Texas Brides Collection (34 page)

Jenny laughed. “I’ll be at Rachel’s house sewing baby clothes. I’ll meet you at the cemetery.” She chirruped to the horses and they trotted away.

Charles watched until the buggy rounded the bend. Caleb nudged him. “She’s not going to get lost, Mr. Moss.”

He gulped. “I was admiring how well the horses are matched.”

Micah snickered. “One is a roan mare and the other gray.”

“Their steps are well matched, demonstrating excellent training.” Charles knew he sounded absurd. “Time for class.”

The Stovall Academy was the only coeducational school in the county. Charles taught the more advanced mathematical and science students—eight boys and three girls—first thing in the morning. He also took a turn at Greek and Latin—subjects he had learned during his two years at Fort Delaware. After lunch, he swapped classes with Professor Stovall and instructed younger students with simpler lessons.

Charles had enjoyed the last three months and got along well with the students, if not always his teaching colleague. Stovall was uncomfortable with unorthodox teaching methods, though he allowed Charles a free hand. He approved of Charles’s Christian behavior—his regular church attendance, and the fact he daily helped two widows and two orphans. All the same, Stovall liked rules, so Charles struggled to obey them.

He carried his books and lunch pail in one hand and stuck the other hand in his right front pocket to touch his old talisman. Whistling an off-key version of “Dixie,” he walked to his log cabin classroom where Stovall opened the door and followed him in.

The schoolroom smelled of pine already burning in the potbellied stove. Charles set down his books and hung his coat on the nearby peg. He picked up the school bell and wondered why Stovall waited by the door. “Sir?”

“You shouldn’t whistle. It sets a bad example for the boys. Uncouth behavior.”

“Sorry. Old habit.”

“I’ve noticed you frequently have your hand in your pocket. Is there a reason for that?” Light from the window glinted off Stovall’s wire-rimmed glasses.

“Am I breaking a rule?” Charles fought the urge to touch his pocket.

“I don’t know. Are you?”

A verse he wrestled with about obeying those in authority flitted through his mind. He pondered the professor’s character before answering. Could he trust Stovall with the truth? “I struggle with temptation. I carry a personal object to remind me I do not struggle alone. When the temptation rises, I touch the object and it helps me stay faithful.”

Stovall’s lips jutted out, and his eyebrows went up. “Very commendable. What is it?”

“It’s personal, sir.”

Stovall narrowed his eyes. “I’d still like to see it.”

“It was a gift from my father and private.”

Stovall stomped over and held out his hand. Charles sighed and dropped the two dotted cubes into the professor’s palm.

Stovall dropped his hands as if the dice were made of fire.

Charles noted he’d rolled two sixes.

“Why have you brought gambling devices to school?” the professor demanded.

“I never pull them out of my pocket. I carry them as a reminder not to gamble. Those dice were the last things my father gave me when I went to war. He was dead by the end. I told you. They’re personal.”

“We advertise our school as a place of good morals and high refinement. We specifically tell the parents we do not condone betting of any kind. You have defied our authority by bringing gambling tools to school.”

Charles had considered this argument when he accepted the job and more than once had resolved to leave the dice in his gear at home. But he needed to touch those cold dice when he felt the urge to bet come over him. Rather than encourage, the dice reminded him of what he never wanted to do again. He considered it a matter of personal pride he’d not gambled since the dreadful day Ben Peck died in Delaware.

“Have you nothing to say?”

“I’ve not gambled since November 12, 1863, more than four years ago. I don’t plan to gamble again. I can see why you might not believe me, but it’s true.”

“Young man, do you not know the first time you defy temptation, you have put your feet on the path to destruction? The Bible does not tell us to resist temptation, it tells us to flee temptation. As best I can see, you have kept yourself in a continual state of resisting temptation.”

“Which has strengthened my faith, since I haven’t sinned with the dice,” Charles said.

“Which has left you vulnerable to failing,” Stovall corrected. “I’m sorry. I like you and you’re a fine teacher, but the risk of moral failure is too high. I need to discuss your employment with the school board. Until then, you must not teach. You are suspended until you hear from us.”

Charles felt as if he’d been slapped. “Just like that? You can dismiss me without the school board’s permission?”

“You put us into a compromised situation. You cannot work until further notice. You should have thought of your students before you tried to resist temptation in this way. I will call upon the other two school board members, Colonel Hanks and Mr. Ezell. Good day.”

He opened the door. Charles put on his coat in slow motion and gathered up his possessions. As he exited, Caleb ran up. “What’s happening?”

“I’m not teaching today. I’ll meet you and Micah as planned. See you later.” Charles raised his collar and plodded down the road toward town. A crow cawed and flew ahead to land in a pine tree leaning over the road.

He stamped his feet in frustration as he walked. When he was guilty of gambling, he hadn’t been caught. When he struggled and fought the demon using his father’s dice as a touchstone, he hadn’t failed. But when some nosy old man who didn’t trust him accused him of something he hadn’t done, he lost his job.

Unfair.

“Wait, Mr. Moss, I’m coming with you!”

Charles shook his head. “Go back to school, Caleb. You’ll make my situation worse if you don’t return.”

“Go to Colonel Hanks. He’ll help you.”

“Good idea.” But was it? He wasn’t sure the colonel trusted him anymore after Ma Duncan stole the letter right out from under his nose. Still, Hanks was probably his only choice. Charles would seek him.

Unfortunately the colonel wasn’t anywhere to be found.

Charles spent the afternoon at the dry goods store reviewing his books and watching for the colonel out the window. He caught up with him as folks gathered for the memorial ceremony.

Hanks frowned as he listened to Charles’s story. “I wouldn’t have hired you to even survey with me if I’d known you carried dice. You don’t pack temptation around; you flee it. What else don’t I know that will affect my opinion of you?”

“Nothing, sir. I’ve told you the truth about everything else. I haven’t gambled since Ben Peck died.”

“You told Jenny about Ben yet?”

“No.”

The colonel stared at him. “I’ll think you a better man when you tell her what happened to her brother.”

Charles saw Jenny leaving Rachel Hill’s home with a basket over her arm. “Right now she’s looking for a trustworthy man to deliver her horses.”

“Have you been tempted to gamble since Ben’s death?”

Charles looked him in the eye. “Yes. But with Christ’s help I’ve overcome the temptation.”

“Throw the dice away, then I’ll know you’re serious. Jenny spoke to me earlier about needing a drover. Since you won’t have a job for a while, maybe you should volunteer.”

A laughing Jenny with red cheeks headed their way. Visiting her friend had done her good.

“I’m sure Professor Stovall destroyed the dice,” Charles said. “How soon do you think it’ll be before I can have my job back?”

Hanks shook his head. “I’ll talk with the other school board members, but I figure it’s probably a two- to three-week trip to Fort Griffin. I’d say you have time to ride there and back before you’re needed.”

The gray November sky loomed, and a thin breeze blew up. It would be a cold ride two hundred miles west through mostly empty land by himself, not to mention the return trip. He’d be doing business with bluecoats again, something he’d avoided since Fort Delaware.

“Would Tom Duncan have made that ride if he’d lived?” Charles muttered.

Hanks peered at him. “No. Sam Peck would have taken the ride for the good of his family. Why?”

Charles gave a curt nod. “I can do it for the Pecks.”

He hoped.

G
ambling?” Jenny felt as if ice water had been thrown in her face. “You lost your job because you were gambling?”

“Not gambling,” Charles said. “I carried dice my father gave me, and Professor Stovall suspended me until the school board can discuss my rules violation.”

Rage roiled in her gut, and she wanted to scream, send him away, kick a barn wall, and demand God explain, one more time, why the only men she loved were untrustworthy.

Well, Pa had been honorable, but he was dead and couldn’t protect her anymore. Ben and Asa had abandoned the family to war and never returned. Tom she couldn’t bear to think about. She could, however, deal with this living man, this schoolteacher who had weaseled his way too close to her heart, probably following Colonel Hanks’s orders.

She licked her lips and watched him through cat-slit eyes.

His jaw worked several times, but he faced her with his shoulders back.

The baby jabbed under her left ribs. Sal slunk up and leaned against Charles’s tall boot. Tom’s dog.

“I suppose you were part of Tom’s gambling den at Fort Delaware,” she hissed. “Is that how you knew him?”

“Yes.”

The simple word silenced all other sounds in the big barn and sliced into Jenny’s heart like a knife. She slumped onto the milking stool beside Blossom’s stall. “Did you really know Asa and Ben?”

“Yes.” Charles knelt on the barn floor beside her and spoke gently. “And I prayed with them before they died.”

She lifted her head, tears flooding her eyes. “What?”

Quietly, in a calm voice, he told of meeting the Anderson County soldiers not long after they’d been captured at Gettysburg. He remembered Asa’s cheerful grin, mirrored in Micah’s face, and described how the young man, only twenty at the time, had succumbed to dysentery in his brother’s arms.

“They weren’t in very good shape by the time they got to Fort Delaware,” Charles said. “Weakened from not eating well and fighting so hard. But Asa tried to see the positive side of things, and he asked us to take him to the prayer meetings every morning. I’d started to see war differently by then and went with him and Ben. We prayed together every day, and I carried him to the hospital.”

“Where he died on October 22, 1863,” Jenny whispered.

“Ben and I were there, and Reverend Paddock, the hospital chaplain, prayed over him. The Feds buried him in the Finn’s Point cemetery across the river.”

“Do you know where he’s buried?” Jenny grabbed his arm.

“Yes, ma’am. After I was paroled at the end of the war, I stopped at the cemetery and saw his marker. Ben’s, too.”

Jenny took away her hand and sat upright. “Ben drowned. How could he be buried somewhere? How could you have prayed with him before he died?”

Charles took a deep breath and grimaced. “Ben drowned trying to escape with another man. I prayed with him before he snuck away, to give him confidence. I saw his body the next morning when it washed up on shore.”

Jenny screamed and doubled over her belly. He put his arms around her. “I’m so sorry.”

She paid no attention, rocking with her sobs. Ben had been only seventeen. Smart, determined, and always looking for a way out. Of course he’d tried to escape, no matter how slim the chances of succeeding.

A grassy whuff over her shoulder made Jenny turn. Blossom’s brown eyes regarded her. Across the way three horses stood at their stall doors watching. She sniffed. “I guess I’m not alone.”

Charles released her and stood up. “You don’t have to be alone. Plenty of people care about you.”

She brushed the tears off her face. “Why didn’t you try to escape?”

“The odds weren’t very good, and I’m not a strong swimmer.”

“Strong swimmer? What does that have to do with it?”

“Fort Delaware is in the middle of the Delaware River. They escaped on a rainy night and tried to swim to the Delaware side. Their aim was to find the underground and return to Confederate lines. Ben was angry about Asa’s death.” Charles scratched Blossom’s forehead.

Odds? Slim chances? Dice? Jenny’s head spun. “If you prayed with him, why didn’t you talk him out of it?”

He closed his eyes as if in prayer, and Jenny’s voice rose. “He was a boy. You’re a man.”

“Ben was a proud warrior who had faced the guns of Little Round Top. Both of your brothers met their deaths as men.” The dog whined at his feet.

He wouldn’t meet her eyes now. Jenny stood. “What about Tom?”

Charles hesitated. “Why did you marry Tom? Did you honestly love him?”

“No,” Jenny said. “What was he doing?”

“Jenny, I…”

Horror filled her with an anger that knew no bounds. “What was he doing?”

“He was laying odds of whether or not Ben would survive the swim. Once the men ganged up on him, I don’t think Ben had a choice. I tried to intervene, but we were in a prison camp with brutal men.” Charles peered at the dark shadowy ceiling of the barn. “When I saw how it was going, I bet Ben would make it. He needed to believe someone thought him capable.”