Shadow of Hope: Book 4 - Shadow Series (4 page)

“There will never ever be a replacement for Violet, so if God plans on sending me someone else, I’ll gratefully refuse.  I’ll spend my life alone.  I love that woman with my entire being,” Miles said, blinking back tears.  It wouldn’t do at all to shed a tear in front of another man, but he got so caught up in his emotions when he thought about his loss, it was difficult to control.

“I’ve been as low as a man can get,” Quinn said.  “I had no clue what God had in store for me when he sent me Rose Jeffries. I rejected her at first, but God is smarter than we are.  He knew.  He always knows, Miles.  Trust Him.”

“I hope,” Miles said, picking up his hammer, “that God wants me to be a bachelor, because it wouldn’t be fair to another woman when my heart’s still with Violet. It will always be with Violet, I'm afraid.”

Jonas hesitated when Zoe asked if she could ride her pony to Alfie’s house. 

“Papa, it’s not far.  You can see the roof of his house through the woods from here,” she said.

“I worry about you, cupcake.  What would I do if a bear jumped out of those woods over there and gobbled you up?” Jonas asked.

“My pony could outrun him,” Zoe said.  “And besides, I’m eight now, Papa.  Alfie’s aunt is so sick that he can’t play.   I miss seeing him.”

  Ivy walked into the sitting room and must have heard the last part, because she said, “How about if me or Papa rides along with you to Alfie’s?  I’m not sure a nine year-old should be in charge of a sick person, all alone.”

“All right!” Zoe exclaimed. 

“I’ll send some fried chicken legs, since no one here likes them, and some strawberries.”

“I’ll go,” Jonas offered.  “I want to try out my new filly, anyway.  She’s been saddle trained, but I’ve never ridden her, except in the corral.”

“Let’s see, it’s two o’clock now, so one of us will pick you up at four o’clock,” Ivy said.

“Okay, Mama,” Zoe said.

When Jonas and Zoe reached Alfie’s house, they tied their horses, walked up to the door, and knocked.  Alfie answered and looked as if he’d been crying.  He opened the door wide and stood back to allow them to enter. 

“How is she?” Jonas asked, for he didn’t know her name.

“She’s ailing pretty bad,” Alfie said. 

“Who’s there, Alfie?”  A voice from the back of the house bellowed.

“That’s her.  I’ll be right back.”  Alfie ran off.

Jonas and Zoe stood in the kitchen and Jonas set the food he’d brought on the table.

Alfie came back and said, “She wants to see you, Mr. Armstrong.”

“Me?” Jonas asked.

Alfie nodded.  “Want to see my room, Zoe?”

“Yes!” Zoe answered. 

After Alfie escorted Jonas into his aunt’s bedroom, he ran up the stairs with Zoe to his own bedroom.

Jonas stood, with hat in hands, looking at an older woman whose pale face tried to smile up at him. 

“Hello,” Jonas said.  “You wanted to see me?”

“Come, sit down,” she motioned to a wooden chair beside the bed.

Jonas sat.

“My name’s Clara Hammond.  Alfie’s mother was my sister.  I rent this house from Harold Botkins, who owns the hardware store.  This was once his house, but since he built a new one, he now rents this one out.”

Jonas nodded.  He wasn’t sure why she was telling him all this, but perhaps she was just lonely for adult company. 

“Alfie’s parent’s were on that fated train that crashed in Boone, Iowa when the bridge collapsed.  The Honey Creek Bridge Rail Disaster, it was called.  They were on their way to visit relatives and thankfully, they’d left Alfie with me.”

“How horribly sad,” Jonas said. 

“Mr. Armstrong, I’m not a babbling old women, I’m telling you all this for a reason,” she said.  “I’m going to die soon, and there’s no one to care for Alfie. Since I took ill, he’s had to forage in the house for whatever food he can find.”  She laughed a bit.  “You must have wondered why he always showed up at your place around lunch time.”

“We love having Alfie visit, really we do.  He and Zoe play so nicely together.”

“Yes, he loves your family—that’s all he talks about.  Would you take him home with you?  I don’t want him to see me die.  I don’t want him going hungry because I’m too sick to feed him.  Please.” She looked up at Jonas with a hopeful expression. “I wanted you to know everything about him and his family, so one day he can be told about his past and family.”

“Consider it done, Mrs. Hammond.  But I’m also sending over some staff to help you.  It‘s a fair trade.  We’ll take Alfie, and we give you some help until you recover.  My wife has sent over some food that I left on the kitchen table.” 

“It’s Miss Hammond, and God bless you, Mr. Armstrong, but I know I’m dying.”

“Do you know God, Miss Hammond?  Do you know for sure you’ll go to heaven?”  Jonas asked.

“Oh, yes!  I have a personal relationship with God,” she said weakly.  “We attended Holy Cross before I got sick.  I lived with my brother and his family on Barn Road until they moved to Chicago.  Then I rented this place. I’m not dying, I’m merely going home.”

“I see,” Jonas said.  “I’m glad you know God.  How do you know you’re dying?  You seem pretty spry to me.”

“Doc Harris told me yesterday, that the growth in my gut has doubled in size since he was here last week.  He told me to make plans for Alfie.”

“Shall I take Alfie now or, say—tomorrow?”

“Maybe tomorrow.  I’ll have a talk with him first.  He’s a bright lad, and I’m sure he’ll understand, but I do need to let him know first.”

Jonas stood.  “It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss Hammond, and I will bring over some help when I return at four o’clock to pick up Zoe.  She wants to play with Alfie.  Is that all right?”

“Yes, that’s fine. Thank you.” Miss Hammond closed her eyes tightly, and held her breath.  “The pain, it comes and goes.” 

“Would you like me to pray with you?” Jonas asked.

“Reverend Hawthorne was here this morning and he prayed with me. He’ll come back tomorrow, she said.  “You can, however, pray for my quick and painless trip home.”

“I will,” he said.

Zoe and Alfie played in his room until about half-past three before they had their first quarrel ever.  It was over a wooden wagon.  They both wanted to be the rider and not the one who had to pull it. 

“But it’s my turn to ride,” Zoe said.

“But it’s my wagon,” Alfie said,  “so I should be first.”

“But I’m your guest,” Zoe said.

“It’s
my
wagon,” Alfie said, anchoring his feet and crossing his arms.

“I’m going home then.”    Zoe stormed out of the room. She ran out the front door, hopped on her pony, and headed for home through the path in the woods.

Zoe felt proud that she’d almost ridden all the way home alone. She was so close now, she could see her house in the distance, and smiled.  When a man came slowly out of the bushes on the side of the path, he startled her somewhat.

“Are you a bear?” Zoe asked.

“No, I’m just a very nice man who’s lonely, and who wanted to say hello,” the man said.

Zoe simply looked at him. “What’s your name?   I’m not allowed to talk to strangers.”

“My name’s Samson.  Your mother and I were good friends, once,” he said.

“I have to be on my way,” Zoe said.  “It was nice meeting you, Mr. Samson.”

“Wait,” he said.  “I just want to look at you for a moment.”  He smiled at her, looking her over from head to toe. "You turned out to be as beautiful as your mama," he said.

“Mama’s the prettiest lady in town,” Zoe said.

“No, I mean your real mama.  Her name was Minnie Kreider.  She died giving birth to you, and I’m—”

“Zoe!” Jonas called from his buggy at the start of the pathway through the woods.

Samson ducked back into the nearby brush.

“Zoe, I told you that I’d come for you at four,” Jonas said, as he approached in a buggy accompanied by two maids. “I don’t want you riding alone.”

“Who was that you were talking to?” Jonas demanded in a tone he seldom used with Zoe.  He jumped down from the buggy and scanned the nearby bushes where he’d seen the man run, but no one was there now.

“It was a nice man.  He had brown skin, like me.  I thought he was a bear, but he wasn’t.”

“Zoe!” he said sternly.  “We’ll talk about this at home, with Mama.” He climbed back into the buggy.

“Now, turn your pony around, we are taking Norma and Ellie to Alfie’s, so they can care for his aunt.”

Zoe and Jonas walked into the house, after returning from Alfie’s, and found Ivy playing on the floor with Joanna.

“Ivy, can you leave Joanna with her nanny? We have family business to discuss,” Jonas said.

“Can’t it wait? We’re building a castle,” she said, setting a wooden block on the wobbling structure.

Jonas bent down, kissed Joanna’s forehead, and then kissed Ivy’s cheek.  He whispered, “Yes. Now.  It’s urgent.”

Just then the tower Ivy and Joanna had built tumbled to the floor.  Joanna started to cry, so Ivy picked her up, kissed her, and handed her to the nanny.  “Take her up to her room to play, Ingrid. Thank you.”

Ivy got up from the floor and sat on the sofa. Zoe crawled up and cuddled close to her.  Jonas knew that she sensed she might need Ivy’s protection.  She knew Jonas was cross with her.  Jonas was seldom angry with Zoe, so he was sure Zoe didn’t know what to expect from him.

Ivy put her arm around Zoe and kissed her head.  “Now, what’s so urgent?”

Jonas paced, then stopped in front of them and said, “Zoe left Alfie’s house and rode home alone.  I was on my way to pick her up when I saw her talking to someone on the path who ran when I approached.  Zoe said the man she talked to had brown skin.” Jonas shrugged.  “I’m not sure how to handle this, Ivy.”

Ivy looked from Zoe to Jonas.  “Oh, Zoe!  Didn’t we tell you not to ride home alone or talk to strangers?”

“But he introduced himself, Mama.  So he wasn’t a stranger, and he said he was a friend of my Mama’s,” Zoe said, snuggling closer to Ivy.

“What did he say his name was?” Ivy asked her.

“Sam.”

Ivy gasped. She glanced at Jonas. “Samson.”

Jonas didn’t know where to begin to tell her who the man was.  He sat down on the sofa next to Zoe.

“Did he say anything else?” Jonas asked.

“He said he was a good friend of Mama’s, but not my Mama, someone else’s named Minnie.”

“Come here, Zoe.”   Jonas held his arms out to her.  She crawled onto his lap and put her arms around his neck.

“I’m sorry, Papa.”

“I know you are, sweetheart.  You know I’m only cross with you because I love you so much, and I want to protect you always.  It’s Mama’s and my job to keep you safe.”

She nodded.

“Zoe, when a man and woman marry,” he began and noticed Ivy’s grimace.  “When they marry, God sometimes gifts them with a baby.  Every baby has to have a mother and a father.  Well, at the time, Minnie was a…um…close friend of mine.  Now Minnie was sort of married to the man you met today, Samson, but he left Abilene after God already gifted them with a baby. The baby was still in Minnie’s belly, like when Aunt Rose was gifted with baby Joshua recently.  Remember when her tummy was big? Minnie was white, and Samson is colored, so God gave them a baby half white and half colored, and that baby was you. So, since Minnie already had the gift in her belly, she needed a father for it.  I married her so that I could be your papa.  Minnie died, and after a while I met Ivy, fell in love with her, got married, and God transferred the gift, which was you, to her.”

“And God gifted you again, with Joanna?” Zoe asked.

“Yes.  Sometimes God gives married people many gifts.”

Zoe seemed to consider all he’d said, but Jonas knew she did not completely understand.

“So you and Mama are still my Mama and Papa?”

“We’ll always be your Mama and Papa.”

“So, Zoe, if you ever see that man again, please don’t talk to him,” Ivy said.

“But why?” she asked.

“Because knowing a person’s name, doesn’t mean we know them.” Ivy explained.  “We don’t know if the person can be trusted.  Just knowing a stranger’s name is not enough to make him a friend.  A stranger is someone you don’t know well at all.  I don’t know if Samson is a nice man or a nasty man.”

“I don’t like the way he’s sneaking around,” Jonas said.  “Seems to me if he was a good person, he would come to the house and knock on the door to see us, wouldn’t he?”

“Yes,” she said drawing out the word thoughtfully. 

“Why did Minnie die?” Zoe asked.   “Is she buried in the backyard with my pet rabbit?”

Jonas exchanged a helpless look with Ivy.

“Sometimes people get very sick, just like your pet rabbit did.  We don’t bury people in the yard, Zoe,” Ivy said.  “We bury them in the church cemetery.”

“So,” Jonas said, clapping his hand together, “Is that clear?  You are not to go home from anywhere alone, and you do not talk to this man or any other stranger.

“Yes, Papa,” Zoe said.

“Now, I have something else to tell you, Zoe.  I told Mama about this before I came to pick you up, but we think we need your approval, too.  Alfie’s coming to live with us, at least for a while, because his aunt’s too sick to care for him.  Is that all right with you?” Jonas asked, kissing her cheek.

“Yes, but he has to learn to share.  He wouldn’t let me ride in his wagon so I left today without waiting for you,” she said.

“We’ll speak to him about that,” Jonas said, winking at Ivy.

Violet was bent over the kitchen table, drawing signs to put in the store windows to advertise the camp.  She was also planning to put an ad in the newspaper, and she made pamphets to pass out in church.

Whenever Gavin was in town, he called on her and took her for a meal so they could continue making plans.  She often caught a glimpse of Miles, who simply nodded in her direction if he saw her. 

Gavin remained quiet, never giving her a sign that he wanted to be anything more than friends.  She often watched him when he did constructive things like draw what he envisioned for the camp layout.  He reminded her so much of her father and she wanted to just hug him, or be held by him.  He even tapped his pencil whenever he was contemplating something, just like her father always did. It had already been a year since he’d died, and her heart felt as heavy as it did on the day he died.  Her sisters seemed to have taken his death better than she had, maybe because they had husbands to lean on and babies to care for.

Her father had been much more talkative than Gavin, and he’d been more affectionate.  He’d hugged his wife and daughters all the time.  She’d never seen Gavin hug anyone, even his son. Even so, she felt safe and comfortable in Gavin’s company. 

She put her signs away and dressed for her dinner with Gavin.  She thought that maybe he might be a bit shy, like Miles had been at first.  She remembered she’d had to kiss Miles’s cheek at the dance in order to encourage him.  Maybe she needed to do something to encourage Gavin, as well.  Though it would be more difficult with Gavin, as he was older and a more serious person. 

Miles sat on a bench in the small park near the river where he sometimes went to think.  It was a lovely spring day, and he sat with a book he’d tried to read several times already, but his mind kept creeping back to Violet and Mr. McKenzie.

The park was nothing more than a shady, green area, with a few benches, and a great view of the Smoky Hill River.

“Miles?”  Peggy Iverson called out. 

“Yes?” Miles said.  He stood, greeted her warmly, and made room for her on the bench by moving his book and lunch bag.

“I’m sorry to hear about your split up with Violet.  You must be crushed.”  Peggy sat down beside him.

“Crushed doesn’t begin to describe what I feel, but thanks, Peggy,” Miles said, taking his seat again on the bench.

“I’m kinda being courted by a man named Henry Bannister, but he’s away at college.  He’s studying to be an attorney,” she said.  “He was just home for a visit, but he’s back in Leavenworth now.  He’ll be studying all summer.”

“I’m happy for you, Peggy, honestly, I am,” Miles said.  “I hope things work out for the two of you.”

“We write to each other nearly every day,” she said. “With him away, I’m sure I feel as lonely as I know you must feel.”

Miles shrugged.  “What can I do?”

“Oh, Miles,” she said, with sympathy in her voice.  “I hate seeing you like this.  I’m so used to seeing you smile and laugh.”

Miles nodded.

“I know Violet almost as well as I know my best friend, Ivy.  I think Violet’s making a big mistake, but hasn’t realized it yet.  She’ll never find anyone who loves her as much as you seem to.”

“Seem to?” Miles said.  “No.  I
love
her and no other woman can ever take her place.”

After several silent moments, Peggy said, “I have an idea—but it’s kinda wild—are you game?”

“What?” Miles asked.  He knew Peggy well enough to know she could be rather outspoken and undisciplined sometimes.

“Let’s pretend to be a couple.  Maybe, if Violet thinks you and I are seeing each other, it'll knock some sense into her.”

“I think her involvement with Mr. McKenzie is beyond your scheme, Peggy, but thanks, anyway.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I saw them going into the church together to meet with the minister after McKenzie mentioned they were working on an event.  I’m sure they’re planning a wedding.”

“No, they aren’t.  They’re planning a camp for kids.” Peggy laughed. “I don’t even know if they are romantically involved or not.  Whenever I see them they appear to be nothing more than two friends planning an event.”

“Really?” Miles felt a bit hopeful.  “That’s a relief.” He felt as if a burden had just been lifted from his shoulders.  He didn’t have Violet back, but at least he knew she wasn’t planning to marry McKenzie anytime soon; he may still have a chance.

“So?  Will you court me?  I’ll clear it with Henry, but I’m sure he won’t mind as long as it’s pretend.”

Miles thought about her idea.  What harm could it do?  Maybe it would work.  Obviously it couldn’t hurt. At the very least, it would help to curb the loneliness he felt.

“Does Violet know about Henry?” he asked.

“No. I very much doubt it.  She was in Salina, most of the past year. She may have seen me with him, but no one knows that we’re serious about one another. Even my parents don’t know.  We wanted to wait and see how things went.”

“All right,” he said.  “Let’s do this.  How do we start?”

“Well, we’ll sit together in church, and there’s always dinner at Pete’s, and if our arrangement is still needed, there’s the church picnic in June.”

“Sounds good. I’ll welcome your company, Peggy, as long as you know it’s pretend.  I wouldn’t ever want to lead someone into thinking they could ever take Violet’s place in my heart,” he said.