I am hearing the wind in the pines, he told himself. It is my imagination that makes it anything more.
Jesse remembered Crow’s warning to leave before sunset. He gave those words no credence, for he was a man of reason, yet his stomach turned at the thought of lingering in that unhappy place. He brushed off his trousers, wiped his hands on a handkerchief and headed for home. He pictured Annie standing at the stove preparing dinner. He could see her cheeks flushed from the heat of the stove, tendrils of her thick auburn and silver hair escaping their pins, her smokey eyes brightening at the sight of him. What a luxury to be alive and able to leave that place of sorrow!
And then, as he passed the dogwood tree, he caught a flash of something hanging, swaying gently. When he backed up the Model T and looked again, he saw nothing.
9: Anticipation
“So it’s to be a Christmas wedding?” Matronly Mavis Murphy, the apple– cheeked dry goods clerk, clapped her small dimpled hands.
Annie was distracted by Tobi tugging at her skirt.
“Just a minute, Tobias,” Annie ordered. “Can’t you see Miss Mavis is talking?”
“Just one piece of candy please?”
“Won’t they be a handsome pair our Kathryn Hannah and Nathan. And you, Mrs. McCann, will be a lovely mother of the bride, I might add.”
“Thank you, Mavis, but there’s no need for flattery. I intend to buy everything right here at the Mercantile and special order what you don’t have.”
Annie ran her fingers over a bolt of white satin, feeling the lustrous smoothness. “ I think this will do just fine for the wedding dress.”
Mavis fluttered her eyelashes. “May I recommend a seamstress?”
“No thank you. I do my own sewing. I’ll manage just fine without a dressmaker.”
“Surely it’s not a matter of money. After all, you and Mr. McCann. I mean with your position in the community and all….”
“It happens to be a matter of keeping my hand in and doing what I can for my family. There’s a type of pride I take in that. Kathryn, go look through the pattern bins and find what suits you. And you, Tobias, stop fidgeting, and no you may not have candy. Well, just one hard candy, please Mavis.”
Mavis opened the candy decanter and fished out one root beer barrel and one jawbreaker for extra measure, placing both in Tobi’s outstretched hand “I declare. The boy’s growing so fast, “ she chirped. “He turned out sturdy... to have been premature and all.”
“Yes, and all boy at that,” said Annie. “He loves to go on little adventures.”
Mavis plopped her hands on her ample hips. “You know what? I believe I did hear that your boy had gone way out yonder to that house on Diablo Road.”
“How did you know about that?
“From Harold, my youngest. You know what good friends he is with your boys.”
“Ah...and I suppose Harold was one of the boys, besides Calvin, who filled Tobi’s head with tales of trolls and dared him to go and see what he could see.”
Mavis shook a head full of finger curls in denial. “Well now, Mrs. McCann. I don’t think….”
“No, Mavis, you don’t think. Never mind. Just run off six yards of the satin, pick us two spools of thread to match, and put everything on my bill.”
Mavis ran the material off the bolt, measuring arm length to nose six times. Annie had to wonder if she might be getting shorted a few inches, considering the length of the woman’s arm. ”On second thought, make it seven for good measure,” she added.
With the packages secured in the rumble seat, Katie and Tobi squeezed in up front beside Annie who was at the wheel. “Everywhere I go, it seems everybody’s in a dither about the wedding,” Annie said. The engine rumbled to life. “I hope we can keep the guest list to a sensible number.”
“Why not just invite everyone who wants to come and be done with it?”
“That would include the biggest part of the county. You know how your father is about ‘putting on the dog’ as he calls it.”
“He doesn’t seem happy about me marrying Nate, does he?”
“He worries about you moving way out to there in the middle of nowhere. He thinks that old plantation is too gloomy and isolated for a young, lively woman like you. Besides that, he met the caretaker out there and doesn’t think much of him. You know that man threatened Tobi when he trespassed the other day. He scared the dickens out of him.”
“Maybe he was bluffing...just trying to teach Tobi a lesson about snooping around on private property.”
“He wasn’t bluffing. Buck said if he hadn’t driven up when he did, he believes the man would have taken a switch to Tobi.”
Katie turned away to stare out the window. “Everything’s always about my little brother. Any way, I’m certainly old enough to look out after myself. Why can’t Daddy just trust my judgment ?”
Annie removed one hand from the steering wheel and squeezed her daughter’s hand. “He will. If you feel that strongly about the marriage and certain of the man you’re marrying. Then we have no choice but to stand by you. You let me handle your father.”
When they arrived home, Rachel, Minna’s private nurse, was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, squalling like a newborn calf. Annie shook the girl gently and shooed Tobi outside. “What’s happened? Is my grandmother alright?”
Rachel blew her nose and fought off a fresh batch of tears bubbling just below the surface. “I reckon. She may not be able to talk, but that old woman sure can scream when one of those fits comes over her. She hates me. I just know it!”
“Did you say something to upset her?”
“All I said was how lucky Kathryn is to be marrying Nathan Bonney.”
While Rachel returned to her crying jag, Annie raced up to Minna’s bedroom and flung open the door. Granny Minna was propped on her pillow with her one functional hand flopping about like a bird with a broken wing.
“What's wrong, Granny?”
Granny Minna stared past her to Katie who had come up to stand at the bedroom door. Then she shook her head and opened her mouth wide like a hungry baby bird.
“What do you think she’s trying to tell me, Mama?”
“I don’t know, but whatever it is, she’s desperate to tell it.”
“Be happy for me, Granny,” murmured Katie. “I’m marrying the man of my dreams and going to live in that unique place that my great uncle built. Mama and Daddy can bring you to visit me there any time you want.”
Minna’s eyes rolled, and her mouth twisted. All that came were more loud grunts, as tears of frustration filled her eyes. Annie took in the sight of the two of them, trying so desperately to connect, but it was she who read her grandmother’s mind. “It’s about the house. That’s what it’s all about—that peculiar, lonely old house. Are we sure we want to have the wedding there?”
“Yes, Mama, It's what Nate wants, and I would do anything to please him.”
10: Granny's Memories
Minna had decided she could not go to her great granddaughter’s wedding. Things would have been different had the wedding not been set for that house, had the groom been anyone other than a member of Jonathan Bonney’s family. The memories were too sharp in a mind entangled in a web of the past. Minna was lost in that endless summer night at the end of the Civil War:
***
On July 20, 1864, the moon was larger and brighter than Minna could remember. It pierced through the clouds, parting them like curtains on a star filled stage. There was something peculiar about that night. The crickets and cicadas chanted maddeningly,yet there were no other sounds. The nocturnal creatures stayed hidden, except for an owl perching on a pine bough, listening for any sign of life. Its huge amber eyes caught and focused upon Minna standing in her doorway. She knew the owl by his immense size. She had seen him in moments of tragedy for years.
Watchful Old Hooter. What do your great golden eyes search for on a night such as this?
There had always been the watchful owls, ever since s
he had come to live there with baby Jerod, her son with Reese Morgan, sixteen years ago. She and the boy had lived on a hill five hundred feet above the town, on land deeded to her by the Texas tycoon—in recognition of an unorthodox love and the son that had been the result. Morgan had also given her three hundred acres of prime farmland and rights to his last name (despite open hostility from society). Reese Morgan was a powerful and wealthy man. He had courted no one’s approval.
Minna heard Jared’s soft stealthy tread coming from the barn, and by the glow of moonlight she could see his tall, lithe frame, his tilted wolf-eyes and his black straight hair that he wore to his collar. She saw him stop and turn toward the road to listen to the sound she too had heard—the groaning rumble of a cotton wagon. The accompanying high spirited clip–clop was that of horses rather than the plodding work mules used in the cotton fields. The driver, for whatever reason, needed speed and obedience from the animals that night.
She went outside to stand with her son to await their visitor, seeing all below in a sharp shadow and light, down to the dark ribbon of road that ran through to the bottom-lands. The sound grew closer, and she recognized that peculiar squeaking axle. So many times that same wagon had come up the hill, bringing Cyrus McCann who, upon Morgan’s request, would come to deliver an occasional message to her.
There on that high ground, she could see anyone coming up the the winding road. She could look over the tops of the trees and down to the roof tops of the boxy frame houses with their picket fences, and across the bridge to the tar paper shacks of Irish Shanty Town. She could name every child she had delivered in those homes, rich and poor alike, in dingy cottages and elegant plantations. Midwifery held few surprises. The genteel ladies delivered with no less pain and no more dignity than the field hands. She could name which family she had treated through fevers and every baby she had cured of whooping cough and colic. She knew every indiscretion in that town and treated the resulting ailments .The Caddoan wielded her own quiet power, and not all of it could be attributed to Reese Morgan. She was the secret keeper of Morgans Bluff.
The wagon mounted the crest of the hill, and she recognized Phoebe, Lucinda McCann’s housekeeper. Phoebe’s sinewy arms stretched and tensed on the reins as she pulled the horses to a stop and hit the ground running. “Minna!They need you at the McCanns’ place on Diablo, at the main house. Come with me now. Hurry, so I can get back to Baby Thomas. His papa has gone somewhere.”
Minna took her by her shoulders. “Slow down. Who needs me there, and why?’
Phoebe caught her breath. “Lucinda needs you! She’s in a bad way. She drank laudanum to calm her nerves. She took too much, and she's sick to death. She’s taking fainting spells. Then she wakes up and thrashes around like a witch in a fight with the Devil.”
“What brought this on?”
“Cyrus was murdered tonight...dragged out of the parlor while he was going over the cotton figures, while Lucinda was upstairs asleep. She’s out of her mind from it. She just keeps looking at me with these dead eyes saying ‘Cyrus has gone off and left me. My own husband is a deserter. He deserted the Confederacy and me’. It’s like she doesn’t know he’s dead...or has blocked it out like she’s afflicted ”
Minna shook her head in amazement. “I’ve been expecting as much on a full moon such as this, but never should it have happened to Cyrus. He was an honorable man.” Then she turned back to the house. “Give me a moment, and I will go with you.”
Minna went inside to get her leather pouch of herbal medicines and then twisted her waist-length hair into a chignon that she secured with hairpins. Jerod stood at the door looking anxious. Before she climbed onto the buckboard, he placed a firm hand on his mother’s arm. “Mother, it’s best for you to stay home. I heard in town that the Night Riders are running all over the county. If they are liquored up, you never know what they might do . It’s not only deserters they look for but folks who are different ”
“Say what you mean, son. You mean full-bloods. Redskins like me...like us?” she said pointedly.
Jerod ducked his head and nodded.
“Do you not know your own mother? I don’t look for trouble, but neither do I run from it. Now go inside and get your rest. If I am not home by midnight, look for me by morning light. Either way, you can be sure I’ll make it home.”
On the way downhill, the wagon went wild and unwieldy, with horses galloping at full speed on the rocky washboard road. It felt as if the wagon would shatter apart. Phoebe gripped the reins tightly in an effort to maintain control and slow the horses’ downhill speed. Minna found it strange that someone else had use of the good wagon, at such an unusual hour. She raised her voice above the rumbling clatter and squeak of the bad wheel.
“Who killed Cyrus?”
“Night Riders I reckon. Some folks thought Cyrus was a deserter, but for awhile he was too crippled up to get back to the post. He was planning his trip back...just waiting until he got some things taken care of.”
“Who found him?”
“My man Louis found him hanging by rope from a dogwood tree. I expect there’ll be a burying tomorrow.”
The rest of the ride the women remained silent, each deep in her own thoughts.
When they came to the front of the McCann property, and the hanging tree, Minna ordered Phoebe to stop so she could pull leaves for use in Lucinda’s purifying tonic. There several pickers were huddled together, some wailing and cursing. “This is the tree,” murmured Phoebe in a voice that shook and broke.“This is the very one where Louis found Cyrus. No Minna, don’t pull those leaves. I can’t bring the leaves off that tree into the McCann house.”
“Why not?”
“ It'll let in a mzungu.”
“ Are you sure you didn’t make that up? My people also have superstitions, but they see no evil in natural healing leaves from any tree.”
Minna turned to the workers whose wails grew louder by the second. “Go back to your cabins and prepare for tomorrow. We will need you to help bury the body in the morning.”
“Can’t you see somebody got the body and dragged it off,” said one of the men. “I can’t tell you who.”
“Let the sheriff figure it out...if we still have a sheriff that is, after the Night Riders took over the county. Wherever happened, no doubt the body has been moved to a safe place. We can’t have it left in the open on a low branch with coyotes and wolves about. That’s all it is.”
The men stood in silence, stunned at the loss of their employer. Although pragmatic at her core, Minna felt the sharp prick of sorrow as well. She had never heard a bad word about Cyrus—except from Jonathan Bonney, and she figured he held a grudge against Cyrus and anyone else who kept him from what he wanted. She had heard that he was the leader of the Night Riders, and everyone knew they lynched deserters and anyone who got in their way.
Minna pulled several leaves, slipped them into her bag, and Phoebe tuned up to cry. “Stop bawling. You sound like a calf stuck in a mud hole,” Minna said. “We’ll bring no bad spirits into the house, and Lucinda’s not about to die.”
“What if she’s not up to taking care of what needs to be done. for Cyrus’ burying and the plantation...and what will happen to us?”
“First things first. Tell Louis to see if he can find a sheriff in this lawless county, first thing tomorrow morning. Then there must be a proper Christian ceremony. You all will be taken care of. You know Cyrus provided for it in case of his death. I'm sorry I've been so hard on you, Phoebe. It must be like losing family for you. Forgive me. Anything else before I go up to Lucinda?”
“Louis will never go to see the sheriff, Minna. Buck Hennessy ‘s home on furlough. He can help out. I saw him ride out yonder in the direction of Caney Creek a couple of hours or so ago, so he’ll be back directly. He came home to help Cyrus, so he might plan for the burial. He was Cyrus’ best friend and was married to Lucinda’s cousin Charlotte.”
“Yes, I know Buck. I was here with him when he lost Charlott
e and the newborn four years ago, right there in that first cabin. Sad things happen on this land. Now wait for him there on the veranda. I may need help to restrain Lucinda. Where’s your man?”
“When I left to get you, he was still gone. He had been over at the McCann's helping Lucinda with Cyrus. He was not a well man you know.”
“Tell Mr. Hennessy I’ll be upstairs if he needs me.”
***
Cyrus McCann’s widow was a disgusting sight. Lucinda’s blonde cascading curls lay tangled across her face. Her eyelids were swollen shut, and her usual peaches and cream complexion had taken on a grayish pallor. The room looked as if she had worked herself up into a magnificent fit. The coverlet and bed pillows had been thrown to one end of the room, and the sheets were in a rumpled heap on the floor, next to her frock and corset. She lay sprawled across the bare feather mattress in her nightgown.
Minna shook her head in disbelief at another secret to keep. Here flounders a tormented soul who cannot face the fact she is a widow.
She began crushing the dogwood leaves with her mortar and pestle and mixing the powdery substance with the bottle of liquorice oil. She propped Lucinda against her, placed the pillows behind her back and held the mixture to her colorless lips. “Take this and drink it down...all of it. Then you’ll be able to think clearly.”
Lucinda turned her face away. “I don’t want to think, clearly or otherwise. Leave me alone, and let me die. I didn’t send for you, and I don’t need you.”
“Suit yourself. Lie there and wallow in your self-pity. You’ll get no sympathy from me. But I am going to sit here in this chair and watch over you. That’s what your husband would want me to do—true gentleman that he was.”
“You would think that, wouldn’t you! He’s left me. He abandoned me and his post.”
“You listen to me! Cyrus is dead. Some people came in and took Cyrus from this house and lynched him.”
Lucinda bolted straight up in the bed. “Lynched him? I don’t know about that. Don't don’t ask me anything, because I don't know anything. Now leave me alone.”
House on Diablo Road: Resurrection Day (The McCann Family Saga Book 3) Page 7
