A Claim of Her Own

by Stephanie Grace Whitson

  “Is anything else missing?” Aron asked.

  Aunt Lou made a quick tour of the kitchen and pantry. “I had a nice roast all ready to slice for the lodgers’ lunch. Had it in this crock, covered with a towel.” She held out an empty crockery bowl.

  Mattie gazed at Aron. “Who destroys a woman’s room, steals food, and then leaves payment?” She lowered her voice. “This isn’t just someone who doesn’t like Aunt Lou. This is a crazy person who doesn’t like Aunt Lou. A crazy person with a weapon.”

  Aron nodded. He glanced at Aunt Lou. “Is it all right with you if I ask around a bit? See if I can learn anything?”

  Aunt Lou shrugged. “Whoever done this had to have made some noise. If no one came when it was happening …” She paused. “Ain’t nobody cares about a few things that belong to an old black woman.”

  “I care,” Aron said.

  “We both do,” Mattie agreed.

  “Then you do what you got to do,” Aunt Lou said even as she tied on her apron, “and I’ll get us a meal ready.” She busied herself lighting a fire in the cast-iron stove.

  Aron headed out the door, hesitating long enough to say to Mattie, “Lock this door until I get back. And keep your Colt handy.”

  The mirror … Jonas swore abominations, he cursed the Almighty above and the demons below … he raged and wept, and still, what he’d seen in the mammy’s mirror would not fade from memory. When he closed his eyes, it was there in his mind, that hideous, pockmarked, scarred, splotched thing that had once been his face.

  Ravenous, he tore at the stolen roast with his teeth, not caring that the juices soaked his beard and stained his shirt. What did it matter? He looked like an animal out of someone’s nightmares … he might as well live like one.

  The little witch … the gorgeous, unscarred, plotting, scheming, violet-eyed minx. It was her doing. All of it. If she hadn’t stolen from him, if she hadn’t cut him, he could have let her go. But a man in his position couldn’t let something like that go unpunished. He had to come after her. And if it weren’t for her … if it weren’t for her … He raged. He wept … and, exhausted, he finally slept.

  When he woke, Jonas had a new clarity about what would happen now. Before, his revenge had been of a general nature. He would have frightened both O’Keefes and gotten his money back. He would have made them beg. The punishment would have been painful, but Mattie would have healed. Even if she was scarred, he would have made sure it would be a hidden reminder. Like the scar on her arm. Something no one else would ever need to know about. A little secret just between the two of them.

  No more. Now his rage was purified. In the white heat of his own destruction he had gained a new clarity of purpose. Now he would not fail. He would kill Dillon O’Keefe, but only after he’d made him watch as he introduced Mattie to the same fate she had dealt him. As he was scarred, as his life was ruined, so would he scar and ruin her. Perhaps he would start with the brother. Or the dog. He would work up to Mattie. And then … oh, then.

  Jonas began to sharpen his hook.

  The freighters were two weeks out of Sidney when it began to snow. Swede had been watching the sky and feeling nervous for two days, willing the thick gray clouds away, reminding God that it was only mid-October even as she cracked her whip and tried to make Lars and Leif move faster.

  “Looks like we’re in for an early one,” Red Tallent said that night when they’d made camp. He lifted his cat down off his shoulders, where it seemed to be content to spend the greater part of every day, and set it in Eva’s cradle. Eva patted it gently—a skill learned after only a few warning scratches—and the cat lay across her lap and began to purr. Red puffed on his pipe thoughtfully. “Snow never lasts long this time of year,” he said. “Nothing to worry about.”

  Swede agreed. But she still worried. She just didn’t like the look of those clouds. And neither did any of the other freighters. Together they all decided to push through instead of resting their teams at noon the next day. Swede hated doing it, but this time she agreed with the others. They must hurry.

  For one full day, flakes skittered through the air and clung to the tall grasses in the sloughs. It wasn’t much of a snow, and the temperature didn’t drop below what was normal for that time of year. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief around their campfires that night and everyone slept well—although not as long as usual. They were up and moving a little after midnight, reasoning that with the hay in their wagons the load was lighter and it was reasonable to ask more of the oxen.

  The great beasts lowed their protests, and it took more than the usual amount of cracking whips to keep them moving for that long day, but if Red Tallent’s calculations were correct, they made twelve miles. And that was good. They had passed the halfway mark now. No one mentioned going back to Sidney. They would stick together. They would be fine.

  And then it was not fine at all. On day eighteen out of Sidney the clouds seemed to gain substance and the wind picked up. The oxen protested to the point that, although she hated doing it, Swede was forced to tickle their backs with the whip.

  “I am sorry,” she shouted into the wind, “but you must move now and move fast or you vill end up as dinner for stranded freighters, and ve do not vant dat.” The oxen pulled. They strained. The wagons rumbled. And the snows came.

  At least it was not a blizzard. Not yet. And Red was right. Usually at this time of year, even deep snow did not stay. After all, it was only October. They would be fine. It wasn’t so cold. Thank God she had purchased these pelts … and the hat. And Eva … sweet Eva was warmed with a rock Red Tallent had found and hefted into the fire last night, then wrapped with rags and placed in Eva’s box.

  “You take care of my Goldie now, little one,” Red had said earlier in the day as he deposited the yellow tabby next to Eva.

  “Go-dee,” Eva said, and patted Goldie’s head.

  There was not a blizzard that day. No, the blizzard came in the night. They hadn’t unyoked the oxen, but fed them where they stood and melted snow for drinking, so when the wind began to howl they would be ready. Ready to make two circles this time, one to be a corral for the oxen, and the other to give them shelter until they could build their own.

  It took most of the night to erect a kind of hogan, supported on one side by Swede’s wagon. They packed snow between the bottom of the wagon and the earth until it was a solid wall, blocking out the wind. Inside the shelter, they dug out what they could, and the rest they tamped down. One of the older men had spent time among the Indians and directed them to bank snow around the bottom rim and up the sides of the canvas. Then Red built a fire inside. They’d all been picking up buffalo chips during the day in anticipation of just this moment. Together, the dozen teamsters huddled beneath their makeshift shelter, prepared as best they could be to wait it out.

  As the forced joking and the tall tales of past challenges and storms ended, Swede took Eva in her arms and settled beneath her own pile of hides and worn comfortables.

  “Go-dee,” Eva demanded.

  “Shh.” Swede nuzzled her cheek. “Goldie is vit Mr. Tallent. We have each other—and de varm rock. Goldie helps Mr. Tallent stay varm.” Presently Eva’s breathing evened out. She began to snore softly. Swede lay awake listening to the wind, haunted by Tom English’s voice asking, “Have you considered Eva—and what being caught in a storm might mean for her?”

  CHAPTER 20

  For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.

  Proverbs 1:16

  What in the world? Mattie started awake. Something cold pressed against her cheek. Whimpered. And she chuckled. “All right, you little beggar.” Lifting the comfortable, she invited Justice into bed. He settled next to her and said thank-you with his pink tongue. “You’re welcome,” she said, and stroked his black fur. “I just hope you don’t snore.”

  Justice didn’t snore, but in the predawn hours Mattie woke again, this time because of the cold. She shivered as she crept out of bed and stoked the
fire in the small stove. It was going to be miserable prospecting today. As she made coffee and huddled by the stove, Justice wriggled out from beneath the covers and went to the tent flap.

  “All right,” Mattie said. “I hear you.” When she untied the flap she let out a gasp of surprise. The world had changed overnight and was now frosted with a thin layer of snow. Snow? It’s October. How could there be snow?

  “Good mornin’!” boomed Fergus McKay from where he sat by a raging campfire near the McKays’ tent. He gestured around him. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Beautiful?” Mattie called back. “It’s cold is what it is!”

  Fergus looked surprised. “You think this is cold? Oh, Mattie, m’love. You are not going to like winters in Deadwood Gulch.”

  With a shiver, Mattie ducked back inside. Donning as many layers as she could, she made herself a pile of flapjacks. The only good thing about the snow was that it was Saturday morning, and Aunt Lou was expecting her in town to help with her baking. And in Aunt Lou’s kitchen, with the huge iron stove going full blast, it would be warm.

  Aunt Lou. As Mattie headed down the gulch after breakfast, she thought back to the day they’d come in from church to discover the destruction of her room. Aron said the people he’d talked to since then seemed concerned, but there was little he could do when not a single hotel guest seemed to have heard or seen anything. Someone mentioned getting a glimpse of a vagrant lurking around the hotel, but no one thought that meant a thing. Vagrants didn’t leave gold dust in saucers.

  Aunt Lou’s response to the destruction still gave Mattie pause. She had repapered the walls of her room and mended the comforter. She’d bought a new mirror and, with Aron’s help, sanded the back of the door until it was smooth. And she sang. She sang when she cooked and she sang when she cleaned. She sang about a world of troubles and crossing Jordan and saints marching.

  Mattie didn’t understand it. “How can you be so … glib?” she’d asked one day.

  “I don’t even know what glib is, honey.”

  “Unconcerned,” Mattie explained. “You just don’t seem worried.”

  “No reason to worry. I lock my door at night, and beyond that I just leave it to that great big guardian angel watchin’ over me. He’s done a real fine job for nearly sixty years now and I don’t expect he’s gonna quit anytime soon.”

  Mattie didn’t understand it. But she admired it. In fact, she longed to feel the same way. When she expressed the longing, Aunt Lou nodded. “I know, child. I know. Aunt Lou longs for you to have it, too.”

  “So … how do I get it?”

  Aunt Lou smiled. “You quit tryin’ so hard to earn it, and you just accept the gift of what Jesus done for you. You take the free gift of His forgiveness and salvation and then you’re in His family. And the rest will come.”

  “I can’t,” Mattie said, touching the Colt in her pocket even as she choked back unexpected emotion.

  “I know, child, I know.” Without warning, Aunt Lou had pulled Mattie into her arms, and for a moment, Mattie had closed her eyes and just let herself be loved.

  Aron was lingering over Aunt Lou’s coffee when Mattie and Justice stepped into the hotel kitchen. “Brrrrr,” she shivered. “It’s good to be where it’s warm.”

  “Now, where’s that pup?” Aunt Lou asked. “I’ve been keepin’ him a nice ham bone just for today.”

  Mattie nodded outside. “He seems to think the snow is fun. At least in the daylight. The little hypocrite begged his way into my bed in the middle of the night. Now he can’t get enough of chasing around in it.”

  “He’s treed a squirrel or something,” Aron said and they all paused just long enough to listen to Justice barking.

  “I don’t think so,” Mattie said. “That’s a pretty serious bark.” Frowning, she stepped to the door and peered outside. “Justice!” she called. “Aunt Lou has a treat for you! Come!” The barking continued until Mattie had called three times. Finally Justice bounded down the embankment behind the hotel. Mattie looked down at him. “What’s out there, boy?”

  “Nothing worth missing a ham bone for, apparently,” Aron teased.

  “Phew,” Mattie said, wrinkling her nose. “Nothing like the aroma of wet dog in a kitchen.” She reached for a towel. Presently Justice was settled beneath the kitchen table happily involved with his ham bone, and Mattie and Aunt Lou were hard at work while Aron drank coffee. Mattie hummed as she worked and barely noticed when it began to snow again. But she did notice that Aron Gallagher seemed in no hurry to leave.

  By the time Aunt Lou and Mattie had fed the hotel guests dinner and begun to make pies, the snow was falling so hard they could barely see the chicken coop out back.

  “You best plan on staying in town tonight, honey,” Aunt Lou said, and Mattie agreed.

  When the last dried-apple pie was out of the oven and the last dish washed and ready for use the next morning, Mattie bade Aunt Lou good-night and made her way to the back door of Garth and Company. Tom English was still there, hunched over his ledger at the small table in the combination storeroom-kitchen.

  “Decided to be a weak woman and wait this storm out here in town,” she said, wiping Justice down and then hanging the old buffalo coat she’d bought from one of the miners on a hook by the door.

  “Wise of you,” Tom murmured as he looked outside.

  “You’re working late tonight.”

  “Not working so much as worrying.”

  Mattie looked around. “Where is Freddie, anyway? This is no night for that boy to be out hunting.”

  “Oh, Freddie will be fine,” Tom said. “He’s got little hidey-holes all over this area. He took me hunting once, and we got caught in a downpour, but we were sitting by a warm fire in a little cave almost before either of us got wet.” He paused. “It’s not Freddie I’m concerned about.”

  Mattie looked back outside. “You think it’s doing this down South?”

  “As far as I can tell this came from that direction.”

  She sat down at the table. “I see.”

  “So,” Mattie asked after a few moments of silence, “what do freighters do when they’re caught in a storm?”

  Tom shook his head. “They weather it. They don’t have a choice.”

  “I remember Swede telling me that a couple of the men she usually freights with used to live with Indians. They’ll know what to do.” Mattie reached over and patted Tom’s hand. “She’ll be all right. They won’t let anything happen to her.”

  He sighed. “Not if they can help it.” He looked out at the snow again. Shook his head. Finally, he stood up. “Well, I believe I’ve proven a man can’t worry snow away, so I’ll be going.” He nodded toward the stairs. “It’ll be really cold up there. If it were me, I’d bunk by the stove down here tonight.”

  Mattie agreed and took his advice.

  Justice barking at the back door brought her fully awake on Sunday morning, her hand at her gun. When she heard Tom’s key in the door lock, Mattie hastened to stoke the fire in the store. When she returned to the kitchen, she saw that Aron Gallagher had come in with Tom and was already setting the coffeepot on the stove.

  Mattie looked in question at him. He smiled and shrugged. “There’s going to be another rescue mission. Only this time it’s just Tom and me and a string of mules.”

  “You’re going after Swede and the others,” Mattie said.

  Aron nodded. “There’s no way to know if they’re all right or not, but Tom just can’t stop worrying.” He winked at her. “Mostly about the baby, to hear him tell it.”

  “How can I can help?”

  “Pack supplies,” Aron said, his arm sweeping toward the store. “Canned oysters. Meat. Anything that will travel well.”

  “Aunt Lou and I baked a dozen loves of bread yesterday,” Mattie said. “I know she’d be glad to—”

  “I’ll go get it,” Tom said, and left without another word.

  Mattie and Aron went into the main store and began se
tting supplies on a counter. “Is this—are they in serious trouble?” she asked.

  “No way to know,” Aron said, “although I’m inclined to believe they all have enough experience on the trail to weather it fairly well for at least a few days, and this time of year it should warm up again before too much longer.”

  Mattie blinked back tears. “I just can’t believe God would let anything happen to Swede or Eva.”

  Aron didn’t give her the answer she wanted. “His ways are not our ways” was all he said.

  “That’s not very comforting.”

  “Actually,” Aron said as he packed a saddlebag, “it can be very reassuring. Who needs a god they can understand—or order around, for that matter?”

  Mattie worked for a few minutes before blurting out a question. “How do you live with the things you don’t know about God?”

  Aron smiled without looking her way. “By clinging to the things I do.”

  Mattie recited the litany of things she’d heard in his sermons. “Hope. Eternity. God plans. God knows. God allows. God permits. All for our good and His glory.” She didn’t try to keep the mocking tone from her recitation.

  “I’m glad you’ve been listening. That’s a good start.” He paused. “I just hope you take things past the list you just repeated.”

  “Aunt Lou says faith just gets dumped on a person.”

  Aron chuckled. “I suppose it does sometimes.”

  “Well, that’s probably what it’s going to take if I’m ever going to change what I think of preachers and sermons.” She glanced at Aron and hurried to correct herself. “Present company excluded, of course.”

  “Thank you. I’ll accept that as a compliment, especially coming from a woman who my friend Tom says has a highly developed manure detector.”

  Aron and Tom had talked about her? What did that mean? Mattie climbed a ladder sitting in front of the shelves and began handing down canned meat. As she descended the ladder, Aron took her arm. She’d reached the third rung from the bottom when he grasped her around the waist and lifted her down.