Blessing

by Deborah Bedford

  “Snow’s coming heavier,” Cook said as Laura got downstairs. “I’m betting people outside can’t even see where they’re going.”

  “One thing’s for certain,” Charles Ongewach commented. “No freight wagon will be coming in over Alpine Pass tomorrow. And wouldn’t you know, McClain was supposed to bring over my new piano. I’ve been lookin’ forward to it ever since that old miner Scheer danced on mine with his hobnailed boots.”

  “Judge Murphy won’t make it in, either,” Cook said. “Aaron Brown’s hanging is going to have to wait.”

  Laura came up beside them. “Either of you seen Joe? It’s almost time to open up, and I’ve got to lock her in my room.”

  “Sure have,” Cook said. “She came down here meowing to get out before the storm started. I let her out the door and ain’t seen her since.”

  Laura grabbed her shawl off a hook by the door and draped it across her shoulders. “I’ve got to find her.”

  Charles Ongewach donned his coat, too. “Here. Take a rope, Laura. Tie yourself to the building, or you won’t find your way back. I’m right behind you.”

  Charles stayed close to the side of the building, feeling his way along the rough-hewn logs until he rounded the corner, calling for the cat at the top of his lungs. Laura started straight out across Washington Avenue, or what she thought was Washington Avenue, with the rope knotted around her waist. In the shelter of the saloon, the gale had seemed over-rated. But when Laura reached the street, the icy whorl hit her full in the face. The wind whipped around her, sucking away her breath. Snow pelted her face. Within moments, the shawl covering her head was weighted with ice that clung like molten glass.

  Laura struggled on. “Kitty. Joe! Here, kitty.”

  As she reached the middle of the street, horses loomed up beside her. At the same time, she heard the doleful cry of a cat. “Joe!” She tried to rush forward, but the rope stopped her. She released the shawl and fumbled with the knot at her bodice. “Joe!”

  The knot fell away.

  She dropped the rope and rushed toward the sound.

  Laura found Joe howling in the middle of the avenue, her stubby fur coated with thin ice. “Joe…” She scooped the frightened animal into her arms and turned toward Ongewach’s.

  The snow came stinging from every direction.

  She couldn’t see more than six inches in front of her face.

  “Charles?” Her words died away in the fierce bray of the wind. Joe struggled against her, clawing at her inside the shawl.

  The rope couldn’t be more than five steps in this direction.

  She took the steps. But the rope wasn’t there.

  She turned once, remembering the horses that had just passed along the street. “Help,” she screamed against the wind. “I cain’t find my way.”

  Uley and Sam kept their horses moving flank to flank, the huge animals snorting over and over again as their nostrils filled with snow. Uley thought she heard someone calling but she couldn’t be sure.

  “Don’t think we should stop,” Sam leaned into his horse’s neck for warmth. “No human would be out on this road. You must’ve heard an animal.”

  Uley hollered above the wind. “We’re on this road.”

  “Guess you’re right.”

  “Which way?”

  “Don’t disorient your horse,” Sam said. “Rein him in and back him straight up beside me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Very slowly, the horses backed up, obeying the commands of their riders, until Sam felt a hand on his leg. The sound had grown louder now, a young girl crying. “I cain’t find my way. Came out here to fetch this foolish cat.”

  She appeared behind and to the left of them, materializing like a vision in the swirling snow. “You one of those girls from Moll’s place?” Sam hollered. But it didn’t really matter who she was. They couldn’t leave her out here to freeze.

  She nodded.

  “Come on up.”

  Sam reached a hand down for her and pulled her across his saddle. She sat sideways in front of him, her frozen skirt in icy folds against the horse’s neck.

  “You two taking me back? I’ve got to be dressed in silk and smelling nice in half an hour.”

  “We’re not taking you back,” Sam said. “The horses know where we are. I’m not doing anything to confuse them. You’ll have to get back later.”

  “But I’ll be missing a whole night’s wages.” She glowered at Uley across the front of the horse, still clutching the cat in her shawl.

  She looked like a lost cat herself, scraggly and frozen, not the sort of girl Uley would ever have associated with if she had stayed in Ohio. She and her pa shouldn’t talk to a hurdy-gurdy woman. But Jesus would have spoken to a girl like her, Uley thought, wanting to show her how much He cared about her.

  Sam and Uley rode without speaking the rest of the way. When they finally tethered their mounts outside the little cabin on Willow Street, Uley thought coming home had never felt so good. They went inside, and Sam lit the lamps while Uley started a fire in the cookstove. “Here,” Uley said while Sam went back outside to unsaddle the horses. “I’ll heat you up some water, and you can get a bath in there. If you don’t mind a pair of knickers and a fellow’s shirt, I can get you some dry clothes, too.” Looking at the girl, she decided they were just about the same size.

  “I never wore a fella’s clothes before. Don’t know if I should.”

  “They’ll be dry and warm.” Uley shot her a little smile and filled the kettle. “That’s all that matters, you know. What’s your name?”

  “Laura.”

  “You got a last name?”

  “Nope. Just Laura.”

  Uley stopped short. She knew Laura. She knew every detail about her. She felt the horrible burning of a blush again as she asked the question. “You’re Tin Can Laura, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah,” the girl answered. “That’s me.” She studied Uley’s red face, not without some discomfort of her own. “You’re awful young to know about hurdy-gurdy girls.”

  “Everybody in Tin Cup knows about hurdy-gurdy girls.”

  “I figure so.”

  “You’re awful young to be one.” Uley thought, Why, with all the stories I’ve heard about her, she’s no more than a young girl like me.

  Joe clamored to be let out of the shawl. “You think it’d be okay if I let my cat out?”

  “Sure.”

  The two of them sat on the floor together while the water in the kettle warmed, watching Joe stalk across the floor as if Laura had just put her through the most demeaning ordeal a cat could ever undergo.

  “He’s a nice cat,” Uley said.

  “A nice cat that’s gonna have kittens any day.”

  They looked at each other and, for some reason, started laughing. “What a crazy thing,” Uley said, almost giggling and giving herself away. “A cat named Joe who’s gonna have babies.”

  “You want one of them?” Laura asked. “Moll wants me to sell ’em. She says I could get twenty-five bucks apiece for them, because everybody needs mousers.”

  Uley shook her head. “I’d love one. But I sure don’t have money like that.”

  “I’d give you one. Since you and your pa picked me up and got me warm. I’d tell Moll it was a thank-you present. She’ll make me give her half the money anyway. She always does.”

  Uley’s eyes widened. “For the work you do?”

  “Yeah.”

  The kettle was making tinny noises on the stove and Uley knew the water was ready to boil. She stood up to pour it into the deep tin tub in the corner.

  “Are you Uley Kirkland?” Laura asked.

  “Sure am.”

  “Thought that’s who you were. I’ve heard all about you at Ongewach’s, how you jumped on that man that was trying to kill the marshal last week.”

  “You have?”

  “Yep. Everybody in town knows you. They all say it’s amazing, because you’re such a little thing, without so much as pea
ch fuzz on your chin, jumping on a murderer and getting him down.”

  “Is that so?”

  “They say you’re just about too good for your britches, never coming into Frenchy’s or Ongewach’s, always talking to them about committing their lives to Jesus and such.”

  “Your water’s ready. Come get your bath.”

  “That Aaron Brown, he’s one amazing fellow. He was up at Ongewach’s the night before he tried to do the shooting, playing cards and all dressed up and smellin’ good. I’ve got to tell you, it’s too bad he done what he done. He was the best-looking, best-smelling man we’ve had in that place for the longest time.”

  It irked Uley, having everybody always talking about Aaron Brown. “Well, he’s sure not smelling very good now.”

  “Nope. I bet not.”

  Uley hung up two quilts so that Laura could have some privacy. She grabbed some of her own things out of a drawer. “Put these on when you get done. That way you won’t catch your death.”

  Laura’s eyes met hers. “Thanks, Uley. I’ve never had anybody take care of me, not since I was little and my mama did it.”

  Uley turned away, feigning propriety. She didn’t want Laura to see her face just then. She didn’t have a ma to take care of her, either. “Did your mama die?”

  “Yeah,” Laura answered as Uley heard her sinking into the warm tub. “She did. Did yours?”

  “She died coming out here.”

  “This is real hard country for womenfolk,” Laura said. “That’s why there ain’t any real fine ladies in this town. This is real hard country for ladies.”

  Aaron Brown had never been so glad to see a wet spring snowstorm in all his days. It seemed like somebody up there was on his side after all. The snow fell and fell, and by the end of the second day, Olney came in and regretfully told him what he’d figured out already. It would be another week or two before the pass opened and the hanging judge came back into town.

  That was sure fine news to Aaron.

  Word of the storm and what had happened all over town filtered in, even into the jailhouse. Charles Ongewach had gotten frostbite on his nose trying to find one of Moll’s girls in the blizzard. The mines had closed for two days. Jason Farley had never made it back to his cabin. Everybody figured he’d frozen to death looking for new calves. The county would send out a search party for his body as soon as the snow started to melt. Wasn’t any sense doing it before then.

  Uley stopped by to see Aaron once, eight days after the storm, toting a bucket of hot beef pies. “Thought I’d just come by to see you,” she said after Olney let her in. She wasn’t exactly sure why she’d come. She just kept thinking how Laura had talked about him looking good. She decided she’d just go back to make sure he hadn’t gotten any ideas about sharing her secret with anyone. And she felt sorry for him, sitting in jail all cooped up and waiting for Judge Murphy to come. “I brought you some pasties.”

  The pasties smelled like heaven to Aaron. “Did you make these?”

  “Yeah.”

  They stood and looked at each other through the bars. He smiled at her, showing his gratitude, and Uley decided she could forget how he’d blackmailed her so he could send that letter. He didn’t look nearly as good as Laura made him out to be, but his eyes were just as blue as the sky on a June day. Uley looked at his eyes the longest time. She decided she liked them.

  “What are you staring at now?” But he was staring at her, too.

  “You’d better eat those before they get cold.”

  He sat down and obliged her, hoping that, if she saw how eagerly he ate, she might come visit and bring food again. “Don’t know why you did this,” he said. “Nobody’s ever brought me food in jail before.”

  “You ever been in jail before? Or is this your first time?” She guessed he wasn’t a hardened criminal. Hardened criminals didn’t carry watches from their mothers and bay rum and Bibles.

  “Nope. Never until now.” He decided to make conversation with her between chomps. “I’ve heard all sorts of stories in here this week.”

  “Yeah. That weather took everybody by surprise.”

  “It’s too bad about Jason Farley.”

  “They’re gonna bury him up on the Catholic hill. As soon as it thaws and they find his body, that is.” The Tin Cup cemetery had three hills for burying—the Catholic hill, the Protestant hill and Boot Hill.

  “You figure I could talk them into burying me on the Protestant hill?” he asked her. The question seemed to come from nowhere, but he’d been thinking about it all night long. “I used to go to church.”

  But Uley shook her head. “Nope. It’ll be Boot Hill for you, Aaron Brown. Although they probably wish they could bury you on the Protestant hill. There’s lots more room there. Boot Hill is running over.”

  He laid the remainder of the pasty on the cloth napkin. He wasn’t too hungry anymore, come to think about it.

  Uley realized she was staring at him. She lowered her gaze to the ground.

  Her unconsciously ladylike action made him think of one other story he’d heard this week. “So you and your father rescued Tin Can Laura out in the snowstorm.”

  Uley raised her eyes to his again, and this time she was smiling. “She was out looking for her cat. Joe just had kittens yesterday. Laura’s going to give me one. There’s a gray one I’m going to name Storm. I’ve already been over there to pick it out.”

  Aaron couldn’t help grinning. So that was where the rumors had come from. When he started laughing, it came out as a belly laugh, pure and simple. “Everybody in town’s saying you’re sweet on her, Uley. Everybody’s saying that’s why you finally set foot into Moll’s place.”

  “What?” She gripped the bars, evidently not totally understanding what he was saying. When she finally figured it out, her face turned as pink as the roses he remembered from back home.

  He liked it when she blushed. He hated to admit it, even to himself, that was why he’d told her the sordid story in the first place. He’d known what it would do. He’d known she would look all embarrassed and soft and vulnerable, despite her woolen pants and the funny little hat she wore to cover all that hair. He enjoyed exposing her femininity. He liked knowing a secret no one else did.

  “Mr. Brown,” she said, sounding every bit the schoolmarm. “You mustn’t let them say that.”

  “I don’t have any influence on what they say,” he reminded her. “I’m locked up here in the jailhouse. I just hear everything.”

  “If you hear anything else like that,” she said, “don’t tell me about it. I don’t want to know.” She shoved the napkin inside the bucket she’d used to carry the pasties and she turned to depart.

  He stood behind the bars, just grinning at her, just grinning at everything. Despite his bleak future, Aaron decided it felt good to have a true young lady to tease, something to occupy his time and amuse him, as he whiled away his last days.

  Uley didn’t know why she bothered being nice to Aaron Brown. The man was a scoundrel, a known criminal bent on having fun with his secret at her expense. A proper man didn’t tell a proper woman such stories. But then, she thought, correcting herself, she wasn’t exactly a proper woman. For one minute, and one minute only, she let herself picture Mr. Aaron Brown. She pictured his twinkling blue eyes as he’d asked her about Laura. She pictured the way his smile had turned up more on one side than on the other as he teased her. This was his appeal, certainly. He was the only person in Tin Cup, Colorado—besides her father—who treated her like what she really was. He was decidedly irksome. And handsome. But not decidedly handsome. Even so, she figured, he would clean up real nice for his funeral.

  Just as Uley reached her bay gelding, a shout rose from out in the street. “Supply wagon’s coming in! They’ve got the pass open!”

  It seemed like everywhere Uley looked, she saw people racing up Grand Avenue to meet the wagon. Here it came, winding its way down through the lodgepole pines, its wheels clattering over the rocks in the road
. Nine days had gone by since the wagon had last brought supplies and mail from the outside world. Uley ran, too, wanting to see everything coming in from St. Elmo. As the team pulled to a halt in front of the town hall, she heard a murmur pass through the crowd. “Murphy’s on that wagon. We’ll have a trial tomorrow, for sure.”

  Judge Murphy. She’d forgotten all about Judge Murphy. Her stomach felt as if it had dipped down to her toes. Tomorrow would come Aaron Brown’s trial. The next day would come his hanging.

  Uley wondered if she should run back and tell him. But she halted where she stood. The muttering and swearing in the streets stopped. Instead, every man surrounding the wagon started whispering.

  “Well, I’ll be…”

  “What on earth is that?”

  “Don’t believe it. Just plum don’t believe it.”

  The first thing Uley saw coming out of the wagon was a skirt the same color as Aaron Brown’s eyes, all fluffed out and as big around as a tepee. The next thing she saw was an extended arm, the hand covered by a delicate white-laced glove.

  Every man in the street took his hat off. Every one, that is except Uley, of course.

  “Well, I’ll be,” somebody whispered next to her. “I ain’t seen a gal like that since I left Nebraska.”

  The woman alighted, holding her skirts just high enough to keep them from dragging in the slush. She looked just like a picture from Uley’s one tattered, hidden copy of Gordon’s, which her Aunt Delilah had mailed to her from Ohio. The woman’s skin glowed as white and smooth as a porcelain pitcher. Her thick golden ringlets clenched together like a fistful of cattails and gathered in a blue bow high on the back of her head. As McClain lowered her bandbox to the ground, at least twenty men moved forward to help her.

  What would it be like to wear a dress like that? Uley thought. It made her waist look so tiny, Uley didn’t know how she could even take air into her lungs. Great folds of cloth hung in full loops against the small of her back.