By Starlight Page 3

  Maybe if Helen asked…

  In many ways, Helen couldn’t have been more different from her older sister. Four years younger at eighteen, Helen bore little physical resemblance to Maddy; her midnight black hair was cut short, her skin pale and soft, and the features of her face sharper but no less attractive. Helen always seemed to have her head in the clouds, dreaming of a life far different from the one she lived. She’d never been interested in school, had to be cajoled into doing her chores, and was always reciting bits from stories she read out of an old issue of Glamour Confidential, a gossip magazine she’d sent away for.

  Still, Helen had done her part in helping to care for their father; she might grumble about taking him his meals, wiping his brow when he was having a bad spell, or sitting by his bedside and listening to a radio show when she’d rather be in her room pining for a more glamorous life, but she did as she was asked. Silas often remarked that Helen was the spitting image of her mother, praise the young woman cherished.

  Helen had also been a great help at the store. She put away stock, swept the floors, and occasionally waited on customers, though she wasn’t particularly patient; when someone hemmed and hawed about their purchase, Helen had a bad habit of drumming her fingernails on the counter. Some of Colton’s young men liked to come in and try to sweet-talk her, but she disdainfully ignored them; she’d set her sights much higher.

  Maddy walked the length of the counter toward the small storeroom in the back. She’d sent Helen to take an inventory of their pens and pencils so that she could place an order, but what she found when she entered was far different from what she’d expected.

  Helen stood beneath the stockroom’s lone bulb, working determinedly. She’d cut open a twenty-five-pound bag of flour and was scooping some of it into a smaller sack. She glanced up when Maddy entered, but didn’t stop.

  “What are you doing?” Maddy demanded, already dreading the answer.

  “I’m helping Pete and his family,” Helen replied.

  Maddy quickly crossed the small room and grabbed her sister by the arm; the small sack tipped over, spilling a bit of flour and sending the scoop clattering to the floor. Helen immediately yanked herself free and turned, frowning, ready to argue.

  “Don’t you start going against me,” Maddy began, her voice strained. “I told Pete that I wasn’t extending him credit for flour and I meant it. The last person I expected to defy me was you.”

  “I’m not just going to stand by while that man and his family starve!” Helen shouted, her dark eyes dancing. “You’d have to be blind not to see that he’s suffering! All he wants is a little something for his family to eat!”

  “That doesn’t mean we should give it away.”

  “He said he’d pay us back for it. Once he gets that job down in Smulders he’ll be able to give us the money he owes.” When Helen saw the way Maddy frowned, she angrily asked, “Are you calling him a liar?”

  “I’m not saying he’s doing it on purpose,” she answered, “but you know as well as I do that even if there are jobs to be had, there’ll be a line of fifty men trying to get one. Times are tough for everyone. Who knows how long it’ll be before he gets hired? Besides, if we start giving Pete credit, what happens when Charlie Kierscht asks, or Al Spratt, or George Erskine? Are you going to let them all have some flour, farming equipment, or clothes? When would it ever end if there’s a line of desperate men standing outside the door before we open?”

  “And what would be wrong with that?” Helen shot back. “If it meant that their children could sleep at night, it’s a price worth paying!”

  “Not if it means that we suffer in their place.”

  “Pa would’ve given Pete what he needed!” her sister shouted.

  “Only if he could have afforded it.”

  The truth was, things at the mercantile were more precarious than ever; when Maddy balanced the books each night, she saw how much things had changed. Times in Colton were tough. Families threatened by the loss of a job or foreclosure were spending less, buying only the essentials. Maddy did her best, cutting corners wherever she could, but it didn’t stop her from worrying.

  But there had been a recent turn in their fortunes…

  “We’re not that bad off,” Helen said, thinking the same thing. “Not anymore,” she added, pointing a finger toward the floor.

  “Stop it! Don’t say another word about that!” Maddy shouted, raising her voice for the first time. “We agreed never to talk about that here!”

  “Why not? It’s not as if half the people in town haven’t been there once or twice. Didn’t you say Reverend Fitzpatrick was there two days ago? If he doesn’t mind, there’s no reason we should have to be so quiet about it!”

  “Because it’s wrong, that’s why!” Maddy argued, fearful that someone might hear. “If Jim Utley caught wind of it…”

  Helen folded her arms across her chest. “If you honestly believe that the sheriff doesn’t know what you and Jeffers are up to, then you’re an even bigger fool than I thought.”

  Maddy didn’t know how to answer. “We can’t give that flour to Pete,” she finally said, no longer wanting to argue.

  “We could,” Helen disagreed, “but you choose not to.” Angrily, she barged past Maddy, stopping when she reached the door. “I don’t know how you can be so heartless,” she spat. “If I thought the way you do, I don’t think I’d be able to sleep at night!”

  Without another word, Helen left the mercantile, hurrying into the rain as she slammed the door behind her, leaving Maddy to close up for the night.

  When Maddy locked the door to the mercantile at four o’clock, the storm had blown off to the east. The bright afternoon sun drifted in and out of the trailing clouds, reflecting off of the puddles of water covering the town. A fitful breeze teased at the trees and scurried along the ground, filling the summer air with the fresh smell of rain.

  Pete Seybold still sat in his truck.

  Maddy had watched him all afternoon. Once Helen had stormed off, there’d only been a couple more customers, even once the weather cleared; occasionally, someone passing by would see Pete and say hello. When spoken to, he’d nod, unsmiling, but said nothing. Even after the storm passed, he hadn’t driven away, hadn’t so much as moved. A slight touch of worry began to worm its way into Maddy’s thoughts.

  If he has something he wants to say, I wish he’d just come in and say it.

  When Maddy understood Pete had no intention of leaving before she closed the store, she knew that she’d have to face him. She’d known Pete ever since she was a little girl, sitting on a chair behind the counter while her father helped customers. Pete had never been anything but kind. If there was something he wanted to say to her, she’d give him the chance to say it. She’d expected him to say something as soon as she stepped outside, but he stayed behind the wheel of the truck. But just as soon as the lock clicked, she heard him open his door, the hinges squealing, and he spoke, his voice soft.

  “I’m sorry for becomin’ angry with you,” he said.

  “You don’t have to apologize,” Maddy replied.

  “Course I do,” Pete disagreed. “Even though times ain’t been easy, it don’t excuse what I said ’bout Silas. I shouldn’t have brung him into it.”

  “He’d understand why you did.”

  “Still don’t make it right. What I should’ve done is ask how he’s feelin’.”

  “He’s getting stronger every day,” Maddy lied easily. “He’ll be back behind that counter before you know it.”

  Pete nodded. “Your father’s a good man,” he said, “and even though I been doin’ business with him for more years than I can count, that don’t mean he owes me nothin’. ’Sides, you been more than fair with me since you started runnin’ things. I only asked ’cause…,” but his voice trailed as his eyes broke away from her, looking up the street.

  Maddy knew Pete Seybold had his pride; coming to ask for a bag of flour on credit must’ve been hard. Pride w
as also what kept him sitting in his truck during a thunderstorm, waiting for the right time to say his piece. Maddy’s thoughts whirled. She thought about the way Helen had looked at her, full of disdain, unaware or unable to understand the hard choices she was confronted with. She even wondered if her father would’ve been as conflicted as she was just then. Maddy had believed in the strength of her convictions before, but now she wasn’t so sure. Maybe Helen was right; because of what Maddy had agreed to do, there was more money than before. Maybe there was enough…

  “When will you know about that job in Smulders?” she asked.

  “I’ll…I’ll know come Th-th-thursday,” Pete managed to stammer, turning back to look at her with a glimmer of hope in his eye. “And I’m gonna get it, Maddy, and immediately after I get some money, I’d pay you back and—”

  “That’d be fine,” she cut him off, not wanting him to start making promises he couldn’t keep, for both their sakes.

  I hope I don’t regret this…

  “Come on in,” she said, getting out her keys. “Let’s see about getting you some flour.”

  Chapter Three

  I HEAR PETE SEYBOLD came asking for some credit.”

  Silas Aldridge sat in the chair beside his bed, a blanket tucked across his legs, his hands folded in his lap. When Maddy had entered the room, he’d turned down the volume of the radio, a luxury they’d purchased when his condition worsened; a man’s voice could still be faintly heard reading news headlines. The window was open a crack, a soft breeze blowing against the hems of the curtains, filling the room with fresh air.

  Even after caring for him for nearly two years, Maddy was still occasionally reminded of how much her father had changed. Gone was the larger-than-life man who had towered over her. The broad shoulders and thick biceps that had allowed him to effortlessly lift boxes in the mercantile had withered with lack of use, leaving him trapped in a wreckage of loose skin and bones. The green eyes that had kept a close watch over her were now sunken and weary, peeking out over dark bags. His thick black hair had thinned and his temples were as white as snow. His deep, booming voice sounded frail to her ears. Even his movements had changed, growing slow and careful, worried about the next excruciating flare of pain.

  Arthritis had made him old before his time.

  When Silas had first gone to Dr. Quayle to complain about swelling in his hands and feet, about aches and pains that didn’t get better, he wasn’t particularly worried. But when it got so that just getting out of bed was unbearably painful, it was time for concern. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t climb the stairs, could no longer stand for hours at the mercantile. The only available relief came from the aspirins he ate like candy. Still, his condition continued to worsen. Dr. Quayle worried that Silas would eventually become completely bedridden as his joints gradually degenerated. Sometimes, when she looked in on him at night, Maddy couldn’t keep the tears from her eyes.

  “I suppose Helen told you what happened,” Maddy said.

  Silas nodded. “She came in here with a full head of steam, carrying on about how it just wasn’t fair to turn down folks in need.”

  “She said the same thing to me in the storeroom.”

  A thin smile curled the corners of Silas’s mouth. “That sister of yours has always had a way of letting her emotions get the better of her. Once she has her dander up, all sense of reason goes right out the window,” he said, laughing. “She was even more put out when I told her I agreed with what you’d done.”

  “You do?” Maddy asked, surprised.

  “Of course. Every good store owner knows that the decisions made in hard times are the most difficult,” Silas explained, “but none more so than those where your head has to overrule your heart.”

  “That’s what I was trying to do—”

  “Then you learned something all those years you spent sitting behind the counter.”

  “Pete was…he was pretty unhappy about it…,” Maddy said, struggling with her emotions.

  “I’m sure he was, but once he gets a chance to think things through, I’m sure he’ll understand. I’ve known the man for more years than I can count. Heck, I bet he’s sitting home right now, thinking about how to apologize the next time he sees you.”

  “Maybe—”

  “Now don’t you worry,” her father said as enthusiastically as he could manage these days. “You did the right thing.”

  Maddy couldn’t say a word, nodding quietly instead. While she walked home, she’d decided to tell her father everything, including how she’d finally decided to give Pete a bag of flour on credit. But now, seeing how proud Silas was of her, it was easier to agree. The last thing she wanted was to disappoint him; there’d already been too much of that.

  Besides, it wasn’t as if this was the first time she’d lied to him.

  The first time Jeffers Grimm approached Maddy and proposed turning the mercantile’s basement into a speakeasy, she turned him down. She did so as firmly as she dared; Jeffers was the sort of man used to getting his way.

  She’d been unnerved the moment Jeffers walked in the door. Everything about him was intimidating. Extremely tall, with a chest so thick it resembled a tree trunk, he looked down on everyone he met with dark, beady eyes chiseled into a craggy face swaddled in a thick, bushy beard. His voice bellowed and his laugh frightened. Many men in Montana wore a knife strapped to their side, but when Jeffers did it, his hand often resting on the enormous steel handle, it was terrifying; to doubt he knew how to use it was to risk your life.

  Jeffers’s grandfather, a trapper who’d originally come down from Canada, was infamous for walking around Colton with a huge bear paw hanging from his neck. His oldest son, Jeffers’s father, had gunned a man down in cold blood for looking his way and then spitting on the ground. Jeffers was cut from the same cloth. He was no stranger to violence; on the contrary, he appeared to thrive on it. Everyone in town knew he was guilty of public drunkenness, assault, stealing, and adultery; even the accusation of arson had been leveled against him.

  Somehow, even with all of that, Maddy held her ground.

  He hadn’t seemed pleased with her rejection, but he gave a curt nod of his head, grunted, and left the store. Maddy had been more than a bit relieved to see him go.

  But then he’d come back.

  The second time Jeffers walked through the mercantile’s door had been a couple of weeks later. He’d shown up just before closing. No one else had been in the store. Maddy stood behind the counter, watching him cross the street to the door, too frightened even to look away. Once he’d reached the counter, Jeffers reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the thickest stacks of bills Maddy had ever seen. He slapped it down on the counter and looked at her expectantly.

  “How would you like to have some of that?” he asked with a sly grin.

  “What…w-w-hat are you talking about?” she stammered.

  “I come in here a while back and give you a proposition,” Jeffers answered. “I come back to tell you the offer still stands. You let me run a drinkin’ establishment in the basement, open only durin’ the evenings, and I’ll cut you in on some of what’s taken in.” He paused, tapping his finger just beside the pile of cash. “I just thought I should give you an idea of how much that is. Go ahead and count it if you want.”

  Maddy couldn’t take her eyes off the money; it was mesmerizing. Her first impulse was to agree, to let Jeffers have his tavern and make some of her troubles go away. Business at the mercantile hadn’t been what it once was. She knew most people in Colton were struggling. She’d been making difficult choices, doing whatever she could to keep her family afloat, but it was hard work. What did her pride matter if it meant helping her father and sister? Still, she wondered what Silas and Helen would think if they knew what she was considering.

  Maddy shook her head. “My answer’s the same as the last time you were here,” she explained. “What you’re asking me to do is illegal.”

  “Don’t tell me you
think Prohibition’s a good idea,” he grunted.

  Truthfully, Maddy thought it was misguided. While Colton had its share of heavy drinkers, it wasn’t the epidemic that she’d heard commentators crusade against on the radio and in the newspaper. Most folks she knew had a drink from time to time, men and women. Even now, her father still had a bottle of whiskey tucked just behind the table beside his bed. Maddy wasn’t a teetotaler.

  “It’s still the law,” she said.

  Jeffers snorted. “One that’s been foisted on folks like us by uppity types back east who ain’t worked an honest day their whole damn lives.” He sneered contemptuously. “The way I see things, preachers should stay in their pulpits. There ain’t nothin’ I hate more than bein’ told what to do by someone who ain’t never walked a step in my boots.”

  “I imagine there isn’t,” Maddy agreed.

  “That’s why, now that I got the chance to make some money on account of a law ain’t got no business in bein’, I want to take it!”

  “And you want me to help you?”

  “Exactly!”

  “Aren’t you afraid of getting caught?”

  “By who?” Jeffers chuckled derisively, his voice booming in the mercantile. “You think Sheriff Utley gives a damn if folks in town are sellin’ a little booze? Hell, no! He’d probably be one of our best customers! And even if he weren’t, even if he decided to stick his nose into what we were doin’, all it’d take would be for a couple of bills to fall off this stack and land in his pocket to encourage him to forget the whole thing.”

  “But Jim Utley isn’t the only lawman to worry about,” Maddy said. “There’s been a federal police force made to fight Prohibition now. The radio says they have agents everywhere.”

  “Bullshit. They ain’t nothin’ none of our concern. They’re worried ’bout places like New York City. From what I heard, there’s more places to get a drink, Prohibition or otherwise, in that town than there’s lawmen workin’ to shut ’em down! So with all that goin’ on, what federal is ever gonna come snoopin’ round a town like Colton?”