Beyond All Measure (11 page)

NINE

Wyatt arrived early the next morning dressed for town in a dark suit and a pearl-gray Stetson. Ada watched him from the window as he climbed down from his rig and headed for the house, whistling a loud tune, slightly off-key. Despite yesterday’s disconcerting episode, she found herself smiling. She checked her reflection in the hallway mirror and opened the door. “Come in. We’re not quite ready.”

“That’s unusual.” Wyatt stepped into the hall. “Aunt Lil complains about the busyness in town these days, but she looks forward to going all the same.”

“We had a difficult day yesterday, Mr. Caldwell.” Briefly, Ada described Lillian’s confusion and her accusations.

Wyatt nodded. “She has these spells from time to time. There’s a tonic for when she gets all worked up. Didn’t Hannah mention it in her letters?”

“She certainly didn’t. Your aunt scared me out of a year’s growth. I had no idea what to do.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll show you where we keep it.” He went to the kitchen and took a brown glass vial from the cupboard. “The directions are on the label. But she won’t take any medicine voluntarily. Hannah usually put it in her cocoa.”

He returned the bottle to the cupboard. “How does she seem this morning?”

“I haven’t had the heart to disturb her.”

“Let’s get her up and dressed. I have a meeting at the bank at eleven.”

“I’ll see what’s keeping her.”

Ada knocked on Lillian’s door. When there was no answer she called loudly, “Miss Lillian?”

“What’s the trouble?” Wyatt loomed in the hallway.

“She won’t answer me.”

He opened the door. “Aunt Lil? Can’t you hear us talking to—”

The bed was empty. One pale tiny foot protruded from beneath the bed. Wyatt bent down and lifted the corner of the bed skirt. “Lillian Caldwell Willis, what in heaven’s name are you doing under there?”

“What does it look like? I’m hiding!”

He dropped to his knees and stuck his head under the bed. “Hiding? From what?”

“Ghosts! I saw them last night riding up the road. They came back to steal my Bible again, but I fooled ’em. I have it right here.”

Ada’s stomach clenched. Was the nighttime visit a warning from the Klansmen that she was unwelcome here?

For a split second, Wyatt’s gaze flickered as if he harbored similar thoughts, but he sent Ada a reassuring smile. “It was probably just the wind, blowing against the curtains.”

“I know what I saw,” Lillian insisted, her voice muffled.

“Don’t you want to go shopping at the mercantile?”

“I most certainly do not. It’s too crowded, and they never have half the things I want anyway. Tell Hannah to bring me some of that French milled soap. The one that smells like lemons.”

“Aunt Lil,” Wyatt said patiently, “Hannah lives in Denver now. You know that. Now come on out from under there before I’m forced to drag you out.”

She crawled out on all fours, her nightgown black with dust, her hair standing up in little white wisps.

Wyatt helped her into her chair. “If you don’t want to go with us, I’ll send Libby Dawson to stay with you. I saw her on the way in. She’s just down the road at the Spencer place delivering laundry.”

Ada touched Wyatt’s sleeve. “It’s all right. I can see the town another time.”

“No need to cancel our plans. Libby is used to staying with her. Lil likes her.” He motioned Ada into the hallway and lowered his voice. “She started having these spells a couple of years back. There’s nothing we can do about it.” He glanced into Lil’s bedroom. “I’m sorry you weren’t informed of it before you arrived.”

“Apparently quite a lot was kept from me.” Now that the crisis was past, Ada felt her anger building. “For instance, I had no idea that this part of the country was overrun with scofflaws and ruffians. No idea that I’d be required to cook and keep house, not to mention having to handle a horse and buggy. Not that I can’t master it—”

“You did just fine the other day, from what I was able to see.”

“That isn’t the point. You should have prepared me.”

“I relied on Hannah to give you the particulars. That was my mistake. I apologize.”

She sighed. “What else should I know?”

Wyatt’s deep blue gaze held hers. “That I am grateful to you for the concern you’ve shown my aunt in the short time you’ve been here. She was practically glowing at supper the other night.”

Ada blew out a noisy breath. Mercy, but he was exasperating. It was impossible to stay mad at him. She stood rooted to the spot, her gaze locked on his, afraid to move and break the spell. At last Wyatt stepped back and cleared his throat. “Shall we go?”

Ada glanced toward Lillian’s room. “She’ll be all right until Libby arrives? What if Libby can’t come?”

“Once Aunt Lil takes her medicine, she sleeps for a long while. But if Libby can’t come, we’ll go to town another day.”

He went to the kitchen, measured a dose of the tonic into a glass of milk, and coaxed his aunt into drinking it. Then he helped her to the bed. “Go to sleep, sweetheart. Everything’s all right.”

Ada collected her hat and gloves, her handbag, and her parasol. When she peeked into the room again, Wyatt was sitting in the chair with a book propped on his knees, and Lillian was fast asleep.

A moment later Ada and Wyatt crossed the yard to the rig. He helped her onto the seat and they drove away, a renewed sense of ease blossoming between them. They stopped at the Spencers’ to speak to the Dawson girl and headed for town.

Ada unfurled her parasol. “Your aunt says this is the hottest June in Hickory Ridge in a long while.”

“It’s a scorcher, all right. But it isn’t as hot as Texas can be this time of year. One summer, I must have been seventeen or so, we had a bad drought. It was a hundred and ten in the shade for weeks on end. Grass dried up. The cattle dropped dead. We lost almost two hundred head before the rain came.”

Ada shuddered, imagining an endless arid landscape littered with bloated, rotting carcasses. How could he bear it?

“It’s one of the hazards of ranching.” Wyatt took out his handkerchief and wiped his face. “But it’s not always that way. You have to take the good with the bad—like most anything else in life, I reckon.”

She adjusted the angle of her parasol. “Of course, in Boston, it’s the winters that can be hard to take. There’s hardly anything more miserable than January in Massachusetts.”

He nodded. “That’s the honest truth.”

She looked up at him from beneath her parasol. “I didn’t realize you’d ever been to Boston.”

His expression went hard. “I was there once. Before the war.”

Ada was overcome with curiosity. What had brought him to Boston in the dead of winter? Not a pleasure trip, surely. What did he think of her hometown? Had he ridden past the pretty brick houses on Acorn Street? Braved the cold to walk in the park beside the river? But one look at his stony expression told her that Boston was the last thing he wanted to talk about.

They rounded a bend. Far ahead of them, a wagon laden with lumber headed toward town. Maybe it was better to find a safer topic of conversation. “How did you come to be in the lumber business?” she asked. “I can’t think of what it has in common with ranching.”

“A friend of the family owned a little mill in east Texas. Harvesting pine mostly. One summer I had a falling out with my daddy and left ranching for a good long while. Mr. Trask put me to work—taught me everything I know. After the war, I figured the demand for lumber would go sky high.” He shrugged. “Can’t raise longhorns around here, but there’s plenty of good timber. Starting a lumber business just seemed like the logical thing to do.”

“What about your father? Did you patch up your differences?”

“We did. He’s a good man.” Wyatt smiled. “He’s got some big plans for when I get back home.”

Ada felt a rush of envy that sat like a stone in her stomach. If only she had reconciled with her father. If only she had a home to go back to and someone waiting for her there.

Wyatt rested his hand on his knee, the reins loose in his fingers. “Sage tells me that Mariah can hardly talk about anything but her new hat.”

“After going without everything for so long, I suppose anything new is appreciated.” She fanned her face. “It’s hard to imagine the hardships women here have survived. I feel so sorry for Carrie Daly.”

He nodded soberly. “Carrie’s been through a lot. But if she wasn’t so busy looking after her brother Henry, she might find love again. I know for a fact there’s one or two good men in town who would love to court Carrie.”

When they reached the mill, Wyatt sent Robbie Whiting to find the wheelwright Josiah Dawson. “Tell him Libby is out at Aunt Lillian’s until we get back from town this afternoon.”

“Sure thing, Lieutenant!” Robbie sprinted down the road, his bare feet sending up little puffs of dust.

Wyatt flicked the reins, and the horse broke into an easy trot.

Ada smiled. “He called you ‘lieutenant.’ Was that your rank in the brigade?”

“It was. But don’t be too impressed. General Hood always said that the most dangerous thing in the army is a lieutenant with a map.”

Ada laughed and gave herself over to the beauty of summer in the valley. Though the morning was hot, a breeze drifted across the meadow, bringing with it the scents of grass and wild honeysuckle. In the distance, dense forests gave way to blue-green mountains that stretched toward a clear azure sky.

They passed a couple of farmhouses and the church. The rig clattered across a wooden bridge spanning the river and jostled over the railroad trestle. Soon the train station came into view. Travelers milled about on the platform among a jumble of trunks and wooden crates. A young peddler moved through the crowd hawking his wares.

Wyatt drew up beside the agent’s office. “I need to check on my shipment going out this afternoon. I won’t be long.”

Ada sat beneath her parasol, content to watch the activity unfolding around her. Down the street, a steady stream of customers came and went from the bank and the general store. The smells of cinnamon and yeast emanated from the bakery on the corner. In front of it, a group of little boys played mumblety-peg, the blades of their knives flashing in the sun. Their giddy, carefree laughter rose above the noise of the train station. Ada laughed with them, sharing their joy.

Wyatt returned with a sheaf of papers that he tucked into a leather pouch. Taking out his pocket watch, he said, “It’s still early. Would you like a tour of the town?”

“Yes, I’d love that.”

They drove down the main street past the shops and the post office and the Verandah Hotel for Ladies, then turned west onto a macadam road shaded by hickory trees. On either side of the road, new houses were going up; the smell of paint and new lumber filled the air. Carpenters, brick masons, and painters swarmed over several houses in various states of completion. On one side of the street sat a long, low building with many windows and a red front door. A flagpole sat in the middle of a grassy yard that sloped away from the back of the building into the trees.

“That’s our new school.” Wyatt halted the rig. “We opened it only three years ago, and already we’re expecting fifty students this fall. Bea will have her hands full.”

“That seems like a lot of students for one teacher.”

He nodded. “The school board hired a second teacher this spring, a gentleman from Virginia. This fall he’ll take the older students and serve as headmaster. Bea will have the younger ones.”

She gazed at the neat, welcoming building. “It isn’t at all what I expected.”

He urged the horse onward. “Perhaps you pictured a log cabin.”

She blushed. “You’re right. I did.”

“Sorry to disappoint you. But the days of Davy Crockett are long past in Hickory Ridge.”

She smiled. “I’m only now realizing how much I have to learn about your town.”

“It’s your town too—for now, at least.” His smile brought an unexpected reaction—a warm tightening inside. She felt her face grow warm. What was the matter with her? She had no business at all feeling this way about Wyatt Caldwell. She concentrated on the sound of the horse’s hooves on the road and on the passing scenery.

They passed a redbrick church and, next to it, a smaller building enclosed by a white picket fence. Under the watchful eye of a woman in a dark green dress, groups of children played tag in the dusty yard. A little boy, perhaps three or four, bounced a ball against the side of the building. On the stone steps, a young girl in a tattered yellow dress sat alone, a curtain of glossy black hair hiding her face.

“Orphanage,” Wyatt said. “First opened back in the fifties, after several children were orphaned in a flash flood. We added on to it after the war handed us even more young folks with no kin to take them in.” He nodded toward the girl on the steps. “Mrs. Lowell does the best she can for them, but I always feel bad for Sophie over there.”

Sophie
. The child Robbie had told her about seemed utterly lost, the very picture of dejection.

Ada’s heart twisted. She knew just how those children felt. Abandoned. Afraid. And in Sophie’s case, friendless, except for Robbie Whiting. She found it hard to look away. Surely something could be done to ease that child’s loneliness.

They came to a small grassy park with a white gingerbreadtrimmed gazebo and a merry-go-round. “This is where we have the Founders Day picnic every Fourth of July.”

He pulled the rig to a stop, tethered the horse, and helped her out. They walked along a meandering footpath paralleling the river and came at last to the gazebo. There they sat with their backs to the road, the forest in front of them.

“I loved coming to Founders Day when I was boy and staying here with Aunt Lil,” Wyatt said. “One year when I was about ten or eleven, an acrobatic group performed, and I decided that’s what I’d be when I grew up.”

He laughed then. Ada wished she’d known Wyatt Caldwell when they were both young and everything seemed possible. He went on. “Since the war ended, we still have a concert and games for the children, but Founders Day has turned political. There’s always some kind of a dustup between the diehard rebs and the unionists.”