“Looking forward to serving you.”
She’d been talking up the auction during the dinners at the dining room and nearly everyone she’d approached eagerly agreed to either bid or donate something. Because no one in the community could be termed wealthy, she didn’t expect to raise a lot of money, but every penny taken in would benefit Mary and the orphanage.
A few moments later she entered Mr. Rossetti’s store. She knew from talking with him on a previous visit that the middle-aged Spaniard’s roots in the city went back to the days before the town was established, and that his first store had been nothing more than a tent on the side of Mount Davidson. Two years after the big 1859 Comstock strike, he’d built a permanent store to serve the influx of people and the growing town.
“Ah, the lovely Senorita Carmichael. How are you on this fine morning?”
“I am well, sir. And you and your family?”
“We are doing very well.”
Mr. Rossetti was short, with a bulbous nose, and had a bright engaging smile that could light up the night. She explained about the auction. “Can you donate something people can bid on?”
He thought for a moment. “What about a washing wringer?”
Eddy’s jaw dropped. “Really?”
He led her over to the area of the store where he kept washtubs, soaps, and other laundry items, and there was a wringer set atop a crate. It was designed to be attached by screws to the side of a washtub, and by turning the handle, wet wash was fed between two tubes covered with India rubber. It was by far the best item the auction would offer so far. “Are you sure, Mr. Rossetti?” The devices weren’t terribly expensive but they weren’t cheap either.
“Yes. Very. A few years ago Sister Mary took in a little Mexican girl when the other orphanage turned her away. That little girl is now my daughter, Felicidad. And like her name, she has brought my wife and I nothing but happiness.”
The emotion in his voice touched Eddy’s heart.
“I wish I had more to give than just a wringer.”
Eddy was so moved by the story it took her a moment to find her voice. “Thank you for your generosity, sir.”
“You’re welcome. My wife and I pray for Sister Mary and the orphans every night. She is a saint in our eyes. Now, come. The oranges arrived yesterday.”
He led her past the dry goods, miners’ equipment, and three ice cream churns for sale, to another area of the large store that held his perishables like cabbage, celery, cucumbers, and corn. Most of the vegetables came from the local farmers but the fruit came via trains from California. Eddy saw the large display of oranges and smiled. “May I buy a dozen or so?”
“You may buy two dozen if you like, there are more than enough.”
“Thank you, Mr. Rossetti.”
“You’re welcome. Let me get back to my other customers. I’ll drive the wringer over to the orphanage tomorrow.”
Eddy thanked him again and still brimming with happiness at his generosity, opened the cloth sack she’d brought along and spent some time finding just the right candidates to purchase for her marmalade. She needed them to be fresh, fragrant, and firm.
“Good morning, Miss Carmichael.”
The familiar baritone voice of Rhine Fontaine caught her so by surprise, she dropped the two oranges in her hand and they rolled away. Chastising herself for being rattled, she waited while he bent and retrieved them. Wearing a knowing look, he held them out for her to take, which she did but was careful not to let her flesh brush his. “Good morning, Mr. Fontaine. How are you?”
“I’m well, and you?”
“I’m well, also.” Ignoring his veiled amusement, she turned back to the crates of oranges.
He asked, “Are you planning on using those to lure away more of my customers?”
She smiled. “I’m making marmalade for Sylvia and the boarders.”
“You make marmalade?” he asked with the same wondrous tone Sylvia had.
“I do. Usually from peaches, but when Mr. Rossetti told me he had oranges coming in, I wanted to treat Sylvia as my way of thanking her for being so kind.” Eddy saw some of the other customers eyeing them. “I need to finish my shopping.”
“And I get no reward for finding you in the desert?” he asked, seemingly deaf to her hint to end their conversation.
“You have my thanks of course.” A few short feet away, Eddy saw the frown on the face of a woman ostensibly picking out strawberries. She was obviously eavesdropping. “People are watching us,” she whispered. “Go away.”
“We’re just discussing oranges.”
“Scat.”
He smiled, picked up a few oranges, but stayed right where he was. “Natalie said you were in the dress shop this morning when she cancelled her wedding costume.”
“Yes, she told Vera she’d tossed you over. Shouldn’t you be home mourning or something?”
“You’ve met her. What do you think?”
“My opinion doesn’t matter.”
“Honestly, we weren’t well suited from the start. She wanted me to sell my saloon and I realized I wanted a woman with more depth.”
Eddy looked up into his eyes and saw an intensity in them that made her swallow dryly.
“We really need to have dinner, Eddy. With candlelight, I’m thinking.”
Fighting to keep herself on an even keel, she whispered sharply, “If I make you marmalade, too, will you leave me be?”
“Probably not, but I will take the marmalade. I thought we were supposed to be adults?”
She didn’t like having her words come back to haunt her. “You’re the devil.”
“Am I tempting you?”
Her blood rushed with so much heat, she had to close her eyes to keep herself upright. He was way better at this back and forth than she’d ever be. He’d melted her from the knees down. “How can you be so endearing one moment and so incorrigible—” She hadn’t meant to say that aloud.
He paused. “You find me endearing?”
“No.”
He folded his arms. “Well now.”
“Go away.”
“I want to hear more about how endearing I am,” he said quietly, moving to stand beside her. “I say we discuss me over dinner.”
Shooting him a hot glare, she ignored the people staring and strode away to pay for her oranges.
Rhine watched her determined departure. Endearing. The attraction between them continued to spark like summer lightning, and if he weren’t mistaken, things had just ramped up several more notches. In spite of not scatting when she’d asked, he did care how their encounter might be perceived. The last thing he wanted was for her to be tarred by gossips. So when he saw the tight disapproving face of Mrs. Elsa Parker, the wife of one of the city’s bankers as she stood by the strawberries, he said to her, “Those berries are almost as lovely as you are, Mrs. Parker.”
She tittered and colored up. “You are such a flirt, Mr. Fontaine.”
“Only with ladies as beautiful as yourself.” Knowing his attentions would override any untoward story she might’ve spread, he asked, “Can you help a poor man pick out some good lemons? My chef needs them but I’m ignorant on the matter.”
“Oh, of course.”
Through the store window he saw Eddy march by. Bantering with her only increased his desire for more. He planned to hold her to her offer of the marmalade, and sometime in the very near future show her just how endearing and incorrigible he could be.
Chapter Eleven
Later that afternoon Eddy accompanied Sylvia to the Union Saloon for the Lincoln Club meeting. As soon as they stepped inside, all Eddy could think about was Rhine: being sequestered upstairs in his bedroom, their encounter that morning over the oranges, and that she could no longer use Natalie Greer as the excuse for keeping her feelings about him at bay. There were quite a nu
mber of people already inside and she discreetly looked around for Rhine. Not seeing him, she relaxed and followed her landlady deeper into the room.
This was Eddy’s first time in the saloon proper. The interior was long and narrow yet spacious enough to hold ten tables and chairs. There was a bar to the left and on it sat a bevy of covered dishes and pitchers of water and lemonade. She assumed Jim had provided the food and wanted to go into the kitchen and say hello to him but didn’t want to chance running into Rhine.
Eddy recognized many of the people in the room, like Janet Foster, the hairdresser, and fishmonger Amos Granger. She also saw Whitman Brown seated at a table with Dr. Randolph, and immediately settled her attention elsewhere, but there were a handful of men she’d not yet met.
Sylvia’s boarder and hotel dishwasher August Williams was there as well, sitting at a table with a young woman Eddy also hadn’t met.
“Let’s sit with August and his fiancée,” Sylvia said. “Her name’s Cherry. She’s a maid at the same hotel and they’re planning to marry later this summer.”
Unaware that August had a fiancée, a surprised Eddy followed her over.
Once they sat down, August made the introductions. “Miss Eddy Carmichael, this is my fiancée, Cherry Young.”
Cherry said, “Nice to meet you, Eddy. August speaks very highly of you.” She had beautiful brown skin and was as plump as her fiancé August was thin.
“That’s good to hear,” Eddy replied with a smile. “Nice meeting you as well.”
Then to her delight, Zeke walked up. “Hello, Eddy.”
“Hi, Zeke. You’re back from Reno.”
“Yes, last night. Finished up the job late yesterday.”
She was glad to see him and hoped being in his calm presence would counteract having been melted like butter on a hot stove by Rhine.
August added, “All he’s been talking about since getting back was seeing you again.”
Embarrassed, Eddy dropped her eyes.
Zeke nodded. “He’s right. Missed you, and your fine cooking.”
“I’m glad you’re back.”
“So am I.”
“Would you ladies like something to drink?” he asked.
“Lemonade for me,” Sylvia said as she waved to Janet the hairdresser.
“I’ll have the same,” Eddy told him.
“Me, too,” Cherry said.
The cousins stood and set off for the bar.
While they were gone, some of the men drifted over to introduce themselves to Eddy. First came bricklayer David Quinn, whose light skin showed off his freckles. Next came Barrett Garnet, Mr. Rossetti’s butcher, followed by farmer Oswald Henry, who wanted her to meet his three daughters. Eddy was unaccustomed to so much male attention and had no idea how to respond other than politely. She thought back on Sylvia saying she’d have to beat the men off with a frying pan and smiled inwardly.
Once the men moved off, Cherry laughed, “You may need to start selling tickets, Eddy,”
Sylvia commented, “I warned her. And Eddy, you don’t want to meet Oswald’s girls. His wife recently passed away and he’s looking for someone to marry who’ll help raise those little terrors of his.”
Zeke and August returned with their refreshments, and she found herself peeking over her glass at Ezekiel. It pleased her that he was doing the same.
Doc Randolph called the meeting to order. While Sylvia eyed him tersely, Eddy wondered again about their mysterious past. The doctor began with what he called the race’s current events. “We’re pleased that the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was officially certified on March thirtieth by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish.”
Applause greeted that announcement, and Janet Foster called out, “They forgot about us women!”
When laughter broke out, she countered, “Do I look like I’m joking?”
Doc Randolph said, “One thing at a time, Miss Jan.”
He got an eye roll from her for that but moved on. “Mr. Hiram Revels of Mississippi has been sworn in as the country’s first senator of color.”
More applause and whistles and cheers.
“Things are looking up,” he said. “But if the Kluxers have their way, our people in the South will be back in chains.”
You could hear a pin drop.
Eddy knew from the newspapers that although Congress passed the Enforcement Act, giving the government authority to send troops to protect freedman rights, the Kluxers and their supporters were running loose like rabid dogs.
Doc went on to tell them that North Carolina was on the verge of ending Reconstruction because of political assassination and violence. “In Alamance County, Wyatt Outlaw, one of the Colored leaders, was lynched this past winter. The state’s governor has come out against the Klan, but folks there are pretty sure he’ll be impeached before autumn.” He added that Tennessee and Georgia were being overrun by insurrectionists as well.
Eddy sighed. There’d been so much hope in the years immediately following the war. Fisk University and Morehouse College were founded, the Fourteenth Amendment was sent to the states for ratification, and Blacks in Washington, D.C., were given suffrage over the veto of President Andrew Johnson. But during that same time in Memphis, Tennessee, a mob of Whites that included policemen killed forty-six freedman and two White supporters. In the melee, seventy people were wounded and ninety homes, twelve schools, and four churches were torched and burned. A month and a half later in New Orleans, another mob, this time led by the police, attacked a convention of Black and White Republicans, killing forty and wounding 150.
“What about Mr. Sumner’s civil rights bill?” Amos Granger asked. “Any news on it?”
Doc cracked, “Other than the Lily Whites are running away from it like their mustaches are on fire? No, and there’s no guarantee it will even come to the floor for a vote, let alone be made law.”
Sumner, the senator from Massachusetts, had drafted the bill along with John Mercer Langston, the founder and dean of Howard University’s law school. Its wording would guarantee all citizens, regardless of race, equal access to public accommodations like theatres and public schools, and allow men of the race to serve on juries.
The doctor said, “The part of the bill those refusing to support it dislike the most is allowing children of both races to sit in the same classrooms. Folks are pretty sure that clause will be stripped away somewhere down the road.”
There were disappointed head shakes all over the room.
“Now, I want to turn this over to Zeke.”
Doc sat and Zeke walked to the front. “I just returned from Reno. Went up to handle a job and to attend a meeting with a man named Henry Adams. Since the end of the war, he and a group of men have been traveling across the South, taking stock of conditions and writing down what they’ve been seeing, like the children being forced to sign papers that indenture them to planters for the rest of their lives, sharecroppers being cheated out of their wages and homes, schools burned, teachers killed or run off. The men meet yearly to discuss their travels and turn their diaries over to Adams. I found him to be very passionate about the race and freedom. He’ll let me know when and where the next meeting will be.”
From the back of the room, Jim Dade asked, “What’s he going to do with the notes?”
“He’s hoping to take them to Congress at some point so they can have a real look at our so called freedom. He says some of our people in the South are talking about making an exodus west to Kansas and Nebraska to escape the Kluxers and lynchings.”
He let that sink in before continuing. “On a more positive note, four new Colored colleges opened their doors last year: Clark, Claflin, Dillard, and Tougaloo. They keep kicking us but we keep striving.”
Applause greeted that. Adding hers, Eddy was glad she’d attended the meeting. It had been sad
at points but also informative.
When the room finally quieted, Doc Randolph said, “I’m sending a petition around the room for the men to sign. It asks the state of Nevada to support Mr. Sumner’s civil rights bill. There’s no guarantee they’ll entertain it but at least they’ll know how we feel.” He then looked around. “Does anyone else have something to add before we eat?”
Whitman Brown raised his hand.
“Yes, Mr. Brown?”
He stood. “I say we should throw our votes behind the Democrats.”
Loud boos greeted his words.
He pressed on. “The Lily Whites take our votes for granted. Why not do something to make them sit up and take notice?” Eddy knew it was a move being pushed by some of the race’s national leaders, but it was also fiercely opposed.
Zeke called out, “If you want to align yourself with those blood-spilling supremacists, have at it. I’m a Republican.”
Cheers rose.
Irritation soured Whitman’s face. “Well, I’m thinking of running for council and I’m going on the ballot as a Democrat.”
Eddy noted the shocked faces and those who shook their heads in disgust.
He added, “If anyone wishes to work with me on my campaign, let me know.” With that he sat down again.
Doc Randolph glanced around and asked, “Anyone else?”
Silence.
“Then this meeting of the Virginia City Lincoln Club is adjourned.”
Eddy was impressed by Ezekiel Reynolds. Very impressed.
August asked Sylvie, “I wonder who put Brown up to this?”
She shrugged. “Someone looking to dilute our men’s votes probably. Who knows, but once again Whitman proves he’s an idiot. How about we forget about him and get something to eat?”
Everyone at their table agreed.
Zeke rejoined them and Eddy enjoyed his company and the food. There was fried chicken, potato salad, slaw, and a light as air angel food cake topped with sweet strawberries. She looked around for Jim Dade but didn’t see him. “Sylvia, do you think it might be okay if I went to the kitchen to thank Mr. Dade for the wonderful food? I really would like his recipe for this angel food cake.”