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Two days later was a Sunday. And not just any Sunday, but the infant baptism of the newly born Aron Farina, son of former schoolteacher Daisy and her fur-trapper husband, Ralph. Strong of body but short of stature, Ralph cut an odd figure in just about everybody’s estimation. But he was a loyal and loving husband, a capable provider, and no one had any doubt that he would be an excellent father.
The congregation of Franklin were gathered in even greater numbers than usual. Katherine was surprised to see that even more of the folks from the theatre troop were showing up. Flashy Sally Marsailis started coming after the events of the previous autumn, when she almost lost her adored, nearly adopted son Dale.
Dale started coming more often too, after he realized how close Ida was to her father. And though his face had healed from the savage beating he’d taken at the hands of the enraged Francis James the previous November, his heart was still aching from the loss of Ida’s love to her old boyfriend, Horatio. But he came to church more often anyway, partly at Sally’s insistence and partly for his own earthly reasons.
On this day, even the troop’s leader and namesake, Stanton Caldwell, was in attendance. Sitting with his red hair combed back and spreading out from his cheeks. He was uncomfortable, but Sally was smiling by his side. On his other, the grimacing stage manager Garret Osbourne sat scowling as usual, clearly there at his master’s behest.
At the alter, Gideon Wallace stood behind the baptismal font in his white robe, the baby Aron in his arms, and dipped his fingers into the water.
Katherine stood by, looking on with great wonder at the majesty of her husband and the place he held within the community. He was their spiritual leader, their strength, their rock. And he was all of those things to Katherine too. Returned to her as if from behind the very rock itself, which rolled away to reveal this noble man, nearly glowing with the power of God’s love.
Gideon looked out over the congregation. “‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.’”
Horatio sat in the front row with Ida, his parents Balthazar and Selma Brooks on his other side, both looking on with great pride and holy satisfaction, contentment, and grace.
Gideon went on, “‘Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.’”
Ida looked up at her father, then over at Horatio, sharing a sweet smile, their hands cupping one another’s. Each had the same thought, of their own child, awaiting them in their future, baptized on a day just like this one. That very man with their own baby; a burgeoning dynasty in the eyes of God.
Gideon looked down at the innocent in his arms, nearly lost in the soft beauty of its round features, its guileless eyes, its grasping, unknowing fingers. With a tender smile he could not and would not disguise, Gideon said, “‘This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.’”
Gideon couldn’t help but feel that he was speaking directly to the child, and that the child could somehow understand him, that he was passing down God’s own instruction upon the infant, a simplified preparation for the complexities of life to come.
He couldn’t help but think of his own daughter Ida, and he turned to catch a quick glimpse of her in the front pew. So much a woman now, he couldn’t help but reflect, the little girl all but disappeared, replaced. A memory I’ll cherish, but a memory only. I held her as an infant on this very spot, baptized her right here in this church, before many of these same people.
His people. This was his congregation, his town, his place.
Shaking off his reverie and looking back down at the infant in his arms, Gideon went on, “‘But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.’”
Everybody sat in silence, the majesty of the moment leaving them breathless.
Katherine could relate.
Gideon cast his loving gaze down at the babe in his arms, holy water dripping down the side of her face. He said, “I baptize thee Aron Jean Baptiste Farina, in the name of the Father ...” Gideon made the sign of the cross on the baby boy’s forehead, “and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
***
After the baptism there was a long period of fellowship in the churchyard, with fresh carrot cakes and sweet corn bread, cold meat sandwiches, tossed salads with lots of crisp cucumber and a warm almond dressing.
Katherine stood with Gideon, as she almost always did when other things didn’t require her attention. She was hardly sewn to him at the hip, and most of the town still regarded her as a fiery independent-minded young woman. And they were right. Katherine often found herself at the center of a lot of activity. Be it as the schoolteacher, or as the pastor’s wife, or even as Ida’s new stepmother. There was always something to be done, it seemed, somebody in need.
And that suited Katherine just fine. She loved the idea of being helpful, of being the one people began turning to and respecting. She’d won it with hard suffering and great sacrifice, after all, and nobody in Franklin had any reason to deny it. Katherine had secured her place there and she was finally satisfied. There, by her husband’s side among his loyal and faithful congregation, her neighbors and friends, Katherine felt that she was home at last, that she was precisely where both she and God wanted her to be.
Ida and Horatio approached Katherine and Gideon, Horatio’s parents tailing behind. “Lovely service, Daddy,” Ida said, leaning up to give him a little kiss on the cheek. “I almost wish I could be baptized again!”
They shared a chuckle.
Selma said, “Young Barney Benstock didn’t come to services today.” She didn’t say more, although she’d heard more, everybody had. However, Selma was trying to be a better person and a better Christian; and that meant not judging, not gossiping, not worrying. God had all things under His control. She’d learned that through painful struggle, and that truth had set her free; free from the confining doubt, from raging insecurity.
But the gossip was so juicy in this case, even the most strident Christian would have been tempted almost beyond endurance. Bal Brooks was quiet as always, having grown even stronger himself over the recent trials his family had faced. His wife had changed, his son had changed, and so had he. What difference that would make in their fate, Bal could only guess, and then didn’t care to.
But Katherine had been so busy with the business of getting ready for the baptism and the fellowship period afterward, that she’d scarcely heard anything of it. So it was not gossip but friendly concern, as the pastor’s wife, that she asked, “What happened?”
With an almost visible sense of relief, and a voice both quick and ripe, Selma said, “I hear Barney and his friends had a falling out, you know the boys I mean?” Katherine tilted her head, only half-sure what Selma was talking about. So Selma went on, “Anyway, I hear one of them stabbed the other, but they’re all laying low about it.”
Gideon asked, “What does our Sheriff Vance have to say?”
“Nothing, as usual,” Bal finally offered.
But Gideon said, “The Sheriff’s a good man; gruff, a bit dubious; but I believe him to be a stalwart servant of the law, and of God.”
“Even if he himself doesn’t feel that way,” Selma said.
Katherine offered, “I doubt that he feels anything at all. It was a shame about his deputy though, Bauer.”
They all nodded. But Horatio said, “The man’s body was never found?” Only a stunned silence answered him. But Horatio offered, “A lot can happen out there,” and nothing more needed to be said. They all nodded, a respectful way to acknowledge the personal journey Horatio had to endure at the hands of the Sioux during his brief captivity the previous autumn.
But Katherine said, “Let’s all look to a bright and happy future, shall we?” Smiles answered her from every face. “Where I come from there’s an old toast: May the sun always shine on your windowpane, may a rainbow be certain to follow each rain; may the hand of a friend always be near you, may God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you!”
Horatio and Ida hugged; Bal and Selma Brooks did the same; Gideon smiling at Katherine with loving pride, a family united by grace and by joy and by God. And everything held the promise of even greater joy, as though all of their trials were behind them.
But Katherine couldn't escape the creeping notion that danger was approaching, scuttling out in the distance, waiting only for a moment to strike. And Gideon seemed to read her disquiet, which was not unusual. Over the last year they’d developed a strong bond, a mental connection that reflected their perfect match. They didn’t need words between them; they hardly needed anything besides each other, Ida, and God.
But Katherine knew there was more to the world than merely them, and they’d have to contend with that sooner or later.
***
That night, after dinner and cleanup, Gideon sent Ida off to bed. And Katherine retired with him to the front porch to take in a bit of that crisp spring night, the inky sky speckled with countless stars. Katherine felt a chill and Gideon wrapped his arm around her, pulling her close.
“You’re worried, Katherine,” Gideon said. “When things are going so well.”
Katherine couldn't, and would never, deny it to her husband. In fact, she was glad he asked. “He’s still alive, Gideon.”
“I know, Katherine, but —”
“He’s alive and it’s been months. He could be well-healed by now.”
“And if he is? The man lost all his slaves, his business was crippled, and by all accounts, so was he.”
“All the more reason he’d want revenge.” Gideon was quite casual about it, but the more Katherine reviewed the possibilities, the more frightened she became. “You weren’t there —”
“I was there,” Gideon said, “and met the man face-to-face.”
“You weren’t locked in that house, knowing what that terrible creature intended to do, to me and to Ida —”
“But he didn’t do those things,” Gideon said calmly, “and he’s not going to be able to do them again.”
“No, he could do worse,” Katherine said. “Gideon, he could bring his wrath down on this whole city ... burn it right off the face of the Earth!”
Gideon couldn’t argue, and he couldn’t seem to soothe her either. But he knew God could, and would. And he knew that, with time, calmness and quiet would return to her soul.
Unless she was right.
***
The Caldwell Theatre was packed for Ida’s debut night. Everyone in Franklin it seemed tried to push themselves into the plush new theatre house. The balconies were packed and the bar was ten people deep.
Garret was overworked, and grimacing more than usual, and it was only the more-impressive scowl of his boss that made him plaster an uncomfortable smile onto his own face. The theatre was chock-a-block with dresses and waistcoats, riding boots and top hats. Conversations crackling and bubbling like a hot stew on the boil.
The theatre had already been opened and playing to packed houses. It was all the buzz around Franklin, the center of the town’s nocturnal activity, in conjunction with the saloon down the street. It gave the drag’s night life a very big shot in the arm.
During the days, everybody talked about what they’d seen the night before; jugglers, singers, musicians, magicians, actors in a several sketches − one about immigrants longing for the homeland, another about the kidnapping of a young woman in hopes that she’d marry her corrupt kidnapper before being saved by a valiant young army soldier.
On this night, local songbird and pastor’s daughter, Ida Wallace, was going to be singing. Everybody in town knew Ida from her place as the soloist in their church, singing before and after her father’s sermons. And since her remarkable return from the clutches of a kidnapper herself, Ida had become something of a subject of fascination among the young men in town, and some who were not so young.
Caldwell looked around the crowded theatre as the banjo player stood on the stage, peeling off blindingly fast licks while his hands seemed hardly to move at all. People looked on, entertained enough, sharing bawdy conversations which got louder as the music did. Eventually the music inched up above the crowd, then the crowd above the music, and so forth as the whole clamorous scene got louder and louder. And with the volume came louder laughter, broader smiles, and louder applause.
More drinks were sold at the bar.
Katherine and Gideon sat in the crowd with Selma and Bal Brooks. Selma looked around, shaking her head. “I thought my Horatio would be here with us.”
“He’s here,” Katherine said, “but not with us. I’m sure he’ll be backstage with Ida. Since Ida started coming here, he’s made of himself her own personal bodyguard.”
“That’s our son,” Bal said, “a real man! We’re so proud. And you should be too, Gideon, Katherine. Horatio tells us Ida’s been impressing everyone here at rehearsals.”
Gideon nodded. “She’s a natural-born singer, I suppose the stage is where she belongs.”
“Franklin is where she belongs,” Katherine said. “And if this stage will help keep her here, I say long may she reign as the Ohio’s resident songstress.” The others chuckled mildly, nodding their agreement.
Selma said, “I admit, I had great doubts about the entire enterprise. But I can see that this place is clearly here to stay, and that’s just as I’d see both our children be as well.” She looked around, mouth twitching. “And while it’s far from me to judge others —”
Katherine couldn’t help but smile. “Nobody would ever think otherwise.”
Selma went on, “But I wonder if there should be so much alcohol here.”
Gideon nodded. “I agree, but they keep it to the supper room and bar, as the law requires. I trust Ida not to be tempted by such things as alcohol.” He said this to Selma and the others, but he was addressing himself as well, because his own doubts were impossible to ignore or deny, only to forestall.
The banjo player ended his tune to rousing applause, some men shouting blue comments and others laughing at them. Sally Marsailis strode out onto the stage in her finest stage dress, green satin to offset her painted blonde hair and pale skin. She held her gloved hands out to quiet the crowd, her voice big enough to fill the room.
“Okay, folks, as a lot of you know, tonight is a very special night indeed. We’ve been rehearsing with a lovely young lady, a true natural talent.” When the men whooped and hollered, she had to say, “A talent for singing, you bawdy louts!” The men roared with laughter as Sally shook her head and looked back at the big crowd.
In the wings, Ida stood with Horatio, her hands clamped around his. “Glad I’m not your pianist,” he joked quietly, but she was too nervous to laugh with him. “Don’t be nervous, Ida, you’re going to be great. You know it and I know it.”
After a knowing silent pause, he added, “And God knows it” Looking at him, and then upward, Ida nodded and smiled. But she was still nervous.
“It’s such a pleasure to have her sing with us,” Sally went on, “and we know you’ll come to love her just as much as we have. In fact, a lot of you have known her a lot longer, and have been enjoying her wonderful voice for most of your lives! So why don’t I just stop talking and introduce her? Franklin, Ohio’s favorite daughter, Ida Wallace!”
The crowd roared with applause as Ida stepped out from the wings. Horatio remained to watch from there and to greet her after the performance. Ida crossed the stage and the applause rose to meet her, receding finally to let her do what she'd come there to do.
The pianist hit the melodic introduction, everything became dead still, all eyes focused on Ida.
She stood at the center of the stage, hands delicate by her sides, her dress elegant but not at all flashy.
“The dress is lovely,” Gideon whispered to its creator. Katherine smiled her thanks without needing to speak them, and the two looked up at the stage, hearts filled but still somehow frozen in anticipation.
Ida’s voice came out soft at first, clear as a bell, but subtle, quiet. “Ooooohh-hoooo ....” she began, the single note filling the ears of everyone in the room. She followed with words to a song not even a decade old: “...beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain ...”
The piano let the chords ring out slowly, notes plucking out and ringing in a languid arpeggios. Ida’s own artistic will nudging the song along, a-tempo. “For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plaaaaaaain!”
All eyes looked up at the stage, the words of this new song capturing the spirit of their souls and the soul of their spirits.
“America,” Ida sang, her voice ringing through that otherwise silent hall, making the piano sound unearthly in its reach, “ ... America, God shed his grace on thee ... ”
Ida glanced down from the stage at her father, Franklin's own spiritual leader, and he looked back with a smile that filled her with as much satisfaction as all the applause in the world. She sang on, “And crowned thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining seeeeeaaaaa....”
Dale watched from wings on the other side of the stage, his eyes fixed on Ida as she sang on, “Oh beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife...” He felt as if she was singing directly to him, referring to his own heroism during their mutual captivity, when it was his suicide mission to save Ida’s life. “Who more than self their country loved and mercy more than life!”
Ida looked out over the crowd, tears in the eyes of her friends and neighbors and strangers whom she touched with her gift, their hearts lifted, souls full. She sang, “America, America! May God thy gold refine ...”
Stanton watched from his position in the back of the theater, nodding and smiling, gratified that his eye for talent was still as crisp and as profitable as ever. He’d long had his doubts about getting involved with the Wallace family and their deadly squabbles. But the risk was paying off for him in spades, and it didn’t look like it was about to stop.
Ida sang on, “’Til all success be nobleness and every grain divine!”
The piano hit a thunderous crescendo. The crowd was unable to restrain their howls of excitement, applause leaking up though the song was only approaching its climax.
“Oh beautiful for glory tale of liberating strife ...” Ida sang on, her voice so big and full that most sat amazed it could come from such a slight and pretty young thing. Others were beyond astonishment to tears, and others to shouts of joy. “When once or twice for man’s avail, men lavished precious life!” The crowd could scarcely contain its growing urge to express its love of the song, the voice, the girl, the moment.
Dale kept watching from his wings, while Horatio was watching from the wings on the opposite side. His attention couldn't help be drawn to Dale, his romantic rival for Ida's affections, at least as far as Dale was concerned. Horatio didn’t consider the young man a threat, because Ida’s integrity was too strong for any man to rend. But there were other ways a young man like Dale could be trouble, and a usurper was not one of them.
Ida threw her head back, her arms out, the power of the song guiding her motions. “America, America, God shed His grace on thee ...”
Horatio’s eyes were fixed on Dale in the wings on the other side of the stage. Soon enough, Dale felt his stare and returned it. The two young men looking at each other in silence. As the object of their mutual affection singing between them, unaware of their growing tension − at least as far as either of them could know.
“...’Til selfish gain no longer stain the banner of the freeeeeee!”
The piano was not even able to finish the refrain as the crowd erupted into an applause so great and so heaving that it threatened to shake the roof from the rafters. People stomped their feet, clapped their hands, screamed out their glee.
Gideon clung to Katherine and she to him. Selma and Bal nodding and clapping enthusiastically.
Ida returned to Horatio in the wings, the two huddling together, as Sally crossed back to the center of the stage to introduce the next act.
But Dale was watching from the wings on the other side of the stage.
Waiting.
In the back of the theater, Stanton Caldwell looked at the whooping crowd, took a big puff from his cigar, and smiled. “Now this is what I call theatre!”