“Don’t like the food?”
I glance down at my bowl. Most of it is uneaten. I’m pushing the remaining stew around with a piece of bread. “It’s just . . . you’ve given me a lot to think about.”
Chairs scrape as a handful of customers rises to leave. When they exit, light pours in through the door, and I have a brief but perfect view of the street. Two tall fellows stand there, peering inside and not even trying to be subtle about it. I recognize them as the polite gunmen in nice wool suits we met at the Custom House: Large and Larger.
“We were followed,” I tell Jim.
He nods. “As long as they don’t come inside. Just keep your voice low.”
I’m not sure Large and Larger can see me from where they stand, but just in case, I take a defiant sip of coffee and stare over the edge of the mug at them as if I’m not afraid at all.
“Anyway, I came to San Francisco planning to set up a new general store,” Jim says. “It’s like Dahlonega all over again. In two or three years, once the rush settles and regular business gets established, that’ll be the way to make a living. But every piece of property I look at costs too much. And your best business is regular customers, folks that come in month after month, year after year. There can be no regulars if your neighborhood changes every time the moon wanes. All because of the problems I’ve been describing to you.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m not going back to Georgia, that’s for damn sure. I hear parts of Canada are pretty nice.” He pushes back from the table.
I put a hand on his arm. “Wait.”
He sits back down, eyeing me warily. Gray hair grows at his temples now, which is new since I last saw him. The trip west was hard on us all. “That’s right. You wanted to ask me something about your uncle.”
If Jim thinks it’s safe to talk freely here, then I have to get my questions out now. “Well, him and Mama, actually. After I got to California, Uncle Hiram found me. He . . . kidnapped me.”
“Oh, Miss Leah, I’m so sorry.” He leans toward me, forearms on the table. “But you got away? You said Hiram wasn’t a problem anymore.”
“He held me captive. Dressed me up in clothes my mama used to wear. He had this mine going, worked by local Indians. It was awful. They were sick and starving and there was an uprising and . . .” My heart beats too fast, my breath comes in gasps, as memories pour in. I’m not over what happened yet. Not by a long shot.
“Take your time,” Jim says.
It’s a long moment before I trust my voice to obey. “Before I got away, he told me something. I thought maybe you’d know if it was true or not.”
“Oh?”
“He said I was his very own daughter. Not Reuben’s girl, but his. That he and Mama . . .”
“Ah,” Jim says. “I see.” He regards me with frank honesty. “I always suspected.”
“You did?”
“Your mama, Elizabeth, was all set to marry Hiram. They were sweethearts. But then one day she suddenly got herself hitched to his brother, Reuben, instead. No one was more surprised than Hiram. He carried a grudge ever since.”
I’m frowning. “But that was years before I came along.”
Jim nods. “Hiram carried a torch for Elizabeth for a long time. It was plain as day to anyone with eyes. But a man like that can’t truly love another person. He can only love selfishly, his heart full of his own needs. I think . . . I think maybe he . . .”
“You think he raped her.”
His lips press together into a firm line.
My next words are a whisper. “Did Daddy know?”
“I reckon so.” Jim’s gaze turns fierce. “Your daddy loved you more than life itself, don’t think he didn’t. You were his very own daughter in every way that mattered.”
“I know.”
“But you might have noticed that Hiram left Dahlonega. He wasn’t much welcome after that.”
“I hardly saw him or heard tell of him, growing up.”
“And when your parents were murdered, and you came to my store all forlorn but with the fire of determination in your eyes, I had a pretty good idea who had done it. I knew you had to get out of town as quick as possible.”
I reach for his hand and give it a squeeze. “I wouldn’t have made it without you.”
Another group stands and clears out. The proprietor is giving us the side-eye. Maybe we’ve overstayed our welcome. Maybe he’s a spy for Hardwick after all, no matter what Jim thinks.
But there’s one more thing.
“Jim, I have to ask.” My voice is a deadly whisper now. I trust Jim, I do, but I can’t risk being overheard. “Did Daddy ever tell you anything about me? I mean . . . anything special that . . . I can do?”
His eyes sparkle. “You mean the way you can recite the presidents backward and forward?” he whispers back.
“Um, no. I mean—”
“Oh, I know. It’s the way you can hammer together a sluice in under twenty minutes.”
“Well, that too, but—”
“I’ve got it! Reuben once told me you could blow a spit wad through a piece of straw and hit something at four paces.”
“Six paces!” I glare at him, realizing he’s funning me. “So you do know.”
“Yep. Since before you could walk. It’s an amazing thing, Leah. An amazing thing.”
“It’s one reason Hiram chased me all the way across the continent.”
“I figured. He was the only person besides me who knew. If your mama had had her way, even I wouldn’t have known.”
“But the thing is . . .” I glance around. Lots of customers remain, and no doubt plenty of them understand English just fine. “Jim, do you have any idea where it came from? I mean, I know Mama left Boston in a hurry. She hated it whenever I said the word ‘witch’ or even just mentioned what I could do. She had a mighty fear. And I was wondering . . . did she have a gift too? Something special she could do?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “She did.”
“What?”
The proprietor turns, startled. My face flushes.
“What was it?” I repeat, back to a whisper.
“She could find lost things.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “I don’t remember anything like that. Not one single instance of . . .”
“She only used it once that I know of,” he says. “It was a few weeks after the Cherokee were forced out of Dahlonega by President Jackson. Old Man McCauley came bursting into the store, saying he couldn’t find his five-year-old boy.”
“You mean Jefferson!”
He nods. “Your daddy was with me that day. McCauley told us Jefferson had been missing for hours. He was afraid the boy had gone after his mama, who was halfway to Oklahoma Territory by then.”
I know this story. Well, part of it. Jefferson told me my daddy found him in a ditch by the road, several hours out of town.