That took him aback, and she used that moment to dart around him. She dropped to her knees and put her hands on Patrick’s shoulders. “Are you all right, Patrick Joseph?”
David moved closer, seeing Patrick’s eyes watching him over his sister’s shoulder. “How old are you, son?” he asked gently.
“He’s six.”
“I wasn’t asking you,” David snapped. “Patrick, how old are you?”
“I’m six.”
“Big sister has to come and save Pajamas,” Sammy said, half giggling to his buddy.
With that, Patrick couldn’t hold it back and the tears started.
His sister whirled on the two boys. “Go home, Sammy, or I’m going to tell your mother.”
David used that moment to slip between brother and sister again. Ignoring the girl, he bent down to face Patrick. “Tears won’t make this go away, Patrick. If you cry, nobody except your sister’s gonna hear you. And these guys, they’re just gonna call you a baby. So let me say it again. You can run away today, but sometime you’re gonna have to face it. And if that is true, then why not right now and right here?”
The sister spun on him, eyes blazing. “How dare you? Who are you, anyway?”
David ignored her. “End it now, son. I’ll keep the other one out of it.”
“Get away from my brother.” She was so livid she could barely speak. Sammy and his buddy started to edge away. Seeing an opening, they turned and ran.
Patrick launched himself like a rock from a flipper. He shot forward past his sister, who gave a low cry of dismay. It was her cry that spun Sammy back around just in time to be butted in the stomach. He howled, as much in surprise as in pain, and went flying. Instantly he was up again, fists flailing. But Patrick waded into him, connecting one to his head, then one to his face.
Sammy clubbed back at this ball of fury, trying to get him off of him. It worked. Patrick fell back, blood trickling from his nose. They stood there, two young stallions, each sizing the other up.
“Patrick Joseph!” His sister shouted his name and leaped forward.
David lunged and caught her around the waist, dragging her to a halt. “Let ’em play it out.”
But it was already over. Sammy’s nose was bleeding too, and he was crying. He jerked the leather pouch from his pocket, threw it at Patrick’s feet, then turned and ran, his shocked companion stumbling after him.
David let go of the girl and stepped back as she went to her brother. “Are you okay?” she cried, taking him in her arms.
He pulled away and reached down for his marbles. “I’m okay, Abby,” he said. He touched his finger to his upper lip and seemed surprised to see the blood. He wiped across his nose with the sleeve of his shirt, smearing blood across his cheek. Then he looked over at David. His eyes were filled with wonder. And pride.
“You done good,” David said soberly. “Go over to the trough there and wash your face.”
The sister came at him then, fists up, eyes blazing. “You get out of here.”
David raised both hands to ward her off. “I’m going. But don’t you be babying him. Don’t you take away what he just did.”
“Git!” she shouted.
David started to back away. Patrick stared at the two of them with wide eyes.
“Does your family really call you Patrick Joseph?” David called to him.
As the boy nodded, to David’s surprise, the girl turned and ran to the tack shed. David ignored her. “No wonder they call you a sissy. P.J. doesn’t help much either, does it?”
He shook his head slowly.
The girl reappeared, and, to David’s utter astonishment, she held a buggy whip curled in her hand. “You leave now, or I’ll take this to you. I swear.”
He turned his back on her. “Tell you what,” he said to Patrick. “The way you butted ole Sammy there, it was just like a billy goat. I’m gonna call you Billy Joe from now on. Now, there’s a real name for a boy.”
The whip cracked viciously about five feet above his head. “I am not kidding, Mister. You git, and you git now. And if that’s your horse in the barn, take it with you.”
David turned, smiling lazily. “Ah couldn’t do that, ma’am,” he drawled. “I am confident that a nice lady such as yourself wouldn’t punish a man’s horse just to git even with him.”
He waved to the boy and started backing away. “Big sisters sometimes just don’t understand man stuff,” he said in a conspiratorial tone. “Think you’ll be safe with her? She looks pretty mad to me.”
Billy Joe shot a look at his sister, and a mischievous grin stole out across his face. “Yeah, if I let her hug me a couple of times.”
“Patrick Joseph!” Then she turned on David again. He jumped to one side as the whip cracked, this time two feet closer than before.
“See ya, Billy Joe,” he called, and started moving toward the barn. He deliberately didn’t hurry, but neither did he mosey along. He felt like he had pushed the sister to her limits. He entered the barn; grabbed his saddlebags, rifle, and bedroll; then went out and turned up the street.
Notes
^p.The Blarney stone is a block of blue stone built into the battlements of Blarney Castle, which is about five miles outside of Cork, Ireland. According to legend, kissing the Blarney stone endows the kisser with “the gift of gab.” The word blarney has thus come to mean “clever, flattering, or coaxing talk” (see Wikipedia, s.v. “blarney”).
Chapter 19
Saturday, August 24, 1878
By the time he had bathed, shaved, and eaten some lunch, David was in high spirits. His mind kept swinging back and forth between his experience in the post office and his experience behind the barn. Interesting first day. Maybe Cedar City was going to be more than just another place to briefly hang his hat.
As he entered the lobby of the hotel shortly before four p.m., he stopped dead. Helping an elderly couple at the front desk was the girl from the livery stable. The plain cotton dress had been traded for a dressy black skirt and maroon blouse. Her dark hair, which before had been tied back in a ponytail, was now combed out fully and gleamed a rich ebony in the sunlight coming through the windows. He was dumbfounded. Why would a girl who worked in the stables be clerking behind a hotel desk just an hour later? But there was no mistaking it. It was her.
Then his eyes fell on a wooden nameplate sitting on the counter beside her. Abigail McKenna. He gaped at it, mind racing, then he groaned inwardly. “A. M.” Abigail McKenna. It was her. She was working here because her father owned both the hotel and the livery stable.
Almost instantly, he groaned again as another realization hit him. This was Molly’s sister, or possibly a cousin. She didn’t look like Molly. But as he looked more closely at her, he changed his mind about that. Her eyes were a dark brown, almost black from this distance, but they were wide set and filled with intelligence. Her nose was shorter, perhaps not as graceful, but her mouth was definitely Molly’s. As she smiled at something the couple was saying, he saw the resemblance clearly. Abigail didn’t have Molly’s remarkable beauty, but she was, now that she wasn’t coming at him with a buggy whip, quite pretty in her own right.
And with that came another terrible thought. He could picture two sisters, heads huddled together, sharing their individual experiences with the new mail rider in town, alternating between hysterical laughter and rather unflattering names.
At that moment, Abby’s eyes lifted and she caught sight of him. She visibly stiffened, then quickly turned back to the couple.
His only escape was his appointment with the postmaster and he swung around, searching for his office. There were several doors, but he couldn’t—he froze as he heard sharp footsteps coming up behind him. “May I help you, Mr. Draper?”
He turned. The couple was moving away and she was coming toward him, eyes cool and distant. He took a quick breath. “I’m here to see the postmaster. I was told that—”
“My father’s office is just across the hall,” she said, pointin
g. “He has someone in with him at the moment.”
“Your father?” he managed to croak. “He’s the postmaster?”
There was the tiniest smile of triumph. “Yes. He asked me to tell you that he will be with you shortly. And yes, Molly is my sister. You remember Molly, surely?” she added sweetly. “The prettiest girl you’ve ever seen? Right?”
Now her voice turned sticky sweet. “Isn’t that nice?” And with a flounce of her hair, she spun around and stalked away.
Then, as he moved toward the door she had indicated, the last piece of the family puzzle fell into place. He was close enough to read the nameplate on the door. He stopped, his jaw dropping. Patrick J. McKenna, Postmaster. His eyes slowly studied the first part of the name. Patrick J. McKenna. P. J. McKenna. He smacked himself alongside the head and groaned yet a third time. In the course of less than three hours, he had managed to shamelessly flatter one daughter of his new boss, totally alienate another daughter, and goad his son . . . he suddenly remembered the sign on the barn. McKenna and Son. So he had goaded what was probably this man’s only son into a fight that sent him home with a bloody nose.
Idiot! And as that thought came, the door to the office opened and two men appeared. They were shaking hands. As the first man left, the other turned to face David. “Ah, Mr. Draper, I presume. Come in.”
Patrick J. McKenna was not what David had expected. First of all, he was younger, not yet fifty, David guessed. He had expected someone older because of his accomplishments—a hotel with accompanying dining room, his own livery stable, postmaster of a post office in a substantial town. The first signs of grey were showing around his temples, but other than that his hair was the same dark brown as Abby’s and full and thick. In fact, as they shook hands and introduced themselves, David saw that Abby took after her father. She had his wide-set, dark eyes; the higher, more defined cheekbones; and the more serious demeanor.
Secondly, David had dealt with successful, well-to-do people from time to time since coming to America, and in almost every case they had treated him with an air of condescension, like the girl at the lake near Tilburn Castle. But McKenna greeted him warmly. His handshake was firm, and he held David’s hand for just a moment longer while he looked him square in the eye. As he did so, David studied him. And he liked what he saw. It was an open, honest, confident face.
“Tell me about yourself, David,” he said after they were seated.
David, never one to sidestep a problem, decided there was no sense postponing the inevitable. He leaned forward. “Shall I do that before or after you fire me?”
He blinked. “Fire you?”
“Surely your daughter has told you by now what happened at the livery stable.”
He laughed and sat back again. “Ah, yes. I did hear a pretty impassioned account. ”
“I’ll bet.”
“Actually, it took me about ten minutes to get her calmed down enough that I dared send her out to deal with our guests.” His chuckle was deep and resonant. “But—and you’d have to know Abby to appreciate this—she’s scrupulously honest, even with herself. Or maybe I should say, especially with herself. So when I asked her how Patrick was doing after all of this, she grudgingly admitted that he hasn’t stopped beaming all afternoon.”
“Well,” David said, feeling a flood of relief. “I shouldn’t have interfered, but—”
He waved that away. “If you thought I would terminate you for that, you’ve misjudged me. I’ll forgive that this one time.” He was teasing him now. “Just don’t let it happen again.”
“Yes, sir.”
His eyes had a twinkle in them now. “And there’s no need to mention your first meeting with Molly, either.” When David rolled his eyes, McKenna said, “I got that report from Abby as well. Molly only told me that our mail rider had showed up. Abby gave me all the interesting details.”
He laughed at David’s rueful expression. “You’ve got quite a talent, young man. You’ve made rather a strong impression on my family. I can’t wait to see how my wife reacts to all of this.”
David blew out his breath. “Could we consider postponing that meeting for a year or two?”
“Or three, maybe,” McKenna mused. Then he chuckled, and the look on his face at that moment was pure Molly. Suddenly David realized why she had looked so amused earlier. She had been thinking about David’s little surprise when he learned who the postmaster was.
“So now, will you tell me about yourself?”
David sat back, relaxing a little. “What would you like to know?”
“For starters, how old are you?”
“I turned twenty-two in June.”
“I’ve had a full report on your service as mail rider from the postmaster in Salt Lake City. Very positive. So no need to bother with that. You fill in the rest.”
“Well, I was born in England, down near . . .” He hesitated. He had almost said London, but it was nearly a full decade since he and his father had fled Cawthorne, and this man reminded David of his father. Except for that time with Bertie Beames, David had never lied to his father. He decided right then that he didn’t want to lie to Patrick McKenna either. “I come from Yorkshire,” he went on, “which is in the northeast of England.”
“You don’t sound much like an Englishman,” McKenna said. “I was born in Ireland myself, near a wee lit’le village near Limerick.” He pulled a face. “Unfortunately, I came to America when I was only two and never picked up the Irish lilt. Much to my mother’s dismay.”
David thought about his interchange with Molly about being Irish, but he wasn’t about to comment on that. “When we—my father and I—first arrived here, I got tired of the bullies in school telling me I talked funny. So I punched the biggest one in the mouth, then learned how to talk like a Yank.”
“Where was that?”
“Coalville.”
“Did you work in the mines there?”
There was an emphatic shake of his head. “No, sir. Had enough of that in Yorkshire. Started when I was six. Left when I was thirteen. Besides, my father promised my mother before she died that he’d keep me out of the mines.”
Feeling more comfortable with every minute, David quickly summarized what he had been doing the last six years—teamster, work hand, wrangler, cowboy, mail rider.
“So you were a cowboy?” McKenna said when he was finished.
“Yep. For almost two years. I really enjoyed it, actually.”
“Why’d you leave?”
“Mostly got tired of the winters.”
“The letter I received from Salt Lake said that you have spent some time down in this area.”
“Yes. Constructing a telegraph line. We strung wire from here in Cedar down to St. George. When we finished that, we took it on over to Fredonia and eventually up to Kanab.”
“So you know this country pretty well.”
“Suppose so. Sure covered enough of it on a horse.”
“And you’ve spent a lot of time out in the open.”
“Sometimes it’s easier than sleeping in town with all them prickly pears.”
“Prickly pears?”
“People.”
It was McKenna’s turn to laugh. “I see. Yes, good description. In fact, I’ve got a few of those on my payroll.”
David rubbed his chin. “I know. I met one of them this afternoon down at the livery stable.”
McKenna hooted. “Abby can be a mite prickly, I’ll agree. Especially if she thinks someone’s messing with her little brother. Those two have a special bond.”
“Where’d she learn to use a buggy whip like that?”
McKenna’s mouth fell open. “She used a buggy whip on you?”
“Well, close enough to get my attention.”
He shook his head, but his eyes were actually filled with pride. “Both of my girls can handle horses well, but give Abby her way and she would only work at the stables. She likes that much better than working here or in the post office.”
&n
bsp; He fell silent, and David sat back, waiting for him to continue. Finally, he seemed to make up his mind. “I’m sorry to be so inquisitive, David. And by the way, do you prefer David, Dave, or Davy?”
“David.”
“Good. My name’s Patrick, and I’d like you to call me that, soon as you’re comfortable with it.” He gave him a sharp look. “If you are looking to get yourself fired, call me Paddy or Pat.”
David laughed. “I’ll try to remember that.” He was liking his employer more and more the longer this conversation continued.
Then McKenna got serious again. “I know this all seems a little strange, being that we’ve just barely met, but something’s come up since we sent the offer to you. Something additional I’d like you to do, if you’re interested.”
“What is that?”
“In a minute. First, let me ask one more question. The answer to this won’t change things either way, but I’m curious. Are you a member of the Church?”
David had certainly not expected that. “A Mormon?”
“Sorry,” McKenna chuckled. “It’s so easy in Utah to say ‘the Church’ and assume everyone knows you’re talking about the Mormon Church.”
“Well, I . . . yes.” He could feel McKenna’s eyes on him as he fumbled a little, so he stopped. He remembered his determination to be honest. “My father and I were baptized in Liverpool, just a few days before we boarded the emigrant ship.”
“Me and my parents came through Liverpool too, though I can barely remember it.”
“Look, Mr. McKenna, I’ll be straight with you. I am a Mormon. But I’m not much of one. Oh, I observe the basic commandments. Most kids my age learned to smoke and chew in the mines, but my mother threatened to skin me alive if I did. Same with drinking. Never been one to chase after women. Another stern lecture from my mother.”
He thought for a minute how to say it. “But, as for being involved in the Church, most of my years since becoming a member I’ve been out away from things, where there are no meetinghouses, no congregations. So I’m not a big churchgoer.” He flashed a quick grin. “In fact, to be right honest, sometimes I’ve been known to linger a little longer out in the country on a Saturday afternoon rather than ride into town so as to be there on Sunday, if you know what I mean. Wouldn’t want you to think otherwise, if that makes a difference to you.”
The Undaunted Page 21