“Interesting name.”
Evan nodded. “That’s exactly what the whole venture was.”
“Wasn’t your idea, then?” Luke asked.
The man’s eyebrows lifted, sliding slowly back into something like a scowl. “Not exactly.”
Luke sensed the man’s reluctance to talk about it, but this might be a greater part of the story his editor expected him to find. He might have to act the part of a reporter, yet.
Before he could ask him to explain, Evan said, “We staked a claim outside of Sawtooth. It looked promising. That valley made some people a pile of money, mostly the investors in the larger outfits. We worked the big mines in the days and ours when we could muster the time. It never produced as much as my brother wanted, but it was enough. Gave Lena and me a stake here.”
The natural question arose in Luke’s mind. What had happened to the brother’s stake? Or was it another question entirely? What had become of Evan’s brother?
“He died,” Evan said.
Luke hadn’t asked the question.
“He tried to cross the mountain pass too late. Avalanche.” Evan said flatly. “Doubt he saw it coming, but he would’ve heard it.”
It hadn’t been what Luke expected. And he’d imagined that most dangers would lie primarily in the predatory animals. He glanced up at the sharp peaks of the mountains rising beyond the hills. Danger seemed present in every aspect of life here.
Evan followed his gaze. “They’re beautiful this time of year, inviting. In the winter, they’re killers.”
“How do you do it? Live here. It seems so. . .hostile?”
The man surveyed him solemnly. “Some of it’s a matter of will—yours and the Almighty’s. You have to be prepared for the worst nature can throw at you. If you don’t, you’ll never see spring thaw. But you can’t think of it as something that wishes you harm. It isn’t like that. I don’t think it’s our job to tame it like a farmyard dog. We have to find our place and learn from the wild things that thrive here.”
In spite of the sun warming his back, a shiver coursed down Luke’s spine. “How did you learn what it took to make it, you know, to find your place?”
“We weren’t greenhorns when we came up the valley. We’d had some good teachers on trail drives and advice from other old-timers who’d been mining here and other places. I’m not a man who believes in luck.” Evan shoved his hands in his pants’ pockets and cocked his head. “You, being and Irishman, is that really something your folks believed in?”
Luke gave a hoarse laugh. “The luck of the Irish, you mean? Not me. I believe in hard work. You make your own luck.”
A triumphant yelp brought their heads swiveling in the direction of the shoreline, where Edward held up a good two-pounder.
Evan grinned and said, “I don’t know, but that man might make me question my disbelief in luck. It sure isn’t his technique.”
Luke added, “Maybe it’s persistence.”
***
When Jessie pulled up beside the men’s horses, Dawn didn’t immediately see her father. Evan and Luke were spread out to the north, but Edward wasn’t with them.
Jessie called out before she’d climbed down from the wagon. “Evan, I’ve brought something more substantial than sandwiches. Come and get it.”
While Jessie moved to the back of the wagon, Dawn climbed down without assistance. She breathed out a relieved sigh when her feet touched solid ground.
“Daughter, you came!” Edward swung around the side of the wagon. “Fishing’s good! Will you try? Please?”
Her throat constricted, making it impossible to answer him for a moment. She gave a small nod. “If you want.”
“Good!” He dropped his arm and turned to where the others were digging into Jessie’s basket of food. “First, a little sustenance.” He strode to the back and beamed at Jessie, gleefully rubbing his hands together. “What delectable delights have you prepared for us, Mrs. Long?”
With a quick brush of the back of her hand across her eyes, Dawn composed herself. Fairburns did not display their emotions publicly.
Although Dawn told her father she’d fish with him, she immediately regretted the promise when she saw the steep incline from the bank to the river. He’d assured her she could sit on the bank like an old man, and simply throw her line out from time to time, and he’d take care of the rest. So, that’s where she sat now, her back resting against the rough trunk of a pine with the pole hanging limp in her hands.
“Not much for fishing?”
She started at the voice and looked over her shoulder to see Luke. He wore a leather satchel slung over his shoulder and stood with his hands shoved in his pants’ pockets. “Looks like neither are you. Or did you catch enough this morning?”
“Your father holds the record. He’s quite adept,” Luke said. He nodded toward the river where her line bobbed only a few feet from shore. “Considering the bites I had this morning, I think you could toss your hook in empty and they’d climb up the line with no help from you.”
Dawn glanced down at his bag and asked, “Professional sketching or personal?”
Luke shrugged. “A little of both I suppose.” He cast his eyes up to the mountain range, where crags still held vestiges of last winter’s snow. “I’m hoping Evan will take me farther up the valley where I may find a better vantage to sketch those mountains. Evan mentioned a lake on the other side of the pass where your father can fish for salmon.”
“I’m sure he’d love that.” She wiggled into a more comfortable position, pulling a broken pinecone from under her leg.
Luke dropped his satchel to the ground and squatted next to her. “Here, let me help. I think your line is tangled in the reeds. If you feel anything pulling, it’ll only be the current.”
She handed the rod to him and watched while he expertly tugged the line free and reeled it in. “Do you want me to cast for you?”
She gave a quick nod.
His movements were graceful as he swung the rod over his shoulder a few times before releasing the line. With a soft plunk, the hook dropped in the middle of the river. He handed the rod back to her. “There’s a sweet spot right there, dead center. You might have some luck if you’ve the patience to wait.”
“Patience is an acquired skill,” she said dourly. “So far, I’ve not found the interest to acquire it.”
Luke studied her through narrowed eyes, before releasing a short laugh.
“I enjoyed this as a child, but to be honest, I’d rather be doing most anything else.” Dawn patted the ground beside her. “Why don’t you sit with me and show me some of your work.” She inclined her head to where her father was energetically working a fish caught on his line. “I may be here a while.”
Luke dropped to the ground beside her. “Well, I can’t say I’m flattered by your request, since my drawings are evidently the “anything else” of which you speak.”
A smile tugged at her lips, and she reminded herself of her earlier suspicions concerning the charming and very attractive Mr. Brennan, with the sky-blue eyes. There was undoubtedly something he wanted from her father.
He opened his satchel and pulled out a sketchbook with a tattered cover. As he flipped it open, she stopped him when he turned to the sketch of the little girl holding a kitten. The child’s features were delicate enough to suggest she was a child, but there was a haunting quality in her eyes that made her look much older. “Who is she? Those eyes are arresting.”
Before answering, Luke studied the portrait a moment. “I met her on the train. If I were someone who believed in reincarnation, I would say this child had lived a previous life, a very sad one. She was so very serious. I saw little of the child in her expression.”
The girl’s eyes held hers. She watched Luke pull a slender piece of charcoal from his pocket and add a few strands of hair to the drawing, then soften them with his fingertip.
“You have a gift,” Dawn said.
He wore an inscrutable expression, nei
ther acknowledging nor denying her opinion. He turned the page to a sketch of a pronghorn standing high on a ridge, head up, alert.
He gave no narrative, no explanation of technique as he turned the pages. The drawings spoke for themselves. He’d shown her perhaps two dozen before he turned at last to the next blank page. His slender fingers glided across the surface, coming to rest at the center. “You know, I’m always somewhat—uneasy when I turn to a fresh page or pull out a clean canvas. I’m never quite certain I can depend upon my skill to guide my hand again. Sometimes, I just have to start with a line, any kind of line, but I have to make my mark on the page.
“Everyone talks of electricity as though it magically flows through the air. They have no idea how it works or where it comes from. I think artists have understood it long before Mr. Edison. Especially when I’m painting, something like that happens. A kind of inexplicable energy flows through me and onto the canvas.
“I suppose that sounds mad.” He was silent for a time, his eyes searching her face again. “You really do have remarkable eyes. I can’t help it, you know—noticing. Like how you share the same strong jawline as your father, and one eyebrow arches a bit higher than the other, giving you both a persistent look of skepticism.”
“Mr. Brennan!” Jessie trotted from the wagon waving a piece of paper. “I’m so sorry. This is the second time today that I forgot something so important.” She held out the telegram to Luke. “Bart picked it up in town for you. I’m so sorry.” She looked at Dawn, her face a picture of remorse. “It’s those twins.”
Dawn watched as Luke scanned the telegram and saw the color drain from his face.
“Another illustrator?” He asked the question of no one around him, then pushed his fingers through his hair and read the telegram a second time. With slow deliberated movements, he folded the paper and slid it between the pages of his sketchbook. Excusing himself, he strode quickly to his horse, where he secured his satchel to the saddle. He looked back over his shoulder with a dark expression, making it obvious that to approach him would be most unwise. Then, he pulled himself into the saddle and rode off toward the ranch.
“Jessie, did you see where the telegram came from?”
“St. Louis.”
As the horse and rider receded into the distance, Dawn watched as a fine cloud of dust stirred behind them. What might have stirred such a strong reaction in the man? Whatever news he’d received, it was obviously not welcome.
Dawn closed the door to their suite and sank into a chair. She unlaced her boots even before she’d taken off her jacket or hat. While her father opened the drapes to let in the late afternoon light, she massaged the calf of her leg
“What a spectacular day! Fishing was great. The air invigorating. Scenery breathtaking.”
It sounded like a benediction. Dawn hobbled across the room in her stocking feet and leaned against the door frame separating their bedrooms. She watched her father as he dropped his jacket onto the chair. He moved stiffly, not with his usual vigor.
With his hands pressed to the small of his back, he stretched. “Haven’t done anything like this in a while.” He gave her a rueful grin. “Hate to admit I’m getting old.”
“You’re ageless,” Dawn said in a voice scarcely more than a whisper.
Her father crossed the room and hugged her. “What would I do without you? You keep me young.” He gave her a squeeze and released her. “This is what our country is about. Its youth is here. America’s future is here and the people who live on this frontier will keep her strong and vibrant. This is where new ideas will be born. One day soon, we’ll take our grand experiment all the way to the Pacific Ocean. I want to see it, don’t you?” He must have read something in her expression that caused him to temper his exuberance. Scratching the back of his neck, he asked, “I’m talking like a politician again, right?”
“A letter came for you.” Dawn wrapped her arms around herself as she watched him throw a glance to the bed. In the few seconds it took him to recognize the handwriting, the brightness drained from his face and his shoulders sagged. He turned to meet her gaze. Sadness tinted his blue eyes.
“I saw the others in your trunk.” Dawn was uncertain she needed to admit what she knew of his correspondence. It was not in her nature to be coy or manipulative. She needed to know what those letters meant to him.
“She’s a fine woman,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically husky.
It wasn’t an answer to something she’d asked. But his first words, what he apparently perceived as an explanation, made her bristle. “I believe I’ve met her—once.” The ice in her own voice shocked her. Never had she spoken to him in such a tone, but there was no taking it back.
He dropped his hands, the letter dangling from his fingers, and took a tentative step in her direction. He stopped before taking another and he turned back to the window. His lips pressed tight and his shoulders once again squared. “What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to tell me what she means to you. You’ve obviously developed some relationship with a woman I scarcely know—I thought you scarcely knew. Why did you keep that from me?”
Her father brought his hands behind his back, locking them together. The unopened envelope was now between them, more than a paper—a presence. He answered quietly, “I didn’t know how.”
“You’re the great statesman, Father! Surely, you could have found in the course of the months of correspondence with her to say something to me, a hint, some indication of your feeling.”
Turning from the window, he dropped his chin to his chest.
She surveyed him solemnly, his inability to meet her eyes. He was scarcely recognizable to her in this contrite posture. “Father, just tell me,” she pleaded.
He let out a shuddering breath and lifted his eyes to hers. “I’ve asked her to become my wife.”
Dawn sagged into the chair. Far more than a page of her father’s life had been written in the last year. In the shadow of all those unknowns, she found herself without words.
As she emerged on the other side of this silence echoing between them, she had only one clear image, that of her own page turning.
Chapter Nine
The Eyes of the Beholder
“The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.”
John Ruskin
June 28, 1890
Luke volunteered to meet the illustrator, giving Evan and Edward an opportunity to run errands in town. Not that he was eager to greet the man, but he was never one to avoid a conflict and usually found it to his advantage to meet a threat head on. In his younger years, that meant with fists balled tight. Of late, he’d found his wits the better weapons, along with a strong, intentional handshake.
The last passenger to disembark from the train car bore the unmistakable marks of a member of the privileged Eastern families. From his finely chiseled features to the cut of his custom-made coat and expensive shoes, he was stamped with their identity. So, when he strode across the platform and introduced himself. Luke forced a courteous but decidedly firm handshake. “I’m Luke Brennan.”
“Name’s Nathan. Nathan Osborne. You match the description given to me by Mr. Carrington’s secretary. Just shy of six feet tall, dark wavy hair and sparkling blue eyes.” Nathan chuckled good-naturedly. “Yes, she used those exact words—sparkling blue eyes. Fairly certain that she’s sweet on you.”
Luke felt the frown carve lines across his brow. He ignored the observation by offering to take the man’s third bag. “And they’ve sent you from the New York office?”
“By way of St. Louis, to meet your editor, Mr. Carrington. Yes. From what I can understand, they thought this would be a good opportunity for me to learn from someone with your experience. I’ve only just been hired at the World. They didn’t give me much chance to settle into the offices there. But have to admit, I’m looking forward to this assignment. I’ve traveled a fair amount, but never west of the Mississ
ippi.”
“Wagon’s just over here.” Luke hefted the leather bag onto the buckboard while he tried to put himself into the editor’s head. Why would Carrington think Luke would be a good teacher? There’d been few enough positive comments from the man to indicate he viewed Luke as more than moderately adequate for the job. And why would the New York World send him all this way?
Nathan shook out his hand, opening and closing his fingers after loading his bags. “This is all new to you, too, isn’t it? I heard you were originally from New York, like me.”
“What part of New York?” Luke hoped the man wouldn’t pick up on the dodge of his question.
There was a subtle shift from Nathan’s earlier congeniality to something unreadable. “Upper east side.” He looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Now, you ask me, why’s a man with my background working for a newspaper?”
“It’s a natural question.”
“I’m not sure you’d believe the answer.”
Perplexed by the man’s refusal to answer, Luke shrugged. “Look, it’s your business. We’ve both got a job to do, and apparently, mine is to break you in. I’ll tell you honestly, I’m not sure what that means. But for now, let’s just say, you ask me questions when you have them and I’ll do my best to answer.”
The smile returned to Nathan’s face. His teeth were so white, they were nearly blinding. Luke sincerely hoped he wouldn’t one day have an occasion to break one.
Luke picked up his pace. “We’ll walk over to the livery. Mr. Hartmann brought in some tack for repair.” Luke led the way from the station into town, pointing out businesses along the way, and adding a little of the history he’d gleaned from Evan. Nathan listened attentively, and asked questions that someone with a sincere interest might ask.
Nathan pulled up short in front of a streetlight, gazing up the pole and then down the row stretching along Ketchum’s main street. “Didn’t expect the town to have anything like this. Electricity?”
Luke nodded without bothering to comment and continued walking.
Nathan trotted to catch up, tipping his hat to three young women and sending them into girlish giggles. “Even though I wasn’t expecting a remote assignment so soon, this one is looking quite appealing.”
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