Truth Be Told (23 page)

T
he doorknob rattled again, followed by a shout. “Open up, Amelia!”

Amelia could have wept with relief when she recognized Clara's voice. She hurried to unlock the door and swung it open. Clara stood outside with Martin behind her. The two of them were flanked by Jimmy and a couple of his pals.

“What are you all doing here?”

Clara shrugged. “It looked like you needed help, so I brought some. Martin can do whatever heavy lifting you need, and I figured these three might come in handy.” She indicated the boys with a jerk of her head. “So I brought 'em along. Just put us to work wherever you need us.”

While she spoke, the others streamed inside. Amelia stared at her unlikely crew of rescuers.

“Wow!” Jimmy turned in a circle, his eyes as round as saucers. “This place is a mess!”

“But not for long,” Amelia said, feeling a glimmer of hope for the first time since she discovered the shambles. “With all of us working, we should be able to deal with it in short order.”

Securing the lock, she turned back to her helpers and spoke
to Clara and Martin. “Before we get started, I want to tell you how sorry I am about the story that ran yesterday. Please believe me when I say I never intended to cause you grief. Homer got an anonymous tip and followed up on it. That's where those quotes came from. If I'd been thinking straight, I would have insisted on looking into matters further before we printed comments like that.”

Looking at her friends, she felt her throat swell. “After all I put you through, I can't believe you're here to help me now.”

Clara reached out and patted her on the shoulder. “The way I was feeling yesterday, I would have been surprised myself if you had told me I'd be lending a hand here tonight. Martin's the one who helped straighten me out.” She aimed a crooked smile at her brother. “You can thank him for us bein' here.”

The burly man shifted from one foot to another. “I know those fellows in Prescott, and what they're saying is just sour grapes. They had as much chance as me to get that contract.”

“But what if someone believes the things they said? I feel terrible about putting thoughts like that in people's minds.”

Martin lifted one shoulder in a dismissive shrug. “If those two are spreading rumors like that, folks were bound to hear about it anyway. Like I told Clara, people will believe what they want to, and most of 'em seem happy to believe the worst. We know what the truth is, so we'll just hold our heads up and keep on going.”

Amelia squeezed one of his beefy hands in both of hers. “Thank you so much. I don't deserve such forgiveness, but I appreciate it more than I can say.”

Behind her, Clara chuckled. “Honey, that's what the good Lord calls grace. None of us deserve it, but I'm sure thankful for it. Now, where do you want us to start?”

“That's a good question.” Amelia looked around and ran her fingers through her curls. Her gaze lit on the type spread out across the counter. Turning to Jimmy and his friends, she said, “You boys all know your letters, don't you?”

The taller of Jimmy's buddies scoffed. “What do you take us for, a bunch of babies? Of course we do.”

Smothering a smile, Amelia scooped up a handful of type from the floor and spread it on the counter near the rest. “I need you to sort these—and the others that are all over the floor. See how each has a letter on the bottom? You'll have to read them backwards to find out what they are. There are a lot of different styles of each letter, and different sizes, as well. You'll need to separate them into different piles.”

She nodded toward the cases lying on the floor. “Once we set the type cabinets upright again, you can put each pile back into the section of the case where it belongs.”

The boys nodded with an air of determination and set to work.

“What about Martin and me?” Clara asked.

“You mentioned heavy lifting.” Amelia pointed to the printing press. “Martin, do you think the three of us can get the Peerless back on its feet?”

“Let's give it a try.” Positioning himself in the center, he gestured to Clara and Amelia to take their places on either side of him. “On the count of three, everybody lift. One . . . two . . . three!”

Working together, they strained upward and managed to tip the unwieldy press back into place. “Oh, no!” Amelia's elation turned to dismay when she saw that one of the gears had been knocked out of alignment in the fall.

Clara waved her hand as though the damage was of no consequence. “Don't you worry about that. My brother's a good hand at mechanical things. I'll bet he can take care of whatever's wrong and have it ready to run again in no time. What do you think, Martin?”

The taciturn man eyed the machinery. “Looks like a simple enough thing. I'll tend to that while the rest of you go on about cleaning up.”

Amelia looked at her friends, marveling once again at the wonder of unmerited grace. Then, seeing Clara struggling to lift one of the overturned type cabinets, she grabbed hold of the other corner. Together, they heaved it upright and shoved it back into place.

While Martin busied himself with the press and the boys continued with their appointed task, she and Clara went about raising the other type cabinet. They had just moved it back against the wall when the doorknob rattled again. Glancing toward the front window, Amelia saw Ben's face peering through the glass. With a surge of joy, she hurried to let him in.

When she opened the door, he stared at the hum of activity inside. “What's going on?”

His faced hardened while he listened to her explanation of what she found on her return to the newspaper that afternoon. “Do you think it was someone from . . .” Glancing around at the others in the room, he let his voice trail off, but the question lingered in his eyes.

Amelia dipped her head in a tiny nod and lowered her voice to a whisper. “I wouldn't be a bit surprised. We can talk about it later.”

Ben slipped his arm around her shoulders. “Thank heaven
you're all right. That's the important thing. I'm sorry I wasn't here earlier.”

She leaned into his embrace, heedless of others' presence and the openmouthed curiosity from Jimmy and his friends. “I'm just glad you're here now.” As the words left her lips, she realized how true they were. The printing office still bore evidence of the earlier destruction, and plenty of work lay ahead of them to put it all back in order. But with Ben beside her, all seemed right again with her world.

A puzzled frown creased Ben's forehead. “Where's Homer?”

Amelia squeezed her eyes shut, then looked up at him. “Passed out in his cabin, with an empty whiskey bottle on the floor.”

His lips tightened. “How long ago did you find him like that?”

She looked over at the clock. “It's been an hour or more.”

Ben gave a brief nod. “It looks like you all have everything under control here. Let me go see what I can do with Homer. I'll be sure to lock the back door when I leave.”

After checking the boys' progress, Amelia approached Clara. “It's going to be a slow process sorting the type. If you don't mind, I could use some help picking up all the files that were dumped out in my office while they're working.”

“All right, let's get to it.” When they stepped into the office, Clara's jaw sagged. “Have mercy. And I thought it was a disaster out front.”

“Don't worry about putting the papers in order. Let's just scoop them up and set them on the desk so I'll have room to move around. I can sort through the files and reorganize them later.”

With Clara's help, it took less time than Amelia expected to have the floor cleared of loose papers. They walked back to the printing office, where Jimmy and his friends met them with expressions of dismay.

“I don't know if this is going to work, Miss Amelia.” Jimmy spoke in a defeated tone. “It's going to take nigh onto forever to get all these pieces sorted out.”

Amelia looked at the array of type spread before them on the counter, then back at the multitude of pieces still strewn across the floor. “I see what you mean.” She took a breath and squared her shoulders. “Do as much as you can tonight, boys. Homer and I will keep on sorting it out, and we'll see how much can be salvaged. In the long run, the easiest solution will be to contact the type foundry in St. Louis and order a new set, but for now we'll use whatever we can put together to set next week's paper. It's a hindrance, and the print might not be perfect, but we won't let it shut us down.”

Martin stepped away from the press and cleared his throat. “I think I've got it fixed. Why don't you try it out?”

Amelia put her foot on the treadle and pumped it several times, then pushed the flywheel forward with her left hand to keep the momentum going. A broad grin broke out on her face. “That's perfect, Martin! Homer couldn't have done a better job himself. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help.” She turned a smile upon the rest of the group to include them in her gratitude.

Martin grinned and nodded. Clara stepped forward and wrapped Amelia in a quick hug. “We were glad to help. We'd best be on our way now. It's time these boys were getting home.”

Amelia walked them to the door and locked it behind them.
“Thank you, Lord,” she whispered. “You sent encouragement just when I needed it . . . and healed a friendship at the same time. What a gift!”

She made her way back to her office to tackle the stacks of papers. Working her way through each pile, she sorted them back into the appropriate folders and replaced them in the file cabinets.

As she slid a file drawer shut, she heard the alley door open and footsteps approaching down the hallway.

A frown puckered her brow. She and Homer were the only ones who had a key. Had he recovered so quickly? She stepped out into the hallway and saw Ben walking toward her, nudging Homer ahead of him.

When Ben met her eyes, he shook his head. “He was just starting to come around when I got there. It took a while before he was able to make it over here. I had to give him time to clean up, and then I poured nearly a whole pot of coffee down him.”

Homer looked pale and appeared rather shaken. He kept his gaze from meeting hers directly, and when he spoke, his tone was so low she had to strain to hear him. “Ben told me what happened.” Looking around the room, he added, “Looks like you managed to get it all put back together without me.”

“I had help. The Gilbreths stopped by and brought Jimmy and a couple of his friends. We'll have to order more type, but apart from that, we're in good shape.”

“I should have been here. Maybe I could have stopped it from happening.” His shoulders drooped, and he hung his head. “I'm sorry.”

Amelia's anger ebbed away in the face of her old friend's misery. Homer was like family—as dear to her as if he were an actual relative. Yes, she had been hurt by his drinking, but she had hurt him first, maybe even driven him to it by her attitude.

Tears welled in her eyes. “I'm the one who needs to apologize. You did everything I asked you to, even when I snapped at you. It was wrong of me to heap all that responsibility on you. And I'm truly sorry for the way I spoke to you. You did nothing to deserve that.”

Homer shuffled his feet and stared at a point across the room. “It isn't only what I did yesterday. It's the . . . condition I was in this afternoon.”

He lowered his head for a moment. When he raised it again, she could see a trace of moisture pooling in his eyes. “When I met your dad, I was sunk about as low as a man can go. Seems like I was always hiding in a bottle. But he looked past all that and treated me like a friend. That was when he told me about the Lord.”

A gentle smile curved his lips. “He showed me passages in his Bible, and the more I watched the kind of life he led, the more I wanted to have that for myself. And it worked—for the most part.”

Ben stepped up beside him and laid his hand on the older man's shoulder. “That's what the gospel can do. It makes us hungry for the Lord.”

Homer hung his head again. “You know I've made a few slips from time to time over the years, but nothing like what I was doing back then.” His Adam's apple bobbed up and down, and his voice grew husky. “I don't know why it's gotten so much worse since your dad has been gone. Maybe you've noticed?”

Amelia nodded. “I have . . . and I've been concerned for you.”

“This isn't something I want to do,” he continued. “I've tried to stop and told myself to just walk away from it. But then things get busy around here, and the pressure starts building up, and there I go again. I can't seem to stop, no matter how hard I try.”

Amelia saw the pain in his eyes, and her throat constricted.

He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and swiped at his eyes. “Your father was one of the godliest men I've ever known, and I don't want to dishonor his memory this way. I know he'd be ashamed if he could see the way I've been acting.”