CHAPTER 5
Arrival at Goldpine
Goldpine, Wyoming Territory
Ruth Larson was waiting at the Goldpine stage crossing when Callie's coach finally rolled to a stop, and the sight of her old friend's familiar, delighted face, considerably weathered by three years of territorial sun but otherwise entirely unchanged, undid something in Callie's careful composure that the whole long journey west had not managed to touch.
“Callie Reyes,” Ruth said, catching her in an embrace before Callie had even properly descended from the coach, “you look exhausted, and travel-worn, and considerably braver than the last time I saw you, which I'd have thought impossible, given how bravely you once stood up to Sister Agatha over that business with the poetry recitation.”
“I have missed you more than I properly know how to say, Ruth.”
“And I you, dearest, more than three years of letters could ever adequately convey.
Come, you'll want a wash and something to eat before I take you out to the Cross Ranch, and I daresay you'll want to hear rather more about Nathaniel Cross and his two children before you meet them properly, given how little I told you in my letters.”
Over a simple supper in Ruth's own kitchen, with Josiah joining them partway through and offering his own quiet, thoughtful observations, Callie learned considerably more of the household she was about to enter than Ruth's careful correspondence had conveyed.
Nathaniel Cross, Ruth explained, was a man of genuine decency and hard work, well respected throughout the district, but a man who had retreated, in the two years since his wife Mary's death, into a kind of careful emotional distance that had proven, by all accounts, rather harder for his two housekeepers to navigate than the actual domestic labor of the position.
“His boy, Sam, is nine, and quiet in the particular way of a child who's learned that quiet keeps him safer from further disappointment,” Ruth said.
“His daughter Lily is five, and rather less quiet about her feelings, having greeted the news of Mrs. Halloran's departure with a display of grief that I'm told took the better part of an evening to weather.
She's convinced, poor thing, that every grown woman who comes to live in that house is destined to leave again, same as her mother did, and I'd wager she'll test you rather harder on that particular point than either her father or her brother will.”
“And Mr. Cross himself? What ought I to expect of him?”
Josiah considered this question with the particular care he brought to most assessments of character, having conducted the man's own wife's funeral service some two years past and watched, from his pastoral vantage, the slow and difficult process of Nathaniel's grief in the time since.
“A fair man, and an honest one, and a harder worker than most in this territory.
But guarded, Callie, in a manner I suspect you'll recognize readily enough, having spent your own life navigating a father determined to manage your future according to his own judgment rather than yours.
Nathaniel's grief has made him rather too accustomed to managing everything himself, trusting no one else with the more delicate business of his household or his children's hearts, and I'd wager patience will serve you considerably better with him than any amount of domestic competence, however genuinely you'll want to develop the latter as well.”
“I shall try to bring both,” Callie said, “though I confess the domestic competence is rather more theoretical than practiced, at present.”
Ruth laughed at that, warmly. “You'll learn quickly enough, dear, same as I did, same as Amelia Thorne did before you — you'll meet her soon enough, I expect, she and Jed and their little Nettie are as much a part of this town now as the church itself, and I daresay her own beginning here bore more than a passing resemblance to yours, arriving with rather more hope than practical skill and managing, in the end, considerably better than either she or Jed initially expected.”
The mention of another woman who had arrived in Goldpine with uncertain prospects and found, eventually, something worth the considerable risk, settled comfortably alongside Callie's own cautious hope, and she found herself, walking out to Ruth's small guest room that evening to settle in for the night before her formal introduction to the Cross household the following morning, feeling rather more prepared for the uncertain road ahead than the whole of her long journey west had managed to leave her feeling until this very evening, in the warm, familiar company of an old friend who had, herself, once made a similar leap and found solid ground on the far side of it.
She lay awake a good while that night, listening to the unfamiliar sounds of a mining town settling into evening quiet, and found herself praying, in the simple, unpolished manner she had learned as a girl before her father's increasing preoccupation with the mercantile had gradually crowded devotion out of the household's daily rhythms, for the courage to face whatever the morning brought, and for wisdom enough to earn the trust of a guarded man and two wary children who owed her nothing and had every reason, given their own hard history, to withhold whatever welcome she hoped to find.
Ruth, hearing her stir in the small hours, knocked softly and let herself in with a cup of chamomile tea and the particular understanding of an old friend who recognized nervous sleeplessness when she encountered it.
“You'll do just fine tomorrow, Callie. I've watched you face down considerably more intimidating prospects than one guarded rancher and two cautious children, back at Miss Everly's, when Sister Agatha tried to have you expelled over that poetry recitation and you argued your case so thoroughly the whole faculty ended up agreeing with you instead.”
“That was different, Ruth. That was merely my own reputation at stake. This is a whole family's wellbeing, and my own uncertain future besides.”
“It's not so different as you think, dear.
Both required the same thing — genuine conviction, honestly offered, and the patience to let that conviction prove itself over time rather than demanding instant acceptance.
You've got both qualities in abundance, Callie, whatever nerves are presently telling you otherwise.”
Callie fell asleep eventually, comforted by her old friend's steady confidence, and woke the next morning with considerably more resolve than the previous night's anxiety had left her to expect.
Over breakfast, Ruth shared further particulars of Goldpine's own history that Callie had not previously known, describing her brother's bride ministry and the several successful matches it had produced these past years, including, with evident fondness, Amelia and Jed Thorne's own difficult but ultimately triumphant beginning.
“I don't say this to suggest your own circumstance mirrors theirs precisely,” Ruth said, “though I confess I do wonder, watching you these past days, whether this territory hasn't got a particular gift for delivering exactly the difficult, worthwhile beginnings certain women most need, however unlikely the path that brings them here.”
“I'm not seeking a match, Ruth, only honest employment and a fresh start.”
“Of course, dear, of course. I only observe, having watched this particular pattern unfold more than once now, that seeking employment and honest fresh starts has a curious tendency, in this territory, to produce rather more than either party initially sought.
I'll say no more on the subject, only that I'd not be entirely surprised, knowing you as I do, if your own story followed a similarly unexpected course.”
Callie laughed at her old friend's evident matchmaking instincts, fully engaged despite Ruth's protests to the contrary, and found the laughter itself a welcome release from the accumulated tension of her long journey, a small reminder that whatever difficulties awaited her at the Cross Ranch, she had at least arrived somewhere that still knew how to properly celebrate genuine hope.
Josiah joined them partway through this exchange, having finished his own morning rounds of pastoral visits, and added his own quieter observations regarding the Cross household's particular history, offering Callie a fuller understanding of the challenge awaiting her than Ruth's more romantically inclined commentary had provided.
“I buried Mary Cross myself, some two years back,” he said, settling at the table with the particular gravity he brought to matters of genuine pastoral weight.
“A fine woman, and much loved by this whole community, and her death hit that family harder than most losses I've witnessed in my years here, on account of how sudden the illness's final decline proved, despite the many months of warning that preceded it.
Nathaniel's grief has been a slow, careful thing, Callie, built up over two years of steady, private endurance rather than any dramatic breakdown, and I'd wager that particular kind of grief proves considerably harder to properly address than the more visible sort, precisely because it hides itself so well behind a man's ordinary competence.”
“I understand something of that particular difficulty myself, Reverend, having watched my own father manage his grief for my mother through much the same careful, private endurance, never once permitting himself the visible vulnerability that might have actually helped him properly heal.”
“Then perhaps you're rather better equipped for this particular household than even Ruth's optimistic assessment suggests,” Josiah said, “having already learned, through hard experience, how to recognize that particular kind of hidden grief, and perhaps something of how to gently coax it toward the light.”
Callie considered this counsel carefully, understanding that whatever domestic competence she still needed to develop, she perhaps already possessed something considerably more valuable for this particular position — the hard-won wisdom of a woman who understood grief's careful disguises from her own family's difficult history.
“I'll tell you one thing more, before you set off for the ranch this morning,” Josiah added, as the small breakfast gathering began to wind toward its natural conclusion.
“Whatever difficulty this position presents, and I'd wager it will present considerable difficulty in these early weeks, remember that you're not facing it entirely alone.
This whole community stands ready to help, should the need arise, same as we'd help any family facing genuine hardship.
You need only ask, Callie, and you'll find considerably more support here than a stranger's first impression of a rough mining town might lead you to expect.”
“Thank you, Reverend. That's a genuine comfort, knowing I've got somewhere to turn should the position prove more than I can presently manage alone.”
“It's no more than any Christian community owes its members, dear, and I count you among our number now, whatever official congregation you eventually settle into. Godspeed, and do send word how you're getting on, once you've had proper time to settle.”
With this blessing carrying her forward, Callie completed her final preparations and set off toward the Cross Ranch with Ruth as her guide, feeling considerably more equipped for the considerable challenge ahead than the morning's earlier nervousness had left her to expect.