“I think I’ll go out.” Leah held the kitten against her cheek and stood up. “I promise not to stay out late.”
“All right then.” What else could Annie say? “We’ll leave a plate in the oven.”
Leah left through the back door without speaking again.
Ruth turned to Annie. “Is it my imagination, or was she a little too fascinated with that burning match?”
Annie puffed her cheeks and blew out her breath. “It’s not your imagination. She’s been so sad, so confused. So angry. So hurt. I have wondered more than once whether she was capable of setting a fire as a way of acting out. I honestly don’t know.”
Ruth raised both hands to her temples. “You suspect Leah? Of all the fires?”
“Suspect is a strong word.” Annalise pulled a chair from the dining room table and sat down. “I have nothing to go on except the fact that the fires happened and my extremely nonprofessional assessment of Leah’s emotional state.”
“I know what you mean.” Ruth sat down now, too.
“You’ve been very patient, Ruth. I appreciate it. I know it’s not easy for you to have Leah here.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.” Ruth pushed the burning lamp toward the middle of the table. “What you just said about the fact of the fires and a person’s emotional state—I’ve been thinking about that, too.”
Annalise furrowed her brow. “So you think Leah could really be a suspect.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. But I’m talking about Alan.”
“Bryan’s friend?”
Ruth gave in to the shiver that ran through her. “He just seems off. His father came to town one day, and the air between them was as frigid as the North Pole. And he knows a lot about fires.”
“There’s a big difference between two things happening coincidentally and one causing the other.”
“I know.” Ruth put her elbows on the table and hung her head in her hands. “We can’t go around accusing everybody with emotional issues of criminal action.”
“But what if it really is one of them?”
“It can’t be both.” Ruth raised her head and met Annalise’s eyes. “They don’t even know each other and have nothing in common.”
“We’re assuming one person started all the fires,” Annalise said. “That may or not be true.”
“Alan thinks it could be Bryan.” Ruth hated to even speak those words aloud.
Annalise’s posture snapped up. “Bryan? Your Bryan?”
“He’s not ‘my’ Bryan. But yes.”
“Aren’t the two of them friends?”
“They say they are. But they’re both pointing fingers at each other.”
“Bryan thinks it’s Alan?” Annalise asked.
Ruth shrugged. “Not exactly. After the fire in Joel’s field, I found something I was sure belonged to Alan. But when Bryan asked him about it, Alan said it wasn’t his. It was just a water bottle strap, but Alan made a point to tell me Bryan had one just like it, too.”
“Which leaves us nowhere.”
“And I don’t even have the strap anymore. I gave it to Bryan.”
“It sounds like you trust Bryan, and you don’t trust Alan.”
Ruth pulled pins from her hair and let it hang loose. “That’s what my gut tells me. I tried to be friendly with Alan and see if he would talk to me, but he just points out that I don’t know Bryan as well as I think I do.”
“And now you have doubts?”
Ruth took a moment to think. “No. You know what? I don’t.”
“So we’re back to Alan or Leah.”
Ruth stared into the burning lamp. “Or someone we haven’t even met.”
Forty-Three
June 1892
Joseph hitched his horse in front of the milliner’s shop, stroked the slope of the animal’s face, and turned to enter the store. Walter was cleaning shelves.
“I’ll be glad when school starts again,” Walter mumbled. “My daddy doesn’t want me to have a moment to myself.”
“Being a hard worker is a fine trait.” Joseph glanced around. “I wonder if Maura is here.”
“You all got back day before yesterday.” Walter shuffled toward Joseph and ran a rag across the shelf unconvincingly. “She still won’t tell me what happened.”
“It is better that way.” Joseph and Maura agreed not to fuel Walter’s fascination with posses and gunfights. The boy did not need to know that Leon had let Maura try to stanch the blood flow before hefting Jimmy onto a horse and tying him to the saddle for the bumpy ride back to Baxter County and reluctantly surrendering him to the care of Dr. Lindsay.
“Maura,” Joseph said. “Is she here?”
Walter gestured with his head. “In the back.”
A pair of dark green cloth panels separated the shop from the back room where Maura’s Uncle Edwin created women’s hats. Joseph tentatively pushed a hand between the curtains.
“Maura?”
She looked up immediately and laid her pen down on the open accounts book. “What happened?”
Joseph leaned one shoulder against the wall. “Dr. Lindsay took the bullets out of Jimmy’s shoulder and leg then patched him up. Deputy Combs made Jimmy promise to leave Baxter County and never show his face here again.”
“It’s about time the deputy found his spine.” Maura puffed her cheek and exhaled. “And did Jimmy agree?”
Joseph nodded.
“What about Leon? And the others?”
“What they did was outside Baxter County,” Joseph said. “The deputy can’t charge them with anything.”
“So it’s over?” Maura stood. “Will Jimmy really leave?”
“He seemed sincere to me. Dr. Lindsay offered to take him back to Missouri in a wagon, and Jimmy is in no condition to resist.”
Maura smoothed her hair back with both hands. “What Leon did was horrible. I’m not sure if I’d like to see him held accountable, or just let it all be over.”
Joseph took two steps toward Maura and tapped his fingers on the edge of the desk. “That decision is not yours to make. You can’t take that burden on yourself.”
“Shouldn’t someone?”
“Gottes wille.”
“God’s will?”
“Yes,” he said. “Can you leave it to God now?”
The muscles twitched in her face as her eyes held steady with his. They had shared an easy way with each other riding to Missouri and back. She was close enough now that he could reach out and take her hand and feel it quiver in his own. He wanted to.
He moistened his lips. “Zeke and Stephen will be nearly home by now.”
“Will you be going, then?”
He searched for some sign in her face of the answer she wanted to hear. “Would you go with me?”
She was silent.
“I miss my people,” Joseph said, “but the thought of leaving you weighs heavy.”
She opened her mouth then closed it without speaking.
“We don’t have to stay,” Joseph said. “We can find another settlement. We can help to plant a settlement. You can find the life of peace you have been seeking.”
Maura dropped back into the wooden chair at the desk. She had wondered if this moment might come. Even hoped it would.
Walter stuck his head through the curtains. “Are you two going to stay back here all afternoon?”
“Walter, you have work to do,” Maura said.
“So do you. Daddy wants the books done today. I heard him tell you.”
“I’m working on them. Please excuse us for a few more minutes.”
“I’m not sure why you can’t tell me what’s going on.”
Maura clamped her mouth closed and glared at her cousin.
“Don’t tell me it’s none of my business,” Walter said. “I’ll find out eventually. Leon Mooney will make sure.”
“Then you’ll just have to wait for Leon’s version.” The shop door jangled, and Maura heard the familiar thump of her uncle’s foot
steps. “There’s your daddy now, Walter. Joseph and I are going to take a short walk.”
With a glance toward Joseph, Maura brushed past Walter and his open mouth.
Outside, she said, “I’m sorry about Walter.”
“He reminds me of Little Jake,” Joseph said. “Always full of questions. You’ll like him, I think.”
“I’m sure I would enjoy meeting your brother,” Maura said, “but the matter of leaving with you is a serious one.”
“I know. I do not suggest it lightly.”
Joseph straightened his hat, and Maura knew he was as nervous as she was dancing around this question. He was proposing marriage. He knew it, and she knew it.
“There is the matter of my father.” Maura paced a little faster down the sidewalk. “It has been hard for him since my mother died. He depends on me.”
“It seems to me a great many people depend on you,” Joseph said. “Who do you let yourself depend on?”
Maura had no response. She was supposed to say God. She was supposed to depend on God, but she was not sure she could honestly say she did. And she had come to depend on Joseph, though she hesitated to admit this.
“Come with me,” Joseph said, “or let me come back for you after I speak to the bishop.”
“What would you tell the bishop?” And what would he tell Hannah Berkey?
“The bishop is a kind man at heart.” Joseph touched her arm, causing her to slow her steps and turn toward him. “A simpler life without fearing violence from your own people—do you not want that?”
“Well, yes, I do, but—”
“And a life of faith, where your hope for peace could fill your heart?”
“In your church?” Maura asked. “Is that what you mean?”
“Do you think you could join us? We would follow the Lord together.”
Maura nodded, her throat thickening.
“And a husband,” he said. “Do you not want that? Do you want me?”
This was indeed a proposal.
“Joseph, I greatly admire you and have become deeply fond of you.” She nearly lost her nerve in his violet-blue eyes. “But my father…”
“Even the widowers among our people hire someone to keep house.”
“It won’t be the same.” She broke the gaze and resumed walking. “And Belle. How can I leave Belle right now? She hardly knows her own mind from one day to the next. In a few weeks she is supposed to return to her duties teaching school, and I am afraid she will not be strong enough.”
“Can you make her strong?” Joseph asked.
“I suppose not. But I can let her know I care for her while she makes herself strong again.” Maura raised her eyes to look down the block then reached to clutch his arm. “There’s Belle now. Something’s wrong.”
Belle hurtled toward them on foot.
“An accident.” Belle put one hand on her chest as she gasped for breath. “There’s been an accident.”
“What happened?” Maura and Joseph spoke in tandem.
Belle looked from one to the other, seeing something between them that she had never seen before.
“A cow went over the side of a bluff.” Belle focused on Maura. “My father and your father are there trying to figure out how to get to it and haul it up. But it’s a full-grown cow. They need longer ropes and leverage.”
“I’ll go immediately,” Joseph said. “Where are they?”
Belle described the location. She had run for two miles to get back to town, but a horse could close the distance in minutes.
Joseph and Maura pivoted, and the three of them marched back toward the milliner’s shop.
“I’ll get some rope from the livery,” Joseph said.
“I’ll take my cart,” Maura said. “Belle, you can ride with me.” Joseph mounted his horse in one swift motion and thundered down Main Street toward the stables. Belle lifted the hem of her skirt to keep pace with Maura as they cut down a side street to the Woodley home, where the cart and the horse occupied a small barn behind the house. Maura went through the familiar motions of hitching cart to horse, and they clattered back through town, meeting Joseph on the way.
At the bluff, Joseph jumped off his horse, a coil of rope over each arm.
“I’m going down,” Belle heard her father say as he squatted at the edge of the bluff.
Belle stepped to the edge and peered. The cow lay on its side, moaning in protest. “Can’t she stand up?”
“I’m going to find out.” Leon Mooney tested his footing on the steep slope.
“Wait for a rope, Daddy.” Belle scrambled over to Joseph, who was securing one end of a long thickly braided length to the harness of his horse. As he then tied the horse snug to a tree, Belle ran with the loop at the other end.
When she saw her father disappear from sight, she screamed.
Woody Woodley and Maura were on their knees, reaching down with their arms. Leon was beyond their grasp, caught in the branches of scrub growth.
“Daddy.” Belle dangled the rope over the edge. “You should have waited for the rope, you old fool.”
“I cannot afford to lose this cow.” Leon’s gruff reply rankled in Belle’s mind. When would her father learn to think things through?
Joseph was beside her now and had taken the rope from Belle’s hand. Below them, Leon wrestled with the branches and abruptly fell several feet lower.
“I’m fine,” Leon reported.
Belle watched as he gripped a bush and got his feet into secure footholds.
“I’ll swing the rope down,” Joseph called out.
Belle held her breath as Joseph stood and wound up his arm to throw the rope wide of the bushes on the side of the bluff. As it passed him, her father reached to grab it—and missed.
This time he fell solidly on his back with a leg bent behind him, next to the groaning cow.
Belle leaned over the side precariously herself. “He’s not moving.”
“Give him a minute,” Joseph said. “He’s had the wind knocked out of him.”
Finally, Leon Mooney pushed himself up on one side and attempted to stand. Instantly he howled and sank back down. Belle saw the bone protruding below his knee.
Joseph sighed. “Looks like we’ll have to haul them both up now.”
“If he had just waited two more minutes,” Belle said, “we could have gotten him down there safely.”
“Belle,” Joseph said, “we’ll get him up. Don’t worry.”
“What about the cow?”
“Let’s worry about your father.”
“He won’t want to come up without the cow.”
Joseph looked over the ledge. “Neither of them is in immediate danger, but your father is going to need a doctor to look after that leg.”
“I’ll go for Dr. Lindsay,” Belle said. “I’ll take Maura’s horse.”
“He’s out of town.” Joseph decided not to tell Belle that Dr. Lindsay was escorting Jimmy Twigg out of the county. “You’ll have to go for Doc Denton.”
“Doc Denton! You want me to ask a Denton to look after my father after what they did to my John?”
“It’s the best thing for your father.” Joseph glanced at Maura, who nodded.
“I’ll go with you,” Maura said.
“No.” Belle looked down at her father again. “I can do it if you’ll let me take your horse.”
“Of course.”
Belle was swiftly astride the horse with knees in its flanks. As she thundered down the road, Woody Woodley stood up. “Get another rope ready. I’ll go down.”
“Let me,” Joseph said. He was a good forty years younger than Woody Woodley and trusted his own reflexes against Leon’s rash impulses.
Forty-Four
July 1892
Maura watched her father pick up his newspaper from the sideboard in the dining room and shuffle into the front room to sit in the chair that had been his favorite since before she was born. A few years ago her mother had insisted on sending it out for new stuffing
and fresh fabric, and Maura was glad she had. The alternative had been to haul the chair to a trash heap. At least this way Woody Woodley got to enjoy its familiarity.
She saw the stoop in his shoulders, more pronounced since Leon’s rash retribution against the Twiggs had drawn her into harm’s way and his equally impulsive attempt to single-handedly rescue a fallen cow had raised Woody’s heart rate for an entire afternoon. From the doorway between the dining room and the kitchen, Maura watched him settle into the chair, pick up his glasses from the end table that had been a wedding present from her grandparents, and scan once again the same newspaper he had read from start to finish over his breakfast five hours earlier. He was likely to spend the entire afternoon there, and she would never know what thoughts passed through his mind.
He was tired. And alone. He had plenty of longtime friends in Baxter County, but Maura knew they did not fill the void her mother’s death had left. She did not pretend that she filled it, either, but she was his daughter. As much as she could not stand the thought of Joseph’s departure, neither could she imagine leaving her father. Joseph would have to understand. After all, the ties of family bound his community together.
Maura was not entitled to any hold on Joseph. Already he had stayed several days longer than he should have, hoping for a change of her heart. But there would be none.
She could not leave her father.
She could not leave Belle.
Perhaps Joseph would return to Tennessee and find happiness with Hannah Berkey after all.
Maura pushed the swinging door open and went through to the kitchen. Leon Mooney’s leg was broken in two places. Belle had hardly left his bedside in the last four days, refusing several offers of assistance from Gassville residents. Maura could not do much to make Belle’s emotional tumult easier, but she could at least spare Belle having to worry about food. She laid a towel in the bottom of a basket and began to arrange small covered dishes in the flat bottom.
She glanced at the clock. In five hours Joseph Beiler would appear at her front door for the meal to which she had invited him.
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