HT02 - Sing: A Novel of Colorado

by Lisa T. Bergren

  “Odessa,” he said, from over her left shoulder.

  “Bryce,” she said, not turning.

  She stiffened as he wrapped his strong arms around her waist and leaned his head in to kiss her shoulder and then her neck. They stood there for a minute in silence. To Odessa, it felt strange, almost as if she were getting to know her husband again. “I need to tell you what is on my mind,” he said.

  “I’ve been waiting for that …” She turned to him and he took Samuel from her, bouncing him in his arms for a moment. “Is this about why you seem so … distant?”

  “Most likely,” he said grimly. He lifted his free hand up to pinch his forehead, as if massaging away pain there again. Together, they walked to an open window, one that gave them a view of an empty corral and beyond it, the wide fields and towering mountains that bordered their ranch. “I was already worried, before the strangles. We were late in breeding.”

  She nodded. She knew there was always pressure to breed sooner rather than later. The earlier a future racehorse was born in the spring, the better chance he had in his age group. The better he performed, the better his breeder did in future sales. While none of the ranch’s horses had gone to racehorse buyers recently, in years past up to a third had. And that third was so valuable; it doubled their annual income. This year the yearlings, having been born late, would not be as highly sought after, and they’d lost half of them in the storm. Another two were now quarantined for strangles. And they were already a month behind in breeding for the next year’s sales due to the blizzard.

  She wrapped her hand around his waist. “We are not God, Bryce. Only the Lord controls the weather. The light. The mares will not begin their cycle until there is enough light.”

  He swallowed hard and stared out. “Last fall Robert suggested I build the snowbreaks, and also three new barns and stable units, dividing the men to care for subgroups of the horses through the winter. He asked me to do it, outright. He’d read about breeding operations that bring their breeding dams in early, and light many lanterns throughout, day and night, so the horse thinks it’s later in the spring than it really is.”

  “You thought it foolish,” she said quietly.

  “I thought it meddlesome. I told him to mind his own business, to pay attention to his ships rather than my horses. I thought, Why do mechanically what God does naturally? We’ve done well in the last decade on this ranch. The expense of those new barns and stables, let alone the increased number of hands we would’ve had to hire, feeding them—and you with a new baby—I thought it ludicrous. Greedy. And the new land … we’d already pushed as far as I was willing to go.”

  Odessa sighed heavily. She leaned her cheek against his shoulder. “You made the best decision you could with the information you had at the time. I know how it must feel, how you are beating yourself. But what if you had agreed to it? Undertaken the task, the expense? We might have only had ten, twelve mares already impregnated? That wouldn’t put us so much further ahead.”

  He lifted his chin and stared up at the roof of the stables. His demeanor was easing, his shoulders more relaxed as he shared his burdens with her.

  “Will I like your brother, Bryce?” she asked carefully.

  He laughed then, a quick snort of air through his nose. A mare edged her nose over a stable stall and he stepped over to give her a good rub. Samuel closed his eyes and opened them wide in surprise, then turned his head away as if it were all too much to take in. “You’ll like him. Most everyone does. Truth be told, I do too.”

  She moved over to him. “I want us to remember where we’ve been, Bryce. Four years ago, standing here together, just holding our child would’ve seemed impossible. Ever since that day with Reid, I committed to trust God, with whatever breath I had left, with as many breaths as I had left. He holds our lives in His hands, Bryce. Our past. Our present. Our future.”

  Her husband nodded. “I know it.”

  “And this has been a terrible month. We’ve suffered terrible losses. But we are here. We are alive. We are healthy. Think of it! Neither of us has even had a consumptive attack since we left the sanatorium!”

  “It’s you,” he said softly, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close. “You are my medicine.”

  “Love has done us both good,” she whispered. “But it is God that grants us life. We must praise Him, Bryce. Even when it’s hard. Even when all seems dark. We must remember what is good, what is true, rather than believe fears and half-truths. That is how we cope with the day. That is how we keep living our lives the way He would have us live them, embracing them rather than just surviving them.”

  “Amen,” he said, leaning back to look her in the eye.

  She laughed through a big sigh. “All right, I’ll quit preaching. But I’m right, aren’t I? Come what may—even if we lose all, we always have our God, our hope.”

  “And each other,” he said, kissing the top of her head.

  “How is it that no man has claimed your heart, Miss St. Clair?” Gavin asked as they strolled around the deck of the steamship. Both were wrapped in heavy coats, the spring sea barely hospitable for a walk outside, but neither could tolerate another day without at least a few moments in fresh air.

  “I will not allow any man to ever claim my heart,” she said, glancing up to measure his reaction.

  He laughed, lifting his chin upward, and then tucking it again. “You are quite original, aren’t you?”

  “I like to think so.”

  “Rest assured, you are.” They tried to stroll, but the heavy sea made it a bit of a challenge. “You do not wish for children?”

  “I will leave the breeding to my sister. She has had a child. While I wish to visit her, see my nephew, there is nothing in me that wants one of my own. I want the stage. I want a career. That is my child. And you, Gavin? Are you in pursuit of a suitable wife?”

  He slanted a glance down at her from the side. “My parents would like that. But I am not much tempted toward life at home. While I find distinct pleasure in the company of women, I fear that I would be a despot of a husband, always away.” He shook his head. “No, a marriage would only be a strain on both my wife and me. She would feel forgotten, ignored. And I know enough of women to understand that is never a good thing.”

  “You are wise, accepting the truth of your life. And you are right. Not many women could tolerate such a marriage. How often do you get home?”

  He pursed his lips, considering. “In the last three years, I have been home no more than three months.”

  She leaned closer to him. Any man who spent that much time seeing to his business was bound to be quite successful. Success would explain his air of confidence, his fine clothing, his casual references to the exotic. “Tell me about some of your adventures, Gavin. Where have you been? What have you seen?”

  He smiled. “Let us go inside. If these waves keep up, we’re liable to be tossed overboard.” He opened the door to the large central parlor room, where many already sat, huddled in groups around pot-bellied stoves, trying to get warm, swaying with the deep waves. He gestured toward a small settee in the corner, and she fairly fell into it with the motion of the ship, pulling a woolen blanket around her shoulders while he went to fetch some tea. A few ladies glanced her direction, narrowing their gazes judgmentally. But Moira couldn’t care less. Her business was none of their concern. Gavin returned with two tall cups of steaming tea on a small platter and placed one before her on the table. The cups were wider in the body and smaller at the rim, allowing seafaring passengers to keep more inside and spill less. On the saucer were two rectangular shortbread cookies, her favorite. “You remembered.”

  “Ah yes. I am making it a point to commit to memory everything about you, Moira.”

  “You flatter me.” It was reassuring, familiar to have a man’s complete attention again, and particularly enjoyable that it was a man as dashing as Gavin Knapp.

  “So … you wished to know of my travels. I have been
to every continent and many countries in each. Of which region do you wish to hear?”

  Moira took a sip and considered him. She imagined him in his travels around the world, much like an actor in one of her plays at the opera house. What costume would suit him best? Should she dress him in the soft, flowing desert costume of a sheik, riding a camel? Or in the light, flowing silks of the Burmese atop an elephant? Or the crisp-shouldered jacket of the Japanese? All at once, she could imagine this man everywhere, ’round the globe. He seemed to fit anywhere she imagined him, a chameleon of sorts. “Have you been to the Great Wall? I’ve yet to meet anyone who has been to China, or Mongolia.”

  “Please, call me Marco,” he said with a twisted grin.

  Her breath caught. “As in, Marco Polo?”

  He took a sip of tea and then set his cup down on the saucer. “I made it a point to trace as much of his route as possible while in the region. I stayed in foul-smelling tents they call yurts in Mongolia. Walked miles of the Great Wall—you’d be amazed at how much still stands, and disappointed at how much has been carried away to erect new buildings. In one region, they have these most remarkable cliffs that rise from the sea like massive monoliths, green and foreboding. The natives sail among them like innocents ignoring sea monsters about to strike.”

  Moira clapped her hands in delight. “Tell me more! What of the people? Did they welcome you? How did you capture the language? Did you have an interpreter? How did you manage to conduct business in such a foreign land?”

  Gavin laughed and made a motion with both hands to try to settle her. “It was marvelous. I look forward to the day I can return. Perhaps you can accompany me,” he said casually. “The Chinese would be quite fascinated with an American singer. And you, my dear … would be a veritable phenomenon.”

  She smiled. “Let me endure this voyage and then we shall speak of travel again.”

  He nodded. “And yes, I was properly welcomed, and my interpreter most likely was the one to thank for that. Business is conducted as it has been done for a thousand years. If I want what another has, I am willing to pay for it. And undoubtedly, I have what someone else is willing to pay for. It’s rather simple, really, trade. Straightforward. I like that aspect.”

  Moira spotted Daniel, who had just entered and appeared to be pulling on a coat for a walk outside. “You’ll need a scarf and gloves today, Daniel,” she called gaily. “It’s much colder than yesterday.”

  He lifted his chin in recognition of her words, glanced her way as if he wished he didn’t have to, then, spying Gavin beside her, quickly looked away. Strange man, that one. Was he interested or was he not? She shook her head and focused on her less mysterious, more forthright companion, sitting beside her. “And so, Gavin, after all your travels, all you’ve seen of the world, and the little you know of me … do you think New York will welcome me as Paris and London did?”

  He squinted his eyes and peered at her. Then his eyes lit up. “The city will undoubtedly bring you the patronage you seek. But why not head toward Adams’s Colorado? Or Nevada? Are you so well mannered and of society that you cannot see the coin to be made in the frontier?”

  She frowned, trying not to shake her head at the thought. It would be rude.

  He stared at her and laughed, a pleasant, low rumbling sound. “Now, hear me out, Moira. Take the Chinamen of which we just spoke. You made what in Paris? Twenty, maybe thirty francs a night?”

  She did the math in her head, exchanging English pounds for French francs. “About that.”

  He nodded appreciatively. “A decent sum for a young opera star. But what if I told you that in China, you could command triple what you were paid in Europe?”

  It was her turn to raise a brow. “It might be worth a voyage.”

  “And what if,” he said, leaning a bit closer to her, “I told you that you could sing in the mining towns of Colorado and earn quadruple what you were paid?”

  Her hand went to her chest. “You jest.”

  He smiled and leaned back. “No. I tell you the truth. It’s all about trade. You want to sing. They want to hear a singer. For some, they just want to lay eyes on a woman. And when the woman is as handsome as you—”

  “I can’t return to Colorado. There are people … people who don’t wish to see me return and prosper.”

  “So steer clear of them,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Change your name.”

  “You do not speak of opera houses.”

  He paused. “No. Entertainers in those regions … they take any stage they can. Sometimes it’s the top of a piano. Sometimes it’s a bar.”

  “A bar!”

  He smiled. “Are you so provincial that you’ve never set foot inside a bar?”

  “Well yes, I suppose I am.”

  “Then, Miss Moira, I submit that you are ignoring a valuable trade opportunity. Take it from me. If you traveled from town to town in Colorado, you’d be a sensation. I’ve been there, on other business. I can see it, plain as day. They would throw money at your feet.”

  “And sing what?” she scoffed. “Something from La Traviata? Mining towns hardly draw the caliber of patron who would appreciate such songs.”

  “You judge them prematurely. The lure of gold, silver, has made many a man in established professions depart for unknown territory, all on the promise of potential, no guarantees. There are attorneys, accountants, professors out there, laboring over sluices, as we speak.”

  “And failed farmers or day laborers,” she added.

  “Them as well. But collectively, they care not what you sing. You may well sing of Verdi’s fallen woman, or a satire, or a saloon belle’s song.”

  She choked on her tea. This man knew opera. A layman. A businessman, who knew opera!

  “Are you quite all right, my dear?” he asked, frowning and leaning toward her.

  “Fine, fine,” she said with a strangled voice, blushing with embarrassment.

  “These men only wish to see a beautiful woman singing beautiful music,” he went on. “It helps some of them to remember where they began, helps them remember home. Perhaps in doing that, Moira, you would find your sense of home as well.”

  “Do you have the impression that I am missing home?” she said, surprised by his insight. And yet she couldn’t really argue against it. A part of her did miss family, yet a bigger part still longed to make a mark in the world. She had just begun to feel that in Paris.…

  “Moira, you might love it, out there on the frontier.”

  She set down her cup. “Love it? I’ve lived in Colorado before. We went to seek the cure for my elder sister, Odessa.”

  Gavin blinked in surprise but remained silent as she went on. “I love that the mountain air cured my sister, but I didn’t love living on the frontier.”

  “Where did you live?” Gavin asked.

  “I was in Colorado Springs. And I heard the only way to get around in the mountains is in a rickety carriage, traveling among horrible, mud-soaked roads. That hardly speaks of any kind of home that I might be longing for.” What did this man know of her, really? He didn’t know of how hard she had worked to get this far, to achieve what she had. And now he suggested she relinquish her hard-won reputation for … what, exactly? He didn’t even know!

  “Of course there might be risks, challenges. But think about it. We began this conversation speaking of trade. And I see significant opportunity here. A singer without a stage. Many stages without a singer. You’ve made one of the finest stages in the world—Opera Comiqué—your own. Why not carve out yet another niche for yourself?” He rose with her, sensing her irritation. “If you dare.”

  “If I dare!” she sputtered.

  “If you dare,” he said with a grin.

  The storm had been building for days. Daniel knew after a turn around the deck and from the gruff expressions of the sailors he passed that it would be a rough night. He turned into his tiny private cabin several hours later, eyeing the door five down that he knew was Moira�
�s. For all her worldliness, the girl was young and somewhat naive. Did she fully recognize the dangers of being at sea—and from men such as Gavin Knapp?

  He stood there a moment, wondering what it was about the little spitfire that so intrigued him. Perhaps it was that she was so utterly different than his wife … Mary had been quiet, almost stoic. They could spend hours in companionable silence, communicating at times with a single look or gesture. Theirs had been the most peaceful relationship he’d ever known, and yet deeply passionate.

  Daniel looked down the hall again, imagining Moira inside. That one wore her passion on her sleeve. He closed the door, deciding Moira St. Clair was no concern of his. He was to look after his boss’s shipment and return to his quiet life in Leadville. That was his only charter.

  He climbed into his bunk and rocked against the side panels, so heavy were the seas. He forced himself to think of Mary, finding comfort in familiar old sorrow rather than the agitation of new intrigue. Mary, dear God, Mary … more than two years ago now …

  Daniel awoke when a wave hit the ship with such force that he rolled over the barrier bar and onto the floor. He blinked, trying to see anything in the India-ink darkness and make sense of where he was. The wave passed and he rolled back again, hitting the bunk with a grunt. He grasped hold of the wood and hauled himself upright. Outside in the hallway he could hear faint calls for help, moaning. Were people injured?

  He found his trousers and fell into his bunk to put them on, leaning against the next wave, swiftly buttoning them with one hand and holding on to the far side panel as the boat rocked to nearly a forty-five degree angle. If this kept up, they would be in danger of capsizing. They needed to get upstairs, to the parlor, all the passengers. Somewhere they’d have a chance of escaping.

  Daniel tried to move cautiously to the door, but was again thrust to the far side of his narrow room. He grimaced and felt for the knob, found it and pulled it open. In the hallway a lantern swung from a central hook, confirming what he already knew. The ship was in trouble. Ten passengers were already in the passageway. “Get upstairs!” he barked. “To the parlor! If we go over, we need to be up there to escape!”