Patricia Rice (7 page)

"Sammy, leave the girl alone." One of the idlers strolled in their direction, his fingers hitched in his pockets as he spat a stream of tobacco juice at the street. "Doc's been out there. Her old man's sick. How did he get sick, little girl? Blowing up bridges?"

Wide-eyed, Dora shook her head and tried shoving by Sam. She was too frightened to talk. People frightened her. Nothing she said was ever right anyway. She just wanted out of here.

She recognized the tall man asking her questions. Another of Josie's cousins, his father frequently traded in slaves. He'd probably lost money on some of those who escaped last night. She kept her eyes on the ground and tried easing around him.

He shoved her shoulder, pushing her backward. "Not so fast, little girl. Answer my questions. How did your daddy get sick? What was he doing last night when those niggers busted loose of the jail?"

She could turn around and go down another street, but they would only follow. She could turn and go home, but she'd promised to deliver the message. If the only way to do that was through this bully, then through this bully she must go.

Taking a deep gasp of air, Dora flung herself into the small space between the man and his young brother, hoping they would dodge out of her way. They didn't. The bigger one caught her by the shoulder and shoved. Stumbling on her long dress, she fell into the street. Dusting herself off carefully as she climbed back to her feet, she repeated the litany of "musts" to herself and again tried going around the two bigger males. This time, the younger one kicked her in the shins and pushed her backward.

Silently, Dora struggled to her feet, but the high whine of a whip whistling through the air and cracking as it struck stopped her from rising. She caught her breath in dismay as the whip hit her larger assailant in the shoulder with a force sufficient to send him stumbling against the nearest wall.

"You want someone to pick on, Randolph? How about me?" Pace grinned menacingly as he swaggered closer, coiling the leather of the whip. He looked the part of gladiator or worse. He was much bigger than she remembered, bigger and stronger, and exuding violence from every pore. "Or are you afraid you can only beat up little girls?"

Dora closed her eyes, feeling the violence simmering beneath Pace's casual words. She knew they would fight, and this time, it would be her fault. Pace could go to hell because of her. She remembered the vicar long, long ago preaching about hell. No matter how menacing he looked, she didn't want Pace going there, but she must get the message to the livery. And she knew well enough that she had no power against their violence. Fighting back a tear of terror, she cautiously stood. When the first punch flew, she took to her heels and escaped down the alley.

She shook all over and the words stuttered out of her mouth as she conveyed her message. The livery man caught the gist and took her coins, promising to carry the letter across the river. He glanced at the alley where the fight had become a general ruckus and recommended she take another route.

Dora debated, her heart in her throat. She needed to go home to Papa John. She didn't have the size or strength necessary to stop a fight. She already ached from the earlier falls. Violence begets violence. She was just as weak and helpless as her mother had been. She knew what the Bible meant when it said the sins of the fathers would fall on their sons. The same must apply to mothers and daughters. She had no defenses against their brutality.

But Pace had come to her rescue, and Pace would go to hell for murdering those boys. It would all be her fault. Horribly confused, torn between what she had been taught and what she had learned the hard way, Dora choked back tears and stalked back down the alley.

As usual, the odds were stacked against Pace. Because of his smaller size as a youth, he had learned to fight viciously, using hands and feet and teeth and every weapon at his disposal. He knew how to gouge eyes, throttle arteries, and kick where it hurt. He had grown considerably since then, and had muscles where the other men had fat. He had the strength of two men and the ferociousness of an army. It was pretty much concluded long ago that it took an army to fight Pace. So the idlers on the street felt justified in coming to Randolph's rescue.

Trembling with terror, Dora approached the melee without thought. If she thought about it, she knew she could do nothing. So her mind shut down and she moved woodenly, like the doll she had broken years ago while defending Pace in another such fracas. She grabbed the water pail hanging on the pump, and brought it down with a resounding clatter on one man's crown as he pounded Pace's head into the dirt.

She kicked another and threw dust in the eyes of a third. Pace came up swinging, flinging his closest assailant aside, slamming a fist into the stomach of the next, his dark hair falling in his eyes as he fought. Without a hitch in his movement, he grabbed Dora's arm and dragged her out of the fracas and toward the main street.

* * *

No matter how furious the townspeople might be, they wouldn't allow the bullies behind them to blatantly attack a little girl in full view of everyone. Pace took a gasping breath and slowed his run as they reached the safety zone of the main road. He released Dora's skinny arm and kept up a brisk march, hating to leave a fight yet knowing he couldn't let the child walk home alone. He'd go back and finish later if they were still up to it.

"I told you to tell your father to stay in last night. What happened?" Belligerence came easier than kindness. He'd never been taught anything else.

"The sheep got loose," Dora whispered. "It's all my fault. Papa John's going to die, and it's all my fault. I don't know why God punishes him because of me."

"You've got sheep dip for brains, you know that?" he answered with disgust. "If your father went out in the stinking cold and got himself wet chasing a few damned sheep, it's his own fault, not yours."

"I left the gate open," she pointed out, inexorably.

"Sheep aren't worth human lives. Your father should have stayed indoors. Better yet, he should have sat down at the general store whittling in full view of the entire town. He knew that. He's the one who chose differently."

Pace knew he shouldn't take his anger out on her, but he'd not worked off a full head of steam yet. He was furious at leaving the fight to take a little girl home. He was furious at finding full-grown men terrorizing a child. He was furious at himself for dancing the night away while people's lives were in jeopardy.

He'd already got the report back from Jas. Dora's father hadn't been chasing sheep. He'd helped Joshua escape after Carlson had unexpectedly locked him up in the tool shed for fear he'd run before the trader came. Pace should have been the one wading that creek to rescue his friend, not some old man.

But he couldn't do a thing about any of it, and his helplessness fueled his fury. The girl beside him bit her lip and offered no response to his angry words.

Good. Maybe if he made her mad enough, she'd leave him alone and stay out of his life. Maybe she'd even get smart and learn to stay home. He didn't intend to stay around here much anymore. He couldn't come to her rescue every time she tangled with those cowards. He had better things to do.

Pace saw her to her door and didn't linger to hear her mother give her the ringing scold she deserved.

* * *

The next time Pace saw Dora, it was at her father's funeral, and tears streamed, unchecked, down her cheeks.

Chapter 4

But, soft: behold! lo, where it comes again! I'll cross it,

though it blast me—Stay, illusion

If thou hast any sound, or use a voice,

Speak to me.

~ Shakespeare,
Hamlet

May 1861

"Thou must rest. The weather is overwarm." The slender young girl in Quaker black held out the water bucket and dipper to the two young men plowing the cornfield. She spoke with a voice as soft and whispery as the frail spring breeze.

The white worker drank deeply from the dipper, shoving back the broad-brimmed hat from his sweat-soaked brow and enjoying the pleasure of cool water down his throat. The black worker waited until the other finished, then took his turn without hesitation. Despite the fact that one was slave and the other free, they had worked together long enough to know the delicate etiquette of these matters.

"What's happening up at the big house, Miss Dora?" Jackson wiped a cotton rag across his gleaming black forehead as he cooled off. What happened at the big house was always of interest to everyone in the county.

Since her adopted mother's death earlier in the year, Dora had been living in the Nicholls' house, ostensibly under the care of Pace's mother but more as unpaid servant. The shattering loss of both her adopted parents had left her too numb to care, but grief had a way of receding with time. She managed a tentative smile now.

"Spring cleaning. They're turning the place upside-down." A shadow passed across Dora's face as the suspicion of the real reason for the turmoil crossed her mind, but she didn't repeat the gossip. Instead, she asked, "It's not too late to set out the corn, is it? Dost thou think we'll have a crop?"

They both knew her concerns, for they were as involved in them as she. Since Papa John's death, David and Jackson had worked these fields on a sharecropping basis. The loss of a crop meant they wouldn't be paid for their hard labor, and Dora wouldn't have the money to pay the taxes on the land that had passed to her after her adopted mother's death. To Dora, it meant possibly losing the property. To David, it meant losing the cash he needed to buy a place of his own. To Jackson, it meant one year less before he could buy his freedom from the old man generous enough to allow him to earn his own way now that he was no longer needed at his owner's farm. The price of freedom came high.

"Thou mustn't, worry, Dora. The tobacco is strong, and thou still hast the hogs. This is good land. It will keep you comfortable."

A wry smile played across her face. "Would that I could say the same for Friend Harriet. I am here to carry the message, David: worldly goods do not make for comfort."

He laughed. The three of them had shared her jests about feather beds and velvet curtains she never slept behind because Harriet Nicholls called for her a dozen times a night. Sumptuous feasts were at her disposal, but she seldom sat down to eat them for leaping up to run to the invalid's room. Every idle dream of wealth and plenty the two men might have shared was diminished by the knowledge of the cost others paid for them in health and happiness. They felt no jealousy for the relative comfort in which Dora slept while they scraped by on their hardscrabble lives.

David gave her a warm smile. "Thou wilt come of age this fall. With the crops in, thou wilt be a wealthy woman, Dora. Thou mayest do as thou pleases then."

She smiled back. When the crops came in, David would own a full share of them, and he would have the money he needed for his own farm. Between the two of them, they could sell this place and buy some very nice land David had his eye on over in Indiana. With the approval of the Elders, they could marry by Christmas.

Dora had never dreamed of marriage like other girls. In truth, she feared the idea and had not yet made the promises David desired. Still, marriage was the practical solution to her situation. She could not live in the farmhouse alone. She could not work the fields by herself. She could not live off the Nichollses forever. David was a kind and gentle man, soft-spoken and intelligent. He was built shorter and slighter than Pace, so she did not fear him as she feared other men. He was the brother she'd always wished she had. He would be the husband she would not have otherwise.

She had no foolish notions of love. Papa John and Mother Elizabeth had never proclaimed love for each other, but they went along very well together, just as she and David would do. She still had terrifying recollections of her real mother's "love" for the earl. If that was love, she would have no part of it. The Quakers were quite right in abhorring violent animal passions. She felt safe in their company. They were good, sensible people, and she tried very hard to be one of them. With her marriage to David, she would be fully accepted.

She still woke up in a panic at night over that incident after Mother Elizabeth's funeral. She had come back to the farmhouse to find Pace's father and a lawyer calmly going over Papa John's desk, searching for the legal documents determining her inheritance and ownership of the farm. They'd found the papers her adopted parents had kept in her mother's trunks, the ones with her real name on them. Carlson Nicholls had wanted to write to England right there and then to notify her relatives.

Dora wasn't good at talking, but somehow she had persuaded those papers away from him that day. The memory still hung like a knife over her head every hour of the day and night. She doubted if the earl cared whether she was alive or dead, but she had no desire to find out. She never wanted to return to that house of her nightmares again.