenely. Like Aunt Ann.
“Finally someone told me he had seen a woman like that. He said she came in on one of the packet boats—he didn’t know which—and went out again every few days. So I asked the visiting wife of one of the packet boat captains in the basin.”
“What did she say?” She could hardly contain herself, and Aunt Ann looked breathless too.
“She said she was certain that woman is the wife of one of the other captains, a man who boats a regular route up to Cleveland and back.”
Her he
art dropped out of her middle and left a clanging emptiness under her bodice. “Was that all?” She heard the plaintive tone in her voice and felt guilty. He had done his best. “Thank you for trying to find out, Uncle.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t make more headway. But I think we should still try to find more information about this auburn-haired girl. One wharf-woman’s opinion is not conclusive.”
“That’s true.” Her spirits rose somewhat, so at least she did not feel like a gutted fish.
“What is that delicious aroma?” Uncle Will asked.
“Corn muffins.” She smiled faintly. “This batch for us, the next for the Pippens.”
“Good, good.”
She sat with him in silence. How much she loved him— and her aunt too, of course—how grateful she was to both of them. Without their counsel and comfort, she could never have gone so long without telling her parents what had happened. And yet she was convinced that this was the kindest thing to do. She would not tell her parents unless all hope was lost for the children. Her two letters home since her arrival had been full of little inconsequential things as well as some information about the saloon, as she knew they would probably hear about it in the papers. And thus far, they had not asked about Rachel. But that would not last. In a week or two they would certainly have begun to wonder, especially if they’d written to Rachel and received no response.
Her aunt stood up, crossing to Uncle Will. He had fallen asleep right there in his comfortable chair, his head propped against the wing. He did that sometimes. He worked so hard and never stopped until sleep stole up and took him by surprise. Aunt Ann kissed him and glided out to the kitchen.
An hour later, when Susanna was finishing her baking, a knock came at the door. Uncle Will made a snuffling noise and woke up. She could see him stirring in his chair from her place at the kitchen table. “Would you like me to answer the door, Uncle?”
“I’ll get it, dear.” He grabbed his cane, which Aunt Ann had propped on his knee during his nap. As soon as he stood, he was dignified again, leonine and assured. He crossed to the door.
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