My Heart Belongs in Galveston, Texas

by Kathleen Y'Barbo

  Madeline tugged on his sleeve. “Is that why Annabelle kept looking up the stairs?”

  “I believe so.” He turned his attention back to the sheriff. “I’d be obliged if I could leave Miss Latour here and go back with you.” He pulled another of his cards out and offered it to the sheriff.

  “Pinkerton man, are you? Well now,” he said. “Seems like the Pinkertons have quite an interest in this town of late.”

  “Is that so?” Jonah asked. “Who else has been here?”

  “Can’t quite remember the name but he was a fella. Average height. Talked like he wasn’t from around here. Seems to me that’s right.”

  “Was his name Donovan?”

  “Might be.” He pulled off his hat and scratched his bald head. “Don’t really matter, though, does it? If we got a shooter over at Mrs. Francine’s Boardinghouse, then that needs to be handled.” He whistled, and a man even older than him came shuffling out from the back of the building. “Elmer, take care that this lady is safe, would you?”

  Elmer nodded and then offered Madeline a smile. “She’ll be just fine here. What’s happening I need to know about?”

  “Offer the lady a cup of tea, Elmer,” the lawman said. “And stay away from open windows. That ought to be all you need to know.”

  With that, Jonah left Madeline in the questionable care of Elmer and stepped out onto the sidewalk. Though there was the usual traffic a town of this size might have, no one looked or seemed suspicious. In Jonah’s experience, that was the worst scenario.

  Because every single one of them from the old man on the wagon to the young girl flirting with the stable hand was suspicious until the shooter had been caught.

  “I figure a direct approach to be best. What say you, Pinkerton man?”

  “Agreed,” Jonah said, taking the lead as they closed the distance between the sheriff’s office and Mrs. Francine’s Boardinghouse.

  Opening the front door with their guns drawn, Jonah stepped inside first with the sheriff a step behind. The place was quiet. Too quiet for a home that had a child in it.

  Jonah nodded toward the staircase. “Annabelle kept looking up there,” he said as quietly as he could. “How many rooms are there?”

  “Five, best I remember. Where did those shots come from, or can you tell?”

  He thought a minute. “Northeast corner.” He paused. “I’ll go first and you follow. That work for you?”

  “Son, that’s how I managed to keep doing this so long. You go on ahead and I will stand watch behind you.”

  At Jonah’s nod, they proceeded up the staircase, pausing occasionally to listen for any sound on the upper floor. Finally they reached the landing. All the doors were shut, leaving the space in only the dimmest of light.

  The corridor had that musty smell familiar to coastal dwellings that were not exposed to fresh air, and the floors were stained and uneven. Boards were missing in several places, and it looked as if something had chewed on the door frame nearest him. If Annabelle took in boarders, they obviously did not pay well enough to cause her to put any money toward repairs.

  Jonah nodded toward the room in the northeast corner and then inched his way there as quietly as he could manage. He tried the knob and found it either locked or stuck. Either way, the door would not budge.

  Holding up his index finger, he began to count off one, two, and then three. On three, he turned sharply and kicked the door.

  The door flew open and slammed against the wall. Jonah stepped inside and found it completely empty, with neither a bed nor wardrobe in sight. And definitely no one who could have aimed a gun at Madeline.

  Jonah went to the window and raised it. From where he stood, there was no ledge, but rather just a drop-off that fell two stories to the ground.

  The sheriff gave him a doubtful look that quickly turned disgusted. “Either you’re wasting my time or whoever fired that shot at you was awful quick in vacating the place.”

  A board creaked in the hall, and Jonah lifted his finger to his lips.

  His gun aimed and ready, Jonah whirled around the corner and out into the corridor ready to shoot whoever was out there. Until he saw it was a cat.

  The fat orange tabby threaded itself around his legs as Jonah reassessed his next move. With four more rooms upstairs, he determined to search them all.

  Extricating himself from the cat, he crept down the hall only to find the sheriff had stayed behind to give his attention to the feline. The first door opened easily, and the room proved empty. The search of the remaining three rooms had similar results.

  “If anyone was up here, they’re gone now, ain’t they?” Sheriff Simmons said as he knelt down and scratched the cat behind the ears.

  “It looks that way,” Jonah admitted, although he was certain someone had been here. His gut told him so, as did the strange looks upstairs by Annabelle and her child. Just to be certain, he would search the downstairs rooms as well.

  There he found a kitchen that, while in less than desirable condition, had been recently used for meal preparation. A child’s cup sat on a cluttered table beside a copy of last week’s Galveston Daily News.

  Jonah walked back into the front hall and saw the sheriff walking down the stairs with the cat following close behind. He completed the search of the first floor, finding a room in the back of the house that appeared to be the place where Annabelle and her child were living.

  The sheriff joined him there. “Looks like Mrs. Francine’s Boardinghouse has fallen on hard times.”

  “It appears so. What do you think happened to Mrs. Francine?”

  The lawman shrugged. “Buried her last fall. Place belongs to Annabelle now.”

  “And she lives here alone?”

  “I believe so. Her man ships out, so he ain’t here much.” He lifted his hat to scratch his bare head again. “Pinkerton man, I won’t be saying my expertise is greater than yours, but I have to wonder if that shell you found didn’t come from a gun accidentally fired.”

  “But accidentally fired twice?”

  “Well, you do have a point, but—”

  The front door opened, and Jonah once again reached for his gun. He stepped out of the room and slowly moved around the staircase with his gun drawn.

  “Elmer?” Jonah said as he put away his weapon. “Where is Madeline?”

  “One minute we were playing cards and the next she was gone,” he said, eyes wide.

  “Hold on now,” Sheriff Simmons said. “She couldn’t have disappeared right there in front of you. Either you left or she did. Which was it?”

  “She did, Pake,” he said as he snapped his fingers. “Just up and gone.”

  Jonah took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Think, man,” he said, his jaw clenched. “Where did you see her go? Did someone take her?”

  “No, sir,” he said, shaking his head so hard he almost fell over. “She took herself. Just up and went right out of the room in the middle of a hand of Go Fish, and it being her turn too. I blame it on that preacher man.”

  As Jonah headed for the door, he heard the sheriff ask, “What in the world did the preacher do to cause that Pinkerton man’s woman to up and disappear?”

  Jonah paused to turn around. The orange cat had found Elmer and was now weaving itself around his legs.

  “Well, he walked by with one of those fellers from the wharf, like I said. And we were just sitting here playing cards, again like I said, and I pointed out the preacher man, and she said well, if all she was doing was playing cards she would at least pass the time doing something worthwhile.”

  Jonah shook his head. “And what was that?”

  He shrugged. “Talking to the preacher man, I guess.”

  “Sheriff,” Jonah asked. “Which way is the church?”

  Shaking his head, the sheriff laughed. “Practically one on every corner here, thank the Lord. Which one do you want?”

  “I think he means the preacher man’s church,” Elmer offered. “I can take you there.
”

  Jonah and the sheriff followed the old man down the street and around the corner until they stood in front of the church pastored by the fellow Elmer called the preacher man. Out of the corner of his eye, Jonah saw the orange cat ambling toward them.

  “Great,” he muttered.

  Then a woman’s scream erupted from somewhere inside the church. Jonah ran inside and followed the sound until he located its source in a small library next to the sanctuary.

  He found Madeline atop a table in the center of the room. An older fellow who he assumed was the preacher was chasing a rat with a fisherman’s net.

  “What are you doing here?” Jonah shouted over the din, his heart racing.

  “Jonah!” she managed. “I was just speaking with Reverend Wyatt when that rat jumped out of the box over there and right into my lap.”

  The rat skittered past Jonah only to run straight into the waiting jaws of the orange tabby cat. “I don’t think you’ll be pestered by that rat again,” the sheriff said with a chuckle.

  Madeline carefully climbed down from the table and nodded toward the preacher. “Before we were set upon by the vermin, Reverend Wyatt was about to show me the church records going back to well before the war.”

  “I thought they were destroyed in the ’75 hurricane.”

  “This building survived the storm, and because the registries were in this waterproof box that one of our parishioners made, they were hardly touched by all that water. Just a spot or two. Oh yes, I’ve got them right here,” he said as he reached deeper into the box where Madeline claimed the rat had come from and pulled out two large books then placed them on the table. Madeline reached for one and Jonah took the other.

  “What are we looking for?” she asked him.

  “Baby girl born on the 18th or 19th of September in 1855. Father is Samuel Smith and mother is Eliza Smith,” he said.

  “Did you say Samuel Smith?” Sheriff Simmons said. “We knew him, didn’t we, Elmer?”

  “Sure did. Good man, he was, and a fine sailor, but I don’t remember any child of his being born here, do you, Reverend?”

  The preacher pointed to the books. “Ought to be in there somewhere if he did.”

  “All right,” Jonah said to Madeline. “You know what we’re looking for.”

  She nodded and turned to the first page of the book in front of her as the three other men sat down to chat. Though Jonah was trying to be diligent in his reading of the old and spidery handwriting in the registry, it was obvious that Madeline was more interested in listening carefully to the old-timers’ conversation.

  “Wasn’t it rumored that old Smith had another name he wasn’t so proud of?” Elmer said.

  “Aw now,” the sheriff said. “Ain’t nobody credits those crazy tales any more than they do the stories of pirate treasure.”

  “What’s this about pirate treasure?” Madeline said as Jonah stifled a groan.

  “Just nonsense,” the sheriff said. “Ain’t that so, preacher?”

  Reverend Wyatt shook his head. “You know I can’t talk about things people tell me in confidence, especially when they aren’t here to defend themselves.”

  Madeline set her work aside and offered the preacher a smile. “I am not asking you to tell me what people said, only just to tell whether it was a certain person who said it. Would that be all right?”

  “I suppose so,” Reverend Wyatt said.

  “This treasure they’re talking about, did it belong to Samuel Smith?”

  “Oh no,” the reverend said. “It wasn’t his at all.”

  “I see,” she said, disappointment evident in her voice as she turned to the table and began thumbing through the pages of the register again.

  “You couldn’t miss the opportunity to dig for pirate treasure, could you?” he whispered.

  Her only response was to ignore him. That didn’t bother Jonah at all, for at least she was back at work doing what needed to be done. Between dodging bullets and roaming through a run-down boardinghouse, they were already way behind schedule.

  “That’s the truth,” the sheriff said. “Wasn’t old Samuel’s treasure at all.”

  “No, Samuel, he got put in the churchyard long before there was any question of treasure.” Elmer coughed then regained his voice. “Was that before the war?”

  “Yep,” the sheriff said. “Samuel went to his reward in ’58 or ’59, I do believe. Or maybe it was earlier than that. I don’t rightly recall, now that I think of it.”

  Jonah looked up to see if Madeline was paying attention. Of course she was.

  “Yes sir,” Elmer said. “That treasure belonged to ole what’s his name.”

  Madeline turned around to face the men. “Jean Lafitte?”

  The preacher turned red as a beet and began to cough. When he caught his breath, he turned to face Madeline. “Why would you say that?”

  I hope you’ve learned your lesson,” Jonah said as they walked together down the wharf toward the Haven.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said as she picked up her pace in order to shorten the time she had to spend with the infuriating Pinkerton detective.

  “Even I have not interrogated a man of the cloth until he wept!”

  “You’re being ridiculous. He did not weep,” she countered as she stepped around a fat orange cat preening in the evening sun. “And I was not interrogating. I was merely asking.”

  His laughter chased her up the wharf. “Asking stopped about ten minutes in. When we get back to Galveston, I plan to send a telegram to the captain to let him know I have a candidate for the next open position at the agency.”

  She whirled around to face him, and Jonah had to sidestep to keep from running into her. “All right,” she admitted. “I may have gotten a little overzealous in my questioning of the preacher, but you know I was right. He knows something and won’t tell us.”

  “Cannot tell us,” Jonah corrected. “He is a preacher. He’s taken a vow, Madeline. It would go against his oath to give up a confidence.”

  “Then there must be another way.” She looked down and then back up at Jonah, ignoring the way his silver eyes reflected the color of the water around them. “Why is that cat following you?”

  Jonah looked down at the cat that was now threading itself around his ankles. “I have no idea,” he said, “but you are not going to change the subject. The purpose of our trip to Indianola was to find out all we could about Mrs. Smith’s granddaughter.”

  “Which we did,” she reminded him. “Not only did Sheriff Simmons, Elmer, and Reverend Wyatt agree that Samuel Smith lived in Indianola, but they also sent us to the courthouse where deed records showed where his home used to be and death records indicated his date and cause of death.”

  “I believe that was me who went to the courthouse,” he said as he ignored the fat orange cat. “You remained back at the church to torture the reverend.”

  “Truly, you are so dramatic, Jonah.”

  She turned and walked toward the steamship, not caring whether Jonah followed. Once on board, she found a porter and located her cabin. By the time she’d been settled inside and discovered that yet another hamper of food had appeared, she did not care whether the Pinkerton agent got on the ship or not.

  Unfortunately, he did. This she discovered when he came pounding on her door a few minutes later.

  “Have you opened your hamper?” he demanded.

  “Come in, Jonah,” was her bland response.

  He stepped inside and nodded to the hamper. “Go ahead. Open it.”

  She did as he asked and then looked over at him. “All right, I opened it.”

  “And what do you see?”

  “Food,” she said. “Lots of food, actually. Much more than I could possibly want.”

  The Pinkerton agent crossed the distance between them and looked down into the hamper. “That’s interesting,” he said.

  “Why? What was in yours?”

  He met her gaze, his ex
pression serious as he pulled something out of his pocket and cradled it in his palm. “Nothing but this spent .45 caliber shell.”

  “Oh,” she said. And then again, “Oh.”

  Jonah stuffed the bullet back into his pocket. “It is the same caliber as the one I got out of the alley behind the boardinghouse and left with the sheriff.”

  “I see.” Madeline sat in the nearest chair and tried to make sense of it all. Finally, she gave up. “What does all of this mean, Jonah?”

  He sat beside her. “I don’t know. After we hit those dead ends at the boardinghouse, I thought for sure that those two shots, while coming too close for comfort, were just random shots. I know that’s what the sheriff believes.”

  “Understandable considering there was no obvious culprit. And weapons do get discharged by accident.”

  “They do, but nearly missing you?” He shook his head. “And more than once? No, accidental doesn’t add up.”

  “But what does?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing. Having said that, there isn’t anything we can do about it until we get back to Galveston. In light of that, and in light of the fact I’m starving, I propose we divide the bounty in your hamper and have dinner.”

  Much as she wanted him out of her cabin, it seemed simpler to agree. Let the Pinkerton agent have his supper and then perhaps he would leave her in peace.

  “I also propose we use the table for our meal this time.” He paused in his rummaging through the contents of the hamper to give her a mischievous grin. “Unless you prefer another picnic.”

  “You are truly impossible, Jonah Cahill,” she said as she grudgingly laughed.

  “I thought I was dramatic,” he countered.

  “You are both,” she said as she shook her head and joined him at the hamper.

  “I am neither,” he said.

  Madeline looked up into those impossible eyes, and her heart lurched. For a moment she let herself remember why she had fallen in love with this man. Then, just as quickly, she pushed all those reasons away.

  “Then we shall agree to disagree,” she managed.

  Hours later, when Jonah had long ago gone to his cabin and she was alone and trying to sleep in spite of the sounds of the steam engines, Madeline could only lie on her back and wish she was looking up at the stars.