Light to the Hills: A Novel (69)

“This man.” Finn doled his words out slowly, an odd expression on his face. “What does he look like?”

Sass wrinkled her nose like she’d just caught a whiff of polecat. “Just a regular person.” She wiped her tears and wiggled the fingers on her hand. “But on his left hand, two of his fingers is missing, and a long scar runs up his arm.”

“Saints preserve,” Finn spat. The color drained from his face, and he ran an anxious hand across his brow. “I let the devil himself through the back door.”

“What can we do?” she asked.

Finn laid a hand on top of Sass’s head. “We ain’t gonna do nothing tonight. It’s late, and you should get back inside before Mama wakes up and has a fit, seeing you’re gone. Better to figger things out when the sun’s up.”

“Promise you won’t go flying off like buckshot. Promise you’ll be here tomorrow.”

“I promise, Sass. I give you that.”

“He dropped somethin’ at the store yesterday.” She reached into her pocket, pulled out the creased scrap of paper, and handed it to him. “Maybe it can help?”

Sass’s brows arched, and her brown eyes looked up at Finn as he unfolded the page. He scanned the list scrawled there. It was a list of names, and judging by the soft creases in the paper, it was something that had been looked at over and over again.

He read it out loud: “Dep. Ed Hunter, Frank Turnbull, Toady Newsome, Cotton & Fluff McCarty, James McKenzie, Elmer Russell, Warren Sylvis, Tate Monroe, F. M.?” Each name tolled like a bell in the darkness of the barn. Even the horses stilled at the sound of Finn’s voice. “What’s this?” He looked up at Sass. “The last ones on here are the fellers killed in the cave-in. And this one.” He paused. “Toady Newsome. I know that name. But these other’ns?”

Sass stared at Finn, her eyes round and her lips working. “I don’t know, Finn, but I got a cold chill up my back the first time I read it, like someone done walked over my grave.” She paused. “That last ’un. Just the letters F. M. I was worried that was you. Finn MacInteer.”

Finn scanned the list again. “Those letters got a question next to them, maybe because I’s only hurt and not killed? But come to think, I can name other fellers on the wrong end of Spider’s temper and fists, and their names ain’t here.” He swallowed hard and held Sass’s gaze.

“Spider?”

“That’s what he goes by, at least.” Finn ran his fingers down the names again. “He didn’t say Toady was dead, but this here looks like a list of folks that may’ve ended up that way.” Finn shivered and spat in the hay like he’d tasted something sour. “What sort of person keeps a list of something like that and, from the looks of things, studies it over and over? I don’t know what them last letters are for, but it ain’t good.”

He whistled long and low. “I’m glad you showed me this, Sass. Thank goodness for Miz Amanda showing up so we could read it and know it was important.” He folded it back and tucked it into his shirt pocket. “You don’t need to worry ’bout me, list or no. This may be his ticket far south of here, where the fires don’t die.” Finn tweaked Sass’s nose and smiled at her. “Get on back to bed now, and we’ll see about all this in the morning.”

Sass scuffed in the borrowed shoes back to the cabin, still wrapped in the dusty barn quilt, the hounds dancing curious around her. She turned down the lantern and closed the door as silently as she could. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she stood in the quiet for a moment. Cricket, Fern, and Hiccup lay under the quilt, sleeping side by side like opossums on a branch. The dying fire glowed orange in the stone hearth, filling the room with the comforting smell of woodsmoke, and white moonlight filtered through the muslin at the window in a filmy haze. Her mama stirred briefly behind the curtain that hid her bed. Plain or poor didn’t matter; this was the only home she’d ever known, filled with them she loved best. The thought of something weaseling in to ruin this filled Sass’s eyes with tears once more. She hadn’t cried this much in a month of Sundays and was plumb wore out with it. Sass walked to the bed and nudged Hiccup over so that she could lie back down.

Her heart was buoyed some by talking to Finn—confession was good for the soul—but her soul still carried its second burden. She hadn’t told him how the man had touched her, hadn’t told the shameful truth about why she’d gone to the barn. She hadn’t done it in a while, but as she drifted off to sleep, Sass prayed for God to keep her family safe and to find a way to strike down the hateful man who plagued them. She hadn’t meant to allow him to do what he did, so if God could take away the bleeding, she told Him she’d much appreciate that in the meantime.





Chapter 21


Morning broke in a sky of uniform white, a solid mass of clouds that promised rain. Amanda had shown up early at the MacInteers’ cabin, trying to get a head start on the weather. She’d brought Miles with her, finally giving in to his begging to ride along. He was growing so fast, and Mooney would probably welcome a break from his whirlwind of boyish energy. By the time they arrived back home, she hoped he’d be worn out enough to go straight to sleep. The whole MacInteer family was bent on their knees in the garden, putting seeds in the dirt before the sky let loose. Sass saw her first and stopped to wave. Even before Cricket had tied up Junebug with the other horses, Amanda felt the change in the air around the place, saw the way Finn and Sass traded glances, the way the two of them seemed bowed under some unseen weight.