“That’s right, Buddy, old boy. You need to check your facts and try again. The sweetest prize in the county fair is spoken for, and the blue ribbon goes to me.”
Something about the way he said it brought heat to Buddy’s neck. Clark was enjoying himself too much. He offered another handshake, determined to hide his fear. “I guess congratulations are in order, then. Who might the lovely lady be?”
Daniel gripped his hand, too tightly to be mistaken for goodwill. His eyes burned with anticipation like a cat ready to pounce. “Oh, you know her quite well.”
Buddy fought to control his breathing. He wouldn’t let the man see him rattled. “That’s not likely. I don’t know that many women in Humble.”
“I reckon you’re well acquainted with this one.” Daniel stepped so near that Buddy smelled barber soap on his face. “Charity and I have reconciled. She’s consented to be my wife. In a few days, Charity Bloom will be Charity Clark.” He lowered his voice and affected a conspiratorial tone. “I’ll thank you kindly to stick that under your hat though. We’ve decided to keep it quiet for a spell.”
Buddy jerked his hand free and glared at him. “I don’t believe you.”
Daniel smirked, blatantly enjoying Buddy’s pain. He whirled away with a laugh and ran both hands through his hair, preening. The cat cleaning his paws after the kill. When he faced Buddy again, his smile had turned cold. “I can see how you might not want to believe it, seeing as how you’ve gone sweet on her, but it’s true. What say we ramble on down to the hotel, and you can ask her for yourself?”
Buddy longed to knock the sneer off Daniel’s face. There wasn’t much doubt he was telling the truth. He didn’t seem the type who could pull off a bluff. He was too shallow and easy to read. If he intended to walk Buddy straight to Charity, he couldn’t be lying.
Daniel interrupted his thoughts. “I don’t mind waiting for you to make up your mind. Just don’t take all day. You see, I have a house to make ready for my new bride.” He took two deliberate steps forward and looked Buddy dead in the eye, his leer leaving no doubt of the intent behind his boast. “And when I carry her over that threshold ... no one can stop me ... from making her mine.”
Buddy didn’t remember what Daniel said next. He barely recalled passing him the saddlebag with instructions to give it to Bertha. He didn’t think about anything until he found himself on the boardwalk in front of the depot. Pausing briefly at the door, he crossed the threshold and approached the counter to book passage on a southbound train. Plenty of work awaited him in Houston. Lee and Jerry could handle things here. He would wire instructions and word of his whereabouts when he arrived at Union Station.
Bertha’s trusting face drifted before him, but he pushed it aside. Unlike him, she’d be fine. He had left her in the capable hands of two men he trusted. As for Charity, he couldn’t allow even the thought of her into his mind for fear of bawling like a boy in knickers.
He paid for his ticket and stepped outside just in time. The Houston, East & West Texas engine roared into the station, wheels churning, stack belching. It barely stopped before passengers boiled out in a great wave, jockeying for position on the platform. Those waiting to board pressed against the tide of people trying to get off.
He hoisted his bag to one shoulder and stormed into the flood, grateful for the distracting noise and clamor. Pushing his way to the door, he handed his ticket to the conductor and swung his bag on board. He followed it without a backward glance at the accursed town of Humble, the black hole that had swallowed his heart.
***
Daniel burned with satisfaction as he watched the big engine roar to life with short bursts of smoke. The wheels began to turn, picking up speed as the train pulled out of the station ... hauling Buddy Pierce out of Charity’s life. His gamble had paid off. Daniel’s future with Charity was wrapped up and tied with a big red bow. She would be his, all legal and proper, with nothing to stand in his way.
The HE&WT disappeared down the tracks in a shimmering cloud of dust.
Daniel smiled slow and easy and tipped his hat. You have a nice trip now. You hear?
He turned on his heel, ready to strut up the boardwalk to his rig. The tune he whistled died on his lips when he saw who stood blocking his way. “Well, hello, Emmy.”
“What did you say to him?” Her eyes were hard, her lips white-rimmed and tight.
“Good morning to you, too. You’re up and about early, ain’t you, sugar?”
She bristled. “Come now, Daniel. It’s utterly boorish to pretend things are right between us after all this time.”
Daniel held up his hands in surrender. “Fine. If that’s how you want it.” He had dreaded this confrontation for weeks and needed to get it done, but why this morning, when things were going so well?
Emmy edged closer. “I asked you a question. What did you say to that man?”
He held his arms out to his sides, making a show of looking around at the crowd. “Which man? As you can see, there’s no shortage of men in Humble this morning. No proper place for an unescorted lady, I might add.”
He glanced past her shoulder. “And you are without escort again, I see. Question is, are you a lady?” He leaned into her angry face. “Tell me, Miss Dane, does your mama know you’re following me around again?”
Something flickered in her eyes besides fury. Whether pain or shame he couldn’t tell, but he had waded too deep to stop now. “Ah, well, probably not. She don’t always know where you are—or what you’re up to—now, does she?”
Emmy pointed up the track behind him. “I just saw Buddy Pierce get on that train bound for Houston, and I get the feeling it was an unscheduled trip. You said something to make him leave, didn’t you? And I know what it was. You’re not so good at keeping secrets, are you?”
Daniel grabbed her arm. “Maybe you don’t know as much as you think you do, sugar.”
Her eyes went to the saddlebag slung over his shoulder and darkened. “I saw him hand you that bag. Would you like for me to deliver it to Aunt Bertha?”
He tightened his grip, causing her to wince. “You won’t mention Buddy Pierce or this bag to anyone. You hear me?”
“Let go, Daniel. That hurts.”
Daniel checked the jostling crowd for witnesses before he jerked Emmy close and breathed a threat against her startled face. “Just know this. If you do one thing to spoil things between me and Charity, I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”
She stared up at him, disbelief in her eyes, but he knew his threat had found its mark. He shook her once for emphasis. “You messed it up for us before, flaunting yourself, pressing against me until I couldn’t think straight. I won’t let you do it again, Emmy. You hear me? Be warned. I won’t let you ruin this for me.” He turned loose of her arm, despising the feel of her flesh.
“Don’t you dare talk that way to me.” The words were an angry snarl, but he saw fear in her eyes.
“Like I said, Emmy—be warned.”
Emmy backed away, rubbing her arm. She ignored the curses and complaints of those she bumped into, her eyes never leaving his face. Not until she’d put considerable distance between them did she lift the hem of her skirt, lunge for the less-crowded street, and run. She dashed across, dodging mud holes, horses, and a team of oxen. Racing along in front of the far boardwalk, she scurried to the first side street and disappeared from sight.
Daniel sucked in deep through flared nostrils and realized he’d been holding his breath. He looked down at his clenched fists and willed them to relax. Emmy flashed through his mind—cowering in fear, rubbing her mottled arm.
“Let go, Daniel. That hurts.”
Flushed with shame, he covered his face with trembling hands.
“You all right, mister?”
The gentle hand on his shoulder, the sudden voice in his ear, hurled Daniel’s heart to his throat. He spun and clutched the stranger’s wrist in a cruel grip.
Startled by Daniel’s reaction, the old man lost his balance.
Skinny arms flailing like disjointed sticks, he fought to gain purchase with his cane. “Let go, mister!” he cried. “I meant you no harm!”
Daniel eased his hold and the man pulled free, teetering a bit before leaning hard on his walking stick. With his other hand on the cane, he had no way to rub his wrist, so he rolled it against his vest. Pain etched deeper lines in his weathered face.
“I thought you might need a doctor or something, but hang you if’n you do. You’re no better’n a mad dog.” He staggered away, giving Daniel wide berth, and limped down the boardwalk muttering to himself.
A mad dog? Is that what he’d become? Perhaps, but he saw no cure except in marrying Charity—and, by golly, that’s what he aimed to do. Maybe then he could return to his right mind.
No one, be it Emily Dane, Buddy Pierce, or Charity herself, had better try to stop him.
He squinted as the sun’s first rays cleared the rooftops and hit him square in the eyes. Morning had hardly begun, yet he’d had a week’s worth of trouble already. Well, so be it. But let any trouble that lurked in the remaining hours find and fall on someone else. He’d had more than his fair share for the day.
***
Bertha stood on Magdalena’s front porch, hesitant for the first time ever to open the big oak door and step inside. She sorely needed to jaw a spell with Magda but reckoned she wasn’t up yet and didn’t have the heart to rouse her. The big house loomed dark, with no light behind the drawn shades, and Bertha couldn’t bear the thought of sitting inside alone.
Mopping beads of sweat from her top lip with her sleeve, she gazed around the yard. In their part of Texas, a body couldn’t always tell the difference between spring and summer, and the hazy morning foretold a sultry day. Just a few days before, they had awakened to downright cold mornings. Thad always said if a fella didn’t cotton to Texas weather, all he had to do was wait a minute.
Despite the heat, Nash was already hard at work in the side yard, bent low over a wagon wheel. If he wasn’t the biggest man Bertha had ever seen, he sure was in the running. As if he heard her thoughts, he stood upright and stretched, like a bear rising to full height. Shading his eyes with his arm, he balanced a wrench in his other hand and absently scanned the horizon. When his gaze passed over the house, he took a backward glance and squinted Bertha’s way, until his eyes lit on her there in the shadows.
She waved.
He grinned and waved back with the rust-colored tool before crouching down by the wheel.
She stifled a yawn. Thanks to Charity she’d been awake for hours, long before first light. The girl had kept her up half the night, moaning and panting as if something chased her. When Bertha gave up on sleep and got up, Charity kept to her bed, but just barely. The way she pitched and rolled, it wouldn’t be long before she threw herself to the floor.
It hurt Bertha so fiercely to watch, she had to get plumb out of the room. She’d left Charity a note saying where she’d be and struck out on foot before sunup, headed for Magda’s place.
Now that she was here, she felt a mite silly. There was no sense in bothering Magda again. No matter how many times they hashed it over, they came up with the same answer.
The die was cast. The milk spilt. Tomorrow her only child would become one in the sight of God with a man not fit to touch her. Bertha didn’t reckon she could bear it.
Careful to steer clear of the rosebush, she stepped on a crate and pulled herself up to sit on the rail. The haunting smell of the red blossoms wafted up, wrapping her in scent as heavy as her sorrow. She leaned her head against the post and settled in for a good cry, but the sudden sense of another presence raised the hairs on her arms. She took a slow, careful look behind her.
“Squeeze that rail any harder and you’ll snap it in two.”
She shrieked and leaped to her feet, nearly twisting her ankle.
Magda stood on the threshold in a blush-colored dressing gown, her hair let down to her waist.
Bertha fell against the rail, one hand over her pounding heart. “Land sakes, Magda, you scared me right out of my bloomers.”
Unruffled, her friend regarded her with doubtful eyes. “Honey, Humble ain’t ready for that one.”
“You ought not to sneak up on a body. With your hair all loose and flowing, I thought you was a spirit.”
Magda grinned. “A ghost in a pink sheet? Get in here out of the dew, honey. I reckon it’s soaked your brain.” She made a sweeping motion toward the door. “Well? What are you waiting for? This calls for scrambled eggs.”
Bertha held up her hand. Long scratches dotted with tiny drops of blood ran the length of her forearm. “You ain’t getting no eggs out of me. Look, you made me brush up agin’ those blasted thorns.”
Magda dismissed her wounds with a glance. “Well, we can summon the doctor if you like, but I believe I can patch that up myself.” She held the door wider. “But not with you on the porch. Get yourself inside.”
Bertha allowed herself to be herded into the house. Just before Magda closed the door, she leaned out and searched the yard for Nash. When she spotted him, she shouted orders in his direction, loud enough to be heard in town. “Nash! Leave what you’re doing and fetch us some eggs. Get a whole mess, and we’ll scramble some for you.”
***
Nash laid the wrench aside and stood up smiling. Remembering how damp grass rusted out a tool, he stooped to pick it up again, wiping it on his trousers before laying it in the wagon bed.
Fetch some cackleberries, you say? Yes, ma’am! I’m gon’ fetch plenty, and right this minute.
He headed for the chicken yard, stomach rumbling under his belt. Wasn’t much he liked better than those two cooking up something in the kitchen. He’d never say it to Ophelia, didn’t dare, but Miz Bloom stirred up the best pan of biscuits he ever tasted. When she drizzled on bacon-fat gravy and paired them with eggs, there wasn’t no better eating this side of the river.
At the coop, he shut the gate behind him and hurried up the slanted ramp into the henhouse. Right off he sensed the birds were restless. All around in the dim, dank-smelling house they shuffled and squirmed, making the low, throaty babble that always brought to mind the foolish chatter of women. “What be wrong with you old gals?” he cooed. “Has something done crawled in this here house?”
His mind went to a chicken snake, making him think twice about poking his hand in the nests. He loathed the slithery beasts and didn’t care to run across one today. “If an old snake was in here, you’d be stirring up more of a squawk, now, wouldn’t you? Maybe we got us a rat instead.”
Nash cocked his head and stared about, willing his eyes to adjust. “Mistah Rat, is that you? Come on now, don’t tease old Nash. Who be in this henhouse besides these tetchy hens?”
He waited. Not that he expected Mr. Rat to answer. In fact, that’d be the last thing he’d want to hear. He only hoped the sound of his voice would drive the intruder away. Hearing nothing except more chatter and babble, he smiled around at the small, dark space. “Look like it just be us chickens. Now, ladies, if you don’t mind, I need to borrow me some breakfast.”
He shifted the basket down his arm and eased his other hand under the first hen. His fingers closed around two warm eggs, and he pulled them out, testing their weight to see if he’d picked up the laying egg. Before he got them to the basket, a quiet sniffle drifted from the corner behind him.
Nash spun toward the sound, dropping his prize. The real one landed at his feet with a splat. The marble laying egg hit the floor with a thud then wobbled away. “Who that now! Who be in here with me?”
A loud wail was his answer. One he’d heard before.
“Miss Emmy!” He tossed the basket aside and took a step in her direction. “That’s you, all right.”
The rightful dwellers of the house set up a squawk to match the girl’s mournful caterwauling. Some ran in wild circles, getting nowhere fast in the closed-up space. Others sailed past his head, beating their wings in his ears like giant hummingbirds.
“Come on now. Stop that howling—else these hens ain’t never gon’ lay another egg. They’ll all wind up in a pot of dumplin’s, and it’ll be all yo’ fault. Here, let Nash help you up off that nasty floor.”
He lifted Emmy to her feet, but when he turned her loose, she fell again. He caught her and held her upright. “What’s ailing you, Miss Emmy? What you doing hiding in the henhouse?”
She clung to him, still bawling like a lost heifer, and Nash could feel her trembling.
This gal’s jus’ a child, he thought as he held her. A wayward child, and that’s for sure, but a child no less. He wondered what she’d gotten herself into now.
“Talk to me, girl. Did some fool hurt you? If they did, they’s gon’ answer to Nash.”
He realized she wore her town clothes and knew in his soul that her mama reckoned her still in bed. “Where you been, Miss Emmy?” he asked in a low voice. “What done happen to you?”
“Oh, Nash!” She was crying so hard he scarcely understood. “It was awful. Just awful.”
CHAPTER 21
Bertha sat in the big green chair, pinned between the padded arm and her padded friend. Wedged in beside her, Magda brandished a sewing needle, determined to tease the dark tip of a thorn from Bertha’s hand. Bertha struggled to get free, but Magda hoisted a leg over both of hers, ending all hope of escape.
“Stop your wiggling and let me get it.”
“Not yet, I told you. It’s too fresh. Let the bleeding stop first.”
“I never saw a body take on so over a tiny bit of blood. Hush now. I’ve almost got it.”
Bertha squirmed again. “Get up, Magda. This chair won’t hold us both. The legs are bound to cave.”
“Then you’d best let me get this done.”
“Let me up,” she shouted. “I cain’t feel my legs no more. You got ’em wadded in a knot.”
“Bertha, hold still!”
Chasing Charity Page 19
