Swiping almost angrily at her leaky eyes this time, Addie repeated, “Well?” more loudly.
Puzzled, hopeless, Charley managed to croak, “Well what, Addie? I—I don’t understand.”
Addie struggled to her knees, then upright. Charley had no idea how long she’d been scrunched on the floor beside the priest, but coupled with her bruising ride on Garland’s horse it had apparently been long enough for her legs to turn rubbery. She sat with a whump on the bench next to Father Bernardo. She still looked at Charley, though, and her expression gained vivacity with each passing second.
She was positively vibrating with energy when she said, “Well, are you just going to give up and walk out of here? Are you just going to abandon your men now that they’ve settled here? Are you going to desert them?”
Dumbfounded, uncertain, his insides lurching, Charley said, “I—I don’t know what to do, Addie.”
Uh-oh. She was mad, Charley realized; mad as fire.
Stiffly, Addie tried to stand again. She seemed a little wobbly, but with a hand braced on Father Bernardo’s shoulder, she managed to stay upright. “You don’t know what to do?”
Her words were soft, almost menacing. She looked at Charley the way he’d seen her look at Fermin Small a couple of times, and Charley’s protective instincts made him glance around the church to see if there was anything handy she could fling at him. The only portable objects in sight were the big brass candlesticks, and he expect they’d be too heavy for her to lift, or to fling very far if she managed to pick one of them up.
He shook his head.
“You sure seemed to know what to do before, Charley.”
“I didn’t, Addie. Not really. I—we—I was just desperate.”
“Why did you stick around after you found out the rubies were paste?”
“Because by that time I loved you, Addie.” It sounded weak. Charley guessed it couldn’t be helped. It was the truth.
Maybe the simplicity of his words penetrated Addie’s anger. Charley didn’t know. All he knew was that Addie’s burgeoning wrath seemed to crumple up in front of his eyes.
He’d just barely begun to hope she wouldn’t throw something at him when he heard her tiny, cracked, “Oh, Charley.”
And then he had time to toss his hat aside and open his arms as she hurtled down the length of the church and into his arms. Charley’s astonished eyes caught the big smile on Father Bernardo’s face a split-second before Addie hit him in the stomach, his arms folded around her, and he burst into tears.
He only discovered his indignity several minutes later when Addie finally loosened her hug enough so she could lean back and peer into his face. She gave him the most tender smile he’d ever seen when she reached up and used her sweet fingers to brush his own hot tears away.
“Oh, Charley, I love you so much.”
Charley, beyond pride, begged, “Please don’t make me go away, Addie. I don’t think I can live without you. I don’t want to live without you.”
Hugging him fiercely, Addie said, “Don’t ever leave me, Charley. I don’t want you to ever leave me.”
“I won’t, Addie. I swear I won’t.”
They embraced for another five minutes at least, before Addie yanked Charley’s sleeve across her cheeks to dry them. He heard her mutter into his shirt front, “But if you ever try anything like that again, Charley Wilde, I swan I’ll take Aunt Pansy’s gun and shoot you myself.”
Even Charley couldn’t distinguish between his laughter and his tears when he hugged her tighter. All he knew for sure was that joy filled his heart as gloriously as Addie filled his arms.
Chapter 21
Father Bernardo, a big grin on his face, walked Addie and Charley back to the stage. There Mr. Thaddeus Topping, after gaining the attention of the throng, announced the betrothal of Miss Adelaide Evangeline Blewitt to Mr. Charles McCallum Wilde.
The citizens of Rothwell and Arleta, already primed for a party, roared their approval. Charley thought his band members might truly wring the hand off of his arm before he regained control of it.
Addie wept again, this time with joy, as her friends and neighbors offered the happy couple their very best wishes.
Sun in His Eyes, in his exuberance, played a good five minutes of scales on his Army-issue cornet. He would have offered a wider range of music, but that’s all Charley’d had time to teach him. Nobody minded.
When Pansy Blewitt realized Charley was actually a McCallum, his mother having been born the eldest daughter of a family of Atlanta McCallums—the Charleston McCallums didn’t bear thinking of—she admitted she might have been mistaken in believing him to be a thief. In a precedent-setting move, she apologized, something she’d never been known to do before.
Charley accepted Pansy’s apology with horrible embarrassment and no little guilt. His attitude was interpreted by the assembled throng as becoming graciousness, even though the consensus among them was that Pansy Blewitt deserved to suffer and he was being entirely too easy on her.
“The hypocrite,” huffed Ivy Blewitt to Eustacia Topping. The two sturdy ladies glared at Pansy until she turned red and retired to the back to the stage.
Ivy Blewitt and Lester Frogg then admitted they, too, were thinking about getting hitched. Their announcement precipitated another full five minutes of scales, which were almost drowned out by the approval of the crowd.
The festivities lasted far into the night, and Charley had to drive Addie, Ivy, and Lester back to the Blewitt farmstead by the light of a lantern affixed to the front of the wagon. He didn’t think he’d ever spent a more miraculous day. That it was followed by an even more miraculous night, in the arms of his Addie, was frosting on the cake of his happiness.
# # #
All in all, the Rothwell and Arleta Southern Methodist-Episcopal Ladies’ Charity Fair and Bake Sale was accounted one of the greatest successes in the short history of Rothwell, New Mexico Territory. Father Bernardo’s Fiesta paled in comparison although it, too, was considered quite satisfactory.
During the Fiesta, Charley and the boys again stirred the citizens of Rothwell to cheers of approval. There wasn’t a citizen in town who wasn’t proud as punch that this was their brass band.
Addie watched, her heart aglow, and Charley played “Wood Up Quick Step” for her alone. Everybody else liked it, too.
Although Addie never again thought Father Bernardo shifty—indeed, she counted him one of her very best friends—she couldn’t help but be pleased that the Methodists had drawn a bigger crowd than the Catholics.
She and Charley were married by Mr. Topping in Rothwell’s Southern Methodist-Episcopal Church in September of that year. Although Addie’d forgiven her aunt Pansy for recognizing Charley as her would-be robber, she wasn’t sorry Pansy was laid up with a cold and unable to attend her nuptials.
Fermin Small moved to Arleta when the iniquity of his hiring Garland and Luther to pester Addie was discovered. Shortly thereafter, the citizens of Rothwell elected Francis Whatley to be their new sheriff.
The next July, just in time for the Rothwell Municipal Fourth of July celebration, Evangeline Ivy Wilde arrived into the world, making her papa and mama very proud of themselves and each other. Just before Evie’s brother Harry McCallum Wilde’s birth two years later, Charley taught Evie and her mama how to press flowers. They used the family Bible, given to them by Evie’s Great Aunt Ivy and Uncle Lester, and began with purple verbena. Shortly thereafter they graduated to geraniums.
When Isabelle Adelaide was born a year after Harry, the Froggs decided they’d best move to town. They built a small house right behind Lester’s jewelry shop.
Charley farmed happily and bred Morgan horses, for which he forever harbored a soft spot in his heart. He also bred quarter horses, much prized for their stamina and endurance, thanks to the breeding stock Sun in His Eyes, Charley’s partner, won in a poker game the autumn after Charley and Addie’s marriage.
Charley’s favorite job, however, was d
irector of the Rothwell, New Mexico, Municipal Brass Band. He directed the Junior Band as well. All of his men stayed in Rothwell, played in the band, married, had offspring, and prospered.
The Wildes lived a happy and fruitful life, eventually peppering the countryside with yet more children, creating their own small band of little Wildes. Each one of their three boys and three girls was a perfect, and utterly musical, lady or gentleman.
On their tenth wedding anniversary, Charley broke with tradition, which favored diamonds, and gave Addie rubies.
Historical Notes
Truth to tell, the southeastern part of New Mexico Territory in 1870 was nowhere near as settled as this novel makes it out to be. Roswell and Artesia, the two towns whose names have been adapted for the tale, were mere hiccups in a vast sea of hostile wilderness.
Life at the time was much too hard and gritty an affair to support a light-hearted romp of this nature. There would be no apple orchards or pecan trees for years to come; people ate beans, tortillas and the occasional antelope. The only possible resemblance this book has to reality is described in the landscape and fauna. Overall, if something grew, it had prickles; if it walked, it wore a weapon or had claws; if it slithered, it was poisonous. There were no amenities, little water, few people. The Native Americans, Mexicans, and United States citizens feared one another, often for good reason. Life was tough.
Also, Ritty’s Incorruptible Cashier wasn’t patented until 1879. I gave one to Mr. Phipps, because I figured any grocer who’d brave the territory during these mean years deserved one.
The Americus Brass Band was one of only two Confederate regimental brass bands to endure the entire Civil War as a unit. They never had to resort to crime in order to make a living after the war ended, however.
As for me, my grandfather, William Jones Wilson, was affiliated with the Northern Methodist-Episcopal Church, and rode the circuit in the Roswell-East Grand Plains area from 1904 until his death in 1913.
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