Sourdough Creek (30 page)

“Partners in the claim north of here. One section of river past this one. Just setting up camp.”

“How many more claims are up your way?” Sam asked, more calmly than he felt.

“We’re the last. Pretty desolate. Didn’t think it would be quite so far out. I shoulda known.”

“Well, we best get moving,” Sam said, looking over at Cassie. “Ready, little brother?”

Cassie nodded.

Sam wondered if they were going to let him ride by. They weren’t making any effort to move their horses.

“Let’s go,” Sam said, wrapping the rope back around his saddle horn and urging his horse forward.

“Hold up.” The older man reached for his saddlebag and Sam drew his gun.

“Jack!” his younger companion called out sharply.

The older man eyed Sam. “What the hell?” he said angrily, holding a letter in his hand.

Sam took a moment to reply. “What’s that?”

“A letter for Sam Ridgeway. I figured that must be you when you said yours is the next claim. The man at the claim office asked me to give it to you when I came out. I’m of good mind to put it right back in my saddlebag and tell you to go to the devil, you drawing on us like that.”

Sam thought quickly. Only Clemen, the man who’d raised him and Seth, knew where he was. It had to be from him. He holstered his gun. “You understand as well as I do a man has to be prepared, especially out here. I apologize for drawing.” The young one looked as mean as all get out. The older was harder to read, chewing on a stick he had hanging between his teeth.

“I don’t know?” the older one, with the letter, drawled.

Fed up, Sam rode alongside the man and pulled the post from his fingers. “I thank you for delivering this. Come on, Cassidy.”

Sam passed the men with a clatter of noise. Cassie followed, moving Meadowlark quickly ahead of Blu. The men turned their horses and sat watching until they were over the ridge.

“Who’s it from, Sam?”

Sam had taken the beat-up letter, with its stains and crumpled corners, and put it in his pocket without opening it. He felt agitated. “A family friend.”

“That’s all you’re going to tell me? After all we’ve been through? I can’t believe it. And it’s impolite.”

“Until I read it that’s all I know.”

Cassie stepped her horse close to his and gazed into his face. He saw her concern and excitement, too. What could he tell her? Only that it was bad news. Something he didn’t want to hear. Or think about. He could move on as many times as he could count on both hands but it seemed impossible to outrun the past. It caught him like a faithful dog, but unlike man’s best friend, always ended up biting him spitefully.

All of Cassie’s fears had been well founded. It was dark by the time they clattered slowly into camp, where Uncle Arvid was shouting irritably, as if they were ignoring him on purpose.

As they got closer, Cassie had wanted to ride ahead, get back faster, but Sam wouldn’t let her. The letter had chased his good mood away, even though he hadn’t taken the time to read it.

“Cassie, is that you, girl?”

Uncle Arvid’s harsh tone sent a chill of warning up her spine. She dismounted and fumbled with her reins.

“I’ll be right there, Uncle. I’m tying up Meadowlark right now.”

“You and Ridgeway been gone all day! What’re you two scheming up? A plot to cut me out? Or are you getting all lovey dovey?”

Cassie looked from the cold fire to her uncle’s tent. His ranting was grating on her nerves.
How dare you say such things
!
We’ve done everything in our power to make you comfortable, and still you
… Irritation gave way to fear as she got closer to the tent. “I’m here,” she said through the flap. “What do you need?” Even from this side of the tarp she could smell whiskey mixed with the sharp scent of kerosene from his lamp.

“What do I need? Food! Get me some supper! My belly thinks my throat’s been cut.”

Cassie turned to go.

“And make it fast!”

“I’ll have it as soon as I can,
Uncle
.”

“Did I hear a tone from you, girl? Did I! You ain’t too big for me to—”

She whirled and ran straight into Sam, who gripped her arms to keep her from falling. “Slow down, Cassie. He’ll live—that is, if I decide not to kill him myself. I have a small flame going and,” he held up the bucket, “I’m on my way to the river.”

Cassie had to look away. She blinked several times to rid her eyes of the tears filling them. “Thank you,” she murmured past a walnut-sized lump in her throat.

He gave her a quick hug, then said softly, “Don’t mention it.”

She tried to smile at his teasing but his standing up for her meant everything at that moment.

Back at the fire, Cassie mixed and moved with speed. The oil was hot in minutes and she scooped batter to form three small hotcakes in the bottom of the skillet. Sam came back from the river and haphazardly tossed about a half cup of coffee grinds into the basket of the coffee pot and set it into the flames.

He sat back on his heels. “If you win the claim, are you staying out here with him?” He hitched his head toward Arvid’s tent.

Cassie stared at the tiny bubbles popping up through the thin batter as the edges of the cakes turned a pretty brown. “I haven’t decided. To be honest, I’m not sure what I want to do anymore. When it was just Josephine and me planning to come out, it seemed like a good idea even though now I realize that was an outlandish notion. Actually, it was the only option we had. Now, after all the hours I’ve spent in that cold river, I don’t know. If Uncle wasn’t hurt maybe he’d be a different person.”

Sam was staring. “Maybe.”

She lifted the corner of one hotcake with her spatula to check to see if it was done.

“And if you found a nugget, one that would support you and the start-up costs of your bakery, what would you do? Stay here to try to find more, or go back to civilization?”

“Sam, why all these questions? You know as well as I do that that’s just a dream. One few miners ever realize. I’m not silly enough to think that’s the way it’s going to happen. Like you said, a fortune is built one flake at a time.”

Chapter Fifty

S
am watched as Cassie flipped the cakes and patted them down several times.

“Just what if?” he persisted.

She looked up at him and had to smile. His tone was so earnest, his expression just as solemn. He was watching her and she knew he wouldn’t drop the subject until she answered.

“If I found the means that would fund what Josephine and I needed to get started, I’d pack up and go tomorrow.”

“And what about Arvid?”

“What about him? He’s my uncle. The only family we have. If he wants to be a part of it, then that’s how it’ll be.”

“You think that would be good for Josephine?” Sam asked. “Him bossing her around, cursing in front of her, drinking, and who knows what else?”

“Cassie!” Arvid bellowed at the top of his lungs. His temper hadn’t abated in the least. “Get up here, girl!”

Cassie looked at Sam and tried to read what he was thinking. She was glad the dusky light hid her embarrassment. She took the spatula and flipped the three hotcakes onto a plate and set four leftover strips of bacon from their morning meal, which had been heating up by the fire, alongside.

Sam spooned more batter into the hot skillet. She couldn’t miss the angry slant of his mouth and his clenched jaw.

When a string of obscenities from Arvid’s tent filled the silence, Sam dropped the pan he was holding into the coals and bolted up, taking a step in Arvid’s direction. “I think your uncle would like to take that bath
right now
! It’ll cool him off considerably.”

Cassie grasped his arm. “No, Sam. I’ll take care of it. It’s not your responsibility.”

He shook her off and started for the tent. “It’s just not right, Cassie. Don’t know how you stand it. He’ll learn to treat you with respect—one way or another.”

She took a hold of the back of his belt with one hand, and balanced the plate in the other. She set her heels in the dirt. “Stop, Sam! He’s my uncle!”
And I’m trapped, just like my mother had been. To a no good
… “That’s the only thing that keeps me going. It’s the only thing I can do.”

Sam stopped. With force, he kicked a rock and watched it sail into the bushes. For a long moment he gazed at the spot where it landed. Finally, he turned to her and tipped her face up with a lightly placed finger under her chin. “You’re right. Go on and I’ll tend to our supper.”

As hard as it was, Sam kept quiet about Arvid through their meal and poured himself the last of the coffee as Cassie straightened up. At the moment, the letter he’d gotten from their new neighbors was on his mind. He’d been pondering what it could be about. He lifted a lantern and started down to the river.

He settled himself on a rock and took the post from his pocket, carefully opening it. As he’d thought, it was from Clemen. After a few lines of pleasantries and news from home—couples who’d wed, babies that had been born and such—Clemen got to the heart of his message. Sam’s father, Brewster Ridgeway, was being granted clemency for good behavior after sixteen years behind bars. He was coming home to Greenville in three months’ time and wanted to reunite with his sons. Clemen said he hadn’t responded to the letter yet, and he would wait until he’d heard from Sam.

Anger wrapped itself around Sam’s heart and squeezed mightily. His sons? When had Brewster Ridgeway ever thought of Seth and him as his sons? That was almost laughable. The joke would be on him if he thought he could just waltz in and pick up a life, one he’d never even tried to have before, with them and be welcome.

The letter rested in Sam’s lap, forgotten as he studied the river, unable to see the sprays as they went up and over the rocks in the darkness of night.

It was a pity his mother, who’d come from a good family in Boston, hadn’t seen through Brewster’s lies for what they were before she accepted his proposal. How different her life could have been. She knew nothing of her husband’s real past and so Sam and Seth had grown up with no knowledge of grandparents, except for the two on her side. The Ridgeway family line was a mystery.

“Sam?”

He turned and found Cassie standing behind him. He hadn’t heard her approach and wasn’t sure he was ready for any company after the news he’d just gotten.

“What does it say?” Her eyes were dark and worried, searching his face. He looked away.

She persisted. “The letter. Who’s it from?” There was a forced lightness to her voice. Airy.

“A friend.”

She laughed softly. “Who?”

“Clemen.” He knew the name would mean nothing to her and yet he offered no more.

“You sure know how to shut someone out,” she said a little sadly. She scooted onto the rock next to him, much in the way he’d made her sit with him. She gave him a nudge with her shoulder. “Come on. You’ll feel better if you share your burden.”

What could it hurt? He’d been carrying it around so long on his own he was ready to pass it over. “Clemen is a man who took my brother and me in when our ma died. I was eight and Seth was five. He fed us and clothed us and sent us to school. He taught us to ride and instilled in us a love for horses. He owned the livery in town and did business accordingly. For all purposes, I think of him as our father even though he and my ma never married.”

Cassie picked up his hand and laced her fingers through his. “So, what does this Clemen have to say that’s put that worried look into your eyes?”

This was a bold move for Cassie and Sam was surprised. No doubt it gave him a jolt of pleasure but, more than that, it moved him that she saw that he was hurting deeply and wanted to make things better.

“My real father, the one I said I hadn’t seen for a long time, is getting out of prison. His sentence was lightened for good behavior.” Sam laughed. “He’s sent a message to Clemen telling him he wants to see Seth and me.” He looked down at his boots and shook his head. “I won’t, though. To me he’s dead.”

Cassie was quiet for a long time. “Can I ask what he did?”

“Does it matter?” he answered gruffly.

This was harder than he’d thought it would be. Surely when Cassie heard that he was the son of an outlaw she’d think differently of him.

“Sam?”

“He was part of an outlaw gang,” he offered more civilly.

“I see.”

“You can’t. Not really. Your family was what one is meant to be. Affectionate and supportive. Responsible. Josephine’s told me several times how loving your parents were. I don’t think it’s possible you could understand how I’m feeling right now.”

Cassie rolled a little pebble under her boot and looked away.

“We’re supposed to forgive, as hard as it might be,” she said quietly. “No matter what. Seventy times seven. We can’t see what’s in someone’s heart. Things aren’t always what they seem, Sam.”

Wrapped in the darkness of night, everything seemed still except for the flowing river. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

When she turned back to face him, there was a look in her eyes he’d never seen before. Despair. Pain. Heartbreak. She was close and if he’d wanted to he could lean in and kiss her. But he didn’t. He needed to know what was behind that expression.

Her eyes searched his face as if she were deciding whether to say what was on the tip of her tongue. Then softly: “I didn’t have a loving pa.”

He was confused. “But, Josephine said…”

“I know what Josephine has told you because it’s what I told her. I wanted to give her good memories, of a ma and pa who loved each other, and us. My mother was devoted to my father, but he was no better than my Uncle Arvid. In some ways, maybe even worse. It was my mother that kept us together. Only because she really loved him. And forgave him. But she never trusted him—she couldn’t. She worked hard to provide for us when he didn’t. Josephine was too young to remember how things were and I hope God will forgive me for lying to her. Actually, my pa was murdered by one of his companions after a night of drinking and gambling.”