Prairie Storm (28 page)

It was Lily's fault. She had insisted on helping with the cleanup in town. She had left Eva in charge of Sam, when the baby was truly her own responsibility.

“Oh, Elijah,” she said, “I'm so sorry.”

“Did an animal drag him off?” He ripped the blankets out of the cradle. “I don't see blood.”

“Perhaps 'twas was one of the wild dogs that were in Jimmy's smokehouse after the cyclone,” Caitrin cried. “Sure, those wicked creatures have been wandering about for three days looking mean and hungry.”

Letting out a strangled cry, Lily jumped to her feet and ran to the open back door of the house. “Elijah, you've got to go looking for those dogs!” She grabbed the doorframe. “Take Jimmy's rifle. You have to find Samuel.”

“I don't think it was a dog,” Rose Hunter said. “Stubby's been right here in town all day, and he'd have barked if he caught wind of any strays. I think a person took the baby.”

“Who would take him?” Elijah demanded. “Sam's
my
baby. He belongs to me.”

“There've been so many strangers in town,” Rosie said. “Maybe there's a husband and wife who've been trying to have a child of their own—”

“What about that peddler who came through selling pots and pans this morning?” someone asked.

“I think it was those opera-house ruffians. I'll bet they took the baby for spite.”

“Somebody ought to go look for them stray dogs.”

“Maybe it was a coyote.”

As the crowd around the Hanks house grew louder and more restless, Lily searched the room for Elijah. They had nearly lost Sam once before. With God's grace the baby had pulled through his illness.

God help us!

Head and shoulders over most of the men in the room, the preacher caught her eye. They communicated in silence for a moment, and Lily felt sure she knew the direction of his thoughts. Who would take Samuel away? Who would be so wicked, so heartless, so cruel?

Without speaking, she walked through the back door as he headed out the front. They met in the yard, and he took her hand. As one, they began to run—out into the yard, down the rutted street, past the half-built church and the mercantile with its new glass windows, and alongside the grove of cottonwood trees.

“Why?” Lily gasped as the opera house came into view. “Elijah, why would she take him?”

“I don't know,” he said. “But I aim to find out. That boy is my son. If she's hurt him—”

“She wouldn't do that. Bea's confused, but she's not wicked.” Even as she spoke the words, Lily doubted them herself. Beatrice had chosen a path that took her in direct opposition to Christ and his commands. Not so many weeks ago, she had been willing to peddle a useless potion as a healing elixir. She had admitted to making up fortunes and inventing readings from her crystal ball.

Now she had cast herself, body and soul, into the arms of a married man—a conniver willing to lure the unwary with liquor and fallen women. One step down the wrong road had led to another and then another. Lily wondered if Beatrice would stop at anything.

“Let me speak to the woman,” Lily said, grabbing Elijah's arm. “I can reason with her.”

“I don't trust her. There's no telling what she'll do.” His blue eyes bored into her face. “I'm going in alone.”

“We'll go together.”

“It might be a trap, Lily. She might have taken Sam to lure you over here.”

“Or you.”

Lily clutched his hands and knew, no matter what the consequences, she was going in after Samuel. He was Elijah's child in name, but he was hers in heart. She had fed and nurtured him, and she treasured the baby as her own.

“I'm not his mother,” she said in a low, firm voice, “but I won't let anything happen to Samuel, Elijah. I love him.”

“Stay close to me, Lily,” he said as he started toward the steps of the opera house.

Climbing onto the shady porch, Lily realized that Elijah couldn't protect her. He was unarmed and outnumbered. But he would do all he could to keep her safe. She could trust him. She could rely on him.

“Well, if it ain't the preacher!” The front door flew open, and the leader of the men who had come to town earlier stepped outside. “You finished up that fancy sermon you was dishin' out, I see. And you brung Miss Lily. Did you come to take me up on my offer of a dance, darlin'?”

“I think you have my son here, buster.” Elijah jammed a finger into the man's chest. “I want him back.”

“Your son?” A grin crept across the fellow's face, revealing rotted teeth. “I don't believe so.”

“Somebody from your camp took my baby while you and your cronies were causing trouble at the church. Now hand him over before I fetch the law.”

“The law?” The man laughed. “Well, ain't that a how-de-do? Come on in here, Preacher, and let me introduce you to the law.”

“Don't go,” Lily whispered. “It's a trick.”

“Bring the baby out here, and we'll settle things up,” Elijah said.

“What baby are you talkin' about?”

At that moment, Samuel's distinctive cry drifted through the open window of the opera house. Lily caught her breath and dashed past the man into a cavernous foyer trimmed in flocked red wallpaper and hung with gilt chandeliers. “Sam!” she called.

“Lily!” Elijah was at her side in an instant. “Where is he?”

“Sam?”

Again the baby's hungry wail sounded faintly. Lily pointed to a heavy pocket door. Elijah stepped toward it and forced the two sliding panels apart. As they burst into the room, the group gathered there on tufted settees rose as one.

Lily stopped, her heartbeat hammering in her ears.

Beatrice Waldowski and George Gibbons stood beside a massive fireplace. On one side of the room, a crude wooden box held the sobbing baby. Across the thick Oriental carpet stood a short fellow wearing a sweat-stained Stetson and the silver badge of a deputy. Beside him, a giant of a man straightened to his full height, his diamond tie pin and dark frock coat bearing testimony to wealth and importance.

“Lily,” the giant said.

Though her every instinct ordered her to rush to the baby, Lily could not make her limbs move. Her blood sank to her knees, and her mouth went dry. Sucking in a breath, she managed one word.

“Father.”

Chapter 15

R
EVEREND Book, I assume?” The imposing gentleman stepped forward and extended his hand to Elijah. “You must be the minister of the church in Hope.”

“That's right,” Elijah said, giving the man's hand a single, quick shake. “And that's my son over there. I don't know how Samuel came to be in this place, but I'm taking him home now.”

“Not so fast, Preacher.” The sheriff's deputy placed himself between Elijah and the box in which Samuel lay crying. “We had a report in the Topeka office that you found the baby in Indian territory.”

“Who sent in that report?” Eli demanded.

The deputy glanced across the room. “Mrs. Waldowski told us about the incident.”

“I figured. Listen, mister, I've never kept anything about Samuel a secret. I found the baby when I was passing through Osage land down south. His parents' wagon had been shot full of arrows, and his pa was dead. Right before she died, his mama handed her son over to me and asked me to take care of him. I promised her I would, and that's what I've been doing ever since.”

“Do you have any legal papers to show you've adopted the boy, Reverend?”

“Of course I don't. His parents weren't in any shape to sign him over to me.”

“All the same, we've got ways of doing things around here. An abandoned baby doesn't just belong to the first fellow that picks him up.”

“Well, who does he belong to?”

“The state of Kansas.”

“But his mother gave him to me.”

“Do you have any witnesses to that?”

Elijah felt like he was about to explode. “My horse.”

With a scowl, the deputy scratched the back of his neck. “I guess you noticed that baby's not all white, Reverend Book. He's got some black or Indian blood in him. Maybe Mexican.”

“His blood is red, same as yours and mine, Deputy. Now, if you'd please step aside, I'll see to it that he's given some food and put back into his own cradle where he belongs.”

“Is this your wife?” The deputy gestured at Lily.

“No, she's not.”

“That's a relief.” The tall gentleman gave a benign smile as he addressed the deputy. “This young woman, good sir, is my daughter. Lily, what a surprise to find you here. Your mother and I are very grateful to Mrs. Waldowski for alerting us to your whereabouts.”

Lily cast a withering glance at Beatrice before facing her father. “If you gentlemen will excuse me,” she said with the barest trace of a tremble in her voice, “I need to tend to the baby.”

“I'm sorry, ma'am, but I can't allow you to take the child out of my sight,” the deputy said. “He's a ward of the state, and I'm going to have to take him with me back to the state-run orphanage in Topeka.”

“Now just a cotton-picking minute—,” Elijah began.

“Shall I nurse the child in full view of the public then, sir?” Lily cut in.

“Nurse him?” the deputy and Lily's father said at the same time.

“You don't think he's old enough for meat and potatoes, do you?” She swallowed hard as she walked between the two men. When she lifted the baby, his sobbing began to quiet. “Come on, Samuel, sweetheart,” she murmured. “Are you a hungry boy? Wet, too! Oh, poor little fellow.”

Turning, she gave the deputy a hard stare. “This baby is in good hands, sir. Better hands than he would be in at an orphanage in Topeka. I'll go and feed the pastor's son now, and when I come back, I trust you'll have seen reason.”

As the deputy and her father stood silent, Lily carried the baby out the parlor door. When Elijah turned to follow her, the lawman spoke up.

“You'd better stay here, Reverend. We've got some talking to do.”

Elijah took a hard-backed chair as near the door as he could. He felt outnumbered, and that made him uncomfortable. But more than that, he sensed that, although God's presence was inside him, the Spirit was not in this room. An oppressive heaviness hung in the air, sitting on his chest and weighing down his heart. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.

“Look, what is it you want from me, Deputy?” he asked. “You know I'm a man of God. There are plenty of folks in town who'll testify to my calling as a preacher. I took the baby out of kindness to his dead mother, and I've grown to care about the boy. I'll do whatever I need to do to make him legally mine.”

“A warm and godly expression,” Lily's father cut in, flipping back his coattails as he sat down on the settee. “You, sir, are a man of righteous intent and pious purpose. I therefore appeal to your reason in the matters at hand. First and foremost, the child's welfare must be addressed. Second, my daughter's future is of great interest to me.”

Elijah studied the man's blue eyes, reminiscent of Lily's, yet somehow devoid of the life and spirit that sparkled in hers. So this was the father who had beaten his child black and blue. This was the man who had broken his little girl's ribs and arm. This was the great, respected conductor of the Greater New England Symphony Orchestra—a man in control of everything but his own temper.

“Dr. Richardson has come all the way from back East to fetch his daughter,” the deputy said. “And I'm here to take the baby to Topeka. The way I see it, that settles both problems.”

“I don't think so,” Elijah countered. “Lily has been nursing and tending to Samuel for a long time now. The baby had a rough start in life, and he's still not as strong as he ought to be. If you take him off to Topeka, Deputy, he might die. Does the state of Kansas want to be responsible for the death of an innocent baby?”

“How can we be sure the kid doesn't have relatives on the Osage reservation?” the deputy asked. “It's clear he's part colored. Maybe he's got an Indian grandma or something.”

“His folks were dirt farmers,” Elijah explained. “They were passing through the reservation.”

“How do you know?”

“They were in a wagon filled with belongings—plows and seed and rocking chairs. Look, Deputy, can't you go through your records and search for an account of somebody finding the wagon? I can tell you exactly where it was. That ought to prove me out. I buried the bodies right there by the side of the road.”

“Well, I reckon—”

“They were a couple of folks heading west to start a new life—just like thousands of others—when they ran into trouble with some renegade Osage. The wife was Indian, maybe, or Mexican, or even Italian. I don't know, and I don't care. All I do know is, she begged me to take Samuel and raise him up in the Lord. And that's what I intend to do.” He turned to Richardson. “As for your daughter, sir, it looks to me like Lily's made up her own mind about her future. She lives with a good family in town, she's got work to do, and she's happy.”

“Happy?” Richardson straightened his tie. “Reverend Book, you tell us you care for that baby you found by the roadside. Do you have any
idea
the depth of love a mother and a father have for their natural-born daughter? When Lily vanished from our home, her mother became hysterical. She was inconsolable.”

“I'm sorry to hear that, sir. I'm sure Lily didn't mean to upset her mother.”

“For more than a year now, we've been forced to accept the conclusion that our only child might be dead,” the man went on. “And suddenly, a miracle is sent from heaven! Mrs. Waldowski writes us a letter, informing us that our Lily lives! Though you tell me she is happy, Reverend Book, I cannot accept your judgment. Clearly my daughter is not well. That she would willingly leave our home, the tender care of her mother, a future of comfort and security, illustrates the fragile condition of her mind.”