Margaret Brownley (18 page)

Lucy insisted upon sitting in the second row of the church, her father and brother on either side of her. It was one of two rows normally saved for the hard of hearing or newly disgraced. Reverend Wells insisted that everyone fell short of the glory of God and sitting up front made you no worse than your neighbors, but few were willing to give up the notion of “sinner rows.”

Lucy only wished that “sinners” sitting in the front row didn’t wear such outlandish hats.

It was not her family’s normal place to sit, and this alone was enough to cause consternation among the congregation. Somewhere it was written that all churchgoers had to sit in the same pew week after week, month after month, unless, of course, one had lost his hearing or had committed an offense that required front pew penance.

Though the handsome young preacher stood center stage, all eyes were on Lucy. Gloved hands raised to conceal gossipy lips failed to drown out the question on everyone’s mind: What did Lucy Fairbanks do this time?

Before sliding onto the hard wooden pew, her father glanced at the other worshippers and shrugged as if to say he no more understood his daughter then the rest of them did.

Lucy simply ignored the glares. She had other things on her mind—like trying to stay awake. Between worrying that someone would discover Wolf at the church, and traveling back and forth to care for him, she’d hardly slept a wink all week.

From where she sat, she could keep her eye on the door leading to the anteroom. She’d even gone to the bother of placing extra hymnals on the pews lest church attendance reach unprecedented heights. She didn’t want to take a chance on one of the ushers going into the back room for extras.

At one point she imagined that the door off the altar had opened. Thinking she’d failed to shut the door properly, she anxiously peered through the feathers of the outlandish hat in front of her for a better look. It turned out to be only her imagination. Hand on her chest, she sat back with a sigh of relief.

She tried not to think about the man on the other side of that flimsy door. Some of the townsfolk would have a fit if they knew how close they sat to the rumored wild man of Rocky Creek.

She giggled at the thought and this brought a startled look from her father and a frown from Mrs. Weatherbee, who was sitting across the aisle next to her twenty-eight-year-old son, her pride and joy. The woman still wore her dark hair parted in the middle and pulled back into a tight knot, a popular style during the war. Her outdated hairstyle was an ill-conceived attempt to keep the last semblance of youth from slipping away.

Stifling a yawn and trying not to think of Wolf, Lucy pulled her gaze away from the woman and forced herself to concentrate on the preacher.

Reverend Wells had done much to restore the town’s faith. Formerly from Boston, he did have one annoying fault. At times, he got so carried away with preaching the gospel that his poor wife, Sarah, would cough in an effort to get her husband to wrap up his long-winded sermon.

At such times the grateful congregation would follow her lead until the hacking grew so loud that Justin Wells had no choice but to say a closing prayer, even though it was obvious he was reluctant to do so.

Though the church had been built in 1845, the same year Texas became a state, it had been sorely neglected during the War Between the States and the Indian wars to the point of being altogether deserted in recent years. Pews had been recently added, replacing mismatched chairs, and new stained glass windows installed, but the siding was warped and the roof missing shingles.

Prior to the arrival of Reverend Wells, the townsfolk had to depend on a circuit preacher who showed up once every six months, if they were lucky, and who always preached the same sermon.

Reverend Wells had a way of making the Bible come alive, but Lucy felt so nervous she could hardly concentrate on what he was saying. She cleared her throat and that proved to be a mistake. The congregation, thinking Sarah had signaled her husband to stop preaching, imitated her until a chorus of coughs filled the church.

At first Reverend Wells tried to ignore the hacking, until his voice was drowned out and he was forced to sit down.

Behind him, the choir led by her friend Barrel stood like rising flags. One singer started across the altar. Thinking he was heading for the anteroom, Lucy jumped to her feet with a cry of dismay. Everyone turned to look at her with an air of expectancy. Obviously, they thought a public confession was forthcoming.

“Amen!” she stammered, her face burning.

“Amen!” the congregation echoed in unison.

It turned out that the singer was simply retrieving his music stand and had no intention of going into the anteroom.

Gulping in embarrassment, she sat down.

Her father leaned toward her. “What is the matter with you? You’re acting very strange.”

“I thought the sermon was very . . . moving. Didn’t you?”

He turned his head away. “There are some things that can’t be forgiven,” he said quietly.

Lucy shivered, but whether from the forbidding look on his face or fear that the stowaway would be discovered, she didn’t know.

After what seemed like an interminable length of time, the church service finally ended, and her friend Monica pulled her aside. “Lucy, what in the world? Sitting in the front like that.” She lowered her voice. “What have you done this time?”

“Nothing,” Lucy said. Well, almost nothing.

Monica eyed her with suspicion. “You didn’t even sit in front when you caused that stampede or when you—”

“Shh. I can’t talk about it right now,” Lucy whispered.

Monica gave her an odd look. “I saw your photograph in the newspaper. Does this mean you’re working for Mr. Barnes?”

“Not anymore,” Lucy said. She quickly explained all that had transpired in the last several days and how the editor had rewritten her story. “There is no wild man.”

“Oh, Lucy, I’m so sorry. I know how much you wanted that job. Does this mean you’re giving up your photography?”

“Of course not,” Lucy said. “I’m just not working for Mr. Barnes.” God willing, one of the newspapers she wrote to would offer her a job.

“I’ll pray for you.” Monica frowned. “What you said about the wild man . . . How do you know so much about him?” Fortunately, the parent of a student waylaid Monica, allowing Lucy to make her escape without having to confess.

It took forever for the church to empty, and it was all Millard Weatherbee’s fault. Weatherbee was running for state senator, a daring enterprise given his young age and lack of experience, but not impossible. Former slave George Thompson Ruby was elected to the Texas senate at the age of twenty-eight. Apparently Millard thought if George could do it,
he
could do it too.

A compact man with a deep voice, Weatherbee’s clothes were almost as progressive as his politics. The only local to wear celluloid collars that required no starch, his shirts had been banned from Lee Wong’s Chinese laundry, even with the collars removed. Not only did the new collars melt when overheated, celluloid occasionally exploded. Anything that came in contact with Weatherbee’s collars was suspect in Wong’s eyes.

The candidate’s crisp black bow tie with its wide flat knot was every bit as perfect as his neatly trimmed mustache.

Pastor Wells shook the candidate’s hand. “I heard they’ve broken ground for Texas’s new capitol building.”

Weatherbee nodded. “Yes, and from what I hear, it’s going to be a beauty,” he said, adding in his well-modulated voice, “I hope I can count on your vote, Reverend Wells.”

Pastor Wells studied the earnest young man. “That depends.”

“Depends, sir?”

“How do you feel about the Texas Constitution regarding schools?”

Weatherbee looked perplexed. “Schools?”

“The Constitution states that we must provide separate schools for whites and colored,” Pastor Wells explained. “I don’t believe God wanted us to separate his children.”

Lucy knew this subject was close to the pastor’s heart, which explained why Rocky Creek had no official school.

“Ah. You must be referring to article seven, section seven,” Millard said, eager to make an impression. “Clearly that needs to be revisited, and if you vote for me, I will do everything in my power to see that it is.”

“What about the Chinese Exclusion Act?” Pastor Wells continued. The act prevented Lee Wong from fulfilling his dream of becoming an American citizen.

“That’s at the federal level,” Weatherbee replied with a nervous twitch, as if he feared his answer would cost him a vote.

Instead, Pastor Wells nodded in approval and shook Millard’s hand. “In that case, I hope you one day run for US Senate. Meanwhile, you can most assuredly count on my vote.”

Millard’s mother beamed with pride. Millard’s stepfather was a ne’er-do-well who couldn’t even support his own family. Ever since her husband vanished several weeks prior, Mrs. Weatherbee seemed even more determined that her son make something of himself and not follow in her husband’s footsteps.

No one knew what happened to her husband. He simply dropped out of sight. Some believed he simply grew tired of his wife’s nagging. Others thought he might have drowned. Either way, his wife seemed more relieved than concerned.

Mrs. Taylor made a rude sound. “You’d have my vote, too, if we women were treated like normal citizens.” She sniffed in contempt. “Women didn’t even merit a mention in the Constitution.”

Miss Hogg drew herself up to her full height and her voice rose accordingly. “I heard some people say that we women were lumped with idiots, lunatics, paupers, and felons.”

Mrs. Taylor’s face grew such a horrible shade of red Lucy feared for her well-being. “All this talk about democracy makes no sense when half of us are denied the vote. It’s time for us lunatics and idiots to rise up and show them we mean business.”

“I agree,” Lucy said and, in fact, she did. At the moment, however, all she wanted was for everyone to leave.

“Hear, hear,” added Miss Hogg, making a pumping motion with her right arm.

Millard’s mother, quick to see the benefit that women’s votes would give her son, clapped her hands in approval. Today, she looked alert and nothing like the woman Lucy often saw muttering to herself and staring at her with blank eyes.

Mrs. Taylor looked pleased. “I’ll contact Mrs. Folsom and tell her we wish to join her movement.” Erminia Folsom, the wife of a Unitarian minister, had attempted to organize the women’s rights movement in Texas. So far, she’d met with little success. “We’ll change the name of our quilting group to the Rocky Creek Suffra-Quilters.” Her proclamation was met with nods of approval.

Caleb poked his head through the open doorway and motioned for Lucy to hurry. “Papa’s waiting,” he called.

“I’m coming,” she said, though she stayed where she was until everyone had left the church. She had no intention of letting anyone discover Wolf’s presence.

Fourteen

A camera cannot turn back the clock. It will not reveal how you
looked ten years prior no matter how much you beg, cajole, or try to
bribe the photographer.

– M
ISS
G
ERTRUDE
H
ASSLEBRINK, 1878

L
ater that afternoon, Lucy waited for her father to settle down for his usual Sunday nap before returning to the church with fresh bandages and hot soup.

She entered the anteroom and set her basket on the floor. Wolf lay still, his eyes shut. She kneeled by his side and laid her hand on his forehead. He was cool to the touch, his skin no longer ashen. She drew back and studied his face. So why wasn’t he awake?

“Listen to me, Mr. Wolf. I promised you no doctor but something isn’t right. Your fever’s gone and your color looks normal. If you don’t open your eyes, I’m going to have to send Caleb to fetch Doc Myers.” She reached in her basket for the flask of hot soup. “I should have fetched the doctor before now. But no, I had to listen to you, a man half out of his wits and . . .”

“I swear you could talk a dead man out of his grave.”

Startled by his voice, Lucy dropped the flask and swung around. “You’re awake.” She almost fainted in relief. Never could she imagine seeing a more welcome sight.
Oh, thank you
,
thank you, God
.

Wolf peered at her with one eye. “A man would have to be deaf to sleep around here.” He sat up slowly and leaned his back against the wall.

Her gaze drifted down his powerful bare chest all the way to the blanket at his waist and her cheeks flared with warmth. She turned her back to him and righted the flask.

“Where are my clothes?” he asked.

She dug into her picnic basket for the tin cup. “Your trousers were covered in blood and I was unable to remove the stain.” She nodded toward his laundered shirt, which was folded neatly on a shelf, next to his knife. “I’ll ask Caleb if you can borrow a pair of his trousers.”

“Caleb?”

“My brother. He wants to be a doctor. He took care of your leg.” She met his gaze and her heart turned over. Even his whiskered chin failed to take away from his good looks. “I brought you hot soup.”

He grimaced as if in pain. “Smells good.”