A Longer Fall (Gunnie Rose #2)(50)

“So why are you doing this, exactly?” I didn’t disapprove, not at all, but it didn’t seem like the kind of thing a government would do if it wanted to stay stable.

“Tsar Alexei loved his first wife. You may remember she was a Ballard, from Dixie—in fact, from here in Sally. Her name was Amanda.”

A lot clicked together in my head when Eli said that. I remembered the newspaper coverage of the wedding, even in Texoma. An American tsarina.

“Amanda grew up on the largest Ballard-owned plantation, just outside of town. On her deathbed, the first tsarina asked Alexei if he could try to make things better for the downtrodden people here. She often told the story of the woman who was her nurse when she was little. The woman was whipped for some minor error, and died of infection from that. It was the tsarina’s last wish, that the black people here be helped. She told Alexei he was the only person she’d ever met who was powerful enough to change things.”

“It sounds like you were there.” It also sounded like, though she was dying, the former Miss Ballard had appealed to Alexei’s pride and vanity.

“I was there,” Eli said. He looked sad. “It was a terrible day. The tsar loved her, truly.”

“He’s got another wife now, and an heir.” I was just saying.

“Tsars have to have heirs. Otherwise, we have people like his uncle and my father plotting to overthrow him.”

“So does his current wife know about any of this?” Not that it made a difference, I guess.

“Tsar Alexei set all this in motion soon after Amanda died. The tsar sent one of our priests to Africa. After much searching, he returned to San Diego with Moses’s bones. My superiors thought our priests, or even our grigoris, would be too easy to spot if they accompanied the crate to Dixie. So gunnies were hired all along the way, and it was switched from one crew to another, to muddle the trail. I thought that the decision was made to hire Iron Hand to further make sure the bones arrived where they were supposed to go. But maybe not. Their presence is a mystery to me.”

“So the Lucky Crew had the crate on its final leg.” I had pictured a lot of things that might be in that chest, but not human remains.

“Yes. Until the train wreck, which I believe—now— was caused by these Lamb people. They took advantage of the train wreck to kill your crew leader and steal the chest, having tried to get it away from other crews several times before. I don’t know how they found out. There are sympathizers with their way of thinking in places I would never imagine.”

I could believe that easily. There were so many people who tried to find a reason for all the bad things that had happened in America, bad things that had destroyed the United States as a country. Blaming it on black people was the easiest solution to a big question.

“They killed a lot of people to get the chest,” I said, thinking of the row of bodies on the hillside. The two funeral homes. How Jake had looked.

“Maybe more than they’d counted on.”

“And what will they do with the chest?”

“I’m afraid they will destroy the bones unless we find them very quickly.”

“It’s been days already.” If I’d been a Society member, I’d have powdered the bones beneath my boot and burned the powder.

I didn’t want to start this venture unless there was a real chance of success. No point in risking death for nothing.

“Then we have to move fast,” Eli said. He was nothing but determined.

“I would move fast if I knew where to move.” I had not a single idea.

But we had a miracle. There was a knock at the room door, and I pulled my gun. I stood to one side while Eli, spell in hand, answered.

James Edward stood there, his arms full of folded linen, and he looked from side to side and stepped in without being asked. “Shut the door, sir,” he said. He set down his stack of sheets.

Eli did, and I lowered my gun.

“Listen to me,” James Edward said. “Juanita Poe saw the chest where she works, at the Ballards’ house, out on the road to Bergen. Young Mr. Ballard brought it in two days ago after the train wreck and hid it in his attic. Juanita waited till they was gone and went up there. Way she described it, that’s what you’re looking for.”

“Did you leave the note here about the meeting?” I said.

“I did, but I wanted to tell you… the man who gave it to me is someone I don’t trust. Elijah likes money more than he’s loyal to other black people. He’s been keeping an eye on me to make sure I delivered it. He’d know if I hadn’t. He has a friend who works here.”

“So you don’t know who will be at this meeting.”

“I’ve asked around, to see if any of my friends know anything about it. It’s not with any of them, that’s for damn sure.”

That was bad news.

“Sally is a complicated place,” I said. Everyone I’d met had seemed like other people, some nice, some not so nice, but regular. But there was this whole secret underlying it all, this thing we were all supposed to assume.

“Yes, ma’am,” James Edward said, and I didn’t tell him to call me Lizbeth. He would not be able to.

James Edward left within a minute, because his absence would be noticed. He’d picked his time carefully. He asked Eli to look out in the hall to make sure no one was observing before he picked up his armful of folded sheets and carried them on to the big linen closet at the end of the hall. After that he went down the back stairs, which I figured ended in the kitchen area.