“You’re a lowdown dirty liar.” Bud started to jump at Martin.
Jesse caught him and pulled him back. “Here now, I said that’s enough.” He put his hand on Bud’s shoulder and held him in place. He sent his stern frown across the row of boys. “Did any of you hear Martin call Charley or Bud a vulgar name?”
“Huh-uh.”
“Not me.”
“I didn’t hear nothin’.”
Bud’s muscles went tight beneath Jesse’s hand. “They’re all lyin’! Look here. I can show you.” He dug in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled ball of paper. He shoved it at Jesse.
Jesse carefully unwadded the sheet.
“See what that says?” Bud nearly danced in place, fury pulsating from his slight frame. “Martin gave it to me in the classroom today. That’s why I told him to meet me out here—to tell him he better quit pestering Charley. He brought a whole bunch of others with him—”
Martin pounded his palm with his fist. “You said to bring ’em!”
“—and said he wouldn’t leave Charley alone, and then Joey said something about running Charley out of town on a rail. That’s when Martin started to say I was…was that, too.”
Jesse held the paper toward Martin. “This is what we call evidence, Martin, and it’s pretty convicting. You go home. I’ll be by later to talk to your pa.”
Martin stomped off, muttering.
Jesse turned to the other boys. He shook his head. “You all oughta be ashamed of yourselves, ganging up on one person that way. You could’ve done some real damage.”
One boy separated himself from the others. Jesse recognized him—the younger of the Randall boys. “Sheriff, I wasn’t fighting against Bud. I was trying to help him.”
Bud fingered his swollen mouth. “That’s true. Leon pulled Martin off me. Got a pretty good clop on the chin for doing it.”
Jesse lifted the boy’s face. A large purple knot was forming along his jaw. “All right, you go on home and put a cold rag on your face. Let your pa know what happened. If he has questions, he can find me.”
“Yes, sir.” Leon shuffled off, cradling his cheek with his hand.
Jesse balled his hands and rested them on his hips, glowering at the boys who stood in a sullen line. “You can tell your folks to count on a visit from me, too. Go on now. And behave yourselves.”
Mumbling and flinging stormy glares over their shoulders, they trudged away.
Jesse blew out a breath and settled his gaze on Bud. “All right. As for you—”
Bud broke into sobs. He dove at Jesse and buried his face against Jesse’s front. His hands grabbed handfuls of Jesse’s shirt, and he clung, his entire body shaking. “Ain’t right, Mr. Caudel. Ain’t right what Martin said. ’Cause if Charley’s a…one of them…that means it’s true about my pop. It’s not true. Is it?”
Jesse took Bud by the shoulders and pulled him loose. What a sorry mess he was with hair standing on end, blood and mucus smeared across his cheek, and one eye swollen completely shut and turning every color of the rainbow. His lip had puffed up until it looked like he had a wad of chewing tobacco jammed in his mouth. He also looked painfully, miserably, dejectedly young. Jesse sighed.
“C’mon, Bud. Let’s get you home and cleaned up.” He led the boy through the alley to the back door of the mercantile, then followed him inside.
Bud moved slowly up the hallway toward the store. “Ma?”
Mrs. Shilling whirled around the corner. “There you are! I was wondering when—” She stopped, her entire body jolting. Her eyes flew wide, and then she rushed at her son. “Bud! What happened to you? You look as if you were hit by a train.”
Bud sagged against his mother, tears tracing a path through the dried blood and dirt on his face.
Jesse answered. “There was a fight after school. Bud was a little outnumbered, so he got the worst of it.” He curled his hand over Bud’s shoulder. “I don’t approve of fighting—I don’t think it’s a good solution to a problem—but he was standing up for right. And for that reason, I’m proud of him.”
Mrs. Shilling gently ushered Bud to the stairs. “Go up and soak in the bathtub. Throw your clothes in the rag basket. They’ll need lots of repair before you can wear them again.”
Bud stood with one foot on the bottom riser. “Don’t you need my help in the mercantile?”
Jesse stifled a laugh. The way the boy looked, he’d frighten away customers.
“I’m fine. You go.” She remained at the base of the stairs, her concerned gaze following him until the bathroom door closed. Then she turned to Jesse. “Was the fight about Charley?”
Without a word Jesse handed her the rumpled sheet of paper Bud had given him.
Her face went white. “Oh, my…”
Jesse took it back. “I’m gonna need this. I intend to show it to Martin’s father and tell him to have a talk with his boy about using inappropriate language.”
Mrs. Shilling sighed. “You might discover Martin learned the term from his father. They were quite obvious about their feelings in church Sunday morning.”
He’d forgotten the Buckwelders were the family scrambling to separate themselves from the Shillings in the church pew. “Then I’ll have a talk with Mr. Buckwelder about teaching his son inappropriate language.”
She smiled. A weak smile, but a smile. It assured him.
He folded the paper and slipped it into his shirt pocket. “Before I brought Bud home, he asked me a question I didn’t know how to answer. He knows the meaning of the name Martin called Charley. And he knows what that says about his father.”
She cringed. “Oh.”
The spatter of water running against a porcelain tub sounded overhead. Jesse wished hot water could wash away heartache as easily as it did dirt and blood. “He’s one hurt, mixed-up boy.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“How?” He touched his bloodstained shirt where Bud had burrowed against him and sobbed. “There’s no good way to tell a boy such things about the father he loves.”
“I’ll find a way.”
She spoke with more strength than Jesse knew a woman could possess. No matter what he found out from Abling, he suspected she’d survive. “All right then. I’ve got some visits to make. I’ll leave you to your customers.”
A sad sigh whisked from her lips.
“Unless you still need me for…” He didn’t know what would help, but if she’d tell him something, he’d do it.
“Mr. Caudel, I haven’t had but one customer all day.” The strength departed, leaving a deep disappointment in its stead. “She bought a spool of thread, slapped her dime on the counter, and left without saying a word to me.”
Jesse growled under his breath. “It’s one thing for school kids to act like idiots, name-calling and striking out. But grownups should know better.”
“They should, but…”
How could he encourage her? “People will settle down in time, forget.”
“Maybe.” She looked as defeated as Bud had.
He couldn’t resist giving her shoulder a soft pat, the way he’d do to Bud or one of the other youngsters. “Give it some time.”
She offered another weak smile. “I’ll give it until I know whether this store is mine, legally paid for or not.”
“And if it isn’t?”
She pulled in a slow breath, appearing to gather courage. “Then I’ll give it to the bank in Nebraska…and move.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Move? Away?”
She tipped her head, fixing him with a weary-yet-determined look. “Arthur Randall bade me to consider the wisdom of letting Charley, Cassie, and Adeline remain in Buffalo Creek. Even if Warren did purchase this property legally, the folks in the community will still look askance at the children. I can’t change my husband’s indiscretions. The children will forever live beneath a cloud of condemnation. Arthur was right. It would be cruel to subject them to a lifetime of unhappiness.”
Apparently she and Ra
ndall had a more personal relationship than he’d realized if she took his advice so seriously. “Where would you go?”
She smiled. “I read an article in a newspaper several months ago about California. Where it’s always warm.” Her smile quavered. “And where no one has ever heard of Warren Shilling.”
Neva
Neva leaned over and deposited a kiss on Cassie’s warm cheek. “Good night, Cassie. Sleep well.”
Cassie rubbed her eyes with her fist and yawned. “Night, Aunt Neva.”
Neva tucked the cover beneath the little girl’s chin and straightened. Pale lamplight flowed across the trundle next to Cassie’s bed. Adeline’s big eyes implored Neva to give her a kiss, too. Neva knelt beside the trundle and smoothed the child’s hair from her eyes.
A lump grew in the back of her throat. How could she send this precious little girl away? No building—not even the one that had been her only real home—carried more importance than the well-being of this tender little soul.
She kissed Adeline, breathing in her sweet scent, and offered the same good-night wish she’d given Cassie. Adeline smiled, slipped her fingers into her mouth, and rolled over.
Neva extinguished the lamp and moved across the dark room to Belle’s bed. She sat on the edge and picked up Belle’s hand, which lay limply on top of her quilt. “Do you think you can sleep now?”
Belle had been more distraught about Bud’s injuries than Neva. She sometimes thought what one twin suffered, the other automatically experienced as well. Belle had no external bruises, but her daughter’s spirit had been sorely battered.
“Will you pray with me?” Belle still sounded hurt.
Neva closed her eyes and prayed aloud, asking God to kiss Belle’s dreams with all things pleasant and awaken her in the morning with the reminder of His unwavering presence. Then she gave her daughter a hug and a kiss and tiptoed from the room.
Bud and Charley’s door stood ajar, and she slipped through the opening. She went to Charley’s bed first. He was asleep already, a book under one arm and a tin truck under the other. She gently extracted both items and laid them on the little table beside his bed next to the framed photo of Warren and Violet, which she’d retrieved from its hiding spot after the service on Sunday. She kissed the little boy’s flushed cheek. He stirred but didn’t wake.
Her chest pinched as she gazed at the image of her husband with Charley’s mother, but she wouldn’t hide it again.
She turned toward the other side of the room. Light from the hallway sconces painted a narrow path to Bud’s bed. He half sat, half lay, supported by his pillows. Against the white pillowcase, his bruises looked even darker and more painful. Neva cringed as she eased onto the edge of his bed, careful not to jostle him.
“Not sleepy yet?” She whispered so she wouldn’t bother Charley. “Dr. Zielke said the analgesic he gave you for pain might make you drowsy.”
He shook his head.
“Is the pain easing?”
“On my outsides.”
Her heart aching, Neva finger-combed his wavy russet hair back from his forehead. “I wish I had an analgesic for the hurt you feel on the inside.” She’d take a dose of it, too.
“Do I hafta go to school tomorrow?”
“Yes, you do. Your injuries aren’t severe enough for you to miss more school.” She continued running her hand through his hair, as much for her comfort as his.
“But Martin and the guys—”
“Sheriff Caudel said he would visit each of their families. There won’t be any more fighting.” Oh, please God, no more fighting or tormenting or mistreatment…
“Ma, please, can’t I stay here? I don’t wanna go.”
How could she make him understand hiding wasn’t the answer? A memory flitted through her mind. She gave his hair one more sweep, then laid her hand in her lap. “Do you remember when you were little and someone gave us a jar of blackberry jam? You wanted some right away, but I told you we’d have it for our lunch. When I wasn’t looking, you took the jar and went to your room and ate every last spoonful of the jam. Do you remember?”
He made a face. “Yeah. Gave me a bad stomachache.”
She smiled. “Eating a pint of jam will do that. Do you remember what you did when you’d finished the jam?”
His tongue poked out at the corner of his mouth the way it always did when he was thinking. “I hid under the bed.”
“Why?” She held her breath, hoping.
“ ’Cause I’d done wrong. Didn’t want you to know.”
She released the air in a whoosh. “That’s right. When folks do wrong, the first thing they want to do is hide.” She placed her palm on Bud’s chest, directly over his heart. “We haven’t done anything wrong. Not me or you or Belle or Charley or Cassie or Adeline. We have no reason to hide.”
He gazed at her in silence for several minutes, his uninjured eye blinking rapidly. Finally he sighed. “All right, Ma. I’ll go.”
“Good boy.”
“But, Ma?”
“Yes, Bud?”
“Pop did wrong. Didn’t he?”
She’d been praying since Sheriff Caudel showed her the ugly word written on the paper. She had an answer, and she could only hope it would help rather than heap more hurt on her son. “Yes, Bud, he did. It isn’t legal for a man to take two wives at the same time. He was already married to me, so his union with Violet wasn’t honored by God.”
“So he sinned. He sinned really bad.” A tear slid down his cheek. He covered his eyes with his forearm.
“Yes. But you know what, Bud? We all sin—we all do things we shouldn’t. Every sin is ‘really bad’ because it disappoints God.”
Bud lowered his arm. “Whaddaya mean?”
“What your father did was wrong, because the Bible says adultery is wrong. What I did—not accepting Charley, Cassie, and Adeline—was wrong, because the Bible tells us to love the way Jesus loved, without reservation. What Martin did was wrong, because the Bible says to treat other people the way we want to be treated.” She slipped her hand to his shoulder. “When God looks at sin, what He sees is the harm it brings. People want to define some sins as big and others as little, but the truth is, Bud, every sin is equally bad in God’s eyes.”
“So when Martin says bad things about Pop, he’s just as wrong as Pop was?”
Neva nodded.
Bud lay still, gazing at her with one unblinking eye, for several quiet seconds. Then he sighed. “Wish there wasn’t any sin at all. Wish everybody’d just do right and get along.”
She gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Instead of wishing, we can ask God to help us do the right things. And we can pray for those who are doing wrong to make better choices.”
“So if the kids bother Charley some more, I’m s’posed to pray for them instead of fighting with them?”
She smiled. “It might save you another black eye.”
He grinned, then winced.
Neva leaned in and brushed a light kiss on his temple. “Enough talking now. You get some sleep, hmm?”
“Okay.” He eased downward and rolled to his side with the bruised side of his face away from the pillow.
Neva couldn’t resist giving him one more kiss, this time in the tender spot on his neck below his ear where she used to nuzzle him when he was still a toddler. She smoothed his hair again, then tiptoed across the floor. She reached the door, and he whispered, “Ma?” She turned back.
“Today when all the guys jumped me, Leon Randall fought on my side.”
“I know, Son. You told me earlier.”
“I know, but…do you think maybe it means Leon wants to be my friend?” He sighed. “It’d be easier to go to school if I still had at least one friend. Besides Charley, I mean.”
Neva’s heart rolled over. “Sweetheart, sleep now. We’ll talk more in the morning.”
“All right. Night, Ma.”
Neva closed the door and moved quietly up the hallway to the parlor. She sat in her rocking chair
and pulled one of Charley’s socks and her darning supplies from the basket beside her chair. As she put the needles to work repairing the dime-sized hole, Bud’s sleepy comment, “at least one friend,” played through her mind.
Her hands stilled. What an unlikely ally Bud had discovered. Leroy and Leon had a reputation for creating havoc. People in town excused their misbehavior, shaking their heads in sympathy for the motherless boys. Why couldn’t they extend the same sympathy to Charley, Cassie, and Adeline, who’d lost both mother and father? Lord, I wish I could understand.
She set her attention on the sock again. “At least one friend.” A tiny spark of hope flickered to life. If Leon was willing to defend Bud after years of teasing him, then maybe Sheriff Caudel was right about the townsfolk eventually accepting the children. Maybe, if she ended up being able to keep the business she and Warren had built, she’d have the chance to raise all of Warren’s children in the apartment that was her home.
She closed her eyes and lapsed into prayer. God, I love this place, but I love the children more. Whatever is best for them is what I want to do. I told Bud we have no reason to hide. If I take the children away from here, I’ll be hiding just the way he did under the bed. I don’t want the children to be shuffled away in shame. So, my dear Father, work Your will. If we’re to stay, change the hearts of the townspeople. If we’re to go, guide me to Your chosen place for us. But please act swiftly so my children needn’t suffer.
Please act swiftly…
Neva repeated the prayer with such regularity it became a mantra. She prayed it after she talked with Charley and Cassie’s teacher, who promised to keep an eye on the children and intervene if she witnessed maltreatment. The simple utterance left her heart when worries about how Warren had accumulated his money or questions about what she and the children would do in the future crept in. She offered the prayer with fervency at the close of each day when she counted the amount in her cash register and found it lacking. With every pause between tasks, sometimes with every heartbeat, the prayer rose from the depths of her soul. But nothing changed.
Customers failed to pour through the mercantile door. No one except Arthur Randall and his sons offered to share a church pew at Sunday morning service. She appreciated his kindness, but she sat elsewhere to keep the feelings for him that had sprung up in her heart from growing. A recent widow, one with so many uncertainties hanging over her, shouldn’t encourage a man no matter how hard it was to shake her head in refusal.
Room for Hope Page 30
