Nate saw Lucy was awake and winked at her, and then his eyes met Sarah’s. His smile softened before he went back to eating his stew.
James went on. “Deadwood is the worst of the worst. Too many murders, too many thieves, too many claim jumpers, too many...” He paused when Margaret cleared her throat. “Ah, yes,” he said, glancing at the children, “too many professional ladies.”
Oh yes, those “professional ladies.” Sarah had heard Aunt Margaret’s opinion of them all the way from Boston. There were few enough women in a mining camp like Deadwood, but most of them wouldn’t think to darken the door of a church. Sarah shifted Lucy on her lap and glanced at Margaret. What would her aunt do if one of those poor girls showed up on a Sunday morning? Or if she knew of Sarah’s plan to provide an education for them?
“Have you had any success?”
“We have a small group of settlers, families like yours, who meet together. I’ve recently rented a building in town, and now that Margaret and Sarah have arrived, I hope more families will come. You and the children are welcome to join us.”
Nate shoveled another spoonful into his mouth.
“Could we?” Olivia looked into Nate’s face. “Oh, could we? We haven’t been to church ever since...”
Charley gave his sister a jab with his elbow, but Nate, scraping the bottom of his second plate of stew, didn’t seem to notice. Aunt Margaret took the empty dish.
What had happened? One moment Nate was discussing Uncle James’s work, and the next Olivia and Charley were fidgeting in the uncomfortable silence. Lucy slid off Sarah’s lap and crossed to Nate. He took her onto his lap and stroked her hair while he stared at the fire.
“We’ll be busy building the ranch,” he said, looking sideways at James. “I doubt if we’ll have time for church.”
He shifted his left shoulder up, as if he wanted to hide the scars, and glanced at Sarah. It sounded as if going to church was the last thing he wanted to do.
* * *
Nate woke with a jerk, the familiar metallic taste in his mouth. He willed his breathing to slow, forcing his eyes open, trying to get his bearings. The MacFarlands’ cabin. They were safe.
Head aching from the ravaging nightmare, he rolled onto his back, waiting for his trembling muscles to relax. He might go one, or even two, nights without the sight of the fire haunting him. Before Jenny and Andrew died last fall, the nightmares had almost stopped—but now they were back with a vengeance. Whenever he closed his eyes, he knew what he would see and hear: the cavalry supply barn going up in flames. Horses screaming. The distant puff and boom of cannon fire. The fire devouring hay, wood, boxes of supplies, reaching ever closer to the ammunition he had managed to load onto the wagon. And those mules. Those ridiculous mules hitched to that wagon, refusing to budge. Over and over, night after night, he fought with those mules. And night after night the flames drew ever closer to the barrels of gunpowder. And since last fall, Andrew had been part of the nightmare. He stood behind the wagon, in the flames, yelling at him, telling him to hurry...hurry...to leave him...don’t look back...
And then Nate would jerk awake, shaking and sweaty.
He glanced at Charley, lying beside him on the pallet in front of the fireplace. At least the boy hadn’t woken up this time.
Nate looked around the cabin. Still dark, but with a gray light showing through a crack in the wooden shutters. Close to dawn. Almost time to get the day started.
Above him, in the loft, the girls slept with Sarah MacFarland. He hadn’t missed how quickly Olivia and Lucy had become attached to her. Lucy had even let Sarah hold her, something she hadn’t let anyone do except himself in more than six months. They were safe here. Safer and warmer than they had been since they left home eight weeks ago.
Was he wrong to bring the children to Deadwood? Was this any place to raise them?
The women of their church back in Michigan had made it clear the only right thing for him to do would be to put the children in the orphanage. The Roberts Home for Orphaned and Abandoned Children. As if they had no one to care for them.
Absolutely not. They would take these children from him over his dead body.
Charley turned toward him in his sleep and snuggled close. Nate put his arm around the boy and pulled him in to share the warmth of his blanket.
The sound of dripping water outside the cabin caught his attention. The wind had died down, and the temperature was climbing. The storm was over, and from the sounds of things, the snow was melting already. And that meant mud. As if he didn’t have enough problems.
Shifting away from Charley, Nate sat up. He pulled on his boots and stepped to the door, opening it as quietly as he could. No use waking everyone else up. Standing on the flat stone James used for a front step, he surveyed the little clearing.
Last night, James had told him he had been in Deadwood since last summer, building this cabin before sending for the women back in Boston. He had built on the side of the gulch, since every inch of ground near the creek at the bottom had already been claimed by the gold seekers. This cabin and a few others were perched on the rimrock above the mining camp, as if at the edge of a cesspool. Up here the sun was just lifting over the tops of the eastern mountains, while the mining camp below was still shrouded in predawn darkness.
Saloons lined the dirt street that wound through the narrow gulch. The sight was too familiar. Every Western town he had been in had been the same, and he had stopped in every saloon and other unsavory business looking for his sister. But Mattie’s trail had gone cold a few years ago. No one had seen her since that place in Dodge City where the madam had recognized the picture he carried. She had to be somewhere. Could she have made her way to Deadwood? Fire smoldered in his gut at the thought of where Mattie’s choices had taken her.
The door opened behind him.
“Oh, Mr. Colby. I didn’t realize you were out here.”
Nate moved aside to make room for Sarah on the step. The only dry spot in sight. She had already dressed with care, her black hair caught up in a soft bun. Her cheeks were dewy fresh and she smelled of violets. He resisted the urge to lean closer to her.
“I’m an early riser, I guess.” He chanced a glance at her. “I heard water moving and thought I’d check on the state of things. Our wagon is still on the trail back there, mired in the mud by now.”
“I had to see what the weather was like, too.” She smiled at him, and his breath caught. “After yesterday’s storm, this morning seems like a different world. I’ve never seen weather change so quickly.”
“That’s the Northern Plains for you. It can be balmy spring one day, and then below zero the next.”
“I suppose we’ll have to get used to it.” Sarah pushed at a pile of slush with one toe. She wore stylish kid-leather boots with jet buttons in a row up the side. They would be ruined with her first step off the porch. “Your children are so sweet. I’ve enjoyed getting to know them.”
Nate rubbed at his whiskers. “They seem to like you, too. You have a way with children. I’ve never seen Lucy take to anyone so quickly.”
“I hope you’ll reconsider sending them to school when I open the academy next week.”
He shot another glance at her, wary. “They won’t have time to attend any school. They’ll be with me all day. I’ll see they get the learning they need.”
She leveled her gaze at him, tilting her chin up slightly. Nate straightened to his full height, forcing her chin up farther. “Mr. Colby, I’m sure you know children do best when learning in a safe, secure environment. Can you provide that for them while you work to find your ranch?”
“I can provide the best environment they need, and that’s with me.” Nate felt the familiar bile rising in his throat.