Let There Be Light (35 page)

The three men nodded, and the driver hurried into the office.

One of the men said to the other, “Well, since you and I have seen all there is to see of Holbrook, let’s just go inside and sit down.”

“I’m for that,” said the other man. He looked at Toomey. “You want to stay with us, or would you like to take a look at the town?”

Toomey glanced down the street. “Guess I’ll just take a walk.”

As Toomey started down the street, the driver and shotgunner came out of the office, meeting up with the two passengers. They told the driver that Toomey was going to take a walk.

“Mr. Toomey!” the driver called. “Don’t forget! Be back by eleven-thirty!”

Edgar waved back and nodded.

Strolling along Main Street, he chuckled to himself. He was now just thirty miles from Mogollon, where he would find Dan Tyler and send him into eternity. Toomey was glad he remembered that Clay Holden was from Birmingham, Alabama. He thought about how he had gone to Birmingham and found Holden’s family, feigning friendship with Clay. He told them he needed to find Clay’s friend, Dan Tyler, and wondered if they knew where Tyler might be. He was happy to learn that Clay was in Mogollon, Arizona, with his army friends, Joel Stevens and Dan Tyler.

Feeling elation because he would soon be able to put a bullet through the heart of Dan Tyler, Toomey heard a shout across the street from inside the Holbrook Bank. Suddenly, three masked robbers burst through the door, guns and money in hand, heading for their horses, which were held by a fourth man in front of the bank.

At the same instant, three men came out the door of the bank, guns blazing. The robbers started shooting back. Bullets were flying.

Women and men on the boardwalk on that side of the street were running for cover.

Holbrook’s town marshal burst out of a nearby store, his own gun spitting fire. While people all along the street were trying to get out of danger, Edgar Toomey headed for a water trough. But before he reached it, a stray bullet plowed into his chest, and he fell in the dust of the street.

When the gun battle was over, the marshal was standing over the dead bodies of the four robbers when his deputy came up. “Marshal, we’ve got two dead men who took stray bullets during the gun battle. One of them is Dale Brooks, but the other one is a stranger, over there by that water trough. He’s not carrying any identification, so I have no idea who he is. None of the other spectators know him. No way to tell which horse at the hitch rails belongs to him. Too many of them.”

“Well, since we can’t identify him, take his body to the undertaker. The town will just have to foot the bill for his burial.”

At 11:45, it was past time for the stagecoach to leave. The two male passengers boarded, talking about the bank robbery that had just taken place. The shotgunner was already up on the seat in the box. The driver turned to the Fargo agent. “I can’t wait for Mr. Toomey to show up. I told him to be back here by eleven-thirty.”

The agent grinned. “He probably got interested in the bank robbery and can’t pull himself away from the excitement. When he comes back, I’ll tell him he can go to Mogollon on tomorrow’s stage.”

“Okay. Do that. See you later.”

The agent watched the stage roll down the street, then turned and went back into the office.

O
N THE HOT, STICKY
T
HURSDAY EVENING
of August 3, 1865, Jenny Linden entered her yard with the day’s edition of the
Harrisburg Journal
in hand. The day had been a busy one at Henderson’s General Store, and she was feeling a bit weary. The sun was more than an hour from setting and it put off plenty of heat.

As she stepped up on the porch, her eyes went to the empty rocking chair in the parlor. She paused and a lump rose in her throat.

When she moved into the house, its cooped-up heat hit her. She quickly went from room to room, opening windows, hoping to allow what little breeze was in the air to circulate.

In the sun-filled kitchen, she paused and took stock of her cupboards. She sighed. “It’s almost too hot to eat, and eating all by myself has no pleasure. But Jenny Linden, you’ve got to keep up your strength.”

She pumped water into the basin, splashed it on her warm face, and dried it with a towel. “Guess I’ll just have a ham and cheese sandwich and a glass of water. It’s too hot to fire up the stove.”

Jenny set about preparing her small supper. She put it on a tray, along with the day’s newspaper, and headed toward the front of the house. When she reached the parlor door, she stepped in and laid the newspaper on the small table beside her favorite overstuffed
chair. With tray in hand, she moved out onto the front porch, which was in the shade of the house. She placed the tray on the small round table in the corner of the porch and sat in one of the chairs that were pulled up to it.

While she was eating, the flowers in her mother’s garden gave off a fragrant scent when stirred by a quickening breeze. She was thankful for the coolness of the breeze and for the pleasantness of the flowers. Coldness washed over her as she thought of her mother.

By the time Jenny had finished her supper and cleaned up the kitchen, the sun was going down and the breeze that circulated through the house made it more tolerable.

She went to the parlor, sat down in her chair, and picked up the newspaper. She read the front page, which had news about President Andrew Johnson’s untiring effort to bring the entire nation back to unity, though many of the Southerners were making it clear they had not surrendered to the Union in their hearts.

On the second page, she read an interesting article about the orphan trains, sponsored by the Children’s Aid Society in New York City, that were carrying children off the streets of the city to homes in the Midwest and the far west, all the way to California, Oregon, and Washington Territory.

When she turned her attention to page three, she found a large article about Harrisburg men who had fought in the Civil War and now carried wounds of one kind or another. Many had lost limbs, while others had lost their sight or their hearing. Jenny thought of her father, wishing he had merely sustained a wound in the War, instead of being murdered by the beastly guard at the Andersonville Prison Camp.

The name
Dan Tyler
came off her lips, causing her to almost taste the bitterness it brought. She hissed, “Tyler, I wish I knew where you were. I’d see that justice was done.”

Jenny kept turning pages, reading those articles that interested her, until finally, she was at the classified section. She read ads about fall clothing that would be available in Harrisburg’s department stores in late August.

Letting her eyes run quickly over these ads, she started to close the paper and lay it aside when her attention was drawn to the mail
order bride section. Having read the ads in this section a few times, she chuckled. “What fools those young women are who go out west and marry some man they have never met!”

Suddenly her eyes froze on a mail order bride ad that had been placed in the
Journal
by a man in Arizona named Daniel Tyler. She frowned and focused on it closely. In the ad, this Daniel Tyler said he worked on a cattle ranch called the
Box B
near Mogollon, Arizona.

Jenny’s heart quickened and her mouth went dry.
Daniel Tyler. Dan Tyler, for short
. Could this be him?

As she read the rest of the ad, she was surprised to see that this Daniel Tyler wanted to marry a born-again woman and asked for the testimony of her salvation in her reply to the ad.

Jenny shook her head. “No, this can’t be Sergeant Dan Tyler, who murdered my father. Even though I’m quite uncomfortable around these born-again types, I know they would never murder anyone.”

She folded the paper, tossed it in the wastebasket that sat by the small table and picked up a novel she had been reading.

Going to the spot about halfway through the book where she had left a bookmark, she opened it, laid aside the bookmark, and began to read. From time to time she shook her head, flipped back a page, and reread part of it. She closed the book, holding the place with her finger, and sighed.

With her father’s killer having been brought freshly to mind, her thoughts kept going to the mass grave where the body of Captain William Linden had been buried with hundreds of his Union comrades.

Fresh hatred for Sergeant Dan Tyler was burning inside her.

Jenny opened the book and tried to read but simply could not concentrate. Shaking her head, she put the bookmark in place and closed the book. “It’s no use,” she said. “I can’t get that dirty murderer out of my mind.”

Even while preparing for bed, Jenny was wishing she could get that killer in her gun sights. It would be a pleasure to put a bullet in him and send him into eternity. She smiled to herself.
And if I could later stand over his grave, I would laugh and spit on it!

She doused the lantern, slipped between the covers, and tried to
go to sleep. But sleep eluded her. She thought again of the mail order bride ad placed in the
Harrisburg Journal
by ranch hand Daniel Tyler. Once more, she told herself this cowhand out West couldn’t be the man who murdered her father. Born-again people didn’t go around murdering people. They just wouldn’t do that.

Suddenly Jenny sat up in bed, the silver light of the moon shining on her face. “That is, unless they are hypocrites, and really don’t believe what they profess. I’ve seen some of that kind. Maybe that’s what this cowboy Daniel Tyler is—a hypocrite. I have to find out!”

She threw back the covers, lit the lantern, and made her way into the parlor. There, she took the newspaper out of the wastebasket, sat down, and read the article again.

“Mmm. Mr. Daniel Tyler, you just might be the man I’ve been looking for. Mm-hmm. Looking for so I can put a bullet in your vile, wicked heart, that is!

“I’m going to do it! I’m going to send a reply. It’ll come from Jenny Blair. I’ll ask for more information about him, his past, where he was born and raised. If he answers back that he was a sergeant in the Confederate army and served at Andersonville Prison Camp, I’ll do my dead-level best to convince him that Jenny Blair is the woman he should marry. Hah! If he falls for it, Jenny Blair will go to Mogollon, Arizona, and give him the justice he deserves. What better opportunity to put a bullet in his wicked heart if I’m his trusted wife?”

With this settled in her mind, Jenny Linden returned to her bed and slept well the rest of the night.

The next morning, while eating breakfast, she thought about her plan. In order to fool Daniel Tyler into thinking she was one of the born-again types, she must come across with the right words.

When Jenny had finished doing the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen, she hurried to her bedroom and went to the chest of drawers where she had put the Bible Laura Denton had given her. She took the Bible out of the drawer and wiped the dust off of it. Opening another drawer she took out a photograph of herself that was taken for her high school graduation, and carried the Bible and the photograph to the desk in her father’s den.

She sat down and read every passage Laura had underlined, and
went over in her mind several times exactly what Laura had said she would have to do to be saved—to be born again. She rushed to the parlor, picked up the newspaper, and hurried back to the den.

At the desk once again, she took out pen and paper, dipped the pen in the inkwell, and began her letter:

Jenny read the letter over to make sure it was exactly what she wanted to say. “There you are, Daniel Tyler. If you tell me you were a sergeant in the Confederate army, and served as a guard at Andersonville Prison Camp, and you want me to come and be your mail order bride, you have only a short time to live.”

She left the house a bit early to go to work, so she could stop by the post office and mail the letter. Somehow, the more she thought about it, the more she was convinced that she had the right man. Her heart jumped inside her. If Daniel Tyler of the
Box B Ranch
near Mogollon, Arizona, indeed was her father’s killer, she would have the sweet taste of revenge.