Lovelier than Daylight Read online

  Her aunt wrapped the chicken in paper without comment, then took off her apron and hung it up. “Shall we go?”

  They walked past the shops in the muggy heat—would it never relent? A horse at the hitching post switched its tail, giving up the battle against the flies that crawled on its eyelids. Poor thing. The flies were awful too, this summer, as if they searched for any drop of moisture in the long drought.

  A wagon rolled down the street and pulled up in front of the slant-roofed saloon. In it rode a hawk-nosed, dark-haired woman and four children with the same sallow complexions. The woman climbed down and lifted in her arms the youngest child, a girl who looked no more than three years of age. After her, two boys and an older girl jumped down to the dusty ground. The children gazed around at the shops and the street, their dark eyes snapping with irrepressible curiosity that made Susanna ache for her nieces and nephews.

  She and her aunt passed near the family as they spoke to one another.

  “Mama, this is a small town,” the tallest girl said.

  “I told you so,” the mother said, and smiled privately in the way common to all mothers on a mission. “Now, grab a sack or a box and let’s get settled.” She hefted the three-year-old onto her hip and gave her a hearty kiss, which stopped the fussing. The little girl put her arms round her neck and pillowed her face in her mother’s shoulder. Susanna took a sharp breath at the memory of Della and Rachel standing in the garden, in just the same pose, the last time she saw her sister.

  Susanna craned over her shoulder and saw them moving their things into the Widow Clymer’s building. It had to be Corbin’s family.

  They were children, not responsible for their father’s line of work. What if Westerville succeeded in getting rid of Corbin? What would happen to the children? How would they survive, and where would the family go if they closed the saloon and had to leave town?

  They would get along all right. He would simply have to find some other town, as Susanna had asked him to do that first day on the street. She could not soften against the evil of the saloon when it seemed certain that Mr. Pippen’s family would be destroyed if Mr. Corbin succeeded and remained. The danger to Mr. Pippen’s children was much greater than the simpler hardship for the Corbin children of moving and starting over. But still, she could not get their expectant faces out of her memory. Why wouldn’t people simply do what was right? Corbin was placing his family in a very painful position, but that was not the fault of Westerville. It was pure stubbornness and contrariness to open a saloon in this particular town—Corbin was creating a crisis that need never have arisen had he considered his duty to his family and refrained from dragging them into a war.

  She and her aunt walked up to a little house, barely more than a shack, tucked back in the trees off Walnut Street. Her aunt knocked gently. Susanna slung the basket over her arm.

  The little blond Pippen girl answered. “Hello.” She spoke in the artless way of children, with no welcome, only a stare.

  “We have come to see your mother,” Aunt Ann said. “Is she in?

  “She is in bed.”

  “Is she ill?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The other boy and the older girl came into view in the plain room behind her, with its cold stove and only one window.

  “I’d like to go back and talk to her,” Aunt Ann said. “I’ll see if she is in need of help.”

  They said nothing, just watched with miserable faces as she went to the one flimsy door at the side of the main room. Susanna followed. These children broke her heart—they were transformed from the happy, young things they had been at the candy store window into older, sadder, and much quieter versions of themselves.

  In the dark side room a rickety bed frame held a slight body covered in a flimsy quilt.

  “Mrs. Pippen?” Susanna asked. She let her aunt take the lead in walking forward—Mrs. Pippen knew her and might take her intrusion better.

  The figure didn’t stir, but it had to be her, with that long, colorless hair down over the shoulder of her nightdress. Her aunt walked around to the side the woman was facing. “Mrs. Pippen,” she said with the most compassion Susanna had ever heard in a lady’s voice. “We’re here to help. Can you hear me?”

  Why did she ask that? Alarmed, Susanna skirted the foot of the bed to look in Mrs. Pippen’s face.

  She gazed at the wall, her eyes glassy but not with intoxication. It was something strange, something unnatural—a shudder rippled over Susanna’s back. It was as if she had stepped out of life, her empty face refusing more sadness. But the pulse was still there, the life still running under her skin. Why was she a mere shell and unresponsive?

  Her aunt took the woman’s limp hand and patted it, then rubbed it. “Mrs. Pippen.” The woman blinked but did not move.

  The hair rose on Susanna’s arms. The woman’s shattered will seemed to have released her mind to oblivion.

  Words of comfort seemed inadequate. But there must be something, some tie to this world to awaken Mrs. Pippen—she could not abandon her children, who needed her even more now. Should Susanna say so?

  But she would not—she wasn’t wise enough, she had never seen this before. She hoped her aunt knew what to say, what reason or scripture could get through to the stricken woman, to make her want to come back to a life that must seem broken and lost. The dashing of her family’s dreams was all the crueler for their having once been resurrected.

  “Put down that basket and help me, please,” Aunt Ann said with an urgent glance at Susanna. “Help me sit her up.”

  Susanna hurried to the bed.

  It was difficult—Mrs. Pippen was heavy, a muscleless, boneless slump, despite the apparent thinness of her frame. But eventually they each took one shoulder and propped her up.

  “Hold her there,” Aunt Ann said. She went to her knees in front of the low bed, and to Susanna’s surprise, she put her arms around the woman and held her close. Still holding her, she stood, lifting Mrs. Pippen’s limp form with her so the woman stood with feet trailing, completely supported by Aunt Ann’s even smaller figure and Susanna’s hold under her arms.

  Her aunt did not loosen her embrace but began to sing to Mrs. Pippen in a low voice, a song like a lullaby, a wave of comfort and love that seemed to pass from her body into the other woman’s. She did not tire when there seemed to be no reaction, but continued with another song, a sweet one that sounded Irish. After the second verse Mrs. Pippen twitched. Her eyes closed, hiding their strange stare. She raised her arms and put them around Aunt Ann. As she held on, her back convulsed, then she groaned and started to sob. It shook her whole body, that eerie mingled groan and weeping. The raw sound brought tears of sympathy to Susanna’s eyes.

  An intuition told her to leave Mrs. Pippen alone with her aunt, who was murmuring words of reassurance, fragments of prayer, as if she were a nurse or even Mrs. Pippen’s mother.

  Susanna would take care of the children. She retrieved the basket from the floor and went back into the common room with it hooked over her arm, closing the door behind her. The children waited there, huddled in the corner.

  “It’s going to be all right,” Susanna said. “Your mother was ill, but she’ll be better now. We brought you something to eat. I can cook for you, if you like.” She did not know if Mrs. Pippen would be ready to cook just yet. There were a few broken lumps of coal in the hod. She took them out and struck one of the matches from the box on the ledge by the stove. After a minute, she had it lit. Thank goodness the stovepipe would take most of the heat out of the home. She crossed to the window and opened the shutters. Light spilled pale gold over the floor and the basket, with its clean cloth pulled back.

  Susanna went back to it and rummaged for the offerings. “Here—bread for you. And some milk too.” The children reached for them with their quick, small hands, their faces growing less desolate as they ate and drank.

  She turned over the pieces of chicken in the pan with quick, perturbed pokes of her fork.
The sadness in her spirit twisted and mingled with anger.

  The world couldn’t heal as long as human beings were so determined to place gain over virtue, so determined to lead others to ruin down the wrong path. Only the choice of righteousness could spare these poor children—and her nieces and nephews—from suffering. It was a choice that both George Leeds and Arthur Pippen had refused. Why? Who would choose dissipation over good, suffering over joy?

  It made the right choice all the more urgent, now, for Westerville. She stabbed the fork into the chicken breast and slapped it onto its other side. She might not be able to see her sister’s children yet, but in the meantime she would do what she could here against the saloon.

  Henry Corbin must find another place to live and to wreck homes. Nothing could be worth the price the Pippens had paid for a glass of whiskey.

  Eighteen

  THE SOUND OF RAIN PENETRATED HIS SLEEP—TORrents of water gusted against the hotel window. Johann crawled out of bed in the dawn’s gray light, rubbed his face, and walked over to the window. Over the eaves the rainwater boiled, cascading in a white plume to State Street where it splashed up mud to a brown foam. That muck soup all over the road would make for a messy walk to the station, but the trains would still run.

  The saloon looked much the same from here, though its outlines blurred in the rainy glass. No unlawful act had called the citizens from their beds. For news gathering it was a wasted night. But he wasn’t exactly disappointed. He did want to be present if news broke, but he didn’t want anyone to be hurt.

  A good spread at breakfast explained the popularity of the hotel: fried eggs, bacon, cooked tomatoes. He took his time while the rain softened to a patter and the light grew. Other travelers were adopting the same strategy, dawdling over their newspapers, taking an extra cup of coffee. None of them seemed to have brought umbrellas—it had been so long since a good rain that they were all defenseless against the elements.

  He picked up his hat and satchel and went to the open door that led out on the porch. The old men of the Vigilance Committee had already assumed their seats to watch Corbin’s place. But they did not look as relaxed and jovial as at their previous encounter. They were staring at something—he followed their gaze.

  A man had been hanged on the sign of the saloon. Johann’s pulse pounded.

  No, it was not a real man but a rag dummy, rain-soaked into the heaviness of a real body. The figure had been made to look tall and thin, wore clothes like Corbin’s and a hat that resembled his. Beneath the hat poked some kind of dark animal pelt to approximate the saloon-owner’s black hair. The rope around the dummy’s throat had been twisted into a hangman’s noose.

  Johann’s stomach turned. A nasty threat, and not worthy of civilized people. The old men on the porch kept blank faces, neither condemning nor approving.

  Johann had turned to navigate the slippery stone stairs when a coughing sound drew his attention back to the saloon. A boy of about twelve had come out and was tugging vainly at the feet of the effigy. The coughing came from the sobbing girl next to him, who wiped her face on her sleeve between horrified glances at the dummy. She had the black hair and pointed features of her father. He had seen Corbin’s children walking with their mother yesterday, going into the general store and emerging with drooping shoulders. They had not been welcomed, and now this.

  The boy yanked again at the dummy—its foot pulled off in his hand, which seemed to disturb his sister even more.

  “Get it down,” she choked out. The boy’s motions became more choppy and urgent, but he was not tall enough to reach the noose.

  Johann set his satchel down on the steps and splashed across the street, ignoring the smell of manure rising from the mud. The soupy mixture covered the tops of his shoes and in a few steps he was wet to the shins. A few raindrops flicked his hands as he sloshed onward until he stood under the sign with the boy.

  Arms over his head, feet waterlogged, he worked at the noose, which the rain had tightened into a damp, solid mass. It took a good minute of pulling this way and that to extract the neck of the dummy and throw the vile thing down.

  The children watched him with big, dark eyes. The girl had stopped crying.

  A good journalist should only observe, but a good man must sometimes act.

  “Don’t worry,” he said to the children. “No one will hurt you.” He picked up the dummy by its old jacket and trudged through the muck to the alley. He would throw the dummy far away from the saloon, where at least the children would not have to see it.

  The alley was not as flooded as the street. He dragged the heavy rag body along like a giant snail through the veneer of slime. At the back of the alley was a livery stable that served the hotel. A middle-aged man walked out of the barn with a grain scoop in hand and dirt smeared on his face—a groom.

  “Good morning,” Johann said.

  The groom stared at the grisly dummy.

  Johann hoisted it in one hand. “An unsuitable thing to leave in the sight of children. I want to throw it out in the woods. Or on your manure heap to be carted away.”

  “I have no love for whiskey-sellers,” the groom said, his brows bushing out, deep lines appearing by his mouth. “Whose side are you on?”

  “The side of those who don’t wish to torment children.” Johann felt his biceps knotting as his temper rose. He would get no help from this one. With a huff of breath, he dragged the dummy on, past the manure heap, beyond the tree line. What if someone tried to rehang it by the saloon? A burst of ire fueled him as he tore the effigy into pieces, the wet, cheap material ripping between his fists. It lay scattered in white chunks all around the tree trunks. There, that would not easily be reassembled. He took its unrecognizable head and tossed it in the air, then as it came down he kicked it upward as hard as he could. It sailed into the treetop and stuck, a little tan sphere. He felt better. Maybe a bird would use it for a nest.

  Corbin was standing outside by his sign when Johann retraced his steps. He tried to pass unnoticed, but the saloonkeeper beckoned him.

  “Good morning,” he said reluctantly, conscious of the old men staring from across the street.

  “Mr. Giere. So you were the one who took the dummy down? My son told me it was a yellow-haired man.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “This is the work of thugs.” Mr. Corbin sawed at the noose with his penknife and cut it off the sign.

  “Well, I must be going.” Johann wanted to get away before his cover was blown.

  “Wait a minute.” Corbin turned with the sodden rope in one fist. “I have something to show you.”

  “I’ll go around back,” Johann said. Must Corbin insist? Johann couldn’t afford to be seen going into the saloon.

  Back down the alley he went and around to the back door of the Clymer building. Corbin was waiting for him there. “Come in.”

  He followed the saloonkeeper through the back room, which held a few crates full of bottles and still reeked of sulphur from thrown eggs. A few more strides brought them under the oak-beamed doorway and into the saloon’s main room, with its bar and tables.

  “You see?” Corbin said proudly.

  Aimed at the door, propped on the bar, was a rifle. There was some odd contraption of string and rods around it. Corbin stepped over to it and hooked it up. “If anyone tries to come in at night,” he said, setting a heavy iron on a ledge above the door, “this will fall and yank the string, which pulls the stick and fires the gun.”

  He dropped the iron and Johann heard the click of the hammer. Had the gun been loaded, it would have gone off.

  “Ingenious, but very unwise, Mr. Corbin.” He set his hat on the bar. “You mustn’t do this. You have young children here. What if one of them accidentally set it off? Or stepped in the way?”

  “They aren’t stupid, and they know not to touch it,” Mr. Corbin said. “And when my daughter saw my invention, she looked happy to be protected from the likes of them who hung me in effigy this morning.” His
chin went hard and his lower lip jutted out.

  “If anything happens, you could go to jail.”

  “It’s defense of my own property.”

  Johann had no reply. It was true, if someone entered criminally at night and was shot, Corbin was probably protected by self-defense law.

  “But you will escalate the danger for your family if your enemies discover this.”

  “They’ll know I mean business.” The set of his jaw did not change.

  “Don’t do it, man.” Johann’s voice softened. “Think of your wife and children. Don’t put them in the middle.”

  “I haven’t put them in anything. My actions are legal. I won’t be bullied by religious vigilantes.” But Corbin’s eyes were troubled.

  “Consider it carefully, that’s all I ask.” Johann took up his hat again. “I must be going. I’ve been absent from the brewery for two days already.”

  “Tell your father about all this. Maybe he’ll feel inclined to stand up against such intimidation. It’s bad for his business too.” Corbin’s voice had an edge of desperation.

  Johann sighed and walked back the way he had come, skirting the bottles and boxes and making his way back out into the wet back yard under the gray sky.

  He had a good story to file for the Westbote about the effigy, but it did not ease his worry about Corbin’s children. He had a feeling this would not end with rotten eggs and dummies.

  He passed by the steps of the hotel to retrieve his satchel and headed for the station.

  How should he angle this story of the effigy on Corbin’s sign? The bald truth was not flattering to the temperance crusaders, whether or not most of them approved of such tactics, which meant any story would not be favorable to Susanna. He did not want to bring more criticism upon her family. But if he still wanted to submit his work to the Staats-Zeitung in New York, he had better make it a memorable scene for readers. So he would write the truth and send it to New York.

  Then he would see if Mr. Reinhardt was right that heaven would make a future path clear.