Coldwater Revival: A Novel (30 page)

Granny chortled and leaned her head back, resting it against the spindle-backed chair. She closed her eyes, as though investing a little time in her memories. “Emma Grace—for some honey-sweet reason I’ve never rightly understood, the men in our family are just too blasted good-looking for their own good. No two ways ’bout it. Don’t seem fair that our family got so much beauty, when other families have to go without.” Granny lowered her head and peered through slatted lids, waiting for me to either chastise her or compliment her flair for bragging.

She got the laugh she was looking for. I giggled at her boasting, knowing she spoke more truth than exaggeration.

“Ye know, your description brings to mind a
good-looking fella
that happen’t along, oh, I don’t know, maybe three or four years back. A good bit after you and Elo left for Coldwater. He was tall, dark, and handsome, as they say. Anyways—he was asking after a family by the name of … umm … Grace. Yep, that was the name. Said he’d been walking the neighborhoods, asking if anyone knew them. Told him I’d lived in Galveston for near fifty years, and I’d never heard of a family by that name. Told him he was sure enough welcome to come inside and have a cup of coffee with me, if he’d like.” Granny turned a naughty grin upon me and winked with wickedness. “He was mighty handsome, Emma Grace. Too bad ye weren’t around to get a peek at him.”

“Granny … that had to be Tate! Don’t you see? I never told him my last name. He thought it was Grace. Oh—I can’t believe it. He did come looking for me, after all. Did he ever come back? Have you seen him again … anywhere?”

“Whoa … slow down, child.” Granny shook her head. “No, I’m sorry, I never saw him but that one time. It never occurred to me that he was yer young fella, sweet-pie. I surely would’ve told you straight out if I’d known this guy was yer Tate. Fact is, I don’t even recall him telling me his name.”

Tate had come looking for me!
As I rocked on the verge of tears and laughter, I struggled for calm so I could grill Granny for more information.

“’Twasn’t a man, exactly … but near enough. Don’t recall word for word what he said, just that he’d been looking for the Grace family a long time. Ye see … he was a hollering up from the street, and I was yelling back to him from the porch, so we never got introduced proper-like. I do remember him saying that he’d searched the county registers and all the phone directories in the area, but hadn’t found the folks he was looking fer.”

I nodded my head, too excited to carry on intelligible conversation. After exhausting Granny’s recollections, I stole away to be with my thoughts. My warm, happy thoughts that chased each other by the tail as I hurried to my bedroom.

But … he came looking for me years ago. No telling where he is now—or who he’s with.
I wanted to clap a hand over my errant thoughts and tell them to be quiet. Later—I would think about Tate and with whom he might be sharing his time. But right now, all I wanted rolling around my head was the precious news that Tate had come looking for me. He hadn’t forgotten me, after all.

Thirty-eight

As the train rolled to a screeching halt, it hissed between the wheels and spit clouds of steam onto the tracks. Gray smoke panted out the tall smokestack and would have rained soot and smut upon all who milled about the station but for a breeze that whisked it to the heights. I wished the winds would stretch down and kidnap that strong stench of creosote that had harassed my nose all afternoon. While the armor-plated locomotive huffed and puffed like an irritated dragon, I returned my gaze to the long walkabout.

I’d spent the afternoon frisking the station with my eyes, foraging for a glimpse of my new friend. Did his tardiness mean he’d returned to school? Or was he sick? I removed my basket from the bench and set it on the concrete walkway, making room for other visitors who might want a seat. I had occupied this wooden pew for hours.

I spied him at last, meandering down the sidewalk, dragging his empty wagon and looking as healthy and fit as a youngster had the right to be. He stopped and tilted his head, studying passengers with what seemed a speculative eye. He cast his gleam upon a hearty fellow in fashionable suit and tie, carrying one small overnighter. Nobie sidled up and tugged the man’s coat sleeve. Did he think this fine specimen of manliness needed his assistance? The man gave him a brief glance before waving him away. Though Nobie appeared unperturbed, my heart sank. He looked around, spying a frail, elderly lady who presented an aura of class. Nobie doffed his cap and bowed, as he had to me a week earlier. She shook her head with vehemence at whatever he said, then withdrew a handkerchief from her reticule and covered her nose. No doubt, to ward off the smoke—and Nobie’s distinctive aroma.

I had had enough. I marched up to Nobie, positioning myself so the scornful-looking woman could hear every word.

“There you are, kind sir. I’ve awaited your arrival for hours.” My napkin-covered basket rode my hip as I curtsied to Nobie and snatched a peek at the woman. She had perched spectacles atop her nose, and now peered at us with sharpness. Was her mouth-droop a permanent affliction, I wondered, or caused by our unsavory presence? As I stared her down, she retreated in a glare of snobbishness, which I found exceptionally predictable.

“You needin’ my business again so soon?” Nobie screwed up his face, a habit that I now understood spoke both the language of favor and displeasure. ’Twas difficult to distinguish between the two.

“Nope. Not today, Nobie.” As we set off in the direction of his house, which was located a few blocks from the station, I felt a twinge of concern about visiting his mother, uninvited.

“Ma won’t take badly to you, Miss Emma Grace. She likes visiting with people. She can talk up a storm.”

“I want your ma to know that this basket is an appreciation gift—not charity.”

“Whadda’ ya mean—appreciation?” Nobie stopped the wagon and stared at the basket. “Appreciation for what?” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and squished his face into a scowl.

“For carrying my luggage—and … for … for being my friend. I don’t have any friends in Galveston, you know.” I turned my gaze from him and his all-seeing eyes. Tall buildings surrounded us: The Ice and Cold Storage Building, catty-corner from our spot on Strand Street. And the McDonough Ironworks Building, directly across the street. I gazed at the tall brick structure, so unlike the frame buildings in Coldwater, of which not one was over two stories high. I noticed movement behind a smoked-over window on the second floor of the ironworks building. A man stared at Nobie and me. I had to admit—we did look the odd couple. I returned his stare as though I could see his face.

We continued up the street, Nobie by my side as we rounded the corner and stepped onto Avenue C. There, the street bore no pavement, just dustiness and rows of small dwellings along either side. I spent the next minutes praying I wouldn’t cause Mrs. Percher’s pride even a pinch of pain.

“That’s my house.” Nobie pointed to a small, weathered house that some might call a shanty. I smiled broadly, for the house stood straight on its foundation, and in no way resembled the dilapidated hovel of my imagination. Colorful autumn chrysanthemums bordered the house on either side of the stoop. Throughout the sparse yard, I spied not a speck of litter.

Nobie barged through the front door, but I hung back, hesitant about my reception. He disappeared for a moment, reappearing with his hand in motion, signaling me to come inside the house. Quite a surprise awaited me there.

I stepped through the door and stood beside Nobie while he untied his footwear and dumped them onto a pallet of newspapers. I glanced around, expecting the worst, but seeing an orderly, well-kept home. A woman held out her arms in welcome, and waddled toward me. ’Twas the best she could do, for a youngster had wrapped himself around one of her legs and seemed oh so disinclined to let go of her.

“I’m Sadie Percher, and these are my children. We’re honored that you’ve come calling on us.” She swept her arm in a graceful half-circle, indicating two babies, a reed-thin lad of about twelve, and a beautiful girl, perhaps seven or eight years old. Sadie scooped the clinging child into her arms. “And this is Frank. He’s three—soon to be four.” Frank lowered his head, burrowing it into the hollow of Sadie’s shoulder. The other children stood like statues, wide, unblinking eyes staring as though I were Santa Claus, himself. One would surmise I was the first outsider ever to cross their threshold. “You must be Miss Emma Grace. Nobie talks about you nonstop. I’m afraid he’s quite taken with you.”

I grinned at Nobie, who made a grunting noise and ducked his head. Sadie Percher lowered Frank to the floor, and wrapped me in a sturdy hug. My mind twirled in circles, for Nobie’s appearance and the house’s appearance were as different from each other as lush forest and desert sand.

I smiled at each member of the Percher family. “I’m Emma Grace Falin—and Nobie is my newest friend. He helped me out when I first arrived in Galveston. I’m staying with my granny for a while—Granny Falin. She lives over on Winnie Street.” I wondered if the little ones in my audience understood a single word of my hurried-up speech.

I knew in an instant that the towheaded babes were identical twins, which, of course, reminded me of Caleb and Micah. I yearned to cuddle them in my arms, but they stared at me with wary, uncomfortable eyes. I knew it might be some time before they allowed such familiarity as the kind I desired.

“Have a sit-down, Miss Falin.” Sadie pointed to a wine-colored divan, old and wearing at the seams, but appearing freshly brushed. She wore her thick hair in a loose bun at the back of her neck. Her hair was auburn and reminded me of finely polished mahogany, with a few wiry strands of gray thrown into the midst.
Like icicles on the redwoods in Papa’s nature book.
My imagination was at work again.

“Please—call me Emma Grace. Everyone does.” I sat down, Nobie, the young girl, and the older boy joining me on the sofa. I couldn’t have been happier.

The moon was coming up full over the rooftops when I departed the Percher home several hours later. At Sadie’s insistence, I stayed for supper, which consisted mainly of food from my basket: canned peas, yams, Granny’s oatmeal bread, sliced ham, potato soup, and apricot preserves for dessert.

I had learned much about the Percher family during my brief stay in their home. Intimate secrets I sealed in my heart: the near poverty in which they existed, saved only by Sadie’s occasional day jobs as a cleaning lady, Nobie’s contributions, which he took as seriously as an elder took his high position in the church, and the older boy’s paper route. Now that the depression was beginning a decline, Sadie hoped to obtain more work. “But who watches the babies?” I had asked. “Why, Brenda Gayle, of course,” Sadie had replied. “She’s only eight, but she tends them as well as I do, and she’s far more patient,” Sadie had shared with a laugh. Her eyes shone with love when she spoke of Nobie, for he, of all her children, had taken upon himself the job of replacing her husband. He seemed to miss his pa more than the other children. Nevertheless, Nobie could be a real hard pebble in the shoe, she had confessed. He constantly ignored her strict code of orderliness and cleanliness, managing to scruff himself up, no matter the consequences. He also ditched school whenever the wind blew in a different direction. He preferred wearing his older brother’s clothes, thinking they aged him, believing more customers would hire him and his portage carrier if he wore Thomas Henry’s attire, and if he appeared a bit scuffed. Her Nobie was of a strong will, Sadie explained, and he had more determination than all her other children, combined. “In that way, he’s most like his pa,” she had beamed.

My steps were light as I hurried back to Granny’s house in the near blackness of night. I couldn’t wait to tell Granny about Sadie and the children. Together we would formulate a plan, discreet though it must be, of how to share our abundance with the Percher family.

Thirty-nine

The ironworks building was three stories high, vacant of flooring, and so cavernous it echoed. Thick, hand-fashioned bricks constituted the walls, making it nearly fireproof. As Tate mounted the stairs to his cubbyhole, he glanced below at his hardworking men. The foreman’s office—if an open-air stage could be called by that name—commenced where the stairs left off: a one-story platform that hugged the brick enclosure. Three sides were open to the great room, but hemmed in by railing like a horse corral. The floor of his workspace also served as a ceiling to the storage unit below. The building had no other floors, save a cement base at ground level that opened onto Strand Street. Five forges, strategically anchored to the concrete expanse below had smokestack horns growing out of their bellies: tin tubing that stretched to the ceiling and beyond, dispatching cindery smoke above the roofline.

For as long as Tate could remember, he’d loved creating designs and working with his hands. Now he exercised his talent daily, crafting iron and steel into fleurs-de-lis, rosettes, spears, collars, pickets, and vines. He also molded iron into candlesticks, gates, fences, sconces, balusters, railings, weather vanes, urns, baskets, window bars, and any other item the customer requested. The ability to craft designs from raw substances seeped from Tate’s essence like life-fluid from a wound. Tate’s creations had not gone unnoticed. Word of his skill had multiplied like the orders piled atop his desk.

When paperwork called him away from the forge and up the stairs to his office, he was seldom alone, for the water barrel and two windows also occupied his floor and wall space. Four fellow ironworkers and their apprentices traipsed the stairs with consistency, drawing drafts of cool air through the windows, and guzzling water down thirsty throats.

Tate’s buddy Fritz Stouser, deliveryman at the icehouse across the street, had transported the second twenty-pound block of ice to the water barrel at midafternoon. The iceberg was now the size of a dime. And no wonder, Tate thought, with forges belching out firestorms from five o’clock in the morning until late afternoon; spitting flames hot enough to melt steel. Since melting steel was what ironworkers did—ten hours a day—six days a week—heat was a necessity they’d learned to live with.

Tate walked to the window and glanced at the street below, as was his habit when taking a breather. Opening on a slant, the window granted few inches of view, so Tate leaned his height over, resting his arms on the sill. A boy and young woman on the street corner came into sight, snagging his interest. Something about the woman yanked a knot in his breath. He narrowed his eyes, his feet shifting as he slammed the window shut and grabbed a bandana from his back pocket. He scrubbed at the scrim of smoke and smut on the window, and then peered through the clear circle of glass. His gaze latched onto the woman who had tipped her face and was looking at him. There, for all the world to see, stood a girl who looked so much like his Emma that it made him want to yell for her to stay put. He could be by her side in three seconds flat.

Tate raked his hair, his fingers shaking as he rolled his shoulders and pinched his eyes closed. He was losing it, he thought. Yes—the girl had dun-colored hair like Emma’s. Yes—her pert features held the same beauty. But this girl didn’t walk with a crutch, nor did she appear to have the unsure flightiness of Emma. They were look-alikes, nothing more. After giving himself a good talking-to, he turned from the window and walked to his desk. He’d gotten his hopes up too many times to allow late-day mirages to fluster him anew.

He jerked the ladle from a nail, filled it to sloshing over, and gulped water by the mouthfuls. The cottony dryness quit his throat, but the image of boy and woman would not leave so easily. He flung the ladle aside and hurried back to the window, staring through the porthole like a starving prisoner looking for food. As he scrubbed at the glass like a man gone berserk, he peered at the street corner below. Hair lifted on his nape like the scut of a startled deer, for the boy and woman were gone. Tate wagged his head, throwing glances up and down the street. The couple was nowhere in sight.

His hands shook as he rethreaded the ladle onto the nail. In the five years since Emma’s disappearance, he’d spied many girls who resembled her, but none so much as the young lady today. He returned to the window a second time and gawked at the corner where he’d spied her and the youngster. Arguments raged inside his head as the long moments passed.
The girl didn’t have a crutch … it couldn’t be Emma. But the hair—no one has hair like Emma’s.
Tate stood transfixed, eyes focused on the spot where one glimpse of the petite beauty had caused his heart to flop about like a beached redfish.

Tate remained at the window, though his coal-fired forge was set and primed to melt the hardest steel. He gazed at the street as though a pot of gold awaited him. What he searched for was far more valuable than gold. With reluctance, he turned and walked down the stairs, retracing his steps to the workbench. He’d probably never see the young woman again.

Tate tied and adjusted his headscarf, located his glove on the anvil where he’d tossed it earlier, and slipped it on his hand. Wedging a helmet on his head, he walked to the channel-iron table, selected an angled length of cold-rolled steel, and grasped it with tongs. Carrying the weight aloft and with ease, he dropped the viewfinder over his eyes and stepped up to the forge. He knew he had to work with unusual care today, the forge spitting tongues of flame that could lick fabric from the arms of an absentminded ironworker. But as he studied the fire, other flames came into view. Flames that had erupted the night he met Emma.

The fire had raged for a time, devouring all the driftwood, flotsam, and seaweed he’d scrounged from shore while the girl slept. He’d finally coaxed her to the flames, encouraged she would come so near. Then he’d talked himself blue, trying to engage her in conversation, but it had all been one-sided. Sometime during his ramblings, she’d slipped away … without a word.

He’d stomped live embers with his boots and buried them in the sandy depths. Then he’d kicked fresh grains over the black hole, covering the blister with a bandage of sand. He’d sat on the beach for hours, wondering why the youngster had tried to end her life. Wondering what would become of her. Would he read about her in the paper?

Girl’s Body Found in Port Bolivar Bay.

Days later, beach chatter had claimed his attention as he rested among the dunes. He’d spied her in the water, frolicking and tussling with a passel of children. That was the day he realized she wasn’t a child, at all, but a young lady. Had he given her his heart that day? Or at a later time?

Weeks after that, he’d sat on the beach and asked God what to do about the needy girl he’d come to love. He’d sat for hours, viewing the nightly changing of the guards: brightly-studded star warriors replacing weary sunbeam soldiers. Ancient constellations had risen up in twinkling star-shine, but still no answer had come from their Creator. He’d wondered when his feelings had taken a detour. Was it the day he placed his hand on Emma’s shoulder and peered into her eyes, viewing not an adolescent girl with wounded heart, but the beautiful woman she would become? She’d reminded him of the priceless conch he’d found on the beach. After taking it home, he’d cleaned and polished it and placed it on his bookshelf: a treasure to admire and protect forever.

All the confusion in his heart had been God’s fault. He’d pleaded with him for answers. “Didn’t you know I’d come to love the girl you sent me to save? Come on, Lord … I need some help here.” He’d closed his eyes, waiting for the still, small voice to speak. He’d been listening to that voice for almost five years. But the night stumbled along in silence. Sometime later, he’d looked to the heavens again, and smiled, the scales peeled from his eyes. Emma was his—a gift to love and cherish forever. He was terribly happy, but bewildered still. She was only thirteen years old. His own manliness—along with all its rampaging, heart-thumping desires—had grown like thistles in a valley. How would he wait until Emma grew to maturity? His willpower wasn’t that strong. Perhaps it would have been better to remain blind to the truth. Life would be a lot more tolerable. Even so—he’d bowed his head in gratefulness, his heart at rest. He would trust God to work it all out. “Thank you, Lord. I know you won’t let me down.”

Tate’s gaze fused on the fire. “But you did let me down, Lord. You let me believe that Emma would come to love me—that she’d be mine someday, but she left without a word, and my heart hasn’t been the same since.”

Tate cleaned and sorted his tools, hanging tongs on hammered hooks, scraping the fabrication table clean, and sweeping around the forge and anvil. He laid the collection of hammers in their individual compartments, hung his leather apron over the hook, and placed the marking pencils and soapstone in a drawer.

He considered staying at the factory all night, working until dawn. He preferred a night in the old brick building to spending an evening in the Caldwells’ stuffy, overdone mansion. Besides, he wouldn’t be good company tonight, not with these heart-pinching pictures of Emma roaming around his head. He wished he could phone Miriam and call off the dinner engagement with her parents. Anyway—the whole arrangement seemed too intimate for Tate’s peace of mind; too presumptuous on his plans for the future. A tight knot squeezed his chest, constricting and breath-draining. Miriam and her mother may have made wedding plans, but he hadn’t. Sometimes Miriam pushed him too far. She was like a headstrong horse, determined to run ahead of the team, no matter who controlled the bit and bridle.

The only thing he wished for this night, other than seeing Emma again, was a long stroll on the beach. And to sit on their dune. It seemed the only fitting place for him to think back in time; back to the happiest two months of his life.

Tate went to the back room, converted now into a changing room complete with toilet, sink, and shower. After a shave and shower, Tate stepped into pressed trousers and slipped his arms into a freshly ironed shirt. He tucked in the shirttail and buttoned the high shirt collar. He twisted his neck, loosening the tightness that suddenly felt like a hangman’s noose. He gathered his pocket change, knife, and wallet from the shelf and stuffed them in his pants pocket. As he lifted the heart-shaped locket he’d been carrying for five years, he studied it with care. He didn’t know if it was Emma’s, or not. He’d found it in the sand sometime after she disappeared. His heart told him it belonged to the girl he loved. He’d never stopped hoping that one day he would slip it around her beautiful neck. For that reason—he never let the necklace out of his sight.

When he glanced in the tarnished mirror, he viewed spiked hair, pitch-black and glistening with water. He ran a hand through its thickness, not caring if it lay flat or stood out like porcupine quills.

“Tate? Where are you, darling?”

Tate cringed, Miriam’s falsetto voice grating on his nerves like an osprey screeching in the wind. Why was she at the factory? He had explained he would meet her at her parents’ house at seven o’clock. Had she come to make sure he didn’t back out? He felt like a child whose mother came to fetch him home from school. Leave it to Miriam to change their plans to suit her own needs. She might be Galveston’s most beautiful debutante, but her smothering ardor made him want to hop a freighter to the Orient.

“Be right out.” Tate sat on a stool, pondering his predicament. Why couldn’t he respond to Miriam as he had to the beauty of his youth? The girl with seventeen freckles sprinkled across her face? Perhaps it would be best for everyone if he stopped thinking about Emma altogether and accepted Miriam’s all-but-spoken-aloud marriage proposal. But how could he? He’d given his heart two long years to fall in love with the dark-haired girl whose beauty was legendary. It hadn’t happened. He doubted it ever would. Perhaps he’d never find the right woman. Maybe he was one of those fellows who could give his heart away only once in a lifetime.

Tate raised his head toward the ceiling.
What do you say, Lord? Do you plan for me to remain a bachelor all my life … like old Paul in the Bible suggested we do? Since you’ve not seen fit to bring Emma back into my life, you must think I should die an old man—without ever knowing the love of a woman. Or the joy of holding a child of my own making. Well, you know what? I’m not like old Paul. I need a woman’s love, and a passel of kids to go along with it. What are you trying to tell me, Lord? That you want Miriam to be the mother of my children?