Eli shook his head. “That can be bad. Boy howdy, it sure is trouble on a woman to give birth. My own mother died in childbirth when I was just five years old. She labored for three days. It was awful, all of it. The baby never did come, and finally my mama passed on. I don’t believe my papa ever got over the grief of losing her.”
Observing the farmer’s stunned expression, Eli suddenly realized he hadn’t said one word the man needed to hear. As a matter of fact, he’d only added to Hunter’s fears. Eli’s spirits sank. He didn’t have any sense of how to comfort or reassure a person. Women did die in childbirth. They died often.
Lily Nolan had told him a pastor had to tend the sick and the dying. During the worst moments in their lives, the people of Hope would look to Eli for answers. He didn’t even know how to begin.
“But—uh,” he fumbled, “I’m sure Mrs. Hunter will be fine.” Lord, he breathed, help me out here. “There’s bound to be a good doctor around these parts.”
“No,” Seth said. “We don’t have a doctor in Hope.”
“No doctor.”
“If you believe there’s a God in heaven,” Lily Nolan said, joining them, “then you’ll remember he keeps his eye on everyone— even the sparrows. I couldn’t help overhearing you, Mr. Hunter, and as I’d just noticed a sparrow near the creek, I thought I’d remind you of those verses in Matthew: ‘Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.… Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.’”
Eli gaped at the woman.
“Reverend Book,” she went on, “why don’t you reassure Mr. Hunter that the God you trust with your eternal soul considers the lives of Mrs. Hunter and her baby important?”
Seth and Eli looked at each other. Eli swallowed. “Mrs. Nolan is right,” he said. “God doesn’t promise to protect us from every bad thing that comes along. But he loves us, and he’s right here with us through thick and thin. He listens to our prayers, Mr. Hunter, so every day I’m going to talk to God about your wife. I believe he’ll see her through the hard labor ahead. I’m going to have faith that come September you’ll welcome a fine, healthy baby into your home.”
Seth visibly relaxed. “You’ll pray for Rosie?”
“Morning, noon, and night.” Remembering Lily’s instructions about how to show love, Eli reached out and laid his hand on the other man’s shoulder. “You can depend on it, my friend.”
“Thank you, Brother Elijah,” Seth said. “I’ll tell Rosie. She’ll be mighty grateful, too.”
“You folks pray, too, and we’ll even do some looking for a doctor who might want to move to town.”
“That would be great.” Seth gave Lily a warm smile. “Mrs. No lan, I’ve brought along some of Rosie’s roast beef. Maybe you’d like to join Brother Elijah for lunch. We’re happy to have both of you in Hope, and, Reverend, thanks again.”
Eli took the heavy wicker basket in his free hand and gave Seth Hunter a farewell nod as the man started up the road to his own home. Then he turned to Lily. “You were hopping mad at me a few minutes ago. Why did you help me?”
She shrugged. “You were botching it.”
“But you told me you don’t believe in the Bible.”
“I believe in comforting people.” She lifted the lunch basket from Eli’s arm. “Samuel has spit up all over your shoulder.”
“I was jiggling him.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re not much good at anything, are you, Mr. Book?”
“I can brand cattle.”
With a laugh, she headed to a tree near the church and spread the checkered cloth on a patch of shaded grass. Eli let out a breath. Lord, he lifted up, I don’t understand this woman. I don’t know what I’m doing in this town. And I can’t see where you’re leading me. Would you mind letting me in on the plan?
“I am so hungry,” Lily exclaimed, taking mismatched china plates and cutlery from the basket. “Nursing a baby just drains all the strength right out of a woman. Here’s some roast for you. I’m surprised the Hunters would have beef. Surely they’re trying to build up their flock of cows.”
“Herd,” Eli said, kneeling across from her. “Cattle run in herds. Sheep run in flocks.”
Her blue eyes sparkled. “Maybe you’re not as ignorant as I thought.”
“Not about livestock, anyhow.”
“Have you ever been to school, Mr. Book?”
“Once or twice. My father and I were on the move a lot. I like to read, though. I’ll read anything I can lay my hands on. Did you get any schooling?”
“Certainly.” She spooned peas onto his plate and set a warm roll beside them. “I am well educated and trained in all the proper social graces.”
“Lonely, too.”
“I am not.” After giving him a withering glance, she set about buttering her roll. “Beatrice Waldowski is my good friend. She’ll be back in a few days.”
“I guess we’ll see about that. She took the wagon, you know.” Eli settled the baby on the blanket beside him. “Mind if I pray over this meal?”
“I’ll try not to be offended by your beliefs as long as you’re not offended by mine.”
“Dear Lord,” he began, wondering if there would ever come a day when Lily Nolan didn’t irritate the living daylights out of him. “We praise you for this beautiful afternoon and for the folks who came to the service this morning. Touch them with your message of hope and salvation. I want to ask for your special protection over Mrs. Hunter and her baby. Please keep them safe, Lord. And, if you would, help me figure out how to manage Sam. Most of all, I want to thank you for sending along Mrs. Nolan. Touch her heart. In the name of Jesus I pray. Amen.”
“You forgot to thank God for the food.”
Eli lifted his head. “You know this religion business pretty well, don’t you?”
“I’m a walking university of religious folderol. Ask me anything. Go on.”
“All right. Who parted the Red Sea?”
“Moses.”
“Who walked on water?”
“Jesus. And don’t forget Peter, the poor fellow. He managed a few steps before his faltering faith sent him under.” She popped a bite of bread into her mouth. “Those are easy. Ask me something harder, like, Who drove a tent peg through the head of Sisera the Canaanite?”
Eli worked a few peas onto his fork. “How can a person know the Bible front to back and not believe it’s the Word of God?”
Lily paused. “It was Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, who drove the peg through Sisera’s head.”
“That’s not the answer to my question.”
“Well, it’s all the answer you’re going to get from me,” she said. “Please pass the butter.”
Eli set the small crock near her plate and watched her tear apart a second roll. “You’re right that I’m not cut out to be a pastor,” he said. “All I know is to preach the gospel and let the Lord do his work in people’s souls. I can’t comfort the sick and the dying, and I don’t know how to reach a woman who’s shut her heart up tight.” He studied the hand-hewn shingles on the roof of the new church. “The folks here need a real minister—not some ol’ Texas cowhand.”
Lily tucked a strand of golden hair behind her ear. “Didn’t King David start out as a shepherd?”
“Sure, but I’m not educated or tenderhearted or well mannered—none of those things you talked about. I know how to do a day’s labor, earn my pay, eat a little chow, and sleep on the ground at night. I’m just a plain workingman.”
“Jesus was a carpenter. Paul made tents. Peter fished for a living. You’re not in bad company, Reverend Book.”
“Right now, I’m in your company, and I can’t figure you out.”
“Why should you bother? I’m doing my job feeding your baby. Isn’t that enough?”
“No.” He reached across the checkered cloth and took her hand. “It’s not enough for me. I thought about you all last night when I was up with Samuel. Today
, when you walked into church and I saw you standing there at the back, I wanted to shout hallelujah. It didn’t have a thing to do with the baby. You’re not just Sam’s nurse. You’re a cyclone who’s blown through my life and turned everything topsy-turvy. In the space of two days, you’ve made me boiling mad, lifted my spirits, bailed me out of trouble, challenged my faith in God, and filled my mind to overflowing. In spite of myself, Mrs. Nolan, I care about you.”
Her hand was trembling as she slipped it out of his. “Please don’t do that, Mr. Book,” she said in a thin voice. “Care about these people—your church. Let them into your heart and learn to love them. Then you’ll be a pastor.”
“And you?”
“Don’t care about me. I don’t want anything from you except what you can afford to pay me. I have everything I need.”
“A person who has everything she needs ought to be happy. You’re not happy. You’re angry and hurting. There’s something inside you that’s so sad—”
“No. I’ve chosen my path. I’m going to make my own way in this world. And I’ll do it alone. I don’t need the crutch of religion.”
“My faith in God is no crutch. When I was trying to get through life without the Lord, I was limping along, stumbling and falling down every two or three steps. I tried to fill the emptiness with work, drink, cards, women—whatever. Nothing satisfied for long. Then I asked Christ to come into my heart, and he healed me better than new. A man doesn’t need a crutch when he’s whole and complete.”
“Well, I’m a whole woman,” she said, stacking their dishes. “My strength comes from within myself. I’m my own source of light and power.”
Eli touched the sleeping baby’s cheek. “I’m impressed. You must be a lot better person than I am, Mrs. Nolan. When I looked at my spirit without God, all I saw was confusion and nothingness. I didn’t know which way to turn, and I sure didn’t feel any power. Oh, I was strong all right—blustering around one saloon or another, fighting any man who looked at me crossways, running cattle from Abilene to Kansas City. But all my strength was on the outside. I pulled anger and hurt around me like a heavy suit of armor to keep everybody back. Inside, I was as empty as an old tin can.”
Lily pursed her lips for a moment. Then she tucked a strand of hair into her bun. “It looks like rain,” she said. “I’d better go and speak to Mrs. Hanks about her offer of a place to sleep. None of the other good Christian citizens of Hope have invited me in. I’m not surprised. When you’re filled with the holiness of God, you don’t want to sully yourself by spending time with a lowly actress from a traveling show.”
Without looking at him, she set the dishes into the basket and stood. “You can fetch me when Samuel wakes up,” she said. “I’ll stay in town until Beatrice comes back from Topeka.”
Eli sat on the checkered cloth watching Lily Nolan walk away from him for the second time that day. He thought about all his years on the trail. And he pondered his months on the preaching circuit. One thing seemed sure. God could use him like a cattle driver—spreading the gospel as he herded people into the kingdom of heaven. But Eli wasn’t cut out to be a shepherd—guiding, nurturing, and tending a flock of lambs along the rocky paths of life day by day.
No sir. Right this minute he ought to go tell Seth Hunter he was quitting his job as pastor of Hope’s church, and then he could head for China.
In the distance, Lily Nolan paused outside the door of the Hankses’ house. She lifted the corner of her white apron and dabbed her cheek. She was crying, Eli realized. This woman who claimed to be whole, strong, and glowing with inner peace was weeping.
Lord, he prayed, I want to run from this work you sent my way. But even more than that, I want to do your will. Teach me how to be a shepherd.
“Mercy, mercy, mercy, girl. That storm is blowin’ up fast. I hope we don’t get us a cyclone.”
Lily noted that Mother Margaret was taking her washing off the line even though the clothes weren’t nearly dry. She chuckled at the older woman’s now-familiar foibles. Four days in the Hankses’ home had given Lily a sense of family she’d never known. Ben’s siblings and his and Eva’s children had long ago gone to work for other landowners, and the loss was palpable to this day. Often Mother Margaret mentioned a son or daughter, and at each meal Eva prayed for her absent children by name. Though lacking an extended family, the couple had created a warm and loving relationship with Ben’s mother. Now they welcomed Lily as though she had always lived there.
“I’d better get that boy of mine to whittle some new clothes- pegs,” the old woman said. “We toted these all the way from Missouri, and they’re plumb wore out.”
Sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of the little frame house, Lily watched Mother Margaret drop gray wooden pegs into her apron pockets. For almost a week, clouds had been lingering on the horizon, promising rain but failing to deliver. The day before, in the mercantile, Rosie Hunter had told a terrifying story of a cloud of grasshoppers that had once plagued the town. Caitrin Murphy followed that with the tale of a raging prairie fire whose smoke everyone had mistaken at first for rain clouds.
Lily was beginning to wonder if life on this barren land might be a lot more intimidating than it appeared. These bucolic peasants were turning out to be warriors in disguise, battling the elements for their very lives. Though she was certain her reception at her father’s house in Philadelphia would be unpleasant, she felt thankful she’d be returning there before the winter.
“Eva, you better run next door and tell Ben and Mr. Jack to carry their tools inside the smithy,” Mother Margaret called. “It’s fixin’ to rain. I can feel it in my bones.”
Eva peered out the screenless window of the house and gave Lily a wink. “I reckon those two men know enough to get their tools out of the rain before they get rusty, Mama.”
“Mercy, I hope so.”
Lily fingered the tight collar of her dress. The air hung dank and humid over the grassland, so heavy it was hard to breathe. She wondered what her parents were doing on this day in Philadelphia. No doubt they were attending a literary reading or a political speech. Her father would be preparing selections for the symphony to play during the Independence Day celebrations. Her mother would be agonizing over summer bonnets and gloves. The townhouse would be dark and cool, each table laden with a bouquet of fresh flowers, pungent smells wafting up from the kitchen, a coat of new wax gleaming on the hardwood floors.
How different from this toilsome prairie life. How empty.
Lily pushed up from the rocking chair and strolled across the beaten dirt yard to help Mother Margaret take down the rest of the laundry. Odd that she felt so comfortable in the home of former slaves. But here in Hope, Lily had discovered laughter that came from the belly, music that came from the heart, and food that nourished the soul.
“Sit yourself back down, child,” the old woman said. “That preacher will be along here any minute with his squallin’ baby. I don’t know why he’s takin’ so long this afternoon anyhow. Seems like he comes a-runnin’ to you the minute that little feller makes a sound.”
Lily tugged a wooden peg from the line. She was a little concerned herself. Physically uncomfortable with her need to nurse the baby, she couldn’t understand why she had seen Elijah only once this day. She had insisted that the baby spend most of the time with his father. After all, she would be leaving soon. But Lily found herself eagerly anticipating the moment when she would hear Samuel’s wails drifting toward her from the church. Surely in a moment the preacher would march up to the house, his dark hair windblown and his blue eyes clouded with concern—as though Sam’s every whimper spelled trouble with a capital T.
Though they hadn’t spoken at length since the picnic beside the church, Lily had turned the man’s words over in her mind. He might be uneducated and rough-hewn, but Elijah Book was sincere. At least … he seemed sincere. She hesitated to trust him too far. He was, after all, a man.
“What time did you nurse that baby?” M
other Margaret asked, dropping the last damp shirt into her basket. “I thought it was around midmornin’. Don’t you reckon Sam’s hungry by now?”
Lily set her hands on her hips and stared at the church. “Maybe Eva could go over there and check on things.”
“Eva’s cookin’ supper. What’s wrong with those two feet you got? Can’t they make it across the street?”
“I don’t want to bother Reverend Book. He might be resting.”
“He’s not restin’. That man’s been working himself half to death over there. Hammerin’ day and night. Plowin’ up the ground. Splittin’ fence posts. He hasn’t done much visitin’ of his flock, but he sure is sprucin’ up the building.”
“I guess I could walk over and check.” Lily crossed her arms. “But he might be writing a sermon or something. With the wedding coming up this Saturday—”
“He never writes down a thing he says. Didn’t you listen to him last night at prayer meetin’? Why, he just went to tearin’ through the Scripture like a hound dog after a coon. One by one, he pulled those verses apart and put ’em back together—and he never looked at nothin’ but the Good Book itself.”
“I wasn’t at the prayer meeting.”
“Well, you missed a good’n. I don’t know why you thought you needed to stay here at the house and wash your stockin’s all secret-like. Everybody in town knows what a pair of lady’s stockin’s looks like. Mercy me.”
Lily picked up the heavy load of laundry and carried it onto the front porch. The clouds looked no closer to town than they had the past three days, but at least Mother Margaret could stop fretting about her clothes getting rained on. The tiny old woman hobbled up the wooden steps and sank onto a chair.
“Go check on that baby, Miz Lily,” she wheezed, “before I give myself a heart attack worryin’ over him. Go on now. And don’t you get caught in the rain.”
Lily took a deep breath and started toward the unpainted clapboard church. She didn’t want Elijah to think she ever missed Samuel. Or needed the baby. Or looked forward to seeing the two of them. He had to understand that the arrangement between them was just a job.
Prairie Storm Page 7
