Prairie Fire

by Catherine Palmer

  “No soul?” Salvatore Rippeto interrupted. “Then you are saying the Cornishman is like an animal, O’Toole? Maybe you think it’s okay to own Cornishmen? Maybe you think slavery was a good thing, too. Is this what you say, O’Toole? You wanted Kansas to go to slavery?”

  “Why do you think the girl is crazy, Rippeto?” Casimir Laski stepped into the argument. “God has given this illness to her because of some unconfessed sin! Sin drives the Cornwall woman mad. Sin from her past torments her day and night.”

  “I am an abolitionist!” Mr. LeBlanc roared. The miller leapt onto a bench. “I believe that all men have souls, Jimmy O’Toole! Cornishmen, black men, all men! I say it is wrong to own slaves.”

  “But if we’d had slaves,” Laski shouted, “we could have gotten through that grasshopper plague a lot better last year! We could have replanted twice as fast!”

  “Settle down, everybody,” Seth Hunter hollered. “This is supposed to be a party, and we’ve just run off the guests of honor. Now everybody better get calm, while I go try to—”

  “Down with slavery!” someone cried.

  “And down with the Cornish!” Sheena O’Toole bellowed. “Down with soulless Cornishmen!”

  “Defeat to the Confederacy!”

  “All hail the Union!”

  “Calm down everybody!”

  “Secede! Secede!”

  “Yankee!”

  “Reb!”

  Caitrin clapped her hands over her ears. As Salvatore Rippeto’s fist smashed into Casimir Laski’s nose, she ran toward the door. With the crack of a bench breaking and the wail of a child crying behind her, she let the blackness of night gather her into its arms.

  Jack could hear the sounds of the quilt auction inside the mercantile as he strode toward it from the creek bank. The good citizens of Hope must have settled down after their hysterics, name-callings, fist swingings, and general conniptions. Cruel people. Sinners one and all. If he didn’t have to go back inside and fetch Lucy’s handcuffs from where they’d fallen out of his pocket, he wouldn’t come near the place.

  Ever again.

  It was time to leave. He should have known better than to return to Kansas—flat, dried-up old plain anyhow. Bunch of prairie dogs scratching out a living. He’d heard their cruel accusations against poor Lucy. Lucy had never done anybody a bad turn in her life.

  “Sunshine and Shadows!” Seth Hunter called out from the mercantile. “This quilt was made by Mrs. Violet Hudson. Why don’t you tell us about it, ma’am?”

  Jack stepped into the crowded store as a woman stood holding a small baby. Five or six little children clung to her skirt. “It’s the dark and light colors that make up this Log Cabin pattern we call Sunshine and Shadows,” she said. “I used scraps from the dresses I made when my husband was alive. And then … well … I sewed myself some widow’s weeds, so I had the dark scraps, too. So that’s it, Sunshine and Shadows.”

  Thankful the crowd was facing away from him, Jack walked to the corner of the room where he had sat with Lucy. The whole mess was Caitrin Murphy’s fault, he thought. She was so determined to do her good deeds and make her pious proclamations that she’d run everything straight into the ground. Go and get Lucy, Jack. Please fetch your sister, Jack. If he hadn’t been swayed by her constant belief that all would be well …

  As he picked up the chain, the clink of iron drew the attention of the crowd. Straightening, Jack stared at the onlookers, daring them to speak a word. Seth Hunter tossed the quilt onto a bench and took a step forward.

  “Jack,” he said. “I … ah … I was planning to come talk to you later. I hope everything’s all right. Your sister, I mean.”

  “Same as ever.” Jack squeezed his fist around the chain. Words of venom and bile filled his mouth and soured his tongue. He gritted his teeth.

  “I am fery sorry for trouble I make you,” Rolf said, standing. “I do not mean bad to your sister.”

  “That’s right, Jack,” Seth added. “I’d like to apologize to you and your family for the ruckus tonight. I guess things got heated up around here and … ah … well, some of us got a little carried away.”

  “Yep,” Jack said. “I reckon you did.”

  The chain dangling from his hand, he walked toward the door. Thanks for the welcome party, he wanted to say. Thanks for your show of neighborhood unity. Thanks for your godly example of Christian love and brotherhood. But he swallowed the words and stepped outside.

  So much for Hope.

  Caitrin nearly cried aloud in fear when she saw the huge, shadowy figure moving toward her. But then she heard the clink of an iron chain and recognized the outline of the man’s shoulders.

  “Jack.” She stood from the bench outside her soddy. “How is Lucy?”

  “Needs her chains. And don’t sass me about it, either. There’s nobody to keep an eye on her while we pack up.”

  “Pack?” Caitrin took a step toward him, aching to touch and soothe but aware she had already caused so much trouble. “Are you leaving us, then?”

  “It’s for the best.”

  “Please don’t go.” The words slipped out before she had weighed them. “Oh, Jack, I know some of the men were unkind, but—”

  “They spoke badly of Lucy. She’s my sister, and I’ll stand up to anyone who sullies her name. Fact is, before her troubles, Lucy was one of the sweetest little gals anybody ever knew—a good, upstanding Christian who showed her religion by her actions better than anybody around here. Jimmy O’Toole had no right to cuss her like that. I’ve been trying my best to pray, read the Bible, and walk the straight and narrow. But if I ever get my hands on that skinny little Irishman, I can’t promise he’ll live to see another day.”

  “Sure, Jimmy is my own sister’s husband,” Caitrin said, recoiling at the harshness in his voice. “In spite of his ill behavior tonight, he’s a fine, hardworking man and a good father to his five children. You mustn’t threaten his life, Jack. And the people of this town are not so wicked, either. Please try to remember they probably haven’t met anyone like Lucy before, and they don’t know what to make of her. Few of them have had such troubles in their own families. They haven’t had time to get to know Lucy as a human being.”

  “Which they don’t consider her to be. You heard what O’Toole said about us—Cornishmen have no souls. Aren’t we worthy of God’s love? Don’t we deserve a measure of friendship from the townsfolk?”

  “Of course you do.”

  “I reckon not. Ever since I started building the smithy, not a person in Hope has said more than two words to me beyond asking me to mend a shovel or patch a bucket. How’s my family ever going to show our true nature if people judge us as demons?”

  Caitrin lifted her eyes to the moon. She’d been sitting for almost an hour in prayer, begging God to show her answers to these very questions. Instead of a peace that passes understanding, she felt turmoil and anger. Fury raced through her veins at the cruel words that had been spoken and the wicked things that had been done. And now Jack Cornwall was forcing her to defend the very people who had disappointed her so deeply.

  She let out a breath that misted white in the chilly night air. “I don’t know how you can prove yourselves,” she said softly. “But you certainly won’t do it if you leave town.”

  Jack leaned his back against the wall of the soddy and dangled the chain against the toe of his boot. For a long time he said nothing. Then he hooked a thumb in his pocket. “All we wanted was a chance,” he said.

  “The question is not what you wanted, Jack. What does God want of you?” Caitrin rubbed her hands up and down her arms, trying to warm them. “Do you think I would have chosen a sod house on a barren prairie as my lot in life? Certainly not. But I felt the Lord leading me here to Sheena and Jimmy. I didn’t understand why at the time, and perhaps I still don’t. At first I felt I was to help my sister with her children, perhaps to start a small school and teach them their letters. Then I began working at the mercantile, and it seemed God br
ought my skills into use there. And then you came along… .”

  She studied his face, the hard line written across his mouth, the rumple of his brown hair, the anger in his gray eyes. Oh, Jack Cornwall. Why do you stir my heart and cause my very bones to ache? What is it in you that touches me so deeply?

  “’Tis not what we want,” she whispered. “If we’ve given our hearts to the Lord, we must do his will no matter the cost.”

  “How’s anybody supposed to know what God wants?” he asked. When Caitrin didn’t answer, he mused for a moment. “If I were to put myself in God’s shoes, I’d ask just one thing from folks—and it wouldn’t have a thing to do with running smithies or mercantiles. I’d want love.”

  Caitrin tried to force down the lump in her throat. “Yes,” she managed. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart… .

  “I’d want people to love me so much that they had to tell everybody they met,” Jack said. “And they’d show their love for me so clearly in everything they did that other folks would ask why … and then start begging to get to know me for themselves. If I were God, that’s what I’d want.”

  Love, Caitrin thought. It was what Jack himself wanted and what she’d begged God to give him. How amazing that this often unloved and unlovable man understood so clearly the heart of his Lord.

  He studied the moon. “I thought if I built a smithy here I could take care of my family,” Jack went on. “I’ve got plans, you know. Dreams. And I sure thought God had led me back here to Kansas to make them come true. But after tonight … well, I’m not certain there’s room for me in this town.”

  Caitrin gulped down a sob. How could she ever express the torment she felt over his words? She couldn’t even make herself speak for fear she’d burst into tears. And what could she tell him? Give these people time, Jack. Be patient, Jack. Let them learn to care for you … as I do.

  “If God didn’t send me to Kansas to build that smithy,” he said, still staring at the moon as though it were his companion on this night and not Caitrin Murphy, “if God didn’t send me here to build that smithy, then why did I feel so sure I was supposed to come back? It was almost like I heard him talking to me that evening last winter after I left the O’Tooles’ barn.”

  “You heard the voice of God?”

  “In a way.” He reflected a moment. “I told you about that night on the road when I got down on my knees and prayed for God’s forgiveness. It was almost like God told me to come back to Hope. Why? Why did he want me here?”

  Caitrin blotted her cheek with the corner of her handkerchief. Why, Lord? Why anything? Why was Lucy so troubled? Why did Sheena scorn Felicity? Why didn’t she have the answers for Jack? Why, why, why?

  “Because I’m supposed to love God here, and that’s all,” Jack said, his voice filled with an unexpected calm. “No big dreams. No big plans. Just love. That’s why he wanted me to come back to Kansas. God wanted me to love him so much—right here in this podunk town with its mean-mouthed citizens—that people could look at me and see for themselves that God changes men’s hearts.”

  Caitrin dabbed her eyelids and tried to dam the drippy faucet that her nose had become. Why did she have to cry now? Why this uncontrollable weeping when there was so much she needed to say? She wanted to affirm Jack, to encourage him, to beg him not to give up. She ached to reach out to him with words of acceptance and love. Instead, she gave a shuddering sob and buried her face in her hands.

  “I doubt if the folks here will change, though,” Jack said to the moon. “Their hate is dug in deep. Real deep.”

  Her handkerchief soaked, Caitrin blotted her cheeks with the cuff of her sleeve. Yes, it was true, she wanted to tell him. Hate and intolerance could spring out of the nicest people at the most unlikely times. And only God could change them. But her lip was quivering so much she couldn’t form a single word.

  “So I guess that’s that,” Jack said. He wound the chain around his hand. “If I leave, they won’t have seen God in me. Not enough to touch their hearts anyhow. I reckon the Cornwalls will just have to be like that fellow Stephen in the Bible—keeping our mouths shut while folks throw their stones. It’s not exactly in my nature to turn the other cheek, but I expect I better give it a try. What do you think?” He turned and looked at Caitrin.

  “Oh, darlin’,” he said. In a single stride he had caught her up in his arms and was kissing her hair, her damp cheeks, her wet eyelashes, her trembling lips. His warmth enfolded her.

  “The first time we met, you told me you loved me,” Jack said in a low voice. “I didn’t know what that word meant. Love. Didn’t really understand it. But I think I’m beginning to catch on. It’s about opening your heart to what somebody else needs. And it’s you I’m seeing that love in, Caitrin. I’m seeing God in you the way I want folks to see him in me.”

  He held her tightly, all but crushing the breath from her chest. “Thanks for talking to me about all this, Caitrin,” he said, his lips moving against the skin of her forehead. “You’re a wise woman.”

  With one last embrace, he stepped away from her, looked her up and down once, and then turned on his heel and walked away. She was quite sure she hadn’t been the one talking to Jack Cornwall. And she hurried into the soddy for a dry handkerchief.

  CHAPTER 13

  SOMETIMES I feel discouraged, and think my work’s in vain,”

  Jack sang as he pumped the bellows on his forge. “But then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again.”

  Jack thrust the red-hot nail header into his quenching bucket and heard the satisfying hiss of steam. “There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole,” he belted out the chorus. “There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul.”

  He gave the header a tap and a brand-new nail slid out into the pile on the table. With the church going up and folks repairing their barns and wagons, Jack could hardly keep up with the demand for nails. He was grateful for the work.

  It had taken him two days to persuade his mother to stay on in Hope and less than two weeks to convince the townsfolk they’d be hard-pressed without him. Swallowing their pride, people had begun trickling into the smithy from the time he had his forge up and burning. Now a steady stream of customers dropped by wanting repairs or asking for the plows, shovels, wheels, and tools he crafted each day.

  After talking with Caitrin the night of the welcome festival, Jack had made up his mind to keep a safe distance from her and the incredible lure of her sweet spirit and compelling beauty. If he was ever to have a chance of courting the woman in an open and proper fashion, he knew he’d have to win the respect of the O’Tooles … and that wasn’t going to be an easy job. All the same, he had found a way to stay in touch with Caitrin. She had agreed to let him sell his tools through the mercantile. The arrangement gave her a little profit, and it allowed him to talk with her every day, if only for a few minutes.

  “If you can’t preach like Peter,” he sang, enjoying the rich round notes of his mellow baritone filling the smithy, “if you can’t pray like Paul, just tell the love of Jesus, and say he died for all.”

  By the time he had sung the last word, Jack had made three more nails. Every fifteen seconds he could turn one out, he thought with some measure of pride. He had learned nail making at his father’s side on the farm, and even as a child he had enjoyed the creativity and challenge that went with working iron. But it wasn’t until the war that he’d come into his own. Assigned to a Confederate unit as the blacksmith, he had followed the troops and worked from sunup to sundown fixing broken weapons, repairing cannon, crafting tools. Hard work, but he’d loved it.

  “Excuse me, sir, but where is Gilead?” a lilting voice asked.

  Jack gave the bellows a push that blew fresh air onto the glowing pocket of coke in the forge and looked up. Caitrin Murphy stood in the doorway, a smile on her face and a bent poker in her hand.

  “Caitrin,” he said, his breath nearly robbed from his chest by the sight of her. “You look beautiful.”<
br />
  “No more beautiful than the sound of your voice drifting across the road to the mercantile.” Then she gave him a little wink. “Tell me, sir, what is the exact meaning of the word balm?”

  Jack laughed. “You know, I’ve been singing about the balm of Gilead ever since I learned that song at a church service last Christmas, and come to think of it, I don’t know the answer to either question.”

  “Perhaps you’d better move on to ‘Jacob’s Ladder,’” she said, stepping into the room. “I recall the story behind that one, so I do. Jacob dreamed about a ladder with angels going up and down it from earth to heaven.”

  “He was using a rock for his pillow,” Jack said. “No telling what you’ll dream if you do something knuckleheaded like that.”

  She chuckled. “That was when God gave Jacob all the land around the place where he was sleeping and promised him a long line of children, too. ’Tis a good verse for us here in Hope, Kansas. ‘And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.’”

  “Great ghosts, Miss Murphy,” Jack said. “Where’d you learn all that?”

  “Straight out of the Scriptures, sir.” She laid the poker on a table. “And now down to business. I’ve a poor bent poker here that I took in trade for a bridge toll. Can you make it new again?”

  “That’s what I do best.” Jack tapped another nail out of the header and onto the pile. Encouraged by his admirer’s praise, he started in on “Jacob’s Ladder” as he began the next nail. “Sinner, do you love my Jesus?” he sang, all but raising the rafters on the smithy roof. “Sinner, do you love my Jesus? Sinner, do you love my Jesus? Soldiers of the cross.”

  As he tapered the point of the nail, Caitrin joined in. “If you love him, why not serve him? If you love him, why not serve him—”