Infinite Faith Infinite Series, Book 4)

by L. E. Waters

  I breathe a sigh of relief and run out to see Jessie carrying Violet easily over his head as she playfully screams for him not to drop her. Pip flies off into the air and lands near them, pecking at various things on the ground.

  With Viv gone, Annie starts to focus on helping Savannah but seems to only enable her behavior. Annie does everything Savannah requests and never leaves her side. Savannah still drinks excessively, yet now she borrows money from Annie’s deepening pockets.

  The haze we’re all in from the news of Clem and Viv causes Violet to be especially starry eyed and she mistakenly takes that moment to brooch the topic with Jessie. They’re on a walk and I drift off by myself down to a spring with Pip trailing behind me, but as soon as they begin yelling I can hear everything since it carries in on the water.

  “You don’t think what Clem did was romantic?” I look up to see Violet stand up with her arms flailing dangerously in Jessie’s direction. “I think Clem is incredibly lucky to have someone like Viv to take care of him and raise a family with.”

  Jessie replies in a steady tone, as if he hoped to avoid this conversation. “They had to go far away from town, far away from this whole area, since so many of the men ‘know her’ and what’s she’s done.”

  “And what exactly has she done?” Violet’s honey eyes squint almost to nothing. “She just showed her arms and knees and jiggled around a bit. Had a few dances with some men. She wasn’t laying with a single one. Just like me.”

  “You know how honest people feel about your…um…what you do, and there’s no way anyone will accept you or your husband or your children anywhere a man recognizes you.”

  Violet’s crying at this point, yet he continues in a softer tone, “Look, I like you, Violet. I really like you, but you gotta realize Viv can run twenty miles somewhere and not be recognized but you…you’re famous. You’ve moved around three states in the last five years. Men have even drawn your likeness and sold them everywhere. Just like a wanted poster! You’ve got to realize that?”

  He tries to hug her but she tears away. “Don’t touch me.” She runs back farther down the hill. He attempts to follow for a little bit but gives up. He shakes his head at me as he passes by and heads back to the saloon.

  Chapter 22

  I go back to her room and wait there until she returns. She hugs me immediately and sobs. I take my handkerchief out since she’s a mess.

  “I had no choice. God gave me no choice! I was marked a bastard at my birth and have been an untouchable my whole life. When my mother died I had no other way to support myself. I did the only thing I could do.”

  She blows heavily into my handkerchief and I look around for another one since she’s going to need it. She grabs the crystal amulet hanging with the locket around her neck and rubs it with her thumb. “I really thought he loved me and wanted to marry me. I thought he accepted me.” With that she crumbles to the floor by the bed and I realize she’ll never be ready in an hour for her dance. “What good are these charms if they can’t make him love me?”

  She rips the mysterious amulet off her chest and throws it across the room.

  “Violet, Jessie is one of the best men I know and I have known him for a long time. Just give him a little bit to adjust. He sometimes acts quickly and thinks later, but he has a good heart.”

  She stops sobbing at this and asks, “Do you think I should ignore him and show him what he’ll miss?”

  “I think you should just calm yourself down and focus on your dancing for tonight and we’ll see what tomorrow brings.”

  She pulls herself up to start repairing the damage she’s done, which is a good sign she’s going to go on tonight. She gets out her makeup, which is the finest selection you can see only in the fanciest shop in the city, and applies her mask. This is a good time to distract her with my own problems, so I begin to tell her my whole story. She’s so intrigued she stops applying just to stare open-mouthed. I have to remind her to keep getting ready.

  “So now Lucian thinks it’s his and is going to pay a good price to Molly to buy me from her and I will become his slave. I don’t have enough money to leave and take care of myself for long.” I sit on the corner of her bed.

  “When I was little, my mother had this beautiful little desert garden in the little courtyard behind our house and she called it Violet’s garden,” she said smiling. “And I think every day about leaving this and just making a little garden for myself somewhere.” She goes back to her makeup again. “Sometimes all that matters are those little things.” Violet jumps subjects suddenly. “Gosh, Josie, do you think James is even still alive? If that camp was as terrible as you said, it sounds like he might not have made it. It’s been six months.” She walks over and rubs my belly. “I can’t believe I didn’t even notice! But the bump is so small.” She looks back up. “And do you think if he even comes here that he’ll take you back after everything?”

  This reminds her about her own sadness. She walks over to her vanity to take her locket off and hang it inside the armoire. She remembers the amulet and scoops it up out of the corner of the room.

  “I don’t know anything.”

  She bends over to hug me. “I’m so sorry.”

  It makes me feel ten times stronger. She goes to the window and ties a new knot in the cord so the amulet can hang from the window sash. “Maybe it just needs a little cleansing from tonight’s full moon,” she says with a witchy wink of the eye. The crystal spins a few times, tapping against the glass.

  “Listen, Violet, I had a terrible dream and I think it’s a warning for you.”

  “Me? Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

  “But I have dreams sometimes that warn me about horrible things. This one was about you.”

  We hear the music begin downstairs. “Molly must have found a piano player then.” She laughs to lighten the mood in the room. Before dashing out the door, she says, “We’ll talk more tonight.”

  Violet’s performance is as wonderful as always. Her breakdown doesn’t seem to affect her performance in any way. Yet, this time there is a marked difference in the attention she gives to Odd Stick Rich. Usually she plays it up a bit but always keeps her biggest smiles and flirting glances for Jessie. But tonight they all go to Rich. Coldness arises in the room as we feel the tension grow between Jessie and Violet. The same show Violet enjoys giving on stage plays out all around Rich and Rich is thrilled. Violet goes over to Molly and whispers something in her ear that makes Molly salivate.

  Molly steps up on the stage and booms, “Violet Belle has just informed me that instead of our usual auctioning of her only dance of the night she is for the first and only time auctioning off a visit to her boudoir.”

  Immediately hands come flying up. There’s a frenzy of men yelling out various amounts and Molly is barking out the latest high number. Jessie paces at the back of the room through all the commotion and he looks as though he’s about to let loose. The bidding dwindles down to three bidders and each enormous new number sends the crowd gasping at every bid. Violet glances once back in Jessie’s direction, almost begging him to bid for her, but he replies to her look by spitting on the floor. Rich wins the auction and Violet pretends to be thrilled and jumps into Rich’s arms. Rich is as excited as a fox that breaks into a hen house and lifts her up to carry her up the stairs. Violet turns to see Jessie’s reaction, but only catches the flapping of the parlor doors. Her happiness deflates as she stares off to the ceiling while Rich backs into her room and closes the door.

  I can’t believe what just occurred. Violet has just done the most foolish thing of her life. I don’t know if I should go knock on the door to keep her from making a huge mistake or let her make it. I hesitate for a few minutes and I’m on my way to the door when it swings open and Rich comes flying out of the room, nearly jumps down the stairs and out the doors. I look back into the room to see Violet lying face down on her bed with a pillow over her head. I roll her over in an ins
tant to see her eyes opened and fixed to the ceiling, the telltale sign of death. I try to shake her anyway.

  “Violet come back. Wake up!” I try for a few minutes, but there’s no response. I put my ear to her chest and hear nothing, emptiness. The emptiest sound you can hear. I stare up in shock at what just happened and see Molly and the girls standing at the doorway with their hands to their mouth. All of her things are thrown around the room. She had been fighting him in there for a while but we couldn’t hear because of the music and rowdiness caused by the aftermath of the unusual auction.

  I was only three doors away! I thought of coming in. If I listened to myself, she’d still be here.

  My body begins moving before I realize where it’s taking me. I feel as if I get to the boarding house in an instant and I bang on the door.

  Jessie calls out, “Go away.”

  All I have to say is, “Violet’s dead” and he opens it immediately.

  “What did you say?” His face is frozen in a look of worry I’m not used to.

  “She must have decided not to go through with it and Rich suffocated her.”

  Jessie dashes into his room for something that his tucks into the waist of his pants and he flies like lightning to some stranger’s horse and rides off at a gallop. I stand there as all around me buzzes. What the hell just happened?

  I peer into Jessie’s small room and see all his most precious things, all the same things he had dragged around with him during the war, yet I notice something new in the middle of all his possessions—a hand-drawn likeness of Violet in her Bo-peep outfit. I close the door and have to get away. I lie down by our spring and fall asleep sobbing. Another one is gone.

  Chapter 23

  I come back into the saloon and I’m hugged instantly by Annie, Gracie and Lottie. Savannah is surprisingly sober and chipper this morning. For the first time in months, she has put make up on and fixed her hair with curls.

  She says, “Poor Violet. So sad that such a beautiful girl has gone to waste. I can’t believe this has happened.”

  Although she says it as sorrowfully as she can muster, I know that her life has righted itself again. It looks as if the other girls have been crying all night. Molly breezes by without a glance at me and reaches for her parasol and hat.

  I ask, “Are you making Violet’s arrangements?”

  “Oh, no. Cursed. Cursed I tell ya! All these deaths and troubles in the last month are telling me I’m cursed for sure. I have to get back to church right away. I could be next!” She turns to me as she stands in the doorway. “Do ya have a moment outside?”

  I walk out onto the porch with her and she appears uneasy about what she’s about to say. “Oh hell!” She throws her hands down. “I wasn’t going to tell ya at first, just because of the sheer amount of it all, I imagine.” She looks down at her shoes. “But strangely enough Violet came to me last night after her dance and whispered to me that if anything ever happened to her she wanted ya to have all the money she’d been saving. Said her trunk key was with her mother and ya’d know what that meant. Said she wanted ya to leave immediately and buy yerself a nice house somewhere with a garden if the worse should happen.” She shifts her massive weight from foot to foot, displaying her unease. “I asked her why she was jawing such nonsense? And ya know what she said?” Her eyes widen fearfully. “She said she had a feeling something was about to happen and that she must make some good of it.” Molly’s eyes stay wide. “Ya see, we’re all cursed. Something unnatural’s happening here. My own dear mother, God rest her soul, warned me about the spiritual perils of my business.”

  “I can’t accept it.”

  “Don’t be daft, child. Take the money and get out here…and take care of that baby. You can even use my wagon. Maybe doing some good will right things.” She picks up her parasol and whispers. “I must go now. I don’t know when I’ll be back.” Molly hobbles down the dirt road toward the chapel on the hill, making the sign of the cross.

  I stand there frozen. Violet sensed her end. That’s why she tried so desperately to talk to Jessie. That’s why she was so upset. That’s why she didn’t even want to hear my warning. Did she know it was Rich who would cause it? Did she go up there knowing what would happen?

  I move slowly into the saloon and up the stairs. I almost turn away at her door, not thinking I can handle seeing her there with her things around the room. I open the door, which creaks in protest, and see her form under a sheet on her bed. I pull back the sheet, surprised that she even looks beautiful in death. Someone has closed her eyes and she looks like she’s just resting. I peer around her ruffled room and notice that at least half of her dresses and hat boxes are missing. I’m sure I would see them all in Savannah’s room if I ventured there.

  But Violet could care less about those things. I walk to her armoire and open the door to see a small dancing girl music box. I wind the tiny golden key up and cry when I hear the sweet sounds that come from it. The little dancing girl looks just like Violet and pirouettes effortlessly in the same way. Unfamiliar with the song, I check the bottom of the box to see Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major written in gold lettering. I twist it up again and look at what I had come for, the locket sparkling in the last place she hung it. I take it gently in my hands, open up the locket and the key drops out into my palm.

  I head over to her trunk and lift the top, until the brackets catch, to discover the piles and piles of money Violet had saved. She had more money than I’ve ever seen, and as I lift stack after stack, all neatly bundled with twine, I realize she had more than enough to retire to a quiet life. Why hadn’t she left?

  My tears spill over the money and I need to get one of her handkerchiefs out of her dresser. I fill up her wash basin with water and open her windows so the light and fresh air can come in to help me with my task. I begin to wash her, all the while rewinding that music box for us to listen to. I dress her in her favorite pale-blue dress, the one she wore when I first saw her, and lay her out peacefully across her bed. How I wish I could find an artist to paint her like this.

  I place her locket around her neck, take a shawl of her favorite lace and drape it down over her. I smile when I realize she looks like a bride. I wish Jessie could see her.

  I reach inside the armoire for the music box and, placing it in the trunk, grab six stacks of cash before I lock the trunk back up and drop the key down into my corset. The crystal amulet hangs in the window still, casting little rainbows across the room. I give Violet one last kiss on her forehead and whisper, “Thank you” and drag the trunk out the door and noisily down the stairs.

  The girls assemble at the foot of the stairs and Gracie runs up to help me. They realize what’s happening and I take a deep breath before hugging every one. I give each girl a stack of Violet’s money. “Please get yourself out of here for Violet” and I give Gracie an extra pile. “This is for the best coffin Kansas City has and you make sure she’s buried right next to Beth, and get them both a proper gravestone.”

  We hug again and I yell over my shoulder on my way out the door, “You all can come and live with me once I get my farm going.”

  They nod, some genuinely promising, while others just go along with the moment.

  After everything’s loaded in Molly’s wagon, I take out a large hat box and head into the garden to fetch my most important item.

  Pip Squeak flies to the door immediately and bobs his head expectantly.

  “How could I leave you behind?” I reach in and nestle him in the box I’ve punched holes in for the journey.

  ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

  The next few weeks pass quickly. I’ve never found such peace since our farm back in Cortland. Oh, how long ago that has been. I can hardly remember that girl. I find a small farmhouse on the outskirts of town with two floors and a front porch. I fill the barn quickly with every kind of livestock, a coop for Pip, and even get a sturdy pony and cart. There is so much work to do that I don’t hav
e time to get lonely. My belly’s getting larger by the day and I busy myself by making all kinds of clothes the baby will need. I also build a small garden to the side of the house and spend a fortune ordering violet seeds by post. I make a sign saying, Violet’s Garden, and sit in the rocking chair on my porch with Pip, just imagining how it’ll all look in a few months, full of blues and purples.

  I take a bit of the money and find someone in the paper who will locate Elijah’s body and make sure he’s buried next to Ma. I didn’t like the thought of him buried on that hill where I saw him last. I sleep better knowing he’s back beside Ma in that little churchyard. One day I’ll make the journey to see them both again and to see the beautiful headstone I commissioned for each of them. I’ll be sure to dig up the treasure Ma’s watching over as well.

  Whenever I have to make supply trips I always park my cart in front of the Fandango and the girls run out to see how I’m getting along. Usually they all just want to hear how my farm is coming along and make comments about how big I’m getting, Savannah especially. This time they fill me in on the latest news.

  “You won’t believe it, Josie. They found Rich yesterday down by the river. He’d been dead for weeks,” Annie says breathlessly.

  Gracie eyes open wide. “Folks say that he was found with his throat slashed like a butchered pig.”

  “And his manly parts where found stuffed in his mouth,” Lottie whispers in her exaggerated way.

  We all know who did it and it takes a moment for Savannah to speak up. “Have you seen Jessie at all?”

  I answer, “No,” figuring he’s gone for good. “I’ll be right back,” I say as I walk into the boarding house next door to ask the overseer if they’ve cleared out Jessie’s possessions yet.