Messenger by Moonlight Read online

  “Joseph,” Emmet was saying, “found himself in a far country because of terrible things he couldn’t control. But God never lost track of Joseph.” He paused. “He won’t lose track of us, either.”

  Annie nodded. She remembered the story. She hoped it meant what Emmet said. She liked the way he could be counted on to share comfort from the Bible. Ma’s Bible, actually. He read it morning and night. Sometimes he read it aloud, although most of the time he kept it to himself. Annie knew that was because Frank was like Pa when it came to religion. Neither of them had any use for it.

  One thing she did remember clearly was the day after Ma’s funeral, when Emmet brought Ma’s Bible to breakfast with him, planning to read one of Ma’s favorite passages to the four of them. One she’d underlined, he said. But Emmet didn’t so much as get the Bible opened before Pa grabbed it and threw it across the room. Then he stormed out the back door, leaving his eggs and grits to grow cold. After that, Emmet did his Bible reading when Pa wasn’t around. When Annie mentioned remembering Ma reciting the Shepherd’s Psalm, Emmet helped her learn it—on the sly. Frank never showed any interest.

  Emmet had also talked about Joseph and God’s keeping track of him when he’d told his sweetheart about the Paxtons’ losing the farm. Sixteen-year-old Luvina Aiken had promised to wait, but Annie had witnessed that promise, and while she knew very little about love, she knew quite a lot about emotions, and it seemed to her that pale, prim Luvina’s were decidedly lukewarm. She hadn’t shed a tear. It seemed to Annie that a woman in love ought to show a little more enthusiasm.

  Annie hoped she was wrong. For all she knew, the girl was making quilts for her hope chest and counting the days until she could keep house for Emmet. In the meantime, Annie had her own dreams, and they revolved around keeping house, too—for her brothers in St. Jo. As the wagon creaked along the rutted road, Annie closed her eyes and envisioned it. Four rooms would do, one for living and cooking, and three for sleeping. They would paint the exterior white and the trim blue. She would ask Frank to build window boxes where she’d plant sweet peas to spill out and down like a blooming waterfall.

  When she really let her imagination fly, Annie envisioned a front porch where she could sit and have her morning coffee and keep an eye on everything going on just beyond a picket fence nearly hidden beneath yards of rambling rosebushes. She imagined a vegetable garden and a medium-sized dog to bark and announce company, and a cat to keep mice out of the pantry.

  Once they had jobs and a new home in St. Jo., Emmet would realize that losing the farm was for the best. He certainly deserved better than a battered cabin and a drunken father and land that grew very little besides waist-high thistles. In St. Joseph, he could work toward something better—the future he wanted with Luvina. They could all work toward something better.

  Annie hadn’t said anything about it to Frank or Emmet yet, but she’d decided that as soon as they were settled she would see about getting a job as a cook. Ma had been a cook at a big hotel when she met Pa, and while the Paxtons had never been able to afford much in the way of cuisine—Ma said that meant fancy cooking—still, Annie remembered her doing things like sprinkling cinnamon on grits. She remembered bunches of herbs hanging from twine strung between the rafters of the cabin. She remembered smiles around the supper table.

  She would get a job as a cook and learn new things and one day she would gather her family around the table and serve delicious food. Instead of gulping down whatever was before them for the sole purpose of staving off their ever-present hunger, they would take their time. They would smile and say things like, Trying something new? We love your cooking, Ma. How come everything’s always so good? We love you, Ma. There was a shadowy “Pa” somewhere in that daydream, too, and now that they were leaving the farm, Annie let herself think about the possibilities. Maybe she’d meet “him” in St. Jo. She allowed a little smile. The Lord is my shepherd. As far as Annie was concerned, the farther they got from the farm, the more the future shimmered with bright promise.

  The world seemed a little less “shimmery” as the day went on—mostly because of the growing concern that Bart and Bill might not make it to St. Jo. Annie felt bad for the poor mules, their heads hanging low, their hooves barely clearing the earth as they ambled along. What would they all do if Bart and Bill dropped in their traces?

  Around midday, when Frank said they were going to have to walk, Annie immediately thought of the hole in the sole of her right boot. Emmet did, too. “You and I can walk,” he said to Frank and proceeded to climb down. But when Annie moved to join her brothers, Emmet stayed her with his hand. “Those boots of yours won’t take much walking. Besides, you don’t add much to the load, little as you are. Bart and Bill can manage a few extra pounds.”

  Truth be told, there wasn’t much to any of the Paxtons. They were a fine-boned, wiry lot, with twins Annie and Frank not quite five feet tall and Emmet not much taller. Still, with Bart and Bill almost on their last legs, Annie said that every pound would make a difference, and she wasn’t going to be the reason they ended up stranded beside the road with three trunks and no way to move them.

  “That’s our girl,” Frank said. He directed Annie to take off the boot with the biggest hole in the sole and then snatched up dried grass to provide a little extra padding over the folded paper that already shielded her stocking from the earth.

  Emmet slipped his hand beneath the throatlatch at Bart’s head and pulled to keep the team moving. The sun was sinking fast when the wagon finally topped the last hill. The mules seemed to know they were near the end of the journey. They didn’t move any faster, but they lifted their heads and picked up their feet a bit.

  Annie took note of the scarlet-rimmed clouds in the western sky and smiled. Colorful slivers of light, even as night descended. She began to pay attention to the city itself. What she saw as they made their way into St. Joseph fascinated her. In one candlelit room where the drapes were drawn back, a family sat around their dining table. As Annie watched, a maid wearing a white apron presented something to the man sitting with his back to the window. So enthralled was Annie as she watched that she nearly fell when she encountered a rut in the road. She would have fallen if not for Frank’s steadying hand.

  “If you lived there,” he groused, “you’d be the one in the apron—not the one sitting at that fancy table. You’d have a tiny room in the attic and you’d freeze all winter and swelter all summer. And be at some stranger’s beck and call every hour of the day and night.”

  I wouldn’t care. I bet their cook doesn’t have to make do with a tiny stove in a corner. She probably doesn’t have to worry about stretching the grits or making the molasses last, either. If I worked there, I’d be able to set the table with china. And polish the silver. Real silver.

  She thought those things, but Annie didn’t say them. It was pointless to argue with Frank when he was in one of his dark moods, and the set of his jaw and the way one corner of his mouth turned down were evidence enough that such a mood was fast descending. Poor Frank. Only nineteen years old and already sporting a permanent furrow between his eyebrows—a furrow that would only deepen if he didn’t find a way to harvest happiness from life.

  Tucking her hand beneath his elbow, Annie gave his arm an affectionate squeeze. “You’re probably right, but once they tasted my apple dumplings, I bet they’d give me an extra day off and a bigger room, just to keep me on.”

  Frank snorted softly. “And plant you an apple orchard, I suppose.” He was still grousing, but his downturned mouth didn’t look quite so grim.

  “Not an entire orchard, silly,” she teased. “Just a couple of trees would be enough. After all, that yard wasn’t all that big.” She glanced behind them. “Although peach trees and a cherry tree or two would be nice.”

  A faint, lopsided smile appeared. “Don’t forget the raspberry bushes.”

  “And strawberries,” Annie said.

  “And asparagus and a blackberry bramble. I know.”


  “And—”Annie broke off when she caught sight of a massive brick building looming in the distance. Visions of blackberries faded, as she stared at the cupola reaching toward the sky. Four stories. Brick. Iron posts supporting a platform that served not only to protect the main entrance from weather but also to create an observation deck. Annie pointed at the dozen or so well-dressed people gathered there. “They must feel like royalty, gazing down on us.” She peered down the hill. “I bet they can see all the way to the river from up there.”

  Frank harrumphed and muttered something about dandies looking down their noses at the pathetic rig he and Annie were following down the road, but Annie didn’t pay him any mind. She was concentrating on every detail of what was surely one of the finest hotels in the country. Just look at all the chimneys. And the elegant trim just above the top row of windows. And the windows—at least a dozen on a side. Was this the kind of hotel where Ma had met Pa? A girl could surely learn to cook wonderful food working in such a place. Would she dare go through that arched doorway to ask about working there?

  Again, Annie stumbled. This time she was still holding onto Frank’s arm. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a rut in the road that had tripped her up, but a steaming pile of manure. And she’d stepped right in the middle of it. With the boot with the biggest hole in the sole. She crinkled her nose at the idea of removing the manure-soaked newspaper acting as a patch. Hurrying to the side of the street, she did what she could to free the shoe of manure, scraping the bottom and sides along the edge of the boardwalk.

  “Now the stitching’s coming out across the toe,” Frank said. He swore softly.

  “It’ll be all right. I’ll stitch it with some cord. I think I have some in my trunk.”

  “Let me see the other one,” Frank demanded.

  “They’re fine,” Annie said. “Really.”

  Frank pointed toward the hem of her skirt. “Let me see the other one.”

  Reluctantly, Annie extended her other foot. The toe of her red stocking showed through a hole in the leather. “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s not that hard to keep it tucked under my skirt.” She pulled her foot back and tried to erase the frown on his face by teasing. “I hope you’re happy. We’ve probably scandalized one of the fine ladies up on that observation deck.”

  Frank blurted out a response that included some not very complimentary things about “cads who’d never known an honest day’s work and their primping paramours.” Emmet, who’d come back to check on them when he realized Annie and Frank had stopped following the wagon opened his mouth to say something, but Frank held up a hand and apologized. “I know. I shouldn’t talk like that in front of Annie. I’m sorry. It just bothers me. Hiram Hillsdale’s daddy hands him an easy life and what do we get? A drunken father who can’t even keep hold of a failing farm.” He glowered at Emmet. “And I’m in no mood to hear all about how God hasn’t forgotten us and everything’s going to be just fine.” He nodded Annie’s way. “Our sister doesn’t even have a decent pair of shoes.”

  Annie squeezed Frank’s arm. “I do, however, have two superb brothers. And from what I know of him, Mr. Hiram Hillsdale doesn’t have a single family member who so much as speaks to him. That means we’re better off. And I really don’t care about the shoes.”

  “Well I do, and if it’s the last thing—”

  Annie tugged on his arm. “All right. I understand. Just—stop acting like everything is terrible. Terrible is behind us. Think good thoughts, Frank. Good thoughts.”

  Chapter 2

  It wasn’t easy, but Frank managed to keep “good thoughts” all the way to the bottom of the hill. For Annie’s sake if for nothing else. But then they pulled up to the back door of a stone livery and Emmet begged the owner to buy the team and the wagon. Of course Emmet put it a little more subtly than that, but that’s what they were doing. Begging. Frank could barely stand it. He was too embarrassed to so much as look the livery owner in the eye.

  The spry old guy wasn’t exactly rude, but he barely glanced at Bart and Bill before shaking his head. “Can’t think they’d do me any good. I buy and sell some, but these two old boys aren’t fit for much beyond—” He glanced Annie’s way. Didn’t finish the sentence.

  At least the old guy had considered Annie’s feelings before stating the obvious. Bart and Bill weren’t fit for much beyond the meat market. The livery owner nodded toward a large corral where several other mules were lined up at a trough filled with fresh hay. “You can leave them for the night,” he said. “I’d offer you stalls inside, but I’m full up.”

  Frank glanced over at Annie, wondering if she realized what a “good thing” it was for a businessman to so much as consider offering stalls at the livery to people like them. After all, the man had to realize the situation. Then again, only an evil so-and-so would have the heart to turn away blond-haired, blue-eyed Annie Paxton. Who wouldn’t fall under the spell of a girl who could walk into a strange town with shoes so worn they were nearly falling off her feet and encourage her cranky twin brother to “think good things.”

  Annie. If not for his sister, Frank would have signed the farm over to Emmet, wished him well, and left the day Pa was laid to rest. If not for Annie. Guilt washed over him at the flicker of resentment. It’s not her fault. He quieted the tug-of-war inside him and looked over at his sister. She shouldn’t have to stand here in the chill of the evening wondering where she would lay her head tonight. Come heck or high water, he was going to see to it that life got better for Annie. Once that was done—well, then he would be free. Maybe he’d hire on with a wagon boss and see what California had to offer. Shake the last of Missouri off his boots and think good thoughts somewhere else.

  Emmet thanked the livery owner for the offer regarding a place for the mules for the night, then pressed to settle the matter of payment. “If you don’t want to give cash money for the team, would you take the rig in trade for board? The harness isn’t too bad.”

  “To be honest, I heard you coming from up Patee House way. You’re about to lose an axle.” Again, the livery owner looked over at Annie and then back at Emmet. “Tell you what. I’ll look it over in the morning when there’s good light. You can set your trunks inside if you like. For now, though, you should find yourselves a room before it gets too dark. I’ll see to the mules before I lock up. We can talk business in the morning.” He offered his hand and introduced himself. “Name’s Gould, by the way. Ira Gould.”

  Emmet introduced the three of them.

  “What brings you to St. Joseph?”

  “Looking for a fresh start,” Emmet said.

  Frank chimed in. “Our sister, here, has a hankering to conquer the big city.”

  The old man chuckled. “Well, you’d better get to it. Decent rooms tend to be in short supply these days.” He suggested a few boardinghouses and then added, “You’re welcome to just climb up to the loft for the night. It’s a bit dusty, but there’s plenty of fresh hay and the price is right.”

  “Thank you,” Emmet said, “but I hope we don’t have to take you up on it.”

  “Suit yourself. I’ll leave the side door open just in case. And if you do come back, don’t let my other boarder startle you. There’s a bunk in one corner of the barn. I get paid to board freighters now and again. The season’s starting and they’re thick as thieves in St. Jo., competing for contracts to haul supplies west. Luther’s as big as a bear, but he’s harmless—except for snoring loud enough to raise the dead. I’ll introduce you tomorrow.”

  As he and Annie followed Emmet toward the street, Frank decided that meeting Ira Gould might just be one of those “good things” Annie always insisted they watch for. If this “Luther” person was the least bit friendly, Frank would have a chance to talk to someone who knew what lay beyond the Missouri. He had a million questions.

  Annie’s stubborn optimism, which Frank honestly thought of as a willful denial of reality sometimes, did nothing to help the Paxtons find rooms in St. Jo. As t
he evening wore on and the air grew chilly, even Emmet seemed discouraged when an advertised “room to let” proved to be one corner of a room already occupied by a family—husband, wife, and six children.

  “The kids don’t take up much room,” the landlady said. “They can just roll under the bed when the time comes to sleep.”

  Frank didn’t wait for Emmet to respond to that before retreating out the door and back to the street. He nudged Annie’s shoulder and groused, “Got any more good thoughts for us?”

  “Mr. Gould seemed nice,” Annie said. “Let’s go back to the livery.”

  As the three walked along, Annie tucked one hand beneath each brother’s arm. The way back led past the fancy hotel again, and when Frank noticed Annie staring into the brightly lit hotel lobby, he murmured, “I’d like nothing better than to escort you inside and ask for the best room in the house.”

  “Two rooms,” Annie said. “I wouldn’t want to stay there alone. And I wasn’t hankering to stay there, anyway. I was wondering if that’s the kind of place Ma worked. You know—when she met Pa. Maybe I’ll see about getting hired on.”

  Frank sobered. If serving rich people was the best dream Annie could summon—the idea cast a pall over the relief he’d felt at finally getting free of the worthless few acres of dirt where Pa had ground out the last years of his sad life. “What happened to the little house with the window boxes?”

  “I still want it,” Annie said quickly. “I just figured I should do my part to earn it.”