A Most Unsuitable Match (28 page)

“Where is she?”

Rosalie shook her head. “I can’t help you with that. I know she was alive when she left Johnny’s claim, but I don’t know where she headed. She could have gone anywhere. With a freighter, with another miner . . . she could be working at a place like mine.” She reached over and patted Samuel on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, Brother Sam. No brother wants to think of his sister—” she paused—“well, of his sister turning out like me.” She looked away, then forced a smile and stood up.

“But hey. For whatever it’s worth, honey, it seems to me your sister is a survivor. I hope you find her. If you’re going to keep looking, you’re going to be visiting a lot of places like mine.” She winked. “Lots of chances to preach to the mean and lowly. That’s somethin’, Brother Sam.” She went to the door, then turned back around. “I doubt you’ll think this is a good offer, but if you two need a dry place out of the rain tonight, you’re welcome to stay right there.” She nodded at the bed. “I won’t tell a soul.”

Samuel could hear her laughing as she retreated up the hallway toward the saloon. He looked at Lamar. “What should I do?”

Lamar shook his head. “I don’t know, son. I really don’t.”

“Do you think Emma could still be up here somewhere?”

“The lady said nobody was holding it against her.”

“Did I hear her right? Did she honestly say people
cheered
when they heard what happened?”

“You heard right.”

Samuel put his head in his hands. What kind of person had Emma become in this place . . . among these people? Without looking up, he said, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Sleep,” Lamar said. “The good Lord provided a bed. Use it.”

For the first time, Samuel realized just how bone tired he was. “What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me,” Lamar said, and headed for the door.

Samuel woke sometime in the middle of the night to piano music, the smell of stale whiskey, and a woman’s laughter just outside the door, but fatigue weighed him down. He listened for a moment and then fell back into a deep sleep that lasted until dawn. When next he woke, there was no piano music. He sat up and went to the door. Peering out the door and into the saloon, he saw an empty room with displaced chairs and empty glasses scattered on tabletops. And Lamar, stretched out atop two tables pushed together, his face covered with his hat. When Samuel walked up, Lamar spoke without moving the hat.

“Sleep well?”

“Like I’ve never slept before.” Samuel plopped into a chair. “I’m sorry.”

Lamar lifted the hat. “For what?” When Samuel gestured at the tables, Lamar shrugged. “No different than the deck of the
Delores
, son. No need to apologize.” He stood up. Stretching, he looked around the room. “Doesn’t look quite as alluring in the light of day, does it.” He scooted a chair back in place and then crossed to the bar and, reaching behind it, produced a broom. “What say we do a little housekeeping by way of thanking Rosalie for her hospitality? That’ll give you time to think about what we’re doing next. And where we’re getting breakfast.”

Samuel stood up and began to gather glasses. He had no idea what he was going to do now . . . except for one thing. He had to show Rosalie the photograph of Fannie’s aunt.

“Well, well.”

Rosalie’s voice sounded from the back hall and she stepped into the main room, her body wrapped in a bathrobe, her sleek black hair falling down her back. She was holding a rifle. When she saw Samuel and Lamar, she crossed to the bar and set the rifle down. “I was wondering who was out here stealing my liquor.” She surveyed the room. “You boys interviewing for a job as butlers?”

“We just wanted to show our thanks,” Samuel said, and nodded at Lamar. “It was Lamar’s idea, actually.”

“Nice of you.” She looked up at Samuel. “You decide what you’re going to do now?”

“We’ll keep looking. At least for a while. It isn’t just about my sister, anyway.” He went to the coat he’d hung on the back of a chair and pulled out the cabinet portrait of Fannie’s aunt.

Rosalie studied it for a moment. “Who’d you say this is again?”

“A friend’s aunt.” Quickly, Samuel recounted how he’d met Fannie and how she’d found the photograph.

“And your friend—what did she say her aunt’s name is?”

“Edith LeClerc,” Samuel said. Something was wrong. He went back to his coat and withdrew Fannie’s letter, then handed it to Rosalie. “I was supposed to give this to Miss LeClerc if I found her.”

Rosalie read the letter. Finally, she glanced over at Lamar, then back at Samuel. “You are telling me the truth about all of this. Right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Samuel said.

She handed the letter and the photo back. “I knew her, but not by that other name. To me and everyone else up this way, that’s Edie Bonaparte.” Rosalie gestured around. “I bought this place from her last year. She was headed—somewhere. I don’t really know where. She and some of her best girls.” Rosalie shrugged. “I’ve heard whispers of a place down Fort Benton way, but none of my regulars talk about it, and in this business . . .” She paused. “This is not a business where people are given to discussing their plans, Reverend Sam. Only fools like Johnny Chadwick do that. And you know how that went.”

After a restless night, Fannie managed to stay busy through most of the morning. She took a walk after lunch. Read her Bible. Wrote another letter to Minette. Still, the hours dragged. That afternoon she went into the kitchen and, nodding at the mountain of spuds piled on the worktable, asked Abe, “Do you think I could graduate to peeling potatoes today? I’m going to go crazy waiting for Edmund to get back and tell me his news.”

When Abe agreed, she donned an apron. He handed her a knife. “It’s sharp,” he warned, “and the doctor’s not here to sew you up, so you take your time.”

Fannie nodded. She picked up a potato and held it out to Abe. “Please don’t roll your eyes at me. Just show me how.” He did, and Fannie perched on the stool beside the table and went to work massacring the mound of spuds.

“I’ve got to fumigate one of the rooms out back,” Abe said. “Take all afternoon if you need it.” He put a bean pot on the table. “Once they’re peeled, cut them into quarters and put ’em in here. When the pot’s two-thirds full, cover them with water and set them on to boil.”

While she worked, Fannie’s thoughts flitted in every direction. She worked steadily, but when she had the first pot of potatoes settled on the stove top and the fire going, she went in search of Abe. He was hauling the bed ticking out of a room. When he caught sight of her, he held his hand up.

“Don’t come any closer.” He pointed to the ticking. “Fleas. Can’t decide whether to treat it or burn it.” He dropped the ticking in the sun and headed back her way.

Taking Edmund’s note from her apron pocket, Fannie read it aloud. “Are you sure you’ve never met the Bonapartes?”

“I think you need to wait until you hear from the doc.”

It took Fannie the rest of the afternoon to peel her way through Abe’s mound of potatoes, and she was grateful. The hours still dragged while her mind raced from possibility to possibility, from Aunt Edith to Mother to Emma Pilsner to Samuel and back again, but at least she had something worthwhile to do while she obsessed. Once, she thought she heard Edmund’s buggy and raced to the front door. Lame Bear was sitting in the shade beneath the boarding house overhang, but there was no buggy.

The sun went down and the moon came out, and still there was no word.

“He told you he might be a day or two,” Abe said when Fannie worried aloud. “Take this out to Lame Bear.” He handed Fannie a plate of food.

Later, when she went back to get the plate, Lame Bear was licking it. For the first time, Fannie realized how thin he was. The idea that she hadn’t ever noticed made her feel ashamed. How could she have seen the man as often as she had and not wondered if he might be hungry?

Fannie waited up reading by lamplight until she began to nod off. Finally, she turned down the lamp and went to bed. Whatever was going on out at the Bonapartes’, it must have been a difficult case. She couldn’t help but think about Patrick. Maybe the Bonapartes had children. Hopefully he wasn’t terribly bored.

The outrageous idea arrived halfway through Fannie’s sleepless night, and it would not be argued away. Abe knew more than he was saying about the Bonapartes. The longer Fannie waited for Edmund to return, the more obvious it became. Something about the word made Abe uncomfortable. Fannie thought she knew what it might be . . . but he was never going to admit it. It was going to be up to her. Her idea was outrageous, but not nearly as outrageous as climbing aboard a steamboat headed into the unknown. Finally, Fannie gave in to it.

She got dressed in the dark and made her way toward the front of the boarding house. Lame Bear was still there, leaning against the boarding house wall. His head was bowed when Fannie first stepped onto the board porch, but at the first creak, he was on his feet.

“I want to go to Dr. LaMotte,” Fannie said. “Will you take me?”

The Indian shook his head.

She pulled Dr. LaMotte’s note out and read it to him. All of it. “The news he has is about my aunt.” She spread her hand on her chest. “My mother is dead. She has a sister. Here.” Fannie gestured around. “Possibly at the Bonapartes. I need to see her.”

“Bad place.” Lame Bear shook his head again. “Bad for you.”

For a moment, Fannie was so shocked that Lame Bear had actually spoken English, she didn’t know what to say. But finally, she found her voice again. “Edmund is there with Patrick. I’ll be all right. Please, Lame Bear. Take me to them.”

“Too far,” he said, and pointed to her feet.

“Let me try,” she said. “Please.”

Finally, the old man motioned for her to follow him, but when he headed toward the fort, Fannie protested. “Isn’t the Bonapartes’—” she gestured toward the west—“isn’t it that way?”

“Too far,” Lame Bear repeated, and kept walking.

If she was going to ask him to take her somewhere, Fannie supposed she was going to have to trust him. Her heart pounding, she followed him, alongside the high fort walls, across the moonlit expanse between the fort and . . . Edmund’s. Lame Bear hadn’t understood a thing she’d said. He thought she wanted to go to the clinic.