by Delynn Royer
It was then Ross realized that Mr. Winters knew the truth. But that alone, apparently, wasn’t going to solve Ross’s problem.
“I’m running a business here, Mr. Gallagher,” he said sternly, “I do not have the time or money to afford such shenanigans.”
Ross swallowed hard. “No, sir.”
“A man is innocent until proven guilty. I assume you are aware of that tenet. It is the basis of the criminal justice system in these great United States of America.”
“Yes, sir.”
“But a business is not a democracy.”
“No, sir.”
“My father had an old saying, Mr. Gallagher. It’s easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar.”
Ross was confused. “Flies, sir?”
But Mr. Winters opened his office door, dismissing him. “And I believe it was Mr. Franklin who said, ‘Time is money.’ I suggest that you give both those old sayings some serious consideration.”
Oh, Ross had given them some serious consideration, all right. Mr. Winters wasn’t about to banish his own daughter, even if she was a spoiled, bratty nuisance. It was up to Ross to smooth things over with the little hoyden. And soon.
Ross continued to follow Emily as she headed out of town on the Columbia Pike. He felt sure she was on her way home. His plan was to wait until she turned off the pike to confront her, but after she did turn off, she surprised him by cutting through the Brenners’ woodlot instead of continuing on the road toward the covered bridge that would have led to her home.
Where was she going?
When she disappeared into the woods, Ross followed, keeping her blue calico dress in sight through the trees. He stopped at a break in the thickest part of the woods to see her picking her way up a steep, rocky incline. By then, his curiosity was really up. The nimble manner in which she zigzagged up the hill told him she’d tested her best paths many times before.
Ross followed until he came to the top of the hill. The trees were scarcer down below and there was another rocky knoll across from him. A grassy creek bed nestled in the niche between the knolls. Ross guessed the little stream was an offshoot of Mowrer’s Creek, which ran west of his family’s farm and right by Emily’s house.
Ross hunkered down to watch Emily down below. She’d dropped her burlap sack near the creek and now stood at the base of an old oak. Rubbing her hands together, she jumped to grasp the lowest limb and hung there, her stockinged legs swinging free above the ground. Then she did something Ross never expected. She skinned the cat.
Penduluming back and forth a few times to gain momentum, she swung her legs all the way up to push through the narrow space between her arms. For what seemed like a long time, her legs stayed that way, sticking straight out over her head at a perpendicular angle from the tree limb.
Ross had to clap a hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh. Her white drawers were in full view up to the waist, and her faded blue dress and white petticoat hung straight down like a tent. There was no sign of her head at all, just the tufted ends of two black braids pointing to the ground below the hem of her topsy-turvy dress. Like all boys, Ross had skinned the cat many times, but this was the first time he’d seen a girl do it.
Emily’s legs started to wobble as she strained to extend them farther, tipping downward as if trying to touch the ground behind her. Ross was sure she was going to break her neck, but then, with a jerk, she pushed her legs and hips the rest of the way through the space between her arms and flipped around, turning loose of the limb and landing on her feet. Her dress dropped down to her knees, and she brushed off her hands, shaking her braids back into place behind her shoulders.
Ross shook his head. So, all right. She was good. For a girl.
Emily strolled over to her burlap sack and pulled out what looked like a large journal. After spreading the empty sack out on the grass, she settled on the ground, crossing her legs into an eight beneath her skirt. For a long time, her head remained bent as she worked in her journal. At first, Ross assumed she was writing, maybe because he was a secret writer himself, but then he noticed her long, bold pencil strokes and realized she was drawing. It was time to approach.
Ross tried to be quiet as he started down the slope, but it was steep and there were loose rocks. He was about three-quarters of the way down when his heel jammed on some loose soil, sending a shower of pebbles down the slope, himself along with them.
“Whoa! Look out!” Ross called, losing his balance and regaining it again a split second before he would have landed on his behind at the bottom of the hill.
Emily was already on her feet, wielding a long, pointy stick. “What are you doing here?”
Ross grinned and brushed himself off. “A better question. What are you doing here?” He started toward her but stopped when she raised the stick.
“Get away! You’d better leave me alone or I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Ross challenged, then added smugly, “And anyhow, does your pa know you come here every Saturday?”
Emily’s fierce expression faltered, but only for a split second. She didn’t lower the stick. “Sure he knows. What business is it of yours?”
Ross snorted. “Why do I have the feeling that you’re being less than completely truthful?”
“Why don’t you just go away and leave me alone?”
“You can put the stick down. I’m not going to hurt you.” Ross narrowed his eyes. “Although maybe I should, considering it’s been you pulling those tricks on me at the shop.”
She blinked. It was the only sign that she might be worried. “You don’t have any proof of that.”
“I don’t need any. Your pa knows, too.”
At this, her forehead crinkled. “He does?”
“Put down the stick. You couldn’t hurt a mouse with that thing.”
Emily evaluated her meager weapon, then lowered it cautiously. “Did he say so?”
“Not in so many words, but he knows.”
“You’re lying. If he knew, he would have given me the dickens for it.”
“I hope he does.”
Emily threw down the stick. “Well, I’m his daughter, and you’re just an errand boy. We’ll just see which one of us lasts longer.”
“A business needs an errand boy more than it needs a pesky little girl hanging around.”
“Pesky?” Emily stiffened her spine. “Papa lets me help out a lot. I even know how to set type. Do you?”
“Not yet, but I’ll learn soon enough. I pick things up pretty quick.”
“Ha! You’re pretty full of yourself, I’d say. Why don’t you go on home?”
“Because I don’t feel like it.” He glanced down where Emily’s journal lay open on the grass. “So, what’s this?” He bent to pick it up.
“No!”
Emily sprang, trying to snatch the journal. She was fast, but Ross was faster. He turned his back, raising it out of her reach. “Ooooh! What have we here?”
Emily grabbed at his arms. “You worm! You pig! It’s mine!”
Ross laughed as he pulled loose from her scrambling fingers and dodged her next attack. “Such baaad words from such a nice little girl!”
She kept coming, her arms flailing. “Give it to me! It’s mine!”
Ross eluded her and ran a short distance away, turning his back to steal a look at what she was so hell-bent on hiding. The journal was open to a pencil sketch of a rabbit. And it was good. Darn good. At first glance, he thought it looked more like the illustration in a real book than the work of a child.
There was a bloodcurdling holler. Before Ross could turn around, something huge struck him from behind. He staggered forward, a little stunned by such unexpected force and weight. He had been butted once by a billy goat. He had also been attacked by a shrieking, foul-tempered rooster. This was like a nightmarish combination of both.
She had jumped him and now had her spindly, bony legs wrapped tight around his middle and her arms locked around his neck, and he had the fleeting thoug
ht that he’d never known a girl who acted like this before, either.
“Hey!” he exclaimed, “what are you do—accckkk!” She was squeezing his windpipe on purpose!
“Drop it, Ross Gallagher! You drop it right now!”
To shake her off, he started turning in circles, but she clung like a bloodsucking leech.
“Drop it!”
He didn’t drop it. Darned if he was going to now! He hugged the journal to his chest, and with his free hand, reached up to wrest her arms from his neck.
She shrieked into his ear. “Let it go! Dad blast it!”
He was now half deaf, not to mention near choking, so he did the only thing he could under the circumstances. He dropped to the ground and rolled onto his back, pinning her beneath him.
The air rushed from her lungs and her grip around his neck went limp. She went deathly still. Cold panic lanced through him. No! What if he’d squashed her? How would he explain it to Mr. Winters?
Alarmed, Ross rolled off of her. By the time he sat up to check if she was still alive, though, she was coming back at him. Ross raised both arms to ward her off. “Cut it out!” he yelled, but she didn’t seem to notice that he’d dropped the journal to protect himself.
Ross collapsed onto his back, grabbing blindly for her arms, but she went for his face. Her fingers entangled in his hair. “Ouch!"
Well, she’d made one humdinger of a mistake that time. He would never stoop so low as to hit a girl, but two could play at this game. Ross tugged hard on the braid that hung above his face.
She screeched. “Ouch!”
Her nails scratched his scalp, her fingers tangling deeper into his hair.
He yelled, “Ouch!”
He pulled again. Harder this time. Her eyelids clenched and her mouth pulled back into a grimace. “Stop it!”
“No, you stop it!”
Emily hesitated. It was her turn, yet she didn’t move. A slow minute ticked by as they glared into each others’ eyes, their faces mere inches apart. Stalemate. Ross could see that she was trying to think her way out of this, but there was no way out. If she was smart, she would let go. If she was stupid, they could be here till dark.
She growled in disgust. “Aw, dad blast it!” Her fingers slipped from his hair, then she rolled off of him and collapsed onto her back in the grass.
Ross closed his eyes. His scalp tingled where she had pulled out a hank of hair. He tried to remember how all of this had started. The journal. The rabbit.
“You shouldn’t have taken my sketchbook,” she said.
Ross opened his eyes. Through the oak tree branches overhead, he could see puffy white Saturday afternoon clouds loitering in the bright blue sky. “I reckon I shouldn’t have, but you shouldn’t have played those tricks on me, either.”
He heard a snort, then she giggled. He turned his head to see she had one hand clapped over her mouth.
“What’s so funny?”
When she looked at him, her eyes glinted with mischief. “We’re even.”
He snorted. “I’m not so sure about that.”
Sitting up, she shook her head to send loose dirt and grass blades flying. One of her braids, the one Ross had yanked, had lost its ribbon. Emily stood and frowned down at her smudged and wrinkled dress. One of her stockings had sagged down to her ankles and the white drawers visible below her hem were grass-stained. “Dad blast it,” she muttered. “My dress is ruined. My mama’s going to kill me.”
Ross pushed up to his feet. “Just tell her you fell on your way home.”
She didn’t answer but let out a disgusted sigh as she retrieved her sketchbook. She brushed dirt from the open pages and flipped it closed.
“It’s really good,” Ross said.
“What?”
“The rabbit. It’s really good. I don’t understand why you didn’t want me to see it.”
She hugged the book to her chest. “You think it’s... good?”
“Yeah. It’s as good as the illustrations in the books that I’ve seen. You ever read The Pickwick Papers?”
“Yes, I love Charles Dickens.”
“Well, it reminds me of the drawings in that book. Not that there are any rabbits in it, but it shows the same exceptional attention to detail.”
When her eyes widened, Ross noticed that they weren’t so dark blue, after all. Once, when he was four, his mother took him to see the ships coming into New York harbor. Whenever he had looked out upon the same harbor after that, the water appeared to him unimpressive, a dank grayish kind of blue, but on that particular summer afternoon, the sky was clear and his outlook was bright.
Sunlight reflected white and silver off gentle ripples of water in the far-off distance. It was the sun, or perhaps his own impressionable four-year-old perspective, that colored the harbor an ever-rich, deep royal blue, a majestic, sparkling, life-giving blue that stole his breath away.
Ross thought Emily’s eyes were the same sparkling blue of New York harbor on that one very special summer day so long ago.
“You really think my drawings are that good?” she asked.
“Yeah, I do.”
They stood there, not saying anything, for what seemed like forever. Finally, Ross cleared his throat. “Well, I gotta go.” He started to turn away.
“You won’t tell my papa, will you? About how I come here some Saturdays?”
Ross looked back at her. “No, I guess not.”
She smiled, and he smiled back. He started to leave again, then stopped. “You know, this is really a nice spot. No one bothers you here, do they?”
“Not until you came along.” Her tone held just a hint of dry sarcasm. She sounded much older than eleven at that moment.
That made Ross smile again. “I was thinking, maybe I could bring one of my journals down here some Saturday. Maybe you could do some illustrations to go along with one of my stories.”
Her face brightened. “You write stories?”
“Well, some.” Suddenly embarrassed, he looked down at the ground. “They’re not that good, but I figure that if I practice long enough and keep up with school and everything, maybe I’ll get better, and—”
“I’d love to hear some of your stories.”
He looked up to see her hugging her sketchbook even tighter. “And it might be fun to do illustrations for them,” she added.
Ross felt a combined rush of apprehension and anticipation at seeing her eager expression. He had never allowed anyone to read his stories before. His family, the Brenners, weren’t very encouraging. Sam and Alma had always been perplexed over his odd habit of scribbling, as they called it, but Emily didn’t seem to think it was odd at all.
He broke into a grin. “Maybe next Saturday morning after I get done with my chores and before I have to go to work.”
“Nine o’clock?” Emily asked.
“Nine o’clock sounds good.”
They stood in awkward silence for another interminable moment before Ross turned away for the last time. “I’ll see you Monday, Emily.”
*
May 1865
Ross stood before the imposing King Street Herald office, a four-story red brick structure known as the Davenport Building. He barely remembered walking the last six blocks. What am I doing here? he thought. He belonged here. He worked here.
But Ross hadn’t returned home from that bloody war intending to work for Malcolm Davenport’s newspaper. He’d returned to Lancaster for two reasons and two reasons only. To go back to work for the old Gazette and to mend fences with Emily. Except the Gazette had already gone out of business by the time he arrived, and Emily had started a new life in Baltimore, a life that Karen had made perfectly clear didn’t include him. Things hadn’t worked out at all as he had planned.
But they’d worked out.
He’d always wanted to write for a living, and now he was doing just that. He was also set to marry the girl he’d always dreamed of marrying. Things had worked out fine.
But Ross didn’t feel f
ine. Nathaniel was dead. The Penn Gazette was a thing of the past. And Emily was going back to Baltimore. No, Ross didn’t feel fine at all.
Chapter Five
Two days later, Karen opened the window shutters, allowing a stream of daylight to flood the deserted print shop. “I don’t know why you insisted on coming here, Em.”
It had taken some doing, but Emily had talked her sister into stopping by on their way to market. Now they were confronted with the dispiriting sight of silent job presses, empty desks, and worktables still laden with stacks of paper.
As Emily moved through the shop, her footsteps on the hardwood floor sounded hollow and foreign. She had never known the place to be so quiet. “I just wanted to see it one more time.”
“I suppose I can understand that,” Karen said. “You spent a lot of time here with Papa.”
“This is where he loved to be.”
“Not so much toward the end.”
Emily turned around. “What do you mean? He loved it here.”
“Papa just wasn’t the same after the Gazette shut down, not his old fighting self. I can’t help wondering if he could have fought off the pneumonia if—” Karen blinked back sudden tears. “Oh, well. There’s no point in thinking that way.”
“I’m not so sure. The paper was important to him. It gave him a reason to get up in the morning.”
Karen pulled a black-bordered handkerchief from her handbag and dabbed at her eyes. “He had us, didn’t he? I’d say his family was worth getting up for in the morning.”
“I’m not talking about family. You know what I mean.”
“I suppose only you understood him that way, right?”