Touched by Fire

by Gwyneth Atlee

  That was when she’d roused herself and formed a plan to leave. If she remained there, soon she would be unable to stop the men who thought she was fair game.

  So why hadn’t she just left? Why had she decided she had to have it all, a new, unsullied name, a chance at happiness, or even love?

  She should have never gone to Pittsburgh. She should have never lied about her past. Despite all that had been done to hurt her, it didn’t excuse her from lashing out and hurting others in return.

  An image of Amelia surfaced in her mind, a gold chrysanthemum forever tucked behind one ear. Amelia, who loved her great aunt, her doll, and her new kitten, still needed most a mother in her life.

  Could she have filled that void somehow? Could she have been a mother after all?

  Faye Barlow came in without knocking, her face partly hidden by another load of mending.

  “We could do all right together,” she said, her voice muffled by the clothes. “Why don’t you stay here?”

  “Oh, I don’t think the Aldmans would like that,” Hannah replied.

  “What difference does that make to you? Besides, that Daniel fancies you hisself.” Faye tucked a battered silver cross and its tarnished chain inside her dress.

  “What gives you such a ludicrous idea?” she snapped.

  “He’s been working on the fire brigade, but he’s managed to come by and check on you more than once this week.”

  “Maybe he’s afraid I’ll charge his brother with assault,” suggested Hannah.

  “Would you?” Faye sat beside her in the chair and pulled a threaded needle from her apron.

  Hannah sighed, “Of course not. Not after what I did.”

  Faye shook her head and raised a hand, palm outward. “I don’t want to know. You’re a big help here, and to this old woman, that’s what really matters. And you’ve got a good head on your shoulders, since you don’t run after the men. Course, if they figured you were here, they’d prob’ly be hammerin’ my doors down. Even so, I wish you would stay. You have anywhere particular picked out to go?”

  Hannah shook her head. “Just somewhere. Somewhere new. I’ll have to see how far I can get on that ticket Mr. Aldman brought me. But I appreciate your offer. It wouldn’t be right for me to stay.”

  Faye shrugged. “Suit yourself. But you come back here any time.”

  Both women looked up sharply at the sound of something breaking.

  “What the blazes?” Faye put down her sewing, and Hannah followed her into the small kitchen.

  Rosalind was unceremoniously dumping out the contents of Faye’s flour crock. The top had fallen to the floor and shattered.

  “Unless you’re bakin’ me a cake, young lady, you get out of there right now!” the thin woman scolded.

  Her daughter kept pawing through the flour, stirring up pale clouds. “Where’d you put the money, Ma? I know you used to hide it here.” Her voice shook with desperation.

  Faye grasped one of her hands. “I told you, I won’t give you anymore. You’d just use it for drink.”

  “It ain’t for that. I’m hungry,” Rosalind whined. She dusted her hands on a worn black skirt that showed far too much ankle.

  “Then I’ll feed you,” said Faye. She turned to take rolls out of the bread box, which she placed on the table along with the butter and a pot of jam.

  Hannah stooped to pick up some of the larger shards of crockery.

  Rosalind looked sour, but she smeared butter on a roll before her gray eyes lit on Hannah. “Hmmph. How the mighty have fallen!” The sour look turned to a smirk.

  A puff of flour rose as Hannah slapped her hand onto the table. “Did Daniel tell you, then?” She found herself hoping Rosalind would deny it. She didn’t want him under the influence of this fallen creature.

  “Dan Aldman? Hardly. He might buy a lady a drink now and again, but he’s no talker.”

  “Then how did you know?”

  Faye ignored the two of them and started sweeping up the broken crockery and flour.

  Rosalind smoothed her red hair with the smug expression of a cat washing its paws. “Let’s just say not many telegrams arrive here that I’m unaware of. Is it really true you came to Peshtigo using a false name?”

  “I expect you understand there are times a woman does what she must to survive.” Why was she explaining to this prostitute at all?

  “That’s how it is sometimes. Ma and Pa here, they don’t realize that.” Rosalind bit into a roll and chewed with all the manners of a cow. “I told you, we’re not so different after all.”

  “I think we are” Hannah told her. “I haven’t given up. Not yet.”

  Rosalind used her fingers to swipe at the crumbs on her round cheeks. “That’s simple foolishness. You’re a woman, ain’t you? There’s nothing you can do. Nothing anybody can except give up and let life have at you like a drunken logger. You drink yourself into the right attitude, you might even like it some.”

  Rosalind winked crudely, and Hannah spun on her heel and stalked off to her room. She might have been forced into making some hard choices, but she wasn’t about to stand and be insulted by a two-bit adventuress who’d steal from her own mother.

  Still fuming, she settled on the bed. Taking up her needle, she stabbed at a torn shirt from the mending pile. With each stitch, she struck at Rosalind’s advice:

  . . . give up and let life have at you like a drunken logger. Hannah swore that she would never sink so low. Until she lay cold in her grave, she would never give up fighting. Somehow, she’d repair the damage her ex-husband’s lies had done.

  CHAPTER TEN

  By three o’clock, Hannah’s eyes burned from the combination of the close work and the ashes on the wind. After hours of mending, her fingers, too, rebelled, cramping so badly she had to take a break. She decided to take a stretch on the front porch and try to find a breath of fresher air.

  “Mercy!” shouted a high-pitched voice from the empty lot across the street.

  Before Hannah could react, Amelia began running toward her, her blond hair flying. Tucked beneath Amelia’s arm, her doll flapped wildly. Despite the awkwardness, Hannah couldn’t help herself. She grinned widely and scooped the little girl into her arms.

  “I came to say goodbye,” Amelia panted into her upswept hair. “Papa said I shouldn’t, but I knew you’d want me to.”

  Hannah kissed her cheek. “I am always glad to see you. How is Spice?”

  “Uncle John let me take her home. He said a little kitten would be safer here in town. Why don’t you come back to Aunt Lucinda’s? You can wait there for your boat.”

  Hannah took Amelia by the hand, and the two of them sat on Hank’s bench on the front porch.

  “I’ve had a disagreement with your family.” Hannah took a deep breath and hoped she might choose the right words. “It would be best if we don’t see each other anymore.”

  “But why? Why would they be mad at you?” Amelia squeezed her hand.

  “I made a terrible mistake, Amelia. I told them a lie.”

  The child nodded gravely. “I did that once, too. Aunt Lucinda sent me to my room. They didn’t even tell me where you were.”

  “Then how did you find me?” Hannah asked.

  “My friend, Camille, lives next door. Not much gets by her. When she told me a pretty lady with brown hair was staying here, I thought it might be you. So I waited a long time to see if I was right. You won’t tell Aunt Lucinda I came, will you?”

  “Of course not, if you promise you won’t come back. I’ll be leaving in a day or two, and you don’t have permission. As much as I love seeing you, your family wouldn’t like you to come here.”

  Amelia slipped into her arms again. “I wish you’d stay, Mercy. Why can’t you just tell them you’re sorry? They’ll forget about that fib in a day or two. They forgot all about the one I told.”

  Dear Lord, it would break her heart to leave this child. Hannah squeezed her tightly, realizing this would be her last good-bye.

/>   “Oh, Amelia. I am sorry, but someday you’ll understand,” she explained. “Some lies hurt so badly, you remember all your life.”

  o0o

  Daniel sat beside the bar with his first drink of the evening, a pungent ginger beer. From his stool, he saw the stranger enter, a dark-haired man with a neatly trimmed black beard. He started talking to a shanty boy called Petey. The man looked too well turned-out for this crowd, with his gray suit and an authoritative voice, though Daniel couldn’t make out what he was saying. He would have dismissed the stranger as a traveling business man, but Petey pointed a finger across the bar toward him.

  The stranger limped in his direction and stood beside the bar. “Good evening, Mr. Aldman. I wonder if I might have a word with you.”

  Daniel shrugged. “We’re not buying more equipment for the farm right now. Be a waste to lose it in one of these brush fires. Other than that, you’re more than welcome to sit down.”

  He did, and Daniel noticed streaks of gray at the man’s temples. The women probably thought he looked distinguished, and his smug look said he knew it, too.

  “My name is Malcolm Shelton,” he began, “Captain Malcolm Shelton, and I’m looking for a lady.”

  “Ain’t we all?” the bartender interrupted, “But around here, we usually just settle for a strumpet. I know a likely prospect if you’re lookin’ for an introduction.”

  Malcolm ordered whiskey and ignored the other offer. When the bartender moved away, the bearded man continued. “I hear you met a woman calling herself Mercy Wilder.”

  Daniel sipped his beer. His heart was pounding in his chest. The man called himself Shelton. Did that mean this was Hannah’s former husband? What would he want with her?

  “I know of her,” he admitted. Shelton doubtless knew that much already. “Why are you looking for her?”

  “I intend to take her home where she belongs.” When Malcolm leaned forward to slap a coin onto the bar, his jacket flapped open, revealing a revolver strapped around his waist. The bartender left a glass of amber liquid in place of the coin. As soon as he receded, Shelton continued speaking. “I understand some money changed hands with a gentleman by the name of Harlan. You would, of course, be compensated for your loss.”

  “Let’s suppose the lady didn’t want to go with you,” said Daniel. He already hated this man, the way he threw around his former rank, the way he threw around his money. “Let’s suppose she said you had no claim to her.”

  “She’s a divorced woman,” Malcolm hissed, “a convicted adulteress! Do you really want another man’s refuse?”

  Daniel felt his fists clench. He was well-known here, well-liked. He always paid his bills. If he mashed Malcolm Shelton into sawdust, no one would bat an eye. He’d enjoy it, he believed. He’d never hit an officer before. He wouldn’t likely get the chance, though, not if Shelton managed to get out that Colt.

  Even so, he stood, knocking his chair to the floor, and every man and the few women there turned to stare at him. Daniel Aldman never fought. His size alone prevented even drunken shanty boys from issuing a challenge.

  “I have no idea where Mercy Wilder might have gone, Shelton,” he told the smaller man. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rosalind slip in beside the stranger.

  Her voice was slick and wheedling. “Did I hear you say your name was Shelton? Funny, I believe I have a friend called by that name. How about you buy me a few drinks and we’ll discuss it?”

  o0o

  Without finishing his beer, Daniel left the saloon.

  “What’d he do to rile you?” Petey asked him.

  Another red-shirted logger added, “You just give the word and we’ll give him something to remember us by.”

  “Leave him be, boys. He’s not worth scabbing your knuckles.” Neither did he want one of his friends to be shot, but Daniel knew they wouldn’t listen to that reason.

  He ignored their invitations to have a mug and talk it over. A week ago, he might have done that, and one mug would have become six. But not now, not when Hannah had taken over all his thoughts.

  Though it was after ten o’clock, he pounded on the Barlows’ door. Hank answered, a drink in his own hand. “Faye’s asleep, but come inside. I’d be glad to have some comp’ny for a smile.”

  “I don’t need a drink,” Daniel told him as he stepped inside. “I need to see Miss Shelton. I need to see her now.”

  Hank laughed loudly. “I said you were sweet on her. But won’t John holler loud enough to wake snakes when he hears?”

  “Just see he doesn’t hear it from you.”

  “He won’t. She’s asleep, most likely. Want me to go rap on her door?”

  Daniel brushed past the old man and found her room, then pounded until the door opened a crack.

  “I need to see you, Hannah.”

  “You have liquor on your breath.” She sounded groggy, but no less rigid than before.

  “Let me in. I won’t attack you.”

  She opened the door a little more, enough for him to see her hair was tangled. “What? What’s happened, Daniel? Are the fires coming close?”

  “Could be, but it’s something else.” He lowered his voice. “I met Malcolm tonight.”

  She pulled him inside the room and shut the door to the sound of Hank’s sniggers.

  She turned up the lamp, and in its light, he could see her fingers shaking. “My God! How has he found me?”

  “I don’t know that, but he said he wants to take you back. Right now, he’s waving money under Rosalind’s nose.”

  “Dear Lord.” She collapsed onto the bed and put her head into her hands. “Then he’ll be here any minute. He’ll surely kill me now!”

  “Why? Why would he do that? You said he divorced you and stole your inheritance. What possible reason could he have to come here, with all the danger from the fires? Hannah, tell the truth. What did you take from him?”

  When she looked up, the lamplight glistened off a tear trail on her cheek. “My life. I simply took my life.”

  “What kind of idiotic talk is that? You’re no more dead than I am.”

  “That’s not what people think. You see, I didn’t want to risk that anyone would interfere with the new future I had planned. They’d made it impossible to live in Shelton Creek. The only chance I had at making money —” She shook her head. “I couldn’t be a Rosalind. From the way they treated me, one would think they would be happy if I’d disappear. But it wouldn’t be enough. There’d still be gossip, and it might have followed me to Pittsburgh. I couldn’t take that chance.”

  The chair creaked under his weight as he sat down. “So you made people think you’d died? But how?”

  Tears still leaked out beneath her lowered eyelids. “I broke in a window, and I splattered blood I’d taken from a butcher. I remember —” Her voice hitched, but she suppressed a sob. “I remember hoping they would think Malcolm had killed me. He took everything from me. He even stole my father’s farm!”

  “God help you,” Daniel whispered.

  She shook her head. “Rosalind was right. I’m no better than she is. Or perhaps I’m worse. I tried to ruin Malcolm. My heart burned with hate. My soul will burn, too, for all the sins I’ve committed.”

  He reached out for her hand. “I was in Vicksburg, Hannah. We besieged that city for six weeks. When it ended, we could see —Those people ate their horses. Some ate their dogs, even. Men and women, even little children, dug into those hills like prairie dogs. Folks do what they have to to survive.”

  He could almost hear the mortar guns, blasting away at those poor people. After it was over, he’d helped amputate so many limbs. He recalled a boy, about Amelia’s age. They’d taken both his legs. But those people had been content to be alive, no matter what the cost. “Malcolm and that town besieged you, too, the way I figure. So you did something desperate to survive. Like eating horse, it wasn’t pretty, but you made it, and that’s all that matters now. You can’t let your ex-husband take you back. If you wr
ecked his name, he had to have it coming. Hell, I only just met him, and I’d already like to fix his flint.”

  “Of course I don’t want to go with Malcolm. I came this far to escape him. But Rosalind will surely tell him where I’m staying.”

  “You’re right, and he’s carrying a gun. That’s why you’ll have to be gone by the time he gets here. Put your things together quick. I’m going to get you to that steamer. I’ll borrow my aunt’s gig and drive you all the way into Marinette, and you can catch it there.”

  This time, she reached out and took his hand. “But it’s so late, and there might be fires nearby. Oh Daniel, why ever would you risk your life for me?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe because I understand the things you’ve done. I’ve done some pretty wretched things myself.”

  She leapt up and started stuffing things into her bags. “And that makes a fellow sinner your responsibility?”

  He chuckled darkly. “Maybe I just like your kind of boisterous behavior.”

  He stepped out of her room and warned her through the doorway, “You’d better hurry with that packing. We might not have much time.”

  Hank was still there, waiting.

  “You two sneaking off?” the old man asked. “Lord bless you, then!”

  Sensing that any explanation would be useless, Daniel closed the door and nodded. He waited in the kitchen while she dressed. Within minutes, she was ready, and they said a quick good-bye to Hank. But it wasn’t quick enough.

  Malcolm stood waiting next to Daniel’s horse. Hannah screamed when she caught sight of her former husband, who stood with his gun drawn.

  “I see you know the slut better than you say,” the bearded man said. “Hannah, I must commend you. I never gave you credit for such nerve. You cannot imagine the difficulties you have caused me.”

  “I’d like to,” Hannah told him, her heart hammering in fear, “but I doubt it could compare to the pain you brought me.”

  Daniel interceded. “Sounds about like you got what was coming, Shelton. Just cut your losses now and call it even.”