[Dakotah Treasures 01] - Ruby

by Lauraine Snelling

  Ruby’s stomach rumbled in anticipation.

  “Opal Marie Torvald, you scared me out of two years’ growth.” Ruby rounded on her little sister who was sitting at the table, spooning applesauce.

  “But you were sound asleep, and I didn’t want to wake you. You looked terrible tired.” She smiled at the man who grinned back. “Charlie asked if I was hungry and I sure was and you say not to lie and so I didn’t and he said he would make me something to eat and so I came down here and. . .” She took a deep breath, and her smile grew beatific as she finished. “And you found me and so all is well.” She sucked the sauce off her spoon. “Charlie is a real good cook too.”

  “Mr. Higgins. You call him Mr. Higgins.”

  “But when I asked him his name, he said Charlie, that I was to call him Charlie and I like that, so I did.”

  Ruby felt like taking a step back before the wall of words pummeled her.

  “I did tell her that, Miss. No one ever calls me Mr. Higgins.” He hefted a cast-iron skillet. “You want some ham and eggs? They be ready in a jiffy. You could start with applesauce like Miss Opal there.”

  Ruby sank down on a chair and nodded. “Yes, I’d love some breakfast. Is there something I can do to help you?”

  “Help me? Why whatever for? Per, he would take a hunk outa my hide if I didn’t take good care of his darlin’ daughters.”

  Ruby thought back to the conversation with this man the night before. He’d said he did whatever needed doing, and obviously at this time of the day, putting food on the table fell under his jurisdiction.

  “Do you cook for the hotel guests also?”

  “Hotel guests?” Confusion darkened his already deep brown eyes even further.

  “You know, the people who stay here?”

  “Oh, you mean the girls? They don’t usually want breakfast, you know. They pretty much sleep until noon. We don’t open again until about two. Then there’s Milly. She does the laundry. You got anything that needs washing, she’s out back.”

  Take care of the girls. Her father’s words echoed those of Charlie Higgins. Why did she feel as though she’d come in on the second act of a play and everyone else knew the lines but her?

  “Here you go.” Charlie slid a slice of ham and two fried eggs onto the plate in front of her, then did the same for Opal. “Hot biscuits coming right up.” He returned to the stove, drew a pan of biscuits from the oven, brought it over, and set it on the battle-scarred pine tabletop. “There’s butter and jam here and honey in the jar there.” He pointed to a squat round jar filled with gold. “Can I get you anything else?”

  “Coffee, please?” Right now her system needed a dose of something strong and hot.

  “I’m sorry. Shoulda brought that first. Your father always wanted his coffee first too. Said it got the juices flowin’ in the morning. Not that he was an early riser either.”

  Pleased on one hand that she had something in common with her father and sad on the other since he was no longer with them, Ruby laid a hand on Opal’s arm. “Did you say grace?”

  Opal laid her fork back down. “No, sorry.”

  “Well, just because we are living on the frontier now, doesn’t mean that we will change the things we know to be proper. Is that understood?”

  “I guess.” Opal bowed her head. “Thank thee, Lord, for these gifts which we are about to receive, for food and strength to do thy will. Amen.” While hurried, the words could be understood if one listened with intense concentration.

  Ruby glanced up to see a look of confusion on Charlie’s lined face. The light in his eyes and friendly smile beneath his brushy mustache made her feel she might have a friend in this world. And he had helped her during the night and was now treating young Opal like a princess. Who and what was this man?

  “I’ll take care of the boss when we’re done here. The others most likely won’t be up yet.”

  “Belle is. I saw her tearing the bedroom apart, looking for something, I presume.”

  He stopped and turned, holding a pancake turner in the air. “How’d she seem?”

  Ruby paused before answering. A strange question. She thought back to the scene in the bedroom where Belle had had no respect for the dead man and then torrents of grief. “Undone, I believe.” Snappy, she’d been, before the tears. But what would she know? How many people had she ever known who’d just lost someone they loved?

  “Had they been married long?”

  Charlie spun around. “Married? Who?”

  “Why my father and Belle. I assumed—” She stopped at the look of consternation that made his mustache twitch. She glanced over at Opal who was taking in every nuance while eating healthy bites of eggs and ham.

  “We will talk of this later.”

  “Ah yes. Good idea. Can I get you more to eat?”

  Ruby stared down at her half-finished plate, wondering where her appetite had suddenly disappeared to. She finished off a biscuit that now needed dunking in her coffee, its dryness making swallowing difficult. Or was it her throat that was dry? She drank several swallows to alleviate the distress. What was going on here? The saloon was bad enough, but undercurrents seemed far more dangerous than the serving of liquor and men playing cards. Why, Mr. Brandon had sometimes gone to his club for the same pleasures. Were things any different here on the frontier?

  “Will you contact the minister then for the funeral?”

  “Minister? Funeral?” Charlie’s eyebrows joined the twitching of mustaches.

  “We are going to bury my father, are we not?”

  “Ah yes. I’ll get someone to dig the hole over in the graveyard. Then whoever wants can say some words over him. That’s about all we do out here. And put some big stones on top so the wild critters don’t drag ’im off.”

  Ruby schooled her face to keep from the grimacing and shuddering that threatened to overcome her. “There is no man of God to . . . to conduct a proper burial, then?”

  “No. Sorry. We do the best we can.” Charlie wiped his hands on the dish towel he had tied around his middle, untied it, and tossed the stained article on the back of a chair.

  “I’ll be back.” He took his bowler hat off the peg on the wall by the door. “Oh, and I would stay out of Belle’s way for a while.”

  Ruby didn’t bother to ask why, certain she really didn’t want to know the answer.

  The more copious Belle’s tears as they laid Per in his grave, wrapped only in a blanket, no box having been made, the drier Ruby’s eyes grew. Opal clutched her hand, bonding herself to her sister’s side.

  Other than those from Dove House, only men joined with the mourners. One of them was the grave digger, who leaned on his shovel handle and waited for them to leave so he could finish his job. Others wore the blue uniforms of the U.S. Army, one in full dress, including shiny gold buttons and a saber at his side. Some men looked as if they’d been dragged through a dirt bank.

  Charlie took off his hat. “Per Torvald was a good man, he took care of his own and reached out a helping hand to those around him.”

  Took care of his own? Ruby kept her eyes straight forward. What about us? Across the mound of dirt rose a hill striped in the wildest colors she’d ever seen, most of which she would not normally apply to dirt or rock. Tan, dark brown, gray, purple, and a shading from orange to red that usually one saw only in a sunset. The cliff rose straight up as if someone had carved it out with a gigantic cake knife. Rocks at the bottom attested to continual change, unless they had been there for millennia. What kind of world had they come to? The train trestle stretched back across the river, a sign that man had indeed arrived and put his stamp on the land. Ruby planned to put that trestle to use as soon as possible, heading east.

  “You got anything you want to say, miss?” Charlie’s voice cut into her reverie.

  “Ah no, I don’t think so.” She bit down on her quivering lower lip, almost losing her control when she heard Opal sniff and whimper.

  “Belle?”

  Belle r
emoved her soaked handkerchief only long enough to shake her head.

  “I do.” An army officer stepped forward, his voice as commanding as his uniform. “Per Torvald was a good friend. His building of Dove House has been good for the town. He had a friendly smile for everyone, and if someone was in need, Per would be the first to offer assistance. We will miss him. Rest in peace, my friend.”

  “Anyone else?” With no other volunteers, Charlie nodded to the man with the shovel, shepherded the women in front of him, and headed back toward Dove House.

  “Whether they came to the buryin’ or not, they’ll show up for the wake,” Charlie offered.

  “The wake?” They used so many terms that she did not understand.

  “We’ll be servin’ drinks on the house.”

  “Why?”

  “In honor of Per Torvald. As you heard, he has friends here.” Ruby glanced down to see Opal’s chin quivering. Knowing how her little sister hated to have anyone see her cry, Ruby picked up the pace, and instead of going in the front door like the others, she took Opal around to the back. Once they were in their room, she held her little sister until her sobs subsided.

  “H-how c-come we finally get to meet our f-father, and he goes and d-d-dies?”

  “I wish I knew, dear one. I wish I knew.” Ruby stroked the damp hair back from Opal’s face. “But I’m glad you were able to meet him and talk with him. Now when I tell you stories of life when I was a little girl, you will know whom I am talking about.” Lord, I hope she doesn’t always remember that skeleton in the bed. Our father was so handsome when he was younger and in good health.

  “What are we going to do?” Opal asked when she finally quit crying.

  “Go down to the kitchen and prepare us some dinner, I expect.” Ruby went to the window and stood overlooking what could barely be called a street. At least the dirt track between the scattered buildings had none of the silver gray bushes that covered the rest of the land. Every once in a while men would ride up, get off their horses, and enter the saloon. Mostly they wore flat-brimmed hats and leather gloves. Some wore long coats open halfway up the back so it would split when they sat on their horses.

  A faint sun tried to scare off the clouds, but the wind that kicked up just moved more in. The wind sneaked in around the ill-fitting window frame, causing Ruby to cup her elbows in her hand and wish for a shawl. Mostly she wished for the newly leafed out trees that bordered the streets of New York, the wagons, buggies, and carriages that clattered by on the cobblestones, the huge houses set back from those streets and fronted by green grass and bulbs already blooming through the neatly tended soil. She would take the children to the park to swing or watch a ball game. She closed her eyes to remember better times, and when she opened them, she nearly cried.

  Now then, she ordered herself, there will be no more weeping here.You will learn what your inheritance is, take it, and be gone. You will be back in New York before the month is out. So think how Mrs. Brandon would act and do the same.

  Opal came to stand beside her. “Everyone has a horse here.” She looked up at her sister. “I sure hope there is a horse here for me.”

  “Opal, we can’t stay. As soon as I find out what our inheritance is, we are taking the next train east.”

  “Oh.” Opal sighed a huge sigh that took in her entire body. She stared at the floor, her brows knit in thought, her chin starting to jut out. But when she looked up at Ruby, a smile sent the jaw back and unknit the brows. “Maybe I can ride a horse while we are here. I’m going to ask Mr. Charlie.” The door slammed behind her before Ruby could do more than stutter.

  “His name is Mr. Higgins!” Ruby called after her. Hand on the knob, she stopped, took a deep breath, thought of Mrs. Brandon and, chin lifted, back straight, soft smile in place, opened, passed through, and closed the door gently behind her. When she reached the end of the hall, she turned left toward the back staircase, since the loud music, laughter, and clinking of glasses told the tale of what was happening at the wake in the saloon below her. Smoke drifted up the stairs.

  “Hey, little girl, what you doin’ on these stairs?”

  Opal. She’d not gone down to the kitchen after all. Ruby whirled around in time to see one of the women she’d seen at the graveyard coming up the stairs, a man right behind her.

  “I was . . .” Opal had no time to finish her comment before she was snatched by the shoulder of her pinafore and almost dragged up the three stairs.

  “Opal Marie Torvald, you come with me now.” Ruby hissed the words, kept her eyes from those of the other woman, and hustled her sister toward the backstairs.

  “But, Ruby, I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

  “You were to go to the kitchen.”

  “But—”

  “And we are going to the kitchen now, and you will not look down into that den of—that room again. That is no place for women.”

  “But Belle and the others are there, and—”

  “March.” Ruby clamped her lips together and placed her hand on Opal’s shoulder.

  They’d just finished eating their meat and cheese sandwiches when the door swung open and Charlie stepped inside.

  “I’m hating to bother you, miss, but did your father give you an envelope?”

  Ruby finished chewing the food in her mouth before replying, “Yes, why?” Actually, he gave me two. “Belle gave it to me.”

  “Well, you remember you said you saw Belle tearing the bedroom apart and seemed to be looking for something?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, perhaps it was another envelope. You read Per’s letter she gave you yet?”

  “No. But it is here in my pocket.”

  “Ah, good. I think you better read it and do whatever it says before you go to sleep tonight.”

  “But—”

  “Miss, we ain’t got no law here in Little Missouri, but we try to do what is right. At least some of us. So, please, listen to what I say and—”

  “You are saying Belle would—”

  He held up a hand. “I didn’t say nothing, you understand. But please . . .”

  Ruby nodded. “I will. You want to come back in a bit and—”

  “No. Just do what it says.”

  Ruby and Opal exchanged confused glances after Charlie slipped out as quietly as he slipped in.

  Ruby felt the crackle of paper from both envelopes in her pocket. Whatever could be so important as to cause consternation like this? And no law officers? What kind of man had their father been to have brought them to a land so wild? Whatever had he been thinking?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  My dearest Treasures,

  If you are reading this, either you made it to Little Missouri before I died and I gave it to you, or Belle lived up to her word and mailed it. Knowing Belle as I do makes me seriously doubt it was the latter. I couldn’t wait any longer to write this, as my strength has been fading each day. Forgive me that my handwriting looks like that of an old man. Each day I feel older, and the pain is no longer tolerable, so I take the morphine when I can no longer stand the pain without screaming. But then I sleep all the time. Nothing kills that which is eating at me.

  I know you must be shocked at what you found here, but Dove House is a thriving business. There are always military men, railroad men, and cattlemen who appreciate a good drink and an evening’s entertainment. We don’t serve rotgut like Williams does up the street. I heard he uses old cigar butts, sulphuric acid, and firewater. Amazing the men don’t die from it.

  I know this isn’t the kind of business a young woman of your sensibilities should be running, Ruby, but short of selling out and sending you the money, there was nothing left for me to do. I plumb ran out of time.

  The second sheet is the deed to this place, made out to you and signed by me while folks could still read my signature. More folks will be moving west, and these rich bottom lands will become settled. Dove House is well built and will make a fine hotel.

  I do ask, though, t
hat you take care of the girls. Belle will most likely try to take this from you. That is why I have transferred this title legally. But the other girls need a break. Life hasn’t been kind to them.

  Charlie will be a big help to you, a kinder man I’ve yet to meet. There are some scoundrels here in town but also some fine men and a few women.

  I had hoped to leave Dove House to you free and clear, but there are some accounts that need to be settled. The business ledgers are in my room. Charlie has what cash we take in, and there is an emergency stash taped to the back of the second drawer in the tall chest and, of course, what is in the box. Charlie will explain how we run the business here.

  God bless you both, my dear daughters. I know I don’t deserve it, but thanks to Jesus I am going home soon to see my beloved Signe.

  Your Far,

  Per Torvald

  Ruby wiped her eyes with the edge of her apron. If only she had taken the time to read this while he was still alive.

  “Is it bad?” Opal stared at her sister with sorrow-filled eyes.

  “No, really it is very good. Far has deeded Dove House to us.”

  “So we will stay here?”

  “Until we sell Dove House.”

  “Who will buy it?”

  “I don’t know.” Ruby read the letter again. Take care of the girls. He’d extracted that promise from her before he died. Why would she have to take care of the girls, and what had happened in their lives that made him request that of her? After returning the slim envelope to her pocket, she removed the other—it was Far’s last will and testament. She sucked in a gasp and quickly put it back in her pocket. Where would she keep it?