If Wishes Were Kisses: Six Beloved Americana Romances, a Collection (Small Town Swains)

by Pamela Morsi

  It wasn't the only reason, of course. The house was overrun with people. Two more wells had come in. He heard Calhoun estimate that he'd be pumping 25,000 barrels a day by the end of the week.

  The pace and talk were frantic. Apparently a refinery needed to be built right away. Tom was puzzled as to why they hadn't built it already. The plans were drawn and the workmen ready, but something seemed to be holding them up. The only person truly in motion was Calhoun himself, who spent long days running up and down the roads and scattering telegrams across the globe like they were so much confetti.

  Deliberately, Tom kept to his room, frequently claiming a headache complaint that obviously worried Cessy. Twice he had caught sight of Cedarleg. And he actually heard Ma talking to Cessy from one of the parlors.

  He was going to be found out, and soon. And he didn't have the first idea of how he was going to handle it. And that was part, if not all, of the reason that Tom Walker returned that afternoon to the place he grew up.

  No one was around as he passed through the entry gate. The place was completely deserted. It was eerie seeing it so empty. He had always imagined it as it was the other day, brimming with young boys and hectic with activity.

  He followed his nose to the kitchen and found the cooking woman and her two children. She was surprised to see him, but very friendly, having remembered him from the wedding.

  She offered the explanation for the inordinate quiet of the place. The boys were making hay up in the north meadow. Tom remembered well the hot, hard work. There were tasks for even the youngest boy. But with each year the labor and responsibility increased. He had never appreciated the lessons that he'd learned there.

  Given a free run of the place, Tom wandered about, re-familiarizing himself with the things, big and little, from his childhood. He walked through the small, sparsely furnished dormitory where he had slept six thousand nights. And on many of those he'd dreamed of his future.

  His bunk and wardrobe were kept very much as they had been when he lived here, only neater than he had kept them himself. He wondered briefly about the young boy who dreamed from his bed these days. Was he anything like Tom had been? Was he as anxious to grow up and get away? Probably not.

  He made his way into the little building that sheltered Reverend McAfee's schoolroom. It looked smaller than he remembered. But the smell, a mixture of library paste and chalk, was exactly the same. The desks were lined up, as ever, in crisp precision. The smaller ones in front, the largest at the back of the room.

  With a smile Tom recalled how grown-up he'd thought himself to be when he was finally ensconced in the last row. He had thought himself far too adult to still be in a schoolroom.

  Tom perused the brightly colored globe that sat in a stand next to the teacher's desk. With a bit of looking he found Cuba on it. He'd never heard of the place before he went there to fight. It was not nearly as big as he'd expected it to be. But then lately nothing that he thought seemed to be entirely correct.

  "Ah, Mr. Crane, what a surprise."

  Tom turned, startled and even a little guilty, at the sound of Reverend McAfee's voice.

  "I was just looking around," Tom told him and then wished he could take the words back. Tom was obviously too successful a man to steal anything and it was only the guilty little boy inside him that would make him believe that the teacher would think he would do so.

  Reverend McAfee nodded. "So what do you think of our school, Mr. Crane?" he asked.

  "Why are you calling me that?"

  The reverend raised an eyebrow. "That is the name that you are going by these days."

  "But that isn't the name that you put on our wedding certificate," he pointed out.

  The old man nodded. "The marriage license is a legal document. It requires the use of legal names. Have you legally changed your name?"

  "No."

  "Then your legal name must be used in order for it to be a legal marriage." he said brusquely. "I do not believe for one moment that your intention was to deceive that wonderful young woman into believing that she was being married when she was not."

  "I meant for the wedding to be legal," Tom said.

  "Well, it is."

  The two men stood staring at each other silently for several moments before Reverend McAfee moved over to his chair. With a puff of pure exhaustion he seated himself and Tom wondered briefly exactly what age the old gray beard actually was.

  "How have you been?" he asked finally.

  "Tolerable, son, thank you. I have been quite tolerable."

  "Good," Tom said.

  "And where have you been?" Reverend McAfee turned the question around. "After all this time, where have you been?"

  Tom stood looking out the window as he answered. "Everywhere, nowhere."

  "Everywhere and nowhere," Reverend McAfee repeated and then made a tutting sound of disapproval. "You have always answered the most civil questions in such an annoying way. What exactly do you mean, 'everywhere, nowhere'?"

  Tom turned to look at the man, a little surprised. He had not really thought that the reverend honestly wanted his itinerary for the last eight years.

  "Everywhere means that I have traveled a good deal," Tom answered. "And nowhere means that none of those places is ... is my home."

  The old man's brow furrowed as he studied him more closely. Tom turned back to face the window, unwilling to put himself under the reverend's scrutiny.

  "I joined the Rough Riders," Tom continued. "I went to Cuba."

  "Ah . . ." Reverend McAfee made the sound as meaningful as a long-winded oratory. "And how was that?" he asked.

  Tom shrugged. "It was a lot of noise and sweat and blood. I killed men there," he said, then he turned to face the reverend once more. "But I saved a man's life, too. An important man. A man whose family would have missed him dearly. I put myself in front of his body. I deliberately took a bullet for him."

  "You say it almost angrily, as if you regret it."

  "I don't. I don't regret it. Do you remember how you used to say that each man's life had a purpose and that we may never know what our purpose is for being alive."

  The old man was thoughtful. "No, I don't recall saying that, but I think that it's probably true."

  "I think, Reverend McAfee, that my only purpose for being born was to take the bullet meant for Ambrose Dexter."

  "Why would you think that?"

  "You should see his house, Reverend," Tom said. "If you put every building on these grounds together, including the barn, his house is bigger. And it's in the middle of Bedlington. His family has been there since New Jersey was a colony. He is his father's only son, the last man of his line. He has four sisters who worship him and two dozen cousins who think him funny and dear. His grandmama dotes upon him, his father counts upon him, and he is the apple of his mother's eye."

  "A very fortunate young man," Reverend McAfee said.

  Tom nodded. "If he had been killed in Cuba, there would have been wailing and moaning and grief in that house," he said. "Oh, how they would have missed Ambrose Dexter."

  Once more Tom turned to face his teacher. "If Tom Walker had died in Cuba, and he should have, no one would have cared. Why should they? No one ever cared that Tom Walker lived."

  "Is that what you think?" the old man asked. "That your existence is important to no one."

  "That's exactly what I think. Who am I important to?"

  "Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I got the impression that you are pretty important to that young woman that you just married."

  "Cessy?"

  "Is that what you call her?" the reverend smiled. "I rather like it. Much preferable over Miss Princess. Princess sounds more like the name of dog than a young lady."

  Tom shook his head and chuckled humorlessly. "I thought the very same thing when I first heard her name."

  The old man nodded. "You may not share my blood, young man, but I've made my mark on you all the same."

  Tom gave him a rueful glance. But
his thoughts remained heavy.

  "If I could just know," he said. "If I could just know who they were and why . . . why I was of so little value to them that they could give me away and never look back."

  "I'm sure they thought they were doing what was best," Reverend McAfee said.

  "Why are you sure of that?" Tom asked, his tone almost angry. "What kind of evidence do we have to even suggest that? Don't you know that I spent years waiting for them to come get me, and then more years thinking up excuses for why they couldn't?"

  "Yes, of course I know that you've done that," he said. "All of the boys here do that. Even the ones who know their parents to be dead will lie awake at night imagining that it was all a mistake, and that dear mother and father will be coming to retrieve them the very next day."

  "You can't tell me anything about her?" Tom asked.

  "Nothing that I haven't already said," he answered. "She was a young white girl, not yet twenty I'd guess. She'd brought you in a fine cambric cloak. Much nicer than anything she wore herself, so perhaps she was only the nursemaid or the hired girl. She undressed you and took the cloak with her when she left."

  "She didn't even tell you my name," Tom said.

  The reverend shook his head. "I asked her what you were called and she said she only called you 'the baby'."

  Tom sighed.

  There was a long silence between them, both men alone with their thoughts.

  "I named you Thomas because that was my father's name. He was a fine man, as generous and kind as any that I ever knew. If I'd had a son of my own, I would have given him that name. I called you Thursday, because that's the day you came into my life. And Walker, well that was for Francis Amasa Walker."

  "Who?"

  "Francis Amasa Walker," Reverend McAfee answered with a slow smile. "He was an economist. Ask your wife about him."

  Tom mentally vowed to do just that.

  "Thomas Thursday Walker," Reverend McAfee said aloud. "Perhaps you never cared for the name, but I thought it the finest I could come up with."

  "I never said I didn't like it," Tom told him.

  The old man chuckled. "You never had to say it, the fact that you wouldn't use it spoke volumes." He shook his head reveling in his recollections. "I didn't mind so much when you called yourself Geronimo or Abraham Lincoln, although it worried me quite a bit when shortly thereafter you decided you preferred being John Wilkes Booth. But I thought that it was something that you would eventually outgrow. Apparently, Mr. Crane, I was quite mistaken."

  "It was a game," Tom said quietly. "It began as just a game."

  "Did Miss Calhoun realize that it was a game?"

  "No, I didn't mean it was a game with her," Tom said. "Being Gerald was a game. It was just something I did to make the fellows laugh. The ladies always loved Gerald. He had so much more to offer them than Tom did."

  "So when you decided to offer for Princess, uh . . . Cessy, as you say, you thought to present yourself at your best. And you thought your best was Gerald."

  "Yes," Tom said, nodding slowly. "That is what I thought. But you know, I believe now that she would have loved me as Tom."

  "Why do you think so?"

  "Because the things that she loves about me . . . well, they are not Gerald's things. She isn't interested in Gerald's fancy heritage. In fact, it sort of worries her. And she's not impressed with his aristocratic ideals, she spends a good deal of time trying to talk him out of them. And if she is even vaguely interested in his money or social position, well, she has yet to ask questions about either."

  "I don't find any of this particularly surprising," Reverend McAfee said. "She is not at all the sort of young woman that would marry for any reason other than love."

  "Yes," Tom agreed. "She would only marry for love. And I really do believe that she would have loved Tom as easily as she loved Gerald."

  "Probably so," the reverend told him.

  "But can she now?" Tom asked. "Can she love Tom now, after discovering that she has been seduced by lies and married in deceit. Can she love Tom after learning that? After learning that he sought her out and willfully pursued her because he fell in love with her money?"

  The reverend shook his head and sighed sadly.

  "She is a fair and forgiving woman. But you are in great need of much forgiveness. I don't know that any woman could have enough."

  He looked exhausted. Worse than that, he looked beaten. Queenie couldn't remember a time when she'd seen him look worse. She refused to let it affect her even slightly.

  All around the room there were trunks and crates and stacks of household goods. Queenie was diligently sorting and packing.

  She was a hard-bitten, determined woman who'd made her way in the world against all kinds of odds. She'd had no choice. In business she'd never failed to go after what she wanted. To push when other women would have been content to settle, and to carve out her own security in the best way she knew how. That was how she operated in business. It was only in her personal life that she'd held back, waited, and done without. That was at an end.

  Comfortable, convenient Queenie was about to make demands.

  "Well, it's all over, Queenie," King said sadly. "I did all I could do and it was for nothing. It's all over."

  "What's all over?"

  "The well. Royal Oil. King Calhoun," he shook his head. "I'm busted Queenie. Flat busted."

  She shrugged almost with complete unconcern.

  "Isn't that what you've always told me about the oil business. Boom and bust, boom and bust. When things are going well, plan for the worst, and when life looks its blackest, there is a fortune to be made on the next hill."

  "That's mostly true, but for the life of me, I never saw a oil man go under while pumping 25,000 barrels a day," he said. "I swear, Queenie, I want it etched on my tombstone, IT WAS BANKS THAT DONE HIM IN."

  "So you still haven't found anyone to back you?"

  "No," he said. "And I've propositioned every bank from here to blazes. I offered a fifty-percent share at the last one. They couldn't even be bothered to hear me out."

  "What about Tom Walker?"

  "Tom Walker? I don't know a dang thing about any Tom Walker," he said. "I've asked in every bank and barbershop and even every church in Burford Corners. Nobody ever heard of Tom Walker, nor this Prin family that he's supposed to be married into. None of it even exists."

  Queenie was thoughtful. "Well, Tom Walker exists because I talked to him day before yesterday."

  King looked up startled. "You talked to him! What did he say? Would he be willing to loan me the money?"

  "Well, truth to tell King, I didn't ask him for money," Queenie explained. "We had other things to talk about. I just told him that you were looking for him."

  "Was he going to find me then?" King asked. "Why the devil hasn't he?"

  "I don't know," she answered. "Honestly, he didn't seem to be particularly interested, but I mentioned you just the same."

  "Dang it all, Queenie, why didn't you buttonhole the fellow?" King complained. "You know how important this is to me."

  "Well, I have a few things on my mind, too, thank you very much!"

  Her tone was such that it startled King out of his lethargy and he looked up at her, wide-eyed with question. He appeared to notice the trunks and crates for the first time.

  "You going somewhere, Queenie?" he asked.

  "Why, yes, I am," she told him.

  He was silent for a long moment. "Are you going up to Denver to see that doctor I told you about?"

  "No indeed," she answered. "I don't need a doctor. I saw one this morning and my health is perfectly fine."

  King blanched. "You mean you've already . . ."

  "No," she answered. "I mean that I am in fine health for a woman bearing a child at my age. He says that everything appears to be all right at this juncture. And if nothing untoward occurs, I should be giving birth in the latter part of February."

  She watched his face light up with pleasur
e and she knew that she was not wrong about him. He came to his feet and pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

  "Queenie, I'm so glad about this," he said. "Truly, I think you will be a wonderful mother. And the Palace is not a bad place to grow up, he'll—"

  "My child," Queenie stated flatly as she jerked out of King's embrace, "will not be raised in a saloon."

  The adamant nature of her tone obviously took him off guard.

  "You're not raising him here?" King asked.

  "My child will grow up in a sweet little house with a big yard and a picket fence," she said. "It'll be in a nice neighborhood where he’ll walk to school every day with his friends, wearing clean broadcloth kneepants and a Saratoga cap. He'll have a pony cart and a puppy. He'll play baseball and ride a bicycle."

  Inexplicably she burst into tears.

  "Darling, oh darling," he said, sitting her down upon the bed and taking his place beside her. "What is this all about? Why are you so unhappy?"

  "I'm not unhappy," she sobbed. "I've never been happier in my life." Unfortunately, she punctuated this declaration with renewed tears.

  "Don't cry," he pleaded. "Please don't cry."

  "The doctor said that the crying is like the nausea," she told him, hiccupping. "It's just a symptom of being in the family way and it will pass."

  "Well, I certainly hope so."

  They sat together on the bed. He kept his arm around her, comforting her as she pulled herself together and regained her self-control.

  "I am very happy about the baby, actually," she said. "I don't mean to cry about it. I think it may well be the best thing that has ever happened to me."

  "And I am happy about the baby too, darling," King assured her. "I am, too."

  "I've sold the Palace," she said.

  "Sold it? To whom?"

  "Tommy Mathis," Queenie answered.

  "Tommy Mathis? That painter? Where did he get the money to buy this place?" King asked.

  "He's hasn't got it, but I've sold it to him just the same," she said. "Frenchie's going to run the place, but Mathis is going to count the money. He's going to pay me over ten years from a percent of the profits."