Leah couldn’t make out Wyatt’s expression, but his stance was stiff and unyielding. She did note that he’d dressed handsomely, and recalled he’d smelled nicely of some sort of masculine tonic that she couldn’t put her finger on. The ends of his hair curled softly on his blue collar, which belonged to a flattering new shirt.
Hartzell kept his arm around Wyatt’s shoulder, moving in for the kill. Leah was more or less helpless to save Wyatt from her father-in-law. Once Hartzell met a man who hadn’t yet opened an account in his bank, he’d be on him until he did.
She still felt terrible for having upset Wyatt at the river. It wasn’t an uncommon reaction from some people, not to want their photograph taken. She’d had other clients who had had to be dragged to her studio for a family portrait on their wife’s insistence. Some men didn’t think that she was capable of doing what had been known as a man’s job until widowed women found themselves taking over their husbands’ businesses. But that wasn’t the way that it had happened for Leah. She’d inherited some of her equipment, and all of her talent, from her father. She’d been taking pictures since she was seven years old. The only reason she hadn’t pursued her artistry was because she’d gotten married. And then after Owen had died, it seemed only natural that she revert back to what she knew to raise her family and bring in an income that wouldn’t see her seeking charity from the Kirklands.
Oh, she really should rescue Wyatt. But she couldn’t think of how at the moment. Hartzell was clever and not easily swayed. A plan quickly took shape and she headed purposefully toward the refreshment table and fixed Wyatt a plate of food. She arranged a sampling of Geneva’s cooking, selecting two pieces of chicken marengo, coleslaw, macaroni pie, a jam-spread popover, and cheese straws, then strode to the loud guffaws of men—none of which belonged to Wyatt, who stood rather stoically listening to Hartzell.
As soon as she neared, the gentlemen checked themselves in her presence. She easily climbed the whitewashed steps and initiated her plan into motion. “Gentlemen, the poor man hasn’t had an opportunity to eat. Mr. Holloway, why don’t you come with me and I’ll show you where you can sit.”
“Sit?” Hartzell queried. “He can eat right here. Standing up makes the food go down easier.”
Hartzell patted Wyatt on the back, took the plate from Leah, and shoved the goods at Wyatt, rendering him unable to refuse. One of the peas from the cold salad rolled over the plate’s edge.
“Then why don’t you forsake business for a moment while he eats,” Leah suggested, meeting Wyatt’s gaze and offering him a silent apology.
“It’s Sunday. What else is there to do?” Hartzell claimed. “Geneva won’t let me go to work, but she hasn’t barred me from talking about it.” His laugh was baritone and resounding, but it halted on a serious note as his bushy brows arched. “I haven’t seen you at the bank to open an account, Mr. Holloway.”
Wyatt didn’t eat a bite of the food. “Banks and I don’t get along.”
Hartzell gave off another bellow. “Then you’ve been with the wrong bank. Part of my job is investment, Wyatt—if I may call you that. Making an orchard out of one apple seed, shall we say. My institution pays an accrued interest. You come on down tomorrow and I’ll have Biggs here set up a general interest savings account.”
Shifting his weight, Wyatt calmly said, “I really don’t trust my money being in a bank vault.”
Leah held back a gasp. You could say a great many things to Hartzell Kirkland, but you never questioned the soundness of Eternity’s one and only bank, which prided itself on nightly balancing its ledgers to the penny.
“The Eternity Security Bank is as safe a bank as you’ll ever find,” Hartzell defended. “I’ve got a top notch National No. 5 fireproof, bulletproof, and bandit-proof safe. There never has been, nor will there ever be, a robbery at my bank.”
Wyatt said nothing further as Geneva came up to them. “Mr. Holloway, it’s nice to see you again,” she said with a semblance of forced politeness because of her husband’s and others’ presence. Then to Hartzell, she cautioned, “Must you always talk business? And about such unpleasantries as robberies that will never happen here. Let the big cities have the outlaws. We want no part of them. They are common hoodlums and should all be locked away for life.”
“I was just reassuring Wyatt here that his money would be safe from theft. I never miss an opportunity to set a man on the path of financial security. What he saves today will be his future tomorrow.”
Leah found the necessary opening in the conversation and took it. “Speaking of the future, did anyone happen to see the front page of the Eternity Tribune yesterday? I photographed the newly completed Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Lodge No. 406. It’s the building of tomorrow, with nearly every conceivable convenience.”
“We saw it,” Biggs commented. “Sheesley is not only the editor in chief of the newspaper, he’s also the exalted ruler, so of course he’d want to show off the new building. He got most of the money raised for it.”
“And for a worthwhile cause,” Leah remarked. “The architecture is taken from the French, Queen Anne, and Romanesque. It’s so lovely. And all the amenities in the lodge will be modern. I heard talk of putting in a telephone.”
“Who needs a telephone?” Hartzell commented.
“I do,” Geneva piped in. “I went down to the new office they’re constructing, and the demonstration model should be up just in time for the Aspenglow River Stampede and Eternity Grange No. 321 Exposition. Think of it. My mother won’t have to make the trip over from Bently three times a year. I can simply call her on the telephone each month.”
“A phone might be just the ticket,” Hartzell amended, thoughtfully puffing on his big stogie.
Wyatt stood with the plate in his hand, still untouched. He was so plainly ill at ease, Leah wished she’d never given it to him. At least Geneva was minding her manners so far. Keeping the conversation going on light topics would best insure that things stayed that way.
“Who do you think will win the World Series this year, Mr. Holloway?” Mr. Biggs asked. The accounting clerk was a great fan of the sport and never missed an opportunity to discuss baseball.
Wyatt’s expression was ambiguous. “I couldn’t say.”
Hartzell offered his opinion. “After the Boston Red Sox trounced the Pittsburgh Pirates five games to three last year, I’m putting my money on the American League teams this year.”
“You’ll put our money in no such place,” Geneva chided.
“Figuratively speaking, dear.”
The conversation stayed on baseball and Mr. Biggs drew in a handful of gentlemen to debate the playing capabilities of teams. Hartzell momentarily forgot about Wyatt and gave his viewpoint of namby-pamby players.
“Come with me,” Leah whispered. “You can sit at a table on the porch.”
Hartzell stepped away and looked amusingly at Wyatt, who was headed for the steps. “We’ll talk later, Wyatt,” he called, then chuckled. “I want to get the full story why you were camping on that mountain. There’s something about that spot that attracts a man, but hasn’t always been the sunrise like you told Bean Scudder. The last fellows to set a camp up there found a lot of gold.”
Wyatt froze in his steps. “Gold?”
“A big chunk that was the foundation for this town. You could say the money those men found was what got Eternity going.”
Turning, Wyatt told Leah, “I’ll stand while I eat.”
9
Do not thrust your finger through your own paper lantern.
—Chinese proverb
Wyatt didn’t have an appetite for food. He hungered for Hartzell to elaborate about the gold, but Geneva Kirkland hovered over him like an annoying pest.
“Is there something wrong with the food, Mr. Holloway?”
“No, ma’am.”
“You haven’t eaten any of it. Why not?”
Wyatt pointedly took a bite of popover and nodded his approval. “Very good,�
� he commented, but it was Hartzell who drew his full attention. “You were saying these men found some gold? When?”
“I can’t think history when my mind is cooking. Let’s get out of this blasted heat, shall we, and move closer to the house,” Hartzell suggested. He strode down the gazebo’s steps as if he owned them. To Wyatt, Hartzell seemed to be a person who got his way most of the time. He was a typical banker: in command of the conversation, and thinking his advice was the best and only advice. Wealth gave him a great deal of boldness.
Rosalure rushed up to Hartzell, her springy brown curls bouncing and her face flushed. She wore a lace-trimmed pink dress with pleats on the skirt, and fresh roses adorned her hair. She took his hand and attempted to pull him in the direction of the lawn game with colored balls. “Poppa, come play croquet with us.”
“Poppa was on his way to cool off, Rosie girl. You play without me.”
“But you could be on my team and we’d win. We’re playing Pinkie and her father.”
Hartzell’s mouth thinned. “Sim Sommercamp is a—”
“Hartzell, watch yourself,” Geneva reprimanded. “Pinkie is Rosalure’s friend. Besides I think you should play against Sim Sommercamp. Show him that you don’t need his stale account at your bank and that you don’t care that he wires his funds to that fancy Denver Bank and Trust.”
Hartzell pondered the thought, then frowned. “I don’t want to play him. He’s a—”
Geneva lowered her voice so that Rosalure couldn’t hear, but Wyatt could, and he assumed Leah could as well. “While you’re playing the game, flatter him. You’re very persuasive. You could sway him to transfer his money by offering him an incentive.”
“You’re a very shrewd woman, Geneva.”
Geneva straightened, her robust bosom thrusting forward. “I take offense at that.”
“None was intended, dearest.” Hartzell turned fondly to Rosalure. “Okay, Rosie girl, we’ll play them. Come along, Geneva, and hold my coat for me.”
They walked off, leaving Wyatt and Leah alone among a flock of younger children who were running across the clipped grass while their parents conversed under the trees and sat on lawn chairs.
Wyatt stood still, though he was sorely tempted to tag after Hartzell to ask him what he’d meant by the gold. Apprehension gnawed at him. Thinking that someone had found the satchels before he could get to them tore his insides. He had to know right now, because the clench of his fingers on the plate were making his knuckles ache.
Facing Leah, his question was direct and to the point. “Do you know anything about gold being discovered on that mountainside?”
“I didn’t live here when the town was founded.”
Wyatt’s stomach churned. He scanned the shaded area of croquet for a glimpse of Hartzell. Finding the man with his sleeves rolled up and a mallet in his hand, laughing at something Rosalure said to him, Wyatt couldn’t exactly barge in and demand to know about the gold find. It appeared as if Wyatt was going to have to wait.
With his eyes still focused on Hartzell, Wyatt asked, “How long does it take to play a game of croquet?”
“An hour or so.”
Leah’s reply didn’t alleviate the troublesome thoughts running rampant in his mind. An hour. That was a long time to sweat things out. Maybe there was an explanation. Maybe it wasn’t his gold coins. These hills had been full of miners in the mid-eighties. Could be that some of them struck a rich vein of gold ore. Wyatt tried to convince himself that there were a dozen possibilities, none of which was that the gold in question was his money. That made him feel somewhat better, though his stomach was still agitated.
“I didn’t get you a fork for your coleslaw and macaroni,” Leah dutifully said as the hostess, though Wyatt wasn’t concerned. “I’m sorry you had to hold on to your plate for so long. Why don’t you come this way and I’ll seat you at a table on the gallery so you can eat?”
“All right,” he replied, not wanting to insult her.
As he walked around the veranda, music drifted outside from the open screened windows. There was no band that Wyatt could see, but the tune was familiar to him. He’d heard it played in the plaza square of Boise City. The words sung were about the good old summertime.
“Sit here and I’ll get that fork for you.” Leah gestured to a round patio table. He lowered himself into the wrought-backed chair but didn’t eat. His gaze once again traveled to the croquet game. Hartzell had Sim Sommercamp in a head-to-head discussion in which Sim kept nodding, his arms folded across his chest. The two children were giggling and running around a multicolored stick pounded into the grass. It wasn’t a time to intrude, Wyatt concluded, and pulled his attention away.
He’d just picked up a piece of chicken when two men strode up to him and stopped several feet shy of the table to stare. One was the man who’d taken Rosalure’s birthday present from him. He was a stocky fellow with a receding hairline. The other, thinner and more gaunt, had a smile that was too exaggerated. His teeth were too white and perfectly shaped for Wyatt to want to smile back at him.
A drumstick in his hand, Wyatt returned their stares. “Something I can do for you?”
“Are you Mrs. Kirkland’s special guest?” the taller of the two asked.
Wyatt set the drumstick down. “I think we’re all her guests.”
“But she got you a plate of food. She’s never gotten either one of us a plate of food, and we’ve been invited here before,” the other replied. Sweat made a wet ring around his starched collar.
Leaning back in his chair, Wyatt stretched one booted leg outward. “If you’re asking if I’m her beau, I’m not.”
The two looked at each other with a great deal of relief. The toothy man extended his hand. “Leemon Winterowd, owner of Everlasting Monuments and Statuary. This is Mr. Fremont Quigley, Eternity’s postmaster.”
Reluctantly, Wyatt shook both gentlemen’s hands. Quigley’s was moist and warm. Winterowd’s felt like a cold slab of headstone marble.
Quigley spoke up. “You haven’t notified the post office you’d be receiving mail.”
“I wasn’t planning on staying too long.”
Quigley and Winterowd exchanged looks, then Winterowd voiced, “That’s too bad,” though there wasn’t too much sincerity in the tone that Wyatt could make out.
Both men remained at arm’s length of the table, observing Wyatt and sizing him up as if he was a bull at an auction. “Is there anything else?”
“No,” they both replied.
Leah returned with the fork and a glass of punch, stopping short when she saw the two men. Her attempt at holding back a frown wasn’t successful, for Wyatt saw her displeasure. “Mr. Winterowd and Mr. Quigley. I see you’ve met Mr. Holloway.”
“We have, Mrs. Kirkland,” Quigley said with a broad grin that emphasized his double chin. “He won’t be staying in town for very long.”
“No, Mrs. Kirkland.” Winterowd shook his head with a tsk and a smile that was nothing but long teeth. “Not long. Got to be moving on soon, he said.”
Wyatt had said no such thing, but he didn’t contradict the man. He noticed that both Winterowd and Quigley called Leah Mrs. Kirkland. They apparently weren’t casual friends. A degree of satisfaction filled Wyatt at Leah’s invitation to address her by her given name. He shared something with her that these men did not.
Handing him the fork, Leah surprised Wyatt by sitting in the chair across from him. “If you gentlemen would be so kind as to select another recording and keep the Edison cranked for me. Fern Sommercamp has been in charge for the past hour and all she plays is ‘In the Good Old Summertime.’ ”
“Surely I can, Mrs. Kirkland,” Winterowd countered.
“The pleasure is mine, Mrs. Kirkland,” Quigley assured.
Then the two men went into the house through the double-curtained doors and the music was immediately interrupted with a scratching noise.
“There goes that record,” Leah announced with a frown.
Wyatt didn’t know exactly how an Edison worked. He’d seen them in Corn’s store, but he hadn’t ever operated one.
Leah toyed with a flower petal that had come down from one of the roses in a bouquet that was the table’s centerpiece. Wyatt couldn’t help staring at her, much in the same way that Winterowd and Quigley had: with deep longing. She was a handsome woman, and looked especially handsome this afternoon. He liked her dress, the way the soft fabric caressed her breasts. Her blouse sleeves molded against her arms, the cuffs straight and trimmed with cutout beaded lace.
Wyatt slid his fork back and forth in a small motion across the tabletop. “I didn’t mean to slight your photography the other day.”
“I’m sure you didn’t.”
He wasn’t fully convinced she felt that way. “I’m sure you’re good at what you do, and because you’re a woman doesn’t mean that you can’t be a photographer—if that’s what you were thinking I was thinking.”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” she confessed openly. “Only because it’s happened before.”
“Well, that’s not my reason. I just don’t like my picture taken.”
Leah’s eyes were forgiving, and the brows above them arched with thoughtfulness. “I’ll respect your wishes. But if you change your mind, I think you’d take a fine picture.”
Wyatt felt better that they’d gotten that straightened out. Picking up the fork, he tried a bite of each savory dish and realized that he was hungry. Leah said nothing as he ate, and oddly, he wasn’t uncomfortable while she watched him. He was used to sitting with a full table. With Leah, he relaxed as she rolled the flower petal beneath her fingers while alternately gazing at the people in her yard and shyly at him. The fragrance of roses perfumed around him. Settling into his chair, he allowed himself some time to enjoy the food and the silent company of the woman across from him.
When he was finished and full, he commented, “You’re a fine cook. It’s been longer than you could believe since I’ve eaten this well.”
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