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“Any snow up there?” somebody called to him as he pulled out of town, headed for the road that disappeared into the pine trees.
“Nope,” Lester shouted back. “Those drifts at the top are almost gone. The pass is clear all the way to St. Elmo.”
Uley watched as the horses tugged the wagon loaded with freight and passengers up Washington Avenue...toward the first bend in the road...up into the lush green stand of lodgepole pines that stood sentry at the edge of town.
There.
His ridiculous gush letter was gone and on its way.
Aaron Brown was none of her concern anymore.
* * *
But four days later, just after Lester McClain arrived back in across the 12,154-foot pass with a bag of incoming mail, the sky above Tin Cup turned gray as pewter and the wind started howling down through the gold hills like something alive. By three that afternoon, when snowflakes as big around as tea cozies started falling, everybody figured they were in for one of those late-spring storms that everybody talked about, the kind that caught everybody unawares, the kind of storm that killed things.
Aaron Brown stood at the window in the Tin Cup town jail, looking out at the snowflakes, thinking this was the last snowfall he would ever see. What part of this is Your purpose, Lord? What’s the point of teaching me humility if I’m not going to be around to be humble? And then for some reason, his mind traveled to Miss Uley Kirkland.
What would it be like, he wondered, to pretend you were a person of a different gender? Why, he wondered, would she do it? Perhaps she concealed some horrible disfigurement somewhere, although Aaron couldn’t imagine where it might be. She looked perfect to him, at least when he overlooked the fact that she was wearing a man’s work pants. She was small, but she was brave, as stout-hearted as anything else that survived in this harsh territory.
She had certainly bested him.
Aaron felt, just then, as if he’d come a far, far piece from home.
* * *
Upstairs, above Ongewach’s Saloon on Washington Avenue, Santa Fe Moll gave her girls their nightly talking-to.
“Moll,” Wishbone Mabel said, “look at it snowing outside. Nobody’s going to come looking for entertainment tonight. Nobody’s going to be able to find this place tonight.”
“Won’t do,” Moll said, narrowing her eyebrows and shaking her head at all of them, “when miners start showing up and you’re all sitting around like you ain’t expecting anybody to be here because of the snow. There you are in calico, that will never do. You must look good, be clean, and smell sweet, just like true ladies. Now get going and get into them silk dresses!”
As they all groaned and moved in the direction of their rooms, Tin Can Laura scanned the place. “Where’s Joe? I don’t see him.”
“He’s probably downstairs in the kitchen, looking for scraps,” Mabel answered. “He always goes down there this time of night.”
Laura gathered her skirts and took the steps running. “Hey, Joe! Hey, kitty! Come on up here!”
Joe, who was due to have kittens just about any day, was the only living thing in the world Laura loved. A saloon patron had given her the calico cat for Christmas back when she’d been a Pitkin girl. Because of Joe, Laura stayed welcome wherever she wanted to go. The mama cat always proved an excellent mouser.
“Snow’s coming heavier,” Cook said as Laura got downstairs. “I’m betting people outside can’t even see where they’re going.”
“One thing’s for certain,” Charles Ongewach commented. “No freight wagon will be coming in over Alpine Pass tomorrow. And wouldn’t you know, McClain was supposed to bring over my new piano. I’ve been lookin’ forward to it ever since that old miner Scheer danced on mine with his hobnailed boots.”
“Judge Murphy won’t make it in, either,” Cook said. “Aaron Brown’s hanging is going to have to wait.”
Laura came up beside them. “Either of you seen Joe? It’s almost time to open up, and I’ve got to lock her in my room.”
“Sure have,” Cook said. “She came down here meowing to get out before the storm started. I let her out the door and ain’t seen her since.”
Laura grabbed her shawl off a hook by the door and draped it across her shoulders. “I’ve got to find her.”
Charles Ongewach donned his coat, too. “Here. Take a rope, Laura. Tie yourself to the building, or you won’t find your way back. I’m right behind you.”
Charles stayed close to the side of the building, feeling his way along the rough-hewn logs until he rounded the corner, calling for the cat at the top of his lungs. Laura started straight out across Washington Avenue, or what she thought was Washington Avenue, with the rope knotted around her waist. In the shelter of the saloon, the gale had seemed overrated. But when Laura reached the street, the icy whorl hit her full in the face. The wind whipped around her, sucking away her breath. Snow pelted her face. Within moments, the shawl covering her head was weighted with ice that clung like molten glass.
Laura struggled on. “Kitty. Joe! Here, kitty.”
As she reached the middle of the street, horses loomed up beside her. At the same time, she heard the doleful cry of a cat. “Joe!” She tried to rush forward, but the rope stopped her. She released the shawl and fumbled with the knot at her bodice. “Joe!”
The knot fell away.
She dropped the rope and rushed toward the sound.
Laura found Joe howling in the middle of the avenue, her stubby fur coated with thin ice. “Joe...” She scooped the frightened animal into her arms and turned toward Ongewach’s.
The snow came stinging from every direction.
She couldn’t see more than six inches in front of her face.
“Charles?” Her words died away in the fierce bray of the wind. Joe struggled against her, clawing at her inside the shawl.
The rope couldn’t be more than five steps in this direction.
She took the steps. But the rope wasn’t there.
She turned once, remembering the horses that had just passed along the street. “Help,” she screamed against the wind. “I cain’t find my way.”
Uley and Sam, on their way home from the mine, kept their horses moving flank to flank, the huge animals snorting over and over again as their nostrils filled with snow. Uley thought she heard someone calling but she couldn’t be sure.
“Don’t think we should stop,” Sam leaned into his horse’s neck for warmth. “No human would be out on this road. You must’ve heard an animal.”
Uley hollered above the wind. “We’re on this road.”
“Guess you’re right.”
“Which way?”
“Don’t disorient your horse,” Sam said. “Rein him in and back him straight up beside me.”
“Yes, sir.”
Very slowly, the horses backed up, obeying the commands of their riders, until Sam felt a hand on his leg. The sound had grown louder now, a young girl crying. “I cain’t find my way. Came out here to fetch this foolish cat.”
She appeared behind and to the left of them, materializing like a vision in the swirling snow. “You one of those girls from Moll’s place?” Sam hollered. But it didn’t really matter who she was. They couldn’t leave her out here to freeze.
She nodded.
“Come on up.”
Sam reached a hand down for her and pulled her across his saddle. She sat sideways in front of him, her frozen skirt in icy folds against the horse’s neck.
“You two taking me back? I’ve got to be dressed in silk and smelling nice in half an hour.”
“We’re not taking you back,” Sam said. “The horses know where we are. I’m not doing anything to confuse them. You’ll have to get back later.”
“But I’ll be missing a whole night’s wages.” She glowered at Uley across the front of the horse, still clutching the cat in her shawl.
She looked like a lost cat herself, scraggly and frozen, not the sort of girl Uley would ever have associated with if she had stayed in Ohio. She and her pa shouldn’t talk to a hurdy-gurdy woman. But Jesus would have spoken to a girl like her, Uley thought, wanting to show her how much He cared about her.
Sam and Uley rode without speaking the rest of the way. When they finally tethered their mounts outside the little cabin on Willow Street, Uley thought coming home had never felt so good. They went inside, and Sam lit the lamps while Uley started a fire in the cookstove. “Here,” Uley said while Sam went back outside to unsaddle the horses. “I’ll heat you up some water, and you can get a bath in there. If you don’t mind a pair of knickers and a fellow’s shirt, I can get you some dry clothes, too.” Looking at the girl, she decided they were just about the same size.
“I never wore a fella’s clothes before. Don’t know if I should.”
“They’ll be dry and warm.” Uley shot her a little smile and filled the kettle. “That’s all that matters, you know. What’s your name?”
“Laura.”
“You got a last name?”
“Nope. Just Laura.”
Uley stopped short. She knew Laura. She knew every detail about her. She felt the horrible burning of a blush again as she asked the question. “You’re Tin Can Laura, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” the girl answered. “That’s me.” She studied Uley’s red face, not without some discomfort of her own. “You’re awful young to know about hurdy-gurdy girls.”
“Everybody in Tin Cup knows about hurdy-gurdy girls.”
“I figure so.”
“You’re awful young to be one.” Uley thought, Why, with all the stories I’ve heard about her, she’s no more than a young girl like me.
Joe clamored to be let out of the shawl. “You think it’d be okay if I let my cat out?”
“Sure.”
The two of them sat on the floor together while the water in the kettle warmed, watching Joe stalk across the floor as if Laura had just put her through the most demeaning ordeal a cat could ever undergo.
“He’s a nice cat,” Uley said.
“A nice cat that’s gonna have kittens any day.”
They looked at each other and, for some reason, started laughing. “What a crazy thing,” Uley said, almost giggling and giving herself away. “A cat named Joe who’s gonna have babies.”
“You want one of them?” Laura asked. “Moll wants me to sell ’em. She says I could get twenty-five bucks apiece for them, because everybody needs mousers.”
Uley shook her head. “I’d love one. But I sure don’t have money like that.”
“I’d give you one. Since you and your pa picked me up and got me warm. I’d tell Moll it was a thank-you present. She’ll make me give her half the money, anyway. She always does.”
Uley’s eyes widened. “For the work you do?”
“Yeah.”
The kettle was making tinny noises on the stove and Uley knew the water was ready to boil. She stood up to pour it into the deep tin tub in the corner.
“Are you Uley Kirkland?” Laura asked.
“Sure am.”
“Thought that’s who you were. I’ve heard all about you at Ongewach’s, how you jumped on that man that was trying to kill the marshal last week.”
“You have?”
“Yep. Everybody in town knows you. They all say it’s amazing, because you’re such a little thing, without so much as peach fuzz on your chin, jumping on a murderer and getting him down.”
“Is that so?”
“They say you’re just about too good for your britches, never coming into Frenchy’s or Ongewach’s, always talking to them about committing their lives to Jesus and such.”
“Your water’s ready. Come get your bath.”
“That Aaron Brown, he’s one amazing fellow. He was up at Ongewach’s the night before he tried to do the shooting, playing cards and all dressed up and smellin’ good. I’ve got to tell you, it’s too bad he done what he done. He was the best-looking, best-smelling man we’ve had in that place for the longest time.”
It irked Uley, having everybody always talking about Aaron Brown. “Well, he’s sure not smelling very good now.”
“Nope. I bet not.”
Uley hung up two quilts so that Laura could have some privacy. She grabbed some of her own things out of a drawer. “Put these on when you get done. That way you won’t catch your death.”
Laura’s eyes met hers. “Thanks, Uley. I’ve never had anybody take care of me, not since I was little and my mama did it.”
Uley turned away, feigning propriety. She didn’t want Laura to see her face just then. She didn’t have a ma to take care of her, either. “Did your mama die?”
“Yeah,” Laura answered as Uley heard her sinking into the warm tub. “She did. Did yours?”
“She died coming out here.”
“This is real hard country for womenfolk,” Laura said. “That’s why there ain’t any real fine ladies in this town. This is real hard country for ladies.”
* * *
Aaron Brown had never been so glad to see a wet spring snowstorm in all his days. It seemed as if somebody up there was on his side, after all. The snow fell and fell, and by the end of the second day, Olney came in and regretfully told him what he’d figured out already. It would be another week or two before the pass opened and the hanging judge came back into town.
That was sure fine news to Aaron.
Word of the storm and what had happened all over town filtered in, even into the jailhouse. Charles Ongewach had gotten frostbite on his nose trying to find one of Moll’s girls in the blizzard. The mines had closed for two days. Jason Farley had never made it back to his cabin. Everybody figured he’d frozen to death looking for new calves. The county would send out a search party for his body as soon as the snow started to melt. Wasn’t any sense doing it before then.
Uley stopped by to see Aaron once, eight days after the storm, toting a bucket of hot beef pies. “Thought I’d just come by to see you,” she said after Olney let her in. She wasn’t exactly sure why she’d come. She just kept thinking how Laura had talked about him looking good. She decided she’d just go back to make sure he hadn’t gotten any ideas about sharing her secret with anyone. And she felt sorry for him, sitting in jail all cooped up and waiting for Judge Murphy to come. “I brought you some pasties.”
