Prairie Storm by Catherine Palmer

for this reason? Lord, help me know what to do!
    â€œYou’d better go on back to your church now, Preacher-man,” Lily said, her walls rising stronger and higher as she faced him. “And take your baby with you. My place is in the traveling show, and I’ll sleep in my own wagon tonight. I’ll find Sam in the morning and feed him.”
    When Eli didn’t move, she held out the tiny bundle. “Go on now,” she said. “And here’s your hymnbook.”
    Uncomfortable as ever at the notion of holding the fragile baby, Elijah tucked his Bible under one arm. Though Lily’s voice had grown cold, he felt the warmth of her hands as he lifted Samuel from her. “You keep that hymnal,” he murmured. “You sing better than any gal I ever heard.”
    Before she could cut him again, Eli pressed the baby against his chest and set off across the prairie. The moment the child felt the movement of the man’s footsteps, he jerked awake and began to whimper.
    â€œAw, Sam, don’t start that now,” Eli mumbled as the baby let out a howl that could rival a coyote’s. “We’re not going to get a wink of sleep, and I have to come up with a sermon good enough to change the heart of Mrs. Lily Nolan.”

    â€œI’ve been consulting the cards,” Beatrice said as she handed Lily a bowl of hot oatmeal made from the last crumbs in their storage bin. “I was up half the night, Lil, and I just couldn’t get over how powerfully the cards spoke to me. It was a deeply spiritual experience, and I can’t wait to tell you what I learned.”
    Lily stifled a yawn as she lifted a spoonful of oatmeal. She had been up half the night, too, and her wakefulness had nothing to do with consulting the spirits. Even from inside the church, Samuel’s screaming, fussing, whimpering, and sobbing had been audible for hours. It had been all she could do to keep from crawling out of the wagon and racing to get him. When she dozed at all, she dreamed of Abigail crying out for her mother.
    â€œThe cards have told me there’s a great future in store for us,” Beatrice was saying. “Even though it seems impossible to believe, the deaths of Jakov and Ted are a part of the great plan. You see, you and I couldn’t go forward on the path we’re to take if we had continued in the shackles of those men. This is our time, Lily. Our destiny!”
    Lily set the empty bowl aside and began folding the diapers she had just washed. Who could think about destiny? Who could see a path ahead? For Lily there was only this moment. She had to live through this day, surviving each hour, enduring each minute without Abigail.
    â€œWe’re going to build an opera house,” Beatrice announced.
    Glancing at her, Lily placed a clean diaper on the stack. “A what?”
    â€œAn opera house! To make money!” The older woman seized Lily’s shoulders. “It came to me in a vision. We’ll go back to Topeka—”
    â€œTopeka?” The image of Abby’s makeshift grave inserted itself in Lily’s mind. “I don’t want to go to Topeka.”
    â€œBut this is perfect. Do you remember those men who visited the show the first three nights before the diphtheria struck? Those two rich fellows who liked your singing so well? They’re partners, and they own a saloon in Topeka. The Crescent Moon, it’s called. You and I are going to go straight over to those men and ask them to back us in a venture to build an opera house right here in Hope, Kansas.”
    â€œHere?” Lily tried to picture a fancy theater with festoons and bright lights sitting out in the middle of the prairie.
    â€œHope is the crossroads of the East and the West. I saw it in the cards, Lil. Wagons travel over that pontoon bridge day and night. If we build our opera house beside the main road, we’ll be bursting at the seams with customers. You’ll