In a Heartbeat - Elizabeth Adler [49]
She looked at her husband. His shoulders stooped as though he had acquired a new and heavier burden, and she pitied him his son’s cruelty.
“It’s okay, Pa.” Ed badly wanted to hug his father, but the unspoken rules meant he could not. “Mitch didn’t mean nothin.’ He’s just disappointed about the job, is all.”
“Disappointed?” Farrar’s expression was weary as his eyes met Ed’s. “Somehow, I don’t reckon it’s just that. I reckon Mitch would sell his soul to hitch up with Michael Hains.”
By the time they all went to bed that night, Mitch had still not returned.
“He’ll be drinkin’ in Hainsville Saloon,” Ellin remarked sadly.
“It’s Mary Hannah James he’s interested in, not the liquor,” Ed said, trying to get his mother’s thoughts away from the saloon.
His sister Grace gave a snort of contempt. “He’ll be after both, the liquor and the girls.”
“More likely he’s with Michael Hains, plotting his next move.” Farrar’s voice grew weary at the thought of his son’s treachery. “He’ll not make it back tonight, to face me again.”
As the girls drifted off to the only bedroom to sleep, Ed glanced anxiously at the ceiling. Rain drummed on the tin roof and the wind wailed at the windows and doors, sending chilly gusts through the many cracks.
Ellin opened the old iron stove and poked the coals into a hot glow before throwing on another couple of logs. “There,” she said, satisfied, letting the door clang shut, “at least we’ll be warm tonight.”
All except Mitch, Ed thought, lying warm and cozy in the bunk, built into a sort of cupboard near the stove. Ellin slept with her daughters in the bedroom, and he and Pa and the boys slept in the main room. The others were soon asleep, but Ed lay awake, worrying about Mitch.
Why had he done what he’d done? Mitch didn’t have to sell his birthright, like Esau, to get a job. He was clever, he’d educated himself, he was a whiz at math. Mitch could do anything, get a job anywhere. Not just there in Hainsville.
Ed tossed and turned, agonizing over what Mitch had done to their father. When he could stand it no longer, he got up, slipped on his old denim shirt and boots, and put on Pa’s black oilskin slicker. He hesitated, thinking how muddy and bedraggled he would be by the time he reached his destination. Realizing he would make a sorry sight, he quickly thrust his new jeans and shirt into a backpack. He would change into them when he got there.
He crept past his sleeping brothers to the door. It creaked as he opened it, but they were all sound asleep and anyhow the roar of the wind in the treetops drowned out any other sound.
Slipping and sliding in the mud, he began to jog down the lane. He was heading for Hainsville. He had to find Mitch, confront him, try to reason with him. He would help Mitch any way he could, but he couldn’t allow him to destroy their father, no matter how all-powerful Michael Hains might be.
30
Mel had been in a precinct house only once before, when Camelia had taken her there for questioning. From what she saw now she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to again. Gray walls, steel filing cabinets, worn-looking chairs, cheap tables serving as desks, paper coffee cups, the odd box of doughnuts, piles of thick files, wire baskets brimming with paperwork, shrilling phones, yelling felons, wailing relatives, crackling tension, and a lot of tough-looking guys in blue wearing weaponry that scared the hell out of her. She knew the world was a safer place because of them, but she preferred to keep that side of the world at a distance, thank you very much.
Camelia took her elbow and shepherded her into a tiny room, already occupied by a handsome Hispanic with the build of a weight lifter and the liquid dark eyes of a Casanova. Except now he was all business.
He shook her hand, took a seat at his computer, and got right to questioning her, boosting partial images of a man