Chapter 22
Word traveled quickly, and some of the most affluent and influential men came in for a drink, including Elmer and his father, Woodrow, and a man named P.J. Hartigan.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” Temperance greeted, bringing three glasses without being asked because they wouldn’t have come in if they weren’t here for whiskey.
“Miss Goodrich. That’s a fetching gown you’re wearing,” Elmer said with what sounded like sarcasm.
Woodrow shot him a glower.
Temperance was very tempted to ask Elmer about his wife, but pocketed the coins they gave her and invited Felix over with a wave.
“Can I introduce you to Mr. Felix Martin? He’s the uncle of Virgil Gardner’s wife, Marigold, and her sister, Pearl.”
“Ah, yes. Good to meet you.” The men stood to shake Felix’s hand and invited him to join them.
Felix had brought Owen his second bottle and stuck around to meet the townsfolk. He was a personable man who possessed natural curiosity and a keen grasp of politics, so they all fell into conversation very quickly.
It was a busy night that ended when the second bottle ran out.
Several men groused about being kicked out, wanting to continue drinking.
“P.J., you got anything?” one asked as they were all putting on jackets and hats.
“I’m down to my personal reserve, boys, and that’s personal. I’m going to have to start keeping it in a safe in the cellar, like Owen, so I don’t get robbed.”
“You got a safe in the cellar, Owen?” someone asked.
“I have a strongbox that Virgil ordered for the camp. Don’t get excited, it’s only got a single piece of paper in it. My receipt for a debt I recently paid off.” He flicked a pithy look at Elmer.
Elmer curled his lip and filed out with the rest of them.
Owen locked the door and turned the sign while Temperance gathered empty glasses.
The customers had been grateful and generous, some paying a whole dollar for their drink and offering the balance to Temperance. She had earned upwards of three dollars on top of her regular wage for a short night’s work.
She should have been thrilled, but she was morose as she recorded the intake into the ledger book.
“That was good fortune, wasn’t it?” Owen said as he came to the bar.
“In what way?”
“What do you mean, ‘in what way?’ We were the only saloon doing business tonight. Even Dudley has run out of his tonsil varnish. Leave that,” he said of the ledger book. “It can wait until morning.”
“I want to go see Jane tomorrow. When you go to the mercantile, use what you made tonight to settle your account there. It should be fourteen dollars and twenty-two cents.” She didn’t ask him if he would remember. He always did, down to the penny. “If he asks you for more than that, it needs a second look.”
“Come with me. Bring the book and sort out any discrepancy while we’re there.”
“Are you going to hire him?” Her stomach writhed as though filled with a nest of snakes.
“Felix? I’ll think about hiring him once Marigold has confirmed he’s really her uncle,” he said without inflection.
“You think he’s lying?”
“No, but I’d be a fool not to check.”
At least he was consistent. She closed the book and left the parlor to go change and ready for bed. Owen came in after dousing the lights.
“I’m going to ask Jane and Mr. Fritz if I can live with her,” Temperance blurted.
Owen paused in removing his clothes. “I’ll build you your own bed if you want one. Now that the ceiling is done over the parlor, I can put in a ladder to a loft. I wanted something for when partners are in town anyway. It will only take a few days. You can’t be walking across town in a blizzard in the middle of the night.”
“I’ll still do your books, but I won’t work here at night. The men aren’t coming here to talk to me, anyway. They’re coming because they like what you’ve built.”
“What are you going to do then? Work for Fritz?”
“If he’ll have me.”
“You’ll work in a saloon for him, but not for me?” he asked with disbelief. “What will it take? Your own room out the back? I’ll build it as soon as the weather allows.”
“No, you won’t, Owen, because once the snow melts, you’ll go to camp, and what will I do then?” she asked shakily. The inevitability of his abandonment was looming like a funnel cloud, roiling with tornadoes that had yet to touch down and destroy her life, but they absolutely would. It was only a matter of time. “You’ll hand the running of this place to Felix and his niece because that makes sense. There won’t be any point in asking me to do your books when they sound perfectly capable of it.”
“I haven’t even decided whether to hire him, and you’re leaving because I might?”
“Whether you hire Felix or someone else, you’re leaving in the spring, Owen. What happens to me then? Do I sleep with the next man who comes along? I can’t...” She rubbed where her breastbone felt as though it was being sawed in half. “I can’t rely on you. That’s what I tried to explain the other day. I know why you don’t want me to rely on you, and now I realize I can’t.” What hurt even more was realizing, “I can’t keep thinking my father will look after me, either. Going home won’t help. This is what I’m finally seeing. No one wants to look after me. I have to look after myself.”
“Temperance.” His voice was agonized.
She shook her head. “I’m falling in love with you, Owen. If you don’t feel the same and you don’t want a life together, then I have to stop pretending it’s possible. I have to make a life without you.”
His response was a long, painful minute of resounding silence.
Then he said, “I’ll sleep in the parlor tonight.”
Owen barely slept.
His chest was on fire yet felt scraped hollow at the same time. His mind raced, searching for the words to keep her here, but he couldn’t find them. He couldn’t ask her to trust him and stay, because what happened when he let her down? What happened when loving her wasn’t enough?
Did he love her? He didn’t even know what that looked like beyond the sense that it didn’t matter how much you loved someone if you were negligent and a profound disappointment. If you were bad at it. And when you let them down in such a permanent way, you were no longer worthy of being loved.
When he heard her rise and put the dog out, he went into the kitchen, and they silently went about their chores. They ate breakfast, then she packed her things into her carpet bag, taking only the things she’d brought or bought with her wages—her hairbrush and the novel by Jane Austen that she’d been reading to him when time allowed.
“If it doesn’t work out, and you need a place to sleep, you have one here,” he insisted. “Always.”
“Thank you.” She swallowed. “I’ll come back each week to catch up the books. Feed Clarence,” she reminded with a faint smile and left.
On Mavis’s request,Mr. Fritz rehired her.
Mavis lived in back of the saloon with him, but she had had Mr. Fritz make improvements to the lean-to. The holes in the walls had been mudded, and the window had a proper pane of glass. The snow on the roof provided a layer of insulation, so it was reasonably snug now.
With Mavis’s influence on her husband, the clientele in the Bijou had improved too. Mavis had educated him on how demeaning some of the men behaved, and Mr. Fritz was now on the lookout for it, telling men to leave if they were growing too drunk to be respectful.
“They’re not ‘my girls,’” Temperance heard him grumble to one man. “They’re my wife’s friends. Mind how you speak to them, or get the hell out.”
That was enough for Temperance to warm to the old grump herself.
It was still hard to work here, though. Men were not shy about asking, “What are you doing here, Rosie? Aren’t you and Owen livin’ married?”
“He was my employer,” she insisted, but no one believed her. Why would they? It was a lie.
“Well, if you want a husband, you come see me first, all right?”
“I will, thank you.”
She wouldn’t. Given how the men in her life had fallen short of taking care of her, she was determined to move forward on her own terms.
To that end, she offered to set up Mr. Fritz’s ledger book which was a very haphazard box of paper scraps and scribbled notes of debts owed from different camps, similar to the promissory notes that Owen’s company issued. The other camps weren’t as diligent about paying them out as Owen and his partners were, though. Once Temperance made a list for Mr. Fritz, he started refusing to extend the credit, insisting on cash until those companies settled up.
It worked. He was over the moon at receiving so many outstanding payments. Mavis was excited to learn how to stay on top of the expenses and income, and Jane said, “You’ll show me how to do that when I open my shop, won’t you?”
“Let’s not wait until you have a shop, Jane. Let’s call your inventory a business and operate it as one,” Temperance insisted.
Jane bought herself a book. Then, with Mick’s permission, put up a notice advertising ‘Ready-made articles of clothing for men and women. See Jane at the Bijou.’
The very next day, a woman from the cathouse turned up, asking for a gown ‘that will get some attention.’ Apparently, the seamstress and her tailor husband at the clothing store were not of a mind to fashion a gown that showed off the wearer’s petticoat and shoulders.
While Jane calculated her supply costs and labor, so she would be sure to earn the profit she deserved, Temperance began visiting other businesses in Auraria and Denver, letting them know the kind of assistance she could offer. Many turned her away, uninterested. A handful asked her to set them up and teach them to do it themselves. Three asked her to come by once a week to handle writing out their invoices and tracking outstanding payments.
She had a suspicion Owen had something to do with that. She dropped by the saloon regularly to catch up his ledger and smother Clarence in love. During one visit, she had mentioned that she was trying to drum up business in the field of accounting. He had seemed impressed and had told her he would put the word out among his customers.
The Lucky Horseshoe was thriving, but her visits with him were stilted. He showed her that he had built a loft area and invited her to use it. She thanked him and trudged back out into the snow, because she was due for a shift at the Bijou.
Her days were long, but she had a little more in her purse at the end of each one. She was finally nudging herself from destitute to providing for herself and that felt very good.
“Temperance,” Emmett greeted her one day as he came into the Bijou. “Exactly the person I was looking for.”
“Emmett. It’s good to see you.” She smiled, but it faltered as her thoughts leapt to Owen. “Is everything well? Why are you looking for me?”
“Owen tells me you’ve begun offering accounting services. The lumber mill is too busy to manage their paperwork. Can you drop by later this week to help them out?”
“It’s winter. Are they operating?”
“When they can, yes.” He tugged his ear.
Oh, Owen. He had pushed his friend to offer this work to her.
“Of course.” She couldn’t allow her pride to get in the way of earning a living. “Thank you.”
“Don’t pay her too well,” Mr. Fritz said as he poured Emmett a drink. “We still need her here in the evenings.” The twinkle in his eye as he shot her a glance told her he was joking.
“Mavis is back,” Emmett noted with a nod toward her. “That’s good.”
She smiled and waved but stayed where she stood, her tray on her hip as she listened to a customer who was gesturing to his sling, obviously telling her how he came to be injured.
“Is Jane not here?” Emmett frowned as he scanned the room.
“She and Mavis trade off in the evenings. Jane watches Freddie for a few hours, so she can catch up on her sewing.” Mavis liked to make tips and have money of her own, but she wasn’t up to being on her feet more than two or three hours.
“I’ll have one more drink, then square up with you, Fritz. Maybe I’ll come back after I finish my rounds.”
Emmett walked away with Mr. Fritz, and Temperance bit back a smile at how obvious he was in his attraction to Jane.
Temperance had told Jane that Owen thought Emmett was sweet on her. Jane had taken the news with equanimity, not saying anything about her feelings toward him, not that Temperance had probed. As far as she knew, they’d only met the once back in October, and Jane shouldn’t be expected to return a man’s affections unless she genuinely felt the same.
Temperance liked them both, though. She would definitely support a romance if one blossomed between them.
“I forgot your letter,” Emmett said to Temperance when he reappeared. He was tucking his wallet into his jacket, but his hands were otherwise empty. “I picked up the mail for the Horseshoe since that’s where I was headed. I guess they thought you were still there. I didn’t think to bring it with me. I’ll tell Owen you’ll come by tomorrow?”
Anxious yearning rolled through her middle. She wanted to see him, but it was always difficult. The way Emmett watched her so closely made her wonder if he was orchestrating a meeting.
“I was there yesterday. I’ll drop by on my regular Thursday. If it’s from one of the distilleries, go ahead and open it. It’s saloon business.”
Emmett looked like he wanted to say more, but someone called out for a drink. By the time she had served them, Emmett was gone.
Owen was trying hard notto become the worst kind of saloonkeeper, the kind who stole from himself and depleted his own inventory.
He was miserable, though. Not with the business. He was proud of the saloon and the way it was running. He’d even had a small cask of decent bourbon come in from Fort Kearney, and Felix had written to his friend with an order for four barrels to be shipped in the spring.
Temperance was right in that his customers didn’t come to see her. They asked after her, now that she was absent, but they were just as happy to pat the dog and gamble and jaw-wag about business and investing whether she was here or not.
That’s how Owen heard about the proposal to have a telegraph line brought into Denver, something he wanted to discuss with Virgil and the rest. Heck, Temperance would have had an opinion worth hearing, but she wasn’t here.
He missed their talks and sharing a sense of accomplishment with her. He missed her. It wasn’t just that his bed was as empty as his stew pot. So were his days. So was his chest.
When Emmett staggered in after Owen had emptied out for the night, Owen searched his face for some sign of whether he’d seen Temperance and how she was doing.
“You’re pickled,” Owen noted as Emmett braced his shoulder into the wall.
“I gotta stick to one drink each when I do the rounds by myself. Or get to bed when they’re finished, not run back to the Bijou for dancing.” He sat down heavily in one of the chairs and shook his head when Owen held up a bottle, offering to pour him a nightcap.
“How’s Jane?” Owen asked as he poured himself the drink he’d been avoiding all night.
“She’s so pretty,” Emmett said on a wistful sigh. “And she has the nicest laugh, and she dances well. Then I asked if she’d ever been to California, because I can’t help feeling like I know her, and she got all quiet. I couldn’t tell if I insulted her or...? It’s frustrating. Shit, I’m drunk, aren’t I?”
“Not at all. Tell me more about your love life,” Owen said, amused. “Did you kiss her?”
“You’re just jealous I have a woman who wants to see me. She looks as miserable as you do, by the way. Not Jane. Temperance.”
Ah. Temperance.
Emmett’s words yanked Owen’s heart around. He didn’t want her hurting, but he wasn’t as sorry as he ought to be hearing that she was as agonized by their being apart as he was.
“I told her to come get her letter,” Emmett added, almost tipping out of his chair as he leaned to pet Clarence.
Owen wasn’t planning to hold it hostage. If he was allowed to step foot in the Bijou, he would walk it over himself, but the rest of the saloonkeepers in town were still giving him the cold shoulder.
“What are you going to do about her?” Emmett asked.
“Nothing.”
“You’re as thick-headed as Virgil,” Emmett scoffed. “You had a great woman who puts up with your shit, who was sleeping in your bed, and you don’t want to keep her? What’s wrong with her?”
“Nothing,” Owen said firmly. “It’s what’s wrong with me. What happens when I fuck up, Emmett?”
“You’re not a child anymore.” Emmett sat up, sobering. “You act like one, sure. No, that’s not even true. Look at this place.” He waved. “I never thought you were serious about opening a saloon. I sure as hell didn’t think you’d take it seriously if you did. But this is exactly what we all want—something that will still be here after the gold dries up.”
“I’m still a goldminer. What the hell do I do, though? Bring her back to camp as my wife? Get her pregnant and make her sleep in a tent and live like this the rest of her life? She wants to go back to Chicago, where they have streetlights and trolleys and hot water from a tap.”
“She wants to leave because you haven’t asked her to stay. Have you?”
“I can’t.” Owen restlessly shot to his feet. He walked to the bar where he clapped his empty glass on the cherrywood.
“You can. You just don’t want to.”
He did, though. He wanted to ask her to stay. He didn’t think he should. It was different.
“Do you love her?” Emmett pried.
He did. And she had said she loved him back. That didn’t mean he deserved her love, though.
Maybe...maybe it was time they both forgave themselves for past sins and made a proper go of it?