Why is Sean here?
Ugh! Just quiet and let me talk to him, girl. You would ruin everything if I let you.
Chapter 12
“You’re awful nice to me, Sean. I wish I could do something nice for you too. Maybe I could give you a tour of the church graveyard. It’s kind of interesting reading all those old headstones. Did you know we have Civil War veterans buried there?” Blair’s inner-self asked him.
“I did. My grandpa on my ma’s side was with Sherman’s army in the March to the Sea. He wasn’t with us long after the trip here by wagon. He’s buried there. But a tour sounds fine,” Sean said. “Say, maybe we could do it this evening, just before the sun goes down. See, I was hoping to try something different with my camera. I’ve been reading some about different photography methods. I was thinking of trying to leave the shutter open once it got a little dark and writing something in the air with a lantern just to see if it catches it on the film. Would you like to take me on that tour and then help me with the experiment? I’ll put your name in lights!” He grinned.
He watched as Blair transformed before his very eyes. She tucked her chin coquettishly and looked up at him through her lashes. Boy, but Sean thought she looked even prettier when she did that. “Yes, I would, Sean.”
He finished the last blouse in the basket and hung it up with wooden pins. He slapped his hands against his trousers and turned to face her. She was writing “Sean” in the dirt with a twig, he noticed. He smiled to himself. She likes me. That must be the reason she’s come out of her shell, Sean thought, though it worried him a bit how that girl could run so hot and then so cold. It was like talking to two different people. “May I come by for you then around five o’clock?”
Blair had removed her boots and stockings. Then she hiked her dress up well past her petticoat and stepped into the cool water. She turned and gave him another fetching look over her shoulder. “I’ll just wait for ya by the fence, Sean.”
“Okay!” He removed his folded pork pie from his back pocket and placed it back on his head.
“Well, see ya then, Blair!”
She waggled playful fingers at him.
He turned and hurried back the way he had come but perhaps with just a bit more spring to his step.
Chapter 13
Preacher Bowman visited his church in order to thank the good Lord for the son He would soon bestow upon him. But after a few minutes of basking in the knowledge that his son would be forthcoming, the demons who frequently tortured him started in. The demons asked what the congregation would think about the preacher’s unwed daughter having a baby. The demons said that the congregation would run him out of town when it was learned that he had fathered his child’s child.
“They don’t understand this bidding I do for Him,” the preacher yelled at hiding devils. Sweat began pouring from his scalp and forehead.
Ordinary folks would fail to grasp the holy design. They had not the intelligence or the insightfulness to recognize that he was just a disciple devoted to God’s destiny for him. Bowman prayed for answers, and in due time one came to him, but it surely came not from God. Bowman began making plans of his own.
They called him the music man. Bowman’s trip to Dolph to find him took several hours because the town of Dolph kept getting moved around, until these days it was several miles farther up the Little Nestucca River. Dolph had a nice hotel and a stagecoach drop but not much else. And by the 1920s, there were no stagecoaches running from Portland or Salem. The roads that connected the Oregon Coast with the state capitol and other citified destinations were primarily the rough logging and fire access roads of dirt that traversed the Big Nestucca and Little Nestucca Rivers many times. Most visitors who drove their shiny new Chevy AA’s and Ford Model-T’s as far as Dolph, were only too happy to park their treasured vehicles in the Dolph garage and taxi out to the coast.
Old Man Bell, who ran the Dolph station, had purchased a couple of used creamery trucks from local farms to use as shuttles to the coast, mostly for visitors heading to the Tjaden Bath Houses and Wellness Spa. The undercarriages of the creamery trucks sat higher, which made them better at navigating potholes, fallen rocks, trees, and other road hazards without snapping an axle or punching a hole in their oil pans. Bell had customized the cargo beds to accommodate seat benches along the sides. Canopies were installed to protect passengers from rain, and curtained sides unfurled to act as barriers to all the dust those hard rubber tires kicked up.
Buckboards and horsing were still the primary means of travel for most folks who lived in the area. The Marshall family owned a Tin Lizzy, one of the last off the assembly line. They’d also had its back seat removed and a cargo bed placed in its stead.
The Marshall’s. Bowman grunted at the thought of them. And that boy of theirs! He scowled. He knew he would have to do something about Sean Marshall buzzing around his Blair at some point. But at that moment he had much more pressing business to attend to.
Bowman had heard things about the man who taught note singing, recently arrived in Dolph. Mostly, the things Bowman had heard were not at all flattering. The man was reportedly a beggar, a womanizer, and an oddjobber—and none too trustworthy. He was making his way from village to village, teaching folks to sing by note, hosting “shape note singing meetings” in local churches. The preacher did not favor them and had told his congregation that he would not have such meetings in his church. Even though the songs were mostly hymns, psalms and anthems, Bowman indicted the classes as being particularly popular with the young folks, because they used the get-togethers to mingle with members of the opposite sex.
All the windows were opened in the church to allow for the heat, which the many bodies in the room were generating. It seemed to Preacher Bowman that the whole town had turned out for the get-together. Bowman took in the music man’s notes of the scale, designated strangely by circles and squares and triangles that were drawn on the blackboard for all to see. Each visitor was provided a tune book.
He didn’t look much like a song leader. He looked like a poor dirt farmer, and he smelled like he’d been barrel-rolled in an outhouse. But the man proved himself a fine musician in short order.
“You, over here…and you…sing some notes for me…okay. Let’s put you here…”
He divided the voices into four harmonic parts—tenor, bass, treble, and alto—and then set his tuning fork for a comfortable range and commanded the group to vocalize in fa-la-la syllables. Bowman found the whole exercise ludicrous and was beside himself when the musician led him over to the bass group and directed him to sing along.
After a spell, the four parts of the choir took up different parts of a song, each singing different sets of words, and by some manner short of sorcery, they all came together at song’s end in perfect harmony. The music was so pleasing that Angus Tjaden, on Bowman’s left, kept grinning and nudging the preacher nonstop during the singing, making the preacher more uncomfortable still.
Look at that idiot, tapping his feet and acting like a jackass, Bowman thought. What else can you expect from a man who runs bath houses for a living? He also professed himself to be a “doctor of spiritual and mental health” and was laying claim to an ability to heal all forms of illness, from diabetes to cancer. Bah! Bowman moved himself a bit farther from the man’s elbow.
They sang every psalm they knew. Then, for the finale, the musician passed out tune sheets for a popular new song, “You’re the Cream in My Coffee.” Bowman feared the roof might blow right off, and the windows too, for the singing was loud and pure and shaking with pride. The collection of voices was truly unique. Every one of them could carry the notes, most of them surprisingly well.
“Well, that’s it, er, that’s all there is,” the music man announced when the song was done. He began collecting his tune books and sheet music amid a cacophony of protests. A new chorus broke out among the parishioner
s, who were sad to have the session end.
“Oh, must that be the last one?” someone whined.
“One more?” several more voices pleaded.
“Can we do this again soon, Preacher?” asked Angus Tjaden.
Preacher Bowman bristled a, “We’ll see,” and led the music man back to his cottage for lunch.
Chapter 14
The song leader played his role as logger and felled the small tree near the house, the one marked with whitewash, and cut it into manageable pieces. He’d taken a wedge from the side of the shack, propped up where he’d left it, and he split the log pieces for firewood. He’d stacked more than half a cord before he was done. The man worked hard, and he worked fast. For his effort, he was promised a good meal and better pay than he’d ever had before. Of course Bowman couldn’t guess what the logger’s usual pay was, but then the music man wasn’t too bright, either. He’d taken the preacher at his word. He was a man of God, after all.
Although he hadn’t bothered to wash up first, the music man plunked himself down on the bench before the dining table. He smelled foul, and he clearly needed a shave. Blair thought him uncouth, especially given the amount of time she’d spent preparing the meal. She had selected a fine pork roast of about four pounds and trimmed it carefully. She spit the roast and had built up a good fire under it. All afternoon, she’d kept vigil over the fire, sprinkling it with both apple and hazelnut wood chips for flavor while she basted the roasting meat with the juice of a pomegranate.
She had also chopped potatoes and onions and put them in a heavy iron pot that she had heavily greased with the pork fat trimmed from the roast. Those potatoes roasted until they were an enticing golden brown, and their aroma could be smelled all the way to their neighbor’s home hundreds of yards or so north. Spring vegetables wouldn’t come for another two months, but Blair retrieved a large jar of carrots from her canning shed. These she had allowed to caramelize in a pan full of butter and brown sugar, and just a dash of pumpkin pie spices that she blended herself. She also baked a pumpkin pie to round out the meal, and had set it in the pie safe to cool. It was indeed a meal fit for a king. Blair thought the musician/logger eyed the dessert a might impolitely.
The music man had grown hopeful for his pay, although he found the whole matter strange. Earlier, he’d been certain the preacher was unimpressed with his music lesson.
The music man ate so much food that he’d found it necessary to splay himself out on the bench with his belt and his top trouser button undone. He sat there and belched away his discomfort while Blair cleaned up the dishware.
“My compliments, ma’am,” the musician told her as he tipped the hat he had failed to take off before diving into his meal.
Blair mumbled a hurried, “thank you,” and exited out the back door to her canning shed, where she hoped to disappear from the sight of the vulgar man.
“Seems she don’t much care for song leaders neither.” The musician reached for another piece of the pie.
“On the contrary.” Preacher Bowman gave the man a knowing look.
“Serious? Naw. Pull my other leg, it has bells on!” he’d told him.
“I never knew a young girl who didn’t attempt to lure a man she’s interested in away from the prying eyes of her father.” The preacher pushed his platter away from himself and smiled. “You’ll probably be wanting your payment now. I believe I promised you better pay than you’ve ever had before. Well, my man, it waits for you in the canning shed out back.” Bowman nodded his head toward the kitchen window. He encouraged the music man to get up and take a look.
The musician followed Bowman’s gaze out the window that hung over the kitchen sink. He spotted the side of the small shed and his eyes caught barely a glimpse of Blair’s floral skirt moving within. He tossed a confused look to the preacher, who gave the man a surreptitious wink and then resumed his seat at the table.
A lecherous look registered in the music man’s deep-set eyes about the same instant the preacher’s intentions reached his cramped mind. The musician reached for the back door handle and opened it, looking back at the preacher once more to be sure that that was what the preacher intended. He was rewarded with a silent nod.
Preacher Bowman reached for another slice of pie.
Chapter 15
Wyatt Marshall was pleased to hear Rebecca’s beautiful soprano. He had to stand close to her to distinguish her voice among the boisterous others. In note singing, the tenor lead the choir instead of the alto. She sang with a wistfulness that matched the sadness of her smile. Whenever Wyatt tried eye contact with the young girl who had, up until a week ago, been a near constant feature in his home, she looked away.
When the singing was done and the overheated neighbors grouped out in front of the church, discussing mainly their music but also other provincial topics, Rebecca had sought Wyatt Marshall out among them.
“Mr. Marshall, how…how is everyone at your home today?”
He reached for Rebecca’s hand. “All’s well, dear. Though somethin’ tells me you’re most interested in how Sean’s doing.” He saw a flash of pain cross her face, and his heart melted. “Oh my dear, what’s happened between you two? A lover’s quarrel?”
“I honestly don’t know, Mr. Marshall. He broke off…” She bit her lip and fought back tears.
Wyatt Marshall made himself look away while the girl struggled to maintain her composure. “Let’s walk, my dear.”
He led her away from the others by the arm. When they were some distance away, he turned to face her. “I don’t know what goes through my young son’s head these days, Rebecca. But I fear it is not about you, nor is it anything within your power or mine to change. All I know is that Sean’s been struggling mightily with something lately. I’ll promise you, dear, that I will make an effort to speak to him. Might be he just needs some time and space. I know he’s been doing some planning about his future. Forks in the road of that nature can send any man into a tailspin.” He patted her hand lightly.
Rebecca squeezed his hand in return, but she looked at the ground as they strolled along, revealing none of her thoughts. Wyatt Marshall was right about one thing. Sean had been planning some very big changes for his life. What Wyatt Marshall did not know, and Rebecca did, was that those plans no longer included her.
She looked back at all the folks milling around in front of the church and Wyatt saw the girl cringe slightly. He understood. Sean and Blair Bowman were obviously absent. His heart went out to the lovely girl at his side.
“I think”—Rebecca gently took her hand back—“I should be gettin’ on. I have chores. Thank you, Mr. Marshall. Would you…would you tell Sean for me that I…please just tell him I said hello.”
Wyatt nodded and began stuffing his pipe bowl as he watched Rebecca walk away. “Sure hope that boy knows what he’s doin’,” he said to no one in particular.
Chapter 16
When Blair turned around, the music man was standing there, leering at her in a most disturbing way. He took a step toward her, his hands reaching out for her breasts.
“What are you doing here? You stop right there, do you hear?”
Blair skirted around the work table she’d had her back up against, and she backed a couple steps out of the open shed, intending to make a run for it, when she tripped over a buckling tree root in the dirt. Splayed out now, with the man converging on her with that horrid look in his eyes, Blair screamed. Still, he kept coming. She kicked at him as she crab-walked backward in the dirt. He jumped on top of her, pinning her clawing hands out to her sides.
“So, that’s what this is all about.” His breath was foul. “You like it rough, huh? That daddy of yours is sure an understanding preacher. He don’t judge you none. He just goes out an’ gets ya what ya need. Let’s see what we got here.”
Blair squirmed beneath him with all her might but
succeeded only in arousing the man more.
“Get off…stop…my God…” She fought him. “He’ll kill you if he finds us!”
“Kill me?” He stopped long enough to laugh in her face. “Shoot, darlin’. Your ol’ pappy gave you to me.” He pulled his pants down and wrestled her skirt up.
Blair did not believe what she heard. Surely her father, if out of nothing more than sheer jealousy, would defend her against that violation. She turned her head toward the house and saw the silhouette of her father’s head and shoulders looking out the window at them. She screamed for him. Then she saw him walk away.
“There!”
The music man was grunting, with one hand still pinning her arms over her head and the other hand ravaging her body. Blair yelped. The music man was hurting her, but when she cried out, it only seemed to spur the man on.
Somebody, please help me!
She fell into the safety of her haze. Through the fog, she could hear the man uttering obscenities. She could see the violent attack of his body on hers. She could feel him blowing rancid spittle in her face as he rhythmically shouted, “There! There! There!” The physical pain he inflicted by his selfish cravings could not compare with the much uglier crime he committed on poor Blair, of wounding her spirit and mind in ways that would surely never heal.
Get up, her inner-voice, with an identity of its own, told Blair. It’s over. Go clean yourself up, for heaven’s sake.
Blair rose slowly, shakily, observing the bruising that was already beginning to form all over her body. She walked gingerly down to the river. At the river’s edge, she knelt and splashed water onto her front. She looked down at her breasts and touched one of them softly. It held bite marks and bruises and scratches.
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