Weeping Angel (18 page)

Thoughtfully setting her fork down, words came into Amelia's head.
My childhood was fleeting.
That's what Frank had said to her.

There are some subjects, Miss Marshall, that are better left undiscussed.

Despite all her trials and tribulations, she could look back with a semblance of fondness and talk about her growing-up years.

What had happened to Frank Brody when he was little? She couldn't picture him helpless or vulnerable. Or sad. He always seemed so casual. So disarming.

The chaste kiss he'd given her had stuck in her mind. She'd been uncertain how to conduct herself when in his company next, and decided to be cool and disciplined, yet approachable—the perfect definition of a teacher. He'd acted as if nothing intimate had transpired between them when he spoke to her about Mrs. Reed. It was only after she'd censured him on his behavior that he acknowledged the kiss at all. She should have been relieved he'd agreed with her.

But she still thought of the kiss often, putting more into it than she should have. She was acting foolish, she knew. No matter how fleeting, his mouth had brushed hers. She couldn't make that go away, no matter how sternly she willed herself to put it out of her head. . . . Well, it wouldn't occur again, so she needn't bother herself over foolish reactions to him.
She was being silly and out of character. She knew better.

My childhood was fleeting.

Why did his words keep coming back to haunt her?

Suddenly, Amelia wasn't hungry anymore. She pushed her plate away and stood. She didn't want to feel sorry for Frank Brody. It was a lot less complicated to feel sorry for herself. And right now, she could find a major reason to be morose: the chicken pox.

It had struck the second day of her lessons, hitting Elroy Parks smack on the neck and hairline. Had he not worn his hair slicked back with his father's brilliantine mustache oil that day, she might not have noticed the scattering of red dots on his forehead and behind his ears.

Taking her plate into the kitchen and setting it in the sink, Amelia knew the chicken pox never struck once. Soon most every student she had who had not had the chicken pox yet would get it. And quarantined students meant no students. No students meant no money.

Would her troubles never end?

Leaving the dishes, Amelia went to the back door and put her palm on the screen. The evening was lovely; the summer smells of grass and gardens and flowers drifted to the porch. The distant croaks and chirps of frogs and crickets sounded tranquil. A faraway coupling of laughter came from Divine Street . . . no doubt just outside the Chuckwagon.

Letting her hand trail the mesh, Amelia wondered . . . did anyone else notice these things, alone, and feel even more excluded than ever?

*  *  *

Frank lay on his bed, the much-worn copy of
A Tale of Two Cities
draped facedown over his bare abdomen. He'd left the door to his room open, and a light summer breeze stirred the warm air scented with his
snuffed cheroot. He took a slow swallow of cognac, then set the near-empty beer mug on top of the dresser next to his bedstead. He'd closed the Moon Rock hours ago and sleep still eluded him. Sometimes he was plagued with fits of insomnia that lasted weeks. Mostly, the sleepless bouts came on him for no apparent reason. But tonight he figured he was suffering from wakefulness because his saloon had been raided by kids all week.

Kids made him think of his brother Harry. And the home.

Turning onto his side, Frank slid the Dickens story closed and ran his hand across the scarred leather top. He'd had the book for eleven years. His parents' theatrical troupe, the Merry Tramps, had been performing at the Vioget Theater in Frisco when he'd found the discarded volume in the alley behind the dockside playhouse. He hadn't been able to read the book then. It was many years later, when he and Harry were in the orphanage, that he'd been taught to read by the sisters.

Frank closed his eyes, not wanting to relive the pain of that wintry day in 1877, but could no more shut it out than he could open the window to his heart. At the age of nine, he'd been institutionalized because his parents didn't want him anymore. He and his little brother had been abandoned at St. John's Catholic Orphanage for Boys.

The first year was hell. The inmates were ruffians of sorts by day, but at night wept openly in their beds. Their sobs frightened Harry who . . . Frank took in a steady deep breath until he felt his lungs burn with the need for release . . . Harry who never was, or had the capabilities of being, like other boys.

Frank exhaled, his chest tight with pain. Blinking his eyes open, he refused to think about the past. He could not dwell on what had been or could never be.

Harry was dead.

If there was one thing he truly wanted to believe from his religious upbringing, it was that Harry was in a better place. A place where he couldn't suffer, a place where Jack and Charlotte Brody couldn't touch him.

Frank sat up and brought his feet onto the hardwood floor. He ran his hands through his hair and rubbed the tension at the back of his neck. Flipping the lid on a box of Old Virginias, he took up another cheroot. He pulled the band, snipped the tip, and brought the end to his lips. Lighting the thin cigar, he stood and walked to the doorway. He put his hands on the frame above his head and stared into the back alley.

It was darker than pitch outside, without a sliver of moonshine to cast even the slightest shadows. Frank puffed on his cheroot and thought of all the other places he could be now. His mind wandered to the open desert and freedom. Endless space dusted with sage; cantinas with fine women worth their weight in gold. He knew just the place down south where to buy good horseflesh. And then there was that stream north of the Rio Grande where the rainbow trout bit on his flies like they were prime rib to a lumberjack. He could see—

Frank shook his head. Damn, he was thinking about leaving again. Why couldn't he stay and be happy here? Pap had settled in. Frank doubted he could convince his friend to come with him this time. Pap was taken with Weeping Angel and Miss Marshall. He'd settled into the men's dormitory on Gopher Road as if he'd lived there all his life; and he was making plans to move into Amelia Marshall's house by summer's end as her husband.

Unhooking the latch on the screen, Frank stepped outside. He put his hands on the split railing and hopped up to sit on the round post. The wood was
smooth. His butt had worn away any splinters from many sleepless nights on this, his favorite do-nothing-in-the-middle-of-the-night spot.

Frank pulled in smoke from the cheroot, exhaling it in a slow, steady stream of gray. Then the cold hard truth hit him in the gut—even though he'd known it all along.

Pap really was planning on asking the piano teacher to set up housekeeping with him. Pap O'Cleary, confirmed bachelor and a man more in a saddle than not, wanted to hook himself up with a wife and stay put.

Resting his bare feet on the second railing, Frank had to admit there were worse things to want out of life if you were the sort of man who wanted a family. But he wasn't because he didn't know the meaning of the word.

*  *  *

“Walter and Warren can't come today, Miss Marshall,” Daniel Beamguard informed Amelia as he rolled a large hoop across the floor. “They've got the chicken pox.”

Amelia sat on the piano stool in the Moon Rock Saloon, having just finished instructing Jakey Spivey, when the mercantile owner's son came in to broadcast the news. News she didn't find surprising. Though the loss of her wage would be double given both boys were under the weather, giving up the dollar was easier knowing she wouldn't have to deal with Walter and Warren for the next two weeks. The Reed twins weren't exactly prize pupils.

Jakey rolled his sheet music down his thighs into a tight cylinder; she'd never be able to uncurl it next week, even if she brought her iron with her.

Amelia allowed Jakey to ruin his Excelsior Juvenile Collection, knowing her energies were wasted on a ten-year-old boy when it came to prudent advice concerning the care of sheet music. Instead, she
stopped her metronome and turned to Daniel. “Thank you for telling me about Walter and Warren.”

“Sure, Miss Marshall.”

“Oh, and, Daniel, have you ever had the chicken pox?”

“Yep. When I was six.” The boy steered his toy with a short stick by pushing its flat end on the inside of the hoop to make the hoop go around. He circled a table with ease, then stopped by Jakey to fit his flannel cap more securely over his hair. “Ma's making me practice on our defective piano, Miss Marshall, since we're the only ones in town who's got a piano besides Mr. Brody.”

Amelia pictured the old upright in the Beamguard home. It had barely survived the Wells Fargo, having made the trip before the railroad had been put in. The notes were horribly out of tune and missing several strings in the middle C octave. Since there was no piano repairman in town to tune and restore the instrument, it remained in the condition it first arrived in: Awful.

“Ma says we're rich because we own the mercantile,” Daniel stated. “The Dodges are rich. How come they don't have a piano, Miss Marshall?”

Amelia tucked her folded piano scarf into her bag. “Mrs. Dodge says she's not musically inclined.”

“Oh,” Daniel replied, but the inflection in his tone told Amelia he wasn't quite certain what “musically inclined” meant. He shrugged. “We may be rich, but that dumb mercantile doesn't even carry real Spalding baseball bats.” Daniel balanced his oversize hoop, then propelled it toward the bar. “Hey, Mr. Brody. When are you going to let me hit off your bat, huh?”

Amelia glanced at Frank who'd laid out tiny drab feathers on the counter and was sorting them. He'd been there for the past hour rummaging through his tackle box. “Kid, I haven't got the time today.”

“Tomorrow.”

Looking up, Frank frowned. “Tomorrow's no good either.”

“Can I borrow it, then? Jakey can throw some balls at me.” The hoop got away from Daniel and crashed into the front of the bar; wobbling, the round piece of wood spiraled to a stop. “I'd be real careful, I promise. I wouldn't break it. I can't hit that hard. Well, I can hit pretty hard, but not hard like you. Have you ever broke a bat, Mr. Brody?”

“No.”

Pap, who was sipping a beer next to Frank, gave Frank a dig in the ribs with his elbow. “That's a damn lie, Frank. You broke that pine bat in Tucson when we played at the Overland Stage picnic.”

Daniel's face lit up like a firecracker. “Holy smoke!”

“Don't let him fool you, boy,” Frank remarked, picking up a speckled feather no bigger than Amelia's thumbnail. “That bat already had a crack in it before I swung.”

Wiping the foam off his full red mustache, Pap said, “It did not. Unless,” he glanced at Amelia, and she quickly looked away, “I put it there before you hit with it. Now that's a distinct possibility.”

Frank's low laugh made her smile and gaze at him. She was certain he did break a baseball bat. Having seen his bare arms in a vest, she could attest to the fact that his muscles were strong enough.

Daniel stared at Frank without saying anything further. The boy watched in fascination as Frank held the feather between his thumb and forefinger while he twisted something around it. The feather gadget looked extremely tricky to Amelia—an operation that required intense concentration and no audience to hinder the process. Keeping his head down, but lifting his eyes, Frank said to Daniel, “Kid, why don't you go help Walter and Warren scratch themselves.”

“I don't need to do that,” Daniel replied. “Those
boys do everythin' together. They can even fart at the same time.”

Frank's right hand quivered; his left dropped the tiny feather as a broad smile cracked his mouth. “Shit,” he muttered, and began to laugh. “Let one go at the same time, huh?”

“Yep. I've heard 'em myself.”

Pap gave Amelia a hasty glance, then slugged Frank on the shoulder. “There's a lady present, you jackass. Watch what you're saying.”

Amelia turned away before Frank looked in her direction. Feigning involvement in putting away her things, she could feel his gaze on her. She was angry at herself for being embarrassed by the talk. She was in a saloon and should have expected the colorful language.

“Daniel,” she heard Frank say. “Pap's right. A man never discusses subjects in front of a lady he couldn't talk about in front of his mother.”

“Ah, gee.” The sound of a shoe dejectedly scuffing the planks made Amelia's lips tremble with the need to smile fondly at the boy. But, of course, she didn't. A well-schooled teacher never let her guard down in front of her students.

Amelia cast a quick look toward the bar out the corner of her eye. Frank was cleaning up his feathers and fishing things when Daniel Beamguard stood on his tiptoes to lean over the counter. Frank slid the tackle box out of the boy's way.

“Teach me how to be a man, Mr. Brody. I want to know how to order a drink.”

Frank looked Daniel directly in the eyes. “I'll teach you to order a drink, but never confuse manhood with drinking.”

“What do you mean?”

“There's more to being a man than drinking.”

“Yeah, like baseball.”

“Well, that's not exactly what I meant,” Frank mumbled. “There's the husband part and fatherhood, if you're cut out for that kind of thing. You know, responsibilities and all that stuff.”

“Yeah, I know what you're talkin' about. I have to run my father's general store when I'm old enough.” Shrugging, Daniel dropped a cork float into Frank's tackle box. “Sooner than that, if he dies or some-thin'.”

Frank shut the lid and put the box under the counter. “Well I hope you're not wishing he'd die. Death isn't an easy thing to handle. Even for a man.” Frank grew quiet and Amelia sensed he was thinking of someone dear to him who'd passed on. His reverie didn't last long before he snapped out of his thoughts and asked, “Do you know what it means to nominate your poison?”