Victoria Bylin - The Maverick Preacher

“Of a sort.”

“Do you have a church?”

“I do, but not like you mean.”

Her hand shook as she checked a pocket. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t preach in a building,” he explained. “I go from place to place.”

Adie let out the breath she’d been holding. Maggie’s brother had been wealthy. He’d have arrived in Denver in a private railcar, not on the back of a tired horse. He’d have never gone from town to town, preaching to the poor. She relaxed until she recalled his interest in Stephen. Not many men cared about hungry babies. Her nerves prickled with worry. Aware of his gaze, she reached into the saddlebag. She felt past a pouch holding shaving tools, found the book and lifted it from the bag.

The words Holy Bible caught the light and glowed like fire, taking Adie back to the evenings she’d spent with the Long family. Old Man Long had often read from the book of Jeremiah. Adie had felt sinful and condemned and confused by a God who treated people so poorly. She’d cast Maggie’s brother in the same mold. Even without her promise, she’d have protected Stephen from such a man.

She stood and handed him the Bible. Their fingers brushed on the binding, but their hearts were miles apart. Adie believed in God, but she didn’t like Him. Neither did she care for preachers. Carrying a Bible didn’t give a man a good heart. She’d learned that lesson in Liddy’s Grove. She let go of the book as if it had singed her.

Mr. Blue looked into her eyes with silent understanding and she wondered if he, too, had struggled with God’s ways. The slash of his brow looked tight with worry, and his whiskers were too stubbly to be permanent. Adie thought about his shaving tools and wondered when he’d used them last. Her new boarder would clean up well on the outside, but his heart remained a mystery. She needed to keep it that way. The less she knew about him, the better.

“Good night,” she said. “Bessie will check you in the morning.”

“Before you go, I’ve been wondering…”

“About what?”

“The baby…Who’s the mother?”

Adie raised her chin. “I am.”

Earlier he’d called her “Miss Clarke” and she hadn’t corrected him. The flash in his eyes told her that he’d assumed she’d given birth out of wedlock. Adie resented being judged, but she counted it as the price of protecting Stephen. If Mr. Blue chose to condemn her, so be it. She’d done nothing for which to be ashamed. With their gazes locked, she waited for the criticism that didn’t come.

Instead he laced his fingers on top of the Bible. “Children are a gift, all of them.”

“I think so, too.”

He lightened his tone. “A boy or a girl?”

“A boy.”

The man smiled. “He sure can cry. How old is he?”

Adie didn’t like the questions at all, but she took pride in her son. “He’s three months old.” She didn’t mention that he’d been born six weeks early. “I hope the crying doesn’t disturb you.”

“I don’t care if it does.”

He sounded defiant. She didn’t understand. “Most men would be annoyed.”

“The crying’s better than silence…I know.”

Adie didn’t want to care about this man, but her heart fluttered against her ribs. What did Joshua Blue know of babies and silence? Had he lost a wife? A child of his own? She wanted to express sympathy but couldn’t. If she pried into his life, he’d pry into hers. He’d ask questions and she’d have to hide the truth. Stephen was born too soon and his mother died. He barely survived. I welcome his cries, every one of them. They mean he’s alive.

With a lump in her throat, she turned to leave. “Good night, Mr. Blue.”

“Good night.”

A thought struck her and she turned back to his room. “I suppose I should call you Reverend.”

He grimaced. “I’d prefer Josh.”

Adie preferred formality. She had her differences with the Almighty, but she’d been taught to respect God and honor His ways. Being too familiar with a man of the cloth seemed wrong. So did addressing a near stranger by his given name. She avoided the issue by murmuring good-night.

Before Mr. Blue could ask another question, she closed the door behind her and went to her bedroom. Too anxious to sleep, she stood next to Stephen’s cradle and watched the rise and fall of his chest, treasuring every breath he took. Someday she’d tell him about Maggie Butler and pass on the things hidden in the trunk at the foot of her bed. Maggie’s jewelry lay wrapped in a red velvet bag, untouchable, except in a matter of life or death. Adie expected to support herself and her son, though earning a living had proven more difficult than she’d expected. With the loan payment due on Friday, she would have to go to the bank where Franklin Dean would harass her.

Stephen hiked up his legs. Adie tucked the blanket across his back and thought of the other things in the trunk, particularly Maggie’s diary. In the last weeks of her pregnancy, the two of them had spent their evenings on the porch of a Topeka boardinghouse. While Adie did piecework, Maggie had taken a pen to paper.

“It’s my story,” she’d explained. “If something happens to me, I want Stephen to have it when he’s older.”

Blinking back tears, she recalled the day Maggie had written the last words in the journal. She’d asked for the book, scrawled a final sentence and taken her last breath. Stunned, Adie had lifted the book from Maggie’s still hands. Without opening it, she’d buried the journal deep in the trunk.

Looking at her son now, Adie thought of the diary and trembled. Maggie had lived with secrets. The book, Adie feared, held revelations that could tear Stephen out of her arms. She had no desire to read it. Instead she kept it hidden with the jewelry and the picture of his natural mother. Someday she’d give everything to her son. The book held truths he deserved to know, but its presence made Adie tremble. She had no intention of opening the trunk for a very long time.

Josh opened his Bible to the Psalms. Tonight he needed comfort and he’d find it in the words of David, a man with God’s own heart but human inclinations. Josh understood that tug and pull. In Boston he’d been inclined to protect his own pride. He’d been an arrogant fool and he hadn’t even known it. Others had, though. As the pages fluttered, he recalled preaching in front of a thousand people. Gerard Richards, the leading evangelist in America, had been in the crowd. Josh had been eager for the man’s praise. Instead the famed minister, a stooped man with a squeaky voice, had looked him up and down and said, “You have a gift, young man. But you’re full of yourself. You’ll be better after you’ve suffered.”

Josh had been insulted.

Now he understood. Emily’s flight had knocked him to his knees. He’d fallen even lower when he’d lost everything in a river crossing. It had happened on the Missouri at the peak of the spring flood. The barge pilot had steered into an eddy and lost control. When water lapped the logs, the passengers had all run to the side closest to the shore. The raft tipped, sending everything—people, animals and their possessions—into the racing current.

Josh had made it to shore, but he’d lost the satchel he’d carried from Boston. The clothing could be replaced, but he’d grieved the Bible. It had belonged to his grandfather, the man who’d mentored Josh until he’d died of apoplexy. Even more devastating was the loss of Emily’s letter and the tintype she’d had made a few months before she’d revealed her condition. Josh had tucked them in the back of the Bible for safekeeping, but the river had swallowed them whole.

Stripped of his possessions, he’d found work in a livery. That Sunday, he’d preached to a trio of bleary men who’d come for their horses after a night on the town. They’d each given him two bits for his trouble. Josh had put those coins toward the purchase of the Bible in his hands now. The men had come back the following Sunday and they’d brought a few friends. Josh had preached again. He’d used that collection for laudanum.