Elijah could hardly breathe. As though blinders had been stripped from his eyes, he saw Lily Nolan for the first time. This was the kind of woman he had begged God to send him. She was so soft, so tender, so perfect. He could hardly keep from taking her in his arms and holding her.
It wasn’t the baby he longed to kiss. It was the woman.
Her spirit seemed to beckon him. She was fragile and vulnerable, so wounded she had built walls of bitterness around her gentle heart. He absorbed her trembling pink lips and tearstained cheeks. How could he break down those walls? How could he reach the soul inside? Had God sent her to him for this reason? Lord, help me know what to do!
“You’d better go on back to your church now, Preacher-man,” Lily said, her walls rising stronger and higher as she faced him. “And take your baby with you. My place is in the traveling show, and I’ll sleep in my own wagon tonight. I’ll find Sam in the morning and feed him.”
When Eli didn’t move, she held out the tiny bundle. “Go on now,” she said. “And here’s your hymnbook.”
Uncomfortable as ever at the notion of holding the fragile baby, Elijah tucked his Bible under one arm. Though Lily’s voice had grown cold, he felt the warmth of her hands as he lifted Samuel from her. “You keep that hymnal,” he murmured. “You sing better than any gal I ever heard.”
Before she could cut him again, Eli pressed the baby against his chest and set off across the prairie. The moment the child felt the movement of the man’s footsteps, he jerked awake and began to whimper.
“Aw, Sam, don’t start that now,” Eli mumbled as the baby let out a howl that could rival a coyote’s. “We’re not going to get a wink of sleep, and I have to come up with a sermon good enough to change the heart of Mrs. Lily Nolan.”
“I’ve been consulting the cards,” Beatrice said as she handed Lily a bowl of hot oatmeal made from the last crumbs in their storage bin. “I was up half the night, Lil, and I just couldn’t get over how powerfully the cards spoke to me. It was a deeply spiritual experience, and I can’t wait to tell you what I learned.”
Lily stifled a yawn as she lifted a spoonful of oatmeal. She had been up half the night, too, and her wakefulness had nothing to do with consulting the spirits. Even from inside the church, Samuel’s screaming, fussing, whimpering, and sobbing had been audible for hours. It had been all she could do to keep from crawling out of the wagon and racing to get him. When she dozed at all, she dreamed of Abigail crying out for her mother.
“The cards have told me there’s a great future in store for us,” Beatrice was saying. “Even though it seems impossible to believe, the deaths of Jakov and Ted are a part of the great plan. You see, you and I couldn’t go forward on the path we’re to take if we had continued in the shackles of those men. This is our time, Lily. Our destiny!”
Lily set the empty bowl aside and began folding the diapers she had just washed. Who could think about destiny? Who could see a path ahead? For Lily there was only this moment. She had to live through this day, surviving each hour, enduring each minute without Abigail.
“We’re going to build an opera house,” Beatrice announced.
Glancing at her, Lily placed a clean diaper on the stack. “A what?”
“An opera house! To make money!” The older woman seized Lily’s shoulders. “It came to me in a vision. We’ll go back to Topeka—”
“Topeka?” The image of Abby’s makeshift grave inserted itself in Lily’s mind. “I don’t want to go to Topeka.”
“But this is perfect. Do you remember those men who visited the show the first three nights before the diphtheria struck? Those two rich fellows who liked your singing so well? They’re partners, and they own a saloon in Topeka. The Crescent Moon, it’s called. You and I are going to go straight over to those men and ask them to back us in a venture to build an opera house right here in Hope, Kansas.”
“Here?” Lily tried to picture a fancy theater with festoons and bright lights sitting out in the middle of the prairie.
“Hope is the crossroads of the East and the West. I saw it in the cards, Lil. Wagons travel over that pontoon bridge day and night. If we build our opera house beside the main road, we’ll be bursting at the seams with customers. You’ll sing and do your acts. I’ll read fortunes, sell elixir, and manage the money. I’ll bet those rich Topeka fellows know a fair number of talented men and women who would love to perform with us. We’ll book touring shows, and we’ll even let the townsfolk use the place for a meeting hall. They’ll support our business, I just know they will. It’ll draw all kinds of people here to spend their money. This’ll be a regular boomtown in no time at all.”
Lily drew a shawl around her shoulders and regarded her friend. “I need to go and feed the baby, Bea,” she said softly. “We’ll talk about the opera house later.”
“There’ll be no later.” Bea’s lips hardened. “I can feel the forces pulling on you, Lily. Don’t surrender to that preacher’s whims. You know what he’s like. You know that kind of man. He’ll use you. He’ll wear you out and dry you up. He’ll drain the very life out of you, if he can. Please, Lil, I’m trying to save you. Come with me to Topeka.”
“Oh, Bea,” Lily said with a sigh.
“When you see how those men are going to treat us, you’ll forget all about that preacher and his scrawny little kid. We’ll buy ourselves some new dresses. We’ll go out to eat in fancy restaurants and sleep in a fine hotel. Elijah Book will be long gone by the time we get back to Hope.” She clasped Lily’s hand. “This is your chance to shine!”
Lily closed her eyes and thought for a moment. When she had first run away with the traveling show, the dream of one day performing in a real opera beckoned her with glory, fame, and riches. With each mile of the hard road and each day in her loveless marriage, her dream faded. Hope vanished. All she knew now was that she had escaped her father. Nothing more.
And then Abby had been born. A baby.
“You go to Topeka, Beatrice,” Lily said. “I’m going to stay here and take care of Samuel.”
Bea’s nostrils flared. “I hope you’re joking.”
“I’m not. I’m needed here. You can talk to the men in Topeka without me. When you come back—”
“If I come back.”
A stab of fear ran through Lily’s heart. “You will come back, won’t you?”
“Maybe.” Bea shrugged. “The cards have shown me I’ll build an opera house somewhere. But if you don’t come with me, you might lose me forever.”
Lily swallowed. To be left alone … abandoned … “I guess I could go to Topeka. You’d need me to sing in the opera house.”
“You sing very well, Lily, but I can always find another singer. This is your chance to be part of the dream.”
Silence filtered through Lily’s heart as she pondered her choice. Why did the future always look so black, so uncertain? Why did she have no direction in life? Where should she turn?
She studied the diapers. And then her eye fell on the hymn book. God sent you along here to help us out, Mother Margaret had told her. Sing to everybody far and wide. Sing to that baby God gave you. Sing to the preacher. Sing to God hisself!
Lily didn’t know who God was, but she did know Mother Margaret. Something about that tiny old woman filled Lily’s heart with hope.
“I’m going to stay here,” she told Beatrice. “I’m going to take care of Samuel.”
“You’re crazy!” Beatrice snapped as Lily scooped up the diapers and clambered out of the wagon. “That’s not your baby. Your baby is dead, Lily. Dead! I’m going to Topeka. I’ll leave without you! And I’m taking the melodeon!”
Lily halted. That was her organ. When she had left her house in Philadelphia, she had taken enough money from her father’s vault to buy the small instrument. She had selected it herself, and it had accompanied her in every performance. Beatrice had no right to the melodeon.
On the other hand, Lily felt a certainty—a mixture of dread and anticipation—that Bea
trice Waldowski would be back.
Chapter 4
ELI STOOD inside the empty church building, the baby wriggling fitfully on his blanket inside a small produce box on the floor. Through bleary eyes, the preacher squinted at the gaudy show wagon in the distance and prayed that Lily Nolan would hurry. He hadn’t slept more than half an hour the whole night. Samuel had hollered and howled. He’d messed his britches three or four times—Eli had lost count. And he wouldn’t eat a thing. It seemed that once the baby had tasted mother’s milk again, he wouldn’t settle for anything else.
Eli had been sorely tempted to go to the traveling-show wagon and rouse Mrs. Nolan to feed Samuel. But he knew that he’d frightened and insulted her at the Hankses’ house the night before. And both he and Sam had paid for his carelessness.
And so Elijah had counted the hours until dawn, his sermon ideas lost somewhere in the haze of his sleep-deprived mind. As Eli stood waiting for the congregation to arrive, Sam began to wail. Then Eli noticed that the show wagon was starting to pull away from the campsite onto the main road.
What? Lily was leaving?
Eli groaned. Why had he expected more of her? Obviously the actress was a gypsy at heart, unable to commit to home and family, unwilling to labor at decent work, unfeeling and hard-hearted. Now what was he going to do?
“Hoo, that is one loud baby you got there, Brother Elijah.” He turned to see Mother Margaret stepping into the church. Clad in a bright yellow dress tied with a crisp white apron, she was a ray of sunshine. Her dark eyes sparkled with joy. “You’re liable to scare off more than the devil this mornin’.”
Eli raked his fingers through his hair and mustered a smile. “Mornin’, Mrs. Hanks. I reckon it is pretty loud in here, thanks to my buddy Sam. I don’t imagine we’re going to draw much of a crowd.”
“Where’s Miss Lily?”
“Heading out.” He shrugged in the direction of the window. “The wagon is rolling toward Topeka right now.”
“Mercy, mercy, mercy.” Mother Margaret leaned over the sill and stared into the distance. “I do declare, I thought better of that pretty little gal. I was hopin’ she’d caught a glimpse of heaven last night, but I guess the Lord’s gonna have to knock her upside the head to get her attention. She’s runnin’ from him like a cat with its tail afire.”
Eli nodded. “I reckon you’re right, Mother Margaret. Something sure set her against God—and it was probably me.”
“Don’t blame yourself. The Lord has a good plan for each person’s life. But the devil makes plans, too, don’t you know? His schemes are low-down and wicked, and he’ll try all kinds of sneaky tricks to keep people off the straight and narrow.”
“Amen to that.”
“Now, you better give that baby to me, Brother Elijah, and I’ll see if I can get something into his belly while you preach your sermon. Mercy, he’s a skinny thing. Puts up quite a fuss for bein’ so weak and scrawny.”
Eli studied the old woman as she hunched over the flailing bundle of damp blankets that had become his greatest burden. If he’d known what trouble a baby could bring, Eli wondered, would he have rescued Sam from his dying mother’s arms?
Yes.
For some reason he couldn’t explain, he had known God meant him to take the baby. He knew, even now, that he was supposed to care for Samuel. But, Lord, have mercy on my weary bones, he lifted up in prayer. And please send help!
“Yonder comes your flock, Brother Elijah,” Mother Margaret said as she gave the baby a firm pat on his back. “What you plannin’ to preach on today?”
Eli let out a deep breath. “I don’t know,” he said. “I have no idea.”
With a sympathetic smile from the old lady to bolster him, Eli strode to the front of the church where he’d left his Bible. Before the baby entered his life, he had spent hours searching the Scripture for God’s messages to the people. Eli loved to pray, silent and listening, in the early hours just after dawn. He pondered his own life and the lives of so many other sinners for subjects on which he could expound.
And when he finally delivered his sermons, God’s Word seemed to pour through him. Women wept. Men fell to their knees in repentance. And the Holy Spirit went to work changing the hearts of sinners and renewing the vows of believers. Eli had never been so sure of anything as his call to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And then he’d found that baby.
“Mornin’, Preacher,” someone greeted him as folks began filing into the new church building. Each family carried in a bench or two, and some hauled in chairs and stools. Eli recognized Ben and Eva Hanks from dinner the night before. And here came Jack Cornwall with the pretty red-haired Caitrin Murphy he intended to marry. Seth Hunter stepped inside, his round-bellied Rosie on one arm, their son on the other.
Next came a family of freckle-faced, green-eyed folks with more carrot-topped children than a body could count. Following them, a big, tall man with shaggy blond hair gave the preacher an awkward bow before sitting on a chair that looked like it might splinter under his weight. There were others, too, so many Eli lost track as he thumbed through his Bible for an appropriate passage.
“Who vill lead singing today?” the shaggy blond man asked in a thick German accent. “Ve got new preacher, goot church, happy day. Who can sing?”
“Casimir Laski usually leads us,” someone called. “But he’s gone to Manhattan for supplies.”
“All right, then, I’ll do it.” A skinny, bandy-legged fellow with bright red hair got to his feet. When he spoke again, his words danced with a light Irish lilt. “I’m Jimmy O’Toole, so I am, and I’ll have you know I’ve not set foot inside a church for fifteen years. Sure, I thought the whole lot of you were Crawthumpers who didn’t have a grain of sense in your heads. I wouldn’t allow the church to be built on my land, and I resisted the very notion of a preacher movin’ into town.”
“Aye, Jimmy,” his plump wife said, “so you did.”
“But as everyone knows, now I’m a changed man. Once I was walkin’ so far from heaven that I nearly got myself burned up. Now I have the grace of forgiveness, and I’m a thankful man to set myself before you.”
“And to Jack Cornwall we owe our gratitude,” his wife added.
“We’ll sing the first hymn to the tune of ‘Llanfyllin,’” Jimmy went on. “’Tis a Welsh air, but we’ll forgive it that.”
At that comment, his wife gave him a not-so-subtle elbow to the ribs. Unfazed, the skinny man lifted his voice in a hauntingly beautiful song, which the others joined him in singing.
“Sometimes a light surprises
The Christian while he sings;
It is the Lord who rises
With healing in his wings.
When comforts are declining
He grants the soul again
A season of clear shining,
To cheer it after rain.”
Eli gulped as the song ended and the chorus of voices died down. He didn’t have a season of clear shining. In fact, the waters of his future looked muddier than ever. He’d given away all his China mission money, Lily Nolan had run off, he didn’t know what to do with his wailing baby, and now he was stuck for a sermon topic. Lord, help me!
Standing before the congregation, he turned to the middle of his Bible and prayed that a good psalm would jump right off the page. He read the first words his eye fell on—and realized to his chagrin that he’d landed in Hosea.
“‘Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel,’” he read. “‘For the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood.’”
Oh, great. He’d preached plenty of sermons admonishing the wicked—in fact, the topic moved him deeply. But he didn’t think a guilt-and-repentance message was a great way to introduce a preacher to his new congregation.
Eli looked out at the s
ea of expectant faces, tried to figure out what to say next, and went back to reading. “‘Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away.’”
He could feel the heat prickling up his back and onto his neck. This wasn’t getting any better. Did he really want to do just what Lily had said and preach a sermon on the wrath of God? Eli fished in his pocket for his handkerchief to mop his brow, realized he’d tied it onto Samuel for a diaper in the middle of the night, and shut his Bible. Oh, Lord, speak through me, he prayed. Say what you want to say, Father, because I’m up the creek without a paddle.
He summoned his wits the best he could and began. “Do you want your land to mourn? Do you intend to languish here on the prairie? No? Then turn from your sin. Repent! Walk away from your evil—your lies, your swearing, your thieving, and your murder. Beg forgiveness of the Father!” He hammered his fist on the wooden podium. “Fall down on your knees and pray to be spared from the wrath of almighty God!”
At that, one of the little redheaded O’Toole children burst into tears. Dismayed, Eli watched the child’s mother trying to comfort her daughter, and he prayed again for divine assistance. Not hearing any heavenly messages, he said the first thing that came to mind.
“Weep! Weep and wail for the sin that besets you. You enjoy your evil deeds. You argue, fight, and squabble among yourselves. You gossip and slander and lie. Repent now, I say! The hour of the Lord is at hand. He sees your wickedness. He knows even the smallest sin in your heart. You cannot escape!”
As Eli continued to expound on the wages of sin, a huge dog wandered into the church building. Tail thumping one bench after another, the mutt carried a meaty bone in his big chops as he meandered over to the Hunter family.
“Stubby!” the Hunter boy cried out. “What’re you doin’ in church?”
The crowd broke into muffled laughter as the dog flopped onto the floor and began gnawing his bone. But not even the loud crunching and slurping were enough to cheer the O’Toole girl, who continued to sob as though the world were coming to an end. At a loss for what to say next, Eli opened his Bible again. He glanced at the page and realized he was holding the book upside down.
Prairie Storm Page 5
