Small Favors Read online

  “Merry, why don’t you take Sadie and some of the other children over to the schoolyard?” I asked, my hands fluttering uselessly about my little sister’s face as I tried to keep the scene from her. The supply train had left just a day before, with Jebediah McCleary and Samson at the lead. Whatever had happened since then didn’t need to be heard by a seven-year-old, no matter how very grown-up she fancied herself.

  Sadie squirmed to avoid my grasp, blond braids flying. “I want to stay,” she protested. “I’m not a baby anymore.”

  “No one said you were—” I started, but Merry skillfully cut me off.

  “Look, there’s Pardon and Trinity.” She pointed to Sadie’s friends. They also lingered on the outer edge of the group, standing on tiptoes to catch what they could. “Did you hear, Trinity picked up five jacks last week? On just one swipe.”

  “That’s impossible!” Sadie scoffed, eyeing her friend with outright suspicion.

  Merry shrugged. “It’s what she said.”

  Sadie reached into her pocket and removed a handful of metal trinkets. “I’ve got mine. Let’s see if she can prove it.” She always kept a set of jacks on her, and we all knew it.

  I offered Merry a grateful smile as our little sister loudly challenged the girls to a game of jacks. They were soon out of earshot, spreading their lightweight voile skirts across the schoolhouse steps. Though Merry immediately joined their game, engaging and distracting them, I felt her worried stare like a tangible weight.

  “You won’t! You won’t!” Molly screamed, railing at Elder Matthias Dodson and snapping my attention back. The blacksmith stood over her and the horse, pistol in hand. “Jeb would never allow it.”

  “Molly, look at his leg. The bone is shattered. There’s no way to fix that. He’ll never walk again.”

  “He came back here, didn’t he? It can’t be as bad as you think.”

  My breath caught as I spotted the broken hind leg. It twisted to the side at an impossibly wrong angle. Matthias was right. The bones would never properly heal. Samson would have to be put down. It was criminal, allowing him to linger in such blatant misery.

  Approaching thirty, Matthias was the youngest of the three town Elders, and he rubbed at the back of his neck like a little boy, clearly wishing someone else would intercede. “I don’t…I don’t know how he made it this far, but we can’t—”

  “Jeb will never forgive me. No. No, you can’t.” Her hand ran across the stallion’s sleek black hide. It came away wet and red.

  “Molly, it’s not just the ankle….”

  “I said no!” She was on her feet in an instant, pushing at him, pushing at the gun.

  The crowd took an uneasy step back. Molly had covered the worst of the stallion’s injuries, and the front of her dress was slick with the animal’s blood. His side was clawed open by four deep marks, revealing sinew and bone. Samson shifted uncomfortably, his breathing labored. Flecks of white foam gathered in the corners of his velvety lips.

  Mama stepped in, her hands out to show she meant no harm. Her voice was low and soothing as she rubbed comforting circles across the woman’s back, just like when we were too sick to leave bed. “Samson is hurting, Molly.”

  She nodded miserably.

  “I know it’s hard, but he’s trusting you to be brave, to do the right thing.”

  “I know.” Molly’s voice croaked out. “But Jeb…”

  “Jeb will understand.”

  Shivering, Molly threw herself into my mother’s arms, staining her dress. “He’ll want to do it himself. He has to do it. He’d never forgive me if…”

  Mama turned, her clear blue eyes searching the crowd. They met mine for only a moment before shifting on, looking for a man who was not there. “Then, where is he? Was he taken to Dr. Ambrose already? Where’s the rest of the party?”

  Matthias’s jaw clicked. “No one else came back. That poor horse came tearing down the road, eyes rolled nearly to the back of his head. Never seen anything like it…but Jeb wasn’t with him.”

  I glanced toward the tree line as if the rest of the supply train might come bursting forth at any moment, racing away from whatever had mauled the fallen stallion. But the pines loomed over the Falls like watchful sentinels, tall and unmoving.

  Molly fell to the ground with a violent shudder, grabbing at the saddle blanket and burying her screams within it. They welled up deep within her, as pointed and sharp as barbed thorns, tearing at everything they could on the way out. “He’d never leave that horse. Not if he were…” The sobs broke her words apart.

  Mama knelt beside her, whispering things too soft for us to hear. Eventually she helped the suffering woman to her feet, and they slowly made their way up the steps to the general store. Before Mama disappeared over the threshold, she turned back with a firm nod to Matthias. “Do it.”

  The bloody business was over before we had a chance to look away.

  A tarp was thrown over the body so we didn’t have to look at the poor beast.

  But I couldn’t draw my eyes away, watching four red lines bloom across the canvas, even as Samuel slipped in beside me, like a matching bookend. Though obviously not identical twins, with our fine golden hair and soft gray eyes, there was no doubt we were kin.

  “What happened on that supply run?” I whispered, my insides turning and twisting. If there was something out in the woods that could have taken down a horse of Samson’s size, I shuddered to guess what it could do to a person.

  He adjusted the brim of his straw hat, scanning the forest. “I don’t know.”

  “The other men…do you think they’re—”

  “I don’t know, Ellerie,” he repeated firmly.

  “Where were you this morning?”

  “I was…I was over near the shoreline, and we heard shouting. By the time I got here, Samson was already…” He pointed to the tarp. “With that gash, and the ankle…But it’s like Matthias said, there weren’t any others….Just him.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  He dragged his eyes from the trees. “Hmm?”

  “You said ‘we heard shouting.’ Who’s ‘we’?”

  A short, middle-aged woman pushed her way to the front of the crowd before Samuel could answer me. “It obviously was an attack of some sort,” Prudence Latheton, the carpenter’s wife, guessed. “Wolves, probably.”

  “Never seen a wolf with claws that big,” Clemency Briard said, running his fingers over the tarp where the marks had bled through. Even with the parson’s fingers spread as wide as they could, the wound was bigger still. “Must have been a bear.”

  “But the howling…” Prudence trailed off. Her faded blue eyes looked about the group, seeking confirmation. “You’ve all heard it too, haven’t you? In the night? It’s been…just awful. And so close to town.”

  I knew what she spoke of. For the past three nights I’d awoken to the sound of the wolves. Their cries haunted the dark, horribly pitched and chilling. Even though I knew I was safe in our loft, I’d press myself against Merry’s back, snuggling close, unable to warm myself.

  “There was a grizzly near the tree line just last week,” Cyrus Danforth confirmed. “Biggest damn thing I ever saw.” He gestured to his shoulders, estimating its height. “And that was just on all fours. It was nosing around the Abels’ smokehouse. Didn’t think it’d…Not this.”

  “Where are the other Elders?” Papa asked, looking to Matthias. “We should be forming a search party.”

  The blacksmith scratched at his beard, as dark and shiny as a beaver pelt. “I haven’t seen Leland Schäfer. Cora said he went out along the western ridge with the flock this morning. He wouldn’t have heard any of the commotion from out there.”

  “And Amos?”

  We all glanced back uneasily to the general store. We could hear the old man’s sobs even from here.
r />   “He and Martha ought to be with Molly now,” Matthias concluded. “And, Parson Briard? Perhaps they’d appreciate some comforting words from you?”

  Clemency’s thick lips twisted with dismay. He clearly wanted to stay and watch the drama unfold. With a sigh, he gathered himself up, stretching as tall as his squat frame would allow, before giving out a benevolent nod. “I suppose you’re right, Matthias. Keep the McClearys in your prayers. Good Blessings to you all.”

  “Good Blessings,” we repeated as he headed toward the store, his steps now charged with purpose.

  “We’ll organize this on our own,” Papa said, returning to the problem at hand. “If there was an attack, bear or otherwise, the supply train could have scattered. People may be injured and lost.”

  “The hell we will.” Cyrus spit out a sluice of tobacco, narrowly missing Prudence’s hemline. She jumped back, disgust wrinkling her nose. “That fool stallion probably threw Jeb and crossed paths with the bear before he could make it home.”

  Papa shook his head. The Danforth farm bordered along our fields. Our families had years of disagreements stacked between them, never truly forgotten. Papa and Cyrus could put on civil faces when needed, but the animosity was always simmering beneath the surface, threatening to boil over. “We owe it to the supply train to at least search the nearby woods.”

  “Look at that stallion. Torn to ribbons. You want that to happen to you, Downing? You want your wife and daughters seeing your riderless horse?”

  Papa narrowed his eyes. “Of course not. But if there’s a chance others could be alive—”

  Prudence’s husband, Edmund Latheton, reached out to Papa. He was even shorter than his wife, and his auburn beard was kept square and neat. “Gideon, maybe we should wait—the run should be back in another week or so…”

  “If you were out there, would you want us waiting a week?”

  Edmund swallowed, his jutting Adam’s apple bobbing up and down like a ship at sea. “I…no, but…we’ve seen things too. Not a grizzly,” he quickly clarified as his wife began to protest. “Or maybe it was….I don’t know. It was big, with silver eyes—”

  “Glowing silver eyes,” Prudence added.

  “Glowing silver eyes,” he agreed. “And it was fast. Faster than any bear I’ve seen.” He opened his mouth once, twice, clearly unsure how to finish the story. “Yes, if I was out in those woods, I’d want someone to come find me…but having seen that…thing…I don’t want to be the one going after them.”

  “Glowing silver eyes,” Cyrus repeated, waggling his fingers theatrically. “You sound as nutty as your pa did, Latheton.”

  Papa’s eyebrows shot up. “Is that you volunteering, then, Danforth?”

  Cyrus wiped a sodden handkerchief across his forehead. “Hardly. I’m not about to get myself killed for Jebediah McCleary. I don’t care if he is an Elder’s son. He knows the risks he takes every time he goes over the pass. And so does every other fool who went with him.”

  “You don’t benefit from those runs?” Papa asked, his voice heavy with skepticism.

  “I’m a self-made man,” Cyrus said, his chest puffed out as wide and important-looking as it would go, undoubtedly to try to make up for the several inches of height Papa had over him.

  “A self-made man who took sugar with his coffee this morning,” Samuel muttered, his nostrils flaring with derision.

  I was listening so intently to the argument that my brother’s comment first slid over me, unnoticed. But like a burr, it caught in my mind, prodding for recognition.

  I leaned in toward Samuel, lowering my voice. “How do you know how Cyrus Danforth takes his coffee?”

  “What?” he asked, unmoving. His eyes were fixed on Papa with a sudden intensity as if he couldn’t bear to look away.

  “You just said he had sugar this morning,” I pressed. “Why were you at the Danforths’?”

  “I—wasn’t.”

  Samuel was an awful liar. The tips of his ears always grew pink, and his sentences were reduced to stammering messes.

  A bit of movement at the edge of the group drew my attention, and I looked over to see Rebecca Danforth joining the crowd. My best friend raised her fingers with a small wave, and my own hand echoed in automatic response before I noticed that Samuel’s did the same.

  He’d focused wholly on Rebecca. When he dragged his eyes back to me, his smile died away and his cheeks turned a faint red.

  “Did you go see Rebecca this morning?” I hissed, my voice softer than a whisper. A bolt of realization struck me, leaving me aghast. “Is she why you’ve been sneaking off all summer? Rebecca Danforth?”

  “No!” he insisted. “Let it alone, Ellerie.”

  “Are you courting her?”

  “I said let it alone.”

  “But—”

  “Enough!” he growled. The thick lines of his eyebrows leveled into an angry ledge, and his face was splotchy.

  I snuck one last peek at Rebecca, my mind racing. When Mama had supposed that Samuel was off visiting a girl, it had never occurred to me it might be her. It just wasn’t possible.

  By all rights, we never should have become friends. The bad blood between our families went back generations, to even before her great-grandfather had killed mine. But as Danforths and Downings, we were always paired as desk-mates at school, and proximity can often create the best of relationships. We’d grown up sharing our pail lunches, weaving each other chains of clover, and swapping stories in the wildflower fields that separated her house from mine. Though we were no longer little girls, we still shared everything—books, recipes, even the few bits of jewelry we owned. She couldn’t have kept a secret like this from me.

  And Samuel…

  He was my twin. I should have sensed this; I should have known.

  But looking between them now, I knew I’d missed it. Whatever bond I’d shared with them wasn’t as strong as I’d imagined it to be. I’d been completely in the dark, without even an inkling of suspicion. My own cheeks heated and my stomach churned as I imagined how my cluelessness must have amused them.

  When had it begun? Rebecca had stayed overnight just last week. We’d slept in the barn’s hayloft, giggling about the boys in town till the moon had sunk behind the mountains. She must have thought it was such a good joke, never letting on about the truth. She must have thought I was the biggest fool, never guessing her secret.

  “I’m going into the woods,” Papa stated, firm enough to bring me back to the present. “Jeb would never have let that horse out of his sight—we have to assume something on that run went terribly, terribly wrong….I can’t make any of you come with me, but I can ask. It’s the right thing to do, no matter what might be out there.”

  “A fool’s errand,” Cyrus sniped. “And I’m no fool. I won’t be a part of any of this.” With a snarl, he released a final slug of tobacco. “Somebody bury that horse before it starts to smell.”

  He stalked off, muttering to himself. Rebecca’s lips pressed together into a thin line.

  Papa scanned the crowd, his dark gray eyes lingering on every man present. He paused, clearly hoping for others to volunteer. “Judd Abrams?”

  The tall rancher ran his hands through silvering hair, tousling it uncomfortably. “You know I would, but I’ve got a field of pregnant heifers, due any day. I can’t leave them.”

  Papa ran his tongue over his teeth. “Calvin Buhrman?”

  Violet grabbed her husband’s elbow, silently pleading with him to stay. After a moment of indecision, the tavern owner shook his tight, dark curls.

  “Matthias Dodson? Will you ride with me?”

  I hated the look of crushed hope in my father’s eyes as the Elder waved aside his plea. “You know I can’t leave town, especially with Amos in such a sorry state.”

  The three Elders were tied to the Falls in a w
ay that none of its other citizens were. They were the keepers of law and tradition, justice and order. While Parson Briard might have been in charge of nurturing and nourishing the soul of Amity Falls, the Elders protected its head and heart.

  “I’ll go with you, Papa.”

  I heard the words before realizing it was my own voice that spoke.

  There was a nervous titter from the group, but I didn’t care. I’d been there this morning to help him, and I wanted to help again now.

  I’d show him I was every bit as capable as Sam was.

  More so even.

  Because I was there. Here.

  I could be the reliable one he needed.

  My face burned crimson as Papa shook his head.

  “I could be of help. Even if it’s just…” I racked my mind, searching for something to lift the weight of defeat from his shoulders. “The brush Samson ran through! It’s bound to be bloodied. It’ll need to be burned away, or it’ll draw all sorts of things. Let me at least do that.”

  “I need you at home, Ellerie, looking after your sisters.”

  “Mama would have your hide if she knew you were going into the forest by yourself. And what about the Rules?” I persisted after Papa as he turned to go. “You can’t go alone.”

  Matthias opened his mouth, undoubtedly ready to offer some sort of dispensation he truly couldn’t make without the other two Elders, but Sam spoke up first.

  “She’s right, Papa.”

  Rebecca had stepped to his side, her hand curved just inches from his.

  “You can’t go by yourself.”

  “I didn’t hear you offering to go before. In fact, I’ve not heard you offering to do much of anything all summer,” Papa shot back.

  “I…” Any words that were to follow dried in Sam’s mouth as Papa’s eyes fell to Sam’s and Rebecca’s almost-held hands, missing nothing.

  “I see there is much to discuss when I return.”

  Samuel pushed aside Rebecca’s hand and ran after our father. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Sam!” Rebecca’s voice was soft and pleading, but my brother didn’t stop. He whizzed past me, and I had to step out of the way to avoid being hit.