Free One Wore Blue by Heather Graham Page B

how to use it. I can’t stand it anymore, not knowing what’s going on out there.” She leaped up and squeezed Lacey’s cheeks together with her thumb and forefinger. Lacey’s mouth made a big round O and a sound escaped her, but she couldn’t protest further as Kiernan planted a kiss upon her forehead. “Don’t worry! I’ll be fine. I’ll be careful, and I know how to shoot. And I have real live ammunition in the gun—which is apparently much more than anyone else has.”
    She hurried from the kitchen to the parlor. Lacey called after her, but she moved quickly, finding the Colt on the mantel. She felt a twinge of guilt about defying Lacey, but that couldn’t be helped. Momentous things were happening, and she had to understand what they were.
    “I’ll be back soon!” she called, then she hurried out to the street. She looked up and saw that the sun was already beginning its descent. In another few hours, darkness would fall over them again.
    There was no one before the house, but down the street to her left, a crowd had gathered before the firehouse—out of range of shot, it seemed. Militiamen were surrounding the firehouse, she realized, and the citizens of Harpers Ferry were surrounding the militia.
    Things seemed fairly quiet and subdued, but still, an air of electric tension seemed to have settled upon the town.
    People were talking about how the townfolk had battled John Brown until he’d had no choice but to take refuge in the firehouse.
    Kiernan hurried down the street. When a hand fell upon her shoulder, she nearly jumped sky-high and swung around. Dr. Bruce Whelan, white-haired with a drooping moustache, stared at her sternly with a pair of clear, dove-gray eyes.
    “Doc Whelan—”
    “I was told to look out for you, young lady,” he said gruffly.
    “What?”
    “Captain Cameron came through to help with the wounded.” He waved a hand in the air. “People were all kind of cut up, what with firing shotguns filled with whatever debris they came across. There’s been a heap of death today, young lady. A heap of death.”
    “Jesse doesn’t have the right—” she began.
    “Yes, Jesse does. He said that he come upon you in a bit of trouble, Kiernan Mackay.”
    Her heart sank. If Doc Whelan knew about last night, her father would know. He’d be loath to leave her alone ever again. Anthony and his father would be loath to leave her, but she really did love her independence.
    “Nothing catastrophic happened—”
    “You might be in grave danger at this very moment!” he corrected her. “Jesse said you managed a good fight on your own, but hell, girl! Not even a man can stand up against a bullet. And now John Brown has his hostages holed up with him in the firehouse. Colonel Lewis Washington is in there, girl! They’re saying that Brown wanted to have the sword Frederick the Great gave to George Washington and the pistol Lafayette gave him, and so they’ve taken that fine brave gentleman. And Mr. Allstadt, his neighbor, and his young son. You could have been among them!”
    She gritted her teeth. Jesse must have described her flight from her pursuer with full dramatic license, she thought.
    “But I am all right.”
    “And you should be off the streets.”
    “Doc Whelan, the whole town is on the streets!”
    “The whole town is out here, right. But the things happening to the whole town haven’t been good! Kiernan, Mr. Beckham has been killed.”
    She gasped, thinking of the kindly mayor. He had been such a gentle man!
    “And young lady, when Mayor Beckham was killed, a lynch mob broke into the Wager Hotel and seized one of the raiders who had been taken prisoner. They dragged him on out to the bridge and shot him up on either side of the head. Half the maniacs in this town are still pumping bullets into the body.”
    “My Lord,” Kiernan breathed.
    “Go home, Kiernan.”
    “I will, soon. I promise.”
    “There’s more, young lady. There was shooting all around, what with the