Blessing

by Deborah Bedford

  She turned her back to him, picking up the filled plates and aligning them along one arm. “I guess you’re right,” she said huffily, halfway mad again because he hadn’t confided in her. She pushed her way back through the door.

  Aaron sighed. He checked his hat to make certain it remained settled on his head. Then he hurried outside, head bent against the pelting rain.

  Aaron walked past C. A. Freeman’s window on his way to the attorney’s office. He didn’t stop to peruse its contents. He’d examined the display at great length last evening. With his eyes closed, he could name half the items arrayed there. Instead, he kept his appointment at Otto Violet’s office, happily recounting the events of the past month that had led to this day, while Mr. Violet took notes.

  “We have a fine case here,” the attorney told him. “A fine one indeed.” Violet surveyed Aaron over the desk. “I can honestly tell you, young man, I am sorry I did not agree to take on your case the first time. If it had been handled properly, the right lawyer could have made a name for himself politically in Colorado. It was quite a show.”

  “A show I didn’t know if I’d survive or not,” Aaron noted.

  “But you did. You did.” The lawyer chortled. Their eyes met meaningfully. “I can only thank you for giving me this case now and not keeping it from me as retribution for my past mistake.”

  “Everybody makes mistakes,” Aaron said. Thank you, Father, he prayed, that Your Son Jesus died to cover all of mine. Victory felt good this morning. Life felt good this morning. “Luckily, this morning I am in a position to absolve you of your mistakes the way I have been absolved of mine.”

  “Yes,” Violet said. “Luckily.”

  “Good day, sir,” Aaron said, tipping his soggy Stetson before he stepped out the front door into the muddy street below. The rain slackened to an intermittent drizzle as he headed toward Freeman’s. He found the dry goods store, its window abundant with examples of finery, and walked inside.

  “Morning, Calvin!” he called out in a loud voice.

  “Who is that?” Calvin Freeman stopped sweeping and waddled toward the front of the store, tucking his chin so low to see through his spectacles that his eyes almost met his eyebrows. “Oh, Mr. Brown. It’s good to see you alive and well this morning.”

  “Thanks, Calvin. It’s good to be alive this morning. I’d like to examine the parasol in your window, please.”

  Calvin Freeman’s eyebrows, once so close to his eyes, now shot up in arches the same shape as a miner’s pickax. “The parasol?”

  “Yes. Please. It will be a gift.”

  Freeman waddled toward the window, pushed other items aside and retrieved the item of interest. He carried it to Aaron and laid it on the wooden counter.

  Aaron didn’t touch it. He knew that, if he did, he’d be all fumble-fingered. How did one even go about opening such a thing? He had absolutely no idea.

  Calvin Freeman didn’t touch it again, either. “It’s the finest parasol available anywhere,” he said. “Manufactured in St. Louis, with a handcarved mother-of-pearl handle and metal grommets. The lace is…”

  But Aaron didn’t hear another word. He was picturing Uley standing before him, her hair down around her shoulders, spinning the parasol high above her head.

  “Mr. Brown?” Freeman asked. “I say, Mr. Brown? Can you hear me?”

  “Oh, yes, I…”

  “I asked if you’d like me to open it for you.”

  Aaron almost agreed just so he’d have a moment to recapture his wits. But there was no need. He’d known he wanted this for Uley ever since he’d spied it. “No, thank you, Calvin. I’m sure the young lady will know how to open it, one of those good things a woman can always teach a man. I’d like you to wrap this up for me, please.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  At exactly the same moment Aaron was looking at the beautiful parasol upon the counter at C. A. Freeman’s and agreeing to pay for it, Uley flipped open the dusty trunk that had been hidden beneath the bed since the day she and her father had arrived in Tin Cup.

  “Are those your mother’s things?” Laura asked, poking her head over Uley’s shoulder.

  “Yes.” Uley’s voice filled with reverence. “They are.” She lifted the first item out of the trunk. It was a tiny tussy-mussy, all tied together with gathers of lace and ribbon, still smelling faintly of roses and spring clover. Uley sniffed it, closing her eyes, remembering. “Smells like she’s standing right here in the room with us.”

  “Maybe she is,” Laura said. “Maybe she’s watching you the way the angels watch.”

  “I figure she is,” Uley answered. “I figure she’s been doing that for the longest time.” Uley laid her hands atop the pile of belongings, willing herself to go on. The only thing she’d taken from this spot in the years she’d been in Tin Cup was the beautiful silver-handled brush she kept in the bureau. “I know Pa figured on going to pay for our passage this morning so he wouldn’t have to look at everything in this trunk. He hasn’t been in it since the day he buried Ma and we packed it all away.”

  “She must have been real pretty,” Laura said. “Look at all the fancy things she wore.”

  “She was, all right.” Uley lifted a pink checked calico skirt and draped it across the floor. “But I always figured she just looked so good to me because I loved her so much.”

  “You going to wear that?”

  “Do you think it’d fit me?”

  “Everything looks to be about your size, Uley.”

  Uley stood and held the skirt to her waist, surprised to find that it hung just to the ground, and no more. “It does, doesn’t it?”

  She knelt to her knees and gingerly lifted out a simple blouse with an agate cameo still attached to the collar.

  Next came a hat, a lovely wide-brimmed one made of leghorn straw, the wheat braids fine, yellow and flat as the braided rug that lay before the wood stove in the corner. On it sat an assortment of fruits. If the ornaments hadn’t been made of paste, their perfect lines and brilliant colors would have made them prime candidates for blue ribbons at a county fair. “She wore this to church the last Sunday before we left on the Overland Trail,” Uley whispered. “She had the fruits put on down at the millinery. I remember her saying, when she put this hat on, the Book says that a ‘life should always be measured by the Godly fruit it bears.’ And I remember Pa teasing her and saying, ‘Sarah, if there was anymore fruit heaped on your head, then I wouldn’t be able to bear it!’”

  Both girls sat quietly smiling for a long while.

  “Have you cried over your ma going?” Laura finally asked. “When mine died, I did.”

  “So did I, Laura, but not enough. Me and Pa both cried. Then I figured I had to be brave. I figured I had to act like a fellow on the journey, too, or Pa’d turn around and take me back.”

  “Well, he didn’t. And look where it’s gotten you.”

  Uley peered into the trunk again, her eyes watery. As she unpacked the remainder of her mother’s trunk, the tears which she’d held so long at bay began to flow, warm and free at last. It surprised her that something could feel both sorrowful and healing at the same time. Still sniffing, she unloaded the last dress, a bright emerald chintz, with puffed sleeves and tiny covered buttons that ran all the way from the scalloped collar at the neck to the gathers of the skirt. “She wore this one to parties. I used to watch sometimes while Pa would help her get into it. It has tape ties, so many of them I had trouble counting when she put it on.”

  “It’s got a bustle, doesn’t it?” Laura breathed. “I saw a lady with a bustle once. She’d come to Pitkin all the way from Denver.”

  “When Ma stitched it for herself, she said it would be the most fashionable thing she ever owned.”

  Laura gripped Uley’s arm, her eyes as big around as the paste cherries that adorned the leghorn hat. “Uley. Put it on. I’ll help do up all those buttons and tape ties. Together we ought to be able to figure out how it’s supposed to go.”

&n
bsp; She held up the acres of green cloth. “I’m not taking this one with me. It’s too special to Pa.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you’re taking it with you or not. Just try it on.”

  “You think I should?”

  Laura nodded, grinning, her cheeks as bright as persimmons.

  Uley fingered the chintz. Did she dare? As soon as she asked that question, Uley almost thought she heard something say, Do it, child. Take every blessing I have to give you.

  First came the buttons. No less than twenty-six of them ran up the front of the bodice. As Laura and Uley both worked on them, Laura from the bottom up, Uley from the top down, the bodice tightened nicely around her, the cloth shimmering like rocks catching sun at streamside as the dress took shape around her middle.

  Next came the tape ties. “I have absolutely no idea what to do with these things,” Laura said, poking them up and under, trying to find where to secure them.

  “Here.” Uley reached beneath the skirt and affixed one just the way she’d seen her ma do it once, leaving a loop of cloth that bunched out at her hip and hung like fine drapery.

  “That’s it. You know how to do it!”

  “But that’s just one. There’s more. Lots more.”

  Together they poked and prodded and giggled until they found every one of the trusses.

  “This goes here.”

  “No, that’s backward. Try this.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What about this one?”

  “Maybe this one goes there.”

  “No, this one.”

  “There. It’s fastened.”

  “It’s backward.”

  “No, it’s right. See? What do you think?”

  Uley stood before the mirror, her hands lightly resting one on top of the other at the bodice. She stood motionless, the color rising in her cheeks, her eyes perfectly reflecting the glimmering green of the chintz.

  “Oh, Uley,” Laura said, sighing. “Just look at you!”

  Outwardly, Uley didn’t move. Inside, her heart had taken flight. She’d never imagined she could look this way. This is me! This is really me!

  The dress fit perfectly. Uley stared in the mirror. A stranger seemed to stare back. And the stranger was her.

  This is who You intended me to be, isn’t it Lord?

  She paused as she thought of Aaron, wishing he could admire her in this dress, wishing he could see her this way. But he never will, will he, Lord? Oh, Father. I’ve made so many mistakes.

  How could she leave on the supply wagon this afternoon? How could she disappear from his life and never share a walk with him again, or a joke, or a kiss?

  If Aaron could see her now, he’d know everything she needed to give him, everything her secret bound her not to reveal. Sometime during the years she’d hidden away, she’d grown into the woman she’d dreamed of becoming.

  She closed her eyes, picturing him. This was what she would carry with her now.

  A memory of him, a memory of what he had given back to her.

  The thought of doing without Aaron in her life was not a new one. She’d lived with it during the weeks since she’d met him, knowing he faced trial and conviction and hanging. She’d steeled herself to face the possibility, knowing she’d live through the ordeal because she had no other option. But this afternoon, when the supply wagon pulled out to cross Alpine Pass and she was on it, the choice would be her own.

  Loving Aaron Brown had given her the impetus to begin finding herself.

  Now, to become the person she’d found, she had to leave Aaron Brown.

  The door swung open just then and Uley whirled to face it, the skirt whirling about her in waves.

  Sam Kirkland halted the moment he saw his daughter. He stood framed in the doorway, his silhouette dark against the dreariness outside.

  “Hello, Pa,” Uley said very quietly.

  Sam just stood there, his hat in his hand, rainwater dripping off every part of him, his face gone pale.

  Uley knew she shouldn’t have donned the dress. She scurried to the other side of the room to grab her sweater and knickers. “I’m sorry, Pa. I shouldn’t have tried it on. But it was the last thing in the trunk, and I…”

  He took one step toward her. “Oh, girl. You’re the very picture of your Ma. Do you realize that?”

  She shook her head, sending curls spiraling down around her neck.

  He grabbed her elbows. “I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful. So grown up. So like a lady.”

  “Am I?” She felt herself blushing.

  “You must take that with you.”

  “But I couldn’t. It was Ma’s.”

  “I sat with her at fireside and watched her make every single one of those stitches. I saw her laughing across the room during every holiday when she wore it. I know how happy she would be to see you in it now.”

  “You think so?”

  He nodded, then pulled her into his arms, holding her close for one long, poignant moment. “I know so.”

  He released her then, holding her at arm’s length, and she thought his eyes were watery, too, but she couldn’t be certain. “I brought you supplies. You’d best get them packed away with that dress. Lester McClain likes to stay right on schedule. He won’t wait for you. I sent word to Delilah this morning. If the mail is as trustworthy as the government says it is, she’ll be expecting you both to arrive Friday next.”

  “We’re really starting a new life.” Laura’s cheeks, too, had gone rosy with joy.

  Uley stepped out of her father’s embrace and headed for the bed. “Best be getting everything into the trunk, then.”

  But Sam was still staring at his daughter. “You look just like her, you know that? You look just like my Sarah. God blessed us both when he blessed Sarah’s womb with a child so beautiful of heart.” He stood exactly where she’d left him, arms dangling at his sides, both hands fisted into knots.

  When she turned back to him, tears were streaming down her father’s face. “How can I let you go?”

  “I’ll be back someday, Pa,” she whispered. “You just wait and see.”

  “Oh, but I’m going to miss you until someday comes,” he whispered back.

  In the end, of course, Henry Mortimus got the cot at the jailhouse. He lay on it now, hunkering like a mountain, snoring louder than the thunder outside. Marshal Ben Pearsall banged on the bars with one fist, balancing two breakfast plates on the other. “Wake up in there,” he hollered. “Never seen prisoners sleep as late as this.”

  Olney, who was on the floor, rolled over and opened one eye. “Shut up, Pearsall. You’re interruptin’ my beauty sleep.”

  “Ain’t no amount of beauty sleep going to help you,” the new marshal said.

  It was hard to imagine how their talking could not wake up Mortimus. The man was still snoring loud enough to drown them out. Even so, the Pitkin prisoner gave a moan and flopped over toward them, smacking his lips in an odious fashion that made even Olney cringe. “What time is it?” he growled to Ben.

  “It’s plumb near nine o’clock.”

  “Confound it, Pearsall,” Olney said, rolling over and raising himself to his knees. “I just got to sleep three hours ago. This here’s got to be the hardest floor in Gunnison County.”

  “We made it that way on purpose,” Pearsall said, gloating. “We wouldn’t want anybody getting too comfortable in there.”

  Olney managed to stand, though his knees and elbows were still stiff. “Shut up, Pearsall. I helped build this jailhouse, too, if you’ll recall. We didn’t do nothing unusual to this floor.”

  “Must be it’s just your conscience making it seem hard, then. They say that’ll happen to a man.”

  Mortimus sat up and rubbed his eyes like a baby just waking up from a nap. “What you got there?”

  “It’s breakfast, is what I got. From Aunt Kate Fischer’s. Each plate’s got eggs and ham, fried potatoes and gravy. Got two biscuits apiece, too.”

  That was all it too
k to get Henry Mortimus up and clenching the bars. “I’m ready.”

  “I’ll just bet you are. Stand back, boys, so I can unlock this door.”

  They did exactly as Pearsall instructed them, both of them acting like model prisoners.

  “Sure looks good, Marshal.”

  “Jist look at them biscuits.”

  “It’s been a month since I’ve eaten ham cooked up like that.”

  “Sure is a full plate.”

  Pearsall backed out and locked the cell door behind him self, sighing with relief as the key clicked in the lock. Prisoner-feeding time was always a bit dangerous. Harris Olney had taught him, as deputy, to be careful. Not that Pearsall expected Olney to try to make a break for it. But no one knew anything about that other fellow in there. Now that Pearsall found him self in charge of everything, it seemed he had a thousand things to remember. “You two behave yourselves today,” he warned. “I don’t want to have to waste time breaking up any fights. I’m mighty busy getting everything organized.”

  “What do you mean, organized?” Olney asked. “I had everything organized just fine before you took over.”

  “Not how I like it, you didn’t. It’s my office now.”

  The minute Pearsall waved goodbye to them both and returned to the front office, Olney crouched low on the ground again, his joints miraculously cured. Henry Mortimus grabbed Olney’s plate and started eating off both of them.

  “That’s a sorry thing you’ve done,” Olney muttered, still trying to see Pearsall around the corner, “talking me out of my cot and my breakfast.”

  “I figured I’d better get while the getting’s good. This may be the last meal we both have for a while. Besides,” Henry said, his mouth stuffed full of buttery biscuit, “you owe it to me for helping you escape like this.”