Sweetbriar Read online

  “I won’t hear any more of your insults. It’s true I don’t know where Devon is, but I will not believe the snide remarks you have made about him.”

  “Believe them or not, they’re true. This morning he came to my house and traded me this for some supplies, enough to get him back to Sweetbriar.”

  Linnet looked at Devon’s knife that the Squire held. “I don’t believe you.”

  “You should ask Nettie if Macalister’s horse is still with them. It isn’t, because he took it with him and several people in Spring Lick saw him riding away on it.”

  “I don’t believe you!” It was all she could say, over and over.

  He laughed. “That’s your right. Now I got to go. You think over what I said and ask yourself if you want to raise Miranda with a father like that.” He paused at the door. “By the way, did he get what he wanted from you?” His eyes carefully went over every part of her body, but she stood straight and did not answer him, and he closed the door behind him, laughing.

  “I don’t believe it,” Linnet said. “Whatever problems Devon may have, he is not a liar.”

  Nettie put a generous scoop of the precious tea in the pot. “I don’t know the man so I can’t say. All I know is, his horse was gone this mornin’.”

  “He wouldn’t steal away in the night like that, I just know he wouldn’t.”

  And I know how much you’d like to believe in him, Nettie thought. “What are you gonna do now, now that he’s gone?”

  “I…I don’t know. I have to go to Phetna, she’s been expecting me all day.” She looked out the open door toward the setting sun. “It’s getting late and I don’t know what to do.”

  Rebekah ran into the room, breathless. “I found out, Mama, I found out.”

  “All right, sit down,” Nettie said, “and tell us.”

  Linnet looked from mother to daughter in wonder. “Nettie, you didn’t…,” she began.

  “I shore did,” Nettie said and smiled fondly at Rebekah. “This child has a special talent for listenin’, through cracks in the chinkin’.”

  Linnet didn’t like the idea but she wanted desperately to know what had made Devon leave Spring Lick so suddenly.

  “I heard the Squire talkin’ to Mrs. Yarnall. They was havin’ a fight, leastways a argument. Mrs. Yarnall said she wanted somethin’ to be done about Miss Tyler and Mr. Macalister, and the Squire said that somethin’ already had been.” She looked from one woman to another to make sure they were hearing her every word.

  “What did he say?” Nettie prodded.

  “The Squire said he sold Mr. Macalister to the Injuns.”

  “To the—!” Nettie gaped, wide-eyed.

  Linnet appeared to be very calm. “What else did he say, Rebekah?”

  “That’s about all. He said he saw this Indian in the woods and he knocked him over the head and tied him up. He said the Indian was watchin’ Miss Tyler and Mr. Macalister kissin’!” The girl looked at her teacher in wonder.

  “What else?” Linnet ignored the girl’s curiosity.

  “He said when he got the Indian back to the house he found out the Indian had been chasin’ Mr. Macalister all over everywhere, said the Indian wanted to kill Mr. Macalister but he didn’t have no horse or gun to take him back to his men.”

  “So the Squire made it possible for the Indian to take Devon,” Linnet finished.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well.” Nettie let out her pent-up breath. “I guess there’s nothin’ we can do then.”

  “We can go after him,” Linnet said, her eyes staring.

  “You and me?” Nettie asked. “Two women alone in the woods? Ain’t nobody else in this town gonna help you, and my Ottis won’t be back for another week. Who you gonna get to help you?”

  “I don’t know.” Linnet stood. “I don’t know yet what I’m going to do, but I can’t let them have Devon.” She paused at the door and looked back at Rebekah. “Did you by any chance hear the name of the Indian?”

  “Ah…oh yes, it was Crazy Bear.”

  Nettie at first thought Linnet was going to faint. The color drained from her face, her eyes immediately became glassy, and her knees seemed to weaken. “Linnet, are you all right?”

  She shook her head to clear it. “I must go. I must go and find him.”

  Nettie started to protest, but then Linnet was gone and she turned back to the bread she had to knead.

  “You think she’s gonna go after that Indian that took Mr. Macalister?”

  “No, of course not,” Nettie told her daughter. “She’ll have time to think it over and see how impossible it is. No woman can go alone through the woods, and even Linnet knows that.”

  “I would!” Rebekah said. “I’d go after him. I wouldn’t let no Indian have my man!”

  “Hush,” Nettie said sternly. “You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. There’s just some things a woman can’t do, and get on a horse and ride through the night after a bunch of Indians is one of ’em. And even if Linnet sometimes doesn’t seem to know her place in the world, she at least has enough sense to…” She stopped and stared at the bread.

  “What’s the matter, Mama?”

  Nettie wiped her hands on her apron. “Linnet doesn’t have any sense at all when it comes to that man and she’d do just what she said. She’s gonna go after him, and I know it as well as I know my own name. Rebekah, you finish up that bread and set it to rise.”

  “Ah, Ma, I wanta go see you talk to Miss Tyler.”

  “It’s more likely Miss Tyler is gonna talk to me.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  LINNET’S CABIN DOOR WAS OPEN AND SHE SAT quietly at the table, absently watching Miranda play with her kitten. She didn’t hear Nettie enter.

  “Well, where you gonna get horses?”

  Linnet looked up and they understood each other. “I’m going to steal one from the Squire.”

  In spite of herself, Nettie smiled. “You think you could get two horses?”

  “No,” Linnet said seriously. “This is my own problem, and you can’t go with me.”

  “I’d like to know why not,” Nettie said indignantly.

  Linnet looked at her, very calm. “You’d be a hindrance. I’d be worried about you all the time, and you can neither ride well nor shoot.”

  Nettie looked startled for a moment and then laughed. “You shore do lay it on the line, don’t you?”

  “I have to. This is a serious undertaking. Crazy Bear hates Devon and he hates me. If I don’t free him, then we will both forfeit our lives.”

  “Lord!” Nettie sat down in the chair. “I don’t know how you can sit there and talk about dyin’ so easy.”

  “I’m sure my calmness is only a facade. Devon’s life is at stake, and there’s a chance I can save him, a small chance, I know, but as long as there is a sliver of hope, I plan to take it.”

  Nettie sighed. “All right, I can’t go but I can take care of Miranda.”

  “No, I’m taking her to Phetna. These people may harm her if I leave her here. They’d be afraid to go to Phetna’s.”

  Nettie looked at her friend in admiration. “I ain’t never seen nobody with a cooler head than you. What can I do to help?”

  “You can help me steal a horse.”

  Nettie smiled, mostly to herself. “I’ll be glad to, more glad than you know.”

  They waited until full dark before slipping through the blackness to the Squire’s corral. Nettie held Miranda at some distance while Linnet slipped between the split rails. Nettie couldn’t see her once she was inside the pen and she began to worry that something was wrong. The horses walked about quietly, undisturbed at Linnet’s presence. Once she could have sworn she saw the brightness of Linnet’s hair underneath one of the horses’ bellies, but she told herself that she had to be wrong. After what seemed to be hours, Linnet led a horse through the gate.

  “What took you so long?” Nettie whispered.

  “Saddle,” was Linnet’s curt reply. �€