It was after a week of praying like this that Erin suddenly was struck by a thought that seemed to come from nowhere. She was mopping the floor at about ten o’clock one night. The dishes were all washed, and everything was ready for the morning meal. Actually, she was thinking about Nbuta and wishing that she could see him again. She missed his dark features and his warm smile, and she missed more than anything his advice and counsel.
In the midst of her thoughts of Nbuta, she suddenly, without knowing why, straightened up and looked around the café. The idea that came to her then was so clear it was almost like a spoken voice. You could buy this café. . . .
Nothing had been further from Erin’s mind. She had not come to America to be a cook and certainly not to get into the business of running a café. She pushed the thought aside, but it persisted even while she was reading the Scriptures that night. She ran across a verse that said, “And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it. . . .” She stared at the verse from the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament and finally closed the Bible and turned out the lamp beside her bed. She lay there for a long time, and the idea of buying the café along with the second-floor apartment kept nudging its way in—almost like a persistent wind trying to find its way through the crevices of a boarded-up house. “This is foolish!” she exclaimed aloud, breaking the silence. “I don’t want to own a café. I want to be a pilot.”
Turning over, she finally managed to go to sleep. But all the next day and the following day, she could not get away from the thought. She began thinking that it might be the guidance of God, yet she found herself arguing. “I don’t want to be a café owner! And I don’t have any money to buy a café. The Barneses couldn’t sell it, and I’d be stuck with it the rest of my life. . . .”
Finally the impression that this was what she was supposed to do grew so strong that she began to consider it seriously. Someday she would fly—she knew that—but in the meantime she was having a hard time making ends meet. She was having difficulty paying her rent, yet she was determined not to ask for money from her family.
Taking a sheet of paper, she sat down one afternoon and went over the café’s expenses and intake over the past few months. When she had finished she stared at the figures for a considerable amount of time and then took a deep breath. Shocked at her own decision, she rose with a new determination.
****
“Why, of course we’ll lend you the money to take over the café, Erin.” Lola Winslow and her husband had been surprised when Erin had sat down with them and explained what she wanted to do. Mark had looked over the profit-and-loss sheet Erin had made up and had nodded at once to Lola, who had spoken her approval.
“I know it seems like an odd thing,” Erin said with some hesitation. “But it may be a long time before I get to fly. I think what I really want to do is take this business, build it up, and then sell it so I could get enough money to buy my own plane.”
“That sounds like a good sound business venture to me,” Mark replied. “When would you want to do this?”
“The Barneses are anxious to get back to their home in Arizona, so as quickly as possible.”
“Well,” Mark smiled, “I can give you a check right now.”
“Oh, but I want you to make out a note, and I’ll sign it and be responsible for it. I could go to a bank, but I doubt if any bank would lend me money. I don’t have any credit history.”
“Don’t worry about that. You wait right here. I’ll go to my office and be back in ten minutes. I’ll have a note and a check and—” He stood up, went over, and kissed her on the cheek. “What’s the use of having a wonderful granddaughter if a man can’t spoil her once in a while? I’ll be right back.”
Erin turned to Lola and whispered, “He’s such a good man.”
“Yes, he is. He’s a good businessman, too, and I can tell you right now, if he thought you couldn’t do this, he wouldn’t let you have the money.” Lola beamed at her granddaughter. Lola looked especially attractive that day in a tan dress with a high neck and three-quarter-length sleeves edged in black brocade. The bodice was loose and decorated with tiny black buttons down the front to the waist, where the skirt, which fell to her ankles, was also edged in black brocade. “I just want you to find your way, Erin.”
“Grandmother, nothing was further from my thoughts than buying a restaurant, but I can do the work. I can do it all—the cooking, the bookkeeping, waiting on tables. I’ll have to hire someone to help me, but I think I can do that, too.”
“Then do what you have to.” Lola gave her a knowing look. “You’ve heard about what I did when I was stranded. I dealt blackjack at a saloon.”
Erin was delighted with this story. She had always loved it, and now she said, “Tell me about it again, Grandmother.”
“Oh my! You’ve heard that story before.”
“Not since I was a little girl. I’ve heard Dad talk about it, but I want to hear it from you.”
“Well, let’s wait for your grandfather to come back. Then you’ll stay for dinner. When he takes his nap, I’ll tell you all about what it was like in those hell-on-wheels towns.”
“Is that what they called them?”
“Yes, it was, and the title wasn’t too far wrong. It was a rough time, and I didn’t know what I was going to do, but God was with me all the way.” Lola leaned forward and put her hand on Erin’s. “And He’ll be with you, too. I know it in my heart.”
****
The next month passed so quickly that Erin was hardly conscious of the passing of time. She arose well before dawn, got to the café before first light to ready the tables and cook breakfast, and then she stayed until late at night. After the café closed, she threw herself into redecorating the place.
The first thing she did was paint everything that could be painted, especially the walls. The Barneses were not conscious of how dingy the place had become, but Erin was. Now she chose a nice off-white paint and set to it. The painting was not difficult, but scrubbing all the accumulated grease that had floated in from the kitchen was. Preparing the walls took her over a week before she was ready to paint, but for the next two nights she stayed up into the wee hours of the morning until the painting was finished. When her regular customers came in, most of them stopped and stared around, exclaiming, “Why, this is a different place, Miss Winslow. It’s beautiful!”
Next, Erin set out to get new tables and chairs. She haunted the furniture stores and finally found a wholesaler who had been saddled with some tables and chairs he could not get rid of. They were painted an ugly shade of orange-brown, but they were sturdy and attractively styled. Erin bought the lot, and every night she would refinish one set, a table and four chairs. She painted some of them light blue, others light green, and others light yellow. Placed together in the café, they made a colorful and cheerful sight.
The next job was to do something about the floor. She had no idea what to do. The grease and dirt had so soaked into the hardwood floor that it would have been almost impossible to get off, so instead of even trying, she found a firm that installed tile floors. She argued and bargained with them for three days until the man finally gave up and, throwing his hands in the air, said, “All right, lady. All right. You can have ’em at your price, and my guys will work at night and give you a real bargain.”
The men came the very next night, cleared everything out, and tore up the old floor, and by morning the tile was set in place. She had to close for a day to allow the adhesive to set, but the next morning the new cook, a treasure of an older woman named Lena, and the two waitresses, Dottie and Grace, were as proud as if they had done the work themselves.
“My stars, Miss Erin!” Lena exclaimed. “This looks like one of those fancy eating places over on Broadway. Why, John Jacob Astor himself could come in here and feel right at home!” Lena was given to overstatements, but she was a good soul, always on time, and she usually volunteered to help with the clean-up work.
The two waitresses were sisters, ages eighteen and nineteen, with identical light brown hair and brown eyes. Both of them were stagestruck and firmly intended to become stars on Broadway. They were so much alike that for a week Erin had trouble telling them apart, but she was pleased with their help.
All of this work consumed Erin’s energy, but she was strong and determined. As soon as the dining area was complete with new walls, floors, furniture, and decorations, she started in on the kitchen. It was in sad shape, but she knew that sooner or later she would want to sell the place, so she used part of her capital to buy new equipment. She demanded that it not only be efficient but also attractive. She was fortunate to find a large café going out of business and managed to buy most of their kitchen appliances at a minimal cost. Then she threw herself into making the kitchen as spotless as the dining area. She also refurbished the large back room that had been used for storage into an office. Actually she only had a desk, a chair, a lamp, and a small cot there, but it gave her a sense of pride to have such an addition.
During this period she had done nothing to the apartment upstairs. She had bought all of the furniture from the Barneses, and they had charged her almost nothing for it. “Gracious, we couldn’t haul it back to Arizona,” Mattie had said. “And you’ve been such a godsend, Erin.”
The apartment was a refuge for Erin. It could be entered one of two ways: one set of stairs led down to the street, and another set led down to the storeroom-turned-office. Silas had added those himself so they wouldn’t have to go outside every time they wanted to go to their apartment.
And so the days passed, and Erin thought of little but work. Her only recreation was an occasional trip to the airfield to watch the planes land and take off. She still went by to see Robert Jennings and some of her other contacts every now and then, but they still had no flying jobs for her.
One thing, however, had been a help. All the time she had been working, as much as sixteen hours a day, she had not had time to think of Stephen Charterhouse. On Sundays she attended church services twice, and in between them she went to the airfield or to one of the parks to enjoy the spring weather.
During this time a strange sort of peace had come to her, and she was content for the moment. But always, at the back of her mind, she knew she would be flying one day.
****
One night while she slept in her new apartment, a sound came to her ears as definitely as a touch on her arm. Erin was a light sleeper, and she sat up at once, staring into the darkness. For a few seconds she remained still, and then she heard it again. Her bedroom was directly over the café’s kitchen, and she knew that the noise had come from that area.
Getting out of bed, she put on her robe, slipped on her house shoes, and without hesitation made her way to the stairs. She picked up the .38 revolver she had always carried in Africa when traveling across the countryside alone, and she quickly descended the stairs, her soft shoes making no sound. As soon as she reached the lower level, she heard a clatter emanate from the kitchen. Moving across the office, she put her hand on the door and pulled it back a crack. The light had been turned on, and she saw a man with his back to her. To her amazement he was eating something he had taken out of one of the cabinets. He was a very tall man wearing a nondescript light gray jacket and a pair of gray trousers.
“All right. You stop right where you are or I’ll shoot!”
Erin held the revolver out at arm’s length, pointed at the man’s back. When he turned, she saw that he was very pale. He had a piece of bread in his hand and had just taken a bite out of it. The thought crossed her mind, He’s a strange sort of burglar, stealing bread.
“You stand right where you are,” Erin ordered. “I’m going to call the police.” She expected him to protest, but instead the man simply stood there staring at her. He had a soft cap on, but his unruly black hair was exposed where it curled out from under the cap. His eyes, a strange gray-green color, were deep-set and sunken back in his head. He looked ill, Erin thought. He had high cheekbones, flat and ridged beneath his skin, and a rather long nose that looked like it had been broken. A scar on his forehead wandered down over his right eyebrow. He was a lean man, and for some reason she noticed that his fingers were long, extremely so.
“There’s no money in here,” she said.
He shrugged his shoulders, and a strange expression crossed his face. “I-I wasn’t after money. I wanted something to eat.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out two apples, and put them on the table. As he did so, he doubled over in a paroxysm of coughing that shook him like a tree in the wind. He reached out for the wall with one hand and grabbed his chest with the other.
Erin flinched, for the coughing was deep and raspy, as bad as anything she had ever heard.
“Are you sick?” she demanded.
But the burglar was past answering. The coughing grew worse, and when he suddenly slumped to the floor, she lowered the revolver. Helplessly she stood there and watched as he held both arms around his chest and tried in vain to calm his breathing. But as he drew in a breath, his whole body shook with a terrible rattling sound. Erin had been around the sick before in Africa, but she had never seen anyone struck down like this. She walked over to him, still holding the revolver, but the coughing continued unabated. Finally she stuck the revolver into her robe pocket and bent over. He was lying on his side holding his chest, and with some effort she pulled him to a sitting position. “You’re sick,” she said. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Don’t . . . know.”
Erin could not think for a moment. She knelt beside him and held him steady. The coughing seemed to have drained all strength from him. Her eyes fell on the two apples he had taken from his pocket and the remains of the bread he had been eating. She knew she could not call the police on a sick, starving man.
“Here, see if you can get up.”
The man was still holding his chest. His lips were white, and his eyes stared blankly at her. Getting to her feet, Erin tugged at him. “Come on,” she urged. “You’ve got to get up. You can’t sit here on the floor.” She kept urging until he staggered upright, and then she turned him around. “Hold on to me. Just into the next room.”
She helped the man as he took short, wavering steps into the office. She guided him to the cot and turned him around. When the back of his knees struck it, he sat down limply, and she pushed his upper body toward the top of the bed, then lifted his feet up. He lay there panting from the exertion, his eyelids fluttering. He began to cough again, and at once she got a blanket that she kept nearby and put it over him. When this was done, she sat down in her desk chair and stared at him. She was not afraid any longer, but now she knew she would have to do more than simply call the police.
****
“He’s got pneumonia. A bad case of it.” Dr. Robert Satterfield had come at Erin’s request. Erin had gotten the name of Lena’s doctor and had been relieved when he had agreed to come at once. She had sat beside the sick man until Lena arrived, too, and she explained to the astonished woman what had happened.
Dr. Satterfield was a short, muscular man with thick fingers and cool gray eyes. His hair was parted in the middle, and a pencil line of a mustache followed the line of his upper lip. “Look at the scars on his body. They look like bullet wounds to me. Do you know this man?”
Erin ignored the question. When the doctor had stripped the man’s shirt off and listened to his chest, she had seen the scars and puckered white marks. There were three of them—one high on his chest and two lower down near his side.
“Will he die?” Erin asked.
“Probably,” the doctor replied. “Who is he? A relative of yours?”
“No . . .” Erin said hesitantly. She avoided saying anything else for a moment, her mind working quickly. “He’s just a friend who’s fallen on hard times. Would it do any good to get him in the hospital?”
“I doubt it. The hospitals are pretty full. You’ve heard about this flu that’s going
around. It’s hard to get a bed. If he has no money, that would make it harder.”
Erin couldn’t think clearly for a moment. Then she said, “Well, there are four of us women here. I suppose four women can take care of one sick man.”
Dr. Satterfield considered the blond woman carefully. She was attractive and well spoken. Her demeanor indicated to the doctor that she had been brought up well, which caused him some surprise at finding her in a place like this. She had told him that she owned the café but had been evasive about the man. He was puzzled by her hesitation at answering some of his questions, and he wondered, therefore, who the man really was.
“Well, my office isn’t far from here. I can tell you what to do. As a matter of fact, he’d probably be as well off here as he would be in a hospital. I think he’s got pneumonia in both lungs, and if he does, it’ll be a miracle if he lives.”
“Thank you, Doctor. Now, tell me what to do.”
CHAPTER TEN
A Hero in the Kitchen
At first he was only aware of the soft darkness and the sense of being buried under some tremendous weight. Muffled sounds came filtering through, and from time to time voices would come to him. He soon learned to distinguish between the two voices he heard most often: one was loud and the other was soft.
Sometimes hands would touch him, and he would be vaguely aware that one pair of hands was rough and the other was firm but gentle.
In the darkness there was no sense of the passage of time. He might have been in this ebony cloud for a millennium, but perhaps it had only been weeks or even days or hours. Finally the darkness began to dissipate like a dark cloud that was breaking up. The voices also became clearer, and he felt that he had been rising from the bottom of a deep ocean and now was very near the surface. The blackness turned to gray and the gray to a lighter gray, and finally he came to the very top and opened his heavy lids.
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