Heaven Sent (Small Town Swains)

by Pamela Morsi

  She would be the wife of a man that had committed crimes. He would have spent time in jail but he would pay his debt to society and be a better man for it. The Bible was a compendium of repentant sinners, there was no reason why Henry Lee couldn't follow in their footsteps.

  And he had a wife now, to help him see the error of his ways, and change himself for the better.

  To Hannah it was the same as ruining a batch of preserves. You just throw them out and start over from scratch, trying to do it better the next time. If something got broke, you fixed it.

  She chastised herself for her earlier anger at Henry Lee. She had only been thinking of herself, when she should have been thinking about him. From what little he'd told her about his life, she was convinced that he had never had any proper guidance, certainly no Christian teaching. She had all those advantages and hadn't she so easily fallen into sinful ways herself?

  The fact that he wasn't a worse criminal than this was just evidence that he was an exceptional man, with a shining soul. And right now, that shining soul was suffering. He was somewhere here in this building locked in a cold, dark cell thinking that she hated him. She had to speak to him, and right away.

  The door opened and Tom Quick came back in.

  "I couldn't find any coffee around here this late in the day. I went across to the drugstore and the druggist gave me this," he said, indicating the bottle of brown liquid in his hand. "He says it's for ladies who are fatigued or distraught."

  He handed the bottle to Hannah and she poured some of the foaming elixir into a glass before looking at the label. She read the words "Dr Pepper" and decided to drink it sparingly, fearing it might have the same effect on her as the corn liquor.

  As Tom Quick watched her, he plotted his next move. He had checked with the deputy while he was out. They had shucked down Watson and found nothing—no money, no receipt.

  The marshal looked across the desk at her and smiled in a way that he hoped would be fatherly and sympathetic.

  "I'm sure this has been an awful shock for you, ma'am. Discovering that your new husband is nothing more than a common criminal."

  Hannah said nothing but gazed into her glass at the foaming brown liquid.

  "Watson has been making moonshine, oh . . . I'd estimate for about ten years or so. Ever since he was a boy, really. He's got a still up on his farm somewhere."

  He watched her face, it revealed little more than her own curiosity.

  "You been living on that farm?"

  "Yes."

  "You seen anything that mighta been a still?"

  Hannah ran a quick inventory of every building on the farm. She couldn't remember anything that was unusual in the way of farm tools. Nothing she could think of even remotely resembled what she imagined a still to look like.

  "No, I never saw anything like that," she answered him, looking him straight in the face.

  There was no question in Quick's mind that she was telling the truth. The still must be well hidden, no help there. He'd have to try another way.

  “Now, Mrs. Watson." He stood and began pacing back and forth from behind his desk to the door to the upstairs porch. "Your husband brought a load of whiskey from the border down here to Muskogee. We checked with the railroad about your baggage and they insist that you only brought a couple of satchels. Do you have any idea how your husband could have got that whiskey down here?"

  "No," Hannah answered truthfully, but as she looked down to take a sip of her Dr Pepper she saw in her mind the wagon loaded with the coffin they sent on the freight train. Her first instinct was to tell the marshal, cooperating with the law was the duty of a Christian. However, she was a practical person, and it didn't seem reasonable to make heroic efforts to help the people who were trying to send her husband to jail. If she just didn't say anything, it wouldn't really be the same as lying.

  When she raised her head to look at him, he tried again.

  "What about the money? Did you happen to see your husband with a large sum of money?"

  Hannah was unable to control the flush that came to her face as she recalled the telegrapher counting the money in Sallisaw.

  Quick didn't miss it. She knew something about the money for sure. If she lied and said she didn't, he would hold her in jail until she changed her mind.

  Hannah couldn't out-and-out lie to an officer of the law. But there was no commandment that said "thou shalt not hedge."

  "Actually, my husband did spend a good deal of money at the Sallisaw Table Company this morning."

  "Sallisaw Table Company? You mean the one owned by the Oscar brothers?"

  "Yes, that's the one."

  Quick had known the Oscar brothers since the day they arrived in the territory. They were as honest as the day was long. What on earth could they be doing mixed up with Watson?

  "What did your husband spend this money on?"

  "Lumber. I believe my husband said it was walnut."

  The marshal looked at her for a long minute, trying to figure out if she was straight or not. She couldn't have made something like this up.

  "Excuse me for a minute," he said and left the room. Heading down the hall he called for Pathkiller. When the fleet-footed Indian arrived, he asked quickly, "What have you got?"

  "So far, nothing, the hotel room is clean as a whistle and none of the clerks at the telegraph office recognized the description of Watson or the woman."

  Quick accepted the bad news with a nod of resignation.

  "The woman says they went to the Sallisaw Table Company this morning to buy some walnut from the Oscar brothers."

  "Walnut?"

  "That's what she says. Nobody'd make that up. Ride over there this evening, before they've got time to get to the bank, and see if your evidence money is there."

  Pathkiller crammed his hat back on his head with a look of disgust. This was getting a bit ridiculous for capturing a moonshiner. If he wasn't getting paid expenses, he wouldn't even bother to go.

  Hannah was sitting straight and dignified in her chair when Marshal Quick returned. He didn't have much hope of getting more information out of her. She was truthful, but obviously Watson had kept her in the dark.

  "Marshal Quick," she asked finally. "Will I be allowed to see my husband? It is really very important that I talk to him."

  Quick sat back down at his desk and tried to look understanding. "I've appreciated your cooperation, Mrs. Watson, but I still have a couple of questions."

  "Then will I be allowed to see my husband?"

  The marshal had hoped to hold that out as a reward for answering the next question, but given no other real choice, he readily agreed.

  "Do you remember your husband talking with anyone, discussing business or money, since you got to Muskogee?"

  "The Oscars, of course," she replied easily.

  "Anyone else," he pushed. "Can you remember him talking with anyone else."

  Hannah thought for several moments. There were only two people that Henry Lee had spoken with last night. She thought of Harjo, teaching her to dance with his bad leg. He had a wife, she remembered, and a son in college and a daughter. She hated to think of Harjo and his family suffering along with Henry Lee. And she was not sure that Harjo was even involved. But she was absolutely certain that the other person he talked with was deeply involved.

  "When we went to the Ambrosia Ballroom last night," she began, praying that she was doing the right thing, "he spent a good deal of time discussing some kind of business venture with Mrs. Byron the proprietress."

  Tom Quick continued to gaze at her for a few minutes. He was convinced that she had told everything she knew. Undoubtedly Hattie Byron was Watson's connection in town, and she was hoping that this afternoon's playtime would give her immunity from the marshal's investigation. Tom thought about it and guessed that she was right. He wasn't about to put a woman with a body like that behind bars. He just hoped that Pathkiller could find that money for evidence. It was the only chance they had to nail him.
>
  "Thank you kindly, Mrs. Watson," he told her at last. "I know this has just been a horrible ordeal for you."

  "Can I see my husband now?"

  "I think that would be fine."

  Henry Lee Watson stood in the comer of a sparse, dreary cell in the basement of the Federal Courthouse. He was hatless, coatless, beltless, and shoeless. The pockets of his trousers had been emptied and slashed open. None of this bothered him. All his concern was focused on Hannah. He berated himself as fifty kinds of fool for getting her entangled. He vowed never to involve her again. He remembered the look on her face in the wagon when he finally told her the truth. She'd believed such wonderful things about him. It hurt so much to prove to her that she was completely wrong.

  He heard a door opening down the hall and the sound of footsteps. Pulling his long frame away from the wall, he steadied himself for whatever was heading his way.

  When Hannah came in sight, he couldn't stop his face from breaking into a smile of relief.

  "Hannah!" He ran to the bars and reached through to take her hand. "Are you all right? They aren't going to hold you?"

  "I'm fine," she insisted, smiling at him. She wanted to seem brave and courageous, that was what they both needed. She turned to the deputy beside her. "Could we have a moment to be alone?"

  The deputy was one who had seen it all and was not in the least impressed by Hannah's wifely devotion. But he found it hard to believe that she would be thinking up an escape plan, so he tipped his hat to her and moved up the hall out of earshot.

  "Marshal Quick had me in his office questioning me, but I think that he's satisfied with what I've told him. Anyway, he has decided to let me leave."

  "Thank goodness. I don't know how much evidence they have against me, Hannah. So I don't know how long I'll be in here. Did you get any indication of how much they know?"

  Hannah shrugged. "The marshal didn't seem to know very much." She related the conversation between herself and Quick, including the hedging that she had been forced to engage in.

  "You singled out Mrs. Byron! That witch!" Henry Lee found himself laughing, something he would not have believed possible an hour ago. "Oh Hannah, you are a jewel."

  "I'm just a wife. I promised 'for better or worse' and I'm sure I'll be held to it," she answered, beaming at his approval.

  "From what you've said, it doesn't seem that they really have too much to hold me on. If they don't get some hard evidence, the judge will throw it out of court."

  "What will that mean?"

  "It means that, with luck, I'll be out of here by the end of the week."

  Hannah was ecstatic and excitedly leaned through the bars, throwing her arms around his neck. He kissed her sweetly, longingly, and then quickly pulled away. He wanted her to have no loving memories of her husband behind bars.

  "We have our whole lives ahead of us, Hannah. Our marriage hasn't really even started. I'm going to get out of here and we are going to go back to the place, live our lives, have our children and someday this will just seem like a bad dream," he promised.

  "I know," she agreed smiling. "I feel exactly the same way. It's our future together that's important."

  He planted a chaste kiss right on the end of her nose, causing them both to giggle.

  "Do you think they will call on the Oscars?"

  "Probably." He squeezed her hand, offering comfort. "When they find out about how I make my living, more than likely they won't be our friends anymore. I'm sorry about that, Hannah. I know you liked them, but the disapproval of a lot of folks is just part of the business."

  In truth it bothered Henry Lee more than he cared to admit. He too had liked the Oscars and had cherished their approval. He figured that they would be singing a new tune when they found out about his moonshining. They would still be friendly, probably, like most folks were—slapping-on-the-back friendly. But they would not respect him. He knew Hiram would never see Henry Lee's ability to make good whiskey as his real gift.

  Hannah offered him a smile of comfort. "I'm not a woman who needs a whole lot of people, Henry Lee. What I most need is to get my husband out of jail."

  "I am a lucky man, Hannah, and I know it." He wished that he could say more. Wished he had the courage to say that he loved her, because he knew that he did.

  "No, don't go getting too sappy on me. A wife stands with her husband and that's just the way of it. Besides, we're going to put all of this behind us," she told him cheerfully. "As soon as you get out of here, we'll begin again. Just start from scratch. A lot of men have a checkered past, but what's important is the future. Once you quit the whiskey business and start living right, people will give you a chance to redeem yourself."

  Henry Lee pulled away from the bars and looked at her closely. He thought that she'd understood, but she didn't. Maybe she couldn't.

  "I don't need to redeem myself, Hannah." His voice was very quiet. "I won't have to give it up. Of course, I intend to be a good deal more careful in the future. We are making plenty of money and there is no call for me to get greedy. As long as I am careful and stay close to the border, there shouldn't be any problem."

  Hannah was incredulous. "But Henry Lee, of course you'll have to give it up. I know that you've been doing this a long time. The marshal said you've been making whiskey since you were a boy. But you must see that it is a criminal activity. It's landed you in jail and if you continue you'll end up in the penitentiary."

  "There are risks in every business, Hannah. A farmer can get struck by lightning in his field. A merchant can be robbed by thieves. A cowboy can be trampled to death in a stampede. There are no guarantees in this world, but you do the job as well as you can and you try to avoid the risks."

  "Henry Lee, the risk of being arrested is entirely different from the risk of being struck by lightning!"

  "Maybe so, but a man takes the risks in his business and that's just the way of things."

  "It might be the way of things to your mind, Henry Lee, but it doesn't have to be." Hannah felt herself growing frustrated and angry. She had grasped the bars to talk to him, but he was now pacing back and forth in the cell.

  "It does have to be the way of things!" Henry Lee insisted. "At least it does for me."

  "Why?"

  "Look, Hannah, I like what I do. I like making whiskey. I'm good at it. You know what they say about me? They say I make the smoothest whiskey in the territory. I'm proud of that; I don't deny it."

  "How can you be proud of that!"

  "Hannah, it's like you said about Cain and Abel," he told her. "God establishes the work of our hands. He gave me the ability to make fine whiskey, I'd be going against my nature not to use that gift."

  "God does not make thieves or outlaws, gunslingers or moonshiners! A man makes himself that and has no one to blame for his choice," she replied.

  "I'm not talking blame, Hannah. I'm talking pride. I taught myself to make this whiskey. I took a little bit of corn and some half-baked instructions and I taught myself to do it. And I do it better than anybody else! My father couldn't do that. None of your upstanding farmboys could hold a candle to me. That's how I can be proud!"

  "But Henry Lee, don't you see what the whiskey does? Don't you see how it ruins lives and causes trouble in the territory?"

  "Hannah, you don't know a thing about it."

  She bristled at his arrogant disclaimer. "I know that it destroys families! That men controlled by drink forget about their responsibilities. That the wives and children of those men never know when they can count on them. I can't imagine what it must be like to live that way, not knowing if the man who left the house sober in the morning was going to come home drunk during the afternoon. I can't imagine what that is like. But I know that you can, Henry Lee. Isn't that the kind of life you got from your parents?"

  Henry Lee flushed with anger at her direct hit. His immediate thought was to retaliate. She hurt him, he would hurt her back. But he didn't want to hurt her. He wanted her to understand.

>   "Hannah," he said, taking a deep breath to steady himself. "You are a good person, a Christian person, and I know you see the world as being good and bad, but things are not so clear-cut. I am careful with my whiskey. Like I said, I'm proud of the product I make. I make sure that it's clean and it's pure. People are going to buy whiskey. Even if I don't sell it, somebody else will and that whiskey might be fouled or corrupted. It could be poison if the distiller doesn't know what he's doing."

  Hannah's jaw tightened with anger. "So you're trying to tell me that you make whiskey for the good of whiskey drinkers. You're doing it as a service to the community?"

  Henry Lee kicked the wall in frustration. "I'm not trying to tell you anything!" He raised his voice for the first time. "I'm trying to make you see that making whiskey is something that I want to do, that I am proud of doing, and it is not something I'm going to give up just because you don't like the idea. The whiskey business can mean a lot to both of us if you'll just let yourself think about it."

  "It means nothing to me."

  "It means new pews for your father's church. It means no worries about too little rain, or too much. It's not like farming, Hannah. It's much more certain. People always buy whiskey. The demand is steady, no matter the price. It means a good future for our children. You'd like to see your child go to school or start up a business or buy his own place. The whiskey gives us money that can insure that."

  "What's the use of having money for your children if you can't offer them a proper example and a father who won't make them feel ashamed? Do you think any child would want to have a moonshiner for a father?"

  "Oh, I see, Hannah," he said, sarcasm creeping furiously into his voice. "The question is, do you think any child would want to have me for a father?"

  "Henry Lee, I didn't mean ..."

  He was seething with anger. "I understand now how it is with you, Hannah. You're all ready to stand by me, to be the perfect wife and helpmate, as long as I follow your rules. All I have to do is forget about the life I've made for myself. I just pick up your morals and your ideals and you'll be willing to do me the favor of staying by my side. You didn't get yourself a churchgoing farmer, so you just take what you did get and try to turn him into what you want. Well, Miss Hannah, no thank-you very much!"