Secrets of the Heart (25 page)

Kathleen had heard about the Comstock Lode in Virginia City, and that other mines were being discovered near there. Some men had struck it rich. Suddenly her heart quickened pace.

Kathleen went to the shed and put the laundry in the tub to soak. As she walked back to the apartment, she said aloud, “Kathleen, maybe a woman wouldn’t be such a fool, after all. Maybe this is the break I need to get my Meggie back!”

Kathleen sat down at the kitchen table and wrote a letter to Tom Harned. She told him the things he wanted to know about her date and place of birth, the tragic loss of her family in the famous Chicago fire, and that her husband had been killed by robbers on a dark Chicago street.

She didn’t mention her daughter. And she didn’t mention her married name. If Tom Harned knew about her entanglement with the wealthy and powerful Stallworths, it might scare him off. She’d keep Meggie her secret for now.

Some three weeks after the Chicago fire, Kathleen had been interviewed by the
Chicago Tribune.
Her photo had accompanied the interview.

Kathleen had kept the paper amongst her personal items. She cut the picture out and placed it in the letter, stating the year it was taken, but that it was the only photograph she had of herself. She told Thomas Harned that her hair was a dark shade of auburn and her eyes were dark blue.

She hesitated for a moment and then quickly sealed the envelope, sighing as she said, “Well, Meggie darling, this may be our big chance!”

D
URING THE LAST WEEK OF
A
UGUST
, Laurie Humbert’s sister, Mardy Richton, arrived in Virginia City from her home in Akron, Ohio. Her arrival was a surprise to the Humberts, but a welcome one. Mardy was two years younger than Laurie, and unmarried. She had come to help Bruce and Laurie prior to the birth of their child and was planning to stay a couple of months afterward to do the housework and cooking.

Upon her arrival, Mardy learned that Laurie was taking care of Caleb Harned, and she quickly made known to Tom that she would take over in Laurie’s place.

Laurie gave birth to a healthy baby girl on Saturday, September 1, 1877.

On the next Saturday afternoon, Tom Harned stopped by the post office on his way to the parsonage from work and picked up his mail. He hurried on to the Humbert home and found Caleb in the parlor with the new baby. Young Caleb watched the infant with fascination.

“Dad,” he said as they left the house and headed home, “I hope someday when you get married again, we can have a baby in our house.”

“Oh, really? And do you want a brother or sister?”

“I wouldn’t really care. I’d like to have a brother, but if we could have a cute little girl like Pastor and Mrs. Humbert’s, that would be fine.”

Tom patted Caleb’s blond head. “Well, I’m glad you’re open to either, ‘cause when babies come, we don’t get a choice as to whether they’re a boy or a girl.”

When father and son turned into their yard, three boys from down the street came running up, asking if Caleb could play with them.

“Just be home by sundown, Caleb,” Tom said as he watched his boy run down the street with his friends.

The sun was dropping behind the distant mountain peaks when Caleb came home, puffing from a hard run. Tom was sitting at the kitchen table holding a newspaper photograph in his hand.

“Hi, Dad!” Caleb called.

Tom glanced up. “Hello, son. Have a good time?”

“Sure did. Uh…Dad?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t smell anything cookin’. Are we gonna go to one of the cafes for supper?”

“Yes, we are.”

Caleb jumped up and down. “Whoopee!”

“Something wrong with my cooking?” Tom said with a frown.

Caleb looked at the photograph in his father’s hand and the letter and envelope lying on the table. “Is that another letter from one of those ladies back east, Dad?”

Tom had already received nine letters but had not replied to any of them. None of the women who had responded to his mail order bride ads appealed to him.

But this letter held him fascinated, as did the photograph. Angling the picture so Caleb could see it, he said, “What do you think of this pretty Irish lady, son?”

Caleb’s eyes widened. “Wow, Dad! She’s really pretty! Are you gonna marry her?”

“Well, maybe. Would you like to have her for your new mother?”

Caleb’s face twisted and his lower lip quivered.

Tom took him onto his lap and held him. “I’m sorry, Caleb. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“It’s all right, Dad.”

“Caleb, I know you miss Mommy. I miss her, too. Something awful. But we can’t have her back. You…you need a mother more
than anything. I just don’t know how to do that job.”

Caleb nodded and brushed at a tear rolling down his cheek. “You try, Dad,” he said.

“Yes, but a father just doesn’t have the know-how and the tenderness of a mother.”

Caleb nodded once again, thought on it for a moment, then said, “It would be real good to have a new mother, but I won’t call her
Mommy.”

“I understand, son.”

Father and son ate supper at a cafe in town, then spent the evening together at home, playing games.

Later that night, when Caleb was in bed asleep, Tom sat down at the kitchen table and wrote a letter to Kathleen O’Malley.

On Monday, September 17, Kathleen O’Malley came home with her laundry cart loaded. While she was pushing it down the hall toward her apartment door, her landlord came out of his apartment with an envelope in his hand. “Letter came for you today, Kathleen. I wasn’t aware you knew anyone in Nevada.”

Kathleen’s heart fluttered as she plucked the envelope from his fingers and said, “Oh, life does have its little surprises, doesn’t it? Thank you, Mr. Jones.”

She pushed the cart inside her apartment and opened the letter with trembling hands. A recent photograph of Tom and Caleb was enclosed. Kathleen was struck by Tom’s good looks and Caleb’s golden hair and big eyes. She held the photograph in one hand while she read the letter:

Kathleen felt a touch of disappointment upon reading that Tom was simply an employee in the silver mining business, but something about the letter touched her, and she read it over two more times, looked at the photograph, then read the letter again.

After doing her washing and eating supper, Kathleen sat down and wrote a reply to Tom Harned. She labored over the letter, making sure each word she chose was exactly the right one. She told Tom that she had a little over five hundred dollars saved up, and if they married, she would invest it to help him stake his claim on a gold mine. All she asked was that they divide the profits evenly when they struck it big, because she had a personal need for a large sum of money. If Tom agreed to her terms, she would come to Virginia City, marry him after a proper amount of time, and be a good mother to Caleb.

Fourteen days after Kathleen sent her letter to Tom, a letter came from him containing a check for more than enough to cover her railroad ticket to Reno, Nevada—the nearest railroad town to Virginia City.

Toms letter stated that he deeply appreciated her willingness to invest her savings in his proposed mining business, and he agreed to her terms of dividing the profits. As he closed the letter off, he told her how happy and excited he was that she had agreed to come, and that Caleb—in his boyish way—was looking forward to having her for his new mother.

The next morning, Kathleen went to the Chicago railroad station and purchased her ticket. She wrote Tom a brief letter, telling him she would leave a week from that day and arrive in Reno on the Central Pacific train at 1:30
P.M.
on Friday, October 12.

On the day before she was to leave for Nevada, Kathleen delivered her final batch of laundry in early afternoon. Knowing that Alice Downing usually took Meggie into the Stallworths’ backyard to play around 3:30, she made one last trip to see her little girl. It was
about 3:15 when Kathleen drew up to the fence behind the Stallworth mansion.

The air was chilly on that October afternoon. When Meggie emerged from the mansion she was clad in an expensive fur-trimmed coat and bonnet and wore a nice pair of mittens. Kathleen breathed a prayer of thanks that Alice’s routine had not been interrupted that day.

Kathleen drank in the sight of Meggie as Alice pushed the child in a swing that hung from a tree limb. There was no way of knowing when she would set eyes on Meggie again.

It was almost five o’clock when Alice told Meggie it was time to go inside. Kathleen blew Meggie a kiss, saying in a low whisper, “Mommy loves you, sweetheart. I’ll be back to take you away from those evil people as soon as I can.”

She waited until the little girl had disappeared through the door, then turned and walked away, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Friday, October 12, was a warm and sunny day in Nevada as Tom Harned and his son drove up to the railroad station in Reno.

Tom was dressed in suit and tie, and wore a white shirt he had ironed himself. His black boots were polished, and he wore his best Stetson.

Caleb had been scrubbed by Mardy Richton until his cheeks were rosy. In the sun’s light his blond hair was a shining halo around his head.

The blue eyes of father and son—so much alike—shone with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. This momentous occasion would alter their lives completely, and each was more than a little scared for his own reasons.

It was 1:10
P.M.
when Tom and Caleb stepped onto the platform where a small crowd had gathered.

“Dad…”

“Mm-hmm?” Tom cast a glance toward the east where the train would appear, but there was no sign of it yet.

“Should I call my new mother Ma? Or would Mom be better? I can’t call her Mommy, because that’s what I called my real mother.”

“Tell you what, son,” said Tom, “why don’t you wait until you two get to know each other? Then you can ask her what she’d like you to call her.”

“Okay. But until then, I gotta call her somep’n. What should I call her?”

“Just call her ma’am. That’s a polite way to address her.”

Kathleen was experiencing her own anxiety as the train thundered westward. She stood before the mirror in the washroom of her coach and freshened up as best she could. It had been a long and tiring trip, traveling day and night, with many stops. Dust and soot had a way of blowing into the coaches and covering everything with a gritty film.

Kathleen dipped a handkerchief into the basin of cool water and dabbed the grime from her face and hands. She removed her new hat, smoothed back her hair with wet fingers and pinned it securely, then replaced her hat. She gave her pale cheeks a pinch and tried in vain to brush the wrinkles out of her dress, which—along with the hat—she had bought hew just before leaving Chicago. She took one last look at herself in the wavy mirror and knew she was as ready as she would ever be. She drew a deep breath and returned to her seat to wait out the few minutes until they pulled into the station.

The conductor set Kathleen’s heart to pounding like a trip-hammer when he came in the, front door of the coach and called above the clack of the wheels, “Reno…five minutes!”

First Tom and Caleb saw the billowing smoke, then caught sight of the train chugging down the track. A moment later the whistle blew.

“I’m scared, Dad,” Caleb said.

Tom looked down and laid a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Of what?”