HT02 - Sing: A Novel of Colorado (6 page)

So the captain could keep to himself. It mattered not to Nic.
Let him think it was his choice. His choice can become mine.

London

“Havender declined our offer,” Jesse said bleakly, as he paid Moira’s bill at the teahouse and escorted her out. “He was our last hope.”

Moira lifted her eyes to meet his in surprise. Impossible. Not after all their discussions, the excitement, the hope. He had said it was as good as done!

“I do not have sufficient funds to remain here in London,” he went on. “It is as I suspected. This region is tapped out, hungering for new, unknown talent. You know the Brits—always desiring the next thing. You and I … well, we’ve been here before. We’re known talent.”

“Is not experience worth something?”

He tugged her forward, so they could walk, arm in arm, down the street. “Sometimes. But apparently not now.”

Moira paused to fish a coin from her bag for a beggar on the street and dropped it in the blind man’s tin cup. Jesse hurried her along and pulled her close to his side. “Leave such fellows to the soup kitchens—you’ll be needing to hold on to what you have to get you situated.”

“There’s always enough,” she sniffed, “to help someone a bit worse off than oneself.” Her mother had always said that, always stopped to help those in need.

“Tell me that again when your last franc is gone.”

They continued their walk in silence. Moira was too weary to argue with him and couldn’t help but think of Antoine, how sad he and his daughter looked the day she told them that their employment had ended. She sent them off with the finest of recommendations, but she doubted Antoine would ever work again. No one else would hire such an old man, but something about him had pulled at her heart, ever since he first arrived at her door, hat in hand, asking for work. Would Antoinette see to the old man’s needs? Moira knew they had no family but each other.

“So we find ourselves in similar financial predicaments. I must return to Paris to secure a role, even without your aid. Perhaps you should return to the States, Moira. Your reputation will secure you a role anywhere you wish—from New York to San Francisco. You can simply pick where you wish to live and settle in.”

They walked for some time in silence, Moira pondering her options. It seemed she had little choice. She needed to return to America. The idea of America, home, so appealed, that her hand went to her heart. It surprised her, how she longed for it. Even though she had no desire to return to Philadelphia, there was something about America that was
home
, something that called to her.

“Moira?” Jesse bent to look her in the eye, concern on his face.

“No. I’m all right,” she assured him. “I shall book passage to New York.”

“And once there?”

“Once there, I had better land work immediately, or I shall be on the streets.”

“It’s a gamble, Moira.” His handsome brow furrowed in concern. “Why not go to your sister?”

She giggled, a giggle that grew into a laugh so deep and hysterical that she drew disapproving glances from passersby. But she didn’t care. The idea that she could go to Odessa, live on a ranch! She had to stop and lean a little forward, so hard did she laugh.

“Moira, really.” Glancing about, Jesse urged her to stop. “Are you quite all right?”

“Quite,” she returned, straightening and hiding her wide smile behind a gloved hand. “It’s only the idea of me … Jesse, truly. You think I would fit in on a ranch at this point in my life?”

He smiled back at her. “Better a ranch than the streets.” He reached out a sudden, tender hand, barely touching her jawbone with soft fingers. “I fear for you, Moira. I’m sorry I can’t see you to safety.”

“You’ve helped me to take a step forward, Jesse, as you did in Colorado. I only regret that we won’t get the opportunity to sing together again.”

He gave her a sad smile and stood there for several seconds in silent regard. There was much that drew her to him, and obviously, him to her. And yet the timing seemed off, impossible. The barrier insurmountable. “The hotel proprietor plays the piano,” he said. “Let us sing a song or two together this night, before we part.”

“That would be well with me,” she returned, taking his arm. “But let’s stop at the rail station to find out about tomorrow’s outgoing trains to Dover and what ships are sailing for America, shall we?”

“Indeed.” He tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow, patting her fingers. “Moira St. Clair, you are possibly the bravest woman I have ever run across. I am only sorry we do not have more time together.”

She smiled back at him but wondered at the darts of fear that entered her heart. Jesse McCourt believed her brave. Inside she was little more than a coward. But she knew her role here, the lines to say, the actions to take. And she would proceed to the next step and the next, pretending all the while if necessary, until somehow, some way, she regained her status, and her wealth.

27 March 1887

Spring is suddenly upon us, the sun warm enough on our skin that we shed our coats and sweaters after morning’s chill gives up her task. The snow is rapidly melting, and yesterday, some of our men made it across the field—and returned with twenty-three horses who gladly accepted copious amounts of hay. The other missing mares and one stallion are gone, either still beneath the snows, or among the forests of the mountains upon escaping through a downed fence. We hope, but not too much. I think we fear further loss; it is almost preferable to believe them dead and move on.

“Odessa? Odessa!” Bryce called from downstairs.

She looked up from her paper, frowned, and hurriedly set aside her pen. She didn’t like the note of alarm in her husband’s voice. Odessa rushed to the stairs, pausing when she saw Bryce close the door. Ralph and Tabito were in the front entry area, an unconscious man between them. “Who is this?”

“I don’t know,” Bryce said grimly. “He came in, driving twenty starved horses, barely keeping his seat in the saddle. Must’ve been caught in the storm.”

“Please, take him to the den. I’ll be right there with blankets.” Odessa hurried back upstairs and grabbed two thick woolen blankets, then back to the men, who stood in her kitchen with the stranger between them. “Here, lay him atop this until we get him cleaned up,” Odessa said, laying a blanket down, in front of the stove. She wrinkled her nose. The man wreaked of sour clothes. He was so filthy, she could barely see the true shade of his skin.

Bryce knelt down on his other side. Tabito reached out to touch his forehead and pulled his hand away quickly. “He burns.”

Odessa met her husband’s fearful glance and then rose to put some water on the stove. “I’ll need you men to clean him up. Bryce, can you fetch a fresh shirt and pair of pants?”

The baby must have sensed the commotion downstairs, because he awakened early from his nap, quickly moving from disgruntled cries to a full-blown wail. “I’ll get him,” Bryce called from upstairs.

Odessa pumped water into a bucket and then poured it into a massive iron cauldron on the stove. Already hot from its constant perch atop the wood-burning oven, the first of the water sizzled and steamed until she poured the rest in. She took a rag and opened the oven to peer at the fire, and decided to add another log. It was already good and hot; it would only take about half an hour to heat the water all the way through.

Tabito, the ranch foreman, came through the back kitchen door, the washtub on his back. Bryce must’ve asked him to fetch it. He placed it in the corner and stretched out a privacy screen. “The man might not survive a bath,” he grunted.

“He might not survive unless we clean him up,” she retorted. She made Bryce force all the ranch hands to bathe at least once a week, preferably twice—they had their own tub down in the bunkhouse—and threatened to not feed them unless they adhered to the rules. “Here,” she said, handing Tabito a pitcher and a small cup. “Try and get a little water down his throat, will you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, walking away.

She could hear someone running through the slush outside, the splashes beneath their boots, and then there was a quick rapping at her door. Odessa moved to answer it, but Dietrich was already opening it, his face awash with concern.

“Dietrich, I—”

“Sorry, ma’am. Don’t mean to go bursting in on ya, but I need to see Bryce or Tabito, right away.”

“Certainly,” she said. “Come in.” She followed the man, choosing not to say anything about the muddy prints he left on her floor. Tabito and Bryce looked up at him.

“Boss, we’ve got troubles, down at the stables.” He rotated his hat between nervous hands, in a circle.

Bryce rose slowly. “What is it?”

“Doc thinks it’s the strangles. One of the yearlings that came in with this herd is down. You can see two others are sick. Doc thinks all three will die.”

Bryce handed Samuel to Odessa and edged past him. “They’re still in the separate corral, right? Away from our horses?” He hurried down the back porch steps, two at a time. Dietrich reluctantly followed behind. Odessa stood in the doorway, bouncing Samuel. Her heart pounded. Bryce’s tone told her something was bad, really bad.

Bryce whirled in the snow. “Dietrich, tell me they’re in a separate corral.”

“Yes, but—”

“But what?”

“They were so hungry, they’ve reached through the fence and eaten out of our horses’ troughs, drunk some of their water.”

“And our horses?”

Dietrich was quiet, standing there at the back door as if leaving meant punishment.

“Dietrich?”

“I’m afraid they’ve shared those troughs, Boss. A few of them anyway,” he said in defeat.

Bryce bared his teeth, groaning as if shoving down an oath. “Come on!” he said, breaking into a run. “We need to get those horses away from the others!”

Odessa turned to Tabito, who placed his wide-brimmed hat atop his head. “Been some time since this ranch has seen a case of strangles.”

“What does it mean? What will they do?” Odessa said.

“Shoot the ill, separate the exposed.”

Odessa’s eyes widened, understanding now. “How contagious is it?”

“Very.” With that, he exited and gently shut the door behind him. Odessa stood there for a minute, thinking of what to do. She wanted to go to the stables, make sure Bryce did not do anything rash, but there was a man in her front parlor who needed tending. The water was boiling atop the stove, but now there were no men left to bathe the stranger.

“We’ll do what we can for him,” she whispered to Samuel. She started to carry him into the front parlor and then paused in the doorway, thinking of the horses and the contagion they carried. What if this man had a fever that Samuel could catch? She returned to the small sitting room beside the kitchen, spread out a blanket and handed the child his favorite tin cup. Then she hurried back to gather rags and water and lye soap to clean the stranger who had brought a plague upon her home.