MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15
“Why is he here?” Ephraim asks.
I’ve come down to the mill with lunch for Ephraim. He’s been working on the waterwheel since dawn and somehow looks both sweaty and freezing. The wheel is still locked in the frozen creek, and my husband has determined that now is the best time to make much-needed repairs to several of the wooden paddles that have rotted or cracked.
“Barnabas?” I ask, looking over my shoulder. “I rather thought his reasons would be obvious.”
I hand Ephraim his plate, but he sets it down on a stump. “He hasn’t come courting,” Ephraim says. “Look at him.”
Barnabas is haggard. He’s ridden hard and long with the wind at his face. His cheeks are red, his lips chapped.
“Perhaps he was in a hurry to see Dolly?”
Even as I say the words, I know that my husband is right. As always.
Ephraim pulls his mouth into a hard line. “That boy doesn’t want to be here. He’s scared.”
Barnabas has brought the wagon. Lately he’s been coming on horseback, but those were social calls. I’ve only ever seen him on that wagon—the one with the iron loop affixed to the sideboard—twice.
Ephraim takes a menacing step forward as Barnabas jumps down from his seat. He looks like he’s swallowed a gallon of vinegar. He takes off his hat. Whacks his thigh. Looks to the clouds. Squints. Shakes his head as though arguing with the Almighty.
“Why are you here?” Ephraim demands.
It is the first time I have ever seen Barnabas Lambard out of sorts. He nearly chokes on the words. “I’m here to arrest your son for the murder of Joshua Burgess.”
Ephraim’s voice is low and deep. Dangerous. “Which. Son?”
The word must be painful for Barnabas, like cut glass on his tongue, and he struggles to spit it out.
After a moment, he looks to me as though pleading for help. It’s a mercy he won’t get. Not today.
“Cyrus.”
*
The only thing our oldest child has ever wanted, in all his life, is to go to sea. Though I know he’d deny it, I suspect Cyrus wants to be a pirate. To climb rigging and perch in a crow’s nest and see exotic locations. He wants
—more than anything—a life of adventure. A life filled with salt air and blue water and a fist shaken in defiance at the stormy horizon. He’s been robbed of this future, however, and makes do with sailing the Kennebec and navigating his father’s logs to ports downriver. In winter, however, he is landlocked. And his only solace is Mill Pond, where he goes to fish almost every day.
So we trudge up the path—the four of us—in search of him. Ephraim. Barnabas—who looks as though he’d rather eat a pile of steaming entrails. Me. And Dolly. She’d seen him arrive. Of course she had. That girl looks for him like a first-century believer waiting for the return of Christ. So no sooner had we passed the garden gate than she came rushing out the front door, drying her hands on a kitchen towel.
But the girl is perceptive—more so than any seventeen-year-old I’ve ever met—and she knows something is wrong. No one will answer her questions, however, and now she’s angry as well.
“Where are we going?” she demands. “Why is he here? Why won’t anyone answer me?”
I give her a warning look that makes her swallow the next question, and I can see her anger turn to fear in the span of a single blink. She finally understands.
“He wouldn’t dare,” Dolly whispers. She grabs my forearm and squeezes hard. “He wouldn’t.”
“It takes decades to really know a man, Dolly. And you’ve barely had weeks with that one. I’d suggest you not assume anything about what he will or will not do.”
It’s a hard lesson, but it’s best she learn it now.
Dolly falls silent, then falls into step behind me on the narrow path. Ephraim leads the pack. Twice Barnabas looks back at me and—judging by the look on his face—believes he’s being led into the woods as a ritual sacrifice. I can’t say the thought hasn’t crossed my husband’s mind, but mostly I suspect he wants to see if Barnabas has the courage to follow through with his mission.
Mill Pond is a half mile north of the house and sits in the middle of a sprawling meadow. The pond isn’t all that big—only two acres across—but is quite deep in the middle and is the happy home to many hundreds of blueback trout. Cyrus discovered it within a day of our moving to this property eleven years ago, and promptly claimed it as his own. He stands in the center of the pond now, atop two feet of ice, holding a fishing line in each hand. He’s kept the hole open all winter, and its sides are jagged from constant chipping with the hatchet.
Cyrus sees his father first and offers a broad smile. But Barnabas steps into the clearing next. Then me. Followed by Dolly. And the smile melts off his lips. When his eyes sharpen and his fists tighten over the fishing poles, I know he’s understood the reason for this interruption.
Cyrus twists his lips in displeasure.
Mouths some profanity that will never reach the air. Nods.
Then he pulls both poles from the water and trudges back across the ice. We watch as he collects his fishing paraphernalia—bucket, poles, string, hooks—and strides toward us.
He drops everything at Ephraim’s feet, and then his hands move in a flurry: thumb pointing at himself, flat hand slicing through the air as though to say didn’t, and then fist to the side of his neck in imitation of holding a noose.
“I know,” Ephraim says. “But Barnabas here believes that you did.” “No. I do not. But arresting you is the job I’ve been given. Dr. Page’s
testimony was damning.” He looks to the side and glares at me, as though I should have shared what I knew about the beating long ago. “And the court has ordered that I bring you in.”
Cyrus studies him quietly, then turns to Ephraim and flaps his hand, indicating he’s free to interrogate the boy.
“And where will you take him?” Ephraim asks.
“Vassalboro. He’ll have to appear before Judge Wood. But once he posts bail, he’ll be remanded to the jail yard at Fort Western.”
“And what proof do they have?” Ephraim asks.
“Proof? None so far as I know. Only the testimony of Dr. Page, which was confirmed by at least five other people. So the court will look into the matter.”
His voice is calmer now that he’s had the chance to explain everything, but Barnabas still seems unsettled. He likes Cyrus. I know this for a fact. And he’s not looked Dolly in the eye once.
She, however, hasn’t stopped glaring at him since we arrived at the pond. “You cannot do this!” It’s almost a shout, but not quite. Dolly isn’t the type to descend into hysterics. But she does have a temper, and she’s letting Barnabas see it for the first time.
He winces.
Then takes a deep breath.
Barnabas takes a step toward Cyrus. “I don’t want to do this. Please believe that. But if you fight me, I’ll have to fight you back.”
I think of how handily he subdued James Wall. Barnabas, however, has never seen Cyrus throw a punch.
“When will he stand before Obadiah Wood?” Ephraim asks. “Tomorrow.”
“And the hearing?”
“At the end of next month. Friday, March twenty-sixth.”
Dolly’s head swivels back and forth as she takes in this conversation between her father and her suitor. And with every second that passes, her brows draw closer together and her cheeks burn hotter.
“No!” she says. “I will not have it. You will not arrest my brother. You said yourself he’s done nothing wrong.”
“I said that I don’t believe that he has.” Barnabas’s voice is nothing but a whisper, and his eyes remain focused on Cyrus. He’s waiting, watching to see if Cyrus will bolt. He is no longer the charming young man who has dined with us several times but rather the efficient, ruthless officer of the court.
“Dolly,” Ephraim warns.
“Stop.” She turns on her father, and he blinks in surprise. This may be the first time she has ever directly defied him. “You cannot let this happen.”
“This,” he warns, “has nothing to do with you.” “It has everything to do with me,” she hisses.
Dolly leaves my side and trudges through the snow to stand in front of Barnabas. She isn’t quite as tall as I am, but she raises herself to her full height nonetheless.
“Do not do this,” she tells him.
“I have to.” Still his gaze is pinned on Cyrus. “Please.”
“You don’t understand. I have—” “I understand perfectly.”
I’d wondered perhaps if her feelings for Barnabas were rooted in infatuation. He is the first man who’s ever paid her serious attention after
all. And that tends to addle a girl’s mind. But no. I hear it there in her trembling voice. She cares for him. But she loves her brother.
“If you arrest him, I will never speak to you again. Not one time. Ever.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. And she knows it the moment the words have slipped into the cold, brittle air. But she is stubborn, like me, and won’t back down now that she’s taken a stand.
His eyes shutter and his spine stiffens. My husband was right. This has nothing to do with Dolly. And the fact that she’s inserted herself into a matter of the court has disappointed Barnabas Lambard.
His voice is as cold as river ice when he answers, “I am sorry to hear that.”
Barnabas doesn’t see the slap coming. I’d guess he hears it before he feels it. But by then she’s turned away and is marching down the path toward the house.
He is dumbfounded. But Cyrus is grinning.
And Ephraim can’t decide whether to laugh or charge after his daughter.
So I’m the one to speak.
“Cyrus didn’t kill anyone,” I say.
“I know that.” Barnabas’s voice is strangled. And he spares one, longing glance at Dolly’s retreating form. “I do. And it will bear out in court soon enough. You’ll see. There’s nothing. Not a single witness who saw him near Burgess after the Frolic.”
“Then why is the court doing this?”
“To prove that they’ve followed through on the matter. That they were thorough. In case questions are asked.”
“Are questions being asked?”
“Yes. But not about Cyrus. The concern is to do with North. He got away, and they don’t want their authority being called into question. More has happened in this county during the last four months than in the last four years. Every single judge on that court is under a lot of scrutiny.”
“From whom?”
“The Supreme Judicial Court.”
“So my son has fallen prey to politics?” “I wish I could say it isn’t true.”
Ephraim narrows his eyes. “And you’re willing to be part of this?” “I’m the sort of man who does my job, Mr. Ballard,” Barnabas says,
directing his gaze briefly to my husband. “If nothing else, I hope you can respect that.”
After that one quick glance he turns his focus back to Cyrus. It’s like he’s preparing for the fight. Wagering if it will be man to man, or two against one. I can see he’s not pleased about either option. But he is ready for them.
“Are you going to fight me?” he asks Cyrus.
It would be one hell of a fight. And were they other men—any other men, actually—I might pay to see it.
The woods are quiet. So quiet I can hear the breath of everyone present. There is no wind. No birdsong. No chatter of squirrels or the sliding of snow from pine boughs.
My oldest child takes a step forward. He balls his fists.
He grins, mischievous, and damn it all if I don’t realize he’s enjoying
this.
Then Cyrus holds his hands out, wrists pressed together, and waits for
Barnabas Lambard to bind them with a rope.
