An Irish blessing:
May you always have walls for the
wind,
A roof for the rain,
Drinks beside the fire,
Laughter to cheer you,
Those you love near you,
And all that your heart might
desire.
Prologue
Cheyenne, Dakota Territory,
January 1868
Panic bloomed, threatening to choke Kit as she gasped for
breath. Where could she be, the small girl brought all the way out to the wilds
of Wyoming from New York City? So certain she could make the best decisions for
the little golden-haired girl, Kit had gone against her own upbringing as well
as the stern advice of those older and wiser in order to make this journey
west. Now here was her little family plunked down in the raw boomtown of
Cheyenne, and she had lost not only her own direction but also the child
entrusted to her care.
Where could Hannah be? Where?
The streets slimy with melting snow and horse manure, Kit
struggled to keep her footing as she ran frantically up one and down another,
screaming Hannah’s name. Unable to think where to look next, at last she stood
helplessly wringing her hands. Tears made slow, cold tracks down her face.
A door opened behind her, and a voice full of concern said,
“Kit. As luck would have it, I was just coming to look for you.”
And wouldn’t you know it? The voice of the very man who
seemed to turn up at every instance of her bad luck. Indeed, he might be the
root cause of her ill luck ever since she left New York City. And to think he
had once promised to be her salvation, did Patrick Kelley of the dancing Irish
green eyes.
But what were his true intentions as he took hold of her
arm? To save her? Or to be her final ruination, as she suspected?
“Let me go.” She tried to wrench her arm away. “Hannah is
missing. She’s lost. I must find her!”
“Ah, leannán, don’t take on so,” he said in a soft,
cajoling voice. “Hannah is safe and sound. I have her.”
Kit’s bones suddenly felt soft, as if they had turned to
mush, and her knees started to sag. Ah, God, and wasn’t her luck running true?
Patrick Kelley, the very man! Of all the places in Cheyenne that Hannah might
take refuge, of course it would turn out to be with saloon-keeper, and the
means of the erosion of many a young woman’s morals, Patrick Kelley.
“Come inside, please, Kit,” he insisted, tugging her arm. Her
feet were frozen inside boots soaked with street muck. She felt herself
weakening toward him, the warmth and light of him, and of the place behind him,
beckoning seductively to her.
She had come so far, all the while thinking she knew what
she was doing. Most of a year had passed since setting out. She had followed a
path on a journey of more than two thousand miles, a path of righteousness that
she thought would answer all eventualities.
And then her path, and the paths of the children, crossed
Patrick Kelley’s.
Now once more she must break down and choose between her
lofty principles and a future tied to Patrick Kelley. And she found, to her
utter consternation as she stared into eyes the color of shamrocks,
she…still…couldn’t… decide.
Chapter 1
New York City, December 1866
The woman crouched on the floor. Clutching a bloody rag in
one hand, she held a big-eyed, trembling little girl with the other. The bare
room contained a stove and stovepipe, more than most lodgings boasted in these
warrens of rented quarters above and below street level businesses, but it
obviously had not been lit for some time. Kit Calhoun, standing over the mother
and child, felt colder indoors than she had outside. She rubbed her hands
together self-consciously, grateful for the donated gloves that protected her
fingers. At the same time her heart twisted with pity for the woman and little
girl, dressed in tatters that at this stage of decomposition might not be
useful even for washing floors. The room was devoid of furniture except for two
more piles of rags that apparently served as beds; there was no evidence of
even straw shakedowns on which to lie.
Beside her, Reverend Ignatius Howe cleared his throat.
“Where is your husband, madam?”
Kit’s employer and the founder of the Immigrant Children’s
Asylum continued his interrogation, pausing only when bouts of uncontrollable
coughing shook the exhausted woman’s gaunt frame. His intentions were pure, but
Kit knew the kindness of his heart only from long exposure to his booming voice
and extravagant gestures. His imposing figure towered over the poor creature
huddled against the wall, and once more, when the woman cringed instead of
answering, Kit felt the strong urge to step in front of Reverend Howe and
intervene.
Turning her head aside, Kit bit her lip and willed herself
to hold her tongue. At last the woman whispered in heavily-accented English,
“My husband is dead.”
“See, Katherine. The children are half-orphans,” Ignatius
Howe said to Kit. He seemed unaware that what he considered a murmur
reverberated in the tiny, bare-walled room. He raised his voice to its normal
foghorn pitch and addressed the woman again. “Madam, I beg you, will you allow
us to take custody of this child?”
In response, the woman tried to fit more tightly into the
corner. Her bony arm coiled around her daughter, squeezing the small body to
her blood-spattered bosom. In response the child’s thin crying began to rise
toward frightened shrieks.
Reverend Howe’s eyes sought Kit’s. “It is ever so difficult,”
he said. “It is the nature of mothers, not wanting to let the babes go, no
matter the wretched circumstances.”
Kit, equally torn over what they were attempting to do, laid
her hand on Howe’s arm. “Let me try, Reverend,” she said in a whisper.
His hazel green eyes probed her face, obviously gauging her
readiness. She was new to this job. Today was her first foray into the grimy
New York City streets on behalf of the asylum. Could she do it? Finally, he
nodded.
Lifting her long skirts, Kit knelt next to the woman and
screaming child. Tentatively, she reached her fingers toward the woman’s
angular shoulder. The woman raised tear-filled, pleading eyes, and once more
Kit’s heart wrenched. She sometimes felt a guilty twinge of dissatisfaction
when she examined her plain, slim reflection in the mirror. But if she gained
anything from this expedition to the notorious Five Points neighborhood, it was
an appreciation for what she had. Her environment was opulent in comparison to
what others coming to these shores must endure. This woman, not much older than
Kit herself, surely considered today’s charitable visit the final betrayal in
her short, miserable life. For it was plain to anyone she was dying.
The child’s cries gradually subsided to tired sniffling.
This close, Kit saw the telltale reddened welts of rat bites on the little
girl’s arms and face. “Do you have food?” Kit whispered.
The woman’s bird-like chest heaved as she tried to stifle
another burst of coughing. “My son.” She paused, gasping. “He is good boy. He
works. Newsboy. He brings home money. Food.”
Kit slowly shook her head from side to side, wondering how a
young boy could run the gamut of desperate starvelings of all ages in this
neighborhood in order to bring in any food. Well, today marked the end of that.
“Frau Goff, you must listen,” she said softly. “Your son was arrested by the
constable. Helmut will not be coming home. Reverend Howe is trying to convince
the magistrate to release the boy into our custody, rather than have him spend
ten days in the public Juvenile Asylum under the influence of the older,
hardened hooligans incarcerated there. It was Helmut, Frau Goff, who told us
where to find you.”
At the news, the woman’s hand flew to her mouth. Her eyes
distant now even though they never left Kit’s face, she moaned, rocking the
little girl back and forth. “Ah, Gott in heaven, what shall we do now?” she
pleaded under her breath.
“You need to go to the hospital, Frau Goff,” Kit urged, even
though she knew the charity wards were full to bursting with sick and dying
immigrants. Reverend Howe, however, was prepared to use all his considerable
influence to convince the Baldwin sisters to take just these three more into
their already overburdened care.
“I cannot go to hospital.” The woman covered her mouth,
throat rasping as she coughed up more blood. Twin spots of fever-induced color
suffused her sallow cheeks. “Then Hannah would have no one.”
The woman’s hands lovingly kneaded the little girl. Kit
waited, fingertips resting on the woman’s arm. Puffs of vapor escaped the
child’s rosebud mouth, freezing as her warm breath hit the cold air. Hannah’s
eyelids drooped as she lay quietly now in her mother’s arms, and she blinked
sleepily.
“It makes no difference if I agree, yah? All you have to do
is wait. When I die,” the sick woman said in a dull rasp, “my children will
truly be left all alone.”
Kit swallowed the reply that wanted to spill from her lips,
words of false hope and promise that the woman would recover. Perhaps, with
time, good food, rest and a change of climate, there might have been a chance.
But as it was, destitute and starving and already ravaged by her illness, there
was in truth little the medical profession could do for Helga Goff.
“Will you sign?” Kit asked in German, fingers tightening on
the woman’s skeletal arm. Educated at the asylum in languages, as well as
painting and piano, at least some of her training stood her in good stead this
day. “Will you give us the opportunity to shepherd your children toward a
better life?”
The widow Goff studied Kit with burning eyes. “You will keep
Helmut and Hannah together?” she pleaded, also in her native tongue. “Brother
and sister always. You will not separate them? Make your solemn pledge to me
now, before Almighty God.”
“I assure you the asylum will educate them and find them a
home.”
“No! To you! To you alone will I give up my children.
Promise me they will be together. Always.” Her voice fading, the woman’s last
word ended on a sigh. Her small strength in defense of her children spent, her
head drooped toward her chest.
Kit craned her neck, looking frantically over her shoulder
to Reverend Howe for guidance. He held out his hands, palms up. “You have
chosen to do this work, Katherine.”
Finding no help from the bear of a man in the massive
greatcoat, Kit turned her gaze back toward the woman and child. Looking down on
the little girl’s soft, golden curls, she said, “Very well, Frau Goff. I
promise you that Helmut and Hannah will remain together.”
The sick woman raised her head. For an instant she searched
Kit’s face. Then apparently reading truth there, she reached unsteadily for the
pen that Reverend Howe had already dipped in ink. Her lips moved as she
struggled to read aloud in English:
This document certifies that I am the mother and sole
legal guardian of Helmut Goff, age eight, and Hannah Goff, age two. I hereby
willingly agree for the Immigrant Children’s Asylum to provide them a home
until they are of age. I further promise never to interfere in any arrangements
made on their behalf.
Once more she raised fever-bright eyes to Kit’s, as if
seeking a way out of signing away her children. But both of them knew it was
too late. There was no rescue in this world for Frau Helga Goff. Shoulders
rounded in defeat, she lowered her eyes to the release form and signed in a
spidery European hand.
Title: Walls for the Wind
Author:
Alethea Williams
Genre:
Western historical
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