Luke blinked back a few tears and smiled.
Lewis felt he had no need for similar words when it came to Moses — he had received the blessing he craved on the day he had announced he was going west. He merely wished the boy good luck and, at the last moment, thrust a letter into his pocket. “It’s for Will,” he said. “And Nabby.”
Moses looked wary and Lewis laughed. “It’s all right. It’s not a tirade. I’m just opening the door a crack.”
It had taken him nearly an hour to compose the short letter. He was a man from whom words flowed easily as a rule, and yet his emotions on this topic were so complex and confused that he found it difficult to summarize them into any sort of coherent statement. In the end, he kept it short, and hoped that it would be received in the same spirit that it was offered:
My Dear Will and Nabby,
I sincerely regret the terms on which we parted and I would like to proffer my apologies for any offence I may have given. I am unwilling to let our differences of opinion come between us any longer, and I would like, at the very least, to see a restoration of communication within our family. Your mother and I are anxious to know how you are getting on.
If there is any way in which I can assist you, now or in the future, I hope you will not hesitate to call upon me.
With great love,
Your father
The letter cost him dearly in terms of his pride, and he feared it would quite probably cost him money in the future, but he was determined to make peace with his eldest son. He would let this boil fester no longer.
V
The brick house in Belleville was shuttered and empty when they rode past. He knew that the Simms family had removed themselves to Kingston after selling off a great number of their belongings, for Sally, the girl who had taken up with Spicer, reported it all in great detail.
“They went without giving me the last of my wages,” she said. “I was tempted to set the law on them, but they were such a sorry looking lot that I didn’t have the heart.”
Lewis felt that Sally was the perfect match for Spicer. She was rough in speech and manner, but a hard worker and a generous soul. She teased him mercilessly in a good-natured way, and Morgan would sputter and protest until he realized that she was joking with him, and for a time his too-serious demeanour would lift a little.
She had already found another position with a family that needed help with their heavy tasks — the laundry and the scrubbing — and the woman she worked for was instructing her in the kitchen. It was obvious that Morgan adored Sally, and she him, and she confided to Lewis that they were just waiting until he received his appointment and she had saved a little more money, and then they would be asking him to officiate at their marriage ceremony. Lewis had no doubt that this would take place in the not-too-distant future. Spicer had proved himself, and with a little more instruction, Lewis would have no hesitation in recommending him to be received on trial.
Even though the sun was barely above the horizon in the morning sky, there was already a crowd gathered around the jail. Hangings were popular affairs, and like most, this one would be held in the open air to afford onlookers an excellent view. The yard had already been staked out, blankets were spread, and chairs had been brought in. Whole families had been hunkered down in these spots since the previous evening, and small children ran back and forth while their parents anchored the seats. It was a field day for merchants of all descriptions — food and beverage were being hawked, mementos of the occasion had been hastily manufactured and were offered for sale, small bibles and books were in great demand. Lewis thought wryly of the Caddicks’ pins. It was a shame they were no longer making them. They would have done a brisk business on a day such as this.
He left his horse with Spicer and shouldered his way through the crowd. Three constables were stationed at the door to the jail, turning away those attempting to get inside. Some had good reason to demand admittance — there were several newspapers represented — but most were simply the morbidly curious or the seekers of notoriety who wanted to claim a special connection with the hanged man that they could parlay into a fleeting fame or, far more likely, a few drinks at the tavern.
One of the constables recognized Lewis. “Are you here to offer comfort, Preacher?” he asked.
Lewis nodded. There was no reason to add that the comfort would be his own, not Simms’s. The constable opened the door and let him slip through, to the roaring disapproval of the mob gathered outside.
Simms seemed to be himself, the affable peddler, again, and quite aware of what was about to happen. It was hard to believe that this calm, pleasant-looking man was a convicted murderer. He looked up as Lewis entered.
“Lewis. Good of you to come. Thank you.”
“Are you prepared for this, Isaac?”
“Yes. There’s been a minister — Anglican, of course — and I’ve received as much comfort as I can expect to get from that quarter. To tell the truth, I just want it over with. All of it. I want it ended.”
“This is only the first of the accountings you’ll have to make, I’m afraid.”
Simms nodded. “I know. I’ll speak before they hoist me. That’s a good first step, I think.” He turned away and faced the light from the small window set high in the wall of the cell. “There were five of them, you know, all told. I’m only being hanged for the one, but I feel I should confess to the others. It may bring some small comfort to the families.”
“It will. For one of them was my daughter.”
Simms spun around. “Your daughter?!” He closed his eyes, and began to shake again, just slightly. “Oh, my God, I should have known. I wondered why you were so determined, why you seemed to dog me. Everyone else was content to count them natural deaths, or brush them aside, but you wouldn’t let go. But for you, I’d have gone on killing forever. Why did you take so long to stop me?”
In spite of the shaking, his voice had become flat and toneless, a fact that Lewis found more chilling than if he had wept or shouted as he had on previous occasions. “I didn’t mark them out deliberately, you know. They just happened to be there. Which one was your daughter?”
“The first, I believe. On the eve of the rebellion.”
Simms nodded. “Everywhere I went that night there were men on the move, with weapons in their hands, moving like ghosts through the woods and down the back roads. Mackenzie had called down the smell of blood, and men were answering to it. I tried to run from it, go in the opposite direction, get away from it — yet they kept passing me, marching by on the way to their doom. I ran as far as I could. Then I saw her — Esther. She was standing in front of a cabin by a dooryard well, her chestnut hair spilling down her back. It took my breath away; I thought my heart had stopped, for I never expected to see her there. And I saw my chance. A chance to end it. I knew that death would soak the ground that night, and who would notice but one more?”
“No, not Esther. Sarah.”
But Simms had ceased to hear him.
“And the next thing I knew,” he went on, “she was dead beneath my hands. I don’t recollect leaving the little Book of Proverbs, but I must have, for my stock was short by one the next day. I know I did something with the pin, for it seemed as though she needed a prayer to go with her.
Lewis grabbed one of the iron bars of the cell to steady himself, for surely he would swoon to the floor if he didn’t. He wanted to scream for Simms to stop talking, stop telling him what had happened to Sarah. But he couldn’t, for he needed to know.
“And