Into the Bright Unknown (The Gold Seer Trilogy #3)(57)

“The guard called the sheriff, and the sheriff came and arrested him.”

Trying to get the story out of him is like trying to weed dandelions from the garden. I might get a handful of truth, but every yank leaves just as much behind in the ground as I clear away.

“Did they take him to the jail with Hampton?” I ask.

“No,” he says, staring off at the floor. Then he turns to look at me. “They hanged him. Right there in the square.”

“Without a trial?”

“Sheriff said he was caught in the act, so he didn’t need a trial. There’s no tolerance for theft around here. They put up a gallows and hanged him just after sunrise.”

I cover my face with my hands, and then grab my pillow and pull it over my head. “It’s my fault,” I mumble through the pillow. “I got that poor man killed.”

“You did nothing of the sort,” Jefferson said. “That’s on the men doing the killing.”

“But I made sure he got caught!”

“You didn’t know what was going to happen. His friend got away, and he might have gotten away, too, if he hadn’t run back for—”

“Don’t! I don’t want to hear any excuses.”

My eyes are closed and my face is covered, but all I can see is that day back in the Hiram’s mine when I tried to give one of the Indians a drink of water, and Frank Dilley shot him dead. I tried to do a good thing, for selfish reasons, and it got a man killed. Now it’s happened again.

Jefferson’s hand rests on my shoulder, and I flinch away.

“Lee,” he says.

I fling the pillow at him, which he catches neatly. “You know, that could be you! Our plan to rob Hardwick could get you killed.”

He sets the pillow aside and comes over to sit beside me.

“Maybe,” he says. “But it’s still the right thing.”

“Not if you get hanged.”

“That won’t happen. My father’s name is McCauley, right? Maybe I have a second sight of my own.”

He wraps an arm around me, and I’ve never been the clinging type, but I can’t help clutching fistfuls of his shirt and holding him tight against me, absorbing his warmth, taking him in. He smells of wood shavings and clean hay. “That’s not funny.”

“We’re going to be fine. Besides, this is proof that you’ve been right all along.”

I lift my head. “Huh?”

“Hardwick has no respect for laws and the process of justice,” Jefferson says. “If he’s not stopped, more people are going to get hurt. More people are going to die.”

“At least it won’t be you.”

“But it’ll be someone,” he says. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what Henry said. It’s all the people who don’t have a say in the government who get hurt by it. Indians, Negros, Chinese, women, children. Poor folk. We don’t mean anything to Hardwick and men like him. We can’t stop all of them, but we can stop him.”

“This robbery put a hiccup in our scheme.”

Jefferson reaches around me for another bite of bread. “Tomorrow is the auction. We’ll stick to that part of the plan and steal his reputation. We’ll figure out the rest too.”

“I guess.” I pick up the spoon and force myself to eat another bite. “Nobody ever got hanged for stealing a reputation, did they?”





Chapter Seventeen


Tuesday morning comes, cold and plodding. Five of us attend the auction under a grim gray sky—me, Jefferson, Becky, Henry, and Mary. An auctioneer’s platform has been set up in Portsmouth Square, near the Custom House. A body hangs from a hastily constructed gallows, swaying in the wind. A group of dirty children makes a game of throwing pebbles at it.

It casts a pall over me, a long shadow that seems to follow me no matter where I stand or the angle of the shrouded sun. There’s no way to look at the auctioneer’s platform and not notice the limp body out of the corner of my eye. I can’t help staring at it, feeling that the dead man is staring right back, accusing.

“It’s not your fault,” Jefferson says as we wander through the milling multitude. “It’s Hardwick’s.”

“Are you sure you should be up and around?” Becky asks. She’s wearing a beautiful dress of soft green calico, which she gleefully chose in spite of it being an inappropriate color for this time of year. Her own minor mutiny, I suppose. “Jasper says you should rest and take it easy for a couple days.”

“I’m fine,” I say. It’s true. I do feel fine. Maybe I feel better than fine, the way you do after you run a mile to the neighbor’s house, chop an extra cord of wood, carry two full buckets from the spring instead of one. At first, the day after, you’re tired and sore. But then you get busy again, feeling stronger than ever.

Henry slipped away for a moment, but now he returns, handing out sheets of paper to all of us. “These are the preliminary auction items,” he says. “The map shows plots of land for sale, along with their estimated values. The other list is marked with opening bids.”

Mary skims the list and glances over the map. “Why did you say preliminary?”

Henry and I exchange a glance. The preliminary lists circulate first, and that is part of our plan. But I shut the thought down as soon as it forms. I don’t see Helena Russell anywhere, but she’s sure to be near.