Prairie Storm

by Catherine Palmer

  “Then I’ll take the preaching job,” Elijah told Seth Hunter. “Whatever the town can afford to pay for my work, give all the money to this woman.”

  Shock widened her eyes as she lifted her head to look at him. “Why would you do that? This baby isn’t even yours. You don’t love him. You don’t know how to take care of him. You have no wife, no home, nothing to offer him. Why would you go to all this trouble for a baby you found on the trail like a—”

  “Like an old discarded hat?” Eli settled his hat on his head. “The way I see it, ma’am, most folks are just like Sam here. We’re lost, abandoned souls on the trail to nowhere. And we’re all just about to starve to death. If we let him, God will come along and pick us up, feed us manna from heaven, and make us his own children. And that’s the way Sam is my son, even though all I did was find him on the trail and pick him up out of his dying mama’s arms.”

  “A very pretty sermon, Preacher-man,” she said, her blue eyes unwavering. “Now where do you plan on holing up with this baby? Or are you going to keep camping on an old wool blanket under that skinny tree over there?”

  Whoa, she was one tough little woman, Elijah thought. Hard as a rock and stubborn to boot. But he knew she had a softness somewhere inside her, and he was just going to have to trust God to touch it.

  “Brother Elijah, you can live in the new church building,” Seth Hunter said. “We built a little room in the back with the aim of starting up a Sunday school someday. You can stash your gear in there and stable your horse over at my place. And as for you, Mrs.—”

  “Nolan,” the woman said. “Lily Nolan. I won’t be needing your charity. I have my own wagon, and I’ll keep the baby with me until—”

  “Lily?” A wild-looking female in a red Chinese silk robe, with long black hair and eyes smudged all around with black paint, came racing toward the group of people gathered around the baby. “Lily Nolan, where have you been? I sent the crowd to your tent half an hour ago, and they’re already swarming around demanding their money back and threatening to tear me apart. What in the name of heaven have you been doing? Whose baby is that?”

  “He’s mine,” Elijah said. “Who’re you?”

  “I am Madame Zahara.” She straightened her shoulders and gave him a half-lidded gaze. “I know you. You’re the preacher.”

  “I sure am.”

  “You’ve been luring away our customers the past two nights. Now I see you’ve put my assistant under your spell.”

  “Your assistant?” Elijah turned to Lily Nolan. “You work at that traveling show?”

  “I perform operas and soliloquies,” she confirmed.

  “And she reads palms, crystal balls, and tarot cards,” Madame Zahara added. “With the deaths of both her husband and our leader, Mrs. Nolan and I run the traveling show together. Now, Lily, you’ve got to get over to the fortune-telling tent and do your job. I’ve taken in almost two dollars from folks wanting to hear their fortunes, and they’re mad as hops waiting for you to show up.”

  Elijah studied the golden-haired woman, waiting for her response. Would she buckle in to the witch in the red silk gown? Would she choose to return to that sinful, fleshly occupation of actress? Or would she take the higher path of sacrifice for her fellow man?

  Eli’s chest almost hurt with praying that she would give herself to Samuel. But now his gut twisted with doubt about her worthiness for such a high calling. A woman who had chosen a life as a performer with a traveling show—could this Lily Nolan do anybody any good?

  “Well?” Madam Zahara snapped. “Give the fellow his baby, and come on!”

  Lily bit her lower lip as her eyes traced over the small shape in her arms. “Not tonight, Beatrice,” she said, lifting her head. “The preacher’s offered me good wages to feed his baby. You’d better go read the fortunes yourself.”

  “What?” The woman’s dark eyes hardened. “Are you running out on me, Lily? After all I’ve done for you?”

  “I’m not deserting you, Bea,” Lily said. “You know I would never do that. We’ll stay here a few days and save up my earnings. While I look out for the preacher’s baby, you can boil a new batch of potion. It’ll be a chance for us to figure out how we’re going to manage the show without Ted and Jakov.”

  “I know how to manage the show. All Jakov ever did was per form the opening act. I created the entertainment. I planned the programs and counted the money. Oh, Lily, I told you I’d take care of you, didn’t I? We’re partners, the two of us. We’ll make it. We’ll be fine.”

  Elijah had the awfulest feeling that Madame Zahara was about to cry, and he didn’t think it would be a pretty sight. The woman herself was attractive in a mysterious, exotic sort of way. She had almond-shaped brown eyes, full red lips, and glowing olive skin. Her crimson silk gown was cut too low for any decent man to approve of, and her black hair draped around her shoulders like a luxurious cloak.

  But every time she looked at Elijah, a prickle ran right up his spine. He felt pretty sure he recognized that prickle. It warned him of the presence of evil.

  “Lily, let’s head west like we planned,” Madame Zahara said, her painted eyes persuasive. “We’ll go on to Manhattan and set up camp. You can recite Ophelia’s soliloquy there if you want. I know you’ve been under such a strain losing little Abby, and this preacher is preying on your kindness. Look at him, Lily. He’s no different from the sort of man you’ve always despised. He’s selfish and pious and unloving, and he’s out to make all the money he can—and doing it in the name of God.”

  Lily’s blue eyes focused on Elijah, and it was all he could do not to take off running. Truth to tell, he was selfish. Always had been. But God was working on him, breaking down the walls he’d built as a boy. And he sometimes was pious. Sure enough, not two minutes ago he had stood there mentally running Mrs. Lily Nolan into the ground for being an actress. What made him so perfect? Nothing but the forgiving grace of God the Father. And unloving … well, he never had been too warm around people. He wasn’t much for hugging and kissing and all that. Made his back itch.

  “I can read your spirit, Preacher,” Madame Zahara said, turning her painted eyes on him. “I know what lies within your heart. If I looked into your palm, I could see the roads on which you’ve traveled. Paths of arrogance and self-importance. You believe you’ve found the one truth—the single answer to life. But you’re wrong. All paths lead to God. Every person has the spark of divine truth within himself, and all we need to do is trust our own heart to touch the holiness inside us.”

  Elijah listened to her words. They had a ring of truth to them— but they weren’t right. He knew there was only one path to God, and that was through Jesus Christ. On that path, he had found peace and comfort and hope. He had found forgiveness and a reason to live. Why was this woman trying to distort the truth?

  “Let Lily go,” she said, laying a hand on his arm. “Set her free to follow her own destiny. Don’t try to control others with your words, Preacher. Let them seek truth and find that spirit in the place where it has always dwelled. In their hearts.”

  Elijah took off his hat and tapped it on his thigh a couple of times. “Well, ma’am, I appreciate your concern for Mrs. Nolan,” he began. “Truly, I do. But the fact is, I’ve got a starving baby here, and she’s got the means to feed him. Now, we’ve made a deal, this lady and I, and I aim to see that it’s honored.”

  “That proves exactly what I was saying!” Madame Zahara exploded. “You are an arrogant, selfish—”

  “I am a man with a hungry baby and nobody to—”

  “Excuse me here,” Lily Nolan cut in. “I’m the one who’ll be making the decision. Beatrice, this baby needs a fresh diaper, another feeding, and a good night’s sleep. I’m going to see that he gets it. And as for you, Preacher-man, you’d better start cooking up a humdinger of a sermon. It’s almost Sunday, and I’ll expect to find you over at the church reeling them in and emptying their pockets so you can pay my wages.”

  El
i swallowed hard as she turned and walked off toward the gaudy wagon of the traveling show. He didn’t like Lily Nolan. Didn’t like her at all. And sure as shootin’, he didn’t want her looking after little Samuel one more day than necessary.

  “You’re such a teensy little fellow,” Lily murmured the next evening as baby Samuel regarded her solemnly. “But you’ve got big brown eyes and lots of hair. Where’d you get all that hair, huh? I think you’re strong enough that we might try to wash it tomorrow. Yes, sir, Mr. Samuel, you need a bath and some warm oil on your skin.” Lily had lovingly tended the tiny baby all through the night and today as well. After settling up with the irate customers, Beatrice had been pointedly ignoring Lily and her new little companion.

  As Lily stroked the baby’s cheek, he turned his head to the side and pressed his mouth against her hand. “I bet you’re hungry again, you fuzzy little caterpillar. What has that big ol’ preacher been feeding you? Mashed potatoes? And scrambled eggs, too? Glory be, no wonder you’re so skinny. Next time he tries a trick like that, you just spit those potatoes right back in his face.”

  She reflected on the handsome preacher and his bold sermonizing. What a contrast to the frantic look in his blue eyes when he was pleading with her to feed the baby he’d found. Truth to tell, she would gladly care for little Samuel and never take a penny. But she had enjoyed watching the man squirm.

  She sensed he was just like her father—held in high regard by the townsfolk, while they knew nothing of his true nature. She could picture her father marching into church with his head held high and his huge walrus mustache gleaming with wax. The grand gentleman, conductor of the Greater New England Symphony and minister of music at the First United Church of St. George, cut an imposing figure as he stood before the congregation and sang hymns in his melodic baritone.

  No one knew, of course, that this same man could use his voice to subjugate his wife until she was sobbing in humiliation. The huge hands that held a baton with such finesse could slam a child to the floor or swing a leather belt across a little girl’s bare flesh until it split open and began to bleed. The man who sang that “God is love; his mercy brightens all the path in which we rove” could turn on his family with hatred, rage, and unforgiving fury with a speed that rivaled the sudden flash of summer lightning.

  Always fearful, yet somehow always unprepared for her father’s wrath, Lily would crouch on the floor and cover her head until the storm of his anger had passed. And while he punished his daughter for the demons that lived in his own soul, she would journey to a secret place inside herself and listen to the sweet music in her heart.

  “Forget me not, forget me never,” she sang softly as she cradled the nursing Samuel. “Till yonder sun shall set forever.”

  Only after she had escaped her father, only in the sanctuary of the traveling show, had Lily ventured to sing aloud. Like a miracle, music had bubbled forth from her voice—arias, ballads, even meaningless jingles she had heard among her schoolmates. Beatrice had encouraged Lily to add singing and drama to the show, and as she performed, the young woman began to feel alive for the first time in her life.

  “I gave my love a cherry that had no stone,” she sang to the drowsy baby.

  “I gave my love a chicken that had no bone.

  I gave my love a ring that had no end.

  I gave my love a baby with no cryin’.”

  Then with Abigail, Lily finally had known true love. Oh, Abby! Her baby’s precious face formed in her memory. Deep blue eyes, downy golden hair, a sweet toothless smile. In the sea of misery, mistakes, and futility that Lily’s life had become, Abby had been the only ray of hope. Gazing into that angelic face, a lonely woman could forget her father’s rage-twisted features, her husband’s wandering eyes, even her own desperate race down a darkened path with no end.

  For the hundredth time, Lily’s mind rebelled at the idea that the child was dead. Her heart refused to believe she would never again kiss that petal-soft cheek. Even her body had refused to acknowledge that the child no longer needed nourishment. Swollen, aching, tender, Lily hugged the orphaned Samuel close as she continued singing.

  “A cherry when it’s blooming, it has no stone, A chicken when it’s pipping, it has no bone.

  A ring when it’s rolling, it has no end.

  A baby when it’s sleeping, there’s no cryin’.”

  “No cryin’,” a rich voice echoed the final three notes. “Amen and amen.”

  A tiny female face with skin as dark and shriveled as a prune peered through an opening in the wagon’s canvas covering. Gasping in shock, Lily clutched the baby tightly. When the old woman’s bright brown eyes took in the sight of the nursing woman and contented child, a wide smile spread across her face.

  “Mercy, mercy, mercy. Don’t this beat all?” A gnarled hand with clawlike fingers reached out and gave the baby a pat. “Howdy-do.”

  “Hello,” Lily said warily. “Do I know you?”

  “Not yet, but you will. I’m Margaret Hanks. Folks round here call me Mother Margaret.”

  Lily stared in confusion. What business did this woman have snooping around in other people’s wagons? Samuel had almost dropped off to sleep, and Lily herself was exhausted.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” she began, “but I’m—”

  “Oh, I know you, sure enough. You’re the lady come to look after the baby. Folks is talkin’ about it all over town, and I come out to see you for myself. When I heard you in here singin’ like an angel, I knew God hisself done sent you. Mercy, mercy, mercy, child, and bless your heart.”

  Lily couldn’t hide her smile, though she couldn’t understand why her heart warmed so quickly to this odd little stranger. “I don’t mind,” she said softly. “I lost my own baby.”

  “I heard that, too. Child, I lost three of my fourteen, and my heart ain’t never healed from the pain of it. Listen to Mother Margaret, now; why don’t you and that baby come on over to our house and take supper with us? We got fried chicken and greens. Cherry cobbler, too. You eat with us, and then you stay the night in one of our beds. We’ll make you a place with us, yes ma’am, and may the Lord be praised for his almighty wisdom. Amen and amen.”

  Chapter 3

  LILY cradled the baby and willed herself to remain seated. Why did the old woman’s words inspire such a sense of assurance and calm? How could a stranger know what a hot meal and a warm bed would mean to a grief-stricken traveler? And what had propelled this Mother Margaret across the prairie in the darkness?

  “I know it don’t seem usual,” the woman said, “and maybe you wouldn’t want to visit with folk who used to be slaves—”

  “No,” Lily said quickly. “It’s not that. But you don’t know me. You know nothing about me.”

  “Aw, sure I do. God sent you along here to help us out. Now you plannin’ to come eat some of Mother Margaret’s cherry cobbler or not?”

  Lily’s stomach tightened at the enticing thought. With her body depleted and this new baby so ravenous, Lily couldn’t deny her own need. “All right. I’ll come with you,” she said. “And I thank you for welcoming me.”

  “Mercy, mercy, mercy,” the old woman clucked as Lily made her way out of the wagon. “You’re as welcome in Hope as anybody else. Look at the Hanks family! Two months back, my boy, his wife, and I followed the Cornwall family out here to Kansas. Hankses been in the Cornwall family for generations, don’t you know. We was their slaves, of course, and now we’re freed folks. Yes, ma’am, free as the wind. But the fact is, we respect the Cornwalls, and they always done us good. My Ben built us a fine house over yonder near the Cornwall smithy.”

  Lily tried to concentrate as she carried the baby through the tall grass. “I don’t know the Cornwalls.”

  “You met Mister Jack earlier. He’s a big tall fellow, lives with his mammy and his little sister, Lucy. The Cornwalls is as happy as fleas in a doghouse these days. It just took a little doin’ for everybody in town to get used to them.”

  “Did t
he Cornwalls cause some kind of trouble here?”

  “Hoo, you done said it, gal. But that’s all in the past. Ben helps Mister Jack at the smithy, and Eva takes in laundry and mendin’. Me, I look after Miss Lucy when she’s feeling bad. We’re as much a part of things round here as quills on a goose.” She paused. “Now, who’s this a-comin’? She’s got eyes that would chill a side of beef.”

  “Lily?” Beatrice Waldowski raced toward them. “Lily, where are you going?”

  “Beatrice!” Lily stopped. “I didn’t realize you were still about. It’s very late.”

  “Have you gone mad?” Beatrice wore yet another version of her Madame Zahara outfit. “Of course I’m up. I’ve been reading palms and tarot cards in the tent. We have customers, you know. We have commitments. What are you doing?”

  “I’m … I’m going with Mrs. Hanks.” Lily swallowed, realizing how foolish she must appear to her friend. “She invited me for dinner, and I—”

  “Dinner? Do you even know this woman? Oh, Lily!” Beatrice clasped the younger woman tightly and spoke against her ear. “I’m so frightened for you. You’re not acting like yourself—taking in this baby and then wandering off with a stranger. Losing Abigail has distracted you and upset your spiritual balance. I’m frightened for you. Come with me, Lil. Come back to the wagon now. We’ll pack up and leave in the morning, and I promise I’ll take you far away from all this.”

  “Now just a cotton-pickin’ minute,” Mother Margaret spoke up, swelling to her full five-foot height. Her clawed finger shot upward and wagged in Beatrice’s face. “Miss Lily is comin’ to my house for supper, sure enough. You can come too, if you want, but don’t you go turnin’ this poor woman away from my door. Not now. Not when she needs me.”

  “Lily doesn’t need you,” Beatrice snapped. “She doesn’t even know you.”

  “It’s all right, Bea.” Lily held up a hand. “Mother Margaret has offered me a meal. Why don’t you join us?”