By contrast I was a coward of immense proportions, unable to tell him Patricia was lost for good. Axton would never get close enough to find her; Dredd Yancy had found her first. Dredd had killed his own father, Thomas Yancy, the same day that Fallon had ordered the Rawleys’ homestead burned, and had blamed Cole for the murder. Cole was now in jail in Iowa City, awaiting trial. Malcolm had witnessed the entire spectacle as it played out on the prairie; a man named Blythe Tilson had also been killed in the ambush. Only hours before Marshall disappeared for good, he and Axton had received the telegram Malcolm sent to Howardsville, instructing them to pass the word of Cole’s arrest on to the Spicers.
Blythe Tilson.
The familiar name rotated around the inside of my head. He couldn’t possibly be the Blythe Tilson wed to my mother in the twenty-first century. An ancestor, then? A connection forged between my family and the Tilsons long before 2003?
Dredd killed Blythe’s ancestor.
Dredd killed Thomas Yancy, his own father.
And he took Patricia and the baby.
Patricia, my sweet, dear friend.
I couldn’t bear to imagine in what condition she and Monty currently existed. I tried to find comfort in the fact that Dredd had shown us compassion last year, when Patricia and I lived in the Yancy estate.
We should never have parted ways. You could never know how sorry I am, Patricia…
Axton supported me down the clanging metal steps and through a noisy, bustling crowd. I squinted at the brightness, overwhelmed, tucked to Axton’s warm side. He kissed the top of my head and murmured, “Come on, we gotta find Malcolm.”
I moved obediently along with Ax, flinching when I heard someone call, “Axton! Ruthann!” I spied Malcolm Carter standing in bright sun on a dusty boardwalk flanking the depot, waving his arms in wide arcs, hat in his left hand. He hollered, “Over here!”
It took only seconds to observe that others waited with Malcolm, two women and three men, and the urge to shy away, to retreat and avoid all contact, swept over me. But then one of the women stepped forward to meet us and my heart – dead in my chest cavity these hundreds of miles – issued a small, unexpected thump. She hurried to us, letting her bonnet tumble down her back, and a whimper choked my throat as she appropriated me from Axton’s arms.
“My dear, dear girl,” she whispered, stroking my loose hair. “I am Lorie Davis.”
“Axton Douglas,” Ax was saying to those who crowded near but I saw none of them, holding fast to the woman who so closely resembled my mother. Introductions flew and danced in the air above my head.
Sawyer and Lorie Davis, Boyd and Rebecca Carter, Edward Tilson.
“You two look like you just seen a ghost,” Malcolm was saying as Lorie released her embrace, taking care to keep me close. I huddled against her side, seeing for the first time the others standing with Malcolm. Simply because of the obvious surprise on their faces, I focused on two of the men – one of whom wore a patch over his left eye – each studying Axton with unblinking gazes. With almost comical unison the men looked at one another, wearing identical expressions of stun, before returning their amazement to Axton.
“Boyd, honey, you’ve confused this young man in addition to the rest of us,” commented a lovely woman with a glossy topknot of dark hair, nudging his ribs with her elbow.
“I apologize, young fella, it’s just that I can’t quite believe my eyes,” said the man named Boyd, whose strong resemblance to Malcolm suggested an older brother. “You are the goddamn spittin’ image of –”
“My brother, Ethan.” The man named Sawyer completed the sentence in a hoarse whisper, peering at Axton with a feature I suddenly realized I knew. Despite one being hidden beneath a patch, I knew his eyes; I staggered slowly to awareness.
The Davis family eyes. This man is my ancestor.
“I know this ain’t seemly and for that I do apologize,” Boyd Carter continued. “But what was your father’s name, young Douglas?”
Axton stammered, “My pa was killed before I was born. His name was Aaron Douglas.”
“You were born in Cumberland County?” Sawyer leaned closer, forehead knitted. Tall, wide-shouldered, solid with muscle and missing an eye, he was altogether imposing, focused intently on Axton. “Near the town of Suttonville, is that correct?”
“And your pa died in the War Between the States?” Boyd persisted.
“Was your mama named Mary?” Sawyer asked.
“Boys!” commanded the oldest of the bunch, a man with silver, shoulder-length hair and skin like wrinkled leather. “Cough up what you-all mean before we bust apart with curiosity!”
Axton held his hat to his chest. Perplexed but too polite to deny information, he addressed Sawyer as he confirmed, “Yessir, my mama’s name was Mary.”
Sawyer gripped the lower half of his face and his throat bobbed as he swallowed hard.
Boyd clapped a hand around Axton’s bicep. “I’ll explain for my oldest friend, as he is overcome just now. Long ago I had me some tact, but I’ve lived too long and seen too much to beat around the bush.” He paused, sympathetic dark eyes fixed on Axton. “Young man, I do believe your real daddy was Sawyer’s brother, Ethan. I know it’s a goddamn shock but I promise to tell the whole story first chance we get.”
In the morning another train would take us as far north as a city called Fairfield. From there it seemed we would complete the last five miles of the journey to Landon by wagon; in the meantime we were booked for the night at a hotel near the train station. Axton relinquished me to Lorie and Rebecca with promises to return to say good-bye before he collected Ranger from the stock cars, resupplied for the journey
