chapter 24
Saturday, September 8, 8:00 a.m.
The grandfather clock in the parlor of the McGowan home chimed at 8:00 a.m. The heavy, sweeping rains battered against the thick storm shutters and on the small, circular windowpanes for which there was no protection.
Each torrent of water was driven on by a vicious wind, the likes of which Philip Harper could scarcely remember since the storm of ’86. The great McGowan mansion creaked and heaved on its raised foundations under the impact of the strongest gales.
Still feeling the cold damp after changing his clothes, Philip looked out once more at the barometer hanging outside a small window in the parlor.
He shivered, his breathing becoming short and uneven again at the sight of the steady fall of the red line of mercury. Should have kept going and caught that last train for Houston. I've done my best, Lorena, but he just won’t listen. Only old men and young fools turn back and try to fix something they can’t.
Philip rubbed his hands together, trying to knead the warmth back into his aching bones and muscles, the warmth that had disappeared with strike after strike of gale winds against his face and hands.
What did he really want to tell Bret anyway? It didn’t matter what he saw back then in the worst times of the war. And who was going to believe dead William McGowan’s old house nigger anyway?
Philip heard the latch on the front door turn.
The door pushed open and a thick shower of rain sprayed across the hallway carpet. Bret and Miss Caldwell, drenched head to toe and shivering, stumbled into the house.
Philip took a deep breath. He stood, rushed forward and slammed the swaying door tight behind them. For a moment he stared at the shuddering, soaked couple in silence, resisting the overpowering urge to embrace them like his lost children finally returned home.
Bret’s expression was flat, his eyes pale, weathered away by more than the rain. Then . . . a twinkle of blue and a crinkle in the corner. “Miss your train?”
“Trains run every day, sir. There’s always another one tomorrow . . . or the day after that.”
Bret chuckled. “Damn it, man. You're looking at me like I’ve just risen from Davy Jones’ Locker.”
“Miss Caldwell and you keep standing there dripping in those wet clothes, then I believe that’s exactly where you’ll be headed. Now get inside here, both of you.”
Philip put his hands on their shoulders and led them toward the parlor.
Gabrielle looked up at the grandfather clock in the parlor as it chimed at noon. The storm had increased its howling intensity again, forcing Bret’s house to rasp and scrape increasingly with every passing hour.
She finished rolling up the sleeves of a workman’s torn flannel shirt, then turned up the cuffs of the groundskeeper’s worn blue jeans. “I fancy my stylish lady’s ensemble will make quite the impression at our next gala. What do you think, Bret?”
Gabrielle stood and laughed, cinching the rawhide belt tightly against her waist. She laughed again hoping to provoke Bret into a little good-natured kidding but try as she might, she could not penetrate his detached, menacing expression.
Bret remained in his father’s old upholstered chair near the growing flames in the fireplace. He clenched and unclenched his hands with quick, jerky motions as he gnashed his teeth like a cornered animal.
Philip stirred the embers and fanned the fire.
“Are you sure?” Bret asked Philip. “Nothing at all?” He rubbed his wet hair with the towel again.
Philip sat on one of the stuffed Ottoman chairs, massaging his temples with his thumb and index finger. “Coming home I saw Colonel Hayes with his man, Oscar, leading their horse. Colonel says the wagon bridge and all three train trestles were washed out around sometime after midnight. Had to leave their buggy with the rest and wade through waist-high water just to get home . . . and the wind . . .”
He shook his head. “That’s the worst part. Oscar said down near the water it’s rolling up tin roofs like lids off a sardine can and blowing telephone poles around like hay stalks. I tried the telephone soon as I got back but the line is dead.”
Gabrielle started for the wall telephone in the hallway. “But I have to talk to my father and tell him I’m safe.” She reached for the earpiece on the cradle.
“I told you, Miss Caldwell, I tried and it’s no use. The telephone lines are down and we’re cut off from the mainland. All of us . . . we’re going to have to wait this one out here.”
Thunder boomed, exploding across the battlefield of the sky, rocking the great house again on its raised foundations.
Gabrielle let the silent earpiece fall limp and dangling on its cord. Through one of the portal windows, she watched the rapid plunging of the last remaining daylight into the raging darkness of the storm.