The wheelchair never failed to solicit attention, but what would she have done without it? When she was fourteen and Donny six, she played hooky from school to travel to Denver. There she met with a doctor known for miracle cures—some of the miners swore by him. That doctor studied Donny’s medical records but gave her no hope. He did, however, offer her the use of a chair with wheels that had belonged to his deceased grandfather. She hadn’t even known that such a chair existed and was ecstatic.
People stared at her as she pushed that chair through the streets of Denver to the stage depot. At first the Concord driver refused to allow the chair on the crowded coach. But she insisted and he finally relented after she greased his palm with a gold coin. For most of the journey, she hung out the window to keep her eye on the chair rattling and jostling in back of the coach with each rut of the road.
As she feared, the chair eventually fell off and she banged on the roof with pounding fists until the driver stopped. By the time she’d retrieved it, the stage had left her behind. She was forced to walk the remaining five miles pushing the chair uphill all the way.
Sheer hope got her up that mountainside. She was so certain that the chair would make a difference in Donny’s life she would have swum across the ocean to get it to him. But after their first outing, it was two years before he agreed to sit in the chair again. He didn’t like people gawking at him.
She couldn’t blame him. Whenever she saw someone staring at him, it nearly broke her heart. She hated for people to judge him flawed when in reality he was only flawed physically. He had a sharp and inquiring mind and a good heart, but few people ever bothered to see beyond his useless legs.
The woman sitting on the pew in front of them kept glancing back at Donny. Irritated, Molly didn’t even bother to lower her voice. “What do you think you’re staring at?” Subtlety never worked with rude people.
The woman’s mouth dropped open and she quickly swung her head around to face the front of the church, the feathers on her hat vibrating with what Molly hoped was humiliation. “Well, I never!”
Caleb laid a hand on Molly’s lap, startling her. “She doesn’t mean anything by it,” he whispered in her ear. “She’s just curious.”
She pushed his hand away but only because she feared its heat would burn a hole through the fabric of her skirt. “Curious my . . .” Molly bit down on her lips.
The piano music stopped and an inebriated man weaved his way across the altar. He was hatless, and if that wasn’t disturbing enough, his uncombed hair fell about his head like scattered feathers. Equally shocking, he was shoeless and one big toe poked through a hole in his black woolen sock. He’d obviously entered the church by mistake.
“Why don’t the ushers remove him?” she whispered.
“I guess they want to hear what Reverend Bland has to say.”
She blinked. “That’s the preacher?”
Caleb hushed her with a finger to his mouth and she fell silent.
Reverend Bland slumped onto the podium. “Wel . . . wel . . . wel . . . come,” he slurred.
The congregation stirred uneasily and whispered among themselves.
Caleb’s gaze remained riveted upon the preacher. “Someone better grab him before he falls.”
No sooner had he spoken than Reverend Bland swayed like a tree in the wind. “Lest us bray.”
Caleb jumped up and hurried to the altar, catching the preacher just in time. Ruckus joined him and the two of them carted him away.
“What are we going to do now?” someone asked.
“Who’s gonna preach?” asked another.
A man rose in front. Minus one leg, he walked to the pulpit on crutches. He was a tall slender man with ebony skin, kinky black hair, and a soulful face.
“As many of you know, my name’s Washington. Jacob Washington. I’m not an ordained minister and I don’t know how to preach,” he said. “But I can tell you how God worked in my life.”
He spoke in a calm, smooth voice that would normally encourage sleep, but the congregation listened with rapt attention.
He told how at the age of fifteen he was brought to America as a slave. “I ran away but they caught me and cut off my leg so I couldn’t run again. But that didn’t stop me. Nothing could do that because I had God on my side.”
Molly glanced at her brother, who seemed completely captivated by the man and all that he uttered.
Caleb returned while the ushers took up the collection. “Is Reverend Bland all right?” she whispered.
“He will be. We took him to the infirmary to sleep it off.”
“There’s an infirmary in town?” she asked.
“It’s actually a hotel room that’s reserved for medical emergencies.”
While the collection plate made its rounds, Mr. Washington sang. His voice was smooth as velvet, yet so haunting that it sent goose bumps down Molly’s spine. “Swing low, sweet chariot . . . coming for to carry me home . . .”
Oh, if only she could sing like that.
Her brother gripped the arms of his chair, his knuckles white. “Is something the matter?” she whispered.
Donny looked at her. “He only has one leg. But I hardly noticed.”
“Sometimes I don’t notice yours either,” she said.
“Yes, you do. You always notice.”
She sucked in her breath and Caleb laid his hand on hers. “You okay?”
No, she was not okay. She felt the walls of the church closing in on her and she wanted to leave. “What you said about helping my brother,” she whispered. “Did you mean it?”
Caleb’s gaze met hers. “I can’t make him walk again,” he said, “but I can help him become more independent.”
She pressed her lips together and blinked back a tear. Dare she believe him? Dare she chance more disappointment and discouragement?
A respectful silence followed Mr. Washington’s song. He accepted the collection from the ushers and addressed the congregation.
“That beautiful hymn you just heard was originally meant as a secret code. It was how we black folks announced the arrival of ’conductors’ to escort us slaves to the North. We had codes for everything disguised in hymns. When an attempt at freedom failed . . . when we had to regroup spiritually . . . when one of our brothers made it to the holy land . . . there was a hymn for every occurrence. We passed on good news and bad while singing God’s praises.
“The Underground Railroad freed me from a plantation down south, but it is God that frees our hearts and souls.” He lifted the collection basket aloft. “I’m living proof that all things are possible with God.”
She glanced at Donny’s profile. “You always notice.” His words pierced her heart even as she thought about them. She leaned toward Caleb and whispered, “If . . . if I agree to let you help my brother . . . when will you be able to start working with him?”
Caleb leaned forward to glance at Donny. “The work has already begun,” he whispered back.
That night Caleb found Reverend Bland sitting on the edge of the bed in the hotel room used as the infirmary. Elbows on his lap, the preacher held his head and rocked back and forth, moaning in despair.
Caleb approached the bed and the preacher glanced up. Tears rolled down his florid cheeks but he didn’t speak.
Caleb sat by his side and waited for the man to calm down. No sense trying to talk to him in his current state.
The preacher was the first patient to use the room since Caleb had taken over Dr. Masterson’s practice. Caleb paid a hotel maid extra to boil the sheets and put fresh straw in the mattress. The walls and ceiling had been disinfected with carbolic acid and the sweet smell still lingered in the air even though the windows had been kept open.
Caleb dreamed of the day he could build a small hospital or clinic in town. Right now his main concern was the anguished man by his side.
A good twenty minutes passed before Reverend Bland uttered his first words. “How could I have been so foolish?”
Cal
eb felt sorry for the man. He knew how to help the preacher physically, but pain that came from a tortured soul was beyond medical capabilities.
“My daughter . . .” Reverend Bland sobbed out the words and fell silent.
“What about your daughter?” Caleb pressed gently.
For an answer the preacher reached into his pocket, pulled out a crumbled telegram, and thrust it into Caleb’s hand.
Caleb carefully spread the crinkled yellow paper across his lap. It appeared to be from Bland’s wife and read, in part, that their daughter Elizabeth had died from smallpox.
A heavy weight settled in Caleb’s chest. “I’m sorry.” They were perhaps the most ineffective words in the English language, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“I wasn’t even there to send my little girl to heaven with a good-bye kiss,” the preacher lamented. “Or to comfort my wife.” A sob escaped him before he continued. “Instead of praying for my daughter’s soul, I drank myself to oblivion. Will God ever forgive me?”
The question surprised Caleb. As a doctor he had many doubts. He doubted his own abilities and sometimes even doubted the effectiveness of the medicine he dispensed. But wasn’t a preacher supposed to be secure in his faith? Wasn’t that a requisite for the job?
“Forgiveness is the wonder of God’s grace,” Caleb said. “Isn’t that what you preach?”
“It’s nice to know that someone pays attention to what I preach.” Reverend Bland studied Caleb with bloodshot eyes. “I’m not worried about God, I’m worried about them.” He tossed a nod toward the window and staggered to his feet.
“Whoa,” Caleb said. “You’re not going anywhere yet.”
“I have to apologize. I need to go to every family and ask for forgiveness.”
Caleb studied the man. Physically he was a mess, but he was in worse shape mentally. “All right, but I drive.”
Reverend Bland squinted. “You’re going to make me ride in that rattletrap of yours?”
Caleb nodded. “Trust me. Nothing cures a hangover faster than a ride in a horseless carriage.” He grinned. “Consider it penance.”
Chapter 13
Eleanor Walker glared across the oak table. Eastern investor Mason Hampshire sat directly opposite her, his head wreathed with smoke from his pipe. He was surrounded on both sides by a motley group of men. Those unable to find a seat leaned against the wall.
The number of people he brought along for support amused Eleanor. Obviously he considered her a formidable foe—and rightfully so.
She only wished she didn’t have to travel to Tombstone to show him just how formidable she could be when the welfare of her ranch was threatened. Tombstone was the county seat and that meant the town took on an air of importance it didn’t deserve. It didn’t even allow weapons within city limits, which was preposterous. What could be more useful in settling land disputes than the presence of a firearm? She felt naked without one by her side.
The only woman in a room of more than a dozen men, she alone knew how to raise cattle. Mr. Hampshire was a fraud, his only goal greed. The easterners in their silk shirts, single-breasted vests, and frock coats mopped their brows with silk handkerchiefs and loosened ascot ties. Their soft, bloated bodies were better suited for the plush velvet settees of Victorian parlors than hard leather western saddles.
The room was hot and stuffy and filled with the blue haze of smoke. Meant to be used by a lawyer conferring with a single client, the office wasn’t large enough to air mob grievances.
Robert sat by her side, thoughtfully stroking his goatee. Though she and her banker friend didn’t always see eye to eye, he never failed to take her side when it most mattered. Publicly, at least, they were of one mind. For that reason she was grateful that he had agreed to accompany her to Tombstone, if for no other reason but to give his support.
Her lawyer, Jesse Barker, sat at the head of the table. Since he’d agreed to let the battling foes air their differences in his office, he maintained the right to lead the meeting.
He banged a gavel on the table though it was totally unnecessary. No one had said a word since shuffling into the room. He stuck a quizzing glass in his right eye and proceeded to read the document in hand. His plaid suit and handlebar mustache were better suited to a Barnum and Bailey sideshow, but his ability to turn even the most elementary phrase into legal folderol never failed to amaze.
After completing his opening remarks, he pulled the quizzing glass away and glanced around the table. “Who would like to begin?”
Hampshire stood. “I will,” he said, speaking in a New England accent. A robust, clean-shaven man with small beady eyes and hair plastered down with bay rum, he looked like a gambler on a winning streak. His gold watch chain spanned the front of his shiny vest from right pocket to left, looping through a buttonhole halfway between. He could command his men with a look or a snap of the fingers. Such was his authority that even the Arizona soil knew not to stray onto the polished toes of his spatted boots.
Someone pushed a document in front of him and he began to speak. “I plan to purchase several smaller ranches and combine them into one company. This will accommodate”—he glanced at the paperwork in front of him—”twenty thousand head of cattle. Though not as large as the C Company up north, it’s an ambitious plan and I resent Miss Walker’s claim that it would ruin the land. I see no justification for it. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a doddering fool.” He took his seat.
Barker turned to Eleanor. “Miss Walker. Would you care to respond?”
“Of course I’ll respond. That’s why I’m here.” Eleanor stood. She didn’t need any prompt or document to say what she had to say. “This is not Montana or Wyoming, where it takes only forty acres to raise a single head of cattle. This is Arizona—a desert. Thanks to the ranches you referred to, the land is already overstocked, allowing little more than five acres per cow.”
“And what would be a more reasonable number?” one of Mason Hampshire’s associates asked.
Eleanor shot him a cold stare. “Ideally, I’d say sixty-five acres per cattle head. Fifty acres at the very least.”
“Nonsense!” Hampshire thundered, banging his fist on the table.
“How do you expect anyone to make a profit?” someone shouted from the back of the room.
“You’re not trying to make a profit,” Eleanor said coolly, refusing to lose her composure. “You’re trying to get rich while ruining the land for everyone else.”
“That’s ridiculous.” A bald-headed man shot to his feet and pumped his fist in the air. “There’s plenty of grass for everyone.”
“That’s only because we’ve had more rain than usual this past year,” Eleanor argued. “I lost more than half my cattle in the last drought. Every rancher around here did. We all stand to lose many times that in the next drought if this overgrazing continues.”
Everyone started talking at once. The lawyer pounded his gavel several times before restoring peace. “Let me clearly state the issue here so there’s no misunderstanding what’s at stake,” he said, as if there could be any question. He then proceeded to complicate matters with a barrage of legal terms, turning overgrazing the land into a twenty-minute discourse punctuated with therefores and wherebys.
The moment he paused for breath everyone began talking at once.
“One at a time,” he shouted with a bang of his gavel. “Miss Walker?”
Eleanor waited until she had everyone’s attention before beginning. “I propose that before any decision is made, we form a cattle owners’ association similar to the Cattle Raisers Association in Texas and invite every interested party to join.”
Since organizing, Texan cattlemen had done an outstanding job stopping cattle rustling in the Lone Star state. A similar organization was clearly needed in Arizona Territory.
“If we all work together,” she continued, “I’m certain we can come to some sort of agreement on how to raise cattle, stop cattle rustling, and protect the land.”
She sat and glanced at Robert, who inclined his silver head. “I can’t see you joining an association,” he whispered.
She gave a slight shrug and said nothing. Forming an association such as she proposed would take time, perhaps even months, and she counted on that. Maybe by then the eastern investors would turn their sights elsewhere.
“I think a cattle association is a splendid idea,” Barker said. Judging by her opponent’s face, he didn’t share the lawyer’s enthusiasm for her idea. “I suggest we adjourn for lunch and discuss it further this afternoon.”
“I suggest we adjourn permanently,” Hampshire said.
Eleanor was inclined to agree. The meeting was a waste of time, with neither side willing to budge.
Barker glared at him. “Unless you wish to pay for my time, you’ll show up after lunch.”
Hampshire made no reply. Instead he stood and walked out of the room, followed by his men.
“What do you think?” she asked Robert as they left the lawyer’s office.
“I think you’re fighting a losing battle,” he replied.
She arched an eyebrow. “Is that your idea of supporting me?”
“You wouldn’t ask my opinion if you didn’t want the truth.”
He was right, of course. She trusted Ruckus and O.T. and even that new man, Brodie, but they were more inclined to tell her what she wanted to hear. “So what do you think I should do?”
“I don’t know that there’s anything you can do. You’re waging a war against greed and I’m not sure that’s a war you can win.”
“If I don’t win, the loser will be the land itself. If it’s a war they want, it’s a war they’ll get.”
Robert gave her a sideways glance. “I think you should sell the ranch.”
She shook her head. She’d sooner set fire to the ranch than sell it. “After everything I’ve been through these last forty years, do you honestly think I’d give up the ranch because of a greedy investor? Besides, I have a new girl to consider.” To be honest, she should have let Molly go by now, but something held Eleanor back. Maybe she felt sorry for her. Or her brother. Good heavens! Could she be growing soft in her old age? Surely not!
Waiting for Morning (The Brides Of Last Chance Ranch Series) Page 10