“Thank you, sir. I’m a-longing for the smell of the pines, and I want to see the clouds gatherin’ over Clingman’s Dome.”
“You should come a-callin’ sometime when the leaves are falling and it gets on to storytellin’ time. Most of our young-uns learn their history from stories told by the fireside. It isn’t the history you folks know, but it’s the story of people we know or our grandfolks knew.”
“Wars aren’t far-off things to us. Pa fit in the War of 1812. He was with the Kentucky riflemen who stood behind the bales of cotton at New Orleans. When fightin’ men were needed, there was always a Sackett to be found.”
Mr. Chantry, I thought, was a lonely man, and when we lingered at table it was because he wished to prolong the time. I knew how he felt, because many a time when we’d set by the fire telling stories or singin’ the old ballads like “Greensleeves” or “Barbry Alien,” I wished it would never end.
“I miss my wife, Echo,” he said suddenly. “You are so like her, so very feminine.” He glanced at me, a glint of amusement in his eyes. “Somehow, I cannot imagine you with a rifle.”
“I grew up with one, used a rifle as soon as a needle. I used to walk the woods to school, or canoe on the rivers, and when a girl’s much alone, she becomes independent. I’ve camped out in the woods when caught by storms. It never worried me much.”
“You leave in the morning?”
“Yes, sir. I have already booked passage on the stage.”
“You must be careful. You will be carrying what is a great deal of money to some people, and that little iron box could buy you a farm in the flatlands, and a big farm at that.”
“Felix Horst is still here, and I do not believe it is an accident. He owes White a favor and he is a dangerous man. I wish you would change your mind and stay with me.”
“If Horst comes after me for the money,” I said, “I think it will be for himself. He looks like a meaner man than Mr. White. He’d rob a man quick enough, I think, and kill him, too. Once I get in the woods, I won’t be worried about such as him.”
Mr. Chantry smiled, shaking his head. “You Sacketts! You always amaze me!”
“We live in wild country, sir. I know folks who think all wild things are sweet and cuddly, but they’ve never come into a henhouse after a weasel has been there. He can drink the blood of only one or two, but often as not he’ll kill every one of them. Wolves will do it in a pen of lambs, too. There are savage beasts in the world, Mr. Chantry, and men who are just as savage. We’ve come upon them now and again.”
Well, I switched the subject to pleasanter things and got him to telling me of his courtship and how he proposed and all. When he stopped the carriage at Mrs. Sulky’s, it was mighty late. As the carriage moved away, something stirred in the shadows across the street.
The trouble was, when I snuggled down in bed, I wasn’t thinking of the stage that would take me west to Pittsburgh, but of the back of that young man’s head and those broad shoulders. The trouble was, I’d probably never see him again, or get to know him.
Amy Sulky was in the kitchen when I came down the stairs before daybreak. She was there working with the black woman who did most of the cooking. She was a free woman wedded to a man who was coachman for a wealthy family. They went to the door with me and Amy fretted some. “I don’t like it! You going home alone, all that way! And you carrying money!”
“The less said of it, the better,” I cautioned. “But don’t you worry none. I’ve been about the mountains more than a bit.”
We said our good-byes and I taken up my carpetbag, a good bit heavier now, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Back in the hills I’d rustled stumps and logs for the fire more than once, and was accustomed to carryin’ weight.
First off, I taken a good look about, but saw nobody watching me.
At the coach house there was a goodly crowd, but it was not until I was seated that I saw that man with the hard gray hat and the houndstooth coat a-settin’ in the corner of the mail coach across from me, but in the farthest corner. There were twelve passengers, and the rest seemed what a body would expect. Five were women, aside from me, but only one who was youngish. She was a pert, pretty girl with big eyes and a friendly smile.
Seated close beside me was a little old lady with gray hair and quick blue eyes.
We started at a brisk pace, but the road was rough and we bounced around a good deal, which would have been worse but for the bulky sacks of mail crowded in with us. That little old lady was crowded right up to me, and once, glancing down, I noticed that her carpetbag, a new one, was just like mine.
Several times I sneaked a look at the man in the gray hat and houndstooth coat, but he was looking out the window and paying me no mind. It could be he was on business of his own and I was just too suspicious. Nevertheless, I decided to stay suspicious.
We passed several wagons with families bound to the westward, the men walking, the women and children inside. Mostly they were Conestoga wagons, big, strongly built, and built to float if need be. Mostly these folks, according to one of the men on the coach, were heading for Illinois or Missouri. A man named Birkbeck had been settling folks on land he had in Illinois.
We stopped to let off a couple of people in Lancaster, and pick up one more. Regal was forever talking about the fine rifles made at this place by the Pennsylvania Dutch. At least, that’s what he called them.
My thoughts kept straying back to that young man in the dining room that night. Dorian Chantry. It was a nice name. I minded what Regal said, “Don’t be in no hurry. You’ll meet a hundred men, maybe one or two of them worthwhile and of the right age.”
“What’s the right age?” I had asked him.
“You’ll know when you see him,” he said, grinning at me.
It was late, so I didn’t see much of Lancaster, but we stopped for more than an hour in Elizabeth Town and I carried my bag with me to the place where we could get coffee, bread, and some slices of beef. The little old lady had come from the stage too, and she sat near me, smiling very pleasantly but keeping to herself and showing no mood for talk.
We passed through several towns, none of them far apart, and it was not until Chambersburg that we stopped for the night. By that time we were dead beat. I was so tired of being jounced around that I scarcely could move. I saw the man in the houndstooth coat help that little old lady down from the carriage, taking her bag from her in kindly fashion. Maybe I was mistaken about him.
Picking up my bag, I started for the door to step down, but the bag felt funny. I looked down, and in the dim light it looked all right. Somebody helped me down and I picked up the bag again.
It was too light. Opening it, I taken one look. It wasn’t my bag!
Horrified, I looked up just in time to see the man in the houndstooth coat and that little old lady vanishing around a corner! He was carrying my bag.
7
Finian Chantry looked up from his desk as the door opened. Slowly he jostled the papers together until the ends squared, then placed them to one side.
Dorian Chantry was a tall, athletic young man, not unlike he himself at that age, although, Finian admitted, Dorian was a bit broader in the shoulders and somewhat more muscular than he himself had been.
“I have a mission for you.”
“A mission? Or do you mean a job?” Dorian revealed even white teeth in a flashing smile.
“A mission. Did you happen to see the young lady who was with me last night at supper?”
“Everybody else was paying attention. It seemed to me she could do without mine.”
“Then you would not recognize her if you saw her?”
“I would not.”
“She left town this morning carrying something over three thousand dollars and a gem in a small iron box just about three inches by two. I am worried about her.”