“Why did she come, then? Why didn’t she stay at home?”
Sarah looked from Olivia’s earnest face to Lucy’s wide eyes. Why did any of them leave their homes? “My uncle said God was calling him to preach to the gold seekers.” She put one of her uncle’s shirts into the warm water. “Aunt Margaret came because he asked her to.”
“Why did you come?”
Olivia’s question struck deep. Sarah moved the shirt through the gray water and smiled at the girl. “I wanted adventure, and I wanted a purpose in my life. When Uncle James wrote that there were families here with children, I knew what this town would need is a school.” A great center of learning, for young and old. That was how Dr. Bennett phrased it.
“Can I go to your school?”
“May I...”
“May I go to your school?”
Sarah thought back to her conversation with Nate. Olivia would be such a charming pupil in the academy, one she would love to share the knowledge of the world with, but could she promise such a thing if the girl’s uncle was opposed to it?
“We’ll have to see what your uncle says.” Olivia’s face showed her disappointment as she went back to her scrubbing. “But even if you can’t come, I’ll certainly share my books with you and help you learn.”
“Would you, really?” Olivia’s face shone as if the sun had come clear of a swift cloud. “And will you help me teach Lucy to read?”
Sarah glanced at the five-year-old, who had gone back to her pinecones. It looked as if she was building a house with them. She leaned closer to Olivia. “I’ve never heard your sister say anything. Does she talk?”
Olivia shook her head. “She used to. Before Mama and Papa...” She bit her lip, and Sarah put an arm around her narrow shoulders.
“She hasn’t spoken since you lost your parents?”
At the shake of Olivia’s head, Sarah pulled the girl into a closer embrace. There had been a boy at the orphanage who had never spoken, from the time he came to live there until he passed away a few months later. The matron had said he died of a broken heart, but Sarah had known better. He had died because he couldn’t face life with no hope and no family.
She watched Lucy put the pinecones in lines, framing the rooms of her house. She put rocks into the spaces for furniture and used small pinecones for people that she walked in and out of the doors.
She could learn to speak again. Surely her life wasn’t as hopeless as the boy at the orphanage. Lucy was still surrounded by family, and she was healthy. Surely with love and nurturing she had hope for a normal, happy life. Resolve to assist these children filled her heart.
“I’ll help you teach Lucy to read, and we’ll make sure Charley works on his studies, too.”
Sarah held tight as Olivia’s arms squeezed around her waist. Had she just made a rash promise she couldn’t keep?
* * *
By the time Nate found a wheelwright who could make a new axle, noon had passed. He fingered the coins in his pocket.
“Is there any place to buy something to eat?” he asked the wheelwright.
“The Shoo Fly Café has good pie.” The burly man gestured with his head up Main Street.
“What about a grocer’s?”
“The closest is Hung Cho’s, right across the way there.”
“Thank you. We’ll be back to pick the axle up around midafternoon.”
Nate guided Charley across the muddy street with one hand on the boy’s shoulder, making sure he stepped wide over the gutter in the middle. Hung Cho’s was a solid wood building with a laundry on one side and what looked like a hotel on the other. Some of the signs were in English, but most had what Nate guessed were Chinese characters.
Charley stared at the short, round Chinese man who approached them as Nate sorted through the wares on the tables outside the store.
“Yes, yes, sir.” The man bowed slightly. “You want some good food for your boy, yes? Hung Cho carries only the best. Only the best for our friends.”
Nate glanced at the man. He had run across men from China before, but Charley hadn’t. Hung Cho’s smile seemed genuine, his expression friendly.
He fingered the coins in his pocket again and looked at the items on the table. He recognized some apples, dry and wrinkled from being stored all winter, but apples nonetheless.
“How much for one of these?”
“Oh, these apples. They are very fine. Make a boy very healthy, yes? Only one dollar.”
“I only want to buy one, not all of them.”
“Yes, yes. I understand.” Hung Cho’s head bobbed as he nodded. “Apples are very dear. One dollar.”
Nate pulled out a dollar coin, along with a two-bit piece. “I’ll take one. Do you have any crackers, and maybe some cheese?”
Hung Cho leaned forward to peer at the coins in his hand, and then slid his look up to Nate’s face. His smile grew wider. “You have coin money, not gold? You are new in Deadwood.”
At Nate’s nod, Hung Cho reached under the table and brought out two apples in much better shape than the ones he had on display. “For cash money, I give you two apples, one pound crackers and cheese. Nice cheese, from back East.”
They followed the little man into the dim interior of his store. The odor of dried fish in one barrel overpowered the close room. Hung Cho squeezed between it and another barrel filled with rice. He scooped crackers out of a third barrel and weighed them in a hanging scale, then sliced a generous wedge of cheese from a wheel behind the counter. He wrapped it all in a clean cloth and handed the bundle to Charley.
“One dollar and two bits, please.”
“Why the change in price?”
“Cash money is hard to come by. Bull train drivers want cash from the Chinese instead of gold.” The man’s smile disappeared as he shook his head. “They do not trust the Chinese. Will not accept gold dust from us for fear it is not pure.”
Nate handed over the coins in his hand.
Hung Cho bowed as he slipped the money into some folds in his robe. “Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.”
They left the store and then turned right, toward the center of the mining camp. As they crossed an alley and stepped back up on the boardwalk in front of a row of businesses, Charley tilted his head up to look at him. “Where are we going to eat, Uncle Nate?”
They were passing an empty space between two canvas tents. A couple barrels stood close to the boardwalk. “How about right here?”
They settled themselves on the barrels and divided the food between them. Charley shoved the crackers into his mouth two at a time.
“Whoa there, boy. Those crackers won’t disappear. Take your time.”
Charley grinned at him and Nate took a bite of his apple as he settled in to watch the traffic on Main Street.
Two doors down was a saloon, and beyond that were signs for several more. Across the street, a large building had a sign, The Mystic Theater, but from the look of the young women leaning over the rail of the balcony, much more than theatrical entertainment was available there. James MacFarland had been right about the saloon girls—they seemed to be everywhere. This must be the Badlands of Deadwood he had heard the bullwhackers mention.
Nate took another bite of his apple and looked closely at the women on the balcony. The youngest seemed to be no more than sixteen, while a couple of them wore the bored look of years of experience in their business.