by Deeanne Gist
He then held his hand out to Michael. ‘‘Henry Crocker of Minisink, New York.’’
‘‘Michael Van Buren of Elizabeth, New Jersey. Rachel? Mr. Crocker.’’
She lifted her brows. ‘‘Are you, sir, by any chance, working with the naturalist John Audubon?’’
A glorious smile broke wide across his face. ‘‘I’m working with his son, Woody.’’
She crinkled the handkerchief she still held in her hand. ‘‘Good heavens. Do you share his enthusiasm for flora and fauna?’’
‘‘I am but a student to his master, but yes. I have trunks full of painted specimens of the most fascinating nature that I stumbled upon during my crossing here from New York.’’
‘‘Oh. I would love to see them.’’
His eyes lit up. ‘‘It would be my honor to share them with you.’’
His gaze moved to something behind her, and he bowed.
She turned and sucked in her breath. There on the arm of Mr. Sumner stood her sister in an exquisite gown of silk so full from the crinoline beneath, it brushed both sides of the aisle. Her left finger remained glaringly ringless.
‘‘Good evening, Rachel,’’ Lissa said. ‘‘Your bonnet is a lovely accent for the green. Hello, Michael.’’
Michael leaned over and kissed her cheek yet cut her escort cold, allowing not even a flicker of acknowledgment to cross his face. Rachel had no notion what to do. She realized now that she had unwittingly become the before-show entertainment and paled.
Michael quickly grasped her elbow and lowered her into the seat Mr. Crocker had vacated.
Sumner moved past them and seated Lissa next to the Cyprians on the left. Immediately, the five women greeted one another as if long lost friends. The men in the rest of the room lowered themselves back into their chairs.
Rachel felt as if she had been sucked into a vacuum so deep and so dark never would she ascend. Closing her eyes, she tried to quell the nausea in her stomach. She dabbed her handkerchief along her hairline, then against her lips.
The distinctly feminine whispered exchanges from across the aisle assailed her ears, though she could not ascertain their actual words.
Something cold tickled her hand. She opened her eyes. Johnnie stood before her pressing a tin cup of cooled water against her fingers.
Greedily she took it in her grasp and sipped from it, allowing it to soothe her throat, her stomach, her hurt. She gave it back to him, conveying a very private thank-you with her eyes. One meant only for him.
He unobtrusively squeezed the fingers she held the cup with, then strode down the aisle and out of her view. She fixed her attention on the upright piano protruding at a right angle from the wall. A teacher’s desk had been shoved against the west wall and held three men atop it.
Mr. Massett, in a fine frock coat and dark wool trousers, entered with a flourish and introduced himself as a gentleman from New York City who now resided in a shack along the road leading to Washerman’s Lagoon.
Flipping his jacket tails behind him, he took a seat in front of the piano and performed many of his own ballads, applying gusto and drama to his melodious voice. The miners gestured, whistled, and stopped just short of firing their pistols in an uproarious show of approval.
For his recitations, Mr. Massett delighted the company with a comedic imitation of an elderly woman and a German girl applying for positions of soprano and alto singers in a Massachusetts church choir. His audience injected shouts and encouragement throughout.
The finale consisted of a full rendition of ‘‘Yankee Town Meeting,’’ in which Mr. Massett most effectively played all seven parts.
As the audience leapt to their feet for a resounding ovation, Rachel politely joined them. The evening should have been one of the highest points since her arrival, but the presence of her sister mere feet away aligning herself openly and publicly with used women obliterated any pleasure the evening had to offer.
She had spent every moment in prayer—beseeching, interceding, grieving. She could not wait to escape the suffocating sensation the closed-in room impressed upon her.
As soon as decently possible, she turned and scurried down the aisle and out the door, not pausing for even a moment to locate Michael. She all but ran across the Plaza and into the café .
As soon as she crossed the threshold and closed the door, she fell to her knees and covered her face with her hands, keening with deep anguished cries. She felt a quick breeze as the door opened, then quickly shut. The bolt clicked loudly into place.
Then Johnnie was there, holding her, rocking her. Did his intuitiveness have no bounds? How had he known that it had taken every bit of strength in her body to sit through that concert while seeing Lissa from the corner of her eye? Watching her laugh, sway to the music, even put two fingers in her mouth and whistle with the best of them?
Moaning, she pulled away from him and rose to her feet.
‘‘Are you all right?’’ he asked.
‘‘No. If you’ll excuse me?’’
‘‘Rachel.’’
‘‘Good night, Johnnie. And . . . thank you.’’
She left him standing in the dining room and strode straight to her room, as sure as a cicada nymph in its totally black underground chamber, for she had nary a light to guide her.
Falling onto her cot—bonnet, shoes, and all—she grabbed the ends of the coverlet and flipped it over her like a fruit tart, then curled into a ball and pleaded with the Lord to hear her cries, to intervene in Lissa’s life, and to destroy her enemy.
————
Rachel woke in the wee hours of the morning listening to the revelers outside her window. Oh, how she longed for just one night of normalcy. A night with sounds of crickets and frogs and nocturnal animals. A gentle breeze with the smell of fresh sweet corn on its wings. A garden in the back with tomatoes, snap beans, and cucumbers. An innocent and guileless sister whose worst sin was to curl up in the window seat reading Shakespeare by candlelight when she was supposed to be sleeping.
Sitting up, Rachel shuffled to the toilet table and retrieved her buttonhook. She allowed her shoes and clothing to drop to the floor in a heap, leaving them there while she slipped on her nightdress and crawled back into bed—this time underneath the covers.
She took out every action and reaction she’d had since arriving in California, trying to discover what she should have done differently. Where she went wrong. What she needed to do now to resolve the situation with Lissa.
‘‘Fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you. . . . The wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. . . . Let no one deceive you with empty words. . . . Do not be partakers with them. . . . Not to keep company with anyone who is sexually immoral . . . not even to eat with such a person.’’
Bits and pieces of Scripture pelted like rain, until together they formed a dense, murky puddle. Exhaustion tugged at her lids, promising relief from worry, release from guilt. And before she succumbed to its narcosis, the thought of what she must do came to her.
————
Rachel stared at the back of the ‘‘No Prostitutes’’ sign she had propped in the storefront window, then returned her attention to the couple who had inquired about work. They were cousins and had journeyed from Texas to a mining camp near Sacramento, where the woman’s husband had died of exposure.
They sipped their coffee, and Rachel, having made her decision, outlined her new employees’ duties. Frank was a tall, muscular man with a long face and long teeth. His eyes drooped—at the top, eyelids hid a third of his dull brown irises, while at the bottom they revealed nothing but the whites—giving him the impression of a sad hound dog. Rachel judged him to be in his late twenties.
The newly widowed cousin, Selma, was a shy girl with soft hazel eyes, light curly hair, and a solemn mouth.
Rachel set down her cup. ‘‘Well, then, when can you start?’’
Frank lifted his brows. ‘‘How does right now sound?�
��’
‘‘Marvelous.’’ She stood, escorted them to the kitchen, and put them to work.
Though Frank’s main chore would be to manage rowdy customers, in the meanwhile, he took care of toting, scrubbing, and chopping. Rachel concentrated on food preparation, and Selma proved to be extremely adept at the cooking. Michael did, more or less, whatever he was asked by whomever needed him most.
‘‘Hullo?’’
The call came from the front room. Rachel glanced at the others.
‘‘Would you like me to chase whoever it is out?’’ Michael asked.
‘‘No, I’ll take care it.’’ She wiped her hands on a damp towel, then moved to the dining area.
‘‘Mr. Crocker.’’
He stood just inside the door jacketless, hatless, and hopelessly stiff. His curly hair fell across his forehead in several different directions. A large flat leather satchel hung from his fist.
‘‘Come in, come in,’’ she said. ‘‘It’s so good of you to stop by.’’
His shoulders relaxed. ‘‘Am I interrupting? I was going to wait until you opened, but then I wanted to show you my paintings and thought you would be too busy to look at them during the meal.’’
‘‘Yes, you are quite right. And I would have been dreadfully disappointed. Those are your paintings?’’ She indicated his satchel with a nod of her head.
He hesitated. ‘‘How familiar are you with Audubon’s paintings?’’
‘‘Very.’’
‘‘Mine don’t compare.’’
She patted the table with her hand. ‘‘Show me.’’
He laid his portfolio down and opened it to reveal an intricate painting of two birds, one a deep, rich brown, the other a lighter version of the first.
‘‘Flycatchers,’’ he said. ‘‘This dark one is the male.’’
‘‘Oh look. It’s like they have whiskers. This is the female, then?’’
‘‘Yes. They have a habit of wagging their tails and singing: phé-be, phé-be, phé-be.’’
His soft, reedy rendition filled the room, the sound coating her with thoughts of trees and forests and home.
‘‘Do you know more bird calls?’’
‘‘Many.’’ He flipped the paper over, revealing beneath it an olive bird whose bright red eye zeroed in on a spider spinning its web.
She leaned close, squinting.
‘‘It’s a red-eyed vireo,’’ he said.
‘‘I was looking at the spider. It looks a bit like a black-and-yellow garden spider with those markings, but I can’t be certain.’’
At his silence, she looked up, then felt her face heat. His eyes had grown wide.
‘‘Excuse me,’’ she said. ‘‘Please continue.’’
‘‘How is it that you can identify a spider with one glance?’’
She twirled her hand round. ‘‘Oh, I’m sure I’m mistaken. It was just a guess.’’
‘‘On the contrary, you are quite right. Are you a naturalist?’’
‘‘Mercy, no. My penmanship is horrid. I’ve never even attempted to draw. I cannot imagine.’’ She tightened the bow at the back of her apron. ‘‘Besides, I’m not a bird watcher so much as an . . .’’
A smile played at his lips. ‘‘As an . . . ?’’
Oh heavens. She couldn’t very well say an insect watcher. ‘‘Nothing. Really. What’s next?’’
Thankfully, he was too polite to press her and showed her the rest of his paintings without incident.
‘‘They are beautiful,’’ she breathed. ‘‘And you are right, your style is a bit different from the Audubons’, but I wouldn’t say inferior. I would say yours are more vibrant.’’ She traced the edges of the paper. ‘‘More lively. Why, just look at these barn swallows. This one is practically squashing the other one.’’
His face turned a deep shade of red.
She suppressed a smile at his show of modesty. ‘‘Can you chirp the way they do?’’
‘‘Their calls vary depending on their purpose.’’
‘‘What would these two sound like?’’
He emitted a very satisfied sounding chirp.
‘‘Oh my. They must be pleased with themselves.’’
‘‘Yes, well.’’ He cleared his throat.
‘‘I confess, though,’’ she said, ‘‘I’ve never been too terribly fond of swallows.’’
‘‘No? Why is that?’’
‘‘Because they have to catch tens of thousands of insects to feed their young. Why, they can clean out a garden of its insects in a day’s time.’’
He folded his portfolio and tied it closed. ‘‘Most people appreciate that.’’
She shrugged. ‘‘Not me.’’
‘‘Well, then, that could only mean one thing.’’
‘‘And what would that be?’’
‘‘You are a watcher of insects?’’
She studied her fingernails, noticing the remnants of flour beneath them. ‘‘Do you think me silly?’’
‘‘I think you are most charming. So charming, in fact, I would like to know whom I must ask permission of to see you socially.’’
Oh dear. She hadn’t expected that. He was handsome, certainly, and interesting. But she, well, just wasn’t prepared for such a question.
‘‘I spoke too soon.’’
‘‘No, no,’’ she said. ‘‘I, well, I had to think a moment of the person with whom you must speak. My brother, I suppose. He is my closest male relative.’’
‘‘The one I met last night?’’
‘‘The same.’’
He bowed. ‘‘I will see to it, then.’’
‘‘Oh. I didn’t even offer you a single thing to eat or drink.’’
A grin spread across his face. ‘‘Then I suppose I’ll just have to come back again, won’t I?’’
She offered him her hand. ‘‘I suppose you will. Good day, Mr. Crocker.’’
He kissed her fingertips. ‘‘Miss Van Buren.’’
————
‘‘Henry Crocker came by and asked me if he could court Rachel.’’
Johnnie paused in the polishing of glassware he and Soda had washed. ‘‘What did you tell him?’’
Michael shrugged. ‘‘I said sure. I mean, why not?’’
‘‘Why not, indeed? Where is he taking her?’’
‘‘I don’t know, but she told me to pick up a bottle of whiskey for her.’’
‘‘A bottle of whiskey? For cooking purposes?’’
‘‘No. She has some kind of temper-thing that keeps her from cooking with any spirits.’’
‘‘Temperance.’’
‘‘That’s right.’’
‘‘Then does she need it for medicinal purposes?’’
‘‘No. She’s as healthy as a horse.’’
Johnnie grabbed the edge of the bar and leaned forward. ‘‘Then what does she need whiskey for?’’
‘‘I don’t know. Didn’t ask.’’
‘‘Don’t you think you should? As her brother?’’
Michael frowned. ‘‘Well, I don’t usually do the asking around there. I usually do the answering.’’
‘‘Does this whiskey have anything to do with Crocker?’’
Scrunching up his lips, Michael took his time in answering. ‘‘I don’t really know. He’s picking her up after dark tonight, and she told me she needed it today. But that doesn’t make any sense. Why would Crocker need Rachel to buy his whiskey for him? No, one probably has nothing to do with the other.’’
‘‘And just where does he think he’s taking her at such a late hour?’’
‘‘I don’t know. She didn’t say.’’
Johnnie threw down his rag. ‘‘Well, don’t you think you should find out?’’
‘‘What’s got you fired up all of a sudden? I’ve never asked you where you take her. So why would I ask Crocker?’’
‘‘Because Crocker has made his intentions clear.’’
‘‘Well, that’s a sight more
than you’ve done. Maybe you ought to make your intentions clear. Just what are they, anyway?’’
He stood stock still then pushed off the bar and started polishing again. Soda, he noted, had placed an unwarranted amount of attention onto his polishing.
‘‘I haven’t decided for certain,’’ he said finally.
‘‘Well, then, let Crocker have her. Seems like a nice enough chap to me. He goes to Sunday services, shaves, and is interested in all that nature stuff. That’s bound to be better for her than some saloon owner.’’
‘‘A virtual match made in heaven,’’ he growled.
‘‘Exactly.’’
‘‘They still require a chaperone. You need to go with them.’’
Michael wrinkled his nose. ‘‘Tonight? I don’t want to go tonight. Rachel gave me the day off. It’s the first one I’ve had free since we opened.’’
‘‘It’s your duty. As her closest relative.’’
‘‘Well, I’m not going. If you’re so worried about it, you go.’’
Johnnie carefully placed the glass on the shelf behind the bar, then picked up another one. ‘‘Are you asking me to be your representative?’’
‘‘Now, don’t start talking fancy. I’m not asking you anything. I’m just saying if you think it’s so important that her and Crocker have a chaperone, then you go right ahead and chaperone.’’
Johnnie plucked a bottle of whiskey from below the counter and handed it to Michael. ‘‘Don’t mind if I do.’’
Michael took the liquor and headed out the door.
‘‘That whiskey’s for your sister,’’ Johnnie shouted after him.
Michael gave him a half-hearted wave before the door closed behind him.
chapter 17
It had only been dark for about twenty minutes when Crocker arrived in front of her cafe with an open-top carriage. After jumping to the ground, he tapped on her door and was granted entry almost immediately.
Johnnie blew a stream of smoke from his cigar then sauntered over, stopping to stroke the muzzle of the horse harnessed to the hired conveyance.
He clamped his teeth around the cigar. The man had some nerve carting Rachel off after dark—alone—in a carriage. Just where were they going that they needed a carriage?
