The Captive Within (A Prairie Heritage, Book 4) (30 page)

At least I need no longer worry about Dean Morgan.
Bao’s sources inside Fang-Hua’s house had assured them that Morgan had fled Seattle
for parts unknown. Morgan hoped to never encounter Fang-Hua Chen again.

O’Dell had his own experience with Fang-Hua to reflect on.
It was she who had ordered her thugs to thrash O’Dell and leave him to die.

I should have died,
O’Dell vividly recalled,
I
would have died, but for God himself sparing my life.

O’Dell had spent weeks in the hospital and weeks recovering
in the little house Minister Liáng had rented to hide O’Dell from Fang-Hua. Now
it was Bao who hid there from Fang-Hua, but he was not alone: The same nurse
who had cared for O’Dell when he was released from the hospital was Bao’s
companion.

Darla
.

When O’Dell had left Seattle two weeks ago, Darla had asked
if he would write to her. He had agreed—but he had not done so as yet. He had
sent only a short and cryptic wire to Minister Liáng:
Luke 15:6
. O’Dell
knew Liáng would understand when he looked for and read the verse,

And
when he cometh home,
he calleth together his friends and neighbours,
saying unto them, Rejoice with me;
for I have found my sheep which was lost.

The newspapers were carrying the news that Su-Chong, an
escapee from the Denver jail, was dead as the result of being shot during the
commission of a burglary—but the papers carried nothing of Mei-Xing.

O’Dell’s influence with Chief Groves had seen to that: Mei-Xing
had been removed from the apartment where Su-Chong had hidden her—and where he
had bled to death—without local reporters being the wiser. Liáng would read the
wire and work out that O’Dell had found Mei-Xing and that she was safe.

However, Liáng would
not
know the whole story until
O’Dell provided him with it.
He would not know that Mei-Xing was carrying
Fang-Hua’s grandchild until O’Dell returned to Seattle.

O’Dell shivered. Minister Liáng, Bao, and Miss Greenbow
deserved to know the details—details that could not be trusted to a letter. But
first O’Dell had orders to report to the Chicago Pinkerton office. He would
wire Liáng again to say his return to Seattle would be delayed.

O’Dell stepped into his hotel room, scrawled the contents of
the wire to Liáng, and began to pack his bag.

Two uniformed policemen delivered the news of Su-Chong’s
death to his parents. Su-Chong’s father, Wei Lin Chen, displayed no emotion as
the officers described where Su-Chong’s body had been discovered and how he had
died. Fang-Hua also remained silent and implacable, but the strength left her
legs and she sank to the floor.

Servants rushed to assist her; Wei Lin gave little attention
to her distress.

Su-Chong had died a bad death.

He was unmarried. He had no children to prepare the funeral
for him. He was worthy of no respect—and the manner of his death was a further
disgrace to his family.

His body would not be brought into the Chen’s house or
courtyard. No white cloth would hang over the front doorway to the Chen’s home
proclaiming their loss. No gong would stand to the left of their doorway.
Friends and relatives would not visit or gather to mourn.

His body would be kept at a funeral home and his parents
would not publicly grieve him. The funeral would be short, small, and silent.

Fang-Hua twisted her face into a mask that betrayed no
emotion, and yet the emotions roiled within.
My son! My son is dead!
Her
pain slammed inside her chest with each thudding beat of her heart.

Later, Fang-Hua and Wei Lin read the newspaper reports of
Su-Chong’s death without speaking. They read how he had been shot
while
stealing
.

A bad death indeed.

Anger flared in Fang-Hua’s breast—anger toward the chit of a
girl who had cast off Su-Chong’s affections, causing him to leave his home and
family in the first place. Anger toward the man she called
Reggie
for
taking Su-Chong into his service, making Su-Chong vulnerable to arrest. Even
anger toward her son for forsaking his familial duty, for his obsession with a
woman—an inconsequential
girl
—not worthy of him.

The newspapers made no mention of Mei-Xing Li, and
Fang-Hua’s eyes narrowed. To where had the little whore disappeared? Fang-Hua’s
men had searched all of Denver for months and had discovered no trace of Mei-Xing.

She toyed with the possibility that Su-Chong had killed Mei-Xing
and hidden her body where it would never be found. The idea did not sit right
with her. No,
somehow
the girl had escaped—and that thought only served
to incense Fang-Hua more.

Where has the little chit hidden herself all this time?
she raged.
Why were my men unable to find her?

The days after Su-Chong’s body was delivered to the funeral
home were no different from any ordinary days. His burial was accomplished with
no fanfare, no publicity, no ceremonial respect. Afterward, Wei Lin went to his
office and Fang-Hua attended to her duties.

Outwardly Fang-Hua was cool and composed, but inwardly she
screamed in pain and frustration. And unease.

She watched Wei Lin warily. Her husband had to be
considering the deeper implications of Su-Chong’s death on his own lineage and
the Chen family line. Those implications terrified Fang-Hua.

The fact was, Wei Lin required another son, and Fang-Hua
could not give him one.

The one son Fang-Hua had borne and the financial power she
wielded in her own right had been all that had kept Wei Lin attached to her.
But
now Su-Chong was gone.
Wei Lin could—would likely—divorce Fang-Hua and
marry a young woman capable of giving him many sons.

A servant interrupted to announce unexpected visitors:
Jinhai and Ting-Xiu Li.

What? The little whore’s parents?
The rage burning
within Fang-Hua tore at her belly. With great self-control she tamped it down.

I can give nothing away
, she whispered to herself.
I
must speak and show nothing to make them or Wei Lin suspicious of me.

She no longer had to fear her son exposing her secrets to
her husband. That danger, at least, was past. Only Bao Shin Xang and Mei-Xing
Li—
a living Mei-Xing who should be dead!
—posed threats.

Prudence required Fang-Hua to remain unperturbed and
gracious to the Lis, thanking them for their visit, though it was
unwarranted—even inappropriate!—given the circumstances of Su-Chong’s death.

The servant ushered Jinhai and Ting-Xiu Li into the room.
They were dressed in formal black, the only color suitable for an unmarried
son’s death. Jinhai bowed and his wife followed suit.

How I hate them!
Fang-Hua sneered within herself.
Oh,
if only Jinhai knew what I know, how I have defiled their daughter,
she
gloated. But, of course, she and Wei Lin were “close family friends” with the
Lis. Fang-Hua would be forced to accept their condolences—uncalled for as they
were—most graciously.

What was this?
She had not been following the
conversation and now Jinhai was babbling about something . . .
something unsuitably sincere for the occasion.

“. . . and so we grieved as you must be grieving, behind
closed doors, not even able to mourn her publicly,” Jinhai murmured, his eyes
downcast. “We were cut to our cores, and nothing could console us. Until we met
with a Christian minister. He showed us from the Christian Bible how to have a
relationship with the living God, the Creator of all things.

“Such peace we now have in our souls!” he exclaimed. “Such
happiness in our hearts. And so we have come, humbly, to offer our sympathy and
to also offer to share what we have found in Jesus, the Christian Savior. We—”

“
Thank
you . . .” Fang-Hua
interrupted, drawling her words, “for your
concern
for us. Your
friendship with our family has always been and will always remain a great . . .
honor
.”

Although her words were spoken in a soft and silky voice and
her face remained placid, her eyes sought out Jinhai’s and hardened.

You should know that I hate you and yours,
Fang-Hua
told him with her eyes.
With my words I honor you, but look into my soul,
Jinhai Li. Look deeply and see how I despise you.

Jinhai stammered to a stop, the hairs on the back of his
neck pricking and rising. Fang-Hua’s gleaming eyes belied the sweet words she
mouthed. The ill will emanating from her was palpable.

Disturbed and shaken, Jinhai bowed deeply; his wife,
although confused, followed suit. “Please call on us if we can assist you in
any way,” Jinhai murmured, his words soft. He backed away, pulling his wife
with him, and left the Chen home.

~~**~~

(End
of Excerpt)

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Gentlemen of the jury: You heard with what
cold cruelty the prosecution referred to the sins of this woman, as if her
condition were of her own preference. The evidence has painted you a picture of
her life and surroundings. Do you think that they were embraced of her own
choosing? Do you think that she willingly embraced a life so revolting and
horrible? Ah, no! Gentlemen, one of our own sex was the author of her ruin,
more to blame than she.

Then let us judge her gently. What could be
more pathetic than the spectacle she presents? An immortal soul in ruin! Where
the star of purity once glittered on her girlish brow, burning shame has set
its seal and forever. And only a moment ago, they reproached her for the depths
to which she had sunk, the company she kept, the life she led. Now, what else
is left her? Where can she go and her sin not pursue her? Gentlemen, the very
promises of God are denied her. He said: "Come unto me all ye that labor
and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." She has indeed labored, and
is heavily laden, but if, at this instant she were to kneel before us all and
confess to her Redeemer and beseech His tender mercies, where is the church
that would receive her? And even if they accepted her, when she passed the
portals to worship and to claim her rest, scorn and mockery would greet her;
those she met would gather around them their spirits the more closely to avoid
the pollution of her touch. And would you tell me a single employment where she
can realize "Give us our daily bread?"

Our sex wrecked her once pure life. Her own
sex shrink from her as they would the pestilence. Society has reared its
relentless walls against her, and only in the friendly shelter of the grave can
her betrayed and broken heart ever find the Redeemer's promised rest.

They told you of her assumed names, as
fleeting as the shadows on the walls, of her sins, her habits, but they never
told you of her sorrows, and who shall tell what her heart, sinful though it
may be, now feels? When the remembered voices of mother and sisters, whom she
must see no more on this earth, fall again like music on her erring soul, and
she prays God that she could only return, and must not—no—not in this life, for
the seducer has destroyed the soul.

You know the story of the prodigal son, but he
was a son. He was one of us, like her destroyers; but for the prodigal daughter
there is no return. Were she with her wasted form and bleeding feet to drag
herself back to home, she, the fallen and the lost, which would be her welcome?
Oh, consider this when you come to decide her guilt, for she is before us and
we must judge her. They (the prosecution) sneer and scoff at her. One should
respect her grief, and I tell you that there reigns over her penitent and
chastened spirit a desolation now that none, no, none but the Searcher of all
hearts can ever know.

None of us are utterly evil, and I remember
that when the Saffron Scourge swept over the city of Memphis in 1878, a
courtesan there opened wide the doors of her gilded palace of sin to admit the
sufferers, and when the scythe of the Reaper swung fast and pitiless, she was
angelic in her ministering. Death called her in the midst of her mercies, and
she went to join those she tried to save. She, like those the Lord forgave, was
a sinner, and yet I believe that in the days of reckoning her judgment will be
lighter than those who would prosecute and seek to drive off the earth such
poor unfortunates as her whom you are to judge.

They wish to fine this woman and make her
leave. They wish to wring from the wages of her shame the price of this
meditated injustice; to take from her the little money she might have—and God
knows, gentlemen, it came hard enough. The old Jewish law told you that the
price of a dog, nor the bite of such as she, should come not within the house
of the Lord, and I say unto you that our justice, fitly symbolized by this
woman's form, does not ask that you add to the woes of this unhappy one, one
only asks at your hands the pitiful privilege of being left alone.

The Master, while on Earth, while He spake in
wrath and rebuke to the kings and rulers, never reproached one of these. One he
forgave. Another he acquitted. You remember both—and now looking upon this
friendless outcast, if any of you can say to her, 'I am holier than thou' in
the respect which she is charged with sinning, who is he? The Jews who brought
the woman before the Savior have been held up to execution for two thousand
years. I always respected them. A man who will yield to the reproaches of his
conscience as they did has the element of good in him, but the modern hypocrite
has no such compunctions. If the prosecutors of the woman whom you are trying
had brought her before the Savior, they would have accepted His challenge and
each one gathered a rock and stoned her, in the twinkling of an eye. No,
Gentlemen, do as your Master did twice under the same circumstances that
surround you. Tell her to go in peace.

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soiled_Dove_Plea
. Public Domain.

~~**~~