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“Come sit here, Uncle Nate.” Charley directed his uncle to the chair closest to the fireplace and Olivia gave him a plate of stew and two biscuits she had saved for him. Nate didn’t hesitate, but dug his spoon into the rich, brown gravy and chunks of potato.
Uncle James pulled a footstool closer to the fire while Olivia and Charley went back to their checkers game on the floor, relaxed and happy now that their uncle was here. Aunt Margaret settled in the rocking chair with her ever-present knitting.
“The children tell us you’ve had quite a trip,” James said after their visitor had wiped the bottom of his plate with the biscuit. “You’ve come to get your share of the gold?”
Nate reached out to tousle Charley’s hair. The boy leaned his head against his uncle’s knee.
“Not gold, but land. My plan is to raise horses, and this is the perfect place. When the government opened up western Dakota to homesteading, I knew it was time.”
“You’ve been out here before?”
Nate’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the fire. “I’ve made a few trips out West since the war.” He glanced at the children. “It’s a different world out here than it is back East. A man can live on his own terms.”
“I’m gonna be a first-class cowboy.” Charley grinned up at Nate.
When Nate caressed the boy’s head, Sarah’s eyes filled. No one could question that he loved the children as much as they loved him.
“That’s the boy’s dream.” Nate leaned back in his chair and smiled at his nephew. “Providing remounts for the cavalry is my goal, but I need a stake first. We’ll start out with cattle. With the gold rush, I won’t have to go far to sell the beef.”
“There’s plenty of land around here, if you’re looking for a ranch.” James was warming up to his favorite subject—the settling of the Western desert. “The government has opened this part of Dakota Territory up to homesteading, but with the gold rush going on, not too many are interested in land or cattle.”
Margaret rose to refill Nate’s plate, her face pinched with disapproval. She hated the greed ruling and ruining the lives of the men they had met on their journey to Deadwood. Would she keep her comments to herself this time?
“Have you struck it rich yet?” Nate asked James between bites of stew.
James glanced at Margaret. His work here had been a bone of contention between them ever since Uncle James had decided to move west. “It depends on what you mean by rich. I’m a preacher, seeking to bring the gospel to lost souls.”
“If Deadwood is like other gold towns I’ve heard about, there are plenty of those here.”
Margaret let loose with one of her “humphs” and Lucy stirred on Sarah’s lap. The little girl opened her eyes and gazed at Sarah’s face with a solemn stare before sticking her thumb in her mouth again and settling back to watch Nate eat. There was still no sound from her. Sarah smoothed her dress and buried her nose in her soft curls again.
Nate saw Lucy was awake and winked at her, and then his eyes met Sarah’s. His smile softened before he went back to eating his stew.
James went on. “Deadwood is the worst of the worst. Too many murders, too many thieves, too many claim jumpers, too many...” He paused when Margaret cleared her throat. “Ah, yes,” he said, glancing at the children, “too many professional ladies.”
Oh yes, those “professional ladies.” Sarah had heard Aunt Margaret’s opinion of them all the way from Boston. There were few enough women in a mining camp like Deadwood, but most of them wouldn’t think to darken the door of a church. Sarah shifted Lucy on her lap and glanced at Margaret. What would her aunt do if one of those poor girls showed up on a Sunday morning? Or if she knew of Sarah’s plan to provide an education for them?
“Have you had any success?”
“We have a small group of settlers, families like yours, who meet together. I’ve recently rented a building in town, and now that Margaret and Sarah have arrived, I hope more families will come. You and the children are welcome to join us.”
Nate shoveled another spoonful into his mouth.
“Could we?” Olivia looked into Nate’s face. “Oh, could we? We haven’t been to church ever since...”
Charley gave his sister a jab with his elbow, but Nate, scraping the bottom of his second plate of stew, didn’t seem to notice. Aunt Margaret took the empty dish.
What had happened? One moment Nate was discussing Uncle James’s work, and the next Olivia and Charley were fidgeting in the uncomfortable silence. Lucy slid off Sarah’s lap and crossed to Nate. He took her onto his lap and stroked her hair while he stared at the fire.
“We’ll be busy building the ranch,” he said, looking sideways at James. “I doubt if we’ll have time for church.”
He shifted his left shoulder up, as if he wanted to hide the scars, and glanced at Sarah. It sounded as if going to church was the last thing he wanted to do.
* * *
Nate woke with a jerk, the familiar metallic taste in his mouth. He willed his breathing to slow, forcing his eyes open, trying to get his bearings. The MacFarlands’ cabin. They were safe.
Head aching from the ravaging nightmare, he rolled onto his back, waiting for his trembling muscles to relax. He might go one, or even two, nights without the sight of the fire haunting him. Before Jenny and Andrew died last fall, the nightmares had almost stopped—but now they were back with a vengeance. Whenever he closed his eyes, he knew what he would see and hear: the cavalry supply barn going up in flames. Horses screaming. The distant puff and boom of cannon fire. The fire devouring hay, wood, boxes of supplies, reaching ever closer to the ammunition he had managed to load onto the wagon. And those mules. Those ridiculous mules hitched to that wagon, refusing to budge. Over and over, night after night, he fought with those mules. And night after night the flames drew ever closer to the barrels of gunpowder. And since last fall, Andrew had been part of the nightmare. He stood behind the wagon, in the flames, yelling at him, telling him to hurry...hurry...to leave him...don’t look back...
And then Nate would jerk awake, shaking and sweaty.
He glanced at Charley, lying beside him on the pallet in front of the fireplace. At least the boy hadn’t woken up this time.
Nate looked around the cabin. Still dark, but with a gray light showing through a crack in the wooden shutters. Close to dawn. Almost time to get the day started.
Above him, in the loft, the girls slept with Sarah MacFarland. He hadn’t missed how quickly Olivia and Lucy had become attached to her. Lucy had even let Sarah hold her, something she hadn’t let anyone do except himself in more than six months. They were safe here. Safer and warmer than they had been since they left home eight weeks ago.
Was he wrong to bring the children to Deadwood? Was this any place to raise them?
The women of their church back in Michigan had made it clear the only right thing for him to do would be to put the children in the orphanage. The Roberts Home for Orphaned and Abandoned Children. As if they had no one to care for them.
Absolutely not. They would take these children from him over his dead body.
Charley turned toward him in his sleep and snuggled close. Nate put his arm around the boy and pulled him in to share the warmth of his blanket.
The sound of dripping water outside the cabin caught his attention. The wind had died down, and the temperature was climbing. The storm was over, and from the sounds of things, the snow was melting already. And that meant mud. As if he didn’t have enough problems.
Shifting away from Charley, Nate sat up. He pulled on his boots and stepped to the door, opening it as quietly as he could. No use waking everyone else up. Standing on the flat stone James used for a front step, he surveyed the little clearing.
Last night, James had told him he had been in Deadwood since last summer, building this cabin before sending for the women back in Boston. He had built on the side of the gulch, since every inch of ground near the creek at the bottom had already been claimed by the gold seekers. This cabin and a few others were perched on the rimrock above the mining camp, as if at the edge of a cesspool. Up here the sun was just lifting over the tops of the eastern mountains, while the mining camp below was still shrouded in predawn darkness.
Saloons lined the dirt street that wound through the narrow gulch. The sight was too familiar. Every Western town he had been in had been the same, and he had stopped in every saloon and other unsavory business looking for his sister. But Mattie’s trail had gone cold a few years ago. No one had seen her since that place in Dodge City where the madam had recognized the picture he carried. She had to be somewhere. Could she have made her way to Deadwood? Fire smoldered in his gut at the thought of where Mattie’s choices had taken her.
The door opened behind him.
“Oh, Mr. Colby. I didn’t realize you were out here.”
Nate moved aside to make room for Sarah on the step. The only dry spot in sight. She had already dressed with care, her black hair caught up in a soft bun. Her cheeks were dewy fresh and she smelled of violets. He resisted the urge to lean closer to her.
“I’m an early riser, I guess.” He chanced a glance at her. “I heard water moving and thought I’d check on the state of things. Our wagon is still on the trail back there, mired in the mud by now.”
“I had to see what the weather was like, too.” She smiled at him, and his breath caught. “After yesterday’s storm, this morning seems like a different world. I’ve never seen weather change so quickly.”
“That’s the Northern Plains for you. It can be balmy spring one day, and then below zero the next.”
“I suppose we’ll have to get used to it.” Sarah pushed at a pile of slush with one toe. She wore stylish kid-leather boots with jet buttons in a row up the side. They would be ruined with her first step off the porch. “Your children are so sweet. I’ve enjoyed getting to know them.”
Nate rubbed at his whiskers. “They seem to like you, too. You have a way with children. I’ve never seen Lucy take to anyone so quickly.”
“I hope you’ll reconsider sending them to school when I open the academy next week.”
He shot another glance at her, wary. “They won’t have time to attend any school. They’ll be with me all day. I’ll see they get the learning they need.”
She leveled her gaze at him, tilting her chin up slightly. Nate straightened to his full height, forcing her chin up farther. “Mr. Colby, I’m sure you know children do best when learning in a safe, secure environment. Can you provide that for them while you work to find your ranch?”
“I can provide the best environment they need, and that’s with me.” Nate felt the familiar bile rising in his throat. The busybodies back in Michigan had used the same arguments.
“But what about school?”
“President Lincoln learned at night after a day’s work. Charley and Olivia can do the same.”
“But surely you don’t think—”
“Surely I do think I know what’s best for these children. They’re my responsibility, and I’m going to take care of them.”
She stared at him, her eyes growing bluer as the sun rose higher over the distant hills. And here he’d thought he’d escape these do-gooders when he came west. No one was going to take his children away from him. He slammed his hat on his head.
“I’ll be waking the children up now. We need to work on getting the wagon repaired and head on into town.”
“You can leave the girls here, if you like, while you and Charley take care of the wagon.” She reached out one slim hand and laid it on his sleeve. “You are right, that the children are your responsibility, but that doesn’t mean you can’t let others help you now and then.”
Nate considered her words. She was right, of course. With all the mud and the slogging to town and back to get that axle repaired, it would be best for the girls to stay here and enjoy a day in the company of women, in a clean, safe house. But it galled him to admit it.
He nodded his agreement to her plan. “I’ll take Charley with me. But only for today.” He lifted a warning finger, shielding him from those gentle eyes. “The children stay with me. They’re my responsibility and I aim to do my best by them.”
“Of course you want the best for them. So do I.”
She turned to look down into the mining camp as it stirred to life in the early-morning light. Somehow, he didn’t think her version of what was best for the children would be the same as his.
Chapter Three
“I can help. Let me help.” Charley hopped on one foot, a flutter of movement in Nate’s peripheral vision.
Shifting his left foot closer to the wagon, Nate shoved again, sliding the wagon box onto the makeshift jack. He ran a shaking hand across the back of his neck.
“Charley, some jobs are just too big for an eight-year-old.” Who was he trying to kid? This job was too big for a thirty-year-old. If Andrew was here...
Nate looked into Charley’s disappointed face. If Andrew was here, they’d still be living in Michigan, and Charley would still have his pa. But a man couldn’t bring back the past, and he couldn’t always fix the mistakes he’d made, no matter how much he wanted to.
He squeezed Charley’s shoulder. “I’ll need your help with the next part, though.” Charley’s face brightened. “We need to get that broken axle off there and find a new one.”
“Loretta can help, too, can’t she?”
Nate looked at the mule, tied to the back of the crippled wagon. It flipped its ears back and stomped its front foot in response.
“I suppose she could carry the axle to town.”
“Sure she could. Loretta can do anything.”
Nate glanced at Charley as he knocked the wheel off the broken axle. Where did the boy get such an attachment to a mule? The animals were outright dangerous when they took it into their heads to go their own way.
He knew the answer to his own question. Andrew had given Loretta to the boy years ago, when Charley was barely old enough to ride. Andrew held that mules had more sense than horses and that she’d keep Charley safe wherever he wanted to take her. Nate had argued, tried to change Andrew’s mind, but Loretta became one of the family.
And now? Charley had already lost so much. He wasn’t going to be the one to take the mule away from the boy. No matter how much he hated it.
Nate fumbled with the ironing that held the axle to the bolster above it. Sometimes he could use a third hand.
“What can I do? I want to help.”
Nate glanced at the boy again.
“Here you go, Charley. Hold the axle up against the bolster while I get it unfastened.”
With Charley’s help, Nate released the ironings with a quick twist, and the axle was free. He glanced at the mule again. It was wearing the pack harness that Charley used for a saddle. It had come in handy on the trail when Nate needed to bring some game back to camp or haul water. Would the thing carry the axle for him?
Nate approached the mule, hefting one part of the heavy axle in his hands. “Whoa there, stupid animal, whoa there.”
The mule rolled its eyes and aimed a vicious bite at his shoulder.
“She knows you don’t like her.” Charley stood off to the side, watching.
“Of course I don’t like her. Help me get these axle pieces on her harness, will you?”
When Charley climbed up onto the animal, Nate was sure the mule winked at him. But it let him load the axle on the harness, and Charley fastened the straps, balancing with his weight on the other side of the mule. Nate looked at Charley’s grin as he perched on the pack saddle. In spite of the work still ahead to get the wagon back on its wheels, Nate had to grin back at him. What he wouldn’t give to be a boy again.
He fixed his eyes on the trail ahead. Those days were long gone.
* * *
Sarah scrubbed the hem of her traveling dress on the washboard. Mud seemed to be everywhere in this place.
“Here’s some more hot water for you.” Aunt Margaret came out the back door of the cabin to the sheltered porch where Sarah and Olivia bent over tubs of soapy water.
“Thank you.” Sarah pushed a lock of hair out of her face with the back of her arm. “It’s so wonderful to be able to do laundry in the fresh air this morning.” She smiled at Olivia as she took the steaming kettle from Margaret. “I would imagine it was hard for you and your uncle to keep up with chores like this along the trail.”
“We didn’t take time for anything,” Olivia answered, swishing a pair of socks in her tub. “Uncle Nate said we had to keep up with the bull train.”
Sarah turned the heavy skirt in the water and tackled another muddy stain. Her thoughts wandered to Nate Colby. Again. Was he having any success with his wagon? Would he be able to get the axle fixed? He’d have to take it into Deadwood to find someone to repair it.
“Did Uncle James say when he was going to show us the building he rented?” she asked Margaret.
Her aunt looked toward the roofs of the mining camp below them. “He said we would go this afternoon although I can’t see why we need a building down there.”
“Because that’s where the people are. And the academy needs to have a place, unless you want the children studying in the cabin.”
And with the church and school in the center of the mining camp, she would have ready access to the unfortunate young ladies she intended to find and educate.
Sarah looked up at the towering pine trees that climbed the steep hill behind the cabin. On those Sunday afternoons last winter in Dr. Amelia Bennett’s crowded parlor on Beacon Hill, she had never imagined the fire that had been lit in her would bring her to such a place as this.
Dr. Bennett was a pioneer. A visionary. Her plans for educating the women of the docks and brothels of Boston were becoming reality in the opening of her Women’s Educational Institution, and Dr. Bennett had urged Sarah to spread the work to the untamed wilderness of the American West, as she had called it. Sarah intended to make her mentor proud.
A sniff was Margaret’s only reply as she went back into the house. Lucy stopped playing with the pinecones she had found and stared after her.
Olivia wiped an arm across her forehead. “Is she always so...”
“Disapproving?” Sarah finished Olivia’s question. She wrung the water out of her skirt. “My aunt didn’t want to come out West. She’s trying to make the best of things, but it is hard for her to adjust to this life.”
“Why did she come, then? Why didn’t she stay at home?”
Sarah looked from Olivia’s earnest face to Lucy’s wide eyes. Why did any of them leave their homes? “My uncle said God was calling him to preach to the gold seekers.” She put one of her uncle’s shirts into the warm water. “Aunt Margaret came because he asked her to.”
“Why did you come?”
Olivia’s question struck deep. Sarah moved the shirt through the gray water and smiled at the girl. “I wanted adventure, and I wanted a purpose in my life. When Uncle James wrote that there were families here with children, I knew what this town would need is a school.” A great center of learning, for young and old. That was how Dr. Bennett phrased it.
“Can I go to your school?”
“May I...”
“May I go to your school?”
Sarah thought back to her conversation with Nate. Olivia would be such a charming pupil in the academy, one she would love to share the knowledge of the world with, but could she promise such a thing if the girl’s uncle was opposed to it?
“We’ll have to see what your uncle says.” Olivia’s face showed her disappointment as she went back to her scrubbing. “But even if you can’t come, I’ll certainly share my books with you and help you learn.”
“Would you, really?” Olivia’s face shone as if the sun had come clear of a swift cloud. “And will you help me teach Lucy to read?”
Sarah glanced at the five-year-old, who had gone back to her pinecones. It looked as if she was building a house with them. She leaned closer to Olivia. “I’ve never heard your sister say anything. Does she talk?”
Olivia shook her head. “She used to. Before Mama and Papa...” She bit her lip, and Sarah put an arm around her narrow shoulders.
“She hasn’t spoken since you lost your parents?”
At the shake of Olivia’s head, Sarah pulled the girl into a closer embrace. There had been a boy at the orphanage who had never spoken, from the time he came to live there until he passed away a few months later. The matron had said he died of a broken heart, but Sarah had known better. He had died because he couldn’t face life with no hope and no family.
She watched Lucy put the pinecones in lines, framing the rooms of her house. She put rocks into the spaces for furniture and used small pinecones for people that she walked in and out of the doors.
She could learn to speak again. Surely her life wasn’t as hopeless as the boy at the orphanage. Lucy was still surrounded by family, and she was healthy. Surely with love and nurturing she had hope for a normal, happy life. Resolve to assist these children filled her heart.
“I’ll help you teach Lucy to read, and we’ll make sure Charley works on his studies, too.”
Sarah held tight as Olivia’s arms squeezed around her waist. Had she just made a rash promise she couldn’t keep?
* * *
By the time Nate found a wheelwright who could make a new axle, noon had passed. He fingered the coins in his pocket.
“Is there any place to buy something to eat?” he asked the wheelwright.
“The Shoo Fly Café has good pie.” The burly man gestured with his head up Main Street.
“What about a grocer’s?”
“The closest is Hung Cho’s, right across the way there.”
“Thank you. We’ll be back to pick the axle up around midafternoon.”
Nate guided Charley across the muddy street with one hand on the boy’s shoulder, making sure he stepped wide over the gutter in the middle. Hung Cho’s was a solid wood building with a laundry on one side and what looked like a hotel on the other. Some of the signs were in English, but most had what Nate guessed were Chinese characters.
Charley stared at the short, round Chinese man who approached them as Nate sorted through the wares on the tables outside the store.
“Yes, yes, sir.” The man bowed slightly. “You want some good food for your boy, yes? Hung Cho carries only the best. Only the best for our friends.”
Nate glanced at the man. He had run across men from China before, but Charley hadn’t. Hung Cho’s smile seemed genuine, his expression friendly.
He fingered the coins in his pocket again and looked at the items on the table. He recognized some apples, dry and wrinkled from being stored all winter, but apples nonetheless.
“How much for one of these?”
“Oh, these apples. They are very fine. Make a boy very healthy, yes? Only one dollar.”
“I only want to buy one, not all of them.”
“Yes, yes. I understand.” Hung Cho’s head bobbed as he nodded. “Apples are very dear. One dollar.”
Nate pulled out a dollar coin, along with a two-bit piece. “I’ll take one. Do you have any crackers, and maybe some cheese?”
Hung Cho leaned forward to peer at the coins in his hand, and then slid his look up to Nate’s face. His smile grew wider. “You have coin money, not gold? You are new in Deadwood.”
At Nate’s nod, Hung Cho reached under the table and brought out two apples in much better shape than the ones he had on display. “For cash money, I give you two apples, one pound crackers and cheese. Nice cheese, from back East.”
They followed the little man into the dim interior of his store. The odor of dried fish in one barrel overpowered the close room. Hung Cho squeezed between it and another barrel filled with rice. He scooped crackers out of a third barrel and weighed them in a hanging scale, then sliced a generous wedge of cheese from a wheel behind the counter. He wrapped it all in a clean cloth and handed the bundle to Charley.