A Most Unsuitable Match (26 page)

When she glanced behind her through the doorway to the saloon, Samuel followed her gaze. The makeshift bar made of roughhewn boards thrown atop rickety sawhorses was lined elbow-to-elbow with men. If he’d been counting, Samuel figured he’d probably just seen no fewer than two dozen shots of whiskey thrown back, glasses slammed back down onto the bar, and refills poured. When the woman lingered before him, the scent of roses made him think of Fannie. Thank God she wasn’t here.

“You serious about wanting to hold a service?” the woman asked.

“I . . . I suppose I am.” If it would keep him and Lamar from getting shot by some territorial gambler calling out the new blood, he’d preach in every saloon in the gulch. He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Yes I am. Serious.”

Her laughter was mellow. Amused, not unkind. “Well, then. Follow me.” Latching onto his coat lapel, she pulled Samuel through the door, calling to Lamar as she moved, “It’s all right, honey. You come right on in. This is my place, and everybody’s welcome at Rosalie’s.” She hauled Samuel to the far end of the bar, where a man sporting a white apron was standing next to a cash register. Releasing Samuel’s lapel, she leaned across the bar and said something to the man in the apron. With a bemused smile in Samuel’s direction, he put two fingers to his mouth and let out a screeching whistle that instantly transformed the saloon from pandemonium to silence.

When Rosalie held her arms out to him, the man came around and lifted her onto the bar. Every eye in the place was on her as she said, “Ladies and gentlemen, Rosalie’s is pleased to present, for the first time ever in Alder Gulch, probably for the first time ever in all of Montana Territory, a genuine preacher.” She bent down toward Samuel. “What’s your name, honey?”

Looking away from the woman’s décolletage, Samuel stuttered, “S-Samuel B-Benjamin Beck.”

Rosalie considered the name and then stood back up to address the crowd. “His name is Brother Sam.” She winked down at Samuel and then said to the crowd, “Everybody keep quiet until he’s through. Bar’s closed for the next hour, but if you stay through the sermon, Bill, here, will pour you a free shot.” She looked toward the back of the saloon and called, “Rachel! Tell the girls to get on out here and listen, too. If they don’t like what they hear, they will most definitely enjoy what they see.”

With a grin, Rosalie leaned back down, braced one hand on each of Samuel’s shoulders, and hopped off the bar. Looping her arm through Lamar’s, she pulled him to the opposite side of the room and then, with a nod, called out, “All right, Brother Sam. Let’s hear what you’ve got.”

What Samuel had, as he surveyed the waiting crowd, was a dry mouth and no idea what to say. When he’d asked about conducting a service, he was expecting to be taken to some town hall and given a few minutes to find a passage in his mother’s Bible and to maybe even scrape the mud off his boots. His motivation was more about getting off the street and out of the line of sight of the men with guns than preaching. What could he possibly say to this crowd? This was embarrassing.
God, help me.

Expectation hung almost as thick as the smoke in the room. Female tittering caught his attention. He looked toward the row of brightly clad women, their eyes flirting as they murmured behind fancy fans. He could feel himself blushing. He looked away.

You said my Word sings about my love. So sing.

He wished he’d paid more attention in church. Maybe he could remember the hymn they’d sung at Mother’s funeral.
God—help!!
Clearing his throat, Samuel began to sing. “ ‘There’s a land that is fairer than day . . . and by faith we can see it afar . . . for the Father waits over the way . . . to prepare us a dwelling place there.’ ” To his amazement, as he began the chorus, the piano player joined in with chords and, by the end of it, was adding impressive flourishes and embellishment. “ ‘In the sweet by and by . . . we shall meet on that beautiful shore. . . . In the sweet by and by . . . we shall meet on that beautiful shore.’ ”

Miraculously, Samuel remembered two more verses, and when the last strains of the song died away, the crowd applauded. Cheered. And bellowed for more. So he sang the only other two hymns he knew, and still they wanted more. The piano player began a familiar melody. It wasn’t a hymn, but Samuel knew it, so he sang “When I Saw Sweet Nellie Home.” The crowd hooted and stomped and clapped. A few sang along.

Finally, Samuel pulled the Bible out of his pocket, thumbed over to a favorite passage, and read about man’s unworthiness and God’s love. It was, he decided, probably the worst sermon that had ever been preached in the history of preachers. But the crowd listened. Some even swiped at tears, and when the hour was up and the bar reopened, Rosalie snatched Samuel’s hat off his head and handed it to the bartender, calling out, “I’m passing the hat for Brother Sam. Be generous, boys. Think of your mother and how she’d feel about someone chasing down their wayward sons and daughters to tell ’em God still loves ’em.” Sam started to protest, but Rosalie held her hand up in a way that said
Hush.

Calling to her piano player for a waltz, she turned to Lamar. “What d’ya say, handsome. Give Rosalie a dance while they pass the hat.”

With Lamar dancing, Samuel couldn’t exactly leave, but he felt decidedly out of place. More than one of the “congregation” offered to buy him a drink. Finally, the bartender handed him a sarsaparilla, assuring him it was nonalcoholic.

A doe-eyed girl he considered far too young to be in this line of work sashayed up, loud with praise for the sermon. “You should come every Sunday,” she said. “Even if you start a church, you’ll get more business here at Rosalie’s than you ever will in the pew.” She smiled. “Is that what you’re doing? Starting a church up this way?”

Samuel shook his head. “Actually, I’m looking for someone.”

“Aren’t we all,” the girl said with a laugh.

“That’s not what I meant.” Was he blushing again? “I’m looking for my sister.”

“Your
sister
works in a saloon?”

Samuel barely avoided blurting out
I hope not.
Instead, he shrugged. “I just want to make sure she’s all right. I haven’t heard from her in a while. The last I knew, she was with a man named Johnny Chadwick and they were on their way up here.”

The girl frowned. “Johnny Chadwick, you say?”

His heart lurched. “You know him?”

She motioned for Rosalie, who undraped herself from around Lamar and, taking his hand, crossed to where the girl and Samuel stood. “He’s looking for his sister,” the girl said. “Thinks she might be with Johnny.”

Rosalie’s face clouded over. “Oh, honey,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“And here she is now,” Abe said when Fannie got back to the boarding house. “The heroine of Fort Benton.” He smiled. “Heard you saved a life today. Not bad for a prim little city gal.”

Fannie blushed. “Trust me, if I’d stopped to think what I was doing . . .” She shuddered.

“Well, now you’ll be famous and that means even more business. You’re going to have to start helping me cook.”

Fannie laughed. “You want to encourage business or poison people?”

“Well now, I taught you to sweep and scrub. I bet I can teach you to cook.”

Fannie hurried into the kitchen and pulled an apron down off the hook. “I’ll take you up on that, Mr. Valley. Hannah and I were thinking—” She broke off. Stopped. Stared at the floor. Swallowed. “I was thinking I might have to take in boarders this fall at home.” She looked up at Abe and forced a smile. “So the people of Missouri will owe you a debt if you teach me to cook.”

Abe waved her over. “All right, then. A lesson in beans,” he said, and removed a lid from the pot on the stove. “Smell that? You don’t get that mouth-watering aroma unless you add a nice ham hock and an onion.” He had Fannie measure dried beans into a second bean pot.

By the time she had graduated from Sorting, Rinsing, and Soaking, Fannie could hear boots clomping in the front door. It was time to serve lunch.

It was midafternoon before Fannie agreed to leave a grinning Abe Valley to finish up while she made her way back to the clinic. Patrick was waiting on the porch. When Fannie called hello, he led her around to the back door and inside a combination parlor/kitchen/bedroom.

“Do I really smell pot roast?” Fannie asked hopefully as they stepped inside.

The doctor chuckled. “Yes. Buffalo though—not beef.”

“Pa’s patients pay him in meat more than money,” Patrick explained.

Fannie inhaled again. “It smells heavenly.”

“Pa’s a good cook.” Patrick felt his way to a cupboard nailed to the wall across from the stove. Counting out three plates, he turned around, took three steps, and put the plates on the table.

“Please,” Dr. LaMotte said, “be seated. It will be our pleasure to serve you.” First, he washed his hands in a pail of water on the floor beside the stove. Patrick followed suit, and while he was drying his hands, the doctor said, “I was surprised to learn you were still here. You seemed fairly set on leaving Fort Benton as soon as possible when we first met.”

“And I was surprised to learn that you have a son.”

The doctor smiled. “
Touché
,
mademoiselle
. Patrick was helping out at Palmer’s store the day—” He glanced at Patrick. “The day you came to see me.”

“Mr. Palmer pretends I’m a huge help,” Patrick said. “He’s really just being nice, but he pretends to need help sorting the penny candy. I can do that because of the shapes. And he pays me in kind.”

Dr. LaMotte chuckled and rumpled his son’s russet hair even as he spoke to Fannie. “Before he left Fort Benton, Mr. Beck stopped in to show me your aunt’s portrait. The family resemblance is remarkable, by the way. You look very much like her.”

“She was my mother’s twin,” Fannie explained.

“That’s what Mr. Beck said. It’s a shame about his sister. I was sorry I couldn’t give him any news.”

“Two different people have recognized Aunt Edith from the photo,” Fannie said. “I’m hoping to hear news from Alder Gulch any day.” She glanced at Patrick. He was far too intelligent for her to say much more about Aunt Edith or Emma Pilsner’s being in the gold camps. Abe and Samuel and Lamar had all talked
around
it, of course. Surely not every woman in the gold camps was
that kind
of woman. Her heart broke for Samuel if he discovered such news of his sister. At least Fannie didn’t
know
Aunt Edith.

“I’m just hoping for the best,” she said, realizing even as she said it that she didn’t sound very convincing. Feeling self-conscious, she glanced around the room. “You’ve a very comfortable living arrangement, it seems.” She could just see the lower part of a trundle bed below the bottom edge of a ragged quilt partitioning part of the room off as a bedroom. The rest of the decent-sized room contained a large table, the stove, a cupboard, and a surprisingly beautiful rocking chair next to a marble-topped table and a shaded kerosene lamp.

“We do all right,” the doctor said as he poured coffee. He nodded toward the door behind him. “It’s convenient for the practice and keeps me from worrying—most of the time.”

“It seems that you like to read,” Fannie said, nodding at the rocking chair and the lamp.

“Look up, Miss Rousseau,” Patrick said.

Fannie did. Dr. LaMotte had a few dozen running feet of books on shelves running the entire circumference of the living area about a foot below the ceiling.

The doctor smiled. “I have a fondness for the Greeks. And, on occasion, a Puritan or two. I also enjoy Dickens, especially when the snow flies.”

“Pa
loves
winter,” Patrick said. “He gets more time to read when the river traffic stops and people hunker down and stop shooting one another.” He sat down across from Fannie and folded his hands. Feeling embarrassed, Fannie followed suit. She’d forgotten about saying grace in the days since Samuel and Lamar had left for the gulch.

“Why don’t you say grace today, son,” the doctor said.

“Thank you, Lord, that I didn’t get trampled today. Thank you that Fannie was there and that she has a blind friend and she can teach me. Thank you that Pa knows how to cook and that it tastes real good. Thank you for schools where I can learn how to do things and please let me go there soon. Thank you that Miss Rousseau smells like roses, because Pa—”