Margaret Brownley (42 page)

Anger flashed across Wells’s face. “By one of our own, I assume you mean a man of God.”

Crankshaw’s face turned dark. “Perhaps we should let the people be the judge of which man that is,” he said in a clipped voice. “I say we vote on it.” He glanced at the Suffra-Quilters. “Men and
women
get to vote equally,” he added with a magnanimous air.

“Drat!” Lucy muttered. The women were so anxious to have a say in how things were run, she wouldn’t be surprised if they showed their gratitude by voting in Crankshaw’s favor.

“All those in favor of . . . Mr. Wolf’s design, raise your hand,” Crankshaw said. He looked and sounded like a man confident of the outcome.

Appleby shocked everyone by being the first to shoot his hand in the air. Lucy raised her hand next, then Caleb. Her father raised his unbroken arm and Lucy felt like her heart was going to burst with pride.

She glanced around, stunned by the sight that greeted her. Was she imagining all those hands in the air? Even the man working for Crankshaw held a hand straight up, thanks to Timber Joe’s strategically aimed rifle.

Lucy shook her head in disbelief and did a mental roll call. Monica and Doc Myers held their hands high. As did Sarah and Emma Hogg. Redd, Barrel, Brenda, and Annabelle. Soon there were too many hands to count. Even the Suffra-Quilters and members of The Society for the Protection and Preservation of Male Independence held their hands up high. It was the first time the two groups agreed on anything.

Pastor Wells couldn’t have looked more pleased. “Mr. Crankshaw, I believe you have your answer.”

Crankshaw cursed, but seeing that the crowd stood against him, he donned his hat and left, and the entire congregation burst into applause.

Later, much later, Lucy stopped Appleby to thank him. “Why did you vote for Wolf?” she asked. Never had she known him to take part in civil affairs. So why today?

Appleby spit out a stream of tobacco juice. “Do you think mixed folks are the only ones who are discrim’nated ag’inst? Us ole folks know a thin’ or two about intol’ance,” he groused. “These days it’s all about youth and it ain’t fair.”

Lucy did something that surprised even her. She flung her arms around him and gave him a big hug. Appleby got all red in the face and pushed her away.

“Don’t go gettin’ any ideas. I’m the president of The Society for the Protection and Preserv’tion of Male Ind’pendence and I ain’t meanin’ to take no wife. And that includes you.”

He walked away grumbling.

Grinning, Lucy watched him go, and she was still smiling when her father joined her.

She tucked her arm into his good one. His other arm was still in a cast. “Thank you, Papa, for voting for David’s building plans.”

He squeezed her arm with his own. “I wasn’t voting for his plans. What do I know about building a church? I was voting for the man.”

She smiled and laid her head on his shoulder.

“I like seeing you happy,” he said.

She lifted her head. “I
am
happy, Papa.” The way the town rallied around David when the story came out made her heart burst with pride. David’s plans had generated so much excitement that, after the church service, people practically fell over each other in their haste to make donations. No doubt they would soon have enough to rebuild the church.

Her father turned to face her. “No regrets about turning down Barnes’s job offer?”

Barnes had offered her a job at the newspaper but she no longer trusted him enough to work for him. Turning him down meant having to give up her dream, perhaps for good. Now she might never see her photographs in print. Still, she was convinced she’d made the right decision.

“No regrets,” she said, though that was only half true. Now that the shadows and secrets that once plagued her were gone, she longed to do something more with her photographs—something significant.

“I just wish I could make the world a better place.” The revealing eye of the camera changed people’s lives and the way they thought. Mathew Brady’s photographs exposed the harsh realities of war, showing that it was anything but glorious. The photograph of Shantytown shamed people into action. There was so much power in photography.

But would she ever be able to do anything that important? Not only did she live in a small Texas town, she was a woman, and that alone worked against her. War and politics, even poverty, were out of her realm.

“Now you sound like your mama. She never saw the world as it was. She only saw the possibilities.”

“So what do I do, Papa? Tell me what to do.”

He planted a kiss on her forehead. “Don’t give up. God will find a way to use your talents.” He rolled his eyes upward. “I only hope the good Lord knows what he’s in for.”

Thirty

Brides, take pity on your photographer. Mathew Brady and his helpers
were able to record the entire War Between the States with little more
than 1100 photographs. Half that number should satisfy most brides.

—M
ISS
G
ERTRUDE
H
ASSLEBRINK, 1878

T
he building plans spread out before him, Wolf leaned over to add another line with his pencil. Behind him the raw-wood frame of the church rose high into the sky. The sound of hammering filled the air along with children’s laughter.

A thunderstorm had rolled through the town during the night and the air hung heavy as thick curtains. The lingering clouds offered precious little protection from the heat of the July sun. But neither the heat nor humidity could dampen the enthusiasm of those who turned out to build or cheer on the builders of the church—which was pretty near everybody in town.

Lucy joined him and he looked up from his work. Dressed in a pretty blue skirt and white shirtwaist, she carried a picnic basket in one hand and fanned herself with the other.

Her hair was pulled back from her face, but already it had worked its way out of its confines to fall loosely down her back. She had been working with her budding young photographers most of the morning.

“Hungry?” she asked. She had to lift her voice to be heard above all the hammering and chanting.

He smiled at her. “A little. Let me just finish here.” He added another line to his drawing.

Lucy peered over his shoulder. “That doesn’t look like the church.”

“It’s Barrel’s opera house.” He tapped his finger against the drawing. “This is the stage.”

Lucy squealed with delight. “Barrel and Brenda will be so pleased.”

He couldn’t help but laugh at her enthusiasm.

A sudden quiet overtook the festivities. The hammering stopped. The chanting ceased and even the children were silent, looking to their parents as if they sensed trouble. Wolf straightened. It was the same silence that greeted him whenever he rode into a new town, and it always meant trouble. Instinctively his hand flew to the knife at his side.

He glanced around, stunned to note that the sudden tension was not directed at him. Instead all eyes were on Millard Weatherbee. No one had seen him since his mother’s trial and incarceration, and it wasn’t even known that he was still in town.

Wolf felt sorry for the man. He’d been in his shoes more times than he cared to remember. Being an outsider was hard and Millard didn’t deserve to be treated like one. None of what happened with his mother was his fault.

Not that long ago Millard had been warmly accepted as he passed out handbills and solicited votes. How quickly divisions could spring up between people, and how difficult it was to tear them down. Today Millard walked alone, holding a rectangular box in his hands, which he offered to Wolf.

Wolf took the box from him and stared at the wolf carving. He never thought he’d see the box again, let alone hold it.

Next to him, Lucy let out a gasp. “That’s just like the wolf you carved.” She held up her arm to finger the wooden bracelet he made for her.

She was right. It was the same design he’d carved perhaps a hundred times through the years. It surprised him how accurately he’d managed to capture the image from memory.

It was smaller than he remembered, lighter, but then he was a short, scrawny ten-year-old the last time he held it in his hands. The gold inlay shone in the sun.

Millard glanced at Lucy and politely tipped his hat. Without a word he turned to leave.

“Millard, wait,” Lucy called after him. “I never got a chance to tell you how sorry I am about your mother. I—I knew something was wrong and I wish now I had said something.”

Millard turned, his face shaded by his wide brim felt hat. Gone were the celluloid collars and spiffy bow ties. “I knew something was wrong too. I tried to get her to see Doc Myers but she refused.”

“What do you plan to do now?” she asked.

“I’m thinking about traveling to California where I’m not known,” he said slowly.

“It’s not fair that you should have to give up your career aspirations for something that was not your fault.”

Millard gave her a reassuring smile. “Reverend Wells said that God always finds a way to work through bad things. I just have to give him a chance.”

Lucy hugged him. “You take care.”

He nodded a farewell to Wolf, then walked away, head down. Lucy called after him. “And when we women get the vote, I’ll vote for you.”

He waved. “I’ll hold you to that!” he called back.

After Weatherbee left, Wolf continued to gaze down at the box in his hand.

Lucy laid her hand on his arm. “What are you waiting for?” she prodded. “Open it.”

He lifted his gaze to the steeple of the church. It had been an amazing couple of weeks. When the entire story came out, the townsfolk had rallied around him.

He glanced around at the people who befriended him, and he thanked God for bringing them into his life. His search for identity had defined him as a man and almost kept him from the woman he loved, but no more.

“I don’t need this box to tell me who I am,” he said softly. Thanks to her and her father and all the rest, he knew exactly who he was and where he wanted to spend the rest of his life. He also knew now that God was good. “This box can’t possibly tell me more than I already know.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, David.” In her rush to throw her arms around him, she inadvertently knocked the box out of his hands. It landed on the ground, the lid open.

For a moment, neither of them moved. All they could do was stare at the empty interior.

She looked up at him. “I’m sorry. I—”

He shook his head and pulled her into his arms. “It’s like I said, I don’t need to know any more than I already know.”

“Say Rocky Creek backwards,” Skip Owen called from behind the camera.

Startled, Lucy and Wolf glanced at the camera and then turned back to gaze at each other—and little Skip got his moment.

Later that afternoon Lucy stared up at the frame of the church building. “Do you see the bell tower in the viewfinder?”

Her young pupil nodded from behind the camera, and the black cloth on his head bopped up and down. “I see it,” Skip said, sounding older than his ten years. Next to him Sarah’s little daughter Elizabeth watched with grave interest.

“Focus, but don’t do anything else until I tell you to.”

Lucy made a square with her fingers, emulating what Skip could see through the viewfinder. Redd straddled a beam, his legs hanging in midair. David signaled from the ground and a length of lumber was hauled by rope up to the roofline.

“Get ready,” Lucy said, dropping her hands to her side. The beam hovered over the rooftop before being lowered into place. “Now.”

Skip squeezed the bulb to open the shutter and counted the way she taught him. “One thousand and one, one thousand and two . . .”

“Perfect,” she said. She pulled the plate out of the camera and inserted a fresh one. Skip dived beneath the black cloth again and waited for instructions.

She looked up at the sound of chanting. “Women’s vote, women’s vote.” The ladies of the Suffra-Quilters never missed a chance to push their cause. Today they circled around the new building, pumping their signs up and down. It had become a familiar sight.

Somehow Emma Hogg had talked Redd into joining the movement, but given the choice between parading around and building the church, he did what any man in his right mind would do. He grabbed a hammer and ran.