Weeping Angel

by Stef Ann Holm

  She’d been having a recurring dream about him lately. She was in her dining room with the table arranged just right. Only instead of one place setting, there were two. She wore her best Sunday dress and her finest white Swiss mull apron. She would come into the room carrying a heaping platter of fried chicken, which she would promptly put in front of Frank, who sat at the head of the table wearing nothing but his navy vest and pleated, white duck trousers. She’d wait by his side as he selected a thigh with his fork, took one bite and chewed the succulent meat with relish. Then he’d stand. Once on his feet, he’d sweep the table clean with his hand. Chicken, plates, flatware, flowers, and candles would fly. He’d take her into his arms and bend her backward over the table until she was lying on the rumpled tablecloth. His mouth would come down on hers, and he’d kiss her over and over. Kiss her until she was breathless with passion. She never knew how things ended though, for even in her dreams, she swooned into darkness from the excitement. When she awakened, she was dewy with perspiration and her stomach ached below her navel. It was dreadful. She felt restless and agitated, hot and cold, all at once. And no amount of milk seemed to calm her. It took her at least an hour to fall back to a sleep that was fitful and never satisfying.

  It upset her to no end that Frank Brody could make her feel conscious of him, even when she wasn’t in his company. She’d been determined to put him out of her thoughts, but he always managed to drift back into them. She began to wonder if she was strong enough to fight her attraction for him.

  Sighing, Amelia didn’t want to think about the Moon Rock or its owner. She couldn’t afford to be distracted by romantic notions. Taking a punctuated breath for fortitude, she smelled wet wood, leaves, and bark. The fragrance of rainwater-dappled carnations growing in the flower borders of the station wafted through the breezeway, and she struggled to accept the end of her short-lived time at the saloon. She was going to have her own piano, and her life would take the direction she’d planned. She would support herself honorably and not fall into the poor-house. The children would recover from the chicken pox and her home would be brimming with students. By the summer’s end, she’d be ready to have the children give their first recital.

  Yes, she told herself as she smoothed a wrinkle from her damp mackintosh coat, everything was going to fall into place now.

  The chug of the No. l’s engine broke through Amelia’s musings, and she walked to the edge of the platform to watch the Short Line approach the depot.

  Frowning, Lew Furlong stuck his head out the cab’s window after yanking on the steam whistle chain to clear the tracks. Amelia’s ears rang from the racket, and she glanced at the rails in front of the locomotive. Coney Island Applegate was hunkered down in the oiled roadbed lining pennies up on the iron track. As soon as Lew blew the whistle again, Coney Island backed away to wait for the Short Line to flatten his coins.

  Amelia shook her head in disapproval as the engine’s driving wheels slowly rotated forward; the pennies disappeared under tons of steel, then reappeared as Coney Island quickly snatched the thin metal circles before the second set of wheels could roll them under their pressure. One of these days, Coney Island was going to lose a finger if he wasn’t careful.

  Grenville Parks came out of the station and caught Coney Island as the boy was bouncing the hot pennies in his hands. “You little devil!” Grenville barked.

  The boy jumped and swung his head around.

  The ticket agent put his hands on his hips. “How many times have I warned you not to put money on the tracks?”

  “A dozen or more.”

  “At least. I’m going to have to tell your papa if I catch you one more time!”

  Coney Island shrugged, pocketed his coins in his knee pants and mumbled, “I ain’t a scare-baby,” before running off.

  Adjusting the short navy visor of his railroad-issued cap, Grenville stepped toward the train. He shoved his fingers into his vest pocket, drew out his watch, then flipped the case open on the timepiece. “You’re forty-seven minutes late, Lew. What was there this time—a bear carcass on the tracks?” he asked with a chuckle.

  “No,” Lew fumed, letting go of the throttle to jump down from the cab. “The Oregon Short Line derailed on the Idaho side of the Wyoming border.”

  Grenville grew appropriately somber. “Anybody killed?”

  “No, thank the Lord,” Lew replied. “But everything is in one big metal scrap.”

  Mention of the derailment caught Amelia’s attention. The word spelled disaster in more ways than one. She tightly clutched the knobby wooden handle of her umbrella and took a step forward. “Mr. Furlong, please tell me you’ve brought the shipment from Boston.”

  “I don’t have a thing from that back east, Miss Marshall. Everything on board was mangled. All I have is the freight that was in Boise for me from California.” Lew stuffed his rawhide gloves into his pocket. “At first, me and the other engineers thought the Number Fifty-seven was late. Then word came in on the telegraph wires about the derailment. Her link-and-pin couplings snapped on the downgrade near Bear Lake. Free-running cars coast faster than any engine can run them, and eight of the freight cars, the mail car, and an empty coach flipped off the tracks. It’s going to take them a good few days to clean up the mess.”

  What did it matter how many days it took to clean up? Amelia thought, biting her lip until it hurt. Her piano was smashed to pieces. Swallowing the sob that rose in her throat, she felt as if the breath was being squeezed out of her. She needed to sit down.

  She tried to walk with stiff dignity, not wanting Mr. Parks or Mr. Furlong to see just how devastated she was. They wouldn’t understand that her life was over; they didn’t know she was just about out of money. And now she was doomed to the most supreme humiliation of her twenty-four years. Just thinking about having to ask Frank Brody to take her back made her sway. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.

  Never.

  Her body wavered, her knees grew weak. Before she knew it, she was abruptly caught by the elbow and firmly escorted to one of the green benches on the platform. Sitting, she looked up through teary eyes and gazed into Frank Brody’s concerned face.

  “Sweetheart, it’s not even an oven-cooker today. How come you’re going to faint this time?” He brushed his fingers over her gloved wrist. “The hothouse air getting to you?”

  “The piano . . . was all she could muster, her mind swirling with horrible pictures of shiny ebony wood all splintered and gnarled.

  “What about the piano?”

  “Gone.”

  “Gone where?” Frank crouched down on the balls of his feet, his gaze level with hers. “What do you mean it’s gone?”

  “Broken.”

  Rubbing his clean-shaved jaw, Frank asked, “Did Fisk bust the crate?”

  “The train derailed and wrecked it.”

  Frank shot a glance at the Short Line over his shoulder.

  “Not this one,” Amelia grumbled. “The Number Fifty-seven.”

  Frank faced Amelia. “Shit.”

  “Mr. Brody, may I . . . I . . .”

  “ . . . remind me,” he finished when her voice cracked, “I’m in the company of a lady. I never pegged you for anything but.”

  Amelia buried her face in her hands, not wanting to see him; not wanting him to see her. She had to think. Clearly. Not in the presence of a problem who was just one of many on her long list of problems.

  She was close to broke.

  She had no piano—again.

  And if she wanted to use a piano, she’d have to ask a man she liked far more than she should. A man she seemed fixed on dreaming about.

  She couldn’t suppress the comment he’d made to her their first meeting. His voice echoed in her mind. don’t begrudge you your hobby.” Hobby. She hated the word. Teaching the piano was not a pastime. Perhaps if she told him the truth about needing the money . . . Perhaps he’d let her take the piano from the saloon.

  Over the past two weeks she’d gotten to know
him. He wasn’t an awful man. To the contrary, Wednesday’s display with the boys proved he wasn’t all disreputable. He had admirable traits. And now that he’d had the chance to see she was accommodating, he would be just as much when she explained the situation.

  Opening her eyes and bringing her hands down, she came back to reality. He was still bent down before her, gazing at her speculatively. She had a hard time organizing her words when he looked at her so directly. His eyes were too magnetic, too blue. There was a rakish tilt to his panama, his black hair appearing darker under the contrast of the natural-colored straw.

  Wetting her lips, she had to speak before she lost her courage. “Mr. Brody, I think I’ve been a very good sport about the New American being at the Moon Rock for such an extended period.” Fidgeting with a black button on her mackintosh, she struggled to maintain an even, conciliatory tone. “I think it’s time we made other arrangements. I’ve—”

  “Hey, Mr. Brody,” Herbert Fisk called, interrupting Amelia’s speech. “Got your order loaded up. Do you want me to take it on over to the saloon without you?”

  “Yeah.” Frank turned back to Amelia. “What are you trying to say?”

  “What I’m trying to say is,” she said as the porter steered a handcart past them loaded with four moderately sized crates. She never would have paid the boxes any mind at all if they hadn’t been burned on the sides with names. Names that were familiar to her, but she couldn’t place from where. Trying to shake the thought, she went on with what she was saying. “If I don’t get a piano for my own, Mr. Brody, I’m going to be—” She cut herself short, stood and blurted, “Mr. Fisk! Stop!”

  Herbert practically went over the double handles to do as she bade. He set the foot rest down, and swung around to face Amelia. “Miss Marshall, you put the fear of God in me. What’s the matter?”

  Amelia walked forward. She bent slightly at the waist to reread the markings on the crates, then straightened. Turning toward Frank, she said stiffly, “If you’ll excuse me, I have to go home.”

  Then Amelia dashed off in a brisk walk. Her blood pounded at her temples. To think, she’d been ready to bare her heart, to tell him the truth, to implore him to give her the piano. How could she ever have thought he’d do the decent thing?

  “Amelia!”

  Frank called after her, but she didn’t stop. She lifted the volume of her shepherd plaid skirt in her hand and descended the platform. Rain sprinkled her face. The heels of her shoes sank deeply into the soggy ground, and her feet were instantly cold. In her agitated state, she opened her umbrella with aggressive force. Rather than the dome of fabric covering her, the ribs shot up the axis and bent backward.

  “Amelia!”

  Her mind was a thundercloud, dark and stormy. She ended up holding what had to look like a black tulip over her head as she proceeded. There was no helping traipsing through a patch of mud to escape. She set a course through the empty lot adjoining the depot and behind Emmaline Shelby’s laundry shop.

  “Amelia, why are you running away from me?” Frank was by her side in a few strides, but she kept on walking. He caught her lightly by the single cape on her coat, making her slow down to his pace.

  “Please unhand me,” she said crisply, not directing her gaze toward him. Raindrops blurred her vision. Or they could have been tears. Either way, she blinked them off her lashes as she attempted to cross the street.

  “Look, I’m sorry about your piano,” Frank offered. “We could work things out—”

  “I don’t wish to be rude with you, Mr. Brody,” she said as the downpour intensified, “but if you insist on expressing your false sympathy, I cannot be held accountable for my actions.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  She stopped midstride and turned to face him. “Today is the first Friday of the month, Mr. Brody.”

  “So?”

  “So,” she replied, “you’d better greet Mr. Budweiser and Mr. Beam. I’ve just had the unfortunate pleasure.”

  They stared at each other across a sudden ringing silence. Her face heated, and she knew her cheeks had grown red from anger and embarrassment. If she hadn’t had such a horrible day, she might not have been so upset. But the fact was, she had, and she was feeling the tension of her financial circumstances and having her hands tied to do anything about it.

  Frank still held her coat when he explained, “I didn’t intentionally lie about the Budweiser and the Beam. It’s just that you were acting as if I was—”

  “You duped me, leading me to believe they were real people. And men of calling, to boot!”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  She was in no frame of mind to hear him out. Her shoes were ruined, her umbrella broken, and she was soaked. “I have to go home.”

  “Amelia—”

  “Hello, Frank.” Emmaline’s voice caught Amelia by surprise, making her turn her head.

  Emmaline stood in the doorway of her laundry, one hand poised on the frame. Her hair wasn’t properly pinned up, and the damp weather brought out tendrils of jet curls to frame her face. “I thought that was you.” Then out of apparent courtesy, she greeted, “Hello, Miss Marshall.”

  “Miss Shelby,” Amelia mumbled, not at all in a sociable mood. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  “Amelia,” Frank said, “we need to—”

  “Oh, Frank,” Emmaline cooed. “I have your laundry finished. You may as well pick it up since you’re right here. I did your shirts just the way you like them.”

  Amelia glanced at Frank, saw the uncomfortable hesitation in his expression, then went ahead without him. She felt the gentle pull of material slip free of his fingers as she hurried toward the other side of Dodge Street.

  The last thing Amelia heard was Emmaline Shelby fussing, “Why, Frank, you’re soaked through. You better step on in and change out of that wet shirt and . . .” Amelia couldn’t make out the rest, and she was glad. She wanted to forget every single detail of the past hour.

  * * *

  The talk in the Moon Rock Saloon on Saturday evening was the mud brought on by the prior day’s rain.

  “The streets were so muddy in Sacramento,” Pap embellished to a circle of drinking men from his stool in front of the upright, “that it looked to be a head was at the door of Sutters Mill Saloon asking for a drink. The bartender obliged him one, then asked if the man needed any assistance. The fellow said, ‘No thanks, mister, I got my horse underneath me.’ ”

  Frank listened to the conversation from behind the polished bar. He took a sip of tea the color of aged bourbon. Despite what looked like a piece of ice in the tumbler, the drink was room temperature. He kept a rubbed smooth fragment of glass in the drink, which never melted, to make it appear as if he were indulging. On duty, he never accepted liquor; and if he had to, he resorted to his snit—a special bottle he kept under the counter that gave the impression of red-eye.

  His tale complete, Pap went on to play “Lily Dale,” then in the spirit of the cowboys who’d come into the saloon, broke into song with, “Oh, Cowboy Annie was her name. And the N-Bar outfit was her game. We’ll work a year on the Musselshell, and blow it in, in spite of hell. And when the beef is four years old, we’ll fill her pillowslips with gold.”

  “Another Old Gideon, Frank?” Cobb Weatherwax asked above Pap’s singing.

  Standing in front of Frank on the opposite side of the bar, Cobb slid two coins across the counter with dirty fingers. As usual, the man’s facial features were mostly hidden by hair; hair the color of sludge hung past his shoulders, covered his jaw, obliterated nearly all of his mouth, and winged above his clear hazel eyes. And what didn’t naturally grow on him, he wore in skins.

  Frank made idle conversation while mixing Cobb’s drink. “How’re the beavers, Cobb?”

  “Few and far between. Going to get me some though. Beaver is what makes the most money. Beavers are . . .”

  Frank let the rest trail from his mind. He wasn’t really interest
ed in beavers or barroom chat this evening. Throughout the night, his thoughts had been turning to Amelia. A heaviness had centered in his chest, awakening an emotion buried deeply inside him. Farfetched as it was, he was going soft for her. He should have let her think the worst of him; he’d never cared what people thought about him before. But he wanted to explain why he’d let her think Bud and Beam were customers at the Moon Rock.

  He’d been borderline chasing after her yesterday, even with Emmaline watching on, but he’d decided against it. He didn’t want to spur any fights between the two women.

  “ . . . I caught a mink in a beaver runway once,” Cobb concluded as Frank handed him his Old Gideon. “Then another time I . . .”

  It wasn’t like Frank not to concentrate on the bar. He’d even spent the past two days immersing himself in his work: balancing the books, cleaning out the underside of the bar, polishing the curios in his altar, and he even scrubbed the whole damn floor. But those tasks hadn’t straightened out his mind. His gut felt tight, as if he’d eaten a fried egg sandwich too quickly and washed it down with a keg of beer. Most likely, there was only one way—besides taking a Bromo—to get rid of the feeling.

  Confront Amelia, apologize, and get her out of his system.

  As Pap finished his tune to the clunk of coins in his money jar on top of the New American, Frank spoke in a loud voice, but not as offhanded as he would have liked. “Pap, mind the bar for a while.”

  “Pap’s no bartender,” one of the cowhands grumbled.

  Frank wiped the bar top, then flung the cloth aside. “Pap’s expandable. He’s like an accordion.”

  “If Pap’s tending bar, who’s going to play piano?” Wendell Reed articulated his query in a slightly slurred manner.

  They had him there. Frank shrugged, seeing no other alternative. “Liquor at my expense. One short bit each.”

  A hoopla rose, but Wendell cut into it. “That’s only a dime’s worth,” he complained. “A dime drink without piano music . . . I don’t know.”