Refining Fire

by Cox, Carol

  Copyright

  ISBN 1-59310-097-3

  Copyright © 2004 by Carol Cox. All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher, Heartsong Presents, PO Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683.

  All Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

  Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.

  All of the characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.

  one

  May 1, 1869

  Prescott, Arizona Territory

  “Two bowls of venison stew, one order of roast beef, and one of fried chicken. And some of whatever the couple at the next table are having for dessert.”

  “That’s dried peach cobbler.” Jenny Davis smiled at the man seated with his young family at the front table of the Capital Restaurant & Bakery.

  “Mmm. Can I just skip the stew and start with that, Pa?” the older of two freckle-faced boys asked.

  Jenny laughed along with the boy’s parents. Heading back to the kitchen, she repeated their order to Elizabeth O’Roarke, the restaurant’s owner and Jenny’s dearest friend.

  “I’m going to set aside four pieces of this cobbler,” she told Elizabeth. “That little boy’s eyes lit up like he hadn’t had a sweet in months!” She didn’t mention the pleasure she felt at knowing one of her own baked creations had produced such a craving.

  Elizabeth grinned at Jenny, her hazel eyes glowing with pride. “If he thinks it looks good, just wait until he tries a bite. You’ve developed a real knack for improving the recipes we started out with.”

  Jenny basked in Elizabeth’s praise while she served the family their supper and tended to the other patrons in the crowded dining room. In the two years she’d worked at the restaurant, Elizabeth had taught her a great deal—not only the finer points of turning out mouthwatering pies, cakes, and pastries, but the meaning of friendship and loyalty as well.

  She owed a lot to Elizabeth and her husband, Michael. Far more than she would ever be able to repay by waiting tables and helping in the kitchen. Being rescued carried a high price.

  And the O’Roarkes had come to her rescue more than once. First from the local saloon keeper her unscrupulous guardian had traded her to for a supply of whiskey. Then again after her former guardian and the saloon keeper kidnapped her in an effort to regain their lost “property.”

  It had taken many months for Jenny to make the transformation from the frightened girl Elizabeth and Michael had taken under their wing to the more confident young woman she had become. During those months, she had learned what it was like to belong again, to feel like part of a family—a person of worth. Despite her initial sullenness and mistrust, both the O’Roarkes believed in her. And that belief had made all the difference.

  She smiled at Elizabeth when she pushed through the swinging door to the kitchen. “If it wasn’t almost closing time, you could probably keep on serving for hours yet. Business is going well.”

  Elizabeth beamed. “Isn’t it wonderful how God has continued to bless us?”

  They believed in God, too, something Jenny didn’t begrudge them in the least. She just wished they wouldn’t try to keep pushing their perception of Jenny’s need for Him down her throat. Faith was a wonderful thing, as long as the object of your faith lived up to His obligation to take care of His people. When He allowed awful things to happen to them, as He’d done with Jenny and her family, it was hard to muster up the unquestioning trust that seemed to come so easily to Elizabeth and Michael.

  That topic had been the only real point of disagreement Jenny and Elizabeth ever had, a point on which Jenny adamantly dug in her heels and refused to budge.

  “But everyone has faith in something,” Elizabeth had argued more than once. “What do you have faith in?”

  That was easy: herself. She didn’t tell Elizabeth that, though. She knew all too well the look of sadness that would fill her friend’s eyes. Instead, she always shrugged and said she was still trying to figure that out.

  The truth was, she had settled the issue in her mind a long time ago—back when she cowered in a root cellar, listening to the screams of her dying parents and little brother at the hands of Apache warriors.

  Back when Martin Lester, her guardian, decided he wanted to treat her more as a wife than a foster daughter. . . back when he tired of her fending him off and traded her to Burleigh Ames, the owner of the Nugget Saloon. . .back when she knew beyond a doubt that if God had loved Jenny Davis once, He didn’t any longer. How could a God of love allow all the things that had happened to her?

  She wet a rag and carried it to the dining room, where she proceeded to wipe down the empty tables. The family at the front finished their meal and got ready to take their leave.

  “That was sure good cobbler,” called the little boy. “I hope Pa brings us in again soon.”

  Jenny smiled at the departing family. The door opened again just after they left, and Michael O’Roarke strolled in.

  “Is Elizabeth ready to go? We can enjoy a twilight stroll and still get to the Bible study on time for once if we leave now.”

  Jenny laughed and nodded toward the rear of the room. “She’s in the kitchen. She should just about be finished now. If she isn’t, I’ll take care of anything that’s left so you can be on your way.”

  Michael grinned at her offer. “Thanks. I appreciate it. You’re sure you don’t want to go with us?”

  “Not this time.” It had been her standard answer for the past two years. She was thankful that neither one of them seemed to take offense.

  Elizabeth hurried in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. “I think I have everything put to rights back there. The dough is rising for tomorrow morning.” She patted her hair into place and turned to Jenny. “You’re sure—”

  “I already asked her,” Michael put in with a smile. “Not this time.”

  Elizabeth nodded, and Michael pulled down the shades covering the front windows while the two women began to blow out the lamps.

  “We’ll probably head straight home after the Bible study,” Elizabeth told Jenny. “Make sure the front door is locked securely after we leave.”

  “I will.” Jenny waited until the two of them set off down Cortez Street, then dropped the bar across the front door. She hadn’t needed the reminder. Even when she and Elizabeth both made their home in the rear of the restaurant, securing the place for the night had always been a high priority. Now that she lived there alone, she took even more precautions.

  After blowing out the last lamp in the dusky dining room, she pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen, lit the lamp on the counter, then made her way through the kitchen to her room, which had once been Elizabeth’s. She set the lamp on the dresser, dropped onto her bed, and reached for her hairbrush. Pulling the brush slowly through her long curls, she thought about her friends and what a nice couple they made. Maybe God really did have a hand in bringing the two of them together. Wouldn’t it be nice if He would bring someone as wonderful as Michael into her own life? But she knew she couldn’t count on His intervention for that. . .or anything else.

  No, she couldn’t expect any help from the Almighty. He’d proven that more than once. Michael and Elizabeth would argue the point, of course, but they’d never faced the things Jenny had. Never seen their whole world ripped asunder so that they despaired of ever piecing the fragments back to-gether again.

  And t
hey had never been forced to work in a place like the Nugget, singing to the customers, praying her voice would draw in enough extra business to satisfy Burleigh Ames so he wouldn’t make good on his threats to force her to do more.

  Two years later, the memory of the short time she’d spent in the saloon made Jenny shudder. Shame, raw fear, and her naïveté about the rights of her new guardian had kept her from running away. But unlike the other girls in Burleigh’s employ, she had never taken one of the customers upstairs to her room. Even so, having to endure the leers, the comments, and the pawing hands of the customers downstairs left her feeling soiled.

  No, God couldn’t love her anymore. Not after that. His people were pure, like Elizabeth and Michael. People who went to church and to Bible studies, who prayed expecting answers, and got them. She’d given up on God’s love. She knew she wasn’t worthy of it. The past had tainted her beyond redemption, and she accepted that fact. All she wanted to do now was forget.

  If only other people would let her.

  Jenny changed into her nightgown, then slipped barefoot through the darkened kitchen and dining room to check the locks on the doors one last time. Moonlight filtered through a crack in the shades, giving her enough light to accomplish her purpose. She gripped the bar and shook it. Yes, it rested solidly in place.

  Jenny turned to go, and her foot struck something, sending the object skittering across the floor like a dry leaf. With a sense of dread, she located it in the dim light and bent to pick it up. She held the thin, folded sheet of paper between her fingers, knowing before she ever opened it what she would find.

  No, please. Not again.

  ❧

  Andrew Garrett gazed across the broad valley below him. On the other side of that valley, the ground rose up again, the last in the series of low hills he had crossed that day. Beyond that, according to the directions he’d been given, would be the town of Prescott. A nice place to build a town, he reflected. Plenty of piñon, pines, and juniper trees and rolling slopes dotted with manzanita. Nothing like Denver, but a pretty spot all the same.

  He urged his horse forward and continued across the valley’s level floor, crossing a creek before he came to the last hill. When he reached the top, he pulled his horse to a halt and surveyed the scene before him.

  Prescott. A town on the rise, to all appearances. In the neighborhood of a couple of thousand inhabitants, he’d guess. That wouldn’t include the others outside the town proper who toiled away at their sluice boxes or knelt in the cold streams, endlessly swirling their gold pans in the hope of finding a nugget.

  The gold rush that hit Prescott five years before hadn’t been as big as the rush to California in ’49. Still, a considerable amount of ore had already been shipped to San Francisco. The question was, how much was still left for the taking?

  Which was the question that brought Andrew to Arizona Territory. Flush with the proceeds from their investments in local mines, the Denver Consolidated Mining Company had decided to investigate other likely regions and hired Andrew to use his expertise as a mining engineer to scout out the prospects in Arizona. If the underground ore proved to be as rich as rumor had it, he had been authorized to purchase claims in the name of the group of investors.

  Andrew studied the bustling town below him, lying in a basin edged by large pine trees. Mountains rose in the distance to the south, and a large, thumb-shaped butte dominated the landscape in the west. Most of the activity seemed to be centered on the area surrounding a broad, open square that reminded him of Santa Fe’s town plaza.

  Nothing like Denver’s more polished atmosphere, but the same brash spirit, the same feeling of heady optimism he’d experienced in other locales in the midst of a mining boom. The same certainty that the next big strike was just about to happen. But hope alone wouldn’t carry the day. Sound investments required a solid foundation, and that was just what Andrew’s training had equipped him to look for.

  Andrew touched his heels to his horse’s flanks and set off down the hill. The men who flocked to the gold fields were the same everywhere, sure the next big strike would be on the claim they owned. Andrew’s job was to see if he could make that dream a certainty for the Denver investors.

  ❧

  “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

  Jenny spun around at the sound of Elizabeth’s voice. Man-aging a shaky laugh at her nervous reaction, she attempted a casual smile. “These raisin tarts. I can’t seem to get the dough right.”

  Elizabeth stepped across the kitchen and squeezed a pinch of the dough between her fingers. “It’s a little dry, don’t you think? Try adding just a bit more water.”

  She turned back to Jenny, holding her with a steady gaze that made Jenny wish she could disappear. “What’s going on? You don’t make mistakes like that.”

  “Except for when I forgot the baking powder and the biscuits were like rocks. And don’t forget the time I put the salt in those piecrusts twice. Remember how that poor man’s eyes watered when he bit into it?”

  “Months ago, on both counts. Don’t try to distract me. This has nothing to do with pastry making. Own up, now. What’s wrong?”

  Jenny opened her mouth to make a light comment but thought better of it. Trying to sidetrack Elizabeth once she had her mind set on something was like trying to persuade a terrier to part with a cherished bone. She wiped the crumbly dough from her hands with a tea towel and fished a piece of paper from her apron pocket. She handed it over without a word and turned back to add drops of water to her dough.

  Behind her, Elizabeth gasped. “Where did this come from?”

  “Someone slipped it under the front door last night. I found it after you left.”

  “I can’t believe anyone would write these things.” Elizabeth shook the paper under Jenny’s nose.

  Jenny turned away again. She didn’t need to be reminded. The words were forever etched in her memory. Harlot. Fallen woman. Go back to Whiskey Row.

  Elizabeth studied the wrinkled paper and glanced up at Jenny. “You crumpled this up, then smoothed it out and kept it. Why?”

  Jenny shrugged. How could she explain an action she didn’t understand herself? Her first thought had been to wad the ugly note into a ball, light a match, and send it into oblivion. Instead, she’d picked the wrinkled folds apart, spread the hateful message open, and folded it neatly in her pocket. Why, indeed? She looked up to find Elizabeth still watching her.

  “Do you have any idea who did this?” Elizabeth’s voice was sharp.

  “No.” Jenny gave a short laugh. “And believe me, I spent most of the night trying to figure that out.”

  Elizabeth’s brow furrowed, and she grasped Jenny’s arm. “You don’t suppose Martin Lester is still around?”

  “I don’t think so.” Even the mention of her erstwhile guardian brought a tightening in her chest. “Last I heard, he’d pulled out and left the territory. He can stay gone forever, for all I care.”

  “Then who?” Elizabeth waved the note. “This didn’t get here all by itself.” When Jenny didn’t reply, she lifted a burner from the cookstove and dropped the note into the glowing coals. “There. It’s gone.”

  Jenny watched the paper blacken at the edges, then fold in upon itself before it burst into flames and turned to ash. All well and good, and perhaps it would let Elizabeth think she’d put the hateful words to rest.

  As for her, it would take more than mere flames to erase the message from her heart.

  ❧

  Jenny carried a tray laden with flapjacks and bacon to a table near the front window. After an unexpectedly large breakfast rush, the steady stream of customers had dwindled to a trickle, letting Elizabeth leave the kitchen long enough to help clear the empty tables. Maybe the two of them could catch their breath if the lunch crowd held off for a bit.

  Jenny removed the last plate of flapjacks from her tray and set it on the table. “That ought to satisfy even a hungry man’s appetite.” She smiled at the four robust mi
ners, then scanned the room. Two women had just seated themselves at a corner table. She wove her way across the room to greet them.

  “Good morning, ladies. Are you ready to order?”

  The woman sitting nearest her looked up with a pleasant smile. “I believe I’ll have the eggs and biscuits,” she began.

  The woman on the other side of her tapped the speaker on the shoulder. She leaned over and whispered to her companion, shielding their faces with her spread fingers.

  The first woman stared up at Jenny. “That’s the one? Oh!” Her smile faded and her gaze darted around the room. “Excuse me,” she called to Elizabeth, who was hurrying past with a load of dirty dishes. “Could you take our order, please?”

  Elizabeth halted beside Jenny with a puzzled frown. “Didn’t you. . .” Her voice trailed off as comprehension spread across her face. Her mouth set in a grim line.

  “It’s all right,” Jenny told her through stiff lips. “I’ll take these things back to the kitchen.” She lifted the dishes out of Elizabeth’s arms and strode into the kitchen.

  Setting the dishes on the counter with a clatter, she knotted her hands into fists and pressed them against her flaming cheeks. Would it never end?

  Probably not. News spread all too quickly in a close-knit community like Prescott. News and gossip both—hateful, hurtful words, spreading like a deadly plague from one person to the next.

  Her stomach roiled and she clapped one hand over her mouth until the acid taste went away. At least Elizabeth hadn’t ordered the women out of the restaurant, as she’d been known to do to customers who had impugned Jenny’s reputation in the past. While Jenny appreciated her friend’s loyalty, the uproar involved and the stares and whispers from the remaining customers were as hard to bear as the insults themselves.

  The swinging door burst open, admitting Elizabeth, her eyes blazing with anger. Her expression softened when she saw Jenny’s distress.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, hurrying to wrap her arm around Jenny’s shoulders. “So sorry.”