Lock & Key Read online

  “Or durn lucky,” said another, somewhat more prosaically.

  “Anyway, you both look like you need something sustaining,” said the innkeeper. “A beer for the gentleman.” He paused, and looked questioningly at Jane.

  “And one for me as well,” Jane said firmly.

  A cheer went up from the assembled crowd.

  So, as it turned out, he needn’t have worried about having a place to stay. He and Jane both had a dozen offers before their beer was brought to them.

  • • •

  Darren was given a room in the inn above the tavern to sleep in, and his objections of “I haven’t any money” were waved off by the innkeeper, whose name was Gillette.

  “I’m happy enough to help anyone who has the backbone to stand up to those ruffians,” Gillette said, as he showed Darren to his room. “A pity there aren’t more like you.”

  Jane was taken in by an older man, whose name was Thurston.

  “My wife’ll put you up in our daughter’s old bed,” Thurston said. “Cora married last year and moved to Tennessee, so we’ve got the room. It’ll be no bother at all.”

  By an unspoken agreement, neither of them mentioned that Jane was the daughter of the itinerant preacher who was, as far as they knew, still camped on the north end of town. It was uncertain how the citizens of Concord viewed the members of the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ etc., and it was probably better to leave them thinking that she was just another poor, innocent victim of Murrell’s wicked band.

  Darren, for his part, was exhausted. He did no more than a cursory wash-up, and tried as best he could to clean the cut on his cheek, which was long but not particularly deep. Finally, he decided to leave well enough alone.

  If the divergence was scheduled for that evening, it would just have to happen without him. After all, he’d done diddly-squat to stop the other two divergences, so there was no reason to think that he’d be able to stop this one, either. Let it be what Fischer said. A reconnaissance mission, in which all he had to do was watch what happened, and report back with anything important.

  And, after all, he already had one vital piece of information—the name McCaskill. Josiah was a McCaskill. That had to be critical. But how could he possibly be connected to Lee if he never married and had no children?

  But maybe that was it. Maybe that was the divergence. Josiah was supposed to have married, and have children, like Per Olafsson was. But then, what did Jane Bell have to do with anything? The computer had said that Jane was the point of the divergence, not Josiah. And she was a good thirty years too young to be a candidate for Josiah’s intended wife.

  He slipped between the sheets, and pulled a deliciously comfortable goose down quilt up to his neck. At least he didn’t have to worry about fleas and the Black Death here. He closed his eyes, and heaved a sigh of contentment. But a moment later, his eyes popped open.

  Maybe that was it. Maybe Josiah McCaskill was supposed to have a son, and that son was supposed to marry Jane Bell. Jane wanted out of her dad’s crazy bunch of religious wingnuts—that was why she took up with Murrell. But what if what was supposed to happen was that she was intended to fall in love with McCaskill’s son, and marry him, and eventually have a son and a grandson who would be Lee’s ancestors? That would explain why she popped up as the focal point of the divergence.

  But that would mean that the line that got wiped out when Lee shot him was Lee’s own ancestry, not his. How could that be? How could killing him change the history of Lee’s family?

  A headache clanged against the inside of his skull, and he closed his eyes again. It might be that Fischer could think about all of this stuff without his brain exploding, but he couldn’t. And comfortably warm for the first time since his arrival in Kentucky, he drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

  • • •

  The next morning Darren woke to the slanting light of sunrise coming through the window, but there was a fine tracery of frost on the window pane. He yawned and stretched, got out of bed, and looked at the town below. Concord, or at least what he could see of it, was a cluster of buildings huddled around a dirt-road main street that skirted a wide river. The steeple of a church rose in the distance, and nearer at hand was a large, squarish building that could have been a courthouse. There were a few people milling about, but the whole scene exuded an air of rural small-town peace.

  He pulled his clothes on. The shirt stank. Oh well. Not a problem in a place and time where everyone smelled bad. He buttoned the jacket. The whole place was not what he’d expected. He’d pictured a frontier town with gunfights and cowboys and Indians running around killing each other.

  Another myth shot down.

  The first order of business was to find a bathroom. A chamber pot stood in the corner, but he declined to use it, not being certain what—if anything—he was supposed do with it when he was done. He left his room and descended the stairs, and came back out into the main room of the tavern. Gillette the innkeeper was already up and bustling around.

  “Passed the night well, my friend?” he said.

  “Yes, very well,” Darren said. “But… could you point me in the direction of the outhouse?”

  “Oh, certainly.” Gillette gestured off down a hallway that passed the kitchen and a storage room. “Out the back door. You’ll see it.”

  Ten minutes later, and a great deal more comfortable, he returned to the tavern, and before he could even ask found himself with a plate of bacon and eggs, and a mug of beer.

  “Hell, yeah,” he said under his breath. He thanked the innkeeper warmly, and tucked in.

  “I never did get your name,” Gillette said, leaning on the bar and watching him eat.

  “Ault,” Darren said through a mouthful of eggs. “Darren Ault.”

  “German fellow, then?”

  “My great-grandfather was born in Germany,” he said, and then thought, I hope they didn’t dislike Germans in 1844. There were all sorts of weird fears and prejudices back then.

  But the innkeeper just grinned, and said. “My mother’s Pennsylvania Dutch. I grew up hearing German as often as I did English. My grandma still hasn’t forgiven her daughter for marrying a Scotsman.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got a bit of mixed ancestry myself.”

  “I expect we all do, if you go far enough back,” Gillette said. “But tell me, Mister Ault. How did you get mixed up with that band of villains? And that young woman, too?”

  “I was kidnapped, right off the road, two days ago. She’d been with them a bit longer, I think.” Better to be careful how much to tell him. Less said, less to repair afterwards. “I expect she was kidnapped, too, but we didn’t have time to talk about it. We were too busy running away.”

  “You must have had a stroke of luck to have an opportunity to escape. I don’t think many people meet up with Murrell and his men and live to tell about it.”

  “It was luck.” He gave an abbreviated version of the fight between Mosher and Johnson, his flight with Jane from the encampment, and their run-in with Crenshaw.

  “And that took a bit of bravery on both of your parts,” Gillette said. “The young lady disabling him with a well-aimed knee, and then your knocking him out with one punch.” He shook his head, and his grin returned. “Meaning no disrespect, but to look at you, I’d never have thought you had it in you.”

  “Surprising what anger and desperation will do.” He finished the last of the beer, feeling much happier now that he had a full stomach. Didn’t know anyone had beer with breakfast. I could get used to it.

  “That’s the honest truth,” Gillette said. “None of us knows what he’d do when it came to tight circumstances. And a good job that few of us ever have to find out, I’d say.”

  “Do you think Murrell will send his men after us?”

  “I don’t know, and that’s a fact. He’s not had the brass to come into the town, but he’s been camped up there in the valley for nigh on two months now, and harasses anyone he thinks he can get away with
. More than one has gone missing, mostly folks traveling alone as you were. I expect their dead bodies are hidden up in a hollow somewhere, and like as not will never be seen again and given a Christian burial, sorry though I am to say it. Groups are safer. They leave alone anyone who looks like they can defend themselves.”

  “How does McCaskill manage? He lives alone, and comes to town with his flour every week, he said.”

  “You know old Josiah?” Gillette’s face lit up. “Sound man, Josiah McCaskill. No, they won’t tackle old Josiah. He always travels in the daylight, and armed. He shot one of ‘em that came near his wagon, I hear—blew the ruffian’s ugly head right off his shoulders, so I’m told. After that, they left him be, and wise of ‘em to do so, I say. Josiah won’t hesitate to defend himself.”

  “Good. I’m glad to hear that.”

  “How do you know old Josiah?” Gillette asked.

  “I, um, am a cousin on his mother’s side,” he said. “I’m here visiting from… North Carolina.” He hoped that either the innkeeper didn’t know anything about Josiah McCaskill’s family, or else that he was remembering right about where his parents had come from.

  But the innkeeper nodded. “Oh, that’s fine, then. Any relative of Josiah’s is a friend of mine.” He patted Darren on the shoulder.

  “Say, I’d like to have a chance to talk to Jane. She’s the woman I escaped with. She went off with a man who said he’d put her up for the night… where does he live?”

  “Oh, that was Tom Thurston,” Gillette said. “He’s the town barber. He lives down the road a ways, close on the river side. His barber shop is right there attached to his house, so you’ll see the sign. I expect he’ll be up and about by now.” He turned around and yelled into the back area of the tavern, “Toby! Come show Mister Ault where Mister Thurston lives!”

  He frowned. Gillette’s voice had changed, from the genial, hale-fellow-well-met tones he’d used every time he’d spoken previously, to a harsh command.

  A tall, dark-skinned young man, dressed in a simple plaid work shirt and heavy canvas pants, came out of the kitchen, and walked up to Gillette, his eyes downcast.

  “Damn, boy, you are the slowest thing I ever did see,” Gillette said. “Mister Ault here needs someone to show him to Mister Thurston’s house. Bring him down there, and see that you hurry right back. There’ll be people arriving for lunch right soon, and I’ll warrant you’ve done almost nothing I’ve told you to do this morning.”

  “Yes, sir,” Toby said, still not raising his eyes to meet either of theirs.

  Shit. Slaves. He had forgotten all about slaves. Okay, this sucked. This completely sucked.

  “I can find my own way, thanks,” he said, his voice a little thin.

  Gillette completely mistook his meaning. “Oh, no need for worry, Mister Ault. Toby here wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’ll lead you right faithful. Right, Toby?” Again, there was an implicit threat in the last two words that hadn’t been there when he spoke to Darren.

  “Yes, sir,” Toby said again.

  “There, you see? Now, get right along, and Toby, see that you get back double quick.”

  Toby turned toward the door, and there was nothing to do but to follow.

  What do I do?

  He walked down the wood-plank sidewalk that skirted the main road. The river sparkled in its course, only a hundred yards away, and he passed several other people—all white—who smiled and nodded greeting at him, and ignored Toby as if he were a nonentity. Which is what they thought.

  What do I tell Toby? I’m sorry? I don’t think like they do? In twenty years, there will be a war and in the end you’ll be a free man? In a hundred and fifty years, an African-American man will be president of the United States? If he even believed me, which is doubtful, none of that would make much difference to his life here and now. And would telling him that change what’s supposed to happen?

  In the end, he said nothing, but felt conflicted and guilty about it even though he had no idea what else he could have done.

  Toby stopped in front of a building that had a red-and-white sign saying “T. Thurston, Barber.”

  “Here, sir.”

  Darren said, “Thank you, Toby,” in as kind and sincere fashion as he could, and Toby just turned away and made his way back toward the tavern.

  “Well, that is the pits,” he said under his breath, and walked into the barber shop.

  Mister Thurston looked up as he entered, and smiled recognition. “Well, if it’s not the man who fought off the highwaymen. Welcome, stranger. I didn’t catch your name last night.”

  “Darren Ault.”

  “Mister Ault. Well, welcome. I’m Tom Thurston. Are you here for a haircut or shave? Or to talk to your lady friend?”

  “The latter, Mister Thurston.”

  “I thought you might be. She’s in the house with Elizabeth. The two have been up since dawn, talking about heaven only knows what. You know how women are.”

  He didn’t quite know how to respond to that, so he just nodded.

  “Kind of you to check on her, but she’s in good hands. I’ll let her know you’re here.”

  Thurston disappeared through a door at the back of the shop, and was gone for about five minutes. Darren looked at the collection of scissors and leather strops hanging from pegs on the wall, and a whole lineup of wicked-looking straight razors. He rubbed his stubbly chin and thought, I don’t think I’d want any of those anywhere near my neck. I’ll be fine looking scruffy for the next few days.

  Thurston returned, followed by Jane, who as always wore an inscrutable expression. She looked at him, and said, “Would you like to accompany me for the day?”

  “Sure.”

  Thurston gave her a paternal smile, and she said, “I told Missus Thurston we’d be gone for much of the day. I will return by evening,” and the two of them left the shop, and walked down the sidewalk. She rested one hand in the crook of his arm.

  After they’d walked a little way in silence, she said, “I have to confront my father.”

  “You’re not going back with him to stay, then?”

  “No. I’ve thought about it. I can’t do that. I love my father, but… I know what he is. And I know that sooner or later, probably sooner, the people of Concord are going to want him gone, and he’ll up stakes and move on to the next town. I’m tired of living like that, and spending all my hours caring for my siblings, and pretending I believe the message he’s peddling. I feel sorry for my mother, but she promised to love, honor, and obey him. I haven’t.”

  “I understand.”

  “I wonder very much if you do,” she said, her voice flat. “I wonder if a man could understand.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “Missus Thurston has offered me room and board in exchange for my help around the house and the shop. To be a servant.”

  “You’d do that?”

  She shrugged. “They seem like kind people. There are worse lives. I would have been worse off with Murrell. I see that now.”

  “Isn’t there something else you’d like to do with your life?”

  “What options do I have? I’ve no schooling to speak of, and no husband to support me. I’ve no choice, really.”

  “A friend of mine told me, not long ago, that we always have choices.”

  “He’s wrong.”

  “She.”

  “Was it a woman, then?” She seemed surprised. “Well, she’s wrong. We don’t have choices. Or, at least not in the way you mean—that we are truly free to do what we’d please, without thought of consequence. Our lives run like a cart wheel in a rut. You simply roll along, your path chosen for you. If you try to jump out of the groove, you’re likely to accomplish nothing but breaking your wagon’s axle. Look where it got me, trying to do just that. Living with the worst man I’ve ever met.”

  “Did he treat you badly?”

  She gave him a wan smile. “Me? No. He always was gentle with me. But that doesn’t mean it was right. They call h
im Reverend Devil, did you know that?”

  “That’s what he told me.”

  “I think it may be true. Satan can be a gentleman, so they say. I believe it.”

  He frowned. “But wait a moment. Just because it went wrong once doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t ever try to make things better again.”

  “I haven’t told you everything.” She stopped, and turned toward him, and her hazel eyes met his for a moment in a gaze of singular intensity. They seemed to be looking directly into his mind. “I’m carrying Murrell’s child.”

  He gaped at her. “Oh,” he finally said. “Oh. Hell.”

  “Exactly. And I know my father would never let me live that down. Even though my child’s father is an evil man, I would not want him to live in a household where he’d be thought of as a bastard. No child deserves that.”

  “You could tell your father Murrell raped you.”

  “But that would be a lie. I bedded him willingly. And more than once. And I enjoyed it, and felt no shame afterwards.” She looked out toward the river. “And I still feel no shame about it. It was what I chose to do with my body, and that is all.” She paused. “I told Missus Thurston I was with child by Murrell, and she said, ‘Then we will see to it that the child grows up to take after his mother.’ It is the best I could possibly hope for, and I have to take her offer. There will not be another like it, I think.”

  “I think you have a lot of sense.” He felt foolish after he said it. It must have sounded hollow to her.

  She just shrugged again. “I need to ask you a favor. I would ask you to accompany me to speak to my father. It may be that another voice beside mine, and a man’s voice, to tell him about Murrell and his men, and how we escaped, will blunt the edge of what I have to say to him. I do not want to hurt him. But I do not wish to lie.” She sighed harshly. “I want to speak to my father, tell him the truth… and then never see him again. Let his memory of me fade away and die.”

  “That may be the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Will you go with me, then?”

  “Of course. I want to meet with your father in any case.”