Beverly Jenkins (33 page)

With the break in the weather, the merchants of Henry Adams found the thirty-mile trip to Ellis and its railroad depot a less arduous journey. They restocked their depleted shelves with everything from bolts of cloth and farm implements to newspapers, washtubs, and seed. Wanted posters featuring Miles Sutton were plastered on fence posts and barn walls all over Graham County, but he had not been seen.

Cara received a page-long letter from Chase around that time, and its arrival thrilled her. She was disappointed to read he wouldn’t be home until late May or early June, but he’d written, and that made her smile.

Another thing that made her smile was being able to resume teaching. The Reverend Whitfield had wisely closed the school back in February because of the toll winter had taken on the old place. The ground-breaking for Virginia’s new school, which Cara, with reservations, had agreed to name the Virginia Sutton Free Public School of Henry Adams, would not be held for another few weeks, because planting came first. Cara held classes in the A.M.E. Church in the interim.

Cara’s tutoring of Virginia also continued, though in the evenings, now that Cara’s days were once again busy. Speculation ran rampant as to Miles Sutton’s whereabouts, but Virginia never mentioned him, nor did Cara.

One evening in early May, they were in Virginia’s sumptuous study going over the lesson for the week. Virginia had made tremendous progress over the winter, which Cara attributed to her
strong will and determination. While Virginia was reading to Cara, the study door suddenly opened.

“Excuse me,” said Frances, one of Virginia’s servants. “I know you said not to disturb you,” she added in an apologetic manner, “but—”

Miles Sutton appeared from behind Frances and explained drolly, “What she’s trying to say is that I wouldn’t go away. How are you, Mother?”

“Thank you, Frances. I’ll take care of things from here,” Virginia said, eyeing Miles.

Frances nodded and withdrew, closing the door quietly.

Cara viewed him with contempt and some measure of satisfaction. Being on the run had not served him well. He no longer looked like the rich dandy who owned a saloon. He was unshaven and his clothes were soiled. His face bore the scars of a fight, and it’s handsomeness had been permanently marred by the breaking of his nose. Must have been some fight, Cara mused, pleased. She looked away from him and began to gather up her things. “Mrs. Sutton, we can finish this some other time.”

“No, Cara, please don’t leave. Miles won’t be staying.”

As if his mother hadn’t spoken, he came over and took a casual look at the books and papers spread out on the table.

“What’s this?” he asked, picking up one of the primers. “Well, since I can read, and we all know Cara can, too, does this mean you’re finally trying to educate yourself, Mother?” He tossed the book back onto the table. “It’s about time. No telling how much you’ve been cheated over the years because of your ignorance.” And he laughed.

Cara saw Virginia’s jaw tighten and her eyes
flash. However, when she spoke, her voice was calm. “Why are you here?”

“I’m a wanted man, Mother. Wanted men need money.”

“And you expect me to hand some over?”

“You’re my mother. Of course I do.”

Virginia shook her head. “No more money, Miles. Not for gamblers, or pregnant girls, or anything else. I won’t be bailing you out anymore. You cost this woman her child. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

His eyes held Cara’s. “Well, I think we’re about even. Cara, did Mother tell you what your soldier did to me?”

“No,” Cara responded. “But be grateful he let you live, Miles. He didn’t want to.”

“Grateful? For what? The broken nose and shattered jaw? Or maybe you mean the three busted ribs and the blood that I pissed for four days? Yeah, I’m very grateful.”

Care gave him a smug smile.

“Smile all you like, Cara, but if I meet him again I’ll kill him.”

“I’ll be sure to tell him,” Cara replied.

“Would you listen to yourself talking about killing someone?” Virginia snapped. “Why don’t you turn yourself in to Sheriff Polk and put an end to all of this?”

“No, Mother, territorial prison is not for me.”

“Then you did cheat those people?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Cara wondered how Virginia would react when she found he had also been involved in the robbery of the mail coaches and the death of the drivers. So far, the warrants issued for Miles pertained only to his activities back East. The investigation surrounding
the robberies was still ongoing, though close to closure, according to Sheriff Polk.

“Let’s just say, not even your money can buy me out of this one,” Miles was saying in answer to his mother’s question. “But you have to understand that after they dismissed me from school I had no money.”

“More gambling,” Virginia snapped.

“Yes,” Miles echoed in feigned weariness, “more gambling. I’m sure everybody in the state of Kansas knows I was dismissed for running games in Howard’s dormitories at night.”

“Crooked games,” Virginia pointed out.

“Touché. But those sissies got what they deserved. Do you know what they nicknamed me the first day on campus? Seed.” He sneered. “Short for Miles Cottonseed. They laughed at my Spanish-cut suits, my boots, the way I spoke. I hated them.” His gray eyes flashed. Then he turned to Cara and smiled as he said, “But they didn’t laugh at the way I played poker or my success with their pampered women. Unlike you, my precious Cara, Eastern women loved me.”

“Why didn’t you find a job, Miles?” Cara asked. “You took people’s life savings.”

Virginia offered an explanation. “Because before he started running the Lady, he’d never worked for a thing in his life. Your father saw to that, didn’t he, Miles?”

“Yes, he did. Pity he’s not still alive. He’d put you in your place soon enough.”

Cara had never heard anyone speak to a parent so scathingly. She thought the remark especially cruel knowing the abuse to which Ezra Sutton had subjected Virginia for so many years.

He turned away from his mother’s icy anger and spoke to Cara. “So, you see, I didn’t look for
a job. But I got lucky. I was walking through a park in Washington one afternoon, trying to figure out where my next meal would come from, and I happened upon an emigration rally. I listened for a while and at the end they passed the hat. I was impressed by how much they hauled in, so I became a missionary. It was easy. And in reality, I did those people a favor. What did they know about Liberia or South America? They were better off staying here where at least they know what they’re facing.”

“Oh, Miles,” Virginia said in a tone that was part pity and part disgust. “I’m not giving you any money. The only thing I can do for you is not tell Sheriff Polk you were here until morning, and that’s only because you are my son. But don’t come back here. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

He observed Virginia a moment and drawled, “Such dramatics. Next you’ll be threatening to disinherit me.”

Virginia smiled bitterly. “You always were smarter than you let on.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

Virginia’s expression did not change.

He became angry then. “That money is mine!”

Virginia was angry, too. “Not a cent of what I’ve earned is yours.”

“That money’s
supposed
to come to me.”

“Why? Because you say it does? Miles, I’ll give it to the Democrats before I leave you a dime. Now get out of my house before I have someone ride for Sheriff Polk right now.”

Cara thought he would explode. “This isn’t the last card, Mother dear. Not by a long shot.”

He turned his blazing eyes on Cara and said in
a softly sinister tone, “I’ll see you again, too. I promise.”

On June first, a star-filled night, Chase returned home. He let himself in quietly so as not to awaken his sleeping wife, put down his gear, and silently mounted the stairs.

At first, Care thought it was just another of her vivid dreams. Her nocturnal imagination had conjured him up on many many occasions in nights past. She felt the caress of his hands, the fleeting pressure of his lips, the heady rasping of her name. His strokings were as potent as any reality and she arched her body for more.

“I should awaken you this way all the time,” he murmured hotly against her ear. The feathery warmth of his breath pierced the dream. Slowly, she opened her eyes.

His mustache was the first thing she saw. Still groggy with sleep, she sat up partily and asked, “Is that really you?”

His hands beneath the covers were doing wanton things to her.

“What do you think?”

Her answer was a soft drawn-out moan.

He spent the rest of the night convincing his wife that he was indeed real. By the time the sun rose, Cara had no doubts at all.

The raising of the new school was held the next day and turned into a community affair. People from all over the Valley came to help, bringing with them their families and a dish to pass at the potluck. Chase and Cara were among the first to arrive at the cleared field behind the church. Ignoring Cara’s statement that she could swing a hammer as well as some of the men and would not be relegated to women’s work, Chase helped
her down from the buggy, then, with a firm yet polite guiding hand under her elbow, escorted her over to where Sophie and the other women were gathered. He left her in their care and went off to find Asa. Sophie silenced Cara’s fuming by showing her Asa’s final drawing of the school. It bore little resemblance to Cara’s original idea of a modest one-story structure. Asa and Virginia had gotten together and added rooms, breezeways, and a steepled roof. The drawing left Cara speechless.

As the morning sun climbed to afternoon height, the day took on a beauty that was exclusive to the month of June. The sky was an endless blue above, and the sun bore down gently instead of with the blistering vengeance of the summer months to come. More and more people arrived with more and more food. Soon two long tables were filled with offerings.

The floor of the new school had been lain and completed, and now the walls were being raised. The children were running back and forth, and more than a few had to be cautioned about getting in the way of the workers. In the end, Cara rounded up all the children. With a ready, set, go, she raced them to a point out in the field some distance away from the main gathering. With Cara leading the way, they played kickball and baseball and tag. They had a grasshopper hunt and played leapfrog. By the time they were waved in for supper, Cara was too tired to join the foot race back. She let those with the energy run; she and a few of the younger ones chose to walk. She sent the children straight to the pump behind the church to wash up. When they were finished, she took her turn.

With so many people milling about and standing in line for the food tables, Cara gave up trying
to locate Chase for the moment. Once people had their plates and began to find seats at the tables set up on the field, the crowd would thin enough for her to locate him. She waited in the line for her turn, filled her plate, and went off in search of her husband.

Cara saw him across the field seated at a table with the Three Spinsters and Mae Dexter. Having heard that Mae had come home from her first year at Oberlin, Cara was anxious to learn how the year had gone. There was a woman seated next to Mae. Cara almost dropped her plate in astonishment when she saw who it was. Laura Pope! The same Laura Pope who’d claimed to be Chase’s fiancée back in Topeka three years ago. What in the world was she doing in Henry Adams? Chase was saying something to her but looked up with a smile when Cara neared.

“Hi, darlin’.”

Mae also had a smile. “Oh, Oberlin was everything you said it would be. I can’t wait for classes to resume.”

Cara acknowledged the Three Spinsters with a kiss on each of their cheeks. Chase slid down the bench a bit to make room for her at his side, and she sat, looking into the cool, brown-eyed gaze of Laura Pope. Cara took in the little confection of a hat perched so pertly atop her glossy braided hair, and the expensive cut of her matching dark green jacket and skirt.

“Cara, you remember Laura Pope?” Chase said.

“Yes, I do. We met in Topeka, if I’m not mistaken. What brings you to Henry Adams, Miss Pope?”

“I’m here to look over some property for my father’s bank.”

“I met her on the train ride to Ellis last night,” Mae said.

Laura took up the rest of the story. “I’m staying over at the hotel. When Mayor Dexter told me about the new school, I asked if I might join the gathering.”

“Welcome,” Cara said, trying not to dislike the woman. “I hope you enjoy your stay.”

Cara began to eat.

“I was surprised to find Chase here, of all places,” Laura said.

Cara stopped eating, fork poised in midair, and looked into Laura’s beautiful face. It wasn’t the remark so much that rubbed Cara the wrong way, but the tone. Cara turned to her husband, who shrugged, then back to the woman. Rather than be the cause of yet another ruckus, and speak out of turn, Cara ignored the remark.

The Three Spinsters did not.

Lucretia was eyeing Miss Pope with a look that said she, too, had taken offense. She asked, “And just where would you expect our Sergeant Jefferson to be, Miss Pope? He and his wife do live here, after all.”

Daisy added, “One wouldn’t expect him to be in Paris.”

The spinsters laughed at their own cleverness. Cara smiled around a mouth filled with some of Dulcie’s fine potato salad.

“And you know,” Rachel said, leaning down so the young woman could be certain to see the censure in Rachel’s black eyes, “if there’s something wrong with our town maybe your father’s bank should look elsewhere.”

Laura had drawn up as stiff as a statue.

Mae spoke up for her guest. “I’m sure she didn’t mean there was anything wrong with our town.”

Laura finally found her voice. “Mae’s right, of course. Your town is charming. I’ve spent most of the past two years in Boston. This is my first trip back. I’d forgotten how rustic everything is. Have you ever been East, Cara?”

“Ohio is as far East as I’ve gone.”

“Ah, you’re from the South then?”