The Fire of Home (A Powell Springs Novel)

by Harrington, Alexis

  Amy’s head came up sharply. “Outcast.” She knew something about that.

  “Oh, yeah. My father came right out and said he wished I’d been killed in battle. It would have given him something to brag about. But I’d brought shame down on the family, he said. Not like he hadn’t, beating the tar out of all of us over the years, including my mother.”

  Amy felt the blood drain from her face at the mention of the abuse. “Ohh . . .”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I know something about that, too. My mother wanted to bring me into the house, but he ordered me off the front porch and wouldn’t let her talk to me. Cedar Mill isn’t very big and the whole town seemed to agree with him. I couldn’t get my job back at the sawmill or work anywhere else there. And Polly—she was already married to another man.”

  “But what does this have to do with Whit Gannon?”

  “It was Breninger. You know he tried to blackmail me. After I refused to pay him, he sent Whit the letter. And probably told some other people. If you can’t make money on something like this, revenge is next on the list. Breninger called it satisfaction.”

  She stared at him. All that money she’d paid to that greasy Breninger—“But I paid him. He made money.”

  “I think he’d already set this motion by the time he involved you. Besides, he wanted money to keep your secret too. He saw an opportunity and he took it.”

  “There are no secrets!”

  He shrugged. “But the threat worked, didn’t it? I should have told Whit my own story the day I met him, but I didn’t know how he’d take it. I sure as hell didn’t expect him to find out this way.”

  “Now what?”

  “Whit is writing to the War Department to check the facts for himself. But he wanted to hear my side of it first. At least that was fair of him.”

  “But what will happen?”

  “I don’t know. He said I still have a job there until he gets information from Washington.” He shook his head. “I’ll probably have to move on again, depending on how everyone reacts when they find out about it. They’re not going to want a deserter working in the sheriff’s office.” He flopped back onto the settee.

  Without thinking, Amy put a hand on his arm. “But that’s not deserting! That’s—that’s just common sense! And you were exonerated. Why would they make all those men risk their lives for a war they’d already won?”

  He turned to look at her. That haunted expression she’d only glimpsed from time to time was solidly in place. “I’ve asked myself that more times than I can count. Ambition? Bloodlust? I don’t know. Over three hundred Americans were killed in those last few hours, and another three thousand were seriously wounded. I guess in the end, I was one of them, even though I tried to avoid it. And that doesn’t count the French and British casualties.”

  Her grip on his arm tightened. She was frightened for him and for herself. “I was wrapped up in my own problems for so long, I didn’t know anything about it. Adam kept me cut off from nearly everyone and everything, I didn’t hear much about the world.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, he covered her hand with his own. His touch was warm and unsettling, but she didn’t pull away. “I guess we got off to a bumpy start, you and me. I’ve heard a lot of what happened before you left town. And I suppose I let it sway my opinion of you. At first.”

  Amy lifted one eyebrow. “You didn’t let it show. Much.” They sat in silence for a moment and she remembered his few and surprising gentle gestures—his kiss on her aching wrist, his other kiss on the back stairs—and realized that a tender heart still beat within his chest. A lot of men might have lost their humanity after everything that had happened to him. She asked, “What are you going to do now?”

  “Wait to see what Whit says, I suppose. If I didn’t think so well of him, I’d just leave town. Move on.”

  No, no, she didn’t like the idea of that at all. Her heart began pounding, and she offered reassurances. “Breninger might not have told anyone else. In this town, rumors and gossip spread like head lice. You would have heard about it. And I haven’t seen him around, have you?”

  He sat forward again. “No, not since that one time—and the day I saw him snooping around behind your backyard.” He rubbed his face. It was a weary gesture. “But I wasn’t sure who it was then.”

  “Now we are,” she replied morosely. The breeze outside stirred the lace curtains behind them, bringing in the scent of someone’s new-mowed lawn and fresh air. “Still, if you’ve ever spent time in Virgil Tilly’s place, you know that nothing gets by those men. They’re worse than a bunch of old hens. And no one has mentioned him, I’d bet.”

  “No, I haven’t heard anyone talk about him. Maybe he’s trying to stay out of sight.”

  “Maybe.”

  He looked back at her, his gaze brushing over her eyes and lingering on her lips. “I hope you’re right.”

  Shortly after midnight, Amy was reaching for the switch on the living room floor lamp when she heard a knock on the front door. She stopped, her arm halted in midair, and held her breath. She hadn’t heard from Granny Mae or Jessica that evening, as she’d hoped. But Susannah’s labor might have gone on a long time. At least Bax and Tom were both right upstairs.

  More knocking. “Amy?”

  Granny Mae. She began breathing again and hurried to the door.

  Mae stood on her porch with her basket, looking older than she had when they spoke that afternoon. But her thin, white hair was still neatly anchored to her head with a tortoiseshell comb. Amy moved aside and let her in.

  “I’m sorry it’s so late. Cole picked me up and brought me into town. Jess thought she might as well spend the night with the Grenfells. That baby took his sweet time getting here. But he finally decided to come out and meet us.”

  “It’s a boy?” Amy said in a hushed voice, to remind her that people in the house were sleeping.

  “John Henry Grenfell. A whopping butterball of a child. He weighs nine pounds.”

  “I didn’t expect you to come over this late. You must be dead tired.”

  “Better dead tired than just plain dead,” she said. “How’s Deirdre?”

  Amy motioned her to the stairs and climbed them with a soft tread. “She took three spoons of medicine before she finally fell asleep. I came back to bring her some dinner but I couldn’t rouse her. She’s been awake so much so I just let her rest.”

  “Are you sure she’s only sleeping?”

  Amy stopped on the steps, alarmed. “Yes! She’s even snoring.”

  “All right. You said she’s been so ill—”

  “Not near death.” She frowned slightly, then put a finger to her lips and gestured at the closed doors. “Tom and Bax get up early.”

  Granny nodded and they continued down the hall to Deirdre’s bedroom. Amy turned the knob and they looked into the dim room. She’d propped a large folding silk fan between two books to shade the lamp. Painted to resemble a peacock tail, it was made of brilliant teal silk, which gave a bluish cast to Deirdre’s pale skin. But when they drew close to the bed, Granny yanked the fan away and her color didn’t change.

  Deirdre didn’t have much in her stomach, but she’d vomited a little.

  “Oh, God . . .” Amy stared in horror. “I know that smell.”

  “It’s not hard to figure out,” Granny snapped, loud again. “Everyone knows that smell. Deirdre! Wake up, honey.”

  “Not the vomit—that other smell. My father’s office at home had that odor sometimes. He had specimens floating in glass jars with preservative. What was in that medicine? And you’d better tell me more than ‘a bit of this and that’!”

  Deirdre groaned but didn’t move.

  For the first time in Amy’s memory, Mae Rumsteadt looked panicky. “Just a drip of laudanum and some whiskey—you saw what I put in it!”

  “I didn’t know a
bout the laudanum. It isn’t even legal anymore. It was outlawed in 1920.”

  “I had it left over. I only used a drip,” she repeated. “Anyway, I didn’t tell you to give her the whole damn bottle.”

  “I didn’t do that!”

  Granny shook her patient again and shouted at her to wake up. Amy couldn’t worry about their raised voices at this point. It was an emergency. She had known fear in her life many times, but never a terror like this. If that cough remedy killed poor Deirdre, her two murderers were now standing over her bed like ghouls, not healers.

  “Jessica—we need Jessica,” Amy said.

  Granny clapped her hands next to Deirdre’s ear. Nothing. She began briskly rubbing and slapping Deirdre’s wrists. “No, we don’t, I can manage this. Anyway, she’s at the Grenfells’,” she reminded her. “They have a phone but we can’t call out there now. Birdeen doesn’t sit at that switchboard all night long.”

  “Dear God, how are we going to reach her?” Just then Amy looked up to see Bax shuffle in, barefoot, wearing his undershirt and pants with one suspender pulled up on his shoulder. His hair stuck up here and there, and he had sheet wrinkles on the side of his face.

  “What’s going on in here?” His voice was sleep-rough and he looked a little groggy.

  “Bax, we think she’s dying. We need Jess.”

  He looked at Deirdre and, like a man accustomed to having to think fast on his feet, he straightened up and was instantly alert. He sniffed. “Has she been drinking?”

  Granny scowled at him. “Drinking! Of course not—she’s been sick with this, whatever it is, for weeks.”

  “I gave her cough medicine,” Amy added.

  “I’m not insulting her. It’s that last week, when—” He shook his head. “Never mind. I’ll get Dr. Jess. I can use the county car.”

  Amy told him how to get to the Grenfells’ place. “It’s a pretty easy trip over there. If you hit Richey Road, you’ve gone too far.”

  “Okay, I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He went back to his room and put on his boots and a shirt, then Amy heard him go down the stairs—it sounded like two at a time. In a moment the back door opened and closed.

  Granny grabbed Deirdre’s hands and pulled her upright in the bed, making her head roll around on her shoulders like a broken doll’s. “Wake up! Come on, honey!”

  “Granny Mae—” Amy began, but the old woman wouldn’t let go.

  A long, whimpering cry escaped from Deirdre, sounding like air leaking from a bicycle tire.

  Hearing this, goose bumps crawled over Amy’s scalp and arms, and she started patting Deirdre’s cheeks. “Open your eyes!”

  Remarkably, she did. She looked straight ahead, then glanced around and let out another small cry.

  The two women continued their efforts on Deirdre but that was the most they could get from her. She was lost in some foggy world between life and death. The chemical smell wafted from her with every labored breath.

  Granny released her hands and let her lie down again. Amy sank into the bedside chair, but they both stared, aghast when her body grew rigid and she began to twitch. A couple of minutes later the fit passed.

  “What is this?” Amy asked.

  The older woman wore a stricken expression. “I don’t know! I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  After what seemed like hours, Jessica hurried into the room with Bax close behind. Her hair straggled from its loose braid, and she appeared almost as old and worn as Granny. She looked at Deirdre and felt for a pulse. “She’s still with us but barely.” She lifted her nose. “Formaldehyde. Bax said you made up some cough medicine for her. What was in it?” she asked, looking at both of them.

  Amy’s heart sank. She’d been right about the smell.

  “I’m telling you, it was just a drop of laudanum and a splash of whiskey, with some spices—rosemary, cinnamon, a scrape of nutmeg,” Granny said, huffy and defensive.

  Jessica’s brows rose. “Mae, where did you get the alcohol? And how much of a ‘splash’?”

  She straightened, her aged spine almost creaking audibly. “Probably a half cup. Almost everyone around here keeps a bottle of whiskey.”

  Jess sighed. “I know that. We have one too. I’m not judging you, I’m trying to figure out what’s going on.”

  “Tilly charges so much for that highfalutin hooch he sells—”

  “Except it’s not hooch,” Bax said. “It’s Canadian, bottled by genuine distillers up there. Not cooked in someone’s backwoods still.”

  “Listen, sonny, I don’t have to take—”

  Jessica dropped her bag on the floor and leaned over the bed, her eyes snapping with fire. “Mae Rumsteadt! Where did you get it?”

  “Some fella came around a couple of weeks ago and offered it to me,” she admitted. “I couldn’t say no to his price. It seemed all right to me.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know, I never saw him before.”

  Jessica stared at her with an open mouth, and Bax groaned and took a step back. “Son of a bitch!” he barked to no one in particular. Then he added, “Sorry.” But none of them acted like they’d heard him in the first place.

  “Someone is going around town selling wood alcohol and passing it off as drinkable. It’s poison, and it doesn’t take much to kill a person. For God’s sake, didn’t you hear about Winks?” she demanded. “That was a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Of course, I did! But he’d drink anything. How could I know what that man was selling? I just thought it—I thought . . .” Granny trailed off and Amy could have sworn she seemed to wither up and age fifteen years right before her eyes.

  “Did you drink any of it?” Bax asked.

  “No.” The old woman looked down at Deirdre and shook her head. “I swear . . .” she vowed softly. “She wanted the medicine. I never meant to hurt her.”

  Jessica turned to Amy, and for that single instant it seemed as though no gulf lay open between them, no years of separation. When their gazes connected, Jess was the sister she remembered from years earlier, before Cole, before Adam. “How much did she take?”

  Jess plucked the bottle from the night table and handed it to Amy. There was about an inch and a half missing from the top, more than when she’d left the room late in the afternoon. “I gave her two tablespoons, but she said it wasn’t working and she asked for one more. I gave that to her, and it looks like she might have taken more after I left. I thought she was asleep when I went.”

  Absently, Jessica pushed at her straggling hair. “That would be enough. Deirdre is a small woman and she’s been ill. Get rid of this before someone else takes it by accident.” She handed back the bottle and reached into her bag on the floor for her stethoscope. Putting the bell to Deirdre’s chest, she listened while everyone standing around her remained silent. Amy, on the verge of tears, with her forehead furrowed and her hands interlocked tightly beneath her chin, caught Jessica’s gaze as she looked across the bed at her.

  Jess straightened and unhooked the earpieces.

  “Jess?” Amy whispered.

  “She has all the classic signs of methanol poisoning. Slow heartbeat, vomiting, lethargy. I can even smell it and Granny admits she doesn’t know what kind of alcohol she put in it—”

  “I believed I knew!” Granny protested. The target of three pairs of angry-eyed glares, she withdrew like a turtle into its carapace.

  “—and I suspect Deirdre took even more than you gave her, Amy.”

  “She had some kind of fit before you got here. But she didn’t drink all that much. You can help her, can’t you?”

  She sighed. “No. I just don’t have access to what I’d need, a hospital setting and an IV drip of sodium bicarbonate. It’s a fairly new treatment but it’s had reasonable success. She’s alive so she might survive this. Even if she does she could have complica
tions, and she’s still sick with whatever she had to begin with. I wish you had called me sooner about that.”

  “I wanted to, but she wouldn’t agree to it,” Amy said.

  “It’s true,” Bax added. “I heard it myself.”

  “All right. It’s after two in the morning. I’m going to spend the rest of the night at the apartment over my office. If there are any big changes, come and get me. Otherwise, I’ll be over in a few hours. Amy, you’ll stay with her?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll take you, Doc,” Bax said. And then to Granny, he added, “Mae, I’ll want to talk to you later about the man who sold you that moonshine. Whit and I have been working on the problem.”

  Mae nodded, and her shoulders drooped with defeat.

  Amy noticed that for the moment, Bax seemed to have forgotten he wasn’t even sure if he still worked for the sheriff’s office.

  But he was a hero in her eyes. Tom had slept through the entire ordeal.

  After everyone filed out, she cleaned up Deirdre and then sat in the chair next her bed, prepared to finish out the long night beside her.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Whit motioned Bax into the chair across from his desk. “When I learned it was true, I sat you down to hear what you had to say. The letter from the War Department and your explanation satisfied me. I’d like you to stay on.”

  The relief Bax felt was so profound, so visceral, it equaled the sense of freedom he experienced the day he walked out of Fort Leavenworth, dressed in a cheap suit and carrying his few belongings a paper bag. “Thanks, Whit. I appreciate your faith in me.”

  “There’s work to do, and I need help with it,” he said, tipping him a wink. “Now, how’s the Gifford woman?”

  “Still alive. I left before I learned anything more than that. Doc Jessica is there now, and I’m going to talk to Mae Rumsteadt this morning to try to learn more about whoever she bought that moonshine from. I think I might know.” He tapped the edge of the letter with his index finger.