by Pamela Morsi
"Oh, Queenie," he whispered and sat down beside her on the bed, wrapping an arm around her waist.
She laid her head on his shoulder.
"I can see somebody next week and get it taken care of," she said.
"I'll find a doctor, Queenie, a good doctor. I won't have you risking your life at the hands of some clumsy barber. You mean too much to me."
She looked up at him and smiled.
"I shouldn't have worried you with this," she told him. "There is nothing in the world more guaranteed to set a man to packing than a girl telling him she's eating for two."
"Don't I know it," King replied. "I've been ruminating on the outbound train schedule for the last five minutes. And I could eagerly run from here to the station."
Queenie laughed. "You are always so danged honest, King," she said.
He planted a kiss on the top of her head.
"It's just with you, Queenie," he told her. "I was so dishonest with my wife, it made us both ill."
"Oh, I doubt that," Queenie said. "Maybe you were unfaithful, but you could never have been dishonest."
"I was, absolutely, I was," he insisted. "When she told me she was pregnant I felt just like I do now. I felt like running. But I always told her that I was so delighted."
"But you were delighted with Princess," Queenie reminded him.
"I am now," he said. "At the time I was just scared. We lost two before her to stillbirth and I lost count of the miscarriages. When she was pregnant I always felt more guilty and undeserving than I usually did."
"Guilty and undeserving?" Queenie looked at him, surprised. "I thought ... I thought you loved your wife. You always wear your wedding ring."
"I wear it, I guess to remind me that not loving her is the thing for which I feel most guilty of all," he said. "She deserved better than me and she never had a clue about the kind of man she got."
King looked down and twirled it on his finger.
"I don't believe in wasting time with regrets," he told Queenie.
Queenie took his hand and squeezed it.
"You're right," she agreed. "We made the choices we made then and we live with them now."
"We can never change the past," King said. "We can never go back and start over."
Queenie's brow furrowed thoughtfully. The words of a handsome young man standing in the darkness beside her niggled at her memory. A young man who wasn't sleeping too well, but resisted the temptation to take an offered cure.
“In some ways I think I've been given a chance to start over again.”
Work on the "P" went on twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week, the understanding being that there would be plenty of days off once the well was drilled. With every pounding drop of the cable, the drill bit pushed deeper and deeper into the ground. Closer and closer to the reservoir of oil that had been waiting there for them for a hundred generations.
"You're a natural," Bob Earlie told Tom one afternoon. "And I ain't saying that cause you saved my biscuits. Men work all their dang lives in this and never feel it. But some of us, we feel it, we hear it, we taste it. That oil down under that rock is ours and getting it out is personal."
"I couldn't a said it better myself," Cedarleg piped in. "And if I'd a said it you'd not believe me, 'cause I'm so partial to ye."
Tom was embarrassed, almost ashamed to bask in their praise.
"I ... I like this work," he admitted. "I've always worked hard, I just never liked it before."
The other men laughed in agreement. But Tom knew that the words that he spoke were true. He did like the hard, hot work. He could smell the oil. Well maybe he couldn't quite smell it, but he knew somehow, just as Cedarleg and Calhoun knew, that there was oil beneath that ground.
After a hard day's effort, the worn table in Ma Pease's tent nearly groaned under the weight of good, hot food. Tom and Cedarleg managed to lighten the load by consuming a whole platter of ham and biscuits and at least a half gallon of red-eye gravy.
The two talked long and excitedly about the well. They'd hit a gas pocket early in the day. With great care and skill, Bob Earlie and Cedarleg had managed to expend the gas without blowing up everything from the top of the hill to Burford Corners. The gas pocket was frightening, but it was thrilling, too. More evidence that fine, wet, black petroleum was right below them.
Tom finally leaned back in his chair, almost moaning with fine satisfaction.
"I can't eat another bite, Ma," he declared. "What on earth makes you such a fine cook?"
"I just tried," she answered, then chuckled. "Did I tell you the story about the fellah that asked me if I could play the fiddle?"
"Yes, you did," Tom answered.
"I told him, 'I don't know, I never tried!'"
Ma laughed heartily at her own joke. Tom and Cedarleg just looked at each other and shook their heads.
Tom was feeling at peace. He'd spent part of his first paycheck on some dressgoods for Ma. He had meant his gift simply as a way to repay her for all her hard work, but the old woman had teared up as if it were the kindest thing anyone had ever done. It had made him feel good. He leaned back in his chair, utterly content. Perhaps that was why Ma's next question caught him so unaware.
"You ever hear of a fellah named Gerald Crane?" she asked.
Every muscle in Tom's body stilled and every fiber of nerve became alert. His face became a mask that revealed nothing as his mind raced with a thousand questions.
"Gerald Crane?"
"Yeah," she said. "He's a fellah here in Topknot supposed to have been in the Rough Riders. Did you know him?"
Tom remained noncommittal. "I don't suspect I know every man that was in the Rough Riders," he said.
"Where'd you hear of him, Ma?" Cedarleg asked.
"Princess mentioned him when she was here the other day," she answered.
"Princess?" Tom asked blankly.
"Princess Calhoun," Cedarleg answered. "King Calhoun's daughter."
"I didn't know you were friends with King Calhoun's daughter, Ma," Tom said. "What illustrious company you keep."
"Illustrious?" The old woman snorted. "I've known Princess since she was in diapers."
"Further back than then, Ma," Cedarleg argued. "We knew Calhoun and his wife before that little gal was even born."
"And what we know about her is that there ain't nothing illustrious about her," Ma said. "She's as levelheaded and down-to-earth as any gal I ever knowed. At least she used to be."
"What do you mean by that?" Cedarleg eyed her curiously.
"Why, it's this Gerald Crane fellah," the old woman answered. "She told me that she's in love with him. She says he's handsome, rich, and she talks like he's a saint among men. She says that she's in love and is thinking to marry him."
"What does King say about him?" Cedarleg asked.
"I don't think she's bothered to mention this fellah to her daddy," Ma answered.
Cedarleg's brow furrowed. "That don't sound good to me."
"It didn't set quite right against my ears, neither," Ma admitted. "So I began asking around about him."
"And?"
"And nothing. They ain't nobody knows him or even knows of him," she said. "And I swear I mentioned his name in front of every gossip in Topknot."
"Maybe he doesn't live in Topknot," Tom suggested.
"Maybe he don't live anywhere," she answered. "I asked Vella Murphy. She and her gals does laundry for nearly every single man in Burford Corners. He don't get his clothes washed. He ain't living in any of the hotels. Ain't nobody heard of him, except Princess."
"It don't sound right to me," Cedarleg said.
"Nor me either," his wife agreed.
"I'll mention it to Calhoun next time I see him. He's got a lot on his mind these days, but there ain't nothing as important to him as that little gal."
"That's the truth."
"If there's something amiss about this Gerald Crane, King will send the fellah packing faster than you can shake a stick," Cedarleg
declared.
"What if she really does love him?" Tom asked. "If you really care about her, you wouldn't want to stand in the way of her happiness."
Ma considered the question for only an instant before she shook her head.
"I don't think this one is for her," she said. "He's some fancy man from back East. Slicker than silk, he sounds like. That's not for Princess. She needs a steady, hardworking kind of man. One that could match her energy and good sense."
"Princess needs someone like our Tom here," Cedarleg said.
Ma nodded. "That's what I was thinking. You two would just hang right and tight together."
" 'Course, Tom, the gal's a bit on the bossy side," he said. "Like as not she'd take to nagging you like ol' Ma here does me."
"She's not all that bossy," Tom piped in.
Both of them looked at him, surprised.
"You've met her?" Ma asked.
Tom hesitated only a moment. "Ah, no, no, I haven't actually met her. But of course I saw her at the Fourth of July picnic. She was the hostess after all. Everyone saw her."
"Oh, yeah, that's right," Cedarleg said. "I'd forgot that you went to that."
"That's where she met this Gerald Crane fellah," Ma pointed out. "Did you see him? She said they danced together most of the evening."
"Ah no, no, I don't believe I noticed her dancing partner," Tom lied.
Ma tutted. "I just wish somebody had," she said.
"Now quit worrying," Cedarleg told her. "I'll speak with King, he'll get the lowdown on this fellah and it'll be all settled before this thing goes one bit further."
Chapter Nine
His time was running out. With King Calhoun now home from St. Louis and Cedarleg determined to mention Gerald to him at their next meeting, Tom knew that his time was almost gone.
Never in his furthermost imaginings had he considered the idea that Cessy might know Ma and Cedarleg. After his time with Ambrose, Tom had learned all too well that the wealthy consorted with the wealthy. And even those who were new to money and position left their friends behind as they moved up.
It was going to become difficult, if not impossible, to meet Cessy alone. He had to get her hooked, tied, and completely his or he was going to lose out altogether.
He talked one of the other tool dressers into taking on his Sunday shift. A solitary picnic in a secluded romantic setting, a few kisses and caresses, maybe a little more. He'd get her to agree to a secret engagement. Or maybe they could even run off and wed. He'd asked Buddy Ruston, one of the roughnecks, recently wed, about what was required.
"Just find you a preacher, have him say the words, pay him the three dollars and he files the papers," the fellow answered. "You thinking of taking on another mouth to feed?"
Tom had only shrugged in answer. He wasn't taking on another mouth, he was going to marry a million-dollar oil well, with a really nice gal thrown into the bargain. A fellow couldn't ask for more than that.
Which was why on a bright Sunday, with a world of worry still on his mind, Tom was whistling happily as he made his way across town to meet Cessy. The livery stable made a deep dent in his weekly pay, but Tom felt that he had to hire the finest-looking team they had as well as the smartest rig. Gerald would expect nothing less. Even if Cessy had stars in her eyes, she couldn't help but notice the fancy turnout.
He'd driven by the back alley of the Palace, assuring himself that Calhoun's Packard was still parked there and that the old man was still snoring upstairs in the arms of the saloon's proprietor.
Feeling safe and certain, he'd pulled right up into the Calhouns' porte cochere, just as if he belonged.
He'd take her to the Shemmy Creek mouth, he decided. It was less than an hour's drive, but he doubted if many of the newcomers even knew that it existed. Shemmy Creek looked to be a small and inconsequential stream that meandered down Rough Tack Hill. In fact, just beneath the ground surface of the shallow stream ran a near torrent of cool, very drinkable water. The place where the streams—both aboveground and below—merged to flow into the river was quiet, private, and obscured by hundred- year-old oaks, shady willows, and blooming star grass.
It was close to the Methodist Indian Home. He certainly didn't want to take the chance of running into anyone he knew, but none of the students he knew when he lived there would still be around. And Reverend McAfee had been too old and feeble to follow him to Shemmy Creek when he was a boy.
Yes, that's where he should take her, to his secret place. The place of sanctuary that he had run to the hundred times when he had run from the home. The one place in his childhood that he had somehow felt was his own.
He knew that Cessy would love it as much as he did. It was a part of him and although he could never tell her that, she would know. She would feel it. He would make love to her there, this very afternoon. Tom smiled to himself. In his own special place he would make love to the one woman who could give him everything that he had ever wanted. The idea was far from unpleasant. And then he would ask her to be his wife.
He ran his hand nervously over his breast pocket to assure himself that the tiny, gold-colored ring was still there. He'd paid two dollars for it at J.M. Nell General Merchandise. He probably could have gotten a better price bargaining with the foreign fellow who was engaged to Cessy's friend. But he couldn't risk Cessy finding out that it was not real gold. He intended to replace it as soon as he had control of his new wife's money. With any luck at all, that might be tomorrow.
Gerald Crane would marry Cessy. And Tom, poor Tom Walker, would simply disappear from the face of the earth.
Howard, the manservant whom he had seen on several occasions, hurried out to greet him as he secured the team.
"Good morning, sir," the man greeted him deferentially. "Miss Calhoun is receiving her guests in the sun parlor."
Guests? Tom thought to himself. Had she pretended that she was spending the day with more people than just him? That was probably a good idea. Servants did talk. Let them think she went out with a chaperone. It would give them more time, more privacy.
Tom followed the man's directions through the receiving room, the main hallway, and across the main sitting room to the sun parlor. He had never actually been inside the house and he looked around now in a leisurely way, and with pleasure. The high-ceilinged rooms gave a feeling of space and coolness that was welcome in the middle of July. The walls were covered in high-quality embossed paper with a raised leaf design. The moldings and mop boards were wide planks of dark walnut, stained just slightly lighter than the floorboards.
The halltree was mammoth, in gleaming cherry with marble inlay and a beveled mirror. But the parlor furniture was unfashionably overstuffed and looked comfortable and welcoming.
There was an unassumingly livable feeling about the place. It was a mansion, like many he'd seen, but it had none of the ostentatious and intimidating qualities that he usually so admired. This house was a home and felt very much that way. It was Cessy's house, she'd said. That meant it was to be his. The wonder of it struck him with awesome clarity.
With silent admiration he stopped to caress a walnut pillar that was part of the open front parlor entryway.
He, Tom Walker, the little part-breed orphan at the livery, would live in a house like this. Or rather Gerald, Gerald Crane would live here. He was well accustomed to such fine housing.
An unexpected bitterness swelled up in him. A man could work, struggle, save, and scrape all his life and never see the inside of a house like this. For others it was merely part of a birthright.
He remembered the first time he'd folded one of the cravats' silk neckties. The fabric so smooth and beautiful, it almost brought tears to his eyes just touching it. Later he saw Ambi cast it carelessly in the dust when it had become sweat-soaked and soiled on the parade grounds.
"I'll never take it for granted," he whispered to the walnut pillar. Silently he vowed to be a good husband, a decent fellow, and to thank heaven everyday for the good fortune that was about t
o befall him.
With those thoughts clearly in mind he hurried on to the sun parlor where his future wife, in point of fact his entire future, awaited him.
As he stepped across the threshold of the room, the smile froze upon his lips. Cessy was not alone.
Her friend, Muna Nafee, and the strange foreign fellow Maloof were in the room also.
Cessy jumped to her feet and hurried to greet him, her hands outstretched in welcome.
He took them into his own. In deference to the others in the room, he gave her fingers a slight squeeze of affection before raising her knuckles to his lips.
"Good afternoon, Cessy," he said softly. Deliberately he kept his eyes upon her as he speculated upon the presence of the other couple.
"Do you remember Muna and her fiancé?" Cessy asked.
"Of course, I do," Tom insisted with a warm smile toward the other young lady. "It is wonderful to see you again, Miss Nafee. Afternoon Maloof."
"You looking good today," the peddler commented. "Coat is perfect, like it just made for you."
"That's because it was," Cessy announced with a warm laugh. "He has a tailor in Boston and refuses to wear fashions cut or stitched by anyone else."
Tom's smile faltered. He tensed waiting for Maloof to show him to be a liar. He'd used the fib about the tailor to explain why a wealthy gentlemen like Gerald Crane would visit Cessy every evening in the same suit of clothes.
Maloof appeared momentarily confused, as if he didn't quite understand what Cessy was saying.
"It is fine, very fine," he said. "Some of the best I've seen."
Cessy nodded. "Gerald has a real eye for quality."
Tom smiled, schooling his expression, hoping he appeared modest, not relieved. Thank heaven the peddler's command of the English language was so poor.
Gratefully Tom accepted the offered chair and began the task of making polite conversation by commenting to Miss Muna on the superior afternoon weather.
"Oh yes, it's perfect for a picnic," the young woman told him.
There was a way in which Miss Nafee looked at Tom, a way in which she looked too closely at him, that made him cautious. Cessy's best friend, it seemed, neither liked nor trusted him. But she appeared to be trying to hide the fact.