The Poacher's Daughter

by Michael Zimmer

  “Let’s do it,” Wiley agreed.

  Shorty looked at Rose.

  “I’ve been feelin’ like I was buried under a snowdrift for two months now,” she said. “Shoot, yeah, count me in.”

  Chapter

  10

  They left before dawn two days later, climbing through a gap in the rimrock above the cabin and lining out, single file, to the west. Manuel led since he knew the way, although from time to time, one of the others would spell him to give his horse a break. The snow was just deep enough to be troublesome, and the cold sapped their strength. The weather had turned bitter around the 1st of December; some days it didn’t rise to zero. It made a body cautious, for a fact, Rose thought as her roan horse struggled through yet another drift. A person wouldn’t want to be caught out without the proper gear and appropriate skills, for their chances of lasting even a few hours would be slim.

  It was late the next day when they came to a broad meadow surrounded by tall pines. The town of Lost Gulch sat in its center, ringed by the stumps of what had once been a thick forest. Low mountains encircled the flat, adding to its sense of exile.

  The livery was across from the Gold Nugget Saloon, and the four frozen riders ducked their heads to ride inside, out of the wind, before dismounting. An old codger in a gray blanket coat limped into view, carrying a pitchfork in one hand like a scepter. Shaking his head at the sight of them, he marveled: “More strangers. By dingy, where do they come from?”

  “What’s it matter to ye?” Wiley asked testily.

  The old man shook his head. “Hit don’t matter a bit to me, long as they got money to pay for their stablin’. I won’t put a horse up for free, I don’t care how cold it blows outside.”

  Wiley flipped a silver dollar toward him, the coin blinking like a bad eye as it spun through the dim light of the stable. “What’ll that buy us?” he asked.

  After checking the coin’s authenticity with yellow molars, the old man said: “One night’s lodging for your horses. Hit’s an extra two bits a person if anyone wants to spread his bedroll inside.”

  “Does the saloon rent rooms?” Shorty asked.

  “A few, but they’re full up from what I hear, packed shoulder to shoulder like sardines in a tin.” He dropped the coin in his pocket. “You’re here for the celebration, I figure.”

  “I’m here for refreshment, both liquid and horizontal,” Wiley replied. “Ye reckon Lost Gulch can accommodate those sins?”

  “Hit can if you ain’t partial to variety.” The old man frowned, his gaze sharpening on Rose. “By dingy, that’s a woman.”

  “My name’s Rose Edwards,” Rose said, sniffing her runny red nose. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  “Lord God, girl, what’re you doing in a hole like Lost Gulch?”

  “I reckon I came to see the elephant, like everyone else.”

  “What’s the matter, old-timer?” Wiley asked, laughing. “Ye never seen a woman in pants before?”

  “No, I ain’t,” the old man flared. “Women wear dresses where I come from, and don’t go gallivantin’ around ridin’ astraddle, either. And the menfolk with ’em don’t talk freely of whores.”

  “Rosie knows what a whore is,” Wiley said, just to goad the elderly man. “Ain’t that right, darlin’?”

  “Shut up, Wiley,” Rose replied, as embarrassed by the old man’s outrage as she was by Wiley’s crude attempt at humor. She led Albert to an empty stall at the rear of the livery and pulled off her saddle. The old man followed, standing at the stall’s entrance.

  “You can store your tack yonder.” He nodded toward a number of saddle racks in a dark corner. “You won’t have to worry about no drunk grabbin’ your stuff by mistake, either. I don’t aim to go to the party, so I’ll be here to keep an eye on ever’thing.”

  “That’s kind of you,” Rose said.

  “Don’t know how kind it is. Could I handle a bottle better, I’d go. But I can’t. I’d just end up drunk and puking blood for a week if I did.”

  Rose lugged the Mother Hubbard to an empty rack and slung it into place.

  The old man shuffled after her. “My name’s Asa Carson,” he said. “Hit just struck me that mayhaps you’re the Rose Edwards what used to live down on the Yellerstone.”

  Rose was startled by the old man’s recognition. “Have we met?”

  “Not personal-like, but I knew your daddy up at Fort Benton, if his name’s Daniel Ames. I remember you, too, though you weren’t but a sprite back then. I heard you’d married Muggy Edwards and moved onto the old Hockstetter place?”

  “Well, Muggy was my husband,” Rose replied warily, “but he passed away last fall.”

  “Uhn-huh, heard about that, too.” A spark of interest had come into the old man’s eyes. “Yeah, I knew ol’ Muggy well, over to the Last Chance.”

  “He did hang around Helena some,” Rose admitted, “but he died.”

  “Hung, they say.”

  She bristled. “By jealous gamblers, I reckon.”

  “Hit’s possible. Story I heard was that it was an honest game for a change, at least as far as folks could tell. Be kind of ironic if it was, wouldn’t it?”

  Rose brushed past him without answering, making her way to the front of the livery to wait for the others. For a minute she worried that Asa might follow her, but he didn’t. He remained close to the tack, watching like a mouse from the shadows, a shiny-eyed stare that put her instantly on guard.

  It hadn’t occurred to Rose that it might be a mistake coming to Lost Gulch, although when a person thought about it, the Big Snowys weren’t all that far from Helena. For all she knew, Muggy could’ve dealt faro right across the street at the Gold Nugget, and earned himself any number of enemies, for he’d been a clumsy cheat when he drank, and was susceptible to obnoxious behavior even on his better days.

  Soon the others joined her and they crossed the frozen ground to the saloon. The Nugget was larger than it appeared from the outside, at least forty feet wide and sixty deep, low-ceilinged and dark, despite the numerous lanterns hanging from the rafters. The bar was straight-grained walnut with brass hardware, and ran across the back of the room. It was jammed with men in for the celebration, the bulk of them miners, but with a few hunters, trappers, and muleskinners thrown in for good measure. A stove in the middle of the room popped and crackled, throwing off shimmering waves of heat that distorted everything behind it.

  Rose could feel the warmth as soon as she walked in, a friendly, welcoming presence after the long, cold journey from their cabin on the Pipestem. Intermingled with the odors of men and leather and tobacco and booze, the rough voices and harsh laughter, the room brought back pleasant memories of her pap and brothers, who she never saw any more.

  She had three siblings—John, Mark, and Luke—but had lost track of all save Luke, who was serving time in the Wyoming Territorial Penitentiary, outside of Laramie, for running whiskey to the Cheyennes over on the Rosebud. Luke had been behind bars for almost a year now, although it had been five or six since Rose had last seen him.

  John and Mark had gone to Oregon even before that with the intention of buying cattle they planned to bring back to Montana to sell; the last word she’d had on them was that John had killed a man in The Dalles and was on the run. She didn’t know what had become of Mark.

  It didn’t surprise Rose that John had turned out bad. He’d always been the mean one in the family. But it saddened her that Luke had also run afoul of the law. He’d been a gentle soul, in her opinion, though wayward by nature and prone to letting others talk him into mischief he inevitably got the blame for. From what she’d heard of the Rosebud affair, Luke had only driven the wagon that carried the whiskey, and someone else had done the actual bartering. She supposed it was splitting a fine hair to distinguish between perpetrator and moil in a game like that, but it lightened her burden a little to th
ink Luke had been duped into another bad scheme, rather than a willing participant in such a low-down deed as selling liquor to starving reservation Indians.

  Wiley and Shorty shouldered a place at the bar, and Manuel and Rose slipped in between them. It was warm enough in the press of bodies for her to remove her seal-skin cap and shake out her long blonde hair, then unbutton her coat and brush it back. A silence fell over the bar when she did, and, looking around, she saw that everyone was staring at her.

  “What’s the matter with you galoots?” she demanded. “Ain’t you ever seen a woman before?”

  “Well, yeah,” said a timid voice from the far end, “but it’s been a while, saving for Gabby.”

  Laughter rumbled across the room like a small landslide. When it died, the conversation picked up again, returning to normal.

  Rose ordered a whiskey, but there was no anticipation for it now. The brief feeling of hominess that had embraced her upon entering the saloon was gone. She’d forgotten for a while, back there on the Pipestem, the full breadth of her quirkiness, and how it must look to others that she’d allowed this charade of pants and pistols to continue. At the very least, she thought morosely, Wiley and Shorty must consider her peculiar, perhaps even mentally traumatized by the horror of watching Muggy hang. Surely a normal woman would have fled to Billings after having witnessed the execution of her husband and the burning of her home. But racing to Billings hadn’t even occurred to Rose until several weeks after the event.

  She was starting to feel a little nervous about the whore, Gabby, too. Although Manuel had mentioned her back at the cabin, she’d been a nameless entity then. Now she had not only a name, but a presence here in the Gold Nugget that couldn’t be ignored.

  It was at that moment that a door opened at the far end of the room and a hard-bitten woman in a cheap red wig and a trampy red dress emerged. The woman paused in the shadows while a bearded miner came on alone. She eyed the boisterous crowd as a general might scrutinize a larger and better-equipped opposing army just before the opening salvos—subdued by the odds but resigned to the battle. Then, taking a deep breath, she set a course for the center of festivities, her jaw knotted in a frozen smile.

  There were forty or fifty men in the saloon, and more likely to arrive before nightfall. The numbers twisted in Rose’s gut. She couldn’t help recalling Nora, from Miles City. Was this Nora’s future? Rose wondered. Or even my own. Shuddering, she knocked off the rest of her whiskey, then shoved the glass across the counter where the barkeep could refill it on his next pass.

  After another whiskey to deaden the chill, Rose ordered a beer and settled in for the long haul. Soon the boys wandered off in search of fresh stories, leaving Rose to her own devices. They were barely gone when a stranger sidled up with a shy, toothy grin.

  “Christ,” Rose grunted, taking her drink with her as she fled the bar. She found an empty chair against the wall and slumped into it, pulling the Smith & Wesson around where everyone could see it.

  Time seemed to flow more swiftly after that. Before she knew it, the evening’s shadows were creeping across the town, turning the already dim interior of the saloon even gloomier. As the light faded, Rose’s mood sank. She couldn’t get Gabby off her mind, and kept trying to imagine the circumstances that had brought her here. Had she once dreamed of a family of her own, with a nice house and flowers in the yard and a white picket fence?

  Rose sneaked a peek every time Gabby approached the bar. That she was past her prime as a dove was obvious. She might have been thirty-five or forty, but she looked at least twenty years older. Her teeth were bad, her eyes hard, yellowed around the edges like old ivory—a symptom, they said, of opium addiction. She had a whiskey-husked voice that sounded like a wood saw cutting through green lumber and a cough that bent her nearly double every time it erupted. Rose tried to keep track of the number of trips she made to the back room with some miner or trapper in tow, but lost count after fourteen, and the night barely begun.

  A gnawing, nameless fear began to take root in Rose’s mind, a kind of panic that made her want to bolt. It was the lack of a destination that stayed her, forcing her to sit alone, occasionally shooing off some hopeful male’s approach.

  It was well into the evening when the bartender ordered several tables to be set end to end along the far wall. Soon a contingent of bearded men was trooping into the room from a blazing cook fire outside, toting platters of meat and vegetables that they set out on the tables. A cheer arose from the patrons at the bar, and there was a general migration toward the food. Even Wiley gave up his seat at a poker game to join the tide.

  A shadow crossed in front of Rose. She glanced up to find Shorty dragging up a chair. Plopping down at her side, he said: “Why ain’t you in line for some chuck?”

  “I ain’t hungry.”

  “You ain’t ate since breakfast.”

  “I know. I just ain’t in a mood.”

  He smiled. “Oh, I’d say you’re in a mood. You look like a hound that knows he’s in for a whuppin’. What’s going on?”

  She couldn’t stop a glance toward the far side of the saloon, where the door to Gabby’s crib was closed behind yet another customer.

  “Gabby?”

  “She’s awful used up, don’t you think?”

  Shorty shrugged. “I don’t guess I thought about it. I knew her in Denver when I passed through there ten, twelve years ago. She was Gabriela then, the Songbird of Cherry Creek. She had a pretty voice, too.”

  “I heard her talkin’ to a couple of boys earlier,” Rose confided. “She didn’t sound like no songbird to me. She sounded all fogged up, like a buffler with something caught in its windpipe.”

  “Well, a whore’s life ain’t easy,” he allowed.

  “Shorty,” she said, fidgeting with her beer. “Shorty, I … I don’t want to end up like that.”

  He looked at her in surprise. “Is that what’s botherin’ you. Hell, you ain’t gonna end up like her, Rose. You’ll find another fella someday, and better than Muggy, I’ll bet. Someone who wants to settle down and raise some kids. You wait and see. Get yourself a nice little house, too.”

  “With flowers in the yard and a white picket fence?”

  “Sure.”

  “Christ, Shorty,” she said in consternation.

  “What?”

  “You’re full of shit, that’s what.”

  “Because I want to believe in a brighter future?”

  “Uhn-huh.”

  He laughed. “Well, you go ahead and look on the hind side of life, if that’s your druthers. I think I’ll keep my eyes all starry and full of dreams.”

  She smiled in spite of her mood, and immediately felt better. “You ever meet that gal that works at Alice’s, in Miles City. Nora was her first name.”

  “Alder. Her last name’s Alder.”

  “Alder,” Rose repeated. “Then you know her?”

  “Not in a professional way, but I know who she is.”

  “She was awfully nice to me that night. A mite salty, but I liked her.”

  “You miss talking to other women, Rose?”

  “I reckon I do. I growed up with just my pap and brothers, and lived a rough life by most accounts, but it was all I ever knowed and I never complained. Things has sure changed lately, though. Ain’t nothin’ in my life seems real since they hung Muggy.”

  “Maybe you’re getting tired of being around rough-barked men all the time. Me, I like talking to women. I like it a lot. But it’d drive me crazy if I couldn’t get out with the fellas once in a while, palaver some, maybe do a little hunting or horse trading.”

  “You figure that’s it … that I’m drownin’ in horse talk and cow talk. Sure as heck, I ain’t never give a hoot who could outdrink or outshoot anybody else.”

  “Likely that’s the problem,” he agreed. Then a twinkle came into his eyes,
and he added: “But you realize there’s never been any question as to who can outdrink or outshoot the whole dang’ territory, don’t you?”

  “Outpiss ’em, too, I’ll bet?”

  “Coming off a ten-day drought,” he avowed, laughing as he shoved up from his chair. “Come on and grab some chuck.”

  “Naw, you go ahead. I still ain’t hungry.”

  “All right, but get something before the good stuff’s gone. He’s got vegetables over there, and we ain’t likely to see the likes of those again until spring.”

  “Go on,” she said, annoyed that he thought he had to look after her. “I ain’t so pathetic I can’t fend for myself.”

  “I didn’t say you were,” he replied, then winked and walked away. A few minutes later, Gabby appeared from her room, alone this time. She’d changed into a white, floor-length gown, with full sleeves and a ruffled collar. The crowd grew silent with curiosity as she made her way to a nearby table. Using a chair as a stepping stool, she climbed up awkwardly, then slid cautiously toward its center. A miner in a bear-skin coat came out of the crowd and sat down at the chair. Pulling a mouth harp from his pocket, he tapped the instrument against his dirty trousers, then placed it tentatively to his lips. Slowly he began to play, and, after the barest of pauses, Gabby started to sing.

  In the unexpectedness of the performance, Rose couldn’t immediately place the song. Then she recognized “Silent Night,” and her throat grew tight. In her deeply melancholic mood, the beauty of the lyrics and the gentle accompaniment of the harmonica were almost too much to bear. She sat mesmerized, unable to look away. Save for the slow riffs of the harp and Gabby’s gravelly yet haunting timbre, the room was as silent as a grave.

  Feeling suddenly teary-eyed, Rose thought: Maybe it ain’t all over, yet. Maybe, if the Songbird of Cherry Creek can still sing, then Rose Edwards can find herself some happiness somewhere down the trail, if she just keeps looking.

  When Gabby finished “Silent Night,” the crowd went wild. Somebody drew a six-shooter and fired a round into the ceiling, the concussion blowing out several nearby lamps. The report was deafening in the close confines of the saloon, but that didn’t stop half a dozen others from drawing their pistols and fanning the air above their heads as well. Dust and dirt rained down from the punctured ceiling, garnishing the food with doses of sod, but nobody seemed to mind. Gabby, smiling broadly, quickly launched into another song.