Chapter 3
The piano had been going for the better part of an hour, and whatever was being celebrated at the saloon had spilled out onto the street in the form of whooping and a man firing his pistol twice into the air.
This last part drew a scolding from Mrs. Terrance that nobody seemed to hear over the noise.
Ella pinned a length of blue ribbon to the bodice she was trimming and tried to keep her mind on the stitches.
It wasn't easy. Wheatrow didn't celebrate anything much, not since the church social in the spring, and even that had been a quiet affair.
Whatever this was, it had the whole town's attention.
She set down her needle and went to the door, where a boy was hurrying past with the particular energy of someone who had news and intended to spend it as many times as he could before it went stale.
"What's all the fuss?" Ella asked him.
"The mine claim came in," the boy said, like it explained everything, and when Ella only looked at him, he softened enough to elaborate.
“Well, part of it. Old man Pruitt's claim, and two others alongside it.
They struck a seam so wide the assayer had to run the numbers twice because he didn't believe the first count. Pruitt's rich. Rich as anybody in Denver, they're saying. And the two claims next to his, same thing. Gonna find more in the nex’ few days, everybody’s saying.”
"Pruitt," Ella repeated. Her voice came out steadier than she expected it to. "The claims running along the north ridge?”
"That's the one." The boy was already moving off, chasing the next person who hadn't heard yet. “Word is everyone with a claim over there’s gonna have more money than the Vanderbilts. Whole town's gone half mad over it."
Ella stood in the doorway a moment longer, and something in her chest had gone very still. She felt like she was sitting in the eye of a storm she hadn’t noticed until this very moment.
"Ella." Mrs. Terrance's voice came from behind the counter, not unkind, but not patient either. "If you're finished gawking, that bodice isn't going to finish itself."
"Mrs. Terrance, I wonder if I might have an hour?”
"An hour?”
"There's an errand I need to run. Something that's come up rather sudden." Ella was already untying her work apron, her hands moving faster than her explanation. "I'll make the time back tomorrow, I promise you that."
Mrs. Terrance looked at her the way she sometimes did, like she was adding something up and not quite landing on a number she trusted. "You've gone pale as a sheet, girl. This errand got something to do with all that hollering?"
"No," Ella said, too quickly, and then, because that clearly hadn't convinced anyone, "It's a family matter. I'll explain when I'm able."
She didn't wait to see whether Mrs. Terrance believed her.
She was already out the door and moving down the street, past the saloon where the piano was still going and a man was standing on a barrel telling anyone who'd listen how he'd known Pruitt for eleven years and always said the man would come good someday.
Ella walked faster.
At home, in the small room she rented above the milliner's, she pulled her carpet bag from beneath the bed and began packing without letting herself think too long about any one item before she put it in.
Two dresses. Her good shoes. The letters, tied with string, that she'd been keeping in the bottom of her trunk for longer than she liked to admit to herself.
Her hands were quick and certain, the hands of someone who had rehearsed leaving before, even if she'd never actually done it.
She caught sight of herself in the small mirror over the washstand and stopped for just a moment. Whatever she saw there, she didn't like it enough to look long.
By the time she reached the station, the afternoon train was already being loaded. She bought her ticket with her features set into a grimace of resolve.
She found a seat near the back of the car and sat with her bag on her lap, her back straight, her face composed into something that gave nothing away.
Outside, Wheatrow was still celebrating, the sound of it fading as the train began to move.
Ella watched the town go by the window and did not look back at it once it was gone.