Bachelor's Puzzle (34 page)

Finally Ellie responded. “I told him I loved him. But who did I love?I f he wasn’t real, how could my love be real?” Her voice was thin and shaky.I t seemed as if she had been holding in her emotions about this for a long time, but now that the truth about her feelings was out, she was unable to control them.

“Maybe you loved what you saw in his heart, the part that was real.”

“I’m awfully confused,” Ellie admitted. “It is hard to quit loving once you start. But I’m’m furious, too, that he lied to us. How can you be so mad at someone and still in love?”

“Why did you defend him, Ellie?”

“Because I don’t think I could love someone who was evil.” After a long pause she went on, “And you, Mags? What about your love? You were ready to marry him.”

“I never said I loved him.”

“You didn’t?”

Now Maggie was thoughtfully silent. She had told Zack she loved him. But Mama was right. She was too immature to know anything about love. When he left her that day behind the barn, she had never been so relieved. She’d cried, yes, but most of those tears had been from humiliation. What would she have done if he had accepted her proposal? She’d be engaged now and planning a wedding, and in six months she’d be . . . married! No girl had ever been happier to see a man run.

“No, I didn’t,” Maggie answered. “And I am pretty certain he didn’t love me either, even after I kissed him.”

“You kissed him?”

“I just wanted to see what it would be like.”

“I kissed him, too,” Ellie confessed.

Maggie laughed.

“You’re not mad at me?” Ellie asked. “I wasn’t trying to steal him from you.”

“Even if sometimes I thought you were,I know it ain’t true.I suppose if a man really loves a woman, another woman couldn’t steal him away.”

“That makes me feel so much better.”

With another chuckle, Maggie added, “But I do feel sorry for him, for William or Zack or Zacchaeus or whatever. The poor fellow had enough on his hands trying to pretend to be a minister. We sure made it worse by throwing ourselves at him.”

“Still, he did something very wrong in impersonating a minister,” Ellie said.

“I hope he doesn’t go to jail.”

“I hope he doesn’t, either. Maybe God won’t mind if I pray for him.”

“I’ll pray for him, too,” Maggie said, and she did so right then and there, silently. She prayed he would repent of his sins and return to Maintown—not for her, though, but for the person who really did love him.

Across the hall Ada was experiencing a rare bout of humility. She glanced over at her husband and didn’t know if he had fallen asleep yet. The lamp was out and in the moonlight flowing through the window she could only discern a vague lump beside her.

“Calvin, are you awake?”

There was a long pause, so she thought he must be asleep.

Then he mumbled, “No.”

“How can you sleep at a time like this—?” she began to rail and then realized this wasn’t the best way to begin an apology. “Calvin, I’ve’ve got to say something.I . . . well . . . I was . . . wrong.”

This made the vague lump turn and sit upright. He looked at her with pure wonder.

“Oh, stop that!” she said, chuckling quietly. “Well, I deserve it.I deserve to hear you say ‘I told you so.’ ”

“I’m not going to say it, Ada.”

“No. I want you to. Go ahead. Say it.”

“Wouldn’t be right. Be like kicking you when you are down.”

“Calvin! You say it right now! I mean it!” she demanded.

Calvin smiled. She saw the twitch of his lips in the moonlight. “I told you so, Ada,” he deadpanned.

“Humph!”
she responded. “How could I know the man was a fake?” Pausing, she added with as much humility as she could manage, “Thank you, Calvin.”

“You think Ellie was right about him?” he asked.

“If not, then we are the biggest fools ever.” Thinking about it a moment, she added, “I don’t think he ever meant to play us for fools.”

“Maybe not, but that doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“Ellie loves him.” Ada said that because it was finally dawning upon her.

“Probably not anymore,” Calvin replied.

But Ada knew a woman’s mind better than her husband did, and she didn’t think a woman could turn her love on and off like one of those electric lights she’d seen once when visiting Portland.

TWENTY - NINE

Ellie knew that what she was doing was foolishness. Mama had hinted at it, though she had still offered to help. As she sat on the porch with the damaged “welcome quilt” spread over her knees, Ellie tried to define why she wanted to repair it. The answer was not clear to her, but when Georgie had dragged it down from his room one day asking if he should take it to the barn to use for the animals, Ellie had been compelled to rescue it.

“No, Georgie, maybe it can be fixed,” she’d said.

Mama had raised a brow. “Some things can’t be fixed, Ellie.”

Ellie knew her mother’s words referred to more than a quilt.

But Mama had helped Ellie wash the quilt in a bath of white soap, shaved and dissolved in boiling water, to which was also added ammonia. That had cleaned away the soil the quilt had picked up after the fire when it had been dragged through the dirt, and it also removed some of the minor scorching. But there were still several stubborn marks remaining that Mama said to leave until the frayed, burned places were patched, at which time the quilt could stand a more vigorous washing. When the quilt was dry, Ellie had begun the tedious task of patching. Some small holes burned by hot embers she had been able to darn, but the larger holes needed patching. Mama still had some of the backing material that could be used to patch holes in the back, but for the blocks on the front, Ellie had gone to the individual makers to get scraps. She hadn’t told them what she was doing. She thought some of the ladies might be adverse to the idea of repairing the quilt most of them regretted making in the first place.

Strangely, one of the worst damaged blocks was Jane Don-nelly’s. I t had been in the corner used to beat out flames.I t was almost beyond repair, and Ellie thought she might just remake the whole block. I t was a fairly simple pattern called Shoofly. With some trepidation Ellie paid Mrs. Donnelly a visit.

“Oh yes,I have some scraps left,” Mrs. Donnelly told Ellie after inviting her into the house. They were seated at the kitchen table. “Do you plan to make another blue quilt?” When Ellie hesitated, Mrs. Donnelly smiled. “Are you trying to fix the welcome quilt?”

No one had thus far asked her so directly. She suspected no one wanted to talk about the quilt. But now she was forced to answer honestly.

“Yes, Mrs. Donnelly.Is that all right with you?”

“You don’t need my permission to do so.”

“Your blessing, then?” Ellie implored. “You, more than anyone, have a right to protest, to want the quilt and the memory of . . . well, of why we made it, buried forever.”

“Do you think I hate our erstwhile minister?” Pausing only a moment, she answered her own question. “I don’t.I don’t blame him for anything that happened to my family.”

“But maybe if he’d been a real minister, he would have given better advice and restrained his violence. And things might not have happened as they did.” Ellie didn’t know why she was changing her defensive stance regarding Zack. She was mostly trying to sort through everything and understand her own oft conflicting reactions.

“In an odd way I believe he took his duties as minister rather seriously,” Mrs. Donnelly said.

Ellie gasped at the surprising comment.

Mrs. Donnelly smiled, adding, “He didn’t have to talk to Tommy as I requested. He didn’t have to do a lot of things he did, like helpL ouise or sit up for hours with Mrs. Cook.

He could have found excuses not to do those things just as he found an excuse not to marry Claudia Briggs. He probably would have been safer to avoid us as much as possible. But I think he liked us and wanted to help us. The real William Locklin was young and inexperienced and might have made mistakes, as well. But I am not convinced that the way our William dealt with Tom and Tommy was wrong. He helped my Tommy be strong. He gave him courage not to take his father’s abuse, something I was never able to do. That needed to happen. If it brought about the unfortunate events in the woods, then . . .I don’t know.”

Ellie had the feeling Mrs. Donnelly might have said, “Then so be it.” Could she be glad that the elder Tom was gone? That was a question that should never be asked or, for that matter, answered.

Mrs. Donnelly rose from her chair, went to her scrap box in a corner of the kitchen, and dug through it until she found some large pieces of the fabrics she had used in her block.

“Take these and fix that quilt,” she said.

“Thank you. I’m afraid I may have to remake most of your block, as it was damaged pretty badly.”

“Do that, then. I think the quilt should be preserved. I know your mother has a good stain remover made of soap and alcohol and rosemary, but I have always had very good results by rubbing a paste of cream of tartar on stains. It may work on the scorch marks.”

“I’ll definitely try it.”

Ellie left still feeling confused yet also somewhat vindicated. If Mrs. Donnelly, who had been hurt the most since Zack came to town, could feel benevolent toward him, then perhaps Ellie was not as far off in her perception of the man as she sometimes felt. Some further confirmation had come from another area. Dad had gone to Portland and corroborated much of Zack’s story. Without implicating Zack, Dad had learned a man named Sinclair had indeed been killed shortly before Zack showed up in Maintown. He also learned there was a crime boss named Cutter. The police had never heard of Zack, at least beyond the Maintown flyer they had posted on their Wanted board.

Ellie fixed her attention back to the quilt and the patch of muslin she was appliquéing to a hole on the back. The afternoon light was fading and casting the corner of the porch where she worked into shadow, but her stitches were small and even nonetheless. She wanted to finish this patch, for then the back would be finished and she could concentrate on the front. She had already repaired some of the front, but Mama had suggested completing the back in order to give better support for the more exacting work on the front. She had been impatient to get the front looking nice but took her mother’s advice nevertheless.

About half the blocks on the front would need some repair or at the least some concentrated stain removal. Her own block had a big burned patch right in the middle of the sky. Maggie’s fans had been lower, opposite from the edge used to beat out flames, and therefore unharmed.

Ellie still couldn’t believe that Maggie had proposed marriage to William. Then after rejecting her, he had immediately left Maintown, though not before Ellie had also thrown herself at him. No wonder he had decided to run! Could that truly have been his reason? Or rather than doing the honorable thing, was he merely fleeing the entanglements of matrimony? Perhaps it was a bit of both. But she was still convinced that his conscience had begun to be seared by his charade.

Ellie finished the last stitch on the muslin patch. Was she working on this quilt because she hoped he would return for it? No. He would never return. The quilt could be fixed, but the wounds of what he had done in the community were too deep for any needle and thread to repair.

At the sound of approaching horses she lifted her eyes.

Three strangers were riding into the yard. A chill ran up her back. They were rough-looking sorts.

“Mama!” she called in alarm. Somehow she sensed these men were not on a friendly visit. She and Mama were alone in the house. Dad was at the sawmill. Maggie and Georgie were off somewhere.

Ada heard her daughter’s call and came out to the porch, a bit perturbed because she had work to be done and didn’t want to waste any more of her time fixing that quilt. She hadn’t protested her daughter’s determination to repair the quilt because she had thought it might help Ellie put recent events behind her. But she had forgotten that once Ellie put her mind to something, she had a tendency to become rather mulish about it.

Immediately, however, Ada saw why her daughter had called her. Three strangers had ridden into the yard, and they looked like roughnecks. Certainly some rough sorts came to Maintown, especially when the lumber camps opened for the season, but these men did not appear to be lumberjacks. For one thing they wore revolvers strapped to their waists, a sight seldom seen in these parts. Farmers and lumberjacks did not wear such weapons. These men were also dressed differently, in expensive-looking boots and hats with traveling dusters over nice trousers. They looked like lawmen or gunfighters.

Ellie came and stood by her mother. Ada resisted the urge to take her daughter’s hand. She didn’t want Ellie to see that she was trembling a little.

“Hello, ma’am,” one of the men said.

He lifted his hat, revealing pale hair. He was a handsome man but hard-edged like a good knife.

“Good afternoon,” Ada said stiffly, mostly to hide her nerves. “What can I do for you?”

“We’re looking for a fellow,” the pale-haired man replied. Staying mounted, he rode close to the porch, took a paper from his coat pocket, and reached it down to Ada.

Ada opened the paper and saw a pen drawing of Zack, as she had recently learned to call him. She remembered him telling Calvin that hoodlums from Portland were looking for him.

“You seen him?” the stranger asked.

Ada had the almost overwhelming urge to lie, to protect Zack from these men. But she was not accustomed to lying. “Yes, he was here for a time, but he left more than a week ago.”

“You know where he went?”

“He never said. He more or less just disappeared.”

“You don’t know what direction he went?”

“If he was smart, he would have hightailed it as far from here as possible. He didn’t leave any friends here, that’s for sure.I expect he went to Astoria where he could get passage on a boat.”

“He never gave any indication of where he might go?”

“Why do you want to know? Are you the law?” A moment after asking it she realized the question was a mistake. But her curiosity had gotten the better of her.