No Nest for the Wicket(47)

And while the colonel looked like a Pruitt—round-faced and already running to jowls beneath the bushy beard—I couldn’t remember seeing an echo of her features in any of the modern Pruitts I knew. I figured I should check the family genealogy, though, because her strong, sharp features looked familiar. Probably many old local families were descended from the determined-looking colonel’s lady.

“What’s wrong?” Michael asked.

“Nothing’s wrong. It’s just amazing to think that they could have held these very photos over a hundred and forty years ago. We’re touching pieces of history.”

“We’ve been touching pieces of history for several hours now,” Michael said, yawning. “You only just noticed? About half a ton of history by now. I’ve got little crumbly bits of history all over my hands and clothes. Or does it only count as history if someone’s put it in a book?”

“It counts, but I don’t get excited right now unless it’s history we can use to fend off the outlet mall,” I said, putting the manila folder carefully aside.

“Well, let’s hurry and search the rest of the history for more useful bits,” Michael said, reaching for another box. “You realize that these photos, fascinating as they are, don’t to a thing to prove or disprove Mrs. Pruitt’s story of the battle.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s only one photo of the battle—the aftermath, anyway. We might prove it’s Mr. Shiffley’s pasture those bodies are lying in, but even that would be hard. We have no idea if it really was taken in July 1862. Could have been anytime during the Civil War, and some Pruitt assumed it was their pet battle and labeled it decades after the fact.”

“You’re right,” I said, nodding. “Furthermore, we know Jedidiah Pruitt existed, but not his rank, or even that he was in the Confederate army—he’s wearing civilian clothes in the photo. Naming his daughter Victoria Virginia could have been a generic patriotic act rather than a commemoration of a particular battle.”

“In short, something happened on that field during the Civil War, but we have only the Pruitts’ version.”

“We also have the Clarion’s version,” I said. “From 1862 and 1954. Which has some details that aren’t exactly flattering to the colonel, so I believe it more than Mrs. Pruitt’s account.”

“Yes, but who knows what unflattering details they omitted,” Michael said. “After all, the Pruitts used to own the Clarion.”

“They did? In 1862 or 1954?”

“Both. They founded it just before the Civil War and didn’t give it up till one of them ran it into bankruptcy in the sixties. So maybe they published a few negative details that they didn’t dare leave out, because everyone already knew them—but who knows what they suppressed?”

“We need to find more source material,” I said, nodding.

“Which means back to the boxes,” Michael said with a sigh.

I glanced at the photos again before I dug back in. Now that we’d raised so many questions about the real story behind them, I found it easier to resist their pull. Especially the melodramatic one with the scrap of cloth fluttering on the wire. Something about that bothered me. Maybe it was a famous Civil War photo of some other battle. I could ask Joss later.

The Morris dancers ceased and desisted around 11:30, and we finished the last box shortly thereafter. Apart from the folder that I felt sure was the original source material for the Caerphilly Clarion’s article on the Battle of Pruitt’s Ridge, we didn’t find anything else relevant.

“Of course, how do we know what’s relevant?” Michael said. “Not being Lindsay, we can’t really guess what she was looking for.”

We both contemplated the boxes in silence for a few moments.

“Tell me—” I began, then stopped myself.

“Tell you what?” Michael said after a second.

“I was about to ask you to tell me about Lindsay. But it sounds like I’m prying into your past, and I’m not. Just wondering what she was like.”

“And why someone would have wanted to kill her,” he said. “I understand.”

“Do you mean you understand what I’m asking, or you understand why someone would want to kill her?”

“Maybe both,” he said. He looked nostalgic—no, that wasn’t the word for it. More a cross between wistful and rueful, if there was such a thing. He frowned and thought. I waited.

“When I first met her,” he said finally, “I admired her fierceness.”

“Fierceness?” Perhaps I’d just discovered the secret of his ability to tolerate Spike.