The air was oppressively warm and the evening was so still that Logan could hear his heart thudding within his chest. He hardly needed his coat. The wind and chill of the morning had been almost welcome compared to this. It foreboded more ill weather to come, though that fact hardly mattered to Logan at this moment. He would be gone from here before the storm broke. All this mental turmoil would be behind him. He’d be rich. And he’d be gone.
He had descended from his room with a resolute determination. His mind cried out for him to stop, but he refused to listen. From the tool rack he grabbed a shovel, then walked past the stalls of horses. He would not risk the commotion it might cause to take out a mount at this time of night. When he stepped outside, intuitively he clung to the shadows as he crept stealthily along the sides of the buildings. ’Tis only fitting, he mused, that I act the part of the thief for this, my final job at Stonewycke. Looking over his shoulder, he crossed an open space to the point where, he recalled, a breach in the great hedge surrounding the courtyard existed.
In the morning, early, he’d go into town and leave specific instructions with the innkeeper that he had to leave for Aberdeen immediately, and then Edinburgh. He’d say he was expecting friends and they could be directed to follow him. He would give him the names of two hotels in each of the cities. Thus when Morgan’s hoodlums came looking for him, they would follow his trail south and would not have to force any information from anyone. His one final favor to these people would be to avoid a confrontation or bloodshed in Port Strathy. These arrangements done, he would return to Ramsey Head, retrieve the treasure, or as much of it as he could reasonably take with him, and make his way on foot along the coast toward Fraserburg and then possibly Peterhead. He would lay low there for a long while; he’d have left no trail to lead anyone to him, and eventually he’d catch a schooner bound straight through for London.
The face of Allison kept intruding into his mind, but he forced it from him. His plan may have been foolproof. But inside he was miserable. He walked steadily faster, as if tiring his body would keep the voices of conscience and old ladies and old grooms and old poets at bay.
But he could not keep the words and images from that day out. Something had begun to open within him, and now that the door was ajar, a torrent of unwelcome thoughts pressed to find entrance.
“I think you are running from God,” the lady had said.
If she could only see him now! Half walking, half running along the road, shovel in hand, his motives hidden by darkness, on his way to steal that which was rightfully hers. What a picture he made!
Was she right? Was this flight symbolic of his running away from truth . . . running away from God? Was he using the treasure and the supposed threat of Morgan’s thugs as just another excuse not to face up to himself—who he was, what he was doing? Was he trying to bolster his cowardice with noble-sounding gestures, thinking what a brave man he was to save the town from Morgan’s men and put them on his own trail, when in reality he was afraid to stand up to the most basic truth of all—the truth of his own sinfulness, the truth of his need for God? Afraid . . . that was all he was. A coward.
“I knew a man who tried to run from God . . .” Lady Margaret’s words echoed in his mind. “But he knew no peace until the moment he stopped . . .”
What was his life—what had his life always been but a sham? A giant con game played upon no one but himself. What he had taken for contentment had been nothing more than a thick protective wall to enclose his fears and insecurities. He had seen that very thing in Allison and had been quick to identify it. But in himself he had been blind to it—until now. He had been hiding . . . running . . . covering up the truth of his ugly nature.
Did he want to stop running? Did he want to stop the sham, the con? Did he want to break down the walls with which he had been trying to protect his heart?
Logan was physically running now, gripping the shovel so tightly that his hand and arm muscles ached. His whole body was drenched with perspiration, but even he—self-reliant, calm, cocky Logan Macintyre—could not mistake the tears streaming down his face for sweat from his forehead. He was crying, and he knew it. Yet somehow in the anguish which precedes new birth, he could not be ashamed. They were tears, if not of comfort, yet of healing, and it felt good to unleash them.
What would it be like, he wondered, just once, to make the kind of selfless sacrifice that his uncle had? After all, Digory MacNab’s blood ran in his veins also. Could it . . . be possible that . . . perhaps he might be able to know the peace and freedom that the old groom must have had? Again the words of the old poem came into his mind, Thou hast to freedom fashioned them indeed. Had he been made for freedom, and refused it all along?
Could he make the necessary sacrifice? Could he lay down his self? Could he give up the treasure?
He would gladly do so to have the joy in his heart that Lady Margaret had. But would he have the courage to face them, to expose himself for what he was, to face their rejection, and possibly prosecution? Would he have the courage to make amends for the life he had lived, to repay those he had swindled? Could he make such a gigantic change?
Gradually Logan’s pace slowed, and he came to a halt. All was still and silent around him. The only sound he could hear was the breathing of his own lungs, and the distant call of the sea where he was headed. Silent tears of decision continued to flow.
He could go on like this all the rest of his life—blindly running and hiding, seeking one elusive treasure after another, playing con after con on himself, always trying to convince himself of what Lady Margaret had known was a bold-faced lie from the beginning—that he needed no one else. But now that his eyes were open to his true self, could he continue on in that way? Could he go back to his former life and ignore what his heart was prompting him to do?
Logan sank to his knees. “Oh, God . . . !” he cried, throwing the shovel from him and burying his face in his hands. “God, help me! Forgive me for what I’ve been . . . help me become . . . a true man!” And with the words Logan broke down into an impassioned fit of penitent sobbing.
———
It was ten minutes before he rose. The tears had dried and the prayers of his heart had soothed his agitated spirit. He picked up the shovel, took one last look down the road on which he had been headed, took a deep breath, turned, and began walking in the opposite direction. He had a more important treasure awaiting him at Stonewycke.
As he retraced his steps back toward the estate, the awful burden which had been bearing down upon him all day lightened by degrees. Yet he knew in one sense he had only begun. For the first step in beginning to live differently would be to make reparations for the wrong he had done. For a life such as Logan’s, that would be no easy matter. And the first step might be the hardest of all—to come clean before the people he had been trying to hoodwink.
But he did not have long to think about these things, for before he was halfway back he saw a figure dart behind a thick clump of broom.
“Who’s there?” he called, stealing cautiously forward.
Then two men, large and imposing, stepped out from the cover of the bush. It was dark, and on first glance Logan registered no recognition. Then gradually it began to dawn on him. He had sat between them, long ago it seemed, in a fancy Rolls Royce. Here were Chase Morgan’s henchmen, sooner than he had expected. He did not have long to ponder, however, when another voice yelled behind him.
“It’s time we talked, Macintyre!”
Logan spun around.
Though he had seen Ross Sprague in Hamilton’s pub, Logan did not now recognize him. What he did recognize was the pistol Sprague held in his right hand.
Logan hardly thought about his next act. It was generated instinctively, from panic rather than logic. Remembering the shovel he still held, he swung mightily at Sprague’s arm. The impact knocked the gun loose and into the heather and Sprague into the ditch on the side of the road. But the other two were on him in a moment. Logan barely had time to hope that if they had guns they might be reluctant to use them this near the house. Clumsily he wielded the shovel at once as a battle-ax and lance. He thrust forward, clipping Cabot in the head and knocking him temporarily unconscious. Lombardo, left alone in the attack, charged Logan. Had the thug gotten a firm hold on him, Logan would surely have been finished. But the big man, thinking through his attack none too clearly, simply rushed at Logan angrily, with all the deftness of a wild bull. Logan let him come, then at the last moment, stepped aside, shoved the shovel into Lombardo’s oversized torso, and pushed with all his might. The uncoordinated goon was taken completely off his guard, stumbled over a rock, and crashed off the road somewhere near his cohort Sprague.
Logan did not even wait for Lombardo to land. The last thing Logan wanted was to bring danger to Stonewycke. But for the first time in his life he realized—with a humility that was new to him—that he was in over his head. He could handle this alone no longer. He needed the help of his friends.
He threw down the shovel and ran for the house.