Smoke River Bride

by Lynna Banning

  “Leah, stop.”

  “Stop what?” Surely she had not spoken aloud?

  “Stop rubbing my back,” he said in a low growl. “And stop talking. I can’t take any more.”

  Hot tears of fury rose in her eyes. “I cannot take any more, either.” She snapped the sheet up over his body.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Leah took a deep breath and kept her focus on the whiskey bottle. “Things are not right between us, Thad.”

  He closed his hands into fists. “Yeah, I guess not.”

  “Is it Verena?” The words just slipped out, but when she heard them hanging in the silence she wasn’t sorry.

  “Huh? What’s Verena got to do with it?”

  “I thought…” Leah worked to control the trembling in her voice. “I think perhaps it was Verena you wanted. Not me.”

  He rolled over and tried to sit up. “Are you crazy?” Inexplicably he gave a harsh laugh. “It’s you I married, Leah. It’s you I want. And it’s you who’s driving me crazy.”

  “I do not believe you.”

  Thad stared at her, the astounded expression in his blue eyes slowly shifting into anger. “Well, gosh darn it.” He reached out to touch her shoulder, but she pulled back.

  He closed his eyes. “This’d be funny if it wasn’t so damn…so damn gut-wrenching.”

  “I will not mention it again, Thad. But I am not sorry I spoke to you about it.”

  Without a word he rolled off the bed and stalked to the bedroom door. Then, remembering he hadn’t a stitch on, he backtracked, threw on jeans and a shirt, pulled on his boots, and tramped out. Leah heard his steps pound across the porch and then fade into the yard.

  Numb, she curled up into the warm spot his body had left, stuffed her fist against her mouth and choked down her sobs.

  In the morning she went through the motions of cooking breakfast, sweeping the house and feeding the chickens, but her mind was on Thad. What could she do if he did not care for her as she cared for him?

  That afternoon she could not face the Ladies’ Knitting Circle. Instead, she rambled listlessly about the ranch, letting her feet carry her across meadows and pastures that were brown and parched from the relentless sun. She ended up at the fence bordering Thad’s precious wheat field.

  The spindly stalks looked half-dead already. The top growth was stunted, and the drooping wheat heads were beginning to dry up. Dear God, his wheat venture is going to fail! Her eyes stung.

  If he would only let her be close to him, she might ease his anguish. But their conversation last night had resulted in a cool stiffness at breakfast that had never been there before. In a way she wished she could take all her words back.

  But if she did, the barrier between them would never be resolved.

  She mopped her eyes with the hem of her apron and tried to face things as they were. Thad’s battered body had healed, but he was still preoccupied, and now she knew why. Verena Forester.

  Thad was withdrawing from her more each day and Leah knew that at some point it could cease to matter. She gave a strangled laugh. Her mother would say she had married a pigheaded man.

  A pigheaded man who wanted someone else.

  That night she made Thad’s favorite chicken and dumplings. After supper he passed her in the kitchen on his way toward the back door and patted her shoulder. She turned toward him, but he stepped away. He gave her a long look, then cleared his throat.

  “I’ll sleep in the barn tonight.”

  “The barn!” He was burying his head in the sand, and her heart along with it.

  She went to bed alone and wept until her pillow was soggy. She could not stand being set aside much longer.

  The week dragged by. Each day the merciless sun beat down, scorching her roses and the struggling vegetables in her kitchen garden. The freshly washed shirts and jeans and drawers she laundered were dry as soon as she clipped them on the clothesline.

  The knitting circle was to meet again at Verena’s on Saturday. Leah swallowed her distress and decided that yes, she must join them; she needed the companionship and the distraction of the ladies’ talk—at least as much of it as she could stomach.

  And the plan she had adopted called for her not only to remain strong, but if at all possible, to keep a serene face.

  Besides, she needed a packet of needles and another bottle of Thad’s whiskey from the mercantile. Her breath hitched in at the thought of dealing with Carl Ness, especially after he and Thad had come to blows, but she could not avoid it. Her throat ached as if she had swallowed a lumpy rock, but she vowed to go into town, do what she had to do and smile no matter what.

  On Saturday the air hung hot and heavy in the small bedroom, so stifling it was hard to breathe. She stood in her muslin camisole and pantalets, staring down at the long flounced skirt and petticoat and high-necked red calico shirtwaist laid out on the bed. Any breeze on this oppressively warm afternoon would never reach her skin through all those buttoned-up layers; it was simply too hot and sticky to be wrapped up like a Chinese steamed bun.

  Her Chinese silk tunic beckoned from the armoire. That and the loose trousers would let the air circulate and cool her skin. Why, she wondered, did not every woman in Smoke River wear similar comfortable garments during the hot summer days?

  When she was dressed, she saddled up Lady and slowly rode into town, keeping her fears under control by focusing her tearblurred eyes on the horse beneath her. The afternoon sun beat down on her wide-brimmed straw hat, and by the time she’d finished her business at the mercantile, calmed her nerves after Carl Ness’s rudeness and climbed the rickety wooden stairs to the dressmaker’s shop, her temples were pounding.

  A familiar voice stopped her halfway up the stairs.

  “Leah!” Ellie called from the landing. “My goodness, you’re wearing Chinese—” Her friend broke off as Leah panted up the last few steps.

  “Leah, are you all right? You look pale and your eyes—” Again she broke off.

  She knew what her eyes looked like; they were swollen and puffy from crying. She could not explain, because Ellie, so in love with her devoted husband, would never understand.

  “Come in, Leah. Verena has made lemonade. It will help you feel better.”

  At the doorway, Leah hesitated, pinched her cheeks to bring some color to her face and marched into the lion’s den.

  Everyone was present, even young Noralee Ness, whose lap robe for her mother was half-finished. Jeanne Halliday patted the chair next to her, and Leah sank onto it. How she wished she had brought Uncle Charlie’s Chinese fan! Instead, she snatched off her sun hat and waved it back and forth in front of her face.

  “How come you’re wearing those Chinese clothes?” Noralee inquired with typical directness.

  Leah took a deep breath. “Because they are cooler in hot weather.” She looked at the flushed faces in the circle. “If I might suggest,” she began with trepidation, “these loose-fitting garments are simple to make. I will donate an old tunic you could use for a patt—”

  “Never!” Verena spit the word in Leah’s face. “What an outrageous suggestion. Thad would never—”

  Leah stopped her fanning. Outrageous, was it? What was outrageous were Verena’s constant veiled hints about Thad.

  “What an insane idea!” Darla blurted. “Are you suffering from sunstroke?”

  Ellie shoved a tall glass of lemonade into Darla’s hand and followed with a plate of cookies. Chewy ones, with raisins, Leah noted. They must have come from Uncle Charlie’s bakery, and she wondered who had brought them.

  “Didja all hear ’bout the town meeting tonight?” Noralee asked excitedly. “My father is organizing it.”

  Leah’s spine stiffened. “Town meeting? No, I had not heard. What is the meeting about?”

  A silence descended in the stifling room, so thick Leah could hear the beating of her own heart. At last, Jeanne raised her head and cleared her throat.

  “Alors, the meeting was cal
led by Monsieur Ness and Monsieur Poletti, the barber. It is about the new bakery in town. Uncle Charlie’s bakery.”

  “My Uncle Charlie?” Verena gave an undignified half laugh, half snort. “Well, Leah, no one else in Smoke River has a Chinese uncle, now, do they? The town meeting is to decide what to do about it.”

  Ice water pooled in the center of her belly. “What do you mean, ‘do about it’?”

  Verena looked away. After an awkward moment, Darla spoke up. “It means deciding whether the people of Smoke River are going to stand for a Celestial moving into our town and starting his own business.”

  Ellie caught Leah’s eye and leaned sideways toward her. “Leah,” she said in an undertone, “you must come to the meeting. You must. The whole town is taking sides.”

  “Meeting!” Thad shouted at supper that night. “More likely a tar-and-feather party. Carl Ness ought to be behind bars.”

  “Who’s gonna get tar and feathers, Pa?”

  “They’re gunning for Uncle Charlie, son.”

  Teddy’s brow wrinkled. “What’s he done?”

  “Nothing,” Leah and Thad said in unison. “Eat your supper, Teddy.”

  “But I wanna know about the meeting.”

  “So do we, son.” Thad pushed his chair back from the table and stood up. “I’m going on into town early, Leah.”

  “But Thad…”

  “I’ve got to go,” he said, his voice quiet. “You know that sometimes people can get some crazy notions.” He touched her shoulder. “I’ve got to keep Charlie safe.”

  She met her husband’s steady gaze; the determined look on his face sent a shiver of fear up her backbone.

  “Be careful.”

  He reached for her, pulled her out of the dining chair and folded her into his arms. “You are one sensible woman, Leah.”

  She struggled to steady her breathing. “I am a sensible woman who cares about you.”

  To her surprise, he kissed her thoroughly. His firm lips, and the scratch of his afternoon whiskers, warmed a hollow ache below her belly. When he lifted his head, he looked at her so long she wondered if she had flour on her nose.

  In the next moment he was out the front door, and she heard his boots thud down the porch steps.

  “Wish Pa’d taken me with him. We were s’posed to go fishin’, but I guess he forgot.”

  “He could not take you with him, Teddy. Your father wants you to be safe tonight. With me,” she added.

  “Oh. Okay. I guess it’s not so bad, bein’ with you, Leah.”

  Not so bad? Was that acceptance she heard in the boy’s words? Even approval?

  Before dark fell, Leah washed up the dishes and Teddy dried them; then they walked out to the barn and he helped her saddle Lady. When she had mounted, Teddy scrambled up in front of her. She did not want Thad’s son more than an arm’s length away from her at the town meeting tonight.

  “Golly, Leah. I’ve never seen tar ’n’ feathers on anybody.”

  “Hush, Teddy. You do not want to see such a thing.”

  In the hour it took to reach town she thought about the look on Thad’s face after he’d kissed her. Oh, how she hungered for more of Thad. Much, much more.

  She also thought about the ugly situation that awaited them. Her husband was courageous, even gallant, to volunteer to keep Uncle Charlie safe. She knew that Thad had stood up for her in the past, and that it had cost him bloody knuckles and bruised ribs.

  She could not help thinking that Verena Forester would never need such protection. No doubt Verena had never, ever felt she was an outsider.

  A confrontation at the town meeting would drive Thad even further away from her. Was she costing Thad more than he was willing to pay?

  She bit her lip until she tasted blood.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The town meeting was held in the large room in back of the barber shop. When Leah and Teddy walked inside, the noise was so deafening Teddy clapped both hands over his ears.

  Screaming children raced around the perimeter until they were corralled by their parents. Townspeople stood nose to nose, shaking fingers in each other’s angry red faces, until finally Carl Ness divided the crowd into two opposing groups facing each other on opposite sides of the room.

  People found seats on whatever they could seize—extra chairs from the barbershop, empty barrels, wooden fruit crates with colorful labels pasted on one end, even cushions tossed down on the plank floor.

  Leah shared a splintery apple crate with Teddy. “Golly, the whole town’s here,” he whispered. “Must be a hund’erd people.”

  Across the room, people were packed so tight they could scarcely move. Only a few drifted to the side where Leah sat with Teddy—Ellie and Matt Johnson; Jeanne and Colonel Halliday and their daughter, Manette. And—Leah’s eyes widened—hulking, overweight Ike Bruhn.

  Ike Bruhn? What was he doing on their side? She thought he hated the Chinese. Thad was just now recuperating from the beating Ike and Whitey Poletti had inflicted last week.

  Near Ike sat Sarah Rose, owner of the white clapboard boardinghouse at the edge of town, and Rooney Cloudman, her boarder, along with Harvey Pritchard and his wife, from the Lazy J ranch five miles out of town. And old Mrs. Hinksley, a retired schoolteacher from Portland who boarded with Mrs. Rose with her sister, Iris DuPont. Ike’s fiancée, Cleora Rose, sat across the room among the Nesses and the Polettis and everyone else opposed to Leah’s Chinese uncle’s presence and his bakery.

  Leah counted only thirteen people on her side, and that included children. She lost count of the number on the opposite side.

  “Where’s Pa?” Teddy whispered. Leah scanned the gathering, but Thad’s tall, lean form was nowhere to be seen.

  “I do not know. He left the house early to find a safe place for Uncle Charlie in case…” She could not bear to finish the thought.

  Carl Ness began banging a makeshift gavel on the small table before him. “Order,” he yelled. “Come to order.”

  Carl’s wife, Linda-Lou, sat on his right. To his left perched their twins, Edith and Noralee. Leah noticed that Noralee was staring fixedly at her shoes.

  Whitey Poletti sprawled behind Carl in an old barbershop chair, his white-blond hair slicked back with hair tonic. Sitting slumpshouldered as he was, the paunchy Italian resembled an oversize rag doll.

  Carl stood up, hooked his thumbs in his front pockets and puffed out his bony chest. “I called this here meeting ’cuz of something important that’s come up in Smoke River. Something that affects all of us.”

  A murmur of discontent circled the room. Undeterred, the mercantile owner continued. “Up till a couple of months ago, our town’s been a pretty nice place to live. Now we’ve got us a problem.”

  Harvey Pritchard stood up at the back of the room and stuck both thumbs in his bib overalls. “Vat iss this problem?”

  “The problem,” Carl retorted, “is Charlie’s Bakery. You’d know that if you and the missus came into town and visited the mercantile more often.”

  “Yah? Who iss Charlie?”

  A ripple of anticipation followed the farmer’s query. “He’s a damn Celestial,” Carl said, his voice tight. “You know, a Chinaman!”

  Pritchard restraightened his bib overalls. “And vat has he done?”

  Whitey Poletti shot to his feet. “Clean out yer ears, Pritchard. The Chinaman’s opened a bakery, right next to my barbershop!”

  “Ah, iss good idea, yah? Get shave and haircut and bring home cake.”

  The crowd laughed. Poletti grew red in the face. “But this here Charlie is a Celestial!” he shouted. “An immigrant! His real name is Ming Chow or somethin’.”

  “So vat? I and my wife, ve are immigrants, too. Ve are Dutch. My wrangler, he is fullblooded Nez Perce, and my cook, Maria, she comes from Mexico.”

  Whitey snorted. “Ya know, Pritchard, you live so far outta town you don’t keep up with things. I said Charlie is a Chinaman.”

  Talk broke out all over th
e room and the barber plopped back onto his chair. Carl lifted his gavel and had to rap the block of cedar on the table three times before the buzzing voices fell silent.

  “Anybody else not up to date on what’s happening to this town?”

  “Hell, yes,” shouted Matt Johnson. In his slow, easy way, the rangy federal marshal got to his feet. “What’s the big panic over a bakery?”

  “A Chinese bakery,” a woman shouted.

  “Run by a Chinaman,” someone else yelled. “We’re not gonna stand for it.”

  Another woman’s voice pierced the clamor. “You let one foreigner move in and next thing you know you’ve got one on every street corner.”

  The marshal waited for quiet. “I can’t see the problem,” he drawled. “Unless he bakes bad cakes.”

  “Siddown, Johnson,” Carl snapped.

  Matt eyed the mercantile owner and raised one dark eyebrow. “You won’t forget it’s ‘Marshal Johnson,’ now, will you?” he said in his low, steady voice. “Just thought I’d remind you all that this is a peaceable meeting. Everybody gets to speak his mind but nobody throws a punch.”

  “Go back to Texas!” someone yelled.

  A familiar female voice rose again. “First thing you know there’ll be Chinese wives in town and Chinese kids in our school.”

  Another voice added to the clamor. “The Chinese will take over everything.”

  Leah sighed. Verena Forester had an abundance of opinions.

  “Send ’em back to China!” another woman chimed.

  Leah clenched her fists in her lap. This was wrong. Wrong! How could a whole town punish an innocent man just for being Chinese? She had seen it in Luzhou when someone “different” was forced to leave the village. But here, in America? Her father had taught her that America was the land of the free. No one could force Uncle Charlie to leave town.

  Could they?

  Someone lifted Teddy off his perch and sat down next to Leah.

  “Thad!”

  He settled Teddy on his lap. “Don’t worry about Uncle Charlie,” he whispered. “He’s safe.” He surveyed the roomful of bickering townspeople. “Anybody here get out of line yet?”