Blessing

by Deborah Bedford

  Uley lay contemplating her situation for two nights, sometimes dozing fitfully in and out for a few hours, sometimes propped up with pillows in the old wrought-iron bed trying to read her Bible. Finally she let the scriptures drop and looked around the room, seeking comfort in familiar things. Her hair was down for the night, falling softly about her shoulders. Storm sprang onto the bed and nosed around her with his whiskers. We’ve got to do this, she thought as she fingered the kitten’s striped fur. We’ll be sorry our whole lives if we don’t try now. As if in answer, Storm made two entire turns and then dropped heavily against the bend of her hip.

  “We’ll do it tomorrow, then,” Uley whispered to the kitten, still scratching and sending fur flying up from her fingers in little puffs. “I’ll speak to Laura through the window on my way to the Gold Cup tomorrow morning. We’ll talk to Mawherter in the afternoon.”

  If people thought it strange the next day when Tin Can Laura, a tarnished hurdy-gurdy girl, strolled into the Grand Central Hotel in broad daylight with Uley Kirkland, the young fellow who’d brought justice to the town, nobody stopped them to say a word. Uley thought Laura looked exemplary, all dressed in her best yellow calico, with her hair pulled up at her nape with a tortoiseshell clasp she’d borrowed from Wishbone Mabel.

  “Hello, Mr. Mawherter,” Uley said. “We’re here about the job in the Banner. You found anybody for it yet?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, we were interested in the job.”

  “Say no more,” D.J. bellowed, slapping Uley on the back. “You’re hired. We’d love to have you. Mining is dirty work. I’ll pay you just as much as you’re making over at the Gold Cup. You’ve certainly proven that you’re a conscientious, upstanding citizen of this town.”

  “No, sir. That isn’t it at all,” Uley managed to say. “Laura’s looking to work for you.”

  Mawherter’s eyes about burst out of his head.

  “Laura’s aiming to make a new start in life and she’d like to start it with you.”

  Mawherter didn’t stop to think twice. “Sorry, young man.” His eyes had gone as hard as the shale Uley chiseled out of the Gold Cup every day and sent up the shafts with the mules. “We don’t have an opening here for the likes of her.” As he said it, he didn’t even look at Laura. He just jammed one finger in the air in her general direction, all the while aiming his words at Uley.

  “She’ll do a fine job for you. She’s a hard worker.”

  Mawherter grinned rather nastily. “That’s what I hear. I hear she does a fine job at Santa Fe Moll’s place. Let her stay there.”

  Uley had heard enough. “Come on, Laura. Let’s go.”

  But Mawherter wasn’t finished. He kept right on going. “You see this?” He jabbed the same crooked finger toward a framed advertisement on the wall. Grand Central Hotel—Tin Cup, it read. First-class in Every Respect. Situated in the Most Desirable Business Part of the City. Charges Reasonable.

  “Don’t see what that has to do with us,” Uley said.

  “You don’t, do you?” Mawherter pulled a cheroot from the inside of his coat pocket, trimmed the end of it with a tiny pair of gold scissors and poked it between his teeth. As he talked, it dangled out of his mouth like a worm hanging out of a bird’s beak. “I am advertising that this hotel is first-class in every respect,” he said, the cheroot waggling, leaning far enough toward them both that it seemed as if he might jump right over the counter at them. “Number one, I’m not going to have a woman working here as a clerk. I need somebody responsible. And, number two, even if I was going to have a woman as a clerk, I wouldn’t have Tin Can Laura. I cannot have a hurdy-gurdy girl standing here to greet my guests.”

  Uley had never been so angry. It was all she could do to keep from grabbing the odious cheroot from his teeth and poking it back at him. “Laura wouldn’t be a hurdy-gurdy girl if you would employ her here.”

  “Nope. I will not do it.”

  “But she wants to reform.”

  “Let her reform in some other hotel besides mine.” This time Mawherter allowed himself the luxury of peering right down his nose at Laura. “Once a soiled dove, always a soiled dove.”

  Uley gripped her friend’s arm and made ready to go. “It is plain to see Mawherter does not possess a kind heart.” With that, she yanked Laura toward the door.

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with my heart, Uley Kirkland,” Mawherter called out to their backs. “My heart’s in the same condition as everybody else’s in this town. I’m just smarter than some. That is the only way I can run a business and make a—”

  They didn’t hear his last words. The door, thankfully, slammed shut behind them.

  Laura clutched both of Uley’s arms. “I cain’t bear this, Uley. Don’t make me do it anymore.”

  “He’s only one of many, Laura. We have other possibilities.”

  “He said himself he’s got a heart as good as anybody’s in Tin Cup.” Two tears balanced on her lower lids, ready to fall. “Nobody around here’s gonna let me better myself. There’ll just be too much talk for anybody to want to give it a test.”

  “We are not finished yet,” Uley said, shoring up her own courage. It couldn’t end like this. It couldn’t be this way. But by fifteen minutes after five that evening Uley knew that it was. In thirty minutes’ time, they presented themselves to two other business owners who’d advertised in the Banner for assistance. J.C. Theobald, Tin Cup’s cobbler, who had announced in the newspaper he needed someone who “could polish shoes with neatness and dispatch,” at least was kind.

  After Mawherter’s reaction, Laura had been certain Theobald would hurl shoes at them. Instead, he evaded the question, telling Laura gently he needed to hire someone who had much more experience with shoes than she had.

  As they moved to leave the shop, he smiled at both of them sadly. “Wish I had something I could do to help you two,” he said. “I cannot have a hurdy-gurdy girl from Moll’s place polishing my boots. I’m bringing my wife out next fall. She would never understand.”

  Last, they tried C. A. Freeman’s Miner’s Service Depot, the largest dry goods store in Tin Cup. A sign on the front door read Miner’s Underwear, Waterproof Goods, and Powder. Two hands were drawn on the sign, fingers pointing to call attention to the message Quick Sales and Light Profits.

  Calvin Freeman was sweeping the floor beside the shelf of red wool union suits when the bell atop the door tinkled to announce their arrival. His reaction, when Uley questioned him, was much the same as Mawherter’s.

  “I need a gangly kid who can stand on a bucket and dust my shelves of canned goods,” he said without preamble. “Don’t need no dirty birds. Now get out of here before you offend some payin’ customer.”

  Together, and full of remorse, they rode Uley’s horse back down to the lily pond. The lily pond was such a respite for them, a place where they could stand together at the edge of the water and watch the stars twirl above them or could blow dandelion spores aloft, watching the thready white fronds lift into the air and, like their fantasies, travel in every direction. Today they did none of those things. Today they stood side by side, staring into the water as if they were gazing into something they didn’t understand. The horse sucked at the water with its velvet muzzle, snorting greedily and sending the wavering image of their faces into ever-widening ripples.

  “I’m sorry, Laura.”

  “I thought you said it’d be easier if I just let God take charge.”

  “Not easier.” Uley touched her arm. “Better. There’s a difference between those two.”

  The horse continued drinking.

  “Nobody’s gonna let me do it here, Uley,” Laura said. “And, strangely enough, that makes me want to do it all the more.”

  “Well, maybe that’s all the more reason for it then.”

  “If I want to get away from this stained life, I’m gonna have to leave Tin Cup. I just don’t know where I could go.”

  But Uley knew. Uley knew where a fr
esh start could come. For both of them. Aunt Delilah in Ohio.

  Aunt Delilah would teach them both to be ladies. She had been writing Uley for months, begging her to come back East for just that reason.

  Until now, the thought had made Uley feel entirely bereft. But with Laura along, the going would take on a whole new purpose.

  “I do. I know of a place.”

  “Where? How could we do it?”

  “Mama’s sister in Ohio. Aunt Delilah begged me to stay with her years ago. Instead, I opted to come here with Pa. But maybe it’s time to go back. Maybe it’s time to reconsider, have a wise woman teach us how to both live proper Christian lives.”

  “You’d take me with you?”

  “Of course I would. You’re the main reason I’d really go, Laura. But I don’t know how we’d travel.” She spread her hands and studied them, hands with dirty nails and rough calluses, hands that might become a lady’s hands. She imagined them just then with clean nails, soft, supple fingers as pink as the pads on the underside of Storm’s paws. A woman’s hands.

  “Whatcha lookin’ at your hands for?”

  Uley hid them behind her back. “Just wishing, I suppose.”

  “When can we go?” Laura asked.

  “It’ll cost for two of us to travel so far on the Overland Trail. We’ll have to put some money away.” For Uley, the thought was an unexpected comfort. She still had days, weeks, to be with her father, to bring to a close her life in this place.

  Poignant deliberations, all of them.

  “We don’t have to wait.” Laura fished around beneath her skirts and pulled out a small leather pouch. “I took this down to the assayer’s office just yesterday.”

  Uley stared at it. The pouch of gold from Lesser Levy. The gold Laura had earned playing Charles Ongewach’s new upright grand piano.

  “There’s plenty in here to get us to Ohio and back again, Uley. We could go tomorrow if we wanted to.”

  “No.”

  Uley’s soul felt as if it was pirouetting out of control, like the tornado she’d seen as she and her father came across Nebraska. They couldn’t go now. Her thoughts, incredibly, were not of her father. They weren’t of the Gold Cup. Her conscious thoughts were now where her unconscious ones had been all along.

  Aaron Brown.

  After she left, she’d never see Aaron Brown again. She’d never stare at his dirty face behind bars again or hear him say, “It’s about the prettiest hair I’ve ever seen.” She’d never again feel her heart singing just to have him standing near.

  “We can’t go, Laura,” she said, wild-eyed. “Not yet. I’ll go. But don’t ask for it now.”

  “Why not?”

  Why not, indeed? What could she say? How could she explain it?

  Because I care for a man who might hang in eleven days, that’s why. Because I’ve done the unthinkable. I’ve given Aaron Brown my heart.

  The thought of the eleven-day count saved her just then. How many nights had she lain in bed trying to forget the upcoming jury verdict? How many days had she chipped away at the granite with the broadax in the Gold Cup, taking to task the events that had brought a man to this point?

  The trial. She couldn’t leave because of the trial.

  “They might need me to testify again, is all.”

  “They won’t. The only person who gets to testify is Dawson Hayes. That is, if he shows up.”

  “Judge Murphy might want me to retell the story. Three weeks is a long time to remember every detail, especially if you aren’t used to thinking about particulars.”

  “Uley, you don’t sound like you want to go at all.”

  “It’ll be hard to leave my Pa, Laura.” The rest of it I’ll confront as it comes.

  “And what of Aaron Brown?” Laura asked.

  “I don’t know,” Uley said.

  “Until the trial, then.” Laura was examining her friend’s face, not fully understanding the turmoil she read in Uley’s eyes. “I’ve been frightened Moll might come lookin’ for this gold. But I’ll keep it on my person for eleven more days.” She tucked it high inside the bosom of the demure shirtwaist she’d begun to wear. “Now that I’ve become a new woman, there’s not anybody who can get their hands on it here.”

  The main item on the menu today at Aunt Kate Fischer’s Hotel and Boarding House was “possum.” Nobody knew exactly what type of wild game it was. Certainly, no possums lived within two thousand miles of Tin Cup. But possum was the special dish Aunt Kate had learned to cook during her arduous journey from slavery to the North. Now, when she wanted to give her boarders a fine treat, she fed them her best. She fed it to them barbecued, usually, in a sauce that smelled of heavy molasses and brown sugar.

  “Enjoy your lunch, Thomas Tonge?” Aaron asked as he swept up after the meal. Sweeping was one of the many chores he did for Aunt Kate in return for his and Beth’s keep. So was scrubbing the pots in the back room. He’d donned a knee-length apron for that job.

  “Yep,” the huge Swede replied. “It vos good. Where does that meat come from? You know?”

  “I do,” Aaron said, still brandishing the broom. “A flock of those possums flew over just the day before yesterday.” Actually, they’d been huge black-headed geese, their bellies glowing silver as they flapped across the sky in formation. “Kate went out with her shotgun and blasted five or six of them right out of the air.” He couldn’t help grinning. “Rare things around here, those possums.”

  “Und I got a ving, by golly,” Thomas stated excitedly. “You tell Kate Fischer I’ll be back for more lunch tomorrow.”

  “I’ll do that, Tom,” Aaron said, smiling.

  Kate Fischer came rambling in just in time to hear the last exchange. “Aaron Brown!” she hollered. “You givin’ away my secrets?”

  “No, ma’am.” Aaron didn’t usually say “ma’am.” But Kate Fischer commanded respect. “Just answering questions the best way I know how.”

  “That’s good.” She beamed at him. “You’re doin’ a fine job down here. Never seen the floor so clean. And the pots are shinin’ like somebody’s lookin’ glass.”

  “I aim to make you glad you’re putting me up, Aunt Kate. And Beth, too. We’re both thankful.”

  “Any sign of Dawson Hayes?” she asked. “Any word at all?”

  “Nope. Still no sign of him.”

  “There’s a supply wagon due over the pass in fifteen minutes. He could be on this one.”

  “That’s what I think every time the wagon comes in,” Aaron said honestly. “I see it coming closer and I start counting the heads.”

  Kate went into the kitchen to begin preparations for supper. Aaron kept on sweeping, doing his best to keep from thinking of the rig that, even now, would be rattling down this side of Alpine Pass. He pulled the watch from the fob in his breeches and snapped it open. For the millionth time, he read the engraved inscription from his mother.

  May your heart always know when it’s time to come home.

  Just past 2:10 p.m. The supply wagon was probably all the way past Lake Tillie by now.

  He snapped it shut and resolutely shoved it back into his pocket.

  Suppose, just suppose, Dawson Hayes was on that wagon.

  He kept right on sweeping, watching the dirt separate into silty black lines as the broom passed over the planking. The straw bristles raked the pine floor as the dust flew toward the door in a low cloud.

  If Aunt Kate had heard the snapping of his timepiece cover, she didn’t let on now. “You best get on down there, Aaron Brown,” she called out of the kitchen. “Might be somebody on that wagon you need to meet.”

  Aaron didn’t want to watch Lester McClain driving the supply wagon into town. He didn’t want to stand on a felled log, craning his neck, trying to make out Dawson Hayes’s rumpled gray hair and beaverskin cap.

  Yet he knew he couldn’t stand it if he didn’t.

  He propped the broom against the door jamb. His heart was clattering inside his ribs. “Thanks, Kate
. I’ll be back directly.”

  “No need to come back,” she declared. “You’ve done enough work for one day.”

  “I’ll bring the water in tonight.”

  “That’ll do fine.”

  Aaron went out the door running. He didn’t even stop to remove the apron. He sprinted toward the town hall, the soiled apron flapping.

  Several residents were lounging nonchalantly on the wooden steps of the town hall. “Wagon in yet?” he asked.

  Apparently they weren’t as nonchalant as they appeared. They all answered at once. “Not yet.”

  “It should be roundin’ the corner in two or three minutes.”

  “You think your witness’ll be on it?”

  Aaron was winded from the run. “I don’t know. Could be any day now.”

  “Best be in the next week, or you won’t be around to see it,” Charlie Hastings commented.

  “Yes,” Aaron said, frowning slightly and shading his eyes, still seeing nothing coming around the corner. “It had better be in the next week.”

  At just that moment, a mule’s bray came from the opposite direction. Aaron glanced up and felt his stomach pitch. Here came Uley riding Old Croppy down from the mine, looking every bit as if she were heading to Abbey & Company to pick up equipment for the Gold Cup. Only thing was, she wasn’t looking toward the store. She reminded him of a blue heron, neck outstretched, chin raised. She looked for all the world as if she were craning to see the supply wagon herself.

  At that precise moment, Aaron remembered he was wearing Aunt Kate’s dirty apron. He fumbled with the tie at the base of his spine. He couldn’t see what he was doing. The silly thing knotted in his fingers.

  “Confounded thing,” he muttered.

  “Looks like you’ve been helpin’ Aunt Kate cook up her possums,” Hollis Andersen said from where he lazed on the steps.

  “I’ve been helping her clean pots,” he said. “It was the only way she’d let a man on trial stay in one of her rooms.”