Messenger by Moonlight (18 page)

“And you were here when it happened?”

Annie nodded. She described hiding under the table while Emmet brandished a knife. “And then George Morgan came in to tell us what was happening. And Badger followed him.” Annie held a hand up to one side of her face. “This side painted red.” She moved her hand over. “This side painted white. He looked quite terrifying.”

“And Wade came charging to the rescue,” the lady said.

Annie smiled. “There was no one in need of rescuing. I think he was quite put out about that.”

Miss Hart nodded. “I can imagine. Wade’s always fancied
himself the hero in every story.” She sighed. “I don’t suppose he can be blamed for that, though, handsome devil that he is.” She changed the subject abruptly, waving a hand about the kitchen. “You seem awfully young to be in charge of a place such as this.”

“I’m not in charge of anything. I’m just the cook.”

“That’s not a ‘just,’ Missus—?”

“Annie.”

“Very well,” the lady said. “Then you must call me Lydia. As I was saying, put
me
in here with a few sacks of something and a pot of whatever and we’d starve before I managed to build a fire and boil water.” She paused. “Still, you and your husband seem to have quite a growing concern, what with all the corrals and that massive barn. And I noticed the store as I came through the main room. It looks quite well stocked.”

She thinks I’m married to George Morgan?
Annie hurried to correct the misunderstanding. “I don’t live here. I mean… not really. I’m here because of my two brothers.” She allowed a tinge of pride in her voice. “Frank and Emmet ride for the Pony Express.”

Miss Hart clasped her hands together. “I was in St. Joseph for the inaugural ride. It was
thrilling
. Will your brothers dine with us this evening? Do you think I could meet them? An editor friend of mine back home is having parts of my letters published as ‘Travel Notes from a Lady in the West.’ I’ve already written about the inaugural ride. I visited the Pony Express stables while I was in St. Joseph and spoke with a Mr. Lewis about the organization. Clearwater is what they call a home station, correct?”

Annie nodded.

“Most excellent. Now that things are off and running, I’d love to speak with a rider about his experiences on the trail.”

“You know the mail run’s been suspended, right?”

“Yes.” The woman gave a little shudder. “That awful trouble in Nevada. Still, there is nothing more Western than the Pony Express.” She paused. “Unless, of course, you have an Indian or two hidden somewhere.”

Annie laughed softly. “I imagine Emmet and Frank will be happy to talk to you once the day winds down. As for Indians, we do have Billy. Billy Gray Owl. He works for Mr. Morgan, who owns Clearwater. I imagine Billy’s seeing to Whiskey John’s team at the moment.”

A rumbling voice sounded from just inside the back door.
George Morgan.
The drinker who wore a gun beneath his coat wouldn’t be able to cause any more trouble now.

Annie was washing dishes on a rickety table just outside the storeroom door when Lieutenant Hart’s sister sought her out. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said and held up a coffee cup. “I helped myself.”

“Not at all.”

“And I won’t be in the way if I ask you a few questions?” She brandished the small notebook she held in her free hand.

“It’s nice to have the company. Did you get what you were hoping to from Frank and Emmet?”

“Oh, my goodness, yes,” Miss Hart said. “Emmet made me work a little harder to draw him out, but Frank—” She smiled. “He is a charmer, isn’t he?”

Annie chuckled and nodded.

“Now I’m curious about you. How did you feel about their taking on the job? I saw the flyers in St. Joseph. They made it sound like it’s dangerous.”

“I didn’t want anything to do with it, and I told them so.”

Miss Hart seemed surprised by the answer. “And yet, here you are.”

“They’re my brothers. I couldn’t let them down. You’d do the same.”

Miss Hart didn’t answer right away. “I’d like to think so, but I haven’t seen Wade in a very long time, and the truth is we’ve never been close.” She paused. “I doubt he’d ever
have invited me to visit, except for one thing. A cad named Blair Bohling left me literally standing at the altar last month. Wade’s invitation is his way of helping me escape the humiliation of coming face-to-face with my former fiancé and the woman he left me for at some social function.”

Annie looked up, shocked. “I’m very sorry that happened to you.”

“Thank you.” Miss Hart took another sip of coffee. “Ironically enough, from the vantage point of hindsight, I’m not sure I am. Blair is thirty years old, and he’s never set foot outside Philadelphia. He converses like a world traveler, but it’s all a ruse. He’s well read but not at all well traveled, and travel is something I am determined to do. Perhaps for the rest of my life. Suffice it to say, I am far from brokenhearted.” She paused. “To return to the topic at hand, though, did you try to talk your brothers out of it? I heard stories while I was in St. Joseph. A lot of men were badly injured just trying out. Until someone ‘busted the bronc.’ I think that’s the term.”

Annie let pride sound in her voice as she said, “My brothers did that. Frank went the distance, and then Emmet followed. Together, they broke Outlaw. In fact, Frank rode him out here.”

“He didn’t say a word about that,” Miss Hart said. And then she smiled. “I need to learn to ask better questions. I shall have to speak with your handsome brother again.”

Five weeks into what newspapers were calling the Paiute War, Frank spent an afternoon working alongside Charlie in bottomland about two hours from Clearwater. George had sent them out to cut enough sod to lay around and over the top of the chicken coop to provide insulation against both the
intense heat sure to arrive with summer and the frigid cold that would come with winter.

Charlie worked the specially designed plow, laying the earth open in three-foot-wide swaths and curling it over, the latter accomplished by the curve of the plow itself. Frank walked behind, cutting the sod into strips to be laid up like bricks once they were back at Clearwater.

As the men worked, Charlie began to sing. A hymn, of course. When he called back to Frank to join in, Frank just shook his head, “Can’t. Don’t know it.”

“Tell me one you do know, and we can sing that instead. It makes the work go easier.”

“Don’t know any hymns,” Frank said, grunting as he cut through a swath of sod.

“Not a single one?” Astonishment sounded in the parson’s voice.

“Not a one.”

“Surely you know ‘Amazing Grace.’ Everybody does.”

Frank rolled the strip of sod up and hefted it onto the sled—a low, sideless wagon they would use to transport the sod back to Clearwater. The exertion cleared some of the anger out so he could answer without swearing. “
Everybody
doesn’t. I don’t.” While he hacked at another swath of earth, he told Charlie the short version of what he called his “heathen” past. It wasn’t until he’d finished cutting all the way through the strip of sod that Frank realized the plow wasn’t moving. He looked up at Charlie.

“I am sorry you had to go through that, son. Very sorry.”

The pure sympathy and kindness in the man’s voice made it hard to answer. Frank gulped. Finally, he croaked, “No need to be sorry. It’s done.”

“If only that were true,” the parson said and went back to plowing.

Frank called after him. “You go right ahead and sing, though. I don’t mind it.”

Charlie sang out in a rich tenor Frank thought just might carry all the way back to Clearwater. Maybe even to Dobytown. He sang about amazing grace “that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.” The words touched a place deep inside. Like someone had reached in and started digging around. When Charlie sang about grace teaching his heart to fear and then relieving those fears, Frank wondered what that meant. He rolled more sod and carried it to the sled. They probably had enough, but Frank didn’t want Charlie to quit singing, and so he didn’t say anything. Not until Charlie got to the end of the song. Of course Frank didn’t know for sure it was the end until the singing stopped, although he thought he could feel it coming with the mention of ten thousand years in heaven. The idea that time wouldn’t run out on people in heaven was downright hopeful.

Frank had just set another roll of sod on the sled when Charlie chirruped to the mule they were using to plow and guided the animal to loop back around so they could head back toward the sled. He looked at the stacked sod and then at Frank. “Why didn’t you tell me to stop?”

Too embarrassed to admit the real reason, Frank shrugged. “Wasn’t sure we had enough yet.”

Charlie smiled. “Son, there’s enough sod on that sled to build three chicken coops.” He shrugged out of the traces and mopped his brow. “But that’s all right. Time’s never wasted when we’re praising the Lord’s amazing grace. On the other hand, I’m glad to be heading back. Your sister said she was planning to try a peach cobbler in that oven, and I’ve faith enough to expect it’s going to turn out just right.”

Frank smiled. “You pray over the stove so it’d behave?”

“Well now, I suppose I could have, but it didn’t come to mind. I just asked the Lord to bless and guide Miss Annie. She needs to see how much good she does every day. How important she is, not only to the crew but also to the good people passing by on the trail. A kind word can go a long way to easing a troubled soul, and from what little I’ve seen of how things work at Clearwater, your sister speaks more than her share every day.”

After improving Annie’s chicken coop, the parson sorted cattle and stacked lumber. He also conducted Sabbath services beneath the arbor extending off the south side of the blacksmith’s soddy. The messages were short and to the point—and somewhat repetitive, to Annie’s way of thinking. All men were sinners, and sin carved a canyon between man and God. The wages of sin was death. But God so loved the world that He gave his only Son to pay those wages. So Jesus came to earth and lived perfect. When He died on the cross, He could pay everyone else’s death wages, because He didn’t owe any of His own. The parson said a man couldn’t ever do enough good to deserve eternal life, but that was okay because he didn’t have to earn it. He just had to ask God to take Jesus’ death as payment for those death-wages. Because of Jesus, God could hand out forgiveness and eternal life as a free gift.
Free.

When Annie commented on the simplicity of the parson’s sermons—and the brevity—Emmet agreed that it wasn’t what people generally expected from a circuit rider. He also said that almost every word Charlie spoke was in the Bible. He’d show her the verses, he said—if she was interested.
Annie was, and Emmet spent an entire evening underlining passages in the Pony Express Bible so she could read them for herself.

As time went on, she wondered at the idea that Frank, who never wanted to hear Emmet “sermonize,” seemed drawn to the parson. She hoped it meant the something deep inside Frank that seemed to keep him from being happy would eventually be dug out and tossed aside. Maybe Charlie would help Frank see the Lord as his shepherd. Maybe that would erase the deep line between Frank’s eyebrows once and for all. That would be something.

News of the end of the Paiute War arrived in late July. The Pony Express would resume mail service on July 29. Frank rode west. A week later, Emmet rode east, and the next morning the parson ate a hearty breakfast, thanked George Morgan for “giving him a place to land for a while,” and said he’d be leaving.

“Hate to see you go,” Morgan said.

“Not as much as I hate going. I could be as happy as a flea in a pack of dogs here at Clearwater. Which is why it’s time to go. The Lord’s calling upon my life does not include settling down. At least not for now.”

“Then I’ll see to getting Cordelia saddled,” Morgan said and left.

Instead of following the station keeper down to the barn right away, the parson helped Annie clear the breakfast table, talking while he worked. “I’ve sowed some good seed here at Clearwater, and I’m praying the Lord of the harvest will work His will. I will pray to that end, for all my friends at Clearwater.”

“I’ll miss you,” Annie said as she piled dirty dishes into the pan out back and then retrieved the wash water she’d been heating on the stove. While she worked, the parson said some very nice things about Annie’s kindness to travelers and how he thought she had a gift for hospitality. Annie shook her head. “A gift for burning supper is more like it.”

“Folks hanker for kindness and a smile a lot more than they do a perfect meal,” the parson said. He went on to say he hoped Annie would spend some time with the Good Book. “It contains words of life. Everybody ought to read ’em.” When Annie nodded, he raised one hand like he was taking a vow and said, “The good Lord bless you and keep you, Miss Annie. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.”

Embarrassed that tears had sprung up, Annie murmured a thank-you without looking up from her work. She’d finished the dishes and carried them back inside when she heard a mule bray. Peering through the kitchen window, she watched as Cordelia carried the parson westward.