Stay a Little Longer (9 page)

“I’m sorry Mr. Gu—” Mason caught himself, rapidly adding, “sir…”

Watch your tongue, you fool!

“No-good, worthless bum!” the man snapped before walking away in a huff.

Watching the man go, Mason realized that he hadn’t been recognized. Though Samuel Guthrie had once held some hope that Mason
would wed his own daughter, he hadn’t known who had collided with him, even at a distance of inches. In Guthrie’s eyes, he’d
been nothing but a destitute fool, a blight upon the town.

Catching his reflection in the nearest window, Mason had to admit that there was reason for Mr. Guthrie’s assumption: his
coat and pants were both dirt-streaked; his satchel was a littered mess of patches and temporary stitch jobs. His unruly hair
and beard, his skin worn by the elements, and the wildness of his eyes were all frightening.

The realization of just how far he had fallen struck Mason like a thunderbolt from a stormy sky. Before he’d set foot on that
train bound for the European war, he’d had everything: admiration, an adoring wife, a future… Now he was lucky to have what
was in the bag slung over his shoulder. He had gone off to fight for his country and had been changed forever. Now he was
unrecognizable. He had lost everything.

“No one will remember what I once was…”

As well as he could manage, Mason continued toward Alice’s mother’s home, this time paying more attention to those around
him. He was only a couple of blocks from the depot, from turning the corner to his destination, when what he saw stopped him
cold; crossing the road in front of him, a cigar clasped between his teeth, was his brother.

Zachary had also changed in the eight years since Mason had last seen him; considerable weight had been added to his frame
and his hair had begun graying. But much about his brother seemed the same. His dress was still expressive of his belief that
he was better than everyone around him; nothing but the best had ever been enough for Zachary Tucker. His look was still angry;
his brow was furrowed and his hands clenched into fists as he walked.

Mason knew that if there were anyone in Carlson who would have benefited from his disappearance, who would have even welcomed
it, it would have been Zachary. The financial responsibilities that their father had been grooming Mason to assume would have
gone to his brother. He’d always been a greedy child and had in turn grown into a greedy man. Without Sherman Tucker’s steadying
hand, he couldn’t imagine what Zachary would become.

“You’re someone I don’t want to run into, brother,” Mason mumbled.

While he could write off part of Samuel Guthrie’s failure to recognize him to the man’s advanced age, Mason knew that he couldn’t
take that chance with Zachary. He had no doubt that if they were to come face-to-face, there would be no mistaking his true
identity.

Before he could make up his mind what he should do, Mason was struck by another wave of sickness, this one greater than all
of the others put together. For an instant, his vision went black and his world was turned upside down. His satchel fell to
the ground and he crashed down onto his knees beside it. Vomit poured from his mouth as his stomach heaved, the nausea threatening
to overwhelm him. Wild panic raced through his mind, panic that his condition would attract unwanted attention, and he struggled
to rise to his feet, running from the street. There was no hope that he could wait outside Eliza Watkins’s house. He had to
get away.

Any hope of seeing Alice would have to wait.

Slowly and as carefully as he could, Mason made his way among the tall trees on the far side of Lake Carlson. He wasn’t sure
how he’d been able to walk such a distance, but he refused to allow himself to fall again too close to town. Even with such
determination, he nearly toppled as another shudder raced through him and his knees nearly went out from under him.

I feel as weak as a newborn kitten!

Blots of sunlight dappled the leaves that swayed above him, but Mason was thankful to be in the shade. Though the October
day carried with it a coolness remembered from his childhood, he felt as if he were burning up with a fever. He’d somehow
managed to strip off his heavier coat, but sweat poured freely from his body.

The other thing that burned at him was shame; it had embarrassed him to run away to the woods. Ever since that fateful day
eight years earlier, whenever he’d been hurt, whenever he had been threatened, his first instinct had always been to run for
safety. If he were ever to change, he would have to stay and hold his ground.

Once he had crossed the edge of town, Mason knew exactly where he’d been headed. Picking his way through the trees and underbrush,
he tried to examine the ground for faint signs of the path while his head continued to throb painfully. He passed a lightning-struck
evergreen, its needles brown and long dead, skirted a depression filled with muck, mire, and the occasional rotting tree branch,
climbed a low rise that almost took his meager breath away, and then came to a clearing he recognized. A surprised squirrel
skittered away noisily as he stumbled to the far side of the open space. And there it was.

“The old shack,” he said aloud.

Leaning against a majestic elm tree was a rough hut. No more than ten feet wide and an equal amount in depth, the building
had obviously seen better days. The roof sagged at its crown, an indentation that was clearly deep enough to let in rain.
The glass of the lone window had long since fallen out. The white paint that had once been proudly slapped on its sides was
now peeled and chipped away until only a few flecks remained to cover the graying wooden planks. Still, the shack was a sight
for Mason’s eager eyes.

As a child, he had come here often, as had nearly every child in Carlson. For a moment, worry at being discovered played across
his thoughts, but he knew that it was already far too late for such concerns.

Another spasm of sickness assaulted him and he had no choice but to once again vomit. Even though his stomach was empty, he
continued to dry-heave, noisily retching on his knees. Summoning all of his remaining strength, he rose and stumbled toward
the shack.

He pushed open the door and entered on unsteady feet. The cool darkness of the inside was as welcome to him as the musty,
fetid odor was unpleasant. The furnishings were meager; an uneven table and the rotten remnants of a mattress. Mason didn’t
mind the squalor; all he wanted was shelter and to be out of sight.

Wandering over to the corner farthest from the door, he collapsed into a heap on the warped planks. Darkness once again rose
to overwhelm him and he knew he would be unable to resist any longer. His last thought before slipping into unconsciousness
was of Alice.

I… just need… to get some… rest…

W
ITH HER BROW KNIT
in determination, Rachel ran a rag over the dusty top of the oaken bureau in the boardinghouse’s sitting room. Over and over
again, she polished the worn surface until she was finally happy with the glassy sheen. Even as she finished, she knew that
it would soon have to be done again. Nothing in the house stayed clean for long.

Though it was still early in the day, Rachel was thankful that she had not seen any sign of Jonathan Moseley since their encounter
at the clothesline the afternoon before. She doubted that it had been any sense of shame at what he had done that kept him
away from the dinner table the night before, and she kept a wary eye open, half expecting him to jump out and accost her from
some shadowy hiding place.

All through the day and night, Rachel had pondered her decision not to speak to her mother or uncle about what had happened;
Eliza would be horrified if she knew. If Rachel did tell, she had little doubt that Jonathan would be evicted from the boardinghouse,
probably after receiving a beating at Otis’s hands. But in the end, she had decided that her first instinct was the right
one; to make him leave would do nothing but take money out of her family’s pocket. He would remain dangerous, but now she
would be wary.

If he bothers me again, he’ll pull back a stump!

Suddenly, there was an insistent rapping at the front door. Tossing down her rag, Rachel hurried to answer, hoping that it
might be someone seeking a room; but she was instantly disappointed to find Zachary Tucker waiting for her. On his face was
a lopsided grin.

“What do you want?” she asked curtly.

“Now is that any way to talk to someone that was once part of your family?” he replied in mock indignation. “Why, there was
a time when you and I were practically brother and sister.”

“We both know that time has long since passed.”

“Indeed, it has,” Zachary said, acknowledging Rachel’s harsh words with a chuckle. “May I come in?”

From the very first time she met Zachary Tucker, Rachel had found the man to be nearly insufferable. Loud and obnoxious, unwilling
to extend any generosity without attaching a price tag to it, he acted as if everyone he met was beneath him. Even though
he was undoubtedly the richest man in Carlson, the townspeople had no wealth of affection for him. She and Alice had wondered
if Mason and Zachary were even related; no two brothers had ever been more different.

Still, her mother had taken great pains to instill manners in her, so she held open the door and let him enter, even if the
thought of being near him repulsed her.

“If you’ve come wanting to speak to my mother, I’m afraid that you’ll leave without getting what you want.” When Rachel had
ventured inside her mother’s room before dawn, a tray of food in hand, she’d found Eliza Watkins to be in a particularly foul
mood, even for her. She’d been worried, more preoccupied than normal about some unknown danger. Nervously wringing her hands,
her mother was so fearful that something bad might happen to her daughter that she had pleaded with her to stay in her room,
and had been irritated when Rachel had refused.

“Actually,” Zachary explained, “I came to see you.”

“Me?” Rachel responded in surprise. “Whatever for?”

Zachary wandered over toward the window, pulling the lace curtains aside so that he could look outside for a moment. Rachel
was beginning to wonder whether he had heard her question when he said, his back still to her, “Do you enjoy living this way?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you enjoy living like this?” Zachary asked with a wide sweep of his arms around the sitting room. “Making a living from
a boardinghouse in a town as small as Carlson, working day in and day out for strangers. Well, that just doesn’t seem like
smart business to me. To be quite honest with you, Rachel, it seems rather foolish.”

“We make do,” she answered defiantly.

“Do you?” Zachary replied with skepticism. “I can tell you that from outside appearances, that is certainly not the case.
Hell, I would be willing to bet that whatever meager profits you manage to eke out of this place are most surely washed down
Otis’s gullet!”

“It’s not… that way…”

“We both know that it is,” he answered bluntly. “While I certainly respect your desire to stand up for your family’s good
name, it cannot be denied that you’re hanging on by the thinnest of threads.”

The truth in Zachary’s words stung Rachel; though it pained her to admit it even to herself, the boardinghouse hardly managed
to provide them enough to feed themselves. Every day seemed a greater challenge than the last. That Mason’s brother chose
to remark on their difficult circumstances only reminded her of what they had all lost.

“Things would have been different if Mason were still alive.”

“For the both of us, Rachel, my dear,” he replied with a malicious smile.

But you’re the one who’s glad about it,
she thought.

Much had been spoken around Carlson about how Zachary Tucker had gained from his brother’s death, although it had all been
carefully whispered for fear that the man would hear. With Mason gone, all that Sherman had built had gone to his younger
son, for better or for worse. Rachel could see that it was clearly the latter.

“Why did you come here, Zachary?” she asked, the anger rising ever higher in her breast. “If it was to tell me about how my
life hasn’t amounted to much or to have a laugh at my expense, I have better things I could be doing.”

Zachary sighed, fixing her with a steady, serious stare. “I came here because it has always been clear to me that you’ve been
the intelligent one in your family,” he explained. “Because while your mother hides away in her room, reliving her daughter’s
death over and over again, and while your uncle drinks himself into a stupor, you’re the one who knows what terrible trouble
you’re all in.”

“Trouble?” Rachel echoed the banker.

Turning his heavyset body from the window, Zachary slowly walked toward Rachel until he stood very close to her. He was a
large man, much taller than she, and he seemed to tower over her. With an ample stomach and piercing, menacing eyes, he had
the look of someone who could more than hold his own. For a brief moment, she was reminded of her encounter with Jonathan
Moseley, but she refused to allow herself to shrink before Zachary; the truth was that she wasn’t frightened by him, nor would
she ever show any hint of weakness.

“What are you talking about?” she asked again.

“How much longer do you think you can keep this up?” Zachary asked with carefully measured intent and a syrupy tongue. “How
many more long years will the burden of this boardinghouse’s upkeep be yours and yours alone to bear? When you’re your mother’s
age, will you still be here, still just doing what is expected of you? Without help, and without the large sum of money that
will be needed to fix all of the many things wrong with it, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that it had all
fallen down about your ears. If you let it, this place will be your grave!”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I am the one person who can change your future.”