Between Earth and Sky(56)
“No.” He smiled, a rare sight these days, and ever so welcome. “Well, part of it I read. But my grandfather was somewhat of a collector.”
“Really?” It was nice for once to feel like she wasn’t the only one withholding bits of the past.
“He kept an old set of dueling pistols, a seventeenth-century musket, the flintlock rifle his great-grandfather used in the Revolution.”
“Did you ever fire them?”
“I was forbade to even touch them.” His handsome smile broadened; his gaze lifted toward the sky. “I did, of course, one night when all the grown-ups thought I’d gone to bed. I was five, maybe six. Nearly blew my foot off . . .” His voice drifted and he chuckled. “Grandma raged a fit over the hole in her Oriental carpet.... Needless to say, I got a good lecture about how gentlemen handle firearms.”
Alma laughed, envisioning a young Stewart—inquisitive and precocious even then—sneaking into his grandfather’s study. She thought of her own escapades, all the times she’d snuck around without her parents’ knowledge, and felt a fleeting moment of kinship with her husband. Perhaps their childhoods weren’t so different after all. Then, as always, her mind drifted to that last evening she’d ventured out in secret. Of course they were different—utterly and irrevocably so.
“Will you wire the judge when we return to town? Lobby for a mistrial?” she asked after several moments of silence.
“Not yet.”
“What more evidence do you need?” She pulled away from his side and scrutinized his face. “Surely, you now believe Harry innocent.”
“My beliefs matter little. It’s the judge or, more likely, the jury we’ve got to convince.” Stewart kept his attention forward, navigating around a shallow pit in the lane. “We can now cast doubt on the prosecution’s version of events—who witnessed what, who had access to a gun—but none of that actually refutes Mr. Muskrat’s involvement. What Mr. Zhawaeshk said about the recent allotment proceedings is interesting. Tomorrow we’ll look more into—”
“But you do believe that he’s innocent?”
He pulled his eyes from the road and gave her a quizzical look.
“You mustn’t believe what Zhawaeshk said,” she continued before he could give her an answer she didn’t like. “About Harry being a vagabond and drunk.”
Stewart’s expression, now as it had been when Zhawaeshk told his tale, was inscrutable. But she knew his distaste for such behavior. He was puritanical in that regard. She knotted her hands and buried them in the folds of her skirt. Maybe then she wouldn’t be tempted to chew through her leather gloves to get at the skin around her nails. Everyone made mistakes, had faults and secrets. Surely Stewart could see that. This wouldn’t change his commitment to the case. To her. Would it? “All I—”
The horse lurched, throwing the carriage off-kilter. Stewart shook the reins, but the animal continued to hobble and slow, favoring its right hind leg.
“He’s hurt,” Alma said.
Stewart stopped the carriage and jumped down. When he approached the horse, it whinnied and shied away.
Alma winced. Her bookish husband knew little of animals. “Careful.”
He bent down to examine the leg and the horse reared back, kicking up a cloud of dirt. The buggy swayed and nearly toppled. Alma grabbed the side and held her breath. Stewart staggered back, dusting off his coat. “Blast it! Are you all right?”
Alma stood. “Here, let me help.”
“No.” Stewart flung off his derby and shrugged out of his overcoat and suit jacket. “Stay in the wagon, darling.”
Alma crossed her arms and remained standing. She couldn’t help but smile as he rolled up his crisp shirtsleeves and inched toward the horse again, arms outstretched and fingers splayed. “Stay now.” He patted the horse’s back, then tugged lightly on its leg.
Despite Stewart’s gentleness, the horse refused to raise his hoof. Instead, he snorted and whipped his tail at Stewart’s face. Alma started to climb from the wagon when she heard the clamber of approaching riders. Four men drew up behind them, steam rising from their stallions’ nostrils in the cooling air.
“Trouble?” a ginger-haired man asked. He was one of the men she’d seen yapping with Sheriff Knudson and handing out rations earlier that day.
Stewart took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. Alma could tell he hated being out of his element. “It seems our horse has gone lame.”
“Might’ve thrown a shoe,” the man said without even a glance in the animal’s direction. “Don’t suppose you’ve a hammer and spare.”
The other men chuckled.
“No, I’m clear out,” her husband said through gritted teeth.
“All the better. A city man like you.” He sized up Stewart and snorted. “Course, there’s a farrier back in the village. Doubt you’d make it there and back to Detroit Lakes before dark, though.” His muddy-green eyes cut to Alma. “I’d hate for you to get lost along the way.”
She shivered, but held his gaze.
“Saw you talking to Zhawaeshk over there by them funny houses they build over their dead. He tell you anything useful?” He opened a small tin and stuffed a wad of chewing tobacco into his mouth. He smiled at her then, his lower lip protruding, his teeth the color of dirty dishwater. She thought she might be sick. Had he been following them all day, lurking in the trees and brambles beyond the cemetery?