Whistler in the Dark (14 page)

“And you followed us all the way from Chicago,” Mother murmured. “Merciful heaven.”

For a moment no one spoke. Mrs. Sloane dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. A moth fluttered against the oil lamp burning on a corner table.

Then Emma remembered. “But why did you want the newspaper to fail? I mean …” She felt her cheeks flush. “It was you, wasn't it? Who stole the press lever, and burned the paper, and—”

“No!” George shook his head. “I don't know anything about that! I wouldn't do
anything
to hurt you ladies!” He looked at Mother. “You got to believe me! I promised the captain!”

Mother put a calming hand on his arm. “We
do
believe you, Mr. Troxwell. I know my husband—” Her voice shook, and she took a deep breath to steady it. “I know he would be most grateful for your concern. As I am.” She cocked her head, considering. “It's getting very late, but I'd like to talk with you again. Where are you staying?”

“I work for Nels Torkelson. He lets me sleep in the stable.”

“May Emma and I visit you?”

George agreed and took his leave, looking relieved to escape the parlor. Mrs. Sloane disappeared, and Mule Tom left, too. Mother narrowed her eyes at Emma. “You should have
told
me about—”

“Excuse me, Mother, but I need to introduce Tildy.” Emma gratefully turned to Tildy, who looked bewildered by the evening's events. “She's the one I told you about. Her husband ran off and left her. She's been walking to town and dancing with the men at the saloon to earn money for a newspaper subscription.”

“Merciful heaven!” Mother said again. She summoned an exhausted smile for Tildy. “Then it is indeed a pleasure to meet you.”

“I'm ever so excited about the newspaper,” Tildy said. “But I didn't mean to poke in on a family time.” She turned to Emma. “Blackjack said you were looking for me?”

“I wanted to let you know about your land deed. Mother said you should have one. When I asked Mr. Spaulding, he said he just forgot to give it to you.”

“Well, that explains it.” Tildy nodded. “But I don't think I'll hound him about it for a day or two. He had a bad night, I think.”

“Why do you say that?” Emma asked.

Tildy's face flushed in the lamplight. “Oh, it's none of my business, I guess. But I was taking a rest tonight, sitting back in the corner by that private room—I do that, sometimes, when my feet start to ache—and through the door I heard Blackjack and Mr. Spaulding get in a terrible row That room's where the high-stakes games are, and it sounded like Mr. Spaulding lost tonight. Real quick and real bad. Mr. Spaulding wanted to keep going on credit, and Blackjack wouldn't give it to him.”

“If this town survives, it will be in spite of Mr. Spaulding, not because of him,” Mother murmured. But she was staring out the window, clearly thinking more about personal events than Mr. Spaulding's ever-growing list of faults.

After Tildy left, Mother blew out the lamp and put her arm around Emma's shoulders as they walked toward the stairs. “Well, it's been a night for surprises,” she said. “Not the least of which is seeing you in your Reform Dress.”

Emma stared at her legs. Thunderation! So much for changing into her dress before anyone saw her. Emma decided to change the subject before Mother had a chance to ask why Emma was wearing the Reform Dress. She wasn't ready to describe her ridiculous quest to “look with a bird's eye.”

“What do you think of Mr. Troxwell?” she asked instead. “How strange, to follow us all the way to Colorado—whistling!”

“He was clearly devoted to your father. I think we also need to remember that Mr. Troxwell obviously received a severe head wound. That, on top of seeing your father killed … well, he may be … not quite … the whole man he was before the war.” Mother shook her head. “I do believe he meant well, though. And oh, Emma! Think of the stories he can tell us about your father!”

Yes, that part would be wonderful. At the moment, though, all Emma could think of was a good night's sleep, uninterrupted by whistling in the dark. But just as the two of them started up the staircase, someone knocked lightly on the front door. Then Mule Tom stepped inside.

“Miz Henderson, I'm real sorry,” he said, “but there's more trouble at the print shop.”

The lantern in Mule Tom's hand cast a glow on the mess. Emma clenched her fists. The precious ink keg had been dumped over, spilling a black pool into the sawdust. Pencils and coffee cups lay on the floor. A crease-pressing bone had been snapped in two. A few copies of the prospectus had been crumpled and tossed aside. Several articles Mother had written, left waiting to be set in type, had been torn to bits. Scrawled across one sheet in dark pencil were two words:

GO HOME!

“I must have left the door unlocked when I set out to look for Miss Emma,” Mule Tom said in a low tone. “I'm more sorry than I can tell, Miz Henderson.”

“It's not your fault,” Mother said woodenly. “You found my daughter. That's all that really matters.”

Emma felt a weight of guilt settle on her shoulders. Then her gaze picked out something in the rubble, almost hidden beneath the tin coffeepot. “Oh, no!” she breathed, crouching to examine the damage. Her mother's daguerreotype of Captain Henderson lay facedown on the floor. When Emma eased the case up, she saw that the glass image had shattered.

The next morning, Mother, Mule Tom, and Emma began the cleanup. Emma tried not to remember the sight of her father's image in jagged shards. Who could be so cruel? What else would happen if the Hendersons
didn't
give up? But if they did quit … what then? They had no money. Would they live in a tent and take in miners' filthy laundry to survive?

For a while they worked in silence. We
have
to make
The Herald
succeed, Emma finally concluded, because we don't have any other choice. She paused from scraping ink-soaked sawdust into a pile. “Mother … Mr. Abbott's brother needs our first edition by Monday morning, or he'll have to leave for Indiana without it. And tomorrow is Sunday. Do you think we can still get the newspaper out in time?”

“I honestly don't know,” Mother sighed. “Our new paper shipment is due tonight. But my articles …” She gestured at the scraps of paper.

“You can write them again,” Emma dared. “I know you can.”

“Well … probably. But we lost our ink. Although I suppose I could improvise some, if we can scare up enough lampblack and oil. And perhaps the Lord would understand if just this once we went to work after Sunday school tomorrow.” She hesitated. “Mule Tom, what do you think? Are you willing to stick it out?”

“Yes, ma'am.” He nodded calmly.

Mother chewed her lower lip. “I must say, this has unnerved me. And I am so disappointed with Mr. Spaulding that I'm starting not to care whether he gets his newspaper or not.”

“But we're not just doing this for him!” Emma protested. “We're doing this for Jeremy's family, and Tildy Pearce, and—and everybody else who's counting on us.”

Mother mustered a smile. “You remind me of your father sometimes, Emma. Yes, you're right. And you and I can't afford to give up anyway. I'll talk to the men on the Safety Committee. Maybe they can help keep an eye on things for us.”

When Jeremy arrived, he and Mule Tom headed out to scrounge the ink supplies. By the time noon approached, the print shop was tidy and Mother was already rewriting one of her articles. “Shall I fetch you some dinner, Mother?” Emma asked.

“What? Is it so late?” Mother rubbed the fingers of her writing hand absently. “I'm not hungry. You go on. I want to get this down while it's still in my head.”

Dinner at the boardinghouse included stewed gooseberries and sputtering-hot squabs served on rice, an adequate meal unfortunately marred by the addition of heavy, sour biscuits. Neither Dixie John nor Blackjack appeared. Miss Amaretta passed the meal in conversation with a young wife who'd just arrived in Twin Pines and was resting over a day before traveling on to the goldfields to meet her husband.

Emma toyed with her food, twisting her mind around her problems. The whistling business had been sorted out, but she still had no idea who was trying so hard to keep
The Twin Pines Herald
from being published. If Blackjack or Dixie John was behind it, she didn't know why, or how to prove it. She pulled out her notebook and opened it discreetly on her lap. She read over her notes. Only one suspect hadn't been questioned.

“And I've heard,” Miss Amaretta advised the miner's wife, “that if you sit out in the evening, you ought to start little fires of pine needles in frying pans and set several of them about. The smoke keeps mosquitoes away.”

The other woman nodded earnestly. “I do appreciate the advice.”

Emma watched the exchange, considering her final suspect. Was it possible that Miss Amaretta was so opposed to Mother's Reform Dress ideas that she'd try to shut the paper down? Emma simply couldn't believe it. Besides, the press handle had been stolen before Miss Amaretta ever saw Mother wearing her Reform Dress. Still … asking a few good reporter questions couldn't do any harm. Emma didn't know what else to do.

Mrs. Sloane began to clear the dishes, and the miner's wife headed off to Mr. Boggs's store. Emma cleared her throat. “Miss Amaretta, may we talk for a few minutes?”

“Why, of course, dear! Come up to my room.” Miss Amaretta led the way, holding her pale green skirt high enough to keep from tripping without showing so much as an ankle. It was an art Emma couldn't help admiring.

Miss Amaretta had managed to turn Mrs. Sloane's bare-bones room into a gracious retreat. Crocheted doilies covered the bureau and table, and lace curtains framed the windows. A pot of sprawling ivy stood in a wicker stand in the corner. Paintings of sweet-faced children and vases of flowers graced the walls.

“Oh!” A wave of homesickness drenched Emma. She stopped in front of one of the paintings. “Did you do this?”

“Oh, no. I'm no artist. I had it carted out from home.”

“I like to paint,” Emma admitted shyly. “I was learning about still lifes before we moved here.”

Miss Amaretta smiled. “If you'd like to pick some flowers and arrange them in here to paint, you're welcome any time. Although I should think you'd rather paint flowers in the meadows, where God put them. I can't think of anything lovelier.”

“Your room is lovely!”

“I suppose I've indulged myself, bringing so many things out from the East. But I like to feel at home.” Miss Amaretta settled into one of the chairs in a small sitting area. “I hope to rent a little house one day, when I can afford it. I do fancy a true home.”

“Mr. Spaulding was supposed to provide a house for Mother and me,” Emma said, settling in the other chair. “It would be nice to have my own room again. And a kitchen.”

“Gracious, yes!” Miss Amaretta lowered her voice. “Mrs. Sloane is an admirable housekeeper. But her cooking! Once, soon after I arrived, she made a cake and mistook cayenne pepper for ginger! One of the guests didn't stop coughing for ten minutes.”

“And her biscuits are horrible!” Emma whispered, remembering Mrs. Littleton's buttermilk and soda biscuits: a good three inches high, crisp on the bottom and fluffy in the middle.

Miss Amaretta put a kind hand on Emma's arm. “I'm sorry life brought you to Twin Pines. I imagine you'd rather be back east, with your friends.”

Emma
would
rather be back east … but saying so seemed disloyal to Mother, and to her new friends—like Jeremy and Tildy—too. She jumped to her feet and prowled the room like a restless cat. She paused in front of Miss Amaretta's bureau, admiring the intricate silver inlay on her brush and comb. Then she noticed the mirror hanging above the bureau, and she caught her breath. The oval of reflective glass was encased in a heavy wooden frame. The wood was swirled with the same pattern she'd admired years ago, in her father's safebox. Emma touched the wood with a gentle finger, hearing again her father's laugh. She blinked several times, hard.

“Emma?” Miss Amaretta appeared in the mirror behind her, looking concerned.

Emma tried to smile. “I was just … just admiring this. My father had a box made of this same kind of swirly wood.”

“It's lovely, isn't it? It's bird's-eye maple. I brought this from Ohio—Emma? Emma!”

“Excuse me!” Emma shouted, bolting for the door.

C
HAPTER
13

T
HE
B
OX

Showing far more than an ankle, Emma skidded into her own room and slammed the door. Sprawling belly-down on her bed, she opened her notebook to a clean page. On the left side she listed all the attacks made on the newspaper. Then, digging back through her memory, she started another list opposite the first: