Chasing Charity

by Marcia Gruver

  Mama had spent the last few days trying. She haunted Rogers & Grossman’s Dry Goods Store, bent on seeing, touching, and smelling every item for sale. Back in their room, she pored over catalogs for hours, making endless lists. Charity teased her about it but had to admit she’d jotted down a few notes of her own.

  Buddy planned to take them to Houston when he got back, to the Kennedy Trading Post and Market Square. Mama had journeyed to Houston once when Papa was alive, but not by rail. Charity had never left Humble, much less set foot on a train. She and Mama awaited Buddy’s return like children counting down to Christmas.

  It amazed Charity to realize she’d known him for only a short time, yet it seemed she’d soon perish without him. His absence caused an ache deep inside that grew worse every day. Thinking of him was like scratching an itch—to do so made the problem worse, but she couldn’t stop.

  She glanced at the mirror to find her face bright red again. She looked away and struggled to compose herself before Mama noticed. Thankfully, a loud knock jarred them both, jerking Mama’s attention to the door.

  Charity’s heart pitched. Had Buddy returned early?

  Evidently the same thought had come to Mama. She cleared the bed in half the time it took her to root off of it before and crossed the room a split second ahead of Charity. She yanked at the door and slung it wide, her giddy grin saying she expected Buddy to be on the other side.

  Shamus Pike stood in the hall clutching a scruffy hat. His hesitant smile revealed he hadn’t expected the elaborate reception. “Afternoon, Bertha. Miss Charity.”

  “What in tarnation are you doing here?” Mama had never perfected the fine art of polite banter and wasn’t one for beating around the bush.

  Shamus’s smile disappeared. “I come to discuss important business, Bert.” He nodded into the room. “Can I come in?”

  Mama waved him through but surprisingly left the door propped open. Concerning herself with the rules of respectability was not her usual behavior.

  “This about the land lease money? It ain’t due for two weeks yet, but I’ll take it if you insist.” She held out her hand and chuckled at her own wit.

  Shamus shook his head, and color flooded his face. He wouldn’t meet Mama’s eyes, and his Adam’s apple bobbed several times. Finally, he cleared his throat and got to the point of his visit. “Now, Bertha, don’t think what I come to tell you means you won’t be taken care of, you and Charity. I owe a debt of friendship to old Thad, God rest him, so I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Mama dropped her head to the side the way Red cocked his and stared while getting scolded.

  Charity didn’t understand Shamus’s words either, but the anxious way he blurted them flipped her stomach.

  Mama motioned to the chair in front of the dressing table. “I reckon you’re trying to tell me something, but I guess you’d better sit down and start over, because I ain’t understood a word so far.”

  Hat still wadded in both hands, Shamus sidestepped to the chair and sat. A thick-middled, broad-shouldered man, he looked out of place seated on the delicate furniture. Mama and Charity perched together at the edge of the bed and waited for him to continue.

  “What I come to say is hard for me.” Shamus stared at the bare stretch of floor between them while he talked, his big hands working the old hat like dough. “I got no wish to hurt you, wouldn’t do that for the world, but sometimes the dealings between men bring pain to their families. It’s the way life is.”

  Mama scooted closer to Charity and took hold of her hand. “I’ll thank you kindly to get to the point, then.”

  Shamus squirmed in the chair until Charity feared it would collapse. Finally, he looked up and rushed ahead as if he needed to get it said. “It’s about your land, Bertha. Fact is, it ain’t your land no more. At least it won’t be soon enough.”

  Mama sat up straighter and stared him down. “What are you saying to me, Shamus Pike?”

  He dropped his gaze again but kept on talking. “You know yourself old Thaddeus had a gambling problem once. A right reckless problem.”

  Mama tensed. “I ain’t denying it, but that was a long time ago.”

  Charity’s head jerked around.

  Her mama shrank five inches under her searching gaze. “Sorry you had to hear it like this, baby. I’m afraid it’s true. Games of chance always had a strong pull on your poor papa. He kept his weakness in check by teaching me and Magda how to play poker for fun. ’Course, we never bet nothing serious. Just harmless things like buttons, matches, hard candies sometimes.”

  Charity had always wondered how their weekly poker game came to be.

  “After you was born, he changed,” she continued. “Promised he’d never place another bet—a promise he kept as far as I know.”

  Shamus snorted. “He made one last wager. Thad gambled away your property before he died. To me.”

  Mama’s fingernails dug into Charity’s hand. “How so?”

  Shamus leaned over and considered her with probing eyes. “You want the details?”

  “I sure do.”

  He sat up again, watching them. “All right, then.” He rubbed his palms down his trouser legs and swallowed hard. “Six months before he passed, Thad and me was in town together of a night, both feeling our oats, me liquored up and him just feeling spry. The bet was Thad’s idea.” His bloodshot eyes fixed on Charity. “Somehow it come to him to gamble on whose daughter would marry first, Amy Jane or Charity there. The stakes we put up were our homesteads.”

  Charity couldn’t tell if the trembling in their clasped hands was Mama’s or her own.

  “Thad wouldn’t do a thing like that. He told me he was finished with gambling.” Though her voice quivered, Mama’s words were forceful.

  Shamus glared her way. “He not only done it; he goaded me into it whilst I was drunk!”

  His expression softened when Mama drew back. He ducked his head and cleared his throat then continued in a quieter voice. “Later on Thad’s conscience got the best of him. He tried to get out of it, but I wouldn’t allow him to welsh on a bet. I’d sobered up by then and had some time to think. Old Thad thought he had a sure thing, what with Amy Jane so big and plain and Charity so fetching. But I reckoned I might be able to turn things around on him. I figured I had a fair enough chance, considering men around these parts need a good sturdy woman—one who can bear lots of babies and help shoulder the load. As pretty as Charity is, I figured Amy Jane stacked up better in that respect.”

  He glanced Charity’s way again. “No insult intended.”

  She nodded, speechless.

  “When Daniel Clark started up courting Charity, I got real nervous. Took a gun to my head when he proposed.” He sat back and exhaled. “Good thing I didn’t pull the trigger.”

  Mama grunted. “Good for who?”

  His eyebrow spiked. “Say again?”

  She waved him off. “I wouldn’t have come after your land even if Charity had got married to Daniel. First off, I never heard any of this before now.” She lifted her chin at him. “And second, only a heartless reprobate would snatch a person’s home right out from under them.”

  Shamus sputtered. His ears turned purple, and his chest heaved. “That’s because you’re a woman, and women are weak. You can’t understand the ways of a man. Sometimes we got to do things we don’t like to make our way in this life. That includes taking risks.”

  He opened his mouth to say more, but Mama stopped him. “No, sir. That don’t apply to Thad. He was a good man. Better than most. I can boast about him in this company, because we all know it’s true.” She shifted toward him, prepared to do battle. “You’ll never convince me he risked our home. He wouldn’t do that to us.”

  Shamus leaned forward and met her charge. “He would on a sure bet.”

  Charity couldn’t stay still. “If such a bet existed, Papa’s death canceled it out.”

  Shamus wagged his graying head. “ ’Taint so, Charity. In the weeks leading u
p to your wedding, I figured I’d lost it all and I was bound to give it. When Amy Jane steps to the altar, I’ll accept no less from you.” He slouched in the chair and folded his arms, his eyes hard on Mama’s face. “Bertha Bloom, I expect you to honor your dead husband’s word.”

  Charity didn’t wait for Mama’s answer. She pointed at Shamus. “That’s why you pushed Amy Jane’s marriage to Isaac Young, even against Elsa’s wishes.” She knew it was true, but it felt odd to say it. In other circumstances, she’d never speak so boldly.

  Shamus glared at her finger through narrowing eyes. “I’ll thank you to pull in that claw and mind your tongue, little cat. This here’s betwixt me and your ma.”

  Mama stared at Shamus like he’d turned green. “You’re telling me if Charity had married Daniel, I’d own your whole place right now? Shamus, that’s crazy talk.”

  “It might be crazy, but in a few days I’ll hold your deed.”

  Mama jumped to her feet. “I don’t believe it! You got no proof.”

  “Oh yes, ma’am, I do.” Shamus stood. As if he’d been waiting for the chance to do so, he reached into the hip pocket of his overalls. Producing a square of paper, he waved it in her face. “The proof is right here.” He undid the folds and crossed the small room to stand before Mama, his thumb pressed to the bottom of the page. “Ain’t that your Thad’s writing?” He looked from Mama to the paper then to Charity, his eyes bulging, his voice shrill with emotion. “And that’s his very own John Hancock signed in ink right there at the bottom. Now you can’t deny that.”

  Mama trembled as she took the paper. She handled the scrawled signature with a reverent touch, and tears sprang to her eyes. “Them’s his marks, all right. I’d know them anywhere.” She handed the paper to Charity and slumped back onto the bed. “Read it to me, daughter. Real slow.”

  The tears in Charity’s own eyes blurred the page. She swiped at them with the back of her hand and tried to focus on the words. “It says, ‘I, Thaddeus Horatio Bloom, square of mind and in possession of my good sense, do hereby enter into a bound agreement with one Shamus P. Pike—’”

  “No, Thad!”

  Charity jumped at the tortured cry that tore from her mama’s throat, her plea directed at Papa as if he were right in the room uttering the terrible words himself. Mama fell onto the bed with her hands over her ears and wailed. “Don’t read me no more. I cain’t stand to hear it!” She reached for a pillow and buried her face in it. “Read it to yourself, daughter; then tell me it’s not true. Please say my Thad didn’t do this to me.”

  Charity read on, searching for some shred of hope. She read clear to the bottom without finding it. The room swirled and seemed to inhale sharply, sucking the air from her lungs. Shamus still hovered just above her face, and though she couldn’t bring him into focus, she became acutely aware of the smell of him—manure, the open field, burnt oil.

  Oil!

  She pushed to her feet, forcing Shamus to stumble away. Glaring at him, she shook the paper in his face. “I understand it all now. I know why you’re doing this.”

  His determined gaze grew wary.

  “You don’t want our land,” Charity spat. “You’re after what they drilled on it.”

  At the mention of their gusher, Mama moaned and wailed louder.

  Shamus set his jaw. “It’s a fair bet between me and your pa, Charity. Neither of us knew the future when we made it.”

  He snatched the document from her hand, blotting at the tear-smudged ink with a filthy rag before cramming it into his pocket. “This paper will hold up under the law, too. I already checked. So consider this official notice. I’ll be taking possession of your place directly after Amy Jane’s wedding. Make sure you’re cleared out by then.”

  He shoved his hat down on his head and marched to the door, pausing on the threshold as if something had just occurred to him. “You should count yourself lucky that well came in before the wedding. At least you’ll get something out of it before you lose it.”

  He left, leaving the door standing open behind him. Charity jumped up to slam it, desperate to shut him out along with the terrible news he’d brought in with him, but it was too late. One look at Mama told her the damage was done.

  She had scrambled to the middle of the bed and pulled her knees close to her body. Deep, heartrending sobs ripped from her throat, loud enough to disturb the other guests. Charity crawled onto the bed behind her and shielded the tiny body with her own.

  “Don’t you cry, Mama. Don’t you fret now, you hear?” Charity cradled her, rocking and stroking her hair. “Hush now. Everything will be fine. You’ll see. Everything will be just fine. I promise.”

  Too angry to pray, she rocked until Mama slept while her mind whirled with a plan that would help her to keep her promise.

  CHAPTER 18

  With a grunt, Daniel heaved a feed sack onto the growing stack he’d raised in the corner of the barn then propped his arms against the burlap bag and leaned his head to rest. The pungent odor of jute mingled with grain assailed his nostrils, reviving him a bit. Up since dawn, he’d tackled and finished a long list of chores, though it wasn’t yet ten in the morning. For a man to be bone-weary two hours shy of midday was just plain no good.

  He’d found little rest the night before. The minute his body grew still enough for sleep, his head kicked up, filling his thoughts with long black curls and a wide, laughing mouth. He fared no better with the morning. Charity had come to him in his waking hours, just as she had throughout the night, teasing, taunting, hovering just out of reach.

  Longing for her one minute and cursing her the next, the weight of conflicted emotions had bruised his insides. Whether he felt more anger toward Charity, Emmy, Buddy Pierce, or himself he couldn’t tell and grew weary from trying to sort it out.

  Daniel jerked up from the feed and forced Charity out of his mind. He’d have to work harder, stay too busy to think. Better worn out and sore than tormented by his own thoughts.

  He rubbed the stiffness from his aching shoulders and headed out to fetch another bag from the wagon beside the barn. When he stepped outside, the Dunmans’ dogs across the road were barking, so he glanced up to see what had caused the commotion. Not that their braying was uncommon. Those two set up a ruckus with very little goading, but he could tell from their excitement something unusual was afoot.

  He shaded his eyes and peered closer. What he saw set his heart to racing, though good sense told him his bleary eyes were seeing things. He rubbed them with the heels of his grimy palms and took another look ... and there she was. The phantom that robbed his sleep at night and plagued his soul by day stood just outside the gate.

  Down off her horse, Charity hovered near its flank, bent over with her back to Daniel.

  Hesitant, he crossed the yard. He couldn’t think what to say to her when he got there, couldn’t imagine her answer. Still, he walked.

  She jerked around when he opened the gate. “Goodness, Daniel! You gave me a start.”

  He smiled and nodded. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to.”

  Reaching down, she cradled the horse’s hind foot and ran her hand around the shoe, her long fingers moving gently over the soft inner flesh. Daniel waited for her to speak. When she didn’t, he latched the gate behind him and eased closer. “What you got there? A rock?”

  Charity answered without looking up. “She was favoring one side a bit. I thought I’d better check.” She let go of the mare’s hoof and dusted off her hands. “Whatever it was seems to be gone now.”

  “What brings you out this way?” Even with hope frolicking inside his chest, he hated himself for asking.

  She stared across the street at his neighbors’ shuttered windows. “Mama sent me to the Dunmans’ on an errand, but from here, it looks like no one’s home.”

  He shook his head. “Took the train to Houston to visit kinfolk. I’ve tended their dogs all week.”

  Charity glanced at him. “Is that so? Well, that’s odd. Mother Dane usually get
s wind of such things before anyone else.”

  He nodded toward the house. “They left in a rush. Sickness in the family, I heard.”

  Daniel didn’t quite know what to do with his hands. He finally rested them on his hips, but then, feeling like an old woman, he let them drop to his sides. “I see you got shed of that old red hound.” He winced and cursed himself for reminding her of that day.

  Charity glanced around her legs, as if she might find the dog there. “It seems I have. For now, at least.”

  She smiled slightly and Daniel returned the expression, ashamed of the joy it stirred in his heart. His mind reeled. Why were they discussing horses and neighbors and dogs with all that lay between them?

  “I guess I’d better head on home.” She took the horse’s reins in her hands and prepared to mount.

  Daniel surged forward and clutched her wrist. “Charity, wait. I know why you’re here.”

  Her body stiffened. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “I mean I’ve thought of you night and day since I saw you last. Now fate has set you right outside my gate. It’s meant to be, sugar. Can’t you see it, too?”

  She relaxed her shoulders and faced him. Was that a smile tugging the corners of her mouth? He felt sure of it, and the sight quickened his heartbeat.

  “Fate, Daniel?” It was all she said, but the way she said it, and the fact that she seemed not the least bit eager to mount the horse, told him volumes ... and gave him courage.

  He stepped closer. “You’ve missed me, too. Don’t deny it, Charity—I can feel it.”

  She stood between him and the horse, staring at the ground by his feet, her big eyes veiled by long, dark lashes. She had on a blue dress he’d never seen before and wore her hair pinned up in back, though several dark curls had escaped, teasing her delicate face. He was near enough to smell her, and it made him dizzy.