Blessing

by Deborah Bedford

  All day long, she could only think of a man in jail named Aaron Brown. All day long, she could only think that he knew her secret.

  He knew.

  By the time she’d finished her day’s work, she figured she knew what she had to do with him. As soon as the four-thirty whistle sounded, she headed to town. She walked right into the jailhouse and sat down.

  When Harris Olney saw her, he about pumped her arm off. “Uley Kirkland,” he said, grinning. “If it weren’t for you, I’d be six feet under today. Thank you, son.”

  “You’re welcome, Marshal.” Uley paused. It was time for her to save herself. “I came by wondering if you’d do me a favor.”

  “Anything I can do for you, I’ll do it. You’re a fine young man, Uley. I’ll always do you favors. I’d especially like to see you happy today. What is it?”

  “I’d like to see the prisoner.”

  Harris furrowed his brows, sending deep creases alongside his nose. “Why on earth would you want to do that?”

  For one brief moment, Uley faltered. “It…it was dark outside. I really didn’t get a good look at him. I thought I’d just like to see who I tackled by the light of day.”

  Harris thought about it a minute. “Well.” She could see him hesitating. Of course, she would be the one to testify in court and convict him. “Odd request, it is. But I did promise you a favor.” Harris hoisted an iron key ring off a peg. Then he led her through a door and pointed to one of the cells. “He’s right over there. You stay as long as you want. Holler at me if he gets ugly.”

  She saw the stranger sitting on the stained blue ticking of his cot, his knees spread wide, his feet planted firm. His muddy brown Stetson lay upside down beside him.

  He didn’t see her coming. He’d buried his face in his hands.

  “Hello.”

  He lifted his head and gawked up at her, eyes wide with surprise. In the daylight, she saw they were blue.

  “I came to see how you were doing.”

  “I’m doing dandy.” He didn’t stand up. “Just dandy.”

  “Looks like it.”

  Aaron Brown appeared younger than she’d thought last night. She figured him to be somewhere in his thirties. He didn’t look as mean now, either. He just looked sad.

  A shock of chocolate-brown hair hung down over his forehead like an arrowhead. He plopped his elbows against his knees and let his clasped hands hang down between them. “You ever going to get tired of looking at me like I’m some kind of animal caught in a trap?”

  She shook her head. “No.” He wasn’t really bad to look at. If he hadn’t been the sort of person to creep into town and go after the strong arm of the law, she might have given him a second glance. She amended that thought. Even though he was that sort of person, she gave him a second glance.

  “So you’re Uley Kirkland,” he said softly. “Miss Uley Kirkland.”

  “That is correct.”

  Imagine it. He knew she was a woman, and he treated her like one. If a murderer could be respectful, then Aaron Brown was. It wasn’t the way he spoke to her, exactly, but the way he kept his eyes on her. She’d never before seen anyone peruse her with such respect, such open amazement. But then, she’d never before taken a flying leap at anyone, either.

  She remembered why she’d come. She leaned closer to the bars to take care of the task at hand. “Judge Murphy’s due back from Denver next Tuesday,” she told him. “You’ll be off this world by Wednesday morning.”

  “I’m painfully aware of that.”

  She leaned in even closer. “Since you will be gone off this world then, and it is absolutely no concern of yours, Mr. Brown, you must promise me you’ll tell no one about the horrible fact you discovered last night.”

  He knew exactly what she was talking about. “When you lost your hat.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good grief,” he said, sounding mildly exasperated. “Here I am fixing to hang for murder, and all you’re thinking about is covering your own hide.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I didn’t even get the chance to go after Olney.”

  “You would have, if not for me.”

  He cradled his banged-up brown Stetson in his palm as if he’d just tipped it to her. “Now, you don’t know that, do you, ma’am?”

  It was the most amazing thing, conversing with him. For the first time in four years, she didn’t have to pretend. “You never would have gotten out of this valley alive.”

  “However I had to go,” he said, “I did figure on taking Harris Olney with me.”

  She shook her finger at him. “You must promise me, Mr. Brown.”

  When he rose from the cot, she examined his frame. He was lanky and fairly thin. She’d known from grappling with him how he’d tower over her. He reached through the bars and gripped her wrists. “Your secret is safe with me, Miss Kirkland. I will face eternity next Wednesday with your secret well hidden within my bosom. I will die happy to be the only one knowing that the person who apprehended me and up-ended me in the dirt was a mere slip of a girl.”

  She didn’t know how she felt about promises from somebody who’d pulled a gun to go after a man. But she’d learned enough about the male species to know they’d risk losing everything before they’d risk losing face in front of others. She turned to the other matter at hand. “I am not a slip of a girl,” she said. “I am a woman, Mr. Brown. A full nineteen years of age.”

  “Oh,” he said, taken aback at last. Even so, he didn’t release her wrists. “I do see what you mean.”

  When he eyed her again, she saw him taking into account the nubby sweater she wore, and her woolen knickers, covered with mud from working the mine. She saw him surveying the shock of dusty red-brown curls poking out beneath her apple hat. “You are the most unusual woman of nineteen years I have ever seen.”

  “I’ll thank you to let go of me,” she said, her green eyes remaining level on his own.

  He dropped his hold. “Why are you deceiving everyone, Miss Kirkland? And how are you hiding it so well?”

  She wasn’t about to let him lead her onto this subject. “I came for your solemn vow, Mr. Brown.”

  “You received that last night when you threatened me with your fist.”

  “Very well,” she said, smiling a bit. “We understand each other. Good day, Mr. Brown.”

  Chapter Two

  Well past moonrise, well after Uley’s pa had drawn the curtains and extinguished the oil lamps, Uley removed the dirty woolen cap, dusted it off against her leg and began to pull the pins from her hair. Her hair fell in huge rolls against her shoulders and down her back.

  Uley slipped open the top bureau drawer and extracted the beautiful silver brush that had once belonged to her mother. She began to count brush strokes as she worked the tangles from the strands. Five…six…seven…

  So Aaron Brown wanted to know how she did such a good job of hiding her womanhood, did he?

  Thirteen…fourteen…fifteen…sixteen…

  She supposed that was about the most embarrassing thing of all—that she could hide it so well. Her own body rebelled against her. She was small, just like her ma, her waist barely nipping in. She supposed she’d look more womanly if she had any earthly idea as to how to don a corset.

  Thirty-one…thirty-two…thirty-three…

  Her mother’s name had been Sarah, one of the prettiest names Uley had ever heard. It sounded the same way she remembered her mother, patient and gracious, always ready to break into a song. One of Uley’s only memories was hanging clothes on the line out back of the Ohio house, running through the wet, billowing sheets with her arms outflung while her ma hummed What A Friend We Have In Jesus through the wooden pins she held between her teeth. It wasn’t easy for a girl to get along in the world without a ma. There were so many questions to be asked that could not be answered by anyone except for a mother. About that first warm stirring in your bosom when a handsome young gentleman let his eyes linger. The proper way to thread
the laces through a corset. The only place she might seek answers to these feminine mysteries now was from the hurdy-gurdy girls at Santa Fe Moll’s place. Occasionally Uley passed one of them in the streets, Irish Ann or Tin Can Laura and Big Minnie and Wishbone Mabel. Oh, Uley heard the fellows in the mines talking about these girls, all right!

  She took her frustration out on both hairbrush and hair.

  Seventy-nine…eighty…eighty-one…

  The only other Tin Cup woman Uley knew was Kate Fischer. Aunt Kate, a slave before the Civil War, had escaped her master, leaving a husband and a child behind. Now she ran Aunt Kate’s Hotel and Boarding House. Her customers made their own change, because Kate Fischer didn’t know how to count money or weigh gold. She always dressed in simple calico, with a white apron billowing out over her massive chest like a ship’s sail.

  Ninety-seven…ninety-eight…ninety-nine…one hundred.

  Uley stood and slipped the silver hairbrush back into the bureau drawer. She examined herself in the moonlight that filtered through the curtains. Even in the muted glow, she saw glimmers of color in her hair.

  For one brief moment, she let herself dream. She pretended she wore petticoats that swished around her ankles, that her hair remained loose, swinging free. For a brief moment, she allowed herself to imagine what it would feel like to get gussied up, strap on delicate undergarments, pinch her cheeks till they were pink. She’d walk right into that jailhouse and say, “See, Mr. Brown? I am not a slip of a girl. I am a woman.”

  She braided her hair, slipped wearily beneath the hand-worked quilt and hugged her pillow in frustration. Although she tried to reason that she’d made this choice for a selfless reason, deep inside she knew that hadn’t been the case. Five years ago, her father had given her what she wanted, a chance to come with him to the rich goldfields of Colorado, instead of staying in Ohio with her aunt and her prissy cousins. When Aunt Delilah had warned her things might become difficult, Uley hadn’t understood her reasoning. She’d been so innocent at fourteen, so sure of herself, so certain the charade wouldn’t have to continue for long.

  She hadn’t bothered to pray about it the way Reverend Henderson said. She’d been perfectly willing to take this adventure into her own hands. She bunched the pillow tight against her face and stared up at the pine planks above her. Lord, would my life have been different if I had asked You? Hadn’t it been worth everything, she wondered, to stay in Tin Cup with her pa?

  It was interesting, Aaron decided as he lay on his cot and examined the patterns in the fresh pine overhead, what a man thought about all night long when he knew he was going on to eternity. He wasn’t thinking of pearly gates and golden streets. His main thought, as he lay there seeing pictures in the pine knots, was to write Beth a letter so that she’d know his fate. He was thinking it was a shame he had to die for Beth to find out that she’d been right.

  At three in the morning, he stood and banged on the metal bars of his cell. “Marshal!” he shouted. “Marshal! I need to write a letter!”

  The man who answered his call was an elderly gentleman Aaron had never seen before. “You hush that racket. You’re going to wake the dead.”

  “I’m going to be the dead,” Aaron said. “This is about the last chance to make noise I’ve got. I need to write a letter.”

  The old guy shook his head. “Can’t help you. Marshal left me in charge here. Don’t have any paper for you to write on, and I can’t leave. How do I know you’re not trying to escape?”

  “I can’t very well escape,” Aaron said dryly. “I’m in a jail cell.”

  “You’re the first one we’ve ever had locked up in here. I’m not about to let you get away.”

  “I have stationery and writing supplies with my belongings at the Grand Central Hotel. If you could just send someone, Mr.—”

  “Pearsall. Ben Pearsall. Can’t do it. Ain’t anybody around to send. You’ll have to find somebody to get your stuff and post it for you tomorrow. The mail only comes in and out on Mondays and Thursdays.”

  Aaron sat down on the creaky cot, defeated once more. Things sure hadn’t gone his way these past few days. He didn’t know anybody in town who he’d trust to go through his room and retrieve his belongings.

  Ben Pearsall pulled up a stool and straddled it, apparently pleased to have somebody to talk to in the wee hours of the morning. “You know, you’re crazy,” he told Aaron. “The reason everybody turned out at the election down at Pettengill’s Drug Store and voted for Olney for marshal was because he told them he wouldn’t arrest anybody. Olney’s said all along the marshal’s duty is to give the town the appearance of law and order. The mayor told him the day he got his star that the first person he arrested would be his last. And that’s you, Mr. Brown. Olney didn’t have much of a choice, since he was the one you were holding a gun on.”

  Aaron looked sour. “I guess not. I guess me and Uley Kirkland didn’t leave him much of a choice at all.”

  “Uley Kirkland,” Ben said. “Now there’s a fine young man for you. But I can’t figure out why that kid ain’t started growin’ whiskers yet. You ever seen Uley’s skin close up? It’s as soft as a baby’s. ’Course, I imagine Uley would slug me senseless if he ever heard me say that.”

  “Yeah,” Aaron said, unconsciously rubbing his elbow. She’d jumped on him like a wildcat and knocked him to the ground, and parts of his body were still smarting from it. “I reckon Uley would.”

  Pearsall scooted the stool backward. “Got to get back up front. Wouldn’t want anybody to think I was talking all night to a criminal.” He tipped his hat. “Been nice conversing with you, Brown.”

  Aaron sat down hard on his cot. Why didn’t Uley grow whiskers, indeed! It would be easier for a dog to turn into a horse than it would be for Uley Kirkland to grow whiskers. And, as he thought of her, he realized who could go through his belongings and retrieve his stationery from the Grand Central. Beth would have her letter after all!

  Aaron knew he probably couldn’t trust Uley. He also knew he could make her do his bidding. He knew the word for it. A bad, dark word. Blackmail. But just now he didn’t have any other options. “Pearsall!” he hollered, banging on the bars again. “Get in here, will you? I know who I can send to get my things.”

  Uley received his message just after she arrived at the Gold Cup. “Uley! Uley Kirkland!” Charlie Hastings came shouting into shaft eleven, wagging a lantern back and forth, sending waves of light sweeping along the walls. “Old Ben Pearsall’s here with a note from the marshal. Olney wants you to get down to the jail for something.”

  Uley groaned. There had been times during the past two days when she’d wished she’d just kept walking and let Aaron Brown go after Harris Olney. She was fast becoming a celebrity in Tin Cup, and it didn’t suit her one bit.

  She left the mine astraddle her bay gelding. She gave the horse his head, letting the animal pick his way down the rocks on the steep hill while she fumed. When she got to town, she looped the horse’s bridle over the hitching rail and marched into Olney’s office. “What do you want with me, Harris?”

  Olney waved toward the back. “I don’t want anything, Uley. Prisoner sent for you. I wouldn’t have called you out of the mine, but he says he’s got to see you today. Go on back.”

  She stomped on through, and there sat Aaron Brown, all alone behind the bars, his head bowed as if in prayer. “I’m going to lose three dollars today because you won’t let me get in a decent day’s work,” she said.

  He lifted his head, and his blue eyes were like deep, sparkling water. She figured he probably hadn’t slept all night. He looked awful. If she weren’t feeling so put-upon, she might even have been sad for him this morning. “You’re the only person I know in this place, Uley. I need somebody to help me.”

  “I’m not likely to help you. I’m the one who saw you pull the gun on Olney. I’m the chief witness against you.”

  “I’m not looking for a lifelong buddy,” he said tersely. “I’m just looki
ng for an acquaintance who’ll go up to the Grand Central and bring me some stationery. I’ve got to write a letter to one person before they string me up. Old Ben Pearsall told me the mail goes out today.”

  “This is why you called me down from the mine?” She was torn between being furious with him and feeling halfway important because he’d needed her. This was his dying request, after all. Maybe it was an important letter. Maybe it was a letter to the governor to confess his crime.

  “Yeah. I tried to get Pearsall to go, but he wouldn’t do it. You’re my only hope, Uley. Will you go?”

  She eyed him. “I don’t know.” He stood there, grasping the bars with both hands. They were big hands and, looking at him, she wondered how she’d gotten him to the ground.

  “Why?” he asked.

  His robin’s-egg eyes seemed twice as blue with his face so dirty.

  She didn’t know exactly why it happened. Maybe it was because Aaron Brown knew she was a female. Maybe it was because she’d considered her femininity so much during these past days. Whatever the reason, she felt herself blush, felt a spreading burst of heat fan her face the way flame spreads in a forest. “I don’t think it would be right, Mr. Brown. Me going through your personal things.”

  “Uley Kirkland!” He hit the bars with his open hand. “Don’t you go all prim and proper on me now. You’re the one who pounced on me out of nowhere and left me sprawled in the dirt. You’re the one that’s got every poor depraved male in this town thinking you’re one of them.”

  “You hush up, Mr. Brown.” Her face turned even redder. “You mustn’t say that.”

  “Oh, mustn’t I?”

  “No.”

  In the front part of the office, a door opened. “Morning, Marshal,” someone said.

  “Morning, George,” they heard Harris say. “Where’d you go last night? I saw your horse. You missed some mighty fine guitar picking at Ongewach’s.”