Mountain Laurel Read online

  She looked up as Captain Montgomery, Toby behind him, entered the little makeshift dressing room outside the back door of the half-finished building.

  “They’re serving drinks,” the captain said glumly. “And gambling. They’re not used to civilized entertainment. Toby and I will do our best to keep them under control, but I can’t guarantee anything.”

  “I will control them, Captain. My voice and I will control the men.”

  He gave her a look that said she wasn’t too bright, then smiled and winked at her. “Sure. Of course. God’ll probably send a bolt of lightning down to strike them dead if they don’t behave.”

  “Out,” she said softly. “Out!”

  He gave a mocking little bow and left the tent, but Toby hesitated. “He sure do make a body mad, don’t he, ma’am?”

  “More than I can say. Tell me, has anyone ever told him he was wrong?”

  “A few, but in the end he was always right.”

  “No wonder his family sent him away to the army.”

  Toby chuckled. “Ma’am, his whole family’s just like him.”

  “That I don’t believe. The earth couldn’t hold them.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Toby grinned. “Good luck tonight.”

  “Thank you.”

  As she stepped onto the stage, built just that afternoon to Sam’s specifications, Maddie did feel a little nervous, and she knew it was thanks to Captain Montgomery. Now he stood at the back of the big room, behind what looked to be about three hundred men, with his pistol on his hip, sword by his side and a knife or two showing. He looked ready to fight a ship full of pirates. Toby stood on the other side of the room picking his teeth with a knife big enough to cut through buffalo bones.

  Heaven help me, she thought, I’m singing in a prison, but in this case the prisoners are happy and the guards are lunatics.

  She started the program with the beautiful “Ah, fors’ è lui” from La Traviata, but she hadn’t sung more than the first few lines before trouble broke out in the back. And it was all Captain Montgomery’s fault. Some poor, tired miner had tipped his chair back too far, the chair had crashed to the floor, and the captain had pounced on the man, pistol drawn.

  “Fight!” someone yelled, and after that all was chaos as the brawl began. Fists were flying; chairs were sailing through the air.

  What does one do with unruly boys? Maddie wondered. One calls them down, that’s what.

  She took a breath, a deep, deep breath, filling her body with oxygen in the way she’d been trained, and then she hit a note, a high, clear note, a very loud note.

  She immediately had the attention of the men nearest her as they paused, fists aimed at each other’s faces, and looked at her, eyes wide, blinking.

  Maddie held the note and more men began to look at her. The men in front began to slowly clap their hands in rhythm, marking the beats with their claps. The men in the middle of the room added their feet to the rhythmic beat. The men in the back were the last to realize what was going on and to stop trying to kill men who an hour earlier had been their friends.

  “By damn!” Toby said, watching her as she held that one single note, and held it.

  ’Ring let go of the hair of the man he was pummeling and looked at her. She had everyone’s attention now.

  Maddie continued holding the note. And holding it. And holding it. Tears ran down her face. Her lungs emptied of oxygen, but still she held it. She drew air from every part of her body, from her legs, her arms, her fingertips, her toes, even from the ends of her hair. She depleted everything she had while the men kept up their rhythmic clapping. One, two, three, four. She held it. Her backbone was touching her navel. Her corset was loose, but still she held that note.

  At long, long last she spread her arms wide and balled her hands into fists. Her body hurt; every muscle ached, but she didn’t let go of that note.

  She put her head back and then, quickly, abruptly, she brought her fists together, bent her elbows, brought her fists to her forehead and down!

  She stopped and for a moment she thought she might collapse, but she gasped for air like a person drowning—and the crowd went wild. They cheered and fired pistols, rifles, and shotguns into the air. They grabbed one another’s arms and danced around. They might be uneducated and their morals might leave something to be desired, but they certainly recognized when something miraculous had just happened.

  When Maddie recovered herself, she looked over the heads of the jubilant miners to where Captain Montgomery stood at the back. His eyes were as wide with wonder as the men’s. She gave him the smuggest smile she could manage and pointed skyward. He smiled back, then put one hand in front of him, one in back, and bowed deeply. When he straightened, she gave him a condescending nod that any queen would have been proud of.

  After that, those lonely, tired, half-drunken men belonged to Maddie. She sang and they listened. It often annoyed her that the American people had such odd ideas about opera. They seemed to think opera was for kings, for people with great education, but the truth was, opera had started out being very common: common stories for common people.

  She told the miners of poor Elvira not being able to have the man she loved, then sang “Tui la voce sua soave,” where the young woman goes mad. At the end there were some tears wiped away.

  She sang “Una voce poco fa” after telling them that Rosina was vowing to marry the man she loved no matter what. They thought that was more sensible than going mad.

  After six arias the men were making requests for repeats. She hadn’t sung for such a genuinely appreciative audience since she’d left her parents’ home.

  “Go mad again,” they called.

  “No, marry the country man,” someone else yelled.

  She sang for almost four hours before Captain Montgomery walked onto the little stage and told the men the show was over. He was booed and hissed and at first Maddie started to tell him that she would decide when she’d stop singing, but then common sense won over pride and, gratefully, she took the arm he offered as he led her through the door and out to the tent that served as a dressing room.

  The applause behind them was thunderous—helped by the explosion of many firearms. The audience no longer consisted of a mere three hundred men, but, while Maddie had sung, hundreds more had quietly, respectfully, tiptoed into the building, and when no more people could be held inside, they climbed the walls and sat on them. They opened the doors and stood, sat, lay, outside to hear her sing.

  “I have to do an encore,” Maddie said, but Captain Montgomery held her fast.

  “No, you don’t. You’re tired. It must be enormous work to sing like that.”

  She looked up at him, saw his eyes were wide with wonder and appreciation. “Thank you,” she said, and leaned a bit against him. Her former manager had never cared whether she was tired or sick; he felt that the singing was Maddie’s concern and not his. He never quarreled with her if she said she was too ill to perform—which she rarely was. His interest was booking her and in how much money she made from the box office.

  Now it was rather nice to have someone realize that she was tired. She smiled at him. “Yes, I am rather tired. Perhaps, Captain, you’d like to join me in a glass of port. I always carry the finest Portuguese port with me, and I always have some after singing. It soothes my throat.”

  All around them were hundreds of shooting men, but they might as well have been alone. The moonlight glistened off the rose pink of her silk dress, and her bare shoulders were white and round and smooth. “I would like that,” he said softly.

  He held back the tent flap for her, and Maddie started inside, but then she saw that hideous man inside, the man who knew where Laurel was. His gun was pointed straight at Maddie, and she realized that if she didn’t get rid of ’Ring, they’d probably both get shot. She turned around and jerked the flap out of Captain Montgomery’s hand.

  “Tell me, Captain, are you trying to seduce me?” she snapped at him. “Is that why y