Forgiven (3 page)

One man took a turn around the long room and came and sat next to me on the bench and cleared his throat. He was outfitted in an old, out-of-fashion frock coat. His shoes were scuffed. I twisted my head away and leaned my arm against the rest.

“Know yer way around Bozeman, then?”

I glanced; a mistake. For one instant, with his hungry expression, he looked like Snake-eyes. In that instant the fear must’ve been plain as day on my face. I drew up, but not before a sly smile played on his lips.

“You traveling alone? Course you are.”

“I have friends in Bozeman.”

“Whereabouts?”

My heart hammered. I had no idea whereabouts. Pa said Mrs. Gale would fetch me at the station in Bozeman.

“Pretty gal like you, traveling alone. Darn shame.” His voice dropped. “You maybe a Crow? Or Sioux?”

“No.”

“Sure,” he said. “Sure thing.” He slid down the bench right up next to me. “I know gals like you. Can’t fool me.”

My hands tightened around the drawstring of my reticule. “I’ve got a knife handy, right here. You don’t move away, I’ll stick you.” I kept my voice low and even, hoping he wouldn’t hear the tremor hiding behind it.

He clicked his tongue, but slid back to the far corner of the bench. After a minute he moved off, and I let the air out of my lungs.

This was not my dream, where I was treated so. My gentleman would treat me decent.

On the train as it climbed up and over the Bozeman pass through snow-covered hills and under gray skies threatening new snow, a knot grew in my stomach, tighter than a burr in sheep’s wool. I touched the key again, felt it beneath my shirt.

The train eased into the station in a cloud of steam. I made my way down the steps and found my trunk. The porter who pulled it off the train for me took in my meager offering of pennies and frowned. I frowned right back, knowing from experience, from my years of service, just what he was thinking. Those pennies would have to do. I had no more to give him.

From behind me came, “Miss Kula?”

The voice was so unexpected that I turned sharp as glass. I looked down into the anxious face of a boy who stood twisting his cap. “I’m Caleb, Miss Kula. I do for Mrs. Gale from time to time, and she sent me to fetch you.”

I relaxed. He seemed more nervous than I was. “I see. How did you know . . .”

“It was you?” He smiled. He was pleasant enough, maybe three or four years younger than me. “She told me. She said you were pretty. Dark-haired. Native-looking.” At this last he blushed.

As well he should have.

I narrowed my eyes. “My trunk.” I pointed, leaned toward him. “Don’t go getting any ideas,” I said low.

“No, miss, I sure wouldn’t. Never. No.” He stared at me, abashed, and I realized with a shock that it was the first time anyone had ever called me “miss.” The very first time, in all my years. I forgave him right then.

I stood straight and mustered up a smile. “Then I’m sure we’ll be friends.” I stuck my hand out. “Friends?”

He pulled back from my hand as if it would bite. He nodded. Then he took my trunk and dragged it out across the platform and through the station to a small carriage waiting by the curb.

As I made to get into the carriage he stuck out his hand to help me up. “Friends,” he said, soft and shy, as our hands met.

Caleb drove down Bozeman’s main street. I’d never seen so many shops in one place. This was nothing like Gardiner, let alone Mammoth.

“That’s the greengrocer,” Caleb said. “There’s the pharmacy.”

Such a variety of people, all dressed fine, even though wrapped against the chill wind. Such a hubbub and slop, garbage and calling out.

“Lookie!” shouted Caleb, and he laughed. He pointed at the horseless carriage belching and rattling down the street in front of us. When it pulled over with a whine and a clattering halt, Caleb shouted, “Get a horse!” as I twisted right around in my seat to eyeball the thing.

Such noise and confusion reigned that if I hadn’t been in control of myself I’d have slapped my hands over my ears and shut my eyes. The ride to Mrs. Gale’s house may have taken ten minutes, but it felt like ten hours.

And then—there she was. In the middle of the chaos. Min.

She glided down the street, head bowed, hands clutched at her middle. I lifted my own hand to call out to her but drew back just in time. For she’d walked right up to someone I knew, even if he was dressed decent. Even if he did sport a waxed mustache and a shiny star on his lapel. She walked up to Snake-eyes, and it was clear from the way he laid his hand on her: she belonged to him. Bitter saliva filled my mouth.

Snake-eyes. Min was his. And he was the law.

Chapter
THREE

November 28, 1905

 

 

 

 

I TUGGED AT CALEB’S SLEEVE, POINTED. “IS THAT THE SHERIFF?ʺ I could hardly choke the words out.

“Him? Don’t know him. But that looks like a marshal’s badge. Must be from someplace else.”

And Min. There she was. Almost like I’d conjured Min by thinking of her. And she was connected with him. My skin was a prickle all over, and that closed-in space feeling came over me and I smelled a trap, set and ready.

Kula Baker knows predators.

Pa’d said he’d come for me here when he was ready. I had to bide my time working for Mrs. Gale. Now I’d be biding with a wary eye and a worried heart until Marshal Snake-eyes returned to his someplace else. I put my hand up to hide my face as we drove by.

We turned onto a broad avenue heading south, and I let out a long breath and shoved the thought of Snake-eyes from my mind.

“There it is,” said Caleb. “Mrs. Gale’s.”

I knew Mrs. Gale was a photographer who sold her photos, as well as being a widow of independent means. That was a startling fact all by itself—that she worked. But now that I approached her town home I saw Mrs. Gale through fresh eyes, and wide ones at that.

Her house was the largest I’d ever seen up close, a brick three story with a full front porch like the one on the National Hotel in Mammoth, with tall windows draped in lace. A neat little picket fence surrounded the front yard with its sprawling bare-branched elm.

Mrs. Gale herself came to the door when Caleb rang. She was just as I recalled her: bright-eyed, plump, thick fingers of gray woven through the brown coils of her rolled-up hair. I curtsied, a rare thing for me. I was humbled by all this splendor.

“Kula.” Mrs. Gale smiled. “No need for formalities here. Come in.” She drew me into a front hall larger than most houses.

Caleb followed me in with my trunk; I slipped my fingers into the bow of my bonnet while my eyes swept this grand space.

Mrs. Gale lectured on about mealtimes and expectations and duties and other things I should be attending to. But my senses were otherwise occupied. I stopped in front of the tall clock in the hallway and listened to its deep, slow tock.

“Because I live alone, I have no cook, so you’ll help in the kitchen as well.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I murmured.

“Let’s see you to your room.” She turned and led me up the stairs.

The window that faced the landing was stained glass, a picture of a girl admiring flowers in a vase. I stopped on the landing and traced my fingers over the smooth glass, over the lead that held the glass together, over the body of the girl with her pretty white gown, the gray light coming through the glass and staining my fingers red and deep purply blue and yellow. Fruitlike, ripe and luscious.

I wanted to be that girl. I could be that girl. If I found myself the right husband.

“Kula?”

I went on up the second flight.

“There’s no need for you to sleep on the servant’s floor with just the two of us in the house. I didn’t take on boarders this winter. Both our rooms are here on this floor. That one’s mine, and here’s yours.”

I had my own room. My own. I stepped into the room with Mrs. Gale.

“Are you all right, my dear?”

I raised my fingers to my face and rubbed my cheeks dry.

“I’ll leave you here. When you’re ready, come downstairs and join me for tea.” Mrs. Gale went back downstairs, leaving me in my room.

My own room—with a bed, my own bed, a real four-poster with a lacy canopy. With linen sheets. With a private water closet, my own private water closet with a pull chain toilet that I flushed three times in a row just to watch the water wind down in the shiny white bowl.

I sighed. I knew who would be cleaning that shiny white bowl. Still . . . I had my own wardrobe, with hangers for my clothes. My own writing desk and chair.

The seat on my chair was embroidered with a stitch so fine it made my fingers ache.

Caleb had left my trunk in the middle of my room. I bent and unlatched it. I had a few nice things: the pale lemon shawl Maggie had given me, her blue velvet gown. Pa doled out most everything from the runs to his men, or sold it. He didn’t want to turn my head with pretty baubles. Except for the few books he’d given me, everything else I had I’d earned myself.

I was ready to change all that. Ready for a man to raise me up.

When I joined Mrs. Gale, she’d set out the teapot and a plate of sugar cookies in the front parlor.

“This is a fine house,” I said into my teacup.

“Kula, I like you. I know you’ve had a hard life. You’ll work hard here, too, but when your father asked me, I took you in because I like your company.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I was pretty certain Mrs. Gale’s notion of hard work was nothing like the ill treatment I’d received from time to time in the past. Still and all, I was a servant. I knew what would be expected of me.

Kula Baker won’t be taken for a fool.

 

I lay in bed that night and recalled how I’d parted from Pa what seemed a hundred years ago but was in fact only this morning and that key he’d handed to me, saying, “Keep this key close.”

“What’s it open?” I’d asked.

Pa had glanced at Gus, who stood nearby, waiting in the slant dawn light with the pair of horses to ride with me into Mammoth to catch my coach. “You’ll know if the time comes. Choices. But just remember, not all choices are easy, girl.”

“Pa, I don’t understand. Please come with me. Let’s go together. Don’t send me off alone.” I whispered it so low I was sure he didn’t hear me. Sure he didn’t hear me because he stepped back and let Gus hold the mare’s head for me. All he did was lift his hand good-bye before he turned away.

Now I lay in the pitch-dark strange room in Mrs. Gale’s house and ached all over in spite of the soft feather mattress. I wasn’t truly sure why Mrs. Gale had taken me in and was acting so nice to me. I wasn’t sure at all what I’d do if I ran into Snake-eyes or even Min on the street. I wasn’t sure about a thing in my life, not even Pa.

I loved my pa. How I loved my pa. But for me love alone wasn’t enough.

Chapter
FOUR

November 1905—March 1906

 

 

 

 

WINTER BLANKETED BOZEMAN, COLD AND DRY. SNOW FELL from the sky at regular intervals, smoothing the rocky, bare-limbed edges of the city.

I worked for Mrs. Gale, but it was easy work. I still wasn’t sure of her intentions—what kind of lady didn’t work her servants hard?—but her kindly demeanor let me down gentle. For one thing, she truly admired my skill with the needle. My embroidery was good, that I knew, but it meant something to me to hear Mrs. Gale say as much.

And I was also quick with numbers—my pa had taught me—and Mrs. Gale let me help her with her affairs. I cleaned, but she was such a tidy person by nature and things were so well scrubbed to begin with that it was like putting the polish on a church.

I learned from her how to cook in ways other than over a campfire and with ingredients like anchovies (which I did not like) and capers (which I did). And I learned to eat at a table laid with more implements set out only for the two of us than outfitted Pa’s entire camp. Sometimes, gazing at the finery around me, I wondered at it all.

Growing up with outlaws made me a hard case, especially for a woman, and I still couldn’t figure why Mrs. Gale took me on and treated me so kind. There were many rocky, bare-limbed edges of my own to be smoothed, and Mrs. Gale was a fine-grit sandpaper.

After my first few weeks in Bozeman, Caleb and I did the regular shopping together. I never let up keeping my eyes open for that devil Marshal or for Min, like worrying about running into a bear that lurked unseen in the woods, but town shopping became my delight. I determined not to let worries rule my life. As Caleb loaded the grocery items, I wandered the dry goods aisle of the general store, fingering satin and lace ribbons and sniffing jars of cold cream. Then Caleb and I would spend a handful of pennies on small glasses of Coca-Cola at the soda fountain just so I could stare after the ladies and examine their fashionable costumes. One day, perhaps that would be me . . .

A few times I caught the eyes of men. Men who seemed quite proper and of means. I took to mimicking the actions of the ladies—tried to put a lick of polish on my figure even to the point of acting shy and demure, which was so against my nature. And I listened, and polished up my speech by imitation, too, so I could meet my opportunities with a gracious tongue.

On one of those occasions a young man smiled and tipped his hat. He approached me and would have engaged me in a conversation if Caleb had not appeared at my elbow, tugging at me like an annoying little brother. I hid my disappointment, but gave the young man a willing smile.