Chapter Twenty-Six
Two weeks later
The bell over the livery door gave a thin jangle each time the wind caught it.
Clay stood beneath the eave with his hands in his pockets and watched rainwater run from the roof in steady strings. Genoa’s main street had dried to deep ruts after the last weather. Across the way, Samuel was tightening a cinch on his mule. He had been at it too long.
“You’ll wear a hole through the leather,” Clay said.
Samuel did not look up. “Mule threw a shoe this morning.”
“He’s got the shoe.”
“He’s got a mean look.”
“That’s his nature.”
Samuel gave the mule’s flank a pat that was not gentle. The animal laid back one ear and went on chewing.
Beyond the far end of the street, their camp showed pale through the cottonwoods. Most of the wagons stood there still. A few had been pulled apart for repair. Dr. Vale had ordered that the sick be kept close together where he and the women from town could tend them.
For two weeks, Clay had watched people rise from bedrolls slowly, their faces gray and hollow, their legs unsteady beneath them. Some had not risen.
A wagon came down the street with a load of split pine.
Jesse walked alongside it, one hand on the wheel, his coat open despite the chill.
He had shaved that morning. It made him look less like the man Clay had found in the saloon and more like the boy in the old photograph, except for the scar cutting pale along his jaw and the lieutenant’s habit of looking over any room before he entered it.
“You two done courting that mule?” Jesse called.
Samuel straightened. “She’d make a fine wife.”
“She’s got good sense; that’s all a man needs.”
A woman passing the mercantile gave Jesse a sharp look. Jesse tipped his hat to her with no shame at all.
Clay smiled.
Jesse drew near and held out a folded piece of paper. “Vale says he’ll take the south lot if you still want it.”
Clay took the paper. The deed was not much to look at.
A few lines of ink. A square of land beyond the edge of town, with a run of rough pasture and a creek that held water most months.
There was a small house on it, empty since winter.
The roof needed patching. One corner of the barn sagged.
The fence had gaps wide enough for a cow to walk through without troubling herself.
It wasn’t California, but after all that had happened, it would do just as well.
Clay had gone out there twice already.
He knew where he would set new posts. He knew which wall caught the morning sun. He knew that the cottonwoods by the creek would give enough shade for stock in high summer.
“It’s a fair price,” Jesse said. “Malcolm knows cattle. Better than I do, anyhow.”
“That ain’t hard.”
“True enough.”
Samuel looked over Clay’s shoulder at the paper. “You buying it?”
“If I can make the numbers work.”
Jesse rubbed at the back of his neck. “I can put some in. It’ll be a partnership, if you’ll have it.”
Clay looked at him.
Jesse shrugged one shoulder. “I came home with officer’s pay and no home worth going back to. I’ve been sleeping above that saloon and listening to men lie about gold. I’d rather build something that stands.”
For a moment Clay saw Jesse as he had been at nineteen, grinning with a split lip after a fight, holding out half a biscuit as if it were a feast.
Clay folded the paper again.
“You’d work with Malcolm?” he asked.
“I spoke to him yesterday. He said he’d consider it if Lydia agreed.”
“And?”
Jesse’s mouth tipped. “Lydia told him he’d consider it.”
Clay laughed once.
Across the street, a small figure came bursting through the door of the general store with Violet close behind him. Tucker wore a shirt too large in the sleeves and a pair of boots that had been cut down from an older boy’s. He carried a paper twist in both hands like it held gold.
“Clay!” he shouted.
Violet caught him by the collar before he stepped into the mud. “Walk.”
“I am walking.”
“You are bouncing.”
Tucker came the rest of the way at something close to a walk. He opened the paper. Inside were three striped peppermint sticks, already soft at the ends from his warm hands.
“That shopkeep gave ’em to me,” he said. “One is yours.”
“Presents from a stranger?” Clay took one. “What’d you give her for it?”
“I carried her flour sack.”
“You carried it three feet.”
“It was a heavy three feet.”
Violet pressed her lips together, trying not to smile.
Tucker offered one to Samuel, then looked toward Jesse with caution. “You can have half of mine if you promise not to take more than your share.”
Jesse crouched before him. “That’s a hard bargain.”
“You’re a soldier. You ought to be able.”
Jesse took the peppermint solemnly. “I’ll do my best.”
Tucker nodded, satisfied. Then he looked past Clay toward the camp.
“Sarah still making broth?”
“She is.”
“She makes it too thin.”
“She puts what Dr. Vale tells her to put in it.”
“He don’t have to drink it.”
Violet set a hand on Tucker’s shoulder. Her fingers rested there a little longer than needed. “Come along. You promised that shopkeep you’d sweep out the back room.”
Tucker’s face fell.
Clay leaned down. “You keep your word.”
“I know.”
“And don’t sweep the dirt beneath the shelves. She’ll find it.”
Tucker looked offended.
Violet led him away. Tucker dragged his boots for three steps, then glanced back and lifted the peppermint in farewell.
Samuel watched them go. “Violet’s taken to him.”
“She has.”
“She’s got room for him?”
Clay looked toward the camp again. Violet’s boy was gone. There was no need to say his name. The absence sat with all of them now.
“She’s got room,” Clay said.
By late afternoon the wind had dropped. Clay crossed the camp with the folded deed in his pocket. A pot hung over the fire outside the canvas shelter the town women had put up for the recovering travelers. The broth smelled of onion and bone and something bitter from the doctor’s pouch.
Sarah stood beside the fire with her sleeves rolled to the elbow.
Her hair was braided back, though loose curls had worked free around her temples.
She was thinner than when he had found her on the trail.
So was he. Her face had a tired look he did not like, but when she saw him she lifted her chin.
“You’ve been gone all day.”
“I was in town.”
“I can see that.”
He held out the peppermint stick Tucker had given him. “Brought you something.”
Her eyes moved from the candy to his face. “You did not bring that.”
“Tucker gave it to me. I chose to share it.”
“Not the same thing.”
“No, ma’am.”
She took it anyway. Her fingers brushed his palm. Neither of them moved at first. Then Sarah drew her hand back and looked toward the pot.
“How is Samuel?” she asked.
“Trying to convince a mule he’s good husband material.
“That sounds like Samuel.”
“Jesse found us a place.”
She turned to him then. “A place?”
Clay took the paper from his pocket. He had folded and unfolded it enough that the creases had begun to weaken.
“South of town. A house. Barn. Some pasture. Malcolm says the ground is decent for cattle if it’s worked right. Jesse wants in. So does Malcolm, if Lydia agrees.”
Sarah looked down at the paper but did not take it. The fire snapped between them.
“You’ve decided to stay,” she said.
“I have.”
“And Samuel?”
“He’ll go on when the folks are fit to travel. He means to see California, same as he set out to do.”
Sarah stirred the pot once, though it did not need stirring.
Clay had thought of this speech while mending fence posts with Jesse. He had thought of it while he lay awake in the loft above the livery, listening to rain on the shingles. Each time he had found better words than the ones in his mouth now.
“I want you to stay too,” he said.
Sarah’s spoon stopped against the rim of the pot.
“Clay.”
“I know you can go wherever you please. I know you don’t need me telling you what to do.”
“That’s good, because I’d have something to say if you did.”
“I expect you would.”
The corner of her mouth shifted.
He looked at the dirt by his boots. There were ashes there, and a crushed bit of eggshell. He had faced Everett with a pistol in his hand. This felt worse.
“I don’t want this because you’re alone,” he said. “You aren’t. Not anymore. Violet would have you. Charlotte would, if she had strength enough to fuss over another person. The boardinghouse said you could stay on there as long as you wished.”
“I want it because when I look at that place, I see you in it.” He swallowed. “I see you telling me the fence is crooked. I see you taking over the kitchen and throwing me out of it. I see you shooting better than me, though that part seems unlikely.”
Her eyes narrowed faintly.
“I said unlikely,” he added. “Not impossible.”
The spoon came up in her hand. He thought she might throw it at him.
Instead she set it down.
Clay reached into his coat. The ring was plain gold.
Jesse had helped him choose it from a widow who kept a small case of jewelry beneath her counter at the mercantile.
Clay had stood there too long, looking at the rows of bright things, until Jesse told him a ring was meant to be worn, not admired from across the room.
He held it out.
“Marry me, Sarah.”
Her breath caught. She looked at the ring and then at him.
“You have thought this through?” she asked quietly.
“More than I’ve thought through most things.”
“That is not much comfort.”
“It’s what I’ve got.”
Sarah’s gaze dropped to the fire. From the churchyard came the sound of a hammer striking a nail into wood.
“My uncle said I would go willingly with the first man who asked. That I would be grateful for it.”
Clay felt his hand close around the ring.
“For a while I thought maybe he was right. I hated that I’d written those letters. Hated that I’d wanted a life somewhere else badly enough to answer a stranger.”
“You wanted out,” Clay said.
“I wanted to be free.”
“You were.”
“I was scared.”
“So was I.”
She looked at him then.
“I didn’t know what I was doing when I left the orphanage,” he said. “I had a wagon and not much else. That wasn’t freedom exactly. It was just the road.”
A small smile came and went on her face.
“You aren’t asking me to save you,” she said. “I know that.”
“No. I’m asking because I love you. And I’d be proud to have you beside me. Not behind me.”
Sarah wiped one thumb beneath her eye quickly, as though something had blown into it. Then she took the ring from his hand.
“You are a foolish man,” she said. “You have not asked me what I want.”
Clay’s stomach tightened. “What do you want?”
She slid the ring onto her finger. It fit.
“I want that house with the crooked fence,” she said. “I want a kitchen you are not allowed to touch without permission. I want to see if you can build a ranch without losing every last cow.”
He stared at her.
“And,” she said, her voice unsteady now, “I want to marry you.”
He let out a breath that seemed to have been caught inside him for days. Then he stepped close and put his hands around her waist.
Sarah caught his shirt in both fists and pulled him down to kiss her.
***
Three days later, they were married in the small white church at the edge of town.
Sarah wore a dove-gray dress Mrs. Scott had altered through two long evenings.
Violet pinned fresh sage and tiny white flowers into Sarah’s hair.
Lydia stood beside her with Rose sleeping against her shoulder, wrapped in a clean square of linen.
Charlotte sat in the front pew under a shawl, too frail to stand long, but she held Sarah’s hand before the service began and kissed her cheek.
“You make him mind you,” Charlotte whispered.
“I intend to.”
“That’s my girl.”
Clay wore Jesse’s spare black coat. It was too broad across the shoulders, but Sarah said he looked respectable enough once she had smoothed down his hair with both hands. Tucker stood at Clay’s side in a shirt buttoned wrong at the collar. He had insisted on the job.
When the preacher asked who gave the bride, Tucker spoke before anyone else could.
“I do.”
A laugh moved through the church. Sarah covered her mouth. Clay bent and whispered, “You sure?”
Tucker nodded hard. “She’s family.”
Clay looked at Sarah across the narrow aisle. Her eyes shone.
Afterward, Samuel shook Clay’s hand outside the church and then pulled him into a brief, hard embrace.
“You build it right,” Samuel said.
“I’ll try.”
“No. Build it right.”
Clay nodded.
Samuel turned to Sarah. “Keep him from getting killed.”
“I have been trying.”
“You’ll need to try harder.”
By the wagons, Violet had Tucker pressed against her side. He looked pleased with his new boots and solemn with the importance of the day.
“You’ll write?” he asked Clay.
“Every chance I get.”
“You better.”
“I will.”
Violet met Clay’s eyes over the boy’s head. There was grief in her face still, but there was steadiness too.
“He’ll be looked after,” she said.
Clay touched Tucker’s hair. “I know.”
Malcolm and Lydia came last. Malcolm held out his hand, then seemed to think better of it and gripped Clay’s shoulder instead.
“We’ll be at the south lot tomorrow,” he said. “Lydia says your house needs cleaning before any decent woman steps inside.”
Sarah folded her arms. “Lydia is right.”
Lydia smiled. “I usually am.”
Rose woke then and began to cry. Malcolm took her awkwardly while Lydia adjusted the blanket. Clay watched them together. Jesse joined them on the church steps, his coat hanging open, his face turned toward the road south of town.
There was work waiting. Fences. Stock. A roof before winter. People who had chosen to stay when they could have gone on.
Sarah slipped her hand into Clay’s.
Her ring caught the afternoon light, plain and bright.
He closed his fingers around hers, and they walked down the street toward the house that needed mending.