by Ginny Aiken
Strange how she’d come to discover that about herself as she sat in the most rustic of homes, as she waited for her turn to soak in a crude tin tub, as she longed to wash with a bar of plain lye soap and a dishcloth borrowed for a bath. It amazed her to see what really mattered to her now that she’d been stripped of all she’d known a handful of meaningful days before.
Armed with yet another sample of Colley’s seemingly endless supply of clean flour sacks, Emma went into the makeshift bathroom, anticipating the moment she would sink into the modest quantity of warm water. The gas lantern lit the room with a warm golden glow, and as tiny as it was, she still felt as though she’d walked into a palace.
For the first time since she’d left Denver she was completely alone, in a spot where she could close the door, where the rest of the world would leave her alone. And yet, all she could think about was soap and water.
Emma smiled as she unbuttoned the cloak. While she couldn’t wait to be done with these ruined clothes, it was the memories she wished she could shed as easily. Harder still was going to be replacing them. She should have spoken to Colley about it already, but she hadn’t wanted to give Peter any more reason to laugh. She supposed she would have to put the rags back on until she came up with a plan. She’d run out of time.
And she was in a hurry to get clean.
As she began to remove her torn blouse, a knock came at the door. “Who is it?” she asked.
“Colley. Open up, there, Miss Emma. I have somethin’ here for ya you’re gonna be happy to see.”
Curiosity piqued, she grabbed the ripped edges of the blouse and opened the door. Colley slipped inside, an armful of cotton calico leading the way.
“Here ya go, missy,” the older woman said, holding out the garments. “They’re the clothes the old missus kept here for her summers. Pete never got ’round to getting rid of all her things, and I reckon it’s just as well you put ’em to use after these years. Especially, seein’ as how well you done so far with that there cookery book of hers.”
Emma’s eyes grew huge. “I couldn’t possibly wear Mrs. Lowery’s clothes. It wouldn’t be right. We have to think of Peter and Robby. The memories—”
“It was Pete what sent me here with ’em. As much as you’d want your own clothes, he knew you had nothin’ with ya, an’ he knew, too, how much stock you were puttin’ on this bath. Cain’t say’s I blame ya. I like my soap and water, too.”
She knew Colley was trying to set her mind at ease, reminding her how much she wanted to bathe, and being practical as always, but nothing could distract her from the truth. Those were the clothes Peter’s wife had worn, the garments Robby’s mother had used when she’d fed him, rocked him to sleep. Emma had already stepped into enough of the late woman’s jobs. She couldn’t also step right into her clothes. Would she even feel like herself if she did? And which self, which Emma, should she feel like?
There was no means for one to turn back the clock. She doubted she could ever go back to her previous life, where she enjoyed luxuries without giving them any thought or appreciation. Was she ready to see herself even more as the new Emma she was becoming?
And would Peter view her differently when he saw her in those clothes?
“Don’t you have an old skirt or dress I could borrow?” she asked Colley.
“Ain’t worn one of ’em for years, going on eighteen or twenty of ’em. They don’t work too well fer a woman working sheep on a ranch with her man.”
Emma’s curiosity grew. Colley had a husband? Why had she never mentioned him? But the shuttered expression on Colley’s face didn’t invite questions. She chose to let the other woman speak her piece.
“Ain’t never oncet thought Pete would get past losin’ Adele,” she said. “It means somethin’ he’s told me to git these things fer ya. I wouldn’t turn ’im down, if I were you. It’s right high praise, I reckon. An’ he’s a good man.” She frowned, her gaze on Emma’s, and more stern than she’d ever seen. “Now don’t ya go thinkin’ nothin’ wrong ’about the fella. He’s as fine as a man comes, and he’s only thinkin’ of helpin’ ya while yer here. Always wants what’s best fer all of us here. He takes his responsibilities serious-like. Pete ain’t nothin’ like that there Sawyer, ya know.”
Emma gasped. “It never even crossed my mind, Colley. I think only the best of Peter. Why, if it weren’t for him, Sawyer… well, I would be the one with the injuries, and they wouldn’t be something as simple and innocent as a broken leg.”
The older woman shuddered, clamped her lips into a tight, thin line, and let her gaze dart away. Emma didn’t blame Colley. Even the thought of what might have happened had Peter not shown up when he did was more than she wanted to remember.
She tried again. “It’s not anything against Peter. I just feel quite awkward in another woman’s… life. I’m already teaching her son, cooking for him and his father, caring for her home… I—I don’t know.”
Colley tsk-tsked and slammed her fists on her hips. “Now you tell me here, missy. Do ya or do ya not want that bath? Cuz I reckon if ya do, there’s not much to be done ’bout it. That”—she waved at Emma’s blouse—“ain’t nothin’ you’re gonna be wearin’ ’round here. An’ that there skirt… well, it’s right filthy, beggin’ pardon, of course. This ain’t like none of them big cities yer used to. We do practical things ’round these parts. You need clothes. Here’s clothes.”
“I suppose there’s not much more I can say, is there?” She reached out for the clothes.
Smiling broadly, Colley stuffed them into Emma’s arms.
“Now take yer bath while I dry my hair. We still have us a coupla things to do tonight, you and me. Before we get some sleep, that is. Don’t be dawdlin’ too long, either. Mornin’ comes ’round right quick.”
“Do? What do we need to do tonight?”
Colley gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Ya’ll see soon enough. Let’s not waste any more time.”
Moments after Colley walked away, Emma disrobed and stepped into the still-warm water. As imperfect as her surroundings were, the water felt lovely and lavish, and if she closed her eyes, she felt quite pampered as the warmth eased her sore muscles. She didn’t remember ever appreciating a bath as much as she did right then. Not when she’d bathed with the most extravagant of French-milled violet-scented soaps and the most opulent gardenia-fragranced oils, or even the soothing lavender extract Aunt Sophia always had waiting for Emma’s enjoyment. When she dried off with the humble flour sack, she enjoyed the clean sensation as much as she’d ever enjoyed the most exquisite of Turkish-cotton towels.
Bliss, in the form of a bath, didn’t need extravagance.
Soap, water, and a clean cotton flour sack did just fine.
Chapter 16
Self-conscious in another woman’s clothes, Emma tugged the too-long sleeves of Adele Lowery’s simple, flowered cotton calico dress up from her wrists. The much-washed fabric felt soft and comforting against her warm, fresh-scrubbed skin and helped her overcome her nervousness. She didn’t look her elegant best. The garment’s former owner had been a taller, more robust woman, so it didn’t fit as it should; it never would. As it was, the skirt trailed on the floor behind her as she walked.
It looked as though dress alterations would be part of her new schooling. She saw how all the hours spent with needle in hand, even if it had been for petit point embroidery and various kinds of tapestry work, would now come to her rescue.
Still, the ill fit didn’t diminish her gratitude. She realized Peter had set aside the sadness he surely still felt from the loss of his wife in order to help her in her moment of need—yet another moment of need. She had to let him know how much she appreciated this latest generosity on his part.
When she reached the bunk she saw the peaceful, relaxed expression on his face, heard his soft, deep breaths, noticed the easy, loving way he held his son close, and didn’t have the heart to wake him. Despite his quick-to-irritate tendencies, Peter Lowery was a good man.
The yearning she’d identified earlier in the evening yawned large inside her again. She experienced a pang of envy for the woman who’d first worn the dress draped clumsily over her own frame. Adele Lowery cast a long shadow, years after her death.
Something in Emma urged her to strive to match the late woman’s influence in her own life, not try to fill that shadow. She could never be Adele, and she couldn’t imagine trying to become a copy of the other woman, either. Instead, she wanted to become what the other woman had become, to be Emma, the real Emma, the one God had made her to be, and to live her life that way within her own world. Her misadventure in the woods was proving a challenge she never could have imagined, but one she doubted she would ever regret.
She knew she’d already become a stronger woman for it.
A stray thought reminded her that Adele Lowery had broken here in this rugged land. Perhaps Emma hadn’t put together a realistic mental image of the other woman. Imperfections were normal, a truth that made her smile for her own sake.
As she turned, she noticed Colley in a chair she’d pulled up close to the hearth. The older woman stroked a silver hairbrush through her thick, waist-length steel-colored hair, and paused a time or two to ease apart the occasional tangle with work-roughened fingers. The lush ripples and waves came as a surprise to Emma, who’d only seen the ranch manager’s hair pinned up into the large, severe bun on the crown of her head, where it anchored her well-worn hat.
That night, as the no-nonsense ranch manager sat by the fire, all that beautiful hair flowed like molten metal over her shoulders and back. Emma spotted a glimmer of the beauty Rosaline Colley had once been. Her features, although covered by weather-and sun-tanned, leathery skin, still displayed a grace Emma hadn’t noticed before. The woman’s eyes, a soft sky blue, wore a fringe of dark lashes, and when Emma gave them a closer scrutiny, revealed a sadness she hadn’t perceived before. With the usual manly plaids and cotton denim fading into the background, the woman herself seemed to step to the foreground, almost as though a mask had been removed. It occurred to Emma the mask had been Colley’s intent all along.
While still lovely at her age, the ranch manager must have been a gorgeous woman in her younger years, one blessed with a feminine loveliness and appeal she worked hard to disguise. Emma had to wonder…
Colley sighed.
Emma approached, keeping her steps quiet so as not to startle her. But as usual, the older woman was one step ahead of her. She turned in the plain wooden chair and met Emma’s gaze.
“Why?” The word flew out before she could give it half a thought.
“I reckon ya ain’t forgotten Sawyer yet, have ya?”
She shuddered, but didn’t speak.
“This land of ours here is right pretty, I reckon,” Colley said, her words measured, clipped, emotionless, “but it sure is tough in many ways, wouldn’t ya say?”
Emma nodded, seating herself near the fire where she began to dry her own hair.
Colley snorted. “I’ll tell ya, it’s more like a church social these days compared to what it was when I came up to Oregon. Back then, even a woman had to fight just to make it day to day. This”—she waved a hand down the front of her torso—“helped cut down on the fightin’.”
A faraway expression, not a happy one, came into Colley’s eyes, and Emma felt as though she might as well not have been in the room. Still, she kept quiet to let the other woman have her time with her memories.
Moments later Colley sat taller, still shielded by the silver curtain of hair, and continued. “Papa, he came to California back then fer the Gold Rush.” She chuckled. “Didn’t find hisself much of anything that glittered in that dirt, so he quit pannin’ after a while and set off to wander some. But then, when he met Mama—she’d lost her first husband, my father, a Mexican man—he reckoned he’d found in her all the glitter he’d be needin’ anytime soon. She was one true Spanish beauty, and he’d’a done anything fer her, didn’t matter what, he loved her so much. They ran my real father’s store fer years, and they turned a good trade there, the two of ’em and my brothers, too.”
“You were born in California?”
Colley shook her head. “Nah. Papa went to California to look fer gold, but he found Mama in Texas, an’ that’s where he wound up. Had him no gold, but instead had Mama, a whole lot of love between ’em, and a passel of young’uns to raise, some from her first marriage, including me, then some from the two of them. I was one in the middle there, and had a big head of stubborn on me back in those times.”
“Then how did you end up in Oregon?”
Colley gave her a crooked smile. “Followed my new papa’s footsteps. Fell in love soon’s I met me a good-lookin’ young man with dreams of land and his own ranch in his black eyes. We married up and rushed right out to claim us some land. But it didn’t end up quite like we dreamed, after all.”
Emma looked up, fascinated by Colley’s tale. “What happened?”
“War happened.” Colley’s features took on a hard cast. “David had ’im what he called ‘his moral duty’ to the country, the Union, he said. Had to do what he thought was right. Couldn’t face his children otherwise, he said. Never did get to face ’em again in the end.”
Colley turned her gaze to the red coals in the hearth, shoulders slumped, a figure draped in long-lived grief. When she straightened her spine, she didn’t look away.
“Yeah, that’s how it went. In the end, he didn’t face his children,” she repeated, voice empty of all emotion. “Died on a battlefield in Virginia, an’ I had me four little ones to raise by myself, more sheep than I knew what to do with, an’ more land than a body can ranch alone. Did as best’s I could fer as long’s I could. The drought and them hungry grasshoppers a few years back did me in at last. Sold out to Peter when I couldn’t do more, and hired myself out, seein’ as how he needed help.”
“Your children wouldn’t help?”
She shrugged. “Three girls wanted nothin’ to do with the ranch. Begged and begged me to send ’em off to my brother an’ his wife in San Antonio. All of ’em’s married up now. Have me a wagonload of grandbabies, down there, too, but I had no one to run sheep with here. Sold it all out to the best man I knew. Peter’s done a right fine job, too, even as hard as things’ve been.”
Colley had clearly skipped over a lot. “I don’t mean to be curious just for the sake of curiosity, but… you said you had four—”
“Son’s gone.”
The way she spat out those two meager, hard words told Emma the confidences were over for the night. There was more there, but Colley either couldn’t make herself return to the events or simply didn’t want to. Emma suspected the older woman held her pain too deep and too raw even years after her loss. She respected her choice.
In short order, Colley twisted all that wealth of steely hair into the usual coil on her crown, stood, and then returned the chair to its spot at the table. “Come on,” she told Emma. “Let’s be gittin’ ya to bed.”
Emma started toward the bunk Robby had been using since she arrived.
Colley shook her head. “Nah. Wouldn’t be proper fer a lady like you to share the open cabin with Pete sleepin’ here now. You take my room while he’s hurt up like that. It’s only right. I’ll do fine fer myself on that top bunk.”
The offer stunned her. “Oh, but I couldn’t take your bed. You work too hard, and you need your rest.”
“Nah. Wouldn’t be right.”
“There’s nothing improper about a woman watching over a little boy and his injured father.”
Colley grimaced. “Hmph! I know that an’ you know that, an’ he knows that. But others won’t. I won’t be havin’ neither one a you bein’ tarred like that.”
“Who would ever find out?”
“May as well stop right there, Emma. I ain’t about to change my mind. Folks is folks, and they’re always curious. Things have a way of slippin’ out when you ain’t watchin’. Go on ahead to my room oncet
Wade and Ned take that tub outta here.”
“But—”
“But no. Done is done.”
Those words left Emma no doubt there would be no further argument. Somewhere deep in a corner of her mind, she recognized Colley had a point. She never knew how, but gossip always did have a way of getting out, even when those involved never told. She remembered the various lives she’d seen ruined just because of a loose-lipped comment never intended to hurt.
“Thank you, then,” she said. “I’ll go fetch the men.”
She hurried out before Colley could object, clutching close her too-long skirts so they wouldn’t trip her. She wanted to help in any way she could, if for no other reason than to show her gratitude. She knew how much the ranch manager and Peter continued to do for her.
At the bunkhouse, she knocked. A familiar yapping inside responded. “Pippa! What are you doing—”
When Wade opened the door, the white ball of fluff pranced forward to greet her from right at his side. “Miss Emma!” he cried, smiling. “I’m surprised to see you here. How can I help you?”
She bent down and scooped up the dog. “How did Pippa end up here?” And how had she failed to notice her pup’s absence from the cabin? Oh, dear. She was turning into a poor owner in spite of herself.
The young ranch hand shrugged. “I like dogs, and she followed me. I reckoned you were busy with other things. She’s no trouble, ma’am. Kinda like having her here. Keeps us company.”
“Oh, goodness.” Pippa licked Emma’s chin, and she held her pet just far enough away to give her a scolding stare. “You’ve turned into quite a little traitor, now, haven’t you?”
“Nah,” Ned offered as he ambled out to the door from the darkened depths of the room. “She’s jist one friendly little doggy, Miss Emma. She likes everybody, way I seen it.”
“Likes the sheep, too,” Wade added, then chuckled. “Looks some like a lamb sometimes.”
She patted the pup’s small head. “That curly white hair, right?”
He nodded. “Don’t reckon the boss’ll be shearing her. Hafta wonder, though, if that dog hair would spin into yarn like wool does.”