The New England: ROMANCE Collection Read online

  “You’re nothing but a rogue,” Dole said. “Stubborn. Just like your pa.”

  Jack bristled, tempted to respond, but thought better of it. He didn’t trust Dole one whit, and he didn’t want to say something he would regret later. Besides, it was true that his father had been a scoundrel. There was no point in defending him.

  Dole squinted at him and gave a sage nod. “You’ll regret it if you don’t own up to it.”

  “The only thing I regret is letting you bring me here, you dog,” Jack said through clenched teeth.

  Dole’s quick fist caught Jack just below his ribs, and he doubled over, gasping. Dole followed up with a punch to his temple.

  Jack raised his chained hands in defense. “Whatever happened to the law?” he choked.

  “We are the law,” Dole snarled. “So don’t you be striking an officer.” He shoved him hard, and Jack stumbled off his feet, his skull thudding against the rough wall.

  Chapter 2

  Here, now!” Rutledge’s voice rose in distress as he entered the hall, followed by Reuben Stoddard, the jailer. “Charles, what’s the meaning of this?”

  Dole wiped his chin with his grimy sleeve. “Young Hunter be disrespectful of the law.”

  Rutledge grunted and walked over to where Jack was sprawled and extended his hand. “Here, get up, boy.”

  Jack still felt a bit dazed. There was a knot on the back of his head for sure, and when he tried to catch his breath, his stomach hurt. He took Rutledge’s hand and staggered to his feet.

  “We’ll have to keep you here, Hunter,” said Rutledge. “Stoddard’s got to lock you up.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You heard the evidence. It looks black for you. I can’t let you go.”

  Jack shook his head, then winced at the pain it caused. “I didn’t do anything to Trent, I swear.”

  “Careful about swearing, now,” Dole put in.

  Rutledge silenced him with a scowl, then turned to Jack. “I’ve sent my oldest boy to get some word on the magistrate’s whereabouts. Just settle down in the cell here for the night. I’ll have Goody Stoddard bring you some supper later on, and we’ll get someone to tend your stock this evening.”

  “Mr. Rutledge, please. Just because my ax was used to kill a man, that’s not enough evidence to condemn me.”

  “Most folks think otherwise.” Rutledge’s face was grave. “That’s why we’ll let the magistrate decide.”

  The jailer led them through a dim passageway and opened the door to a cramped cell. Bars formed a barrier in the small window high in the thick oak door.

  Jack stepped unwillingly into the dim room. A damp odor filled his nostrils, and he blinked, trying to make out the details. The amenities seemed to consist of a pile of straw in one corner. The one tiny window was recessed the length of his arm into the thick stone wall. He whirled to face Rutledge. With a large key in his hand, Stoddard was already closing the door. Jack reached out to steady himself and touched a cold stone wall. His head was spinning. “Wait! Please!”

  Stoddard paused with the door still open a few inches.

  “I’d best get some boys to start setting up for the hanging,” Dole said.

  Jack fought back his fear. “Goodman Rutledge, please tell him to stop saying that.” The peril of his situation struck Jack with awful force. This might be the end of his short life. His struggles to outlive his father’s bad reputation, his hard work building up the farm these last few years … it was all worthless. In a short while, he would stand before a judge. What could he say to defend himself? No one believed he was innocent. They would hang him for certain. The thought was too terrible to contemplate.

  Rutledge squinted at him. “You’d best be making your peace with God tonight. Would you be wanting to see the parson?”

  Jack stared at him. “I … no.”

  Rutledge’s cold stare told Jack he had said the wrong thing. Undoubtedly the senior constable was doubly convinced he was a heartless killer with no conscience.

  Stoddard closed the door and turned the key in the lock. Jack raised his hands, the shackles clanking as he grabbed the bars in the window opening. Rutledge and Dole stood back. Rutledge held the lantern, obviously intending to take it away with them and leave him in darkness.

  “Wait!”

  “I’m sorry, Hunter.” Rutledge’s tone was rueful. “We don’t face something like this often, thank God. Why, I don’t think there’s ever been a murder in this township. Not counting Indian troubles, of course. We’ve got to hold you, boy. It’s the only thing we can do.”

  “We could hang him now and save the judge a lot of trouble,” Dole said.

  “Hold your tongue,” Rutledge told him.

  Raging panic rose in Jack’s throat. “I won’t run away, sir. I give my word. Let me go home, and I’ll return whenever you say.”

  Rutledge gritted his teeth. “You’ve got no family. Nothing to keep you here. I can’t risk it.”

  “Is my word worth nothing?” Jack yelled as the constables turned away.

  “That’s right,” came Dole’s cackle. “The word of a murderer is worthless.”

  Their footsteps faded, and Jack heard a door close. He reached out and felt the rough wall. Leaning heavily against it, he bowed his head.

  Dear God, help! Is there no hope for me? Tears formed in his eyes, and he swallowed hard.

  Jack had gone to church every Lord’s Day with his mother when he was a boy. The minister had railed from the pulpit against drunkenness one Sunday, and his mother’s face had paled. She sat still throughout the long sermon, her shoulders back and her chin high. When Jack asked her why the minister preached against his father, she’d told him the parson was only telling what the Bible said about all drunkards, not anyone specifically.

  Isaac Hunter had died when Jack was thirteen, but he and his mother were still treated as outcasts. The closest neighbor, Samuel Ellis, was one of the few who offered comfort. He’d helped Jack haul out logs and chop a firewood supply for the winter. The minister had visited once, but only to remark that Isaac was no doubt receiving just payment for his evil deeds.

  Jack wanted to stop going to church after that, but his mother insisted they continue to attend. They always timed it so they arrived as the service began, sat in the back, and slipped out at the last “amen,” often without speaking to a soul.

  The other women of the village would not accept his mother into their circle, and that hurt Jack. He wondered how she escaped the bitterness that mounted inside him, but his mother seemed to accept it as her due. She had been foolish enough to marry a ne’er-do-well, and she paid the consequences. The Hunters lived a life of seclusion, and he had few friends.

  Except Lucy.

  The thought of her made him feel weak, and he slid slowly down the wall and sat on the cold stone floor. What would Lucy Hamblin think when she heard he’d been hanged for murder?

  Lucy.

  How he had loved her. Four years ago Lucy had deigned to notice Jack. She’d spoken to him in a civil manner several times, which had shocked him. Finally Jack got up the nerve to sustain a conversation with the golden-haired maiden. For months he found excuses to walk past the Hamblins’ house. It was amazing how often seventeen-year-old Lucy was at the well or in the garden when he passed. She would come to the gate and speak to him, and they found many common interests. At last he dared to ask if he might court her. The smile she gave him that day was a treasured memory. She was willing! His heart sang. Until he approached her father.

  Jack bowed his head against his chest. Lucy’s father had made it clear what he thought of Isaac Hunter’s son. Thomas Hamblin was furious at the idea that a miscreant like Jack would dare think of courting his daughter. “If you loiter about my property, I’ll put the law on you,” he’d said.

  Jack stopped walking past the Hamblins’ house after that. In fact, he made long detours to avoid it. He saw Lucy only occasionally, from a distance. Her eyes were always lowered
. Only once had he caught her eye, and she’d returned his gaze for just a moment, a troubled frown crossing her sweet face.

  She was the youngest of the Hamblins’ six children, and she stayed in the home, the dutiful daughter. She had never married, though Jack was sure several young men in the village had hoped at one time or another to win her hand. Jeremiah Hadley, who drilled in the militia with Jack, had commented one day that Lucy Hamblin would never marry. She was as cold as the ice on the river in January. “Colder,” young George Barrow had agreed. “A man couldn’t touch her without risking frostbite.”

  Jack had wanted to thrash them both but managed to keep his temper. No sense laying himself open to new humiliations. It bothered him, though, that people were beginning to speak of her as a spinster. She must be twenty-one now, and more beautiful than ever, but the young men all agreed she was aloof and unapproachable.

  Jack had never stopped loving her. When he heard about her father’s death last winter, he’d wondered if she might consider accepting his advances again. That was inconceivable, his brain told him. She’d submitted to her father’s edict and closed the door on their fledgling romance. She was older now, and she understood that allying herself with Isaac Hunter’s son would only cause the villagers to despise her. Jack’s loneliness and bitterness grew.

  He hadn’t spoken to her in four years, and now the dream was destroyed for good. He would face the hangman in the morning.

  Chapter 3

  Jack raised his head. He saw a small patch of light at the end of the tunnel leading to the one window in the outside wall. The light became fainter, and he knew the daylight was waning. He was wasting his last hours on earth in self-pity. Hadn’t he learned anything in the past six months? Jack Hunter might be despised and ridiculed, accused, and, yes, even convicted of a crime he did not do, but God was still in the heavens.

  He rose and paced the tiny cell, three steps to the far wall and three steps back to the door. He had to stop pining for Lucy and feeling sorry for himself. Surely God expected more of him.

  Heavenly Father, he prayed, raising his eyes toward the ceiling of the dark cell, I don’t want to die for something I didn’t do. Please, if You can see Your way clear to help a nobody like me, show me what to do.

  They’d found his bloody ax lying beside Trent’s body. The ax he’d chopped wood with just yesterday. Jack was sure he’d put it in the barn when he finished the task. He peered through the tiny barred window in the oak door then paced the small cell again, mentally listing all the people who might have access to his barn. It amounted to the whole township.

  He heard footsteps. Reuben Stoddard entered the hall outside his door.

  “Has the magistrate come?” Jack asked through the barred window.

  “Not yet,” Stoddard replied. “But the constables are keeping enough men ready to act as a jury when he does arrive.”

  “You mean they’d hold the trial tonight?”

  Stoddard shrugged. “What’s the point in waiting? Trial tonight, sentence carried out in the morning, like as not. I’d be on my knees if I were you.” He opened the cell door and handed him a wooden platter with a tin cup of water, a chunk of brown bread, and a bowl of samp, then closed the door and strolled away.

  Jack sat on the dusty straw pallet and ate the bread but took only one spoonful of the bland corn mush.

  Perhaps he should ask for the parson after all. The officials were determined; he might as well be condemned already. He mulled it over, then got up and approached the door.

  “Goodman Stoddard!”

  “What do you want?” The jailer shuffled toward his cell door.

  “I want to see Captain Murray.”

  “What do ye want with the captain?” Stoddard eyed him suspiciously.

  “It seems the whole town is against me. The captain is a fair-minded man. I thought to seek his advice.”

  Stoddard frowned. “I’ll send someone to see if he’ll come. But the sun’s getting low. I expect the captain is busy and won’t want to trouble himself with the likes of you.”

  Jack slid down the wall and sat limp, leaning against the rough stonework. He was exhausted, and his head throbbed where Dole had hit him and where he had crashed into the wall. His ribs were sore, and his left cheek felt puffy and tender.

  He hoped his bid to see the captain would bring some prospect of justice. Jack had joined the militia at age seventeen, and Captain Murray was one of the few men who seemed to accept him. The huge bear of a man encouraged him when he did well at drill, and Jack looked up to him, trying to emulate his confident air and posture. But he couldn’t consider the captain a friend. Right now it seemed no one would take his part.

  He closed his eyes. He was used to being alone, bereft and rejected. But desperation was a new feeling. He had always believed that if he worked hard enough, he could overcome the sorry lot he’d been dealt at birth.

  After Isaac Hunter’s death, Jack had improved the farm his father had neglected. Sam Ellis taught him to use tools and raise a productive garden. He’d made the hut the family occupied into a comfortable little house for his mother, built up the herd of sheep, and sold enough firewood to finance his purchase of a yoke of oxen and a cow. Jack saw his farm begin to thrive as a result of his hard labor and determination.

  But now he was powerless. “God, help me,” he whispered. “No one else will.”

  Half an hour later he heard boots thumping on the stone floor. He pulled himself up, clutching the bars. At once he recognized the huge man accompanying the jailer.

  “Captain Murray! Thank you for coming.”

  Stoddard unlocked the cell, and the captain ducked his head as he entered, blinking. Stoddard fixed a torch in the iron bracket on the wall and swung the door shut. “Ten minutes, Captain.”

  Murray eyed Jack and stroked his full black beard. “What can I do for you, Hunter?” His stern expression didn’t give Jack hope.

  “Sir, I didn’t harm Goodman Trent, but no one will listen to me. They’re talking about hanging me. I don’t know what to do.”

  Murray stood silent for a moment, then drew a deep breath. “The mood in the village is not favorable, Hunter. Most folks believe you’re guilty. They’re clamoring for your just punishment. It’s getting downright ugly out there.”

  “But, sir, I haven’t been tried! They found my ax, but anyone could have taken it and used it against Trent. I’ve never been at odds with the law. If I had someone to speak for me—”

  “Not many lawyers in these parts,” Murray said, shaking his head.

  “But, sir, if you would vouch for me …”

  “How could I do that? I don’t know that you’re innocent. They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

  Jack felt light-headed. He sat down on the straw. “Sir, please. You know I pull my weight with the militia. Have I ever refused to do my part?”

  The captain shook his head slowly. “No. But Dole is claiming they caught you with blood on your hands.”

  “That’s an outright lie.”

  “Your father was a bad ‘un, Jack.”

  “I’m not my father!”

  “True. But folks have long memories hereabouts. Isaac Hunter did a lot of mischief in his day. Stealing, brawling, you name it. And now—well, it was your ax. You don’t deny that, do you?”

  “No. I saw it. It’s mine. But it wasn’t me who did in Barnabas Trent. And if I did, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave my ax there.”

  “Your pa started a fight with Trent twenty years past, over where the boundary was. Plenty of folk remember that.”

  “I know, sir, but—”

  “Some say you’ve had words with Trent yourself, and not so long ago.”

  Jack stopped as the realization of his plight hit him anew. “That’s so, but it was words only, Captain. I wouldn’t strike a man.” The memory of Dole’s blows came back. “At least, not unless he struck me first.”

  “Did Trent strike you?”

>   “No! I never even saw him today, or yesterday, either.”

  The captain spread his hands. “Well then. If not you, who did it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That won’t be enough to sway a jury in this township. The men are worked up, and their women are scared. They want to string up the murderer and be done with it.”

  “That’s foolish! If they hang an innocent man, the murderer will still be among them. Can’t they see that?”

  Murray ran a hand through his thick black hair. “Apparently not.”

  Jack slumped forward, his chin on his chest. “Isn’t there anything I can do to help my cause?”

  Murray sat beside him in the musty straw. Jack took mild hope from his pensive gaze.

  “Trent wanted my property,” Jack said. “That’s no secret. My father got title to the land next to his twenty years ago, and Trent always resented it. He’d hoped to buy it himself.”

  “How did your father get the money for the land?”

  “His father-in-law left it to him. Buying that farm was the only wise choice he ever made, as near as I can tell.”

  Murray nodded. “Well, you’ve worked hard since the old man died, I daresay. Took care of your mother her last few years.”

  Jack bit his lip.

  “I’d make a will if I were you.”

  “A will?” The thought startled Jack. Neither of his parents had made a will. He’d never even seen one.

  “Do you have any kin?” the captain asked.

  “No, sir.”

  Murray grunted. “Well, a will won’t do you much good if you have no one to inherit.”

  “What will happen to my house and my livestock—all my things, if …” Jack felt a knot in his chest constricting his breath.

  Murray cocked his head to one side. “If you’re convicted of murder, the commonwealth will probably seize your property.”

  The thought of Dole getting Tryphenia and her calf infuriated Jack. Who would be plowing with his stout oxen next week? Who would harvest the barley and corn he had planted?