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Abner looked over his shoulder at Nancy as he ushered Lauralee toward the door. “Darling, I’ll be back as soon as I get this ugly business over with,” he said.
Lauralee also looked over at Nancy. “I’m sorry for having disturbed your evening, but I had to tell Uncle Abner.”
“I understand,” Nancy said. “Get along with you. I hope you catch him. I never did like the looks of Clint McCloud. By his shifty behavior I always thought he had a skeleton or two hidden in his closet.”
Lauralee and Abner went outside to his horse and buggy. They were soon riding away from the hospital, the horse moving in a fast trot along Western Avenue, toward Broadway.
“Besides him being a railroad man, do you know this Clint McCloud, otherwise?” Lauralee asked. “Please don’t tell me you were in his regiment during the war.”
“Honey, I had more control of my destiny during the Civil War than being ordered around by the likes of Clint McCloud,” Abner said, laughing throatily. He slapped his horse’s reins, rode over the railroad tracks, then turned left onto Broadway. “I knew of his regiment and heard tell of some of the horrendous acts they pulled. But I came to know him better by his association with the railroads here in town. He has quite an influence on any improvements that are voted on for the railroad.”
The horse and buggy swung to a quick stop before the Byers Hotel, one of Mattoon’s finest hotels, where General Ulysses S. Grant had stayed for a short time during the war, and also President Abraham Lincoln.
Abner jumped from the buggy and wrapped the reins around a hitching rail. Lauralee left the buggy and hurried to his side.
Breathless, and with a thumping heart, she looked up at the tall brick building, where many windows looked out onto the thoroughfare.
“Do you think he’s here?” she asked as Abner took her by the elbow and whisked her toward the double doors that led inside the grandly furnished hotel.
“This is where he’s made his residence during his stay in Mattoon,” Abner said, nodding a hello to the desk clerk as he headed on toward the steep staircase that led to the upstairs rooms. “His job would be finished here soon. He was supposed to go back to North Carolina then. He has a wife and child waiting for him there.”
“If he fought for the North, why does he live in the South?” Lauralee asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Normally he is from somewhere up north. Some years ago he went south to Tennessee and the Carolinas to work on the railroads,” Abner explained. “He met his wife there. He makes his residence somewhere in North Carolina, and for the most part, his job keeps him there. He only came to Mattoon to help out with instructing building the new spur west of town. He’s been here most of the summer.”
Lauralee’s eyes were anxious and her throat was dry as they came to the second-floor landing, and then the third. Abner placed a hand on the holstered pistol at his right side. Lauralee had not known the firearm was there. The coattail kept it hidden from sight.
Slipping the pistol from the holster, Abner took stealthy steps down the corridor until they came to one room in particular.
Abner nodded to Lauralee to step aside.
Her pulse racing, she did as he said.
Then she jumped with alarm when her uncle kicked the door open and stepped hurriedly inside.
It was almost completely dark outside now as night fell in its black silence. The room held dim shadows and was quiet.
Lauralee inched her way inside and found that her uncle was the only one there. His pistol was holstered again and he was going through drawers, and then the chifferobe.
“He’s gone, isn’t he?” Lauralee said, disappointment heavy on her heart.
“Seems he is,” Abner said, sighing disconsolately.
“I knew it.” Lauralee stifled an angry sob behind her hand. “Now I’ll never be able to see that he’s put behind bars, or better yet—hung.”
Abner went to Lauralee and drew her into his arms. “I could have the sheriff send a posse after him, but because of his association with the railroad, Clint knows this countryside well,” he said solemnly. “I doubt he’d be caught. He’d be like the field mice, quicker than the eye, and much more clever.”
Downhearted and ready to cry, Lauralee eased from Abner’s arms. She went to the window and stared down at the activity on Broadway, a man just now lighting the gaslights. She had never been as disappointed as now. She had come so close to making things right for her mother, and Dancing Cloud.
But now?
She doubted she ever would.
A sudden thought sprang to her mind as she watched the sky darkening overhead. “Oh, no,” she cried, recalling her plans to go to Paul to explain things to him.
She turned wide eyes to Abner. “Uncle Abner, are you planning to go to the hospital and stay with Nancy for the rest of the evening?” she asked guardedly, not wanting him to suspect anything.
“Yes, I expect so,” Abner said, forking an eyebrow when he saw something in her expression that seemed amiss. Only moments ago she was disappointed. Now she seemed anxious about something.
