Beyond All Dreams (12 page)

“Why do I get the feeling this ‘important meeting' of yours
all boils down to an attempt to undermine the Speaker of the House?”

He stilled at her words, his eyes narrowing. “What makes you say that?”

“Aside from a few paltry questions about mollusks, all the data you've asked me to gather relates to Wisconsin industries. It can also be used to undermine the upcoming vote about the tariff, and everyone knows Speaker Jones has invested a great deal in that issue.”

A gleam of respect warmed his features. “What a keen observation. I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

Anna snatched up another atlas to shelve. “I think it's unseemly the way you're using me to build a case against Speaker Jones.”

“I prefer to call it clever,” Mr. Callahan said. “A hundred years ago people would have launched a revolution over things like this upcoming tariff vote. Even now, it's causing riots in factories and mining camps all over the country, but I intend to use rationality to persuade people to my point of view.” He held up her report. “And the information gathered in these pages will help me build my case. I need more congressmen who see things my way. That's why I want you to attend this meeting.”

Her fingers curled around the atlas cradled in her arms. One of the reasons she was so proud to be working here was that she loved helping people find information. It was information that powered innovation. Progress. Maybe he was right in accusing her of hiding behind her damaged voice to avoid anything that might drag her out of the safety of this room.

The sound of running footsteps heralded a man wearing the uniform of a hotel valet, who barged into the room. “Mr. Callahan,” he said breathlessly. “I've been looking everywhere for you. You are needed back at the Willard immediately. Something about your nephew, sir.”

Mr. Callahan blanched. The hotel valet passed a note to him, and he tore it open, his fingers shaking as he read. She had never seen him so agitated.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“I don't know.” But there was fear in his words. The valet had no additional insight into the terse message, except that his nephew had gotten into “mischief.”

“I've got to go,” he mumbled. He tucked the note into his coat pocket and hurried from the room.

L
uke clenched the leather hand strap as he stood in the streetcar, agonizing over what kind of mischief could cause him to be summoned home in the middle of the day. Philip was supposed to be in school by now, so what happened? A fall down the stairs? A broken back? He nearly fainted with relief when he was shown into the hotel manager's office to see Philip alive and well, sitting in the corner like a truant child.

“Your nephew has caused considerable damage to the first-floor renovations,” Mr. Gloster said. “Apparently, young Michelangelo here thought to grace our hotel with an original fresco on the storage room wall.”

Luke was well aware of Philip's aspiration to become a great painter, as the boy spent every cent of his allowance on art supplies. He listened in slack-jawed amazement as the manager outlined the entire event. Last night, Philip broke into one of the newly renovated rooms to paint an anonymous mural. He had timed his scheme carefully, waiting until the wet plaster had been set on the walls of the storage closet. It was the perfect opportunity to try his hand at painting a fresco, using the
ancient technique of laying paint on still-damp plaster to create the luminous murals of the old masters.

Philip had waited for Luke to retire before proceeding to gather his painting supplies and a lantern, and slipped out of their room. It was after midnight, the plaster in the closet having already begun to dry. Philip applied a liberal amount of water to refresh the plaster, then began painting a mural of Saint George slaying the dragon. It didn't take long to realize he'd added too much water to the plaster, as it all began to slide and thicken at the base.

“The entire wall will need to be demolished and replastered,” Mr. Gloster said.

Luke swiveled his attention to Philip, who sat frozen in the chair, his face white with fear and his lower lip trembling. He looked ready to throw up.

“I'm sorry,” Philip said. “I just wanted to surprise everyone with a great painting. It wasn't supposed to turn out like this.”

Mr. Gloster waved a copy of the contract he had with the builders. “It's going to cost seventy-five dollars to knock down that wall and rebuild it.”

If Luke opened his wallet and made the problem go away, Philip would learn nothing. “I'm not paying,” he said bluntly.

“Do you propose we put the boy in debtors' prison?” Mr. Gloster asked incredulously.

“No, he needs to work it off,” Luke said. “He needs to learn the value of a sweaty day's labor and a healthy dose of respect for other people's property.”

It took a while to figure out a fair way to compensate the hotel. Philip was to work in the laundry every day after school for four hours, and the entire day on Saturdays. It would take a month of hard labor to work off the debt.

Luke maintained a stern expression throughout the negotiation, but it was hard. This was such a classic case of Callahan
grandiosity that he knew someday this story would be funny, but for now he needed to apply a firm hand with his nephew.

He walked Philip back to their hotel room, their footsteps muffled by the thick carpet running down the fifth-floor hallway. “You know this means no more dabbling in art, not until your debt is fully paid.”

Philip stopped, whirling to face him in the hall outside their room. Stained with paint and flecks of plaster, Philip looked out of place in the ornate hallway lit with crystal wall sconces and hand-painted wallpaper.

“That's not fair,” he said. “I'll pay the debt to the hotel, but I need art. You don't understand what art means to me. I can't live without it. I
can't
.”

Luke recognized the desperation in Philip's voice. Hadn't he been equally devastated when his father tried to force him to quit writing poetry? The passions of an adolescent were so raw and unrefined, so overwhelming it was hard to imagine life could function if severed from the source of that zeal.

“How are you going to keep your grades up at school and work in the laundry if you're still painting?”

“I'll find a way,” Philip vowed, his voice trembling with urgency. “You've got to trust me on this.”

There were worse things in life than an overabundance of youthful enthusiasm. When seized by the fires of creativity, what task couldn't be accomplished? Perhaps the only crime would be to try to stand in the way of that flood of passion.

Luke unlocked the door to their suite of rooms and held it wide for Philip. “If your grades don't slip and you don't shirk a single minute of the time you owe the hotel, you can continue your painting.”

The relief on Philip's face would have been amusing were it not so poignant. To this day, Luke savored the memory of his
failed quest to become the world's greatest poet. That quest had brought him both soaring joy and withering disappointment, but the journey had been priceless. It had taught him perseverance and accomplishment. It had given him a glimpse into a world of incomparable beauty, and even though he'd only walked along the perimeter of literary adventure, he'd loved every moment.

Those blistering memories of triumph and heartbreak had helped sculpt him into a man. If he was going to do the right thing by Philip, the boy needed the opportunity to explore that same path.

Anna wasn't going to let the navy's threats stop her from discovering what had happened to the
Culpeper
. She couldn't set foot in the navy's archives without setting off a firestorm, so looking for evidence elsewhere was her only option. For the past three weeks she'd used every scrap of her free time scouring old newspapers for references to the sunken vessel.

An isolated island like Bermuda celebrated whenever a ship pulled in to port, and the local newspapers reported the cargo and business of the arriving ship. If the
Culpeper
was anywhere near Bermuda in 1882, it would have been mentioned in the
Royal Gazette
of Bermuda. The Library of Congress had copies of those old newspapers, and Anna read through every issue from 1882 looking for any mention of the
Culpeper
. If she found such a reference, it meant the navy had been right all along and she was letting her imagination run wild.

She found nothing. So the next place to look was where she thought her father's ship really sank: Cuba.

She arrived at the library on Saturday and spent the entire day scrutinizing yellowing old newspapers from Cuba. Curled up by the window alcove in the library's reading room, she tipped the
newspaper to catch the light. She didn't know a lick of Spanish, but she didn't need to in order to spot the word
Culpeper
in the text. Above her, workmen continued their weekend chore, noisily boxing up books for the upcoming move.

“I didn't realize you knew Spanish.”

She jumped. Luke Callahan was standing directly behind her, a stack of poetry books in the crook of his arm. “You almost gave me a heart attack!”

“May I join you?” he asked. The books thumped on the table beside her, and he pulled out a chair to sit without waiting for her answer. “Spanish?” he prodded again.

The less she said about the
Culpeper
the better. “What are you doing here on a Saturday?” she asked, sidestepping the question.

“My nephew has been condemned to indentured servitude for the next few weeks, and I find my hotel room depressingly bleak. I thought I'd come here for a chance to read in peace, but I'd much rather talk to you. Why are you reading a Cuban newspaper?” He grabbed the issue, skimming it with curiosity. He let out a bark of laughter. Apparently his Spanish was better than hers.

“Look at this,” he said. “You've got a fifteen-year-old newspaper and even then the Cubans were bellyaching over their lack of independence from Spain.”

She scrambled for what little she knew of Cuban politics. “Don't you think the Cubans are entitled to their liberty? The Spanish have been exploiting them for almost three hundred years.”

“Yes, I'm worried about Spain and Cuba. If Speaker Jones wasn't so obsessed with cramming a new tariff down our throats, he might have a little more time to consider the revolution brewing in our own backyard.” He tossed the newspaper down in disgust.

Anna needed to get the topic off Cuba and why she was reading a newspaper in a language she couldn't understand. “Why do you and Speaker Jones dislike each other so much?”

“Don't you know?” he asked, a hint of amusement in his eyes. “There are clues scattered about . . . of course, that would require you to have actually read my political biography, and you've already told me you have no interest in doing so. Which is odd. Most women find me fascinating.”

“I find you maddening. But go on, tell me why he hates you.”

“Forget it, O'Brien. It's really no one's business.”

“I told you about my voice, even though it's a horrible memory for me. The least you could do is reciprocate.” Mr. Callahan glanced up at the men packing up books on the floors above them. “They can't hear us,” she said. “Talk. Unless you're afraid, of course.”

His eyes lit at the challenge. Mr. Callahan pulled his chair a little closer to hers and said in a low voice, “A few months after I was first elected to Congress, there was a huge scandal with my family back in Maine.” Over the next several minutes he was surprisingly candid as he recounted the tale of his youngest brother, Jason, whose love for animals had prompted him to begin herding the wild goats that roamed the mountainside into the pens on Callahan land. A judge ruled that it was impermissible to seize hoofed animals from government-owned land and ordered the goats released.

“Jason was incensed,” Mr. Callahan recounted. “He and my brother Gabriel vowed retribution. They painted their faces blue like the ancient Celtic warriors, snuck onto the judge's land in the middle of the night, and released all his livestock.”

Anna gasped. “They did
what
?”

“They released more than two hundred sheep into the wilderness. Everyone knew who did it, and my brothers didn't bother
to deny it. They were proud of what they'd done. Charges of theft were lodged, and the scandal carried down to Washington. Speaker Jones wanted me to publicly renounce my brothers and say I would have nothing more to do with them. I couldn't do it. He said he understood, but that I should lie and
say
I would cut ties with them. In a year or two, the scandal would die down and I could mend fences when the trouble blew over. I wouldn't do it.”

Mr. Callahan spoke proudly, without flinching. What must it be like to have that level of support? Aside from Neville's friendship, Anna had been alone since she was twelve years old.

“Gabe and Jason are still paying off the judgment from that bit of foolishness,” he continued. “It's why they never have a spare dime. My father was charged as well, and he was still paying the debt when he died.”

“Your father participated in this?”

Luke grinned. “He wouldn't have missed it for the world. He was proud his boys were standing up to the judge, and he painted his face along with them. My dad and Gabriel are both wild forces of nature, but Jason is different. He's probably the kindest, most compassionate soul I've ever known. He's got a bit of my father's hotheaded streak in him—especially when he drinks—but I remember him as the boy who used to find wounded birds in the woods and bring them home to nurse back to health. I would no more turn my back on him than slice off my own arm.”