River of Mercy (28 page)

A bitter, sick taste rose in Asa's throat, and he hauled himself to his feet in a sudden urgency to get away from the boy—far enough away to clear his head, to think about what he had just heard.

“I…I need to go the house for a spell and get some things,” he said, rushing his words. “I'll be back…later.”

The boy gave him a questioning look but said nothing.

Outside, he stood shaking, breathing in the cold air in huge gulps as if to cleanse the nausea churning up inside him. The blood thundered in his head as the full import of the story he'd just heard flooded over him like a tidal wave.

Could it be? If the Ariana Silas had known as his mother was actually Asa's sister, then she was dead. A guide to freedom for many, yes, but lost to him forever. But her son—if this Silas was truly Ariana's child—the boy was his nephew!

For the first time in years, he had family. Someone of his own blood, his own flesh. For so long, he had had no one. No one but the captain. A man he cared about as much as family, surely, but still not family.

Too overwhelmed to think, too shocked to do anything but feel, Asa braced himself against the cold, stinging wind, his head framed between his hands, his heart roaring like a storm at sea, and wept. He wept for the fragile, thin waif of a sister with the soulful eyes, torn away from him without warning. He wept for the battered woman he'd never had a chance to know, the woman who had given up her life to save the lives of a company of strangers. He wept for her son, who had known no real childhood, no home other than a road that led either to freedom or the grave.

He wept for the years that were now lost to him, the years that had passed without the help he might have given had he known his help was needed. He wept for the love he might have offered had he known that someone out there, his own flesh and blood, existed in a harsh and loveless life.

The pain was excruciating, and yet there was some small, tenuous comfort in knowing that the search that had driven him for years was finally over.

Gant sat at the kitchen table, the low, thin, flickering glow from a lamp the only light in the room. The tension that had been building in him all afternoon now threatened to burn a hole in his chest. One minute he felt as if he were going to be sick, and the next, he thought he might explode.

He knew he had no call to take on like this. What had he expected? That Doc would jump in his buggy right after the church service and roll into town with news about the selection of the new bishop? Hardly. But there was always the possibility he might have driven in to check on Silas and the still ailing Tabitha.

Well, he hadn't, so that was that.

More incredible still, had he actually thought he might hear the outcome from Rachel? That she'd suddenly appear at his door, flushed with excitement and good news?

He groaned, running both hands through his hair. This waiting was making a fool of him.

Ah, but then he had a thought to defend his fancifulness—what about Gideon? He often spent part of his Sundays with Doc and Susan. He didn't attend church with them, but surely he would know something of the day's events.

It was late though. Late enough that the boy most likely wasn't coming back to town until morning.

That hope dashed, Gant forced himself to get up and wash the dishes he'd stacked in the sink earlier. He took his time, stalling because he knew there was no point in going to bed. The thought that he was almost certainly destined for another sleepless night piled more coals on the fire of agitation already burning through him. He went to the bedroom to get his fiddle and then returned to the kitchen table. Mac's attention followed his movements, but he didn't offer to move from his cozy bed by the stove.

For several minutes, Gant attempted to play, but the music simply wasn't in him tonight. Every piece he started sounded raspy and thin, like a sick cat bemoaning its troubles.

Just then the real cat—the bobcat—made his presence known with a quarrelsome yowl.

Sounds like he doesn't care for my music-making tonight any more than I do…

“So where have you been?” Gant said aloud. “I haven't heard anything from you for some time now.” He put the fiddle down and went to the window, but there was nothing to be seen in the darkness.

He was still standing, looking out, when Mac got up and scrambled to the door, but as soon as Asa stepped inside, the big dog went back to his bed. Gant watched his friend haul himself through the door, and in that instant his preoccupation with his own troubles fled.

“What's wrong?” he said. “You look like…are you sick? I told you to stay out of that barn. The boy is better, and the little girl is getting stronger. You don't need—”

Asa stood leaning against the door, and Gant stopped his tirade midstream when he saw that the other was trembling. “What is it? You
are
sick, aren't you!”

Asa shook his head and raised a hand as if to curb Gant's questions. “No, I'm all right. I just…no, I'm not sick, Captain.”

“Well, you look sick!”

Gant crossed the room and yanked a chair away from the table. “Here… sit down.”

Asa hesitated and then lowered himself onto the chair while Gant went to the sink and got him a cup of water. He waited until Asa drank the water and then sat down across from him.

“So…tell me.”

His friend sat as still as a stone, not speaking for several seconds. When he finally raised his head to meet Gant's gaze, he lifted both hands in a small gesture that indicated he was overcome. Perhaps even dazed.

By now Gant was beginning to feel genuine concern. “Asa? What's going on?”

The other finally spoke, his voice as tremulous as that of a feeble old man. “You remember my telling you about Ariana…my sister?”

“I do, sure.”

“Well, the boy…Silas…he was telling me about his mother…”

“You got him to talk about himself? That's real progress.”

Asa shook his head. “Not so much about himself. A little. But mostly about his mother…Ariana.”

Gant stared at him. “His mother was named Ariana?”

“She was. And she was originally from Alabama.”

Gant looked up. “That's…surely that's a coincidence.”

“I don't think so. Not after hearing the whole story.”

He told Gant then. About the boy's mother being sold to a brothel, about her being a conductor of some reputation, about her saving the runaways from the slave catchers, and about her death.

Stunned, Gant sat listening to it all, trying at each pause in his friend's story to sort out the truth and finally realizing that what Asa had related was no coincidence, though for Asa's sake he almost wished it was.

Asa had hoped and prayed to one day find his sister alive, to have resolution as to her fate and be in a position to care for her. Instead, Ariana was gone. There would be no glad reunion, not on this side of heaven anyway.

After a long silence, Asa's question jerked him back to his surroundings. “So what do you think?”

Gant looked at him. “You're convinced the boy is Ariana's son? That would make him your nephew.”

“What else can I think? He even looks like her.”

“Could be that now that you've heard his story, he looks like her,” Gant suggested. But even as he spoke, he remembered the sting of familiarity that had tugged at him the first time he saw the boy.

“It's true, I would never have noticed before he told me what he did. But can't you see it too?”

Thinking about the photograph he'd carried all these years to help Asa in his search for his younger sister and the only time he'd seen her, yes, Gant understood. The light skin, the dark and hooded eyes, the delicate yet strangely exotic features…yes, the boy resembled Ariana.

Even so, he continued to question Asa. “You're sure about this?”

Asa studied him. “How can I
not
be?”

Finally Gant nodded. “You mean to tell him, I expect.”

Asa drew in a long breath. “Of course. But not tonight. Not yet. I need to think about
how
to tell him.” He paused. “Do you think he'll believe me?”

Gant thought for a moment. “You carry his mother's picture. You know something of her beginnings and her life, at least as a child. Why wouldn't he believe you?”

Asa's features cleared. “That's so. Tomorrow then. Tomorrow I will tell him. For now, I'm going to think about my words, what I need to say.”

“You should also concentrate on getting some sleep,” Gant pointed out. “You've had little enough these past few nights.”

With a nod, Asa got to his feet and started toward the hallway that led to the back of the house. He turned then, his face creased with a faint smile that wasn't altogether without a hint of sadness. “I should be happy about this, shouldn't I? But it's painful to think of Ariana gone. After hoping to find her for so many years, I can't think what it will be like to no longer search for her everywhere we go.”

Without waiting for Gant to reply, he left the room.

Gant also had some thinking to do, and the realization was overladen with a blanket of guilt. The guilt had come with the reminder that many years ago he had actually found Ariana. In his search for her, he'd come upon the girl through a storekeeper who directed him to the local brothel. Once he found her, he'd attempted to convince her to wait for him while he negotiated with the brothel owner who had purchased her from her former master. But he'd returned from what had been a successful negotiation only to find her gone. He never saw her again.

He never told Asa. He hadn't told anyone except Rachel.

Asa's little sister, as he often called her, had appeared hard and bitter, having aged terribly from the lovely young girl in the photograph. Gant had assumed that she simply didn't want her brother to know what had become of her, and at the time he'd figured it would be easier on Asa if he
didn't
know.

Now, however, Gant wished he'd told him because now he had to decide whether he still should tell him. At the time, although he didn't like keeping anything so important from his friend, it had seemed kinder to say nothing.

He no longer knew if that decision had been right or wrong. He only knew that he dreaded the way Asa might look at him if he knew about the secret that had been kept from him all these years.

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