Circle of Love(49)

Was it my imagination? she asked herself. Eddie was laughing and scurrying after a rabbit. Surely he would have heard the footsteps, if they had been real. Frances walked on, Eddie darting here and there to examine new things.

Again she heard the footsteps and the hoofbeats. She stopped and turned. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she said, “Come out, Seth. Talk to me. I won’t harm you.”

Eddie, eyes frightened, dashed to Frances’s side.

For a long moment there was nothing but silence. Then a horse whinnied, and Seth walked out from behind a thick stand of trees and brush, leading his horse. He wore his flat-brimmed black hat and Confederate jacket.

“Oh, Seth,” Frances said sadly, “why did you come after me?”

He came closer, one hand on the butt of the gun he had stuck into his belt. His face was hard, his mouth pressed into a thin, angry line as he glared at her. “I wanted you to know what it felt like to be tracked … to be hunted, as if you were no better than an animal. I told you I’d find you, wherever you were, didn’t I?”

Afraid of choosing the wrong words, Frances didn’t answer.

Finally Seth said, “You turned in my brothers and me. I didn’t think you’d do that. I never would have believed you could do a thing like that. You’re going to have to pay, Frances.”

Frances clutched the reins, pressing her trembling fingers into the folds of her skirt as she fought to stay calm. “You robbed those people on the train,” she answered. “And you were going to rob a bank. You planned to steal money from innocent people. Some of them wouldn’t be able to replace their savings.”

Seth shrugged. “Why should I worry about people I don’t even know? When I was in trouble did they do anythin’ for me?”

“How could they?” Frances asked. “They had no control over what our armies did.” Eddie squirmed, and Frances pressed one hand against his shoulder, warning him to be silent.

“Someone has to give instead of take. Someone has to care,” Frances told Seth. “You want someone to care about you.”

“Nobody cares about me, except my brothers,” Seth grumbled. “And that’s the way I like it.” His face twisted in pain. “I had hopes about you, but …”

His eyes on Frances, Seth slowly pulled his gun from his belt. “You turned me in,” he said. “You shouldn’t have done it. I got away, but my brothers are in jail.”

Frances, terrified, tried not to stare at the gun. “Seth,” she asked, “what good will it do to kill me?”

“You know,” he said. “It’s justice. It’s my way of gettin’ justice.”

“Lawlessness isn’t justice. Getting even doesn’t solve anything.”

Seth didn’t answer, so Frances—desperately hoping that he’d listen to reason—went on. “You told me you wanted to get revenge for what happened to your parents. Suppose your mother and father were standing here with us. They loved you. They cared about you. Do you think they’d want to see you shoot me because of some mixed-up notion you have about making things come out even?”

“You’ve got no right to talk about my parents!” Seth shouted.

“Sometimes I think about my own parents and the hopes they might have had for me. You’ll go to jail if you kill me. Your parents wouldn’t have wanted to see you in jail. Your parents wouldn’t have wanted you to become a murderer just to get revenge,” Frances told him.

“Be quiet,” Seth ordered. But there was a catch in his voice.

“I know you were good to your mother, and she was proud of you. And your father respected your courage in going off to fight for what you believed in, and—”

Seth, his eyes wet with tears, jabbed his handgun into his belt and yelled, “I wish I’d never met you, Frances Kelly!”

He leaped onto his horse, jerked at the reins, and kicked with his spurs. The horse leaped forward, eyes rolling, and shot off through the trees.

As Seth disappeared from sight, Eddie leaned against Frances and said, “I thought we were done for.”

“So did I,” Frances admitted.

“Do you think hell come back?”

“No,” Frances said. “I don’t think he will.” She hugged Eddie in relief, then gave in to her tears as she shook with fear at what might have happened.

Finally Frances hunted through the pockets of her skirt and came up with the wrinkled lace-trimmed handkerchief Mrs. Sebring had given her.

“You were great,” Eddie told her. “You said Seth had courage, but so do you.”

Frances thought about the children who had just been placed, who had walked away, hand in hand with strangers, to begin new lives. “So do we all,” she said, and managed to smile at Eddie.