Love Inspired Historical April 2014 Bundle: The Husband CampaignThe Preacher's Bride ClaimThe Soldier's SecretsWyoming Promises

by Regina Scott

  Clint stood nearby, his face grim. When he spotted Elijah and Alice making their way through the wreckage toward him, he came forward.

  “Glad you’ve come,” he said. “Mrs. Murphy’s pretty upset, as you can hear.”

  Alice had gone straight to her, and Elijah could hear her murmuring softly to the woman as she peeked underneath the cold cloth. He caught a glimpse of a jagged cut that was still oozing when the wet towel was lifted and felt an immediate queasiness churning in his stomach, just as he had on the night Keith Gilbert had cut his leg so grievously. How could this slender woman beside him look at the things he’d seen her face so calmly and not turn a hair? She’d been given the gift of healing, all right. He sent a silent prayer of thanksgiving for Alice Hawthorne.

  “This is the thanks I get for tryin’ to fill people’s stomachs with good, honest home-cooked foods,” Mrs. Murphy cried when she saw Elijah. “Robbed, we were! They took every penny I had in th’ till! Threatened t’ shoot my Sean if I wouldn’t tell ’em where I’d put yesterday’s profits. I knew I should have put them away where I keep them hidden, but I needed to be able to make change…” Her voice escalated into another wail. “Sure and I shoulda gone back to the Ould Sod when I was widowed!” Her Irish brogue was thicker now in her distress.

  “Ma, it’ll be all right,” her son insisted. “It’s only two days’ profits that were taken. We’ll be all right…. See, Miss Hawthorne’s here, and she can tend to ye.”

  “’Tis the idea of it, boyo—that someone could be so wicked,” Molly Murphy told her son. “But I should shut me trap—sure, and you were clobbered worse than me.”

  “No, Ma, I got a hard head,” Sean said, but even from here Elijah could see the goose-egg-size swelling at the boy’s temple.

  Alice raised her head and looked at Elijah. Guessing that she wanted something, he left Clint’s side and went to her, though he was careful not to look at the red-stained cloth on Mrs. Murphy’s forehead.

  “Do you think you could fetch my medical bag from my tent, Elijah? It’ll be right on top of my trunk. I need to stay with Mrs. Murphy,” she said.

  “Of course.”

  By the time he returned, Clint and a couple men from outside were righting the tables. A pair of women who attended chapel cleaned the mess from the preparation table. Molly Murphy lay on another of her long tables, a tablecloth covering her legs. Sean sat on a bench by his mother, holding her hand, his other hand holding a wet cloth over the lump on his forehead.

  “Ah, thanks for being so quick,” Alice praised, hearing Elijah’s footsteps. “I just need some disinfectant and bandaging for Mrs. Murphy’s laceration—fortunately it doesn’t need stitches—and some willow bark to brew tea for the headache she and Sean have been too brave to complain about.”

  The boy had been brave, certainly—he’d been man enough to forget his own pain in comforting his mother. In Elijah’s absence, he saw that Alice, too, had worked wonders on the Irishwoman’s composure, for she was now calm and quiet.

  He set the bag down on the table close to Alice, and she reached inside for the jar of carbolic acid, soaking a small square of linen in it.

  “This is going to sting for a moment, Mrs. Murphy. Keep being brave, now—”

  The woman gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the squeal she couldn’t help but utter.

  “That’s it, all over. You were very courageous, Mrs. Murphy,” Alice crooned as she began to wrap a length of lint around the woman’s forehead. “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t get a nasty infection in that wound.”

  “Do you have any idea what you were hit with?” The question came from Clint, who’d come closer now that he’d seen Alice was nearly done.

  “They broke a bottle a’ vinegar over my noggin’ ’cause I jumped at them for knockin’ me boy down,” Mrs. Murphy said. “They threatened t’ go after my Sean with the jagged end of it, even though he was just lyin’ there, dazed and not fightin’ them anymore,” the woman said. She pointed to the offending bottle, which was in the sawdust nearby, broken off at the neck. “Aye, but they were wicked men, the spalpeens.”

  Elijah’s eyes sought Clint’s. Who could be behind all these attacks? Why couldn’t the Security Patrol’s presence prevent them? And what could they do to keep their fledgling community safe?

  Chapter Fifteen

  After they returned from Mrs. Murphy’s diner, Clint told Elijah he was of the opinion that the diner robbery could be blamed on the same ruffians who had assaulted Abe McNally, that member of the congregation whom Alice had tended a week or so back. Many other such robberies and assaults had come to light, too—not all of them on members of Elijah’s congregation. Some of them had happened while Elijah had been ill.

  “It’s got to be all the same men, Lije. There’s always four men doing the robbing or attacking, and they’re always wearing black bandannas.”

  Elijah rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Have you talked to the men on the Security Patrol? What do they say?”

  Clint gave a snort. “They’ve duly investigated each one, but they say they haven’t got a single lead. The four men just seem to melt into the maze of tents and wagons when they’re pursued.” He shrugged. “I don’t know…maybe I’m being too hard on the patrol, Lije.”

  “What can we do about it?” Elijah asked, suspecting his younger brother had a plan. Clint always had ideas when it came to law enforcement.

  “The incidents always seem to take place at dusk or after dark. Private McGraw says two of them patrol every night, but maybe Gideon and I should add our efforts. You know we’re wakeful at odd hours anyway.”

  Elijah nodded. “Go on.”

  “So Gideon and I decided we’re going to start doing a little night patrolling of our own—see if we can’t catch these four outlaws in the act, or at least help to serve as a deterrent. We’ve only got a few more days to have to do it, after all.”

  Elijah had to admit it was a good idea—and typical of Clint and Gideon to think of how they could help the town in the way they were best suited. “Well, just be careful. You’re always going to ride out together, not either of you alone, right? We’ve had enough excitement in this family for a while.”

  *

  By a unanimous vote, the Sunday morning congregation decided to give the week’s donations to Mrs. Murphy to replace the money that had been stolen from her Saturday night. Elijah would take it to her after the service, since the Irishwoman was never able to attend the chapel services as she was busy either serving or preparing food.

  “Why do they give this woman this money?” Winona, who was sitting with Alice, Dakota and Katrine, asked, with the help of Lars on her other side. “I know her money was taken, but she does not come to chapel.”

  “Yes, but many of us have eaten her food, and Molly Murphy is a good woman who did not deserve this bad thing that happened to her, the robbery,” Alice explained. “We give her this gift out of Christian love, showing her the same love God shows us.”

  Something flickered in the depths of Winona’s black eyes as Lars translated. “Us—you mean the Great Spirit loves all Christians?”

  “Not just Christians,” Alice said. “Everyone. God loves you, just as He loves me, Winona.” Elijah had told her that he hoped to help Winona know Jesus through her English lessons. Maybe she could help with this, too.

  “It is surprising. The Great Spirit—” Winona paused, clearly trying to express the vastness of the Deity “—is over all things. You say the Great Spirit loves me, too? Winona, a Cheyenne woman?”

  It sounded as if Winona found the idea impossible to fathom.

  “I do, Winona. I believe it with all my heart.”

  Winona sat back, looking thoughtful.

  *

  They decided to share potluck that night—the Thornton brothers, Alice, the Brinkerhoffs, the Gilberts, Winona and Dakota, each bringing something to eat at a communal dinner at the Thornton campsite. Gideon and Clint had gone hunting
that morning, so the Thornton brothers contributed a side of beef that had been roasting over a spit all afternoon, and the Brinkerhoffs brought flødekartofler, scalloped potatoes, and Dansk rødkål, which was pickled cabbage. Alice brought yeast rolls and freshly churned butter. The Gilberts came bearing a chocolate cake, which Dakota proudly proclaimed he had helped to frost under Cassie’s direction, but he confessed he had eaten a good bit of the frosting, too.

  The evening breeze was balmy, a welcome relief from the heat of the day.

  “We are so blessed,” Elijah said, as he stood to say grace over the food, “to have come so far and made such good friends—a solid foundation for the town we’re going to build, with God’s help. Just think, all of you—in just over a week we’ll race to stake claims in the Land Rush, God willing, and be setting up homes on our claims within days afterward. I pray that the Lord will bless this food and keep us close together.” And that I will find a way to speak to Alice about a shared future, he added to himself.

  “Hear, hear!” cried Clint, raising his glass of cider.

  “Amen,” murmured Keith Gilbert.

  “Amen,” said Lars and Katrine, for it was the same word in Danish.

  “‘Amen’ mean is okay to eat?” Dakota asked, pointing at the bounty that had been laid out in front of them.

  Everyone laughed except Winona, who looked embarrassed for her nephew, and said something in Cheyenne in a reproving tone.

  “Yes, it is okay to eat,” Elijah told the boy, as everyone began to dish food onto their tin plates. He noticed Dakota hung back until the adults had served themselves, though—waiting for one’s elders must have been part of his aunt’s admonitions.

  Later, as everyone leaned back, their stomachs full to bursting, Keith pointed to yet another heavily laden wagon making its way down the narrow dirt road between the rows of tents and wagons. “Good thing the run’s going to be over pretty soon, Reverend. If Boomer Town got any bigger, we’d be able to elect our own representatives to Congress.”

  “Yes, we’re certainly bursting at the seams,” Elijah agreed.

  “If there are so many tent towns just like this all around the perimeter of the territory, there can’t possibly be enough land for everyone who has come wanting a hundred and sixty acres,” Alice fretted.

  Elijah wanted to say that, if she wasn’t able to stake a claim, she could share his homestead, but he sensed how much it mattered to her to have land of her own. And of course he knew better than to make such an offer in front of the others when he had come to no understanding with her privately. Instead, he murmured, “There’s a verse in Psalms that says that the Lord will give us the desires of our hearts.”

  “We will all help each other to get our claims,” Lars assured her. “Remember, Katrine is going to stay with the wagons, so we are not encumbered by them. Afterward, we’ll take turns getting back to our wagons and driving them to our claims.”

  Lars had been translating the conversation to Winona, and now, through him, she said, “It is the white-eyes way to think of ‘claiming’ pieces of land. The Cheyenne—and all of our red brothers—believe the land belongs to everyone and is not a thing that can be owned. Once we roamed the plains and prairies freely. Now we must live on the reservation, the White Father in the East says.”

  It was something to ponder, Elijah thought, the way the Indians looked at things differently. “It is my hope, Winona, that the red man and the white man—men of all colors—will live side by side some day in peace, as the Lord wants us to,” he said.

  Winona studied him for the longest time. “It is what I wish, too, Reverend Elijah.”

  “You Thorntons always did keep odd company,” drawled a voice behind them, and Elijah looked up to see three men on horseback in the road, looking down on them. They were brothers, judging by a similarity of features—the exotic slant of their eyes and an olive tone underneath their weathered faces—and somehow he knew he’d met them before. The man who’d spoken had a Southern accent—a Virginian, if he didn’t miss his guess. The man jerked his head toward Winona and Dakota, and then at Lars, whose long blond hair was in contrast to his Indian-style fringed buckskin trousers.

  “Everyone here is our guest,” Elijah told him, trying not to sound defensive. He wanted to tell the newcomers it was none of their business with whom he broke bread. “But I fear you have the advantage over me, gentlemen.”

  It was a polite invitation for the strangers to introduce themselves, but it didn’t garner a polite response. “I wish we’d ever had the ‘advantage’ over you cheatin’, Yankee-lovin’, traitorous Thorntons,” one of the other mounted men sneered, his drawl as Virginian as the first man’s.

  “Chaucers,” growled Gideon beside him, and suddenly he and Clint were standing protectively, fists clenched, in front of the women.

  Chaucers. Of course. Elijah recognized them now—Theo, Brett and Reid. He hadn’t seen them since he and his brothers had made their abortive attempt to move back to their plantation in Virginia, only to be rebuffed by the hostility they had encountered there, stirred up by these three men. It had been Brett who’d just called them names.

  “Yep,” said Reid. “I reckon it was too much to expect we could move some place and not have to be reminded of how y’all prospered and caused us to lose our home. Now you’re takin’ up with redskins, I see.” He pointed a long finger at Winona and Dakota. “And outlandish foreigners,” he added, jabbing his finger in Lars’s direction.

  Elijah saw Winona put a protective arm around Dakota. The boy huddled against her, not understanding much of what the Chaucers said, but comprehending the hostile tone perfectly.

  “Get off your horse and say that, Chaucer,” Gideon ground out, rigid with fury as he took a couple steps toward the trio on horseback.

  “Gideon, no, that’s not the answer.” Elijah said, aware that Clint was just as angry. Lord, help me. I can’t hold back both of them and my own temper, too. He turned back to the Chaucers. “If you can’t be civil, I’ll have to ask you to ride on—”

  But he was interrupted by Alice, who had moved around Gideon and Clint and now stood facing the horsemen, bristling with indignation. “How dare you say such things?” she cried. “No one here asked for your opinion, let alone your rude remarks about these people who’ve never offered you any offense.”

  “Thornton, you got yourself a spitfire, I see,” Brett responded with a smirk. “Good for you.” He tipped his hat to Alice. “Brothers, we’ve got better things to do. Let’s go.”

  To Elijah’s immense relief, the Chaucer brothers kneed their mounts into a trot and disappeared around a corner.

  What could he possibly say after what had just happened? Elijah stood there for a moment, staring in the direction the Chaucers had gone, shaking with the emotions rocketing through his body—fury, embarrassment, regret. He’d already told Alice about the feud, but now Brett Chaucer had compounded the problem by verbally assuming Alice was Elijah’s woman. Had the idiot ruined his chances of making that true?

  “Just so you know, brother, I’m not ever gonna back down from them again if they challenge me,” Gideon muttered.

  “Me, either,” Clint said. “If they’re smart, they won’t try it a second time.”

  Elijah made a gesture to indicate he’d heard them. They could talk about it later, but for now he was more concerned with those who had been the main targets of the Chaucers’ gibes.

  “I’m sorry you had to witness all of that,” he said at last, addressing their guests. “There aren’t words to express how much I regret that. Obviously ill will has followed us here to Oklahoma. I regret that those men let their hatred spill over to you.”

  “I did not understand the words he said, but the tone made the meaning clear,” Winona said wearily. “The day of harmony between all whites and red men seems a long journey away.”

  “It’s not your fault, Reverend,” Keith chimed in stoutly. “I’ve learned fools will be fools.” His wife nodded t
heir agreement.

  “There is a Danish saying,” Lars began, “Han skal have meget smör, som skall stope var mans mund—it means, ‘Pigs grunt about everything and nothing.’”

  Elijah heard chuckles, but the buoyant mood of the evening had been spoiled, and soon everyone said good-night and gathered up their dishes.

  “I—I’ll walk you back to your tent,” Elijah said to Alice, who’d been quiet since her outburst.

  “It’s not necessary,” she said quickly. “It’s just a short distance.”

  “Nevertheless.” After what had just happened, and after his earlier talk with Clint about the assaults and robberies around Boomer Town, he wasn’t about to let her—or any woman—walk by herself. And he wanted to say something about Brett Chaucer’s disrespectful remark.

  “All right,” she said, and they headed down the road.

  “I’m sorry about what Brett Chaucer said. He had no right to make such an assumption,” he said.

  “I think Lars’s proverb pretty much summed up what I think about what he said,” Alice murmured, with a weak attempt at a smile. “I certainly don’t hold you responsible.”

  Thornton, you’ve got yourself a spitfire. Good for you.

  What if he wanted Alice to be his, in truth? Now probably wasn’t the time, though, to let her know he’d been giving serious consideration to deepening their relationship past friendship—if she was willing, of course. “I—I appreciate that.”

  “Gideon and Clint seemed pretty angry,” she commented then. “I thought for a moment there was going to be fisticuffs.” She gave him a wry look.

  He sighed. “They’ve both got hot tempers,” he said. “Especially Gideon. I worry about him sometimes. He…he holds too much inside.”

  “You’re afraid the cauldron will boil over one day,” she observed.

  What a wise, insightful woman she was, to put a voice to his inner fears. “Yes. Though I was rather angry myself tonight, I must admit.”