38
Carlyn pulled away from Mitchell and whirled around, lifting her face to the sun while every inch of her tingled with joy. She laughed then, thinking of how she had finally learned to dance like a Shaker. Perhaps joy fell down on them in their worship and filled their heart, just as her heart was filling. With life. With hope. With the promise of tomorrow.
Then a shadow fell across her. When she looked around and saw the Shaker, she froze. With the sun behind the man, she couldn’t see his face, but who else would it be but Elder Derron? Sensing her fear, Asher growled.
“What’s wrong?” Mitchell had his arm around her again.
“It’s him.” She pointed. Mitchell wouldn’t know to suspect him until it might be too late. The elder might have her gun and force them both back in the cellar. “He locked me in there.”
“Nay, Sister. I would not do such a thing.” The man stepped closer.
Relief swept through Carlyn. It wasn’t the elder, but another Shaker. “I thought you were Elder Derron.”
“Surely you have no reason to fear him either,” the Shaker man said. “But I was right about the grave. Someone has been buried there.”
“Curt Whitlow,” Carlyn said. “Elder Derron buried him last night. He was in the cellar.”
“Are you saying the elder killed Curt Whitlow?” Mitchell asked.
“Nay, that could not be so,” the Shaker said. “The elder is a man of peace. You must be overwrought, Sister.”
Carlyn looked from the Shaker to Mitchell. “He said he didn’t kill him, that Curt died while locked away in the cellar.” She looked back at the Shaker. “He claimed not to know why except that your Mother Ann must be helping him, that perhaps she sent demons. But then he shot him.”
“Nay, Mother Ann sends us love, not demons.” The Shaker recoiled from her words. “Your story does not make sense, Sister.”
“Why did he shoot him?” Even Mitchell sounded a little skeptical.
“So if the grave was found, people would think I killed him. He had my gun.” Carlyn was relieved Mitchell kept his arm around her.
“You should not make up such dreadful stories, my sister.” The Shaker sounded so disapproving that Asher growled at him again.
“She’s not making up anything.” Mitchell stared down the man. “If she said he did it, then he did. We may never know why.”
“That can be easily solved. We will ask him.” The Shaker turned back toward the main village.
“He’ll lie. You can’t believe him.” Carlyn twisted around to look up at Mitchell. He had to believe her.
Mitchell touched her cheek. “You don’t have to worry about him now. He has to face his Maker with those lies.”
“He’s dead?” Carlyn couldn’t stop trembling.
The Shaker man whipped around to stare first at Mitchell, then the gun he wore. “How?”
“I didn’t shoot him, if that’s what you’re thinking. His own demons got to him first.” Mitchell tightened his arm around Carlyn and looked down at her. “When he heard Sister Edna had come to and was talking, he took his own life.”
“I do not believe you,” the Shaker said. “Not Elder Derron. He would not commit such a sin. One that cannot be forgiven.”
“Believe me or not, evil has been afoot here in your village and the elder succumbed to it.” Mitchell’s voice changed as he gave the man orders. “Tell your elders that I will need some men to dig up Whitlow’s body and a wagon to carry it back to town. His family will want to give him a proper burial.”
Carlyn felt a wave of sorrow for Curt’s widow. A widow like her.
After the man left, Mitchell tightened his arm around Carlyn’s waist. “I’ll take you back to one of the Shaker houses. You’ll have to wait for me there while I take care of things here.”
“Elder Derron is really dead?”
“Yes.”
“So much death. Perhaps my coming here did bring them misfortune as he said.” She was suddenly so tired.
“He brought the misfortune on himself by wrong actions. You had nothing to do with it.”
“But if I hadn’t seen Curt and Brother Henry arguing, perhaps none of this would have happened.” Carlyn stared down at the ground.
“The barn would have still burned. I doubt Elder Derron lit that fire.”
“He said not. He claimed his Mother Ann was protecting him by allowing Brother Henry to die in the fire so he couldn’t tell anyone about the trouble the elder was in with Curt. Everything else grew from that.”
“Nothing about it was your fault, Carlyn. Nothing.”
“Not all would say that is true.”
“Sister Edna would. She demanded I find you.”
Carlyn felt a smile coming back awake inside her. “She is demanding, but I should go see her. To thank her. Who would have ever thought I might owe my life to Sister Edna and a dog.” She reached down and laid her hand on Asher’s head.
“Don’t forget the sheriff.”
She looked back up at him then. “I could never forget the sheriff.” The smile slid out on her face.
“Then will you leave here with me?” He turned her toward the Shaker village and kept her close to him while they walked. “Let me find you a place?”
She liked it there in this place beside him. She looked back at Asher limping along behind them. “There has to be room for Asher.”
“No worries there.” Mitchell glanced back at the dog too. “Mrs. Snowden has been beside herself ever since he got away from her at the boardinghouse. He has a way of worming into your affections.”
Mitchell’s arm tensed a little around her. “Do you think I might ever gain some of your affections?”
“You already have.” Carlyn felt her cheeks warm.
“Then can there be hope of someday for us?”
His voice sounded so tentative, so unsure, that she couldn’t keep from smiling up at him. “There’s always hope, Mitchell.” She stopped and turned to look up at him. “When you asked before, I wasn’t going to say no. But I need time. Time to properly mourn Ambrose.”
“So you believe he’s gone now?”
“I know. I got a letter from a woman in the South who took him in after he was wounded in one of the battles. She buried him.”
“I’m sorry.”
And because he looked as if he really meant it, her heart warmed toward him even more. “He was a good man and I loved him very much.”
“I know.” He stared down into her eyes as though he could see to her heart. Perhaps he did as he went on. “But the heart has room for many loves.”
“Yes. Yes, it does.” Then she brazenly tiptoed up and put her lips against his there in the middle of the Shaker village with the sun shining down on them.