Day of Reckoning Page 9

  Running into their bedroom, she saw both of them lying in bed.

  “Mama! Papa!” she called out in the forlorn hope that they might still be alive. But she realized as soon as she reached them that both were dead.

  Grabbing her mother by her feet, Ina Claire was able to pull her out of the house. Dead or not, she didn’t intend to let them stay in the burning house. But it was a struggle to move her mother, and, with a sinking heart, she realized she wouldn’t be able to get her father out.

  “Oh, Papa, I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t get you out.”

  She closed her eyes, trying to erase the image in her mind of her father’s body, not only dead but burned and blackened beyond recognition.

  She heard the excited whinny of the horses. Made uneasy by the nearness of the flames, they were beginning to get restless. That was when she got the idea.

  “Thunder!” she shouted, knowing then how she would extract her father.

  Running into the barn she grabbed a rope, tied it around Thunder’s neck, and led him back to the house. She tried to get him to go into the house, but he was too frightened by the flames. Then she took off her shirt and wrapped it around Thunder’s head and over his eyes. That done, she was able to lead him into the house, where she tied the rope around her father’s ankles.

  By now the fire had broken out of the kitchen and into the dining room. The smoke was growing heavy, too, but with her urging, Thunder pulled her father out of the house and into the front yard, far enough away from the house so as not to be caught up in the flames.

  She looked down at both of them for a long moment.

  “Mama, Papa,” she said. “I know who did this. And I will see that they pay for this, no matter how long it takes.”

  Ina Claire was still holding on to the rope that was around Thunder’s neck, and she led him back into the barn, where, by the light of the burning house, she saddled him.

  There were four other horses in the barn, and she turned them out to pasture as a safety precaution in case the barn should catch fire.

  Then, mounting Thunder, she rode him to her nearest neighbor.

  Behind her, the house continued to burn.

  * * *

  “Mr. MacCallister! Mr. MacCallister!”

  Duff was awakened by the call from outside the house. It sounded like a young woman was calling him, but who would it be? And what was she doing here at this hour?

  “Mr. MacCallister, it’s me, Ina Claire Culpepper. Please, come out!”

  Startled by the announcement, Duff sat up in the bed. “I’ll be right out, Ina Claire!” he called.

  Dressing as quickly as he could, Duff lit a lantern and started toward the front door. As he passed by the wall clock he saw that it was a little after four thirty in the morning.

  When he reached the front porch, he saw Ina Claire sitting on the steps, holding the reins of her horse.

  “Ina Claire, what is it? What’s wrong, lass?”

  “They’re dead.”

  “Who’s dead?” Duff asked, though he feared that he knew the answer.

  “Mama and Papa. They’re both dead. The men who did it burned the house.”

  Duff looked in the direction of Twin Pine and saw an orange glow on the horizon.

  “Your mother and father? Are they . . . ?”

  Ina Claire answered the question before Duff had to ask it.

  “They didn’t burn up. I got them out of the house and now they’re both lying in the front yard.”

  By now Elmer and Wang had joined them.

  “Who would do such a thing?” Elmer asked.

  “I know who it was, Mr. Gleason. I know all their names, and I’m going to find them and make them pay for it.

  * * *

  From the Chugwater Newspaper:

  A DEED MOST FOUL

  In the dead of night four scoundrels, who by their action could scarcely be called men, entered by stealth the house of Captain Edward Andrew Culpepper. Captain Culpepper, known and respected by all in Chugwater and by most in the country, was a West Point graduate, who after his service in the army became a rancher, a pillar of the community, and a vestryman in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.

  Of his wife, Julie Ann McClain Culpepper, there are insufficient accolades to do her justice. Loved by all who knew her, she was a devoted wife and a caring mother. Beyond that, she was a woman who could be found participating in any charitable event and, like her husband, was a member of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.

  This article speaks of these two fine citizens in the past tense, for it was four evil men who cut short the lives of Captain and Mrs. Culpepper. Their daughter, Miss Ina Claire, survived the carnage by slipping away from the house before the foul deed could be visited upon her as well.

  Funeral services will be held at St. Paul’s on Friday at two o’clock.

  Almost all of the businesses in Chugwater, including even the saloons, were closed for the funeral of Ed and Julie Culpepper. The cemetery was so crowded with mourners that the Nunnelee Funeral Home hearse, bearing both coffins, had a difficult time getting through the crowd to the burial site, where there were two open graves, side by side.

  Two sets of pallbearers removed the coffins from the hearse and carried them over to rope cradles that were stretched across the excavated graves. Then, from another part of the cemetery came the sound of a muffled drum, joined quickly by the bagpipe playing of “Amazing Grace.” Those gathered around the graves separated to provide a path for the pipes and drum. The drummer came first, the drum draped in black.

  “Who’s that playing the drum?”

  “Why, that’s Captain Culpepper’s daughter, young Ina Claire.”

  “I had no idea she could play the drum. What’s that she’s a-wearin’?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Ina Claire was wearing the arisad, the traditional Scottish lady’s dress that Meagan had given her for a much more joyous occasion than this.

  Duff followed behind, wearing the kilts of the Black Watch, the music of the pipes filling the cemetery like the wailing of a thousand mourners.

  Meagan had helped Ina Claire get dressed this morning and had supplied the black bunting for the drum. Meagan stood at the graveside watching as Ina Claire and Duff approached. Her own eyes welled with tears but she saw no tears in Ina Claire’s eyes. She saw, instead, an expression that was difficult to ascertain. It was somewhere between anger and determination.

  “It’s all right to cry, dear, nobody will think the less of you for it,” Meagan had told her while she was helping her prepare for the funeral.

  “I don’t have time to cry right now,” Ina Claire had replied.

  Meagan wasn’t sure what that meant, but she didn’t press the girl for an explanation.

  Ina Claire and Duff marched to the edge of the grave and then stopped. The music ended and the priest nodded toward the pallbearers, who lowered the coffins into the open graves. Father Ericson then dropped a handful of dirt on each of the coffins as he read from the prayer book. “Unto Almighty God we commend the souls of our brother Ed Culpepper, and our sister Julie Culpepper, departed, and we commit their bodies to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection unto eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ, at whose coming in glorious majesty to judge the world, the earth, and the sea shall give up their dead; and the corruptible bodies of those who sleep in him shall be changed, and made like unto his own glorious body; according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself.” Several of the mourners had tears streaming down their cheeks, but Ina Claire did not. She was still dry eyed and stone faced.

  The priest concluded the burial ceremony. “Oh, Lord Jesus Christ, who by thy death didst take away the sting of death; Grant unto us thy servants so to follow in faith where thou hast led the way, that we may at length fall asleep peacefully in thee, and awake up after thy likeness; through thy mercy, who livest with the F
ather and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.”

  “Amen,” the mourners repeated, many of whom, including Ina Claire, crossed themselves.

  The mourners were surprised, then, to see Biff Johnson, the man they all knew as the proprietor of Fiddler’s Green, step up to the side of the grave. Biff was wearing the dress uniform of an army first sergeant, complete with a gold aiguillette hanging from his shoulder and looping around the bright yellow chevrons on his sleeve. On his left breast he wore the Medal of Honor, having won the prestigious award at Saylor’s Creek during the Civil War.

  Biff lifted a bugle to his lips and held it for a long, silent moment, then began to play “Taps.”

  Starting with two short notes in G, it moved to a middle C, which Biff held much longer than the dotted half-note called for. Then several quick notes, ending with a high E again, the note held long.

  Echoes of the music returned from a near-by rock face, almost as if the very hills were crying.

  There were many old soldiers among the mourners who had a personal connection to this solemn music, which not only put soldiers to bed but lay them down for that long, final sleep. Even Ina Claire could remember back to her time as a young girl listening to the lone bugler, standing out in the quadrangle beneath the flag pole, lifting the doleful notes to reach into every barracks, BOQ, and married officers and NCO quarters.

  Some might think Biff was playing “Taps” only for her father, but she knew better. She knew that her mother had also listened to that most sacred of all bugle calls, and she knew that this was for her as well.

  Biff finally reached the last note, a middle C, which he held for a very long time . . . as if reluctant to say good-bye to Captain Edward Andrew Culpepper and his wife, Julie Ann McClain Culpepper. Then, that long, final note just drifted away, and the last tenuous connection between Ed, Julie, and those who were still among the living was severed. Their souls were answering muster on the other side of that great divide, and they were gone forever.

  Chapter Twelve

  With the graveside service completed, the mourners left the cemetery, many to reopen their place of business. Meagan did not return to her dress emporium but went instead to Fiddler’s Green, where she joined Duff and Biff at the “owner’s” table. Duff was no longer wearing his kilts, having changed in a room that Biff had made available for him. Biff had stopped by his house on the way back to change out of his uniform, so that once again he, too, was in mufti.

  Together again at Fiddler’s Green, Biff and Duff were drinking scotch, while Meagan had wine.

  “The girl seems to be taking it well,” Biff said.

  “No, she’s taking it very hard,” Meagan said.

  “I didn’t see her crying,” Biff said.

  “That’s just it. Her grief is well beyond crying. I studied her face during the funeral. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a face. It was a combination of grief, anger, retribution, and resolution.”

  “Where is she now?” Biff asked.

  “The lass is still in the cemetery,” Duff said. “I started to ask her to come with me but decided against it. ’Tis sometimes best to give a body time for some private grief. I know,” he added.

  At the cemetery

  Except for the gravediggers, Ina Claire was the last one remaining in the cemetery, and she stood there looking down into the two open graves.

  “Miss, you just take your time,” one of the gravediggers said. “We’ll close the graves after you’re gone.”

  “You can do it now,” Ina Claire said.

  “No, ma’am, it wouldn’t be proper for us to do it now. Not with you standin’ here.”

  “If you won’t do it, I will,” Ina Claire said, and, grabbing a nearby shovel, filled the spade from the pile of dirt and tossed it into the nearest grave. She could hear the loud thumps of dirt as they fell on her mother’s casket.

  “No need for you to be doin’ that, missy. We’ll take care of it.”

  Ina Claire surrendered the shovel and stepped aside to watch. She remained until the men finished covering the two graves, then pounded down the mounds of soil so that they were smooth, with no large dirt clods left. Then, tossing the shovels into a wagon, the four men drove out of the graveyard, leaving Ina Claire behind.

  A dust devil developed on the far side of the cemetery and moved across the ground until it reached her parents’ graves. There, benefiting from the new dirt, it grew twice as large before finally moving on.

  A ray of sun, split by the limbs of a nearby aspen tree, fell in two distinct spears, one on each of the two graves.

  A dog came trotting through the cemetery and stopped to sniff the two mounds of dirt. The dog looked up at her with soulful eyes, holding his gaze for a long moment as if he could share her sorrow, then he moved on. A crow called, then all sound and movement stilled, and Ina Claire felt suspended in time and place.

  “Mama, Papa, I will see to it that the men who did this terrible thing are found and punished. I know you may think I’m just a girl, and have no place making such promises, but it is a promise I intend to keep.

  “Mr. MacCallister is a very good friend of yours, and I have heard the stories, some of which you have told, Papa, of the many brave and wonderful things he has done in the past. I will see him because I know he will help me. And if he doesn’t help me, I’ll do it myself.”

  At Fiddler’s Green

  “Duff, what do you think is going to happen to Ina Claire?” Meagan asked. “I’m worried about her, so young and now all alone.”

  “I don’t know. The lass has lots of sand, I can tell you that. I expect that she’ll wind up with her grandparents.”

  “They are where now? In Ohio?”

  “Aye.”

  “Do you think they’ll come out to live on Twin Pine?”

  “I hope so,” Duff said. “’Tis a fine ranch, I would nae like to see the girl lose it.”

  Elmer and Wang came into the saloon then. Elmer was uncharacteristically wearing a suit including a shirt and tie. He stuck his finger down in the collar to pull it away from his neck.

  Wang was wearing a black changshan, the traditional dress for Chinese of station and, as a Shaolin priest, Wang qualified.

  “That was a real nice funeral, and it was some particular nice when you played ‘Taps’ like that,” Elmer said as he joined the others at the table. “I knowed all about Duff bein’ able to play the bagpipes, ’cause I’ve done seen him do it enough times. But I have to admit that you surprised me, Biff. I had no idee you could blow the bugle like you done.”

  “When I first came into the army, I was a bugler,” Biff said. “As I moved up in rank, I was no longer a bugler but I didn’t put it away. I still play it enough to maintain the embouchure.”

  “The what?” Elmer asked.

  “To keep my lips in shape,” Biff said.

  “Well, why didn’t you say so?”

  “I believe that your music comforted the souls of Mr. and Mrs. Culpepper as they lay there, awaiting the change,” Wang said.

  “Thank you, Wang, this was my hope,” Biff replied.

  “Oh, Duff, I just thought I’d tell you, we’ve got all of Cap’n Culpepper’s livestock took care of now. All his cattle ’n horses is in with our’n, so it’ll be easy to look after ’em ’til the girl decides what she wants to do with ’em.”

  “Oh, there’s Ina Claire now,” Meagan said, nodding toward the front door. They saw Ina Claire, still wearing the plaid dress, and still carrying the black draped drum, standing just inside the batwing doors.

  “Miss Culpepper, you don’t want to come in here,” the bartender called to her.

  “Oh, Lord,” Meagan said quietly. “Biff, please, you can’t send her away.”

  “It’s all right, Tony, the young lady is welcome here,” Biff called over to his bartender. Then to Meagan, “Miss Meagan, bring her into the meeting room in back. Have Tony draw a sarsaparilla for the young lady.”

  “Good ide
a and I’ll have one as well,” Meagan said as she hurried to the front door to meet the young girl.

  Duff, Biff, Elmer, and Wang moved from the barroom into a smaller room at the back of the saloon . . . a room that was often used for civic meetings. Meagan and Ina Claire came into the room a moment later, each of them carrying a glass of sarsaparilla. All four men were standing, and they remained standing until the two ladies were seated.

  “Ina Claire, darlin’, I’m so sorry about your mama and papa,” Elmer said. “They was both people to ride to the river with.”

  “Papa thought the world of you, Mr. Gleason. And you, too, Mr. Wang,” she added, nodding toward Wang.

  “I knew both of them very well, and they were two of the finest people I have ever known,” Biff said.

  “Thank you, Mr. Johnson.”

  “Honey, when we leave here, I want you to come on down to my store with me,” Meagan said. “I know that you lost all your clothes when your house burned, so I’m going to make you an entirely new wardrobe, free of charge.”

  “Thank you, Miss Parker, I appreciate that. But as soon as I’m able to get some money from Papa’s bank account, I’m going to be making some other purchases from Chugwater Mercantile.”

  “I know, you’re going to have to start all over with cooking utensils, lanterns, furniture, and the like,” Meagan said. “But you won’t need to be wasting your money on that. I’ve already heard several of the men and ladies talking. The men plan to rebuild your house, and the ladies are making a collection of everything you’ll need to get started again or to sell your house if you decide to leave.”

  “Oh, I have no intention of leaving, and I think it is wonderful of everyone to do something like that for me. But some of the things I’ll need I’m sure they won’t be collecting.”

  “What would that be?”

  “A hat, jeans, shirts, boots, a bedroll, canteen, camp skillet, pistol, rifle, hunting knife, and a couple of boxes of pistol ammunition, as well as a box of rifle bullets.”