I could bring some—”
“Oh, thank you, anyway, Mrs. Weaver. But I just made a pot myself this morning. Pa’s probably eating some of it right now. He—” Shut up, Maggie, she told herself sternly and stepped up onto the boardwalk. She’d been lying and evading so much lately she should be better at it by now. “Say hello to Mr. Weaver for me,” Maggie said as she rudely backed away from the older woman’s disapproving face.
Her stomach in a twisted knot, Maggie entered Arnold’s general store and went straight to the threads. She would have much rather run straight to the corner where Mr. Carlson sat at a wobbly scarred oak table and sorted and dispensed the mail, but she never wanted to appear too eager and always first bought a few yards of fabric or a new color thread that she didn’t need.
After making her selection and quickly paying for her purchase, she approached Mr. Carlson with a bright smile on her face.
He looked up and smiled back. “Lordy, Miss Maggie, I do believe you have an extra sense about when the mailbag arrives. You’re pert’ near my first customer each week.”
Her smile faltered, and she shrugged a shoulder. “Being as I’m in town, anyway…”
Over his wire-rimmed spectacles, he eyed her speculatively for a moment, and then bent his balding head to sift through a pile of letters. “Nope. Nothin’ this week. You got somethin’ goin’ out?”
She pressed her lips together to hide her disappointment, and shook her head. “Not this time, Mr. Carlson. Thank you.”
What was the use? She’d already sent Mary three letters just in case she hadn’t received the first two. Maggie just had to be patient was all. Not one of her finer qualities, as Pa had reminded her often enough. Not unkindly, but just as it was a father’s duty. At least he hadn’t blamed that particular defect of character on the fact that at twenty-five she was a hopeless spinster. No, there were plenty of other reasons for her lack of suitors.
“Maggie?”
She’d made it to the display of mason jars next to the iron skillets, and turned back to Mr. Carlson.
“How’s your pa? Ain’t seen him in over two months,” Mr. Carlson asked, his kind ruddy face nearly her undoing.
Maggie pressed a hand to her waist and swallowed around the lump of grief in her throat. “He’s been feeling a mite poorly.”
“Again?” The man frowned. “Seems he’s been sick since September. Maybe you ought to have the new doc go out to your place and have a look—”
“No,” she said too abruptly and forced a brittle laugh. “He hasn’t been sick this whole time. He’s been busy prospecting the past month. Last night it seems he ate something that didn’t sit well in his belly, is all.”
“Ah.” Mr. Carlson smiled, clearly appeased. “Well, you take care driving that wagon home. You might tell him I noticed that left rear wheel might be wobbling some.”
“I’ll be sure to do that, Mr. Carlson. Thank you.” Maggie hurried out of the general store before anyone else could ask her about Pa. Lord, she didn’t need the wagon wheel to break now. Who’d fix the darn thing? Not Pa. Not buried twenty yards behind their cabin.
At the thought, her breath caught on a sob and she nearly stumbled off the boardwalk and into Bertha. The gray mare turned accusing eyes on Maggie, as if she knew that Maggie hadn’t even dug her father a proper grave. Rock-hard ground and trembling hands had allowed for a four-foot hole and she hadn’t dared wait longer to get him in the freezing ground.
God, please, please, don’t let anyone find out he’s gone before I hear from Mary.
How many times had she uttered the prayer but to no use? She supposed she could write her younger sister, but Clara lived with her husband and two children clear across the country somewhere outside of Boston. No, Mary was closer in San Francisco and still Maggie’s best choice. As soon as her older sister received her letter she and her husband would come for her. Mary was the smart one, the brave one. She’d know exactly what to do.
Maggie unhitched Bertha, gathered her skirt with one hand and climbed onto the wagon. Seeming unfriendly or not, she kept her face straight ahead, not wishing to engage in conversation with anyone as she slowly rode out of town. If anyone knew she was staying at the cabin alone, tongues would wag. And it might not matter that Maggie had regrettable curly red hair or was taller than most of the men in Deadwood, if the miners got wind that she was a woman living alone….
Well, she wasn’t precisely sure what might happen if they came sniffing around, she only knew it would be a bad thing because Pa had told her that some men simply didn’t know how to treat a lady. She knew about kissing, of course, because when she was fifteen and hadn’t yet sprung up that extra six inches, Clem Browning had kissed her on the mouth twice. She and Clem had been behind the rotting barn where the whole family had lived in Kansas before Pa took it in mind to come prospecting.
As soon as she passed the smokehouse and livery at the edge of town, she breathed a sigh of relief. She took a final look over her shoulder and then clucked her tongue, signaling Bertha to pick up the pace. The fat old mare barely minded but Maggie was so grateful to be out of sight that she didn’t care. A brisk wind had picked up and she pulled her wool shawl tighter around her shoulders.
Her mind was on the growing chill in the air and the dwindling woodpile behind the small two-room cabin she and Pa had shared when she saw movement in the trees to the right. She didn’t slow down but kept her gaze on the scrub oak. A white-tailed doe leaped into sight before scurrying deeper into the woods.
Maggie smiled at herself and then flicked the reins, anxious suddenly to be home, snug in her little cabin. She still had laundry to do and peaches to…
He jumped in front of the wagon from out of nowhere, blocking Bertha’s path with his big body. “Lady, don’t scream. I just need to talk to you.”
A strangled cry lodged in her throat. She yanked on the reins when she should have urged the mare to gallop. No need to panic, she told herself, not sure if her throat would work. She wasn’t too terribly far from town, and the stranger said he just wanted to talk. “Wh-what do you want?”
His hair was long and as black as a moonless night. Even before she shaded her eyes from the sun she saw that he had a strong face with high broad cheekbones, a long narrow nose and a stubbornly square jaw. She squinted at the stranger, and without thinking, leaned toward him for a closer look and met dark probing eyes. She jerked back.
The saints preserve her, he was part Indian. Fear threatening to choke her, she did something she never before thought of doing. She grabbed the whip and made to use it. “Giddyap, Bertha, giddyap!”
“That’s not necessary.” The man shot his arm in the air and grimaced when the whip snapped across his wrist instead of poor Bertha’s rump. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Step aside, mister. Or I’ll—I’ll—” She swallowed hard. “Step aside. Please.”
While holding on to the harness, he worked his way around Bertha and toward Maggie. “I just want to ask you a question,” he said in calm, perfect English. Of course he plainly wasn’t full-blooded Indian. Maybe one of those half-breeds she knew passed through Deadwood from time to time, but hadn’t actually seen. He dressed funny, too. Like he might come from back east.
“What
