Return to Grace. Karen Harper

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СКАЧАТЬ breeze perked her up a bit, and she inhaled deeply. She needed to get her strength back, she told herself, so she walked back and forth along the side of the barn, admiring the view of gently rolling fields, now bare of crops but awaiting spring plantings. Partly screened by bare trees, the pond at the juncture of the three farms looked as flat gray as the sky. To the west, the newly repaired Kauffman barn with the bright quilt square Sarah had painted looked more distant than it really was as the sun sank lower and the hills threw deepening shadows.

      Glancing northeast toward the Lantz farm, she admired Ella’s little workshop and Seth’s small house, neither of which had been there when she left home. She pressed her back against the sturdy barn built after the fire. Had she instinctively taken her walk here because she could see for miles? No high-velocity rifles with what Linc called night scopes could be out there now. Or was it because Seth had helped to build this barn, big and strong?

      “You shouldn’t be out here in the open, Hannah.”

      She jumped and her heartbeat kicked up at the voice behind her, as if her thoughts had summoned him.

      She turned to face Seth with Marlena in his arms.

      “Because I’m in the open for miles around, I feel safe. I refuse to be a prisoner.”

      “I was up on a roof all afternoon. Someone else could be, too—on one of these roofs, hidden behind a tree, even hunkered down on the ground in camouflage hunting gear. You have no idea the range of some rifles today.”

      A shiver snaked down her backbone and she pressed tighter to the barn. “I will not just hide. I’m fine, just fine!” Realizing she sounded strident, she stood straight and said in a calmer voice, “I’ve been waiting for a moment to thank you for all you did that night. I know my family has expressed their gratitude, but Tiffany and I might have died, too, without your help.”

      “God’s will that I came along to help in time—and that it was you. Even through your friend’s screaming and your pain, I knew it was your voice. Talking, singing, even shouting, your voice has always been beautiful to me.”

      She gaped at him, eyes wide, mouth open before she caught herself and, not trusting that voice, nodded. Marlena fidgeted in his arms and sneezed. He cleared his throat.

      “That’s all I had to say,” she whispered.

      “It means a lot to me. Can I talk to you a minute before I head home? But not out here, where Marlena might catch cold. Can we step into the barn? I have my buggy there.”

      She was afraid of the rush of feelings that overwhelmed her near this man, memories, yes, but too strong a reaction to him even now. Distrust, dislike for what he’d done to her, but also raw need, far different from the curiosity she felt about Linc Armstrong. Not moving to follow him at first, she asked, “Do we really have anything but the shooting—which we’ve been over backward and forward with Linc Armstrong—to talk about?”

      “I want to show you—you, not him—something I found stuck or caught in the widow with the slit screen late this afternoon. He didn’t climb a ladder to look at your window from the outside so I did.”

      “Which means now your footprints are probably where you said they weren’t!”

      “We’re both starting to think like him, aren’t we?”

      “But what did you find?” she asked, following him around the corner of the barn, not that she wanted to feel even more alone with him, but she understood about Marlena. If she had a little girl like that, especially if she was rearing her alone, she’d be so overprotective that she’d be as uptight as Ella.

      He went to his buggy, not the two-seat courting one Hannah was picturing. Of course he’d have a family-size one now. He put Marlena on the front seat, where she sat primly, while he reached in past her and brought out what looked to be a big chicken feather, until Hannah noted its strange black-brown markings in the light from the open barn doors.

      “That was stuck in my bedroom window?”

      He nodded. “So you couldn’t see it from inside, or almost from outside, either. Wedged lengthwise with the side of the quill and the outer edge of the feather holding it.”

      “So, wedged there carefully, intentionally, by someone who managed to open the window itself at least a crack.”

      “I’d say so. You can see I damaged it a little, pulling it out. If I wouldn’t have been nearly on top of it, I never would have seen it, either.”

      “It’s a big one. From …”

      “From an eagle, I think. A wing pinion.”

      “An eagle? Like the American bald eagle?” she said, picturing the eagle with arrows in its talons on Linc’s FBI badge.

      “I think they’re endangered and government-protected. But that kind of eagle is also sacred to Native Americans. I heard the eagle and the panther were special animals to the historic Indian tribe that once lived around here.”

      Her good hand on her hip, she demanded, “Indian tribe? From long ago? You heard that where?”

      “At your father’s request, my daad’s been reading up on Iroquois and Erie Indian history because of tribal rights disputes to some lands around here—some of our land. We’ve got to be prepared if there’s a lawsuit or more bad publicity. It’s all come to a boil since you’ve been gone. John Arrowroot, their local spokesman, is on a mission about getting Indian land back from people in this valley.”

      “I remember him. He’s a retired lawyer, isn’t he? He’d always show up at our auctions or fundraisers, stalking around and looking grim. I used to be scared of him when I was little.”

      “That’s him. He’s been a lot louder about it lately, giving interviews in the Cleveland and Columbus newspapers. He has an eagle feather like this one painted on the picture window of his house, like a talisman or a warning. I’ve only seen it once when I was hunting with my daad, and we wandered onto his isolated piece of land. I saw him last in the butcher shop outside of town, in an argument with Harlan Kenton, who owns the place.”

      “I know where that is. Harlan’s the brother of Amanda Stutzman, who runs the Plain and Fancy B and B. Ella says she’s offered me a job, which I’m thinking of taking.”

      “If you do, I’ll buggy you there and back, or if I’m working away, get someone else to. You shouldn’t be out alone.”

      “As soon as Naomi’s married, she’s giving me my old horse and buggy back. By then, maybe all this will be over. By the way, the Plain and Fancy is where Sheriff Freeman’s ex-wife is staying.”

      “Sheriff Freeman’s ex-wife is back in town? But the thing is, I’ve been trying to decide whether to get the sheriff or our mutual friend Linc in on this feather clue or not. I don’t want to falsely accuse Arrowroot or get him stirred up again over Indian rights to our land. But this feather says he needs a closer look.”

      “That’s pretty flimsy evidence. Maybe we could talk to him about something else, just psych him out.”

      “I like the sound of that ‘we,’ if it doesn’t include Agent Armstrong. But no, I don’t want you around Arrowroot. Listen. There’s more. That day in Harlan Kenton’s butcher shop, before their argument, СКАЧАТЬ