The Teacher’s Hidden Hope (Preview)

Chapter One

August 27, 1880

“I can’t believe you heard nothing about it,” Tommy Callahan said. “It made headlines across the West for weeks after she returned seemingly out of thin air. But I guess you were a little too far East at that point to have caught word of it.”

They were sitting on Tommy’s back porch drinking lemonade that his wife, Velma, had made for them. Levi Barrett, twenty-nine years old and the newly appointed Sheriff of Copper Hollow, Arizona, was sitting to his right, bringing the lemonade to his lips every few minutes. Velma was a good woman, but she often had a hard time balancing the flavors in her cooking. Today, for example, she hadn’t put enough sugar in her lemonade. Levi had made a grave error when he’d taken a big swig of it right off the bat and he’d nearly spat it out. Since then, he’d just been faking drinking it and dribbling a little over the edge of the porch when Tommy wasn’t looking.

“Yeah, there’s no way he would have heard about it over in Chicago,” Frank Monroe piped up from his spot on the stairs. Unlike Tommy, Frank didn’t seem to notice how revolting the lemonade was. “It was big news to us, but if you didn’t hear the news when it first came out, it probably wouldn’t have had much of an impact.”

“Why do you think the Tolkepaya took her and her little sister, but killed the rest of her family?” Levi asked.

Tommy and Frank were telling him about a girl named Olive Oatman. She’d been travelling with her family on the Gila trail when an encounter with the Tolkepaya left four of her family members dead. She’d been taken captive but was eventually rescued by the Mojave. Five years later she returned to Fort Yuma and reunited with her brother, Lorenzo, who she believed to be dead. It was quite a miraculous return.

“I have no idea, but I’m glad she got to know that her brother was alive,” Tommy said, putting his glass of lemonade down on the table. “Can you imagine thinking your whole kin had been killed, only to find your older brother had been looking for you all along? And what a change it must have been to go from living with the Mojave to living with people like us!”

“And that’s why you think they fired the last sheriff?” Levi asked.

“I know that’s why they fired Jed,” Tommy said confidently. “Lorenzo had been pressing him and all the other lawmen around these parts to keep looking for little Olive, but no one believed him, least of all Jed. They told Lorenzo to go on and get on with his life, but Lorenzo never gave up hope. When Olive was returned, the mayor gave Jed the boot. The old man packed up and left town the next day in shame. He never told no one where he was goin’, and I’m glad for it. Jed was about as useful as a fur coat on a summer’s day. I’m glad they picked you two boys to replace him.”

“I am, too,” Frank said, taking a final swig of his lemonade and standing up. “I gotta go see a man about a goat. I’ll be right back.”

Frank walked off in the direction of the outhouse as Levi and Tommy chuckled.

“Doesn’t he know he’s not in polite company?” Tommy asked his friend. “He doesn’t need to talk in euphemisms like that.”

“Ah, he’s used to uptight Midwest lawmen, give him a break,” Levi told him. “When you told me about this job, he was afraid to take me up on my offer to make him deputy. Go easy on him.”

“This is me going easy on him!” Tommy protested. “If I were going hard on him, I’d go out to that outhouse right now, lock it from the outside and set off a firecracker behind it. I promised you I wouldn’t play any jokes on the kid, but you didn’t make me promise anything about teasing him about his formality.”

Tommy was right. The pair had been friends since they were kids, having grown up alongside each other in Chicago. But Tommy wasn’t meant for city life, and he needed to make his own way in the world. He’d moved out to Copper Hollow to start his own ranch and was quite successful. He’d met and married Velma, and the couple was expecting their first child within the next few weeks.

Levi, on the other hand, had stayed in Chicago. He’d become a deputy back home but his sheriff wasn’t his biggest fan. He knew there was no more upward movement, so he started looking at jobs elsewhere. When Tommy told him about his town needing a sheriff and a deputy, Levi had jumped at the chance and brought his protege, Frank, with him. Frank was originally from Arizona but had gone to Chicago for a better position. When Levi had told him about the opening, Frank had jumped at the chance. They’d been here for about a month now and things were going fairly well.

“I thought teasing and playing jokes kind of went hand in hand,” Levi said, giving him a look. “But I suppose I’ll allow it, as long as you aren’t too mean to him. He’s a good kid. He just needs to loosen up a little.”

Tommy grinned at him. He mimed locking the outhouse door and setting off the firecracker behind it. “That’d loosen him up, I’m sure.” Both men laughed.

Levi was happy to be living in Copper Hollow. It had been hard to leave his family, but his parents had been proud that he was going out to get such a good job. As he was leaving, his mother kept saying, “Now don’t let your job get in the way of finding a nice lady to settle down with, Levi. You’re a good man with a good job, and any woman would be lucky to have you!”

He knew his mother was right on the first two counts, but he doubted the last one. Levi had never thought he was particularly good looking. He had dark brown hair, that no matter how often he washed it, always looked a little greasy. His blue eyes looked more gray than blue, and although he was tall, he’d seen himself in the mirror this morning and could tell he had a nice hunch starting. He wasn’t sure any woman would look at him and immediately think, Husband!

  “You boys gotta head down to the railroad soon?” Tommy asked him when they’d stopped laughing.

  “Sure do,” Levi said. “Mayor Burke wants us to interview all the new miners that are coming in and make sure any miners living in town are safe, hardworking men. He has to get that crime rate down, remember. I told him we’d be more successful in our endeavors if we could hire another deputy to assist us, but I didn’t press the matter. We’re the new ones in town, so we have to tread lightly.” Frank returned from the outhouse and when he saw him, Levi stood up. “Well, we’d best be going.”

“Of course,” Tommy said, shaking Levi’s hand. “Good seeing you, and don’t forget to let Velma know if you’re coming to dinner on Tuesday on the way out.”

Levi put a hand to his forehead. “I completely forgot, thank you for reminding me. I’ll gladly come, if you’ll have me. Can I bring anything?”

Tommy held open the back door for him and as Levi went through, he said, “If Mrs. Murdoch is up for making a strawberry rhubarb pie, it wouldn’t go to waste.”

“Done,” Levi said with a smile. Mrs. Murdoch was the owner of his boarding house and made a pie with a buttery, flaky crust that no one in town could resist. It was one of the main reasons why her dining room on the bottom floor of the boarding house was always packed with locals.

Levi and Frank rode back into town and set themselves up inside the sheriff’s office. The foremen had been given strict instructions to bring all of the newcomers directly to them so they could interview them. The mayor, Josiah Burke, had tried to convince them to do it right there at the train station. But Levi had reminded him how hot it would get with all of them waiting there in the sun, and how men who get overheated often start fights. Eventually, the mayor had begrudgingly agreed. Levi and Frank were now awaiting their new arrivals.

“How do we make sure the men will leave town if we decide they’re not fit for the job?” Frank asked as he straightened his pile of paperwork on his desk for the tenth time in an hour. “Do we just demand they leave town and hope they’ll obey us?”

Levi shook his head. Initially, he’d felt a bit badly that he’d been given the position of sheriff. Frank was far more organized than he was, though they were only a couple years apart in age: Levi was twenty-nine and Frank was twenty-seven. But Frank wasn’t particularly good at taking charge or problem solving, so Levi was the man for the job.

“No,” Levi replied as he unlocked the front door. “We’ll interview them, and then if they don’t seem like they’ll be a good fit, we’ll send them into a room with the foremen. They’ll keep an eye on them. If you think about it, we’ve got the easy job. All we’ve got to do is ask them some questions and either send them straight to the mine or straight to the foremen. Should be a piece of cake.”

Frank scoffed. “Hah! You say that now, but just wait, those men are going to start something while they’re here and we’re going to have to deal with it. It’s never as easy as we think it’s going to be.”

Just as Frank was finishing speaking, the door opened. Levi stood up, assuming it was one of the foremen bringing the new miners. He was surprised, however, when he saw Mayor Burke walking through the front door instead.

“Gentlemen,” he said gruffly as he closed the door behind him and mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “One of these days I might kick you out of here and make my office in here instead. It’s at least five degrees cooler than where they’ve stuck me.”

“Fine by us, Mr. Mayor,” Frank said obediently as he stood up to shake his hand. “We’ll work anywhere you tell us. But would you much mind having your office attached to the jail?”

Mayor Burke arched an eyebrow and chuckled. “Not in the least. As long as those who need to be in there stay in there, I shouldn’t have a problem.”

“How can we help you, Mayor Burke?” Levi asked politely. He wasn’t the mayor’s favorite person, but the two got along all right. Levi thought Mayor Burke was trying a bit too hard to cover up the seedy underbelly of the town and paint it as a paradise in the desert. Meanwhile, Mayor Burke seemed to think that Levi was never quite doing enough to keep the town safe.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news and go back on my word,” the mayor told them, “but I’m afraid you’ll have to do these interviews on the train platform after all. Seems one of the foremen has come down with consumption so they don’t have enough people to transport the new miners here safely.”

Mayor Burke kept looking down at the ground so Levi couldn’t catch his eye. Was one of the foremen really ill, or did the mayor just pay him off to take a leave of absence so that the new miners didn’t have to come through town? Levi knew that risked the rest of the townspeople seeing the men, and the mayor would go to great lengths to avoid that. He knew he should put his foot down and insist they do their interviews here, but he also knew he needed to pick his battles. He decided this wasn’t a hill he needed to die on, so he relented.

“That’s a shame about the foreman,” Levi said in the kindest tone he could muster. He stood up and came around to the front of his desk. “No problem about the change of location. Frank and I will set up shop on the train platform.” He tried to resist the urge to add in a little jab, but he couldn’t help himself. “We’d move through those men a lot faster if we had another set of hands, though.”

The mayor shrugged and grabbed the door handle. “Too bad I don’t have the budget for it, Sheriff Barrett. Mind that you don’t make too many comments like that, son. Otherwise, I may not have the budget for the two of you, either.”

With that, the mayor closed the door and left the two men in stunned silence. Levi wasn’t so sure he was going to be in Copper Hollow for very long after all.

Chapter Two

  “I found it, Mama!” Clara Whitmore called down the hall to her mother, Eleanor.

  “Oh, bless you!”

  Clara heard her mother’s footsteps come down the hall and a moment later, she appeared in the bedroom doorway. Clara triumphantly held up the spool of red thread.

  “Where was it hiding?” Eleanor asked.

  “Under the bed,” Clara told her as she straightened the bed linens. “You mentioned you’d been sewing last night, so I went to the last place you had it. I figured you may have fallen asleep while you were working and dropped the thread, so I went where I thought it might have rolled to. Lo and behold, there it was!”

  Eleanor came over and patted her daughter’s cheek. “What would I do without you? If you hadn’t found me this thread, I’d have had to order more mealybugs and do all that awful dyeing again. Those little bugs cost an awful lot and produce such a small amount of dye! Thank you, Clara. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t know what to do!”

As if to exemplify her point, Eleanor swept her arm behind her and knocked over a daguerreotype that was on her bedside table. “Oh darn.”

“I’ve got it, Mama,” Clara said, grabbing it. As she replaced it on the table, she couldn’t help but admire the face of the young man looking back at her.

“You and Eugene are kindred spirits, you know,” Eleanor said, pointing to the man in the picture. Eugene was her mother’s older brother. “He always knew how to keep me in line, just like you do.” Then her mother paused and sighed, putting her hand on her hip. “I miss him every day.”

Clara rubbed her mother’s shoulder. “I know you do, Mama. It must be so difficult to not have any closure about who killed him. But you can take solace in knowing he is in Heaven now. I bet he’s still watching out for you, just like he used to.”

Eleanor patted her daughter’s hand lovingly. Eugene had been killed while walking home from his apprenticeship at the tinsmith shop. The fact that they never found out who killed Eugene hung over her mother’s family like a storm cloud.

“I think he sent you to help me when he couldn’t anymore,” Eleanor said. “You were born just after he died, and I take that as a sign you were sent from him. You’re my biggest helper!”

  Clara chuckled. It was true, she did give her mother a great deal of help. Eleanor Whitmore was a skilled dressmaker and ran a profitable business out of their small home. But she was quite scatterbrained and forgetful, often misplacing items at just the wrong moment. Clara, on the other hand, was level-headed, practical, and although she was nineteen and very mature for her age, often found herself walking around behind her mother, collecting everything she’d mistakenly put down in the wrong spot.

  “If you didn’t have me,” Clara said as she plucked a bit of errant thread out of her mother’s hair, “you’d have come up with other ways to remember where you put everything. What I think is doing you a favor might actually be building a dependence on me.”

  “And why shouldn’t I build a dependence on you?” Eleanor asked her daughter. “Are you going anywhere? Have you found a beau whom you’ll be hitching yourself to?”

  Clara rolled her eyes and put the pillows that were on the floor back onto the bed. “No, Mama, the term is starting soon, and I’ll be back at the school. You won’t have me to search for fifteen things a day as of next week.”

  “Oh right, how could I forget!” Eleanor cried as she accidentally pricked herself with the needle. She stuck her hurt finger in her mouth and kept talking. “They have you with Ruth again, right? They didn’t stick you with some ancient teacher who still believes in corporal punishment?”

  “Thankfully I’m still with Ruth. I’m so happy she’s still the head teacher. It’s so nice to be working with my best friend,” Clara said.

  “It’s never been common for a school as small as Copper Hollow to have two teachers, but I’m glad they made an exception for you,” Eleanor replied. “I know you’ll loathe the day when you finish your training and have to go to another school further away, so we’ll revel in your time here! I hope the little ones are better than they were last year. Sometimes I don’t think their parents have taught them any discipline at all!”

  Clara shrugged. “Sometimes they haven’t. Peter Treadmore’s father is down at the tavern so often that I’d be surprised if he ever sees him. And his mother tries her hardest, but she’s gotten other children to look after. He runs wild as far as I can tell.”

  “And it shows.”

“I’m going to get started on the bread, would you like to move into the kitchen with me?” Clara asked.

“Absolutely I would,” Eleanor responded as she picked up her project.

The two women walked a short distance to the kitchen and Clara set about assembling the ingredients for the bread. When she opened the flour bin, however, she was surprised to find it empty. She turned to her mother who was sitting at the small dining table.

“Did you use any of the flour, Mama?” Clara asked her.

“Hmm?” Eleanor looked up from her sewing, registered the question, then looked apologetic. “Oh no, I did, I’m sorry! I gave some to Mrs. Baxter next door. She was making cookies for her grandchildren and just needed a little more. I didn’t think to tell you we were out; I’m very sorry Clara Beara.”

“That’s all right, Mama, I’ll just go into town and get some more. Do you need me to pick up anything while I’m there?”

“Could you get the mail?” Eleanor asked her as she drew up another stitch. “I’m waiting on a reply from Aunt Josephine. Uncle Bruce isn’t doing too well, and I want to make sure he’s recovering okay. If he isn’t, I may go out to Tucson and visit them.”

“Poor Uncle Bruce,” Clara said sympathetically. “He can’t seem to catch a break, can he?”

Eleanor shook her head. “First the robbery, now this. Let’s pray he pulls through.”

Clara nodded. She gave her mother a kiss before she headed out. “See you soon, Mama.”

“Be safe, my girl!” she called to her daughter as Clara headed toward the door.

“I always am!” she shouted back. When she turned back to face the outdoors she nearly jumped out of her skin when she came face-to-face with Ruth.

“My goodness!” Ruth cried, her hand flying over her heart. “Sorry, Clara, I just wasn’t expecting you to come out right at that moment!”

“You and me both!” Clara said as she warmly embraced her friend. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see if you had a little time to do some lesson planning this afternoon,” Ruth explained as she smoothed her dress. “I wanted to make sure we were on the same page about the new curriculum and see if you had any questions.”

“I’m just heading into town to pick up some more flour and the mail, would you like to ride with me, and we can discuss the lessons on the way?” Clara asked her.

“That sounds perfect!” Ruth agreed. “I need to go to Pike’s General Store anyway to pick up a few school supplies, so this works out brilliantly.”

A few minutes later the two young women were riding side-by-side on the road to town. Ruth was wearing her prettiest blue dress, and Clara couldn’t help but feel a little jealous of it. Eleanor always made her beautiful clothes, but they weren’t quite the same as the clothes Ruth had. Because of her position at the school, Ruth was able to afford finer fabrics than the Whitmore’s could, and in nicer colors. Eleanor was skilled at dyeing fabrics, but they could seldom afford dyes for their own clothes. Clara never complained, though. She was delighted that Ruth was doing well for herself and was so proud to be her closest friend.

The pair was different in other ways, too. Ruth’s hair was pitch black and pin straight, whereas Clara’s was blonde and had some nice waves in it. Clara’s eyes were as blue as the sky over the mountains, while Ruth’s were chestnut brown. Ruth stood about three inches taller than Clara’s average height, but Clara didn’t envy her because of it. Because Ruth was so tall, many of the men in town didn’t much desire her. They thought it was shameful to have a wife who was taller than they were. But that was fine by Ruth because, as she said, it weeded out the bad ones anyway.

“We’re still assuming that all of these children have no exposure to reading at home, right?” Clara checked.

“Right,” Ruth confirmed. “The day any of those children walk into the schoolhouse knowing how to read is the day I eat my hat!”

That made both of them laugh.

They were just coming down the main road into town. Clara could see Pike’s store and it didn’t look too busy, thankfully. Just as they were riding past the sheriff’s office, the door opened and three men walked out. The first was Mayor Burke, who Clara recognized right away. But she didn’t know the other two, one of whom was quite good looking.

“Hi there, Mayor Burke!” Ruth called jovially.

The mayor turned, registered who was greeting him, and then waved back. “Howdy, Miss Chandler! How are things looking for the school this year?”

“Oh, mighty fine,” she said with a winning smile. The school was woefully underfunded, so Clara knew that Ruth was putting on a happy face for the mayor in the hopes that they might get more money.

“That’s just dandy,” Mayor Burke said with a tip of his hat. “The students are lucky to have two such exquisite schoolteachers.” He turned his attention to Clara. “And how is your mother, Miss Whitmore? My wife hasn’t asked too much of her with this dress, has she? She always has such specific requirements, and I haven’t the faintest idea how your mother always rises to the occasion!”

It was nice to hear her mother spoken of so fondly. “Mrs. Burke is always very kind and exceedingly generous to my mother, Mayor Burke, and we’re very grateful to her. My mother is getting on just fine with her dress for the Mayor’s Ball. She should be finished with plenty of time to spare.”

The mayor winked at her. “That’s what I like to hear, Miss Whitmore. Take care now.”

Clara noticed that the tallest gentleman, the one she thought was handsome, looked at her with the faintest hint of a smile. His eyes lingered on her as they walked away and he finally tipped his cowboy hat to her just before they went out of sight around the corner. His gaze made her heart flutter, and she felt her palms get a bit sweaty. It was an embarrassing reaction she had to strong emotions, and it left her constantly having to wipe her hands on the back of her dress. She thought she might grow out of it as she got older but alas, it stayed strong.

When the men were gone, Clara turned to Ruth to say something but noticed she was still looking at the men. “Something wrong?” Clara asked her.

Ruth whipped her head around as soon as she heard Clara’s voice. “No, nothing at all. It’s just… that one fellow was quite dashing, wasn’t he?”

Clara’s heart sunk, just a little. Oh no, does she think that man was good looking too? If Ruth likes him, I won’t do a thing. She deserves to have a good man, she thought to herself. “He certainly was. Who is he?”

“I think he’s either the new sheriff or the new deputy,” Ruth informed her as she straightened her hat. “They’re the replacements for old Jed Clark.”

“Ahhh right,” Clara said as they continued on. “How long have they been in town?”

“About a month, I think,” Ruth told her, “but I haven’t met either of them yet. I don’t even know their names! Isn’t it so silly to begin to feel an attraction toward someone before you know who they are?”

Clara chuckled. She was still a little sad that she and Ruth liked the same man, but the feeling was starting to ebb away. “Not silly at all. I believe that’s what an average person might call ‘love at first sight.’”

Ruth rolled her eyes. “I doubt that’s what it is. I’m far too practical for any of that nonsense.”

The two young women continued trotting down the dusty main road as Clara smiled to herself. She knew very well that it was usually the most practical people who ended up being the most pleasantly surprised by love.