by Linda Ellen
“A man needs to take care of his family,” Dwight insisted. “That’s what Papa would have done. He wouldn’t have stood still for someone making threats to his daughter—”
“But Harold didn’t make threats to me,” Pauline reminded him. “Thankfully, Livvy got there before he could say anything threatening.”
“That’s beside the point,” Dwight grunted. “What do you think he’s going to do when he sees you again?”
Pauline grimaced and exchanged looks with her mother. “I’m hoping to avoid that for as long as possible.”
With a shiver, Pauline once again allowed the events of two nights before to run through her mind. After accidentally overhearing the men’s conversation, she had been more than a little unnerved at what Harold Barrow might do, since it was blatantly obvious to him, she had indeed heard at least part of his scheme. Thankfully, before he could do anything other than move menacingly closer, her sister had come sailing around the corner and spotted them.
“Oh, there you are!” Livvy had gushed, hurrying to Pauline’s side as she tied the strings of her cape over her maid’s uniform. Blissfully oblivious to the tension between her sister and Mr. Barrow, she added jokingly, “You were so late I thought you weren’t coming.”
Pauline, feeling as if she had just dodged a bullet, had focused gratefully on her sister and cheerfully answered, “Of course I was coming. You know Mama doesn’t want you walking the streets alone after dark. Matter of fact, DJ’s waiting outside with his hansom, and if I know him, our dear brother is getting impatient, so we’d better get out there.”
Taking her sister by the hand, she had turned her head partially toward Barrow without meeting his gaze again, murmuring, “Goodnight, Mr. Barrow. I’m sorry I can’t stay to chat, but I need to see my sister safely home.” Then, before he could utter a reply, she began tugging Livvy down the hall, causing her sister to nearly trip over her skirts.
After a few moments of practically running to keep up with her taller sister, Livvy had sputtered, “Slow down, will you Pebs? I’ve been on my feet all day while you were sitting in a plush chair reading aloud from a good book.”
“Come on, just hurry,” Pauline had muttered, daring to glance back down the long hall, only to see Barrow watching their progress. He hadn’t moved, and his countenance showed he was not at all in a good mood.
“Why?” her sister had whined, but Pauline had shushed her until they were inside the cab and were well on their way.
Then, she had turned to her exasperated sibling and blurted through clenched teeth, “Because I just overheard the man who has asked for my hand admit that he is a swindler, has recently beaten up a person who recognized him, and worse—is planning on swindling Mr. Simmons!”
The door at the top of the cab had slid open and their brother had asked, “What’s that you two are talking about?”
“Nothing…just gossip,” Pauline had replied, tossing a false smile up at him while finding her sister’s hand within the folds of their skirts and pressing it firmly to keep her from alerting their overprotective brother. Thankfully, he had believed her fib and they had continued on to the house.
However, once they had arrived, there had been no stopping the questions flying out of Livvy’s mouth.
Since then, the family had done little else than rehash the situation.
“I think you need to tell Mr. Simmons what you heard, right away, before he has the misfortune to give that man any money,” Livvy insisted. “If you don’t, the authorities might be able to accuse you of…what do they call it…aid and assist and so on?”
“My my, Olivia, did you glean that from one of those New York Detective dime novels you love so much?” Pearl teased with a soft chuckle as DJ laughed out loud, dodging Livvy’s half-hearted swat aimed at his head.
Pauline warmly watched the antics of her family, glad to see the first bit of sparkle she hadn’t seen for many months in her mother’s lovely blue eyes. Her mother still retained a good portion of her beauty, her brown hair only just starting to show a tiny smattering of gray, her face for the most part, unlined. Her eyes always seem to look tired, however, and Pauline knew it was probably because Pearl, still grieving over the unexpected loss of her husband, didn’t get much sleep. Pauline felt a huge rush of love for her mother at that moment.
“Oh now hush, I’m serious,” Livvy began, pausing to worry her lip with her teeth before raising a finger as if checking the direction of the breeze. “Unless…” she paused, looking from one to another. “Perhaps Mr. Fetterman would be able to help somehow. I mean…he and Mr. Simmons are great friends, right? After all, he’s the one who arranged for you to get the tutoring job, Pebs…”
Pauline turned to meet her mother’s thoughtful expression as the others exchanged encouraging nods. Sitting back, Pearl lifted her hand to touch her cheek with her fingers, a habit she had when she was considering a difficult situation.
Mr. and Mrs. Fetterman had been her mother’s employers since she had been forced to leave behind her household duties in order to help support the family after the accident. Having never worked outside the home, the only thing she knew was housekeeping, so she took a position with a wealthy couple who had eight children—the youngest being triplets.
“That’s a good idea, Livvy. I’ll talk to Mrs. Fetterman about it first and see what she thinks.”
Dwight emitted a snort. “If you can get a word in edgewise, you mean?”
Everyone laughed at that as Pearl chuckled, “She means well, she’s just excitable. The more excited she is about a subject, the more words just sort of…spray out…kind of like a firehose.”
With Elvira Fetterman, it was, indeed, often hard to contribute to a conversation. The woman did like to talk.
Toby stood looking down at the smoothed dirt of a recent grave in Brownville’s Walnut Grove Cemetery. A simple marker at the head merely stated, Alfred Shoup, 1833 to 1883. He wondered if he should feel something…but all he felt was a kind of numbness in the region of his heart.
On either side of Toby stood his sisters, Shirley and Bridget. Shirley, now twenty-three, lovely, dark haired and blue eyed like their mother, was married to a widower, twelve years her senior, who had been the family’s neighbor when they’d had their farm on the outskirts of town. Bridget, at twenty, resembled Toby and their father—fiery haired, blue-eyed, and freckled.
Now adults and along with their eldest, Poppy, the four had always been close. Toby hadn’t realized how much he had missed his family until he had walked through his mother’s kitchen door two days earlier and the gang had descended upon him with a flurry of hugs, tears, and kisses. Of those gathered, the group included the two youngest siblings, Sherry Ann and Tad, who had been more than thrilled with the gifts he had dug out of his bag for them. For Sherry he had chosen a book he thought she would enjoy—a brand new best seller, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. For Tad, he had brought a replica deputy’s badge and vest to pin it on. The boy had practically squealed in delight. For his sisters and his mother, he had brought hair combs and beaded reticules that Poppy had picked out for them.
Since he had arrived home, Toby had patiently fielded innumerable questions about his life in Champaign and he had only half listened to the gossip and rumors regarding nearly every person in town—those he knew and some he had yet to meet.
One fond subject was the playful competition between the Maynard brothers—specifically regarding which one would end up with the most progeny. At last count they were neck and neck. Finn—who owned the barbershop that he had fashioned out of the building that had once been the Lone Tree Saloon—and his wife Charise, had sired four boys while his brother, Sam, who ran one of the two sawmills in town, and his wife, Beth Ann, had produced four girls. Each Maynard wife was in the family way again and the townspeople at large were taking bets that they wouldn’t get their wishes—that being the opposite sex from the rest of their respective broods.
Although Toby knew and adored C
harise, he had left town just before Beth Ann had arrived, so they had never met. He did know, however, that both of the ladies had come to town as proxy brides, and Charise had married Finn sight unseen. Beth Ann had, at least, been introduced to Sam before tying the knot, as he had traveled to the girls’ hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, to act as his brother’s proxy—after Finn had been injured as a result of negligence caused by none other than Toby himself.
Before those two, he’d never heard of marriages by proxy. Unusual, he mused, but it had obviously worked out well for them and the situation made great fodder for conversations around town.
The one thing, however, that Toby’s family hadn’t talked about was the reprobate who had made all of their lives miserable. That subject had remained for the most part, taboo—perhaps so that Toby’s homecoming would be a cheerful occasion not sullied by mention of the louse.
Now, the Keller siblings stood at the graveside of the skunk who had been a nemesis to them all, and each one harbored their own ill thoughts toward him.
“Why do you think he had been so…” Shirley interrupted the silence, pausing to decide on a good adjective to describe the departed.
“Loathsome?” Bridget supplied.
“Mean and low down?” Toby offered.
“Dastardly?” Bridget snorted.
“Hateful?” Toby chuckled.
Shirley chuckled along with them, adding, “I was going to say despicable, but yes, all of the above.”
After a few minutes of trading synonyms and snickering like adolescents, they quieted again. Shirley sighed and turned to look up, taking in Toby’s countenance. “I hated how he treated Mama, like she was addled in the brain or something. How he bullied all of us. But most of all, I hated what he’d done to you.”
Toby felt something in his chest swell at the emotion in her voice as he returned his sister’s loving perusal and gave her a soft smile. “Thanks, sis. I hated how he treated all of us…and I hated that I was too chicken to stand up to him,” he added with a large dose of humiliation and rancor.
Shirley immediately bristled at that and rounded on him. “You weren’t chicken, Toby. My goodness, when you left you were only sixteen and he’d been chipping away at you for five years. Nobody ever got the best of Al Shoup in an argument.”
Swallowing thickly, Toby mumbled, “How’d he die, anyway? Nobody’s supplied me with any details. All Mama said in the letter she sent to Poppy was, ‘Your stepfather is dead.’”
“He tried to break up a fight in his saloon and one of the combatants hit him upside the head with a spittoon. Knocked him out cold,” Shirley explained, shaking her head as Bridget added, “He never woke up. Died a week later. Doc Reeves said he probably had bleeding on the brain, but he’s not a surgeon and no way was he going to attempt an operation to try and fix something like that.” Toby squinted against the image their words brought on, and fought against the unchristian thought that the man had it coming and deserved what he’d gotten.
The three once again looked down at the smoothly packed soil. “There were lots of times I dreamed of doing something like that to him,” Toby mumbled after a while.
Shirley curled her hand around his bicep and squeezed. “Well, I’m glad you didn’t. They arrested Big Ned DeKok for murder the day after Al died. He’s sitting in the jail right now,” she jerked a thumb in the general direction. “Sheriff Plasters is waiting for a marshal to come and take him to stand trial in Lincoln. I’d hate it like the dickens if that were you and not him.”
Toby moved his shoulder in a slow shrug, mentally sloughing off the old memories and stuffing them back into the figurative trunk he had constructed years ago—and slammed the lid shut.
“Still…when I think of all the times I stood there shaking in my boots while he yelled at Ma or made you two or Poppy cry…” he confessed, pausing as the recollections of those occasions squeezed his heart. He felt his stomach react and his eyes flicked to Bridget’s. “It makes me feel sick with shame.”
Bridget grinned at him. “Well, you hadn’t been here in a while. Once I graduated from high school, I decided one day that I wasn’t going to let him make me feel worthless anymore. So, the next time he started in, I gave him what for right back in his face.” She took a breath and let out a laugh. “Mama about fainted, but you should have seen his expression when I did it. His mouth dropped open; his eyes bugged out. He didn’t know what to say. He drew back his hand like he was going to knock me one, but stopped. Then he just cursed at me and stomped out the door. After that he kind of gave me a wide berth. I was glad.”
“I’m glad he didn’t hit you,” Toby replied, slipping an arm around her shoulders. “And I’m sorry I never came back. Never came and took you to live with us in Champaign. All of you,” he added, including Shirley in the declaration.
“Mama wouldn’t have gone,” Shirley stated flatly. “Even though she couldn’t abide the man, she told me that as long as he didn’t slap her around, she figured she was better off than some. At least he didn’t stop her from going to church, and the quilting circle, and other things. She was able to have somewhat of a life when she wasn’t in the same room with him.” She looked at Toby and Bridget and then took in a sharp breath. “I’m not sorry he’s dead. I know that sounds wicked and I’ve asked God to forgive me, but I’m not. I do wish, though, that he would have got right with God before he died. More than likely, he didn’t, and for that I am sorry.”
“Now, at least, Mama can breathe easy and maybe start over. Maybe find peace again. Please, God,” Toby murmured.
The siblings nodded in unison and stood together, arms wrapped around one another, as they lifted their eyes to the setting sun, allowing God’s beauty to infuse their souls with a little of the Balm of Gilead.
“Amen,” they whispered together.
Ten minutes later, they turned and began walking out of the cemetery and back through town to the Shoup cottage. The girls pointed out new businesses and the two new streets that had been added to the town since he had been away. As they walked along, the sisters introduced Toby to townspeople who were recent additions to Brownville’s population. All were friendly, and it warmed Toby’s heart that folks in his home town were so welcoming. Champaign, five times larger in size and population, meant you were more likely to encounter a stranger on the street than a friend.
“So, what are your plans, Toby?” Shirley asked what everyone in the family had danced around since Toby had walked through the door.
He smiled at her. “Don’t know for sure.” Reaching up to push his hat back and scratch his forehead, he went on, “Grandpa gave me time off—for good behavior, he joked. Said to go visit Ma and the family for a while. Part of me wants to just climb on the train and go back to my life in Champaign. I’m good at what I do. I’m respected. Got friends and a comfortable room at Grandpa’s house. But yet…part of me wants to stay here—to do what, I’m not sure. Gotta make a living somehow. ‘Sides,” he added, his mouth lifting in a half grin. “I love working with Grandpa, even if he is hard as nails sometimes. He’s hard, but he’s fair. And I know he loves me. Loves Poppy, and all of the cousins, too—Aunt Josey and Uncle Spencer both have large families,” he mused, picturing their mother’s siblings. “We’re the only ones who see that side of him, though. It wouldn’t do for criminals to know he’s got a soft underbelly,” he added with a snort.
“Can you really outdraw him now?” Bridget asked, gesturing to the pearl handled Smith & Wesson .44 revolver Toby wore everywhere he went. He’d even joked to his sisters that he felt almost undressed without it. The first day he’d been home, the family had coaxed him into a show of his twirling prowess and quick draw skills. “All of Brownville knows about that,” she confided. “Matter of fact, it made Al madder than a wet hen to hear people talk about you.”
Toby inclined his head. “Well, Grandpa always says don’t boast on yourself, but let others do it. But yeah, I’m pretty fast. He’s still fast, too, though. I’
d hate to have to bet on the difference. Last time we went up against each other with empty bottles at a hundred yards, it was dead even. And I wouldn’t want to come up against him in a fight, I’ll tell you that. I’ve watched him outdraw four gunslingers at one time and only come out of it with a flesh wound on his arm. He didn’t even feel it. Some call him the Wyatt Earp of Champaign,” he added, chuckling.
“So, if you decide not to go back…what would you like to do with your life, Toby?” Shirley asked, leveling him with a piercing look.
That’s the question. Should I even say my dream out loud? Will they think I’m crazy?
Pausing on the sidewalk outside of Finn Maynard’s barbershop, he turned and met both of his sisters’ questioning gazes. “If I could do anything I wanted with my life…I’d become a lawyer. But it costs a lot of money to go to college for that. Grandpa says I took to the law like a duck to water. But, I don’t know…”
Both of his sisters were eyeing him in fascination, so he let out a self-deprecating snort. “Fancy that. Me, a big-time lawyer wearin’ a three-piece suit.”
“Reverend McKnight would say pray for a financial miracle and leave it to the Lord to give you the desires of your heart,” Shirley stated. “Nothing’s impossible with God.”
“That’s true,” he admitted, realizing he had never actually prayed about the subject. It was more a silent dream in the back of his mind. “Ahh, but most likely I’m just here for a long visit. One day I’ll probably just climb back on that train and head back home to my real life.”
Two young women passed the siblings just then, skirts swishing and eyes bright with interest. Toby tipped his hat politely and the girls acknowledged them.
As the five crossed paths in separate directions, Toby looked back over his shoulder and caught the two young ladies coquettishly looking back at him over theirs.
He cleared his throat and gave his sisters an amused glimmer over his grin.
