Praise for Ann Weisgarber’s previous book The Promise
“This second engaging novel from Weisgarber . . . has shades of Willa Cather, Sinclair Lewis, and Conrad Richter, and the prose has a streak of formality that gives the book a period flavor, but Catherine’s first-person narration (and later that of Nan Ogden, the housekeeper at Catherine’s new home) is also appealingly immediate. It’s a wonderful setup for solid storytelling . . . warm and winning.
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“A gripping, beautiful story of loyalties and hidden loves. Ann Weisgarber’s pitch-perfect characters will break your heart and keep you guessing right to the very end.”
—Carol Rifka Brunt, New York Times–bestselling author of Tell the Wolves I’m Home
“In this superb novel, Ann Weisgarber has created voices so convincing it is as if the dead themselves have arisen to tell their story. The Promise is a novel that, once started, few readers will be able to put down.”
—Ron Rash, New York Times–bestselling author of Serena
“The coastal isolation of Galveston shows Weisgarber’s ability to make a place come alive, and the real storm in the book is the demand of family, the hope of love, and the impossibility of reinvention. Fans of A Reliable Wife will find The Promise to be a book they can latch onto.”
—Alexi Zentner, author of Touch and The Lobster Kings
“The Promise is the work of a skilled storyteller. Weisgarber has written a beautiful, deeply engaging story about love, loss, and the power of secrets to change our lives.”
—Booklist
“Weisgarber has delivered a second novel of finely drawn characters anchored by historical events. It’s the sort of tale that you find yourself staying up late at night to finish.”
—Dallas Morning News
“Excellent use of historical detail and strong character development mark this second novel by Weisgarber, whose 2010 debut, The Personal History of Rachel DuPree, was long-listed for the Orange Prize, and it should attract wide readership.”
—Library Journal
“Set against the worst natural disaster in twentieth century American history, The Promise is a riveting tale, told in lean luminous prose, of the power of love and the frailty of the human condition. Weisgarber knows storms, those that devastate the land and those that rage in the human heart. Her characters will live in your imagination long after you’ve turned the last deeply moving page.”
—Ellen Feldman, author of Next to Love and Scottsboro
“Weisgarber’s conjuring of Galveston Island at the turn of the 20th century is miraculous—a sensory feast. Narrated by a pair of compellingly divergent female voices, The Promise is at once an American story of second chances, an achingly felt love triangle, and a psychological tour de force. I am stunned. Rarely do novelists so happily marry depth of insight to unflagging suspense.”
—Lin Enger, author of Undiscovered Country
“The Promise is a gripping drama, at once personal and macrocosmic, a powerful recreation of the hurricane that devastates Galveston in 1900—and the fragile but hopeful life that a young woman is rebuilding there after fleeing from a scandalous past. I was captivated by Weisgarber’s deft use of voices, her careful delineation of character, and her ability to pull the reader into a different time and place.”
—Chitra Divakaruni, author of Mistress of Spices and Oleander Girl
“A thrilling and heartbreaking novel. Told in alternating voices, with perfect pitch, it brings the past alive with a vivid sense of place and time. This is a story of the enduring bonds between people, of shame and redemption, of promises kept. No one has ever dramatized a cataclysmic storm better, the fury and aftermath. It is a novel of the struggle, the work, and the power of love.”
—Robert Morgan, author of The Road from Gap Creek
“The Promise takes a historical premise, the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, but makes the story of two women and the way they try to live and love in a hard, hard world as affecting and evocative as any storm.”
—Susan Straight, author of Between Heaven and Here and Highwire Moon
Copyright © 2019 by Ann Weisgarber
First published by Mantle, an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers International Limited.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
Cover design by Brian Peterson
Cover illustration credit: Nikolina Petolas / Trevillion Images
Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-3783-9
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-3787-7
Printed in the United States of America
For Cynthia Rogers
1849–1927
Faith is things which are hoped for and not seen.
Book of Mormon, Ether 12:6
It is a love of liberty which inspires my Soul, civil and religious liberty to the whole of the human race, love of liberty was diffused into my Soul by my grandfathers.
Joseph Smith—Prophet, Founder, and First President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That . . . “Every person who has a husband or wife living who, in a Territory or other place over which the United States have exclusive jurisdiction, hereafter marries another, whether married or single, and any man who hereafter simultaneously, or on the same day, marries more than one woman in a Territory . . . is guilty of polygamy.”
Edmunds Act 1882
That the marshal of said Territory of Utah, and his deputies, all of Utah, shall possess and may exercise all the powers in executing the laws of the United States or of said Territory, possessed and exercised by sheriffs, constables, and their deputies as peace officers; and each of them shall cause all offenders against the law, in his view, to enter into recognizance to keep the peace and to appear at the next term of the court having jurisdiction of the case, and to commit to jail in case of failure to give such recognizance. They shall quell and suppress assaults and batteries, riots, routs, affrays, and insurrections.
Edmunds–Tucker Act 1887
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
>
AUTHOR NOTES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PROLOGUE
NELS – THE RAVINE
December 15, 1887
Samuel Tyler was fourteen days past due.
He always came home when he said he would. Trouble of some sort, I figured, had gotten in his way. His wagon might have broken down. One of his mules could have taken sick. Or maybe one went lame.
I’d known Samuel since I was eleven and he was twelve. I was forty now. Him and me were stepbrothers. If he were in some kind of trouble, he’d expect me to look for him. Like I’d expect him to do for me.
Me and a neighbor, Carson Miller, packed our saddlebags and bedrolls, and went looking for Samuel. Carson and I were the only men in Junction, Utah Territory, who didn’t have wives and children. It wouldn’t much matter if we weren’t home for Christmas.
We rode through the Wastelands, then pointed our horses south, the direction Samuel would be coming from. We rode hunched in our coats against the cold. Climbing up into the mountains, we read the trail for signs of Samuel’s wagon and mules.
Nothing. The second day on the trail, the air thinned. Carson and I were high in the mountains a good ways from our home in Utah’s deep canyon country. Snow four or five inches deep covered the trail. I was glad for Carson’s company. He was a dark-haired man not yet twenty. His eyesight was sharp, and young as he was, he kept his thoughts mostly to himself. From time to time, we got off our horses, brushed the snow aside with our hands, and looked for tracks.
Still nothing.
We were three days out from Junction when we rounded a bend. We held up our horses quick. Up ahead, a rockslide had taken out the trail.
The slide was at a tight spot on the side of a cliff. Carson and I sat on our horses and looked at the mound of broken rocks. A boulder the size of a barn teetered on the edge of the mound. A spill of rocks, dirt, and spindly trees went over the side and into the ravine far below. Above us, three ravens, their black wings spread wide, dipped and soared on streams of air.
The rockslide gave me a bad feeling. They always did. I took them as a reminder from God that everything, even boulders, could find themselves in places they hadn’t expected.
Looking at the rockslide, Carson said, “Bet it made a ruckus when it all came down.”
“Likely,” I said. “A man would hear it a good ways off.”
“There’s snow between some of the broken rocks. But the sky’s been clear the past week.”
“No telling when the slide happened. Not exactly. Or when it last snowed here.”
“That’s so.”
I got off my horse, Bob, and walked closer to the rockslide. A man might hear this mighty pile of rocks come down but it could be too late to do anything about it. Especially a man driving a wagon. Like Samuel would be.
Samuel was a wheelwright, and carried his tools and supplies in a wagon. In a tight place like this, if a man got caught in the start of a rockslide, his mules would panic. If a man got caught, he couldn’t get himself turned around.
I said, “It’s fair to say that Samuel might have been here maybe some seventeen, eighteen days ago. The chances of him being here at the exact moment of the slide are narrow.”
Carson grunted his agreement.
The ravine was maybe a quarter of a mile deep. Carson got off his horse and stood beside me. The cliff on the other side was fifty yards across, give or take. Both sides were steep and sheer.
I looked into the ravine. The spill had plowed up more trees and rocks as it crashed to the bottom. Midway down, a boulder, nearly as big as my cabin, was lodged into place. On the narrow floor, piles of snow were in the shadows but not in the parts where the sun reached. I squinted, studying the rubble.
Plenty could go bad in the canyon country even for a man who knew what he was doing. He could camp in the wrong place. He wouldn’t know it was the wrong place until a rumble woke him in the middle of the night, rocks raining on him and the soil giving way.
“You see anything down there?” I said. My eyes weren’t as sharp as they had been.
Carson got down on his hands and knees in the snow. He leaned forward a little to see better without going over the side. I did the same some twenty feet from him.
I didn’t see anything other than rocks, patches of snow, and shadows.
Carson, still on his hands and knees, looked toward me and said, “Brother Nels.”
His tone carried a warning. He saw something down there. The bad feeling I had about the slide deepened. I left where I was and got down beside him.
Carson leaned forward more. I took hold of his coat to keep him from going over the side. “What is it?” I said.
He didn’t say anything. He kept staring into the ravine.
“You see something?” I said.
Carson blinked hard. He started to say something, then gave his head a slow shake. Finally, he sat back on his heels. “No. Thought I had but I didn’t. Just rocks.”
“What’d you think you saw?”
“Glints. The kind that comes off metal when the light is right. Glints making the shape of an arc.”
“You saw metal down there?”
“Thought I did. At first. But it’s crystals, or something like them.”
The notion of metal in the ravine shook me. It might be some man’s tool. “Hold onto me,” I said. I crawled closer to the edge to take a look. Carson had me by my coat.
I looked until my eyes ached. I inched away from the edge. Carson let go of me. I said, “I didn’t see any glints. You sure you did?”
“Yep. Crystals, most probably.”
Gypsum, I thought but didn’t say. Samuel, a man who admired rocks, would speak up and tell us the crystals were gypsum. If he were here.
I tilted the brim of my hat and looked up. The ravens were gone. For reasons I couldn’t explain, I took that to be a good sign. I stood and walked close to where the trail was blocked by the pile of rocks. Carson came and studied it with me. The slide had taken out maybe some twenty feet of the trail. Samuel would have been coming from the opposite side. Even if he were on foot, he wouldn’t be foolish enough to try to climb over the rubble. It was unsteady. The rocks would give way.
I said, “Likely Samuel had some strong words when he came across this slide.”
“Yep,” Carson said.
“He wouldn’t be any too pleased about having to turn around.” I paused. “It’s reasonable to figure he’s backtracked south, circled to the west, turned north and is coming through the Fish Lakes. It’d add another five, six weeks to his getting-home time.”
“Those Fish Lakes are mighty high.” Carson got himself away from the edge of the drop-off and stood. He brushed the snow from his knees and then his gloves. He said, “Those mountains take some doing to get through. Especially this time of year, what with the snow deep in the passes.”
Carson didn’t know Samuel like I did. Samuel had been traveling Utah Territory’s back country since he was eighteen. He studied the land like it was a living, breathing thing. He read the layers of color in the rocky sides of mountains. He knew what rocks were made of. He could tell how wind, rain, and snow had shaped them. Samuel knew which ones had been raised up out of the earth. He found passes through mountains when other men couldn’t. The Fish Lakes wouldn’t stop him from getting home.
I said, “Samuel knows what he’s doing.”
Three days later we got back to Junction. It was a town on the floor of a canyon with only one easy way in and out. Red cliffs hemmed us in from all sides. Samuel’s cabin was the first one a person came across. It was dusk and like I figured there’d be, a lamplight was in the east window. Deborah, Samuel’s wife, was waiting for us to get home.
Just before getting to Junction, Carson and I decided he’d take the job of telling five of the families about the trail being torn up. It’d be up to me to tell Deborah’s sister and brother-in-law who lived on the other side of Deborah’s plum orchard. Before doing that, though
, I’d tell Deborah about the slide and how Samuel had to turn around. It was only right this fell to me. Samuel was my stepbrother. I’d known Deborah since the day she and Samuel married.
At Junction, Carson and I tipped our hats to each other. He went on and followed Sulphur Creek. I directed Bob, my horse, toward Samuel’s cabin. I worked out in my mind how best to explain matters to Deborah. I’d tell her that Samuel was probably coming through the Fish Lake Mountains. He could be up to six weeks late. That would put him home by the second week in January at the latest. There was no need to look for him sooner. There was no need to worry.
Halfway to Samuel and Deborah’s, my brown long-haired dog, Sally, came running. I’d left her with Deborah while I was gone. Sally yapped her hello, bounding in great leaps as she circled Bob.
Up ahead and holding a lantern, Deborah stood waiting in the doorway of her cabin.
CHAPTER ONE
DEBORAH – TROUBLE
January 11, 1888
Bare knuckles pounded hard on my cabin door, someone wanting to be let in. My nerves leaped.
Samuel. My husband. He was home. Safe. Finally.
No. Not Samuel. He’d call to me—Deborah!—through the door.
The knocking kept on, quick raps and short pauses. My heart thudded high in my chest. It wasn’t my sister or any of her family. They’d announce themselves. They wouldn’t pound on the door this way. Neither would my neighbors.
Trouble.
I was in the kitchen part of the front room. The only thing between trouble and me was a door. A door I wasn’t sure was latched. It was late afternoon. The light in the cabin was dim. Six paces from the door, I couldn’t tell if earlier I’d bothered to slide the bolt into the catch.
My pulse rushed. It was a man out there. I knew that as if the door had turned to glass and I could see through it. For almost four years, men came to my cabin carrying trouble on their backs, each one haunted and looking over his shoulder. Mine was the first cabin in Junction they came to.
They showed up during the spring, they appeared in the summer and early fall. But never now, never in January when snowstorms reared up with little warning and filled mountain passes, blurred landmarks, and covered trails. In this part of Utah Territory, there were long stretches between towns and outposts. Caught in the open, toes and fingers froze. People lost their bearings and even though I didn’t like thinking about it, some went missing.
The Glovemaker Page 1