Forgiving

by LaVyrle Spencer

  “I don’t think she ever could live decently, not in the sense that you mean, not in the town where she knows all the men the way she does. The women would shut her out.”

  “What women? There are only twenty of us here and I think they’d give her a chance out of respect for me if I asked them to.”

  “There’ll be more coming and you know it. Besides, I think you overestimate the extent of the ‘good women’s’ forbearance.”

  “I suppose you’re right. So what should I do...” With a hand on her heart, Sarah thrust her head forward. “... let her live there and do what she does and pretend she’s not my sister?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes we just have to let people make their own mistakes. It’s the same with Arden. He never thinks things through, just charges headlong when he gets an idea before he takes time to think it through. I try to tell him, Arden, if you’re going to survive in this world you’d better take time to think about the consequences of your actions before you move.”

  “Does he ever listen to you?”

  Again the marshal relaxed against the doorframe. “No, hardly. When we were pups he’d be the one with all the reckless ideas—jump off the riverbank before you knew if there were rocks underneath, tease a wild badger before you knew how fast he could run. Arden would get hurt and I’d catch hell for it. Ma would get on me something awful without waiting for me to explain. But he’s one of those guys—hell, you just can’t hold ‘em down.”

  “So I noticed.” They exchanged a long, placid look.

  “I never asked before, but how did the two of you get along?”

  “The way you’d expect. He ran two steps ahead of me all night long. I was much too breathless for comfort.”

  Noah thought about remarking that they’d been neck and neck when Arden escorted her to the bottom of the steps, but refrained. He studied her shadowed face, realizing that at some time during the past two months he had grown accustomed to her tallness, to her eyes being nearly on a plane with his, to her utilitarian mode of dress and her long thin face which no longer put him off. At some point in their acquaintanceship his respect for her had come to supersede these superficialities.

  “He says he’s going to ask you out to the place sometime. You going?”

  She looked him straight in the eye. “Actually,” she replied, “I’d rather go with you.”

  Her honesty caught him by surprise though he continued lounging against the doorframe with his weight on one hip.

  “I think that could be arranged.”

  “Your mother intrigued me and I’d like to meet your father.”

  “They’re good people.”

  “You’re very lucky to still have them.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  They sent each other timid half-smiles and she realized that at some time since she’d lived here she had begun anticipating mealtimes with him across the table, she had ceased objecting to his unannounced appearances at the newspaper office and had grown to feel secure because he was always sleeping down the hall.

  After a moment he said, “We could go out some Monday. The town’s usually quietest then.”

  “I’d like that.”

  He drew away from the wall. “Well... I’d better get my jacket and hat and go make my rounds. I could walk you up to the newspaper office if you’re going back up there.”

  “I’m staying home tonight. I’m going to write in my room.”

  After a hesitation beat, he said, “Well, good night then.”

  “Good night.”

  He headed for the opposite end of the hall.

  “Mr. Campbell?” she called after him.

  He turned and paused directly beneath the lantern, which put rich rust highlights in his hair and mustache.

  “Thank you for offering to get Dr. Turley.”

  He smiled, becoming a male reflection of his mother.

  “Don’t worry about your sister. She’ll make out all right.”

  He turned and continued away while she quietly closed her door.

  CHAPTER

  11

  The following evening Mrs. Roundtree knocked on Sarah’s 1 door. “You have a caller, Sarah.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be right down.”

  She capped her ink, looked in the mirror, patted her hair and went downstairs.

  “Robert,” she said with a glad smile. “I was hoping it would be you.”

  “I thought perhaps we might go out for a walk so we could talk privately.” There were three men in the parlor.

  “Of course. Let me get my coat and I’ll be right back down.”

  The November night was clear and brisk. A quarter moon hung like a lopsided smile, trimming the edges of objects with a rim of silver. The shadows of the gulch walls were as black as printer’s ink. He took her arm as they headed down the path and followed Deadwood Creek to the spot where it intersected with Whitetail Creek, then up the incline toward Lead.

  “You saw Addie?” Sarah opened.

  “Yes.”

  “And you got no further than I did.”

  “No.”

  “Depressing place, isn’t it?”

  “How can she live there? And do that?”

  “I don’t know. Did you see her room?”

  “No. The lobby was bad enough.”

  “They refer to it as the parlor.”

  “Parlor... ha.”

  “My feelings exactly. My skin crawls each time I walk through it.”

  “There was a list on the wall.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen it.”

  No more was said on the subject. They walked along through the shadows.

  “Are you sorry you came?” Sarah asked.

  “Yes. And no. Seeing her for myself—the way you described her—was a shock. But with two of us working on her, maybe we’ll be successful in making her leave that life. And I came for one other reason.”

  “To get rich.”

  “Yes.”

  “You always said you would.”

  “You remember how it was in my family... so many mouths at the table that my mother didn’t even peel the rutabagas. The skins were too precious. Well, I made up my mind early that I’d never be like that. I wouldn’t have to worry where the next meal was coming from, or the next stick of wood. I want to be rich so I never have to go through what my parents did. Does that sound avaricious, Sarah?”

  “Not at all. And I’m sure you’ll do it.”

  “I have a good head, and I’ve never been short of ideas. When you wrote about the need for the stamp mills I knew. I just knew it was the opportunity of a lifetime. If I could get financial backing to build one I’d see my dream come true, and I will. The men behind the stamp mill have placed great trust in me and I aim to see that trust pay off for them and for me.”

  “And what then, Robert?”

  “What then?”

  “If you could get Addie to leave Rose’s, would you marry her?”

  “I don’t know. While I was traveling out here, I thought about it. I pictured myself taking her out of that brothel and making her into the sweet girl she used to be. I guess I fancied myself some kind of noble cavalier. But facing her as she is today, I really don’t know.”

  “It would take a very special man to forget her past.”

  “To tell you the truth, Sarah, I’m not sure I ever could.”

  She thought, If you cannot, I’ll be here waiting. Perhaps one day you will finally notice.

  “But enough about me,” Robert said, changing the mood. “What about you? Tell me everything that’s happened since you’ve been here.”

  “Well, I haven’t gotten rich, nor do I want to, but I’m happy running Father’s press. I started with a single page and have already expanded to four. The paper is paying its way, and of course I print everything from the theater bills to ‘wanted’ posters, which also bring in good money. I’ve attracted many of the merchants to advertise in the Chronicle, and I have excellent help in Patrick and Josh.
I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

  “And what about your social life? Considering how few women there are in this town, I imagine the men sit up and take notice.”

  “Well, yes... actually. I’ve had offers to play a thirteen-stop organ and look at the Taj Mahal through a stereoscopic viewer.”

  They laughed, and Sarah went on. “I’ve been cooked a real roast beef dinner, which is hard to come by here, and I’ve been given a green and white striped umbrella in the middle of November by a man four years my junior who made me an offer of marriage—sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  “You’d have to know Arden to understand. But that’s not all. I’ve also been arrested for causing a riot, thrown in jail for causing a man to get shot, threatened by the marshal who said he’d like to drag me down the street by my hair, and tried by a local grocer. It certainly hasn’t been dull.”

  “Sarah, is that all true?” Robert stared at her agape. They had returned to town and stopped before the doorway of her shop.

  “Every word.”

  “And you aren’t going to enlighten me?” His eyes were wide with amazement.

  “Of course, but it’ll take awhile. Would you like to come inside where it’s a little warmer?”

  In the newspaper office she lit a wall lantern and put a stick of wood on the glowing coals. Robert sat on Patrick’s tall stool and Sarah on her swivel desk chair. They talked for two hours.

  Marshal Campbell saw the windows of the Chronicle office glowing and crossed the street on foot. His exchange with Sarah last night had been as close to pleasant as any so far. At breakfast today she’d been friendly, and at supper congenial. He’d just step into her office and say hello, let her know he was on the job, maybe pass a few minutes chatting. She was interesting to talk to, involved as she was in all the news of the town. She had opinions about everything, and though sometimes they weren’t the same as his own, he’d come to appreciate the amount of thought she put into her views.

  He reached her window, glanced inside and stepped back into the shadows.

  She was there all right, but so was Baysinger, settled comfortably on a high stool while she—on her chair with one foot on an open desk drawer—rocked left and right as they talked. Their coats hung on the bentwood coat-tree as if they’d been there for some time. There was no evidence of interrupted work. The cover of Sarah’s desk was rolled down. Her pen and ink were nowhere in sight.

  Noah Campbell stood at the edge of the window light, coming to grips with a small pang of jealousy.

  Jealousy? Where had that come from?

  Baysinger said something, pointing to the plastered walls, and she laughed. He laughed, too, then she rose and went to the rear of the room where she opened the stove door. He followed and took over the job of sticking another piece of wood in the stove. With her back to the window, Sarah crossed her arms. Baysinger slipped the fingers of both hands into the rear waist of his trousers. They stood together that way, facing the stove, presumably talking.

  Campbell watched until he grew tired of waiting for them to move, finally doing so himself, walking away without ever entering the Chronicle office.

  Robert and Sarah had made a pact. Every day, without fail, each of them would visit Addie. No matter how bald her rejections, no matter how repugnant her domicile, they would pursue a campaign of invitations. To dinner. For a walk. To the newspaper office. For a ride. They would take her small gifts. They would—they vowed—break her down with love.

  Meanwhile, the town of Deadwood reveled in the news that it was to have its first stamp mill. Robert Baysinger’s name was spoken with near reverence even before Sarah put an article in the Deadwood Chronicle announcing his arrival and intent. Robert had brought the stamps themselves—there were forty of them—from Denver. Construction got underway immediately on a steep sidehill of Bear Butte Creek. A sturdy wooden structure was built to support the great steel shoes, which were driven by a steam engine. The shoes raised and lowered upon a sheet of mercury-coated copper, to which the smaller gold particles adhered while the larger ones rolled on down the hill to be collected below. The mill would do contract work, keeping 10% of all the gold that was stamped.

  Robert had no trouble finding employees to build and work in his mill; not everyone in the gulches had “seen the elephant.” There were many whom the color had eluded, or who had lost their diggings at the gambling tables, or whose claims had petered out.

  Because he brought a service to the goldfields that had been much needed, while at the same time providing steady work for over two dozen employees, Robert became a prominent and well-liked man.

  He settled into the Grand Central Hotel, returning to it without fail at four o’clock every afternoon to wash and shave, splash his face with bay rum, don a clean white shirt with a new linen collar, his gray and brown striped cassimere suit, his heavy caped coat and his freshly brushed bowler. As a finishing touch, he carried an ivory-headed walking stick each day when he set out for Rose’s, making certain he arrived well in advance of the evening customers.

  “Good afternoon,” he would say politely to Flossie when she answered the door. “May I see Miss Merritt, please?”

  Addie would come downstairs, often in a state of semidress. He would ignore her exposed skin and ask, looking straight into her cold eyes, “May I buy you a piece of pie, Addie?” or “Do you have a night off when I might take you to the theater, Addie?” or “Would you like to ride out with me to see the stamp mill, Addie?”

  Addie would answer, “Only if you buy me off the floor.”

  He would reply politely, “No, not that way. Perhaps another day you’ll feel like getting out.” And he would hand her some token—a bright blue jay’s feather he’d found by the mill, an abandoned bird’s nest he’d plucked from a pine, an exceptionally pretty rock with pink stripes running through it, a humorous drawing from some old publication, a braided clump of dried sweetgrass he’d found out in the hills which could be burned to scent the air.

  He never took her anything of monetary value, only offerings he thought of as “gifts of the heart.”

  She never refused them, but she never said thank you.

  Sarah went, too, each day around noon when Addie was likely to be up and on her own time. She would offer news about Robert’s enterprise—“The mill is going up fast,” or about neutral subjects—“Everyone in town is talking about the telegraph coming.” She would bring offerings, too: a fresh bun from Emma’s bakery, the latest issue of her paper, an origami bird Patrick had folded from a sheet of newsprint, the raisin-filled cookie from last night’s supper. She would keep her smile intact while Addie offered none, and at the end of the visit would remind her sister, “I have work for you anytime you want it, Addie, and a room at Mrs. Roundtree’s we can share.”

  If the way to Addie’s heart was by showing they cared, Sarah and Robert believed that one day their method would work.

  On December 1, 1876, the telegraph line reached Deadwood from Fort Laramie, where it connected with Western Union. The town went crazy. It was a clear, mild winter day and everyone piled into the streets to watch the final wire being hung in midafternoon. When the connection was made, the man on the pole raised his arm and a deafening cheer rose. Sarah was standing below with Patrick, Josh, Byron and Emma. Hats flew in the air. The roar became immense. Byron picked up Emma and swung her off her feet. Someone did the same to Sarah and she hugged him hard and shouted in his ear, “Isn’t it wonderful?” He set her down and kissed her hard on the mouth—a miner whose name she did not know—then they laughed and cheered with the rest of the town.

  “Come on, Patrick, we must get to the telegraph office!” she shouted above the din.

  They pressed through the crowd to the tiny office where the town’s first telegraph operator, James Halley, was sitting at his spanking new desk with his finger on the brass telegraph key. It was too crowded inside for two more bodies, so Sarah tapped on the window and a man named
Quinn Fortney raised it so Sarah could hear what was being said as the mayor of Deadwood sent a message to the mayor of Cheyenne.

  “Shhh! Shhhh!” The signal hushed the crowd while those nearby heard the first tap-t-t-tap come back with a congratulatory message. When it was complete, James Halley came out onto the telegraph office steps and read it loud enough for those a block away to hear.

  “Congratulations, Deadwood. Stop. Now a copper wire connects the fabulously rich goldfields of the Black Hills with the world at large. Stop. Expect great progress to follow. Stop. Congratulations. Stop. R. L. Bresnahem. Stop. Mayor of Cheyenne. Stop.”

  Another cheer rose. Men were hugging men. Patrick was hugging Sarah. Somewhere a banjo played. Men danced jigs. Patrick kissed Sarah, and she was too excited to consider objecting.

  “Just think, Patrick!” she shouted joyously. “We can get news from all over America the same day it happens!”

  “And you’ll go to six pages, then eight, and me fingers’ll be nubbins keepin’ up with y’.”

  She laughed happily. “No, not for a while. Now let me go. I must get people’s impressions during all this excitement.”

  She wove through the crowd asking the question, “What does the arrival of the telegraph mean to you?”

  Dutch Van Aark said it meant he could place an order one day and have it arrive by stage three days later.

  Dan Turley said it could mean saved lives, as in the instance of the smallpox outbreak they’d just had, when the disease could have been identified faster and the vaccine points ordered in one day instead of three.

  Shorty Reese said it meant the miners would get the going rate for their gold dust.

  Teddy Ruckner said it meant he could let his relatives in Ohio know he was all right without having to write letters.

  Benjamin Winters said it meant he was throwing the biggest party the town had ever seen at his Grand Central Hotel starting immediately! He ended with a fist in the air, raising a roar of approval. He led the way toward his establishment with a surge of men following. “Hey, everybody, party at the Grand Central! Get that banjo player!”

  In the midst of the crowd, Sarah turned and found Noah Campbell behind her.