Whistler in the Dark (9 page)

A man coughed somewhere behind Emma, and she cast a nervous glance over her shoulder into the deepening shadows. Was The Whistler watching her? Maybe even
following
her? Didn't Mother worry about Emma walking back alone? Emma had to remind herself, in fairness, that Mother didn't know The Whistler had appeared in Twin Pines. Still, Emma walked back to the boarding-house as fast as she could.

In their bedroom, Emma lit a lamp and sat staring at the photograph of her father. If only he hadn't died, if only the dreadful Civil War had never started …

Emma gave herself a mental shake. She wasn't sure Father would approve of this Colorado venture, but he would want Emma to help Mother in any way she could. And, after all, Mother's absence tonight made Emma's plan to catch The Whistler much easier.

Emma washed her face and tidied the room. Then she dimmed the lamp, tiptoed downstairs, and eased into a chair by the front parlor window. If The Whistler followed the pattern of the last two evenings, he would soon appear, whistling
Maggie by My Side
.

Who would she see? Emma rubbed her arms. If she could catch sight of him right here in the middle of town, with Mrs. Sloane and The Raven's patrons within hollering distance, maybe she'd have the courage to confront him. If she didn't recognize him, she'd demand to know who he was and why he was trying so hard to scare the Hendersons out of Twin Pines.

Laughter and shouting drifted across the street from the saloon. Emma heard several horses trotting by, and the rattle of a wagon. A man leaving the saloon cursed roundly when he stumbled down the steps. But as the minutes stretched into an hour, Emma did
not
hear a man whistling.

Frustration and disappointment welled in her throat. Finally, when she couldn't stay awake any longer, Emma gave up and went to bed.

“Look at this,” Mother said triumphantly Early-morning sun slanted across piles of the brown prospectus, stacked on one of the print shop's worktables. “Three hundred of them.”

“Great guns!” Jeremy exclaimed. “That's wonderful!”

“Yes, ma'am,” Mule Tom echoed more quietly.

Emma picked up one of the papers. “The Twin Pines Herald” marched across the top in big print. The front page contained subscription and advertising information, as well as Mother's article about the stolen press handle and the burned paper shipment. The right-hand column, labeled “Local Items,” featured tidbits Emma had gathered while soliciting subscriptions:
Mrs. Handshew recently became a grandmother. Mr. Taylor is recovering from a bad cough. Jim Moody had Dixie John dig a new well on his ranch
.

“I predict that every one of those people will subscribe to the paper, if they haven't already.” Mother grinned. “People love seeing their names in print. Your father taught me that, Emma.”

As Emma and Jeremy headed out for a morning of distributing the prospectus and soliciting subscriptions, Jeremy scrunched one hand down into a pocket. “I got something for you,” he said.

He laughed at her expression when he plopped a rock into her palm—a rough, egg-shaped, mud-colored rock. “Take it home and hit it with a mallet.”

“Um … all right. Thank you.” Emma slipped the rock into her own pocket, suddenly missing Judith terribly. This was no doubt some mineralogical treasure that Jeremy had found. But minerals didn't interest Emma, and this particular rock was as ugly as the rest of Twin Pines.

Jeremy had driven a light wagon to town that morning. “I told Pa that you and I need to travel out to some of the farms today,” he said as he helped her clamber up to the seat. “We'll cover more ground this way.” He picked up the lines and clucked to the mare.

They dropped off stacks of the prospectus at the boardinghouse, Mr. Boggs's store, and the land office. Jeremy even left some at The Raven before they headed north into the long valley that cradled Twin Pines.

“Twin Pines is at the southern end of the valley,” he told Emma. “Mr. Spaulding bought land up to the northern end, about four miles from here. There are three farms up there, ours and two others, all strung along the creek. It's good land. We do better than the farmers down on the plains. We get more rain from those showers that come over the mountains.”

Rocky foothills bounded the valley on both sides. The pretty, rolling meadow Jeremy drove through bore no resemblance to the desert Emma had seen in eastern Colorado—or to the scarred slopes around Twin Pines, which were studded with tree stumps left by men hastily building cabins and chopping firewood and which were grazed to stubble by the pack mules and freight oxen. “It's so green here!” Emma sighed.

Jeremy smiled. “My ma called this Peaceful Valley—Oh, say! Did you see that wild canary? They're a sight. And see that swale? My pa shot an elk there last winter. The snows force 'em down from the high mountains.”

It grew hot, riding in the open wagon without shade. But Jeremy was a lively guide, and so much green eased something tight inside Emma. Jeremy showed her how the cottonwood trees marked the creek—“footprints of the river,” he called them—and carpets of blanketflowers and larkspur took her breath away. “Perhaps I can pick some later to arrange for a still-life painting,” she said. “I haven't touched my paints since we arrived.”

When they reached a pass that angled away from the main valley, Jeremy turned off. “There are a few ranches tucked up in some of the higher draws—”

“Draws?” Emma wrinkled her forehead.

“Small canyons. They weren't part of Mr. Spaulding's land, but we'll still want to visit the folks who live there.”

That morning they visited five bachelor brothers, a family with three little girls wearing identical dresses, and a man with a scraggly black beard who talked enthusiastically about running cattle. By the time Jeremy and Emma circled back to Peaceful Valley, the sun was high overhead.

“Now we're back on Mr. Spaulding's land,” Jeremy told her. “We'll head south again past the three farms. My pa bought the one closest to Twin Pines. A family from Ohio bought this far one.” He pointed to a log home squatting near a field already reclaimed by weeds. “They gave up and sold the land back to Mr. Spaulding again, so it's empty.” Jeremy stared grimly at the forlorn farmyard for a moment, then slapped the reins against the horse's back. “Pa said somebody new just settled on the middle place, though,” he told Emma. “We should visit there. We can stop at my place after that if you're getting hungry.”

“I'm just thirsty.” Emma tilted her straw hat against the sun's glare. Sweat trickled down her neck.

A few minutes later, they approached a tiny cabin made of black logs, roofed with a haphazard pile of pine boughs heaped on a framework of poles. A blanket served as a door, weighted at the bottom with rocks to keep it from flapping. A young woman in a faded dress and limp sunbonnet was scratching in a big garden beside the cabin.

This stop is surely a waste of time
, Emma thought. Since coming to Colorado, she'd met many people who barely had a pot to stew chicken in. But this place smelled of pure and absolute desperation.

As Emma and Jeremy climbed from the wagon, the woman dropped the hoe and bounded to greet them. She didn't look more than a few years older than Emma. Her face was hatchet-thin and dotted with freckles in spite of the tunnel-like sunbonnet. “Hello! I'm Tildy Pearce.” Tildy surprised Emma by pumping her hand.

Emma introduced herself and Jeremy with a tongue dry enough to rattle in her mouth. “Do you mind if we get a drink from your well?” she asked.

“I wouldn't mind—if I
had
a well. Found one half-dug when we got here, and never got around to finishing the job. But I've got a bucket of water hauled up fresh from the creek.”

Emma gulped the contents of the tin cup thrust into her hand. Then she explained about the newspaper and brought out a copy of the prospectus. “You're welcome to look at it.” Her cheeks grew hot—did Tildy even know how to read?

But Tildy snatched it from her hand. “A
newspaper
!” she breathed, as if Emma had offered something holy. “I've been so yearning for something to read!” She scanned the page, then looked at Emma and Jeremy with delight. “Can you come inside? I'll show you something.”

The only light in the cabin trickled through the stovepipe hole, which was too large for the stovepipe itself.

The room smelled of rancid pork. As Emma's eyes adjusted, she made out a reddish-colored, rickety bed banged together from skinny logs and pieces of a packing box. A rocking chair had been fashioned from a barrel. An oiled wagon cover served as carpet, and wide strips of muslin were tacked along the pole ceiling—obviously to keep dirt from sifting down.

Tildy noted Emma's stare. “I hope to do better by fall,” she said apologetically, gesturing toward the filthy muslin. “Critters get in there and nest. I'm trying to save enough money to order me some good boards. But look here.” She pointed at the bed. “I fixed that up myself. Looks like cherry, don't it? I had a bit of brick dust left—I brought it for scouring—and mixed it with linseed oil to make the stain. I think it looks pretty.”

“Yes.” Emma swallowed. “It does. Tildy, are you here all by yourself?” She didn't see evidence of anyone else.

“Well, just after me and my husband settled here, he got gold fever and headed up into the hills. Said he'd be gone a day or two, just scouting things out. But he hasn't been back.”

“I'm so sorry.” Emma didn't know what else to say.

“I'm making on all right. He weren't the best husband anyway. I guess I'd be handling most of the work one way or the other.” Tildy reached to a high shelf behind the stove. “Here's what I wanted to show you. I've been reading this book every evening I can, after chores are done. It's a blessing to have it, but I surely would covet getting an honest newspaper every now and again.” Glowing with pride, she handed Emma the book.

Webster's
Elementary Speller
. Emma stared at the worn book, imagining Tildy Pearce huddled by her stove in the evening, straining to read the only thing she had for company—a spelling book. Emma tried to smile as she handed it back. Tildy put her treasured book on its shelf and led the way back into the sunshine.

Emma chewed her lip. “Tildy—I'll make sure you get a subscription to the newspaper.” Would a free subscription offend Tildy? But surely Tildy couldn't afford it herself! Emma thought Mother would understand.

But Tildy already had things figured out. “You get my name on the list, or whatever. I can get the money. I walk into town some evenings, if I'm not too worn out. At The Raven, there's always men who'll pay for a dance. Oh, wait!”

Tildy darted inside and came out again with a piece of paper in her hand. “I've been puzzling over something. Maybe you or your mother could help me out.” She pushed the paper into Emma's hand. “My husband bought this land proper from Mr. Spaulding. I saw the money pass hands. And Mr. Spaulding gave us this.”

Emma skimmed the writing. “It's your receipt for the land payment. It proves that you paid Mr. Spaulding.”

Tildy nodded. “Yes. But shouldn't we also have gotten another piece of paper—the deed to the land?”

“Um … I don't know exactly how that works.” Emma glanced at Jeremy, who didn't seem to know either. “But I can ask my mother. She knows a lot about business.” She handed the receipt back to Tildy.

“I'd surely appreciate that.” Tildy stepped back from the wagon. “And tell her I'll be waiting to get the first full issue of her newspaper! I can see myself getting through the winter, even, with a fresh newspaper to read every week or so.”

As she and Jeremy headed back to town, Emma tried to imagine how tired she would feel if she spent the day doing farm labor, then walked several miles to town and danced with a bunch of boisterous miners, then walked home again.

The newspaper was more than a way to share information. Even more than a way to “boom the town,” as the men called it, and attract new settlers. For the first time, Emma realized what the newspaper would mean to people like Tildy, or to lonely miners trying to earn enough money to fetch their families from the East, cut off from companionship and books.

And she thought again of The Whistler—or whoever was trying so hard to frighten her and Mother into quitting.

“I'll tell you one thing, Jeremy,” she said, as they rounded a hill and the forlorn roofline of Twin Pines came into sight. “
The Twin Pines Herald
is
not
going to fail.”

C
HAPTER
8

T
HE
R
AVEN

Little Josephine Ellis narrowly avoided heartbreak when she dropped a penny on the boardwalk on Thursday in front of Mr. Boggs's store and it fell through a crack. Mr. Boggs pulled up a board and fetched it for her
.