No Rest for the Dove Read Online Free PDF Page A

legs, and held one under each arm as he walked backward, allowing the stranger’s coat to drag over a new furrow in the vegetation. At the ditch, Knox hoisted up the dead weight, and grunted as he carried it down and back up again. At last he rolled it into his wagon. In another few moments, when he had arranged the man decently, he climbed forward to his seat. Finally, he turned Judy around on the road, and started the wagon back toward Bracebridge.
    Looking both ways, Caleb still saw no one ahead of him, or behind. Soon, many voices would be clamoring tohear his story, for the reward of a tankard or two. He would not be sorry to tell how he’d found the terrible thing now behind him. At least, he would tell most of it … if not exactly all.
    First, however, he would do his duty and speak to someone else, who would surely know what more needed to be done.
    “ YOU DO PAINT an unpleasant picture,” said Richard Longfellow. He smoothed his gathered hair further with a callused hand, feeling new moisture on his forehead. He suspected they’d all become more aware of the great heat and stillness of the afternoon, now that Caleb Knox had introduced Death to their party. “And you believe he met his end recently?”
    “A few hours ago, it may be,” the farmer replied, his eyes drifting toward a man unknown to him, who stood at the edge of the piazza.
    Longfellow turned abruptly to Gian Carlo Lahte, to watch him adjust his coat sleeves over lace ruffles. “You saw nothing, I suppose, on your way here?” he asked the musico.
    “Not of that sort,” Lahte replied easily.
    “Where exactly was this, Caleb?”
    “By the old hedge of hawthorn, not two miles east of here.”
    “And you say you recovered his horse as well. A good animal, do you think?”
    “For working fields, no, sir. For walking, it could be … though he likely has bloat by now.”
    “Spirited?”
    The farmer considered, rubbing at the stubble on his throat into which sweat continued to trickle. “Not something I could tell,” he decided.
    “Hired in Boston, quite possibly. Such animals learn the Devil’s own tricks for getting rid of a rider.” Caleb snorted his agreement, though he had never hired a stable horse in his life.
    “So,” Longfellow continued, “this man appears to have been thrown after leaving the road, and stayed where he landed until you picked him up. You’re sure you haven’t seen him in the village before?”
    “Nor anywhere else. Could be he was a tinker, I thought—yet he had no goods box, nor saddlebags. Clothes like a gentleman’s, but too old. Cast-offs, could be, yet still queer, somehow. He did have coins in his pockets….”
    Knox reached into his own breeches and carefully brought forth the collection, leaving it in Longfellow’s outstretched hand.
    “A sad tale, Caleb. But one hardly new these days, with riders having no better sense than to race from hither to yon.”
    “Amen to that!” exclaimed the farmer, whose plodding Judy had feet the size of firkins.
    “You found Reverend Rowe?”
    “No. But I heard he went over to Brewster’s, so I sent a boy running for him.”
    “Since this man had no other possessions, I suppose he came from town to visit someone, planning to return by nightfall. A small mystery, but one we’ll understand shortly, I’m sure.”
    The farmer nodded as he put his hat back on. Then he lifted it again, briefly, to Mrs. Willett. Still, he would not go. Instead he turned in the direction of the unknown guest, perhaps hoping to have one stranger’s presence, at least, explained that day.
    “Ah!” said Longfellow. “Since we may all soon be neighbors—Mr. Caleb Knox, farmer and son of Bracebridge.Caleb, this is Signor Gian Carlo Lahte, a gentleman of Milan.”
    Lahte stepped forward and graciously offered a hand, which was gingerly taken.
    In another few moments, anxious to tell a yeasty story that had risen into a substantial loaf, the farmer disappeared around the corner of