House on Diablo Road: Resurrection Day (The McCann Family Saga Book 3) (10 page)

“
Where, exactly, do you think you’re going?” Crow screeched at his retreating back.

“
One place I have every right to go—the McCann family graveyard. So leave me in
peace.”

Some one hundred yards behind the house, stood the ground that held family members and those connected to them: two acres surrounded by a picket fence that still held a trace of Civil War era whitewash. Tall weeds choked out the San Augustine grass, except for tiny green patches clinging stubbornly to life. Dead leaves and pine straw cluttered the tops of the graves. The oldest headstones, fashioned from cement, were mildewed and cracked, some leaning and some broken and fallen.

Jesse was ashamed of the state of the cemetery his uncle had so thoughtfully founded. He set about to do what he could by pulling weeds, brushing away debris with his hands, and setting the stones straight. He worked for a good hour and stood back to survey his handiwork, moving from one headstone to the next. Many names among the fifty or so he recognized. Some he should have but didn’t. Lying in eternal rest or unrest, as the case might be, were his father Clinton and some of his brothers—uncles Jesse had never met. Missing was Cyrus, whose whereabouts were still unknown.

Then he came to the headstone of Susanna Foster McCann Bonney, and next to her, glaringly out of place, like an interloper upon sacred ground, was the grave of Jonathan Bonney, a man who had despised Cyrus to the end of his days. Rather than choosing burial on other land at his home place, Jonathan had given explicit instructions to be buried there.

Under a stand of pines stood a headstone very different from the rest. It had been fashioned into an angel with sweet cherubic features and sheltering wings outstretched. On the solid block beneath were inscribed the words
Charlotte Hennessy and Infant Son.
Jesse felt a sadness wash over him, for Buck, and for all the women lost in childbirth and all the infants gone with them. Had things gone differently, Annie and Tobias would have been lost to him as well.

As he stood before the stone angel, the last rays of the sun sank below the rolling hills to spread long fingers of gold to caress the angel’s face, giving cold stone the illusion of warm, living flesh. And then he heard the sound of a woman crying. It that lasted only for a few moments, and looking about, he saw no one.

I am hearing the wind in the pines,
he told himself.
It is my imagination that makes it anything more.

Jesse remembered Crow’s warning to leave before sunset. He gave those words no credence, for he was a man of reason, yet his stomach turned at the thought of lingering in that unhappy place. He brushed off his trousers, wiped his hands on a handkerchief and
headed for home. He pictured Annie standing at the stove preparing dinner. He could see her cheeks flushed from the heat of the stove, tendrils of her thick auburn and silver hair escaping their pins, her smokey eyes brightening at the sight of him. What a luxury to be
alive
and able to leave that place of sorrow!

And then, as he passed the dogwood tree, he caught a flash of something hanging, swaying gently. When he backed up the Model T and looked again, he saw nothing.

“
So it’s to be a Christmas wedding?” Matronly Mavis Murphy, the apple– cheeked dry goods clerk, clapped her small dimpled hands.

Annie was distracted by Tobi tugging at her skirt.

“
Just a minute, Tobias,” Annie ordered. “Can’t you see Miss Mavis is talking?”

“
Just one piece of candy please?”

“
Won’t they be a handsome pair our Kathryn Hannah and Nathan. And you, Mrs. McCann, will be a lovely mother of the bride, I might add.”

“
Thank you, Mavis, but there’s no need for flattery. I intend to buy everything right here at the Mercantile and special order what you don’t have.”

Annie ran her fingers over a bolt of white satin, feeling the lustrous smoothness. “ I think this will do just fine for the wedding dress.”

Mavis fluttered her eyelashes. “May I recommend a seamstress?”

“
No thank you. I do my own sewing. I’ll manage just fine without a dressmaker.”

“
Surely it’s not a matter of money. After all, you and Mr. McCann. I mean with your
position
in the community and all….”

“
It happens to be a matter of keeping my hand in and doing what I can for my family. There’s a type of pride I take in that. Kathryn, go look through the pattern bins and find what suits you. And you, Tobias, stop fidgeting, and no you may
not
have candy. Well, just one hard candy, please Mavis.”

Mavis opened the candy decanter and fished out one root beer barrel and one jawbreaker for extra measure, placing both in Tobi’s outstretched hand “I declare. The boy’s growing so fast, “ she chirped. “He turned out sturdy... to have been premature and all.”

“
Yes, and all boy at that,” said Annie. “He loves to go on little adventures.”

Mavis plopped her hands on her ample hips. “You know what? I believe I did hear that your boy had gone way out yonder to that house on Diablo Road.”

“
How did you know about
that
?

“
From Harold, my youngest. You know what good friends he is with your boys.”

“
Ah...and I suppose Harold was one of the boys, besides Calvin, who filled Tobi’s head with tales of trolls and dared him to go and see what he could see.”

Mavis shook a head full of finger curls in denial. “Well now, Mrs. McCann. I don’t think….”

“
No, Mavis, you
don’t
think. Never mind. Just run off six yards of the satin, pick us two spools of thread to match, and put everything on my bill.”

Mavis ran the material off the bolt, measuring arm length to nose six times. Annie had to wonder if she might be getting shorted a few inches, considering the length of the woman’s arm. ”On second thought, make it seven for good measure,” she added.

With the packages secured in the rumble seat, Katie and Tobi squeezed in up front beside Annie who was at the wheel. “Everywhere I go, it seems everybody’s in a dither about the wedding,” Annie said. The engine rumbled to life. “I hope we can keep the guest list to a sensible number.”

“
Why not just invite everyone who wants to come and be done with it?”

“
That would include the biggest part of the county. You know how your father is about ‘putting on the dog’ as he calls it.”

“He
doesn’t seem happy about me marrying Nate, does he?”

“
He worries about you moving way out to there in the middle of nowhere. He thinks that old plantation is too gloomy and isolated for a young, lively woman like you. Besides that, he met the caretaker out there and doesn’t think much of him. You know that man threatened Tobi when he trespassed the other day. He scared the dickens out of him.”

“
Maybe he was bluffing...just trying to teach Tobi a lesson about snooping around on private property.”

“
He wasn’t bluffing. Buck said if he hadn’t driven up when he did, he believes the man would have taken a switch to Tobi.”

Katie turned away to stare out the window. “Everything’s always about my little brother. Any way, I’m certainly old enough to look out after myself. Why can’t Daddy just trust my judgment ?”

Annie removed one hand from the steering wheel and squeezed her daughter’s hand. “He will. If you feel that strongly about the marriage and certain of the man you’re marrying. Then we have no choice but to stand by you. You let
me
handle your father.”

When they arrived home, Rachel, Minna’s private nurse, was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, squalling like a newborn calf. Annie shook the girl gently and shooed Tobi outside. “What’s happened? Is my grandmother alright?”

Rachel blew her nose and fought off a fresh batch of tears bubbling just below the surface. “I reckon. She may not be able to talk, but that old woman sure can
scream
when one of those fits comes over her. She hates me. I just know it!”

“
Did you say something to upset her?”

“
All I said was how lucky Kathryn is to be marrying Nathan Bonney.”

While Rachel returned to her crying jag, Annie raced up to Minna’s bedroom and flung open the door. Granny Minna was propped on her pillow with her one functional hand flopping about like a bird with a broken wing.

“
What's wrong, Granny?”

Granny Minna stared past her to Katie who had come up to stand at the bedroom door. Then she shook her head and opened her mouth wide like a hungry baby bird.

“
What do you think she’s trying to tell me, Mama?”

“
I don’t know, but whatever it is, she’s desperate to tell it.”

“
Be happy for me, Granny,” murmured Katie. “I’m marrying the man of my dreams and going to live in that unique place that my great uncle built. Mama and Daddy can bring you to visit me there any time you want.”

Minna’s eyes rolled, and her mouth twisted. All that came were more loud grunts, as tears of frustration filled her eyes. Annie took in the sight of the two of them, trying so desperately to connect, but it was she who read her grandmother’s mind. “It’s about the house. That’s what it’s all about—that peculiar, lonely old house. Are we sure we want to have the wedding there?”

“Yes, Mama, It's what Nate wants, and I would do anything to please him.”

Minna had decided she could not go to her great granddaughter’s wedding. Things would have been different had the wedding not been set for that house, had the groom been anyone other than a member of Jonathan Bonney’s family. The memories were too sharp in a mind entangled in a web of the past. Minna was lost in that endless summer night at the end of the Civil War:

On July 20, 1864,
t
he moon was larger and brighter than Minna could remember. It pierced through the clouds, parting them like curtains on a star filled stage. There was something peculiar about that night. The crickets and cicadas chanted maddeningly,yet there were no other sounds. The nocturnal creatures stayed hidden, except for an owl perching on a pine bough, listening for any sign of life. Its huge amber eyes caught and focused upon Minna standing in her doorway. She knew the owl by his immense size. She had seen him in moments of tragedy for years.

Watchful Old Hooter. What do your great golden eyes search for on a night such as this?

There had always been the watchful owls, ever since she had come to live there with baby Jerod, her son with Reese Morgan, sixteen years ago. She and the boy had lived on a hill five hundred feet above the town, on land deeded to her by the Texas tycoon—in recognition of an unorthodox love and the son that had been the result. Morgan had also given her three hundred acres of prime farmland and rights to his last name (despite open hostility from society). Reese Morgan was a powerful and wealthy man. He had courted no one’s approval.