The Warrior Heir (The Heir Chronicles #1)

The Warrior Heir (The Heir Chronicles #1) Page 14

The boys were killing time in the Bluebird Cafe, feeding the jukebox and flirting with the waitress over second desserts. They were fortified with tavern food and dressed for battle. Jack wore a long-sleeved T-shirt and dark hoodie over Mercedes's vest. Will had chosen an insulated vest with lots of pockets, and Fitch looked like a punk urban commando with a camo jacket, dog tags, and heavy boots. The duffel bags at their feet contained flashlights and spades.

The cell phone rang, and Jack fumbled for it, flipped it open.

Linda didn't waste any time on pleasantries. “Are you all right? Did you find out anything today?”

“Yeah,” Jack replied to both questions, his eyes on the other two. “We have a location. The old Methodist cemetery.” Automatically he looked around him. No one was in earshot, especially given the volume of the music. “Don't know where in the cemetery, but it seems to be a small one. We got directions.”

“Good.” She sounded relieved. “Have you seen anybody suspicious? Anyone seem to be following you?”

Jack hesitated. After all, they had no hard evidence that the cowboy was up to anything at all. They were probably just being paranoid. Only … “There was a … a genealogist in the library who might have overheard us talking about the cemetery.”

Linda made a noise of irritation and dismay. “What did he look like?”

“Fat. Bald. Cowboy boots. Western shirt. He did seem to know quite a bit about genealogy. Had a business card and all. He helped us find stuff in the library.”

There was a brief silence. “Okay,” she said finally, as if reassured by this description. “But you haven't seen the man from the courthouse? Or anyone … like him?” It was an odd thing to say, but somehow Jack knew exactly what she meant. No, Sam Hadley was not like the man in the courthouse.

“No,” he said. “Haven't seen him. What have you been doing?” He had already decided not to mention the medicine. It wouldn't do any good to worry her.

“I've been traveling around,” Linda said evasively. Her voice sounded brittle, breathless, barely controlled.

“What's the matter?” Jack demanded. “Did something happen?”

“I'm just tired. I've been up all night, driving all over southern Ohio. Our friend has been following me.”

“Can't you just find a motel room and hole up there, get some sleep? He won't bother you if there are a lot of people around. Isn't that what you told us?”

He was looking for reassurance, and she provided it, but not quickly enough to be convincing. “That's a good idea,” she said hesitantly. “Maybe I'll do that. Where are you?”

“We're at the Bluebird,” Jack said. “Waiting for dark.”

“You need to be careful. I … I would like to come with you to the cemetery, but I'm still a couple of hours away, down by the river. I … may have lost him, but I'm not sure.” She paused. “If he can't find me, he might come looking for you. If you have even a hint that there's a problem, I want you three to go back to the motel and stay there until I come. If I don't come by noon tomorrow, call Becka.”

Jack didn't like the sound of that.

There was another long pause, but when she spoke again, her voice was businesslike. “Now listen carefully. I'm only going to tell you what you need to know, because the man we saw could easily force things out of you. Don't share any more with Will and Fitch than you have to.”

“Okay,” Jack said cautiously.

“The piece you are looking for is a weapon. A sword. It once belonged to Susannah. Now it belongs to you.”

“A … uh … okay.” With some effort, he stopped himself from repeating her words, from asking the questions that crowded in. Why would Susannah have a sword? Could it be a Civil War piece, perhaps? And why would it belong to him? Susannah had died long before he was born. It seemed that his mother or Linda would have a better claim.

“It will be buried behind her gravestone in a case of some kind. Now, this is important. You must be the one who opens the case. No one else. I'll give you the charm you'll need to open it.” She paused, as if expecting a question, but he didn't ask it. “Are you listening, Jack?”

He nodded without thinking, and then said, “Yes.”

The words sounded like Latin, a soft and familiar music, the truth that lay under all the languages that he knew. He repeated them back to her several times, until she was satisfied, ignoring Will and Fitch, who were staring at him as he memorized the phrase.

“You won't forget?”

“No.”

“Make sure the sword is in the case, then close it up and carry it back to the motel. I'll pick you up there.”

“Uh, Aunt Linda?” He looked across the table at his friends. “Maybe I should just go by myself.” It was half statement, half question.

There was another long silence. “Maybe you should.”

“They won't like it.”

“Let me talk to them.”

Wordlessly, Jack extended the cell phone toward Fitch, who put up both hands and shook his head. “Forget it, Jack. I'm not going to let her talk me out of it. I'm coming with you whether you like it or not.” Will had his arms crossed over his chest, looking scared and yet stubborn as stone.

“They won't talk to you, Aunt Linda.”

She sighed. “I'm so sorry, Jack. I should not have brought them into this.” She paused. “All right. They can help dig. Just get in and get out quickly. Go back to the motel and wait. I'll be there as soon as I can. I'll call you a little later.”

It was definitely colder when they left the Bluebird, but Jack hardly noticed. His lingering worries were overshadowed by a kind of euphoria. He felt taut and catlike, full of power, barely contained within his skin. His fears of the day before were forgotten. Something ancient had kindled deep within him, a bright and powerful thirst for adventure. He felt invulnerable, as if the strangers and their agenda were irrelevant. He looked at his two companions and grinned. Anything could happen. And that seemed like a good thing.

The church was a modest white structure on a narrow strip of flat ground along the road, perhaps two miles out of town. The hills rose up behind, a dense black nothingness against the brighter sky. The building was in the plain Methodist style, with a traditional steeple and a large double front door. A simple sanctuary and little else. A white wood framed sign with magnetic letters stood off to one side, pastor: willard p. guffey. Sunday sermon: ASHES TO ASHES, DUST TO DUST.

There was a small gravel parking lot between the road and the church. It was empty. There were no lights anywhere around the building.

They cut away from the roadside and approached the front of the church. Jack shone the beam of his flashlight over a brass plate above the double doors. FIRST METHODIST CHURCH. FOUNDED 1850.

The cemetery was marked off from the rest of the churchyard by two brick pillars about twenty feet behind the building, probably gateposts of a fence that had long since gone. The first grave markers clustered just on the other side of the posts.

Jack looked back at Methodist Chapel Road. They had seen very little traffic, and the church was surrounded by dense forest. As far as he could tell, they had not been followed. There were no houses in sight. Once they moved to the back of the church, it seemed unlikely they could be seen from the road.

They passed between the pillars into the cemetery beyond. Jack soon realized there were many more grave sites than were listed in the book. Some of the stones were broken, worn away, and unreadable. Grass was growing over some of the markers, and others had toppled over. The oldest, most dilapidated stones seemed to be closest to the church.

He found a legible one just inside the old wall. He knelt, shining his light over its surface, bram whaley, 1863. died AT CHANCELLORSVILLE. A metal GAR marker stood alongside. “Susannah died in 1900,” he said. “Do you think that her grave would be farther back, because it's later?”

“Maybe,” Fitch said. “But families tended to be buried together. So you might find early and late markers in the same plot.”

“How do you know this stuff?” Jack demanded. The three of them divided the graveyard into three sections and proceeded to move methodically through, shining their lights over the cold stone surfaces, scraping moss away with their fingernails, yanking weeds that obscured the base of the stones, sometimes digging in the dirt with a stick to expose the lowest row of lettering.

They worked their way back from the church to the hill, in line with each other, afraid of missing something. The trees grew closer together at the rear of the property, and in some cases their roots had heaved stones completely out of the ground, dividing families. The moon had risen, but it burned dimly behind a thin curtain of clouds. They could see nothing outside the circle of their flashlights. Soon they were almost in the shadow of the cliff.

“Here's a Downey,” Jack said quietly. He was in a small grove of trees, to the far left of the cemetery. Will and Fitch came to see. It was a small white marker with a death's head at the top. Joseph downey, 1823-1872.

“Here's another,” said Will. It was close to the one Jack had found, for a child, JEREMIAH DOWNEY, age 18 MONTHS, S.O.JOSEPH AND MARTHA. DIED 1860.

They crept farther under the trees, scanning stone by stone.

It was Will who found it. A large stone, set a little apart from the others, almost up against a wire fence that marked the edge of the property. SUSANNAH hale DOWNEY, 1868-1900, BELOVED WIFE OF ABRAHAM, GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN.

“Look at this!” Fitch scuffed his foot across the neatly clipped grass that surrounded the gravestone. “This whole place is grown up in weeds, but your grandmother's grave looks like somebody's garden.” The stone had been cleared of moss and debris, and spring bulbs were pushing their way through the turf. A small dogwood tree had been planted behind the stone.

“Where's my great-great grandfather?” Susannah's was the only name on the stone. Maybe Abraham had remarried. If so, Jack had never heard about it.