Silver Lining (7 page)

How right he had been. When she eventually married, she would begin her marriage in deceit. And he had done this to her.

"Supper's ready," Low Down called behind him.

Hunched over, staring out at the Great Plains , he spent another minute gazing out at the distant lights of Denver winking like fireflies in the dusk.

Now the question was, Could he ever respect himself again? Self-recrimination and disgust made him doubt it.

Eventually he turned toward the campfire, his shoulders still bunched in knots, his hands deep in his pockets. He watched Low Down stirring a pot over the flames and for an instant he hated her. The next time she offered to ride off and leave him, he'd tell her to go and good riddance.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he rubbed a hand across the pox marks on his jaw.

If he let her ride away, nothing would change. He'd still be married to her. He'd still have to face the painful scene with Philadelphia and her father. If he drove Low Down away, all he'd accomplish would be to carve one more dishonorable act on the ledger of his life. Sixty-three men trusted him to do what he had given his word to do. If he failed, those men would haunt his conscience for the rest of his life. Damn it to hell.

Silently, he approached the fire and accepted the plate Low Down handed across the flames. Tonight she'd made a stew out of jerky and wild onions and mushrooms. She could have prepared pheasant under glass with foie gras on the side and he wouldn't have tasted a thing.

"Is something wrong with your supper?" she asked when she finished eating and noticed that he had barely begun.

"The stew's fine."

"It's too salty, isn't it?"

"I have a lot on my mind, that's all."

The firelight softened her expression and made her skin look smoother. She might have washed her face, and it looked like she might have pulled a comb through the fringe of hair falling across her forehead. He wasn't certain and didn't care. All he could think about was Philadelphia . He would write her from Denver and inform her to expect him the following evening. He would also request that Mr. Houser be present.

"I guess we'll ride into Denver before noon tomorrow," Low Down remarked, pouring herself a cup of coffee. He nodded and made himself swallow a bite of the salty stew. After a minute or two, she made another effort at conversation. "I know a secondhand place where I can buy some dresses and a hat."

A full minute passed before her comment penetrated but when it did he scowled. "I don't want you buying secondhand."

Instantly she bristled. "No man tells me how to spend my money!"

"Dressing a wife is my obligation, not yours." How many times had he watched his father defer to his mother with a shrug and a look that said, It's your land, you decide. He had seen firsthand what a woman's money could do to a man's pride.

Low Down's chin jutted, and her eyes narrowed. "I'll pay for my own clothes, thank you very much."

"The hell you will," he snapped, setting his plate on the ground. "We agreed to treat this as a real marriage for however long it lasts. That means you don't humiliate me by behaving as if I can't provide for a wife! While we're together, I'll pay for whatever you need."

Easing back on the log, she stared hard at him. "I swear, you have enough pride for six men. What if I told you I had a little pride, too. It's not my intention to humiliate you, but I don't want to be obligated, either."

"This is not negotiable, Low Down. I'll provide." Hating it, he remembered Jellison telling him to do right by the wife he had. And by God, he would. He wasn't going to have Low Down weighing on his conscience, too.

"I thought we agreed to be cordial. Even I know that tone isn't cordial. So. Are you mad at everybody and everything, or are you back to blaming me for everything under the sun?"

Part of the difficulty was that she didn't understand. By her own admission she had never loved anyone.

She'd never lost someone with whom she had planned to spend her life. She'd never had a good name to lose. Didn't care what her neighbors thought of her. And someone called Low Down wouldn't comprehend what it did to a man to recognize that he'd dishonored the principles he lived by and held dear.

Thrusting a hand into his pocket, he caught up the green marble and gripped it hard.

"I thought you said you'd never been to Denver ," he said abruptly, changing the subject.

He had to stop blaming her. In the end, their marriage was everyone's fault and no one's fault. If he continued to see the collapse of his life every time he looked at her, he would never be able to make love to her and be rid of her. If ever there was a misnomer for an act, it was "making love." He and Low Down would never make love. He would do his duty, and she would permit it.

"I didn't say I hadn't been to Denver . I said I'd never heard of Fort Houser ." Standing, she stretched then picked up their plates and shook off the scraps. "I spent a year in Denver a long time ago. That's how I know about the secondhand place." Turning her head, she glanced toward the lights twinkling on the plain. "I worked in a laundry down in Chink Alley. Most folks think Chinamen do all the washing and ironing, but that ain't—" she paused and inhaled deeply "—that isn't always so. And some think a Chinaman would cheat you as soon as look at you, but the Chinaman I worked for treated me square. I had no complaints."

"You worked in a commercial laundry?" She was so different from any woman he'd known that she was incomprehensible.

"It was honest work," she said sharply, taking offense at his expression. "I've done a little bit of everything in my day. I even worked on a ranch way back when. That was down in New Mexico . I helped with the cooking and cleaning in the main house, so it isn't like I learned much about tending cows.

But I did learn that ranching isn't an easy life."

He poured another cup of coffee and watched her clean the plates and spoons they'd used. "I've never known a woman like you," he said finally. Women didn't live the life she described.

Her laugh was husky and appealing in a way he hadn't expected. And when she smiled, her eyes caught a sparkle of firelight. "I've heard that before."

"Last night, you said you didn't want to live in another woman's house."

"I thought about that today," she said, not looking up at him. Since they hadn't camped by a stream tonight, she wiped off their plates with sand and a moistened rag. "That house is always going to be Miss Houser's place."

"Miss Houser would never have been happy living on the ranch. Eventually, I would have had to build a place in town." He didn't know why he was telling her this, except possibly he wanted to make up for blaming her again. Or maybe the reason was less noble; maybe he just wanted to talk about Philadelphia . "I realized that after I wrote the letter you read, while I was recovering from the pox. The house was a mistake."

She stopped scrubbing the stew pot and blinked at him. "You built her a house knowing she wouldn't like it?"

"We disagreed on where we should live," he said, staring into the flames beginning to die under the coffeepot. " Philadelphia preferred to live in town near her father and her friends." And she had believed it more seemly for a banker to be part of the town society and community. "I prefer to live on the ranch where I can continue to manage my land and stock." Where they resided wouldn't be a problem now, nor would the difficulties of juggling banking with ranching.

"See, now there's another problem with husbands," Low Down said, speaking earnestly as if Max had agreed it was a given that husbands were problematical. "She wants one thing, you want another, and so you just go ahead and do it your way. That's what husbands do, and it's one of the reasons why I didn't want one."

"When two people disagree, someone has to make a decision."

"Yeah, and it's you, and you decide your way."

"Look, the reason I mentioned the house was to tell you that Miss Houser wouldn't have liked living five miles outside of town. You don't have to think of the house as another woman's." That wasn't entirely true, as every room had been designed with Philadelphia in mind. At the moment, he regretted raising the subject at all. "Miss Houser never saw the house or stepped foot in it." Another change of topic was needed. Looking at her across the fire, he said, "Tell me about you."

"There's nothing to tell." A shrug lifted her shoulders.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-eight. How old are you?"

"Thirty-one. Where are you from?"

"Now that one's harder to answer." After stacking the dishes in a pile, she reached for her coffee cup.

"When I was about four, I was sent west on one of those orphan trains. The journey originated in New York City , so that's probably where I'm from. Who knows?" She frowned down at the wedding ring on her left hand. "I was adopted by a family in Missouri , so I usually say I'm from there. I ran away when I was thirteen, and I've been drifting around on my own ever since. End of story."

Max tried to guess what questions his mother would ask about his new wife, what she would expect him to know. "So you have no family?"

"I never thought of the Olsons as family, and they didn't think of me that way. They had four kids of their own and three adopted. We were a labor force, that's all." Lifting her hands, she examined her fingertips.

"For years I had cuts and scrapes and little scars on my fingers from pushing a needle through leather. At the Olson's shop, we made leather goods. Chaps, vests, hats, boots, you name it. But tanning the hides was the worst. I don't ever want to do that again." Alarm flickered in her eyes. "You don't skin cows on your ranch, do you?"

"No." He thought about his sister and Philadelphia and their genteel upbringing and could not imagine them scraping a cow hide. "Did you go to school?"

"Not regular. But I can read and write," she said defensively. "And I know things they don't teach in school. I know how to survive off the land. I can hold my whiskey as good as any man. I know how to stretch a dollar. I ain't afraid of hard work."

As if the conversation had made her angry, she stood and strode into the darkness. Max heard her muttering to Rebecca and Marva Lee while he considered what she had told him and matched her comments to Preacher Jellison's remarks.

He had no idea what his mother and sister would make of her. If it came to that, he wasn't sure what he made of her.

Whatever else she was, he accepted that she was capable and self-reliant. Both nights she'd carried her share of the work as they set up camp. Without discussing it, they had split the tasks as if they'd traveled together before and knew each other's habits well.

Her voice came out of the darkness from somewhere near the picket line. "When are we going to get to the poking?"

Subtle and modest she was not. Max gazed into the flames burning low above the embers. "Maybe tomorrow," he said after clearing his throat.

"Sooner begun, sooner done," she called in a snappish tone. He didn't want to think about it.

Long after Low Down lay wrapped in her bedroll, he sat beside the fire pit staring at the coals and thinking about the next few days.

*

Denver had grown and changed since Low Down had last passed through. There were more hotels, more saloons, more shops, more trees in the residential areas, more everything. The last time she'd been here, drovers were yee-hawing a herd down the main street, and gunshots were as common as horse apples.

Now there seemed to be an oyster bar on every other corner, and more silk hats than caps or Stetsons.

Hustlers worked the board sidewalks and called to passengers in hacks and fancy carriages.

Construction crews seemed to be everywhere. She wouldn't have recognized the place.

"I've never stayed at the Belle Mark, but I've heard it's clean and comfortable," Max said, raising his voice above the rattle of a passing beer wagon. Pointing toward Fourteenth Street , he turned away from the noisy mayhem of downtown.

If he hadn't stayed at the Belle Mark, then where did he usually stay when he and his family visited Denver ? Wherever it was, he didn't want to be seen there with her.

By now she ought to know better than to allow this kind of assumption to undermine her confidence.

Such as it was. Besides, she knew she didn't belong in fancy diggings, and Max knew it, too. A plain old cheap-side boardinghouse was good enough for her, and that's undoubtedly where they were headed.

As long as the room had a real bed and clean sheets, she'd think she was sleeping in a palace.

Her mouth fell open when she saw the Belle Mark. This was not a boardinghouse, and staying here wouldn't be cheap. The Belle Mark was four full stories of redstone elegance. The front door gleamed with brass fittings and a green-and-white-striped awning extended to the street. She couldn't get over it.

Never in her life had she stood beneath an awning.

Next she noticed a man dressed in a green uniform all shiny with brass buttons and gold epaulets standing at the foot of the awning, smiling at passing carriages with an expression that invited passengers to stop and step inside. He flicked a glance toward Max and Low Down, noted their horses and travel-worn appearance, then turned away without interest.

"Max?" She rode up beside him, frowning at the man in the green uniform. The uniform and cap and the man's superiority intimidated the bejezus out of her. "Is that man the owner of the hotel?"

"He's just the doorman." While she continued to stare at the details of his uniform, Max added, "His job is to open the door for patrons of the hotel."

Lordy. The man was togged out like a general in a foreign army, and all he did was stand in the awning's shade and open the door? He looked like he ought to be deciding who would live and who would die.

She noticed how he deliberately ignored them. "You know, this place is just too fancy-dancy. There used to be a boardinghouse down on Walnut Street that took overnight lodgers. Let's go there."

"After a summer of living in a tent, I'm ready for a real hotel."