Promenade With Penelope

by P. Creeden

  “He does have a small portion in savings,” the banker said as he leafed through the papers on his lap. “Just under two hundred dollars.”

  The blood drained from her face, making her feel suddenly cold. “Less than two hundred? How much is owed on the loan?”

  More shuffling papers. “Nine hundred and eighty-five dollars.” The banker, Mr. Lemon, looked around the room. “If you can’t afford to pay off the loan, the bank will have to foreclose. You might consider an estate sale on the furniture and valuables held within. Perhaps you could keep the home in that situation.”

  Almost a thousand dollars? Her hands fisted at her sides as she chewed the insides of her cheeks. She couldn’t afford that. Not even if she sold everything in the house of value. She wanted to scream, but what she really needed to do right now was think. What could she possibly do? She hadn’t even yet talked to her grandfather’s lawyer. Until she did, she wouldn’t know what recourse she had in this situation. The banker, like a vulture, had circled his way in during what felt like moments after her grandfather’s death.

  What would she do if she had to give up her home? A shiver ran through her at the thought. “I suppose that I need to figure out what I need to do to make things right then.”

  The man slowly nodded as he shuffled his papers again and returned them to his carry bag. “You can reach me at the bank at any time during regular business hours. If we don’t hear back from you within the week, however, I’ll return here on Friday.”

  Somehow, his tone and pointed look made her feel that what he’d last said was more of a threat than a courtesy. Penelope swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes, Mr. Lemon. I’ll be in touch before Friday.”

  Mrs. Honeycutt stood on the threshold of the parlor, ready to walk Mr. Lemon to the door, so that Penelope didn’t have to. Although the lady servant hadn’t tested Penelope again when it came to the heavy drapes that remained upon all the windows, the woman still made small suggestions now and then. Like even now, she raised an eyebrow at Penelope as if to say, you should be walking your guest to the door yourself. Pointedly implying that there was nothing wrong with Penelope, and that she could go out into the sunlight any time she wanted.

  Her arms itched at the thought. But still, the elder woman’s constant nagging had gotten Penelope to thinking... and imagining what it might be like to do just what Mrs. Honeycutt said. What would it be like to feel the sun on her skin again? Could it be possible that she hadn’t contracted her grandfather’s illness on the matter? Penelope’s heart sank toward her stomach at the thought, and her blood ran cold. Nonsense. It would be foolishness to even consider such a thing. However, it would be nice not to have to rely upon lanterns all the time for light.

  After a very short bit, while Penelope still stood in the parlor, rubbing her arms and imagining the heat of the sun, Mrs. Honeycutt returned. “Mr. Gleason is here to see you.”

  “Grandfather’s lawyer. Let him in,” Penelope said, standing a little straighter and lifting her chin. If she was going to conduct her grandfather’s business from now on, she needed the lawyer’s support.

  Mr. Gleason was an older, balding gentleman with a wide girth. He hadn’t been to the estate in over a month. Grandfather had made his last will and testament before, when the doctor had given him days to live, but no one had expected him to hold out so long. The lawyer came into the parlor and declined Mrs. Honeycutt’s offer of tea.

  Then the gentleman sat in the same chair as Mr. Lemon from the bank had sat. As Penelope lowered herself in the settee, she hoped that the outcome would be better in this meeting. Mr. Gleason straightened his paperwork and then pulled out spectacles and placed them on the bridge of his nose. “Your grandfather has left you a good sum of money, well over a thousand dollars, at the bank in Creede, Colorado.”

  Penelope blinked several times. “Pardon me?”

  “His wish is for you to leave this house and make a new home in Creede. He’s even provided for you there and bought a small house in town. You see, Creede is one of the few cities in the country to already have use of electricity. One of the nearest to us here in Arizona Territory. All that’s needed is for you to allow me to make arrangements for travel.” Mr. Gleason eyed her over his round spectacles.

  “I... I don’t understand.” Penelope shook her head. “The house here. Can the bank in Creede send me the money to stop the foreclosure here?”

  The man tilted his head and looked on at her with pity. “The house in Creede is fully paid for. No mortgage. The money is for you to use to live upon until you can find gainful employment, possibly even start a business of your own, as it is a very liberal town that treats its womenfolk well. Or you could get married and start a family.”

  More blinking. Then Penelope shook her head again. “How am I to be married? I have no family to choose a husband for me. I have no prospects. I cannot even think to leave this house.”

  “But you must,” Mr. Gleason said firmly. “Your grandfather has arranged for this house to be foreclosed upon purposefully. You will have no choice but to vacate it and make your way to Colorado.”

  Was it possible for her heart to sink past her stomach? Was it possible for it to go so low into her body that she felt it might melt or that she might sink into the very floor? How could her grandfather have done this to her? Why would he make her leave the only home she could even remember? And venture to another territory? It would mean traveling on her own. Traveling across miles and miles. It would mean leaving this sanctuary and braving the effects of the sun. Could she really do that?

  Chapter 4

  The marshal and Jeremiah dismounted their horses at the same time. But as Jeremiah rushed to the aid of the fallen deputy, Marshal Keeley yanked his three convicts from their horses and threw them to the ground. “Stay down!” he yelled as he pointed his side arm at the three of them.

  “What is it? Who’s shooting?” Sunny, the youngest deputy asked, reining his horse in a circle, staring wide-eyed in all directions.

  “Get off your horse,” Jeremiah hissed as he reached the side of the fallen deputy, Chris Thompson. But as he reached to turn Thompson over, he found a pistol aimed into his face.

  Thompson’s yellow-toothed smile greeted him, brown chewing tobacco still wedged between them. “Just you keep things nice and quiet, understand. And maybe we’ll all get out of here with our lives. Now just keep your hands where I can see them.”

  The deputy marshal reached over and took hold of Jeremiah’s side arm. A frown tugged at Jeremiah’s lips as his glance darted toward the other two deputies who were still looking toward the canyon for the danger of the shooter. Then Jeremiah met eyes with the man who now had his pistol. “You weren’t hit, were you?”

  A huff escaped the man’s lips. “Nope. But they’re coming this way. We’re going to take Earl Cody with us. You and those two deputies, and even the marshal can all go about your way and head to Yuma or whatever you have planned, but we’re going the other way.”

  Jeremiah began considering his options. Though Thompson had Jeremiah’s pistol, he didn’t have it pointed at him. Instead, he placed Jeremiah’s pistol in his own holster. That meant Jeremiah had only one pistol pointed at him as far as he could tell. Neither Marshal Keeley nor the deputies seemed to have taken notice of what was transpiring on the ground. This allowed Jeremiah to infer that none of them were a part of this plot. Only Thompson. And Jeremiah had only one gun to worry about.

  They call the pistol the great equalizer. That it didn’t matter whether a man were tall or strong, wielding the weapon allowed one man to be just as powerful as another. But Jeremiah was both tall and strong. He easily had four inches and forty pounds on the man in front of him. Additionally, he knew something about pistols that Thompson apparently didn’t. They were great weapons in the short range, but if you allowed the weapon to get close enough for the other person to grab hold of, you could easily get disarmed.

  After drawing in a slow breath, Jeremiah made his mov
e. He grabbed hold of the man’s wrist and twisted it away and toward the sky. A shot rang out from Thompson’s gun. At the same time, Jeremiah grabbed hold of the pistol, used it as extra weight as he punched Thompson in the jaw and then tossed it to the side. Thompson’s hand was already blindly moving for the other pistol in his holster, but Jeremiah was faster than him. He grabbed hold of it and jumped back, stepping backward and placing his foot upon the pistol he’d thrown to the side. He wouldn’t make the same mistake Thompson had, he’d keep his pistol more than an arm’s distance from his opponent.

  “What on earth is going on?” Marshal Keeley’s deep voice dripped with anger. “What are you two doing?”

  Thompson shouted. “This man you deputized is trying to kill me! He must be in cahoots with Earl Cody and his gang!”

  For a split second, Jeremiah’s jaw almost dropped in shock. Then he narrowed his eyes at the man. “Thompson is the one in cahoots with Cody and his gang.”

  “Liar!” Thompson yelled from his position on the ground.

  Jeremiah shot a glance toward the marshal, who still had his weapon trained on the three criminals in his charge. The marshal frowned. “Washington, put away your weapon.”

  “Ask Thompson why he fell from the horse when he wasn’t shot and wasn’t injured,” Jeremiah said as he holstered his gun and put his hands upward. “He wanted to keep us all here so that Cody’s gang could catch up with us. That’s what the gunshot was from. They are on their way now.”

  Marshal Keeley shot a glance at the other two men. “Sunny, check Thompson. See if what Washington says is true.”

  Sunny dismounted his horse and headed over, but his gun was still trained on Jeremiah, who just stood there with his hands raised, but ready to change position and grab the gun under his foot or from his belt at any time. When Sunny reached down for Thompson, Thompson slapped his hand away. “Don’t be putting your mitts all over me. It doesn’t matter whether I was hit by a bullet or not. I fell of my horse. It doesn’t make me in cahoots with Cody’s gang.”

  “But it sure makes you look guilty,” Jeremiah said, leveling his glare at the man as he stood.

  Then Thompson’s eyes grew wide as Sunny turned toward the marshal and lowered his gun. Thompson leapt forward, attempting to steal the weapon out of Sunny’s hand. Because of his momentum and Sunny’s flaccid grip, he miscalculated and ended up just knocking the gun behind the two of them. That gave Jeremiah ample time to leap forward and kick Thompson at the back of the knee. A pop sounded as bone scraped against bone and Thompson let out a wail as he fell to the ground again. Still keeping his hands up where the marshal and deputies could see them, Jeremiah dropped down onto Thompson’s back with both his knees. Sunny scrambled to get his gun.

  “There,” Jeremiah said as he met eyes with the marshal. “Do you believe me now? Do you see who the one paid off by Cody is now?”

  “Get off me!” Thompson hollered and squirmed from under him.

  At the same time, Jeremiah caught movement from the corner of his eyes. While everyone was distracted, one of the prisoners was slithering toward Thompson’s gun which still sat on the ground, unattended now. Jeremiah pulled his pistol and shot off a round that kicked up the dirt between the prisoner’s hand and the weapon. The prisoner leapt back, withdrawing his hand with a hiss. Slowly, Jeremiah stood once more, knowing that that pop in Thompson’s knee earlier would do two things, keep him humble and keep him on the ground. Then Jeremiah walked over, putting his pistol back in his holster. His eyes were fixed on the prisoner’s as he bent down and retrieved the gun from the ground. “Let’s all just get back on our horses and get moving again. That is, if that’s what you’d like to order us to do, Marshal Keeley?”

  The marshal’s lips drew thin. He gave a curt nod and then said, “Back on the horses. And tie Thompson to his—add him to the string.”

  Then the marshal stepped closer to Jeremiah and asked quietly, “Did you say that Cody’s gang is on it’s way?”

  “That’s what the man claimed. I don’t know if it’s true.”

  Wrinkles formed over the marshal’s brow as he pushed one of the prisoners back into his saddle and made sure all of the knots were tight. Jeremiah mounted once everyone but the marshal was settled into a saddle. Thompson shot daggers at Jeremiah as he double checked the knots at fiend’s wrists. “You happy now. You’ll pay for what you’ve done.”

  Jeremiah lifted his chin and shook his head slowly at the man. “Only true criminals believe that they only receive punishment because they were caught and not because they’ve done wrong. It makes them a victim. It makes them too weak to change their own lives. Until you’re willing to admit that you have done wrong and it was your own choices that landed you here, nothing in your life is going to change. You will always be weak.”

  Thompson spat in Jeremiah’s direction, but Jeremiah dodged the brown spittle as it came for him. Shaking his head again, he went on and checked on the other two deputies and put his foot in the stirrup at the same time as the marshal did. Both of them mounted in one smooth motion. Then they started back on the trail, but the hairs on the back of Jeremiah’s neck stood on end. His body was certain. They were being watched.

  “It’s a cloudy day outside,” Mrs. Honeycutt told her as Penelope sat at the kitchen table chopping onions. “It’s a good day to go out and see how you feel outside. The sun is muted a great deal.”

  The tart, sour tang of the onions’ juices spilled over Penelope’s fingers. She could practically feel the liquids seeping into her skin. Tears stung her eyes as she wiped at them with her sleeve, but when she pulled the sleeve away, her eyes still squinted uncontrollably, her nose still wrinkled. “What’s that?” she asked.

  The elder servant sighed. “I know that it’s going to be hard for you to leave this house after spending so much time holed up in it. It’s a safe place for you in a harsh and cruel world. I’m just saying that today might be a good day to step outside, even for a short bit. The sun isn’t very bright.”

  Penelope concentrated on the onion in her hand and the sting in her eyes. It wasn’t just the tart odor from the vegetable that brought the tears to her eyes. Everything in her world was falling to pieces and changing. She just wanted it all to slow down. She’d heard Mrs. Honeycutt the first time she made the suggestion to go outside, but she was honestly hoping that by asking the woman to repeat herself, that she might change her mind or at least her idea of what she was suggesting. Penelope sighed and set down the knife as she finished. Then she headed for the wash basin and rinsed her hands in the water that sat in the bowl there. The weight of Mrs. Honecutt’s expectant stare still sat upon Penelope’s shoulders. Finally she turned around.

  “I’m not crazy.”

  The woman blinked. “No one said that you are.”

  “I’m sick. Just like my grandfather. I cannot be in the sunlight. It hurts when I go out into it.”

  “I do not doubt it. But it’s possible, is it not, that you could build a tolerance.” Mrs. Honeycutt didn’t say more, didn’t even look expectantly at Penelope. She just took the potatoes and onions from the table top and continued to prepare the stew that she was making.

  A sigh escaped Penelope as she stood at the kitchen wash basin. Long, dark drapes still covered the window in the kitchen, blocking out the sun and giving Penelope a small comfort. But what if the comfort was misplaced? What if Mrs. Honeycutt was right and she really could build up a tolerance? It had been just over fifteen years since she’d last been outside of the house. It was her shelter. It was her home. But was it also her prison? She took comfort in the shadows and in the soft light cast by lanterns and candles. They were predictable and they didn’t hurt. Her skin itched at the memory of the last time she was out in the sun. A lump formed in her throat at the thought.

  Could she possibly take a chance and go outside? Mrs. Honeycutt was right that she didn’t have much time. If everyone, including her own grandfather had their way, she’d have to leave the
only place that she could recall was her home and venture to a new town. Where she knew no one.

  Her heart sank. The reality was that she knew no one now as it was. She had no friends and her only family was her grandfather. The preacher came out on occasion for a visit, and the doctor and the lawyer, but their visits were even rarer. A frown tugged at her lips. How would things be different in Creede, Colorado? Would things change at all for her? Maybe she could live in the house her grandfather provided for her there and out of the sun. No. That wasn’t possible. Regardless of weather she could live out of the sun once she got there, she’d have to find a way to tolerate the sun in her travels. How long would it take her to get from Yuma to Creede? Would it be days? A week? She really had no earthly idea.

  She swallowed down the lump in her throat. A large part of her wished that somehow God would orchestrate it so that she could stay where she was and continue as she had. But it seemed that her grandfather and the Lord had other plans for her life. She didn’t want those plans. A prayer went up from her aching heart. If she couldn’t reason with her grandfather anymore, maybe the Lord would listen to her? God was in control. He could change things from the way they seemed now. He could change the direction she was going. But what if this was entirely His plan? What if God had plans for her in Creede?

  Her heart settled a bit at the thought—it still raced, but a small measure of peace came over her when she realized that it might be entirely true that God had plans for her in Colorado. She wiped her hands on her apron and stepped toward the kitchen door. It was overcast outside, Mrs. Honeycutt had said. Perhaps it would hurt less to feel the muted sunlight. She prayed again, hoping it was true. Though her arms felt stiff and her muscles didn’t want to listen, she reached forward and took hold of the cold brass doorknob in front of her. Her stomach twisted as she turned the handle. She thought she might be sick.