A Lady in Defiance (32 page)

Naomi raised her chin. “We’re moving Mollie out of here
tomorrow. She has a room at our hotel as long as she wants it.” She shifted her
attention to the audience in the hallway. “
None
of you have to live like
this.” Her voice was choked with anger, but she was pleading as well. “You are
beautiful, valuable children of God and he loves you. He doesn’t want to see
you living in this filth. Mollie discovered that, which is why she said ‘no
more.’”

McIntyre heard Iris’s cynical cackle. “Yea, and look where
that got her.”

“Heaven,” Naomi fired back. “And eternity with the King.
Until then, a home with us.” Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the
shadowy figures shift under the weight of Naomi’s pleading gaze. She moved to
the door and spoke in a softer, kinder voice. “We have room for you. Any time
you want to leave this place, this life, knock on our door.”

A strange, tense silence hung in the air; no one breathed, no
one moved. Finished, Naomi stepped back and gestured toward the door. “Mr.
McIntyre, please...” He studied her for a moment, searching for even the most
ghostly hint of compassion towards him. There was only a chill in her eyes so
brutal it burned him and his heart was inexplicably heavy.

He walked toward the door and stopped just before the
threshold. Without looking at her, he straightened a bit and whispered a
painful confession. “I am what I am, Mrs. Miller...but for the first time in my
life, I’m sorry for it.”

“Then choose to be a better man.”

He wondered if he had imagined the slightly desperate plea in
her voice. It didn’t matter. He had made such choices long ago. Focused on the
darkness, he left the room.

~~~

Doris, a toothless, two-hundred pound hag who had wisely
aligned herself with the Broken Spoke’s new management, leaned into Rose’s ear.
“Emilio is out back. Says he needs to see you.”

Rose poured a glass of whiskey and shoved it across the
grayed, rough-sawed plank to the waiting miner. “Take over here for me.”

She handed the bottle to Doris and exited by the back door.
Emilio was waiting in the snowy shadows next to the wood pile, coat pulled up
around his jaws, hands in his pockets. Hiding and cowering. She hated the sight
of him, but he had at least proven to be a useful, if not grudging, spy. In the
faint glow from the saloon, she could see he looked especially nervous tonight.
“You must have something interesting to tell me.”

The boy glared at her as he took a deep breath and straightened
up. “Daisy was beaten so bad a few days ago that the seesters took her to the
hotel.”

Rose grinned, delighted with the news and the pain she heard
in her little brother’s voice. This particular plan had yielded even better
results than she’d hoped for. “Tell me she’s going to die and my joy will be
complete.” Enraged, Emilio cried out and lunged at Rose, shoving her back
against the saloon door. She was startled, but only for an instant, and pushed
him off her. “Be careful little, brother. I can send a friend to visit you,
too.”

He tossed his head side to side, as if in agony, and she
could hear the tears in his voice. “I swear to God, Rose…” He swallowed hard
then whipped out a knife from inside his jacket. Brandishing it at her, he
screamed, “I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!” Eyes wide and glowing with resentment, lips
peeled back in a snarl, he raised the knife. “I swear, if you touch any of
them, I’ll kill you!”

Weary of this, she purposefully turned her back on him and
grabbed the door knob. “If you could, you would have already.” She knew the
condescension in her voice was unmistakable. “I tell you this, little brother.
You better sleep with one eye open.”  

~~~

McIntyre read over the mining report but couldn’t take in the
staggering numbers. His vein of quartz was making him and Ian wealthy beyond
imagination, yet that wasn’t the reason the numbers wouldn’t make sense. He
kept seeing Daisy’s bloodied and battered face...and that frigid look in
Naomi’s eyes.

He felt the burst of cold air that accompanied his front door
opening, but didn’t look up. Ian paused at the door and cleared his throat to
get McIntyre’s attention. “Good afternoon, Mac.” Peeling off his coat, the
Scotsman hung it on the hook just inside the entrance and slid into a seat in
front of the desk. “How is the mining business today?”

McIntyre tried to pretend he had actually read the report
he’d been staring at for the last ten minutes. “A sixty-foot thick vein of
quartz that stretches from here to Animas Forks, partner. I would say we’ll be
in business for quite some time to come.”

Ian crossed his legs and nodded at the observation.

“How is Daisy?” McIntyre shuffled the papers nonchalantly.
“Is she settled?”

“Aye, and I believe I’ve seen improvements already. Gettin’
out of that hole you call a saloon was the best thing that could’ve happened to
her. I’m only sorry I never said anything to ye about her...or any of them for
that matter.”

McIntyre leaned back in his chair. “Have you come to preach
to me, Ian? I warn you, I’ve had enough chastising.”

To his frustration, Ian chuckled. “I heard. I went back to
the saloon to pick up a few more of Daisy’s belongings and your Flowers told me
what Naomi said to ye. Burnt your ears, dinna she, lad?” McIntyre clenched and
unclenched his fists but kept silent. “Dunna look at me like that. If ye want
Defiance to be a respectable town, if you want to be a respectable businessman−nay,”
Ian pointed his index finger at him for emphasis, “if ye want to be a
respectable
man
, then ye should shut down yer Garden, if not the whole
saloon.”

McIntyre reached up and rubbed the tense muscles in his neck.
He had gambled, sold whiskey, and run prostitutes since before the war. It was
a setup with which he was comfortable. If the mine shut down, if the price of
timber dropped, if cattle bottomed out, he could always sell whiskey and women.
No, it wasn’t a pretty way to make a living but it had always kept him up in
style. Usually, the girls were manageable, unlike Rose, and the violence was
minor, unlike Daisy’s beating. “I guess I’m just not ready to be that
respectable yet.”

Casually, Ian settled more comfortably in his chair and put
his feet up on McIntyre’s desk. “The winters in Defiance are long and cold. Now
me, I am enjoyin’ the company of fine, sweet sisters such as they are. Their
inn is filled with laughter and warmth, the scent of baking bread and roast
meat. The fact that they’ve taken in misfits such as meself and Emilio and now
Daisy, well, we’re like one odd but happy family.

“At fifty years of age, I saw nothin’ in my future but
roamin’ aimlessly across this country, wrestling with God everyday and slowly
killing meself with whiskey every night. Now I have new plans for my twilight
years and I’m as excited about them as a child on Christmas morn. Bein’
respectable, in my humble opinion, is quite underappreciated.”

“You plan to marry that girl, then? Rebecca?”

“I’ve become very fond of all of them, but especially
Rebecca. If she willna marry me then I’ll just have to stay on as a cook.”

McIntyre considered the change in Ian and wondered if it was
caused by more than the sisters’ arrival. “You never talked much about your
faith before they showed up.”

Ian chewed on the comment for a minute and shrugged. “We’re
in the middle of nowhere and three beautiful, decent, God-fearin’ women fall
into our laps. If ye dunna see the hand of God in that, mon, you’re blind
and
stupid. Their comin’ here was no accident and as far I’m concerned, they’ve
saved my life. Ye’d do well yerself to give the Lord a word of thanks.”

It was McIntyre’s turn to chuckle. “I’ll thank him when I’m
convinced they’re a blessing and not a curse. Given a choice, I think they’d
run me out of town on a rail for being such an unrepentant sinner.”

A wide grin illuminated Ian’s face. “Well, you know what they
say: if you canna beat’em, join’em.”

Long after Ian departed, McIntyre was still rolling the idea
of Divine Intervention around and around in his head. Had the Almighty
literally manipulated things so these women would wind up in this gritty
hell-hole at this precise time? Had he saved John Miller’s life all those years
ago just so the man could bring his wife to within spitting distance of
Defiance before conveniently dying? Why? To what end? Did God really care so
much he would engineer a grand plan for one remote town...one selfish man?

As if answering the questions, McIntyre heard his mother’s
voice from long ago reading a familiar scripture.

For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was
lost.

Chapter
28

Daisy didn’t know if she could be any happier. Defiance had
dragged her to the bottom of a deep, murky well, but because of Jesus, she had
burst forth from the depths and was drinking from the fountain of living water!
She lay in bed recovering from her wounds and had moments when she wanted to
run and shout praises to God, her heart was so full of gratitude. She blessed
the name of Jesus and thanked him every day for her release from captivity. She
might wind up on the street tomorrow, but she knew she’d never have to go back
to that life.

As she pondered the blessings of finding Jesus, Naomi entered
carrying her breakfast.

“Good morning, Mollie.”

As she set the tray on her lap, Daisy clutched the woman’s
hand and looked her in the eye. “If you hadn’t come here, most likely no one
would have ever told me about Jesus and I think I would have died in that
saloon. I’m so sorry you lost your man along the way, but I pray that someday
you’ll think it was worth it...that
I
was worth it.”

Naomi smiled and sat down on the bed. “You know, Hannah asked
me months ago if God would have sent us here on behalf of one person. Initially,
I told her no, but now, after seeing you freed from that life,” she nodded
contentedly, “I think it has been worth it.”

“Oh, but there will be more!” Daisy squeezed Naomi’s arm with
fervor. “If God can pour out this much mercy on me, think what He can do in
this town.”

~~~

As Naomi finished making her bed, she thought about what she
had told Daisy and knew it was the truth. Finally, she could accept that God
would not let John’s death be a pointless and inexplicable event. Something
good had come from it. The realization gave Naomi some peace and she wondered
if there would, indeed, be more souls saved in this town.

She wandered to her bedroom window and moved the curtain
aside.  Snow was falling−again−with sincere determination

In the weeks before Christmas, Defiance had been perpetually
engulfed by a fluffy, gray sky. And when the sky wasn’t spitting snow, it fell
in great, overwhelming quantities, like now. Consequently, the town had racked
up over twenty inches.

The odd little family at the Trinity Inn hadn’t minded the
weather, though; in fact they reveled in it and the Christmas spirit. Together
they had decorated the hotel from one end to the other with garlands made of
pine boughs, popcorn and red gingham bows. Candles sat in every window, burned
at every table amidst more pine boughs and holly berries.

The girls went about their chores humming Christmas carols,
Ian sang
Jingle Bells
to little Billy at least once a day while holding
him close, and they all had quietly tucked Christmas packages for each other in
the corner where the Christmas tree would go. It was going to be fine
Christmas, Naomi thought. Different, poignant, but filled with cheer, warmth
and love. She could hardly stand to wait twelve more days.

If it wasn’t for a nagging sense of loss related to Mr.
McIntyre, she would actually be quite content today. She felt completely
justified in her anger towards him, but she was also a little disappointed in
the loss of his friendship−not that they were friends...not that she wanted
to be friends. She couldn’t really explain what she thought she’d lost.
Frustrated by these nonsensical musings about a man she barely knew, she
dropped the curtain and turned away.

A commotion in the backyard below drew her back to the window
and she watched as Daisy, Hannah and Emilio spilled out into the snow. Within
seconds the snowballs were flying and the girls had teamed up on the boy.

Naomi shifted for a better view and watched Daisy. After a
few weeks of rest and short, stiff walks around the inn, the girl had begged
them to let her join in and be useful. She had taken it easy at first, folding
napkins and washing the silverware, but it wasn’t long before the bruises had
faded and most of her strength had returned. Daisy boldly credited the renewed energy
she felt to the desire to live a new life full of Jesus. Her face was always
aglow with a smile, and there was a noticeable spring in her still-weak step.

Watching her now, gingerly tossing snowballs, Naomi knew the
girl’s future was bright with hope. There was an abundance of heartbreak in
Defiance, but even here there was also the joy of the Lord. Naomi smiled at the
battle scene below and decided Emilio could use reinforcements.