<< Go Back

The Shelter of Each Other

By Catherine Richmond

Order Now!

The Shelter of Each Other
By Catherine Richmond

Chapter One
August, 1853
“Almost home,” Keziah Sirrine told the ill-tempered chicken under her left arm, earning a peck for her trouble. Home to peel off her sweat-stiff dress, wipe the grime from her face, and drop into bed.
Dawn’s feeble glow crossed the Mississippi and worked its way through the narrow spaces between the wood-frame houses. Waiting for sunrise would have been sensible. But exhaustion drove Keziah to follow the plume of her dog’s tail through St. Louis’s dark and muck-filled streets. The hand that usually held her lantern carried payment for the delivery, one leghorn pullet. Her other hand clutched the satchel with her midwife supplies.
Thank you, Lord, for the safe arrival of the baby, and for the quiet and cool of early morn.
As she turned into the alley beside her house, a voice called “Gardyloo!” followed by a chamber pot’s contents sailing out a second story window.
“You’re not in Edinburgh anymore, idiot!” Keziah yelled as slops spattered her apron, already begrimed from kneeling on a dirt floor all night. “How many times must I say it—use the latrine.” Lord, protect my plants from the poison of fools. She tossed the chicken into the pen, setting off loud squawking, dropped her satchel on the back porch, then grabbed her spade. “Have you forgotten about the cholera four years ago? Thousands died of it in this city because of lazy people like you.” With a scoop and a swing, Keziah sent the muck flying. It fell short of the window, but left a satisfying dark stain on the whitewash below.
“Sister Keziah Sirrine.” A man barked each syllable as if addressing a wayward child. “That’s not how we’re to love our neighbors.”
As if Brother Orrin Butts knew anything about love.
The hair on Finn’s neck raised and his muzzle tensed with a growl. He was a large dog, his head as high as her hand, who’d made his mission to protect her. “Whisht,” Keziah told him. He quieted on command, but kept his gaze on the visitor.
Where the alley opened to the street stood two men in frock coats, trousers, and cravats. God save us. What were Brother Thompson’s henchmen, church elders, doing in her alley at the break of day? No use pretending they hadn’t seen her with sleeves rolled up and hair falling down. Well, if they wanted presentable, they shouldn’t drop in. She raised her chin and gave them a hard stare. “Spreading pestilence isn’t kind to neighbors either.”
The taller of the two, a man she’d never seen before, closed her neighbor’s window. He turned to her with a nod. The corner of his mouth tipped up with a quick smile.
Find me entertaining, do you? Keziah nodded back. You’ll need a grand dose of fun, stuck with Brother Butts as you are. She straightened her apron, dislodging a flurry of chicken feathers that had been stuck by body fluids. No dignity here. None at all. “Brother Butts and Brother…”
“Duncan Ross.” The newcomer nodded.
“Brother Ross.” Butts looked down his red nose at her. “If you’d grace us with your presence on a Sabbath, you’d recognize the other members of the Congregation.”
Butts knew very well she trained as a midwife, but he disliked anyone having even a smidgen of independence. If she lost her temper, he’d report her as rebellious and headstrong, and rein her in.
Keziah wouldn’t give him the pleasure. She kept her tone matter-of-fact. “God determines when babies come.” And last night, it seemed the infant never would, even after hours of pacing. Keziah widened her eyes to keep herself awake. “Good morning to you both. And what brings you out this fine day?” Although fine put a stretch on it, considering sunrise had thickened the air with flies and the stench of the river.
“You weren’t home last evening.” Butts clasped his lapels. “It’s unseemly for a woman to go gallivanting about at all hours.”
“I was helping Mrs. Henderson bring her baby into the world.” While keeping Mr. Henderson from drinking himself blind and minding a toddler who seemed determined to set himself on fire. For twelve hours’ work, she received one ornery leghorn pullet. And the baby received the questionable honor of being named after the past president. Poor wee Millard Fillmore Henderson. “Scripture says Jesus was born at night.”
Butts took a step back as Finn approached with his nose low. “Call off your cur.”
Keziah clicked her tongue and the dog returned to her side.
“I returned moments ago. What might you be needing?” A simple remedy, please, then she’d eat a cold biscuit and snatch a bit of sleep. From the next block, the German baker called instructions to his delivery man. At the levee, a steamboat whistled its departure, echoed by a locomotive in the rail yard. Irish stevedores trudged past on their way to the warehouses. The city awakened.
Butts petted his excessive mutton-chop whiskers. “Jehovah’s Presbytery of Zion is moving to Iowa.”
Iowa? Panic squeezed her throat. The empty prairies of Iowa would provide no hiding place. Fault-finding elders would supervise her every move. She’d have to waste her breath explaining common-sense hygiene to fools like Orrin Butts. “So Brother Thompson is giving up on Joseph Smith’s revelation to build in Independence, Missouri?”
Butts scowled, refusing to lower himself to discuss a religious question. He tipped his head toward her home. “A buyer will be moving into this house in three weeks.”
The news woke her like a dunking in ice water. “But my garden—”
A wave of his hand brushed aside the work she’d put into cultivating a wide variety of healing herbs. “Iowa has plants.”
“Sure and they have the ingredients needed for your rheumatism remedy.” Her sarcasm blew past him.
“Ours is not to question the Patriarch.”
Patriarch. Yet another title Thompson bestowed on himself, as though Apostle of the Free and Accepted Order of Baneemy and Chief Teacher of the Preparatory Department of Jehovah’s Presbytery of Zion weren’t enough. “I’m not finished training with Mrs. Jackson.”
He huffed. “That slave—”
“Mrs. Jackson is free. She attended the birth of Brother Thompson’s children. He agreed I could learn midwifery from her.” Keziah breathed deeply to stay calm, as Mrs. Jackson taught laboring mothers. She braced against the rough-hewn wall.
“You trained to serve the Congregation. You come with us.” Butts tipped his head to attempt a benevolent expression. “A woman can’t stay in this city by herself.”
“Suddenly my safety is a concern of yours? For years I’ve walked all over St. Louis alone.” She nodded at Finn, who kept a watchful eye on the elders. “God provided a dog to guard me.”
“You may bring the dog,” Butts said as if she required his permission.
Keziah’s mind raced. The plants wouldn’t survive a move in this heat.The garden wouldn’t be ready until after harvest. “I must wait here for Brother Sirrine’s return. If he returns and I’m gone—”
“The new owner will tell him where we are.”
“The house can’t be sold without my husband’s permission.”
“Brother Sirrine signed it over to Brother Thompson before he left on his mission trip.”
What? Without telling her? Of course. Women were too frail for such details. Rotten, blasted—careful. Was this be legal? There had to be a loophole. “I’d like to see the bill of sale.”
Butts shook his head and started down the street. The tall man followed, his head abuzz with enough gossip to start a newspaper. Over his shoulder, Butts called, “Sister, you need to pack.”
No, she needed a lawyer…who would take a leghorn pullet in trade.
END OF READING

Order Now!

<< Go Back