A Time to Love (26 page)

Linda stammered a bit as she told of her engagement to Lewis, the
happiness she knew as the day of their wedding drew nigh; then she broke down and wept as she told of being left at the church on the day of the wedding as Lewis and Janet ran off together.

“Honey,” Sadie said, “since I first laid eyes on you, I’ve known you hurt deep inside. It showed in your eyes. I’m so sorry for what you’ve gone through. I hope the sadness in your eyes will go away in time, as you go on in your life with the mister.”

“Me, too,” sniffed Linda. “But—”

Sadie looked her square in the eye. “But what, child?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“C’mon, now. You can tell me. I’m your friend.”

Linda shook her head. “No, Sadie. I really shouldn’t.”

“Is it about the mister?”

Linda cleared her throat nervously. “Y-yes.”

“He’s your husband, and you don’t want to say anything about him to someone else.”

“That’s right.”

“Let me guess. You’re wondering about his relationship with the Lord.”

Linda’s eyes widened. “Why … yes. How did you know?”

“Because I’ve wondered too, dear. There’s no witness of the Spirit between the mister and me when we’re together. You know, like there is between you and me and other Christians.”

“You’ve hit the nail on the head,” Linda said. “Maybe all this change in his life has gotten him away from a close walk with the Lord, and his heart has turned cold.”

Before Linda arrived in Cheyenne City, Sadie had actually seen a cruel side of the man she knew as Blake Barrett, but she would not divulge this to Linda. Instead, she took Linda’s hands in hers and said, “Let’s pray for the mister right now, honey. Let’s ask God to work in his heart and bring him out of his backslidden state, if that’s what it is.”

“Oh, thank you, Sadie. Yes! Let’s do that.”

Sadie led in prayer, asking the Lord to do His work in Blake’s heart and life. She then asked the Lord to help Linda stand by her husband
and love him as a Christian wife should, and to bring Linda perfect happiness.

When both women had dried their eyes, Linda said, “I’ve got some work to do, Sadie.”

“Me, too,” said the plump woman.

“Maybe you can suggest what I should do with the two chairs from the sewing room I replaced with new ones. I can’t throw them out, but they’re taking up valuable space where I stacked them on the back porch.”

“How about the attic?” Sadie asked. “There’s quite a bit of room up there.”

“The attic! That’s one place in the house I haven’t been. What’s up there?”

“Just some old pieces of furniture the previous owners left up there. Some old paintings, among other things. And the mister’s trunk that he brought from California.”

“But there’s still room for the sewing chairs?”

“Oh my, yes. Would you like me to help you carry them up there?”

“That won’t be necessary, Sadie. You go on with your chores. I’ll take them up.”

The door leading to the attic was next to the hall closet on the second floor. Linda carried both straight-backed wooden chairs to the second floor and left one in the hall while she carried the other up the narrow passage and steep stairs. The air was close and had a musty smell. There was a layer of dust on most everything except the old trunk that sat near one of two small windows. Linda glanced at it curiously as she placed the chair in the opposite corner beside a dust-covered sewing machine laden with cobwebs. In another corner were some overstuffed chairs, a couple of small tables, and dusty, cobwebbed coal oil lamps. Behind them, leaning against an ancient potbellied stove, were several old paintings.

Moments later she returned with the other chair and set it beside the first. Glancing around, she decided it had been a long time since anyone had cleaned the attic. She’d attend to it soon. But the wind was howling outside, and snow was beating against the windows. It was cold up here,
too. She’d worry about cleaning the attic some other time.

As she headed back toward the steep, narrow stairs, she glanced at Blake’s trunk again, noting its large padlock.

As time passed, Haman Warner treated Linda like a queen, often buying her gifts and making an effort to improve his gentlemanly virtues. He was so happy to have such a lovely creature as his wife.

Linda appreciated the kindness and attention he gave her, but he definitely wasn’t the devoted Christian he’d led her to believe in his letters.

One evening, a couple in the church named Alex and Dorothy Helms had the Barretts to their home for supper. Haman was quite nervous but did his best to mask it.

After supper, the foursome was sitting in the parlor talking, and some discussion came up about certain Scripture passages in the Bible. Haman sat in absolute silence, for the passages were totally foreign to him. Both Linda and the Helmses wondered that Blake stayed out of the conversation. Certainly anyone familiar with the Bible would want to join in the discussion.

The conversation soon turned to what had brought Alex and Dorothy to the Lord. They gave their testimonies about when they had been saved, and the circumstances that led up to it.

Linda then told about when she was saved as a child in Boston under the preaching of her pastor. When she finished, all eyes went to Haman.

Cold sweat beaded his brow. He nonchalantly brushed it away as he said, “Well, ol’ Blake here got saved when he was attending a revival meeting in San Jose, California, some ten or eleven years ago.”

A red flag went up in Linda’s mind. In one of his letters, Blake had told her how he got saved, and it didn’t match what he’d just said.

As Haman drove the carriage on their way home, Linda sat close to him under the buffalo hide blanket, her arm entwined in his, and said casually, “Blake, I remember that in one of your letters you told me your mother had led you to the Lord when you were nine years old. You
didn’t say anything at all about being saved at a revival meeting when you were a teenager.”

Haman felt a sharp ache of tension settle behind his eyes. “Oh, I guess I didn’t tell it quite right, heh-heh. Of course, Mom led me to the Lord when I was nine. I … uh … I rededicated my life at the revival meeting in Santa Rosa.”

“I thought you said it was in San Jose.”

“Oh! What did I just say?”

“Santa Rosa.”

“Mmm. Sorry. I meant San Jose.”

Linda said no more. In her heart, she asked the Lord to help her make the best of a very disappointing situation.

A couple of evenings later, Linda had allowed Sadie to go to a widows’ meeting at church that included supper. Linda had prepared a very special meal for Blake, recalling that in one of his letters he said he loved meatloaf.

When they sat down at the table, Haman began loading his plate with vegetables.

“Blake …?”

“Mm-hmm?”

“Aren’t you going to eat the meatloaf?”

“I really appreciate you fixing supper for me tonight, honey,” he said in a soft tone, “but I really don’t care for meatloaf.”

Linda watched him carefully as she said, “You told me in one of your letters that you love meatloaf. When did your taste buds change?”

Haman suddenly burst out laughing and said, “Just a little joke, darling! I was simply having a little fun. Of course I love meatloaf! It’s one of my favorite meals.” As he spoke, he picked up the meatloaf platter and slid a couple of slices onto his plate.

Linda played along by giggling and said, “Blake Barrett, you ornery scoundrel!”

They laughed together, and Haman ate the meatloaf in spite of his dislike for it.

While the meal progressed, Linda decided to bait him. She got him
on the subject of his childhood. In one of Blake’s letters, he’d told her that his mother never spanked him as a child. When he was bad, she merely told his father when he came home from work, and Bradley Barrett had whipped him accordingly.

After Haman had told about some childhood incident, Linda asked casually, “Blake, how often did your mother have to whip you when you were a boy?”

Haman laughed. “At least three times a week, until I got big enough to outrun her. But boy … when she whipped me as a little guy, she used a leather belt and whipped me with the buckle end!”

Linda filed this latest inconsistency in her mind.

Over the past several days, she had looked through Blake’s desk in the library, and all of his drawers and belongings in their bedroom, but had found nothing that would shed any light on the real man she had married. Deep in her heart was a growing concern that shed made a big mistake in marrying Blake, yet in her mind she kept trying to find ways to give a reason for his inconsistencies. He was her husband, and she’d promised to love, honor, and obey him.

The next day, while Sadie was marketing, Linda thought of Blake’s trunk in the attic. Maybe its contents would reveal some clues to his strange behavior. She remembered the heavy-duty padlock, but by this time she was so upset that breaking the lock was something she’d just have to do.

She took a hammer from the kitchen cupboard and headed for the attic. As she climbed the stairs to the second floor, her only thought was that she wanted to find a way to restore Blake to his former self. She didn’t know how the trunk might help do that, but she couldn’t let things go on as they were.

Linda knelt beside the trunk and hit the latch several times until it broke and the padlock fell off. With trembling fingers and a prayer in her heart, she slowly lifted the lid and let her gaze drop to the contents of the trunk. Her eyes fell first on some homemade toys from Blake’s childhood, along with some articles of outdated little boy’s clothing, which lay on top of a beautiful old quilt. She ran her hands over the
quilt, marveling at the workmanship that had gone into it. When she lifted it out of the trunk, a large brown envelope caught her attention. Unlike the other articles in the trunk, it was obviously quite new. Her heart beat faster, and her hands shook so badly she had to clasp them together for a moment to still them.

Closing her eyes, she said in a whisper, “Lord, please give me strength for whatever I may find.” She then untied the string that held the flap down and eased into a sitting position, emptying the contents of the envelope in her lap. It was a wad of newspaper clippings. They were from the
Sacramento Gazette
of recent date. She gasped when a headline seemed to leap at her:

Her stomach fluttered as she unfolded the page and saw the photograph of Blake Barrett. He was blond, fair, and very handsome!

She lifted a shaky hand to her mouth as she read the story of Blake’s arrest and conviction in court, and his fifteen-year sentence to the state prison at Ukiah, California. The same edition told of Haman Warner, the Pacific Bank and Trust Company’s vice president, becoming owner and president of the bank due to instructions left in the late Bradley Barrett’s will should circumstances ever render his son Blake unable to properly direct the bank.

A photograph of Haman Warner on the same page made her light-headed.

She felt ill as she read the other clippings, which told of the arrest and pending trial. Two more photographs showed her the real Blake Barrett, who looked almost exactly as she had pictured him in her mind.

As she gazed at Blake’s face in the newspaper clipping, she began to weep and say over and over, “Oh, my poor darling! How horrible! How horrible!”

P
RISON GUARD
G
LENN
D
OMIRE WAITED
while Blake Barrett shuffled into his cell after the evening meal and sagged onto his cot. Blake’s ankles were chafed and aching from the chains he wore each day while working in the chain gang.

“Blake,” Domire said, “I’m sorry about your ankles. In fact, I’m sorry you have to be in this place at all.”

“Me, too,” said guard Anthony Tubac, drawing up beside Domire. “But think what would’ve happened to us, Glenn, if he hadn’t been put in here.”

“We’d have gone to hell, that’s what,” said Domire. “We both know this man is innocent, but I’m sure glad he was sent here. I never would have heard the gospel if Blake hadn’t been here and cared for my soul.”

The sound of cell doors clanging shut echoed throughout the building as the inmates were locked in their cells for the night.

“I can’t say I like it here, guys,” Blake said, “but seeing Larry Huffman saved before he was hanged … and seeing you two and Charlie Jacobs and Hal Keeney saved is worth it all.”

“I’ll bring you some salve for those ankles, Blake,” Tubac said. “It’ll be about half an hour before I can get back.”

“I appreciate it, Anthony.”

Domire swung the door shut and both guards looked through the bars at Blake for a few seconds, then moved on.

Blake removed his shoes and socks and began rubbing his right ankle, which hurt the worst. His mind went to Linda as it did a hundred times a day. Why hadn’t he heard from her? He knew by her letters that Linda was a sweet and compassionate person. Certainly she would
write to him at least once after she received the wire from Haman.

Haman.
Maybe somehow he had neglected to send the wire! Maybe Linda came to Sacramento as scheduled, learned of his imprisonment, and went back to Boston. If that was the case, she probably hated him by now.

No! Not Linda. She was such a sweet Christian, and so full of love for the Lord. If she knew he’d been sent to prison she would make some kind of contact. Wouldn’t she?

A little more than thirty minutes had passed when Anthony Tubac appeared at Blake’s cell door with a small jar in his hand. Blake started to get up.

“Just stay there,” Tubac said, unlocking the door. “I know your feet hurt.”

The guard stepped inside and handed Blake the jar. “This salve will not only heal the chafing, it’ll ease the burning sensation, too.”

“Good. Maybe I’ll sleep better tonight than I did last night. Thank you.”

“Anything else I can do for you?” Tubac asked, eyeing Blake’s sore ankles.

“I was about to ask for a big favor.”

“Name it.”

“Have you got a few minutes?”