A Shelter of Hope

by Tracie Peterson

  He’d never once gotten a thing in his life without taking it or forcing it. It just seemed to be his lot. He’d taken Winifred in her moment of weakness and desperation and shown her that her only hope was to become his wife. Then he’d thought by putting her away in the hills, away from folk and the pretty things she’d grown up with, that he could somehow make her forget that such things existed. But he hadn’t.

  He shook his head and spit. Women were more trouble than they were worth. They were sharp-tongued in an argument and then, without batting an eyelash, could turn on the sweetness and deception without warning. They were born to deceive men, as far as Louis was concerned, and there wasn’t a single example in his own life that had proved otherwise.

  After stocking up on a few things he’d need for his journey to Colorado, Dumas decided to have one last round of drinks at the Red Slipper. It seemed strange to consider leaving the area after having given so much of his life to the place. He’d come to this territory to escape the Civil War. That and the death sentence on his head for desertion during battle. Trapping was something he’d learned from his father, a Canadian who had married a backwoods New York girl and built a house on the border of both countries. Trapping seemed a good way to lose himself and his identity to the rest of the world, and the territory had been good to him. Now, as he considered mining and what the future might hold in store, Louis couldn’t help but wonder if he’d made a mistake in selling out to Davis. Perhaps his original plan of moving north to further his trapping efforts was the wiser choice after all. With the Indian population rounded up and housed on government reservations, there would be all manner of animal to harvest. He’d heard stories about the riches of the Canadian Rockies that made him itch to go and see for himself.

  Securing his horse outside the saloon, Louis took hold of his rifle and went inside. The dilemma of what to do and where to go continued to battle inside him. There didn’t seem much sense in going over what was already done, and yet a nagging doubt remained in the back of his mind. Maybe after a few drinks it would all make sense enough.

  “Louis, you’ve come back to share some of your wealth,” Gus called from the far end of the bar.

  “Came back for a last drink, if that’s what you mean,” Dumas grunted.

  Ada came in from the stock room and beamed Louis one of her smiles. “I hoped you’d come back to at least say good-bye.”

  “Hey, Louis,” two men called in unison as they entered the Slipper. “Saw you head in here and thought we might get a game going.”

  “Jervis, Butterfield,” Louis acknowledged. “Don’t rightly know as I have time for a game.”

  The men laughed. “When have you ever been too busy to relieve us of our money?” Jervis asked.

  “Lessen you’re afraid you’ve lost your touch,” Gus joined in.

  Ada snickered at the challenge and poured Louis a tall whiskey. “You can’t let ’em get away with talkin’ to you like that, Louis.”

  Louis downed the whiskey and pushed the glass forward for a refill. “All right, since you seem so all-fired impatient to lose your money. I already spent one night in town, don’t hardly seem a problem to spend another.” Gus and Jervis gave a whoop.

  By this time, several more men had entered the bar, and they joined in the cheering as they realized the intent of the men at the bar. Boredom could only be relieved in one of several ways: fighting, loving, drinking, gambling, or working. Since most men were single, loving wasn’t often an option. Fighting could occur as the evening wore on, but it was usually an added bonus to either drinking or gambling. And working … well, that was clearly not an option on this fine day.

  “Come on,” Louis said, tucking the bottle under his arm. He took up his glass in one hand and his rifle in the other and motioned to the tables. “If we’re all gonna play, you’d best push ’em together.”

  “I’ll go get Harley’s bench at the dry goods store. He won’t mind us borrowing it so long as we don’t split it into kindlin’,” Gus said, heading out the door with great enthusiasm.

  Louis felt a thread of amusement as he observed the actions around him. These men were starved for entertainment and socializing. Some had just now come to town, having lived out the winter in solitary seclusion. Others were up from Laramie, their pockets full of coins from their latest job or trade.

  “River’s thawed,” Butterfield offered, pulling up one of the free chairs. “My pa says the signs point to a warm spring.”

  “I don’t trust it,” Jervis said, as if anyone cared about his thoughts on the matter. “I’ve seen it like this before. Just about the time you figure on things warmin’ up, along comes a blizzard to freeze you to the bone.”

  Louis looked at the man and nodded. He chose for himself a seat that placed his back against the wall. “Never put your back to any man,” his father had told him, and Louis knew he was alive to this day because of heeding that advice. “He’s right, ya know. Never makes sense to rush the elements. I saw signs in the clouds that speak of another good snow. That’s one of the reasons I’m moving down out of the mountains before the weather turns sour.”

  “So you’re really gonna do it?” Butterfield asked.

  “I’m here, ain’t I?”

  “Heard tell you sold off your kid,” Jervis said, throwing himself down on a roughly hewn stool.

  “Sold it all off,” Louis said, balancing the rifle across his lap. He liked the security of its weight. The barrel was wrapped in a piece of beaded, fringed buckskin casing. The design of the piece showed intricate artistry, but there wasn’t a man in Uniontown who didn’t realize Louis would just as soon blow a hole out the end of the casing as to take the time to release the rifle should any man challenge his authority.

  Gus lumbered in with the bench balanced on one shoulder, and behind him Harley Burkett, the dry goods owner, followed with another two chairs.

  “Heard Gus say there’s gonna be quite a game,” Harley said. “Didn’t rightly figure on missin’ out.”

  “Come on in,” Louis told the man. “The more of you there is, the more money I can win. But I ain’t wastin’ too much time. There’ll be another snow inside of a day or my name ain’t Louis Dumas.”

  “Louis was just tellin’ how he sold off his land and traps,” Butterfield said, scooting his chair over to make room for Harley.

  “Sold his kid, too,” Gus added, positioning the bench. “Wished I’d had enough money to buy her from ya. That Simone is a looker for sure.”

  “You sold her to Davis?” Harley questioned, as though Louis had lost his mind. “What about your friends, man?”

  Louis shrugged. “Ain’t a one of you that ever came to me posin’ such a question.”

  “For fear you would have kilt one of us,” Jervis interjected. “We all saw the way you decked old Flatnose last time she was in town and he dared to try to talk to her.”

  “Talkin’ wasn’t what Flatnose had in mind,” Louis replied matter-of-factly. This brought a hearty round of laughter from the table, which by now was filling up with additional men.

  “With a looker like your daughter,” Gus dared to say what every other man was thinking, “talkin’ wouldn’t have been my first choice, either.”

  Louis had never felt any real concern for Simone’s reputation or purity. What he had resented from the men at this table was the threat they had posed to his own security. To lose Simone to one of them would have meant losing his housekeeper, cook, laundress, pelt-skinner, and anything else Louis needed from his well-trained daughter. Now that he had plans to take himself to Colorado, Simone seemed to be a liability more than an asset.

  “Davis probably didn’t pay half what some folks might have been willing to give you,” Butterfield chimed in, while Harley took it upon himself to shuffle the cards.

  “Yeah, for one as purty as Simone and with the fact that she was still not knowin’ a man and all,” Gus said, “you probably could’ve got a real fortune for her.”

 
“Sure,” Jervis added, nodding. “Could’ve taken her with you to the mining town and sold her there.”

  “Could’ve sold her a buncha times,” another man said seriously. “I mean, look at Ada … and she ain’t near the looker your daughter is.”

  Louis let the men ramble on without saying much. In truth, their words disturbed him greatly. He hadn’t thought about the possibilities of Simone being of value to him outside of working around the house. It had never once dawned on him to sell her to his friends for their ongoing pleasure. In truth, before Jervis had mentioned her value as entertainment in the mining communities, Louis had never allowed his imagination to wander in that direction. He supposed it was because of the bitter memories he harbored of his mother. His father had put her to work selling her favors for whatever money it earned him, and Louis couldn’t know for sure, but he suspected there wasn’t a single one of the Dumas children who had the same father.

  Now as Louis began to contemplate the notion of selling Simone into prostitution, he found he feared he had committed a grievous error in judgment. The whole situation was beginning to wear Louis down.

  Ada sashayed across the floor, bringing drinks and smiles to the men. Louis could imagine Simone bringing a much higher class of clientele, with her mother’s petite but well-rounded figure and smoldering blue eyes. If they set themselves up in the right place, Simone might well be able to make upward to fifty dollars a night, maybe more. Somewhere deep down inside him, Louis knew that the idea of such a thing should be repulsive to him. But it wasn’t. What repulsed him was the idea of having lost a small fortune.

  “Yeah, it’s just too bad that Garvey Davis is enjoying her instead of one of us,” someone said.

  Louis began to think about the situation, and the more he thought about it, the more ideas came into his head. He could take Simone with him. Maybe he wouldn’t have to work if he did things right. He could set up a place for Simone to work instead. His father had done it, and it had certainly served him well enough—until his mother had run away. It wasn’t anything new. In fact, it was practically the oldest profession known to woman—and to man.

  Maybe Simone had already given Davis enough trouble to make him gladly turn her back over to Louis. Maybe he could just show up at the cabin and find the man desperate to be rid of Simone. Maybe, but not likely. Louis tried to concentrate on the cards being dealt him, but in truth, the idea of recovering Simone and taking her with him to Colorado had overrun his thoughts. He lost four straight hands in a row before realizing that he needed to make a choice. Either play cards or contemplate what to do about the girl. He couldn’t do both.

  He turned his mind back to the game and won a couple of hands before the ideas started churning once again. Think of the money to be made, he told himself. The girl isn’t just pretty, she’s a real beauty.

  Of course, she’d fetch more money if he saw to it that she was taken care of. He could give her a nice place to stay to conduct her business. He could even see to it that she had nice clothes so as to attract a better-paying customer. The thought of sitting pretty in a city house with plenty of food on the table, maybe a servant or two, so captivated Louis that he again lost a round of cards.

  “You don’t hardly seem yourself tonight, Louis,” Harley said as he took the pot.

  “Well, you know how it goes, Harley. There’s a lot to think about when a man is making a new life for hisself,” Jervis commented before picking up the cards to deal the next hand. “Throw in if you’re a-playin’ this hand.”

  The clink of coins on the wooden table caught Louis’s attention, but only long enough to make him throw his own coin in.

  “I heard tell that some city feller found gold not far from here in one of those old abandoned mines,” Jervis continued to chatter. “Says he believes the whole mountain to be full of gold. Maybe that land of yours was a gold mine and you didn’t even know it, Louis.”

  “Shut up, Jervis,” Louis growled, feeling ever more the fool.

  He scarcely even noticed when Ada laid her hands on his shoulders and began to knead his knotted muscles. Gold in these mountains seemed unlikely, but the golden opportunity Simone represented was another issue entirely. With her looks, she could be his ticket to ease and comfort, and yet he’d thrown her away for a mere pittance of what he might’ve been able to make.

  It was this point that settled the matter in his mind. He’d just go to Davis and take her back. He’d plead hindsight or some other notion, but he would persuade the man to see things his way. Of course, the man might need more than words to persuade him. It could very well take a good deal of the money Louis had in his pocket to settle the deal. Then again, maybe Davis could be convinced to see things Louis’s way without ever having to discuss money.

  Louis smiled and absentmindedly studied the cards in his hands. Why barter at all? Simone belonged to him, and she was underage. He’d just go and reclaim her whether Davis liked it or not. He’d blame it on the whiskey and challenge Davis to see it otherwise. If the man gave him too much trouble, he’d simply give him a beating he’d not soon forget. And if that didn’t do the trick, he’d kill him. After all, Davis was a stranger to these parts. Who’d even give a second thought if the man came up missing?

  Throwing in his cards, Louis got to his feet. “I’ve had enough of this. Don’t seem to be able to concentrate on cards.”

  “You’ve lost a fair bit of money,” Gus commented. “You sure you don’t want a chance to earn it back?”

  “I’ll figure another way to earn my money,” Louis replied, then nodded to Ada. For the second night in a row he was going to reject her offerings. Somehow it just didn’t hold the same intrigue anymore. Simone could clearly create a new future for him … and that was far more interesting.

  SIX

  SIMONE COUNTED TEN NIGHTS since departing her childhood home. She felt hopelessly overwhelmed by the vast territory she’d already covered. Especially given the fact that nothing of civilization seemed to present itself to her.

  Aching and sore, Simone stretched beneath her blanket and moaned. Never had she been forced to sleep on the ground outdoors. Her father never took her anywhere that required them to be gone from the cabin overnight, so she had always enjoyed the modest comfort of her own bed or the furry softness of the pelt shed. Now, more than ever, she questioned the sanity of her choice.

  Forcing her body to obey, Simone slipped out from beneath the warmth of her blanket and met the morning chill. The sun barely touched the morning sky, fading the blackness of night into a dull, gunpowder gray. Simone couldn’t help but sigh. She’d seen skies like this before, and usually they meant snow. Shuddering beneath her coat, Simone rubbed her hands together in a desperate attempt to keep warm. She longed for a roaring fire and a decent meal, but neither were to be had in the Wyoming wilderness.

  Glancing around at the scenery, Simone felt little comfort. There simply appeared to be no sign of a town or village anywhere. Her stomach rumbled and ached in a way that made her feel sick. She’d had very little to eat in the past week and a half. After the biscuits were gone, she’d turned to nature for food. She managed to shoot a rabbit but had no way to cook it. After contemplating the horror of eating the meat raw or going hungry, Simone had forced herself to eat part of the animal. She’d also skinned the scrawny thing and used the pelt to form a makeshift cap for herself.

  She knew she looked a fright. Upon gazing into the icy waters of the river she’d followed for the past three days she saw her reflection, where she appeared as a hodgepodge of cultural contrasts. Indian moccasins. Woolen skirt and faded calico shirtwaist, both handmade in a previous decade. And a coat so old and threadbare that it did little to cut the harsh cold of the mountain air. Simone had taken the beautiful fox and wolf pelts she’d stolen from her father and slipped them between the lining and outer material of her coat. She thought them better used there as they helped to ward off the biting wind. She’d even taken to wearing both sets of her clot
hes and wrapping the blanket around her coat for extra protection. It helped, but not much. The elements were simply too harsh and unyielding. The earth didn’t care if she died in a rocky crevice or was swallowed up in an ice-packed river. The earth didn’t care, and neither did any of mankind. She was the ultimate orphan. Abandoned and forgotten by all.

  She hoped she was forgotten—at least by the people of Uniontown. She could only cling to the possibility that no one knew of her father’s actions, and that even if they did, no one would attempt to strike up a bosom companionship with Garvey Davis. No one ever bothered to come to the cabin, and with any luck no one ever would. It might be months before anyone thought to wonder what had become of Davis and Simone.

  Reaching down to scoop up a handful of water, Simone grimaced at the thought of Davis. She again wondered how she could possibly live with the nightmarish images in her mind. She had condemned her father for murdering her mother and brother, and now she found herself no better. But maybe Davis isn’t dead, she reasoned with herself. Maybe the blow had only rendered him unconscious.

  She closed her eyes, shaking her head. It seemed foolish to hope that Garvey Davis was still alive. There had been too much blood. Even now she could see it pooling on the floor of the bedroom. She could still remember the stunned expression on his face. It even haunted her in her sleep, so that the past few nights she awoke screaming—fighting off invisible intruders. Shuddering uncontrollably, Simone forced the images from her mind. There had to be something better to dwell on.

  The sun peeked through the gray, and for a moment the rays seemed to touch Simone. Lifting her face to catch the warmth, she caught sight of the mountain range she’d gradually been making her way down. Her mind instantly went to the Psalms.

  “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.”

  The one hundred and twenty-first chapter of Psalms had been one of her mother’s favorites. Why she should remember such a thing at a time like this was beyond Simone. She wanted no part of remembering her mother or the God her mother had served. She wanted complete separation from anything that would remotely allow her to feel. Her heart was like stone, and Simone wanted it that way.