Forgiving

by LaVyrle Spencer

  “Marshal, isn’t it wonderful?” Her smile was broad as a sickle blade.

  “I hope so. We’ll see if this crowd gets out of order before it’s all over.”

  “Oh, they’re just celebrating. It’s the biggest day in Deadwood’s history. Tell me, Marshal, for the Deadwood Chronicle—what does the coming of the telegraph mean to you?”

  “Means I can get any news about stagecoach holdups while the trail’s still hot. Maybe pick me up a couple of rewards, huh?” He grinned mischievously, which she’d never seen him do before. “But right now it means I’m going over to the Grand Central to join the celebration, whether it gets out of hand or not. How about you? Do you know how to celebrate or is that all you do is work?”

  “Oh, I know how to celebrate. I’m actually quite good at it.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  “I’d love to, but I must find Patrick and Josh first and tell them I’m closing the office for the day.”

  “Then you’ll come over yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Without your notebook and pen?”

  “Well, I can’t promise that.”

  “You can’t dance with your inkpot open.”

  “How do you know I can dance at all?”

  “You’d better be able to when you’re a woman and there’s a banjo playing in this town.”

  “We’ll see,” she said, and left him in the middle of the street with the crowd milling and the sound of the banjo moving his way.

  Patrick and Josh were nowhere to be found, so she hung a sign on the office door, saying, CLOSED FOR THE DAY, and locked it behind her. The street was still clogged with people, all gay and excited, more than ready to regale until the wee hours.

  On an impulse she detoured to Mrs. Roundtree’s. If this was to be her first party in Deadwood she had no intention of spending it dressed in her puce-brown skirt and workday shirtwaist. Though it was nearly suppertime, the house was empty: even her landlady was somewhere in the crowd downtown, kicking up her heels.

  In her room, Sarah washed, put rosewater beneath her arms, brushed down her hair and tucked it back behind her ears with a pair of shell side-combs, then, at her forehead, squiggled six strands with the curlings tongs. She hooked on a sturdy jean corset, topped it with two white petticoats, tied on her crinoline bustle for the first time since coming to Deadwood and dressed in her only good suit—a forest-green polonaise jacket over a rose and green striped nansook skirt with a square-pleated ruffle at the hem.

  Before the mirror she neither simpered nor quailed, only gave herself a parting glance and went out to join the fun, leaving her pen and notebook at home.

  Up at Rose’s it was later than usual when Robert arrived. The piano player was plunking desultorily in the parlor, and Rose was playing solitaire at a table, with a burning cigar in the corner of her mouth. Though it was time for customers to be arriving, none were.

  Addie came downstairs when summoned, and for once she was fully dressed, though the cerise garment left much of her chest unveiled.

  Robert was waiting at the foot of the stairs. “Addie,” he said, “have you—”

  “My name is Eve.”

  “Not to me. Have you heard the news, Addie? The telegraph has arrived. Benjamin Winters is throwing a party at the Grand Central Hotel. Will you come with me?”

  “Sure. But an outdate’ll cost you plenty.”

  “This is a social invitation, not a business one.”

  “I don’t accept social invitations.”

  “Make an exception for an old friend.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Not at all. Will you come to the Grand Central with me for the evening?”

  “I’ve got to work.”

  “Nor you don’t. There aren’t any customers. They’re all down at the Grand Central. Now, go upstairs and get rid of the raccoon eyes, and put on a decent dress and come with me.”

  A fleeting expression touched Addie’s face, making it momentarily vulnerable. Her eyes met his and stayed. He sensed her resolve weakening, and saw a first crack form in her veneer of heartlessness. Then Rose dropped her cards and pushed back her chair. Sauntering over to Robert with the smoking cigar crooked in her finger and a hand on her hip, she said, “You’re suckin’ wind, mister. Eve told you she’s working, and she is. Where would I be if I let my girls walk out of here with cheapskates like you who expect their attentions for free. I’m running a business here, Baysinger. Either dig out your gold dust or leave.”

  His glance encountered Rose. It struck him that although the girls were not locked here physically, she held them with a grip more restraining than any steel lock. She fed them a daily diet of self-recrimination and intimidation cleverly disguised as tact. We keep off the streets because nobody wants to see us there. She kept her girls off the streets so they wouldn’t get a taste of what they were missing.

  Coming to this conclusion, Robert let his glance slide away from Rose as if she were an insect in his soup.

  “Addie?”

  “Do as she says.”

  “All right. But you must have some time to yourself. You need to get out of here, Addie. You can’t live your entire life shut inside this building. Think about it, and I’ll be back.”

  He extended his hand and she took it. Under the guise of a handshake he transferred to her palm something small and soft.

  “I liked your hair much better when it was the color of cornsilk. Goodbye, Addie. I’ll see you again soon.”

  When he was gone she returned upstairs. Alone in her room she opened the small square of tissue and found within it a lock of hair he had snipped from her head many years ago. She touched it—soft, golden, slightly curled—and reminiscence flooded back. She had been what—fourteen? Fifteen? He had come one evening in spring to play dominoes, and had brought her a red tulip he’d stolen from his mother’s garden. She had told him, “I don’t have anything to give you in return.”

  “I know something,” he’d said.

  “What?”

  “A lock of your hair.”

  He had taken the scissors himself and snipped it from the nape of her neck while they had chuckled secretly and, afterward, had kissed and forgotten all about playing dominoes.

  In her room on the second floor of Rose’s, Addie touched her nape and recalled the exquisiteness of his youthful admiration. She looked into her mirror and reality returned in the form of the coarse black pelt hanging square-cut below her ears. Rose had said, dye it. Too many blondes this far north. You want to make money as a blonde, you go south where most of the women are black-haired. You want to make money up north, you go black.

  Studying her reflection in the mirror, Addie wondered what it would be like to return to blonde after all these years.

  The Grand Central was mobbed when Sarah arrived. Someone had hung bunting on the front porch rail and decked the inner hall with pine boughs. In the lobby the furniture had been pushed back against the walls, and three pails of sand had been used to anchor fake telegraph poles connected by ropes which were also festooned with garlands of evergreen. The banjo had been joined by a fiddle, and the dancing had begun, with every available woman pressed into service. Emma was there, as well as her daughters, and Mrs. Roundtree, and the butcher’s wife, Clare Gladding, and Calamity Jane, in buckskin. Those men who could neither resist the music nor find a female partner danced with each other. A portion of the dining room had been cleared for dancing also and the two musicians roamed through the crowd, spreading the music as they went. Against one wall a long table held an array of food. Before Sarah could see what it held, she found herself swept up by Teddy Ruckner, who appropriated her without asking and danced her into a two-step to the tune of “Turkey in the Straw.”

  “Teddy, slow down!” she exclaimed, laughing.

  “Not tonight! Tonight we go full-tilt!”

  “I’m not used to this!”

  “You will be! These men are going to dance the soles off your shoe
s.”

  Their execution of the two-step was graceless but gusty. Whirling and stomping in Teddy’s arms, Sarah caught a glimpse of Noah Campbell, eating a sandwich and watching her. People came between them and she lost sight of him. The dance left her and Teddy laughing and winded. When it ended, Sarah was snapped up by Craven Lee, and after him, Shorty Reese. When the third song ended she found a queue of others waiting to partner her.

  “Gentlemen, I need a break... please.”

  They regretfully backed off and allowed her to escape toward the food table. Reaching it, she murmured, “Oh, my stars!” She had not seen such an array of food since leaving the East. Sliced roasts of wild game and a mountain of buns, whole baked fish, their eye sockets filled with cranberries, fricasseed rabbits and roasted chickens. Breaded parsnips, dark and light breads, hot rice cakes, a bevy of hot vegetables and every pickled thing imaginable from herring to tomatoes to watermelon. There were macaroon cakes, brandied peaches, apple fritters and an English walnut cake.

  And in the center of the table—presided over by Ben Winters himself—a washtub half-full of pale amber liquid. Ben was adding brown sugar to the tub when Sarah drew up at the table to admire the spread.

  “Miss Merritt—help yourself. Plenty to eat, and this here’s a little posset for ladies and gentlemen alike.”

  “Posset, Mr. Winters?” She smiled knowingly. “If it’s posset, where’s the milk?” Sarah knew perfectly well the genteel lady’s drink was made with milk.

  Winters grinned and stirred the mixture with a long-handled spoon. “Oh, all right, call it a peach cordial then. Or call it a rum punch. But have some. It’s not every day our town gets a telegraph. Running that newspaper, you’ve got more reason than most to celebrate.”

  “If it’s all the same to you, Mr. Winters, I’ll start with a little food. It looks wonderful.” While she selected tidbits from the table, Sarah saw rum, brandy, nutmeg and water go into the tub. Nevertheless, she accepted a cup of the punch when Ben handed it to her and sipped it in an effort to cool off. It was slightly peachy in flavor and quite delicious.

  She was lifting the cup for a second drink when someone clasped her elbows from behind.

  “Sarah! I found you!”

  She looked over her shoulder. “Arden, how did you hear the news?”

  “Gustafson rode out to the Spearfish this morning and said the connection with Western Union should be made by tonight. Guess we missed the grand event, but we sure found the party! Let’s dance, Sarah!”

  He stole her plate and punch cup and abandoned it on a table, hauling her amidst the dancers with his usual impatience. “Arden, you might ask a girl instead of telling her,” she chided when he had her bobbing fit to shake her bones from their sockets.

  “You came, didn’t you?”

  “Arden Campbell, I’m not sure I like your cocky attitude.”

  “Like it or not, I’ve got you now and I’m keeping you.” He hauled her close and executed two galloping turns while her cheekbone bumped his jaw and from across the crowd his brother and mother watched. Oh, gracious, his mother was here! Probably his father, too, if the red-bearded man between them was the family member she hadn’t met.

  “Arden, let me loose,” she insisted and got her wish, but by the time the dance ended, she felt as if she’d been through Robert’s stamp mill.

  “Come on, meet my father.”

  Again she had no choice. She was hauled off so abruptly her teeth clacked. Arden brought her to a halt before the trio of Campbells.

  “Pa, this is Sarah. Sarah, meet my father, Kirk Campbell.”

  They shook hands while she tried not to stare at his freckles and red beard. She’d never seen a face so big and orange or had her hand gripped by one any larger.

  “Hello, Mr. Campbell.”

  “So you’re the one my boys been talking about. And Carrie, too.”

  “Hello, Mr. Campbell,” Sarah added while Noah stood by with his arms crossed over his chest, offering nothing.

  “This is some shindig, isn’t it?” Carrie Campbell said. “I said to Noah, it’s a good thing you’ve got that jail because you’ll probably have some drunks to throw into it tonight.”

  A delicate subject, Noah’s jail. It brought a dead end.

  “That newspaper of yours looks mighty good,” put in Kirk. “I imagine this new telegraph will be a good thing for you.”

  “Yes, sir, it will be.”

  They talked about the telegraph, and the food, and the expected growth of the town, come spring. All the while, Noah stood silently while Arden shifted from one foot to the other and finally demanded, “You can talk about all that later. Now we’ve got to dance. Come on, Sarah!”

  Once more she was unceremoniously hauled to do his bidding. Over Arden’s shoulder her eyes caught Noah’s and she thought, Please rescue me. But at that moment someone tapped him on the shoulder and apparently asked him to follow, for he turned and went into the crowd at the far end of the lobby. When the song finally ended she glanced across the crowd and saw Noah heading her way, but before he reached her, Robert appeared.

  “Miss Merritt,” he asked, very properly, “may I have the next dance.”

  “Of course, Robert. I don’t believe you’ve met Arden Campbell.” When the two men had exchanged cordialities she danced off at a much more sedate pace with Robert. Arden watched dolefully and she’d lost sight of Noah.

  “Well, Robert, I haven’t seen you for a few days.”

  “I’ve been very busy at the mill.”

  “And I at the paper.”

  “Are you making any progress with Addie?”

  “None. Are you?”

  “I think I might have cracked through to her tonight.” After that their talk centered on Addie, and his mill and the telegraph, of course. They danced three dances, then retired to the punch bowl and Sarah had her second cup of the “peach cordial.”

  The party grew livelier and Sarah got slightly giggly. She danced, it seemed, a good twenty-five dances, with everyone in the place except Noah Campbell. Every time it seemed he was heading her way, someone interrupted. Once a gunshot rang out and he was called upon to make an arrest and was gone for some time, locking the merry-doer in jail as Carrie had predicted.

  When he returned it was after midnight and she was near the door, taking her coat from a rack. He walked up behind her.

  “Are you leaving?” he asked.

  She turned, smiling disjointedly, her cheeks abnormally flushed. “I do believe, Marshal, that I’ve had too much to drink.”

  “So have a lot of others. I’d better walk you home.”

  She leaned close to his ear and whispered, “Thank goodness. I wasn’t sure how to get rid of Arden.”

  She was having some difficulty finding her sleeve with her arm, so he helped. Arden approached, breathless after hunting up his own jacket. “Noah... I’m walking Sarah home.”

  “I’ll take care of that,” Noah informed him.

  “Now, wait a minute!”

  “Ma and Pa are looking for you. I think they’re ready to start for home.”

  “Good night, Arden,” Sarah added as Noah took her elbow and ushered her out the door.

  “But Sarah...”

  “Good night, Arden,” Noah added, closing the door between them.

  “I think I must apologize, Marshal.”

  “For what?”

  “Tippling. It isn’t very ladylike to be caught in this condition.”

  “You had a good time, didn’t you?”

  “Oh, I did. All except for your brother. He dances like popcorn!”

  Noah laughed while she hurried two steps ahead, swung about and lifted one foot straight at him. “Look! Do I have any soles left on them?”

  “Some.”

  “Well, that’s a miracle. It’s hard work being one of only twenty women in a town like this.”

  They walked side by side without touching. She was actually quite steady on her feet.

 
“You were a good sport. The men loved it.”

  “I thought we were going to dance, you and I.”

  “You were quite busy.”

  “Didn’t you dance with anybody?”

  “I was quite busy, too.”

  “I’ll bet you don’t know how. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  “You guessed it. I’m worse than Arden.”

  She laughed, then pressed her palms to her cheeks. “Goodness, my cheeks are so warm.”

  “Rum does that to a person.”

  “Ben Winters told me it was posset.”

  “You didn’t believe him, did you?”

  “No. I saw him put the liquor in. I just decided to have a good time, like everybody else.”

  “You’ll probably have a headache in the morning.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “It helps to drink a little coffee. Maybe we could find some in Mrs. Roundtree’s kitchen.”

  They were climbing the long steps to her house by this time. From behind and below, the faint noise of celebration could still be heard. Noah opened the door and they entered the dark parlor.

  “Just a minute,” he said. She stood in the dark, unbuttoning her coat while he found a match and lit a lantern. “Come on,” he said, picking it up, leading the way to the kitchen.

  He set the lantern on the table among a collection of wooden bowls, a lard crock, and a saltcellar. The fire in the stove had long since gone out and the room was chilly. He hefted a coffeepot and gave it a swirl. “There’s something in here.” He stepped into the dark pantry and reappeared pouring the cold coffee into a heavy white mug.

  She sat at the table. “Aren’t you having any?”

  “I’m not drunk.”

  “Oh, that’s right.” She smiled, accepting the cup as he stepped over and handed it to her, then returned the pot to the cold iron range. He angled a chair away from the table, sat down to her right, dropping an elbow on the table edge and crossing an ankle over a knee. He was dressed in his thick sheepskin jacket—unbuttoned—and the hat she’d given him.

  “Your father is the orangest man I’ve ever seen.”

  Noah burst out laughing.

  Sarah covered her lips with a finger. “Shhh! You’ll wake up the whole house.”