What Once We Loved (38 page)

“You're a man of good habits,” she said. “I can tell that.”

A man of good habits.

He stared at her. Was this what he was meant for then? To simply respond to the moment, to be led by his habits?

“What do you say?” she said. She had a crooked nose. She inhaled his scent, a long seductive breath, sniffed with her chin lifted.

“Looks like you might have had enough already,” he said. “I know I have.”

He pushed her aside and stepped backward, his eyes scanning the faces that swirled before him, the woman's included, her expression hurt, then angry. His heels hit the cobblestones none too soon. Then like a boy caught in the pumpkin patch by the farmer with his gun, he fled. He just didn't know where he was running.

“Mrs. Kossuth? Tipton? Isn't that right? Tipton Kossuth. What on earth are you doing here? Here, let me help you up.”

Tipton cowered back into the shadows, barely hearing her name over the pounding of her heart. She'd seen the form approaching, huge and bulky but now the person before her seemed almost tiny. Blurry but tiny. And she used her name.
Someone knew her name? Tipton
squinted, trying to make sense of where she was and how long she'd been here. Sea gulls cried out. She smelled murky seawater.

The form leaned into her. A woman. She let the woman take her elbow, help her sit up. She shivered, not sure if it was from fear or weakness. The woman brushed at her skirts. Tipton's head pounded like the thump of a water wheel against a river.

“You don't remember me, do you? I'm Esty Williams. Suzanne Cullver's friend. I helped her find her house in Shasta City. Remember?”

Tipton shook her head. That hurt even more. She held her head with both hands. She didn't remember who had found Suzanne's house, only that Suzanne moved into one before any of the others. She'd never seen this woman before. How could this Esty person possibly know her, let alone identify her from a dark shadow in a strange city?

“It doesn't matter. Are you hurt? Did you imbibe too much?”

“I'm fine,” Tipton said, stiffening. “Just fine.” She lowered her hands, straightened her short jacket at her hips. “How is it you know me?”

“I used to watch you, when you dragged those big baskets of laundry through the streets to the St. Charles Hotel. And Lura talked of you all, of course, what good friends you were. She mentioned you as the pretty one.' I knew your brother.” She pushed a hatpin into her felt hat. “And I heard about your marriage after the fire.”

“You did?”

“Where is Mr. Kossuth, by the way?” Esty looked around. “I can't imagine that he left you here unprotected like this. Did something happen to him?”

“Just what are you doing on this wharf so late?” Tipton challenged.

Esty tipped her head in a questioning way. “I'm waiting for the steamer to…youre bleeding. Your head is bleeding. Here.” She reached into her reticule for a handkerchief, dabbed at the side of Tiptons head. “And it isn't late. It's morning. Early, yes, but the sun'U be up soon. How long have you been here?”

“I'll be all right,” Tipton said, “I'll be all right.” The dabbing at her wound stung, and her head pounded like unlatched shutters slamming in a windstorm. She swooned, falling against the woman. Maybe she could accept her help. She seemed kind enough. She was well-dressed, had a hat with feathers and flowers that swooped down to touch her narrow shoulders. A dragonfly hatpin held it at a cocky angle. She must have worked in the saloon if she knew Lura. Was she a banker? Or a woman of negotiable affections?

“Here,” the woman said. “Come sit on my trunk.” She led her to a flat-bottomed chest with the word “Millinery” stamped on the side. She picked up Tiptons flattened hat, pushed it out, and looked around for a pin. “There,” she said and placed the hat on Tiptons head, pulling the dragonfly pin from her own to hold Tiptons on.

Tipton reached up to touch it. “It's heavy,” she said. “Thank you, miss…”

“It's Esty,” she repeated. “And the pin is brass.”

“My head. It hurts terribly.”

Esty hesitated, then said, “Take a smidgen of this.” She pulled a small case from her reticule, turned it open to reveal a white powder.

“What's this?”

“Opium. The Chinese use it for pain. Just a little,” she said. “My hip bothers me some, and this helps. Here.” Esty took a pinch of the powder between her dark gloves and dropped it onto Tiptons tongue. “Sometimes it works faster underneath,” she said. “But you've had quite a blow. Need to take it slowly.”

The powder had a bitter taste at first, then her tongue felt numb, then nothing. Within minutes, the head-throbbing eased.

“Look,” Esty said. “I don't know if you're awaiting a ship or have
just arrived, but your bag has apparently been riffled through. And you're obviously hurt. Is your husband coming back? You can't stay here.”

Tipton looked around. “I've…I've been…Nehemiah will be along. Thank you. I'm fine,” she said. “This isn't where I arrived.”

“You're on the dock for ships to Sacramento. That's where I'm headed. Suzanne lives there now. And Sister Esther. I'm sure they'd take you—

“No! They can't know. No, we came to San Francisco.”

“Where is Mr. Kossuth then?

“I'll stay right here. I'll…I'll wash clothes again, just like I did before. I'll—”

“Not do much until your head is stitched.” Esty paused. She tapped her finger to her chin. “There'll be a doctor on board. You can stay with me for a time if you don't want Suzanne to know, though I can't imagine why not. Every one of you women who came across together share something special. You're so fortunate.”

“I'm not resisting anything,” Tipton said. “I'm just doing this on my own, is all. We have to do it alone.”

“Suit yourself then,” Esty said. “You can wash laundry in Sacramento if you've a bent to. I'd hire you myself. I barely have time for my own laundering with the millinery orders I have. Have you ever stitched hats?”

Tipton shook her head, stopped with the throbbing. She didn't
have
to settle on laundering, she guessed. If she took up millinery, she could work inside. It wouldn't be nearly the hard labor. But then Suzanne and Esther would know. And they'd tell Nehemiah, she was sure of it. No. She'd told herself laundry. If she didn't keep her own promises, how would she ever keep promises to her baby?

“I'd surely get that stitched, or it'll leave a disfiguring scar,” Esty said.

Tipton's hand went up to the wet wound. She could feel a chunk of flesh just hanging, the soft tissue beneath it damp and exposed. It reminded her of her brother's ear all chopped off.

She was penniless, bruised, and alone in a strange city. What was
she going to do? Her hand rubbed her abdomen. No, not alone. She could still choose. She wasn't breathing fast nor drifting away. She would make this a better day.

“If I could just take out a small loan. Until I get settled and find a place for the tubs and irons.”

“That might be arranged,” Esty said. “If you get that head looked at.” Tipton nodded. “All right. And should I have just a little more of the powder? Then I think I'll be strong enough to walk on board that ship to Sacramento.”

They were into the tenth day of the silver storm. Matthew's early temper tantrum on the first day was a distant memory compared to the irritations each foiled on the other in the days since.

Ruth noticed this annoying habit Matthew had of cracking his knuckles and whistling without a tune. Lura hummed as she worked and smacked her lips when she kneaded the flour, loud as a pig. Mariah whined. She hadn't ever seen the girl do that before, though she had to admit, she'd rarely seen her playing jacks before either and losing to Sarah who got sassier than Ruth had ever seen her. She complained that Ned and Jason were hiding her pencils so she couldn't draw.

Ruth tried to stay out of their way, mediating, then working on her mecate. The boys had helped her spin the strands before the storm hit. She now had three, twenty-foot strands she was twisting into a rope. The singing and dancing led by Ned, followed by stories told by Matthew and Burke, too, had gotten them through most evenings. Sarah had cut and drawn an entire set of dominoes. Lura “uncovered” a deck of cards inside her spice box. But the diversions were wearing thin.

They were tired of venison stew. The flour would be gone that day, Lura announced. No more biscuits. Just meat and a few old vegetables to argue over. So much for the kindness of kinship, Ruth thought. This being under one roof day after day stretched any relationship. It
was truly a miracle when two people stayed married, but divinely inspired if they lived through ten days of a silver storm and still spoke. Wasn't it Mei-Ling who had told her that the Chinese word for “trouble” was made up of two characters: one being the symbol for “under one roof” and the other being “two women”? They could certainly prove it here.

The first days had been…adventurous. They'd played games, learned some new songs led by the deep baritone of Burke Manes. Matthew had told stories of being along the Columbia River the year before. Ruth sensed he left some things out, but she found she liked what he remembered to share about landscape. They'd had things in common, and if it wasn't for her commitment to this land, this place, and her children, she might have allowed herself to speculate about what might someday have been with him.

Lura regaled them with mining camp tales, buttressed by Mariah and Ned's memories. Burke gave lively renditions of biblical stories, most Ruth had never even heard of, about widows and even women warriors, or at least women who strategized battle plans that the men carried out. No one had ever mentioned that before. She thought now that they'd all been holding their breath, assuming this storm wouldn't last long, couldn't last long. Each day they'd peer at the sky, hoping for the sun, and each night they sought the moon.

Then Mariah came in sobbing that one of the mares was down. She'd gotten so thin, Mariah worried that she'd miscarry. When they reached the barn, the mare struggled as though delivering early and then, huffing with exhaustion, died.

“They're not getting enough water,” Ruth said patting Mariah's shoulder as the girl cried. They'd been chopping holes as best they could in the stream and hauling it from the spring that didn't freeze. But leading them up to the spring was treacherous, like walking across a frozen pond. The animals were stressed, not eating well and not drinking. And they'd had no salt now for almost a month.

Then one of Matthew's scrub mares, as she called them, fell on the ice and had to be put down. Ruth found herself hardly sleeping, just
standing and staring at the silver world. She could lose them all! All the foals, all that was promised for that first payment in the spring just a few months away.

At least Jessie was doing better. In an odd way, the girl seemed strengthened by their togetherness, so Ruth would go out and help haul water, chop at the haystack for an hour or two. And then the next day, Jessie would be worse, not able to even bear weight on her legs. Ruth wondered once if Lura gave her something to eat that weakened her, but that made no sense at all.

Jessies color seemed brighter since Burkes arrival, but perhaps it was because she slept better. Burke had asked if he might pray with the child that second day after he'd arrived. Ruth had hesitated, but Matthew said, “What could it hurt, Ruth?” She'd consented, and that night the child's breathing had been less labored.

“Color and breathing's better because of the little dab of whiskey I put in her serving of soup,” Lura confessed one day when Ruth mused out loud about her daughter's strange healing.

“Don't do it again,” Ruth said.

“And why not? Perfectly healthy. Even Doc McCully said so.”

“I never heard that,” Ruth said. “And I'm her mother. I'll decide such things.”

“Truth be known, you got a ways to go before you've had the years of experience that I've had,” Lura said.

“It's not the years, it's the miles,” Ruth retorted.

“Not the tears, it's the smiles? Is that what you said?”

Everyone laughed, and for just a moment Ruth wondered if Lura wasn't feigning deafness.

At least Burke hadn't been condemning of their efforts, or of Lura's whiskey episode either. He wasn't at all what she expected a preacher to be. He worked beside them, eased in at their table as though he belonged, and never assumed he was wiser or more patient or better than anyone else, though Ruth thought sure he was. The attention he gave to the children proved that.