Tumbleweed Letters

by Vonnie Davis

  Table of Contents

  Tumbleweed Letters

  Copyright

  Praise for Vonnie Davis’s Writing

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  A word about the author...

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  Tumbleweed Letters

  by

  Vonnie Davis

  Love Letters Series

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Tumbleweed Letters

  COPYRIGHT © 2012 by Vonnie Davis

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com

  Cover Art by Tina Lynn Stout

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Cactus Rose Edition, 2012

  Digital ISBN 978-1-61217-518-8

  Part of the Love Letters series

  Published in the United States of America

  Praise for Vonnie Davis’s Writing

  STORM'S INTERLUDE

  Holt Medallion finalist as

  Best Book written by a Virginia author

  and as Best Book in Mainstream/Single Title

  Also nominated as Book of the Year

  at Long and Short Reviews

  ~*~

  “This book has easily found its place on my keeper shelf and has become one of my personal favorites. If I could pull these characters from the pages and make them real I would. …I will revisit them again in the future and I very much look forward to it.”

  ~Long and Short Reviews

  ~*~

  “Wow, I absolutely loved STORM'S INTERLUDE! …sweet romance, heartfelt feelings, a whole lot of sexual tension, and its own share of on-edge suspense.”

  ~Night Owl Reviews

  ~*~

  “In love with this book! This author is now on my auto-buy list. Please keep them coming, Ms. Davis!”

  ~The One Hundred Romances Project

  ~*~

  “STORM'S INTERLUDE is a delightful read from beginning to end.”

  ~Romancing the Book

  ~*~

  “Readers, prepare yourselves for a breathtaking emotional journey. STORM'S INTERLUDE is simply a book you should not miss. The characters are well crafted and…Vonnie Davis' writing is tender, witty and beautiful. I devoured each page, but didn't want the story to end because it's so powerful.”

  ~Siren Book Reviews

  Dedication

  To Grace Chiasson Miller,

  of the Mi’kmaq tribe,

  my "go-to lady" for all things Native.

  Thank you for sharing your heritage and

  for keeping me true to The Red Way.

  The exceptional grandson we share between us

  will always keep us joyfully connected.

  Bless you.

  Chapter One

  October, 1879

  South of Deadwood, Dakota Territory

  Cam McBride fought to keep his horse under control. “Steady, now. Steady, Samson.” He reined the chestnut to the left, away from the rolling tumbleweed. “Just another wind witch.” Leaning forward, he patted his mount’s neck. Leather creaked, and Samson snorted. “I know those tumbleweeds spook you.”

  Eli turned slightly in front of him, and Cam’s palm automatically went to the child’s waist for support. “Drink, Daddy.” His son pointed to the roaring creek beyond the golden, swaying aspens.

  “Okay. Drink.” He dismounted and lifted his two-year-old from his perch behind the saddlehorn. “Stay, now. Don’t go running off.”

  “Stay,” Eli repeated with a nod, his wheat-colored hair fluttering in the breeze.

  Cam led his horse to the creek. He removed his canteen and pulled a metal cup from his saddlebags.

  “No, Daddy, drink.” Eli pointed to the creek and did his I-want-what-I-want jig, kicking up a little dust in the process. “Cold drink.” He crossed his little arms and stuck out his lower lip.

  They’d been riding the range since sunup, slowly herding his small drove of cattle to lower ground in preparation for winter. No doubt the cranky boy needed a nap. “Okay, you get your way. I’m too tired to argue.” He stepped into the high grass along the bank, squatted, and leaned forward, extending the tin cup to catch fresh water gurgling over a mound of rocks in the stream. Cam leaned back on his hunkers. “Here’s your drink.”

  Eli trotted over and grabbed the offered cup. “Dank you,” he chirped in a sing-song voice.

  “You’re welcome, son.” He ruffled the boy’s curls and listened to the child’s gulping and breathing echo within the metal cup. His Amanda would be pleased he was teaching her son manners. She’d always set great store by them, growing up in the South the way she had. No doubt his beloved was smiling from heaven at his awkward attempts to raise their boy alone.

  The offending tumbleweed that had spooked Samson moments earlier snagged his attention. A sliver of color dangled within it. Taking his son’s hand, he walked him away from the stream and toward the tumbleweed caught between a couple of scrub pines.

  He stooped to untangle a piece of blue calico. Maybe Eli would enjoy playing with it. As he untied the knotted material, paper crackled. What’s this?

  Cam unfolded the remnant. A piece of newspaper was tucked inside. Wasn’t that odd? As he turned the torn paper over, slanted writing along the margins caught his eye. Before he began reading, he gave Eli the scrap of calico.

  To the four winds, I hate it here. I miss Pennsylvania. I miss my home with my things about me. I miss my students and my husband, hooligan that he was. My friends told me nothing good would come from marrying him, but love only sees what it wants. Now I am alone, on the run, and without funds. I barely earn my keep. I have no hope of happiness and no one to talk to, except you—the four winds.

  “Mine.” Eli held out the blue strip of fabric so it fluttered in the breeze.

  “That’s right, son.” Cam turned the scrap of newspaper over in hopes of reading more. Nothing but an ad for winter coats at Munter and Lillanthal’s in Deadwood. The paper’s name, Black Hills Pioneer, was printed in the corner. No more handwriting and no signature. So a lonely, unhappy woman wrote a note to nobody, secreted it within the folds of fabric, and tied it to a tumbleweed? He ran a hand across the back of his neck. If that wasn’t the strangest thing.

  ****

  Sophie Flannigan tensed at the footsteps on the wooden stairs of the Green Front Hotel and Theater. Now what is my boss wanting me to do? Haven’t I been working since sunrise?

  “You got all the bedclothes washed yet? Customers will soon be coming to see my girls.” Madam Dora’s gaze swept the narrow room furnished with a bed, small dresser, and chair.

  Twisting the excess water from her scrub rag, Sophie reached for the dust in the corner and then sat back on her heels.
“I’m boiling the last set now. Once I make the beds and scrub down the steps, I’ll be through up here.”

  The owner of the brothel sashayed on in, her taffeta petticoats rustling and the fragrance of rosewater trailing behind her. She stroked the sleeping orange cat on the windowsill. “You know, if you changed professions, you could make a better living for yourself.”

  No, thank you. I do still have my pride. “Meaning no disrespect, I’d sooner make my living on my knees than on my back.”

  Madam Dora’s eyes narrowed for a beat and then a slow grin spread. “Well, darlin’, you can make a good living on your knees, too.” She grazed fingers over the globe of the kerosene lamp. “In fact, two of my girls specialize in that highly desired act.”

  Sophie stood and stretched the kinks from her back. “Every creature has a place on this earth. Your place is running this establishment. Mine has resorted to keeping it clean.”

  Her employer cackled. “I like you, Sophie Flannigan. Although I’ve got my suspicions as to whether you like me or not. When you’re done cleaning up here, have a bowl of that stew you got simmerin’ on the stove. You look plum peeked. Then restock the bar for tonight.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Her breakfast, the heel of a loaf of bread, hadn’t kept her rumbling stomach quiet for long. She’d been working nonstop since she began her day, cleaning the shambles in what Madam Dora referred to as the drawing room of her profitable brothel, her “cat house” as the owner so disgustingly called it. How Sophie’s station in life had plummeted from respected schoolteacher to scrub woman for a bunch of strumpets was a story few would believe. At one time, her hands bore a thin layer of chalk. Now they were reddened and chapped from scrubbing soiled sheets and mud-splattered floors.

  Because she worked and lived in a whorehouse, what polite society there was in this lawless town turned their noses up at her, no doubt figuring if she worked here, she worked as a soiled dove. Men frequently foisted their lascivious attentions on her, and she was thankful for Dora’s protection. For all her sins, the madam was a kindhearted soul. She’d taken her in when she was hungry and nearly penniless.

  If the world only knew she slept on the floor behind the cookstove in the kitchen—alone, and fearful one relentless Pinkerton would soon catch up with her.

  Chapter Two

  “Sophie, look who’s here.”

  She glanced up from her task of restocking the bar. Madam Dora had her red-velvet-clad arm linked through that of a dark-haired man.

  Both were smiling at each other. “This here is my dear friend, Martha Jane, although some no-accounts call her Calamity Jane.” Both women chuckled as if they shared some private secret.

  This is a woman? Sophie gaped at the creature dressed in man’s clothing. The stench of cattle and the layer of trail dust erased any sense of femininity.

  “If we treat her right, she might stay a spell and work for me again.” Madam Dora winked at Sophie. “Give Martha Jane and me a shot of my private stock. The good stuff.”

  “Don’t think gettin’ me tipsy will get me up those steps and on my back.” Calamity Jane poked her man’s broad-brimmed hat farther back on her head with a dirty finger. The brass spittoon Sophie had just cleaned to a shine dinged when Calamity Jane spat chewing tobacco into it. Then she downed the shot Sophie set in front of her, wiped the back of her hand over her lips, and grinned. “At least not for a few hours, anyway.”

  Sophie poured her another shot, which Calamity Jane once again downed quickly. “Damn, that hits the dusty spot at the pit of my belly. Been bullwhackin’ from Rapid City to Fort Pierre.” She turned to Dora. “Damn, if I ain’t tired a lookin’ at the ass-end of a bull.”

  “Well, when you’re ready to get cleaned up, let Sophie here know. She’ll carry you up a hot bath.” Madam Dora tilted the tiny glass to her lips and then slapped it on the bar. “Don’t just stand there gapin’, girl. Give us another round.”

  A few hours later, the gentlemen of the town and outlying areas were dirtying the glasses and sheets Sophie had worked so hard to clean that morning. Business at the bar and upstairs in the lust chambers, as she regarded them, was busy. Calamity Jane was bathed and dressed in the usual finery Madam Dora insisted her girls wear.

  Sophie had two blessed hours to herself before she began washing glasses and beer mugs. Two hours to step outside under the stars and breathe the fresh air. She set a lantern on a nearby rock and settled on her favorite boulder. Once she’d had a favorite rocking chair to relax on, but now a large gray boulder sufficed.

  Just a few months earlier, she’d been in her little house in Luzerne County back in Pennsylvania. She was a respected teacher at the one-room schoolhouse. Then Tommy Flannigan stormed into her life and taught her, an old maid, how to laugh and hope. Saints preserve me, but I fell hard for that heathen.

  Swearing pierced the stillness of the night. Two gunshots reverberated from building to building. Screams floated from one of the windows upstairs. One of the customers was evidently beating up one of the soiled doves.

  God help me, I’ve moved from gentle civilization to the land of Sodom and Gomorrah. She exhaled a long sigh and swiped at a tear. Not everyone back home was civilized, though, were they? No. And that included her Tommy.

  She removed objects from her apron pocket: a small knife, the nubbin of a pencil, and a torn piece of newspaper. Holding the tip of the pencil against the boulder, she shaved off slivers of wood with the knife until she sharpened the pencil into the semblance of a point. Then she shared her feelings with the four winds, cut a piece of material from her skirt’s hem, and wrapped it around her letter. She tied it to the tumbleweed she’d caught earlier as it blew across the street.

  After setting her missive free to the four winds, she leaned back against the tree and sighed. Her gaze swept heavenward and, for a fanciful moment, she wished upon the stars, those twinkling objects that always fascinated her. Oh, to live a quiet life again. To have my own home again. To be safe again.

  ****

  Cam rolled the bedding he and Eli had shared during the night. His back was stiff and sore from sleeping on the ground with Eli’s knees in his back. By tonight he should have the herd in their usual wintering spot, and they could both get a good night’s sleep in their own beds.

  He cooked some bacon for their breakfast while Eli ran wide circles around the campfire, rubbing his piece of calico against his cheek. The two of them were joined by a close bond, especially since they rarely saw anyone else. From time to time, they ran into some Lakota-Sioux. Fortunately he’d been able to retain friendship with some braves he’d befriended as a young teen, especially Standing Bear.

  “Watch, Daddy.” Eli jumped off a boulder when Cam glanced his way.

  “Do it again.” His son rarely had the chance to run and play, since many of his days were spent in the saddle in front of him. Little Eli had been riding in the saddle since he was barely two. While this wasn’t the best arrangement for a little fellow like Eli, what choice did Cam have? He couldn’t leave him alone at the cabin while he tended to the ranch. There was always Amanda’s mother in Georgia. She would gladly take his son to raise, but Eli was all he had left of his Amanda. He couldn’t bear to part with him.

  After his wife passed, Cam had wanted to die, too. When he buried her, a part of him went underground with her. For weeks he’d felt like a walking dead man—numb, aimless, vacant. Little Eli kept him going. Last winter his son had been too little to sit a horse, especially in the bitter cold, so the two of them hibernated in the house. The ranch and animals had suffered. Now he was trying to repair the damages caused by his neglect.

  After eating and seeing to their needs, Cam saddled Samson. Moving a herd by himself, even a herd as small as his, made for a long day. He had a good horse, though, and that helped.

  Later, after the steers were settled in the canyon and his animals in the barn taken care of, he cooked supper. Eli’s eyes grew heavy at the table and his head nodded. Cam carrie
d him back to his bed and kissed him goodnight. He would soon turn in, too, but not until he spoke to his wife for a few moments. When she was alive, one of the better parts of an evening was the sharing of what each did during the day. The best part of their nights, well, that came later when they snuggled in bed together. His body hardened at the memory of delights forever lost, and he cursed his luck.

  He sat on the large log he’d rolled to the foot of Amanda’s grave a few weeks after her death, when his grief was so razor-sharp it sheared off a piece of his heart every day he spent without her.

  “Evening, Amanda. How were things in heaven today?” He glanced up at the stars twinkling in the inky sky, and wished just once he could see her face again, hear her laugh and touch her smooth skin. I can’t keep wishing for something that will never happen. I can’t keep doing this to myself.

  “I took Eli with me when I brought the herd down from the upper pasture, just like I take him with me every day. The cattle will do better in the canyon this winter. I’ve got hay stored in a cave in one of the nearby hills. That should feed them when the snows come.” He ran a hand over the back of his neck. “If I can get to them, that is. I don’t know how I can look after the stock this winter when it’s too cold to take Eli out for the day. You know how the winds blow here. I don’t know if the little fella can take that bitter cold.” He shrugged. “Can’t leave him alone here, either. I just don’t know what to do.”

  A coyote howled in the distance as if to commiserate with Cam’s loneliness. An owl hooted. “Night music” his wife used to call these sounds, once she got over her homesickness and began to enjoy the area.

  The air kicked up, ruffling his long hair. “I need a haircut. Remember how you used to cut it out in the yard so there wouldn’t be hair over Maw’s clean floors? Floors aren’t so clean now.” He yawned and stood. “Guess I’ll say goodnight and head on inside. Love you.”

  He headed to the cabin. A rustling sound caught his attention. He glanced back over his shoulder in the direction of the noise. A tumbleweed bobbed against Amanda’s headstone, the one he’d made for her. When he went back to toss the tumbleweed aside, a sliver of material caught his attention. Was there a note in this piece of fabric, too?