“John would rather cut off his left testicle than see this company ruined.”
It was stupid to bring him up, but Jack can’t backtrack now. “Maybe, but he’s also a grieving father, who feels personally responsible for his daughter’s death.”
“Partially responsible,” says Placide sharply.
Jack ignores the insinuation. “You can see why he’d think he was doing right by Nancy.”
Placide lowers himself onto a three-legged stool. “So, you’re suggesting he went to Skelton to absolve himself?”
“It makes a certain amount of sense.”
Placide sits there, stroking his beard, as the seconds tick by. Finally, he shakes his head. “If John were so bent on doing the right thing, why not let Skelton publish his name?”
It’s a good question, and one Jack can’t answer. “I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe he got scared.”
Placide looks out the window. “I’ll buy that. But that doesn’t explain why he didn’t give Skeltonyourname.”
CECILY
It is noon, and Cecilyis back under the sailcloth, dreaming, when she hears the rolling call of a wild turkey.
She sits bolt upright in the canoe. The soft trill fills the air. “Damn it, Moses,” she whispers under her breath as she hurries to the door of the boathouse and begins to drag the barricade of canoes she’s built out of the way. When she gets the door open, the turkey lets out a long, loud yelp, and then he falls silent.
Somewhere, far off, there is a low rumbling noise Cecily doesn’t like. She moves around the side of the boathouse, scanning the trees for signs of Moses. He promised her he’d go home, but now she knows she shouldn’t have believed him. She looks up into the white oak, but he’s not there. Of course, that doesn’t mean he’s not in one of the hundreds of other trees that dot the hillside. She studies the trees’ bare branches, looking for anything that doesn’t belong. A hawk’s nest, a broken limb, a branch that hasn’t yet dropped its leaves. Up on the ridgeline, she sees something move, but it is only a squirrel.
Cecily wants to shout for Moses, but something doesn’t feel right. If he gave her his turkey call, then maybe he is trying to warn her of someone coming. She pulls his jacket tight around her frame and hurries back inside the boathouse, but she has no sooner closed the door behind her than she hears the sound of horses—at least two, but maybe three—cresting the ridge.
She lunges for the canoes and drags them back in front of the door. Then she climbs on top of them, throws herself against the door, and waits.
She assumes the party will make straight for the boathouse, but there is a shrill squeal from up on the ridge, and the horses come to an abrupt halt. One man yells something to another, but what they’re saying, she can’t tell.
Another squeal echoes down the hillside and across the water, and to Cecily’s horror, she realizes that the noise is of Moses’s making. Lord helphim, but he must be trying to get the attention of the horsemen before they get around to discovering her.
From up on the ridge comes the sound of a scuffle, then the shouts of one of the men. “I got him!”
Without stopping to think, Cecily scrambles down off the canoes and works, as quickly as she can, to drag them back out of the way. When she gets the door open, she barrels down the path and up into the woods, toward the ridgeline.
As she hurtles through the trees, she focuses on the sound of the men’s laughter, which grows softer as the party moves away from her. If Moses is crying out for help, she cannot hear him.
When Cecily arrives up on the ridge, she sees no sign of anyone.
“Moses!” she whispers at the trees, in case she got it wrong and he is still up in the branches, pretending to be a big fat turkey. “Come down!”
There is nothing.
Cecily gulps for air, feels the tears welling in her eyes and her chin beginning to shake.
All she can think to do is get word about Moses to her mama. But it’s not a good time to be out. The winter sun is low and it lights up the woods, same way all those footlight lamps lit up the stage at the theater.
If Cecily runs into anyone, there will be no hiding, but she can’t afford to wait another moment. She takes off running through the woods before she can convince herself that what she’s doing is a very bad idea.
GILBERT
As Gilbert hurries away fromthe smithy, he looks behind him—once, twice, three times. Marcus isn’t following him, but he takes a circuitous route anyway, skirting the lumber house and Market Hall before proceeding to Lynch’s Coffee House, where the stagecoach book is kept.
His plan is to buy Cecily a seat, under her new name, then deliver the ticket and Cecily’s pass to Della, along with the warning that Kemp and his men are on the lookout for Cecily and that it is most definitely time for her to go.
Della will panic—how could she not?—but this plan of theirs still feels like it could work. Provided the conductor accepts Cecily’s papers, she’ll be in Philadelphia by New Year’s Day. From there, it’ll be easier, and far less urgent, for her to decide what to do and where to go next.
