The Captive Within (A Prairie Heritage, Book 4)

by Vikki Kestell

  Finally he stepped inside the front door of Palmer House, but held himself back, peering into the great room from the entryway, an awkward voyeur to Mei-Xing’s homecoming.

  Or he tried to hold himself back. Mr. Wheatley spied him and hustled over to pump his hand and pull him into the room. Before long, Breona, Marit, and Rose took turns embracing and tearfully thanking him for bringing Mei-Xing home.

  As they greeted him they stared askance at the swollen bruises across his face and the tidy row of stitches above his eye. Noted the cane and his stiff leg.

  “Looks like you tangled with a mountain cat,” Mr. Wheatley suggested with raised brows.

  “I lost,” O’Dell replied, trying to laugh it off, but he knew already that these people saw through his deflection. They would wait, some patiently, others not so patiently, for him to speak of his injuries. This happy moment was not that time.

  O’Dell backed unobtrusively into a corner near the door and leaned against the wall. He looked about him and saw one or two girls he did not know. They stared at him with wide eyes. He nodded a silent greeting.

  Billy had answered Breona’s telephone call to the shop. When Joy finally understood the garbled words Billy kept shouting, she locked the doors and threw the closed sign over.

  O’Dell was still standing awkwardly apart from the others when Billy, Sarah, Corrine, and Joy ran into the house. O’Dell turned stiffly at their entrance, leaning on his cane. The expression on their faces became concerned when they saw him.

  “It will be all right,” O’Dell shrugged. “I will mend. It is over now, and Mei-Xing is home.”

  He shook hands with them in turn and studied Joy for a moment. Then Billy, Sarah, and Corrine left to greet Mei-Xing, leaving Joy and O’Dell alone in the corner of the room.

  O’Dell glanced around, anxious to change the subject. “Where is Grant? And Flinty? I haven’t seen them yet.”

  Joy shuddered and looked down. “We had . . . a difficult winter,” she murmured.

  O’Dell looked sharply at her then. He had not heard any news. “Is everything all right?”

  Her eyes shifted away. “The influenza.” She swallowed. “We lost Flinty.”

  O’Dell reeled. “Flinty? Flinty!”

  Suddenly he had to find a chair and sit. He lowered himself stiffly into one of the great room’s several overstuffed chairs.

  Joy sat across from him, saw his pained disbelief. She added softly, “You know Flinty was ailing when he came to live with us. He came to us so we could watch over him. He . . . he weathered the flu when it struck, but, but, afterwards his heart just gave out.”

  O’Dell sat for several moments without speaking. Flinty gone! Finally he whispered, “I am sorry, Joy, so sorry. I know all of you will miss Flinty. I surely will.”

  He raised his head. “And Grant? Where is he?”

  Joy answered more slowly. “He, too, was hit hard by the influenza and . . . has not yet fully recovered. He tires easily, so, so when we came home, he went to rest in our cottage.”

  She is holding something back, O’Dell thought, but he would not press her. “Can I do anything to help?”

  She shook her head. “Thank you, no. He has a good doctor.”

  Just then Marit appeared. “Miss Joy, Mei-Xing vould like to speak to you and Miss Rose privately. Vill you come?”

  Joy nodded and turned back to O’Dell. He reached across and took her hand and held it in both of his.

  “Joy, I will pray that Grant recovers soon. Nothing is impossible with God.” He pressed her hand gently before letting it go.

  Joy’s eyes swept up to his in surprise. For a long moment they shared a look. Something has happened, Joy realized in astonishment. Something has changed.

  She swallowed. “What will you do now? Where will you go?”

  “Not a good idea for me to be near Denver when Cal Judd finishes his sentence in a few months.” He laughed and thought for a moment. “I think I will be going back to Seattle.”

  ~~**~~

  Chapter 45

  They sequestered themselves in the small parlor. Joy and Mei-Xing sat next to each other, Joy holding Mei-Xing’s hands. Rose pulled her chair close and seated herself across from them.

  What was obvious to all had not yet been spoken of: Tiny Mei-Xing was quite large with child. No one had asked, no one had yet alluded to it.

  “I must make a confession to you,” Mei-Xing said, looking from Rose to Joy soberly. “I have never fully confided in anyone, have never trusted anyone completely, but now. . . . It is important that I hold nothing back.”

  Rose nodded. Joy squeezed her hands gently.

  “I loved Su-Chong from the time I was a little girl,” Mei-Xing whispered, “and he said he loved me. Our families were very close and hoped we would marry. It was what both of us wanted, also.” Rose handed Mei-Xing her hanky and Mei-Xing wiped her eyes.

  “I would have been so happy to marry Su-Chong!” she quietly sobbed. “But I discovered by accident that his family was very corrupt—they sold drugs and did with young Chinese girls the very thing Morgan and Banner did with us! Worse, Su-Chong worked for his father in all these evil businesses.

  “Oh, how my heart broke when I knew he was not the honorable man I had believed him to be! I could not marry him then, but I was afraid to tell my father why. I knew it would crush him. He and Wei Lin Chen, Su-Chong’s father, had been friends for many years.

  “So I simply told Su-Chong I would not marry him. No one understood, and my father was so disappointed, my mother so very angry with me. She would not even look at me any longer.

  “I decided then that I must tell my father why I had refused Su-Chong—but Wei Chen’s family warned me . . .” she broke down again. “They, they threatened my father’s life! Oh, Miss Rose, what was I to do?

  “After I refused Su-Chong, he begged me many times to change my mind. When I would not, he became angry, almost violent. In a rage, he left Seattle. I think I knew then that something was not right with him. He is an only child, you see. His mother had indulged and spoiled him. He was not accustomed to being denied anything he wished for.

  “No one knew where Su-Chong had gone. For more than a year no one heard from him. All during that year, Su-Chong’s mother, Fang-Hua, blamed me.”

  Here Mei-Xing shuddered. “Fang-Hua is a spiteful woman. She began to publicly scorn and humiliate me—I became such a great shame to my family that I could no longer be seen in public with them.” She bowed her head and sobs racked her body until Rose and Joy became alarmed.

  “Mei-Xing, Mei-Xing, you must stop.” Rose stroked her head and her back. “Please, little one. For the baby. You must not harm the baby.”

  “Ohhhh, the baby!” Mei-Xing was nearly hysterical now. “Oh, what will I do?”

  “Shhh, shhh,” Rose soothed. “Come now. You are trying to make a clean breast of everything. We do not judge you, Mei-Xing. We will hear you out, and God will provide the answers.”

  After a few minutes Mei-Xing was able to take up her story again. “Su-Chong has a cousin, Bao. His mother was Wei Lin Chen’s sister. Bao told me he understood how lonely I must have felt, how hopeless.” Mei-Xing’s eyes focused far away, and Rose and Joy could tell she was remembering.

  “He told me of a wonderful, childless Chinese couple here in Denver. They wanted a daughter, he told me. They would take me in and treat me as their own, he said. My leaving would remove the continual shame from my parents, and I would have a new life. He bought me a ticket and after dark he took me to the station.”

  The skin down Joy’s arms prickled. She looked at her mother; they had heard the same horrible tale from Minister Liáng.

  Mei-Xing stared and her voice took on a mechanical tone. “Instead of a loving couple, Darrow met me when the train reached Denver. You know . . . what happened.”

  She turned to Joy, dazed. “It was Fang-Hua’s doing. When Su-Chong returned home, she told him I was dead, but she was behind Bao’s deceit.
She hated me that much, you see.

  “When, when you took me in, you showed me real love and taught me forgiveness. I forgave Bao and Fang-Hua . . . and Jesus forgave me! Oh, Miss Rose, Miss Joy, I was so content here with you.

  “You see, like Su-Chong, I, too, was raised in a privileged home—waited on, pampered, educated. I never lifted a finger in my life until you taught me the satisfaction of working hard with my hands and the joy of real family bonds. I learned to cook and to clean and to take care of others because I loved them.

  “Then one night I came home from Mrs. Palmer’s, and Su-Chong was waiting for me on the front porch. I don’t remember what he did to me, but I awoke in a bedroom. The windows in the room were bricked up! I could hear nothing from the outside. When I tried to open the door, it was locked. After a while, Su-Chong opened it.”

  She told Rose and Joy how Su-Chong had been wounded, how she had nursed him until he recovered, how he had asked to know how she had ended up in Corinth. How she had first refused but had finally given in and told him how she had been tricked and forced into slavery. How he had then held her gently and comforted her . . .

  Rose and Joy glanced at each other, their thoughts running along the same lines.

  “I know,” Mei-Xing said sadly. “I know what you are thinking and you are right. I should never have spoken to him of such intimate things. I think—no, I know—that the Lord was warning me, but I . . . ignored his warnings, again and again.”

  Her voice dropped. “I have had to come to terms with how deceitful my heart can be. I confess now that I told Su-Chong those things because I desired his love and comfort so badly.”

  She sighed and wiped tears from her eyes. “He held me and kissed me and for one single moment I let myself remember what it was like before I knew who he really was, before I broke our engagement—just one single moment! Then we, we just, just . . . You know what we did.”

  Joy started to say something, but Mei-Xing said softly, “Please. I must finish.”

  She straightened resolutely. “Once we began, I was powerless to stop it. But after a few weeks, I could tell Su-Chong was becoming restless. He wanted to leave, but if he released me, I would be a threat to him.

  “I could tell he was thinking of just . . . leaving me to die locked in that room. For some reason, he could not bring himself to do so.

  “Oh, I knew I had sinned! I called on the Lord and confessed my sins to him. Yet for a long while it seemed as though he was far away and did not answer. I felt such guilt and shame.”

  Her voice sank to a whisper. “And I began to suspect that I was with child.”

  “All along Su-Chong had gone out in the night to steal food for us. Then he began drinking. When he drank up all the alcohol in the apartment, he began stealing that, too.

  “He would drink every day. When he drank he brooded and became angry and, and, I think, more irrational. I tried to stay quiet and out of Su-Chong’s way as his drinking increased. As much as he would allow, I would stay in my room.

  “Other times when he drank he would look at me and I knew that look. I knew what he was thinking. He would come into my room at night and—”

  The girl began to cry again. “He grew to hate me, but still forced himself on me again and again. Even though he came to my bed many times in the next weeks, he despised me. He called me a whore—he said if a hundred men had used me, he was defiling himself with me—but then he would take me again.

  “It was when he said I was a whore—that I would always be a whore!—that I remembered, Miss Rose! I remembered what you said that morning when you told us about Bethy Ann. And then—at last!—Jesus spoke to me! Come unto me, he said! Come unto me, you who are weary and heavy burdened.

  Mei-Xing bowed her head and wept, so weak she had not even the strength to cover her face. “I surrendered my guilt. I was not afraid to die then.”

  “But now, Mei-Xing?” Joy asked in a hushed voice.

  “Now what shall I do?” Her anguish pierced Joy’s heart. “I did not die, and now I must live! I am not afraid for myself, but I will have a child and I am not married. My child will have no father and my shame will follow him all his life . . .”

  Joy shook her head slowly. “There is no shame in you, Mei-Xing. You know that Jesus has already forgiven you. You said so yourself.”

  “But the baby . . .”

  “You are not alone in this world, Mei-Xing,” Rose replied. “You will have your baby here, and you will not raise him or her alone.”

  “No. Not alone,” Joy quietly agreed, a tiny smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

  Something in Joy’s tone caused Rose to turn. Just then a commotion in the entry way interrupted them.

  “Where is she? Move out of my way, now. I will see her!”

  Mei-Xing, Joy, and Rose looked at each other. Mei-Xing, her eyes wide with dread, whispered, “Mrs. Palmer!”

  The door flew open. Breona scurried aside to allow Martha Palmer entrance. The little woman, out of breath, hobbled in as quickly as she could manage.

  Rose and Joy stood up, Rose happily greeting her. “Mrs. Palmer!” Mei-Xing slowly rose to her feet, swaying unsteadily.

  “Where is the dear girl? I—” Martha Palmer ignored Joy and Rose and reached for Mei-Xing. “Oh, my dear! Oh, thank ye, Lord!” she said breathlessly, grasping Mei-Xing’s hand to steady herself.

  Martha Palmer lifted her face to study Mei-Xing. She took in the sunken eyes and cracked, peeling lips.

  “Are you all right, missy?” her voice was low and gentle, warm and healing.

  Mei-Xing, tears standing in her eyes, could not look at the old woman. “Yes, ma’am. I believe I will be. Thank you.”

  Martha Palmer could not miss Mei-Xing’s averted gaze. She frowned. Then she glanced down . . . and froze. She said nothing for a long moment.

  Slowly she lifted her fragile, gnarled hand from Mei-Xing’s. She gently placed it on Mei-Xing’s swollen belly.

  “Yes, you will be all right,” she said firmly. “Both of you will be all right. I promise.”

  —

  (Journal Entry, May 6, 1910)

  Lord, Palmer House was aglow in celebration today as our lost lamb, Mei-Xing, came home! That she brings her unborn child with her is a surprise and challenge none of us expected. Even so, we will welcome this child, Lord, and willingly provide the love and support Mei-Xing and her baby need.

  Father, you have proven yourself faithful in so many ways. You tell us that your thoughts toward us are of peace and not of evil, that when we call on you, you will hearken. Your word and your faithfulness give me such great hopes for the future!

  We still have much to do for you, Lord. Yes, I know that as we press forward we will encounter obstacles and challenges. Nevertheless, our trust and our strength are in you.

  By your grace we will not falter.

  ~~**~~

  Postscript

  October 1910

  He didn’t know how Fang-Hua’s thugs had found him. Morgan had established himself with a new identity in faraway Sacramento, and yet it had not been far enough! Fang-Hua’s men had found and delivered him to her in one piece. More or less.

  And now Dean Morgan, Regis St. John, lately known as Paul Westford, calculated his odds and did not find them to his liking. He really had but one card left up his sleeve, and to reveal it here, now, was to leave him with nothing in reserve.

  On the other hand, the information would certainly do him no good if he were dead.

  “Madam Chen,” he opened, bowing low before the woman’s chair. “I have important news for you.”

  She eyed him as a snake eyes a doomed mouse before it strikes.

  “You can have no news that will be of significance to me,” she hissed. With a flick of her hand, the four men in the room were on him. Two of them pushed him to his knees; another moved behind him and pulled his head back. He heard the ‘snick’ of a knife leaving its scabbard.

  “What of your son?” he ch
oked the words out. “What of your lineage?”

  She leapt to her feet, shrieking, “I have no son! Because of you he is dead! Because of you, my husband’s line will die with him!”

  Fear vied with rage on Fang-Hua’s face. She feared what Wei Lin Chen would do if he ever discovered her connection with Su-Chong’s dishonor and death. Her husband might still be able to father children, but she was too old to bear him another son! Would he divorce her and take a young wife, one who could give him many children?

  She snarled at Morgan, “My husband’s line may die with him, but I say that you will die first. And I will pleasure myself with the sounds of your agony!”

  She began to curse him in Mandarin and did not hear what he yelled back, but Morgan was certain the men holding him down did. They shifted nervously. He continued to talk, knowing that if he kept repeating himself the old witch would eventually stop ranting long enough to hear him.

  She did finally stop, swaying unsteadily on her feet, wiping spittle from her mouth. Morgan kept repeating himself, waiting for his words to sink in.

  He saw the very moment when what he’d said penetrated the fog of her rage.

  “Wha . . . what did you say?”

  Morgan was silent, watching for the crazed light to leave her eyes. She strode over and squatted in front of him.

  “What did you say?” she insisted, her words ragged, harsh.

  The man behind him released his hold and Morgan took a careful, cleansing breath, cautiously watching her. “I said, there is a child. You have a grandson.”

  Morgan had no idea whether the child was a male or a female. His informants had only told him that the Little Plum Blossom had been five or six months gone when she had been returned to the bosom of her friends in Denver. Surely she would have had the child by now.

  He watched Fang-Hua’s eyes dilate and saw a light spark in them. She slowly stood up.

  “So. The little whore gave him a child . . .” she walked back to her chair and sank into it. He swallowed as she fixed him with her cold, mad eyes.