Chapter 45 - The Arsenal of the Mercer Matriarch
The Mercer mansion had survived three distinct eras of American history, and it had not done so through diplomatic pleasantries alone. In the small cloakroom adjacent to the back parlor, concealed behind a panel of beaded oak, was the gun cabinet my father had installed in 1938.
The lock gave way with a crisp click under my small brass key. Inside, upright and gleaming with walnut oil, rested two vintage side-by-side shotguns and three boxes of heavy waterfowl loads, preserved in wax-sealed cardboard.
I handed the heavier Ithaca twelve-gauge to Julian, along with a handful of red paper shells. He handled the weapon with familiar ease, his weathered fingers checking the breach and sliding two cartridges into the barrels with mechanical efficiency. I took the lighter twenty-gauge for myself.
"You intend to go down there?" Julian asked, his voice low as the click of the gun's action snapped shut in the quiet room.
"I have spent sixty years defending this ground from bankers, corrupt magistrates, and my own foolish kin," I said, slipping four extra cartridges into the deep pocket of my wool cardigan. "I will not cower in my parlor while my ungrateful grandson digs through my husband's bones like a scavenger."
"He isn't alone, Evelyn. He has two men from the docks in New Bedford. They looked like men who wouldn't flinch at breaking an old woman's neck."
"Then they will learn that old women who survive to eighty do not break easily," I answered.
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We moved quietly down the service hallway, avoiding the floorboards I knew were prone to groaning under foot. The house was cold now, the furnace in the cellar having shut down when the fuel line was tapped. Every shadow cast by our dim flashlight seemed to stretch and contort, mimicking the shapes of intruders.
We reached the pantry cellar entrance. The red glow was gone, replaced by an abyssal dark that smelled of disturbed clay and sulfur. I took the lead, stepping onto the stone stairs, my cane held firmly in my left hand, the shotgun resting across my right forearm.
