Chapter One #2
He’d been in earnest about the bride. He’d written the ad and meant to submit it to newspapers up and down the country.
His wording had been very clear: a pretty woman who could charm the town and the people who came to buy his horses.
He could see her already, a dainty little rose smiling at him as she served him dinner.
That thought cheered him as he made his way back to his house, whistling a jaunty tune.
***
Aidan didn’t remember falling asleep. Thunder cracked through the shallow valley like a shotgun going off, and he came awake with a snort, his feet still up on the kitchen table, the ad still loose in his hand.
He had the prickling feeling of having been in the middle of a conversation he couldn’t quite remember. He glanced around the kitchen and nearly fell out of his chair in surprise.
Standing not two feet from him was Danny, his oldest nephew, staring at him solemnly, blue eyes wide, saying nothing.
“Danny?” Aidan croaked, his voice raspy from sleep. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What in tarnation are you doing?”
“You snore awful loud, Uncle Aidan,” the boy said, wrinkling his own nose slightly.
“I do not,” Aidan protested. He sat up, rubbing at his face. “Did you come here just to tell me that?”
“No,” Danny said, shaking his head. “I came to tell you that Pa never came home from checking the herd.”
“What? What do you mean?” Aidan asked, blinking to keep his eyes open. “What time is it?”
“Just about five in the evening,” Danny answered.
Aidan stared at him for a moment. “He should’ve been back hours ago.”
“That’s what I’m telling you,” Danny said, his lips puckering a little.
“His horse come back without him. Round about four. I put her up myself, and I waited on the porch, and he never came. And now the babies are after me for their supper, and I don’t know what to tell them.
Pa didn’t leave us anything, and I’m not allowed to touch the stove after—”
“After the blasting cap incident, I remember,” Aidan finished. “Are you saying he hasn’t been home at all?”
Danny shook his head. “And the babies are getting upset.”
“Don’t call them babies,” Aidan said, rubbing at his eyes again, and this time not from fatigue. “Bella’s only two years younger than you.”
Danny made a face that indicated he thought that might as well be a lifetime.
“I’m sure he’ll be along,” Aidan said, standing up and stretching.
“No,” Danny said, surprising Aidan with his emphasis. “Something’s wrong. Why aren’t you listening to me?”
“Danny—” Aidan began.
“No! You all never listen to me!” Danny said, his hands balled into fists. “Something is wrong!”
Aidan rounded on Danny, ready to tell him off for his tone, but he took a moment to study the boy.
His dark hair was made darker still by rain, the ends dripping sadly onto his collar.
His lips were pressed tightly together, his whole body tense like he was holding himself together.
The boy had walked over in a thunderstorm to say it, and Aidan had been asleep with his boots up on the table.
You all never listen to me. It landed somewhere under his ribs and stayed there.
“Okay, Danny,” Aidan said, softening. “Here’s what we’ll do: You run along home and give your brother and sister some bread and cheese to tide you over. I’ll go out and look for your pa. Probably come off her somewhere, and he’s walking in. How’s that?”
Danny stared at Aidan for a moment. Thunder cracked overhead, and the boy jumped. Aidan placed a steadying hand on his rain-dampened shoulder. “Don’t worry,” Aidan told him.
Danny shrugged him off, his face mutinous, and left, slamming his way through the screen door. Aidan watched him go, limbs going every which way as he ran for the house he shared with his father and his brother and sister.
Aidan sighed. It wasn’t like Brendan to vanish without sending word. He shrugged into an oiled leather duster in deference to the rain. He jammed his hat down and eyed the weather.
It didn’t storm often in Virginia City, but when it did, the sky didn’t hold back. Rain came down in sheets, punctuated by spears of lightning. The loose dirt of the near-desert was hard enough to track in dry; any sign of Brendan would have washed away hours ago.
Still, he pushed his way out the door, clutching his hat to his head, determined to find his brother.
***
It was the fourth day, and nearly daybreak, by the time Aidan made it back to his brother’s house.
He’d gone there automatically, the way he did at the end of every day.
They usually ate together; Brendan had hired a local girl who came in to tidy and fix a meal.
It was easier if Aidan just ate there. It most definitely wasn’t because the low ranch house—the first on their ranch—got so quiet at night.
Brendan ate with his knife still in his hand, gesturing with it while he talked, and every few weeks Aidan would tell him he ate like a road agent, and Brendan would say that road agents ate very well indeed. It was not a good joke. They had been running it since Aidan was eleven.
Tonight the house was dark and silent, the windows watching him as he trudged up to it. For the first time in his life, Aidan had no idea what to do next. They’d been out for days, pausing only long enough to swap horses, and he was more tired than he could remember being.
He reached for the latch and pulled his fingers back like he’d been burned. He hesitated, but not for long; there were footsteps behind him, neighbors and townsfolk recruited to search. They’d been all up and down the range, over to the mine and out to the public grazing. No sign of Brendan at all.
“River washout, most likely,” a few of them had whispered with grave nods.
Aidan sighed and finally opened the door. Within, the local girl, Maria, was dozing next to a lantern. At the sound of the door, she leaped to her feet, her eyes wary. Aidan held up his hand.
“Just us, Maria,” he said quietly.
Maria approached Aidan, her dark eyes serious. “Mr. Brendan, did you find him?”
Aidan shook his head. Maria pressed her fingers to her mouth, then hastily made the sign of the cross. “Madre de Dios,” she murmured. “Those poor children.”
Aidan only half-heard her. He dragged himself to the dining room, pulled out a chair, and collapsed into it. In the front room, the searchers shifted and murmured, hoping for more drama.
“All right, folks, thank you for your efforts, but that will be all now,” Antony Byrne called.
He was Aidan’s oldest friend and the ranch foreman, smaller than Aidan and lit from inside somewhere.
With the practiced air of a man used to herding animals, he got most of the people scooted out of the house.
A few lingered—the local schoolmaster, whom Aidan didn’t know by name; the pastor, one Mr. Hildebrandt; and one of the men on the board of the largest silver mine, a Mr. Carter. They moseyed into the kitchen and stood around, watching him.
“It’s a hard thing, Mr. Rawlins,” the pastor said, putting his hand on his shoulder. “I truly am sorry for your loss.”
“Loss?” Aidan repeated stupidly. They exchanged looks.
“Your brother was a good man,” Hildebrandt continued. “He’ll be sorely missed. I’ll call on you tomorrow, see how you’re getting on.” He paused. “It’s a delicate thing, but I’m not sure about a service, if there’s no body—”
“Yes, thank you, Pastor,” Antony cut in. “We’ll bear that in mind.”
“The real question is what to do with the children,” the schoolmaster said. “They’ll need watching over.”
“Could get a local woman to come and mind them,” Hildebrandt suggested.
“Naught but a dozen women in the whole town,” Mr. Carter argued. “They’re all either spoken for or of… questionable moral influence on young minds.”
The pastor stiffened at that. Antony rolled his eyes.
“Well,” the schoolmaster sniffed, “I suppose there’s nothing for it then. They’ll have to be sent to a foundling home.”
“Foundling home?” Aidan repeated.
“It’s for the best,” the schoolmaster said. His face was thin and gray, like his suit. He tried to give Aidan a sympathetic look, but it mostly looked like he had a bout of uncomfortable wind.
“We’ll get them on a train before the week is out,” Hildebrandt agreed. “We can get that girl to help them get packed up, and—”
“I’ll take them,” Aidan heard himself say. The words were out of his mouth without his being aware of forming them.
Everyone stared at him in bald-faced surprise.
He hadn’t had the least notion of doing any such thing.
All he had been able to see while they talked was the three of them standing on a platform with their bags, going east to strangers, and he was not going to lose them in the same week he had lost Brendan.
Somewhere behind the words, the brick barn came quietly apart. The elegant steppers, the fine carriage horses, the whole shining afternoon with Mr. Cole. He let all of it go without much of a fight, and that frightened him worse than the losing did.
“Are you quite sure?” Hildebrandt asked. “It’s a lot to take on.”
“I’m sure,” Aidan said, hoping that he sounded more confident than he felt.
“They’ll need a woman to look after them,” Mr. Carter reminded him.
Aidan thought back to the ad. His words about a pretty girl seemed foolish now. He closed his eyes and tore it up in his head. He’d been so set on an ornament for his arm that he’d never once thought about what a woman would need to survive out here. And now there were children.
What sort of woman would take all of this on? he asked himself.