Mail Order Bride: The Master: A Historical Mail Order Bride Story (Mail Order Brides)

by Wilspur, Lily

  “Have you come to witness the inevitable?” she asked.

  Matthew frowned. He didn’t understand that word, but he didn’t want her to know that. “Miss?”

  “I didn’t think you’d come,” she continued. “I thought you’d run and hide in a hole. That’s what I would have done, if I was you.”

  “But you’re here,” Matthew replied. “Why didn’t you hide in a hole, if you felt that way.”

  “Me?” Polly asked. “I’m here to meet my fate. They’ll bury me in my wedding dress.”

  “The Master won’t let that happen,” Matthew assured her. But he didn’t believe it himself.

  “Him?” Polly’s eyes slid to the front of the church. “He’s a dreamer. Just look at him. What kind of man dresses like that? He’s living in another world. He thinks his learning and his education will get him out of this. He’ll die today along with the rest of us.”

  “Noah can’t kill all of us,” Matthew told her.

  Polly fixed him with a withering glare from under her veil. “I only meant him and me. And you, too, of course.”

  Matthew quailed and he almost started to cry. “Don’t say that, Miss.”

  Polly put her head to one side. “What’s the matter? Don’t tell me you didn’t know? You stuck your neck out, and now it’s on the block with the rest of us. You can’t get away any more than we can. You’ll die today along with us.”

  “It’s not true, Miss,” Matthew wailed. “Don’t say that.”

  He didn’t wait to hear any more. He whirled away from Polly and rushed up the side aisle of the church to his family’s pew. He threw himself into the seat next to his mother and kept his eyes down at his hands to avoid seeing Polly or the Master again.

  Chapter 12

  The minister plowed through the usual church service with its Bible reading and its sermon. Only at the very end did he raise his head from the podium and announce, “And now, we come to the moment we’ve all come here to share, the marriage of our own School Master, Brian Buchanan, with Polly McLane from Albany.”

  The congregation dissolved into a twitter of conversation. Everyone turned around and craned their necks to catch a glimpse of Polly in the doorway in her gown and veil. A hush of admiration descended when she appeared, and every set of eyes watched her walk down the aisle toward the Master—every set of eyes except Matthew’s.

  He kept his eyes down to prevent himself from bursting into tears. His teeth chattered in his head and his hands shook. His shoulders shuddered with icy cold. He hated himself. He’d never felt so helpless in his life. He should have stayed home.

  Polly floated up the aisle. The Master admired her along with everyone else, a proud, dignified smile on his face. They met in front of the altar and faced each other for a brief moment before turning to the podium.

  The minister opened his mouth to speak when the door of the church banged open and a deep male voice thundered through the stillness.“Stop!”

  Matthew’s nerves collapsed and he let out a pathetic whimper. He didn’t have to look to know who it was. Noah Bartlett strode up the aisle toward the altar, his pistol waving in his hand.

  Women screamed and children began crying in their mothers’ arms. Another male voice called over the crowd, “You’re a coward, Bartlett, for barging in here,” but everyone cowered down in their pews and hid.

  Noah shouted over the congregation to the minister. “I guess you decided to skip the part about anyone objecting to the marriage. Well, I’m here to object, and I intend to speak now and never hold my peace.” He swept his gun across the crowd, drawing a fresh wave of screams from the womenfolk. Wherever he pointed it, someone screamed and everyone ducked their heads behind their pews.

  Bartlett stormed up the aisle to the altar. Matthew peeked out just enough to see Polly standing stock still under her veil, waiting for death to take her. The Master glared at Bartlett, but didn’t flinch at the sight of the gun in his face.

  “I warned you I’d be comin’ for ya,” Bartlett snarled. “Well, here I am, and you’re done for.”

  The Master’s green eyes flashed. He didn’t fear Bartlett or his gun in the slightest, even though he and everyone else in the church were unarmed. “Get out of here, Noah. You aren’t welcome here.”

  “Not welcome here!” Noah thundered. “This is a church! Everyone’s welcome in a church.”

  “Not you,” the Master corrected him.

  “Well, I’m here,” Noah bellowed. “and you can’t get rid of me. There ain’t nothin’ you can do about it. Is there?” And he stuck his gun right into the Master’s face.

  The Master stared hard at Bartlett over the top of the gun. He acted as though the gun wasn’t even there. “I’m telling you for the last time, Noah. Turn around and walk out of here while you still can. I won’t tell you again.”

  “It seems to me,” Noah replied. “that you aren’t exactly in any position to tell me to leave.” He cocked the hammer of his pistol in front of the Master’s eyes.

  Matthew wished he could close his eyes, but he remained riveted to the scene. The Master tucked his hand into his coat buttons and turned back toward the altar in a gesture of defeat. Matthew’s heart sank. Was this the end? Had the Master really given up, too?

  Noah must have thought so because he laughed his most sinister laugh, not only at Polly and the Master, but at the whole impotent congregation who sat there staring at him but couldn’t raise a finger to stop him.

  Noah laughed over his shoulder and swung his head back around toward the couple at the altar. He brought his pistol up again, his thumb on the hammer and his finger compressing the trigger to carry out his threat.

  But as he did so, the Master swung around, too. He twisted around so fast, Noah didn’t see him until it was too late. The Master whirled around, flinging out his left hand as he turned. He struck the pistol so hard with the back of his hand, it flew out of Noah’s grasp and sailed into the aisle.

  Noah’s eyes flew open but the Master didn’t stop. His right hand threw back the lapel of his coat. Matthew and the rest of the congregation gasped in unison. When they thought he had been staring at the altar in dejected defeat, he’d actually been unbuttoning his coat. He flung the coat open, and the whole congregation saw a gun belt hanging around his hips.

  In one fluid motion, he slapped Noah’s pistol away with one hand and pulled his own gun with the other. Before Noah could recover, he found himself staring down the barrel of the Master’s pistol as helplessly as the Master so recently stared down the barrel of his own.

  The Master’s voice rang against the rafters of the church. “Now, you listen to me, Noah Bartlett. I’m not going to shoot you in a house of God, so that leaves you with two choices. You can leave now and never show your face to me again as long as you live, or you can pick up your gun and meet me outside. We’ll settle this, man to man, once and for all.”

  The congregation watched in stunned disbelief at the turn of events. Matthew barely breathed. Noah Bartlett set his jaw in a mask of determination, but he didn’t laugh at the Master the way he did before. His eyes slipped back and forth between the barrel of the gun in his face, the Master’s steely eyes, and the aisle where he hoped to catch sight of his own gun.

  “Go ahead,” the Master invited him. “Go pick it up. It’s right there next to the Porter family pew. Pick it up and carry it outside, and we’ll settle this in the street.”

  Noah hesitated one more minute until the Master jerked his head toward the aisle again. Noah gulped and turned his back on the gun. He slunk up the aisle, picked up his own pistol just where the Master said it would be, and hustled out of the church.

  Chapter 13

  The Master followed Noah outside and the rest of the congregation flooded after them. Matthew and the other boys weaseled their way through the crowd to the edge of the street to get the best view of the confrontation. But they didn’t shout and run around in excited explosions of energy like they usually did. They cr
ouched down on the verge of the street to be out of the way, and they kept silent so as not to distract the combatants.

  Polly came out last and stood at the top of the church steps. She looked like an angel on top of a Christmas tree in her white gown and her veil still covering her face. She watched the drama in the street from the distance of the clouds.

  Matthew stared at the Master even more intently than he usually did. The Master had worn a gun belt—to church! Not only that, but he’d disarmed Bartlett and pulled his own gun instead. These events elevated the Master to something approaching a luminary in Matthew’s estimation.

  And now, here he was, facing Noah in open combat in the middle of the street. For all his refined bearing and erect stature, Matthew barely recognized the Master now. He gave the friends and neighbors clustered around the church steps no acknowledgment whatever. His face wore a fixed expression of stony hatred.

  Noah Bartlett jammed his gun into his belt and stalked off down the street, where he assumed a martial posture facing the Master. The Master pushed the flaps of his coat back behind the pistols on his hips so that the skirts of his coat hung down behind him.

  The two men confronted each other over a distance of several paces. An awful hush fell over the crowd. Matthew cast a single glance to his right and left. There was Felix Bartlett squatted at the edge of the street with the other boys, awaiting the outcome of this contest between the town’s two rival gladiators.

  What would Noah do if he killed the Master? Would he kill Polly next? What would he, Matthew Burke, do, if Noah killed the Master? Would Noah kill him, too? What would there be left for him to live for, with the Master dead? What would there be left to live for, with Noah Bartlett ruling the town as its conquering lord?

  Had the Master ever really fired a gun before? Matthew couldn’t imagine him even owning guns, let alone wearing them or using one to kill someone. Even considering the heinous provocation he’d suffered from Noah over the last few days, Matthew couldn’t conceive of him resorting to violence even now. He knew the rest of the town was witnessing the ultimate contradiction of all their preconceptions about the Master. He wasn’t the man they thought he was.

  They thought he was a mild-mannered bookworm with a flair for making a spectacle of himself. Instead, he was this iron-fisted gunfighter they now saw making his stand in the middle of the street. He was reserved and remote in his self-appointed objective to wipe the scourge of Noah Bartlett from the face of the Earth or die in the attempt.

  Matthew would have liked to run to him, to help him in any way he could. But he knew the best way to help him now—the only way to help him—was to keep quiet. So he bit his lip and clenched his fingers together in dreadful anticipation of the first shot.

  How would it start? How did two gunfighters signal each other to draw their guns and fire on each other? He was just wondering these and other logistical considerations when it happened.

  He didn’t even know they’d started until it was all over. Matthew had never seen the Master move so fast. He leapt with his feet set wide apart and his arms cocked out from the side of his body. His coat flew outward from his sides like the wings of a black bird.

  An ear-splitting crack rent the stillness and a cloud of smoke obscured the street. The next thing Matthew knew, both men had their pistols out, pointed at each other, with smoke drifting from their muzzles. Matthew looked from one man to the other, confused and frightened.

  The aftermath seemed to take forever, with both men standing motionless, facing each other as if nothing had happened. Yet there were their guns, drawn and smoking, their legs planted in deathly defiance.

  And then, falling silently in the greater silence and making no sound when he hit the ground, Noah toppled. His gun fell out of his hand. His arms and legs fluttered and bounced on the ground. And finally, his whole ghastly frame settled into a heap at the other end of the street.

  No one moved. The Master still held the heap at gun point against any trick to lure him into lowering his guard. But the heap didn’t move.

  In the end, the crowd on the steps of the church streamed into the streets, surrounding the Master and blocking him from Matthew’s view. Only then did the Master holster his weapon and soften his stance.

  The people of the town murmured congratulations to the Master, but they barely raised their voices. No one clapped him on the shoulder or laughed with glee at his victory. No one cast so much as a glance at the heap up the street.

  The boys milled around in the crowd, but the oppressive silence still weighed them down. No one dared hardly to speak. In the end, the Master himself put an end to the confusion. He turned back toward the church and saw Polly standing at the top of the steps.

  The crowd parted before him as he strode back up the steps, past Polly, down the aisle to his place in front of the altar. There, he turned around again and stared back toward the door exactly the same way he had when Polly first came to him.

  The rest of the congregation followed his lead, and before long, they packed the pews again and everyone craned their necks for Polly’s entrance.

  Only Matthew hung back. At the door of the church, he paused. Everyone inside the church seemed to be staring directly at him. They seemed to recognize him as the architect of this whole situation. They seemed to read his involvement with the incident from its beginning. Should he just walk over to his parents’ pew as casually as the Master took his place at the altar, as if nothing in the world had happened?

  A soft rustling noise made him look over his shoulder. Then he realized they weren’t staring at him at all. They were looking at Polly, about to walk down the aisle to her groom.

  But her face looked different underneath her veil. She had changed along with the Master and everyone else in this drama. She looked even more like an angel than she had on the steps of the church. Her face glowed, and tears glistened on her cheeks. She gazed through her veil at Matthew.

  Polly laid her hand on Matthew’s shoulder. “Walk me down the aisle, Matthew Burke,” she told him.

  Matthew couldn’t feel his feet moving over the floor. He and Polly floated side by side down the aisle to the altar, where the Master waited for them with a beatific smile on his face. Only a slight shudder in Polly’s arm, translating down through the hand that still rested on his shoulder, told Matthew she was weeping for joy under her veil.

  None of the usual sighs and exclamations at the bride’s beauty rose from the congregation. The church hung in silent awe at the magnificence of the couple. Matthew didn’t even wonder if they knew his honored place in this service. He knew and the Master knew. Nothing else mattered.

  He and Polly reached the altar. The Master smiled at him. He laid his hand on Matthew’s shoulder and patted it. Then he took Polly’s hand off Matthew’s shoulder and turned his back on Matthew, back toward the altar.

  The End

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  Copyright

  © 2014 by Lily Wilspur

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, e
lectronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.