“What if she starts waking up before I come back?”
“I’ll send somebody over to Aunt Kate’s to get you. You go sleep now. I’ll stay right beside her.”
If Aaron had been in better shape, he might have argued his point with Laura. Instead, he nodded and headed out the door, almost too tired to see straight. As he plodded up the front steps to Kate Fischer’s boardinghouse, he heard a commotion inside the likes of which he’d never heard at breakfast. What was everyone so all-fired excited about?
The minute he walked inside the door, he figured it out.
The place quieted.
He felt every eye upon him.
So that was it.
Every single man in this place was airing his views about Uley Kirkland.
If it had been any other morning but this morning, Aaron might have let it pass. If it had been any other time but this time, he might have walked right on up the stairs and fallen on top of his wrought iron bed in defeat without figuring he had to make a speech about it. But his frustration and his fear and his exhaustion overtook him. Lord, help me find the words to set her free.
“You’re fine ones to talk here!” he hollered, his anguish clearly showing itself in his voice. “Uley Kirkland has saved my life at least twice since I came to this town. You know her pa wouldn’t let her come with him if she came as a gal. He knew all the fellows in this town would give her so much attention, she’d never find the chance to breathe with all of you hovering around her. Just like you’ve done to Beth ever since she got here.
“Uley tried to figure out some way to tell everybody, but she knew you’d talk about things just the way you’re talking about things now. That’s why she was leaving. She was going back to Ohio to become the lady she wanted to be. I’m not going to question her motives in this. And I don’t think any of you have the right to do it, either. Uley’s given an awful lot of herself to this town. Why don’t you think about that?”
As the question hung in the air, Aaron trudged up the stairway and slammed the door behind him.
The dining room remained silent for at least thirty seconds behind him.
Joseph Devendish, owner and president of the J. G. Devendish and Company Banks, rose from his seat, placed one hand over his breast pocket and spoke eloquently. “Gentlemen. We must examine our hearts here. All this time, I figured Uley Kirkland was out to find Tin Can Laura a job because those two were sweet on each other. Now I know the truth. We have been watching a loving heart in action, when perhaps none of us have seen a true loving heart before. We have been seeing a young woman standing on the faith she tried to share with us, and none of us would listen.”
A murmur of assent moved through the room.
“They were doing their best to change and to impress upon the other to do what is fair and good. And, I’d like to do something here that will help them both.”
“What?” several fellows hollered at Devendish. “What can you do to help?”
“I’m going down to Doc Gillette’s office right now and offer Laura a job,” he said. “I believe a young lady like that deserves a chance, don’t you?”
Chapter Nineteen
Devendish strolled right straight into Doc Gillette’s office and offered Laura Wilson the very thing she’d always dreamed of, a chance to support herself in a position that not only would sustain her living but would also give her an element of respect.
“You would do this?” she said, staring at Devendish. “You’d step out and do something like this for me?”
“I believe this is the way things are supposed to work,” he said. “Uley Kirkland’s stepped out over and over again on your behalf. When one person sees another doing a good deed in the name of the Lord, it encourages him to try his hand at charity, too.”
Just then, Doc Gillette came to the door and beckoned to Laura. He fingered his beard. “She’s tossing and turning in here. I figure she’s trying to come around. You want to be here when she comes around?”
Laura jumped from her chair. “I’ve got to get word to Aaron.” Oh, Father. Thank You thank You thank You. It’s like Uley said. You bring about good for those who trust You.
“I’ll let him know,” Joseph Devendish offered. “I’ve just come from Aunt Kate’s, and I’m going right back. I’ll get him down here as quick as I can.”
Laura didn’t know quite how to act around this man. He was proving savior and friend all at once, and just when she needed it the most. She wanted to throw her arms around him and tell him he’d given her something more valuable than all the precious metals men searched for up on Gold Hill. Instead, she shook his hand. “You will not regret your decision, Mr. Devendish. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
The minute Joseph Devendish came into Aunt Kate’s and tromped directly up the steps to Aaron’s room, everyone in the place knew what was happening. Half of them made it down to Doc Gillette’s before Aaron did. And so it was, when Uley opened her eyes and tried to focus on something, that she saw her father’s face and Laura, plus practically every one else in the entire town.
Doc Gillette had never had so many menfolk all crowding into his office at one time. As if in silent apology for the reaction they’d had when they first found out about her identity, many of the miners had brought gifts. Charlie Hastings presented her with a tiny green bottle filled with sweet-smelling rose water. D. J. Mawherter set a basket down beside her bed filled with pinecones and crushed needles from the lodgepoles up above town. It permeated the entire room with its tang.
“I just figured it’d make you feel more comfortable—” Mawherter alternately clutched his hands in front of his belly and then locked them together behind his spine, obviously uncertain how to conduct himself around her “—what with you having to stay indoors for a while and all.”
Uley tried to sit up, wanting to acknowledge them all, but she couldn’t. The pain in her shoulder seared through her like a hot brand. “Where’s—?” But she couldn’t finish her question. It took too much effort to complete the sentence.
Calvin Freeman, proprietor of C. A. Freeman’s Miners’ Service Depot, opened the box he’d brought and removed a flannel nightgown with flounces and ruffles set around the sleeves and hem. Uley took the feminine garment, the first garment she’d ever possessed that was truly her own, without saying anything. She smiled gratefully at Freeman as she bunched it around her face and held it against her skin.
As the men pushed in around her, Aaron fell farther and farther back.
He’d brought nothing but himself. The last he’d seen that silly parasol, he’d left it lying on the step at Aunt Kate’s. He felt a myriad of emotions as he watched Uley awaken to this new life, to these old acquaintances who were hovering around her in a new way. He felt afraid for her still, and humbled, as she lay stricken and pale.
He’d put her here.
She’d saved his hide one more time.
And he didn’t figure he had any claim to her anymore. He’d certainly told God as much, and he’d meant it from the depths of his soul. He wanted everything that was good for her. Besides, from what he could see, he had a lot of competition now.
Oh, Lord, he prayed. If it’s Your will, You have to help me stop loving her. I can never do that on my own.
Doc Gillette brought his shotgun out of the cabinet and started herding men away from her bedside. “Get on out of here,” he said, holding the gun aloft so that they could all see it. “I worked for hours to save her from a bullet wound, and now you’re going to kill her with attention. She isn’t up to all this right now. Get on home, all of you.”
Still they pushed in around the bed.
“Miss Uley, we never knew.”
“Miss Uley, we didn’t see.”
“Uley, we just thought you couldn’t grow whiskers!”
Gillette was right. Uley just lay in bed, too weak to speak or ask questions, clinging to the frilly flannel nightgown as if it meant everything in the world to her.
And just now, Aaron supposed, it did.
He wanted more than anything in the world to get to her side. But still, she hadn’t asked for him.
“Let me through.” He did his best to elbow his way past. “I’m the one Joseph Devendish came to get in the first place. Let me through.”
“Hey,” somebody growled at him. “I’m in line, too.”
“Wait your turn like everybody else, Brown.”
“But I’m—” He stopped. What was he to her, anyway? What could he say?
Doc Gillette kept waving the gun barrel in the air, warning everyone away. Aaron supposed he didn’t stand a chance. Now that every man in Tin Cup would want to court her, and she’d made it plain she was wanting to leave, Aaron figured she wouldn’t want him anymore. She could have her pick of any man in Gunnison County.
As he left Doc Gillette’s office, still hatless, he knew the time had come to stay away.
It took precisely two days for everyone in Tin Cup to start calling her “Miss Julia.” The following week, in Wednesday’s edition, the Tin Cup Banner had this to say:
On Monday afternoon some twenty-five to thirty gentlemen visited our new and estimable young lady of Tin Cup. Julia Kirkland is feeling much better and is able to move her arm without too much pain. Upon the occasion, several presents were given, and many were the congratulations offered. The afternoon was quite pleasantly spent in social discourse.
Laura began working for Joseph Devendish and surprised everyone, including herself, with her aptitude for numbers. In no time at all, she was able to decipher interest paid on time deposits. One morning, while she took deposits at the window, she glanced up to find herself nose to nose with Santa Fe Moll.
“Hello, Moll,” she said, red-faced, as she did her best to count Moll’s huge take from the night before.
“Hello, Laura.”
“It looks like business is good over there.”
“It is good. But not as good as before you left us.”
Now, what was she supposed to say to that? But, much to Laura’s surprise, Moll leaned forward and touched her with one gloved hand. “Don’t you say anything. I figure I know what you’ve been through. Every girl has dreams. I had them once, too. If I’d’ve had a chance like yours, why, I’d have taken it, too.”
“I meant to leave town where you couldn’t find me.”
“I figure it’ll be harder for you to find a clean slate with the fellows here, Laura. I admire you for trying.”
Laura figured the total amount of the deposit in question and filled out the corresponding receipt. She handed the paper across the counter to her former employer without further ado. “Sometimes the easiest way isn’t the best way,” she said.
“Thank you, Laura,” Moll said. And that was the end of it.
That afternoon, as she did every afternoon, Laura walked to Sam Kirkland’s cabin to visit Uley. That afternoon, as she did every afternoon, Uley sat propped up in bed, surrounded by gifts and exhausted from the attention of the miners who’d visited her, wearing the nightgown with the ruffles, her hair hanging in one rope-thick braid down her back. That afternoon, like every afternoon, she turned desperate eyes toward her friend’s, gripped Laura’s hand and asked, “Have you seen him? Did he come into the bank today?”
Laura shook her head sadly. Indeed, she hadn’t seen Aaron since the morning Joseph Devendish had offered her a job. “I don’t know where he’s hiding himself.”
“Why doesn’t he come, Laura?”
Laura hated it, seeing her friend hurting like this. “I don’t know, Uley,” she said. “I really don’t know.”
It didn’t take Beth long to notice that Aaron was hurting.
“You haven’t eaten a decent meal for a week, Aaron Brown,” she chided him. “You ought to be relaxed and happy now that the trial’s over. You ought to be celebrating instead of pacing the floor like a mountain lion every night. Ever want to know how loud your boots are when you circle your room a hundred times an hour? I could swear there’s a corralled bull in there instead of just a man who can’t sleep.”
“I’m sorry,” he said grumpily. “I’ll try to stomp lighter tonight while I’m pacing the floor.”
She glanced at the lace parasol he carried in one hand. “What are you carrying that thing around again for?”
He halfway hid it behind his leg, the very picture of a child caught playing with something he shouldn’t. “Well, I don’t know.”
“I never did figure why you bought that thing in the first place. Up until Uley, I mean Julia, Kirkland came to light.”
She paused, momentarily weighing her own words about Uley, then staring at her brother as if seeing him for the first time.
“Aaron! Aaron Brown! That’s it, isn’t it! That’s what’s got you storming around here like meat on the hoof. It’s got to be her, doesn’t it?”
He didn’t let his sister go on. “Don’t talk about it. I don’t want to discuss this.”
Beth took one step toward her brother. “Look at me.”
He wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“Aaron, look at me, why don’t you?”
“I don’t want to talk about this with you, Beth.”
“She’s the one, isn’t she? She’s the reason you asked me all those questions about women. Aaron, how long have you known?”
“Long enough to get myself into trouble over it.”
Finally, he faced her eye-to-eye.
“Since the day you met her?”
“Yes. I promised her then I’d keep her secret. That promise kept me from telling you, too, Beth, and I’m sorry for that.”
When Beth took her brother’s arm in her hand, her touch was feather-light, a gentle expression of the warmth and support he needed. “A promise kept is the sign of a strong character. And now, you fancy yourself in love with her?”
He nodded.
She smiled, her head tilted, the remembrance of her own love with Fred softening her face. “I’m happy for you, little brother.”
But Aaron’s face remained dispassionate and pale. “Save your congratulations for someone else, Beth.”
“Why? I don’t understand.” She put her hands on her hips. “Why aren’t you down there with her, Aaron Brown? Why aren’t you hovering at her bedside?”
How could he answer that question? How could he admit he was afraid?
I figure things change. I figure she’ll see me different now that she enjoys the attentions of every fellow in Tin Cup.
And, besides that, Aaron feared something more.
When she’d taken that bullet for him, she’d been on her way to Ohio without telling him goodbye. Although he hadn’t contested her decision to go, he was still reeling from the despair her decision had caused him.
He wondered if she still needed to go.
None of this could he voice to his sister. He told her only one thing.
“I figure it’s her turn to come to me, Beth.” He’d just purchased a new doe-colored Stetson from Calvin Freeman. He plopped it on his head, angling it forward toward his brows. He’d also purchased a tin gold pan. “I figure I’ll spend some time up on the gold hill trying my luck,” he said. I agreed to let her go, Father. I made that promise to You and I aim to keep it.
Doc Gillette gave Uley permission to get out of bed the following week. She walked around the room carefully, supported by Laura on one side and Sam on the other. After that, the doctor made her climb right back beneath the quilts. Two days later, he checked on her progress again. This time, he informed her that she could dress and walk about the house. Three days later, he noted how healthy and beautiful she was beginning to look. Her cheeks glowed like the autumn rosehips that were already beginning to dot the brush. Her hair shone like chintz, glimmering at all its folds.
But even Doc Gillette noticed that she didn’t look happy. He heard her ask Laura Wilson, “Have you seen him at the bank? Do you know why he hasn’t come?”
He heard Laura answer, “No, Uley. I don’
t know why. I ain’t seen him still.”
“I think it’s time,” Doc Gillette said, “for you to get out and take a walk in the Tin Cup air. The aspens are starting to turn gold out there. It’ll do you good to see them, young lady.”
He couldn’t believe it. She’d been in bed and inside the house for weeks and even the suggestion of a walk outside didn’t bring any anticipation to her eyes. “Yes, sir.”
He sat down beside her. “Is there anything else I can do to help you, Miss Julia? You know all of us would do what we could to see you happy. You’ve got fellows in this town who’d give up their gold mines for you. Remember that.”
“I don’t want anybody’s gold mine, Doc.” She’d had enough of those to last a lifetime.
“Get out for a while. Take a ride on your horse if need be. Mull things over. If there’s anything I can do to help, tell me.”
“I will,” she said. “Thanks, Doc.”
After he left, she did what he’d told her to. It did feel good to stretch her neck back as far as it would go and peer up at the sky. But, even so, the translucent blue in the heavens above her only made her picture Aaron’s eyes, the last desperate sadness she’d seen in them, and the intense betrayal.
She’d known all along how deeply her decision to go to Ohio would hurt Aaron. She’d also known she didn’t have any other choice.
Her horse waited tethered up beside a tree. She considered riding him, but then thought better of it. She was wearing a skirt now. She had no idea how to get a skirt draped over a saddle. She settled, instead, for scratching him on his supple, velvety nose while he snorted hot air across her fingers. “Things’re going to be different from now on,” she said, voicing her disquiet to the animal, “and I don’t rightly know how to handle it, boy.”
At that precise moment, she felt someone’s eyes upon her. Uley glanced up.
Beth Calderwood stood in the middle of Willow Street, nervously fidgeting with the strings on her reticule.
Blessing Page 27