by Jody Hedlund
Mrs. McCormick sighed and glanced around the opulent hallway. “I have thought of this too. I’ve lived at one end of the spectrum—in a place very much like the one we visited today. And now with my husband’s hard work, I’m at the other end of the continuum.”
“Then you must see the injustice of it all.”
Mrs. McCormick’s eyes filled with warm understanding. “As long as man lives and breathes, there will always be sin in this world and consequently injustice.”
“But that doesn’t mean we should give up, sit back, and do nothing.”
“You’re right. Nor can we fight against everything. We must instead discover where God wants to use us.”
Lily’s heart pulsed faster at the woman’s words.
“I may not be able to rebuild the company boardinghouse to make it safer and more livable,” Mrs. McCormick continued. “That isn’t within the scope of my influence or control. But I can offer comfort to those who live there. That is something I can choose to do. And of course, I keep praying that someday I’ll be able to do more.”
Mrs. McCormick lifted her hand to Lily’s cheek. Her rose-powder fragrance swirled in the air. And Lily couldn’t keep from leaning into its warm caress, longing swelling deep inside.
What would her mother’s touch have felt like? What would it have been like to have a mother giving her advice?
In the presence of this lovely woman, experiencing her goodness, her wisdom, and her sweet touch, buried needs pushed through the tough winter ground of her heart. For so long, she’d had to be strong so she could be both mother and father to Daisy. She’d had no one to turn to, no one to take care of her, no one to lean on.
Just for once, she wanted to know what it would have been like to have a mother.
As if sensing Lily’s need, the woman reached for her and wrapped her arms around Lily, drawing her against her bosom.
Lily couldn’t resist. She slipped her arms around Mrs. McCormick, falling into the embrace, relishing the gentleness of the woman’s arms and the firmness of the squeeze.
“You are a brave and strong young woman,” Mrs. McCormick said. “And you amaze me.”
An ache pushed up Lily’s throat. Sadness pressed at her chest, making her want to weep at what she had missed all those years without a mother to turn to.
And now, in Mrs. McCormick’s tender but strong arms, she couldn’t keep from wishing for more—a real family, a real home.
Mrs. McCormick pressed a kiss into Lily’s hair and pulled back.
Reluctantly, Lily let go.
“You’re already choosing to fight the battles God is giving you.” Mrs. McCormick gave her cheek another gentle pat. “But be patient with those who are still discovering where God wants to use them.”
Mrs. McCormick’s eyes held Lily’s. Reflected in the kind depths she saw Connell. And she couldn’t help wondering if somehow Mrs. McCormick had learned of the quarrel she’d had with Connell and was asking her to be patient with him.
After Mrs. McCormick left, Lily started up the broad winding staircase. Her footsteps were slow and her mind swirled with bittersweet emotions. Was it too late to wish for a real home for her and Daisy?
With a sigh, she paused on the landing of the second floor. As much as she wanted a woman like Mrs. McCormick for a mother, she and Daisy couldn’t impose on the woman’s good graces indefinitely.
At some point she would need to find a job and a place for them to live. And when that time came, she could only pray their new home would be better than the boardinghouse she’d visited.
The tinkling of Daisy’s laughter came from the second-floor hallway.
Lily started forward in surprise.
Daisy had declined going with them earlier upon complaint of one of her headaches. In fact, she hadn’t left the house since their arrival. And even though Lily wanted to encourage Daisy to put her shame behind her and move on with her life, she hadn’t wanted to push her to go anywhere before she was ready—especially before she had the chance to get the alcohol out of her system.
The laughter came again—playful, almost teasing.
Lily smiled.
She hadn’t heard Daisy laugh much during the past few days they’d spent together. When Daisy wasn’t feeling sick, she had despaired over her future.
“Who will like me now?” she’d say between sobs. “I’m nobody and nothing.”
And when Lily would try to reassure Daisy that eventually she’d meet a nice young man who would love her and want to marry her, she would only say, “Nice boys won’t want a girl like me.”
Lily prayed Daisy wasn’t right. They would have to work hard to put the winter behind them, forget about it, pretend it never happened. Eventually, the memories would fade. And when the right man came along for Daisy, maybe he could forgive Daisy for her time at the Stockade.
A squeak of a desk chair and the thump of a book falling to the floor came from the library.
Lily moved toward the door with a new lightness of step. Whatever could bring Daisy from her room and fill her with fresh laughter was worthy of capturing and using again.
Another soft laugh came through the crack in the door, followed by a gasp.
Lily didn’t bother to knock. She pushed the door open with a ready smile, breathing in the heavy scent of varnish and musty books.
But her entire body came to a crashing halt at the sight before her. Her blood chilled into a frozen river. And her smile turned to ice.
Daisy was perched on the edge of an enormous oak desk flanked on either side by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Sitting in the chair in front of her was Tierney. Daisy’s skirt was bunched up, revealing her stockingless legs. And even worse, her bodice hung loosely, exposing her.
Much to Lily’s dismay, Tierney leaned his face toward the girl. As his lips made contact, Lily expected Daisy to push him away and to utter horrified words of protest. But she didn’t move.
Lily took a step forward. She had to help Daisy put a stop to Tierney’s advances.
But Daisy closed her eyes and gave a soft sigh.
Did Daisy enjoy Tierney’s touch? Surely she didn’t. Surely she was only putting on a show.
But a deep part of her soul wrenched with pain at the realization that perhaps Daisy had become more tainted through her experiences than she wanted to admit.
Lily took another step into the room and shook her head. This was all wrong. Tierney had obviously cornered Daisy and forced her to debase herself.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, her voice trembling.
With a gasp, Daisy sat up and scrambled off the desk, tugging her bodice with trembling fingers.
Tierney leaned back in the chair, its creak echoing in the tense silence. He crossed his hands behind his head and grinned. “Well, hello there, Lily. How are you today?”
The purplish half moon beneath one of his eyes was all that remained from Connell’s beating.
Did he think this was a game? He was a married man. Daisy was vulnerable and hurting. “How dare you do this to my sister!”
He shrugged and perched his feet on the edge of the desk, crossing them at the ankles. “What can I say? Your sister is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”
Daisy dipped her head. But Lily could see the flush of pleasure his words brought the girl.
Angry flames seared Lily’s insides. “You know we’re trying to make a new life for ourselves. Leave Daisy alone. For the love of all that’s good and decent, let her try to put her past behind her.”
Her plea rang through the library, against the dark paneled wainscoting of the walls to the bright bay window in the front and the dark billiard room in the rear.
“Daisy’s a grown woman. She can decide what she wants.”
“No, she can’t.” Lily glanced around the room, her fingers itching to grab something—anything—to throw at Tierney’s mocking face. She spotted a knit blanket draped across one of the cushioned chairs near the fireplace.
Wi
th determined steps, she retrieved the covering, draped it across Daisy’s shoulders, and then propelled the girl toward the door.
Daisy didn’t resist. She hung her head, letting her long hair fall into her face, refusing to meet Lily’s gaze.
“Daisy is the only family I have left.” Lily spat the words at Tierney, hating his grin that rose higher. “She’s my responsibility. I won’t let you hurt her. I’ll do whatever I have to in order to stop you.”
Tierney lifted his hands in mock surrender. “Whoa! Don’t crucify me.”
“You’re nothing like your brother.”
“I try hard not to be.”
She didn’t stop to analyze the bitter edge to Tierney’s voice. Instead, she circled her arm around Daisy and hurried her back to their bedroom. Once the door closed behind them, she brushed Daisy’s hair aside and began to fasten the buttons at the back of the dress. Lily’s throat ached and her fingers trembled.
“Stop, Lily.” Daisy shrugged her hand off and walked toward the large window. She yanked open the curtain, letting light spill into the dark room. For a long moment, the girl stared out the window, tears sliding down her cheeks and the knit blanket drooping down one bare shoulder.
Anguish tore through Lily’s stomach. She wanted to go to Daisy and pull her into an embrace, comfort her, and reassure her that everything would be all right. But there was a stiffness to Daisy’s stance that stopped her.
“Stop treating me like a child,” Daisy finally said, swiping at the tears.
“But you’re only sixteen—”
“And stop acting like my mother.”
“I’ve always taken care of you.”
“I don’t need you to anymore.”
Lily sucked in a breath. What was Daisy saying?
“I can take care of myself just fine.”
“How can you say that? Especially after the way Tierney just accosted you—”
“He didn’t accost me.” Daisy lifted her chin and turned to look at Lily. “I like him.”
Lily shook her head. “He took advantage of you. He knew you’d be weak and vulnerable.”
“I don’t care.” Daisy’s eyes flashed with sudden defiance. “When I’m with him, he makes me feel special and pretty.”
“He’s using you.”
“He cares about me.”
Lily wanted to cross the room and shake sense into Daisy, but she held herself back. “All he cares about is your body and how he can satisfy his own lust.”
Daisy pulled herself up and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “And I care about him too.”
“His wife and baby live across the street.”
She shrugged and the blanket fell from her other shoulder. Her bodice had slipped down and her hair tumbled about her shoulders in wild abandon, providing a thin veil. But Daisy didn’t seem to notice or mind her indecency.
Desperation rose inside Lily. This was her sweet baby sister. What had happened to her?
Lily had the urge to cry out and stomp her feet and demand that Daisy stop acting so foolishly.
Instead, she took a deep breath. Daisy’s emotions were as fragile as a thin coating of ice on a pond. She had to remember it was going to take time for Daisy to heal and move past all that had happened.
And apparently it was going to take more time and effort than she’d realized.
As hard as it would be to leave the McCormicks, she knew she couldn’t put it off any longer. They needed to find a place of their own, a place where Tierney wouldn’t be able to find Daisy.
A place where they could finally be a family together.
Chapter
26
Connell brushed the wet snow off the four-inch-thick round slab of pine. Clear as a summer day, the McCormick log mark, a smaller M inside a large C, was stamped onto the sawed-off end.
“Where did you find them?” Connell’s fingers traced the grooves of the company sign, anger settling into the crevices of his heart.
Charlie looked around at the group of men at the dock who’d stopped their work and gathered near. They brushed the sweat from their foreheads and donned the coats they’d tossed off earlier.
“I was checking one of my traps and found them shoved underneath a stand of cedar near Camp 1. Not too far from the narrow-gauge tracks.”
A miserable mixture of rain and snow had been spitting at them all afternoon, but nobody was paying attention to the cold, wet weather anymore. The moment Charlie had ridden up to the loading ground at the Pere Marquette, Connell had known the young man wasn’t bringing good news. So did all the others. Any time a shanty boy had a need to ride into town in the middle of the day, the tidings were bad.
“There’s more than just McCormick Lumber that’s been robbed.” Charlie tipped a large grain sack upside down and a dozen round slabs fell to the muddy ground.
Several other camp bosses stepped toward the pile and kicked the ends, examining them for their company marks.
“From the looks of it,” Charlie added, “whoever’s been stealing has been doing it a little bit at a time all winter.”
All the logs were stamped with a specific mark that belonged to each lumber company in order for them to keep track of their logs among the flow of all the others. Even so, log piracy was a common problem.
That was one of the reasons each camp hired watchmen to protect their logs during transport, especially as the logs were transferred down the Pere Marquette to Averill to await the spring river drive.
“Looks like we’ve got a thief in the midst of us,” Connell said, searching the faces of the other bosses.
The anger slanting across their features reflected the frustration that had made a home inside him. They grumbled and began speculating who was to blame.
Connell gave a weary sigh. At least now he knew why his numbers hadn’t been adding up. The foremen at each of his camps had been giving him the correct totals of logs leaving their camps. But somewhere between leaving the camps and arriving in Harrison, someone had been tampering with the logs, sawing off company marks, and likely remarking the logs with their own stamp.
It appeared that the thieves hadn’t just been targeting McCormick, but had been sawing the marked ends from a variety of the camps. The strategy made sense. Taking a little bit from each of the camps would make the theft harder to discover.
The unbalanced ledgers had caused him plenty of headaches. But they were the least of his concerns now.
In the week since he’d returned to Harrison, he’d had forty shanty boys demand their paychecks and defect to other area camps or mills.
A few had come back when they’d learned of the extra bonus he was offering. But those who remained were getting threats from Carr’s men whenever they went into town, and he had the feeling it wouldn’t be long before more of them left.
He’d decided Carr didn’t deserve the payoff money Dad had given him. If anything, Carr ought to be the one paying him for all the losses he was causing McCormick Lumber.
“What do you want me to do with the slabs, Boss?” Charlie finally asked.
Connell didn’t know if he had the energy to think of a plan to catch the thieves. He’d obviously have to hire some men to guard the loads coming out of his camps on the narrow-gauge trains. But at the moment, he didn’t know if he even cared.
All week he’d slept poorly, waiting for Carr’s men to strike again when he least expected. So far they’d stayed away. But he knew his days were numbered. It was just a matter of time before they caught him unaware and alone.
And with the way he was stirring up the hornet’s nest lately with Stuart’s help, he knew a fight was coming. It wasn’t a matter of if. It was a matter of when.
Under the guise of Lily’s Red Ribbon Society, they’d held their first meeting two days ago. Even though the turnout had been small—only nine men and one woman, Vera—he’d begun to see that more people were tired of Carr and his lawlessness than he’d expected.
At the racing clomp of horse
hooves and the shout of his name, Connell straightened his sagging shoulders and wiped a hand across his eyes, fighting off the weariness.
Stuart came charging toward him, one arm in a sling and the other gripping reins. His face was still a patchwork of yellowish-green and purple bruises and cuts.
Connell stepped away from the group of men now arguing about who was to blame for the thieving. “Thought you were working on our project in Merryville today,” he said as Stuart reined next to him.
“I was.” Stuart’s face was grim.
Although the thought of riding up to Merryville in the black of night and breaking into the Devil’s Ranch was one of the last things he wanted to do, he figured if Lily could rescue Daisy, he and Stuart could get Frankie.
It was past time.
Besides, since he’d already made an enemy of Carr, what difference did it make if he stirred up more strife?
Stuart had decided to ride up to Merryville for the day to get word to her that they would come after her in two nights.
Connell pulled his watch from his coat pocket. It read two-thirty. “You’re back early.”
Stuart slipped from his horse, wincing as his feet touched the ground. “We won’t need to rescue the girl,” he said softly so that none of the men could hear their conversation. His eyes brimmed with a sadness that set Connell on edge.
“What happened?”
“From what I could gather from various witnesses, Carr beat her up about a week ago. With his brass knuckles. Because she refused to get out on the dance floor and strip for the men.”
Connell shook his head. He’d heard the tales of the pails Carr put out on the dance floor. The men tossed coins into the tin containers to entice the girls to perform. As the pails began to fill, the girls would expose more flesh and the dances would turn more lurid.
He couldn’t imagine a sweet young girl like Frankie dancing in front of a roomful of drunken shanty boys. Why had Carr demanded it of her of all his girls? He could have made one of his other women do it—one of the women there by choice.
Stuart’s brow furrowed into deep lines. “Dr. Scott said he examined her and tried to help her. But she was so severely beaten and covered with bruises that she would’ve had a hard time surviving. If she’d had a will to live, which apparently she didn’t.”