Sentinels Read online

  Franklin, unaware of the chain reaction, and left with only his rifle’s bayonet to protect himself, looked once more at the pitchfork—certain its tines penetrated five inches through the door—and back into the darkness from whence it came.

  “I’m going home.” Franklin about-faced and stampeded a reverse trail to the weeping willow where he originally hid with Lyle and Brendan, and then to the horses to unhitch his ride and complete the retreat.

  Brendan—aided by the circular, stone, water well in front of Toby’s house—abruptly stopped somersaulting.

  At least I have cover, he thought after the thud. He felt the top of his hairy blond head. I lost my hat! Shit, did I write my name in it? I did! I gotta find it or they’ll know I was here!

  Brendan stayed hidden until his brain stopped bouncing in his skull. He’d forgotten the pain caused by his ragged shoulder wound and peered from behind the well to see Lyle stumbling to regain his footing like a newborn horse. Brendan stood, his body concealed from the belly down by the four-foot-tall well, his head obscured by a water bucket dangling from a pulley secured to a wooden arch. He’d held on to his Colt and cocked it, not sure of his next move: kill Toby, help Lyle, or forget both and find his hat?

  Both front barn doors sprang outward. Brendan, craving the well’s protection, crouched and peeked above the stone rim.

  “He’s in there! Sumbitch’s been in there all along!” Brendan called to Lyle, who found his LeMat but still struggled to stand. The moonlight shone a few feet into the barn, enough to reveal boot tips poking out of the darkness. Brendan stood and barely made out the forelegs before the figure backed into the abyss. A gleaming object launched from the blackness, moving in a rainbow arch toward the well and Brendan, who heard the projectile slice the air and pierce the wooden bucket, which swung like a pendulum into Brendan’s forehead, knocking him backward. The bucket twisted to reveal a sickle had split the wood.

  “Aw, hell, this ain’t worth a thousand bucks!” Brendan charged toward Lyle, but not to break into Toby’s house.

  “Forget ’em, if they didn’t know we were coming, they do now!” Brendan grabbed Lyle to urge him off the porch and make for the horses. “Run toward the corn and stay within the first few rows. We’ll be harder to hit! I’ll cover you.”

  “Goddamn, it hurts to move!” Lyle whined. He hobbled ahead of Brendan as fast as his body would allow.

  The dark figure re-emerged from the barn toting a machete in each hand. Brendan gasped when he saw a moonlit Klansman’s hood concealing the man’s identity. Brendan, even more than two-hundred feet away, fancied himself a skilled shot and aimed square at the chest, successively firing three bullets.

  The Klansman remained still, watching.

  No way I missed him three times, Brendan thought.

  He looked ahead to see Lyle entering the cornfield. Brendan charged, firing his remaining two bullets into the barn not to hit anything, but to provide cover for his escape. Brendan breathed easier upon spotting his hat in the grass near where he began tumbling. He snatched it and disappeared into the stalks with Lyle. Brendan figured Toby could shoot at them, but the chances of hitting them diminished as they hugged the inside line of the field, making sure they could see grassy terrain to their right as they ran.

  Not one bullet had been fired from Toby’s house or barn. Brendan and Lyle returned to the weeping willow where they originally devised the plan of attack.

  Once they stopped panting, and when Lyle felt secure, he slapped Brendan upside the head. “Why the hell’d you shoot me?”

  “Way to say ‘thank you!’ asshole!” Brendan slapped him back. “I could’ve left your ass on that porch and hightailed it out of here like I’m assuming that big oaf did. Speaking of which, that numbskull shot me, or ain’t you seen my shoulder?!”

  Lyle lit the lantern he had left by the tree and saw Brendan’s blood, which appeared black, glistening in the moonlight.

  “No. I didn’t,” Lyle said. “It hurt?”

  “Yeah—something fierce now that I can think about it. I need to get to a doctor and I expect you do too.”

  “That’s just what my bullet-riddled ass needs right now: to be bouncing in a saddle.”

  “Would you rather wait here for the doctor?”

  “Sort of. It means I’ll get more time to think of how to explain all this to Mister Diggs.”

  “I ain’t worried about him right now, Lyle. That freedman just made us look like circus clowns. I shot that bastard three times. I know I hit him at least once—I know it. And he didn’t even so much as flinch. I have a feeling he could’ve killed us all but he didn’t. Why?”

  Lyle stared at the house. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Finally.” Brendan started walking.

  “Ain’t you noticed it?”

  “Noticed what?”

  “Look down yonder.” Lyle pointed toward the homestead.

  The barn doors were closed, and the farmhouse’s windows no longer glowed with candlelight.

  Chapter Two

  “Wake up, Deputy Chandler, you don’t want to be late for your first day of work and upset the sheriff.”

  Natalie Chandler watched her groggy, naked husband stir in their small upstairs loft. Natalie, eight months pregnant, had slept downstairs on the sofa Noah Chandler purchased after finding out he’d be a daddy. He did the math—the last three months of her pregnancy fell in the summer.

  “I miss you,” he croaked. “Sleeping downstairs with open windows sure does beat baking up here.”

  “You know, I can get naked too. You got time for a quick roll in the hay?”

  “Honey, you’re about to pop, and it’s already ninety degrees at—what time is it?”

  “Eight in the morning,” she said.

  “It’s shit hot at eight in the morning. And don’t be offended, but it just feels weird making love to a woman as pregnant as you.”

  “Oh, so you’ve made love to a pregnant woman before me?” she chided.

  He propped up his muscular body and butt-scooted to sit against the bed frame. “Didn’t I tell you? I bedded Rebecca Taylor when she was nine months pregnant a few months back. The little spud inside smacked my peter. I must’ve been getting to close for comfort.”

  “That’s gross!” Natalie, a petite woman who tied her blonde hair in a ponytail, playfully whacked his shoulder.

  “Hell yeah, it is!” He chuckled. “We’ll get back to business after our little one’s out and you’re, well, uh, decent enough for duty.”

  “Don’t blame me! Pregnant women get the itch more often than not—all those hormones runnin’ through me.”

  “I recall. I didn’t mind it a few months back when you weren’t showin’ as much, but now? Your tummy’s almost splitting apart your nightgown.” He leaned in and caressed her belly. “Hello, little fella.” Her skin thumped against his hand.

  “It’s a boy, I know it!” he said. “Strong kick like that? It’s gotta be a boy.”

  “I know it’s what you want.”

  “I want whatever pops out of you, just so long as it’s healthy. It could be a bobcat and I’d love it all the same.”

  “Me, too. Only I’d prefer a human being.” She smiled at him.

  Noah rose, stretched his long arms and, as if by habit, slid his fingers along the scar that ran from his left nipple to his belly button. It served as a persistent, depressing reminder of how his older brother, Benjamin, died on the same battlefield moments after Noah had sustained the wound, and how it could’ve been worse. Southern-born Noah moved to Massachusetts in 1858 to attend Harvard—and fought for the North against his brother at Fort Sumter. It made for awkward moments during family dinners. Still, he was family, and his late brother’s home stood unoccupied after the War. Noah received his parents’ blessing to live there with the woman he met in grade school
.

  Now thirty-two, and derisively known as a carpetbagger and scalawag due to his Northern allegiance, Noah Chandler returned to his hometown two years prior with a law degree and to re-ingratiate himself with his family—getting married and fathering a first grandchild might do the trick—and to help with the Reconstruction effort in which he so deeply believed.

  The newest deputy of Henderson County donned cotton underwear, brown pants and a white shirt he’d laid out the previous night. He rolled up his sleeves and left the collar open.

  “I got your neckerchief downstairs, next to a bowl of water on the kitchen table,” Natalie said. “I already fixed you some oats so you can get going. Sound okay?”

  “Oats would be lovely. Thanks, honey.”

  She descended the loft’s ladder.

  “What time’s your mother gonna be here?” he called to her.

  “About nine, don’t worry.”

  Natalie’s mother, Helen, agreed to stay with her daughter when Noah was out just in case the baby came early.

  “What’s happening to the deputy you’re replacing?”

  “He’s in a jail somewhere awaiting trial. Much as some of the folks around here might like it, you can’t be a deputy by day and a Grand Wizard by night. Sort of throws into question your objectivity. I’m thankful Sheriff Cole recommended I take his place.”

  “I am too. You aren’t much of a farmer, honey,” she said while looking through the open window at a small patch of land meant for corn and assorted vegetables. Only a small swath of it bore tomatoes.

  “You know I tried,” Noah barked. “General Canby felt my time would be more useful establishing local governments, helping draft charters and the like. It helps that the freedmen overwhelmingly voted in Republicans, makes our jobs easier.”

  He opened a small wooden cabinet next to the bed and retrieved his gun belt. He slid six bullets into his Colt’s cylinder and holstered it, and then inserted bullets into loops along the belt before fastening it to his waist.

  “Those Democrats don’t hesitate to kill freedmen and the white folks who help them, Noah.”

  “I’m aware.” Noah climbed downstairs and sat at the small table. He placed aside the blue kerchief and bowl of water to make room for breakfast.

  “I believe Sheriff Cole and the mayor signed off on me because I’m local, so to speak,” he said. “The Chandler name carries some respect around town.”

  “Some respect.” Natalie placed a bowl of warm oats in front of him and sat across the table to eat a dish of her own. The Chandler family, one of the most prominent in town, made its fortune by way of cotton fields. “Not everybody takes kindly to you.”

  “I know,” he said through a mouthful of cereal. “I survived the war. I can survive its aftermath.”

  “So it’s just you and the sheriff?”

  “’Course not. Some of my fellow dastardly carpetbaggers are deputized.”

  “But it doesn’t have to be forever, right? I mean, you never set out to be a lawman.”

  “Nah, but it’s what’s best for the town right now. That’s the way the mayor sees it. We’re less than three months away from the election—Democrats’ll do anything to keep the freedmen from voting. That’s why he’s trying to find deputies left and right to help try to stop it. I’m not looking forward to that first Tuesday in November.”

  “Klan’s killing elected representatives, honey—state senators even,” she said. “They’ll shoot a county deputy between the eyes just as soon as look at him. You know that.”

  “You worry about nursing the little one and getting back to teaching.” He shoveled in the last bits of oats. “Let me worry about the town, and me.”

  “They could come here, Noah, when you’re in town.” Her tone bordered on desperate. “I know how to use that rifle above the fireplace to handle an intruder—but a mob?”

  “They won’t attack a pregnant woman or a woman with a baby.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it.” She slapped her palm on the table, jiggling the bowls. “The Klan’ll do anything to get power. You’ve read the newspapers. You’ve seen the stories about what they’re doing in Georgia—burning down houses with families inside, all because they support the freedmen. You don’t have to be black to be lynched by the Klan. I make sure that gun’s loaded when I go to bed just so I can be ready quick if I hear anything outside.”

  Noah pushed the empty bowl aside and dipped the bandana in the water. He squeezed out excess fluid before tying the wet cloth around his neck to help keep him cool during the horse ride into town.

  “I know you’re scared.” He stood and retrieved his tan Stetson from a hook on the front door. “But someone’s got to do this. We deserve better than what’s out there now.”

  He spotted the double-barreled shotgun, both its hammers cocked, mounted above the fireplace.

  “You want me to stay until your mom gets here?”

  “No. Just go.” She pushed away her half-eaten oats, her appetite sapped.

  He knew she meant it more out of frustration than anger.

  “I’m glad you know how to use that,” he said. “We’re targets whether I’m a deputy, or a lawyer, or an adviser, or whatever.”

  “I know, but that metal star they’re gonna pin on you makes you a shinier target.”

  “I love you.” He left to saddle up his black Arabian stallion, Wilbur, and circled the property to make sure nothing seemed out of place before galloping down the dirt road to his new job.

  Chapter Three

  Sarah Jenkins opened her home’s front door and stepped onto the porch, instantly spotting a Klansman’s hood. Ignoring it, she approached the well facing the house.

  “If you’re out there, come and get me, here I am,” she called. Hearing nothing, she grappled with the sickle handle jutting from the water bucket and twisted out the blade.

  Dressed in white field clothes and with a purple kerchief around her head, the fit woman in her mid-forties gripped the sickle to defend herself, while walking to retrieve the pitchfork speared through the barn’s door. She dropped the sickle, grabbed the pitchfork handle like a rifle and jostled it free. Holding the tool in one hand, she unlatched the barn and swung open the double doors, sunbeams highlighting splinters poking through three fresh holes.

  “We can get a new bucket. I’ll be damned if we’re getting a new door on account of that,” she muttered to herself while grabbing the sickle with her free hand.

  Three horses flicked their ears and inched toward her so their heads hung over the interior stable walls for Sarah to pet.

  “Mercy, it’s too hot in here for you all. Let’s get you in the field.”

  The Jenkinses’ wagon, big and wide to transport crops, occupied much of the barn, as did assorted plows and other farming implements. Toby rarely used the barn to store his harvest. Charlie Stanhope’s buyers always knew when to arrive for their purchases. The distributors appreciated Toby and Sarah as they’d gotten to know them over the years when they were under Charlie’s ownership. Whatever corn remained could be sold in Henderson or the next town over.

  Sarah horizontally placed the pitchfork on two wall pegs and did likewise for the sickle, covering the tools’ dusty outlines.

  A long shadow appeared behind her. She turned to see the morning sun shining on her six-foot, four-inch husband standing in the middle of the entrance.

  “I was wondering where you were,” she said. “Next time put the tools away yourself, if you please.”

  “The baby?”

  “Sleeping like a log,” she responded. “But he’ll be hungry soon. He’s been down for hours.”

  “Good,” said Toby, pushing fifty, and athletically built like his wife from years of labor. He wore brown overalls and a straw hat. “Guess I’ll saddle up Chester and head to town for a new bucket—unless you want me
to make one.”

  She smiled. “I’d like a bucket we can actually use and not have to put cups under it to catch the leaks.”

  Toby opened Chester’s stall and grabbed a heavy leather saddle as easy as lifting a bed pillow and plopped it on the horse’s back.

  “Steady, boy.” He calmed his trusty brown stallion.

  Sarah walked to her husband to hold the saddle while Toby fiddled with the straps.

  “I’ll take the other two to the pasture,” she said.

  “Yes, please do.”

  “You saw what was on the porch?”

  “Can’t really miss it.”

  “Do you know who they were?”

  “Not a clue, but I know who sent them.” Toby tugged the saddle tight.

  “Me too. Diggs. Then you know they’ll be coming back.”

  “That’s why I want to get done what I need to get done now, dear. And I want you and the baby to be ready to hide in the storm cellar at a moment’s notice. In fact, put whatever provisions you need for the little guy in there while I’m gone.”

  “Did that this morning while you were out doing whatever.”

  “Getting ready to harvest. Crop’s almost ready.”

  “You still thinking about selling corn at a time like this?!”

  “It’s how we make a living, Sarah.” He chuckled.

  “Don’t be smart with me!” She grabbed Toby’s bulging shoulders and shook him to drive home the point. “Those men came here to kill us last night!”

  “Men have been coming to this farm almost every month to harm us, it seems, and we’ve always managed.” He embraced her arms and guided them down from his body. “The Klan once tried showing us who’s boss and we know how that ended. We’ll be all right.”

  “We can’t stay protected like this forever. The odds aren’t in our favor. Someone’s gonna slip through. Had Diggs sent people whose brains actually worked, last night could’ve been it! Why didn’t you take Diggs’s money? We could’ve headed North and started over!”