A Longer Fall (Gunnie Rose #2)(65)

“No.”

His eyes got all the way open in a hurry. “Dammit, give me some water, woman!”

“No.” This was the man who had gotten my friend Galilee pregnant by raping her. This man was why she’d had to leave her parents and begin a new life in a new country.

“How does it feel to be in pain yourself?” I said, with some curiosity.

“It hurts, dammit. What do you think?” He shifted around a little, trying to get comfortable. “Who were all those men downstairs? I called and called, and no one heard me.” He was angry about that. “For that matter, who the hell are you?”

“I’m a friend of Galilee Clelland.”

Holden Ballard’s face was blank for a minute. Then he said, “Galilee. I remember her. Where did she go?”

“She made you a daddy.”

He looked confused for a minute. Then he looked disgusted.

That pretty much sealed his case.

I heard footsteps behind me. Two people.

I whipped around and found I was pointing my gun at Hosea and Reva Clelland. They were not the people I thought I’d see, and I was glad of it. “You got here just in time,” I said.

“You come here the same reason we did?” Hosea was a little wheezy from the stairs.

“Hosea, Reva, take this woman’s gun,” Holden Ballard said. He sounded almost as wheezy as Hosea, though he was a good thirty years younger. His wound was killing him, but not fast enough.

“Not too likely,” Reva said. “We come to kill you.”

“It had crossed my mind, too,” I said, and smiled at the old couple.

“You hold down his hands, we’ll put a pillow over his face,” Hosea said.

“I’d just as soon shoot him,” I said. “That way, you can say you came out to help him and found him dead, if you have to.”

Holden struggled to sit up. He was making all kinds of noises, but we ignored him. His ideas didn’t count.

“Or here, sir,” I said, holding out the gun to Hosea. He hesitated, and in that moment Reva took the gun and turned to the bed. Though I think it was a lucky shot, Reva killed Holden Ballard with one bullet. He was a mess afterward, but she didn’t even flinch.

“Oh, thank you, Lord,” Reva said. “That I lived to see this day.”

That’s where Galilee had gotten her quickness and her grit.

The two old people stood there for a long moment, amazed they’d got vengeance for their daughter.

When Reva and Hosea could move, they made their slow way out onto the landing. Reva handed my gun back as she passed. “Can you two do me a favor?” I said. “My friend Eli is around here somewhere. Last I saw him, he was cutting down the hung man. Can you watch the front in case someone else comes? I’ll need to know. I have to go up to the attic.”

“Yes, we’ll sit on the front porch,” Hosea said, his arm around his wife. “Won’t no one surprise you.” He and Reva started down, step by step.

I figured Eli would have been startled by the shot and come a-running, but he didn’t show. I didn’t like that.

After a moment of waiting, I went up the attic stairs. They were broad. The servants could carry big things up or down. But the boards were plain, no carpet or rail, and the stairs were steeper.

There wasn’t a handrail. I hugged the left wall, carried one of my guns in my right hand. I kept my eyes focused upward. I was wavering on the edge of something, scared I’d fall. I’d seen a woman walk a wire once, strung between the grocery store and the jail. It had made a big impression.

The attic door was open. Light came through the unshuttered windows. Dust motes floated around lazily in the glow.

I mashed myself against the wall, staring in. There was no movement in my range of vision, but there was a corner of the attic I couldn’t see. As silently as I could, I stepped across the landing and scanned the other side. Nothing.

It occurred to me, way too late, that I should have questioned Holden Ballard about the chest, how he’d gotten it. Too late now. And he wouldn’t have told the truth, anyway.

I took a small breath and stepped into the room. And stopped dead.

In Texoma, we used everything till it broke. When it broke, we used the parts. But I saw that in Dixie, people like the Ballards put all their broken or outdated stuff into the attic. They thrust the smaller stuff against the walls where the roof was the lowest. The bigger stuff was in the middle. The room was jam-packed.

I felt helpless for a minute. Then I recalled the size of the crate. The chest could not be much smaller than the crate. It had only slid around inside a very little. So I set to searching. All the stuff in the attic blocked the light.

Since I needed all the help I could get (Where was Eli?) I pulled the string dangling from the lightbulb in the middle of the room, the point where the ceiling was highest. Then there was light, but there were also deeper shadows. And for a minute, the bulb rocked back and forth, and it looked like everything was moving, just a little.

I had to make myself stand still. I wanted to get out of this damn house. I took a deep breath and set my jaw.

Chairs, both grand and plain. A chest of drawers… or two. Old trunks, very dusty and square. A long, cracked mirror with its own stand. A battered bookcase, two children’s desks.

I realized I was gasping for air, and made myself still my breathing. What was wrong with me? I was looking at old furniture! Then I caught up with my sense and glanced down at the floor. Two sets of footprints, both man-size, approaching one particular spot and returning. Both sets of tracks led to and away from a big sheet of canvas draped over a group of things. I carefully placed my own feet by the prints and that was where I ended up, just as I’d suspected. I flipped back the canvas sheet, and there, pushed up against a discarded wardrobe, was the chest. It was the only thing that wasn’t dusty.