Dorothy Garlock - [Wyoming Frontier] (36 page)

“What can you do?”

“Name it and I’ll give it a try.”

“Goddammit! A man that works for me gives it more than a
try.
He does the job or I break his damn neck.”

“What’s your business?”

“It ain’t no business of yours what I do. But when I do it, I use real men, not two-bit drifters.”

“Now you just hold on there!” Sporty rose up out of his chair.

“Sit, Sporty,” Cullen said sharply. “The man meant no offense.”

“The hell I didn’t!” Art growled. “I meant just what I said.”

Art had been in a fighting mood since Lizzibeth had turned him away from the Bee Hive. John knew this and stepped into the conversation before Art’s fuse was ignited and chairs began to fly.

“This is Trinity, stranger. It’ll be a real thrivin’ town again before long.”

“Looks like shit to me,” Sporty growled and poured himself another drink. “Is there a hotel in this
thrivin
’ town, or a place where a man can get a decent meal?”

“The man sitting right over there runs the hotel. You can ask him.” John tilted his head toward Lee Longstreet, picked up a rag, and wiped the water from the bar where the stranger had flung his hat.

“Are you robbin’ strangers too?” Shorty looked pointedly at John, then swivelled around to glare at Lee. “What’er you askin’ for a room?”

“Step into the lobby when you’ve finished your drink and I’ll tell you.” Lee stood, pulled his watch out of his vest pocket, flipped open the case, and checked the time as if he had an important appointment. He smoothed his black hair carefully and walked through the bat-winged doors leading to the hotel lobby.

“Well, now, ain’t he a highfalutin cuss?” Shorty sneered.

Lee heard the remark. It pleased him. He was highborn, and glad that he was recognized as such. Whenever he lived among a group of people, he strove hard to set himself above them. Lee had lived in one of the finest plantation houses in the South, and he had been waited on hand and foot from the time he was born. Now, with a look of utter disdain on his face, he viewed the bare floors of the chairless lobby of the hotel. Lee believed firmly that the future would right itself, that this was merely a stop along the way.

He removed his hat and placed it on the shelf beneath the counter before he went down the narrow hallway to the two rooms that served as living quarters for Vera, Agnes, and Taylor. His room was upstairs at the front of the building.

His wife sat in a chair beside the cookstove. She looked up from her knitting the instant he appeared in the doorway. Vera was a tall, thin woman, and strong. She was in her midthirties, and every dream she had ever dreamed had been knocked out of her during the time she had been married to Lee. Now, the only thing she lived for were her children, Agnes and Taylor. Vera was tired most of the time and exceedingly weary of Lee and his demands. Not that he bothered her at night. That part of their marriage had ended when Taylor was born. He never spoke to her or the children unless it was to demand that they do something.

Lee had squandered her dowry the first year of their marriage. At his insistence, she had asked her father for more money and had been turned down. It was the last time she had seen any of her family. There was no question in Vera’s mind that her husband was a scoundrel. Lee was able to justify every sin he committed by saying it was in defense of his honor.
Honor!
He didn’t know the meaning of the word.

Vera was neither stupid nor dull as Lee would have liked everyone to believe. Being quiet and staying out of the way, she had found, made her life and the lives of her children much less difficult. She felt shame before the women of the town for the way her husband treated her, just as she had while on the wagon train, but she tried to keep her head high, nonetheless. She was sure, however, of one thing. When Lee left Trinity, he would go alone. She and the children were not going to leave the town. For the first time in her married life she had found a place where she could work and take care of her children. She had spoken to Mr. Rowe, and he had assured her Trinity would grow and the hotel would prosper so that they could earn a living. Until the time when paying guests arrived and the hotel was earning its way, he would pay Mr. Longstreet a wage. Although Vera and the children had done all the work, she had not seen a penny of the salary Mr. Rowe paid to her husband. Agnes and Taylor were growing resentful, and Vera feared an open display of the children’s hatred for their father would lead to trouble.

“Two men rode in. They’ll be wanting a room,” Lee told Vera.

“Mr. Ashland and his men are using the rooms.”

“I know that. Put them in the room in back.”

“That’s where the children sleep.”

“In the same bed, I suppose,” Lee said sarcastically.

“Of course not!”

“It isn’t fitting for them to be sleeping in the same room. How old is that boy? Eleven? Twelve? I’d plowed a half-hundred wenches by the time I was his age.” Lee liked to tell Vera about his wenching days. She always snapped her mouth shut with such a look of indignation on her face. “He may be a scrawny little good-for-nothing, but he’s got enough Longstreet in him to know what his pecker is used for.”

“Don’t talk like that about Taylor.” She spoke sharply.

“I’ll talk anyway I please and you’ll listen. My papa used every buck he sired as a stud and raised the finest crop of niggers in Mississippi. That gimpy little bugger knows what he’s got and by now he knows how to use it.”

Lee hated Taylor because he was born with a twisted foot that caused him to limp slightly. The fact that the boy was exceedingly bright didn’t matter in the least to his father. He saw the boy’s deformity as a reflection on himself and regularly reminded Vera that it was her inferior blood that had caused it. He used the boy to get to Vera because it was one of the few things that riled her enough that she gave him cause to slap her.

With a great effort Vera controlled her anger and refused to comment. Instead she said, “Why don’t you tell the men to go to the bunkhouse? I’m sure they’d not be turned away on a night like this.”

“I don’t think you heard me correctly. Wake up those damn kids and put them in here on a pallet. I want you to fix those men some supper. Fry the meat the hunter brought this morning.”

“The meat was for us. Taylor worked for it.” Vera got to her feet, flung open the firebox to the cook stove, and shoved in a chunk of wood.

“Haven’t you learned not to argue with me? You know you’ll do what I tell you to do. You’ve gotten lippy lately, Vera, and I don’t like it. Now, are you going to get those kids out of there or am I going to have to do it?”

“I’ll do it.”

“I thought you would.”

Lee went back down the narrow hallway to the dimly lit lobby and waited for the two strangers to come from the saloon. The price of the room for a night or two and the meals would add a little more money to his pocket when he left this place and took the stage to Salt Lake City.

Two quiet days passed. On the sixth of July, late in the afternoon, Katy and Rowe returned to Trinity. Modo, Rowe’s dog, met them at the far end of town as if he knew they were coming and had been waiting for them. Rowe dismounted, squatted down, and scratched the ears of his old friend.

“Miss me, boy?” The dog licked his hand, frolicked for a moment, then sedately led the way up the main street to the funerary where Mary and Theresa, attracted by Modo’s welcoming bark, waited on the porch.

“Oh, Rowe!” Katy said regretfully as they approached. “I didn’t get anything for Theresa.”

“I did. I forgot to tell you about it. It’s in my saddle bag.”

“You’re a constant surprise.” Happiness spread warmly throughout her body when she looked at the man who would be her mate for life.

“And you’re a constant delight.” His dark eyes adored her.

“You’d better watch it. I’m going to be spoiled,” she murmured and smiled into his eyes.

“It will be my pleasure to spoil you, Mrs. Rowe.”

“Aunt Katy! I’m glad you’re comed back!”

“I’m glad to be back,” Katy called. “It seems as if we’ve been gone a month, and it hasn’t even been a week.” Katy stepped down from the saddle before Rowe could alight to help her. She hugged her sister, then bent down to hug her niece. “I’ve missed you both.”

“You don’t look at all unhappy . . .” Mary’s voice trailed when Rowe stepped up on the porch and put his arm across Katy’s shoulder.

“I’ve never been so happy in all my life. Mary, meet your new brother-in-law.”

Katy’s laughter rang out when Mary drew in a gasping breath of surprise.

“You’re married?”

“Yes.” Katy raised her eyes to Rowe’s smiling face. “I let him talk me into it.”

Rowe’s deep chuckle mingled with Katy’s light laughter and his arm tightened, drawing her closer to him.

“That isn’t the way it was, sweetheart, and you know it. Mary, she saw that all the women in Virginia City were after me and was afraid I’d get away, so she married me.”

“Garrick Rowe! You’re lying again!”

Mary looked from Rowe to Katy as if she could not believe what she was seeing and hearing. Katy was radiant with happiness, Rowe’s face creased in smiles. Mary’s heart was filled with thankfulness that her sister, who had given up so much for her and Theresa, had found happiness.

“You two have a lot of explaining to do.” She tried to make her voice stern and failed.

“Mary, I’ve got so much to tell you.”

“And I’ve got a lot to tell you.”

“We had races and a ballgame.” Theresa hung on Katy’s hand. “We had Fourth of July, Aunt Katy. Uncle Hank stayed all night. He and Mamma slept—”

“Theresa!” Mary’s hand flew up and covered the child’s mouth. “Oh, my God!” Mary’s face turned first white and then red as a beet. “Oh, my God,” she whispered brokenly. “I didn’t know she knew—”

“Sweetheart,” Rowe’s voice broke into the silence that followed. “I’ve got to get up to the mine. I’ll stop by the hotel and ask Mrs. Longstreet to fix up the upstairs front room for us to use for the time being.”

“Can’t we stay here with Mary? We’d have to eat all our meals at Mrs. Chandler’s.” Katy looked at Mary for approval, but Mary still had a stunned look on her face and tears had gathered at the corners of her eyes.

“If that’s what you want to do and Mary doesn’t mind, it’s all right with me. You two figure it out.” He bent his head and touched his lips lightly to hers. “I’ll unpack the horse. I think I saw something in there for Miss Sugarplum.”

“Something for me?” Theresa squealed.

“You’re the only Miss Sugarplum I know. Stay here on the porch while I get the pack and we’ll see what we can find.”

Katy looped her arm in Mary’s. “I’ve so much to tell you, you won’t believe it all. You’ll never guess who I saw in Virginia City. Mara Shannon, her husband, and their little girl.”

Mary, mortified into silence, walked numbly into the house. When she turned to look at her sister, she burst into tears.

“Oh, Katy. I’m so ashamed. At the time . . . it seemed so natural and beautiful. I had no idea that Theresa knew. Hank left before daylight—”

Katy put her arms around her sister. “Don’t take on, Mary. You love him, don’t you? Rowe said he was sure Hank had fallen in love with you.”

“I do love him and he loves me. But we’re not . . . married, and Theresa may have told everyone—”

“Who would she have told beside Julia and Laura? I’m glad for you and Hank. He’s a staying man, Mary. He’ll not leave you and Theresa and go off looking for a rainbow.”

“You . . . didn’t like him. You said so before you left.”

“I said a lot of stupid things because I was so mixed up and fighting my love for Rowe. He was so straightforward with his feelings that I got my defenses up and balked. That’s the only way I can explain it. We’re going to stay here and build Trinity into a regular town. You and Hank will be here too. Oh, Mary, things have turned out wonderfully for both of us.”

Twenty-three

Trinity, July 15, 1874.

So much has happened since my last entry in this journal. I am now Mrs. Hank Weston. Hank and I were married in Bannack on July 10, 1874. We were gone two days and two nights. It is wonderful knowing I have a strong man beside me. He is so good and so loving. He dotes on Theresa. I’m going to have to talk to him about spoiling her. He loves to hear her call him Papa. I am so happy that it scares me. While we were away, Rowe fixed up our old cabin for him and Katy to live in temporarily. The first night Hank and I were home we were shivareed by almost every one in town. Rowe made certain things didn’t get out of hand. The noise didn’t let up until Hank shoved some money out the door and sent them all up to the saloon.

The mine has been closed down. The men are using this time to get houses ready for their families. They are excited about being reunited with their loved ones and are working like beavers. Rowe expects the first train of wagons with materials for the mill to arrive in a few weeks. They want to get the building underway before winter.

There has been some trouble. Art Ashland got into a fight with one of his freighters and beat him senseless. Hank said that Art is smitten with one of the girls at the Bee Hive but she will have nothing to do with him because he was drunk and rough with her. After he went to sleep she hit him in the head with the heel of her shoe and kicked him out of the bed. He had a terrible headache. Hank and I had a laugh about that.