Squire's Quest Page 7

  Pa lit a lamp and gestured for her to sit on the only chair in the place. "What happened to your hair?"

  "I cut it. Seemed like I'd be safer traveling as a boy. Pa, don't you care that Ma's dead?" She wanted to cry. She'd been so sure he'd welcome her with open arms. Be glad to see her.

  "Can't do nothing about it, can I? First thing we'll do is get you some proper clothes. It's not fitting, you wearing britches." He turned to Merlin. "You lay a hand on her, boy?"

  His fists clenched and she could see him holding back the words he wanted to speak. "She's a little girl. I've got sisters."

  Pa's suspicious expression didn't change. "How'd you hook up with her?"

  "She was alone and hungry. I had food, so I shared. When I found out we were headed the same direction, I told her she could ride along with me." His body stayed stiff and straight and his fists didn't open.

  She was real glad he hadn't told Pa the whole story. "He even bought me a molly to ride. I'd been afoot since I got off the train. He treated me real nice, Pa. Just like I was his sister. When we joined up with the freight train, he kept us apart so nobody suspected I was a girl."

  One dirty hand scratched in the thick beard. "But he knew."

  Merlin spoke up before she could. "I guessed. Like I say, I've got sisters. She doesn't move like a lad."

  "Then I'm obliged to you. I'll take care of her now." He stepped to the door and opened it.

  Merlin looked over at her. "Cal? You want me to leave Ruth at the yard?"

  "Ruth? Who's that?"

  "She's my molly, Pa." She felt like crying. She couldn't believe Pa was just running him off, but there was no give in his expression. "If you've no use for her, I'd like that." She swallowed hard. "Merlin, I--"

  Pa made an impatient noise and jerked his head toward the outside.

  "Remember what I told you at the gate? Well, that still holds. Take care, Cal. Maybe we'll meet up again someday." He stepped through the door and Pa shut it behind him.

  "Now then, girl, let's talk about what I'm to expect of you. This ain't no place for a decent woman, but since you're here, we'll be making sure nobody thinks badly of you." His eyes seemed to flicker with green fire, but it was probably just the lamplight. "First thing, we'll get you dressed proper. Then we'll find work for you, so the Devil won't find else for you to do."

  * * * *

  Merlin caught up with the freight train two days out from Virginia City. He'd thought about striking east and south, for Denver, or maybe St. Louis. On consideration, he decided he needed to earn some cash money to replace what he'd spent on Cal--Callie. Consarn it, her name was Callie. Murphy had offered him guard's wages.

  Gold camps weren't all they were cracked up to be. Not the ones he'd seen, anyhow. He sure wished he'd been older, more Buff's age. His brother's adventures in the gold camps had only fed his own yearning. Even Luke, his brother-in-law, had done exciting things, driving cattle from Texas to the railheads in Kansas.

  Wonder if they still have those drives. There was a railroad in Ogden, and he'd never seen one. If I was to get on the train, I could go to Kansas, see what's happening there.

  * * * *

  November 29, 1869

  Dear Ma and Pa,

  I know I promised to write once a month, and I did, but never got the letter mailed. I'm fine. A fellow who's coming that way is going to take Cap and Bul along with him, so watch for them. I've decided to take a train East, see what I can find there.

  Virginia City is just like the towns in the Basin. Folks are still finding gold, but there's not much else going on. Lots of empty buildings. The most exciting thing that happened was when some rowdies tried to make the freight train I was traveling with pay toll. We convinced them otherwise.

  I met a young fellow, Cal Smith. He's with his father in Virginia City now, but I'm not sure he's going to stay there. I told him how to get hold of you, so if he does, can you help him out? I'm pretty sure his father's a bad man. He's about Reggie's age.

  I'll be here in Ogden for a while. Got me a job with a blacksmith. He's teaching me to mount tires on wagon wheels. I got the job because Abel taught me how to shoe a horse. Tell him I'm obliged. I figure I'll head East in a couple of months.

  If you want to write to me, send it to General Delivery, Ogden. I'll check every week or so.

  Your loving son,

  Merlin Silas Lachlan

  * * * *

  Boise City, Idaho Territory

  Mid-December, 1869.

  Hattie Lachlan set the letter on the table beside her plate. "He sounds disappointed he didn't have a great adventure."

  "He is. He feels like he missed all the fun in the gold camps. I hope he finds his adventure, but just not too much of it." Emmet picked it up and folded it. She knew he'd put it in the same drawer where he kept all their children's letters.

  "I almost hope he doesn't have any adventures at all, even though I know he will. Oh, Emmet, what if..."

  He rose and came around the table. His hard hands came down on her shoulders with a comforting pressure. "Hattie girl, we did the best we can. He's got manners and a fair education. He can shoot with the best of them and knows which end of a knife is sharp. And even though it was a terrible thing, what he went through after the cat almost killed him taught him some good lessons. He's a lot more wise than Buff was when we put him on that ship for England." Bending forward, he kissed her cheek. "Only thing worrying about him will do is give you more gray hairs."

  She tipped her head back and looked into his eyes. "Mothers worry. It's part of our job."

  "Of course it is. But you'd be better off worrying about that daughter of ours. Three boys walked her home from school yesterday. Did she tell you?"

  "Three? Oh, my word. I'll have a talk with her." She heard him chuckle as she headed for the stairs. She'd warned Regina about the dangers of leading boys on.

  As she climbed, she whispered a quick prayer for her sons' safety--both of the wandering ones. If only they didn't have so much of their father in them. Emmet had had his share of adventures before he settled down. Dangerous adventures.

  * * * *

  Callie stayed in her pa's cabin for five days. She was alone most of the time, and after she'd ventured outside on the second day, Pa locked her in while he was off about his business.

  He wouldn't tell her what that business was, other than he had "an interest in this and that."

  By the time he brought her a dress to wear and told her he'd found work for her, she was ready to weep with joy. She'd finished the mending he'd given her to do on the second day, and the tiny cabin had probably never been so clean. After living outdoors for so long, she'd hated feeling confined.

  "Your ma taught you well. It's a good girl who knows how to keep household," was all Pa said, when he noticed she'd scrubbed the rough plank table until it gleamed.

  The dress was faded linsey-woolsey and way too big for her. She hemmed it up, but taking it in was beyond her skill, so she did what she could with a strip of leather he gave her, bunching it around her waist.

  "They'll give you an apron at the bakery. See you use it. That dress will have to last you until spring." He'd already told her he didn't hold with bathing often. "Give you consumption," he said.

  She was glad to leave. He wasn't the father she remembered from when she was little. That man would never have sold her molly and kept the money for himself.

  "What do you mean, you don't know nothin' about makin' bread?" Mrs. Flynn said, once Pa had gone off and left them alone. "If I'd know that, I'd never told your pa I'd take you on."

  "Never had a chance to learn," Callie said, feeling as if she'd failed some sort of test. "I catch on real quick, though. And I'm strong."

  "You'll have to be, if you want to keep workin' here. Put your things up in the loft. You get one candle a week, and water for washin' every Sunday mornin'. You'll go to church along with me, and you'll behave like a proper lady."

  "I'm to stay here?" She
couldn't decide whether to be glad or sad. Living with Pa in the tiny cabin had been a strain, but on the other hand, he was her father. This woman was a perfect stranger.

  "'Prentices live where they work. You mind your manners and apply yourself, when your 'prenticeship is up, you'll be ready to have your own bake shop." Mrs. Flynn went to turn away, then paused. "You'll get three hours free time on Sunday afternoons, but I won't have you messin' about with boys. And you won't go to your Pa's cabin. He don't keep decent company, so if he wants to see you, he'll come here. Understand?"

  "Yes'm."

  I could have gone with Merlin. He said his folks would take me in.

  Over the next few years, she was to think of his offer often, but somehow she never did write to the Lachlans, in Boise City. Her pa was in Virginia City, and family was important. Besides, she kind of liked working in the bakery. Mrs. Flynn was sometimes cranky, but she was fair and she was kind, in her own strict way.

  Part Two

  1875-1876

  Chapter Seven

  Dodge City, Kansas

  Fall 1875

  Merlin took his pay and skedaddled. Dodge was no place to be with a pocket full of fresh money and no head for whiskey. He'd already gotten a bill of sale for his horse from Old Man Farnsworth, and he'd said his goodbyes to the men he'd lived and worked with for the last three years.

  He made a stop at the telegraph office and sent a hundred dollars to his bank in Boise City. When he was well out of town, he separated the rest of the cash money into two bundles. One he slid into the hidden pocket in the lining of his saddle and the other went into his money belt. The silver stayed in his pocket.

  His feet were itching again. Seemed like he wasn't made to stick to one thing.

  He'd had a look at a calendar when he was in the telegraph office. The date surprised him. Six years since he'd ridden away from home, from his family. Although he'd been lonely now and then, he still wasn't ready to go back. The restlessness that had sent him out into the world still seethed within him.

  What a time he'd had in those years. As he rode out of town, he thought back to the wide-eyed boy he'd been, bent on adventure.

  "Still am, right, Gawain?" he said to his horse. The dun twitched an ear. He wasn't much of a conversationalist, not like Bul had been.

  "I wonder what became of Cal." He still couldn't think of her by any other name. It was a question he'd asked himself more than once since he'd left her behind in Virginia City. He hadn't liked the looks of her pa, but it hadn't been his place to say so. She was still a child six years ago, and needed a home and family, even if the only family she had was a sleazy saloon keeper and whoremaster.

  Great God, I hope he was good to her.

  Knowing Cal, if she hadn't been treated kindly, she would have found away to escape.

  Riding along, he fell into a reverie. There was much to think on, for he'd led a varied life since leaving home. His spell as a blacksmith's helper in Ogden had done him good, even though he'd only stayed through the winter. He'd discovered he liked working iron, and had learned some useful tricks for mounting wagon tires. But Ogden hadn't offered the excitement he craved. Soon as the cottonwood buds had started to grow fat, he'd bought himself a ticket for Chicago, that being as far East as he wanted to go.

  What nobody had told him was that spring didn't always stay around in Nebraska and Iowa. Not in Illinois, either. His train had been caught in a blizzard east of Sidney and had sat, stuck, for a day and a half, until the snowplows could dig it loose. When he arrived in Chicago, the wind had been blowing sleet horizontal. He couldn't ever remember being so cold, not even when he'd lived in Cherry Vale, high in the mountains.

  Figuring it would be warmer down south, he took a train to New Orleans. What a place that had been. He'd surely lost his innocence there, and didn't regret a minute of it. The ladies who'd led him down the primrose path had been good teachers. When he finally left town, they threw him a going away party that lasted nearly a week.

  In New Orleans he'd found himself work with a blacksmith who made the fancy ironwork decorating balconies and window embrasures and courtyard gates. While most of what he did was bend iron bars, he watched close and saw how Samuel Black fitted them together in artful curlicues and graceful swirls. His regret was that he didn't see the designs in his head the way Samuel claimed to. But still, no new skill was wasted.

  He also learned to play poker--the hard way. By the time he finally figured out when to hold and when to fold, he was down to his last ten dollars and wondering if he'd have to take on a second job, just to pay his rent. By spring, he was flush again, thanks to a couple of rich young fellows who saw him as a hick and were out to fleece him. After that he only played poker for penny ante stakes. A man could get in big trouble believing he could get rich at the tables.

  He'd gone to New Orleans a boy, with a boy's slender body and lack of height. He left full-grown and filled out. According to Felice, there was nothing like good Cajun cooking to make a boy into a man.

  Merlin reckoned there was more to it than that.

  Traveling up the Mississippi on a steamboat showed him he wasn't a sailor. Who'd have believed a man could get seasick on a riverboat? When he went ashore at St. Louis, he came close to kissing the solid ground.

  The summer of 1872, he again worked as a blacksmith's helper. By fall he had a couple of offers to ride herd on drives from Texas north. All he had to do was get himself to Galveston in January.

  He spent Christmas of that year back in New Orleans, but before the new year rolled in, he was in Galveston. Even in winter, the Gulf was warm enough to wade. Well, maybe not for someone who hadn't been raised to swim in a river swollen with snowmelt. The first time he found himself alone on a sandy beach, with waves breaking at his feet, he stripped down to his altogether and swam out until he couldn't see the shore. Floating there, he laughed out loud. Maybe this wasn't an ocean, but it was the next best thing. Eventually he'd get to the Pacific, but until then, he was satisfied. The water had been salty, the waves had buoyed him up and down, and there'd been funny-looking seagulls diving straight down and spearing fish with their sharp bills.

  Looking back, he could no longer see Dodge. Ahead of him was new ground, places he hadn't been, people he hadn't met. Adventures he hadn't had.

  "I'd still like to see me a real gold rush." He nudged Gawain with his heel. "What d'you think, boy?"

  The dun twitched the other ear, but that was all. His was a phlegmatic nature, Merlin had long since decided. No sense of adventure at all.

  He'd recently heard talk about gold in a place called the Black Hills. When he'd come through Cheyenne, back in '70, he'd seen a map with that label on it, off to the northeast in Indian country.

  "No sense going up there in winter. If the rumors are true, maybe we'll head into the Black Hills before we go to California. "

  Gawain snorted. As long as Merlin fed him his oats at suppertime, he was easy to get along with.

  * * * *

  Virginia City, Montana Territory

  November, 1875

  Callie was setting out the day's fresh bread when the front door opened with such force that it slammed back against the wall. "Git your truck together, girl. We're moving on."

  "Pa!" she hadn't seen him for half a year and more. The last she'd heard, he'd gone up to Bannack. In a way it had been a relief, for it meant she'd been able to hold onto some of her small wage. She hadn't missed him much. The father she'd idolized when she was a tyke was long gone, leaving in his stead a mean, hard man.

  "You hear me, girl? Hop to it. Stage leaves in an hour and we'll be on it, with or without your truck."

  "But I--"

  "What's this, then?" Mrs. Flynn stood in the doorway between the shop and the kitchen. She had her rolling pin in one hand. "We thought we were rid of you."

  "I came to get my girl. You'll want to pay me what you owe her."

  "Her 'prenticeship ain't up. That means you owe me. I reckon
we're even."

  Pa raised his arm, like he was going to hit Mrs. Flynn, but then he slowly lowered it. Callie didn't blame him. She'd seen what Mrs. Flynn could do when she was riled. He jerked his head at her. "Go."

  She wanted to tell him she wouldn't go with him. Pleadingly she looked at Mrs. Flynn, hoping she'd show some sign of standing behind her.

  But the baker shook her head. "He's your pa," she said, sounding like she hated having to say it. "You ain't of age yet."

  Slowly Callie took off her apron. Holding back the tears that threatened to choke her, she slipped past Mrs. Flynn and went up the narrow, steep stairs to the loft. She gathered her good dress, her Sunday shoes, the one book she owned, and her nightgown and wrapper, bundled it all into the blanket Merlin had bought her in Eagle Rock, and rolled it like he'd showed her. All she had to tie it with was a leather thong, but it was long enough to serve. The only warm wrap she had was a shabby man's greatcoat, but she did have a decent bonnet, thanks to Mrs. Flynn.

  Before she opened her hidey hole, she stepped to the top of the stairs and listened. No one was in the kitchen, leastways not making any noise. The loose brick in the chimney slid with a small grating sound, and she froze, hoping no one had heard it. After six heartbeats, she pulled it the rest of the way out. Inside the dark little hole was every cent she'd been able to save in almost five years, a small handful of coins, two little gold nuggets, and three bills. Somewhere around thirteen dollars, all told. She put it in the center of a piece of muslin, knotted the corners tightly, and started to wrap another scrap of fabric around it.

  Pa will expect me to have saved something. She untied the bundle and took out most of the coins. This way when he demanded any money she might have, he wouldn't get it all. The tightly rolled packet went into a small bag she'd made to hang from her waist. At knee level, it wasn't likely to make a lump under her skirt. She put the coins into her pocket, knowing they wouldn't stay there long.

  Hot anger flooded her. He's supposed to take care of me, not the other way around. If only... No, he's my pa, and I owe him obedience.