She could have been talking about his pa. He’d come out here with the goal of finding silver to provide what the farm could not. But the little girl sitting in front of him on the saddle was proof of how his pa had discarded his principles.
But he refused to accept Annabelle’s evaluation that it happened to everyone.
“Some people get rich.”
Annabelle looked over her shoulder at him. “Don’t even entertain that line of thinking. Before you know it, you’ll be living in the filth, blinded by the tiny flecks you think mean something but turn out to be nothing.”
“My papa found a treasure.” Nugget, seated in front of him on the ample saddle, piped up. “He was going to build me and my mama a bigger house than anyone else in Leadville.”
The glance Annabelle gave him was enough to melt the rocks around them. “So you are one of them.”
She turned her gaze to Nugget, and he could tell it immediately softened. “You should just take her back to wherever you came from. Now, before you wind up losing whatever else you have left.”
Annabelle probably saw a lot of hardship in her line of work. It was natural that she’d want to be protective, especially of Nugget. But she didn’t understand. He had nothing to go back to. Only a family to send for, and he already knew there wasn’t a place here for them. His only hope was finding something of enough value in his pa’s possessions that he could use it to move the family west.
“All I want is what my pa found. Nothing more. Just enough to get home to my family and make sure they’re taken care of.”
“That’s what they all say.” Annabelle clicked her tongue and set her horse to a faster pace. The rocky path had widened until a large mining operation came into view. He’d spent some time working in a similar place when he’d first arrived in Leadville, bringing the ore to the smelter. Tents and ramshackle cabins dotted the area, but Annabelle made no motion to slow her pace.
He glanced behind him, noting that from this elevation above town, the view was so majestic, it was easy to forget the abysmal conditions of the mining camp they’d passed through. On the hardest days, it was this picture of being above the clouds covering the valley below that had kept him sane.
Once they passed through the camp, Annabelle followed the creek back into more rocky terrain. Joseph had to give her credit for her adept handling of the horse. His sisters probably wouldn’t have been able to do the same. They came around a rise and into a smaller clearing.
“Hey! This is where my papa lives,” Nugget cried out as she tried to scramble down from the saddle.
Joseph held her tight. “Wait. I want to be sure it’s safe.”
Annabelle slowed her pace, then pointed to an outcropping of rocks. “Based on the map, that’s where the cabin is.”
“How did you get to know the area?”
She shrugged, and said in a dull voice, “My father’s ministry is helping the people in the mining camps. Many of them don’t venture into town because they’re so afraid that if they leave, they’ll miss out on the big strike. So we go to them.”
“How often do you come out?”
“I haven’t in a while.” The familiar look of sadness crossed her face. “Not since everyone got sick.”
They dismounted, and she led them to the other side of the rocks, Nugget skipping on ahead into the cabin.
“She’s still here!” The little girl ran out of the cabin, carrying a worn rag doll. “I forgot her last time we came to visit Papa, and I’ve been missing her terribly.”
Nugget hugged the doll as Joseph stared at the place his pa had been calling home for the past five years. Sandwiched between outcroppings of rocks, the cabin was little more than a one-room shack built mostly of rocks, twigs and mud.
“I guess we found it,” Annabelle said, looking resigned.
“Thank you. I would have never found it otherwise.” Even though Nugget had recognized the area, it was clear she wouldn’t have found it, either. When she’d tried to get off the horse, she was looking in the opposite direction.
He walked into the dark building, grateful when Annabelle handed him the lantern. She obviously knew what she was doing. Looking at this place, Joseph could see why she sounded so disillusioned.
As he held up the lamp to illuminate the room, Annabelle walked around, lighting the lamps she found.
It was a simple room, with a small stove, a bed, a trunk and a few boxes. His pa had given it a touch of home, the bed covered with a quilt Joseph recognized as the one his ma had tearfully pressed into his arms when he’d left.
One of the crates was turned on its end, like a makeshift chest of drawers, with a picture of his family, as well as a picture of a bawdily dressed woman— Nugget’s mother, he assumed.
He walked over to the pictures and picked up the one of his family. If only Annabelle’s judgment of the situation hadn’t been so true. His pa had abandoned them to give them what he’d claimed was a better life. Only it hadn’t panned out, and now Joseph was looking for something, anything, to pick up the pieces.
“That your family?” Annabelle stood behind him, her voice thick.
“Yes.”
Nugget entered the room and noticed him holding the picture. “Papa said that someday I’d meet the rest of my brothers and sisters. That’s how I knowed you when you comed for me.” She pointed at the people in the picture.
“That’s Mary, and Bess, and Evelyn, and Helen, and Rose, and Daniel and there’s you.” She frowned as she pointed at Ma. “And that’s the other lady. Mama said she was the reason why I couldn’t meet you yet.”
Joseph swallowed the unexpected grief and tried to ignore the anger burning his insides. Pa had never planned on coming home. At least not to his ma. Ma had been a good woman. She hadn’t deserved this. Once again, he wished his pa was alive just so he could kill him himself.
“She was my ma. She was a good woman.”
Nugget’s eyes widened. “Papa told Mama she was a shrew.”
It was wrong to disrespect your father, but if his pa was here now, Joseph would have no problem punching him. And yet, he could stand here and do nothing—not contradict an innocent child who hardly knew what she was saying, and try to avoid the knowing look in Annabelle’s eyes. Not that the girl looking around the cabin knew anything at all.
Annabelle had moved on and was looking at a stack of books beside the bed.
“Your father was a reader?”
“No.” Joseph coughed and took the book from her hands. “My sister Mary and I are. Mary thought that if we sent him with our favorite books, he’d have something of us so that he wasn’t so lonely.”
He glanced over at the little girl now rummaging through the trunk. His pa had obviously had no problem with loneliness. After having done the math in his head more times than he cared to count, Joseph figured his pa had met Nugget’s mother shortly after coming here the first time. Which meant his pa had gone home to Ma after being with Nugget’s mother. And then left his ma to return to a woman who— If it weren’t for the women present, Joseph would have wanted to smash the pictures representing his pa’s lies.
“I’m sure the books gave him some comfort. It looks like he jotted notes in the margins.” Annabelle gave him a small smile, as if she was trying to be sympathetic.
Her words made him pause as he looked at the book.