Dorothy Garlock - [Wyoming Frontier] (15 page)

“Did he have light-colored hair and a small goatee? Was he wearing a fancy vest with white braid stitched in a scroll pattern?”

“Yes, ma’am, he was. And I remember that he was a right handsome feller who took pride in looking good. I figured he was a gambler after I looked at his hands. They’d not done much hard work.”

Mary sucked air into her lungs with jerky little gasps. She looked past the man kneeling beside her to where Theresa played in the dirt. Roy’s death would be no big loss to their daughter. She would not grieve for him because she scarcely knew him. Mary turned her head and focused wide, tearless eyes on Hank’s face.

“Thank you for . . . burying him.”

“I can take you there . . . someday.”

“No,” she said quickly. “I’d rather remember him as he was before we came to the gold camps, not buried in a lonely grave beside a trail.”

Hank knew the woman was hurting, but she was holding it inside her. Had she loved that dressed-up dandy who had left her and her daughter to fend for themselves while he chased a rainbow? Anton had figured the gambler had run into someone slightly less clever with cards than he was, and that someone had followed him out of Bay Horse and killed him to get back his money. Of course, Hank couldn’t tell Mary he thought she was better off without him.

“Roy was not a bad man. He wanted so much to go back home with gold in his pockets and take up life as it used to be. That way of life was over a long time ago, but Roy refused to believe it. And now he’s gone—” she murmured. She looked into Hank’s anxious face, wiggled her hand out of his, and held out the watch. “You should have it for burying him.”

“Lord, no! Keep it, lass,” he said fervently, folding her fingers around the watch. He stood, drew Mary to her feet, and watched her slip the timepiece in her pocket.

“Thank you for what you did. I know it was unpleasant.” She placed her hand on his arm. “Go lie down. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Mary . . . I wish I could walk with you—”

“You can’t. Your fever just broke this morning. I’ll be all right. For some time now I have suspected that something had happened to him. It was just a feeling I had. I’m kind of numb from the suddenness of finding out, but I think it’s a relief to finally know one way or the other. Now Katy and I can make plans.”

“You’ll not leave?” he asked anxiously.

“I don’t know. I’ll have to consider what Katy wants to do. She’s given up so much for me and Theresa.”

“Don’t decide anything right away. You know what you have here. Rowe and I owe you for . . . helping with the sick. We’ll see to it that you have food for the table and wood for the stove this winter—” he finished lamely, looking down on soft brown hair at the nape of her neck. A spasm of apprehension tightened his chest. She couldn’t leave! She couldn’t . . . until his work here was done.

“I’ll be back tomorrow. Come, Theresa—”

“I didn’t find no blue glass yet, Mamma.”

“Maybe tomorrow—”

Nine

Somewhere, the sun was shining, but it certainly wasn’t in Trinity. Katy sat in the rocking chair and listened to the rain, driven by gusty blasts of wind, lash the window of the funerary and pound on the tin roof. After three days of unceasing rain, the creek was out of its banks, and the road was a quagmire of mud.

Mary went to check the dishpan she had placed beneath the steady drip that came from the ceiling. She moved it a few inches as the slow stream now traveled down the beam before dropping off into the pan. She checked to make sure the roof wasn’t leaking over the beds. When she went back to the window, she saw that riders were coming into town.

“Two horsemen coming in. They look wet and miserable,” she said as she watched the horses slogging through the mud.

“Probably are,” Katy replied listlessly.

Mary turned and looked at her sister with an inexpressible sadness. During the past week Katy had sunk even deeper into depression. A week ago she and Katy had had their first serious argument. Katy had waited until the morning after Mary had been told that Roy was dead to speak to her about leaving Trinity.

“There’s no reason to stay now,” Katy had argued.

“I think there is. Be reasonable, Katy. We can’t leave here by ourselves. It wouldn’t be wise for two women and a child to be on the trail alone.”

“Who said we’d be alone? I’ve a little money left. We’ll hire a couple of men to go with us.”

“Why are you so determined to leave here? Is it Rowe you’re running away from?”

“Bullfoot! He’s a two-bit miner in a two-bit town! Don’t you want something better for Theresa than
this
?” Katy had demanded angrily and spread her arms to include the whole town.

“Trinity is only a raw mining town now, Katy, but Rowe has plans—”

“Rowe has plans! Good Lord! You
are
gullible if you believe everything that fly-by-night tells you!”

“Thank you, sister, for your confidence in my judgment.”

“How are we going to make a living, Mary? Tell me that. It’s too late to open the ‘girlie house.’ Lizzibeth and her girls have already moved in,” Katy had said caustically and then muttered, “I’m sure they had a very profitable night.”

“I’m sure,” Mary had retorted, tight-lipped. After a lengthy silence Mary spoke again. “We could bake pies and bearclaws and sell them to the men.”

“Do you know how many pies we’d have to sell to pay for this building we’re living in?”

“We can stay here as long as we want. Rowe said so.”

“Rowe said so!” Katy’s voice had raised until it filled every corner of the room and spilled out into the vacant street. “I’ll not be obligated to that man! The Burns family, of which you are one, has always paid their own way.
I’ll
not be the one to break the tradition by taking charity from a know-it-all, smooth-talking—”

“All right!” Mary’s shout had taken Katy completely by surprise. “We’ll move back into that little shack we moved out of if you’re so dead-set against accepting a little help. I would like to remind you that Garrick Rowe saved our lives—at considerable risk to his own.” Angrily, Mary had snatched clothes from the wall and threw them into her trunk. Suddenly she stopped and broke into a storm of weeping.

“Oh, gosh! I’m sorry, Mary.” Katy had put her arms about her sister. “Don’t cry. I shouldn’t have jumped on you about this when you’re all torn up over Roy. We’ve been here this long, so I guess there’s no harm staying a little longer. I’m so mean I don’t even know myself anymore.”

A week had passed and Katy had not mentioned leaving Trinity again. In fact, Katy had not mentioned much at all. She had gone with Mary to call on Mrs. Hillard and her daughter, Julia, but had not gone out of her way to get to know any of the other women. Her time was spent in the garden or tending the cow or cutting kindling. The floor of the funerary was spotless, or it had been before the rain.

Mary turned from the window. It was quiet in the funerary. The creak of the rockers on the uneven floor was the only sound to break the silence. Katy sat with her head resting against the back, her eyes closed. When Rowe had come to carry Theresa to Mrs. Hillard’s so that she could play with Julia, Katy had gone behind the curtain and sat down on her bed until he had gone.

Her sister was hurting, and Mary didn’t know what to do about it. Katy, who had always been so full of life, had been moping about since that first night when Hank and Anton came to call. It was so unlike Katy to be silent.

Wanting to do something to take her mind off the problems that bothered her, Mary lit a candle to dispel the gloom, sat down at the table with her journal, and began to write.

Trinity, June 30, 1874.

A week has passed since I learned of Roy’s death. I recorded it in the Bible along with the date given me by Hank Weston and Anton Hooker. There is no one but distant relatives to notify back home. I will send letters to them at the first opportunity.

The people who came to Trinity from the Oregon-bound train all have interesting stories. Mr. Longstreet, the man who led the wagons to Trinity, reminds me so much of Roy. He claims to be from an aristocratic family and is related to General James Longstreet. He acts as if he considers himself superior to his wife. They have a daughter, who is about thirteen, and a boy slightly younger, who is lame. Mrs. Chandler said they were asked to leave the train because their wagon was in such poor condition. Rowe hired him to run the hotel. His wife and children are busy cleaning. I’ve not seen Mr. Longstreet doing any of the work. Katy and I don’t like him.

Mrs. Chandler and her daughters, Flossie and Myrtle, have set up business in the eatery. She was frank about their reason for leaving the train. One of her daughters was caught under the blanket with a married man. He was given ten lashes for adultery by the leaders. Mrs. Chandler switched her daughter, even though she thought they had made a lot of to-do about nothing. The women on the train had forced them to leave.

Lizzibeth and her girls were run out of a mining town southeast of here. They trailed behind the wagon train for protection. They have settled into the “girlie house.” They seem a happy lot, but it’s beyond me how a woman can do what they do.

Mrs. Hillard seems to be well off. Her husband drowned when they crossed the Bighorn River. Without a man to drive her wagon, keep it in repair, and care for the stock, she was slowing the others down. The leader asked her to leave or take one of the single men for a husband. How mean and coldhearted some men are. She is a well-educated but timid person. I saw her cross the street so she wouldn’t have to pass Mr. Longstreet who was sitting on the hotel porch. Rowe didn’t want her in one of the houses on the hill, so for now she lives in the newspaper building.

Mr. Glossberg is a scholarly Jew. He had planned to open a store in Oregon with his wagon load of goods. He left the train when the people had become increasingly hostile to him because he didn’t attend their church services. He moved his goods into the mercantile building after he and Rowe came to an agreement on the rent he would pay. I bought a spool of sewing thread the first day he was open for business.

Trinity is on its way to becoming a real town again. If Katy were happy here, I would be content to stay so long as we could find a means of making a living. The Chandlers are baking, so that possibility is out. The measles outbreak is over, and I’m not needed to nurse the sick. Hank keeps telling me that something will turn up. I sure hope so.

A brisk wind came up in the late afternoon and blew the rain clouds away. The sun came out and with it the people of the town. Katy stepped out into the cool, fresh air at the same time Rowe stepped up onto the porch with Theresa in his arms. It was too late for Katy to turn back. Her pride made it impossible for her to be so obvious that she was avoiding him. Her eyes passed over him as she spoke to Theresa.

“Hello, ladybug. Did you decide to come home?”

“Uncle Rowe said I had to.”

“Uncle Rowe?” Katy repeated before she could stop herself.

Rowe took an overlong time setting the child on her feet. He gave her a gentle push toward the door.

“Run tell your mama you’re back. I want to talk to your Aunt Katy.”

“Why?” Theresa inquired from the doorway. “I don’t think Aunt Katy likes you. But me and Mamma do.”

“I’m glad of that.”

Theresa grinned an impish grin that showed the gap in her front teeth. “Can you stay for supper, Uncle Rowe?”

“Not tonight, honey.” After Theresa skipped into the house, he turned to Katy and lifted a questioning brow. “You’re not going to second the invitation?” Her eyes met his with a small tightening of her mouth which prompted him to ask, “Have you still got the sulks?”

“Yes, I’ve got the sulks and the mulligrubs.” Her voice was thick with exasperation. “I’m damn sick of this place!”

“That’s what I want to talk to you about. You need a change.”

“I sure do! A permanent one.”

He watched her struggle to maintain her bored expression and her indifference to him. She was far more vulnerable than she imagined. It had been so sweet that day at the lake to see her off guard.

“Katy, my sweet one, pull in your claws for just a minute. Anton and I are going to Virginia City tomorrow. I want you to go with us.”

Utterly taken back, Katy looked at him with eyes round with surprise. “You’ll take me and Mary to Virginia City to catch the stage?”

“No. Just you, and not to catch the stage. We’ll have to go on horseback through the mountains. I’ve already explained it to Mary. She thinks it would do you good to get away for a while.”

“You and Mary are making plans for me behind my back. Well, well, that’s nice.”

“Cut the sarcasm, Katy. Mary is worried about you. It’ll take two days to get to Virginia City if we cut through the mountains. I plan to stay three or four days. We’ll be gone a week at the most. If we take a wagon and go by road it will take a lot longer.”

“Two days and one night. Don’t forget the night.”

“I haven’t. We’ll spend it with some friends of mine who have a homestead a little more than halfway. In Virginia City we’ll stay in the hotel—separate rooms, of course.”

“No.”

“No separate rooms?”

“No. I’m not going. Take Ruby, Pearl, or Goldie, then you’ll not have to pay for separate rooms.”

“Christamighty! Anton will be with us. Are you afraid the trip will be too rough for you?” He quirked an eyebrow with his question, a grin dancing around his mouth.

She resolutely kept her eyes on his face and something in the way she looked at him killed his grin.

“I’m not stupid enough to bite on a challenge to my stamina, Mr. Rowe. What has prompted this generous offer?” she asked softly, then added, “Not that I’m going.”

“I do have an ulterior motive,” he confessed.

“I thought you would.”

“I’m trying to make arrangements for the stage that goes to Bannack to swing down here before it returns to Virginia City. I want you to go to see how the stage office is run so that we can set up one here.”