California Woman (Daughters of the Whirlwind Book 1)

by Daniel Knapp

  Ralston thought for a moment, then beamed. "All right. I see no problems with that. It's about time you enjoyed some of that money, anyway."

  "I'd like to place it all in trust for my son."

  "That can easily be arranged."

  "Can it be held in the bank's name? After all, Bill Kelsey is sixty-eight now, and with Alex gone…"

  For a moment, Esther thought she saw a slightly amused, somewhat devilish look in Ralston's eyes. But he quickly turned away, and, as he went on, she forgot it.

  "I'll set it up so you can draw from the account, as well. Anytime you wish."

  She took one of Ralston's hands. "Thank you, Billy. I was so certain you'd take a dim view of all this."

  "But why?" He laughed. "It will give me the opportunity to buy your stocks and get even richer. Now, on to more important things. You will stay the weekend?"

  "I haven't brought anything. I—"

  "That's no problem either. My wife will find some suitable things. I won't hear of you not staying. You'll spoil my surprise."

  "Can't we just have lunch? Can't you just surprise me now?"

  Ralston walked over to a window and reached for a bellpull. "Impossible. It has to be tonight. At the dinner dance."

  "Dance? Billy, I can't—"

  "Come on now, Esther. Please. Don't spoil it for for me. Haven't I always done everything you've asked? You'll love it. You'll have more fun than you've ever had in your life. You've got to start living, Esther."

  "All right," she said, relenting, tempted by the idea of 'living.' "But remember, I'm a married woman."

  "No one said anything about romance. Just dancing, good company, and good fun. And none of your veiled-hat business. It just won't do." He looked at his watch, took her arm, and they walked back to the swinging doors. "My wife should be making one of her grand descents down the stairs by now. She'll take you to the room we picked. And for God's sake, don't fill the tub up. It's five feet deep. I don't want you drowning before you have had the most pleasant shock of your life."

  Esther stood watching the hundred-odd guests who had arrived during the afternoon. Half of them were dancing to the light strains of a violin ensemble Ralston had installed in a bandbox over in one corner of the ballroom. At first she was self-conscious without a veil in so much company. But after Ralston and Kelsey introduced her to a dozen people, and they took no notice of her nose, she began feeling at ease. Now, as Bill and Connie Kelsey waltzed by, she experienced a wave of delight, just watching. She had begun living again, just as she'd planned.

  A tall man she'd been introduced to asked her to dance. She declined at first, but when he came back a second time, she mustered her courage, began awkwardly, then quickly put into smooth practice the simple steps she'd learned as a girl. By the time the number soared to a close, she was swept up in the rhythm, the sound, the sentimental meaning of the lyrics, and a sense of pleasure so foreign to her it made her slightly light-headed. When the music ended, the gentleman bowed, then turned as they both heard Ralston clap for attention halfway across the floor.

  He was standing precariously on the low, flower-bedecked trellis fence surrounding the musicians.

  "And now, ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please!" Ralston glanced down to his left at someone. He broke into a broad grin as a number of people near him turned and began buzzing in astonishment.

  Esther stood up on her toes, but her view of who or what had caused the commotion was blocked.

  "Back, ladies and gentlemen," Ralston shouted, "from the horrors of the Rebellion, back from two years in the abomination of Andersonville—and the even more torturous clutches of buxom nurses at St. Simon's Hospital in Washington D.C.—back, ladies and gentlemen, from the dead! I give you… Judge Alexander Todd!"

  Ralston jumped down from his perch and embraced Alex as the crowd around them parted, and, turning, they both walked toward the center of the ballroom. Struck dumb, Esther watched as Alex shook hands repeatedly, smiled, nodded, and then finally glanced her way. The smile on his face froze grotesquely when he saw her. He stopped for a moment; then, certain, he began pushing slowly through the clutch of well-wishers.

  His second step galvanized Esther. Panicked, she spun around and rushed toward the doors of the ballroom. Almost knocking over an elderly man, she raced through the entranceway and the foyer. Startling the butler, she pushed violently through the front door. Cabs and carriages lined the courtyard driveway. Running to the buggy nearest the open gates, she climbed up into the seat and frantically snapped the reins. As the team of chestnuts clattered across the decorative bridge, she glanced back. Alex stood alone in the doorway.

  In the dim light just before dawn, the sheets covering the furniture in her San Francisco house seemed like ghosts from the past. She sat there on the couch, watching the open front door, certain Alex would come sooner or later. She was calm now, as prepared as she would ever be for the confrontation. Still, her hands trembled and she held her knees together tightly as the buggy rolled around the circular driveway and stopped. The pounding of her heart almost drowned out the sound of his footsteps on the gravel.

  He stood in the doorway for a moment, ironically outlined in silhouette by the first rays of the sun. Then he slowly walked in through the foyer, crossed the room, and sat down beside her. For a minute he simply stared at her, the same look of utter disbelief locking his features in place.

  "It is you, isn't it?" he whispered. "I'm not imagining this."

  She dropped her eyes, hesitantly reached out and laid a hand on his. "Alex… I… this is… the most difficult moment I have ever known."

  "Good God, it's almost too much to bear! I am so confused. How? Why?" He put his hand to his forehead and massaged his temples, as though that would help his brain function normally again. "For a time," he finally said, "while I was in the field, I… made believe that it was you." Tears welled in his eyes. "That somehow you'd come back to me that night."

  "I sensed that, in your letters."

  "But I…" He took out a handkerchief and brushed at his eyes. "I finally knew, I knew I was just dreaming, putting together coincidence, similarities. Out of disappointment you'd married, loneliness, need… fear of dying out there… God, I don't know."

  "As you can see, your instincts were right," she whispered.

  "Then, in the prison camp, even though I knew by then it was a fantasy, I built all my hope of surviving around you—getting out, healing, getting better, coming home, finding you. I… lived for a dream, another night like we spent together here. A dream I didn't know was real the whole time."

  "I've never stopped loving you, Alex."

  He took a deep breath. "That's hard to believe, Elizabeth."

  "I know it is. But it's true."

  "That night? How could you have—?"

  "Because I loved you so much, I was willing to risk discovery as well as giving you pain. With you sitting there, next to me, I was simply overcome."

  "Esther Cable. Esther Cable Carter. Good sweet Jesus, I just don't understand."

  "As much as I wanted that night again, every night until eternity, I couldn't risk what it might do to you. Risk what now has happened."

  "But why didn't you come to me after…" He suddenly thought of John Alexander. "The boy. Our son…?"

  She began to cry softly. "Our first son. He died, Alex. In the mountains when…"

  Conflicting emotions disorienting him, he didn't realize what she had said. "But why, damn it? Why didn't you come back to me, tell me?"

  The look of confused, hurt, sudden anger tore at her. For a moment she was so completely off guard she almost blurted all of it out. But there was enough for him to accept as it was. She took both his hands, bent over and laid her moistened cheek against them. "I was more confused than you are right now. I was so… ashamed… I couldn't face you. Can you understand that?"

  "Ashamed? Many people, other children, died."

  "But my willfulness… was… a… factor in…
I made a tragic mistake. I… helped cause John Alexander's death."

  He stared at her, his features softening, beginning to comprehend.

  "And I couldn't face you," she sobbed. "I felt I didn't deserve you anymore. Can you understand? And then, as time passed, it became impossible to turn back."

  "All these years, all the things you've done for me. The South Fork Mine, all of it. You arranged everything."

  "I wanted to make things up to you in a pitiably small way, wanted to be part of your life, even if you didn't know it. It was all I had."

  "God, it boggles the mind. I still can't believe it's you, Elizabeth." He leaned over and tilted her face upward.

  "It isn't me anymore. It isn't Elizabeth Purdy Todd. Look at me. Can you understand why I couldn't face you looking the way I do?"

  He brushed his fingertips tenderly across her nose. "It's hardly noticeable."

  "It was then."

  "You're more beautiful now than you were when we were married." He thought for a moment. "You're married. Are you happy?"

  "It's simply a marriage of convenience. Nothing more. I plan to separate from him in time."

  "But you have a son."

  She started to tell him, but decided to wait. "Alex, I married William Carter so I wouldn't be tempted to—"

  "See me again?"

  "Yes. Stripping it to the truth, yes. There were… other considerations, a business arrangement. But, yes, that is the main reason why I married him."

  The anger was leaving him. In its place he felt compassion for her. "I was married, too, Esther. You know that."

  She couldn't help herself. Tears streaming down her face, she still had to laugh. "I was so jealous! Did you know that I… well, I put the idea in Kelsey's head. To introduce the two of you. Can you imagine?"

  Alex shook his head, then smiled. "It will take some time to accommodate all of it."

  "You don't hate me?"

  "Esther…" He laughed. "Look, I'm even calling you that… I've learned not to hate anyone or anything. We're all human. All capable of God knows what, if circumstances push us far enough. I learned that and a good deal more about tolerance in the war. No, I don't hate you."

  She threw her arms around him, sobbing again. "I was so certain you… would."

  "I don't. I'm angry. Happy. Sad. Grateful you're alive. God, it will take months for me to understand it, accept what you did. Perhaps even more time to absorb the fact that so much stands between us, that we can't be together, under the circumstances. But no, I could never hate you."

  "I love you, Alex."

  He eased her back, smiling, trying to calm her. Here, now. A married woman isn't supposed to talk that way."

  "I am married to you!"

  He thought about that for a moment. "I… suppose you are."

  "I… I've never… I don't sleep in the same bed with Carter."

  "But the boy?"

  "When you see him, I won't have to tell you whose son he is."

  Alex looked at her incredulously.

  "His name is Todd."

  He put his arms around her, rocking back and forth, trying to assimilate all of it. "That night?"

  "Yes. That one night. In the dark. Upstairs. I wish…"

  "If I told anyone all this, they'd think I was as crazy as Emperor Norton. Twenty years. Good God! Twenty-two years!"

  "Twenty-one this past summer."

  "If I told Billy, even he wouldn't believe me. He's looked you square in the face and not recognized you."

  "I've gotten fat."

  "Fat, hell. You're—"

  "Don't tell anyone."

  "Don't—?"

  "About me. It doesn't matter. We know. That's all that matters. And if you still want me…"

  "Oh, God, Esther, a part of me wants to horsewhip you for all the years we've lost… but another part of me…"

  "If you still want me, I will see to it that we are together as often as possible."

  He kissed her cheek. "Twenty-one years. And yes, I do still love you, want you…"

  "Then it's been long enough, hasn't it?" She laughed nervously, stroking his hair. "All but once. That night. God in heaven, married or not, I want you to carry me upstairs and…"

  "Begin an affair—with my own wife." He smiled, still staggered by it all, but happy for the moment.

  "Yes," she whispered, leaning over and kissing him softly. "Can you? Will you…?"

  "Oh, yes." He picked her up in his arms and started toward the stairs.

  "Yes," she whispered, covering his mouth, his cheeks, his eyes with kisses. "Yes… yes… yes… yes… Oh, God, in heaven, yes!"

  Seventy-one

  It was far from easy at first. From time to time, what she had done reached out from the past and tore at him. Sometimes, during the weekends they spent together once or twice a month, he hardly spoke. Moods came upon him suddenly, locking away his desire as well as his voice. For a time he urged her to leave Carter. But then, after seeing his son, he recognized the need to protect the child, allow him time to reach an age when he could adjust to such a drastic change more easily.

  He was uncomfortable about becoming Todd's godfather, but Carter was in eastern Nevada at the railhead, and Alex realized during the solemnity of the church service that the connection would permit him to visit the child—and Esther—occasionally in Sacramento. In mid-1867, he won an appointment to the superior court. The work absorbed him and accelerated his acceptance of things as they were. The months passed, Esther traveled to San Francisco more frequently, sometimes with Todd in tow, and Alex eagerly took the steamer upriver once a month. The days they spent together were carefree, happy. The nights, the sweetest either of them had ever known. He did not ask her how she had come to be so skillful with a man's body until almost a year had passed. They were in the bedroom of her San Francisco house.

  "From a book I found in Dr. Canby's library. A French book. Do you remember him? At Bent's Fort? I have been saving the knowledge all these years."

  "Well, you certainly have a good memory!" He laughed, not quite believing her, but content as she lay nestled in his arms. He decided to change the subject. "They say the railroad will be joined late next spring."

  "I know. I've been thinking about it."

  "Todd will be seven. That may not be quite old enough to—"

  "He will simply have to adjust to it. I couldn't bear being under the same roof every day with Carter. Not now, if I ever could. The few times he's been here during the last two years have been almost unbearable, even sleeping in separate rooms. Do you have any idea how many deaths that man and Crocker are responsible for? Hundreds. Perhaps thousands. Men crushed, blown to bits by dynamite and that new liquid they're using."

  "Nitroglycerin."

  "Hanging by ropes down sheer cliffs, falling to their deaths. All for an extra mile of track, a day's lead on the railroad coming west from Chicago. I despise him! All of this!"

  It was time to change the subject again. "I have a surprise for you."

  "Tell me!"

  "I'll be moving over to the Sacramento court for a spell come the first of the year."

  "How wonderful!"

  "We'll have to be discreet."

  "I'll sneak over at midnight, just the way I did when you were waiting for me in the barn in Ohio."

  "Sneak over where? I'll be in some hotel. It won't be that simple with people about."

  Esther propped herself up on one arm, staring past Alex out through a window at the ships in the harbor. She estimated a third of them had brought iron, rails, coal, lumber, locomotives, and cars built in the east for the Central Pacific's lethal battle with the mountains. "I'll sell you my house," she mumbled absently. "At a reasonable price, of course."

  "Why should you sell me this house?"

  She came back to the present. "Not this one. The one in Sacramento. I've been thinking of getting rid of it anyway. It's been empty for more than two years."

  "Marvelous. I'll probably make a prof
it on it when I move back to San Francisco."

  "When we move back," she said, touching him, bringing the physical part of him she loved most back to life quickly. "And we begin a new life together."

  She had scarcely even thought of Mosby for two years. When she read that he had been defeated for reelection in Nevada, she wondered briefly whether he would return to the South or stay in Virginia City. For an hour she daydreamed about seeking him out, having him killed, but then she dismissed dwelling on it. She was too happy, too hopeful to go back to that state of mind permanently. Sooner or later, she reminded herself. God would make him pay for all he had done.

  For a time she felt almost as if she had returned to her girlhood. On her trips to San Francisco she had to be careful about being seen with Alex. She experienced almost an adolescent excitement when she spent an extra day in the city before returning to Sacramento, covertly sitting in the gallery of Alex's courtroom and watching him at work. Perched there, high above the bench and the jury box, hidden, she thought, by other spectators, she was thrilled by the contrast between her casual outward appearance and the tingling, illicit pleasure of being so close to Alex in public.

  "You think I don't know you've been sitting up there in the gallery, don't you?" he said, carrying in a block of ice for the new cooling box she had bought for her San Francisco house.

  "Why, I—"

  "Six months in the workhouse for long-distance lust over a judge." He laughed. "Now, what's for dinner?"

  "Bread and water for me, roast beef for you, your honor."

  "Sentence suspended. By the way, do you have to leave tomorrow?"

  "I should. It's stretching things enough getting back to the school on Tuesday."

  "Too bad. I'll be trying an interesting case."

  "Oh?"

  "Some woman, one of those ladies who flit around the stock exchange looking for tips and then capitalizin on the knwledge

  "A female curb-broker."

  "Right. One of them is trying to capitalize on a night or two in bed with Billy's partner, William Sharon."

  "I don't like that man."

  "Well, that doesn't justify some woman taking him to the races, does it?"