But now the edge of the darkness was upon them, and if Riley was correct, they were in for one whiptail monster of a dust storm. He reined in his horse and held up his hand, signaling for the wagons to halt.
Almost immediately, Ferris Bond, his ramrod for the journey, rode up on him and shouted, “What the devil is that thing, Riley? Looks like we’re ridin’ direct into the mouth a’hell!”
“We are,” Riley replied grimly. “Get the wagons circled in. Tight.”
“What about Sampson Davis? He rode off south ‘bout an hour ago.”
Riley didn’t think twice. “Screw him,” he said, and turned to help get the settlers, with their wagons and livestock, in a circle.
Down southeast of town, the storm wasn’t as much sand and grit as twigs and branches, and Wash Keogh, who’d been working the same chunk of land for the past few years, was huddled in a shallow cave, along with his horse and all his worldly possessions. Well, the ones that the wind hadn’t already taken, that was.
But despite the storm, Wash was a wildly happy man, because he held in his hand a hunk of gold the size of a turkey egg. It wasn’t pure—there was quartz veining—but it sure enough weighed a ton and he was pretty sure that the mother lode was just upstream—up the dry creek bed, that was—just a little ways. If this damned wind would only stop blowing, well, hell! He might just turn out to be the richest man in the whole danged territory!
That thought sure put a smile on his weathered old face, but he ended up spitting out a mouthful of mud. The grit leaked in no matter how many bandannas he tied over his raggedy old face. Well, he could smile later. The main thing now was just to last out the storm.
Like him, his horse waited out the wind with his back to it and his head down. Smart critters, horses. He should have paid more attention when the gelding started acting prancy and agitated. But how could a man have paid attention to anything else when that big ol’ doorstop of gold was sitting right there in his hand. He’d bet he would have missed out on the second coming if it had happened right there in front of him! And, blast it, he didn’t figure Jesus would be mad at him, either! ’Course, he’d probably “suggest” that ten percent of it go to the Reverend Milcher or some other Bible thumper.
Fat chance of that!
He hunkered down against the howl of the storm to wait it out. But he was happy.
Very happy.
Back inside the stockaded walls of Fury—walls which had used up every tree lining the creek for five miles in either direction and used up most of the wagons, too—the wind was still whistling and whining through the cracks between the timbers. Solomon Cohen, who had been known as Saul until he changed it back to Solomon during a crisis of faith several months back, was huddled in the mercantile with Rachael, his wife, and the boys: David, Jacob, and Abraham. The back room of the mercantile was fairly tight, and so they had planted themselves there for the duration.
Solomon’s crisis had come after a long time, a long time with no other Jews in town, no one else who spoke Yiddish, no one with an ancestry in common with himself or Rachael. Oh, there was her, of course, but it wasn’t like having another Jewish man around to share things with, to complain with, to laugh with, and to spend the Sabbath with. How he wished for a rabbi!
And now Rachael was with child once again. He feared that they would lose this one, as they had the last two, and each night his prayers were filled with the unborn child, wishing it to be well and prosper. He didn’t care whether God would give him a boy or a girl, he just heartily prayed that Jehovah would give him a child who breathed, who would grow up straight and tall, and who would be a good Jew.
Still, he wished for another Jewish presence in Fury. A man, a woman . . . a family at best! His children had no prospects of marriage in this town filled with goyim.
If they were to marry, they would likely have to go away to California, to one of the big cities, like San Francisco. It was a prospect he dreaded, and he knew Rachael did, too. They had talked of it many times. They had even spoken of it long before the children’s births, when they first met in New York City, and Solomon spoke of his dreams of the West and the fortunes that could be made if a man was smart and handy and careful with his money.
It had taken him over ten years (plus his marriage to Rachel and three babies, all sons) to talk her into it, but at last she relented. Although he always remembered that she had cautioned him that they didn’t know if the West held any other Jews that their children could marry—or even, for that matter, would want to!
As always, she had been right, his Rachael.
He looked at her, resting fitfully on the old daybed they kept down here, her belly so swollen with child that she looked as if she might pop at any second, and he felt again a pang of love for her, for the baby. She was so beautiful, his wife. He was lucky to have her, blessed that she’d had him.
The wind hadn’t yet shown any signs of lessening, and so he slouched down farther in his rocker and carefully stuck his legs out between David and Abraham, who were sound asleep on the floor. Glancing over at Jacob to make sure he was all right, too, Solomon said yet another silent prayer, then closed his eyes.
Almost instantaneously, he was asleep.
The Reverend Milcher angrily paced the center aisle between the rows of pews. Not that they had ever needed them. Not that they’d ever been filled. Not that anybody in town appeared to give a good damn.
Even though he hadn’t spoken aloud, he stopped immediately and clapped his hand over his mouth. From a front pew, Lavinia, his long-suffering wife, looked up from her dusty knitting and stared at him. “Did you have an impure thought, Louis?” she asked him.
“Yes, dear,” he replied, after wiping more sand from his mouth. “I thought a sinful word.”
“I hope you apologized to the Lord.”
“Yes, dear. I did.”
He began to pace again. They were running out of food, and he needed to fill the church with folks who would donate to hear the word of the Lord. That, or bring a chicken. He had tried and tried, but nothing he did seemed to bring in the people he needed to keep his church running. And now, this infernal dust storm! Was the Lord trying to punish him? What could he have possibly done to bring down the Lord’s wrath upon not only himself, but the town and everything and everyone around it?
Again, he stopped stock-still, but this time his hand went to the side of his head instead of his mouth. That was it! The dust storm! Oh, the Lord had sent him a sign as sure as anything!
