Miriam introduced Janey Stiles to him and announced that she would be accompanying Mrs. Drexel to Charleston as her companion. The girl wore a simple flowered cotton dress, patched in several places but immaculately clean. Her dark intelligent eyes were bright and alert.
Miriam wrapped her arms around Sarah. “Sarah, shalom. Please write us as soon as you can to let us know you arrived safely. And please keep us informed of what’s happening there. I wish we could’ve met under different circumstances, but be assured you’re forever in our hearts and will always be welcome in our home.”
“Thank you so much for your hospitality and the great gift of peace you’ve given me.” Sarah attempted to say more but her voice was fragile.
Her mother placed her hand on Sarah’s cheek and smiled through brimming tears. “Be safe, my child. I wish I were going with you, but your father . . .” She paused. “I’ll be joining you as soon as I recover my strength. I’m with good friends here. Don’t worry about me.”
Sarah threw her arms around her. “Oh, Momma.” The two black-clad women held their embrace and rocked gently for several seconds.
As they were separating, Miriam turned to the young servant. “Janey, I have something for you.” She reached into her purse and brought out a slim, leather-bound volume. “I know this is your favorite book, so it’s yours to keep you company away from home.”
Regaining her composure Sarah raised the book already in Janey’s hand. The Sonnets of Shakespeare. “I like your taste in literature.” She smiled at the girl. “Perhaps you can read some of the verses to me on our trip.”
“I can recite some of ‘em by heart, Miz Sarah, but I’d enjoy reading ’em, specially to you.”
“Ladies,” Buck intervened, “it’s time for us to be on our way.”
The inspector with the handlebar mustache had just finished checking the Concord’s leather suspension straps and walked back to the barn behind the depot.
Tracker came out of the stage office carrying a cloth-wrapped box which he carefully lashed to the roof among the luggage. Gus was right behind him, holding up a ticket in his right hand.
“Fortunately the coach isn’t full. The station master says sometimes it is and passengers have to sit on the roof.” He handed Janey the stiff paper voucher, then helped Sarah into the coach. Tracker, back on the ground, held the door for Janey who, momentarily startled by the unconventional courtesy, hesitated, then climbed in behind her. Through the window she smiled modestly at Tracker.
Buck came up to the door of the Concord. “Ladies, I don’t want to frighten you, but you need to be alert.” He saw Sarah tense, though she made a valiant effort not to let it show. He wished he didn’t have to remind her of their trip here but lulling her into a false sense of security was a luxury they couldn’t afford. “If we run into any trouble, please follow Tracker’s orders. He’s here to protect you. Do you have any questions?”
Sarah looked at him wide-eyed with apprehension. “You’re not coming with us?”
He’d given his ticket to Tracker. “I’ll be following you at a short distance to make sure nobody comes up behind you or threatens you in any way. Don’t worry, even if you can’t see me, you’ll never be out of my sight.”
“Dr. Thomson,” she said, “I appreciate all the precautions you’re taking on my behalf, but I expected you’d be riding with us.”
He didn’t want to tell her about the man stalking him, but he didn’t want her to be complacent either.
“Rightly or wrongly, I hold myself responsible for your father’s untimely death and your getting wounded. I couldn’t bear to have it on my conscience if anything more happened to you.”
She put her hand on his sleeve. “These are indeed difficult times. The war . . .” She took a shallow breath. “It’s as if civilization itself has died. But rest assured, you are not to blame for other people’s misdeeds.”
He was about to respond, when Janey declared, “Don’t you worry, Miz. Sarah. I’ll be watching out for both of us.”
Buck smiled. He’d forgotten Sarah’s young companion was sitting beside her, unavoidably listening in on their conversation. “Good girl,” he complimented her, then stepped back.
Tracker climbed aboard and took the seat opposite Sarah, giving him a rear view of the road behind them.
Buck signaled Wes, who clucked the horses into motion.
#
Getting revenge for the wound in his neck should have been coon pie for Rufus. Instead Doc Thomson had turned everything upside down. Not only wasn’t he touched in the shower of gunfire at Cedar Creek, but he’d killed Floyd and Fat Man. Adding insult to injury, the ambush at Weston’s Creek had gone awry, making Rufus look like a humbug.
Not again. He didn’t work for the Yankees anymore. He wasn’t a lone sniper working for someone else. He had his own gang now, men who’d sworn their loyalty to him—or would once they got their hands on the strong box. Might have been simpler if he didn’t have a gang though. Being a general wasn’t so easy, not with all the planning he had to do.
Rufus had considered showing up at the stage depot by himself, open fire, kill the doc and as many other people as he wanted and then vamoose. But he wasn’t real good at close-in shooting with a handgun, maybe cause he had only one good eye, but more importantly, Buck Thomson was. Rufus couldn’t take any chances on the plantation owner’s highfalutin son hornswoggling him again. Thomson had always been lucky, but his luck was about to run out.
Since he didn’t want to show his face around the depot, Rufus had sent Hank to pick up any information he could. The stage had departed on the first leg of its trip to Charleston less than an hour when Hank appeared in the saloon’s doorway, looking smug and well satisfied with himself. He crossed the room, head up, eyes straight ahead, greeted Rufus who was standing at the bar and ordered a beer from Shifty. He took his first long quaff and stroked his handlebar mustache before telling his new boss, “I got what you wanted.”
Everybody was listening.
“How many people on board?” Rufus demanded.
“The driver, a guard, a dude in working clothes, a white woman in black and a high-yellow nigger girl is all.”
“Who’s the dude?”
“One of them ‘most-white Creoles, I reckon, cause I heard him talk French. Got a rifle case with him.”
“Most-white, huh? Ain’t Doc Thomson then. He’s all white. You see any gent might be the doctor?”
“Yep, but he didn’t get in the coach.”
“What?” Rufus wasn’t expecting that. “What’d he do?”
“Rode off on a black horse a few minutes after it left.”
Thomson wasn’t with his woman? Rufus realized he should have known the doc would want to play scout to make sure there were no traps laid for her. Smart. But then, Rufus never featured Doc Thomson to be stupid. But if he was riding behind the coach . . .
“Any way we can get ahead of ‘em?” he asked Hank.
“You could cut across a couple of farms and connect with the main road on the outskirts of St Matthews. It’s longer, but you can move cross-country on horseback faster and easier than that creaking old Concord, ‘specially the way the roads are nowadays. Probably get there about the same time too.”
Rufus pondered the situation. Hitting them too close to St Matthews probably wasn’t a good idea. The boys wanted to have some fun. That’d take time. Not that he cared about them. Whether they got any money or women wasn’t important to him. All he wanted to do was kill Thomson, but thinking on it, he might want to take his time doing that too. A remote location between stops would be better. And after all, there was no need to rush. They wouldn’t reach Charleston for several days. Maybe he ought to use that time to play a few games, keep them on edge. That way, when he did strike they’d be tuckered out.