She removed objects from her apron pocket: a small knife, the nubbin of a pencil, and a torn piece of newspaper. Holding the tip of the pencil against the boulder, she shaved off slivers of wood with the knife until she sharpened the pencil into the semblance of a point. Then she shared her feelings with the four winds, cut a piece of material from her skirt’s hem, and wrapped it around her letter. She tied it to the tumbleweed she’d caught earlier as it blew across the street.
After setting her missive free to the four winds, she leaned back against the tree and sighed. Her gaze swept heavenward and, for a fanciful moment, she wished upon the stars, those twinkling objects that always fascinated her.
Oh, to live a quiet life again. To have my own home again. To be safe again.
****
Cam rolled the bedding he and Eli had shared during the night. His back was stiff and sore from sleeping on the ground with Eli’s knees in his back. By tonight he should have the herd in their usual wintering spot, and they could both get a good night’s sleep in their own beds.
He cooked some bacon for their breakfast while Eli ran wide circles around the campfire, rubbing his piece of calico against his cheek. The two of them were joined by a close bond, especially since they rarely saw anyone else. From time to time, they ran into some Lakota-Sioux. Fortunately he’d been able to retain friendship with some braves he’d befriended as a young teen, especially Standing Bear.
“Watch, Daddy.” Eli jumped off a boulder when Cam glanced his way.
“Do it again.” His son rarely had the chance to run and play, since many of his days were spent in the saddle in front of him. Little Eli had been riding in the saddle since he was barely two. While this wasn’t the best arrangement for a little fellow like Eli, what choice did Cam have? He couldn’t leave him alone at the cabin while he tended to the ranch. There was always Amanda’s mother in Georgia. She would gladly take his son to raise, but Eli was all he had left of his Amanda. He couldn’t bear to part with him.
After his wife passed, Cam had wanted to die, too. When he buried her, a part of him went underground with her. For weeks he’d felt like a walking dead man—numb, aimless, vacant. Little Eli kept him going. Last winter his son had been too little to sit a horse, especially in the bitter cold, so the two of them hibernated in the house. The ranch and animals had suffered. Now he was trying to repair the damages caused by his neglect.
After eating and seeing to their needs, Cam saddled Samson. Moving a herd by himself, even a herd as small as his, made for a long day. He had a good horse, though, and that helped.
Later, after the steers were settled in the canyon and his animals in the barn taken care of, he cooked supper. Eli’s eyes grew heavy at the table and his head nodded. Cam carried him back to his bed and kissed him goodnight. He would soon turn in, too, but not until he spoke to his wife for a few moments. When she was alive, one of the better parts of an evening was the sharing of what each did during the day. The best part of their nights, well, that came later when they snuggled in bed together. His body hardened at the memory of delights forever lost, and he cursed his luck.
He sat on the large log he’d rolled to the foot of Amanda’s grave a few weeks after her death, when his grief was so razor-sharp it sheared off a piece of his heart every day he spent without her.
“Evening, Amanda. How were things in heaven today?” He glanced up at the stars twinkling in the inky sky, and wished just once he could see her face again, hear her laugh and touch her smooth skin.
I can’t keep wishing for something that will never happen. I can’t keep doing this to myself.
“I took Eli with me when I brought the herd down from the upper pasture, just like I take him with me every day. The cattle will do better in the canyon this winter. I’ve got hay stored in a cave in one of the nearby hills. That should feed them when the snows come.” He ran a hand over the back of his neck. “If I can get to them, that is. I don’t know how I can look after the stock this winter when it’s too cold to take Eli out for the day. You know how the winds blow here. I don’t know if the little fella can take that bitter cold.” He shrugged. “Can’t leave him alone here, either. I just don’t know what to do.”
A coyote howled in the distance as if to commiserate with Cam’s loneliness. An owl hooted. “Night music” his wife used to call these sounds, once she got over her homesickness and began to enjoy the area.
The air kicked up, ruffling his long hair. “I need a haircut. Remember how you used to cut it out in the yard so there wouldn’t be hair over Maw’s clean floors? Floors aren’t so clean now.” He yawned and stood. “Guess I’ll say goodnight and head on inside. Love you.”
He headed to the cabin. A rustling sound caught his attention. He glanced back over his shoulder in the direction of the noise. A tumbleweed bobbed against Amanda’s headstone, the one he’d made for her. When he went back to toss the tumbleweed aside, a sliver of material caught his attention. Was there a note in this piece of fabric, too?
Paper rustled when he untied the material. His heartbeat kicked up.
See how lonely I am? I’m excited over the possibility of reading another note from a stranger.
He dislodged the wind witch from Amanda’s grave marker, and it tumbled into darkness.
Once he was inside, he raised the wick on the oil lamp on the wooden table. He slid dirty dishes to the side with a sweep of his arm and sat, unfolding the torn newspaper.
To the four winds, life is so empty, so painful when you’re alone in this world. How I long for the kind touch of a loved one, but that is not to be. My parents are gone, as is my husband. Twenty-six is a young age to be alone. If only I had a child to hold to me, I might have a measure of happiness. What a foolhardy dream when I can barely take care of myself. But I’ll always have you, the four winds. Won’t I?
Cam turned the paper over. There wasn’t any more to the note. He reread it and then tugged the first note from his shirt pocket. After reading them both again, he searched for clues as to her identity. She hadn’t signed either one. The woman was a widow and twenty-six. Both notes were written on part of a page torn from the
Black Hills Pioneer
. Did she live close by? In Deadwood, perhaps?
Her handwriting was neat. Hadn’t she mentioned students? He quickly read over the two notes again and nodded. Yes, so she must be a teacher. Why wasn’t she still teaching? What brought her to Deadwood if she was from Pennsylvania?
He yawned and stretched. Too many questions for this time of night. Refolding the notes, he stood and walked to the fireplace mantel, where he placed them under the tintype of Amanda and him on their wedding day.
When he crawled under the quilts in his empty bed, he wondered where this woman slept. Was she living alone somewhere? Was she warm? Was she eating enough?
I’m a fool for worrying about a complete stranger. Got enough of my own problems to worry about. Like how am I going to run this spread in the winter and still care for Eli?
Chapter Three
“Mine.” Eli spied the second piece of blue calico lying on the table. He’d slept clasping the first strip in his little hand.
Cam handed it to the boy and set him at the table. “We’re getting low on supplies, Eli. I’m thinking we’ll make a trip to town. I’ll sell the pelts I’ve got stored in the barn and get you some shoes and a winter coat. I better lay in some winter supplies in case snows come early.”
His son held up both strips of cloth. “Mine.”
“Yes, yours.” He set a plate with burnt bacon and a fried egg in front of Eli. “Now eat.”
Once the chores were done and the animal pelts loaded onto the back of the buckboard, Cam and Eli headed for town. He set the child on his lap and allowed him to hold the reins. The team of horses set off, plodding up the gentle hills leading them out of the little valley where his family had settled after leaving Georgia. Ponderosa pine, spruce, and lodgepole pine stood as sentinels on the ridge encircling the little hollow.
After they’d filed a deed for the land, more than fifteen years ago, Cam found gold in the stream running through their property. He and his dad traveled to another town to cash in the nuggets and make a large bank deposit. “If word gets out we’ve found gold on our property, Cam, we’ll both be shot in the back and greedy miners will cover our land like crazed ants.” He understood his father’s secretive manner of handling their find. As his father so often said, “We Scots know the value of a coin.”
The ranch was supposed to be a joint effort for him and his dad, but the smallpox epidemic that went through the area last year took both of his parents and his wife. Now all that remained of the McBrides were Eli and him.
Unless you talk the lonely lady into marrying you.
Whoa! Where did that insane thought come from?
You’re lonely, Cam.
Lonely, yes. Insane, no.
Isn’t that why you took a bath before heading into town? You’re wearing that blue shirt I always said brought out the blue in your eyes.
He gazed around frantically.
Amanda? Is that you?
You’ve grieved long enough. Eli needs a mother. You need help on the ranch. Why do you think I stopped that tumbleweed last night?
Dear God, I’m losing my mind.
Hunt for her, Cam. She needs you, and you need her.
What I need is a drink. A strong one.
****
“Sorry, it’s the best I kin give ya for these pelts, Cam.” Dillard Harris scratched his thick white beard. “I’d like to do better by ya, but times is hard.”
Cam knew better, but nodded. “I need all I can get from these to buy staples for the winter.” This was what his Amanda referred to as a dance between two penny-pinching men. “My boy needs shoes and clothes.” He crossed his arms over his chest, narrowed his eyes and waited.
“Well, they is mighty fine pelts. Cleaned ’em right good.” Dillard made a show of fingering the fur. “Might could go a couple bits more.”
“Can’t let them go for that. Normally I’d sooner do business with you than Stoney up the street.”
Dillard’s pride won’t let me go to his rival.
The grizzled man sighed and offered him a dollar more.
Cam nodded. “Sounds fair to me. Say, any new people move into town? Seems busier than usual.” He hoped he sounded nonchalant, although the rapid heartbeat roaring in his ears was anything but relaxed. Was he crazy to try to find this letter-writing woman?
Dillard scratched his beard again. “A few more miners came in on the stagecoach last week.” He made a face as if he’d sucked on a sour pickle. “City slickers, the lot of ’em.”
Figuring he’d gotten as much out of the old man as he could, Cam unloaded the pelts, got back in the buckboard with Eli, and headed up Main Street. Inside the mercantile, he and the salesman struggled to get ankle-high shoes on his son. Eli tensed his foot, twisted in Cam’s arms, and screamed his displeasure.
“What’s wrong here?” A buxom elderly woman patted Eli’s head. “Bet they pinch his feet. My bunions hate new shoes, too. How are you, Mr. McBride? I haven’t seen you in ages.” Her one eyebrow rose. “Missed you at church.”
“Howdy, Mrs. Dunlap. How have you been?”
“Fair to middlin’. Your boy sure is growing.”
Eli slid from Cam’s lap to peer into the woman’s shopping basket. He fingered her piece of yellow flannel. He lost interest quickly when something else seized his attention. “Mine! Mine!” Suddenly he ran down the aisle, his arms outstretched to grab the skirt of a startled woman.
Cam hurried after his son. “Eli, stop.”
A determined Eli tugged one way, and the red-haired woman tugged the other. “Mine,” he screeched.
“Let go of me.” Material ripped. A feminine gasp filled the quiet of the store.
“Ma’am, I’m plumb sorry. I don’t know what got into him.” He stooped to pry Eli’s fingers from her calico skirt—its blue print was familiar. The hem was partially frayed.
It couldn’t be.
Slowly his gaze traveled up the gathers of the skirt to a narrow waist and gaping material where his son had torn it from the waistband.
Or rather,
was
tearing it, for Eli now lay on the floor, his back arched, one booted foot and a bare one firmly planted on the wood plank floor and his chubby face a reddened mask of determination. “Mine,” he growled.
Cam tried to pry his son’s fingers from this poor woman’s skirt. Eli held the material in his grasp, giving Cam a nice view of her ankles. Twine tied the thin soles of her shoes to the worn leather uppers.
“Would you be looking up my skirt, then? Is this the behavior you’ve taught your son? Tear the clothes off the ladies so you can get a free gander at the merchandise?”
By her brogue and red hair, she was Irish.
“Humph!” Mrs. Dunlap exclaimed, her gray eyebrows arched. “Merchandise would be correct. If I were you, Mr. McBride, I’d keep my innocent son away from the likes of her.”
For some reason, the older woman’s remarks irked Cam.
Didn’t my Amanda refer to Mrs. Dunlap as a self-righteous busybody?
He glanced into the greenest pair of eyes he’d ever seen. “Ma’am, I don’t know what’s gotten into my son. Although I’ve got a good idea.” He struggled to pull her skirt from Eli’s grip, for as soon as he got one little hand pried off the calico, the other one took a firm grasp. “I’ll gladly buy you a new dress.”
“I daresay Mr. Thatcher does
not
carry clothes for tarts in his fine establishment.” Mrs. Dunlap eyed where Cam held this woman’s skirt. “A fine man like yourself shouldn’t be concerned over a woman like her.”
“Right is right, Mrs. Dunlap. I pay for any damages incurred by my son.” Finally he released all of Eli’s fingers from the blue calico, wrapped an arm around his squirming son and stood—and felt the full force of those fuming green eyes.