Better Than Gold

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  Like Lily smelling snow.

  He smiled and reached for the doorknob to his quarters.

  The door was unlocked.

  “Lord, please let everything be all right.”

  Still clutching the lantern, he rushed through to the livery and inspected the horses and mule. They appeared quiet, even sleepy. The mule brayed in protest at being disturbed then turned to his hay. Assured the stock had not been harmed, Ben trudged to his own quarters, steps dragging, and held the light high.

  The bed had been heaved aside, the floorboard torn up.

  His savings were gone.

  Ten

  Pounding on the kitchen door dragged Lily awake. With haste, she flung on a dress, fumbled the buttons closed up the front, and stumbled to the door in her bare feet.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Lily, I’m sorry—”

  “Ben?” She yanked open the door. “What in the world?”

  “I’m so sorry to disturb you.”

  He avoided looking at her, and she realized her hair hung unbound down her back.

  “What’s wrong?” She stepped aside so he could enter the kitchen. “You look ghastly.”

  His face was white, his eyes dark hollows.

  “Did you leave this for me?” He thrust a towel-wrapped bundle into her arms.

  “Yes.”

  It was a loaf of bread.

  “Maybe I was prideful to want you to compare my bread to the Gilchrists’ hou—”

  “Was the door unlocked when you arrived?”

  She reeled under the impact of his harsh question. “Yes, it was. I couldn’t have gotten in if—”

  “What time was it?”

  “What is this about?” She handed the bundle back to him and then snatched a shawl off a hook by the door and wrapped it around her shoulders.

  “Please tell me.” He dropped the parcel on the table.

  The towel opened to reveal a crusty loaf of bread.

  Lily’s nostrils flared at the aroma.

  “About six o’clock. Ben, what is wrong?”

  He leaned on the table, breathing hard and staring at her. “The door was unlocked at six o’clock?”

  “Yes.” She grasped his arm. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I locked it when I left.” He bunched his hands into fists. “The last time, I thought I could have been mistaken, but my quarters—Lily.” His voice turned ragged. “They took all of my savings.”

  “Oh no! Oh, Ben.” She slid her hand down to curve over one of his. “I didn’t even notice the knob. The door was unlocked, but we don’t usually lock our doors here, so I didn’t think anything of it. I should have gone for the sheriff instead. I should have noticed something was wrong. I should have thought. But I just slipped in and dropped the bread on the table. I felt I was intruding anyway so I didn’t look around.”

  She was babbling.

  His hand relaxed beneath hers, though, so maybe the chatter helped him.

  “We need to get to the sheriff.” She turned to the hall. “Let me fetch my shoes and fix my hair and tell Mrs. Twining. I’ll go over there with you.”

  He shouldn’t be alone.

  “Thank you.”

  She heard one of the chairs scrape across the floor as she turned toward Mrs. Twining’s bedroom.

  The older lady sat up in bed, her face lined with concern. “What has happened?”

  Lily told her. “If you think it’s all right, I’ll go to the sheriff’s with him. He’s distressed.”

  “I can understand why he would be.” Mrs. Twining shook her head. “All his savings. Why didn’t the lad put them in a bank?”

  “He didn’t know which one to use, and nothing’s been open since the last time he thinks he had an intruder.” Lily paused in the doorway. “And this is Browning City. We don’t have thieves here.”

  “Not often.” Mrs. Twining sighed and looked all of her eighty or so years—old and sad.

  “It’s the gold,” she said. “That rumor about it being in the livery has gone around again.”

  “But they took Ben’s money.” Lily cried out the words on a wave of pain. “He’ll have to work most of his life to get that money back. He’s such a good man; how could God let this happen to him?”

  “God does nothing without a purpose, my dear. Now you run along and put some shoes on before you freeze, and go with Ben to see the sheriff, if you can wake him up this time of night. I’ll stay here and pray.”

  “Thank you.”

  Lily scampered into her own room on lighter feet, the burden slipping from her heart. Yes, having his savings stolen was terrible, yet maybe God’s plans didn’t include Ben staying in Browning City and buying a farm. Maybe God wanted Ben and her together elsewhere.

  She hastened to pull on stockings and shoes and braid her hair; then she dashed into the kitchen.

  Ben sat at the table, his head bowed. She opened her mouth to tell him her new revelation, but he glanced up, smiled, and stopped the words at her lips.

  His face was calm, peaceful. “I’ve been praying for the money to be restored.”

  “And you believe it will happen?” Lily shook her head. “I never got mine back.”

  “Did you ask God for it?”

  “I think I did, but even He can’t refill an empty purse.”

  “Lily, my dear, God and can’t shouldn’t be in the same sentence.” Ben rose and took one of her hands between both of his. “He can do anything.”

  She shook her head, not in doubt but in confusion.

  “We can talk about it later.” He released her hand. “Where’s your coat?”

  She retrieved it, and they headed for the sheriff’s office. Lily’s thoughts spun so fast she couldn’t think of anything to say. Ben didn’t attempt to make conversation, either. She suspected he continued to pray.

  She wanted his prayer to be answered for his sake, for the sake of such wonderful faith, such assurance that all would be well. Life never worked that way for her. In the past few years, God seemed to take from her, not give—her family, her pay, Ben.

  She had been foolish to imagine he would move to the city now that he had lost his savings for the farm. He believed God would restore his money, and though Lily feared he was right, she couldn’t imagine how.

  Heart heavy, she reached the sheriff’s office with Ben. The building, like the town, lay dark and still beneath a blanket of fog. Ben pounded on the door then took the lantern around back to the lawman’s quarters. A few minutes later, a sleepy-eyed Sheriff Dodd pulled open the door and let them in.

  “I don’t know what I can do for you, Purcell.” He began poking at embers glowing in the stove. “No way to find a thief tonight, not in this fog.”

  “You do need to be aware that we have a thief in Browning City.”

  Lily didn’t miss how Ben said we, as though he already felt a part of the town.

  “Never have done before you came.” The sheriff rubbed his bristly chin, the rasp grating in the quiet. “Course, no one was ever shot until you came along, either. Not to my recollection anyhow.”

  “I had money stolen from the telegraph office.” Lily jumped to Ben’s defense. “So things do get stolen here from time to time.”

  “That was someone off the train.” Dodd sighed. “But I’ll make a note of it and ask around. Don’t expect anyone saw anything. Clever man to use the fog to cover up his deeds.”

  “It happened before six o’clock,” Lily persisted. “I delivered some bread to him, and the door wasn’t locked.”

  “Been dark since about that time with this weather.” Dodd shook his head. “Nobody was about, I’m sure.”

  “But—”

  “Just thought you should know.” Ben slipped his hand under Lily’s elbow and guided her out of the office.

  Once the door closed behind them, she turned toward Ben. “He thinks this is all your fault.”

  “Yes, he does. He thinks I brought an enemy with me.” Ben set off at a brisk
pace despite the low visibility, drawing Lily along with him. “But I never stayed anywhere long enough to make enemies.”

  “Or friends.”

  “Or friends.”

  “But you’ve only been here for a month and a half, and you’ve already made lots of friends.”

  He laughed without humor. “Lily, I never stayed anywhere for a month and a half. Three weeks for the spring plowing in farm country and four weeks in Chicago to settle up Pa’s bills after he died.”

  “At least you were around lots of people.”

  “People, yes. Friends, no.” Ben squeezed her arm. “But not all of them were unkind. I’d been attending a church. One of the men helped me sell our supplies, and a few of the ladies brought me food.”

  “So it wasn’t all bad.”

  Lily found she needed to know the answer to that with an urgency that scared her. All she had been able to think about after her parents and then brother died and she sat alone on a farm miles from anyone was the notion of people, noise, light. The more the better. Browning City—as far as the stagecoach had brought her with the coin she could spare for travel—seemed like a haven. People had been kind, sympathetic, helpful in a practical way. But still too quiet, especially on nights like this when the weather kept everyone indoors. Since the deaths of her last family members left her alone and isolated on the farm, silence had frightened her, but now she wondered if being alone in a crowd could be just as bad.

  “No, it wasn’t all bad.” Ben’s voice sounded thoughtful. “I might have found a place there to settle if I hadn’t run across Great-Aunt Deborah’s name in Pa’s papers. Leaving the city and coming here seemed the right thing to do after that.”

  Lily caught the edge of doubt in his tone.

  “But now you’re not sure?”

  “It does seem someone doesn’t want me here.”

  We all want you here.

  Fortunately for Lily’s sake, they reached Mrs. Twining’s house before she gave in to temptation and spoke those words aloud.

  Ben took her hand in his at the door. “Thank you for coming with me.”

  “It didn’t do any good. He didn’t want to hear about what time I was there or anything.”

  Ben chuckled. “I think he takes crime in his town as a personal offense against him. He’d rather ignore it.”

  Lily sighed, said good night, and slipped inside. When she told Mrs. Twining about what happened at the sheriff’s office, she nodded in understanding and said about the same thing as Ben.

  “If those gold thieves hadn’t come through here after the war,” the older woman concluded, “we probably wouldn’t even pay a sheriff.”

  “Mrs. Twining, ma’am. . .” Lily hesitated, but since she had already begun, she couldn’t back out now. “Do you think—I mean, I know you don’t like to talk about it, but do you think this person could have been looking for the gold in the livery and just run across Ben’s money and taken it instead?”

  Mrs. Twining closed her eyes and nodded. “I’m afraid it could have happened that way.” She held out one hand. “Will you pray with me that we are able to set these gold rumors to rest once and for all?”

  Lily joined her in prayer but believed the only way to stop the legend and the gold seekers was to find the treasure.

  ❧

  “Mary Reeves is taking up a collection for Ben,” Becky said as she greeted Lily at the door.

  “A collection for Ben?” Lily shucked off her coat, almost too warm in the balmy spring weather that had descended on Browning City that Wednesday before Palm Sunday. “Why?”

  The moment she asked the question, she realized it wasn’t kind of her.

  “You mean to replace what was stolen?” she concluded.

  “Yes, and she has nearly enough to replace what was taken.” Becky hugged Lily. “Isn’t that wonderful? People here are so kind and generous. It’s no wonder Matt decided to stay. And Ben, too.”

  Becky’s announcement slammed into Lily.

  “Yes, no wonder.” Lily felt as flat, as colorless as she knew she sounded.

  The town was replacing Ben’s savings. Ben, who had been there for less than two months. Ben, who had a well-paying job and a place to live along with that job. Ben, who got invited everywhere to dinner because he was an eligible bachelor, so he didn’t have to pay for much food. Ben, who had family.

  Lily swallowed an enormous lump in her throat and forced herself to smile. “I guess he can stay here if he wants to and not have to wait a dozen years to buy a farm.”

  “I hope so.” Becky grasped Lily’s arm and drew her into the kitchen. “He’s such a nice man. He must have shoveled out half this town after the storm. But you probably know more about him than the rest of us do.” She winked.

  Lily blushed and turned to the sound of running feet. She braced herself in time to meet the onslaught of two little girls with flying dark pigtails.

  “My two favorite ragamuffins.” She hugged them close. “I have presents for you.”

  “Goodie. Goodie.”

  The girls jumped up and down.

  “It’s ‘Thank you.’ ” Becky smiled along with the reproof.

  “But she hasn’t given us anything yet,” said Molly, the younger.

  “That was rude, Moll,” her elder sister by a year scolded.

  Lily laughed and pulled tiny scraps of lace from her pocketbook. “Hats for your dolls. For Easter, of course.”

  “Yea!”

  They started to rush from the room, halted as if caught up on strings, and raced back to hug Lily again.

  “Thank you, Miss Lily.”

  Then they dashed off again.

  “You spoil them.” Becky began making coffee.

  “I always wanted little sisters.” Lily began to sort through materials they had collected to decorate the church hall for the Easter egg hunt. “I was the youngest and didn’t like it.”

  Becky flashed a grin over her shoulder. “Maybe you should just have children.”

  “Becky, for shame.” Lily felt her neck grow hot under her knot of hair. “I need a husband first.”

  “Of course you do.” Becky started laughing. “I mean, the husband is easy from what I hear.”

  “Then you hear more than I do,” Lily snapped.

  “Calm yourself.” Becky laid her hand on Lily’s shoulder. “Has something upset you? I was only teasing about Ben. We all know he’s head over heels for you.”

  “I don’t want to stay here. He does. That’s the end of it.”

  And people wanted him to stay.

  “I can take a hint.” Becky picked up a sheet of tissue paper and began to fashion a flower. “I’ll talk about Matt instead. I never thought he’d look at me, not with you around, but he. . .”

  Lily let Becky chatter on and on about Matt. It kept her from having to say anything as they made flowers and paper chains, drank coffee, and chuckled over eruptions of childish laughter from the other room.

  At nine o’clock, Becky’s oldest brother, a gangly youth of fifteen, sauntered into the kitchen. “Ma says I should walk you home, Miss Lily.”

  “Thank you, Devlin, but I may need to make a stop along the way.”

  Lily shrugged into her coat, hugged Becky good-bye, and stepped into the night, a silent Devlin beside her.

  A heaven of stars arched overhead. Bright. Clear. Romantic. This was a night to share with a beloved.

  Lily wrapped her arms across her body and trudged two streets over to the parsonage. She knew it was getting late to make a call. She also knew that Jackson and Mary never turned anyone from their door, regardless of the time.

  Except they already had company. Lily spotted shadows through the curtains that indicated several adults in the parlor. She started to turn away.

  The front door flew open on a cacophony of voices and laughter, light and movement.

  “I’ll remember that.”

  At the sound of Ben’s voice, Lily missed a step then quickened her pace. “W
e’d better hurry, Dev.”

  “Lily? Lily Reese, is that you?” Footfalls pounded behind her. “Lily, wait up. I want to tell you the news.” He caught up and ran around to face her. “The Lord did provide for returning my money. Isn’t that wonderful?” He picked her up and swung her around.

  Mirth erupted from Devlin and the house behind him.

  Ben released her like the wrong end of a hot poker. “I apologize. I was so happy I forgot myself.”

  “I can understand why.” Despite her aching heart, Lily laughed at his enthusiasm and antics. “You have amazing faith.”

  And she burst into tears.

  “Lily. Lily, honey, what’s wrong?” Ben slipped an arm around her shoulders and guided her to the house. “Come back here and sit down. Mary?”

  “Yes, bring her in.” Mary held the door wide.

  The other guests and Devlin had discreetly gone on their way.

  “What is it, sweetheart?” Mary pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and pressed it into Lily’s hand. “Did something or someone hurt you?”

  “Yes. No.” Lily gulped and got herself under control. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I should go home now.”

  “I don’t think you should.” Ben pressed her hand. “But I’ll leave you here with Mary and Jackson unless you want me to stay.”

  Lily did want him there. Nothing had felt better than his arm around her and him by her side, a bulwark of strength and comfort. Yet what she wanted to discuss with Mary concerned him.

  “If Jackson doesn’t care,” Ben said, “I’ll stay with him in his office so the two of you can talk alone. Then I’ll be here to walk you home, Lily.”

  “Thank you.” Lily gave him what she feared was a wan smile.

  “Such a thoughtful man.” Mary gave Ben a warmer smile. “I’ll take Lily into my sewing room.”

  She led the way to a small chamber boasting more books than sewing supplies. It also contained two armchairs. She indicated one for Lily and took the other herself.

  “Now tell me what has you so upset.”

  Lily bit her lip. Now that she had someone to whom she could express her reaction to Ben’s good fortune, she realized how selfish she sounded. But who better to admit that to than the pastor’s wife?