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Authors: Catherine Palmer

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BOOK: Prairie Storm
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“Why should you bother? I'm doing my job feeding your baby. Isn't that enough?”

“No.” He reached across the checkered cloth and took her hand. “It's not enough for me. I thought about you all last night when I was up with Samuel. Today, when you walked into church and I saw you standing there at the back, I wanted to shout hallelujah. It didn't have a thing to do with the baby. You're not just Sam's nurse. You're a cyclone who's blown through my life and turned everything topsy-turvy. In the space of two days, you've made me boiling mad, lifted my spirits, bailed me out of trouble, challenged my faith in God, and filled my mind to overflowing. In spite of myself, Mrs. Nolan, I care about you.”

Her hand was trembling as she slipped it out of his. “Please don't do that, Mr. Book,” she said in a thin voice. “Care about these people—your church. Let them into your heart and learn to love them. Then you'll be a pastor.”

“And you?”

“Don't care about me. I don't want anything from you except what you can afford to pay me. I have everything I need.”

“A person who has everything she needs ought to be happy. You're not happy. You're angry and hurting. There's something inside you that's so sad—”

“No. I've chosen my path. I'm going to make my own way in this world. And I'll do it alone. I don't need the crutch of religion.”

“My faith in God is no crutch. When I was trying to get through life without the Lord, I was limping along, stumbling and falling down every two or three steps. I tried to fill the emptiness with work, drink, cards, women—whatever. Nothing satisfied for long. Then I asked Christ to come into my heart, and he healed me better than new. A man doesn't need a crutch when he's whole and complete.”

“Well, I'm a whole woman,” she said, stacking their dishes. “My strength comes from within myself. I'm my own source of light and power.”

Eli touched the sleeping baby's cheek. “I'm impressed. You must be a lot better person than I am, Mrs. Nolan. When I looked at my spirit without God, all I saw was confusion and nothingness. I didn't know which way to turn, and I sure didn't feel any power. Oh, I was strong all right—blustering around one saloon or another, fighting any man who looked at me crossways, running cattle from Abilene to Kansas City. But all my strength was on the outside. I pulled anger and hurt around me like a heavy suit of armor to keep everybody back. Inside, I was as empty as an old tin can.”

Lily pursed her lips for a moment. Then she tucked a strand of hair into her bun. “It looks like rain,” she said. “I'd better go and speak to Mrs. Hanks about her offer of a place to sleep. None of the other good Christian citizens of Hope have invited me in. I'm not surprised. When you're filled with the holiness of God, you don't want to sully yourself by spending time with a lowly actress from a traveling show.”

Without looking at him, she set the dishes into the basket and stood. “You can fetch me when Samuel wakes up,” she said. “I'll stay in town until Beatrice comes back from Topeka.”

Eli sat on the checkered cloth watching Lily Nolan walk away from him for the second time that day. He thought about all his years on the trail. And he pondered his months on the preaching circuit. One thing seemed sure. God could use him like a cattle driver—spreading the gospel as he herded people into the kingdom of heaven. But Eli wasn't cut out to be a shepherd—guiding, nurturing, and tending a flock of lambs along the rocky paths of life day by day.

No sir. Right this minute he ought to go tell Seth Hunter he was quitting his job as pastor of Hope's church, and then he could head for China.

In the distance, Lily Nolan paused outside the door of the Hankses' house. She lifted the corner of her white apron and dabbed her cheek. She was crying, Eli realized. This woman who claimed to be whole, strong, and glowing with inner peace was weeping.

Lord
, he prayed,
I want to run from this work you sent my way. But even more than that, I want to do your will. Teach me how to be a shepherd
.

“Mercy, mercy, mercy, girl. That storm is blowin' up fast. I hope we don't get us a cyclone.”

Lily noted that Mother Margaret was taking her washing off the line even though the clothes weren't nearly dry. She chuckled at the older woman's now-familiar foibles. Four days in the Hankses' home had given Lily a sense of family she'd never known. Ben's siblings and his and Eva's children had long ago gone to work for other landowners, and the loss was palpable to this day. Often Mother Margaret mentioned a son or daughter, and at each meal Eva prayed for her absent children by name. Though lacking an extended family, the couple had created a warm and loving relationship with Ben's mother. Now they welcomed Lily as though she had always lived there.

“I'd better get that boy of mine to whittle some new clothes- pegs,” the old woman said. “We toted these all the way from Missouri, and they're plumb wore out.”

Sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of the little frame house, Lily watched Mother Margaret drop gray wooden pegs into her apron pockets. For almost a week, clouds had been lingering on the horizon, promising rain but failing to deliver. The day before, in the mercantile, Rosie Hunter had told a terrifying story of a cloud of grasshoppers that had once plagued the town. Caitrin Murphy followed that with the tale of a raging prairie fire whose smoke everyone had mistaken at first for rain clouds.

Lily was beginning to wonder if life on this barren land might be a lot more intimidating than it appeared. These bucolic peasants were turning out to be warriors in disguise, battling the elements for their very lives. Though she was certain her reception at her father's house in Philadelphia would be unpleasant, she felt thankful she'd be returning there before the winter.

“Eva, you better run next door and tell Ben and Mr. Jack to carry their tools inside the smithy,” Mother Margaret called. “It's fixin' to rain. I can feel it in my bones.”

Eva peered out the screenless window of the house and gave Lily a wink. “I reckon those two men know enough to get their tools out of the rain before they get rusty, Mama.”

“Mercy, I hope so.”

Lily fingered the tight collar of her dress. The air hung dank and humid over the grassland, so heavy it was hard to breathe. She wondered what her parents were doing on this day in Philadelphia. No doubt they were attending a literary reading or a political speech. Her father would be preparing selections for the symphony to play during the Independence Day celebrations. Her mother would be agonizing over summer bonnets and gloves. The townhouse would be dark and cool, each table laden with a bouquet of fresh flowers, pungent smells wafting up from the kitchen, a coat of new wax gleaming on the hardwood floors.

How different from this toilsome prairie life. How empty.

Lily pushed up from the rocking chair and strolled across the beaten dirt yard to help Mother Margaret take down the rest of the laundry. Odd that she felt so comfortable in the home of former slaves. But here in Hope, Lily had discovered laughter that came from the belly, music that came from the heart, and food that nourished the soul.

“Sit yourself back down, child,” the old woman said. “That preacher will be along here any minute with his squallin' baby. I don't know why he's takin' so long this afternoon anyhow. Seems like he comes a-runnin' to you the minute that little feller makes a sound.”

Lily tugged a wooden peg from the line. She was a little concerned herself. Physically uncomfortable with her need to nurse the baby, she couldn't understand why she had seen Elijah only once this day. She had insisted that the baby spend most of the time with his father. After all, she would be leaving soon. But Lily found herself eagerly anticipating the moment when she would hear Samuel's wails drifting toward her from the church. Surely in a moment the preacher would march up to the house, his dark hair windblown and his blue eyes clouded with concern—as though Sam's every whimper spelled trouble with a capital
T
.

Though they hadn't spoken at length since the picnic beside the church, Lily had turned the man's words over in her mind. He might be uneducated and rough-hewn, but Elijah Book was sincere. At least … he seemed sincere. She hesitated to trust him too far. He was, after all, a man.

“What time did you nurse that baby?” Mother Margaret asked, dropping the last damp shirt into her basket. “I thought it was around midmornin'. Don't you reckon Sam's hungry by now?”

Lily set her hands on her hips and stared at the church. “Maybe Eva could go over there and check on things.”

“Eva's cookin' supper. What's wrong with those two feet you got? Can't they make it across the street?”

“I don't want to bother Reverend Book. He might be resting.”

“He's not restin'. That man's been working himself half to death over there. Hammerin' day and night. Plowin' up the ground. Splittin' fence posts. He hasn't done much visitin' of his flock, but he sure is sprucin' up the building.”

“I guess I could walk over and check.” Lily crossed her arms. “But he might be writing a sermon or something. With the wedding coming up this Saturday—”

“He never writes down a thing he says. Didn't you listen to him last night at prayer meetin'? Why, he just went to tearin' through the Scripture like a hound dog after a coon. One by one, he pulled those verses apart and put 'em back together—and he never looked at nothin' but the Good Book itself.”

“I wasn't at the prayer meeting.”

“Well, you missed a good'n. I don't know why you thought you needed to stay here at the house and wash your stockin's all secret-like. Everybody in town knows what a pair of lady's stockin's looks like. Mercy me.”

Lily picked up the heavy load of laundry and carried it onto the front porch. The clouds looked no closer to town than they had the past three days, but at least Mother Margaret could stop fretting about her clothes getting rained on. The tiny old woman hobbled up the wooden steps and sank onto a chair.

“Go check on that baby, Miz Lily,” she wheezed, “before I give myself a heart attack worryin' over him. Go on now. And don't you get caught in the rain.”

Lily took a deep breath and started toward the unpainted clapboard church. She didn't want Elijah to think she ever missed Samuel. Or needed the baby. Or looked forward to seeing the two of them. He had to understand that the arrangement between them was just a job.

Taking care of Samuel would earn Lily the money to leave the nomadic life that had cost her a husband and a daughter. Going back to Philadelphia would return her to the shallowness and fear, but at least in the big brownstone townhouse she would have security. Life couldn't promise much more than that anyway.

A deep voice sang from the church's backyard.

“Hallelujah, Thine the glory!

Hallelujah, amen!

Hallelujah, Thine the glory!

Revive us again.”

Hands dug into her apron pockets, Lily peered around the side of the building. For a moment, she failed to recognize the sweat-drenched, shirtless man who was digging postholes. Half-built, the fence started from the back of the church in a razor-straight line, snapped into a perpendicular angle, stretched across the prairie to another sharp corner, and then set off back toward the church. In Philadelphia, Lily had never given much attention to such mundane things. But she could tell this was a beautiful fence.

The tall, well-formed man digging holes rammed his clamshell shovel into the ground, worked it around, and lifted out a clump of rich Kansas soil. As he lowered the shovel again, he returned to singing.

“We praise Thee, O God,

For the Son of Thy love,

For Jesus who died

And is now gone above.”

Elijah Book was right, Lily thought. He couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. His heartfelt enthusiasm went a long way to make up for the off-key singing, but she cringed as the man plunged into a second verse. Attempting to keep a straight face, she stepped around the side of the church and approached him.

“Hallelujah, Thine the—whoa!” he said, taking a step backward. “I didn't expect you.”

She was amazed to see the man flush a shade of deep rose under his tanned skin as he fumbled in his back pocket for a handkerchief. Mopping his forehead, he grabbed his shirt from the last post he had set and tugged it on.

“Good afternoon, Reverend Book,” Lily said. He tried to fasten a button and finally gave it up. “I see you've been digging.”

“Yeah.” He pushed his fingers back through his damp hair. “I'm building a fence for the church.”

“Ah,” she said. “I thought churches were supposed to welcome people. Who is it you wish to keep out?”

At that he grinned. “Critters. I plan to put a little garden back here so I don't have to rely on the generosity of the townsfolk for my food. And then—if need be—I can start a cemetery in that southeast corner. There's a little tree, and I thought I'd try turning over the sod and planting some flowers here and there.”

BOOK: Prairie Storm
13.36Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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