Chapter Twenty-Five
The Collins Kitchen; the Road to Bozeman; Morrison’s Mercantile
Wade came into the kitchen at half past five with the cold of the south fence on his coat and the day’s work behind his eyes.
He had been at the fence line with Ben since the first light of the morning.
They had walked the whole of the south wire, set two markers at the cottonwoods where the watch would sit, and ridden the boundary of the southeast quarter at noon with the cold sun at their backs.
He hung his hat on the peg, drew the chair out at the table, and lowered himself into it on tired legs.
Zoe set a bowl of stew in front of him.
She had been waiting in the kitchen the whole of the afternoon for the right hour to set down the thing she was carrying, and the right hour had come.
“He came to the garden this afternoon, Wade.”
Wade’s spoon stopped at the rim of the bowl.
“Dawson.”
“At two o’clock. Sadie and I were at the squash bed picking the last of them off the vines before the frost. He came up the creek path on the bay with the white forefoot and sat the corner of the cottonwoods and held his hat at the saddle horn and asked after the household.”
Wade set the spoon down at the rim of the bowl.
“What did he say to you, Zoe? The whole of it.”
“He said he had heard of the trouble at the fence and a child wants a steady house about her at a time like this and the valley had marked the change in this house, and he had marked it himself.” She drew a breath.
“Then he said it would be a hard thing to see a house come right at last and then have the rightness of it troubled. He said a man would do a great deal to keep a house from being troubled, and he had only to be asked the right way. He said to tell you the southeast quarter has small profit in it for a man at your time of life, with a wife to come and a household to keep. He said to tell you a near neighbor said so, and you would take his meaning.”
The line of Wade’s jaw set.
He looked at the steam rising off the bowl a long count before he answered.
“He is at the parcel again, then. He has put the asking to you this time instead of me, on the chance the asking would carry further that way.”
“Wade.” Zoe set her hand flat. “Patience growled at him. The whole of the time I have been here, I have no memory of that dog making a sound at any soul who came up the creek path. She stood at the front of my skirt and put her ears flat and made a sound at the back of her throat I had no wish to hear twice.”
Wade picked the spoon back up.
“Dawson is a near neighbor with a curiosity about a piece of my land.” He turned the spoon once at the stew.
“He has had the curiosity since my father’s time.
He put it to me at Larkin’s over a spool of wire, and he has put it at you this afternoon.
Ben and I are watching. I did not wish to frighten you over a man’s curiosity at a piece of ground. ”
“It isn’t curiosity that makes a dog growl.”
“It is a strange man at the corner of the garden that makes a dog growl. The dog has little grasp of land office records. The dog has a fine nose for a stranger and a finer one for a stranger her people have gone stiff about.” The corner of his mouth pulled, tired and not unkind.
“You went stiff at the squash bed before Patience made her sound. She took her cue from you.”
Zoe held his eyes a count.
“Eat the stew, Wade. It has gone half cold while you have been explaining the dog to me.”
“I will eat the stew.” He took a spoonful and held her eyes across the pine.
“And I will set a man at the cottonwoods tomorrow night and the night after, Zoe, curiosity or no. I will not take a chance with the household on the strength of my own opinion of a dog. I will keep the watch. You will keep the door. I am not so easy in the matter as I sound.”
The cold in her chest eased by a fraction at that.
***
Zoe drove the wagon into Bozeman on Tuesday morning for the month’s flour and the lamp oil and a paper of needles for Sadie’s lettering.
Wade had little wish to let her go alone, and he had little ability to spare a hand off the fence at the hour, and so the matter had been settled the night before in the kitchen by George riding in on the bay at half past eight to take the bench beside her, with the Sharps under the seat and the dry banter of a brother-in-law-to-be the whole of the eight miles into town.
George saw to the flour at the feed store and the lamp oil at the smithy.
Zoe went to Morrison’s for the needles.
The mercantile was warm and quiet at the mid-morning hour. Mrs. Morrison was at the counter with the ledger, and two women of the Ladies’ Aid were at the dry goods at the back wall. The bell at the door gave its small bright note as Zoe came in out of the cold.
She found the needles in the case by the window.
She was counting the coin out at the counter when Mrs. Morrison set the ledger aside and leaned across the wood, her eyes gone keen with a thing she had been waiting the better part of a morning to murmur into the right ear.
“You will be the young lady from the Collins place,” Mrs. Morrison said.
“I am, Mrs. Morrison.”
“I heard there was trouble at your fence.” The shopkeeper’s wife lowered her voice an inch at the counter.
“Two riders, by the talk. A rifle ball in a fence post. I am little surprised to hear it, and I will tell you for nothing why I am little surprised, on account of you being new in the valley and wanting the lay of a thing or two.”
Zoe set the coin down at the counter and let her hands go still.
“I should be glad of the lay of a thing or two, Mrs. Morrison.”
“Jameson Dawson,” the woman said, low. “His father, old Caleb Dawson, came up into this valley in fifty-one with a notion in his head, and the notion never left him across the whole of his life, and it has gone down into the son like a fever goes down a family. The notion is that there is gold under the southeast quarter section. The piece old Caleb sold to the Collins grandfather in fifty-eight.”
Cold came up the back of Zoe’s neck.
“Gold,” she said.
“A vein of it. A seam in the rock under the dry wash, by old Caleb’s telling.
” Mrs. Morrison turned a glance to the two women at the back wall and brought her voice down another inch.
“He told it in the saloon across twenty years. He had been a hard-rock man at the California fields before he came up the trail, and he swore he had read the sign at that wash plain as scripture, and he swore the Collins grandfather had read it, too, and had bought the parcel off him at a fair price for grass and let him believe it was grass, and known the whole of the while it was a fortune. He died believing it. He died poor and believing it with his note unpaid at the bank and his son at his bedside. The son is six weeks from the loss of that home, Miss Preston, with a dead father’s fortune-story at the back of his mind.
I should little like such a man at the corner of my garden of an afternoon. ”
Zoe’s hand had gone flat at the counter.
“Is there gold under the parcel, Mrs. Morrison?”
“There is no telling, child.” The shopkeeper’s wife straightened at the counter and took up the ledger again.
“There is a story of gold. A story of gold has put more men in the ground in this territory than the gold itself ever lifted out of it. Whether there is a seam at that wash or whether there is nothing at it but old Caleb’s fever and a son’s debt, the story is the thing that loads a pistol.
The story has been loading slow across twenty years, and by the talk at this counter this morning, it has begun to go off. ”
The bell at the door gave its bright note.
George came in out of the cold with the lamp oil under one arm.
“Zoe. The wagon is loaded. There is rough weather coming off the Bridgers by noon and I have little wish to take the creek road in it.”
“I’m coming, George.” Zoe gathered the paper of needles and the last of her coin off the counter. “Thank you, Mrs. Morrison. For the needles, and for the lay of the thing.”
“Keep the lay of it close, child.” The shopkeeper’s wife held her eyes a count over the ledger.