Miss Emmett?”
Amelia gave a start and sat upright, careful not to dislodge Lucy’s tousled head from her lap. She fixed her bleary eyes on the gray-haired conductor.
“Yes, sir?”
“It’s almost eleven o’clock.”
She looked out the window. Sunshine bathed the passing landscape. Nearly midday then, not nighttime. She shook her head, trying to bring herself to full wakefulness. The week of forcing herself to stay awake both day and night to keep watch over her charges had finally caught up with her. Tiredness weighted her like a millstone.
“We’ll be pulling into the Kingsley station in roughly ten minutes. You and the little girl are the only ones departing the train in Kingsley, and no passengers are waiting to board, so the engineer says the stop’ll be brief—just long enough to make use of the water tank.”
The man spoke nonsense. Why did she need to know about passengers’ comings and goings or the water-tank usage? Amelia blinked several times. “A–all right…”
“It’s been a long journey, hasn’t it?” An understanding smile crinkled his eyes. “But it’s almost over now. As I said, only ten more minutes. I’ll get your things gathered up. Why don’t you wake the little girl and… er… ready her and yourself to depart.”
Finally Amelia understood. After her days and nights of jostling along the rails, delivering children from the New York City orphanage to their new parents in various towns in Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas, she must be a rumpled mess from head to toe. And the engineer required a hasty leave-taking so he could be on his way. She wouldn’t inconvenience him. “Thank you very much. We’ll be ready when the train reaches the station.”
The kindly conductor hurried up the aisle, his gait matching the rocking motion of the train.
Amelia turned her attention to the child curled on the padded bench. From the moment little Lucy had arrived at the Good Shepherd Asylum a year ago, orphaned by the influenza that marched from apartment to apartment in her family’s tenement building, she’d been Amelia’s pint-sized companion. Saying goodbye to the child would be torture, but what other choice did she have? The matron of Good Shepherd, Miss Agnes, only allowed two-parent families to adopt, claiming it was in the best interest of the children. Amelia couldn’t argue. God Himself created man and wife. She could only trust that Lucy’s new mama and papa would grow to love her as much as Amelia already did.
She petted Lucy’s silky brown ringlets, crooning softly, “Lucy, sweetheart, you need to wake up.”
Lucy’s thick eyelashes threw a shadow across her rosy cheeks, and her sweet lips released a little sigh of contentment. She nestled more thoroughly into the folds of Amelia’s brown plaid skirt.
Tenderness filled Amelia. If only she could let Lucy sleep until she was ready to rouse. The days of being cooped up in such a small space had been so difficult for the little girl. But in less than ten minutes they would vacate the train. She would deliver Lucy into the care of Edwin and Ruby Early. Both she and Lucy would begin new lives.
Dear God, now that it’s upon me, I’m not sure I’m ready to—
Pain stabbed, tears threatening. Ready or not, the arrangements were made. She couldn’t change them now. Miss Agnes had already hired someone to take Amelia’s place at the orphans’ asylum. She’d emptied her small room that had been her home for the past eight years—all of her earthly goods traveled with her. After this last duty to Good Shepherd—delivering Lucy—she’d be free to pursue a different life than caring for other people’s abandoned or orphaned children. But what would that life be?
With a sigh, she took hold of Lucy’s narrow shoulders and gently lifted her. The child yawned, rubbed her eyes with her fists, and then looked around in confusion. Her gaze met Amelia’s, and a precious smile broke across her features.
“Miss Meela.” Lucy flopped forward into Amelia’s arms.
Amelia choked back a sob. She set the child aside and rose. “Come along now. We’ll visit the necessary room and freshen ourselves. Your mama and papa are waiting.”
Lucy took Amelia’s hand and followed obediently. Trustingly. More tears threatened.
As Amelia led Lucy to the little room in the corner of the car where a washstand and chamber pot awaited passengers’ use, she set her lips in a firm line and sent up a silent petition. Or perhaps more accurately, a command. God, let Lucy’s new parents be good to her.
They finished freshening as best they could with the bit of water remaining in the bowl and a cloth already sorely in need of laundering and exited the washroom. Back in their booth, Amelia pulled her trim-fitting jacket over her shirtwaist and settled her flower- and ribbon-bedecked straw hat, her going-away gift from Miss Agnes, over her hair. She smiled at Lucy. “Now then, we—”
The train’s brakes began to screech, and the car jolted. Lucy flung herself into Amelia’s arms. Amelia held tight to the little girl, whispering assurances. Thank goodness they’d reached their final destination. The poor child had reacted in fear with each raucous start and stop of the mighty locomotive. With a series of shrill shrieks and noisy blasts, the train came to a halt outside a small clapboard building.
Releasing a sigh of relief, Amelia took Lucy’s hand and guided her to the back landing of the passenger car. As he’d promised, the conductor had retrieved Amelia’s trunk and Lucy’s bag from the storage car. Both items waited on the landing next to the man’s feet.
He hopped to the dusty ground with more grace than she’d expect from someone of his seemingly advanced age and set out a little wooden stool for Amelia. She stepped down while he lifted Lucy, swooping her through the air and making her giggle as he did so. He set Lucy beside Amelia and then reached for her trunk.
“Let me carry these to the station porch so you can keep hold of the little one. Wouldn’t want her dashing off and getting trampled by a passing wagon.”
The streets were nearly empty, the town especially quiet compared to the boisterous bustle of New York. The likelihood of getting trampled seemed slim, but Amelia didn’t argue. She’d rather hold Lucy’s hand than lug her secondhand trunk. She smiled her thanks and trailed the man to the porch. He thumped the trunk on the edge, flopped Lucy’s bag on top of it, and then turned as if he intended to speak to her. But the train whistle split the air. He tipped his hat, whirled, and leaped onto the passenger car’s platform as the steel wheels began rolling forward.
Amelia pulled Lucy to her side, and they waved at folks behind the train windows. When the caboose rolled past, she searched the area, expecting Mr. and Mrs. Early to emerge from the station’s waiting area. In their correspondence with the orphanage, they’d promised to meet the train. The blaring whistle had surely alerted the entire town to the locomotive’s arrival. So where was the couple?
She guided Lucy to a bench pressed against the station’s yellow-painted siding, and they sat. With her hand on the child’s knee, she kept her alert gaze on the street. Wagons passed, the horses’ hooves and rattling wheels stirring dust. People ambled in and out of the few businesses lining the street. A few folks glanced in Amelia’s direction, some even smiled, but no one approached the station.
Lucy fidgeted as the wait lengthened. Although Amelia had hoped to keep the child’s hair neat and her apron fresh until her new parents arrived, guilt bade her to allow Lucy the freedom to skip up and down the boardwalk and release some pent-up energy from the long days on the train. While Lucy cheerfully hopped from knothole to knothole on the wide planked porch floor, Amelia moved to the station ticket window and tapped lightly on the glass.
A slender man in a crisp blue uniform immediately stepped to the opposite side of the window and slid the pane upward. “Yes, miss?”
Amelia rested her fingertips on the ledge. “I wondered if Mr. or Mrs. Early left a message with you.”
The man drew back. “Early, did you say?”
“Yes, sir.” She patted her reticule, imagining the paperwork inside. “Edwin and Ruby Early.”
“Edwin an’… an’ Ruby?”
Did the man have a hearing problem? Amelia nodded.
“You’re askin’ if they left a message?”
“That’s right.”
He glanced back and forth as if seeking rescue. “What about?”
She wasn’t in the habit of divulging private matters to strangers, but she needed answers. “About being delayed. I expected Mr. Early and his wife to meet me at the station, but—”
He slammed the window closed and hustled away from the glass. Such a peculiar reaction to a simple statement. Moments later, the man darted from the station and crossed the street. He disappeared inside the building on the corner of the next block—the one with a sign marked SHERIFF’S OFFICE hanging from a bracket above the door.
Amelia stared after him, trepidation making her pulse skip as erratically as little Lucy’s clumsy game of knothole hopping. She wove her fingers together, pressing her joined hands to her ribs, and watched for the station worker’s return. Within a few minutes the clerk and a man with a bold silver star on his chest strode in her direction. The depot worker headed back inside the station, but the lawman stopped directly in front of Amelia.
He pinned her in place with an unsmiling gaze. “Marv said you’re hunting Ed and Ruby Early.”
Amelia’s knees began to quake, and she offered a jerky nod. “Yes, sir.”
“For what reason?”
“My name is Amelia Emmett. I work—er, worked—for the Good Shepherd Asylum for Orphans and Half-Orphans in New York City. Mr. and Mrs. Early adopted a little girl”—she caught Lucy’s shoulders and pulled the child tight against her leg, grateful for something to which to cling—“from Good Shepherd. I’m to deliver her to them today. Do you know where they are?” Dear God, please don’t let them be sitting in one of his jail cells.
The sheriff’s thick eyebrows descended. He stared at her long and hard for several tense seconds, and then he blew out a breath. “Yes, miss, I know where they are. And they won’t be comin’ here to collect this child.” He glanced at Lucy. For a moment his stern gaze softened, something akin to sorrow shimmering in his steel blue eyes. “We put Mr. an’ Mrs. Early to rest in the Kingsley cemetery only this mornin’.”
Dead? Oh, so much worse than arrested. Lucy was orphaned yet again. Amelia’s knees gave way. She dropped onto the bench.
Lucy touched Amelia’s cheek, her sweet face puckered. “Miss Meela, what’s a matter?”
“Shh, darling, everything’s all right.” Such a bold lie. Amelia cupped Lucy’s head and guided it to her shoulder. The child’s silky curls tickled her jaw, a welcome distraction. She gaped up at the sheriff. “How did they…?”
He grimaced. “Fire broke out in their farmhouse two nights ago while they were sleepin’. Neither one got out.”
Amelia pressed her palm to her throat, closed her eyes, and forced herself to think rationally. Miss Agnes always had adoptive parents list next-of-kin for emergencies. If she remembered correctly, Mr. Early had a brother residing in Kingsley. She popped her eyes open and zinged her gaze to the sheriff. “Mr. Early’s brother…”
“Abe,” the sheriff said.
She recalled the name from her paperwork. “Yes, Abraham Early. Did he survive the fire?”
“Ed an’ Abe worked the ground together, but they didn’t live together. Abe has his own place a short piece from his brother’s house. So he wasn’t affected by the fire.”
If the brothers lived side by side and tilled their farmland together, he was certainly affected. Sympathy wove its way through her. She planted a quick kiss on Lucy’s curls and pushed to her feet, taking hold of the little girl’s hand as she rose. “Will you direct me to his farm, please? I need to speak with him.”
The sheriff shrugged. “I doubt he’s at his farm yet seein’ as how we buried his brother an’ sister-to-law less than an hour ago. You’ll likely find him at the cemetery.”
She shuddered. Such a dismal place for a meeting. She pulled in a steadying breath and straightened her spine. “I need to put my trunk and Lucy’s bag in a safe place. Then, sir, I ask that you take me to the cemetery.”