The Whippoorwill Trilogy

by Sharon Sala

  “Oh yeah, right. I was comin’ to see if you wanted to go get some dinner downstairs in the dining room.”

  Letty patted her hair and then pinched her cheeks.

  “Well yes, that would be fine. Thank you for asking Brother Howe.”

  Eulis sighed. So all of a sudden he was Brother Howe again. “Do you want me to wait outside for a bit or—”

  “No, I’m ready,” Letty said. “And now that I think of it, I am hungry.”

  “So, fine. Let’s go eat.”

  Letty walked to the door and then stopped. Eulis was right behind her and had to do a fancy side-step to keep from running into her. When she didn’t move, he walked around in front of her and stared.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Letty arched her eyebrows so high they disappeared beneath the bangs she’d taken to wearing.

  “Why, nothing is wrong, I’m sure, except that your manners are sadly lacking, Brother Howe.”

  Eulis’s shoulders slumped. “Dang it, Letty…”

  She frowned.

  He stifled a curse. “Excuse me… dang it, Sister Leticia, how am I ever gonna learn the right way to do things if you keep making me guess what they are. Just spit it out. You’ll feel better to get it off your chest and I’ll do whatever it is you want me to do that much faster.”

  Letty was debating with herself as to chastising him for mentioning her “chest” when Eulis got in her face.

  “Sister Leticia, are we going to eat or not?”

  Letty pointed to the door.

  “A gentleman always opens a door for a lady.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  Letty grabbed the door and yanked it open, then let it go shut in Eulis’s face.

  Eulis groaned. He’d done it again. Dang it, she was just going to have to give him a little more time to get used to their new identities. After all, she’d been a whore a whole lot longer than she’d been Sister Leticia.

  He opened the door and hurried out, running to keep up with the pissed off woman stomping down the stairs.

  It was nearing sundown when Mary Farmer walked out of the dry goods store and out onto the sidewalk. Since Plum Creek had no church, they’d decided to hold the wedding at the dog trot between the hotel and the telegraph office. There was a roof over the alley which would serve as a fine shelter in case of rain, and there was room out in the street where the ceremony could be viewed.

  And viewed it was bound to be. The news of the burly blacksmith getting wed to the Farmers’ oldest daughter was something of a shock. No one had any notion that they’d been seeing each other, and gossip had been rampant until they’d learned of Dooley’s heroism earlier in the day.

  By the time the traveling preacher arrived to perform the ceremony, the gossip had turned into fact and Mary Farmer had fallen immediately in love with the man who’d saved her life. Women thought it a fine and romantic reason for the wedding, while the men were somewhat doubtful that it had happened that way. However, it was hard to deny the lovesick look on Dooley’s face, or the smile on Mary Farmer’s as she and her family came hurrying down the sidewalk.

  Her mother’s wedding dress was a tiny bit too long, but Mary held it up as she walked, and she had reason to want to hasten this wedding along. She wasn’t certain until she saw Dooley waiting beneath the dog trot that it was really going to happen. Then she saw Sister Leticia, and a man in a dark suit she took to be the preacher, and knew it was going to be all right.

  Dooley didn’t know until he saw Mary’s face that he’d been holding his breath. He exhaled slowly and stepped forward, and tucked Mary’s hand in the crook of his elbow.

  He wanted to tell her she was beautiful. He wanted to say how blessed a man he believed himself to be. But he couldn’t speak past the lump in his throat.

  Mary’s eyes widened with appreciation. Well, well, Dooley Pilchard was a man who cleaned up just fine. His hair and beard had been trimmed neatly since she’d seen him last, and the new clothes he was wearing, while tight across his shoulders, fit the rest of him just fine. She decided he was a prime figure of a man.

  Eulis patted his pocket to make sure he still had the ring Dooley had given him.

  “Are we ready?” he asked.

  Mary nodded.

  Dooley looked at Mary. “Yes, preacher, we’re ready.”

  Eulis gazed out at the large crowd assembled in the street behind the young couple, and was considering tossing in a little sermon for free when Letty started hissing. Knowing that always meant he was messing something up, he took out his book of sermons and turned to the page marked weddings.

  “We are gathered here today to join these two people in holy bliss.”

  More hissing meant he’d said something wrong.

  “Uh… wedded matrimony.”

  The hissing got louder. He turned abruptly and gave Letty a silencing stare that sucked the next hiss back down her throat. She hacked a bit and then delicately lifted a handkerchief to her lips and coughed once more before silencing.

  Eulis turned back to the couple and took out a note on which he’d written their proper names and laid it between the open pages of his book.

  “So… Mary Faith Farmer, do you take this man, whether he’s sick or well, to be your husband until you die?”

  Mary’s heart fluttered once and then she remembered the man who’d been hanged and took a deep breath.

  “I do.”

  Eulis nodded with satisfaction. Halfway through the ceremony and he was still doing fine. He turned to Dooley.

  “And do you, Dooley John Pilchard—”

  Letty interrupted the recital with a hack that startled everyone. He turned, afraid she was choking only to hear her muttering something about a ring.

  “Oh. Oh yes, I almost forgot.” He took the ring from his pocket and handed it to Dooley.

  “Here you go, young man. Now put this on her finger and listen.”

  Letty sighed. Eulis was never going to get this stuff right.

  Eulis continued. “Do you, Dooley Pilchard, take this woman to be your wife, even in the hard times and the sick times, to be your wife until she dies?”

  Dooley’s throat tightened with emotion as he felt his Mary’s fingers clutching at his hand. Poor little lamb. She was still afraid he’d change his mind and she’d be found out.

  “I sure do,” Dooley said, and put the ring on her finger. It had been his mother’s, who’d been a sight bigger woman than Mary and it was a bit large on her finger, but Mary kept it in place, which seemed to him, a good sign.

  Eulis knew the rest of this ceremony by heart.

  “Then by my powers and God’s blessings, I announce you man and wife. Give her a kiss Dooley. She’s yours.”

  It wasn’t exactly the words they’d expected, but the citizens of Plum Creek knew that it took when Dooley Pilchard lifted Mary into his arms and kissed her soundly.

  “Well now,” Dooley said softly, as he put Mary back on her feet.

  Mary’s lips were still tingling, partly from his dark wiry beard, and partly from shock. There was a lot more fire in this man than she’d expected.

  “Thank you, husband,” she said softly.

  He smiled and squeezed her fingers. “I’m the one who should be thankful.”

  Then he turned to the crowd.

  “Cake and punch in the hotel dining room.”

  A cheer went up. It was done.

  Letty was breathing a small sigh of relief as the crowd began to disperse. Most of them drifted toward the hotel, while a few moved to their buggies and buckboards to go home.

  Eulis was shaking hands with people who’d made up the congregation while Letty began gathering up Eulis’s bible and book of sermons.

  “Ma’am?”

  She looked up and then stifled a groan. It was that damned cowboy Willy, or Billy, or whatever his name.

  She clutched the books close to her breast and stepped backward as if his mere presence was a personal affront.

  �
�Sir?”

  He frowned and moved forward. “It’s sure something,” he muttered.

  Letty frowned.

  “You shore do look like this woman I knew.”

  “Indeed?” Letty said.

  He nodded and moved another step forward.

  “Sir, you are getting far too close for good manners. I must ask you to step back.”

  The cowboy frowned. “But you shore don’t talk like her.”

  “Then that must mean I’m someone else, don’t you agree?”

  He thought about it for a minute and then nodded.

  “Yes, ma’am, I reckon that’s so.”

  “Then if you’ll excuse me?”

  It took him a bit to realize he’d just been dismissed.

  “Oh. Yeah. Uh… nice wedding and all.”

  Letty gave what she hoped was a disapproving sniff and sailed past him with her head high, and her lips clamped tightly in a small, angry pucker. She grabbed Eulis’s arm and none too gently pulled him out from the crowd.

  “That cowboy is back. We need to go.”

  Eulis sighed. “You’re gonna have to quit botherin’ me when I’m workin’.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Letty snapped.

  “When you weren’t hissing like a pissed-off snake, you sounded like you was comin’ down with the ague. I can’t keep my mind on my business with you doin’ all that.”

  “I was just trying to warn you that you were saying it wrong… again,” she added, and gave his wrist a yank. “Hurry up. I can feel that cowboy’s eyes on the back of my head.”

  “It ain’t my fault that most of your acquaintances knew you better without your clothes.”

  Letty frowned. She wouldn’t let Eulis know that his words had hurt.

  “Shut up, Eulis. Just for once, why don’t you shut up?”

  “I’m sorry, but you must have me confused with someone else. The name is Reverend… Reverend Randall Ward Howe.”

  Letty dumped the books into his arms and stomped off to the hotel.

  Eulis grinned.

  It wasn’t often that he got in the last word with Sister Leticia, but it always felt good when he did.

  Get Thee Behind Me Satan

  Thanks to Orville Smithson’s rigid, straight-laced beliefs, his daughter Fannie was withering on the vine. Fannie was nearing twenty-five years old and people were beginning to label her an old maid. Never a woman to lay claim to great beauty, her bargaining power as a marriage candidate for Harley Charles, the last decent single man in Dripping Springs, was waning by the day. Her attraction for him had been her strong back and wide hips, the same physical attributes he looked for in his breeding mares. Fannie wasn’t kidding herself that Harley was smitten by whatever charms she could lay claim to. She was all too aware that he’d been willing to overlook her rather homely features because of the fine dowry her father was offering.

  Harley had finally proposed almost a year ago and the wedding had been set. Four weeks before the ceremony, the preacher had suffered a heart attack during a rather virulent tirade from the pulpit and died in front of the entire congregation. While Fannie was sorry for the preacher’s demise, she was even sorrier for herself. No preacher meant she was not going to become Mrs. Harley Charles, anytime soon. What was worse, she was hearing rumors that Harley was seeing one of those women down at Griggs Saloon. Even though she didn’t really hold him accountable for succumbing to his manly needs, she feared that the longer he had to wait for her, the less likely he might want to become her husband.

  The pressure of it all had finally boiled over last night during a fit of pique with her father. She’d told him that if he didn’t find a preacher to marry them before the month was out, that she wasn’t going to marry anyone at all. Ever.

  The ultimatum had been a low blow and she knew it.

  For several months now, her father, Orville, had been courting Henrietta Lewis, a local widow, and Fannie suspected he’d been counting on her moving out to clear the way for a new wife. Since her mother’s death, Fannie had been the ‘lady of the house’ and Orville was wily enough in the ways of women to know that he couldn’t bring a second wife into his house, and unseat his daughter’s place, without a whole lot of friction.

  Now, Fannie sat silently at the breakfast table, watching her father sop up the remaining sorghum molasses in his plate with the last of the biscuits. He had a way of eating that she absolutely abhorred, yet as the daughter of the house, knew it was not her place to correct her father’s table manners. Still, as she watched him push two halves of a biscuit through a well of dark cane sorghum, then slap them together before stuffing them into his mouth, she couldn’t help but wonder if Mrs. Lewis had ever seen him eat.

  His silence regarding her complaints was getting on her nerves. She wanted answers. She wanted action. She wanted out of this house before what was left of her dried up and blew away.

  “Father.”

  “Whttt?”

  Fannie sighed, ignoring the fact that he was talking with his mouthful.

  “I am going to do some shopping this morning. Is there anything you need that I should add to the list?”

  “Shvvvvng ssop.”

  Fannie frowned. “I’ll add shaving soap to the list. Should I expect you home for the noon meal?”

  “Hmm ummp.”

  “Dining with Mrs. Lewis, then, are you?”

  Orville blushed and then nodded. It didn’t seem right that his daughter be discussing his relationship with Henrietta, especially since Henrietta had started letting him feel her breasts. Of course, Fannie didn’t know he was doing it, but it still seemed awkward. He pushed his chair back from the table and stood abruptly, taking one last swallow of his coffee to wash down the biscuit and sorghum.

  “Father.”

  Still bothered by Henrietta’s breasts, and Fannie’s curiosity in the same thought, he was more abrupt than usual.

  “What?”

  “Are you going to the shop now?”

  As barber and sometimes dentist, Orville was never at a loss for customers, and hated to keep them waiting. He glanced at his pocket watch before dropping it back in his pocket.

  “Yes. What did you want? It’s almost seven o’clock and if I don’t hurry, I’ll be late.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  He frowned. “If you’re bringing up the issue of finding a preacher again, then I simply don’t have the time.”

  “No, I wasn’t talking about me.”

  “Then what?” Orville muttered.

  She pointed. “You have molasses in your mustache.”

  Fannie hid a grin as her father yanked out a handkerchief, then hurried to a mirror. Good. He was not only bothered, but embarrassed, as it should be. That hanging judge who’d come through Dripping Springs in March had been willing to marry them then, but Orville had deemed it unseemly that the ceremony be performed by a man who’s job it was to sentence criminals to hang. It was his fault that she and Harley were still living apart.

  Even though Harley was still holding up his end of the bargain by coming to Sunday dinner every week like clockwork, and calling on Fannie every Wednesday night to play whist, she didn’t feel as if his heart was in it. Personally, Fannie didn’t like whist. She thought it a bit boring and much preferred poker, but was not allowed to play a game of chance.

  “I’ll see you tonight,” Orville mumbled, and started out the door.

  “Father, wait,” Fannie called.

  Now Orville was thoroughly pissed.

  “What it is now?”

  Fannie held out her hand. “I’ll be needing some money.”

  Orville muttered beneath his breath as he dug into his pocket, pulled out a handful of coins and dropped them onto the table, ignoring Fannie’s outstretched hand.

  “If you need more, just charge it,” he said, and slammed the door behind him as he left.

  His rudeness was, for Fannie, the last straw. If she had been born a son ins
tead of a daughter, he wouldn’t be treating her this way. Even Harley Charles was casual about her feelings, assuming that her opinion, if she dared to have one, was not worth consideration. Orville wanted her out of the house but wasn’t willing to go out of his way to help make it happen, and Harley cared so little about her that he was making no attempt to hide his indiscretions with the women at the saloon. These were supposed to be the two most important men in her life and neither one of them cared a flip about her feelings.

  She got up from the table and began carrying the dirty dishes to the dish pan, when she suddenly stopped. She looked down at the cups in her hand, then back at the table with the sorghum smears and biscuit crumbs and put them back where they’d been. Her father didn’t seem to think what she wanted was important. She wondered what he’d think when he came home for supper and found breakfast dishes still on the table and nothing cooking for the evening meal.

  “That’s what’s wrong,” she muttered, as she tucked the wayward strands of her hair back into the tidy bun at the back of her neck, and scooped the coins her father had given her from the table and dropped them into her pocket.

  She might not be pretty, but she wasn’t dumb. She had a skill that she was willing to match against any man in Dripping Springs, but putting it into action was going to take a lot of nerve—maybe more than she had. However, if she didn’t try something, she was going to hate herself for the rest of her miserable, lonely life.

  Her heart was pounding as she headed for town. Mrs. Patton, the gunsmith’s wife, waved at her from the back yard where she was hanging a load of laundry on the clothes line.

  “Good morning, Fannie,” Mrs. Patton called. “Going shopping?”

  “No, ma’am,” she answered, and kept walking forward, even though her heart was starting to pound and her hands had begun to sweat.

  She turned the corner and stepped up onto the sidewalk with purpose, hesitating briefly as she glanced across the street to Grigg’s Saloon. There were a half-dozen horses tied to the hitching rail in front, and a couple of teams pulling wagons in front of Mercer’s Mercantile. She recognized Muriel Foster’s husband, Richard, who was carrying a fifty-pound sack of flour on his shoulder to the wagon. Two of the Foster children were playing with a puppy in the back of the wagon. Their laughter and the puppy’s playful yips drifted across the distance, warming Fannie’s heart.